Shopping. For Myself.

I have kind of been of a shopping spree lately. For myself. It's taken a toll on my bank account, but you know what? I am buying things for ME.

Ever since I had Nate, my purchases have been for him and now I buy things for Nate and Morgan. I buy cheap stuff for myself or wait to be spoiled by my mom. (Thanks, mom!) It's really a strange concept to WANT to buy for these little humans who just grow out of clothes in like a minute and destroy everything they touch. But I LOVE it! They are my world and I just can't resist getting them stuff. Even if it just STUFF. I can't help myself sometimes.

Lately though...lately...I have been buying stuff for me. Without the kids in mind...clothes in particular. I have found a brand that makes me feel young, fun, and less like a frumpy mom. If you know me, you love I have a loving relationship with leggings. I wear them everyday. They are my clothing "lobster". We are soul mates.

You know what it also really hard about shopping for myself? Breastfeeding. F you, "nursing tops". They suck. They are so ugly! And I hate the clips or snaps. I like to just pull down my shirt and whip out my boob. Just like that. I want something that is easy. I don't want to fiddle with a hungry baby, a threenager, and a flipping clip. Just...no.

My wardrobe is seriously slacking because of this non-sense. But...oh man, Lularoe. Lularoe is a clothing brand. It's a small business/direct sales type. I am officially obsessed with this brand. You can go to "home-parties", but the majority of inventory and purchases are bought online through Facebook and Instagram "pop-ups". You join Facebook groups, the consultant adds inventory, and you buy through your favorite consultant or multiple(up to you).

The patterns and prints are adorable. The material is so comfortable. And, most important to me at the moment is...most of the tops and even dresses are nursing friendly!!! I can even nurse while babywearing. Bonus!!

Lularoe(<<---- add yourself to my favorite consultant's page).

Besides Lularoe, I bought myself a few new pairs of shoes. What!? They were from TJMaxx and cheap, but I bought them for ME! I am so excited to wear them with my lularoe of course.

This post is so silly and I know that. Talking about how I bought clothes and shoes for myself. I'm even chuckling at myself for writing it. But seriously, when you become a mom, YOU, for some reason, get placed on the back burner. You are still there in the back of the stove, but it's that one burner that only gets used a few times. The other three burners are taken up by kids, significant other, family, a job outside of the home(not in my case, but for those amazing working moms!) etc. You are just always the last person you think about.

It's taken me a long time to remind myself to not be on the back burner and take some "me-time", shop for myself, go to Bunco (yes, Bunco, I'm old) or whatever it may be. And not just remind myself to do it...but actually do it! I always think to myself, yes, I do need a break. Yes, I do need to go do (fill in the blank) but then don't do it. Which completely defeats the whole purpose.

I hope this rambling post reminds you to take some time for yourself. Do it and don't feel guilty about it.

It's that time...

...time to get healthy, get in shape, and get back to pre-pregnancy body. 6 weeks postpartum has creeped on me! That's okay though, I am ready to like my body again. I had Jason take pictures for me so I can track the progress. Holy back fat! Thank goodness he took those because seeing that picture can me a lot of motivation.

Before I started anything I got new shoes. Because, new shoes.

My plan is a modified beachbody/shakeology with a little common sense and my own knowledge of health. Since I am breastfeeding Morgan I am hungry all the damn time. I will trade in my McDonald's and bad foods for healthy and fresh. Don't get me wrong, I will cheat and have treats from time to time. All in moderation, right?

My pre-pregnancy weight: 147

Weight at 39 weeks: 169

Weight at 6 weeks PP: 150

Here are the 6 weeks postpartum pictures. 

 Expected this ^^

 Expected this ^^

Where does back fat come from!? Eww! Do. Not. Like.

I did my first workout for the day today. It was hard. I will be sore tomorrow. Half way through my 4 sets, Morgan needed to nurse. Maybe she felt sorry for me because I was struggling? Maybe she is excited it is National Breastfeeding Week? Or she is just a chunker. 

Cheers to day 1!

Week One

It's officially been one week since Morgan was born. There are a lot of changes going on in our world. Not only are we transitioning from 1-2 kids, we are also in the middle of a PCS. Nate has become a big brother, and I am going through what some call the "4th trimester".

I want to celebrate Morgan's 1 week, celebrate Nate being a big brother, Jason being awesome, and me adjusting to postpartum life.

