Baby's first Christmas

William's first Christmas has come and gone.  Just like that!  To be honest, it didn't really feel like Christmas this year.  The combination of it being 85 and sunny, not buying any Christmas gifts (what new mom has time for that?!?!) and being away from family and friends left us with a pretty low key celebration.  It's okay though, William slept through most of it anyway :)

However, we couldn't let the season pass us by without decorating a few cookies and having a little fun.

 We invited Pawn and her daughter, Maai, over to help us with our cookies

 They were much better decorators this year! :)

 We even decided to venture out and attend a Christmas party.  It was right in the middle of William's "fussy" time (5-7pm), so we thought we'd try out the baby carrier.  I just think this picture is hilarious :)

 Hannah's been at college, but is home for Christmas so she got to meet lil William :)  He loved being held by her!

 And sure enough, William got fussy so he got put in the carrier with Daddy.  Worked like a charm.  He was out!

 But then he got asked to play his first leading role as baby Jesus in the kids' Christmas play!  (I know, I'm a horrible mother and woke my peaceful sleeping baby just so I could snap a couple of cute pics of him as baby Jesus.  I immediately regretted the decision as William woke up in tears and therefore put an end to our night out. Ha!)

 The only time William is calm and not squirming around is right after a good meal :)

 Or when he's hanging out on daddy's chest :)

Or sleeping next to him! :)

Christmas day :)  

(And yes, I now realize that William is giving me the finger in this pic.  Merry Christmas to you, too!)

And just for the record, Steven bought him that hat and sewed it to fit William! haha!

I love it when he's cross-eyed!

Love my boys so much!

Attempting to take a Christmas family pic.  William wasn't havin it.

Hmm... better luck next year?

Hannah making it her mission to try to get William to fall asleep.  She eventually succeeded.  For 5 minutes.

Bekah and William!

I LOOOOOVE that face.  Don't you?

In other post-holiday news, we went in for William's 5 week check-up at our wonderful pediatric clinic here in Thailand (insert deep sarcasm).  After waiting in a room filled with screaming sick kids, they eventually call you and tell you to go through either door #1, #2 or #3.  (It feels like a game show.)

What's behind door #2??  This beautiful room fake geckos and bugs taped on the wall!!  (WHAT? WHY?)  Can you spot the fake gecko??

Anyway, as of today (6 weeks!) William weighs 9 pounds 6 oz!  3 pounds, 4 oz heavier than his birth weight!  Look at our chubby growing boy!

Look!  Sleeping on my belly!

 This is how we weigh William :)  On a kitchen scale using a baking sheet :)

And I'll leave you with some fun bath time pictures :)  William has been known to poop and pee as soon as he gets in his bath...which is pretty inconvenient.  So, of course, Steven comes up with a practical solution.  Put William in a bucket first... wait til he poops... and then transfer him into his bigger bath.  Pretty genius, actually.  Plus, I think he kinda likes it :)

 Seriously Mom and Dad?

 "Hmm... I think I kinda like this thing."

"Ya, my own personal hot tub!"

Catching up

I'll cut right to the chase.

How come no one ever told me how hard this newborn phase would be???  Maybe no one wanted to be the Debbie Downer, but jeez... Steven and I have had a big wake up call in the "we're now parents" department.  Even though we thought we had it all figured out (who were we kidding?!?!), we naively thought it would be an easy transition into newborn land filled with only cuddles, smiles and happy times.

And while we love our new life, it hasn't come easy.

Breast feeding hurts.  (Why do all the breast feeding books have a well-rested, pretty woman smiling with a perfect baby lying in her lap?  False advertising! I gritted my teeth and curled my toes in pain every time William ate for the first 2 weeks.)

I've been an emotional wreck.  (I cried almost every day in the beginning.  And when Steven would ask me what was wrong, sometimes I didn't even know!  I'm tired?  I'm in love with our baby?  I don't know what I'm doing?  Take your pick.)

My confidence has been shot.  (I've never doubted myself more than I have since becoming a mother.  I've spent countless hours skimming through as many baby books as I can get my hands on hoping they could tell me how to be a good mommy.  Turns out every one has a different opinion on everything, which just stressed me out more.  Insert more crying here.)

A night's sleep has turned into many cat naps throughout the day.  (It's a good thing I can sleep anywhere at anytime!)

My type A personality is hating the chaos, like big time.  (Who knew that babies were so unpredictable and that I wouldn't be able to control everything?!?  Ha!  The more I want or try to manipulate William to follow my schedule, the more it doesn't work.  Obviously.)

If I change out of my pajamas, shower and eat breakfast/lunch/dinner, it's been a successful day.  (Productivity?  What's that?)

Sigh :)

Now with the ugly truth out of the way, I will say that it has gotten easier.  Phew!  With William being 5 weeks tomorrow, I look back with pride at all the progress we've made in such a short time.  We're getting to know our little guy much better and he's starting to adjust to this big world too.  All in all, we're taking it one day at a time while trying to laugh at ourselves through the ups and downs.  What a crazy hard, but oh so good adventure we're on!

In attempt to catch up on the past 5 weeks... here's some of our favorite photos of our William T.  Enjoy!

 Ok, so not the most flattering pic of William (can you say frog??), but I wanted to make sure and document just how little and skinny he started out!  By the way this kid eats, he'll be chunky in no time!

 "Ama's" first time seeing and holding William!!!  A blessing that came out of William's pre-delivery complications is that my mom decided to fly out and help us.  SOOOOO thankful she was here with us for two weeks!  I seriously don't know what we would've done without her!

