Cooper - 1...2...3 weeks

In some ways the first three weeks with Cooper went by really fast, but also it seems like he's been with us forever!

We can't really complain at all about our sweet little Cooper.  We have our moments where we are stressed out, but for the most part he's been a pretty easy baby.

He's growing...but very slowly.  I am trying to remain cool about it and not get too worked up.

When Cooper was discharged from the hospital, his weight was 8lb 14oz.  The following day he has an appointment at the pediatrician to get this frenulum clipped and for a general overall check-up. The following are his measurements from that day:

4 days old (3/2/12):
Weight: 8lb 15oz (75th percentile)
Length: 21.5 in (90th percentile)
Head: 37.5 cm (75th percentile)

We went back to the doctor for his two-week well baby visit and we had the following measurements:

2 weeks old (3/12/12):
Weight: 9lb 3oz (75th)
Length: 22 in (90th)
Head: 38 cm (75th)

We were concerned that he hadn't gained more weight by his two week checkup to equal his birth weight, but Dr. Owen said that there are a couple of exceptions to that 2 week rule and LGA babies are one of those exceptions.  Even through Coop's 3th week, he still hasn't regained his birth weight.  He was unofficially at 9lb 6oz on the 20th based on our bathroom scale.  He's definitely growing in length though.  Our boy right now is long and lean!  There is very little baby chub on him.  We are working on that though!

The first three weeks at home have been wonderful.  The first week, Cooper slept a lot and cried only for food, when he had gas (which was a lot!), and when he was getting his diaper changed.  He often times will sleep when he is supposed to be eating so Drew and I have dance him around to try to get him to wake up!

The second week he was alert more during the day and even gave us some longer stretches of sleep at night.  There were certain times he slept up to 5 or 6 hours in a row!  These instances only happen a couple times a week and rarely in back to back nights!  Other nights he would sleep in 2 to 3 hour blocks.  He started to "uncurl" more the 2nd week and was practicing using those hands of his to pull out his paci, block his paci from coming out, and trying to swat at mama!

The third week was another pretty good week.  He was starting to follow me around with his eyes when I moved from side to side and again getting better with his hands.  He also stretches out now which makes him look so LONG!  He spits up a lot after feedings so we change outfits a lot, or sometimes I will just strip him down and wrap him up in a blanket!

Here are some pictures from the first 3 weeks.  They are in chronological order...

Best attempt at a brother shot!

Cooper and Buzz

 First real wet bath on St. Patricks Day. Loved it.  Especially loves getting his hair washed.  Does not like getting out of the tub!

Took a nap in his crib after the bath.  Big success!

My mom has been a big help with getting Chase to school these first several weeks.  I was scared to attempt getting us all three out the door by 8am.  I am proud to say I have now done it a couple of times!

Picture Post

This is the last picture of Chase and Cooper that will involve Chase cooperating.

Fun times.

Why, yes, I would love more blood drawn and another bracelet!

Post-partum cocktail.

 Cooper's poor little feet.  He has so many little holes and band-aids on his feet by the time we left the hospital!

When Cooper was having his pictures taken when he was 6 days old, Chase refused to cooperate and pose with his brother.  I did however catch all the boys sitting on the stairs eating candy together.  So cute!!

Cooper's First Ambulance Ride

When Cooper was 5 days old, he decided he was going to give us a little heart attack by giving us our first ever trip to the ER.

