Growing Up Fast!

Mira turned 5 months old a couple days ago - how does time fly so fast? She's growing up and learning new things every single day and all I can say about that is it's so not fair. Babies need to stay babies just a little bit longer. Not much longer because there are things about having a baby that are really difficult and it'll be nice to move past that, but come on - can't they stay little for just a little bit longer? Is that really so much to ask? Just to illustrate the differences between how Mark and I look at having a baby, every time Mira hits a new milestone, I get a little teary and say, "She's growing up too fast!" Mark just gets excited that she's growing up and is able to do new things. Two sides of the same coin, I guess.

So speaking of milestones, Mira hit a couple of big ones in the last week. First, I finally caved and started feeding her solid food. Mark has been encouraging me to get her started as soon as she turned 4 months, and I've been trying to put it off because it's the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics that babies be fed only breastmilk/formula for the first 6 months of life blah blah blah and of course I felt that I had to follow that recommendation to the letter. How else was I supposed to be a good mom unless I did everything exactly the way the experts recommended?? But she's been showing an interest in food since she was about 3 1/2 months, my pediatrician said it was okay, and finally a friend of mine at work told me to basically just feed her already! And as I've mentioned before, I would like a little independence back. So I made up some rice cereal with my milk and gave it a go.

As interested as she'd been acting, a lot of my friends had said that when they first tried giving rice cereal to their babies, the response was lukewarm at best. I figured she would make faces, gag, spit it out, and decide she didn't like it. Boy was I wrong! She was so excited to be getting real food that she was shaking! She grabbed for the spoon with both hands and gobbled it up as fast as she could.

Mmm, yummy!

More! Faster! I'm hungry!

Thank you ever so much for feeding me!

 And of course, feeding time turned into bath time. I knew it would be messy but wow! I've played with the consistency of the rice cereal a bit and it's not as bad when I make it thicker. She's doing better about the actual eating part too. She still has a bit of a tendency to push the food out with her tongue but she's already a lot better about not doing that. After a few days of rice cereal once a day, I've been feeding her the cereal twice a day and I'm adding some baby food to the cereal now. I tried bananas the other day. She wasn't too sure about the bananas on their own but she loved it mixed with the cereal. I'll keep trying the bananas by themselves and hopefully after a few more tries she'll get used to it. I'm thinking sweet potatoes are next. I didn't realize it would be so much fun to introduce solids! It's messy but it sure is entertaining. Although now I can understand why there are disposable bibs. And I've been undressing her before I feed her. Why make more laundry for myself?

The next big milestone she hit was - she cut her first tooth! She had been acting kind of cranky the week or so leading up to the tooth breaking through - and by cranky I mean short-tempered. She was as good-natured as ever but she had a little diva attitude. I think what really helped is Mark massaged her gums so that the tooth could break through. She's been in a much better mood since then. :)

I've discovered that babies don't need toys. All Mira needs to play with is her feet. As soon as you lay her down on her back, she brings her feet up and grabs on. Diaper changes are interesting now. She's really close to figuring out how to bring her feet up to her mouth - any day now! She could probably go for hours holding onto her feet and be perfectly content. In fact she'll even hold onto them when she's crying. What is it about babies and feet?

Today I think I'll play with my feet.

Playing with my feet sure is fun!

Hmm, what to do today ... I know, play with my feet!

