1st of a Million Smiles

I love gas bubbles! They give you a glimpse of what their cute little smiles are going to look like.

Gratefulness

I am so grateful for everyone that has helped us out the last two weeks. Our family that watched Abby, drove long distances to visit us, and friends that brought us amazing dinners and gifts for the baby. Everything has been wonderful! I thought I would share a pic of a really cool gift we got from the people I work with on our HOA board. It's from a company called Edible Arrangements and mmm! was it good! Fruit and chocolate covered bananas! Isn't that cool?

I am especially grateful to Brian for being such an awesome husband and father. He took off three weeks to be at home with me to help me recover and take care of the kids and I cannot express how wonderful it is to have his help. He's so cute with Carter! I can tell they are going to be great buddies. I love Brian and our little family and am so grateful for the wonderful life we have together.

Carter's Dimple

Carter has the cutest little dimple on his left cheek. It's hard to capture cause he doesn't smile yet, but it is SO cute! Although it's blurry, I did get one picture of the elusive dimple. I'm sure there will be many more to come. :)


Watch out, Mario Lopez!

And Then There Were Four...

Friday morning I was getting ready to take Abby to get her fitted for ear plugs. I picked her up and woosh... my water broke. So there I was standing there holding Abby.... and well, I'll spare you the details. (My water broke before labor with Abby too, so when it happened I was a little shocked.) So I put Abby down, fed her a bottle, and called Brian at work and said, 'You'll never guess what happened..." So he headed for the hospital and I dropped Abby off at Carrie's house and she took me to the hospital. I was having SOME contractions but they weren't intense, and when the doctor checked me I was only dialated to a 1. I was planning on having a c-section, but when my water broke I thought just maybe I could try a VBAC. But since I was only dialated to a 1 and I really didn't want to labor for 12 hours and nothing happen like last time, we decided to stick to the original plan. So around 1pm they took me in to surgery and at 1:39 Carter was born. He was a strappin' 8 lbs 1 oz, 20 in. long, and sweet as can be.

Today is our first full day home from the hospital, which is going really well, but last night was expectedly long. He woke up every two hours to eat but I was okay with that cause he needs to get some meat on his bones. He refused to eat hardly at all the first 24 hours so he lost like 8% of his body weight. Abby seems to have taken to him really well. She doesn't seem too jealous yet, just very curious. She signs baby all the time and points to him and we also gave Carter his own sign (a "C" to the heart with the right hand) and she signs that all the time too. So cute!

He looks like Abby sometimes, and other times he looks like a little old man. He's really good at furrowing his eyebrows and when he opens his eyes he gives this really quizzical, bewildered look which reveals a large set of wrinkles on his forehead. He's going to be a fun baby, just for his facial expressions alone!

Proud Daddy!

His first car ride!

Momma and her babies. Mmmmm! Yummy!
It's never too early to start tummy time!
He looks pretty long here, huh?
I think babies are so cute when they cry!

Woah!

My water just broke, so I'm on my way to the hospital. Yay! We'll keep you posted!

Under Construction

Our blog will be under construction for a while so don't be suprised if it's different every time you go to it. Also, we will be changing the name of our blog including the URL after the baby is born so we'll let you know before it happens.

Six days and counting....

Well, the big day is next Monday and I am SO ready to have this baby. The miracle of pregnancy is amazing, but honestly, I don't like it much. Sure, it has it's moments of wonderfulness, and I get a sweet little baby out of it, but I'm not the kinda girl that loves being pregnant. I'm all about the destination, not the journey. So in honor of the upcoming day, I'm going to list all of the things that I will NOT miss when all is said and done. Feel free to add yours.

* Puffy feet and hands
* Constant need to pee
* Not being able to bend over
* Not being able to breathe
* Headaches
* Braxton Hicks
* The baby sitting on the bladdar (not to mention the occasional jab with his foot)
* Nausea
* Not being able to jog
* Food aversions
* Forgetting I have this huge lump in front of me and running into things
* Utter exhaustion
* Maternity clothes
* Not being able to find a comfortable sleeping position
* Restless Leg Syndrome
* Not being able to care for Abby the way I want to
* Not being able to paint my toe nails
* My super-clumsiness

By the way, I'm sorry I haven't posted a picture of my belly. The camera is still in the shop. :(

"He maketh the deaf to hear"

Abby's surgery went very well this morning. The doctor said the fluid in her ears was the consistency of airplane glue (?!?!?) and so he said she should be able to immediately hear better now that it's all cleared out. The fact that is was so thick is wonderful news. It means that most of her hearing loss was due to that blockage. So we met her in the recovery room and although she was still pretty loopy from the anesthesia, she looked my direction when I called her name, which she hasn't done in a while. It's amazing how the simplest of things can bring tears to your eyes.

There's still a chance that she could have some additional hearing loss, but she won't be tested for that for a few more weeks. Until then, we will celebrate her hearing and thank the Lord for helping her to hear better.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. Although it was a very simple procedure, the outcome really meant a lot to us. We are so grateful to have the support of friends and family during times like this.

Abby's Ears

About 2 months ago Brian expressed concern that Abby didn't respond to him when he called her and he wondered if she was hearing well. I didn't think much of it because she seemed to respond to me. Besides, she had passed her birth hearing test and she is very verbal and social and I know for a fact that she has heard us clearly in the past. But at her 15 month appointment last month, the doctor started asking about her speech and we discovered that she was behind her peers. BUT he never mentioned that hearing might be an issue. I talked to my sister Ginny, who is a speech pathologist, about Abby's speech delays and she asked if we had her hearing checked recently. We hadn't, but it got me thinking, and for the next week or two I started noticing that she didn't respond when I called to her, and that maybe she wasn't hearing as well as we thought.

So today we took Abby to an ENT and they did several tests and discovered a great amount of fluid in her ears, along with a significant hearing loss of 55 decibles. Most people speak at about 40-45 decibles, so she wasn't even picking up normal conversation. (Oh! That makes me so sad!) It's common practice for doctors to wait for children to have six or more ear infections or fluid in the ear for more than 6 weeks before they consider putting tubes in their ears. But considering that this is affecting her speech development, the doctor suggested we do the procedure now. And since we're having a baby on the 21st, they scheduled her surgery for Friday morning. I am SO grateful for that!

So *hopefully* once all the fluid is cleared, she should be able to hear 100% again. However, because she has such a significant hearing loss, the doctor says its possible that she might also have minimal hearing loss due to an inner ear problem. We won't be able to determine that until we get the tubes in.

It makes me so sad that she hasn't been able to hear us and that she's gone for months with this problem and we didn't do anything about it. But according to many people we've talked to, we picked up on it pretty fast. Most people don't notice it until they are 2 or three years old and then they're really developmentally delayed. I just hope and pray that everything will be okay. I would like to wish that her full hearing will be restored, but we can handle a little hearing loss. Abby's a trooper and no matter what, she'll be a successful, normal, happy child.