Marriage and Babies and Nursing, Oh My!

The day before our wedding three years ago, we were asked when we were going to have kids. I felt the question was a bit hasty considering we were still 24 hours away from being married, but we said we'd wait three years. And after our wedding, on our "getaway" car were the words "three years till kids!" Today marks our three year anniversary, and we did, in fact, stick with our three year plan. A year ago, I never would have thought that we'd have a beautiful baby boy by our next anniversary, but God's plans are always best. And while being stuck in the "postpartum" phase of child-bearing on our anniversary isn't exactly the greatest, I feel safe in saying that I'll spend more anniversaries NOT recovering from childbirth. (Although the truth is, I recovered from my childbirth ailments weeks ago--at least in terms of pain--so all that's left now is convincing my body to handle breastfeeding a bit better than it seems capable of...)

In keeping with the tradition I started last year, here are a few more things I've learned about marriage since last year:

1. Buying a house and having a baby at the same time is stressful.
    I don't think this needs explanation. Just don't do it. (Especially if you're buying a house that needs some fixing-up.)

2. Pregnancy is hard for husband and wife.
    While my dear husband never complained about my inability to do anything early in pregnancy (thanks to morning/all day sickness) or late in pregnancy (thanks to my giant belly), I know it gave him a lot more work to do. And, of course, I would really like to skip the first trimester of all future pregnancies I may or may not have.

3. If you want something done in a certain time frame (or at all), do it yourself.
    Our electricity went off on Tuesday at 12:30. I asked Travis to call our electric company and find out why. He didn't. Two hours later, I was at the point of total meltdown (literally melting), so I got the information from Travis and called them myself. For some reason, the company thought we had requested that our service be cancelled on July 8th, but couldn't figure out why they thought that. Moral of the story? Listen to your wife. Hah. Or in my case, make the call yourself. Otherwise, you won't have electricity again and you'll never know why.

4. A newborn can bring out the best and worst in you.
    I find myself feeling completely unsympathetic (in the sense that I want to physically hurt him) anytime my dear husband says he's tired... after getting 7+ hours of uninterrupted sleep. But then I also refrain from waking him up in the middle of the night to help me when I know he has work the next day. It's a vicious cycle. :)

But I sure do love being married. God gave me a good one. ;)

Now for the "I have a new baby and it's all I can think/talk about" update:
I am a mere three days away from being six weeks postpartum. I'm hoping that the miracle "week six" will literally hold some kind of miracle. I've had two bouts of mastitis and am rather susceptible to thrush now. Breastfeeding is slowly becoming less painful, but it's not as easy as I was told it would be once the first couple of weeks passed. However, I have noticed less engorgement, so that's one positive thing.

Logan will sleep at night for longer stretches as long as he's tightly swaddled. His arms startle him. The few times I've let him sleep on his tummy during the day, he sleeps so well and for quite a while. It's really a pain that tummy sleeping is so widely discouraged. He also loves looking at the ceiling--especially if there are lights on. And he's going through a phase (his phases change quite frequently) where he doesn't want to sleep during the day unless he's being held. Silly baby. I'm hoping the phase will have passed by the time my sisters leave, because I don't know how I'll get anything done if he needs to be held all day long. Although I'm looking forward to using my baby carrier, as soon as my chest isn't hurting all the time. Ah, the joys of breastfeeding.

Other than all of that, I can now sleep anytime, day or night. The dog fur is getting to me again. My mom left a week ago and it was the hardest goodbye I've ever said to her. When my sisters move back to Dallas for school, we're not going to know what to do with ourselves. And it's time to feed my sweet baby boy again. :)

