Growth Spurt

I officially hate growth spurts. So very much.  Lydia has been waking up twice a night again since last Tuesday night, which she hadn't been doing for a whole month.  Then last night she woke up three times to eat, which she has never done in the entirety of her life.  I know I have no right to complain because she's still a better sleeper than most babies, but I was loving her eight hour stretches of sleep so very much.  I think she's hitting a growth spurt because she's getting SO.  BIG.  She's also suddenly developed some pretty incredible head control out of nowhere.  I was getting worried about how weak her neck seemed because she would not hold her head up hardly ever.  But now she does it like a champ!  Here are the picture highlights of the week:

So.

Much.

Tummy Time.

She falls asleep while eating in the morning sometimes and I find it waaaaaaay too cute.

I clipped her fingernails after she did this to herself (I don't know if you can see it, but she's got red marks all over her poor tummy).  And I clipped two of them too short and they bled. Sad face.  She didn't seem upset at all, but I felt terrible.

Helping mom do the laundry!  Also, see how she's outgrown this outfit?  Had to retire it after that day!

 Going on a walk!

She loves her giraffe that her Aunt Katrina gave her!

She gets stuck in her toys sometimes. :)

She fell asleep while cuddling with her Aunt Nikki.

Nikki was having a rough time after a breakup this weekend, so Jess and I took her out shopping.

We tried on prom dresses and then we bought her two pairs of the cutest boots ever and some skinny jeans to go with them.  I didn't get a picture of the boots, but they were adorable and she NEEDED them.

The rest of the week has been spent cleaning and organizing and packing.  It's taking a long time because my love bug periodically distracts me, but by this time next week I'll be in Grenada!

Left Behind....Again

I realized I left out a few pictures/tidbits from earlier posts, so I'm including them here:

 Two days after she was born, one of the Van Leeuwens' neighbors came over to take pictures and snapped a few of Lydia.  So this is one of her REALLY newborn pictures.

 Lydia loved talking to her daddy on Skype while he was gone!

 Lydia's cute Christmas outfit!

 Daddy put his phone on the front-facing camera and Lydia loved looking at herself!

This is the picture I got from Bryant's sister Aubrey while they were out tubing and Lydia and I were cuddling.

 I thought this swimsuit would be a tankini.  But she has a long torso like her mommy, so...it's definitely a bikini.

And one more little tidbit I forgot to say before:  From about 6 weeks on, Lydia has not needed diaper changes during the night.  Occasionally she does, but 98% of the time, she goes from 9:30 pm to 8:00 am without getting her diaper wet or dirty at all.

Now, on to the last week.  The highlight (or should I say lowlight) was Bryant leaving yesterday morning.  Big sad face.  But we'll be following him in two weeks!

We spent Tuesday helping Lydia recover from her vaccines.  She ran a very low fever for part of the day, but she did much better with the baby Tylenol.  By the way, after getting Tylenol on Monday, she slept from 10 pm to 6:30 am!  This little lady loves her painkillers just like her momma, apparently.  In fact, I woke up at about 6:00 because it was the longest consecutive stretch of sleep I've had in months and my body didn't know what to do with itself.  Then I waited until she made a little grunting sound and grabbed her out of the crib and made her eat because I was starting to hurt.  She only ate for a few minutes before falling asleep again.  She's my favorite!

Wednesday through Friday we just lounged around, did some laundry and packed stuff up for Bryant to take to Grenada.  Oh, and did tons of tummy time!

 

Lydia LOVES it when I sing.  She smiles and laughs like crazy.  I'm not sure if she just really likes songs or if she is laughing at my attempts to sing. :)

Saturday we drove down to Bryant's parents' house for the weekend.  They are in New Zealand right now so we had the place to ourselves.  We made a chocolate cake, then went over to my grandpa's house to sell off some of the furniture we were storing there.  Afterward we headed to our friends', Brooke & Clayton, house for dinner and games.  They have an almost three year old daughter, Adi, and a son, Phillip, who is a month older than Lydia but was born premature so he's still a little guy.  He is so cute!  But it was the first time Lydia has been around a baby who was smaller than her and I couldn't get over how tiny he was!!  Clayton got sick while we were there and both babies were cranky, but it was still so much fun.  That night was the first time in three days that Lydia got to bed on time and she was soooooooo much happier after that.  The later that baby goes to bed the earlier she gets up and the crankier she is. 

