2018 Review - Part 4

And just like that, it's the last day of 2018! This year really flew by. It was a really good year, but also a really hard year. There was a lot of change and adjustment and not as much sleep as I would like/need. But we made it through and the joyful moments definitely outweighed the difficult ones!

Here's my final install of the 20 questions!

16. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Slept and exercised more. But these were both out of my control.

17. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Gone to fewer doctor appointments! Oh man, we saw so many specialists between Paul and me: OB, rheumatologist, endocrinologist, perinatalogist, hematologist, ENT, pediatric urologist, lactation consultants, speech pathologist, and pediatric OT. It's almost laughable to look at this list of specialists. 

18. Compared to this time last year, how are you different?

I'm not carrying a baby! Now I care for a baby, which is such an all-consuming but amazing thing to do. 

I do feel like I've lost part of my identity in becoming a mom, but I know that's natural. I haven't exercised, aside from going for walks. I don't have the energy or desire to go on dates or plan trips. I kind of miss the Lisa that wanted to do alllll the things. Right now I'm just way too tired to do much outside of work and caring for Paul. I'm hoping that starts to slowly change in 2019 as I'd like to be better about making time for things like exercise and quality time with Phil. Being done pumping is really going to help in regard to exercising more, though!

19. Compared to this time last year, how are you the same?

At my core, I'm still the same person. I still have the same wants and needs, they just aren't as high of a priority these days as they used to be. But that will shift as Paul sleeps better and I adjust to being a working mom. One thing that stayed the same is that I still made time for reading! 

20. What's a life lesson you learned this year?

That there is always going to be something to worry about when you are a parent. When I was pregnant I told a friend (who is a psychologist) that I couldn't wait to have the baby so I could stop worrying so much (my active RA and blood clot really amped up my anxiety about the health of the baby). She said that she hated to break it to me, but the worrying doesn't ever end - you just have to find a way to manage it. She was so right. What I worry about related to Paul changes from month to month. Phil, on the other hand, does not really worry like I do and he's been a good influence on me. He's the one telling me, "Paul is fine, don't worry so much." And so far, he's been right. 

Happy New Year, everyone!

2018 Review - Part 3

Happy Christmas Eve! I should be up at my parents lake home but Paul and I came down with a nasty case of the stomach flu on Saturday so we canceled our trip and will have a quiet Christmas at home. :(

On that sour note, it's time for another group of 20 questions for 2018!

11. What are your top recommendations for entertainment from this year? (books, television, movies, music, etc)

I'll be sharing my best books of 2018 later this week so stay tuned for that! Some of our favorite Netflix shows were Wild Wild Country (make sure you watch the hilarious SNL parody after you watch this show), Dirty Money (a documentary series about financial corruption), and CNN's The 80s. CNN produced a documentary series about the 60s and 70s, too, which were worth watching. The 80s was just released on netflix in 2018. I also watched "Call the Midwife" in the final months of my pregnancy. I just realized the latest season is on Netflix now so I'm trying to watch that before PBS releases another season.

12. What song will remind you of this year?

You are my sunshine! I sang this approximately eleventy billion times when putting Paul down for naps and bedtime. Ok, not that many! But I sang it a lot, often with this edit to the orginal lyrics: "... you make me happy, when you take naps...

13. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year (not necessarily from the song that reminds you of the year).

Welcome to the end of being alone inside your mind

You're tethered to another and you're worried all the time

You always knew the melody but you never heard it rhyme

...

And they've still got their morning paper and their coffee and their time

And they still enjoy their evenings with the skeptics and the wine

Oh, but all the wonders I have seen, I will see a second time

From inside of the ages through your eyes

~ excerpted lyrics from The Mother by Brandi Carlile (I heard this song for the first time at a Brandi Carlile concert the night before I found out I was pregnant!)

14. What was your most enjoyable purchase?

Boxed wine? Ha! I thoroughly enjoy a glass or 2 of white wine at the end of a long day!

