I’m a crappy mom….

During my pregnancy with Avery it was new and exciting and I wanted to share every moment with everybody! Whelp, being pregnant with Miss. Addie and taking care of a toddler was a little more exhausting than the first time around. However, I really do want to show the girls my blog when they get older so it is only fair that I tell Addie all the highlights that happened during the time I was pregnant with her.

 

1.       You were a wonderful surprise like your sister!! J Our trusted iPhone app was still a little off but we were happy to find out at about 5-6 weeks I was pregnant with you! We didn’t tell anyone until your sister’s first birthday party and didn’t make it Facebook official until after we found out you were a girl. Reason for this? Not a good one, except I was a curious to see how fat I could get until people started to question things. It is bad that more people questioned why I wasn’t drinking then why I was looking chubby.

 

2.       You were an easy pregnancy! Welll, except for the last month when Steve and Blue from Blue’s Clues raised your sister because I was so tired and then there was this time in the beginning when we were on vacation in Cape Cod with the family. No one at this time knew I was pregnant except for your dad and your Ya-Ya. We all decided to go out for ice cream. Obviously, I hoped in the car and then began to feel extremely sick the moment we got there. I let everyone know of the fact that I wasn’t feeling all that great but since our family puts ice cream over other’s wellbeing everyone ordered their ice creams and sat down. Not I, instead I paced around the ice cream place like I was on drugs and then threw up in the woods in the back so no one would see me. Just want to give a big shout out to the fam, you know who you are, for not putting down your ice cream cones. I hope you enjoyed them! J

3.       I didn’t have many cravings with you. I told people that I craved pizza and chicken tenders but that was mainly because I was just being fat. I also consumed more Chocolate Creams (“healthy” Oreos) than anyone should in their entire lifetime. I apologize for all that as I’m sure that one day having eaten those items when pregnant will be linked to bad SAT scores or frizzy hair. So sorry about that.

4.       You were SO active. It was like creepy active. We could see you just tossing and turning in me. I couldn’t lay on my side because you decided to set up shop in my rib cage and any time I would move to one side you would push until I rolled on to my back.  However, I did appreciate the movement because I knew you were always doing OK. J

5.       My next blog will be about your birth story since I did one for your sister so I won’t get into that but I will say that my biggest highlight of being pregnant with you was finding out at every appointment that you were perfect!!

I know this 5 highlight list does not make up for the fact that I wrote almost a blog a day when I was pregnant with your sister so I will tell you this…you were a way, way, way easier baby than your darling big sister, and for that, I thank you. J

Oh how things have changed....

Now a days having another child before your first one turns the age of 2 is a little nuts to some people. Conceiving another child before your first turn’s one is just insane to most people. Back in the day, almost all my friend’s had siblings that were just a year older so to me it wasn’t that crazy. However, when Jon and I made the announcement to people, the reactions we got were, “oh wow, were you trying?” “wait, you are pregnant again?” and my favorite from one of my co-workers, “didn’t you just get back from maternity leave?” So, no we weren’t really “trying” but obviously not really preventing it either.  Did the iPhone app come in to play? Well, yes because I did upgrade to the newer version that cost money so obviously I took a gander before anything happened.  Still not a reliable tool. Yes, I am indeed pregnant again. It can in fact happen before your first turns one. And yes, I basically just got back from maternity leave. It was just so much fun last time that I thought I’d make it a bi-yearly event. Which brings us to where we are today.

My daughter Avery is almost 15 months. I swear once she hits two I will stop using months to tell people her age. And I am pregnant with our second daughter, No Name Levesque, due 3/11/2014. Despite another surprise, we are very happy to be having our second daughter so soon. Yes, my husband did shed a tear that he in fact wasn’t going to have a son but I reminded him that girls are the best and he will always be taken care of and there is always next time! J

Going through my second pregnancy has been extremely different from my first. Mainly because I have a child to take care of on top of working and being a wife. Not to complain because tons of women do it all the time but I look back at my first pregnancy and the person I was and I want to smack myself. So I made a list of things I wish I could have said to myself during my first pregnancy….

1.       What’s that you say? You are tired? Awh, poor baby that you only got 7 hours of sleep because most of the other hours were filled with heartburn and trips to the bathroom. I’m sure you will figure out a nap sometime tomorrow when you have nothing else to do but watch TV and get fat. Next pregnancy you can look forward to still waking up at 6am after a night of no sleeping to take care of your child. So, enjoy all that sitting and complaining.

