A letter to my daughter on her 1st birthday

Two weeks from Monday my sweet little Sophia will be one year old.  Tonight, I went through the plans for her party, made a list of the "To Do's" and started to get things organized.  And then I sat down and thought about it and decided to write my darling daughter a letter for her birthday.

My sweet Sophia,
     Let me start out by saying that you are the best thing that has ever happened to me and daddy.  This is something I tell you every single night as I feed you and sing you "You Are My Sunshine" and before I lay you down to sleep.
     I remember the day you were born.  I think about that day often.  I think about how lucky we are that you were so strong and fought for your life.  I think about how lucky we are that great doctors took really good care of both of us so that we could be here to torture daddy as much as we love to do.  I remember the day I had to leave the hospital and go home without you.  You were safe and in great hands with the NICU nurses, but mommy's heart broke a million times that night.  Every night you were in the hospital, mommy called the nurses to check and see how you were doing.
     When we finally got to bring you home, mommy and daddy would fight over who got to hold you.  You were quite a pistol in the beginning.  You had a lot to say, so much to say that you never wanted to sleep.  In the late nights and early mornings, we got to know each other pretty well.  We used to thank God that you were so cute, it made all the tears easier to take.
     After all the crying you became a pretty happy and smiley baby.  I used to wonder if you smiled so much because every time you looked at mommy or daddy we were smiling at you.  You've always been a strong, strong willed, funny, adorable, bald little baby girl.  I love getting you see you learn new things and getting to be the one to teach you those things.  I love when you look at a toy and suddenly figure out how it works.  I love when you are so proud and look at me with an ear to ear smile showing me what you just accomplished.
     I never knew what was missing in my life until I had you.  The joy you bring to my life is something I could have never imagined.  I never knew I could love something so much that my heart physically hurts when I look at you.  I never knew I could be so anxious and paranoid and worried about a 19lb 11oz little human being.
    I can't wait for every single day.  I love seeing you when you wake up in the morning.  I love your hugs and your kisses.  Thank you for changing my life forever.  Thank you for letting me be your mommy.

Sophia's Baptism

The weekend of Sophia's baptism was extra special with all the family around.  My Mom & Joe and aunts, uncles and grandparents all came up early to spend some extra time together.  Josh, Alice, my niece Edith and nephew Charlie (Boogie) flew in Saturday morning.  It was so fun having the cousins together!  Sophia is obsessed with Charlie and fascinated with sweet Edith. 

The day of the baptism was a such a beautiful day.  My little peanut looked so cute in her headband made by my sister in law's sister, Aggie.  She is one lucky lady to be surrounded by so many people who love her. 

 But Mom I was napping and now you want me to look cute, life is hard sometimes.

 "you're going to do what?"  

 This Deacon was seriously wonderful!  He was funny and sweet and explained every part of the ceremony.  We couldn't have picked a better church!

 Sophia has the best god parents - mommy's big brother, Josh and daddy's cousin, Anna.

 At the church

 With Sophia's Habel Grandparents at the church

All of the grandparents at the church

Some of the decorations

We had a good friend come and take photos of us after the baptism.  I love the pics we got - thank you Katy!!

 Our little family.

That quilt is special to me, my Mom received that from my great-grandmother as a bridal shower present.  I remember when Josh and I were small we used to fight over who got to sit on it.  Thanks Mom for passing it along so Sophia can play on it now.

 Anna has always been a special part of Bart and I's relationship.  Anna is the closest thing Bart's had to a sister.  Anna accepted me into the family right away and we've always had a special bond.  Anna read a poem during our wedding ceremony and now is a major part of our Sophie's life.  When we were thinking of who we wanted as Sophia's godmother - we wanted someone who would always be there for her, who she could trust and go to with anything.  I hope if there is ever anything Sophia doesn't feel comfortable coming to me with, she will go to Anna.

 THIS IS MY FAVORITE PICTURE IN THE WHOLE BUNCH!

She's like hmmm.... you look like my mom but different and I like you a lot but I don't know you - how confusing.

