Garrett - 2 Months

Diapers

Size 1.  I’m hoping to stay in these for a while, but sometimes I wonder if he’s ready for size 2 because he frequently poops through his diaper!

 

Shoe Size

He doesn’t wear shoes yet so I have no idea!

Clothes

Some of his clothes are 0-3 month and some are just 3 month clothes.  For the ones that are 3 month clothes, they’re a bit baggy on him, but they fit enough for him to get away with wearing them.  He’s definitely bigger than Carter was at his age, but he’s also wearing all of the clothes that Carter wore, which have been washed and dried countless times.  So some of those 3 month clothes that almost fit him have probably shrunk a bit since Carter wore them. 

Feeding

Last month I mentioned that his middle of the night feeding was either a breastmilk or formula bottle.  Well, Garrett is now strictly breastfed…I can’t remember the last time we gave him formula.  For most of month 2, when Justin was in town, I would nurse the last feeding of the night (somewhere between 9pm-10pm) and he fed a breastmilk bottle in the middle of the night when he woke up (around 3am or 4am).  Then he would wake up for the day somewhere between 7am-8am.  That was most of month 2, but for the last two weeks he hasn’t woken in the middle of the night.  He still gets the 9pm-ish feeding, but then he usually doesn’t wake up until roughly 5:30-6:30am, at which time I will breastfeed again and then he will go back down and wake up for the day around 8:30 or 9am.  During the day he eats about 5 times a day (every 3 hours).  9 times out of 10, I have to wake him up for his daytime feedings.  My overproduction is still going strong.  I have found the number to call about donating my milk.  I have to fill out a big survey about my lifestyle and then give blood just to get approved to donate it.  I haven’t called yet, but probably will in the next week or so once Christmas/Carter’s birthday stuff dies down a bit.

Babywise

This is still working well with Garrett.  The whole point of Babywise, basically, is to put your baby to bed while they’re still awake so that they can fall asleep on their own without needing to be rocked, pacified, etc.  Garrett has been doing this since birth which has been extremely nice.  Each cycle he eats, then has waketime for about an hour and then goes down for a nap which usually lasts between 1 1/2 – 2 1/2 hours. 

Sleep

Naps are great.  He falls asleep for them on his own without needing a “sleep prop”.  Each nap lasts anywhere from 1.5-2.5 hours and most of the time I have to wake him up to eat.  His “middle of the night” feeding isn’t really in the middle of the night anymore.  It’s somewhere between 5:30-6:30am.  His last meal of the day is around 9-10pm and then he has that 5:30-6:30am feeding and then he’s up for the day between 8-9am.  At this age, Carter had slept through the night a few times, but he was still waking about every 4-5 hours on a normal night.  Garrett’s longest stretch so far has been 9 1/2 hours.  After spending a large portion of the night at a family Christmas get together in Tuscaloosa with my family, we got home around 10pm.  I fed Garrett and put him down and he didn’t wake up until 7:45 the next morning.  The incredible thing about Garrett is that as soon as he’s done eating and has his diaper changed and put back in his woombie, he falls asleep immediately.  Pretty much never cries at all!  It makes the feeding go by quickly for sure!  At this moment, Garrett’s nighttime sleep is anywhere from 7-9 hours.

Waketime

Still doing various things for waketime such as playing on various playmats and having tummy time.  He’s getting much better at holding his head up during tummy time and is finally using his arms to support himself while doing it.  He has rolled from tummy to back  several times, the first time being the night before he turned 7 weeks old!!  We also started Baby Einstein DVDs this month, but he doesn’t seem interested yet.  I’ll put him in front of the TV to watch it, but he usually ends up staring at the Christmas tree or the ceiling fan.  I hope he likes Baby Einstein as much as Carter did.  There’s a lot of learning that was done on Carter’s part because of those DVDs!

**This is Cole.  He is my cousin Quinn’s son and is 4 months old, while Garrett is only 7 weeks old in this picture.  They look the same size!!!  Turns out that Garrett is in the 75th percentile for weight while Cole is in the 25th, which explains why they look the same size!**

Mother’s Day Out

Garrett will go to the same KIDS program at our church that Carter goes to.  Unfortunately, he can’t be enrolled until he’s 6 months old.  His first time to go will likely be during summer school next summer.  Our church offers a summer program for 4 weeks in June where the kids go Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9-1.  I always enroll Carter and will likely put Garrett in next summer as well.  I am definitely not ready to let anyone else take care of him other than me for right now, but by next summer he’ll be about 8 months old and I want him to get used to being taken care of by other people.

Justin’s Travel

Justin traveled the majority of December.  I felt like he was NEVER here.  He was gone 3 weeks in December.  One week was Sunday-Thursday (back at 11pm Thursday night), the next week was supposed to be the same, but his flight got cancelled so he didn’t get home until 3pm on Friday.  Then the third week he was gone Sunday through Wednesday night (back at 9pm).  So December was a month where I was doing almost EVERYTHING by myself.  It was exhausting but I got through it.  Thankfully he is in town now and won’t go back out of town until the very end of January.  Carter loves having daddy at home.  He misses him SOOOOOO much when he’s gone.  Garrett doesn’t know any better yet, obviously.

Statistics

Garrett’s 7 week appointment was on December 15, 2014.  He weighed 12lbs, 2oz (75th percentile), 22 1/2 inches (60th percentile) and his head was in the 90th percentile!  I honestly thought he was going to be higher than the 75th percentile.  Carter was 10lbs 6oz at his 7 week appointment and at that time, that was the 75th percentile.  I thought that was weird since it’s almost a 2lb difference and yet the same percentile, but I think it’s because it’s different years.  Carter was 75th in 2012 and this weight is apparently the 75th in 2014.  Garrett had his shots which, like most babies, was traumatic.  Props to me y’all….daddy was out of town so I had to take both kids to the doc.  Carter tends to get really upset if Garrett cries so I was trying to console two babies at the same time.  It was a tad rough, but we got through it.  Doc said everything with Garrett was great and he didn’t have anything to report to me.

