The Nursery

This post is long overdue. I know.

The nursery that I spent so much time dreaming about, planning for, & creating won't even be slept in by our little lady. Why? Because we are moving.

Shocking, I know. It's so sad, but also exciting. We finally have direction for this next year of our life that we have been praying for the past couple of months. Here are the details of all that:

We came to Buchanan originally because I had a great paying nanny job, a 2 bedroom loft apartment for an amazing price that I could walk to work from, & it was close to Andrews University [a potential grad school option for Matt]. He applied ONLY to Andrews last fall after we found out we were pregnant because we didn't want to move with a newborn if he got into a school far away. Andrews isn't working out for this fall. I won't go into details, mostly because I would say very unkind things about the unorganized people in the admissions office there.

Anyways - we are leaving this sweet, sweet town & heading to Greencastle, Indiana. 40 minutes west of Indianapolis. & moving into a 2 bedroom, 2 floor rental house on my in-laws' property [rent free. thank you parents]. It will be great for us financially & for Matt academically as he will take a couple classes this fall & next spring to make his application for grad school more competitive. It would also be great if he could get into one of the physical therapy programs in Indianapolis because we wouldn't have to move AGAIN. So it's a good location for us. Socially... not so much. We will be a 1/2 mile from Matt's parents, which will be nice, but also a little overwhelming [for me]. We are also leaving behind an AMAZING church [Grace Church in Granger], & AMAZING Bible study/small group who we love spending time with, & other AMAZING friends within 20 minutes of us. It will be sad to say goodbye to those people, but we know that this is an open door that we have to walk through.

So I get to re-design Jori girl's nursery once we move. & can even do some painting!

Here is the original nursery. Once we are settled & organized, I'll do a nursery take 2 post of her NEW room. What a lucky lady, 2 nurseries in the first 2 months of her life. What a spoiled girl :]

To the left of the door: Cutie "J" sign made by the lovely Stacey Dalby & hooks for diaper bags & the Solly wrap [Thank you Alyssa Allen]

Above the closet: Sign made by Matt's Aunt Jennifer - she even hand made the baby booties!

We got this changing table/dresser for $100 on Craigslist. They even delivered it for us! The baskets on top hold shoes, socks, & hair accessories. All cloth diapering supplies are just under & to the right of the changing table. There is enough storage space for most of her clothes & receiving blankets/burp cloths/swaddle blankets.

The play corner! The tree was a gift from the wonderful Brenda Eubank [my second mom] & was up at the baby shower. The little bins hold toys, the wooden crate holds special books, & the pink trunk holds nothing at the moment, but was a cute little book shelf!

These signs hang between the windows. The top sign was a gift from our good friend Jenna Jones [we love it!!!] & the bottom sign is a chalkboard sticker put on a piece of wood. We are using it to document her growth every month - those pictures are coming!

Re-used this lamp that was at the reception of my best friend's wedding. Thanks!

The crib. I hand made the banner & owl pillow that you can barely see sitting in the crib. & no she doesn't sleep in this yet.. so no one freak out that there is a blanket & stuffed animals in her crib. 

So that's the nursery! I'm slightly nervous about how we will fit it all in her new room that will be MUCH smaller... but it just gives me a chance to be creative. 

Any paint color ideas? 

Until next time...

Is This Real Life?

I have a 4 month & 2 day old baby. She will be 1 month tomorrow. Shouldn't we throw her a little party or something? Cupcakes & balloons? I guess we are attending a wedding tomorrow, so I'll consider that half her party & half a party for the soon to be Mr. Cam & Mrs. Dayle Brundage.

I really want to continue with this whole blogging business - & now the focus will be on fitness & health while parenting, other mommy things, crafts we do together, & general recordings of our life.

Now that I have 4 weeks of learning how to be a mom to our sweet girl under my belt, I feel like I'm ready to start writing again. I feel amazing. I expected to be a walking zombie for the first couple months, but I really took to heart the whole "sleep while they sleep" advice & take morning & evening naps with my lady & spend the afternoons awake just looking at her & doing other non-important things [AKA house work, taking a shower, watching TV, etc etc]. It just feels natural. What the heck was life like before this little beauty made her entrance into our life? I can't even remember what I thought about or did before pregnancy/her arrival. Actually I can... i dreamed of future babies while taking care of my little Henry that I nannied for. That was not nearly as good as it is now.

Anyways.

Here a few thoughts on our first four weeks as a family of three & random "accomplishments" in Jori's tiny life.

