4 months old

Wow! I can't believe my lovely, happy girl is a third of a year old! What a milestone. She's really become her own little person with so much to say, and so much she wants to do!

Grace and I have been taking a lot of car trips out this month because there's been much Christmas shopping to do! She loves to be worn in te Ergo. Such a great invention. I have my hands free and she feels safe and secure against my chest. She can also look around at things all she wants. I get a lot of comments from stangers when I carry her this way. Mostly people make remarks about how cozy and snuggly she looks. I did have one gentleman say "she's so small! Was she premature?" um, no. I told her she was 4 months old. But yes, she is tiny. Still wearing mostly 0-3 month clothing. That's ok! Her big personality than makes up for her size!

Hanging out with Nana (my mom) during her recent visit. They love each other!

Grace is now rolling front to back with ease and can aallllllmost get from her back to her front. She practices this skill constanty.

Working on rolling during "tummy time"


Unfortunately, Grace's dad is a Mets fan! He's setting her up for a lifetime of disappointment!



Blurry but cute shot with Daddy


All ready for the Christmas get together at Great-Grandma's house!



We're best buddies :)

Happy 4th Monthday, my beautiful, sweet, funny, wonderful daughter! I love you more than you'll ever know.

Exactly 1 Year Ago Today...

My whole life changed. I received the wonderful and unexpected news that our second fresh IVF cycle had worked. I was pregnant. Complete and utter shock and delight do not begin to describe it. It's the best phone call I've ever received.
You see, I'd taken a pregnancy test two days prior and it was negative. Mr. E and I were crushed. We "knew" it hadn't worked. We had come to the frightening realization that we may never be able to have children. When the nurse called that day with the results I said "I already know it's negative, so please just call me back and leave a message with instructions about stopping meds and next steps for another cycle." I wanted to be able to listen to the message with Mr. E so we could be sad together.
Later that afternoon when Mr. E called from work to check in on me he persuaded me to listen to the message. And so I did, and instantly started screaming in disbelief. I called him back and just said "It was positive. I can't believe it. It was POSITIVE!" and burst into tears :) Happy, happy tears. Mr. E couldn't believe it either. He was laughing and shouting for joy. After Grace's birthday and our wedding, it was the best day of our lives.
I then went and took another pregnancy test. For the first time in my life I saw TWO LINES!



it's light, but it's there!

And so that's the story of how these three little blastocysts




Became this miracle girl!



Life is good!

Baking Christmas cookies

Today Grace helped me bake some cut-out sugar cookies.





She's such a good helper <3

Christmas preparations!

I haven't been this excited for Christmas in such a long time! Having a daughter to share the joy and excitement with makes it a whole new experience.

Last weekend we got our Christmas tree, and Grace had her first tree-trimming experience :)

Normally we'd trek to the Christmas tree farm but since we have a nearly 4 month old, we sent Mr. E to to the pre-cut tree place instead.



Good job, Dad!




Gil checks out the tree.

Much to my our amazement, we were able to get the tree moved into the house and into it's stand, all without G waking up from her nap. As a new parent, it's the little things that thrill you.

Grace wasn't quite sure what to make of the ornaments, but she sure liked looking at all the pretty, twinkling lights!







Decorating with my girl. Making a weird face.

I also began the tradition of giving Grace a special ornament each Christmas. My mom used to do this for my bother and me, and I always loved it. She'll get her ornament on Christmas morning. It's an old-fashioned mercury glass Santa.



Wearing some gingerbread pants from Nana :)



Big blue eyes.



Our stockings, hung by the chimney with care. Mr. E's flanks the other side of the fireplace.



All ready for Christmas!

Sleep is overrated

As I type this post, this is what I see when I look down. A little girl sleeping peacefully on my lap after a long night of waking up every hour. While Grace has never been a great sleeper (her longest stretch to date was 4 hours and she only did it a few times) we reached a new low this week when we tried to transition her from a swaddle sleep sack to a regular sleep sack.



Summer brand fleece sleep sack - what we've been trying to transition to.


G in her Halo brand fleece sleep sack with built-in swaddler.

The issue we're running into is that G's Moro Reflex is still strong and her flailing arms wake her up. We tried lying her on her back, sides, and even tummy, since we have an Angelcare monitor. Nothing has worked.

