Let Go and Let God

These are words I have heard often at church, but I have had so much trouble practicing them in real life.  Before kids, I was so busy making money and bettering my career that I didn’t take the time to breathe and really listen to what God was telling me to do.  I was Type A all the way, always taking control and very reluctant to let others help me or take something over.  Then my grandfather passed away.  I thought about how I missed the opportunity to let him be a part of my kids lives and I also realized that family was way more important than a raise or a fancy office.  Something in me changed and I realized that I couldn’t be happy maintaining what I had been doing the past few years.  I started to let some things go – and as I began giving that control over, I realized that little by little I was becoming content.

When kids came, I was not the only one worried about how I would react to the situation based on my past behavior.  Would I be anxious all the time, would I constantly be holding myself to some ridiculous super mom standard?  I was a prime candidate for post partum depression.  Surprisingly enough, I became more mellow when Aubrey got here.  Yes, I was very anxious those first couple of months, but the more that we got into a groove, the more at peace that I felt.   I found myself praying more and feeling more in tune with my spirituality.  Having kids has brought me closer to God, which makes me even more thankful that Aubs and Nick are in my life.  I started following my gut more, which has lead to us deciding to have Nick and also to me staying at home – both changes that have proved to be very positive.  Recently, I got a great compliment from someone who told me that I was Type A, but I have learned to let go.  For someone who has struggled with letting go for so long, it was great to hear.

All of that being said, I decided to write this post after bringing a meal to some friends of mine that just had their first baby.  I found myself remembering that anxiety when we first brought Aubrey home and how we constantly were second guessing ourselves when it came to taking care of her.  With Nick, everything seems so much easier.  I think it’s because we just don’t worry as much – we know that babies are stronger than we think and that no matter what we do right now, we can’t spoil him or damage him for life.  I think you just learn to let go of the things that you can’t control, and do the best you can with those things you can control.

I remember the days when Aubrey was teeny tiny and I would be so proud of myself for emptying the dishwasher because I was so afraid to put her down.  This time around, the day Joey headed back to work I managed 2 loads of laundry, cleaning the kitchen and getting dinner ready.  It’s amazing how things change the second time around.  I do still try to find time to snuggle with both of my babies, and I know that it will be a challenge over the next few months to get a best balance for all of us, but I know Nick's going to sleep whether he's on me or in his swing.

I am so grateful to God for how my life has turned out, and I am working every day to honor Him and please Him in how I live my life.

An 18 monther and a 2 weeker…

We are a little over 2 weeks into this two under two adventure, and I have to say, it hasn’t been that bad.  I know that there are going to be tough days ahead when Nick is out of the newborn phase, but so far it has been a pretty positive experience.  Aubrey loves her little brother and is such a great helper.  There are times of course when I have to remind her to have gentle hands and to not be all over him, but for the most part, she loves being a big sister. 

We had her 18 month check up this week, and she is 20lbs, 8ozs and 32 inches tall – the 7^th and 71^st percentiles respectively.  She looked great and didn’t have any signs of the ear infection that she had a couple weeks before.  She’s definitely not a fan of the doctor, but hopefully that will get better as she gets older.  She got a little upset when Nick was being examined, but we put her on the table and let her watch, which calmed her down.  As far as development goes, she’s babbling up a storm and has quite a few more words this month than she did last month.  Those include Nick, cheese, door, doll and ball.  She of course is sticking with “Nooooo” and also says “oh no” which we find to be very cute.

 

Nick was also looking good at his check up, weighing in at 7lbs 9 ozs (1 ounce above birth weight!) and still measuring 21 inches tall.  He has been a great sleeper during the night so far, which is a huge blessing, and he is a pretty mellow kid over all.  He’s taken on well to nursing and is quite the hungry little hippo.  We shall see how he is progressing at his 2 month check in January.

 

I have gotten to get out of the house a couple of times to get some shopping done, and Daddy has been able to give Nick a couple of bottles successfully, which is great news for when I want to get out for a little bit with my fellow moms.  I can’t wait to see how everything goes the next few weeks!

My New Career

As I mentioned before, starting at the beginning of August, Joey and I decided that the best thing for our family right now was for me to stay home with the kiddos.  I have to admit that I was terrified at first of the prospect, although I was trying to be positive since I had been struggling with balancing the career that I have had for five years with the becoming a mom, and having a second child was only making it that much harder, even working part time.  At the end of the day, I didn't feel like I was giving enough of myself to anything I was involved in and I just wasn't fulfilled in any aspect of my life.  The days I had off we filled with trying to catch up with the house work and errands and we couldn't ever nail down a good routine.  Even though I felt that working wasn't for me right now, I wasn't sure that staying at home was going to be what would make me happy either.

