Memorial Day

We had so much fun celebrating Memorial Day redneck style by sitting up our own mini waterpark in my parent's backyard. The kiddos had a blast and that's all that mattered. It was Jacob's first time in a swimming pool and he had so much fun. I am so thankful for all of the veterans who have and continue to serve our country so that I had the freedom to celebrate with my family.

Here are some pictures from the day. Enjoy Jacob's cuteness and please excuse my extreme paleness. My son is darker than me for goodness sakes and I look like the long lost member of the Cullen family!

Me and the kiddos!

Jacob and my mom. I obviously did not inherit her skin color!

He loved going down the slide!

That's a wrap!

Before you came into my life I missed you so bad...

Yes, the title of my new blog post is from the song "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepson. I love that song and so does Jacob...don't judge! :)

I was singing this to Jacob and being silly with him the other day and all parents know you will risk absolute total humiliation to get your baby to laugh. Jacob has started to dance and he likes that song, thus I was making a fool of myself. But the words really got me thinking. I never knew what I was missing before I became a mom. I honestly can't really even remember what I did with all of my spare time before he was born. He has brought so much joy to my life and I can't imagine my life without him.

It also helped clarify how much God truly loves me. Knowing the love that I feel now that I am a parent, I am just so humbled by the fact that God felt this way about Jesus and he still sacrificed him for ME!!! It's like I really get it now and I am so amazed by the depth of his love for people like you and me.

That's all for this post. Next time I will post some photos of Jacob's first time in a swimming pool!

My First Mother's Day

I was beyond excited to celebrate my first Mother's Day! I feel like being a mom is what I was meant to do and I get so much joy from it. And since I'm being honest... I really enjoyed having an additional day that is all about me where I also receive gifts! HA! Phillip and Jacob gave me the sweetest gift and a beautiful necklace that had their birthstone on it. And Jacob was just the absolute sweetest that day too!

Seriously though, now that I am a mom myself I really appreciated this holiday more and made sure to tell my mom how much I appreciated her. Being a mom has opened my heart to so much more love than I ever could have imagined and it made me love MY mom even more than I already did before.

Jacob all dressed up and ready to go!

He loves to "help" me fold the laundry. His help consists of throwing out everything I just folded. Thus, the mess of blankets in the background.

My hair is looking a mess here, but my baby is looking too cute so we'll roll with it!

Fastest 8 months of my life

As I was gathering notes to write this post, I can't help feeling a little sad. The main reason is that these past 8 months have gone by so fast. Jake has grown so much and has done everything so early that I feel like I didn't get to enjoy my newborn for very long. The other reason is I feel like I haven't enjoyed this as much as I should have. Phillip and I tried for almost a year to have a baby and God has certainly blessed us with more than we deserve. But working full time and raising a baby with a husband that works 2nd shift is hard! I feel like my life is going by so quickly that all I have time to do is try to keep my head above water (more on all this in another post).

But that being said, I've realized that I haven't been the greatest at recording major milestones for Jacob. And that kind of makes me feel like a bad mom. But I'm doing the best I can. I like to look at it like I'm too busy enjoying Jacob and celebrating his special milestones to try and document every new thing that he does. Which is true, but I'm going to try and do better going forward. Anyways, here is the big overview of what we've been up to the past 8 months. I hope you enjoy this walk down memory lane as much as I have!

1 Month
- Holds head up very well
- Can roll onto side
- Cries a lot (particularly at early evening every night)
- Smiled for the first time

Your poor head was so lumpy I wondered if it would stay like this forever. It didn't!

Month 2
- Laughs out loud
- Enjoys tummy time
- Hates bath time

Laughing out loud at my Grammie

 

















3 Months     
- Not much going on this month
- Celebrated Thanksgiving, took my first trip out of town
- Love your Sophie the Giraffe toy

    

4 Months
- My first Christmas
- Can lift torso off floor
- Suddenly very bad at sleeping
- Teething
- Rolled completely over on December 8

5 Months
- Have 4 teeth (2 top, 2 bottom)
- Started to crawl on January 28
- Can sit unassisted
- Started solids (sweet potatoes) and hated your first bite!

6 Months
- Moving around everywhere
- Still a bad sleeper
- Teething again
- Said Mama!

7 Months
- Loves walking in your walker
- Bad sleeper
- Great eater
- Starting to pick up puffs and other finger foods
- Loves juice
- Said Dada
- Gives kisses when asked
- Waves bye-bye
- Loves playing with his cousins and other children

8 Months
- Starting to walk behind your toys
- Loves playing peek-a-boo
- Rough start to 8 months, but after a really bad first week you developed so much personality
- Cruising the couches and pouncing when you crawl
- Starting to get better at sleeping

That moment I became a Mom

I promised an overview of the last 8 months, so here we go! I'm starting with Jacob's birth story because it was not at all like I was expecting it to be and maybe having it all written in one place will be a kind of therapy for me! Kidding... kind of! :)

As I said, Jacob's birth was not AT ALL what I had expected or prepared for. I knew only 2 things going into this whole experience.

