Happy Halloween!

Charlotte has wanted to be a "lellow robot just like Plex" for Halloween for a couple of months. (Plex is from Yo Gabba Gabba) She also wanted an "angry" pumpkin when asked what kind of pumpkin she wanted carved. Luckily we were able to fulfill both wishes.

(No babies were harmed in the shooting of this picture)

One Week

I can't believe it has been a week. It has flown by.

My parents have been in town this week and have been on Charlotte duty and dinner duty. It has been tremendously helpful. Our freezer is stocked with soup, and our pantry stocked with food. Charlotte has been given lots of attention and taken on many outings. After a few days of being very helpful around the house, Judd headed back to work on Thursday.

Max has been an awesome baby. We are just bracing ourselves for the other shoe to drop. He has been very sleepy - from what I remember, much more sleepy than Charlotte was. Since he has been home, I think I can count on one hand the times he has been fussy when we couldn't calm him down. He is so sweet and loves to cuddle. He loves his swing. His nights have been pretty good. He can be fussy from midnight until about 2am - but then will sleep for a few hours at a time. I think I've been able to get about 5 hours of sleep for the past few nights, which doesn't seem like much, but has been enough to keep me from being completely exhausted.

Breastfeeding has been about 200 times easier this time around. My body seemed to know what to do much faster and my milk came in about 3 days earlier than with Charlotte. I was able to pump for the first time yesterday and he took a bottle pretty well.

We went for his newborn visit to pedi on Tuesday morning. When he left the hospital he was 7 lbs 9.9 oz. At the doctor on Tuesday, he had already gained back 2 oz. He had to get his Hep B shot, which was very sad.

Diaper changes have been different. I have been peed on a couple of times - so has Judd. And when I say peed on, I mean like all over my sleeve and arm - it is surprising just how far a tiny newborn boy can pee. Caring for the circumcision has been one more step that I am glad to now have behind us. It seems to have fully healed. His little umbilical cord fell off yesterday, right at one week old.

Charlotte is doing well adjusting. Although, she has had grandparents giving her undivided attention. Judd's mom comes tomorrow - I think it will be after she leaves and I'm on my own for the first time, that we'll see the real adjusting begin. Hopefully I'll have little more energy by then. She is very sweet with her brother, gives him kisses, blows him kisses, sings to him and gives him lots of hugs.

I just love this little guy.

Max's Birth Story

Around 2AM on Friday October 22nd, I woke up with a contraction. I tried to fall back asleep, but I kept feeling them on and off every 15-30 minutes. I eventually got up and walked around downstairs to make sure they were continuing - watched some TV, worked on the computer, I kept feeling them. Around 7AM I told Judd he should probaby work from home. We took a walk, went to the grocery store - they started coming closer together and seemed to be getting stronger.

We decided to call the doctor, they said to come in to be monitored. We then called Jen (Judd's cousin) to ask her to come over to watch Charlotte. I told her we might be back in an hour, or they may send us to the hospital - I just wasn't sure.

We got to the doctor's office and she checked me. I was only dialated to 2cm. I was pretty bummed. She said that was progress and I would probably go into active labor later that evening or Saturday. She offered to augment my labor by breaking my water and starting pitocin. At that point, I was so ready to have the baby I agreed. She sent us over to Northside and said she'd meet us there in an hour.



We got the hospital and got all hooked up. The doctor came over and broke my bag of water, about 15 minutes later I opted for my epidural :) (No need to be a hero, right?) After that, I just kinda laid there - well shook uncontrollably from the epidural. The nurse would come in and adjust the pitocin as she saw fit, she told us we would probably have a baby by dinner time - this was 3:30 PM.

Judd and I just talked, I tried to rest.

Around 6:30 PM, the nurse came back in and said she wanted to check me, she thought that the contraction pattern looked like I was probably fully dialated. Sure enough, I was.

After about 25 min of pushing, Max made is way into the world.





Tears were streaming down our faces - we had our beautiful baby boy. The next few minutes are a blur to me- I just remember him crying - a wonderful sound.





After a while, Jen brought Charlotte over to meet her baby brother. She was pretty excited and VERY proud.



Charlotte was even able to help give his bath. The nursery worker let her squeeze some water onto him to get him cleaned up.



Charlotte and Jen left not long after the bath and Judd and I moved up to the recovery room.

It was a wonderful experience - we had great nurses and everything went perfectly. We are so very lucky.

A new start

A clean slate a new start.

We were discharged from the hospital yesterday around 2pm. We were greeted at home by Judd's parents and Charlotte. My dad drove down yesterday. We all had a relaxing evening and a nice steak dinner.

I didn't sleep much last night - a couple of hours. I kept listening to all of the squeaks and other noises newborns make. Just listening to him breath. I'm hoping tonight I'll be so exhuasted that I can sleep between feedings.

The second time around has been so much more relaxing. We are still in awe of it all and can't believe we actually have a second child. So far he has been a very relaxed baby. I know it is too early to get excited about that and just trying to take it one hour at a time.

Here are a few overexposed blurry pictures. When I get more mojo back in a few days, I hope to get some better ones posted.

(His eyes aren't brown, they are very dark grey/blue, not sure what color they are going to be)






We're not sure who he looks like - he just looks like Max. Does he look like Charlotte as a newborn? We don't think so at all, but you can be the judge.