Vivian and I have been very busy. Most of our days have been spent out of the house at various mommy and baby activities - which doesn’t leave much time for blogging or, maybe, cleaning the pile of dishes and bottles and papers on the kitchen counter. It’s been a lot of fun getting out and I am really enjoying meeting other like-minded women with babies near the same age as Viv so the dishes and blog can clearly wait!

Exhausted from all the fun activities!

Today, I learned a very important lesson though. The diaper bag is only helpful if it contains diapers. Yep. That’s right, I forgot to restock my diaper bag. After running around and being out of the house all day yesterday and then out all day today, I forgot to check how many diapers were left. Unfortunately the answer was none but fortunately we only had about an hour long activity until we would be back home and able to get a very wet Vivian into a nice dry diaper.

I think I will put a few spare diapers in my car for emergency situations like today. I’m just glad I was more worried about the wet dial than Vivian was - she didn’t seem to even notice!

Every day has been absolutely wonderful since your birth a month ago. It has been a whole month of bliss and joy. I’m not sure when the exhaustion crash comes but right now I’m still on cloud nine. Sometimes I feel like I am living a dream that I will wake up from and you will be gone, but thankfully you are always there.

Sure, it has been a huge learning curve for all of us - learning about each other and as quickly as we think we’ve figured something out, we have to learn more and adapt because you are changing so quickly. You were sleeping 4-5 hour stretches for a few nights in a row and we started a routine but as quick as it began, we were onto a new pattern that was a little less desirable but much more normal, I think - most babies don’t sleep like you were, but we appreciated the few nights we had. Then last night you graced us with another long stretch and as much as I wish I could, I can’t truly enjoy the extra sleep because I wake up and worry about you. After 4 hours last night I finally had to poke you to make sure you were alive - of course you were and you grunted and continued to sleep for 40 more minutes! Right now your favorite place to sleep is cuddled up in my arms or at my breast. In the wee hours of the morning I am more than happy to drift in and out of sleep with you like that.

Speaking of favorites, your favorite thing to watch is the fan on the living room ceiling. You will purposely lean your head back so you can stare at it and I love watching your eyes circle as you track the rotating blades when it is on.

You are one strong little miss! Besides leaning your head back to see the fan, the general strength of your neck and back muscles continue to amaze everyone. Right from birth the doctors told us you had a stronger neck than an average newborn because of your breech position in the womb. From day one you were able to lift your head up and now you even are turning it while lifting. In fact, during your newborn photos, you were causing quite a commotion because you wouldn’t sleep during the entire three hours and you kept trying to throw yourself out of the bucket head-first! You clearly wanted to see everything instead of lay serenely.

Today at the doctor, we found out that you are growing beautifully. You have gained two whole pounds and inches and now are 8lbs 11oz and 21 inches long. I cannot believe it!

There are so many things we are learning about you, my dear, and I cannot wait to learn even more. This first month of life has been life-changing in such a wonderful way. Continue to grow and show your sweet silly personality!

With endless love,
Mommy

Twenty-seven years ago at this exact time (12:51pm in case you are not reading this the moment it got posted) I came into the world. Birth is such an amazing thing and now as a mother to my own daughter I have so much more appreciation for the whole labor and birth process.

I did not come into this world willingly, it turns out I wanted to stay inside and connected to my mother for as long as I could - sure I broke the waters, but after that, I apparently changed my mind. I never knew how much work my mom went through and I never really started asking about her experiences until I was traveling down the road of pregnancy myself.

Lucky for me, my dad literally wrote my mom’s birth story while it was happening. To celebrate my 27th year on earth, I’d like to share how I came into the world according to my dad.

Thursday, January 9th, 1986

10:35pm - Water broke just after turning out the light to go to bed early. We kissed goodnight, Maggie rolled over on her side and said “uh oh!”

11:15pm - Left house “ready for action.”

11:35pm - Stopped by my office to take care of some required business so that our ~100 employees would get their paychecks Friday.

11:50pm - Departed office for Beaumont Hospital.

Friday, January 10th, 1986

12:05am - Arrived at Beaumont and checked in.

1:00am - Examination confirmed water broke, dilation only 1 cm, minor contractions noted by doctor but not yet felt by mom.

1-6am - Mom and dad attempted to rest and sleep (unsuccessfully). Baby’s external monitor and contraction monitor made attempts at sleep almost impossible for mom. Monitor’s ink blotter and various nurses and doctors in and out also kept mom and dad up.

