Lily Update: Month 3

By her third month of life, Lily really started doing some fun new things. It is amazing how big a deal those "little" achievments can be.

Here are Lily's top 3 for month 3:

• Batting her toys - It was so fun to watch her stare so intently at the dangling toys on her Baby Einstein, Around the World activity gym waiting for the perfect moment to bat one of the them and watch it dangle and sway in amazement.
  


• Holding her head up - Lily was getting really good at holding her little head up during tummy time. She was a strong little one, no doubt! I loved watching her eyes get so big and bright as she held her head up high.


• Giggles and Coos - Every once in awhile she decided she had something to say. They were the sweetest little girgling noises. We would try so hard to get her to do it again and again. We just couldn't get enough of those sweet sounds.

Here are some pictures from month 3:

9 weeks old

I love this one. I often found her like this when it was time to wake her up from her nap. She would work her little arms out of the swaddle. Little stinker.

Hey there Bright Eyes, 12 weeks old

12 weeks and holding her head up so well

Happy Baby. We love you so much Lily Grace!

Lily Update: Month 2

The two things I remember most about month two are sweet smiles and the wubbanub. Wubba huh? It's a pacifier. http://www.wubbanub.com/ Strange name, amazing results. It was loads of fun to really start getting some good smiles from our little dumpling. No more of this gas hogwash. Her sweet little personality was beginning to show and we were loving every minute of it. Schedule-wise things were still going great. Around 6/7 weeks we knew she was capable of making it through the night without the middle of the night feeding which usually occured around 3-4am. We decided to try giving her a pacifier when she woke up. It worked great and she would go right back to sleep. Wonderful and perfect right? Well, yes and no. We knew we were potentially starting a habit that would need breaking in the near future. We certainly didn't want to have to give her a pacifier when she woke in the middle of the night to get her back to sleep. We knew she needed to learn to put herself back to sleep. Well so much for that. Most nights it only happened once but some nights 2 or 3 times. It seemed like she was getting a little too addicted to the paci and was waking up when it fell out. We got adventurous and decided, no more paci and bring on CIO (Cry It Out). That didn't last long. There was a time or two that we let her cry for an hour and it nearly killed me. I was literally traumatized. My mom came to the rescue and found the infamous Wubbanub. Basically, it is a soothie pacifier with a little beanie baby-like stuffed animal stuck on the end of it. It is designed to help keep the pacifier from falling out. It helped and Lily seemed to really like it but we still found ourselves getting up to put it back in to help her get back to sleep. It's not so bad when she is two feet away from your bed but up and down the stairs is a different story. We moved Lily to her crib in her nursery upstairs when she was eight weeks old. Kind of scary. Since she was no longer nursing in the middle of the night I was ready to go for it knowing I'd have to do it at some point anyways. She did great and I think it helped us sleep a little better too. Lily just made things so easy for us. I am so thankful for that but worried that next time could be a totally different story. At her 2 month check-up she weighed 11lbs 5oz and was 23 1/2 inches long. She was in the 90th percentile for both height and weight!

Here are some pictures from month 2 of precious baby Lily's life:

Trying to hold her head up and doing pretty good for only 5 weeks old!

Bathtime with Daddy, 7 weeks old



Mommy's little sweetie, 8 weeks old

Last but not least, The Wubbanub

Lily Update: Month 1

At present, our sweet Lily is 7 1/2 months old but I want to go back and document the past 7 months and eventually get caught up. So here goes...

If I had to describe our baby girl with one word for her first month I would choose, Champion. She was our little Champ. If I had to describe myself with one word however, I'd choose Freak-O-Nature. Does that count as one word? But Lily Grace was just perfect. We chose to follow a schedule in which I woke her to nurse every 3 hours, tried to have a little wake time with her (except during the night when I put her right back to bed) and then down for a nap. The goal being that if I did this she would be sleeping through the night (7-8 hrs) by 6-8 weeks old. And it worked, like a charm. I like schedules and doing this made so much sense to me. I noticed pretty quickly that our parent's generation was quite unfamiliar with this way of doing things. For the most part they were used to feeding the baby when they cried or seemed to be hungry and letting them sleep at will. It was a little hard for me to be confident in doing things my way, being a new mommy and all. I certainly let being afraid of what others might be thinking bother me way too much. In reality they weren't even thinking the things I thought they were anyways. Sounds silly. It was. But I truly believed in this schedule thing. I believe it created a peaceful environment with a comfortable consistency for Lily and for us. At her two week check-up she had regained her birth weight and then some and had grown an inch and a half. Champion. Our doctor is pro schedule and since Lily was gaining weight well he suggested we let her go 4 hours at night for a week, then try 5 hours the next week. She did it with ease and by her 3rd/4th week she was consistently sleeping for 5 hour stretches at night.

