1.29.11 Surgery Week

Well this week was all about Ashlyn's surgery and fearing it. All week I had to try and find ways to pass the time, to force myself not to just sit around and cry unti the big day, which was Friday. One thing that helped was spending time with family. My mom is always so great with the kids, I love going to her house.

Monday, I went to see my friend Jen and her adorable twin baby girls. They are 6 months old and this was the first time I have met them. They are both completely adorable, and totally opposite. I loved them so much, but I have t admit it was hard trying to decide which one to play with, which one to hold!

My sister called and wanted to come hang out one night also to help distract me. It was so nice outside, we ended up going to the park. Jakob had a great time of course, it has been months since I took him to the park. He does this thing where he wants to kiss you through all the bars, and this was a picture my sis captured of it. I think it is so awesome and funny! What a cutie pie!

Thursday, a photographer came out to our house to take Ashlyn's one month photos. I won't get to see them for a few weeks, but I think there were some pretty good ones. It was nice having the photographer come to us. She brought backdrops and lights and everything, very professional. We ended up getting suckered into buyng a package where she comes out 3 more times! This was what Ashlyn wore for the pics, although you could not see the adorable skirt in any of them!

This is her first bath time photo. She is finally getting used to baths in the tub, but now we are back to spngebathing for two weeks because of her incision. I will be anxious to get her back in the tub!

So Friday morning we went in for her surgery. I could write a novel about it and how hard it was for me, but I want to leave it in the past for now. Everything went as well as we could have hoped. They did have to remove her right ovary, but that was better than a piece of her intestine! The surgery was over fast, and her recovery has been speedy also. They expected us to be there till at least Sunday, and yet tonight is Saturday and we are home. I was extremely nervous about bringing her home because I am scared of hurting her. In the hospital though, she was attached to so many things I could not even hold her hardly. So it is nice to be home and able to scoop her up when she needs me. I do think she is having some pain, but we are trying to manage it with snuggles and tylenol. =) Thank you everyone for your warm thoughts and prayers during our families ordeal. We are glad it is behind us finally.

Saturday morning, Jakob came up to the hospital because both Jeff and I were missing him hardcore. He had been staying with grandparents since Thursday. The hospital had a really awesome train display, so we took him to see that, as well as a few other things in the hospital. I will say it is an awesome hospital for kids, but it was sure hard beign there and seeing so many sick little kids. It just broke my already fragile heart.

1.23.11 One Date, Two Quilts, Third Week of January

We started this week off right with a date night. Jeff gets to attend a lot of wine tastings in his profession, and for the first time, it was a time where he could bring me along! We went to Three Forks, where his wine reps had all of their portfolios out for us to taste. There were probably about 200 different wines, and some mighty tasty snacks. We didn't taste all of the wines of course, but sampled enough to be good and tipsy. After leaving there, we decided it would be lame to return to our babysitter before the kids were in bed, so we went to the Melting Pot for cheese and dessert. Yummy!

This week I think Ashlyn started smiling. I know everyoen says the ones when babies are asleep are gas, but she gave me two good ones this week when she was wide awake. She may not be doing it often yet, but I think she has given me genuine smiles.

A lady my mom use to work with made Jakob a beautiful quilt when I was pregnant with him. I love it so much, I asked her to make one for Ashlyn also. She made it to coordinate with her bedroom, and it is perfect! I hadn't seen it at any stage of its creation, so I was super excited when mom told me it was finally finished! The details she put into it are awesome.

This was a big week for Ashlyn, she turned one month old. I can't believe how fast it is going. Of course for her this meant being dressed up and forced into a photo shoot. I know she looks sweet and peaceful, but I took about 50 pictures, all of her screaming. I think she just paused for a second here, but I got lucky and caught it on film. She hated the bow and the tutu, but then I am sure they are quite scratchy!

Now that I have something other than Jakob to take pictures of, he suddenly wants to be in every picture again. Sometimes he will even ask me to get the camera and take his picture. I got him to lay by his sister after his bath the other night and tried to get a good shot of them together. I think I need to put on their big brother/little sister clothes and try this one again.

After soothing Ashlyn the other night, Jakob decided he wanted my love and attention also. He crawled up besdie me on the couch and put my arm around him and clutched it super tight so I couldn't go anywhere. I bet we sat like that for almost an hour, well past his bedtime because I was so frozen with happiness I could not move. I had my sweet baby girl curled up sleeping on my chest and my baby boy snuggled up beside me. I have never felt so lucky and so happy...completely content. Luckily my camera was beside me and so I tried to capture the moment. Not a great picture, especially sicne I probably had not brushed my hair that day, but at least I will always remember the moment.

