2 month update

It's about that time to give an update on how our little Joey is doing (well, that time has come and gone a few times over, but my minimal free time is precious to me and blogging wasn't quite on top of the priority list).

Joey is about 2 and a half months old now and weighing in at almost 11 lbs. at 22.5 inches.

Last week, Joey had an appointment with the cardiologist because at his 2 month check up, the pediatrician noticed a slight heart murmur and preferred to be rather safe than sorry (as did I). Joey was to have two tests done: first the EKG, then the echocardiogram (or simply, echo). For the EKG, the nurse places 10 little stickers all around Joey's front side and then clamped some wires unto them. This is what he looked like...



He clearly wasn't bothered. Unfortunately, he was a little TOO happy. Apparently, most babies are able to stay still for up to 10 seconds. Joey, on the other hand, is a particularly wiggly little boy and refuses to stay still when he's awake. I never realized that this was unique or abnormal because, well, that's all I know. Supposedly, though, Joey was the first little fella in the nurses 7 years of giving EKGs that wouldn't stay still long enough for a full reading. Seriously? Who knew. Thankfully, the two-second reading that she got was enough for the cardiologist to read.

After the EKG, Joey next got an echo. This is simply an ultrasound of the heart. Well, he was still squirmy but she managed to get her pictures taken without too much of a fuss (thank goodness for sugar water and pacifiers).

In the end, we learned that Joey's heart is perfectly healthy and his murmur was completely normal and nothing to fear. What a relief.

In other news pertaining to Joey's health/body issues, you may have noticed his belly button in the EKG photo. Joey has an umbilical hernia. Fairly common, though I'd never heard of it. His belly button just sticks out a bit and can squish in if you push it but it comes right back out. All should be fine as long as it doesn't get firm and not be able to go back in or if it seems to be causing him pain, which it doesn't. It just looks weird. :o) It will probably go away by age 3 or 4.

As far as day to day life with the little one, here are some of the fun little quirks/likes/dislikes/stories/lessons learned about Joey:

- High chairs are AMAZING. We invested in a high chair earlier this month when Tom's sister and her 7 month old son, Bennett, came to visit. We figured that it would be helpful for feeding Bennett (since he is working on eating real food now) and we could just keep it for when Joey is old enough. Who knew that it would be my biggest time saver EVER. Even though he doesn't eat in it, Joey LOVES to sit in the high chair and just hang out and look around. Prior to the high chair, if he wasn't in my arms being carried around, he was screaming. Now, he'll sit in that with contentment pretty much all day if I made him. The only stipulation is that if he's in a fussy mood, I need to rock the high chair (which is on wheels) back and forth with my foot. You actually have the high chair to thank for allowing the time for this blog post to be created.

- Joey is over snuggling. If I try to snuggle him up in my arms, the screamer breaks loose. He just wants to be upright, faced AWAY from mom, and walking around the room checking things out.

- Tummy time is still a sensitive issue. We're working on it, though. Joey just hates being on his belly. Case closed. No arguing or he screams. Good news: we're making progress. He will *sometimes* let me put him on his belly with his boppy pillow for a few minutes before screaming and he will *sometimes* let me lay on my back while he lays on my stomach/chest. Baby steps. I refuse to give up. He WILL learn to love it. I'm determined.

- Joey spits up like it's his job. He is the KING of spit up (except of course when I say that he is when people are around, and then he keeps it in just to spite me). Apparently I was the same way as a baby so what goes around, comes around. All I have to say is thank you to all those who got us bibs when Joey was born. I had no idea that I would need so many so soon but my goodness, we go through about 5 of those per day.

- Joey has found his hands. He loves to hold his hands together and then try to shove them both in his mouth. Most times he ends up with his bib in his mouth instead because his hands come up from underneath the bib. So, yes, throughout the day, my child is sucking on a cloth absorbed with his spit up. What a rockstar.

- Remember that time a month ago when I thought Joey had learned to sleep through the night? Well he didn't. He just likes to get my hopes up. He's back to a 4-4-2 hour sleep schedule most nights (sometimes just a 4-3). Last night he was a hero and had a full 9 hour night for the first time since the previously notes nights last month. I'm not counting on this becoming habit forming, but it sure was nice.

