Tuesday

Yesterday was a long, hard day just like every Tuesday is right now. Austin’s getting his masters degree and doesn’t get home until 11pm. I tried to stay busy after school to keep the kids from just sitting at home fighting. We went to a baseball game and a soccer game and then went out to eat with my family. We were driving home at about 8 and Aida was screaming in the car the whole 20 minutes home, which I hate!! Archer was so worried about her and kept asking what was wrong. We got almost home and i heard Allegra trying to shush her and Archer saying something so I turned off the radio and Archer was singing “I’m a Child of God” to her. It just melted my heart. When we got home I was all frusterated and trying to get the kids out of the car to feed Aida and get them to bed but they started fighting and screaming about who got to get out of the car first and I just snapped and got so mad at them. When we got upstairs I told Allegra that i needed her to be better helper for me and get along with Archer and help me, especially on the days Dad was gone all day. She was so sweet and said ok mom what do you want me to do? And i said to go get all ready for bed and help archer get ready for bed while i was feeding Aida. Next thing i know i can hear her saying a prayer and singing their bedtime songs. I went in there a few minutes later and she said okay mom we’re all ready for bed so you can go relax. So sweet! I went to bed teary and feeling so guilty and inadequate but woke up today to their smiling faces and ready to give it another shot today. So thankful we have chance after chance to try and better ourselves. I’ve got a lot to improve but hopefully the good moments outweigh the bad for them. Those two sweet moments are the ones I want to remember as my kids are little.

Aida at 2 Months

This babe is taking over her mom’s nickname, “smiley girl”! I can’t believe how easy it is to get her to smile. One word and she’s grinning!! She’s definitely my most social baby at such a young age. She looooves people to talk to her and tries so hard to talk back with her sweet coos.  I can’t get enough of her. She’s such a pleasant baby and hardly ever cries. If she fussed, she perks right up when someone talks to her or picks her up. Most of the day she is happy in her swing but at nights is a little fussy and likes to be held. I was hoping to have her just wake up once during the night once she reached the two month mark, but she’s still pretty consistently waking up at 2 and 5 although her first stretch is longer now. I usually feed her at 9:30 and she sleeps pretty solid til 2 or 3. I force myself to go to bed with her at about 10 so i can at least get a good stretch in the beginning. After that  first feeding is a toss up. Sometimes she goes right back down til morning and other times she grunts and keeps me up. I’m so thankful she is a happy, healthy baby!! I’m in complete love! 

She took her first flight to Arizona! We decided to go last minute to celebrate Kylie’s birthday and it was such a good choice. I loved it being just me her and Austin for the weekend and both nights she slept soo great and we got to sleep in too....heavenly!!!

First Month Home

The first two weeks post partum were pretty hard, as expected. Nursing was super painful this time around and it made me dread feeding her every couple hours. I couldn't help but cuss everytime she would latch, and archer started saying the D and S words after that. Oops. I also always stress about the choking while nursing too.

 Having a winter baby is nice to just stay inside but also scary with the germs and getting sick and worrying about visitors or going out, so we really didn't have anyone come visit. I also really like and need my space after having a baby. I handled the no sleep party pretty good for the first week or two and then it started to catch up with me after that.

It's always tricky adjusting to a new baby, but also this time around I was so thankful that I didn't have any baby blues and felt good emotionally. It made a huge difference. I also had a ton of help this time, which I don't feel like I had in the past. I had my parents stay with me the first few days. Austin started his masters program just 2 weeks before baby came, so he's been gone a lot. Ive had neighbors bring meals and help shuttle AJ to and from school. I've had family and friends take Archer off my hands, and I'm just so grateful for all the help!

Things started looking up around week 3 or so, as usual. Nursing got easier as well as feeling better physically and starting to get the hang of things. I was worried she was going to be a colicky baby as she started getting tummy troubles pretty early on (week one or two). I started a probiotic and I think it's helped. She sometimes gets fussy and night, but it a really good baby minus the sleep. She doesn't love to sleep, unless she's in our arms. We'll take it, for now!


first few days home

one week

2 weeks

3 weeks

one month

January 2019

We celebrated Archer's birthday early because of the baby coming. We threw together a last minute "gaming" birthday party. Archer got a miniature pac man arcade game for his birthday. Austin tends to buy him the things he wants for himself, so not sure who liked it more. We didn't get a group picture of all of his friends, but I worked hard putting together a bunch of games for them to do. Each game they would earn a prize and got to take home all of their prizes afterwards. I also made his pac-man cake that turned out pretty good if I do say so. 

Allegra took her first two ski lessons. She loved it and we meant to go back every week, but haven't made it up there much with the baby. Glad she got to learn with her cousin!

