Newborn and One Month

Newborn pictures courtesy of Lindsey Lee Photography! Lindsey did our wedding pictures too...she is an amazing photographer and comes highly recommended by me, many other clients, and the popular magazine, Carolina Bride! Click here to check out her site!

Happy one month Noodles! Noodles is of course, Addie. The name comes from her being so tiny, skinny, and noodley. She had a weight check last Wednesday and weighed 6lbs 10 oz. Miss Piggy! I'm guessing she weighs around 6 lbs 14 oz now. She is a champ when it comes to eating. Eric and I have gotten into a routine where I'll feed her at 9pm and then go to bed. Eric feeds her around 11:30pm, puts her in her crib, then I take all the night feedings. On a good night, she will wake up around 3am and 6 am. On a rough night, she will be awake from the time Eric feeds her until...all night. On Friday night, Eric and I were up from 1am- 5am. It. was. awesome. Actually, Eric and I got to the point where we would lay in our bed, thinking "okay, finally, let's get some sleep." Then she would start screaming. We would sigh, look at each other, then start dying laughing. Probably from exhaustion because I'm sure it wasn't that funny.

Here are some one month pictures! (The first two are from her first week, I'm comparing then and now)

Hungry girl

Full girl

It has been such a whirlwind of a month. Much learning a growing, but that's for another post, another day. Also, there will be nursery pictures coming as soon as I add a few more finishing touches!

2 weeks 2 days of overwhemling grace

This post has been in my head for about a week now, so I figured it was time to put these jumbled thoughts in to writing. I don't know exactly how to word what I'm thinking or feeling but I'm going to try because years from now or even months, I don't ever want to forget them. 

This is hard. Being a mom, I mean. I have been at it for exactly 2 weeks and 2 days and it is by far the hardest thing I have ever experienced. I am so thankful that God has chosen me to care for such a gift as Addie, and I believe everything is on purpose. Being a new mom has opened my eyes to the grace of God like I have never seen it before. Here's why.

I see this baby as evidence of God's grace pouring over Eric and myself. Not necessarily because he has so graciously given us a perfect little gift, even though he has. But I see this baby as pure evidence of His love for me in that He is forcing me into His likeness. In the past week, I have cried harder then I have ever cried. I have felt stress in a way that I have never felt. I have experienced exhaustion at a whole new level. I have been consumed in fear that my life will never be the same (which it won't), but that I will be giving up my independence. The tears, the stress, the exhaustion, the anxiety, the fear...God has revealed it to me as a reflection of Him stripping me of my sin of selfishness and pride and forcing me into His likeness. Never would I choose to give up hours and hours of sleep to serve someone else. Never would I choose to forgo "me" time of hanging out with friends and pampering myself for the good of someone else. Never would I choose to feed someone else before I feed myself. Never would I choose to say "no" to plans because it wasn't in the best interest of another person. Never would I choose to clean up after another person all day long. Never would I choose to give up an extra paycheck in order to care for someone else. See, God has graciously allowed for this baby to rock my world. Because he loves me. Because he wants me to become more like him. God knows how selfish I was and still am, and He knows I would have never chosen to die to myself quite like I have had to in the past 2 weeks and 2 days. So He forces it upon us. He forced it upon me, by blessing me with a baby. And I love her so much.

I am so grateful for God's sovereignty and His careful planning. Yes, mommyhood is hard. I feel the weight of my sin everyday as I battle between myself and servanthood. But I am so comforted that He desire to make me, to make us, more like Himself. 

Addie's Birth

She is here. Addie is here. I have a child. But I don't have a car seat. I haven't cleaned my house. I haven't finished my maternity lesson plans. There are still a few things I need to do in the nursery. I have a baby shower today. It's not time. I'm not even full term. Is this really happening? Yes, it's happening. 

Tuesday afternoon (9/4/12) I have my weekly OB appointment. I am 36 weeks, 1 day. Things look good. The have always looked good. No complications. I haven't even thrown up. She is head down, 50% effaced but I am not dilated. Still have three weeks to go.

