Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Everyone! It's literally been like 8 months since I last posted, but we are all doing great and loving life. My little one isn't so little anymore. She is beautiful and so very smart and we just love her to pieces!

Happy Birthday Randi!

One year ago today I held my baby girl in my arms for the first time. I can't believe she's a year old already. It has went by so fast. I love every minute of every day that I get to spend with her. I am truly so very blessed. Happy Birthday Randi! Mommy and Daddy love you so very much!!

Birthday Party

We had Randi's first birthday party on Saturday at our house. We had originally planned on having a huge party but due to everyone's schedule we had to settle on a small get-together which turned out perfectly. Just the grandparents and a few of randi's cousins and a couple of aunts and uncles were in attendance but we had a great time. Randi did so well. She loved unwrapping the presents and especially loved her cake. Her actual birthday isn't until the 18th but I can't wrap my head around the fact that she will be a year old very very soon. It went by so fast! She's talking a lot more, well baby talk, but she does say baby, mom, dad and dog. And we do animal sounds and we'll ask her what the lion says and she roars. It's absolutely hilarious. She has such the little personality, she's so much fun to be around. She'll stand on her own now but has yet to take her first steps but I'm sure those will be coming soon. She still sleeps like a newborn, getting up several times a night but I've gotten used to the lack of sleep so it's ok. She's precious and happy and lights up my life.

Another Tooth!

Having fun playing

My first 4th of July

Swimming in my little pool

Finally Randi has gotten her second tooth, it's right next to her first one on the bottom. It popped up on Thursday. She's nearly a year old and only two teeth. She wants to eat real food so bad but without any chompers she just can't have much. She loves mashed potatoes though! Randi's first birthday is fast approaching and we were going to have a big bash for her but so many of my family members wouldn't be able to attend so we have decided on having just something small at our house with just the grandparents and us. That's all we need anyway right? I wish we could have done something bigger, I had such a vision in my head. Maybe next year. Randi is doing so many new things these days. She is shaking her head yes now and will shake it yes if we ask her if she is hungry or wants a bottle. She was just shaking it "no" previously. She waves bye and is standing on her own at times. She hasn't gotten brave enough to try to walk on her own but she can cruise right along when holding on to something.

I have to get her One Year pictures taken, we have tried several people in the past and I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that I need to learn more about photography and buy a good camera and take the pictures myself. Any suggestions? I am literally a huge dummy when it comes to cameras. I can barely work my cheap digital one that I have. But we have been spending small fortunes every time we get her pictures taken and it will be totally more cost effective if I can learn to do them myself. Can't be that difficult right if you have the right equipment?

Well, it's time to put Randi to bed. Hope you all are doing well!

(I have yet to figure out how to get my pictures to post in the right order, sorry!)

1st Trip to the Zoo

This past Friday I took off of work early and we packed up the car and headed to the zoo. I totally dislike the Zoo, we always seemed to have field trips there when I was little and I never liked it and can distinctly remember throwing up my lunch on one specific trip to the zoo. I am not an outdoorsy person by any stretch of the imagination and am quite possibly the most girlie girl when it comes to animals and bugs. They creep me out. But and this is a very big but, there is not one thing on this earth that I won't do for my daughter, so to the zoo we went. It's not like Randi said to me, "Mom, you know what I'd really like to do today? I'd like to go to the zoo." But being as she is only 10 months old, there are very limited things that she "likes" to do and she loves seeing animals. We stand out on our deck and watch the squirrels and birds and rabbits and she just loves it. She always just watches in amazement so I thought for sure she'd love going to the zoo. It was a beautiful day on Friday and it wasn't too crowded and she did love the zoo. She loved being around all the people, she loved seeing the geese and loved taking a ride on the train. We were only there two hours but she enjoyed the full two hours and that made it an awesome day. Just minutes of getting into the car and she was passed out from all the excitement. I'm glad she had a good time and I'm glad that I did not throw up my lunch. :0

Randi riding around the living room

My daughter is the coolest. She is so funny riding around on this little thing, it's by Fisher Price and it's called a corn popper. Her feet can touch the ground and she can totally move it herself but prefers to have mom or dad push her. Enjoy!

Camera Shy

Oh mom, please don't take pictures of me while I'm trying to nap.