Of course she will play with toys - just tonight she learned how to hold onto a toy and shake it and wave it around. Very fun especially if the toy makes noise. Her dexterity gets better all the time, it's just crazy. She can pretty much feed herself a bottle now and she can not only get her pacifier to her mouth, she can (after much concentration and a few tries) get the correct part of the pacifier to her mouth. She definitely wants to do things herself. I'll put the pacifier in her mouth, she'll reach up, pull it out, and put it back in. Just to prove a point, I guess. She is so close to being able to turn from back to front. She'll get about 3/4 of the way there and then end up on her back again. She doesn't have much incentive to be on her stomach though - she's still not a huge fan of tummy time and besides, she can't reach her feet if she's on her stomach. :)

I'm starting to have to be really careful about what objects I put in her general vicinity. There have been several times I've put her down and put something near her but far enough away that I've figured there's no way she can reach it - and two seconds later she's got it in her mouth. She's mauled several receipts this way and the other day she even got ahold of an entire head of lettuce while she was sitting in the Bumbo chair. I'm still not sure how that happened. She can sit unsupported for a couple seconds at a time and then she'll topple over. I'm worried she'll skip over the sitting and just go straight for standing. She could stand all day if I let her! If you pick her up and help her stand up she gets a huge open-mouth grin - she can go from frustrated and unhappy to deliriously excited just by standing her up. She has strong little legs too. She just doesn't get tired of standing and she really doesn't need much support at all. She better not be an early walker. There are lots of exciting milestones (like starting solid food and the first tooth) but learning to walk is one that I would prefer to put off for awhile.

Watching the Pioneer Day Parade with Grandpa

I know I've said this before but here I go again - having a child is so much more fun than I thought it would be! It's not without its difficulties of course, but so far I have really been enjoying this little person.

Now I'm going to say something that will probably surprise no one except myself - I think I may have to admit defeat and go out and buy a whole new pant and skirt wardrobe. I'm only a few pounds over my prepregnancy weight but the vast majority of my pants and skirts will not fit. It's obviously not just a weight issue when we're talking about 5 pounds and I can't get my jeans up past mid-thigh. Mark told me (very wisely) that I couldn't expect my body to be the same after being pregnant and giving birth. I kept hoping that once I really got into an exercise routine and got toned again that I'd be back in my regular jeans and everything but I don't think any amount of exercise will get me there. On the one hand - this means a shopping spree and of course this is a very exciting prospect. On the other hand it makes me a little sad. I have a hard time with the idea of having to get rid of so many clothes that I love and realizing that working out isn't going to get me back into them. It shouldn't matter what the number is on the pants that I wear but psychologically it's kind of jarring. I realize this is going to get me about as much sympathy as I got when I finally started wearing maternity pants at 26 weeks and freaked out :) but I think any of my girlfriends who have had children can understand the sentiment. You get used to your body being a certain way and sometimes it's hard to reconcile yourself to what you end up with afterwards. I shouldn't be that upset - I mentioned this topic to friends at work the other night and immediately started getting teased about being a size 3 now instead of a size 00 and that maybe now I can shop in the women's section instead of junior's clothing. LOL! Anyway, that's my little self pity party. On the plus side, Mira's getting so fat I'm going to have some really nice muscular arms before too long, haha.

Just out of curiosity, would anybody be interested in a post about the birth story?

Back to Reality

Warning - major picture overload!

It's so not fair that vacations can fly by so fast! We were in Jacksonville, Florida for 5 days to visit my grandparents and when it was time to leave to come back home it seemed like we'd just gotten there. It was a lot of fun though. I had been super anxious about flying with a 4 1/2 month old baby from Salt Lake City to Jacksonville (about 5 or 6 hours of flying time) - I was so worried Mira would scream the whole time and everybody on the plane would hate us. I don't know why I worry though, every time I've been concerned about something it's turned out to be just fine - maybe a message from the universe to chill out and relax? Who knows. Anyway, Mira did great. We took a red eye flight down, she slept the whole way from SLC to Atlanta and woke up as the flight from Atlanta to Jacksonville was getting ready to leave. She played and amused herself and hardly made a peep. What a good baby!

Getting packed up to go.

