Merry Christmas!

Blessing Day

Today was a beautiful Blessing day for us and for Georgie. Thank you so much to everyone who came to support and love us. We are so grateful to have so many wonderful people to be a part of Georgie's life. The little one did so well up until about two hours after the meeting got over, then she decided she'd had enough attention from strange people and called it quits for the day. But really, can you blame her? At least she held up through the blessing part!

The little one herself

Maryon family

Our family

Most of our Herrick family (we missed you, Paul and Bekah, but we're awfully glad you had your little Lillian home with you instead!)

Rambling thoughts (plus a picture)

Right now, Georgie is in her swing and perfectly content to just sit there. After screaming hysterically for fifteen minutes and burrowing in my arms for another fifteen, she's been content for the last half hour to just sit, swing, wiggle one arm free of her swaddle, lick her lips (she discovered her tongue recently), and judging by the furrowed eyebrows, consider the plight of humankind. She keeps bouncing her free arm up and down like she's marking time to a song only she can hear. And who knows? Maybe she can hear her own music. I probably should have been working during this half hour of peace but I didn't think it would last so long. She should have been napping but alas, nap times are still highly variable. She looks like she might fall asleep yet. Because of the angle of the swing, her cheeks are extra chubby and kissable and make her face look slightly square. Oh here, I'll just show you a picture:

I find this girl absolutely adorable. I can't wait (oh, but I can) for when she's a little older and we can play together, laugh together, talk together. I can't wait to find out what kind of personality she has, what she likes and what she thinks about. As much fun as this snuggly newborn phase is, it's actually not all that "fun." It is enjoyable at times, but truthfully, I am so exhausted that "enjoyable" is stretching it. It's...rewarding? Satisfying in a deep, instinctual way? It's challenging, that's for sure. It is full of moments both sweet (like this one - re: picture above) and frustrating (like this one - re: not working while I had the chance). New motherhood is disconcerting above all else, I think. I am a mother first and myself second - how easy it would be to lose myself completely. I have nothing to talk about except this tiny perfect girl, and yet I am constantly second-guessing my choices for her and my interpretations of her needs. It's strange to feel always incompetent at something that also feels so natural.


I have a feeling I will continue to process this new role of mine for many weeks and months and years to come, especially as it shifts and changes. Motherhood is not altogether what I expected, but one thing is exactly what I thought it would be - I sure do love my Georgie girl.

Today I am two months old

 

 

Today I am two months old. I am getting big! I am wearing some of my 3 month clothes and lots of my 0-3 month clothes don't fit anymore. I weigh 10 1/2 lbs and I am 23 inches long.

My favorite game is when Mama and Daddy stick out their tongues at me and I stick mine out at them. It makes me smile, which is one of my other favorite things to do. I also like to just lie on a blanket and look all around and sometimes I get really chatty about everything I am experiencing. I am getting better at holding up my head when Mama puts me on my tummy but I don't like it much. My newest trick is sitting up by myself on the couch. 

I have pretty bad reflux that makes me cry a lot, but I have some medicine now that helps. It tastes yucky so I always try to spit it out, though. I like my bath time and I recognize the lullaby Mama and Daddy sing to me when I need to calm down. My hair gets so curly when I get out of the bath!

I like to sleep in my swing and when I'm being held, but I generally don't sleep for long if I'm in my crib. Sometimes Mama falls asleep while she's snuggling me and then I can sleep through the night without needing to eat. She wishes I'd do that in my crib but I am not very motivated to make that change. Maybe by my next month birthday, I'll be sleeping a little better. Fingers crossed! Mostly I am super cute and super loved, even when I keep everyone awake at night. I am learning and growing everyday!

Happy one month birthday, Georgie girl!

This past month has felt both flown by and felt like one very long day and night. We survived the first four weeks, and that "we" includes Georgie. All in all, she has put up with her very inexperienced parents very well and is responding to us more and more - I love it when I can tell she recognizes me or my voice!

