Fatty

What's Blakely up to these days?  Getting fat!  This girl doesn't skip meals.

Who is really in charge?

I always wanted a "real" baby doll when I was little.  I was 3 when my little brother was born and he was teeny tiny just like Blakely.  For a 3 year old this was awesome because he was just what I was looking for in the world of baby dolls.  My mom says she had to tell me NOT to pick him up.  She'd turn around and I'd have Micah tucked under my arm and I would say "but he looked like he was about to cry!"  I was just helping.  Now I have my own real life baby doll- that poops, pees (quite often, I might add..) eats, cries, etc., just like I always wanted. 

While I was pregnant I read lots of parenting stuff.  Baby Wise, Baby Whisperer, tons of articles.  My main take away was to teach the baby that as the parent I am in control, not her.  Ha!  Who was I kidding?  And who were they kidding, more importantly.  These books give the illusion (especially in those first few weeks) that you have an ounce of control.  Maybe I'm a weakling, or maybe my baby is especially strong willed, but I have virtually no control.  These books make you think that you can make your baby eat, make your baby go to sleep, make your baby be awake.  Sorry, but my baby does each of those things ONLY when she wants to.  If she wants to sleep, there is nothing in the world that you can do to keep her awake.  If she's not interested in eating, you can shove it down her throat but she's not going to swallow. 

She's thinking "MOM!  Get off me!"

And let them cry?  I don't know who these people are, but what parent with their first baby, and in the first couple of months of their life, can actually just sit down the hall and let their baby cry for more than a few seconds?  I get it if your baby just can't be satisfied and they just cry.  At some point, for your own sanity, you have to walk away.  Like I said, maybe I'm a wimp, but I just can't do that.  Not yet at least. 

So, who's really in charge?  Blakely.  At least for now. 

Happy One month!

Blakely is one month old today, and two days past her due date!  It's crazy to think that she could have still been in my belly.  And boy am I thankful that I got to push out a 4 and a half pound baby instead of an almost 7 pound one! 

I put her in the same outfit as her one week pictures to see how much she has changed.  I think all her weight is going to her cheeks and her double chin.  At her one month check-up yesterday she weighed 6 pounds 15 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long.  She is in the 4th percentile in her weight, but that's pretty great considering she was below 1 percent when she was born!  I can't believe how much she has changed in the last month!  When people see her they comment on how small she is, which is funny because I feel like she is HUGE!  I am so glad she isn't the puny little thing she was when we brought her home- she seems a little more durable now.  :)  But she is still just now the size of a normal newborn, which is just so crazy to me. 

Look at that girl.  This is a pretty typical Blakely expression.  Probably concerned about her next meal.  My brother pointed out that Blakely looks either like an alien or a dwarf due to her head to body ratio.  Though I didn't appreciate it, I can't disagree. 
Blakely is still sleeping in her bassinet at night, and we are working on getting her to sleep in her crib during the day.  For some reason she hates that thing.  It's baby prison for her.  She never stays asleep for more than 45 minutes in it.  She is eating about every 3 to 4 hours- occasionally sooner.  At night she will go anywhere from 3 to 5 hours.  Twice she has taken a bottle with over 4oz.  Should a one month old be eating that much?!  I don't know, but she is.  I can only assume that is how much she eats when she nurses.  She is a grunter.  And it really doesn't sound like a cute normal baby noise.  I doubt there is a noisier baby out there.  Sometimes she will grunt for an hour and Stephen swears she is sleeping.  It drives me crazy! 

She is more alert than ever, and has also entered into an unusually fussy stage.  It seems like she just can't be satisfied the past few days.  We are really hoping she grows out of this soon.  Stephen thinks it's the cloth diapers.  Some of them are a little big on her (and by big I mean they are so bulky that her clothes don't always fit just cause of the diaper) and Stephen thinks it makes her uncomfortable.  Psh.  She finally fits into her newborn clothes and is too big for preemie clothes.  She is even almost too long for some of the newborn clothes (even without a cloth diaper)!

I think she smiled at me last week.  We can't be for sure, and it hasn't happened since, but I am counting it!  She has also recently learned the art of grabbing.  When she is mad, that girl has a death grip.  She grabbed my hair today- ouch!  I can't believe she is already a month old! 

Happy 2 weeks! (a week late...)

Blakely is 2 weeks old!  (6 days ago!) 

We went for a 2 week checkup, and this girl knows how to grow!  She was 4lbs 4oz when we left the hospital and 11 days later she was 5lbs 8oz.  We put her on the scale and Stephen and I looked at each other and laughed and told the nurse the scale was messed up.  The nurse assured us it wasn't!  We knew she was eating a lot and getting bigger, but we didn't know she could even gain that much weight that quickly! 

