The Poop Cannon Dried Up...Oh no!!!

So the transition from breastmilk to formula has not been a fun one. Just for a little background, breast fed babies rarely get constipated. Breastmilk is perfectly formulated for babies and what their needs are. Formula is a little more harsh on their developing digestive systems. We had been giving Lola formula at night because it seemed that it was filling her up more and letting her sleep through the night better and we were still giving her breastmilk during the day. After a long discussion about how well the breastmilk was working for her, we decided it was best that we start giving her solely formula. AHHH!! Not a fun transition. We had a seriously constipated baby! Apple juice mixed with water became our best friend. It was the only way we could get Lola to poo. After about a week of trying to get her system used to Enfamil, we decided it was best that we just switch the formula that we were giving her. And now...I think we've got it! I think we've beaten the constipation problem!

"Mom, look what I can do"

So, for a 3 week old, Lola has a ridiculous amount of neck and head control. This isn't really a new phenomenon. She's had decent neck/head control since she was born. Lola just really likes to look around at everything and take it all in. This is all well and good until you're holding her and she decides that it would be better to throw her head back while you've got one arm around her and one hand making a bottle. Don't worry, Lola has not been injured in this process. I've mastered holding her in a modified football carry so I can support her little head and still do things with my other arm, things that are necessary to make her a happy and content baby.

Poop Cannon and Pee Geyser

So I'm sure there are a ton of first time parents out there that have dealt with this. Almost every time we change Lola's diaper we end up going through 2 to 3 diapers because she decides to pee on us. Gotta love the combination of cold air, cold wipes and a cold changing table. We could put something down on the changing table to make it not so cold, but she'd end up pooping on it and it just wouldn't really be worth it. The other thing that Lola really enjoys doing is being a poop cannon.

The first week that Lola was home my mom and I were changing her on the couch. This is all well and good and everything was going great until Lola decided that she was just too gassy and needed to fart. Well instead of just letting out a little steam...she let out a lot of poop! It sprayed across the diaper and onto my mom's couch. Thank God for Resolve!

Drew has gotten a great deal of experience with the joy of changing a spraying cannon. There have been a ton of times that Drew has gotten pooped on. One time in particular was pretty funny. In the middle of changing her, Lola let out a pretty good one and it sprayed all the way to the end of the changing table. If he had been holding her legs up to wipe her or put a new diaper under her he definitely would have gotten poop all over him or all over the carpet. Neither of those would have been a good option at all!!!

This morning was one of the most humorous incidents that I can think of over the past 3 weeks when it comes to changing her (although the time that Drew decided to put a full, unfolded diaper on the floor as a poopy land-mine ranks pretty high up there too). We have decided to switch her from a breast milk/formula diet to a strictly formula diet for a number of reasons. We had been supplementing her diet with formula at night and still feeding her breast milk during the day. As of yesterday, we started to give her exclusively formula. Being first time parents means that we are going to be performing a series of trial and error experiments until we figure out what works. Well we figured out that weaning that quickly doesn't work. Lola became severely constipated. This was definitely a problem when we woke up to her empty diaper after we had fed her a number of bottles. It's gotta come out one end and we really didn't want her to spit it up. We decided that we would give her some breast milk that we had left in the refrigerator, since breastfed babies hardly get constipated. Well, after a very sludgy diaper this morning, I got a wonderful surprise early in the afternoon. As I'm changing her, my little pee geyser decides to erupt. This was all good because I've almost mastered catching pee in a diaper. Yay point for mom! Well while I'm wiping her down from the pee that she just got on her she lets it rip in her diaper. A very liquidy runny substance that I don't think I can even describe properly and do it justice. Point for Lola. I wipe this off, only to have it happen 3 more times. So, four points for Lola. She also managed to get it all over her back and all over her WHITE sleeper!! Yes Spray-N-Wash is now my best friend (Sorry Kristina, Kelly and Angela. Love you all but you don't help get poopy stains out. Haha). So the final tally was Mommy-1, Lola-6. I think she won that round.

