Thursday, August 5, 2010

Life With A Newborn Part 1

Well, since it's been a while there are TONS of pictures to post so I'm doing this all bit-by-bit! :D



Well, Will was born on Monday, January 25, 2010 and on Tuesday Bellah had to leave school early with a fever that didn't get better. By the time we got home from the hospital on Wednesday afternoon, Bellah had been to the doctor who informed us that there was a Pertussis (Whooping Cough) outbreak going around and she had all the symptoms and so she needed to be quarantined away from the baby (since if he got it he could die...). And since the test results took 5 days (I KNOW!) before we would know if she was positive, you can imagion how wonderful those first few days were...



The test ended up coming back negative (though about 3 months later she got it for real!) and the quarantine was over! (THANK GOODNESS!) She was dying to hold him, so we set her up on the couch and let her see what being a big sister was all about!



Will Newborn:



She immediately thought he was the coolest thing since sliced cheese (which she still does!) and enjoyed being a big sister!





Sisterly love!










If we put Will down anywhere, Bellah was right there trying to play with him. She lovers her little brother soooo much! :D













Will One Month:


Babies are wonderful and so cute when they sleep... and sleep... :D





When I had Bellah at Darnell (Fort Hood), the nurses tought me a way to swaddle that I had never seen before (and still never see) in which the baby's hands are next to his face instead of by his side... the way they are in the womb... So both my babies have loved being swaddled like this... :D




Once Will got a little closer to 2 months, I was able to dress him properly for church! :D No suits yet... they don't make them in baby size... :( [just 12 months and up!]



I'm wondering if Austin Powers is going to be one of his favorite movies! ;)



It seems that babies inherently know how to box!! ;)






By three months, will was holding his head up pretty well! :D








This is one of my favorites!! He's soooo cute! Just like his daddy! :D




Gigi, (my mom), got him an elephant which he LOVES! Up until around 6 months it was the only way we could get him to sleep... Will LOVES to have his face covered when he sleeps and so we would put this elephant next to his head and the ear over one of Will's eyes and he would turn his head and nestle in the elephant's ear and pass out - THANK YOU GIGI!! :D




We went to visit Gigi for Easter... here's some pix (more to come later).



Soooo hungry!



So I LOVE the newborn-baby stage of life... I love nothing more than to be with my babies and watch them grow. I've been blessed to have babies with sweet cries and good temperments and I am grateful that the Lord has sent me these sweet angels to love and teach.


More updates coming soon... we have soooooooo much to catch up on!


Love ya!


DB, JB, BB & WB











Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Update: Coming Soon

Ok - so I've been super busy the last 6 months with having a baby, being laid off, celebrating David's 30th birthday, Bellah's 4th birthday AND taking and passing (we'll know next month) all 4 parts of the CPA exam that I have neglected my blog. :( But, my last CPA exam is tomorrow so look for an update some time next week! :D

JB

Monday, February 1, 2010

Welcome Home Will

On January 25th, 2010, we welcomed our first son, Will Austin Boyd, into the world! At 8 lbs 13 oz and 21 inches long, Will was very healthy.




As a tribute to my pregnancy with Will, here are a few pix from the pregnancy.



This is me in October.. I was 23 weeks preggo!


This was taken at the end of November... I was 29 weeks preggo.


This is me 38 weeks preggo... quite a belly! :D This was about a week and a half before Will's arrival.



On January 25th, somewhere around 4pm, I started having some regular stomach pains. Since I had just experienced some false contractions (on the 21st) I was reluctant to label these pains as contractions.
Around 4:30pm they started becoming noticeably regular and around 4:50 they became a bit more painful. I was still at work so I got up and walked around, wondering if they would go away, but they didn't.
When I left work around 5:30pm, they were between 8 to 10 minutes apart. Not wanting to get my hopes up, I continued to track them until around 6pm when they started getting more intense. At 6:15pm I decided that they weren't going away and that we should probably head to the hospital.
I called my doctor and left a message and then called the hospital to say we were on our way. Well the hospital said they would rather my contractions be 4-6 minutes apart when I came in, so, reluctantly, I decided to wait a little longer.
Well, about 5 minutes later, my contractions were between 5 and 7 minutes apart and to the point where I was snapping at Bellah and unable to talk and concentrate during the contraction. I told David that we're going to the hospital and this time, I'm just calling my doctor to let her know we are going. (I had called her previously to tell her the hospital wanted us to wait.)
After dropping Bellah off with a friend (thanks Syndee!!), we got to the hospital around 7:30pm... and boy was I in pain!

