The First Few Weeks...

Whew! Who forgot how exhausting it is having a newborn to take care of? This girl! But of course it's all worth it to get to look at this sweet face all the time:

And I know one day in the not-too-distant future, that adorable baby face will look like this sweet big boy:

Famous last words from Scotty the night before we went in to have Drew: "I'm not worried at all about having two kids. It won't be that different from one." Wrong. I knew there would be adjustments and things would be rough for a while until we all got used to this new little man who relies totally on us/me to care for him at this point. However, it has been exhausting having little to no break. Even though we had my mom, sister, and Scotty's mom here (at different times) for about the first two weeks, it felt like things never really slowed down. If I wasn't feeding Drew, he was being changed, put to sleep, I was trying to nap, David Scott couldn't be set aside, of course, so there was still keeping him entertained (even though he was at school during the day), there was also keeping big brother out of little brother's face, and not to mention the laundry, cooking, etc, that I really didn't have to participate in until after the cavalry left.

This go-round, I do feel more confident in my child-rearing abilities, so I'm more relaxed about things -- specifically, breastfeeding -- which has made my time at home (so far) more pleasant than it was with DS. With our firstborn, I was ready to go back to work after about 3 weeks. I think it must have been his 3-week growth spurt, but December 9th, 2009 was the worst day ever. DS just cried all day long when he wasn't constantly eating, he didn't nap...it was just awful and I remember thinking, "I will NEVER be a stay-at-home mom. I can't handle this. It's just too much. I wonder if I can go back to work sooner than 5 more weeks?!?" The next day was much better and those overwhelming feelings of frustration were gone as was the constant trade-off of feeding and crying by my newborn. Well Baby Drew and I had a similar day on January 28th. It was just rough. And it rivaled December 9th, 2009. But this time I was (semi) ready for The Day. And I didn't cry. And I didn't ask myself if it would be frowned upon for me to go back to work the next day. I know that I will never get these early days (or any day for that matter) back. The good days far outweigh the bad ones. And I'm a-ok with that. I still don't think I am cut out to be a SAHM, as I enjoy my (paying) job outside the home and it helps me to be a better mom, maintain my sanity, etc. But I'm trying to cherish these times with both boys as I know they're fleeting.

David Scott has been as good as he can be with this huge change in his life. He loves "his" baby. And constantly wants to love on him, give him kisses, and just talk to him. Most of the time, it's really sweet and I don't want to discourage the early days of this lifetime bond of brotherhood. But our loving firstborn still doesn't understand that he can't lay on him, or rough-house around him. So we're working on it. And we parents are working on trying to be more understanding when meltdowns occur, and trying not to lose our cool. But we're also trying to be more attentive to DS as well. The first three weeks or so were much more rough than the last few have been, on all fronts, fortunately.

So to recap these first few weeks in one word: Exhausting. Mentally and physically exhausting. But we wouldn't trade these boys and this time, exhausting as it may be, for anything in the world. Well, I might be willing to make some kind of trade for a full night's sleep -- but it would have to be a trade-off for my cooking or baking, rather than the kiddos. Probably. :)

More Pics from Drew's Big Day...

Here are a few more pics from Drew's Birth Day...

All smiles for Mama and Daddy...

Our first look at Baby Drew...he was huge!

Cutting the cord...

Sweet boy...fresh out of the oven...

Mamaw gets to hold Drew first...

Gran couldn't wait to get her hands on grandson #3...

Mimi (and Papa in background) were excited to meet Baby Drew...

Proud Daddy

Baby Drew

Drew's Birth Day

In an effort not to forget the events of Drew's arrival, I kept a log of key items throughout the big day...

5 am - Arrived at hospital, check-in, etc.

6:30 - In room. IV in arm. Pitocin started. There's a monsoon outside. Assuming DS is awake and Gran (and Papa) are all getting ready for drop-off for his first day of "preschool."

7:05 - Dr. G arrives. 3-4 cm dilated and breaks my water.

7:45 - Scotty self-proclaims himself to be the Nick Saban of birthing coaches.

8:40 - Got epidural. Mercifully.

9:25 - 6 cm dilated

9:41 - popcicle time. Scotty looks delicious today.

10:00 - 8 cm

10:05 - zofran to avoid nausea

10:23 - can't stop thinking about the night Drew was conceived.

10:24 - read previous entry to family; family just puked

10:35 - 10 cm!!! Will start pushing in a few minutes. Giving Baby Drew a little time to turn a bit more.