Baby Kipfer's Big Entrance

I was really excited that Drew made it home from the cruise just in time to be there for the birth of our little girl. We got a week together before I went into labor. My labor started late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. My contractions were light and I could sleep through them. Sunday they were a little stronger, but nothing I couldn't make it through. We watched the Colts game with Drew's family. Everyone thought it was really funny that I would have a contraction every time the Colts did something good. I just got too excited I guess. That night was not the most fun night I've ever had. There was no rhyme or reason to my contractions. Sometimes they would come 2 minutes apart, other times they would come 15 minutes apart. They would be so bad that I couldn't move through them, while others I could talk through. Around 2:30 am I essentially started one long contraction that lasted for an hour. I was laying on the floor of my room because it was the only place that I could get comfortable. A contraction would start and I would get into a position that was comfortable and I would make it through. When I laid back down another contraction would start again within 30 seconds of the last one. Not a good time!! Drew had to go get my mom so we could all decide what was the best course of action would be. We decided that it would be best if I went to the hospital to get checked. We got to the hospital and I was only 2 centimeters dilated. The doctor decided it would be best if I walked around for awhile, so Drew and I walked the halls of the hospital for 2 hours. Sadly, this didn't help as much as the doctor had wanted. This is the point when I decided that some pain meds would probably be best. I was given something for the pain and was able to sleep in between the contractions. After a few hours of lying in triage we were admitted and moved into a labor and delivery room. About two more hours of contractions passed and then we talked to the nurse about all of our options. We decided because my labor wasn't progressing the way we wanted it to that it was probably the best idea for me to have an epidural so I could relax enough for everything to move along. With the pain meds on board and the epidural done, my labor became a very fun experience. We watched 4 movies and listened to an entire CD. I was able to laugh and joke around with my mom and Drew. I was also able to sleep through some of my worst contractions, which just shocked my mom. The doctor thought that by giving me an epidural my labor would begin to pick up. This just wasn't the case. They decided to give me some pitocin to speed up my labor. I didn't really mind this at all since I couldn't feel any of the contractions. Julia, Will and Pam had arrived by this point in my labor. It was nice being able to visit with everyone and enjoy it. A few hours later it was time to push and everyone besides my mom and Drew had to leave the delivery room. Lola was face up, not the right way for a baby to be born, which increased the amount of time it took me to push. It was my mom and Drew's job to hold my legs since they were numb from the epidural and I couldn't hold them up on my own. There were more than a few times that my mom got distracted by the monitors. After about an hour-ish of pushing the doctor started talking to me about the possibility of having to use suction on Lola's head to pull her out. Having a serious problem with suction (I know that plenty of babies have been born using suction that are perfectly fine but I did NOT want this to be used on my baby) I politely said to the doctor that if it was medically necessary that we could go ahead with it. At the same time I'm sitting there thinking that if they came near my baby's head with a suction I was most likely going to kill someone. My mom said that she saw the look of determination come across my face and as my mom will tell anyone, when I get to that point it's gonna take a major miracle to get me out of it. So I started to push a heck of a lot harder than I had before. While this was good for my labor, it wasn't necessarily good for me. My nail beds started to turn blue, which promptly put my mom in RN mode instead of mom mode. I had to remind her that while she is a nurse at that particular moment she was a mom and grandma and not a nurse. This got her in check very quickly. After 2 hours of hard labor and pushing like a crazy person, Lola Jean Kipfer was born at 12:42 am on January 26th, 2010. She was 6 pounds 12 ounces measuring 20 inches long. That is probably the happiest moment of my entire life. I thank God every day for the amazing little miracle that He has brought into our lives. She continues to amaze me every day with everything that she does.

Baby stuff ALL ready to go!

