5 Months

My Sweet 2nd baby girl.  I'm sorry it has taken so long to get back to blogging.  I keep meaning to do monthly posts for you and then I miss the date and decide to try again the next month.  Obviously that hasn't been working out to well, so I'm doing your 5 month post now even though you turned 5 months on Dec. 30.

You are such a joy and you brighten my days.  I don't know that I've ever known such a happy baby before.  I've started telling people that I think you're so happy because the midwife who delivered you is named Sunshine.  But really, you smile all the time and everyone always comments on what a happy baby you are.  You are very social and just love to smile at people.  Especially your Papa, he has always gotten the most smiles from the beginning.  He is a funny guy and you are always highly entertained by him.

You are definitely a morning person and always greet me with a smile.  Even if I have to wake you up, you are just so happy to see me that you don't care.  After a rough night nursing you every couple hours, I dread getting up to start my day.  But then I see your happy, smiling face and I can't help feeling joy for getting to be your mom.  If you could start sleeping better though, I'd be totally on board with that!

You used to be a decent sleeper giving me a good 5 hour stretch just about every night and then waking every 2-3 hours after that.  Sometimes you'd even give me a longer stretch.  I believe the longest you ever went was 8 or 9 hours.  That was amazing!  Of course it never happened again, but I did appreciate it at the time.  Unfortunately the dreaded 4 month sleep regression hit and you've been waking up every 2 hours since.  On particularly bad nights, you might even wake up every hour.  Luckily I know that things will get better eventually and looking back this will seem like a short time.
Naps are mostly 30 min. right now, but I remember going through this with your sister and it doesn't last forever.

You are a talker, just like your sister!  You love to shriek, growl, squeal, and make all kinds of interesting sounds.  Your dad and I love it when you sing yourself to sleep.  It is the sweetest thing.  Your latest trick is blowing raspberries with your mouth.  You tuck your top lip under your bottom lip and blow spit bubbles while making noise.  You are quite proud of yourself and are practicing this newfound skill as much as you can.  I stick my tongue out at you and blow raspberries and you are trying so hard to figure out how to do it too.  The other day you were watching me do it and you were able to stick your tongue out and kind of make the noise.  You didn't quite get it, but it was so fun watching you try.

You also have discovered the joy of hanging upside down.  You throw your head back and just hang there.  You make it almost impossible to lift you back up until you are good and ready.  I am amazed at how long you can remain upside down.  I guess you are just enjoying the new perspective.

I really expected you to be laughing by now because of how smiley and happy you are, but you're still waiting on that one.  We've gotten some giggles out of you here and there, but that's about it.  It's ok, your millions of smiles more than make up for it.

Another thing that has surprised me is that you're not rolling yet.  With how active you have been since before you were even born, I really thought you would be more mobile.  Not that I'm complaining.  I'm in no hurry for you to be mobile, just a little surprised.  You will roll onto your side when you're on your back, but you don't try to get all the way over.  You're really good at tummy time, but again, no interest in rolling onto your back.  You did scoot backwards about a foot the other day while you were on your tummy.  I had been looking somewhere else and when I looked back, you were almost off the blanket I had you on.  Maybe you just don't think rolling is necessary.

You love to sit up.  You can't do it by yourself yet, but you love it when I sit you up on the couch or in my lap.  You can see much more this way than you can on your back.  I think it also makes it easier for you to play with toys.  You also love splashing in the bath, sucking on anything soft and fuzzy, trying to turn the pages in books, chewing on your fingers, your stuffed unicorn from Santa, music, your kitties, and your sister.

You adore your sister and love to watch whatever she happens to be doing.  Even her tantrums provide great entertainment for you.  She loves to play with you and get you to smile at her.  It is amazing to watch the bond you two are building.  Your favorite thing is to grab her hair, which she isn't too fond of.  When you were born and she found out you were a girl, she took one look at you and asked, "When does she get long hair?"  You don't have much hair, so she will probably be waiting a long time for that!

You also get very excited when your kitties are near.  You love to pet them and sometimes you're gentle, but other times you have trouble holding back your excitement.  When you start shrieking loudly, they decide they've had enough!  They don't mind so much when you grab their fur or pat too roughly, but the shrieking is more than they can handle.