2.       No, you aren’t all belly no matter what anyone says to you. Your belly is your baby. That black raspberry ice cream that you are self-medicating with for your heartburn is hitting your thighs and butt so hard right now. May not notice it in your roomy maternity pants but enjoy attempting to fit into any of your pants even though the scale says you are down to your “pre-baby weight”

3.       Wow, good for you that you didn’t have a sip of caffeine your entire pregnancy. Your second child will have consumed so many flavors of Starbucks Coffee that she will be leaving the womb a seasoned barista. You think that by not having coffee that your child will be mellower, laid back and will have an easier time sleeping. Good luck with that. Enjoy six weeks of not sleeping because your daughter Avery is the furthest thing from mellow.

4.       You are going to work up until your due date? What a wonder woman! I mean, don’t take off any time to sleep, put the car seat in the car, put together the nursery or anything else to prepare. You should totally keep working to prove something and then enjoy kicking yourself in the ass when your water breaks and your husband is still figuring out that car seat base.

5.       I’d probably step away from all those baby and birthing books and take a nap.  Your best friend after baby is born will be google and your mom. And in regards to this birthing books? Yeah, you aren’t going to breathe away the pain. It is going to suck so badly and do not listen to anyone that will tell you any differently. All the best.

Despite the challenges of being pregnant a second time while watching my not even two year old daughter, I’m glad that I’m a lot less neurotic than I was during my first and a lot more down to earth. No, I haven’t been able to take a belly photo or get 3D ultrasound pictures or do cute updates each week. I didn’t send out a thoughtful announcement and no I won’t be taking maternity pictures. But that’s OK with me. I don’t love this baby less. I’m in fact looking forward so much to meeting our daughter.  I’m just a mom with different priorities and quite frankly, I’ll take sleep over any of those things. J

Farewell!!!

It has been almost a year since I wrote my first blog. I remember when I first put my blog out there I was so nervous. I sent it to my mom, sister and husband for approval. I was being honest and open about some really embarrassing things and I didn’t know how people were going to react. However, I’m so glad I didn’t hold back.

This journey has been long, amazing and life changing and I’m so happy I was able to share that with my family, friends and the poor internet searcher looking for some pregnancy guidance and stumbled upon my goofy blog.

I’m however going to step away from the blog, not like I was doing a great job updating it these past few months, and not drag it out to drag it out. It was so fun while I was doing it and I hope that I’m inspired again down the road to create a new blog.

I will continue to update mine and Avery’s status because I will print this all out and give it to her when she graduates High School or at some other time when I can really embarrass her so feel free to check back every once and awhile to see how she’s doing.

I’m grateful for all the positive feedback, the friends that were made and all the great things that came with creating this blog. It was truly therapy for me and the fact that I helped some other people out there made it that much more enjoyable to write.

I never thought that I would write 70 blogs, receive over 18,000 hits and have an audience of over 20 countries. It’s seriously amazing.

So with all that being said, thank you to my friends, family and all my supporters it’s been a blast.

And remember, iPhone apps are not a form of birth control, but I’m so glad we used it. J

Our Miss. Avery at 5 months!!!

Mr. Mom

I’m going to start off by saying, I love my husband. He is an amazing man and father. A lot of times he is more patient and reasonable than I am. When Avery cries bloody murder throughout the night and I say “well, I think it may be time for her to find her own place.” He calmly tells me “That it’s just a phase, and everything will be OK.” He is absolutely the rock in the group. However, like most men, he doesn’t really understand how much goes into being a mom. That is, until I got sick this past weekend and Jon got to see first hand what it’s like to be a full time mommy.

Granted, when a man is sick, his place is usually on the bed or on the couch and that’s as far as he goes unless nature calls. When a woman is sick, she’s basically just doing the same things she normally does, but just feels worse doing them. This Saturday, I was pretty sick and was in bed for most of the day. I woke Jon up at 8am and said that I just couldn’t do it and I didn’t want to get her sick so he had to help. He finally emerged around 9 and I went to lie down. I will give him this; Avery is teething, so she was a lot more fussy than normal. I would come out of the room every once in awhile (to switch the laundry around because as I said, a mom’s schedule doesn’t change much on a sick day) to see how everything was going. Jon was visibly exhausted. I kind of smiled inside because this was the same guy that referred to my 9 weeks of maternity leave as a “Vacation.” Yes, vacation. What every woman dreams of!! Waddling for the first few days, barely showering, no sleep, messy house, crying baby, washing dishes (including bottles and of course pump parts) still cooking but hardly eating, pumping, breastfeeding and in our case also supplementing. It was an AMAZING break. I don’t even know why we went to Hawaii for our honeymoon when we should just continue to reproduce so I get this vacation every year.  

