6 weeks have come and gone

... since Farrah was born and I can't believe how fast the time goes. She's getting so big and part of me is excited to see her getting bigger and part of me wants her to slow down. We're still working on the bedtime routine. She cries so much and I can tell she's tired but she just can't put herself to sleep and I try everything to help her. The hardest part is that I can't do anything she has to do it herself. It's not like if she's hungry I can feed her. Or if she has a dirty diaper I can change her. When she's tired I can try to comfort her but she has to do it on her own. Even with the changes in our bedtime routine and putting her down much earlier, it seems like 1am is her standard time where she finally falls asleep. I guess we'll just keep at it and hope it gets better. I never thought I would consider 5-6 hours of sleep a lot. I'm a girl who loves her sleep!

I've been working out again and it feels so good... better than before I had her. I think I took it for granted before. Now that my entire days are taken up taking care of her and, with the little down time I get, doing household things, it's nice to have a quick 20-30 minute workout. It's one of the few things I have now that is totally for me. She usually falls asleep for about an hour after her first morning feeding so I quickly do a 20-30 minute workout from the free on-demand work outs on comcast and take a quick shower. If she's still sleeping, I get to get some dishes and laundry done. I won't complain though because I love her so much! When she's napping, I keep walking by and looking at her because I miss her and want her to wake up so I can play with her.

She's found her hands and she's been bringing them up to her mouth and trying to figure out how to suck on them. It's her way of trying to soothe herself so hopefully she figures out soon and it will help her fall asleep at night. It's still pretty early so I'm hoping to have a solid bedtime routine and a sleeping through the night baby very soon! Mommy and Daddy could use a little extra sleep Farrah ;)

What happened to my fabulous sleeper?

From about 1 week out, Farrah was sleeping at least 5 hours straight at night and then we'd have a feeding and then she'd go back to sleep for another 3 hours. I wasn't surprised she was such a good sleeper... I mean... come on look at her mom! I'm known for sleeping anytime anywhere! But the past couple of weeks she's had a hard time. Once she falls asleep, she's great. She'll sleep for up to 7 hrs. and then wake up for a feeding and then fall back asleep for another 2-3 hours. But the problem is, we can't get her to fall asleep at a decent hour. We start her last feeding at about 8pm and then try putting her down around 10pm. Even if she's already asleep when we put her in her basinet, as soon as we lay her down in there, she starts crying. We try to let her cry for a little bit in case she's just self soothing and will go to sleep on her own but it never happens, we'll get up rock her for a little bit, then try again but she starts crying again. We do this pattern multiple times and it seems like every night she finally falls asleep around 1pm. That's not good for her, or for us.
So last night we decided to try something new. We were going to start her in her crib in her own room anyways, so we decided to try the crib. She usually takes a nap around 5pm so we thought instead we'd try to keep her awake until about 7pm then put her down in her crib. I knew she'd probably only sleep a couple hours then wake up, then we'd feed her and put her down again for the rest of the night. But she had a different plan. She fell asleep as planned around 7:30pm (not quite on time but it worked.) She slept for about 2 hrs. She woke up and we gave her one last feeding and went to put her back down for the rest of the night. I could tell she was tired but she reverted back to the crying as soon as we put her in her crib. It was a "I'm so tired but I can't sleep" cry. I tried putting the pacifier in, but she usually ends up dropping it and then cries so I put it back in and she drops it again and this goes on and on. I tried everything possible to get her to go to sleep but nothing worked. Finally around 12:45 I woke up Abe and he said he'd try for a while and I fell asleep. Poor guy had to be at work by 6:45am the next morning but he tried for a bit unsuccessfully. Finally around 2:30 he brought her in and set her in her basinet. She finally fell asleep around 2:45. I think at this point she was so exhausted that she fell asleep... I don't think it had anything to do with her "love" for the basinet.
I know it will take time to get her on this routine so we're trying it again tonight. She's in her crib now and fell asleep for her first leg of sleep. Hopefully things will go smoothly the rest of the night. We're supposed to be over these sleep issues by now!
In other news, I have my follow up appt. tomorrow with my midwife. She'll finally get to meet Farrah (she did my pre-natal appts. but she didn't deliver her.) She'll also check me out and make sure I healed ok especially the stitches. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all.
Pray for us that we get this little girl on a good sleep schedule!

