three weeks old!!

It is hard to believe that Sarabeth is already three weeks old! The past three weeks have been wonderful, they've also been hard, and I have not had a lot of sleep during this time so thank goodness for pictures and for the blog or I may not remember it looking back!! We've had visits from Grandma and Mimi, Papa, Uncle Jay and Callie and now we're preparing to travel north next week to let the rest of the family meet Miss Sarabeth, and for her special Baptism. She will be baptized at the same church where we were married and where big brother was baptized. We are very excited to see everyone and to get out of the heat sauna that Florida is right now!!!

In milestones for week 3, Sarabeth continues to grow. She has definitely grown in length with her arms and legs as she has just about out grown her newborn pajamas and onesies. The pajamas are hard to snap and the arms are too short so I think we will try the 0-3 month size tonight! She absolutely SWAM in this stuff when I first tried to put it on her when we brought her home, she is growing right before our very eyes! She is also now lifting her head from our shoulders and jerks her head and neck ALL over the place, you need two hands on her at all times as she is becoming quite the wiggle worm. She can even wiggle herself all the way down her sleep positioner and crib! In the morning I find her in the strangest places. She also uses us to almost propel off of with her feet and legs and tries to walk herself up us when we are holding her and she is fussing. She is very strong which surprises me as she is only just now three weeks old. She really enjoys her baths which I give her every other day. She does not fuss at all and really likes the warm water and the wash cloth set out over her. Her favorite thing of all has got to be being held and NURSING. She would nurse 24/7 if I let her and she continues to have a very very strong latch, so strong that I have to use my finger to break the suction so she does not damage me!! If I would let her, she would nurse and then just continue to suck all day long as if I am a pacifier. Yet, when I give her the pacifier, sometimes she will take it but most of the time she is just not interested, she would rather just use me!! She also likes to just be held. She does not like to be put down in the swing (big brother loved the swing so this is odd to us) and she's not too keen on the bouncy seat yet either so unless she is sleeping in her co-sleeper, she is usually in someone's arms. She is a very hot little baby so she also does not like the fleece swaddle blanket that Jackson loved so much, and she's not too fond of being in a baby wrap or carrier either! Amazing how she seems to dislike so many of the tricks and things that I found that worked for Jackson, but on the other hand, she likes a lot of things he did not like...like the co-sleeper which I am so thankful she enjoys. That thing has been amazingly easy for the night time when I need her close due to the number of times we are up for nursing, changing diapers, etc.

Big brother also continues to be doing a pretty good job adjusting. He is very affectionate towards his sister. We continue to have to remind him not to touch her face or pat her head, but at least he is being gentle with her and not showing any signs of aggression. Last night I did see an ounce of jealousy come out, but just an ounce!! I was giving him a bath and at the end of the bath I told him to take his pjs to daddy to get him dressed as Sarabeth was crying and I needed to feed her. He said "no mommy, you need to feed me, I'm hungry and I need a snack". Poor little guy.......I got him a snack and then he sat next to me and ate his snack while his sister had her "snack".

We've had a quiet day just the 4 of us at home today and it has been really nice. Jack and Jon made a run to storage this morning to get our suitcases for travel next week and in the midst of that they came back with a race track Jon had in storage so that has entertained Jack most of the day! Other than that we've been home and it has been a pretty quiet day!!!

more pictures from our visit with family

We have really been spoiled these past two weeks to have had both sides of our family visit to meet sweet Sarabeth. Tonight we wrapped up our visit with Mimi and Papa and Jay and Callie after a very fun and sun filled week, they will head home to Ohio tomorrow. Normally we are so sad to see our family go but we head to Ohio next week so the fun will continue up there!! Jack has had an absolute BLAST with his grand parents and uncle Jay and Callie. I have heard more belly laughs this week and seen more ear to ear grins on his face than I think I have ever seen!! He stayed home from school several days this week and was spoiled rotten by everyone. He played hard at the parks, beaches and pool. The weather has been really hot this week but on the beach there is such a nice breeze that it made it tolerable. Sarabeth and I even enjoyed the beach with everyone today, we were very comfortable under our umbrella taking in the seabreeze.

Here are some pictures from the past few days of fun and sun!!

Lots of visitors!!

