No Sleep For the Weary

One piece of advice that every hands out like candy when you have a newborn is, "sleep when he sleeps". Really, I wish I could.

I've never been a big napper. There are so many other things that I could be getting done while he is not attached to my hip.. or chest really and my brain never fails to remind me of all those things. It never shuts off.

My house, by NO means needs to be sparkling clean. I'll never be one of those mothers with the perfect child and the spotless house to match. You'll never starve when coming to my house, but you may see a little dust. But, I cannot stand to have junk laying around everywhere. So instead of napping, you'll find me straightening up the living room, doing laundry, emptying or loading the dishwasher, cleaning bottles, pumping (grrrrr), etc.

Now that I have this pesky little cold, I'm finding myself wishing more than ever that I could just lay down and get some rest! I tried multiple times yesterday, but then I'm just fighting a overactive brain and a stuffed up nose. No win situation.

I will, however, be trying extra hard this afternoon though... I may or may not have been reduced to tears in the middle of the night last night when my precious child woke up around 4 and wanted nothing to do with going back to sleep...

Any napping tips??

~ 1 Month ~

Wow! I can't believe I just typed that.. has it really been exactly a month since I've given birth to this beautiful boy?? All of you mommies were right, time does fly!

My little Drew baby:

As of your two week well-baby appointment you were 7lbs 6oz and 20.5 inches long. We don't go back until you are two months old though.. so who knows at this point
You measured in the 50th percentile for height, weight, and head circumference.. just perfect!
You are wearing newborn clothing, but they don't fit perfectly. They fit your little body just right, but most things are too short for your long legs. We joke a lot that you're wearing carpis instead of pants!
You really enjoy eating.. imagine that! You're usually eating about 4 ounces now.. around every 2-3 hours during the day.
You're also a great sleeper, which means you don't eat much during the night. For the past week, you've been going down around 9 at night and not waking up until between 2 and 3. Then you gets up again between 6 and 7 and goes down one more time, usually until 9.
You're not really cooing too much yet, but I think your smiles are starting to mean a little more than gas. You sometimes smiles when I kiss all over your cheeks or rub your cheeks or chin lightly.
You love looking at the lights... fascinates you!
You do not like to be put down.. you love your mama! I feel okay with this for now because I've read that you can't be spoiled at this age. You'll go in your swing for a bit, but only for 10-15 minutes tops.. then you're wanting back in my arms! You're lucky I love you so much :)
You don't like tummy time too much, but your neck is so strong as it is. From the time you've come home, you've been able to pick your head up from off of my chest.. now you'll even pick your head up and look at me in the face. It's the cutest thing!

Andrew, you are the best thing that could have happened to your daddy and I. We are so thankful to have you in our lives.. I can't even begin to explain to you how blessed we feel to have you! We love you more than you can imagine! I look at you and try to picture what your life will be like. There are so many possibilities, I just pray that you are always happy with the decisions you make and that you know we are always your number one fans!

You know you're a mum when...

1. You bounce your laptop lightly in your lap.. true story. Happened last night.

2. You go to Target for a few necessities and realize once you get home that you left your bags at the register. Yup. Didn't pick a single one up. It's called sleep deprivation.

3. You've had a horrid morning and he will not let you put him down. You can't have breakfast or shower. He finally goes down right around lunch and you only last about a half hour before you want him in your arms again!


That's all I have for now, but I'm sure there's more to come.

Yay for the friggen weekend! Our guests have left for now. I had a great time with my in-laws. They spoiled us all mercilessly and wore me out. We did a lot and got out of the house lots, but it was a good thing. They got me out of my comfort zone with the babe and now I think nothing of toting him around town. Between pumps of course... I digress.


Things I'm ready for?
A weekend full of football. Hopefully we'll be able to watch the games we want to this time (Bama is playing Arkansas.. seriously? You have to show that one ESPN. And it would be lovely if I could watch a Pats game.. just sayin.. I'm having Welker withdrawals.)
I'd also like to fast forward to next weekend when The Storey's come and visit us. Yayyy.. more visitors! They are long time friends of ours and I can't tell you how excited we are to have them out here for the weekend! And we are just floored that they are coming all the way out here to see little ol' us.. who am I kidding.. I'm pretty sure it's to get their hands on this little monkey:

And thennnn... my brother comes out for a week on the 16th. We have some pretty amazing people in our lives and I'm a lucky girl!

Visitors

Yaayyy for Friday!!!

Even though I'm not working, I'm still loving me some Fridays! That means Daddy comes home and gets to stay with us for 2 days.. woohoo! And in about an hour and 1/2 Andrew's other set of Grandparents will be here to meet him along with his Great-Grandfather. My in-laws will be here until Wednesday and I'm looking forward to spending some time with them and having them get to know their grandson! Not to mention all those other hands that are going to be dying to hold him and give me a break now and then :)

We have plans to spend lots of time in front of the tube tomorrow watching football. Carolina won't be showing here, but I'll be sure to root them on against Furman... Andrew will be too in his Gamecock onsie! But we will make sure to watch the Bama game and Tennessee game (my father-in-law is a huge TN fan). Sunday we hope to make it on post and check out Oktoberfest for a bit. (Here's to my first experience pumping in the back seat of my car under my breast feeding cover.. I'm sure that'll be a blog post in and of itself). We have an appointment to get our pictures done on Monday (mainly for the boys... 4 generations together!). And I'm sure some shopping trips to Cosco and the outlet malls plus some eating out will be happening. I'm tired just from typing all of this out!

