Violet's 2nd Month

Violet has completely woken up this last month. She smiled a couple of times during the last 2 weeks before her 2nd month birthday but not a lot and it was always kind of sneaky. The very last 2-3 days before she turned 2 months her smile became completely social and I could consistently get her to smile at me. This month had a lot of REALITY in it. No family, no trips and a lot of naps at the house. Her older sibs were going crazy, but this mom had to adjust. It is sooooo hard to deal with my other kiddos *cough, Macy, cough* when I have such a tiny sweet baby around!!

She sleeps at least 6 hours a night if not more, she is such an angel baby! 

Davie is obsessed with her. He's not UN-gentle but he isn't careful enough and tends to jostle her more that I like. 

When she gets chunkier it won't be so bad

Sometimes (ALL the time) I feel bad for her because ALL of us are all SO incredibly loud all the time. Between her brother and sister and me talking to her brother and sister there's not a lot of peace and quiet. Thankfully Violet doesn't seem to mind.

Squish, she tends to just kind of hang out where she is put and usually falls asleep anywhere during the day.

I look tired in this picture, but I promise life has been pretty darn great!

Violet is so easy going thus far that I have to remind myself that she has a personality but that personality is just different than her siblings. With Macy I didn't realize her demanding "food now!" attitude was a reflection of what life is going to be like as she got older. 

Wait... I changed my mind, I don't want to hold her anymore.

Davie was less demanding but it still was fairly easy for him to start crying when he was a baby. Violet takes a lot longer to get herself into a tizzy. I tease with David that she tends to baulk and grunt more than cry when she is unhappy or hungry. I can't say for sure just yet, my answer will come once Violet gets mobile. The age of mobility is when Davie and Macy made it crystal clear they were going not going to miss anything... EVER.

Our Hot pink burrito 

Violet is my second baby to refuse to take a binky (I was so sad about that). I don't know what it is about those sweet little binky faces, but I was so hoping she would take one! She is also my least dependent on swaddling. Davie was the most for almost 18 months, then Macy for about 9-12 months and Violet already sleeps un-swaddled.... for the whole night! I still swaddle her, but if she gets out I don't worry. She is still great at diaper changes. Seriously, this baby loves a fresh diaper! Which is incredibly foreign to me since both her siblings HATED that.

The first of MANY matching outfits.

We potty trained Macy this month so now Violet is the only bum I'm changing! Hurray! Turns out newborn/ little baby diapers aren't that bad. 

Snuggles

This was shortly after I moved her straps on her carseat up. Look at that hair! Everyone comments on it. Especially out in public and even more so when/if they see Davie and Macy's blonde little heads of hair. It's funny because she looks a lot like Davie did, only he lost his hair around 3/4 months. I think Violet has managed to keep hers thicker and darker for about a month longer already.

The only exception to her sweet easy going self seems to be in the evenings when she struggles with bubbles in her tummy. I'm not sure what it is about my girls but they both have struggled with that. I think Violet is possibly affected by my caffeine intake, which is not a lot to start with, so I've tried my best to just not drink any. I'm still on the fence as to whether or not dairy bugs her. If it is dairy I really think it's just ice cream. But based on all I have read and David's thoughts on the subject it's incredibly hard to prove that, so who knows.

She's pretty patient with me, but she does tend to be more fussy with David. He teases on a daily basis that Violet doesn't like him. Which is kind of true. 

Violet finally got too big for her newborn clothes this month and has been wearing mostly size 1 diapers. But she wore both about 2-3 weeks longer than Davie or Macy. Like I've said before she's just our delicate little flower. 

The End

Violet is 1 month!

It's cliche and I say it every time, but it seriously goes by so fast! What is even more of a let down is that in my opinion it goes by faster every time. I am OBSESSED with my newborns. I just love them to death. I've had some great new babies though and have never been too sleep deprived.

What can I say about Violet's first month? It was mainly full of visitors. They came about a day after I returned from the hospital and they left 3 days before Violet turned a month. That makes having a newborn easier too :) I love our families for it!!

So far with all of my babies I have been lucky enough to have family at our house for almost 30 days afterwards. This time was no different. My family came for about two weeks then David's family came for about two more weeks. By the time everyone left Violet was only a couple of days away from being a month old.

