The Nugget's Second Month

I promise that I will be posting more often than once a month very soon, but I have been very busy with Bryant being home.  I plan to write during her naps (she's taking one right now), but with him here we spend her naptime together most of the time.  This post will be another quick recap of the past month, but I think starting next week I will be posting every week.  First, two quick things from her first month that I forgot about:

• The pee.  Heavens above, the pee.  When she was about 4-5 weeks old, she had a wet diaper.  I laid her down on the changing pad, got her all cleaned up and put on her clothes, then slid my hands under her back to pick her up and she was wet.  Not only was she wet, but there was a little puddle on her changing pad.  And I hadn't put the diaper on wrong.  Nope, this girl just pees so very much that the diapers can't handle it.  She soaked through the diaper, her onesie, and her pants in about five seconds flat.  Also, she did that just after I had changed her out of a very wet diaper.  She has also peed through her pajamas and sheets more than once.
• She got newborn pictures taken!  I took her when she was six days old, and I love the way the pictures turned out!  Here are a few favorites:

 This is the face she makes every time I put her in her carseat. :)

I was standing there talking to her in this one.  She's a sweetie pie!!

I made these sandals!

Alright, now I will pick up with month #2!

• First, and most importantly, Bryant came home!!  I surprised him by renting a hotel room in Salt Lake for his first two nights so he could get to know his little lady.  I had actually done this back in August when we thought he would not be here for her birth, but it was still a lot of fun!  He came home on the evening of Dec. 14th and we went out to lunch the next day at the Red Iguana before heading over to see the lights on Temple Square that night.  The next morning we packed up and headed down to the Van Leeuwens' to spend a few days there.

The day (just before Bryant got back) that she peed through 2 outfits by noon.

I discovered she liked tummy time more when I let her watch America's Next Top Model while I packed.

She was Minnie Mouse at church the day Bryant got back!

Yay!  Daddy is home!!

Out to lunch!

I attempted to take so many pictures on my phone, but I had to turn the flash off to try to capture the lights on Temple Square and apparently my hands are too shaky for such an endeavor.

 It was too cold for us to want to uncover the little girl (plus she was asleep), but then she woke up and so we stopped on the way to the car and took a quick picture next to one tree that wasn't even on Temple Square. :)

 

 Tummy time with Daddy is the best!!

 She loved playing under Grandma's Christmas tree!!

• We headed up to the Gotbergs' after that and spent a whole week, culminating in Christmas morning.  We spent all our time there playing with family and just hanging out.  Here are some pictures and highlights:

Bath time is the best!

Go Cougars!

She just can't get enough of Christmas trees!

 We did the Nativity on Christmas Eve and my nephew, Keagan, was supposed to be a sheep.  He wanted to wear the sheep "hat," but refused to put on the big fluffy sheep costume.  He did, however, decide that he needed a shepherd's crook in order to be a real sheep.

We were Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus.  

She was happy on Christmas morning, especially while Daddy was playing with her.

Daddy got a Superman robe and wore it all Christmas morning while he opened Lydia's presents for her (which she loved).

• After we ate breakfast, we headed back down to Bryant's parents' house to spend about a week with them.  We had another round of present opening after a "breakfast" lunch complete with wassail (one of my favorites).  Later that week we also went up to Midway for two days.  Here are more pictures and highlights:

Grandma Van Leeuwen got her a cute stocking!

 My sister-in-law, Amanda, is pretty much amazing.  She made homemade wrapping paper and I had to take pictures because it was too incredible and cute!

I mean, seriously, who can do things like that?!

Too much fun on Christmas meant that baby girl kept falling asleep when she was supposed to be eating.

 

While we were opening presents I put this bag on Milo's head.  I thought he would freak out, but instead he climbed inside and curled up. It was pretty cute!

 She's just such a cute Minnie Mouse I couldn't help dressing her up again!

