Four (and a half) Months Old!

Totally dropped the ball on the four month update, so here is a Cam update at four and a half months!

• He weighs 15 lbs 14 oz (48th) and is  26 1/2 in (84th) long!  Despite his chunk, our boy is long and lean!!
• He is wearing size 2 diapers and 6 month clothes and sleepers.
• He is drinking 4 to 5 ounces of milk 5 to 6 times a day.  I am still pumping three times a day.
• He is still taking medicine for reflux twice a day.
• We only burp him after he eats now and he still spits up a little bit, but that has gotten much better.
• He is on a pretty solid three hour schedule.  He gives us 10 - 12 hours at night!
• He is the happiest, most laid back baby!  He smiles and laughs all the time unless he is hungry or super tired.
• He rolled over from his belly to his back a couple of days before Christmas.  He does it pretty easily now.
• He is starting to drool a ton and wanting to put everything into his mouth.  I'm thinking he has a couple of teeth trying to make their way up!
• He still likes his bouncy seat, but he tries to sit up all the time.
• He loves his exersaucer and will bounce and play with the toys.  He gets overwhelmed when we turn on the sights and sounds.  So for now, he just rolls the balls and bats stuff.
• To go to sleep, we would wrap Cam up in a Miracle Blanket and a swaddle blanket since he could break out of the Miracle by itself.  So after Christmas (4 1/2 months) we started putting him to sleep in a Zipadee-Zip sleep sack with arms and he has made the transition like a champ.   It allows him to feel secure, but gives him freedom so that we can switch him to just a sleep sack after a few weeks.
• He is still doing great at school.  He is so observant and loves to just watch what is going on.  He is going to be gone once he starts moving!  He wants so badly to be able to walk and talk and run around!
• He had a great first Christmas!  He got a few outfits and some toys to chew on and hold on to.
• We have finally found some soap that Cam can use!  He can take a bath every day and he doesn't break out at all!  We got the Mustela at Babies 'R' Us just to try it out and it has been great!

We are so in love with our sweet boy and love every second of watching him grow!!

Three Months!

What a difference a month can make!! I just read my two month post and could feel myself get stressed out just remembering how tough those weeks were.  I am very thankful to say that three months in, we are all doing just fine.  I went back to work last week (Nov 5), the day after Cam turned 12 weeks old.  I am so very thankful and grateful for those 12 weeks.  They were by no means easy, but I am lucky that I got to spend my whole leave with my sweet little ones.

Other than a rough day here and there, we have gotten into a pretty sweet swing of things around our house.  Cam started going to school with Caroline the Monday before I went back to work.  Leslie was being induced with Baby Drew on that Monday (Nov 3), so I wanted to be free to do what I could for her.  I also wanted to be available to go get the kids if I needed to.  Things couldn't have worked out better.  Cam has done great at school and has been taking short naps throughout the day and eating all of the milk that I send.  He comes homes EXHAUSTED and immediately goes down for a nap.  I really look forward to the two feedings he has at night now that I am not with him all day.  Ms. Val and Ms. Nita tell us how alert he is all day.  I'm sure he will be up and running before we know it!

Caroline loves being at school with Cam and helps take care of him.  The first day they were both going Caroline said, 'Don't worry, Mom.  I've got Cam's back!'  She was so excited to show him off to her friends.  About a week after they both started going, Ms. Nita needed to take him into another room because he was crying and Ms. Val needed to take a phone call.  Caroline flipped out.  She thought they were taking him away and she was not having it!!  It is so good to know that they are both so well taken care of and that they can take care of each other.

Now that we have the reflux and feeding figured out, Cam is the happiest, laid back little guy!  Most time when he wakes up from a nap he will cry until he sees your head and then he will smile so hard his eyes almost close!  He is laughing and blowing raspberries and he is about the cutest baby I've ever seen (biased or not!).  I can't wait to see his personality keep coming out and see what kind of little man he is going to turn into!

Now on to some three month stats:

• He weighs (unofficially) 15.2 lbs!  Our big boy!
• He is in 3 month clothes and 3/6 month sleepers.
• He is still in size 1 diapers.
• He was put in his crib to sleep at about 10 weeks and has done just fine since then!
• We still swaddle him and found that there is a pretty big gap between a small SwaddleMe swaddler and a medium/large.  The small got to be too small, but he could easily get out of the medium/large.  I got him a Miracle Blanket and it has worked great.  He is a strong rascal and can still get out of it if it isn't just right, but for the most part he goes to sleep before he even really tries.
• I am just pumping and have it down to three times a day.  He eats between 2 and 4 ounces 6 times a day.
• After school I put him right down for a nap.  He usually gets up and eats around 7, goes down until we get him up about 10 for a 'dream feed', and then we don't hear a peep until 5 or 6.  Then he goes back down after he eats until we leave for school.  I will take that every day of the week!  He does a great job of sleeping now - or maybe I just appreciate every bit of it since those early weeks were so tough!
• He still has all of his crazy skin stuff going on, so we are still doing his bath routine every other day with the T/Gel, baby oil, Cetaphil, and a toothbrush for scrubbing.
• He has been able to sit up in a Bumbo for a while and has full head control.  He loves to be up and out and be able to see everything that is going on.
• We have pulled the mat out with the jungle gym for him to look at those butterflies that Caroline loved.  He still loves his bouncy seat and will GO TO TOWN kicking with his feet when he really gets going.  He LOVES to talk to the frog and all his other friends on his bouncy seat.
• Unless he is really hungry, he will smile and talk and laugh the whole time he is up.
• The Babywise eat-play-sleep routine doesn't work for our boy.  He doesn't want to eat right away, but instead will play for a good bit when he wakes up until he fusses and then we feed him.  We still put him in the bed while he is awake, but he has a full belly.
• He smiled at Caroline for the first time a couple of weeks ago and it made Caroline's life.  She thought it was the cutest thing.  She is so ready for him to be able to do something!
• We have been calling Caroline 'Big Sister', but she has decided she wants to be called Sissy like her 'cousants' Anna and Penelope!
• He does a great job riding in his car seat.  He will just lay back there and talk to the friends dangling from the mirror or fuss for just a minute before going to sleep.  

I love my sweet boy and I eat up every minute of him snuggling with me after he eats.  Being a boy, I am sure he is going to be GONE once he can move, so I'm trying to enjoy him being willing to let me snuggle with him.  So glad I got picked to be his mama and I get to watch him grow up!!

