2 Month Appointment

Last Friday was Belle's 2 month appointment. We knew when we got there she was going to get her 2 month shots which I was mentally trying to prepare myself for.

We had a new parent fail moment when we dressed her that morning. We dressed her in an outfit that was difficult to put on and get off. If we would have been thinking we would have remembered that when we get there we have to completely undress her. Duh! We will not make that mistake again.

She weighed in at 9 lbs and 12 oz. I was hoping for 10 lbs but at least she weighed more than when I had her weighed on the 17th. Since she was born she's been stuck on the 15th percentile line for weight. I would like to see her get a little higher than 15 but she has not dipped at all so the pediatrician is not concerned. I guess I'll keep doing what I'm doing and she'll grow at her own pace. Her head and height both come in at the 50th percentile, so she is exactly average for both of those.

When they gave her the 3 shots they had me lay her down on the table and then they gave her one shot in one thigh and two shots in the other thigh. Nobody should be shocked to know that I cried along with her. LOL she actually did really well after they gave her the shots. She screamed bloody murder during them, but she did calm down quickly after them which is good. Looks like all of her future appointments will require more shots for the time being. Poor baby. I know they are necessary, I just wish there was an easier way. She's going to hate going to the doctor because every time she goes she gets poked!

Overall her appointment went really well and the pediatrician said everything looks good. The pediatrician also mentioned how cute she is! We tend to agree with that assessment!!

Love, Suzanne

2 Month Birthday Letter

Dear Belle,
Happy two month birthday baby girl! Mama is so happy to report that in your second month of life, you have finally mastered breast feeding. God Bless America! As you know from reading your one month letter you still had yet to master breast feeding. Cows on the milk farm were feeling sorry for me at how much I was pumping to give you enough breast milk for all of your feedings. I only had to supplement you with formula that first week while I worked on getting my milk supply up. Once it kicked in, all I had to do was pump 10-12 times a day and you would have enough for all of your feedings. Yes, 10-12 times. Do the math. I was a pumping fool. Now though, I don't have to pump so much. Thank goodness. This was quite the exercise you put me through the first 5 weeks of your life. But really, here is what you should have learned, and I'm sure you did learn it, so take that lesson with you the rest of your life. Especially in your teenage years. You won't beat me. Yes, for you, taking your feedings from a bottle was much easier. You ate your food much faster and it was a lot less work for you. I was determined however. You are one stubborn little baby, but remember who carried you for 40 weeks and 6 days. I'm stubborn too. Round one goes to mom. Like I said, remember this when you're a teenager. I intend on winning those rounds too!

This month, you have also learned to smile. I can't even begin to explain how much we love to see you smile. Now, I understand why adults act a fool by making funny faces and talking at a high pitch all while doing the baby talk, trying to get a baby to smile. Adults do this so those cute little babies smile. And guess what, we all do it to you. We would all do it for hours and hours just to see your beautiful smile. Keep smiling my beautiful baby girl. It makes our day!

Guess what else you did this month for the first time? Unfortunately for your mom and dad, you didn't just stop at doing it once. This month, you started pooping on us. Sure, go ahead and giggle. It's just sooooo funny. You've pooped on your dad twice, but because clearly you like him more, you did it while we were at home and he was holding you. You saved your extra special blow out for me. While we were at a mommy bootcamp class. The class instructor invited us back to talk to pregnant soon-to-be mommies. We were there to tell them all about how great being a mommy is and to give them all the great and not so great details of labor and bringing baby home. You waited until that class to poop all down the front of me. Not only did you poop all down the front of me, but you left a pile of green poo on the floor right where we were standing. It was classic Belle. The look of horror on those soon-to-be mommies faces was priceless. Poor things, they have no idea what is coming. Just a few short months ago, I was one of them. But you are quickly breaking me in. In fact at this class, they kept calling me a veteran mommy. hahaha now that is funny. I feel far from a veteran mom that's for sure. But, I'm getting it.

