Caden is 2 months old!

I love his little face :-)

Wow. I can hardly believe Caden is already 2 months old (10 weeks to be exact--so what i'm a little late :-P) These first two months have been such a whirlwind I don't know how we all made it through awake and alive :-P well we may not have been fully 100% awake--more like a half awake walking zombie-like existence for at least the first month--but hey we made it right?

I feel like we practically lived at the dr.'s office these past couple of months.  I mean I swear we had to be there at least every week for one kid or the other.  Of course Caden had to go back at 2 days after he was born then 2 weeks, then 2 months for well visits.  But in those first 2 weeks we learned that he had breast milk jaundice and we had to go back weekly for the first month.  I didn't know anything about this until he had it but apparently he was feeding well and eating enough, gaining weight well and otehr wise healthy but with breastmilk jaundice something doesn't quite click on in the liver and his body wasn't eliminating bilirubins like it was supposed to.  He was really yellow and even the whites of his eyes were yellow and cause for concern. Although many sites I checked said that it would eventually go away on its own, our pediatrician recommended for me to stop breastfeeding for 2 days and give him formula while I pumped so that I wouldn't jeopardize my milk supply.  The formula did what it was supposed to and after those 2 days his bilirubin levels went down and he stopped looking so yellow and was my happy healthy little boy.

*Warning--if you don't have a son or a penis (or any interest at all in hearing about circumcision) you may want to skip this paragraph :-P*  Then we had an incident with his circumcision.  At his 2 week check-up the pediatrician mentioned that his foreskin looked like it was really tight and covering a good part of the head of his penis (which it shouldn't have) and she expressed concern that it may need to be fixed. She did say that there was a good chance it could correct itself with no interaction on our part but if it looked the same in a couple of months we may want to think about seeing a urologist to find out if there would need to be any steps taken to correct it i.e. another circumcision or steroid ointment. A week or 2 later Chris was changing Caden's diaper and thought it looked like the foreskin was getting tighter and growing back up over the head of his penis. He also said it looked purple like it was cutting off circulation or something.  I made an appointment to go BACK to the pediatrician to have it looked at and see if indeed it was worse and what we could do about it.  She agreed it looked tighter and recommended we go ahead and see the urologist, since (and I quote) "They see alot more penises than I do." She (the pediatrician) told us to mention it looked like it was cutting off circulation so they would see us sooner since it typically takes a few weeks to get an appointment unless its an emergency type thing.  We got an appointment for the very next week and of course once we go and see the actual urologist, who specializes in penises (not exactly but you know what I mean) she is able to pull the foreskin back almost all the way (which we were NOT able to do the previous week--i guess the ped knew what she was talking about when she said it may correct itself) but did say there were some adhesions around the base of the head of the penis.  She offered to numb it and correct it that day or we could just keep retracting the foreskin ourselves and use A&D ointment and in a few months it should sort itself out.  She said if she did it he would be sore and red for the next couple of days but if I did it over time there wouldn't be any discomfort...so I went with the least disomfort for him.  She also said we would have to continue retracting the foreskin for at least the first year of his life to make sure it didn't re-adhese (if that's a word?) but everything was perfectly fine and we would more than likely not have to do a circumcision revision--thank goodness!
UPDATE: @ his 2 month check-up the adhesions were still there, so his pediatrician retracted the foreskin all the way and got rid of them--he didn't even whimper. Now no more adhesions, but we are still having to retract and coat with A&D ointment.

So anyways, other than all of that Caden seemed to be doing really well. He was gaining weight well and eating well.  The only issue I had was the baby acne that he had ALL OVER his face--but it was normal (just looked awful) and has actually almost completely disappeared.

