Where has the time gone?

Oh man how time has flown. Sorry for my absence from the blogging world. I am finding it hard to find time to keep up but I will do my best to do a quick update on our lives.

I am back at work now. While I missed my co-workers and students I was not ready to go back and leave my precious "little" ("little" is our nick name for Wilson). I have loved my time home with him and I will treasure those first months that I got to spend all my time with him for the rest of my life. I am extremely lucky to have my mom watching him four days a week and a good friend (Keri McIlravy) watching him one day a week. I could not ask for two greater people to take care of him and I know he gets just as much love with them as he would with me. I still found myself in tears a few mornings, but we are surviving (I'll write more about learning to be a working mom in another blog. That could take up a lot of space.) I also have to thank my husband for making the transition back to work easier. He is always there making life easier whether it be cleaning the house or helping with the baby. He is truly my partner in every sense of the word and I could not love him more.

Wilson turned two months about a week and a half ago and we had a visit to the doctor. He came in at 11 lbs 2 oz and 23.75 inches. Dr. Guyton said he looked perfect (which of course I already knew :) He is smiling a lot and it just about melts my heart to see that gummy smile aimed at me!! He has been sleeping from about 9:30 pm to 5 am for the past 4 nights so that means I am back to getting a full nights sleep (yes, I know I am extremely lucky, let's just hope he keeps it up). As you'll notice in the pictures, Wilson has lost some of the hair he was born with and now has a very interesting hair pattern. I still think he is a handsome devil but I am kind of hoping that it evens out before his three month pictures (vain, yes, but you can't tell me he doesn't have a little George Costanza thing going on there).

Let me just end this by saying praise be to God for blessing us with a precious, healthy, happy baby!

Wilson meets the Wilson's

Well, technically Wilson met the Wilson's and the Rosenbaum's, but my sister is a former Wilson so it counts.

This past weekend my brother Stephen and his wife Cari and my sister Lauren and her kids Connor 7, Caroline 4, and Caleb 18 months all came in to town to meet Wilson for the first time. We had a great time just hanging out and loving on all the kids. I have played the role of aunt for so long it was neat to introduce my sister's kids to Wilson and now be the mom. I love that Wilson and Caleb will be close enough in age that they will be buddies. Wilson got a ton of love and we were all sad to see them go yesterday. I wish they all lived closer but I thank God everyday to have such a wonderful family!

Aunt Cari

Uncle Stephen

Aunt Lauren (and my personal "mom" trainer, with 3 kids she knows everything!)

Cousin Caroline

Connor, Wilson, Caroline and Caleb

My valentine turns one month old

How can that be possible? In some ways it feels like a lifetime ago when we brought Wilson home, but in others I feel like it was just yesterday. Now, I must be honest, this is as much a milestone for me as it is for him. I hope others can relate and I don't mean to freak out moms-to-be but that first week was really hard. There we were with this little creature that relied completely on us for survival, kept us up all hours of the day and night, and made me question myself constantly. Now I knew that this is what having a baby meant when we got pregnant, but something about the reality of it was overwhelming. I never knew that something so small could make me feel so inadequate. I second guessed everything I was doing, worrying that I would screw him up in the first week of his life. Not to mention that my body was still recovering from the birthing process, breastfeeding was painful and my emotions were so out of whack I started to feel like a crazy person. I would often just hold Wilson and pray to God to just get us through the first month. I felt that if I could just make it through the first four weeks then by that point I should have a clue as to what I was doing. Now, I know that I am probably being a little too honest about all this. People would probably rather hear how wonderful it all was as I basked in maternal glow, but that was not quite how it was. I loved Wilson more than I could have ever imagined the minute I saw him and I was so thankful to God for blessing us with a healthy baby, but that did not mean that it was easy.