- Joey loves to smile and talk. This, of course, is so rewarding to me. I mean really, how can you NOT be happy when you see this face?



We're a happy bunch and Tom and I are so grateful for our little growing family. Joey is such a blessing to us and we thank God every day that we have the opportunity to have him in our lives, bringing us joy and teaching us more about the love that Heavenly Father has for each of us.

Thoughts from a new momma

I’m officially a momma and before I say anything else, I just want to say WAHOO‼ This little bundle of joy has become the greatest treasure to enter Tom’s and my lives. On top of all the tender mercies we’ve received with this baby, one of the sweetest to me is how much of his daddy I see in him. That resemblance is such a reminder to me that this baby is here because of Tom and my love for each other. It just warms my heart to always look down at my sweet child and see a “tiny Tom”.

Since Tom was deemed recorder of the labor/delivery events, I wanted to add this post to just share my two cents about the whole experience. I’ll start from the beginning.

To start, I wasn’t exactly thrilled about getting induced. I didn’t like that my baby was going to be forced out of his home earlier than nature intended just because there was an issue with our clinic and the hospital. This frustration was slightly abated by the joy of knowing that I’d get to see my baby by a set point rather than the lingering unknown of post-due-date pregnancy.

Because we were inducing, most of my already very basic birth plan was thrown out the window. My birth plan was essentially this: avoid pitocin and c-section if at all possible. hold out on epidural until I’m dilated to at least a 5. Thankfully, I got my most desired wish and that was to avoid the c-section. The other two wishes didn’t quite come true. The nature of an induction is possible BECAUSE OF pitoI cin (unless they just break your water…but that’s slightly more risky) so there went that wish. The reason I wanted to avoid this drug was because of all the horror stories I’ve heard about how painful they make your contractions. Well, the horror stories are true, and thereby that lead to getting an epidural much earlier than planned. This was probably my greatest mental battle for the whole pregnancy. We’ve all heard the arguments for and against epidurals, so I won’t sound like a broken record to explain all the thoughts going through my head at that time. All I know is that at just 3 centimeters dilation, my contractions were constantly hurting me more than I could have ever possibly imagined and the nurses were frequently coming in and offering me the epidural as soon as I wanted it. I think I would have battled out the contractions longer if it had not been for the almost pushing of the nurses to get it right away. Thank heaven for those nurses. Looking back, I think there were two great options available: 1) tough it out for who knows how long and hope for that amazing spiritual experience that the all-natural mothers describe or 2) get the epidural as soon as possible and save all that energy for when it was finally time for the baby to enter the world. Needless to say, I chose option 2 and I really believe that it was the best option for me. I’m such a baby when it comes to pain and I knew that if I tried to hold out for the long run, I would have just beaten myself silly and wouldn’t have been able to enjoy those first few moments/hours with Joseph after his birth nearly as much as I did. So yes, my birth was easy to the point of it almost being ridiculous. No, I didn’t get to feel my baby being born. Yes, I realize that I should not expect all of my future deliveries to go as smoothly/easily. But yes, I am SO grateful for the energy/coherence/attention I was able to give to my son in those moments after his birth. I’m thrilled that I was awake and energized enough to spend his first night with him rather than having to send him off to the nursery so that I could get recuperation sleep. Even though things didn’t go as initially intended, I know that Heavenly Father had our needs in mind and His will was accomplished. His child was delivered into our arms safely and securely and now is the time to ensure that Tom and I take the best possible care of him.

Which leads me to my next topic…motherhood. What a new world! I always knew that I wanted to be a mommy but I never fully knew why until now. Every single second of my life is now such a treasure. Looking at him, feeding him, changing his diaper, holding him, sleeping by him… all of these new routine parts of my day make me happier than I ever thought possible.

Unfortunately, even with all of this joy, the baby blues have made their appearance. Thankfully, I was prepared for and fully aware of the threat that this posed and I’ve been working very hard to fight off any depressing feelings/tendencies that seem to come so naturally to me. I am truly grateful for the love and understanding support of Tom and my mom in helping me through this – especially considering how hard it must be to fall victim to my weepy and disgruntled moods.

