Chatterbox

James has been quite vocal for several weeks now, but he just started doing this loud yell-talking a few days ago.  It seems as though he has a lot to say.  And that little bull frog noise (or as my Pappa Parsons says, "He sounds just like a catfish!") he made right at the end - he's doing that all the time now.  Cutest little man, ever.

6 month stats

Weight: 14 lbs 15 oz (25th percentile)

Length: 25 in (10th percentile)

Head circum: 43cm (25th percentile)

Sleep:

- 10-11 hours overnight

- 3 naps per day, typically 1.5 hours each (though sometimes he wakes at 45 minutes)

Food:

- Loves to nurse when he first wakes for the day, but HATES it (refuses it, even with the supplemental nursing system) otherwise :( so we are down to nursing only twice a day, morning and evening

- 4 bottles per day, between 4-8oz per bottle (soy-based)

- Solids 3x/day: he's tried oats, prunes, pears, apples, peas, sweet potato & avocado 

Loves:

- being outside! When he's fussy, this is now the only sure way to calm him down.

- being read to

- singing songs and music of all kinds

- playing with toys in the pack'n'play, zebra chair, on a blanket sitting with the boppy, or on his play mat/gym

- looking in the mirror

- snuggling and being tickled

- noticing and studying (with his eyes, hands and mouth!) small details, like tags on toys and smaller decor in his nursery that he's never noticed before

- playing in his bathtub at bath time and small baby pool we got for our deck

Hates:

- lotion at bedtime

- naps at church

- having a dirty diaper (he is only now seeming to mind!)

My favorite things at 6 months:

- cloth diapers: the ONLY diapers that don't leak everywhere overnight! Also, they are so cute :)

- the BOB stroller: we are jogging regularly doing Couch to 5K, and I'm so glad we have this!  It's my secret weapon to getting back in shape.

- ice cube trays, our immersion blender and my small glass prep bowls (from Target - I think Anchor brand?): this is how we make and feed James his solids

- Moby wrap: James still loves to be worn facing in, and I use it several times a week while running errands (even on these recent 90 degree days and it's still comfortable for both of us!)

James' Baptism 6/16/13

Baptism is confusing to me.  I don't think scripture is 100% clear regarding the method (or even the meaning) of it, and I know it has caused lots of debate historically in the church.  Stuart was raised (and baptized) Methodist, while I was raised (and baptized) in the Baptist tradition, so we obviously come from different backgrounds regarding baptism.  Through prayer and reading, I have come to one conclusion about baptism:  believers are commanded to do it.  That's enough for me, even if I don't understand how or why to the full extent.

Under the guidance of our pastors, we chose to have James baptized as an infant, symbolizing our commitment of James under God's sovereignty and authority, trusting that He works His covenant out with His people through believing families.  We pray for James to one day know Christ, and meanwhile we can only choose to entrust him to The Lord no matter what.  (For those Baptists reading, this is similar to "baby dedication" in the Baptist tradition.)

Photo bomb 6/19/13 edition

Sweet mornings.

Mornings are usually pretty good around here (although sometimes they start at 5am, which makes me tired, but James and I are both morning folks, so it's not as bad as it could be).  But this morning, I woke at 6:40am and hadn't heard a peep from the tiny boy since I'd put him down at 7pm the night before (rather unusual, especially as of late).  I peeked in his room, and he was just snuggled up in his crib (alive and breathing, which is really all I care about). :)

I went ahead and got up and got his breakfast (oats, prunes & apples) ready, and made breakfast for myself (fruit & Greek yogurt) and even drank a whole 18oz glass of water (something I've been trying to do more of first thing in the morning).  I heard him chatting on the monitor about 7:10am, so we snuggled and nursed, and we each had our respective breakfasts, and then he still had an hour and a half until nap time!  He usually is awake for a max of 2 hours before his first nap, and usually the first hour *at least* is full of getting him up and going, making his food (solids or bottle, or both) and then nursing and feeding him.  Sometimes this all takes longer than an hour, so by the time he is finished eating and dressed and whatnot, it's almost nap time.

Not this morning!  So we went for our first MORNING jog since he's been on the outside!  And it was so nice.  And refreshing.  And good for my spirit.

