J One Month Old

I take a million pictures of my babies, obviously, but I'm not great at actually taking pictures on the significant days or planning them out ahead of time. So... these are J's "one month pictures" and I think I took them a few days after he was officially one month.
He is such a sweet, easy baby you guys! You know he's good when your three year old asks if babies know how to cry! Not sure what our catch is here, but we're not complaining (yet... until we figure out what the catch is!) 

When we went to J's first doctor's appointment, his pediatrician said his curly toe was the most dramatic one she'd ever seen! She said she usually doesn't do anything with curly toes, but that we might want to get another opinion on his while he's young. So we made an appointment at the Children's hospital downtown. We went to the appointment a few days before his one month old mark.
They weighed him and measured him and measured his head. He was so funny when they measured his head. The doctor had to try a few times because kept making this funny/annoyed face every time the tape touched his head, and he would shake it off. He weighed over 9 lbs so that was fun to see his growth!
Anyways, the doctor came and looked at his toe and she said it was nothing to worry about and there was nothing we should do about it. She wanted to check him over a little more, just in case the curly toe was part of a bigger problem. She found a dimple in his spine (a sacral dimple), which is about as serious as a curly toe: somewhat common, probably nothing, but a small chance that it's part of something bigger. The doctor said "we usually don't worry about these unless they are paired with yada, yada, yada, or a birthmark." and I was like "well shoot! J's got a huge birthmark!" She said not to worry too much, because the birthmark wasn't near the dimple, but just in case, we should probably get it checked. Let me see if I can find a picture of the birthmark to document here...

So we went right down the hall to get an ultrasound on his spine. I was pretty nervous for about 24 hours before we got the results back, and thankfully thankfully thankfully, they didn't see anything concerning! Our little boy just has a lot of special features!

The Brothers

You'd think I'd learn my lesson about doing indoor iPhone photoshoots with my boys, but nope! I'll keep trying! These turned out a little better than J's newborn photos, thanks to help from my mom and husband. Plus, somehow by some miracle, we got Owen to cooperate enough to get a few good pictures. I love these ones!

Because we were in the mood, I needed a pic with my new baby too!

J One Week Old

Here in Dallas, we don't have the luxuries of reasonably priced children's photography studios like we did in Utah. I didn't want to drop hundreds of dollars, so I figured I'd just take my own. I know I'm no photographer (iPhone camera only over here), so I didn't expect my pictures to turn out professional looking by any means, but I at least wanted some good pictures to capture how J looked as a newborn. Let's just say... there's a reason we pay professionals to do this...

But here's what I got:

And, then... he woke up

and yes, he looks just like Owen!

Hospital Stay

Naturally, we took a ton of pictures during our hospital stay. Newborn babies experience so many firsts, and change so quickly, you just want to document it all!

I couldn't wait to have all my boys with me! I was so excited for Owen to meet his new brother. Something tells me I'm going to need to protect J from Owen's loving until they get a little older...

 

 

I've heard some moms say they want to get out of the hospital as soon as possible. Maybe I just like being taken care of haha, but I loved the hospital stay. We got decent meals delivered, the nurses treated us like we were their lifelong friends, and it was nice to have professionals around every corner to answer any questions or calm any nerves. And of course, it was so nice to have uninterrupted time to stare at J and to snuggle him!

After three nights at the hospital, we went home Sunday morning. 

 Thanks for the great experience, Baylor Frisco!

J's Birth Story

This birth story isn't near as exciting and eventful as Owen's. That's a good thing! Except for story telling purposes, it's a little boring. 

The doctor who delivered Owen via emergency c-section told me I'd have to have c-sections for any future births. J's original due date was June 28th, but I knew I'd need to schedule a c-section for an earlier date. I was silently hoping June 21st would be the day, because that's the summer solstice and I thought it would be fun to have a little sun-baby. Luckily, that's the date my doctor suggested, so I was excited about that!

