Thanksgiving weekend

So far, it's been a great Thanksgiving break. Technically, this is our second Thanksgiving with Barrett but it feels like our first because he was only 4 days old for Thanksgiving last year and we were still in the hospital. It was nice spending the day, just us 3, at home, on our "first" Thanksgiving, just being thankful for eachother! Thursday night, we went to Ty's grandfather's house in Beech Bluff for dinner. Everything went well. Ty's parents ended up keeping Barrett that night and half of the day Friday. Thursday night, after Ty and I got home, we put up the Christmas tree and decorations. It took me about 5 hours to get everything done so I didn't get in bed until about 2 am Thursday night (Friday morning).

Our Tree:

I picked up Barrett around 1:30 pm Friday afternoon. I was so excited to show him the Christmas tree and decorations! However, he's not cared a single bit about any of it! I guess that's a good thing, since he probably won't be pulling off ornaments, etc. Since I picked him up, he's cried pretty much non-stop. He doesn't want to eat. He doesn't want to sleep. He doesn't want to play. He doesn't want to do nothing, though. He whines constantly. I knew something was wrong because he's normally so happy and content with everything. I've put off taking him to the doctor though because a) I haven't had time and b) I was hoping it would go away on it's on. Friday, I spent the day taking care of Barrett. When you have a sick child, it pretty much consumes ALL of your time. He wants to be held 24/7 and when he feels bad, I always give in and hold him. He'll only be this little once and I'm going to take advantage of it when I can.

When I wasn't caring for B, I was catching up on my to-do list. I finally ordered our Christmas cards, which I've been trying to do for a few weeks now. I cleaned the house a little bit. I went through some cabinets that desperately needed organized. I put a bunch of stuff out that needs to be sold next time we have a Garage Sale. That's on the list for tomorrow: actually putting the garage-sale stuff in the attic! Barrett really put up a fight, going to bed, Friday night. He would fall asleep in our arms but wake up as soon as we laid him down in his crib. He did this 5 times before we had no choice but to let him cry it out for a bit. It was 1 am Friday night (Saturday morning) and there just wasn't another option. I refuse to fall back into the pattern of letting him sleep with us. I made the mistake of doing it when he was around 6 months old and it was an extremely hard pattern to break. He cried for about 20 minutes and finally fell asleep. He slept until 11 am this morning though :/.

I've spent today cooking for my mom's Thanksgiving dinner that we had tonight. I made macaroni & cheese and cinnamon chips & fruit salsa. Both were delicious! We had so much food tonight and it was all wonderful! We finally took B to Convenient Care, after dinner and it turns out, his right ear is infected. But, the doctor said we caught it early so his antibiotic should help it not get much worse. We started Ceftin tonight and he's got to take it twice a day for 10 days. I also gave him some Infant Advil tonight to help the pain and honestly, I think that's why he fell asleep much easier tonight. I've always heard it hurts a baby to lie down, when he/she has an ear infection. I hate it because there's nothing you can really do to help him. Even holding and rocking him, he still cries from the pain. He just doesn't know what he wants. I'm hoping he starts feeling better within a couple of days.

He starts his new class at daycare on Monday, which I'm a little nervous about. He'll have 3 new teachers and will be with other infants/toddlers around 1 year to 2 years old. One of his new teachers was actually his teacher when he was about 6 months old and we really liked her so that's a little bit of relief. I know he'll eventually get used to the change but he got so close to his old teachers and I'm sure we'll have a little difficulty getting used to the new ones. He has his 1 year checkup and shots on Tuesday afternoon. He'll also have some urine test done to check for diabetes, I believe. They tried to do it when he was 9 months old but he wouldn't urinate while we were there. Instead of making us sit around and wait, Dr. Woods said we could just do it at his 12 month visit. Barrett's gotten so tall and thin! I can't believe it! He was just so stocky when he was born, I never imagined him being tall and skinny at a year old! I'm relieved though. When they announced after my C-Section that he was almost 11 pounds, I was scared that he had a lifetime of obesity ahead of him. That's definitely not the case though!

On another note, I'm so looking forward to Christmas! I just love this time of year. It's busy yet peaceful for me. I'm also excited that my best friend is nearing her due date to have her little boy. I can't wait to meet him! OK, I've said everything I have to say. I might just get in bed by 2 am tonight! What an accomplishment! LOL. Good night everyone! I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was fabulous!

Do I really have a one year old?!

WARNING: This is a long post.
DOUBLE WARNING: Talk of my C-Section is in this entry.