1 month already!

January 3rd marked exactly one month since our little angel came into this world. It sounds cliche but it's hard to remember what it was like without her here. She's getting so big as I'm sure you can see by the pictures. This lucky lady has had many visitors including her Grandma, Grandpa, 2 uncles and an aunt from her dad's side who have all traveled very far to meet her. She did not dissapoint and greeted almost all of them by pooping on them while they were holding her. That's my girl! She's pretty much sleeping through the night... anywhere from 5-7 hours straight. The only hard part is getting her to bed. She could be totally asleep in our arms and we'll lay her down in her bassinet ever so gently but as soon as she's down she wakes up and starts crying. Hopefully we'll figure out how to overcome that one and not create bad habits. That's something I worry about. Being first time parents, we don't know what is "ok" to do and I don't want to create a bad habit that will be hard to break later on. As my mother-in-love ;) says, just go with your instinct, you know what's best for you baby.

I can't believe it's 2010. Where did the past 10 years go? It makes me realize how quickly this little girl is going to grow up. I laid her down in her pack n' play yesterday and we usually lay her the short way, not the long way and I noticed her head was a little close to the end so I tried to scoot her down but I quickly realized her feet were practically touching the other end. She's grown so much that we're going to have to start laying her the long way. It's one of those things that only a parent would think about or care about but both Abe and I couldn't believe it.

Abe goes back to work starting tomorrow. He'll be subbing at his old job and also substitute teaching until he hopefully can land a long term sub position, or if not, he can work at his old job and apply for teaching positions for next fall. Considering how much work the feedings have been, I thought I would be nervous to be on my own with her all day 5 days a week, but I'm surprisingly feeling calm about it... maybe even excited to have mommy-daughter days. However, ask me that tomorrow at 5:30 when he gets home and I'm practically throwing her at him and running upstairs to take a hot bath and things might be a little different ;) Happy New Year everyone!

PS sorry for the massive amount of pics but it was hard enough to narrow it down to just these so bear with me. And in the one where Uncle Vartan's laughing... she had just majorly pooped on him as you can probably tell by her facial expression.

We have a big eater!

All of those feedings paid off! At the dr.'s appt. yesterday she finally gained weight. She now weighs 8 lbs. 4.7 oz... slightly more than her birth weight. So she gained over 12 oz. in 5 days! I was so proud of her. No more visits to the baby wellness center for weight checks. And we were able to schedule her 2 month check up with a different pediatrician. The first one we saw was a nightmare! Hopefully the next one will be better. Some pictures from the past day or so for your enjoyment.

2 weeks old already!

Well technically 2 1/2 weeks old today! She's changing so much. Her face is looking more like a baby face and less like a newborn face. She's making noises and making funny expressions. I now know why everyone says it goes by so fast... and we're only 2 weeks in!

To catch you all up, she had a visit from her Auntie Janett which was lots of fun, and for Christmas she'll have some more visitors... Auntie Janett and Uncle John, and for the first time she'll be meeting Grandma Maryellen. I can't wait for that!

I'm not one to keep my baby locked up inside just because she's new here so we've had a few trips already. Of course, several doctor's appts., 2 trips to target, the bank, a Xmas get together at Grandma Kelly's, Xmas cookies with the Grcina's and yesterday we went to a Xmas lunch at a restaurant with my mom's side of the family. I know she's still a newborn so that's why I bring my hand sanitizer, but I don't see any reason why I should keep her (and myself) locked up in this house for months.

