4 months

weight : 17.8 lbs
height : 65 cm

I've lost nearly all of my Lauren pregnancy weight! I have 5 more pounds to go (161) and 10 to be at my pre Hailey pregnancy weight (156) and to be honest another 21 to go to be at my ideal weight (145!) I bought a 3 month pass to my local recreation centre and have been going to classes a 3-5 times a week. I go to 2 cycle fit classes a week (which I really enjoy) and try to do 2-3 stroller stride classes. The stroller stride is harder to get motivated to go to because it's in the morning and all depends on how well Lauren slept.

Enough about me though. Lauren's doing great. Her sleeping habits could be better though. She was sleeping through the night for a few weeks but has now started getting up every 3 hours. This wouldn't be so bad if she'd go right back to sleep afterwards but the past week she's been staying awake for a few hours  which is really hard on me. Thankfully last night she was tired enough to go back to sleep. She's a little drooler at the moment and will soak through a within a few hours. She's also got a terrible diaper rash that won't go away no matter what we do. I've had to switch to disposables so I can use zinc based cream and sometimes it'll start to look better but has yet to go away after a week and a half. These combined with her chewing on her fingers leads me to believe she's teething. Hopefully the tooth will cut through soon so we can go back to cloth. I absolutely hate using the disposables, not to mention how expensive they are!

She's recently started to grab for things. She babbles whenever she feels like it and I can guarantee if you try to prompt her to talk she will refuse. Here's a few pics taken over the last month.

 Lauren trying on her swim suit

 sitting at the table while we eat

 Lauren and mum

 watching as Dad cuts down out christmas tree

 (sorry the red eye reducer wouldn't work on this picture)

Taken today during tummy time

A year behind

I've been thinking about Hailey a lot lately as Christmas gets closer. Really it's not even just christmas it's that I've been watching Lauren do a lot of "firsts". I've been finding this particularly hard because Lauren was born 18 days before Hailey's due date. It's also been nearly 2 years since our journey with Hailey began. Although I didn't know I as pregnant yet Hailey was already conceived and this time of year always makes me sad because I think was this the moment 2 years ago when it all started to go wrong? At some point between now and April 2010 something bad happened that changed our lives forever and we don't know why or when. As I watch Lauren reach milestones I can't help but feel like I'm a year behind. That it should've been a year ago I watched my child do all this. I guess that's the down side to having a baby right around the due date of the baby you lost.

Christmas is particularly hard. Christmas 2009 I was about 6 weeks pregnant and I was looking forward to 2010 and how great it would be to have a baby around for christmas. I never could've imagined how wrong I was. I still find myself going back to that question I'll never have an answer for......WHY.

Why Hailey? Why us? Why anyone? It all just seems so unfair. I want so much for Hailey to be here with me and I struggle with this feeling for a couple reasons.
I want the healthy Hailey I had in my mind before our world fell apart but that Hailey never existed. Hailey is and always will be our HLHS baby so when I think about wanting her here right now I think about her being healthy but I know deep down she never was and never would've been. That's such a hard thing for me to think about and except. Even after all this time I just wish my baby was ok or fixable.
I know I've said this quite a bit these past few months but I feel A LOT of guilt when I think about wishing Hailey was here because I know if Hailey was Lauren wouldn't be. I love them both so much.

I worry about my feelings for Lauren. I love her of course but I don't think I love her as much as I love Hailey. That's probably not the right words to say how I feel so I'll try to explain. I still feel like I'm holding back. I'm still waiting for that brick to fall and something bad to happen. These past few months all seem like a dream. Hailey took my innocence and my blind love. I find myself unable to look at Lauren and think my world would fall apart without you because I've held back and I've built this wall. Of course I'd be devastated if anything happened to Lauren but from Hailey I've learned that life can change so quickly. You think you're headed in one direction but you have no idea what's up ahead. I'm so scared of losing her or anything happening to her that I've tried to protect myself and I feel so bad for this. Lauren deserves more. Lauren deserves to be loved the way I love Hailey. I'm sure with time I'll get there. As each day passes I find I relax a little more but even now I get nervous voicing these feeling as I worry that by voicing them something will happen. Completely irrational I'm sure.

Going to the Dr.

I phoned my dr's office this morning to make an appointment for Lauren. The past few days I've noticed the inserts in her diaper were a little pink sometimes and yesterday after I changed her right she pooped (always the way) and part of it was red. I think she's got blood in her poo. When I changed her this morning just after she went it was ok but I'm taking her in anyway because I can't see how that colour would be normal in a breastfed baby or any baby not on solids. Will update when we get back.