I just can't believe it ... I have a one year old son?! It's starting to slowly sink in but it's just so weird. On November 21st, 2010, at 9:17 a.m., I was given the most amazing 10 pound 14 ounce, 21 inches long blessing I could ever dream of ... my son. I remember the whole thing and this is the story.

We started trying to get pregnant in June 2009. We did everything to a T for 8 months, using all the tests available to try and get pregnant with no results. I finally had Laparoscopy in February 2010 because I had had some lower abdominal pain. They found nothing wrong with my reproductive system but did find 2 Indirect Inguinal Hernias, which were repaired during the same procedure. I was instructed to NOT get pregnant for at least 3 months so that my body would have time to heal. Well, to our surprise, I found out on March 15, 2o10, that I was pregnant. I had been nauseous for a couple of days and decided to test that morning, thinking that it was impossible. I remember staring at that pregnancy test, seeing a line but not seeing a line, at the same time. I went out and bought a few more tests which showed a little better line. I immediately called Ty at work and told him the news. Yeah, I would have loved to have some dramatic story of how I told him but I was just too excited!

After talking to Ty, I called my doctor and made an appointment for the following day. I also called a few close family members and friend because I was too excited to not tell anyone! I went for my appointment the next day and was shocked when I was told, "you must have had an early miscarriage because your pregnancy test is negative". I remember tears coming to my eyes. Luckily, I had brought my 8 (yes, EIGHT) positive home tests with me. That gave Dr. Hammond enough reason to do a blood test. I had to wait 2 extremely anxious days to find out the results. I finally got the phone call! The nurse said I was pregnant but that my HCG (a pregnancy hormone) level was extremely low, coming in at 26. In pregnancy, HCG can get as high as 100,000-200,000, to give you a comparison. Most home pregnancy tests detect anything above 25. The nurse said that their office tests probably detect above 100. So, they had me come back in that afternoon to do another test. In early pregnancy, your HCG should double every 2 or 3 days so we were looking for that result to determine if my pregnancy was viable. I had to wait until the following Monday to get the results. All of this waiting was horrendous! I took a million home tests in that time and I was so glad when the lines started getting darker. I got the phone call Monday saying my HCG was at 75 so that meant everything was looking good!

I was scheduled for an ultrasound for some other problems I was having, when I should have been 9 weeks 2 days pregnant. Once again, I had another scare when the embryo only measured 6 weeks 0 days. The baby did at least have a heartbeat of 118 beats per minutes though. The doctor told me to be "cautiously optimistic". In other words, it doesn't look good but don't completely lose hope. I went for a follow up ultrasound a week later and the baby was measuring a week ahead, so things started looking up :). I got my gender/anatomy ultrasound at 18 weeks 2 days and everything looked great! We found out "it" was a boy and decided on the name, Barrett Asa Jones. We just liked the name Barrett and Asa was my mother's mother's father's middle name. I made a list of 20 names for his first name and Barrett was the only one Ty would agree with ;). I thought a lot of my great-grandfather. He was like a second father to me when I was a child.

Anyways, I started measuring ahead around 28 weeks. I took my 1 hour glucose test at that time and passed with flying colors. At 28 weeks, I measured 32 weeks by ultrasound and fundal height. I continued to measure 3-5 weeks ahead until I gave birth. I remember at my 37 week ultrasound, Barrett measured almost 41 weeks, ha ha. Besides measuring large I didn't really have any other complications while I was pregnant. Around 35 weeks, I did start swelling really bad and got slightly high blood pressure. However, I wasn't diagnosed with Preeclampsia before birth because all of my lab work came back fine. At around 38 weeks, my blood pressure got pretty bad so I was scheduled a C Section for November 22, 2010. They also were expecting him to be large so it wouldn't hurt to go ahead and plan on the C Section.

Around 11 pm, November 20, 2010, I started having contractions but wasn't sure that's what was going on. They hurt but they weren't horrible nor were they less than 10 minutes apart. I told Ty that I felt weird but he convinced me to try and rest it off since I was scheduled for a C Section in about 36 hours. He of course, went to bed. I of course, did not LOL. I stayed up all night, sitting on the couch, pacing the floor, changing positions...pretty much trying anything that might help the pain go away. The contractions got more frequent, coming at least every 4 minutes but weren't intolerable yet. Around 3 am, they were at the point where I couldn't speak during them anymore. I finally woke Ty up around 6 am and told him we had to go to the hospital. I was only dilated half a centimeter and 50% effaced when we got there at 7 am. Thank goodness things moved along really fast. Dr. Ball was on call and did my C Section. I was cut open at 9:08 am and Barrett was born at 9:17 am. Very fast, to say the least! I'm just grateful he didn't make me wait all day to get it done.

