Verse of 2011

Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
~ Colossians 3:12

This verse spoke to me. It is what I want for myself for 2011. I more often than not feel like I am crumbling in all 5 of these important areas. I fully understand that this is because my entire life revolves around needing to show mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience in all that I do with my children and husband. I fail daily, but this verse is a tremendous reminder that God longs for me to emulate these characteristics as much as my human flesh is capable of.

I decided to look up the meaning of all five just for a better grasp...here's what I found.

Mercy: compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one's power; compassion, pity, or benevolence
Kindness: Kindness is the act or the state of being kind and marked by charitable behaviour, marked by mild disposition, pleasantness, tenderness and concern for others.
Humility: the quality or condition of being humble; modest opinion or estimate of one's own importance, rank, etc.
Gentleness: kindly; amiable; not severe, rough, or violent; mild and soft
Patience: the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.

I long to be ALL of these. The one that resonated the most was...drumroll...PATIENCE! Shocking I know :) I love that it says "without complaint, loss of temper or irritation". This is by far the hardest thing for me.
Being a parent is learning to die to yourself daily. To put anothers needs ahead of your own at all costs. I would give my life without a seconds hesitation for my children, yet it is so hard for me to sacrifice my quiet time during nap if we've had a rough day or my physical space if I am exhausted. That makes no sense on paper, but I know that it's the truth and it's where patience comes in. I want to be the best at all that I do and not complain or grumble or let the irritation of daily frustrations get to me. Even better, I know I cannot accomplish any of this on my own. So, enter verse daily and time in prayer. Lord, do your work!
Just a great verse and wanted to share.

One month old!

Benjamin Matthew is one month old today! It really has flown by. He is growing like a weed. Poor little guy has his first cold :(

He is amazing. He really is such an easy baby. Great temperament. He loves to listen to Brooklyn talk (often yell). Seriously, if he is having a rough couple of minutes and is fussing and Brooklyn decides to throw a fit about something at the same time he will stop crying. I think he knows that mommy needs a bone thrown at her in those circumstances. Ben, I love you son. Thanks for taking one for the team.

At his 2 week appointment he was 8lbs 13 oz. He is over 11lbs now according to our scale at home. He is almost out of his newborn clothes. He has the strongest neck of any child I know (brooklyn was the same way). He loves to arch his head back and look from side to side. He is not a huge fan of tummy time, loves music, loves baths, hates being naked and hates having gas in his tummy. That last one has been the biggest obstacle and we're still working on it. It's a combo issue of him pigging out and my milk flowing way too fast. Sometimes makes for a messy combo.

Here are a few pics from the past several weeks.

Happy one month Benny boy! I love you so much.

Christmas fun

Every year Brooklyn gets together with her friends Taylor, Remi and Kali to take pictures and have a little Christmas get together in their pretty dresses. It has become a really special tradition (one we hope to force them to do until they leave for college :). I love looking back to see how much they've changed from the year before. Wow. Time flies. The guys still to this day tease us about the black sheet on the couch from the photo shoot the first time. Lesson learned, back drops should not resemble that of an adult film aka tacky black sheet thrown on the couch.

2008
2009

2010

We also braved it and went to zoo lights with some friends from our mom's group. It was so much fun, but sooooo much work (as everything is at the moment). Matt had his company Christmas party earlier that day so he had to meet me there and I unfortunately did not have the stroller. So I huffed it through the parking lot with Ben strapped to my chest and Brooklyn crying hysterically on my hip. In all fairness to her it was freezing cold, she was just starting to get a cold and she had fallen asleep in the car right before we got there, so I would have been ticked to get out of the warm car too. She was in awe of the lights, she just kept saying "the lights are sooooo pretty. I love the purple ones". She has declared purple to be her "favorite color in the whole wide world". Everything is "the whole wide world" these days. Girl makes me laugh.

The group shot cracks me up.

poop, pee, spit up and LOVE

I am officially back in the swing of having a newborn. Can I just say, boys are so different than girls! I know this is obvious, but having now been peed on more times than I can count and changed more blow outs with this little man in the first two weeks than I did with Brooklyn in her first 6 months...it is evident I am entering a different world for good!

This first week on my own has had some high high's and low low's. I miss matt terribly, but am really too busy to dwell on it. The mornings are chaos, which makes them kind of fly by, and then nap rolls around, which I have yet to take part in because I'm either nursing or Brooklyn only takes a very short one. I am definitely experiencing a little hormonal imbalance (I don't like the sound of post partum) but it's more from lack of sleep then anything else.

This morning kind of sums my life at present up. Woke up, let B watch a show in our bed while I closed my eyes for just a few minutes more (both she and Ben were up for 2 hours last night and that's not including his other 2 feedings, that was just a solid two hour block they were both awake), came downstairs made breakfast (still have yet to even look at myself in the mirror, brushed my teeth or showered), disciplined B for having a full fledged tantrum, ate with Brooklyn while Ben nursed (yes, at the table, milk all over him, me and my lap) then got Brooklyn engaged in an activity and put Ben in his bouncy seat so I could do the dishes. 30 min or so later I brushed against my tank top (which I am still wearing from the day before) and it was wet, looked down only to find myself smeared in poop. Yummy. So, I am covered in poo, which means so is my son.

