happy halloween!

Judah’s first halloween.  Having a not quite six week old little one kinda limits what we can do as far as outings go.. but our church has a Fall Festival every year around Halloween that is super fun!  We went this year and took our little guy.  He ate as soon as we got there and then slept the entire rest of the time.  But we had fun pushing him around in his stroller and talking to lots of friends and letting them admire our precious little monster.  :)

Before we went to the church today, I did a quick little photo shoot with the little monster himself.

a few firsts

Yesterday Judah experienced a few more “firsts”.  He went to church for the first time, wore shoes for the first time, and had his first real try at a family photo!

He did really well in church.  He slept through the entire time of worship and stayed quiet after he woke up.  I took him out for a few minutes during the message so that I could prepare a bottle and feed him.  I felt so overwhelmed with thankfulness that I finally had my baby and had the privilege to have him in church with us.  I was reminded of God’s goodness and faithfulness to give us the desires of our hearts.

After church we went to the grandparents’ house for lunch, and Justin’s dad attempted to get some family pics for us.  Most of them didn’t turn out great because Judah wouldn’t look at the camera or Justin would be squinting because of the sun.  Oh well, we will try again soon!

1 month

I’m definitely not keeping up with this blog as well as I hoped to.  My sweet angel is one month old, and I haven’t even finished his birth story.  I will soon!

But for now…

Judah turned one month old yesterday!  I can hardly believe it.  The first month went by so fast.  It hasn’t been as hard as I prepared myself for.  But it hasn’t been easy by any means.  We have had quite an adventure.

For the first week or so that we were home from the hospital, Judah was such an easy baby.  He slept so much, ate well and rarely ever cried.  He made having a newborn in the house a very easy transition for mommy and daddy.  Both of us fell absolutely head over heels in love with this little guy.  After that first couple of weeks, though, we ran into some problems.  Our poor baby has had terrible tummy troubles that still aren’t quite resolved.  He has had really bad gas and shown signs of colic.  He fights going to sleep, especially at night.  He developed a mild case of thrush.  We have been through 3 types of bottles and 4 types of formula.  We have already been to see the doctor 3 times.  Like I said, quite an adventure!  haha! 

His first outing was actually the day we came home from the hospital.  We wasted no time!  We went over to Justin’s parents house for dinner that night.  They only live about 5 minutes down the road, so it wasn’t a huge deal.

His first doctor appointment was to have his bilirubin levels checked for jaundice.  He still had a mild case, but the levels were dropping, so he got a good report!  At this appointment he had already gained some weight and was weighing 9 pounds, 7 ounces.

By his two week appointment, he was weighing 9 pounds 12 ounces and seemed very healthy other than his tummy aches.

At his most recent appointment, which was this past Wednesday, he was weighing 11 pounds 8 ounces!  He is such a big boy!!!  That appointment was to check on his thrush and get a prescription to clear it up.

Judah has had many firsts already during this first month…  first trip to each of his grandparent’s house, first trip out to dinner with mommy and daddy, first bath, first real smile (we think), first time to hold his own weight up on his little legs, first photo session with mommy, and many more.

He is wearing size one diapers and size 0-3 and 3 months clothing.  He outgrew his newborn stuff very quickly.  He is eating on average 3 ounces every 2-3 hours.

He has many nicknames already.  Judah Man, Judah pants, peanut, mommy’s monkey, pumpkin boy, little man.  I’m sure he won’t approve of many of these names for much longer.. so I’m getting them in while he still doesn’t seem to mind ;).

Judah loves his swing, his pacifier, and his daddy!  All three of those things can calm him down and make him happy when mommy can’t do it.  He seems to already have a special bond with his daddy, and it is so sweet to watch.

Our little boy has taught us about a love we didn’t know or understand.  We have both spent so much time just sitting and staring at him.  I can’t believe how blessed we are or how absolutely precious he is.  I can’t believe how fast he is growing or how fast time is passing us by.  I’ve had many moments during this month where I have felt overwhelmed.  I’ve felt the need to cook and clean house, but keep reminding myself that he won’t be little long.  That thought makes me sit and hold him a little longer and just breathe in his sweet baby scent.  So often he will fall asleep in my arms, and rather than putting him down so I can sleep or do things around the house, I’ll just hold him and cuddle until he wakes up.

