"iiieee"

At 3am Levi is wide awake. He has been fed, has a clean diaper, and he is wide awake instead of sleepy. His dad and I are bleary-eyed and hoping for a little more sleep before going to work. He began "talking" to Jesse, who was holding him. So far Levi could say, "oooh!" and "aaahhgg!" This morning he has added a new "word" to his repertoire, "iiieee!" I heard him smile in response to his new word. I couldn't help but smile too.

Morning has broken

This was my post on Facebook this morning:


6:30am Levi was laying on a blanket on the nursery floor kicking his feet, flailing his arms, talking up a storm, happy as can be. While his mommy was laying on the floor beside him, trying to get five more minutes of sleep, but secretly loving this moment, a gift from God.

2 Months

Two Months
I can't believe Levi is now 2 months old.

Milestones
He will frequently smile in response to our silly antics. When we talk to him in vowel sounds now. ah, ih,eh, oh, and uh. Sometime he even humors us and will respond with his own vowel sound. Or if he is in a particularly good mood then he will say, "guh!" Then Jesse and I get all excited!  It is the little things in life...ya know?
Well, my little genius child also does a kind of little belly laugh at times. It used to be that he would do that in his sleep in between his Joker style smile. A couple times he has done it in response to something he deems particularly funny.

We now have a baby workout center in our living room! When he tires of being held, we put him in the swing for a while. Then he likes to lay on the floor and swing with his hands and feet at the things hanging down from the 2 arches. Finally he likes to finish his workout with some time in the vibrating chair. 

Sleep...if you saw my previous post you know that sleep is still somewhat of a rare commodity still. He still averages 3 hour chunks of sleep at a time. Some nights he is awake every 1-2 hours but mostly it is every 3 hours. On rare occasion Levi will sleep for a 4-5 hour chunk of time.  I thought about trying to do one of the sleep schedule things that say he will be sleeping through the night by 8 weeks. I just don't have the discipline or the heart to do that kind of thing. I will let nature take its course for now.




 Oh and we received our first family portraits in the mail! The people scheduled to come right before us didn't show up. So the photographers spent over an hour with us. They got some great pictures!


 








The Dr Visits this Month

When he was about 4 or 5 weeks old we took Levi to Dr. H for his weight check. He was born 7lbs 2oz and dropped to 6lb 5oz (11% body weight). He had lost more weight than doctors like them to lose. Well while he was there being weighed he was crying and crying and wouldn't stop.  Finally Jesse put him on his shoulder like when we burp him. We told Dr. H that he liked that position, it calmed him down frequently. Sometime that is the only way we could get him to sleep. She noticed that he was calm while upright, fussy when we laid him down. She gave us a prescription for acid reflux. That night we noticed a difference. Over the next week Levi became a whole new baby! He didn't cry every waking moment. He slept more. He was happy and alert when he was awake. We couldn't believe how wonderful parenting could be when the baby wasn't crying 24/7!!
Today, I took Levi to his 2 month check up. He weighs 12lbs 3oz which is in the 50th percentile range. He is 23 inches long which is between the 25 and 50th percentile range. His head circumference is also in the 50th percentile range. Yea! All normal and average!
He had 4 vaccines. Yes, he screamed and screamed. All the way to the car, he screamed. Then I put him in the car and drove. He fell asleep in 60 seconds flat!

Sleepless Nights

We knew what we were in for...a sleepless night. Levi slept all day long, only waking to eat a little bit. We knew he would eventually wake up and be ready to stay awake for a while.

He woke briefly at 8:45pm, ate and was back to sleep by 9pm.
At 10 we went to sleep, praying that we would get some sleep that night.
He woke up 2 hours later. We fed him.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Rocking, rocking, rocking.
Blink.
Blink.
Eyes Wide open.
He was not going back to sleep.
He was going to stare at us, the fan, the blank wall, everything!
We put him in his crib to see if he would be content there and we could go to sleep for a while.
He fussed.
Rocking.
1:00 am
Rocking.
We prayed he would get tired soon.
2:00 am
Rocking.
Rocking and feeding again.
2:30 Sleep
With the grace of a dancer,
I stand up and cross the distance to the crib.
I lift him into the crib as gently as a feather.
Blink!
...Holding my breath...
... I'm not moving...
Eyes close.
...I'm still not breathing or moving.
Silent as a cat, I back away, climb into bed, pray he stays asleep
and I sleep
          ...for 3 hours until he wakes again...


In spite of all that, I wouldn't trade it for anything! After Levi falls asleep, I love to watch him dreaming. He gets a whole face smile as he dreams about what ever it is that little boys dream about. I love to see Jesse lay on the floor with Levi while the make faces and noises at each other. I love that now when I come home, Levi wakes up and looks at me, bleary eyed; he smiles.

The First Month

Daddy's hands

What a ride this month has been!! They say childbirth is the hardest thing you will ever do. I agree, but a close second is surviving the first 2 weeks of mommy-hood! First let me say I do not have any idea how women survive if their husbands are not home for at least the first 3 weeks! Jesse has been the best husband and father anyone could ever hope for!! I thank God for such an amazing spouse!!

