1 Month

I can not believe I am writing his one month post already.  This month has definitely flown by but has been SO great!  Things we have learned:

• We definitely learned from day one that this is a team sport and that we could not do this without each other.   
• We have learned that we can not just go to bed when we are ready to, haha Braxton calls the shots on this one. 
• It's hard to even get a shower when you are here alone, let alone do the dishes, laundry, etc. 
• It takes a long time to even get out the door to go anywhere. 
• Even though we only added one more person to our household, the laundry has multiplied by about 4. 

Now onto Braxton:

• He is filling out VERY VERY quickly.
• At his appt at a week old he was back up to his birth weight and at his appt at two weeks old he was up to 8lb even. 
• When we first put him down at night he will sleep for about a 5 hour stretch, then will sleep for another 3 hours after his bottle, then will doze for a little while after his morning bottle. 
• He is very active when he is awake.  He kicks his legs and swings his arms A LOT!
• He acts like he wants to talk when you are talking to him.  He opens his mouth but acts like he can not figure out how to make sound come out. 
• He is still in newborn diapers but will soon be in size 1.
• He has outgrown most of his newborn clothes. 
• He will lay on his play mat and look around for 10-15 minutes. 
• He takes 5 ounces most of the time. 

I can not believe how much he has changed already! 

Teamwork

Raising a baby=teamwork.  Tomorrow Braxton will be one month old and I honestly can not even begin to think about what this first month, or any month for that matter, would be like without a supportive husband.  Before we had Braxton, I loved the feeling of cleaning the house and cooking dinner for my husband, but since Braxton I can barely find time to even shower.  This has made me rely more on my husband to help with these things.  From the time Braxton was born November 30th, it's almost like a part of our relationship changed.  Sure, we were a team before but it was in a different way.  I can truly say that we are a TEAM now, we have to be a team or I do not think that either one of us would survive.  I went into maternity leave thinking this is going to be a breeze, I am going to get to enjoy time off of work, be with our baby, take care of the house, etc but I quickly learned that taking care of a newborn for 12-1/2 hours a day while my husband was at work was hard, exhausting work.  In the beginning I felt so bad asking my husband to do anything after he got home from work because I knew that he had a long day too but he is so willing to do anything that helps!   He has cooked numerous dinners, has helped clean numerous times,done lots of dishes, done laundry, and the list goes on and on and on and on.  I remember one night I needed a burp cloth and I asked him to please hand me the one off the couch and he got it for me and then I began to cry (what's new right?).   He asked me what was wrong and I just sat there and thanked him over and over for all of his help.  He has been so great with telling me to get out of the house in the evenings, even if it is just to the dollar store or the grocery store.  We (my husband and I) are falling into a night time routine so that we are able to tackle everything that needs to get done. I have quickly learned that our house will never be completely clean, the laundry will never end, and there may be dishes sitting in the sink for a day or two, but eventually our "team" will get it done!   I am truly so blessed to have a teammate like him!

10 lessons of 2010

I got this idea from a friend on facebook and I thought that it was a great idea.  These are in no particular order.

1. This first one I love so much I am going to repost from the girl on facebook (Kaelin).  "Don't compare your journey of life to others, they have a different journey."  I have been guilty of this but have learned that we are all different and the Lord has different journeys planned for each and every one of us. 
2. During the months of us trying to get pregnant it truly felt like the whole world was getting pregnant around us.  Month after month we were let down and it was very hard to keep any faith at all.  One day a dear friend of mine sent me a poem from a book called Just Enough Light for the Step I'm On.  Part of this poem says "...God gives us just the amount of light I need for the exact moment I need it.  At those times I walk in surrender to faith, unable to see the future and not fully comprehending the past.."  Then later on in the poem it says "...I must determine to be content where I am, and allow God to get me to where I need to go."  This was all so fitting during this time and was a great lesson!  (PS if you have not read this book, it's a good one!)
3. NOBODY, no matter how many times they tell you how bad it hurts, how they try to explain it, etc can ever prepare you for the pain of labor. 
4. I continue to realize day after day that my husband was placed in my life for SO many reasons, big and small. 
5. Motherhood is the most emotional and exhausting, yet rewarding, amazing and wonderful thing I have ever experienced. 
6. Nobody is perfect.  We have to learn from our mistakes, work on those things, stay strong, and move on. 
7. Buying a house can be a long stressful process that can change at any moment. 
8. Sometimes the best advice comes from someone you least expect it to. 
9. There is no reason to stress over things you can not change.  "It is what it is" (I am still working on this one)
10. You can't make everyone happy.  (This is a hard one for me... still a work in progress).

Update

So if I would not have let myself get so far behind on my blog I would have loved to update each week  but since I am three weeks behind I will just try to quickly clump them all into one post.  Where to begin....