Over three months into it and I still have no idea how I really feel about the situation.  Being pregnant and having Joey gone for the majority of the time, along with tons of doctor appointments, I have no idea what our new normal is exactly.  I can’t wait until the next couple of months to see how everything goes and to see if I made the best decision, although just from the experience that I have had, I believe I have made the right decision for us right now.  I have been able to experience so many things with Aubrey, and I love watching how she grows and changes every day.  I can’t tell you how wonderful it has been to just lay in bed with her in the afternoons and read books and take a nap or for her to walk in with her doll and show me how she can feed him.  Those are moments that I’m not going to forget and I’m so glad I got the opportunity to have so much more time with just her than I expected.  As many moms of multiple kids know, especially my two under two mamas, you are constantly worried that you are “robbing” the first child of their time with you.  Lately though, as I have seen Aubrey interact with her cousin and other kids, I think having a baby brother will only enhance her childhood and she will be good for him as well.  I can tell she loves her baby brother, and she has already been a huge help with him.

I must say though, as hard as the past couple months have been, I feel happier than I have in a while.  I don’t miss working as much as I thought I would and I have realized that we really don’t spend as much money as I thought we would, which was a huge concern of mine when deciding what to do about work.  There is a lot more time spent at home or going to the park or visiting with family, and a lot more cooking at home.  Getting onto a budget is not nearly as hard as I thought it would be, and my house is cleaner than I expected it to be.  Everyone that knows me knows that is a huge accomplishment! 

Who wouldn't be happy waking up to this in the mornings…

Hopefully next time I post about this, we will be firmly into our new routine and I will actually get to experience what we had initially planned for. 

Nick’s Room Reveal

The plan was to reveal Nick’s name in this post, but Nick had other plans and decided to join us before we could finish up his room.  We decided on a Dr. Seuss theme, with several DIY elements added in.  We used the same furniture from Aubrey’s room and also kept in her tree decal, with some slight modifications.

Enjoy!

The pictures are canvases that I Mod-Podged pages from Dr. Seuss books on.  We used Green Eggs and Ham and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish.

The curtains were sewn by my incredibly awesome sister in law.  I'm so thrilled with how they turned out!

We simply removed the pink flowers from the decal and it turned out quite well, we have made the mention that the tree changes with the season that the baby is born in.

Close up of the bedding.

In The Meantime...

It’s been pretty crazy the last few months, at the end of July we went to the beach with Joey’s parents and siblings and then Joey ended up living in Philadelphia for over 2 months finishing up a job.  This left me home with a super energetic toddler and a second pregnancy and ended up kicking my butt physically.  Joey came home on the weekends, and during the week I spent a lot of time with family.  I honestly don’t know what I would have done without them. 

Hanging with Daddy at the Pool

Aubrey and Sam at the beach

My last day of work was August 3^rd, and very soon after that I picked up a little side job at the Craniofacial Foundation.  It’s just twice a month doing some bookkeeping, but it’s going to be a great way to get out of the house and it will give Aubrey some time with Grandma and cousin Sam, who has of late become her partner in crime. 

As far as Aubrey goes, there isn't a week that goes by that she isn't doing something new or doing something that cracks me up.  As of a doctor appointment earlier this week, she’s about 21 pounds and 32 inches long, so still a tall skinny thing, but she makes up for her smallness with a huge personality.  She’s a total ham, and loves to make people laugh.  She’s also been very helpful around the house – she helps clean up after she eats and sometimes even helps with picking up her toys.  Her vocabulary has exploded lately as well.  While a lot of 2 syllable words don’t get pronounced all the way, she has found a way to communicate and get what she wants most of the time.  Daddy and Nana are used often, and Daddy has been the center of her universe since he’s gotten back home.  Sometimes it makes me sad that she’s not as attached to me, but I think it might come in handy over the next couple of months while we are adjusting to Nick being home.

Overall, Aubrey is developing into a sweet, funny, precious kid and I’m so glad that she’s in our family.  She really can brighten up the toughest of days, and although there are some days where everyone’s patience is tried, there are so many more days that feel like an awesome blessing.  I’ll finish up this post with a few pictures from the past couple of months.

Nick’s Birth Story

WARNING – This is a birth story.  I may drop the words dilation or pushing or mucus…

Nick was due November 7^th.  Aubrey was late, and I tried to keep that in mind when Joey said that he had to go to Texas on Monday, October 29^th and return on the 30^th.  I was only 1 cm dilated and Nick didn't look like he was coming anytime soon, so while I was hesitant about being alone, I just accepted the reality and moved on.  Of course the weekend before he leaves, we see that there will be a full moon and some of my mucus plug comes out (this didn't happen with Aubs until I was in labor).  I continued to push these things out of my mind and got through Monday the best I could.  Aubrey was catching a cold, so I hung out with my mother in law and sister in law to get some help during the day.  My mom spent the night on Monday night and on Tuesday morning, I woke with light contractions. 

