Hi my friends!  Wow, it’s been awhile.  I’m not going to lie, I feel like a circus monkey trying to juggle this new baby life with regular life, let alone work-life.  HOW DO YOU MOMS DO IT?!  Mateo just hit the 5 month mark, and I’ve been meaning to post monthly updates since the get-go but it just hasn’t happened.  But right now he’s hanging with his papa, I have a couple squares of dark chocolate and a cup of tea and I’m gonna type fast and furious until he needs his mama again!

Ok, where to start?!  Life with baby boy-  what a ride!  He’s delicious, really- exceptionally delicious!  He’s reaching the typical milestones, rolling over, cooing, playing wth toys, eating solid foods (ish), giggling.  He is sweet, mellow, happy, and healthy- truly a joy. It is the very BEST thing in the world watching him grow and being his mama!  I couldn’t ask for more.

EXCEPT SLEEP.  I grossly underestimated how difficult the sleep deprivation would be, and how awful it could get.  This kiddo is waking up every 1-2 hours around the clock.  I’m doing the night shift since I’m breastfeeding and it is INTENSE!  I’m reading sleep training books and trying to find our way.  Any advice?  This is hard on our marriage, hard on my sanity, it’s just hard.  Praying for grace and patience as we go through what so many have before us.  Praying that I find a way to help this babe sleep for longer stretches.  Praying that one day I wake up and feel like myself instead of a zombie-mom.

I have basically been on an extended maternity leave- it took three months to physically recover from his birth and all of that health drama.  But now I’m feeling the strong pull to get back to this space.  And so we’re figuring out how to make that possible for me.  It seems that my pre-baby plan to just put him down and work while he napped/played independently is actually LAUGHABLE.  I’m serious.  I just had an out-loud chuckle over it.  It’s almost as funny as that idea I had when he was a couple of months old when he slept for 6 hours stretches that he was going to just keep sleeping for longer and longer stretches until Lou and I were enjoying glasses of wine after he was in bed and sleeping uninterrupted until our peaceful morning routine began at a reasonable hour.  LAUGHABLE IF I WASN’T CRYING!!!!!  Ha!

I’ve realized the most important thing is being a mama is knowing when you need to ask for help.  So, I’m asking.  Advice, please!  Suggestions for sleep methods, books, anything at all you think may help us navigate this time.  Also, I’m bringing on someone to help with childcare starting next week.  Any suggestions or advice for a newly-working mama is also appreciated!  You have all been so good to me over the years as we’ve gone through so much (I mean seriously, we’re ready for a break!).  So I thank you in advance, I know you won’t let me down.  Big hugs!  xx- Sarah

Hello my friends, I’m sorry for the long absence!  You’ll understand why I’ve been gone for so long by the end of this, but for now- meet MATEO!  He was born October 17, 2016.  He’s the love of our lives.  Insert ALL OF THE CLICHES ABOUT PARENTHOOD HERE.  All of them.  They apply.  He’s the most darling baby ever, in my completely unbiased opinion.

I don’t know where to begin with his birth story, so I suppose I’ll start with what we had hoped, dreamed and planned for the birth of our son.  We knew from the beginning that we would attempt to have a home birth.  I’d been by my best friend’s side as she delivered her baby a little over two years ago and knew that I wanted a similar experience for our family.  We hired a midwife who we trust implicitly, borrowed a birth pool from a friend, and I started practicing Hypnobabies to prep myself for the experience.  In my preparation for birth I tried to let go of expectations as much as possible- I made peace with the idea that although a home birth was our ideal scenario, I trusted that Mateo would come into this world exactly as he intended.  I accepted the idea that I might have to deliver in a hospital in a variety of ways, depending on how things went.  I never would have imagined though what actually happened, which was close to my worst nightmare and nothing I could have prepared for.

click to read yo