Nutrisystem

I joined Nutrisystem yesterday. I had to. I'm fat. I gained 50 pounds with my daughter and still have 8 pounds to lose of that and before I had Randi I had gained 20 pounds with all the miscarriages. I am totally disgusted with my body, there are stretch marks and saggy skin everywhere. I only lost 17 pounds after having Randi, I've lost 25 pounds by dieting and exercising and since losing that, I've just given up. I'm ready to start again and need some help in doing so. I have never ever had to diet before, the weight always just fell off of me when I was younger. I have never been the chubby one in my family or friends and now I am. It's really hard to take in, but I have to do something about it then just sit here and complain. I have my 10 year class reunion coming up in September and almost every girl I graduated high school with looks exactly the same if not thinner now than they did in high school, even after having babies. The reunion is not why I want to lose weight, but it's motivation. I need to lose this weight for me so that when I go out, I don't feel like people are staring at me because I'm so disgusting. I don't feel comfortable in anything that I wear and I hate shopping because I just get frustrated because I don't know how to dress this body. Ok, that's enough complaining for one post, so wish me luck ladies, I'm gonna need it!

Randi's first tooth

My daughter turned 9 months old yesterday and on that day we discovered a little somethin' somethin' in her mouth, a little pearly white tooth emerging from her gums!! She hasn't been sleeping very good, she'll wake up every other hour crying and she's been doing this for about a week now and this tooth explains why. She's been perfect throughout the day so I can't complain. We're so excited about her tooth, I didnt' think they would ever come. :) A few other milestones I'd like to mention as I use this blog somewhat to keep track of what Randi's doing, she's very very quickly crawling now. About a month ago she was scooting all over and just last week she's full blown crawling. She stands up next to everything and sometimes thinks she can walk and quickly lets go of whatever it is she is holding on to and then plops firmly on her little behind. She is much more vocal and I swear she's telling us stories. She'll ramble on for sometimes 10 minutes at a time just talking in her own little language. I love it! She is absolutely in love with the Sprout channel. There's this little chicken on there I think, it is called Chica and every time she comes on Randi smiles big and claps her hands. She does the same thing for Elmo too. I love love love being a Mom to her. She is absolutely a wonderful baby. She's still a pretty terrible sleeper but I'm sure that will get better as she gets older. I will leave you with a pic of Randi's new teeth. Ok, so they're fake halloween teeth that her aunt thought would be funny and so did Randi. She played right along and underneath those teeth was making a huge smile. She's such a ham! The pictures hard to see but it totally cracks me up.

Reflux

I took my daughter back to the doctor on Thursday because she has been spitting up a lot, has wet burps and cries when we lay her down. Reflux right? This is the third time I've taken her to the doctor and finally they gave us some medicine to help her. She has been making weight so I guess that's why they weren't too concerned before. Well, we gave her the med on Thursday night and it seemed to help and we gave it to her again on Friday morning. That afternoon I picked her up from the sitter's house and she said to me, "I think she's allergic to her medicine". My poor baby was covered in hives. She had just gotten the hives so I called the doctor and they said to bring her in. We were told to give her benedryl and that it should clear up soon. Well almost 24 hours later, they were much much worse than they had been. The benedryl wasn't helping at all. We took had to take her to the ER. They gave her some steroids and told us to give her a larger dose of benedryl. Well, the hives are finally starting to clear up some. They're still there but are getting better. Has anyone else had a child allergic to Zantac? I asked the doctor if children are generally allergic to this particular reflux med and they said, nope, she's the first one we've seen be allergic to it. Go figure.

Randi's 1st Easter

Here's a pic of my darling sweet girl rockin' her little polka dot dress for Easter.

6 months

Hello Ladies!!! I know I said my last post would be my last but I simply just couldn't stay away. Although I haven't written any posts since the birth of my daughter, I honestly still read yours every day. So I must say that motherhood is the absolute greatest thing in the world. I love love love being a mom. The first eight weeks were the toughest after we brought her home. I have never ever been that tired. I was lucky to get a few hours of broken up sleep a day. I was sleep deprived to say the least but as they all say, it does get better. Although Randi has regressed some in the past few weeks due to some pesky gas that she seems to get at night, she normally gets up just once a night. I still get very very tired sometimes because she'll have her good nights and then some not so good ones mixed in there too. She is an excellent eater. She loves all her fruits and vegetables and drinks her bottle like a champ. She recently started palming the bottle. She was too cool to be holding it with two hands anymore so she switched to one. So cute! She can sit up all by herself and just talks talks talks to us all day long. The doctor says she's meeting all of her milestones and then some and is just perfect and healthy. Babies honestly do grow up just so very fast. I feel like I'm missing so much when I'm at work but I have to work so there's no way around that, it just makes our time together all that more special.

