Last Day of 2012 Life Update

Today is the last day of 2012 and Jemma is about 3.5 months old. Her 4 month appt is in exactly 2 weeks and I am very much looking forward to it. She smiles so much now! When I pick her up at daycare at Beckys, she looks at me and smiles like she is really glad to see me. It’s really nice! She even giggled once a few weeks ago while watching Kenzie get tossed in the air. We moved into the new house last Saturday and Jemma is taking everything in stride. My parents just moved in on Friday although my dad has yet to sleep there. The house isn’t quite ready for the dogs, especially Gypsy who is not doing very well. She is having a very hard time walking and doesn’t have very good bladder control so she pees and poos on the floor almost every day.  

She is such a curious baby. She always tries to look at everything and fights sleep pretty often if she is seeing something interesting. She even wiggles around and curves her back on her playmat when she wants to see something.

She is sleeping pretty well through the night now. She goes to bed around 9:30 and she wakes up pretty consistently between 7-7:30. She is then awake for about an hour before going back to sleep, sometimes for another few hours. The rest of her day is hit or miss for sleeping but she does cat nap the rest of the day. She is still sleeping at night in the co-sleeper but Mike just set up the crib in the new house the other day, so we might be moving her into that pretty soon. Especially since she is sleeping through the night so well.

She is a very happy baby and is very easy. Denise calls her the perfect child. She sleeps good, plays on her own and in general is very content.

She is ALMOST rolling over! It will happen any day now. She just has a little bit of arm she needs to get under her to roll the rest of the way over. Then we will be in trouble!

She enjoys her play mat and likes watching the musical thing that lights up. She grabs at everything now and it goes straight into her mouth. She also likes kicking the polls on the playmat and watching the entire thing move.

She loves her granddad and is very happy sitting with him on the couch. She is starting to like to watch TV and loves to watch football! Probably the strong colors with the green field and uniforms is what interests her the most.

She had a great first Christmas. I got her a few different outfits: a cute red dress, a first Christmas long sleeved onesie, and a first Christmas fuzzy sleeper. She also had a santa hat and santa socks. I am really starting to like getting her dressed up. I had a winter snow suit that is Ravens that I bought for her a while ago at a yardsale and I thought she might be growing out of it but there wasn’t an occasion for her to wear it. So yesterday we went to old Ellicott city and it was the perfect time but it turns out it was HUGE on her! She will probably grow out of it before the next Ravens season. She will never get to wear it … oh well.

Cloth diapering is still going well. It was a little stressful during the move and I probably shouldn’t have done it and just done disposable since I had to have my mom wash them a few times at her house. But it is good for her and the environment so its ok. It took a little at first to get the washing down. Now I do 2 cold water rinses and then a normal warm water wash with the All free and clear detergent. I try and hang them to dry as well but sometimes when I am in a rush, I put them in the dryer. She had diaper rash at first but not lately.

She also loves naked time. We put her on an absorbent waterproof mat and she goes to town, kicking and punching up a storm. She used to stay pretty much in one spot and if she peed I would just slide her over but now she is getting very mobile and we have to watch to make sure she even stays on the mat.

She is a pacifier addict. She loves them and we keep them everywhere for her. They are all the Kenzie hand me downs. She doesn’t seem to have a preference and likes them all. Mikes mom sewed her some pacifier clips that we use in her car seat and on her clothes for when she spits them out. She lately is very interested in her hands and spits out the pacifier to suck on her fingers. I don’t want her to be a thumb sucker so sometimes I pull out her fingers and replace it with a pacifier. Although Aunt Candice is trying to teach her to be a thumb sucker like her. Ethan is a major thumb sucker although he would never take a pacifier.

She spits up a lot these days. And putting her whole fist in her mouth trying to suck her fingers isn’t helping either. That makes her gag a throw up a lot too. We got those Aden and Anis bibs like Kenzie has and they are really nice. She can wear them around her neck like a big bib.

Originally she had a little poop in almost every diaper. We called them wet farts and they happened all the time with a few big ones. Then they started to happen less frequently and she would have one semi big one a day. Now she one poops every couple days. And most times there are multiple big poops in a row. We have to rush to the changing table to make sure she doesn’t explode out the side of the diaper.

Mike likes to give her little tastes of people food. The first time was around Thanksgiving when he got a little cranberry juice on his finger and let her taste it. She gives the funniest expressions! Im not sure if I like him doing it but it’s such a small amount, it probably doesn’t matter. And its just the juice, not actual cranberry sauce. But he has given her a few other little tastes since.

