Bree Lena

Idaho 🤍

We only take photos on holidays 🤍

My first Mother’s Day also happens to fall on Logan’s 1st birthday - and I think that’s the sweetest thing. This last year has been filled with endless cuddles, nursing, contact naps, hugs and so much love. It also came with a lot of challenges and has probably been the hardest year of my life. My sweet little guy thrives when he is near his momma and I’ve learned to surrender to this stage in life and soak it all in because one day he won’t need me anymore and won’t want to snuggle me all day. When he is constantly pulling on my pant legs to be lifted up and when he looks at me with complete disappointment if I ever try to lay him down during a nap, I remind myself that this is fleeting - he is only this little once and I am his home. His little scrunchy face winks, open mouth kisses, hand holding, adorable giggles, and curling into me every time I hold him make everything beyond worth it. I’m so overwhelmed with humility and gratitude that I get to hold this sweet boy in my arms and learn and grow from him 🤍

Happy FIRST birthday to my favorite little guy 🤍 I am in complete disbelief that it has already been a year, but I also can’t recall how we lived without him. He’s the biggest joy in our lives and is so full of love. My heart is so full of gratitude that we get to do life with him 🤍

We had such a fun time celebrating him with family, jdawgs, homemade pretzels, rice crispy treats, and an allergy friendly smash cake for our sensitive little dude

Trying to soak in every cuddle while he’s still a baby 🤍 Cannot believe I’ll have a one year old in a month!

Dress
Photo

My favorite holiday with my favorite people🤍

For my birthday I asked for a photoshoot with my little dude - I wanted to take photos in my sparkly designs with him but for some reason he was absolutely terrified of the sequin fabric and would hardly touch me and cried pretty much the whole time I was wearing my dresses haha - but he’s the cutest little guy so all is forgiven 🤍 Thanks for the photos, narrowing it down from 200 was why it took me a month to post

THIRTY THREE // I’m so lucky to be surrounded by so much love from my two favorite guys 🤍 When I was younger I thought I’d have multiple kids by the time I was 33, and then I also spent many years thinking I’d never be blessed with children. Life is such a roller coaster and I’m so grateful I’ve had my best friend with me for over half of it!! My life has taken so many different directions and has thrown me too many curve balls but through all the trials and change I’m so happy that God has gifted me with so much love and has taught me so many lessons and has allowed me to realize how beautiful the path of life is and who I really am. He has helped me choose happiness at every roadblock and now I can’t imagine my life any other way. I’ve found so much joy in the simple things in life and that is the most beautiful gift I could ever receive.

Nine months old on Valentine’s Day 🤍

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday because I love the focus on gratitude. Gratitude has truly gotten me through so many hard times and is something that I try to implement daily because it makes such a difference in my life and attitude when I choose to look for all the things I have to be grateful for. Some years it’s been really hard to find what there is to be grateful for - this year I’m glad it was much easier 🤍

SIX MONTHS with this sweet little guy 🤍
He loves to smile at everyone, babbles and giggles all day long, is always kicking and rolling his little body around, is constantly munching on a teether, loves when his dad makes silly noises with him, is showered with love and gifts from his grandparents and family, and is always making us smile with his cuddles and adorably chunky cheeks. He is also thriving post tongue tie reversal, is exclusively nursing (no more pumping/bottles which drastically improved my sanity), moved up from 6% to 34% in weight, and is somehow 85% for height. We love this little miracle dude of ours so much!

Blessed our sweet Logan today 🤍

Birth Story 4/4 - About a month ago, Logan had surgery (frenectomy) to release his tongue and lip ties which would help him nurse, breathe, sleep, and function better and be less fussy, gassy, and uncomfortable - because surprisingly tongue and oral function affect so many things! He also had a lot of birth trauma between labor starting artificially, him being stuck for hours, and the c-section so his nervous system and body needed some attention and we’ve been working with craniosacral, myofunctioal, and body work specialists (I will list the people we have seen and loved in my stories which will be saved to my pregnancy highlight). Because of his ties, we were supplementing with about 14 oz bottles of pumped milk while he was learning to nurse, and have been slowly weaning the bottles and just this weekend he is now exclusively nursing!! I usually just pump once a day now (instead of 6) and give him that bottle for convenience so that Taylor can feed him while I make dinner.

