And today she is 12 weeks old! I can hardly believe it!

This picture she was still unsure about the whole thing.

And this picture she likes it just a tad bit more.

Hopefully we can go swimming again real soon and maybe even stay in the water for more than 5 minutes!

My first day back was the June 17th, which was a Thursday.  That whole week I was mentally prepared to go back to work. I really thought I was ready for it.  But then Shelly had her baby on Wednesday the 16th and I was at the hospital all day and when it came to about 10:00pm and I knew I should leave because I had to work the next day, I about lost it.  Since I was at the hospital all day on Wednesday, Josh came up after he got off work and then we drove home separately later that night.  The whole ride home from the hospital I cried.  When I got home he asked me what was wrong and I just said “nothing”.  He knew better.  He asked me, “is it because you have to go to work tomorrow” and then I lost it again. I told him that it wasn’t his fault and I knew I had to go back but I just needed to cry it out and have a pity party for myself and I would be fine.  And I was.  The next day was really hard.  Not only was I exhausted from being at the hospital all day the day before, but it was rainy and gloomy and I already didn’t want to go so all these things just made it that much harder.  When I got to work, it really started to rain and of course, I didn’t bring an umbrella or my rain boots so I was starting this day in a bad mood.  Then when I got in to work, no one was here.  The last couple weeks into my maternity leave, they moved positions around and the temp that took my place during leave was hired on full time and was going to remain the secretary and my job duties would change.  I know this is illegal, but it worked out to my benefit so I was excited about it.  But when I got to work, I didn’t know what I was going to be doing, where I was going to be sitting, if my stuff got changed around…nothing. I knew nothing and no one was here to help me out.  It wasn’t until 45 minutes later that people started to trickle in and instead of saying “welcome back” their response was “I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow?”  Really people?! How many times do I have to get through to your thick skulls! Ugh, so that set me over the edge for the day. Once the sun came out and I went to lunch with my girlies, the day got better, but it was a rough start.  The next day was Friday and was a much better day and every day since then has been ok.  I haven’t had any qualms about leaving Liv with Josh’s mom or grandma and I know she’s in good hands so I don’t have to be worried about childcare. I lucked out there

Here are the things I miss about maternity leave:

1.  Getting up in the middle of the night to feed Liv and then getting to nap with her the rest of the day until she is finally up for the day about 11:00.

2. Staying up late even after she goes to sleep and getting stuff done around the house and then finally going to sleep with Josh.  We used to always go to bed at different times, but during leave, we went to bed at the same time and it was really nice!

3.  Watching TV when I felt like it

4. People coming over to keep me company

5. Going to lunch or going shopping during the day. 

6.  Not having to deal with traffic

7. Not having to report to ANYONE and to not deal with office drama

8. Taking 8 million pictures of Olivia throughout the day

9. Playing with Liv all day

10. A clean and functional house.  Since I started back at work, I no longer have these things!

And here are the things I like about working:

1. Being able to take a shower EVERYDAY!

2. Having “me” time in the car on the ride to and from work

3. Talking to adults

4. Eating warm lunches

5. Changing Liv or feeding her in the morning when she’s all smiles.  She’s the happiest in the morning and it starts off my day on the right foot.  Also, when I  pick her up in the evenings, the second she sees me and I talk to her, she gets the biggest grin on her face and it just melts my heart, and then I realize that I work to provide for our little family and she is in good hands during the day and I know that I’m doing the right thing.

I can hardly believe that 8 weeks has gone by already.  They say that they grow up so fast and you really don’t believe it until you have a child yourself!

Things Olivia is doing at 8 weeks:

-Rubbing her eyes when she’s tired

-spitting out her bink and sucking on her hand (usually it’s the whole hand, occasionally she’ll find her thumb)

- looking at EVERYTHING.  Her favorite place is over your shoulder so she can hold her head up and just look around.  When she’s at MawMaw and PawPaw’s, she loves watching TV (their TV is wall mounted so it’s the perfect height for her to watch)

-Being completely spoiled in the sleep department.  She can be COMPLETELY knocked out when you hold her, but as soon as you lay her down in her crib, her eyes pop open and she lets you know that she knows she’s not being held anymore! Sometimes when I rock her to sleep, she will open her eyes to see if she’s still being held and then go back to sleep.  Let me just tell you…she’s spoiled!

