Hiley is now 2 months old  We had her 2 month check up today.

Weight:  A very healthy 12.7 pounds which puts her in the 75 percentile

Height:  22inches which puts her below average

Eating Habbits:  She eats 8 ounces every 4 hours

Sleeping:  Sleeps 10 to 12 hours every single night.  We haven’t woken up in the middle of the night since before we left for the lake.  She will take small naps during the day here and there.

Diapers:  She is in #1′s and I love the Pamper’s swaddlers the best.  We were worried she would have rashes all the time, the opposite, havn’t had any problems thus far.

Clothing:  Almost completely outgrown newborn clothes, but believe it or not can still ware some.  We are going to have to get some winter clothes so we can bundle her up for cabin trips.

Likes:  Mornings are her favorite time of day she is all smiles, baths, she has always just loved her baths, her play mat, her new bouncer that Aunt Debbie found, tranquil turtle, music, car rides, the pink blanket Gamma gave her, a new like is her swing.  She loves it!

Dislikes:  When we take her bottle away to burp her

Mamma:  Feeling great!  I was able to water ski at the lake.  It took me 3 times to get up and it was a little bit painful, but it felt so good to do it and to say I was able to do it.  I’m slowly working back into the gym.  When I can’t go to the gym I take Hiley for a walk and sometimes I just prefer to walk because it is so beautiful outside right now.  Last weekend I went to work with Jay at a wedding.  It felt good to be back, but I sure did miss my baby.

Daddy:  Watching him with Hiley never gets old.  Daddy looks very good on Jay.  Watching him talk to Hiley or come up with silly songs to make her smile simply melts my heart.  He is still working really hard, I know some people assume because we work from home we do not do anything, but it is quite the opposite.  We have a fairly good routine right now.

Random:  Our dogs are great with Hiley, even Bella, I was concerned before she was born.  Bella will come up and lick her hands, feet and sometimes her face.  We don’t push it though  Noah simply pretends she doesn’t exist and Carly has been very good with her as well!  Our cats ignore her to for the most part.  Hiley went on her first lake trip at almost 6 weeks old.  It was better than I could have even imagined.  She was so good and it was nice to have family there to help and just be a part of her daily fun from sun up to sun down.  While we were at the lake Hiley started sleeping all night.  By the end of our lake trip she had pulled a few 12 hour nights.  I know, we are lucky  When we came home we started putting Hiley in her own room in her own bed and she loves it.  The twins and I have always had the tradition of carving pumpkins together, it is a tradition that started at our parents house.  We were excited to have Hiley with us this year.  My parents were able to come down this year and be a part of it with us and it was a lot of fun carving pumpkins, having pizza and watching scary movies.  The newest thing with Hiley is she has started talking, and by that I mean sqeeling and cooing.  It is the BEST sound in the entire world.  We have fun conversations first thing in the morning.  She had to get shots at her appointment today  Never fun for any parent, but she did amazing!

Here’s just a handful of pictures from our month . . .

The dogs in the backseat with Hiley on the way to the lake, they did good

Before Hiley was born I had already decided I was going to breastfeed.  I was not against formula, honestly I was doing it because it was the more affordable route for us.  I prepared myself.  I bought a pump, I watched online classes on how to do it correctly and I told myself it was going to be hard, it was going to hurt, but I was going to do it!

Then, Hiley was born . . .  We had a long, hard labor, which I blogged about, you can find it here Hiley’s Birth Story that ended with a very drugged up Mamma and a c-section.  In our recovery room I told the nurse I wanted to try breastfeeding.  Hiley was just so tired.  I’m sure some of those drugs made her that way.  It didn’t happen and I this was the start of my discouragement in our breastfeeding journey.

After having a major surgery all you want to do is sleep, right?  After we made it to our room a nurse came in every hour to try to help me get Hiley to breastfeed.  Sleeping is not something I did at all that first night.  Hiley did though, she would latch and then go right back to sleep.  It was impossible to keep that baby awake.  The nurse kept telling me, “don’t give up, it’s not easy, keep at it . . .”  She also told me that if my baby did not eat by a certain time I was going to have to either give her a bottle or have her blood sugar taken.  This had something to do with me having gestational diabetes.  In the end we ended up having to give the baby a bottle . . .

I didn’t understand.  I had never heard of anyone having to go through this with breastfeeding.  Well, that is because no one talks about it.  No one wants to talk about it, because they feel like they failed at it.  I did and everytime someone asks me if I breast feed and I tell them I don’t I get this horrible knot in my throat and feel the need to explain the entire story to them because I feel judged, because that is what people do, they judge.  It’s human nature.

