baby blues, or... toddler blues

Bringing Natalie home has been such a wonderful experience for me, until yesterday. This baby has been so much easier in every way possible. She eats well, goes back to sleep well most all of the time, and Dan and I have a great "system" for taking care of both girls. I always worried about how Sam would react to the new baby, but I never considered how hard it would be for me to split time between them without feeling guilty! Yesterday was the first day I started having a really hard time with it.

Sam, by the way, is doing much better!!! She has started interacting with the baby more, and thanks to some good advice, we have tried to include her in things like bringing us bottles, diapers, and burp cloths, etc. She has started to adapt well to having a sister.

I think I experienced my first "baby blues" yesterday. When Samantha was born I was in tears many times because I was so darn exhausted. But yesterday it was more like my hormones kicked in. In the morning I had told Dan on the phone that I was really glad Sam was at school so that I could have a peaceful day, and when I heard those words come out of my mouth, something clicked inside of me that made me sad for saying it..... and I was sad all day. My little Sammi---who I used to run around with and play with and read to and laugh with... all of the sudden I was glad she was away for the day?!?! How could I think that way???? The guilt killed me all day and every time I pictured her cute little face I cried, literally. 

Dan has been gone each day because his dad and uncle are in town to install our bamboo floors at the studio (along with the help from my dad).... here are a few photos of their progress...

Dan's dad, Orlie working away...

Dan's uncle working hard too...

My dad putting down glue...

Piece by piece, it's a long, hard process... THANKS GUYS FOR WORKING SO HARD ON OUR NEW STUDIO!

One changing room done... about 30X more to do!!! Doesn't it look sweet?!

So back to my baby blues... Dan called me to check in yesterday and told me he had called my mom to ask her to watch Sam Thursday so I wouldn't be left with both kids and he could continue working at the studio. As much as this was a big help, it did not help my guilt, at all. Our "system" to take care of the girls is, in a nutshell, mostly for me to take care of Natalie while Dan takes care of Sam. Therefore, I have not really seen much of her over the last week which was starting to get really hard for me. Her being gone for one more day was killing me, especially knowing I was at home and would have down time in between Natalie's eating times that I could be spending with her, but would instead be sleeping and cleaning. It didn't seem like my priorities were in line. 

And, to add to the emotional mess, I have also been feeling like my newborn hasn't been getting the same amount of attention as Sammi did because when Sam is home, Natalie spends more time in her crib than she does in my arms or on my lap! Goodness gracious, am I fighting a losing battle?!?!

By the end of the day I was so tearful that I had to text Dan to tell him how hard of a time I was having because I couldn't really speak without crying. He, to lighten the mood, offered to bring me a cupcake to cheer me up. :) He also sweetly suggested that he take care of Natalie all evening while I take Samantha out for a dinner for just the two of us. I loved the idea. 

When they arrived, Sammi greeted Natalie by running up to her and saying "Hi Natalie!" She later looked over at her and said "Look at the baby! She is so cute!" It was priceless.

They didn't come home empty-handed. They had stopped on their way home and daddy let Sammi pick out cupcakes for mommy "because she was sad". :)

I offered several suggestions for Sam on where to eat and I was glad she picked Subway. :) I love taking her there for many reasons. I love the food, she will actually eat apple slices and turkey along with the chips she is always so excited to pick out, she always seems to love to sit like a big girl at their tables, it is never crowded, and I can leave without waiting on the bill to come. We had a really, really good time.

The most significant thing for me to take her out was probably to realize that she is in fact, only two years old. She was not nearly as excited about going to dinner with me as I was with her! I mean this in a very good way...that as I was sitting at home all day upset that she was not with me, she was still in her normal routine, getting all the love and attention she needed from school that day!

When we got home I gave her a bath, cut her nails, dried her hair, and then we went to her room for some good snuggle time and book-reading. It was an awesome night. :) Exactly what I needed. Just getting out of the house I think helped too. Today I am doing so much better. Sam is at grandma's house, and I am glad she has the opportunity to be spoiled by grandma while I get some rest and snuggle time with my newborn at home. (I have a sleeping, snuggling baby on my chest as I write.) :) I think we might have to make "Sammi and Mommy's Night Out" a weekly event. 

A special thanks to all of my friends who have given me such great advice and encouragement, as it has been a hard adjustment for me to make, and I continue to grow as a mom through the process. I know I am not alone and I am so thankful for all of your support!!!!!!!!!!

