Sad momma

I am one sad momma tonight. I work in a clinic and the flu has been spreading like wild fire, so I knew it would be just a matter of time before I got it if I was going to...but serously, did it have to be today on Christams Eve?!

I went in to work this morning and got swabbed and sure enough I was positive for the flu. I've been feeling fine and the only reason I wanted to be examined was because I thought I had a sinus infection. Nope, the flu. I got sent home and was told to not to hold my sweet girl or get to close to her to avoid giving her the flu. She was in the clinic this morning as well for a goopy eye so we went ahead and swabbed her for the flu while she was there, negative thank goodness! 

We had Christmas at my house tonight and it was so hard not holding E and helping her open presents and tomorrow we are suppose to have Christmas with my husbands family but E and I will be missing out on that. This sucks, her first Christmas and I can't even hold her or help her open gifts. I'm probably rambling on but I'm pretty upset about ruining E's first Christmas :(

I also wore a mask tonight to avoid getting anyone else sick, thank goodness my sweet niece didn't want me to be the only one wearing a silly mask so she wore one too! Love her! :)

I'm going to make the best out of this holiday and enjoy my sweet girl no matter what! 

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas! 

I love the holidays

It's been a crazy few weeks between Thanksgiving dinners and trying to Christmas shop! 

We had a good Thanksgiving but my little family was pretty tired after our busy day! We spent that morning at Z parent's house. We listened to Christmas music and finished up cooking the last of the sides for our lunch. The kids played and the guys watched football, which isn't a good idea when your baby is in the next room sleeping! After lunch at my in laws we made our way to my dad's house to visit with them. They had just finished eating and everyone was lounging around watching the football game. E is the center of attention of course and has everyone fighting over who is going to hold her! Sh speak mind one but, she knows she's spoiled :) 

E had this adorable turkey shirt on that her Aunt Christina had made for her and she absolutely loved it. She tried to eat the ribbon the entire time, it was like our own Taggies outfit. 

Unfortunately I had to work Black Friday so I didn't get to go shopping but that's ok I made up for it by online shopping ;) 

My family is so ready for Christmas this year we had our tree up before Thanksgiving! I think Christmas is going to be sooo much fun this year because it's E's first Christmas and our first Christmas in our home! It's finally starting to feel like December to but the weather here lately has been pretty crazy. One day it was almost 80 degrees and the next it was below freezing, crazy Texas weather! 

I hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving and I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas just in case I don't blog again until after Christmas! 

Cara Box Reveal!

Ok so this was my first time doing the Cara Box exchange and I loved it! I had a great time getting to know both of the girls. If you don't know what the Cara Box exchange is go check it out, it's a great way to meet and make friends from around the world and send them some things based off of what they like but sticking to a theme, The theme this time was Fall, my favorite time of the year! What you do is get linked up with two ladies, you get to know them both for about a month and you send a box to one the ladies and the other one sends to you.

I got paired up with two lovely ladies Stephanie and Ami. Both of these girls were so sweet and I enjoyed getting to know them both. The more we talked the more we had in common, football lovers, coffee drinkers, hoodie and boot lovers, and most of all we adore our kids. :)

I received my box from Stephanie and it was kind of short notice but it all worked out. She was super sweet and sent me and E both some things. :)

 

I got so excited about my coffee mug I forgot to put it with the rest of the box to take a picture of it lol. I love everything I got and I know E does too!

 

I definitely enjoyed doing this and I can't wait to do it again! :)

Busy girl

Sorry it's been a while since I've blogged.

We've been busy since the last post, or I should say E has been busy. She's rolled over a few times from her belly to her back! She was so funny when she did this, she was doing tummy time then turned onto her side, she was trying so hard to roll over she started getting mad and crying, when she finally did roll over she was shocked I think because she looked at us like "what just happened?" I was so excited and we even got it on video! E is officially signed up for preschool! I know this may sound silly but there are very few preschools in our town so the waiting list is long. I know people who registered their kids before they were even born! I had mixed emotions about this, I was happy thinking about the future but sad thinking about her being that old and how fast time is going.
She has also started grabbing at things and trying to eat everything in sight!