This month brought some unexpected challenges with it. Not only have we survived the sleepless nights, we have learned and re-learned and then re-learned again how to breastfeed. We survived Georgie choking and starting to turn blue on her first day home. We survived me having postpartum high blood pressure (basically pre-eclampsia, only after delivery) for two weeks. We survived Georgie not gaining enough weight and the accompanying guilt and extra feedings. We survived finding not one, but two black widow spiders in our living room (plus one outside our bedroom window). We survived my having the beginnings of a yeast infection, which then developed into an allergic reaction to something (still not sure what) that spread across my chest, down my arms, and up my face, swelling one of my eyes almost completely shut. Who knew that my health would be the roadblock to a smooth first month at home?

Mostly, we have learned so much in our Parenting 101 crash course. For example, we've learned that the less sleep I get, the less I am able to cope with a crying baby who won't eat no matter what I do and when I start crying too, it's time for Tim to step in. We've learned Tim's still got mad staying up all night skills when the situation calls for it (and I bless him for it). We learned that setting up a crib in your bedroom doesn't mean that's where the baby will be the happiest sleeping. Cleaning your kitchen takes a very far backseat to sleeping when we get the chance. And having something to watch during the long hours of the night not only makes them go a little faster, it also helps us stay awake. 

Most of this month has been operated in survival mode - one meal at a time, one load of laundry at a time, one hour of sleep at a time - and I'm not afraid to admit it. Just the fact that we made it this far is enough for me. It has felt like a "two steps forward, one step back" dance so being able that we have made progress is very rewarding. We're on the other side of a month and I know that in another month, things will be different again. Maybe not better, but different. Today I took Georgie for a walk, and tomorrow we will attempt to go to church. Slowly, something resembling normal life is creeping back into our home. Par for the Parenting 101 course, I think. It helps that Georgie is so stinkin' cute, makes it easier to remember why we decided to sign up for this course in the first place. And I know that someday, probably sooner than I think, I'll be looking back on all this fondly and wishing a little bit that my girl could be so tiny again.

How she got here

Georgie is three weeks old today, and I feel like I am still processing her birth. Is three weeks enough time to understand such a tremendous experience? Probably not, but I wanted to make sure I got the details down before I started forgetting things. Standard long birth story follows - skip to the photos if you want!

First thing to know is that I planned on doing a natural childbirth. It's something I thought a lot about and I really wanted - I wanted to be able to be fully present for the birth of my baby. Tim and I did the Hypnobabies home course and it was awesome. The relaxation techniques really helped me stay calm and positive throughout my pregnancy instead of being an anxious basket case all the time. I felt prepared and was ready to do it.

Because I had been measuring small and every ultrasound showed that the baby was a little small, we expected that I'd be a late. When I hit 41 weeks, we went to the hospital for a nonstress test and ultrasound. Everything checked out just fine, but one of the midwives I'd been seeing (let's call her Carrie) happened to be at the hospital so she came in and talked to me about getting induced. She wasn't my favorite person to work with before that, but then she threw out things like "increased chance of stillbirth" and "the baby's getting bigger and your pelvis is only so big." Fun things like that. I had to be really insistent that I didn't want to be induced, especially because the only reason for it was that I was overdue - there were no actual medical concerns. I knew it would be much harder to have a natural birth if I didn't go into labor on my own, so I told her no. I was very proud of myself for speaking up, especially when if felt like Carrie was trying to scare me. 

I went back two days later (Wednesday) for another nonstress test. The ultrasound was fine and I thought the nonstress test was too, but then Carrie came in and told me they were seeing some variables on the test. The baby's heart rate was dropping slightly when I was contracting, which indicated she could be in some stress. It wasn't an emergency, but it was a concern. Carrie told me that I needed to be induced and even started talking about keeping me there overnight. I asked to just come back in the next morning, and she agreed - I'm pretty sure it's the only reason she let me leave the hospital. Now that I'm not in the moment, I can see why she was so insistent but at the time, I felt manipulated and scared and heartbroken that I wouldn't be allowed to go into labor on my own. I went home to Tim with a 6:30 induction scheduled for the next morning, but as we talked (and I cried) and processed, we felt strongly like it was all for the best, especially since the midwife I liked the most, Dena, was on call the next day so I wouldn't have to deal with Carrie. We let my doula (and best friend since high school ) Natalie know and got ready and excited to have a baby the next day.

