Saturday, March 24, 2012

On our first month together.

I can't believe our little baby boy is already a month old. Time really does go by fast once you have a child. Oh heck, time has gone by really fast ever since I graduated from high school. Was that really 12 years ago? Yikes. Anyways, I digress.

Elijah has been the sweetest baby, and I am so glad that he is ours. It seems like he has always been a part of this family, even though he's only been with us for a month. What can I say? We are pretty much in love with our little guy!

Notable first month things about Eli: (this is a long list that I'm sure only we and grandparents will like, but I want all of this written down so I won't be offended if you don't make it all the way through!)

  • He smiles a lot, and I love when he does it while looking directly at me or Jon.
  • He is one of the noisiest babies I have ever known. He grunts, makes laughing sounds, moans, sighs, hiccups, sneezes and makes other random sounds that just make me laugh. He often does this when he is sleeping a foot away from me in his pack and play. Of course, that makes for restless nights for his parents! 
  • Speaking of restless nights...Eli has not been sleeping well during the night. He will often wake up every hour to 2 hours to eat and seems to have his days and nights confused. However, I bought a miracle blanket to swaddle him since he houdinied out of all his other swaddles and last night he slept in 3-hour increments for the first time! I hope that this is a new trend and not just a fluke. This mama likes her sleep!  
  • He now really enjoys bath time and basically slept through his bath the other night. I think it definitely has a calming effect on him! 
  • He loves looking at lights and will crane his neck in whatever direction it's coming from. He has taken to looking at the TV and I know he can't see what's on it, but it makes me laugh to think that he is actually sitting there watching Jon play video games or watching TV with us.
  • He follow objects with his eyes, especially if they light up! 
  • He loves to grasp things, and will even pull my hair or pull on my shirt when I'm holding him. I better get used to lots of ponytails. 
  • He is SO good at tummy time. He will lift his head and hold it up for a few seconds while on his stomach, and will often lift his head if he is laying on our chests as well. He is gaining excellent neck control! 
  • Eli is awake a lot more often during the day so I take that time to sing and read to him and will hold up different objects for him to look at. His favorites are a plastic set of keys and a little stuffed soccer ball. In fact, sometimes he will hold onto the loop on the soccer ball. Or he is perfectly content just staring at me and I'm totally fine with that!
  • The kid farts...a lot. Sometimes he will fart and then make a little laughing sound and it cracks me up. I think it's the only time I have used the word "cute" in conjunction with a fart.
  • He has really long fingernails and has scratched his face a few times. He always makes me sad to see new scratches so we are going to work on keeping his fingernails trimmed. 
  • He likes to go on walks and we have gone to the local park a few times. It's nice to get out and get some fresh air throughout the week.
  • He also likes to Skype with all of his grandparents (and uncle Jonathan!), which we have done a few times. He entertains them pretty well so I don't have to do too much talking. :)
  • He spits up and pees...often on me. It's a good thing he's so darn cute! 
  • He makes the cutest faces, which we always try to capture on camera. One of the ones we like the best looks like the kids at the end of the Charlie Brown Christmas episode when they are singing. Eli already has a large collection of photos of himself! 
  • He doesn't really use a pacifier (he just spits it out), but has found his thumb a few times already.
  • His favorite way to sleep is curled up on our chests. I will be so sad when he is too big to be able to do this!

These are all of the things that I can think of for right now and will be sure to add more if I think of some!

Monday, March 5, 2012

Elijah Andrew's Birth Story (Stef's side of things)

Our little guy is here! Elijah (Eli) was born Wednesday, February 22nd at 6:03am weighing 7 pounds and measuring 20 inches. Following is his birth story. Warning - if you don't like to hear words like dilated and contractions, then you should probably skip over this post. :) I promise there is nothing gross involved though!

I woke up Tuesday morning feeling like something was different and thought it could possibly be the day I go into labor. I was still 10 days away from my due date, but babies are born early all the time, even though I knew it was more uncommon for first time moms. I decided to go ahead and substitute teach anyway and the students made jokes all day that they hoped I would go into labor then. I, however, did not agree that going into labor at the school would be the most ideal situation! I did feel a little pain throughout the day, but nothing too intense. In fact, I called my mom after school and asked her if it was possible to have contractions without knowing it. She said that I would most definitely know and not to worry about missing them. After a few hours I felt small contractions that lasted every 15-20 minutes, but they were definitely bearable. Around 10pm that night my contractions became closer together and a little more intense, and after an hour they were 5 minutes apart and definitely starting to hurt! I'm really glad we don't have any downstairs neighbors right now because I'm pretty sure my groaning would have been loud and clear to them. I called my doctor and she told me that if they lasted for an hour at 5 minutes apart then I needed to go to the hospital. I told Jon that we would most likely need to head to the hospital that night and started packing my hospital bag while he finished up a game of Call of Duty. By the time we left for the hospital around 11:45 the contractions were 2 minutes apart and I prayed that they would not send us home once we arrived.

We arrived at the hospital and they told me that I was 3 cm. dilated, but they would like to see more dilation before admitting me officially. They made me walk around the corridor of the floor for an hour, which was probably one of the most painful things I have ever done. I had to stop every 30 feet or so to wait through a contraction and may have shed a few tears in the process. What can I say? I'm a bit of a wuss. After an hour I was finally 4 or 5 cm. dilated and they checked me into a birthing suite. I got my epidural (there was no way I was going through the pain of labor once I knew what contractions felt like!) and then they broke my water. At that point I was then 6 cm. dilated, which was roughly half an hour or so after they admitted me. We waited another hour before they checked me again and I was surprisingly another 2 cm. dilated so things were definitely progressing more quickly than anticipated. Another 45 minutes later I was dilated to 10 cm. and ready to start pushing. It was at this point that my parents arrived at the hospital so I got to say a quick hello for about 5 minutes and then had to kick them out. My doctor had been at the hospital a few hours earlier for a delivery, but went home not expecting me to progress so quickly. They called her back and had me wait to really push so she could be there to deliver. (sidenote: I was really fortunate to have my own doctor on call that evening!) Once my doctor arrived back at the hospital I pushed for about 20 minutes and Elijah was here!

More posts to follow on all the details after his arrival.

- S