11:00 - start pushing.

11:58 - Baby Drew is here! All 8 pounds, 11 oz, and 20.5 inches of him! He looks a lot like David Scott but with bigger cheeks, and lots of blond hair! Goodbye baby weight, pelvic pain, and acid reflux!

1:15 pm - Baby Drew gets to eat lunch for the first time. He takes to it like a champ. I have a feeling this chunk will not miss any meals for a long time.

2:35 - First non-family visitor -- CJ came to visit!

4:05 - Second feeding.

4:08 - DS is here and meets Drew for the first time. Instant love.

4:14 - Resume second feeding

5:35 - Mimi and Mamaw leave heading back to Monroe. Lee wads back to Lafayette. And Gran and Papa take David Scott for a quick bite to eat and then home for the night.

5:45 - Scotty went to get our dinner from Little Village. While my spaghetti and the bread (of course) were good, they did not give us utensils or my salad and Scotty's steak was not even warm. #disappointing.

8:30 - Getting ready to feed Drew again. IV is hopefully ready to come out if my fever is gone. My temp has been running a smidge higher than normal since having our sweet boy. We are so in love with this little man. However, Mama and Daddy are exhausted and will be sending our sweet boy to the nursery after he eats so we can get some shut-eye. It feels like it's 2 am and I am barely able to keep my eyes open.

A quick addition: Efforts to sleep were futile. However, I finally got to lose the IV early in the morning on the 10th. Drew has been great these first 24-36 hours following his birth. We are so glad (most of) our family were able to come in and experience this time with us. David Scott seems to love his little brother although we fully expect there to be some adjustment period for our firstborn. Thanks to my birthing coach/husband/co-author of this post (fun game: figure out what he contributed to this blog post...) who I literally couldn't have done this without. We are so blessed to be the parents of these two boys. What an awesome responsibility we have. Looking forward to it...

2013: The Beginning...

Baby Drew will be here tomorrow! I'm scheduled to be induced on Wednesday assuming I don't get the flu that our firstborn has caught. Yes, despite getting a flu shot last month, David Scott tested positive for the flu yesterday. Fever started on Saturday with our poor boy saying he "just don't feel good" then he puked later that night. No more fever Sunday so we thought we were safe and then the fever returned that evening. Poor thing, he had watery eyes, had developed a weird cough, and went downhill fast. Thinking it was still just a cold, we put him in bed with me while Scotty slept on the couch. In retrospect, that may not have been the best decision, but whatever. Just after midnight, DS needed to "blow his nose," which, when checked was actually a nosebleed. Grand. Scotty dealt with the nosebleed while I dealt with the laundry, the less involved of the two tasks. And he still had fever.

Although his fever seemed to be gone overnight, since I had one last dr's appt on Monday, Scotty came back from work to keep DS so I could take care of baby business. I'd made a little progress, (a little over 3 cm and 85-99% effaced). The big news though was that my weight capped out at 26 pounds. Woohoo! I told Dr. G about DS being sick and she said I should still take him to dr and if he had flu, I should call her for Tamiflu. So away we went to the pediatrician. Our regular ped was out, so we saw another one in the practice. Although, the initial diagnosis was an ear infection causing the fever, as a precaution for me (again, two days away from having a baby!), they tested him. And yep, he had the flu. Luckily, it's a mild case and he seems to have peaked based on when we think exposure happened (at daycare on Friday since some of his classmates have the flu as well). So now Scotty and I have begun our Tamiflu preventive. And my maternity leave officially started two days early. And with a sick child. That I really can't take care of for a couple of reasons: 1) he is still contagious (the fever's returned, though it's only 101, and seemed to break overnight) and I've been advised by the ped to keep my contact at a minimum, if possible and 2) it hurts to walk too much as Baby Drew is on some nerve in my pelvis. So yes, it could be worse. I'm praying Scotty and I both avoid the flu as well as my caretaker for the next week or so (my mom, who has also started Tamiflu) and that DS has no more fever after tonight. He officially missed his first two days of preschool due to sickness.  And assuming he has no more fever, he'll get to go tomorrow, but we won't get to take him -- Mom and David (Gran and Papa) will. And if not, he'll stay at our house with Papa (David) who broke a bone in his ankle on Monday. We are just a hot mess over here. Prayers appreciated -- a quick recovery for DS/Papa too, no flu for the rest of us, an easy delivery for me, a healthy Baby Drew, and anything else thrown in for good measure. I'll post another update when I can as I plan on doing a play-by-play of Drew's birth day like I did with DS'. Wish us luck...

