Around the house

We have had fun dressing up Kaleb. We decorated his room in a jungle theme so he has a lot of monkeys, giraffes and tigers to play with. He also has fun hanging out with his Dad and watching football. He is already a VOLS fan...hey, he came out with orange hair didnt he!

Mom has very surprisingly loved being at home with Kaleb. I thought I would get bored, but I can stare at him all day long and be perfectly happy. I have also been surprised at how little I get done during the day. The times he's sleeping i'm taking a shower or eating lunch..one day I noticed that it was 5pm and I hadnt brushed my teeth yet...Recently he has started smiling and I just love it. I understand why people dont want to go back to work after maternity leave b/c they (babies) are constantly reaching new milestones and I just dont want to miss any of them. I am still planing on working part time though.

Well, Kaleb is now around 12.6 pounds at 7 weeks. He is a very good baby and is very laid back. He only cries if he's hungry or tired and then we quickly try to help him. He likes his play mat and it keeps him busy for hours at a time. He has been consistantly going 6-7 hours between meals at night so i'm starting to get some good sleep. He does however like to be awake between 10 and 12 midnight and likes to play then. So I have adjusted my schedule too, for now. We have been very blessed to have our friends make us dinner and I have only cooked about 3 meals so far. I know that i will need to start soon and my routine is becoming easier and more organized.

Thanksgiving

We went to Knoxville for Thanksgiving. We were a little nervous on how Kaleb would do on a road trip but he did a great job and slept the whole way there. He got to hang out with his cousin Nylah who is two months older. She was ready to play but all Kaleb wanted to do was sleep. I'm sure he'll figure out how cool it is to have a cousin so close in age at some point.

HOME AT LAST

The first few weeks at home Kaleb and I tried to develop a schedule. He learned to hold his paci himself. He also made a best friend that we call "doo doo dog" because it entertains him while we change his diaper. In the hospital he screamed every time we changed his diaper due to a bad diaper rash and the circumcision. GiGi and grandad spent the first week at home with us helping with Kaleb and fixing us awesome meals.

Labor and Delivery

Welcome to our blog thanks to the adorable new addition that has inspired us to join the 21st century technology.

I will give you a longer medical version of my labor and delivery for my medically interested friends and a shorter version for you busy ones.

Long version: Well, I started showing signs of pre-eclampsia so my doctor wanted to induce me. I was determined to go all-natural so he started the induction with prostaglandin on friday. I started having small contractions until the next morning at 5am when they gave me potocin. They would not let me eat during this whole process so I was starving. They had to break my water to put in an internal catheter to see how much "juice" to give me...well, i still was not progressing after hours of hard contractions 30 sec to 1 min apart so i had an epidural and they found that his head was not descending...he was stuck and therefore not allowing his head to push against my cervix to dialate me. So, the doctor said "Let's go have a baby" and 30 min. later they were pulling Kaleb out of my stomach via C-section. So much for a natural birth! Well, the next day, Sunday, I was feeling okay and finally got to eat my first meal since thursday night. Then Sunday afternoon I started to feel bad and by nighttime was having 10/10 pain in my abdominal area...I suffered thru the night and the doctor finally came by the next morning and when he found out how much pain i was in he was upset no one had called him. They gave me double doses of morphine and this did not touch the pain. I soon started vomiting uncontrollably. By tuesday they decided to put an NG tube in (a tube that runs from my nose into my stomach). They thought I had an ileus which is somewhat common after C-sections which the small intestines is so inflammed it shuts down. The tube would take the pressure off the small intestines. Well, I layed in bed for 4 days with a stupid NG tube as well as other uncomfortable tubes that i will not elaborate on, as they did X-rays and CT scans to try to figure out what could be wrong. Finally on friday, due to my stubborness, they did exploratory surgery via laproscopy and found that i had a hole in my peritineum in which 4 feet of my small intestines had fallen thru and occluded. The surgeon fixed it and I was finally able to eat my first liquid meal in 7 days. On sunday we were able to go home after a long, painful and emotional week. Kaleb was a perfect baby thru the whole process and has been great at home too. My parents were able to stay for two weeks which was a tremendous help.

Short version: On friday 11/2 my doctor wanted to induce and Kaleb was stuck and had to arrive via C-section on 11/3. He was 8.47 lbs and 20.25 inches long. He was born at 6:59 pm. He came out with red hair which was a big surprise to us. After this I began to have a lot of pain and ended up having another surgery on friday, almost a week later due to complications of the C-section. We finally got home on sunday. Kaleb was a champ thru the whole process and was the big kid in the nursery.

We are still in awe that Kaleb is our child and am so thankful that he is so healthy and perfect.