What a difference a couple weeks makes!

Can I just say I feel like a mostly normal person again! I think the two week milestone is huge. Drew is sleeping enough to keep me sane. My hormones seem to be evening out. No more unexplained and sudden onset of tears. I am not feeling like a milk cow, at least not as much as I was. I am gradually regaining my patience with the big kids, although all the noise irrationally stresses me out a bit when the baby is sleeping. It is irrational because right now Drew sleeps through it all anyway. Sleeping babies and noise just don't set well with me.

All is not totally normal, of course. The house is still a mess all the time. Homeschool isn't going full blast yet. I still am averaging only a total of 7 hours of sleep per 24 hour cycle and only 4 or 5 of those are in a row. Drew is not on a schedule yet, but we are edging closer everyday. And Isaac is boycotting naps a good 4 or 5 days a week. And the big kicker, I still have absolutely no free time if you don't count blogging while nursing or those 7 hours of sleep. :)

Drew seems to nap best with this straight jacket, I mean Woombie.

He sleeps at night in his Miracle blanket.

Here is my napless Isaac wearing his new rain coat, hat, and mittens hamming it up for the camera.


I love this guy, but he is full of tears in the evenings when he doesn't nap!

2 weeks old!

Drew was 2 weeks old yesterday and had his doctor appointment.

Drew weighs 10 pounds and 3 ounces today, almost to his birth weight. Drew is 95th percentile for height and weight and 75th percentile for his head circumference. That explains why he looks big, but his head looks small to me.

He got his PKU test today and didn't cry with the heal stick. He did, however, cry for his weight check since he had to be naked. It was a long long day at the doctor, but it was just Drew and me so that was a blessing. We were there for nearly three hours. The recent hospital merger was truly a disaster in my opinion.

My laundry helper!

At two weeks he is still impossible to keep awake after majority of feedings. I guess a schedule isn't possible just yet, but we are working towards it with a consistent morning wake time of 7am and attempting to get him to stay awake after each day time feeding at least a little. Most nights, after his 10 or 10:30pm dream feed, he is waking to nurse at 2 or 3am and again at 5am. One night he woke at 3am only which was really nice for me, but I am sure that is not permanent. Now that we know he is gaining weight well, I am going to move to a 2 1/2 to 3 hour schedule during the daytime.

First Mass for Drew

I am sure you have seen my updated blog header with our newest addition to our pew. Drew and I missed Mass last week because we were at the hospital doing the upper GI and all that mess. And although the kids have asked me nearly everyday when we are going to daily Mass again, I have just not quite been getting enough sleep to get up that early on purpose yet. So, this past Sunday was Drew's first Mass at 12 days old. He fell asleep on our way in and slept through the whole thing which left me in some discomfort since he normally would have nursed at that time. Drew caused quite the stir before and after Mass and got loads of attention and lots of Wow's over his size and altogether lack of newborn-ness.

With the car seat, we almost filled up our normal front pew, but not quite, for those of you wondering. The big question of the hour is

Are we done yet?

The answer is








Only God knows!

Snaggle Tooth

Hannah lost her top tooth on Saturday. The other top one looks really close to coming out too. It is all crooked now with nothing to hold it in there. This is tooth #3. This is a milestone I have been dreading because it messed up her smile, who wants big old adult teeth in a tiny little mouth anyway. And wouldn't you know that we have professional pictures scheduled for this week!

The bad news is she dropped the tooth down the sink drain while obsessively rinsing the blood out of her mouth. She hates all the blood. So before she went to bed, she asked me to write a note to the tooth fairy explaining. I told her she could write it. She then said she needs help spelling all the words. This is literally while I am trying to tuck everyone into bed. I said, "Well, just tell me what to write, and I will bring it in here in a minute." This is what she had me write:

Dear Tooth Fairy,

Can you please still give me money? I dropped my tooth down the drain.

Love, Hannah

And what do you know? It worked! She is now the proud owner of another dollar bill.

First Sponge Bath

We still have the umbilical cord and the circumcision site to keep dry so it was sponge bath for Drew. His rash is still there so I had to be extra gentle when bathing him, but he was starting to smell less like a sweet baby and more like spit up. Sponge bath, here we come!