We got there, I was checked in quick, I changed clothes and it all went extremely fast after that. I remember having to drink the acid reducing medicine then waiting about an hour. During that time, Ty called family and friends to let them know to come to the hospital. I wasn't sure I was going to stay at the hospital when we went so we called no one. I hated to wake everyone up at 7 am on a Sunday morning for nothing. That hour was probably the most stressful. You just have what seems like a ton of time to start worrying about the "what ifs". After that hour passed, I went back and got my spinal. I hated not being able to have Ty with me at that time. I was scared, to say the least. I had wonderful nurses in there with me though and I'm so thankful for them. I laid down, started getting numb within minutes, and I finally saw Ty come in. Me and Ty were speechless. I think he was just as nervous as I was. When I finally heard Barrett cry, I was so relieved. After he was born, Ty went to see him and I felt so alone. The nurse was there beside me but it's nice to be with someone you actually know, especially in such a nerve-wracking time.

Finally, Ty brought B to see me and I was instantly in love. I was able to quickly touch him and give him a kiss and he was taken away. It was around 9:45 am and they had me sewed up and took me to my room to recover, which is when I was started on my morphine pump. I was so eager to see my baby but I was told that he was breathing a little fast, so they needed to keep him in the nursery a little longer. They continued to tell me the same story every hour, for three hours. I was really worried something was wrong with him. Finally, they brought him in and said he was still breathing fast but they would go ahead and let me have him. He was just perfect! Such a stocky cute baby boy.

I was actually looking at our pictures from that time, recently, and saw a picture of him right after he was born. They had a tube down his throat with brown stuff in it. I asked his pediatrician about it and come to find out, he had swallowed meconium (practically poop) before he was born. I was never told that. I'm kind of glad to know that now though because a side effect of swallowing meconium is rapid breathing. Some serious issues can come about from swallowing meconium but thankfully, my little man hasn't suffered any other problems.

I was released from the hospital 3 days after he was born, with slightly high blood pressure. The night after returning home, I felt very light-headed, nauseous, and just not "right". I checked my blood pressure and it was 180/120. I returned to the hospital and they admitted me for another 3 days. The first 36 hours were spent on Magnesium which was not fun at all. It makes you feel like you have the flu times 10. I was finally released after 3 days, with still slightly high blood pressure, around 140/90. I was put on medication which helped within a week.

I got severe Postpartum Depression around 3 weeks postpartum. Thankfully, my parents, Ty's parents, and my sister were able to swap up keeping Barrett for quite a few nights just to let me get situated. I tried a couple of different antidepressants before getting on the right one and finally got better after about 2 months postpartum.

As many obstacles as I had after the birth of Barrett, I am so extremely thankful for him. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be having any more children because of the reasons stated above but I'm so glad I have Barrett. He's been a good baby from day 1. He's always ate well, slept good, and just been truly happy. Right now, he's crawling, pulling up, walking with his Dinosaur walker, and trying to stand on his own. He's still on formula and baby food, eating a few solids and some table food. He really likes potatoes as far as table food goes. He sleeps around 11 hours a night. He really loves his momma and daddy lately. He's as sweet and loving as he's ever been. I was told by his daycare teacher today, that he hugs and kisses the babies when they cry at daycare. That makes me so proud! He's moving to the next class at daycare on Monday, which I'm kind of bittersweet about. His class now has a lot of newborns in it so I feel like with him being a year old and almost walking, he may not be getting the attention/teaching like he needs. Not to mention, there's only about 2 other babies his age in there. Newborns just take a lot more time feeding, diapering, and comforting than a one year old does. So, that's the good thing about him moving up. However, he has 3 teachers right now that I absolutely LOVE. I can tell they adore Barrett and I know that he loves them. I haven't met his new teacher but I hope to before Monday. I'm hoping she will be just as good as his current ones but I don't know how they can be out-done;). His next class will be something like, 1 to 2 year olds. They don't really do classes solely based on age. They base it more on development but still like to put age into consideration.

I'm so sorry for the extremely long post! I should have updated sometime between Halloween and now but oh well! It's been an extremely busy time for me. Between hostessing my best friend's baby shower, organizing Barrett's 1st Birthday Party, and other family members and friends birthdays and events, I just haven't had the time to do anything else. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and rest of the week!