What can I say about Violet? She was my smallest baby and even though she had a good suckle when I would try to feed her she wasn't a good eater. I think it was because of her slightly early arrival (four days) and being so small. It took her forever to want to latch (she loved to bob around a lot) and then by the time she did she would basically fall asleep within a minute. It was kind of like oh you're warm and soft and smell good.... Zzzzz. And while she was utterly adorable, teeny tiny and like all new mom's I loved that sleep, she definitely made me nervous!

pretty sleeping baby

Violet really only ate once at the hospital. Davie wasn't a whole lot bigger but he was much better at letting me know when he needed to be fed (pretty much every 3-4 hours). With Violet I had to set an alarm, un-swaddle her, undress her, changer her and she still wouldn't necessarily be awake. I remember one night in particular it took me a good 45 minutes to get her to wake up and the it took her over an hour to eat because she kept falling asleep. That was probably the toughest part. She started at 6lbs and lost a whole pound before she started gaining! That definitely made this mama super nervous!! I was (and still am) much more diligent about making sure she doesn't go very long between feedings.

The plus side was that she was so tiny and snuggly and just beautiful. The more babies I have the more I fall in love with them. I LOVE newborns. Like Love, love looooveeee!!! I've been very blessed and I'm thankful for how sweet and easy going all three of mine were their first couple of months. I do a lot of nursing, sitting and cuddling while watching tv after my babies. It's the best. Also on a completely unrelated topic any Netflix or Hulu suggestions would be great right now ;)

At her one month appointment she was 7'11. To put that in perspective that's what I weighed at birth! Haha I was quite a bit bigger. As of her 1st month birthday she was still in newborn clothes and diapers. I'm thankful that Violet was my 3rd time around in the nursing department because I already knew what I was doing and she did not. It was completely different than Macy, who was practically a pro from day one. Had she been my first I probably would've struggled a lot more and maybe even given her formula or a bottle.

 Violet was born on a Wednesday we came home on Saturday and by Sunday she was literally giving me anxiety. She had several wet diaper but just the tiniest bit wet and no bowel movements since the hospital. Sunday (after she was blessed) night before bed David changed her and she let it all out!

He had to message her tummy a little and push her knees up and down to help her out. It was still meconium so I think between her not totally catching on to eating yet and it being thick it was more energy than she had in her tiny 5 pound self to get it out. However after that it was a complete 180 in her diapers and eating habits and I was finally able to relax! I aways wanted to have little babies, but when they struggle with eating AND they are little it makes a mommy anxious REALLY fast! If she hadn't started eating better that night I had planned on giving her a bottle. It was a tense situation for sure with a happy ending.

Violet likes to be held. Sometimes she will fuss and stop immediately after you pick her up. She doesn't really take a binky. She is still a champion sleeper and gives me a solid 4-5 hour stretch almost every night. Violet also likes to be fresh. I've never had baby that liked getting their diaper changed, but she does. If she starts to cry and I pick her up to change her she stops. Even if she is hungry she will patiently wait for me to change her. While I'm changing her I can tell she's like "ah, that feels better". There were many times that first month after I brought her home that I would lean over to pick her up and she would look right at me. She wouldn't smile, but she would give me this happy knowing look. It was so loving and adorable.

That is a pretty small baby doll Violet is sitting next to.
It was her way of telling me she was happy to see me. Made my heart melt. None of my newborns have ever acknowledged me like that before so it was pretty special. The first night we brought her home Davie wanted to hold her and she started fussing so I took her back and she immediately stopped crying. Made this mom feel pretty good. Violet is such a sweet little baby. 

A Violet by any other name...

David and I debated over this little girl's name for months. Weirdly enough David and I have picked out all of our kids names way in advance (before we were married), but for some reason none of those names seemed right to me this time. We found out she was a she way back in December and I immediately started questioning the name we had previously picked out, which was PollyAnna. Polly was a family name on both sides 4 generations back and Anna was all over the chart everywhere haha. After looking over both of our family charts we both concluded that our families, for the most part, had very little creativity. Even to the point of naming several children the same name in the same family. This was usually because a child passed away, but still! The variety I was hoping to find was already found in the names we had previously agreed on.