 My big brother has always been there for me.  Because of this, I know he will be the best godfather for Sophia.  My brother is also one of the best dad's I know so the godfather role will come extra natural.  Josh walked me down the aisle at our wedding - he was my rock that day and I sure hope if Sophia ever needs it, Josh can be her rock one day too. 

 Sophia with her Nana and Papa - the bond between these three is something only they can explain.

 How cool - Josh and my families together.

 Great Grandma Rosie and Great Grandpa Gordy

 Thank you all so much for coming for the weekend - this is one amazing family we are so blessed to be a part of!

 I may be biased, but Mom - you did pretty damn good!

 Nana and Papa with their grandkids.

 Great Grandparents with the grandkids!

 Woah - one where everyone is looking at the camera :-)

Bart's parents looked FANTASTIC!!  

 With the Sitarski / Scott clan.  Sophia sure is one loved little lady!

 With her cousins - man those kids clean up well!

 My angel.  Sophia you are the best thing that has ever happened to Mommy and Daddy!  We are so proud of you every single day and love you more than I can ever explain through the words on this page.  I can't wait to spend the rest of my life showing you how much I love you every single day.

 Mom/Joe and Bart's Parents

Four generations!

Someday Sophia will learn how much strength and independence is in this picture!

A sincere thank you to all who traveled and joined in Sophia's special day!

Intro to Solids and Amateur Baby Food Making

Lets be honest, parenting is really a crap-shoot to see what works and typically what works today does NOT work tomorrow.  So how we chose to introduce solids to Sophia was probably not the best way but it's how we did it.  I've asked a lot of opinions and did a lot of research on introducing solids regarding when and how and which ones but mostly we took advice from Sophia's doctor on what path to take.  Our pediatrician is a pro-breastfeeding practice and recommends mainly breastmilk for the first year.  I'm sure everyone has heard the saying "food before one is just for fun".  I personally think it can get kids used to tastes and textures and it's good for fine motor skills and getting them prepared for a lifetime of food.  There are theories about everything from rice cereal to purees to baby lead weening (BLW), I was a little lost at where to start so here is what we did.

Sophia has terrible tummy issues, has since she was born.  Luckily zantac has helped a lot.  Our ped recommended waiting until 6 months to even attempt to introduce solids.  We noticed Sophia starting to watch us eat and mimicked us chewing around 5 months so I knew she would be ready.  We also decided to skip rice cereal or baby oatmeal.  Sophia was at 90-95% for her weight to introducing for the calories was not necessary.  The first food we introduced Sophia to was avocado, the first time it went over great, the next 2 times resulted in consistent vomiting about 2 hours after she ate it.  Vomit EVERYWHERE for like an hour!  Miserable!  I'm not sure if it was a shock to the system or purely coincidence but we halted on the avocado for awhile.

My friend Courtland took me under her wing when it came to making baby food.  I'm not against buying baby food, I just wanted to try making it first and  see how that went.  Here's a couple of notes:

First foods:

• Sweet Potatoe - Sophia LOVES it!  I bake it in the oven and puree in the food processor
• Butternut Squash - Sophia loves this as well.  I buy the already cubed at Costco, steam and puree
• Carrots - steam and puree.  Sophia had a terrible reaction from carrots but also had a cold virus at the same time.  We're going to wait a month and reintroduce and see if it really was the carrots.  According to my ped NOone is allergic to carrots so she assumes it was the virus.  NOTE: you cannot use the water from the carrots to thin out your puree, it contains some chemical I can't remember that is harmful to your kiddo
• Pears/nectarines/peaches - bake in the oven at 350 until done then puree.  I put these in plastic baggies and freeze flat versus the ice cube tray. 
• Green beans - I bought the frozen cut up green beans, steamed them in the microwave and pureed them, Sophia oddly really likes them.
• Spinach/Sweet potatoe - I took one of those blocks of frozen spinach, steamed it in the microwave and pureed with sweet potatoes (see above).  NOTE: spinach looks them same coming out as it did going in - this FREAKED out Bart and I so consider yourself warned
• Applesauce - I buy organic applesauce it's way cheaper than making your own applesauce
• Pumpkin - we have not given this to sophia yet but you can buy pureed organic pumpkin in a can
• Yogurt - So far Sophia has only had Activia yogurt because she needed the probiotics but there is soooo much sugar in it so she gets about a 1/4 of a container at a time.
• Bananas - it took until probably the 10th time of Sophia trying bananas to not gag and throw up.  We just cut off a piece, mash it up and feed it to her. 
• Yellow Squash - bought fresh, peeled, cut, steamed and pureed.  Froze into cubes.  These are a bit watery but we didn't want the seeds to stay in chunks so we will deal with them being a little runny. I'm trying to introduce foods that are not orange in fear she will literally turn orange.