However, it did not take me that month that I prayed for to get to my happy place. It took about a week and half. About that time we had established a routine, I had gotten to know this new man in my life and how to meet his needs, I felt more confident in my abilities, I just accepted that breastfeeding kind of sucks at first, my body felt better and my hormones settled down. I could have never gotten through any of that without the love and support of my husband and my mom and without the constant guidance of Him who listened to my prayers and often calmed my heart and nerves in those moments when I felt so frazzled. Also, thanks to everyone who dropped by and visited and to the various moms who I talked with who helped me realize that all that I was going through was normal. I found that knowing I was not the only one who felt that way those first weeks was a huge help so I hope that maybe this helps someone else out there.

Oh my, I just realized I have written a lot about me during this first month and it should be all about Wilson. So for your viewing pleasure here are some photos from Wilson's first month!

Daddy and his boysWilson's first bath (bath time is daddy time while mommy relaxes)Besides keeping his hand by his face this is Wilson's other favorite place for his hands while he sleeps
Tummy Time!

This is what happens when daddy is left to dress the baby

Go Steelers! (we didn't tell him how the game ended)

Wilson starting to smile at mommy (and daddy too :)

On a lunch date with my friend Keri and her daughter Blair

Side note

My husband has just pointed out that he has not been mentioned in my blog thus far. I did not mean to do this on purpose so let me clear this up. When I write "we", I mean Ranse and myself. He is very much involved in all of this, I just tend to write from my point of view. I love him now more than ever as a watch what a wonderful father he is to Wilson and how supportive and loving he is to me (even during that first week home when I was an emotional wreck). So I am publicly apologizing for making it seem I was doing this all on my own because I assure you I am not. I LOVE YOU RANSE :)

Jaundice and screaming and weight loss oh my!

I don't mean for my title to make light of the issues Wilson has encountered, but now that we seemed to have gotten past all of them I figured a little bit of humor couldn't hurt.

Wilson's medical drama's started the Sunday after Wilson was born as we prepared to go home. His nurse came in to go over his check up that morning and let us know that Wilson had jaundice and would have to have light treatments. Now I had heard of jaundice but a) I really didn't know what it all meant and b) I really hadn't noticed that my precious baby boy did somewhat resemble a pumpkin so I was taken by surprise when she told us this. I am sure some of you can relate to the fact that the day you prepare to go home from the hospital can be scary enough but then to be told you will have to go home with special medical equipment because your little one has something, while common, means that he isn't 100% healthy makes it that much harder.

So, we went home that day with Wilson and a biliblanket that he would need to lay on 24/7 until his bili levels came down. This also meant a visit to the pediatrician first thing in the morning to check his levels again. Going on very little sleep we arrived at the pediatrician Monday morning where in order to check his bili levels they had to prick his heel and squeeze out his blood into a tube. That poor nurse not only had to endure Wilson's screams but my sobbing as I tried to love on him as much as possible during the process. It was truly a traumatic experience for us both, so you can imagine my horror when they called later that day to say his levels had gone up and we would have to continue the biliblanket and come in again the next morning to do the whole thing over again. Luckily, I was better prepared to handle the whole thing better the next day and his levels were normal that time so we did not have to repeat the process and he was able to come off the biliblanket. (I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of Wilson on the biliblanket but here is what it looked like and here is a baby with it on. It made him light up like a Christmas tree and so we affectionately called him our little glow worm).