It was the Saturday night after we first came home.  A little after 1 in the morning (so technically Sunday), Cooper starts spitting up a little bit.  I notice when I'm cleaning it up off the sheets that it is black (like coffee grounds).  I know enough from getting all these BabyCenter emails that coffee grounds=old blood.  I try not to freak out, but I get Drew to look at the spit up and analyze it with me.  We think the blood is from either when his frenulum was cut on Friday (Cooper was born "tongue-tied" like Chase) or it is blood from breastfeeding.  We calm down a little, but then he has more black spit up.  We call the overnight nurse at the pediatrician's office.  They call us back around 2:30 in the morning and tell us that to be safe we should go to the nearest hospital.  I roll my eyes at that advice because, again, we know what this blood is from and I don't think it is a big issue. Drew and I are debating on whether to take him to the hospital when all of a sudden he starts spitting up bright red blood! We immediately panic/freak/cry then rush him to the nearest hospital (Methodist North).  Poor St. Francis.  They are actually the nearest hospital, but we totally forgot about them!  Drew rushes Cooper to the hospital while I wait for my mom to come to our house since Chase was asleep upstairs.

When I arrive at Methodist, Cooper and Drew are in a room.  One of the doctors is looking at him when I come in and calms us down and agrees with our thoughts on where the blood is coming from, but they will run an X-ray to rule out anything else.  Each time we spoke to a nurse or a doctor that night, I kept referring to my Target bag full of burp clothes and sleep gowns that has "evidence" of the progression of spit up on it!  I think our 5 day old was freaking a lot of the nurses and doctors out.  They kept telling us that we should have taken him to LeBonheur (we later learn they called LeBonheur soon after our arrival to transport him over there).  Well, next time if we ever have to take our kids to the ER, we'll know that we need to take them directly to LeBonheur or Baptist! We spent about 2 hours at Methodist North where he had an X-ray (we think the youngest patient to have an X-ray there!), but since no one was coming in our room we kept thinking we would be discharged very soon.  Then around 4:30, the transport team from LeBonheur comes in our room with a big, huge incubator on a gurney!  These 3 transport team members looked like they were coming from a trip in space with their big blue jumpsuits on.  I, of course, start bursting into tears.  I go from thinking my child is alright to on the brink of death because of the sight of these people and that incubator!

I decide I'll be the one that rides in the ambulance (I was in no shape to drive...it was a miracle I could focus on driving to the hospital in the first place) and Drew will drive our car to LeBonheur.  We both arrive at LeBonheur around the same time at 5am (since the trip wasn't an emergency, we didn't go fast with the sirens or anything).

Cooper was taken to an evaluation room and we then have to wait almost 2 hours to see the doctor (Dr. Simons) since there were some trauma cases that came in after us.  Dr. Simons agrees with our thoughts on the frenulum and breastfeeding blood, however she also said he could have swallowed blood during birth.  She said that blood is not tolerated well in the stomach and makes people feel nausious.  The blood will just sit in the stomach and will almost always be vomited out.  She said that if this was blood coming from the lungs or other organs that it would be almost all bright red blood and coming out in much larger quantities.

So our instincts were right on this blood, but since our poor child was only 5 days old we just had to get this checked out.  I have pictures of the spit up below so you can see how freaky it looked!  The bloody spit up continued for about 24 hours after coming back from the hospital, but luckily hasn't returned at all.

Cooper has made me a promise that he won't ever put us through this again and there will be no more emergency trips to the hospital!!

At Methodist North.  Just hanging out on a bed!

I was afraid to take a picture of Cooper in the incubator (I guess I thought I would get in trouble), but I did "sneak" a picture of the transport team putting him in the ambulance.  Totally surreal moment in my life!

At LeBonheur where they wrapped him up in a big warm blanket.  That kept him peaceful and/or asleep for hours.  So nice!

Here is a picture of a spit up that happened at the hospital.  It was the bright, red blood that had us so nervous!

Cooper's Big Day

So this has taken me forever to post!  Each day I make a choice to take a shower, clean up, or blog.  Unfortunately, I haven't chosen shower or blog very much!  The rest of my day is spent nursing, burping, cleaning spit up, diaper changing, or napping.  Rinse, repeat.  I do love it though!