We've been going to see a lactation consultant at the baby wellness center at Kaiser. Normally they schedule one or two appts. with you but we've now had about 5 and we have 1 more tomorrow. For some reason Farrah hasn't been gaining weight. She lost weight after birth, like most normal babies do, but she got down to 7 lbs. 8.5 oz (from her birth weight of 8 lbs. 4 oz.) and hasn't gained it back. So they keep giving me ideas and scheduling more appts. for weight checks. So now I've been breast feeding, then I give her a bottle of pumped milk, and then I give her some formula to top her off. Add a diaper change or two in there and then it's time to start it all over again. But I think it's working. I've had a lot more milk come in and she's been eating like there's no tomorrow. She looks chunkier too so I know tomorrow at the appt. she will have gained weight. One of the things they noticed at the last appt. was that she has a tongue tie which is why they thought she might have a hard time latching on and therefore not gaining enough weight. It's where the flap of skin that attaches the tongue to the bottom of your mouth is too far forward so you can't stick your tongue out very far. So they sent us to see a head and neck specialist because they can cut it to fix the problem. Of course I freak out because I don't want a pair of scissors anywhere near my child but the dr. took a look and said it's not severe and that he didn't think she needed the procedure done. Talk about a sigh of relief. I see her stick her tongue out all the time so I didn't think it was a problem.

Here are some pictures from the past 2 weeks. We are so in love with her and I could stare at her all day. Merry Christmas everyone!

Farrah Lynn is here!

Sorry for the delay in posting the details but I've been a little occupied with a newborn ;) Here's how it went down:

Farrah Lynn was born Thursday 12/3 at 3:25 pm weighing 8 lbs. 4 oz and 21 inches long. I had a dr.'s appt. that Tues. and she stripped my membranes again to try to get things going. Later that evening I started having contractions. They got pretty intense and were consistently 4-5 minutes apart so we headed to the hospital. They checked me and I was only 2 cm so they told me to walk around the hospital for 2 hours and come back and they'd check me again. So I did and the contractions increased to about 3 mins apart and were even more intense. After 2 hours of that I returned and to my surprise was still only 2 cm. So they recommended to give me a shot of morphine to help me sleep and sent me home.

The morphine was great because I thought there was absolutely no way I could sleep through those contractions but I was able to get 6 hours of sleep and didn't feel the contractions. The next morning the contractions had decreased which I was told could happen with the morphine. They were inconsistent and not as frequent so I didn't think it would be happening that day. As soon as I went to bed Wednesday night they picked up again. Once they got to 5 minutes apart we headed back to the hospital and I was 3 cm so they admitted me. A few hours after I got my epidural (which was fabulous!) and I was able to get some rest. The one thing about the epidural was I thought I wouldn't be able to feel anything but I was wrong. About 3 hours before I started pushing I started to feel the contractions again (not super strong but I felt them.) and insane pressure. It felt like it was time to push but they kept saying I wasn't ready.... another half hour.... 3 hours later I was ready to kill someone! Finally it was time to push. Sometime in that period I spiked a fever of 101.8. Apparently there's a cutoff of 101.5 for the baby to have to go to the NICU so I was told they would have to take the baby right away. I had here out with 45 minutes of pushing and she seemed perfectly healthy so they let me hold her for a while. She stayed in the hospital until the Sunday night after delivery running tests and giving her antibiotics. She was finally able to come home. She is absolutely perfect and we're in love. Here are some pics from the hospital and coming home from the hospital.

40 weeks and I am so done!

Worse than the lack of sleep, back pains, difficulty moving around and the feeling huge combined is the waiting. Just sitting around waiting for this little one to arrive has been the hardest part. I've had all the signs and symptoms of labor, just no labor. Every pain I feel I think "is this it?" and every morning I wake up thinking today could be the day and end up going to bed dissapointed that nothing has happened. I'm sure Abe's getting anxious too since he had all last week off for the Thanksgiving holiday and has just been here helping around the house and waiting with me.

Farrah will officially be a December baby. I thought for sure there's no way that would ever happen. I never thought of myself as a control freak but this is the ultimate test. I have no control and keep reminding myself that God is in control, not me, not Abe, not the Dr., and not even Farrah. I have a dr.'s appt. this afternoon and hope that we'll either have some great progress or can talk about induction. Farrah has been a big baby all along and I don't want to wait to much longer and have her be so big that it's risky and/or we have to have a c-section.

One of this week's pictures is of Abe holding a bball he bought for Farrah that says "Baby's 1st Basketball." I reminded him, however, that Grandma Maryellen already got Farrah a glow in the dark pink bball. He said we'll leave it up to Farrah to decide. Just know I have your back

g-ma! ;)

I'd like to say this is my last post as a preggo but I don't want to jinx it like I did last time so I'll just say I can't wait to share the good news when it's time.