At Caden's 2 month check up he was 24 in long and weighed 11 lbs 9 oz.  I was a little surprised he wasn't yet 12 lbs, but his weight gain was normal and healthy according to the chart they use. He was 45th percentile in weight and 90th percentile in height--Dr. said he's gonna be tall :-) He got all the vaccinations they give a 2 month old and lucky for us did NOT get a fever afterwards (which would have been completely normal...just not fun to deal with) The Dr. listened to his lungs and checked his ears since we had just been dealing with Sydney having RSV and bronchiolitis and ear infections and she wanted to make sure Caden was ok. He was :-) So everything was great with him :-)

Unfortunately the following week was not so great.  On Valentine's Day (2/14/2012), we had an awful scare and trip to the children's ER.  We had given Caden a bottle of formula (because I have trouble getting ANYTHING when I pump and the Dr. recommended getting him used to a bottle regularly so I'm not tied down to him 24/7, and I wanted a glass of wine with my hubby for Valentine's Day) and he was fine until 2 1/2 hours later when he woke up projectile vomiting.  He threw up SO MUCH that at one point all he was throwing up was this yellow substance (i assumed was bile but had no idea) and I was scared to death.  We cleaned him up after the first vomiting episode and before we put him in the tub he had the BIGGEST BM i've ever seen come out of a baby that small--it just didn't stop. He looked so pale and his eyes were purple tinged and i was terrified! After the bath he started looking better and started acting like he was hungry (and I don't blame him--I'd prob be starving too if I voided as much as he just had).  I tried breastfeeding and he fed just fine for about 15 minutes, then almost immediately threw it all back up again.  Again I was so frightened and had no idea what I should do. So, I called the ER nurse line at Dell Children's and they said since he was under 6 months to bring him in, but don't try feeding him again til i got the ok from the Dr.  Now by the time I get to Dell it's 1am.  They check his vitals and take us through triage, then it was just a waiting game till the Dr saw us.  Long story short(er) the doc thought it was pyloric stenosis which is supposedly not serious and very common at his age, did an ultrasound to check, but found that it was NOT.  After the ultrasound I could finally feed him(poor baby was starving) and since he ate well and didn't throw up again the doc chalked it up to Caden not liking the formula we gave him and that he should be fine and sent us home.  Got home at around 6:30/7am with NO sleep all night and Caden was sleeping and perfectly fine :-/ I had to get Syd up and ready for school, then came home and maybe got to take an hour and a half nap while Caden slept and before I had take him to his ped for a follow up and then get Syd from school. The pediatrician said he looked fine (but was concerned he may have reflux--although she didn't share this with me till later since he seemed completely 100% normal at the time)

The following day I was having problems feeding Caden. He would feed for 5-10 minutes then pull off and act like he was still hungry but refused to re-latch. I would switch sides and he would again feed for 5-10 minutes then pull off still hungry and super fussy but would NOT latch back again.  I called the dr. because I didn't know if this was something serious I needed to worry about or not.  She pretty much said it could be a hanful of things--either he had reflux (which was her main concern and what she thought it was and would also help explain the crazy vomiting episode), he had developed an ear infection or some other infection and the fussiness was the only indication, OR I was having a problem with my milk supply. She told me to try a bottle (of breastmilk or formula--i was afraid of formula but we switched from simulac back to enfamil and he did ok) and if he did the same on the bottle it was almost definitely reflux.  He did GREAT with the bottle and actually slept for 6 hours straight at night! We determined it was a supply issue because of all the stress of worrying about him and not getting enough rest (HA! what mom of 2 EVER gets enough rest!) and that I would need to supplement while I tried to increase my supply again by pumping ALL DAY LONG!  Awesome! :-/ So after a couple of days of that I have decided that I am just going to supplement and breastfeed for as long as I can.  I don't get more than a half an ounce everytime I pump which is practically nothing and I just feel defeated the more I try and the less I succeed.  I have come to the conclusion that although it is disappointing that I can't solely breastfeed, we are both alot happier when he has a full belly and I'm not tied to a breast pump for most of my day.  I mean I had to supplement with Syd and she turned out just fine, so it's totally fine that I'm having to supplement with Caden. Any breast milk is good breast milk right?!

