Where has the time gone?

Our little girl is now 4 months old! She now weighs 13 lbs 10 oz, she is finally starting to put on some weight and FAST...praise the Lord! She may have had a slow start in life but she caught up fast. She can now giggle and it makes my heart just melt! She can sit in the corner of the couch and has started throwing herself forward so we have to be careful when we put her there. She has rolled over a few times from back to front but hasn't done it on a regular basis, I am still waiting. She is still spitting up and we are still having to thicken her bottles. We started her on Zantac and that seems to help a little. She unfortunatley got her first ear infection the other day. Kevin said she wasn't wanting to eat and that is just not her so I loaded her up and took her to Urgent Care, sure enough it was an ear infection. The Dr. said he doesn't usually prescribe antibiotics for ear infections but we are leaving soon for Missouri so he didn't want us to have a miserable baby (and parents) on the plane so she is on amoxicillin. She took it well the first few days and now doesn't really care to take it. She has also not really eaten very well since being on it. I am hoping once we are finished with the medicine she will start eating better. We recently had her 3 month photos done by my awesome neighbor Katie. I am so blessed to have a neighbor who does photography and can take Livvy's picture. They turned out so great! Livvy is still in our bedroom but we are planning on moving her into her own room when we return from Missouri. I am so nervous about putting her in her own bed over night. Don't ask me why! I think it's because it is such a big step in her growing up. I am really having a hard time with her growing up so fast. She is such a sweet little girl and I want to cherish the time that she wants to snuggle and thinks her Momma is the greatest thing ever.

On another note, I will be starting my internship in the fall. Yes, I am almost done (FINALLY!!!!) with school! Which means my time as a stay at home Mom is coming to a close very quickly and I am sad about that. She will be in good hands with her Gramma and Papa while I am in the classroom.

Well, it is about time for bed. We have a lot to do before we leave and I need to get ready for bed. Hope all is well in your life! I plan to start blogging more (hopefully about once a week) now. I want to keep up on her life and milestones as she grows up so that you can enjoy them and I can look back and remember the fun times during Olivia's first year.

Almost 3 months old

It is midnight on this Saturday night, Kevin is asleep on the couch and Livvy is supposed to be sleeping in our room in her bassinet, I think she has other ideas (silly girl!). I realized that I need to update this more often. Lets see, she will be 12 weeks old on Monday...am I really ready for this? Everything is happening so fast! She has finally started to put on some weight. When she was born she weighed 8 lbs 11 oz, she got down to 7lbs 6 oz (scary). We couldn't figure out why she was losing so much weight, there for a while she was losing an once a day which is a lot for a tiny baby! Come to find out because of my PCOS my milk supply was super low. It was very depressing in the beginning but I had to give in and feed my baby so we supplimented with formula and eventually went completely to formula. She also started to spit up in massive amounts. This also contributed to her slow weight gain. We tried putting her on Zantac but that didn't really help, it is for acid reflux not plain old reflux. She is a very happy girl so she wasn't having acid coming back up. So we are now thickening her formula with rice cereal, about 3 tablespoons in a four ounce bottle. As of about 3 weeks ago she was 10 lbs 6 oz and 23 1/2 inches long! The Dr. thinks she is going to be long and skinny! She has reached so many milestones and we couldn't be happier. She has really discovered her voice and is always "talking" to us and telling us her opinion :) she has also started smiling, everymorning when she wakes up I peek over the bassinet and she just grins and squeals! It makes my mornings great! As for her sleeping habits, I am so blessed in that department! This girl can sleep (just like her momma!), we usually try to get her into bed between 9:30 and 10 and she will sleep until 10:30, 11 in the morning!! I am absolutely in LOVE with this little girl! It is so amazing how much one little person can change ones life!
Kevin is such an AMAZING Daddy! When he comes home from work he can't get his hands on her fast enough! From then on, she is with her Daddy, usually on the couch telling him all about her day, and smiling at him.
Livvy is wearing cloth diapers almost full time now. She only wears disposables when we are going to be gone for a while and at night. I love the diapers we have, they are called Nubunz and are so easy to use. They are very similar to a disposable in fit and the way they are put on. They are a little more bulky in size but thats OK. LOVE them!
Well, I think it is time for me to get off here, get Kevin up and off to bed. We have a LONG day tomorrow, a friends baby's first birthday party then off to Anchorage for Livvy's first concert! We are going to go see Geoffrey Castle, a violin player. He plays rock music on the violin...very cool!

Here is our big girl taking a nap in her crib :)

Here is Livvy sitting up in her "bumpo"chair, she really likes it even though she doesn't look like it here.Smiling at her Daddy, she loves him!She LOVES her bath time! She is always splashing and kicking around, too cute!

Welcome to the World Olivia!