After the help of every nurse we had and one on one help with 2 lactation consultants, Hiley had everyone stumped.  No one could get her to breastfeed.  The first night home from the hospital was the worst.  That day I had spent over an hour, over an hour with a screaming baby and a lactation consultant trying to help me.  Then when I got home I was so exhausted and when I tried again and my baby started screaming at me, I started crying.  I felt so drained emotionally and physically from the experience.  I’m very thankful for the 2 Mamma’s that reached out to me when I got out of the hospital, you know who you are  Without the advise I was given and just having someone to talk to that had gone through somewhat of the same experience as me was truly a blessing from God.

I was told the next best thing was pumping and then trying again . . . I did this.  I pumped for over a month and during that time still attempted to breastfeed by baby who was now completely spoiled by having a bottle.  The little booger would SCREAM at me anytime I tried.  She would even do what I call angry suck while screaming at me!  Horrible!  After that I had decided to stop trying to breastfeed at all and to just pump.  That was my plan, I was going to pump until I couldn’t no more.  Well, then I started to lose my supply.  If I felt like a failure before, now I really did.  We had to make the transition and Hiley is eating formula and only formula.

Here is the fairy tale, that you are going to have a baby and right after you have your perfect little one he/she is going to latch right on  after delivery and you are going to have this beautiful amazing bond with that little one that will last until you decide to no longer breastfeed . . . .  The truth is, you may have a child who just doesn’t want to.  You may not have the anatomy to breastfeed, yep, it is possible.  You might be so tired and overwhelmed that you just give up, which is okay, you’re human, you’re not super woman.  You might never get milk supply, which happened to my Mom . . . . and guess what?!?  IT IS OKAY.  You are not a failure, you are human.  I had to learn this the hard way and on my own.

After having the delivery I did I honestly never expected to have another disappointment in what I expected, then breastfeeding crashed and burned.  One thing God has taught me through this entire experience is that life can be so unexpected, but it is all going to work out in the end one way or another.  I’m a planner, I always have been so when things do not go my way I have to remember that God has better plans for me than I have for myself.  Jeremiah 29:11 for I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

In the future I may decide to simply formula feed my children and you know what, that is okay to.

I’ve decided to write it out and share it with the world . . .  It is very personal, but I feel sharing it may help someone or touch someone in a way I don’t understand, but God may have a plan for it.  So here it goes.

I had said all along that my child was stubborn and boy was I right.  I had my doctors appointment as usually on Thursday before reaching 39 weeks of pregnancy.  My doctor told me that if the baby did not come on her own over the weekend that I would be induced on Monday August 26th.  Woooowhoooo!  We were actually a little shocked she went this route because she had expressed how against inducing she was.  I know she could see how badly I wanted to try to have Hiley conventionally.

Sunday was the last day Jay and I had just the two of us.  When we are not working we love to have what we call “Sunday Bum Day’s” so we had our very last one together.  We were so excited, we ended up going to bed at 11:30 . . .  I slept as good as I could.  My phone rang 2:10 exactly.  It was a nurse from the hospital telling us to come on in.  Holy cow were we excited!!!  We jumped out of bed, had a quick bowl of cereal and were on our way.  I called my Mom and Sister as we were on the way.  As we were driving to the hospital it was raining just a little.  I remember the entire time we were driving I had butterflies in my stomach, I had no idea what to expect as far as pain goes and that aspect scared me more than anything.

We arrived at the hospital at 3am and went to admittance to sign all the paper work.  After that Jay and I were placed in a triage room where I put on my gown and got hooked up to a fetal monitor.  Now the grand part . . .  The nurse pricked me 5 times all in different places and different arms trying to get my IV going.  She was even digging in my veins which all blew.  The last 2 times were even done by someone that was considered “the best.”  Finally they got one in my left hand, but it was “iffy” according to them and thought it might need to be redone.  Oh joy.  They started the pictocin and left us there.  It was 4am when I started the pictocin, by 4:30 we were lucky and were already in a labor and delivery room which was WAY more comfortable.

My Mom and Sister made it to the hospital at 5am.  I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t.  Jay did though, he took a nice nap  He snored and everything LOL!!!  My Meds were increased every hour and my contractions slowly started to increase.

I loved my nurse!  Brenda was her name, she was amazing!  She also had a student with her, it was her first delivery.  Her name was Caitlyn.  I didn’t think I would be okay with a student, but I have to say, she was wonderful and helped to make my experience better.