-Last night for the first time EVER, we started a bath time routined and it seemed to work.  She ate, got a bath, put on jammies, I read her a book (The Olivia book of course!), I rocked her and then she went to sleep. It was ahhhhmazing.  I’m hoping this bath time/ bed time routine sticks around for a long time because it was actually fun!

-She’s still a bit fussy, but it seems to be getting better all the time.  I kind of think that she just doesn’t know what to do with herself when she’s awake and making noises.  So when she makes noises, she just thinks that she needs to be mad.  Hopefully this will change soon.  I changed from the Dr. Brown’s bottles to Avent bottles yesterday so I’m hoping that this starts to help with the gas problem…if not, I will be changing formulas AGAIN.  One day we will have a happy baby…I’m determined!

-Liv ate cereal out of a spoon for the first time this Memorial Day weekend. She didn’t mind it too bad other than the fact that it was too dang slow for her, lol.  When she’s hungry, she wants to EAT!! We did capture it on video, but I was too concerned with her eye than being recorded on video.  Right before we tried to feed her cereal, she jabbed herself in the eye and for the first time, I saw her eye water and it freaked me out.  I think I was border line tears!! She wouldn’t open her eye and when she finally did, it was soaked with tears. Now that’s enough to make this momma want to cry! Luckily, her eyeball is just fine and I might have overexaggerated just a bit

-She is still taking cereal out of her bedtime bottle and that seems to be working like a charm.  Her bedtime bottle is anywhere from 10-11:00 and then she will usually sleep until 6 or 7:00.  Then she will wake up and eat again and go back to bed from about 7-10.  Let me just tell you…it is bliss! I will definitely miss my 7-10:00 naps when I go back to work!

Speaking of that dreaded 4 letter word (work…ugh), I have 2 weeks left. Next week is really my last whole week because the week I go back I have a TON of stuff to do (1o wk check-up, Diesel’s vet appt, dentist appointment, massage, pedicures, father’s day, Shell’s b-day plus she is having her baby on th 16th so my mom will be in town, Josh’s family is in town for vacation, and I have to go back on the 17th…I will certainly need a vacation after that week!)

  I really can’t believe that 8 weeks have gone by and that I only have 2 weeks left to stay home.  I feel bad for saying this, but I think I’m mentally ready for work. I think that if I had a happy go lucky baby that I might be dreading going to work, but to be honest with you, dealing with a colicky baby all day is hard.  I am ready to be able to get out of the house for hours everyday and have some ME time along with it.  Don’t get me wrong, I will be thinking about her non-stop when I do go back and probably go back to wanting to stay home with her forever, but right now I am ready for work. I will miss my daytime naps, going wherever I want…whenever I want (well, at least on Liv’s schedule), staying up late, not having a care in the world other than taking care of my baby and watching Liv learn new things everyday, but it’s something I have to do. Luckily for us, Josh’s grandma will be watching Olivia at OUR house (how lucky is that?!) and Josh’s mom doesn’t have to go back to work until August (she works at an elementary school) so I have no concerns at all on who is watching my little girl.

Well that’s about all the updates I have for now.  My posts will become more consistent in about 2 weeks when I go back to work and actually have TIME to post tidbits of my life! So for now, that’s all I got!

Little miss is 6 weeks old now! 6 weeks!! She now weighs 10lbs 11oz and is 22 1/2 inches long.  She’s still pretty colicky so the doc put her on baby Zantac and gas drops and it seems to be helping a lot. Now instead of a constant 2-3 hour crying spell, she cries for about an hour on and off again (never for a solid hour anymore) so that is much easier to handle!

This week she started to smile and I’ve been trying to get it on camera and just never have…until yesterday.  Look at this cute gummy grin!

I have 4 weeks left of maternity leave and am soaking up every minute. It’s pretty awesome being able to take naps when she naps and to get out of the house whenever Liv allows me too!  We’ve had SEVERAL lunch dates and it’s been awesome. 

