Time is Flying...

Well I knew it had been a bit since I wrote anything in my blog, but has it really been about 2 weeks now? Geez. I guess life with a newborn in the house is rather crazy and therefore you just kind of lose track of time a bit. Everything is going well though. Let me see what to update...

Baby news...

Thursday when E-Man was two weeks and a day I took him in for a weight check. It was the first time that I had been out of the house with both kids by myself, but I must say it went well. It was also nice that I had no time constraints. I needed to be there by noon and that was all. So without the pressure of having to be somewhere at a certain time it went well. K-Girl was very well behaved and was all excited to go into the hospital again. E-Man's check was great. He went from 9 lbs at his week check up to 9lbs 8.7oz I believe. I have it written down, but I don't feel like checking to be positive. If it's wrong it's only by an oz. ;)

Then Friday I had been out of luck finding The Husband's Father's Day present anywhere around here so I decided to brave Park City by myself. Again I must say it went well. I'm pleased. But thank heavens for my Kozy carrier because without that I really don't know how I would have done it. K-Girl walked and I had E-Man on my chest in that and it worked out marvelous. I have to laugh - as we are leaving the mall this lady comes running out of TGI Friday's waving me down. When I finally figured out that she was indeed running after me I did stop and turn back. *L* She wanted to know where I got my carrier and how I liked it. So I got to rave about it for a little. She was quite impressed that I could use it for K-Girl or E-Man as well. Oh yeah she was pregnant. ;) When we got back to the house I had 10 minutes until 2 hours between the time I fed E-Man...perfect timing that I didn't even need to nurse on the run.

The cord stump fell off too! Yay!! It actually fell off on Father's Day - yes another great present. haha I was so happy to say goodbye to that stinky thing. Yucky. However the fantastic thing is that we lost it. *L* I cleaned it and it was hanging on by a thread and then I brought him into the chair to nurse him and then put him in his bassinet to nap. Well by the time I got him up to change his diaper again after his nap it was gone and we haven't been able to locate it. So who knows. *L*

Breastfeeding is going really well this time around. I'm having very minimal pain at this point and he's eating like a champ. I really hope this keeps up like this because it is so much easier and I know it's better for him as well. But with K-Girl we didn't leave the house much until after she was like 6 months old...seriously. *L* We were scared. This time we're out and about and really haven't slowed down too much. It's really nice that when it's time for him to eat I can just park somewhere and feed him without having to worry about bottles, formula, bottle warmers, seriously it's wonderful. It's only a little challenging not being able to share his feedings with The Husband. It would be nice to be able to hand him over for a break - but I guess if I wanted to do that badly enough I could pump, but honestly I don't want to bother unless I really need to.

Cloth diapering is also GREAT. I love it. I have recently decided to experiment with pins and I'm not too bad. The first try ended up with a bandaide on my finger, but after that I'm much more careful. But at least it was my finger and not any part of E-Man. But yes I love cloth diapering. I've figured out the wash routine now and don't seem to be having any issues with that. The diapers are wonderful. It's nice not ever having to worry about running out of them. The only sad part is that he's growing out of some of the newborn diapers already. I guess it's another true sign that Momma's Milk is doing well by him. ;) But that just means that I get to sell these off an buy more. Yay! hehe If you would like to see my adorable little boy in all his fluff check out my photobucket as I don't think I'll bore you all with pictures of him in it.

*I removed the link - if you want it please just e-mail me*

He's sleeping GREAT. At night we go to bed after his feeding closest to our bedtime be it 11 or midnight and he sleeps for a good 4 hours and then wakes up to feed and goes right back to sleep for another 2 or 3 (if I can make it that long without K-Girl waking up). Last night we went to bed around 11:30 and he woke up once at 4:45. Unfortunately by the time I got him back to bed he was starting to stir and K-Girl was starting to stir and so I just flopped him on my chest and we somewhat dozed till K-Girl had me up for good. Tomorrow The Husband said I could sleep in - I can't wait. I'm only hoping that E-Man cooperates. Usually after he has a little wake time in the morning he's back out for a while anyway so it should work out. 

K-Girl is turning into a great big sister. She asks me to hold him on her lap and if he's crying she will go over and tell him it's ok and such. She likes to be part of bath time and sometimes she likes to watch when I change his diaper...or at least when I'm rinsing out the diaper in the potty - what is it about my child and her poop fascination. Yes that's my daughter that runs in and asks where the poop is when I'm spraying off diapers. *LOL* Oh well. But it's nice that she's coming around to having a baby brother finally. It's making it easier without as much of the competition.

