Week 32 (yes of pregnancy... almost 3 months ago)

Well ... in my last post when I said I would post soon... I obviously meant a month! This was definitely a long time ago considering Kinley will turn 8 weeks old in a couple of days. This was back on May 13th when I was around 32 weeks pregnant. I had definitely planned on getting all these old post up already. Now all I'm going to want to do when I do blog is post about what's going on currently!  I'm hoping I will be able to get better about posting though because I feel like I'm FINALLY in a position I can take the time to. I'm finally caught up on thank you notes (it was hard since two of our showers were the weekend Kinley was born and presents were coming in the mail and from parents, etc.) I've gotten a few things done that I needed to get done both at work and around the house, and we're getting in somewhat of a better routine some days. Maybe in my small moments of spare time, I might choose to blog! Here lately sleep has been the better choice though! Then there's the fact that I actually sat down to write this and pump (I'm trying to get better at multitasking), and before I even got a sentence typed, Kinley had other plans for me! Now I am holding her in a baby carrier in need of a shower from having spit up and I'm sure milk all over me! I will say that the Baby K'tan baby carrier that Mallory gave me has been a life saver. I did have to watch youtube to figure out how to wear it, but it definitely makes it so I can get things done when all she wants me to do is hold her. I've made beds, cooked and pretty much done everything in it! Even ahead of catching up on the blog, I also have to make taking care of myself a priority too. I had big plans today of trying to get a workout video in (since I have managed to do a whopping 1 1/2 workouts since my postpartum checkup). That's one thing I can't do with a baby carrier on though so we will see if that ends up happening before the night is over!

 

Some days I feel like we really have this parenting thing down ... others definitely not so much! We will have a great day and she will sleep great at night. Then I will try to do the same exact thing the next day and it's the complete opposite! Colt says we have it figured out, it's just that she doesn't yet!  Even on the days of chaos or when all that happens is staying on the couch with her, I wouldn't trade it for anything though!

 

Now here are some pics of me back when I was 32 weeks pregnant.

Yay...I got a post done! Now Colt gets off at 11 tonight... it's already 8 so not to be negative but I don't really have high hopes of getting a workout in, eating and getting her and myself bathed and ready for bed before then!

   

Introducing Kinley Taylor Smithson

These past few weeks have flown by and in just a couple of days, Kinley will already be a month old!  Time needs to slow down ALREADY.  It seems like she was just born! The days seem to go by so fast, and there's not a lot of free time that's for sure! Besides the normal household chores, I try to get at least one extra thing marked off my to-do list everyday. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't!

Kinley decided to join us about a month earlier than planned. She was born on Friday, June 12, 2015, at 11:57 pm. She barely had a June 12th birthday! Her daddy thought she wasn't going to make it and that she was going to end up being a 13th baby. She was 6 pounds even and 19 1/2 inches long. To say that we are in love would be a major understatement. We have stared in awe at her (I could stare at her all day), laughed at her, and definitely worried about her (especially those first couple of weeks). I know we are a little biased, but we think she's pretty perfect. We loved her before she was born, but it's crazy how much we immediately fell more in love as soon as she was born. It may have been the hormones but the first few days in the hospital, just looking at Kinley and the thought of how much I loved her and her daddy would make me tear up a little.

All the things that I was worried about beforehand and especially the things that were running through my head that Friday morning when my water broke unexpectedly… I'm not ready… I thought I still had a month…We don't have hospital bags packed… We don't have anything washed… We're supposed to have two baby showers this weekend...I was supposed to transition my work projects and clients today...Will I be a good mom?... Will I know what to do?…. Will I be able to breastfeed... and so on… none of it mattered AT ALL! It's amazing how the whole "being a mom" thing just came naturally. Even though there's definitely been lack of sleep and some days have been a little harder than others, overall it's been absolutely great. I've had some of the best moments, and I love being a mom.