6-8am - Contractions now 3-5 min apart, dilation up to 5 cm. Mom experiencing severe pain; nurse suggests and leaves to prepaid pain killer.

8:30am - Contractions still severe; 2-3 min apart, 1-1.5 min long, dilation now 8 cm per doctor examination; pain killer cancelled because “hardest” part was over.

9:15am - Dilation complete, full 10 cm; pushing begins and doctors prepare delivery room. Baby at station -1 (also during the last 2 hours had gone from anterior to posterior and back to anterior).

9:30am - Baby progresses to station +1; it appears delivery will occur within 15-30 min.

Me on my birthday!

9:30am-12:15pm - Pushing continues at very high energy levels; mom tries all possible positions (on back, both sides, all fours and squatting) but baby does not progress past station +1. Doctors determine that c-section is more favorable than attempting delivery with use of forceps. We concur. Nurses express their amazement at mom’s ability to continue such super human efforts in attempting to push baby out for over 2.5 hours. Dad nearly cries several times with mom during her fierce and painful attempts at pushing out baby.

12:35pm - Mom moved to delivery room for c-section while dad changes to sterile clothing.

12:40pm-12:51pm - C-section performed on mom; dad comforts mom while observing procedures.

12:51pm - Baby arrives! Doctors and nurses congratulate us on our new baby girl. Mom and dad look at each other with tears in eyes and smiling faces. Baby gets checked, is cleaned and then is handed to dad for the first time. Dad proudly displays his new daughter to mom.

I was born at 12:51pm on January 10th, 1986. I weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces and was 21” long.

Birthdays are true miracles.

Sweet early mornings with my babe at my breast, wide-eyed and in awe of her mommy. Nothing feels greater than the silent love shared in these moments.

Cuddly snuggles with a full belly and drowsy eyes and sometimes a happy little gassy smile. I’ve never felt such great joy in waking early - I’d do it for a thousand years just for her.

Stolen open mouthed kisses before falling back to sleep. I live for this. My heart has never felt so full.

I’ve waited so long for our early mornings in the dim light of Zachary’s Christmas tree.

She’s asleep! (But not for much longer.) After a very long and eventful day for both of us gals, Vivian is sleeping. So now I finally am getting a chance to put together a quick blog post while eating dinner. Oh the life of motherhood - I am loving every moment, even the fussy ones!

Before I jump into the info about pictures of Vivian, let’s recap the day. My day started at 6:30am when Viv woke up to eat. It hasn’t stopped since and I am happily exhausted. Today was the second day on our own, just us gals. My parents left town yesterday morning and Tyler went back to work. So now I am getting a real taste of motherhood without all of the assistance from my own parents.

Tyler and Viv working it in front of the camera.

Now, I don’t anticipate everyday being quite as eventful as today, but we had a newborn photo shoot this morning so it was a busy morning. I was so proud that we were able to get ready and out the door on time to make it up to Bothell by 10am.

The photo shoot was long and tiring for Vivian and me - it was fun and easygoing in the beginning but Viv was a complete mess by the end - hopefully we got some really good pictures out of it! After we wrapped up around 1pm (yes three hours later), we took Tyler to work and had lunch.

I was going to head directly home but I realized that I really had no choice but to stop at Target. I was in desperate need of some nursing pads because I was having some leaking issues that I could not control. So we popped into Target and grabbed a few things before making it home around 3pm.

Viv slept for a bit once we got home (of course she was rightfully passed out the minute she got into the car) but shortly after she woke up and even after feeding her, she was not a happy camper. So we hung out and danced around for the majority of the afternoon and evening until she finally realized she was indeed tired again and passed out in her vibrating bassinet for the first time - I think I am going to like that thing.

Anyway, I need to start wrapping this up because I am hearing coos and that could change into an alert baby at any point!

So I got an album of Vivi’s first few weeks of life put together. Check out the pictures on Picasa in the album Vivian Elise. Let me know if the link doesn’t work - I am not quite sure what the permissions are but I am under the impression that if you have the link, you can view the images.

I also have been posting pictures nearly daily on Instagram and I am trying to get better about it so that there is one place for quick pics that everyone can see. I’ve also added a link to my Instagram account under the “Links” section (see the cloud on the right) so if you do not have the Instagram app to follow me (@alifurt), you can browse to it on your computer.

