Bad blogger!

Goodness! For a lady with no job and very little chores to do, I feel like I have no time! Paige is napping right now and I just ate lunch, so I will give a little update!

I got my period! Finally! I had a 39 day cycle, which for anyone familiar with PCOS, this is nothing short of a miracle.  Of course this is all putting me in strange place.  I want another baby, but not right now.  I want a free baby, seeing as I don't have 25K laying around and the bank of mom and dad (who funded Paige) has eluded to the fact that they were paying for the first, and the rest is on us.  What if I am missing my opportunity to have a free baby?  What if I am passing up my chance to have a baby without putting my body and mind through the hell of IVF?  I just wish I knew how long these semi-normal cycles were going to stick around!  If I KNEW that I would be able to get pregnant...wait, scratch that...if I knew I would have a chance to get pregnant next year on my own, then I would want to wait now.  But I don't know.  I hate infertility.  This is so unfair.  I am so jealous of those who can plan their families how they want.  Not jealous in a bitter way...just wishing it was that easy for us.  So I am in limbo right now.  

Now an update on the most wonderful thing that has happened to me:  they opened a bagel shop by my house! : )

Okay, well maybe not the most wonderful, but it is pretty great.  

As for Paige - she is such an angel.  Eating cereal, rolling all over the place, laughing when tickled...such a big girl! I think we are going to wait until 6 months to do anything other than cereal.  If introducing fruits and vegetables go as smoothly as cereal, then we should have no problems!

Labor Day Weekend

Paige is just now really noticing the dogs. 
She likes Beefy better, I think.  He is small and very timid, where as Spike is not shy at all and will run right up to you and lick you to death.  But of course, Spike is way more interested in her than Beefy is.  Poor Spike!
We tried rice cereal the other day!
It was not a success! Ha! She didn't like it at all.  I think we will wait a few weeks than try again.  My pedi just said we should start sometime before six months, so I have some time.
She did look cute and tiny in her big chair! My baby is getting so big!
I finally found some pictures from our white party! Here are some of the cute girls looking good in their white!  My sister-in-law is the one on the right, with the grey top.
Here, with the girls! I am on the bottom left (with extensions in!) I am trying to grow my hair out that long, but it is taking some time.  I started right around when I found out I was pregnant, so it has been a year, and not too much to show for it.
We went to Dallas for Labor Day.  Here I am with Brooke and David.  We tailgated all day, so of course I felt like crap during the game.  Brooke and I drank two bottles of cheap champagne, and when that was finished we moved on to beer and trash can punch from the people next to us.  OU lost anyway, so it just really wasn't that great of a game! But I had a blast before!! : )

I thought this was funny.  It looks like we are letting Paige drive.  

Big news! Paige sleeps in her crib all night now! David has been wanting to get our bedroom back to ourselves for a while now, but I have resisted.  Finally I said we could give it a try, and we have had three successful nights there.  I cried the first time.  It just felt so wrong to me, but it was nice to just talk in bed and not have to worry about waking her.  And Paige did great! I think this new arrangement is good for everyone involved.  She is back to her good-sleeping self.  I guess that 4 month growth period of whatever is done.  Thank goodness!

So, our fall is off on the wrong foot, seeing as OU has already lost.  We were pretty bummed, but life does go on.  I guess.

4 month wakeful period?

Dear Lord, this is killing me! I KNOW that many new mommas want to slap me for complaining, since all in all, Paige is an excellent sleeper.  However, when your baby starts sleeping through the night at 6 weeks, then suddenly at 4 months she decides she doesn't want to do that anymore, it wears on you!  Then last night, she was up at 2 AM (usual for the last week), and decided it wasn't time to go to sleep again until 4.  David and I were exhausted and at our wits end! Now before you say anything - remember that we really haven't had to deal with this before! With the exception of a few nights in the first weeks, we have had no issues getting her down to sleep and having her stay asleep.  

Then once you have been up for two hours, you are just kind of up, so it was hard for us to fall back asleep.  The song from her exersaucer was in David's head and wouldn't stop singing it..."Red, Yellow, and Bluuuuue." So that had me laughing at 4 AM.  