A couple notes:

• I prefer to use our food processor.  We got a really nice one for our wedding (thanks a ton to whoever got that for us), I personally like it better than the blender.  I think it would be nice to have a smaller one or a bullet but I can't justify the cost when we have something completely capable of pureeing.
• I love the silicone brownie pans to freeze the food in, so easy to store and so easy to pop out the frozen food. 
• If you need to thin out your puree use water from steaming the veggies (some of the nutrients go into the water), the one exception is carrots
• Courtland taught me to bake the fruit instead of steaming it - OMG it tastes soooo much better.  Especially if your making sweet potatoes anyway - just throw them in next to it.
• I like to make it in bulk and freeze it and then have enough for like a month versus making it a little at a time.
• Thawed food can be used for 3 days - so I take enough out on Sunday nights through Wednesday and then take enough out for the rest of the week.
• Sophia would barley eat a full cube at one sitting for about a week, we're slowly getting up to more in one sitting.  Also - you can mix about anything together, she doesn't know the difference!
• Introduce one food every 3 days to make sure there are no allergies.

Here is my first stash of baby food after leaving Courtland's house.  

We started out with quite the stash!

 Quick pat on the back - I've managed to store up quite a freezer stash for those incase of emergency situations.  I freeze them flat and then put them in gallon bags.  This is her main source of calories.  I freeze everything left over from the week on Fridays and then thaw out the oldest milk for Mondays at the sitters to rotate the stash.

This was Sophia after eating Carrots. I have no idea if it was the carrots or the cold virus but my poor sweet baby was soooooo miserable.  Oh did I mention she also started teething at this time?  Any guesses which it was??? 

At first Sophia would NOT let us feed her, we're talking clamped shut, could not get her open with the jaws of life.  My mom was visiting and I had her try and finally she goes to Sophia "fine you do it" and hands her the spoon. Sophia put it right in her mouth and ate it all.  My little stubborn independent baby is showing signs of mama already...

Yellow squash - peel and steam then puree.  I put these in the cube tray to freeze into cubes.

Peaches and Nectarines - peel, cut and bake in the oven then puree.  I froze these flat in plastic bags.

So this is just the start, I have not ventured into fun mixtures as we're still working on introducing some new ones.  She does love sweet potatoe / Butternut squash / apple sauce as a combo though so we will keep that one going.

One odd thing we've encountered so far is what do you do when you're in a restaurant?  We take Sophia's food in an insulated bag and then ask the waitress to put it in the microwave for 10 seconds.  Probably odd but it's worked for us.  Looking forward to the day we can start to introduce finger foods and not having to worry about this.

If you have any tips or recipes I'm open to hearing!  Thanks to everyone for your help so far!

Our First Mommy/Daughter Day

I’m somebody’s mommy.  I don’t know if I’m quite used to that yet.  I have a special bond with my mom that I can’t imagine ever having with anyone else.  Today was the first glimpse I got of what having a daughter will be like on a sunny Saturday afternoon.  For the last 5 years, I have spent St. Patty’s weekend going out in the bars in Chicago.  We got rocked (except last year, I was preggers) and bar hopped all dressed up in green and beads.  This year the boys went to the bars and Sophia and I had a mommy/daughter day.  Today was wonderful!  We were on our own schedule and just hung out.  We went out to Oak brook mall, put the baby in the stroller and walked around outside, stopping in the stores when one seemed interesting and carried on our marry way.  My sweet baby did so good as the other shoppers and workers commented on her baby blues, she would flash her pretty smile and then look at me like “mommy get me away from the lunatic sticking their face in my stroller and breathing on me”. 

