Food, Fat, and other first world problems

Anyone who has had a baby knows that doctors, nurses, and pretty much every book you ever read really encourages breastfeeding your baby for the added health benefits it provides over formula. Being the loving mother that I am (ha!) I naturally thought I better give it a try. I have since discovered that it is not always that simple and sometimes it just doesn't work out (no judging from this mom!). Weston's health problems made him a pretty fussy baby. The antibiotics did a number on his digestive system and he was not a happy camper for a while there. But after a while I began to suspect that there might be another cause to his excessive spit up and bad gas (oh the joys of babies!). We got him on reflux medicine and I cut dairy out of my diet. That really helped with the fussiness and gas but not the spit up.. we are still needing like 5 outfit changes a day (for both of us). Soo I decided once and for all to go on an elimination diet to see if he is sensitive to anything else that I may be eating. For the about 2 weeks I ate nothing but pears, ground turkey, brown rice, and potatoes. Ugh..someone give me some ice cream!

The bad news? Im getting realll sick of rice and potatoes . The good news? I'm back to my pre-Weston weight.. yayy! Yet somehow I still look 3 months pregnant..better than looking like I swallowed a beach ball I suppose?

Anyone have experience with reflux or food sensitivities in babies? I need all the help I can get over here..who said this mothering business is all intuitive?

Thanksgiving at the beach

 This year my parents were kind enough to meet us on the east coast so those with kids did not have to fly. Between Atlanta (where we live) and North Carolina (where my brother lives) there is a lovely little beach town called Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. We spent the week relaxing, riding bikes along the darling little bike paths, seeing a REAL alligator (ahh!), playing at the beach, Black Friday shopping at some pretty sweet outlets and of course stuffing ourselves with Turkey. It was perfect.

The Beach at sunset

1.Britt at the yummy thanksgiving buffet, 2. My first plate (couldn't eat dairy or butter this year so  I stuck with meat & fruit), 3. My mom at the dessert table

Seeing my first alligator in the "wild".. it's there if you squint ..

We had a view of the harbor during Thanksgiving dinner, we even got to see a dolphin swim in!

love our little turkey

Mom on the front porch with little Weston

First bike ride & first time in the swing for Mr. W

I just LOVE the holidays..

Sick baby

It’s safe to say that there has been a lot of changes for our little family in the past few months. We graduated from college, had a baby, moved across the country, bought a house, and Jake started a new  job all within a few months. Whew.. I feel tired just thinking about it.

After shipping all our stuff to Atlanta and living out of our suitcases in our apartment for a week with our new baby, we flew to Atlanta on a Wednesday afternoon. We spent the next couple days trying to get somewhat settled and doing some minor work on our house. I hadn’t spent a lot of time taking care of Weston on my own and I was a little anxious about Jake starting work that Monday.

When I picked up Weston in the middle of the night on Sunday I noticed he felt unusually warm. I stumbled around the house looking through boxes trying to find our baby thermometer. When I finally did it looked like he had a slight fever but nothing too bad so I went back to sleep. The next afternoon I noticed he seemed really hot, so I took his temperature again and saw it was 100.9, so I called the doctor and made an appointment right away. On my way to the doctor’s office I got a call from the nurse who told me to go straight to the emergency room because a fever that high in an infant is pretty serious. She asked if I was ok to get him to the ER, and asked if I was alone. It really hit me that after 2 years of marriage and spending about 20 hours a day together, Jake was now working full time and I was alone and so far away from home. Through my tears I assured her I was ok. So poor Jake on his first day of work gets a frantic call from me telling him I need him to come with me to the ER.

When we arrived at the ER Weston's temperature had risen to 102.1 and they admitted him right away. He spent the next 7 hours or so at the emergency room while they poked and prodded our poor little boy. It was the worst kind of torture for a new mom to see the nurses trying and trying to get blood samples while I was holding his tiny little hand as he screamed through the pain.

The doctors informed us that they would have to transfer Weston by ambulance to the children’s hospital in Atlanta.I had a younger sister who died as a baby and seeing him in the transfer unit brought me right back to that time. It was so hard to be away from him knowing that he was uncomfortable and in pain. Through some of the tests they found that he had a UTI and needed to be treated with antibiotics by IV every few hours. Unfortunately his spinal tap to test for meningitis got contaminated so they thought for a while that he might have meningitis and had to treat him with extremely strong antibiotics.