This is the way I believe a man envisions maternity leave. Woman gets to stay home, watch TV, relax, take up a hobby, eat all day, look through magazines, cleans because of course every woman loves to clean and since she’s not “that busy” should absolutely have dinner on the table because she can just do it when the baby is sleeping.

OK, Jon may not have thought it was quite like this, but I think he thought it is a lot easier than it was. But now, after this Saturday, I think he gets it.

Towards the end of the night I was feeling better and took over. I did our usual bath and sat with her until she went to sleep. All and all, it was a rough day for everyone. Even though I did enjoy my mini break, it’s still tough to be away from her and to hear her cry when she’s so close. But I think that we all learned valuable lessons from the experience.

I learned that it’s OK to take a break and take care of myself.

Avery learned that daddy can do just as good of job as mommy can.

And Jon learned what an absolutely amazing, hardworking, selfless, phenomenal, and insanely beautiful wife that he has. J He may not have said that all but the look in his eyes when I took over Saturday night, it couldn’t have been clearer. 

So with all this being said, I love my husband because he is willing to help when I need him to and I love my Miss. Avery more than ever. She turned four months old on 12/26. And based upon the weight scale she is still a peanut, clocking in at only 9% for body weight. She is going to be leggy like her mom and is the 22% for height. The pediatrician said that she is super aware of her surroundings for a four month old (no surprise to us since our little girl is the nosiest little thing on the planet) and looks as healthy as can be!!! Check out the Status page for more details.

CMS: Competitive Mom Syndrome.

I don’t know if this is an actual clinical term but it should be, since this is a very real "disorder" that every new mom has whether it is a mild or a full blown case.

As mom’s we have a tendency to want the best for our kids so we always want to make sure that they are progressing normally. Of course, this is definitely a new mom tendency as I’m sure after you have had a few you are confident that at some point your child will learn to walk and talk before they go to college.

I like to think I have a relatively mild case of CMS. I love to see other’s baby pictures, see statuses, and just love talking to other moms about everything babies and their experiences. I’m generally happy for and impressed by most new moms.  But of course, there is always the side of me that looks at another baby and I say to myself, “Wait, how many months is that baby??? Three months and he/she is already rolling over?? What the heck??” And then off I go grabbing my daughter for some tummy time that she absolutely hates so that she doesn’t fall behind.

I’ve gotten a lot better about it. Mainly because I see that Avery has many other strengths. First off, she was very early to smile. She was smiling pretty big even within a few weeks (no, not gassy smiles) but legitimate ear to ear, cheesetastic smiles. She was also great at grabbing at things. She would find your finger and wouldn’t let it go. And of course, the continuous rapid growth of her hair is a focal point when I bring her out in the world. Out of all of Avery’s great strengths, I think her ability to grow an immense amount of hair is one that gets her the most attention.

With that being said, she hates, hates, hates to be on her stomach and therefore has not started rolling over yet. Not back to front, front to back, nothing. I assume that she will at some point roll over so I’m not stressing just yet.

Some mom’s may think that this is no big deal that Avery hasn’t rolled yet, and they are right. But I'm a mom and I get to worry now no matter how big or small. And I'll probably still compare Avery and myself against other mom's and babies for a few more months. Which brings me to this.... here are the top 3 things that I think that most mom’s are the most competitive about during the first few months and the things that I'm finally realizing doesn't matter as much as it used to. What do you think?

1. Breastfeeding. Totally one of the most competitive topics I think surrounding motherhood. How much are you producing? How long will you be doing it for? How much do you have stored? I, of course, have failed miserably. Not producing, not doing it, nada stored. Oh well.
2. Post baby body. How much have you lost? How quickly did you lose it? Do you fit in your pre preggo pants? I’ve lost 24lbs, took me 3 months, still rocking my maternity jeans. Post baby body is totally not a priority of mine. Spending time with Avery has trumped going to the gym and obsessing about weight. I’ll get back to where I need to be, on my time.
3. Sleeping habits: How long does your baby sleep? Sleeping in nursery or your room? And of course the question of all time, Is your baby sleeping through the night? Avery sleeps only a few hours throughout the day (she literally doesn’t want to miss a thing), she still sleeps in our room, and NO, she is not sleeping through the night. Avery wakes up about once a night. I don’t mind her waking up in the middle of the night if it’s just once. It’s still tough stuff to do a 2am feeding but during my late nights I can create fun  and somewhat creepy gems like this…

Alright, so maybe it does get easier….