First...Morgan. She is the cutest little chunker. She eats and sleeps and poops. All. Day. Long. When she is nursing, she sounds like a Pterodactyl. She is in newborn clothes, but not for long. She loves to sleep on mommy and daddy's chest. Target was her outing at 5 days old and at 7 days old, she went to 808 Bounce to watch her big brother bounce. She had her first bath at 6 days old...didn't love it, didn't hate it. She doesn't have a sleep schedule yet, every night has been different.

Second...Big Brother Nathan. He is very loving towards her and asks where she is frequently. He will randomly kiss her on the cheek. He likes to give her his bear and blanket in the morning when he wakes up and she is still sleeping. He tries to share his toys with her, like a puzzle piece or a small car. Since he cut the umbilical cord, he asks if he can "cut it"(her stump is still attached). He really hasn't been rough with her. I think it is because we talked to him about her from the very beginning and he watched her being born. I have no doubt he will very protective over her.

Third...Myself. The 4th trimester is the first 3 months after baby is born. It's all the changes that happen to a woman's body after growing a human inside of you for almost 10 months. It's been a week and my body is changing. The first few days my uterus was still contracting. Super painful. Day 3 my milk fully came in and I was in SO much pain. I still get super engorged and pump at least twice a day to relieve some of the pain. In 7 days, just pumping twice a day for about 3 minutes, I've accumulated over 30oz of milk in my freezer. That's not counting all the milk Miss Morgan is getting. I am averaging about 3-5 hours of sleep at night and not all together. It seems like I am just taking small naps. Let's just say I'm tired, but still functioning well in my opinion. My stomach is slowly going down. I have lost about 10lbs. I still look pregnant. I still wear maternity clothes because I am in an in between size and they are more comfortable holding in that extra fat. I'm pretty pleased with how I look just 7 days after popping out a human though.

Fourth...Jason. The best daddy and husband. He celebrated his first Father's Day as a daddy of two. He was been on Nate duty so I can be on Morgan duty. He sleeps through the night so I can nap during the day. He tells me I'm sexy. He changes poopy diapers, both Nate's and Morgan's. He is handling all of our PCS arrangements from flights to hotels to rental cars to shipping and selling our cars and everything else we need to handle before we leave Hawaii. The guy never stops. Always doing something to help out. How did I get so lucky?

So that has been our last 7 days. With everything going on, I feel like we are adjusting as well as we can. Everything is falling into place and my stress levels have dropped tremendously. I can't wait to see how the next weeks go. My next goal is getting some family pictures of the four of us. We are in organized chaos. We are living our life and it is amazing. Crazy, but amazing and I wouldn't trade it for the world. 

Morgan's Birth Story

Today was my due date. June 22nd, 2015. I would've been 40 weeks pregnant with little miss Morgan. She decided to come six days early. She is already on my good list because it's what I wanted for our PCS situation. So, instead of doing a 40 week bump brief, I am writing about how she entered the world.

Here is her birth story...

The day before: I never did a 39 week bump brief. That Monday, my 39 week mark, I decided to go to the zoo with Nate. I knew it would be the last time I could do it solo before Morgan arrived. A friend and I took our boys there and were there for 4-5 hours. I felt great. I wore Nate in his Tula, I was walking around perfectly fine, not a care in the world. We had a great time and we went home for nap. While Nate napped, my friend and I started planning for the night. We wanted to take our husbands out to Dave and Buster's as a Father's Day fun night, but then another friend's husband needed his appendix out. Jason and I took Nate over to her house to watch her three kids, plus Nate. I still felt normal. I wasn't tired. I was even saying how much energy I had that day and felt like she had at least another week to cook in my belly. We babysat from 4-10-ish so our friend could be with her husband. We went home, got ready for bed, and I was asleep by 11:30pm.

And it begins...
It's 1:00am. A typical time for me to wake up and pee. Nothing unusual. I'm not sure why I looked at the toilet paper, but I did and there was blood. My mucus plug. I didn't think much about it. You can lose your mucus plug and go weeks without anything happening. I went back to bed.

2:45am. I wake up again to go pee. More blood and mucus. Go lay back down. My back started to hurt when I got back in bed so I just laid there. Had to pee again 15 minutes later. More blood and mucus and a contraction.

3:00am. I start feeling more back pain and had that one contraction. I decided I should probably download a contraction timer app just in case this was the beginning or for future use. I really didn't think I was in labor at this point, just uncomfortable.

3:27am. I started timing contractions. I must have had a few painful ones to make me start timing them. I'm not really sure, I only know this exact time because I went back and checked the app.

Contractions started to get painful, mostly in my back. They were lasting 30-45 seconds and about 4 minutes apart on average. I decided to wake Jason up and just get the idea in his head that this might be baby time. All I said was i started timing contractions, they were about 5 minutes apart, I'm getting in the shower, and that he should get some rest.

