#Momlyfe

I often find myself joking about being a Mother. Thinking about it being a Mom today inspired me to write about something serious that women today struggle with. Body Image.  I have always struggled with my image to an extent. I have never had full confidence in my body, when I said never, I mean not in high school, not ever. Being pregnant definitely had an effect on my self-esteem because my body changed so drastically, so quickly. Now it has been almost 4 months and my body is still healing. I look in the mirror and I feel little confidence. Over the last 2-3 weeks I have been feeling especially bad about my body. I have been trying to jump into working out. (Side note, I have never been into exercising in my life & it is really hard. :( ) I am getting angry with myself because I am not seeing any results and I am feeling so much pain. I look in the mirror and I see all my stretch marks and I start searching online for ways to try and get them to disappear.

    As I stared at my beautiful little girl and just marveled and how amazing she was and that I love her such much I literally cannot even put it into words I thought to myself, "Britney, you made this. You made her. She started out with love, you nurtured that body in your own. You loved her so much that you wanted to sacrifice your body, and many of the things you've always enjoyed doing to ensure her health. That weight you gained is only temporary, that pain you feel will go away. She was brought to life through you." I need to stop being so sensitive and insecure about my body and start to cherish the life it brought. I encourage all women struggling with the same fact to remember how often people tell you and you ignore it. It takes at LEAST 1 year for your body to get back to the placement it was prior to pregnancy.

I want to end in a rant about how wonderful it is to be a Mom. It is hard, but completely satisfying. I don't get time off, and I don't get breaks. My time is all dedicated to this little girl I provide for that doesn't know any better. I vow to give her all of me, everything I can. Because she deserves much more than what I can even give. My heart shatters for every child in this world that doesn't get the same love and affection from their parents. As Mother's day approaches I encourage you all to reach out to your Mom's & Dad's and cherish what they have done for you.

 If you have some time, go ahead and watch this if you haven't.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2bCO2_HyJs

Growing up

          As the new chapter of my life rapidly approaches, and my time in Utah fades to become a distant memory I have had a lot of time to ponder about a lot of things. The biggest thing in particular that has been on my mind is my incredible parents that I am leaving behind. Moving out of state is a very scary experience for me, just leaving my parents house to move in with Nick was intimidating. Now I am going to be moving my little family across two states! Granted I will be with Nick's incredible family, I will be hours away from mine. It is no exaggeration when I say my "life" is going to be left behind, although the definition of my life has changed greatly in the last 2.5 months. My life is now my daughter, there are lots of people in my life that I still care for but, my baby is my life & she is why we are moving. So we can better our lives together, for her.
         Another thing that I have been thinking about is the lack of love and support I have felt from a lot of people. I have noticed over the last couple months & years that the friends you thought were you friends, really don't care about me like I care about them. I understand everyone getting their own lives & growing up, but the saying "having 3 real friends is way better than having 10 friends" definitely comes to mind. I always have thought of a bunch of different people as best friends, but I am seeing a serious lack of support, love, & overall friendship from a lot of those "best friends". Where those have lacked, others have stepped in & my relationships have blossomed with those real best friends of mine. While I do feel a sadness because it seems I am mourning the loss of people close to me, it makes me question the entire time if they ever were really there. Calling up a friend to get drunk, or have lunch isn't really much of a friendship to me. I want my best friends to be my family & I am glad to have found the friends of mine that I still feel that love and support from.


