Jane Christina Johansen

Jane Christina Johansen - Cute and Sweet

4.5 Years Old

4 Years Old

3.5 Years Old

3 Years Old  

2.5 Years Old

2 Years Old

1.5 Years Old

1 Year Old

11 Months

10 Months

9 Months

8 Months

7 Months

6 Months

5 Months

4 Months

3 Months

2 Months

1 Month

1 Day

Sleep baby, sleep...

Sleeping... What is that? Any new parent knows what I'm talking about. Here's our experience so far (Jane's 7 months old)
- First month - Jane would sleep most of the day and night but would nurse every 2.3 to 3 hours - not much sleep for me
- 2nd to 4th month - Jane would sleep a few good hours every day and night but nurse every 3.5 to 4 hours and cry because of colic sometimes until 3AM - still not much sleep for me and even for David sometimes
- 4th to 6th month - Jane would not go to sleep until 1AM would ask for a bottle at night every 4 or 4.5 hours. She would take a couple hour long naps during the day. Jane eats every 3 hours during the day - more sleep for me than before but I'd also be more exhausted from watching her during the day
- 7th month - Jane has a bedtime routine and goes to bed around 10PM. During the day she has one 2 hour nap and sometimes a short 30 mins nap. She still eats every 4 or 5 hours at night and every 3 hours during the day - I get more sleep now but still can't go to bed earlier that 1AM
- 8th month - when she doesn't fall asleep during the last feeding, Jane rolls all over the bed and cries really loud when I try to hold her still. She naps for about an hour during the day. She wakes up every couple of hours crying for a bottle at night. Sometimes she only takes a few sips and falls back to sleep. Pacifier only doesn't do the trick
Bedtime Routine
- we start around 9:30PM by dimming the lights in the bedroom, turning the Zen fountain on and sometimes playing lullabies
- I give her a bath - she loves her bath and playing with the rubber ducky :)
- David makes her a bottle while she's in the bath
- I get her dry, rub her with baby oil and get her into her pajamas - almost always she screams really bad during this part
- I give her the bottle, her sleepy-time blankie and her baby-doll Veronica
- David or I read her a bedtime book or story - sometimes she's already asleep before she finishes the bottle
- if she's still awake, I lay her in bed

Another month in our lives

Another month has passed since my last update and many things have happened.

Our Jane is two months old!

Where does time go? It's true that this second month felt longer than the first but seeing Jane grow and be happy makes even the hard times worth it. Jane is already grown bigger, she holds her head up almost all the time and likes to stand up when you put her little feet on a firm surface. It also looks like her eyes are going to be blue, like her dad's which makes me happy since I really wanted a blue-eyed baby. :) She is just as good at sleeping at night. She does go to bed around 1:00 AM but then only wakes up once or twice to feed and goes right back to sleep until pretty late in the morning. I love it! She had a few nights when she cried and fussed and also had some colic for a couple of weeks but it seems that she is better now. She actually likes to fall asleep in bed rather than in someone's arms which is great. The only thing that made this second month a little worrisome is that beginning January 1st Jane started having pretty bad diarrhea. We went to the ER twice and only found out that she needs to pretty much overcome it on her own. We gave her rice water and soy formula and it seems that her diarrhea is getting better but is not completely gone even now, over a week since it started. We're still waiting for the results of her labs to see if it's the rotavirus or something else. Speaking of labs, it was so sad to see her scream as three men were holding her little body and head down to extract some stuff from her nose. I felt sick and started crying when I saw it. Let's hope that she won't have to go through awful things like that often in her life. On the 13th we'll have her two months appointment and she'll probably get her first round of shots, which I'm not looking forward to, but at least these are things that happen to all babies and will benefit her in the long run.

What makes me happy and helps me forget all sad things though is when Jane smiles at me. Her face lights up and she looks at me with her big blue eyes. I give anything to see that smile and feel her little hands and arms reach for me and grab me tight. There's no better feeling in the world.
Ruth & Eric's Wedding Luncheon

My friend Ruth got married on December 18, 2010 in Salt Lake. I was so happy to attend the luncheon held in their honor and to see her and her husband Eric and also Amy Ruesch. Ruth and I were companions in Timisoara during my LDS 6 weeks long mini-mission. We had a great time together and kept in touch after Ruth came back home to Utah and I came to BYU.

Christmas

Our Christmas Eve was fun as we opened tons of gifts, ate gingerbread cookies and drank hot chocolate. Thank you Mom for being here and making our Christmas wonderful. We probably wouldn't have had many gifts if it wasn't for her to get us a few things that we needed and some that we wanted. She got us a big Christmas tree, a vacuum cleaner and a crock-pot among other smaller things, for David she got a nice shirt, a hoodie, heads for our electric toothbrush and razor blades and, for me she got a Singer sawing machine which I'm really happy about, a pair of black pants, a shirt and a fluffy house robe. Jane got tons of clothes and toys and she also got a nice Christmas tree ornament from her mommy which she likes very much, even if in the picture it doesn't look like it. :)

From David I got a couple of crock-pot recipe books and a baby remembrance book and I got him a Wii game console and the Super Mario Galaxy game. Mom received three shirts, a pair of dressy black pants and a pair of jeans. We were all very happy with our gifts. :)

We spent Christmas day at the condo with David's family who came from Japan and Grandma and Grandpa Barlow who came from California. It was the first time that we had his entire family here for Christmas and it was a lot of fun.

