5 Months

5 whole months



Ok, I know I say this every month, but I really truely can not believe how fast time is flying by.  How is my teeny little squishy newborn already almost half a year old?  It doesn't seem possible!  I mean look at that actual baby up there!  He's got so much personality these days.  He's constantly smiling.  He's developed likes and dislikes and will let you know when he doesn't like something.  He's mobile without being able to crawl.  He will roll all over the place.  He thinks it's hilarious when he rolls over onto his belly while trying to change him.  He'll look over at me and just grin so big.  It's adorable and enfuriating all in one. 

 

 



Loves:
Being on his belly.  He rolls over in his crib before I can even turn on the monitor and leave his room.
The dogs.  He's finally starting to notice them and will follow them with his eyes.
His parents.  His whole little face lights up when he sees one of us.  Melts my heart every.single.time
Still the bath.
Pears.  Let me tell you, they make him a wild beast, but he loves them.
His jumpy.  Kid can not get enough of it
Still loves being outside.  It continues to be a sure fire way to stop a meltdown

Dislikes:
Getting changed.  He rolls over onto his belly.  B calls it his alligator death roll
Green beans.  He looks at me like "momma what on earth are you feeding me?!"

Exhibit A



He still doesn't like getting lotion on after a bath, but is more agreeable to it if I let him lay on his belly
He's starting to not like his carseat for long periods of time 

Milestones:
Eating lots of solids and exploring what he likes and doesn't like
Giggles!  He has finally started giggling!  It's quite possibly the best sound in the whole wide world
And, technically, this should fall under the milestones that happened during month 5, but dude sat up on his own!

So, this happened....


 

My sweet sweet boy,

We are loving getting to see glimpses into your developing little personality.  You are a smiley happy little guy who likes to be on the move, much like your daddy.  However, if someone does something you don't like, you will let them know - loudly.  Much like your mommy.  You are so smiley, but your giggles are reserved for super funny things, which make me cry every time I hear it because it makes my heart burst with happiness.  I can't get over how much I love you and how lucky I am that you're mine.

I love you so much!
Momma

Picture catch up

Not a whole bunch has been going on in our neck of the woods (although my mom was here last weekend and it was awesome.  I'm ready for her to come back now...). So, rather than a mundane post about all the non fun things that have been happening, I just thought it would be fun to post some adorable pics of the nugget and let the captions do the talking...







He looks like such a little boy here.  I love it and hate it!
Plus, he was decidedly not a happy camper when I put this shirt on.  I was being ironic.



Oh, nanny you're so funny!!

 

His nanny bought him a jumper.  Clearly he loves it!

 

I work out...

 

This is how he fell asleep on our way home from dinner last night..


 



And this is what happened when we woke him up to take him inside.  Helllooooo Ladies!

 

So, we have been venturing into the world of regular foods for the dude.  So far, so good.  we have yet to find one that he doesn't like.  Hooray!  Plus, between that and the extra 1/2 ounce in his bottle, Operation Fatten Up The Baby is quite the success!  



 



Ok, this took him a while to like.  But, now, he's a fan.  Especially when we add bananas


 



He loved the squash, despite the skeptical look on his face

Again, another one he liked despite the initial skepticism

 

 

Bananas?........Bananas!!!

This is where I'd put a picture of Sweet Potatoes, but all we have is video.  He loved sweet potatoes!





This kid loves pears.  However, they seem to make him a biiiiit excited after...See the Hello Ladies pic above...

So, that's a small glimpse of what we've been up to lately.  Tomorrow we're going to have so pro pics taken of him.  Can't wait to see how those turn out.  I'm going to have to figure out a way to tame that hair before we go...

 

Things nobody tells you about pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum...

As I was getting ready this morning and realized that there was possibly more hair in my sink that on my head, I thought I'd share a few things that no one tells you about having a baby.  The good, the bad, and the ugly...

Pregnancy
1.  You will feel like you've been repeatedly kicked in the vag.  This is normal.  Apparently it's just your pelvic floor stretching.  How lovely.
2.  You basically leak constantly.  You think that when you get pregnant any liquid coming out of you stops.  Nope.  You basically have a constant flow of discharge.
3.  The five second window you have to go from not hungry to ravenous.  That 5 seconds is no joke.  I would go from perfectly fine to all weak and shaky I was so hungry.  Purse and car snacks are a must.
4.  First trimester tiredness is more like first trimester mind numbing exhaustion.  I have never been so tired in all my life, and I've had a newborn.  I was just worn the eff out all the time.  There were times I'd get home from work and not really remember how I got home.

