The Bailey Chronicles

Look who's 7 today! Bailey's sweet cousin Bella ya ya! We are very excited to celebrate your birthday with you Bella! Can't wait for you to come and play today and have a birthday dinner too! We love you!!!!!

Love,

Aunt Kayla, Uncle John, and Baby Cousin Bailey

xoxoxox

My box of fancy pants Christmas Cards finally got here! They are going out tomorrow, so keep an eye on your mail people! Sorry about the lateness... it's a theme in my life!

Tonight has been the first night in the last couple of weeks where Bailey has actually been asleep during the hours of 2am-8am. I guess she has had her days and nights confused... not sure really. She just seems to become incredibly cranky and impossible to please between those hours. Constantly acting hungry so we nurse, still fussy so we burp, still fussy so we mess with the diaper... still fussy we rock, we nurse some more we might even take a bath and then she nurses one last time and passes out for the rest of the day. If I could drink coffee without her getting all cracked out as a side effect I probably wouldn't even be bothered by this routine, but the coffee just makes things worse for us so I have to work through it with her and try not to get cranky about it. However tonight has been different. She has actually been sleeping fairly well between these hours, and has been easy to please each time she wakes up. Yes tonight she has been quite easy like she is the rest of the day... so why can't I sleep? I bet ya when I finally drift off she wakes up mad, just a guess LOL. Oh well it would be my fault this time around not hers. I have been conditioned to sleep in the day now and she decides to change it up on me ROTTEN! *sigh*

Today Bailey is officially one month old and she is celebrating her first Christmas! We have had such a full year and it flew by so quickly, but I couldn't be more thankful for all of it! Christmas cards are delayed because they didn't arrive here on time, but they are coming. Here are some of our sweet first Christmas baby photos (taken by our very talented Aunt Candi and Uncle Kobi) to share until you get your card! Merry Christmas everyone, I hope it's perfect! We love you all!!

Happy Birthday!!! We love you and can't wait to see you today! You're the bestest!

The last couple of days have been kind of tricky, learning how to run this operation as a one man show now that Daddy is back to work. Last week was super easy because all Bailey did was sleep very soundly and John was here, but of course now that he is back at work she has decided to wake up and she is not happy unless I am holding her. The last two days I have been trying to squeeze in some sort of nap to try to get a few hours of sleep, but Bailey was not having it. It's not like she is a little terror or anything, she's quite happy and peaceful when in my arms, but the moment I set her down she wakes up within minutes and is very unhappy about the situation.

Today I replaced the batteries in her bear that makes womb noises, given to her by my cousin Patrick at the Austin baby shower and she couldn't be happier about it. She let me sleep, have coffee and even take a shower! Thank you Patrick LOL!! John has also promised to bring home a supply of D and C batteries, so we can utilize the features in her bouncer that she has been sleeping in (temporarily of course until we move her to the nursery) it vibrates and plays music but we haven't been able to use those features since we don't have any C batteries, and we'll be able to use her swing which I am sure she will love since she likes being rocked so much. If that bear can work miracles I know the rest of the baby items should come in handy too! I have a feeling that Bailey and I will have it a little more figured out next week.

We have received her Social Security card in the mail yesterday so she is an official citizen of the United States! YAY a real person LOL!! It was addressed to her and everything. I am sure I sound silly, but it was cool getting a piece of mail addressed to her specifically. Oh yeah, and her umbilical chord fell off a few days ago so now she has a real belly button and it's way cuter than that dried up chord.

I've been tagged!

Here are the instructions...

1. Go to your pictures

2. Upload the fourth picture in the fourth file

3. Post

4. Tag four friends

Me and my beautiful God Daughter Alyssa at Christmas time last year. She is 1 and half in this pic!

I tag Johnna, Nikki, Ashley, and Kristen!