Every week you continue to amaze us with your super human strength. You have always had really good neck control when you want to. Sometimes you just want to be a wet noodle and have no control over any part of your body. Unfortunately for us, you don't tell us when you feel like being a wet noodle so we have to be ready for it at all times. This month you also rolled over for the first time. You performed your roll over trick for your dad first, who then flipped you over, pulled out his camera and took video while you did it again. We did research at what age most kids roll over for the first time and it said 3 to 4 months is when kids normally roll over. Not you, you did it at 7 weeks. Wow Belle! Very impressive! Keep it up sweet pea!!

Your hair is also starting to grow. This month you went from having pretty much no hair, to sprouting some all over. Don't get me wrong, you are still bald, but you're not bald bald anymore. You just look like your buzz cut is starting to grow in. Last month you had some hair on the sides and back, but really nothing on top. You hair on top seemed to grow over night! One day I went to kiss the top of your head and there was hair there. I was so excited I took a picture of the new growth and sent it to everyone. Now the question remains, what color is your hair going to be. Some days it looks blonde/brown. Other days it looks red. Your eye brows definitely look red. Especially when you are mad or tired.

I was rocking you to sleep the other day and our eyes were locked. Right now you have these beautiful deep blue eyes courtesy of your dad. I hope that you keep them. If you get stuck with my green/brown eyes, sorry, I was pushing for you to have your daddy's eyes!! Dad claims he likes my eyes, but I think he's just being nice. :) Anyhoo, back to our eyes being locked. I realized as I was rocking you, that I wouldn't be able to rock you much longer. Sure here and there when you aren't feeling well, but in the next few months if I continue to rock you, you will start to require that to be put to sleep. And frankly, I can't start that habit because I can't rock you every night until you're 18. Ok, wait, I'm lying. I would totally rock you every night until you were 18 but you're friends might think you (and probably me too) were weird and we don't want that now do we. As you grow older you will start to develop your habits and your needs. All the books say you need to learn to put yourself to sleep. To sooth yourself. I get it. It makes sense. But it also makes me sad that soon, that will be coming to an end. And soon you'll be too big to fit in my arms, where I can hold you close, tell you how much I love you and rock you to sleep. As you get older and bigger and we start walking the fine line of what the books say and what our hearts say, remember one thing. You will always be our sweet baby girl. Our first born. The one who taught us everything we know about being parents. Which right now, is not a lot. The good thing about you being so young right now is you won't remember all of our screw ups unless I blog about them. We have a few years to figure things out and get it right. Until then though, I'm going to enjoy every moment of rocking you. You won't ever be this small again.

We have really enjoyed these last two months, Belle. Month one really did fly by and I feel like I was pretty unconscious during it. Month two however, I have been able to soak up every second. There are still growing pains, even though most days are good days, there are still days where you sleep less at night, or you don't nap or you are extremely fussy. There are days where both of us are in tears. For the most part, you really are a really good baby. I know how lucky we are. I know people who can't leave their house for months and months because their newborn cries all the time. When we are out, people stop us all the time and tell us how beautiful and perfect you are. We couldn't agree with them more.

Daddy and I love you Belle. Happy 2 months on this earth!

Love, Mom and Dad

Thriving

We have our health insurance through Kaiser and their big slogan is THRIVE. Well, I'm happy to report that Belle is thriving! She continues to grow like a weed and she's putting on weight at an acceptable pace. At her last weight check she was 8 lbs and 10 oz. I'm taking her in tomorrow to be weighed again and hopefully she is still gaining at the pace she needs to be. She definitely feels heavier to me when I'm carrying her in her car seat from point A to point B. That car seat can hold a kid up to 30  lbs but I'm pretty sure I won't be able to carry that car seat for a very long distance when she's 30 lbs! I can't even imagine her at 30 lbs! hahaha

I've been back at school for 3 weeks now and I'm finally at the point where I don't cry every time I leave her. The first few weeks were a little rough. Only on me though, she loves when I leave her with Aunt Cat on Tuesdays and Thursdays and her grandma and grandpa on Wednesdays. When I go back to work Wednesdays are going to be really hard on me because I go to school from 7pm until 10pm which means I won't see her at all on Wednesdays. I keep telling myself that it will only be for 3 weeks though and then I'll be done with the class. I just have to make it through 3 weeks! I'm done talking about it for now though because I'll start crying. LOL 

***Breaking News***

I started this blog post this morning and then got distracted with feedings, diaper changes and tummy time. This morning she was trying to roll over, but her arm kept getting in the way. While I was in the shower, I heard Lance yelling something and a few minutes later, he came running up with this video. Click here to see the video.

