Tuesday, July 23, 2013

5 Months!

Already?!



Weight: At his 4 month check-up, he was 14 lbs. 6 oz. That means he's gained 8 lbs since he was born! That's a whole good sized newborn! I can't believe it. He's definitely gotten bigger since then so I'm guessing he's closer to the 15 lb mark now. I'd say a good pound of that is in his thighs. I mean look at them!

Health: Little man got his first cold this month. I'm pretty sure he caught it from his daddy. He was really, really pitiful a couple of days. Runny nose, coughing, sneezing, and a ton of congestion wiped him out and he slept a whole lot. He's mostly over it, but the congestion is kind of sticking around. I notice it when he eats every once in a while but he's not letting it get him down.


Sleep: Well, still sleeping with us. I don't really care since it makes it so easy, but I know Clint wants him out sooner rather than later. We tried to move him to his crib a couple nights ago and it did NOT go well. We figured we'd let him cry for 5 minute increments and then go in there and comfort him if he wasn't asleep yet. I laid him down at 7:00, he slept like a champ for 15 minutes and then it was a fight for almost 2 hours. By 9:00, I told Clint I needed him to go in there because I was frustrated so he went in and next thing I know, he brought a whimpering Reuben back into our room for the night. Poor guy was SO worn out. So we decided to start with naps and that's actually semi-working. Hooray!

One funny story- when Clint was out of town I planned to take a shower when I woke up before work so I knew I needed to get Reuben to where he wasn't touching me so I could get out of bed without waking him up so throughout the night I tried to move him after every feeding and I woke up to this...


Somehow a 5 month old almost pushed me out of a king sized bed! He's a bed hog. And please ignore our mess of a room... Our bedroom has hardly been touched since we moved in two years ago... oops!

Social: He's been out and about a lot this month. And he's pretty much a rockstar. He's so easy-going with everyone he meets and is seriously such a flirt with the ladies! And he got to meet his great-grandparents on the 4th of July! I'm so happy they got to meet him and he seemed equally as thrilled.



Diet: 100% breastmilk. I absolutely love nursing. I love the bond, the price (free!), and the health benefits for both of us. But I'm SO excited about introducing food next month! Not because I need a break, but I think babies eating food is absolutely adorable.

Clothes: Still all over the place. I've quit looking at sizes and just stick him in what fits. I'll say this though... I'm pretty sure he's out of 3 month Carter's pjs... *tear*...

Baby Gear Love: Now that he loves putting weight on his legs, we've broken out the Johnny Jump-up and he's loving it! He's learned to love toys that make sounds, too. My mom had this helicopter she bought for him to play with later on since it says it's for 12m+, but she got it out the other day and he was totally obsessed with it. 


  Crying: Still mostly just when he's tired. He was so exhausted after a long day on Sunday that on our ride home from downtown he cried so hard he threw up all over himself. Poor little guy. He's been crying more since we're trying the whole crib thing, but I'm starting to think once he gets crying so hard, it's not being effective. He just gets more and more worked up until he's screaming. He's a very, VERY stubborn little baby!

Likes: Standing up! As long as he's got a hold of some hands for balance, he'll stand up forever. He's also gotten to the point that he's enjoying watching us eat. There have been times where he'll just bust out in a giggle when we take a bite of something. It's so funny!


Postpartum: Hair is still falling out like crazy. It may've slowed down the tiniest bit, but I'm still shocked I have any hair left to lose. And I'm finally down to pre-pregnancy weight PLUS (or should I say minus?) 3 pounds! WOO HOO!!!!!!
  

Milestones: He's sitting up on his own more than with assistance now. Kind of hard to believe! We were over at our friends house and he was on the floor with my friend, Whitney, sitting behind him. She had to jump up to do something and I went to support him and before I got to him I realized he was sitting up all by himself!





Reuben,


You're growing up so fast, little man!
You are SUCH a joy in our lives. The Lord knew what he was doing when he added you to our family. We both love watching you grow and learn new things every single day. Your personality is growing so fast and you are seriously just a little ball full of joy! You make everyone you meet smile with your infectious smile. I love you and I'm so proud to call you my son!