A Bunch of Baby

It has been nearly a month since I last posted. The entire month of June has gone by and I haven't written about how incredibly life has changed in the last few weeks. On May 30th, we closed on our own home! It was exciting for so many reasons, one of the main ones being that I made it to closing still pregnant! But then I went into labor at 1:15 in the morning on June 1st. We spent a few hours at the hospital in the middle of the night, but I was only dilated to a 1+ the entire time, so they gave me a shot of morphine and sent me home. I napped on and off (it's hard to nap with those pesky contractions happening every few minutes) for a couple hours at home, took a hot bath to ease the contractions, and then eventually succumbed to the intense pain of active labor, fully aware that the morphine had completely worn off. I screamed through the contractions while my dear husband took a shower (it was very important to him that he shave before we went to the hospital--he didn't want to scratch the baby's face...) and my sister tried to reassure my mom (on the phone) that we were about to go back to the hospital. She was rather concerned when Brittany said my contractions were a minute and a half apart. I got the distinct impression that she didn't think Travis's shower was all that important right then. Hah. We made our way back to the hospital hoping that I had made some progress. I was beyond nervous that I had made no progress, and knew for certain that if the pain I was feeling wasn't active labor, I would never make it through the day. Thankfully though, they checked me immediately and found that I was now dilated to a four. As I was getting my stuff together, the nurse popped her head in and asked if I wanted an epidural. My response? YES, PLEASE RIGHT NOW THANKS.

:) I had to wait another hour or so before they gave me the epidural (I was very impatient--it felt like a lot longer than an hour!), but once it kicked in, everything was wonderful. I know there are some women that love natural labor and find it empowering and that's wonderful--for them. ;) But for me, that epidural was bliss. I dozed for an hour or so and relaxed for the afternoon. I was admitted at 12:45 and when the doctor came to check me at 3:45 or so, I was already dilated to a nine plus. I had read that an epidural could slow labor down, but it made me feel so relaxed and wonderful that it caused no problems in that department. I started pushing (completely painlessly, I might add) at 4:20 or so, and my beautiful baby boy was born at 5:08. Logan Stephen. And my life hasn't been the same since.

My wonderful husband spent the next week and a half getting our new home ready for move-in (with a ton of help from my sisters!), and my mom arrived on the 6th and helped us pack up our old house, clean, and helped me survive my first weeks of motherhood. It's been crazy and exhausting and wonderful all at the same time.

And, of course, I've learned some very valuable lessons in the last three weeks. :)

• Baby boys have a knack for peeing out of their diapers. I'm not sure how it happens, but we've had multiple wet onesies, wet mommy, wet aunts, yet somehow dry diapers...
• Travis (and supposedly most men) can somehow sleep through baby cries. Wailing even. Thankfully, ever since Logan figured out how to breastfeed better, he hasn't wailed a whole lot. But those first few nights? Lots of wailing.
• I would not have survived thus far if my mom and sisters weren't here. I honestly don't know what we would have done. I've already told them that they're going to have to move back in for every subsequent child I might have.
• Breastfeeding is not just mildly painful. It can be excruciatingly painful. Definitely the worst/hardest/most painful part of my postpartum life. 
• You can never have too many burp cloths.
• I often use two clean diapers at diaper changes because Logan decides to poop in his freshly clean diaper before I even close it all the way. But so far he waits till the new diaper is at least under him, so I'll just be grateful for that. 
• The Ergobaby carrier is truly wonderful--I only just used it yesterday, but it was lovely. 
• Poop explosions happen. They're unpleasant. 
• Logan wants to be held all the time. Literally all. the. time.
• Pretzel rolls are amazing. 
• I really truly wholeheartedly love my sweet baby boy. :)

one word: mangoes.

Big things (as in, huge things) seem to happen in my life every three years. (...for the past six years, anyway...) And so far, they seem to come in groups of two. Back in the summer of 2008 (six years ago, for those that don't like doing math), I graduated from high school and moved to the states for college. Then I spent the next three years in college while dating my [now] husband. In 2011, I graduated from college with a degree in English I still haven't put to much use (but it was free, guys! And fun!) and got married to the previously mentioned [now] husband. ;) For the next two years we enjoyed being poor "one-of-us-is-still-in-college" married people and then one year being not-quite-as-poor-about-to-be-parents married people. And now, in 2014, we're having a baby (any day now, I might add) and tomorrow we are buying a house. Hah! But seriously, we close on our house tomorrow!! It's all very exciting. And crazy.

