gaining and losing

we took charlotte to the doctor today (i’m allowed one or two first-time-mommie-calling-the-doctor-freak-outs).  she’s fine, nothing at all wrong. but they weighed her again, she is up to 7lbs 14ounces … so she’s gained a whole 4 ounces back above her birth weight.

and as they weighed her, i stepped up on the big kid scale to see where i was. i hadn’t been weighed since the day before she was born.  and guess what! i’ve lost 26 pounds since she was born.  i was so excited! its so encouraging to know that i’ve lost over half of what i gained through the whole pregnancy! once i’m back down to the pre-prego size, the real work begins … getting back down to “ideal” (aka freshman year of college) size before we ever even talk about more kids! i may not be busting out “sweatin’ to the oldies” just yet, but maybe i’ll do some research on those baby-mommie excercises since i’m apparently still not supposed to be lifting anything heavier that charlotte!  but i’m super encouraged and just wanted to share the good news!

who am i?

… what do you think?

3 Types of Pastor’s Wives

sleeping through the night

the newest question on our minds is “do we let charlotte sleep until she wakes up hungry at night, or do we wake her up to feed at the 2.5-3 hour mark?”

everyone has a different opinion … and i haven’t decided what my opinion is yet.  my mom says she’s too young and needs to be woken up.  some new mom friends of mine say that she will wake up when she’s hungry so enjoy as much sleep as she’ll allow you.  i just don’t know.  she is so little, and i’ve read that some babies get so lethargic that they really don’t wake up to eat.  in the hospital they had me waking her up to eat.  but if she’s feeding okay and growing okay, i assume she’s healthy and will wake up when she’s hungry.  during the day she starts to stir herself awake around the 2.5-3 hour mark without me waking her up, and last night she went for four hours between feedings.  sigh, i just am not sure.

the sleep would be nice, but i want to make sure she’s getting enough to eat and growing healthy.  i almost wish i had one of those baby scales at home so i could know for sure that she’s growing at a steady rate … but i guess i’ll just have to wait another 2.5 weeks until her 1-month check up (aaah, a whole month old, when did that happen??)

one nice thing is that jamie has volunteered to do the 2am feeding for the past two nights, which means i get extra consecutive sleep (which didn’t work so well last night because i woke up hearing her crying as he was getting the bottle ready and i couldn’t get back to sleep until he came back to bed … so it was a little wasted, but at least i didn’t have to actually get up outta bed!).  the extra sleep is helpful, but i don’t know how much he’s gonna want to take that 2am feeding once he has to go back to work!!

well, she just finished a feeding and is sleeping (i think, at least she’s not crying…) so i better get back to bed myself.  we have a big day of going to Babies-R-Us later on … gotta get rested up for that!!

oh the tears

Crying it out. The big question is, who is supposed to be the one crying it out?  Jamie and I have begun the arduous task of letting Charlotte learn how to fall asleep and calm herself down … crying it out.  The thing is, I’m the one that ends up crying it out.  I had no idea that it could be physically painful to hear your child cry.  And 15 minutes is the longest length of time in the entire world.  It gets to 14 minutes and 55 seconds and I almost wish she would keep crying for another minute so I would have an excuse to go pick her up and make myself feel better!

But alas, I know that this is best for her in the long run.  She’ll be able to fall asleep without the aid of props and she’ll learn how to regulate her own emotions. Plus, after she eats she has lots of energy and its not like she can go run around the block to expend that energy, so crying is baby’s way of burning off some energy. We began yesterday during nappie time between feedings and at first it took her the full 14 minutes and 59 seconds to calm down, but now this morning she was able to calm herself down after only 5 minutes!  She has a pattern, she’ll calm herself down 3 times, and the fourth cry is the last one before she finally stops.

We are starting to learn her cries too.  If she is silent and suddenly starts screaming at the top of her little lungs = “i wet my diaper and i cannot stand to sit in such filth, get it off”.  Beyond that, she starts off whimpering then works herself to a full on wail, followed by pitiful ragged breaths, and those could mean anything … not sure yet.  Its funny, she doesn’t mind poopie diapers, but don’t let her sit in a wet diaper for more than a minute and you’ll have a tiny red-faced screaming banchee on your hands!

