I realize there has been a huge gap in my blogging over the past 4 months. Let me tell you my reason: Jonah Graham Wren. He entered this world on May 20, 2014 and life has swept us into a whirlwind (in a good kind of way) ever since. People tell you being a parent changes you, but hearing it and experiencing it have been two totally different things! It's been an amazing journey so far. Let me fill you in on the highlights of the Wren family since I last blogged.
Jonah's arrival. Our boy was 1 week and two days past due date when he came into the world. I ended up being induced on a Sunday evening and Jonah did not arrive until Tuesday morning at 9:20am. Long story short, I am incapable of birthing a child larger than 5lbs. That was the reason Jonah never "dropped" and why even after all the induction and contractions and fun stuff like that, along with finally being ready to push and doing so for three hours and still no progress...we ended up "airlifting" him out via c-section. It was such a beautiful journey through it all though. As exhausting and tiring and painful moments of the journey were...it's our story. The story of how Jonah and I first met. And the story of how Jon and I became a family. And I will forever cherish it.
I'm not sure how to summarize four months in a blog entry, but I will try. If I had to describe Jonah in words, it would be: content, peaceful, attentive, patient and oh so very sweet. He did not cry a lot as a newborn. He was gracious to Jon and I as we got our feet under us as parents. And although he was and continues to be so patient and sweet, the first several weeks were extremely tough for one major reason: breastfeeding. I thought after having Jonah, I would finally get my body back to myself since pregnancy is like renting out your body to baby for 9 months! I had no idea how many things can go wrong and what type of hurdles can occur in feeding your child. Jonah and I had our fair share of hurdles but I was determined to do as much breastfeeding as I could. That required tons of support, tons of tears and in the end a smiling mom and happy baby. It was a battle I chose to fight through. If you are a formula feeding mom, I totally respect that avenue as well. But for me, I had decided long
before Jonah was born I would do all I could do to give him as much from me as possible. I had no idea what that would look like played out.
Which brings me to another thing learned on this journey of motherhood: let the ideal picture go. Before I even got pregnant I saw myself running half marathons up until the time he was born. And when it came to labor and delivery I was going to have a wonderful natural child birth and recover in record time (thanks to all the running I did while preggo) and get my pre-pregnancy body back by the time I got home from the hospital. And once home I would happily continue breastfeeding my baby while simultaneously folding laundry and keeping a perfect home. Not to mention all the money I would save our family by cloth diapering Jonah. I had this ideal picture in my head. Now let me tell you how it really looked: I was sick as a dog the whole first trimester. It felt like I had the flu for 12 weeks straight. There was no running going on. Or exercise at all. And I ended up having so many medical interventions in my labor and delivery, and it turned out that one of my favorites was the epidural!!!! Contractions cannot be defined. After 12 hours, I got one and the amazing feeling of not
feeling anything was priceless. I told the anesthesiologist he was my new best friend. And when it comes to pre-preggo body that was just nuts of me to think old clothes would fit immediately. And due to breastfeeding issues and having to become an exclusive pumper in order to give Jonah breastmilk, the cloth diapers went out the door as an option. (Like I mentioned previously, each mom picks her battles to fight. You can't fight them all).
But back to Jon and I and what's been going on with us. I failed to mention previously that the same week we had Jonah, we closed on our condo. We finally SOLD it!! So needless to say between having a baby and moving, the past few months have been full. I left for the hospital on a Sunday evening from our condo and came home with a baby on Friday evening to our apartment since we were closing on the condo days later. The amazing thing is that some very sweet families who go to our church wanted to help us move and so approximately 50 people came to help us and moved us from our condo to our apartment in 1 hour!!! There were so many people helping us, some stayed to clean our condo so we wouldn't have to before closing. I was in tears because of the kindness we experienced that evening (and it wasn't the post-baby hormones). I was overwhelmed by true,
genuine love. And the love and kindness continued for weeks to come. People bringing us food and checking in on us to see if we needed anything for those first several weeks. I can't adequately describe in words how much we love the people around us, who love us so well. And while an apartment is not our end game, we rejoiced that God had finally answered our prayers and brought along a buyer for our condo and we were now free to move to a bigger space for our growing family. A house is in our future, but for today we give thanks for where we are. Oh and I failed to mention that the people who moved us didn't just get everything to our apartment and leave it...they arranged everything to look homey and move in ready so that we would feel at home with our baby. I'm telling you, these people are some the best around. Their hearts are beautiful.
So it is now almost 4 months later and I can say we finally feel like we have found our rhythm as a family of three. For now at least. Some advice that I was given while pregnant, which I have found to be priceless, is that I need to let Jon find his own way as a dad to Jonah. I don't need to tell him how to get Jonah to stop crying or how he should spend time with Jonah...I just need to let him be. And I have thought of that advice hundreds of times the past several weeks. And although I didn't always get it right, I tried my best to step aside, and I have seen Jon evolve into an incredibly amazing dad. He has his own relationship with Jonah that is so neat. Jonah hangs out with his dad and interacts with his dad differently than he does me. It's so fun to see that how I soothe Jonah is different than how Jon does. But both ways work. One of the things I have loved most in the past four months is watching Jon fall in love with our little boy. I knew him in my womb, but Jon didn't get to know him until he was on this side. Their relationship is so cool. Sometimes Jonah looks at me like "I'm hanging with dad right now, mom. We need some guy time" :)
Well there's tons more to write but this is at least a start in me hopefully keeping you better updated on our family. I want to post pictures but Google is being weird and I am having technical difficulties (aka I can't figure out how to make it work). So find me on Instagram and follow me there in the meantime if you want picture updates. The whole purpose in me getting an Instagram account was to keep friends/family updated via pictures. My username is: michellewren83
We hope each of you are doing well. Thanks for journeying with us.
Jon, Michelle and Jonah
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