Makayla's First Birthday

Even though we aren't celebrating Makayla's birthday today due to a bachelor party for Jon, nor tomorrow because of a bridal shower for Sylvia AND a baby blessing for Zachary, but instead on Sunday because that's the next best day to do it, I'd like to tell you all about our little "Ziggy".

Makayla is crawling.  She refuses to stand on her little legs though! LOL She loves to dance and listen to music.  She loves her older brothers and her daddy, but she and mommy are two peas in a pod.  Makayla and I sit on her bedroom floor and play dollies together.  She has a dolly stroller, car seat, bed, pacifiers, rattles, you name it!  That little girl will never be bored with her babies!

Makayla will not eat pureed baby food, she has always kind of refused.  She has to have food with texture that she can chew or she will start spitting at you.  

Makayla is a HUGE tease and already has an awesome little sense of humor!!! The other day I was holding her in my lap and she was playing with Thomas' tie.  She would stuff it down between her knees and look up at me with a big toothy grin on her face.  Then she would repeat the process, and look at me grinning each time.  There will be sometimes she'll be playing and you'll try to get her attention.  She will freeze, look away and grin, then every time you say her name trying to get her to look at you, she'll giggle and get excited, but she won't look at you!  

Makayla loves cell phones.  She knows how to "slide to unlock".  Her favorite thing is when the phone is on speaker phone.  If you hold the phone up to her ear, she just tries to eat it and doesn't realize there's someone there, but on speaker phone, she will start babbling and giggling.  

Makayla says "Mom", "Dad", "Hi" and "Shhh"   

In Tarzan there's a part where they say "GOOORILLLA!" and I like to tease her by saying "MAAAKAAAYLA!" in the same tone. It's kinda loud and obnoxious.  She will look at me, sweetly touch my mouth and say "Shhh".  

Makayla likes to be sung to, she loves to be read to, and she ADORES being able to hold the book and turn the pages.

Makayla loves her Teddy more than anything!!  Every night after we say family prayers and tuck the boys into bed, we tuck Makayla into her bed.  While I'm making her bottle, Matt plays with her and Teddy and she just laughs and laughs!

I love listening to Matt and Makayla play when she's in the tub.  

She will hold the wash cloth and try to suck the water out of it (eew) and Matt will try to grab it from her and then she will GROWL at him!!!!  He will growl back at her and then she'll start laughing and try to suck the water off of it again, it's a never ending process! 

I love you Makayla!! Your whole family loves you!! 

Happy Birthday Princess!

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Today is her very first birthday, and  I know I have told and referenced the story of her birth countless times, and you may be sick of hearing it, but it was a very conflicting time.  There was so much happiness, mixed with so much turmoil, and I feel like closure to the whole experience is finally within grasp. Writing about it on here, has helped somewhat, but I would love for you to understand what my little girl means to me, and to do that, you should understand how I got her. So please bare with me as I explain one last time.  

1 year ago from this moment, my little one was in the NICU hooked up to tubes and wires. I wished so badly that I could have her in the room with me, but it just wasn't possible.  I wanted to bond with her.  To dress her in her sweet little pink jammies and see a bow in her hair, but I was limited to only holding her when she as nursing, wearing her diaper and nothing else, surrounded by nurses and alarms going off whenever the monitors would get bumped even just a little bit.  It was emotionally harder on me than I will ever be able to put into words.

I felt intimidated by my little baby girl.

Over that time, I would wake myself up at night, every 2 to 3 hours and go in and nurse.  I was so happy when it was time again. I had started to think that with all of the monitors, tubes, nurses and equipment, she didn't need me, and that thought killed me. Nursing was my way of helping her get better and feeling like I was contributing something to her care. I often worried that my little girl wouldn't know who I was.  It was hard to see pretty much everyone else changing her diapers and doing all the "motherly" stuff and I was afraid that she wouldn't know which one of us was her mother.  But when she would cry, and the nurses would try to calm her, they never seemed to be able to.  She wouldn't calm down until her mommy was there whispering a little song into her ear.  She knew who her mommy was, and she wanted her mommy as much as her mommy wanted her.

