Monday, March 30, 2009

Fussy Pants......

I am officially a working mom! Well, part-time....but it's still work! It feels so good to be back behind the counter, making bev's and being with my friends. It almost feels like I never left! Kenzie did great staying with her Papa on Friday. I did good too! I missed her terribly but I knew I was gonna see her soon, and it was a little nice having a bit of a break from the normal routine.

Lately Kenzie has been very interested in her feet. She always has her legs upright when she is lying on her back and she grabs her foot and sticks it in her mouth. It's pretty funny. I love when she smiles at me when I talk to her, she'll grin so big and sometimes let out her little squeal.
She is also very interested in faces. She likes to touch your face if you get it close enough. She checks it out and grabs your nose or just wildly waves her arms around smacking you, if you let her of course! Kenzie even likes her own face, you can tell by all the scratches and gouges she has....and I even cut her nails 2-3 times a week! She's crazy! Also, if you get close enough to her face, she thinks you're gonna kiss her, so she opens her mouth real wide and wants a kiss! It's so cute and slobbery!
Today has been quite a day. Kenzie has decided to be extremely fussy and I can't quite figure out why! I know she needs to take longer naps, but she fights it like crazy. I am thinking it's her mouth that's bothering her because any chance she gets she shoves one of my finger in her mouth and is chewing on anything she can get really....burp cloths, blankets, toys, her fingers and toes....I try the teethers in the fridge and she just make a disgusted look and gets mad. So those are out of the question! I am hoping tomorrow goes a little smoother!

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Back to Work!

Tomorrow will be my first day back to work in about 4 months. My last day was November 16th....wow. I am actually kind of nervous! I feel like I won't know what I'm doing. Oh I guess it will be okay, it's just coffee, right? Haha, to some people it's much more. There's always a handful of people who get all bent out of shape if one little thing is wrong, oh dear. People will probably be hatin' me tomorrow morning...Friday morning rush.

I am so lucky to have my dad take her Friday mornings so I can work. She will get to spend some quality time with her Papa. I also work Saturday morning and she will get to stay home with her daddy....or he will take her over to my parents to spend the day with my mom! Haha, we'll see what he does! Probably when she needs a diaper change is when he'll take her. Russ doesn't do diapers! Don't get me wrong, he's a great dad, he just gets nervous with the girl parts and how to clean it......oh men.

I am excited! I have all my stuff ready to be up at 5am so I can get ready and take Kenzie to my mom and dads around 6 and leave there around 615 to be to work at 630! Yay!

Kenzie is 4 Months old!

I don't even know what to think! My baby girl is 4 months old!

She is so full of life and her personality is definitely coming out more and more each day. She has a temper and she is not afraid to scream until she gets what she wants, like a bottle or if she wants you to stand while you are holding her. She recently learned how to scream and she knows it gets our attention quick, so that is her every day means of communication.

To back up a bit, when Kenzie was 4 weeks old, she was admitted to the hospital for turning blue and not breathing.....and it was from pertussis, otherwise known as "whooping cough." So the bacteria is gone, no longer contagious, but the cough is still here....yeah, 12 weeks. She doesn't stop breathing anymore, it's just like a bad dry cough still. She gets herself all worked up and pissed off and then proceeds to choke on that cough and makes herself even more mad....it's a vicious cycle, that's why I am so quick to get her what she wants.

It was so horrible seeing her in the hospital....all hooked up to monitors and she even had an IV because she wasn't hydrated due to not feeling good and not eating. She spent 3 nights there, along with bot me and Russ. This all happened New Years day....a New Years I will never forget.

Back to happier times. She has been doing great since then. She's gaining weight and sleeping through the night. She decides to go to bed around 930 or 10 and wakes up around 6 or so for a bottle, then immediately goes back to sleep until 830 or 9....it's pretty sweet. She just recently found her toes and she likes to grab anything and everything, including my glasses and my hair. She'll grab a chunk of my hair and pull me close to her and open her mouth for a kiss. Haha, so cute! She laughs/giggles on occasion still. I try everything to hear that chuckle and she'll just give me her biggest open-mouthed smile and no sound! Those moments I do hear it though brings me to laughing tears....oh man. I can't wait for her 4 month check up to see how much she's grown in 2 months, her weight and length.

For now her eyes are really blue some days, and a greyish blue others. Her hair is a strawberry blond, and in some lights it's red! Her eyelashes are incredibly long, matching her long arms, legs, toes and fingers. I guess that's expected when her mom is 5'9" and her dad is 6'2".
This is Kenzie 4 months old!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

How My Family Came to Be.......

