Surreal

I know you all have been waiting for an update and I have SO MUCH to share, but my days are packed and not much time is left to be on the computer. BOTH boys are sleeping right now (rare occasion) and my mom is here for back up. I just cannot get over how much has been different this time, it's almost like I've been in a dream the past week. From Isaac's birth and hospital stay to being home, everything has pretty much been the exact opposite from our experience with Caleb. Here are a few things that stick out in my mind:

*We drove to the hospital knowing that we'd have a baby that day. We weren't sitting in a hospital room wondering if that was the day, week, month he'd be born.

*During my c-section, one of the OB's had to stand up by my chest and push above my belly to get Isaac out, because they weren't expecting him to be so big and he was actually stuck. All we kept hearing was "Wow, this is a big guy."

*I didn't have my "body back" immediately after Isaac's birth as I did with Caleb.

*Joel got to cut Isaac's umbilical cord.

*We got to hear Isaac's sweet screaming for a good 5 minutes, as opposed to Caleb's weak little yelp after he was born.

*I didn't have to wait 3 weeks to hold my baby....I only had to wait about 2 HOURS!! And he wasn't attached to any tubes, wires, IV's etc. Joel asked the nurse if they could "monitor" the baby for a little while to make sure everything was okay. The nurses laughed.

*I was given the option of breast feeding or bottle feeding , instead of being told to start pumping as I had with Caleb. (I am breast feeding, and it's much harder than I ever imagined!)

*Visitors didn't have to sign in and could just enter my room. No hand washing was required, which really made my skin crawl.

*The night nurses would beg me to take Isaac back to the nursery to hang out with his fellow full term babies so I could "get some rest." I didn't want him to leave my sight!

*We didn't have to prove to the doctors or nurses that we would be able to meet all of Isaac's needs when we took him home as we did with Caleb.

*Isaac didn't have to "pass" a car seat test before we brought him home.

*Isaac came home after 4 days in the hospital. Caleb spent 91 days there.

*We took home a wire/tube free baby. I kind of "wish" we still had Caleb's apnea monitor...I am always checking Isaac to make sure he's breathing!

*Isaac's wearing the same clothes (that are almost too small) that Caleb wore when he was 4 months old...Isaac is 1 WEEK old!

*At our first pediatrician appt, we weren't whisked back into an exam room, we had to sit with all the other "well baby" people.

*My 23 pounder looks HUGE to me now!

Like I said, I have so much more to share, but you'll have to wait for another day! I think my next post will be about Caleb and how much he HATES being a big brother. Actually, today was the first day he touched him (well poked him with one finger), so maybe he's starting to come around....

Sorry that I haven't had a chance to respond to all your emails. I had over 100 to read when I got home! Thanks for all your well-wishes!

Introducing...

Isaac Michael

Born February 17, 2008

9:37 AM

8 pounds, 5 oz

21 inches long

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day! Joel and I agreed that we wouldn't do gifts this year, but of course he surprised me with a huge arrangement of flowers. "They are from Caleb, not me." Now I feel like a big jerk for not getting him something. Oh well.
Only 3 days to go until Baby Boy T is born. The anticipation is killing me. No, we still have not decided on a name and are very open to suggestions:) In the last 2 weeks, Caleb has become extra clingy to me. It's almost like he knows something is about to happen. He won't let Joel feed him, play with him, read to him, or put him to bed. He wants me ALL.THE.TIME. I cannot be out of his sight for more than 2 minutes or he's asking/crying for me. We've tried to ignore it, especially at bedtime, but it breaks my heart to hear him crying "mama." I know I am going to have a very hard time when the baby is here and needs me too. It will be interesting to say the least. Anyway, nothing else really exciting to report. I am not sure if I will post again before Sunday. Please keep our whole family in your prayers. Especially that our new baby is delivered safely and born healthy and for Caleb as he adjusts to major changes in his life.
I tried to take a Valentine's Day picture of Caleb, but as you can see he wasn't very cooperative. He wants to be the one taking the pictures and won't sit still anymore when I am trying to take one. He was running towards the camera when I took it, so it's very close up and blurry. I'll also add pictures from the last 2 years. His first Valentine's Day, he needed another blood transfusion, which he had a bad reaction to. Last years pic shows much better memories!