Colt has been a great dad and husband the past few weeks as well. On the day we had her, he was exhausted. He was going on probably about 48 hours of no sleep because he was getting off a night shift when my water broke. However, he went above and beyond to make sure everything was taken care of.  In his haze of no sleep, he ran home and packed hospital bags and with a little help from moms started washing stuff and getting the house ready to bring Kinley home while also being at the hospital with us. I think both of our moms have since commented on how much he was doing, and I am definitely grateful.

I love seeing Colt with Kinley. I knew he was going to be a great dad, but it's even better watching it play out. You can tell he loves her so much and would do anything for her. Fortunately, he got a few of his shifts covered while we were in the hospital. Unfortunately, he had to go back to work a couple days after we got home. All of his days off were spent at the hospital so he didn't really get to experience a lot of time at home with her at first. Lucky for us, and for him, he finished up intern year and finished up his last 12 hour shift in the emergency department on June 30th! Now he has a lighter month in July since that's when we were planning on Kinley being born. The first couple weeks of July he has a pretty easy schedule and weekends off. Then the last two weeks he is on vacation. When he is working though, he gives Kinley goodbye kisses on his way to work. When he gets home, he immediately strips off his dirty scrubs, showers and goes to her. It's the best. Seeing him as a dad has made me love him even more now than I did before.

I am going to post about her birth story and about our first few weeks soon... as well as post all the drafts I have of the rest of my pregnancy leading up to her birth. The last post I published was my week 31 pregnancy post so think I have about 20 drafts waiting to post! Until then, here's a couple of pics of Kinley right after she was born!

 

Name Game

Choosing a name is hard! It's so permanent, and there's so much to wonder… what if it's too trendy, what will it sound like once she's older, and so on and so on! It doesn't help that I'm not a decision maker! I think a boy's name would've been easier for us. A girl's name was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.

So that I can quit referring to her as baby girl or the baby… on May 12th, I think it was, we finally decided on a name, and it is... Kinley Taylor Smithson! 

We hadn't really talked about it TOO much, but one day it seemed like Colt got serious about naming her. He said he looked over and saw her doing flips, and it made him realize we were running out of time and needed to decide on a name!

Here's a little background on her name… I had several names wrote down in my planner and we had weeded them down to a few. The ones we leaned towards were mainly C or K names, with the exception of Elle, and that name was just mentioned and we liked it, but it was never really in the running. The ones that were our favorites were Kinley, Colbie/Kolbie/Kolbi or Callie/Kallie/Kalli (obviously we didn't have spellings figured out on those). 

I had mentioned Kinley but he had said no to it. He says now that when I asked him, we were still so early on in pregnancy that he was just ignoring me and not giving me real answers. Gerald and Allison are naming their little girl Hensley so I think that was another reason that he had nixed it. I still liked it but thought it may be trendy with the "ley" so it basically got took off the list. The names we were really deciding between were Colbie or Callie (we'll just go with those spellings for now to simplify). I really liked Colbie, but he wasn't sold. For some reason, I really like girl names that are unisex, and I also liked how it was spelled with the first three letters of his name. He somehow cameup with Callie, and I wasn't sold at first. He evidently hasn't ever really known a Callie but I know several. Somewhere along the way, he came around to the name Colbie, and I flipped and warmed up to Callie. Ultimately we ended up liking them about equally, and then somehow Kinley got brought back into the mix! I had all the variations of our name choices written on a sticky note on our fridge for a while trying to decide which I liked better and which spellings looked better. I even asked Colt which one sounded better with our names and with the boy name that we'll probably use if we ever have a boy! I also said that we could wait and see which name she looked like, but Colt said all our names "looked" the same and we weren't waiting! 

 As for the middle name, Taylor, I had always said that I had wanted to name a girl my maiden name. Years ago, I had liked the names Taylor Paige or Taylor Brianne for some reason. Colt had always said no to the name Taylor for a first name but said that it was ok for a middle name... so the middle name was pretty much decided for a while.  

