A Little Lady Baby Shower

A little lady is on her way...{never would have thought that would mean the next day!}. These are pictures of my sister's baby shower that I put together with some of her friends. It's been well over a year since then and she's already had another baby! We had so much fun celebrating her and her baby. That very next day I get a call from my sister worried that things don't seem right with how she's feeling. With a run down of her symptoms I thought for sure she was dehydrated and to go to the hospital for fluids {She was only 32 weeks along}. She gets to the hospital to find out she is 8cm dilated and the baby was coming that day! Her baby girl arrived healthy as could be. They were prepared for NICU but she ended up getting to stay with her Mommy and they were able to leave after a few days!

This was such a cute idea her friend came up with. Decorate your red fingerprint as a ladybug and then sign your name. My sister added this to her baby's room. 

Caleb is 1 Month Old!

What a month it has been! We survived by the skin of our teeth. We were thankful to have so much help this month. Never could we have imagined the hurdles we were going to encounter.

As soon as you arrived and you let out your first cry I noticed you were tongue-tied like your sister. I kind of prepared myself for nursing being a challenge. When we met with the pediatrician and lactation consultant both confirmed you were tongue-tied so we didn't wait long to schedule an appointment for the clipping procedure. Thankfully the appointment was scheduled just a couple days after you were born. Nursing definitely wasn't going well and it was really painful. You would get very frustrated and cry a lot. You had a follow up appointment at the pediatric office and your weight had dropped. No real worries since you hadn't had the procedure yet. When you had the procedure I thought things would be better. You had a weight check scheduled to make sure you were on the up. Nursing still seemed to be a struggle and you didn't seem happy at all with it. Weigh in day had arrived and you had dropped even lower. This was a real concern since we should've seen progress after the procedure was complete. At that point I called the lactation consultant and they said to pump, bottle and nurse until he got back to his birth weight. When I started on this path I felt like I completely sabotaged nursing. You were pretty much only wanting the bottle and nursing was becoming even more of a struggle. I met with a consultant and as she watched you nurse she agreed. You were angry and as of now it would be better to give you and me a break from nursing until you got a little bigger. So I pumped and bottle fed for the next three weeks and it was exhausting.

On top of the nursing challenges we were bombarded with all the winter viruses. We all had really bad colds which even you picked up at only 2 weeks old. It was really sad to hear you congested. You had such a hard time breathing since at this age you only know how to breath through your nose. Luke got tonsillitis then pneumonia and then the flu and Kate may have had the flu or just some virus that gives you a fever for a couple of days. It was really hard to get your brother and sister to understand they couldn't hold or touch you during this long week. They love you so much. It was sweet to see how understanding Luke was about it.

We made it through these hard weeks and then all of a sudden one day we tried nursing again and you took to it! This past week you have been exclusively nursing and I have just begun to stop pumping. This has been a huge answer to prayer. We have been surrounded by friends and family that have encouraged and provided help during this time and we are so very thankful!

Here are some things we love about you!

• You are very easy going
• You don't mind the chaos and loud noise that a family of 5 brings.
• You have tons of fuzzy chick hair. Kate likes to touch it and twirl it.
• Your brother and sister love you so much. They are so sweet and concerned for you.
• When you cry they want to know what's wrong and ask for us to check on you and make sure you're okay. They also always come to the conclusion that you're crying because you're hungry. 
• You look a lot like your Daddy. You have his exact hairline
• You have long fingers and toes.
• We enjoy holding you and smelling you. You smell so good!:)
• We had you in our room for the first three weeks. I did a lot of skin on skin since I wasn't able to nurse. Although I didn't get much sleep I enjoyed holding you close to me. You were so warm and cozy. 
• The last week of this month we put you in your crib for bedtime and some naps. You did great transitioning and kept the same sleep patterns.
• You sleep 4 hour stretches at night. Sometimes you'll get to 5 hours.
• We discovered we can't leave Katelyn unattended with you. I found her trying to shove play food in your mouth. You poor baby! 
• Luke and Kate love to hold you. They even got to feed you a bottle a couple times. 
• You are very strong. You hold your head up well and you have a good grip!
• You were not a fan of diaper changes for the first couple weeks. You would SCREAM! We figured out it was because you didn't like to be cold so we set up a little space heater at your changing station and you didn't make a peep.
• You aren't a huge fan of baths, again, it relates to being cold and you do not like being cold.
• You love to be swaddled. Just like Luke, you like for the blanket to cover your face. We leave an air-pocket of course!
• You love to be warm. If we bundle you, you'll sleep for hours. 

Here is our 1 month photo session. We love you handsome little guy!!

Welcome Caleb Michael

Welcome to the world Caleb Michael

He arrived February 1, 2015 at 1:49am

8 pounds 7 ounces and 20.25 inches long 

You arrived when you wanted. Mommy was trying her hardest to not let her type A personality get in the way of you arriving when you wanted. I'm not going to lie, it was tough, but with you potentially being my last I really wanted and desired to know what true labor pains were. You ended up being by far my favorite birthing experience. And I think that's fair for you since you are potentially our last and I'm sure you'll be skimped on video footage and photos!

Luke and Katelyn were scheduled inductions and I really wanted to try and go 'natural' this time {meaning no induction but yes to an epidural}. I assumed since Caleb was my third he would at least arrive on my due date. I wasn't planning for a later arrival {I had his brother's fourth birthday party planned two weeks after his due date}. It was getting pretty stressful with every passing day after his due date.