Love, 

Mama


I said this last month and I'll probably say it every month, but this age is so much fun!!!


What's your favorite memory from your 5 month old? 

Friday, July 12, 2013

Reuben's Birth Story (pt. 4)

Let me start this by saying Dr. McGuinn is a rockstar. If any of y'all are in the Nashville area and looking for an OBGYN, go to her. You won't regret it.

So we're wheeling down to the OR. Leaving Clint outside the door was kinda scary. I felt pretty alone for a couple seconds until I saw Dr. McGuinn already in there. Maybe it's just me but I was pretty shocked at how close I felt to her. I mean we're not BFF or anything, but having her in there was instantly comforting. She stood in front of me and held my hands while they were doing the spinal block, which I hear is pretty rare for a doctor to do. She made sure to tell me how great of a candidate I was for a VBAC because she knew how badly I wanted to avoid a c-section at all costs.

 The spinal didn't hurt a single bit. Apparently I have "a great spine." So they got me laid down and got Clint in there with me. They put up the curtain and started asking if I could feel anything and I couldn't. I'm tellin' ya- it's bizarre how quickly the medicine kicked in and I couldn't feel ANYTHING. The nurses and stuff in there were phenomenal. They were so encouraging and kept us calm and collected. They said my BP would probably drop a lot from the anesthesia and I'd start getting nauseous so I needed to let them know so they could fix it. Well lo and behold that happened so I told them and with the press of a button, they sent some medicine into my IV that took every bit of nausea away. Medicine is crazy to me!

Next then I know, I heard her say it was time to get him out. She said I'd feel a little bit of pressure while they got him out and they weren't kidding. It seriously felt like a sumo wrestler jumped on my chest. It took all the breath out of me. but I could care less because next thing I know I hear a baby screaming and she lifted him up over the curtain for me to see (I have a picture but it's pretty nasty so I'll save Reuben's dignity and keep it off here haha). I had always imagined this crazy emotional moment of meeting him for the first time... and it was nothing like that. I laughed. I was just so happy he was here that I was laughing with joy! They wrapped him up and put him on my chest and I got my first good look at him. It was seriously love at first sight.
It wasn't really a mutual love then, but that ok with me ;-)

I heard them say APGAR score of 9 and that was like music to my ears. He was full term, but I still was nervous something'd be wrong with him. Plus, after having a miscarriage, there's a part of me that thought there'd always be something wrong with my babies, like I'd never have a "normal" pregnancy.

They weighed him and called out his weight "6 pounds, 7 ounces" and I literally said "Excuse me?" I was SO sure we'd have a massive baby. I was 9.5 lbs and Clint was 8 lbs at 36 weeks. So we were not prepared for such a little guy.

They got him cleaned up and handed him back to me. Let me pause here and say how incredibly thankful I am that Baptist has that policy. They let us keep him, and even me hold him, the entire time they were closing me up. It was wonderful!

And of course we had to get our very first family portrait.


It was absolutely the craziest, scariest, happiest, best day of our lives.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Reuben's Birth Story (pt. 3)

Um... excuse me?

We're not going home without a baby?

I kinda started freaking out inside. I mean, I had prayed to get this baby out, but I didn't really think it'd happen! She told me I had severe pre-eclampisa and the only way to cure it was to deliver the baby. She said my shoulders hurting concerned her about my liver and they were going to draw some blood to check my levels, but everything should be ok. I'd made some good progress so they'd start me on pitocin and I'd have a baby either late that night or the next morning.

So off we went to the hospital. We called everyone who needed to know. My dad had to turn around and drive right home from North Carolina. The hardest person to call was my best friend, Miriam. She moved to Chicago last year and we had the perfect birth plan lined out to get her down for Reuben's birth, but it just couldn't work with a 3 week early induction.

We got checked in to the hospital around 11:45 and got our last family of two picture in!


Then I met our nurse, Bonnie. Bonnie was intense. I knew I was "sick" even though I felt great, but she kinda acted like I was a breath away from dying. My room was a phone, light, TV, talking, basically, fun-free zone. I had to lay on my left side with no one talking to me while they got stuff figured out. I had IVs started and my blood drawn and just hung out in my cold, dark room.

