Lydi vs Mommy&Daddy

Just having fun looking at pictures of Brian and my's childhood and trying to figure out which one Lydia resembles more. She may just be a pretty good mix! But I can't help but feel that Lydia and I have pretty close furrows and big lips going on ha!

1 Month

     I may have shed a tear today as I put away the newborn clothes. Though it is so exciting to see the growth and development this girl is going through, it's still a bit sad to realize how fast time is flying by. I keep asking myself-am I catching all this? It's as if I want every little sound and wiggle ingrained in my memory forever. Is that even possible to do?

      New things with Lydia this last week: She started "officially" smiling the day she turned 3 weeks (Oct 20). When she focuses her eyes on me, I'll smile and talk to her and she immediately responds with a smile. All week long she has been doing this and it absolutely melts my heart. Brian's mom said that Brian was her earliest smiler and smiled around 3 weeks as well. So she is definitely her daddy's little smiler. 

    Wednesday October 22 she discovered her tongue and pretty much had it hanging out of her mouth like a dog all day. It's just fun to see the "discovery" process when she actually knows what she is doing. It was adorable and so funny to watch. The little things that she discovers just amazes me and makes me want to call Brian and tell him all about it! “Oh look! She just did_(insert ordinary action here)__!” What can I say? #newparents haha 

    At night sometimes after I feed her, I’ll burp her on my shoulder and in her sleep she will giggle. It is such a precious sound. I can’t help but wonder what she is dreaming.

    The last 3 or so days she has broken out in some crazy baby acne. Brian teases that we already have a teenager on our hands.. acne+fussiness. I know it will go away and isn't hurting her, but it is still so sad to see her little face so full of angry red polka dots. The picture below doesn't do the acne justice.. It seriously looks so red and angry.

      What a wonderful month it has been. It is just hard to believe that Lydia has been with us so long already, and yet it is getting hard to imagine life before she was with us.

Baby Larson Pregnancy Journal

     Looking back on the beginning of this pregnancy seems like such a long time ago and yet.. I feel like my time being pregnant went really fast. I loved writing a pregnancy journal to reflect back on and see the changes that took place in the last 9 months in my body, our little family, and this adorable little girl. Here is Baby Lydia Larson's Pregnancy Journal all put together.

And here is the final page of the pregnancy journal! Week 41 and the arrival of our sweet Lydia.

First Night of Motherhood

Let me tell you what no one really talks about.. that first night home. And if they do talk about it-well they don't share any details--or at least, they didn't to me.

Lydia was born late Monday afternoon and that first night in the hospital she stayed part of it in the nursery so that we could try to catch some sleep. The next day was a whirl of visitors, paperwork, and information overload. I mean seriously-I feel like there are so many nurses and consultants and doctors and hospital managers in and out giving information I am surprised I came out of there with my head on.

The hospital wanted to keep us until Wednesday but when they gave us the option of going home Tuesday we took it.

Tuesday night: Leaving the hospital we were surprised at how cold the weather had changed. We were not wearing appropriate clothes-nor did we have a blanket for Lydia. We pretty much blasted the heat the whole way home. We were both pretty giddy as we pulled up to our town home. Brian grabbed the stuff and I grabbed the baby. Once inside it felt so odd to be standing in this place I have shared with Brian for the past 2 years and to now be holding someone new to share it with.

We had borrowed a bassinet from our friends and before we got ready for bed-we bundled our little munchkin up and laid her in it. I wish we could have hidden a video camera because Brian and I were being cautiously giddy. As we got ready for bed, we were whispering and kept peeking in on her sleeping-you know, in case she just disappeared or something. #goofynewparents

Into bed we went and Brian quickly fell asleep. I laid there and listened to them both breathing-feeling very content with my life and thanking my Father in Heaven for my sweet family.

And then...

Lydia woke up to eat around 1:15. I rolled over, picked her up, tried to scoot so my back could rest against the wall (which for the first week was the hardest to do with everything that happened down in that area). I fed her and laid her back in her bassinet about 30-40 minutes later.

