10 things I've learned as a new mom

Having a kid changes everything. I heard that phrase over and over growing up but never really thought to much about it. When I was in middle school, high school I always dreamed about how freakin awesome I would be as a mom. The thing is no matter how much you think you prepare...your never really ready for it.

When we first walked in our home with Addie I was on cloud nine. Our beautiful little girl was here! I had so much I wanted to do, plans and I was trying to soak in the advice of all the wise women before me. I learned some things pretty quick though.

1. I wasn't going to be as much of a social butterfly as I thought.
I got home and honestly I really didn't want to see anyone. Not because I was depressed or anything but because I wanted to enjoy the time with my new family. I mean we were really a family now. Plus Addie was not on any sort of eating schedule and it felt awkward to go to the back room to feed her while people sat out in my front room, also I can't sleep while other people are in my house. Weird i know but true.

2. I'm my own worst enemy.
Dont worry about cleaning! says well...everyone. "take the first couple of weeks taking care of yourself" I would sit and agree with everyone. And then I'd feel like I was being lazy and try to do it anyways with disastrous consequence.

3.Disposable diapers...best things ever.
Ok first month alone...I did a tally of diapers changed. Almost 400, I seriously applude those that are doing or did cloth diapering. I think it would drive me nuts.

4. I wouldn't feel as bad as I thought when she cried
Ok...first month I was up in a flash every time she let out her sad little whimper. However when she cries almost none stop for 7 hours and NOTHING you do helps. Sometimes whispering about how your going to sell her to McDonalds where they will make her a slave to clean under the fridges...helps. Honestly cause its a ridiculous and slightly funny seniaro.

5. It's ok to get crumbs in your babies hair.
I realized it is pretty hard to get a chance to eat as a mom and often when you do get to eat your holding the baby. After the first couple of times of feeling like a horrible mother I realized, hey crumbs brush off, she can get a bath it's OK.

6. Mother comparing.
I think all mothers are guilty of this at some point. Looking around and saying "Well look at what she does when she has kids. Why can't I do it?" For awhile I felt like everyone was looking at me thinking I was a bad mother. Will just set me down and ask me to name one person that had said that and when I had nothing he told me to remember that. No one is actually saying that. I've come to realize that maybe I do something awesome that another mom doesn't do. Some mothers craft, some make beautiful blogs about their childs life, some keep a perfectly clean house, some cook, the list goes on. Each mother is amazing just in their own way. :)

7. Having Addie sleep away from me was much harder than I thought.
Seriously it took a little over 2 months before I worked up the courage to let her sleep in the next room, but i came to understand the overwhelming fear your child is somehow going to be in imment danger is fairly normal.

8. She didn't hurt mine and Wills relationship.
I heard so much crap about how children make it so much harder with your spouse and how you'll never get to do the things you want that I was worried we'd be fighting all the time and that for awhile life would just kinda suck. Honestly it's strengthen mine and Wills we have never felt so united. There is more compromise, harder decisions, less money but...She's so worth it!

9.Just because somethings work for other people children doesnt mean they'll work on all.
I pinned a butt load of crap that I was sure was foolproof. Yeah most of it didn't work like the "wake your baby up every three hours" in order to get them on a sleep schedule. I laughed my head off reading that later. Seriously what kind of wonderful newborn sleeps for 3 hours straight? Addie sure didn't she would sleep longest 2 hours for the first month. I would literally go 2 days with no sleep at all. I eventually made her eat every three hours and she finally settled in to her sleeping patteren where she is now sleeping 6-9 hours a night. :D But will that work for all children? Probably not. Ya got to experment much more than I thought.