It's Friday morning (9/7/12). I wake up to really bad cramping. No big deal, I have had it before. I'm three weeks away so my body is prepping for the real thing. Last time, when I started moving, the cramps went away. So I wake up. Get ready for school. Go downstairs. Eat breakfast. Contraction. Ouch. Okay, no big deal. I have had Braxton Hicks since week 19. Braxton Hicks go away, they don't hurt. But I'm three weeks away, so maybe these do hurt. But they will go away. Ten minutes later. Another contraction. Ouch. And then another one, every ten minutes. These aren't going away. I go to the bathroom. Notice something different, not normal. I think maybe I should call the doctor. No, I don't want to overreact. It's my first baby. I just know I'll be a week late and she will be 10 lbs. After debating in my head, I wake Eric up. "Eric, I think I need to call the doctor." He encourages me to do so. I call. Doctor asks me to come into the hospital. It's 6:30 am. Eric gets dressed and we go. I call my school, tell them I have to go to the hospital and depending on what the doctor says I may or may not come in later. We check in to Rex. The nurse comes in first, then doctor. I am dilated 2 cm. Doctor doesn't confirm labor, he tells me take the day off, rest, drink lots of water. Slow down the contractions. I am in denial that I am having this baby, but deep down I know. She is coming. The doctor doesn't say it. But I know. After the doctor leaves, the nurse tells us that based on what I have said, she thinks we will be back later tonight or tomorrow. 

Friday afternoon I take it easy. I make a bow. I watch tv. I am bored. I count my contractions. Still having them. I talk myself into thinking they are going away. Braxton Hicks. Right. I still have 3 weeks to go. That evening the contractions are 7-8 minutes apart. And getting strong. My mom comes into town with my Aunt because I have a baby shower tomorrow. I'm tired of being cooped up in the house. We go to Panera for dinner. I'm still having contractions.  They are a little stronger. Now, I can't talk while they are happening. They are hurting more then this morning. I finish my food. We leave dinner early, I need to get home. I'm so uncomfortable. After dinner, contractions get strong enough we call the doctor again. We go back to Rex. It's around 8:30 pm. We check in. Nurse tells me I'm 2.5 centimeters. The doctor has me walk around the hospital for one hour to see if I progress. Contractions are really strong now. I have to grip the wall, can't talk, can't walk when they come. After an hour, I am checked again. No progression. The doctor tells me I will go home. I want to cry. I tell him I don't know how I can sleep tonight because I am hurting. They shoot pain medicine into me. They say that this should knock me out. They say if it's false labor, the medicine will make it go away. If it's not, I could wake up in raging labor. Awesome. Eric is freaked out. The doctor says to stay at home until the contractions are 3 minutes apart. We get home. I am knocked out. But I wake up again. Throughout the night. Contractions are really strong. I can't talk, can't walk, and now I can't stay quiet. This happens all morning. Eric sleeps straight through it. And I am not quiet. At all. He is a really hard sleeper :)

