Catching up: My two blessings!

So, it’s been nearly a year since I’ve updated.  I know, I’m a horrible blogger.  The same thing happened when I was pregnant with Leah – the morning sickness hit and I fell off the face of the earth.)  And now that baby is here, I spend lots of time on my phone while nursing, reading everyone else’s blogs, but I haven’t taken time on a real computer to update.  However, I’m inspired by Jess’s update; I loved reading about her girls and thought you all might like to hear about mine.

So, first of all: Here is my precious baby girl, Sadie Faith.  (I know – the hair!!!)

My pregnancy was similar to the first one; I was horribly sick until 20ish weeks and then felt great until the end, which was past 41 weeks.  I was hoping for a natural, unmedicated birth and I mostly got that.  I was scheduled for induction at 41w3d, but was grateful to go into labor on my own that morning.  I labored and delivered unmedicated, but then things went awry due to a shoulder dystocia.  (Head came out, shoulder got stuck.)  That was terrifying and really sucked to deal with without an epidural.  But my midwife was calm and awesome.  (Sadie was nearly 9lbs – which we never anticipated.) Unfortunately, I hemorrhaged pretty badly and needed a double dose of Stadol so the midwife could go in and pull out clots.  I was so very ‘out of it’ in the first few hours of my daughter’s life – and I hated that.  I refused to let anyone come to meet the baby until I was stable and coherent – which ended up being the next day. 

               Leah Rae was so excited to meet her sister.  As my in-laws brought her in the next day, she ran through the hospital yelling “Sadie?  Where are you?” I was impressed at how much she understood, since she wasn’t even 3 yet.  She really “got” that there was a baby in Mommy’s belly and she was being born so we could have her on the outside with us.  And she’s such a great big sister – almost too helpful.  I left my two week old baby on the bed for just a minute so I could use the bathroom and told Leah to watch her.  (It’s not like she was rolling yet.) Sadie started fussing and I came back to this:

               “I burping her Mommy.” Good thing Sadie had amazing head control right from the beginning!

I haven’t seen acting out or potty regression or anything that I was warned about.  Sometimes Leah will say “Sadie wants to nap.  Put her down” when she wants my attention, but that’s really it.  She really loves her sister.  And Sadie loves her big sister too.  She stops fussing when Leah sings to her and she gets the biggest smile ever when Leah talks to her.  I’m so blessed by how my children love each other and I hope I don’t screw that up as they grow. 

  

               Sadie is 4 months old now. She’s a healthy chunky monkey weighing over 14lbs already.  (Such a change from my first baby – Leah was  -and still is- a skinny kid.)  She’s wearing 6 month clothes already; in fact, I just got the 6-9 and 9 mos bin of clothes out.  She breastfeeds like a champ.  She sleeps 7 hours at night.  She’s super content all the time.  She’s a dream baby.

Except – she won’t drink from a bottle.  I tried introducing it around 2 weeks and she refused.  I kept trying – different bottles, different people feeding, different situations – and she is NOT interested.  I was able to stay home until she was 3 months old, which was awesome – but she STILL didn’t take a bottle when I went back to work.  She starved herself at first, but now she’ll take a few ounces while I’m gone.  She pretty much takes the edge off her hunger and waits for me to come home.  The girl just wants her milk straight from the tap.  Lol.  (In the meantime, I’ve got 300+ ounces of milk stored that I may never use b/c I’m still pumping more than she takes.  Gotta pump at work – she can go all day without nursing, but I cannot. I may look into donating it to the local NICU.) 

               Leah Rae is now a sweet adorable 3 year old.  It’s amazing to think that, when I started this blog, Leah was just a frozen embryo needing a family.  (And equally amazing to think that we almost gave up on embryo adoption after 4 failed FETs, but God knew that He wanted Sadie to be in our family.)

Leah loves to draw and paint.  She can almost write her name.  (She writes the letters, but not in a line or in the right order.) She is in gymnastics and she *loves* it.  She likes to perform and if we laugh at something she does, she’ll do it over and over.  She picks up on everything we say – and she has an incredible memory.    She loves Doc McStuffins and Minnie Mouse.  In fact, she wanted to be Doc McStuffins for Halloween – which was great because we had everything we needed for a costume.  I thought I was going to get away without buying costumes this year, since we also have several hand-me-down infant costumes.  But Leah requested that Sadie be dressed as “Lambie” (Doc McStuffins’ toy) and we couldn’t resist.

               Much of the summer was a blur with nursing and baby care, but we did get out more in the Fall and create some family memories.  We took the girls to a Yankees game in September.  We wanted Sadie to be able to say she saw Derek Jeter play.  She was 8 weeks old, but at least she can say she was there. Lol  Here are some fun pictures!

               I am determined to keep up with blogging.  (I know, I keep saying that.)  I love reading about everyone’s family.  You all have been a great support to me – and you’ve been my ‘friends’ since before most of us had kids.  It’s fun to keep up with the kids as they grow.  Really, I’ll do better!