Lorelai is 2!

   

How in the heck has it been two years since our sweet little girls came into this world? Even though Lorelai has come so far and is thriving it's sometimes hard to fathom how we've gotten here.



This second year has been by far easier than the first. Once we got her on reflux meds it seems like our lives just got slightly easier. We still have several doctor appointments but we didn't seem to be fighting her as much with eating and she actually started to GAIN WEIGHT!!!

This second year has been a blessing. She is thriving with medications and feeding therapy. She is as feisty as she is sweet. She is super opinionated, independent and a little mean at times. She knows what she wants and she stops at nothing to get it.

This year instead of going somewhere alone, we rented and airbnb in Chicago and went to spend time with my mom and sister. It was super cold and I hated that we couldn't be outside comfortably but we enjoyed our time with family and seeing the museum of science and industry. We had a good time and we are grateful for the time we spent with family...and we let our family in on our newest addition which I think was a huge blessing. We told my mom on her birthday which I think helped shine a little light on a somewhat dark day for her which I was happy to provide her with some happiness on her day!

Morning bottle! happy birthday to our 2 year old!!

a little morning nap on the way to the museum.

        

They had this exhibit with a kitchen and it had dog bowls. She actually
loves dog food and was infatuated with the play dog bowls and food.

Playing in the water area they had at the museum. 

so the museum has this exhibit of babies preseved in each week of pregnancy
this is a 26 week babe....my how far we've come. 

Here's a little big about Lorelai at age 2.

• she started walking in August and has been trying to run ever since to keep up with her brothers
• She talks up a storm and is more vocal than the boys ever were at this age
• she says several words but her first word was 'mama' :)
• She has gotten a few teeth (6 total) 2 top teeth and 4 bottom ones.
• She is eating more and more, but still prefers her bottles. 
• we offer 3 meals a day and then will still give her 4-6 bottles a day fortified with heavy cream. --girl likes her milk! 
• we are working on a sippy cup but she is unimpressed and per her Neo's orders we are to give her the bottle, we can fix her teeth later but not her brain. 
• She LOVES books. She is always coming up to us asking us to read. I've been trying to be better about reading to her, and she truly enjoys it. I want to get more good books for them! 
• She is a very happy and smiley kid. She loves to be around people and especially family. She is always quick to smile and come give mama kisses. 
• I will ask her to come give me a kiss from across the room and she will come in running with the most adorable kiss face ever. 
• She's still our champion sleeper. She goes down around 8:30-9 and will sleep until about 9 the next day. 
• However she has started waking up at random times between midnight and 5am and playing in her crib for 2 hours. She runs back and forth, talks to someone and laughs hysterically. Adam and I think she's playing with Laynie. 
• She would still like to nap twice a day and sometimes she does, but we are trying to get her on a more toddlersih schedule of napping once a day in the afternoon. Most days it works but only if after her early morning play session she goes back to sleep for a few hours. 
• her afternoon nap is usually about 2-4 hours!!! 
• She is not a fan of TV and will honestly not watch it. Slowly she has become more and more interested but for the most part if she does watch tv it's for under 2 min. 
• She loves to do any and everything her brothers do and is constantly trying to keep up. 
• She is a little mean and has been known to just push or shove other  kids for no reason...we're working on this!!
• She's becoming more and more independent and wants to do things herself. 
• She hates to have her hair brushed! It's BAD! screams bloody murder when we try to brush it, but it's slowly getting long enough for me to pull back into a pony tail, but Lincoln still LOVES to put in a headband bow. 
• She loves to take showers and play in the water or she loves to be in the bathtub! 
• She's wearing 12 month clothes but is starting to fit into more 18 months...watch out world she's getting big!!

Lorelai is such a joy to us and we can't help but look at her and be grateful. She is the perfect addition to our family and we are so proud of her spunk and fight, even if it may drive us little crazy at times. Every time she challenges us with her feisty personality we just can't help but be grateful. She's feisty yes, but because of the feistiness she's here and triving and some days we have to remember that more than others, but she is also so sweet, loves to get and give hugs and kisses and she loves her mama and dada! Though she still prefers mama shes warming up to her dad! 

Lastly I do have her 2 yr stats. 

• She's 22lbs
• that's the 3rd percentile or 5th percentile adjusted
• She 31 inches 
• which is also 3rd percentile or 5th percentile adjusted

Just for reference; Lincoln was 23lbs and 31.5 inches at 1 year old.....but hey growth is growth and she grew almost 7 lbs this year and I can't quite remember how long she was but she's sure grown in length too. 

Lorelai you're a joy, you're our miracle and we couldn't be more proud of the little girl you're turning into. Please continue to thrive with feeding, grow strong and be the light of our lives. We love you so much baby girl! Happy 2nd Birthday!!!

Some pictures from our weekend of celebrating the birthday trifecta. 

When your Daughters, mom and sisters' birthdays are a day a part, you eat lots of cake

Happy Birthday baby girl!

Blowing out the candles. 

My sweet family

Since we weren't at home I had to do our photoshoot at Stace and Ian's.

Perfect little 2 year old

Love her

Adam had gotten me flowers for Valentines day and she loved them.
So he decided to get her and Laynie flowers for their birthday.
 Pink ones for Lola and Purple for Laynie. 

No Birthday celebration would be complete without acknowledging and celebrating the girl who changed our lives for the better. Her life may have been short but the impact she has had on all of us has been everlasting. I'm a changed person because of her. I live each day as best I can and strive to walk a rightous path full of love, and kindness so that someday I will hold her in my arms again and never let her go. We did our annual balloon release and some of us wrote notes to her on the balloons. The boys really enjoy this tradition and we do too.          

Love you sweet Laynie. 

And of course we had to celebrate my mom and sister. I still can't believe that the 3 of them have birthdays so close.