One week before my due date I went in for my routine OB check up and found I was only one centimeter dilated {no surprise there}. I was on the fence with whether to have the midwife strip my membranes since this never worked with my other pregnancies. She convinced me she was 'pretty good at it' so I went ahead with the discomfort. With my due date just one week away I decided I would test the ole' wives tale and eat at Scalini's {an italian restaurant that swears their eggplant parmesan puts women into labor}. I was trying really hard not to get my hopes up but with these two things PLUS the fact that he was my third {and apparently that means things happen fast, so I've been told} that I would see some progress at my next appointment {due date day}. Sure enough they check and I'm barely two centimeters. So I was bummed and I was especially bummed when they said I would be in for a stress test couple days later to check on the baby and made no mention of scheduling an induction {which in hind site was a good thing because I would have scheduled!}. So, a couple days later I'm back in the office taking the stress test and the midwife checks to see if I've made any progress with dilating and she informs me that I'm barely a 2 still. She senses my frustration and says she can strip the membranes further and also put a scheduled induction on the books just in case I don't end up laboring on my own.

We had a scheduled induction for February 4th and I was praying you would come sooner! The days leading up to labor I was getting a lot of uncomfortable Braxton Hicks. They were the most uncomfortable in the evenings. Every evening I would wonder if this was "it" because they were that uncomfortable. On Saturday January 31st, our family had an early dinner {5:00pm}. We were eating Tacos. As soon as we sat down I got an uncomfortable contraction. I started complaining to Dave telling him every night this has been happening and it makes me wonder if it's labor. Within the span of an hour at the dinner table I get about three uncomfortable contractions and don't help myself with 'seconds'. This is NOT like me. I always get up for seconds and thirds! After dinner, I round the kids up for bath time and by that point the contractions are really uncomfortable and I tell Dave we should probably start timing them because they seem consistent. Bath time is done and I tell Dave I think we may have this baby tonight or early morning so let's plan to go to the hospital tonight {at a reasonable hour} to check in but that we would have time to hang out at the closest Starbuck's for one last 'date'. We call my parents and tell them to take their time but plan to stay at our house that night while we got to the hospital. My plan was to leave the house by 10pm. As soon as I get off the phone I get a contraction that I have to "breath through" and start second guessing my plans for leaving later. Dave is getting frantic realizing that my contractions are between 4-6 minutes apart and 1 minute long. We call my parents again and tell them they need to skip their dinner date and head over now. Thankfully we put the kids down early and they were asleep by the time my parents were over. That couldn't have been planned more perfectly.

We get to the hospital and make our way to the nurse triage. I explain my contractions and they tell me the beds are full and that I would need to wait in the waiting room until one became available. I thought she meant the beds in ALL of labor and delivery were full so I freaked out on her for just a moment and she then explained it was only the triage beds that were full. Since I hadn't gone in "labor" before I didn't know about this step:). Dave and I head to the waiting room and my contractions are very painful at this point that I'm 'breathing' through every one of them. I found the best way to get through them was rub my belly and breath long and deep. I think maybe an hour went by and they finally had a room available. They check me and I'm 6 centimeters dilated. I was a little frustrated because I thought with this amount of pain surely I was like an 8! But they told me I was doing a really good job for being a 6 and that I could probably go without an epidural. They wheel me to the delivery room and I was pretty proud of myself for making it to labor without an induction and being able to bear the contractions on my own. I told my nurse to hold off on calling the anesthesiologist because I wanted to see how long I could go without it. Not soon after, I got a couple really painful contractions and had her call them up.

I was nervous about the epidural since I had some complications with it when I had Katelyn. When he arrived I let him know my concerns and I was pretty annoyed by his apparent lack of interest. He barely listened and talked over me. Sure enough, he sets me up and minutes after he leaves my blood pressure starts dropping. I had an amazing nurse that was able to get me back quickly and keep it from dropping any lower. She was really annoyed with him too and said he's notorious for giving too much of the drug. Once my blood pressure leveled labor was a breeze from that point on. I did however itch like crazy everywhere {side effect from the epidural} so I wasn't able to fall asleep but I think the itchiness was better then feeling the painful contractions:).  The epidural did slow down my contractions so I was in labor a little longer then if I never got it. A couple hours later, I don't feel pressure {the guy dosed me up to strong to feel anything} but I was feeling pressure on my chest {kind of a feeling of anxiety} so I call the nurse in and she checked me to find that I was ready to push. My midwife comes in and asks me to do a practice push. One practice push and three pushes later Caleb was out! It was so easy!:) Caleb was quiet for what seemed like eternity. I kept saying, is he going to cry?! And then finally he started. We got to hold him immediately and love on him.

Here are our pictures from the hospital. We didn't have as many as with Kate and Luke because we got out of there as quickly as possible {24 hours later}. Because the flu was bad this year they weren't allowing siblings to visit the rooms. We really wanted Luke and Kate to meet him as soon as possible! Not to mention the beds are so uncomfortable and the interruptions throughout the night are annoying:).

We arrive home February 2nd where Luke and Katelyn got to meet there baby brother for the first time. The immediate love they had for him was priceless. They couldn't wait to hold him and they were so concerned when you cried.