We have had lots of visitors this past week so between having visitors and taking care of a newborn, I've been too busy to post on the blog!! I also came down with Mastitis in my left breast and have been dealing with that. I woke in pain on Friday night around 2:30 am (I guess technically that is Saturday am). I thought I may have just had a clogged milk duct so I tried applying heat and massaging it, taking hot showers, frequent nursing but it just continued to get worse. So, after spiking a fever, chills, and aches all over my body like the flu, I called my doctor Saturday afternoon and he prescribed an antibiotic. I spent most of Saturday afternoon and evening in bed just trying to rest and feel better. Today brought much of the same although I was feeling a little bit better so was able to be up and about the house rather than confined to my bed!! I'm hoping it will all clear up in a few day.....it is REALLY red and tender at this point, ugh.

In other news my mom was here this past week and was a huge help with the house work and with the baby and with Jack! (Thanks Mom)!!! Jack absolutely LOVED having his grandma visit, good thing we are going north for a visit very soon and he will get to see her and Grandpa again real soon!! On Friday afternoon we also got to see Mimi, Papa, Uncle Jay and Callie!! We had a nice dinner at our house Friday night with everyone......we were so happy to have so many visitors at our house as we don't get to see our family too often being so far away! We had a great night. Saturday afternoon Grandma had to fly back home and Mimi, Papa Jay and Callie are now here for the balance of this coming week. It is REALLY hot and humid here but I think everyone is enjoying the beach, pool etc. They even got to go for a boat ride today!

Here are some pictures from our time with our visitors!!

more pictures

Here are a few more pictures from the past few days! Sarabeth is growing and filling out nicely......she is an excellent nurser and it is starting to show on her!!

We had a nice weekend still settling in as a family of 4 but I am pretty tired!! We've had a lot of friends call to visit so just keeping the house picked up for that is a challenge but we made it!! Jack still seems to be adjusting well, he has his moments but he is really doing quite well! I think Jon and I are also adjusting well, we are a bit sleep deprived but all in all we are just rolling with it and doing a good job so far! Grandma arrives tomorrow and we are very much looking forward to our visit with her!! This is the start of a really fun month for our family with Grandma visiting, then Mimi, Papa, Jay and Callie, and then we go north for nearly two weeks.......lots of family time this summer and I am so excited for that!!

Friday we had a visit from my friend Melissa and her new daughter, Hope, who was born just about 3 weeks earlier than Sarabeth. Hope's due date was just 3 days before Sarabeth's but she was breech so was born a bit early via c-section. Here is a picture of the girls on their first "playdate"!! More like a joint nap and a "playdate" for the mommies to catch up! These girls are destined to be good buddies and big brother Jackson and big sister Lola are already good buddies!! The other pictures are just from lounging around this weekend getting to know our baby a bit better!!

So far she continues to sleep fairly well and I am starting to see a pattern. She will go down around 8:30 am and sleep a long 3 hour or so stretch most mornings giving me time to shower, do some work, laundry, check email, etc. and then again there is a long stretch at night aroun d8:30 pm for about 4 hours or so. She is usually only up 2-3 times at night and when we are up, she does the cluster feeds and we always have a diaper change or two so we are ususally up for about an hour or so and then back down. She LOVES to nurse, loves skin to skin contact and laying with her body against me and her head on my chest, and she is a hot little baby, she does not like the summer infant fleece swaddle blanket, it is too hot for her, she prefers the Adan and Anais soft cotton muslin blankets (I can't blame her, I would swaddle myself in one of these light gauzy blankets if I could, they are so light and soft) and if we do swaddle her, she HATES to have her arms in the swaddle and she is not really a fan of those little infant caps on her head either! She grunts and scoots and works her hands and arms free no matter what and also works the cap off her head!! She is a funny little thing. She looks A LOT like big brother Jackson did as a baby.......she is her own person but I definitely think we will see that they very much will look like brother and sister as they grow!!

One week photos!

Sarabeth is one week old today, what a week it has been! I am starting to feel better all around, although the lack of sleep is starting to hit me but I am taking it in stride and trying to take a nap each afternoon when she seems to take a good long nap. She has slept at 3 hour + intervals for the most part since she was born so I really cannot complain too much!! When we are up though, we are usually up for an hour or longer and then when it seems like I have just gotten back to sleep after the last early morning feeding, next thing I know Jackson is in my room and up. He usually sleeps until at least 6:30 and some lucky days it is 7am but this whole week he has been in our room just after 6am, I guess he does not want to miss anything:) So, we've been up a bit in the night and then up with the chickens with Jackson but that is life these days.

Here are some more pictures from today. We've had a really calm week just settling in and recovering for which I am so thankful!!

