Introducing Jensen Miles!

Jensen made his arrival on January 18th, 2011 at 7:57 am weighing in at 7 lbs and 20 inches long.  Surgery went pretty good.  I started throwing up at the very beginning...the spinal block meds made my BP drop and my pulse race, which in turn made me very nauseous.  That got straightened out and then Jensen was here! :)
The Dr said it was a good think I opted for the repeat c-section because his cord was wrapped twice around him and that could have been an issue if I had labored.  Good call! :)  After he was delivered, they gave me pitocin to help everything contract back down like its supposed to. The dosage is very high, and I had a hard time with it.  They said it was a normal response, but it made me sick again (vomiting) and I have a very good idea of what a heart attack feels like.  It seemed like there was an elephant sitting on my chest...I couldn't get a good breath in, but again, they said it was normal and just dropped the dosage a little bit.  Everything from there was kind of a blur.  I went to recovery for a while, then off to my room.  We had a lot of visitors, I don't really remember who all came that first day, I was still pretty sick and throwing up throughout the day, plus I also have the rare reaction to one of the meds from the spinal block that causes extreme itching.  I pretty much felt like I was going to scratch my face off, it was horrible.  That finally went away after the 2nd or 3rd day.  I attempted breast feeding while in the hospital, but very quickly gave up on it as soon as we came home.  He wasn't having a lot of trouble with it, but he wasn't latching just right, which was causing me a lot of pain and bruising, and I just couldn't stand the thought of doing it anymore.  He has done much better on the formula anyways, it seems he's getting more and is much happier because of it. :)  Then my milk never really came in either, so it all worked out for the best that I wimped out. :)

Now that we've been home, everything has gone pretty well.  I had a lot of discomfort from the surgery for the first 2 weeks, but that has all subsided.  I just had my 4 week post-partum check up and was given the all clear to return to a normal life (however normal it gets with 2 kids). haha.  I was very excited to see that I have lost 16 lbs since delivery, so that's all the weight I gained and then some...yay!!!  Casey and I are talking about trying p90x...I'm not certain I can do it, but I've got a lot of weight that I want to lose to get back to where I used to be and I know that, if I can stick it out with the program, it'll come off.  We shall see! :)

Currently, Jensen is a sick little boy.  I took him to the doctor on Wednesday afternoon for wheezing and a horrible cough, and he has RSV.  It seems likes he's on the mend, but I think it'll be a while before he's all better.  We're doing breathing treatments every 4 hours and that seems to be helping.  Today, Ryan has a fever, vomiting and diarrhea...it seems this whole house has been sick ever since the baby got here!  Casey had a stomach bug 2 weeks ago, and has had a cold throughout the whole thing too.  I'm the only one who has stayed healthy, so far.  I feel like I might just be biding my time. :(

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Wow!!  I can't believe he's already a month old!!!!

Way Behind!

**NOTE:  This was a post that I started way back and never actually posted, so here it is **


Wow, I have gotten very, very behind on this!  I apologize for that, and I will go ahead and apologize in advance because I'm sure I'll be even further behind on updating once Jensen gets here.

Quick recap:
The pregnancy has gone great.  No major problems, concerns, etc.  No swelling, eclampsia, high blood pressure...nothing.  It has been by far a very uneventful pregnancy.  Not that I'm complaining :)

January 7th was my last day of work.  I opted to take an extra week so that I could finish up things around the nursery and just get myself physically and mentally prepared for what was coming.  Worked out great, since on January 10th, it snowed around here and schools ended up being closed the 10th-12th, so I would have been taking those days to be home with Ryan anyways.  I didn't get as much accomplished during those days home because, of course, we needed to play in the snow as much as possible.  :) 

A Little Concerned

So, I felt kinda crappy all night last night, and didn't get a lot of sleep.  But I got up this morning and got ready for work and took Ryan on to my sister's house for the day.  It was on my way from there that it dawned on me that I hadn't been feeling Jensen move around very much at all.  I actually couldn't think of feeling him at all since sometime in the middle of the night.  And my lower abdomen had been having some pretty noticeable cramps.  I decided to call into work, and then called the doctors office.  They didn't have any way of squeezing me in, so they sent me on to the hospital to get checked out.  Luckily, once I got there, Jensen started showing off and wouldn't stay still, which was great b/c I could feel him again and release some anxiety.  They still kept me in triage for a while to monitor the heart rate and movements, and he was perfectly fine.  They did say that I showed some contractions, which could have been Braxton Hicks or could have been the start of real ones, but they tapered off after about an hour or so.  They told me to go home and stay in bed/on the couch for the rest of the day, just to be safe, which was fine by me since I didn't sleep much last night.

I'm still feeling pretty crampy, especially if I'm up and about, and I guess he's running out of room because I'm not feeling him move quite as much as normal, but he's still active, which is a plus.  Now I'm just wondering if he's going to manage to stay put until the 18th, or if we're going to get our bundle of joy a bit earlier than planned.  The doctor said that if I do go into labor, being as far along as I am, they won't try to stop it.  So now its even more of a waiting game, and I'm not a patient person! :)

January 18, 2011

Sounds like just another day off in the future, right?  WRONG! :) That is the day that we have scheduled our c-section for Jensen...that will be my new little man's birthday!  We are so excited, but you know what else?  I'm starting to get nervous.  That's only 32 days from today...yep, you read that right, only 32 days!!  WOW!  I'm starting to feel the pinch, it seems we have a lot left to get done before he gets here.  I'm sure we'll be fine and have it done, but that still doesn't stop the stress.

