2 months of Sunshine!!

DISCLAIMER: I've never been a great proof-reader, and did not have time to proofread this post well... so just please excuse spelling and grammar issues, as well as sentence structure, etc etc etc!   :P

So this is a little late, but you should expect that by now! December 14th was 2 months since our Lennon love was born, and what a crazy, but great 2 months it has been!

 We got her tongue tie freed, so she has discovered her tongue and loves sticking it out! The procedure was quick, seemed relatively painless (she barely fussed), and she nursed better immediately! Before the procedure I wasn't sure how I felt about BFing, I liked it because I knew it was what was best for her, but I definitely did not love it! However, within a few days she had learned to latch correctly and it has pretty much been smooth sailing since. I now have a love/ hate relationship with BFing, some days... it's not fun, but most days I love nursing time, especially the snuggles afterwards, Lennon is such a snuggle bunny!! She is holding her head up and looking around at everything, she is just so curious! She loves staring at the TV if i'll let her, the computer screen, the colorful curtains in our room, and she likes looking out the window! She smiles so much now , she especially likes it when I make a "gasp!" noise, it makes her smile every time! And best of all she found her voice and loves to babble and coo, every morning after she eats, she gets super happy & we have our "talking time". It's great to see her smiling and happy, after weeks of a fussy baby!
She is growing slowly, but she's definitely growing! This past month she has finally starting growing into some of her 0-3mon clothes and she's nearly out of her newborn diapers!

We spent Thanksgiving at home, my parents, siblings, and grandpa came over, Lennon slept through most of it! That night she also had her very first trip ever to a hospital, but it was only to visit her future BFF Jacelyn when she was born! Oh! & we discovered that she loves music, especially 'One Love' by Bob Marley, if she's fussy and I put it playing, it usually does the trick. Eric is trying to get her to like country, but she's pretty much my clone so I don' think that's going to happen!

Despite being kind of clingy, our sweet sunshine is actually a good baby most days and she's sleeping really well. Most nights we go to bed about 2 am (we are both night owls) she sleeps until about 730, wakes up to eat, and then we both go back to sleep until 11 am or noon!  My milk imbalance has pretty much evened out so she's not quite as gassy, but she started showing some signs of silent reflux, which causes her to be gassy & fussy after eating. She did great at her 2 month check up. She seems so love Dr. Ardoin , which I do too! He said she was healthy, strong, and beautiful! He took my concerns about the signs of reflux that she has serious and agreed after listening to me and checking her out that she seems to have some silent reflux, but luckily is not rushing to put her on medications or rice cereal. He said the best thing is to keep her exclusively breastfeeding but to try to feed her in smaller amounts more frequently &  keep her sitting up a bit after eating, he said that she should out grow it.If she does not outgrow it or it starts causing issues with her growing and thriving then we will discuss other options! It's so great to have a doctor that is so supportive of breastfeeding and respectful of our other parenting decisions. Pediatricians like that are hard to find now days! He is totally worth the hour drive!

On my end of things, i'm doing much better now that we've gotten our breastfeeding issues taken care of and i'm actually getting some sleep!! I had my last appointment with my midwives as well this month and it was such a bittersweet visit. I had such awesome care through out my pregnancy, during my birth, and postpartum with them, I was sad that that chapter of our journey was officially done. However as amazing as that chapter was, I know this one will be even better because I am totally in love with this baby lately! Don't get me wrong, I've loved her from day 1, but those first 4-6 weeks are HARD. I wasn't eating, or sleeping well, and of course my hormones were all jacked up, which all made it hard to completely enjoy our new baby. But since finding our groove and figuring things out a bit more, I've just become completely consumed with love for this baby girl!!

Highlights from this month:

Rocking her turkey bow from her Tauntie!

 Lennon hanging out with her Partner-in-Crime, Jacelyn! It's crazy what a difference 6 weeks makes at this age, Lennon is so big compared to Jacelyn!

Naptime! <3

1st visit to Santa

Passed out after watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"

2 month check up w/ Dr. Ardoin

And her official 2 month pic went much better than last month, we actually got smiles!

Oh, this baby has stolen my heart y'all, but that about it for this month! I PROMISE i'm working on her birth story , maybe i'll be done by the time she's 3 months!!?