• I felt like our first week home went as smooth as it possibly could.  Every since Braxton was born our whole life has changed and although we used to be a "team" now we (hubby and I) really are a team.  We really could not do this without each other.  For the first week we slept in the living room on the couches.  Our bed is too high for me to climb up in with my incision so, we camped out in the living room.  We moved the pack-n-play into the living room also, since that is what Braxton sleeps in for now.  Every night I would bring enough diapers in the living room for the night and I would also bring the little formula bottles in so that we could easily get up and just change him and feed him and not have to scurry around the house.  It worked out really well for the short time that we did it.  Braxton would wake up every 2-3 hours to eat and we would alternate as to who got up with him.  Then during the day we pretty much sat here, haha.  I was so thankful that my husband was off for the first two weeks or I might have gone crazy just sitting here alone.  The Monday after we got home we went to his first check up at our pediatrician.  Everything was perfect and he was already back up to his birth weight, which meant that we did not have to wake him up anymore to eat at night.  She said that we could just let him sleep.  This week was very emotional for me.  I could and would cry about everything.  I could look at Braxton and cry or I could just get tired and cry.  It was never ending.  Night time seemed to be worse than the day time. 
• Last Monday, my husband had to go back to work.  This was something that brought a lot of anxiety to me.  Not that I did not think that I could take care of him but it was a LONG day just me and him.  My husband has been working ten hour days, but with drive time and by the time he gets home at night it ends up being 12-1/2 hours a day.  Now if you know me, I am not a sit here all day kind of person.  I am a cleaning addict but I literally could not find the energy nor the time to clean even though I was here all those hours.  I felt like I should be doing something around here so when my husband came home and I had not done anything but take care of Braxton I felt bad.  BUT, thankfully he knows just how hard it is to get things done with a baby here.  He has praised me over and over for taking care of Braxton for these long hours.  At night once my husband gets home I usually pass the baby over to him and then I get things done.... laundry, dinner, bottles washed and steralized, etc.  He has tried to get me to just sit down and do nothing but I would rather be doing something around the house. 
• This week has been busy.  My mom has been off work so she has been my team mate seeing as how we had not completed our Christmas shopping and hubby was still working these horribly long hours.  So I got all of the shopping done!!!!  And I got the presents wrapped!!!!  I felt so much better after that was done.  Buddy is off Friday and we have a very full two days worth of Christmas's (is that a word?).  I already know we are all going to be very worn out and ready for Sunday to just relax at home! I did find out tonight that Buddy is going back to eight hour days starting next week.  This means that he will not be off on Fridays but I am SOO excited that we will have SO Much more time together in the evenings!!!  It will make things so much easier and once I go back to work he will be able to pick Braxton up after work even earlier than I was going to be able to!  This makes me SOOO happy. 

This has definitely been an adjustment for us.  It is no longer just me and him with no care in the world.  We are now establishing a night time routine of dinner, bottles, baby baths, diaper changes, lots of rocking, talking, and cooing, etc.  Braxton has already changed so much in these three weeks and it makes me sad but then again it makes me happy.  Santa came early to the Carney household and brought him a play mat for the floor.  Yesterday he didn't last that long playing on it, but this morning he laid there and looked around for about 20 minutes.  I was impressed.  Ok, so sorry for another long post, I promise I will get better at updating once things settle down and continue to become a routine. 

PS if anyone knows someone that works on blogs, mine is really messed up, please let me know. 

Please excuse...

Please excuse the two pictures on the previous post.  For some reason they are showing up HUGE and when I go into edit the post they will not delete... it keeps giving me some error. 

Happy "Birth"day Braxton: His birth story

So I know it has been WAY too long since I have posted but SO much has gone on and continues to go on.  With a brand new baby and Christmas less than a week away things are CRAZY around here!!!  So I have a lot of catching up to do.  Yes, I should be wrapping the few presents that we have bought while everyone (the hubby and Braxton) are still sleeping, but I want to update this first!!!  Where to start...
DUE DATE was November 28 (Sunday) but I am going to start on Saturday....