It's Saturday morning (9/8/12). I wake Eric up, tell him to get ready just in case. I spend the entire morning counting my contractions. They are consistent. Never go away. 7-8 minutes apart. And get stronger. A lot stronger. So painful now. Abby texts me to see if I will make it to the baby shower. I said no. The baby shower still happened. I am at home. Counting. Now the contractions are 5-8 minutes apart. Even more painful. I can't talk, can't walk, am groaning, and now bowled over, gripping the counter top. Poor Eric. There isn't anything he can do. I tell him to make himself busy. Not to just stand there and watch. It will drive him crazy to see me like that. He makes a shelf for the nursery. It looks really good. The contractions progress in pain, not in minutes. I am waiting, hoping, for 3 minutes apart. I don't think I can take it much longer. I finally call the doctor. I tell him I am in a lot of pain. So much pain, but the contractions are 5-8 minutes apart and not 3. He tells me to wait it out at home. He says wait until they are consistently 5 minutes apart. He says I will be doing myself a favor by waiting--Not to come in too early, and that if I want to have it naturally (instead of putting myself at risk for a C-section) I need to labor at home. I say okay. I want to cry. More contractions. More counting. More hoping. I am screaming. I throw up. First time in the whole pregnancy. Another contraction, it's the most painful one yet. So painful, it causes my water to break.  It broke. My water just broke. But the contractions aren't consistently 5 minutes apart. Do I call? The doctor said 5 minutes apart. This is the thinking of a rule-follower, which I am. I decided to break the rule, I mean my water just broke. I yell for Eric and tell him we need to get to the hospital, my water broke. He runs up and down the stairs. Up and down. He can't find his shoes. We get into the car. I am screaming on the way there, in so much pain. He pulls up to the Women's Center at Rex to drop me off. Another contraction. I can't get out of the car, I can't move. Eric waves to the security guard. The guard brings a wheel chair. People in the lobby are staring at me. They think I am about to give birth in the lobby. The security guard asks if I need the doctor to come to the lobby, we say no, we are definitely going to a room. The contraction goes away, we get out, go to the women's center, they send us to the waiting room. Another contraction, I am screaming. Nurses come, check me into a room. Here we go. I ask for an epidural. Now. Right now. My nurse, Juanita (who was amazing), says it will be a little bit before I can get one. I want to cry. She checks me. I am 6 centimeters. It's go time. I have more contractions. I am ready to push. Finally it's time for an epidural. It's amazing. I feel great. I am finally comfortable and so the doctor comes in and just hangs out for awhile. My family comes in, we hang out. The doctor said I experienced most of the labor, that I was probably 10 centimeters by the time I got the epidural. Everyone leaves. It's time for my baby to be born. I push for 45 minutes. Addie is here. 4 lbs 13 oz 18 inches long.

Since she is considered premature, a team of people were in the room when I delivered. They immediately took Addie. Cleaned out the fluid inside her. Checked her to make sure everything was fine. I held her for 5 minutes. Then they took her away. They had to monitor her for at least 1.5 hours to make sure she was stable. They prep me and get me ready to go into my room for the next 48 hours. During this prepping, I am nervous. How is my baby? Where is she? Is everything okay? I want to see her. So bad. When I go to my room, they take me by the nursery to see her. They say she is doing great, and she can come with me. I am so happy. 

After the epidural :)

Eric and Dr. Alvarez (the doctor who delivered Addie) point to Addie in my stomach

31 weeks

Finally single digit countdown! 9 more weeks until my due date! Last night I had a dream about Addie. I forgot to feed her for a couple of weeks...weird huh? This was my second dream where I could actually see her. The first one was 2 weeks ago and in my dream she had red hair, blue eyes, and big cheeks :).

I still have so much to do in the nursery and I'm hoping to get most of it finished this week. We have the crib set up, bought a bumper, and have a glider.
What I still need to do:

-Paint changing table (found a steal, I'll show you the before and after pics when it's complete)
-Complete crib bedding
-Cover glider (found my fabric!)
-Buy curtains (already know what I want)
-Find accent pieces (also know what I want, just a matter of finding them)

I had my 31 week appointment today and all is looking good. The doc said I am right on track with my weight gain, Addie is head down, and she is very pleased. Praise God! My next appt is in 2 weeks and soon enough I will be going on a weekly basis.

On another note, we just got back from a wonderful vacation but I will post about it another time. Gotta head to small group! Until then, here is the most accurate belly pic!

30 weeks

Belly time

These pics are past due! I'm currently 30 weeks and am on family vacation so I'll update when I get home.

Everything is looking great- I'm healthy, Addie is healthy, and I'm counting down the weeks until we meet this little girl! I can use fingers to count now :)

Looking at myself now and then back at these pictures...well, I have definitely grown!

Summer!!!

Life has been SO busy lately! Work finished up (for me) and that same week we headed down to Columbus, GA for the wedding of Ashley and Austin. It was such a fun weekend. We left on Wednesday to spend the night in Greensboro then seven of us made the 8 hour trek down 85 South to Georgia. We had a great time, wedding was perfect, and bride was beautiful. Thursday night all seven of us stayed at Ashley's dad's house so we could save a little money. Then Friday and Saturday night we stayed at the Hilton...and we definitely shared a room with Luke and Caroline (and Todd crashed Friday night). We are all about cutting financial corners. 

