Update on David

I’m sure it has to do with him being the 4th, but I just haven’t taken very many pictures of David.  I’ll try to do better.

He’ll be 2 months old at the end of this week and is doing great.  He is still a super nurser, loves to be held, and has started smiling and cooing at us all the time!  He holds his head up great and stares at the ceiling smiling enthusiastically. 

Not only do his parents and grandparents think he’s wonderful, but his brothers love him a lot and are really great helpers.  Brian and Christian both love to give him kisses and hugs and Aaron can help pick him up and carry him if asked. 

Since I’m still nursing him once and often twice or three times overnight I’m still pretty tired, but I know someday (soon?) he’ll sleep through the night.  I can survive a little longer since I know this stage will pass. 

We really have a great family and are especially glad David has joined our family.

Grandma Thomas with David at 2 weeks

Paul with David at 2 weeks

Paul and I with David at 2 weeks

Brian loves just being with him

David chilling in the bobby at 3 weeks

Christian giving him a hug (basically laying his head on top of David)

Grandma Fuller with David at 6 weeks

David smiling for the camera at 7 weeks

Looking super cute!

C and D side by side on the floor.

Christian giving him a kiss!

Can life really get much better?

David’s Baby Blessing

When David was 2 weeks old we were lucky to have Paul’s parents and his brother Andrew and sister in law Michelle come visit.  Most of the time we just stayed at home and hung out and passed around the baby. 

Paul and his dad and brother drove to Austin on Saturday for the BYU v UT football game and had a great time spending time together.

That Sunday Paul was able to give David a name and a blessing at church with his father and brother and some other family friends assisting him in the priesthood circle.  It was a wonderful day and I’m glad they were able to share it with us. 

Coincidentally, Monday was Grandparents day at the elementary school so they got to go to lunch with both Aaron and Brian at school!  I’m really glad it worked out that way.

Anyway, now for a few pictures!

Our family with Grandma and Grandpa Thomas

David Thomas with David Thomas!

Michelle and Andrew Thomas

Dave and Kathe with their newest grandson

Lastly, some pictures of my cute baby when he was 2 weeks old.

Paul’s Birthday

Paul’s birthday was this month and since I threw a baby shower on his actual birthday, we celebrated the next day by going out to dinner then on Sunday with a family dinner and opening of presents. 

Christian helping him open a puzzle

Yogurt covered pretzels

DIY book for the house

I don’t exactly know what a reciprocating saw is, but he wanted it!

He continued to get other presents later in the week as several things were ordered and arrived late.  I hope he had a good birthday and knows how lucky we each feel to have him in our family!

My 2 sets of boys

At times I feel like I have 2 sets of kids. My older boys and my younger boys.

First we have Aaron with Brian then fast forward a few years and we have Christian with David.  Same outfits.  Same chair (it’s been recovered though).  Different, but similar.  Totally cute!

What we’ve been up to lately

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks and I know I fell way behind in blogging over the past few months, and while it’s understandable with a new baby, I really need to document our life while he’s so little!  So I’m working on it and have SEVERAL posts half written.  (David’s baby blessing, Paul’s birthday, an update on David and some other general posts)  I hope I can finish them all this weekend.

Other than the posts I already mentioned, here are some of the things we’ve been up to lately.

I already blogged about this on my other blog, but I’m still so excited that we have Bountiful Baskets here in Houston now.  We’re still only getting baskets every other week, but we’ve gotten them 3 times now.  Here are pictures of what we’ve gotten in our baskets!  Can you believe it’s only $16.50 for all this!

The day after David was born, Paul bought our family a new TV.  We had previously just had a 27” for our main TV, but Paul decided it was time to upgrade!  And we upgraded to HD service just in time for college football.  When BYU played against USU we had a fun family night.  This summer when we went to Utah we made sure our boys had t-shirts from both schools (we try to brainwash them equally).  Before the game we let each kids choose which school they wanted to root for.  Here’s the results!

It really was a good game, despite the fact that BYU got lucky and won at the end!

Despite the sleep deprivation I am proud that I’ve kept my house in pretty good shape.  Mostly because I’ve made sure that I’ve had reasons to keep the house clean.  I threw a baby shower for my friend Haylie.  (she’s the one in the pink on the left)

I  invited some friends over for a turkey dinner to help clean out my freezer. We ended up with 8 adults, 3 2yos, 1 4yo, 2 5yos, 3 7yos and 1 8yo. I think the kid table had as much fun as the adult table!

I babysat for my friend Julie’s twins.  4 kids under the age of 2…was a little crazy, but it was only for a few hours.  I honestly don’t know how she manages her twins and 2 year old!

This week our Relief Society had a Provident Living cooking class.  I taught everyone what to do with pumpkins.  We cooked up 2 pumpkins and I ended up with 9 cups of pumpkin pulp for to make pumpkin cookies and other goodies!  I also got a cup of pumpkin seeds which I roasted and already ate!  So yummy.

 

Aaron and Brian have had a lot of fun lately too.  Now that they both go to the same elementary school they spend more time together.  Not only do they ride the bus together but they share a room too.  Aaron has the top bunk and his own light to read at night.  Brian has finally gotten interested in reading too and we will often find them both reading late at night well after we’ve told them to go to bed.  Hard to get mad at them though!