We have the sweetest neighbors ever, and after getting Ashlyn's birth announcement, Jackie decided to make her a quilt. She gave it to us on Friday, and I was shocked. It was such a sweet thing to do, and I love homeade stuff. It's just beautiful and completely different than the one that matches her bedroom. She also signed it and wrote Ashlyn's name and birthday on a little heart on the back. She said she was going to make one for Jakob too!

And though I haven't mentioned it, this was a really rough week for me. I am still simply terrified about Ashlyn and her upcoming surgery. It seems like everyday I cry, so I try not to talk about it anymore. Sometimes when I am feeding her though, I just sit there and cry. I know it's stupid, she will be fine I am sure. But the terrified part of me feels like I am on a countdown to losing her. A countdown to what will surely be the worst day of my life, no matter how well it goes-how am I going to hand over my baby to someone who intends to cut her open? I am suppose to be able to protect her and I feel like I have failed, will fail. I cannot wait for this to all be in the past so I can enjoy her and not feel like she is a ticking timebomb.

1.15.11 Two weeks of stuff!

Well my grand intentions of blogging every weekend instead of every day already got messed up. My darling husband decided to "fix" our computer, and I couldn't use it all last weekend, so I have two weeks to catch everyone up on today. Take a minute, grab a glass of wine, slip into your jammies, whatever you need to enjoy this long read. =)

Ashlyn was two weeks old last week, so that meant it was time to take her first picture with Pinky, the bunny I made her, to compare her growth for the next year. It was kind of funny because nearly every picture of her I take she is asleep, but in this one she was wide awake. I love that outfit, I think she looks like a baby pretty woman!

Jakob has been acting silly as ever, and tempermental as ever. As long as he gets plenty of attention he seems to be great, but when things go too much toward the baby, he loses it. I don't know what he was doing in this picture, but it makes me laugh. He also desperately wanted to try out the new bows I bought for Ashlyn, and I of course let him. He was pretty proud of them and wore them around the house for a good half hour.

I also bought him a stocking hat to try and keep him warm, and much to my amazement, he loves it and will actually wear it! He looks pretty cute in it, and I was able to snap his picture on the ride home from daycare the other day.

I finally managed to pose Ashlyn for a very important photo. When Jakob was a baby I took lots of pics of him doing "sun therapy" for his jaundice. One of the pics turned out so cute, and with a little editing, it matched the colors in our bedroom perfectly. I blew it up to an 8x10 and framed it, it has been in our room ever sicne. I couldn't wait to try and take the same photo only pink with Ashlyn to add to the wall. It is the whole reason I wanted a pink boppy cover, and a pink pacifier. I included the file from Jakob's so you could see both, and how much alike and different they are. They are positioned the same, have the same number of rolls...just the colors and the full head of hair are different. I can't wait to get this one framed and up.

I decided to buy myself my own "push gift" for being such a rockstar. Plus Jeff didn't get me anything so why not. This is my beautiful new mom ring. It has two trillion cut blue topaz set in sterling silver. Since both my babies were born in December, this is both of their birthstones. It was hard to find a two stone ring I liked, but I really love this one. One stone for each child, and it is only a teensy bit too small. I am going to take it soon to try and get it sized.

Dad and Sheryl came down this week to see the new baby. It was really nice to see them and for Jakob especially, to spend so much time with his grandparents. They are the only ones who live out of town, so they don't get to see each other very often. Jakob loved them both of course, and called Dad "B pa". When I picked him up from school the day they left, as we pulled into the drive he started saying "B-pa? B-pa?" I had to tell him, "No honey, B-pa had to go home."

The last thing for the past two weeks is a sad note to end on, and one that has me constantly in tears every time I think about it. We finally went to get a pelvic ultrasound on Ashlyn to see if the mass was shrinking away as hoped. After 6 long weeks of not worrying about it, like all the many doctors told me not to, my worst fears are confirmed. The mass is not going away, it's 7 cm by 4 cm, It is so large it has twisted one of her ovaries and cut off all blood flow to it. It is so large, they can't tell where it is coming from-if it is connected to an ovary as previously thought or a bowel or some other organ. The only way to find out the answers we need to know is by removing it through surgery. Then she said she is sure it will be benign, but they want to test it for cancer. Now instead of only worrying about my tiny baby being able to handle a major abdominal surgery, I have to worry that this perfect gift God has given me may have cancer? It's all I can think about and I am tired of crying. Despite what others say, I am not strong enough to handle this. I feel like I am drowning. Here's a pic of my sweet baby getting her first ultrasound...

And because I cannot end on that note after all, her's a random pic of my beautiful daughter. I love natural light photos!

12.31.10 New Years Eve!

I can't believe I finished this! I took a picture every day for a year, and blogged about them all! I am glad I did it, and think it is a cool idea, but have no interest in doing it again in 2011. I will still blog and post pictures often, but the pressure of one every day was a bit much at times. I do think it was pretty great year to document though, with Ashlyn being concieved and born and all. For my last pic, I took a photo of the two bottles of wine me and my mom drank for New Years Eve. It was my first taste of alcohol in almost ayear, and I did get a little buzzed. I don't know if it was worth it though, because then when I got tired and wanted to crash, I had to stay up for two hours soothing a fussy, gassy baby. Oh well. At least I got a precious kiss from my daughter at midnight. I love my life.

12.30.10 Boys in Bed

Jeff has been doing such a wonderful job of entertaining Jakob since I am often tied up with baby, and they were so cute today when they played in our bed. I have never seen Jakob get under the covers before, but he mimicked every action Jeff made. If one of them pulled the blanket over his head, so did the other. They cracked me up!

12.29.10 Cheeky!

I feel a little bad finishing out the year by posting pics of Ashlyn everyday, but she does consume most of my day. I love the first couple of weeks, and can not stop looking at her and thinking how cute she is. I love that I take 10 pics of her every day that to anyone else, probably all look the same, but to me, every one is different and adorable. I love sleeping babies! I really like this picture too because it shows off her ample cheeks on her adorable little profile.

12.28.10 Newborn Photo Shoot

My mom is so funny. She wanted to take all these newborn shots of Ashlyn and had been collecting props and hats and hairbows. I had no idea how much though until we went over for the shoot. My sister volunteered (well maybe she got roped into it) to take the pictures. When I got there they had backdrops and lights set up, it was so professional. Ashlyn did a pretty good job of letting us torture her, and we got some FANTASTIC pictures. I didn't use my favorite one because I want to use it for the birth announcements, but this was one of my finalists. These pics were better than any we got of Jakob as a newborn, and they were essentially free!! Woohoo!

12.27.10 Jakob Plays Mommy

One of Jakob's Christmas presents was a baby doll stroller. We had the doll we bought to teach him about babies already, so now he carefully puts her in it and pushes her all over the house. He is a pretty awesome big brother and trys to immitate everything we do with Ashlyn-like stroking her hair and giving her a pacifier. Too bad he can't change diapers! =)

12.26.10 Jakob Holds Ashlyn

It took Jakob a while to warm up to the idea of holding Ashlyn. He was very interested in her, but whenever I would ask him if he wanted to hold her he would say, "NO!" Today for the first time he said yes! I of course sat right there with him, and he proudly declared her "MINE!" over and over, throwing a fit when I eventually took her back. He smothered her with kisses, and she started to get upset and push him away. What a fun moment to catch on film!

12.25.10 A Hard Christmas Day

Jakob was pretty excited to see his gifts Santa left this morning, and to finally open his presents under the tree from us also. We smartly waited until last to let him open the new part of his train set, which of course he played with non stop till we left for Jeff's family's Christmas. We had to take Ashlyn for a jaundice check, and she was improving, so that was good. After a long day of pretty intense pain for me though, I broke down in the car and cried all the way home. I was so tired and hurting and Jakob had a rough day, wanting me constantly and I was dealing with the guilt of not being able to give him what he wanted for probably the first time in his life. Despite it being a more than pleasant experience with Jeff's family, it was probably my least favorite Christmas day in a long time. I had to keep telling myself, "I gave birth 4 days ago, it's normal to feel terrible" (both mentally and physically), but it was still hard. Jeff took care of the kids when we got home, I took lots of pain meds and crashed out. Thank goodness I have a wonderful hubby and my kids have a great father. I woke up feeling much better.

12.24.10 First Bath

I was really torn about what picture to put today since it was Christmas Eve, and we celebrated with my side of the family. I decided to use a picture of Ashlyn's first bath though instead. She of course still has her umbilical cord stump, so we can only sponge bathe her, but her hair was so greasy from me rubbing on it all the time. I just can't help it...Jakob was pretty close to bald so all that hair is awful fun for me, especially since it is brown! =) She hardly cried through the bath, and came out of it looking good and smelling great. She was pretty cute for her first Christmas Eve-complete with a bow on her head full of hair!