Happy New Years!

2010 was a busy year. I was blessed with a beautiful little girl and married my best friend. Who could ask for more? This time last year Mr. G and I were in his home town of Toronto to celebrate with close friends. By the end of the night I looked like a crazy person. It probably had to do with the fact our vodka bottle had a squirt pump.

This year will be spent in PJs with a strawberry shortcake trifle. $10 bucks that L and I don't make it past 10pm. I love it.A happy and healthy new years to you and yours!!!

I was pregnant at my wedding.

Yes. Yes I was. 30 weeks 2 days to be exact. Here's the belly wedding day morning. Don't you love my hair? I actually walked down the aisle like that.

No, I didn't walk down the aisle like that. I walked down the aisle like this:

Do I looked knocked up? Eh, yes I guess I sort of do.

Don't think I look all that pregnant in this picture. I'm pretty sure I was pre-occupied busting a move to Empire State of Mind to remember. Oops.

I did however have raging hormones, which was awesome for bridezilla syndrome:

No idea who I was yelling at... but this picture is awesome and I should frame it.

Anyway, the wedding was on September 26th and was the best freaking day of my life. It was held at the Fox Hollow on Long Island, New York. Everything was magical and absolute perfection. Oh, yeah, I married this guy:

Mr. G He's my best friend. Actually, he's just the only person I've found so far that can put up with my shit, but that's what true love is about, isn't it? It'll be five years in April since Mr. G and I met and started our little adventure. I couldn't imagine my life with anyone else. Now that Layla is here, I couldn't imagine having anyone else father my children. Besides Bradley Cooper... or Robert Downey Jr. Yes, I said Robert Downey Jr. Go ahead and judge me.

All 100 people that attended danced all night, got drunk and gave Mr. G and I money in envelopes. It.was.fabulous and given the chance I'd do it all over again. HAHAHA. Strike that. Plan a wedding pregnant? Not if my budget was endless! Ok, maybe if my budget was endless.

Either way, by the end of the night I looked like this...

HELL YES I FIST PUMPED AT MY WEDDING.

Layla's birth story

It all started here:

I took this picture on November 15th after I finished organizing Layla's room. On November 16th I vacuumed her room, sat down on the couch and said,

"Ok, I'm done. You can come now." I was 37 weeks 4 days pregnant.

The next morning I woke up at 7:40. My husband, Mr. G, who is usually walking out the door by that time was still fast asleep on the couch (Yes, he was banished to the couch). After getting up and yelling at himto wake up I walked into the bathroom to pee. Yeah, well ... I didn't just pee. My water broke at 7:45 on November 17th. I didn't believe it. There was watering running down my leg and I didn't believe what was happening. So what does any normal person do when their water breaks? She strips. I kid you not when I say I was walking around my house butt naked packing the rest of my hospital bag saying to myself, "Holy shit, this isn't really happening." Ok, in all honestly, I stripped because I wanted to make sure my kid wasn't sitting on my bladder and that water down my leg wasn't just piss. Oh, by the way, your water breaking is totally anticlimactic. There is no big gush, and half the time your contractions don't even start right away. If your water does break, take a shower, have a cup of coffee and some breakfast and take your time. I sort of wish I had. I digress ...

By 9 am I looked like this:

By 11 all hell broke loose. My contractions were off the charts and making me very sick. All the Bradley Method training went out the window and I was begging for an epidural. Now let me tell you a little something about Mr. Epidural..... HE IS AMAZING. Granted if I didn't have an epidural I would've labored for only about 4-5 hours, but unfortunately I had a littttttleee too much. I couldn't feel anything below my the top of my ass. In 45 minutes... 45 fucking minutes I went from 4cm to 9cm. 4 to 9. WHO THE F DOES THAT IN 45 MINUTES? Oh, right ... me. I tried to push but to no avail. So, we waited...

And my mom cheered

And my father fell asleep... which is pretty typical.