Hannah took these first pictures for me. He loved getting his hair washed.

And, of course, he loved the kisses from Mommy.

However, don't be fooled by the above pictures, this is how most of the bath went...

Happy as a clam when it was all over though.

I just LOVE that chin! Anybody else have an insane urge to kiss these cheeks?

Accidental Smiles and Sleeping

We have all been enamored with these smiles as he is drifting off to sleep.

The first week, we couldn't lay him down without being swaddled or he got quite fussy, but this week he has been totally different. He prefers to sleep on his side if he is not swaddled, but sometimes he's too tired to care. If we do manage to keep him awake for a while he tends to get too awake and then has trouble settling into sleep. That's when I resort to tummy sleeping for now. That usually only happens once or twice a day, and he is usually in the same room as we are then. All these pictures are of him napping in the middle of the living room floor.

At night he is still sleeping in the Moses basket next to my bed. He is swaddled with the Miracle Blanket on his back with a slight side tilt. I use sleep positioners for that.

The rest of the family

I have heard going from three to four kids is easier than going from two to three. The jury is still out on that one. The first couple of newborn weeks are usually not that indicative of the life to come. I think this would have to depend on the ages of your children somewhat and the temperament of the baby. I haven't had any trouble with the older three at all. They are so good at helping out and taking care of themselves and each other that I am not direly needed at inopportune times like in the past with a newborn. Most of their requests for things can wait until I am finished nursing or whatever.

The hardest part or me is always the lack of schedule in these first few weeks (it gives me a stomach ache sometimes) and the lack of sleep. Because of all the weight gain issues while waiting for my milk to come in, I was nursing him every two hours around the clock. The last three nights or so have been better, and he has been going longer stretches. So, with three other kids, the thing I have to make myself do is take a deep breath in the mornings when I am exhausted and they are tattling on a sibling or asking me about what we are going to do today. (The problem with being a schedule lover like myself is that you create little schedule lovers too that ask you what the plan is constantly.) Those things would normally not bug me, but with a lack of sleep comes a lack of patience sometimes. Deep breaths. Lots of them.

Well, the big kids have been busy lately too. Last Saturday Hannah and Genna had their first soccer game that I missed because I had to take Drew in for his first weight check. Hannah also had her first American Heritage Girls and her first CCD (religious education class) within the last week. She was apprehensive about both because her sister wasn't going with her (her security blanket,) but she came out of both a bouncy ball of happiness. She made friends and had nothing but good things to say about both activities. Here she is in her AHG uniform.


Genna loved soccer, but had trouble staying focused during the game, according to Brian. She has been the one to hold her baby brother the most and she always requests a picture.


I have two funnies about her. One is while trying to learn how to answer the phone correctly, she said, "Smith presidents!" when she picked it up. Two was while Hannah was practicing the piano down in the basement. Genna was standing at the top of the stairs repeatedly yelling down to her, "Believe in yourself, Hannah!" Apparently Hannah was getting frustrated. What a sweetie!

As for Isaac, he has been great with his brother. He tries to be gentle, but he doesn't realize his own strength sometimes. He was holding Drew on the couch the other day and asked his dad to look at him and said, "Daddy, he's not crying. That means he loves me!"

He also turned to Genna after her, "Believe in yourself" bit while we were all laughing and said, "Genna, you're adorable." He is a sweet boy.

He's been asking me to read to him a lot more than usual which is easy to do while nursing. I think the increase in asking is just because we normally read so much with school that there is never a need to ask.


Isaac is still wanting to be a hunter when he grows up, so his dad gave him a taste of the life without doing anything dangerous, of course. He took him over to watch a deer being cut and cleaned at a friend's house. He loved it! His buddy, who he's been friends with since they were born a couple weeks apart in Germany and who is generally tougher than Isaac, thought it was stinky and gross and wouldn't watch. It surprised me that Isaac enjoyed this since he is a fairly sensitive boy. Daddy was thrilled as you can imagine.


I am so blessed with these children to make me smile and fill my heart with so much love everyday. To teach me patience and so much more. How could I not want a pew-full?

