{ Taking a 4 Month Old To Japan }

We took Scottie to Japan! It was the craziest, but we survived. I think I stressed out about the travel and flight over to Japan probably a week before it all went down. My milk supply shot down...surprise surprise...and I was an absolute stress case. Traveling international is hard as it is.

Add a four month old to the mix! I had to make sure I had every little thing for her. Just in case she needed something. In case she got sick, had gas, got a rash, was cold, was warm, three blankets of course--it felt like half of our bag was just for Scottie.

I brought the dockatot on the plane and that SAVED MY LIFE! It was the best thing ever because we had a seat between us on every single flight. I wonder if they did it that way because they know we have a baby and no one wants to sit by a rvyign baby? Haha either way. Stoked. We were able to put the dockatot between us on the seat and let Scottie sleep.

She did awesome on our 12 hr flight! We even had a lady come up to us and say "you had a baby with you?! I didn't even hear her". Scottie didn't make a peep. She actually talked quite a bit but there's so much white noise from the plane you couldn't really hear her.

Once we got to Japan, we. Were. Exhausted! I felt so disgusting after 18+ hrs of travel so I had to take a bath. I brought Scottie with me and she screamed like I've never heard before. I don't blame her. It was the longest day ever and then I'm dowsing her with water?! Poor girl. I couldn't not let her go without a shower though I felt like she had been laid down on every airport floor (even tho she was on a diaper changing mat on a chair).

Airports are just gross, you know?

Scottie slept pretty well over our vacation too! That's one thing I was concerned about going into the trip. I knew that this trip wouldn't be a vacation for me because I had a four month old baby that was going to be jet lagged. Well she surprised us and slept for majority of the night! Woke up a few times to eat but never wide awake. It was awesome. (Coming home was a different story. VERY opposite. She would be up until 4 am jusybwide awake and chgaytjng and moving around and playing with her toes. Dang girl. She took a week to get over that jet lag coming back.)

It was so fun seeing ojiichan and obaachan with Scottie. Ojiichan thought she was so cute and still thinks it's hilarious that her name is Scottie. There's a tissue brand in Japan called Scottie and my ojiichan has boxes everywhere in his house. Kinda funny. Scotties everywhere! He loved playing with her and Scottie would smile and laugh back. It was the best.

This trip was mainly to spend time with family and that was just about my favorite thing ever! My family in Japan has always meant so much to me. I've always regretted not being able to speak Japanese and have a relationship with them. 

SO. Cam did something crazy. We'd always talked about how cool it would be if he were to transfer to the Tokyo Goldman Sachs office. Well. Since we were traveling over there anyways, he thought why not. He setup several meetings with high up VP's to introduce himself and talk about the possibility of transferring to the Tokyo office. 

Things are happening! 

Cam met with so many VP's that were excited and positive about the possibility, however, they got back to him once we got back to the states and told him that there's not much available right now. But that doesn't mean that there won't be an opening in the future. It's hard to wrap my brain around the thought, but what an amazing adventure it would be! To pick up and go to Japan. Live in the city, just me, Cam, and Scottie girl. It's scary to think that it could happen still because I'm a planner. I like to know. I like to color code my calendar...yes. I do that. I like to know when things are happening and on a note where we're talking about planning. My next baby. Would I get pregnant and deliver my second baby in Japan? It scares me to think they could come to us and say....ok guys! Here's a position. Now see you in a few weeks. 

WHAAAAT.

It's hard to live day to day thinking this may happen. So what I've decided is that I need to continue to live my life normally and keep this idea in the back of my head. Tucked away, but also readily available if it happens.

It would be a dream but a scary dream come true I think. Why does it scare me? Well. It would be me and Scottie alone in the tiny apartment. I won't have friends. I won;t have family. I won't have my community. BUT again, I've always regretted not learning Japanese and this would be my chance. Every time I think about my regret, it makes me cry. I cry because it's important to me. It's a huge part of my life and yet I don't know the language well enough to know my mom's family well.This would allow me to finally be able to truly tell my Ojiichan how I feel about him and his love. He's the most selfless, humble, happy man and I always want to thank him for everything he's done for us. My mom said when we left the train station this trip, he started to cry because he was so happy to have us all together. It makes me so sad to wave goodbye to him from the Tahara train station.I love him and his example he's set for his posterity. Not a day goes by that I miss him! He's continuing to see Obaachan at her elderly home and it is such an example of true love. They're the best and I always pray they are happy and healthy.We ate lots of delicious food in Japan! Cam and I tend to do that...haha we sound like little piggies. We look forward to meals when we travel. We're foodies alright?! I mean the food in Japan is just so incredible, we eat at the gas station half the time. I made sure to get enough Melon Soda while I saw there.It was so fun to have the entiiiiiire family there. Mom, dad, Sachi, Mari, DJ, Airi, Misa, Tanner, Oliver, Me, Cam, Scottie. Phew. Just typing that made me tired! Haha what an adventure it was. Babies. Crying. Laughing. Lots of people in a tiny house. And when I say a tiny house, it's a HUGE house in Japan.

