The First 2 Weeks.

So it's been a crazy and wonderful 2 weeks. Liam was born Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 10:27 am. He was about a month early, and gave us quite the scare! Luckily, he was born a healthy 6 lb. 6 oz baby, and didn't need to stay at the hospital. We were able to take him home after 48 hrs. The doctor and nurses were a bit concerned because he wasn't eating much. Since he is a preemie, they tend to sleep more than a full term baby, and I had a difficult time keeping him awake long enough to feed him. So it's true what they say that all babies do is eat, sleep and poop. And the sleep deprivation that goes along with caring for a little one is NOT a myth. I think I went for about 4 or 5 days with maybe a couple of hours of sleep combined. At times I get sooo tired that I can't even think straight. It really is a lesson of patience for sure. Since he was not eating, the Doctor wanted to wait on his circumcision. We went in to the doctor a few times to check his weight. He started to gain weight after the first week, but not as much as he would like to do the circumcision. So yesterday we went back for another check, and he is just under his birth weight, 6lbs. 4 oz. He now felt he could have his circumcision. We were so sad to have to do it, but felt in the long run it was for the best. The first night was just awful. He cried out in pain at times, but thankfully he slept and ate a lot, and today he was feeling much better! In the second week he started to be more awake and aware of his surroundings. Sometimes he will just sit there and coo and look around. He rarely cries, except when he's hungry or wet. And he is easily calmed when we sing to him, or stroke his head. Liam is a such an all-around good baby, and we look at him every day and ask ourselves how we got so lucky?!

comment by mom/grandma on 12/26/2007
You got so lucky because you are both good, good people. He is beautiful and it is beautiful for us to watch your little family together. Love you all so much, mom.

The Birth Story

So, after I had gone in the first time to the hospital thinking my water broke, they told me to come back if it continued.  The following day it had slowed a bit, but it had not stopped, so I left work in the afternoon and went back to get it checked out again.  Again the tests they took showed it to be negative for amniotic fluid.  So, that night it kept at it, and at this point I'm just not sure what to think.  I woke the next morning having some back pain, and I mentioned to Mike that I thought I might be having contractions.  He asked well how far apart are the contractions…not knowing exactly how to time them, I said they seem to be lasting 20 min.  He said well then they aren't contractions, you must just be having back pain.  So, I got ready for work.  I said to him that I was still having some pain, and that I would let him know if anything changed.  On the way to work I called him and said to stick around, and that I decided to stop by the hospital to get checked out again and would let him know what was up as soon as possible.  After the crying wolf incidents for the past 2 days, he really thought it was nothing, so he left for work.  When I got to the hospital I told them I had been there the last 2 days for fluid that was negative, but I was now having some pain.  They brought me to a room, and did yet another test….it was positive for amniotic fluid this time and I was dilated to 5 cm?!  So I called Mike up and told him to come over.  The nurses tried to contact my doctor, but couldn't get in touch with him.  I started contracting pretty close together.  And thankfully my mom showed up because the nurses disappeared for what seemed like an eternity.  I kept asking my mom to see what was up…they could not do anything for me until they reached my doctor.  I was in agony screaming, and they decided to get the fluid going so I could at least get the epidural….FINALLY they got in touch with the doctor, and then Mike showed up shortly after.  By the time I got my epidural I was already at 10 cm!  They said I basically had a natural labor.  Although, I'm very glad I was able to get the epidural for the delivery.  It all happened so quickly, I was a bit concerned they wouldn't be able to get to it in time.  I showed up at the hospital shortly after 8 am, and Liam was born at 10:27 am. The whole experience was just so surreal and amazing!  Shortly after he was born, they took him to the nursery to get cleaned up and checked out.  The nurse helped me to the bathroom, and I passed out. She said it looked like I had a seizure, but since I don't have any history of that, we think it was just from the blood loss and maybe a reaction to the medicine.  They wheeled me to my room and brought him to me.  His birth weight was 6 lbs. 6 oz. which is pretty good for being a month early.  He had some issues trying to eat because he was just so sleepy all the time.  I had a hard time getting him to stay awake long enough to feed him. He also was a bit jauntice. So we ended up staying an extra day at the hospital to keep an eye on him.  He's doing much better about eating now, and his jauntice is going down.  He did lose some of his weight, which is normal, but the doctors have kept a close eye on him since.  Our last check up he was just under 6 lbs. which was 3 oz. more than his last check up 4 days prior.  His next check up is on Friday, and we are optimistic that he has gained some more!