♣♣Also, happy mcdrunkies day. ♣♣

Neglecting

             Golly gee, it has been quite a while since I have shared some love on here. So much has happened & I have just been such a busy bee. I gave birth to a sweet angel on 12/27/2013 after being induced and being in labor for almost a full 24 hours. After 3 hours of pushing my sweet bundle of joy joined my husband & I with her head full of hair and sweet smile. I will forever remember those precious first moments of her life, she didn't start screaming until they start poking and prodding at her, by the time they were done she was screaming. They laid that precious gift on my chest for skin to skin & in what I felt like was my gentlest voice possible I said, "Hey my sweet baby Aria, it's okay." with tears filling my eyes. She immediately stopped screaming and looking directly up at me smiling. That first 3 seconds made the last 9 months seem like nothing horrible ever happened. Since then I have been a busy Mama. Aria is a wonderful baby, she hardly ever cries & when she does it's more of a whine for about 10 seconds. She sleeps most of the night & is the most snuggly little monkey ever. She is gaining weight and growing like a weed. It seems like just yesterday was going into the hospital to be induced & it has almost been exactly 11 weeks! I must admit throughout pregnancy I was very worried about being able to breastfeed & I proudly proclaim to everyone that she is exclusively breastfed. (GO ME, WOOT WOOT) I encourage every mother to try, & trust me the first few weeks are not easy but you CAN get your supply up, & you CAN produce enough to get your little one gaining weight. It is the best thing for them, so do it!
               Secondly, everyone tells you how hard it is to have a baby, the old people crack jokes & the young couples tell you its hard, but for some reason it never really sinks in. I always chuckled to myself, yeah yeah it isn't that bad, & If I am being realistic I really don't think it is that hard to have a baby, so far. I can see that it is definitely going to get hard. The infant themselves is not the challenge for me, it is the changes that I have to make within myself & the sacrifices that I must make for the betterment of my child. Although having her around me relying on me for everything is definitely extremely draining, I wouldn't trade being a mother for anything. It is most definitely the greatest role I have ever played in my life and I am honored to say that God was ready to send her to me.
             I have realized quickly the hardest part of having a newborn is the strain it has on my marriage. Being married is already stressful enough. For some reason living with Nicholas for a year before was a cakewalk compared to being married, & believe me. Living together prior to being married was no walk in the park either. I don't know why the paperwork complicated my life so much more, but marriage is hard. It takes work everyday. Saying that, marriage is at least 1 billiontrillionkazillionX harder after having a baby. Which is why I am so lucky & blessed to say I have the best parents ever, both my parents & my in laws.
          Which brings me to my other big news!! I'm pregnant!!!!!!!!! Jokes. I would die. I AM NOT PREGNANT. Our lease for our stupid apartment complex is up at the end of March. I am embarrassed to admit that over the length of my hard pregnancy & in the last two years I have not had the best of luck financially & because of that my credit has suffered greatly. Nick already had poopy credit, but now together, we have poopy credit. Go us!//jokes. Not only that but we have a great deal of debt & I have been looking around for another place to live since January and let's just say, I was having no such luck. Nick's parents being as wonderful as they are have offered us a deal of a lifetime, an opportunity that cannot be refused. It is going to be very difficult and heartbreaking for me to leave my home, friends, family, & mountains that I have been surrounded with my entire life. We are moving to California in less than 2 short weeks. I am excited & very nervous at the same time, but I am doing what is best for my family. Nick & maybe me, will be going to school and working part time while everything else is well taken care of and we are going to start paying off debt and saving money to help get a house after we have careers and improved our credit. At least that is the plan. I will be living in the beautiful Napa Valley about 40 minutes from San Francisco & because I will have virtually no friends & a lot more help with the baby. Expect to hear from me a lot more.





       
       

False Alarm

    Only a few days after we got back from California, I had a false alarm, well Nick had more of a false alarm than I did. he was at work and I had been a busy bee all day long, my stomach was pretty hard and I had been having consistent contractions, nothing to painful and out of the ordinary though. What made me nervous was my little bug has ALWAYS been moving so much I never had to do any kick counts, on this particular day I hadn't felt her very much. So I laid down to do kick counts and I only felt her move a couple of times. I called Nick and told him that I was going to go to the Emergency room to make sure everything was okay. Nick got a little bit over excited and he decided told me to come and pick him up from work, so like a good little wifey I did.
      As soon as I got to his work to pick him up, he could tell that I was in pain, he told me to move out of the drivers seat because he was going to drive. Now if you know Nick, you know he hates driving, and you also know that he doesn't have his license and especially hates driving my car because it is a stick shift. He was so panicked and so cute driving all the way to the hospital. He was shaking and antsy thinking he was about about to be a father. It just made my heart melt. I tried to tell him that I didn't think it was time, but that I wanted to get the baby checked to make sure she was okay. Me being a first time mom, and all the complications I have had, not to mention the ones that have happened in the past with my family I don't take any chances.
        We got to the hospital and he was just getting more antsy, he was pacing and smiling. So excited, but didn't know what to do. He even posted on Facebook that tonight might be the night, called his mom and everyone in the family thought I was going into labor. He sat in that fathers chair just watching my monitor for every time I had a contraction, even if it was small he would get excited. Well, like I said previously, I wasn't going into labor and everything with my little angel turned out just fine and we got sent home to sit and wait around for a couple more weeks.