We had our four month appointment today, and all is well.  13.5 pounds, 25 inches...so growing just fine, despite her small appetite.  We did get the go ahead to start solids.  We will start with cereal, but I think we are going to wait until closer to five months. 

We are headed to Dallas this weekend for OU/BYU and are very excited! Paige will be staying at the hotel with mom, so a big thanks to grandma for doing that! I wasn't comfortable leaving her with a teenage sitter that I didn't know and whose parents weren't even in town.  

Happy labor day to everyone!!

Wow - 4 moths old?

Happy girl!
We had some family portraits done in College Station with David's family.  This is the one we picked to purchase.  I liked it better than the one below because Paige is smiling.  But it wad down to these two.
Cute that she is looking at the camera, but I am a sucker for her sweet smile.  That won out in the end.


Goofy girl!

We had a white themed party at our house last weekend.  It was a blast! Speaking of that - Paige spent the night at her grandparents that night!!! It went very well.  I was upset when my dad drove her away, but champagne and club specials helped me out there and I ended up having a great night! We picked her up bright and early and I got plenty of snuggles in.
Fascinated with her hands.  They are always in her mouth.
Watching Entourage with daddy.  I hate that show.
Daycare center Michelle and I set up! Ha! We got to lay out and watch BH 90210 (the original - re runs on soap.net) outside while the babies played in their little stations we set up!
Napping babies at the pool

I love this girl.
My doll baby

I have a full-fledged four month old baby.  How is this possible?  She is still without a doubt the light of my life.  She constantly amazes me.  Here are the things my four month old is doing:

Rolling over both ways

Smiling and laughing non-stop

Putting everything - hands, feet, toys, her shirt - in her mouth

Speaking of feet, she just discovered them! Yesterday in fact! She likes to grab them and explore

She is doing much better with eating too.  She is now eating around 26-28 ounces a day, which is a drastic improvement from just a week ago.  I give her Mylecon at almost every feeding and I think that helps her.  I also have just accepted the fact that she is on her own schedule.  She absolutely will only eat when she wants to.  If that means she has 11 ounces during the day, then from the hours of 5-10:30, she wants to chug every 30 minutes, so be it.  I tried desperately to get her on that elusive 3 hours schedule like other babies, but it just isn't what Paige wants to do.  

We have had many more fun play dates with Ethan.  Ethan sets the bar for me on what Paige will be doing in 5 weeks.  He is a rolling machine! It makes me nervous that Paige will be doing that in the not-so-distant future.  We are entering the days of "wow - you really have to keep your eyes on them AT ALL TIMES!!"

We had dinner at Gerod and Callie's last night.  So much fun! Gerod is such a great dad and had Paige just cracking up.  It was so cute to watch.  Their 2 year old Gibson is so funny too.  At 8:30 on the dot, Gerod said, "night nigh!" And Gibson took of for his room and crawled in his little toddler bed and went right to sleep.  I'm not even kidding.  David and I talked about that the whole way home.  We were like - we have got to get Paige to do that! Ha!

We are about to enter football season, which I have mixed feelings about.  I love OU football, but I'm not sure I am ready to lose my husband every Saturday to drunken tailgate parties.  But I certainly don't have a choice in the matter, so I guess I need to just deal with it now so it doesn't ruin my fall.  Boomer!!!

Looking back

I was driving home from college station, TX on the one year anniversary of my transfer.  That was the 15th.  And now coming up on the one year anniversary of my first positive home pregnancy test! I am sure most people don't remember the day they peed on a stick...but I sure do! I'll never forget that whole day!

I took in the neighborhood of 15 tests over the course of the next few weeks.  Two a day at first, then I stopped for a while.  Then before my 6 week, 2 day ultrasound, I took another few.  I have all those early ultrasounds on my computer and almost put them here just now, but it makes me sad to look at them.  When we fist saw I was having twins, they both looked so great.  I honestly don't even know which one is Paige.  It is so strange to me that I could have two babies here right now! As time went on, the second baby didn't grow as fast as Paige, and finally at around 10 weeks, its heart stopped beating.  This sounds stupid, but sometimes I think that baby will come back to us someday.  I don't know.  Sometimes I believe that and sometimes I don't.

