I'm a lion, Hear me ROAR!

Grandma's Little Pumpkin

On October 24th, when I went to get June up in the morning, I noticed that she had brown stuff around her mouth and on her clothes and blankets. I called Jeff in to see what he thought it was. We decided that it must be dried blood in her spit up. It looked like there was quite a bit of it and that scared us both a little bit. Thankfully, it was a Monday morning and the doctor's office opened at 7:30. I called them as soon as they opened and talked to a nurse. She thought that it was probably just from me last time June nursed. I was wasn't as convinced and considering the amount that I saw, I thought it had to be from somewhere else. The nurse was nice enough to set up an appointment right away in the morning with Dr. Simpson (not our regular doctor, but one we had seen in the hospital). Upon examination, the doctor said there was nothing obviously wrong. There was no abdominal pain and she seemed to be acting normal. We decided that it must have just been a bloody nose or something. She spit up a little bit more blood the rest of the day, but the amount had gone down a lot and eventually it went away. At the appointment, the nurse did weight June and she was 10lbs 2oz. That means she gained 30 oz. in 26 days! Our little girl is getting so big. The weighing and height is my favorite part of doctor appointments. They didn't take her height, but it was fun to know that June was gaining weight like she should.

Boo-tiful Baby

June was a lion for Halloween. She dressed up twice, once for a carnival on October 26th that I went to at my friend Rachel's church and the other for Halloween night trick-or-treating. That night I along with everyone else at the carnival, found out that Rachel was pregnant. Here is how she announced it...

Rachel with her two cute boys, Josh and Ezra

Isn't that an adorable way to share the news?! I didn't see it at first and had to be told, but I am super excited for her. June will have a playmate only eight months younger than her.

June and Mommy at the Halloween Carnival

June obviously didn't eat any candy, but she did score two candy bars for her mom on Halloween night. Even though I didn't feel right actually trick-or-treating with a two month old, it was fun to tag along with friends. We went to this really cool neighborhood in Vestavia Hills. Its on Lexington and they block off the street for the evening. The residents had tables set up at the end of their driveways! It was pretty sweet because a few of the houses actually had food. Jeff and I were a little late so we didn't go down the entire street but we did get as far as the hot dog stand. I passed on the hot dogs, but did take them up on a Capri Sun. I'm super excited to take June next year when she will be old enough to walk and actually have a little bit of fun with it. Jeff carried her in the Baby Bjorn and I'm pretty sure she slept for most of it.

Tired from all the hard work Trick-or-Treating

Oh and on Halloween night Jeff lost his wallet somewhere along the way. Jeff was sad to have lost the wallet he had worked so hard on. I had sewn it and he had spray painted a picture of a storm trooper on it. We searched the car thoroughly since we remembered last having it there, but we had no luck. I had even asked Rachel to check their apartment even though we were pretty sure it wasn't there. Two weeks later, after having searched everywhere we could think to look, we decided to take a drive to look at the fall colors. We stopped by the place we had parked on Halloween just to look around, not really thinking we would find the wallet, but to our surprise it was there on the ground. It definitely wasn't where it would have been had it fallen out of the car, but everything was intact. The wallet was just slightly wet from rain! How crazy to go back two weeks later and find it. We are so happy to not have to worry about replacing everything in Jeff's wallet, especially his drivers license that he needs to fly home at Christmas time.

The long, lost wallet

2.400 miles in 1 week

All the Vahrenkamp kids and grandkids

The fifth week of June's life was her busiest yet. June's nana, Grandma Janet, flew in with Auntie Janae and cousin Jada on October 6th. June and I went to pick them up from the airport since Jeff had a meeting that afternoon. We were glad to do it. Unfortunately, June hates when the car stops so she was crying when they got in the car.