As for the long, sleepless nights: I think I’ve had one, maybe one and a half. Otherwise, Joey has been GREAT. I never planned on being the mother who sleeps with her baby, but I’m quickly learning that with little babies, nothing quite goes as planned. Joey LOVES to sleep beside me. At night, we just curl up on the couch/bed after a good feeding and sleep until the next feeding. I always worried that this wouldn’t work because I’d roll over him or he’d fall off the bed/couch but those concerns are gone. I don’t know how to explain it other than I just KNOW he’s not going to fall/get squished. The way I get us positioned, I have my arm around him to keep him from falling, and I’m on my side in an awkward enough way as to make it impossible to roll over onto him. I’m not sure if we’ll continue this pattern forever (well not forever, but you know what I mean) but for now, we’re both happy campers because we get sleep and we get to be near one another. All is well.

Also, here is the health update on Joey: If you haven’t noticed in the pictures, Joey has mild jaundice. Nothing drastic and his biliruben levels are already going back down. His weight had dropped to 6 lbs 8 oz on day 4 but after some GREAT counsel and assistance from a lactation consultant, we’ve been able to fatten him up a bit more. One of the handy tools that she gave us was a syringe and feeding tube for finger feeding. The idea is this: Because Joey is jaundice he is more sleepy which makes him fall asleep during feedings and thereby misses out on getting not just more milk, but the important, fat-filled hind milk that comes out last. So now I pump for 5 minutes before I feed him, he then feeds on that fatty hind milk, and the milk that was pumped is available for the aforementioned finger feeding for when he gets fussy or if he’s still awake after his feeding. Tom LOVES this. We just put this tiny tube attached to the syringe on our finger and put our finger in his mouth (like a binky) and he sucks his little heart out. Sounds weird, but it works and we can rest assured that he’s always getting the best milk and then whatever else he is finger fed just adds to the volume.


So those are a very small few of my thoughts on motherhood. There will definitely be more to come as time goes by.

Joseph Steffen

Our baby has arrived!!! Joseph Steffen Arnett was born at 6:04 pm on Sunday, February 28, 2010. We weighed in at 7 pounds, 4 ounces and measured 20 1/4 inches. (Photos and videos updated daily here.)

The labor was surprisingly easier than Mary or I had ever expected. After breaking her water, the nurse and midwife waited a while to see how Mary would progress on her own. When her dilation and contractions didn't pick up speed as quickly as they had hoped, the nurse upped the pitocin at around 10 am. Shortly afterward Mary started having her first major labor pains. After about two hours of struggling, the anesthesiologist was called in to give Mary an epidural. From that point on everything was smooth sailing. Mary said that insertion of the epidural catheter was less painful than the IV needle for the pitocin. Soon after the epidural started, Mary lied down for a nap. When she woke up about three hours later she was dilated to a to a nine and the nurse started bringing in the equipment for delivery. When Mary started pushing the epidural was still working really well, so she didn't feel any pain and the midwife had to tell her when her contractions were starting. After eight or ten pushes the baby came and without any complications.

Now, truth be told, not everything has been a walk in the park. The last two nights Joey has not wanted to sleep alone. He sleeps wonderfully when he is being held in someone's arms, but when we put him in his crib or his bassinet he doesn't last for more than a minute or two before he starts making a fuss. This has mean two straight restless nights for Mary.

There were a number of aspects of having a baby that I had never anticipated. However, my biggest surprise has been how much I love just holding him and looking at his face. He is so adorable!! The photos just can't convey how handsome he is. I love watching all his little expressions: sucking, sticking his tongue out, blinking, reaching with is tiny uncoordinated arms, kicking with his tiny legs, and putting his fingers in his mouth. My favorite things are all of the little noises he makes: his whimpers, his snorting, and his cooing. He is absolutely wonderful.

Waiting and Anticipating

Mary and I are at the hospital now, passing the time while waiting for Joey to arrive. His due date was last Wednesday, but he decided to take his time. However, since Mary's clinic is no longer doing deliveries at our local hospital starting in March, we had an induction scheduled for today.