I wanted to blog about my pregnancy. As most everyone knows, I have PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) but what most don't know is that it is the number 1 cause of infertility in women! We did round after round of the fertility drug Clomid with no such luck, I decided in June of 2008 to have a surgery on my ovaries called Ovarian Drilling. We thought that would be the magic bullet, that would fix my problem, it didn't. Well, not completely. After several months of "trying" I went back on to the Clomid again. Several months went by with no luck. Kevin was getting tired of me constantly being upset about not getting pregnant and he said enough is enough, he was done! I talked him into one more month, I was going to try progesterone cream. I was told before that using progesterone wouldn't work but I wanted to try and see if it would, what could it hurt...right? That is the month it worked! We were finally pregnant! I found out the beginning of March on a Wednesday. Something told me to take a test, I did and those beautiful pink likes came up immediately, we were finally pregnant! I called Kevin and told him, he didn't believe it either, he made me take another test while he was on the phone. Same thing, they came up immediately!

After I got off the phone with Kevin, I ran to the Dr's office to let them know. We immediately did blood work and set up an appointment for an ultrasound. When we went in, all we could see was a little speck on the screen but that little speck was my baby and my baby had a HEARTBEAT! (if you look closely you can see the little speck of a baby)

We found out in June that we were having a girl! We were so surprised because we thought for sure that we were having a boy. I thought that Kevin was going to be disappointed but he was so excited, he wanted to go to Target and pic out an outfit for our little Olivia :) We had another ultrasound at around 30 weeks because I was measuring 6 weeks ahead and the Dr. was concerned she was growing too big too fast. She was bigger than her gestational age but I also has excess fluid, so much that the Dr. called it a swimming pool! About 6 weeks later we went to the Dr for our weekly checkup. Olivia's heartbeat was great but I was so swollen and my blood pressure was through the roof (it had been high the whole pregnancy but this was ridiculous!) and she thought that Olivia was already a big girl. We were scheduled for another ultrasound to see just how big she was. I made a guess of around 7 lbs and Kevin said around 6.5. The Dr. told us she was measuring at 8lbs 15 oz and we still had about 2.5 weeks to go!! Babies at this stage will gain anywhere from a half pound to a pound a week, she was going to be a big girl if she stayed in any longer! She told me she was ready to come out and gave me the option to have a C-Section the next Monday. I thought about it and we talked about the pros and cons of both a section and natural birth with an almost 9 lb baby. We decided on a C-Section, and I was so scared! I couldn't believe it, I was finally going to be a mommy in less than a week and she was coming by surgery...YIKES! The next few days were such a blur, we had so much to do and I was on bed rest. Sunday night I started having contractions about 7 minutes apart and they hurt! I called the hospital to see if I should come in or wait it out, they suggested I take a bath and some Tylenol and if it gets worse to come in. They settled down enough for me to get some rest (as much rest as you can the night before having a baby!) Morning came very quickly and we were ready. We got up got showered and packed up the last little bit of things we needed for the hospital and off we went. It was the first snowfall of the season and it was very slow going. We got all checked in and I was hooked up to the machines, I was still having contractions! The Dr came in and explained how everything was going to happen then the anesthesiologist came in. I was ready, then we looked over at Kevin, he was white as a ghost! He said he felt like he was going to get sick, he was the one who was nervous! I was wheeled into the operating room and had my spinal block put in. The Dr's came in and got everything set up then Kevin and his Mom Connie came in, by then they had already started. We all talked like nothing was going on, then I heard the most beautiful sound in the world "here she is" and Olivia's first cry. I lost it, I bawled like a baby and kept saying "MY BABY!! We have waited so long for you!!" The Dr told me "you aren't supposed to make the Dr's cry too!". Kevin showed me the pictures he was taking of her and then she was brought up over the sheet so I could see her, she was beautiful! The Dr. told us she wasn't as big as she had originally thought but she was still a big girl and wasn't really in place to be born anytime soon. She was taken over to be cleaned up, I watched Kevin cut her cord which was amazing! Meeting Olivia for the first time was such a surreal feeling, I remember crying and kissing her and telling her how much I love her and how special she was to me. She was so soft and sweet, even though she was screaming still! She was sent to the other room to be cleaned up and weighed. They opened the window and told me she weighed 8lbs 11oz, she was still a big girl! I was wheeled into recovery and 30 mins later I was back in my room where Kevin and Olivia were waiting for me. I was so tired and shaky I was scared to hold her but I did. It was so surreal and such an amazing feeling, I will never forget that day! Welcome to the world baby girl!

My First Blog!

Hi all, this is a blog that will be all about our little family! I am sure there will be lots of stuff shared here. Be sure to check back often as I plan to write a lot about what we are doing in the Great North of Alaska!