Morning is by far my favorite time to exercise.  Maybe it's because I love mornings.  And getting outside and moving my body.  When I was pregnant (he was still on the inside, I mean), I always did a morning jog (or walk, in the later weeks).  Since having James on the outside, exercising has been pushed back to 10 or 11am, or even later in the day.  That makes it feel much less enjoyable and more like a chore to me.

I just wanted to remember this morning and how The Lord knew I needed a beautiful, refreshing morning, and He gave of it freely (His mercies are new, y'all...).

(Happy morning baby)

(He looks unhappy here, but he really loves riding in the stroller!)

My favorite boy

Just a reminder that this blog is mostly for us to have to look back and remember all the lovely details from this whirlwind season of our life.  So, warning: this is a gushy post.  But I don't ever want to forget.

I like Stuart so much.  I mean, he's real great.  In every way.  And not a day has passed since knowing him that I haven't been completely humbled that he would even consider liking me back.  And then I had his baby.  I was so afraid that we would lose sight of each other in the midst of the up-all-nights and breastfeeding nightmares and his 16-hour-days-6-or-7-days-a-week work schedule.  We know folks who loved each other, then had kids and lost sight of their callings in marriage.  We didn't want that.  We would be intentional.  We said we would fight for us - to always be the other's first priority (after Christ).  We were ready to do battle to not only maintain, but to strengthen our marriage.

And you know what?  Christ pours grace out to overflowing.  Having a newborn was so much incredibly harder than we expected, partially related to baby's health, and partially due to my high (unrealistic) expectations of myself as a mama.  More than one well-meaning friend asked me if maybe I had postpartum depression, though I kept testing negative at every single visit to the lactation consultant or midwife.  It was just hard.  It is just hard.  And there were few brain cells left to devote to sitting and being intentional and talking thoughtfully with my husband about how our marriage was going for the first three months after James.  But, it turns out we didn't need to.

Every time newborn James would wake, Stuart would be right there beside me figuring out how to get the latch right (or feeding the baby with a syringe and tiny feeding tube while I pumped).  After he went back to work, Stuart never came home and complained about his incredibly long, hard day, but he would listen to me while I did, and held me while I cried over not having a clue how to care for babe.  And he would continue to stay up with us overnight, trying to figure it out.  He's a total rockstar, y'all.  We have this incredible adventure we are on (see James' NICU story below for example), and we aren't each doing it separately and alone.  Can't do it alone.  He is my partner, and because we believe very much in that calling to one another, we aren't at risk for losing "us." Because we don't define and sustain "us."  Christ carries us through and He knits us together.

After having Stuart's son, I like him so much more.  So much more.  Maybe it's because I think James has Stuart's smile, so I'm falling in love with that all over again.  Or maybe it's because Stuart is an incredible dad who adores his family and would rather be spending time with us more than any other thing.  Or maybe it's because Christ has given the two of us a sure foundation in Him, and nothing can touch that.  And He has given us this journey to travel together, figuring out how to raise a tiny human, and because of how God has formed our partnership, we know we'll never be doing it alone.

James' NICU Story

James landed a ticket to the NICU about 5 minutes after birth when the pediatric nurse noticed he was grunting a little with each breath (a sign of distress in newborns) - turns out he had "transient tachypnea of the newborn," where the baby essentially has trouble transitioning from a fluid-filled environment to an air-filled one, resulting in too much fluid staying in the lungs.  The baby naturally tries to "breathe off" that extra fluid by increasing their respiratory rate.  However, that can land you in a dangerous situation, because tiny babies don't have a lot of reserve and can wear themselves out rather quickly doing this.  So, he ended up on continuous monitoring while his little lungs struggled to make that fluid-to-air transition. 

At first, the NICU team wouldn't let us try breast feeding, since eating is like a workout for newborns, and breathing has medical priority over nutrition.  Of course I understood this, but it made me so sad, especially when they had to start an IV with dextrose about hour 4 of life to keep his blood sugar from dropping too low (since they were afraid for him to try eating and then go downhill respiratory-wise).