My grandparents were head over heels excited to meet Mira! It's been many years since they've had a baby to play with. Mark and I made the trip down last summer when I was about 12 weeks pregnant and I was so sick and exhausted we missed out on doing lots of things. So the first day we were down there Mark and I drove down to St. Augustine to go to a few places I couldn't manage last year and revisit some places we really enjoyed. We went to the local winery (they had some really good wines, too bad we can't get more bottles shipped to us), walked around the shopping district, and went to our favorite restaurant, the Santa Maria. It's literally over the water so you have a great view of the harbor. You can open these trap doors and feed bread scraps to the fish and birds outside, you can watch dolphins jumping around in the water - not to mention the seafood is fantastic! I wish there was such a thing as fresh seafood in Utah. Our lunch was blackened alligator tail skewers, clam chowder, and various fried seafood.

At the Santa Maria Restaurant.

A pirate ship outside our table at the restaurant.

Watching the dolphins.

We also walked around the city a little - but not too much because it was in the 90s with humidity at something like 89%. It really does feel hotter with that much humidity! We walked to the Castillo de San Marcos, the big fort. Mira slept through that part but we got some good pictures to show her when she gets older. We also got to see them do a reenactment where they shot a cannon off the side of the fort. That was really cool.

The Castillo with St. Augustine in the background.

Southwest corner of the fort.

Of course you don't make a trip out to Florida without going to the beach, especially since my grandparents live just a 10 or 15 minute drive away from the ocean.

Getting dressed for the beach.

At Jacksonville Beach.

First time in the Atlantic Ocean!

This is how she felt about it.

We tried a few more times to dip her feet in the water and she screamed every time. Oh well, we tried. Maybe when she's a little older she'll like it more.

Relaxing with Dad.

With Paw Paw.

With Maw Maw.

Me, Mark, Maw Maw, Paw Paw, & Mira

Four generations!

It was a great trip! I'm just sorry it was over so fast. I guess it's time to start planning the next one, since we've established that Mira is a really good traveler.

Mira just keeps changing every day! I'm going to have trouble keeping her occupied now because she got used to always being the center of attention the last few days. She's figured out that it's super fun if she purposefully drops a toy so that someone will pick it up and give it back to her. I'm thinking that I'll probably get her started on solids in the next few days. I know it goes against what we preach at work but she's been acting ready for over a month now and she's starting to get angry when she's around food and we don't let her try any. And I caught Mark giving her tastes of whipped cream and ice cream - my first instinct was to be pissed but she loved it and nothing bad has happened so why keep putting it off at this point? Plus, I realized I'm ready to have some more independence - it's so hard to get anything accomplished when you have to drop everything to feed your baby every 2 hours, and you're the only one who can do it. And - she's definitely teething now. I've been wondering for a little while but you can see the little white nubs on her bottom gum and you can even feel a sharp little edge.

She might be teething but she's still happy!

Here's a fun video of her. Remind me not to buy toys anymore, just things that make crinkling noises. She obviously enjoys this but she had a meltdown a couple minutes later because she got really frustrated - presumably because she couldn't fit the whole bag in her mouth. (Of course she could just be more short-tempered than normal because of the teething.)

Lots of Memories

Hope everyone had an awesome 4th of July!

It just amazes me how Mira can learn something new literally overnight. For instance she just a couple days ago has decided that Peekaboo is hilarious. Last week if you tried to play Peekaboo with her she looked at you like you belonged in the loony bin. She has discovered her feet too, and how to grab them. I don't know what babies' fascination with feet is all about but it sure is cute!

She loves mirrors too (true diva). She smiles at her reflection and she's started to reach for her reflection. You can see the wheels turning in her head. I always wonder how much babies actually know about what's going on around them - is she just happy because there's a face smiling at her or does she realize she's looking at herself? She's also super interested in food. She watches the food go to your mouth and looks at the food and back to your mouth, makes chewing motions with her mouth, tries reaching for your food - it's really cute but it makes me realize we're coming up on introducing solids very soon. I'll admit breastfeeding is not my favorite thing in the world. In some ways it's convenient, and it's definitely what's best for her, but let's face it, it doesn't make my life any easier. Even just figuring out what clothes I can wear is really frustrating! So as nice as it'll be to start solids, it means she's growing up, and every mom wants her baby to stay small just a little while longer. (Mark, meanwhile, is excited about advancing her diet. The day after she turned 4 months old he bought a box of rice cereal and has been thickening her bottles with it on the nights I work, and apparently she's done really well. I think if I didn't work where I work and didn't have the education on how much of a difference it really makes, I probably would have started her on solids already. It's times like this when I really realize that ignorance truly is bliss.)

