Halloween

I know it's almost two weeks after Halloween, but it's hard to find time to write a blog. Not only because of my demanding Izzie but I'm also obsessed with Desperate Housewives. I know, I know a lot of people have strong opinions about this show, but I like it. I've seen every episode, but it's amazing how much you forget about the earlier seasons.

So we had our first Halloween with Izzie. We didn't go trick-or-treating because lets face it that would be silly. I did however take her to grandma and grandpas and also up to the great-grandparents houses. Izzie was a bumble bee. I didn't want to buy a costume for her since she would never wear it again and who knows if I'll ever have another baby that is one-three months during Halloween so, I made her costume. I really only made part of it and then I was just inventive with the rest. Basically the only thing I really made was the tutu. I got a black onsie and used yellow electrical tape for the stripes. This way I can use the onsie again. She already had the black leggings and headband, so I added pipe cleaners for antenna and put a puffy ball on top. Tada! It only cost me a total of 15 dollars compared to the 30 dollar costumes I could buy. Plus it was a lot more fun.

I have to tell you that she must have gotten really stimulated from all the passing around from Halloween because that was the first night she slept for 6 hours straight. I was super excited. Even more exciting is that she has for the last three nights slept for 8-9 hours. The first night she did this Andy woke me up to see if I had fed her yet. We got super worried when we found out that she hadn't woken us up for nine hours that we decided we needed to make sure she was okay. SHE WAS, and I was very thankful for the sleep. I hope her sleeping through the night is becoming habit.

Andy and I had our first night out together without Izzie. We went and saw Skyfall with friends. The movie was great! If your a Bond fan then I would go see it. Lets just say that I had a lot of anxiety about leaving her. We left her with grandma and grandpa who are very capable and I new she was safe, but I was still worried. It went way better then expected and I didn't need to worry at all.

We had some professional pictures taken of Izzie. This one is one of my favorites. The rest are on my facebook if you're interested.

Gallbladder Issues

I have some crazy news! I will probably need to have my gallbladder removed. On Sunday night I started to have horrible abdominal pain. I just thought it was a tummy ache so I tried to power through it. Eventually the pain advanced into my shoulder blades and my chest. I was in so much pain I could barely stay still. I finally decided it was time to go to the emergency room. In my personal opinion the ER is a bunch of hullabaloo. All they said they could do was rule out what it wasn't. When they decided I wasn't having a heart attack they said I was probably just having really bad acid reflux and sent me home. LAME, right? They did give me a very strong dose of some kind of super ibuprofen that helped the pain. Monday I was in a little pain, but it wasn't until Tuesday that I decided to go see my doctor. Right away he had an idea as to what it was. He sent me for some blood work and scheduled me for an ultrasound to check on all my abdominal organs. During the ultrasound it was very clear that my gallbladder was not happy. I had 5-6 gallstones. Now I'm just waiting on my doctor to call me back so that we can figure out what to do next. The pain is pretty bad. Especially when you have a new baby to pick up constantly. Some moments the pain is worst then others. When the pain gets really bad its almost impossible to think of anything else. I really hope the doctor calls soon. It's very frustrating!

Andy is sick with a head cold. Man we're just a bunch of sickies over here. I'm hoping Izzie doesn't get sick. It would not help our situation if we had to deal with a sick baby. As I'm writing this Andy is past out on the couch snoring. Poor guy. 

Lets just hope that these woes we're going through will be short lived.

The Pacifier

Remember when I said my baby wasn't fussy? Well she has started to have her moments. The other day she was up pretty much all day crying. She would pass out for fifteen to twenty minutes here and there, but then she'd wake back up crying her lungs out. I had no idea what to do. She kept giving me the hungry signs but I had just fed her. My doctor explained to me that babies this young see the answer to all their problems as eating. I did try giving her a pacifier. I tried a few different kinds, but she would just keep spewing them out. I was so thankful when Andy came home from work to help me out. Thank heavens! The night continued with a crying baby. We decided it was time to see if she'll go down for the night, so we went through our nighttime routine of bathing, changing, and feeding. As we were changing her into her pjs I found the pacifier that they give you at the hospital. I hate this pacifier. It is just so ugly which is why I chose to go with different ones. I even bought the exact same pacifier but it has a different shape then the huge green top. What the heck, at this point I didn't care that it was ugly I tried it. Can you believe it, the girl took it and calmed right down. Andy and I before this point didn't know how we felt about pacifiers...we are now totally on board. I've come around to the ugly green pacifier. I'd rather her happy and comforted then screaming her eyes out. We still aren't a hundred percent sure on why Izzie was so fussy but we have a feeling she had extreme gas. I'm trying to keep her on an upright angle when eating and Andy and I both learned how to message a baby's belly to improve digestion. So far she has been so much happier. 

