motherhood

i read this quote the other day about motherhood and wanted to share. 

“I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best that I could bring to it.” - rose kennedy

(quote via this post)

becoming a mother to sam has been such a humbling experience for me. i know i have only been at it for a short three months but i have learned invaluable lessons that have taught me how to love unconditionally and the importance of being selfless. i know that motherhood is of divine nature and is a sacred calling and there is nothing else that i would rather be doing than watching sam grow, teaching him daily, and, more importantly, learning from him. i still have a lot to learn. but knowing that the Lord trusted me enough to place this beautiful, perfect little baby in my care to look after and to raise into an honorable young man is such a blessing (although sometimes a little daunting). 

i love my sam and can't wait to continue to grow together.  

i mean, not to brag or anything.

i understand that i am biased. but i have the cutest baby on the planet. 

sammy boy. two months.

can someone please tell me how to freeze time? 

i can't believe that sam has already hit the two month mark. 

STOP GROWING!

i am packing away his newborn clothes today and am not ok with it. 

however, he is at such a fun stage! he smiles constantly. 

his biggest smiles are when dad comes home (what the heck?)

although he will smile and even throw in a few laughs when i sing to him. 

still not sure if he is laughing at me or with me. 

we love our little man and can't imagine life without him. 

stats at two months

- now 11 lbs 3.5 oz! CHUNK!

-grew three inches since your last appointment. hoping for a tall boy like dad. 

-loves to eat and oddly loves to be burped. 

-can fall asleep in any position. it's kind of adorable. 

-loves car rides. 

-still unsure about tummy time. you usually just bury your head in the ground and grunt until i pick you up. still working on that one. 

-now sleeping through the night! hallelujah! 

-we moved you into your own room this week and you're doing great. 

-had your two month shots. worst day of my life but you handled it like a champ. 

-now in 0-3 month clothes. 

-experienced your first halloween. i dressed you like a pumpkin, naturally, and you will probably forever resent me for it. 

-loves books!

-you rarely cry. you just grunt when you want something, kind of odd, but i'm not complaining. 

-makes the most adorable cooing sounds. 

enjoying the journey + a video

i recently stumbled across this quote.

i often find myself thinking and worrying about the future so much that i forget to enjoy what i have right now. where will ben go to grad school? and when? where will we settle down? when will we sell our home? these are all questions that i worry about on a daily basis. i'll be the first to admit, idaho was the last place i thought i would find myself once i graduated from school and got married. however, it turns out our little life here is perfect for us right now. i have everything i could ever need right now. sam is at such a perfect and cute little age. he is also at a stage in his life where he is looking different each day and growing each day. it terrifies me to think that i could miss out on this fragile stage of his life waiting for "better days" ahead. i'm not entirely sure what the lord has in store for us in the future, but i have faith in his timing and know that right now i have it pretty great. sure, there are a million places that i would be thrilled to live.  and this isn't to say that i'm not still so excited about our future. but what i am realizing is that happiness is not dictated by how close i live to a beach or how many target stores are in a 5 mile radius of my home. so much of our happiness depends on the people we choose to surround ourselves with and the 2 boys i've got by my side are pretty great:)

speaking of happy people, 
we can't get enough of this smiley boy lately. 

one month

how has it already been one month?

sam is already getting so big! i can't believe how fast they start to grow and develop. 

i'm not gonna lie it makes me a little sad to see him grow so fast but i love getting to spend all day everyday with my happy little man. 

sammy boy at one month:

- i still think you have your days and nights mixed up a bit but you are such a great sleeper. you wake up a couple times during the night to eat and then you back to sleep. you went about a week with a really stuffy nose and didn't get much sleep at all. that was awesome for mom and dad. but you are back to normal and sleeping great.

-you absolutely love to be held. you would sleep in our bed with one of us holding you all night if you could. such a little cuddle bug. i love it!

-you had jaundice when we brought you home and you had to go on a bili blanket. we had to take you to the doctors every day to get your blood drawn until your levels were back to normal. not fun for mom but you handled it like a champ. 

- you were a little unsure about the bath situation at first but you love it now. you totally zone out when you're in the tub. it's kind of the cutest thing ever. your favorite is getting your hair washed. 

-you are so strong! you can hold your head up on your own and are so close to rolling over. 

-you nurse great and can go from nursing to a bottle very easily. which is so nice for mom and dad. 

-love love love car rides. 

-when you're hungry you just grunt at us until you get out attention but you don't really cry much. 