All in all it was so great to have all the siblings together and we enjoyed talking and spending quality time together.We were in ofuro's about 1/2 of the trip. Haha I asked Cam, why are we not taking more pictures? And then I realized...well, we're naked and in bath's half the time! It truly was an ofuro almost every day it felt like. It was so amazing though. It truly feels like you're at a spa and for SO much cheaper than it would be for a spa day in the US. They're so relaxing and Scottie LLOVED it. She would just sit on my lap and looked like she was in heaven.I'll always want to visit Japan and hope that I can take all of my kids to Japan one day. The Melon soda, Katsu, DisneySea, Ofuro's, Candy, Family mart karage. All of it.

Until next time,

KRR

{ Her First Meal }

Today I gave Scottie her first taste of real food! Can you call it real food? Haha her face definitely showed how she was feeling.

I've been trying to feed her rice cereal for a week now. Every time I try, she looks at me like, "What in the world did you just put in my mouth." So I thought, ok why not try it. I tried it and it. was. AWFUL! How can we make babies eat this stuff?!

So, I decided ok. Well maybe she'll eat it if I mix in some flavor. I bought these pureed organic apple, oranges, and carrots mixes that I squirted into her rice cereal.

She ate it!

Still a little confused with the spoon, but she definitely ate more of it than usual. She gave me a great big smile at the end so I'm thinking we have a winner. Dr. Hansen told me to do veggies before fruit so that they don't just eat the sweet stuff. I figured it had carrots in it, right? I also bought a few sweet potatoes that I'll give a try before I go back to the sweet stuff. I'm so that mom that's going to make her own baby food. I mean, like I said. How can we make our babies eat that rancid stuff?! The canned baby food SMEEEELLLS. SO bad. Poor babies.

Scottie is too funny. She makes me laugh every day and is a dream come true. I think I had a little postpartum depression, which was hard. I think it had to do with several things that has happened since Scottie was born, but still. Depression. I wasn't smiling. But today I am.

I love this girl with all my heart. She's my dream come true and what a lucky mom I am to have such an angel baby. God knew I needed her.

Until next time,

KRR

{ Postpartum Life }

I want to write about this because I think it's important. Not many women talk about their postpartum experience and I think more than ever it needs to be talked about. Not once did someone warn me that recovery let alone everything that encompasses postpartum would be the hardest part about having a baby.

I knew it was real. I knew people struggled. But I didn't know how hard it was.

There has been a lot of different things that have happened in my life since Scottie was born that have triggered some deep emotions. I think that combined with motherhood, have sent me down a path of depression. It's weird to even type it out because not once did I think I would ever suffer from depression. I was sad at times, yes, I cried at times, yes. But never did I think depressed.

Cam and I talked about it the other day and he pointed out that I'm not happy. I'm not smiling, never laugh anymore. I thought "ok well yeah I've had some things happen in my life but I'm not depressed." It took me a drive in the car to really realize that he was absolutely right. I thought about the past four months of my life. I've had one of the most miraculous happiest moments of my life, delivering my baby girl. Why would I be depressed when this is all I've ever wanted in my life is to be a mom?

I decided I need to blog about it. I've said this before and I'll say it again--I blog to organize my thoughts. To better understand who I am and what makes me, me. I also hope that one day, these experiences that I go through, may help one of my kids, grandkids, grandkids kids, etc.

Being a mom is the best thing I've ever experienced. It's so amazing how much love I feel for my little Scottie. I never thought I could love a little human so much. I love seeing her learn new things and grow everyday. I want to protect her from all evil and want her to become a beautiful, kind, caring, woman one day. I have so many hopes and dreams for her.

So what's my deal? Why am I depressed?

One big piece of motherhood. Feeding your baby. Since Scottie got RSV, my milk supply tanked and has never been the same making it hard for Scottie to nurse. She gets so frustrated because my supply isn't where it should be. She gets frustrated and that makes me frustrated and we both turn into mean people. For a long time, I didn't want to go to bottles. I wanted to feed my daughter. I wanted to give her that nutrients and that was our bonding time. So many people love Scottie and want to spend time with her which I appreciate! I felt like for the first month of her life, she was in someone else's arms. I'm not complaining. I just wanted to have that with her and since my supply dropped, I wasn't able to successfully do so. I spent February-April power pumping, taking fenugreek, reading every breastfeeding article I could to get my milk supply up. Just last week, we went to Japan and my milk supply completely tanked from stress of traveling and no access to my pump. In Japan, I had no choice but to give her formula (plus some of Misa's boobie milk...haha I know. I'm telling you! It turns me into a crazy person.) and bottles. I finally came to terms on that trip that it was OK that I was doing that.

