Palmer at 7 weeks

I absolutely cannot believe that precious little Palmer is already 7 weeks 4 days old!  I hope time will slow down just a little so I can continue to cherish these newborn days.

Since he seems to be growing up before my very eyes, I thought I better write down a few things about Palmer so that I do not forget!

• Eats every two hours during the day.

• The last few nights, he has eaten at 9 pm and been asleep by 10 pm and slept until 3 am! Woop Woop! Getting more than an hour of sleep at a time does wonders for my mind, body, and spirit! Then, at 3 am it is hit or miss.  Some nights he has eaten and been back to sleep by 4 am and then up for good at 6 am.  Some nights he has eaten at 3 am and then been up until about 6 am.  Hopefully we will continue the trend of eating at 9 pm, 3 am, and 6 am with sleep in between each feeding. 

• Palmer sleeps in the bassinet of the pack and play in our room at night.  We normally turn on the vibrating feature of the bassinet.  However, last night the batteries ran out and he didn't wake up.  If Palmer is fussy during the night, sometimes he will calm down if you just turn on the lights.  Not a dim night light, but a bright lamp or overhead light.  I guess if he is awake he wants to be able to look around and see things.  

• Palmer normally sleeps in a plain white onesie and we swaddle him in 2 Aden and Anais blankets.  If you only use one blanket, he wiggles right out! Plus, we keep our house pretty cool at night and the blankets are very thin.  He stays warm and snuggly in two! 

• He is growing!  He has outgrown almost all of his newborn clothes!! He is now wearing 0-3 months and a few of the smaller 3 month outfits.

• We are almost out of Huggies newborn diapers and are considering going up to size 1 when we order our next box.  The newborn diapers still fit, but they are getting a bit snug and I hate to think that they might pinch his little skin.

• He has lost most of his baby hair.  There is still a tuft of hair on the top of his head.  It really looks curly and red, but I know the color and texture may change as new hair starts coming in.

• He loves bath time but hates when bath is over.  His little lower lip quivers when I take him out of the bath and he acts like he will never be warm again. Ha! But once he is all dry and cozy in new clothes and a blanket, he is happy again.

• We have no sleep schedule during the day.  He pretty much just eats and sleeps when he wants during the day and at this point I am in no hurry to force a schedule.  Life is full of schedules.  For now I just let him sleep if he falls asleep.  

• When he gets fussy, he can usually be soothed if you stand up and walk him around.  He likes to be held tightly.  He loves the hum of the hair dryer, vacuum, shower, and microwave fan.  

• Sometimes he likes his paci and sometimes he doesn't.  It just depends on his mood, I guess.

• When he fills his diaper, it sounds so loud!  But when you change him, there is just little baby poo.  The sound is much more dramatic than the actual amount of poo produced.  TMI, I know.

• He smiles! His first "recorded" smile based on interaction (not just a random smile) was May 25. He smiled at my sister Angie and my mom when they were talking to him and playing with him.

• He smiled at me for the first time later that week, but I didn't record the date. Sometimes he laughs when Beau laughs.  He smiles for Raleigh too.

• Speaking of Beau, Palmer will be tough! I guess that is true of all second children.  Beau is learning to be gentle, but he is all boy and plays hard! Sometimes his big boy movements get dangerously close to Palmer.  He has almost sat right on top of Palmer multiple times.  He is never being malicious, just playing.  

• Beau is an awesome big brother!  I hope Beau and Palmer grow up to have a really close relationship and spur one another on to be warriors for the Lord.  

All the pictures below are all from my phone, so many of them are a little blurry.  Haven't had a chance to get pictures from the camera to the computer yet..

Two Posts Worth Reading

I try to only share links to other blog posts if I really think other people might benefit from reading them.  Here are two that resonated with me this week.

I had the pleasure of hearing Susan Hillis speak at an adoption conference last year.  She speaks with the joy of the Lord and is a delight to be around.  She writes over at Hope at Home.

Take a minute to read her latest entry HERE about shepherding our children to spend time with the Lord each day.  I'm paraphrasing, but basically she says if your child is old enough to operate the ipad, he or she is old enough to spend time with the Lord.  What a reminder and encouragement to me that now is the time for Beau to start learning the joy of spending time with the Lord.

Jenny and I have met in real-life once at a dinner.  She has a heart for adoption and is currently in the final stages of bringing home her 13 year old daughter from China.

Click HERE to read her post about being the net.  We were blessed to be surrounded by loving friends and family when Beau came home.  Jenny shares some practical ways that you can love families well who have recently adopted children.

Summer Fun....iphone style

Reflections after 7 weeks

If you ask 10 different people about their labor and delivery experiences, you will get 10 different stories...no two will be exactly the same.  Knowing that, here are a few of my reflections, 7 weeks later.

I've tried not to over share, but if you have no interest in reading about labor and delivery, feel free to skip this post.

• CONTRACTIONS:  If you think you are having contractions, you probably are!  I waited over 12 hours to go to the hospital (even though the contractions were consistently less than 5 minutes apart) because I assumed it was false labor and I didn't want to be sent home.  The lesson here is that it never hurts to be checked out.  Even if I had been sent home, that wouldn't have been a big deal.  In the end, I guess I'm glad I labored at home until I was 4 cm dilated because that allowed me to walk around, eat and drink normally, etc.  Had I been in the hospital all that time, I would have been stuck in the bed with ice chips.  