Here’s a some tidbits to end with:

-After the weekend of the jaundice tests, her results finally went down on that Monday, so poor baby had to get blood drawn Thursday-Monday upon entering this world!  We were able to get rid of the bilibed that next week.  Boy was I glad that was over!

-Liv’s belly button fell out on April 19th.  It was pretty gross but I was really excited when it fell off! Because that meant REAL BATHS!

- When Olivia got her shot for her 6 week check up…she let me sleep 8 hours straight! Acutally, I had to wake her up at 8 hours because I knew she was bound to be starving!! Then she ate a bottle and went back to sleep for another 4 hours!  I hate to admit this, but I kind of LOVED that shot…it was like there was a tranquilizer in it and let’s just say I was well rested that day!

- I had an awesome 1st mother’s day. Olivia (and Josh and the in-laws and my dad) got me wonderful cards that were very sweet and she even picked out a necklace for me! The girl already knows jewelry!

- I mentioned earlier about colic.  We are lucky enough that it hasn’t been all day colic, but for the first few weeks, she would scream bloody murder from the hours of 11-4…it was exhausting.  She still has colic but it only goes on and off again for about an hour.

-Since she was so colicky, it took me about 3 weeks to sleep in my own bed.  We had the pack-n-play set up in our room but when she would wake up screaming, I didn’t want her to wake Josh up so I would take her to the living room and end up falling asleep there.  Actually, by the time Liv fell asleep, you didn’t want to MOVE in fear that it would wake her up and the screaming fits would start all over again, so whatever position I was in when she fell asleep was the position I just dealt with and fell asleep like that myself.

-After about 3 weeks, we took the pack-n-play out of our bedroom and she slowly started sleeping in her crib.  It was only if she was DEAD TO THE WORLD could you get her to sleep in her crib without waking up and her realizing she wasn’t being held! Now you still have to pretty much make sure she is out of it, but it’s not as hard as it was. 

-I have almost packed away all her newborn clothes ;(  Luckily, my sister Shelly is due on June 17th and will be able to use all the gently used (or not even used at all) clothes for her own daughter!

-I am completely surprised that I have lost all my baby weight.  I was CERTAIN it would take me YEARS to get rid of it all because I love to eat so much.  However, when I got home from the hospital, I completely lost my appetite.  I pretty much had to force myself to eat daily or it wouldn’t even occur to me that I needed to eat.  Because I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t gaining enough weight to be able to produce any milk so the whole breastfeeding thing only lasted 3 weeks and then I gave up.  My appetite is coming back again now so I’m sure by the time I start work, I will need to lose weight again!  Like I said before, I’m down to my prepregnant weight, BUT all that weight has most definitely shifted, lol.  I am pleased that I can fit in my jeans again though

-Cassafras photography took Olivia’s birth pictures.  I am in LOVE with them.  Here are a couple of my favorites

- Diesel is really good with Olivia…but he just doesn’t like her.  Diesel will not walk on anything that is not carpeted and our hallway and stairs are not carpeted.  BUT when Olivia starts screaming, he has no fear and walks himself to the basement just to get away from her.  I feel bad because as much as I LOVE Diesel, I’m having a hard time showing him attention. It’s like by the time I get Liv to sleep, I want to sleep myself or watch tv or do something that doesn’t involve entertaining a dog.  Luckily, this weekend we’re going to the farm so we should be able to run out some of his energy and he should be getting plenty of attention!

-This weekend we’re going to the farm and it will be the longest car drive Liv has gone on.  Hopefully it goes well!

-I’m pretty sure Liv just cackled in her crib, lol.  I thought it was a cry, but no…I’m pretty sure she just laughed. I could be crazy though, lol.

so that’s about all the random thoughts I have for right now…it might be a while until I post again but I’ll try to keep things updated!

Here’s one of my new favorite pictures to end on!

Olivia Paige was born on 4-6-10 at 4:58pm. 

She weighed 8lbs 5oz and was 21 inches long

We had complications and it almost ended up in a emergency c-section, but everything turned out to be ok….Josh and I were still traumatized and Olivia was born with a broken collarbone and nice bruise on her forehead from the trauma.

