Five, Six, & Seven month update

Apparently, I'm not very good at keeping a blog up.. Oh well, here is an update from the past 3 months-

-Movement- At some point, she became a very proficient roller, and she would roll herself where ever she wanted to go.  Now, she has progressed on to "Army crawling", and occasionally tries all fours out, but she is super fast at Army crawling, so I'm wondering if she won't go from that to walking.  She likes to try to pull up on objects, but they have to be the just right height for her to be 100% successful on her own.  Often, her knees get stuck under things as she tries to pull up, or she just ends up on her knees.  Once she is standing, she doesn't seem to have any fear of falling.  She will let go and go for whatever she wants, which doesn't always end well for her.

-Vocalization- Ava loves to hear herself.  She makes all kinds of sounds/noises.  She has said "mama" several times, but I don't think she really has had meaning to it yet.  When she wants another bite of food she says "mmmmm", which concerns me that she is going to say "more" before "mama" in a meaningful way.  :-)  She loves to squeal, laugh, and basically just listen to herself make any type of sound.

-Eating- At 6 months, we introduced "solids" to Ava's diet.  She may have an allergy to Avocados (it was her very first food, after basic cereal, so it may just have been an adjustment.)  She's tried: cereal, avocado, sweet potato, apple, banana, pear, and carrots.  I try to introduce a new food each week, but one week had to be used for introducing probiotics.  Her least favorite has been pears- to which she cried with the first time- pitiful!  She loved carrots!

-Sleeping- She (finally) sleeps in her crib!!! YAY! But, she still wakes up quite often.  We are on a much better sleep schedule now though!  Her bedtime routine starts at 7:30 with bath, book, nurse, and sleep around 8:00.  When she's being fussy, I sing 'The Twelve Day of Christmas' to help her sleep (it's really long, and it doesn't require much thought).

-Playing- Ava loves to play with blocks, books, and anything she isn't supposed to touch (especially cords and electronics).  Her favorite play song is "head, shoulders, knees, and toes".  Watching Moose and Hulu (and learning to pet nicely) is also one of her favorite things.  And, just like before, she loves when we take her outside (but the mosquitoes love that too, and they leave big welts on her delicate skin).  

-Other- Ava has her first 2 teeth! They came in the week she turned 7 months old.  And they are adorable.  She has also started daycare part time.  I was really nervous about this, but she has done great with it, and her teacher is very good. 

I am shocked she took a nap long enough for me to type all of this!! Wow, now to add pictures:

Three/Four month update

Well, in only 4 days, Ava will be 4 months old, so I guess I kind of missed the 3 month update.  But that’s ok, we’ll do a 16 week update!

4/16 (3months 13days) stats: 12lbs 6oz . 23.1inches long.

Ava’s colic has (fingers crossed), started to make a decline.  And right on time too- my back has been killing me this past month.  By decline, I, by no means, mean that she is now easy or an easily amused baby, but there are things other than walking in circles bouncing while shushing that keep her happy.  At least for a while.   For example, she really likes to sit in the bouncer and have me shake toys in front of her.  We have also made some tummy time progress.  We start with an exercise ball, and she likes to roll back and forth for a while.  When she gets bored with that, we transition to her laying on my shins and me doing leg exercises.  Next, we do standard tummy time on the mat playing games.

 

Ava is still very pleasant in the morning.  We are working on her sleeping schedule still.  Last night she actually went to bed at a decent time (9:30), and woke up this morning around 7:45, so I tried to space her naps to accommodate sticking to that schedule rather than the up-til-two-am she seems to naturally gravitate toward. 

Developments:

-Ava has just begun pulling toys (with her hands!) to her mouth.  She also bats at objects hanging around her.

-She smiles a lot and laughs regularly! 

-She says mmm ommmm mmm mom mmm.

-She loves to babble and listen to herself.

-She can support her weight on her legs. 

-Her eyes are still greenish-bluish-gray with the same light brown spot on the left eye.

-She likes watching the dogs play.