LOVE AND HUGS!!!!!!

doctor visits and catching up

I had a few things to blog about that I didn't get to before going into labor, so here is a little catch-up! :) Sammi had her 2-year well-visit appointment last Tuesday, which was great! We talked about terrible two behavior. She is allowed to switch to 2% milk, but the doctor suggested keeping her on whole since she is still pretty little on the charts. She also got the go-ahead on peanuts, just in time for the peanut butter recall! :) I think we'll wait a little while on that still. :) Otherwise, her double ear infection from the previous week had cleared and she is a healthy little girl!

She is old enough to wear a gown when she's there now, which I think is hilarious and oh so cute! It's so little and her diaper hangs out of the back! :)

She liked to find animals in this drawing while waiting for Dr. Rupp.

Awesome parent tip from my good friend, Becky! She told me to take crayons to the doctor so that Sam can color on the table paper, and it worked great!!! It kept her occupied for a long time!

Miss Natalie had her first well-visit today with Dr. Rupp! It went SOOOOO well!!! I hope I don't jinx things by writing this! :) She is so healthy and doing so well that Dr. Rupp doesn't even want to see her again for a month!!!! 

Waiting with daddy to get weighed...

She is already back to her birth weight! 6lbs, 14oz :)
My little cutie pie... :) Natalie has been eating well, which is easy for us to judge since we are bottle feeding her. I have been waking her up for almost every feeding because she is also sleeping so well! Dr. Rupp said to keep waking her up during the day every 3 hours to feed her, but that we don't have to wake her at all at night! Of course, she will wake up on her own when she needs to eat...but hopefully she will give us some good long runs of sleep! I had been letting her sleep 4-4.5 hours at night and was still waking her up, so I'm curious as to how long she might sleep tonight. Since I've posted this, I'm sure she will be up every hour!!!!! Ha ha ha!!!
We really have to bundle her up to go out in this weather and she doesn't like getting into her car seat! Once she's in, she's fine though! :)
And now some other catching up...  Last week we went to Joe, Lisa, and Reece's house for dinner and had so much fun hanging out! Reece and Sam are really playing well together these days. It's so weird how "grown up" they're getting!!! (Of course, we do have the "mine, mine, mine" thing going on, but that's all in the age!)
A little squeeze...
A fabulous home-cooked meal, THANK YOU DAVIS FAMILY! :)
Lots of giggles and playing hide and seek...
And, playing with race cars... so fun!

I am feeling great and we are all doing well at the Brand house. We have lots of food coming from our families and from our church, which we appreciate so very much!!!! I drove to the doctor today for Natalie's visit and it felt good to get out. My body is tired but doing really well. Dan is at the studio, Sammi is at school, Natalie is sleeping, and I am about to get a few things cleaned up around here and maybe even work a little on the laptop! I know that there will be tough nights and some tough days, that not everything will always be easy with two little girls, but I feel very blessed and am just hoping that the upcoming days bring us as much rest and happiness as we've been feeling so far!!!!  

Thank you soooo much to everyone who has checked in and given us such special notes of encouragement and love! 

natalie's birthday

WOW---how is it Saturday evening already?!?! Our precious little angel has joined us at home and we are so thrilled! Here are a few photos of her at two days old!


And for those of you interested, here is Natalie's birth story...

Over the last two weeks I had been having contractions that came and went, so on Tuesday I was trying not to get my hopes up all day when I was having irregular, more intense, but not promising contractions all day. Dan and I were at the studio with Sammi all day, and at 5:30 I headed home with her to make dinner and Dan went into a meeting before coming home. When I got home I started having more intense cramping and felt as though we might be headed into the real deal--but was still trying not to get my hopes up! :) I made Sam dinner and kept my eye on the clock... contractions were every 15 minutes, but still not painful. It wasn't the same as with Sam (which were very intense contractions as soon as they started), so I just went about cleaning, reading to Samantha before putting her to bed, and then welcoming Dan home who showed up with food so we wouldn't have to cook, yea!

The contractions were coming every 15 minutes over the next few hours, but nothing more intense....until we went to bed around 11:00. As soon as I laid down they started coming. Much more intense, closer together, and I started having to do breathing techniques through them. I told Dan to get as much sleep as he could while I sat up in bed and timed them. Every 4-7 minutes for 50 seconds each for an hour. I got up and walked around, took a shower, drank water, packed the rest of my things in a bag, timed my contractions again to be sure they were still consistent, and then I called the doctor on call at 2:15am. I told her it would take us about an hour to get to the hospital and she said to come on in as soon as possible. I woke up Dan and called my parents, who rushed over to our house at 2:45am to stay with Sam all night and take her to their house the next day. (Thank God for them!!! I don't know what we would have done!!! Thanks, mom and dad!!!)