This is Izzie after her crying day. Good work daddy!

My baby is also a cuddler. Which I love, but it sure is hard to get things done around the house, run errands  or even shower when your baby just wants to be held. I think she's funny because at night I'll finish feeding and burping her and then I'll wrap her up in a blanket and just hold her until she drifts off. Every now and then when I shift or when I get ready to get up to put her in her crib she will opens her eyes enough to see that mommy is still holding her and then she passes right out again. Yeah, it takes about an hour to feed her and get her to go back in her crib. This is long considering she only eats for five minutes. Its also hard on me since she wakes up pretty much every three hours to eat, but I'm up for one of the hours. So I pretty much get two hours of sleep in between feedings. My hope is that she will not wake up to eat at night and that putting her back to sleep with go faster. If you have any advice on this subject let me know keep in mind that she's just a little over 2 weeks old.

Today I'm just trying to figure out how moms shower, do their hair, put make-up on, clean the house, run errands, and cook dinner. It seems impossible to do these things without Andy here all the time.

I just love this picture so I thought I'd share.

Welcome To The World Izzie

Izzie was born on 9/28/2012. She was 7 lbs 14 oz and 19.5 inches long. 

Izzie has been home for a week! It's been quite a learning experience and all the postpartum hormones don't exactly help to make a new mommy feel like she's doing a good job. I don't know how many times I've cried over how I don't know what I'm doing. Andy keeps reminding me that all new parents feel like this for awhile and I'm coming around to the idea that he is right. He is always right! I guess she's survived for a week alone with us so we can't be doing that bad of a job.

Well labor was an experience! Delivering a baby doesn't hurt...if you get an epidural. The contractions on the other hand do hurt before the epidural. Overall it was a great experience we were lucky not to have any complications and Izzie came out crying right away. I chose to do immediate skin-to-skin which is when they literally give the baby to the mother right away and clean her off while she's just laying on you. I was so happy that I didn't have to wait to hold her at all. Yeah she was messy but I sure didn't mind.

She's a great baby. She isn't fussy and pretty much only cries when she's hungry. She sleeps pretty well at night. We've only had one night this week where it seemed like she decided 3 am-5am was awake time. 

Overall though we feel blessed to have such a peaceful baby. I know it's only a mater of time, but for now we're just soaking it in.

I'm doing pretty well with the nighttime feedings, and I hope that the lack of sleep doesn't catch up to me too quickly. My body is healing...thank heavens. This is exciting to me because I can now do more things without being in too much pain. That's right ladies everyone talks about the pain of labor but nobody cared to warn me about the pain of healing your body after the delivery. Maybe I should have figured it out myself. I mean I did just push out a baby, but still I had no clue. 

Grandma and Grandpa Baker are just tickled to have this grandaughter and are eager to help us out often  and answer the thousand of questions I have.

Grandma and Grandpa Haygood came into town this week to meet their grandaughter and then they are back to their mission in Riverside, CA. Grandma Haygood has barely put her down since she arrived. Works for me, I've been able to get more things done around the house.

My Life Will Never Be The Same Again

This was writen on 9/28/2012. I wanted to wait until I had a picture taken of my final pregnant belly before posting.

Well it's 3:20 am in the morning on Friday. Why am I up you ask? Well it's because I feel like a little kid knowing she's going to have the biggest Christmas day of her life today. A kid who is going to Disneyland for the first time today. I feel like I'm 8 years old and I just can't stay in bed one second longer! 

