Adam's First Month

This past month has been busy and a little crazy, but for the most part, it has been a smooth transition. We should install a revolving door for all the company we have had coming and going.

My parents were here from about 2 hours after he was born on Sunday until the following Saturday. They were an amazing help. I didn't have to do anything except take care of Adam and Megan. Megan thinks he is the greatest thing, but she did have a rough time at first with all the extra people in the house.


Todd and Hilary came to visit Saturday morning and then Chad's aunt and uncle stopped in for a few hours. Sherry came the following Tuesday and left Thursday. She helped with Megan and did some projects for me. She left on Thursday after getting the call that Hilary was going to be induced.

Tyler Nathan was born early Friday morning and was 5 lbs. and .5 ounces. All was healthy, he was just small (he was about 4 weeks early). On July 10, we drove to Ohio to meet Tyler and introduce Adam to his great-grandparents.

Adam looks giant compared to Tyler. Adam was about 8 lbs in these pictures. He gained a pound by his 2 week checkup (they just want them to get back to birth weight by 2 weeks).

I love this picture of the four of us. You can imagine how upset I was when I turned on my camera last week and got a card error and couldn't retrieve them. I called Kodak (and got redirected 3 times) but finally they gave me an "image restore" program to try and I got about 1 out of 3 pictures saved. After many hours of frustration, I finally got some of them working.

Megan stayed at Grandma's after we left. I missed her, but it was nice to sleep in for once. Well, sleep in if you count that I fed Adam at like 5:30...

This is Adam before his Daddy's softball game.

On July 15, Suzy, Ariana, Jonathan and Grandpa Warner came out for a visit. It was nice to see them.

We took them out to Parker Dam on Thursday. We went swimming and then for a hike to the bottom of the dam.

Adam had his one month checkup yesterday and weighed in at 9 lbs. 6 oz. He is definitely growing.

This is just a brief overview of our last month. It has been very busy, but good. I was very nervous about the transition, but overall it has been very smooth. Megan loves Adam and has never acted mean or jealous toward him. She has struggled with her pottying a bit. She was doing great for 2-3 months, then relapsed back to having multiple accidents for a month or so. After Adam was born, she started doing well again, but this week she started having accidents again. It has been ridiculously frustrating, because I know, without a doubt that she can do it, but for some reason chooses not to...This week I just let her go back to diapers b/c I got tired of the extra messes and laundry and I was out of ideas to motivate her...I'm open to suggestions...I thought we were done with this, but I can tell it is an attention thing. This is our first normal week in a while without extra visitors and Adam has been needing more attention.

First couple weeks

Here are some pics of Adam during her first couple weeks. I started this post on July 8 and didn't finish it until July 23...that should say something about my month...

6/25/09

6/25/09

6/29/09

7/1/09

7/7/09

Details

On Sunday morning, I woke up at 6:30 and felt like something wasn't quite right. After getting up to use the restroom, I realized my water had broken. I came in and woke up Chad, who responded to the news with something like, "but we have 3 weeks still."

We called our friends Phil and Tracy to come over to watch Megan. They took Megan and got her ready for church and we went to the hospital. Now, any given Sunday, we usually have some kind of responsibility at church. This particular Sunday, Chad had a solo in the Men's Choir, was one of two people in a skit and his quartet was supposed to sing. Once I was checked in and they verified that my water really had broken, I convinced Chad to go ahead and go to church. I wasn't having any contractions at this point and I wasn't dialated yet. With Megan, it took hours to get things started, so I figured he wasn't likely to miss anything. My friend Tracy came over to walk the halls with me. I wasn't in any pain or having regular contractions, so we had a good time.

Chad got back to the hospital at about 11:30 (he stopped by his work to get things arranged so he didn't have to go later) and we walked together. At this point my contractions started to become regular and more intense. At 12:30, I decided it was time for the epidural. I think I finally had it around 1 or so and then I spent the next hour relaxing. The epidural slowed down my contractions, so the nurse decided to use a little pitocin to get things progressing again.

I think around 3:30 or 4 I started to feel uncomfortable again and the nurse started to get things ready for delivery. Adam arrived at 4:56. The nurse said I pushed for 11 minutes, but I think she counted the time the doctor was actually there. Not that I pushed before that, but I think if the doctor had been there earlier, I was ready.





All said and done, this delivery went much smoother than Megan's. With Megan, I got to the hospital at 8:00 pm, this time, it was 8:00 am. A full nights sleep before was wonderful. I was in labor 16 hours with Megan and pushed for 2+ hours, with Adam, it was 9 hours. I still managed to throw up before, during and after delivery just like with Megan. I'm not sure if it was the medicine or just the intensity of labor, but it's a lovely side effect.



Megan came up to the hospital at around 7:15 with my parents. She was very excited to see Adam. She has responded better than I thought to having a new brother. Not that I expected horrible things, but I expected some jealousy. She was actually very protective of him in the hospital and would ask people to give Adam back to me. Her behavior has been better since he has arrived.



We decided to go home after the first night. We had to stay at the hospital 24 hours after he was born and had the option to stay a second night, but I wanted to get home. I felt restless at the hospital and I wanted to get Megan into her normal routine. My parents were staying for the week, so I knew that I wouldn't have to do anything other than take care of Adam and love on Megan, otherwise, I might have stayed the extra night. I'm glad I went home when I did, I felt much more comfortable at home.