Abilities

We’ve been doing tummy time more and more and he doesn’t mind it at all.  In fact, he sometimes falls asleep.  Justin and I joke that most kids don’t like tummy time so they roll over to get off their tummy.  We think that’s why Garrett’s so big-tummy time doesn’t bother him so he just lays there most of the time!  The day before he turned 7 weeks old, he rolled from his tummy to his back for the first time.  This is about the same time that Carter did it too.  It’s one of those things that happened and then you’re not sure if they meant to do it, but then they did it again over the next couple days until they eventually just do it all the time.  I facetimed Justin immediately after he did it and tried to get him to do it again but he never did.  Daddy usually misses those first milestones because he’s out of town so much :(  He’s also starting to make those baby babbles.  You can tell he’s finding his voice.  With a brand new baby, the only noise they make is crying or grunting.  Now Garrett just makes a consistent noise to hear himself “talk”.  It appears he’s also beginning to reach for things that hang above him.  Again, not sure if this is actually what he’s doing, but he has been putting his hands up and touching the toys that hang from the playmats.

 

Teething

Definitely not there yet!  

Discipline

Again, definitely not there yet!

Other Notable Things

Likes

• Sleeping
• Car rides – he usually falls asleep and doesn’t make a peep.  He rode from Justin’s grandparents house in Florida all the way to our house and never woke up.  That’s about a 3 1/2 hour car ride!
• Watching brother walk around and do things
• His ocean mat.  He likes looking at the octopus that hangs from it.
• Lights and ceiling fans-this probably won’t change for a while. 

Dislikes

• When brother steps on him on accident.  I kinda don’t blame him on this one!
• When Gizmo gives him kisses.  It takes him by surprise and I don’t think he’s a fan.

How Mama Is Doing

It’s been 2 months now and I can finally say that I’m fully recovered.  Y’all, that was a rollercoaster.  You can read my birth story with Garrett here, but needless to say, A LOT of healing was needed.  Unfortunately a lot happened to me afterwards as well.  The pain from the 4th degree episiotomy was excruciating.  Way worse than it was with Carter.  I finally broke down and went to the doctor because it was just not normal, in my opinion at least.  She noticed that the knot at the end of one of the stitches was rubbing against a sensitive area so she took care of that for me.  I was able to walk better immediately.  It felt so much better.  A few days later, just when that area started to heal, I started getting a sinus infection.  I get really BAD sinus infections.  I usually run fevers and have bad headaches and it’s just unbearable.  Since I was breastfeeding though, there wasn’t much I could do but let it pass because anything you take for a sinus infection will dry up your milk.  The grandmothers helped a bunch and took turns taking care of Carter for me so that I could rest and get better.  Once I was finally better, I got a yeast infection.  Ugh.  Once that cleared up, the symptoms of the sinus infection came back.  I had the WORST headache I have ever had in my life, to the point where I couldn’t stand up or eat or function.  I was assuming it was a migraine (I’ve never had one before then).  After two days of this, I ended up going to the doc in the box on Thanksgiving morning.  What I didn’t expect was the diagnosis of a walking pneumonia.  What I thought was a sinus infection that entire time was actually a walking pneumonia, which is extremely contagious.  So not only did I not get to spend Thanksgiving with our families, I didn’t even get to spend it with my own family.  Justin took the boys and left so that I wouldn’t get them sick and I spent Thanksgiving in the bed.  It was awful.  A few days later I finally started feeling better from that and to be honest, was waiting on some other thing to happen to me.  Luckily my bad streak of sicknesses was over and I never got sick again after that. 

I started working out again around 5 weeks postpartum.  I slowly got into the P90x workouts and now I do them about 5-6 days a week which is what I was doing before I got pregnant.  I’m down to only 5 measly pounds to lose to be back at my pre-pregnancy weight so I’m hoping that will come off quickly.  Justin also bought me another package at Pure Barre for Christmas so I plan to start taking classes there again soon.  I think that’s about all the updates I have on myself.  We’re getting into a new normal with two kids and it isn’t bad at all.  It really helps to have a big brother that likes to help out as much as Carter does and also to have a newborn that sleeps as much as Garrett does!  It all makes for one happy momma :)

Garrett - One Month

Diapers

He was in newborns most of the month.  We literally just used up our last pack of newborns and decided to go ahead and start using size 1’s because those start at 8lbs so Garrett could have probably fit into 1’s from the beginning, but he also fit into newborn diapers so we just used those for a while.  We don’t have anymore newborn diapers from diaper showers that we had while I was pregnant, but we do have a TON of size 1’s, so we’re just went ahead and moved him into 1’s a couple days ago.

Shoe Size

He doesn’t wear shoes yet so I have no idea!

Clothes

Newborn and 0-3 month clothes.  I’m interested to see how his growth will compare to Carter.  Carter is now almost 3 years old and still wears mostly 2t clothes.  He’s pretty small for his age so I wonder if Garrett will be small too or if he’ll be my little linebacker.

Feeding

Garrett eats about 7 times a day, most of which is breastfeeding.  We do give bottles at night, sometimes it’s a breastmilk bottle, sometimes it’s formula.  It just depends.  As far as how much he eats, obviously I have no idea how much he gets when he nurses, but when he takes a bottle, he gets about 4oz.  We still struggle keeping him awake during feedings too, but he’s getting a little better about staying awake. 