2012: Year in Review

We started off the year on a high note, Scotty made partner at his law firm and we'd just found out on Christmas Day, a week before, that we were expecting a sweet baby.  But our excitement was short-lived as I ended up having a miscarriage on January 3rd. We were sad, of course, but I know they are very common with many friends and family having gone through similar situations. And after having gone through it with Rachel almost exactly a year before and then watching her with Anders about 10 months later, I knew we'd be fine.

January is always a tough month for Scotty at work.  And at the end of the month, we went ahead and put our house back on the market thinking it would take a while to sell and knowing that we would eventually need the extra space, hoping it would be sooner rather than later. About 6 weeks later, we had an offer. Yay! It was around this same time that Scotty started having some health issues.

Ongoing headaches, anxiety, sleeplessness, and eventually, tingling extremities were his symptoms. At first we thought it was just the stress of how crazy our first two months of the year had been (I didn't even mention the shut-out LSU rec'd by 'Bama in the Nat'l Championship...it took a while for the sting of that loss to go away...he still doesn't like to talk about it). Throughout the ordeal, Scotty saw an internist, optometrist, ENT, ER doctor, and neurologist. The eventual diagnosis was high blood pressure (which at least one of the docs commented on initially). However, we found out also that he had some nerve damage from overdoing it at the gym as a result of trying to de-stress AND he had undiagnosed carpal tunnel in his wrists which was also exacerbated by certain exercises. So medication, wrist supports, and a change-up of gym routines seemed to help.  Thankfully, as we'd like to keep him around for a while.

In mid-April, we sold our house in Gonzales and moved into a cozy apartment in BR. We were undecided whether or not we wanted to build a house or buy something move-in ready. About a month later, we found out I was pregnant, and the decision to buy a house was made.  In hindsight, after now going through a renovation, I don't know that I'd ever want to build a house given all the decisions you have to make about everything, constant phone calls, running over to the house, etc. -- granted, Scotty took the brunt of the phone calls and impromptu trips to the house to meet with whomever needed to be met with.

Our summer was spent looking at houses, swimming in the pool at the apartment, looking at more houses, and coming to the realization that the 4 BR/3 BA newer house with a decent-sized yard in a good neighborhood was not available in our budget. So we expanded our horizons and found a house about 25-years old that desperately needed updating but had an awesome backyard, was in a great location, and had the 4 bedrooms we needed. You know what they say -- location, location, location!  The sellers finally accepted our 3rd offer.  Talk about frustrating; although our realtor was great and we got to become really good friends with her. We later found out why it took so long for the sellers to accept our offer...it's because there were 6 sellers -- 3 direct heirs and 3 descendants of the 4th heir. Eek. After we closed on the house (mid-September), we quickly got started with pulling down wallpaper, pulling up the carpet (white with stains, navy, and green-- gag), and finalizing our updates with the contractor. And although it took several weeks longer than we were told it would, they finally finished, and we are so happy with the results. We updated everything except the kitchen, which we anticipate taking place in a year or so.  Living through the final phase of renovations...yay...looking forward to that.

Throughout the year, we celebrated birthdays and anniversaries, had health scares with other family members, get togethers with friends and family, and went on a couple of trips to the beach. We worked hard so we could play hard. And we loved watching David Scott play hard and grow, turning from a toddler into a little boy. In the summertime, we concentrated on potty-training and after a few weeks, it was done -- really less than that as I'd kept him in pull-ups at night for a while just being cautious (and not wanting to change the sheets in the middle of the night).  He's learned so much over the course of this last year (colors, numbers, ABCs, words, songs, talking in complete sentences, and greatly improved on his swimming skills which turned out to be very helpful when he fell in the pool a few weeks ago).  He is even getting ready to be moved up to the pre-school class next week. Our sweet boy is also looking forward to meeting his little brother in the next week or so as are we.

2012 was an overall good year, but I am ready for what the New Year will bring. I know 2013 will be an adjustment for our family. But hopefully we won't have any medical mysteries or apartment life to contend with. And life with two little boys can begin...

Christmas 2012...

Christmas 2012 has come and gone but I wanted to document it as this year's celebrations were a first for us. We got to spend the holiday at home...as in our home that's finally refinished (for the time being, anyway). And we got to spend it with both sides of our family.

