Welcoming William | My Labor & Delivery Story

by Katie @ Cup of Tea // June 8, 2016 // 13 Comments

Anyone else love hearing about how a baby came into the world? You always hope for smooth, speedy deliveries for friends, so it’s fun to hear how it all went down… or came out…

If you’re nosy like me, then I have a story for you!

Monday, May 23, was a weird day. I woke up with a random BURST of energy! This entire pregnancy I was dragging and could barely muster the strength to unload the dishwasher. But that morning I was feeling great! So I vacuumed. And did 2 loads of laundry. And mopped the floors.

And cleaned the bathrooms.

All that nesting should have been my first sign.

The second sign was that Elizabeth asked specifically to watch the Daniel Tiger episode where his baby sister is born. Even she knew it would be an eventful day!

By evening I was still feeling normal. My husband left to work a late shift at the hospital, and I settled into a night of working ahead on blog stuff, editing videos, etc. I was REALLY productive! I bounded downstairs at about 10pm ready to settle in to a short show while I waited for my husband to come back home at 11.

I popped into the bathroom. After I finished, I stood up and felt a pop. Then water absolutely flowing out! So I plopped back on the toilet and just stared at myself in the mirror. With Elizabeth, my water didn’t really break until I went to the doctor for a check to see if I was in labor. This was absolutely my water breaking! Panic! Now what???

I spent about 5 minutes talking to myself in the mirror. “This can’t possibly be my water right? I’m not ready! I can’t believe this is happening now. Is this happening? When is my husband getting home??” I realized I needed to get to my phone in the kitchen somehow, but every time I attempted to stand up, the water kept coming! (TMI yet?)

After a few minutes of strategizing, I grabbed a handful of toilet paper and made a run for the phone! I made it back to the toilet and texted my husband with a calm message. “COME HOME NOW! MY WATER HAS BROKEN! THIS IS NOT A JOKE!”

About 2 minutes later he came home (good timing!). He found me on the toilet and we talked strategy. He immediately went into Doctor mode, while I went in to Mom mode. He started wondering about timing of when to go to the hospital once the water breaks. I worried about who would watch Elizabeth! After some texts and calls we got the info we needed. Elizabeth could go to a friend’s house nearby until my Mother-in-Law could come the next day. And I was to come to the hospital by 2am if there were no contractions.

Elizabeth thankfully was pretty happy to have a sleep over at a friend’s house! One hurdle done!

After watching several shows on Netflix, laying on the floor, it was 2am and there were no real contractions yet. So we hauled in to the hospital.

From about 2-5am there wasn’t much going on. I laid on my hospital bed watching the clock tick, trying to decide if my quiet contractions were anything to write home about. They weren’t…. so it was decided that I would need pitocin to get things moving along, as the baby was hanging out without fluid. And since pitocin makes things REALLY intense, I also opted to get an epidural. I got both of those at around 5:30am.

And then…. we waited some more! My sweet husband caught some zzzzs while I stared at the wall clock again. I am a horrible napper! Plus, every time I dozed off, the blood pressure cuff turned on… so sleeping was pretty pointless.

By about 11:30am I noticed that I could start feeling contractions again, and they were more intense. Instead of muscles tightening it was more like pressure. Really wild stuff! The doctor checked and wouldn’t you know? I was 10 cm dilated! Hooray! When I started pushing with Elizabeth, I couldn’t feel a thing. They kept telling me HOW to push… but I truly couldn’t tell if I was doing anything right. This time, there was no doubt about what to do. Isn’t the body a wild thing?

After a few decent pushes, William was born at 12:28pm on May 24!

Other than the long periods of boredom (and starvation!!!) it was a really easy labor and delivery!

I got to go home in the afternoon of May 25. So I was in the hospital just one complete night. In hindsight I should have stayed one more night, because what I came home to was a very sick toddler who wanted nothing to do with anyone except her mommy. Understandable! But it was a lot to handle… constant runny noses AND constant newborn feedings.

But at least Elizabeth was excited about her baby Brother!