The Thinker

Wednesday was a big day for me. Drew was 1 week and 1 day old and it was my first time out with all four kids by myself. (Brian went back to work.) This is about the same time frame as with Hannah and Isaac since we had family the first week when they were born. When Genna was born, my first outing with the two of them alone was to a La Leche meeting when she was just 3 days old. The outing was to the doctor/hospital and was stressful mostly because of the location. It was very crowded and crazy there. I told Brian at dinner that the kids were all great, but I would truly benefit from a sheep herding dog. In the parking lot and getting on and off elevators is a challenge when you are so short handed. Hannah is excellent at staying with me and paying attention, and Genna is pretty good. The only thing about my Genevieve is that she doesn't pay attention and is a bit unpredictable. At any moment she could do a twirl and end up in the street instead of safely beside me. Isaac is typically good about staying with me, but has the impulsivity of a 3 year old in addition to his lack of experience. He has been in a stroller or holding my hand up until now. If I am pushing the stroller with Drew, he has to learn, like the girls did, to hold onto the stroller. He did pretty well, but that sheep dog would really come in handy.

Today we attempted some schooling. By no means the quantity we were doing pre-Drew days, I was just shooting for an hour of Handwriting, Spelling, and Math. Instead we did about two hours consisting of those subjects and added in a begged-for history reading while I was nursing the baby. Went well, but Drew has been sleeping a lot more and been significantly less fussy the last few days.

Here are some pictures from Saturday.

Football season...

Another hospital mess!

A perfect 10!

Today we had another doctor appointment for Drew and one for Hannah too. Hannah's diagnosis was straight forward. She has walking pneumonia and was sent home with the Z-pak. Drew, however, confounded the doctors and had three doctors consulting a book to conclude that he has pustular melanosis. This is a benign, noncontagious, rare newborn rash that usually is seen in African Americans, but can occur in Caucasians as well. It occurs in 1% of newborns. The rash is mainly in his diaper area, but there are some pustules on his trunk and neck. My poor baby! I can't believe all the stuff that he is having to go through. I am just praying this nasty looking rash doesn't spread to his beautiful face!

Drew did much better last night and finally made a couple longer stretches between nursings. I have to let him fuss in his crib a bit before falling asleep or we are up for hours. Usually, it is short lived.

His weight was up to 9 lbs 12 oz. My challenge now is to keep his diaper area clean and dry as much as possible and use a barrier cream, like Desitin.

Awake! Although I haven't caught one on camera, he is starting to practice random smiling especially in his sleep. No purposeful smiling though.

Pooping face in action (below!)

Gratuitous Baby Photos

No time to write today! So enjoy the pictures of my cutie pants, Drowsy Drewsy! Too bad so much of this sleeping is during the day. Here's to getting his days and nights straight!

In case you were wondering, his original nickname is still hold strong with Isaac, and I call him Speck still sometimes too. Hannah insists on calling him Andrew even though noone else does.

Drew's Birth Story

Most of you know that I was pretty much in labor for a week while just going about my business because the contractions weren't really painful or consistent for long enough. However, I did have the benefit of dilating and getting half of my work over with before ever going to the hospital. We tried our best to avoid an induction, but I was too worried about the size of this guy since Isaac was so big (10lbs 4 ozs) at 10 days late. Once I hit that mark I started to get nervous and begin to accept that it is possible that my labor would not start without a little help. Just because I could have a 10 lb 4 oz baby didn't mean I could have any bigger naturally.

On Monday we gave it one last shot by stripping the membranes again. I really was hopeful that this would do the trick since I was almost 6cms dilated, 50% effaced and at a -2 station. The contractions got stronger, but died out AGAIN! So that night Brian and I decided we would go in and try a small amount of Pitocin to see if that would get my contractions going the nest morning. The reasons we chose this and not water breaking are just from the experiences I have had with the breaking of my water in the past. I was more scared about that type of pain and was trying to avoid it.