Goodness - this wasn't supposed to be a sad post! How could I be sad?

Paige likes to be turned around in her Bjorn!

My aunt's dog is much bigger than Spike and Beefy!
I love my exersaucer!

Getting ready to go swimming in Dallas!!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

It has been a year?!

If you don't like these sappy, looking-back type posts, then stay away for about a month!  One year ago today, I started stimming for IVF.  For those infertility lingo challenged among us, that means I started giving myself the daily injections that would grow eggs.  This was also the day of Miranda's bachelorette party...so I brought my Follistim pen and Lupron and needles downtown with me! Ha! I was so excited.  After a summer of waiting, testing, and sending payments in (uggh), I was finally starting!

I cleaned out my closet and kitchen pantries the other day, and happened to find my Follistim pen! I couldn't bring myself to throw it out, even though if I were to need IVF again they would send me another.  I guess I just want to make sure I never forget how much I wanted Paige and how hard I had to work to get her.

Hotsling

I am going to start by saying that these photos are way out of order, as usual.  But here I go:

I am OBSESSED with my hotsling right now.  My mom got this for me when Paige was born, but I didn't like it.  I felt like she was too delicate and it didn't feel secure.  So I got the Bjorn, and I loved it, so I just used that.  However - I just wasn't using the hotsling right! I got the DVD out today that came with it (I was really bored haha) and figured out how it worked.  Well it is so cool! I am happy to have another way to wear Paige.  I still love the Bjorn and will probably stick with that out of the house, but this is great for home and things like going out to eat.  
Photo session
Tummy time made fun with our tummy pal! We love this! 
Paige is starting to kind of reach out for toys.  I say kind of because most of the time it is by accident that she bats at something or reaches for it...but that is how she will learn.
Fun play date with Ethan! We had two babies, two mommies, to purses, diaper bags, etc., two Bjorns, and a huge box of diapers loaded down in my car! We were loaded down!! 

My beautiful girl!
Paige loves the sling!

Proof that it is totally hands free!

Feeding is still going really well.  Life with my sweet bug is just going perfectly! We have really hit a great stride.  I know that things change all the time and I shouldn't get too used to it, as I hear month 4 brings some issues...

So I am going to really enjoy this "quiet" time!

Praise God!

Paige has been eating a million times better.  I can't even describe how much better things are going for us.  I switched to Similac Sensitive (the orange one).  I am using the ready to feed kind (so not powder).  She went from eating 18-20 ounces a day (and even that was awful to get her to do) to now eating 26-27.  And she doesn't fuss! The sensitive ready to feed kind is more expensive, but it is a small price to pay for a happy, good eater.  

Viva Las Vegas

First: pictures!!
Juicy outfit for the plane!

View from our pool

We had our own butler! It was nuts!! We would order dinner and he would set it up outside by the pool for us : )  Back to reality now...
Paige spent most of the time in her Bjorn.  She still loves it and I am obsessed with wearing her.  I love how calm she is in it and I know she loves being near me.
Paige's first ride on a horse! Got to love the decor in hotel rooms
Not funny for people with gambling addictions...but this cracks me up.  Paige is reading about "when the fun stops." 
My beauty queen.

Okay:  on to our feeding issues.  We still have them.  Paige hates to eat.  She fights and fights it.  You know how some babies get "tongue tied" with nursing?  Well Paige does that with the bottle as well.  She acts like she is being tortured.  She is a 3 month old who takes a maximum of 2 ounces at a time.  I have tried all kinds of things:  Gripe water, gas drops, changing formulas (I already quit breastfeeding because of this), but nothing proved to be a long-term solution to our issues.  Things would look up for a day or two, then we would go back to our same old routine.

I feel like we have made some progress as of today though (I know I have said this before, but I digress...).  I have been feeding Paige the Similac in the orange container.  One of the sensitive brands.  She has eaten wonderfully with very little fussing! And I haven't had to give her any gas drops!!! YAY!!! I'll pray that this continues.  

Vegas was a BLAST!! I'll save that for another day.  Having a three month old keeps my pretty busy!