1. Babies are incredible. They are tiny humans. With all their bones & organs so tiny & little crammed into their tiny little body frames. Kind of mind-boggling that this little thing will be as big as me some day!

2. Babies heads are huge. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but Matt & I joked that her head must weigh at least 3 of the 7 pounds that she was born with.

3. Breastfeeding... not as easy as it seems. It seriously takes practice. I won't go into details on the frustrations we had, but golly I wish someone would have warned me! If anyone wants the inside scoop, just ask & I'll gladly share with you.

4. Jori is an eating machine. She weighed 7 pounds 1 ounce at birth. Weighed 6 pounds 12 ounces when we left the hospital. In 2 weeks she gained back more than her birth weight & was up to 8 pounds 3 ounces. Her pediatrician was impressed. I'm curious as to how much she weighs now.

5. Jori sleeps like a superstar in her little pack n' play bassinet next to our bed at night & like a little cuddler in my arms during the day. Until she stops sleeping well at night, all her naps will continue to be in my arms [or more of them]. Those are my favorite times. I know it won't last forever, so I'll take every baby cuddle I can get while I can. Dishes... what dishes?

6. I miss my husband. Our little girls is my favorite person ever [second to my husband] but sometimes I just miss the times where he would come home from work & we could go for a run together, cuddle on the couch while watching The Voice, & go out on dates with ease. Even going to bed at the same time is uncommon, which we did 98% of the time before her arrival. I would never wish Jori away, but it will be nice when we can have a date night without my worrying about her waking up crying, needing to eat, or having to change a diaper.

7. I'm not sure how I'll ever send Jori to school. On the rare occasion I put her down during her day time naps in order to do some things around the apartment, I miss her like crazy. Yes, I will be that mom who obsesses over her child. Shut up. :]

8. We have more clothes than we can get her into. She has started growing out of newborn sizes & that is incredibly depressing. Some outfits she only wore once! So a tip to all you pals without kids who buy gifts for new moms... go for bigger sizes!! Or at least give a gift receipt if you buy newborn size so that moms can return the unworn items :]

9. 2 more weeks & I SHOULD be cleared for physical activity. Hollaaaaaaaaa.

10. 2 weeks post baby I had lost 20 of the 30 pounds I gained. I think I'm close to my pre-pregnancy weight... & I am determined to get my 6-pack back! Baby boot camp, here I come.

11. Jori has started little grins [while awake. she is a pro at smiling in her sleep]. She hasn't mastered the skill yet & can only do it once in a while, but she's learning!

12. She ROLLED OVER! Don't call me a liar! It's true! She rolled from her belly to back on our bed the other night. I know it's kind of cheating since a bed is easier to roll on than the harder floor, but whatever. She rolled. We have a motor genius, people.

13. I can't believe this is our life. Our baby. She will be with us forever. I don't have to give her back to anyone. The strangest thing is seeing her name on mail. Or her having a social security number. She has an identity that someone could steal. Whoa. Jori Marie is OUR baby. Can someone help me wrap my mind around that?!


We are so blessed :] Thanks for reading & following our journey through the pregnancy & now life with our girl. If there is anything in particular you'd like to read about/see, please comment or email & let me know!

For your viewing pleasure, a picture progression of our lady since birth!

A few hours old!

A day old! 

A couple days old!

2 weeks old!

3 weeks old!

4 weeks old!

Looking Ahead:

-The nursery [that she doesn't sleep in yet... but I finally uploaded pictures!]

-Reflecting on labor

Jori Marie is Here!

May 22nd, 2013

Jori Marie Owens 

10:39 am

7 pounds 1 ounce

20.5 inches long

13.25 head circumference

Like I promised in the post about our goal of having a natural childbirth experience, here is our labor story. I'm posting it a little later than I expected to, but I've had better things to do - like cuddle with my baby and take naps.

At 5am on Wednesday the 22nd I woke up in full blown labor. There wasn't much build up of slower, low intensity contractions. They were the type of contractions that I couldn't walk through, move through, or respond to questions through [sorry Matt]. The first contraction woke me up & lasted about 45 seconds. 3 minutes later another one. I woke Matt up & said "I think maybe I'm in labor" so he instantly popped out of bed & started getting the apartment tidy & bags packed. For about an hour the contractions continued. Between contractions I was able to move around, eat some food, & pack up last minute things. As soon as I felt another contraction starting I had to stop everything and either lean on the bed, counter, table, etc or sit on the yoga ball and rock my hips back and forth.