Babywise

I started Garrett on a Babywise schedule about 2 weeks ago and he’s done extremely well with it.  If you don’t know about Babywise, it’s a book that shows you how to create a schedule for babies to promote nighttime sleep.  The whole schedule goes off of a “feed/wake/sleep” routine.  During the day, he eats about every 3-3 1/2 hours.  He’ll eat for about 30 minutes or so and then he’ll have waketime for about 30 minutes again and then he goes down for a nap which last anywhere from 2-2 1/2 hours.  I usually have to wake him up for feedings, which is a GREAT problem to have!  Sometimes he wakes up on his own, but most of the time I wake him up. 

At one month old, Garrett only wakes up once a night, usually around 3am.  The timing of when he eats at night depends greatly on the times that he eats during the day, but for the most part, his last meal of the day is around 10pm and then he’ll wake up around 2:30-3am for a feeding and then he wakes up for the day around 7-7:30am.  Babywise is working out great with Garrett, but I’m trying to extend the waketimes a little more as he gets older.

Sleep

See the “Babywise” section above, but for the most part, Garrett still gets roughly 16-18 hours of sleep a day.  He also has already been transitioned to the crib.  Naturally he had no issues with it :)  He still sleeps in a little co-sleeper downstairs in our dining room (which is right outside our bedroom) at nighttime so that we can be close to him.  But all of his naps are upstairs in his room.  He has shown no preference for either place.  As soon as he starts sleeping a bit of a longer stretch at night, I will let him sleep upstairs at night.

Waketime

Every waketime is different, but he’s usually on the floor.  If I need to pump or take a shower or something in the bathroom, he just lays on the bathroom mat and stares at the stuff around him while I do those things.  He also has 2 playmats in the living room that he lays on and looks at the stuff that hangs from them.  Sometimes I hold him in the playroom and we watch Carter play.  Sometimes we go outside, if it’s warm enough.  It just depends!  We started tummy time recently and he sometimes lifts his head, but most of the time he just lays there.

Mother’s Day Out

Garrett will go to the same KIDS program at our church that Carter goes to.  Unfortunately, he can’t be enrolled until he’s 6 months old.  His first time to go will likely be during summer school next summer.  Our church offers a summer program for 4 weeks in June where the kids go Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9-1.  I always enroll Carter and will likely put Garrett in next summer as well.  I am definitely not ready to let anyone else take care of him other than me for right now, but by next summer he’ll be about 8 months old and I want him to get used to being taken care of by other people.

Justin’s Travel

Justin was home pretty much ALL of October.  We kept thinking that Garrett was going to come sooner than he did so Justin’s dad (which is also his boss) arranged for him to be home in case Garrett came early.  This was great for me because Justin helped out with Carter a ton which is just what momma needed at 37+ weeks pregnant.  However, it also meant that once Garrett arrived, he wouldn’t be able to be home as much as he was with Carter.  Carter was born in December and at that point, their travel season is over.  Justin was home for a long time after Carter was born.  Not so with Garrett.  I think his first out of town trip was when Garrett was 2 weeks old.  And it was my first time with both kids.   Thankfully it was a short trip (Wednesday through Friday).  I wasn’t scared at all of keeping both kids and it was actually a big success.  Carter was a great helper (he’s seriously such a great brother) and Garrett sleeps all the time.  The week after that was a little different.  Justin left Sunday and didn’t get back until Thursday night.  What made this difficult was the fact that sickness struck me the day he left.  I had what I thought was either a cold or small sinus infection (about a week later I went to the doc and it turned out to be walking pneumonia) that had developed a 100.0 degree fever.  I could barely walk due to the headache so I had to call in reinforcements to help with Carter.  Papa came to pick up Carter after church and he spent the night with them.  Can I just say how GRATEFUL I am that both grandparents live within 5 miles of us?!?!  I have no idea how anyone parents without help!  Anyway, after the 2nd trip, Justin was in town for Thanksgiving week but starting next week, he’s gone again for all 3 weeks before Christmas.  All I can say is thank GOD I don’t have PPD this time around!!!

Statistics

Garrett’s first doc appointment where they measured him was his 2 week appointment.  At that appointment, he was 21.5 inches (80th percentile) and weighed 8lbs 15oz (60th percentile) and his head was 14.5 inches (80th percentile).  His next appointment isn’t until December 15th so I don’t have an official weight or height, but I have a scale at home and as of today he weighs 10lbs 10 oz.  I attempted to measure him on my own too and I came up with about 21.5 inches still.  Based on the CDC chart I see online, this means that Garrett is in the 80th percentile for height and 75th percentile for weight (assuming my measurements are correct).  Again, this is an estimate since we didn’t have a 4 week appointment.  I’ll do another blog post after that appointment and give the stats. 

Abilities

Well, I’m not sure there’s much I can put here yet.  We’ve done tummy time a little bit and he doesn’t hate it, but he doesn’t love it either.  He usually just lays down.  Sometimes he tries to lift his head, but I don’t think he quite understands yet that lifting his head is what I’m wanting him to do.  When he lays on my chest he lifts his head a lot.  He just doesn’t do it on the floor all that often. 

Teething

Definitely not there yet! 

Discipline

Again, definitely not there yet!

Other Notable Things

Likes

• His pacifier, but he doesn’t require it, which we love.  Those few times that he wakes early out of nap or that 5% of the time where he doesn’t fall asleep on his own…those are the times that we give him a pacifier and it fixes everything.  But again, he doesn’t require the paci. 
• His thumb!  I can’t believe it, but around 3 weeks old, he found his thumb.  It was likely on accident, but he likes sucking on it and I’ve noticed that during waketimes he puts his hands in his face trying to find it.
• Being held.  What baby doesn’t like being held??  He is content on the floor or in a bouncy chair for a while but he will whine when he gets bored with sitting there.  That’s when he wants to be held. 
• Lights-what newborn doesn’t like lights??  During his waketimes I put him on mats that have lots of toys hanging above him for him to look at but he usually looks right past it and to the lights.