Ok so wow....that's a long one.  I need to stop waiting so long between blogs to write.  Still have to update on Sydney's bout with RSV and on how well she is doing in school...but that will have to wait. Till then... :-)

Sydney's growing up--and still as boogery as ever

I love her so much! I mean how can you not love that face! But there are some days that I just want to shake her! (don't call CPS--I haven't actually done it...yet...)  Time is flying and she is just growing up faster and faster everyday.  My beautiful, loving, crazy, smart, caring, independent, bratty, obnoxious, loud, opinionated, AMAZING little girl.

I'm going to backtrack a little here, since I haven't been keeping up with blogging.  Sydney is now almost fully potty trained. She still wears diapers or pull ups at night (I guess I should start night training soon but I'm willing to put up with it for a while). She still has an accident every now and again, but mostly because she gets too caught up in what she is doing and can't stop to take a break.  She also has "accidents" on purpose whenever she gets mad at either Chris or myself for putting her in time out in her room or fussing at her.  She will throw a tantrum and pee on herself either on her floor or on her bed the second we close the door to her room then when asked why she did it she says "I dunno" but with further probing she comes out with "You make me mad" or "You make me sad." Yelling and fussing don't help...just pushes her to do it more because she knows it gets a rise out of us. So in order to nip that in the bud, we had to change our time out routines and locations. Now she has time-out in a little plastic chair in a corner of the living room.  It actually has turned out to be alot more productive because she HATES having to sit there and be still and look at the wall.  If she doesn't sit i nthe chair quietly and face the wall we threaten (and actually follow through) to add more minutes to her time-out.  Usually after 2 minutes (or less) she is ready to apologize. (Although I will honestly say it doesn't always work, it does work better than sending her to her room :-/)  This way she can't go in her room and have an "accident" or go in her room and play.  It also helps to keep her room a happy place, rather than a place she dreads to go. Anyways...

So we also started Syd in a preschool/MDO program. The school is called HISKids and is a baptist affiliated school located at the New Hope First Baptist Church about 5 minutes away from our house.  Sydney's best friend Jack goes to the school as well, and it is where I have gone and currently go to Bible Study once a week (that's another blog in and of itself for another day)
She goes to school 2 days a week, right now its Mon and Wed from 9am-2pm and she LOVES it.  They do all sorts of activities, arts/crafts, sing songs, learn colors, shapes and ABC's, and eery week focus on a different topic i.e. night and day, winter, the 5 senses etc. She even *gasp* takes a nap there, usually about an hour and a half (which is AMAZING because she will NOT take a nap at home).  Her teachers are sweethearts and Syd loves them too.  She usually won't give me too much info when I prompt her on what she did at school other than to tell me she played outside, played with friends or sang "Twinkle Twinkle" but her teachers provide a sort of progress report everyday when she comes home telling about how her day went and what they did. I also get a calendar every month that tells what topic they focus on each week and a bible verse that corresponds to that topic/lesson.  I am just so glad we finally decided to send her to school and that she loves going to school so much.  It gives me a much needed break and some alone time with Caden, plus gives her the opportunity to expand her horizons, make new friends, learn new skills, helps her to follow directions (at least directions given by anyone besides myself :-P) sing and learn new songs and basically just run around using up all that energy she never seems to lack :-) It's a good thing all around :-)

We also have enrolled Syd in a gymnastics class at The Little Gym.  Thanks to the info I got from another mommy friend, I decided the Little Gym class was the way to go. Also, much thanks to Aunt Linnea for suggesting we put Syd in a gymnastics (or dance) class and for helping us financially to take care of it :-) We already attended our free introductory "mommy and me" class but haven't started regularly because of her recent bout with RSV (again more info on that to come). Her first official class is this Saturday and I am eager to see how well she does.  Here are a couple of pictures from our intro class:

Circle time activity

Balancing Act :-)

She seemed to really dig the class but not so much the structure. She really just wanted to run around and do whatever she wanted to do (especially when she saw other kids leaving "circle time" to go play on the equipment) so here's hoping she will actually participate in the class and not just run around climbing on things at will.  We will be in the mommy and me class until June and then since she will be 3, I think I'm going to enroll her in the dance class they offer.  For the dance class she will be on her own (without me in the class with her like the gymnastics class is right now) but I have a feeling she will do just fine.  We shall see I guess.

