Happy Holidays to anyone who might happen to still have my blog in their news feed. I know I’ve been gone for a long time. Ben Folds’ line from “Gracie,” “life flies by in seconds,” couldn’t be more true. I can’t believe June is 2 years 8 months old. She’s a funny, smart, precocious, opinionated little girl. She loves the holiday season, loves looking at all of the lights and decorations, says our tree is “my tree” and is in charge of pushing the button to turn it on each morning and off each evening. We love her to pieces and I’m thankful for her every day.

I wish peace, love and comfort to you all!

-Aly

Happy first birthday to my sweet, funny, feisty, beautiful girl. We had a great day celebrating with family and lots of quality time at home together. June is one loved little girl and I am lucky to be her mama. 

One year ago me and J were at the hospital and I was induced.  It feels like labor and delivery all happened in one day because she was born at 12:05 AM the day after I was induced.  I’m feeling very emotional today.  I never wrote the details of June’s birth.  I always meant to but I never did it, and now I don’t remember as many of the details as I would have.  But honestly, once my water broke and I was in labor, my contractions were less than 2 minutes apart from there on out.  I know I was in another place most of the time as I worked through the contractions.  J would talk to me and it was like I couldn’t hear him.  I should ask him sometime what he remembers from the day. I know it was a difficult day for him, watching me moan in pain when there was little he could do for me.  And then, towards the end when June’s heart rate kept decelerating, and the team of doctors and nurses came in to check me and reposition me, when their necessary interruptions broke my focus and caused me to become fearful, I know he was worried about both me and the baby.

After 9 hours of active labor I was dilated 4 cm and June’s heart rate was decelerating.  They switched from external to internal monitoring.  They put me on oxygen which I hated and kept trying to take off.  They talked to us about the possibility of a c-section if her heart rate continued to drop.  I hadn’t had any pain meds or an epidural.  I thought I was handling the pain well until they all broke my focus and then I felt everything.  They let some time pass as I labored on my hands and knees, everyone watching the monitors and listening to June’s heart rate.

Me and J were on the same page about doing the c-section before it became a true emergency.  We signed the waivers and I was wheeled into surgery on all fours. I wasn’t nervous about the spinal, but I do remember telling the anesthesiologist that my contractions were very frequent and I wanted to make sure they would wait until one had ended before doing the spinal.  I was worried I wouldn’t be able to stay still.

I’ve found myself for the past couple of weeks remembering back to this time last year. Those last days when I was willing my body to go into labor so I wouldn’t have to be induced.  Going to acupuncture, taking walks, drinking raspberry leaf tea.  It truly is amazing how much can change in one  year.  This has been the best and most challenging year of my life and I am grateful for all of it.

Our house went on the market first thing Friday, March 25.  By noon the same day we had a text from the realty office asking if we could accommodate a 3:45 showing. We said of course!  An hour later the couple and their agent were still in the house.  We took that as a good sign.  A little after 5:00 our REALTOR texted asking what our ideal closing date would be.  She expected an offer would be coming our way.  At 6:00 the offer came in.  A full-price offer with our requested closing date.  From the first and only people who walked through.  We were a bit shocked.

It turns out the couple, who are first time home buyers, had been in a bidding war on another property and had lost.  They were devastated.  When they walked through our house they knew it was what they wanted.  All of the inspections are happening this week.  I will feel much more at ease once the inspections are done.  We’ve been in the house for 7 years, and we aren’t aware of anything wrong with the house, so hopefully that will be reflected in the inspections.

You all know I’m a worrier, so I’m having some trouble getting too excited about this working out, but I also know it won’t do any good to dwell too much.  One step at a time. And we are SO relieved we don’t have to have a spotless house each morning when we leave for work, ready for a showing with just a few hours’ notice.

In early February we spent a couple of weeks clearing clutter out of our house and moved a lot of things we rarely use into a 10×10 storage unit.  It’s amazing how much stuff accumulates when you live in the same place for 7 years!  This process has taught us (ok mostly me, I’m the one who holds onto a lot of things) that we need to purge items and clean much more frequently than we do.  I also learned that it is possible to clean your house and organize things when you have a young child.  We tag teamed hanging out with June when she was awake and worked furiously on projects while she was napping.  When the house looked great we had a REALTOR come over and walk through our house. She was able to give us an initial idea of what price-point we could list the house at.

The following weekend the REALTOR and a professional photographer came over to take pictures of the house.  We would not be listing our house until we had an accepted offer and inspection on a new property, but we wanted to have this step taken care of so that when we were ready to list we would be able to do so quickly.  It’s amazing what a photographer with really nice camera equipment can do.  He made our house look awesome!  From there, we jumped into looking for houses.  We already knew exactly what was already on the market and there wasn’t much we were interested in.  Our lives the first week of March became a waiting game.  Waiting for Zillow to send me instant updates about new listings  and waiting for the REALTOR to find properties we might want to walk through.

I will say I found the house hunting process to be very stressful.  As current home owners me and J had a pretty extensive list of must-haves in a new home, things we never thought about when we were first-time home buyers.   And the area we live in has a strong market, which will be great for us as sellers, but made the process stressful as desirable properties often had offers on the table after only a few hours.  The first house we looked at I loved, but there was an offer and we had 3 hours to decide if we wanted to make an offer of our own.  I mean seriously, how are you supposed to make a decision about where you plan to live for the next 10-20 years in a few hours when it’s the first house you’ve looked at?

