First blog post ever!

I'll be honest. When people I know started having kids and writing blogs about them, I thought...who cares? Then I had a baby. Maybe I should have figured this out during pregnancy, when people were constantly asking super personal questions, but apparently there are some people who actually want to know EVERYTHING about my child. However, these people are not all 600+ of my Facebook friends, which is why I initially said I wouldn't be one of those parents who constantly posts pictures of my baby. Within days of Ellison's birth I realized that is easier said than done. Everything she does is so cute, how could I not post a million pictures of her? So anyway, I realize the majority of Facebook doesn't care about my labor and delivery, how breastfeeding is going, and what color my baby's poop was today. But some people probably do care. Ok...not about the poop. But if you are friends with any mommies on Facebook, you know that even that is not off limits for some people to post! So I thought I would start a blog too. Then anyone who cares how much my baby weighs or what cute thing she did last week can find out...and the rest of the world won't be bothered. At least not as much. Because let's be serious, I'm not going to stop posting pictures on Facebook. Everyone else is doing it! And if I have to look at their kids, they can look at mine. And if no one ever reads this, it will be here someday for Ellison to read. I don't really know how to do all kinds of fancy things to this blog, so it's going to be pretty basic...at least for now!

The Pregnancy...
If I could do it over again, I would have started blogging during my pregnancy. Maybe it's better I didn't, because there would probably be some haters out there...it was a pretty easy pregnancy. Not that I have anything to compare it to, but after hearing horror stories from so many women, it sure seemed easy. Maybe they just complained more?! I was nauseous at the beginning and got really uncomfortable at the end, but I think that is pretty standard. The only issue was that the little lady was so comfy she didn't want to be born. Maybe being "overdue" wouldn't have been such a big deal if I hadn't been off of work already, but since I was, I needed to get the baby out so I would have as much time home with her as possible!

 5 Weeks Pregnant (just found out)

40 Weeks and 4 days Pregnant (Ellison's birthday)

Labor & Delivery... (no gross details, I promise!)

I got induced the soonest my doctor would allow, which was 4 days past my due date. Of course everyone has these horror stories of inductions, but again, I have nothing to compare it to. It wasn't any worse than I expected pushing an entire person out to be. Ellison Katea was born about 10 hours and 39 minutes after the pitocin was started, and from what I've heard, that is a pretty fast labor for an induction. It still felt like it took about a week, because labor is definitely called that for a reason. Even with an epidural, it's no joke! But as cliche as it may sound, I forgot all about it as soon as they handed her to me.

Whatever was still going on down below, I know nothing about because I was so focused on my little girl. Anyone who doesn't believe in God has obviously never thought about the miracle of an entire person growing from basically nothing. Every part was there and in the right place, and it was the most wonderful moment of my life holding her for the first time! 2 things that surprised me: her size (7 lbs, 14.5 oz) and her thick black hair.

The baby that came out was definitely not the one I was picturing for all those months I was pregnant! She is so much more perfect than I ever could have imagined. I really expected her to be bald and weigh under 7 pounds. When I was 33 weeks pregnant I had an extra ultrasound done because she was measuring small, and I really didn't gain THAT much weight during pregnancy (about 25 pounds), so when she came out weighing almost 8 pounds, I couldn't believe it! The hair was obviously an even bigger shock. And for everyone who said it was going to fall out, you were (thankfully) wrong! It is getting lighter, but it's definitely not falling out. Yay!

Ellison's First 7 Weeks...

Even though Ellison's hair all stuck around, the weight didn't. Ellison lost an entire pound by the time we went in for our first doctor's appointment, which was the day after we got home from the hospital. It's typical for babies to lose weight after birth, but because she lost more than 10% of her initial weight, the doctor was a little concerned, leading to us having 3 appointments at the pediatrician in the first 4 days home. At least we learned pretty quickly how to get her in and out of the car seat with all that practice! Luckily, supplementing with a bottle for a couple days (I think she only actually got formula 3 times) led to her gaining almost the whole pound she lost back within the first week. They actually took us into a second exam room and re-weighed her on another scale at her second weight check because she had gained so much weight in 2 days...score!

Daddy giving Ellison her first bottle

3 Days Old

Looking at her 7 weeks later, I cannot believe we were ever stressed about this girl's weight! She is a chunky little monkey! At her one month appointment, she weighed 10 lbs, 0.5 oz and was 23 inches long. I still don't believe she could have grown that much in a month (she was 19.5 inches at birth) and maintain that they must have measured wrong initially! I know from experience that measuring a squirmy baby is not an easy task.

Chunky Monkey!

The last 7 weeks have gone by faster than I could have possibly imagined. I know people always say kids grow up so fast, but I didn't understand until I was experiencing it myself! Ellison already looks so different to me than the tiny baby we brought home. We have retired the newborn clothes and moved on to the 0-3 month and 3 month stuff. This made mommy pretty sad and a tear may have been shed...

What she likes!

In the last few weeks Ellison has become very interactive and is full of smiles, especially first thing in the morning. She loves her swing, which looks like a spaceship or a carnival ride because it is so big and elaborate. I can't tell whether it's the mirror on the underside that she is looking at, or the spinning animals, but something about that thing just mesmerizes her! Sometimes she likes her tummy time...sometimes not so much. She has been very strong since she was born (her head control has amazed us from the beginning), and I think it frustrates her that she can't move around much when she's on her belly. Her neck is getting super strong and I think she will be controlling her own head VERY soon! We realized this weekend that she can sit if you prop her just right in a chair!

Happy Girl!

What she doesn't like...

Angry version of Ellison

Ellison hates when we try to put her to bed at night. I have about 3 weeks left before I go back to work, and since I work nights and Jay will be home with her at night 3 days a week, we wanted to try to get her on a schedule already. Apparently, one month olds don't do schedules. We were trying to put her to bed between about 7-8 pm. She has decided that her actual bedtime will be more like 9 or 10 pm. At least once she finally goes to sleep, she sleeps for pretty solid stretches now. Usually she will eat around 8-9 pm, go to sleep within the next hour (or so), and sleep until 2-3 am, and then sleep for about another 4 hour stretch once she falls back asleep. Much better than being up every 2-3 hours like clockwork for the first month!

She also doesn't like bottles very much, at least not this week. We started giving her a bottle every few days after her two week checkup. At that appointment, we were advised to start with bottles every 2 or 3 days because I am going back to work and she will have to live off bottles for a good portion of the day when I'm working. It really wasn't a problem for that first month or so of doing it, but in the last week, we have started giving her a bottle once a day. This apparently is not to her liking, because she has been fussing a LOT when the bottle comes around! Hopefully she will start to like it soon, or she's going to be a very hungry girl when I go back to work.

More to Come...

I have so many more pictures, and so much more to say about my sweet baby girl. But this is getting VERY long, and someone is probably getting VERY hungry! I'm not going to fool myself into thinking I will post on here daily, or even weekly, but I'll do my best to update it regularly (ish). Being a mommy definitely does not leave a lot of time in the day to sit on the computer! It is definitely a full-time job...but by far the best one I can imagine having!!!