She loves taking selfies!

Hanging out waiting for people to show up and buy things at grandpa's house.

She LOVES playing with daddy!

Sunday morning we got up and had a lazy morning as a family.  In the afternoon Bryant's sisters, Aubrey and McCall, and my sister, Jess, and her husband and two kids came over for dinner.  We played some more games, then ate dinner and everyone left but Aubrey, who was staying until Tuesday morning.

Monday we finished packing up some stuff for Bryant to take to Grenada--mostly wipes and clothes for Lydia.  We enjoyed our last few hours with each other before Bryant had to leave. 

Seriously, she really loves her daddy.

Tuesday morning Bryant and I got up at four, he got dressed and ready, I said goodbye and Aubrey drove him to the airport at about 4:30.  No crying this time, folks! I couldn't fall back asleep until almost 5, but Lydia slept straight through until 7:15!!  I was so excited.  I cleaned up, got Lydia all packed up in the car and drove to Ikea to meet up with Jess and her two boys, Keagan and Parker.  Everything is so cheap there!!  Afterward I stopped at Jess's house for a bit before coming back up to my parents' house.  Last night I put Lydia to bed at 9 in an attempt to move her schedule closer to Grenada time.  This resulted in her waking up twice during the night, which she hasn't done in about a month.  I'm not sure if it was the early bedtime, but I hope not.

Not the best picture, but we were having fun in Ikea!

This morning we went out and bought a little chair for her.  She's still getting used to it, but she's adorable in it!  This progression of pictures pretty much sums it up:
 

Two weeks until beaches and sun!

Lydia Belle's Birth Story-Part Two

Alright, now to the unhappy portion of the birth story.  It has a happy ending, which is good, but it was pretty scary at the time.


Lydia had spit up a few times during the day and when the pediatrician came to check her in the afternoon, he said she had swallowed amniotic fluid and that spitting up was normal.  He also said that we shouldn't worry if she didn't breathe for a few seconds after spitting up since it was a reflex that would keep her from choking.  We noticed that she did, in fact, hold her breath for a few seconds after spitting up until her airway was clear, so we didn't worry about it.  Around 8 that night, Bryant was holding her while I went to use the bathroom.  She spit up while I was in there and I was washing my hands when Bryant suddenly said she still wasn't breathing.  I came out and he was holding her on her side and patting her back, but she had her mouth closed and was turning red.  I grabbed the aspirator, opened her mouth, and tried to suction out the back of her throat, but she started turning purple.  I pushed the nurse button and said something eloquent like, "Uhmm...my baby's not breathing!"  A nurse came running in about 2 seconds later, grabbed Lydia out of my arms and ran, without saying a word to either of us.

We both started crying and hugging each other and Bryant kept saying, "I couldn't help her.  She wasn't breathing and there was nothing I could do.  She's my little girl and I couldn't help her!"  Lots of crying happened.  Two nurses came into our room about 5 minutes later  and informed us that she was breathing again, but that it had taken their team three minutes with her on oxygen before she pinked up.  Because of that, they were going to move her to the NICU and they wanted to know if we wanted to come see her.  I want to know if any parent has ever said no to that request, because I can't imagine anyone NOT wanting to see their baby after something like that.  We went in to see her and she was laying in one of those little beds in just her diaper and she was breathing pretty hard--you could see the muscles between her ribs straining with every breath.  We talked to her and touched her and cried a little bit.  The team of NICU nurses and the respiratory therapist were fantastic.  They talked with us about her condition and told us they had ordered a chest x-ray to see if she had aspirated.  My parents showed up and my dad helped Bryant give her a blessing, during which Bryant and I cried yet again.  They did the chest x-ray (the tech who did the x-ray was my sister's old childhood friend, Jenny, which was pretty crazy!) and it looked clean so they decided not to take her to the NICU, but they wanted to keep her in the TLC lab overnight.  The TLC lab is the step-down NICU, for babies who need some extra help/monitoring, but not enough to warrant going to the NICU.  I fed her there in the TLC lab, then Bryant and I headed back to our room.