Lola loves to blow out candles. 

The birthday trifecta! March 3, 4 and 5th!

We decided to have a birthday party this year for the girls and invite more than just immediate family. Last year my heart just wasn't in it. It was hard enough to celebrate Lorelai let alone be with anyone other than the 5 of us. But this year I was feeling much more celebratory. We'd been having such a mild winter and early spring so I had hoped to celebrate her birthday at a park but of course the ONE day I chose it was FREEZING out, so we moved the party to my parents. 

It was a great day celebrating BOTH our girls. Everyone doted on our miracle and then we did another balloon release to celebrate Laynie's birthday too. I'm unsure if we will always do this or if it will be something we eventually stop, but for me, for right now I can't have a birthday party without acknowledging Laynie. Its her birthday too.

"Family is not always about blood, sometimes its about who is there
to hold your hand and support you when you need it most."

Lorelai's 2 year pictures had to be pushed back a month due to my work schedule and spring break schedule of our photographer. However She did get us squeezed in for a few pregnancy annoucement pictures.

Chafin Family of 7!

We got her pictures done in April and they are perfect. Just like her!!! 

Love this girl

Big Siblings

sweet babes

Love these 5

My sweet Family

This is my favorite picture, probably ever. When you lose a child you always wonder what life would be like with that child. you wonder what that child would be like. It's hard, every day is a struggle. When we lost Laynie I of course mourned her, but we mourned so much more than that. We mourned the relationship that was and what could have been between each of her siblings and especially Lorelai. I have to say that when I first saw this picture I was taken aback because the bear she is holding is our Laynie Bear. It's a bear that was made for us that represents our girl. This picture represents what I believe Lorelai and Laynie's relationship would be like.  So with this last picture. Happy Birthday to our beautiful Girls. We love you dearly and we are so grateful to you both!!!

Journey to another Babe

Adam and I have always wanted a large family. After unexpectedly getting pregnant with the girls and all the uncertainty that came with carrying them we weren't always 100% sure that we wanted more children. I remember one of my MFM doctors asking me if we were done having kids while we were still pregnant with the girls. I remember telling him, "tell me both these girls will survive and I will be". He had asked me this while I was still early around 23ish weeks with the girls. The reason he had asked this was because we knew I was going to have a C-section and at the gestation that we were talking about it, I was going to have to have a classical incision, that means they pretty much cut you stem to sternum. The problem with this is, it makes carrying any future pregnancies harder because of the tension that full term babies put on your incision. He told me that if I were to have any future kids with a classical incision they would have to do a repeat C-section at 34/35 weeks which would mean any future kids we would have would automatically be NICU babies. Once he said that wasn't sure I would, I didn't want to set up any more kids for early deliveries and I wasn't sure I'd ever want to go thought something like that again. Well thankfully come delivery day with the girls we had gotten almost 4 weeks more with them than we had originally anticipated and we were able to get a transverse incision which not only insured that we wouldn't HAVE to deliver early, but that I would also be given a fighting chance to have a VBAC!

I also remember several of Lorelai's NICU nurses asking me if we planned to have any more kids. While it was quite premature to ask that considering we had just lost Laynie and she was still a wee babe in the NICU I remember thinking that yes I would have more. My family didn't feel complete. Though would it ever feel complete since Laynie was resting in our hearts instead of in our arms?

Losing Laynie and dealing with the minor issues of Lorelai being premature left Adam and I feeling drained most days. Having to balance her therapies and doctors appointments weren't always easy. And honestly dealing with the constant pain from losing Laynie left us wondering if we would ever be ready to have another baby.

We slowly began to adjust to our new normal and realized that perhaps we would want another babe. So we decided this past fall that we might be ready and began to truly think about having another babe. I didn't want to be pregnant at my sister's wedding so we had decided once we got home we would just see what God had in store for us.

Well come January I decided to take a pregnancy test. I wasn't sure if I was pregnant or not, but I was a few days late. Though I wasn't completely regular since finishing pumping 8 months prior, I had a sneaking suspicion. And sure enough it was positive. I immediately felt joy and excitement, followed by anxiety, nervousness and fear and a little bit of sadness.  Of course I took the test without Adam knowing or him being home. I was wracking my brain to figure out how to tell him. Well I had to work that night and Adam was running late so I never got to see him. So we were talking on my way into work and he was talking about having another babe and I couldn't contain the excitement or wait until we actually had time together to tell him so I simply said. "how about in September". The joy and excitement that came through his voice was so heartwarming. His excitement made me so happy. I wasn't sure how excited he would be, or how he would react. I mean it's baby #5, but his excitement was as strong as it was with any of the other ones which helped to ease some of my nerves.


Being pregnant after a loss is definitely hard. The emotions you go through on a daily basis is unreal, not to mention all those hormones that make things that much more difficult. All in all I am very happy and excited to be having another baby, but this time my nerves are getting to me. I'm scared that something will be wrong with this babe, I'm scared of how I will react once I have this babe, I'm nervous that due to delivering early last time that I will do the same thing this time. I'm worried Laynie will feel like we are replacing her. I feel guilty for not being 100% happy. But with talking to Adam about all my roller coaster of emotions has helped. I would very much like to have twins again simply because I want to know what it is like to raise twins. I know that I will always be a twin mom. But I want to know the challenges and all that, that is associated with raising them! But after my first ultrasound we learned there is just one babe in there and it appears to be healthy and viable! which truly as much as wanting twins is the most important thing. We truly just want a healthy babe no matter if it is one or two babes.

Honestly after I got over the wee bit of disappointment learning it was just one babe I began to feel quite excited and happy that we were having a healthy baby. So to our future little one... Please be safe in my belly, grow big and stay inside until close to your due date, but I can't wait to hold and snuggle your sweet little face.