Matt had to stay at home with the boys and keep our family running, so the time in life where you'd hope to be surrounded by loved ones, I could be found alone in the rocking chair in the corner of the NICU watching my baby sleep.  The NICU nurses had to remind me to eat and sleep, so I would walk to my room and order my meal, then close my eyes until it got there and eat it and then it was back to the NICU.

The hardest thing by far though, was the day we were sent home together.  I finally got to dress her, put her in her car seat, take her home and put her into the lights we were given for her jaundice.  It felt so good to have her home, but I wished I could enjoy it.  Something felt very wrong.
I went back to the hospital thinking they'll just give me some medicine and I would be able to spend the rest of my life at home with my baby girl, but instead was admitted for high blood pressure and poor liver function.  Even though I was going to be put on the Mother/Baby floor because they had more experience with the medicine I needed, they told me I was too sick to be able to be with my baby.  So there I was, surrounded by babies crying being comforted by their mommies, and I couldn't have mine.

So there was even more time of ward members, family, and friends being able to hold my baby more than I could. Taking care of my boys and feeding my baby without me. I was extremely grateful for them, but again, I was scared that she wouldn't know which one was her mother.
Between the boys getting to school, and taking care of a newborn, Matt was only able to visit once a day for about 30-45 minutes.  In that time, I would nurse Makayla praying that she wasn't too used to bottles, and not interested in nursing,  I needed to feel like she needed me still even though Matt was doing such an amazing job with her on his own. Everyday she would latch on without any hesitation and nurse comfortably.  She still remembered who her momma was.

Then the day I was supposed to go home, very early in the morning, my incision from the surgery came open, and tissue that looked disturbingly similar to what I imagine intestines look like were spilling out of my stomach as I lied there as still as possible terrified waiting for the doctor to come and take me to emergency surgery with a hospital bathroom paper towel covering my insides.  I wasn't too concerned about "Death by intestines busting through your stomach.", however I was scared stiff of "Death by infection of hospital bathroom germs all over the tissue that should be on the inside of my body."
Would I even be able to raise my daughter? Ever?!
More days of recovery and IV antibiotics...

Until it was time to go home!

I felt so much better this time!  My liver function and blood pressure had returned to normal and I could see my baby girl.  It was very bittersweet.  She was new to me, but not everyone else! It was like a little kid saving his money to buy a special toy, then when he finally gets it, all of his friends have already had that toy for a while.  What is new and exciting to you, isn't really new to anyone else.  I had missed the party.  But I did have all the time in the world to be with my little girl... So it didn't matter as much to me.

That is why this birthday is as important to me, as it is for her.

This will be our first time having everyone together.  I can be a proud mommy as everyone watches my beautiful little one open presents, and eat her cake.  And even though she's a super shy little bugger, and we're going to request that everyone whispers the Happy Birthday Song so she doesn't get freaked out and start screaming, (and  let's face it, there will probably still be tears.).. I cannot wait for people to be able to pause, and see her.. Not just "See" her, but see her how I see her. As a little girl who completed her mommy and daddy's lives. She's shy, and sweet, and an absolute treasure to this whole family.  She makes one peep and she has 3 older brothers, her mommy and her daddy right there to make it better. Her brother prayed for her, her daddy hoped for her and her mommy dreamed about her.  Now that she's here, there's not a chance we're not going to enjoy every single smile.
Between all of us, she doesn't really have to do much for herself. That is why she was late to crawl, late to stand, and no doubt she will be late to walk.  But she will catch up.. there is no hurry, because one thing she will never struggle with is knowing how much she's loved and cared for.

I'm not going to miss the party this year!  Since we were able to be sealed in the temple, I'm going to leave the bad memories of last year behind knowing that I'll never have to worry about being apart from her ever again, and I'm going to take the good memories and treasure them forever!

I will do another post next week after her birthday party.