So I decided to do a blog.
I am always wanting to write and share with anyone who is interested about my thoughts. Since my life is already in play mode, I will start from the beginning...I like to reminisce about the last year....it's changed so much!

I'd say about a year to date is when I first found out I was pregnant. I was freaked out beyond belief. I took a pregnancy test on a Friday, it was positive, so I took another one....positive again. Russ and I were leaving that afternoon to visit his parents in Bullhead, AZ. I didn't say a word to him, we went down and enjoyed our time away from Vegas. The next day on the way home, I decided it was best for me to tell him the news. I started to cry and told him not to be mad at me....and said I was pregnant. He was calm, he reached over and put his hand on my thigh and said everything will be okay. We had just moved in with my parents to save up some money the beginning of March 08, so I was panicked. Russ decided the best thing for US to do was to get married. We've known since the first few months of dating that we were going to be together forever. So here I am, pregnant and not married. I was completely embarrassed of our situation and I didn't want anyone to know. Finally, word of mouth got around that Russ and I were engaged and my parents confronted me and I confessed to being "knocked up" as I was. They were a bit shocked, but my mom gave me a hug and said, "this is a GOOD thing!"
This is definitely not how I wanted my first pregnancy to go. I wanted to be ecstatic and shout it on the rooftops....but instead I slowly let people know and it became easier. A baby is a miracle, and we were meant to have our miracle now, and not 5 years from now. Russ and I planned to get married June 20th down at the courthouse, and we did just that! Both our parents were there and my sister came as well. It was perfect. We were married and starting a family within a few months, and I couldn't have been happier. The months went on and we were both working like crazy to save our money while staying with my parents. Russ as a Sheet Metal Apprentice drawing Auto Cad, and me as a Shift Supervisor at Starbucks.
Let me tell ya, Starbucks is not the ideal job when pregnant....being on your feet for 6 to 8 hours a day about 30-35 hours a week. I did it though, just knowing we needed the money kept me going. In August we moved into out own apartment and really started getting ready for our baby girl to join us.
I eventually stepped down from my shift position at Starbucks to just a Barista and transferred to a store that was a tad slower....my other store was crazy busy and it was too much for me at 7 months pregnant. Weeks went by and I was getting more and more miserable. I had not one ounce of morning sickness so at the beginning I was stoked. But then eventually the heartburn set in, and then the painful joints. My tailbone was killing me, I waddled so bad because I was in dire pain when walking. So 2 weeks before my due date I decided would be best for me to leave Starbucks for a while. I was 9 months pregnant, and ready for her to get out! But 2 weeks went by, my due date (which was the day before Thanksgiving) came and went. Her 40 weeks in my belly was up, but she didn't really care. I cried every day. So I was scheduled for my BPP one day before I was 41 weeks. I sat through the hour or so of fetal monitoring....she kept moving so it took forever for them to get a good read. Then I went for the ultrasound. My Dr. comfirmed she in fact was a girl, and that she was "sunny side up, making me at higher risk for a C-Section." I stayed optimistic, thinking she would turn by the time my induction was scheduled. But to my surprise, my induction was that very night, December 2nd.

I got to the hospital at 5pm. I got all hooked up tp everything and they inserted the cervadil around 630pm. I started to feel contraction (really really really bad ones) around 11pm. My nurse decided to call the doctor and ask to remove the cervadil because it worked pretty well in thinning me out and dialating me to 4cm. She then ordered my epidural, but the anesthesiologist was in a c-section for twins....but I suffered through the pain with some stadol for about an hour and my relief came. I was then able to sleep.....or so I though. My nurse came in it seemed like every 15 mins making me turn and re-adjusting the monitors. Then I was put on oxygen around 150am and she told me she was calling my doctor cuz her heart rate was dropping and not coming back up, so she was almost positive I would be going in for a c-section very soon. By 230ish I was being taken in the OR to have my baby girl cut out. At 253am on Wednesday December 3rd, Kenzie Rae Knoch was here! Weighing 6lbs 5oz and 19 in. (at 41 weeks all the nurses were shocked and couldn't believe how tiny she was for being over due.)

So we later found out the reason our little girl was so little. Her umbilical cord was really short AND really skinny. My doctor said she thinks the reason she was so small is because her umbilical cord was unable to give her the nutrient she needed causing her to lose weight in the last few weeks. And for it being short, she would have been unable to come out vaginally because it most likely wouldn't have reached.....so it was a blessing she came out the way she did! I was just beside myself on how much of a miracle she was. My little miracle.