I can’t wait to experience hundreds of more days like this with my little lady.  I can’t wait for the mani/pedi dates and going to the American Girl doll store and all the other girly things that will become special to this mommy/daughter duo.  I know there will be ups and downs (lord knows mom and I had them) but I just know we will be best friends for the rest of our lives.  I would do anything to make that little girl smile and today I feel so lucky to be that gorgeous little girl’s mommy.

Before Daddy went out we grabbed a quick family pic

Playing on our new play mat

Before nighty night time

The 4th Trimester aka Maternity Leave

So it’s my last week of maternity leave, I’m a bit emotional today, a bit in denial and a lot grateful for the time I’ve had with my daughter.  As my peanut is hanging out in her swing (one of her favorite places to be) I thought I’d jot some notes about the “4^th trimester” or “Sophie’s 1^st 3 months” or “my maternity leave”.  They say you forget, you get amnesia as to how it really is or you would never have more kids… this MUST be true.  My daughter is adorable and sweet and I could literally eat her every day and she has not been the easiest baby.  I’m extremely lucky because Bart got to stay home with us for the first 8 weeks, hats off to you moms who are home by yourself your entire maternity leave – I have NO IDEA how you do it!  Here’s to making sure we remember the first three months…

Breastfeeding – let’s start with this topic as this is the one thing that has taken over my life the last 3 months.  I had no idea what I was doing and we had a lot of issues in the beginning.  First we had to trick Sophia to latch because she was used to getting bottles in the NICU.  So we would have a syringe of breast milk and put it in the corner of her mouth to get her to latch.  (Thank you Bart for the HOURS of help with this).  Then she would latch and begin screaming and arch her back.  I went to see a Lactation Consultant at my pediatrician’s office and she recommended seeing a doctor for reflux.  She also noticed I had a very fast let down and oversupply which is probably from pumping around the clock the first 10 days when she was in the NICU to get enough to feed her.  So she recommended a kangaroo hold and side laying positions as well as a shield to help with this.  Every day I wanted to quit, I had so much anxiety feeding my baby.  I would literally stare at the clock and as it got closer to feeding her I could feel my anxiety build.  I would cry and cry as I fed her knowing we would have to start the whole process again in two hours.  I set small goals for myself, let’s see if we can make it to 4 weeks, then 6, then 8 weeks.  I can honestly say I’m SHOCKED we have made it this long and yes it did get better.  Around 7 weeks there were 2 days Sophie didn’t want to nurse and I about lost it – by this point it’s so convenient not to have to worry about bottles and formula and the price is right and I was not ready to stop.  Luckily we made it through and I’m proud to say we’re still nursing.  Now going back to work and pumping will be a different story, I’m back to setting very small goals for myself – let’s see if we can make it through week one!

Things I learned:

·       Get your partner on board and supportive

·       Get a My Breast Friend.  Boppies suck!

·       Try different latches

·       Set small goals and celebrate small wins

·       Find a lactation consultant to help if you’re having problems

·       Don’t beat yourself up if you supplement or stop

·       Don’t quit on  a bad day – wait for a good day and make a rational decision

Reflux – Sophia has acid reflux, not the throwing up everywhere kind, the heartburn kind.  We started her on Zantac at the doctor’s recommendation.  At first we were giving it to her every 12 hours and at about the 10^th hour it would stop working.  So we switched to 3x a day. Then we were giving it every 8 hours so sometimes that would be in the middle of the night – one day I asked Bart “why don’t we just give it to her when she wakes up, midday and before bed”.  She was getting the benefits in the middle of the night when it wasn’t benefiting anyone.  DUH! We also had to keep increasing her dosage as she gained weight (see all that work breastfeeding above to get that chunk).  She seems to be doing much much better with the reflux.  The next step would be a stronger medicine as she is capped at her Zantac dosage.  We’re really hoping not to have to do that as there is long term side effects with the stronger meds that we would like to avoid if at all possible. The doctor is confident that it will get much better around six months of age when her stomach is more mature and we will be able to stop all meds J.

