Pregnancy: this time around

i'm going to preface this by saying that i feel as every bit blessed by this pregnancy as i did when i was pregnant with claire. please believe this.

but lets be honest here.

the excitement and all the magic i felt when i was pregnant with claire is something i just cant seem to achieve this time around. it's not because i'm less happy or anything of the sort, but i think it has more to do with the fact that i have a child to care for. i don't have time to sit and daydream about my growing baby.

we wanted this pregnancy, and it happened after only trying a couple of times. i think i had my post-pregnancy period three times and then BOOM! it happened exactly when we wanted and we were thrilled. matt's reaction was fantastic (a lot better than the last time) and we've been thrilled since.

the weeks are flying by. seriously, flying by. i cannot even begin to believe that i'm going to be 18 weeks {in 3 days} and that we are going to find out baby's sex in 11 days!

i started feeling sick at 5.5 weeks {the exact same time i did with claire} and just recently started feeling better within the last couple of weeks. i've lost about 16 pounds and my appetite is yet to return. when i do eat, it's garbage. i do enjoy bananas, oranges, and clementines on a daily basis  :)

remember how exhausted you were when you were pregnant?! now try to imagine that times infinity. seriously, infinity. thankfully claire started sleeping through the night a few days after i stopped nursing her- she was right about 11.5 months. i still need to take a nap when i get home from work. if i don't get that nap, oh brother, all hell breaks loose.

i feel bad because not only is my energy not returning, i'm feeling more and more bitchy cranky each day. this causes me to be more impatient, even with my sweet little girl. makes me feel like the worst mother ever. ugh.

here's a bump shot from monday, it's a bit grainy because i took it with my ipad but oh well!

Perspective

Becoming a mother has been more wonderful than I could have ever imagined. Yeah, I sleep a lot less, and of course, clean laundry sits in the baskets for longer than I would ever want, but you begin to see what's really important in life.

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When I was pregnant I always told myself that I   wasn't going to be the "type of mother" who let her house get out of order. Not that I ever judged, I just knew that "that way" wasn't going to be our lifestyle, at least, if I could help it.

Truth is, I am so busy! Wow. Like, busy busy bumblebee... times ten. I get up in the morning, play with my lil miss, pump for 20 minutes, do my {5 minute} make-up, get Claire changed and cleaned up and then hope I have enough time to do my hair. Four out of the five days, I go to work with a ponytail. Once again, I always said {when I was pregnant} that I would always go the extra mile to look my best. Uhhh... nope, that doesn't happen. I'm not entirely proud of it, but it is what it is people. Not to make excuses but, Claire's in a phase where she only wants me. Only me. So spending thirty minutes on getting myself dolled up isn't high on my to-do list. Mooshing and gooshing and cuddling with my lil miss is though, because it's not a matter of choice anymore ;)

Good news is that Claire is always show-stopping beautiful! When I'm home, she's always dressed in clothes and donning a matching headband. I'm constantly lathering her in lotion and brushing her hair {or lack thereof}-- something that I VERY rarely do for myself.

Along with how things work around the house, the way I view my life, in general, has undergone an extreme makeover.

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After Matt fell, we experienced some pretty extreme financial hardship. He is, without a doubt, the bread winner in this home and him being out of work really hurt us tremendously.  To make matter worse, I was on maternity leave, which meant that I wasn't bringing home a single cent. None. Zip, zilch, zero.

But here's the silver lining... he got to go back to work. Yeah, was out of work for 5 months and only receiving 60% of his normal wages was a huge change in our monthly income {that's a lot of 'in's!!}, but that's more than others may be receiving while off of work.

Once again, there's good news!! Matt is back to work and because of his incredibly generous grandfather, we were able to stay afloat during all of this. If it weren't for him we would have had to dig into Matt's 401K to make our mortgage payments.  Scary, very scary, but once again, the fact that we had the money as a last resource was somewhat reassuring. We did learn that we need to save a little more than what we were saving prior to his accident. If you don't have long & short term disability, I would absolutely recommend looking into it. It's relativity inexpensive and it will save you tremendously if anything ever happens to your or your spouse.