I think that's about it for a sort of short and sweet version of life to date with Syd. Of course its a little more detailed, but at least not a minute by minute account (not that my brain could handle that anyway).  More blogs to come about our recent bout with RSV, Syd as a big sister, and about my return to Church :-) (that one should be fun) I predict many more blogs within the next few days just playing catch up :-) until then!

The Birth of Caden Michael Britton

I know its late in coming, but here is an update on the birth of my second child, Caden Michael Britton. I'll try to keep it short and sweet (and not including every detail--since I'm pretty sure my memory won't allow me to recall that long ago and also not everyone wants every detail anyway :-P)

Caden was born on December 8, 2012 at 6:22 pm. He weighed in nice and hefty at 8 lbs 10 oz and was 21 inches long. The labor and delivery wasn't too awful and started off pretty similar to my labor and delivery of Sydney, but like almost everything else in the pregnancy, soon became completely different!
When I first went into the hospital for induction I was already dilated 4 cm, but had been for over a week.  We (the Dr. and I) were really concerned that the labor would go pretty fast, so we both wanted the epidural first thing.  So around 9am, very shortly after the nurse started the pitocin, I got my epidural.  I felt it a tiny bit more on my right side, but they assured me it shouldn't be too big of a deal and they would lay me on the other side to counteract it. I didn't think anything of it.  I was doing really well most of the morning and into the afternoon but wasn't making much progress for dilation.  The nurse (Melissa-the last of the 3 that kept getting assigned to me then reassigned) said that it could be due to excessive scar tissue from the LEEP surgery I had in 2010. [sidenote: the LEEP surgery was a laser removal of cervical displasia or possibly cancerous cells on my cervix in April of 2010] She said that it was possible that the scar tissue was acting as a glue keeping my cervix closed but that once I did start to dilate it would be pretty quick.  
Sometime after noon (i have no recollection of most of the exact timing of things) I started to feel really uncomfortable on my left side.  When asked if I tried pressing the button I said I did and it didn't work.  So the nurse asked if I wanted the anesthesiologist to top me off. Why not I thought? So in he came and gave me what he said was a stronger dose to top it off. ( I realize now this is getting longer and more detailed than I originally planned. Oh well, I'll continue) It worked for a little while but I still felt a little bit of discomfort. Then a couple of hours later, I think before 4ish I started to feel a kind of cramping right above my pubic bone--not too horribly uncomfortable, but it definitely didn't feel good. The nurse asked again if I needed a top-off and I said no, that if I remembered correctly when I started feeling a discomfort that wouldn't go away with the pressing of the button it meant I was pretty darn close to delivery. But I was wrong. I was definitely closer, dilated to 8 cm and almost fully effaced but Caden was still pretty high.  We were entertaining the notion that maybe he would be born at the same time Syd was (4:45pm) but obviously that wasn't the case.  By around 4:30 i was fully dilated and effaced and the nurses thought I should maybe practice some pushing before they called the doctor. 