Today starts month number 2 in his little life.  I can’t wait to see what this month holds, but I sure don’t want it to pass by too quickly.  I’m trying to enjoy every day.

Judah’s birth day (part 2)

After I was all set up in the operating room, Justin came in.  They gave him a stool so he could sit down by my head.  I don’t remember us talking much.  I was shaking uncontrollably from nerves and from the medicine that was running through my body.  Justin told me later that the shaking freaked him out a little bit.  He wasn’t sure if that was normal, and it was very hard for him to see me like that.  I was just fine though! 

I felt lots and lots of pressure and tugging.  The doctor asked Justin if he would like to watch Judah be pulled out.  Justin stood up and looked over the curtain.. but sat right back down.  It was too much for him!  I can’t say I blame him on that one.  Once Judah was completely out, Justin stood up to see him, and they showed him to me.  I immediately started crying and saying “he’s perfect.. he’s just perfect”.  My doctor said she definitely underestimated his size. She had to make my incision larger than the average incision in order to get Judah out.  Poor baby ended up with a bruised head and arm.

Justin had my camera in there with him, so he went over to the area where the nurses were cleaning Judah up to take pics.  I could see everything from where I was.  I just stared and cried and was overcome with joy and happiness and gratitude.  My emotions and feelings really cannot be described. 

My anesthesiologist then took the camera from Justin so he could take a pic of the three of us together. 

After a couple minutes, it was time for me to get put back together while they took Judah to be cleaned up a little more and weighed and measured.  Justin went with the baby, and I stayed alone.. but I was so happy I didn’t care one bit!

Once in the nursery, Justin found out that our big guy weighed in at 8 lbs, 9 ounces and was 21 inches long.  Big Boy!

Justin then got to take him out to show to all of the family and friends that had waited for so long to meet him.  One of the doctors made a remark about how many people were there waiting around at midnight.  All I know is that Judah is one loved little boy!

During this time, I was rolled into recovery with warm blankets on me.  I was starting to get some feeling back in my legs and the shaking stopped a little bit.  Some of our family members came in to see me for a few minutes, but with it being so late, everyone left pretty quickly.  Justin and I just sat and waited for the nurse to bring our son in to see us.  The minutes dragged by so slowly.  Finally a nurse came in, but she didn’t have Judah with her.  She said she had some bad news.  My heart sank.  She said that Judah and I both had a fever right after he was born.  They weren’t sure what was causing the fever, but because I could be sick, I wouldn’t be allowed to see or hold Judah for at least 24 hours.

I broke down.  I cried and cried until my face was so swollen I almost couldn’t see.  I asked God why a million times.  I asked Justin why.  I knew this wasn’t the end of the world.  I knew that we were super blessed to have a healthy son.  I tried to remind myself that God was in control and that none of this surprised Him.  But I was still so upset.  I had carried this baby for 39 weeks, gone through almost 24 hours of labor, and then went through a c-section.  I couldn’t be okay with not getting my hands on him.  I needed to see him.

Justin and I both prayed.  I put a message on facebook for everyone I knew to see and asked for prayer.  Then I thought of Judah.  His name means “praise”.  I knew in that moment that I needed to give God praise.  I started focusing on the positive.  I started be grateful for all of the good things.  It definitely helped.  I stopped crying.  Justin just sat close and held my hand and comforted me.  He was upset too, but we knew the outcome of all of this would be good.  Everything was okay.

newborn pics

So a while back after I realized that I really enjoyed photography, I found out that my favorite sessions were newborn sessions.  I started studying up on how to get the little ones to sleep soundly and how to pose them, etc, etc.

Well, when I found out that I was pregnant, I couldn’t wait to have my own little “model”.  I didn’t realize that I would be too exhausted, not to mention too busy, to do much photography after the little angel got here.  Ha! 