10. Do your best
I guess in summary I've learned as a new mom to just do your best. I realized I'm going to screw up with her the good thing is for right now my little bundle of joy has the memory of a potato. 12 years from now she's not going to demand why I let her cry while I mopped the floor. She's not going to feel betrayed because of the shots she got at her 2 month. All she will know is what people tell her. And even though I'm sure a certain grandfather is going to inform her she was stolen from the zoo and given plastic surgery to look human (I grew up being told I was a stray dog) She's going to be perfectly fine :)

A Homecoming and Change

My cousin Rylee comes home in a few weeks!!! She's been in the wonderful country of England for the last 18 months. I have to admit I'm excited. I can't wait to see her and honestly I can't wait to see the rest of the Nelson family clan. I have missed everyone, very, very much. So much has changed since I've seen everyone. I had a cousin get married, cousin's had babies, and other cousins have left on missions that I won't get to see for another 2 years! How fast everything changes.

It makes me sit back and think for a moment, about when Rylee left on her mission...About where I was than.

This is me...about a year and a half- Two years ago. Oblivous to everything that would soon happen.I couldn't even dream where my path would lead me in just a few short years, or how much I would change. At this point two years ago, I was casually dating a guy, it was really more of a fling in my opinion. He was sweet, and kind but would I tell you it would lead somewhere? Not on your life.

That's when I hopped on a roller coaster of confusion, joy and well...fear. I thought I knew what love was. I always thought movie love was cheesy and completely unrealistic. My version of love came from the books I loved so dearly. I didn't read the sappy romances, so in my mind, that love was completely plausible.

William was my best friend. I often referred to him as my "Flounder" (Little Mermaid reference). I loved him but I was waiting for the feeling described in books. That rush of emotion that never goes away, that thrill. I thought than that I had to have that to be happy. It wasn't until I made the mistake of almost losing him that I realized what love really was. Me and will had that and we decided not ever let that go.

May 5 2012, I married my best friend, and it was the happiest day of my life.  Life was wonderful, everyday I saw more and more what a wonderful man I had married. We brought out the best in each other, our weaknesses were the others strengths. My family saw a difference in me before I did, I didn't realize I was changing. What really hit me is when one of my friends came and said something sarcastic and it completely slipped over my head. At first I panicked when I realized I had lost my sarcasm. In the past it seemed like such a vital part of me. But than I realized I use to use sarcasm to feel clever and witty. In a way it was kind of a shield. With Will I didn't need that anymore, I didn't have to try to impress him. He loved me, for me. 

Than comes July 8 2013, we became a family of three. The day I was married still is the happiest day I can think of but this day...This day was the most miraculous, the most fulfilling, and perhaps the most life changing day that I had and will ever have. Pregnancy and Labor are exsaughsting and difficult but holding our daughter for the first time...just makes the whole thing worth it. Addie is almost a month old now and I can hardly believe time has flown by so fast. In a way I am saddened at how fast she is growing. I'm trying to savor every moment, because I know how much I'm going to miss this. Will constantly reminds me about how much fun we will have with her though. The first time we hear her little voice say "I love you" and the first time she will hug us.

Two years ago I would have never dreamed that this would be my future. Two years ago I was a completely different person than I am now.  I wonder how different I'll seem to Rylee now, I wonder how different Rylee will be. Or  for that fact how different the rest of my cousins will be.I guess that's how  life is though, things change, we change, nothing can stay the same forever. In a way I've kind of had a theme for my life "plan for the future but live for the moment"  Every second that ticks by we'll never get back. And with how fast life is moving...I'd like to look back and feel like I didn't waste a single one.

Addie's Birth Story

Last belly picture

7/6/2013  12:00 am: Contractions started,  they were 5 minutes apart and lasting 1:30 min. I had back and hip pain but was convinced they couldn’t be actual contractions.

                5:00: Contractions slowed to one every 20-30 minutes

                8:00: Still having the slow contractions so I called my mom. Found out that I was in actual labor I just somehow got it to stop. My mom said if they got closer together or more painful to go to the hospital and to call and let my dr. know what was happening

                9:00-12:00 Contractions came every 20-30 minutes with out stopping, if I got up and moved around, they settled into a rhythm again. So I put myself on bed rest. I couldn’t reach my Dr. so I had the hospital call him and let him know.

