life changes.

once you become pregnant, you hear for nine months, "your life will never be the same." i understood this and really tried to get ready for this change. i knew tim and my life would never be the same once a baby entered our world. the life change is no doubt a good one... but i thought i would share some of the big changes that i am still getting used to...

1. Grocery shopping- tim and i always went grocery shopping together. tim loves going up and down every aisle (even if we don't need anything in an aisle) but now tim has been going on his own. i am not ready to take an infant into a germ infested grocery store. i am sure in a couple more weeks i will feel better about it.

2. 8 hours of non-interrupted sleep- landon is a great sleeper. he sleeps about 4-6 hours in one stretch and goes back down right after a bottle for another 3-4 hours. i am not complaining but i really miss sleeping eight hours straight through the night. :)

3. Walking out the door with just a purse- now i have a diaper bag, blankets, boppy, and a baby in a 100 pound carrier (or so it feels like a hundred pounds) :) oh. and of course i need to have a coffee cup in hand too.

4. Friday nights-tim and i always had "date nights" on friday nights. we would go out to eat, meet up with friends, or go somewhere for a drink. the past three friday nights, we have been in pajamas by eight, eating leftovers in the fridge and soothing a fussy baby (landon tends to get a little fussy in the late evening hours before bed.) last night, tim and i ate dinner together on the floor while landon was laying on his blanket. we both admitted that we loved it though! :)

5. My body- how come when i was pregnant everyone commented on how cute i looked. or how adorable my belly was. but once i delivered the baby, not one person has commented on my sexy saggy belly. ;) i bet if people would recognize how beautiful a body is after delivering a baby, women wouldn't feel so pressured to get their old bodies back. 

it has been easy adjusting to some of these changes more than others (my body) but in the end, i now completely understand why people say "it's a good change."  i love this baby more than words can say. i love when he looks at me with those beautiful eyes. i love when he makes his adorable faces. i love looking at his peaceful sleeping face. i love soothing his cries. i love being a mom.

What life changes did you have to adjust to once your little baby was born?

my little guy.

i am going to be probably overloading this blog with landon pictures... but i just can't help it. i adore him.

i am so blessed.

always twenty pounds...

i started this blog over two years ago for one main reason... to focus on losing and maintaining my weight. when i got pregnant, i thought "i'm going to get fat any way, i might as well just eat and enjoy."  and that is exactly what i did. this girl is guilty of eating mint chocolate chip ice cream EVERY night. and no, i would never share with tim. the bowl was all mine.

when i went into the hospital to be induced, the nurse asked me my weight. i was mortified because tim was in the room. only my OB and I knew my weight. i have kept it a secret and haven't told anyone... not even tim. i whispered it to the nurse, who chuckled and said "you are pregnant."

yes i was pregnant. but i definitely gained more than i should have. the average pregnant woman gains between 25-35 pounds. not this girl. i am still mortified to put my final pregnancy weight on here... and even my current weight. i know that as i get down to my pre-pregnancy weight i will definitely share. i have been weighing myself every Wednesday and i hope to update those final numbers by the end of the summer. i plan on going back to weight watchers meetings... landon and i will go together!

so far, i have dropped 29 pounds in 18 days. my goal is to be back to pre-pregnancy weight by september 15th. or at least within 5 pounds of it.

but for now i will enjoy every second with this adorable guy as i focus on getting myself healthy again so i can be the best wife/mom i can be.

How long did it take to lose your baby weight?

New Mom Must Haves...and Nots!

New Mom Must Haves!

BreastFriend- When i was at the hospital, i had about ten nurses tell me i was holding the baby wrong when i was breastfeeding. every nurse had a different way to show you how to breastfeed. it was so stressful. i decided to tune out all the nurses. i decided to tune out all the lactation consultants. i decided to just relax and let nature run its course. They didn't have lactation consultants hundreds of years ago to teach women how to breastfeed. those women just did it. and that is what i did using my BreastFriend. i just breastfed.

Boppy-  we use this all the time with Landon. we rest him in this after feedings.

Dr. Brown's Bottle Warmer- Wow! This thing is fantastic. pop the bottle in the warmer. change the baby. by the time he is smelling fresh the bottle is perfect and ready to go.

New Mom Stressors!

