9 days vs 30 days

Just a short post for today. We're getting better with the pacifier- although he still has trouble keeping it in his mouth.  Had our first vomit on Sunday!  Luckily we had just put him on the changing table- I think he had eaten too much because it was just that once and then he seemed better. Eric had made quite an impression on the health care world.  Check out kaiserhealthnews and watch the slide show (make sure your volume is on because there's audio).  Also, I'm posting a couple of pics to show Caiden's growth.  I ordered these stickers from pickysticky to take a picture each month!  I think it also helps to show a reference object so I will continue to do that in the future.  Other than that, we are anxiously awaiting the visit of my sister, brother-in-law and niece & nephew to come meet the little guy this weekend.

9 days old, 6lb 8oz

1 month old, 7lb 8oz

One month milestones

Yesterday (Friday) marked 4 weeks since Caiden was born, and tomorrow (May 23) will be his official 1 month birthday!  Don't worry- we're not breaking out the cake and ice cream just yet! Last weight check on Wednesday was 7lbs, 8oz. I thought I'd give you an update on the milestones that he's achieved this month: (from http://www.ivillage.com/babys-first-year-developmental-milestones/6-a-127191)

 

By the end of month one a baby typically:

• Lifts head for short periods of time- his neck already seems pretty strong- though not yet controlled
• Moves head from side to side- he's been doing this for several weeks, although he prefers the left side
• Prefers the human face to other shapes-not sure, I'd like to think he likes looking at me, but he really likes staring at the patterned side of his travel bed
• Makes jerky, arm movements- definitely!  poor guy his himself in the face quite often
• Brings hands to face- always trying to get his hands in his mouth, we've resorted to mittens so he won't keep cutting his pretty face with his nails.
• Has strong reflex movements- his legs are very strong!
• Can focus on items 8 to 12 inches away- I think so, but not sure how to tell that he can focus :)
• May turn towards familiar sounds or voices- especially mine, since I provide the food!
• Responds to loud sounds- usually with a startle reflex
• Blinks at bright lights- mainly squints

After meeting with a lactaction consultant this week, we also introduced a pacifier.  Caiden has a strong need to suck- and as I mentioned before- I had been nursing him for over an hour at a time.  After the feeding consult, the lactation consultatant said that he was getting his nourishment in about 15 minutes and then was using me as a pacifier for the rest of the time. He's still not quite sure about it, but likes it after awhile.  I video'd it so once I figure out how- I'll put the video up.  Here's a couple of other pics.

Contemplating the meaning of life:

Trying out the Wubbanub- a gift from Atlanta pal Reid:

Weekend adventures

Friday marked Caiden's 3 week birthday!  He's still eating up a storm and we still working on the whole sleeping thing.  We had a couple of really good nights- he slept in his bassinet for 3 hours straight and I had to wake him to feed him.  Then, a not-so-good night: I don't know if he slept more than a couple of hours the whole night.  I guess that's the way it will be for awhile.  We took a little drive on Saturday and he had his first visit to airport park.  He seemed to enjoy it, although he slept most of the time.

Also on Sunday, his umbilical cord finally fell off! Now we can give him regular baths!

I'll include one last picture that I just took this morning.  He had just eaten and fell asleep with the happiest little look on his face!

Got milk?

This little guy loves him some milk.  I can't believe he's not a little chunk with how much he eats.  He eats about every two hours for about an hour!  Poor Eric trys to hold him and spend some quality time together, but Caiden trys to eat his shirt.  The little man just doesn't know that daddy can't help him in that arena just yet.  But he sure does know that mama can!  It was so funny this morning.  I had laid Caiden on the bed in between Eric and I while I got situated to nurse.  Caiden arched his head back towards me and started kicking the bed and squirming.  We watched him do this for a minute and realized that he had actually moved himeself closer to me by doing all this squirming.  The parenting books never mentioned that a baby can "crawl" on his back!  What a talent!

I took him in for a weight check yesterday- and he weighed 7lb 1oz (naked).  I'm happy with this growth!!  We are going back in tomorrow morning for another check of his bilirubin level- hopefully it's gone down. 

Eric's mom went home Tuesday after spending a week here.  Thanks to her we stayed all caught up on dinners, laundry and cleaning.  This weekend Eric's dad and LeAnn are coming to meet the little guy.

Happy Mother's Day

I enjoyed my first Mother's Day today with my little guy. He (and Eric) got me a calla lily plant with a mother's day balloon and a wonderful card.  Also, I am going to order a necklace from etsy(etsy- mama beth bling):

We watched the Rangers/Royals baseball game, took a little nap and Caiden nursed about every other hour!

Hope all the mom's out there had a wonderful day! Especially my mom- love you!

Our little man is 2 weeks old!!

Everyone keeps telling me to enjoy this time because it flys by, and they sure are right.  I can't believe it's already been 2 weeks.  We went in for his two-week check up with the pediatrician this morning.  He weighed in at 7lbs- which I'm not sure I really believe.  On Wednesday he weighed 6lb 10.6oz, so unless he gained over 3 oz in 2 days??  He did have his diaper on today though.  He has grown in length to 21 inches. (That's almost 3inches since birth). We are going back in next Friday to check his biliruben levels again, as it was still a little high- not enough for concern though.  If you are not familiar with it, a high biliruben level is an indicator of jaundice.  He is still in the low risk level.  Other than that, we have a very healthy little boy.  Both the doctor and nurse commented on how alert he is.  He was complete awake and alert though the whole visit.

