Ava's Morning Workout

Wow where did May go!

Seriously? I spent so long waiting for March I have completely lost track of the months and hello its June tomorrow!! What the heck!

Dan is out of town with my brothers and dad at the Indy 500! He is having a great time, I however.... am having lots of fun doing everything on my own. Really REALLY didn't understand how much Dan does for Ava and I till the last 72 hours have rolled by slowly and we have 2 days left!
Ava really is a Daddy's girl. She has always always been more calm around Dan and whenever he talks to her she is so happy! Dan called us tonight and I set the cell on speaker on Ava's chest, oh my goodness, she was the happiest baby in the world! I even got a really cute picture of her smiling away while Dan spoke to her. Then it was all water works once he hung up the phone! Oh boy.
Ava is doing great, she is growing like crazy but it seems lately that she is growing taller faster than she is growing wider, because of this she is already in size 6-9 month clothes for the length but still fits in size 1 diapers because of her small midsection... Maybe she'll be a model and not inherit some of our bad genetics :)

Today will be her first official day starting size 2 diapers. I have been mixing size 2 luvs with size 1 huggies. Size 1's fit her great around her belly but we need more absorbency now that she is sleeping longer at night, the past few mornings I have woken up to a wet Ava :)

Love

Our very first photo togetherOur latest photo together

It still amazes me how such small decisions we make have some of the greatest impact on our lives. I would never have my sweet Ava had it not been for what at the time seemed to be a seemingly unimportant decision.... like texting Dan back. In all honesty, a text message changed my life.

Losing the baby weight

and all that other weight I had before I had a baby haha

Isn't funny that the only time in my life that it was 'hard' to gain weight was when I was pregnant!? I guess throwing up for 9 months straight does that to a person. Now that I am not pregnant and have stopped pumping I am gaining weight like its no one's business! It's so irritating. I was 5 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight the day I stopped pumping, but its been all uphill from there. So now Ava is 9 1/2 weeks old (its been 9 1/2 weeks since I last threw up) and I stopped pumping 6 weeks ago. I have no more excuses, I am fully recovered from my c-section, Ava is sleeping better, we have a better routine down, I really can eat better and work out more.

I have 'started' weight watchers about 15 times in the last month haha I would start in the morning and by the evening I had sabotaged myself. I don't want to pay to go to meetings right now so I am going to try and give this a go on my own first. Today was my first successful day. I also have a horrible headache though and really want chocolate. Thankfully Chocolate Fiber One bars are taking the edge off along with Diet Cherry Pepsi.

Anyway, I want to get healthier for myself and for Ava. I want her to be a confident healthy young woman. One of my biggest fears when I found out I was having a girl was that she would have to go through some of the same battles I have. It was never easy being the chubby girl in school and particularly depressing while in college. Losing a lot of weight in college set me on a really crummy path that was pretty self destructive.

I was doing really well at losing weight the right way before I got pregnant with Ava so I guess I need to pick up where I left off :) Anyway I may rant on here more often about trying to lose weight :) hope no one minds too much

2 month photos

Ava babble ~ 2 months

2 months old!

I am keeping track of Ava's growth every month on my blog, its easiest for me to write it here since I lose everything else :) so skip this if you don't want to be bored!

At 2 month's Ava is now 13 pounds 6 ounces (which puts her in the 95th percentile)! She has gained nearly 3 pounds since 1 month and nearly 6 pounds since birth! She is just starting to wear 3-6 month clothes even though some of her 0-3 still fit. She has been wearing 3-6 month PJ's for a few weeks now because of the length! She is not short, but I won't know how long she is till her appointment on Monday.

She is right in between size 1 and 2 diapers. I am debating if I want to go get one more pack of size 1 diapers today or just to move her up into the 2's. We only have 1 size 1 left, but it seems like Huggies size 1's could fit her for another couple of weeks but the Luvs size 2's we have aren't as stretchy so they don't even fit as nice as the Huggies.

She "talks" all the time now. I was never sure if she would make cuter noises then her low grunts she made for the first month. Now its constant adorable babble and high pitch noises! She smiles so much now! Her first smile was 3 weeks ago but now we can make her smile so easily. She has the biggest eyes and I think she looks just like Dan.

She slept 6 1/2 hours on Thursday night this week! Made my day, that's the longest she has ever slept straight. She normally only sleeps 3-4 hours at a time. She is a bit addicted to her pacifier, thankfully she doesn't always get upset when it falls out but most of the time she does. Not sure if the pacifier is something she will grow out of or not. She won't suck her thumb though.

Anyway we love our little Ava more than anything, I can't believe how big she is getting!