Colic – In addition to the reflux, Sophia would just cry.  ALL.  THE.  TIME.  There were nights where she would cry for 6 hours straight – cry through feedings, cry through changings just never stop crying.  Those nights were rough.  We tried everything, going for car rides, the swing, the bouncy seat, swaddling, shushing, walking around with her swaying or bouncing or singing, bouncing on an exercise ball, football hold, laying her on her belly on our laps, I mean everything.  Different nights different things worked, some nights nothing worked but waiting it out and passing her back and forth to give each other a break.  One day we got in the car and drove around for 3 straight hours – she even slept through a feeding and I threatened Bart’s life when he asked if I wanted to stop for dinner.  She still gets fussy sometimes for no reason.  Her “witching hours” tend to be anywhere from 4:30 – 7, I have found if she naps during that time it is much more peaceful ;-). 

Mom’s group – my lactation consultant at my pediatrician’s office has a mom’s group that meets on Wednesdays.  She strongly encouraged me to go.  The first time I went I had never taken Sophia out by myself.  The benefit of having Bart home was we could do everything together; the bad part is I had zero confidence to take her out on my own.  What do you do if you’re driving and she has a meltdown?  Well… you figure it out.  So I started going to this mom’s group.  Sometimes I went and just watched and listened to the other moms, sometimes I had 10 million questions to ask, sometimes it just feels good for someone to go “ugh I remember those days they suck but it gets better”.  This group became one of my favorite parts of the week.  It gave us something to do and got us out of the house and I got solicited advice on top of it.  I used to bring a pumped bottle to feed her in the beginning and as the weeks went on, I got a nursing cover and that was the first place I felt comfortable nursing in public (with a cover of course).  I loved this group and will really miss it going back to work.

2 month shots – I made our 2 month doctor appointment will full intentions to send Bart and stay home with a glass of wine and avoid the whole situation.  Bart just happened to start his new job the exact day that these occurred.  She didn’t do all too bad getting the shots – she got 5 total vaccines, 2 shots in the left leg, one in the right and one orally.  One of the shots in the left leg had 2 vaccines in it.  I bought Tylenol just in case and headed home.  We nursed and she went down for a long nap.  I thought hey we got this, my kid is so used to being poked and prodded in the NICU we’re all good.  At about 8:30pm she woke up from her “nap” screaming bloody murder.  I thought she was starving because she hadn’t eaten in a while but when I laid her on her side to feed her she screamed louder.  I went and looked at her legs and that left leg was all red and about double the size.  Like when you slap skin and its hot red, the whole thing looked like that.  I gave her Tylenol instantly but she kept screaming.  I called into her doctor’s office fully expecting them to say no biggie, give Tylenol and all will be good.  NOPE she says I would like someone to check her out.  I’m like ok like in the morning, she says no right now, and I go ok where do I go, she says the ER.  WHAT?!?!?  THE ER?????  Apparently allergic reactions are real scary in infants.  We went to the ER right by our house and luckily it was only a surface reaction and Tylenol was all we could do and wait it out.  She seemed fine in a few hours.  Mental note – remember this at 4 month shots!

Sleeping (or lack there of) – I’ve asked a lot of opinions on sleeping – where do you put your baby, what do you dress them in, what is your bedtime routine, what time do you put them to sleep – here is what I learned… everyone is different, everyone does it different and everyone gets different results.  When Sophia was nursing every 2 hours throughout the night it was way easier to have her in the room with us.  I put her rock n play right next to the bed and we put a pack n play with a changing table in the room too so that we could change her right there and not have to wake her up too much.  My goal was to feed and get her back to sleep as fast as possible to I could try to get about 45 minutes of sleep before she woke again.  Sometimes I’d let her lay next to me in bed if she fell asleep so I’d get a little more.  I envy those who just put their baby in a crib right away and their baby sleeps there all night long.  I envy babies who magically sleep through the night.  One of these days I’m going to put my big girl panties on and put her in the crib.  I have no idea how to do this when I go back to work, I’m exhausted every day and have no idea how I will function in the real world.  People say to sleep when your baby sleeps; I’ve never been able just to fall asleep easy so I think I’ve been running on empty for 3 months.  That’s one thing about nursing, when she wakes up in the middle of the night it’s all on momma.  I can’t wait for this to get better, but I hear there is a 4 month sleep regression that takes them back to the newborn stage so I’m not getting too excited about it.