7/7/2013   12:00 am Still having the constant contractions

                11:00 am Went to church contractions went down to 15 minutes apart lasting 30 seconds.

                12:00 Contractions were 10 minutes apart lasting 50 seconds

                1:00 Contractions were 7 minutes apart lasting 1:15. Everyone could tell I was in pain, I decided to go home.

                2:00 Contractions slowed back down to 10 minutes apart

                3:00 Contractions slowed to 20 minutes apart

                8:00 We had company over

                11:00 Wasn’t counting contractions since we had company over still but they were now painful enough they took my breath away. Once they left, I turned to Will and let out a sob. He hadn’t realized I was in so much pain. Tried walking around, it didn’t stop them.

               

7/8/2013     12:00 Hot shower didn’t stop them, I was in tears because of the pain, Started clocking the contractions. They were 7 minutes apart lasting 1:30 each.  I was battling the thought if I was in real labor or not. I didn’t want to spend tons of money on nothing.

                12:55 We decided to go to the hospital. I didn’t care if it was expensive I just needed the pain to stop. Will grabbed everything we might need, just in case.  The drive took us barely 5 minutes. I just kept thinking I was being a wimp and that the pain was all in my head, But I kept having this nagging thought that this could be it. This could be real.

                1:10 We were admitted into the hospital, fully expecting drugs and then for them to send us home.  The nurse ask if I was in constant pain and I explained that I was around my lower abdomen and hips. She informed me real labor doesn’t normally have constant pain but she’d check everything out just to be sure. Will helped me change into my gown and I got hooked up to all the spiffy monitors.

                1:15 It all became real. The nurse told us I was 5 cm dilated. We were going to have our baby! Such a wave of emotions came over both of us. I was thunderstruck, excited, terrified and full of relief that I was finally done being pregnant.

                1:15-2:50 Contractions suck.

The nurse helped me figure out what it meant not to “fight” the contractions and that helped I was no longer crying. Will kept telling me how awesome I was doing.

                3:00 Got epidural!!!! Thought it would be so painful and kept waiting for it. Imagine my surprise when they told me it had already been in for several minutes. I didn’t even feel anything!

                3:00-7:00 Shaking like crazy (Will thought maybe I was cold) apparently the body registers high pain even though I couldn't feel it (Yippee!!!) sending a rush of adrenalin which causes shaking.  I couldn’t sleep, I had to much on my mind, this was it, it was really happening.

                7:00 Got started on Pitocin cause I was stuck at 7 cm dilated

                8:40 Dilated to a ten…Time to push! I would just like to say that pushing is nothing like the movies at all. You have nurses doing some fun things and when they say push it’s not a dainty push you freaking push your guts out. The nurse was really impressed with how well I was doing. She said that most first time mom’s are afraid to push correctly and thaI was exhausted by the end.

                9:10 Addie Lorraine Casper was born. Will was teary eyed as he said “Honey you did so great! There’s our little girl. Oh sweetheart she’s gorgeous” The took her away and cleaned her and then set her in my arms. As I watched our little girl wiggle I started to cry. I recognized those movements as the same I had felt while she was inside me. I started sobbing “I know  you…I know you”  and as I held her I didn’t feel that huge rush of love or anything that I read in books but instead felt a sense of this is always how it was meant to be. And as I looked down at the little girl I had carried for 9 months I suddenly realized I had no idea how I survived without her. She made our family feel…complete and whole.

Addie is now a week old,  and I couldn’t be happier. I’ll sit there and stare at her for hours. She makes this little face and puts up her hands so she always seems to look as though she is in deep thought. Her eyes whenever she’s awake are moving everywhere in a curious almost calculating way that makes me nervous for when she’s old enough to toddle around. Her legs flail around like she’s not quiet for sure what legs are used for. When she lies on my chest her little foot strokes my side and she stares up at me with these big trusting eyes and she has these sleepy smiles that makes me so happy. Me and will are just so in love with her and feel so blessed to have her in our lives :)

34 Weeks and a Room!

34 weeks....I can't believe it. Actually I kind of can lol, in many ways it seems like I've been pregnant for forever. I can hardly believe that in a few weeks I will be a mother. I always dreamed of that sort of thing but to actually be one, is rather well... overwhelming.