I hadn't gotten myself back to sleep when at 2:20 she was awake again. I grabbed her, fed her, laid her back in her bassinet. Both of these feedings I was trying to do in the most quiet way possible-I didn't want to wake Brian because I knew he had class the next morning.

It was at this point that the night went a little haywire for me. She started to really fuss and I just kept trying to feed her. My milk hadn't come in yet and so I just wasn't sure if she was feeling full. Every time I put her back in her bassinet she would get really upset. I had her swaddled and eventually I just took her out of it because she seemed to really want her arms by her face.

I laid in bed and gently rocked her in my arms. I tried to think of what I was doing wrong. I had, had this "ideal" situation in my head of us coming home from the hospital to a beautifully clean house. We would climb into our pristine sheets and fluffy pillows with my darling infant beside me. We would all fall asleep smoothly and one time in the night the child would wake with a slight coo. My "mother's instinct" would kick in and I would gently feed her, change her diaper and lay her back in her bassinet asleep. I would then climb back into bed and snuggle up next to my husband and we would sleep the rest of the night that way. Wake in the morning, with smiles on our faces, fully rested and pick up our happy baby and proceed to have our first breakfast altogether-as one happy family.

Okay.. so maybe I didn't expect it to go exactly like that.. but I most definitely didn't think that I'd be so unsure of what I was doing! I at least thought I'd get a little bit of sleep.

After an hour of trying to get her back to sleep with no success, I just grabbed her and laid her next to me in bed. She fell asleep-for about 8 minutes.. and then-she spit up.. A LOT.

I jumped up and grabbed a blanket to wipe it up.. beating myself up for not thinking to have burped her. You think I would have realized but as I thought about it-not once was it mentioned in the hospital. Not once was I told a proper way to burp or how long or anything at all. I was bombarded with so much information on how to breastfeed and help the baby latch and all that-but nothing on burping.

I'm not blaming the hospital or anything-but as a new mom, I just hadn't thought I would need to burp her when I wasn't even feeding her milk yet.

Anyway-I cleaned it up but she was still fussy. Still not trying to wake Brian, I crawled out of bed with the baby (Also not trying to bust a stitch or anything) and walked into her room to rock her a bit.

As I did this-all of the sudden I had to go to the bathroom.. and I had to go right then. I tried to run into the bedroom and put the baby in the bassinet, praying she wasn't going to scream and wake up Brian and then dash back to the bathroom.. only..  I didn't make it.

So there I was.. with a crying baby, exhausted, tired, sore, bleeding, and I had just wet my pants.

I felt the tingle of tears in my eyes and the quiver of my bottom lip, but I bit my tongue-- Determined to do this whole "mother" thing with no complaints. I went into the bathroom and quickly cleaned myself off-which for those who don't know, the word "quick" is not in a newly delivered mother's vocabulary (unless a mother hears her baby's cry and then it's as if she is a runner in the Olympics-boy can we women move in times like that).

Back in the bedroom, I have now changed Lydia twice (one poopy diaper and one really full wet diaper) -I found myself holding Lydia again. Trying to console her to sleep and she is just crying and fussing. I don't even remember the exact time at this point-just that it is almost 5 in the morning.

I looked down at the crying infant in my arms as I tried to tell her, "sweetheart, I'm trying to help you.. I don't know what's wrong. Tell me what's wrong. Please. I love you. I want to help" I sat there-trying to wipe her tears away and tell her that I loved her..

And all of the sudden I realized it was my own tears on her face-not hers. And as I realized that, I started to cry harder. All my exhaustion and pain came out in that moment, I felt very degraded that I couldn't even stop myself from wetting my pants, and that I couldn't even console my daughter. I kept thinking "Some mother you've turned out to be" which of course-just made me cry harder.

This time-Brian did wake up.. He woke up to both his girls crying.

