7 Months!

Every month seems to go by faster than the last. Georgia's 7th month has been as fun as the previous six. We finally got her in for her 6 month check (3 weeks late). She is a petite little thing. It's throwing her doctor off... I had to explain to him that Max is really skinny too. We agreed that she is definitely eating enough... The girl eats like a little piggy. :) We are going to try to fatten her up a little bit over the next couple months anyway. She loves her baby food and will eat pretty much anything you put in front of her. Her favorite are anything with berries and squash.

We got her into her room and she is now officially sleeping through the night. I've been working to get it decorated. I painted an old dresser that has been in Thayne's family for a long time and it turned out awesome. I can't wait to get the room finished completely... It should be done within the next couple of days.

She still hates being on her tummy. She is sitting up without hesitation now and prefers to sit rather than lay down. She loves playing with Max and his crazy ways of getting her attention. He has started to call her "Sissy". He picked that up from the neighbor boys that call their little sister the same thing. It's pretty cute. He even told someone the other day that her name is not Georgia anymore, it's just Sissy.

We all love how her giggles and cooing have reached a new level and her little voice is just the cutest thing I've ever heard.

She is still the most mellow and happy baby I ever could have imagined getting. :) We are obsessed!

6 Months!

I can't believe that we are half way through the first year. It has gone way too fast but it is so much fun to see her grow and develop her fun little personality.

She is sitting up now. She's still a little nervous about it but she's getting more steady every day. She also has teeth now. That's right, after 3 months of teething she finally had 2 teeth break through on the same day. Sheesh. No wonder we haven't been getting much sleep lately. She's also scooting around on the living room rug pretty well. Just on her back though... She is still not much of a fan of being on her tummy. She may be a late crawler if that doesn't change.

Thayne fed her some banana squash for the first time today and she loved it! She couldn't get enough. She has also discovered how delicious graham crackers are.

Her favorite game to play is for me to hold her up above my head and bring her down to face while making noises at her, then lifting her up in the air. She smiles and giggles the most at me when we play that game.

This week we are putting together her room. Up to this point she has been sleeping in a bassinet next to our bed. It's time for her to have her own room. She needs her crib too, she's starting to get a bit big for her bassinet. I don't think she's totally comfortable in it anymore.

I'm looking forward to what the next 6 months will bring.

5 Months

Baby girl is 5 months old now. I'm posting this late because we went on vacation the day after she turned 5 months and all I got around to doing before we left was taking this photo. I was going to write this post while we were on vacation but my laptop flipped out and wouldn't let me upload the photo.

For vacation we went to Alabama. We drove there and back and it made for a very long 12 days but it was so much fun. Georgia had a lot of first time experiences. First time out of state, first time in the ocean, first time in a hot tub and swimming pool, first time meeting Papa Albert (Thayne's grandpa), first time meeting Uncle Jim & Aunt Meghan (My brother and his wife). I'm sure that there are probably others but my tired brain is still on vacation.

Georgia is getting to be more and more interactive every day. she coos more and coos in response to people talking to her. She is starting to sleep less during the day and become more alert and she continues to become more comfortable with Max and his craziness. She has started to really like her little baby toys that rattle and have little tags for her to play with. She has started reaching for things and people. In the grocery store in Alabama she grabbed a candy bar of the shelf. Too bad we wouldn't let her eat it. She has gotten close to being able to sit up on her own but still tips over pretty quickly. She figured out how much fun it can be to splash in the bath and giggles at herself when she does it.

She is still so much fun for all of us and I think she gets prettier every day.

I can't wait to blog about her first Halloween in next months post :)

4 Months

I can't believe how fast the past 4 months have gone by. Baby girl is growing like a weed. At her 4 month check up she was 7th percentile for weight and 74th percentile for height. We just make tall, scrawny babies :) She is still just a happy, mellow baby. She's getting more comfortable with Max and his craziness. Instead of looking at him like he's crazy all of the time she has started smiling and cooing at him. He loves it. She coos at us all the time and I really love all of the new noises she making. She can now roll from back to belly and from belly to back. She really hates being on her belly and immediately starts fussing at us and trying to roll over. She is also starting to try to sit up on her own. She has become infatuated with her feet. She almost always has one in each hand and occasionally puts her toes in her mouth. She is still teething but hasn't had any teeth break through yet. She like to suck on her bottom lip to make her gums feel better. We've started trying out new foods. She likes rice and oatmeal cereals and sweet potatoes, prunes and bananas. Whenever the TV is on her attention goes right to it... She gets mad at me if I set her down somewhere that she can't see it if she knows its on.

