Mother's Day

YoI am a mother and as such I can write a Mother's Day post (never mind it is a few days late though.)

I love being a mom. The average kid when asked what they wanted to be when they grew up would answer something like, astronaut, basketball player, fireman...etc. My answer was a mom. I can't remember ever wanting to be anything else. I might have said something else, but I knew that a mom was the only job for me. I can remember begging my mom to have another baby and I tried to convince her that all she had to do was have it, but I would get up with it in the night and feed it and change its diapers. She didn't buy it, but I don't blame her. A 5 year old can not keep a promise like that.

My first Mother's Day was nice. Matt made me breakfast and cleaned all the dishes. He also got me a frame and put pictures of him and Sienna in it. I love it. Sienna's gift was being home in time for Mother's Day. And she also slept 5 hours straight that night. Yup I am pretty blessed.

Well I have been a mom for a month but the real mom duties didn't start until a week ago. So I haven't learned much, but I will share the few things I have learned.

*Always have an over stocked diaper bag. Because your baby might poop four times in an hour, or pee on the new diaper you were getting ready to put on her.

*Dont feed or change your baby on your bed. If you do, be prepared to wash your sheets EVERY DAY. We are still trying to apply this rule

*You really can't have enough blankets.

*Holding a baby while preparing and eating a meal is considered a workout. 

*Somehow the baby always knows the moment you got comfortable in bed because without fail they will start to cry. 

*Sleeping babies are the sweetest thing

*She can have all the gas in the world as long as she smiles while she passes it.

*Snuggles in bed with daddy cannot be beat.

*You will love your husband more as you seem him interact with the baby. 

*My clothes will never stay clean for a full day again

*Goodbye freedom. 

*Hello love you couldn't before imagine feeling. 

*I loved sleep before, but now it's even more precious

*I am amazed at the end of the day if I didn't take a nap. 

*You get special parking spots at Walmart. 

I am sure there is more. I know if I were to do this every year the list would grow, just like Sienna and there would be more negatives but here would also be more positives and those would far outweigh the negatives. I love my baby girl so much and feel honoured to be her mom! 

The End.

I got really behind on the blog updates on Sienna. The hospital doesn't have Wi-Fi and when you are spending a large part of your day there you don't have much time to write posts, especially when things are changing all the time!

So to kind of rewind on Sienna, mostly for my own record and memory is after the dye test, things really took off for Sienna. We could now try giving her a bottle because nothing would leak out. Sienna loved the taste of breast milk. She could only have 5 mls to start off because despite being 2 weeks old, her stomach was still the size of a pea cause no food had ever gone inside. One night I called the nurses to see how she had been doing with bottle feeding and was told that she had been doing good but was really fussy because she wanted more then they were allowed to give her so they were hoping the Dr's would give them the okay tomorrow to up her dosage because she was ready and wanted it. The goal was to get her to 150 mls which she eventually did, but some of it came thru the bottle and the rest was given thru the tube in her nose. After she reached that we were allowed to try breast feeding. But because of being given milk thru a bottle and a tube she had gotten kind of lazy and would tire really fast and then give up completely. On Thursday we were told that the feeding tube could be taken out the next day and if it went well with her eating from a bottle or breast feeding we could go home on Saturday! That was huge news because we were told to expect her to be in the hospital for about 2 months based on an average. Least amount of time would be a month, longest 3 months. So when we got told it could be saturday, we were ecstatic because we had only been there for not even 2 and a half weeks. It was also a blessing cause matts mom was going to be leaving in just over a week and really wanted to see the baby blessed, but the NICU was on lockdown to help prevent the babies from getting the measles or the flu so only moms and dads could come in and see them. 

But then Saturday came and Sienna had not been gaining any weight. So it became not today but tomorrow. And then tomorrow came and the answer was the same as the day before. And I was starting to get really emotional and frustrated because I felt like we were never going to leave and that we'd be taking steps backwards because we would have to put back in the feeding tube and IV's so that she would get the nutrients that she needed. I just wanted my baby home. 

On Monday she was still losing weight so the dr's decided that we should try supplementing a bottle of  my milk to give her extirpate calories and if she gained weight by doing that then we could be leaving on Wednesday. That was encouraging but almost frustrating as we'll cause my thoughts were, she hasn't been gaining weight for the last 6 days... Why did you not think of doing this sooner! I am sure they wanted to see her gain the weight in her own but this seemed like such an easy solution I wish we had tried it sooner so we could have left sooner. But the great news is, the supplement worked and on Tuesday (May 6) they told us we could take her home! Oh I have never smiled so much and so big as I did on that day. We didn't tell our parents cause we wanted to surprise them. We also wanted to stay a little longer at the Ronald McDonald house was a few reasons. 1) we wanted a nice dinner before we left and 2) we had signed up for free haircuts that night and didn't want to miss out on that opportunity. 