I hear that there are children her age and younger who are able to sleep through the night. Who are these kids and what are their parents doing differently, I wonder? I think the key element we're missing here is the ability to self-soothe. Since birth I've been nursing Grace to sleep, and then back to sleep web she wakens in the night. I believed, and still do, that this is the right thing to do for a baby her age. She's little and I want her to know her mom is there to comfort her. Recently I've been getting some pressure from my mom and others to begin "Ferberizing" (aka the "cry it out method") her ASAP, but frankly I'm not comfortable taking this approach until she's at least 6 months old. Actually, I'm not really sure how much I agree with the method at all. Several experts, including Dr. Sears, are strobly against the Ferber method of sleep training.

I think I need to read up more on this subject before I make my next move. For now I'm just going to have to tough it out and be thankful Mr. E gets up early on the weekends with Miss No Sleep so I can get some much-needed shut eye.

Fall Holiday pics

I realize I never did a post about Grace's first Halloween or Thanksgiving! How terrible. Better late than never, right?

Halloween 2011

Grace enjoyed her first Halloween as much as you'd expect a 2.5 month old to! We took a trip to the local pumpkin farm the weekend before, and then listened to music and got hot chocolate at our local coffeehouse afterward. A new fall tradition.



At the pumpkin farm



Listening to music



Not a fan of this song!



Our purdy pumpkins

On Halloween night, Grace visited the next door neighbors, Mr. & Mrs. Neuland, our neighbors across the street, Mr. & Mrs. Norris, and Great Grandpa! Then she helped hand out candy to all the cute Trick or Treaters.










"I love Halloween!!!"



Ready for bed

Thanksgiving 2011
Thanksgiving was spent at my parents house with my mom and dad, grandpa, Grandma H, Cindy, Kevin, Nick, Steve and Jess! It was a little hectic. Grace was a bit overwhelmed and decided she would not let anyone but mommy and daddy hold her. That was ok by us.


Playing with Daddy




Snuggling after a long day

Since I'm blogging from my phone I unfortunately can't upload the pics from our camera which were taken during our visit. Grace also got to see her friend Emily, who is my friend Sara's 18 month old. Grace was totally fascinated by her!



Heading home after an exhausting Thanksgiving visit

3 months old

Happy 3 Monthday, my beautiful baby girl! On Friday, our sweetie turned 3 months old.

This month, Grace not only started smiling a lot but she started laughing, too! She's such a happy, energetic, interested baby. She loves to "talk" to you and will happily do so for ling periods of time. She is exploring all of the different range of sounds her voice has, and loves to experiment. She hoots, coos, shreiks, gurgles and cackles. She tries very hard to mimic the sounds of adults and sometimes succeeds in doing so with amazing accuracy. It's obvious she's really trying hard to communicate. It's adorable and so much fun.











Grace has also become very animated and is trying her darndest to sit up, crawl, and walk. She's been rolling from belly to back for some time and is thisclose to rolling back to belly. She lives "tummy time" and can doing it for long stretches. She's also learned to grasp objects with her hands and bring them to her mouth - a skill she's quite pleased with, since she's teething.



kicking like crazy in her crib!



tummy time



chewing on her bib. Teething makes her drooly!

Grace also discovered two new favorite activities this month: bathtub time and using her play gym. She especially loves using the play gym while I perform some tunes on the viola. Good thing I still remember most of Suzuki books 1-4! It's certainly coming in handy now.



bathtime!


enjoying her activity gym

Happy 3 Months, Grace! I love you more than life itself.

Grace is growing; I'm struggling to keep up

I feel like the last few weeks have been a blur. The days speed by and before I know it it's time for bed again. But I haven't been feeling right for some time and things came to a head this weekend. I found that every little thing was bringing me to tears, and when I woke up in the morning I already felt so overwhelmed that I didn't want to begin the day.

Everyone tells you how amazing and wonderful having a baby is. And they're right! But what they don't tell you is that it's emotionally and physically draining. That combined with my recent Crohn's flare left me feeling completely out of whack. Sad, angry, TIRED, and confused and feeling guilty. I tried so long to get pregnant. It was the only thing I wanted for the past few years. Why couldn't I enjoy the fruits of my labor?

On Monday I met with my doctor, who diagnosed me with Post-Partum Depression/Anxiety. Given my mental health history, the diagnosis wasn't all the surprising. Tonight I will begin taking an antidepressant, and I'm seeking out a talk therapist as well. I'm feeling hopeful about these changes.

But even though life has been hard, I'm still so thankful I get to be a stay at home mom to my beautiful baby girl :) She is the light of my life.

my little sweetie


napping on the Boppy. Don't worry, she was supervised!