I also learned that having a child has made me put a lot more emotion into the home-buying process.  I definitely had strong emotional reactions to a couple of the houses we looked at before we found “the one.”  I found myself imagining us chasing June around the house, us hosting annual 4th of July gatherings, me consoling June in the night in her new nursery.  I looked up pre-schools and drive times to my parent’s house and community information.  And when those properties were no longer an option the wind was taken from my sails and I felt very sad.  J, the REALTOR and friends and family told me the right one would come along but I just wanted to be done with looking!

So, after looking at dozens and dozens of houses online (and after walking through 8 or 10) a new listing came up a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday.  We read the agent report, looked at the assessor’s website, and scheduled a showing.  We were the first prospective buyers to go through the house.  And you guys, it has EVERYTHING we are looking for. We made a very strong offer the same night and it was accepted the next day.  We were both super excited but I was not letting myself get emotionally attached to this one until we had the inspection.

Well, the inspection was yesterday and there are only a couple of very minor things that we might ask the sellers to do.  And by minor I mean that leaves need to be cleaned out of the gutters.  So now we list our current house.  We were fortunate to be able to make an offer not contingent on the sale of our current house, which is great because it means we won’t have to pack everything and move out of our house before we can move into the new one. That also puts a bit of pressure on us to sell the current house quickly so we don’t have to pay two mortgages.  We can do it if we have to but obviously that’s not ideal.  We are  hopeful that our current house will sell quickly and it will list at the end of this week.  We’ve been cleaning and organizing again in preparation for showing it.  Oh please let it sell quickly!  The idea of having the house spotless day after day when we leave for work and finding somewhere for our dog to be during showings makes me tired just thinking about it.  Keep your fingers crossed for us and I’ll let you know how things go!

Since I can’t seem to find (or make) the time to submit a proper post I thought I would share some pictures.  June is 8 months old already.  I can’t believe it.  She’s such a happy girl.

She has been trying solid foods.  She likes Cheerios and yogurt puffs. Everything else she mostly smears around on her tray.  Here she is destroying some broccoli.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year.  So much to be grateful for.

This was June’s first time riding in the front of the shopping cart. She loved it and I was happy to have a sweet, excited little shopping buddy.

She kept me occupied while we waited during my Dad’s most recent cancer-related surgery last week.

I wish I could slow time down. But since I can’t, I’m trying to be present in my moments with June and J.

I promise I will start writing some proper posts soon. I’ve got several in mind but can’t find the time at night to sit down and type, and work has been very busy since I went back full time one month ago.

We are happy and healthy and June is a sweet and funny little girl. She will be 16 weeks old on Monday. Here she is trying out the Bumbo seat for the first time. She loves it.

June’s 2 month appointment was last Monday.  She’s a healthy, strong little girl!

Weight: 13 lb 6 ounces (85%)

Length: 25 inches (97%)

Head: 16 inches (97%)

She’s reaching all milestones and surpassing some.  She got three shots, 2 in one thigh and one in the other.  Two nurses administered them at the same time while I held June’s hands and put my face close to hers.  I’ve never heard her cry like that. Poor girl! I was able to nurse her right after which helped to calm her.  She was a bit fussy the rest of the day and woke up crying Tuesday morning, something she never does.  After that she didn’t seem to be bothered.  Her next checkup and shots will be at 4 months.

Today is my last day of maternity leave. Tomorrow I transition back to work, 20 hours a week until July 1 when I start 40 hour weeks. And I’m just not ready.
Will I ever be ready? I don’t know. In those first few weeks, when I rarely got more than 90 minutes of sleep at a time, was exhausted physically recovering from the c-section and was cooped up in the house for days, my maternity leave seemed endless and I thought I might want to return to work early. But as I recovered, got more sleep, breastfeeding improved and June began to develop into a more interactive person who rewarded me with smiles and coos I began to dread June 17.
We are in a unique situation for which I am immensely grateful: my mom runs an in-home daycare so she will be caring for June. I can’t fully express how much it puts my mind at ease to know she will be well taken care of and truly loved every day she is there. And yet… I am already jealous that my mom will be with my daughter for more of her waking hours than I will be.
I’m sure I will adjust. There are things I will appreciate, like being able to eat a meal uninterrupted and having more adult contact. There will be other advantages too I imagine but they don’t come to mind at the moment. I am just starting to recognize that my paying job holds little significance when compared with being June’s mom.
At daycare there’s a three month old who is super laid back and a 9 month old who screams louder than any other child I have ever heard if someone she doesn’t know looks at her (and for many other reasons more laid back children take in stride). My mom is going to have her hands full. I know my mom has ample experience taking care of children. She raised six of her own and has been watching other people’s kids for 23 years. But it pains me to know that my baby won’t be the only one getting attention. Again, I know how lucky I am, but right now I’m sad.
I think it’s normal to mourn the end of this most precious and important time I have had at home with June. That said, I hope I am able to enjoy our last day together before the transition back to work begins. I hope by getting my feelings out in this space that I will be able to focus on the present moments of this day instead of feeling sorry for myself and dwelling on the inevitable. I have to find a way to resolve within myself my desire to stay home with the need to return to work.