Two weeks later, and I’m basically back to normal. Elizabeth is back to normal too and is her normal, happy, sweet self! William is still constantly eating, but that’s a newborn’s life… My husband and I even managed a quick date night last Friday! A win!

We’re slowly but surely getting used to life as a family of 4!

How to Create a 2 Week Rotating Menu + Sample Menu Printable

by Katie @ Cup of Tea // June 6, 2016 // 12 Comments

We know that I place a high value on meal planning, BUT it is one of the tasks I hate to do. With a new baby and trying to survive on limited sleep, I have been searching for ways to make my life easier in the next few months. So I’ve created a simple 2 Week Rotating Menu that I’ll reuse over and over for the next few months.

I decided this was a smart idea for a few reasons:

Picking meals to eat every day is the hardest part of meal planning for me. Taking advantage of the same 2 week menu will save me a lot of time!
Using the same menu every 2 weeks means I’m also using the same grocery shopping list! I can more easily strategize when it comes to grocery shopping.
I can also more easily share ingredients for several meals.
BONUS! I can also stock up on the frozen or canned items I’ll need when I see them on sale. If I know we’ll need 2 packages of hot dog buns to get us through 2 months of meals, I can buy now and freeze! Then weekly I’m just buying produce and dairy.

Let me walk you through what I did to start planning my 2 Week Rotating Menu!

First up was creating the actual menu. I tackled it using similar strategies I use when I plan a normal single week menu. I pulled in summer family favorites, dinners that are easy to pull together quickly, and meals that use similar ingredients.

I laid it all out in a simple spreadsheet, with 3 columns labeled Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Then I started laying in the meal ideas. I reused a few meals, especially breakfast and lunch ideas. But for dinner I tried really hard to think of 14 different dinners.

Next up was creating a master shopping list for everything! I made notes for what stores offer the best deals on products, and then planned out my shopping strategy. The overall goal with shopping was to minimize the weekly trips to the store, hoping to keep it to just one store a week (ideally my favorite local store that offers online shopping and a drive through pick up!). Then I planned trips to the other grocery stores to stock up on ingredients, buying enough to last us several rotations (2 months worth).

Here’s what I’m planning!

Download the PDF Printable if you want to print!

So, if all goes according to plan, I’ve just planned our meals through the summer! And I’ll hopefully be able to have one grocery shop a week using a really convenient pick up option! This will hopefully offer me a little rest and take one thing off my plate as we’re trying to adjust to a new normal.

You might also like my favorite quick family dinner options or my 5 tips for quickly feeding your family.

What things do you do to make things easier when life gets crazy? Let me know!

High Five for Friday #73 | The New Normal

by Katie @ Cup of Tea // June 3, 2016 // 9 Comments

Welcome to High Five for Friday – hosted by me, Tif, and Della! If you want to know more, read about it here!

This week’s featured blogger is Brittney from Off the Vine! She shares all about her family – husband and 2 girls – and their daily lives. Such a fun family! I couldn’t help but chuckle at her recent 11 Things I Didn’t Expect During Labor post. A few I related to, and then a few were completely opposite from me! Isn’t it funny how we all react to things differently? Wild! Be sure to swing over and say hello!!

Here are the highlights from the week!

1. I’m still adjusting to our new normal… it’s so weird looking around and seeing that we’re a family of 4 now. Crazy! But overall we’re doing great! My recovery is basically over now… we’re managing to keep up with things around the house. The kids aren’t starving. Win!

2. Elizabeth is really still the challenge around here… she loves baby brother! But she’s having a hard time realizing my attention is divided. I’m swinging back and forth between serious Mommy Guilt and then Mommy Frustration due to her shenanigans. But her little world has been rocked. We did manage to sneak out for a Mommy/Daughter trip to the library this week as well as a trip to the museum. Each day she gets better and better at the adjustment.