Before Claire, we talked about all the things that we looked forward to. Most of the time, they were material things. For example, we really wanted to buy a boat this summer, and within the next five years, we hoped to purchase a small lake house. We looked forward to buying new vehicles and other ridiculously expensive, non-essential items. Now that our lil miss is here, we are focused solely on raising her well. We are already discussing which private school we want to send her to {we've chose to have her educated in a Catholic school} and how much we're going to save each month for her and her future sibling's college funds.

We have both completely reevaluated our relationship with God. We are doing our best to make certain that we set good examples for her so she can inherit the same love for our church and God that we both share. Going to church every.single.sunday is a MUST. To be completely honest, Matt's been going by himself for the past couple of months due to the crazy cold weather and the mighty awful flu that's been circulating.

We are 100% completely open to expanding our little family. Like today. We thought we would want to wait but after the lil miss, we are so excited to add babe #2 to our family! God has been so good to us and if we can just make some super awesome kiddos who will love him and spread His word, I think we will be doing well in His eyes, which is all that really matters. My mother-in-law always told us that "good people need to have more children". We feel that way now :)

Okay, if you read that, you are awesome and I love you! Here's a picture of the lil miss... yes a picture! Lucky you, I know ;)

It's her 5 month birthday today! And in those short {but mind blowingly fast} five months she has brought more light and love and joy and excitement into our home than we could have ever imagined, dreamed, hoped, or prayed for. 

We love you Claire Maire, our little angel.

367 days ago

 It was 367 days ago when I found out my life was going to change forever.

Toni, you can feel free to skip this paragraph: 
I had a deep feeling that I was pregnant for 2 weeks. Without going into too much detail, Matt and I had a very special Christmas morning that we now refer to as Claire's Birthday ;) She is officially our Christmas miracle because it only took 1 time to conceive a baby. Conception was something I was somewhat nervous about. My old gynecologist had expressed his concern after he found out Matt and I used the "pull out method" for 3+ years without any positive pregnancy tests. This was also after my laproscopic surgery was done because he thought I had endometriosis, something that runs in my family. Thankfully, I was endo free and although I had some pretty big cysts removed, he didn't see anything that would cause any long term issues. He said it would be smart to have Matt so a semen analysis to make sure that he was good in that department. But since we had never actively tried to get pregnant (nor did we avoid it) we didn't really worry about it. We just thought that the time would come when it was best- that God had a plan for us.

On Matt's birthday (december 30) we went skiing, a Thursday tradition. After a not-so-fun night of skiing for me (my sister hated it so we spent some quality time in the lodge), we headed for some food and a nightcap. As bad as I wanted a Corona w/lime I decided to skip it. I know that alcohol in the very early stages will not effect the baby but I just couldn't drink up knowing that there was a very large chance of a babe forming in my belly :)

Matt's ski name is Viper :)

January 9th rolled around and i bought a few SUPER cheap pregnancy tests, like 2/$1 cheap. And being a dumby that I am sometimes, I forgot that I took them and went way over the time limit for reading the results. The 2 that I did take had a incredibly faint second line but I assumed it was a false reading. I should tell you that over the 4+ years that we've been married I have spent enough money on pregnancy tests to purchase a really nice purse, like I'm talking Louis or Chanel nice :) I wanted to get pregnant so bad but it had never "accidentally" happened. Okay, back the story now...


On January 10th I woke up really early because of my maybe-positive-test from the day before. They say first morning urine is the best when using a pregnancy test. So, I got my last 50 cent test and anxiously peed all all over it. I shook of the excess and sat it on a couple pieces of toilet paper on the windowsill. I watch the clock, and not the test. I wanted to have fresh eyes to inspect the very tool that I had in fact hoped and prayed would read two perfectly pink, parallel lines. Time was up. I picked it up and examined the test. Oh.my.God. a second line. Like, a real second line. Not an evap line. An absolutely, positively real second line. That line was so faint that I had to look at it in the right light and right angle, but it was there, I saw it, that beautiful wonderful second line.

Wait, ohmygosh, this means I'm pregnant. That second line means that I'm going to have a baby. That second line means that I'm going to be a mother. That second line means that my prayers have finally came true. That second line means that my life is about to change in so many ways. Wow. I'm really pregnant!! These are the exact thoughts that ran through my mind in that moment.