Month 1.

So I know this update is a little late, that seems to be my M.O. lately. So the first month of my Lennon Love's life seems to have flown by, I may have cried a little on her 1 month "birthday". Seriously, wasn't she just crowning like 5 mins ago.  Things were a little rough the first month, of course the we dealt with the typical newborn-ness & postpartum hormones (which no one warns you about) Thank goodness for placenta encapsulation! Seriously, I know it sounds gross and weird.. but it is UM.AZING! But we also dealt with excessive gassyness cause by a crazy oversupply, a tongue tie, the not so great latch caused by the tongue tie,sore boobs caused by the not so great latch and from being engorged, me leaking all over everything I own, & smelling of rancid breast milk. Oh, and the icing on the cake, Eric had to go work out of town, so I was complete alone, emotional, and hormonal. Now with all that said, I wouldn't trade it for the world. Because the bits of sunshine that come out from behind the postpartum clouds totally outweigh the exhaustion, frustration, etc.

I cannot believe how much Lennon has changed in just one month. She holds her own head up really well, she's become so alert and curious about things and she even smiled a real smile at me for the first time! She loves staring at the TV, computer screen, or where the window and wall meet. She has also taken a liking to her swing and bouncer, and has a particular fondness for a V-Tech lullaby bear that Eric's mom bought for her, it drives me up the wall, but she seems to like it, especially on car rides. Breastfeeding is going well on her end , like I said , her tongue tie makes her latch not-so-great but it definitely doesn't stop her from getting that milk!! She is also starting to outgrow her newborn prefold diapers and covers,which makes me incredibly sad. It's also a little inconvenient since she's still too small for the one-size diapers and we only have a dozen 'small' prefolds. But I'm sure we will make it work somehow.

I think that's about it, exciting stuff.. I know! ;)

Until next month (or when I get a chance to type up her birth story)....

Lennon's first 2 weeks earthside :)

So I promise I will get Lennon's birth story typed up soon , but since it's kind of a long story I'll have to wait until my sweet sunshine is in a milk coma so I can have enough time to type it up. :)

These past 2 weeks have flown by, and definitely had a bit of a rocky start. However, I think all of us are starting to get the hang of things. Monday night, after her birth, we didn't get much sleep despite being absolutely exhausted. Our midwives had told us to expect a 4-5 hour sleep from her this first night, and to enjoy it because it's the longest stretch of sleep she'll have for while. Well, that did not happen, she would not sleep unless being held. Luckily, Eric is amazing and took her for awhile between feedings so that I could get some sleep. It was like this for the first few days, but Becca let us know that it was normal, especially for babies that had long labors and difficult births to be "high maintenance" for awhile after birth. Then Tuesday evening, I noticed she had a twitch that to me did not look normal. her arm and eyes would twitch in rhythm , I dismissed it figuring I was just being paranoid, but later that night I noticed it again and started getting concerned. Rebecca was coming for a check up that morning, so I tried to relax. and not freak out until we talked to her about it. Well when we asked her about it, she had never seen it before, so we videoed it and emailed it to Becca, who then Skyped into the check-up. She went over a few things it could be the two most likely of which were "nothing/ normal newborn twitchyness" or low blood sugar. (or drug withdrawal,but that was ruled out quickly, lol) but , at the time we weren't noticing any other issues so we all dismissed it as 'nothing'. However, as the day progressed I realized that Lennon was not waking up to eat and despite my best efforts to wake her, she would only wake up for a few mins and barely eat. Knowing that something was wrong, I called Becca who suggested we see a pediatrician ASAP, just to get things checked out. She also told me to keep Lennon skin to skin all night to keep her stable and to wake her every two hours to eat. Which was a good plan in theory, but she would not wake up enough to eat!! Later that night our doula, Rachel, came by to see if she could help. She showed me how to hand express milk,to try to get Lennon interested in nursing, but no luck. We worked with her for a few hours with no luck and began to notice that the twitch was getting much worse. At this point Rachel expressed that she was a little concerned,and really thought that we needed to get SOMETHING in Lennon's stomach. After some discussion we decided to break open a sample can of formula that I was given and see if we could get her to eat something. We got her to eat a tiny bit, maybe 1/4 of an oz an that did the trick. She was still really sleepy for the rest if the night and into the next morning but she would actually eat some when I would wake her up to eat and by the afternoon she was waking up , on her own, about every 2 hours to eat.