It’s been intense for me to try and process all that happened. Mostly I felt extremely sad and inadequate, like my body couldn’t do anything right, such as basic necessities of pushing a baby out and feeding him. Taylor had so much anxiety and stress after the birth which has caused his health to decline on top of the usual problems he already deals with. And my heart aches for our little guy and all he’s been through. But I know that for whatever reason he needed to come earlier than expected and I’m truly grateful that neither of us had more severe complications. As my life always reminds me - things don’t always go to plan. Nor at all how you hoped and prayed for. And it’s okay to be sad about that. And be happy at the same time because obviously this little guy brings us more joy than we could have ever dreamed & is the sweetest little cuddly boy.

Birth Story 3/4 - I am so sad that I developed preeclampsia and had to induce myself because it meant I wasn’t able to have the psychological birth I had planned, it felt like the hormones weren’t all there to help me through birth and neither mine nor baby’s body felt ready for labor. The labor was so incredibly intense and very unnatural feeling and poor Logan just did not want to come out yet. Preeclampsia is pretty rare and once we saw my kidneys were affected we were obviously worried because one dialysis patient in the family is enough! I had swollen feet my whole pregnancy but no other preeclampsia symptoms until my last week of pregnancy. I also have very low blood pressure regularly so my blood pressure wasn’t alarmingly high, but for me, it was a huge jump up from my normal. I am so grateful that I was still able to labor at home with my amazing birth team and that my symptoms weren’t more severe.

Once we got home we thought things would be smooth sailing but I think due to my trauma my milk took about 6 days to come in so the little guy was dropping weight (down 16%) which made for some pretty stressful/emotional days. Once my supply finally came in, he started feeding well and got back up to his birth weight by 2 weeks. He then stopped gaining adequate weight again, so we saw a couple different lactation consultants to see what was wrong. Turns out he has some oral restrictions (tongue and lip tie) which make it hard for him to nurse efficiently (which we worried would lower my supply, so we started triple feeding (nurse, pump, bottle)). We have been working with some specialists to correct things.

Birth Story 2/4 - My midwife could feel baby’s head and Taylor got ready to catch the baby - I was so happy to be close to the end! I pushed and pushed but baby would not descend further. He literally would not budge for hours - his little head just stuck in the birth canal. I pushed for 3 hours at home and then started bleeding, my midwife suspected the cord may have been wrapped around him or too short that he just couldn’t come any further because there was no explanation why he wouldn’t move. We decided it was time to transfer to the hospital - which was something I really didn’t want to have to do. I honestly don’t know how I managed the car ride to Timpanogos Hospital - but I was so grateful that both my midwife and doula were able to come, along with Taylor and my mom (sadly this all happened on the same day as my sisters bridal shower - so she was late to her shower that my mom and I were throwing for her.. obviously I didn’t make it, and my mom slipped away from the hospital to stop by for a bit).

Once we got there I was able to try pushing again and did so for another 3 hours but baby would still not budge at all. Baby was starting to sound distressed and ultimately, after 16 hours of labor, with around 6 hours of pushing with no progress or explanation of why he was stuck, we decided it was time to get a spinal and c-section. Gratefully, everything went smoothly! Baby was healthy and I didn’t react badly to the drugs, which I was worried about because I’m super sensitive. Baby Logan took his first breath at 3:45pm on May 14th. Taylor was able to do some of his dialysis at the hospital but had to go home each night for his night session which is a main reason we didn’t want to be in a hospital - he had to be home for 16 hours each night while me and baby were in the hospital. Since there were no complications we were able to be discharged after 2 days and go home with the most precious bundle of joy.

Birth Story 1/4 - My birth story did not go to plan when my pregnancy unfortunately became high risk. At my 38 week check up my blood pressure started to elevate so I stayed on bed rest for the next week to try and control it but at my 39 week visit I had elevated levels of protein in my urine which prompted a blood test to see how my liver and kidneys were functioning as now I was having all the signs of preeclampsia. At 39+1, Friday morning, I met with my midwife to go over the blood work. The results showed that all my kidney numbers were elevated and my organs were starting to be affected. I really wanted a home birth and so my midwife and I decided that we needed to do everything we could to induce labor. I was only dilated 1/2 cm. Since I’m a first time mom and was still a week early we thought this process would take a couple days but my body reacted pretty quickly to the natural induction methods and by 11pm that night I was in labor.

I skipped early labor and went straight to active labor with contractions 1-3 mins apart. I’m assuming that during the induction process my sciatic nerve got pinched somehow because I had the most intense constant hip pain that did not let up the entire labor. Every position I tried resulted in excruciating hip pain and I was never able to relax and release between contractions. I labored about 10 hours (my water broke after about 4 hours) before I felt the urge to push. My birth team started to arrive around 4am - my mom, sister, and doula - and I labored mostly in the bath, shower, and birth tub.