We're all still here, just really busy.
Yesterday was a hard day for so many people and I want you all to know that you were in my thoughts and prayers. We prayed our rosary last night and I included in the intentions all of those waiting to be mothers. It is so hard to be where you are. And there is NOTHING to say that can help take the pain of waiting away. I have been there, and so many of us bloggers have been there too. God is so near to the weary and brokenhearted. I pray that He holds you close, and makes His presence known to you especially when He seems so far away. Blessed Mother, pray for us!
Monday, May 13, 2013
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Sleep is Happening!
Our little wee one is doing surprisingly well with sleep training thus far. We actually started last night instead of Thursday night like we planned. She went to bed fine without her paci, but that happens sometimes, so we still weren't sure what to expect throughout the night. Her first waking was around 4:30am. That's much later than normal. I think it's because we've been increasing the ounces in her bottles to 6 each (so 5 bottles during the day 6 oz each) and her belly was full.
I went in after the first 3 minutes and rubber her back and shushed her while trying to cover her with her swaddle a little. Then I left. She was still crying, but it wasn't horrible. We have a video monitor, so we turned the sound down and just watched her to keep an eye on her. I just LOVE the video monitors. Anyway, since she was still crying, I waited 5 minutes before returning again. I tried settling her again, and left, that was the last time I needed to go back in. She fell asleep after only 2 checks!!
That wasn't the end of it though. She woke a couple more times after that, but each time I only had to go in once. I didn't return for the 5 minute check because it seemed as if right as I was about to she would have more of a whine cry than a true come-and-help-me cry. Around 6 am, she woke up crying again, but we didn't go in at all. No 3 minute check. She fussed for a LONG time for that waking though though. But again, it was never a continuous come-and-help-me cry so we kept holding off because we felt like at any minute she could fall asleep and if we went in we might interrupt her as she was finally learning how to sooth herself back to sleep. Good thing we waited, because she eventually quieted and had fallen asleep. How rewarding it is to see her eventually sleep without any external help!
Right now she's napping. We are hoping to keep her paci out of naptime, too. So far so good. She went for her nap at 9 am and fussed for about 8 minutes or so, but nothing that required me to check in on her. It usually isn't the initial falling asleep that causes problems, it more the mid-sleep wakings requiring the replacement of the pacifier that are trouble. She hasn't woke from her nap yet, so I'm hopeful she could go the whole nap with no intervention! Praise the Lord!!!
First night of sleep training and one nap down. Who knows how many more to go. I am so thankful we took the leap and started this. It hasn't been nearly as bad as I imagined it to be and G seems to be picking it up slowly but surely. Thank you for your advice, thoughts and prayers. Will update more later!
I went in after the first 3 minutes and rubber her back and shushed her while trying to cover her with her swaddle a little. Then I left. She was still crying, but it wasn't horrible. We have a video monitor, so we turned the sound down and just watched her to keep an eye on her. I just LOVE the video monitors. Anyway, since she was still crying, I waited 5 minutes before returning again. I tried settling her again, and left, that was the last time I needed to go back in. She fell asleep after only 2 checks!!
That wasn't the end of it though. She woke a couple more times after that, but each time I only had to go in once. I didn't return for the 5 minute check because it seemed as if right as I was about to she would have more of a whine cry than a true come-and-help-me cry. Around 6 am, she woke up crying again, but we didn't go in at all. No 3 minute check. She fussed for a LONG time for that waking though though. But again, it was never a continuous come-and-help-me cry so we kept holding off because we felt like at any minute she could fall asleep and if we went in we might interrupt her as she was finally learning how to sooth herself back to sleep. Good thing we waited, because she eventually quieted and had fallen asleep. How rewarding it is to see her eventually sleep without any external help!
Right now she's napping. We are hoping to keep her paci out of naptime, too. So far so good. She went for her nap at 9 am and fussed for about 8 minutes or so, but nothing that required me to check in on her. It usually isn't the initial falling asleep that causes problems, it more the mid-sleep wakings requiring the replacement of the pacifier that are trouble. She hasn't woke from her nap yet, so I'm hopeful she could go the whole nap with no intervention! Praise the Lord!!!
First night of sleep training and one nap down. Who knows how many more to go. I am so thankful we took the leap and started this. It hasn't been nearly as bad as I imagined it to be and G seems to be picking it up slowly but surely. Thank you for your advice, thoughts and prayers. Will update more later!
Monday, April 15, 2013
Successful Sleep Trainers, Please Advise
What's been goin' on over here? Lots of talk about sleep training sweet G. We plan to embark on the adventure this weekend and I hope I come out on the other side as a well-rested mommy with a happy, equally well-rested little girl. G is 4.5 months right now, so we are hoping this age is okay to begin sleep training. Please say yes.