Sometime Wednesday night (the day he was born), I was holding James in the NICU and he was very fussy (also bad for a baby with respiratory issues - crying takes a lot of energy and can deplete oxygen reserves in baby's blood, increasing his respiratory distress since he wasn't breathing very efficiently already).  He was also showing LOTS of hunger signs (rooting, sucking on hands, etc.) so the nurse and I decided to try putting him to the breast just for some soothe-sucking, and guess what!  His respirations and oxygen levels looked BETTER on the monitor, not worse!  Of course my milk was not in yet, but over the next day or so, he was able to breast feed as it started to come in and his blood sugar leveled out and they stopped the IV fluids.

Having that extra hydration the first day had given him tons of wet diapers in the first 24 hours (usually they only have 1 or 2).  When they stopped the IV fluids, he didn't have a wet diaper for 12 hours and then they started freaking out about him getting dehydrated (this was on Friday night/Saturday morning) - also he had a few other factors that set him up for risk of dehydration, like breathing too rapidly over a few days, as you lose fluid by evaporation from your mucus membranes through breathing, and this can happen pretty quickly in little babies.

Meanwhile, his respiratory issues were continuing to resolve (which is what you expect with transient tachypnea - it just resolves), but they were concerned about hydration now (Stu & I think it was significantly related to a rebound from being on IV fluids).  Anyways, so the NICU team started running a bunch of labs every couple hours to watch his hydration status & I was breast feeding like crazy to try and re-hydrate (praise God he didn't have to go back on the IV, bc I think it would have just perpetuated this cycle).

Saturday morning during rounds, the docs noted that his sodium levels were a little high (an objective measure of hydration) and they would just recheck it that night and see how he was the next morning.  Thankfully, Stuart was there and told them that we were ready to go home and didn't want to wait another 24 hours to see how this would play out.  So they agreed to check the lab again a little sooner that afternoon, and started to get everything else checked off for discharge (hearing test, Hep B vaccine, setting up the first pediatrician appt, etc.).  They told us since he was doing so well that IF the sodium level came back looking better that afternoon, and since we were in healthcare and knew exactly what kinds of things for watch for in terms of hydration and respiratory risks/changes, and since we had our first pediatrician appointment on Monday (very soon after discharge), then we could take him home Saturday.  So we prayed all day for the sodium level to come back normal, and were assured that everything else was taken care of for discharge.  The first lab they sent ended up not being enough blood to get an accurate level, so 2 hours later they stuck him again and sent a second sample.  The result from that sample actually looked WORSE than it had on his morning labs!  But the docs said this didn't make sense because he was very much improving in all the other signs/symptoms of hydration, so they didn't trust that lab result.  So, they sent a THIRD sample and we waited for it to come back.  By the time we got that result, it was 9pm on Saturday, but it came back improved and they said we could go home WOO!

We got everything packed up, and at 9:45pm I was feeding him one last time before our car ride home, and they nurse says "Oh, we have to do the car seat test... it's 90 minutes long."  And we just lost it.  The car seat test is where the baby has to sit in the car seat for 90 minutes to prove they won't die or something, and in NC any premature baby or any baby that is in the NICU for a respiratory problem has to do this test.  However, the attending physician earlier in the day said that James did NOT have to do this test since his respiratory issue had resolved, and he wasn't a premie.  But, all the nurse knew to do was protocol (which I completely understand) because that doctor had not documented anywhere that James didn't have to do the test.  So, I sat in the floor of the NICU sobbing, with James screaming in his car seat for about 30 minutes, while Stuart went out looking for the doctors on call that night in the NICU.

After about half an hour, Stuart came back and said that we could go - the night doctor had talked to the day doctor and clarified that James did NOT have to do the test (although he had done 30 minutes already - twice the time it takes us to get home) and that we were leaving.  The nurse confirmed all of this, and made sure it was documented in our discharge summary this time :)

James was already in his car seat, so I didn't even take him out to put on his going-home outfit, and just carried his car seat out in my hand since I had already been discharged.  We finally went down and got in the car about 10:30pm and got home around 11:00pm.

So, that's our fairy-tale story of how we brought our first baby home from the hospital.  No going-home outfit, no riding out in a wheelchair carrying my baby.  Just running as fast as we could to escape!  It was SO good to be home.  And the next morning was just bliss - sitting by our Christmas tree drinking hazelnut coffee and listening to Christmas music with our perfect, hydrated, breathing baby :)  That's the story of James' first four days of life, and as much as parts of it sucked, I know I wouldn't change a thing about our first adventure with our sweet new babe.

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