It took him a minute to process, understandably, since it was 3:30 in the morning. He quietly said "OK" and rolled over. As I was getting ready to get in the shower, he walked in the bathroom. I guess he has a better sense than me because he got up and realized he shouldn't go back to sleep.

He asked me if he should pack up the car. We hadn't even installed the car seat yet! Nate was asleep and I definitely didn't want to wake him up since he was already woken up when we left our friend's house after babysitting. I told Jason to pack the car while I showered.

I was in the shower for about 20 minutes. The hot water helped ease the pain a little bit. I got out and started timing again. They were 2-3 minutes apart and as I stood naked in the bathroom, water started to trickle down my leg. Jason watched. I told him I don't know if I peed myself or if it was my water. It didn't feel like a lot. Jason decided it was time to go.

At this point it was 5am. Jason picked out some yoga pants and my Giants shirt to wear, he got Nate in the car, and we headed to the hospital. It took me about 15 minutes to get dressed and in the car.

Oh the car ride. I could hear Nate in the back seat. "Where are we going to? I awake from a nap?" And going over steel plates during a contraction sucks. Thanks, Hawaii, for your constant road construction.

We arrived at the hospital around 5:30, Jason dropped me off at the front so he could park and get Nate out. I had to walk down a hallway, up a flight of stairs(maybe 15 total), to an elevator, up 2 floors, and down another hallway. It felt like I was walking forever.

I finally made it to the triage desk. Jason and Nate had beat me there. No surprise. They had me go in the check-in room to get in a gown so they could check me and see how far dilated I was. I said I needed to pee and it took me awhile to go pee and get that gown on.

Once I got myself together and on the bed, they called in a midwife to check me out. She looked really quick, told me she wasn't going to check me because she saw hair. WTF!? So..I have no idea how far along I was. I am assuming 9cm? The nurse put in my IV to take blood. She wrote 5:50am on the tape.

Contractions freaking hurt at this point. I could hear Jason tell me to slow down my breathing or to actually breath. He was doing this while holding Nate. The plan was to have a friend take him, but it was middle of the night and she didn't get my messages. Understandable.

I think they were trying to find a labor room for me? I really don't know. I told the nurse I felt the need to push so she called the midwife back in. Sure enough, it was time. All of a sudden, around 6 people ran in, bringing in supplies to deliver her. She told me next contraction to go ahead and push. 4 pushes and Morgan was born. Just like that. Didn't even make it to a delivery room. Nate and Jason watched the whole thing. The original plan was to have Jason catch her, but he couldn't because the room was so small and he was holding Nate.

They placed her on me, we waited for the umbilical cord to stop pulsating, then Jason and Nate, together, cut the cord. It was really amazing. Although Jason couldn't catch her, having them both cut the cord is a once in a lifetime experience. A nurse said he would take pictures of them cutting it, but them came out horrible. We don't have any other labor pictures because, again, Jason was holding Nate and it all happened so fast!

Morgan Emily Kappes. Officially a family member. Born at 6:02am, 8lbs 4.5oz, 19 1/2in. She was perfect just like her brother. Chunky little thing.

The first pictures...

Then we waited. I was taken to a recovery area until they have a room for us in the Mother/Baby unit. My friend arrived to take Nate to her house. She brought me a glazed donut and a Dr. Pepper. She knows me so well.

We finally got a room and got settled in our new home for the next at least 24 hours.

Morgan took to breastfeeding well, her brother is so excited, and we are just thrilled to have her in our family. We got discharged after about 30 hours or so and headed home to start our life as a family of four. We are complete.

No More Boob Juice

**THIS POST IS ABOUT BREASTFEEDING**
Heads up:
1. This post is about breastfeeding. If you are offended by it, close this tab now.
2. You will see pictures of breastfeeding at the end of this post. If you don't like it, move on.
3. This is my personal experience. If you want to judge it, I'll ignore it. If you want to share your experience, I'll listen.

OK, now that we got that out of the way...Nate has moved on from boob juice and is now drinking whole milk! Say what!!?? I shouldn't get ahead of myself. He hasn't nursed in 2 days. Over 48 hours! It seems surreal.

To be honest, I was kind of waiting for this day. Mostly for selfish reasons. Stupid reasons and I know that. Breastfeeding takes a toll, especially in the wardrobe department. I had to plan my outfits around the ease of pulling my shirt up or down. I have worn stretchy sports bras for a year and a half. I couldn't wear many dresses. Scarves were a hassle. My shirts had to be easy to nurse in, but not so easy that Nate could flash the world. Getting dressed was a task. Another reason I was over it was Nate didn't take a bottle. I felt so constrained, so tied down. I couldn't leave him for over a couple hours without feeling like I was starving him OR my boobs feeling like they were about to explode.

