Sam:1 Week Old

Sam,

I can not believe that you have been in our lives for 1 week! Mommy and Daddy have prayed for you for so long and it seems surreal that you are here and we get to love on you every single day!

Here is a comparison of Allie and Sam at the same age.

We took you to your 1-week check-up and Dr. Keathley couldn't believe how big you have grown in just a couple of days. When we left the hospital last Friday, you weighed 7 pounds 1 ounce. Today, just 4 days later you weigh 7 pounds 11 ounces. You are such a big boy! Right now you are eating a combination of breastmilk and formula. You have a lot of gas, so we are giving you Similac Sensitive to hopefully help your tummy. Mommy had hoped that you would take only breastmilk for the first couple of months, but you are a very impatient baby (I think you might get that from Mommy) so Mommy is pumping and feeding everything to you in a bottle. You much prefer it that way.

Here are a few of your Stats as of today, Tuesday March 13th, 2012:

Weight: 7 pounds 11 oz (32%) gain of 10oz in 4 days

Length: 19 1/2 inches (25%)

Head Circumference: 14cm (31%)

Diapers: Newborn

Clothes: 0-3 months

Eating: Breastmilk/Similac Sensitive 3-4oz every 2-3 hours.

Here are some pictures of what your life is like right now:

This is you in your bed. Mommy wants to take your picture in your bed every month so that we can see how big you are getting. So far you have done really well sleeping in your bed. You don't sleep for long periods of time, but when you sleep, Mommy tries to put you in your bed so that you will be used to it.

Here you are in your bed. Mommy has been putting you in your bouncy seat in your bed because you have so many tummy troubles, I think it helps to sleep with your head raised.

Mommy still has a sore belly so she is sleeping in the recliner that Daddy bought her right beside your bed. Sometimes you like to sleep with Mommy in the recliner too!

As excited as Mommy and Daddy are to have you here, your Sister is probably the most excited! She loves you so much Sam. She kisses all over you and always asks where you are as soon as she wakes up in the morning. She calls you "Handsome Dude"

You got to meet your cousin Shaw this past weekend. I know that you boys are going to be best buddies and probably get into a lot of trouble some day. Your Papa is smiling down from Heaven watching you two. He would have loved having his Grandsons so close in age. Daddy and Uncle Josh can't wait to get you boys in the deer woods.
 

Sam, you are such a precious blessing. You are so worth the wait! We love you so much Sam-Bo!



Sam: Coming Home

After asking to stay another day to hopefully be moving around better, the day had finally come to take our sweet boy home. I was excited to have my family together in our home, but nervous because I was still hurting pretty bad and not at all able to get around like I had been with Allie. The night before I told John that there was no way that I could sleep in a bed and be able to get up every 1.5-2 hours like Sam had been doing in the hospital, so my sweet husband went early that morning in search of a recliner for the nursery that I could sleep in that would help me get up and down easier. We called it my "push present" even though there wasn't any "pushing" involved. I have friends whose husband bought them earrings and necklaces as "push presents" and I told John that just because I had a c-section didn't mean that I should be exempt from this newly discovered tradition. We took a quick picture before we left, that didn't really turn out great, but it is what it is....

It's funny how different things are with the second one... I didn't even put him in a "going home" outfit. John's Mom was there but other than that it was just another day. I remember with Allie I had planned that day for ever. People came to see us off from the hospital and more people were at our house ready to welcome us home. We didn't even tell my mom we were home for like 2 hours because we wanted to get unpacked and settled before Allie came home. And now the fun begins!

Sam: Day 3

I don't know if it was the lack of sleep, the frustration over breast feeding, the pain, or a combination of all of the above, but Day 2 and Day 3 were very hard emotional days for me. When Allie would visit she was bouncing off the walls and I felt like all I did was yell at her. I realize now that it was foolish of me to expect her to sit and be still while cooped up in a hospital room, but I missed her and I wanted her to be there with us. I struggled with my feelings about she and Sam. On Day 3, I had an Ah-Ha moment. For nearly 4 years, there had been no aspect of my life that I had not been willing to sacrifice for Allie. Not my body, my bed, my sleep, my clothes, my comfort, nothing was more important to me than Allie and her happiness. I realize that this was probably not the most healthy of relationships with my daughter and I have apologized to John that he too was put on the back burner if it meant Allie would benefit. And for the first time in her life, there was something that I was not willing to compromise for her, and that was Sam's well-being. This did not mean that I loved him any more than her, but it was simply the first time that I had loved someone as much as the way I love her.