Oh I don't think I shared this yet either -

We picked up the professional pictures that we had taken. I just love how she does it too. Her name is Cassandra Storm and she's here in York. She did a fantastic job. She charges $100 an hour but at the end she makes up a disc for you with all your proofs on it and a little proof book. She made our prints into color and black and white for the disc (but only color in the proof book). You get copyright privileges to the disc to be able to take it to Sam's or where ever and get your own prints made so you aren't spending an arm and a leg on processing. If you want something special she can do that for you, but just your every day 4x6 or 8x10 or whatever you can handle yourself. I figure when we went to Picture People we could easily spend over $100 being that each package there was almost $40 I think and goodness knows when there are good pictures you can never just buy one. So I think this is just wonderful the way she works. Next time we need a lot of pictures for something we will definitely go back to her. We ended up using one of the pictures that she took for our baby announcements (which should be in the mail on Monday - since we ran out and had to order more). If you would like to check out the pictures visit my photobucket...

*I removed the link - if you want it please just e-mail me*

Ummm let's see what else? Really I guess that's about it. So I'll leave you with a few pictures and I'll check in when I can. :)

If you think this tushy is cute....



...you should check out the adorable face it belongs to



First bath... (oh yeah he HATED it!)



Actually quite alert...



K-Girl hamming it up...



The Kozy (my saviour)...



Awww...



Petting her brother...



Holding him...



Happy with his thumb inside the fleece pouch...



OK I guess that's enough. ;)

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Checking in

So we've been a family of 4 for a week and a half now. It's been interesting, but I think I'm starting to settle in a little better. The Husband went back to work on Friday and I was very much intimidated by the idea of being alone to take care of both kids. It didn't go nearly as bad as I thought. The only tough times were breakfast and lunch with all the chaos and then it seemed each time K-Girl had to pee I was feeding E-Man. Other than that it was pretty smooth.

Today is day number two. It's going great so far. Last night E-Man was only up twice to feed which was great. I feel pretty rested this morning. I got K-Girl all put together and fed and everything before getting E-Man started since he was pretty much still asleep. Then I fed him and by the time he was done then K-Girl was too. It went pretty well. After I feed E-Man the first time in the morning then he goes back to sleep for a while. Well this morning I put that time to good use. I cleaned up around here - got the clutter on the server taken care of, put away dishes, emptied dishwasher, reloaded the dishwasher, put the wash away, rounded up all the laundry to take downstairs, and a few other things. I feel good. Now I'm sitting down and resting because E-Man should be ready to eat sometime between now and 10:30. Then I need to get ready for the day.

Today at 1:00 we have a meeting with Cassandra (photographer) to look over our pictures and I think pick up the CD of them. I can't wait. My mom is coming over to be with K-Girl so I don't have to take both of them along. I still don't know if I'm up to that and the fact that I still shouldn't be picking K-Girl up more than I have to adds to the reason. She's all happy though to see Grandma. It's the first thing she said this morning when she woke up. So hopefully she won't be sore about the fact that E-Man and I are going to be leaving and she's staying here. I'm crossing my fingers. Then around 3:00 my friend Robin should be coming. Very excited about that as well. She'll be visiting until Wednesday afternoon so it'll also be nice to have the extra set of hands.

Yesterday my Aunt and Uncle came down to visit for the first time. It was great to see them and they enjoyed their time with E-Man (and I think the rest of us too hehe). After they left we went to Party City so that K-Girl could get invitations for her birthday party. Well for the last month+ she has been saying she wanted a pony party, but when we got to the store she saw all the options and she ended up choosing a puppy party which honestly is pretty fitting as her alter-ego is a puppy. So we're having a puppy party now. It's still going to be a pretty low-key event. I'm not going all out like I typically do. I'll resume that next year. ;)

Alright well E-Man is starting to stir so I'm going to get going and change his diaper and get ready to feed him. I just wanted to check in and let you all know that it really is going well. I'll have to work on a few more pictures sometime soon too. :) Toodles for now.

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Birth Story and Check-Ups

Birth Story - Wednesday May 30th

On Wednesday morning we woke up at 5:00 and got ourselves ready. The Husband's parents arrived shortly before 5:30 and at 5:30 I called the hospital to make sure they had a bed for me. Sure enough they did. We headed out at about 5:50 and got to the hospital and got checked in. We got up to our room - 306 one of the big birthing suites. The nurses got me all ready with my IV and whatnot. There was a shift change at 7:00 so pretty much it was just a waiting game for the next shift to come in and get things started.

At 7:30am I was checked by the doctor and she said I was 50% effaced and 2 cm dilated - the same as I was Friday at my last OB appointment which was rather discouraging. The doctor gave me cytotec which is a pill that they insert that ripens your cervix. After the pill you can't get up for an hour and it lasts 4 hours total.

At 11:30 am I was checked again only to find that I was just 2 to 3 cm dilated and still 50% effaced. Basically it did pretty much nothing. However I think it's because when the first doctor was putting it in she kept saying it was sticking to her glove. I truly don't think she got it positioned right and therefore wasn't able to really work. So that doctor gave me another pill and within 20 minutes of getting the pill the contractions started. They got pretty uncomfortable pretty quickly as well, but it wasn't too terribly bad.