-She loves when I read her the book, “Put me in the zoo.”

-She smiles at funny faces we make several feet away.

Here are a few pictures from the past month!

After Ben finished his first marathon!

Ava likes to be a spaceship.

Tummy time activities.

Daddy makes her giggle.

Family picture! Ava gives the stink eye.

2 month update

We’ll see how far I get on this before Ava wakes up and demands attention..

Ben and I have slowly been adjusting to parenthood.  It really helped that right on her “6 week birthday”, Ava started sleeping through the night! (At least the technical definition of STTN: 5 consecutive hours)  Let’s be clear, it is not always at night, but we have been working on it.  The last few weeks her typical has been to go to sleep around 2am, wake around 8am for a feeding, then sleep again until noon-ish.  In all honesty- it’s been exactly the schedule I would prefer to be on.. Maybe she gets her circadian rhythm from me because she certainly gets everything else from Ben.  Comparing his baby pictures is quite entertaining.  We could play “Is it Ben or Is it Ava?”.

Overall Ava wakes up very pleasant each day.  She loves to smile and ‘talk’ to us for the first several hours of the day.  She takes short naps each hour, but then between around 4-7ish she takes one long nap to power up for her fussy evening.  She has an uncanny knack for being able to wake up right as Ben and I sit down for dinner (She must want to help me lose the pregnancy weight..).  She is extremely opinionated! In order to keep her from screaming we must do the following- no exceptions:

1. Hold her straight up facing outward, so she can see the world. 2. Walk at all times. 3. Bounce at all times. 4. Be willing to dive to the ground to keep her paci in hand always. 5. And optionally (at Ava’s discretion) make a shhhhh-ing noise until her majesty falls asleep.

Around 9 we have bath time, then do our nightly routine to put her to sleep.  Typically though, she wakes up around 11:30 and is ready for us to repeat steps 1-5 all over again until approximately 1 or 2am.  While the evenings are difficult, her sweet smiles and cuddles during the day make it easy to keep going (and the help of our moms..)

We also had Ava’s two month appointment this week (a bit late at 2m10d).  I was really unhappy with her previous pediatrician, so we found a new one whom I feel MUCH more comfortable with.  Her “stats” were: 10lbs 7oz, 22.5inches long, so she is very petite :-) .  Ava will have her shots spread out a little more than most, so she just had the DTaP at this appointment.  So far, she has done great with it- maybe just a little more sleepy than usual.

Ava’s milestones to 10 weeks:

-          Makes definite “cooing” sounds.  Makes short A and E and long O.  Has also made G, H, M, R and a few other consonant sounds.

-          Maintains eye contact for long amounts of time (she loves looking at us especially on the changing table), and she can track objects and looks for sounds.

-          She still *hates* tummy time, but she is able to lift her head above her bottom.  She has rolled a few times from tummy to back, but usually with help.

-          She likes to suck on her hands and clasp them in front of her, but she has yet to “find” her hands.  She has noticed her feet while taking a bath, and she gets really excited about them.

-          She loves taking baths.  She kicks, wiggles, and splashes and all but giggles at how she can move. It’s so fun to watch her excitement.

Two month picture

All Smiles

5.5 weeks old

 

I can’t believe Ava is 5.5 weeks old!  In the big picture, time has flown by, but at times (like when she’s screaming for an unknown reason or I’m starting hour 48 with no more than 30 minutes of sleep) it has seemed to drag on forever.. Mainly it flies though.

 Ava has had another great pediatrician appointment since I last wrote.  At 3 weeks she went back for a general check.  She had gained over a pound in those 16 days!  She was also taller now at 20.25in..  Luckily we didn’t have to wait as long this time.  We go back in 2.5 weeks for her 2 month shots.  I am really NOT looking forward to that appointment!

            It is amazing how quickly Ava is growing and changing! She's definitely filled out more, and she has Ben's dandelion hair, which I think is absolutely adorable!  One of her favorite 'activities' is when Ben moves her legs and makes the running motion saying "run, run, run, run, and jump!"  She also loves to be held at any time and bounced around the house.  

