Firsts!

So, I know I was supposed to post this a couple of days ago, but Tyler had his days off and I've decided that I'm only going to post anything on his days working. The nights he's actually home I'd rather spend time with him, even if we're only watching TV. Today turned out to be the perfect day to post about Eliana's firsts anyway, because she started fully crawling this morning! She has army crawled for like half a second before, but today she crawled to me multiple times and to get something she wanted multiple times! I am so proud of my baby!!!

This post is partially thanks to Crystal because she bought me a calendar for Eliana while I was pregnant. It is the cutest calendar that has a place for her weight and height every month, stickers for some of her firsts, and places to write new stuff about her every month. So as long as I keep up with it I have exact days for a lot of Eliana's firsts, which is amazing!

Eliana's first first was her beautiful smile! March 8, so she was just over 2 weeks old :) And I was lucky enough to catch it on camera!

This one I didn't actually write the date down (I forgot!) but she was only a couple of weeks old *you can tell because her legs weren't fat yet :)* and she pushed herself up on her legs while doing tummy time! Of course I had to get a picture of that!

Her first bath was March 11, and while I do have a picture someone else has the SD card that it's on right now. She wasn't a fan of that bath, but we realized it was because the water wasn't warm enough. She likes her water pretty warm. She has absolutely loved every bath after that, and the only time she's ever cried is when I take her out!

Her first professional photos were taken on March 18 by Charles Pennington (who is amazing if you ever need a photographer! He's done all of our photos!).

  

Her first trip was March 23 through the 25. We went to see Grandma and Grandpa in TN :) Unfortunately I don't know if I have any pictures from then. I'll have to do some searching.

I'm pretty sure this picture was from that weekend. 

In April we of course celebrated her first Easter! We had a great day visiting some family friends. We went to church with them and then spent the day at their house, and it was also Eliana's first time meeting her Uncle Bryce! We need to figure out a way to see him again soon because we really miss Uncle Bryce!

April 15 Eliana stuck out her tongue (she was copying Grandma!) and April 18 she discovered splashing in the bathtub (with her feet)! That was the day that bathing became even more exciting! On the 24th she grasped her first toy...she pulled her toy hanging from her carseat and made it play music!

On May 3 Eliana found her toes, and to this day those toes still fascinate her! May 5 was a very special day and she attended her first wedding! Aunt Crystal and Uncle Ashton got married!

May 13 we celebrated my first mother's day in TN with my parents and sister and May 14 Eliana started to imitate sounds. I wish I had written down more about this, but unfortunately I didn't and I don't remember what sound she made. On the 23rd she found her hands, which like her toes she is still fascinated with to this day! And on the 24th she laughed! Still the most beautiful sound I have ever heard! And, for the last thing in May, on the 27th Eliana scooted forward during tummy time to get to her toys!

June slowed down a little bit, but Eliana started working on some much harder tasks! On the 2nd she found out the joys of bouncing while being held and on the 11th she began to try to roll over. She tried and then took a break for a few days and on the 19th she figured it out! She officially became a roller! At the end of the month was Eliana's first trip to Omaha! We left for TN on the 27th and then on the 29th Eliana and I left with my parents to go to Omaha.

My mom took this while we were at my Aunt Deb's house. Probably my favorite picture!

On July 2 Eliana had her first trip to the zoo. We went to the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo and she slept most of the time. She loved the aquarium though :) The next day we went to visit Memorial  Stadium in Lincoln, NE and the next day was Eliana's first 4th of July! Of course, by the time there were fireworks she was sleeping. July 18 Eliana rolled over from back to tummy and back over to her back.

Watching a video about the Nebraska football team at Memorial Stadium!

At 5 months old, on the 29th, we gave Eliana her first taste of fruit. We gave her a banana! It didn't seem to agree with her stomach very well though so we decided to put off solids until 6 months.

In August Eliana's firsts slowed down again. We went back to Omaha with my mom for a couple of weeks and while there Eliana said mama for the first time! This was on the 26th. A day before Eliana turned 6 months we tried solids again. We decided a long time ago to do baby led weaning (simply put we give her finger foods and let her feed herself) and completely skip purees. Well, since we were in Omaha it was easier for me to start with some purees. Eliana had a pear and spinach mixture and loved it! She fed herself with her spoon and everything! I put the food on the spoon and set it on her tray and she did the rest! August 30 Eliana sat up completely by herself!

This wasn't the first time she sat up by herself, but it was too cute for me not to add!

August 31 we took Eliana to the park and she had her first time on the swings! She loved it! And she had her first taste of veggies, sweet potatoes. Those are still one of her favorite foods, pureed or baked.