 I'm rather envious of Will at the current moment. His biggest fear is that her favorite Disney princess will someday be Snow White.

Addie is a wiggle worm! And also stubborn, or maybe shy. In every single ultrasound that girl refuses to show her face, no matter how much we poke and prod her! However when she isn't in front of the "Camera" she's a little ninja! Especially at night...I'm really praying that, that is not a trend that will continue once's she's out! So far on all the check ups she seems to be doing great and I actually am gaining weight at a decent rate! Yay me :)

Will and I have gone on many adventures including seeing our Texas family (Hi guys!) in order to see Will's brother Garrett's Seminary Graduation. I had a mini baby shower in Texas (Thanks Becky!) and than my main one in St. George a couple weeks later (Thanks Mimi & Ellyse!) We got lots and lots of clothes! Addie is going to be one well dressed baby. And I have to admit, I'm torn between being jealous of how many clothes she has and grateful cause I get to play dress up with them (She's going to look fabulous!) (she has another drawer full of clothes to!)

 While we were in St. George we swung by and saw my family and actually got to spend some time in a pool. Pools are awesome when you preggers. Really the whole "weightlessness" thing rocks. While we were there we stopped at Target to grab some stuff and saw these babies! Did we get them? Heck yes we did. I really want to try them out with some pink lemonaid so they look like more legit dentures. Oh the things one loves when they are weird and devious.

So lately I think I've been suffering from nesting. I clean the house several times each day and have this strange compulsion to organize everything in sight. Addie's bedroom (which was kind of our storage room before) took me a total of 13 hours just to organize!  But she has half a closet now which is the best I could do and honestly I don't think she's going to pop out of the womb and rage at me because she doesn't have enough closet space lol.

Her room is pretty much finished though :) all we need are some curtains and a nightlight and we are golden. Wanna see pictures? Sure you do! Pictures are much more interesting than me talking. So here is wall one, I have the pictures I painted and a couple of shadow boxes. One of the shadow boxes is covering the super highly attractive thermostat cause...well I didn't like it. She doesn't have a lot of floor space either so having a toy box was kind of impractical. I saw a similar basket on Pintrest but those baskets were only 14" and 22 bucks a basket! (yikes!) so I went to good old Home Depot and got a 28" "Trough" for 18 bucks. Much better :)

 Here is the Crib Side of the room. All woodsy and cozy and plus Big bear is rocking his top hat ;)

I'm far enough into my pregnancy I feel like I can offically start to voice my views on the whole experiance. Pregnancy is hard, unless your a magical pregnancy unicorn that has a super great pregnancy (in that case congrats to you!) Pregnancy is on of the most physically and metally exsausting things I have ever done. There are months of physical ups and downs between morning sickness, pelvic pain and lack of the blessed Advil. At the end you start to just feel beat up and think longingly of just how great you use to feel before your body was inhabited by another human being.

Then there is the mental part. Ladies hormones freakin rage when your pregnant. One minute you will wake up and glance lovingly at your kind and wonderful husband and the next second you want to beat him soundly with your pillow because he is sleeping there peacefully while you have to get up for the millionth time to pee. Illogical? Yes. Am I betting the majority of women around the world have felt this way at some point? Also yes. Also there is the pressure of all the do's and don'ts of pregnancy and the fear that if you mess up that you will somehow ruin your child forever and it will be all your fault. Plus the realization that everything you know about your world is going to change. It's a lot to take in!

