birthday swag

thanks for all the birthday love, everybody. aaron surprised me with a 3.5 oval dutch oven from le creuset. 

i'm in love. 

sew sugar pie

my dear friend, nichole, has her own company called sew sugar pie. check out her etsy page here. she is so super talented and sweet. she sent a large package a while back to spoil us.

she doesn't just make baby gear either. she also has sweet scarves and headbands for the ladies. she sent me two scarves (not pictured) that i adore. i've received several compliments on them. 

go check out her store and spoil yourself or your favorite babe.

attention working mamas

thanks so much for your concern and kind words for emmett. good news. the meds have started working and he is doing much better. he is almost like a new baby. seriously.

which brings me to my next topic. in a few short weeks (actually 17 days) i have to go back to work and the little guy goes to daycare. the thought has been bothering me for awhile, and has actually caused a few panic attacks as of late. those of you that have done this...do you have any pointers? i understand lots of moms are very excited to go back to work and have conversations with adults, yada, yada, yada. i'm not one of them, not even remotely.

to make things worse, aaron will be off doing field work on my first few days back, so i have to navigate it all by myself. i understand that in a few months this will not even be an issue. but it brings me a lot of tears now.

how do i leave this guy?

first bout of illness

well it had to happen, our little guy isn't feeling too well.

it started probably about a week ago in wisconsin. occasionally he would pull himself off, while breastfeeding and start crying. he also started to insist upon being carried only vertically. seriously, any position that wasn't straight up and down would set him off.

when you haven't had a baby before, you aren't sure what is normal. did this seem weird? yes - but so does yellow seedy poop, and that, as it turns out, is normal.

the crying during nursing got progressively worse, so we took him in to the doctor on sunday. emmett has acid reflux. the little valve near his stomach isn't closing as is should so he get stomach acid in his esophagus that can be really painful. this isn't uncommon in babies and it usually fixes itself by 6-9 months.

he now has some medicine, but it might take a few days for it to start working. also, we might have to tweak the dose, or change medicines all together if this one doesn't work. so we are still in for a few rough days.

i can handle a fussy baby, but once you know he isn't being fussy - that he is actually in pain. it makes the whole thing really hard to endure.

also, until the medicine works, i'm having to get really creative in terms of trying to find a nursing position that is best for him. so far, this has resulted in sore back and arms.

but this cutie is worth it.

journey to wisconsin

for quite awhile, we didn't know if we would be able to attend greg's (aaron's dad) wedding. we wanted to see everyone. but we really really didn't want to make 5 flights and drive all over wisconsin with a 5 week old. also there was a part of me that was really nervous to parent in front of people. everyone has different view on so many things (pacifiers, bed times, crying, breast feeding, etc). i was scared that someone would think i wasn't doing a good job.

in the end we decided to go. greg doesn't get married too often, we wanted to introduce our family to emmett, and also then we wouldn't have to think about travel for at least another year. 

the flight over was a red-eye, but emmett was a champ. he slept the entire way in aaron's arms. unfortunately, neither aaron nor i got an sleep that night.

the next day we stayed at aaron's brother, justin's apt. we hung out with justin, and his girlfriend, julia. that night was awful. emmett woke up at 2 am and didn't go back to sleep until 9am. blarg.

the next day we drove to egg harbor, the location of the wedding. we had a nice hotel room all to ourselves at the landmark. we had our only real time with greg and karla that night. we ate dinner together at the cookery. that night emmett gave us a bit of a fright by sleeping until 4am. as nice as that sounds we didn't sleep as well as we should have because we were scared something was wrong.

the next day aaron went golfing with the males of the family, while i stayed in our hotel room. we rested a bit, and then julia, rachael (aaron's sister), and caitlin (our niece) dropped by. we hung out and chatted for a bit. rachael was fairly enamored with her new nephew. at one point i said "it's time to feed emmett" to which, caitlin (who is 3) grabbed a french fry and tried to feed it to him. i had to explain that little babies can't eat french fries, they can only have milk. she was very interested in the process and while i was trying to discreetly nurse, she lifted my shirt up for the whole room and asked where the milk was. that even we celebrated bob's (aaron's grandfather) 80th birthday with a fish boil at the white gull inn. here we met the entire wech clan. i love seeing all the wechs together it makes me really happy, the only problem is that when there is that many people by the end of the night i usually feel like i haven't had the chance to really talk to anybody. there was also a bonfire to cap off the night, aaron attended but emmett and i headed to bed and were no shows.

the next day was pretty lazy for us. we stayed holed up in our hotel room. did some laundry, ironed our clothes, etc. in preparation for the wedding that night. the wedding was at the beautiful horsehoe bay golf club. emmett started fussing at the very begining of the ceremony so aaron took up for a bit of a walk. as caitlin (flower girl) was walking down the aisle, i grabbed my phone to take a photo and noticed an urgent text from aaron.

emmett was hungry. i quickly found them and aaron went back to the ceremony. i fed emmett and missed the entire wedding. next came about 45 minutes of family photos followed by some mingling and hors d'oeuvres. we passed emmett around and chatted with various aunts, uncles, and cousins. the dinner was wonderful (i had the tenderloin, aaron had the stuffed trout). more chatting, some funny toasts. followed by dancing. i really wish i could share some photos with you, but honestly i'm really bad about capturing moments. i usually prefer to just be in the moment and not hassle with photos, then i'm always upset that there aren't any photos. i did manage one shot: a four generational wech photo (with aunt michelle photo bombing in the background).

sunday we left egg harbor and headed to green bay to aaron's mother's house. sunday and monday were spent chatting it up with jean and bob and letting them meet their grandson. 