Dislikes

• Honestly, I haven’t found much that he dislikes at this point.  I’m sure he’ll start developing preferences soon and when he does, he will show what he dislikes.  But for now, he’s a pretty happy baby!

How Carter Is Doing

Carter is such a great big brother y’all.  We figured out quickly that we MUST allow Carter to give Garrett a “kiss and a hug” before we put him down for naps.  If we don’t, this happens:

True story.  He will actually cry if he finds out that we’ve put Garrett down for a nap and he hasn’t been able to give him the kiss and hug yet.  So far, Carter wants to be very involved in everything.  If he hears Garrett make a noise (ANY noise at all) he’ll come running to him and pat him on the head saying “it’s ok.  Carter’s here”.  A lot of times he’ll lay down with Garrett if he’s on a playmat, like in one of the pictures above.  He’s asked to hold Garrett a couple times but I only let him do it once.  He thinks Garrett doesn’t weigh much, but 10 pounds is a lot when you’re 3.  Now that Garrett takes naps upstairs in his room, Carter has to actually walk up there with us to put him down for a nap.  He’ll turn on Garrett’s rain machine and everything.  He also likes to pick out which diaper we put on Garrett too.  So basically, he’s enjoying his job as big brother right now.  I know that this love won’t last forever because they’ll eventually start fighting over toys and such, but for now, I’m going to enjoy how much he loves his little brother!

Found this and wanted to post it.  It’s the last picture of sweet Garrett in my belly before we started delivery!

Garrett’s First Weeks

Well, my sweet little boy will be a whopping two weeks old on Monday.  So what did he do during this time in his new home?  One word-SLEEP.  This kid y’all…..I don’t even know what to do with him.  He literally sleeps roughly 20 hours a day.  He’s basically awake for feedings and that’s it.  He is so different than Carter.  Carter rarely slept in his first weeks.  In fact we had to go to the pediatrician to talk about what could have been wrong and the doc said that Carter was a “hyper-alert baby”.  In Carter’s first several weeks at home, he was getting MAYBE 10-12 hours of sleep a day.  So this 20 hours a day thing is a nice change of pace for me and Justin.  I figure I worked so hard and got so messed up trying to get him out of my uterus that I earned a baby like Garrett :)

We were discharged from the hospital on Thursday, October 30th (a day later than expected) so that was our first night at home with both boys.  When we brought Carter home from the hospital after he was born, we tried to let him sleep in our room, but after one night of him being the NOISIEST sleeper in the world, we moved his pack-n-play to the living room and he slept out there for his first few weeks.  Garrett is noisy like Carter, but not near as bad.  Every night so far, Garrett’s only woken up to eat 2 times.  We usually wake him up around 10 or 11 for one last feeding before Justin and I go to bed.  The next feeding is usually around 1-2am and sometimes we even have to wake him up for that.  The one after that is around 3-4am and he usually wakes us up for that one.  Garrett seems to be able to go longer between feedings during the day than he can at night, but my guess is that he’s got his days and nights mixed up.  We also realized the same thing with Garrett that we realized with Carter…that he sleeps better and longer at night off formula (more calories than in breast milk).  So we feed him two of those feedings from a formula bottle.

It’s weird, but I truly believe that my body remembers what it’s like to function off of little sleep with a newborn baby in the house and it adjusted very quickly.  There hasn’t been one morning since we’ve come home that Justin or myself been “exhausted”.  We’ve both felt relatively good in the mornings and that’s also a huge change from our experience with Carter.  One thing Carter did better than Garrett does is eating.  Carter had no issues breastfeeding at all and Garrett has had some issues.  First he did it fine, but then it started taking him forever to latch on.  Even when he did, he seemed to only want to nurse from the right side and never wanted the left.  This continued to be an issue when we came home from the hospital for a while.  I just kept pumping and feeding him my milk in a bottle.  He never had an issue with my milk, which is a huge blessing, I just couldn’t get him to nurse.  Then we found out he had jaundice and that it was probably the reason he was being “lazy” by just wanting a bottle instead of having to work for it to get it from the source.  Once the jaundice started to go away, he began nursing again.  By the way, I’m producing THREE TIMES as much milk as Garrett is drinking.  We already have a ton in the fridge and about 18 freezer bags in the freezer.  I’m about to start consider donating it!

  

**Face was a tad swollen the day of discharge…excuse it!!**

Because of the jaundice, we had to put him on the same tanning bed-like lights that Carter had to go on.  Carter was on the lights for 4 days and it was miserable.  He hated them and cried constantly.  Garrett on the other hand couldn’t have cared less.  He slept amazing on them and because of that, we made him stay in the lights constantly.  Garrett only had to be on the lights for 2 days!!  Let me tell you real quick why I hate these lights….and why I hate Obamacare.  See our insurance covered the lights themselves at 80% and covered the nurses that had to come to our house daily to check on his jaundice levels at 100%.  Here’s the thing, Garrett had to meet an individual deductible of $2,000 before that was covered.  Are you kidding me?!?!?!  Why even cover it?  What freaking newborn has met a $2,000 deductible???  So Justin and I are forced to pay for it out of pocket.  We haven’t gotten the final bill, but we’re estimating roughly $600.  Awesome.  Anyway, Garrett’s bili number (the level of jaundice) was 9 in the hospital and then when we went to the pediatrician’s office a couple days later, it jumped to 17, which is why they told us to put him on the lights.  We got the lights around noon on Friday (Halloween) and he stayed on them until the nurse came again the next day (except for an hour break for trick-or-treating).  The next day his bili number decreased to 15.4 which showed some improvement.  They wanted the number to be around or below 12 so we were ordered to do it one more night.  The next day the nurse came back again and his number was down to 12.2.  The pediatrician said that the improvement was enough to go ahead and take him off the lights but he wanted the nurse to come back one more time the next day to check his bili number to see if it was going down on it’s own without being on the lights.  Sure enough, it was.  It was 11.3 that day.  So we are officially done with the lights!