So now that the basement is finally up and ready to go, I've spent the past few days setting up all of her stuff and I did it ALL BY MYSELF!! Haha. I set up her Pack-n-Play, which will be her bassinet for awhile until we move upstairs and she has her crib. I also set up her swing and bouncy seat. The Pack-n-Play and the bouncy seat were so easy to put together. The swing on the other hand was a HUGE pain. I think that was the only time that I really needed help. My mom definitely helped a lot in setting that up!! But now everything is ready to go and just waiting for baby. (She needs to stay in there until Drew gets home though. Only a few more days so hopefully she'll wait it out.) Here are pictures of all of her stuff that we set up in the past few days:

Almost there....how time flies!!

I can't believe that I'm almost to 39 weeks. It's crazy! Time has flown by. Drew gets home in a few days and the baby is due in 10. I still don't quite feel ready to have her. So many of my friends have gotten to the point where they are just ready to give birth. I'm ready for her to be her but I'm not to the point where I need her out of there or I would lose my mind. Maybe I'm just an atypical pregnant woman. I am ready to see her and hold her and all of the other fun (and not so fun) things that go into being a parent. I'm sure there will be many sleepless nights, but I feel like there will be many more amazing moments to outweigh the lack of sleep. Haha. It's been awhile since I put up any pictures of my belly. Here is a picture of me at almost 39 weeks.

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers. Soon enough we'll have a beautiful baby girl here and in person!!

Christmas and New Year's

Christmas was a lot of fun this year. I had to miss both the Kipfer and Isch Christmases so I was very sad about that. The Thanksgiving schedule worked out a little bit better than Christmas, but that's alright. I had a great time seeing my family and spending time with them. The little one is taking up too much space in my belly so I didn't get to eat nearly as much as I wanted to, but I'll make up for that next year. :) Overall, Christmas was great. Midnight Mass was gorgeous, even though I was dead tired by the time I got home. The baby really liked the music at church, so she was awake and kicking all through the service. I did really miss Drew though. It would have been nice for him to be home.

I can't believe it's already 2010. Where did 2009 go? I feel like it flew by. Other years I've gotten to New Year's Eve and have thought to myself, "Okay, I'm ready for a new year. It's time." This year, I just couldn't believe where all the time had gone. It seems like 2009 just rushed by. Hopefully 2010 goes a little bit slower, but I feel like once I have the baby all my life is going to do is pick up speed, which is really sad. Drew was able to call me on New Year's, with the help of a very generous friend's calling card. It was nice getting to talk to him since how you spend New Year's Eve is supposedly how you spend the rest of the year. Drew, looks like you're stuck talking to me. Hope you enjoy it! Hahaha. It was a nice relaxing New Year's just spending time with my mom and relaxing.

The construction upstairs is on hold until after the baby is born. We realized that we weren't going to make it happen before she got here, so we started focusing on the space that we do have and organizing it and making it ready for her. It's been a lot of cleaning and rearranging, but it's coming together. It helps that I'm in a nesting mood 90% of the time, so all I want to do is get things done and moved around and ready for the baby to get here. It'll all be together soon enough.

We're finally at the point where we go see the doctor every week. The baby is measuring a centimeter small, but the doctor isn't too worried about it. She said that me being as active as I am and the fact that I used to walk everyday is probably why she's so small. Everything else with the baby is great. The only problem that's come up is that my platelets are very low. I found out that I'm one of 7% of pregnant women that this happen to. What are the odds of that? Being one in 7% of women? Crazy, but it happens I guess. I'm glad I had mentally prepared myself to not have an epidural, because the way it's looking now they won't be able to give me one anyways because of problems with clotting since my platelets are so low. There are some other complications associated with it, but hopefully not anything the doctor can't remedy with modern medicine.

Three weeks til her due date!!!! I can't believe it! It's flown by so fast. I feel like it was just yesterday that I was going to my first appointment with Drew and now I'm seeing my doctor every week and they keep telling me that she could come at any time. She really needs to stay put until Drew gets home. I keep telling her that I can't start going into labor until at least like 5 p.m. on the 18th, which would be well after Drew gets home at 2 p.m., but that she really does need to stay in there until her due date. Hopefully she's a good listener and doesn't appear until the 24th. For now, we're just praying and keeping our fingers crossed that she's patient.

Thank you all again for all of your thoughts and prayers.