        Our dogs have really adjusted well to her.  Moose loves to sniff her, and Hulu loves to sit by her because that's where all the attention is (and Hulu craves attention since she is no longer the favorite). 

Ava's big milestones for the first 5 weeks include:

• She can now focus for a decent amount of time on an object (and faces) which is a vast improvement from only weeks ago when her eyes seemed to rarely be looking in the same direction. 

• She also tries to communicate with her “jungle friends” by making short half cry/half grunt noises. 

• She is able to lift her head while on her tummy and turn in both directions, and if I put her elbows under her body, she can lift her head to a 45degree angle! 

• She is going to be in her first commercial (of many) for a PSA Ben's making at work.

• And my personal favorite milestone of the month: Ava is smiling at us now!  Not just smiles in passing, but actually looking at us and appropriately smiling when we are talking to/playing with her.  It is so exciting to see her first real interactions with us (other than crying!).

            As far as sleep goes, we haven’t started any set routine for a ‘bedtime’, so she still has her days and nights very mixed up.  Also, some days she will sleep all day and only be awake a short time between naps, and other days, she will want to be awake most of the day with very short naps.  There hasn’t been much of a pattern to it so far.  It seems like we will have a day or two that are similar, then she will totally change up on us.  I want to start doing more of a routine each day (eat, play, sleep), but I don’t want to assign any times to things or restrict eating in anyway (as Babywise- one of the more popular books on infant sleep- suggests).

            Overall, things are going really well!  Looking back at delivery and those first few days, I don’t think I realized how in danger she was at the time.  Praise the Lord she is doing so well and developing right on track!  

Ava's One Month Picture

"Playing" in the snow

In the last week, we have had record breaking high temperatures, a flood, and now a sudden snow storm.. 

Well outing #3 became quite eventful.. Ava and I ran to the grocery store to get ingredients to make an app for the get together tonight.  It had been flurrying on and off, but mainly rain, so we decided it would be ok to drive in.  While we were at the store, Ben calls to tell us that the party’s been cancelled due to weather.  We gather a few essentials (ice cream), and head home.  I had gone to an easier access grocery store than typical to avoid steep roads.  Unfortunately, since there has been so much rain, the city couldn’t salt the roads.  In the short amount of time we were in the store, a ton of snow fell.  We took the least steep roads we could, but on the second road from our house, it was too steep.  The Prius couldn’t go forward anymore.  I tried several times to no avail.  We backed up to the curb and put it in park.  It was less than a mile from our house, but being 2 weeks post-partum with my dear sweet Ava, it was a VERY difficult walk home (in the snow, up a hill).  We made it.  I had her very bundled, so she was fine, but it is not an outing I will soon forget.  Now I just wish I had grabbed the ice cream as we walked..

Not a picture from our excursion, but the hat is appropriate.

Ava's First Outings

January 7^th-17^th

Wow, I can’t believe we’ve had Ava home for 10 days!  It is her two week birthday today!  And while I know I should be sleeping right now (because she is sure to wake me in an hour or so to eat), I want to write out anything I remember from the past few days.  We were very fortunate that Ben got to stay home with us for her first 8 days at home.  Between the two of us, nighttime feedings/diaper changes weren’t too difficult most days.  She went through a small growth spurt where she “cluster-fed” for hours on end (on her 2^nd and 3^rd days home), but since then, she has been eating on a fairly regular schedule of about every 2-3 hours (although, as I type this, it has been 4 hours since her last meal..).  On the days where she cluster fed, she would then sleep for longer stretches of time.  At first, I was delighted to get the extra sleep, but then I got worried that I should be waking her to eat.  Luckily, she went to a more normal schedule herself because she did not like when I tried to wake her to eat.  She didn’t fuss, she just didn’t wake up or if she did, she fell back to sleep very quickly with minimal intake. 