Of course it seemed like our parents, and Colt's sister, were starting to ask us more and more often what the name was going to be. Nicci had already started calling her Colbie, but it hadn't stuck yet! When we were visiting my parents the first weekend in May, we mentioned our top names to them. My dad liked Kinley for some reason. He said it would be pretty to write (which it definitely is), but he also mentioned the nickname KT. That was my nickname so I'm pretty sure that's another reason he liked our K names over the C names. My mom didn't outright say it but she said enough to make me think that she didn't really like the name Colbie. She said it reminded her of a boy name and specifically a boy that I grew up and played with when I was little.  A week or so later while I was on the phone with my mom, she asked if we had decided yet.  I said no, and in the background my dad said that he thought we had already decided on Kinley! 

Colt and I started getting more serious about making a decision. Since we liked them all, he said we should just name her Kinley since my dad liked it. I told him my dad wasn't naming our daughter! Colt ended up taking Colbie off the list. Among other reasons I'm sure, he said a girl with the name Colbie would have to be really cute and girlie because if she was a tomboy, she would end up getting made fun of… so it was down between Kinley or Callie (and we were leaning towards Kallie over Callie). He saw the name Callie on a nametag at the hospital and said he liked the way it looked, but I don't think either one of us were dead set on it. My only hesitation on Kinley is that I didn't want to start seeing it everywhere or it end up being the name of every girl in her class at school growing up! However, I haven't ever known anyone with the name Kinley.  I know one Kinsley from college. How the name was actually "decided" is I think Colt ended up calling her Kinley in my stomach one night either before we went to bed or when he was heading to work. It just stuck and we went with it! Within the next day or so, he asked me if I was good with it. I said yes, and we officially had a name! I think he was actually on the phone with his mom when he asked me for sure. I'm pretty sure as soon as I gave the ok, she embroidered something because pretty much immediately she posted a onesie or bib on facebook with her name on it! I did ask Colt just the other day if he was still sure about the name Kinley Taylor Smithson?!! He gave me a look like you have to be kidding me!!

As SOON as we decided on a name, I got on Etsy to order her name sign for her room. Unfortunately, the lady that makes the wooden name sign in the style and font that I liked best won't be able to get it completed until the second week of July. The type A in me wanted to go another route because Kinley is likely to be here before we get the sign, and I would prefer her room be COMPLETELY finished before she arrives! However after looking at other options and at possibly doing a stick on decal instead, we ultimately just ended up ordering it anyways.  Now we just have an empty spot on the wall waiting for it to get here!  

Here's what her name will look like on the sign we ordered, and the other picture below is an example of what we're getting. I can't wait for it to get here!

Lucky's 8th Birthday

Lucky's 8th birthday was on May 8th! I still can't believe he's 8 years old. It seems like Colt just gave him to me in a little gift sack not too long ago! 

When Colt gave me Lucky is when I knew he loved me :)

I'm sure he was thinking,"Ok mom, now open up the treats for me!"

I'm really interested to see how he reacts when the baby comes, and I'm hoping he isn't too jealous. 

Week 31

Week 31...I actually wrote down a few things when I got to this point! This week she was about the size of a pineapple, which for some reason was a big realization for me that we were getting closer and closer! At this point, it started to get a little more difficult to flip over in bed or hop out of bed easily to go to the bathroom (three times a night). It also started getting a little harder to do things like bend over to get laundry out of the dryer or shave my legs in the shower. I wrote these things down, but looking back, I think all of these things were still easy at this point! I don't feel like I hit the milestone that I really felt a LOT bigger or things started getting more uncomfortable to do until I hit week 33 or so. Colt did comment one time during Week 31 when he went to HEB with me that it looked like I was waddling though! She was also really, really active at this point. You could see my whole stomach moving and basically see her laying across my stomach and guess which body parts she was sticking out. She started constantly pushing and it creates a big cone that is either her head or her butt one.  Since Colt had an easier month in May, we (really he) got to work on the nursery. He got it pretty much knocked out… more pics of it later! 