Since I was (and still am for that matter) so pregnant -- too pregnant to travel to North LA -- we were able to host each of our families here at home, although at separate times. The Anders/Randall/McGehees all made the trek down two weekends before Christmas...about a week and a half before the actual holiday. And we had Mamaw, Debbie, and Lee come down Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. I'm a big fan of tradition so I was sad that we weren't able to do our annual Christmas Eve trip to Sue Sue's followed by Christmas Eve night with the rest of the Wrights. However, it was really nice not to spend any time in the car burning rubber up and down I-20 and Hwy. 15. And it definitely made the holiday last longer since everything wasn't crammed into two or three days. We were able to start/continue some new and old traditions, though -- building a gingerbread house (new), making Christmas cookies with Mamaw and Mimi (continued), and Christmas Day pancake breakfast (continued). And for each celebration we did have some traditional holiday fare mixed with some new stuff...luckily, both sides of the family like to eat so there was no lack of food at all.  We are so grateful to our families for being flexible with their plans and being able to accomodate us/me.

Here are a few pics from each get together:

Cousins (in coordinating outfits)!

Making Christmas cookies

Christmas with a 3- year old was lots of fun. Anders was cute too (as always), but with him only being a year old, didn't really understand what was going on. Maybe he was slightly overwhelmed with everything, but DS was very particular in opening his presents and inspected each one carefully which I thought was so sweet. He loved his train table but has spent hours and hours working and re-working the puzzles Santa brought. I suppose Santa could've spent a lot less money had he just brought this kid a ton of puzzles. Speaking of Santa, DS was really into Santa this year and also Clarke, our elf. Clarke even stayed in DS' room a few nights to make sure he slept in his bed all night (he did).

Santa came!

And look at my trains!!!

And in between the family get togethers, we had David Scott's Christmas party at daycare:

As for me, as I type this post, I am almost 38 weeks, so Baby Drew is now considered to be full-term in case he makes an earlier-than-planned debut. I can't wait to meet this big boy with his head full of hair. As of my 35-week visit, this guy was weighing approx 6#, 10 oz so we'll see how big he really is whenever he arrives. I've felt for a couple of months that he was big. And I've also been having acid reflux really bad at night. So as confirmed by the sonographer, he has lots of hair -- which better turn out to be true since Tums is my new bff. And now, we're just waiting...

Need More Time...

Between trying to finish getting the house set up, baby room ready, Christmas shopping done, working full-time, general life stuff, I have almost reached my limit. I've come to the conclusion many times, especially recently, that there just isn't enough time for me to get to everything that needs my attention and unfortunately for all three of you who read my blog, it has been the casualty of this prioritization. Oh well. The important/big stuff that's happened recently is...
- We spent Thanksgiving in North LA. Really it was a glorified long weekend since we didn't get up there til noon on Thursday and we left Saturday morning. That was our last trip up before the arrival of Baby Drew.
- We are having a couple of Christmas get-togethers with our families this weekend and on Christmas. My family is here for this weekend; Scotty's is coming for Christmas Eve. It will be so nice to spend a major holiday in our home although I know we will all miss the traditions we've had for our whole lives. Some of them, though, will be continued this year -- the Christmas Day pancake breakfast that has been enjoyed by Scotty's family for decades for one. And if I can come up with some kind of tradition our own little family can have, perhaps we'll incorporate that as well. While this may be our first Christmas at our home, it probably won't be our last and when our kids are older, I want them to remember the different traditions we have and get all warm and fuzzy inside too.
- Since so much of our stuff that was in storage got ruined -- just by being in storage at the apartment, I've had to buy so much new baby stuff -- travel system and carseat, bouncy seat/swing, exersaucer (I'll have to get one), and who knows what else I have yet to discover is ruined or missing. I'm still so p-o'd (as my dad would have said) at all the issues living in that apartment caused. However, the one thing I am so glad we got to experience while living there was the frequent swimming. DS learned so much just from us playing with him in the water and teaching him how to move his arms and kick his feet. And that knowledge came in handy this past weekend when our sweet boy fell into the pool at our house. He wasn't paying attention to what was going on and ran into a table which threw him off balance and into the pool. And amazingly, he did not sink to the bottom and in my opinion did a pretty good job of keeping his head above water while kicking his feet and moving his arms. Of course, Scotty was a split second behind him in going into the pool after his boy. We remained calm, but David Scott was cold and "soaking wet" and was upset that he'd gotten the sticker on his shirt wet. The only casualty of the day was Scotty's phone (Thank you, Lord!), so that wasn't a big deal.

"Batman" watching Batman (above) and the official Santa pic for 2012 (below).