Things I Have Learned

A few things I have learned in these first two months of being the mom of two sweet babies:

1.  Going from one child to two is NO JOKE.  I knew it would be hard, but I figured if you have done it once, you can do it a million times.  That is so far from the truth it isn't even funny.  A second kid doesn't just double the work, it is about 100 times the work.  And I'm not even totally sure why.  There have been a few times that Cam has been screaming, Caroline has been crying, the dogs are on my nerves and I have just started laughing hysterically.  I try really hard to find the humor in it all, because I really don't want to be the crying girl all the time - that is not a good look.

2.  When you bring babies into this world, it is so important to have a good support system.  When it is the middle of the night and you just can't be awake for one more second, it is so amazing to have someone that will tell you to lay down and they take the baby so that you can sleep.  I can't say enough about Jason and all that he has done.  I know they are his kids, too, but he comes home from work and jumps in with 100% effort with both kids.  He does everything I need for him to do and he some how knows exactly what it is that I need for myself.  Caroline and Camden - I want you to know how amazing your Daddy is.  I wouldn't be able to do what I do without him.  I also can't say enough about my parents and Jason's parents and how great they have been.  They come up to Winston to help out and are always ready for us to come to Jacksonville or Wilmington any time we want (or need!).  I have also had lots of calls and texts from friends just checking in to see how things are going.  When you are doing the same thing day in and day out and don't have much adult conversation, those texts and calls mean the world!

3.  It is important to admit when you need help.  This is not one that I do well, but when you have a baby that is screaming for the third nap in a row for you can't even remember how many days in a row - you need some help.  You need to be able to tag some one else in so that you can go somewhere that you can't hear the crying to give yourself a break.  Even when the baby isn't crying and everyone is happy, you are still taking care of other lives.  You still need to get out of the house by yourself or have someone watch the kids so that you can take a nice, long, hot shower!

4.  Back to the 'once you have done it once' thing - just because you have gotten one child out of diapers doesn't mean that you know jack squat about what the second kid will want or need.  My first instinct is to do what we did for Caroline because that is all I know, but just about every time Cam is pretty quick to let us know that he is not Caroline!  I know this is a lesson that I will learn MANY times over through their lives, so I might as well start learning it now!

5.  The idea of having a baby in the house and the reality of it can be two very different things.  Caroline said the other day, 'Cam cries a lot.  I still like him, but he cries a lot.'  After two months, she is a lot less willing to help and a lot less interested in what he does.  He doesn't do much but cry and take away our attention, so I'm sure I'd be over that pretty quickly, too.  I know she will begin to really enjoy him when he can do stuff and she can interact with him.  Even I remembered the sweet times of Caroline being little, but didn't quite hold on to the times she was screaming or pooping on me or how annoying washing those bottles would get.

6.  I am so very lucky to get to take all twelve weeks of maternity leave.  The end is coming up in a little over 3 weeks (yikes!) and while I may get overwhelmed or just exhausted - I wouldn't trade this time for anything in the world.  I some times wish I was back at work at lunch having adult conversation, but I know that once I am back I am going to long for these days of doing nothing but taking care of my babies.  I am going to miss seeing that smile on Cam's face when he is full and in a good mood.  I am going to miss doing 'projects' with Caroline and sitting down to eat lunch with her and having our 'conversations' about whatever it is she wants to talk about that day.

7.  On Facebook and social media in general, people like to put their best foot forward.  I am guilty of this.  I will take 15 pictures and chose the one that looks the happiest.  I don't take pictures when Caroline is on the floor throwing a fit or Cam is screaming for the umpteenth hour.  It's because no one wants to remember those things and no one wants other people to know how hard our life can get.  That is why I thought it was important to add all of this to this blog.  I don't want to remember how hard these days have been, but it is part of my life.  It is part of our story and everyone else is fighting their own battle every day, too.  Honesty can be a good thing!

8.  Through all of the frustration and tears these first two months have brought, there has also been so much joy.  The way Cam came into this world I should have known that nothing with him was going to be easy!  But when he smiles at me and those eyes squint up, there is nothing like that feeling.  And when I am holding Cam after feeding him and Caroline crawls in to my lap and says, 'I know you like holding your two babies,' I feel like the luckiest person in this world.  I love everything about this sweet life that I get to live.  I am still very much in love with my very best friend and I have two of the best things that we could have ever asked for.  Life is most certainly good.

Two Months!

I just read my one month post and laughed out loud.  I'm not sure if it was the adrenaline still pumping or that the exhaustion hadn't set it yet, but my ignorance was bliss!!  I wanted with all of my heart to believe (and did believe) that he was ready for a 3 hour set schedule and sleeping in the crib.  That was definitely not the case.  One of my problems is that I remember how Caroline ended up.  I remember that she was on a three hour schedule and that she napped so nicely in her crib.  What I don't remember is how we got there.  Caroline was a really easy baby, but things got tough at some points.  I remember listening to her cry and Jason and I keeping each other from going in there with her.  I also remember crying while she cried or calling Leslie and telling her that she had been crying for 30 minutes and what to do now.  So things weren't perfect, but we block out the hard stuff so that we'll be willing to do it again!

When I took Cam to the doctor for his two week check  up, I told the doctor that I thought he had reflux.  You could hear it, you could feel it, and he spit up so much and you could tell that it hurt.  He told me that he hesitated doing anything that early.  So I went home and continued to deal with a baby that was painfully spitting up a lot.  Over the next few weeks, he would spit up all the time and had trouble staying asleep for naps. I racked my brain trying to figure out what it was that kept him from sleeping well.  Did he need to be swaddled or did his hands need to be out?  Did he need white noise or music?  Was he too hot or too cold?  Was it took dark or too light?  Was it the kind of bottle we used? I just knew that there was something I was doing to keep him from sleeping well. (Why does mom guilt have to be so strong and so terrible?!) THANKFULLY, he always did pretty well at night.  The day was just rough.  Mornings usually went smoothly, but the afternoons from about 1 - 8 were just a fight.  He would be so tired and go right to sleep when I put him down, but then wake up 10 minutes later and just fuss and fight.  The crib did not work out at 4 weeks (that is so young now that I am a few weeks out from that!), so we started putting him to sleep in our Fisher Price Rock 'N Play.  We used that in our room at night to keep him kind of upright since I suspected reflux.  He slept well at night, so I figured he would sleep ok in it during the day.  So I would just move the Rock 'N Play to his room for naps to help him get used to it.  And this was how my life was for a few weeks.  Good morning naps (enough for me to pump and shower), eating ravenously every two hours or so, and then ROUGH afternoons. I tried everything - going in, putting his paci back in, staying out, listening to him cry and crying with him, putting in my head phones and timing how long I would let him cry, etc.  NOTHING WORKED.  He would sleep for 20 minutes or so and then wake up screaming.  If I went and got him he was fine, but I was not ok with a 20 minute nap and then having to stretch him to eat again.  I knew he needed to sleep longer to get good, restful sleep.