Birth story of Sarabeth and more photos!!

Sorry for the delay in blog posts, its been a bit busy at our household these past few days and I have not had a lot of sleep and Jon and I are managing it all by ourselves which is not easy! I'm pretty sure it is Tuesday today and the date is June 6th.....but I have to keep double checking to make sure as the past few days and nights have kind of run together as we have been settling in. Sarabeth is a GREAT EASY baby so far. She seems very mellow and hardly cries at all. When she does cry, it is usually just because she wants to be held or it is time for a feeding! She is also a very GREAT nurser. She latched perfectly in the delivery room moments after birth and in fact she latches so well, that I have had to help her de-latch when she is done nursing so I don't get totally torn apart. She would stay there all day if I let her using me as a pacifier when she is done nursing!! She likes to nurse lots and tends to cluster feed, rather than the typical one side or the other ever few hours. After a series of feedings rather close together, she will settle in for a long snooze sometimes for 4 hours at a time making me have to wake her to eat again!! She loves to be held and clearly knows my smell now and prefers my arms over anyone else's (sorry daddy, but I have the parts that lead to this)!! She is only getting up about 2x a night which is also amazing!! We are very much enjoying our girl time together during the days when daddy and big brother go to work and school. Jackson is also adjusting very well, he has not exhibited any jealousy to date, he is very loving towards his sister and always says hi to her as soon as he gets home and bye in the morning on the way out. He wants to touch her face and head a lot so we are working on that and tell him to touch her hands, feet, or by her ear rather than her face or the top of her head!!

Now for her birth story:

On Wednesday June 1st we had our 40 week OB appointment and at this point, Sarabeth was two days late per our due date of May 30th. I was not showing signs of going into immediate labor and the internal exam also confirmed that I was not progressing with dilation at that time. I left the appointment feeling very discouraged thinking I was going to have to wait at least another 5 days to meet my baby girl because the Doctor would not induce until I was one week late since my cervix was not "favorable for induction". Later that day I called my office to say to start my maternity leave effective June 1st because while the baby had not come and I had planned to work up until delivery, I was just exhausted and wanted to take the next few days to rest up for what was to come. Little did I know what a GOOD call that was because at 2 am on June 2nd, I woke to painful back labor contractions starting. The pain was not horrible and was tolerable at this point so I did not wake Jon but I knew this was the start of labor because the labor with Jackson started the exact same way. As the wee hours of the morning wore on the contractions continued and as I began to time them, they were coming closer and closer and by 8am they were 2-3 minutes a part prompting us to page the doctor. When Dr. Leavitt called us back, he said this was what we had been waiting for and to go to the hospital to get checked to see if I was dilating. So, excitedly we gathered the things that I had set out weeks ago for this great day, we packed Jackson up and notified the babysitter who would be staying with him after school, we took Jack to school and we went to the hospital!

When we arrived at the hospital it was probably around 8:15-8:30am. The nurses could tell I was not in strong labor at that point so they put us in a "triage room" on the L & D floor to check me and monitor me for contractions and fetal stress. Sure enough, I was contracting every 2-3 minutes but I was still not dilating. The Dr. came to see us and confirmed the same. Because the contractions were so close together, he said he suspected early labor and wanted us to stay there through the morning and be monitored to see if anything began to develop. We walked the halls, I ate ice chips, we talked about how we thought for sure they would send us home and this was probably a false alarm, we talked about how hungry we were because neither of us had really eaten anything that morning and now I was stuck there with them not letting me eat a thing since I might be in labor!! Finally, around 11:30 the Dr. returned and they checked me again. The contractions were still very close together and getting stronger and more painful, but I was still not dilating. I was starting to get frustrated at this point and was fearful they would send me home in this state! The Dr. came back and said that he could not in fact release me because I was having contractions so close together and that he thought I was in labor, and that this would likely just be a slow and steady process so we prepared to move from "Triage" to a real birthing suite. This is when I actually started to believe we would get to meet Miss Sarabeth on June 2nd after all! I began to focus on the contractions and put my mind into birthing mode to try to speed the process along and mentally prepare to get this baby girl out!!

