Olivia is 10 weeks old today!

I can't believe she is already almost 3 months old. Livi is getting stronger and cuter every minute. She is holding her head up a little more each week, even though she hates "tummy time." She just doesn't like doing the work! haha. Livi smiles and coos every day now, and she is always telling daddy and me story after story. She loves to wiggle free on her jungle mat, and she sleeps a lot in her bouncer during the day. Her hair is growing in in front now, and has a buzz going on, while the rest of her hair on the back of her head is long and brown.

1-2 weeks old

   Last week I had to take her to a small daycare in our neighborhood while I went back to work. She is doing really well adjusting, and her nanny is great! She is very loving and sweet with our baby girl. Even though I miss her everyday, I know she is in good hands. It will take some time to get used to her not being in my arms all day, every day, but it makes me realize how lucky I am to have her. I look forward every day to picking her up and cuddling her until bedtime :)
   Meanwhile I have pictures to post, that aren't necessarily in order, but I have to put some up. I am going to try and be better about keeping up with my blogging.

4 weeks old

   At four weeks old, Olivia was still waking and eating every 2-3 hours throughout the night. I thought it would never end, and I'd never catch up on my sleep again. I was a zombie for the first month of her life. I barely showered, slept, or ate for weeks. I really never left the house either! I was too afraid to take her anywhere by myself. I seriously felt depressed too. It was really hard to stay home every day constantly be taking care of someone. I didn't think it would be so hard to adjust and be a mom. But I tried my best and now things are so much better. Thanks to Aaron, he helped so much with her and was always willing to give me the extra time in bed to sleep while he took care of her. Thanks Aaron!

XMAS Time

  At six weeks old, Olivia started sleeping for a consecutive 6 hours a night. She would go down from about 930pm-3am. She did this for a while, and the time changed everyday, but she definitely was sleeping better. I thought it was a fluke and she'd go back to waking every few hours, but it wasn't. She continued to sleep for six hours straight for a couple of weeks.

Before church
6 weeks old

  At eight weeks she got her first shots...OMG! I have PTSD from it. I have never felt so bad in my life for someone. My baby girl was so upset and in so much pain. Her face turned purple and her eyes were bulging from her head and she was crying hard! It freaked me out. First time moms, watch out! I instantly pulled her into my arms and soothed her and rocked her. In about a minute, she stopped crying and fell asleep! We left the office with her sleeping in my arms and tears down both our cheeks...So sad.

8 weeks old

8 weeks old

Nine weeks

All smiles (9wks)

  At nine weeks: She is now smiling and cooing all the time. She gets fussy when she's hungry, and tired, but that's about it. She loves to be held and hates being transferred to anything else, but soon gets over it. She loves taking baths and watching tv with her mommy. (we love Housewives of Beverly Hills)! On the other hand, she loves when daddy gets up with her in the night to feed her and change her. She smiles and kicks when daddy's beard tickles her face after kisses. At this point she is sleeping at least 10 hours at night. It is amazing!! She always goes to sleep between 730-8pm, and wakes between 4-6am. Sometime she will sleep through the night until 6am! I think she is definitely sleeping due to growing and her brain working so hard. We are quite amazed right now at how fast she grows and changes every week. She loves her baby seahorse that sings her to sleep every night, and she LOVES THE BINKY! I know we shouldn't let her have it all the time, but we can't help it. It seriously calms her down, and brings her peace :)
 Today is her 10 week birthday. We are excited to see what new things come this week. On February 5th, daddy is giving her a blessing in our church and we are thrilled to have our families join us. My mom is coming up from Tucson to be there, and then babysit for a week! We can't wait to see her, Livi misses her. Also it will give us a chance to go out on a date! yay! We will celebrate our 3rd year anniversary too while she is here.

10 weeks!