-you smile in your sleep all the time and have just barely started to smile at us while you are awake. 

-still wearing newborn clothes but i think in a few weeks you'll be ready for 0-3. 

-you are starting to get even more of that dark hair. i love it. mainly because that's about the only think you got from mom. 

-you also have mom's olive skin. everything else is all dad.

-you love your binky. 

-your hands are ALWAYS by your face. we have to keep little mittens on you 24/7 to keep you from scratching your face. 

-we took you to get newborn pictures at one week and you handled it like a champ. slept through the whole thing. 

-you're starting to find your tongue. we'll stick our tongue out at you and you'll stick out your tongue back at us. 

we love you baby boy and feel so lucky to be your parents. after having you i have decided that i want all boys. 4 more of you and i'm set. you are absolutely perfect to us and we can't wait to continue to watch you grow. 

our baby boy is here!

i have absolutely no clue how people keep up with their blogs once they have kids. 

life has been crazy around here. in the best way possible. 

samuel morgan webb was born on september 10th, 2012

7 lbs 4 oz of chubby cuteness

19.5 inches long

born at 10:52 pm

best day of our lives. 

:)

sam has been an absolute dream! he has quickly become the love of our lives and ben and i often find ourselves just staring at him admiring how perfect he is. i have been meaning to write down his birth story and am just now getting around to it. caring for a newborn has kept me a lot busier than i anticipated. so here it goes...

sunday night (sept. 9th) i was up all night with horrible back pain. this was really nothing new though. i had kidney problems throughout my entire pregnancy causing me to have severe back pain on my left side about three times a day. but this was the worst it had ever felt. ben and my mom were up with me all night. i finally called the on-call doctor at about 6am. he suggested i go to the hospital to get checked out. i'm not sure why, but i decided to stick it out and wait till 8am to talk to my doctor. i called my doctors office at 8 and talked to the nurse. she talked to my doctor and they agreed that i needed to come in to be induced that morning. engage panic mode. i was SO so excited but so scared all at the same time. i couldn't wait to meet our baby boy but giving birth terrified me. this is something that i had never gone through and i had no idea how my body would handle it. but ben was so wonderful and calm. he changed out of his work clothes and finished packing our hospital bag as well as sam's diaper bag and then gave me the sweetest blessing and off we went. 

we got to the hospital at about 10:15am and they started me on pitocin about an hour later and then the waiting began. i had the greatest nurses the entire day. they were so caring and took such great care of us. i think they could tell that i was nervous so they made sure to slowly walk me through each part of the process and distracted me while my IV was put in. my contractions kicked in about an hour after i was started on the pit but i didn't feel them at all. the nurse had to come in and tell me that my contractions were getting more regular. waiting around was kind of rough. first of all, you're not allowed to drink anything even though you're dying of thirst. what the? secondly, those hospital beds are not the most comfortable beds around so it was hard to not just stare at the clock waiting for our little man to get here. my mom went and bought like a million magazines for me to keep me distracted and ben pulled up his chair to me bed and talked to me the whole time to keep me preoccupied. ben's parents arrived at the hospital around 2:30pm and stayed with us the whole day as well. at about 3:30pm i asked for the epidural. i still couldn't really feel the contractions but i knew i wanted it and didn't want to risk waiting until it was too late. 