The beautiful bride and myself at the bridesmaid luncheon

Handing us our bridesmaid gifts

After the luncheon we headed back to Ashley's dad's house for a little pool action

Silly faces- a must

Before hair makeovers

After hair!

Final product! BEAUTIFUL!

Ashley ordered a gazillion signs (such as this "I DO") off of Etsy . You could find such signs throughout the entire ceremony and reception

Caroline and I- she and her husband Luke were apart of our road trip group/& that couple who shared our hotel room :)

Grooms cake- although he went to State he is a huge UNC fan (hence the dean dome) and he is a police officer (hence the badge)

Reception was BEAUTIFUL!

After we got back to Raleigh we took it easy the next week, Eric did some traveling for work, and I killed some time sleeping, reading, eating, babysitting, coffee/lunch/walking dates, and watching a few shows. 

We then headed down to Wilmington/Wrightsville beach for Eric's work and it just so happened that Ashley and Austin were back from their honeymoon and on family vacation at the SAME beach! (Not that we planned that or anything hehe). It was so fun to hang out with them as a married couple and hear all about their fun trip to the Dominican. Eric and I also went on a date one evening to the Atlantic. It was good but pretty pricey. 

I also registered at Amazon and Babies R Us! YAY! Load off my shoulders :). Thanks for all the moms out there who gave me some great advice!

This weekend, we have FINALLY been making steps towards purchasing the nursery. All of the old furniture is out and ready for for the new furniture that has yet to be purchased (or picked out!). 

I have also come to the realization about how bad I am about blogging. I have decided that in order to be better I need to do the following:

             -Take more pictures

             -Blog more often

             -Update little bits at a time

I wait weeks before blogging another post, so therefore, I fail to blog the details of what we have been up to.  For example, I just talked about the overall "big" things that we have been doing but I haven't mentioned we have had supper club (did you even know we had one of those?!), small group, double date to Pams (YES!!) and flea market with Caroline and Luke, and other sweet time with friends. I want to remember these times before the baby but yet I am so bad at writing them down! Maybe if someone could tell me if there is an easier way to upload phone pics to the blog without having to emailing them to myself?!

Anyways, I am currently 2 days away from a full 27 weeks! Almost in 3rd trimester! Here are a few belly pics...I completely forgot to take one for week 24. 

25 Weeks

26 Weeks

I had a doctors appointment on Monday. I heard Addie's heartbeat and I am measuring exactly as I am supposed to be for an Oct. 1 due date. Can't wait to meet you Addie Grace :)

Nesting and Growing

School is ALMOST DONE!!! I can't believe it. I am officially finished on Tuesday and have cannot wait for my summer to get rolling. We have SO MUCH to do around here in prep for the little one's arrival. We still have not bought 1 thing for her and have been trying to hold out until after I finish work. We have, however, entered the nesting phase and cleaned out her nursery (kind of), to the point where we ended up hauling 6 bags of shirts/pants/shoes/belts/purses to Goodwill. It. Felt. Good. Last Saturday we also cleaned out our trainwreck of a garage. When we first moved into this house, we stuffed everything into crates and boxes and peaced out of our apartment. For two years we never went through half of the stuff and it just sat in the garage- unorganized and looking like a disaster. Finally we took EVERYTHING out, went through all of it, took another bag of junk to Goodwill, made a trip to Lowes, bought utility shelves and crates, made a label explaining what was in each crate and organized it all. Organizing, cleaning, and throwing out things makes me feel so much better. You should try it sometime.

Addie is still kicking, punching, flipping, and who knows what else in there. Sometimes I think she's tap dancing because it feels so crazy. Eric got freaked out the other night when he felt her kick because she did it so hard. It seriously scared him and he jerked his hand away so fast. Of course it made me laugh. at him. real hard. I can even see her outside of my belly now. That is really cool. And crazy! I am growing a human being. And I can't get over it.

