Wesley, you are ONE!

Well Child Check up- 10.12.11

Stats:

Weight- 20 lbs (ok, on the scale it said 19 lbs, 15 3/4 oz! We are calling this 20 lbs since you had socks and a diaper on! :)

Length- 39 inches (I'm rounding up!)

HC- 46 inches

Dr. Pedersen said you were doing wonderful. She gave me little to no grief about putting you on cows milk when I did (shew) and today we did the flu shot and chicken pox vaccine but we are holding off on MMR until 15 months. Maybe longer. I haven't completely decided yet.

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Sweet baby boy. How is it possible that a year has come and gone already?! I don't quite know how to wrap my mind about it.

I reflect on your first year and I think about some really cool things that God allowed me to experience through your birth and life so far.

First of all, God gave me the chance to really know what its like to experience childbirth. I'm one of the crazy people that wanted the full experience. With Wes, I got it :) I got to "go into labor" (instead of being induced) and even though I took a smidgen of nubain :) (narcotic) to help me through transition...I was able to deliver vaginally without an epidural. Again, something I really wanted and something that became somewhat important to me. This whole method of birthing babies became important to me because I'm really big on experience. I kind of get caught up in wanting to really know what things are like. I didn't like with Owen that I couldn't really tell anyone what a contraction felt like, or that I had no idea when I needed to push because the epidural totally took that away from me. I wanted to KNOW. And even now, even though I know how horrible the pain really is...(and it really is horrible! no getting around that!) I'm so glad that I did it. I'm so glad that I know and that I got to experience it in all of its glory. It wasn't about being a better mom than someone who did it differently than me. It was about me being able to really understand what childbirth was all about - minus drugs. And man. I got it. Jesus was really kind to me and let everything move quickly and fall into place. I won't recount the birth story because you can go read it here if you really want to Wes Birth Story, but it was a super cool/super crazy/super hard experience for me....one that I'm SUPER thankful that God allowed me to experience.

Secondly, breastfeeding. I had a terrible time nursing Owen. It just didn't work. I don't know why. I think some of it was inexperience/nerves/mental issues while now a large part of me just thinks that I kind of really had an unwilling baby. As someone who has really read up on the whole lactation process, I hesitate to state this...but nursing two babies now I kind of believe that its true. Owen was a bad/unwilling nurser; Wes was a great/willing nurser. I begged God to let me nurse my second baby. Again, it was something I really wanted. I decided that I would CHILL OUT and not get anxious about nursing a baby this time around and just "do it" :) Somehow that worked. A few other things that I think helped was "nursing early and often". I put Wes to the breast about 10 minutes after delivery and he nursed for about 30 minutes. In the hospital, I paid attention to every cue and whenever it seemed like he wanted to nurse, I put him to the breast. Something worked. Again, God was kind. AND, again...my baby was willing :) Makes a huge difference. I set out to do a year and Wes told me we were done just shy of 11 months. It was a nice ending to our nursing relationship- letting him tell me we were done was much easier than stopping it myself.

I could cry when I think how good God has been to me. Two things I really wanted: 1. To go through childbirth without an epidural and 2. To nurse my baby. He gave both of those things to me. I'm so grateful.

Wesley, you are like your big brother in many ways. A lot of your developmental milestones are similar. You got your two bottom teeth around the same time. You crawled around the same time. You "walked" around the same time (we're still working on this, but Wes tok a few steps on his own yesterday and Owen started taking steps on his own around 11 months). On the other hand, you are very different. Owen has always had a very laid back personality. YOU have fire and passion :) Owen loved everyone. YOU are a huge momma's boy. Owen was (is) a picky/small eater. YOU eat nearly everything and you eat a LOT! No worries about your weight over here!

I have yet to take you in for your 12 month check up (that happens on 10.12), so I don't know your current weight or length yet. I'll come back and add that later.

What I do know is that we love you. You fill our hearts. You make us busier and at times you have us shaking our heads at your "fury" and passion :) But we know that God gave you to us to make our family complete...and you do that in so many ways. We are so happy that God made it so that you and Owen would have each other. I'm so excited to watch you grow up together. I know you will fight and try to kill each other from time to time, but I have this dream...that maybe someday you'll be best friends. You can always be there for each other. You have this unique advantage (in this day and age) of having the same parents, living under the same roof (even if it is Grandma and Grandpa's right now!) and having lots and lots of love and support from so many different people who not only love you...but love Jesus.

I'm more than excited to see who you will become. We love you Wesley J. Happy Birthday big boy. You are ONE!