It's been neat to watch the progression of her grabbing skills. First she would swipe her hand in the general vicinity of an object and half the time she wouldn't get anywhere near it. Then she'd get her hand on the object but wouldn't be able to grab it very well. Then she'd get better at grabbing but still drop it every time she picked up the object. Now she's really good at grabbing and holding on, and everything gets stuffed into her mouth.

I guess when your first impression of your baby is a completely helpless lumpy blob, even something as simple as reaching for an object is cause for celebration. Think of the nerve connections that had to form!

I mentioned in my last post an event called The Drama and that I would write about it. It seems really fitting that I write about it here because it has been exactly 1 year since it happened. I mentioned that when I found out I was pregnant all I could do was panic. The panic didn't go away after letting the news sit for a couple days. I was almost in denial - I just couldn't wrap my head around the enormous permanence of this!

On the night of July 7, 2010, I went to work as usual. It was a busy night and I was starting to really feel morning sickness (actually for me it turned into all-day sickness) but I was determined not to tell anyone, not even family, until at least after the first OB appointment. Around 10 PM I went to use the bathroom and there was blood EVERYWHERE. This was not that light bleeding that often happens to pregnant women that gets confused with a menstrual cycle. This was an honest-to-goodness hemorrhage. And not just frank bright red blood, but golf ball sized blood clots as well.

I was stunned. There was no doubt what was happening. This had to be a miscarriage. And of course it had to happen at work. I told the charge nurse what was going on and lost it. And of course people saw me crying and wanted to know what was going on. So I had to tell everyone, over and over, what was happening. Which made me cry all over again. And repeat. It was terrible. I started to have cramping and back pain and kept losing lots of blood. It was hours before the assignments could get juggled around and for me to get my replacement nurse. I finally ran out at about 2 AM and called Mark. All I could say was, "I think I'm losing it. Can you meet me at the hospital?" That was the worst dead silence I've ever heard. He was working that night and I guess that's the benefit of having a cop car because he managed to get to LDS Hospital from Davis County before I got there from Primary Children's. (For those of you who aren't familiar - my travel time was less than 10 minutes and Mark's should have been more like 20 minutes.)

They got me into a room really fast in the ER. I told the doctor what was happening and she said it definitely sounded like I was having a miscarriage. I had an IV started and labs drawn and a fluid bolus given. By this time I had resigned myself to the fact that this was baby was a goner and I just needed to make sure everything was okay with me.

After a little while the ultrasound tech came in the make sure I didn't have an ectopic pregnancy. All I could think was that would just be the icing on the cake tonight, to have an ectopic pregnancy and have to go in for emergency surgery. The tech got started and immediately zoomed in on something.

"Wow. There's still a heartbeat."

"WHAT??????"

There was a little fuzzy gray cotton ball with a rapid flickering.

"You're still pregnant."

Mark and I were completely stunned. They dated me at 6 weeks 4 days, putting my due date at February 27th. The tech told the doctor and she was just as surprised as we were. So we were told it was probably a subchorionic hemorrhage and it could be good that there was a heartbeat. But I was still losing a lot of blood and there was a very good chance that I would still miscarry in the next few days. I made an appointment with my OB later that day and he told me pretty much the same thing - he prepared me for what would happen with a miscarriage and how soon we could try again and it was nothing I did wrong that caused this.