So, Jason would come home after being at work all day, bless his heart, and I would be a stressed out, crying mess.  I had listened to my baby cry all afternoon and hadn't been able to do anything for him.  Jason would take Cam and tell me to go give Caroline a bath or he would bring dinner home so I didn't have to worry about cooking anything.  He helped me any way he possibly could and would often just make me stop, give me a hug and a kiss, and tell me that I was doing a great job.  I don't know what I would have done without him!

When Cam was 6 weeks old Jason had a bye week.  So, we loaded up with the car with both kids and both dogs and headed to Jacksonville for a long weekend.  I was dreading it because I knew he wouldn't sleep and then we would be in someone else's house bothering them.  I talked to myself on the way down and decided that I was just going to have to go with the flow because we weren't at home and he didn't really have a solid flow any way.  For some reason, he did great!  He slept great naps and was just as happy as a clam.  It was awesome for that weekend because we were able to go out just the two of us and I didn't feel bad leaving the kids with Grammie and Grandpa.  Jason was a lot of help and it ended up being a good weekend.

When we got back I thought we had turned a corner and were going to have great naps.  Not so much.  I knew it was possible, so I got even more frustrated.  Finally, the day Cam turned 7 weeks old, I called my doctor and talked to a triage nurse. I told her about his projectile spit up, trouble napping, and his overall discomfort.  After 5 minutes of taking information she sent me to an appointment scheduler because she said we needed to be seen that day.  We went in a couple of hours later and walked out with a prescription for Zantac.  Hallelujah!  What I had known 5 weeks earlier was verifiied.

I knew that was going to be the fix I had been praying for.  This would stop him from hurting and let him take good naps.  So that night we put him to bed and I had a renewed hope for the days ahead.  We woke up the next morning and naps went great (as they had been).  I put Caroline in the bed for a nap about 1 and Cam down for a nap right after.  I was washing dishes and I thought that I might actually get a nap that day.  There was my big mistake right there!  AS SOON as I laid down after getting things cleaned up - screaming.  And screaming and screaming.  I would go in and give him his paci and he would be quiet for about 2 minutes and then scream again.  I finally put my headphones in and went into our bedroom across the house.  I texted Jason and I Leslie and just wanted someone to tell me how to fix it.  They both told me that it would take time for the medicine to kick in and that I just needed to stay in our room to see if maybe he would fall asleep.  I decided I needed a nap and he was in a safe place and he would be ok if he just cried for a while.  As soon as I started to drift off (once my mind quite racing) - Caroline was beside me.  No nap for me.  I cried again.  I went and got him after a while and fed him and just went on with what I could do.  Jason eventually got home and I was a mess.  I was supposed to go to Wilmington on Sunday (this was Wednesday), so Jason texted my mom and asked her to call me and tell me to come down the next day.  I resisted initially because I hate asking for help or admitting that I need help, but I knew that I needed all that I could get.

So, the next day I loaded the kids up and we headed to Wilmington.  This was SUCH a great week because I had a lot of help all day long, Cam did some crying there so I knew it wasn't me, and Mom would tell me to get out of the house or go somewhere quiet to take a nap so that I could get some sleep and get myself back together.  She also took him at night a few times to give me a full night sleep.  Deddy and Jeffro helped, too, and were glad to take him and talk to him or feed him for me.  I am so glad that Jason helped me see that I needed some help!

When we got home I was determined to figure all of this out.  Cam had been on medicine for about 10 days and he was 8 weeks old.  He would be fine to leave crying for a while.  I happened to be scrolling through Facebook and found a video about a 'baby whisperer' and how she gets babies to sleep.  It was like a light bulb went off.  It was what we had been doing, but not all together.  That afternoon I put him down for his first nap in his crib doing what this lady said.  He took a solid hour long nap.  I didn't hold my breath.  I put him down for his next nap and he slept for a couple of hours.  There I had it - he was in his crib and sleeping!
Since then, he has slept every nap and every night in his crib.  We swaddle him and play white noise or rain the loudness of a vaccuum.  The mornings have been great (like they always have been) and he has been sleeping through the night for the past week.  We feed him around 11 and he doesn't get up until around 5.  Not too shabby for a 2 month old!  The afternoons are still a fight.  He has been on his medicine for almost 2 weeks, so I know he isn't hurting.  His spit up is a lot less painful and it is not projectile any more.  He can still soak a burp cloth, but he is doing better.  So this week, I am starting full out Baby Wise.  I am putting him down for his nap, swaddled and safe, and I am letting him cry.  I am not putting his paci back in, I am not rocking him.  None of that is helping, so he is going to have to cry himself to sleep so he can learn how to put himself back to sleep when he wakes up.  The end result will be much better sleep for him and a lot less stress for me.

I used to think people were sick when they hurt little babies for just crying, but I can understand why.  I am lucky enough to have a fantastic support system and the sense to leave him in his crib crying if I am getting frustrated.  A baby that doesn't sleep for hours a day and just cries and cries is extremely frustrating!  I know as he gets older, things will only get better!