E turned four month old on the 8th and we went to her four month well child check and she took her shots like a champ! She cried for a few seconds and then just kind of whimpered and made "ow" sounds lol. She is growing so fast she now weighs 13.03  pounds and is 23.5 inches long. She's growing perfectly! :)

We gave E cereal for the first time last night and she wasn't real sure on what to think about it. She would push it out and make a face then smile, I think it's growing on her because she seemed to enjoy it tonight. in a couple of weeks I'm going to add bananas and see how that goes!

Introducing formula

The sad day has come. I've started feeding E formula. :( 

 Since I've been back to work my supply dropped drastically. Even with two 15 minute breaks my supply decreased. I guess it's my fault because there would be days I was just so busy at work I would forget to pump. I hate that I didn't make it to my 6 month goal but I'm glad I was able to provide her with breast milk for almost 4 months. On Saturday I started the transition from breast milk to formula. E doesn't seem to mind, it bothers me more than it does her. I'm not saying anything bad about formula feeding your baby, it just wasn't my choice and I'm glad I at least was able to breast feed while it lasted. 

Pumpkin patch fun!

It's officially fall y'all, and I'm so excited! This is my favorite time if year :) 

This is a late post by the way. Last Saturday we went to the Sweet Berry Farms pumpkin patch and it was such a neat place. When we got there it started to rain and it got really hot and humid! I made E a cute orange tutu to match her pumpkin shirt but we didn't leave it on her for long because it was just to hot. We were all soaking wet from sweat. We got some really cute pictures and got to pick out 3 nice pumpkins for our family of 3! :) I think we may wait until E is a little bigger before we take her back but we had a good time anyways! 

Baby girl is getting big

We had a busy weekend this weekend. Our friends from out of town came to visit  and to meet E for the first time, we had a great time catching up and laughing!  

Today I did my first full day back at work. It was hard but I came home for lunch and saw my sweet girl so I managed to make it through the rest of the day. Today was also Daddy's first day to keep E all day by himself. I think he did pretty good! ;) Z is a fireman and works 24/48 and keeps E on his two days off. I think he's pretty lucky to have those two special days with her for daddy/daughter bonding. 

We went to my in laws tonight for supper and I set E down in the bumbo for the first time tonight and she did so good! She looked like such a big girl, I can't believe how big she is getting. 

2 month old well child check...

Today we took E to her 2 month well child check. She is growing perfectly! she is 21.5 inches long and 10 pounds even, our baby girl is growing, growing, growing!! She had to get vaccinations today and after talking with the pediatrician, we decided to go ahead and give E all vaccines at one time instead of spreading them out like we originally thought about doing. I feel confident in my decision and feel like this was what's best for her. 

Now when she got her shots, she cried and turned bright red...mommy cried and probably turned red too! It's so hard watching your child get stuck and be in pain even when you know it's for their own good! Now after seeing that and how hard I took it, I'm not even sure I coulf have been able to handle her getting shots every month. 

My baby girl is getting so big! 

Going back to work

I successfully survived my first week back at work! Even though I'm only working half a day for a few weeks, it was still extremely hard leaving my baby girl in the mornings and being away from her for 4 hours. When I would get home and look at her, I felt as if she changed in just a matter of hours. I hate the thought of being away from her and missing some of her firsts, but we are lucky enough to have my grandma watch her!  As much as I would like to be a stay at home mom, it's just not an option...unless we win the lotto! ;) 

Crying over spilled milk...

Milk supply hasn't been my problem with breastfeeding, in fact my freezer is so full we can barely fit food in it! The problem we have had is latching. E will latch and feed for a few minutes and then pull away, when she does milk just gushes out of her mouth soaking us both. It's so frustrating so we have found that it is easier for me to just pump and give her a bottle of breast milk. 