We walked in, very slowly, and they got me in a room and checked me and I was 5cm... I was not going home. They said we'd be having a baby before midnight. David started sending mass text messages to my Labor/Delivery group list in my phone and was thoroughly enjoying himself when people were thinking it was me texting.
I had to wait for my doctor to get there for my epidural, so around 8:45pm-ish is when I finally got my epidural. This one was different than with Bellah because it was more of a block epidural where I would still have control over my legs. It was very weird and I got a huge burning cramp in my booty when they stuck the needle in, but my contractions were much better after that.
After the epidural, my doctor broke my water and discovered that there was meconium in the waters. To reduce the risk of any further ingestion by Will, they flushed out the uterus with a saline drip. They also decided that instead of being put on my stomach, they would take Will to the side and get a deep suction into his lungs and stomach right after he came out. (Luckily, everything was fine with Will and there were no complications from the meconium.)
Then, around 9:35pm-ish, my doctor had me push twice at which point I had to wait for her to put on her "baby catching gear"... I guess she didn't realize how good of a pusher I was! lol :D
One more push and at 9:47pm, Will Austin Boyd joined our family. A healthy baby boy. Although he was a little bigger than Bellah was (I think she was around 8lbs 9 or 11 oz) he didn't have near as many rolls as she did! :D He was a cutie from the start - we were both smitten!
This is him after they put that gunk on his eyes. The nurses said some of the red on his face was probably bruising because he came out so fast!
And here's our first shot of mommy and son the next morning. :D

And another pix! This is in our recovery room.


And a close up. :D



The labor/delivery nurses were great and the hospital food was pretty good. Will stayed in the room with us and was a good sleeper and eater! It was hard to get any sleep after he was born (we didn't get to our post partum room until around 1am) because all I wanted to do was look at him and hold him. :D

I am working on getting more pix taken of the little man, but adjusting to a new baby takes a lot of work... especially when your older baby has a possibly contagious illness. On Tuesday, Bellah had to be picked up early from school due to a fever. And when it didn't get better the next day (it actually go much worse) we had to take her to the doctor's and were told she definitely has a small ear infection (which is what I thought it was) but that since there would be a new baby coming home, she could have pneumonia or pertussis(which can both be deadly to a new baby) and that until we find out what she has, we would need to do our best to keep Will and Bellah separated.... yeah...
So, unfortunately, because of that complication, Bellah hasn't adjusted to Will's arrival as well as we hoped. She's always been a mamma's girl and when mama is around the baby so much because of feeding and sleeping and all that - it's been difficult for Bellah to understand what's going on and made this transition pretty stressful. We finally go the results back from the Pertussis test today (after over a week) and she doesn't have that nor did she have pneumonia.
What a week!!
So, here are some pictures of the little guy from his first days at home.
This is on our bed (we were washing the sheets since they needed to be washed!)

All snuggly warm. :D


Here's a pix of him in his crib... :D


And another...


And one of him in his paupsaun... he hasn't quite developed a like for this piece of equipment yet. :D


And another pix. :D


Hopefully now that I'm not working for the next few months, I can update the blog more often.. though I would bet on that just yet. :D
So, we finally have our newest member in our family and David's parents finally have a grandson! :D Happy days!
Stay tuned for more adventures in parenting! :D



Princess Bellah

Bellah got some dresses for Christmas... this is her favorite one.... the Cinderella dress.


She loves to twirl!!



Christmas 2009

So, this past Christmas was David's first Christmas in our new home since he was in Iraq for the previous two Christmases. It was fun getting the house decorated with him here and I had been looking forward to having him here for Christmas since the summer!! :D

At Bellah's school, they made some reindeer antlers and she wore them for three days! She was upset when daddy washed off her Rudolf nose. :*(


Santa brought Bellah a bike for Christmas, which she really liked.

Bellah was great about opening gifts... she seemed to like opening the presents more than getting them! :D




More hairbands for Bellah! :D


Ooooooo... daddy got some nice shirts for work since he no longer has to wear his ACU's!! (First time in 4 years~!)


Daddy showing Bellah how her nifty blanket cover up works... so pretty! ;o)


Some necklaces for Bellah!


I think this is a video for Bellah.




Oooo... a book! :D


Safety gear for Bellah's new bike.


Gigi's new DVD player.... ooooooo! :D


Bellah playing with her new princess case (thanks Ginger!)


Bellah's Princess bike!

So, Gigi came over for Christmas, which Bellah really enjoyed! We spent the rest of the day hanging out, playing with toys and washing baby clothes in preparation of Will's arrival. :D It was awesome to have David home and we are definitely enjoying having him around more! :D

Bellah's First Nutcracker (and mine!)

We went to visit Gigi in December and while we visited, Gigi treated Bellah and me to the Victoria Ballet production of The Nutcracker. (David stayed home to work on his school work.)

We got all dressed up and headed out!

Here we are before the production! I wasn't sure how long Bellah would last since we had never gone to anything like that.

Smiling for the camera! :D

Gigi let Bellah borrow her scrunchie which matched her dress PERFECTLY! It was BEAUTIFUL!! :D


Bellah actually did very, very well! She enjoying watching the dancing and was thoroughly entranced by the ballarinas! She did get mad a few times at me for clapping... she apparently didn't think it was appropriate! lol!

A great time was had by all and I now feel confident to take Bellah to more of these types of performing arts events - she'll love it! :D

HP