Got Milk

When I reflect back on my whole journey of Motherhood...where I am now and where I was three years ago, I'm overwhelmed with feelings. Feelings of accomplishment, feelings of happiness and most importantly, feelings of gratitude. I'm truly blessed to be sitting here with a happy, healthy, almost 7 month old little girl.

We didn't have it easy but we also had some great things happen.
We struggled with infertility for years and went through alot of disappointing cycles, failed inseminations and no answers. When we took a big chance with IVF, we got lucky and were able to conceive after our first cycle. That's when we thought things would be in our favor. However, my pregnancy wasn't easy either. Shortly after my 6th month, I was hospitalized and diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and struggled with afib episodes weekly the rest of my pregnancy. It was not fun and I was constantly worried about my heart and the growing baby inside of me. But when I went into labor and delivered Eva, everything went smoothly and I couldn't have asked for a better birthing experience.

We've been fortunate that Miss Eva has been a great baby. Some mothers conceive naturally and easily,  and some mothers have an uneventful pregnancy. What I have is milk. And lots of it. 

Breastfeeding didn't go easy for me and Eva in the beginning and after struggling for two weeks with many tears, I decided to exclusively pump. That was a very hard decision at the time, but in the end, Eva was still getting my breastmilk and that was the most important thing to us. I think since I started pumping so soon, when my milk came in...it came in. I had alot of it. I was pumping two to three times more than Eva was taking at the time, so I started freezing all the extra. When Eva was two months old, we had to buy a chest freezer to store the extra frozen milk because our freezer was full! I admit, I became a little obsessed with my "stash". I pumped every four hours, almost religiously, even up once or twice a night pumping. I would even. feel a little panicky when I didn't freeze as much as the day before.
Fast forward to when Eva is 6 months old and I have a freezer in our garage with 700 ounces of frozen breastmilk. I came across a page on Facebook that connected women needing donated breastmilk and woman who had some to give.  I came across a woman named Annie, who was a breast cancer survivor and had a double mastectomy. She never thought she'd be able to have kids again and when she found out she was pregnant, she was heartbroken that she'd be unable to breastfeed  Her story touched me as my mother and mother-in-law are both breast cancer survivors and I had a freezer full of breastmilk just sitting there. This was an easy decision.

Today Eva and I met Annie!

I donated 300 ounces of "liquid gold" to Annie..it was an armful!!

We were able to sit and sip on lemonades and chat about Motherhood, the struggles we had to get here and how grateful we both are for where we are today. I saw the tears of gratitude in Annie's eyes as she thanked me for my donated milk and really, I was grateful for her and her strength and letting me do something to help her. I have never felt more selfless and content with a decision. I look forward to keeping up with her "Baby Lucky", who is due mid-April.

I encourage anyone who has been as lucky as me with a large milk supply, to donate. There are many resources out there including Eats on Feets (www.eatsonfeets.org) and Human Milk 4 Human Babies (http://hm4hb.net/index.html)

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Mom Group Playdate - VDay Party!

Time for another playdate with our Mom Group! Since Minnesota weather didn't want to play nice, our playdate was a bit delayed. We had to cancel twice due to weather, so third times a charm after all!

Our babies are all between 6-7 months old now so this is the first playdate where they've actually been able to interact more with each other. When we all got there, we put them on the floor with toys and sat and watched them for over an hour....though I think we could've done that all day and been fine. It was so funny to see them stare at each other, scream at each other, grab at each other's shoes, bows, clothes and share toys. (Eva is in the red dress and black leggings...sprawled out in the middle)

And of course we had to get a group shot. Here they are from left to right: Cecilia, Charlie, Eva, RJ, Evelyn, Levi and Ava  (and missing Colton and Arlo)

Since it's February, we decided to do a Valentine's craft. And why not get messy with paint?! Good thing it was washable and non-toxic..we had lots of babies covered in paint.

Here is our finished project! The colors will go great in Eva's nursery, can't wait to get it hung up!

Looking forward to our next Mom Group Playdate in April...just in time for Easter!

My Heart

This Valentine's Day, it's pretty obvious who has my heart. She had my heart before she was even born and that love has grown deeper and deeper each and every day. I had no idea you could love something so much! (it helps that she's super cute too)

Since I kiss her to pieces every day, I thought we'd have a little fun with it. She giggled every time I kissed her...she's lucky she wasn't covered in lipstick as I could easily have kept going! And note to self: do not use long lasting lipstick; this photo shoot was immediately followed by her other favorite activity...bath time!

 

Miss Eva had a Valentine's party at daycare so we had to make sure she was festive. No doubt in my mind she is a little heartbreaker. (and Daddy hopes this shirt would keep the boys away)

I'm dreading the day when she doesn't get along with mom and breaks my heart. So until that day....we'll keep on loving her to pieces!!

Sisterly Love

Eva is getting more and more curious about the cats. Every time she sees them she gets a huge smile on her face and sometimes even makes a little squeal..it's adorable!
Sometimes the cats even come up and sniff her and then she just sits there, motionless. I think she's in shock and doesn't know what to do when they are actually close to her.

I found Mittens sitting on the guest bed and decided I'd have Miss Eva meet her big sister up close. Time for some Sisterly Love! (or not)

and when I got down to get a better picture, they both looked at me like I was interrupting their little sisterly love time...sorry!

And then it ended as soon as Miss Eva thought she's try to give Mittens a little touch, which means grab as much fur as possible...

I'm sure there will be plenty more sister time once Eva starts crawling and walking. I envision a lot of hide and go seek as she'll be chasing them everywhere. They won't be safe in too many places for long.

Six Months!

Happy Un-Birthday Miss Eva! You are officially half-way to one! (yikes!!)

I think since I see her every day, it's hard for me to really see how much she's grown. But every time I write her monthly update on here, I realize just how fast this is going. (and I'm so glad I've been keeping up with it!)

At Eva's 6th month check-up, she weighed in at 18lb 4oz which is the 88th percentile. Still a big girl! She's definitely going to be tall; she was 27 3/4 inches which is the 98th percentile! No wonder I'm buying her 9 month clothes and they just barely seem long enough. The only thing smaller on her is her little head which was in the 34th percentile; though they promise me this is normal and she is fine. (whew!)
Her motor skills are coming along just as they should; she has learned to bang things together and smiles proudly when it's loud. We'll also keep introducing more foods to her and having fun with it since breastmilk is still her main source of nutrition.

The biggest new thing that is happening around here is that we are SO close to sitting on our own! I typically have Eva positioned with the Boppy around her because when she gets excited, her little legs go-go-go and she falls over. But we keep on practicing sitting without support; she gets so proud of herself!

 It amazes me how much she has changed in the last 6 months, and also makes me excited to know what is coming in the next 6 months. Big changes are coming...new posts to come!

Roly-Poly

Eva is on the go! Not quite crawling yet, but she sure can roll!
We've been practicing sitting and playing by using the boppy to steady her, but she easily gets distracted and motivated to move on her own.

I set Miss Eva in the boppy with some toys by her, went to the kitchen to grab some water and when I came back, she was in a totally different place! Perhaps we need to call her Roly-Poly...and I'm sure this won't last long; she's very anxious to start crawling!

Right where I left her, playing in the boppy..

And where she was when I came back...literally a few minutes later...