Fantastic Family

I saw a posting on Facebook today asking readers about the men in their children's lives and how much they mean to them.  That really made me think about my family and the people that have an impact on my daughter's life.

Most of the research available about divorce focuses on the bad aspects and how much it hurts families.  My parents are divorced and my husband's parents are divorced.  I'm not going to say that the situation is ever easy - it becomes very difficult to juggle time with multiple families individually, especially around the holidays. 

However, since Cameryn was born, I've realized how fortunate we are even with so much divorce in our families.  Those rough times in our lives as children have actually benefited our daughter.  Cam doesn't have just two sets of grandparents to love her - she has four.  When you add all of her aunts, uncles, cousins, and her parents' cousins and their children, she's got twice as much family to love her as most children from "normal" families.  Not to mention the three great-grandparents she has that are still living that love her to the moon and back.

So, during this holiday season, as difficult as it will be to travel and attend six separate family Christmas celebrations, I'm going to reflect on how fortunate we are to have such an extended family.  I'm also going to thank God every day that he gave my little girl such a loving family that will always be there for her. 

I Survived!

Last weekend was a very big weekend for me - Memorial weekend, my birthday, a trip to Las Vegas, and, most importantly, I left my baby for the first time for longer than one night.  This was a very difficult thing for me to do.  Although she's almost one year old already, I had only been separated from her overnight once.

On Friday evening my mom came down to Omaha and took Cameryn home with her.  It was very difficult for me to watch her drive away with my baby.  I didn't sleep very well that night missing her already.  However, once we got on the airplane it became a little less painful.

My mom kept her from Friday night through Monday afternoon.  She sent pictures and text message updates on what they were doing and how my baby was.  That made the whole experience a little easier.  I didn't feel like I was so far away from her. 

Although Aric and I had a great time in Vegas celebrating two weddings and my birthday, I was more than ready to go home by the time our plane left early Tuesday evening.  I was never worried or scared about leaving my daughter for that long, I just missed her a lot.  I even missed waking up in the middle of the night when she fusses in her sleep looking for her binky.

Our little 5-day vacation was a nice break from the teething and diaper changing, but I can easily promise my baby girl that it will be quite a while before I leave her for that long again.

Who could leave this adorable little girl?

There's No Place Like Home

On Saturday, April 9th my home town was hit by a tornado.  While I didn't actually live in Mapleton, Iowa, I attended school there and participated in many activities - most of my high school years were spent there.  The destruction the community and residents have suffered is heartbreaking.

Immediately one of my friends started a Facebook page for previous and current residents to utilize to post questions and information about people and places effected by the tornado.  As I was reading the posts and listening to reports of thousands of people volunteering to help clean up and all of the donations, it reaffirmed my choice to stay living in the Midwest.  I have come to the conclusion that it's not where you live, it's the people that you share that place with - and the people in the Midwest (especially the Mapleton area) are some of the best people!

I can only hope that Cameryn is fortunate to build the kind of connections with people that I have.  I want her to feel like the town that she grows up in will always feel like home.

At the same time as I was feeling such sadness for my home town and it's residents, I felt incredible joy in my own life.  My daughter learned how to walk!  Hopefully her 'drunken sailor' walk will make you smile as it has me.

Fast Forward

I've realized that the expression "time flies when you're having fun" really is true.  It seems like just yesterday I found out I was pregnant.  The entire 41 weeks of pregnancy is a blur.  Now, I look at my 8 1/2 month old daughter and have to look at pictures to remember how little she was.  She has grown and learned so many things in these last months.  I can't believe how quickly she is changing!

Cameryn only a few minutes old.

After her first smile and laugh, she quickly mastered rolling over and sitting up.  However, she decided that rolling over wasn't much fun so refused to do it again for a few months.

First smile

Sitting up

Cameryn now has 4 teeth and has graduated to some table food as well as 3rd foods baby food in addition to her bottles.  She also is an expert at crawling and can climb all the way up the stairs but hasn't quite figured out how to get down them yet.  Cam also stands for several seconds without holding on to anything and 'cruises' around furniture and toys. 

I can't believe how quickly the first 8 months of her little life has gone by.  Soon she will be a year old!  Although it's gone very quickly, we've had a lot of fun watching her grow and learn new tricks.  I'm looking forward to watching her for the rest of her life athough I hope it isn't in fast forward.

Labor of Love

I think it's fitting that I'm writing this chapter of Cameryn's story Valentine's weekend.  Valentine's Day is all about love and as much as I love my family and my husband, I love my daughter in a whole other way.  Nothing can compare to the love a mother has for her child.  I didn't understand that until the day I first held her in my arms.

I checked into the hospital around 8pm on Sunday, June 13.  I was scheduled to get induced the next morning since I was a week over my due date.  My water broke just as the nurse was preparing to start the medication to induce labor.  Contractions immediately started - and they did not start out gentle.  After about 5 hours of contractions I received an epidural.  (I never once even considered a natural birth - I'm a wimp and don't like pain.)  However, once I received the epidural, my contractions slowed down and I quit progressing.  But when they would administer the medication the baby's heart rate would drop.  Then I developed an infection with a fever to go along with it.  Around 5pm my doctor decided that we needed some help and scheduled a delivery room for a c-section.  From that point on time seemed to fly by and stand still at the same time...

Cameryn Jean was born on Monday, June 14th at 6:17pm.  She weighed 6 pounds 4 ounces and was 20 inches long.

