Six Months of Parenthood in Retrospect

Happy 6 month birthday Sophie!

I thought to celebrate today, I would look back on all our favorite and most difficult times as parents.

Most difficult moments

• Sophie's 2 week and 4 week growth spurts when she was insatiable and feeding non-stop, and we were adamant about not introducing formula or pumping yet because we wanted Sophie's demand to regulate my milk production.
• Bottle training on Mother's Day, having to force a silicon nipple in her mouth despite her screams, and having to let her go hungry for eight hours straight before we broke her will and she finaly drank from the bottle.
• Our first experience travelling with Sophie when she was about four months old. She actually did really well on the plane rides, but what made it difficult was that I had to be seperated from Sophie for a longer period than ever before, and Jensen was left alone with her without all the comforts and conveniences of home, pretty much confined to a hotel room all day. Adding to the problem was that Sophie was still sometimes stubborn about drinking from the bottle. I have no idea how single parents do it every day, but my respect for them has increased ten-fold.
• Going back to work, not just because I had to be separated from Sophie, but because she became a night owl, and Jensen and I were sleeping only 4-5 hours a night for an entire month. This was even harder than the first month after she was born because at least during the first month, I could catch up on sleep during the day.

Favorite Moments

• Seeing Sophie for the first time after she popped out as she woke up to the world around her. The image of her blinking in the lights and turning from bluish to pink is forever imprinted in my mind! It was the most beautfiul thing I ever saw :-)
• Sophie's first real smile (not just gas) and first sweet cooing sounds around 4 weeks
• Sophie's first time peeing in the potty in response to our cue at 6 weeks, after which she gave a big fat grin.
• Sophie's little feet bouncing up and down when we twirled around a mobile above her
• Sophie's first time cracking up with laughter at her 3 month doctor's appointment. We were waiting for the doctor to come in, and we were playing peek-a-boo with her own reflection in a mirror. She loved it!
• Sophie figuring out how to roll over around 4 months. She worked really hard at this one, and she had a proud look on her face when she finally figured it out.
• Sophie doing her "happy wiggle" for the first time around 5 months. This is where she is laying down on her back and wiggles around her whole body with a huge-moon-eyed smile on her face
• Sophie discovering her favorite toy in day care - the Skwish, and holding on to, presumably all day. We handed it to her in the morning and she was immediately enchanted by it. When Jensen went down to visit her, she was holding it while her diaper was being changed. When I went down to pick her up, she was holding it while napping in a bouncy chair. Needless to say, we ended up buying one, partly for sentimental reasons.

And a funny oops-moment:

• Our day care provider asked me on Monday whether I was starting Sophie on solids soon. I told her that we were planning to start once she was six months, so she asked that we bring in some rice cereal to day care as well. I brought a small container of Rice Krispies and she gave me a funny look and said, "You gave this to the baby?" "Yeah," I replied. "no.....here, let me show you." And then she showed me a box of Gerber baby rice cereal, which was really more like a porridge. Oops. Why don't they call it rice porridge? This whole time, whenever people mentioned rice cereal as a good first food for baby, I've been imagining Rice Crispies! Anyways, she rather liked the Rice Krispies. We put a couple kernals in her mouth last night, and she seemed to find the new sensation of it melting in her mouth rather amusing.

First Week Back to Work

The first week back at work was pretty tough. On my first day back, Sophie decided to go on a hunger strike again against the bottle. I got a call from Jensen around 12:30pm calling for reinforcements because he and my mom were just exhausted from battling her all morning. Fortunately, I live really close to work and so I can easily make it home pretty quickly. I took over the bottle battle while Jensen took a much needed nap, and as I looked at her weepy eyes, I felt really guilty for deciding to return to work. She finally drank from it around 3:30pm. Then I went back to work to finish out the day, and we haven't had bottle issues since then.

Then that night, Sophie decided that since mommy wasn't home most of the day, night time = play time, and she was wide awake until 2:30am. Thing is she was so darn cute and I missed her so I wanted to play with her, but I knew I needed my sleep. For the rest of the week, her sleep schedule got all thrown off. Not only did she not want to go to sleep until past midnight each night, she would wake up around 3 or 4 in the morning for another feeding. She hadn't been doing that in over a month! We figured it was all because I was back at work, so she had figured out that she had to maximize her time with me by going to bed late and waking in the middle of the night. Sort of a sweet way to think about it that makes it less frustrating. :-)

I also noticed that my milk production started to decline as the week progressed, so Sophie may have been night waking more frequently because she wasn't getting enough at her bedtime feeding to last her through the night. Each day, the amount I was able to pump during the work day seemed to decrease by 2 ounces, so I'm going to have to start pumping more frequently. Nursing all weekend got me back up to speed, so I'm just going to have to be really intentional about keeping up my milk production. It is definitely a labor of love...