She keeps getting to be more and more fun and we all keep falling more and more in love with her. Life is good :)

3 Months

Baby girl is 3 months old now and just getting to be more and more fun. It is great to see her little personality developing. She is so happy and mellow. She eats well, sleeps well and loves to hang out with us. She giggled at me a couple weeks ago and we've been trying like crazy to get her to do it again but she's being stubborn and won't give in. She still gives us unlimited smiles though and we all love that. She starting to figure out that she has a voice. Just this morning after I fed her she laid there and cooed at us for at least 5 minutes straight. It sounded like she was trying to sing to us. This last week she also started to notice that she can control her hands. I watched her look at them with amazement as she moved them around. :) She loves to go on walks at night after it's cooled off and the street lights are all on, she becomes hypnotized by them. She's growing so fast. Getting longer and longer and her cheeks get squishier and squishier. I think she might be teething. She drools almost constantly and loves gnawing on anything she can.

Max is still crazy about her. I keep thinking the excitement for him will wear off but it sill hasn't. He loves to show her off everywhere we go. He still wants to hold her, hug, kiss and pet her all the time too. He loves helping with her in any way that he can (he's great at taking her diapers to the trash... Score!). He's made an incredible big brother and I'm excited to see them grow up together as close friends.

The excitement for Thayne and I hasn't worn off either. Or even the older kids. We could just sit and hold her and look at her all day. I love sewing cute little clothes for her and making hair bands and girly stuff. Having a girl has been more fun for me than I expected it to be. She has stolen each and every one of our hearts and already has us all wrapped around her little finger.

2 Months

Time is just flying by. Baby Georgia is 2 months old now, and doing so well. At her six week check up she had already grown 2.5 inches and gained 2 pounds! It looks like she is going to be long and scrawny just like Max.

 She is still sleeping really well, some nights even sleeping all the way through the night. She loves to eat. She would eat all day if I let her. She still sleeps a lot during the day too. She usually only stays awake for stretches of 45 minutes to an hour.

She loves to smile at us now and Max thinks it's the greatest thing in the world. I do too. Max is always right in her face trying to get a smile out of her and then he screams and announces "my baby sister smiled at me!". It's pretty cute. Both of them.

We are pretty much settled into our new routine. It feels so natural. Here's to another month of bliss!

Blessed

We blessed Georgia on Sunday. It was such a great day. I love the special day that we get to have with friends and family celebrating what a blessing it is to have Georgia in our family. There were so many people that came for the church meeting and a lot of them came over to our house afterwards for lunch. It was a nice relaxed day. Georgia was in a great mood, but then again, she almost always is.

I was going to make her dress but I was digging through the clearance rack at Target one day and found this little white tulle dress. The smallest size they had was 24 month but that turned out to be perfect with all of the alterations I made to it.

I cut off the white straps and took in the side seams a few inches. Then I added the pink straps and tulle cap sleeves, the ruffled pink waistline and the rosettes. And of course she needed a headband to match. It turned out just how I had pictured it in my head so that was a huge bonus. :)

Georgia met Great-Grandma McMillan. She is my grandma on my mom's side. It was nice to get a visit with her. We don't see our extended family often enough.

We got a photo of the four generations since we were all together. Georgia and me in the middle, my mom on the left and my grandma on the right.

It was the perfect day. At the end of the day I sat feeling blissful and content. I am so incredibly blessed to have the family and friends that I have and especially that I get to be sweet Georgia's mom.

One Month

I can't believe Georgia is already through her first month. It has gone so fast. It has been a month of bliss. Seriously. My life feels so complete these days. We are still making adjustments and settling into a new routine but everything just seems to be perfect.

Georgia is doing great. She is such a happy baby. She loves to cuddle and be rocked, bounced or just have some kind of movement going on. She loves to go outside and go on walks. She hates being in her car seat unless she's in the car and it's moving. She eats really well and she sleeps really well. She typically only wakes up once a night.

Max is still completely excited about her. He tells everyone he sees about his new baby sister. He is always wanting to kiss and pet and hug her. He loves holding her and brushing her hair. He hates to hear her cry and is always so quick to let me know when she starts fussing. He wants to make sure she is happy all the time. He is happy to share his toys with her (we'll see how long that lasts) and he wishes that she could sleep with him in his bed. He calls her "sweetheart" and "princess" when he is talking to her.