Once I got myself together, though I was really still in shock and disbelief, I went to wake Matt up and tell him the news. I blurted out the words "I'm pregnant" as soon as he snuffed "what?". He immediately asked me what I was talking about. I told him about the test in the bathroom. His words next went something along these lines:
"Erikka, you're not pregnant, come back to bed."
I then very boldly told him to get the hell out of bed to see the test. He got up and did just that. Remarking that he couldn't see the second line. Remember how faint I said it was?? Yeah, Matt couldn't see it with his morning eyes. As he was heading back to the bed, he told me once more that I couldn't be pregnant because we only did it 'once' and that I should go back to bed. I exclaimed that I was leaving to go pick up a digital test. He didn't like the thought of that at 6 in the morning. So I, very anxiously, got ready for work while he slept. The whole time I was thinking about how mad I was at him for not being excited and pushing everything aside.

I left for work 20 minutes early that day so I could stop at the drug store for a digital test. I was so excited to finally be buying a REAL digital test. Not a el cheapo dollar tree or save-a-lot test. However, I was also very nervous of it reading NOT PREGNANT. I got to work and couldn't resist the urge of peeing on the beautiful piece of technology. So I headed for the ladies room and did what I was trying to wait to do in the comfort of my home. Lo and behold, I was right. There it was- the word PREGNANT starring so beautifully back at me. I immediately started to shake and cry. This was it. The moment I had been waiting for. No doubts to be found anywhere. I was in fact pregnant. And this time I didn't have to squint my eyes, or hold the test in a perfect way to be able to see that I was officially bearing a child.

I packed my stuff up and headed to the office (I work in an elementary school) to call Matt. When the receptionist saw me in tears she asked me if I was okay. She looked horrified. So I had to tell her. She was so happy for me :) I called Matt who, thankfully, was out of bed. With a shaking voice I told him that he was going to be a daddy.

He still wasn't showing a shadow of emotion.

Two o'clock came and I headed for home. I couldn't wait to show Matt my test. I couldn't wait to call and schedule my first visit with a doctor.

To make the rest of this story short, Matt came around after my first sonogram. It wasn't that he wasn't happy, I think he was more nervous than anything.

The rest is history :)

Cloth continued

In continuation to my routine, here is a list of my fluff & gear!

25 Newborn Bumgenius

25 Bumgenius 4.0 

10 Hemp Babies liners

I forget to mention that we store her dirty diapers in a wet bag. I recently bought a scent port from Bath & Body Works to put next to the wetbags to chase any smells may arise, though very rare. 

For more specifics on what brands I have and where to find them, check out this post.

Here are a couple videos with how I do things :)

A sweet goodbye.

 We said goodbye to 2012 last night and as happy as I am that we get to start all over in a new year, I'm sad 2012 is over. Yes, last year brought much heartache, but it also gave me the most precious gift ever.

Here's a look back:

January 1st we celebrated 2012
January 10 we found out we were pregnant!
January 18 had bleeding, thought I miscarried
January 20 baby's healthy :)

 February we decided to cloth diaper & started on the nursery

March 20th heard baby's heartbeat- 160 bpm furthers my suspicion of a baby girl

April I celebrated my 25th birthday

May 1st we found out that my suspicions were correct- We're having a baby GIRL!

July we went to the zoo & I was in & out of the hospital twice for kidney stones/renal colic (not fun).

August 18th Matt and I celebrated our 5th anniversary

September 6th Matt feel and broke his elbow
September 10 first surgery- 11 hours long!
September 21 I was full term, had my membranes stripped in hopes of inducing labor naturally
September 25 went for my ultrasound to check fluid level- it was low and I was induced
September 26 my beautiful Claire Marie was born

September 28 we came home from the hospital

October 9 Matt undergoes his second replacement surgery
October 31 Claire celebrated her first Halloween

November my great grandmother passed away
November Claire celebrated her first Thanksgiving

December I got Instragram (& am instantly addicted)
December 10 I went back to work :(
December 25 Claire's first Christmas
December 31 Claire's first New Years Eve

Happy New Years to you and your family. May it bring you so much happiness and good memories!