Our next visit to the doctor was for Wilson's 2 weeks check-up. Wilson was back to his birth weight which made me happy because I am breastfeeding and you just never know if they are getting what they need. We left that day with a good report and didn't expect to see Dr. Guyton again until Wilson's 2 month check-up. However, the following week Wilson seemed to get fussier and fussier as the days went by. He was crying a lot between feedings and I just couldn't figure out what was wrong. Thinking it was gas we did everything we knew possible to help him but nothing seemed to make it better. Then that Friday Wilson had black bits in his spit up and in his diaper. I didn't want to be the paranoid first time mother but it just didn't seem normal so I called the doctor and they told me to bring him on in. When we got there, they weighed him and he had lost 2 ounces (which in the baby world is a big deal, since he should have gained a couple of ounces since his last check-up). They tested the spit up and poop and discovered it was blood. The question then was it my blood or his. The fact that there was blood, combined with the weight loss and his doctor noticed his jaundice coloring had not gotten much better they decided they needed to run a panel of tests. Of course this meant that more blood had to be drawn. They needed quite a bit so they tried to find a vein to take it from but after 15 minutes of prodding they could not get enough blood from a vein. So to add to Wilson's discomfort they had to take three tubes worth of blood from his heel again. My heart was breaking as I had to hear him scream and there was nothing I could do about it. I was on pins and needles all day until they called. Thankfully when they did call they told me all his blood work came back normal. However, it seemed that he wasn't getting enough from me to continue exclusively breastfeeding so I had to start supplementing. This was hard to accept because as hard as breastfeeding was, it was what I wanted to do and I was scared that if I started supplementing with formula Wilson would no longer nurse. I also had to deal with the guilt that what I thought was crying over gas was really him being hungry. You never want to think you aren't fulfilling your child's needs and knowing that he had been hungry just about killed me. But I knew I couldn't dwell on that and now we knew what we could do to keep him happy and healthy so we started supplementing that day. I am glad to report he gained 8 oz by that Monday and has been doing just fine nursing and taking a bottle and has been a happy baby since :)

Here is the best picture I could find that shows Wilson's jaundice tan. That is his Grandma and Great Grandaddy with him (Ranse's Mom and Grandfather).

Boy meets world

I figured I needed to back up a couple of weeks and start from the beginning so

hear is the story of Wilson's arrival.

After many weeks of teasing us, Wilson Lee Snipes came into this world on January 14, 2011 at 2:35 am. In case you did not know I was put on bed rest around 35 weeks because I was experiencing some pre-term labor and was 2 cm dialated. The doctor thought I wouldn't make it to 37 weeks, but when 37 weeks rolled around Wilson was staying put. Since he was considered full term at that point I was taken off of bed rest and so back to work I went. School was back in for a week and then the lovely snow storm hit and we were out for another week. That Thursday I had a doctor's appointment and was 4 cm and 80% effaced. My doctor couldn't believe I still hadn't gone into labor so she said we could break my water the next morning if I wanted to. Since I would be 39 weeks the next day and I had been thinking he was coming any minute for the past four weeks, I was more than ready to have him.

So I went home thinking I had one more night before we would br parents but as usual Wilson had other plans. Around 5 that evening I began to have contractions and by 7:30 pm we were checking into the hospital. Although the whole birthing process was not a long one for me, it was filled with some minor dramas including a fever for me, the epidural working a little to well and not knowing when to push, Wilson's heart rate dropping after contractions, and him getting a little stuck. There was some talk of c-section but in the end I was able to have him the good ole' fashion way. It turned out the reason he was kind of stuck was that he had his hand up by his face. This was his favorite place for his hand while I was pregnant with him and still remains his favorite place to keep it, however it made for a difficult exit from my body which took me a while to recover from. However, the end result was a 7 lb 2 oz, 21 1/2 in long beautiful baby boy. Here is a picture of me after the epidural. Might I just add that epidurals are the best thing on the planet. The other picture is of Wilson getting weighed right after I had him. I will do my best to add some more pictures soon!

The beginning

Ok, so I thought I would never be a blog kind of girl but I am starting to see the benefit of them. A) I can keep everyone who cares up to date on what is going on in our lives, especially since the edition of little Wilson, without having to annoy everyone on facebook with wallposts that maybe 3 people care about and B) I have a venue to share the thoughts that come into my head at 2 am while I am feeding Wilson and staring at the ceiling. Not that I think everyone will be interested in these thoughts but I am finding that as a new mom I enjoy reading what is going on in the lives of other moms. Mostly because I find that I am not the only one going through certain struggles and that can be a lifeline in these uncharted waters I find myself swimming in. SO, that being said, here I am. Now it may take me awhile to make this thing look good so bare with me. For today, I am just posting to say hello and stay tuned!