Even though she started eating well,we still brought her to see the pediatrician  on Friday . She was down from 7lb8oz at birth to 6lb 15oz, which is in the normal range but the pedi still wanted to keep an eye on it. but everything checked out fine and she is a healthy baby! Ever since that Wednesday  nursing has been going pretty good! She doesn't have the best latch because of her tongue tie but she has figured out how to work around it, so to speak, and nurses like a champ!! We are looking into getting the tongue tie fixed soon though, mainly so we don't have to worry about it causing issues with speech down the road, but also to make nursing a little easier for her and less painful for me.

In other "crunchy mama" news, so far cloth diapers are working out for us. Right now we're only  using prefolds and covers because her legs are so skinny, nothing else fits her. Seeing how many
diapers she goes through each day, im so glad we are not just throwing that money in the trash!!
We've even made the switch to cloth wipes, the disposables irritated her and it was a pain to have to find a place to throw them away. Even Eric is liking the cloth diapers, he's getting the hang of changing them and does the diaper laundry for me everyday. He is still getting the hang of changing the diapers though. ;)

Nothing too interesting happened in week 2, This past Sunday brought her to church for the first time, i was so nervous about her crying through the service, but i kept her happy and cozy in the sling and she didn't make a peep!! We had checkups with the midwife and pediatrician. Both of us are doing great! Lennon is back up to her birth weigh, plus some. She weighed 7lb 9.5oz at her check-up, which means she put on roughly 10oz in 10 days!!Needless to say, this girl knows how to eat!! And in exciting, but unimportant news.. I'm back down to my pre-pregnancy weight!! The only other note worthy thing that happened this week would be that for 3 nights in a row she had a 4-4.5 hr stretch of sleep at night, so I got some sleep!! Other than that, we really just spent the week trying to figure things out and get into a "flow".

Week 1:

Weight at birth: 7lbs 8oz Length:21in

Weight at 4 day check up: 6lb  15.5oz

Likes:   *freaking out mommy & the midwives

            *snuggles with mommy or daddy

            *mommy milk

             *her hands by her face

Dislikes:  *being swaddled

              * having her hands covered

              *being put down

               *her feet being touched

               *cold wipes

Week 2:

Weight: 7lb 9.5oz Length: 21.5in

Likes: *eating.. all the time!!

         *snuggling on mommy's boob

          *car rides (sometimes)

           *being carried in the sling

Dislikes: *her co-sleeper

             *playing 'pass-the-baby'

             * having her clothes and diaper changed

Welp, that about covers it & my sunshine is starting to wake up.. which means it's going to be time to feed her.

Weeks 37-40.

Sorry for the lack of updating, I got so busy with birth sessions and getting ready for Lennon's arrival so blogging was the furthest thing from my mind. & Even though Lennon has arrived, I still want to document the last few weeks of my pregnancy so I don't forget a single detail of it.