The older kids all love her too. Tristyn and Kassidy especially can't get enough of her. Tristyn is living with us to work with Thayne for the summer so she gets a lot of "bonding time" with Georgia. They have a special sister bond thing going on and it makes me so happy to see it. One of the happiest things in my life is seeing how much Thayne's older kids love Max and Georgia. I'm so happy to see that my kids have older siblings who love them and will help protect them. I try to thank the older kids often for being so good to the little ones but I just don't think I'll ever really be able to express how grateful I am to them.

Over the past month we have discovered that Georgia has completed our family. She is the perfect fit.

Georgia's Story

This little girl's story turned out so different from what I expected. She just had to show me that things were going to go her way and she was going to keep surprising me. It was like that from the very start of the pregnancy. I started feeling sick almost from the very beginning and it was really bad AND it lasted the entire pregnancy. Not at all what I expected after my experience with Max. I kept telling myself I couldn't compare the two but I thought that it would at least be similar. Georgia proved me wrong.

So, after 40 weeks of feeling sick and exhausted beyond belief, I thought that I was going to have this baby in April. At least within a day or two of my April 26th due date. Georgia proved me wrong again by showing up 13 days late on May 9th.

I thought that labor would go pretty fast. I was in labor with Max for 2.5 hours. Georgia proved me wrong again by laboring with me for about 12 hours. Rude awakening for me. Nothing happens the way you think it will.

But it was still worth it.

 

It's May 8th. I'm 2 days away from my 42 week mark and I have an appointment with my midwife. At 42 weeks she has to do an ultra sound, non-stress test and consult a physician. Just to make sure everything is alright and the baby is still healthy. If everything checks out they let me wait another week to see if the baby comes naturally, if not, they transfer me to the hospital and have me induced. At 43 weeks my midwife can no longer deliver the baby at home and I have to be induced at the hospital. We were on a time crunch. And, I was just ready to not be pregnant anymore and have my baby. At 41 weeks we tried stripping the membranes but I wasn't dilated at all so we couldn't. That was a disappointing day. We were hoping that by the time we got to 42 weeks I would be dilated at least enough to just strip the membranes. Thankfully I was. My midwife felt confident that it should naturally induce labor. We had done all of the tests and the ultra sound and everything checked out . We did see that baby was posterior so my midwife told me of some different exercises I could come home and and to try to get the baby to turn around the right way. We left her office and the contractions started soon after. I went home and started trying to get my posterior baby to turn around.  Thayne went back to work and took Max with him so that I could have some quiet. After a couple hours of regular contractions I decided it was real labor and I needed Thayne to come home and my midwife and her assistant should probably come over too.  Thayne came home and brought Max in to see me before taking him to the neighbors. Max climbed up on my bed, gave me hug and said "Good luck, Mommy". It was so sweet. When Thayne got back from the neighbors I had him start setting up the birthing pool. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to use it or not but figured I would try it out and see how I liked it. Turns out it really helped with the contractions. I spent at least 8 hours in that pool that night. I'm not sure I would have made it through the entire labor without it. A couple hours went by and my contractions started changing and I started to feel like I needed to push but If I pushed it felt like I was pushing against a brick wall. I had my midwife check me. She thought that it was probably just feeling that way because my water hadn't broken yet. She said she could break my water and I would probably have the baby within about 10 minutes. She got her stuff out and ready and then she checked me and was shocked to tell me that I was still dilated to a 2 and baby was still posterior... the same as when I had left her office that afternoon. Oh man. We all settled in for a long night. The contractions became unbearable. The urge to push was unbearable. Pushing was unbearable. If I could have quit, I would have. I went back and forth between the pool and my bed. Baby was doing fine through it all. It didn't seem to even phase her. After a couple more hours I had my midwife check me again. This time I was dilated to a 5... enough for her to break my water and that would hopefully allow the baby's head to put the right pressure on my cervix to get the rest of it to move more quickly. But, apparently baby's head was in a strange position because things were still going pretty slow and pretty unbearable. A couple more hours went by and when I really felt like it was do or die I had my midwife check again... dilated to an 8. Oh man. Then she told me she could try manual dilation where she would actually push on my cervix and massage it and try to get it to dilate the rest of the way. She warned me that it would be pretty painful but I told her I didn't care. I needed this labor to be over so I wanted her to try anything she could to help it go faster. Thankfully my cervix was ready to dilate because as soon as she pushed on it, it started pulling back and opening. It was excruciating but then it was time to push. It took about 10 minutes of pushing to get her out (with Max it was less than 5 minutes). I could tell that this baby was bigger than Max had been. What a difference almost a full pound makes! But that moment when the baby finally came out I felt relief like I never have. They handed her up to me and I was instantly in love. After a minute Thayne and I held her up to see if she was a boy or a girl. It was so exciting to end the suspense and finally know. And even though all through the pregnancy I had said that I didn't care if we had a boy or girl, in that moment that I saw she was a girl I knew that she was the perfect fit for our family and we were meant to get a girl. Thayne and I sat on our bed holding her for an hour and a half. We were blissfully exhausted. I showered, Thayne and our midwife gave Georgia her first bath and weighed her and started doing all of the check up stuff with her. She looked great. Perfectly healthy and perfectly beautiful. She came at 2:01 am, weighed 8 lbs 8 oz, and was 20.5 inches long. It was the longest and hardest night of my life. But it was one of the best too. It was tough getting her here but now that she's here she has been the easiest and happiest baby. She fits into our family perfectly.