We went in late the next morning because I elected to sleep in a little (and Dena didn't come on call until 9 am). Dena started me on a cervix softener around 9:30 since I was still just at a 1, and since you have to wait four hours after a cervix softener is administered to start pitocin, we watched two episodes of Pushing Daisies while we waited. Dena came back and broke my water at noon, and the contractions started to pick up. In the process of moving around to find a comfortable position, I got really dizzy so I had to be in bed and on oxygen for most of the rest of the day. At two, they started up the pitocin. I think I would have been okay to labor naturally if I'd been able to move around and change positions, but the contractions were already pretty intense so I asked for some drugs in my IV to take the edge off. Mostly the drugs just made me sleepy but between that, the relaxing music I put on my iPod, and my Hypnobabies training, I breathed my way through the next three hours. I went from a 3 to an 8 in that time and was feeling "pushy," but I was already completely exhausted, both physically and mentally, so I asked for an epidural. Once that kicked in, I was able to take a nap for about an hour and a half, which was awesome and exactly what I needed.

When I woke up around 7 or so, I was (finally!) at a 10. We put on my "Feel Good" playlist to help wake me up and set the mood, and when Dena came in to get everything set up, we totally had a dance party. That's one of my favorite details of the day - I can't wait until Georgie is old enough to appreciate that there was literally dancing and singing when she was born! There were only six songs on the playlist (the rest of my music hadn't transferred for some reason) so we listened to them about four times while I pushed. After almost exactly an hour, Georgie was born a minute before 8:30 with lots of blonde hair. The cord was wrapped around her neck twice, but she wasn't ever in distress - her heart rate had stayed steady throughout the entire day, during the contractions and drugs and pushing, everything. She came through it all like a champ. 

They put her up on my stomach right away and those first moments of holding her were indescribably surreal. I was so exhausted and so awake at the same time. I remember lots of people around us, lots of hands reaching in to wipe her off, cut the cord, etc., but they seemed so disembodied; I only had eyes and ears for her. Tim was the only other person in focus - the rest of the room was literally a blur. They cleaned her up and cleaned me up and when I finally got to hold her again, it was just incredible. I couldn't believe we were a family of three and I was holding the tiny person who had lived inside of me for all those months. And watching Tim hold his daughter and bond with her - priceless. He was (and is) so in love. These pictures aren't the best quality, but I love how much they capture the emotions of those moments,

 And even though this photo is blurry, I can't get enough of the look on Tim's face.

And here are some more recent pictures of our sweet girl, just for fun:

 Can you tell I haven't slept much?

 This was totally un-posed, by the way. So stinkin' cute!

This cute little dress is the only thing that actually fits her right now - she's still too little for her 0-3 month clothes.

Tim went to California for a few days for his brother's wedding and holding Georgie was the first thing he did when he got back.

 
This is the look we get when she's totally chilled out. When she purses her lips like that, it means she doesn't want anything else to eat. I think it's hilarious.

Conference weekend

As much as I love General Conference weekend (and I do!), it took a back seat to staring at (and feeding, changing, bathing, and calming) this cutie:

We've survived the first 10 days, mostly with a lot of help from my mom. Tim is going to go back to work tomorrow and I'll be on my own for the afternoons. We are still trading off being awake at night but hopefully we'll be able to all three sleep at night (and all in the same room) soon. Georgie is a very chill baby, for the most part. Just in the last couple of days she's started to sleep less and fuss and scream more, which is to be expected now that she's not brand new. But she's generally pretty easy to calm and we are starting to recognize her cues better, which definitely helps. Mostly we think she's adorable and that makes even the screaming easier to deal with.

I am feeling pretty good, up and about and sort of dressing myself. I don't think I've slept for more than 2 1/2 hours at a time since we came home from the hospital, but Tim is amazing and makes sure I get enough naps to be able to function. We are just taking it really easy, one day and night at a time. Sometimes it's just one feeding at a time, depending on the amount of crying going on (either hers or mine - postpartum hormones are so crazy!). It's amazing how days and nights just run together when you have a new baby, and amazing how much stuff ends up everywhere - wipes, blankets, burp clothes, dishes, water bottles. It's  really about survival at this point, but I keep reminding myself that it will get better and even in just a week, we'll have made progress. In the meantime, I'll just keep enjoying my tiny snuggly baby. Love her!

