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ensley paige

By March 11, 2012 No Comments

For almost the past year, I’ve been thinking about this moment.  The moment where I am sitting down to write in my blog about how the past few weeks have changed my life.  I knew that becoming a mom would be the best experience to ever happen, but I can honestly say that I had no idea just how much of an impact this beautiful little girl would have on me.  From the very first time that you start telling people that you’re expecting a baby, those who have kids of their own and know the feeling, start telling you about how “your life will never be the same.”  I know that before Ensley was here, I took their advice to heart and thought so many times about how different mine and Mitch’s life would be and how we knew that our soon-to-be little girl was going to be a wonderful addition.  But I know now that I didn’t (and couldn’t) fully understand what everyone was telling me.  Until I held her in my arms for the first time, I just didn’t know.  In fact, I had no idea… no idea that my entire universe would suddenly revolve around this little baby who I just met for the first time.  I had no idea that my heart would actually hurt because of how much I loved her from the very moment that I laid eyes on this sweet little girl.  So, for this post (and maybe some others in the future too!) I’m going to write about my new favorite topic in the whole world – my little Ensley.  I know that my blog is supposed to be about photography too, so I’ll include some of my favorite pictures to go along with our story about the day that we became a new family…

After one of our first ultrasounds, when Ensley’s due date was set for February 4th, we were a little extra excited because Mitch’s birthday is on the 5th.  How much fun would that be to have our little girl on her daddy’s birthday?  And what an amazing present for him on a birthday he would never forget.  So, after many evenings of “false labor” or even when the doctor told us in mid-January that he thought we’d be having this baby “within the week,” we were also hoping that just in case he was wrong that it could be on February 5th.  I had long before realized that especially with anything having to do with pregnancy and babies that my trying to plan things (something that I find myself doing with most everything) just wasn’t going to work for this.  So, we spent the last few weeks of January waiting… and waiting… with our hospital bag packed just in case!  But when February 4th came and went and then February 5th came and was starting to pass by – I started considering the fact that maybe this baby would decide to stay put for longer than we thought.

So, with no baby news to keep us occupied, Mitch and I decided to go out for dinner in honor of his birthday.  The ride to the restaurant was a lot like other times, contractions here and there, but nothing that seemed to amount to anything.  Even throughout dinner the contractions weren’t anything close to the “can’t talk, can’t walk, can’t even think” kind of pain that I was expecting – so I just assumed that this was another bout of “false labor” – something that I was starting to get used to.  The only difference this night was that Mitch decided to download a contraction timer app on his phone just for fun.  It only confirmed the fact that the irregularity of these first signs of labor probably meant that it was nothing.  So with that, I went to bed, and woke up around midnight to go sleep on the couch.  For those of you who know about being nine months pregnant – sleeping isn’t easy.  Between trips to the bathroom every couple hours and overall achey-ness you just can’t sleep.  I’ve heard people say that this is probably God’s way of getting you ready for lots of sleepless nights – whoever said this might be right, because it’s like you develop insomnia and quickly learn to function on a mere four or five hours of sleep. So, after watching a few of the middle of the night shows on TV (a schedule that I had memorized – weekdays, weekends – The Doctors, Dr. Oz, infomercial, World News Now, Wake Up Wisconsin, etc….) I started considering the fact that my contractions were actually starting to keep me awake and might be getting a little stronger than I had thought.  As a first-timer, the last thing in the world that I wanted to do was make something out of nothing – or end up going to the hospital thinking that I was in labor just to be sent home and told that I didn’t know what I was talking about.  So, I let Mitch keep sleeping, and just waited to see what would happen…

Well, it didn’t take too long for what I thought was probably nothing to be something.  By about 3:30 in the morning I was sure that if this weren’t labor, then my appendix must’ve burst or something because this wasn’t normal.  Mitch was up by this time and telling me that I should really be timing these contractions so that we could call the hospital and see when it was time to come in – I had been reluctant to time things out or call the hospital up until now – probably partially because I was in denial that this was actually happening!  Within a couple of hours the contractions were about four minutes apart and that was our sign that it was time to head in.  By about 8AM we were at the hospital, and to my relief, being told that this was real labor and that we would be staying until we had a baby.

After a long day of labor, and me realizing that I had the most amazing and supportive husband in the whole world, it was time to meet our little girl.  I’ll spare anyone reading this the details of the day… don’t stop reading yet!  I promise, this is as far as I’ll go and the story only gets better from here!  Meeting Ensley for the first time was nothing short of surreal.  It was like the whole universe just stopped, and it was just the three of us.  Just typing this brings tears to my eyes, reliving the moment.  I honestly can’t even hardly remember what I did or said.  I just remember thinking that our baby… our baby that we had waited so long to meet, was finally here.  I remember her laying on my chest looking up at us, barely making a sound, and just being mesmerized by Mitch’s voice.  I was always so excited to witness the moment when Mitch got to meet his little girl.  I knew that it would be a moment that I would never want to forget – and I was so right.  Between the tears, the smiles, and just the raw emotion of the day, we were both in awe at this precious, perfect little girl that we were meeting for the first time.  We were head over heels in love.  So in love, that for the first half an hour, we completely forgot that we still had to name our new baby.  We just couldn’t believe how lucky we felt to have her.

I’m sure you’ve probably seen the YouTube video of the little boy coming home from the dentist on pain medicine and he says “is this real life?!?”  That is exactly how I felt for the next week, and the best way to describe it.  Not only is having a baby an out-of-body experience, but I think the first week as a new parent is, too.  I know that I spent hours in the chair just rocking Ensley, looking at her, crying because I was so genuinely happy.  I barely slept.  Not because she was keeping me awake (she was actually sleeping most of the time I was rocking her), but because I didn’t want to miss a second of this.  I knew that closing my eyes would mean that the time would go by even faster, and I was already feeling like each day was slipping away too fast.  I remember that I kept thinking that she would only be three days old for just a little while, or that she’d only be one week old for such a short time… I’m even thinking right now that she won’t be one month old for long.  Maybe I should stop typing and go cuddle with her right now :)…

Okay, I’m back… So, that’s the story – even though words can’t even begin to do justice to the way that I feel.  This is the best way that I can describe what it was like to become a mommy for the first time.  I know that our life will never, ever be the same again – and I’m so glad.  From now on, I’ll understand exactly what people mean when they say “your life will never be the same,” and I might even be the one telling my friends who are soon-to-be parents too.  Right now my days revolve around waiting for that next little smile, getting in all of the cuddling that I can, and wishing that the Sleep Sheep sound machine had a timer longer than 45 minutes (who ever thought that 45 minutes was long enough anyway?!)  I am grateful for all of the moments and memories that have led up until now, but I wouldn’t trade a minute of this for years before Ensley. Now we’re all settled in at home, and have been for a few weeks now.  Mitch has been back to work, life is returning to somewhat normal, and I even started taking a shower every morning too!  Haha.  I guess when I say that life is returning to “normal,” that’s not exactly true, because it’s so much better than normal.