Now on to the two month stats:

• He weighs 13 pounds!  Even with all of his spitting up, he is still gaining plenty of weight!
• He had a six week and an eight week growth spurt that ran together.  Part of his screaming and 20 minute naps did come from him being hungry.  He would down an entire bottle, only to be hungry an hour and a half to two hours later.  It was exhausting.
• He is still in size 1 diapers and size 3 clothes.  The 3/6 month and 6 month clothes aren't far away!  His toes are getting tight!
• When he is up and has a full belly, he is such a happy baby!  He smiles all the time now and is talking to all sorts of things!  He will talk to people if you get him going and he loves sitting in his bouncy seat and talking to the animals he can see.  Talking always makes him spit up if he gets super excited!
• He is totally sleeping in his crib.  He takes about 6 naps a day and sleeps up to 6 hours at night!  Getting good chunks of sleep at night is making this mama feel more normal every day!
• He had a Wonder Week that was all about his brain linking to the movements of his body.  All though he can't grab things yet, his hands have opened up and he is starting to swat at things.  When he is in his bouncy seat his legs and feet are just a movin'!
• His skin is still a hot mess in places.  He has eczema on his arms and legs, acne on his face, and cradle cap on his scalp. Hopefully, those will figure themselves out as he gets older, too!
• One of my very favorite things that he does right now is nuzzling.  When he has just eaten, or if I go in a get him out of the crib and pat his back pretty hard, he will move his head back and forth on my shoulder until he gets in the very nook of my neck.  I can feel him breathing on me and feel his eyelashes if he is blinking.  In those moments, all of the tough times and frustrations go away and I am so lucky to be this sweet boys mama!

One Month!

How is our boy already a month old?!

• By my calculations, he weighs 11 pounds.  That means that he has gained 2.5 pounds since he was born.  What a chunk bucket!
• He wears size 1 diapers.  He wore newborns for a week or two and outgrew them.
• He can still wear a few of his newborn clothes, but his 0-3 month and 3 month have already made it into the rotation.
• He is on a pretty good 3 hour schedule (and has been for weeks I feel like) and at night has given us as many as 4 or 5 hours between feedings, though that is not the norm.  We aren't on any type of schedule, yet.  We just go with the flow.  That is going to change soon to get that sleeping through the night thing going.
• We haven't instated BabyWise yet, but we have followed the eat, play, sleep model since he was born.  When he wakes up he eats, then we change his diaper and talk to him/put him on his play mat/lay him down and let him look around until he starts fussing.  Then it is time for him to go to sleep, so we swaddle him up and put him down.  He doesn't always instantly fall asleep, but will look around for a bit and then doze off.  That is great because it means that he is already learning how to put himself to sleep, which will help out a bunch once we really start BabyWise-ing him in a few weeks.
• I am still exclusively pumping.  I was all ready to boob feed him, but at about the week mark he started needing more than I could give him.  He would eat for about an hour (ain't nobody got time for that!) and still be hungry.  I would have to make him a bottle to top him off.  I decided that it was just easier for me to pump and give him a full feeding out of a bottle when he ate.  I am such a cow that I only have to pump four times a day and that gets enough milk for all of his feedings and then some to stash in the freezer each day.  I already have a freezer FULL of milk, which I know is such a huge blessing.  A lot of women have to work really hard to produce milk and I am very lucky to just naturally be a big milk producer.  I do feel like a cow, though - MMOOOOOOO!!
• Today (4 1/2 wks) we put him down for a nap in his crib for the first time.  We have had him napping in the living room swaddled in the bouncy seat next to the white noise made by the MamaRoo (which he has already outgrown - he relaxed much more in something that vibrated).  We have not been quiet, but we have kept the TV just loud enough for us to hear it and tried to keep Caroline from running around him and making a ridiculous amount of noise.  He has done great and slept through everything, but this week is a Wonder Week (a book/app/website that shows physical symptoms that come from cognitive 'leaps' that babies make) so he has been much more aware of what is going on around him.  He started waking up a lot more because of noise and light.  So I decided just to try putting him to sleep in his room because it is much quieter and darker in his room.  He did not bat an eye.  He only woke up for a second during that first nap and we popped his paci back in and he went right back to sleep.  His second nap he closed his eyes and was out for two hours.  We may even let him sleep in his room at night already.  I can remember the difference that made with Caroline.  We all could use a good night sleep! (Haha...jumped the gun on that one!  This happened to be a Wonder Week where he is eating every two hours and is having a hard time getting himself to sleep.  We put him in his crib the night I said we would, but he was up every two hours so we are going to hold off on the crib stuff.  We just need to get everyone through this week using whatever works!)
• For the most part he is a really great baby.  Laid back, go with the flow - unless you change his clothes and try to make him straighten out his arms and legs, change his diaper, make him wait too long to eat, make him ride in his car seat, or wait to long to put him to bed.  So pretty much as long as he is full with a clean butt and put down for a nap after just a bit of being awake - he is happy as a clam!

We love you so much, sweet Cam!  You have been such a great baby and I can't wait to see how you grow and change over these next few months!

Got to have a one month picture with Big Sister!

First Weeks

First Week

The first week after being home was full of adrenaline and sweetness!  Camden was getting up every 2 - 3 hours, but I was so glad to have him home that I wasn't exhausted yet.  Caroline was far more exhausting than Camden was!  She is SUCH a great big sister and wants to help to everything.  Sometimes that adds 10 minutes to what I am trying to do, but her heart is in such a great place.  He slept on anyone at any time and only really got mad when he got really hungry or you were trying to change his diaper or clothes.  He slept with his hands up by his face and I could just imagine him spending the last few months like that in my belly.  We had lots of people coming by to meet him.  There are so many pictures that I did not get!!  Aunt Michelle, Sherry, William, Kya, and Mike and Bobbie Queen came by and I didn't get pictures!  He is a very loved little boy already!!  I was breastfeeding him, which was going well to begin with.  He was eating like a champ and had since the minute he came out.  I'm not sure if it was being in the NICU and being bottle fed or what, but after a few days, he would eat and eat for about an hour and start screaming because he was still hungry.  So I would pump and he would eat another 3 ounces.  So he was working really hard (latch was great, I could hear him swallowing) and I knew that he was doing things well, I just wasn't producing enough fast enough.  So I started pumping to see if I could make enough to keep him fed.  I breast fed him in the morning and at night to keep my production up.  I did have a scare a few days after coming home when I got a 24 stomach bug.  I was shitting my brains out (sorry, TMI) and I was so worried that it would make my milk go away.  Luckily, Leslie was a reassuring phone call away and my mom was there to help me with Caroline so I could rest as much as possible.  I am glad it was only 24 hours because I felt TERRIBLE, but luckily everyone came out unscathed!  I also had a mild case of mastitis this week.  I felt like I had the flu for a couple of days and my boob was ON FIRE.  Luckily, it never amounted to anything horrible and I didn't even have to go to the doctor.  My mom was there with us that first week and I cannot put into words how much she helped.  Laundry was always done, dishes were washed, meals were made, Caroline was entertained, and I was able to care for Cam and get a nap when I could.  My house also got mama cleaned, which meant that I didn't have to worry about it for a good while.  I was so sad when it was time for her to leave!  That is such a special time for me to share with my mama.