Cameryn Jean - June 14, 2010

My husband got to hold her as soon as she was clean and measured.  He also got to carry her to our room.  All of our family was waiting outside the door when we were brought back from the delivery room.  They were allowed to take one quick peek at the baby then had to wait outside while Aric and I spent approximately an hour getting to know our baby girl. 

The rest of the evening is a blur in my mind.  I laid back in the hospital bed and watched my husband introduce our baby to everyone.  They all took turns holding her and the camera flashes were blinding.  After a couple hours everyone left, the nurses showed us how to give Cameryn a bath and they took her to the nursery for the night.  (I couldn't get out of bed until the next morning and Aric had to get up in the morning and go to work.  My mom stayed with us the first week so Aric could take his two weeks of vacation after so I would have help for three weeks.)

All I know is after 41 weeks of anticipation, 5 hours of pain, 5 more hours of fever and feeling sick, and about 20 minutes in the delivery room, we were blessed with the most beautiful, healthy baby girl.  Aric and I are no longer a carefree couple, we are a family.  As I write this I look at my husband and hear my baby yell "Mama" and think that I'm the luckiest woman in the world and have experienced the greatest love of all.

Aric and I on our honeymoon.  July 2008

Our first family picture.  June 2010

It's A Girl!

My husband and I decided right away that we wanted to know if the baby was a boy or a girl.  For those of you that don't know me, I'm not the most patient of people.  The following two and a half months seemed like the longest wait of my life.  Finally in January 2010 I was far enough along in my pregnancy that we could find out the sex of the baby - if it cooperated and way laying the right way.  To my enjoyment it was a girl!  And so began the pink adventure.

Once we found out that the baby was a girl, we started discussing how to decorate the nursery and possible names.  The nursery was much easier to decide on than the name.  My husband immediately said that we should paint the baby's room pink and I decided that it should be decorated in Winnie the Pooh.  In March my mom came down and helped us paint the baby's room.  And when I say helped, I mean she did all of the painting.  I painted the changing table that my mother-in-law found sitting beside a trash can and my husband played with our pets while we did the work.  I also put together the two bookcases for the baby's room while he went golfing the next day.  In the span of two days the 'storage room' was ready for a baby.



Bed all ready for baby



The chair doesn't really match but it's comfy!



We had a much harder time picking out a name for the baby.  My husband decided that he liked the name Brooklynn so refused to consider any other name.  Brooklynn was not my favorite name so I kept throwing out other ones for consideration.  Finally he admitted defeat and told me I could name our daughter whatever I wanted.  This did not mean that I could - just that he was almost to the point of giving up so I knew it wouldn't take much more to decide on a name.  So I told him that I had decided on a name that I knew he wouldn't like.  I told him our daughter would be named Jessica Jean.  He answered with 'absolutely not'!  (Now keep in mind that this entire conversation was being handled through text message.  My husband was at work and I was at my mother-in-law's house visiting with her and one of my nieces.  Both of them were helping me with the name game.)  He countered with Cameryn to which I instantly agreed (Cameryn had been on my list the whole time and he'd only turned it down three times).  We had already decided that her middle name would be Jean - the same as my mom's.

Once we had the nursery decorated and the name picked out all we could do was wait almost three more months for her to decide to make an appearance.  During those three months I attended two baby showers and was the guest of honor at a third.  The baby showers only got me more excited and more impatient to meet my baby girl.

The Beginning...

My cousin told me that I should start a blog to document my daughter's life.  I wasn't sure if that was what I wanted to do.  I've followed my sister and brother-in-law's blog for quite a while and I checked out my cousin's.  I decided that I wanted to use mine in a little different way.  Rather than just document Cameryn's life, I decided to post my experiences as a mother.  So far motherhood has been a rollercoaster ride.  Hopefully you will get some enjoyment out of my learning curve.  Maybe I'll be able to help some of you first time mothers and maybe some of you will have some good advice for me. 

I've always loved kids and knew that some day I would become a mother.  In October 2009 I found out that 'sometime in the future' was going to be the coming Summer.  This began the most exciting yet scariest journey of my life...and it's only just beginning.

I was like most women that are excited to become pregnant - I couldn't wait to start showing, feel the baby move, and decorate the nursery.  Pregnant women are so cute with their big, basketball shaped bellies.  I was looking forward to this.  However, I am not tall.  I am not even average.  I am short.  And I'm not exactly built like Barbie.  I didn't end up with a cute basketball belly - I gained weight in my whole body.  I was so sad that I didn't look pregnant.  Also, I happened to be pregnant at the same time as one of my good friends and my sister-in-law.  They were both lucky enough to have the cute basketball belly.  People asked them when they were due and what sex the baby was.  People didn't even notice that I was pregnant.

However, I got to make up for this by having an extremely easy pregnancy.  I did not suffer from morning sickness at all.  I didn't have any of the strange cravings although the baby was picky about what she liked and what she didn't.  She did not like coffee or BBQ.  She loved baked potatoes and poptarts.  I did get indigestion a lot but was never sick.  The worst part of my pregnancy was swollen feet and ankles.  By the time I had Cameryn I only had one pair of flip flops that I could still wear.  It's sad when you can't even get your feet into sandals.

Even though I looked fat - not pregnant, I enjoyed being pregnant.  I loved every ultrasound (we had 4 due to baby weighing small) and I even liked the doctor visits just because I could hear her heartbeat.  I've loved her since the moment I found out I was pregnant and even the worst of teething couldn't make me change my mind.

For your enjoyment, my sister-in-law and me at my baby shower.  This picture was taken approximately four weeks before Cameryn was born and approximately five weeks before my niece was born.  Can you guess which one is me?