La Vita E Bella

Melts My Heart.

Liv is officially smiling. I have yet to capture this beautiful event on a camera - but will be stalking her every second until I do. Wish me luck!

*This just happens to be her face of choice when she is NOT smiling. That scowl is charming, isn't it?! :)

Adjusting

We have been a family of four now for 3 weeks. I thought time flew by as a mommy of one. Well, it's moving twice as fast as the mommy of two. Each day passes at warp speed, and I find myself (like tonight), awake very late trying to catch up on my to-do list. This evening, my to-do list consisted of addressing Liv's birth announcements, updating the blog, and filing a ton of paperwork. I hope to lay my weary head sometime before 1 am. It's been pretty crazy here in the Vossler home. Between Olivia's birth, guests in our home, Easter, and the past few days - I feel like I'm trying to play catch up. I'm finding the transition from one child to two is pretty challenging at times. Trying to divide my time between the ever daunting task of exclusively nursing, taking care of a newborn, taking care of a very active and determined toddler, trying to teach a very active and determined toddler, keeping up with my online classes, as well as being a good wife is proving a daunting task. I'm finding prioritizing is a very important task if I can do it. Today was my first outing with both Lucas and Olivia all by myself. Lucas had his 15 month checkup at the doctors and I had to go on my own. I envisioned it going flawlessly, but I was poorly mistaken. Olivia basically screamed the entire time (while we were in the waiting room, the checkup room, the entire drive home) because she hates being in her carseat and I just couldn't hold her because I was trying to tend to Lucas. One screaming newborn wouldn't have been bad - but I also had a very tired, very tempermental one year old who decided to have a meltdown along with his sister. Picture this if you will....Frazzled mother carries a carseat with screaming newborn, while trying to balance a diaper bag on one shoulder, and hold the hand of crazy little boy. Only crazy little boy is throwing a tantrum (for unknown reason) and dropping to his knees leaving his mother to drag his dead weight through the hallway. She realizes that she cannot drag 27 pound little boy to the car, so she has to put down carseat with screaming newborn, throw the diaper bag over her head to keep it from falling off her shoulder, pick up the tantrum throwing toddler, re-pick up the carseat with screaming newborn and navigate down the long hallway, out of the waiting room and out to the car. Yes, it's as comical as you imagine. Luckily, I made it home in one piece. Tantrum throwing son went RIGHT DOWN for a nap, and screaming newborn started nursing. I let out a large sigh and called my hubby to tell him of my adventures. I think I overestimated my abilities and will definitely make my next appointments for when Trei can come along. Atleast until Olivia is a little older...say...when she can hold her own head up atleast. It's MUCH easier that way. My mom laughed when I told her of my experience at the doctors, and told me it won't get any worse than what I weathered. I feel better knowing I made it through without any battle scars. I guess this is what I signed up for, right? Thanksfully, the rest of my day was very nice - which made up for my sad excuse of a morning. My home is clean, pantry stocked with groceries, laundry almost done, and two kids and a husband sound asleep. Not too shabby.

I have much more to talk about - but my eyes are heavy, so I think I should hit the sack. Keep your eyes peeled for another update sometime tomorrow. I promise.

Goodnight,
Me

You Must...

Check out this website. Emily Loftus (friend, photographer, fellow mom) wrote a beautiful post on her blog, accompanied by a few photos from our shoot last Tuesday. I suggest heading over, reading the post (titled "Of Babies and Birthdays") and looking at her amazing photos. I can assure you, you won't be disappointed. I can hardly wait to see the rest. These sneak peeks are killing me!

Emily's Blog

Thanks Emily. Your words of encouragement mean the world to me, and I appreciate you more than I can adequately explain. You rock :)

Photos for your Enjoyment.

I uploaded all the photos from Olivia's birth to Flickr. You can check them out by visiting this link (View Photos). I'll have photos from our stay at the hospital, as well as from the past couple of days posted by tomorrow afternoon. For now, enjoy some snapshots of Olivia's arrival.

Our Sweet Baby Girl

It's currently 8:24pm. 1 week (and about 21 minutes) ago, Olivia entered the world. It's hard to believe our little girl has been in our lives that long already. She has made a fairly flawless entry into our lives. Aside from the occasional "diva" moment, she is a very easy baby and is bringing her daddy, brother and I tons of joy. She is very different from Lucas and I'm doing my best to learn her about what makes her tick. So far....I think she is an old soul. We call her our "little old man", because she is constantly scowling or making some thoughtful expression. She is vocal, a comfort nurser, and absolutely hates (and I really mean, she HATES) a dirty diaper - even just a droplet of pee. She loves to sleep, loves to eat even more, and is very curious about the world when she is awake. She has the daintiest hands and feet and the most adorable little mouth. I could spend all day kissing her cheeks and staring at her perfect features. I'm enjoying Liv more and more each day - I think because I realize now how quickly this phase passes and I'm trying to soak in all of her newborn-ness before it passes. Lucas is really great with his little sister. He LOVES giving her kisses and will do it every time he sees her. For the most part he's pretty oblivious to her presence, and does his own thing - but when asked "Where's the baby?", he will run right to her and shower her in love. On one occasion he excitedly smacked her forehead and I had to explain that he needs to be gentle with her.....so we keep a close eye on him....just in case the smacking happens again. Hopefully not. I'm dying to see how he does once she's old enough to interact with him. I know they will be very good friends. For now though, she's just another person in the household. Trei is such a great dad. He loves his kids so much and it's amazing to see. He dives right in, whether it be feeding, playing, bathing, etc. I never have to ask Trei for help - I believe he genuinely loves taking care of his babies - even the less than desireable tasks (like diaper duty). I'm blessed to be married to a man who values his family as much as Trei does. Makes me excited for our future. I, well I'm doing great as a mommy to two. Granted, I've had help every single day since Liv was born. In fact, I've only had two kids home, alone once so far and it was only about 30 minutes because it happened to be at Lucas's bedtime. Trei's mom was with us until yesterday night and my mom joined us today - and will be here until this weekend. I'm so lucky to have such a great support system. So I can't update on my experience as a stay at home mom to two until I've actually been one :) My recovery since her birth has been extremely easy. Since I had a small tear this time as opposed to a very large episiotomy, my healing has been near perfect. I gained only half the weight I did with Lucas which means my tummy has flattened a lot quicker and I'm not as flabby as I was after Lucas. In fact, I'm only 5 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight with Liv and 13 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight with Lucas. Not too shabby. Breastfeeding has gone as expected. She is eating every 3 hours (from start of one feeding to the start of another) during the day and every 5 hours at night. This means I'm getting a fair amount of sleep. She takes about an hour to nurse each session, but is getting a little quicker each time. She is a VERY strong sucker, so I've been in pain - but that is slowly going away as well. We are working hard on getting her onto a schedule. Twice now she was sleeping so much during the day that she'd be awake for an hour or two at night - which killed me. So now, I'm keeping her awake more during the day so she sleeps better at night. Eventually it will work itself out.