I don't have much time to write as you can imagine but I just wanted to drop in and let everyone know how things are going. To those of you ladies out there still waiting for your precious miracles to come, they will and I promise you, it's all worth it and then some! Hang in there!

Welcome Randi Lyrae

Randi Lyrae Hire born August 18th, 2009 at 11:38a.m. She weighed 6 lbs 11oz and was 20 inches long. She has tons of dark hair and is just the most beautiful sight I've ever laid my eyes on. I love her so much already. I started getting contractions at 12:30a.m. the morning of the 18th and went into the hospital at 2:00a.m. They checked me right when I got there and I was at 2cm. They hooked me up to the monitors which showed that I was barely having any contractions at all. They then again checked me an hour from that and I was still at 2cm so they sent me home. As soon as I got home I started having severe back labor. Ladies, if you haven't experienced labor, it is the most excruciating pain you will ever feel in your lives. (don't want to scare you but it's indescribable pain). The contractions were less than a minute a part and were lasting over a minute with each one. I managed to stay at home for a couple hours after they discharged me for the first time but I just couldn't take it any longer. We went back to L&D and they no sooner got me hooked up to the monitors and I got checked and the nurse started moving very quickly. I asked her what I was dilated to and she said "You're at a 9, you're going to have this baby soon!" Excuse me, what???? I was freaking out. I started sobbing hysterically because I knew at that point there was no room for an epidural or pain medication of any sort. I literally thought I was going to die. I didn't know how I was going to be able to live through any more pain than I had already been experiencing. Everyone was moving very very quickly. They got me to a room, my husband managed to call my labor team in and within about 20 minutes they were all there. The doctor came in and was scrubbed and ready to go and he checked me and, a great thanks to the Lord for this one, I was really only dilated to 7cm. The nurse who checked me previously was obviously a little off. They called the anesthesiologist in and got me an epidural and after that I quickly calmed down. We arrived at the hospital for the second time at 7:00a.m. and Randi was out by 11:38a.m. The whole process seemed very very quick but I was actually in labor for about 12 hours. The pictures are mostly from when she was just minutes old. My dad, Randy is holding her in the first one. Only fitting as she was named after her Grandpa. We're so over the moon in love with this little girl. I just can't stop looking at her. I barely stayed in the hospital for 24 hours. We went in at 7:00a.m. on the 18th and were released by 1:00p.m. on the 19th (by the way, the 19th was my 3 year wedding anniversary and we couldn't have asked for a better present than what we got, our daughter). I haven't slept really but maybe 5 or 6 hours in 3 days but I just can't take my eyes off this girl. She's perfect in every way. She's the best eater and sleeper and almost never cries.

This will probably be my last post. I have gotten what I need from this blog, all your support got me through the most difficult time I had ever faced in my life. My life has started a new chapter now that I'm more than thrilled to begin. I will continue to follow your posts as I think of you girls often and want so badly for your miracles to come as I know they will. I can't thank you enough for all the support you gave me. I will continue to do the same for you. Thanks girls!!!

38 weeks

Wow, 38 weeks today. Where does the time go? It's been a little over a week that I've been on bedrest and I'm not as bored as I thought I would be. And surprisingly I thought I would be taking many naps throughout the day but I have yet to take one. What I'm doing, I'm not really sure, but something seems to be occupying my day. My appointment last Thursday went well. BP is good, urine is clear and I only gained a pound from the week before. I didn't get my cervix checked so not sure if I'm dilated any more or not. I will get checked this Thursday when I go back to the doctor though. I'm hoping she comes soon, I'm ready to see her.

Shower

Had my baby shower and it was all that I could have ever hoped for. Almost everyone invited showed up, the food was great, the presents were absolutely adorable, but most importantly, I ACTUALLY had a baby shower!!! Something at one point and time I thought would never happen. I had been working on a slide show to present at the shower recapping all of our struggles to have this little girl and let me tell you, there was not a dry eye in the place. My goal wasn't to make anyone cry but let's face it, infertility sucks and it's bound to bring many tears. But at the end of the show, they were tears of joy. The song that played during the slide show couldn't have been more appropriate. It's called 'I would die for that' by Kellie Coffey. You have to check it out. It applies to all of us infertiles. I didn't get any pictures with my camera but plenty of others did so when they send them to me I will try and post them. I'll be 37 weeks tomorrow and this little girl will then be considered full-term. Next appointment is on Thursday.