Aunt Janae and Cousin Jada

Aunt Jessie and June

Aunt Jessie flew in a couple hours later. That night was a fun one of getting caught up and playing with June and Jada. The next morning Jeff went into work for awhile while all the girls did some last minute errands and prepared for our weekend trip to Newnan, GA for Jeff's cousin Rachel's wedding. We ended up leaving a little later than we had planned on due to June taking so long to nurse. We finally got on the road that afternoon and headed toward Georgia. About 5 minutes into the trip, we discovered the rental van didn't want to go over 60 mph. Finally, we made it to Newnan that evening in time for the end of the rehearsal dinner. It was fun to see all the family that we hadn't seen in awhile. June got to meet the Keim's, cousin Rachel's family (on Jeff's dad's side), and some of the Vahrenkamp's.

We stayed in a hotel that night and poor Jada was coughing all night and none of us slept well. The next afternoon was the wedding. It was at Dunaway Gardens outside of Newnan so we headed there a little early to explore the gardens. There were a few ornamental ponds near where the ceremony was to be held and we were hanging around there, chatting, and taking some pictures. Jada got a little too curious in her investigation of the ponds and fell in face first. We took her up to the cottage they had available for the wedding party and dried her dress. Thankfully we were still able to make it to the ceremony on time. The whole ceremony was beautiful, complete with a freeing of doves.

The wonderful couple

After the ceremony, they had a wonderful buffet dinner and a dance. Lucky for me, having a baby to take care of got me out of having to dance at all. Anyone who knows me knows that I cannot dance. Jeff was more than willing to help me take care of the baby if it got him away from the dancing too.

Jada showing off her mad dance skills with cousin Bella

We made it an early night and headed back to the hotel. The next morning, we got together with the whole family at Rachel and her new husband Matt's house. They have a beautiful home that he renovated himself, complete with a stocked fishing pond, putting and driving green, and waterfall. That afternoon we headed back toward Birmingham. We ended getting back around eight and had just enough time to get our stuff packed for the next day's trip to New York.

Jeff's grandmother passed away on October 2nd and we were headed to Kingston for her memorial service. June did amazing on the flights. On the first one, she let out a short, quiet cry just as we landed and on the second flight, she slept the entire time. Once we landed at Newark, we had to pick up our rental van and drive another two hours to Kingston. June did awesome until about a half an hour out. She decided that she was very hungry. I did my best to keep her happy until we got to Aunt Carol and Uncle Ron's house. Here, June got to meet her Nana's family.

Meeting Uncle Jim

Jeff's Aunt Carol

Everyone was happy to meet June and have Jada as their evening entertainment. We had a lovely dinner and lots of good conversation. Later that night we headed to Uncle Bill and Aunt Jane's house. That night, June had a tough time breathing through a stuffed up nose. Even though I was very sad for my poor congested baby, I guess it is good for Jada to share her germs and help June build up some immunity.

Jeff's Uncle Otis

The next day, Tuesday October 11th, was the memorial service. That morning Bill and Jane had a brunch at their house and June got to meet Nana's cousins. After the brunch, we headed toward the church. The memorial service was lovely. I loved hearing about Jeff's grandma. I had only met her twice and didn't know her very well. Unfortunately June was a little fussy so I was only able to be there for part of it. Bill and Jane hosted a reception after the service at their home and lots of friends and family came to socialize. It was a long and tiring day, but so much fun. That night, we set up a humidifier and that helped a lot with June's congestion. Aunt Jessie and Uncle Jim had also gotten us an aspirator and that helped to clean out her nose as well. Wednesday we were to fly out of Newark that evening so we had a restful day before heading out. Once again on the flight home, June was amazing. I am so thankful to have such a great daughter. She just went with the flow and loved jumping from person to person with whomever wanted to hold her. By five weeks old, June had traveled 2,400 miles, been to a wedding and a memorial service, and visited New York (which it was my first time visiting there too). We arrived in Birmingham late that night and slept in the next morning as much as you can with two young children. Jada decided to make the morning interesting by taking a bottle of Jeff's wax bike lubricant and applying it liberally to herself and the house. After we made sure she hadn't tried to lubricate her throat, Jeff went into work late. I took Nana, Janae, and Jada to the airport that afternoon. We were sad to see them go, but it was a blast to have them for the short time we did. I'm very sad to say that we lost our camera somewhere between the rental car and the flight home so we don't have many pictures from the Vahrenkamp's visit. Here are a few that I borrowed from Aunt Jean on facebook.