Bryant was still really struggling and blaming himself for what happened to our little lady.  He had told my parents that Lydia was not breathing for at least a minute before the nurse came for her.  I kept saying it had only been about 20 seconds (he agreed with me later, when he had calmed down a bit), and telling him it wasn't his fault, but he still had a pretty rough night.  At one point I pointed out that if he hadn't been there it would have been worse because I would have set Lydia down to use the bathroom and wouldn't have known she needed help, but that made him more upset.  I went to the lab twice during the night to feed her and was told she spit up twice, once after we had originally left and then again after her first feeding, but had kept her next one down.  They let us take her out of the lab at about noon, just in time for some of my siblings to come visit.  We spent the day relaxing and enjoying our little girl (and maybe paying really close attention to her breathing).  The respiratory therapist told us that she would be fine now and that she had just had a bronchospasm and none of the fluid had gotten in her lungs.  He advised us to be diligent about burping her so that she would have a lower chance of spitting up.  It seemed like the issue was that all the amniotic fluid in her stomach kept making her vomit after eating, but it was now all cleared out and we were told she would be fine.

 The only picture we took with her that second day.  Go Cougars!  And also, doesn't Bryant look good?  I may have looked like crap, but my husband was cute enough to make up for it.

That night we requested a monitor to be brought into our room so we could keep her with us but have the security of knowing she wouldn't stop breathing during the night. They brought it in around 10:30, just after I finished feeding her, hooked her up to the monitors, and put her in her crib.  Her little bed was inclined so her head was elevated to lower the risk of her spitting up.  After the nurses left, Bryant and I climbed in bed and I prepared to get a few hours' sleep.  Then Bryant noticed that she was on her side and was afraid she was too far on her side and her arm wouldn't be getting the blood it needed, so he got up and rolled her over.  Which, of course, woke her up and nothing would make her go back to sleep until I nursed her again.  I did, and laid her down on her back in her crib and climbed back in bed.  Then Bryant said, "Oh no, she slid down!"  He got out of bed and moved her up, which woke her up yet again.  I then sternly told him to put a pillow over his face and that he was no longer allowed to look at her or touch her because I wanted to actually SLEEP!!  I may have been a little tired and cranky at that point.  He followed my directions, promptly fell asleep, and I was up with Lydia for another hour and a half while she fussed.  Once she finally settled down, I managed to sleep for about 45 minutes before the alarm on the monitor went off.  Bryant and I both jumped up in a panic, but her stats were fine.  The monitor was just running out of batteries.  We called the nurses, and they took her to weigh her and get a new monitor so I got another hours' worth of sleep.  When they brought her back I fed her again and she once again refused to sleep.  Long story short, between the hours of 11 and 4 (with an extra hour thrown in for the daylight savings change) I slept for about 2 hours.  The last straw was when I finally got her to sleep at 3:40 and the monitor started beeping again at 4 because, you guessed it, the battery was running low.  When they came in to fix it I requested they take her to the nursery because I desperately needed a few hours of sleep.  After they took her, however, I started crying because I felt like a terrible mother for sending her away.  Luckily, Bryant was there to calm me down and I finally got a few hours of sleep before we were discharged Sunday morning.

Not the most flattering picture, but here we are leaving the hospital!

And here's my sweet little girl making a funny face to keep me entertained during the car ride.

She has been perfectly fine since that incident (although I might have a mini panic attack every time she coughs or chokes while eating or being burped), which we are thankful for every single day.  I am also oh-so-thankful that I decided not to have her in Grenada.  They don't have a NICU and I can't imagine what would have happened to her there.  The lack of NICU was one of the biggest determining factors for me in coming back to the States, and although I would rather not have needed it, I'm so glad that I had those amazing people to help my little girl!!