***

My induction was scheduled for February 28th.  The night before, Drew and I went to pick Chase up at school.  I began crying almost immediately as we picked him up as I knew that would be the last time I would see him as an only child.  It broke my heart to know that my moments with him as my only child were ending (silly I know, but I'm horrible at "good-byes" and this was a good-bye of sorts!).  We then went to Waffle House for dinner and loved every last bite!  I barely fit in the booth though.  My stomach was pressed against the edge of the table and I was breaking into tears randomly throughout dinner. I was a sight!  We then dropped Chase off at his grandparents for his first ever night away from us, did a quick CVS run (love that place!), and went home.

When Drew and I got back home, we did as many chores as we could to make the house somewhat respectable for when we would come back from the hospital.  I don't think either of us made it to bed before midnight.  I then couldn't manage to fall asleep until 1:00.  Alarms went off at 4am and we got ready and arrived to the hospital by 5am.

Here is a picture of me about to walk out to door.  My face is extremely puffy due to a mixture of 50 pounds of weight gain and it being 4:30 in the morning.  I look like a plastic surgery case gone terribly wrong!

I got checked into a room by like 5:45.  I was asked to change into my gown and when I came back out I heard my nurse come in and introduce herself.  It was Nurse Joyce!!  The same nurse who was there when Chase was born!  I was so happy and I knew her personality and I would know what to expect the rest of the day.  She asked me all the standard questions and got me all set up in bed.  I got my IV in at 6, the Pitocin was dripping by 6:10.  She checked my dilation at 6:15 and I was 3cm and the baby was low (so very similar from the Friday before). 

Drew was allowed to come into the room after she asks me all the questions (since one of the questions is "Do you feel safe at home?").  He gets set up on the couch and he immediately lies down and falls asleep!  In his defense, the room was very quiet and you only hear very monotonous tones of beeping and dripping IV fluids and we did wake up at 4am, but still!  He was asleep within 15 minutes of getting in the room! 

This picture was my first Twitter post of the day! :)

 After Drew took a little nap, we passed the time playing Draw Something on our phones and reading random stuff on Twitter (where I learned that February 28th was Aubie's birthday!).

View from my bed

Dr. Martin came in to check on me at 8 in the morning.  She checked my dilation (she said same as last Friday except that the baby was much lower!) and then she broke my water.  I got a little freaked out when Nurse Joyce said the water looked like "baby pee-pee", but apparently that coloring is normal-ish.

After my water was broken, I began to start feeling the contractions soon after.  On the monitor, my contractions were going up into the 90's and were feeling pretty intense (not unbearably painful, just intense).  At this point, I had fun watching the little "mountains" appear on the paper.  By 8:20, Drew and I had figured that my contractions were now about 3 minutes apart.

A look at my contractions over a one hour period.  Notice Drew asleep in the first picture!

Sometime around 9:45 they started my epidural.  I told them I wanted one, but unlike with Chase's birth they didn't necessarily ask me (or I don't recall them asking) when I wanted one.  I had wanted to hold out another hour or so before getting one as I wasn't really feeling all that bad, but in came the anesthetist so it was what it was!

I don't remember the epidural being all that horrible with Chase's birth.  I remember the needle feeling pretty weird but overall I don't remember it being all that awful.  This time around, the epidural experience was bad for me.  I had a student anesthetist for one thing.  He asked if it was ok that he was a student, and I said that was fine because I'm sure he had done hundreds of epidurals and also I didn't want to be difficult.  He was a very nice guy, but he lacked a bit of a bedside manner.  When you are putting an epidural in (that comes with various serious side effects) I don't want to hear an "uhhh" or hear a stressed tone in your voice when you can't find a space for the needle to go.  And don't blame my left shoulder for being tense!!  It's tense because at this point I had lost all faith in you!  He then does a test dose of the epidural and asks me if I hear ringing in my ears or my tongue getting numb.  Being the slight hypochondriac that I am, I'm convinced my throat is going numb!  I tell them this and they dismiss it probably because that's not a real thing! :)  The epidural was in and working by 10am and by 10:05, I'm sweating and nauseous.  Nurse Joyce gives me some medicine for that and then I'm feeling much better.  Then I start praying that this epidural actually takes since it felt so different than my last one!

