Week 4

This week Dylan's eye contact improved alot and he started making more fun noises/words. His head became so much stronger and he started to hold on w his arm on my back when I held him on my shoulder area. He also started trying to "stand up" w his legs when you had him laying reclined forward on your chest.

He also started needing more than just naps and milk. He started to need love, attention and affection. He wanted to be held more, which was fun and great to feel that love.

We finally go to take a fully submerged bath as well since his cord was finally gone (for the most part...there was still a tiny dot stuck on there that didn't come off for a little while longer).

This week was our first week to attend Square One, a ministry for first time moms at Watermark. We did introductions and birth stories that week. It was so nice to converse with other sleep deprived moms and get wisdom from the mentor moms there.

Dylan started going 5-6 hours between feedings the first stretch of the night. He also broke out in some pretty bad baby acne this week. I was so mad! Luckily it went away a week later.

Because of the natural laxative affect of breast milk, Dylan has a bm or gas during or right after each feeding. It's sad and funny to watch him fuss and fight out the gas! With this came more smiles! Can't complain about that! He also started losing major amounts of hair on the top on his head at the end of this week and had to move up from newborn to size 1 diapers. Mommy was sentimental about her baby growing so fast!

We also introduced bottle feeding this week. He didn't do so well at first, gagging and having to burp a lot, but he didn't reject it so that was good. Ryan tool it a little personal whenever Dylan didn't do well w the bottle since he was the one feeding him, but we worked through that frustration.

We also went on our first walk.  Duke man went too!

In January We're Getting Married

We went to Austin this weekend to celebrate the union of my sister Elise and her fiancé Brady.

The wedding was in Dripping Springs outside of Austin and it was beautiful. I had a suit made for Dylan that matched the groomsmen and everyone went crazy for it!

 

Elise looked stunning and we had a blast.

They danced their first dance to the song January Wedding by The Avett Brothers (really good song)

Newborn Pics are Up!

I totally forgot to post that I put up Dylan's nb pics on my Shutterfly share site. www.laughingamersons.shutterfly.com I posted about how to ask permission to view the site in a previous blog entry if you can't open it. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Flirty Guy, Cutie Pie!

I love mornings with Dylan. He is the most active the first few hours of our day. After nursing we will talk to each other on the boppy in the glider. Then we have tummy time as I lean back as far as we can in the glider and he holds his head up and looks around or stares at mommy's face. He also uses this time to strengthen his legs and arms, pushing up high w his legs and letting his arms support him on my chest. He is so awesome! Then we move the fun over to the changing table, his favorite place! He practices his jumping/cycling legs and then practices his words. We say things like, "Ah! Ah!" and "A goo." There are other clicking noises and sounds he is trying out too. It's fun to watch his tongue move around in his open mouth trying to figure out how to copy mommy's sounds! And let's not forget about the smiles! He is smiling all the time now...and it's not just gas! He's been working on real smiles for the past week or two. This pic was taken this week and I think it shows a bit of his personality! I believe we have a funny man on our hands! I love this guy!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Bringing blogger back...

I got this new app for iPhone to help me keep up to date w my bloggings! Hopefully it will work out...it got mixed reviews! Ok...so the first app didn't work out, but I really like the one I have now called blogpress!

Dylan Week 2

We came home from the hospital on Dec 22nd and were not sure about what we would like to do for Christmas plans, etc.  We stayed at home on the 23rd and decided that we would really like to get out and try to do some of our normal Christmas plans since we had been cooped up in the hospital for he past week. 

One of my first times in my bassinet

We didn't go to Lowry's w/Betsey and family on Christmas Eve as usual since we didn't want Dylan exposed to large crowds yet and I was not feeling like being exposed to large crowds yet either!  So we did some gifts at Betsey's before they went to dinner.  Betsey's twin sister Barbara and her son Rob got to hold Dylan, as did Grandpa Bob again.

Christmas day we went to Gary & Debra's and then to my parents' house.  It was a long day and Dylan and I were pooped.  I actually cried that night because I was so exhausted. The day after Christmas, we went to my parents' house again for the Lewis family Christmas.  Everyone oohed and ahhed over Dylan.  He took a nice long nap on Uncle Bubba's chest on the recliner...a nice baby tradition we have all taken part in at some point in our lives! 

 

Christmas Outfit!

We then went back over to Betsey's to finish up gifts since she wasn't home earlier.  I was so exhausted and overwhelmed that I kinda broke down again.  Ryan is such an amazing husband and took care of everything so that we could make a polite exit and get us home to rest up some more.



This week I had a myriad of emotions and cried a lot!  Guilt, fear, anxiety, excitement, joy, and many others showed up at unexpected times.  I started feeling bad about the lack of energy I had to give to Ryan at the end of the day since I was using up all my energy to care for Dylan.  I didn't feel like that was fair.  But Ryan was very selfless during that time and was so helpful and understanding.