[I should probably add that we had a pretty big summer last year as well, what with Travis graduating from college and getting an awesome job that actually puts his hard-earned engineering degree to good use... but I'm being self-focused and trying to find cool patterns in my life, and this particular big event messes that up. So we're going to call that "one of Travis's big life events" and enjoy the awesomeness of my three year pattern.]

My maternity shirts don't cover my belly. I have maybe three or so that still fit. When you buy maternity clothes, they tell you that the clothes will fit the whole way through because they're designed to stretch with your belly. Well they lied. The shirts still fit everywhere--except that they're not long enough to cover my belly! So now I get to try on shirt after shirt each morning until I find one that's long enough. Barely. I might be digging through Travis's shirts soon.

It's hot. And the sad part is that it's really not. We've had nice low-80s weather lately. But I'm always sweating. (Except in the car when I blast the AC and turn it down as cold as possible.) I tried wearing my jeans yesterday and nearly melted. Shorts only from now on. I would love nothing more than to turn our thermostat down into the 60s. I could go for 68. But I worry that Travis would find that excessive... and expensive. Though I will say this: if I had to be pregnant through a 100+ degree summer, we would be moving some money around in our budget for "pregnancy cooling." No joke.

My sisters have moved in for the summer. The dogs are beyond thrilled. Though they don't like it one bit when the girls go to their room to watch a movie with the door closed. We all just need to stay in the living room together like one big happy family. :) But I must say, I'm rather enjoying having the additional help with the cooking and washing dishes.

I'm sorry this post has very little substance to it. I think there's actually too much going on in my brain to make coherent sense in a blog post. Hah. I just hope everything will organize itself so I can get some sleep tonight. It's the house. And the baby. And the packing. And the painting/cleaning/moving/we've-completely-lost-our-minds stuff. Nothing a little help (moving/packing/painting) and a lot of prayer (everything!) can't fix.

Oh! And mangoes were on sale, so I bought around ten. At least.

Dog Miracles! (Need I say more?)

There's this moment of absolute terror when you let your dogs out into the rain (temporarily not pouring as much as it was earlier) to relieve themselves and instead of simply doing their business and coming back to you, they both hop into "play bows" and start sprinting through the muddy, watery, "not-really-grassy-at-all" yard. You can see the mud flinging off the ground and you get this image of two very large dogs soaked with mud and water, and you, poor pregnant "I-can-barely-bend-over" you, trying to figure out how to rinse and dry these two crazy dogs without the help of the ever-capable, not-pregnant husband. But then, God looks upon you with love and mercy and sends a miracle! The crazy dogs chasing each other through the mud suddenly return to the dry garage, only slightly wet and oddly (miraculously!!) not muddy at all. You give them a quick drying with the towel you brought and they willingly go back inside the house, knowing that they will probably be stuck inside for the remainder of the night. God is good, my friends. He is very good indeed. :) (And I'm super proud of my dogs for coming back to me, even though I ruined their fun.)

Despite how it looks if you walk into this house right now, we are officially moving (unless something absolutely crazy happens) in a matter of weeks. God has a ridiculous sense of humor when it comes to my need to plan and be over-the-top prepared for big life changes (like moving and babies and the like), so He decided to test the limits of my faith by prolonging the home-buying process to the point where our estimated closing date is May 30th instead of the "hoped-and-planned-for" beginning to middle of April date we really liked. So now we have about eleven days after closing (unless God sends another miracle and we close early!) to fix up the few things in our new home that desperately need fixing and move out of our current house. All the while staying prepared for the arrival of Baby Boy at any time in the next five weeks or so. Since I am only capable of packing and cleaning (for the most part...ceiling fans and baseboards don't seem very feasible at this point...or any later point that involves me still being pregnant), poor Travis is going to be doing a lot of stuff on his own. It was actually a year ago, almost to the day, that we moved out of our cozy little apartment into my grandparents' house to house-sit for two weeks, all the while wondering when Travis would hear back about a job and how long we'd be, essentially, homeless. But as I've shared before (or at least, I think I have), God provided a great job and a house with landlords that didn't balk at the idea of us bringing our two GSDs. And I must say, even though buying a house, moving, cleaning, and having a baby all at the same time sounds daunting at times, it's nowhere near as terrifying as our situation a year ago, and God brought us through that in a way only He could do. So when it seems like we've lost our minds, I just remind myself that God's got it. Always.