We need the little man to put on some weight.  Almost all of our onesies are still to big- even the 0-3 month.   Luckily my sister had gotten him some mini- ones.  They are "The First Year by Carter"  The problem is we only have three of them so they are getting washed rather frequently. We even went to Target to buy some more that same size, but when we brought them home and held them up, they were still too big. The sleeping situation seems to be improving as well- I am becoming more comfortable with the sounds a newborn makes while sleeping so I am jumping up less often to check on him.  I even had a dream last night so I guess I was sleeping pretty good.

Finally, I'm a little curious as to who is reading this blog!  If you are following us in our adventure please shoot me a  comment.  If you don't have an account to sign into, you can select "anonymous" and then sign your name as part of your comment!

Caiden- our little man

Our little guy will be two weeks old this Friday!  I can't even believe  how quickly time has passed.  What have we been doing these 12 days??  Eating, sleeping, peeing, pooping!  Well, Caiden is doing most of the sleeping!  No, in all seriousness we are doing really well with the adjustment.  So I'm sure you are dying to know what he is like.  First of all- he is the cutest darn baby in the whole world.   But I'm not biased or anything.  He came out with no marks from the birth- although now he has his first battle scar from a sharp fingernail.  He has tons of hair- it's a gold color (not what you think of as blond) with a hint of red in it. Even though he measured at 18.7 inches, which is just about average, his legs seem long.  We can't really tell whether he looks more like Eric or me. 

He is so strong- and he even likes to take us to the "gun show". One time he even raised his arm like he was flexing and then turned his head and "kissed" his bicep.  He is really good natured.  He doesn't really cry, he fusses a little when he is hungry and when he is about to take care of business, but other than that he is pretty chilled out.  Hopefully he will stay that way as he gets older.  He has several nicknames already, primarily Caid, Buddy and Captain.  We started calling him Captain Caiden right away because he has a tendency to open only one eye to check things out and he looks like a pirate.

Eric is a diaper changing pro now- although I try to help control Caiden's legs as they are always kicking.

He loves lo have his hands by his mouth. Every time we swaddle him, he figures out how to get his hands out and get them up. The problem with that is- he can't really control them quite yet, so he tends to hit himself in the face.

More to come tomorrow!

What a difference a week makes!

In the last post on April 22 I was asking myself if I would make it through the 39th week of pregnancy or if I would go into labor. Now I sit here as a proud mom of a one-week old beautiful baby boy! For those of you who haven't heard the story, I'll recap the series of very FORTUNATE events. 

After the comments from my doctor on 4/22 and concern for me going into labor, Eric and I decided that Friday April 23 would be my last day of school.  My school is about 30 minutes away from the hospital- with no traffic- so we didn't want to worry about making it to the hospital in time.  School was great that day: I told my students and co-workers that I wouldn't be coming back on Monday due to my progression.  My 4th period class had been planning a surprise baby shower for me for Monday but after I had told one of my students early that morning, they changed all the arrangements to that day.  It was so nice- they had balloons and streamers and flowers, cake and gifts.  They had even made arrangements with another teacher to get me out of the classroom so they could decorate and prepare.  They are such great kids!! 

School let out at 3:35 and I had made arrangements to meet with my substitute teacher to go over my plans with her.  We were just getting started talking and I was standing at my desk and I felt like I peed my pants!  I quickly excused myself and almost ran to the restroom where the big gush of my water breaking happened.  I had to holler out the bathroom door to our German teacher (the only person I knew could hear me from the bathroom) and asked him to go get Beth (another Spanish teacher).  With the help of our school nurse, I got cleaned up, called Eric at work and loaded into Beth's car so she could drive me to the hospital.  Eric had just gotten out of a meeting when I called, so he made the flight arrangements to get my mom, his mom and sister on planes to get them here, and then he ran home to get our hospital bag,  On the way to the hospital at 4:35 I felt my very first contraction.  Normally Friday afternoon is extremely heavy but we were very fortunate to have a clear route the whole way.  We got to the hospital about 5:00 and I got checked in and went to my room and Eric got there a few minutes later.

My wonderful nurse Katherine started taking all of my information and when she checked me I was 4cm dilated. (If you recall, I was 3cm on Thursday 4/22). My contractions had started to get pretty painful and I was getting nauseous from the pain.  I asked her to start the process for the epidural and she said it would take about an hour.  They have to put in an IV and get one bag of fluids in me and complete my blood work before receiving the epidural.  As my contractions got progressively more and more painful, the phlebotomist (blood guy) came in and started drawing my blood in my left arm while the nurse started my IV in my right arm.  It's a good thing I've gotten over my fear of needles.  So then the wait, Eric was helping me through the contractions and I was getting to the point where I thought I was going to die. Eric could see on the monitor that I wasn't getting any break between the contractions, and he knew they were bad. When the nurse came back she could see it too, so she decided to check me and I was 9cm.  She ran to get the anesthesiologist to see if he would go ahead with the epidural without the lab work. Luckily, he did.  He came right in and brought me the sweetest relief.  Kudos go out to any mom who can give birth naturally, because there is no way on this green earth that I could have managed it. 

After the epidural, the contractions were much more bearable and i could even smile and talk to Eric again.  Just a few minutes later the doctor checked in.  My OB was not on call, so her partner would be delivering.  I had seen her on a couple of appointments so I knew her and she was great.  So when she checked in she told me I could start trying to push.  The nurse coached me through much of the pushing with Eric helping me as well.  Just less than 4 hours after my water broke, the doctor came in and helped with the last few pushes to bring our beautiful baby boy into this world.  Here's his stats: 6 lbs, 14oz; 18.7" long, 7:52 pm.

The only downside to this extremely quick labor was the fact that my mom was supposed to be with us in the delivery room but her flight didn't arrive at DFW until 8:50.  My mom, Eric's mom and sister arrived just after they had me all cleaned up and they were about to bathe Caiden. We were discharged and came home on Sunday about noon.  I'll blog more later to tell you more about our little guy!