Sweet Little Emmy

Emily has been amazing lately. Truly amazing. She really is such a good little girl. She talks a ton. Seriously, from the moment her feet touch the ground, till she falls asleep at night, she is talking. Her vocabulary is great. She forms complete sentences, knows how to communicate what she needs and pronounces things very well. Some of the things she comes up with are HYSTERICAL. I love listening to her and being able to have a conversation with her.

She is back on track with the potty training, but does have the occasional accident if she is playing to hard and we forget to ask her if she has to go. For the most part, she let's us know and a couple of times, she has gone by herself. We are working on getting her comfortable enough to go alone and ask for help if she needs it. She is capable of doing it, she just needs to gain the confidence.

She is the best big sister. She is always wanting to hold Sophie or help us take care of her. Everyday when I pick her up from school she runs to Sophie's car seat and talks to her sister. If I am giving a bath, she is right by my side handing me the soap. And if she sees me changing Sophie's diaper, she runs to get her stool so she can watch. I am so proud of my sweet little Emmy and what a nurturing little girl she has become.

She loves to be outside. The warm weather we have been having has really brought out a different side to Emmy. She could run and play for hours out there. She is obsessed with dresses. Seriously obsessed and will do ANYTHING to be able to wear them. We have used it as a "motivational" tool and it is working out great. Call it bribing if you will. In my last update post we mentioned how hard her bed time routine was, but in the last few weeks, it has been night and day. Every night we pick out a dress to wear the next day and explain to Emmy that only big girls get to wear big girl dresses, so if she goes to sleep like a big girl (being a good listener and not crying), then she gets to wear her dress. It works like a charm.

I can't wait for the warm weather to be here in full swing. Only in NM does it snow in April. It was seriously in the high 70's on Satruday and today it is snowing. We are looking forward to spending lots of time outside and swimming in Noni's pool all summer long!

Sophia is one month old!

It is crazy to me how quickly time is going by and I am so happy that I still have about 2 more months to stay home and really get to know Sophie. She is actually 5 weeks as I type this. Everyday I sit down to write a post, but I would rather spend the time just staring at my new little angel. She has been an amazing baby so far!

We had her one month check up and she grew two inches since her birth and put on a whopping 2 lbs since her two week check! She is definitely eating enough and it makes me happy that she is such an efficient eater, taking on average 15 minutes or so to nurse. The doctor was amazed and very pleased with her weight gain. So much so, she rechecked it twice. As of 3/26, she weighed 9lbs. 6 oz. and was 21 inches long.

She is such a calm sweet baby. She very rarely cries and if she does its either because she needs to burp, or she needs to eat. She is eating about every 3 hours during the day. I will wake her to feed if she isn't hungry before then. I think it really helps to stay on top of the feedings and not wait until she is super hungry and grumpy and mad to feed her. It also helps to have a little schedule for her.

I can also happily say that for the last 4 or 5 nights she has averaged 7-8 hour stretches between feedings. We don't wake her at night anymore, which has been really great for her and I. When I was waking her, she really wasn't getting a full feed and I found myself really struggling to keep her awake to eat. Now she chirps a bit when she is hungry and I get up and feed her. It really only takes about 20 minutes, but there is something so serene about sitting in a quiet house rocking in the glider with a sweet sleeping baby. I usually spend about 45 minutes in there just staring at her face.

Just like with Emmy, Sophia has been sleeping in her bed since night one. A great decision with both of our girls. I find that I sleep better and so does she because I am not stressing about every single noise. Plus it is her room, and our room is ours. I didn't want to worry about making a transition down the road, when she didn't know any differently either way.

Here are some other stats for our little Miss.

-She weighs 9lbs. 6 oz. and is 21 inches long
-She still wears NB size clothes, but depending on the brand, some are getting a little snug.
-We moved her up to size 1 diapers right at 1 month. They are a little big, but fit much better than the NB size.
-She loves baths. She gets super relaxed and calm. She has never once cried, which is nice. We used to do speed baths with Emmy in the beginning. Now we can't get Emmy out of the tub. I look forward to the day they can share a bath since they both enjoy it so much!
-She sleeps between 6 and 8 hours a night. I try to give her her last feed around 9 before putting her in the crib at night. She does tend to cluster feed from about 6-9, but if it means she will sleep longer, I will take it. She has been getting up for a feed around 4 or 5 every morning for the last week. I am not sure it will last too long, but we are taking advantage of the good sleep while we can.
-She loves her tummy and has a super strong neck. During the day, I let her nap on her stomach if she doesn't seem to get comfortable otherwise, but I am always next to her, keeping an eye on her. At night she sleeps on her back and is swaddled up tight.
-She has super fair skin. It's crazy. Emmy and I both have olive undertones, but neither of us are very dark. Zig is actually more tan then we are most of the time. Sophie has more pink undertones, along with lighter hair and eyes for now.
-She was not a fan of the paci for a while, but she is starting to like it now. I like it for self soothing and so she doesn't use me as a pacifier. The fact that studies show it decreases the risk of SIDS helps too.