My doctor's off this week so we saw Daniel's doctor. He looked her over and sent us home with an OB kit to check to see if it's blood in the stool. He also wrote a prescription for antibiotic cream incase it's from an infection. He said he wasn't too concerned at this point and seemed like he didn't really know what to do if it came back positive for blood. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. At least she seems pretty happy, just a little less active.

Lauren's quirks

I thought I'd write about some of the things Lauren does:

1-She won't look at you unless she wants to. You can try everything to get her attention and she'll look everywhere except at you. Then when you turn your attention elsewhere she'll stare at you until you look at her then she quickly turns her head

2- She spits her soother out when she's ready to fall asleep. She'll suck on her soother and after her eyes close she pushes it out with her tongue. This has caused some long evenings depending on where the soother falls. It wakes her up sometimes and we have to start the whole process of getting to sleep again

3- Lauren HATES sleeping. Well she hates falling asleep. She'll scream and kick and all you can do is hold her tight and keep trying to get the soother in. As soon as she starts sucking on it her eyes start to close. Sometimes she'll realize she's falling asleep and start screaming and kicking again.

4- She could be sound asleep in your arms and not wake up when you put her down but 5 minutes later she'll be WIDE awake. It's like she has these quick power naps so she doesn't have to miss what's going on.

5- She's quite happy just staring off at things. This is true especially if we are out somewhere. Rarely does she cry or make a noise when out in public. She's too busy taking it all in. She's the same way in her crib after a nap. I rarely go in because she's crying, instead because I can hear her making noises or sucking her fist (which makes me cringe!)

6- She sticks her tongue out at my grandma. I don't how this started and but every time she sees my grandmother instead of smiling she sticks her tongue out at her. She only does this to her and we have no idea why.

7- She only tries to roll over during diaper changes.

13 weeks

Weight 16lbs

I think I'll take her to the health unit this afternoon to get weighed. I weigh her with  my scale every Tuesday and this week it says she lost .6 lbs. I'm hoping my scale is wrong but figure I'll take her in today and next wednesday just to make sure she's not losing any weight.

Not a lot has happened this week. Lauren gave me her cold but I've come to learn that breastfeeding is really great to help get over a cold faster. Normally my colds last at least a week but since  having Lauren I've had 2 and they've only lasted a few days.  I also heard back from the milk bank yesterday so I've got to fill out and mail in all my forms.

Did I mention that Daniel's parents are coming to visit in January? Both will be out which will be nice for Dan and Lauren. They're staying with us for a few days then we're all going skiing for 4, then they come back for 2 more weeks.
That's about all I can think of to write. It's been a pretty boring week!
Here's a few pics

She's getting so big!!!

Dan trying out the carrier....she hated it!

Lauren and mum

Halloween

12 weeks

Weight: 16.6 lbs
Mum's weight: 175.6lbs (was 200lbs after giving birth to Lauren so -24.4lbs) only another 25.6 to go!

Funny how these past 12 weeks have gone by so quickly but the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy drag on. Today last year I would've been on day 14 of my cycle which means Lauren was conceived sometime in the next 2 days.

Lauren has another cold which she's now given to me. She's also been a lot more vocal these past few days. This girl sure does love to hear her own voice!! Even with the soother in she makes noise. No idea where she gets it from as Dan and I are not the talkative type. She's also starting to have better control of her hands and bats at things, although she's very selective at which toys are worthwhile. I know it's early but her personality is slowly starting to show.

Here's a pic for the week:

11 weeks

Weight: 15.6

It's been a busy week so I didn't have much time to add what we've been up to. Lauren's doing great. She sleeps in her own room every night but now wakes at 2/2:30 and then again at 6/6:30. Her bedtime used to be 9pm, but she's started slowly creeping earlier and now she goes down at 8pm. I've started to figure out her routine, at least in the mornings. After 6:30 most of the time she'll go back to sleep until 8am. Then she's awake for an hour, naps for an hour, wakes for an hour, takes another hour nap and then it's the afternoon and depending on the day she either sleeps a lot or not at all. Either way she's always ready for bed by 8pm.

I started running again a few weeks ago and am loving it. Not only do I enjoy the running but I love how each time I feel less tired and can go further. I'm not at 177lbs. Still have 17lbs pre Lauren pregnancy and 27 pre Hailey to lose but I've lost 23lbs so far.

Here's a pic for the week