I’m just glad her tear ducts don’t work yet.  The first time I see a tear on that tiny little face … I’m gonna lose it!

this just made my <3 happy

Friends!

here are some pics of the great friends who came to visit us so far

Tabitha

Vanessa

Tammy

Kristen (and Mr Wilson!)

Jill

Pastor Steve

Pastor Micah

… more to come … i don’t want this post to take forever to load, so i’ll stop here!

wierd things

so here are some weird things i’ve noticed since becoming a mommie…

i can’t feel my left thumb. (i pinched a nerve sometime in the 24 hour labor, Dr Joe is working it out!)

i can actually survive and be pleasant on zero sleep

women are better equipped for sleep deprivation than men

my daughter smiles when she’s fat-n-happy after a feeding

she’s the cutest sneezer in the world

spit-up really can come through the nose

she looks like a little old lady when she’s waking up

the umbilical stump isn’t as gross as i thought it would be

i actually can touch cotton balls (shudder)

… i’m sure the list will go on…

picture overload!

we cannot stop taking pictures of charlotte … but she’s so cute how can we not? so here are some of the pictures we’ve taken so far…

Jamie’s Flickr Photostream

and here is what i look like right this moment … mommie multi-tasking!

Dr. Joe

Charlotte had her first chiropractic appointment on Tuesday.

Dr. Joe checked her out, made a couple small corrections, and we were out the door.  Did you know that during just a “normal” birth process, an infants neck can be stretched up to twice its normal length?  And most people’s first subluxations (misalignments of the spine) occur during birth.  So after 23.5 hours of labor and 1.5 hours of pushing, Charlotte needed a little adjustment.  Its completely pain free, feels like a little massage, and now her nervous system is functioning at peak performance!  She’s a happy girl! Thanks Dr. Joe!

and there she was

i’m sure most if not all of you have been religioiusly stalking jamie’s blog for updates on charlotte.  so i figured it was my turn to get in on all the blog stat hits action!

i won’t go into the details, cause jamie seemed to keep everyone up to speed. what a great live reporter just suffice it to say that you cannot prepare yourself enough for what labor, delivery, and life after baby brings.  you can read all the books, know all the signs and symptoms, but when it comes down to it … you just don’t know. i am so beyond thankful for the amazing staff we had at Wake Med. they were incredible.  jamie and i had been praying to be “at the right place, at the right time, with the right people” when charlotte was born, and believe me, we were! the nurses we had were just the right ones and offered just the right thing when i needed it.  the first one, Kendra, was so awesome and would sit and talk with me, which i needed to keep my mind off the fact that hours were passing.  then suzie stepped in for her shift, and it was her soft strength and absolute attention that got me through the hardest parts of the labor.  she even skipped her lunch and stayed over her shift just to see us through.  the doctor that was on call when we first arrived at the hospital was the one doctor i orginally didn’t want, but it turned out that he was the one i needed to present me with the options and force me to make decisions as things progressed.  but then when the hardest parts came, the doctor i really wanted came on shift and was there to deliver charlotte.  it was unbelievably perfect.

another set of people i am so thankful for are my moms.  they were there for me from the minute we called on the way to the hospital.  and they have stayed by our side, sleeping at our house helping us get through and adjust to night time parenting.  they even went outside and cut the grass and trimmed the hedges for us. who does that? i know people always say that when you become a parent you gain a greater appreciation for your own parents, and it is true … though not as i thought it would be. sure, as charlotte gets older i’m sure i’ll gain a better perspective of what it took to raise me, but for now i have gained such an amazing appreciation for what our parents are still willing to do for us. (ps, my dad is right now looking at play yard swing sets for charlotte … how cute!).  if it wasn’t for their support … well, i just don’t know.

and then there is jamie. words cannot describe how much i need him.  i could not have asked for a better husband.  he was the coach who stood by me (literally, for 24 hours!), the captain who made me “suck it up”, but the friend who helped me find escape when i needed it most.

so after 41 weeks of pregnancy and 23.5 hours of labor, there she was…