   On January 8^th we had her first ‘outing’- we went to the pediatrician for a standard newborn check.  We waited forever (1.75 hours) to see the doctor, but she was perfect the whole time.  We brought a bottle, and anytime she woke up, she ate a bit and went back to sleep.  The doctor said she looked great.  Her jaundice levels were very low (they were never high), she had already started gaining weight back (the lowest she ever was, was 6 lbs 12.5 oz), and she looked great!  I am concerned about her getting a cold because I have one, but doctor said to just run the humidifier and use saline drops if needed.  Hopefully the saline won’t be necessary (we’ve already been using the humidifier).

   Ava’s second (and much more fun) outing was to her Dongarra grandparent’s house for Sunday night dinner (a tradition we have been doing for quite sometime now).  Again, she did great!  Everyone was so enthralled by how sweet she is.  We just sat around looking at her.  On a side note- It is amazing how much better Ben drives now that Ava’s in the car!

   Other than those two ‘outings’, we have just played at home the last 10 days.  We planned to take her to a friend’s small get together tonight, but it was cancelled due to weather.  Having Ava in our life has been incredible, and we are so excited to see the person she becomes!

After her first bath - Jan. 7th

Ava goes home!

    Sunday (the 6^th) we were set to check out.  We would have been able to go home on Saturday, but due to my fever during delivery/possible infection from Ava’s meconium in the amniotic fluid, they wanted to keep me an extra night.  Luckily, everything was fine on Sunday, and we packed up and took her home!  We were a bit nervous about Ava meeting our dogs Moose and Hulu since they were used to being the ‘babies,’ and we didn’t know how they would react to someone getting all of their attention.  We brought in her blanket and individually greeted them before ever bringing Ava in.  Once they met her, Moose was extremely interested off the bat.  He didn’t seem to mind all the attention she got.  Hulu on the other hand was very sulky.  She knew her days of being #1 were over.  She was not as interested in Ava- she would go off and ‘pout’. (It is now 1.5 weeks later, and she is coming around to her). 

   Sunday evening was a blur now.  We finally got to use all of the baby things we had set up.  Ava was very pleasant, and she spent most of her time sleeping or eating.

First few days

January 4^th - 5^th, 2013

   The next few days all ran together as we were in the hospital.  Even though it was only a day ago we went home, I can’t remember the exact days. 

    On the 4^th, we were asked if we would sign for the regular Hep B shot to be given to Ava while in the hospital.  We were uncomfortable with it since she had already had such a traumatic entrance, so we said we wanted to wait and talk to our pediatrician.  Our pedi came by later in the day and assured us that within the first 48 hours is the best time to give that shot.  Since we are not doctors, we agreed.  (Looking back, I think this decision affected the rest of that day for poor Ava.)  After her shot, we spent time in the room just adoring her and getting to know her better.  She had a few moments when she would get upset (and she was very opinionated about which breast she wanted), but over all, she was not too fussy. 

Friday night/Saturday morning that changed.  Over the course of the day, she became very upset every time she woke up, and if we could not calm her down within the first minute or so, she became inconsolable.  Earlier in the day, she would be consolable with lots of effort (bouncing, walking around, shushing, feeding, formula feeding, swaying, singing, swaddled, clothes off/on, etc.).  As the day went on, nothing would stop her from screaming- to the point that she would give herself hiccups.  We had several nurses and professionals come give us opinions/advice, but nothing really worked.  The nursery and pedi suggested that she was hungry and needed formula.  The lactation consultant said she did not think that was the problem (she had watched her eat and worked with us several times on Friday and Saturday).  She stayed with us trying all sorts of different things to help soothe Ava.  Eventually, she tried turning on the hair dryer, and Ava slowly was able to calm down.  We never would have thought of that, so we were very grateful to her (especially when we thought this was just going to be Ava’s personality).  We planned to get a noise machine to help at home. 

   That evening we used the hair dryer on 4 or 5 occasions.  We decided we needed to get some sleep, so Ava spent a few hours at a time in the nursery.  We permitted they give her formula once to knock her out, but I didn’t want that to be a usual thing, so they brought her back to feed.  Over the course of the night, (what I am assuming was the effect of the shot wearing off), she had fewer and fewer fits. 