Enjoy! I know I sure have been :)

We have had a very blessed year. With 2011 ending on a low note, 2012 got started in a similar fashion with a very early miscarriage followed by the painful reminder of Zachary’s due date. But the year turned around quickly with the joy of being pregnant a third time with our perfect little miss, Vivian. So here is my 2012 in review.

January
I turned 26 years old and we went to our third annual Cozy Lane Cabin weekend with our friends the week of a giant snow storm.

February
I threw a baby shower for Jess. Tyler and I got our amazing memorial rings which we have not taken off since getting. I changed my blog completely from simply alifurtwangler.com to lifeunderthestars.com which was created with a special underlying meaning and symbolism. We also started trying for another baby in February,

March
In early March found out that we were expecting our second child only to be heartbroken yet again a week later when I miscarried. We ended the month by celebrating what would have been Zachary’s due date.

April
Tyler turned 26 years old and our good friends Ali and Alex threw him a huge birthday celebration in the form of their destination wedding in Vail.

May
While we found out in April, we announced our third and blessed pregnancy in May. I traveled to New York and New Jersey for work and made sure to have some fun too! I also went to my first Mom Prom before heading out to California for a special work retreat. Then Leigh came to visit over Memorial Day weekend.

June
Tyler and I welcomed Big Blue into our family and we also found out that the precious baby growing inside of me was a little girl. We celebrated our four year anniversary. To end the month Glory and I marched in the Seattle Pride Parade to support our LGBT friends.

July
Tyler and I visited Michigan for the fourth of July. We spent the first week of our trip on the west side with his parents before spending the second half of our trip on the east side at my parents’ house and celebrating one of my oldest and best friend, Jesse’s wedding. We ended out trip in Chicago visiting Leigh before heading back home to Seattle. Upon our return, we found that Zachary’s memorial bench was finally placed at Marymoor Park! To end the month, I felt our little miss move inside of me for the first time.

August
This month started on an emotional note. It was the time to overcome my pregnancy milestone when we lost Zachary. We had a wonderful party at Zachary’s bench.

September
This was a month of camping fun with our new camping van, Blue. Over Labor Day weekend we went to Lake Easton State Park. The following weekend we camped at Belfair State Park. At the end of the month my pregnancy became a tad bit complicated - we were told that the little miss inside of me had a small hole in her heart, but we weren’t too worried. Then a few days later we were told I had Gestational Diabetes. We also ended the month with a fun trip to Vancouver, B.C. for a quick meet-up with my parents who also were there for work.

October
A month of celebration! I was fortunate to have so many people excited for the safe and healthy arrival of our little miss and because of all the anticipation, I had three baby showers thrown in her honor! The first baby shower was thrown in Michigan by my mother-in-law on the west side of the state. The second baby shower was also in Michigan but on the east side thrown by my mother, grandma and nana. I ended my wonderful two-week Michigan trip celebrating my childhood friend, Jill’s wedding.

November
My third and final baby shower was thrown in Seattle by my sister-in-law. It was a beautiful rainbow themed party. Tyler and I also found out one last kink in this pregnancy - our little miss was breech and not looking likely to flip head down. While we had so many small “issues” during this pregnancy, nothing compared to Zachary’s news. November 10th we peacefully celebrated Zachary’s first birthday in heaven.

December
Our year ended with so much love, joy and celebration when Tyler and I welcomed our healthy beautiful daughter into our lives. Vivian Elise was born on 12/11/12 - sharing a very unique date type with her big brother (11/10/11) - just shy of the highly anticipated “all one number date.”

2012 was a year of healing and hope which brought us extreme joy. Now we move on to 2013 where life will be so rewarding, exhausting and so very joyful with a new baby. I cannot wait to experience motherhood in the fullest with a wonderful healthy living baby.

Christmas Eve was a busy day. We woke up, got ready for the day and set out to take Vivian to meet the big man of the season, Santa. As I posted earlier (with the actual Santa pictures), Viv was great and did really well with the whole outing.

Waiting to see Santa

After seeing Santa we went back home to drop off my parents and Vivian so that Tyler and I could go to my postpartum appointment. Tyler didn’t have to actually be there but I was still not allowed to drive being on the type of drugs I was taking for pain management. The appointment was super quick and my incision is healing very nicely so I got the ok to take off the tape pieces that had replaced the staples.