Finally home!

Got to have those hands up by his face!

Harley checking things out!  The dogs have been GREAT with Camden.  They usually come and get me when he is making any type of noise at all!

Daddy LOVES babies sleeping on his chest!

Big sister getting some time with Cam.  She asks to hold him every single day.  So sweet!

Helping me give him his first bath!

'Mom, can I please do the dishes!'

Uncle G and Aunt Michelle came by to see Cam!

Grandpa getting some help feeding Cam.  Big sister is never far away!

We took our first trip over to Leslie and Will's to hang out with Jack while Anna went to Open House.

There is nothing like some Mimi love!

1 Week Old

The second week we went back to the doctor and my chubster was up to 10.1 lbs!  He had gained a pound and a half since he was born!  Needless to say there was no concern of not getting the nutrition that he needed.  He did have two huge bumps on his head (sub-dermal hematomas) from the delivery that had me concerned.  The doctor said it may take weeks for those to go away, but that they would go away on their own.  This week we had some fussing and some general discomfort.  I thought it might be reflux, but when I asked the doctor about it he said that he wouldn't be gaining much weight if it was real reflux.  We did a lot of walking, pacing, bouncing, Mama-Rooing, and not restful sleeping.  Jason's mom was up that week and she did a lot of walking with him.  He would fall asleep and then wake up crying.  We weren't sure what to do with him and I was so worried that this was a preview of what our life would be.  He was waking Caroline up and we couldn't get him to get to sleep like he had the week before.  Jason also went back to work this week (he started at Reynolds HS and couldn't miss the work days because it was a new school for him), so the no sleeping was pretty painful.  Jason was amazing and would get up and take him when he could tell I was just exhausted and getting frustrated.  Jason's mom was wonderful and was so much help.  She made her amazing meatloaf for us, took Caroline out on some outings so I could get things done around the house, and she did a lot of Camden holding and loving.  Thank you so much, Grammie!

His big ol' bump on his head.  He had one on each side, but the one on his left side was by far the larger of the two.

Those hands have to be up!

Hey, little eyeballs!

'Mom, I can hold him and you can take our picture!'

Aunt Kelly came to meet Cam (and get some snuggles from Max)!

Thank you, Grammie!

2/3 Weeks Old

At one point during this week I finally Googled what to do when you have a newborn that is fighting sleep.  I felt like an idiot because the first thing I read was that babies needed to be swaddled and they needed white noise.  When they are in their mom's belly, they are very cramped and it is very loud.  It doesn't make sense for us to try to give them a lot of room and for it to be silent.  We knew all of this.  We swaddled Caroline and it worked great.  I'm not sure why we didn't think of doing that before.  So we grabbed the swaddler, bought a white noise machine, and the rest is history.  We now have a 3 week old that wakes up to eat (and spit up everywhere!), we change his diaper, let him 'play' for a bit (look at the fan, put him under the play mat, talk to him), and then once he starts fussing we swaddle him up, put him in his bouncy seat on vibrate, and turn on that white noise.  He is awake when we put him down and within a few minutes he is fast asleep and will stay asleep for a couple of hours until he is ready to eat again.  During the day he is on a pretty good 3 hour schedule and at night he has been going from 11 to 7 only getting up once (around 3 or 4).  Not too bad at all!  He is starting to be so much more awake and he is changing all the time.  The bumps on his head have started to go down, which I am very happy about.  He does have that 3 week acne pretty badly right now, but I know soon he'll have that baby soft skin that he had when he was born.  I'm excited to see how much he changes over these next few weeks!

Caroline keeping an eye on Cam while Jason and I ate dinner!

Our little sleeping, swaddled bean!

He gets more alert every day!

Bathtub fun!

Aunt Katie came to visit!!

First Days

Once Cam made his entrance into this world and we all had a chance to catch our breath, Leslie and Mom were eagerly waiting to come in and meet our boy.  They hung out with us until they moved us to our Mommy/Baby room.  By this point it was about 2 in the morning and they headed home.  We were getting settled in to our new room and the nurses came in.  There was a nurse there to check on me and a nurse to check on Cam.  I wasn't paying much attention to what my nurse was doing and saying because Cam's nurse was starting to check him out.  When Caroline was born, they took her for a few hours and checked her out, gave her a bath, and then brought her back.  They do everything in the room now.  As the nurse was checking Cam out, Jason and I were watching and listening to what she was doing and saying.  Everything was looking great and then she picked him up.  When she did that, Jason and I at the very same time looked at each other and asked if we had seen that thing on his back.  We asked the nurse about it and she looked at it and said, 'Oh yeah, that looks like something in the spina bifida family.'  I'm sorry - what?!?!  Spina bifida?  She said it so nonchalantly and said that she was sure the doctor would take a look at it.  Jason slowly moved to grab my phone off the edge and I immediately told him not to Google spina bifida. He said that he wasn't.  After a few minutes he put the phone down and said, 'Yeah, I definitely should not have done that.'

So throughout the morning, Cam was seen by the PA that was in the L&D room and a pediatrician.  They both told us that the spot looked like a tethered cord (Cam's spinal cord had fused into and through his skin at some point in his development, which is obviously not supposed to happen) and that it didn't look like that bad of a case, but they wanted to do an ultrasound to make sure.  We felt reassured that they weren't worried, but the ultrasound made us nervous.  The rest of the morning was a pretty normal morning after a baby has just been born.  They kept checking me every hour or so (and I was doing great) and family came to visit.  Caroline came to meet Cam for the first time and was absolutely precious.  She was instantly in love with her little brother.  Leslie brought Anna and Jack up and they were pretty smitten as well.  Deddy drove up that morning and was able to hold him for a bit before things got crazy.