So hard having to follow the ambulance with our baby in it

It was so hard holding my sweet little baby while the antibiotics filled his system. He was so uncomfortable and in pain that at times he would scream and cry for hours and nothing could console him. We spent a week in a little hospital room and Jake would come after work and leave early in the morning back to work. On top of that Weston could never get a good sleep because we constantly had nurses coming in to do tests (I’m still confused why they needed to wake us up at 2 am to measure how long he is.. am I right??). I was sleep deprived, completely overwhelmed, flooded with post baby hormones, and sick of seeing my little baby in pain. It was truly one of the hardest things I've been through. Thankfully after a late night call to my Mom, she flew out from Seattle and kept me sane.. literally may have lost my mind if it wasn't for her.

A foot IV after another vein collapsed

Something that I've come to learn is that sometimes life is hard, but it is those hard times that help us learn.  We had such great support from family and friends that really got us through. I had countless people telling me that they were praying for us. For the first time in my life I could literally feel the strength of all these people’s prayers in my behalf and I knew that my Heavenly Father knew me and blessed me with the peace that I so desperately needed and  for that I am grateful for this life lesson. 

Bringing Home baby

We were SO happy to get out of the hospital! Both Weston and I had to get our vitals checked every few hours and that equals a lot of being woken up! We brought him home to our little one bedroom apartment that was mostly packed up for our move across the country. In those first days home there was lots of diapers, lots of loving on our new baby, and not a lot of sleep. We eventually figured out that many babies are born with their days and nights confused. Once we got that straightened out we  realized we would survive.. before that we  weren't so sure. I got sick a few days after we brought him home and just getting out of bed was exhausting. I was sure grateful for the help of my loving husband and family.

Jake really surprised me with his natural talent for taking care of a baby. I thought I was going to be the one teaching him but it turns out he was a natural born swaddling--diaper changing--baby burping extraordinaire. My Mom also kept me sane by coming over every morning in the wee hours to take over baby duty. Oh how we missed our morning baby sitter when  she left!

Weston in the hospital

Recovering from labor was harder than I thought it would be! I guess it makes sense when you realize what your body just went through.. pushing out a 9lb baby is tough stuff! The first night they took Weston to the nursery for some tests. Jake made sure to follow him everywhere he went.. no one was going to switch our baby! lol

Somehow I managed to get an IV machine that liked to sound its siren alarm every few hours in the night. Between waddling to the bathroom, feeding Weston, having nurses come check on me, and staring at W every 30 minutes to make sure he was still breathing I didn't get a lot of sleep.

But we did have a lot of great visitors who made our stay much more enjoyable and it's hard to complain when you have a sweet little baby to cuddle all day long.

Weston's Birth Story

I can't believe Weston is already a month old and I still haven't written down his birth story. I guess that tells you what life has been like since he was born. This is probably TMI for most people, but when I was pregnant I loved reading other people's birth stories AND I want to remember every detail of Weston's story so here it is...

In the beginning of my pregnancy the weeks seemed to fly by, but near the end I was starting to feel like I had been pregnant forever and I was ready to get that baby out! It didn't help that I convinced myself my true due date was actually a week earlier than my 'official' due date. So by the time my due date rolled around I was feeling overdue. I spent hours scouring the internet for 'natural ways to induce labor,' and 'signs that you are going into labor.'

Ready to pop, at 39 weeks

The week before my official due date I told my doctor I was loosing my mind and I was so ready to have this baby. She offered to strip my membranes (TMI?..sorry), a painful procedure that may or may not send you into labor. Suddenly, the possibility of going into labor seemed so real and I realized I wasn't as ready as I thought so I said no thanks... I spent the next week feeling okay about still being pregnant but by my next weekly appointment I was ready to try anything so I agreed to the procedure. Sadly, I waited around for the next 24 hours for the contractions to begin or my water to break but nothing happened.. not a thing.  Since I had made no progress in dilating for the past month my doctor wasn't too hopeful that I would go into labor on my own so we scheduled induction for a week after my due date.

The day before my due date Jake, my Mom, and Brittany went on a hike up Rock Canyon. Determined not to stop until I was in labor, I was so excited with every contraction I felt. However at some point we had to turn around and call it a night. The next morning my Mom and I tried to go hiking again with still no luck.

did you know whales can hike mountains?

I spent the next week with semi painful contractions at night and pretty much nothing during the day.

The day I was scheduled to go to the hospital was strange. I tried to think about other things but I was really getting nervous for the pain I knew was coming soon. I had Jake give me a blessing, and I immediately felt surrounded by peace. Jake and I packed up our stuff and drove to the hospital. It was night time when we arrived and the hospital was really quiet; it felt very surreal.

My doctor wanted to help prepare my body for labor before they started the induction with pitocin so she prescribed a medicine that helps with effacement. The nurses said I would start the medicine at 9pm and continue for 12 hours. In the morning I could shower and have breakfast and then they would induce me.

