Pictures!!!

I previously mentioned that our newborn pics were a bust, but thanks to our friends and their awesome cameras and their time and their patience and their love for Thai food, we had them over the other night for our own in-home photo shoot, and O-M-G did we get pictures. Chris and I still need to go through them all and figure out which ones we want to make prints of and use for xmas cards and presents, but allow me to tease you with a couple Tracy fixed up for us:

10 weeks

2.5 months has gone by REALLY fast, and exactly 1 month from today I will be going back to work, and Sami will be starting her tenure at Hugs Plus... wow.

Sleeping has begun to get on a schedule, though it might not be ideal for us. For a while she was sleeping through the night - I would feed her before I went to bed at 10pm, and she would stay with Chris until he went to bed, but she wouldn't wake up again for food until about 6am, which is awesome! But these last couple of nights there have been feedings every 3 hours... 2am, 5am, 8am... nap. Sometimes its ok... others it just drives me to sleep. Especially when I'm sick, which is how it was this past week =(

But she had been sleeping in her own room! We're starting her out in her basinet, and so far so good, though there have been a few days when she just won't go back down after the 5am feeding so we've brought her basinet back into your room for easy pacifier access. We'll get there, though...

And because of me being sick, Sami now has her first cold, and I feel so bad! Baby coughs are the saddest coughs. =( But we're keeping an eye on her and hoping its not going to be any worse than mine was. Yesterday I brought her into the shower with me... not into the actual shower, but she was strapped to her baby chair and chillin' in the bathroom with me while I took a hot shower... better than a vaporizer if you ask me! And she fell asleep to boot, so I guess it didnt bother her too much.

But regardless of how we've been feelings, or how tired I am, mornings have become my absolute favorite. Sami is just so awake and alert and active... and OMG the smiles! :D

Feeding time has been a little bit stressful still, and it's still affecting my want to pump. It's been better over the last day or so, so I'm hoping my boobs' supply has finally caught up to her demands. I still want to get into a habit of going to the lacation clinic every week, but with Thanksgiving and everything it's been hard. Since I'm not going to be working on Thursdays I think that's going to be my day to go, so the sooner I can get into that schedule, the better.

What else, what else....

She's found her fists this week, so it's been helping to soothe her instead of the pacifier, which is good for us come 6 months and we want to break her of the pacifier completely.

And she still hates tummy time. Loves lying on her back... hates being on her stomach. Unless she's lying on me, then her head is up and looking all around. We're working on it... stubborn baby.

Now all that's left for the time being is getting Christmas cards ordered... thanks to friends Pete & Tracy we now have a CRAPLOAD of Sami newborn pics. We still need to pick one for our cards, but in the meantime.... *points to next post*

2 months

My baby girl is getting so big!

So, we had our 2-month appointment today, and everything is looking great! She's weighing in at 10lbs 9oz, 21.5" with a head circumference of 14 3/4"! She also had to get 3 vaccines today - 2 shots and 1 oral. The oral one she loved and drank it right up... the two shots, not so much. She handled them ok, but there was tears. And the nurse didnt put the bandaid on well enough over one injection site, so Sami ended up getting blood all down her leg, and I ended up with baby blood all over my shirt from holding her to console her. Good times.

newborn pictures - BUST

Nothing sucks more than a newborn that sleeps through her picture session... at least we didnt have to pay for anything until we actually go to purchase prints. But still... it was so very frustrating. Some came out all right, others not so much, mostly because I was in them with her. -_- And the prices for said pics were SO expensive! So we just don't know what we're going to do now... Chris wasn't overly impressed with anything he saw, but we might buy some for presents for the grandparents, etc. And now that we're not sure what we're going to do, time is running out to order Xmas cards, presents, etc... *insert panic here*

I actually think there is a light at the end of the tunnel, however... our friends have a couple of great cameras, so using the ideas for poses we got from PortraitSimple, we're going to see if we can't recreate some in a better light, with a baby girl who wants to stay awake.

*fingers crossed*


Edit - 9/9/2012:  Though we never purchased her newborn pictures, I did make this collage with the proofs we received... shhhh....

6 weeks - Happy Halloween!

I'm really off my game with these blog posts, but I figure if I can get them done the week they're supposed to be done, it's all good.