Nana, Mommy, and June

Nana, Daddy, and June

Nana with her siblings (left to right) Jeannie, Carol, Bill
The last picture of our long lost camera
Jeff's Aunt Jane and Cousin Jada
Aunt Carol and Uncle Bill with June
Uncle Ronnie with June

Cousin Casey with June

28 Days Later

Our Happy Family

So once again, I realize I am very behind, but I'm going to go back and share the highlights from June's first few weeks. The first week was very tough on both Jeff and I. With me recovering from a C-section, Jeff was left to do everything but nurse June. He got to do all the wonderful diaper changing and consoling in the middle of the night. I was barely able to get out of bed the first couple days while we were in the hospital. The first night they had me on a morphine pump for about nine hours. At four the next morning, they cut me off the morphine and gave me Motrin and Percocet. By six, I'd had two hours of awful nausea from the Percocet and so I told them I wouldn't take anymore.

Me feeling nauseous

It was a horrible feeling to be sitting there awake, but unable to open my eyes and help care for my baby. Losing the Percocet meant more pain, but that was much more manageable to me that being nauseous. After that first night, things got much better. I slowly started walking a little each day and moving around. I still had to have Jeff hand me June though. I didn't trust myself to carry her while walking quite yet. We went home on Sunday September 11th only three short days after delivery. They removed my staples before we left the hospital which seemed very soon and kinda grossed me out. Making the trek up the stairs to our apartment was a little tough, but I made it. Thankfully the neighbor girls flocked towards the baby and helped us carry our stuff up the stairs in exchange for some baby holding time.

Someone was a little curious when we got home.

The first few nights home, I slept on the futon since I was unable to get in and out of my own bed. This was nice because having Jeff in a separate room, he was able to sleep and not be awoken constantly by June's grunts. I was able to only wake him when I needed help and it was great to have one of us get a little bit better sleep.

June meets Grandma Juli

On September 17th, my mom, Grandma Juli, flew in from South Dakota. She was so excited to meet her first grandchild. Thankfully grandma offered to keep June at night so that I could get rested as well. She only woke me for feedings and was a huge help in getting June on somewhat of a schedule. It was also nice, because Jeff was able to return to work after only taking seven days off. I was very thankful to have someone to help me out during the day those first few weeks. My mom was so helpful with advice and helping me to know whats normal and what I should be worried about. On September 21st, 13 days after June was born, my mother and I took June into the lactation center at Brookwood to be weighed. June was 7lbs 12oz. They like for babies to be back to birth weight by two weeks so this was good news to us. The lactation consultant also gave us a few tips to make nursing a little easier and less painful. Over the next week, my mom and I kept busy with sewing projects. We made two quilt tops and two cute tote

bags. We also kept busy making June headbands.

We also tried our hand at taking newborn pictures.

Beautiful Baby

Cute little hands

Tiny Feet

Thankfully by about three weeks I was feeling much better. I was slowly gaining motivation to get off the couch and my body wasn't hating movement so much. June also had her three week appointment while Grandma Juli was here. June's stats at 20days old are as follows...

8lbs 4oz.
21.5 inches long
14 inches for her head circumference

The doc said she was thriving and that we could let her sleep as long as she wanted to at night. No more setting an alarm for every three hours! Sadly, Grandma Juli had to return to South Dakota on October 2nd. We were very thankful for the two weeks June got to spend with her grandma.

