Our Story: Month 1

Month 1: Baby!

One month old on June 20th!

Age: 1 month

Weight: 10-ish lbs.

Major calendar events: Memorial Day, Fathers Day

Milestones: First smile! First family walk with stroller and dog; can hold her head up and balance it for short periods of time, first outings to Mimi and Poppy's house

Sleep: The first few weeks all Heidi did was sleep! While it wasn't always easy getting her to go to sleep initially at night, we were usually the ones waking HER up to eat! And even then, it was SO hard sometimes to to keep her awake to eat! However, after the first couple of weeks it has been getting harder to get her to go down, and we REALLY have to work at it sometimes. She is waking up (or getting woken up) twice between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. to eat. We all take lots of naps together!

Likes: Eating, sleeping and bathtime

Dislikes: None

Best moment: It's hard to beat that first smile...!

Worst moment: We had a very traumatic moment during Heidi's second sink bath... Heidi was already upset and not enjoying her bath...Ryan was holding Heidi and using the kitchen sink faucet to rinse her hair out when she kicked off his stomach causing her face to go RIGHT under the water and get blasted. She started choking, I was crying and yelling at Ryan to get her upright, Ryan was freaking out... it felt like it went on forever but it really was only a second or two. She was able to cough it out and Ryan held her while she (and I) cried somewhat uncontrollably. I thought for sure she would always hate baths after this experience, but she actually has loved bath time ever since!

Eating: Champion breastfeeder! Eating every 2.5 hours...

Things I want to remember: Her morning stretches (usually paired with tiny toots!), her cute yawns, coughs and hiccoughs

Month 1: Mama

How can I really put into words what the first month at home has been like? By far the most difficult experience I have ever been through in my entire life - which is to be expected! I was totally prepared for the lack of sleep. I knew we would be exhausted. I have never been a big sleeper so I was ready for the tiredness. However, I was NOT ready for all of the post-pregnancy hormones that come along with it. It's more than just being really really tired. You feel absolutely crazy. Like, almost mental hospital crazy. Your starving and tired and hormonal and your body is still recovering from this crazy thing that it just went through and you feel like you have no time to eat and you can't sleep and you can't stand up for longer than 60 seconds without your uterus and vagina and episiotomy stitches SCREAMING at you... and then you start to wonder if you might have a stroke and DIE because your body just. can't. handle it. It's so much more than just being really tired...

I just assumed that you would come home from the hospital with your new baby and you would cry all the time because you're so happy and you don't get much sleep but you're okay with it because you have a cute little angel baby. And maybe that's how it is for some people. That's pretty much what it was like for me for the first week. But after that first week things started to change. I was still crying all the time but more so because I was feeling overwhelmed. I was crying because I felt unhappy, and then crying because I felt guilty for feeling unhappy. Not that I was unhappy with my baby, but because I couldn't do anything that I was used to doing and it truly felt like I would never be able to do those things (or just be a normal person) ever again. There was no more "normal" and it seemed like we wouldn't know what "normal" was for a very very long time. I was so used to cleaning the house, doing the laundry and cooking dinner and going for runs and going to the grocery store... and now I couldn't do any of these things. I LIKE to do all of those things. I cried thinking about Ryan going back to work, I cried even thinking about being alone in the house with the baby for 5 minutes and I cried just thinking about leaving the house by myself. I pictured myself walking into Target and not even making it 5 steps inside before breaking down. Even just thinking about being anywhere else other than home with my baby would cause a minor breakdown. I just couldn't handle it. Then, my milk came in and I was constantly leaking an excessive amount of milk all over the place all the time. (I was literally wearing 2 maxi pads in my bra and still SOAKING them!) I cried constantly because I was always a wet, disgusting, smelly, sticky, breastmilk-y mess and there seemed to be no light at the end of that tunnel either. I truly want to enjoy this special time with our new baby, but I know that it's been super hard to do that so far. I really do try. I try to soak in all of these precious moments as much as I can because I know I will blink and they will be gone. But it's so hard to truly enjoy this time when you are such a hormonal and emotional mess.

Post partum depression is a very real and serious condition, which is why they brief you on it before you leave the hospital. There were many days where Ryan and I would look at each other and ask ourselves if I needed professional help. I would think back to some of the symptoms that the nurse told us about before we left the hospital. Not once did I ever feel "cold" towards my baby and I never felt like I was just to depressed to make myself get out of bed. Even though I don't currently feel like a 100% normal-functioning adult, we aren't to the point yet where we feel like this is unmanageable and right now are just chalking it up to severe "baby blues". However, we continue to monitor it and address it regularly. Since we are only a month in, we will give it some time to see if/how things change for me emotionally and hormonally.

Ryan has been handling all of this SO well. He is not only SUCH a good dad to our baby but also taking such good care of his basket-case wife - and doing those two things simultaneously can NOT be easy! This experience has not only allowed me to love and appreciate my husband even more, but also opened my eyes to see how important it is to to be with someone whom you love and trust before starting a family with them. That foundation is SO important and without it, we would crumble. I know that God created us to be together, and I know that if I were with anyone else in the world I could not make it through.

While things do appear to be somewhat improving, it's still hard not being able to leave the house (with the baby). As recommended by Heidi's pediatrician, we won't expose her to the general public until she reaches the 2 month mark and gets her first round of shots. (Which I am sure is something that only happens when you have one child - certainly this goes out the window when you have 2+ kids and you have no choice, right?!) But for right now, it is very hard on me being house-bound.

I do want to document as many things as I can remember that cause me to get emotional now because I'm sure I won't feel like this forever, and I will soon forget all of the little things and moments that are so special.

1. Walking into the room and seeing tiny Heidi laying in her crib for the first time.

2. Thinking about all that we did to prepare for her before her arrival - painting her room, buying curtains at Pottery Barn Kids, going to an antique shop and buying a variety of mirrors to hang on her wall, spray painting picture frames... and thinking about her being with us the whole time as we did all of these things

3. Remembering all of the running that Heidi and I have done together, all of the races we have already run and all of the naps that we have taken together before she arrived

4. Looking at how tiny she is and how cute she is

5. Bath time

6. Thinking about how God knew Heidi before she was even born, and Jesus has already died for her sins a long long time ago

7. Realizing my precious angel baby is a gift sent to us straight from God, and wondering if she was in Heaven hanging out with her great-grandparents before coming to this Earth.

8. Watching her sleep

9. Heidi meeting her puppy for the first time (totally uneventful, Hazel couldn't care less) but still made me cry!

10. Turning on the baby monitor and seeing an actual baby on the screen laying in the crib for the first time

11. Looking at Heidi's tiny feet and remembering how I used to feel both of them kicking my belly from the inside

12. Scratch mittens

13. Singing hymns and special songs to Heidi

14. Pulling into our neighborhood for the first time and realizing that nothing feels the same - wondering how anything else will ever matter ever again

15. Skin-to-skin time with mom, dad and baby

As of June 20th, 2014 month 1 is over. We are definitely in the thick of things and still just wondering what it means to be parents. We love our baby girl so so much and we are so grateful that God has blessed us with such an incredible little gift (sounds so cliche but it's SO true!!) She was sent to us straight from God.

Here are a few pictures from our first month at home!