We had our baby shower last Sunday, December 12th from 2-4 pm at the church in Maple Hill.  Although it was very very cold and rainy, we had a great turnout and Jensen received lots of wonderful goodies.  I'll have to take a picture of the nursery before we organize it...it looks like a complete madhouse in there right now.  We had been doing so well with keeping it clean after emptying it out, but now it has turned into the catch all for the Christmas shopping and wrapping. 

Speaking of Christmas shopping, I have 1 gift left to buy, then I will be D-O-N-E with shopping and that makes me super happy.  I haven't gotten much of it wrapped, but I did make an early morning stop at Target before work and picked up some more gift bags, so I might not be wrapping as much as I usually do.  I prefer to wrap because I love watching people actually open the gifts, but this baby belly is getting in the way of my sitting down in the living room floor and leaning all over the place to wrap, so I'm thinking I might be lazy this year with bags.  They're still cute and they still match my Christmas tree, which is a must for me.

I would like to put an image up of the Christmas Cards that I've sent out, but I can't seem to get Hallmark.com to let me do that.

I hope everyone has a great and wonderful Christmas, and I'll probably do another post after Christmas, we go back to the Dr on the 27th. 

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Soon & Very Soon...

We're at 7 weeks and counting, I can't believe it's getting so close!  I went for my last monthly appointment early last week and everything is still going great.  The nurse questioned whether or not I had participated in the Thanksgiving festivities because, believe it or not, I had not gained anything since my last appointment 3 weeks prior....woohoo! :) I have done so much better this pregnancy with weight gain, so I'm hoping I'll be able to lose it (and what was left from Ryan too!) a little bit easier. 

One thing that this pregnancy has taught me is that I can be much more proactive at things if I really put my mind to it.  I'm almost completely done with my Christmas shopping, which is something I usually haven't even started by now.  I've also learned that I'm really not as patient as I once thought I was.  I've done as much of my Christmas shopping online this year, or I've handed over the reign and let Casey go get it.  I just can't seem to handle the crazy mobs of people out there!  Any of it that I'm doing in stores is usually done on my lunch break or before I even come in to work in the mornings, so the crazies aren't out yet. 

This coming weekend is our baby shower and I'm so excited.  Casey's mom and sister are throwing it in Maple Hill at their church, and I know it'll be great.  Our bridal shower was there as well and we were very blessed then, and I don't doubt this will be any different.  I might not be convinced yet by my husband to move back there (I'm pretty certain I can't take being that far out in the middle of nowhere), but I am more than convinced that it is a great community full of people who would do anything and everything for those around them.  Hopefully I will have some pics up next week or so from the shower, and I have one or two of my sister and I with our bumps. 

We go for another appointment on Monday, and the last doctor had told us that we'd be scheduling the c-section date at this appointment.  So hopefully, this time next week, we'll know a more accurate date of when we get to meet our new little man!  This whole pregnancy has seemed to fly by, but now that its getting closer to the end, its creeping!

Jensen's growing....

and therefore so am I.  :) 

This is pretty much one of the first pics that I've had taken since I've been preggers...I'm not so much for pics of getting bigger and bigger, even if it is mostly because of my little rugrat growing inside.  :)  The countdown is on, 10 more weeks!

Halloween & More

First off, let me say I really just can't get over how fast this pregnancy is flying by!  I'm already 28 weeks along...that means only 12 weeks left to go!  And technically, that's 11 weeks, since we know we'll be doing a scheduled C-section and they will schedule that for 39 weeks (hopefully we get that date scheduled soon). 

Ryan had a great time for Halloween this year.  We went on Saturday afternoon to the Fall Festival at Poplar Grove Plantation with my sister, her husband, his son and daughter-in-law and their daughter, Marley.  There was lots of those inflatable slides and bouncy things, and Ryan had a ball doing each of them several times.  Here is one pic where it looks like he's on his feet, but actually I caught the shot in mid-bounce. :)

They also got to do pony rides, which both Ryan and Marley thought was pretty cool.  Hard to believe, but I think this might have been Ryan's first pony ride.

They both also did the bungee jump thing and Ryan did the rock wall climb too...obviously, these children are completely spoiled! haha  Ryan also just had to prove to us that he was tough and he wanted to go with us through the Haunted House.  I kept trying to convince him that he wouldn't like it, but he kept saying "I'll be fine, I know that stuff is fake"...he was ready to come out of there within the first 5 feet of the door!  My brother-in-law, "Uncle Mere" to Ryan, opted to carry him all the way through for me so Ryan could say that he went through, which of course, at the end, he said he wasn't really scared, he was just kiddin'.  haha.  Boys and their egos...:)

Sunday we were back over at Denises' house to do trick-or-treating with Marley.  Both of them had a great time getting buckets full of candy.

Sunday afternoon before trick-or-treating, Casey and I got to work on putting together the crib for Jensen's nursery.  I was recently out of town for 4 days for work, and while I was gone, Casey painted the nursery, shampooed the carpets, and put together the changing table.  So I was extremely excited to get the crib together and put the bedding in...doing that definitely makes this seem a bit more "real".  Here are a few pics of the finished product. 

I'm still planning to put up some pictures and some words on the walls.  I can't quite decide on what words...not sure if I want to do his name over the changing table, or maybe I can find an appropriate quote to put up...we'll see what comes up. :)