He asked, "Sweetheart.. are you crying?" And that made me really start to cry. Now my plan to not wake him up so he could sleep wouldn't work. And I was turning out to be a poopy mom-I mean, the first night back I couldn't even keep it together and take care of my baby!

He sat up in bed, gently rubbed my back and then took Lydia from my arms. He said he would take her while I tried to get some sleep. Out he went to rock her a bit.

So there you have it. My first "official" night as a mother at home.

I know that not every situation is like this one. Some are worse.. and some are much much better. I just figured.. why try to pretend that motherhood came completely natural to me?

I have since learned that there are many parts of motherhood that do come natural and some that may come easier to some and not others. The love I have for my daughter helps me to keep trying until something works. So much of it is trial and error and just down right trying to do your very best.

I believe that Heavenly Father is aware of our efforts and blesses and guides us through the challenges. "There's no perfect way to be a good mother and a million ways to be a good one." -Jill Churchill.

   "There is no one perfect way to be a good mother. Each situation is unique. Each mother has different challenges, different skills and abilities, and certainly different children. The choice is different and unique for each mother and each family. What matters is that a mother loves her children deeply and, in keeping with the devotion she has for God and her husband, prioritizes them above all else. 
   Recognize that the joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction."

-M. Russell Ballard

Meet Lydia

Time to make the introductions!

Lydia Larson

born September 29, 2014

at Advocate Condell Medical Center 

at 3:49 pm

8 lbs 5 oz

20.5 inches long (a good inch of a cone head)
4 days overdue

The Story: 

    Sunday September 28th-Brian and I went to church early for meetings we had with our callings. During the meetings I started to feel really crappy and my stomach was hurting. I thought it was probably just fake labor pains and pushed through it in our presidency meetings, then church, and finally my meetings after. And by the time I actually got home around 5:45, I found out that the missionaries were coming for dinner. I wasn't enjoying the "pressure" I was feeling and wanted to say not this time.. but I gathered my supplies and set to work on making lasagna. 

    The missionaries came over around 6:30-dinner was done around 7:15-we ate and then sat and talked about the church and about advice because one of the missionaries was leaving this area. By this point I thought my contractions were coming every 6 minutes or so and I just plastered my smile on my face and talked through pain. I kept losing my train of thought and couldn't focus very well at times-the missionaries took off around 9 pm.

    I had one more phone call about Young Women's I needed to make before bed. I told Brian that we may be having a baby the next day and that we should try to get some sleep after this phone call. It was during the phone call that I realized there would be no sleep for me that night. Reality set in that this was probably what labor felt like and I needed to pack my hospital bag.

Small "Thank You" that we gave the nurses and doctor. Extra gum for an Extra big thanks :)

   But then... contractions had me on all fours and I felt like I had to just crawl to relieve the pain.. and you could say I was a wee bit emotional because I was all the sudden pretty nervous.. I kept thinking, "Oh my goodness! This could be it!" 

   We got in the car and drove to the ER. I was so worried about being turned away that when we got to the ER and I skipped a contraction I broke down in tears because I thought they would tell me to go home.

The lady at the desk called Labor and Delivery and mistook my crying for pain and told them "she looks pretty miserable and in pain" which only made me cry more when I thought about them telling me, "Ha! You thought you were in pain? Go home until you really feel it." The imagination of a pregnant woman.. oh dear. 

   We were taken to Labor and Delivery around midnight where they checked me (I was dilated to a 5) and confirmed I was in labor. That brought a rush of relief that I wasn't crazy ha. 

    The nurse set to work on the IVs-which was more painful than the epidural. (I was stuck 3 times before they found one to work. I felt like a pin cushion and had bandages all up my arms before they were done with me). 

     Around 2 am the Anesthesiologist came in to give me an epidural. I was nervous for the pain because of how painful the IVs had been. He told Brian to leave the room and my heart kind of somersaulted. Brian said simply but very firmly, "I'm staying here, but I'll stay out of your sterile field." The Anesthesiologist was kind of taken back and said "We don't let anyone, not even husbands in the room when we put in an epidural, but okay." 