I really, really, really wanted to believe people when they said that once 12 weeks rolled around, things would get easier. I just didn’t believe a single one of them. Probably because those were the same people that told me that giving birth, “wasn’t that bad” or the ones that told me that “breastfeeding will get easier.” Despite being misled in the past, they were absolutely correct.

I knew things couldn’t get much worse. The first 6 weeks were pretty tough. Not because we had a bad baby but because I was trying so hard to breastfeed and beating myself up for supplementing with formula that I was driving myself crazy. I didn’t even leave the house for a month because if I did, I thought I was being a bad mom and should have been home breastfeeding or pumping. But finally, at 6 weeks when I came to terms that my boobs couldn’t even produce enough milk to feed a small ant, things started to get that much easier.

Sure we had our issues with Avery from weeks 6-8. Not because she was being bad or crying for no reason but because switching from breastfeeding to formula is tough on a babies tummy and she had some issues. Constipation, acid reflux, gas, you name it. And though we are still dealing with these from time to time. She has to be one of the happiest babies you ever did see and it just took 12 long weeks to see that.

I like to think I’m an open book and an honest person. I would never tell someone that things are going great when they aren’t. So believe me, the fact that I’m finally saying that things have gotten better, I’m telling you the truth. I’m not sitting here bragging that I have an amazing baby, that I’m a great mom, and everything is roses now. What I am saying is that not matter what or how good or “bad” your baby is, things do get easier. It may be at 12 weeks, it may be at 6 months. But regardless, every week is that much better.

Avery doesn’t have a pediatrician’s appointment until January for her fourth month so we had to make an attempt to weigh and measure her ourselves. She is currently 11lbs, woohoo!! And measuring 23 inches in length and about 15 inches for her head. I’m pretty sure I didn’t measure her head correctly so if her head grows 5 inches within the next month, it’s my bad.

As for me, I’ve lost 3 more pounds and less than 5lbs away from seeing the 130’s again. I have definitely come a long way and even though I’m rocking the maternity pants still, I’m proud that I’m still trying despite my rough start. I’m not posting a picture because I literally look exactly the same as last month but I’ll post one for her 4^th month when hopefully I look a little bit different via awkward mirror photo.

To conclude, here are some highlights of Avery’s 3^rd month.

1. She is now giggling!!! It is absolutely amazing and adorable.
2. She is letting me shower, cook and do something’s around the house while she entertains herself and doesn’t cry.
3. She has found her thumb and hates her pacifier, yup, we’re screwed.
4. She is only getting up once a night usually. This is HUGE for us.

Lastly..

5. Her upper body strength is getting so much better that she almost threw herself off the couch ( I caught her, thank the lord) while I was taking these 3 month pictures. J

One month, one pound…

How hard is it to lose baby weight? I mean seriously girls.  I lost 20lbs in less than 2 weeks. I totally got this!! Yeah, RIGHT!

I did sincerely lose 20lbs in less than 2 weeks. I lost so much weight that our pediatrician told me that this was the cause of my lack of milk supply and that I would need to start eating 3000 to 3500 calories a day!!!! Are you kidding?? So as a first time panicked mom I went home and ate as many oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (oatmeal is supposed to increase milk supply) as my doughy tummy could possibly handle. After doing this for another week while continuing to breast feed I actually went up a couple of pounds. Of course, I never even came close to consuming 3000 let alone 3500 calories but I ate a lot more than I normally would.

So now here I am, 2 months post partum and lost only a single pound this month so I’m currently 147. Basically the same weight I was last month before I gained weight due to some terrible advice. And as a side note, the excessive eating did not help and I dried up like “Tan Mom’s” face. So after 6 weeks of breastfeeding I ran dry which also put my weight lose at a screeching halt. The good news is, my midwife approved me to start exercising so hopefully moving my body a bit may help with the slim down process.

With all this being said. I GET IT. It’s tough to be a new mom and attempt to shrink down to your pre-preggo size when you have a newborn crying, you are exhausted and dinner consists of either frozen foods or take out. And it’s fall so bring on the fatty pumpkin lattes, delicious pumpkin beers and of course all the baked goods that this time has to offer.  

Bottom line, don’t be so quick to criticize a mom for not losing all her pre-preggo weight within the first year. Most of us are not wealthy actresses and models that have someone to care for our babies while we go exercise and have a cook prepare the meals. However,  I haven’t given up on my attempts and I hope now with the exercise blessing from my midwife I can get a move on but I’m going to stop beating myself up and enjoy my beautiful baby, our new life and my flabby belly that made it all happen.

Stay tuned for Avery’s status on Tuesday after we visit the pediatrician. J

Before: 9 Months

After: 8 weeks postpartum