Again, swollen!  Minutes away from getting my epidural.  That's the anesthetist's arm to the right! :)

We just all sit around for another hour and at 11, Nurse Joyce puts my catheter in and checks my dilation (4cm).  I was kind of bummed out that it wasn't more than that since I had such intense contractions earlier in the morning.

At this point my mom, sister, and Drew are in the room with me.  They start talking lunch plans.  Drew goes first and then my mom and sister leave for lunch.  My mom and sister come back at around 12:30.

Dr. Martin comes in around 12:45 to check my dilation.  I'm somewhere between 6 and 7cm and Cooper was at station -1.  My sister was going to have to leave at 2 to pick up my nephews from school so she desperately wanted Cooper to be born before 2.  Because of this, Dr. Martin tells my nurse to check me again at 1:45.  If I'm not completely dilated by then, she'll come back at 2:45 to check me herself.  As we have now crossed the half-way point, Nurse Joyce started to prepare the room for delivery.

Shortly after Dr. Martin leaves, I start feeling really crampy and the contractions are pretty intense.  I'm confused by this since I have the epidural.  With Chase's birth, I literally felt NOTHING after getting the epidural, so I was getting worried that it wasn't working since I was actually feeling something this time around.  I mention this to Nurse Joyce and around 1:12 she checks me and I'm 10cm!  It was time to push!!  We all start freaking out (in a good way)!  I immediately tear up (I did the same when they told me I was 10cm with Chase) because it's so surreal.  You almost forget why you are in the hospital for a little while.  You are just laying around, getting pumped with medicine, and then all of a sudden they tell you it's time to push your child out!  So crazy!

Nurse Joyce calls my doctor back and then asks me I'm feeling any pressure.  I tell her no at first.  I just describe the contractions I'm feeling and then all of a sudden, I feel the pressure!  It literally felt like I had a 10 pound bowling ball inside me pressing down.  Again, I had so such sensation with Chase, so this was totally new to me!  Also, because of what we later learned about Cooper's size, the bowling ball analogy isn't that far off!

At around 1:15, I start pushing.  I think I did 5 sets of 3 pushes.  With Chase's labor all I felt was intense, choking heartburn.  This time around (thankfully) there was no heartburn, but I did have intense hip pain.  It was the same hip pain I had been experiencing the few weeks before when I would stand in one place for too long of a period of time.  By the 4th set of pushes, Cooper was starting to crown.  As I looked around the room at this point in the labor, I was surprised to see my mom and sister actually watching what was going on.  I figured my mom especially would be off to the side not watching the whole "show"!  On the 5th set of pushes, Cooper was coming out and I could feel that intense pressure of him being pulled out.  Very surreal!!  At one point during my pushing, I hear my doctor say something about the umbilical cord and that made me nervous, but apparently it was draped over his shoulder, so my doctor just moved it out of the way.

Once Cooper arrived, they placed him on my chest for me to see him.  He was purple and very messy, but oh so precious!! He was kind of whimpering while with me, but not totally crying so I was eager for one of the nurses to take him away and make him cry really good! 

First pictures of Cooper.  Don't look if you don't want to see a messy baby!  Such a sweetie though!

They took him away for all his measurements and his Apgar score.  He was born at 1:32pm, weighed in at 9 pounds 10 ounces, 21 3/4" long and scored an 8-9 on the Apgar score.  Poor little Cooper was a very poopy baby in his first few hours of life!  He pooped 3 times while they were cleaning him up on the warming table and another 2 or 3 times by the end of that day!  We believe a good portion of his weight at birth was all poop! :)

Cooper was and is a very beautiful, sweet baby.  Immediately upon holding him once he was cleaned up, I had flashbacks to holding Chase and that sweet newborn smell.  Cooper has dark brown hair and dark blue eyes.  Unlike Chase, he does not have long eyelashes and he doesn't have as pronounced dimple in his chin, but those are about the only differences I have been able to notice.

