I Guess I Owe You Some Pictures

AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR!

(Well, three humans and one beautiful kitten!)

The Beginning...

Ryan and I on vacation in Florida during Thanksgiving 2007 at his family's cabin. We had been dating 11 months.

Same vacation, except we were alone, by ourselves, across Florida in Orlando at DisneyWorld and Universal Studios.

Slowly Starting a Family...

Our first baby Missy. We saved her from a disgusting pet shop September 9th, 2007. She was in a dirty environment where she picked up fleas and a nasty respiratory infection that lasted 3 months. She was born on Ry's birthday, June 21st, she's 100% deaf, and she can either be the sweetest cat or the most evil little devil you've ever seen.


...but we still love her to pieces. She is now almost 2yrs old! (And yes, she's wearing a hoodie!)

Just after we got married on March 12th, 2008. We did a court wedding due to moving with the thought of doing a big wedding in the Summer. It didn't happen; instead, we got a baby. Much better than a wedding! (Besides, we didn't want to waste the thousands on a 20min ceremony.)

First Love, Then Marriage, Then Comes Baby in a Baby Carriage...

What can I say about this beautiful girl? She is our first child, a princess, a miracle from God, and the day she was born was the happiest I have seen my husband. Her name is Samantha Lillian Pearl, and she was born at 1330 on September 24th, 2008 via emergency cesarean. She weighed 8lbs 1oz and was 21 & 1/2 inches long.

Taken October 1st, just seven days before she was admitted to the hospital. At this point she only weighed 7lbs 1oz. She was only losing, not gaining. She was projectile vomiting the breast milk that I pumped, and her bowel movements were almost non-existant.

Almost a month old, a little bit after her hospital stay. There she was diagnosed with reflux (later GERD), an infection, and dehydration (duh, she was puking) and sent home on antibiotics (which caused her to get thrush, which required more antibiotics. We fought that for four weeks because of the doctor's neglect!), Zantac (for reflux) and an expensive prescription formula that thank God the military paid for. In this picture she was almost back up to her birth weight of 8lbs 1oz. Look how skinny she was. :-( Her skin flaps on her legs were awful.



Moving on Up...


This is Samantha now, both taken just last week! After 7 months of hard struggle, we are finally at a point where every day is a dream instead of a nightmare. This picture was taken this month on the 21st. Her "Easter" pictures. Isn't she beautiful? Today she weighs just 15lbs 12oz and is 26 & 1/2 inches long, but she has come a long way since that skinny little baby you saw up there. Her weight is all in her now chubby little legs, and her arms and torso are still petite. But instead of screaming, pain and sleepless nights, she is laughing, smiling and enjoying life!

Samantha's first trip to the park last week. She loved the swing, but hated the slide (we held her as she slid down). She'd swing all through the night if we let her. She is still on her expensive formula, but we are going to start weaning her off of it and onto a regular formula which scares the heck out of me. I don't want a repeat of last October when she almost died. I am concerned with how her system will handle it, as her formula now is free amino acids, milk and soy protein free, hypoallergenic, etc. and the regular formula has all those. But we are starting slowly under the close care of our wonderful Ped GI Dr. C, and are supposed to feed her one bottle of regular formula once every three days and report bi-monthly weight checks to Dr. C. We are starting that regime this week. She has been upgraded to a stronger reflux med, Prevacid, because for one month straight (Jan through Feb) she would scream half the day and all night because she was in so much pain. A few days after we got her on the Prevacid, she was 1000% different. We were seeing a baby we never saw before. It was pure bliss, and still is. She is slowly starting on solids - due to her GI issues we have to be careful - and loves pears.

Well, there you have it folks. Faces to the names, and a little about our past few years!

Oh The Hell With Witty Titles; Samantha Crawls!

At 19:20 this evening (that's 7:20PM for those of you that are, well, slow), my little seven month old crawled properly for the first time! Daddy had the video camera on her and I had my BlackBerry's camera on her, and for the first forty seconds she is just staring at us, probably thinking, "Why the hell are you staring at me?". Then her focus kicked in and off she went. In a matter of seconds she was at her destination. It was perfect. Sure, she still stumbles every now and then, but she can crawl on both arms and legs now. Yeah, she's skilled.

I am one proud momma, and I love that little girl.

Happy 7 Months, Samantha!