 Bryant's extended family did the Nativity and Lydia was Baby Jesus again.  Grandpa was so nervous about her being held by Bryant's young cousin that he jumped up the second it ended to rescue her.  So sweet!

 She loves playing with daddy!

 She didn't sleep well the first night up in Midway, so we spent a few hours snuggling while everyone else went tubing at Soldier Hollow.

 We decided to take a little walk outside in the snow with our love bug.  I love that Bryant looks like a baby-wearing super hero in this picture.

Cutie!

 Snuggling with mom...

 and dad...

 

 and Auntie McCall!

• On Saturday we had Lydia's baby blessing.  I bore my testimony and cried and Bryant did a fantastic job with her blessing.  It was a very happy day!

•  After the blessing, it was back up to my parents' house.  We're going to spend the week here before Bryant heads back to Grenada.  Sad face.  Here's what we've done so far:

Going on a walk!

And bundling up because it's cold outside.  Isn't her Hungry Caterpillar quilt cute?  Her Aunt Amanda made it for her!

She loves sitting in the highchair while mom and dad play card games with family.

Learning to stand with daddy!

She's getting so big!!  I love it and hate it all at the same time.

 Yesterday was her two month check up.  This is her being happily ignorant of the pain that would be happening soon.  Curse you, vaccines!  But not really, vaccines are great.  But we found out she's in the 95th percentile for height, 75th percentile for weight, and only 38th percentile for head size.  She got her daddy's head and I'm pretty sure she got her height from both of us.

 
And that's it!  I will post again in a week, and this time I really really will because Bryant won't be here and I can post during naps again. 

The Nugget's First Month

The nugget is Lydia, in case that wasn't clear.  Her nicknames are nugget, love bug, sweetie pie, and pumpkin, but I think nugget is the only one that Bryant uses, too.  This post will be a bunch of random facts and stories about her first four weeks.  So get ready for a long long post!

• Lydia has very blonde peach fuzz all over her shoulders.  The NICU nurse taking care of her called her "The Vanilla Gorilla."
• She has hairy ears!  I love it!!

• Two days after she was born, we had our first multi-diaper change.  I took her dirty diaper off and put a clean diaper under her, then started to put some Desitin on her when she started pooping again.  Bryant and I laughed and waited until she was done, then cleaned her off and put a new diaper under her.  And she did it AGAIN.  Bryant ran to grab a bag to put the rapidly accumulating diapers into while I cleaned her off again.  This time, instead of putting a new diaper under her, I turned the dirty one around so she was on the clean part of it while I finished cleaning her.  I got out a new diaper and unfolded it, then set it down to grab the Desitin.  Bryant came back in and said, "Did she poop again?" Just as I was responding with a no, she started to pee.  Like a fountain.  It arched up in the air and landed on the clean diaper (she has some good aim!), which I had to pick up to prevent the pee from running out.  It was pooling in the diaper as she kept going and going and Bryant and I laughed helplessly until she finally stopped.  Then we put a clean diaper on her and this time she left it clean.  That's 4 dirty diapers in less than 5 minutes.  Since then, I've discovered that she tends to save everything up and spend about half an hour cleaning out her system.  I call it cluster pooping.
• When Bryant left (3 days after her birth), I handled it with even less grace than the last time he left.  The crying started about two hours before we even left for the airport.  Bryant kept it together, but I just cried and cried.  I blame the postpartum hormones this time.

 Leaving the hospital

Making silly faces!

• After Bryant left, I had two sleepless nights wherein my adorable little pumpkin refused to sleep between the hours of 10 pm and 3 am.  Like, at all.  She didn't cry, but she made fussy, grunting noises that kept both of us awake and she cluster fed like CRAZY.  After the second night I declared we were never doing that again and I put her on a schedule.  By that I mean I feed her when she woke up at 8, then feed her every three hours (waking her up from naps if necessary) all day long.  Ever since then she has slept from 10 pm to 8 am with two middle of the night feedings.  How lucky am I, huh?  Best.  Baby.  Ever.
• Speaking of best baby, she also hardly ever cries.  That might be because I feed her every three hours and so she doesn't have time to get hungry in between, but even in the middle of the night it's not crying that wakes me up, it's her little grunting, fussy noises.  She's just a very quiet little girl.