When Judah was 8 days old, I forced myself to get the camera out and snap some pictures of his newborn goodness.  And a few days later, I did it again so I could have some images of Judah with his daddy.  Hopefully I’ll get someone to take pictures of the three of us soon!  I’d love to have family pics before he gets too much bigger!

Anyway, here are some of my faves from our little sessions in the back yard :)

Judah’s birth day (part 1)

Tuesday, September 20th, seemed like any other day.  Justin and I both knew that we would be headed to the hospital before the day ended for my scheduled induction, but it just didn’t seem real.  We spent the day pretty much like normal and even went to our small group at church that evening.  After small group, we came home and packed up the car and I double checked all of my lists.  I tried out the video camera for the first time and made sure the cameras were charged up.  Around 11:30pm we headed out… only to turn around a few minutes later because we forgot the ipod dock! 

Eventually we made it to the hospital and got checked in right around midnight, September 21st.  I was surprised at how quickly things went.  I expected, for some reason, to have some down time.  But as soon as I got to my room, the nurse had me change into my gown, get in bed, and get hooked up to my IV.  By 1:30am my pitocin was started.  I didn’t feel much different.. things were pretty boring.  Justin went to sleep, and I tried, but couldn’t sleep. I was way too anxious and excited for sleep!  I spent my time playing around on my phone, watching TV, and trying to sleep.

After what seemed like years, a nurse came in around 6:15 am to check my progress.  I hadn’t made any!  Same as my last doctors appointment.  A little bit later, at 7am, a new nurse came on for her shift.  She was super sweet and helpful.  She informed me that it was a busy day for babies!  There were 5 other inductions and a couple of c sections scheduled besides me.  At this point we were waiting on the doctor to come and break my water.  She ended up coming in about 2 hours later.  My water was broken, and wow did that ever feel weird!  I had progressed to 2cm.. but still felt fine other than being really hungry.  I could only have ice!

By noon I was definitely feeling my contractions and asked for some pain medicine to be given through my IV.  It made me feel drunk and warm in the face.  I got all of my visitors (just family at this point) to leave so I could go to sleep.  Justin and I both slept for a little while.. but by 1:30pm I was awake and asking for the epidural!  My pain level had jumped big time!

A few hours passed, and when I was checked I was at four centimeters dilated.  The doctor realized at this point that my body wasn’t responding well to the pitocin.  She had the nurse turn it off to let my body rest.  After they turned pitocin back on, I progressed to 6cm.. but started to really feel a ton of pain.  I couldn’t understand why since I had the epidural.  I can’t even describe how I felt.  I couldn’t talk.. just had to close my eyes, grit my teeth, and breathe.  I just knew something wasn’t right.  Turns out my epidural catheter snapped!  The anesthesiologist said it was his first time to see this happen during his 10 years of practice.  Crazy!  Just my luck :).

The epidural was fixed, but my pain level never went back down completely.  I was given some other pain meds to help, but I still felt contractions.  The medicine made everything from this point on kinda blurry and hazy in my memory. 

All I know is that I had lots of people at the hospital visiting me and waiting for Judah to arrive.  It was late evening, and we were all expecting him at any time!  My body, however, had other plans.  More and more time passed, but I just wasn’t dilating like I needed to.  My nurse told me that if I hadn’t dilated completely by 11pm, she would contact the doctor to see what needed to be done.  Well 11:00 rolled around, and I was only at 8cm.  My doctor declared it time for a c section.  So after all of those hours and hours of laboring and waiting… I ended up heading to surgery.  By this point, though, I was so tired and just really wanted Judah out.. so I was fine with the decision!


They took me down the hall and had Justin suit up in scrubs.  The whole thing was surreal.  I felt like I was in a movie or something.  I was flat on my back being rolled down the hall.  All I could see was ceiling tiles and lights going by.  I actually had a good time talking to the doctors and nurses and listening to their crazy conversations.  I was surprised at how laid back the atmosphere was and at some of the stuff they talked about!