Baby Monitor- We spent $200.00 on a video baby monitor. the first night i had Landon home, i didn't sleep a wink. i heard every grunt, moan, stretch, and breath in his crib. i decided to not use the monitor at night. he is in the room right next door and i hear him perfectly when he is awake. maybe when he gets bigger, i'll be using it more.

a rough recovery.

my first ten days of motherhood is nothing what i expected it to be.

i thought i would bring home my little baby and jump right into feeding, changing, burping. i thought i would have no problem doing laundry, keeping the house clean and organized. i thought i would be able to cater to visitors and drive around to visit people with my beautiful newborn baby. 

i thought maybe God would give me break on the recovery of having a baby since i had such a bumpy pregnancy and delivery. but not so much. 

when i left the hospital on June 8th, my doctor told me to do NOTHING for two weeks but breastfeed. no dishes. no laundry. no driving. no cooking. NOTHING. i kind of chuckled because i felt great on that friday. and i have seen many pregnant women out and about after delivering a baby. i thought the doctor just told me that as a precaution. boy was i wrong. i guess the doctor knew i had a lot of healing to do that i wasn't ready for.

even though i didn't tear... i still was stitched up for other reasons. and after pushing for four hours, i of course was reintroduced to hemorrhoids (click here to read about the first time i was introduced to hemorrhoids). those little pains in the butt. i thought i was in the clear after having surgery on them nine months pregnant. but i guess they couldn't handle the pushing and they came back rearing their ugly faces. i could barely move last week. i couldn't sit to hold and feed my baby. i couldn't stand to change my baby. i couldn't enjoy my first week with my baby. i lived in the bathtub. and as the days went on... they just got worse. so....

i had surgery. again. 8 days after delivering Landon, i was back at the surgeon. now i am on the road to recovery... i have been feeling better every day since the surgery. not 100% yet... but hoping to get there soon. 

even though i have been having a difficult time healing... i have been VERY BLESSED with a mom who has been here to help me with the baby. she stayed a few nights so i could rest and get better. i have also been VERY BLESSED with a supportive husband who had to jump into fatherhood quickly since his wife was stuck in bed. and finally i have been VERY BLESSED with a wonderful baby.  he is definitely worth all the pain i have been going through... just look at that beautiful face!

Birth Story.

I was obsessed with reading birth stories when i was pregnant. everyone has a different story on how the arrival of their little one entered the world. i thought i would blog about mine so that i will NEVER forget it... although, after my labor and delivery, i may want to forget it or Landon will be an only child. :)

On Monday morning, June 4th, I had an appointment with my OB... she wanted to schedule an induction date since i was eight days over my due date. we scheduled it for june 6th. she then sent me for another nonstress test for my baby. during the test, they discovered that landon's heart rate would decelerate every time i was having a contraction. i was immediately sent to the hospital to be induced that day. forget the june 6th induction.

the induction process began at 1:00 in the afternoon on June 4th. i was given cervadel, a drug used to thin out my cervix...  i had to wait 12 hours to see if it would work... so we waited and during this time, i started having contractions... they were coming a minute apart for hours without a break.  at about 3 in the morning on june 5th, the doctor came in and checked me... i still had a ways to go so i was given cervadel again and was told it would be another 12 hours. contractions came full force at a minute a part. my back was in such pain, all i could do was cry. i was exhausted since i had been up since 4 the previous morning and had no sleep in over 30 hours. i was given a pain medicine that knocked me out for 2 hours. when i awoke to use the bathroom, around 1:20 in the afteroon my WATER BROKE! i knew at this point, my baby would arrive in the next 24 hours and was getting super anxious and excited.

after my water broke, contractions became more intense but were 7-10 minutes apart... i was so relieved that they were no longer every minute. around 8 at night, my doctor came and it checked me... i was finally 3 centimeters! she ordered the epidural and began giving me pertocin... upping it every 15-20 minutes. by midnight, i was 10 centimeters. even though i had the epidural, i could feel every contraction in my back and butt... it was getting time to push.

i started to push around 12:15ish... i was told, first time moms can push up to 2 hours. well not this first time mom... i decided to be an overachiever and pushed for almost four hours. filled with exhaustion, i gave one final push and Baby Landon was born at 4:05 in the morning on June 6th. he had a rough start as he swallowed some fluid on the way out but within seconds he was breathing and crying... along with his parents who were crying with the surprise of a baby boy. a son.

Landon Robert-- 8 pounds 14 ounces---19.5 inches long---Born 4:05 AM

41 weeks.

love this baby so much already.  

what's in a name?

sophia, hannah, sarah, kate, riley, emerson, madison, and so on... naming a child is so difficult. tim and i started throwing names out to each other back in september when we found out we were expecting. i remember tim telling me, we don't need to worry about this right now... we have until May.

for months, many people have been asking us if we have names for our baby. and our answer is always no. we would toss names at each other and almost always the other person would catch it with an ewwww,  nah, or just make a face at it. when we would agree on a name, it would be put in tim's iphone so we wouldn't forget it.

but now it is crunch time. i think we have agreed on a list of boy names but have absolutely nothing for a baby girl. i sometimes wonder if this baby is a girl and can sense she is not named yet... and that explains why she is holding tight... (well, that reason and who would want to leave a place where you are being fed ice cream every night?)