T-Minus 1 week!!

It's hard to believe that at this time next Sunday, we'll be the parents of 2 little boys. People keep asking me if I am ready and the answer is no. If I could remain pregnant for another 2 months, I probably would. Part of it is because I am nervous about how much our life is about to change and part of it is because I really do love being pregnant. I am not complaining about how stretched out my stomach is (no stretch marks yet though!!), how big I'm getting, how much weight I've gained, or "just wanting it to be over." (I could, however, do without the pain I am having when I walk) I never got to experience this with Caleb and I know how lucky we are to have made it to 38+ weeks. Unless you've had a preemie, you probably don't realize how much of a blessing a full term baby really is. It irritates me when people take it for granted. Now, I just pray that we have a smooth delivery and that our new little guy is born healthy. (I also hope that this weather warms up before then. Today our thermometer at home said -6 degrees and on the news I heard it was -40 degrees with the wind chill....now that's COLD!!)

Look Who's Talking

As I mentioned before, Caleb has really started to talk lately. It's so funny to hear him try and say new words. He no longer calls himself "Haba" but now refers to himself as "Haybee." He copies almost everything we say, so we have to be very careful. He still drops the first letter of most words, so sometimes it's hard to understand what he's trying to say. A lot of the time he puts a "H" or a "D" sound instead of the correct letter For instance "towel, is howel" "spin is din" "candle is handle" "grandma is damma," "sun is done," "glasses is dasses," etc. It's weird because he can say most of the consonants at the end of words, just not at the beginning. He doesn’t have any trouble with words that start with "D" or "M." Of course his speech therapist isn't concerned. (I think he charms her with his cuteness and nothing he does is ever wrong in her eyes). So I guess we'll see. I have to keep reminding myself that he JUST started talking and it will probably take a while before he truly gets it. He can say most of his colors and shapes and has started to say letters, which is pretty exciting. He gets pretty frustrated when we don't know what he wants. Most of the time he still signs while saying words, which helps out a lot. One of the new words he uses all the time (in addition to his beloved D-word) is "Wow!" He always whispers when he says it and gets a very excited look on his face, kind of like everything is suddenly amazing to him. It's pretty darn cute. He's also into scaring us (and everything else in our house) and says "Boo!" pretty much all day long. The other cute thing he's started doing is making noise by blowing on his arm or my (Joel's) stomach (wonder who taught him that?!) He then says "Cuse me!" (Excuse me!) At least he's polite I guess! Have I mentioned that he's 100% boy?!
There has been a lot of discussion about Omega 3-6-9 supplements in a preemie group I belong to. Apparently it really helps with little kiddo’s speech/language development. I might give it a whirl. I want to check with his doc first though since he's on other meds and knowing this C's luck he'd have some sort of reaction or something. It's worth looking into though.
Today he was supposed to have swimming class, but when I asked him if he wanted to get ready he told me "no." Joel asked him a little while later if he wanted to go swimming and he told him no again. So Joel asked him if he wanted to go sledding and he said "Yesh!" So we are skipping swimming today. It's supposed to get extremely cold again tomorrow, so he better get the sledding in while he can I guess. And when I say sledding, I mean Joel pulling him around the yard in a sled. Although I am sure he'd love going down a big hill!

Anybody out there??

Caleb's attempt to take a picture of himself and mommy

I know that we have 5-6 faithful readers who keep coming back to read me ramble about the latest and greatest. I think there are 40 people on our "invite" list and I am wondering if anyone else is checking in. Besides being nosey, I want to know the best way to let our friends and family know when our baby is born. So if you could just click on "comment" under this post and say hello that would be fabulous. Don't be shy!
I have more to share about exciting developments with Caleb's speech, but I am going to keep this one short. I'll end with a Caleb story that might make you smile (or think I'm a terrible mother for letting him say bad words). Usually after swimming class, there is a basketball tournament/scrimmage going on in the gym and Caleb loves to watch. "Ba-bi-ball" is one of his favorite things right now. On Saturday, I took him to the gym to watch and no one was playing. I said, "There's no basketball today Caleb" His loud reply (in front of a small crowd), was "Dammit!" Never a dull moment with this kid!