Christmas Eve

We headed back home to get ready and head back out to celebrate Christmas Eve at Jess and Tony’s place. We had a lovely afternoon and evening and finally we headed home to unwind… And get Vivian to bed so Santa could come!

Christmas morning with the only
present we need.

On Christmas Day everyone was slow to get up and going. We all stayed in our pajamas all day and enjoyed each other’s company. In the afternoon, once Vivian finally decided to stay awake for a bit, we opened her presents - she was the only one with presents under the tree and boy did she have a lot!

Vivi opening presents via a daddy proxy.

A happy baby in a stocking!

My mom made a delicious dinner for us - I had purchased some really good fillets for a special meal - and we ended our first Christmas with Vivian with full bellies and even fuller hearts.

The next day came and went as most do lately - in a bit of a blur - and on Thursday we ventured out to Seattle with Vivian for the first time. I had purchased Groupon deals for the Holiday Ride the Ducks Tour before Viv came into the world. I figured it would be something fun to do if we were up to it. I wasn’t sure how well I’d heal in two weeks but it turns out I was we’ll enough and the weather even cooperated!

So we all bundled up and I strapped Viv onto me with the Ergo and infant insert and we enjoyed the holiday spirit in downtown Seattle while on the Duck Tour. After the tour, we went out to dinner and Viv slept through the entire trip. What a good baby :)

Christmas in Seattle - Vivi’s first time in Seattle

Ride the Ducks holiday tour

Our first family Christmas

Vivian, Ali & Tyler

Today Leigh got in town so now we begin our new year festivities, even though Tyler will be leaving us tomorrow!

This morning we went to see Santa for the first time. Vivian was a good sport and sat pretty on Santa’s lap for a few good shots and even had her eyes open for a bit.

Merry Christmas!

Sweet moment between Santa and Vivi.

Classic! Finally Vivian had enough of Santa.

I have always found comfort in seeing signs or finding meaning in seemingly meaningless things and events. Like Lu’s bond with Zachary while in the womb and continuing to bring Zachary’s bears upstairs. Well, two things have really stuck out to me recently.

Last year, the week after Zachary was born we saw a lot of hummingbirds in the pine trees out our living room windows. We saw so many that Tyler and I even purchased a hummingbird feeder to keep them around. Unfortunately, we never really saw them afterwords. Tyler thinks it’s because he didn’t make the sugar water the right way but we tried to refresh the food a few different times with no luck. Anyway, they seemingly disappeared.

Our beautiful visitor finally caught on camera!

Guess what has decided to show up again?! The hummingbirds! Not just one or two that you happen to glance at, but bunches of them that keep coming back day after day.

It only makes sense that they would show up right after Vivian’s birth. I don’t know what kind of meaning they bring to others, but I found that a lot of places have something similar to this symbolization and that really hits home for me:

The hummingbird symbolizes many different concepts. Because of its speed, the hummingbird is known as a messenger and stopper of time. It is also a symbol of love, joy, and beauty. The hummingbird is also able to fly backwards, teaching us that we can look back on our past. But, this bird also teaches that we must not dwell on our past; we need to move forward. When the hummingbird hovers over flowers while drinking nectar, we learn that we should savour each moment, and appreciate the things we love…Hummingbird is the creature that opens the heart. When the hurt that caused us to close our hearts gets a chance to heal, our hearts are free to open again….It is not commonly known that the fluttering wings of the hummingbird move in the pattern of an infinity symbol - further solidifying their symbolism of eternity, continuity, and infinity.

I don’t know if the hummingbirds happen to migrate to the pine trees around my house in November and December or if it is serendipity or pure coincidence that I notice them now, but either way, it warms my soul and comforts me. Somehow I think Zachary had part in sending me the hummingbirds.

You can see the kiss on her right eye clearly,
but the kiss in the middle of her forehead is
very light in photos.

The second sign comes in the form of a birthmark on Vivian. When we were at our second lactation consultation the nurse was looking Vivian over and saying things looked good and one of her observations, that she very nonchalantly mentioned was that Vivian had an “angel’s kiss.” I had never heard that term before but she was apparently describing the light pink birthmarks on her forehead and eye. It caught me off-guard and I instantly started crying. Not because I was sad, but that it is such a sweet thought - Zachary gave his baby sister a few kisses before she entered the world.