    I was so grateful to Brian at that moment for sticking by my side. Brian began asking a lot of questions and the Anesthesiologist asked if he was a medical student. It wasn't long before the Anesthesiologist was teaching Brian how he did the procedure while Brian helped lean me forward and hold my hands.  


    I felt the epidural almost immediately take to my right leg but felt absolutely nothing go to my left. I could feel everything. I should have spoken up and had him redo the epidural but I had no idea what it was supposed to feel like so I didn't say anything until the Anesthesiologist left. I told the nurse I could still feel everything on my right so they turned me to lean on my left and have the epidural drain to my left. It still didn't work. 

Brian massaging my feet and helping my right leg stay on the bed. (I had to hold it on with my left foot)

   My right leg was so dead from the epidural it would actually slide off the bed, but my pain wasn't gone at all.. just dulled. I could still feel every contraction on my left and so I didn't get much sleep at all for the next few hours. But Brian did. That boy passed out so quickly!

Texting the families!

   Because I was progressing so well on my own, I wasn't given any Pitocin to progress me faster. By 8 am in the morning they thought I would have had the baby but the epidural slowed down my dilation so they came and broke my water.  My wonderful friend Brittany Daniel came to the hospital and took pictures of the birth and we are so grateful to have caught such a precious time.

     Finally by 1:30 I was fully dilated and ready to push-except that my contractions hadn't gotten any closer than 4 minutes. So I would push... then have to wait 5 minutes for the next contraction in order to push.

Getting ready to push!

      Sometimes I would even miss a contraction and have a 10 minute wait. It left me to just.. chill.. and talk during the pushing. The nurses kept saying they couldn't believe that I was pushing a baby out while smiling. 

   After a few pushes the nurse brought me a mirror so that I could see that I was making progress and watch her head inch out. I was kind of freaked out that I would be grossed out or disgusted.. but I actually really liked the experience of watching my own baby's birth. In the beginning it made it worse to push though because I would push and see her head and then I'd watch it go back in during the break between pushing. I remember just praying and praying to Heavenly Father to let me see just a little bit of progress to keep me pushing strong.

   The other downside was that the baby was coming out posterior (face up or sunny-side up instead of face down). This usually causes more back labor (which I had) and mothers tend to push longer (which I did) than babies who are in the favorable face-down positions, it also explains a bit better on why I felt I had to be on all fours during contractions to relieve the pain in my lower back. 

   Anyway, Doctor Anand came in around 3:10 and the baby wasn’t quite in position yet. But what was amazing to me and to Brian was that Dr. Anand stayed. She grabbed my left leg and started cheering me on as well. And then another nurse came in and started to cheer. And I knew it was getting close. And I kept pushing even when they said I could stop and rest between contractions

    Finally at 3:49 pm.. after 2 hours and 15 minutes of pushing (and praying)...I felt her head move and the doctor’s hands were there. Brian had the biggest cheesiest smile on his face. More people were in the room and I could hear the “She’s almost there! There she is!” as different voices cheered me on... And then the official declaration of  “She is occipital posterior!” “She’s coming out face up!” “Keep pushing Anna!” “One more BIG push!”

   In the mirror I could see her. I could see my baby girl. There was a baby coming out of me! I felt her head slide out and gave her one more push and then.. I heard it. The cry.. her cry! My baby’s cry! 

    Then it was a whirlwind of movement and emotions. They put the baby on me immediately and as I looked at her as she screamed and screamed, I just shushed her and kept telling her, "Mommy's here.. Mommy's got you. I'm here sweetheart. I'm so happy you're here. I've got you." Over and over.

   Brian was leaning over me crying and talking to her as well. It was all so fast but I remember just feeling the spirit so strong in that moment. Heaven was here. Heaven was in that room with us. Heaven was our daughter in our arms.