After starting the medicine Jake and I tried to get some sleep. Around 1 am I fell asleep only to wake up around 2am with painful contractions. Eventually I woke up Jake because I was so uncomfortable. He suggested we watch a movie so I joined him on his cot. I kept getting more contractions and just could not get comfortable. I finally realized there was no way I could sit and watch a movie with those contractions. I tried walking around my room, but would stop and hold onto something during each contraction. Around 3 am, I was starting to think this was NOT normal and I was going into labor. Jake got a nurse to check on me. Sure enough I was right on the brink of active labor.

Our nurse was joking with us and teaching us how to read the contraction monitor. As time went on I was in more and more pain. I started doing some deep breathing like I'd seen on tv.. regretting not signing up for a Lamaze class. The pain became super intense and I went in the zone. It was all I could do to get through the contractions. I remember thinking this was way worse than I thought it would be. The pain of each contraction took over my whole body.

By the time there was a nurse shift change I felt like death. I really felt like I could not go on any longer {I have a very low pain tolerance}. My new nurse was nothing like the first nurse. She was a pretty serious lady, which was fine with me because I was no longer in the mood for joking. When she came into my room she asked how I was feeling. I replied, "I feel like I'm dying." and she said, "well that's not good let's get you something for the pain." I was so surprised by her response. Somehow it hadn't occurred to me that I would be allowed to have medicine at this point. I was worried my epidural would run out if I got it too soon. She suggested some IV pain medicine and while I had previously thought that I didn't want to do that I was desperate for some relief. By this point I had been in labor for about 6 hours and was around 4 cm.

After I got the pain medicine I could still feel everything but it took the edge off a little bit. Jake had been sitting on a stool leaning over my bed to hold my hand for hours so my Mom came in for a bit to give him a break. I tried to sleep but I was still in pain so I didn't get any sleep. The medicine gave me about 30 minutes of relief but then my contractions came back painful as ever. Then my glorious nurse came back in and offered the epidural.. and I said YES!

At our prenatal class the teacher passed around an epidural needle and it looked more like a fondue skewer than a needle. So needless to say I was a little nervous about that thing going in my back. But at this point my entire body was shaking and I was throwing up from the pain. The doctor told me to curl up in the shape of a C while he gave me the epidural. Being curled up and holding completely still is about the last thing you want to do while you are having a contraction. To my surprise I didn't feel the needle at all. Instead I felt pretty immediate relief as the numbing sensation spread all the way to my toes.

After I got the epidural I was able to get some much needed rest. It was the greatest thing ever. People would tell me I was having a contraction but I couldn't feel it at all. I could talk and enjoy the experience. I was dilated to 4cm when I got the epidural, but I started progressing quicker once I had it. The epidural was THE BEST THING EVER.

It was around 10 am when I got the epidural and they told me I was ready to push around 5pm. My body was pretty exhausted by that point. Jake told them he wanted to stay near my head because he has a little passing out problem and lets be honest it's not something a lot of people want to see. The nurse said, "oh ya no problem we have lots of dads that do that! You can even sit over there in the corner in the chair if you want." He was pretty relieved that he would not have to do any leg holding like he had heard about, but I made sure he was close by to hold my hand.

Right when I started pushing, there was another nurse shift change and my fun joking nurse from the night before was back on. It was the perfect timing because I needed someone upbeat to keep me going! After about 15 or 20 minutes of pushing the nurse explained that they had a bunch of moms go into labor at once and they had to go help someone else... um, what?? lol She showed Jake how to read the monitor, how to count me down, and how to hold my leg and then she left us ALONE. So much for Jake being able to sit in the corner! haha It was so strange to be in this big delivery room just the two of us, not knowing how long it would take for the baby to come out. Jake did so good motivating me and counting for me. When the nurses would come in to check on us everyone kept commenting on how great he was doing.

When I first started pushing I remember thinking it was not as bad as I thought it would be, but after around 30 minutes I was so tired that I didn't even open my eyes. Between pushes I would drift into sleep only to be startled awake by Jake saying another contraction was coming. At some point I heard my epidural machine running low, as scared as it made me it worked out because it helped me push better. As time went on I was getting really out of it. I could hear voices around me, talking to me but I felt sort of disconnected from my body. It was such a strange feeling. The people around me kept saying how much hair he had, but I didn't really care I was just ready to be done.

After about 2.5 hours of pushing Weston was finally born. I heard him crying and then they laid him on my chest. It was the most amazing and surreal moment. He was crying so loud and seemed so upset I remember feeling like I wanted to help him calm down. I kept saying, "he's so sad I want to help him stop cring." But the nurses assured me that crying was a good thing. Then he peed on me. Welcome to the world baby Weston. He was 9 lbs and 21 inches.