The entire first trimester, understandably, was terrifying for us. I continued to bleed for 2 more weeks and the only way I knew everything was okay was because I was nauseous ALL THE FREAKING TIME. At about 8 weeks the bleeding finally stopped and we started to relax a bit, only to get terrified again at 11 weeks when I had another episode of heavy bleeding. I had lots of hCG levels drawn, which were all encouraging, but you can see why we couldn't really relax until we made it to the 2nd trimester. I didn't completely relax until about 30 weeks.

We realized after we chose the name Mira that if we wanted to be cheesy it could be short for Miracle, because she really beat the odds to make it here. All signs pointed to a miscarriage and somehow she made it here. And it really made me realize that even if I was scared to be a mom, I did really want my baby.

Our beautiful, healthy baby girl

Fourth of July

I love the Fourth of July! There's nothing like blowing stuff up to show your patriotism. :) And this year aerial fireworks are legal in Utah! Not that we really paid a whole lot of attention to that in years past... we may or may not have gone to Wyoming to buy pyrotechnics that may or may not have been legal... Anyway the point is that we're going to explode some stuff tonight and I'm really looking forward to it!

I always complain about how Utah never celebrates holidays on the actual holiday but this year it actually works in my favor. I work the 3rd and 4th (gotta love those holiday requirements) but the city is doing the fireworks show on the 2nd so I'll be working for holiday pay and not missing anything. I'm just not sure how Mira will handle fireworks so we'll see how that goes. Fingers crossed!

Here are some pics of Mira. She wants to sit up but doesn't have the upper body strength yet, and loves when you hold her so she can stand. It's really cute but eventually I need to go do something that requires the use of hands and her bouncy chair isn't quite as entertaining as it used to be. The other day I went to Kid 2 Kid and found this super cute walker for a really good deal. Her toes just barely touch the floor and she hasn't quite figured out how to make it move yet but she loves that she can be upright and looking around, plus the steering wheel is really tasty.

Driving the walker.

Checking her blind spot before changing lanes.

She loves to talk and she's always smiling! She hardly ever cries and she's been sleeping through the night for several weeks now. That newborn period really is exhausting and I didn't realize it until she grew out of it. She's getting chunky and I absolutely love it! Babies should be chubby and it's nice to see mine finally getting there. She has dimples in her elbows and forearm fat that hangs over her wrists and some really satisfying fat rolls in her thighs. In fact her thighs are so fat I can't get my hand around them anymore! I don't know what it is about fat baby thighs but I just can't get enough of it.

As you can see she's getting better at grabbing things and of course they all go straight for her mouth. It's so satisfying and reassuring for me to watch her hit her milestones and develop normally. For a paranoid PICU nurse it seriously puts my mind at ease! You worry enough as it is and it's worse when you work in a PICU and all you see is the really awful stuff. It's just crazy that this is the same little baby from a few months ago! Four months really isn't a long time but for babies it's just full of change. They go from being demanding, helpless, lumpy little blobs to miniature people with a budding personality. It's just mind-boggling. I have to admit that being a mom is a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Everyone told me that having kids is so much fun but, like many things in life, I didn't get it until I experienced it myself.

The Fourth of July weekend is also full of memories for us because it was just this time last year that we found out I was pregnant. We drove to Evanston to buy some fireworks and I was just so carsick on the drive up. I get carsick really easily and usually have trouble on that drive anyway but that time it was just beyond awful. I could barely concentrate on looking for fireworks because I was so worried I was going to barf. We stayed for dinner at a restaurant and I ate exactly 2 bites of food before calling uncle. The car ride home was horrendous too. And the funny thing is that even then it didn't occur to me that I might be pregnant! I think it was the next day I took a test just to see and lo and behold it was positive. I'll admit that my reaction was to have an all-out panic attack. I couldn't be excited because I was so scared. And then just a few days later The Drama happened... That's a whole post by itself and don't worry, I'll write about it. But it definitely makes me nostalgic getting ready to make another Evanston run for fireworks.

Everyone have an awesome holiday!