3 days old  

The best part of this first month is gazing upon our miracle! Each day he becomes more and more awake and alert for longer periods of time. I am watching him become not just a baby but a real person with a personality.

The hardest part of the first 2 weeks was the lack of sleep, raging hormones, being in pain from giving birth, nursing pain and not having a clue what to do. They say that babies sleep for 16-19 hours per day. They say that we should sleep when the baby sleeps. So we should be able to get plenty of sleep, right? What they don't tell you is that it is in 2 hour segments and you are holding and rocking him while he sleeps for 10 of those hours!

6 lb 10oz

Lack of sleep and hormones gave me the baby blues for the first 2 weeks. Poor Jesse. He would look over at me and see that I was crying. He'd ask why. I'd sob, " I don't know!" or "I'm so tired." I'd calm down after a while. The it would happen again later. "NOW why are you crying?" My response was, "I'm still tired." or "I don't know why he's crying." Jesse was doing everything humanly possible to alleviate my tiredness and help me by fixing meals, changing diapers, cleaning, laundry, bringing me pillows and water. Levi was wanting to nurse constantly (and still is) so it was up to me to nurse and rock him for hours and hours a day. Jesse could and did rock him to sleep frequently but I don't like to hear Levi crying so much when I am able to nurse while rocking him so he doesn't cry. So I did as much of that as I could for the first several weeks.

I have not figured out how women nurse exclusively day and night. After a week of trying to do that, I caved in and asked Jesse to give him a bottle of formula during the night. I tried pumping but I have been unsuccessful at that as of yet. That has me stressed out, which makes everything more difficult. I want to throw in the towel, but then I think about all the germs at school that we will be indirectly exposing Levi to. So I'm still trying.

The "ooh" face

The picture above shows us weighing Levi in a mixing bowl on our digital kitchen scale. : )



What I love about being a new mom is watching Levi wake up. his face goes through a myriad of expressions as he does so. He stretches his arms up above his head and twists his body in the biggest stretch his little body can manage. Then he makes his "ooh" face which means "I'm hungry" and if you don't give him what he wants he'll scream.  Yea he has us well trained already! Sometimes he just stares off into space and I wonder what he is thinking.


I can't wait to see what new things he will learn to do next month!



*Photos at top were done by BellaBaby Photography. Rights were purchased.

Picture of Levi

My little angel sleeps! 

Week 38- nearly there!

The waiting game continues. I did, however, survive the stomach flu on Saturday and Sunday. At first I thought I was suffering from self induced nausea from nervous waiting. Then I thought I might be going into labor because I had read somewhere that some women get sick right before labor and my warm up contractions were getting to the point of painful. I slept very uneasy Saturday night waiting for the contractions to become more regular. But no... they were 30 min, 5, 8, 18, 45, 10...you get my drift. I woke up sorely disappointed and feeling only marginally less ill.  I decided that the contractions must have been more intense due to dehydration.

By Sunday evening I was feeling as good as I could while being 38 weeks pregnant. DH...not so much.

Monday- I actually got up off my bum and did a little organizing in our front room. This is the room that is normally presentable but is currently not.  When school was out I dumped all my school stuff in there that I needed to sort through.
10pm-3am Levi was trying to find an escape route! He would not go to sleep, nor would he let me sleep either! Jesse and I were amazed at how far my belly pushed out! I have never read anywhere that you should worry about a baby moving about too much, but i was starting to worry that he was under some kind of stress causing all the movement. Maybe he is claustrophobic like his momma?
Finally he settled down and I was dozing off, when the thunderstorm rolled in! Oh well, more preparation for sleepless nights!

Tuesday- Dr. Apt. Good News! I am 1 cm dilated. And according to the fetal monitor, having little bitty contractions 4 minutes apart. I am feeling them 15-30 minutes apart right now. The others are generally too minimal for me to notice. He is not yet fully engaged in the pelvis though. The doctor said to make an appointment for next week but she doesn't think we will have to wait that long! I am so excited to finally see Levi in person!

Lord, I hope she is right. I pray for patience and trust in Your timing. And I pray for inner calm.

I think I can...

Well I'm finally showing signs that I will one day have this baby! Praise God!!
At the OB appointment, while hooked up to the fetal monitor (aka old lady monitor), the dr asked me if I felt anything.
I said, "He moved." in a tone that respectfully said, Duh that happens frequently.
She shook her head and said, "You just had a contraction about a minute ago. We'll watch to see how far apart they are for the next 20 min." Sadly, I only had the one during the 20 minutes so I am not in real labor...yet.

She reminded me that Levi only has 4 days until he is considered full term! Dr. Hsu said that most women are anxious for the baby to come once they are full term.
I raised my hand and said, "I'm there!"
She also reminded me that since this is my first, I will most likely go all the way to 39 or 40 weeks. At least she didn't say 41 weeks.

My prayer tonight is to ask God for patience. I have never been good at waiting or not being able to plan anything with certainty.