New Mom Discoveries

Ivey has been home for 12 days now. In those 12 days here are some Ivey facts and randomness I've discovered.....

* Baby laundry don't play. In other words: BABIES HAVE LOTS AND LOTS OF LAUNDRY. We go through multiple outfits a day, usually. But hey, it's cute tiny laundry ;)

* Being able to eat my lunch sometimes doesn't happen at lunch.... It could be at 2 or 3 in the afternoon. But Ives and I are working on the fact that if Mommy doesn't eat, then Ivey can't eat. So snacking is easier to juggle ;)

* You learn to do anything and everything with one hand. Maybe I am qualified to join the circus now?

* I was told, "Never wake a sleeping baby". I can now officially laugh at that now. If you have a baby who could sleep all day (yes, that would be Ives) and your breast feeding her, let's not talk about how much pain and discomfort you feel after about 3 hours if she doesn't nurse.... So yes, I will wake her.

* Most preemies often times have a bigger problem of spitting up after they've eaten, and especially when you have a child with a GI problem. This can also constitute to the pile of laundry she accumulates. More often than not I end up wearing her recycled food, and that's ok :)

* Yes, there really is such a thing as Grunting Baby Syndrome. It mostly involves preemies and could last for up to 10 weeks after birth. She wakes us up a lot with her mindless grunting - which sounds like a chain smoker, haha! Don't take it personally if she grunts at you a lot, it's her way of expressing that she doesn't understand what's going on with her digestive system.

* Your Mom and Mother-in-law (Mema and Nonna in Iveys case) expect daily pictures of their precious. It's funny and I really don't mind. Iveys so blessed and so loved.

* If you already had a close relationship with your Mom, that increases ten-fold when you have a baby of your own. Love you, Mom :)

* You start thinking more about what you usually do... Such as, what you watch on TV, what you listen to on the radio, how you spend your time, how you talk to your spouse or to anyone. Constantly thinking about how that effects your child and how you want to improve it all. She's really a wonderful reminder :)

* Also, you no longer have a use for an alarm clock. Ever.

* it's WAY harder than I'd ever imagined it would be to just...let her cry. Earlier this week I sat in the floor next to her cradle in a puddle of tears willing myself to not pick her up. She screamed and wailed. She doesn't like sleeping in her cradle.  She loves to cuddle but we are trying to teach her that at bed time she sleeps in her cradle. With much perseverance and patience and tears, she has slept in her cradle for 4 consecutive nights! It's not without a period of about 15 to 20 minutes that she doesn't 'cry it out' though. It's a process and we are proud of her for the progress she has made :)

* Now, if we could only get her detached from her passie... But that's a whole 'nother issue, haha!

She Is Not Mine

12:30am I get up to feed Ives. She has a crazy talent of being able to eat and sleep at the same time. The night light in her nursery gently lights her precious face. I stare at her as she eats and sleeps. So peaceful.

She is home now and my heart is full. We spend our days eating and napping and we squeeze in some play time when we are both awake enough. Its perfect. It feels so "official" now that she is home. We are a family of 3. She belongs to us and us to her. She is ours.....and yet, she is not. She is not ours. She is not mine. She is a gift. She has been lent to us from Whom she belongs.

She is not mine, she is His.

Why He chose us, I don't know. But I am honored to be her Mama. She is a baby, she is a precious doll, she is a girl, she is my daughter. But when I think about her being a soul, I feel unworthy - I am unworthy. He has in trusted us to raise this soul. Wow.

She is a soul. She is not mine, she is His.

As I think about the choices Trent and I will make as we raise her - the big choices or the everyday decisions, remembering.... She is not ours, she is His.

Ivey is a precious little girl. She has cute pink clothes galore. Cute bows, cute shoes, you name it. True, it is fun to dress her up, but then I remember there's more than a cute face. She is a soul and what impact am I choosing to have on this precious soul?

As Ivey gets older and I'm daily teaching her about her dress and conduct as a young lady, what am I motivated by?

She is not mine, she is His.

When we are trying to decide what path to take to educate her (whether that be public, private, or homeschool), remembering....She is not mine, she is His.

We get so distracted by life and we become consumed with our electronic entertainment and screens that we forget about the soul. I do not want to be distracted by what is meaningless and forget the importance of the soul that I am raising. Am I giving my full attention to her- that which is His?

I pray that if we raise her with an understanding of  'She is not mine, she is His', then when she is grown and making her own decisions, she will say to herself:  I am not mine, I am His.

Help me to always remember, Lord, that she is not mine, but she is Yours and help me rise to that privilege with my whole heart and may I always glorify you with how I raise what is Yours. 

Mom Brain

And so it begins. I watched it effect other moms, even my own mother. I was told it would happen to me, I knew it was coming. And now it's here. This Mom Brain is really a thing.

My daughter is still in the NICU, she isn't even home yet. Still, it's overcome me. I still have late nights and early mornings and get up in the middle of the night to pump. I don't get up for a screaming baby but I'd trade anything for that. Some might tell me I'd take that back once she comes home and I do have to deal with a screaming baby, but no, I wouldn't. At 2am I sit and pump and think about my little girl wishing she was closer, wishing I could just walk over to her crib and check on her, hoping she is having a good night and thinking about being able to see her the next morning.

It's kinda like walking in a fog. When people talk sometimes it sounds like the parents on Charlie Brown, "wah, wah, wah, blah, wah wah". We had some friends come visit us and Ivey the other day at the NICU (she loves having visitors).  I was holding Ivey and feeding her her bottle and trying to keep her tubes all untangled... I was distracted. I tried to be engaged in the conversation, I wanted to be. I listened... Or tried to.  I was so glad our friends came to visit and I wanted to catch up with them. But on the ride home from the hospital I recalled having to ask Trent some questions about how our friends were doing because, I really didn't comprehend the conversation. Mom Brain. It's hard to fight. You don't even know it's happening. I lose things, I miss place things, and yes I did this way before I was a Mom.... But it's ten times worse.

Sometimes you're just incoherent. Everything's kinda muffled. Maybe it's because I'm new at this, or maybe it will get worse as time goes on and more kids come. I'm hopeful of learning to handle it with grace like so many experienced moms do. One day.

Even though I have Mom Brain, I still try, I still care, even though things are cloudy... I just gotta try harder than normal. It's learning the balance of being attentive to your child(ren) but not making them think they're the center of the universe. I have a lot of learning to do.

So if I ask you the same question multiple times, or forget your name, or appear to be in another world why you're talking, or while im talking, I'm sorry... I'm still working on getting the hang of all this. And I love all this. I love this mom thing. 



Update on Ivey:  our sweet girl is doing so well. She has been taking a special kind of hypo-allergenic  formula for about a week now. Due to a bloody stool 2 weeks ago, the Doctors think she was allergic to the milk proteins in my breast milk. I've gone on a dairy-free diet in hopes of her being able to tolerate my milk again so that I can nurse her. This weekend they are slowly going to start giving her my now lactose free milk to see if she tolerates it. If she does well, they hope to send her HOME this Wednesday. If she has another bloody stool, that will be another set back and we'll probably have to start over again with the feedings. Please pray that she can tolerate the breast milk. That's our biggest worry right now.... We are so ready to have her home! We are so thankful for all the  continued words of encouragement, cards, texts, hugs, meals, and especially your prayers. This journey has been a little easier with the comfort from our brethren. God is good. And His family is good.

- Rebekah