rushley & crew

I originally had a different idea of what the three of us would be for Ada's first Halloween, but when my friend Tori gifted me the cutest little outfit from my favorite childhood show, plans quickly changed :) The show is Sailor Moon. For those of you who don't know the show, here's a pic of Sailor Moon for reference, and if you really want, you can find episodes on YouTube! So here's our little Sailor Moon! And to keep things real, here's how she looked for most of this photoshoot :'D Although I loved the show as a kid, I never thought to be Sailor Moon for Halloween, so this was my chance! Haha :) and Russ is always nice enough to go along with whatever family costume I pick out, so he was Tuxedo Mask.  Unfortunately, his was the only costume that I didn't finish getting before Ada was born, so it lacks a lot of elements and just doesn't look super spot on. Oh, well. Such is life with a baby h...

My sweet Ada, I can't believe you've been here for a month! Cliche as it may be, the time has flown by but it also feels like you must have been here for so much longer than that. Our little family has gone through so much in your first month of life -- the excitement of you being born , the heartache of not getting to bring you home from the NICU for 16 days, the overwhelming responsibility of being new parents. It's definitely been (and continues to be) a challenge trying to figure each other out, but your daddy and I love you so much and we are so happy to have you in our lives :) Stats I totally thought that -- since you were born weighing 11 pounds -- you wouldn't fit in 0-3 month clothes for long. However, many of your 0-3 month clothes don't even fit you yet! So you wear 0-3 month clothes, but for the most part, they're still too big. You definitely skipped over newborn diapers straight into size 1. I think you wore one newborn diaper in...

A little bit before I had Ada, Russ and I were walking to church and talking about life after baby. One thing we touched on was postpartum hormones and postpartum depression. "That time of the month" doesn't make me emotional, and I really only had like two emotional episodes during pregnancy, so I said it was possible that I wouldn't have hormone craziness after delivery. But I also knew it was completely possible that I  would  have hormone craziness -- it was just something we couldn't predict! Well let me tell you. Those hormones have been in full force! Things I have cried about include: About 5 hours after we got home from the hospital, I turned to Russ and burst into tears and said, "I miss our baby!" He asked how long I'd been feeling that way and I said, "about 3 seconds . . . " It just came on so sudden and strong!  Many times throughout Russ's paternity week, I cried just thinking about how the week would end and he...

It never even crossed my mind that there could be anything wrong with the sweet baby growing inside me. I just imagined she would come out ready to take on the world, I suppose. Even when they carted her off to the NICU just a few hours after she was born, I somehow was under the impression that she would only be there for 24 hours. However, 24 hours turned into 16 very long days. Why did she need intensive care? When Ada was born, her blood sugar was very low. Apparently this is common for babies of diabetic mothers: Their pancreas learns to work overtime while inside mom since there is lots of extra sugar from mom, but as soon as baby is out, the sugar supply is cut off while the pancreas still works in overdrive. At first they just wanted her blood sugar to be above a certain level before feedings and they wanted her to take 15 mL of milk. After a day or two, she was consistently doing this, so I thought we'd get to take her home! However, then the doctors seemed to do a 1...