Today I am having my first child. I was laying there in bed super uncomfortable and thinking about how I wish the next four hours would just fly by and I realized that this would be the last four hours that I would be pregnant for a while. My head got to spinning and I decided that I should really get something down in writing  about my thoughts and feelings of the past nine months.

I know that through facebook I commented a thousand and half times about the woes of pregnancy. You need to understand, it's not that terrible. It's just so easy to focus on the negative feelings your when you're on facebook. My back hurts, I'm feeling sick, baby is kicking my ribs, yada, yada, yada. The truth though is that it is such and amazing experience. One that I would never give up in a million years. It's amazing how before you can even hold this little one that you feel  a connection. It's amazing that before you can even really look at this thing growing inside of you that you love it unconditionally. It's amazing that you literally are not just growing a baby inside of you for the last nine months but that you're growing into a mother.

Obviously you know that I'm excited. I'm excited to the point where I can't sleep even though I'm going to have one of the toughest days ahead of me today. I'm also feeling fear. After today my life will never be the same again. I will, today and forever be a mother who has to put the needs of her child before her own. I know I can do that because I've been preparing since we found out we're going to have a baby, but it's so easy to doubt whether or not you think you're going to be a good mother. I'm also scared for my child. Today she is going to be exposed to the world. Their are so many scary and dangerous things out here. A part of me thinks she would be safer inside my womb where nothing and no one can touch her or hurt her, but she needs to come out and start living her life. She needs to make mistakes, learn, and grow. That is why we are all are here on earth. Isn't it?

We chose not to tell anyone but our parents that we were getting induced today. We know the risks for first time mothers being induced, but I've been between 4 and 5 cm dilated and 90% effaced and my doctor doesn't think I'll have a problem getting to full dilation. We went back and forth on whether we should call some of our closest friends to tell them about being induced, but we decided to just wait and tell you when I was actually in labor or when the baby was actually in our arms before telling anyone so please don't be offended that we didn't tell you.

Lastly, I'm overall just thankful to my Lord and Savior for this perfect and pure gift I'm receiving today. How exciting is it that I'll get to hold my daughter today who chose to come down and be tested? I get to hold someone today who hasn't made a single mistake yet and is perfect. I'm very excited to get to know her spirit. 

I'm sure I could go on and on about how excited I am to have this little one in my arms but I'll leave it here for now.

Oh before I end I do want to get some of the more selfish reasons of why I'm so excited to not be pregnant anymore. Hopefully no more back pain, I'll be able to pick things up easier, I'll get to eventually wear my pre-pregnancy cloths again, hopefully no more heartburn or acid reflux, and a couple more but that's all I'll be sharing here!

Me right before we headed to the hospital.
40 weeks and 1 day!

An Overdue Update

I know it's been awhile and hope not all of you have forgotten about me. Since Andy and I are starting a new chapter in our life with the soon arrival of our baby Izzie, I thought it would be best to start the blog off fresh and new.

In case you didn't already know Andy and I are expecting an addition to our family sometime this week. Isabella Haygood (middle name still pending) is expected to arrive September 27th, but I get the feeling like she may come a little early. We are both so excited! I'm getting very uncomfortable which is why I want her to come sooner rather then later, but mostly I just want to hold her and play with her. Andy is getting more and more anxious as well. He keeps telling her to come out so they can play together. I keep trying to explain to her that their is more room outside of my stomach, but I don't think she grasps the concept quite yet. Either way we should have a baby in the next week to week and half. It seems mind boggling at times.

In other news Andy got promoted to supervisor at work. He has done so great at this job since he started with the company in March. I'm so proud of how hard he's worked. The interview process was long and grueling. He had to go through 4 different interviews and he was chosen out of 10 candidates. We feel very blessed at this time for this promotion, especially with the little one on the way.

Most likely the next time I post it will be all about our new daughter. I'll try and keep the delivery details to a minimum. I know most don't want to hear all the about the miracle of delivery. Heck I'm even terrified about the miracle of delivery, but I'm sure it's not as scary as people and the movies lead it to be.

Until then

The latest picture! 

She's a little squished in there but would you just look at those cheeks.