4 Months!

Jayna is four months old today, and cute as can be. We're so glad that she's ours!

Fun as a Family

The weather has been so warm and nice that we couldn't resist going out and enjoying it as a family! We went on a little hike near our home. The baby loved almost all of it. If we ever stopped walking, she got a little annoyed (click HERE to see video). We sure do have a particular little baby on our hands!

We ended our fun family day by getting a treat. What a great day to spend together before Steven went back to work. I love my little family!

Doctor's Visit

While waiting for our pediatrician to come and check out the baby, we placed her on the examination table which was covered in that white crinkly paper.  It took her all of half a second to realize that when she moved her body, a fun noise was made! She had more fun wiggling and kicking her feet, and I'm glad I had a camera on me to capture the moment.  Sadly, the doctor then came in a ruined it all by making Jayna scream and scream.

Go HERE to see her kicking away! 

Christmas Wrap-up

Christmas this year was wonderful, as was expected! We stayed home in California, and 'merried and jollied' with our family. There was much to-ing and fro-ing between our home and my in-laws, and we spent Christmas eve at my in-laws home, so we could wake up Christmas morning and share in that special time with everyone!

There was tons of cooking and baking, game playing, present opening, baby jostling, and laughing. It seemed like Jayna had a good time watching all the excitement on Christmas morning, up until nap time hit, and then she was ready to sleep! She gets over stimulated easily, and had a little bit of a hard time with all the people, but I still think she had a pretty fun first Christmas. I know we sure did!

We tried cornish hens instead of turkey for our Christmas eve meal. It was kind of weird having a whole bird on my plate, but Steven thought it was awesome!

Baby's first Christmas morning! We snapped these right before the masses came to take us to the Christmas morning extravaganza. As always, Jayna was bright eyed (or deer in the headlights eyed) and ready to party!

 

All dressed up in her Christmas outfit for church!

Meeting Milestones!

 As first time parents everything our baby does is the best. No baby has ever met their milestones as quickly as ours does, no baby is as cute as ours is, etc. etc. Every parent feels the same way about their children, but I'm gonna let you in on a little secret...our baby really is the best!

Baby J is now 3 1/2 months old, and she is our bright eyed, curious, and happy baby! Everyone always comments on how alert she is, and it really is true. She just can't take in this world fast enough! She is now really fun to play with, and her own little personality is definitely starting to shine through. One of her favorite things to do is use her legs to stand up, then jump! She just squeals every time. She is fascinated with standing and kicking sand at the park, but grass tends to puzzle her. She has a love hate relationship with the texture of grass, but then again, don't we all? I love watching this tiny human being learning about the world, and being with her has given me a new perspective on this life as well.

Working on her push ups :)

She enjoys grabbing and shaking her toys, but has discovered that it's hard to suck your thumb while holding a toy!

Jayna LOVES looking at her books.

This is how she sucks her thumb most of the time. Actually, she gnaws her thumb more than sucks it...

J as rolled over about 5 times, but is still working on getting it down. She's a professional at rolling to her side though!

This is a screen shot from our baby monitor one night. I thought that it was really funny, but she moved her hand away from her face pretty soon after I captured this.  Love this baby of mine!

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving 2011 is one to be remembered! It was the Mustard's turn this year to spend thanksgiving with, so we made the 10 hour car trip to Utah to be with them! 10 hours in a car with a baby who does not like her car seat (or the car for that matter) was not very fun. Fast forward to driving home from Utah, and we got caught in two hours of traffic... we are glad that the driving aspect of thanksgiving is over!

There was tons of cooking and eating, laughter, video game playing, walks, seeing friends, and passing around the baby! Steven and I even got to go on a date,what a treat! I loved seeing my family and catching up on everyone's lives. I especially loved introducing our baby to everyone, and seeing how much love everyone has for her. All in all, I'd call this a successful thanksgiving. Now, on to Christmas!

Hanging Up the Horns

I mentioned previously that Jayna and I have had some struggles with nursing. I am very happy to say that after 7 weeks and 6 days of a lot of hard work on both Jayna's and my part, and of being hooked up to a breast pump, we are full time nursing!

The hospital took back the pump last week, and my heart jumped a little when it happened. The pump was almost like a crutch, and I had a love/hate relationship with it (more hate than love I think, ha). That pump has been a part of my life, and it has provided me with the ability to breastfeed my baby when I wasn't able to nurse her. I love it for that, but I hate it because of the time it took, the pain it caused, the 'failure' that is represented to me. It was a constant reminder, 8 times a day, that I wasn't nursing. I wanted so badly to nurse Jayna, because I had seen my mom and sisters do it, and it was just so natural. I felt like such a failure that I wasn't able to nurse my baby. I wasn't able to do what Heavenly Father created my body to do, and I had a hard time with that. A lot of those feelings were made worse because of some postpartum depression, and the 'newness' of being a mom. Thankfully I was able to come to terms with it all for the most part, and I figured out how to incorporate pumping with being a mom.

That being said, here is the breakdown of how much time pumping took. I pumped 8 times a day for 30 minutes each session (20 pumping, 10 cleaning parts). 30x8= 240 minutes a day. 240x7 days a week=1680 minutes a week. 1680x 7 weeks=11,760.  11,760 + 1440 (6 days worth of pumping) = 13200 total minutes pumping. That is 220 hours, or 9.16 days. 9.16 total days pumping! It has really given me an appreciation for those women who have had to pump for longer amounts of time for whatever reasons.

Why did I have to pump for those weeks? Jayna didn't latch on, she had an extremely weak suck, she had silicone nipple preference, and breast aversion. I had a few things wrong as well, including low milk supply, and inefficient let-down amongst other things. The combination of these things just worked against us, and made nursing get off to a rough start. We spent every week meeting with a lactation nurse, and trying new tricks. I would just tackle one problem at a time, and finally we got to the point where there was only one issue left...how to get the baby to actually eat once she was latched on.  This really was up to her, and one day she just did it. Ever since then, she has been a happily nursing baby!

I love nursing. I love the cuddles and bonding, I love the looks my baby gives me, and how happy it makes her. This isn't to say that once we got started nursing has been a piece of cake.  There has been pain-lots and lots of pain. Thankfully that is mainly gone now.  I also am pretty paranoid that she is getting enough to eat. My nurse assures me that she is (based off of weight measurements), and that paranoia is very common after having a tough start. I am glad for the many hours that I now have back, and the ability to nurse laying down at night, which helps me to sleep more. I love sleeping more :)

I feel like this challenge has made me so much stronger. It has made me appreciate the ability to nurse so much more, and it has created an extremely deep love for my daughter because I spent so much time sacrificing and serving, all for her. There are many challenges ahead of us, but I know that we will be able to tackle those as well, and as a result of our trials we will only be made stronger.

P.S. I have read so much literature on nursing that I believe that I could easily pass the IBLCE to become a lactation nurse. And fFYI, when you say you've 'hung up the horns', it means that you are no longer pumping.