My Perfect Baby

Some people are blessed with “perfect” babies. You know which ones I am talking about: the ones that “never cry,” are the “perfect size,” and are ahead of the developmental curve. I will tell you something I have discovered, though. A baby does not have to meet those requirements in order to be perfect. Let me introduce you to my perfect baby.

My perfect baby was born on August 8, 2012. Her due date was July 31^st. I wanted her birth to be completely natural, but I ended up having to have an induced labor. I went crazy during the week between her due date and the day she was born. I was so tired of being pregnant, and I just wanted to hold her in my arms. I was also worried, because as time ticked by I knew I was getting closer and closer to being told I would have to have an induced labor. To me that was a big deal. After she was born though, I realized that everything had gone perfectly. I had really only spent half of my time during that last week before her birth going crazy, the rest of that time was spent with my wonderful husband making memories of just the two of us that we will always cherish. Other than being given pitocin to force me into labor, I was able to have a completely natural birth with no pain medication. My labor was quick and the birth went without a hitch other than me tearing a lot, and my baby girl was perfectly healthy. The midwife described it as a perfect birth, and I agree that it was a perfect birth: hard, but perfect. This experience taught me to trust in Heavenly Father and his plan, not mine. It was just the experience I needed to have.

My perfect baby was a difficult baby pretty much from the start. The first challenges we faced with her were breastfeeding and jaundice. Before she was born I had thought that breastfeeding would be easy. I was mistaken. My baby and I had a difficult time connecting just right at first during feedings. I struggled to hold her in just the right position, and she struggled to get a good latch. Then she developed jaundice, and it became very important for her to eat as much as possible so it could get flushed out of her system. Needless to say, those first few days were very stressful and stretched my patience, but as is always the case, we got through it.

The next challenge to come along was her crying. She cried a lot, and she did it loudly. When she was a newborn, one of the first things people would say about her was that she sure had a good pair of lungs. We wondered why she cried so much, but all we could really find was that she seemed to have a lot of gas. Other than that she seemed to be perfectly healthy. I tried to find ways to help her, but it seemed that nothing helped much. She would just cry because the gas hurt, and my husband and I would just do our best to try to soothe and comfort her. It drove us crazy a lot. At first we would find ourselves so frustrated we would just yell sometimes and have to pass her off to the person who was feeling more patient at the moment so we would not do anything stupid to her. Don’t get me wrong, we loved her very much and had some great times with her as well, but that was hard to remember sometimes when she had been crying and screaming for the last hour or more. Two months and a move to Oregon later we were still struggling with this. We were desperate, and found ourselves fasting and praying for change. We were worried about her, and we also just wanted to be able to enjoy her. Later that day the first blessing came. We realized that perhaps we could not change her situation, but we most certainly could change ours. We took turns saying why we were grateful to have her in our family. We realized that we were not making the effort to really enjoy her to the fullest. I would usually go about taking care of her without much excitement or interaction. I was not doing a very good job of showing her how to be happy and enjoy life. We decided that we would take control of our attitudes and perspectives. We started smiling at her more, and she started smiling in return. We started talking and singing to her more, and she started talking back. I also found better ways to deal with my frustrations, such as through prayer and reliance on the atonement. She still cried a lot, but life became something to be enjoyed, not just something to be endured. Soon more answers to our problem came. From doing research on the internet I finally came to understand why she was so gassy all the time: she was swallowing too much air while nursing. We were failing to burp her enough to get all of the air bubbles out so they wouldn’t make her hurt all the time and make her gassy. The fact that she swallows too much air is something that I still have not been able to fix, but we have gotten much better at burping her sufficiently. It is still a struggle to do this, especially when the air is difficult to get out or when only a few minutes of nursing requires twenty minutes of burping and five burps before she has it all out of her system. She usually is not able to take very long naps before some more hidden air wakes her up and makes her tummy hurt. Sometimes I still struggle to stay calm when I have spent what feels like forever trying to get more air out of her while she screams for me to get it out. When it is all over though, she smiles at me, we sing and talk to each other, and I feel so blessed to have her in my life. She truly does bring me so much joy, and I have learned to not take the little moments for granted. She has good days too, and I have learned to really cherish those days. Being her mommy has not been easy, but it has taught me patience, perseverance, hard work, selflessness, unfailing love, and reliance on the Savior. While I very much look forward to the day when her body matures more and this is no longer a problem, I am grateful for all that it has taught me. I would not have it any other way.

My perfect baby is also small, too small for many peoples’ standards. At 3 and ½ months old she has finally reached 10 lbs. She weighs less than all the other babies I know of, including those who were only born a month ago. I still get compliments on my cute little newborn. I have even had people ask me if she was born prematurely when they find out how old she is. I am not worried about her though. She has always been small, even when they measured her in utero. I know she eats well, and she is on track developmentally. I think she is just lucky and inherited her daddy’s super good metabolism. Having a small baby definitely has some perks too. She is still pretty easy to carry around, and she gets to wear her cute clothes for a long time before she grows out of them. She is perfect just the size she is.

Here are some other fun things about my perfect baby. She is absolutely adorable, the cutest baby in the world in my unbiased opinion. She has blonde hair and blue eyes. She looks just like her daddy, only younger and she has a bit more hair on top of her head. She has the cutest smile, which is most likely to creep up when she is being admired or sung to. She loves to listen to music and dance. Sometimes she will coo and laugh, but only when she wants to. She is certainly not one that can be bossed around. She can be a bit stubborn like that, sort of like her mommy. While she does not nap very well, she sleeps wonderfully at night. Most nights she will sleep for at least 9 hours before she wakes up to eat. It is wonderful. She loves to suck on her fingers, and she spends most of her time when she is not eating or crying doing so. She likes to be outdoors when the weather is nice. If she is strapped into her car seat, swing, or stroller, that thing had better be moving or she will protest. She hates tummy time. She likes to take baths and be in water. She may be small, but she is strong. She is starting to enjoy playing with toys. She loves her angel friends (those people who babies look at and smile at who we can never see). She loves being with her family, and most of all, she is loved by everyone who knows her.

While she may not meet all of the world’s requirements for being a perfect baby, she certainly meets my requirements. She is just the baby I need. I would not want her any other way, and that is why she is my perfect baby.