Here are some pictures from Day 3:

 Nana and Sam

 Daddy and Sam

 Allie getting to hold Sam all by herself

 Carly and Sam

And....this pretty much sums up what it was like when Allie visited!

Sam: Day 2

My experience recuperating from this C-Section was so totally different that from the 1st one. With Allie, she was born at 1:36 in the morning and by 8:00 I was up walking the halls. I was able to walk and function while having my epidural and continuing to push the PRN button. With this one, I was almost 48 hours after surgery and I still had no use of my right leg. I had a friend of mine taking care of me the second day and she and John had to literally carry me to the bathroom. I was frustrated because I couldn't get up and take care of Sam by myself and I was scared because I knew that the longer that I stayed in the bed, the worse it was going to hurt when I did get up. So I would drag myself up to the side of the bed as often as I could hoping that it would help, but in the end, we had to pull my epidural early so that the feeling would return to my legs.

My second, not-so-fun, experience was with breastfeeding. I have to admit that I was not committed to breast feeding with Allie and therefore I was not successful. With Sam, I really wanted to try hard to see if I could be successful. It was like I tried it my way with Allie and it didn't work, so I ate my words and asked for help from the "Boobie Nazi's" aka the Lactation Consultants. I realize that breastfeeding can be a very touchy subject and believe me, I know the benefits for breast milk. What I am going to share is my experience and thoughts because of my experience. I did EVERYTHING I was told to do. I wouldn't even let them bring formula around Sam for fear that he might get the idea that he wanted some. The point when I realized that maybe there was a happy medium between their "truths" and my previous convictions was when I had a hysterical baby in my arms while 2 women I didn't know "milked my ducts." There was a line that I thought could not be crossed in losing my modesty with child rearing and I mean to tell you we did the tango right on over that line and about mile down the other side of the beach! The memory of that moment still makes me laugh and then seriously doubt my sanity! The fact is, Sam is not the most patient of babies, and he cares absolutely NOTHING about breastfeeding. When he is hungry, he wants his milk YESTERDAY! He would get so worked up and suck down so much air that he would have horrible gas pain. All for what?! I would be in tears and so would he. There was nothing natural or nurturing about the experience. So I pumped and fed him the nutrient-rich milk in a bottle.

In the middle all of the craziness going on with numb legs and feeling like a dairy cow, they came to get him for his circumcisim and I totally lost it. Here I had done nothing but frustrate him with feeding, I couldn't even change his diaper, and now I was sending him away to be cut on. It was not a pretty moment for this Mommy. When he got back they came to do his pictures and I thought there was no way they would turn out good, boy was I wrong. Hospital pictures have sure come a long way in a short time since Allie was born!

 Ok.... tell me what you think.... Picture on the left is Allie and the right is Sam. Minus Sam's frown, I'm thinking they look almost identical. Though I totally did not think it at the time.

 

Introducing Our Sweet Samuel

On Tuesday, March 6th, 2012 at 10:10 a.m. our sweet baby boy entered into the world. He weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces and was 19 1/4 inches long.

The details may bore you, but I want to remember every second of this miraculous day. So this part is for me:

My alarm went off at 6:00 in the morning and I felt a slow but progressive tightening of my lower abdomen. Now, I had been praying, actually dreaming, of going into labor for weeks, so I almost thought I was dreaming again when I first felt the contraction. I snoozed my alarm, 'cause that's what I do, for 10 minutes. Each time the alarm would go off, I would feel another contraction. I woke John up and told him that I thought I was in labor and he needed to get up and get in the shower. I then called my mom and told her that I wasn't totally sure but I thought she should start getting ready too. By 6:30, I was contracting every 5-7 minutes and was sure that the day I had prayed for and dreamed about for over 2 years was finally here. Since I had not conveyed much urgency in my phone call to Mom or even to John when I told him to get into the shower, they took their time and by 6:45, I was calling Mom back to tell her to hurry up that my contractions were getting quite close. If you know my labor story with Allie, you know that when she decided it was time to come, by gosh she was coming quick. I was afraid of having a home birth with Sam! Ha! As it turned out, by the time Mom got to our house to get Allie ready and let us head to the hospital, it was 7:20-ish and we were headed right in with rush-hour traffic. John and I laughed because when we drove to the hospital with Allie, it was raining so hard that John could barely keep the car on the road and was forced to drive super slow. This time the traffic was forcing us to drive slow. With each contraction, John would ask me to rate my pain on a scale of 1-10. I think he was secretly afraid that I would deliver Sam in the car and this was his gauge to see how close I was. The problem was that he would ask me and expect a response in the middle of the contraction. I kept telling him, I can't talk during the contraction so quit asking me questions. This would continue to be a struggle the rest of the morning. I think we got to the hospital around 8:00. They got me checked in and I believe around 9:00, I was dilated to a 3 and Dr. Wiedower said that we would definitely be having Sam that day. Which was a good thing that she agreed, because I do not think it would have been pretty if they had made me leave.

I remember thinking that I was so much more aware of what was happening with Sam because with Allie, it was in the middle of the night and my contractions were so bad, that they had to give me Stadol which caused me to be out of it for days. One funny thing that happened while we were waiting to go to the OR was the Unit Manager came into our room as asked if we were expecting twins! Apparently someone had left 2 warmers outside of my room and it appeared that we were getting ready for 2 babies instead of 1. I think it took a while for both John and My blood pressures to stabilize after that!

Waiting to go to the OR

I remember them wheeling me into the OR and Dr. Wiedower coming down the hall behind me and I could hear her say "Ashley, Today is the day!" I was sooooo thankful that she was there and able to deliver Sam. She is such a wonderful physician and she was not on-call the night that Allie was born. I was a little nervous about the epidural this time because I was so out of it with Allie, I hardly remember a thing. The epidural was a breeze and the CRNA was great and talked me through the whole thing. While she was getting me prepped, I asked everyone in the room to guess what Sam would weigh. My nurse guessed 7 pounds 14 ounces. 1 ounce off....I was impressed. My pregnancy with Sam was anything but easy, and though I would expect nothing less, I puked once more for good measure while I was on the OR table. I apparently had a LOT of scar tissue so there was a whole lot of tugging and pulling that I don't remember with Allie but at 10:10 a.m. I heard the sound of my precious baby boy cry for the first time. I heard Dr. Wiedower say there was meconium in the amniotic fluid and my nurse brain went into overload. I was scared for a little bit but they assured me that he was just fine and would not be fighting the nurses the way he was if he had gotten any of the meconium. They got him cleaned up and John brought him around to me. I remember thinking that he looked nothing like what Allie did....more on that later. They got me cleaned up and transferred to my bed and one of the nurses came around and took off her mask and I realized that she was a former student of mine. I thought that was neat that I taught her how to care for babies, and then she helped care for mine. I remember being so excited to get back to my room and for Allie to see Sam. It was a moment I had dreamed of for so long!

THIS IS IT! The moment I have prayed for and dreamed of. Allie was so in love with him and my heart was absolutely overflowing!

 Proud Mimi and Nana

 Allie took charge, in true Allie-fashion and made sure that her baby brother was taken care of!

 Our nurse was great and let Allie help with his bath. I loved watching how proud Allie was and how much she loved Sam at first sight! What an awesome God we serve that he was enable the heart of an almost 4-year-old to know and love Sam immediately.

Most of you know of our struggle to have a second baby and the baby that we lost in November 2010. I have clung to the promises in the Bible and specifically the verse in 1Samuel 1: 27-28

" I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD.”

"Thank you most Gracious God for blessing John and I with 2 healthy children. Please guide us in our daily attempt to raise them to be warriors for you. Give us your wisdom and help us to always direct them to you"