3. William was a super spitter upper at first! In fact he wasn’t gaining weight like he should have. We went to 2 weight checks back to back to see if he was just holding steady. Thankfully he has been and his river of pukes has slowed. I was dodging spit up left and right there for a while! But he has been a fairly easy going baby so far! Newborns, thankfully, sleep a ton. I swear they’re made that way to help you adjust.

4. A few things that have made our lives easier – both grandmas came for visits, and that was SO helpful! This week we also had sweet friends deliver dinners for us. Want to know the best gift for new parents? Bring them food!! Amazing. And then we had someone come over to give us an estimate on cleaning the house 2 times a month. A luxury, for sure. But will be really helpful, at least in the short term.

5. I’ve got to laugh – the days are all bleeding together. I can’t exactly remember what day I did what. Shoot, I can’t even remember what day my mother showed up to help out. It feels like days are flying by and it’s hard to believe William has been here for only 10 days… I need a nap…

What were you up to this week? Let me know!

I’m also linking up with Oh Hey, Friday, Meet @ the Barre, 5 on Friday & Diary of a Real Housewife

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Learning to Do Less | Guest Post from Living in this Season

by Katie @ Cup of Tea // June 2, 2016 // 6 Comments

I’m so excited that Keri from Living in This Season is sharing this guest post today! She recently launched her e-book Why Just Survive When You Thrive. I’ve read it, and it’s stuffed full of encouragement for us women who feel like we’re constantly feeling overwhelmed and can’t get it all done. Feel like that? Then you MUST check it! Thank you, Keri, for offering a glimmer of hope for us – that we can live a life that’s thriving, not merely surviving to the end of the day.

As a mom, I think it is easy to believe the lie that we need to do it all. In our minds, we believe that the “perfect mom” has well-behaved kids, laundry finished, home-cooked meals prepared, all while maintaining the perfect outward appearance. We run ourselves ragged trying to do everything.

One thing I like to encourage moms to do is to stop doing it all and start saying no.

Moms, we cannot do everything and we should not do everything. When we start to function from where we are gifted and what we are called to do, we can do a few things well rather than doing everything half-way.

We tend to feel guilty when we say no, but what I try to remind myself is that when I say no, someone else has the opportunity to say yes. As you learn how to step back and do less, here is some encouragement:

(1) Identify your priorities. When I sit down and look at my life, I have a list of priorities. Having this list, helps me to filter out everything else.

(2) Identify your gifts. What is it that you love to do? I have a friend who is so talented with baking. She always is the one who will make the most beautiful cookies or cupcakes for the class parties, so she does it and she does it well. That is not my thing, but I love to help out with field trips or send in classroom supplies. When we operate from where we are gifted, we are focusing more on fewer things.

As we identify these things, we are able to have a clearer picture of what we need to say yes to. Moms, let’s all start doing less and do less well. When we focus in on these few things, our impact will be so much greater, because we will not be so worn down.

Would you like more tips on thriving as a mom? Check out Keri’s new book, Why Just Survive When You Can Thrive.

High Five for Friday #72 | Introducing Baby William!

by Katie @ Cup of Tea // May 27, 2016 // 22 Comments

Welcome to High Five for Friday – hosted by me, Tif, and Della! If you want to know more, read about it here!

So how was your week?

Mine went a bit different than expected!

William is here!

He was born this past Tuesday at 12:28pm. He was 6 lbs 14 oz and 19 inches long! A whole 10 days early.

So, yes, I never got my pedicure…

I’ve been enjoying the last few days staring at a new little face.

And Big Sister Elizabeth? She’s smitten!

You can keep up with us over on Instagram for a while! I’ll pop in for blog posts over the next few weeks, but will definitely be quiet around here.

Wildly, this was a busy blog week! I planned ahead! Catch up on our favorite quick family dinner ideas, what essentials we actually used for potty training, and the epic interview with Elizabeth!

Thank you for all the comments and hellos over the last few days! It’s meant a lot!!! I will catch up with them, but I’m enjoying reading them.

What were you up to this week? Let me know!

I’m also linking up with Oh Hey, Friday, Meet @ the Barre, 5 on Friday & Diary of a Real Housewife

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