There were lots of reasons we started to change our minds. Polly had the same ending sound as Davie and Macy (while its cute I'm not into having all my kids have similar sounding names or first letters etc), David didn't want Polly to be her nickname, which it most likely would have been, and the addition of a sister in law named Anna since we had originally picked it. David wanted to just use the next girl name on our list, but I hadn't been planning on using that name yet so it didn't feel right to me or seem to fit.

Shortly after we found out we were having a girl, I fell in love with the name Violet. It's a name I had always liked, but had never really considered. I had a tough time committing to the name Violet at first because it didn't fit our usual naming ritual. I have always loved older simpler names. Easy to say, no guess work easy to spell etc and as I got older I wanted our children's names to have lots of meaning, so I fell in love with using family names. Growing up I got called Car- E alllll the time. It wasn't my parents fault that the early 90's introduced this new way to say Kari and they were definitely thinking about me when they spelt it. My maiden name was Christiansen, that's 12 letters! They wanted to pick the easiest and shortest spelling for my name that they could. 

The only problem is Kari isn't that common and I don't know if I've ever had someone spell it right on the first try. Because of this I wanted my kids to have an easier time, so we've picked older names. I also didn't want the names to be too popular, David being the only exception. David will probably always be a little popular but when your kid is David 5th you can't really argue with that!

Anyways, David's first reaction to my liking Violet was to tease "is this because your favorite color is purple?". I laughed because I hadn't even thought of (which surprised me I usually think of those kinds of details) but once I had I loved Violet even more! Purple, lavender, and/or Violet have been my favorite colors for almost 20 years. Also cousin Violet on Downton Abbey is awesome ;) I absolutely love her character and how she is actually OLD school. I have a friend in the ward who was due a day before me who liked the name, and I didn't want to pick a name that was too popular (especially in the same Ward). 

Then David basically refused to truly weigh in at that time and didn't until about 4 or 5 weeks before Violet was born! Big stinker. In the meantime I poured over more baby name websites then I knew existed and our family history chart like I never had before. And while I found lots and LOTS of names I liked, however none of them stuck out or fit. There were also tons of family names I liked that are already currently in use on both sides of our families.

Maybe this sounds bad but her name is also the first and only baby name I have ever prayed about. With Davie and Macy, I just KNEW it was right, the family connections were just wonderful. Their names were perfectly planned no endless searching or arguing. None. David and I had a list of about 4 Boy names and 4 girl names (in a seniority order) completely planned way before their conception and I never questioned it.

About 2 or 3 weeks before she was born, we decided to do something we had never done before, wait until she arrived before we truly decided! That was more cautionary than anything, I had been consistently calling her Violet since mid March, haha and my sister in law and mom had been since December (they let me know their votes early). Needless to say I was both glad and relieved when she finally arrived. Violet is perfect for her. In the end I liked our little naming journey, even though it completely threw me off guard and was a little stressful. Violet may be baby #3 but she definitely has her own little story. 

Violet truly is our delicate little flower. She beat Davie's smallest baby record by almost a whole pound! Her tiny little fingers and toes are just adorable. 

Violet also seems easier to calm and soothe so far, she doesn't full on cry most of the time and usually if I pick her up she stops. Even if I'm only picking her up to change her. Davie and Macy were definitely never better once I started to change them. In fact for Davie diaper changes (especially the first of the day) were his daily crying sessions for probably over a year. I would also say that Violet is a little more snuggly, it's nice to feel like she needs me. When Macy would cry only food would help, when Violet cries Davie and Macy can just talk to her and sometimes she will stop. It's those short little moments as a parent that make a mom so happy! Violet has even stopped a full on cry to listen to Macy sing her version of "Twinkle twinkle little star". Which is Macy singing the words "uppa, uppa high" over and over again. 

All these little things make me think that maybe, just MAYBE, she will be our Vanilla baby. Also to clarify, by Vanilla I mainly mean temperament. She can be as sassy as she likes as long as she is more laid back than Davie or Macy :) 

Violet's Planned Entrance

Way before I scheduled to get induced with Violet I knew that I wanted to if it was possible. My family was coming the night before my official due date and they actually ended up arriving so late it was my due date. And while them being here meant that they could have helped with my kids while I was in the hospital I wanted to be out of the hospital by the time they got to Florida. So at 38 weeks my doctor let me set my induction day for the 8th. As long as I had made some progress my appointment would be good. When I went in the next week I had made progress, 1 to a 3, and the doctor told me he could even take me THAT day. It's funny because this baby I feel like I have been the least prepared with. On top of just getting tired and falling behind I've had my other two babies to take care of and I found myself randomly spoiling them with lots of my attention. No regrets. Especially with Macy. Anyways when my doctor offered to let me go in the day before my scheduled induction David and I both were just like "uhh, no". It was only a days difference but neither of us were ready. If that had been Davie or Macy we would have easily said yes. I think the whole "having other children (plural) and adding another one" has been slowly sinking in. We left knowing that we would be coming back at 6:00 am the next morning.