We’ve been dealing with jaundice.  They let us go home from the hospital on Thursday but we had to put her on a bilibed, which is a bed of lights to help with the jaundice.  Friday we went to the doctor and her levels went down, but Saturday they went back up and then today they’re back down again. 3 times getting poked and prodded in the foot leads to a very unhappy momma…I’ve never heard a child scream so hard in my life. But we’re hoping she’s good now, but won’t know more until tomorrow’s trip to the pediatrician. Keep us in your prayers.

There you have it…there’s so much more to say, but no time to sit down and actually blog about it.  I’ll try to send small updates when I can! But for now, here’s a picture of my baby girl.

She wanted to go to the doctors appointment with me to try to get the doc to buckle under pressure.  So he goes in and checks me and go figure…for the 4th week in a row, I have not progressed so he said that I had 2 options.  1. We could wait it out until next week which will probably just end up getting induced then anyway, or we could come back tonight and start cervadil to soften my cervix and then pitocin in the morning to try to help me dilate.  Seeing that I am physically done carrying this child any longer, and plus my mom is in town, I opted for the latter. 

So we went home,  packed, kind of relaxed, got our things together, loved on dog and headed to Red Lobster (with Mom, Bob and Shelly) for our last big dinner and then headed up to the hospital to get this party started!  They put the cervadil in around 5:45 and so far I haven’t had any contractions or anything exciting going on (it’s about 11:00 now).  They gave me a sleeping pill so I can get a good nights sleep tonight before all things crazy come tomorrow! At 5am they are taking out the cervadil and then starting the pitocin I think around 6 am.  Doc thinks we’ll have a baby about dinner time tomorrow evening…but we’ll see. All I know is that we are so ready!

So dear Olivia….be awfully nice to your mother and make this an easy labor and delivery…we are very anxious to meet you and introduce others to you as “our daughter”.  We love you already more than possible so come soon!  Love, Momma and Daddy

We’ll keep everything posted…but please put us in your prayers!

 3 1/2 hours later, it turns out that I had a fever and the very early stages of a UTI.  What does that have to do with my eye?! Nothing really, lol.  They just said that they think that my body is working in overdrive trying to fight off this infection that it could have irriated the nerve around my eye (who knows how true that is, but who am I to argue with it?).  The baby looked great, my blood pressure was awesome, apparently I was having contractions and didn’t even know it (now if that could stay the case during labor, that would be awesome, lol).  They said they were glad that I came in because if I would have waited, they would have had to set me up with an IV to get rid of the infection…and instead, they were just able to write me a prescription for an antibiotic and sent us on our merry way.

So I still have pretty bad eye pain, so I’m not convinced that the UTI has ANYTHING to do with my eye, but at least it’s not a sign of anything wrong going on with me or my baby, because apparently we are both healthy.

That’s our first experience at the hospital and we’re hoping the next time we have to go, it will be for the real deal…and we’re hoping it’s soon!

Thanks so much Cassie, I had a great time!

Ok, I’m done complaining.  In other news, as I was laying in bed last night, I felt a weird, very rhythmic pulse go over my stomach.  At first I was alarmed (pretty much everything at this point scares me because we’re so close to the end) and made Josh feel.  As his hand was on one side of my belly, I put my hand on the other side of my belly to feel these strange rhythmic pulses.  What could it be? It finally dawned on my that Olivia was having her first spell of hiccups! I haven’t felt them before, and experiencing it for the first time with Josh was pretty cool. 

On to other things.  Here is my 38 week picture.  Prepare yourself for the enormousness.

Seriously, do you see how huge this thing is? It’s getting pretty difficult to walk!

So after Josh took these pictures, I was looking at them on my camera screen.  I pushed the button to look at the next picture and it brought me to the first set of pictures on my camera.  Interested in what this picture was?

Me at 8 weeks! Holy cow, look at the difference.  When I saw that, I just laughed out loud.  At this point in my pregnancy, I couldn’t wait to have a huge belly….little did I know how “huge” a belly I would get! And I still have possilby 3 weeks!