Because of the pain I was in with the back labor, they put me in the nicest birthing room that had a jacuzzi tub to ease the back labor pains and I laid there for an hour in quite a bit of pain, but the hot water and jets did help a bit. I remember the pain being very intense and I was alone because Jon had run home to let the dogs out and get something to eat. I also remember laying there thinking this is the most pain I have ever felt and I do not think I can do this again!! I think this was the low point of the day as at this point, I had been having the painful contractions for about 10 hours!! I could not have cervidil or pitocin to speed the dilation at this point because my contractions were too close together so it was just up to my body to do this, and I could not have pain meds since I had so far to go to get to 4 cm so I just had to gut it out!!

After an hour in the Jacuzzi tub, Jon returned and they helped me out of there and they moved me to the bed to check me again. I was starting to make some progress and was 2-3 cm at this point but still in a lot of pain and still not able to have any pain meds. They asked me to go to the bathroom before starting an IV and I remember being in the bathroom and not even being able to sit and relax long enough to go due to the frequency and intensity of the contractions. Eventually we abandoned this effort and I got an IV and catheter going. We turned on the tv and watched the Casey Anthony trial (of all things) to pass the time while I laid there contracting and waiting to dilate!! At some point early evening I was at 4 cm and FINALLY got the epdirual which was like the nector of the Gods. I mean I went from feeling like i was literally dieing after like 16 hours pain none stop, to only feeling pressure when a contraction came, but NO pain associated with it. It allowed me to relax and rest a bit and the rest of the labor went quick. I dilated from 4-10 in just about 2 hours and by shortly after 8pm, the nurses and then the Dr. checked me again, the cervix was GONE and it was time to push. I was fairly sure of that already though due to the immense pressure I was feeling, even with the epidural!!

I was fortunate enough to have my friend Erin's sister, Shannon as my Labor and Delivery Nurse and a team of about 5 other AMAZING women to help us through this whole process. Once the Doctor confirmed we were ready to push, Shannon skillfully coached me through the pushing process and got me to push effectively really fast. So fast, that they had a hard time finding the Doctor in the hospital in time to get back to the delivery room for the baby to be born! I pushed so well and so much quicker than the Doctor had expected, that they literally had to tell me NOT to push until he got there, and this was NOT easy to do but I did listen!! I remember the Dr. walking in being amazed at how fast the last bit of the labor had gone and I remember watching him suit up and put the little footies on his shoes. Just like with Jackson, it was that moment when It really all hit me that the baby was coming out and she was coming out in just a few moments! The Dr. got in catching position and said "ok, get ready because this baby is going to be born with the next contraction" and he told me whenever I was ready to go ahead and push and the next thing I knew, Sarabeth came right out and gave the best cry (such a relief for us as Jackson was not breathing immediately when he was born) and she was just perfect!! I did get a pretty nasty tear and the placenta delivered immediately so I bled a bit more than normal so the Dr. dealt with wrapping all of that up but I did not even care about those things because before I knew it, I had my baby girl in my arms and after a very long and hard day, Jon and I were able to meet this precious girl and to see her face, count her fingers and her toes and see her beautiful full head of dark hair!! She nursed immediately and we all just relaxed together for a little while as the nurses and Dr. finished up the post-birth process. Sarabeth was born at 8:50pm and weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces, and was 20.5 inches long. She was lucky to be born on June 2nd as she shares her birthday with her Mimi which makes it all the more special! I worked long and hard the entire day and I got her out with just a few hours to spare on June 2nd...happy birthday to Mimi for that one:)

Later that night Jon headed home to relieve the babysitter around 11:30pm, there was no sense in him staying in the hospital, in an uncomfortable fold out chair and getting no sleep when he needed to be there for Jackson in the coming days. Around 1 am Sarabeth and I moved from the delivery room to the post-partum recovery wing of the L and D floor and settled into our own room for the night. She roomed in with me both nights and I really enjoyed those first quiet hours of the morning on June 3rd just to look at her and get to know her. She miraculously let me sleep fairly well that first night, the only interruptions were when I had to have blood taken and when my stupid IV kept going off. I had to stay on the IV due to loss of blood after the birth. The next morning big brother and daddy came to visit and Jackson could not have been happier or more proud to see his sister, he was so cute!! Jon took him to school later that morning and then came back and spent the rest of the day in the hospital with his girls. We were treated amazingly in the hospital, somehow they found out I was the hospital district attorney and they seriously gave us special treatment which was really nice!! We even got flowers sent to our room from the CEO of the hospital! It pays to know people in high places I guess:)

So, that is the birth story, these past 5 days getting to know our baby Sarabeth have been wonderful. I am enjoying each minute with her in these quiet days we have together! Here are some more recent pictures.