Let's see, what else?  You won't take a pacifier or bottle or suck your thumb.  It seems to be the boob or nothing!  You do like to suck on your blankies though.

I think that's it for now.  If I don't stop, I may be writing all night!  I love you so much my 2nd baby girl and couldn't be happier that you are part of our family.  I will try really hard to do regular updates on here.  I was going back and reading your sister's posts and it's so nice to have.



Brand new

One month

2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months

It's A Girl!

(Edit:  This has been sitting here for months waiting to be published.  I was going to edit it and break it into paragraphs, but I'm just going to go ahead and post it.)

So it's been awhile.  Elisabeth Rose Mojica was born on her due date July 30, 2015 at 12:31 pm weighing 7 lbs. 6 oz. and 19 in. long.

Early in the morning contractions started waking me up. I started timing them at 4 am for about an hour and they were all over the place from 9 minutes to 15 minutes apart.  I was still pretty sure that this was it though, so I told Jose not to go to work and I texted the midwife what was happening so far.  She said she would hop in the shower and check back with me at 6 am.  I called my sister and mom so they could head over.  The next hour contractions were still all over, but 7 to 12 minutes apart and lasting 30-50 sec.  The midwife decided to head over and arrived about 7 am.  My mom arrived shortly after and my sister came about 8:30 am.  I wasn't timing contractions anymore because I needed to focus on what I was doing.  Slow, deep breathing and a focal point got me through the majority of labor.  I sat out on the couch with my mom and sister watching the show Friends for a couple of hours.  Meanwhile, the birth tub and everything else was all ready for me in the bedroom.  My mom and sister thought it was so funny that sometimes I would end a contraction laughing because I would catch a joke from the show as I was coming out of the contraction.  I have to say though, my super active baby would push back during the contractions.  I would be having a contraction and my mom and sister could see her pushing her but out.  That was not comfortable for me!  Anyway, by about 11 am I wanted to go lay down in my bed and I had Jose go with me to rub my back.  I still thought it was going to be awhile at this point, but everything ended up going super fast after that.  I laid in bed with Jose for awhile but then the contractions started getting more intense.  My mom and sister came in and I told them I could feel the baby moving down.  It was so weird to me, but I was much more in tune with my body this time than I was with my first daughter's birth.  She was born at the hospital.  So, after awhile I just couldn't get comfortable in any position and decided to get in the birthing tub.  The midwife and her assistant had pretty much left me alone until this point and were just letting me do my thing.  Other than periodically checking baby's heart rate, they didn't interfere at all.  In the tub the contractions got super intense and I didn't want to do it anymore, so I realized I must be in transition.  I changed my breathing technique to 3 breaths and a blow to cope with the pain.  Being in the water also helped a lot with the pain.  My water broke in the tub probably about 15 min. before the baby was born.  After awhile I started pushing and was saying "oh" through contractions and moaning.  Again, very different from my first birth in the hospital where I didn't make a sound.  I was kind of wondering if I should be pushing.  I had never been checked for dilation at all, but my body knew exactly what it was doing.  I said I thought I could feel a head down there and the midwife said if I reached down, I could feel the head.  So I reached down and sure enough, I could feel the top of her head which was so cool and very encouraging.  I was on my knees, hanging on Jose and I really wanted the baby out.  The midwife encouraged me to change positions, so I flipped over and leaned my back against Jose.  It was much easier to push in this position and I got her head all the way out.  I probably pushed too fast because I ended up tearing, but I just couldn't take the burning sensation anymore.  While I was waiting for the next contraction, I could feel the baby moving which seemed odd to me, but when I said I could feel it, the midwife said the baby was turning to the perfect position to come out.  Then I pushed her all the way out and got to hold my baby for the first time.  It was amazing and I couldn't believe she was finally here.  Of course, we didn't know what we were having, so I still needed to check.  So many people thought I was having a boy, so when I looked between the legs I was looking for a penis.  Well, there was no penis, I checked twice!  Then I announced that it was a girl.  Such an amazing experience.  And I was only in the tub for about 30 min. before she was born at 12:31 pm.  It all went very quickly!