But here is what I think stops pregnancy from being a total nightmare...for the first time you get to help god with a miracle. You help build the most important parts of his eternal plan. A body. It's what we fought for and essential to everything and you are given the power to create one. How amazing is that? Then you start to feel this pull of affection towards your little bean even though you haven't even seen them yet and it get's you through all the rough parts because you realize it's for them and suddenly that's all that really matters anymore. Is that they are ok and healthy. 

Slowly you begin to realize you are going to be a part of something so much bigger than you ever imagined.

I'm so grateful for my little girl, I'm so grateful for my husband who has been amazing throughout this whole thing, and I'm grateful for all those who have shown their constant love and support. Thanks for reading. -NaKya

Heavens Chocolates, the Dentist and Me.

So to start the story you should know, I have weak teeth. Always have. And unless they invent someway to turn teeth into these awesome titanium like structures that never crack and rot…I’m pretty sure I’ll always have weak teeth. Genetically that’s not the worse thing to happen. I could be blind or have some other horrible thing wrong but lucky enough I just have crappy teeth. 

As a result I have an irrational fear of the Dentist. Mostly because nothing good ever happens to me there. As a child I had plenty of cavities. They seemed to appear with every check up, while my younger sisters frolicked around with suckers and the dentist praises for perfect teeth ringing in their sweet little ears.

As a disclaimer I can’t say as I child I took great care of my teeth. I brushed yes but flossing was more of something I did right after the dentist office and never again. I have a short attention span unless I’m focusing on something interesting. And up till honestly college, sending 10 minutes a night on my teeth was not interesting. I was more into either sleeping or reading a good book.

However my first year of college lead to a horrible discovery. After a routine check up I found I had yet…dun dun dun, another cavity. And I realized with growing horror that I had to pay for the agony and pain required to fix my own stupid cavities now. The dentist I was going to at the time told me that a silver filling was cheaper and there wasn’t any difference except that a silver filling wasn’t as pretty so I took it.  After that experience I became VERY interested in my teeth. Brushing and flossing like crazy, mouthwash twice a day. I would spend quiet a bit of time on my teeth.

Now I had some small cavities right after I got my braces off. I guess the metal bands around my very back teeth were just loose enough that some food slipped in and caused minor cavities. My dentist put them on watch and told me not to worry.

Well go back about 8 months ago. I went to a new dentist up here in cedar city for a cleaning and you guessed it. The cavities I was told not to worry about had gotten bigger.  So I scheduled for about a month out to get the bigger of them filled. But by the time the appointment came I was already preggers. The dentist strongly encouraged me to wait until I had seen the obgyn before getting them filled. So I ask my obgyn and he said to wait till the 2^nd trimester if at all possible. So I figured, they weren’t that bad, no big deal. And was to busy being sick the rest of my 1^st trimester to think of them much more. 

So 2^nd trimester rolls around the first visit I forgot to ask the obgyn if there was anything special  I needed to tell the dentist (the dentist office had said for them to fax over what I could and couldn’t have done)  So I waited until the next visit. The obgyn said to go for it that I should be just fine, but to try and get it all done before my third trimester started which is in May. So setting aside my rather irrational fear, I set to work making an appointment to get my teeth checked out and then an appointment to get a set of cavities filled the week after. I was feeling rather proud of myself until the day I ate that one fateful fry.

It was a beautiful fry really, steaming hot, crunchy and all together perfect but as I bit down I felt a quick flash of pain.  I stared at the perfect hot little fry for a moment wondering how something so perfect, so wonderful could cause pain before I realized that something might actually be wrong with one of my teeth. As I ran to the bathroom to investigate I saw one of my back molars had a thin dark crevasse running down it. Like some demonic little dwarf had gone mining there. I gulped and panicked. I would need a root canal! It’d hurt! Take days to take care of at least and it would be so expensive! Pregnancy has made me prone to sever anxiety attacks and it took my poor husband awhile to calm me down. 