I am still feeding her exclusively off breastmilk and I probably will continue that until she is 6 months old. That is the plan for now. Then introduce solids at that point. I would have to say that I have a very love-hate relation with breastfeeding. I am over producing a bit right now, although it’s not as bad as it was. I have probably 40 5-ounce bags in the freezer right now. They are organized in cardboard soda boxes standing upright.

Jemmas feeding schedule is that she wakes up around 7-7:30 and I feed her off my left breast (which produces less) until it’s empty. It’s probably around 4 ounces. I also pump my right breast at the same time with the Medela manual pump. I pump out until the bottle is full and my breast is mostly empty (~5 ounces), then I let Jemma finish whatever is left. That makes sure I am completely empty when my day starts. She then eats every 2-3 hours a 4 ounce bottle. My production can keep up with that during the day. I usually pump only 1-2 times at work with the first being around noon. It only takes me about 10 minutes to pump, I am very quick. Around noon I get about 6 ounces, 4 out of my right and 2 out of my left. Then I pump again at around 4pm and get about the same amount. I am not as empty with pumping as she empties me but it gets out most of it and it is a law of diminishing returns after a while. I pump directly into the Medela bottles and then make them into 4 ounces when I pump. I then bring them home and put them in the fridge and that is what she eats tomorrow. When I get home, I breastfeed her until bedtime. It works out to be 2-3 feedings at night where I feed her. She likes to overeat and seems to eat whatever we give her. She doesn’t seem fat though. We feed her whenever she is hungry.

We try and let her fall asleep on her own but we aren’t very good at it most times. Typically we rock her to sleep and put her in bed once she is nice and asleep. We should do better at letting her fall asleep on her own but I am not good with cry it out so I’m not sure when we will do that.

As for baths, she does not get them as often as she should. And I do not like giving them although I am perfectly capable of it. She doesn’t seem to like them or hate them. She doesn’t cry but doesn’t smile either. She almost seems to have a look of concern or shock. But she doesn’t cry so she must be ok. I prefer if Mike does it but he says I need to do it too. I don’t see why though, that can be his responsibility. I also do not enjoy cutting her nails but I do that also as well. 

Jemma is very curious and always has such wide eyes. Her eyes always look as if they couldn’t open any wider.

She also has a Mohawk and a mullet and is starting to get the trademark bald spot on the back on her head where all babies rub their hair off. The majority of her hair grows as a Mohawk down the middle and a mullet along the back, it’s pretty funny but very cute.

Everyone says she looks exactly like Mike, especially as a baby.

Went in for a Check up and Got Induced ...

It all started on Tuesday, September 11^th. Since I was 2 days past my due date, we had an ultrasound scheduled in the doctor’s office at 3:30pm to make sure everything was still ok to continue the pregnancy. Of course, Mike was running late and I was already in the ultrasound room when he arrived. He arrived just in time for the ultrasound tech to tell me that my fluid was low. I didn’t know what that meant but she left the room to ask the doctor if she should continue. The doctor said she should and I got 6/8 on the rating scale. I lost the two points for my low fluid. The doctor then put me on a non-stress test for about 25 minutes. In that time I had 4 contractions. None hurt but they were happening pretty often. The doctor came back in the room and said that there appears to be no reason to continue this pregnancy since I’m already past my due date and that we should go to L&D right then to be induced tonight and that we shouldn’t even stop at the house. I was in shock. It was not what I was expecting at all! Walking out of the office I was having a mini panic attack. I was supposed to go to my parents house but called and said they needed to do more tests and we would be late. I did call Denise and tell her what was happening. We went up to L&D and they got us in a room pretty quickly and on the same non-stress test monitor. The doctor came in after a while and we discussed induction and other options. I chose just to be induced. They also said I could get an IV all night long and hope the fluid levels rise but most likely that would mean I would just be induced in the morning. They said my fluid levels weren’t that low, they like them to be at least 5 and mine was at 4.8. Most people’s are >10 though. They said inductions could take days and I won’t be able to eat the whole time, so they said get a nice dinner in me now and I will be induced after that. We called my parents and they brought over the meatloaf and I ate that for dinner and it was an excellent dinner! Mike went with my dad back to our house to pick up the baby bag and car seat and drop of his car since we had both cars at the appt and also to shower and change. My mom stayed with me at the hospital and at about 8:45pm, they started the Pitocin. They started it at 2 mL/hr and upped it every 30 minutes by 2 mL/hr. When I arrived, I was 3 cm dilated and 50% effaced. Within an hour I was having regular contractions about 5 minutes apart but they still didn’t hurt. I had to go to the bathroom all the time it felt like and a lot of them were for #2. It was an endeavor to go to the bathroom with all the cords and IVs but Mike helped me and it worked out pretty well. By 2:30am, I was in serious pain with contractions every minute and a half. I wanted pain relief at this point. I asked Mike to call the nurse and at first he just said to wait for her to come but she wasn’t coming and so I asked him to please call. He did and she said she would be by shortly. After some time she still wasn’t there, so I asked him to call again. He did and she finally came. She checked me and said I was between 3-4 cm dilated. I was very disappointed by this because I was in so much pain and I hadn’t dilated at all. I thought that would mean I would be on an epidural for days potentially. So they offered Stadol which is an IV medication that would “take the edge off.” I decided on that because I didn’t want the epidural for such a long time. But then Jemma was sleeping and they cant give me those meds when she’s sleeping. They were trying to wake her up by having me drink cold juice and pushing on her but it was taking forever. It was over an hour now since I decided I wanted medication and I was still in serious pain so I asked if I could get the epidural faster. They said that the anesthesiologist was in a C-section and I could get it when she gets out. They said it had already started but could take up to an hour. I was getting very anxious at that point and I said just to give me whatever I could get first. 