Filling the days – let’s face it, I’m not meant to be a SAHM.  I like my career and adult conversation and challenging myself in other ways.  I envy SAHMs who can be at home all day I’m just not one of them.  There are days I watched the clock and couldn’t wait until Bart got home.  When they’re this little and you’ve watched every show on Netflix or On Demand you can think of, you get a little bored.  What else can I do to entertain this baby?  We spend a lot of time smiling and laughing and making faces at each other.  This is my favorite thing to do and what I will miss the most about not seeing my baby all day every day.  We also do tummy time, play on the play mat, hang out in the swing and the bouncy, walk around in the Bjorn, rinse and repeat.  Since it’s cold and crappy I spend many days walking around Woodfield mall with the baby in the carrier.  It was good exercise but got to be a bit boring after a while.  Other than the smiling and cooing, my favorite part was watching Sophia learn new things.  Things like learning to stick out her tongue, finding her hands, grasping the oball for the first time – I’m mortified to think about all the things I’ll miss while at work.  We found a very sweet lady to watch Sophia.  I have dropped her off twice for dry runs for both me and the baby.  It gave me a day to get stuff done around the house to just some Monica time, and made me feel more confident dropping her off every day.  I’m hoping it continues to go as well as the dry runs did and that Sophia will love Cindy.

I have no idea if I’ll ever talk my husband into giving Sophia a sibling – I hope someday he forgets how tough the last three months have been so we can consider doing it all over again and if that day ever comes, I wanted this post to look back on and remember that we got through it all!  

The arrival of Sophia Dawne Sitarski

If you’ve been following this blog, I think you can agree that nothing about this pregnancy has been “normal”.  Every pregnancy is different, every baby is different and every delivery is different.  Here is our labor and delivery story.  Note: I keep trying to get Bart to write his version as I’m sure it would sound quite a bit different – I’ll keep working on him.

The day I went into labor (Saturday 10/4) we went to Yorktown mall and walked around for a couple of hours.  At this point I was 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant, I was 4 cm dilated and 70% effaced, the midwives had been telling me for about 4 weeks “any day now” and I was OVER it!  I tried so hard to stay active my entire pregnancy but this was too much – I came home and took a 3 ½ hour nap to recover and was super uncomfortable.  At around 12:30am Sunday morning I started having contractions – this time they quickly became about 5 ½ minutes apart.  I woke Bart up and we timed them for awhile before calling our midwife.  We called in when they were about 4 minutes apart and our midwife asked us to head into the hospital.  The entire time I feared we were going to get all the way down there and they were going to send us home.  Bart wanted to run every red light and fly down 90, I was not quite in the same hurry.  We got to the hospital and went into triage.  Pretty quickly they told us we were going to be admitted and this was the real thing… and then we sat in triage for about 2.5 hours.

 I'm pretty sure I was putting on my work out of office in this picture.

I was so excited because my midwife Lia was on call that morning – she was leaving at 8am but was there for the beginning at least.  Ok so let’s talk labor.  How do you know when you’re in labor?  Well honestly at first it really wasn’t so bad – the contractions themselves I can totally handle – don’t get me wrong they SUCK but they’re bearable.  The part that was super uncomfortable for me was baby was “sunny side up” (so babies come out face down and turn as they are born – my baby was face up), this can cause extreme back and hip pains during labor.  We tried all different sitting, leaning, standing positions to get her to flip on her own (which she eventually did) but the pain was completely unbearable to me.  At about 6cm dilated I asked for my epidural.  I had a strong desire to make the labor room as fun as possible so I attempted to welcome everyone who came in the room “to the party” and ask random questions/jokes to try to get people to lighten up a bit.  The guy who gave me my epidural - I asked if he tested it out first to make sure it was the good stuff.  The epidural did not hurt at all – seriously that was the easiest part of the entire labor.  They also started me on pitosin (sometimes the epidural will slow down labor) and broke my water.