The funniest part is he didn't even seem bothered by it. He was just chillin in poo. The verse of the day when I opened my email was "So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. "~ 1 Corinthians 15:58

Quite appropriate and no coincidence :)

Adjusting nicely

Poor neglected blog. My priorities have changed, so here's a brief update. As of tomorrow Benjamin is 2 weeks old. Wow.

Brooklyn is doing great(ish), night time seems to be the hardest for her. She get's a little testy, but I think this is more of the strong willed two year old in her than the adjustment to having a baby in the house.

Ben is doing great. He is such a sweet, gentle little guy. He rarely cries, unless he's hungry or needs something. The hardest part is the lack of sleep, but I knew this would be the case. He's still nursing wonderfully and I am so grateful.

Brooklyn's been saying the most hysterical things lately, here are a few:

"I be right back!

Hey, wutch yoooo doing guys?

Oh, baby ben wants some milk

What's the matter mister mister

Ben needs his mommy"

She also likes to pull up her shirt and nurse her baby :) She'll put the baby on her chest and say "I need to feed my baby".

Tomorrow is my first day home alone with both of them. I have loved having matt home with me these past two weeks, but time to adjust to our new normal.

Benjamin Matthew

What a week! I say that with nothing but joy in my voice.

To pick up where I left off Monday morning, we went to St. V's at 1:30, by 3pm they had me in our room and hooked up to the pitocin. My parents and Matt's mom came by to visit and then it was show time. At 5:30 my midwife came in, checked me and I was 4-5cm, 85% and making good progress. I wasn't feeling much pain at this point. She broke my water and predicted 10:20 for delivery. Matt said he cringed the moment she put a time stamp on it. I had that hour, down to the minute in my head from that point on. I thought to myself, I can do this, I can do anything for 5 hours.

So, the contractions came on fast and furious within 20 min of having my water (what very little there was) broke. I labored very calmly on the birthing ball to music for the next 3 hours. Around 8:30 the nurse came in and turned the pit up one more notch. That was where my body began to shut down. Within minutes I went from feeling good, calm and relaxed to nauseous and shaking uncontrollably. She checked me again and said I was still about 4-5 and 85%. I wish I hadn't let her check me. My mind began to get the better of me and an hour or so later I told Matt I couldn't do it anymore and wanted to have the epidural. It was the shaking that was the hardest, it caused me to just lose control of any control I had of my contractions.

So, the anesthesiologist came at 10:50, at this point I am still very focused on each contraction, but the pain was so intense I couldn't talk at all. I just did as they told me and held as still as possible. I was feeling incredible pressure, and I knew I was transitioning, but it was too late, the epidural catheter was in and he was just getting ready to finish me off. So, to sum up, I got my epidural just in time to do nothing! He gave me one dose to start and said it would take a while to catch up with my body. My nurse (whom I LOVED) came in again and all I could muster out between contractions was "pressure, lot's of pressure". So, low and behold I was 9-10cm, 100% thinned and baby was +2!!
The rest is a bit blurry, I remember saying I felt like I was ready, so final check revealed his head was crowning, and I was ready to push. This was the part that stunk, here I was tied to the bed because I had an epidural in, but it was 100% ineffective because of how far I was when I got it. Good news in hindsight because I got to experience the entire process start to finish med free.
I pushed for 7 minutes and he came out so calmly, no crying, they laid him on my chest and Matt said I was looking all over to try to get a glimpse of whether it was a he or she and finally yelled out "it's a boy!". That will forever be our joke because I told matt I wanted him to tell me what it was so he says I stole his thunder :) After about 15 minutes of just holding him and kissing him Matt cut the cord they cleaned him up and he went straight for the boob! Hallelujah!

We went to his first dr appt this morning and he has gained back 5oz already. The nurse watched him feed and told me she had never seen such a fantastic latcher and eater at 5 days old. Can I express what joy this brings me. There have been so many people praying for this so specifically for me and it's just a testament to the fact that God listens and He answers.
Ben is a total chow hound, I have spent the majority of the last 5 days with him on the boob, but I don't mind at all. I am just trying to be very aware that as soon as I can put him down I need to so I can touch and hug and play with Brooklyn.
Speaking of Brooklyn, she did great on Wed afternoon when she and Matt came to pick us up, she was so sweet and gentle. However that night was a train wreck. She was so confused and begged us not to make her go to sleep. Broke.my.heart. She has been so much better with each day that goes by and today has by far been the best. She woke up in a great mood and then she offered her blanky to Ben- huge milestone, as blanky is definitely her security thing during this time. She hasn't let it out of her sight.
I could not be more in love with Ben, Brooklyn or Matt. I am completely humbled at how fortunate I am. Not to mention all our awesome, amazing friends! To say the very least it has been an AMAZING week.
Matt will be home with me all next week as well. Hip hip hooray!
Thank you all for your love, support and prayers over these past months. I cannot believe I have a son to love on this side of heaven. I know Luke will be waiting with great joy and anticipation to have Ben as his brother for life someday in heaven.

induction

So...my appt this morning did not go as planned. Such is life, and I know this very, very well.