 4 days old and ready to eat some thanksgiving goodness! :)

 I woke up to this one morning... melts my heart.

Woke up to this the next morning. ha!  (And NO, Steven's not breast feeding!)

William used to have a hard time going back to sleep after his early morning feeding, so my mom or Steven used to take him so I could get some rest.  When I would wake up, I usually found one of them asleep with William.  So cute.

See?  :)

 1 week old!

 Power to the people!

 Snug as a bug :)

Such long limbs... just like his daddy!

 

 What happens when you're born overseas?  You have to take passport pictures at 2 weeks old!

 

William loves his swing!  One night William wouldn't stop crying, so out of desperation we decided to take him downstairs and put him in his swing.  As soon as he started rocking, he was silent and went right to sleep.  So as any new, sleep-deprived parent would do, we set up camp on the couch. And as we drifted off to sleep Steven murmured, "God bless the swing."  :)

 

All strapped in and ready to go for his first stroller ride!

Happy dreaming in never never land!

 

Lookin all cute by the Christmas tree

 Well, it was Stevens birthday a couple of days ago and since I didn't have time to go out and get him something, I asked Pawn to come over to babysit William so we could go to dinner!  I love that his first babysitter was Pawn.  She loves him so much and takes such good care of him!

 

 We even took our moped.  Something we haven't done since I entered my 3rd trimester!

 Enjoying our couple of hours of freedom! (Even though I was checking my phone every 10 minutes!)

 Daddy has started giving William a bottle for his late night feeding.  And boy, he sucks it down fast... which usually results in a projectile vomit all over daddy.  It's a good bonding time for them :)
We love this picture.  It's like he's chanting, "MORE! MORE! MOOOORE!"
 

 Havin a drink while watching the ILLINI with daddy.  Does it get any better??

 Just enjoying some tummy time :)

And so it begins!

Well, William is already 4 1/2 weeks old and I'm just now getting around to blogging about him!  Where did the month go???  Looking back it just seems like one long day.  One VERY long day. 
But alas, here we are.  A little delirious from sleep deprivation, yet madly in love with our little guy. 

First things first.  I should back up and write a little on how William entered the world.   

A month leading up to my due date (November 20th), William had us a little worried.  My last month of pregnancy, neither William nor I gained any weight.  (I know.  It was like some cruel joke.  The ONE time in life when I actually wanted to gain weight, I couldn't.  Go figure.)  Steven even had me pounding peanut butter protein shakes like it was my job.  However, nothing worked.  So, our doctor wanted to induce me or perform a c-section because she didn't want him staying in utero longer than he needed to be.  "Better to be growing outside the womb since he doesn't seem to be getting adequate nutrients from your placena."  This obviously wasn't the news we wanted to hear.  But we just prayed a lot trusting that this hadn't taken God by surprise and hoped that William would come on his own before the 20th.

And he did!

Saturday, November 17th, I woke up and told Steven that I was having some weird cramping.  Neither of us really believing it was early labor, we proceeded on with our normal plans for the day.  A big waffle breakfast, a long walk around our neighborhood, a foot massage, a lunch date and running random errands.  By the time we got home it was 3 o'clock in the afternoon and my cramps hadn't gone away.  They had actually gotten stronger and closer together.  (Now I realize that it is now totally obvious that I was in labor, but for some reason I was in total denial.)  I finally suggested to Steven that we should time these "cramps".  Sure enough, they were already 60 seconds long and only 3 minutes apart!  Still not totally convinced I was in labor, we called the American nurse to ask her opinion.  She told us without a doubt that this was "it" and that I should make my way to the hospital within the next hour. 

The rest of the night went something like this:
5 PM: Arrive at the hospital.  3 cm, 75% effaced.

7 PM: 5 cm, 100% effaced.  I start to get serious.  No more talking, watching DVDs, laughing, etc.  From there on out, I was all business!

9 PM: 7 cm.  Did a lot of walking and leaning on Steven.  Moving felt better than lying down.  At this point I may have told Steven that we were definitely going back to America for our next kid so that I could get a "freakin' epidural".  :)

11 PM: 9 cm.  Contractions were 2 minutes apart, but also lasting 2 minutes.  The doctor breaks my water.  At this point I may have told Steven that William was going to be an only child.  This is also the point where my mom (at home in America, receiving text messages from Steven on my progress...) accidentally dropped her phone in the toilet, thus cutting off her only form of communication with us.  Oh Marsh... :)

12 AM: I start pushing.  It hurts. A lot.

12:45 AM: I tell Steven that I am going to die and that I can't go on.

1:00 AM: I'm still alive and still pushing.

Sunday, November 18th at 1:07 AM: William Takashi Sauder enters the world as a healthy baby boy weighing 6 pounds, 2 ounces and measuring 20 inches long!

We were so thrilled that he was heavier, longer and stronger than the doctors expected him to be.  We were also thankful that he came on his own and I was able to have a natural labor without any major complications.  (However, I'm still not far enough removed from the experience to say that I'm ready to do it again... ha!)  But seriously, the experience was surreal and something I will never forget.  What a special, unforgettable moment for me and Steven.  Here's to our new and improved life with our little miracle!

 Just born and lookin a little blue!  Steven called him a little smurf :)

 First family photo!

 Our little bugaboo--all the nurses thought William looked like Steven :)

Picture with our great doctor, Dr. Supreeya!