Once my water broke things started to take a couple of odd turns.  My baby’s heart rate stayed pretty high above the 170’s getting dangerously close to 200’s for quite awhile.  I also spiked a fever up to 103.8.  I couldn’t stop shivering but I was sooooo hot.  They explained once I got a fever that my baby would be born “corio”.  When a mom has antibiotics for a fever/infection during labor – the baby automatically has to be put on antibiotics and taken to the NICU in this case.  They didn’t want us to panic as there would be a lot of neonatal doctors in the room because of my fever.  It was time to start pushing.  How do I explain this?  Well basically they tell you to pull your legs up and out to the side, lift your head, hold your breath and make a bowel movement.  Do you know how many things that is to remember?  You’re trying to figure out what muscles to use and do all these other things… it was very hard to stay coordinated.  Of course I had to coach myself after each push – I forgot to do this, I have to do this more, next time I’ll work on this.  The midwife and nurse found this quite hysterical and reassured me I was doing a good job and needed to cut myself some slack. After about an hour and half of pushing, Carol the midwife decided things were getting a little out of her wheel house with the fever and heart rate and brought in some other doctors.  Enter Dr. McNair – picture Miranda Baley from Gray’s Anatomy.  She walks in and starts going over the potential complications of forceps as she thinks we should use them to get baby out NOW.  While we were discussing this, I had a contraction and had to push – she watched me push and said NOPE – you can get this baby out on your own, you have 3 pushes to get her out or we’re going into an emergency c section.  Oh I got that baby OUT on the third push – I’ve never pushed so hard in my entire life.

Sophia was born not breathing on her own and was limp down one side.  They quickly took her over to the “giraffe” bed and about 10 nurses and doctors went to work.  She didn’t breathe on her own for the first 3 minutes and didn’t breathe comfortably for the first 5.  I kept looking at the nurse and Bart asking why isn’t she crying… why isn’t she crying… the nurse kept reassuring me they were doing everything they could and she was in great hands.  I kept asking Bart to go over there but he couldn’t.  Finally after what seemed like forever, the nurse said “mom listen” I heard a little grunt, and then another grunt and a bit later a cry.  OMG that cry – it was music to my ears and you could literally see the doctors shoulders relax a little who were working over top of her.  They let Bart come over and take her picture – she was 9lbs and 1oz and 21 inches long.  Then they quickly whisked her away to the NICU.

While all this was going on I was completely oblivious to what was going on with me.  I remember getting really sick and throwing up and I finally turned my head from my baby to look at myself and realized it was a bit like a scene from Grays Anatomy.  I had 3 doctors working on my insides, I had nurses running around like crazy getting me another IV in my other hand and giving me constant shots in my thighs – they told me they were trying to clot my blood.  There were 4 anesthesia guys hovering over me asking random questions about my pain level – apparently they were trying to determine if they should put me under or if the epidural was sufficient.  Apparently I had hemorrhaged and lost about 2 liters of blood, they were trying to determine where the bleeding was coming from and ended up inserting a balloon into my uterus to get the bleeding to stop.   This meant that I was going to be staying in the same room (essentially a Labor ICU) and would not be going to the NICU to see my baby until the bleeding stopped.  My levels were all over the place, they couldn’t get my fever to come down and all in all I was kind of a mess.  Poor Bart – I wanted him to be with Sophia so bad and the guy was torn – wife, baby, both not doing so great.  I looked at him and said call mom NOW and tell her to get here ASAP.  I needed someone with my baby and I knew my wonderful husband would never leave my side.  My mom and Joe heard “monica is hemorrhaging” and immediately jumped in the car to drive to Chicago, leaving the oven on and power tools lying in the lawn.  It was one of those moments where I truly didn’t know what was going to happen with the way people were rushing around and the sense of urgency around both of us – as dramatic as it sounds there was a brief moment where I thought to myself “am I going to make it?  Is this serious?”