2nd Anniversary

A week before my due date we celebrated our 2nd anniversary. If you would have told me on our first anniversary that I would be 9 months pregnant by our second anniversary I would have laughed at you. Life is crazy, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

We had a fun year finishing up school and taking every opportunity to enjoy life.

We spent the day sleeping in, eating breakfast for lunch and having a nice relaxing dinner at the Sundance resort.

Keeping the tradition alive, we took a picture of us from our first anniversary, holding a picture of our wedding day.

Summer Sun & little cuties

After the fourth of July I headed home to Washington to spend some time with family. Jake was loving life in Wisconson for a Dave Mathews Band show, so I went solo. My brother, Brandon, is in Afghanistan but his wife and adorable girls were able to come. I might be slightly biased but I'm pretty sure they are the cutest little girls ever. Not only that but they are so entertaining.. I just can't get enough! The weather was seriously hot all week so we spent a lot of time in the pool. It felt so nice to be in the sun and float all day.

Charlotte is fearless and was pretty curious about Milo. I think he tried to pretend not to notice her fascination.

 To mix it up a little bit we also went to a splash pad and park. After we got used to the cold water we had a lot of fun.

 When we saw this funny looking giant green swing we weren't really sure what it was for but I was dying of laughter when my Mom got in. After seeing how much fun she had, I also got in the swing, except it didn't work out with my prego belly/ hips very well and I was a worried I might never get out.. not one of my finer moments.

By the end of the week I had reached the end of my "allowed to travel" period of pregnancy so I headed home to get ready to have this baby. Current countdown until my due date: 2 weeks, 2 days.. yikes!

4th of July

This was our first fourth of July in Utah. We had a nice relaxed day with a lunch out at a new place in Provo. 

Jake loves when I take his picture, especially when it takes me a few tries./ Brady and Michael were a little confused about their chunky corn dogs/ Tessa and Jordan in their matching stripes

BYU also puts on a big firework show in the football stadium called, "The Stadium of Fire." This year the Beach Boys were preforming. While neither me or Jake are big beach boy fans we wanted to go for the fireworks. It ended up being really fun. A nice relaxed fourth of July for this pregnant lady.

We literally sat in the back row of the stadium, not a great view of the concert but perfect for the fireworks.

Baby Names

About every other day I get asked, "have you guys thought of a name yet?"... Every time my answer is, "nope, we are really struggling!" Even before we decided we were ready to start our family, I had a little list of baby names on my iphone. Unfortunately most of those names are girl names, so when we found out we are having a boy I pretty much had to start a new list. For some reason boy's names are really hard! I kind of want our baby to have a unique name that not a lot of other kids have (but I'm open to common names too) and Jake doesn't want the name to be "weird."

My current favorites:
-Emerson
-Hudson
-Weston
(I'm noticing a theme.. lol)
-Max
-Caden
-Mason

Jake's favorite's:
-Brock (one name, counts for first and last OR Brock Brock)
-Jacobson (Jacob's son..)

Do you see what I'm working with here people?? 

We need help! Any cute boy name ideas? I'm waiting for one name to really stick out as the right one, but I'm getting nervous that it's not going to happen!

Father's Day Weekend

It officially feels like summer around here. It might be the kid in me but it makes me want to do something fun everyday (that's what summer is for right?).  Father's day was the perfect excuse to celebrate all weekend. I'm currently 32 weeks pregnant (only 8 more to go!) and we have one excited daddy-to-be! 

We had a little date night at this cute restaurant called Pizzeria 712. If you live in the Provo area.. you must go. I think it's my new favorite. I'm already dreaming of going back. Pizza has been one of my pregnancy favorites, but this pizza was extra yummy. We also filled up on their gnocchi, pita bread & hummus, and the tastiest grilled corn on the cob I have ever had. 

Later that night we went to cute mini-golf place with Jordan & Brady. Jake played "the best game of his life," me, not so much..

Of course Father's day started out with breakfast in bed. I tried out a new recipe and it was a winner! Crepes with a cream cheese filling with fresh peaches and raspberries. Oh my, so good.  You can check out the recipe here (be warned it's time consuming and if you cook like me, your kitchen will look like a bomb went off when your done, but it's worth it).

Jake's watch broke a while back so he's been looking for a replacement for a while. For someone who doesn't care about fashion at all, you'd be amazed how opinionated he is about watches. He searched for a long time online and found one he was interested in. I tried to be sneaky and make it a surprise, but I think he was on to me. I ordered a couple extra for him to try on, just to be safe. Luckily, after staring at all of them for a while he picked one he liked... success!

We spent most of the day inside watching golf and the NBA playoffs (ESPN all day... what more could he want? lol). I attempted to make a special father's day dinner.. Mongolian beef and stir fry, but my creative cooking ideas are lacking these days.

Happy father's day Jake! I can already tell you are going to be a great Dad!