Annoyed

Caleb had a feeding clinic appt this week. He showed off his new eating skills like a little pro. He even chewed and SWALLOWED mandarin oranges for them. Little show off! They were all amazed and impressed. They weren't too thrilled about his weight gain (23 pounds, 2 oz and 32 1/4 inches), but he's still on the stupid growth chart which made them happy. They really couldn't believe that he was the same Caleb they've been seeing for almost a year. They want to get him off his night time bottles (don't we all??!!), however his dietician calculated that 30-40% of his daily calories are still coming from his formula/bottles. They decided that they would pow-wow and come up with an outline of what he needs to eat during the day so that I can gage if he truly needs the night bottles and slowly try to wean them. I was anxious to see what they came up with since I know his mainly "noodle diet" doesn't give him a whole lot of calories. Well, we waited over an hour to see the GI doc and she came in very excited with the "plan" they had come up with. She proceeded to tell me that the plan is for me to "get him to eat as much as I can during each meal, so that he doesn't need the formula and will sleep through the night." I couldn't believe it. What on earth do they think we've been doing for the last 18 months, cutting him off before he's full? I didn't even know what to say. They know the struggle it's been to get him to eat anything and how hard we've worked to get him where he is now. We've ALWAYS tried to get as much into him as possible, even when he was just on bottles. You can only push a kid so far. (Especially one that "likes" to vomit.) Plus, I am not sure how much more he can really eat during his meals anyway. Of course he has his moments, but for the most part he's eating really well for me. I don't know for sure, but I doubt there are a lot of "normal" toddlers that will eat an entire scrambled egg with cheese and some fruit, plus milk in one sitting...how much better can you get?! So anyway, I was very frustrated and was ready to get out of there since their plan was worthless and Caleb was screaming (we'd been there almost 3 hours at that point). But, the GI doc wanted to sit and talk about getting him ready for his new brother. She went on and on about getting him a doll (done), reading him books (done) letting him play in the baby's room (done) talking to him about the baby (done, done, done!!), and for me to read books myself about getting him ready (yah right, like I have time for that!) I told her we had been doing all of that stuff since we found out we were expecting and really how much can a 2 year old understand until the baby's actually here? She wasn't even listening to me, which made me even more annoyed. When she was finally done lecturing me, his nurse came back and gave me paper work to schedule his next appt. I was tempted to not even schedule one, but they want to repeat his video swallow test to see his he's able to swallow correctly without thickening his liquids. This means we'll be at Children’s at least 4 hours that day (and at that point I will have a 6 week old to worry about). I really would like to let him drink "normal" things, so I did schedule it. Maybe I'll just bring him in for the study and then "forget" we had a feeding appt afterwards:)
My patience was tested again today because Caleb was supposed to get his RSV shots, and his nurse didn't call me to schedule them. They have to be given within a certain amount of days from the last shot, otherwise it's like starting the series all over again. I think they have to get them every 28-34 days. I decided to call her and she told me he was going to get them on Tuesday (which would be day 35). After telling her that was unacceptable she finally she agreed to come on Monday.
Maybe I'm overreacting and easily annoyed this week because I am just getting over a nasty stomach virus. Everyone kept telling me that's what happens right before you go into labor. So on top of being miserable, I was a nervous wreck about having the baby. I am sure it was just the stomach flu since it lasted 4 days. It really wiped me out. I was pretty scared on Monday night though because I was having braxton hicks contractions every 2-3 minutes for most of the night. My doc assured me it was because I was dehydrated. Thankfully my mother-in-law came over to watch Caleb for me, since I really don't think I could have done it. I am on the mend now and I think our little guy is content right where he is! And everything looked great at my appt this week....37 weeks....YAHOOOOOOOO!
I wanted to end this on a positive note, but now blogger won't let me add pictures or do a spell check....HOW ANNOYING!!!!