Skylar meets Grey

Skylar came to the hospital while I was in labor (still walking around) and then again the next day (we came home that night). Ken told her we were going to the baby store when we left to go to the hospital and she loves going to the baby store and picking out stuff for the baby. She loved looking through the glass in the nursery to see the newborn babies and was just enthralled with them! When she came back to see Grey, she kept dragging family members down to the nursery to see him while he was getting a bath. She kept saying, 'baby come home" like she was ready to pick up her baby and take him home. Here is Grey with his "monks abu" as Skylar calls it after the monkey from Aladdin. She really likes putting it in his mouth. She also gave him one of her little teddy bears that she constantly has to make sure is in his bed with him.

She really likes to hold him and give him kisses. She is really gentle with him and likes to rub him like he is really soft. She is really interested in his feet and hands and likes to pull them out all the time!

She loves to play mommy to her babies- here she is with a little doll that she was putting baby powder on and a diaper. I have to constantly be on the outlook for stolen baby diapers b/c she likes to put the real ones on her babies and then the tags get torn. P.S. Here she is with her princess hat on that she likes to wear to the side or backwards. We have a little "gangsta."

She likes helping with Grey- especially feeding him a bottle. She got a little upset the other day when i was nursing him and she couldn't help out.

However, she was satisfied with a piece of cake instead.

Our compromise??- She wrapped up one of her babies and used a pillow like my boppy to give her baby a bottle!

Her first look at Grey in person. She was extra gentle without anyone having to say anything.

She wasn't quite sure what to do with him, so she just sat there and put her head on him. We shall see how these next few days go as this will be the first extended time she has spent with him and I will be with both babies minus hubby!

Grey Stirling

Grey Stirling- born 1/22/10 at 2:55 pm.

He is starting out right supporting his Tarheels from the crib. Thanks Granny for getting these for him- I LOVE them!

Yes if you look closely you can see the pink, girly flowers on his little gloves. We don't have any boy gloves and he gouged his eye out.

Hah- love this face! Not so sure about getting burped.

And this is the norm. Typically, he is sleeping.

No, he doesn't have much hair, and what little peach fuzz he does have is blonde and invisible! But he has the same hairline that Skylar had- and I LOVE it!

Since he has jaundice, he has to lie on a "photoblanket"- a phosphorescent light that goes against his skin and helps break down red blood cells. I am evidently O+ and he is A+, making his jaundice levels higher than norm. It also doesn't help that he lost almost a full pound after he was born. Here he is with the two "blankets", one under him and one on his belly. It kind of freaks me out and makes me think of weird chemicals being leaked into his body. Maybe one day we will have a little superman on our hands. Right now we have a handy night light so I can see him easily at night.

Granny and Grandma came to visit- and brink back Skylar who has been staying with my mom for the past few days. They couldn't hold him for long since he is supposed to be on the blankets for 22 hours a day. We don't make it up to that much just by taking him off to nurse!

Heh- "I will not open my eyes for you. Well, maybe just a little peak to see what is going on."

Welcome to the world PittBaby!

It's a BOY!!

Pittbaby has finally made his entrance into the world, two weeks before his due date and not a day too late for mom!

Wednesday afternoon, the girls I work for threw a wonderful baby shower for me and I believe that was the catalyst for sending me into labor! After this shower, there was nothing else I "needed" to do before baby. I was up most of the night Wednesday extremely nauseous, and then finally got up at 6 am seriously sick- vomiting, the works. I felt horrible all day and had the Dr. call in some phenegren for me to control the nausea and vomiting. Around 5 pm, I went to use the bathroom and low-and-behold, my water broke! Evidently, what I thought was a stomach virus was actually pre-labor!

I talked to the nurse on call and she told me to head on into the hospital as I was GBS+ and would need to start antibiotics right away since my water broke. So, we took our time and cleaned up, finished packing the bags with essentials and said goodbye to Skylar. And of course, took a family picture on the way to the hospital!.

We got to the hospital and signed in- only to find out that they were so busy there were no open rooms. We spent about 4 hours in the waiting area of the lobby/triage area. Needless to say- not the best place for a laboring woman to be! However, at this point I still had not started having regular contractions- just occasional ones. We moved up to a labor/delivery room and my mom, granny and cousin Nikki came up with us. I spent the next several hours (15 to be exact...) walking the halls of the hospital, getting hooked up to the baby monitor, bouncing on the ball, and walking some more. What I truly expected to be a short labor turned out to be a marathon!