We have successfully eliminated one of her two nighttime feedings from a bottle and now she only gets about 4 oz at night. Not much at all. So, right now we're eliminating an ounce each night from the remaining bottle and that alone may help her sleep better once it's cut out completely.
The only other things that seem to be getting in the way of her sleeping through the night are her associations with being swaddled and having her pacifier replaced multiple times each night and occasionally during naps. It isn't horrible, but it's an association I do not want to continue much longer. She is able to fall asleep without our help, in her crib in her own room, but she almost always needs to be swaddled in her swaddle bag with her pacifier. Once the paci falls out, she can usually sleep fine until she stirs and realizes her paci is missing.
I've been more interested in sleep training than my husband, but I have a strong feeling that I'm going to be the weak one when we're actually carrying it out. We plan to start Thursday night.
I'm hopeful that G will learn to fall asleep and stay asleep without her pacifier, but at the same time I'm nervous. How long will it take her? Will she cry so much and so forcefully that I won't be able to take it? I don't want to give in and replace her pacifier, or the whole training process will be worthless. I'm praying that we can remain strong!
For those of you who have tried sleep training and found it to be successful, do you have any insights, advice or stories that would be helpful? If so, please share! Oh, and please no judgement.
We have successfully eliminated one of her two nighttime feedings from a bottle and now she only gets about 4 oz at night. Not much at all. So, right now we're eliminating an ounce each night from the remaining bottle and that alone may help her sleep better once it's cut out completely.
The only other things that seem to be getting in the way of her sleeping through the night are her associations with being swaddled and having her pacifier replaced multiple times each night and occasionally during naps. It isn't horrible, but it's an association I do not want to continue much longer. She is able to fall asleep without our help, in her crib in her own room, but she almost always needs to be swaddled in her swaddle bag with her pacifier. Once the paci falls out, she can usually sleep fine until she stirs and realizes her paci is missing.
I've been more interested in sleep training than my husband, but I have a strong feeling that I'm going to be the weak one when we're actually carrying it out. We plan to start Thursday night.
I'm hopeful that G will learn to fall asleep and stay asleep without her pacifier, but at the same time I'm nervous. How long will it take her? Will she cry so much and so forcefully that I won't be able to take it? I don't want to give in and replace her pacifier, or the whole training process will be worthless. I'm praying that we can remain strong!
For those of you who have tried sleep training and found it to be successful, do you have any insights, advice or stories that would be helpful? If so, please share! Oh, and please no judgement.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
100th Post!
Was just doing some housecleaning on my blog. Since I'm still not comfortable with people IRL stumbling upon this blog, I have been removing the photos from it. There weren't that many anyway, so it didn't take long. I may end up going private soon, I'm not sure. I do want to still share photos with my long time readers and think a private blog may be the way to go. We'll see.
Anyway, upon doing said housecleaning, I noticed I had 99 posts published thus far! Naturally, I couldn't leave without posting my 100th post!! So, here we are!
It's so hard to believe that I started this blog in 2011 and here I am in 2013, still goin' strong. I feel a little bad about not letting on to people IRL about this gem of a blog, but not bad enough to share it with them. So, dear readers, consider yourselves the lucky ones!! ;) You get to read all about lil' old me and my daily happenings. Aren't you so happy? hehe
Friday, April 12, 2013
An Urgent Read
This post is about the Gosnell trial that the media is not covering. The link below urges us to spread the word ourselves and not wait for the media to cover it. I love that we bloggers have our own mass media, so please, please share the link below with your readers. Some of them may not have heard anything about this case, and who can blame them since the media is not doing their job covering it.
And let's all pray that this story will convert the hearts of all those who are involved with the abortion industry. God, please have mercy on us!
http://www.catholicvote.org/dont-wait-for-the-media-to-cover-gosnell-do-it-yourself/
And let's all pray that this story will convert the hearts of all those who are involved with the abortion industry. God, please have mercy on us!
http://www.catholicvote.org/dont-wait-for-the-media-to-cover-gosnell-do-it-yourself/
One of Those Days
You know how I mentioned making this place a blessing to those who read this? Well, this post might not be that kind of post. I really want to be positive here, but there is so much bothering me and I just can't ignore it. I need an outlet, so here I am. Today it's raining out and I'm so SO tired of the cold dreary weather of this New England state of mine. UGH. I want to move so badly to a warm southern state.
