Two Months

I can't believe our baby is two months old today!! Time has flown by and we have had so much fun with Sam. Here are some highlights from Sam's second month:

-He loves his floor play gym. He will lay there entertained for about 30 minutes at a time.

-We took our first trip to Abilene and Sam had a great time!

-We are working on tummy time and holding our head up.
-Sam started smiling at us. We work hard for those smiles but they are totally worth it!

-He has stopped eating every 2 hours (thankfully!). Now it's every 3 to 4.
-He weighs 11 lbs 5 oz and is 22 1/2 inches long.
-He still fights sleep like crazy, especially his naps.
-We have started letting him "cry it out" at night. He only cries for 30 minutes at the most and then is out. This is working really well. We make sure to pat and talk to him every few minutes so he knows we are close by.
-He loves looking at himself in the mirror.
-He will usually sleep from about 9:30 to 2:00, and then wake up again at 7. He will go right back to sleep after his 2:00 feeding.
-Samuel still loves to be outdoors and will usually stop fussing the minute we walk outside.

We love our boy so much and can't wait to see how he grows and changes during his third month!

Just Some Random Thoughts

-It would be a lot easier to get a post done if my computer would move faster.
-I only have 2 precious weeks left as a stay-at-home mom.
-I cry pretty much every time I talk about not being with Samuel all day every day.
-I am looking forward to the new year at school but will miss my sweet boy like crazy.
-I hope he remembers I'm his mom.
-I hope I can continue to breastfeed for as long as I want to.
-I really want to lose this baby weight.
-This summer has been amazing and I have learned so much.
-I'm worried about Max...I think he is allergic to something and has been scratching like crazy.
-He has to start sleeping in his crate because he wakes Samuel up almost every night.
-I wish Matthew's family would hit oil so that we could both stay home!
-A cookie dough blizzard sounds fantastic right now.
-That's probably why I'm not losing the baby weight.
-I love my baby boy more with each day.
-I check on him probably ten times a night.
-I'm paranoid that something bad will happen!
-The holidays are coming and I can't wait!!
-I already started my Christmas lists for everyone.
-I wonder what Sam will be for Halloween.
-Matthew and I get to be Santa Claus this year!
-Can the weather please cool down a little so I can go on walks and go to softball games?????
-I am obsessed with doing laundry and cleaning right now.
-I hope I stay this way.
-Samuel has been smiling at us a lot lately.
-We love it.
-We were late for church this morning b/c he kept pooping and we kept changing him...he did it four times...five diapers wasted.
-We had a good laugh about it.
-Did Samuel get anything from me or will he be just like his daddy?
-Not that I don't like it, but he should have gotten SOMETHING from me!!
-I need to work in my classroom.
-I wonder what kids I will get this year.
-I hope I can handle getting up at 5:00 a.m. after being up a bit during the night.
-I'm sure I'll get used to the lack of sleep.
-I love my church and friends.
-It's annoying that we live so far from church though.
-I'm ready to start youth on Wednesday nights again.
-I hope Samuel is ready for our busy schedule!!
-I have to remember that there are lots of working moms out there and that I can do it.
-I'm stronger than I think.
-Matthew and I are going to a Ranger's game tomorrow night, just the two of us.
-I hope I don't melt.
-I wonder when we'll have another baby.
-Will he/she have red hair?
-I kind of want to get red highlights so I fit in.
-Baby is waking up so I have to go!!

One Month

This post is only 5 days late so I think I'm doing pretty well!! Samuel turned one month old on Monday, July 18th. It's crazy to me that he has been here for a month already!! We have learned so much during this last month!! Here are some strengths and struggles that we are going through right now:

Strengths:
Samuel sleeps through the night pretty well.
He is interacting more and has smiled at us a couple of times!
He loves to ride in the car and will pretty much fall asleep when we go anywhere.
He's over 9 pounds now!
We've taken Samuel to church several times now and he has done great!
He has discovered the toys on his bouncer and will sit in it (sometimes) for about 20 minutes.
He loves being outside and will pretty much calm down every time we take him out.
He has strong hands and a strong neck!

Struggles:
He is still pretty fussy during the day.
Sometimes I'm not sure if he's getting enough milk because he will be fussy right after a feeding.
His main fussy time starts at about 5:00, right when Matthew gets home from work! Poor Matthew.
It takes me like a day just to pump enough milk for one bottle. Sam eats a lot!
I've figured out that cheese and spicy foods do not sit well with him. I'm also wondering about caffeine...
The boy has some bad gas!

We love our boy!!

Our Life Lately

Ughhhh I just wrote this post and it did not save!!! I hope I can do it justice again and that Samuel stays asleep for a bit longer!!

Samuel is 3 1/2 weeks old and we feel like we are adjusting nicely. We have our good days and frustrating days, but we are really enjoying our little guy. Here are some things we've been up to lately:

4th of July cookout and fireworks

watching daddy play softball for the first time

meeting Auntie Kay

first church service (the pic is from before church)

going to The Olive Garden for our 2nd anniversary

We also dropped Samuel off at Grammy and Bop's house so that we could go see Larry Crowne. It was a fun date night.