Baby is getting bigger and bigger. My bladder is getting smaller and smaller. My pain-free practice contractions are becoming more and more frequent. Sleeping isn't as easy as it once was, though I still do pretty well for myself considering. On the positive side of things, I have no feet/hands/face swelling or (ahem) colostrum leakage. My leg cramps have subsided and, over all, I haven't had too many aches and pains. (Though my husband may disagree with that last statement based on my endless complaining... OK, on second thought, the aches and pains may be more of an issue than I like to admit. But mostly when it involves standing up. And I mean the actual "getting up off the couch/bed/floor/etc. part. Once I'm up, I'm good. Mostly.) I've discovered that it's rather uncomfortable to drive with a baby jabbing into your side. It's hard to explain. But it's a tad distracting and makes me feel like I probably shouldn't be driving. Baby has the hiccups at the moment. Those are fun. ;)

We have two nests of newly hatched baby birds outside our front door. They're noisy little guys.

I no longer care (this month) about my weight gain. I just love chocolate.

Outgrowing Cuteness (in a good way)

My cute baby bump phase has passed. It was nice while it lasted. But now... now I just feel like a big big really big pregnant lady. Hah. And I still have six weeks to continue getting bigger. I'm trying to make myself feel better by looking back at my old bump pictures when I thought I was just huge and realizing that I was...not. So perhaps in a few weeks, I'll look back at my "34 weeks" bump and laugh at myself for thinking I was just so massive. We'll see. When I went in for my ultrasound at 19 weeks (when we found out we were having a boy), I was convinced that I looked mega pregnant. Here's my 19 week picture:

So huge, right? Haha. 

Here's 34 weeks (as in, now): 

I think I can see why no one knew I was pregnant at 19 weeks. Everybody knows now. 

In other news: 

• Tatum has an injured paw and isn't allowed to run and play. Poor, baby girl. :(
• Sabre is still Sabre. We're trying to schedule his neutering for... right away, in hopes that he'll be a bit more groggy and lethargic (surgery does that, right?), so he'll stop trying to play with Tatum by tackling her to the ground, probably injuring her paw even more. (It's also something we need to do...not just something we decided on a whim. hah.) 
• My dear husband smashed one of his fingers in a machine at work and now he's waiting for the nail to "pop off." I'm hoping I won't be present when said nail chooses to do so. 
• I have my first stretch marks and they itch. I'm not so fond of the itching. 
• We found a sweet puppy (about 6 months old or so) in our neighborhood on Saturday with no tags. She stayed with us for a couple hours and played with our crazy dogs before we found her owners. I discovered that three dogs is absolutely crazy. Hah. They sure had fun though!
• I'm out of cereal. It's been rough. ;)

Growing Up: It Just Happens.

I had a dental cleaning this morning. I typically enjoy getting my teeth cleaned. It's painless and the end result is clean teeth, so what could there possibly be to complain about? That's why, five minutes into my cleaning, when I started to feel clammy and nauseous and lost the ability to support my head, it came as a bit of a shock. I got my teeth cleaned back at the beginning of my first trimester when I was sick all day long and managed to survive the cleaning just fine! My poor hygienist had to call for some help to make sure I didn't completely pass out. The dentist came in, had someone give me some oxygen, and made me switch positions, hoping that it would get my blood circulating properly again. After a couple minutes, I could feel myself going back to normal. The dentist said he could tell I was doing better since there was some color back in my face. When I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror, it was still pretty pale... which means I must have looked about as white as a sheet during my "episode." I felt just terrible that I put them through such an ordeal. Especially since I had no idea what caused it! I called my OB's office and spoke with my nurse who informed me that during pregnancy, dizziness/nausea/etc. (essentially a drop in blood pressure) is a fairly common occurrence if there's too much weight on my vena cava. Guess I should avoid such things. This whole "third trimester" thing is bringing on some lovely new symptoms. Hah.