My amniotic fluid levels are dangerously low, which can cause concern for a number of reasons, all of which are not important at this point. The decision was made on the spot, we are leaving right after I finish typing this and heading to St. V's for an induction.

I had such hopes and have done so much preparation for a natural, drug free delivery, but alas, it doesn't matter. I just want this baby here safe and sound and I know better than to put my plans ahead of the Lord's. The crazy part of that is that something has felt "off" for a few days now, and I kept attributing it to hormones or whatever, so this morning on my drive to my routine dr. appt I prayed for God to make it crystal clear what HIS plans are, so that I can wait on Him, and roll with the punches. I was mainly preparing myself to hear that I had made no progress and that I would just need to continue to wait patiently. Not the opposite.

So, please keep all of us in your prayers today as we prepare to meet this newest Feenstra. That my body and the baby would take well to the induction and that a c-section would not be necessary (as low fluid levels is a leading cause for that to be the end result).

Love you all. Next update will be with a baby picture!!!

'I have set the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.' Psalm 16:8

38

38 weeks today.

Dear baby,

I understand that due to the noise and commotion you have become accustomed to hearing on the "outside" over these past 9 months, aka your big sister, you may be inclined to bask in the warm, cushy waters of my uterus for as long as possible, but I assure you it is safe out here, I promise. I am verrrrry ready to meet you...to see your face, hold your tiny hand, see if you have hair, do you have big cheeks like Brooklyn, are you going to be as big as they tell me, and mostly...are you a HE or a SHE. I am ready for you! My bag is packed, the house is cleaned, birth plan written and I wake up at 5am every morning with butterflies in my tummy wondering if today will be the day. I understand I'm jumping the gun a bit, since technically you are not due for another 2 weeks, but I just wanted you to know how excited I am for you to join our family! Please come soon.

I love you,
Mommy

Dr appt yesterday went okay. The only alarming thing was that my fluid looked borderline low. Basically, barely passed for normal. My dr assured me that she's not concerned...yet. I will be going back on friday at noon to take another look, have another nst (non stress test) and get my membranes stripped again. She did say she does not feel comfortable letting me go past 40 weeks due to my history, the umbilical cord history at Brooklyn's birth and the fluid level, as well as baby's size. I am praying that I will go into labor on my own within the next two weeks, but I will do whatever needs to be done to bring this baby into the world safe and sound, including induction, but would choose to avoid that route if at all possible.

I am really focusing on all the positives, and trying to just be patient, not always my strong suit.

As of yesterday I was 2cm dilated and 75% effaced.

What we've been up to

lately...

We made "towers" out of tupperware, in our underwear of course
Making "beautiful art"

2 year old's idea of painting

Last weekend we took B to Omsi- she loved it

Then we came home and baked cookies, she LOVED mixing the "gredients"

Children's museum- they have a new pet hospital, which was a huge hit

Kali and Brooklyn creating with clay

Then off to visit daddy at work and have french fries at burgerville

She held still long enough (thanks to Calliou) for me to french braid!!

We were reading the book "ears, ears" which prompted the conversation about what our body parts are each used for. "Brooklyn, what is your mouth for? eating!" "Brooklyn, what are your ears for? to hear!" "Brooklyn, what is your nose for? my finger!!" I have not laughed that hard in a while. The kicker is that she was sitting on my lap while Matt and I were asking her these questions only to look down and find her answering the question with her finger in her nose! I have a nose picker people. I think secretly her daddy would be fine if this impolite habit followed her to high school...as that would eliminate the worry about boys ;)

At the dinner table the other night Matt and I were talking and he called me "honey" during our conversation. Brooklyn looked over at me and said "honey, honey, it's okay".

Then on our way home from Grandma's on Thursday I hear from the back seat "umm, mom- I don't want to have dinner, I just want to have french fries". I have to write these things down because they are so funny, the fact that she was assertive enough to tell me that she doesn't want dinner, and to know that what sounds good is french fries!! Cracks me up.

I have been a sappy, emotional mess this past week. I am sure I was the same way in the last weeks of my pregnancy with her (although I don't remember), but it's like it takes over me some moments. Reflecting on how great God is, how miraculous this baby is, how miraculous any pregnancy is! Matt looked at me last night while the baby was literally trying to see how far s/he could stretch in my stomach and said "that is nuts, it is nuts that there is a person who could survive out here moving around in there". Nuts indeed. And crazy cool!!