Mother's Day

Today was my first Mother's Day as a mommy!  After a delicious homemade brunch cooked by my hubby, I opened some very sweet gifts and then the three of us spent the afternoon at the park.  Emily went on the swings and then insisted on rolling around in the dirt a little bit, luckily after Shep snapped this photo of us.

It's a little hard to see from the photo, but we're wearing matching shirts.  Yes, I'm that mom.  The shirts were a Christmas gift from a friend and I've been dying for warm enough weather to wear them -- I thought today was the perfect day!

My first Mother's Day, and almost a full year of being Mommy.  Wow.  So many memories already, so many learnings, so much love, and so little sleep.  ;)   I wouldn't trade any of it!  How lucky am I that I get to spend my life loving this sweet little girl.  Emily, you'll always be my sunshine!  Thank you for filling my days with laughter, joy, love, and silliness.  Becoming your mommy has been more wonderful, difficult and fulfilling than I'd ever imagined possible, and motherhood is the best gift I've ever been given.  You fill my world with light, and make me happy when skies are gray.  I love you more than words can say, and am so honored to be your mommy.

I remember watching this video last year when it first aired.  Back then, I was still trying to imagine exactly what it would be like to "be a mom".  I have a lot of great mom role models in my life, and I tried to picture myself in their shoes, doing their job.  It's funny -- all of the expectations I had about motherhood were sort of right but also sort of wrong.

This is the most challenging ("There are no breaks!"; "No time to sleep!"), high stakes, high energy ("chaotic environment"), entertaining and most rewarding job I'll ever have.  Not every day is a "successful" one, but I love every minute of watching Emily grow.  I wouldn't trade my job as Mommy for all the money in the world, and I'd take this job over and over and over again, without a second thought.

*****

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful, amazing, loving, special moms out there!!!  Thank you so much for all that you do!  It is a tough job, but someone's gotta do it!

And to my Mom..... I love you!  Thanks for everything.  :)  xoxo

One Year Ago

One year ago today, we started an otherwise ordinary Saturday morning in a big way:

Here's what I wrote in my journal that day:

POSITIVE PREGNANCY TEST!!!! I took the test as soon as I woke up, and though I meant to lay it face down and do the 5-minute-wait with Shep before we both looked at the results, it turned positive WHILE I was still peeing on it!!!! Wow, not sure what that means but I hope it’s good!!

Well, it turns out it was a good sign, and we now have an amazing little girl to prove it.  ;)  Shep and I were both a little hesitant to get our hopes up too high about the positive test after having gone through a miscarriage just a few months prior, but though fear lingered in the back of our minds we were still both excited, and cautiously optimistic, at the wonderful news.  We spent the morning together, quietly thinking about our future and daydreaming of a healthy, happy baby.

The next day we attended a family celebration -- a Christening for my cousin's baby.  It was a little tricky keeping such positive news {pun intended!} to ourselves in the presence of dozens of extended family members -- part of me wanted to shout with joy and hope from the rooftop, but it was still very early so we kept our lips sealed.  At the reception after the mass, we were sitting at our table chatting with other family members when my cousin came over and randomly handed the baby of honor to me to hold.  There must have been at least 50 other guests there, so I found it a bit ironic that of all the people there she handed ME the baby, especially given our new secret news.  My face must have turned 27 shades of red, and Shep gave me a sly grin, but luckily nobody noticed.  I remember hoping that it was a little sign from the universe that I'd soon enough be holding my own baby in my arms.  And thankfully, that's exactly what happened!

366 days ago we had no idea what our future family would look like.  Now, we can't imagine our family, or our lives, without Emily in it.  It's amazing how in a matter of just minutes {5, to take the test} and weeks {39.5, waiting for her to arrive}, life is forever changed.

Source

Postpartum Reflections

{Originally written on June 23, 2014 -- Sorry for the late posting!  I was originally waiting to post this until after I shared Emily's birth story but that took a little longer then I expected!}

In the first couple weeks after Emily was born, I did a lot of staring at her.  Who am I kidding, I still do.  ;)  But while she slept cozily in my arms, I realized a few things about my childbirth experience....

Labor & Delivery

I expected labor and delivery to be harder than it was.  Yes, my delivery was dramatic {and some might say traumatic} but aside from "the Pitocin incident", I think it was generally easier than I'd imagined.  Yes, there was pain, but thanks to modern medicine it was mostly bearable and more important, fleeting.  By the time Emily came out, I honestly didn't care about what I'd just gone through.  When Shep calculated the number of hours I'd been in labor and pushing, I was shocked.  It didn't seem that long while I was going through it.  I guess I was so distracted by the thought of meeting the newest love of my life that not much else phased me!  I recall Dr. R. express surprise at how I was smiling and making jokes during labor and praising how long I pushed for and how I "never complained once" throughout the long process.  I reminded her about my Pitocin crying incident, to which she thought my response was "appropriate".  Wow, I guess if a doctor with decades of years of experience delivering babies thought I did a good job at keeping my cool, that's something to be proud of!

Recovery

This is the category that surprised me the most.  Perhaps my 3rd degree tear {ouch!} is to blame, but my physical recovery was much more painful than I realized it would be.  Sure, I knew that my lady parts would hurt after squeezing a watermelon-sized baby out of a much smaller opening.  But, I didn't realize the extent to which that pain and soreness would affect daily functioning -- going to the bathroom, taking a shower, bending over, sitting down, lifting my leg up to put pants on...  I didn't feel like a fully functioning human until almost several weeks after Emily's birth, and didn't feel 100% back to "normal" until Week 5-6.

Sleep

Shep and I always joke that the only hobby I have in life is sleeping.  Needless to say, I was terrified of the lack of sleep, and how it might affect me.  Sleep deprivation, after all, is no joke -- anything that is used as a torture tactic is no walk in the park.  I'm not sure whether the lack of sleep I experienced during most of my pregnancy and especially during my last trimester primed me for the sleepless nights of new motherhood, or whether "new mom" adrenaline is to thank, but I didn't sleep more than a dozen hours the entire first week of Emily's life and I honestly did not feel tired.  I didn't sleep the night or day I was in labor, nor did I sleep a wink my first postpartum night in the hospital.  I think I was awake for over 48 hours straight and could not fall asleep, nor did I feel like I needed to.  I got maybe 1 hour of sleep during my second postpartum night and a maximum of 1 hour of sleep each of the first 2 nights we were home from the hospital.  But shockingly, I didn't feel it!  It wasn't really until the week leading up to her 4 week birthday that any fatigue hit me... but even so, it isn't nearly as bad as I'd once dreaded it to be.  In fact, I almost pop out of bed when I hear my little love start to stir or cry... in a way, she energizes me!

Breastfeeding

During my pregnancy, I was very worried about breastfeeding.  What if I didn't produce any milk, or it hurt, or I didn't know how to do it right?  To my great surprise, Emily latched on like a champ as soon as I got into my recovery room after her delivery, and she kept on latching and feeding like a pro for the first several weeks.  It wasn't until about 20 days after she was born that I started having some issues with her staying latched.  She would pull off, bob her head back and forth, and other fun things that made me question what the heck she was doing!  But, so far we've soldiered on through it and I'm counting on this temporary tricky patch to disappear like a designer dress on the clearance rack at TJ Maxx.

All in all -- every step I've taken to get to this point has been sooooo worth it, just to get to hold my sweet little snuggly in my arms.