36 weeks 3 days

Well, ladies, I'm on bed rest. I've had some serious excessive swelling and rises in my blood pressure so I'm off work until this baby comes. I'm a fingertip dilated but the doc doesn't think this baby is coming any time soon. And wow, do they really have to reach up that far to check your cervix??? I swear I could feel his hand in my throat. The baby's heart rate was much higher than what it normally is and it kind of concerned me but no one else was concerned so I ate my fears. Next appointment, next Thursday. What ever am I going to do on three weeks of bed rest???? Hmmm, I'll have to get some good books to read.

36 weeks

Well, I'm still chugging along. I've decided that work is what is making me miserable these days. I get so swollen from being there, my blood pressure goes up and my back hurts from sitting in my chair at my desk all day long. And, I've been working seven days a week so I don't really get a break. My blood pressure was pretty elevated when I was at work on Saturday and my hands were swelling which hasn't been happening so I went to get checked out at the hospital. Bloodwork, and urine all came back just fine and my blood pressure was back down to normal levels before I left there. Of course, the on-call doc thought I was overreacting and I kind of wanted to smack him. He literally said that I was overreacting and I said well, I'd rather be safe than sorry. We all know, pregnant women and high blood pressure aren't a good combo. I have my 36 week appointment this Thursday and we'll see what my doctor says about taking me out of work by the end of this week. I only have this week and next left to work but I'd rather be out now. Not that I'm in any kind of pain or anything or that I'm so miserable that I can't take it, it's just that my symptoms get worse and worse each day that I'm here, so why not take off early if I can? My doctor's pretty laid back so I doubt he'll let me out earlier than I had anticipated taking off. My shower is this weekend and I have a feeling it's going to be a pretty emotional day. There was a long time there where I thought I would never make it far enough into a pregnancy to be able to have a shower. I still can't believe she's going to be here in just four weeks.
On another note, my blogger friend Stace had her babies on Sunday. I'm really excited for her. Although her twins were over twelve weeks early, they're troopers and I'm sure will come out of the NICU earlier than expected. Congrats Stace!!!

35 weeks

35 weeks down, only 5 more to go. Crazy. It's coming up so fast. I'm so excited and really quite scared too. I know I will love being a mom, I'm not scared about that. I'm quite honestly scared about the delivery. I tend to be a little bit of a hypochondriac about things so, go figure, every irrational thought is running through my head of what "could" happen but probably wouldn't in a million years. But, I know I'll get through it because, after all, women do this all the time, right??? Okay, enough about that. I've gained almost 40 pounds thus far, yuck. Hope it comes off later. And I know I haven't taken a belly pic in a while, but I don't seem that much bigger but it feels like there is literally no more room in there. My stomach feels stretched to the max. It's getting harder to breathe and her kicks and punches rather hurt sometimes. I swear she's gonna just punch her way out of there. And even though I sit at a desk all day at work, I am soooo uncomfortable and sore by the end of the day. Imagine what would happen if I had to stand all day? How do some women do it? Well, that's all I have for today.

34 weeks, 4 days

Had my 34 week appointment yesterday and we've established that I've been having Braxton Hicks contractions. I've been getting what feels like period cramps on and off for the past few days and apparently that's what contractions feel like??? Blood pressure's good, urine is clear and I gained another three pounds. We have our last two week appointment and then it's down to every week. Can't believe we only have five and a half weeks left to go. It's a little scary but I'm so ready for it. I'm getting so unbelievably uncomfortable. No position I'm in feels good, but it's par for the course.

32 weeks, 3 days

Had my last ultrasound today and everything was perfect. She weighs 4.2 pounds, she's in the 30th percentile for her weight. I'm measuring at 33 weeks, my blood pressure was a low 100/60 and no protein in my urine and probably the best part of the appointment besides seeing her again, I only gained 2.6 pounds since the last appointment. A total of 34 pounds exactly since we found out we were pregnant. I'm hoping to not go past 45 pounds, I would have liked for less but everything else has been going perfectly that weight gain really isn't important. My husband and I watched Trans.formers after the appointment and the movie was pretty good, however, theatre seats, not so comfortable when you're 32 weeks pregnant. Needless to say, after two and a half hours of sitting in those seats, I was ready to get out of there. We have another appointment in two weeks.