My doctor's appointment that week was on the 6th. I had to go in for a mandatory HIV test at the lab prior to my appointment. At my appointment, my blood pressure was 137/77, and I weighed 145 lbs (4 lb. weight gain since my 29 week appointment and at about 25 lbs. total which could've still kept me on track to only gain about 35 lbs. or so). Her heartbeat was about 140. After my appointment, I went back down to the lab to go ahead and knock out my dap shot. They told me my arm would be sore afterwards, and they weren't lying! It was sore for a couple of days!

 

April

April was a bit of a whirlwind. Colt was in MICU that month, one of the two rotations that are supposed to be the longest hours during first year. I, of course, was wrapping up tax season the first couple of weeks. Per our phones and my planner, here's a little recap of our April... 

The pups hanging out outside my work window… I guess Lucky thinks it's cooler laying the middle of the monkey grass than anywhere else.

Our blooming hibiscus which have since quadrupled in size

And our roses that were blooming like crazy in April

One of our squirrel friends hanging upside down eating

They started eating about two corn a day so we had to quit replenishing so often. 

They also started getting more comfortable and coming up on the back porch. 

Baby stuff started arriving. Her bedding came in. Our jogging stroller that Nicci ordered us came in, and a few other gifts came in. For a while there, the room was covered in boxes. 

Some bows came in to start baby girl's bow collection. 

On April 15th, tax deadline day, I had flowers delivered from Dede and David!

Colt was off on the 15th for the first time in 14 days. Luckily, it wasn't a bad deadline day so we got to see each other a little and went to Chipotle for lunch. That day we also realized that it was a little hot in our house and found out that our A/C was out! Since we have a warranty on the house from when we bought it, we had to go through them. We called and it was going to be a couple days before anyone came out to look at it. We debated driving to Forney, but since it wasn't TOO hot outside, we went and got some extra fans. At night, we camped out in the living room for a couple nights. 

I ended up buying Blue Bell since it was back on the shelf at HEB. Of course, THE NIGHT that I finally ate some, a couple of hours later, they announced another recall and starting removing it from the shelves again! I wouldn't have been worried at all but since I'm pregnant, it scared me a little!

On April 22nd, Colt invited the group he was working with in MICU over for margaritas, pizza and Cards Against Humanity. Earlier that month, we had met some of them up at Wing Pizza 'n' Things. I think they had all gotten together but I had passed while Colt went solo. 

April 23rd, we celebrated Wade's birthday with friends at Olive Garden. 

April 25th, we went to Alicia and Robb's to celebrate Alicia's 30th birthday. The theme for the party was 1920's. Since I was pregnant, I wasn't going to buy a special outfit so I improvised with a black dress and headband. Colt had actually thought about wearing his pinstripe suit, which would've been fitting. However, it was so hot that day that he wasn't willing to do it, and he also wasn't willing to wear a long sleeve dress shirt. We went and got some suspenders. He decided to go with red just to be out there since he wasn't "really" 1920's anyways. He got the male stripper comment ALL night long!

The birthday girl 

A couple pics that I stole from Colt's phone from one of their training sessions

I had been really wanting shrimp so on April 29th, we went and ate out at the lake at Deadfish Grill with Matt and Whitney. It sounded good, but after eating, I was disappointed with my shrimp! I had forgot Deadfish is all about the atmosphere! We had a good time though!

April 30th, James hosted the monthly intern dinner at his house. I ended up leaving there and riding with Tina out to Schoepf's for one of their Thursday night concerts. Colt stayed at James'.  Evidently they started making up their own questions, and they are going to use this in one of the second year's roast down the road!

Week 30

Since I didn't have the best doctor's appointment this past week, due to blood pressure issues and swelling/weight gain (which I will post more about later), my plan for the weekend since Colt is working was/is to do absolutely NOTHING but relax and keep my feet up... along with writing some thank you notes and blogging a little. Yesterday all I managed to do was get sucked into watching Lifetime though!
After doing nothing yesterday, my swelling was better. Evidently sitting at my desk everyday last week did contribute to the swelling a little becaue it would get worse everyday as the work day went on. My blood pressure was also better just checking it at home. 

Backing up a little… this was back on April 29th when I was 30 weeks. 

And a couple more from that week