This week, we are starting to get a schedule down. Sophie and I go to bed around 8pm while Jensen finishes up some chores, and I wake up at 5am to feed her and to make it to work by 6am so that I can get home by 3pm. Jensen comes into work around 9pm and gets home at 6pm. This way, my mom is only alone with the baby for about 6 hours, and I get home early enough to help prepare dinner. We're trying it out this week, and we'll see how it works.

God is good to me

I am just amazed at how blessed I am. It shocks me sometimes as I wonder why God has been so gracious to me. Here's a rundown of unexpected blessings this year:

I had an awesome boss during training and I have an awesome boss now. After 2 years of not so great bosses at my old job, I appreciate them all the more. Both of them were incredibly supportive of me as a new mother, helping me to get an extended maternity leave and giving me a lot of flexibility. I have also been assigned one of the better technologies (antennas). It's one of the most straightforward and well-organized technologies here, so it makes my work pretty easy in comparison to some of my co-workers. And now that I am back at work (just started on Monday), I have my own office! Most people have to wait until they are Primary Examiners to get their own office. I thought I was going to get an office mate when the next new person came in, but I just found out that they are putting her in the office 3 doors down from me! It's really really nice because I am pumping milk right now, and so having a private space is a must. Otherwise, I'd have to pump in a bathroom stall. I thought maybe my boss somehow knew I was going to be pumping and arranged the offices this way, but I never mentioned that to him...

All this to add to the fact that I live a mere 15 minute walk from the office, work at the same place as my husband and get to have lunch with him, have a beautiful baby that is growing and thriving and already sleeps through the night, and have my mother here helping to take care of the baby. How many people have it this good?

All I can say is Thanks be to God.

Back to Work

I'm back at work today and completely unable to concentrate. I kind of don't remember how to do anything anymore, and I keep going to my picasa webalbums to look at pictures of my little sweetie. Missing her already....

Our First Mother's Day

When I first realized that Mother's Day was coming up, I was super excited to think that for the first time in my life, I would be honored among all the other mothers all over the country. There really is a sweet connection among mothers. I find myself far more excited to see other newborns now than before we had Sophia. It brings back the memories of the struggles and the exciting moments you have walked through before. On Monday, Sophie made a big messy poop all over her clothes and car seat while we were in the doctor's waiting room, and all the ladies smiled a knowing glance at me. I could tell they were reminiscing about those days.

But Mother's Day ended up being a bit stressful because it was the day that Jensen and I decided we were going to persevere and get Sophia to drink from the bottle. We had trained her on the bottle starting at 6 weeks old, and she took it without much of a fight, so then we didn't worry too much about it after that. Big Mistake! After a month of exclusively breastfeeding, Sophie had developed a very strong preference for the breast, and refused the bottle all last week. On Saturday, we tried 2 feedings in a row to get her to drink from the bottle before her kicking and screaming did us in, and I called our doula for advice. She told us you just have to be persistent, and that there really isn't an easier way. So Sunday came, and Jensen made me a Mother's Day breakfast, and then it was time to get to work. Jensen tried to feed her with the bottle, and Sophie kicked and screamed and spit out any milk that went into her mouth. Her bib and onesie were soaked, and she finally exhausted herself and fell asleep. Repeat 3 times. Finally, about 8 hours later during the fourth attempt, she was hungry enough to drink from the bottle, and she chugged it down!! Praise God! What a relief! We wanted to dance and jump up and down, we were so happy. Two hours later, we gave her the bottle again, and she still drank even though she wasn't desperately hungry. We ended up running out of expressed breast milk, so then I went ahead and took her to feed from the breast. She was so excited the minute I took her into my arms and put her into that familiar cradle position and opened her mouth with eager expectancy. haha...it was so cute.

So now, she feeds on the bottle once a day when her daddy gets home from work without putting up a fight. This has been our first big power struggle with our baby (we didn't have to do much sleep training...she just started sleeping through the night regularly on her own!), and it feels great to have gotten past it.

In other news, Sophie is growing like crazy. She is over the 90th percentile in both length and weight for her age, which is pretty surprising considering she is only fed breast milk and doesn't exactly have big-person genes! She's pretty much the size of a 5 month old. I keep telling her to stop growing so fast. It makes me sort of sad because I like her all nice and tiny, but at the same time, there are certain benefits to her fast growth. Not only is she growing more quickly than normal in size, I think she is also developing in other ways earlier (i.e. already sleeping through the night without any night feedings, able to laugh and squeal with delight).

Welcome to the World, Julia!

My sister gave birth to her beautiful little girl on April 26, 2008 at 5:46 am. Meet Julia Emde. It was a long and hard labor (almost 15 hours in the active stage), and I am so proud of her for getting through it. I can't wait to meet my little neice, and it will be fun to see how the cousins will interact. What fun it is to watch your family grow!

One Proud Mama

I love taking Sophie out and about in the baby carrier so that her head pops out. I see all these people stop, look and smile. I see them tap their friends/wives/husbands on the shoulder to say, "Look at the cute little baby!" I notice that they just can't help but smile and laugh upon seeing such a sweet little face, and it makes me happy to see that she is already bringing joy, not only to us, but to the world around her.