At one point they took him and did the ultrasound.  They brought him back and said that the doctor would be in to talk to us soon.  Everything died down for a bit, so I tried to take a nap.  I was woken up by Jason and a doctor.  The doctor was the pediatric neurologist that was on call for the hospital.  He had been there for the ultrasound and was there to tell us what the game plan was going to be.  He told us that on the ultrasound it looked like he definitely had a tethered cord, but they were unable to tell if it was an open connection from the outside to his spinal column.  This is when it would be dangerous because bacteria would have direct access to his spinal column.  They wouldn't be able to be sure without doing an MRI.  In order to do this, they were going to have to send him to the NICU at Forsyth Medical Center (where he was born and where we currently were) to get him into a sterile environment in case it was an open connection and then they would have to transport him by ambulance to Brenner's Children's Hospital down the road because they have a pediatric neurology program and the ability to do an MRI on him.  This is when I started freaking out.  My baby that I have known for 12 hours is going to be taken to a different hospital.  He was going to be hooked up to all sorts of machines, transported on an ambulance, have to go through an MRI.  My mind was racing and I lost it.  I had held it together through most of what the doctor said, but I started bawling.  He completely understood how scary all of it was and was very nice.  He told us we had about 15 or 20 minutes and then we needed to go to the NICU to see him before he got transported.  He left us and Jason and I just cried and talked and held each other.  It is amazing that any of us are here and so many things have to go just right for a baby to be born perfectly, but we just weren't ready for something to be wrong.  The fact that he was being transported on an ambulance to a different hospital was the part that was so scary.  It might it all a really big deal.  Plus the fact that I would have to stay behind while Jason went with Camden.  We were both a mess.

We headed down to the NICU and I couldn't take it.  He was in an open crib under a heat lamp, but he had an IV in (so his hand was wrapped around a board so that he would leave it in), he had heart monitors and pulse monitors on, and they had put his bottom half in a bag of sterile saline to keep everything clean until his MRI.  I cried and cried and cried.  I had just given birth a few hours earlier, so my hormones were insane, but it was so hard to see my brand new sweet boy all hooked up like that.  So the nurse told me to sit and that I could hold him.  Wires and all, she put him in my arms.  I cried and cried.  Jason cried and cried.  It was a tough thing to see.  After a little while, our crying was done and we were able to talk to each other and talk to Cam and we started to get a hold of ourselves.  The PA told us that she thought things looked good and that as long as it was closed that we were lucky because there are a lot of kids that are born with a tethered cord and they don't know it and discover it when they are trying to learn how to walk.  The fact that we can see and know about the tethered cord make ours a really good case.  That helped put things in perspective.

So we sat and waited and waited and waited.  My mom had come to the hospital and came back to see us and Michelle (who hadn't met Cam yet) came back and got to spend some time with us. The way the doctor made it sound, the Brenner's transport team would be there quickly so that is why we only had 15 minutes to get down to see him.  Four hours later, my feet and hands were swelling up pretty badly and I was starting not to feel great.  Plus my nurses were looking for me because I had missed some checks and some medicine I was supposed to be taking.  We asked if they knew anything about when he would be taken and they said that the transport team had gotten an emergency call and that they were on their way.  I told Jason as much as I hated it that I needed to go back to my room.  So I gave Camden a kiss, gave Jason a kiss and headed back to my room.  The transport team made it to the hospital about 30 minutes after I left.  Jason said they put him in an incubator and he was all hooked up before they took him away.  They took him in an ambulance while Jason had to follow behind in his car.

Meanwhile, I was stuck at Forsyth.  It had been less than a day since I had a baby and all they would allow was a few hours pass for me to go to Brenner's.  So, Mom came up to stay with me and Deddy brought Caroline up and  Greg and Michelle came to visit for a while.  They brought dinner and we sat and hung out. Caroline had a tough time understanding where Jason and Cam were.  She was so upset because she thought she was coming up to hold and see Cam for only the second time and he wasn't there.  It was heartbreaking. Throughout the night the nurses would come in and let me know that they knew that Cam was at Brenner's and they were going to try to get the doctor to release me as soon as possible.  Every time they checked me they let me know that I was doing really well and that things looked good.  Everyone had their fingers crossed that that would continue so that I could be released the next morning.  At one point, Jason called me and asked me if it was okay to give Cam formula since we weren't together and I obviously couldn't feed him.  I told him that I would really rather not start that because I was afraid that it would screw up me feeding him for good.  So when Michelle and Greg came up with dinner they stopped by my house and grabbed my pump.  That way I could pump out the little bit I was making at the time and some how get it over to Brenner's so that Cam could have that.  My Mom was incredible and was my little milk runner that night.  Brenner's is about 5 miles away, so I would pump and get an ounce or so of colostrum and she would jump in the car and drive it to Brenner's.  She even did this at 4am!!  What a trooper!  She did this while she was staying with me at the hospital, which means she sacrificed any bit of sleep she may have gotten to stay with me and run my milk.  And I know that she would do it again tomorrow! :)  I was able to get Cam enough that the whole time he was in the NICU, he only had a few milliliters of formula.  Not too shabby for being away from him for a good bit of the time he was there!

That next morning, Dr. Ponder came in and asked me how I was doing.  I told him I was great and he told me that was what he was hoping to hear and that he would go ahead and start processing my discharge.  So I immediately hopped in the shower and started packing up my little room.  I was so ready to get out of there and get to my boys.  Jason had been with him since the ambulance ride and had luckily found a pretty decent place to sleep.  He called and let me know that they were going to take him for the MRI that morning.  It was scheduled for 8 am, but we had found out that in a hospital things rarely happen whent they say they will!  I was discharged and got to Brenner's around 10.  I got there right after they took him to the MRI, so I didn't get to see him.  We waited for him to come back and we were lucky because Leslie used to work at Brenner's in the PICU and knew a lot of nurses working the NICU.  She was able to pull some strings and get us updates on when they would be back. So we sat around and waited until the MRI was finished.  While all of this was going on, Jason's best friend and college roommate, John, and his wife, Jamie, were at Forsyth and Jamie was being induced a few weeks early.  They were telling them that there could be major complications with their little boy.  Once I got to Brenner's, Jason headed back to Forsyth to see how they were doing.  Leslie stayed around with me until Camden was back from his MRI and we were able to go back to the NICU to see him.  He was no longer wrapped up in his sterile bag, but there was still so many wires coming out of him.  I was just so glad to see him that I really didn't get upset when I saw him this time.  Being in the NICU, however, put things into perspective for both Jason and me.  There were some VERY sick babies around us and we were very lucky to have a chubby, healthy boy.  All of the nurses kept talking about how big he was because they were so used to dealing with little bitty tiny babies!  Leslie hung around with me until Dr. Couture came back after reading the MRI.  He FINALLY got back later that afternoon with some very good news.