Georgiana Kaylee Herrick

She's here. She's perfect. I'm still processing what that means, but in the meantime, we are so completely in love. 

Georgiana Kaylee Herrick

Sep. 27th, 2012

8:29 pm

7 lb 3 oz

18 1/2 inches

Still here

41 weeks and still pregnant. We suspected this baby was going to be late and it's a little bit nice to be right, though I'd really rather just have a baby soon. I've made a little bit of progress and everything is still good - she's moving a lot, has a good heart rate, fluid levels are fine - and since I don't want to be induced if I can possibly help it, we're just going to keep waiting until she is ready. But I have a feeling it'll be this week; she's going to be a September baby for sure. 

In the meantime, I finally re-finished the edges of the quilt I made for her that ended up in one of our magazines because we were short a few projects. Here's the quilt and the published pictures:

Hopefully my next post will include pictures of a baby!

Dear Baby Girl,

Today was your official due date but in spite of all your pushing and stretching, you weren't quite ready to come out. I know you're squished in there - I can feel it! - and I promise there's more room for you to stretch on the outside. But you take your time; I want you to be as ready as you can be before you make your debut. It's a bigger world out here, and it'll be completely overwhelming at first, but I promise, it's beautiful. The mountains are dotted with red leaves and the blue sky is absolutely luscious. There is so much beauty here, so much love and happiness and delight. Don't wait too long to start this adventure with your daddy and me, okay? We love you so much and we can't wait to meet you!

Love, Mama

Maternity Photo Shoot

My sister is absolutely an artist - these turned out so well! 39 1/2 weeks pregnant and I'm still feeling (and hopefully looking) good!

Craziest. Week. Ever.

Life didn't slow down this week, not even a little bit. It was the craziest week. It started out busy (see previous post about nesting) and then Tim got a really nasty virus that pretty much laid him out for two days. (He slept for about 12 hours two nights in a row - he never does that!) I did not get sick, thankfully, but having a sick husband and a crazy nesting instinct is no fun when you can't move furniture by yourself.

Then we had my weekly appointment with the midwives and I was measuring small so they sent us to do a nonstress test and get an ultrasound to make sure everything was okay. We were pretty sure things were fine and my belly was measuring small because the baby dropped, but we weren't going to say no to an ultrasound! I did kinda freak out a little after that appointment, but to help me feel better, Tim took me shopping and we got a few last things for the baby and then we finished getting our room set up. Tim's so good to me. :) The nonstress test and ultrasound were totally fine - the baby's just low and measuring about a week behind her due date which is exactly what we were told at the 20 week ultrasound. So nothing to worry about there. (As a side note, we got a few pics from the ultrasound and we got to see the baby's face! And she has cute little chubby cheeks already - it's kind of adorable.)

Then the night after the ultrasound, we discovered that the pipe from the washing machine to the drain was broken when I did an extra-large load of laundry and all the water from that load flooded our furnace room, entryway, bathroom, part of the kitchen, and then soaked through the furnace room wall to get the carpet in our hallway wet. Yeah. That happened. There was enough water in the bathroom that I had to sweep it out into the garage before I could soak it up with towels. There wasn't a lot of damage, just stuff to clean up, but we were very worried about the walls and carpet mildewing or molding. My awesome brother-in-law Jase does construction so we listened when he told us to pull up the carpet in the hallway to get the pad dry underneath. The pipe got fixed the very next day and the pad and carpet are mostly dry now, but the dry wall in the furnace room will probably have to be replaced which means things are still in a state of semi-disarray. Just what we wanted to deal with right before having a baby, right?

Luckily, my mom had already volunteered to come down and help me do some deep cleaning on Saturday, so she helped us get the kitchen and bathroom to rights, among other things. My parents are so awesome - it was such a huge relief to have them over!

We also went and toured the birthing center at Orem Community Hospital this week and mostly pre-registered. My insurance is still in the process of switching over to COBRA so we only got half of it done and we're now impatiently waiting for my new insurance card so we can finish. 