Before I sign off, I have to give mad props to Emily Loftus (www.emilyloftus.com) for her beautiful  photo of Liv and I.  She flew into the OC yesterday from Reno to take  newborn photos of Olivia. The photo above was my sneak preview and she gave me permission to use it on my site. I cannot wait to see the rest and know they will be absolutely stunning. She is a talented and incredibly wonderful individual - and I am honored to have finally met her.   I'll post some more photos once I see them!

Well, time for me to hit the sack. I'm definitely feeling tired, but know that this time of my life will be short lived, so I try and stay positive. I'll try and update again soon, so keep posted.

P.S. If you made a guess on my ExpectNet contest, I posted O's stats and the scores have been tallied. Visit the link on the left to see where you ranked. Congratulations to my cousin Elizabeth for FIRST PLACE. She had the lowest score (the lower the score the better)...now I just need to think of what to reward her with :)

Love, Me

The Story of Her Birth...

Well, we've been home a full day now and it feels so good. Trei and his mom have been such a huge help, I really appreciate it. Olivia and I have been able to settle in, relax, and get adjusted to life as a family of four. As most newborns do, Liv basically eats and sleeps which makes for a fairly easy adjustment at home. She is an incredible baby and it's hard to imagine life before she arrived. She is precious and delicate and just perfect in every way.

Before I dive into more about our time with Liv since she's been home, I wanted to try and update on her birthday! As I'm sure you all figured - I didn't go into labor until my induction date of March 5th. Trei and I left the house that morning at 8:30am to head to the hospital. I had packed my things, showered, and was actually quite nervous. We had told our family that we would call when labor started to pick up, so the first few hours we spent in the labor and delivery room was alone. By the time we arrived, filled out paperwork, got to our room and settled in - it was 10:30am. If I remember correctly a small dose of pitocen was started at 11am and my water was broken at 11:30. By 1:30 I was only 4cm's, my contractions were barely 5 minutes apart and I was receiving an epidural (even though I wasn't too uncomfortable). Basically we were told to settle in for a long day. The nurse upped the pitocen just a smidge every hour or so. I was feeling a little discouraged, but tried to remember that my body had not gone into labor on it's own - it was basically being forced....so the process of induction isn't the most natural or the quickest way to have a baby.

At 6:30pm I was only dilated to 5 and 50% effaced - which prompted my nurse to dial up the pitocen big time. Over the next 20 minutes,my contractions picked up and were about 1 minute apart and painful. I knew that being so close together and so painful (despite my epidural) meant something. At 7pm, my day nurse was getting off shift and told me I'd be checked by the night nurse when she arrived. 7:15pm I was checked and the nurse looked at me and said "Well, you are 100% effaced....and 10 centimeters. Looks like we are ready to push!". I looked at Trei with the biggest grin on my face. I went from 5 to 10 in less than an hour. YES!

Introducing LMV :)

Well, we are home. Lots to post about, I know - I'll try and settle in for a nice update this evening. For now, I need to nurse Miss Liv and maybe catch a nap while Lucas is at the park with Grandma. For now....a few photos of her before we left the hospital today. Enjoy :)

It's a Girl!!!

Olivia Victoria Vossler
March 5th, 2008 - 8:03pm8lbs, 14ozs - 20" long She is Absolutely Beautiful!!
Check back for photos tomorrow.

Just 12 Hours To Go...

Well, looks like I made it to my induction. Leave it to me to cook a full-term baby. Lucas came on his own at 39 weeks, 6 days and this little one will be coming (with a little help from pitocen) at 39 weeks, 2 days. I know there are many woman who pray for full-term babies - so I'm thankful that both my babies will have been born healthy and strong.

We had a little scare today - well, not scare....but they thought my water had broken based on low fluid levels in my ultrasound at monitoring today. After about an hour of waiting....we found out my membranes had, in fact, not ruptured. So I was sent home. I've been here all day - relaxing (or trying to) with Trei's parents, my mom and Grandma. Unless for some reason I go into labor tonight or the middle of the night - Trei and I will head over to the hospital tomorrow morning at 9am for induction. This means, as long as things go smoothly, we will have our second child - a little girl by tomorrow evening. Crazy.

Please pray for us right now. Pray for a smooth, complication-free delivery as well as for our family as we adjust to a new little bundle in our home.

I'll update as soon as I can - or check other blogs (Katy or Kayli) for more news! They may get to the announcement before I can. Thanks for reading and also for your prayers in advance. We appreciate it VERY much.

Love,
Me