The MRI had confirmed that he did, indeed, have a tethered cord.  It was completely closed, which was the very best scenario. There was no need to clean it a certain way or worry about keeping anything on it or off of it.  It would only start to cause trouble when he grew and the tethered part would start to get stretched tight as he got taller and starting walking upright.  Since it is tethered and we know that it is there, all we are going to have to do is have surgery when he is 6 months old.  At this age he is able to handle a surgery, but he is not mobile enough to pull on that cord.  It will be an outpatient procedure and they will go in, sever the connection between the cord and his back and fix the cosmetic appearance of his back.  And that will be it.  There will be no therapy needed, no follow up surgeries, nothing.  That will completely fix the situation.  This is the absolute best news we could have received in our situation.  He then let us know that he no longer needed to be in the NICU because there was no longer the need for a sterile, protective environment.  He was downgraded to intermediate care just a few hours later.

That night, Jason and I both decided that we needed to go home and get some sleep and Caroline wanted us both to be home and be there to put her to bed.  Jason's mom had made it up to meet Cam and she and Caroline got there in time to go back and see him in the intermediate care room.  Around 9pm, we all loaded up and headed home.  Leslie was sweet enough to come up to the hospital and be there to feed him at 11pm so that we could go home.  After we got Caroline to bed I pumped and discovered that my milk had come in!  I had left a few ounces of what I could produce and just asked them to mix what they had with a little bit of formula since I knew we were going home for the night.  That way he would get some breast milk with each feeding.  I was so excited that Jason offered to run the milk down to Brenner's.  Leslie was there waiting to give him that late night feeding, so he went and dropped it off with her.

I had planned on being there for the 8 am feeding and I got there at 8, but little buddy decided that he didn't want to wait until then to eat.  So the milk Jason took got him through the night and they only had to add a few milliliters of formula to that 7:30am feeding to get him full.  Not bad for not being there with him!  I hung out with my boy that morning and soon Jason and his mom and Caroline came up to see him.  Since they had whisked him away from Forsyth so quickly, there were some routine things that he didn't get.  So that morning they were making sure he had a hearing test (passed with flying colors!), the state screenings, and other blood tests.  (They only thing he didn't have done was his circumcision.  We had to get that done at a doctor's office a few days after we got home.)  Slowly, nurses and doctors were coming around to get things signed off, the wires and IVs were slowly coming off and we were finally able to put him in a cute outfit!  Around 2pm that day (August 14th) we got to take our boy home!  What started out as an extremely intense situation had ended up with the best news we could hear.  God was looking out for us and our sweet boy.

Through those rough few days, Jason and I were so incredibly thankful for all the support we got.  We were slow to tell people to begin with, but when things got serious we knew we needed all the prayers we could get.  We posted what was going on Facebook and the calls, texts, messages, and posts started pouring in.  I just want to again say a huge thank you to every single person and please know that we read every single word and felt every prayer.  We are extremely lucky to have a sweet, healthy boy that we get to watch grow up!

Mom and Leslie finally got in to meet Cam!

Caroline FINALLY gets to meet her little brother.  It was love at first sight!

 Our first picture as a family of four!

Jack and Anna getting to meet their cousin.  Jack was on his way to pinch his 'squeaky' cheeks!

Deddy came up to meet grandson #2!

 

This is what Jason and I saw when they picked him up that first morning.  This is the tethered cord that will be removed in a few months.  When the surgery is over, all he will have will be a small scar where this is.

 Holding my boy in the Forsyth NICU waiting for Brenner's transport.

I finally got released from Forsyth and got to Brenner's to see my boy.

 We got a clean bill of health and got to take our boy home!  Big sister FINALLY got to feed him as we were getting ready to leave.

Camden Michael

Man, oh, man - what a whirlwind these past couple of weeks have been!  I want to get this down before I start to lose the details!

Starting around 35 weeks I started to hurt.  My hips felt like they were breaking apart and things were just generally uncomfortable.  Sleeping was nearly impossible and I'm just glad that it was summer time and I didn't have to be on my feet trying to teach.  Caroline watched way too many movies during these last few weeks, but you do what you gotta do!

At my 38 week appointment, the doctor checked me and I was 2 cm and 60-70% effaced.  I knew that I could walk around like that for weeks, so I didn't get too excited, but at least it was something!  That night, Jason and I were watching a movie and I started contracting pretty regularly.  I started to get a little bit nervous that the doctor had started something, but figured I would go to sleep and if it was real it would wake me up.  So we went to bed and woke up the next morning and nothing was happening.  The next night the same thing happened.  And the next night.  And the next night.  The contractions were pretty intense and pretty regular for a couple of hours at night and then nothing.  It was so frustrating!!

I got checked again at my 39 week appointment and I was 4 cm and 70% effaced.  Those contractions were doing a little something.  The doctor thought for sure that I would go that weekend, but we set an appointment on my due date just in case.  At that appointment, we were going to set up an induction plan if he still wasn't here.

After my 39 week appointment, I kept contracting at night and waking up to nothing.  It had become so routine at this point that I was afraid I was going to be in real labor and not know it and just drop the baby on the floor!  So, I called Mom on Sunday and told her just to come up on Monday.  My appointment was Tuesday and Jason had football for a good bit of those next few days and it would be nice to have her around.  It may be early, but she was dying being so far away and I figured something had to happen at some point.  Plus, Sunday (August 10th) was a super moon.  It was supposed to be one of the biggest moons of the year.  With all that I had heard about babies and full moons, I (and my mom, sister, and sister in law!) just knew that would be it.  That extra gravity would pull Cam on out of there.  I went to bed Sunday night (everyone with their phone on because they knew they would be getting a phone call) and woke up Monday morning with nothing.  Damn it all!