We went into the dentist, luckily no root canal was needed. However my cavities had worsened and multiplied! That day I got three cavities filled all of them apparently were very deep. I however was feeling a bit more cheerful  because I had caught them before more serious dental work was needed. I figured I get all my cavities filled in as soon as possible and then when Addie came I would have one less thing to worry about. So I set an appointment for every week of April. I figured surely nothing could happen in a week right? Wrong. 

The next fateful fall happened about 3 days later, between two of my teeth that were set to be filled a black dot appeared between them. I thought perhaps it was just food stuck and I flossed till my gums were a bloody mess. No luck. It wasn’t food, it was my teeth. Again hits another anxiety attack and my husband trying to calm me down.  I finally did. I was brushing after I ate any sort of food and being as diligent as ever with my teeth. There was nothing more I could do but hope, wait and pray. Ironically though all the teeth that were bugging me and so serious to fix were the ones that 8 months ago had the smallest cavities. The teeth with the biggest cavities hadn’t bothered me at all so they were set to be the last ones filled.  

Then hit the next tooth disaster. I was eating some dehydrated apples  and bit odd. I felt agonizing pain rip though my jaw. I was in tears it hurt so bad I went to the bathroom to check but it was the tooth that had been filled my first year of college and I could see nothing wrong with it. I gulped down the only pain reliever I am able to have (Crappy Tylenol…does that actually work for anyone??????)  still in tears and tried googling what it might be. The closest I could find was perhaps a loose filling. My next dentist appoint was in three days I figured I could make it till then.  The pain would come and go. Sometimes biting down hurt, other times eating sweets made it ache unbearably and sometimes just chewing would lead to waves of pain that left me crying and wishing for Asprin. But sometimes…it wouldn’t bug me at all which lead me to be even more confused as to what was going on. 

Meanwhile my darling mother in law sent a birthday package which as of yet I have not much touched but in it was a box of chocolates. Not just any chocolates, but chocolates from a little shop called “Sublime” Which I do believe is ONLY found in Texas. In that shop the chocolates are made of babies laughs, drops of sunlight and fairy dust. The chocolates there come in so many flavors it could make your head spin. I found myself nibbling the edges of one longingly trying to pretend my poor mouth was not in agonizing pain to have sugar touch it. Then sighed and put it back while counting the chocolates again and again and trying to somehow to taste the sweet perfect chocolate by smelling it. 

Today I went to the dentist again. They looked at the tooth confused as I was. They said I had symptoms of a badly cracked tooth but they couldn’t seem to find it on either X-ray or just by looking. The doctor finally found a crack and informed me that silver fillings made the teeth weak and brittle and more prone to cracking (which left me fairly fuming at my other dentist for not telling me that) and with the fact the pregnancy was already weakening my teeth that was all it took. So He said to try and save it from a root canal he would take out the old filling and fill the crack as best he was able…but not today because alas he had no time. 

He worked on the teeth that had the black dot. He said my teeth were going pretty fast now. Little known to me a week made all the difference in the world. He said he was barely able to save “tooth 19” and that in a few years it will need a crown but hopefully never a root canal. That’s when I realized I needed to move up my appointments. My husband looked on in some sort of awe at me. He knew my feelings about the dentist. Knew I wanted my birthday to be special but my mouth was sore, my birthday was tomorrow. I was so tired of being worried about loosing my teeth or needing a root canal. So sick of it hurting to eat that I scheduled an appointment to get my cracked tooth fixed the morning of my birthday and my last set of cavities filled the day after. Tic Tac Toe, three in a row. I just couldn’t take it anymore.

Hopefully the teeth that started out with the biggest cavity that haven’t bothered me don’t need a root canal and are no worse off then my other teeth. I can only hope though. I’ll keep you posted, and that ladies and gentlemen is how I got 10 teeth filled within the space of two weeks.  You’re all jealous aren’t you?

So those of you like my husband and lovely sisters be grateful. You have wonderful teeth. For those of us with sad, strange little teeth. Good luck, my heart goes out to you and trust me I feel your pain.