I'd like to say I went home and got a whole bunch of things done but I didn't. I caught up on a couple of chores, exchanged/bought a couple of last minute baby items, played with the kids but mostly hung around. I wanted to make myself busy but I just couldn't. I wasn't apprehensive or nervous or even super excited, I think it was sinking in pretty slowly. Since Violet was due to be induced the day before her Daddy's birthday I went out and picked up his favorite ice cream for him (he hates cake). David has been working 12-9pm so by the time he got home the kids were asleep. We watched a show ate some ice cream and went to bed. Later than we should have of course.

We were up at 5:00 am in order to get ourselves ready and the kiddies. We had a wonderful family in the ward who volunteered their help and I'm so glad they did. David doesn't accept help very well, he's great at giving it but not so great at receiving and this family made sure we let them help by calling and asking times and dates. We were late by the time we got on the road (of course). Davie went to bed late, wet his bed in the middle of the night AND woke up about the same time we did... for no reason at all. I was worried he was going to be awful but it sounds like he and the other kids had LOTS of fun which was a relief to me. When we got to the house to drop the kids off Davie practically ran in, he loves new people and places (you could say he loves nouns really haha). I was a little worried about Macy, she can randomly get sad when we drop her off places, sometimes it's genuine sometimes it's just for show. Surprisingly even with a great big doggy to greet her she went right in. As we drove away I actually started to cry a little. I don't usually do that. I just got started thinking about how big she was and how much I loved her and of course how happy I was that she didn't get upset when we left. Oh motherhood, there's always some tears from someone.

Macy watching Frozen at our friends house holding Anna and Elsa

When we got to the hospital I started with all my paperwork, there sure is a lot of paperwork to have a baby! By the time I signed my life away and my 3rd born and they finally got me all hooked up, water broken (this dr had GREAT technique btw it literally didn't hurt at all other times not so much, owie) and started pitocin it was probably about 9:00 am.

feeling ok at 9:16 am

 Two funny side notes there are 3 doctors in the OBGYN place I go to one did residency in Toledo AND worked with the guy who delivered Davie (small world) and I had never had an appointment with one of the ladies... haha and guess who was on call to deliver my baby :D the one I'd never met. She was great though very nice and like I said great water breaking technique. The nurse had to do my IV two time so that sucked, putting in the IV is the worst. 

It freaking HURTS and then it's itchy and hurty every second afterwards until they take it out. Hate, hate, hate it.

This is my arm 5 days after I delivered! And that doesn't do it justice. Painful :(

I'm going to admit right now that I didn't watch the clock as much this time around. But I did get to watch HGTV all day which was a great distraction and a family member blogged so I got to read that. I napped a little (like a tiny little bit) and around 11 or noon is when I started to feel uncomfortable. I don't understand how some women like to use birthing balls or walking around. I can barely breath through my really tough contractions not to mention bounce (ouch) on a ball or move around. I think the most annoying part was how much I had to got to the bathroom with the machine hooked up to me.

David relaxing while I do all the work! :P

I'll admit by noon I was hoping I would have made more progress I think I was at a 4cm. It was much slower than Colin or Macy who came naturally and more than Davie who I was only on a 2 drip of pitocin before he was born. One thing David and I noticed was that my nurse slowly turned up my pitocin, which is protocol, then after that she turned it down and up but never above 12 (20 is the max dose). I've never had a nurse do that before, but I was glad she didn't just keep cranking it up. So I kept telling myself I was going to wait to ask for the Nubain, right after I had another contraction and went pee one more time. I did that for at least an hour or two. I can't even remember what time it was when I finally got some pain killer but it was Stadol not Nubain. I'm going to be honest, I hated it this time. Maybe it was the higher pitocin drip, the fact that I'd already been in labor longer than the last time I'd had it with Davie, that I was already tired, or that it was just a slightly different drug, but it was awful. It made my eyes sooo heavy I literally could not keep them open and it did relax my body, but it made the contractions worse! It was amplifying how awful my contractions were compared to my little in between moments of non-contractions. This is also when my labor picked up a lot. I kept trying to breath my way through but I was groggy and felt completely out of control. Again I kept waiting in hopes that I would progress and be closer to finishing/pushing. Because I was groggy the time frame during all this is completely lost on me. It was just a blur of ridiculous pain followed by feeling heavier than a brick and completely asleep.

