It's been a while, 6 months

It has been a while since my last post. It is amazing how 6 months can fly by like that...

Liam hit the magic 6 month mark about 4 days ago. It is amazing how much they change and grow. I'm sure you all know this or at least have heard it said, but to actually witness it is still mind boggling.

Liam is similar in looks to Alex (when Alex was his age), but his personality is so different. Or maybe it is just that we don't remember Alex's baby days so much anymore. I do remember Alex laughing at everything. He was such a happy baby. Not Liam. He is so serious. Alex is the only person in the house that can make him laugh consistently.

If Liam sees something he wants, he will stop at nothing to get it. You should see Jenn trying to hold Liam and read to Alex at night. She is constantly fighting off Liam's little hands. He is determined to grab that book!

He loves his little bouncy swing. It is one of those swings that hangs from the door frame and has a spring in it. He is content with just bouncing in that thing and baby talking, as long as there are other people in the room.

Liam is getting close to sitting up. It won't be too much longer and he will be crawling. Right now he just rolls until he gets where he wants to go, and if it is not where he wants to be he just screams until someone picks him up and puts him where he wants to be! We anticipate a rough time once he gets mobile. The way he focuses on stuff he wants now is a sure sign that he is going to be into EVERYTHING! We are already pricing those baby kennels...

He is also still waking up 2-3 times a night. Jenn has been a trooper, but she is definitely ready for him to start sleeping through the night. He is genuinely hungry though. That boy can eat!

Alex has been a wonderful big brother to Liam. He is such a sweet, caring boy. It makes me so happy to see them getting along so well. Alex had a "Big Brother" shirt. It was the first shirt he's ever worn out before he's outgrown. He has also been a huge help with Liam. He is more than happy to entertain Liam while me and Jenn get our chores done around the house.

I promise to post pictures soon. Our camera needs a good cleaning, so we can't take very good pictures right now. We are about to remedy the situation. Once we do I hope to get more pictures up. Jenn, Alex, and I just looked through a bunch of Alex's old baby pictures. He was such a cute baby, as is his baby brother!

Day 2, More Pics

 

Big Brother

 

The whole family

 

Sleeping
Day 2 has arrived. Liam spent most of yesterday sleeping. Last night he got fussy, but we think he just had an upset stomach. Jenn actually got 3 hours of solid sleep between 3 and 6 this morning. Other than the occasional upset stomach Liam has been an angel.

Today we get to do all the office admin stuff and testing. We've been told that there is a good chance we will get to go home tomorrow. We can't wait. Hospital food is great and all but there is something about the comforts of home.

Alex got to meet his new little brother yesterday. He has been sick so it is hard to gauge his excitement. He got to hold Liam and quietly (so soft you could barely hear him) just kept saying "don't cry baby, don't cry". We think he was more concerned with mommy than anything. He kept going over to mommy and he got to spend some snuggle time with her on the hospital bed. He's not quite sure about all the stuff going on. We hear that he was better this morning and was able to go to school. He was a big hit with his shirt, ribbon, and pin. He has told everyone who will listen all about the new baby, so I can just imagine how excited everyone at school was to hear the news. He is going to be such a great big brother.

That's it for now. We're going to try to get some rest, Liam is sleeping in his mommy's lap.

Liam Thomas Newton Has Arrived!

 

In the OR, newborn

 

About to get my first bath

 

Mommy and baby
Well, the little stinker just couldn't wait to be born. We were scheduled to have a c-section today at 9:30 AM, but around 5:00 PM last night Jennifer started having contractions. Sometime around 11:30 PM, the contractions were strong enough and close enough to call into the on-call doctor to see what we should do. Her contractions were running about 12 minutes apart, but were moving towards around 8 minutes apart. We got ready and hit the road.

On the drive to the hospital, Jenn's contractions started coming 4-6 minutes apart. By the time we got into triage and someone got around to checking her, she was already at 5 cm. At this point, we noticed a little more urgency in the preparations.

They wheeled Jenn into the OR sometime around 1:30 or 2 AM. I'm a little fuzzy on the times, so I am just guessing here. We're not sure about the time of delivery either. It was somewhere between 2:30 and 3:30 AM, Thursday morning. He weighed in at 6 lbs 6 ozs. We are not sure how long he is. Everything went fine, and Jenn and Liam are both happy and healthy.

So far, Liam has been very easy (knock on wood). Jenn had no problem getting him to latch on, and the feedings have been going very well. His eyes are a dark blue, so we think he might get Jenn's brown eyes. We'll have to see how that goes. Otherwise, he is usually content to just lay with mommy or eat.

Alright, sounds like it is time to eat! He is getting restless!

Update
Here are the stats:
He was born May 8th at 1:52 AM
17.7" long
13" head
12.4" chest
6 lb 6 oz

Sweetwater 420 Festival, Candler Park

Jessica and Alex at the Festival
It is a beautiful time to be in Atlanta. This city is incredible in the Spring. It seems that every neighbourhood has their own festival.

This is the second year Sweetwater (a local Atlanta brewery) has sponsored the 420 festival in Candler Park. Our ex-neighbours came down this year, and as always we had a great time with them. Alex got to hang with Jessica and we got to hang in the beautiful weather, drink beer, and listen to good live music.