So...as I realize that his breastfeeding days are over, of course, I feel sad. What. The. Crazy!? I feel like a crazy, emotional, happy, bi-polar person. There will be no more sick time nursing, no more tired nursing, no more nursing because I am tired nursing, no more I have no idea what is wrong with you kid nursing. Again, it has only been 2 days, but I can just tell it's over. Another milestone.

When I first found out I was pregnant, I had a very laid back, whatever happens attitude towards breastfeeding. I didn't want to stress out if he didn't latch or if I could produce enough. When he was born and the last 15 months it has just been natural. He could win a metal for "Best Breastfeeder" if there was one. It was easy and never had to lug around formula and bottles.

I am happy Nate is weaning, I am. I am also a little teary-eyed that my baby is growing up. This is such an odd feeling. I have a hutch this is just one of the many future bi-polar emotional roller coasters I am going to be on as a mom.

On to the next adventure! Before I end this post, here are a couple pictures of me and the little boob juice lover. They are phone pictures so the quality isn't the best.

Sharing is Caring: A Guest Post by Katie Moore on Transitioning into Motherhood.

Tips for Transitioning into Motherhood

 

First time motherhood is a monumental experience that can be filled with anticipation, joy, and amazement. Luckily, the long nine months of pregnancy allow a mom-to-be to address several of her questions and concerns before the baby even arrives.

 

Some decisions should be made prior to the baby's arrival, including:

 

1. Cloth diapering versus disposable - For cloth diapering, there are some start up costs that should be noted, including different sized diaper covers and washable inserts; for disposable diapering, moms should have enough diapers and wipes for the first few weeks of baby's life, but remember that certain brands will work better for each baby so try not to stock up too far in advance in case baby needs a different diaper brand

 

2. Formula versus breast feeding - Every mother has the right to decide how to feed her baby. It has generally been believed that breastfeeding was better for a child, but formula feeding is just as healthy. For breastfeeding, there are several educational resources including lactation specialists at the hospital and breastfeeding classes a woman can take to learn the proper way to get her baby to latch on.

 

Baby formulas are available in several different varieties and the baby may prefer one type to another due to sensitivity, taste and even allergies; moms can contact formula companies and request different samples to have on hand when baby is here and ready to eat; many hospitals and doctor's offices can also provide formula samples until moms find the one that works best for their baby.

 

3. Cord blood banking – Planned for before delivery day with a private storage facility, umbilical cord blood banking is where the cord blood is collected after birth and stored for potential use in treating a possible future illnesses. The medical staff in the delivery room should be made aware that this option has been chosen by the parents so they can plan to perform the collection when the time comes.

 

The first few weeks of baby's life is an adjustment period for mom and baby. For a mother used to a full night's sleep, the interruptions at night to feed the baby can take its toll. Luckily, there are several things that a mom can do to regain her strength and avoid suffering from sleep deprivation:

 

1. Sleep when the baby sleeps! A new mother should relax and avoid the temptation to do housework or other chores when the baby naps. Mom can snuggle into bed and take a nap; even a short amount of time resting can do wonders for their energy level

 

2. Proper Nutrition – A mom should make sure she is eating and drinking enough, especially if breastfeeding, to help keep her energy up. Making it a priority to have small meals throughout the day and always keep a water bottle handy are great ways for a mother to ensure her health is taken care of.

 

3. Accept offers of help – Many times, family and friends want to help a new mom take care of her home and newborn to help during post-delivery recovery. Some mothers may feel reluctant to accept the help either out of embarrassment or the feeling that, as the mother, she needs to be able to handle it all. For a new mother, recovery time is important and she can learn that her feelings of exhaustion will not be forever; accepting help with house chores or babysitting will allow a mother some time to rest and relax.

 

A new mom should know that it is normal to have some emotional ups and downs, known commonly as the “baby blues”. A mother has just gone through a major change and will need time to heal. However, if a mom ever feels like her moods are just too much to handle, she should feel comfortable asking her doctor about postpartum depression. With a great support system of family, friends and medical partners, a mother will breeze into motherhood.

 

This article was written by Katie Moore. Katie is an active writer within the blogging community who discusses maternity, motherhood, prenatal health, childbirth and other topics within this niche.  If you have any questions or would like to connect with Katie please contact by visiting her blog, Moore From Katie or her twitter @moorekm26.