And how is mom doing one month post partum? Great! I feel really good. My recovery was a lot better this time around. I am amazed at how quickly my body bounced back. I still have some tightening up to do, but I am back at my pre pregnancy weight. I would be super happy if I could shed about 10 lbs and firm up a bit, but considering I just gave birth a month ago I am not complaining. Since Sophie is sleeping so good at night, I have started pumping at night before bed and then in the morning after her first feed. They say that you should wake up in the middle of the night to pump, but unless I have supply concerns, I won't be doing this. Her cluster feeding during the day seems to make up for it. I have started a pretty nice stash of milk so far. Everything is going really well with breastfeeding and we even gave Sophie her first bottle, which she took to right away.

The last month has been amazing. I am seriously so lucky to have been blessed with such great babies. I don't know what is to come, but right now I am so proud to have such calm, happy, sweet little girls. Either way, it is so worth it losing sleep to spend time with such a great baby. I can't wait to watch her grow!











Sophie's first bottle

Sophie's first real bath

A little update

It is amazing to me that Sophie is already almost a month old. I thought I would pop in and post a quick update.

Sophie is so much like Emmy was as a newborn, it totally blows my mind. She is super calm, very rarely cries, super sleepy and very sweet. At least for the last 4 weeks that is, things could totally change here soon, although they never really did for Emmy. Maybe I just make good calm babies. Say a little prayer for us for the teenage years. She is eating great. We went in for a weigh when she was about 2 weeks. At her first doctors appointment at 3 days, she was down to 6 lbs. 13 oz. At 2 weeks she was up to 7 lbs. 6 oz. so she had gained about 9 oz in 11 days. My doctor would like to see 1/2 oz to 1 oz a day, so she is doing good. I am so much more comfortable this go round with breastfeeding then I was last, mainly because I know what I am doing, and Sophie has a great latch. We have another appointment on Monday for her one month check up. I am pretty excited to see how much she has gained, just to put my mind at ease that all is on track. The hard part about breastfeeding is you really don't know how much they are getting. You really base it on how content they are after feeding and diaper output. I do know that I was super determined to make breastfeeding work with Emmy, that I am equally as determined this go round and so far, all is good!

At my doctors request, I wake Sophie every 4 hours at night. I demand feed all day, but if it has been 3 hours since the start of the last feed, I will wake her to eat. Because she is so sleepy, there is a possibility that she could sleep through a feed, which could not only effect her weight gain, but my supply as well. Anyway, she will typically cluster feed at night and I try and "top her off" around 9:30 or 10 at night. Then I set my alarm for around 1:30 or 2, then again at 5:30 or 6. In the last week, she has actually been waking right at the 4 hours which is nice because waking a sleepy baby is tough. The other night I completely slept through my alarm and she went a fully 6 hours between feedings. It was great! I enjoyed the sleep from 10-4! Starting at 4 weeks, the doctor said I no longer had to wake at night to feed. I bet when Saturday hits, she will start waking every few hours, but maybe not.

All in all things are amazing. Miss Emily is doing great. She is such a proud big sister. We went and played with a friend last weekend and she turned to him during lunch and proudly proclaimed, "I am a big sister." I have also been picking Em up from school with Sophia and she will immediately run to the carseat and start talking in the sweetest voice to her sister. She loves to hold her and is constantly talking to her. She seems to be back on track with the potty training, since we had a little regression for a few days. One of the biggest things we are working on with Emily right now is her night time routine. For the last 2 months, since potty training, we have pretty much gone into Emmy's room anytime she cried. Bed time was taking over 2 hours start to finish. She would cry every few minutes that she had to go potty, and we created a monster by going in at her beck and call. So now we are trying to teach her that it is ok for her to go by herself, and we will only give into the cries if she keeps going when we sit her on the potty. The second she asks to go and doesn't have to, we say that's the last time we will take her. The last few nights we have made progress, but we still have a ways to go. The hard part is, since we moved Emily to her big girl bed, she has never gotten out of bed on her own. It's like she doesn't know she can. Why is that a problem you ask? Because in the mornings she yells and cries for us when she wakes up, and since she is no longer in diapers at night, I want her to know that if she has to go potty at night, she can get up and go, as opposed to crying for us. I am glad she transitioned so well to the big girl bed, and was never that kid that would sneak out of her room. I have heard horror stories about how tough that transition could be, but I really want Emmy to be independent and know what her boundries are.