Our schedule looked something like this:

7:00am wake, nurse

7:30am wake time

8:00am nap

10:00am wake, nurse

10:30am wake time

11:00am nap

1:00pm wake, nurse

1:30pm wake time

2:00pm nap

4:00pm wake, nurse

4:30pm wake time

5:00pm nap

7:00pm wake, nurse

7:30pm wake time

8:00pm bath & bedtime

10:00pm wake, nurse, back to bed

3:00am she woke for this, nurse, back to bed

And on and on and on and on.... to infinity and beyond.

Here are some pictures of sweet Lily Grace from her 1st month of life:

5 Days Old

Meeting Molly

1 Week Old

2 Weeks Old

4 Weeks Old

A few more pictures

Here are a few more pictures from the hospital. I wish so bad I would have taken more of family, friends, EVERYTHING. And next time, I'm calling the professionals! I love seeing all the beautiful pictures of our friends' little ones taken by professionals but it also makes me sad that we didn't do it! Next time!!!

So sweet. I think she's looking a little like her Daddy here.

Great "G-ma" with Lily

Some of the cutest little visitors we had!

Graham, Hannah & John John

One last nap before heading home!

She's in and ready to go. Let the journey begin!!

The Big Day

Monday, July 27, 2009

8:00am

So my due date was July 25th and I was getting a tad anxious. Okay, quite anxious. We had just recently moved back into our house (like a few days prior) and I was so thankful that we had made it through all the floor staining, cabinet painting and wall painting before Miss Lily decided to make her grand entrance into the world. Over the weekend I was feeling some pretty strong contractions but nothing real regular or close together. We knew it wasn't time to go yet. So on Monday morning as I sat at home alone with nothing to do but think (because I was too big and uncomfortable to do much else) I started to worry that I hadn't felt Lily move much. So I waited and tried to count her movements but still, nothing and I was worried. It got to me so much that I decided I'd just go to Mercy and have things checked out.

10:00am

When I got to Mercy I signed in and they asked me a few questions, one being, when my due date was. I told them it had already passed, that it was last Saturday. They seemed a bit more concerned at that point. They got me to a room and shortly after I was so relieved to hear that baby girl's heartbeat just pumpin away. I called Houston to let him know there was no need to come, everything was fine. But then they noticed I was having contractions about 2 minutes apart. I could feel them but they didn't seem very strong to me. They wanted to keep me hooked up and watch things for a little while. The nurses came in to check on me a while later. They told me they thought I should go ahead and have the baby since I was already here. Huh? You can do that? They acted like it was no big deal and left the room to call my doctor. I laid there a little stunned and before I knew it they came back and said my doctor agreed and that we'd just go ahead and have a birthday party today. I wish I could have seen my face. It took a little while for that to actually sink in. It's like I wasn't sure if this was real and really happening.

11:00am

Before I knew it I was being wheeled to my room. The delivery room. Yes, the one in which I would soon be giving birth. That one. I was so excited and it all just seemed to be happening so fast. I called Houston as soon as I got to the room. That was definitely a very cherished, memorable moment. I could hear the excitement in his voice when he said, "Really, today?". I could hear that he was smiling. Thankfully he wasn't too far away and arrived shortly after. They got me all hooked up and started the medication that would induce my labor. We called our family but told them not to come yet. We knew it could be awhile and possibly not until the early morning hours. I remember sitting there with Houston, holding his hand in silence. We were just trying to take all of this in. It was so exciting. We were beside ourselves.

2:00pm

We decided that since it would be awhile, Houston should go home and get our things. I didn't want him to leave but I was anxious to have our stuff. While he was gone, things began to progress quite a bit. The contractions were about a minute long and a minute apart and were getting quite painful. I was in the room all by myself and decided I would call the nurse. I was ready for the epidural. I hated doing it while Houston wasn't there but things were getting pretty intense and I didn't want to wait too long, you know. They had warned me that they would get pretty strong pretty quick and that I shouldn't feel like I needed sit there in pain to prove anything to anyone. So I didn't. Good thing though, things moved very very fast after that.

5:00pm

Time to push! Houston got back in plenty of time. I filled him in on the epidural experience. He said he was glad to miss it. I said thanks. (It wasn't bad at all, but I guess I didn't look at the needle either) Before we knew it we were pushing, I mean I was pushing! Funny thing, there was no sign of my doctor. Hello, I'm pushing. This baby is coming and where are you? I guess she just comes in for the very end. Everything went fine. Everything was wonderful. Houston saw way more than he wanted to and at 5:47 Lily Grace let out her first cry. Whew. She was here and she was perfect! It was all so surreal. It was the greatest experience of my life and I don't think anything could ever compare. Except doing it again!

7:00pm

After spending some time together we finally went to get the family. They were all very excited to meet Lily. They got to watch her get her bath and I listened to their oohs and ahhs from the bed. I was feeling pretty tired and a little out of it at times and getting sick some too. But it didn't even matter. All that mattered was that she was here and she was perfectly healthy and oh so beautiful!!!