September 1 was Eliana's first Huskers' game! Aunt Kathy and Uncle Les had some of the family over at their house and we all watched the game together! We left the next morning to go back to TN.

September 7 Eliana pulled herself up in her pack n play and she has been pulling herself up on everything else ever since! And on the 29th Eliana and I went to the Atlanta Zoo with Melina, Adrian, and Mina. Eliana was a lot more aware of everything this time, but still didn't pay much attention to most of the animals. They really didn't move enough to catch her attention.

And now we are finally caught up to our current month! On October 2 Tyler and I took Eliana to the Georgia Aquarium and she loved it! She really enjoyed watching all of the fish and seeing all of the bright colors!

On Thursday, October 4, Eliana waved hi for the first time! She did it a couple of times when I said hi to her, but now she really only does it randomly. It's pretty cute! And of course, today she decided to crawl! I honestly thought she was going to skip crawling because she's shown more interest in walking along furniture or walking while holding someone's hand, but today she decided crawling might be worth it after all.

Hopefully I didn't just cram too much stuff into one post. It's difficult trying to get Eliana's last 7+ months into just a few posts. I am so amazed at how quickly time has gone by! I feel like it was just yesterday I gave birth to her, and here we are over halfway to her first birthday...well I guess I should say halfway to her being a year old. Her first birthday is still technically over three years away :)

I guess this is about all that I have to post for now. Honestly, I had more in mind but I am exhausted and Eliana is still waking up every hour or two, sometimes less, and I think I might go get some sleep while I can, so good night!

Toughing It Out

So, now that I've posted some pictures from the first two weeks, I will go ahead and post our experiences having a new baby! Eliana slept so well those first few weeks, during the day at least. Night time was a totally different story! Even in the hospital, those first nights were difficult to say the least. She cried and cried and cried and nothing I did helped. I felt useless and like I was failing as a mother. I can't tell you how many times I called my mom crying because I didn't know what else to do. We were having some trouble breastfeeding, and thanks to some VERY helpful friends who gave me amazing advice on new positions to try to feed her to get a better latch we finally tackled that problem and nursing went a lot smoother. I am happy to say that 7 months later I have been able to exclusively breastfeed my daughter without supplementing with even an ounce of formula! It may not seem much to some mothers, but I know that there are others of you who know what an accomplishment that is! Our breastfeeding relationship is still going strong and I have no plans of trying to wean her until probably at least a year and a half or two years old. Unless, of course, she decides to wean herself off before then.

Anyway, back to those first weeks and months. Although we had tackled the latch problem, my poor baby was in pain and I felt helpless. The nurses told me that it was just gas, but even then I knew they were wrong. I mean, yes, it was gas, but it was worse on her because she has a milk protein allergy. I also realized later that she had what is known as silent reflux, also due to the allergy. This isn't talked about much so I might make a post specifically on that later. Hopefully it will help other moms out. I wish that the nurses had taken my worries a little more seriously and at least suggested trying to make some changes in my diet because it would have made a huge difference much sooner. If I knew that it was associated with my breast milk I would have asked the lactation consultant. But, the nurses told me that it was normal so I just hoped that it would pass. After the first week Eliana was sleeping better at night, and while she was still having problems with gas I didn't know what I could do. I gave her gas drops and gripe water, massaged her tummy, bicycled her legs, and bounced and bounced and bounced and bounced her *yes there was a LOT of bouncing those first months!* But while she was sleeping better my sweet girl was still in pain.

It is very normal for babies to have trouble passing gas in the first few months. After about three months old they start to have an easier time with that. So, my nurse and doctor at the pediatrician's office didn't seem to think there was anything abnormal going on either. So, I took it into my own hands and started doing research to find out what was causing my baby so many problems. Like I said before, it turned out to be a milk protein allergy, which also caused her silent reflux. She wasn't spitting up as much, but that's because it would go back down her throat which just caused her more pain. Since I didn't know what was the culprit I took pretty much everything out of my diet for two weeks. I ate plain chicken with plain rice for the first week. After that I started to add other things back into my diet, except for dairy products. I had a whole new baby! After the dairy was completely out of her system she was NEVER fussy! She stopped waking up really early in the morning crying, she stopped waking up from naps in pain...she was so happy! I believe she was over 3 months old at this point. Eventually I started to add some dairy products back into my diet. I can eat baked goods because the proteins in the milk change when they're cooked into something. I can eat most cheeses and yogurt. Anything rich I stay away from. I tried again at 6 months to see if she had possibly outgrown it, so I'll keep it out of my diet until she's a year old or until we're done breastfeeding. And, even with the problems that we had in the beginning I do not at all regret continuing to breastfeed. I am so glad that we stuck through it. There were times when I thought about switching to formula, but everything that I read told me that would be just as hard if not worse on her stomach so we just stuck it out. There were so many times that I felt like we were never going to get past the gas problems and the reflux, and now it just seems like so long ago.

