Nora Elizabeth

Nora Elizabeth Bartemes joined our family on January 5, 2019!

I woke up on Friday, January 4 and felt great—surprising for almost 40 weeks pregnant! I made plans with Ara to walk at the gym during his lunch hour. Light contractions started while we were on the treadmill and kept going intermittently. By 5:30 p.m. Ara had made it home from work and my contractions were really starting to get closer and at 9 p.m. we headed to the hospital. After four hours of laboring at the hospital (natural birth!), we welcomed Nora to the world early on Saturday morning at 2:03 a.m. What a wild ride!

We’ve spent our days lately getting to know Nora’s personality and teach her a little about our world. I keep lamenting on how crazy it is that one day you go from just living your life, to having your life completely revolve around a new little person. It is absolutely crazy how much having a baby changes you. In this short time I’ve grown in new ways, learned I can lose my emotions faster than ever before, watched a part of Ara come alive I never knew was there, learned more about my body than in the last 31 years combined and felt delirious from lack of sleep, hunger and love.

Both Ara and I agree—we’ve never had a month go by faster in our whole lives. January was a complete blur. We were able to go home on the Monday following Nora’s birth. Our first few nights consisted of many night wake-ups and feedings peppered with Ara reading Winnie the Pooh to Nora as we tried to get her to go back to sleep. That Friday I was admitted back to the hospital after I had many symptoms for postpartum preeclampsia. I endured a 24-hr magnesium IV treatment and constant blood pressure monitoring. Thankfully Ara and Nora were able to stay in the room with me. Ara was a true superhero as he acted as Mom, Dad and husband during that time that I was laid out on the hospital bed. We spent a total of 4 days in the hospital until my blood pressure had lowered enough to go home. I’m now off of blood pressure medicine and can go about my life as normal.

These last few months, we’ve been learning and growing as a family. We’ve also had the privilege of having two special friends come over to visit us and love on both us and Nora—thank you Audrey and Sarah!

Nora has been a sweet baby for us—we’ve been figuring out somewhat of a routine and trying to learn our way as parents. She’s been sleeping a good stretch at night, sometimes 9 hours (thank goodness for those nights!) And we’re hoping she continues to be a good sleeper! She started smiling around one month and our cup feels so filled up each time we get a sweet, bashful smile from her. She almost always smiles with her whole body, her eyes light up, nose crinkles and her cheeks get so full! She’s even started letting out a little single giggle—we can’t wait until they turn into full giggle bursts. She’s been rolling over (from belly to back) for quite some time now and we’re anxious to see her go from back to belly. Our girl loves bath time and this week discovered that she can flail all of her limbs at once and make a big splash!

We feel so thankful to have been blessed with such a sweet little soul and can’t wait to see how her personality grow and changes. We’re looking forward to many adventures with our little Nora Elizabeth.