So as of this week Samantha is 6 weeks old. And she had her first Halloween. And I had my 6-week postpartum check-up. Busy times, indeed.

But first things first - HALLOWEEN!

Sami was a big puffy butterfly... and she HATED it.

... well, it was really more like she hated the hate, but still.

We didn't actually take her out trick-or-treating this year, and good thing too, because it was COLD. I did pack her up and bring her to my parents' house so that they could see the full effect... it didnt last long, and soon we had another costume change.

She was much happier/comfier in this one, I'm sure.

And because we didn't get to see Chris' family on Halloween night, we went over last night with the costume and did it all over again... Sam was NOT happy with that, let me tell you, but everyone got pictures, so it was worth it.

So what else is new...

Sam's starting to get more fussy between the 9pm and 11pm hours... we think she's getting more gas now than she used to. Either that, or she's just getting to be a night owl like her dad, and those are the times when she just starts to get bored. We know it'll get better as she gets older and we can get into a routine, but in the meantime we'll make due... and I'll talk to her pediatrician about how she feels in regards to gas drops.

But despite the fussiness, her sleeping schedule is starting to get predictable. She'll stay up with Chris until 12-1230am, and then will sleep until anywhere between 2:30am and 4am. She'll usually fall right asleep after I feed her, and then start to wake up for another feeding around 7am, where I'll either stay up with her, or we'll go back to bed with her on my chest. But there was one night where I fed her, went to bed early, and I wasn't woken up for a meal again until 5am. Crazy!

The one this I had been concerned about this past week was Sami's latching. Every since we started initially introducing the bottle, I felt like she wasn't latching as strongly as she had been. And then, because of the gassy issues she was having, I was feeling that her latching was bringing in more air then usual, not to mention I was just getting so frustrated because I felt like I was doing her wrong and we were going to have to stop breastfeeding sooner than I wanted to. So I took the advice of both my husband and my midwife, and I went to the weekly lactation clinic they have up at the hospital. It was actually a great experience, and I'm quite pleased that I went. Basically, it's for mothers and their babies only, and when you go, you strip the baby down to a dry diaper, weigh them, breastfeed, and then weigh them again once their done to see how much they ate. While I was there, the lactation consultant was able to sit with me for a little while and watch Sami's latch and help me out. Other than how to better get her to initially latch, everything looked fine. The issue wasn't her - it was me, and it's really not much of an issue as it is... it's just that I seem to be very good at producing milk, and the air I felt she was taking in was really her trying to adjust to the milk flow as she sucked. So now, knowing that, I feel much better when I feed her, and a lot less frustrated in thinking I'm doing something wrong. And now I think I'm going to make a point to go every week now... plus, I was able to meet a couple of mothers there when I went, so maybe this will be another way to get to know other women with similar interests (or life experiences).

Oh, and her initial weight was 9lbs 2.3oz... post-feeding weight was 9lbs 5.2oz. Hungry baby!

And now for me... my 6-week appointment was Tuesday, and everything is all good. I am, however, anemic, and have been instructed to start taking iron supplements along with the prenatal supplements I haven't been taking, but should have been this whole time. Whoops.

So this week I have a few items I need to check off:

One - I need to call my PCP and get my left thumb looked at. Ever since I ripped the IV out of my hand while I was at the hospital, I've been getting shooting pains when I try to use my thumbs. And it's getting worse as the days go on, and sometimes it's so bad I have to stop myself as I go to pick up Sam, so it's getting serious. I think it's nervous, because sometimes it will tingle, but my midwife thinks there might be scar tissue in there from the IV and it might just need some physical therapy.

Two - I need to call Sami's daycare and let her know she has officially arrived, bring her up there so that they can meet her, and finish filling out her paperwork to get the ball rolling come next year. Hopefully they'll also be able to tell me if she's going to be starting in January or February... if Feb, we're all good, but if it's Jan, I need to let people know they have to plan to take vacations once I go back to work. Our fingers are crossed for Feb.

Three - Pump every day and start working on getting my supply up. There are a lot of events coming our way when I'm either going to need to leave Sam with Chris alone, or we're going to need to leave her with a babysitter while we're out, so I'm going to need to make sure I have bottles to provide while I'm not there. Not to mention, daycare starts in 2 months, give or take, and I'm not going to have any other choice but to send along bottles.

We'll see how well this week goes...