Dear Samantha,

Seven months ago today, at 1330, you were brought into this world. The most beautiful newborn, you continue to grow more beautiful with each passing day. We have been through so much as a family since even before you were born. We thought there would be problems with you because of my high-risk status, but that was not God's will and he proved us wrong. Maybe because he knew it was too much for me to handle at the time, but through the past seven months I have grown stronger. Daddy and I still don't know why we were so blessed to have a near perfect daughter. I'm guessing God wanted us to be happy, and put you in our lives to show us that all things are possible, even miracles. The day you were born, and the three days following in the hospital, I realized that you were going to be okay; God had kept you safe inside my womb, for He created you and knew you as you are before Daddy and I. You, my little blessing, brought me closer to God, and I believe that is what your life purpose will always be; to bring non-believers and lost souls closer to God.

Matthew 18:5 - And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.

At seven months, you are about 16lbs and 26.5" long. You are still on Prevacid for your GERD, and it continues to work it's magic. You are no longer screaming and crying in pain, which makes you one happy baby. You have begun to talk again, saying mostly "ba aaah wee anami da waaha yeah oh ooo mmmm plllth ma mi" and when you are upset or want attention, you utter what sounds to us like "Ma Ma" and "Ma Mi" because you have learned that this brings Mommy or Daddy to you. You also pant, a lot; I don't know where you picked that up but you do it all the time. However, I'd say your number one favorite thing to do is screeching. You love to screech/scream no matter what your mood; happy, excited, irritated, bored, upset or angry. The mood dictates the pitch and volume. I do this with you sometimes, and it makes you laugh constantly. What else makes you laugh? When Daddy pants along with you; when Mommy stands you up and dances with you, making weird sounds or singing to go along with your wiggling; when Daddy does a "num num num" (eating motion) on your neck/cheek and Mommy doing the same on your tummy. Although, when I do that you grab onto my hair with a vengeance. You like to grab anything and everything. You are such a little explorer these days, and often get your hands on things you are not supposed to have. Just like any other baby, what you can get in your hands goes directly into your mouth. You cannot crawl on all fours, but that doesn't stop you from getting around. You have developed your own version of the army crawl, and can get from A to B fairly quick. You are practicing daily for crawling on all fours though! You get up on your hands and knees and rock back and forth. You usually do this in your crib after you wake up, for twenty or thirty minutes you just rock, rock and rock, all while panting. You're so silly.

You still drool like a Saint Bernard, and you have two teeth slowly coming in on the bottom which have never seemed to bother you. You like to suck on our fingers, but we've learned to stay away from your mouth because you bite with those sharp pearly whites!

Recently, I attemped to teach you to kiss and if I can get your attention, you lean in and give us an open-mouthed, wet kiss. Sure we get drool on us, but we don't mind because we love kisses!

You are such a sweet, simple loving girl. You never pass up an opportunity to make a stranger fall in love with your baby blues and adorable smile. You enjoy attention and are not even one bit shy, except when it comes to other babies. You only see them at the doctor's office, so you remain quiet and observant. I am pretty sure you don't know what to think of these tiny people. I will get us enrolled in a "Mommy & Me" class soon so that you can get exposure to other babies, and learn to make friends.

My parents, your G-Pa and Grammy, love you more than anything in this world and it pains them that they don't get to see you everyday. Grammy is having back surgery on June 1st, so we will be going towards the middle of May to visit, spend Mother's Day with her, and then aid in her recovery. I know she'll heal faster with her favorite beautiful baby around.

Daddy's parents, Grandpa and Gramma Jones, they miss you too. You have yet to meet Grandpa, and I don't know when we'll see them again. You still have to meet Daddy's siblings, Uncle Jerry and TiTi Daun, as well as Daun's sons, your cousins, Nicky, Alex and Jonathan. Your Uncle Jerry and his wife Aunt Ronni are faithful Christians; Daddy and I have been contemplating asking them to be your Godparents. We've more discussing to do, but I am pretty sure that they will be as they can guide you spiritually better than anyone we know.

You are a beautiful creation of God, Samantha, and you have changed a lot of people's lives forever, just by being born. Many people love you, and will always be there for you. We look forward to many more days, weeks, months and years with you. I wish you didn't have to get any older, but since you must, we'll cherish every day together. Before I know it you'll be one year old.

Happy Seven Months, Peanut. I love you with all that I am, and so does Daddy.

Love,

Mommy

Samantha's GI Appointment

Samantha had her GERD (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease) check-up today with Dr. Cornfeld up in DC. First, the important details:

Stats
**Weight - 15lbs&14oz.
**Height - 26.3"

Percentiles
**Weight - 25% (again *sigh*
**Height - Around 30%

Her height has not changed since February. Babies are supposed to grow about two inches between four and six months. Why is she not growing? We're not giving her coffee!