I had a doc appointment that day anyway (gotta love the 2x a week high risk appointments), so when I went in, I told them to hook up the contraction monitor just to ease my mind since Joey wasn't due home until later that evening.  All that ended up proving was that I was in very early labor.  I tried not to panic and called Joey and told him what was going on.  He said he would try to get an earlier flight, I told him not to worry, that he was supposed to get home in 12 hours anyway so I was sure everything would be fine.  I went home with my mom and Aubrey and tried to just take it easy and hope that things would slow down and/or stop.  Around 2pm the pains picked up and were about 6 minutes apart.  I kept downplaying it, but since I didn't want to go to the hospital for no reason if things picked up even more after hours, I went back to my doctor after dropping Aubrey with my mother in law. As luck has it, Joey caught that early flight and met me at the doctor’s office.  She checked me and sure enough I was dilated to 3 cm.  Dr. Walker said I could go on to the hospital or I could just wait it out at home.   I decided to go on home and get some laundry folded, get Nick’s room cleaned up and caught up on “The Voice”.  The pains stayed at 6 to 6.5 minutes, and then went away as soon as I went to bed.  I’m so glad I didn't go to the hospital right away and got a good night’s sleep.

The next day, I made Joey go on to work and I just hung out with my mom.  The contractions came back a little bit, but nothing significant.  I decided to do some light housework to go ahead and see if I could get things moving.  Halfway into cleaning up the kitchen, contractions picked up to about every 4 minutes and were causing me to catch my breath.  I had to make the call, so I decided to go ahead and get to the hospital just in case things picked up quickly.  By the time we got everything packed and got to the hospital, they were consistently 3 minutes apart and causing me to have to concentrate to get through.  I went into triage and got hooked up to everything.  They checked me and I was 3 cm. THREE cm?!?!?!?  I was getting a strong sense of déjà vu.  Dr. Walker came in and said that while they wanted to send me home, but with the history of the past couple of days, she wanted to  go ahead and admit me because she was pretty sure I would just be coming back in a couple of hours.  I got admitted and settled in to have a little Halloween baby that evening.

Well, I didn't have a Halloween baby.  As the pains started increasing, I went ahead and got an epidural and they started Pitocin to get things moving along.  By 6 pm I was at a whopping 4.5 cm.  Dr. Walker came back in and said that we would just keep going how we were going and maybe things would speed up.  He was still at a very high station and she didn't want to break my water until he had come down a little more.  I was so frustrated with my body and with myself for feeling like I had cried labor too early.  This same thing happened last time with Aubrey.  I came in with strong contractions, was barely dilated and then I just sit there feeling like I was wasting everyone’s time.  I just laid there and willed Nick to drop.  I tried to relax my body as much as possible and just get some rest.  Then 1 am came.

The nurse wasn't checking me as much since I was Group B Strep positive and there wasn't a lot of change going on, so when she came in around 1 I asked if she could check because I felt like he had been moving down and I was feeling some pressure.  Sure enough, I was finally at 6cm.  I kept feeling changes, and by 3 am I was 9.5 cm and my bag of water still hadn't broken which was causing ridiculous pressure.  The epidural stopped working and I was moaning through contractions and fighting the urge to push.  At around 3:15 I was hysterical with the pain and the re-dose didn't work on my right side.  Dr. Walker came back in and broke my water.  I felt instant relief, became complete and got down to the business of pushing. 

After 3 rounds of pushing, there he was at 3:32 am, perfect and screaming – such a difference from Aubrey, who had the cord around her neck and had to fight to breathe that first breath.  He looks almost identical to his big sister, which was noted by Dr. Walker as soon as he arrived. He scored an 8 and 9 on his Apgars and peed all over the nurses.  He’s 7 pounds, 8 ounces and 21 inches long.  I got to watch Joey cut the cord and we settled in with Nick in our room.  I had barely any tearing – I have 2 stitches just as a precaution, and minimal bleeding.  Later in the morning, he started grunting, which apparently can be a sign of fluid in the lungs and a possible infection.  He was sent to the special care nursery for observation and we just hoped that we wouldn't have to be admitted there again.  Later that morning, we had a consult with the neonatologist.  The fluid was determined to be residual from him delivering so quickly and not having time to squeeze it out of his lungs on his way out, and his CBC was negative for infection.  We had him with us by lunchtime on Thursday.  He was circumcised on Friday evening and is healing really well from that. 

First family picture

Aubrey meeting her brother

We came home Saturday afternoon and have been settling in well, he’s nursing like a champ and is a pretty mellow kid so far (we’ll see how long this lasts).  Aubrey stayed with Nana and Papaw last night since she has an ear infection and is still getting over her cold, but our whole family will be together tonight and we will start this next chapter with hopefully minimal crying and a lot of fun.  She has seen her brother a couple of times and seems to think he’s really cute and she also knows where his nose is.  She likes to rock him in his sleeper and wants to hold him, so I’m sure I’m going to have my hands full just trying to keep her from loving him a little too much.  I have been feeling great and have to keep reminding myself to take it easy even though I don’t feel any pain.  I took some Advil before bed last night, but other than that, I haven’t really needed anything for pain since I left the hospital, which is a total blessing considering the monumental task that is at hand for the next few months. 

Hey!

So there you have it, Nick’s story.  While my 2 labors have had some similarities, they have also been different in their own beautiful ways.  At the end of the day, I have so far been blessed with 2 gorgeous and healthy children and at the moment I couldn't ask for anything more.  Stay tuned for my post on what we have been up to the past couple of months (we've been a little busy and my blog has suffered) and also my thoughts on whether or not we are going to go down this crazy road again in the near future.

 Headed home!