Things we are looking forward to:

Claire sitting up, learning to sign, saying her first word, crawling, & walking.
I'm also excited to feed her "big girl" foods and hopefully celebrating Notre Dame's win in the BCS Championship Game.
I can't wait to take her for long walks and teach her about everything I know.
I can't wait to watch her grow.

so smart!

Claire keeps me super busy, hence the reason my blog is suffering, not that I mind AT ALL! I just had to share this video with you all! She surprises me everyday with how much she is able to do... my heart is so full, I think it may explode!

Here she is, just 6 weeks old, talking up a storm with her momma!



and some photos too!

Lately.

I have been thinking a lot recently. Mostly about how much I love my daughter and my husband. But for some reason I've been having a lot of flash backs to my labor/delivery. If you have been around my blog for a few months (and read my posts) then you would know how much I desired a 100% natural labor/delivery. You would also know that I always said that our health was #1 when it came down to it.

Before I had Claire I read many, many horror stories about women who wanted a natural birth but the hospital/doctors weren't supportive and they ended up enduring every intervention under the sun. I didn't really have any doubts about my midwife or the hospital. I picked a midwife and that particular hospital for a reason. I did, however, have some doubt in my ability to actually get through labor without pain medication. I wanted to do it so badly and although I had doubts of my ability, I still wasn't afraid.

At my 40 week checkup(it was on Friday 21st) my midwife explained that she would let me go through the weekend and check my fluid levels the following Tuesday. She also told me that she doesn't like seeing her patients go over 41 weeks due to possible complications with the placenta. I DID NOT want to be induced so decided to have her strip my membranes. I hoped so deeply that it would give my body the jumpstart it needed to start labor. I went home and started trying everything possible to start/induce labor. I tried multiple breast stimulation sessions, accupressure, bumpy car rides, sex, eating spicy foods, and long walks. Earlier at my appointment, my midwife told me that I could try anything I wanted to but if my body wasn't ready, it wouldn't make a difference.

very grainy/crappy cell phone shot of me on Sunday 40 weeks & 2 days pregnant

 Apparently my body wasn't ready. I made it through the weekend and on Monday, I was even more pregnant than I was the Friday before. I was super disappointed but figured that I still had a day before my ultrasound to go into labor. Nope, that didn't happen. We got up Tuesday and loaded my hospital bags, just in case.

Fast forward 10 or so hours.

I remember my contractions speeding up and being directly on top of one another. They were long and the time in between seemed the be miniscule... like maybe 20 or so seconds. I was exhausted and I was having trouble breathing. My midwife got me to drink some apple juice. She said the sugar may help me gain some energy. That didn't help so I asked them to turn my ipod on. I had previously made 2 separate 'labor lists'- one upbeat, and the other relaxing/inspirational. The relaxing one was the list of choice during the last 3 hours of my labor/delivery.



This song is forever burned into my memory. I listen to it and cry. I remember the love in that delivery room. (I'm crying as I type this... like a baby) I even felt love from the nurses and my midwife. True love that floated through the air kept me going when I wanted to thrown in the towel. The positive and loving words that my mother-in-law and mother and husband and nurses shared consistently, relentlessly gave me just what I needed as I used everything in my body to push pain out of my mind and push my baby girl into this world. I can't put into words how loved I felt. I have a very loving family (both mine and Matt's) and nothing to date can touch on how amazing that night was.

Pachelbel Canon in D was the song I walked down the isle to meet my husband-to-be and now it's the song I listened to as I birthed our daughter. What a beautiful coincidence. That song will never be the same.

If you are thinking about a natural birth, please please please try it. I promise that you will be so happy you did it. I swear the worst part was the act of pushing. And I'm not even talking about the baby coming out. I'm talking about the stamina it takes to push a baby out. It is the hardest thing you will ever have to physically do. Contractions are a little rough but visualization is your best friend, along with breathing. I have never, ever, in my life been so focused on anything. Also, ask your ob/midwife about borage oil and evening primrose oil. I swear th helped me move quickly in terms of dilation/baby's position.

Okay, if you read all this you rock and here are some special prizes for your awesomeness!

one of the two photos i have of us together... thanks to photo booth