Here are some pictures from our special day. WARNING: There are a few a bit graphic in nature.

All my bags are backed and I'm ready to go....

Just the two of us one last time.

Meeting my sweet baby girl.

First family photo.

" Hi there, I'm your Mommy."

What a perfect day for a perfect baby. Love you sweet Lily Grace Sneed. Welcome to the world!

The Bump

At the time I didn't realize how much I would cherish looking back at pictures of my stomach. Who wants to see my stomach? Huh, not me. But I get it now. It's the most precious thing in the world to have that little miracle growing inside you. Thankfully, I did get a few pictures of "the bump" but next time I will certainly get much more and possibly even go all out and do some professionally.

Here are a few of my very cherished "bump" pictures:

6 mths

6 1/2 mths

7 mths

8 mths

I can't believe that's my baby Lily in there. Oh what a miracle! I love you sweet baby girl!

Let's start from the beginning

I am feeling so far behind with Lily's baby book, pictures, writing down special milestones, blogging, etc. I have this endless list of projects and goals I want to accomplish and I think maybe that's the problem. There are so many things I want to do that I end up not doing any of them because I am so overwhelmed and don't know where to begin. It's time to get it together!

Every little moment and milestone with Lily has been and is so very special. We are loving it. I am going to try to play catch up and post some special things about Miss Lily starting from the beginning. I am excited to reminisce and share with you all things lily!

This first picture might be TMI for some, sorry, but I feel like it kind of captures just how excited I was to find out I was pregnant. Giddy is written all over this way too, up close and personal shot of my face. I took this picture wanting to remember how amazing and miraculous it felt reading the positive pregnancy results on the 7 million tests I took. I especially loved the ones that actually read, pregnant. Yes, I took every kind they make but this kind in particular was my favorite. I just kept taking them over and over again doing a goofy and giddy little jig each time I read the word pregnant on the screen.

Soon after the news began to set in and we told our family, I became a nervous reck. It seemed like all I could think about was something bad happening to our miracle. One afternoon, I ended up driving myself to the ER. It was the day before Thanksgiving, my Dr.'s office had already closed and I felt desperate to know that everything was okay. I was only about 5, 6 , 7 weeks along. I can't remember for sure. They checked me out, hooked me up to oxygen, the whole nine yards. Houston showed up and a nurse wheeled me to have an ultrasound. Oh and by the way, this little trip wasn't cheap. So the Dr. does her best to find our little one and can't see anything. So rather than making me feel better, this very expensive event ended up making things worse. I was reassured that it was just too early yadda, yadda. I did get to go back the next day to get the results to the blood work and was excited to see that my levels were good and greatly climbing. All that to say, we ended up having 5 ultrasounds to nourish my ever growing anxiety.

Here is a picture of the second ultrasound but the first one that we were able to see her. I was right about 8 weeks or so. We went to Ultrasound Unlimited to have this done to satisfy my need to know things were still going well. This was our first glimpse and it was amazing. We could even see her head and little, soon to be legs! What a miracle! If only I could have taken that cool machine home with me.

The third ultrasound we had done was at 17 weeks. We went back to Ultrasound Unlimited to find out the sex of the baby because we just couldn't wait. When she said it was a girl our eyes filled with tears and we were very excited. It was so wonderful to know and our love for her grew leaps and bounds that day. I went straight to Old Navy afterwards and bought a couple of little newborn dresses. I was so excited! A couple of weeks later we had our fourth ultrasound, Dr. ordered. It was the one the Dr. generally orders at around 20 weeks to check for certain things. Of course we were so excited to get to see her again and so soon! We invited our moms to share the excitement this time. Here is a sweet little profile pic from that day.

The fifth and final ultrasound was pretty exciting. One day on my lunch hour I quickly went to a maternity clothing boutique, Pickles & Ice Cream. Sweet little place. Too bad I couldn't afford to even touch anything. On my way out the very friendly woman behind the counter asked if I wanted to fill out a little card for a drawing. I was in a hurry to get back to work but I filled one out quickly and I didn't even notice what the prize was. A few weeks later I get a phone call from Stork Vision, another ultrasound place. They told me my name was drawn and that I won a free 4D ultrasound! Holy cow! I've never won anything from a drawing and this was probably the best thing I could ever win. I couldn't believe it. I felt so lucky and so blessed. The experience was kind of strange at the time but very cool too. It was another chance to know she was doing okay in there and we loved getting to see her in 3D (or 4D, whatever that means). We were so thankful and felt like the Lord was near, giving us this special surprise gift. Here is one of the pictures of our sweet baby girl from that day.

So we went a little ultrasound crazy. Part of the beauty of carrying a child is that you usually get what you want for those sweet 9 months!