What's in a name

Sometimes I can't believe I named Ava, Ava. Its such a popular name these last few years, there will be lots of other little girls named Ava. Also, how weird of a name is Ava? Its only 3 letters (2 of which are the same), its spelled the same way forwards or backwards, it has a V in it!? Ava is far from the name I imagined naming a baby when I was younger. I always imagined any name that ended in a "y" or really just that "e" sound. Names I thought I would use were Hailey, Riley, Kaylee, etc.

I fell in love with the name Ava right after Dan and I got engaged. I knew I would name Ava this before she was born, before we were even pregnant. This got me worried "what if she didn't look like an Ava?" I also had a really hard time calling her Ava before she was born and it bothered me at first when other people called her Ava. I immediately regretted telling anyone her name, especially once people started giving me their opinions about it. Thankfully I didn't really care if people thought it was "too popular" or if people try to call her "Eva" all the time.

Her middle name is Allison after my sister who passed away before I was born. It means a lot to me to be able to name Ava after my sister. I always wanted a sister growing up. At first I didn't love the names Ava and Allison together, but I wanted to use both of these names, I didn't want to save one with the thought that we would have another girl. Now I can't imagine a more perfect name for Ava.

If we do have another girl someday in the distant future, I have NO idea what I will name her. I don't love anything like I loved the name Ava. Thankfully I don't have to name another baby girl anytime soon. We liked Aidan for a boy, now I am not sure if we will use that in the future. I told Dan recently a name I really liked for a boy. He however did NOT like it. I do, so we will see if I ever get to use it :)

C-sections

I stumbled across an article in attempts to find some peace about the emotions I have been having about my c-section. This article did bring some comfort to me in knowing that I'm not alone in my feelings.

"Having never experienced labor, I sometimes feel like a little girl eavesdropping on the grown-ups’ tales of childbirth." This is exactly how I feel. Listening to my friends exchange labor stories is sometimes hard, I still want to hear them but I feel like I didn't give birth, I don't hold the badge of "x" amount of hours in labor. I don't feel like I have a story to tell which may explain why its taken me so long to write down Ava's birth story.

"If I’ve learned anything in ten years of motherhood, it’s that the way our children are brought into the world means very little for how they live in the world. Nor do the intense hours in which we become mothers shape the months, years and decades of our actually being mothers." I pray that someday I will be able to find peace of mind about my c-section and also about not being able to breastfeed. "Let birth remind us that, with children, so little goes according to even the most well-drawn plan."

But when Ava smiles at me I feel nothing but love and none of this matters in the end :)

Mother's Day

I cannot believe I am a mom. I never thought I would be a mom. Last Mother's day was particularly difficult, I came home crying after church because of my heightened emotions and sensitivity about becoming a mom someday. It didn't matter what anyone said that day, I was upset.

This year has been the craziest year of my entire life. I met with a doctor right after Mother's day last year that set the ball rolling so that my pregnancy would be possible. He gave me hope when no hope had been given before. I could never have imagined that 1 year later I would have the most beautiful 8 week old little girl in the entire world! I still cannot completely understand how we made it through this year, but we have.
Flowers from all my brothers and Dan to me and my Mom!

Ava's Belly Button

I really really disliked the whole newborn stump belly button thing. I was paranoid about knocking it off or it getting infected the first week home. It kinda got knocked wrong around 9 days old and fell off the next day. I was very happy about this, but then it went on to bleed a bit for the next 2 weeks. I then thought we were finally out of the whole belly button worrying business. She had a weird little innie but all was good with the world.

Within about 3 weeks her belly button went from an innie to a knobby button like outie :) It finally clicked that she had an umbilical hernia. I had seen it a couple times before in family members babies. At first I was really bothered by her belly button. I was really freaked out that she would have to end up having surgery to correct it. Thankfully now I am fine with it and actually love her little "done" button. She smiles really big when I push on it and that just makes my day :)

7 weeks!

I feel like I sneezed and 7 weeks has disappeared! What once was my tiny 7 pound newborn has been replaced by my spunky little 12 pound 12 ounce baby. She doesn't have her newborn look about her anymore, she gets cuter and cuter everyday but I miss how little she was.

I have been wanting to write down her birth story but I haven't had time yet. It still feels so fresh in my memory, like it was this morning that we were in the OR but I need to write it down still. I really don't think I will ever forget Ava's delivery, I acted completely out of character and what a blessing that was for everyone involved :)I remember laughing and thinking how huge this bib was and how it would never fit her. I couldn't believe that she could tuck her entire body behind this bib when she was swaddled. She was so tiny! Now she doesn't like to tuck herself into a ball anymore, she likes to stretch her long legs out and kick me a lot whenever she is lying next to me

Ribbons and Bows