Labor & Delivery
1.  When your water breaks, it doesn't stop flowing.  This one surprised me.  Hours after it was broken, I sat up to get my epidural and there was another huge gush...almost all over B's shoe.  That was kind of funny.
2.  The epidural, while glorious, does have some adverse side effects.  A friend of mine threw up like crazy when she had hers.  Mine made me shake like crazy.  So much so that it kind of freaked me out a little.  The tips of two of my fingers were also numb for a while, something I think may have to do with the epidural.
3.  How to push.  No one talks about this.  You see people dramatically pushing on TV and in the movies, but there is no where telling you how to actually do this.  The best advice I got was from a friend who said to push like you're pooping.  This served me well as I was told that I was a chapmion pusher.
4.  Sometimes cliches are true. I lived for the ice chips and cold compress on my head...until I didn't.
5.  Getting an epidural isn't super fast and easy.  I don't know why I thought this was effortless.  You get a little shot of lidocane and bing bam boom you get the epi and drift off into relaxation.  Mine took forever and the poor guy doing it had to stick me several times, eventually laying me on my side to get it in.
5a.  Having scoliosis can effect your epi.  I had to go meet with an anesthesiologist at my      hospital early on to ensure that I could have one due to my scoliosis.  They said I could.  However, the guy actually giving it to me claimed that that's why it was difficult.

Postpartum
1.  Breastfeeding is hard, yo.  Everyone talks about what a natural and beautiful thing it is.  No one tells you that is so hard.  You're already overwhelmed and exhausted and sore and in total awe of your little person and now you have this added stress of making sure they're getting enough food.  My milk didn't come in until about Wednesday.  H was born on Saturday.  It was so hard and exhausting.  And, even once it came in, he wouldn't latch, then he wasn't getting enough.  It was the 3 hardest weeks of my life, trying to breastfeed. 
2.  As mentioned above, you will lose your hair.  Copious amounts of it.  I'm talking like enough to stuff a couch and have a hair couch if you wanted to.  You hoard all your hair when you're pregnant, resulting in glorious pregnancy hair.  Well, don't get used to it ladies cause it won't last long!
3.  Your first post delivery poop will scare you to death.  You may think that you just pushed a human out of you, a poop is nothing.  Uh, no.  Its terrifying BECAUSE you just pushed a human out of you.  Thankfully, they give you stool softeners in the hospital to make it a little easier.
4.  This was from my mom.  It hurts for a while after.  She said that's what surprised her most when she had her first, my brother.  With the advent of Pinterest and all their postpartum recovery pins, I feel like this one is being talked about more and more.  I didn't hurt as bad as I was afraid I would.  But, I was suprised at what triggered pain.  I sneezed a few days pp and was shocked that it hurt down stairs.  Who knew!

So, there you have it.  Some little gems of wisdom from me to you.  And, if you've had a baby, feel free to chime in on the comments if I missed any!

On Childcare...

This may be sort of stream of consciousness, just me rambling on and on. So, please bear with me.  Perhaps I'll post a cute baby pic at the end to make it all worth your while!

Being a mom is hard, guys.  The hardest and most amazing thing I've ever done.  There's a saying that having a child is like having your heart outside your body.  That is completely accurate.  So, when you have to leave your heart in the hands of someone else for 9 or so hours a day, it's excruciating (I had to google search that to make sure I spelled it right.  For the record, I did!).  Leaving my little nugget every morning is so hard.  Leaving him to be cared for and snuggled and loved by someone else just plain sucks.

But, you know what makes all that either easier or harder?  Your childcare provider.  Now,  I have been back to work for a little over 2 months and we're on our third babysitter.  The first one didn't work out b/c she claimed H cried too much.  The second one we LOVED and she loved our little guy.  But, she moved 2 hours away, so clearly that wasn't going to work.  Initially, we really liked our new lady.  She immediately reminded B of his beloved babysitter from when he was little.  But, slowly over the past month that we've been with her, we're liking her less and less.  Also, she is regularly in her robe or a nightgown when I pick him up at 5:15 PM.

Last week, H was going through a growth spurt.  So, for the most part he was less than fun to be around.  Everyday when I picked him up she regailed me with stories about what a handful he was that day.  No mom wants to hear that about her kid.  So, on Friday I asked if he had always been fine and was just having an off week.  Nope, apparently he's always fussy for her and is progressively getting worse.  She claims that she can only leave him in one spot for a max of 20 minutes before he cries.  Um, excuse me lady, but he's 4.5 months old.  He can not self soothe yet nor can he entertain himself.  I pay you to take care of and entertain my kid!  Meanwhile, when her daugher helps watch him, she always says he's great for her.  She actually gets on the floor and plays with him.  (Side bar: a friend of mine actually interviewed my sitter and she point blank told her that the daughter is who plays with the kids b/c she's younger and doesn't mind getting on the floor with him) When we were initially emailing about childcare, she said they love to interact and love on the babies and they don't believe that a baby can be held too much.  She has also complained that he needs to be held too often.  Yesterday she told B that in all her years of watching kids, she has never seen a baby as fussy as H.

This is where this mama bear gets pissed.  We kept a completely open mind and observed H last weekend.  We took him for walks and played with him and even laid him down on his play mat. He was fine.  All weekend.  When he was bored, he'd fuss and we'd move on to the next activity.  I even contacted our previous nanny to see if he was fussy for her or if I just can see no wrong in my kid.  She said he'd have his off days, as all babies do, but once you figured out what he liked, he was perfectly happy.  So, is it her or is it H? 