This was the only Halloween picture I got of both boys.  I’m a horrible mother, I know.  I should have gotten more pictures of Carter and been more involved, but I just couldn’t y’all….I was still in so much pain and I could barely move!

 

These are the tanning bed lights used to knock out jaundice.

Garrett was born at 8lbs 1oz but just like all newborns, he lost some of that weight in his first days so we spent the week trying to get him back to his birth weight.  The lowest he got was 7lbs, 8oz in the hospital and as of today, he’s up to 7lbs, 15oz.  So almost birth weight, but not quite.  I suspect this is because of the eating issues.  I can hardly keep him awake long enough to eat so he’s not getting as much food as I want him to get.  There’s no concern with his weight though.  He’s gone up a little bit everyday which is good. 

That one on the right is the ONLY picture I’ve been able to get of his eyes open!

Oh and speaking of Halloween…man was it cold in the south that night!!  My mom came over to come trick-or-treat with us.  Carter wore his doctor outfit that he wore at the hospital when G was born.  We all walked up and down our street letting Carter trick-or-treat.  I wore Garrett on my chest and wrapped him in a million layers.   He slept the entire time.  Shocker.  Our neighbors were SHOCKED that I was out and about moving around already.  I probably shouldn’t have been, but I was tired of being in the house all day every day.  Which, by the way, is another difference between my kids.  The post-partum depression.  I had PPD with Carter pretty bad.  I got put on medication and stayed on it for about 6 months.  I thoroughly did NOT enjoy Carter’s first months of life.  I never wanted to leave the house.  Well because my hormones developed PPD the first time, my doc said it was likely to develop it again this time.  To prevent it to the best of his ability, my doc put me on Zoloft when I was 30 weeks pregnant.  Best decision ever y’all.  I am nothing but a ball of happiness this time around.  I’m so tired of being cooped up in my house and am dying to get outside and see our friends and go to church and play with Carter in the sun, etc.  All of this is a great sign that I am not struggling with PPD this time around.

We went to Tuscaloosa on Tuesday so that my sister could take Garrett’s newborn photos.  I can’t begin to explain how much I CAN’T WAIT to see these photos.  Carter wasn’t my sister’s best subject when he was a newborn because he NEVER slept.  Garrett was the opposite.  He stayed asleep the entire time and Lindsey had some insanely creative ideas that she used on him and OMG I’ve never seen anyone spend so much money on props and blankets for a session!!  This pictures shows a little behind the scenes of how we took the pictures.  Justin helped Lindsey a ton while I laid on the couch to rest.

And when I say he slept all day I mean it.  We took a break from taking pictures to eat lunch so we just laid Garrett on one of the blankets in the floor and he slept the entire time while we ate.

 

This one was taken from my iPhone so trust  me, Lindsey’s edited version is so much better…but how stinking cute is this?!?!

I must brag on my husband.  He is AH-MAZING!  With Carter, he didn’t know what he was doing and was always second guessing himself.  He always took the stance of “you’re the mother-you’re made for stuff like this, not me!”.  Naturally he ended up getting the hang of it and low and behold, he’s Carter’s favorite parent now.  When Garrett came into the world it was sooooooo different.  He has done WAY more than I have for Garrett.  He has changed almost ALL diapers, he’s cleaned the house for me, he’s offered to do feedings at night for me so that I can keep laying in bed and not moving (moving was hurting like crazy the first several days), and he took 100% responsibility for Carter so that I could focus on healing.  His confidence level of taking care of a newborn skyrocketed and seeing him with Garrett makes me smile daily.  I’m so thankful that he’s been around and helping as much as he has because it’s really helped me to heal quicker.  I have no idea how I’m going to do it all when he starts going out of town again!

 

So that pretty much sums up the first week at home with Garrett.  We love our family of four and I know now that God always intended for me to be a mom of boys.  I’m loving having these two so much already!  Now if I could just get better a little faster so that I can keep up with Carter, then life would be pretty dang perfect!

Garrett’s Birth Story

Lord have mercy y’all….I don’t even know where to begin.  At my 39 week appointment, my doctor gave me the go ahead to be induced.  We got to the labor and delivery wing at 5am on Monday, October 27th.  Did all the paperwork, got hooked up to the IV and started fluids, etc.  The nurse started pitocin around 6:30am which was shortly followed by the on call doctor coming in to break my water.  I got my epidural a little while after that and let me say, this time….the epidural HURT.  I was screaming and grabbing onto the nurse because it hurt so bad.  With Carter, they had given me a pain medication before the epidural and they didn’t this time so it hurt significantly more than it did last time.

So anyway, I labored for a while but then Garrett started going into distress.  His heart rate kept dropping every time I had a contraction so they rolled me on my side and put an oxygen mask on me several times throughout the day.  It helped and his rate always went back up, it just kept happening which was frustrating.  The first time they put me in the mask, I started bawling.  I was so embarrassed too because there were several people in the room with us.    My sweet pastor’s amazing wife saw that I was beginning to cry and came over to the bed and held my hand and blocked the line of sight to me so that no one would see me crying until I had a chance to get it together. 