Ok, enough of the long, wordy post. Kim Jackson came to our house to do a family/newborn shoot last week. Here are some of my favorites!

Sophia Grace Z is here!

On February 25, 2012 at 7:38 am we welcomed our second daughter into the world. Weighing 7 lbs, 5.2 oz and 19 inches long. Almost half a pound bigger, but almost an inch shorter than her big sister.

Grab some popcorn, this may be long

Friday the 24th started like any other day. I woke up, got Emmy ready for school and headed to work. I was tired. I barely slept the night before and continued to have a dull constant back ache. I had a department meeting in the morning, and then had a couple of things to wrap up before the weekend and then decided to head home to lay down. I just felt tired, no labor signs, just sore and "off." I hadn't had a pedicure in a while and decided I would treat myself to one before Sophie got here and then I was going to relax for the rest of the afternoon. And I did just that. That night Zig's parents brought us dinner. I had a salad, but couldn't finish it all since it didn't take much for me to feel full at that point. We put Em down for the night and I headed to bed. I read for a while, before I fell asleep around 9:30 ish. At 11:00 I woke up in serious pain. Shooting pains down my back and around to my pelvis. I didn't want to wake Zig up, so I downloaded a "contraction timing" app on my phone (man do I love my I-phone) and I started timing the pains as contractions. They were consistently 30-50 seconds long and less than 5 minutes apart. They say to head to the hospital when they were a minute and 5 minutes apart so I was just waiting for them to regulate and get to that point.

Around 12 Zig woke up to see me hunched over the end of the bed. He asked if I was ok and I told him that I was in tons of pain and that I had been timing the contractions for about an hour and told him how close they were. He jumped out of bed, threw the last of the things we needed into our hospital bag and called L&D to see if we should head down. At this point we also called Rich and Rebecca so they could come stay with Emily. The doctor on call said if I was in pain, and since it was my second baby, I could come down whenever I felt ready. Boy was I ready. Rich and Rebecca showed up at about 1:15. By this time the contractions were a minute long and less than 5 apart so we headed out immediately. I was in serious pain. My back was killing me and talking through the contractions, other than a lot of cussing, was impossible. Thank God Zig woke up when he did because I probably would have waited a while longer before waking him up to go.

We live about 15 minutes from the hospital and I was SUPER glad that it was 1:30 and there was no one on the road. We found a close parking spot and walked as fast as we could to L&D triage, stopping twice along the way. Since it was late, everyone going into the hospital was supposed to stop at security, but one look at me and the security guard waved us past. We made it to the 5th floor and there was no one in triage. I quickly changed, they hooked me up to the monitors and checked to see how far I had dilated. I was 6, almost 7 cm dilated at this point. Holy crap. Going from absolutely no labor signs what so ever, to progressing to that point was insane to me. The first question out of my mouth was "It's not to late for an epidural right?" The nurse responded with, it all depends on how long it takes to get us checked in. To which I said, "You better get on it. No one wants me to have this baby med free." Hey I know my limits people. I was impressed I made it as far as I did, but I didn't want to test my limits anymore. Especially since Zig's hands were turning purple as I squeezed them and I may have told him to shut up a few times during my contractions too. (I love you honey :) and thanks for taking that beating). While the nurse was not as fast as I was hoping she would be, they got me all checked in and in my room in about 20 minutes.

They started my IV, and gave me some meds to take the edge off (AWESOME, but it was only meant to last less than an hour because it crossed the placenta and they didn't want it to affect the baby.) It relaxed me big time, which made getting the epi a little better, since I get serious anxiety from needles. Honestly, getting my IV was way worse than the epidural. My mom showed up just before I got my epidural. She is the kind of lady you like to have around during any medical procedure. She asks lots of questions you wouldn't think of and I was glad that she was able to be there with us this time. With Emily, Zig and I wanted it to be just the 2 of us in the room and since we had a lot of family in town for Thanksgiving and a full waiting room, it made it easier for it just to be the 2 of us. This time, since we went in to labor so late, Zig's parents were already long asleep, and Rich and Rebecca were home with Em, it was a lot more low key, so my mom joined us in the room.