My husband & my little girl

**Met my goal this week and posted!  I won't always be pointing that out, but I was excited I remembered!**
Bryant has been having a harder time lately with being in Grenada alone.  The stress of fourth term is pretty overwhelming on its own and they just learned about the very rare pregnancy complications that are fatal no matter what.  He has told me about the different ways I can die in childbirth, which haven't bothered me (maybe I'm overconfident, but I'm pretty sure I won't die), but which seem to bother him a lot.  Poor guy.  But he's doing better now, he got his score back for a midterm he thought he failed and he actually did quite well.  I think that helps with the stress a bit.  He's even considering flying out on Halloween weekend to meet our little girl!  I would get induced on Halloween if he comes and she's not here yet.  Super exciting, but still in the works.  He needs to talk to some professors and find out if he could afford to miss classes/labs or not.  Stay tuned!
I've told Bryant that Lydia will be a dancer for sure.  For the past two or three months, every time I lay down on my side, Lydia takes advantage of the hard surface to get her groove on.  Within a minute or two, she flips so her feet are against the bed (or floor, or couch) and goes to town kicking/dancing.  This happens especially late in the evening and at night, when I'm trying to sleep.  If I slip my hand between my belly and the surface she's dancing on, she instantly stops.  Apparently she can tell the difference and doesn't appreciate me trying to interrupt her.
Speaking of baby movements, I have a confession to make.  I know plenty of pregnant women who talk about how amazing it is to feel their baby move and how much they miss it after their baby is born.  I am sorry to say I am not one of those women.  I think it's amazing when she moves because a) Yay, she's still alive! and b) Holy cow, there's a person in there!  And she moves of her own free will!  Crazy!  Other than that, I dislike the baby moving feeling.  Worst mom ever?  Possibly.  But I don't like people kicking, punching, or head-butting me from the outside, and just because it's happening from the inside doesn't improve the experience for me.  It doesn't ever really hurt, but it's uncomfortable and it makes me feel...twitchy.  My little sister was watching TV with me the other night and I said, "Look, Lydia's moving."  Nikki looked over to see my stomach stretching as Lydia moved some body part or other.  Her face took on a look of pure horror and she whispered, "You can see it from the outside?!"  Pretty sure she will never want to have children after this.
In other news, I have started washing some of the baby clothes I've gotten from friends and family.  I have pretty much only washed things that are sized 3 months and up because every time I look at the newborn clothes I think there's no way any child of mine will fit in those clothes.  I was 2 weeks late and weighed 9 1/2 pounds.  Bryant was 10 days early and weighed just over 7 1/2 pounds.  I'm pretty sure we both would have been good-sized babies if we had been born on our due dates, and I can't imagine that this little girl will be anything short of 8 pounds.  I'll probably wash one or two newborn outfits, but if she turns out to be a small baby I'm going to have to buy/wash a lot of clothes!

An Entire Summer in Just One Post!

Doesn't that title sound way more exciting than it actually is?  I thought so.  You might've thought I'd be good about posting things this summer, what with the baby and everything, but you'd obviously be wrong.  I have done a terrible job at keeping in touch with people, updating this blog, and many other things this summer.  Today is officially the first day of fall, and I've decided to turn over a new leaf (shout out to my father-in-law, the king of puns) this season.  I'm making a goal to post at least twice a month, and more like once a week if I can do it.  I started this blog to serve as a kind of journal for myself as well as being a way to keep in touch with family and friends, and I need to be better.

Alright, this summer.  Here's the highlights of what has happened since May:

• Went to my grandparents' farm in Montana for the last time before it was sold
• Went to Glacier with my family
• Went up to Snowbird for an afternoon of fun with Bryant's family

(Break while I rack my brains to remember what else I did this summer.  I know I've been busy, but what have I been doing?!)

