Week 10

Wow....my baby is 2 1/2 months old!! Where in the world does the time go? I was telling my husband yesterday that it does not feel like we are new parents. I feel like I have know Blaine forever and that our lives have always been like this. It is the weirdest thing. Our little family were just meant for each other and our dynamic clicked instantly.

So anyways...this week was busy....

For starters we had to take Blaine to Jacksonville on Tuesday to see the pediatric cardiologist!!

We were up there for about 3 hours. Here are some pictures from our day...

This was Blaine and all his handsomeness in the waiting room. I was on the verge of throwing up at this point due to nerves.

Dad and Nakey Baby in the cold office waiting on the Dr.

 

EKG time!! :( Poor baby tried to hit the lady when she ripped off removed all the little sticky things.

So things went well and the final outcome was that Blaine has a small hole in his heart that should close up in no time and his murmur is just an "innocent" one. The doc said his murmur will most likely come and go and he should outgrow it by 2 or 3 years old!! So my boy is HEALTHY!!! (So thankful)

So the rest of the week was just as crazy, I was late 2 of the 3 days that I worked this week thanks to Blaine due to unforeseeable circumstances. On Wednesday Blaine wanted to eat at around 6:45 and I have to leave the house by 6:50 to be on time. And on Friday we had a little shit explosion accident right before we left the house....it was not pretty!!!! So, I was late again. Oh well, work is very understanding and these things just come with the territory of having a new baby.

We went and visited a friend on Thursday evening, Ella. Me and Ella's mom work together and were only a week apart pregnant. The babies ended up being 13 days apart. But what a wonderful experience to have someone to share pregnancies together. Nothing will bring two women closer together than that!! :) Here is Blaine and Ella hanging out enjoying each others company. They will be an "item" one day!!

Blaine fought sleep a little on Thursday night so we had to put him in his swing for him to finally slip off into dreamland!

After looking at this picture another picture of 5 day old Blaine sunning the window came to mind:

Look at the size difference....wow my little boy has grown!!!

So that's all for the week. Here we are 10 weeks in and we are all still happy and healthy and enjoying life to the fullest!! I love my family and it just bring tears to my eyes to think of it. My husband is wonderful to me and our son and Blaine is my greatest accomplishment!! I love him more with each passing day!!

10 weeks old and more handsome than ever!!

Week 9

Ok...so LOTS has happened!! First off I went back to work this week!!! :( It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be though!! I didn't even cry!! It is so nice to know that your baby is in good hands and you don't have to worry about him. I would have been a mess if I would have had to use a day care!! Private care is the way to go!! The peace of mind is WONDERFUL!! So work was good this week, exhausting, but good. And it is like Blaine knew I started working this week and he let momma get some sleep! :) He was on a wonderful schedule all week!! He would eat at 6:30 pm and be asleep in his crib by 7 and not wake up until 12 or 12:30 am. I would feed him, change him, and have him back in his crib by 1 am. Then he would sleep until around 5 am. Not too shabby for a 9 week old baby!! :) So yesterday Blaine had is 2 month checkup and I went and got a Mirena put in!! (no babies for us until we are ready) I am so glad I chose it, worry free for up to 5 years and there was no pain involved in getting it put it!! So back to Blaine, I swear they do shots at 2 months just to sabotage all your hard work at parenting and getting your baby on a schedule!!! He was not feeling too well after his shots yesterday and had a low grade fever (typical). He would not finish a bottle so he was eating less ounces and more often!! And I just got him to sleep tonight!!! So much for that 7:00 bed time!! Hopefully tomorrow we can get back to routine!! Also at the checkup the Dr. heard a heart murmur. They can be very common and cause no issues once so ever, but there is also a chance that a heart murmur can indicate a problem so we are off to the pediatric cardiologist on Tuesday! We are praying for good results and for just an innocent, common, heart murmur that he will outgrow! I will update yall on Tuesday!! :)

9 weeks old today!!

BTW....Mr. Blaine weighed 14 lbs 4 oz!!! He is in the 97%!!! My big boy!!

Night Out!!

So...some friends of ours kept Blaine last night so we could go to a wedding.

Mom all dressed up, ready for the wedding.

Dad all dressed up, ready for the wedding.

We had SO much fun. It was so nice to be out of the house, especially knowing that Blaine was in good hands! :) George and Stephanie have a beautiful 11 month old little girl, who Jeffrey and I babysat a few times for them. And since all my family and most of my friends would be attending the wedding, that only left G & S to babysit. I hated asking them since they have their own little girl, but they were more than excited! We are so thankful to have such wonderful friends. But of course, EVERYBODY at the wedding wanted to know where Blaine was....can't we leave the house without him??? So around 10:00 Jeffrey went to pick him up and brought him by the reception before we headed home for the night. He was bathed and in his PJ's. Thanks Steph!! :) I didn't ask her to bathe him, but she is wonderful! Here he is with his Aunt Sonni at the reception.

It's hard being a handsome little boy!