Since my plan was to go all natural (i.e. no pain medicine) I did not want to take any medicine to help speed up the delivery either. So, instead of taking Pitocin, I decided to keep walking, take showers, bounce on the ball, anything to help progress my labor without taking medicine. However, by 12:30 pm, it was obvious that I was not progressing fast enough for the baby's/my health since I was nearing the 24-hour mark since my water had broken and the risk of infection was increasing. So, we decided to start Pitocin. The devil drug!

Within minutes, I was contracting strongly every few minutes apart. I went from 4-5 cm dilated at 12:30, to 8 cm dilated at 2:40. Basically, hell on earth. By 2:40, I was telling Ken and Nikki that I couldn't make it, I needed the meds; I really didn't know if I could handle it any longer. By 2:50, I was pushing and the nurses were running into the room to help me get on the bed in time to catch the baby that was already crowning. Pittbaby was born by 3:00 pm! It's a good thing it went by so fast, or else I don't think I would have made it without meds!

Pittbaby weighed in at 7.9 lbs, and 20 inches long! Although he is a healthy baby boy, he had an irregular heartbeat and extreme tremors at first that sent him back to the nursery before I really had a chance to hold him. They checked him out and found that his blood sugar was low (due to my taking Gliburide for diabetes) and they had to give him a bottle to help bring his sugars back up. He came back to our room once he was stable and nursed pretty well. He kept falling asleep, but latched on well! He has already had 4 stinky diapers, so he is doing well!

We'll post more pics over the next few days!!

Oh Pooookie! Where are you?

We took Skylar to the library to check out some books the other day and got this one from Sandra Boynton called, "Night, Night Pookie". Skylar loves this book and will "read" it to me at nighttime. She's pretty good at remembering the lines, especially the first one that says, "Oh, Pooooookie! Where are you?" She also especially loves the one where Pookie is hiding and his mom says she is going to count to 3... which we also do, but Daddy does much more often than myself. She thinks its hilarious and refuses to accept that it is Pookie's mom in the book and insists that it is dada.

So, now I am wondering where my pookie is!! I wish I could just count to 3 and out will come baby! Last week I went to the doctor and found out that I am already dilated to 2; 3 at the top of my cervix, and 75% effaced. My midwife says there is no way I will make it to my due date of Feb. 4th. Yippee!!

The only bad part about finding that out is that now I am super-ready to have this baby! I am thinking about it constantly now; wondering if this will be the day, etc. and I am probably stressing myself out for nothing. With Skylar I wasn't in a hurry to have her (I really enjoyed those last few weeks with her) and when my water broke, I almost wished I had more time!

Now, everything is ready, I'm ready, and just can't wait to meet PB! I'm really excited to see if it is a boy or a girl, what they look like, what kind of temperament they will have, will they nurse right away, etc. etc. etc. I can't wait to have all my questions answered!

Here is a pic of the baby wrap that my mom ordered for me from etsy. I love the pattern and am really excited to figure out how to wear it with the baby. One of the best parts is that she ordered a matching baby wrap for Skylar to use with her babies. It's the exact same as mine, just toddler size!

Here is a pic of the diaper bag that I made for PB. I didn't want to spend mega bucks on a diaper bag and couldn't find the one I used for Skylar- so I got some cute fabric and made one this past week. I was slightly unprepared for the fact that the pattern called for 71 steps! Needless to say, it took me a little longer than I thought it would when I planned this out! But, I really like how it turned out and now it is finished and all packed with PB's things for the hospital!

I think Skylar is finally understanding that there is a new baby coming soon. Now that we are setting up the furniture and baby stuff, she wants everything to be hers. We hear "that mines!" a lot! We have constantly had to tell her, "no sweetie, this is for baby". Yesterday my family threw a baby shower for me and surprisingly she didn't seem to care at all about the presents (huge surprise!) but then later on after we brought everything home and were looking through them again and putting them away, she would grab a few things and say, "this one for baby. And then grab another one and say, "that one mines." Too funny! She's also really big on compromising lately as well. For instance, if we stop and get burgers on the way home from church or something, she will ask for fries in the car. When we told her to wait until we got home, she said, "just one fry?" Ad when she wants to take her arms out of the straps in the carseat and we tell her to put them back in, she will say, "just one army?" all the while nodding at me with a really serious look.