I couldn't finish my whole breakfast this morning (leftover biscuits with sausage gravy) so I threw away what was left of it (which wasn't a lot), when Sabre stuck his face in the trash can and ate the gravy covered biscuit. Little brat. Now he's going to be even more convinced that the trash can is where all delicious things end up. On the other end of the scale, when we do the "leave it" command with Tatum (usually putting a treat in front of her or on her paw), she won't touch it. Even once we've told her she can eat the treat! She waits for us to pick it back up and give it to her. If we try to have both Sabre and Tatum "leave it" at the same time, Sabre usually eats the treat in front of him and the one in front of Tatum since she waits patiently for REAL permission. Such different personalities. Tatum also loves the baby smell that clings to me everyday after babysitting. She spends a good three minutes or so incessantly sniffing my left shoulder where I typically hold the two month old baby girl I now watch. It's going to be interesting to see what these doggies do when Baby gets here. :)

I couldn't focus my nesting into cooking and cleaning anymore--I had to get the nursery set up. The room we're going to be using (unless, of course, we move) was filled to the max with all sorts of random stuff (more like a storage room) and lots of empty boxes. And, of course, all the baby stuff in random bags/boxes/piles scattered throughout the room. It was time to rearrange and make everything look pretty. :) While we still have a few more things to do eventually, it's pretty ready for Baby. And then, if we do move, we'll just have to start all over again. Hah. Except now we have a basic idea of how we want to set things up. We got a rocker glider finally! Instead of spending over $500 on a nice one, we persistently checked craigslist and found a nice used one for $65. Yay! The cushions are pink, so we bought some material and are having it recovered. Thankfully my grandmother has a friend that does upholstery for a very reasonable price--the price we were quoted locally was over $350! We could order brand new cushions from the retailer for that price! Crazy! I was also told to check out a local consignment shop filled with all sorts of kid clothes, baby gear, and even some maternity stuff. I got a $50 diaper bag for $12! Travis helped pick it out, which means it looks absolutely nothing like a diaper bag (but it really is) and, therefore, he won't feel silly carrying it. :) We also got a play mat for $16--those things are ridiculously overpriced brand new! I'm a big fan of consignment shopping!

After a full day of insatiable hunger yesterday, today I've hardly felt the slightest pang of hunger. Strange. But my heartburn is in full gear and my back is nice and achy. I've started getting calf cramps in the middle of the night (thankfully not every night), and my overwhelming exhaustion seems to have returned. I'm also building up nice thigh muscles from standing up and sitting down while holding a baby. It's like doing squats on and off for a couple hours a day. As much as I can't wait to meet my little boy, I'm not sure I want these last seven weeks to fly by. I think it's a combination of wanting to move before he arrives (if it ever works out) and an underlying (and by underlying I mean very much at the forefront) fear of labor. Hah! Plus, even though I feel all sorts of kicks and jabs and flips and turns inside of me all day long, I'm not sure it's going to be real until he's born. It's like I was playing "house" just a few days ago and now I'm grown up and not playing anymore, and I don't know where the time went. That's not to say I'm not excited! I really truly am. I just don't know when all this "growing up" happened.

And look at that, I'm finally hungry.

Saturdays are nice.

My last three posts all included the word "sometimes" in the title. I think that's indicative that I'm overusing that word.

I can't say this with utter certainty, but I think there really is some kind of "mom gene" that kicks into gear when you're about to become a mom. You see, until a couple months ago, I didn't really cook. I tried. Every now and then I'd feel inspired to make some lovely sounding meal, only to taste it and feel utterly disappointed at my cooking skills. Most of the time I'd just throw the leftovers out--that's how much I didn't like it! But lately, my mom gene has kicked in and I can now cook quite yummy meals. It's strange, really. I made Chicken Pot Pie (with my own homemade crust, I might add) that turned out very yummy. I made some Homestyle Potatoes to go on the side of our grilled chicken that were awesome! I also made Chicken and Wild Rice Soup AND Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole (they tasted completely different, but both wonderful!). And I've made a vanilla pound cake, a vanilla yogurt cake, and have the ingredients for some no-bake chocolate bars. :) I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of myself. Hah! :)

