Sleeping baby

Oh how I wish I could take snapshots of my sleeping baby from his video monitor at night. It is just the cutest thing. I could almost die. I've tried to get a few. They aren't as good as the real thing but almost. The other day I said to chad I need to check on the baby. I came back and said I checked and yep, he's completely adorable. Sometimes I don't check for closed eyes or to see if he still has his paci, sometimes I just want to watch him sleep and adore.

7 hours!!!

I can't believe it, but Eddie went almost 7 hours between bottles tonight. That means he slept like five and a half. I got about four and a half. I woke up just short of four hours in disbelief and went ahead and made a bottle because it'd been so long and he was starting to squirm. I am so proud of him. I've been trying to resist the urge to put rice in the bottles and now I have faith we don't need to. Hip hip hooray :).
Also I am officially taking all his newborn clothes out of the dresser and going only 0-3 month clothes. What a big boy! Haha it only took 2 months. We had his 2 month old Dr. appointment yesterday and he was 9lbs and 5 oz. Got his first set of shots. So sad but did great when they said he'd probably be fussy all day long he was a champ and slept it off :)

Cutest baby

Sometimes I think it's not fair to others that I have the cutest baby in the universe. I mean I feel sorry for moms that only have cute babies and not the super duper cutest ever made. They say every mom thinks this, but they just hadn't met my baby yet. He is adorable even when crying, barfing, peeing on you. He is starting to looker chunkier which will make him cuter which I didn't think was possible

Thumbs up for church

Took Eddie to church for the first time yesterday. It was my first time back since d-day. It was good to be back and partake of the sacrament again. Jen Lynn came with us, and even though since it was church there was not much talking it was nice to have her there. Eddie looked completely adorable in his church clothes. I can't believe how big they are even though they are newborn sizes.

Update: it's actually been a week and a half and I missed last week due to my scary soul shaking cough. I am super excited to go this week. Hopefully I won't get sick from going since I think that's what got me sick before.

Fleas and babies

These two things are NOT compatible. So the dogs have been licking and scratching it seems all the time lately (probably because it drives me so crazy). Chad checked Max yesterday and found at least one flea on him. Ewwwwwww. Not cool. Our dogs have never had fleas before. Thank goodness we had a dose of frontline for him. Now I just need to get rid of the 2 flies in the house. Oh yeah and get frontline for Shelby, wash the dogs, get Max groomed, brush both dogs. Ugh it just goes on and on. People told me the dogs would get much less attention once we had a baby and I just couldn't imagine that, but it is true. They drive me crazy now and seem so filthy now I have a little baby I have to keep healthy. Maybe if they get bathed and groomed I'll love them more. . .

Diaper debate

I hosted the diaper debate on Facebook and the overwhelming response was pampers swaddlers for newborns and huggies/Costco diapers when they are bigger. I made sure I had my little pampers for as soon as he came home. However, they used huggies little snugglers at the hospital and I got so I liked those. I used my pampers as a chore. Then they were on really good sale at CVS last week and I had a coupon so I tried again. I love the pampers! I don't know if I am doing something wrong but serious leakage with the huggies lately. Only problem? I have like 100 huggies to use and quite a few in larger sizes. Oh well maybe I'll change my mind again. Still haven't tried any other brands but I don't think they have the wetness indicator. Maybe the huggies aren't working cause his legs are so skinny it is leaking there? No I think it's coming up and around.

Full time work

So yesterday I added it up and figured each time I feed the bambino I spend 1 hour average (at least) with feeding, burping, diapering, and sometimes changing clothes. Times that by 8 feedings a day and I have my new full time job, except I work 7 days a week/365 days a year. Also that would be the bare minimum care for baby. There is other care that needs to be done. No wonder I'm tired. I'm pretty sure Chad thinks this is a sweet gig because I get to stay home (which it is to some degree because I can't imagine trying to work too) but I am working more/longer than I used to. Yikes a scary thought. But again oh so worth it. I mean come on have you seen this cutie?

Baby sleep

I absolutely love to watch my baby sleep in my arms. All the books I've read about getting your baby to sleep through the night say don't let them fall asleep on your arms but how can you resist? When they feel so safe and warm with you that they can't stay awake it is just the sweetest thing. I hope he will feel this way a long time. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to continue to have him fall asleep in his crib as much as possible but I'm not going to deny this...

Also great news 3 nights sleeping inin his own crib fairly easily. Only waking once each time. Hooray.

