A big "Thank you" to Hane's Fruit of the Loom, and an "I forgive you" to the fruit of my womb

I didn't make a New Year's Resolution but rather a New Year's Motto. I'm flawless. That's it. I am flawless, you are flawless, we are all flawless. As I stand on my soap box and preach confidence and self worth I feel like I'm hiding behind a giant mask, but it's a mask I'm trying to grow in to.

In the beginning of my pregnancy I was so nervous about getting stretch marks. Duh. Who's not? I was just worried about what it would do to my already damaged morale thanks to the post high school 20 pounds I adopted. When the stretch marks started showing up, I panicked. With good reason. I didn't get stretch marks, I got stretch stripes! Then, the Hane's Underwear guys swooped in and saved me. I don't know if you've seen it, but during the holiday season last year they ran a commercial with women of every size waltzing around in their undies with smile's on their faces talk/singing that they were flawless. My favorite lyric, “I can't imagine how your embrace could be any warmer on a 20 inch waist, I'm flawless”. I decided to adopt the phrase and start seeing how beautiful I, and all women, really are. Now, one month post baby, I am pleasantly surprised that my stretch stripes don't bother me at all. I can almost say I like them a little bit. They are my body art. I look like an Animorph in mid morph! Half woman, half tiger. And I don't mind. So remember girls, you are flawless! I really believe that.

I've survived my first month

I can't believe already a month has gone by. I am really enjoying having Oliver in our home. Being a mom is like nothing I've ever done before. Austin is the best help a girl could ask for. There is no way I could do this on my own. I am very tired and worn out but always smiling. Ollie is growing way too fast. Today he graduated out of newborn size clothes. RIP cute tiny things. Thank goodness he is still in a newborn size diaper, that would just be too much to handle.

He is starting to find his voice, slowly but surely. He makes little cooing noises and flaps his arms around. It melts my heart. He still screams like a banshee at nearly every diaper change but he's getting a little more used to that cold wipe on his bare cheeks. But boy can this child wail! His entire body will turn bright red and he will just belt it out. Fortunately, he makes up for it with all of the cute things I catch him doing. He's almost got the smile down and sometimes I'm able to coax it out of him. This morning I was feeling especially sleepy and he started fussing so rather than get up, I just put him in bed with me and crossed my fingers that I could keep sleeping. And I did. At one point I opened my eyes to check on him and he wasn't even asleep, he was just staring right back at me, watching me sleep. What an angel! I needed that extra hour this morning and I am so grateful he let me have it.

At his two week check up, he weighed 9lbs 14 oz which put him in the 78th percentile for weight, his head was in the 68th percentile, which is surprising because I feel like Austin and I both have pretty huge heads, and his height (still 22.5 in) was in the 95^th percentile. He's such a long baby! I love every inch of him.

I'm still learning how to function and live a normal persons life. My house gets messy very quickly and I get agitated when I'm not able to pick up. It's especially frustrating that Ollie loves to blow out his diaper every time I change him into clean clothes. Dirtying everything I put on him after only a few minutes isn't the annoying part ( well, not the MOST annoying part) because I expected that to come with a baby. The annoying part is that I live in an apartment with no washer or dryer. I have a laundromat on the other side of the complex. It's tough to find a few minutes to run all of my stuff over there and it gets so expensive trying to keep up with all of his poopy clothes and all of my shirts covered in baby barf. I tried hand washing things for a few days but I can't keep up with that either. So for now, I'm just throwing things in a pile on the floor and hoping they disappear.

Our Very Merry Christmas

December 25, 2011

What a beautiful Christmas morning! Today Austin and I were blessed with the most amazing gift from our Heavenly Father; a strong, healthy baby boy. Oliver Shark LeBaron born at 10:45 AM—weighing in at a whopping 9lbs 7oz and a tall 22 ½ inches long. He wasn't supposed to come today, but I am sure happy he did.

I went to see Dr. Judd on Tuesday (Dec. 20) and my cervix wasn't doing ANYTHING. I was very disappointed and frustrated because I wanted to meet my baby so badly. Austin and I kind of like to do our own thing, so when the doctor told us that there was only a 5% chance that this baby was coming out this month, we decided to drive to Colorado to see our nephew, Garrett, get blessed and to spend Christmas with our LeBaron family. No one in their right mind would get in a car at 39 weeks and drive 8 hours across Wyoming. That's nuts. But Dr. Judd sounded so confident and almost guaranteed that I wouldn't start labor until the first week in January so we went anyway. I-80 proved to be the only effective method of induction. All of those bumps and curves must have got something going in there.

About 3 or 4 hours into our trip I started feeling very mild contractions. So mild, I didn't really think anything of them and I didn't notice them very much. We got to Loveland in one piece at about 11:30 on Friday night, and besides my sore bum from sitting so long, I felt fine—until I went to bed. Every thing I had read about labor and contractions told me that I would definitely know when the contractions were the real thing because I wouldn't be able to walk and I wouldn't be able to breathe through them blah blah blah. Not true. It felt like bad gas. Every 10 minutes it felt like major gas pains, which have been a common part of this pregnancy anyway. I was up the entire night, it really wasn't very bad, just bad enough to keep me awake. I felt a tiny bit of tightening in my tummy with the gas pains but not enough to convince me it was a contraction. The next day, sisters-in-law, Jen, Emily, and Brittney all reassured me that they were just Braxton Hicks contractions and I would definitely know when it was the real thing. Saturday night came and the pains were getting closer together. Austin wanted me to time them but I thought it was a waste because they were still too mild to be labor contractions. By 1 in the morning on Sunday, they were 3-4 minutes apart and lasted for about 2 minutes each but STILL not convincing enough. It just didn't hurt bad enough! To pass time and try to distract me from the annoying aches and pains of pregnancy, I woke Austin up and asked if we could open our Christmas presents. He's so sweet, he said yes and got out of bed (2am) and came out to help me. Craig (father-in-law) came out to turn off lights and lock up before bed and we told him what we were doing, he woke up Cindy(mother-in-law), who also didn't think I was in real labor, and she suggested we go to the hospital just to see what was going on. She thought they could give me something to take the edge off the pain of these “braxton hicks contractions”.

I was feeling a slight sense of urgency at this point that Austin just did not share with me—surprise surprise. He wandered around looking for keys and shoes, brought me another present to open...basically not hurrying at all. He took his sweet time following all of the traffic laws on the way to the hospital even though the roads were completely empty. We got in to McKee Medical Center in Loveland, Colorado at about 3 o'clock on Christmas morning. I told them we were from out of town and a brief history of my pregnancy. They checked to see if my water had broken...it had. I don't know when or how I missed that. They checked my cervix...I was dilated to an 8. How the heck did that happen without me knowing?

And to speed things up—a quick epidural, a nap, and half hour of pushing later, my baby was here in this world with me! I teared up, Austin teared up. It was a very magical experience. Something I won't ever forget and that will give me warm fuzzies every time I think about it. I am so grateful for this chance to be a mother and to raise one of God's children. I hope to be a strong example to him always and to teach him to love the gospel with all of his heart. He is so pure. My heart has never been more full.