I remember enjoying every second that I could when Eliana wasn't fussy, because so much of the day she was. But, those moments when I would get a smile or get to cuddle her without any crying, those were the best! Those moments when she wasn't fussy or crying or in pain weren't very often in the beginning, but they made all of our problems just melt away. Those moments made everything else a little easier to handle. Now, the long nights and sometimes even longer days seem so far away. It really is amazing how quickly time goes by and how fast my baby is growing! I am so amazed watching her grow and learn every day, and so excited to see how much she can accomplish!

I think this is probably more than enough for tonight. I started my first project last night (a bubble quilt!) and I'm going to continue working on that now. Tomorrow I will post more about Eliana's first 7 months along with all of her firsts that she's already accomplished! Thanks for reading :)

Playing Catch Up!

This will be a short post for now since I'm holding a sleeping baby and typing one-handed. I'm sure I look pretty funny right now, but lately Eliana hasn't been sleeping well unless I'm holding her. I think it's teething and I'm really ready for her teeth to hurry up and pop through! She's been teething for months but so far we still don't have a single tooth.
Anyway, for now I'm just going to post some pictures from Eliana's first days.

Eliana in her first outfit in the hospital

Eliana's first day home

Her first smile! Caught on camera :)

Newborn photoshoot. She wasn't very happy, but still so cute!

Me and my sweet girl <3

My husband, Eliana, and myself :)

Look at that sweet little face!

And my sweet girl is now awake so I will be back tonight to post some more! 

I'm A Slacker :/ :)

Ok, so honestly my pregnancy was too exhausting for me to keep up with this blog along with working full time and trying to spend time with my husband and somewhat keep a social life. So, now it has been a little over 7 months since I gave birth to a healthy beautiful baby girl. Who is now waking up so I will continue this post later :)

Alright, I am back and listening to football as I'm typing this up! *So far the Huskers are winning!* So, back to the birth of my beautiful daughter! My due date, February 26, came and went without so much as a contraction. The the 27th passed me by, and the night of the 28th I decided to take things into my own hands ;) I was barely having any contractions and what I did have was just Braxton Hicks. So I decided to play Just Dance as much as I possibly could! I figured if walking could jump start labor than dancing would do it even quicker! I played again that night and noticed some contractions, but still nothing consistent. I went to bed and around 10 or 11 that night the contractions were coming about 15 minutes apart and they hurt!!! I barely got any sleep that night because the contractions were so painful. I dozed off, but only between contractions. This continued for the rest of the night.

Around 9 the morning of the 29th (leap day!) my contractions were at 4 to 5 minutes apart and had been for the past 2 hours, so I woke Tyler up and we got ready to go to the hospital! After a long night of painful contractions I was ready! We got to the hospital and I was admitted around 9:30. Honestly, I wish I had written this down earlier because I don't even remember what I was dilated to, but I believe I was 2 cm. I tried to get some rest but the contractions were so close together and so painful that it was pretty much impossible. I was exhausted! It was early afternoon when I got some meds to take the edge off of the pain. I really tried to go without, but I was just so tired! The nurse had me put them off as long as possible just in case it would be awhile before I could get the epidural, because after a couple of doses she said it would pretty much be useless. I honestly don't remember when I got the epidural but it wasn't much later. I progressed pretty quickly. (I really wish I had written this all down a lot sooner!) After I got some meds in my IV I could finally sleep! And once I got the epidural I slept even better. Around 10:30 the nurse checked me and told me it was time to push! And not even an hour later my beautiful daughter was born! At 11:15 PM on February 29, 2012, Eliana Naomi Novak was born at 8 lbs 14 oz and 20 and a 1/2 inches long! She was (and is) just absolutely perfect! While I would love to share the next 7 months with you I think that may be too much for just one post! So, I am going to end with some newborn pictures, and tomorrow *hopefully* I will do another post :) 

My first time holding my sweet girl!