With our plan being a natural birth, we wanted to labor at home as long as possible so that the time at the hospital would be limited. This would give less opportunity for medical intervention if things were taking too long [according to the medical professionals]. I expected that we would be home for most of the morning & make our way around lunch time. Silly me. We would have had a home birth if we had waited much longer! My midwife said "you will know when you need to go to the hospital. Just listen to your body & you will just feel like it's time".

At 6am I started feeling more intense contractions & knew it was time to go in. By the time we got loaded up & to the hospital it was after 7. We went to the triage room so they could make sure I was in active labor. Duh. I absolutely was. & was 5cm dilated. We sat in the tiny triage room for an hour & the contractions continued to increase in intensity. At this point I had started moaning through them & even shed a few tears. I had to really focus & repeat to myself "relax, relax, relax" through the pain or my whole body would tense up, which isn't helpful & would make them more painful.

By the time we got up to the labor room I was really working hard. The contractions were close together & lasting a minute or longer. It was about 9am when I got into the shower in our labor room & sat while the jet shower heads ran on my lower back. That was amazing & really helped me stay relaxed even through the most painful of contractions. Things really started picking up & I began to doubt myself. With it being our first baby, we were expecting to be working most of the day & having a baby around dinner time. Our midwife felt the same way & hadn't made her way to the hospital yet. I wondered how the heck I was going to make it through contractions of that magnitude & frequency for many more hours & decided I'd probably need an epidural or I'd be too exhausted to push when the time came. During this time of doubt, I remembered what I had read in my natural childbirth books about this "emotional signpost". It it is a typical sign that the body is in the transition phase [when the cervix dilates from 8-10 cm & pushing is within an hour] when the woman begins to doubt her ability to continue. I put that thought out of my mind though, because I couldn't believe I could actually be progressed so far.

After about a half hour in the shower I moved to the labor tub. It's a big square tub with water that fills up high enough to submerge baby bellies & is big enough to be on hands & knees - which was my position of choice. Labor was really intense now & it took a lot of focus & determination [and yelling] to not lose control during contractions. After about 10 minutes in the tub I felt the urge to push. When I told the nurse this she was pretty relaxed about it, told me not to push, & checked me. "oh... your cervix is gone!" After only 2 hours, I went from 5cm dilated to fully dilated & ready to push... not typical for a first time childbirth experience. The nurse became less relaxed & started paging & calling the midwife saying she needed to get into the hospital right away.

I got out of the tub & into the bed & people started coming into our room in prep for pushing & baby time. The only person missing was our midwife. This was the only time Matthew started to get nervous. As I was getting into bed I had a contraction & my water finally broke.  Unfortunately, there was meconium present in the fluid, which means Jori had a bowel movement. This was terrifying because if she ingested any of it, it could have been harmful to her health. So the NICU was called in to be ready in case we had a baby who needed emergency attention. There were probably about 12 people in our room at this point, but the only person I wanted to see was Kristin, our midwife. When I heard them say that there was meconium present, I knew that wasn't good & it is the only time I was on the verge of losing control & panicking. Enter my amazing husband - he said everything I needed to hear to get my breathing back under control & prayed for our lady. We got back on track & had more contractions while we waiting for Kristin.

I was told to not push since Kristin wasn't there yet & that was the hardest part of the whole thing. I couldn't do what my body needed & wanted, but finally Kristin showed up & things got rolling. As she came in she said "wow! let's have a baby!!" Her plan was to come in around lunch time, check in on me, & expected to deliver later in the afternoon/dinner time. Surprise! :]

I told Kristin right away that I needed to push & she encouraged me to do so. With her amazing coaching, encouragement, & my loving husband giving me all the support & help he could, we started pushing. Wow. Talk about feeing the burn. After about 15 minutes & multiple pushes that slowly moved our lady down, she was born! I think because I was able to feel all the pain, I wasn't able to push for long periods of time & with high force, so she slowly worked her way out & prevented me from tearing. No stitches. Hallelujah. After 5.5 hours of labor, we had our girl & she was perfect.

Good news - the meconium scare... she was fine :] after she was born, she cried within seconds, meaning she hadn't ingested anything & I could hold her right away. Within 15 minutes of being born & cuddles with me she started nursing. The first hour of her life she was cuddled up on me before they had to take her away to be cleaned up, measured, weighed, & double checked over. After that, Matt was finally able to hold her & that was one of the most memorable, beautiful moments of my life. They were perfect together & he was so smitten with his tiny lady. It truly was a great day & an amazing experience.

our first family picture. poor Jori destroyed her face with her sharp baby nails before we were able to get a good picture. what a stinker.

cutest baby feet i've ever seen

our tiny lady hours after she was born