So then something else went wrong.  The epidural stopped working on the left side of my body.  I could feel EVERYTHING.  So they called the anesthesiologist in and they gave me a different kind of medicine.  Apparently the epidural you get while laboring is different than the numbing medicine they give you if you have a csection.  They gave me the csection medicine.  About 15 minutes later my left side was numb again and all was right in the world.  I finally started progressing more since I was able to relax.  I got to 6cm shortly after getting the extra medicine. 

Well, then ANOTHER thing went wrong.  Each time they checked me, they couldn’t feel the position Garrett was in.  The entire 3rd trimester he’d been head down facing my back which is the correct position for birth.  But both the nurse and the doc was having a hard time figuring out which way he was facing.  So they had a sonogram rolled in and that’s when we found out that he was posterior.  Meaning, he was facing my front, sunnyside up.  This isn’t good.  We discussed the possibility of the doc trying to turn him, which even with an epidural is painful.  At the end of the day, my doc decided that he was pretty sure that he could deliver him even though he was sunnyside up.

At around 2pm, I got to 9cm and they started bringing in all the stuff for delivery.  All the family left the room except for Justin and my sister, Lindsey.  I wanted her to stay to take pictures.  I started pushing at almost 3 which is funny because it was pretty close to the exact time I started pushing with Carter.  I pushed until about 4:45 which was when they decided that my doctor needed to come in and use forceps to get Garrett out (a repeat of what we had to do to get Carter out too).  Oh wait, let me backup.  The epidural went out AGAIN while I was pushing and I felt absolutely everything.  I could feel Garrett’s head in my pelvis and it was the MOST painful thing I’ve ever experienced.  So the anesthesiologist came back in to give me another boost, which eventually worked again.  However at that point, I was so mentally drained and absolutely exhausted that I had no energy to push.  My doctor ended up literally putting his hands in my pelvis and pulled Garrett out.

I ended up with another 4th degree, but this time it was a tear instead of a cut.  With Carter, the doc cut me to get him out.  A cut is much easier to heal and stitch back together than a tear is.  They had to put the oxygen mask back on me at this point.  If you know my birth story with Carter (you can read it here), then you know that I lost a lot of blood and my blood pressure dropped to 65/43.  Well, same thing happened with Garrett, but worse.  I lost even more blood and my blood pressure was 55/36.  I was drifting in and out of consciousness.  I don’t remember a lot of what happened after Garrett came out.  Justin has filled me in on a few conversations that occurred. 

As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, the epidural that was boosted began kicking in REALLY well…..like too well.  I was numb all the way up to my chest.  This meant that my diaphragm was also numb which meant that even though I could breath, I didn’t feel myself breathing.  Which then led to me having anxiety seizures.  I was convulsing like I was in the movie the Exorcist.  At this point my husband and sister were FREAKED. OUT.  Justin did an amazing job of not showing me he was freaked out though.  The only thing that was able to calm me out of the seizure was Justin squeezing my hand and giving me small sips of water.  Crazy I know.  But eventually all was ok.  I was stitched up, Garrett was out and all the blood had been cleaned up.  Oh and I should mention that when he did finally come out, they wiped him off a little bit, but not all the way, and then put him on my chest.  I was crying tears of joy at that point and the first words that came out of my mouth were “oh hey baby!!!  You’re so gross”.  Everyone started laughing. 

They took Garrett from me to finish cleaning him up and to get his stats (he was 8lbs, 1oz and 20.5 inches long).  So then Justin went to go get Carter so that Carter would be the first (other than Lindsey and Justin) to see him.  He was so funny.  Seeing me in the bed made him very nervous, you could tell.  He didn’t like seeing me hooked up to monitors and stuff.  But he did say hey to baby Garrett and then he just wanted a pop tart and some M&Ms.  It was really funny to watch.  After Carter had his time, we let everyone come in to meet him.  By everyone, I mean the following:  Nana, Papa, Gigi, Pops, Anderson and Lydia (my niece and nephew), and Don and Ina (our pastor and his wife).  Most people only stayed for a short while.  Garrett was born at 5:06pm and because of the massive clean up that had to be done and the recovery that I needed, the family didn’t come in until about 6:45pm.

Everyone eventually went home and we put Garrett in the nursery for the night.  I asked for an ambien to help me sleep and it didn’t really work the first night, but it did the subsequent 2 nights.  We had several visitors the next day (Tuesday).  This was when we started noticing how GOOD of a baby Garrett was.  He was so relaxed.  He just laid there and slept essentially the entire time we were at the hospital.  We stayed again Tuesday night and again put Garrett in the nursery so that we could get some sleep.  Both me and Justin slept significantly better that night. 

I’ve noticed something about Justin this time around.  See, most men in general don’t have a clue of what they’re doing with babies until they’ve raised one.  Now that Carter is almost 3, Justin knew what he was getting himself into with another one.  His confidence level skyrocketed this time around and I’ve never seen him so involved and willing to do  basically everything while I heal.  I am so blessed to have a husband that is so truly in love with his boys.

This was on Tuesday when Carter came back to visit when there was less people and less distractions.  He got to actually talk to Garrett and spend some time with him.  He kept peeking into his crib and petting his stomach saying “it’s ok baby Garrett.  Carter’s here.”    It was the sweetest thing.

We were expecting to get discharged the next day but that didn’t pan out for us.  At about 6am, the on call doctor rounded and told me that over the past 2 days, my blood loss had been significant and that my iron level hadn’t bounced back like they thought it would.  Once your iron hits around 30 is when you start being a little bit anemic.  So you can imagine my shock when the doctor told me that  my bloodwork that morning came back and my iron was 19.  Not good at all.  She told me that I would need a blood transfusion and that they planned on doing at least 2 units of blood if not 3.  She also told me that I may not be discharged that day as expected.  Wonderful.  As if I needed anything else to go wrong!