• Saturday November 27th... I woke up about 5 and immediately noticed a few pains.  I really never had braxton hicks, never had any early labor, etc so I really had no idea if these were contractions that I was having, all I knew was that the pain that I was having was SEVERE.  I didn't wake my husband up though because they were so far apart.   I laid on the couch until he got up and told him what was happening.  This pain was like NONE that I had ever experienced.  I can't even explain it. There was no one spot that I can pin point as to where the pain was but it HURT LIKE CRAZY!  Anyways... he got up and I told him and he kind of started timing them, but I told him that I was not going to the hospital because I could handle this pain and I was not going to go there and be sent home to continue to labor.  So we got up and ready for the day (he was still wanting to take me to the hospital right then).  I told him we needed to get out of the house and get some things done because I thought that things were going to start happening.  Anyways,  we ran some errands and I continued to contract (still not close together and not consistent).  We got home from our errands and we tried to nap and by 6 that night they were consistently 9 minutes apart.  Hubby starts pushing harder for me to just go "get checked out" to make sure that things were ok, but I was still not going to go because I knew that I could still handle this awful pain and they were not close enough together.  By 10pm they were still coming but not as consistent so we went to bed.  I slept in our guest bedroom because by this point our bed was SO uncomfortable to me.  So I put the phone in the bed with me and I somewhat tried to keep track of them throughout the night.  Sometimes they would be really far apart and I could sleep in between then and sometimes they were as close as six minutes.  
• DUE DATE: Sunday, November 28th:  Woke up and the same thing was happening as on Saturday.  Severe pain, not consistent and not too close together.  So we showered and decided to walk around walmart (it was TOO cold outside to walk outside or we would have, haha).  We walked and walked and walked, and I am sure looked like creepers because we walked the same path over and over and over.  I was determined to make this labor become consistent.  We probably walked for an hour, minus the time that I had to stand in a side isle and breath through contractions.  After that we came home and just watched football and laid around and let things continue to happen.  Again on this day hubby was ready to pack me up and take me to the hospital to get things checked out.  I was still not having it.... my worst nightmare would have been to go to the hospital and them send me home.  I just think that would have been so depressing!  So, I just continued to breath through them here and take a LOT of baths.  I think I was averaging 5 a day at this point!  So that night they again got to be consistent, but still only 6-9 minutes apart.  So we did the same thing as the night before, just went to bed waiting for something dramatic to happen.  (By this point I was exhausted, tired, over it, done, haha)
• One day past my due date: Monday, November 29th: Hubby got up to go to work.  I was home this day alone.  My sister wanted to come over but all I wanted was for my husband to be home and for us to sit here and I guess continue to contract.  That morning they were coming about every 7 minutes apart.  Still VERY painful!!!  This pattern continued all day and all I could think about was how I needed my husband home.  I know his thinking at this point was that I was very going to let him take me to the hospital, haha.  I was in and out of the bathtub (6 times this day, haha) up and down off the couch, walking around the house, etc.  The pain was horrible but I still was not at a point that I felt like they could keep me at the hospital.  The same thing happened that night, we started timing them but this time they were coming every 6-8 minutes consistently.  I really am not sure what made me snap but we tried to go to bed and I finally just got up and said "ok I can not take this anymore, we need to go to the hospital now."  So we jumped up and got dressed and headed to the hospital.  Let me tell you the pain of contractions while you are sitting in a car is unbearable.  I don't know if it is the change of position or the pressure but it is awful!  At this point we still had not called our family (it was about 1130 when we got there) because we did not want to "alert the media" incase they sent me home.  So they got me in a room in "triage" and I got changed and the nurse came in and of course was asking me all of these questions.  She told me that I could stop at anytime to breath through the contractions but at this point it was taking all I had not to SCREAM through them. HAHA.  So we finally got ALL of the information filled out and she put me on the monitor.  I asked her if she could give me anything because this pain was horrible and she said she would "ask a doctor" which NEVER happened.  So in triage they watch you for an hour and they monitor your baby's heartbeat and your contractions but the tell tell sign is if you dilate.  When I got there I was a 2-1/2.  So we sat there and all I just kept telling my husband, I can not go home... they have got to keep me.  I can not go home with pain like this.  So I laid there and laid there and laid there and the pain was getting more and more and more and more intense.  So at about 12:40 she came in and I told her "You can not send me home, I can not go home with pain like this" and she said well I really do not think that I am going to have to but let's check you.  I WAS A FOUR!!!  So this meant that I was in labor and they were going to admit me.  Since I knew this, I asked again for some medicine and she gave me my options and told me that if I just waited until I got in a room that the epidural would not take that long.  So I told her ok, BOY OH BOY the wait for the epidural felt like HOURSSSSSS!  Anyways, Buddy got on the phone and called our parents to tell them that they were admitting me.  They got me moved and then had to wait on some "lab work" before they could get me an epidural.  By this point I was telling them "You need to hurry I really can not take this anymore and I can not do it." HAHA.  
• To make this long post not go on forever.... I will just say that our parents got there, I got the epidural, by 6:20 I was a 6 and by 8:00 I was a 10.  BUT then..... the baby's heart rate kept dropping.  They were flipping me side to side, which was an adventure in itself because I literally could not move from the epidural.  They were having to hoist me over from side to side to try to get pressure off the baby and help the heart rate.  We did this for over and hour.  The baby had descended so quickly and was trying so hard to come through the birth canal (which come to find out I have a VERY small pelvis and he was NOT fitting) and we found out that the cord was around the neck one time so everytime he moved or descended his heart rate dropped.  At about 9 or 9:05 the doctor and about 5 nurses were in there and they just said they had no option we had to go in for a C-section.  Now, let me tell you, once they say those words there is a parade of people that come in like an assembly line and get your prepped and taken back.  We "rolled" into the OR at 9:13 (I only know this because they said "checking in at 9:13) and our PRECIOUS BABY BOY was born at 9:27.  

So I know this post is extremely long but I labored for three days HAHA... so I guess it deserves to be long.  I will update more about the hospital etc later on, I have got to get some things done around this house!!!!