I was checked at 3:40pm again and found that I was 3 to 4 cm dilated and 60 - 70% effaced. They decided that the plan of attack at this point was to break my water and then give me pitocin. I said that I wanted to get my epidural before they started pitocin, because I knew if the contractions got much worse than they were at that point that I didn't want to be feeling them. So they agreed that they would break my water and then get my epidural and then after that they would start pitocin. I was good with that.

At 4:00pm the doctor broke my water and ordered the epidural. My contractions had been about every 3 minutes since about 2:00pm. Immediately after they broke my water my contractions went from kind of painful but able to be dealt with to crazy painful that I cried through and could barely focus. I found a spot on the window that I focused on to breath through them and when I said what I was looking at it was then the big joke because here it was bird poop. So bird poop helped me through my really bad contractions. haha My contractions were anywhere from back to back up to 3 minutes apart. The ones that were back to back were the worst.

Finally at 4:55pm they got the epidural in and that helped so much. The first dose worked pretty well and took me back down to about the contractions that I was having before they broke my water. The anesthesiologist said he could do better and gave me a second dose and after that I could only feel a bit of pressure each time I had a contraction. MUCH BETTER!!

They decided to check me at 5:45pm again and found that I was 9 cm and the head was right there. So they all started to prepare for birth. I pushed for 4 contractions and E-Man was born at 6:36pm. He weighed 8 lbs 15.8 oz and was 21" long. His apgar tests were an 8 and a 9.

My mom was there for the delivery and then Nan and Pap brought K-Girl in to meet her new baby brother very shortly after he arrived. K-Girl was very happy to see us and even happier to get the gift from E-Man - a veterinary kit. She thanked all of us many times over. She gave E-Man a kiss as well. The Husband went out to get dinner at Burger King once they gave us the ok for me to eat. My mom stayed while he ran out and the nurse gave E-Man his first bath during that time as well. After The Husband came back and when we were done eating then Mom left.

That night we were changed from the birthing suite that night to a regular room - 310. Although The Husband was not so excited about this because he went from basically a double bed to a cot, my bed was much more comfortable in the little room. We had them take E-Man to the nursery for the first two hours of the night so that we could get some sleep. However after he came back the first time he was in our room the rest of the time. With as much as he had to come back to nurse it didn't make sense for him not to.

Thursday we had his pictures taken. The Husband came home for a little while his mom had a doctors appointment. The lactation consultant noticed when she was in that E-Man's "tongue-tied" (meaning his frenulum is attached to the tip of his tongue) and she had concerns about it interfering with breast feeding. Luckily at that point it didn't seem to be, but the pediatrician came in and looked at that during his exam too. He said if after a week or so it started causing problems that getting it clipped was the best thing to do. (Luckily it has still not caused any problems and looks like we won't need to do anything with it - YAY!!) During that time Amy visited. Then Dr. D. came in during the afternoon and told me that if I liked I could leave that evening after his 25 hour check had been completed. So we opted to leave because K-Girl missed us and The Husband was extremely uncomfortable sleeping at the hospital. Arieta came to visit at the same time as The Husband got back. Then Leah, Barry, and "J" visited a bit later. Shortly after they left the nurse took E-Man to preform the 25 hour check and we were discharged a little before 8:00pm. They were a bit concerned with his jaundice test and it almost prevented us from being discharged, but they just said to have him checked at the pediatrician since he was on the lower end.

First Pediatrician Appointment - Saturday June 2
We scheduled E-Man's first appointment with the pediatrician for Saturday morning at 10:15am. His jaundice was almost nothing. The doctor was not concerned and said just to continue to get him feeding well and if we had a sunny window we could lay him in that for a bit too, but it wasn't bad at all. His weight had dropped to 8 lbs 5 oz. She said that was ok but for his week check up that she would like to see him back up to about 8 lbs 9 oz and then he'd be doing just fine.

Week Weight Check - Wednesday June 6
Wednesday at 10:15am we had his one week weight check. He was up to 9 lbs. The doctor was very happy about this. We got some tips on cleaning his belly button to get the cord to fall off. His cord is very deep so it's going to take a little more to get it to come off. Now that we're cleaning it properly hopefully it will fall off soon as he's growing fast and will soon be out of his newborn diapers that have the cord cut out.

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He's Here!!

Well after 9 months of waiting, E-Man has finally blessed us with his arrival.

E-Man was born at 6:36pm on Wednesday May 30, 2007. He weighed 8 lbs 15.8 oz and was 21" long.

I'll start with the pictures and then I'll be back sometime in the near future for details, but at least you'll get to see our gorgeous little boy.

I haven't been through all the pictures I have yet as I just got home last night so I'll probably post more, but I grabbed a few favorites last night.

Here is E-Man a few minutes after his big debut.


You can visit Memorial Hospital's website and see his birth announcement...

...but here is his hospital picture...


Here is my favorite picture from the hospital...


Another cute picture...


And here he is getting ready to come home.

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