This week has been fantastic. All three of us had a pretty rough time at the hospital, but now that we are home things have been running much smoother and are way less stressful. Before giving birth to Bailey I had made the decision that I wanted to breast feed her. If you have discussed this with me it may have seemed surfacely that I was undecided about it, but in reality it was something I really wanted to be able to do I just lacked confidence in my ability to actually do it. I have heard a lot of things about how painful it can be at first and so honestly it scared me, but I have also heard about all the nutritional value it provides the baby that formula can't do. So to protect myself from being let down I typically under estimate my ability to do things, silly I know but doesn't is feel better to surprise yourself than to let yourself down? Candi and a few of my friends have been talking to me about it a great deal, telling me how much of a connection you get to your baby through breast feeding and I think they are right. Bailey did pretty well with latching right from the beginning. It wasn't exactly easy, but I think it could have been harder at the same time kwim? Having a c-section though did make the breast milk take a little longer than if I had had her vaginally. By night three Bailey had become overly hungry and irritable from lack of sleep. Her nurse from the nursery had come in around 5 am to take her for her vitals and to be checked out by the pediatrician (routine every morning). She had been fussing all night and would only sleep if she was cuddled up next to me in bed. By this point I was on empty as far as sleep went and was looking forward to the two hours I was about to get. Unfortunately when they had brought her back to me I found her with a pacifier in her mouth and she was going to town on it. The nurse tried to tell me that most babies can use pacifiers and breast feed, but not my baby that's for sure. She was supposed to eat at 7 am and by 11 she still hadn't latched. Finally a lactating specialist came in and worked with us for a whole hour and we finally got a successful latch. Bailey had passed out from being worked up for so long so I felt it was safe to call the nursery to take her for an hour so that I could shower and eat some lunch before the next feeding. John was at work because it was black Friday, and I didn't feel comfortable leaving her in the room unattended with as many people that feel the need to walk into your room at the hospital that I don't know. I had thrown the pacifier away so I didn't think to tell the nurse not to give her one. One hour later she wheeled Bailey back in my room with another pacifier shoved in her mouth. I wanted to strangle her. So once again I fought with Bailey all afternoon to get her to latch with another lactating specialist assisting. This time the baby was done with me. We were able to persuade her back on with a guard but it wasn't easy. That night when she was weighed she had dropped in weight significantly. The on call pediatrician came in and lectured me about how I was making both Bailey and myself miserable, and I need to think about what is right for the baby. He had me in tears. I started to doubt myself, was I being selfish? I thought I was trying to do what is best for the baby and now I am being told that I am a bad mommy already. The lack of sleep, hormones and frustration where more than I could handle. My baby had been crying now for almost 24 hours, and meal time was more than I could handle and I was doing this alone because John had been working. Thank God for Candi and the help of John. Candi swooped in to my rescue and gave me the support I needed. Candi showed me how I could supplement without actually giving Bailey a bottle, which was not something that the on call Pediatrician offered up as advice. I requested to be released because the hospital was more than I could handle. A lactating specialist came in to see me before I left to offer some additional support. These ladies where a lot more helpful than the nursery nurses. They showed me many tricks to help John and I teach Bailey how to latch. But honestly in the end I would have given up and would have been sad about it, if it wasn't for Candi's support. The nurses and the doctor had discouraged me completely and made me feel guilty for trying to breast feed instead of just switching her to bottle. We were released on a Saturday, and set up an appointment with a new Pediatrician on Tuesday. The breast feeding was a struggle all the way up until Monday afternoon, and then something clicked with Bailey. She became a little champ at it. When she weighed in on Tuesday she had only gained back an ounce upon leaving the hospital, and since she had lost a little over a pound the Doc was a little worried. I explained the situation to him so he recommended I bring her back Friday to be weighed in again to make sure that she is getting the nutrition she needs. We had no problem with this, because of course we are concerned about her more than anyone and want what is best for her. If that means supplement then that is what we will do. At this point my biggest issue is no longer getting her to latch, it's waking her up. Once she had a full belly all she wants to do is sleep. John and I have to apply the torcher method every two to three hours to make sure she eats enough. We undress her completely, put cold wet wash clothes on her, apply lotion, tickle and change diapers just to wake her enough to eat, and then do it all over again when I switch sides. It's not surprising that she likes her sleep so much, John and I are both sleepy heads. Anyway I am happy to report that she gained 10 oz back in three days. She has become a good little eater. We no longer have to worry about supplementing her, and in fact the Dr. was so impressed that he went ahead and did her two week check up so that we won't have to come back until her two month check up! Meal time is no longer an issue, and has become enjoyable for us both. GO BAILEY, and Thanks Sis we couldn't have done it with out ya!!

As I mentioned in the previous post I had a routine follow up appointment on Tuesday. Unexpectedly it ended up being my last day as a preggo. The nurse checked my blood pressure as usual, and it was crazy high. They had me wait around in our usual room for the Dr. and once again they rechecked it about half an hour later. Then they did a sonogram, which was a surprise to us both. After a while I asked the Dr. if the high blood pressure is a big deal and she shocked us by letting us know that we were having the baby either today or tomorrow. I was sad when I realized she was talking about inducing me because I wanted her to come on her own terms, but they explained that the high blood pressure could potentially send me into seizures or stroke so it was necessary. They wheeled me into the hospital where they performed a series of tests on me. My blood work came back normal, which explained the I was not at risk for hypertension. I interpreted that as it was not necessary to induce, but no I was wrong. They then let us know that I would need c-section, which is absolutely the last thing I wanted, but she hadn't dropped enough and so if they induced me I would be in labor for 24 hours and still end up having one at the end of it all. Eventually I calmed down about the situation, but to be honest having another surgery right after I healed from this last one was not ideal. I felt unprepared, nervous, scared, excited, overwhelmed... pretty much everything all at once. The idea of an epdiural before I was in any real pain scared the crap out of me, but in reality it turned out to be no big deal.

The surgery was, well... the creepiest thing I have ever been through. I thought you couldn't feel things when they did a c-section so it really weirded me out when I felt them moving, cutting, pushing, digging and all that fun stuff. John was absolutely amazing, by my side trying to comfort me in anyway possible. He was filled with joy and excitement the entire time. You could see it all over him, like a kid on Christmas day. He kept peeking over the sheet to see what was happening, luckily he had his poker face on so I didn't have to think about what it looked like. The docs pulled her out of me and I heard one of them exclaim that she looked exactly like her mother. I looked over and saw John's face light up. They lifted her above the sheet to give me glimpse of what she looked like, and to my surprise she had a full head of black hair. I guess I figured when they said she looked exactly like me that she would be bald or blonde. They carried her off to my left to clean her up and suck the amniotic fluids out of her. John stayed by my side holding my hand and I told him to go see her since I was stuck there. He ran off to take pictures with tearful eyes. And I stayed distracted with watching them while the docs fixed me back up. After she was wiped down they brought her to me to hold, and the anesthesiologist snapped our first family photo.

After that all of my fears came to rest as we were both fixated on our little creation. It is absolutely amazing how John and I can look like complete polar opposites, but she somehow looks identical to us both at any given moment. The hospital let me go on Saturday and the whole experience was exhausting. Every time I thought I could drift off to sleep someone new was at my door knocking, not so much the visitors but the hospital staff. They continuously feel the need to come bug you. It is soooo much better being at home with her. We finally got a full 8 hours of incremental sleep last night and are starting to feel human again. Bailey is training us to cater to her needs. I'll keep y'all updated on how Bailey boot camp is going :o)