Not feeling so good at 4:18 pm

I have decided that each time I have a baby that I'll decide if I want an epidural or not during labor. It's never going to be an absolute either way. Every labor is different, every pregnancy and so far every time I've had a baby it's been at a different hospital in 3 different states. So there's enough variables I think that's a reasonable way to look at it. If you are still reading this, wow, sorry about being so wordy, but this is also where it gets interesting.

 Lady Violet's birth story is definitely one that I am going to tease is my most Hollywood birth story. My explanation of that is how going into labor is in the movies. I detest how birth is depicted in the movies a woman will just randomly have a contraction all the sudden it's time to go to the hospital and she's screaming and yelling OR her water breaks and that's totally not how it happens. Not to say that people's water doesn't break but not to very many people and you definitely don't have one contraction and all the sudden know you need to go to the hospital. Or the wife freaks out and yells at her husband and says she hates him. Those things didn't happen to me but as I tell my story I'll refer back to this and you'll know what I'm talking about.

I think it was after 4pm when I finally broke down and begged for an epidural. My contractions were making me feel like my midsection was going to explode. No pun intended. They say pitocin makes that worse BUT, when I was at an 8 with Macy it was pretty stinkin' bad so if it did actually make it worse it wasn't that much different. My eyes were finally a little less heavy and I was starting to get loud when I had contractions. That was embarrassing for me. I don't like losing my composure especially in public and I pretty much never do. The nurse had noticed how quickly things were going and set up for an epidural before I even asked. Again I don't remember this part that well but my contractions were close now and so the epidural had to be done between them. It never kicked it the way it has before because during the process of getting it I went from contractions to wow I need to push. And some where in all my moaning and basically screaming I swore! Haha, I said the "D" word. And then after the epidural was finished I had another huge need to push and I said I was in hell. Haha not dramatic at all right?! Sprinkle in some more very loud screams, as in louder than I have ever been before, and that's how transition went this time around. Easy peasy.

They were actually telling me not to push because the doctor hadn't come back! I had again gone from about 5 cm to practically complete in about 15 min or less. It was very similar to pushing with Davie even with the epidural and David said that the anesthesiologist gave me an extra dose before she left. By the time I got it I think I had maybe 10 minutes (or less) of labor left, but of course I didn't know that at the time. After waiting all day and feeling like it had gone so slow compared to how it had before that I didn't realize how close I was to Violet being born! It took about 4 huge pushes but that was it! It was the same shocked feeling I had after Davie. The pushing aways seems to just whiz right by when it's over (haha if that makes sense). Violet had the cord wrapped around her neck but shortly after they cut it off I could hear her soft muffled little cries.

Only 37 minutes after the last picture, Violet is here!! 4:54 pm

 It wasn't until we were sitting in the hospital that morning that I wondered if she was going to be smaller than my other babies. When they set her on me I couldn't believe how tiny she was! And how much hair she had. She was also my most waxy :) they had to wipe her down quite a bit. Then they weighed her- 6 pounds even! I had been right. Even though I gained more and my hands, fingers, feet and toes were puffier than ever before she was almost a pound smaller than Davie. And absolutely perfect.

So much hair!

Just a tiny little gal

Brand new!

tiny toes

So even with an epidural I pretty much did 95% (or more) of this delivery on my own. Part of me wishes I hadn't of asked for it because I was so far along that it really didn't help (at all!) and it costs so much. Thank goodness for insurance. The other part of me wishes I had just asked sooner and not even had the Stadol because it too was a waste of money. Oh drugs, it's so hard to decide on whether you want them and then they don't always work fast enough or the way you want. Of course none of that matters now because she is here and perfect and I would do it all over again. 

Daddy and daughter