On Monday I pumped for about 20 minutes and had four 4 oz bottles full of milk. I reached over to turn the pump off and knocked over one of my bottles. All I could do was watch 4 oz of milk fall to the floor. I wanted to cry, supply isn't a problem but still that stuff is liquid gold!!!! Z tried to make me feel better and even cleaned up my mess, but I was still upset about it. I made a mental note not to put my bottles in front of the pump next time.  

I guess wasting milk has become something I'm going to keep doing because I somehow managed to knock over a bottle yesterday and today. To top it off, after I knocked over my bottle this morning I stepped on a dirty diaper Z put on the floor while he was changing E's diaper! Gross! I wanted to cry! 

So yes, I will cry over spilled milk and I totally agree with this ecard! 

On a better note, today we took E to church for the first time since she was born. :) 

I hope you all have a safe Labor Day!

Spreading out vaccinations?

I took E to the doctor today, she has allergies. I'm hoping she will grow out of them! She also has thrush on her tongue, it's not bad enough to effect her eating but we were given medication to help clear it up. Anyways, while we were there I asked the doctor (who happens to be a friend) her thoughts on vaccinations. I know I am without a doubt going to vaccinate E, but I have been thinking about maybe spacing out her vaccines so she's not getting so many at one time. I worry that if she gets all 6 vaccines at one time and she has a reaction that we won't be able to narrow down which one caused it. Now I know there aren't usually any reactions to them except the common fever and redness at the site but I really don't want to take any chances. If we do decide to spread them out that means she will most likely be getting shots every month until she is 6 months old.  After talking to her I feel better about possibly spreading them out, but I'm still not 100% sure if that's what we will do. 

From the beginning...

So as you can tell I am new to this whole blogging world but I look forward to learning as I go. Since I'm going to mostly blog about being a new mommy it only makes sense for me to start off talking about how we found out, my pregnancy and delivery.

We had two sudden deaths in our family cardiac related three months apart, my uncle and then my grandpa. After my uncle had passed away is when Z and I moved home and started looking at houses, we finally found one we both liked and saw potential in so we decided to make an offer. The week before we closed on our house my grandpa passed away, we actually closed the day before his funeral. After having the two of the closest men in my life pass away so suddenly I decided I needed to make sure my heart was ok so my sister and I decided to get checked out. Of course she was fine but I got referred to a cardiologist for further tests due to a murmur. After seeing the cardiologist he wanted me to wear a 24 hour holter monitor, get an echocardiogram done as well as a bubble study, then go back to discuss the results. So as you can see I had a lot of other things on my mind and I hadn't really been keeping track of my periods so I didn't even realize I had missed one. After getting my results it was thought that I may have a pulmonary AVM (this is scary when being pregnant due to all of the extra blood your body produces) so he wanted to do a procedure that required me to be sedated. At this time I had only taken home pregnancy tests (all three were positive!) so I told him I was not comfortable doing this at that time until I was 100% sure I was pregnant or not. A week or so later I had an appointment to confirm my pregnancy, we were for sure expecting! I was only about 5 and a half weeks at this time. While we were waiting to confirm the pregnancy we got a scary call from my cardiologist. He wanted to see us in his office the next day to discuss his concerns. He told us he reviewed all of my tests and got second opinions and he was almost positive he thought I had the AVM. He recommended that I get a CT scan when the baby's organs were fully developed around 16 to 18 weeks to see how big it was and to decide treatment plans on whether or not it needed to be coiled. He also told me the scary news that if I did have a pulmonary AVM, I had an increased chance of hemorrhaging and possibly death. Not what I wanted to hear! I was so scared, I just cried. My mother died when I was 8 so not having kids or having them and not being able to see them grow up has always been my greatest fear, and this really made it worse!

Fast forward to 16 weeks, we had our anatomy scan and found out we were having a girl! We were scheduled for our scan a little early so they weren't sure if we would find out that day or not. I'm so glad we did though because we had a gender reveal party planned!

 

A couple weeks later I had my CT scan, Z and I were both really scared but neither one of us let the other one know. It did make us feel better knowing the head of the radiology department was the one in the room looking at my scans. We did end up having to use IV contrast which we were trying to avoid for Ellie's sake but everything worked out and we got the best news ever... I did not have the AVM!!! So my cardiologist didn't see a reason to continue tests until after I had E.