[Now another side note here: For some reason they sent this "new" nurse to kind of shadow my nurse, Melissa.  Supposedly she was not new to L&D, just new to St. David's but boy did she seem a little behind.  She wasn't very good with the computer system they had set up and at some point before I was fully dilated she did something to the computer and they could no longer read or pick up any of my contractions.  This caused her and Melissa to ask me NUMEROUS times once I was fully dilated and practice-pushing (and also while I was in active labor which was very frustrating) whether or not I could feel the contractions.  I could NOT tell when I was getting a contraction--mostly because of the top-off to my epidural I really couldn't feel much, but also I still had the CONSTANT discomfort on my left side and the cramp like pain right above my pubic bone and couldn't tell the difference.  At one point I was in tears and yelling at her that NO I COULD NOT TELL WHEN I WAS CONTRACTING and just GET THIS KID THE HELL OUT OF ME! (more on that to come)]

So there I was fully dilated. I did a couple of practice pushes and they decided to call the Dr. in (i guess it was around 5ish.) Caden was still pretty high and the epidural had made my legs (and lower half) so numb that I couldn't really feel enough to be able to push properly.  Also the discomfort on my side was steadily getting worse and the epidural wasn't doing anything to help.  I was getting so upset and so frustrated and the stupid new nurse was AGGRAVATING the CRAP out of me and I just wanted to be done. Also I had been in the hospital since around 5:30am and in the room itself since about 6:30am so I was pretty exhausted.  I had so hoped it would be an easy delivery--with Syd I pushed 3 times and she was out (I even remember them telling me specifically to try my hardest not to push because they had to wait for the Dr. to get there.) I pushed for about 30 minutes or so but Caden was still so high and my pushing was so ineffective that the Dr. told me to take a break from pushing and that they were going to sit me up and hope that gravity would help move things along.  Meanwhile, I'm still feeling this pain on my side, but not really feeling any pain in my nether regions and still getting frustrated with this stupid ass nurse who is STILL asking me "do you feel a contraction? is that a contraction? does that feel like a contraction?" I DON'T FREAKING KNOW! I JUST WANT TO HAVE THIS KID!"  Anyways, after about 30-45 minutes of sitting and waiting and praying gravity helped a little, the epidural has worn off enough that I have gotten a little more feeling in my legs (still not hurting down there, but enough to be able to push i think) and I relay this info to the nurse whose throat I don't want to rip out.  She has me try to push and low and behold it looks like a good push.  She calls my Dr. but Dr. Collins has left for the day (WTH?) and the Dr. on call is Dr. Mills.  Ok whatever I don't give a crap at this point, just send in the Dr and get this kid out of me! was pretty much all I was thinking. Harsh I know, but this was going on over an hour that I'd been fully dilated and having already tried (and failed) to push him out I was more than ready.  The Dr. comes in, I'm definitely pushing more effectively, and low and behold @ 6:22 pm my beautiful baby boy is born.  They put him right on my chest after pulling him out and Dr. Mills asked Chris if he wanted to cut the cord (which of course Chris didn't want to do at all) and I was crying my eyes out--tears of relief and joy that my baby was finally here.  That also was different from Sydney's delivery in that after she was born they moved her directly to the newborn table and I remember being worried because it took a few seconds for her to start crying.  Not so with Caden--he was a noisy little booger, with his adorable little conehead from being stuck in the birth canal too long :-P

I only needed one stitch this time around and amazingly felt pretty good after Caden was born.  I was also much more lucid as I can still remember pretty well when the nurse came to help me clean up and change gowns and wheel me to the postpartum room.  I don't remember at all what happened after Syd was born until we were already in the pp room.  I don't remember them telling me about her being bathed or when they brought her to feed--there are just very few things I recall at all from that hospital stay.  But, I remember most if not all of the stay with Caden (could just be because its so new and Syd was over 2 years ago though too :-P)  We got out of the hospital on Saturday (the 8th was a Thursday) and everything was going pretty well.

Ok so I'm cutting this now and putting all the other fun info in other posts.  I still want to post about his first few weeks and months, the breastfeeding jaundice, the problems with his circumcision right on up to today when he may or may not get or have RSV like Syd does.  Just wanted to give an update to those who are interested and I haven't already told on the ins and outs of his birth--and of course for my own memory months or years from now when I forget--silly mommy brain :-) Until next time!