Three Months Old

Lila turned three months old this week. She weighed a tiny 10 lbs 9 oz, and 22.5 inches long finally gaining an ounce this last week which is the only weight she had gained in a month. She has had a really rough few months with three ear infections (and I'm pretty sure today makes four), severe reflux, lots of food allergies to things in my breast milk, a hernia, two rounds of thrush, and a final diagnosis of delayed gastric emptying. She started on a new medicine to push food through her stomach quicker and she has seemed to eat much more this week so we are hopeful that she will start to put on some weight. With all of her problems it would seem impossible for Lila to have hit any milestones but she is one of those tiny little wiry babies who hits their gross motor milestones early. She rolled from back to front for the first time at six weeks. We thought it must be a fluke until she did it again a couple of times the next few days. She then rolled front to back at eight weeks. She is occasionally cooing with vowel sounds and makes the g sound a lot. She is surprisingly smiley in between her bouts of screaming and even though it is short lived I think she is going to be a really happy little baby when we get this all figured out at some point. She has started to bat at toys but hates to be laid down for more than 3-5 minutes. She is a rock star on her belly and can push up on her arms and hold her head ninety degrees. She is in love with the living room ceiling fan and it receives more smiles than any of us. She gazes at it lovingly. For fun one day Kurt came over when she was staring transfixed and span the blades suddenly. She jumped and looked shocked and scared. It didn't ruin their relationship though, she still stares happily at it. Bath time is Lila's favorite and sometimes I give her a bath just to calm her down. She goes from screaming to silent and kicking around like crazy in the water to screaming when I take her out. She must be reminiscing about all that extra fluid she was hanging out in a few months ago. Here are some pictures from the past two months.

This is the only place Lila occasionally hangs out that isn't Mom or Dad's arms.

Relaxing in the tub at exactly three months old.

Rocking out tummy time.

Staring at her best friend the fan.

Introducing (3 months later) Lila Jane Baker

Lila Jane Baker born on 12/21/11 at 12:33 am weighing a generous eight lbs. eight oz and 21.5 inches long.

The pictures below were from her first photo shoot with Nana when she was about eight days old.

Looking at these pictures now I can't believe how chubby those little cheeks were, she so quickly thinned out after that.

Meeting the siblings...

Little Lila was finally born the 21st of December. I tried my hardest to get her out by the 20th so she could have as much distance as possible from Christmas, but the 21st it was. The labor wasn't that bad when compared with the others, however if you take into consideration that I had been contracting about every nine minutes around the clock since the Friday before (she was born on a Tues) it was kind of a long ordeal. To fully understand how happy I was to finally not be pregnant you would need the perspective of this picture...

This was taken the Saturday before she was born. The day when out on a date with Kurt, a person actually slowed their car, rolled down their window and asked me if I was having twins. At that point it is time to be done. Here's the run down... By Monday I went to my doctor begging for mercy due to the constant contractions and the pulled muscle in my belly, I mean really even muscles have their limits. He checked me and said I was a 2 and agreed to an ultrasound in the morning to check her size. I also talked him into stripping my membranes. By the next morning I was having even less contractions but thought my water might have broken. Turned out it hadn't but I was a four. Progress. The ultrasound estimated 8.8 and that I had way too much fluid. He told me to go the hospital around one and give them the story and he would check me. I arrived and was still a four, fearful of being released I reminded him that I was Group B strep positive and would need antibiotics. That was the key and I got admitted. After walking around some more I got going and he came in to break my water. This turned out to be a flood and ruined more than one nurses pair of shoes. Eight hours later, an epidural that only partially worked, and two and a half hours of pushing later and out she came. It was love at first sight helped also by the euphoria of no longer being pregnant. She was a super cute baby who looked like she was already a couple of weeks old from the time she was born. She was quite the screamer and pretty much screamed the whole first thirty six hours which it turns out was a little prep course for what was to come. We got to come home on the 22nd and had a wonderful Christmas with Nana and our sweet new present. I'll follow up with more on little Lila's (aka screamy Joe) next two months in another post to come. We are so happy to have our sweet little Lila complete our family.