Last night we checked into the hospital and got set up in our delivery room. We are really happy with the hospital's birthing center. The room is large and comfortable, we get keep the same room for the duration of our stay, and the nursing staff has been very pleasant and helpful.

Last night the nurse on duty gave Mary some medication and hooked her up on the monitoring equipment, then we tried to get some sleep. It was a restless night for Mary since the nurse had to come in periodically to adjust the equipment and the medication.

This morning Mary and I worked on the scrapbook we are making for Joey. We also listened to a play list of music that Mary complied a few weeks ago to listen to during labor. The music selection seemed perfect for the moment. It created a very peaceful and happy ambiance in our room. During the morning we also compiled a list of phone numbers for our family members and sent out our first round of text message updates.

Mary's mom arrived at the hospital at around 8:30 with breakfast. We have been so grateful to have her here for the last few weeks. She has really helped Mary pass the time while waiting for Joey to be born. She does a wonderful job at knowing how to give the perfect love and support exactly in the moment of need.

At around 10:30 this morning the midwife arrived to check on Mary. She decided to break Mary's water, which means that Joey is definitely going to be born today. Since the water has been broken, Mary's contraction pains have really started to intensify. We are now just hours away from being able to welcome our son into the world.

Pregnancy Progress

It has been quite a while since I've posted so I figured I ought to give an update on how things are going with the pregnancy. I will be 36 weeks along on Wednesday and as for my size, I will let the photos speak for themselves....


15 weeks and not much to show for it


21 weeks and trying to pretend like there's something worth showing


23 weeks and barely starting to round out


24 weeks = fat phase


25 weeks and I'm pretty sure I shrunk that week.


26 weeks and starting to actually look slightly pregnant


31 weeks and I've officially exploded. I do believe that the huge growth came more from my mom's cooking than from my pregnancy.


35 weeks and I'm ready to be done growing.

Pretty much ever since I got back from California, the aches and pains have settled in and seem to be here to stay. Earlier on, like before and during California, I had the audacity to laugh at pregnant women who 1) complained of aches and pains in their back, hips, legs, etc. and 2) were clumsy enough to fall during their pregnancy. Let's just say I've eaten plenty of humble pie in the last few weeks. Firstly, I'm now essentially bed ridden due to the extreme amount of back pain I'm suffering. I can't even begin to describe how much the pain consistently hurts and disrupts my life.
Secondly, I've lost my center of gravity. I have no balance. Last week I walked outside to check to mail, didn't even make it past my front walkway, and totally ate it. My ankles were apparently no match for my ginormous top-heavy body and just gave out on me as I fell over into the snow that Trueman pees in every day. Out of that experience, I got a bruised ego, a scraped up knee, more joint aches and pains, and a $40 bill/copay for an "unexpected problem" trip to the doctor. Thankfully, all that extra weight I gained over Christmas cushioned Joey well and he didn't seem at all bothered by my fall. The doctor monitored him for a half an hour to make sure all was well and, thank goodness, his heart was consistently beating at a very normal/perfect rate so I was able to go home. Ay yay yay.

I know these next 4 weeks won't go by fast but at least I hope that they go by without too many more scares and additional pains. Wish me luck.

How I Roll

It's that time again. The time when I'm about to hit a major milestone in my life. So what, then, is inevitable? A haircut! I very rarely get my hair cut but when I do, it's spontaneous and drastic. Actually, it's not THAT spontaneous because I have indeed formed a pattern in my life. Major life milestone = major haircut. First date, summer before college, wedding, and now Joey! I guess there is just something soothing about chopping off 6+ inches of hair that helps prepare me for those major moments of life. So without further ado, here's the new look.

Pivotal Pregnancy Moment

Hello my dear friends. I have great news. Last night I experienced a pivotal pregnancy moment.

You see this woman?



This is what a pregnant Mary Arnett looks like. How do I know? Because last night I had my first pregnancy recognition from a non-knower. Tom and I were at a stake church activity and we saw somebody that we had not seen since early June. Without skipping a beat, she noticed my belly and congratulated me and asked when I was due. Granted, this could have been a more exciting story if she hadn't known what I'd looked like pre-pregnancy, but I'm still counting it!

I have officially graduated from the fat phase, my friends! This is serious progress.