So we got sienna out of the hospital at about 400, went home and napped, showed her off during dinner, had one of the best dinners there in the 2 weeks we stayed and got our hair cut. 

It was so much fun surprising our parents. It was about 11:00 pm when we got in, so we were pretty exhausted but we still wanted to surprise them. Matt's mom was staying at mine and Matt's place so we went to pick her up first and then go to my parents. When she saw the car there I don't think it quite registered to her that Sienna was in the car until Matt told her there was a baby in there and she needed to put her shoes on. Her smile got so big and she looked like a little kid at Christmas. We snuck into the house my parents were house sitting at the time and told them that we had someone here who wanted to see them. They got so excited. It was so tender to see our parents hovering over Sienna, oohing and awing over how beautiful she was. It was such a beautiful moment and worth the wait. 

We have loved having Sienna home. She is the sweetest baby. She sleeps pretty good at night, like 4-5 hours at a time. She gets held and snuggled all day long so she is becoming a little conditioned to being held, a habit we will have to try and break if we ever want to get anything done again! But we lover her so much and couldn't be happier. 

Rewind

There have been a few things that occurred before and after Sienna was born and took over my blog that I want to take a moment to post about.

Number 1. Matt got the Newel K. Whitney award. He was nominated by at least two business professors and only 8 people get this award in the business department. Here is a little description of the Newel K. Whitney award. "Awards are given to students who are honored for their character, academic performance, and desire to build the Kingdom of God.  Selected students are nominated by their department faculty and are those who they feel would represent the Church, University, and Department as an exemplary employable-quality graduate. The Newel K. Whitney Scholar award is in memory of the early Church leader who used his gifts, talents and means to build the kingdom of God. Whitney was innovative, frugal, and honest. Additionally, he was able to improve his business yet remain loyal to the Church despite hard times. "He was a successful businessman, a presiding bishop of the Church, a prominent civic official, and a notable member of his community." (D. Michael Quinn, "The Newel K Whitney Family," Ensign, December 1978, 42.) Whitney was part of the School of the Prophets and an in-depth, effective communicator. This award in his name is given to students who have displayed similar traits. Specifically, you are being honored for your character, diligence and pursuit of excellence."

Number 2. Matt graduated. I was really happy I was able to return to the states so I could be there to support Matt in this accomplishment. Matt was also playing the piano for a little business choir. Matt did so well this last semester. He had a pretty heavy load of classes, was a teachers assistant and the executive secretary of our ward which made him really busy Sundays, one of our only days to relax. He did great in all of his classes and worked so hard. I am pretty proud of him and all his accomplishments.  I know it was so important to him that I be there and I am glad Sienna was able to wait a couple of days to come because we cut it close. We returned to Canada on the 12th of April and she was born on the 15th. I was positive I wasn't going to go into labour while I was in the states but I never dreamed about anything going wrong that would cause me to need an emergency c-section. All I know is I am grateful she waited cause having her in the states would've been EXPENSIVE. We never would've recovered. 

Number 3. Matt and I celebrated our first year anniversary. Two days before she was born Matt and I were on a walk and talked about what we'd like to do. We were kind of limited cause first off it was a Sunday so we couldn't really go out to eat or anything, second it was 5 days from my due date so we didn't want to go anywhere farther the lethbridge in case I went into labour. So we settled with  making lasagna, which was our first date meal and one that Matt does a fantastic job of making, getting sparkling apple juice, watching our wedding video, making predictions for the next year, and watching a movie with popcorn or milkshakes or both. Well... That didn't quite go as planned. Instead, we spent the morning in the hospital, had lunch at Wendy's (so classy, I know) and drove to cardston to have a yummy family dinner at my aunts house. We did end up watching our wedding video but that was the only thing we did from our original plan. But it was great getting to spend some of it with our baby girl, regardless of the circumstances.

It is so hard to believe that one whole year has gone by. So many unexpected and wonderful things have occurred and we couldn't be happier. You might want to stop reading now if you don't like a little mushy gushy talk. I am so grateful I married Matt. I would've been a fool to let him go. He is honestly my other half. I feel like we compliment each other so well and also teach each other and help one another grow. He makes me think more about serving others in small ways like letting someone go ahead of me into the elevator or holding the door open for someone, or just simply saying hello. I have fallen more in love with him as I have watched him take on the role of a father. He is so sweet with Sienna. I love watching him kiss her little feet and smile down at her. He doesn't complain about changing diapers either, which is a plus cause this baby has a lot of stinky ones. I can't wait for what the future holds for us as a couple and as a family.