• Went up to Heber with Bryant's family on two different weekends
• Read a lot of baby books
• Spent a lot of time in stores registering for baby things
• Did some house/cat/plant sitting for my in-laws while they were in Mexico
• Had a baby shower
• Went to 2 baby showers for friends due about the same time as me
• Met up with many different friends to catch up
• Watched a lot of HGTV (didn't have that channel in Grenada!)
• Lived through quite a bit of extended family drama on both sides of my family--this has been the summer of things going wrong, apparently
• Done quite a bit of babysitting for my sister while her husband was out of town
• Been to umpteen doctor's appointments

Unfortunately I don't have the time or energy right now to go into detail about everything (plus I think it would bore everyone to tears), but I'll post some pictures with captions and that will have to be enough!  I'll be back to post in two weeks, and you can start sending me annoying messages if I forget.

On our way up to Montana, a wheel came off the trailer.  Not just a tire, the whole wheel.  Bolts sheared off, the whole nine yards!  Some guy pulled up beside us and honked to let us know, and we went back to look for it.  That's the freeway over on the left and we're off-roading.

Bryant thought he might have seen the wheel and went to investigate, but it was nothing.  We never found it and had to spend some time at a tire place getting a new one.

At my grandparents' farm in Montana, riding the four wheeler down to the bird sanctuary.  We could've walked, but low speed four wheeler rides are always more fun!

The bridge to the bird sanctuary.  There were absolutely no birds around until Keagan (my nephew there) threw a rock in the stream.  Then hordes of these swallows came swooping out from under the bridge to circle around. 

At the bird sanctuary, skipping rocks.  What else do you do at bird sancutaries?

On the way back from the preserve we stopped to throw rocks off the bridge again.  As you can see, Bryant was an extremely enthusiastic rock thrower.

My grandparents' little farmhouse.  I will miss it!!

A shot of the fields stretching away behind the house.  Montana is a really beautiful place.

The tire swing in the yard.  I have many fond memories of this swing!  The current grandkids got to play on it a little bit, at least, but I'm sad Lydia will never get to spend time here.

The cute little house we all stayed at in Glacier.

The guys spinning the grandkids around.  Bryant loves playing with his nieces and nephews.  It's adorable.

We found a golf course on our little walk one evening and all three grandkids picked a golf cart to pretend to drive.  Alice (in the front) was the most serious about it.  She even has her driving face on.

Bryant with Keagan, Mike with Isabelle, and Jake with Alice.  Alice and Isabelle are Jake's, and Keagan is Mike's.

Bryant getting ready to ride one of the attractions at Snowbird.  Being pregnant, I just watched and took pictures.

View from the top of the lift at Snowbird.  Utah is a really pretty place, too, but I forget when I'm here all the time!

Last lunch with Bryant before he boarded his flight.  There was lots of crying after this, but I didn't want to document that with pictures. :)

While cat sitting, I caught Milo sleeping like this.  That is the top of his head smooshed upside down on the couch.  Ridiculous cat.  He also persisted in trying to get me out of bed at about 5 or 6 every morning because that's when Al (my father-in-law) gets up.  He went so far as to attack plastic bags and the blinds in my bedroom, but I held firm!  And by held firm, I mean I pulled the covers over my head and refused to get up before 8.

Lydia at 33 weeks.  I think it's pretty much the cutest profile I've ever seen, but I'm pretty biased.  Also, for those of you who can read ultrasounds measurements, you'll note that while everything else is right around 34 weeks, her head is measuring at 32 weeks.  Pretty sure she's going to have Bryant's head and I'm pretty sure that bodes well for me!

Baby shower #1--it was a beach theme, in case you didn't catch that.  Baby shower #2 to come in October.

At the aquarium with my sister, Jess, and her two boys, Keagan and Parker.  Jess works part-time in the evenings and so I ended up spending two different weeks at her house so I could watch the boys while she worked.

During one of those weeks, we went to the Ogden Temple Open House with my mom and my cousin, Josh, who was in town helping out with my grandpa before heading up to BYU-Idaho.

I bought this sock monkey for Lydia, but made the mistake of leaving it with some other presents on the floor in the living room.  Parker decided he had to have it.  His Ute fan father was not pleased, but I thought it was cute!