 

The rest of my pregnancy went really well. I was originally due August 6 (my anniversary) but I kept telling everyone I was going to have a July baby. I work in a busy clinic and my doctor was going on vacation so I would be working with a doctor that was a lot busier than I was use too. I was teasing them both and told them I was going to go into early labor and not be there when my doctor returned. Well that's exactly what happened. On July 8 at 4:27am I woke up and thought I had wet the bed! Embarrassing, I know! I got up and cleaned my self off and went back into the bedroom, I was trying to be quiet because Z was asleep and had to get up in a few hours for work. He woke up as I was changing and I told him what happened, we were laying in bed and he had me convinced I just wet my self and my water didn't break because it was too soon. That's when I felt a gush and told Z I'm pretty sure my water was broken. I got up and cleaned up but it continued to happen so I called my best friend (we will call her CW) who works in L&D and just so happened to be working that night. She said I needed to come in, so I got up and took my time, fixed my hair and makeup and finished packing our  hospital bags. We really weren't prepared, we didn't even have the car seat base in the car yet! I was so confused and kind of shocked, I wasn't in any pain and wasn't having any contractions. With this being my first I really had no idea what to expect. Z and I were actually suppose to start our birthing classes that evening and I was scheduled to take  breastfeeding class that Thursday, well we got the crash course of it all! Anyways, we left our house around 5:20am and Z was out of dip, so he asked me if it would make him a terrible husband if we stopped while I was in labor! Like I said, I wasn't in any pain at this point so I said to go ahead and stop. I knew he would need it to calm his nerves and I knew I definitely didn't  want a cranky husband hanging around!  On the way over I started having small contractions every 4-6 minutes. It was about a 40 minute drive to the hospital so I had plenty of time to think. I started to worry about a lot of things with her being so early (4 weeks and 1 day) I worried about her lung development, I worried she would have to go to a NICU, I worried about the delivery. Thinking about all of this had me so scared, but I had to be strong and fight back the tears and just know it would be ok. I prayed everything would go smoothly and be ok, I honestly don't think I have ever prayed that much in my life. When we got there, we got registered and got checked into triage. I had to change into a gown and give a urine sample while they set everything up. Well when I was attempting to give a urine sample (attempting is the keyword) I dropped the cup in the toilet, I was so mad! I called CW in the room and told her what had happened and she just laughed and told me not to worry about it! I was a little embarrassed! Anyways, they checked me and I was 4cm, 80% effaced and in a 0 station. We were shocked and excited, i think Z was a little nervous because the first thing he said was "so does that mean we are having a baby, like today" I couldn't help but laugh! It was around 6:30am when we moved to a room and started calling our families. All of Z's family was out of town. His grandparents were out of state and his parents and siblings were at a resort 3 hours away for the weekend and weren't planning on coming home until Tuesday. We actually had considered going with them on this trip, good thing we changed our minds!! When we called we woke them up so they were kind of out of it. Z's dad answered and we told them i was in labor, he just said "ok" and that was it. A few minutes later his mom called and asked what was going on because his dad was so out of it, he just said Kayla's in labor and nothing else. His mom said they needed to wake up and gather their thoughts and she would call back. They made me laugh! Needless to say they got up and made it in time for E's arrival. My contractions got stronger and I got my epidural at 10:14am and I was at 6cm and 100% effaced. My labor progressed smoothly and I started having strong contractions again around 12ish so I pushed my epidural button. I got checked about 30 minutes later and was at a 9+ but I needed to labor down because I wasn't able to push strong enough. Around 1:20pm I was checked again and ready to push, I pushed for 43 minutes and was blessed with my precious baby girl at 2:08pm. 6 pounds 4 ounces 19.5 inches long! We were in the hospital for 2 long days and were glad to be going home.

 

I look back at my pregnancy and feel thankful everything turned out the way it did. Things didn't go as planned but that's ok, I was told several times not to make a plan because it wouldn't happen the way we wanted it too, they were right.