So here we are, relaxing on this nice Sunday afternoon, recovering from the late night at the wedding. 11:00 is now considered an all nighter!! LOL

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Week 7

It is so hard to believe that my baby is 7 weeks old this week!! Time flies. Back to work in 1 week for this momma!! :( Not looking forward to that AT ALL.We went to meet the babysitter this week. I already know her, I was just taking Blaine to meet her and to go over everything. It was very bittersweet. I'm actually kinda jealous of her because she will spend more time during the day with him than I will. There will only be a few short hours left of the day by time I get off work and pick him up! :( Also I got strep throat this week, GREAT. I am still miserable, even after being on antibiotics for 3 days! I have never had strep before and had no idea it was this painful. Jeffrey stayed home with us on Thursday because I had extremely high fever and was just too sick to take care of Blaine.Thank goodness for my hubby! And we are still working on the sleep and schedule issue. For some reason Blaine is WIDE awake every day from 6 PM - 11PM and I don not want to be going to bed that late and still be feeding him 2 and 3 times a night when I go back to work, but that will probably happen!

Here is my big boy at 7 weeks old.

7 weeks and everybody is still happy and healthy! (for the most part)

Things we are loving...

As a new mom, I try alot of products. Everything is so trial and error at this stage. But here are a few things that I am already loving by week 7 of Blaine's life...

We are loving NUK bottles.

We are loving MAM pacifiers. (Of course we love the I LOVE MOMMY one better. :)

We are loving our Munchkin Bottle Warmer and Pacifier Sanitizer.

We are loving our kick and crawl discovery gym.

We are loving all the bright colors on Nick Jr.

We are loving our Boppy Pillow. He lays on his Boppy, on his kick and crawl mat, and watches Nick Jr!

We are loving Nutramigen that makes Blaine's tummy feel so good.

We are loving A&D ointment!!

We are loving Pampers Swaddlers!! Awsome diapers!

We are loving Pampers Sensitive Wipes!!

We are loving our swing!!!

Week 6

Dad stayed home with us again this week!! Woo Hoo! More help! The guys had a diaper party for my husband this week too!! Thank goodness because this new formula and diapers are getting pretty expensive! We got about 10 packs of diapers. Blaine also got his first hair cut this week. His hair was outta control. My Aunt Julie cut it.

Before Hair Cut

During Hair Cut

I had my 6 week check up this week and I got a clean bill of health. Everything looked great. Now time to schedule my appointment to get an IUD...no more babies for us until we are ready!! ;) After my appointment we took Blaine to meet his Great-Great-Grandparents. Not too many kids have those around!!

Blaine with Nana and Grand Daddy!

6 weeks old today! Go Gators!!

Week 5

What an awful week!!! Blaine was getting more and more fussy so we switched formula to GentleEase to help with the gas and fussing. Well this did nothing, so I called the ped and they said to switch him to Soy formula. Well things got even worse after that. He screamed around the clock and was so uncomfortable. On Monday at about 2 AM he had bloody mucous in his diaper. At this point I knew his problem was more than just gas, we had a problem on out hands!! So that morning when the ped office opened, I called and made an appointment. After some talking and an examination of my now 12 lb 3 oz baby, the Dr. determined he had a milk AND soy intolerance! GREAT. So he gave us some samples of formula that must be made of gold because of the price of it. But after the first bottle Blaine was like a new baby, no fussing, no gas!! It was wonderful!! This formula is $35 a can though!! YIKES. So I called Enfamil and got some coupons from them to help with the cost of it. It is so worth the price though, because it has made a world of difference with Blaine!! He eats, sleeps, and poops so much better! :)

5 weeks old today!

Week 4

Dad finally stayed home with us this week, and I am so glad because I needed a break! He is such a great help too. I feel useless when he is around. He does it all, feeding, diaper, burping, bathing...everything. We started putting Blaine in his crib this week and he started sleeping much better. We should have done that from the start because I missed sleeping in my bed. Before then Blaine and I were in the living room and he would sleep in his bassinet while I slept in the recliner (well I wouldn't call it sleeping, just resting). Things started getting really bad at the end of this week though. I decided that I would not be able to keep up with the pumping when I returned to work, so I started giving Blaine more formula and less breast milk. Well the more formula he got the more gassy and fussy he got. He stayed up screaming from 10:30 pm - 4:00 am one night. IT WAS AWFUL! We tried everything, gas drops, different bottles, rocking, bouncing, swaddling, leg excercises, everything. If I read it helped with gas, I tried it because he was so uncomfortable and so gassy.We reached another milestone this week too....SIZE 1 DIAPERS!

4 Weeks Old Today

Week 3

Things are getting a little easier by this week...sleep is still a thing of the past, but easier nonetheless. We didn't have any Dr. Appt's this week, THANK GOODNESS. Because leaving the house is just way too difficult! So me and Blaine just hang out at the house all week. He is eating every 2 hours around the clock which is exhausting but I am getting pretty used to it. Dad comes home in the evening and helps so mom can get a little sleep. But then I let Dad go to bed at a decent hour because he has to get up to go to work every day...it's hard on me but he helps when he can. Usually from about 4:30 - 11 at night. I am still pumping which is very difficult to keep up with on top of feeding him every two hours.