15. Did you travel? If so, where?

I know there are people who decide to continue to travel even after having a baby but that isn't us. Paul is a pretty crappy sleeper and doesn't nap on the go so traveling with him would be a total waste of money at this point. We'd spend lots of money to go somewhere only to sit around an airbnb while he naps. So we did not travel this year, aside from road trips up to my parents' lake cabin. I don't see this changing until Paul a) is down to 1 nap/day and b) sleeps through the night.

Phil would probably be a-ok with leaving Paul behind for a trip but I'm not interested in that yet. I honestly don't know when I will be but I imagine that eventually I'll feel ok being away from Paul for a couple of days.

2018 Review - Part 2

I'm back with my 2nd installment of the 20 questions for 2018!

6. What would you like to have next year that you didn't have this year?

More sleep and more time to workout!

7.  Did you make new year's resolutions, and did you keep them? Will you make more for next year?

This was the first year in many years that I did not make any goals for 2018. I figured that our first year of parenting would provide enough challenges and wow was I right! I'm going to do a '19 in 2019' list which is a list of things I want to accomplish in 2019, both big and small. I consider that different than resolutions, though. I'm a lover of lists and having a to-do list motivates me so I think that would be a good way to get some pesky tasks completed plus some fun things, too.

8.  What was your biggest achievement of this year?

Providing milk for Paul for the first year of his life. As of today I have enough milk frozen to feed Paul until he turns one! I'm going to start to wean off the pump once I have a little more frozen than I need in case he has some bigger eating days.

9.  What was your biggest failure?

Ugh, I don't like the word "failure." So instead I will say my biggest "lesson" has been how hard it is to be a working mom. I had to really adjust my expectations for things like working out and investing time in friendships.

10. What did you rely on when you were overwhelmed?

First and foremost, Phil. He's been an excellent partner. I've also leaned on Amber for a lot of advice and support as she's just 3 months ahead of me in the adventure of parenting your first child and we are very similar in terms of personality (type A upholders)!

2018 Review - Part 1

Last week on Instagram I saw a friend answering these 20 Questions for 2018 and I thought it would be a fun way to close out the year!

So for the final 4 Monday so the year, I'm going to tackle 5 questions! I'd love it if you played along by answering them in the comments or on your blog!

1. What did you do on your birthday?

I was planning to have a 'puzzle party' - I would invite friends to stop by for a snack and/or beverage and help me put a puzzle together. But I got that super painful blood clot in mid-January and was in too much pain to throw a party of any sort. So instead I had a quiet birthday celebration. Phil and I ordered Indian and had a quiet night on the couch. It was just what I needed.

2. What are your strongest memories from this year, and why?

The moment my OB lifted our baby over the sheet separating me and Phil from the c-section surgery and hearing Phil announce, "it's a boy!" I'll never forget the look on his face or the emotion in his voice. And I'll never forget meeting Paul for the first time. I was exhausted after being awake for so many hours and pushing through all those contractions without pain killers so I was a little shaky and delirious. But it was amazing to hold him in my arms for the first time!

3. What did you do this year that you'd never done before?

Oh my gosh, so many things. Had a baby via c-section, tried and failed to breast feed, pumped sooo much breast milk (almost 10,000 oz since I started tracking in late March!), became a mom, hired our first babysitter, and the list goes on and on. It's been a year of first for us!

4. What did you want and get?

A healthy baby, and honestly, I felt sheepish saying this before Paul was born but I really wanted a boy. I would have of course been happy with a boy or a girl, but I think I'm really well-suited to a be a mom of a boy. :)

5. What did you want and not get?

I really wanted a natural delivery. Leading up to the delivery I acknowledged that the process was out of my control but I kept telling my friend Amber that I really did not want a c-section. I also really wanted to breastfeed Paul and that did not work out either. But the more time passes, the less I care. The delivery and how I fed Paul mattered so much in the early months but it matters less with each passing month. And it's not something I really think about much anymore (well, besides the breast feeding thing because I LOATHE pumping!).

If we have another baby, I will opt to have a planned c-section. My OB suspects that my birth canal is just too narrow. C-sections are tough to recover from, but I don't want to have a repeat experience of laboring for over a day, getting to 9cm and then needing a c-section! Plus, anecdotally, I've heard the recovery is better when it's a planned c-section (and my OB wholeheartedly agrees).