Dr. McGuinn came in pretty quick with my blood test results and said my platelets were low. Like really, really low. I don't know exactly what numbers mean but she said they were supposed to be in the 200s and mine were only 70. She had an anesthesiologist come in and they told me they'd only do an epidural if my platelets were 80 or higher. I asked Dr. McGuinn if there was really a chance they'd go up and she said maybe. So they checked my blood for the second time in an hour, while we prayed they'd go up!

In the meantime, we got moved to a real L&D room and they started me on pitocin. They figured they might as well start since nobody was really sure what was going to happen. My results came in soon after… my platelets were at 68. There was no going up. She told me the two scenarios she could think of:

1. Labor naturally. But odds of that were very, very slim because I still had 7.5 cm to go and if my BP got too high because of the pain there was a chance I could have a seizure or stroke. Then I'd have to have an emergency c-section and by that time they weren't sure if I'd have enough platelets to not bleed out during surgery.

2. C-section with general anesthesia. They'd knock me out so they could safely get him out, but it'd be hours and hours before I could see him. He'd be drowsy and I wouldn't remember anything. Not cool.

So Clint (who was secretly freaking out but hiding it well) went to see our parents in the waiting room and sent my mom in to be with me while they were figuring out what they wanted to do with me. My mom had pre-ecclampsia with me and my brother so she knew how sitting in a dark room alone felt. I was getting pretty upset because I didn't like either of my options and I didn't want to have to decide. I prayed that God would lead them in the right direction.

I said "amen" and the door opened and a guy I'd never seen walked in with Bonnie, my new nurse, Kirsten, the anesthesiologist and their helper, and my doctor. He sat down on my bed and told me he was a high risk maternal medicine dr that Dr. McGuinn had brought on my case to help her through. He went through the speel of how sick I was and all that jazz that I was so tired of hearing and then told me something I hadn't heard yet. He'd spoken with the anesthesiologists and they'd agreed to do a spinal block for a c-section, but only if we did it then.

 Like RIGHT then.

They were prepping me without me even realizing it because I was so zoned into what this new doctor was telling me. I bust into tears from being so overwhelmed and asked my mom to go get Clint. He needed to be there. As she was walking out the door, he was walking in. The nurse handed him some scrubs and told him to put them on. Talk about being shocked! Poor guy. He handled it like a champ though! He was so strong through all of it. God knew I wouldn't be able to make it through without him. We prayed that God would be with Dr. McGuinn and get Reuben here safely and then just kind of breathed and laughed at how crazy of a day it'd been!

Then it was off to the OR!

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Weekend in ATL 2.0

We spent a whole weekend in Atlanta for our 1st anniversary last year and loved it so when Clint won a ton of tickets off of our friend's blog we were pumped! It was doubly exciting because some of our best friends moved down there for Emory law school so we had people to share the fun with! Plus it was Reuben's first time to the zoo and aquarium, both of which I LOVE.

The trip down there was pretty easy. We stopped halfway in Chattanooga to visit where Clint proposed three years ago. It's always fun to visit, but it was extra fun to bring Reuben with us!



We visited World of Coke, Zoo Atlanta, and the Georgia Aquarium. It was a blast!

There was a lot of this going on. He was such a trooper!


Super cheesey family picture that put us in a drawing for an African safari... OK! haha


Another family picture in front of allllll the pretty reef fish.


The way babies fall asleep cracks me up almost every time. The pacifier was hanging on by the tippy tip top of it and his head was thrown completely back. and he was OUT.

Intermingled was a whole lot of quality time with Ryan and Katie. They happened to be in town when Reuben was born so they'd met him in the hospital and spent a few hours with him last month, but this was the first good chunk of time he'd spent with them and he looooved it!


He got super fussy one night on the way home and we had to stop by Kroger for Clint to get some medicine (he got a really funky cold!) so Ryan said he'd walk around with him. Totally calmed him down and even got a smile out of him!


And clearly, he loves hanging out with his aunt Katie.

I can't wait for some Freeman babies :)

It was such a fun, laid-back, and relaxing weekend! Atlanta is quickly becoming a favorite spot of ours!


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