Answer to a prayer

It was an answer to a prayer that my grandmother finally got to meet Maverick. She was transferred from my Aunt's home in the mountains to a Hospice facility here in Raleigh on Wednesday, 3/30. I was able to go see her with Maverick on Thursday. She got to "hold" Maverick and she was just beaming. I was too!

I'm not sure what the future holds for my grandmother or how much longer she will be with us, but for now I'm cherishing this moment.

Thank Goodness for Mimi

Derek went back to work this week. Thank goodness Mimi was willing to fill in so I didn't have to manage all three by myself (at least for now). Mimi was here full-time while Derek was at work on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week. She helped me by cleaning the house and doing what ever was needed. I think her favorite thing was napping and holding the baby though!

Thanks to Granddaddy Bob for bringing lunch several times. He was able to make good on his promise to bring me pickle chips, but they didn't make it here while I was still pregnant ;)

Oh well!

Maverick's 3-day stats

Yes, this is another post that is back-dated one week. A nurse from the midwives center came to our house on Monday, 3/21 to do Maverick's and my 3-day check. We both checked out great.

The nurse noted that Maverick is a little "tongue-tied" but it didn't seem to interfere with nursing at all, so not to worry about it. Brighton was the same way, but I can't remember if his was more/less severe. Next came the weight check:

Considering all my boys are little clones of each other I predicted that Maverick would have lost 4 oz since birth. I hit it right on the money as he weighed in at 6 lbs, 12 oz. This means nursing is going great, hurray!

Here's one last picture just for fun. Dad calls this my lion face!

And the show went on....

We planned to have Chandler's 4th Birthday party early since his birthday and Maverick's due date were so close. I thought that having the party 3 weeks early would ensure we could have the party without a new baby in tow. Boy was I wrong! Maverick was born on Friday, March 18th at 4:27 p.m. and 25 hours later Chandler's Birthday party went on as scheduled. I only made a brief appearance at the beginning and again for the last 20-30 minutes. Maverick slept happily in the car and family members took turns keeping an eye on him.

I hear that the party was a blast and Chandler had a great time. I hated to miss most of it, but we decided this was the best option.

We had pizza and cupcakes and Chandler was so excited and wanted to play that he only ate the icing on his cupcake. He had requested lemon cupcakes with purple icing and Grandma made them.

Instead of traditional gifts, I requested that the kids bring a new book for a swap. The birthday boy got first pick and then the other kids got to pick out their favorite. I think this was a success too. Much better than way too many presents and no place to put them! Overall it was a great day for Chandler and he says he is four now (although he still has a week to go). Happy Birthday Chandler, we love you!

Maverick is one week old!

Today Maverick is one week old. I can't believe how fast the time has gone by. Maverick is such a sweet baby. I'm so in love with this little guy. He is sleeping like a champ for four hour stretches at night. Let's hope he keeps it up. Yesterday (at 6 days old) his umbilical cord stump fell off so today was bath day!

We decided to opt for the sink for the bath rather than the baby bathtub. From experience they like being submerged in the warm water rather than laying in the baby hammock in the tub. Maverick did great and thoroughly enjoyed himself. Here he is bundled up after bathtime:

After bathtime we got him dressed up in this cute outfit that was a gift from my Aunt Judy. Doesn't he look handsome?

I'll have to post some pictures for comparison soon, but Maverick looks just like Chandler did but with slightly lighter hair. Seeing him brings back memories of my first baby. I can't believe he will be four years old next month!

Right before dinner we were surprised by the flower delivery man. Derek's manager had these flowers sent over to celebrate Maverick's birth. Isn't that sweet?

One week ago today....

One week ago today was SAINT PATRICK'S DAY!!

I had planned for Derek to take off so we could spend one last fun day as a family of four. Little did I know that it would really be our LAST day as a family of four! Our day was packed with activities. We started off by dropping off the van for an oil change and then we headed to NCSU's farm animal days. It was a lot of fun. We started out by holding baby chicks and polts. Here is Chandler holding a baby turkey (polt)

From there we moved onto the rabbits. Chandler said that his favorite was actually a Hare they had on display. He truly was beautiful. Brighton said he liked the white ones. They got to put a rabbit also.

Another fun thing we did was pretend to rope cattle. It was really hard to get the hang of. I'm not sure I could have done it. Chandler said this was one of his favorite things, but he had hoped the would get to practice with real cows.

The last thing we did before heading for our free icecream was stand in a VERY long line in order to climb up in a tractor. This was also a big hit with the boys. It's amazing to me that some parents are clueless when it comes to something like this. With 50 + people standing in line with kids that all want to get in the tractor, why would you let your kid sit in the tractor for more than a few minutes? Some kids were in there for almost 10 minutes!

After leaving the farm we headed to a park to enjoy a picnic lunch. What a great day!

Maverick's Birth Story

So here's the last pregnancy picture we have of me. I was exactly 37 weeks (or full-term) on Wednesday, March 16th. I remembered to have Derek take a picture of me before I went to bed. It was right after my shower and I was tired, but I'm so glad I took the time for this or obviously I wouldn't have it!

On Thursday, 3/17 I lost my mucous plug when I got up in the morning. Since the day that I lost my mucous plug was the day I had both Chandler and Brighton I was a little shocked. I know that losing the plug doesn't mean anything and that labor could still be days or even weeks away. That's not my "normal" though so I thought it would be sooner rather than later.

We had already planned for Derek to be off on Thursday to go to Farm Animal Days (I'll post about that later) and we continued with our day as planned. I was having contractions throughout the morning, but nothing intense and not very noticeable. I did call my midwives around noon just to let them know what was going on. I already had my 37-week checkup scheduled for Friday, so they said unless major changes occurred they'd see me then.

Friday morning I woke up about 4 a.m. with a very large contraction. I started having them every few minutes for the next half-hour, but I hesitated to call anybody because I just didn't feel like this was "it". The contractions continued for the next hour, but then really started to space out to at least every 20 minutes. I was able to fall back asleep and proceeded with my Friday plans that morning as usual.

After dropping Chandler off to preschool, Brighton and I headed to the midwives for my appointment. Everything went great at the appointment and it appeared Maverick had turned from being posterior to a more favorable position for birth. I left the midwives about 11 a.m. and picked Chandler up from school about 12:45 p.m. The boys went down for their quiet time about 1:30 p.m. I called Derek at 1:55 p.m. and asked him if he could try to be home about 4 p.m. I said I was tired and really needed to rest and once the boys got up I knew that would be hard. At 2:15 p.m. I called Derek back and said change of plans....you need to come home NOW! I was in the middle of making 4 batches of soup for my cooking club and when I could no longer focus on chopping up the chicken I knew something was happening.

Derek got home, loaded the car and the boys and we were on our way shortly after 3 p.m. Traffic on I-40 was backed up so we detoured from our normal route and I thought we were never going to get there! We got to the birth center about 3:45 p.m. and they checked me and I was complete. I had asked them to fill up the tub in advance so after getting my vitals I got in. It felt great! I was so glad and I was able to relax some and hold off the urge to push. My parents hadn't arrived yet and I was hoping they would make it in time. My water also had not broken. When I finally started pushing, I was able to break my water after a few pushes. A few pushes later and I knew he would be out soon.

My family all came into the room and I slowly pushed Maverick out. I was able to have greater control this time and didn't tear at all. Funny thing is that even after moving to a more favorable position for birth, Maverick still came out "sunny-side up". He did great at birth and they didn't even need to suction him out. His apgar scores were a 9 and a 9.

It was such an amazing experience and I'm so in love with my latest little boy!