This was us arriving at the hospital (just hours before the snow started!)

When I went into labor with Samantha, I had to walk the halls of the hospital for hours before I was admitted because I wasn't dilating, so I was praying that this time would be a little faster. I was so thankful to be admitted right away at 2cm! I was even told I could have my epidural as soon as I wanted, which was awesome news, but weird to me because although the contractions were intense, I felt as though I was handling them much better than my first labor and wasn't quite ready for the epidural yet.

Dan and I walked the halls a couple of times on our own thoughts that we might speed things up. This did make my contractions much more intense and I was ready to go back to my room after a short time. I opted to get nubane (pain reliever) first, just to ensure I wouldn't risk slowing things down with the epidural yet. This took the edge off for a few hours and they checked me again. 4cm. At this point, I was ready for the epidural with a plan for the doctor to break my water and start some petocin (drug to induce). Breaking my water and pitocin made things go REALLY fast with Sam, so all of us were really surprised that after several hours of pitocin and my water breaking, I was still 4-5cm with Natalie.

We had been at it for 15 hours now.

My recovery from Samantha's birth was really, really hard physically. I was in so much pain for weeks and weeks and weeks. Because I wasn't dilating any more with Natalie after getting the pitocin and breaking my water, the doctor examined me and asked if I had had any major surgeries on my cervix because there was so much scar tissue there. Because I had not, he immediately determined that my recovery had been so hard with Sam because I had so much interior damage during the birth in addition to my exterior stitches. The scar tissue was preventing my baby #2 from being able to come down. As soon as Dr. Meltzer broke up my scar tissue, things happened, and they happened FAST.

I went from 5-10 cm in the matter of about an hour. The pressure, even with the epidural, was intense and I was ready to get that baby out! :) On my first push the baby's head was visible and they actually had me stop pushing so they could scramble to get the bed ready for delivery! Literally, 2 pushes and 5 minutes later she was completely out!!!!!

Her cord was wrapped around her neck so it had to be cut right away but there were no complications at all from this, and she was still put right on my belly when she came out. Dan was able to cut the cord again and both were just in awe at this tiny baby that just joined our family!!!!! I don't know exactly what Dan's first words were, but I just remember him saying "She looks just like Samantha!" and when I looked down at her I couldn't believe it! It was like we had gone back in time. She was perfect. We called our parents to share the news and the name. Natalie Paige Brand. 6 lbs, 14 oz, 19.75in, born at 3:10pm. As excited as everyone was, no one could get to the hospital to see us because it was -14 outside with blizzard-like snow!!!! :) We had a snowbaby!!!! :)

She had swallowed a lot of fluid at delivery which has made her spit up a lot over the next few days. They pumped her tiny little stomach out during our recovery stay because they felt like she was just gagging too much to let her cough it up all on her own. She's still been spitting up a lot and we're going to ask about it at her first doctor's appointment on Monday.


Otherwise, she has been perfect. Relatively speaking, this recovery has been a piece of cake compared to my first. I cannot believe the difference. I have come to realize that my first recovery was truly much more difficult than most and is pretty rare in talking to the nurses at the hospital, and I am starting to think that my recovery this time is actually better than usual. I haven't even taken anything stonger than Alieve!!! The nurses kept saying to me, "You know, you have lots of stronger drugs prescribed for you that you're allowed to take! Stop moving around the room so much....just sit down and rest!" :) :) :) The entire staff at Clarian North is so amazing and we have had such awesome experiences there through 2 deliveries and a kidney stone. I wouldn't ever go anywhere else!!!!! The entire staff, from the doctors, to the nurses, the lactation specialists, the food service....even the housekeeping! They are all incredibly awesome!!!!!

24 hours old (just before we left the hospital)

I feel so fortunate and soooo lucky. Truly, all my prayers have been answered with Natalie. I not only got a beautiful healthy baby, but I have been given the opportunity to have a recovery that allows me to spend good time with my toddler and feel somewhat on top of things at the house while taking care of a newborn. (Of course, this is all relative...I did just have a baby...I am exhausted...and I do have my recovery pains...I don't want you to think that I'm just miraculously 100%!)

Since we've been home, Natalie has been a good sleeper. She gets up about every 3-4 hours to eat and doesn't have much awake time yet. We have decided, after some trials, much consideration, reviewing my experiences with breastfeeding Samantha for two agonizing months, and meeting with the lactation specialist, to exclusively bottle feed this time. I am pumping my milk to feed her in the bottles, at least for the first several weeks because it is important to me she gets the benefits. Although it's sort of twice the work to pump every 3 hours (minus overnight) and also feed her a bottle every 3 hours, it is a decision that I am thrilled with for many reasons I won't bore you with! :)


As for Miss Samantha...boy, she is having a hard, hard time. She stayed with my parents for two nights: one while we were in the hospital and one on our first night home. My parents said Sammi did awesome with them, but was pretty clingy and wanted to be held a lot. My parents brought her to the hospital Thursday to meet Natalie (who gave her a Dora sticker book as a present for becoming a big sister), and she did okay but didn't show too much interest.