 Our neighbor was so great to take Max for the whole night. None of us were expecting for it to turn into an all night thing. She let him stay in the morning so Thayne and I could get some sleep. When she brought him over she took the pictures above of Max meeting Georgia. He was so excited. He had been asking me every day if it was the day I was going to have the baby. He had also insisted through the whole pregnancy that he was going to have a baby sister and if anyone suggested even just the possibiliy of us having a boy he would get mad and instantly put that person in their place.

 

Max has done really well. I was worried that there would be some jealousy or that he would start acting out or take advantage of the fact that there's a baby taking so much of my attention right now but he has been incredible. I mostly only have to worry about him helping too much. He wants to hug her and "pet" her and kiss her all the time. 

She is one lucky girl to have such a great big brother. I hope it will last and that they will grow up as close friends.

Thayne was so great through the whole thing. He hated that he couldn't do much to help me but he stayed with me the whole time and encouraged me and told me I could do it when I thought I couldn't. He is such a hands on dad and I never have to ask him to help out with the kids. He is so cute with Georgia and I can tell he is excited to have another daddy's girl.  

We named her Georgia Heather. Georgia after me because Thayne call me George (long story) and Heather after my close friend. Heather has been there for me for a long time and I most definitely would be a different person today if it weren't for her and her influence in my life. She stepped in and cared about me and gave me some direction when I was a bratty, lost teenager. She has been there for the most important things in my life and it just seemed right to give my daughter her name. Hopefully I can raise Georgia to live up to that name and be as amazing as Heather is. 

This girl is destined for great things and I'm so grateful that I get to be a part of her life. I could not be happier that she is mine.

Anticipation

It's been forever since I blogged. So much has happened the past few months. I started a couple different posts but never finished them so I've been using Facebook as my only means of keeping everyone updated. I really want to be better about it but I can't really say that I will be in the next few months.

This baby's due date is now only 11 days away. Holy Cow! I completely expect it will come within a day or two of the due date but the anticipation is starting to get to me. I went to bed exhausted 2 hours ago but just laid there thinking about everything baby. Will it be a boy or a girl? I can't wait to see Max's first reaction to it. What will the birth be like? What will it look like? Do I really have everything I need or is there something I'm forgetting? How am I going to manage Max and all of his stubborn independence PLUS a newborn? And everything else that has anything at all to do with this baby.

Giving birth to Max was the most amazing experience of my life and I am so excited to be doing it again with a new little spirit. I had Max at the hospital... I'd wanted to have him at home but I just didn't know that much about home birth and a friend had referred me to a really great midwife who delivered at St. Marks. It was more incredible than I could have ever imagined but the one thing that would have made it better would've been to have him at home. I set out to make sure that this time around I would be able to have that. It just feels right to welcome our newest family member into the world in our home. It's so personal and home is where our big scattered family always comes together and reconnects so it seems completely natural that it's also where we should connect with this new baby. I had another friend refer me to a home-birth midwife. She is great and has a ton of experience and knows exactly the kind of experience we want this to be for our family. I am so excited to be doing this. It's been a really tough pregnancy but as I get closer and closer to the end I know that the past 8 months of nausea and exhaustion have been totally worth it. I feel this little spirit becoming stronger each day and I know that it is meant for our family. I promise to at least post photos of the new bundle of joy and I'll try to be better about regularly posting but I can't make any promises for the next couple months. Here's to our next big adventure....