Our nurse was great. She definatly had a sense of humor. Once the epi kicked in, the doctor came in and broke my water. By then I was at an 8. When the doctor checked me she also said Sophie was sunny side up, which explains the immense back pain I had. The epi did slow my labor down a little bit, but I didn't really mind because it gave us all a little bit of time to rest. It was around 3:30 or so when the Epi kicked in and they broke my water. At around 5 they came in and told me my contractions had pretty much stopped. To avoid the risk of infection since my water had been broken, they recommended a really small amount of pitocin to get them started again. I was at about a 9 at that point, and only had one cm to go. I really didn't want any pitocin, I wanted to dilate and contract naturally, but when the doctor explained why, I gave in. My contractions started right away and in no time, I was fully dilated. It was close to 7 and shift change for the nurse, and I wasn't feeling "pressure" at this point, so the doctor told us we would wait to push until the new nurse team came on. She was originally supposed to leave at 7 as well, and my doctor was supposed to come on, but she had told Dr. Solis the night before that she would stay till 8:30. I was a little bummed because how awesome would it have been to have my OB with both pregnancies deliver my babies (My OB with Em was there for the delivery), but I really liked the night doctor and didn't mind.

Around 7:25 or so it was time to push. I pushed through 3 contractions and Sophie was here! So much easier this time around compared to last. During one of the pushes the doctor turned Sophie so I didn't deliver her face up. All I have to say is thank God I had time to get the epi. I can't imagine what that would have felt like otherwise. They put Sophie on my chest right away and she stayed there for over an hour. I was even able to get her to latch for about 10 minutes, something that was important to me. I loved this time. If you haven't read my birth story with Emily, things were a little more dramatic since I had a fever when she was born and Emmy had to go to the NICU. This time, everything was much more relaxed. I did have a minor tear again this time, but was happy I was able to hold my baby while they fixed me up. They checked her vitals, weighed her and then we spent the rest of the morning snuggling with her waiting for our room.

Sophie looks so much like Emily and act so much like her as a newborn, it's crazy. Sometimes I have a hard time calling her Sophia, because she doesn't really look like a Sophie to me, she looks like an Emmy! She has lighter hair and doesn't have Emily's dimple, but in person they look so much a like. It's so hard to tell at this point though, but they will for sure look like sisters.

Emily came to meet her sister later that day. She had been preparing with Auntie Becca and Uncle Rich all day and was really excited to meet her. She held her for a little bit with my help and then kind of moved on. She asks lots of questions when Sophie is crying or eating, but doesn't really seem overly jealous. She does want more attention and is a little upset that I can't pick her up (doctor's orders for at least 2 weeks) but she is adjusting well. We just make sure to give her lots of attention.

We are home now. We were released on Sunday and came home to Emily with a fever. :( Later that night she started to cough and we knew right away it was croup. Long story short, we went to the doc because we had to take Sophie anyway on Monday and wound up finding out Em had strep and croup, so Monday was a rough day for us.

Sunday night Sophie wanted to be held. All.Night.Long. so while I tended to her, Zig took care of Emily. We were very sleep deprived, but Monday I stayed upstairs all day and Emmy stayed downstairs with Zig. She was able to go back to school on Tuesday, but then Steph and Mike came down with the flu, so she has been home yesterday and today. We are doing surprisingly well adjusting as a family of 4. Now that Emily is feeling better, everything is really just amazing.

I feel great. I didn't, or at least haven't, gotten the baby blues like last time. I literally cried for weeks after Emily was born while my hormones regulated. And breast feeding is 10 times easier this time around. I am not nearly as stressed as last time. I am not saying one is better or worse, they are just very different experiences. Sophie really has the same demeanor as Em. I will knock on wood before I type these next sentences, but she is a great, calm baby. She is very sleepy. She does not cry that often and when she does, she is easily consoled, and she is now sleeping great in her crib. Last night she actually slept 6 hours straight. I was supposed to wake her up after 4 hours, but I must has slept through my alarm. I woke up panicked, but went in to feed her at 4:45 and she slept in till 8. Can't complain.

All in all, we are so happy to be home and enjoying our time as a family. Things are going great so far. I love my snuggle time and watching her sleep. Sorry for the longest post ever. I wanted to get all this down before the details started to fade. I like going back and reading about how we felt after Emmy was born, so I look forward to looking back at this as well. Here are a million pictures to make up for the length.

Big sister getting ready for baby to come home!

Weight

She has some amazing nail beds.

Daddy and his new little girl!

Brand new!

She is finally here

Tiny feet



Meeting her little sister for the first time






Looking pretty after her first bath


Settling in at home