Here are some things that Samuel is up to at 3 1/2 weeks:

He sleeps through the night really well. I usually have to wake him up to eat. He does occasionally have trouble falling asleep at bedtime though.

He is pretty fussy during the day. We think he has lots of gas.

He is getting to like his baths more and more (if he's already in a good mood).

I think he's going to give us a smile pretty soon!

He loves riding in the car.

He loves the outdoors. If he's crying, you can usually just step outside with him and he will immediately stop or fall asleep.

He weighed 8 lbs. 2 oz at his last doctor's appointment and was 21.5 inches long.

He likes to be talked and sung to and loves music.

Some days he will only catnap and others he will take a 3-4 hour nap. We are still figuring out this part of his schedule.

He eats at least every 3 hours during the day. Sometimes he will only go 1 1/2 hours between feedings. He keeps his momma very busy!

That's all I can think of right now. We love our Samuel very much and can't wait to see how he grows and changes!

Samuel's First Two Weeks

I can't believe it's been three weeks since our little Sam was born! In some ways in seems like just yesterday we were anxiously awaiting him to come, and in other ways in seems like he's been a part of our lives forever. I'm going to attempt to write about the days and weeks after we came home and then what it's like with Sam right now. I want to be able to remember all of this years from now!

We came home from the hospital on Monday, June 20th. We were a little bit nervous that Sam would not be able to come home with us because of his jaundice, but by Monday morning he was looking great. So we headed out to start our new lives with our baby! I remember that night Matthew and I hardly got any sleep. We kept creeping to the edge of the bed to check on our precious boy. At one point, we both moved to the end of the bed to sleep so that all we had to do was open our eyes to see him!

Tuesday Matthew and I started to get nervous because we thought Samuel looked really yellow AND he hadn't pooped since Sunday. Now that we look back on this we laugh because we really freaked out about nothing. Anyway, we called the doctor and went in that afternoon. The Dr. said Sam looked great (his jaundice was getting better) and it's ok that he hadn't pooped. If we wanted, Matthew could do a little "procedure" to make him go. But he wasn't worried about anything. We did find out that Samuel weighed 7 lbs 12 oz, so he had almost lost a pound since birth. Still the dr. wasn't concerned.

The rest of the week is kind of a blur. Matthew took off the week so we focused on basically just getting by! Matthew's mom and sister came over a few mornings and let us nap because we were soooo tired. We had a ton of visitors and enjoyed showing off our new baby. We took our first outing to Stonebriar Mall that Friday. We enjoyed shopping and just getting out of the house. Here are some pictures from Samuel's first week:

The hardest thing for me about that week was that I was still recovering from the birth and I couldn't do all that I wanted. My recovery was hard and I am not good at resting, taking medicine, and all that stuff. Plus I just didn't realize how much pain I would be in. It was hard going through that and trying to take care of a brand new baby.

Here is Sam's one week picture:

The second week Matthew had to go back to work. It was hard for both him and me, but my mom came and stayed for the week. She was soooo much help from walking Samuel in the middle of the night to doing our laundry to cleaning the bathrooms to taking care of dinner to vacuuming...I could go on and on. I honestly would NOT have made it through the week without her!!

We did have a couple of outings to the mall to get my hair cut, Grandma's, and Old Navy. We watched a couple of Lifetime movies (in segments while Sam slept) and tried to relax. Thanks for coming, Mom!!

Here is Samuel at two weeks old:

So that is basically the first two weeks of Samuel's life. I missed A LOT but I think you get the jist!! Next up: Our Life Lately! Stay tuned!!

Samuel's Birth Story

This is the story of how our precious baby boy, Samuel Watkins Irby, came into the world!

We had scheduled the induction for Friday morning at 7:00 a.m. because a previous sonogram showed that Samuel appeared to be 9 pounds. I really didn't want to wait to go into labor on my own because I was afraid that he would gain weight and I would be delivering a 10 pound baby.

So, Friday morning rolled around and Matthew and I arrived at Medical City of Dallas at about 6:40. We immediately got into our room and learned that our nurse would be Claudine. She got my IV started (which hurt SO badly. She couldn't get it on my right hand so she had to stick my left as well). Then she got me started on Pitocin. After that we just started waiting. My mom showed up at around 8:00 so we just hung out for a while. Cathy and Dale and my dad also came up so they all just hung out in my room or the waiting room. At this point, the pitocin had kicked in and I was feeling the contractions.We had brought a DVD of The Office so we were watching episodes between visitors. Dr. Bernstein came in to break my water (which he wasn't able to do) and that hurt really bad as well.

I started progressing and got to 4 cm pretty quickly (maybe at around noon). I think it was at this point that I decided to get the epidural. I always knew I would get one, the question was just when. But I was feeling the contractions pretty strongly so I decided to go for it. This was the next painful thing and for some reason I was really scared about it. But I made it through and was feeling better and able to relax. Here I am while relaxing:

Dr. Bernstein came in and checked me again. I was still at a 4. He said that he would check me again soon and if I was still at a 4 we would probably need to do a c-section. Matthew and I talked about this and came to terms with it. No, I really didn't want a c-section but at least the baby would be out soon and I would know what was coming. Plus, I had developed this fear of pushing and of Samuel not being able to get out safely, so I was fine with a c-section.