Not Buttorhead Anymore....

So we are at 34 weeks this week, and I had a checkup at the Dr.'s today. He's about 4 ¾ lbs and almost 18 inches long this week, about the size of a cantaloupe. For the past few weeks we've felt a couple round lumps, thinking one was a head and the other his butt. I mentioned to the Dr. that I thought he was sideways, but he said he thought that he was already head down, making what we thought was his buttorhead his butt or shoulder. I have started to swell a little here and there and haven't been able to wear my ring for a few weeks now. Other than some growing pains, overall things have been going well....knock on wood...been doing a lot of that lately!

ONLY 57 Days Left...

Liam is over 16 inches long and just over 3 lbs this week. I keep thinking back to when he was only the size of grain of rice. It truly doesn't seem that long ago?! I know most women by this time are ready for their little one to get out of them by now, but since things have been soo crazy lately getting our townhouse ready to sell, we feel like we haven't had much 'us time'. We really would love to have some 'us time' before he's born, and it just feels like we won't get it. Last Thursday I posted an ad for our Townhouse on KSL and Craig's list. The following morning I got bombarded with calls from agents. I had at least 4 or 5 calls in just the first hour?! After about the 10^th call I stopped answering the phone. We decided since time is running out, we would just go ahead and hire an agent. So the townhouse is officially listed with an agent now. We are now crossing our fingers and hoping it sells quickly! Oh, some good news...our fence was finally finished yesterday!! It looks great, and it makes it so much easier to let the dogs out, plus we really love the privacy. Now we just need to pay for it....bla.

Night and Day

We had our first great Halloween in many years. Halloween is one of our favorite holidays, and it had been soured for many years living at the townhouse. The first year at the townhouse we figured there would be a lot of kids, so we went out and spent about $50 on candy. Then only a handful of kids showed up, and we were left with a butt-load of candy. We found out later that the local church decided to have “Trunk-or-Treating” rather than going door to door in the neighborhood. Trunk-or-Treating is going from car to car in a parking lot and collecting candy. Basically its a hand out with no work involved. I remember walking up and down long driveways as a kid, it was quite the task, but that was part of the fun!! Trunk-or-Treating has got to be one of the dumbest ideas for many reasons, one being that it's boring! And two, it excludes people that are not part of the local congregation. Year after year we never knew how much candy to buy because they would do this stoooopid Trunk-or-Treating. One year we did hear that they decided NOT to do Trunk-or-Treating, so we went out and got a ton of candy again, and STILL only a handful of kids showed up...We figured that another reason we didn't get many kids coming could be because the design of our townhouse is a bit confusing because the door is hidden in the back of the complex. Anyway, we basically stopped buying candy and doing other things on Halloween night....BUT, this year we were in a REAL neighborhood, with a real driveway, and FRONT door!! We had a TON of kids show up, and it really sparked the excitement of Halloween back in us. We got a couple great pumpkins at Pumpkinland and we carved them out and put them on our front steps. The kids were really cute and very polite, saying “thank you” for the candy. Some of the neighbors came by to introduce themselves....We are very excited to finally have Halloween back, especially because we will taking our own little trick-or-treater out in the near future.

Buttor Head

It's been 28 weeks, and Liam is a little over 2 lbs, and is about 15 inches long. My belly is looking more like a basketball these days. Sometimes when he moves my belly looks lop-sided and there is a round lump poking out and we figure it must be either his butt or head. I'm officially in the 3rd trimester, and time is just flying by. I'm excited, but at the same time I don't feel quite ready. I was hoping to be more settled and have our townhouse sold before he was born...but it just may not be in the cards because it's not like I can call Liam up and tell him to wait a few more weeks until we are ready for him?!

Becoming More Apparent...

At 26 weeks, Liam is a little under 2 lbs and is about 14 inches long. It is definitely becoming more apparent that I'm carrying a little human inside me. His movements are more obvious and are less like little finger pokes, and more like rolling, and nudging. At night when he's the most active, we can actually see my skin move! Sometimes there will be a hard round spot poking out, and it kinda feels like it might be his head...it really is a strange feeling for sure! My skin and ligaments are stretching, and sometimes I get tender spots that feel like bruises from the inside. Yesterday it was especially sore in a spot that Liam was hanging out most of the day, and kicked a few times....it REALLY hurt! But I know I do need to toughen up, since it's only going to get worse! : )