The dogs have improved immensely in their training. We still have a bit of work to do, but overall, I'm glad we didn't spend the ridiculous amount of money to have them trained. We're doing quite well on our own--for free! Last night my sisters arrived for the weekend. Now Sabre loves Brittany something fierce and keeping him from jumping on her seemed like it might be the ultimate test of our training abilities. However, it's exactly the situation we need so we can get him to stop jumping on his favorite people. And wonderfully enough for us, he jumped towards her but not on her--a vast improvement from times past! Both Sabre and Tatum are doing much better at waiting for my command to go outside when we open the door. It's still not foolproof when someone knocks on the door, but we're just taking it one step at a time. Sabre does seem to understand that when he brings bricks into the house from the backyard (the best toys in the world, apparently) and I say, "Sabre, that's an outside toy," that he needs to take it back outside. Hah! He, of course, brings it back in a few minutes later, and then we go on repeat, but the fact that he takes it out at all amuses me to no end. :)

My chiropractor taught Travis how to do a basic back adjustment (similar to cracking someone's back but much more beneficial), so now I can get a basic adjustment for free! And I think Travis rather enjoys that he can actually do something that helps long(er) term. :) A back massage helps in the moment, but doesn't last. He's asked me to do it to him, but between my ever protruding belly and complete and total lack of upper body strength, I'm not sure there's much chance it's gonna happen.

I apparently decided that as soon as I entered into my third trimester of pregnancy, I would start working more. It's a bit backwards, perhaps, but it'll probably be good for me. Better than sitting home all day long, trying to find things to do to fill up my time. Instead, I now tutor Monday through Thursday in the mornings, and starting next week, I will resume babysitting in the afternoons throughout the week. On the upside though, I will be contributing a bit more to our monthly income than I was (hah!) and that's always helpful. Oh yes!! Now that it's April, I can officially say that in the month of March, we cut $100 off our grocery bill AND, compared to February, we knocked off $120 from our "eating out" spending! That's $220 saved just by planning meals, eating leftovers, and resisting the temptation to eat out all the time! I think I've found a new way of life. ;) Plus this whole meal planning allows me to embrace my pregnancy nesting by cooking and cleaning. Because after you cook, you then have to clean. (Which is probably one of the top reasons I avoided cooking in the first place. But the nesting, guys! It's real!)

Last night I went to my last movie before having a baby. And that's my final decision. We watched The Winter Soldier (Is it sad that I only seem to go to movies based on comic books? Comic books, I might add, that I've never read...) and while it was a good movie, I have never been so uncomfortable in a movie theater in my life. It's as if my back has changed shape or something, so I can't lean back and get support in the right places so I end up slouching more, which then hurts my butt and shoulders. I could kind of lean back and be semi-comfortable but to do that, my feet couldn't be completely on the floor, so in the end, that wasn't very comfortable either. It's a good thing I enjoyed the movie, because otherwise, I would have been out the door halfway through.

Everyone is sleeping still, except the dogs who are being dangerously quiet in the backyard. A quiet dog (unless sleeping) is never a good sign. Sabre always hides behind the couch and is suddenly as quiet as possible. When we go check to see what he's doing, 9 times out of 10, he's found something he's not supposed to have and is in the process of chewing/tearing it up. Luckily it's usually a clean paper napkin we were going to use (he loves ripping up paper products)... or at Christmas it was frequently a favorite ornament from the tree (though he rarely fully destroyed those). In other dog news, both Sabre and Tatum are now microchipped (Tatum took it like a champ, Sabre cried like a baby) and Sabre's days as an intact male are coming to an end soon, now that he's pretty much done growing (give or take a couple months, perhaps). (That last sentence probably needs to be restructured, but I'm not going to do it.)

Oh and if you haven't tried Blue Bell's new ice cream flavor "I Heart Chocolate," you are seriously depriving yourself of true deliciousness in this world. Go buy some. Now.