So I started the blood transfusions.  They say that when you’re short on blood, that a blood transfusion makes you feel better almost instantly.  Well I felt no change after the 1st bag was done and was still so sleepy and weak.  They started the 2nd bag and about halfway through the transfusion, I started feeling better.  They did more bloodwork after the 2nd bag and my count came up to 26.  Still technically anemic, but so much better than 19.  They decided not to do a 3rd bag but that I needed to stay again overnight and check to make sure that number increased just a little the next day to show that it was going on a upward trend.  The next morning, I did bloodwork again and my count came back at 26.4.  Not a huge increase, but enough for the doctor to discharge me.

So Garrett and Justin and myself FINALLY got to leave the hospital around noon-ish.  Garrett was the perfect angel on the way home.  Didn’t make a peep even once.  We stopped by CVS to get a few things I needed to begin my recovery and then headed home.  My mom had Carter at her house and he was napping over there and then she was going to bring him home after that.  That was our first time to have both boys at their own home together as a family.  It felt amazing!  I’m now on day 6 of recovery and am getting better every day.  I am on pain medication still due to everything I went through and I do take it when I need it, but over the past 6 days I’ve needed it less and less, thankfully.  I’ll do a separate post on how Garrett’s first week was in a few days when I have some more time. 

In the meantime, here’s a couple of pictures I’ve taken since bringing him home:

Finally headed home from the hospital!

 

These two…

 

Carter’s obsessed y’all….not kidding!

On the left is Halloween night.  Carter dressed up as a doctor because those scrubs are the ones we got him to wear to the hospital when Garrett was born.  It says Big Brother on the back and Dr. Carter Morris on the front.  He loves the scrub hat and the face mask that came with it, though we couldn’t locate the mask before trick or treating began.  Baby Garrett was worn on my chest and wrapped in a million blankets because of how cold it was outside.  But he loved it and Carter had a BLAST trick or treating.  On the right is a picture I snapped of Garrett today (day 6) of that first sweet smile during his sleep.  Babies do this a lot and it is seriously one of my FAVORITE things about the newborn stage.

One of my LEAST favorite things about the newborn stage is the risk of jaundice.  Carter had jaundice BAD when he was a newborn.  Our pediatrician ordered him to be on this little mini-tanning bed lights for a whopping 4 days until his numbers went back to normal.  Carter HATED these lights and those first 4 days were hell on earth, let me tell you.  Garrett on the other hand, couldn’t care less.  I will go into more detail about the lights and all things Garrett in another post for another day.  But I did want to document this awful horrible labor experience before I forgot it.  Garrett was worth every second y’all.  He is so incredibly perfect and is SUCH a good baby.  I thank God for the suffering and struggles he put me through because the end result was just so amazing.

Oh and I will say this too….the night before being discharged from the hospital, my own doc came to check on me before he left for the night.  He wasn’t going to be there the next day so he wanted to say bye and to chat with us for a bit about everything.  He came and sat down in the bed beside me and asked how I was doing and all that jazz.  Then he looked at Justin and at me and said “Guys I’m not going to tell you what to do, but if we have a 3rd baby, I need you to consider having a c-section.  Marcie your pelvis just can’t handle anymore.”  Apparently my pelvis is too small to birth babies the size that I have (which is strange because 7.11 and 8.1 isn’t exactly considered big babies).  Regardless, he told us that this delivery was really bad and he doesn’t want to risk that happening again if we decide to have a 3rd baby.  I agree with him completely and agreed that a c-section would be the way to go if we do have a 3rd.  Not even contemplating that right now though.  I’m too busy enjoying the heck out of my sweet little boys :)

My Big Fat Belly 2.0 - 39 Weeks

How far along:  39 Weeks, 1 Day

Symptoms:  I feel contractions every now and again but they’re not strong enough or consistent enough to put me into labor. 

Labor Progress (Dilation and Effacement):   My 39 week appointment was today and we got the AMAZING news that I’m now 2cm dilated, therefore, WE CAN INDUCE.  We have set the date.  We will check into the hospital Monday morning at 5am.  Less than 48 hours from now.  OMG.  I have no idea how effaced I am.  When the doc came in we chatted for a bit and I told him I really wanted to induce and he said “Alrighty, let’s see if that’s possible”.  Then he checked me and as soon as he was done he said “which day works for you next week??”  I was so ecstatic that he was almost out the door before I remembered to ask how dilated I was, but it totally slipped my mind to ask about effacement.  Doesn’t matter to me because all I cared about was being progressed enough that he would induce.  So our sweet boy will be born on October 27, 2014.  It’s a good day….it’s also his Nana’s birthday!

Maternity Clothes:   Pretty much all maternity clothes.  Lately I have actually been sporting yoga pants almost daily with one of Justin’s t-shirts.  Garrett has dropped so much that most of my t-shirts don’t cover the very bottom of my belly so I’ve just been wearing some of Justin’s smaller shirts.

Weight Gain:   Up 34 pounds.  I was hoping to gain less than I did with Carter, but it’s pretty close already.  Gained 36 with him so 34 is pretty darn close.  Even with all the working out and healthier eating, I still gained about as much as I did with Carter (I rarely worked out with him and pretty much ate what I wanted).  It leads me to believe that women’s bodies are all different and no matter what we do, our bodies just need to gain a certain amount of weight to support a baby.  Some women easily only gain 25 pounds, some gain as much as 45-50.  Everyone’s just different.

Sleep:  I was sleeping just fine until last night.  This happened with Carter too.  As soon as I got a date that we were going to have him, I couldn’t turn my brain off at night.  Going through all the things that could happen, everything I packed, wondering if I’m forgetting something.  Literally just spending the entire night making to-do lists in my head.  Last night I got maybe 4 hours of sleep.  Tonight I plan to take a unisom and get as much sleep as possible.