Dr.C was very happy to see her as he has not seen her since December. He loves her and calls her "his little peanut". We love him because a) he is the only doctor that treats us like parents and adults, b) he explains everything to us in detail and never leaves parts out like some of her doctors do, and c) he is funny, caring, understanding and extremely smart.

He wants to start weaning her off Elecare (hypoallergenic, free amino acids, no milk or cow proteins; so it's basically just vitamins) and onto regular formula so that her stomach can learn to digest better. Elecare simply absorbs into her system without her tummy having to do much work. It is important that she gets off of it so her stomach can get stronger. This of course scares me, because I don't want her to relapse like she did when she was a newborn. I don't want to have to go into the hospital again, and it's so hard to see her in pain. Dr.C understands this and wants to begin introducing the new formula by one bottle every three days. It will give us the chance to monitor her closely and make sure there are no allergic reactions or problems with her GERD. The formula to use, he said, is anything we want but it's best to go with the cheapest. We haven't started yet but will next week. We will be reporting to him every two weeks to give him the results of her weight checks. We also have to start giving her food but must only give her pears, oatmeal, carrots or peas. Nothing else, and only once a day, a little at a time.

I am scared and anxious, but I know that we have to do what's best for Sam. We can do this.

How Fast A Year Goes By...

It was about this time last year (plus or minus a day) that we moved into our townhome on base and began our lives in Maryland.

At this time, nobody but Ryan and I knew about the baby growing inside me. We had lost Giggs on April 12th when he jumped out of our truck at the Super 8 motel and ran off into the night. Ryan didn't really have a place in his new job, and was stuck in the admin office because nobody knew what to do with him.

So much has happened since those first days.

We now have a 7 month old beautiful baby girl that everyone loves.
Giggs was found on July 27th, 2008 while I was in WA at my baby shower. He was 9lbs of skin and bones, probably just days away from death. Today he is 17lbs and happy.
Ryan is doing police training, working on patrol, is LPO of his section and works a very long and confusing schedule.

Life was so simple back then, even though I thought it was horrible since we lost our kitty just after my favorite necklace had been stolen by the Mexican housekeeper at some stupid motel in Washington DC. I hated the East Coast; the weather, bugs, people, everything! But I only hated it because it was different.

Now, Maryland is my home. I love mostly everything about it. It's beautiful, the weather is nice minus the humidity, the people my husband work with are amazing, and not having the daily drizzle of Seattle rain is really nice too. I still hate the bugs, and most of the people are idiots, but there is so much to learn and discover. So much of America's history is here.

Yeah, I think the next two years will be just fine. :-)

Samantha Screams

Our daughter has always know how to do an angry/in-pain/fed-up scream/cry which thanks to Prevacid she only does on occasion, but that new sound she started at the theater? It seems that she really loved that new sound and is now letting out said high-pitched squeal/scream every chance she gets. When she wakes up, she'll do the "attention" squeal; while in her bouncer it is an "excited" squeal with a smile; and if you're making her do something she doesn't want to, like nap, or trying to keep her from doing something she wants to, it's a "protest" squeal. The protest squeal is the funniest one I think because she knows she is doing it, perhaps thinking, "I am going to keep making this loud annoying sound until you do what I want". She always has that mischievous look on her face. It is too cute but not so much when you want to sleep.

Thank God for baby monitors with volume control. :-)

Sleeping Woes

Yes, it is almost 0600 and I am still awake for a number of reasons.

Ry is on graveyard this month, and I always hate it. Not only do I have to sleep alone - which usually doesn't go great because, well, he's not here - and when he gets home he has to sleep while the baby and I quietly play downstairs. The second problem is that Sam's sleeping schedule is all sorts of messed up. It just started a few days ago; her usual bedtime is between 2100 and 2200. It has been slowly creeping up and last night/this morning she did not go to sleep until 0300. I tried everything. Not only is she not going to bed at a decent time, she is also sleeping like a newborn. She used to take about thirty to one hour naps every two or three hours. Now she is sleeping two, three sometimes four hours at a time. I know what you're thinking: just wake her up. That would work if she actually agreed with that, but you wake her up before SHE wants to and we get crabby, stubborn Sam.

I just don't know what to do. We try baths, feeding her really well, and everything you can think of. She's cutting her first tooth but it doesn't hurt her, as she is extremely bubbly while awake. Is excess sleeping attributed to that? Perhaps her Prevacid (Reflux Med)?

I think it's time to go google, since I can't sleep anyway.

***Update***

I read up on it and neither of the above mentioned have anything to do with her sleep patterns. I need some good advice on this one.