The last few weeks of pregnancy went by so slowly.  When I was checked at my 37 week appointment.I was 2cm dilated and 25-30% effaced.I was hoping that meant Lennon would make her arrival soon, but week 38 came and no baby yet. Our home visit at week 38 and our 39 week check up went great. Lennon was growing right on schedule and everything with me was checking out perfectly. Then a few days before my due date, I was feeling a little "off" and panic-y so I took my blood pressure and was surprise when I got I high reading, I took it easy for the rest of the day and the next day I felt perfectly fine. However on Monday I started feeling  off again and was getting high blood pressure readings, so I called my midwife and after a few hours of my BP not coming down she wanted me to come out to see her that night, instead of waiting until my appointment the next day. I was so scared to go see her because I knew that depending on what the issue was we could have to transfer care, which has been one of my big fears through out the pregnancy. Once Eric got home from work we headed out to Lake Charles to see Becca, our doula ,Rachel, also came with us because Becca had mentioned that we  could possibly be discussing some induction methods, or transferring care and I wanted Rachel there to help us weigh the pros and cons of any decision we would have to make. Once we saw Becca, I felt a lot better, my blood pressure was elevated but  not high enough for her to have to transfer my care!  However she did put me on bed rest and started seeing me for check-ups every other day to keep an eye one things. That night she also checked me, and I was at 4cm and  swept my membranes to see if that would send me into labor (which it didn't)So for the next week I took it easy, and stayed in bed with the exception of bathing, using the bathroom, and going to see Becca. Oh and getting 2 awesome massages to help encourage labor. She watched me closely for signs of pre-eclampsia , but was certain that was not what we were dealing with since I was showing no other symptoms. No swelling, no protein in my urine, no vision changes, and my BP stayed in check as long as stayed in bed. So we continued to plan for a home birth, though I did type a  detailed hospital birth plan, just in case. Becca did try to sweep my membranes a few more times, with out success because Lennon was  too high in the pelvis, well except on time when Becca almost had it and then touched the top of Lennon's head and she shot back up!!  At my appointment on Saturday, the 12th we discussed ways of getting Lennon to engage in my pelvis, because Becca said that with me at a 4 as soon as Lennon engaged , labor should start. She suggested swimming, since it was a way of being upright and moving around with out raising my blood pressure. So after we got back in town from the check-up I went to my cousins house to go swimming. Later that night I started having some mild contractions but decided to take some benadryl and go to bed. I was sleeping well until 4am.... ad that is where this story will stop so Lennon's birth story can begin! ;)

How far along? 37-40
How big is baby? the size of a watermelon!! our guess was about 8lbs
How I'm feeling? anxious, nervous, scared about our birth plan changing
Weight Gain? At my last weigh in a few days before I had her I had gained a total of 22lbs.
Symptoms: Aches and pains from being on bed rest for my  high BP.

 Highlights from the past few weeks: Our frequent checkups with Becca really helped me to relax and be less nervous about Lennon's upcoming arrival. I swear she always knows what to say to make me feel better.

36 WEEKS

We just had our  first weekly check-up!! Lennon and I are both doing great! She has decided to stay head down, and though she does move around quite a bit she'll likely stay head down at this point! Speaking of moving she was being quite a little stinker (again) while Becca was trying to check her heart tones.. she seriously moved from one side of the uterus to the other to try to get away from the doppler! In other news Becca told me that she is likely not going to be a huge baby!! Which considering Eric's size at birth is very reassuring!! We are almost ready , just have a few things left to do!!

How far along? 36weeks
How big is baby? the size of a watermelon!! (my midwife estimated that she's a not even quite 6 lbs yet)
How I'm feeling? anxious
Weight Gain? about 18lbs total.
 How I'm changing? my face is very pregnant (puffy) these days!
Symptoms: aches and pains mostly 

 Highlights from the past few weeks: Lennon being "bad" and running away from Becca while she was trying to check heart tones! ;) that's my child!! 

34 weeks.

We're getting close, extremely close but I still have 6-8 weeks left and I feel like they are going to pass very slowly. Things are starting to come together!!

For starters the nursery is finally (almost) done!! It feels like took forever. We have a few finishing touches left like the crib set and curtains for that will be the closet doors! I'm in love with the room, in fact I might be a little jealous! lol So here's what it looked like before...white, all solid white. Boring, to say the least!                                                                                                                                         

But thanks to some hard work, mostly by Eric and my sister Tessa...it is looking much much better now. I can't wait to put the finishing touches on and post the final results. in the mean time , here's how it looks!

Also this past week we ordered our birth kit (a little late) and a friend let us use borrow her birth pool, we just have to gather a few more supplies and hope that Lennon doesn't want to make her arrival before 37 weeks and we are ready for a home birth!! :) We started out birth classes on Monday and Me and Lennon had an appointment with our midwives on Tuesday. Everything is looking good, I'm still having to keep an eye on my blood sugar but it's been good for the most part, as long as I eat every few hours. Which isn't hard to do, growing a baby makes you hungry.. but I have been having to wake up at night and eat, or else my blood sugar spikes pretty high after I eat breakfast. That's kind of a pain, but totally worth it to insure that both Lennon and I stay healthy. As always, my blood pressure was fantastic, Lennon's heart rate was a strong 160 bpm and she's head down! She also hit quite a growth spurt in the 2 weeks since my last check-up my uterus went from measuring at 31cm (at the last 2 appts) to 35 at this appt, and Becca mentioned while feeling for her position that she had grown quite a bit! I am a little anxious to see how big she is going to be, i've been expecting a big baby this whole pregnancy, and while that is a bit of a fear... i'm starting to think she is going to be average size! We'll see in a few months. 