Dr. Bernstein checked me again and I was at a 6. I think this was at around 9:00. This really was not what I wanted to hear. Since I had progressed, Dr. B said that he could let me keep going, or I could opt to go ahead with a c-section. I really didn't want to "give up" and do the c-section when I could possibly have him without surgery, but I really had come to want the c-section. So Matthew and I decided to keep waiting.

Well, the waiting paid off. The next time Dr. B checked I was at a 10! It was time to start pushing. This was at around 11:00 Friday evening. I started pushing and our nurse (Mary had come on at 7 when Claudine left) said that I was pushing really well. I was thinking that pushing was not that bad! Well, about an hour in to it I was telling a different story. My neck and shoulders were in intense pain, and the epidural kept wearing off. It was a vicious cycle: I would push the button for more epidural because my contractions were killing me, the contractions would feel better but the epidural would make me nauseous so I would throw up, and then my contractions would get bad again.

Dr. B came and checked me and I was progressing, but not very fast. At this point I was thinking that I really couldn't do this. We all decided to take a little break and resume the pushing in about 30 minutes. So at 12:30 we started again and at 1:00 I was done. I could NOT do it anymore!! Mary said that I was progressing, but very slowly. That was discouraging to hear. So we called Dr. B and told him that we were ready for the c-section. I was really sad because I felt like I had worked so hard, but I really didn't think I could do any more.

Matthew told the families the plan and Cathy and mom came to tell me good luck. Dr. B came back in and wanted to check me one more time. Well, when he checked he said that Samuel's head was right there and did I want to try using the forcepts. I was so scared of this because forcepts just sound so harsh. He said that he could try once and if it looked like it wouldn't work then he would quit and we would do the c-section. So Matthew and I said yes to the forcepts and no once again to a c-section. At about 1:00 on Saturday morning Dr. B was getting me ready. I was so scared that I was shaking. I kept praying out loud that this would work and that Samuel would be okay. As I was praying, Dr. B looked up and said, "I can't hear what you're saying." in kind of an annoyed voice. Matthew was like, "she's praying." I thought this was so funny at the time.

I started pushing and Dr. B went to town with the forcepts. This was the weirdest feeling ever. After what seemed like hours but was only just about 15 minutes, I heard a suctioning sound. This meant that Samuel's head was out and the forcepts had worked!!! Matthew cut the cord, they plopped him on my chest and I couldn't believe he was ours. Matthew was bawling and I was just so relieved that the forcepts had worked and that Samuel was fine. After a few minutes on my chest they took him over to the table to get washed off and swaddled. Matthew followed and took some pictures:

Mary told me that Samuel would have some bruises on his face because of the forcepts. I didn't care at all. I was just so happy that he was here safely. Matthew brought him to me and I got to hold him for a few minutes.

I was instantly in love. I had wanted to try breastfeeding right away, but Samuel was born with a temperature of 103. I had had a temp. for the last several hours so I guess that's why he did. So they took him to the nursery for monitoring and a bath. Matthew got to go watch while I had to stay. I ended up having a 4th degree tear. Dr. B spent at least 45 minutes stitching me up while Matthew went to the nursery with Samuel. Matthew also texted a pic to our parents who still thought I was having a c-section. Here's a pic of Samuel's first bath:

So sweet. We went to recovery and got Samuel back at about 5:00 a.m. We all bonded and Matthew and I enjoyed our precious boy.

So that is the story of how our Samuel was born. We love him so much and will never forget that momentous day!

Our little one is not so little

Well, we went to the doctor today for a sonogram and I'm so glad we did. This little guy...

...evidently takes after his dad. Sam is already 9 pounds!! I couldn't believe it when the sonogram technician told us this. Yes, I thought he was big. Yes, I feel him all over my belly. Yes, sometimes his kicks and jabs take my breath away. But 9 pounds and we are still five days away from his due date? Crazy! Thankfully the doctor agreed to induce on Friday (the actual due date) so that I will not have to go any longer with this little man weighing me down (or have to fear the delivery any longer!). And is it weird that I'm stressing about him not fitting into his newborn clothes?? We have so many cute ones and I want him to wear them at least once! Of course I took all the tags off and washed them so there will be no returns!! So be ready to see LOTS of pictures of our little one in different outfits. I'm sure I'll be changing him several times a day just to get them all in. Poor Samuel.

**If you can't see him in the picture, his feet are on the top left and he is laying on his side. You can see his nose and mouth in the middle of the picture.

It's hard to believe that he will actually be here by this weekend! It's so nice to actually know that he is coming soon. I can't wait to hold him and see what he looks like! I'm still hoping that he comes before Friday but we'll see about that. I was dilated a little bit more today and I've been having a few contractions, but I don't really feel like he's coming within the next couple of days. Who knows though...

Here is my 39 week picture. Now I know why I feel huge. Also, I can automatically take 9 pounds off how much I weigh these days!:)

Have a great week!