•  Lydia has made it clear, however, that she HATES sponge baths.  She got a total of two sponge baths in the two weeks it took for her umbilical cord to fall off.  And one of them was at the hospital a few hours after she was born.  When I finally attempted to give her a sponge bath the week after her birth, my mother came running from upstairs because she thought something terrible had happened.  That's how loud Lydia was screaming.

• I had my first "terrible mom moment" when she was about four weeks old.  I was at Bryant's parents' house and Lydia was fussy and having a hard time falling asleep in a new place.  It was about 11:30 and she could not quiet down and fall asleep.  I finally picked her up and held her on my chest while I was laying on the bed to quiet her down.  FYI it's a really bad plan to hold your baby when you're really tired.  I fell asleep and around 1:30 in the morning I must have moved because Lydia fell off the bed.  I don't think I'll ever be able to forget the sound of her hitting the ground.  She only cried for about 30 seconds or so (I think she was more scared than hurt), but I cried much longer.  I didn't sleep the rest of the night because I was watching her to make sure she was ok.  I cried on and off the whole next day because I was overly tired and I was convinced that she was bleeding into her brain and would die.  Then I was holding her while walking around and I bumped her head on a door frame.  Mom of the year moment #2.  However, it ended up being a blessing in disguise because she cried longer from that and had a visible red mark on her head (she had no marks after falling off the bed), so I was finally reassured that she wasn't seriously hurt from the fall. 

• We Skype with Bryant every day and Lydia adores her daddy.  Or she just really likes using technology.  Either way, she gets very talkative and squirmy and smiley when he's on Skype.  It's so adorable!  Bryant can't bring himself to hang up when he's talking to her, so I have to do it every time.
• Lydia started smiling a week ago or so and I love it!!
• I'm taking a picture of Lydia with Bryant's old teddy bear, Snuggles, every week so he can see how she's growing:

Week One.  I forgot to grab Snuggles the first week, so we took a picture with the BYU monkey instead.

Week Two.  I included both the BYU monkey and Snuggles so I could transition over to just Snuggles.

Week Three.

Week Four.

 Week Five.

• Here she is in the onesie Bryant and I used to announce our pregnancy to our families:

Also, how adorable is that face?!

•  The Monday after Lydia was born, she got the chance to meet her Great-Grandpa Gotberg.  He had been going downhill for a while and I decided I wanted to take her over.  He was pretty comatose, but I held her up next to him so he could see her and I swear she smiled a little bit.  He passed away just a few hours later and I'm so grateful she got the chance to "meet" him before he died.

• Lydia loves taking walks!  Well, I guess I should say that I like taking walks and bringing her along in the stroller.

 

 We went on a walk in the evening with Lydia's cousins to look at Christmas lights.  Keagan here started trying to trick-or-treat because the lights were on outside the houses and he was told he could only trick-or-treat at houses with lights on.

•  We call this Lydia's "squish face."  It's adorable and she makes it every time I burp her!

• And now, a bunch of my favorite pictures of my favorite girl!

I love this snuggle bug!

Grandma Gotberg got her this dress.  And she obviously loves it!

Napping with Aunt Aubrey.

 She likes real baths much better than sponge baths.

She has started rolling onto her side when I lay her down on her back.

Tummy time is not her favorite, but I can't get enough of her cute little face when she's on her stomach!

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!!