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend... now for the pic of the day :)

Expectations

I'm really bad with having expectations with everything in life. I have an over-active imagination, I guess you could say, and sometimes live in this fantasy world where I think I know how everything is going to go (and of course it's going to go perfectly).
Having a baby was no exception. I for sure didn't imagine labor and delivery to go like it did. Never in a million years did I imagine that anything could be wrong with him once he came out.. the thought barely crossed my mind. And I certainly didn't think what comes next was going to be as hard and exhausting as it is.
I imagined I'd have all the energy in the world... frolicking around to one social function or another, toting around my adorable baby as an accessory for everyone to ooohh and ahhh over. I'd have my hair and makeup done and would gush as everyone adored him. Hahh! I did manage to shower this morning.. that's a plus! And I got to brush my teeth by 1030. It's a little hard to leave the house when you have a baby that wanted nothing to do with breastfeeding so you have to pump every 3 hours to keep up with his demand. Not so cute to use your breastfeeding cover to hide a noisy, electronic pump! ("don't mind me guys.. just going to milk myself in the corner... mind if I use your sink to clean the parts when I'm done?").
I thought I'd have this easy going child that wouldn't mind sitting in his bouncy chair or staring up at the ceiling so mommy could make lunch or start a load of laundry. Not so much says Andrew.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful.. that's not the purpose of this post what-so-ever. With saying all of this, I wouldn't give him back for any amount of money in the world. Because at the same time.. I'm am absolutely and utterly in love with him in more ways than I ever imagine possible. That is something my imagination could have never prepared me for.. he's filled up my heart in a way I never thought was possible!
I pray for him to FINALLY go down to sleep and about an hour or so after nap time, I'm aching to have him look at me with those big blue eyes all over again. I can't imagine what our life would be like if he weren't in it.

So, is motherhood exactly what I expected it to be? Absolutely not. In some ways it's much, much harder.. but I know we'll get used to each other and learn each other's ways and it will get easier. And in others, it's more than I ever could have wanted for myself.

I'm. A. Mom
One day I'll get used to that idea. Until then.. I'll just be lovin on this little munchkin!

Home Sweet Home

All I can say is wow.. God is great and we have a little fighter on our hands :) :)

After a long day of waiting yesterday we all came home AS A FAMILY last night from the hospital around 7pm. He was supposed to be discharged between 9 and 10 that morning but that is neither here nor there now. He's home and healthy (and sleeping) and that is all that matters! *Seriously.. he sleeps all day. I want to cuddle him more, but he just wants to sleep. All. Day. Long. *

We are an extremely happy and thankful family right now. I can't thank y'all enough for all of your thoughts and prayers over the past two weeks. I've never in my life been a bigger believer in prayer. The fact that in a week in a half he went from this...

... to this....

And I couldn't be any more in love!

Nor could Daddy :)

Now if only we could get Grannie to stay for another week or 4!

Baby Andrew Update

My little monkey is doing better and better by the day. Thank you so so much for all of your kind words and prayers.. keep them up.. they really are making a difference!

• He is no longer dependent on a breathing tube. They took the big one out. He still has a little help through a tube is his nose, but he is doing all of the work himself.
• He doesn't need the Dopamine anymore either. He is completely off of it now and is controlling his blood pressure just fine!
• They are feeding him my breast milk through an IV. He has other IVs that are giving him fats and vitamins, but today they are working on uping my milk and lowering the other IVs. We pray that goes really well.
• Our biggest concern now is a good bit of shaking we noticed today. It's like he's going into little mini convulsions and I hate to see his poor little body go through it. They did some blood work which came back all clear, and now we're waiting on the doc to read the EEG results.
• He's gained almost 2 ounces and now weights 7 lbs and alllmost 8 ounces.

They won't tell me any kind of date that we can take him home of course, but the nurse kind of made it sound like he may be able to come home soon depending on the results of the EEG. I don't know that for sure though, I very well just may have been reading into what she said. I can't help but get my hopes up though. It's very encouraging to see all of the progress that he has made, but it's getting harder and harder to leave there every day without him in our arms. I'm emotionally exhausted! Especially after today...

We went for our first visit this morning. Trey and I were in the room together (they only let 2 in at a time, so grammy had to wait). I was able to take his temperature and Daddy changed his diaper. We weren't in there for much longer before everyone was kicked out since a new baby was being admitted.
We went back for our second visit at 3:00.. this time it was me and Grammy. The nurse told me right away that there was yet another baby being admitted soon so we don't have much time, but she felt comfortable with me holding him since they had him on his side and his hematoma seemed to be doing fine. Music to my ears! I was going to hold my precious baby for the first time!!
She got a chair ready for me to get comfortable in, brought over a blanket to swaddle him in, and left us sitting there for 15 minutes. She comes back... tells Grammy to put the blanket under him when she lifts him up.. the nurse swaddles him.. the walked away for another minute to help another baby (keep in mind there are plenty of other nurses in here the whole time). She comes back just in time to tell me the new baby will be here in 10 minutes and she doesn't feel comfortable with letting me hold Andrew. Not only for a minute???? I ask her. She tells me that's fine, picks him up and bit then sets him back down saying it just wasn't possible today.
Are.You.Kidding.Me??? I bawled. I understand there is nothing they can do if there is another sweet, poor baby that needs to come in, but like I said before, there were other nurses everywhere. Why was is necessary for her to leave us sitting here alone right after she tells a new mom that she is going to be able to hold her baby for the first time 4 days after him being born. I was a wreck.

I feel a little better tonight after some time relaxing, knowing that I'll probably get my moment tomorrow morning. My mum is here and she is taking such great care of me! Trey has been amazing too! Hopefully I'll have some more great news soon and maybe even a "bringing baby home" picture :)

My sweet, sweet little boy!