Belly Button:  Still a teeny tiny outtie, but not much at all.  More flat than anything else.

Stretch Marks:  None.

Cravings/Aversions:   Nothing unusual.

Exercise Routine:  Made it 4 days this week.  1 pure barre class and 3 days of walking about 3.5 miles around my neighborhood.  My pure barre package is done now so walking is the only exercise I’ll be doing.  I must say though, at 39 weeks, I feel awesome!  Soooooooooo much better than I did with Carter at 39 weeks. 

Baby Size:  At 39 weeks baby is the size of a watermelon.  YOWZAS!  He’s roughly 20 inches long and about 7 pounds now.

Movement:   He still moves a lot and I am feeling him SO low in my pelvis.  Like, to the point where sometimes during my walks I feel like he’s going to fall out!

Swelling and/or Signs of Labor:  Swelling is still a little bit there, but it’s at a minimum.  I am still wearing my wedding rings-YAY!  Like I mentioned above, I feel contractions but they’re not really intense enough to start labor and it doesn’t really matter anyway because we go in Monday to get him out!

Gender:  I am the queen in my house of boys!

Appointments and Such:   My 39 week appointment was my LAST appointment since we’re inducing.  So the next blogpost you see will be announcing Garrett’s entrance to the world!!!

Bump Pic for Week 39:

My Big Fat Belly 2.0 - 38 Weeks

How far along:  38 Weeks, 3 days

Symptoms:  I feel contractions every now and again but they’re not strong enough or consistent enough to put me into labor. 

Labor Progress (Dilation and Effacement):   My 38 week appointment was today.   I’m still 1cm dilated, but this time I was 50% effaced (thinned out).  Doc said that the effacement was caused by me losing my mucus plug.  It also means that I may be more dilated/effaced next time.  Let’s hope so!  The next appointment is when I will find out if my doctor will induce me or not.

Maternity Clothes:   Pretty much all maternity clothes.  Some workout pants and a few t-shirts aren’t maternity, but that’s about it.

Weight Gain:   Up 32 1/2  pounds. 

Sleep:  Still sleeping pretty well to be honest.  Usually wake up once or twice a night to pee but that’s it.  I have been having interruptions to my sleep but they’re not pregnancy related.  Carter has actually decided that he wants to try to potty train himself at night.  See, we potty trained him already a couple of months ago, but like most kids his age, you potty train for the daytime and make them wear underwear but at night they still wear a pullup because it’s unreasonable to expect a 2 year old to “hold it” for 12 hours when we ourselves can’t even do that.  Anyway, he’s decided he doesn’t want to tee tee in his pullup so he wakes up and cries for us to take him to the bathroom.  We’re working on making him stay in the bed and go back to tee tee-ing in his pullup but we’ll see how it goes.  God knows I do NOT need to be woken up a million times a night by a newborn AND by my almost 3 year old!

Belly Button:  Still a teeny tiny outtie, but not much at all.  More flat than anything else.

Stretch Marks:  None.

Cravings/Aversions:   Lately it’s looking like Garrett loves a Krispy Kreme donut.  I can’t get enough of them.  But I do my best to make those indulgences sporadic.

Exercise Routine:  Was only able to workout 3 times this week….VERY busy week for me.  It was 1 Pure Barre classes and I walked 3.5 miles around my neighborhood twice.  It’s starting to feel SO nice outside here so I’m loving those walks.  It’s about to be all I do because I only have one class left of my Pure Barre package and I’m using that tomorrow.  I doubt I will buy another one for a while.  Two kids with a husband out of town all the time….there’s just not great options for me to go to Pure Barre all that frequently.  Which is a shame…I love it there and have developed some great friendships with the instructors and other attendees.

Baby Size:  At 38 weeks, baby is the size of a pumpkin.  How appropriate since it’s fall!!!  Anyway, he’s roughly 6 1/2 - 7  pounds now and about 19-20 inches.  With Carter, my entire family wrote down on one sheet of paper what they thought his stats would be and the time they thought he would come.  Justin’s family won all three-the time, the height and the weight.  Carter was born at 7lbs, 11oz and 20 1/2 inches long.  I don’t think Garrett will be that big.  Not that Carter was big, that’s actually a completely normal stat for a 40 week baby.  I think Garrett will be in the low 7lb range (maybe 7.3 or 7.4) and maybe slightly shorter, like 20 inches instead of 20.5.  That being said, I thought he was a girl, so my momma instincts aren’t working this pregnancy so we shall see.

Movement:   I still feel him move around in there, but he is running out of room so he doesn’t do it all that often.  I am using the fetal doppler a little more these days just to check on him since he doesn’t move as much.  But this is normal at this stage so I’m not worried.

Swelling and/or Signs of Labor:  Still noticing swelling in my fingers every now and again, but not consistently.  Just depends on the day.  Still wearing my rings though.  This week I also noticed some swelling in the feet if I’ve been up and walking around all day.  Again, depends on the day.  If it’s a day where I’m not doing much, there’s no swelling.

Gender:  I am the queen in my house of boys!

Appointments and Such:   Had the 38 week appointment (see above for further progress).  Next appointment is Friday at 8:30am.  This is the mack daddy appointment.  I will find out if my doctor thinks I’m progressed enough to induce at 39 weeks.  If I am, we will induce the following Monday, October 27th.  A whopping 7 days from now.   Eeeeeeeeekkk!!!!  If not, I imagine I will go past my due date again.

Nursery Developments:   DONE!  Justin hung the shelf and some frames on the wall and that was the last thing I needed to do.  I’ll take some pictures soon and add them.

Bump Pic for Week 38: