From 25,000 Feet

We are currently on our way home from visiting MJ's family in Minnesota. We have had an absolutely spectacular week celebrating the holidays with her family! Drew has been an absolute rockstar the entire time. We have survived navigating the airport for the first time as a family too. Del.ta is currently offering free wifi so I figured why not blog from the air!

Drew had lots of fun meeting his Grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins. We'll have more of an update with pictures later.

Happy New Year's Eve to everyone - we'll be spending a quiet evening at home.

{this moment}

{this moment} – A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama.

A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember

Alert

Our little guy has become so much more alert over the past couple of weeks.  Interacting with him has been such fun.  he is giving us lots if smiles and some of the best facial expressions!  Here are some fun pictures from the other night.

We are really looking forward to spending the Holidays with MJ's family and introducing them all to Drew.  Traveling will sure be different bringing along a 7 week old!  We are so excited to be spending our first Christmas as a family - we have waited for this moment for so long!

Wordless Wednesday

Ornament Swap

When I opened the mailbox yesterday I was very excited to see a package from an unknown person.  I just knew it had to be our ornament from the swap.  We were so very excited when we opened the package and found a wonderful personalized ornament from the girls at Two Moms and a Baby Bump

Here is the wonderful ornament that says Drew 2010

Football

Drew has one question for you -

Are you ready for some football????

{This Moment}

{this moment} – A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama.

A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember

There are many reasons to be happy.....

*I went to get Drew's birth certificate yesterday and we were so happy that in NH BOTH of our names automatically go on the birth certificate.

*The little man is sleeping in 5+ hour stretches at night.

*We get to introduce Drew to all of MJ's family over Christmas and Drew gets to take his first plane ride!

*Our little guy has really started interacting with us - lots of smiles and funny faces.
We are just so happy and so in love and we can't imagine life without our baby boy!

New skills

The other night Drew was a bit fussy and it was not a normal cry.  We finally figured out that he was MAD!  He wanted his thumb in his mouth and he's not coordinated enough yet to get it there.  MJ spent a bunch of time helping him get his thumb into his mouth and once he got it, he would immediately stop crying.  It was the cutest thing ever.

Here he is looking so cute with his thumb in his mouth...

Christmas Photos

We had photos taken of Drew last week.  I'll share the Christmas ones with you and the rest will have to wait until after Christmas as we are giving them as gifts!  We continue to be amazed by our little guy and love him to pieces...

One Month

Drew -

You are ONE month old.  This month has been the best month of our lives.  Your Moms love you more than words can say!   You have brought us more joy over the past month than we ever could have imagined possible.  You certainly were worth all of the hard work and the long wait!

In your first month of life, you celebrated your First Thanksgiving - having you brought a whole new meaning to being thankful.   We have learned so much about you.  When we swaddle you, we MUST leave your arms up as you love to have your hands near your face.  You aren't a real big fan of your carseat - you don't look really comfortable in it - however, you like to ride in the car.  You listen intently when someone talks to you and you have begun to smile at us when we talk to you.  You love music and lights and will focus on your glow worm and your ocean sound maker when we play them for you.  You really are a very low key baby and hardly fuss.  When you do, you are very easily soothed.  We often talk about what a good boy you are.

You wore newborn clothes and diapers for this whole month.  We have just moved you to size 1 diapers and some of your 0 - 3 clothes are starting to fit you.  At your one month pediatricians appointment, you weighed  8 pounds 6 ounces and were 23 inches long. You are in the 95th percentile for height and the 15th percentile for weight.

We are looking forward to celebrating Christmas with you during your second month of life and we can't wait to introduce you to Mom's family in Minnesota at Christmas. 

We love you more than you know, our Little Man!  Happy one month birthday!

Love,

Mom and Mama

Thanksgiving Card

Since we have a little man to show off this year, we decided to send out Thanksgiving Cards.  Here is the card we made:

And the collage picture that we put on the inside:

The holiday season sure has a whole new meaning to it this year now that we have Drew in our lives!

{This Moment}

{this moment} – A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama.

A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember

Thankful Thursday - Nine Months Later

We hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving!  

Thank You and Announcements

Being the crafty Moms that we like to be, we made our own Thank You cards and Birth Announcements to celebrate the birth of our baby!   We had the announcements all made ahead of time and we just had to add the picture and stats on the inside.

Here is our Thank You:

our Birth Announcement:

and the picture we used in the Birth Announcement:

We have also made Thanksgiving cards, but Little Man isn't cooperating for pics, so we'll save that one for a later post.

We are still so in love!!!

{This Moment}

{this moment} – A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama.

A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Amazing....

According to our pediatrician, Drew is amazing - we have to agree!!  We took him for his 2 week appt today and he is back up to his birth weight and then some.  He also has already grown 1 1/4 inches.  He weighed 6lb 13 oz.  Our little man is growing so fast.  We told him he needs to stop!   He checked out perfectly and that is all we can ask for!

It truly has been an amazing (almost) 2 weeks with our little guy.  We just can't get enough of him and we love being his Moms!

Wordless Wednesday

Little Feet

Oh, I could just eat them  up............

400th Post

This is our 400th post!!!   It is nice to finally be Mamas 400 posts after beginning our blog!   It certainly makes the 4 years of TTC all worth it!

I took Drew to the Doctor's office who got us pregnant.  I figured that they worked just about as hard as we did for this little man and they needed to see the fruits of their labor!  They were all so happy that we stopped in and all took turns holding him and loving on him!