• DRINK WATER: If you start having contractions at home or know you are going into labor, drink a lot of water!  One reason I didn't want an IV was so that I could continue drinking water throughout delivery.  Ultimately all I could have were those tiny ice chips.  Between each push I made Raleigh feed me ice chips...for over two hours.  I would just make eye contact with him and he knew I wanted more.  I really was so thirsty.  I was so happy when they brought me sprite in the recovery room...and I don't even really care for sprite. 

• SETTING THE MOOD:  As I anticipated Palmer's arrival, I made an extensive play list of songs that are encouraging to me.  I planned to have the songs playing during labor and delivery.  However, things happened really fast.  When I was checked into my room, the Masters golf tournament was on the tv in the room.  Before I really had a chance to change the channel or turn it off, it was time to push.  Luckily the volume was down really low so it wasn't too annoying.  Now that I have experienced giving birth, I would say music is great for the recovery room, but I think it would have started driving me crazy while I was pushing.

• PRETTY CLOTHES:  I was so excited about my fancy hospital maternity gown I ordered on etsy.  But I didn't have a chance to wear it during labor, which was my original plan.  Thank goodness I didn't.  It was so much better to have a nice pretty gown to wear in recovery.  You really don't care what you are wearing or how you look during labor.  In fact, I thought I was going to be grossed out because the regular hospital gowns are used.  I mean obviously someone else has worn the gown before.  But really that was the furthest thing from my mind, so it didn't matter.  I did wear my own gowns for the remainder of my stay in the hospital, but not during labor and delivery.  

• SUPPORT PERSON: Plan to have a great support person with you.  I absolutely could NOT have made it through delivery without Raleigh.  He was right beside me and was an active participant.  I always assumed there would be two nurses, but nope...a nurse on one side and Raleigh on the other.  He fed me ice chips, told me I was doing great, and overall kept a positive tone in the room so that I did not get discouraged during 2 hours of pushing.  Having someone you love and trust next to you is vital.  And we decided that what happens in the delivery room stays in the delivery room, because it ain't pretty!! Ha! 

• BIRTH PLAN: It is cool to have a birth plan, but be flexible.  Things do not always go as planned.  Although I had not formally typed a birth plan (because I thought I had a few more weeks to go)  I did have it formulated in my mind.  The main two items were 1) I did not want and IV.  2) I did not want an episiotomy.                                                                                                        Well, I had both.  I did not have a choice about the IV because my Strep B test results were not available.  (I had the strep test in Atlanta 2 days before going into labor, so the results were not ready.  Even if they had been ready, I'm not sure the hospital in Nashville could have accessed them since I went into labor on a Sunday.)  Since they did not have my results, I had to be treated as if I was a positive carrier for strep.  This resulted in an IV drip of antibiotics.  Since I had already been given the IV, they also gave me saline for hydration.  I wish I had fought against this as it makes your face super duper puffy.                                                                                                                                               I guess there are two opposing philosophies about episiotomies. In Atlanta, I was cared for by a team of midwives and a midwife would have delivered Palmer.  Their philosophy is to avoid episiotomies because a natural tear is most often smaller.  The doctor in Nashville who delivered Palmer felt the episiotomy was a safer choice because it can be controlled.  I'm sure there are pros and cons to each way of thinking.  In the end, Palmer made his grand entrance into the world and that is all that really matters.

• MEMORY: There are several moments that I do not remember.  I have absolutely no memory of the moment Palmer was actually born.  I also have no memory of them putting him on my chest right after he was born.  I was looking through the pictures Raleigh took, and saw the pictures of Palmer on my chest and I asked Raleigh about it.  He said they put him there for a minute or two before the NICU team (precautionary since he was born before 37 weeks) took him to another area of the room.  I have no memory of this at all.  I also apparently somehow pulled out my IV (unintentionally, I'm sure) during labor.  The nurses had to clean up the mess, change the pillows, etc.  I have no memory of this.  I guess I just had a single minded focus to do my part to get Palmer out safely, and everything else just faded away.  

• CLASSES: Raleigh and I chose not to take any childbirth classes, so I can only speak from that perspective.  Would it have helped?  Maybe.  When it was time to push, the nurse kept telling me I wasn't really pushing and I was going to have to do a lot better than that to get the baby out.  Ha!  I guess if I had taken classes, I would have known what to do from the very beginning.  But honestly, your body is designed for childbirth and I obviously figured it out.  I don't think classes can hurt, but if you don't take any you will be fine to just learn as you go.

• EPIDURAL:  Since things moved so quickly, I did not have an epidural.  My plan had always been to wait it out as long as possible and see how far I could go without it.  The midwives in Atlanta were really supportive of this.  When I got checked into my room in Nashville, I was pretty sure the doctor was going to try to convince me to get the epidural.  I was already 7 cm when I got from the triage area up to the delivery room and I made it until I was 9 cm before asking for the epidural.  I didn't know I was 9 cm, but there was no break between contractions and I thought I couldn't do it anymore so I made Raleigh call the nurse and tell her I wanted the epidural.  The anesthesiologist and my doctor came in at the same time and since it was already time to start pushing, my doctor actually advised against the epidural because it would not have time to be effective.  If there is a next go around, I would probably plan to have the epidural.  I mean, I guess I'm happy I got to experience natural childbirth, but let's be honest...it hurts.  Not a little, but a whole lot.  At one point I remember thinking that Palmer would just have to stay inside me forever because there was no way I could keep pushing. LOL! The epidural would probably take the edge off a little. 

I'm sure there is more that I will remember later, but those are my initial reflections.  The Lord authored Palmer's birth story and that is all that really matters.