craig was our anesthesiologist and he was seriously amazing! i love that man. the epidural was what i was most scared of. i think i watched one too many baby shows with horror stories about epidurals. whoopsies. but he was so calm and collected and made sure to walk me through the entire think and keep me distracted. the nurse had me sit on the side of the bed with my legs hanging off and hold on to her shoulders while i rounded my back. i felt a sting when he numbed me and then just felt pressure. ben talked to me the entire time and reminded me to breath. the first spot he tried didn't take so he had to move a little bit further down my spine and try again. not ideal but it wasn't too bad.  i'm not gonna lie, i was pretty proud of myself. i thought i would be a wreck. i hate shots. but i handled it like a champ. after he was finished giving me the epidural, he stuck around for about a half an hour just to make sure everything was working properly. it took about 15 minutes and then i literally couldn't feel my legs. weird feeling. but at least i knew it was working. in the last few months of my pregnancy i really did go back and forth on whether or not to get an epidural. mainly because i was just really nervous about the whole sticking-a-needle-in-my-spine situation. but it really was the best decision and i am so glad i did it. it helped me to be more relaxed and enjoy the whole experience that much more. i guess it's not for everyone but it worked for me. 
up until i got the epidural i had only progressed to about a 2. however, after i got the epidural i started to progress and dilate really quickly. because i progressed so quickly my epidural didn't have chance to completely kick in. i worked in the sense that i was numb but i started to really be able to feel my contractions towards the end. not fun. but looking back, it was kind of neat to be able to experience some of those contractions and feel my body working to bring sam into this world. at 6 pm dr. leavitt came in to break my water. didn't feel it at all. at about 7pm my my belly started to feel a little odd and the nurses noticed that i had hard large lump at the top of my stomach. i could feel sam moving around a lot in there and the nurses brought in dr. leavitt to do an ultrasound because they were worried that he had turned and was now breach. dr. leavitt came in and did the ultrasound and everything turned out to be just fine. sammy boy had just decided to stick his little bum out as far as possible.  after that i kept on steadily progressing and was at a 10 by about 9:15. the nurses had me continue to labor for about an hour after that so i wouldn't have to push as long when it was time to push. 
at about 10pm dr. leavitt came back in and i started to push and sam made his debut at 10:52 pm. he came out and started to cry and it was the best, sweetest noise i have ever heard. i was so relieved that he was here and that he was healthy. they immediately put him on my chest and i got to hold him and look at him. it was so amazing! ben kissed me and then sam and then they took him across the room to weigh him and clean him up. it was hard to not be able to see them clean him up and weight/measure him. i had a lot of tearing so they were stitching me up for a while but ben kept taking pictures and then bring them over to me to show me. after they got him all cleaned up and swaddled they brought him back over to me and i got to hold him again. he was so calm and just stared at ben and i with those beautiful dark blue eyes. he was a cuddler right away and just let us love, kiss and love on him for a while. the nurses had me nurse right away and sam did so great, which was a relief. a couple hours later they moves us all into the recovery room and we got to rest for a while and enjoy our little man for the rest of the night. 

having sam was the most amazing experience of my life and i wouln't trade it for anything in the world. i would do it all over again in a heartbeat. 
we love sam more than anything and feel so blessed to have his sweet little spirit in our lives. 

thoughts on pregnancy

i have been so bad at blogging that i don't even think i have announced that WE'RE HAVING A BOY!

we are so excited for this little man to join our family. 

i haven't even met him yet and i already love him so much. 

i think the most entertaining part thus far has been watching ben throughout this process. 

hearing him talk about his son like he already knows him and talk about all the things he can't wait to teach him makes my heart skip a beat. i love it.

here is a pic of the bump at week 20 (although right now i am 23 weeks)

i get weekly emails from the bump.com about the progress of my little guy

 here are his current stats/facts:

Your baby's growing steadily, having gained about 4 ounces since last week. That puts him at just over a pound. Since he's almost a foot long, he cuts a pretty lean figure at this point, but his body is filling out proportionally and he'll soon start to plump up. His brain is also growing quickly now, and his taste buds are continuing to develop. His lungs are developing "branches" of the respiratory "tree" as well as cells that produce surfactant, a substance that will help his air sacs inflate once he hits the outside world. His skin is still thin and translucent, but that will start to change soon.

he is currently the size of a corn on the cob!

a few of my thoughts:

+ i'm still experiencing morning sickness. i've completely given up on the fact that it will ever end and have accepted that i might just be dealing with this throughout my whole pregnancy. however, once i hit about 11am, i feel pretty good the rest of the day.

+ i, of course, only crave things that i can't have. i want zeni ya, me n eds (this is a HUGE one. no other pizza sounds appetizing), in n out, and broilers. and because all of these are located in fresno, i'm out of luck. so annoying. 

+the only food aversion i have had has been fried rice. weird. 

+ boys names are SO HARD. for some weird reason ben and i were certain we were having a girl and had a girl named picked out. since finding out we're expecting a boy, the only name we have come up with is another girl name. 

girl names: 2 boy names: 0 

it's looking like it's gonna be a game time decision:)

+ maternity clothes look weird and my own clothes don't fit. so that's awesome. 

+ however, feeling those sweet little jabs and kicks make the weight gain, sickness, etc. oh so worth it. i live for those. he mostly moves early morning and when i lay down at night. and just after i eat. it's such an incredible feeling. ben felt him kick for the first time a few weeks ago and it was so sweet.

+ we are so, so excited for this new chapter of our lives and can't wait september!

ps. 

if you have any boy names that you don't plan on using for your own children send them our way:)

oh and here is a 4d pic from our 20 week appointment. 

i just love his little nose.