It's better that I'm FEEDING my baby and that she gets food. That's all that matters. I came to terms and decided ok, I'm going to pump and give her breastmilk in bottles and I felt good about that. Night times were easy because Scottie would feed from me since she was so tired and out of it she would just nurse no problem. Come day time, she wanted it quick and fast and that meant a bottle. Since power pumping in Japan, I was able to get my supply up and the last few days I was able to nurse her successfully! I have to start my let down because my let down has always taken 400 years to start. But I decided, I need to pick my battles.

Lately, that is what I've been doing and it has been pretty successful thus far. I want to be able to nurse Scottie for at least a year, but based on my history, I'm making small goals. I made a goal to nurse till 4 months. Hit that. Now I'm currently trying to nurse till 6 months and we'll see what happens then.

I'm realizing that this postpartum life needs to be compiled of small wins. Scottie may wake up several times a night. She may sleep and only wake up twice a night. I had her on this awesome schedule before Japan, but now that we're jet lagged, she's getting up 6x a night SCREAMING at the top of her lungs (I think she's going through a sleep regression?) and 4x a night by just wiggling around. This leaves me with 2-3 hrs of uninterupted sleep for an entire night and we're back to survival mode.

Survival mode. I think this is my third time in 4.5 months. Once when Scottie was born, again when she had RSV, and now getting over jet lag.

It's hard!

So hard. I am not a nice person when I don't get sleep so again, small wins.

I've lost myself in taking care of Scottie which I've ALWAYS wanted to do! I've always wanted to be a mom and that's it. What I didn't realize is that leaving a high profile career behind would be harder than expected. I went from a Regional Director to a Coordinator. Never would I ever think that would bother me. But it did. It affected me more than I had planned and wanted.

There's something about being successful in a workplace and having your co-workers know who you are and the work that you do. I missed that. A lot. SO I decided to go back to work part-time as a Coordinator so that I can be at home with Scottie and also get some portion of that.

It's different because my responsibilities aren't nearly as rewarding, stressful, hard, etc. But it's working for now. I get to do some adult work, and spend time with baby.

Lastly, and most importantly. Cam has told me that he no longer has a testimony in the Mormon church. This of all things has been the hardest, most emotional, scariest, heart wrenching news of all. I love him so. I don't know what my emotions are about it entirely, but I know that it's hard. And that's ok. I felt bad for the longest time (still sometimes do) that I didn't respond as positively as everyone else around us did. I promised Cam when we got married that I would love him no matter what. This is loving him no matter what. It's going to be a difficult and lonely journey at times, but I'm choosing to do it because I'm choosing him. I think over the next couple years I'll figure it out. For now it's a little confusing but what I know is I love Cam. I love how the gospel makes me feel. I love that it teaches us to be good people. I love the way the temple makes me feel. I love the way I feel when I hear church hymns and primary songs. I love my Scottie girl who was sent from heaven. God knows I need these things. These things are the reasons why I know the gospel is good for me. I may not know everything and may have more questions than I did, but I know those things above are true statements. Cam promised to support me. And I know he will. He's also promised to be an amazing dad. And I know he will. He's already shown his love everyday towards Scottie and that's enough. A person who loves his wife, supports her in her decisions, loves his daughter and would do anything for her. This is Cam's journey. My therapist has helped me realize that. I learned this from a dear friend who passed that this is Cam's journey and I've been wanting him to walk mine. But that's not how it works because second to giving birth, free agency is the biggest blessing that we have. I'm learning and will continue to learn how to grow and have this trial turn into a blessing in my life.

Until next time,

KRR

{ Sickie wickie }

Scottie got sick...again! Like are you for real? This week has been really hard trying to keep her hydrated, suctioned, happy...well Scottie truly is always happy. I've been blessed with the happiest, smilie-est baby there ever was. Even when she's feeling as icky as she does now, she's smiling. I love her for that.

It's scary because I'm having major PTSD every time I have to suction her out. The RSV Hospital visit was NO JOKE. We went through a lot. Scottie went through a lot.

The poor girl has been through SO much in just four 1/2 short months of her life. She's truly blessed with strength, I can tell that about her already.

I'm going to start writing letters to her every week. I know. I know. A challenge in itself :) but I hope one day she can read them to truly understand how she's already changed our lives and grown into this beautiful lady. My mother did this when I was a baby and I was able to reflect back and read certain things about myself as a baby. I thought, hey! Scottie does that too. It's funny how genetics and personalities are passed down through generations. I hope I'm benefiting my posterity somehow...giving them some good traits.

Scottie:

Sweet girl! I'm so sorry that you got sick again. Mom feels really bad and cried in Japan when she heard your nose get congested...it reminded her of the scary five day hospital stay when you got RSV. Scottie I love you so much! Even when you're feeling sick, you still smile. It makes mom happy to know you're happy. I do everything for you. I worry about you. Mom and dad pray for your strength and health always. Keep smiling for us. You're growing like crazy. You're already tucking your knees under your belly trying to crawl! You crazy girl.

XOXO