            We are very, very glad that now Ava is *usually* quite content, and we haven’t had anymore inconsolable crying sessions.  I really, REALLY hope those stay away.  Seeing just a few hours of an irate baby makes me have a whole new respect for moms who have to deal with extremely fussy/inconsolable babies regularly.  Wow, it was tough.

She's Here!

Well, the eggplant didn't work- but pitocin did! :-)  Little did I know, I think I was in labor when we went in at 7:30am for our induction.  I didn't realize that "back labor" is literally ALL in your back.  That morning (and on and off before), I had been having terrible pain in my back, but I just attributed it to being 9 months pregnant and about to pop (I'd had Braxton Hicks for weeks, so my stomach tightening didn't phase me).  When we went in, I was already starting to dilate and efface, but still had a ways to go.  We started pitocin around 8:30ish, and that's when I realized the 'pain' I had been feeling in my back was actually contractions.  Right after my IV started, I had a huge contraction that did not follow the typical 'wave' pattern.  It just stayed high and wouldn't come down for what felt like an eternity.  I soon decided it was time to start the epidural.  (I never intended to go natural, I just wanted to see what contractions felt like).  

   We went through the day pretty smooth (I had an upper respiratory infection, so I was inhaling the ice chips my diet consisted of and after a while, I was allowed to have a Popsicle too!).  My epidural would run low occasionally, and I would ask them to increase it every once in a while, but nothing major though out the day.  I dilated very quickly and was at 9cm by 3:00pm.  Unfortunately, that's about the time things stopped going so smoothly.  My epidural began to 'run low' again.  When I let them know, apparently I was out of 'juice', so they called in the anesthesiologist to give me a 'delivery dose'.  Well, that didn't go so well.  I began to have a reaction to the dose and was shaking uncontrollably.  From what I've read, it's not uncommon (and it actually happened earlier in the day too, but I just thought it was nerves getting the best of me).  

   As it turns out, shaking uncontrollably, being unable to breathe from a cold, and having terrible heartburn from being huge are all bad things going into delivery.. 

   While Ava born at 5:47pm, we didn’t get to meet her until almost midnight.  Right after she was born, she had to be taken to the nursery and checked over.  We had a very difficult delivery which resulted in  her being “vacuumed” out after almost an hour.  She also had the umbilical cord around her neck and that was cut before she was even completely delivered.  When delivery was finally over, she wasn’t breathing, and she was grayish.  Needless to say, we were more than a little worried.  (In utero, she had her first bowel movement, so she had swallowed dirty amniotic fluid). 

  The hospital we were at had special ‘low risk’ rooms that allowed the baby to stay with mom and dad for all of their post-delivery care.  We were in one of those rooms, so we could see them start with Ava, and we could see that they didn’t make much progress.  (Meanwhile, I was still being tended to by the OB and had spiked a 102.3 fever at the end of delivery).  They rushed Ava to the nursery, and she was kept there for approximately 5 hours.  They kept saying she could come out soon, but things kept happening to push that time back (temperature had to regulate).  All the while, Grandpa and Nanny, Grandmomma Sue and Grandpapa Jack, Uncle Chris, Aunt Katie, Uncle Ryan, Uncle Nick, and Aunt Whitney were all in the waiting room watching.  Aunt Charlotte and Lori were also there for a while. 

   When Ava was finally taken back to our room, we were elated to meet her.  She seemed so tiny (she was 7lbs and 19.5in)!  We wanted to breastfeed, and she was probably starving since it had been hours since she was born, so we set to that right away.  We had taken breastfeeding classes, read books, and watched videos, but when it came time, we had to use the internet to look up what to do.  Luckily, her instincts kicked in and she got to work with minimal help from us.  That night, she was a very peaceful baby.  I don’t think I slept a bit because I couldn’t stop looking at her.