Tuesday, we went to Labor and Delivery and the Pitocin was started at the lowest dose at noon and titrated up every half hour or so until my contractions seemed to be more regular and painful. They were not painful until around 3:30pm. It took more Pitocin than we thought it would. At 3:30pm, I was dilated to 7cms. At 5:30pm, I was at 8cms. By that time, I guess I just wanted to get it over with fast and I gave in to letting him break my water. About 3 contractions and I was starting to feel the urge to push. This is when we discovered that our call button didn't work. (Turns out that we were pushing the wrong call button, but we didn't find this out until later.) Once we got the nurses into the room, they checked me. The first nurse said she can't find my cervix. The second nurse checked me and said, "That's because the baby's head is right there." These pushing contractions are miserable when they won't let you push yet. Then I pushed through one or two contractions when, in the middle of a pushing contraction, the resident who delivered Drew decided he needed me to lift myself up so he could put something under me. This was the worst moment of the whole labor/birth. I don't know what he was thinking, but it threw me way off and put me in horrible pain. All my natural childbirth comrades out there know you can't stay in the zone when someone interrupts a contraction like that. I lost my focus and got very frustrated. I was having trouble pulling my legs back as well. Brian was helping me on one side, but the nurse wouldn't help on the other so I was lopsided and this also just threw me off and made pushing harder and more painful. I guess the nurse just thought that this was a spectator sport or something. Can you tell that I was not a fan of the majority of the staff? My first nurse had been great, but she had left at 1pm.

So, despite all the distractions, I only had two more pushing contractions before he was out and peeing all over the resident that delivered him. They tried to swoop him off to the warmer, but this time we were more assertive about that and they brought him back to me to hold. This was, obviously, the best moment of the whole labor/birth. I cried and talked to my beautiful baby boy. It turned out to be a huge blessing for another reason too. The two residents had to repair a small first degree tear (same as I always have since I push a little too fast.) They gave me Lidocaine, but not enough, because I could still feel the needle/sutures quite clearly. Also, I had some bleeding that wouldn't stop, and then the resident dropped the sutures on the ground and had to wait for another one. Therefore, the whole process took a long time. I was in a lot of pain and crying. One of the residents had been pushing for me to get the epidural the whole labor and tried to get me to take some IV meds after the baby was born. When I declined these offers, he seemed irritated. During this joint effort to stitch me up and stop the bleeding, he made comments like, "I know it hurts, but I could make the pain go away, " and, "I am sorry you are hurting, but I am not going to apologize for doing this because otherwise you would loose too much blood." He did not have the greatest bedside manner, to say the least.

Well, Drew nursed for the first time and then they took him to get his stats, clean him up, and do the standard "big baby" glucose test. The guy in charge of all of that was really slow and Brian and I thought it was his third day on the job or something. Turns out he had been there since June, so I don't know why he didn't have more of the hang of it. Brian and I have been through this drill enough times that we could have done a better job than he was doing. He did his foot prints backwards, forgot to measure him until I asked him to, overheated him under the lamp, and then took his underarms temp and told us he had a fever and he might have to call peds. Just unbelievable!

During that long process, I was reclining in the bed and suddenly got sweaty, the room started to go black, and my lips got tingly. Apparently, I was white as a sheet as well. The room filled with doctors and nurses pretty quickly and they flattened my bed and took my vitals. They never figured out exactly why this happened. It could have been the extra loss of blood, the drop in blood pressure, or a drop in blood sugar. They kept me in the labor and delivery room longer since they didn't want me getting out of bed and fainting. I even ate dinner in there before moving to my postpartum room via wheel chair.

I guess that is Drew's birth story. All in all, I am happy with my decisions and wouldn't change anything that was within my control. You can see the hospital was not my favorite, but there's not much I could do about that. It is what it is. I am thrilled with my adorable healthy baby, and that is the most important thing!

I just love these pictures of my two boys!

