Happy 3 months!

I can't believe it's been three months since Ary joined us. Life has changed so much in such a short time! She is such a big girl now; holding her head up, sitting in the Bumbo, finding her voice, and watching TV. I was so sad when I packed her newborn clothes up, but this stage is so much fun too. There is a personality and lots more smiles than when she was brand new.

This summer...

Blessings

Ary was blessed July 5th. Jed did such a good job, you would never have known how nervous he was. I feel so lucky to have a perfect little girl and a great husband. The day-to-day things are sometimes such a challenge for me but I feel so blessed to have these new challenges in my life right now; we have a new chapter opened and I'm learning little bits of it every day. I've heard it so many times before but all the moms who have told me are right; motherhood is probably harder than having a full time job! The days of "clocking out" are over; in addition to ortho I now have a 24/7 job that is much more intimidating most times but also much more rewarding:).

I don't want to forget

Time is flying by and Ary is growing by leaps and bounds every day. Everyone I talk to says how fast our little ones grow up and in a blink they are teenagers! My blog is going to turn into just a baby book but I don't care right now; I want to record how precious and tiny she once was and be able to look back and enjoy it. Maybe I'll try to do weekly or monthly photos with updates so if I decide to make a hardcopy someday it will all be done for me.


4 weeks

My favorites

I know, two posts in one day- I'm going to turn into one of those people... Oh well, new moms are entitled to it, right?

Newborn photos

The only smile we caught

I told you guys I'd have a gorilla baby, look at the hair on her back and shoulders!



For Bobbi and Meagan; the fluffy skirt from our shower

The only features I can claim are those feet and toes!

More monkeying

Yes, I fell off the planet

I knew that I was a space case before but never imagined how I would be after I had a child of my very own. This little girl came into our lives and everything else dissappeared to me! All of the cliche`s are true about becoming a parent for the first time :).

Friday night I started feeling pretty crappy and achy but it went away so I just went to bed and tried to forget it. Saturday afternoon I was feeling cramps and a backache, so I got on the treadmill and walked for a minute hoping it would bring on some stronger contractions, but as soon as I stepped off they quit. By this time I think I'd had it because I'd been in early labor for two days now. I got up the guts and drank the castor oil I'd had for a week and not dared do it. Eeww- that's something you never forget either! I went to bed that night hoping it really would work for me; not sleeping due to the on-and-off contractions and backache.

Well, Sunday morning 5:00 AM rolled around and I hopped out of bed so fast thinking I'd just wet the bed! They say you sometimes can't tell the difference and I sure couldn't for the longest time; I kept telling Jed, I think my water broke but how do I be sure and when do we go to the hospital? I waited around until 7ish when the contractions were really bad and we decided to go over. By the time we were checked in and I was in a room they were killer enough to cripple so the nurse said I could get the epidural right away. Oh man, can I just say how thankful I am for modern medicine and facilities; I would haved died in childbirth if I were a pioneer.

Once the epidural kicked in, labor went really fast and around 12:30 I was ready to start pushing. That's when things got really difficult- I pushed for THREE hours and couldn't get poor baby girl past my pubic bone. (Sorry for the TMI...) The doctor said she was stuck and no matter how good I was doing with my pushes, (and yes they WERE good, I watched the monitor the whole time!) I wasn't going to get her out by myself. He talked for a split second about a c-section but said forceps would do the trick with a decent episiotemy. Well, the salad tongs and a little cut sounds much better than surgery to me, so that's what we did and at 4:00 baby girl finally made an appearance.

I'm a little morbid, but I had to watch in the mirror while I was being sewn back together while Jed went with baby to be cleaned and weighed. She was 7lbs, 18 in. and had dark hair all over!

We still didn't have a name at that point, so she spent most of her first day of life with us nameless. The next day we settled on "Ary". We both liked the sound with "Argyle" and are going to use that spelling even if some can't pronounce it as "Aury" because I like it without the U.

Long story short, the first night was absolute Hell for me between the drop in hormones messing with my emotions and not enough pain killers in the world, but life is good again. We are all home safe and happy and Jed is such a good mother to the both of us. I appreciate him more than I have in all the years we've been married. Good job mother Teresa raising him- you did so well:)

He's going to be home with us for the rest of the weekend and come to Ary's first doctor visit on Monday.

Meeting each other for the first time

After the first bath (check out the hairdo!)

Yep, a mullet!

A peanut in the carseat

Intro to Schroeder:)