So, now we're on the hunt yet again for a new sitter for our little guy.  It is so heartbreaking to have to leave him every day with someone that we're not 100% on board with.  I'm nearly in tears writing this, thinking of him being with someone who doens't think he's the best baby that ever was.  Unfortunately me not working isn't an option.  And actual daycare centers in our area are outrageously priced.

Wish us luck as we try to find someone who will love our little guy like their own and that we feel ok with leaving him while we work.

And, as promised, here is an adorable nugget pic!

Hippo just loves her baby brother!

Sleep revisited

Guys, we have gotten an uninterrupted full night's sleep every night since Thursday.  This is huge.  Granted, when I wrote my original sleep post, I was all impressed with myself for figuring out sleep so early on.  Well, as they do, my kiddo made a fool of me.  Ok, not that bad.  I have a flair for the dramatic.  But, he did continue his not so fun paci game for quite some time.

So, after a few nights of him not being remotely tired when I put him down, I thought maybe he wasn't sleeping soundly because he was going to bed too early.  Thursday night I put him down at 8.  A little fussing then bam! sleep through the night.  Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we had things going on each evening and he went to bed closer to 8:30.  Bam!  sleep through the night!  Last night he was a bit fussy so I put him to bed around 7:45 - bam! sleep through the night.

It may or may not need to be noted that he's also gone from 3 naps to about 2 now.  That could have something to do with it.  I have no idea.

I guess the whole point of this follow up post is to just listen to your little nugget.  Pay attention to his/her cues.  They usually will let you know what's best for them.

Advice for the Infertile...

When we were in the throes of going through all our infertility mess, I mostly kept it to ourselves.  I mean, I had some friends that I would talk to about it, and definitely my mom.  But, I didn't talk about it on social media or anything.  Once we got pregnant, I became more vocal about it.  Infertility is something that no one talks about and it's very very isolating.  Once I felt ok talking about it, I want to help anyone and everyone who is going through it so that they don't feel the confusion, frustration, and isolation that we did.  If I can even help one person going through it, then it was worth it.  (well, that and my precious boy.  He made it worth it too!)  Since coming out with it, I've had several people reach out and ask questions about what we went through.  I'm so glad they feel like they can and I hope I've helped them.  So, here are some nuggets of advice I'd give anyone going through the infertility struggle.  It helped me and will hopefully help them.

1. Be your own advocate.  I can not stress this enough.  I have seen and heard that RE's go to treatment is IVF.  It has the highest success rate and costs much more.  Why wouldn't they want that?  However, for some people (us included), it's more of a last ditch effort.  I wanted to exhaust any and all options before trying IVF.  Both my RE and another doctor in the practice told me I'd be very successful due to my egg hoarding tendencies.  But, for me, I wasn't ready to make that leap just yet.  And, thankfully I didn't need to.  I also advocated for myself to go on a higher dose of meds my last round, and that also paid off.  You know your own body better than anyone else and you know what's best for you.

2. Trust that it will happen.  I know the most annoying piece of advice to infertiles is "relax it'll happen".  But, for me, when I finally accepted that I WOULD get my baby -even if it's not when or how or why I wanted - I would get him.  That gave me the peace that I needed to move through the process.

3.  Allow yourself to feel your emotions.  So often we feel the need to be strong and to put on a brave face all the time.  But, going through infertilty is hands down the hardest thing I've ever been through.  And, sometimes it was impossible to put on a brave face.  So, I allowed myself a day to be totally mad or sad or discouraged or whatever.  Allowing myself that one day to feel what I needed to feel really helped.  After that day was over, I was able to pull myself out of whatever funk I was in and get going again.

4. Have a good support system.  This doesn't have to even be people you know in real life.  I had an amazing group of women online that I confided in.  We were all going through it together, which helped more than I can say.  There's something about having a sounding board of people who know exactly what you're going through.  My IRL friends were great too.  They were supportive and kind.  And, of course my mom.  She helped more than she could ever know.  But having those people to listen, or to let you cry or bitch, and to just give you a big hug, makes it bearable.

5. Trust and like your doctor and the whole office staff.  Those people will be more intimate with you than your husband at time.  You darn well better like them and feel comfortable with them!

So, here are some things that helped me.  I hope it will help someone else out there!  And, if you ever need someone to be in your support system, I'm here.

We are family

This past week my brother and his sweet little family came to visit us.  They have 2 boys.  M who is 2 and C who is 10 months.  Those boys are all boy.  Total balls of energy and just so dang cute I could squish them all the time!!  I had to work through most of their visit, but we still had a great time.

Every time all 3 boys are together, my poor mom tries to get them all in little matching outfits and take their picture.  It has yet to work out.  Well, my SIL and I had the boys all together (while the men golfed) and I decided to make it happen.  It was 15 minutes of pure chaos.  A 2 year old who skipped his nap, a 10 month old who is constantly on the go, and a 4 month old who can't sit up on his own. It was the best kid of ridiculous! Luckily we were still able to get some really good shots.

 

 

We took all 3 boys to the pool and had a great time.  M kept telling everyone "I in the poo!" or coming up to whoever wasn't in the poo with him and taking them by the finger and guiding them to go in with him.  So stinking cute!!!

 

 

 

It was such a great visit and I was so sad to see them leave.