My husband has been putting in mandatory overtime at his job. Good problem to have in this economy, I guess, but it's been so hard having to treat every Saturday like another weekday. Yup, Saturdays are required work days and have been since about February and there is no end date to this madness. Luckily he only needs to put in at least 4 hours and no more than 8 on each Saturday, but still. Most weekends it's been closer to 8 than not and I am so tired of it.
G has been super fussy all day. Currently she is awake in her crib, and she still has about an hour left to her naptime. We'll see how this one goes. Normally, I can't complain in this department. She is on a pretty good nap/sleep routine and I am not sure how that happened since I used to highly dislike schedules myself. I think she can tell when mommy is stressed because usually if her schedule is stable, she's pretty content for the most part.
I'm so upset, angry and disappointed with my siblings. They both currently live with their respective boy/girlfriends and it has been grating on me for a while now. I feel like I'm mourning the loss of the family I wish I could have come from, if that makes sense. All families have problems, I know, but I feel like I'm surrounded by extended family that are all church-going good example people.
Well, except for one certain extended family member. Not sure if you recall, but the person who I couldn't talk to during my pregnancy. Well, I tried to reconcile with her and that was a huge mistake. I think I had a moment of weakness, or was bored or something and decided, "I'm feeling fine now, I can handle reaching out to her, let me just shoot her a quick email apologizing and leave it in God's hands." I don't really know what I apologized for, I didn't do anything wrong. I just asked her to stop calling and texting me because her last email really upset me. Well, I guess I did way more than that. Including, as she claims, I caused to some extent her miscarriage. Can you BELIEVE anyone would have the audacity to even hint that someone else caused their miscarriage? To some extent, I kind of saw it coming. She is just that kind of person. She already has two children (not that I'm implying at all that this lessens the pain of miscarriage) and couldn't even be happy for me when I announced my pregnancy to her. Once she knew what doctor I was seeing she jumped all over it and sent me long intrusive emails about my care. I hadn't even been talking with her much before all this, and now she wants personal details about my fertility? Oh and by the way, congratulations, she wrote along with her thousands of questions for me. So I did what any sane person would do and I limited contact with her and she apparently blew a big fuse at that. Meanwhile, I had NO clue she was pregnant at the time, and now she is blaming me for her miscarrying. She hopes I can deal with the "irreversible consequences of my actions". Ahh she makes me want to scream!!! I had to hold myself back from sending her a very opinionated letter in return. I haven't given up on the thought of writing her a letter, but I'm more interested in talking to her in person. It's funny how easy it is to write things to someone, but saying them straight to the persons face is not so simple. I highly doubt she would have accused me of her miscarriage straight to my face, but you never know.
Let's see, what else. Oh. The whole blogging thing. So, I've been wanting to start a more public blog. I've also been not wanting anyone from RL to stumble upon this one, and I worry with pics of G that they could recognize her and also read stuff I don't want them to (take the above paragraph, for example). So, why do I want to have a more public blog when I don't even like Facebook? I'm still trying to figure that out. I've been trying to think of a name for this new blog, if I ever start it, but nothing has seemed right.
My husband and I have been talking about the possibility of relocating. I hate the winters here and his job is getting out-of-control busy. We have been talking about the Dallas area. Anyone from around there than would like to share how they like it? My husband works as an engineer and is hopeful that there will be plenty of job opportunities in that area. The thought of selling our house makes me dizzy, but I can't get the thought of moving and Dallas out of my head. Is it a sign that God is calling us to leave all my family that live around here and venture out on our own? I'm still not completely sure, but it does kind of sound exciting.
Time to check the wood stove. Remember that thing? Yeah, we're still using it. It's mid April, people! What is going on here?
My husband has been putting in mandatory overtime at his job. Good problem to have in this economy, I guess, but it's been so hard having to treat every Saturday like another weekday. Yup, Saturdays are required work days and have been since about February and there is no end date to this madness. Luckily he only needs to put in at least 4 hours and no more than 8 on each Saturday, but still. Most weekends it's been closer to 8 than not and I am so tired of it.
G has been super fussy all day. Currently she is awake in her crib, and she still has about an hour left to her naptime. We'll see how this one goes. Normally, I can't complain in this department. She is on a pretty good nap/sleep routine and I am not sure how that happened since I used to highly dislike schedules myself. I think she can tell when mommy is stressed because usually if her schedule is stable, she's pretty content for the most part.
I'm so upset, angry and disappointed with my siblings. They both currently live with their respective boy/girlfriends and it has been grating on me for a while now. I feel like I'm mourning the loss of the family I wish I could have come from, if that makes sense. All families have problems, I know, but I feel like I'm surrounded by extended family that are all church-going good example people.
