This is it!!!

So here I am, pumping from an airport bathroom! En route to visit my brother, wife and new baby!
6 hour plane ride..
Bens first time travelling..
3 hour time change?!

Wish us luck!
(more when we return on what four months looks like!)

One Year... (+One Day)

(ok so as typical lately, I started something that has taken longer than normal to finish... Yesterday marked one year, but bear with me)


Mr. Benjamin:

A little over a year ago, as I was running low on hope and nearing an EDD for a precious angel baby, I posted about numbers...

and now there's a new tally:

170 OPKs since Nov 2011
250+ tampons and counting since May 2011 (first official cycle off BCP)
17 35+ HPTs since September 2011
2 7 U/S
1 saline sono.
1 lots of* Positive HPT *Lost count after the first week of taking them...
12 Pregnancies
1 miscarriage
...

Our new tally is one sweet, precious baby boy

And exactly one year ago [plus one day!] I found out I was pregant with you! I fell to my knees, tears flowing and blurring the two pink lines I could't stop staring at... my hands shook as I took picture after out-of-focus picture on my phone and Canon - as if documeting it would make it more real, a souvenir for when/if I woke up from this dream..

I peed on sticks far more than any one should (I should have bought stock in Wondfo!)

A former EDD that loomed like a lurking shadow for months, passed without much fanfare - at 6 weeks pregnant, I had you, my little snow pea, nestled in.
We saw you for the first time, your little blueberry heart beating away...
By the next time we checked in on you, you started to resemble a gummy bear - with waving arms and legs! We were ready to tell our families: two sets of excited grandparents and countless aunts, uncles and cousins...

We got to experience something for the first time - we were able to begin reassuring ourselves (daily, sometimes twice daily!) that your heart was steadily thrumming away on our can't-live-without-it Doppler..(and we celebrated when we passed out of the "your baby is the size if a prune!" stage... prunes - yuck!
And then we really saw you for the first time

Your little button nose made its first appearance, and we fell in love all over again...

Your daddy and I had an INCREDIBLE last pre-baby Valentine's Day (get your nasty minds out of the gutters, readers!) lol
We found out just exactly WHO belonged to that button nose - you were our baby BOY!

And then it started - the nursery prep (although very slow - a PGAL brain is hard to overcome...) 

And the buying of baby things, and the next time we got to see you, when you passed your Antomy Scan with flying colors! (And we triple confirmed that yes, those WERE boy parts, and we finally were able to add some blue to the baby shopping cart!)

We marked a day that was one year since we said a goodbye, a Mother's Day so much different than the one before...


And then we were cruising...

Baby showers!

The collecting of little boy clothes - oh the CUTENESS! 

And the completion (along with the OHMYGOD IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING?! feeling) of your nursery, one of my favorite rooms in the house..

And one year after you first REALLY entered our lives, here we are, having gotten you baptized on Sunday!

My baby boy, Benjamin - what a year since we first "met"...

"You had me at PREGNANT!"

With Grace...

So, as I sit here on my work-from-home-day, with my sitter unable to make it last minute (with a legit reason, she is still awesome in my eys) I am committing what I'm sure a number of mothers would think a cardinal sin...

I'm listening to Ben laugh and giggle at Curious George on PBSKids. Yes, he's watching TV.

But at least it's not Sex&theCity (which, ok I may have had on once or twice when E is minutes from home after a long day and I'm about to lose my shit with a crying baby... He likes all the colorful fashion!)

I have so much work to get done today, I am keeping my fingers crossed that baby is as pleasant all day as he's been the past 2 hours... (haha - oh the irony, so much work to do and here I am blogging.... sshhhh)

 Check out the sling we got this week!

(and do NOT check out my It's-7-am-I've-been-up-for-2-hours Look... thanks)

So "with grace"... we have begun to introduce formula... (Cardinal Sin #2 to some, I'm sure - suck it.)

When Ben slept 12 hours (I KNOW RIGHT?!) last Monday night, I ended up going 10ish hours without pumping, and I think that had a negative affect on my supply... screw think, I KNOW it had a negative affect. I went from out-pumping his feedings by about 3-4 oz a day, to taking a good 15-18oz hit on my freezer stash in a matter of days... I started to panic, and to be honest, think I've had a touch of PPA about the whole feeding/pumping/worrying-about-supply thing for a while...
Ok ask E and he'll tell you I went bonkers effin' crazy...

So now a feeding is 4/5th's BM and 1/5th formula. And I've added back 8oz to my freezer stash in the past 12hours...
And E has his sane, normal wife back!


Oh, I forgot - the trip to MA weekend before last! So when he wasn't crying out of boredom, or pooping all over, or then puking all over himself when we pulled off the highway and I was changing him out f the back of the car in some random parking lot, Ben did pretty good. (i.e. It was a looooong car ride... a normal 3.5 hours turned into 6...)

Moooom - who me?? look how angelic I am! Zzzzz...

And then last Thursday, Ben was a skeleton for Hallowen and we very lightly "trick-o-treated" - basically visited our close neighbors, becuse otherwise we were two grown-ass adults asking for free candy under the guise of "its for the baby!" who is 3 months old and has no teeth to eat candy with even if I did think it was ok to give an infant/toddler candy...

He partied and stayed up past bedtime, which made it so much fun later (HA yea right)...
But guys, his costume barely fit him... I've had to officially pack away the 3M sleepers for our tall boy! SAD MAMA!
(I mean, I'm glad he's growing.. but he's my baby! and growing means soon he'll be too big to be my baby! and by soon I mean years down the road, but it's really around the corner! eeeeeek!)

In the confessionl mood today, here's another one...
I've eaten today:
a bowl of cereal (frosted mini-wheats, healthy!)
banana (good so far right? oh just wait it gets so much better)
three four cinamon buns
a handful of white chocolate chips
2 cups of coffee

and 1/2 of a leftover Sam Adams from last night...

aaaaaand I believe I hear Mr Ben now, waking from a lovely refreshing TWENTY MINUTE NAP.... (what happened to the 2 hours he does for the babysitters?!)

Oh and speaking of growing up too fasts... Check this sh*t out!