#SearsMom Monday- Turtle Turns 18 Months Old

Sears Canada is celebrating Baby Days from January 17-30 with sale prices on everything in their Baby Room– nursery furniture, strollers, infant apparel, baby monitors and more. As a Sears Mom Brand Ambassador this seemed like a great opportunity to reflect back on my journey to motherhood and the first 18 months with my youngest child.

My baby, Turtle, just turned 18 months old at the end of December. My sweet little man, who was dreamed of, yearned for… and who may very well be my last baby. I know it’s a cliche, but it seems like just yesterday that Turtle was born and hitting the 18 month milestone has come as a bit of a shock. I’m not ready to let go of babyhood yet.

When The Hubs and I decided it was time to start trying  for our first baby, Bean, I prepared myself for a long and difficult journey of trying to conceive. My cycle has always been extremely irregular and it’s impossible for me to track (via counting) when I am ovulating. I decided that for the first few months of trying I would try listening to my body’s signs and hope that the little things that I had always thought meant that I was ovulating, really did mean I was ovulating. I was shocked and overjoyed when I took a pregnancy test and it came back positive the very first month we had been trying. 9 months later this beautiful little creature joined us and my life was forever changed.

Part of me assumed that the journey to baby number 2 would be just as easy as the first time around. My sister and I are 3 years and 5 days apart, which I had always thought was a great age gap. I decided that 3 years would be a nice age difference between my children as well so the summer that Bella turned 2, The Hubs and I started trying to conceive baby number 2. I remember we went for our summer vacation that year and I was positive that I was pregnant. I remember thinking to myself “This is the last summer vacation we will take as a family of 3!” It turns out that I was pregnant, but it wasn’t our last summer as a family of 3. I ended up losing the baby shortly after we got back from our vacation.

It turned out that our journey to birthing baby number 2 was going to be a lot more complicated than the journey to baby number 1… Unbeknownst to me, until that point, I was severely anemic and it took almost a year of iron injections and then iron transfusions to get my body back to a place where I was able to carry a baby again.

Throughout that year of wanting to conceive but being unable to I tried to keep one thing in my head– There is a little soul out there who is fighting their way to get to me. One way or another it’s going to happen, and when it does that baby will be so special.

Those thoughts could not have been more true. 2 months before Bean turned 4 years old, she got to snuggle her baby brother for the very first time. A baby that was so wanted, to dreamed of, so yearned for and instantly loved.

 I remember that I prepared myself for those first few months and how difficult it is to adjust to a new baby in the family. I was prepared for hours of crying, sleep deprivation, struggling to adjust to becoming a family of 4 and jealousy from big sister.

Somehow though, that didn’t happen. Turns out that our little guy was pretty chilled out. He was content to hang out, get love and snuggles from big sissy and take the world in.

And lucky for us… both of our kids are and always have been, very good sleepers.

When  I reflect back on Turtle’s first 18 months, I think it’s the first few months that I wish I could repeat again the most.

The first eye contact between mommy and baby is one of the most intimate things I’ve every experienced. The feeling that you have just grown this itty, bitty thing inside of you… that you have been their entire world. And now they get to go out there and discover, experience and explore the rest of the world. I wish that first eye contact is something I could re-experience over and over and over again.

The first 18 months have gone by in the blink of an eye. I wish that there was a way to slow down my kids’ childhood and take more time to enjoy every single moment of their journey to adulthood.

The Hubs says that we are done at 2… but I’m not so sure. I would really love to experience having a new baby one more time.

How many kids do you have? Do you think you are done having kids or do you want more? What were your favorite milestones from your children’s childhood/babyhood?

Make sure to visit Sears Canada in store or online, between January 17-30 for 15% off all juvenile products plus great deals on infants’ fashions! (Cribs and highchairs and onesies… oh my!)

“Disclosure: I am part of the Sears Mom Ambassador program with Mom Central Canada and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.”