Our first family photo :)

Aunt Jamie and Eliana :)

My beautiful daughter <3

Grandpa and Eliana :) She has him wrapped around her little fingers! *Along with everyone else!*

Grandma and Eliana. Look at that sweet face! *Obviously I wasn't taking pictures otherwise you'd be able to see my mom's face too!*

I didn't want to take my eyes off of her! It is so amazing to see the face of the child you've been carrying for over 40 weeks!

Daddy's first time holding his baby girl <3

Ok, I guess that's enough pictures for now ;) I have so much more to post about *I guess that's what happens when I wait so long to update this blog!* but I will end with these :) Oh, and of course I forgot to mention who was in the room to witness Eliana's birth! Tyler, of course, my mom, Jamie, and Crystal were all there, and I couldn't have had better people by my side! They were all so wonderful, and each did their part to help me bring Eliana into this world! 

A day of Firsts

I meant to write this yesterday, however it was a very long day and by the time I got home we were eating dinner with some friends and watching a movie, and after that I, of course, crashed! So, here is my post, a day late :)

Yesterday was a day of firsts. We had our first OB appointment, first ultrasound, and first time hearing our baby's heartbeat. What an amazing day!

 We arrived at the doctor's office for our 10 AM appointment, only to find out that they misheard me on the phone when I made the appointment and set it for 2. She tried to fit me in, but could not. Luckily, my awesome manager gave me the whole day off, and the doctor's office is just up the road so going back later was not an issue. We came back at 2 :)

We got the doctor's office right before 2, and did not leave until 4:30! We had to go through a list of questions with the nurse, and of course the normal stuff: weight, bp, etc. Then we had to wait for the midwife. I had to have a pap smear done, and although we weren't supposed to have an ultrasound this visit she decided to check with the tech anyway to see if she had an openings from cancellations. Lucky us, she did!

Seeing our tiny baby on that screen was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced! Seeing the reason that I am experiencing all of these pregnancy symptoms has made every second of feeling lousy totally worth it! We got to see our baby, and we could even see his or her little heart beating on the screen. It was so cool! Then we got to hear the heartbeat, and we were even able to see the spinal column! I did not cry then, but even describing it now makes me want to. Talk about indescribable emotions! I will never be able to capture in words how I felt at that moment.

We left the ultrasound tech and waited for the midwife again after that. (It feels very odd for me to go from describing how amazing it was to see our baby, back to waiting on the midwife.) She gave us our estimated due date, which is February 26, 2012 *maybe we'll have a leap year baby? ;)*, and told us that I am 8 weeks and 3 days along, not 9 weeks and 5 days as they originally estimated. After that she gave me a prescription to get some meds for my nausea, and we were off to get some blood taken. And boy did they take blood! I was shocked at how much blood they took...it was vile after vile...I seriously thought she would never stop adding a new vile! But, after 5 viles of my blood, it was over :). We went and scheduled our next appointment, and the visit was finally over.

Now, a day later, I am sitting at home and I can't stop staring at the ultrasound pictures of my baby. Just the thought, "my baby", still sounds so odd to me. After so many years of wondering whether or not I'd actually be able to get pregnant, I did not expect this day to come so soon, and without even trying! It still amazes me. And sometimes it's still doesn't feel real. But then I think about seeing our baby, and hearing the heartbeat, and all I can do is thank God for him or her. I am so amazed at everything He has done in my life, and everything he continues to do, day in and day out!

We're PREGNANT!!! :D

So this is my first post, and is going to be a short one because I am exhausted! :)

I just found out this past Tuesday (about 5 days ago) that I am pregnant!!! After about 4 years of worrying that I may have problems getting pregnant, we have conceived without even trying! I was amazed and pretty overwhelmed when I took that first pregnancy test. I was literally speechless. I could not even tell Tyler the results of the pregnancy test, I just handed it to him not knowing how to react.

Afterwards we laid on the bed just looking at each other, and I told him I don't know whether to cry or to laugh, I felt like doing both! I was overwhelmed with emotion, and trying to process the fact that we are going to be parents! What an amazing and scary idea!

After using a due date calculator application online, it seems that I am 8 weeks prego with our sweet baby. I can't wait to find out if it's a girl or a boy, and to see where God takes us with this journey! He promised us a baby, and although this was not our timing I could not be more thrilled! I am constantly amazed at what God is doing in our lives!

This past week I have had morning sickness (ALL DAY!) and get very tired very easily. However, I am enjoying telling everybody this great news! Everyone is so excited for us, and we all can't wait to meet this new addition to our lives! I am excited to experience the ups and downs of pregnancy, and I am so amazed at how much I already love my little one! I am also amazed at how this has changed even the smallest decisions that I make! My life from now on is about this baby, and I absolutely love it!