At home it's been really hard on her. I don't feel as though she's been deprived of the attention she needs because Natalie has been such a good baby so far...but she has almost no interest in the baby until the baby is "taking" something from her. Tonight we got out Sammi's old baby swing, which she was initially really excited about, but then cried and cried when we told her Natalie was going to swing in it. If either Dan or I leave the room (even without the baby), she cries and yells for us to come back. It's been a lot harder than I thought. She doesn't go to bed easily, which is completely unlike her.

And then.....it's sooooooo hard because the couple of times she has shown interest in the baby, it almost backfires on her. For example, when we finally got Natalie in the swing tonight and Sammi at the dinner table (with a bowl of M&Ms I might add), Sammi walked over to the swing and said "Baby go fast!" and pushed the swing hard and said "Weeeeee!" Well, of course, Dan and I immediately calmly walked over and said "Sammi, you have to be gentle with the baby...the baby can't swing fast because she's so little." The look on her face----you would have thought she just lost her best friend. It was horrible, and I just kept thinking "Oh great, she finally shows interest in playing with the baby and she feels like she got into trouble." ANY advice or suggestions is greatly welcomed and appreciated!!!!!! :( Poor little girl! It's really hard to find a balance between giving her enough attention and not letting her manipulate us to get things because we feel guilty. Ah, the joys of parenthood! It is overwhelming but I know in the long run they will love each other. :)

Family of Four :)

DAN, BROOKE, SAMANTHA, AND NATALIE :)

welcome natalie paige

I am absolutely thrilled to announce the birth of our second daughter, Natalie Paige Brand!! She was born on Jan 14th at 3:10pm. She weighs 6lbs 14oz and is 19.75in long. Both her and Brooke are doing great! Natalie looks so much like Samantha did when she was born it is freaking us out a bit. Same features, same expressions. We are setting up the Samantha/Natalie introduction tomorrow (the 15th). Sammi has been having some separation issues lately so we'll see how this helps that out! Here are a few photos from Natalie's 1st day...

happy birthday sammi, jan 8

Happy (actual) 2 year birthday, Samantha!!! We debated and debated about what to get her for her birthday, and finally decided that she would most enjoy spending the day with mommy and daddy (not in the studio), and picking out a couple of presents herself!

We started the day off with new crayons for the bathtub. We usually take baths at night, but we wanted her to use her crayons for the first time on her big celebration day. :) She LOVED them! This was taken after a little tickling from daddy...how sweet!

My friend Becky had told me about The Bounce Zone, which is a place full of those HUGE blow-up bouncy play things. Sammi got her first trip there on her birthday!

It didn't take long for her to get warmed up and bounce all over!

These bounce things are amazing. Full of slides, ropes to climb, and mazes to run through, all while bouncing.

Sam even enjoyed shooting some baskets!

This photo gives you a better idea of the place...and this is one of 3 rooms!

We were going to take her to eat at Red Robin, but she fell sound asleep as soon as we got in the car! We went home for a nap and lunch before heading out again.

Of course, once we got home, Sam didn't want to go back to bed, so we settled for giving her a 20 minute car nap (instead of her usual 1.5-3 hr nap) and fed her a lunch full of her favorite foods...noodles (she picks them out of the sauce and meat, oh well) and edemame!

After lunch we went to Claire's to let our girly girl pick out some new jewelry, hair bows, and princess slippers.

Needless to say, she had her hands on everything! It was so fun to watch her!

Our last stop was to Toys R Us to let her pick out a toy. She picked out Elmo Live, which we later discovered is a very cool toy! She also played with other toys and read some books while we were there.

When we got home we played with all of her new things and got Elmo working.

Her favorite item from the day was definitely her princess slippers!

She got worn out fast so we headed up to bed early.

The poor little birthday girl...when we were getting ready for bed, Dan thought she felt hot so we took her temperature and it was 101.8! We gave her some IBUProfen and took her to the doctor first thing in the morning. The little monkey had double ear infections! So, we are on medicine now and doing better. Even though she must have been hurting on her birthday (she did seem really tired all day), she was a trooper and we had such an awesome day together!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAMANTHA!!!!! WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!