Jenn is so cute pregnant!

Jenn at 37 weeks

Jenn is almost done! This picture was taken at 37 weeks, but as of today we are 11 short days away from downloading our second (and last) son. Jenn is doing good but she is at that uncomfortable stage. She has been having contractions all day. Nothing serious, just enough to make her stop for a second or two and ride it out. Wish us luck!

Last Sonogram Before the Birth

This is a good profile pic.
He seems to like putting his arm
in front of his face like that.

This one and the next 3 are face shots.

Another face shot

And another face shot

Only 5 weeks left to go and we are attempting to finish everything before the arrival of Liam Thomas Newton. He weighs 4lbs 7ozs (don't ask how they got the scale in there to know that) and seems to be where he needs to be on height, body size, noggin size, etc...

The Decision

We have been struggling with the decision: whether to go natural-ish or to go c-section. We had a tough, scary time delivering Alex the usual way. I won't go into the gory details, but we were apparently close to losing one or both. In the end, we had around 5 or 6 nurses, a midwife, the doctor, the anesthesiologist, and a tech or two in the room for the delivery. It ended up being an emergency situation, and very close to being an emergency c-section. Jenn ended up with a stage 4 (let’s just say it’s a medical procedure that the mention of makes even seasoned nurses shudder).

We have had several conversations and done research on this. Jenn has been practically guaranteed another stage 4 if we try to deliver the usual way due to her bone structure and weakend tissue from the previous stage 4. So today we made the decision to go with a c-section this time around. Given all of the variables, it just seems like the best route to increase our odds of having a healthy and happy baby and mother. It is certainly not ideal, but it seems to be our best bet.

Here is the good news. We will know within the next 48 hours the day Liam will be born. That really brings it home that we are, indeed, having a baby in the very near future. It also means that we will not go through the “Groundhog Day Effect”. Here is a shortish description of the “Groundhog Day Effect”…

“Groundhog Day Effect”
This is the feeling you get when every day is apparently the same coupled with a feeling that every morning your life should have changed drastically at some point in the night. This relates to the movie “Groundhog Day” with Bill Murray, where he has to relive the same day over and over again until one day, after a life changing outlook altering moment, he wakes up and his whole life has changed for the better. This is also the feeling me and Jenn had while waiting for labor to start with Alex. Every night we would go to bed thinking “this is it, this will be the night, tomorrow we will be parents and our whole lives will have changed.” Every morning we would wake up to our alarm clocks, and go get ready for work as usual. This was amplified by the fact that Alex was overdue by over a week.

We will let you all know the date as soon as we know. In the meantime, we still have a lot to do around the house to finish getting ready. Wish us luck!

3lbs 2ozs and Growing

 

Here is the latest sonogram picture. The little guy would not move his arm from in front of his face, so it was hard to get a good profile picture. He's not even born yet and he's already not cooperating. We did get confirmation, he is a he. The evidence was pretty much indisputable (he's hung like a 3 month old).

This pregnancy has been much different. Liam hasn't punched mommy yet for getting poked at (like a Mr. Alex did at one point during a sonogram). He does get the hiccups and other cool stuff like that. A few nights ago, I swear we felt his hand.

Jenn looks great. She is all belly. I know she doesn't think so, but she is very cute when she is pregnant.

We are busy preparing for Liam's arrival. Our good friends (and boy do we have some good friends) lent/returned a bunch of baby stuff. We still have to make another run out to Canton to get more from some other friends. You guys rock! Also on the agenda is getting the house in order. We have to move our living room downstairs to the basement. Unfortunately it is not quite finished. So we have spent 3 of our past 4 weekends working on the house. Once again, great friends and great family have been invaluable. We're trying desperately to get everything done before St. Patty's. The only thing left really is the basement and some cleanup both inside and out.

We hope to see you all St. Patty's. If not, you will be missed and we'll have to catch up with you later. For those in the know, once Liam arrives we'll be up to our necks in newborn related busy work such as changing diapers, feedings, laundry, washing dishes, and occasionally getting urinated on (apparently in thanks? for all of our efforts).

Not Much to Report

Well, Jenn had a regular check-up and everything is still going well. The heart rate is around 140, Jenn's blood pressure is excellent, and the baby is active.

We are in the fun "alien" stage. That's where you can actually see hands and feet pressing out Jenn's belly. Jenn's appetite has increased as well. She is after all eating for two. She does look so cute. She is all belly (even though she'll vehemently disagree and make several comments about her backside being too big). I think she looks great though, and so does everyone else in the world. I'm starting to worry that our house is full of trick mirrors that only react to estrogen and pull some kind of circus fun house affect to make objects appear larger than they really are. I just don't see what she is talking about.

We have another sonogram on March 10th. It will be nice to see the baby again. Not too much longer and we have to start going to the doctor every two weeks. Both of us are so excited. We just can't wait to see what this baby looks like, and what kind of personality he is going to have. Alex is such a wonderful kid, we just can't imagine how this one is going to turn out.

Until then, we just try to make it day by day and keep our fingers crossed that everything turns out alright in the end.