Lydia Belle's Birth Story-Part One

This post is two weeks late, but I've been just the teensiest bit busy lately so I hope you'll forgive me.  Our little Lydia arrived on Halloween, just as planned, and here's her birth story:

Bryant's flight was supposed to land at 9:30 pm on the 30th and my induction was scheduled for 11:00 that same night.  Unfortunately, there was something wrong with the plane in Grenada and the delay meant he didn't land in Utah until 11.  Luckily, the hospital told me it was just fine to show up whenever since they weren't busy, so my original plan of picking Bryant up and heading to the hospital remained intact.  Picking him up was amazing and also a little weird since we hadn't seen each other in months.  He's gotten so skinny!!  He needs me there to make sure he's eating well.

Anyway, I picked him up, we stopped at my parents' house so he could take a quick shower and wash off all his airport/plane germs before holding his daughter, then it was up to the hospital.  Can I just say, by the way, how weird it is to just drive up to the hospital to have a baby when you're not in labor?  It seemed completely unreal.  We got there around 12:45 in the morning on Halloween, they checked me (I was dilated to about 3 1/2 cm), and they started me on the Pitocin at about 1:30.  Bryant and I were both pretty tired but very excited!  They came back to check on me around 1:45 and I said I thought I had felt one contraction, so they upped the dose.  I then proceeded to have a contraction about once every minute (Bryant was timing them) and they were KILLING me.  The nurse came back at two and I told her the contractions were very close together and that I wanted an epidural.  She turned down the Pitocin and I got the epidural at 2:15, Bryant watched and was full of amazement at the pushing that was involved in getting it in.  I was just grateful that it worked!  Around that time I noticed some hives on my arm.  They went away in about half an hour, so I think they were stress related.

After the epidural, I felt nothing.  And I mean nothing.  It was glorious.  I could still move my legs and everything, but I couldn't even tell when I was contracting anymore.  At about 3 we requested to take a nap for a while and the nurses turned down the lights and left.  Bryant fell asleep immediately, but I was kind of drifting in and out because the monitors on my belly kept slipping and the nurses had to come in to adjust them so they could watch Lydia's heartbeat.  At 3:30 they came in to put a catheter in and I was dilated to an 8.  The nurses were floored but said I could keep resting for a while.  My mom had requested a phone call when I was getting close, so I asked if this qualified as close and they told me no, I would probably still have to labor down a lot.

We were left alone again for about 15-20 minutes when the baby's heartbeat disappeared again.  The nurse came in to adjust the monitor and discovered that Lydia had moved down a lot.  She checked me again and said I was dilated to a 10, complete, and the baby was moving down.  She actually seemed pretty confused about what to do next since I hadn't been there that long.  Eventually she said she wanted me to push with a contraction to see what would happen.  Bryant called my mom while I did that (the nurse had to tell me when to push since I couldn't feel the contractions) and after he hung up the nurse had him come down to see the head while I pushed--apparently the pushing was helping things a lot!  My waters were still intact, but Bryant could still see her head and informed me that she had hair.  Hair!  Bryant and I were both bald as babies, so that was a surprise.

My nurse left to call the doctor and when she got back she took out my catheter and had me push once or twice more.  My doctor got there at around 4:20 and they got me ready for delivery.  I pushed for maybe 15 minutes and Lydia was born at 4:56.  I kept turning to Bryant and saying, "Are you sure you can see her head?  I swear this shouldn't be so easy."  It was painless, quick, and required very little effort on my part.  My doctor told me I was made for having babies (tell that to my uterus which successfully repelled babies for 3 years) and to be careful about telling other people because they'd be jealous.

Little Lydia Belle came out perfect.  Her head was still very round (thanks to the quick delivery) and she's just the cutest thing I've ever seen!  Also, she cried very little and was very alert from the beginning.  I know all these pictures show her sleeping, but she was awake a lot, too!

My parents got to the hospital just after she was born and visited for a while, then left us to take a nap.  We enjoyed the day with Lydia and welcomed many visitors, including Bryant's parents and my older sister.  She got dressed up in her Minnie Mouse Halloween costume as well.

Unfortunately, the end of the day was not so happy, so I'll save it for Part Two.  How's that for a cliffhanger?