And then to finish the week, Sunday was our ward's Primary program, which went really well, but was exhausting. I am really, really glad I could be there for it and I kept telling people it was the last thing on my list so I was free to have a baby now. I'm thinking I should probably try to recover from this last week first, but I'm 39 weeks and in spite of the pulled up carpet and dry wall needing to be replace, I'm ready to have a baby!

My favorite part of the week was definitely finishing our room. Everything is so clean and nested! (And yes, we do sleep with two different blankets right now - makes it much easier for each of us to regulate the temperature throughout the night.)

And here's what our hallway looks like - pulled back carpet, industrial fan, and lamp because the light fixture is broken. Good times.

Nesting

So nesting is a real thing. We hit September (literally) and my inner alarm clock went off. All summer I've been mentally counting down to now, saying that once we made it to September, this baby could come anytime. That really hit me this weekend, and so I've been on a sort of nesting frenzy. At least, that's where I assume the bursts of energy are coming from. Rearranging furniture, cleaning, making lists - I just feel like I'm running out of time. And I guess I am - this little girl is due in two weeks! I started out the summer with a very long list of stuff I wanted to get done around the house, and after I got really stressed out about not being able to fit it all in, I started making cuts. I realized that I could have a baby even if the spare room closet was not cleaned out or if my car was not vacuumed. I eventually a made a must-do list and now I'm even starting to cross things off of that. I mean, there are some things that can only happen before the baby is born - there's no point in touring the hospital afterward - but other things can wait if they have to. That's what I keep telling myself, anyway, and I think it's working. 

To cut to the chase: 38 weeks and I'm nesting. Lots of contractions but nothing super strong or long. Lots of things to get done at work but I'm on track to finish it all this week. Lots of things to get ready around the house but with Tim's help, I think I'll get it all done. A few things left to do before I'll feel ready to have a baby. We're days, not weeks, away from meeting our little girl and underneath the stress, I'm so excited!

Baby book review

My goal to read something in August devolved into reading one of the baby books that's been recommended to me and I never quite got around to more recreational reading - a sad harbinger of things to come, I think. Hopefully I can still find time to read once I have a little baby taking up all my attention! (If you are a mother and know better, don't burst my illusions just yet. Just smile and let me discover it on my own.)

In any event, I read The Happiest Baby on the Block by Dr. Harvey Karp and I was/am very glad I finally got a chance to read it. The tips and tricks for calming newborns and all the theories behind them were very interesting and will be sanity-saving, I'm pretty positive. I've heard a lot about the different theories of having a new baby - putting her on a schedule, letting her cry it out, etc. - but this book seemed like a really nice middle ground with a solid scientific backing. Definitely recommended for new mothers (in my almost new mother opinion), and as a bonus, our copy came with a short DVD that I watched with Tim so we are both educated now. Maybe I'll have to do a follow-up post in a few months and report on if this works for us!

So long, sweet summer

Somehow we're already done with summer - it went so fast! I took a look at my summer to-do list and was mostly pleased and only a little disappointed at what we did/did not manage to do.

- Summerfest fireworks: Didn't go - the pregnant woman opted out of walking from the car and sitting on the ground.
- Timpanogos Storytelling Festival: We have our tickets and are going this Saturday!
- Game nights: The last one was yesterday and it was really fun to get to play so many of our games all summer!
- Visit the BYU Museum of Art: Hmm, maybe we'll still make this one happen...
- Picnic at Bridal Veil Falls: Ditto that.
- Outdoor movies at the Scera Shell: Again, the pregnant woman opted out of staying up super late.
- Miniature golf: Cost money and we're saving up for the baby.
- Trip to Capitol Reef: We went for our anniversary
- Timpanogos Caves: We didn't end up going because we realized me hiking was not realistic.
- Stadium of Fire fireworks: Check!
- Go to the library, find some new books, and read in the park: Check!
- Swimming/7 Peaks: 7Peaks was too expensive for us but we ended up swimming at our hotel for my birthday and it was divine.
- Antelope Island
- Make ice cream, popsicles, slushies, etc.: Check!
- Provo Farmer's Market
- Rooftop Concert Series: We only went to one but it was fun and we were very glad we got to go.
- Thanksgiving Point Gardens: Sadly not something we made it to.