Brenda came in and let me know my doctor would be coming in before she went to the office to break my water.  She advised me to get my epidural before this happened.  So, that was my plan after our discussion.  There are a few things that all managed to hit all at once to make things get real bad, real fast.

In order to get my epidural I had to have a least 2 bags of fluid.  Well, my lovely IV wasn’t working.  So, they are trying to figure that out and in the meantime my doctor showed up earlier than planned ready to break my water . . . .  She told me, you will be fine.  My water was broken and contractions started to increase.  Right after my water was broken Brenda fixed my IV.  She pricked me one time and got a great link in my right arm.  Well, I hadn’t been getting the pictocin that entire time.  So my water was broken and I was getting a very high dosage of pictocin all at the sametime.  Things got very intenese, very fast.

Oh and when my doctor came in she had Brenda prep NICU.  She said, “you know we are dealing with a very big baby.”  That freaked me out.  Brenda told me not to be worried, the doctor was just being cautions and if she felt anything was wrong she promised to be honest with me.

Everything happened so fast.  My body couldn’t handle it.  I started shaking profusely and couldn’t stop.  Then I just started crying (I don’t cry) from all the pain.  Let me tell you it was so bad my sister started crying from watching how horrible it was.

Finally I made it through the rest of my fluids and was able to get my epidural.  After I got my epidural I was a happy camper!  Now we just had to wait.  While we waited we watched Father of the Bride 2 and The Princess and the Frog.

As the afternoon progressed I started to get really uncomfortable again.  I had also managed to start running a fever.  The nurse said my body was working so hard.  I pushed what I called me “special button” which was a button I was told I could push to get an extra boost of medicine if needed during a contraction.  When I pushed it an alarm started going off.  I called the nurse in, she fixed it, I pushed my button and it did it again.  Things started to get worse.  I was feeling everything.  She said I was out of medicine.  Not only was I out of medicine my pump was not working . . . she changed it.  I was miserable by this point.

After being completely miserable for over an hour the nurse came in and told me I could start pushing through my contractions, even though Hiley hadn’t turned all the way . . . I still had a fever that continued to spike.  I had to push for 10 seconds, catch a quick breath and push again for a total of 3 times during each contraction.  I was already exhausted and this was even more exhausting.  I did this for about 45 minutes.  I remember between contractions I would just escape in my head, “you can do this, you can do this.”  I kept telling myself that.  My doctor finally came in, she had me push for her one time and said the baby wasn’t coming and I needed to have a c-section.  My temperature was 102 and rising and the baby’s heart rate plummeted.

By this point in time I was so exhausted and in so much pain, I just wanted that baby out and I wanted her out NOW!  I was feeling all of my contractions and then for whatever reason my upper back ceased up.  I couldn’t relax it.  I was in so much pain and then my entire body started shaking again and I couldn’t stop it.  I could barely function.  I have a million tubes coming out of me and I had to sign paper work!  The anesthesiologist came in and said I shouldn’t feel anything.  Pardon my french, but, no shit sherlock I paid for an epidural!  My Mom said I must of scared him because he immediately started pumping me with meds.  One after the other . . .  While all of this was going on Jay was putting on scrubs getting ready.  He looked so cute

They wheeled me away to the OR.  Before leaving my Mom and Sister both hugged me and told me how proud they were of me.  While I was being preped in the OR Jay was in another room.  I don’t remember a ton after that, I was so drugged up it wasn’t even funny. I do remember hearing everyone’s iPhones go off for a weather alert, it was SOOOO loud!  I remember two people pushing on my upper tummy to get Hiley out, it didn’t hurt, I just felt a lot of pressure.  Then I remember hearing Hiley cry.  I looked at Jay and we both started crying.  To us that is all it took to know our baby was healthy.

Jay got to see Hiley measured and weighed.  He was the first one to hold our baby girl in his arms.  I remember him bringing her over to me.  She was perfect and I’ve never seen Jay happier.

We were moved to the recovery room.  It was my request to have some time with just me and Jay before everyone came in.  After we had our time Jay brought My Mom and Sister in as I requested.  They were suppose to witness her birth and I wanted them to still have that moment with her being one of the first few to see her.

I can honestly say I did not have the birth that I had imagined.  It was a horrible experience, but in the end if I had to do it all again I would just for Hiley.  Our baby girl came out 7 pounds 9 ounces NOT the HUGE baby they freaked out about  19 inches long and perfectly healthy!