I spent 30 hours in that ICU before I could see my baby.  Bart and my parents were able to go up and see the baby in the NICU and send lots of pictures.  Bart was very clear that NOONE got to hold the baby before me.  I honestly wanted him to pick her up and snuggle her and tell her how much we love her and need her to stay strong but I appreciated that he wanted that moment for us all.  

 First time Bart met Sophia

 First time the family was all together

 First moment seeing my beautiful girl... all hooked up to machines just wanting to be held.

Finally, after 40 weeks, 5 days and 30 hours in ICU I got to hold my baby.

 When she moved from her giraffe bed to her "crib"

The orange tube is a feeding tube - this little stinker pulled it out twice!  The nurses were completely in awe of her strength!

Seeing your baby hooked up to a bunch of machines is something I don’t know any mom is ready for.  She had a ventilator, oxygen, a feeding tube, an IV with fluids and antibiotics and tons of monitors all over.  She was beautiful even with all her tubes everywhere.  We were so lucky that she came late and was big and strong and fully developed to fight everything.  In the first 48 hours she had so many tests including a spinal tap to check for meningitis, several xrays and blood draws.  Each day she was able to shed something – one day is was the ventilator then it was the oxygen then she was breathing 100% on her own.  Then the feeding tube and finally the IV.  She had to stay in the NICU for a total of 10 days to finish her antibiotics.  On the 8^th day they did tests and her levels were way down indicating it was safe for us to take her home after the 10 day treatment.  It sucked being in the NICU – going home without your baby is so hard!  We had some really good friends reach out and help us through it and the other parents in the NICU offered up encouragement.  In the end we were lucky it was 10 days – there were so many babies in there for 10 weeks!!  But for us it was rough.  We’d leave at 7:30am to get there for 9am rounds, stay all day in a tiny room with no TV, no sounds, no nothing except 1 recliner and 1 like folding chair.  Then we’d head home around 7:30pm, getting home around 8:30 and eat something then I would get up and pump every 3 hours to get enough supply to last her through the next night.  I seriously think the only thing that saved our sanity was the food that our friends brought by – I refused to leave my baby in the NICU by herself to go grocery shopping so we asked some very good friends to help out.  THANK YOU SO MUCH Tammy, Jenn, Cristie, Antoinette and the Warters for the food!

 Proud daddy!  The love that man has for his baby is one of the coolest things I've ever seen.  He's already the best dad and I can't wait to see how much this little girl continues to wrap him around her finger!

 Pose GIRL!

 Nana and Papa with the new family.

Bart's parents also came to meet Sophia in the hospital.

Mom came up to help us when we took the baby home and with not being home for 10 days, she helped so much!!  She ran a ton of errands for us and went grocery shopping and helped us with the baby.  There is a comfort level of having someone who has done it before with you as you try to figure it all out.  I cannot thank mom enough for everything she did for us!

I also need to give a huge thank you to my bestie Crissy!  Bart had a bachelor party the first weekend we were home and Crissy came and stayed with me and Sophia - she stayed up all night with us and helped us nurse and changed diapers and walked around bouncing and singing to Sophia for hours!  I wish I could have kept her for hire for the first 6 weeks of Sophia's homecoming!!! 

Having a newborn is so much harder than I could have ever imagined.  Breast feeding is so much harder than I could have ever imagined.  Having a colicky baby with reflux who has been through more in her short life than most of us go through in years is harder than I ever imagined.  I’m so lucky to have Bart at home with me – hats off to all those moms who do it on their own!  The doctors say it will take about 30 days to recoup my blood since I ended up not having a transfusion so I should be in tip top shape soon.  Every day gets a little easier and we get to know and be better parents to our sweet healthy baby girl.