Monday morning, Mom headed up here.  She got here around 4, so Caroline, Mom, and I loaded up and headed to Leslie's to hang out for a while.  We had some hibachi for dinner and the whole time I was contracting pretty regularly.  I didn't think anything of it because it had been happening for weeks.  Mom asked me how my contractions had been lately and I told her that I had been contracting most of the night.  She asked me on a scale of one to ten how bad they hurt and I told her they were at a six.  Both Mom and Leslie dropped their mouths open.  They couldn't believe that I was sitting there probably in real labor, but it was what I had done for weeks.  No big deal.  We left Leslie's about 9 and headed home.  The whole way home I was still contracting pretty regularly.  They were all in my back and wrapping around to my hips and not so painful that I couldn't talk or sit still.  We got home and Jason was home from football.  He helped me get Caroline in the bed (which I wanted to make sure we did if things were really happening).  After we got Caroline settled, I sat down.  My back was killing me and I looked at Jason and told him it might be time to pack up his stuff.  We both kind of laughed about it, but then I realized that I was pretty serious and he hopped right up.  Mom told me to go take a shower and if they were still Braxton-Hicks, a shower would relax me and they might stop.  If it was real labor, I would know and at least I was have a clean va-jay-jay!  I got undressed and into the shower and I couldn't stand up at all.  Those suckers started to hit and hit HARD.  It was the real deal.  I barely even dried off, got my clothes on, and grabbed my stuff.  We were in the car in less than 5 minutes.  The contractions were getting super intense at this point and there was no real break.  They were right on top of each other.  Like the scene of a movie, Jason flew down Silas Creek Parkway and I was just breathing all that I could and trying not to pass out from the pain.  I don't think I opened my eyes one time.

We got to the hospital at about 10:30pm.  We pulled up to the curb in front of the hospital and just left the car.  There was no way I was walking from the parking deck and valet was closed for the night.  They checked me in and told me to head to triage.  Once we got there, the computers were down and they were taking their sweet time while I couldn't even stand up straight.  I was in an extreme amount of pain.  When they finally got me to go around the corner to the rooms, the girl asked me to stand up tall when I had a chance so that they could get my height and weight before heading back.  Are you freaking kidding me?  What part of 'I'm in labor' did they not understand!  I'm pretty sure instead of 5'9" like I really am I was somewhere around 5'2"!  I finally got back to a room, changed into a gown, and then we were just sitting there.  I couldn't lay down, I couldn't stand up, I was in the middle of the real deal and no one seemed to be very concerned.  Jason finally went out of the room and asked for some help.  A nurse came in and checked me and yelled out, 'I've got 9 centimeters!'  HOLY SHIT.  No wonder I was in such freaking pain.  I was about to pop that baby out right there!  I started to panic because I didn't think I'd have time for an epidural.  I also wasn't going to have to get the doses of penicillin that I needed for Group B Strep that I was positive for. Not much I could do about either of those at this point.

They wheeled me up to labor and delivery and shit got REAL crazy.  I had people putting IVs in my arm, putting wrist bands on, asking me my birth date and name, introducing themselves - meanwhile I have both hands white knuckling on the bed rail and I am in so much pain I am crying and asking for an epidural as quickly as humanly possible.  Jason told me that every time someone would ask me my name and date of birth I would just yell out, 'SARAH COLLINS SMITH! 9! 2! 84!'  I was not playing around and I did not have time to have conversations with people unless you were the anesthesiologist and you were about to put a huge needle in my back.  Dr. Ramsay (the OB that we really liked that happened to be on call that night!) checked me soon after we got to the labor and delivery room and she told me that my amniotic sac was still in tact, but was right there and this was going to be happening really soon.  I asked if I was going to be able to get an epidural and she said that the anesthesiologist had been called and they would see what they could do.  Within a few minutes I heard someone introduce themselves and say they were the anesthesiologist.  HALLELUJAH!  She asked me my name and birthdate (ahh!!!) and started going through the risks of getting an epidural and asking for my consent.  I think at some point I had to sign something.  WHAT?!  Ain't nobody got time for that.  Eventually, she got to work and was a complete miracle worker.  I was laying on my side and she got that epidural in and it worked like a charm.  With Caroline, it only worked on one side, but this time it worked perfectly.  Within a few minutes, the edge was taken off and I was in a MUCH better place.  By the time I settled down it was about 11:45.  Jason and I were talking and I told him how cool it would be if Cam was born on his due date.  Dr. Ramsay checked me again and said that everything was ready to go when we were.  Jason asked her if we could wait a few minutes and she said she would check her other patients and come back in a few.

At 11:57, Dr. Ramsay came back in and she said that it was time to get things cranked up.  She went ahead and broke my water, they broke down the bed, and it was time to rock and roll.  We waited for a contraction and it was time to do work.  I pushed through that contraction, we waited for another one and I pushed through that one.  I pushed through four or five contractions and Dr. Ramsay said that the next contraction would be it.  We waited and the next contraction hit and I pushed.  All of a sudden Dr. Ramsay says, 'We need NICU.  We need help.'  Nurses knock Jason out of the way and jump up on the bed. I have two grown women pushing as hard as they can on my stomach and I am yelling from the pressure.  Jason could see that the umbilical cord is wrapped around Cam's neck and that Dr. Ramsay is using everything she has to pull it up and get it unwrapped.  The nurses push on my stomach for about a minute and finally he is out.  12:15 am on his due date - August 12, 2014.  They take him over to the warmer and we don't hear a thing.  Dr. Ramsay keeps reassuring us that he is in shock and just to give him a minute.  After a solid minute, we finally hear those cries.  I didn't realize that I had been holding my breath, but I finally let it out and started crying.  That was the most intense couple of minutes of my life.  Poor guy was so big that his shoulders couldn't turn like they needed to once his head was on the way out and he got stuck under my pelvic bone.  Thank the Lord I had an epidural because there is no telling how bad that would have hurt!!

Once Jason got over to him, he could immediately see that his face from his nose up to the top of his head were completely black and blue.  He was totally bruised up.  What a rough way to come in to this world!  His initial APGAR score was a 2, but then his score after 10 minutes was a 9.  Once things settled down a bit they weighed him and told us that he was 8 lbs 10 oz!  He was a big boy!  They checked his shoulder and let us know that there had been no damage on the way out.  He very easily could have dislocated it when it got stuck, but we were very lucky.  He was good as gold!

We were finally able to meet our boy!!

Welcome to the world, Camden Michael!!

8.12.14  8 lb 10 oz  22 in