Start at the beginning

The best place to start is the beginning. I guess this started on August 7, 2012 (really nine months earlier but that is a whole nother chapter). I was scheduled to be induced because of high blood pressure, and so I called the hospital at 5 AM to see what time they wanted me to be there. I was told to get there by 7 and so I went to sleep for another hour and got up at 6am to get showered. We arrived a little late and then it took some time before they took us back to the labor and delivery room. We were both so nervous. Chad couldn't sleep most of the night, and I couldn't hardly eat breakfast even though Dr. Martin told me to eat that morning for strength. Once they took me back I changed into a gown and then they started my IV and pitocin. After that it was pretty uneventful for a few hours. At lunchtime Dr. Martin came to see about breaking my water. I wanted to wait and try to let it happen more naturally so we agreed that at 3 the nurse would check me and if I wasn't progressing more then we would break the water.

So at 3 I was only dilated maybe another mm so I allowed them to break my water. OMG. Immediate, earth shattering, cry like a wolf pain. What?!? They said it would likely get worse in about 30 minutes. Apparently the amniotic sac was some sort of heavenly barrier between me and real labor (not really since pitocin induced labor is not the same as natural labor). Immediately I knew I was done with the whole natural thing. I told Chad, "I don't want to endure another 5 minutes of this even". I asked to get an epidural ASAP. I was seriously worried about how I would be able to endure the mind bending pain until the anesteologist got there. About 10-15 cruel minutes later my nurse Jayme came to tell me I was third in line for the epidural? WTF? There was a run on epidurals and you chose the one on pitocin with HTN to be last?!? Arg. So about 30 minutes later they come to tell me there were 3 people ahead of me and there are still 2 waiting so it will still be awhile. My blood pressure is now approx 240/140 through the contractions (normal is under 120/80 and anything over 160/100 is getting to be too high) and my husband kept mentioning I'm in danger of stroking out. I'm a little concerned now as well as the 3 nurses who are now hovering around my room. So and hour and 15 minutes after I asked, the most wonderful relief, the nurse anesthetist arrived. Hooray! "Why didn't she get a epidural sooner with her pressures being so high?" she asks. Yeah I'd like to know that too I think. They kept wanting to give me pain meds and again wanted me too so I could hold still for the epidural but I didn't want my baby to be high on drugs so I promised to not move a mm. Husband claims the needle was super scary and had to have hurt but all I know is I was focused on getting through the contraction and didn't care a thing about my back. And sweet relief came almost immediately. No more big bad scary contractions.

The next hour or so is bliss. I can breathe and think again. When they came to do the epidural they asked about medication and allergies and I honestly couldn't process what they were asking me. I told Chad he would have to answer. The nurse then told us she had never seen a pitocin induced woman who had her water broken not have an epidural. I might have rethunk the natural thing if I knew that. I claim to be super woman but I know I'm not really. Anyways, a little later I realize I'm shaking a lot and ask the nurses and they say that's normal. Shortly after I realize the shaking comes with the contractions and oh my I am starting to feel them again. They say sometimes you can feel the pressure of the baby and so that's normal. Finally I explain this is NOT pressure, I am feeling everything almost as intense as without the epidural. So finally they get in contact with the nurse anesthetist again and redo my dosage. Eventually the pain begins to subside and shaking goes to a minimum. Finally it is around 6 when the Dr was supposed to come after work to check on things and maybe deliver the baby. By 7 o'clock I know I am dilated completely and effaced because I can feel the baby's head pressing on my pelvis. Dr. Martin finally gets there and it's go time. Time to start pushing.

This is where the magic happens. It seems like it only took 3 pushes but I think it was more like 7-10 but really it couldn't have been much easier. I was ready to meet this little man. I was a little too eager because I don't think the doc was ready to catch him yet, and I tore myself up pretty good considering he was less than 6 lbs. But I did push out this little miracle weighing 5 lbs 15 oz. He was so amazing and when they put him on my chest after he was delivered all I could think was nothing ever felt so right.. Definately love at first sight. At the hospital they let you have the first hour with your baby with as few interruptions as possible so everyone left me, Chad, and baby boy to be together. It was great. One of the best times in my life. After that enter baby drama...