Finally my midwife came in turned off the epidural, turned on some pitocin and said to hit the call button when I felt some pressure. FINALLY at about 5 I felt the urge to push. YAY! Baby time. Hmm, shame no one told me the ring of fire really fucking SUCKS. Now, don't get me wrong, as I look back I would do it all over again, but good grief that shit hurts. So here I am pushing and screaming while everyone else (Mr G, my mom and sister) is crying with front row seats to the vag show. Oh, PS, your vagina becomes the most interesting thing in the room when you give birth. However, you are in so much pain you don't care. The President could walk into the room and you'd say, "Oh, sure pull up a chair!" but you probably wouldn't notice anyway.

I pushed for an hour and at 6:01pm Layla Grace entered this world. She weighed 7lbs 12oz and was 21in.

Fresh out of the oven!

There's a lot more to birth stories than people let on. Like how the pressure doesn't really go away as soon as the baby is out. Nope. You remember that thing called a placenta? Yeah, not exactly the most comfortable thing coming out of you. The nice part is you are so caught up in the baby crying on the other side of the room you forget the fact that your vagina just opened itself up beyond 10cm to birth said baby. Yes, that's the nice part. For those that want to try and have kids eventually and for those currently expecting, I'll spare you the rest of the gory details... like how I ripped in three places and had to get stitches. FUN.

P.s. If you think you won't poop giving birth, you will. You're welcome.

10 things I've learned...

... in the past 6 weeks:

1.) It's 2:30 in the afternoon and I started cleaning at 10. All I've finished is my bedroom, bathroom and half of the laundry. I've learned that there are never enough hours in the day. Whatever doesn't get done today will get done tomorrow. That statement is a never-ending cycle, by the way.

2.) Babies produce more dirty laundry than your husband.

3.) Children are always far better dressed than their ponytail-sweatpant-clad mothers. I think it's because by the time we get to ourselves we're just too tired to give a shit. Funny thing? We don't care! At least my sweatpants are Juicy.

4.) I'm currently covered in spit-up. I still don't give a shit.

5.) For those that are expecting, don't be surprised and/or worried when your child's crib becomes storage.

6.) You will get up in the middle of updating your blog to soothe your crying infant. The cat sitting on your lap will hate you.

7.) Boobs are no longer two beautiful sexual objects. No, no. They are mountains of milk. If you intend on breastfeeding don't be surprised when you have a nipslip in the middle of dinner with your inlaws and not really care.

8.) Don't expect anything to be about you anymore. Even though you pushed 7lbs 12oz out of your vag... the world no longer revolves around you.

9.) Husbands can apparently sleep through anything. This includes colic, blow out diapers, projectile spit-up and the end of the world. Punching him as he snores will only result in him rolling over.

10.) Not all children take pacifiers. Layla hates her pacifier. Wait, hate is a strong word. She strongly dislikes her pacifier. Especially when she figures out that nothing comes out of it. What does she like? She likes to use my boobs (to the dismay of my nipples) to soothe herself. For the love of all nipples, I hope your child takes a paci.

Is this thing on?

First let me apologize for the state of this blog. It's fugly. I figured I'd post first before spending 12 hours deciding on which free blog design to use (only to finally decide and spend another 12 hours trying to figure out how the F to use it).

So, here you are - welcome to my blog. Hopefully this won't be a fail like the three before it. Yeah, I said three. This time is different, though. I swear. First, I'm not working at 5am every morning only to come home at 3pm and pass out on the couch till 7. This time I have pure motivation to update.

Meet Layla Grace. She was born November 17th, 2010. 7lbs 12oz 21in. This blog is about us, er ... her and everything that she has given us; including lack of sleep, 9 extra lbs (I consider myself lucky in this department), a totally unorganized house and all the love, joy and amazement a parent can/could have. She's the cheese to my macaroni.

Funny thing? Doctor after doctor told my husband and I we'd never have her. Ever. Thank you Endometriosis! Yes, that's right. Layla is our little Grace of God (hence her middle name). She's our little pre-wedding surprise (Hi, I was 30 weeks pregnant [aka 7 months] on my wedding day and I looked damn good. DAMN good!). We got our big fat positive one week to the day that we visited a Reproductive Endocrinologist who told us that conceiving naturally was not only dangerous (I'll explain why another time), but highly highly unlikely. I won't go too far into detail, as that's a whole other post, but let's just say little miss L is a pooping, crying, boobie milk loving miracle.

So, this is her blog. Welcome. I'm off to change a diaper.