tuesday, we packed up again, and headed back to madison to justin's house. we spent the last couple of nights there. hanging out with justin, julia, and caitlin. 

thursday we took 3 flights to get back home. we were exhausted. any remnants of a schedule that emmett was on was shattered. but it was great to see everyone, and really at this point it's probably easier to travel with a 5 week old vs a 2 year old. 

i also think that this trip helped to make everyday things with emmett seem easier. the grocery store no longer seems like a challenge.

the first two weeks

i expected the worst with pregnancy. i had heard all kinds of horror stories, and was prepared to be miserable, especially towards the end. i was delightfully surprised at how ok it was. the worst part for me was that it somewhat forced me to into the limelight a bit more than i would like. and the annoying comments after my due date came and went. overall not bad, and some parts were...gasp...pleasant.

i was not, however prepared for the first two weeks of having a newborn. i knew it would be hard. but i failed to realize how hard. i knew i would be sleep deprived, but i had no idea to what extent. i didn't even think about the huge part that hormones would play.

there were days that i functioned on 1 hour of sleep in a whole day. every decision felt like it could alter his entire life, i was a sobbing mess that didn't feel capable of the huge responsibility in front of me. he was (is) so small and precious, how in the world am i supposed to take care of him and know what to do? poor aaron, was so patient (with us both).

things i have learned about motherhood:

1. motherhood can be heavy. the love is unlike anything you have experienced before. and though that sounds pleasant, it is also incredibly overwhelming. days start and end with the saddest cries you have ever heard that bring you to a panic. normally a capable person, i found myself googling every single thing "is green poop normal for a newborn?" or "how to get your newborn to sleep in his bassinet" and feeling like i wasn't good enough because i didn't know the answer to any of it.

2. motherhood is like a sisterhood. no joke. before i was a mom, if i heard someone was expecting i would tell them congratulations and buy them a gift. that was it. simple. i have been floored by the way that other mothers have been so generous. offering to go to the store, bringing us food, asking how i'm feeling. bringing flowers. offering words of encouragement, support, and understanding. the support has been overwhelming from mothers far and near. i can not wait to pay it forward to the next newbie.

things are getting better. i am way less hormonal and crazy, and i'm averaging about 5-6 hours of sleep a night (not consecutive, but still way better). emmett has brought such love and joy to our house and i am forever thankful he is ours. motherhood will always be hard, i know, but the rewards are even greater.

introducing emmett joshua wech

our sweet boy, emmett joshua, was born two weeks late on friday, april 3rd, at 6:58pm. he was 6lbs 14 oz and was 20.5 inches long. everyone is doing well. we are happy, healthy, sleep deprived and in love.

that's the abbreviated version. if you want the long story see below. 

labor officially started on tuesday. the midwives checked me and i was only a 1/2 cm dialated after being a week and a half late. trish, our midwife and friend, gave us the option of trying a catheter to get the ball rolling. it was inserted in the morning and by 2:30pm contractions had started. they kept going until midnight. then they stopped. 

we went back to the midwives the next day. i was 3cm dialated and they gave me herbs, dieter tea and told me to pump as a way to bring about contractions. nothing happened when i was trying these methods, but contractions started on their own again around midnight and lasted until 7:30am. just long enough to not get any sleep. 

that morning the lora, one of the midwives, checked and I was 4cm dialated. she did a membrane sweep and sent me home. contractions started for the last time that thursday morning at 11:30. they continued the entire day and into the night. 

by 3am they had became so intense that my screams woke aaron up. he helped me get in the shower which helped a lot with the pain...until we ran out of hot water. he then surprised me with jelly beans he had sneakily purchased for the occasion (i couldn't have any sweets the last 14 weeks due to gestational diabetes). i suffered through another hour of contractions then got back in the shower after our hot water was replenished. soon after, the contractions got to the magical 4 minutes apart stage and we got to call the birth center. i remember as we left our house that it was incredibly weird to know that the next time i came home i would be a mother. 

when we got to the birth center it was about 6:30am on friday. friday was our two week mark, so at the end of the day we would risk out of the birth center and have to go to the hospital to be induced. i had been in labor around 33 hours total. karin, the midwife on call checked me and i was still just 4cm dialated. no progress from the day before. this news broke my spirit. i sobbed. i hadn't slept in two days, the contractions were unbearable and i was no closer than i had been the day before. i sat in a warm bath at the birth center while aaron tried to console me. 

trish, our friend and coincidentally also a midwife, arrived around 9am. she gave us our options: i could take some ambian and try to sleep, go to the hospital and try some morphine, or go to the hospital and get an epidural and get induced. aaron and i talked. i really really wanted to get an epidural and be induced, but i felt like a failure for giving up on natural childbirth. he and trish both reassured me that i gave it a solid effort for 3 days. there was no failure. i felt so relieved at that. we then headed to the hospital. 

the epidural took about an hour to get, but our nurse, jena, gave me something lovely to help me relax until then. after the epidural was in place, aaron and i both slept for about 4-5 hours. trish then came back to check on me. after a quick look, she said it was time to push - i was at 10 cm!  at this point i was in disbelief. the entire thing felt like i was in a movie.

the pushing began around 4:30pm. trish, jena, aaron and i were the only ones in the room. trish was a terrific coach. aaron held my leg, held my hand, and got me all the water i wanted. after about 2.5 hours of pushing, emmett joshua wech was born!

i was concerned right away, as he was quiet and there were no screams. also there was suddenly a team of nicu doctors in the room. they explained that emmett had meconium in his lungs, and they needed to be vacummed out. sure enough, less than a minute later, aaron was placing him on my chest. i was crying and shaking so hard. he was perfect and healthy.

he was named after my great uncle, emmett, which is also my father's middle name. and josh, aaron's brother.