MJ had to go back to work today and it was a bummer.  We both missed her lots and lots!   My parents took this week off from work, so my Mom will come over for a few hours each day which is so nice!

We can't wait for next week - Thanksgiving will be so special this year!  Having Drew brings a whole new meaning to being thankful!

First Week

We have survived our first week at home with our little man.  We are so smitten with him and in many ways it seems like we have had him with us for more than just  a week.  We can't believe how much he changes each and every day.  He is already growing and changing to quickly for our liking.

Breastfeeding got off to a rocky start, but thanks to a wonderful visiting nurse who came to the house on Tuesday, he is now feeding like a champ!  It was great to have her come and spend time with us and give us some tips and tricks for feeding Drew.  He is eating every three hours and I am pumping with every other feed as well to make sure my supply is good.  In addition to feeding him, I have also been able to freeze 5 oz of milk a day.

MJ has to go back to work tomorrow and we are all very sad about that.  Luckily she only has to work this week and Monday of next week and then she has the rest of Thanksgiving week off.  She already told Drew that he couldn't do anything cute while she was gone and that he couldn't grow any more either.  We will both be anxiously awaiting her return tomorrow afternoon.

Of course, we need to share a couple of pics as well:

We can't believe we are lucky enough to be his Mom and Mama!!!

Birth Story

Since our little man is sleeping with MJ at the moment, I'm going to try to get the birth story written down before I forget......

We went into the hospital on Thursday, Nov 4 to be induced.  We arrived at about 8:30 in the morning and I was promptly hooked up to the NST machine to monitor the baby.  After a 1/2 hour on the machine, they checked me and I was 1.5cm dilated and 60% effaced.  So, they started me on a suppository to ripen my cervix which meant I had to be monitored for the next 2 hours.  At this point, I had an hour "free" to wander the hospital, get some fresh air, etc.  My mom came to see us and we had some lunch and got some fresh air.

Then began our next cycle - 1/2 hour of monitoring, bathroom break, suppository, 2 hours of monitoring and then an hour free.  Of course, baby wouldn't cooperate with the monitor as usual, so it was more like 4 hours before we got a break.  I started some slight contractions during this second round.  During our break, we went to get some fresh air and did a few laps around the hospital to try and get things moving along.

My parents came to visit after dinner and we started our third round of monitoring and ripening.  I started to have much more regular contractions at this point and they were lasting 40 - 50 seconds and about 2 minutes apart.  We got our hour off around 10:30PM and went to do some more laps around the hospital.  My contractions were strong enough at this point that I stopped to breathe through them each time I had one.

We headed back to the room and I was checked again.  At this point, I was 3cm and 70% effaced.  They told me that they could either break my water, start pitocin, or let me sleep for the evening.  Since it was close to midnight, we decided to go ahead and try to get some sleep.  They also started an IV and some antibiotics since I was group B strep positive.  I am very thankful that we decided to get some sleep even if it wasn't the most restful.

Friday morning, the doc came in and checked me and I was 4cm and 90% effaced.  She broke my water at that point.  We had some breakfast while we waited for them to move us  to a "real" room since we were now considered in active labor.  At 10:30 we got ourselves all moved and they started pitocin at the slowest drip possible.  My contractions got more regular and stronger at this point.

At about noon time my contractions started to get much worse and closer together.  It wasn't long until the contractions began to come very strong and very close together.  They were having trouble keeping the baby's heartbeat on the monitor so the doc same in to check me and put an internal monitor on.  At this point she said I was 6cm.  At this point the contractions were almost unbearable.  I was completely in my own world and looking back, I am amazed at how my mind and body just went to another place as I labored.

After about 20 minutes of feeling like the contractions were going to kill me I remember saying to the nurse, "I think I just pushed a little."  She told me to listen to my body and push if that was what I needed to do.  Before I knew it, the doctor was there and I was pushing.  I remember almost feeling relief during the pushing.    To me it didn't hurt like the contractions had just before and I had a bit of a break between the contractions.   After about 20 minutes and a half dozen or so pushes, the baby was crowning.  The doctor told me to stop pushing and I remember trying to hold back when all of a sudden the baby literally came flying out.  I heard everyone around the bed say "Whoa!"  As he flew out of me and on to the bed.  MJ said he literally flew out, flipped and bounced on the bed!  We always joked that this baby was going to come out running!  I heard choruses of "It's a BOY!" and couldn't believe that we had our baby boy!

He wasn't crying right away and I found out afterwards that he had the cord wrapped three times around his neck and also around his arm and elbow.  MJ was able to cut the cord and then Drew was given to me.  It was the most amazing feeling to finally have my son on my chest.   He stayed there for over an hour when I finally gave him up to let the nurse weigh and measure him and do all of the newborn checks.  I love that they gave us that uninterrupted time together before doing all of his measurements.

By 4:00, I was in the shower and having lunch.  Drew checked out perfectly and had already had his first bath.  We were already madly in love with our little man.  I couldn't believe how quickly things progressed once I started to really be in labor.  My mom was the same way and she warned me that I would be as well - she was right.  My parents and MJ were all there for the delivery and I wouldn't have had it any other way!

We found out on Sunday from the midwife that Drew was in quite a bit of distress during labor.  His heart rate was low and not recovering and it is a good thing that I delivered quickly.  She said that it was a good thing that the doctor who delivered him was there.  I'm glad I had no idea during the birth that he was having so much trouble.  Despite this, he has checked out perfectly ever since - and of course, we think he is absolutely perfect!

What an amazing experience!

{This Moment}

{this moment} – A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama.

A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Wordless Wednesday