How far along? 34 weeks (and 4 days)
How big is baby? the size us a butternut squash! :P
How I'm feeling? Pretty good, with the exception of a  few aches and pains. I did have a few days of being "over" being pregnant, but that passed, for now.
Weight Gain? I'm up to about 16lbs total.
 How I'm changing? As on friend I ran into at the store said, I look like i'm ready to pop!!
Symptoms: normal aches and pains. 

 Highlights from the past few weeks: Getting a lot of stuff checked off of my 'to-do/get' list.

and now for the bump pic.. excuse the yoga pants and funny face I was making... it was one of those rough days!! 

    

















Well that's it for now, I have another check-up in 2 weeks and then it's on to weekly check-ups!! EEKKKK!

33 weeks!

So I started this update last week and never got around to finishing it. So we're now on week 33!! YIKES! Time is FLYING Y'ALL! Well it's been a busy, & stressful few weeks. For starters, on Aug 2nd I got call from my mom at 5am letting me know my grandmother was being transported to the hospital, to make a long and emotional story short, she passed away shortly before midnight that same day. It was sudden and completely unexpected and I don't think it has really completely set in yet that she's gone. Probably one of the hardest parts of losing my Mimi, is knowing that she passed before getting to meet Lennon, whenever I shared the news with her, she nearly jumped up out of her chair with excitement! I wish she could have hung around a little longer so that Lennon could have know her, but I guess that's not what the universe had planned. With that said, I should also mention that Lennon got a SLIGHT name change. Despite the fact that Eric HATES the idea of 2 middle names, he knew it was not a battle worth fighting when I brought up giving Lennon a second middle name. So our little 'Sunshine' is going to be named Dena Lennon Ann Vidrine. Ann being my grandmother's middle name, as well as mine. I probably just asking for trouble naming her after several very stubborn,  hardheaded women (my mom & great-grandmother (Dena) and my Mimi (Ann) ) but let's face it, she comes from a long line of hard headed women, she had no chance to begin with! :)

On a happier note last week was one of our baby showers. It was a pretty non-traditional shower , just a get together with friend and family to celebrate Lennon's upcoming arrival. We got a lot of stuff and had a great time! I will say we have some pretty awesome friends and family and Lennon is one lucky little girl to be so loved (and spoiled) already! There's a few pics from the shower, you would think that with 3 photographers there that there would be more, but we have this issue with not taking pics of out own events!! lol

My husband sliding with our niece, he's really a kid at heart!!

 our yummy yummy cakes and cupcakes (seriously, I did not even care about my blood sugar that day!!)

oh and of course, us! :)

(should have taken a pic as soon as we got there before the humidity messed up my hair! , oh well)

Despite being exhausted, the morning after the shower I woke up at 5am and started organizing and washing things like a mad woman. Eric was put to work painting the nursery at 8am when he woke up and now thanks to him and my sister Tessa. the nursery is done! Well, done being painted. We are still waiting on the crib and changing table, we found a glider at a garage sale for $25 which we need to refinish to match the nursery and then put a few finishing touches on every thing! I'll post some pics when it's all done!!

We had a check-up with Becca on Thursday, nothing really new to update though. Lennon's heart rate was 150bpm and she is once again head down (yay for a non-breech baby!!)I was a little worried because when we attempted to do a 3D ultrasound, she was not head down, but I guess she decided to flip back around!

STATS TIME!! 

How far along? 33weeks
How big is baby? The size of a pineapple-ish
How I'm feeling? Bloated and  excited!
Weight Gain? I actually, surprisingly, lost a lb between check-ups. :/ So 12lbs up from the beginning of my pregnancy.
 How I'm changing? Getting “pregnant face” lol
Symptoms: some back pain, thank God for chiropractors.

 Highlights from the past few weeks: Getting an ultrasound ,  though we didn't get any good 3D images like we hoped, we still got to see our sweet girl!

and the bump last week, I wasnt presentable enough today to take a new pic!