My last pregnancy pictures at 39 weeks. I worked out 6 days a week my whole pregnancy until the day before I delivered and only missed a few days. I felt so good my whole pregnancy until week 35 and overnight I became miserable. The last two weeks were especially hard and uncomfortable, as expected!

The day before I was induced, Archer had a field trip at the aquarium. I was up the whole night before with contractions and totally thought it would put me into labor. At this point, I hurt soooo bad even walking, but the contractions went away. 

Just 3 days after Aida came, Archer had his real birthday which totally confused him haha but he got to be the star of the day at school and bring a treat for everyone. Austin went and talked about him and said he was SO shy!!!

Aida Gene Ingersoll:::Birth Story

Aida’s birth story begins on Friday January 18th. This is the day i had planned to get induced. My parents came to sleep over in thursday night in case i got called in early in the morning. Everything was prepared and ready. I assumed I would get called in first thing in the morning like I did with archer but when they called me the night before, they said they had 2 c sections in front of me, so I thought maybe 10 or 11am would be the time. Austin and i both woke up at 5:45 and couldn’t fall back asleep. We got up and got Allegra ready for school and i got ready so we could get there ASAP when they called. I called at 11 and they told me to call back at 3 because they were super busy with walk ins. That was a bummer. My parents were hoping to take the kids to Idaho with them around that time, so they decided to sleepover another night. I called at 3 and they told me to call back at 6 and this continued every 3 hours until I called at midnight. They told me they were still too busy and that 8  could get called in first thing in the morning. It was such a long day and at that point i was happy to start fresh the next day because i felt like all the fun had been sucked out of the day by just waiting!

I called first thing in the morning and they told me to call back at 11am. When i called back at 12 they told me I had 3 people ahead of me that had medical induction reasons to get induced that took priority over my elective induction and that’s when i kind of snapped a little. I had dr Jones call me and just basically told them how frustrated i was. That nurse told me that at the earliest I’d be called around 6 pm but they couldn’t guarantee anything because they had been so busy. At that point my parents decided to just take the kids to Idaho. They were anxious and didn’t want to wait around anymore and I came to terms with realizing I might night even be induced on Saturday. Austin and i decided to have a fun day and go out while the kids were gone. We were going to do some shopping and go to lunch and keep our lines off the situation. We went to Cafe Rio with jeff and Cindi around noon and at 1:09 they called me to be there at 2:30. We already had our bags in the car and got there early, about 3 and they got us right into a room. It didn’t seem busy at all??  They got me going on the IV and everything and we’re about to start pitocin but wanted to watch the baby’s heartbeat because they had seen some dips. I ended up getting the epidural even before they started the pitocin and they didn’t end up getting me started on the pitocin until about 4:15 and came in and broke my water right after that. Contractions started picking up and i went really fast. All of the sudden i was at a 3.5 and then a 5 and  knew I’d go fast at that point. Cindi got there and Alissa about this point and we hung out for a while. Then i was at a 7 within about a half hour and that’s when the baby'sheartrate stared dropping. They thought maybe that i was changing so fast and the baby was dropping so fast that she was under some stress. They got me started on oxygen and that’s when Arianne got there. I was bummed that i couldn’t talk to anyone with the oxygen on but obviously was more worried about the baby. I kept feeling more and more pressure and about 7:15 i was at at ten. They called dr Jones in to get the baby out fast. I didn’t push at all with the nurse but by the time dr Jones got there until the baby was born was just about 2.5 minutes. I pushed about 5 times and there she came!! Right away dr Jones said this is a big baby, just like i had thought. I told Austin she was going to be almost 9 lbs and she was 8lbs 9 oz and 21 inches, which was 2 inches longer than my other babies. She didn’t look big to me with her skinny legs and body. Archer was 8.1 and looked way chubbier but he was shorter. Anyway she was perfectly fine and Austin cut the corn and they laid her on my chest and I just felt so relieved and so happy to have her here.

It happened so fast I didn’t even get a chance to tell Michelle and Matt that she was coming so i text them afterwards and they got there in about 20 minutes and just stayed until they were ready to move me to mother and baby.

They were so busy that they had no more rooms in the mother and baby so they moved us to this tiny room down this dark hall to their overflow. Cindi stayed with us to watch the baby get a bath. It was fun that they did it in my room so I could watch because I’ve never been able to watch the bath before! I was sooo tired from basically not sleeping for two nights. There was no spot for Austin so he left too. It was a rough night with Aida. She was up a lot and I was too scared to ask them to take her to the nursery because they said they really recommend we keep them in the room. When Austin got there the next day, i got a good nap and we just hung out at the hospital all day.

The next night was also rough and i was soo tired. Austin came early the next day so i could sleep and then we came home on MLK day and waiting for the kids to return. When they got home about 4 pm they were sooooo cute and my heart was about to burst. Archer kept saying....i can’t believe i have a baby sister! Allegra didn’t want to stop holding her. It was a great night!!!