Aunt Sherrie got to see Cooper's birth!  Got to give my children credit for having good timing.  Chase was born before the nurse shift change at 5pm and Cooper was born before 2 when Sherrie had to go leave to pick up my nephews!

Reality.  Everyone gets to hold the baby while mama gets poked and prodded!

Because Cooper was considered "large for gestational age" he had to have a blood glucose test before every feeding for the first 24 hours of life.  This became a big pain in our butts by the time we left the hospital!  Apparently 2/28 and 2/29 were BUSY days in the maternity area of the hospital.  The nurses were stretched thin and it often took 30 minutes for them to respond to our page, so Cooper would be crying because he was hungry but we couldn't feed him until the nurse came to prick the bottom of his foot for the blood sugar test.  We would repeat this every 2 to 3 hours.  So annoying!  Cooper would always register on the low end of normal and sometimes would score below normal.  In times when he tested below normal, they immediately drew more blood and then he would read normal again.  Very odd.  At the end of our 24 hours of testing, he had one odd test result because of the medicine they gave him during his circumcision, so we had to undergo 3 more blood sugar tests after the 24 hour period concluded.  This caused us from being able to checkout of the hospital on Wednesday.  The only part about being in the hospital that I like is the hospital food, so I was ready to leave!

Chase was brought to the hospital on Wednesday to meet his brother.  I'm so glad we got the moment on video because it was so sweet. Chase was extremely shy and didn't say much of anything once he got in the room.  He just gingerly gave Drew and I hugs and then when asked gave his brother a kiss on the head!  The shyness ended about 10 minutes into the visit when he then discovered the window, the telephone, the blood pressure monitor, the TV, etc.  My favorite moment was once when Cooper cried out, and Chase (totally on his own!) walked over to Cooper and gave him a big kiss.  My heart melted!

By Thursday morning, I was SOOOO ready to get out of the hospital.  My nurse made me attend a new parent class in order to be discharged.  Drew and I were not fans of this particular nurse.  I think this nurse made all the women attend, because there were lots of disgruntled women who were slowly walking into this classroom and gingerly sitting down in their chairs in their sweatpants and flip flops.  Compared to these women, I was doing fantastic!  My recovery with Cooper was 100x better than that of Chase all because I didn't have hemorrhoids this time (TMI, I know, but oh well!).  Those things are awful!  In the new parents class I felt like an OLD LADY!  There were several couples that looked to be in their early twenties and just seemed so young to me!  After attending that stupid class, we were discharged at noon and went straight home.

Since we've all been home, we've all been doing really well.  Chase has done fantastic since having his brother at home.  For the most part, Chase ignores him, but in the morning after Chase wakes up is when he is most affectionate to Cooper.  He'll see me holding him in the morning and say "Baby" and then lean over to give him a kiss on the head.  He'll then get cuddly with me in the morning as well and want to lay his head on my chest when he sees his brother doing the same thing!  It's really sweet!  There are a few times when Chase wants to lean on Cooper or press down on his legs or belly when he leans in for a kiss, so we have to step in and make sure Chase isn't hurting him, but Chase has in general been really gentle with his brother.  Chase also laughs at his baby brother when we hold Cooper up for Chase to get a good look at him.  If Chase sees Cooper with his pacifier in his mouth, he will reach to take the pacifier from him and then try to put it back in Cooper's mouth.  He hasn't quite managed to get the paci back in his mouth though!

Will Return Soon..

A blog post about our little Cooper will be up sometime this week!  There are lots of pictures and lots to say and it's taking me a while to get through, especially since I can only work on it about an hour a day!

In the meantime, here is a picture of our wonderful boys.  We are so lucky to have them!