I started having contractions on the 17th. I never felt more than 3 or 4 an hour...nothing too serious, but enough to scare me into having my hospital bag packed a few days early.
My mom flew in on the 19th.
Gavin gave me a blessing on the 20th.
I was told not to eat or drink anything after 10 pm on the 20th, but my doctor told me I could drink a little bit of water if I needed to, then lie about it, so that's exactly what I did!
Luckily, nothing came of the contractions, so we headed to the hospital bright and early on the 21st. 

I was so so anxious about the delivery. My first experience was pretty intense, and I knew it would probably be much more routine this time around, but I still didn't really know what to expect.

We got to the hospital around 5:30 am. I put on my hospital gown and the heart rate monitors and was relieved when everything looked normal. Over the next hour I signed a bunch of papers, met some nurses and doctrs, and got my IV in. It's crazy that everything we did in an hour this time, we did in 5 minutes last time. It was nice to actually be able to process what was happening!
I did feel very nauseas throughout all of this, to the point of asking for a barf bag. The anxiety + the hospital smell + the empty stomach + pregnancy hormones =not a good combination. 

At 7:30 my doctor arrived, Gavin put on his hospital clothes, and we went to the surgery room. It was freeeeezing in there! The anesthesiologist walked me through the spinal block. He said the first shot would probably hurt a little more than a normal shot (he was right!), then I shouldn't be able to feel the second shot (he was right again!). This was the part I was most anxious for, because this was the craziest part of Owen's birth. I'm very grateful that experience wasn't repeated! 

Then I laid down, the sheet went up, and Gavin sat next to my shoulders. My anesthesiologist said that the nurses were there to take care of the baby, but he was there to take care of me and to let him know if I needed anything. Well... it was at this point that I finally needed to throw up. I was already numb, so that poor doctor had to catch my puke and wipe my face and not act horrified! Thank goodness I hadn't eaten anything, but I think my puke gave away that I broke the "no water" rule. Woops!

At 8:06 they asked me if I was ready to see my baby! Gavin stood up to take a peek. I was so happy and relieved when I heard my baby cry. I had to wait a minute before I could actually see him because of the delayed cord clamping or whatever it is that I know nothing about. They finally held him up over the sheet and my first thought was "Oh good, he's cute. and he looks like Owen!" then the nurses took him to get cleaned up and Gavin followed them.

 Gavin's first look at J

My first look at J

Only a mother would look at a messy, crying, fresh-from-the-womb baby and think "cute!" haha 

Right after getting cleaned by the nurses

Stamping Gavin's hospital shirt with J's footprints

Apparently J swallowed a bunch of liquid or something else I know nothing about, so it took the nurses a while to get him all suctioned out. I kept hearing phrases from the nurses like "he looks good, but he's got this toe...". Once he was swaddled, Gavin brought him close to my face to help me hold him. Ahhh it was so exciting. Gavin informed me that our baby looked healthy and had a funky toe. We also noticed a bruise on his shoulder. At first we weren't sure if it was a delivery battle wound, or a birthmark. Turns out it's a birthmark- lots of special features on this little guy of ours!

It took another twenty minutes or so to get me all put back together. I started shaking but was quickly covered in hot blankets and told to let my body shake instead of trying to fight it. The shaking wasn't near as severe as it was last time (there seems to be a theme here) and only lasted 15 minutes. 

We got to the recovery room and the nurse helped me get in a skin-to-skin position with J. It took J all of 5 seconds to start searching for something to eat, so I got to breastfeed him as soon as I could hold him safely. 

We texted our families to let them know everything went well, and that we would Face Time after Owen met his new brother. We thought Owen should do the honors of being the first family member to see that babe!

We finally made it to the hospital room where we'd be staying. The nurses helped me change into a prettier robe, I put on some mascara (if you've seen our first few pictures with Owen, you know I learned the no-mascara lesson the hard way), and let my mom know to come on in! We also had someone there to record Owen meeting his brother for the first time. I'm excited to get that video back!

I'll share more pictures and experiences from the hospital in my next post, but that's the story of J joining our family here on Earth! We're so grateful he's ours!