Well, except for one certain extended family member. Not sure if you recall, but the person who I couldn't talk to during my pregnancy. Well, I tried to reconcile with her and that was a huge mistake. I think I had a moment of weakness, or was bored or something and decided, "I'm feeling fine now, I can handle reaching out to her, let me just shoot her a quick email apologizing and leave it in God's hands." I don't really know what I apologized for, I didn't do anything wrong. I just asked her to stop calling and texting me because her last email really upset me. Well, I guess I did way more than that. Including, as she claims, I caused to some extent her miscarriage. Can you BELIEVE anyone would have the audacity to even hint that someone else caused their miscarriage? To some extent, I kind of saw it coming. She is just that kind of person. She already has two children (not that I'm implying at all that this lessens the pain of miscarriage) and couldn't even be happy for me when I announced my pregnancy to her. Once she knew what doctor I was seeing she jumped all over it and sent me long intrusive emails about my care. I hadn't even been talking with her much before all this, and now she wants personal details about my fertility? Oh and by the way, congratulations, she wrote along with her thousands of questions for me. So I did what any sane person would do and I limited contact with her and she apparently blew a big fuse at that. Meanwhile, I had NO clue she was pregnant at the time, and now she is blaming me for her miscarrying. She hopes I can deal with the "irreversible consequences of my actions". Ahh she makes me want to scream!!! I had to hold myself back from sending her a very opinionated letter in return. I haven't given up on the thought of writing her a letter, but I'm more interested in talking to her in person. It's funny how easy it is to write things to someone, but saying them straight to the persons face is not so simple. I highly doubt she would have accused me of her miscarriage straight to my face, but you never know.
Let's see, what else. Oh. The whole blogging thing. So, I've been wanting to start a more public blog. I've also been not wanting anyone from RL to stumble upon this one, and I worry with pics of G that they could recognize her and also read stuff I don't want them to (take the above paragraph, for example). So, why do I want to have a more public blog when I don't even like Facebook? I'm still trying to figure that out. I've been trying to think of a name for this new blog, if I ever start it, but nothing has seemed right.
My husband and I have been talking about the possibility of relocating. I hate the winters here and his job is getting out-of-control busy. We have been talking about the Dallas area. Anyone from around there than would like to share how they like it? My husband works as an engineer and is hopeful that there will be plenty of job opportunities in that area. The thought of selling our house makes me dizzy, but I can't get the thought of moving and Dallas out of my head. Is it a sign that God is calling us to leave all my family that live around here and venture out on our own? I'm still not completely sure, but it does kind of sound exciting.
Time to check the wood stove. Remember that thing? Yeah, we're still using it. It's mid April, people! What is going on here?
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Here to Stay
So, I've decided to keep this blog and not move. I know, that didn't last long at all. I guess that's just how I roll these days. :)
I do want to make this blog a place of documenting my daily thoughts and happenings, much like before, only now there will be occasional pics of the little one. I have to be honest here, because what else is my blog if not honest? I can remember how I felt before conceiving G, but I no longer can feel those same feelings. I guess that's good, right, because I have a child now, so I shouldn't be feeling those same feelings anymore. But more to the point is that I feel like I am healed of the heartache and sadness that went along with waiting. Thanks be to God.
I want to make this place a place of rejoicing in God's wonderful gifts. And not just G, though she is our biggest wonderful gift. But there are so many small gifts that God gives me each day that I need and want to document here. I want to grow in gratitude and grace and feel called to share it with anyone who is reading!
I'm sure I will still document the hard things and seek the wise counsel of those who read this, but hopefully I can make this blog more of a blessing to those who read it. I hope you can come away from reading here a little more peace-filled and hopeful.
I do want to make this blog a place of documenting my daily thoughts and happenings, much like before, only now there will be occasional pics of the little one. I have to be honest here, because what else is my blog if not honest? I can remember how I felt before conceiving G, but I no longer can feel those same feelings. I guess that's good, right, because I have a child now, so I shouldn't be feeling those same feelings anymore. But more to the point is that I feel like I am healed of the heartache and sadness that went along with waiting. Thanks be to God.
I want to make this place a place of rejoicing in God's wonderful gifts. And not just G, though she is our biggest wonderful gift. But there are so many small gifts that God gives me each day that I need and want to document here. I want to grow in gratitude and grace and feel called to share it with anyone who is reading!
I'm sure I will still document the hard things and seek the wise counsel of those who read this, but hopefully I can make this blog more of a blessing to those who read it. I hope you can come away from reading here a little more peace-filled and hopeful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)