In spite of all the things we didn't do, we had a really busy summer! Tim's class took up lots of time, plus we had birthdays and bbqs and family in town and lots to keep us on the go. It was a great summer, in spite of all the things we didn't get to do. I almost wish we had a few more weeks to enjoy, but then again, I'm a tad anxious to have this baby. Bring on the fall!

Goodbye old friend, aka Hello car trouble

We have not had good luck with cars this summer. After my car got a new alternator in July, we were seriously thinking about selling it, using the money to help pay for having a baby, and just sharing Tim's car (especially since mine is too small to fit a car seat in the back). We were debating back and forth when whaddya know, Tim's car up and died one morning on the way to one of my appointments. This time it was the clutch, and after pushing it to our mechanic (who was luckily only a few blocks away), we learned that it would cost about as much as they car is worth to fix, aka not worth fixing. 

Tim bought this car a few months before we got married - it was the first car he'd ever actually owned and it's been an amazing vehicle. We've made lots of trips to Torrey in it and several to California, once while pulling a trailer and once via San Francisco and the Pacific Coast Highway. It got amazing gas mileage and was pretty much awesome, in spite of the lack of power steering. It feels silly to admit, but we are kind of heartbroken to say goodbye to it, even aside from the very difficult situation it put us in.

Luckily, that part worked out really well. My dad was already planning on buying a new car so he did that this week and "sold" us his old one (basically just gave it to us). It might be the nicest car either of us has owned: power locks, power windows, power steering, cruise control, and 4-wheel drive for the winter. It does not have a working AC, however, which does make the current weather a bit hard to drive in, but it'll be perfect for the winter. And the car seat fits in the back so we're good to go! It is older than Tim's car but it should last us a little while at the very least - enough time to figure out what to do with my car or save up to buy a new one or whatever we need to do. Mostly, we have a vehicle that we can transport a tiny baby in, which is all we need for the next little while!

So goodbye, old Saturn friend. Hello, new Suzuki friend. And please let that be the end of our car trouble for the foreseeable future!

Birthday weekend

Last weekend was my birthday (26!) and both to celebrate that and to have one last "just us" vacation, Tim and I spent the weekend relaxing and doing only fun things. I picked most of the fun things (re: birthday) but it ended up being a completely wonderful weekend.

We kicked it off with dinner at Brick Oven and ice cream at our house with some friends, which was delicious and fun and I am sad I forgot to take any pictures, especially of the AMAZING balloon animal giraffe I got at Brick Oven for my birthday. It was by far the best balloon animal giraffe I've ever seen!

Saturday morning we slept in, then eventually packed up and headed first to IKEA, which is the happiest place on earth in my book. We browsed, ate lunch, and picked up a few things I'd been wanting. Then over to my other favorite place, H&M, where I scored three shirts for $12 because I had a gift card. And they all currently fit over my big belly! 

Then we headed up to Salt Lake and checked into our hotel and basically did nothing but relaxed and napped and enjoyed being in a cool, clean, quiet place. This photo about sums it up. 

The view from the window:

And the Hilton from the outside. Oh so swanky, no?

Over to Olive Garden for dinner (great food, not so great service) and then to Gourmandise for dessert (we also got some muffins for breakfast the next day). A very international day, huh? Then we got to watch some of the Olympics and THEN we went down to the pool. Uh-mazing. It was so nice to have all the weight lifted off my joints and just float for a little while. Tim was super nice and let me use him as a paddle board so I could really just float. Getting out was hard.

Here I am at almost 35 weeks in a new H&M shirt before we went to dinner:

 The results of Gourmandise: strawberry tart, bread pudding, and yummy muffins.

We slept in super late on Sunday, then headed over to my parents' house for a birthday lunch/dinner and presents. Then it was back to Salt Lake for the crowning event: Wicked!!! My mom got me tickets for Christmas and holy cow, they were amazing seats. Second row of the balcony, dead center. And the show was so good - Tim and I had both seen it before but not for awhile and never together, so we were super excited. The cast was amazing, the show wonderful, and we haven't stopped singing songs from it yet. It was the perfect way to end our weekend.

Happy 26th to me, and happy last vacation to us!