We all opened gifts, had the traditional Johansen breakfast consisting of eggs, pinwheels with mince meat, sausage and OJ, played Christmas pictionary and had a traditional Romanian dinner savoring the delicious sarmale that my Mom made. Everyone loved them! :)

Jane's Blessing

The Sunday after Christmas (the 26th) we had Jane's blessing at church. Her grandma Jo made her a beautiful white satin gown for the occasion and she looked like a little angel in it. The blessing David pronounced was very special and beautiful and as he lifted her up for everyone to see, I was overwhelmed with emotion and my eyes and David's filled with tears of joy and gratitude for this beautiful baby that we are so blessed to have. We had a little get together after the blessing at our apartment, where we took pictures, had some more sarmale and had fun with family and friends. Eni, Aric and their kids came as well as Carl, Carina and Liam, and Eve, Shawn and Gabi. We had a great time together.

New Year's Eve

We spent New Year's Eve at home as a family and on New Year's day we had piftie, friptura and salata de boeuf. Yummy!

I wish David and Jane had enjoyed the celebration a little more. Why I say that? Well, as I mentioned before, Jane started having diarrhea that day while David got a nasty cold and his 19 year old cousin Richie passed away in the hospital. Not the New Year's day we expected but this too passed.

Romanian girls get-together at Lia's

On the first Monday evening of the New Year we went over at Lia's in Pleasant Grove and had tons of fun cooking supa cu galusti and playing cards. We laughed and felt good and forgot of all problems. In fact we had such a good time that we decided to make it a regular date, twice a month; so next get-together will be at my apartment and we're already looking forward to it.

Jane is One Month Old!

I can't believe it. Jane is one month old already. It's been a pretty easy first month. We spent much time together getting to know each other. I can pretty much tell every time what Jane wants. It's pretty neat and interesting how such a small baby can communicate exactly what she needs and wants even though she can't talk and doesn't even hold her head up all the time. Speaking of holding her head, the first time she lifted it up by herself was when she was 5 days old. I had her on her tummy, propped up on my leg and she pretty much lifted herself a couple of times. It was so cool. Ch also started smiling around 3 weeks and now, at 4 weeks she smiles even more. We can't get her to smile but she does it when she feels like it.

We had our two week appointment and found out that Jane weighted 10 lbs (90 percentile) at the time and was 21 1/4 in long (95 percentile). I'm sure she's grown more since then. She is also healthy and progresses well.

We had some trouble with breastfeeding. At first I breastfed her exclusively but I was making very little milk so the nurses advised me to supplement with formula. We started her on Similac and she didn't fuss from hunger anymore but started spitting up more. We tried Similac with soy but that one smelled bad and gave her a lot of gas then finally decided on Similac Sensitive which seems to sit a little better with her. As I was hurting pretty bad, I started pumping and feeding her breast milk in the mean time and my supply increased a little but not a lot. After not giving her the breast for a while she didn't seem happy when we started that again but we're working on getting used to it again. It's just a little uncomfortable for her when the milk lets down and a gush of it fills her mouth. She chokes every time and starts crying. Sleeping's been really good the first month. She'd sleep about 4 hours straight every night and then she'd wake up to eat and be changed and would fall asleep for a few hours more. That changed recently. She sleeps in the evenings and nothing seems to wake her up but then she wakes up around 10pm and doesn't fall asleep until 1 or 2 in the morning. Then she sleeps for 2 to 4 hours after which she wakes up on and off all morning until around 2pm. We're trying to get her on a better schedule.

Her first bath (sponge bath) was pretty nice. She didn't cry much. She didn't cry when we gave her the first real bath either but taking her out of the water scared her, especially when she got cold, and that really made her cry. She doesn't mind the bath, just the after-bath experience.

My feelings had been a roller coaster this first month. In the beginning when I saw that I wasn't able to nurse her well I was really disappointed and felt like I wasn't a good enough mother for my little baby. When she didn't want to take the breast anymore after not eating that way for a couple of weeks I felt rejected and like I wasn't needed anymore. Those feelings went away as they came but it's interesting how many different feelings a new mom can experience. The feeling of being lonely and as if something was missing was something else I went through in the beginning as well. I realized that I missed my belly, feeling Jane inside me and having her with me all the time. I cried the first couple of times I left her with my mom or David at home. I knew that she was going to be ok but I had a really hard time leaving her. I still miss her a lot when I go somewhere without her and it feels so good when I come back and hold her and smell her. I love her sweet baby smell, I love staring at her tiny face and I could do it for hours, I love holding her small, light body in my arms, feeding her, playing with her, listening to her quiet sounds, kissing her chubby cheeks and her cute feet and I love it when she grabs me tight with her little hands or when she "kisses" me when she's hungry and looks for food everywhere. I just love Jane and am oh so happy to have her in my life.

Baby Johansen (Jane) Pregnancy Progress Pictures

Ultrasound 1 - 12 Weeks

Ultrasound 2 - 21 Weeks

Ultrasound 3 - 33 Weeks