  One thing I keep forgetting to mention is that both of my sister in laws had babies too in the past few months. So Livi has two boy cousins that are close to her age within months. Gray was born in August, and Harper was born in December. We are so excited for them to have the chance to grow up together and be pals. Love you Cindy and Amy!!
  Thanks for reading my blog, sorry it's long this time. This blog is more for a memory keeper than anything, and I hope Livi will be able to read it someday and know how much of a blessing she is to our family. Love you baby girl!

Baby Girl

Well it has almost been eight weeks since we had our baby girl...this is the first chance I've had to try and write a short post about her. She keeps us busy! You can obviously tell this is our first kid, and we have no idea what we're doing or how to manage our time yet. Everyday I feel like I barely have time to shower..

Olivia Mae was born on November 18th at 9:22 am. She was only 5 pounds 14 ounces and 18 inches long. She was perfect. She has a lot of brown hair and dark blue eyes. She came only after three pushes....unfortunately I was trying to hold her back from coming so fast because the doctor hadn't made it to the hospital yet! But she had another plan in mind, and slipped out quietly while we were barely paying attention. The nurse caught her with one hand! While another nurse was trying to put a glove on the delivery nurse's other hand. It was crazy. She started crying right off and then settled down pretty fast. She didn't cry for a few days after that. She was so quiet and tired from birth. We had been planning on another name for her, but last minute we switched it. Olivia just felt right. We call her Livi for short.

We stayed a couple days at the hospital which was not awesome for me. The recovery was so painful and the pain meds barely helped me feel any better. I got a terrible migraine while in the hospital and my stitches were killing me. I thought I wasn't going to make it through this...ugh. My mom was there for the whole delivery and of course Aaron. All I wanted was Aaron by my side every minute.

Labor: I started having my first contractions at about 2 am on Friday morning in my bed. I woke up and didn't really know what I was feeling. I felt crampy and sick to my stomach. The cramps were so bad!! I woke up Aaron immediately and he starting timing my contractions, assuming that's what they were. I never had any contractions during my pregnancy so I didn't know what to expect...We're these as painful as they would get?! Or were these only at a level 5 or so?? I kept thinking I was going to die from pain for that hour we timed then. The contractions started out at a level 10 and every two minutes, they never died down at all! We immediately grabbed our bags and left for the hospital. We yelled to my mom that we were going in and we'd call her. Side note..( during this whole time, Aaron had to do everything. I could barely move, the pain was so bad. As soon as we headed downstairs, my water broke. I soaked through everything including the front seat of the car. It was so weird!) Aaron sped down the road and got us to the hospital in record time (5 minutes). They wheeled me in, and this amazing nurse helped me through my contractions while they stripped me down and got me ready for the epidural. I couldn't wait for the pain to subside. It felt like it took forever to kick in, but really it was only 15 minutes or so. I love EPIDURALS!! Finally I could calm down and get my bearings. Aaron tried to call my mom and let her know we were checked in, but guess what? Of course she was already waiting in the hospital waiting room. Hilarious! It was like 3 in the morning. What a long night for all of us. PS. I was so embarrassed because I didn't even get to wax like I was planning to do on Saturday! But of course the staff don't care at all, only I did. The moment you get to the hospital all of your dignity goes right out the door.

One of the things I learned about giving birth is that everyone is different. No labor is the same. But I still wish I would have known what to expect with contractions and how to push. I had no idea what I was doing, and I certainly cried a lot out of fear. I was a big baby during the whole thing...

Now we have been home, and Olivia is almost 8 weeks old. My whole family came up and stayed a few days with us, and really helped me. I also got to go to Tucson for a week and spend some time down there. I go back to work next week, and I am sort of looking forward to it. I hope I'm not destined to be a bad parent by saying that, but I just miss it. Plus staying home all day every day is hard for me. I live in my pjs and barely eat or shower..Babies just require all of your time and energy. But she is worth it, and so adorable. I love her so much and she is changing every week. It's crazy! Here are a few pictures from birth to now. Enjoy! I hope I get to blog more soon.