Blakely is a little confused about days and nights.  She is impossible to wake up most of the day, and wide awake for hours at night.  We are hoping she grows out of this VERY soon.  Stephen is great about staying up with her after I feed her so I can get a little more sleep.  Another thing Blakely is confused about is when to go to the bathroom.  I swear, she waits until I take the diaper off to go.  This girl goes through more diapers and more clothes than you'd believe.  She also makes me go through quite a bit of my own.  I have a poop stain on my favorite jeans to prove it.  We'll just say it adds character.  :) 

 She loves Grandpa and G G (stands for Gorgeous Grandma- my delivery nurse suggested it so I decided that's what my mom would be called).  I think Grandpa likes to hold Blakely more than anyone- she likes it too. 

Isn't she a sweetie?  Especially when she is sleeping.  At night.  :) 

Happy one week birthday!

This week...
Blakely peed on me at least 4 times.  (We had no idea that girls can spray too!)  :)
She started making noises when she eats.
I was so sleepy I accidentally used Blakely's hat for a burp wrag.
She gets the hiccups all the time- Stephen must have gotten sympathy hiccups because he has had them for almost 2 days straight.
We had our first outing- to the doctor.  Blakely gained 3 oz from her discharge weight and has only 2 more to get to her birth weight! 

Still to come in week number 2:
Second doctors appointment.
First visitors to the house- Blakely's great grandma and grandpa and great aunt Tammy.
First night with JUST us.  My mom is abandoning us for 24 hours starting tomorrow morning.  She thinks we need a test run before she goes home for good.
And hopefully more sleep is in our future.  :) 

The highlights

We got an early Christmas present.  Blakely Lynn was born December 8th at 4:15 weighing 4lbs 9oz and 16 3/4 inches long.
It has been a long week, and sometimes I can't figure out what day it is.  I will give a few of the highlights of the last 5 days of our lives.
I checked into the hospital to be induced Tuesday night.  Blakely wasn't growing like she needed, so the doc decided she'd be better to get out.  I was 35 weeks 5 days.
I think because I was so early, and my body wasn't ready, labor completely changed my pain scale.  I have a new 10.  I think you could cut off my finger and it might be a 5 compared to this.
After 11 hours of contractions, I was able to get an epidural that only worked on half my body.  The second epidural was my best friend.
It took me that long to get to 3cm dilated, then took a few more hours for me to get to a 5.
Then in about 20 minutes I went from a 5 to a 9.
Then 20 minutes after that Blakely showed up.

Because she was so small and early, she had to go to the NICU, but not for as long as we thought she would.
She had to have a feeding tube.  It still makes me sad to think about it.

The day after she was born, Stephen got either food poisoning or a bad stomach virus and started violently throwing up at about 11pm.  Luckily we were at a hospital.
He spent the night in the ER and finally stopped throwing up at 4:30am after 3 bags of IV fluids.  He was then quarantined to his parents hotel.  We didn't get to see him for the next two days. 
I discovered that mom's can run off of significantly less sleep than non-moms.  I slept about 4 hours in three days. 

Praise the Lord for my mom, who took over when Stephen went to the ER.  Thanks to her, the three of us are still alive.  Praise the Lord also for Stephen's parents who came in town to see Blakely, but ended up nursing Stephen back to health instead.  They got to see Blakely for 1 hour in the 3 days they were here.

 We checked into the hospital on Tuesday, and finally got to go home Saturday afternoon.  This was such a gift from God since we were prepared for her to be in the NICU for much longer. 

She's the sweetest thing I've ever seen and we are so lucky to be her parents.  Now if we can just get some fat on her little chicken legs. 

Onesies

My friends Claire and Claire threw a "Billings baby blowout" shower for me last night and invited a bunch of the students that are involved with our ministry.  We played chug the bottle- hilarious.  The bottles were filled with apple juice and apparently it's a lot harder to drink out of a bottle than you think.  They were pretty small bottles and it still took them about 5 minutes just to finish them.  We also played "Celebrity baby name OR fake baby name."  Also hilarious.  I'm all for creativity but "Pilot Inspektor" and "Audio Science"?  Poor kids. 
My favorite baby clothes are just little white onesies.  There is just something about how simple and clean looking they are compared to all the other busy baby outfits. I just love them.  I can't wait until it is warm enough for little B to just run around in a plain white onesie.  So our other activity at the shower was painting white onesies.  I just knew that out of a bunch of sorority girls there had to be some artistic talent to make some cute outfits!  I was right! 
How funny is the "got milk?" and the "pink" one?  Notice that the "pink" is written on the booty of the onesie.  Stephen was not too thrilled about that one and we have already argued about whether or not she will even be allowed to wear this one.  (I'm pretty sure he's the only guy that will be checking out her booty for quite a while, and that will only be to check for poo.)

 Don't worry, she will get a Razorback onesie soon enough. 

How cute are those!?  I am sad I didn't get more newborn or 0-3mo sizes so she can wear them sooner.