 During his second week of life Dylan really started to try to hold his head up.  He had done it some in the hospital, but was really set on trying some more.  He was still very expressive with his hands in his face constantly.  Even with his little nails (that I was still afraid to trim), he didn't scratch his face hardly any despite the hands in the face!

 

His umbilical cord was still on there pretty good.  We went to the pediatrician for Dylan's two week appointment and they treated it with some silver nitrate that helped the majority of it fall off that evening. The doctor said that Dylan was doing great and gave him an A+!  Said he was growing well and that our breastfeeding must be going well.  Dr. Straughn also told us that we didn't need to wake him up every 3 hours at night to feed anymore, that he could start sleeping longer through the night.  This was relieving for us! But Dylan still continued to wake up around 3 to 4 hours on his own anyway!  But 4 hours between feedings was a huge deal for me, as any additional time of consecutive sleep was a big help to my body.

We also had many people sign up on our Care Calendar that Amy set up for us and it was nice breaking up the baby-ness with some adult conversation. 



Baby Boy Week 1

I'm so behind on logging in our new family happenings!  I decided that I would blog about each week of his life thus far.  I don't know if I will be able to keep up w/weekly blogs about specific changes, but things change so fast with him that I would really like to document it!

Here is Week 1:

I've blogged some about Dylan's first week of life.  We were all in the hospital due to his IV antibiotic treatment.  I can't believe how tiny and perfect he was!  He just slept and ate.  He only cried when he was hungry.  It was funny because he peed almost every time he was changed.  Ryan experienced a lot of "fountains."

 He came out with long fingernails and always kept his hands in his face...just like in the womb!  I was always telling people when I was pregnant that he had his fingers in his face down there and was scratching all the time and some people didn't believe me...well the proof is in the baby!  He always has his hands up around his face "voguing."  I just say that he is very "expressive with his hands."  His startle reflex was very sensitive and cute.  Especially with those expressive hands!

Dylan started breastfeeding well from the start.  I learned a lot from our childbirth classes b/c our instructor was also a lactation consultant, so I felt like I at least had some idea of where to start.  But then we had lactation consultants come in almost daily at the hospital, so we got even more tips from them.  I did have some engorgement and clogged ducts when my milk came in.  Owwie!  But with the lactation consultants' help, we worked them out pretty quickly.  One thing that was difficult our first night was that I had to feed him every two hours due to him barely being considered "large for gestational age" on some scale they have. They also had to check his blood sugar about every 2 hours for the same reason.  It was hard because he would fall asleep after about 5 minutes of nursing and they wanted him to feed for 20 minutes.  That was just for one night, but we had trouble keeping him awake during feedings for the first week or so.  It was important to us that he feed for longer so that he would sleep longer between feedings so that we could get some rest!

We had so many visitors and so many nurses that were so sweet to us...it made our one-week stay bearable.  We (especially me) definitely got stir crazy in that hospital.  Sometimes it made Ryan and me short with one another, but ultimately it was our patient support for one another and reliance on God's grace that got us through.  Ryan was so great the entire time.  I couldn't have asked for more from him.  Anywho.  I didn't go outside for days at a time.  Ryan would go do a half a day's work and my mom would come spend time with me.  Eventually we went out to get a pedicure down the street during one of Dylan's treatments and went for a walk around the hospital or to Starbucks other times.

Despite the extra help we got from the nurses for a week, it was still surreal taking him home with us.  I sat in the back with him and watched him the entire way to the house.  We got home and Betsey (Ryan's mom) had left a tiny birthday cake out on the counter for Dylan and Gary & Debra (Ryan's dad and step-mom) left a Charlie Brown Christmas tree on the counter and had bought a Santa toilet cover and decked out our master bathroom potty.  We were so tired because we didn't get home from the hospital until 11 or midnight because of his evening antibiotic treatment and then we stayed up to get things situated.  Dylan slept well in his little bassinet in our room.  Of course I woke up to check if he was breathing periodically...but overall I slept WAY better in our own bed than I did at the hospital...and so did Dylan!  He has slept 3+ hour stretches at a time pretty consistently at night from that night on.

A Baby Changes Everything

There's something special about being pregnant & delivering a baby at Christmastime.  I have never noticed how many of the Christmas songs talk about babies...well, one baby...Jesus!  I mean Mary Did You Know, Away in a Manger, A Baby Changes Everything, and don't even get me started on Joseph's Lullaby.  I could barely listen for a minute without crying.  It just really reminds you how powerful and perfect God's plan of perfect peace and redemption is.  He chose to start as a tiny person in utero and was born as a helpless baby.  And after laboring for 19 hours in a nice hospital with medication, the pressures of wondering if I'm doing this mothering thing right, and spending so many sleepless nights with a crying baby, the thought of delivering away from home in a barn, the pressures of mothering GOD, staying up with all those animals AND a crying baby makes me understand even more why Catholics say "hail Mary full of grace."  Sheesh!