Blaine at exactly 3 weeks old.
His umbilical cord fell out today.
Woo Hoo...now he can have a real bath.

Week 2

On Monday of the next week I had to drop my car off to be worked on and pick up the rental. So Blaine and I took off on another adventure. I got to the dealership and was told that Enterprise would be there in 10 minutes. Well 45 minutes later Blaine was starving and in a dirty diaper. I was planning on being back home before it was time for him to eat...I wasn't to keen on nursing in public. I had taken some formula with me just in case this happened though. So I went in the bathroom to change him and run the bottle under some warm water. I get in the bathroom and there is NO CHANGING STATION. I'm sure this happens a lot. So I am changing Blaine on the floor of the bathroom, in his car seat!! I am an absolute wreck at this point!! I get him changed and walk back into the waiting room and there is the Enterprise man. A 70 year old grouch!! I told him he would have to wait a few minutes for me to give my screaming newborn a bottle. He told me he didn't have time and he would be back in 2 hours to pick me up! Wrong answer! My sleep deprived, new mom defense kicked in! I cussed this man for everything he was worth right there in front of God and the whole Dodge dealership. Needless to say he gave me a few minutes!! After about 3 hours Blaine and I were back home for me to cry some more because our little outings were getting more difficult, not easier like everyone said they would! On Thursday of that week it was back to the ped office for his 2 week well visit.

All dressed up ready for the Dr.

So at the 2 week visit Blaine weighed 8 lbs 15 oz and was 21 1/2 inches. He was back to his birth weight, and then some! What a relief! My nursing was working and he was growing. But I pretty much had a breakdown with the head nurse at the ped office because I was so exhausted. I was the only one that could feed Blaine and couldn't get any help from Dad. She gave me some formula samples and told me to supplement so I could pump and get a supply. I felt like a failure, but I did it. Before I knew it, I had several breast milk bottles built up. So we started on bottles. I LOVED the bottle concept. I could SEE how many ounces my little boy was getting. So I started strictly pumping and giving bottles. Before long I noticed he was eating more than I was pumping. So I still supplemented some formula here and there.

WE MADE IT!! 2 weeks down!!

I can do this!

Our First Week Home

So we got home on a Monday and Jeffrey went right back to work on Tuesday. He works for my dad, more on that later... So I was home alone with this newborn baby that I didn't know much about yet. In the beginning I was nursing and was bound and determined to nurse for the first year...until I tried it. I had no idea how difficult and demanding it was going to be. Blaine ate constantly and never seemed satisfied. I hated it because I couldn't tell how much he was getting. I cried all the time, I think I had a touch of the baby blues on top of sheer exhaustion. On Wednesday we had to leave the house for a check-up. We went to the hospital first to draw blood and check his jaundice level, then went to the pediatrician for him to have a look. It was so difficult to be out of the house. I had to nurse him in the hospital parking lot, then again at the peds office. We got home that day and I was exhausted and even more depressed because I saw how difficult it was to leave the house with a little one!! My life seemed over at that point because I decided there was no way I could leave the house again except for Dr. Appts and emergencies. It was too hard to leave any other time!! We had to go to the hospital and the peds office again on Thursday to check his jaundice and for him to be circumcised (I was so nervous about that). They told me the procedure would take about an hour, so I took that opportunity to go have an estimate done on my car (one more thing to worry about) and to go by the store to pick up diapers (which we were going through like crazy). I was back at the ped office to pick my little man up in 40 minutes. They said everything went great and that he did great. What a relief. So again on Friday we had to go to the Dr. to check his jaundice...it was finally going down, thanks to a little sun at home.

Getting a little sunshine in the window.

WE MADE IT!! Blaine was now a week old, and still happy and healthy!!

One Week Old

My First Post

So this will be a long one, to catch you up so far. My son was born on June 17, 2011 @ 5:59 PM. He was 8 lbs 11 oz, 20 3/4 inches long. A perfectly, healthy baby boy. We named him Blaine Allen.

Our Healthy Boy.

 Labor and Delivery went better than expected and mom and baby were doing great. We did have to stay an extra day in the hospital because Blaine had Jaundice and had to do 12 hours of photo-therapy.

Photo-therapy. :(

On our final day at the hospital we hear a page go out through the hospital for the driver of a black Dodge SUV to please phone the operator. Sure enough it was my black Dodge SUV that a 81 year old man had smashed into in the parking lot!! GREAT. So my husband had to go outside, wait on the police, and file a police report while Blaine and I just sat in the hospital room so ready to go home. That added 2 hours to our stay!! It was so stressful, we were all just ready to get home and start our life as a family.

Finally in the carseat, going home.

So we finally get home and I have no idea where to begin. When do I feed him?, Where do I put him?, When do I bathe him?, How do I know what he wants?

So many questions.

All I have ever wanted to be my whole life was a mom, and I had no idea how stressful and how much of a guessing game it was, but I was sure going to learn...FAST.