Past my Due Date ...

So I am concerned I'm going to have a large baby. Denise had a 9 lb baby at 41 weeks and she never measured large during her pregnancy, just like me. It was a pretty rough delivery for her. I am just 1 day past my due date and I have an ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow to check the size of the baby. I brought it up to the doctor last week and she seemed to think it was a legitimate concern. She asked about how big both our husbands were when they were born. Her Mike was 7.5 lbs but my Mike was 9 lbs 3 oz!! Eeep! So that got me even more nervous. I don't mind going past my due date, I feel fine, I'm just really worried I’m going to have a really rough delivery with a large baby. 

Everyone at work today was surprised to see me! They didn’t expect me to make it into work today. But Jemma isn’t here yet and I’m planning to work right up until she arrives! I wasn’t very productive at work today though but that’s ok.

DUE DATE!

DUE DATE!! No little baby Boteler yet … that’s ok though. I am sleeping much better recently. I have had to go to bed much earlier too but I don’t seem to be going to the bathroom as much and the hip pain doesn’t seem as bad lately. I met Rifat for a crepe lunch at Café de Paris which was really good! We talked about all kinds of baby stuff and took some pictures together. Mike mowed the lawn to get ready for the baby. We keep doing stuff to get ready for the baby and she still doesn’t come. I did 3 loads of laundry today also. I meant to get a lot more done around the house, but I ended up just doing a little. I did work in my scrapbooking room a bit and finally got all the baby embellishments organized which makes me feel a lot better! I also worked on the baby album a bit instead of cleaning the room but that’s ok, I was having fun. Ben came over and we checked out his new car. I made them dinner while they watched football, then I went to bed. I fell asleep almost instantly. I was really tired!  

Due any day now ...

Since Jemma is going to be born any day now, I really needed to get some errands done. We dropped Mikes car off at Midas to get its oil changed and tires rotated then I dropped him back off at home while I ran errands. There was a baby yardsale at the Howard County Fairgrounds where there were over 140 vendors! It was the most amazing yardsale I have ever been to! I am going to have to go to the next one in a couple weeks also. I will probably have a better idea of things I need as well. I went there looking for a few things and only found a couple. I did get her two cute UMD outfits though ($2 and 75 cents)! And I found a super soft blanket that matches Erin’s crib set ($4) which I’m super excited to give her! I also got a little collage frame to hang on the wall for Jemma’s keepsakes ($4) and a cute little turtle blanket for her also ($1). I also “splurged” ($3) on a super cute outfit that I absolutely fell in love with! It was a little white and blue dress with a little white jacket that goes on top of it and the lady threw in a cute pair of matching white shoes also. I am really excited about it! We also found quite a number of little outfits for Kenzie that we are going to send with Mrs. Tosh to Hawaii soon. After that I went to Wegmans for the first time and we ate lunch there. I am going to have to go back for real grocery shopping one day! Then I made a number of stops in Columbia to make returns: Michaels, Hobby Lobby, Babies R Us, Party City, and Target. Some of the returns were more successful than others. At Target, we finally dropped off all that film that has been laying around at my parents house forever waiting to be developed. Mike called looking for his car but I wasn’t done yet. It turns out he was working in the basement pulling off the insulation and spraying the mold on the walls and he wanted to drive it to the dump. But I didn’t get back in time. Oh well, next weekend. After we got home after getting his car, we were both exhausted and took a nap! We woke up at around 9pm and ate dinner, then watched TV and went back to bed.