She rolled over on her own!! I missed it, but thanks to Lance's video I can watch it over and over again. I can't believe she's already rolling at 7 weeks. That's amazing. Online it says your baby will start rolling at 4 months. Not Isabelle! She's a rockstar! The article I read online was talking about at 3 months how your baby would start lifting her head high and arching her back at about 3 months. That made me laugh because she started doing that at about 2-3 weeks. This kid has been strong from the get go! Anyone who held her when she was first born would always comment at how strong she is. I have a feeling I'll be chasing her around the house before I know it!

Great job on your new achievement Belle! You are one amazing little girl and mom and dad are so proud of you. You're still not allowed to date though until your 30 so don't try and grow up too fast!

Have a great Sunday! We're going to spend the day practicing more rolling over maneuvers!!
Love,
Suzanne

More Appointments

I had my final OB appointment a week ago and it was a little bitter sweet. I am glad that I am done with all my doctors appointments, but we have been visiting Dr. Gleeson and nurse Bev every two weeks since I was 5 weeks pregnant. They've watched my tummy grow and they took such good care of me, Lance and Isabelle. I really could not have asked for a better team to lead us into having our first child.  When I first took the at-home pregnancy test back November 18th, I called my provider to set up an appointment with an OB. The receptionist said, who would you like? I remember thinking, I have no idea! hahaha She said, how about Dr. Gleeson? I said sure, having no idea if he would be a good match for us or not. Luckily for us, he was. During our first visit with Dr. Gleeson we discovered that he was a huge Yankees baseball fan. The trash talking started from that very first visit. :) My mom went with me to my last appointment so she could watch Isabelle in the lobby. Once I was done, I went and brought Isabelle in to meet Dr. Gleeson in her special outfit.

She was decked out in her Angels onesie and a cute red headband. Of course when he went to take a picture with her, he stood in front of his big Yankee Stadium picture in his office. He told me he was going to put in my final doctors orders that we weren't allowed to take her to any Yankees games! hahahaha

Dr. Gleeson also mentioned that he read the report of my surgery and that Belle was actually head down in the birth canal but that she had her arm wrapped over her head. Which is why Dr. Bull decided to do the c-section. So she didn't actually flip herself back to a breech position as we first thought. Dr. Gleeson said he probably would have had me try and labor in hopes that during the labor process, Belle would have moved her arm and I could have had her naturally. The catch to that though is that if she didn't move her arm, I would have ended up having a c-section anyway after who knows how many hours of labor. It is what it is. A c-section was not my first choice, but we have a healthy baby and I'm forever grateful for that. My incision is healing well. It's actually more painful now than when I first got out of the hospital. My doctor said that's because all my nerves are growing back. Hopefully they will grow back quickly and the pain will go away.

Isabelle is growing and growing. At my last lactation appointment she was 8 lbs 6 oz. To me, she doesn't look any bigger, but then I look at those pictures of her first few days in the hospital and she definitely looks bigger from those pictures.

The best news of all......after 5 hard fought weeks.....yes....FIVE WEEKS, she is finally breast feeding correctly. She latches on without the nipple shield and she is pulling what she needs at each feeding. I think I could cry just typing this paragraph. I seriously didn't think it was going to happen. The lactation consultants kept saying she can still get this, but week after week I was wondering. I wasn't giving up on her though. Scratching the whole breast feeding thing had crossed my mind, oh, I don't know, 6 billion times the last 5 weeks, but now, she's got it. And this mama couldn't be prouder.

I hope everyone had a nice Labor Day weekend!!
Love,
Suzanne