June meets mommy and daddy

Wow, so its been over a year since I last posted. Who knew that having a full time job could be so demanding? I had been working full time for a biotechnology company working mostly in their quality control lab until recently. On Sept. 8th, 2011, Jeffery and I welcomed into the world our first daughter, June Melody Vahrenkamp. Since she now consumes our lives, my blog will be mostly focusing on her. Its now been eight weeks since she was born and I have been meaning to do this for awhile now, but I'd like to share my birth story with you. I'd like for her to someday be able to know what I was thinking and how I was feeling and every detail of the day she was born. So here it goes...So a little back story to start out, just so you know whats going on. In June, while I was home visiting my family, Jeff informed me that my car had been stolen from our apartment parking lot. It has been very stressful and frustrating trying to figure everything out with insurance and the police. Well on the morning of Sept. 8th Jeffery and I had an appointment with the District Attorney's Office to submit our paperwork for restitution from the guy that was caught with our car. After the meeting we decided that it would be a good time to skip work and get some things done such as grocery shopping which hadn't been done in awhile. Well we have a Piggly Wiggly two blocks from our house and so we like to walk there for the extra exercise and to keep us from overbuying. Just before we left I felt like maybe I had peed my pants or something. It hadn't happened before, but hey, I was 39 weeks pregnant and there is a first time for everything. I didn't really think anything of it and we continued our journey to the store around 1:00pm. We made it most of the way back before the same thing happened again and I became suspicious. By 4:00pm I was convinced that my water had broke and called the doctor's office to see what they wanted me to do. They asked me to come in and have the doctor on call, Dr. McKenzie, check to see how things were going. At this point, Jeffery and I were under the assumption that we would just be told to go home and wait it out until contractions start (I hadn't had any). We texted our friends to let them know that we may be late getting to small group and that they may have to do without the salad we had made. With Birmingham rush hour traffic we ended up getting to the doctor's office at about 5:00 and saw Dr. McKenzie at about 5:15. He took one look and knew my water had broken. He also checked to see if I had dilated at all. I was still barely at 1cm (same as at my appointment the day before). He looked a little confused, but proceeded to tell us that we wouldn't be leaving the hospital that night. He told us that we would see if I started labor on my own and if not, they would start pitocin in the morning to induce labor. Both Jeffery and I were quite upset about this and were ready to object. I had been planning on a natural labor since before I was pregnant and using pitocin would make that much harder. Pitocin makes the contractions much stronger and it can be more painful. Well, by the time we processed what might be happening, Dr. McKenzie decided to take a look with the ultrasound. The ultrasound confirmed what he had feared. Baby was breech. When babies are born, doctors want them to come out head first which means their head must be down. Breech means that the baby is head up and it can be very dangerous to deliver a baby feet first. My baby had been head down at my weekly appointment the morning before. The little stinker had flipped upside down in the past 24hours. There was only one solution considering my water had already broken. This really upset me because obviously there wouldn't be a natural birth with a c-section. I looked at Jeff hoping for him to tell Dr. McKenzie that he was wrong and that we wanted a natural birth with no surgery. Sadly, he did not come to my rescue. I shed a few tears when Dr. McKenzie asked to pray with us before the surgery. At 5:30, I was admitted to the hospital.

By 6:30, the paperwork was signed, my IV was in place, and I was ready for the surgery. They wheeled me into the operating room and gave me an epidural. I actually thought that getting the IV was worse than the epidural which was surprising to me. The epidural took effect almost immediately and I couldn't feel anything from the top of my belly down.

At 6:43, Jeff took a picture of himself in the recovery room before coming to meet me in the operating room and at 6:49 our beautiful daughter was born. Jeff announced that it was a girl (we had kept the gender a surprise) and that her name was June Melody Vahrenkamp.

This was the second time I cried that day. It was such an amazing feeling to finally meet that little bundle of joy I had been feeling for the past several months. It is such an indescribable feeling. I felt like it was more of a shock considering it all happened so fast and I never had that labor time for it to sink in that I was going to have a baby, but after talking to friends, I have found that it is just as shocking when you have a long labor to process everything. Its just crazy that at 5:30 I was told I would have a baby that night and by 6:49 I was meeting her. Everything happened so fast, but it was all very worth it. We love our little June Bug!

Last picture of Jeff and I before our daughter was born.

First picture of us as a family of three...four if you count the cat.