22 days

22 days of amazingness. That is what my first 22 days of being a mommy are. There have been some awesome highs and some scary lows, but add up the experiences and I think I might die of happiness. I can't believe it's been 3 weeks already and I haven't really journaled or blogged anything about his birth or all the amazing first days then I remember oh yeah I'm exhausted beyond belief. So I'm going to fix this and post something at each feeding until I have an approximate vignette of what these last 3 weeks have been like. To sum it up at this moment: <3.

Magical moments

At 4:15am I don't expect life changing events. I normally prefer to be deep asleep next to my husband in bed. This morning though I knew I had to feed baby Eddie, it had been 5 hours since he last ate and he was dead asleep still. My favorite way to wake him: diaper change. I was aware he was kindof stinky and sure enough, first poop in about 48 hours. Hooray I'm not concerned anymore that anything is wrong. I go about happily changing a diaper (I didn't think I'd ever say that!) and oh no pee! Luckily I have a wipe I can hold off the flow. Uh oh is that a fart? Ok bum check, oh crap! Literally! Ok wipe to bum ASAP. I no longer care about pee. Let's try to no get poo on his swaddle blanket. Mission mostly accomplished. There is some pee and the remnants of a juicy fart there. As I finish cleaning him off, putting on a new diaper, and remove his sleeper I realize This is it. New mommy hood still rocks. I'm happy to do it because I have this...

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Today we are docked in dubrovnik, Croatia. It is a very nice little beach town that also has a medieval old town with city walls. This morning we walked on top of the walls for over an hour to get all the way around the city. It was a LOT of stairs. Not for the faint of heart (which I am with this baby). I would not advise for pregnant women. The views were outstanding though. I will add a lot of photos to the blog once we get back. Then we ate ouch. It was just ok but it was cheap. I don't think they have very good food here because that one came highly recommended. Since then we have just been chillin at this cafe where we got a chocolate croissant and smoothies. For the price we get free wifi and use of the bathrooms. That has been kind of difficult here in Europe. I need to go a lot and there is not that much access to restrooms and I only get a little sympathy for my condition. But it's all ok and has been so fun. We will probably leave soon and ride a cable car/gondola to the top of the highest mountain in the area. Then I think we are done for the day. I'm trying to let my sunburn heal so I can lay out during our next two days at sea. Hope it goes well :)

May 7, 2012-Venezia

We were docked overnight in Venice so we had the morning to play/explore in Venice. I really wanted to go to the Peggy Guggenheim museum/palazzo. It was cool. She bought an unfinished Palazzo/palace on the grand canal in Venice and made it her retirement home. It only has modern art since it is most just art she collected from artist she knew. I loved it. There were a few cool Picasso's and Dali. The Dali's we saw in the MOMA in NYC we pretty small and one was quite large here. After that we took the public transport boat to the famous Rialto bridge and went shopping. We just about finished all our souvenir shopping there. Then we decided to try to walk back to the ship instead of using the vaparettos so we could see more of the city. It was such a good day. I would love to come back to Venice. There is so much left to see. I think we just scratched the surface of Venice and got the most important things crossed off.

April 30, 2012-Ville Franche sur Mer

The French Riveria/Cote de Azur-

May 1, 2012-Florence

Today is Labor Day in all of Europe pretty much. All the galleries/museums are closed.

May 6, 2012-Venice

So far Venice is living up to my expectations. It is a totally unique and magical city. I love that there are no cars. I've dreamed of seeing and being in these canals. We got into port around noon and after getting lunch to go we finally got to Piazzalle Roma right about 1:00pm. We bought our 24 hour Vaparetto pass and headed out for St. Marks square/basilica. We were going to go to the Peggy Guggenheim museum but since it was no longer raining we headed to the square. We rode the public transport boat from the mouth of the grand canal all the way to the end. There was an audio tour we listened to as we rode that told us about some if the famous Palazzos that we saw along the way.

The piazza de San Marco-they told us it is the most photographed Piazza/square in the world. I was surprised since I've seen way more pics of St. Peters in Rome. Again we had an audio tour to let us know what all we were seeing. We were able to see

May 2, 2012-Roma

Today we were in Rome.

May 3, 2012-Napoli

Today was our stop on Naples. We originally had planned to go to the island of Ischia in the bay of Naples.

Star wars day-May 4, 2011

Today we are on a boat cruising around the bottom of Italy. I love at sea days that are all sunny and amazing.

Cinco de Mayo-Montenegro style

Today we are in Kotor, Montenegro. Chad got up at 5am to watch us sail in through the fjords. Seeing as how we stayed up till almost 1am watching the help I was not as enthusiastic. I did however wake back up at 6 and saw land ahoy so I hopped out of bed. We were supposed to be off the boat tendering in at 7 but it ended up being 8am before we were on land in Kotor.