      She calmed down for a couple minutes as I kissed her wet face. 

    As we cried and smiled through our tears, Brian said, "Look! It's our Lydia" At that moment I couldn't think of any other name we had even thought about and so I said, "Hello sweet Lydia." 


    She looked up at me with the biggest and most beautiful eyes and just stared at me. And I knew in that moment that she knew it was me. She knew I was her mommy.

    Holding that little girl sparked one of the most miraculous emotions I had ever felt. I could not believe she was mine. First off-she had a major conehead.. she had been stuck in my pelvis for 12 hours and had come out sunny-side up and was way squished. Not even kidding.. I thought I had given birth to a smurf. She had a black woman's nose and a furrow so swollen that she looked permanently concerned. And she had at least an inch of a pointed head with a huge bruise on top... 

BUT!!!

      She had dirty blonde hair, huge round blue eyes, her momma's lips, the most perfect little fingers and toes, and the sweetest spirit I had ever experienced. The room was so peaceful and I felt the veil extremely thin as Brian and I started our posterity together. 

    It is so hard to describe the emotions as you realize the responsibility that God is giving us as we hold his precious daughter. He trusts us to raise her well, he believes that we will take good care of her and raise her up in righteousness. What a huge responsibility that I am so grateful for.

    As I look at my precious daughter-I can't help but feel overwhelmed with love. It is such a huge testimony to me of God's love for us as his children. I love Lydia with everything that I am capable of. And I know that God loves us with everything that He is capable of.. which are wonderful and endless and eternal things. With God nothing is impossible and so his love is unfathomable to us. But isn't it wonderful to know that God loves us as much as we can imagine and more?

    I am so extremely grateful to have gone through this amazing experience with Brian. Not only was his medical knowledge wonderful to calm me down-I really felt like the nurses and doctor felt more comfortable with him being more involved with the delivery because of his knowledge. There were many times the nurses would jokingly tell him, "Brian-be the patient!" because he would be so quick to help and do things the nurses normally did. My recovery has been so much better than imagined because he is so willing to help me in any way possible. I seriously married a stud.

     After the placenta came out (now that is a weird floppy feeling..) my uterus started to contract down. This part was SO painful for me. It was like a never ending contraction. The nurses wanted to put Lydia back on me to nurse but I was afraid I would drop her because I couldn't hold still. I just needed to wiggle through the pain.

       The nurses press on your stomach to help the uterus go down and boy oh boy.. OUCH! That lasted about 15-20 minutes and when it was finally done.. the relief was incredible and I was able to hold my baby once again.

     The rest of the night went really well. The feeling in my right leg came back super fast and I was then able to move to our new room for the night.

    We probably got the most sleep we've gotten since she came that first night in the hospital. (We sent her to the nursery for a few hours to catch up from our exhaustion). I woke up at 4 in the morning wondering why they hadn't brought me my baby yet and was relieved when they walked in at that moment.

   This girl is quite the sucker.. if you notice in all these pictures she has her hands constantly in her mouth and wants to suck everything (Yes, nursing has gone really well because of that). She gave her self a huge pussy blister that first 2 hours of life. It is so much fun to see that she already has quite the stubborn personality. Oh how we adore this little girl!

  I was worried that Lydia would be an ornery baby for a while because it felt like she cried the first few hours of her life nonstop. The nurses kept reassuring me that she had just gone through a super traumatic experience and been stuck in my pelvis for 12 hours as well as was pushed out sunny-side up (her cone head can attest to all that) and that she would most likely not be this fussy.

   This has proven true. She is so much more easy-going than in the hospital and much more than I even expected. We are so blessed with such a beautiful and sweet little girl. She is very alert and is able to support her neck being only a day old!
 

 We left the hospital the next day and welcomed our darling girl into our home.

       Our arms and our home are just overwhelmed with love. It is an incredible and special feeling. Heaven is in our home right now with our darling little angel. I can't believe we are now a family of 3!!