Maternity pic of me and the hubby!

1.) I DID NOT want to be induced!
2.) I WANTED that epidural!

Those were the only 2 things that kept me from being completely terrified of labor. Plus I had a wonderful OB (Dr. Rowland) and he was so great at keeping me calm. Towards the end of my pregnancy I began to have a little bit of blood pressure issues, so Dr. R recommended that I be induced. So.... on August 17th we headed to Parkridge East to start the process. I was actually having contractions on the way to the hospital and I thought for sure that little Jacob would be here by the next morning.

Random aside: My mom and sister both had really quick labors so I naturally assumed that I would too.

Here I am.... all huge and ready to get this going. In my defense, I swear this gown made me look bigger than I really was! And my fabulous nurses already had my labor room decorated for me. Balloons, streamers, the works! Love them!

Anyway, lunch time came and went and I wasn't even close. Making progress though and Dr. R thought we would have a baby by dinner. Yay! I decided to get my epidural around 6 centimeters. Not because I was particularly in a lot of pain, but I did not want to miss the window to get one. I guess I just assumed that I would be like my mom and sis and go from 5 centimeters to complete in about 5 seconds. Nope... not at all! The first hour and a half after the epi was amazing! I napped, laughed with my visitors and just kept couting the minutes until Jacob would arrive. Then I started to feel some pain. My nurse came in and had me switch positions and re-upped my epi. Life was great again for the next 30 minutes and the pain started again. Another redose and more re-positioning and still no relief. They asked if I wanted them to re-do my epi and I said, "Yes, please!" So we began the whole process again. It worked for about an hour before I was hit with the absolute worst pain I have ever felt in my life. It literally felt like my hips were being ripped apart. I guess that's what I get for getting my epidural so early. I went from feeling literally nothing to all the sudden being in the transition stage of labor. Not fun! At this point we had been in the hospital about 24 hours. I tried to deal with the excruciating pain for about an hour and then told Dr. R that I was giving up and wanted a c-section. He checked me and explained that I was at 9.5 centimeters and that Jake was stuck on the lip of my cervix. He was going to give me a spinal block and another epidural and see if he could help Jake move down. He said he would let me push for a little bit and that if that didn't work then he would do a c-section. I trust Dr. R completely and decided to follow his plan, but was scared to death that the spinal wouldn't work either. And then I threw up waiting on the anesthesiologist to arrive. It had been over 24 hours since I had eaten anything so it was not fun when that happened. But I got the spinal, epi combo and we were ready to roll! My mom was on my left and my fabulous nurse, Vee, was on my right. Phillip was up front with Dr. R because he was going to help deliver Jacob. I remember repeatedly telling Phillip that he better not drop him and Dr. R saying that he wouldn't let him! Haha!

After 45 minutes of pushing (a total of 27.5 hours of labor) Jacob finally made his appearance at 11:24 p.m. Phillip held him up and that was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.  I was too tired to even cry or do anything other than just stare at him. It is simply amazing how big your heart grows when you see your baby for the first time. The nurses were cleaning him up and monitoring him and I hadn't gotten to hold him yet.  But I was content to just sit and watch him. He was absolutely perfect! I looked at him over in his little bassinet thingy and I said, "Hi Jacob! It's Mommy!" I swear he looked right at me! After about an hour and a half they moved us over to Mother/Baby and my spinal/ epi combo had already worn off. I remember telling my nurse that I needed to get up to use the restroom and she said there was no way I could move my legs. I then proceeded to move them so she helped me to the bathroom. Apparently I am some sort of freak of nature with a body that won't accept an epidural!

Welcome to the world baby Jacob!

The next 3 days in the hospital were a blur. I had tons of visitors since I delivered in the same hospital I work at. Jacob hated to be messed with and cried every time we changed his diaper. Every single time. He was a great eater though and got the hang of breastfeeding immediately. It took him 45 minutes to nurse though. He was definitely a very slow eater! Dr. R came by the next day to check on me and said he has never seen anything like that happen with an epidural before and assured me that it wouldn't be like this the next time. I then proceeded to burst into tears and say that there would never be a next time. I have since changed my mind though. Jacob has been such a joy.... I think I can go through this one more time! :) 

Hospital photo from Bella Baby Photography!

Jacob also had jaundice and he was always borderline on having to have the light therapy treatments. We were finally released to go home on Sunday and that's where the real journey begins! Those first few days at home were a real adventure. I was so exhausted and Jacob wanted to nurse every 2 - 2.5 hours around the clock! Phillip was a huge help though and never left my side. I have never been more in love with him than I was during those first few days with Jacob. I definitely couldn't have done it without him!

This post is already long enough!