We started the day walking the medieval walls surrounding to old city as far as we could. Then we toured around the streets old the old walled city. We also toured the oldest christian church in Europe supposedly. It is a few decades older than Norte Dame. Then we went in search of the water taxi company we wanted to take us around to some of the surrounding towns. We couldn't find then in their location it showed on trip advisor so the lady told us there was a public phone at the post office nearby. As per usual with our luck neither of the phone numbers we had worked. Back we went towards the old town. On the way we stopped at a supermarket to buy a soda and look for some good wine for my neighbor Marsha. Two problems here: first neither of us know a thing about wine, second Chad is wearing a BYU shirt. Awesome! After we finished our purchases we went back to the old town to look for an Internet cafe since we couldn't get hold of the water taxi folks. We found a pizzeria with gelato and Wifi. Hooray for wifi and we each got a scoop of gelato for only €3 total.

After looking at email we tried again for the water taxi. We wondered around for probably another 30 minutes with no luck. We had to go back to the square with the pizzeria so chad could save the email with all the info with the water taxi. Finally we found them over 2 hours after getting off the boat. We were supposed to have a 2 hour private tour of the area but those nuckle heads didn't know anything and didn't act like they spoke much English. They drove us out of Kotor into the bay and first to Our Lady of the Rocks church. It was really pretty small church on its own little island. Next we were supposed to be taken to the small city of

You take my breath away

I was not ready to be impressed. So this was technically day 2 in Paris. (will post day 1 eventually). I figured you got to gosee the Eiffel tower in person while in Paris so that was first thing on today's agenda. We took the metro to the trocadero subway stop and got the most amazing view. Oh my ... It was incredible! Inset pic hereAfter oooohng and aaaahing we walked down the stairs to get to the actual tower and look around. Chad was not willing to wait in line to ride up so we wandered for a bit. Then we walked the champ de mars over to Rue Cler to walk around. Next was this awesome creperie that is the #2 restaurant. Umm yeah we never found it cause I forgot to write down the address. So we just went to a neighborhood bar/cafe for lunch. It had free wifi so we stayed awhile.Next on the agenda was see the arc de triomphe, champ élysées, and tuileries gardens. I told chad that since I couldn't go up on the Eiffel tower I wanted to go up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. Yeah I didn't read that there was no elevator. That was a LOT of stairs. Ugh not smart but beautiful.Insert more picturesNext was the stroll down the Champs Élysées. Thumbs down not so great. I was beat from walking all over Paris at this point and all those stairs. Ugh. Very overrated. The Tuileries gardens would probably have been amazing if I wasn't exhausted and by then afraid of being late to our date to the ballet at the famous original Paris opera house. We did finally get there and there it is again, breath completely taken away. I was pretty excited after seeing it in the phantom of the opera movie and it did not disappoint. This was seriously one of the coolest things I've ever done.Insert picsUnfortunately we bought the cheap seats all the way in the back and dudes this was one of the most uncountable places ever. It was almost like being tortured for the hour or so until intermission. My poor pathetic pregnant self couldn't take the seats so we left early :'(. On the way out we got a DVD of the ballet so I can see what happened. This will be a Paris highlight forever still. I can't explain the beauty of this building. We now headed up to Montmartre to see the sacre coeur church. WOW again. This thing is gorgeous and that is still after seeing Norte dame yesterday. More picsThe thing that really got me though was the spiritual experiences I had here. I have not ever felt the Holy Spirit like that in a church other that a Mormon church/temple. I was so aware of the love of Mary for her baby and so overcome with gratitude that God is giving me a child to raise and hope to have the love of Mary. Yeesh I was not ready to break down right there in the pews. The view of the city were fan freaking tastic from up there. Next we tried to make it back to trocadero to see the Eiffel tower sparkle at 11 but we missed it by one like 3 minutes so we had to wait until 12 (midnight). Spent about 30 minutes searching for a bathroom. Rle #1 for Paris-if you see a restroom use it. It may be a verrrry long time before you find another. See blog entry for yesterday. Now it is 2:26 in the am and need to get up early in the morning to see the Louvre before heading out to the airport/Barcelona:)))Note: ALWAYS say Barcelona with the spanish lisp thing, it is so much more fun to say that way.