FINALLY someone who didn't already know that I was pregnant asked me if I was.  He proceeded to ask me in this manner, "Either your sluggin some beer or your expecting." Okay, I guess that really isn't a question, more like a statement, but I just laughed and said, "actually, both." Okay, okay, no I didn't say that (and I'm NOT doing that), but sometimes getting a reaction is a little fun.

I went to my hair dresser (whom I haven't seen since I was pregnant) the other day, and he was one of the "polite, confused" ones who just tried not to stare at my belly and keep the mouth shut. He sat me down and said, "so what's new with you?" I ended up telling him I was pregnant, just to save him the awkwardness of having to beat around the bush.

Anyways, many of you have been asking for some belly pics, sorry I have kept you waiting on weeks 22 and 23. Almost to 24!

22ish Weeks

23 Weeks



Welp, that was long, but there ya go folks! The next time you see me I will be DONE with school for the summer! :)

Life Lately

The past couple of weeks have been super busy, hence the absence from the blog world. Last weekend Abby and I went to surprise our mom for Mother's Day. My dad was in on it but mom had no idea and was very surprised. We had a relaxing time with our parents and I haven't seen them since we told them we were pregnant. Mom, of course, was excited to see "The Bump."

This past weekend Eric went out of town for Austin's bachelor weekend at the beach. The boys had a blast! While he was gone, I got to spend some time with a great friend who was in town. She has moved away so it was so much fun to spend the day with her. She got into town and I picked her up after school and we headed to Mebane. You know what's in Mebane...the OUTLETS. We ate dinner then met up with a few girls for dessert at the Angus Barn. It was such a fun day!

Other exciting news...Eric got a new job! He is now the North Carolina Market Development Manager for a company based out of Michigan. What does that mean? Just a fancy name for sales. He started yesterday (Monday) and will have a busy next couple of months learning the products and territory. The new job requires traveling every now and then so he will be making trips to the coast, and when I don't have school, I will be going with him :)

AND now for the updated belly pics...



19 weeks

20 weeks

21 weeks

 Addie is a very active baby. Since about 16-17 weeks I have felt her move, and Eric felt her around 19 weeks. She flips/kicks/punches all the time and it is so fun to consistently feel her inside of me. I have also started having these wonderful things called Braxton Hicks. I can tell when I am having a contraction because my stomach tightens up and becomes rock hard. It doesn't hurt but I can definitely feel when it is happening.

Recent cravings: Sweets. One evening I craved S'mores. Eric and I made a trip to the grocery store just for ingredients :)
Aversions: The only aversion I still have is Chipotle. I really don't know why. I'm fine eating chicken, rice, veggies...but Chipotle just has not been doing it for me lately.
Symptoms: I feel great! Still a little tired, but it may just be from my alarm going off every morning at 5 am.
Weight Gain: Between 11-14 lbs depending on the time of day.

We have done nothing to the nursery yet. In fact, we have not purchased one thing for her yet. This summer we plan to buckle down, clean out the nursery, buy furniture and get everything ready.

I have been so blessed to have such a good pregnancy so far. I cannot WAIT to meet this little girl! If you ever think about us, please pray for Addie. Pray for her to meet Christ, and pray that she loves and serves Christ all the days of her life.

Introducing Addie

By now I'm sure you have heard that we are having a GIRL! We are so excited and cannot wait to meet her sweet face. Her name is Addie Grace Hovis and it is so fun that we can call her by name. Addie cooperated during the ultrasound and it only took 30 minutes! Thanks baby girl! Of course, knowing me, I wanted to go immediately and buy her first outfit. We went to the mall, and I found cute things but not anything that jumped out at me. Nothing "fallish" is out so I was debating on getting her an outfit for next summer or if I should just wait and buy a newborn size when the fall line comes out. Then I remembered. I found it. About a month ago. It is the cutest thing but it would be for next summer...but the store was closed. Oh well, tomorrow it is :)

 

Addie at 17 weeks

Addie at 18 weeks (today)