Life has definitely been busy, but busy is good.  It makes us tired, but we will survive! 

I wonder what will be next! 

2 weeks later

First of all, I really appreciate the support I received after that last blog post about my birth experience.  I really feel like I have the best friends around!

Secondly, it’s amazing what a difference a week makes!  David is now 2 and a half weeks old and I feel totally different than I did when he was one week old.  I feel GREAT!  I’m tired, but doing fantastic!  For the most part I feel back to my normal self again.  I’m back in my normal clothes, I’m not taking pain pills, I feel pretty normal. 

Thirdly, Paul had family in town this past weekend and we took lots of pictures, but I’m not ready for that blog post yet so here’s some pictures we took of David when he was 6 days old.  Enjoy!

After his first bath

Awake

and Asleep

I think this one is my favorite though!

David Daniel Thomas

For those of you not on facebook, you might not have heard that David Daniel Thomas was born on Monday, August 29, 2011 at 1:45pm via cesarean section.  He was 9 lbs 2.4 oz and 21 inches long.  He is gorgeous and wonderful and we are so glad to be home and have him be a part of our family.

For those of you who want to know more details, I’ll do my best to blog about my birth experience, although I still can’t talk about it without crying.  Those who don’t want to know all the details, feel free to just look at the pictures. 

Paul holding David

Brian and Christian holding David

Brian LOVES him!

His going home outfit

Christian kisses him as often as possible

Christian was trying to help burp David

I asked Aaron to help burp him the other morning.  I can’t believe how big he’s getting!

Now for David’s birth story. We chose to be induced 4 days after his due date so that my own doctor could deliver my baby. I could have been induced a week early by another doctor in my OB’s practice, but my doctor wasn’t able to induce me before she went out of town without a medical reason to take the baby early. (In hind sight, I REALLY wish we had been able to do that, but unfortunately we didn’t know then what was going to happen).

We arrived at the hospital at 5:20am for our scheduled induction and the hospital was kinda busy. We waited an hour before they put in my IV (which really hurt!) another half an hour before they put the IV in the pump to start giving me fluid, then half an hour later my doctor arrived to tell me she wanted to wait until after she did another c-section before she got started with me. So again we waited. An hour later they started my oxytocin. One more half an hour later Dr. Corovessis broke my water then another half an hour later I got my epidural. We waited another hour and a half before the doctor came back to check me again.

At this point she told me I was progressing well, had gone from 3-4cm to 7cm, but she could feel that his left hand was resting on top of his head. Yep, he was waving at us! She and the nurses had me shift positions a few times trying to get him to move his arm and she tried to move his arm physically too. At this point I was at 9cm and it was 11:30am. A few minutes later I began to push.

After pushing for nearly an hour and a half my doctor made the decision that I needed to have a cesarean section. David still had his left hand on top of his head which could have caused him damage and made it difficult for me to deliver him. He also had his head turned off kilter, he was trying to come out a little crooked, thus making it even more difficult for me to deliver him. While I was nervous at the thought of having a c-section, I trusted my doctor and knew it was for the best.

David was born at 1:45pm and came out looking pretty beat up. His left hand was all puffy, there was a small dent in his head where his hand had been resting, and his face was all puffy where he had tried to come out sideways. Paul said he looked like he had been in a fight! Paul took him to the nursery and we found out he was 9 lbs 2.4 oz. They called back to the OR to tell us and my doctor said “Wow, He really WASN’T going to fit!” The nursery didn’t give him back to us for several hours as they had to clean him up and run several tests, but by the time I was able to hold him for the first time he looked great.

Dr. Corovessis holding David SECONDS after being born

See how beat up he looks!

I however, was completely unprepared for the after effects of the c-section. First of all, I assumed that I would have an easy delivery since things went so well with my delivery of Christian. I had never entertained any thoughts of having a c-section and really didn’t know what to expect. There are still several emotional repercussions from that.

I’m grateful for the epidural which allowed me to have a successful surgery without any pain. One effect of the medication, the procedure, and a very cold operating room, was that I was shaking uncontrollably for over an hour. That was pretty annoying! The epidural also made me itch like crazy for about 24 hours. Also pretty annoying.

I’m also grateful for the pain meds which I am on here at home which allow me to manage the pain from my incision. I am healing well, but it DOES hurt and I’ve been told it may continue to hurt for a long time. Today was better than yesterday though and I am hopeful I will continue to feel better everyday.

David is nursing GREAT! My other boys all had trouble nursing while in the hospital, but David nursed so well that my milk came in while I was still in the hospital. That’s good and bad, but mostly good that he’s doing so well.

I’m very grateful to my mom who stayed at my house for 4 days while I was in the hospital. She took care of my boys when I wasn’t able to and I knew I didn’t have to worry about them at all. Thanks mom!

I’m also very grateful for all the love and support my friends have given me. I got over 60 comments on my Facebook status that he was born! I have felt such an outpouring of love these past few weeks and feel truly blessed. Thanks to all those who have visited and have offered to help. I hope I am as good a friend to them as they all are to me!

For those of you who actually got this far and read all that…wow…you deserve a medal! We’re home, we’re happy, we’re doing great! I am so glad to have my beautiful baby boy here with me and have our family all together. I’m glad they’re mine!