Weight Check Turned Mini Nightmare

We went in for a simple weight check on Saturday and then had to come back today because my milk had barely come in and he was down to 8 1/2 lbs on Saturday. Well, today his weight was up to 9 lbs 6 ozs which is great, BUT they saw his spit up on his bib and were alarmed by the color of it. It was bright yellow, almost neon, but all my kids have had this until all the colostrum was out of my milk. I told them that, and asked if we could wait a day and see if it changes with my milk. However, the doctor insisted that it could be bile, bile would be life threatening (bowel torsion,) and that I needed an immediate upper GI for him. I was very hesitant and got a second opinion from the NICU pediatrician on call and a third from my friend Tiffani, who is a doctor and a mom. Brian was with the other kids at Mass and could not be reached during this chaotic time. I have given into tests in the past for the kids that were invasive and unnecessary because I didn't ask for a second opinion. I was trying to be wise and not just a panicky mom. All doctors agreed that it was worth the non-invasive procedure just to make sure. I was freaking out a bit, mostly hormones and just the thought of possible emergency surgery that very day. But in the back of my mind, I was almost sure that it was just the color of my milk, not bile, that he was spitting up. These poor doctors and nurses were sweet to put up with my constant stream of tears during all this. The pediatric radiologist was called in immediately, and we did the procedure right then. (By this time, I had gotten a hold of Brian and he was praying for Drew.) It turned out to be a lot less traumatic of a test than I was envisioning. He drank the Barium readily from the bottle which was a blessing that avoided tube feeding him. He didn't even cry much while being held down by myself and the radiologist which is surprising because he is somewhat of a fussy baby so far.

So, in the end it turned out fine. All was normal in his intestines and there was no emergency surgery being scheduled or us being rushed to the NICU. Praise the Lord for that! I headed home with my declared healthy (and exhausted!) baby boy!

(You can see the spit up on his bib in the picture.)

Later that day, I cleaned my barely used breast pump, pumped some milk, and Surprise! my milk was bright yellow. Today his spit up is much less yellow because my milk is changing gradually. I know everyone was just being careful, but I am glad that I do know something after having four babies.

Coming Home

I really failed on getting a good going home picture this time around. It was kind of a hectic check out process and I didn't even get wheeled to the car which I thought was weird. So this is the best picture I got since he wasn't too happy to shoved in a car seat, poked by the nurses checking the car seat, and carried around the hospital while we picked up meds and checked out officially at patient admin. More about the hospital later. It was a weird experience altogether. It is my 4th hospital to give birth in and definitely my least favorite.

When we got home the kids couldn't get enough of him. I am hoping the novelty wears off a bit so they leave him alone. He will love the attention some day, but for now he gets a little overwhelmed.

I will be getting my birth story up here eventually, but this little guy is pretty demanding right now. So I will be working on it when I have time. Time! That kind of makes me laugh. :)

Meet the sibling day!

When my three angels walked in to the hospital room I was working with the lactation consultant, and tears filled my eyes immediately. I was so full of emotion to finally have them see their baby brother. On top of that, they walked in so nicely and quietly and sat down patiently. I was so proud of my big kids! The look on their faces when they finally laid eyes on him was absolutely priceless.

They all got a turn to hold him, but Genna got two turns because he cried through most of the first attempt. He was fussy from working with the lactation consultant, and she wanted to go first.

They opened their presents from their baby brother. Super exciting! Isaac got a couple Thomas figures, and the girls both got their long awaited mini pillow pets. Hannah fell in love with the dolphin months ago and has been saving her money to buy him. Genna loves loves loves unicorns, so that was easy.

They were truly missed when they left the hospital! I was all alone for the rest of my stay with a fussy hungry baby. :)

He's finally here! The biggest misnomer ever!

Andrew "Drew" William was born at 6:09pm on September 13th, 2011. His nickname, "Speck," may be the biggest misnomer ever since he weighed in at 10 lbs 6 ozs and measured 21 7/8inches long. His head circumference was 37 cms. He set the record for my biggest baby ever by 2 ounces.

He has blue eyes for now, dark brown/almost black hair, and a dimple in his chin. All of which I predicted, with the exception of the dimple being in his chin instead of his cheeks.

As you can see he has some chub to spare which is good because my milk doesn't typically come in before three full 24 hour days have passed.

I am doing well, and Drew is healthy as a horse!


Thank you for your patience! The hospital did not have wireless internet like we thought, but we are home now. Be prepared for a long string of posts about our new cutie and his birth with lots more pictures to come. After all, we took around 200 pictures of him in the hospital!