One Month in the Books

Preston is one month old today!

I know I am partial, but seriously, he is the cutest child ever! So, Preston, here is what you are up to these days.

I just took you to the pediatrician and you weighed 7 lbs, 10 oz. Right on track! You like to tuck half of your bottom lip under your top lip. It makes your dad and I laugh. Your hair also makes us laugh. Not only because you have so much of it, but because your dad thinks it already looks "frat-y." You seriously love your pacifier, little lamb seat, and eating. You get in a frenzy right before I feed you because you know you are about to get food. You also love to be held and swaddled. Sometimes you will cry and when someone picks you up, you instantly stop. You love having your arms up in a "touchdown" position when you sleep, and your hands are always by your face.

You hate getting your diaper changed, being naked, taking a bath, and going to sleep. You pee on us... a lot. You projectile pooped on your dad once at 3 in the morning and your mom thought that was hilarious.

Right now, during the day you eat every two hours and at night, the longest you have let us sleep is 5 hours so far (which was last night - thank you P!!!). You usually wake up every 3 and 1/2 hours to eat and have your diaper changed. Then you want us to rock you back to sleep.

It looks like he is talking to the sock monkey. Ha!

Sometimes it feels like this past month has flown by and sometimes it feels like the longest month ever. Either way, we have loved this first month with you in our lives! Our life will never be the same :)

PS - Your dad said I made you look like a nerd because I buttoned the top button on your polo shirt. I just didn't want you to be cold!

Big Day and Visiting the Grandparents

Preston now has a normal belly button! Thank goodness... that stump was gross. I took a picture of his belly, sent a text to Brian that said "Does my belly look different to you?" Brian's response back was "Wow. Big day. Now we should be able to do regular baths right?" It does, but we still haven't given him a for real bath. We have been giving him sponge baths because I am nervous I will drop him or drown him. Crazy, I know.

Here is my sweet boy sleeping in his lamb chair - another one of the "must-have" baby items. Love that cute belly.

On Sunday, Preston went to Mimi and Mook's house for the first time. We were celebrating my brother Joe's birthday. We were supposed to celebrate it January 30, but we all know why that got canceled :) Here is a little video of his visit...

What You're In For

Recently, a blog I read had a post titled What You're In For when it comes to having a baby.

I couldn't have said it better myself. The love, the exhaustion, the advice, stopping to enjoy the small things, and lastly, investing in comfortable clothes (especially if you are nursing!)

I told someone the other day that even though I have been a mom for only three weeks, I already feel like I could write my own book on my experiences. Well... on my experiences with PRESTON. So many things I have experienced in the last three weeks aren't in any books, websites or Google searches, or were a part of the HUGE amount of advice I received prior to Preston's arrival. In fact, one of the best things I did was put the books away. None of them have the answers. Babies are all so different. I just had to rely on my instinct and Brian's instinct and have the confidence that we know our little boy.

I thought I would take a minute to add to the What You're In For list based on our experiences, partly because I don't want to be one of those that hands out unsolicited advice to pregnant friends. Plus, my blog is kind of my life scrapbook and I want to remember how I felt as a new mom.

1. Enjoy your pregnancy. Seriously, enjoy it. Pregnancy is wonderful. You have all the joy and excitement of a new mom, but the freedom of a regular person. If you think you aren't sleeping now, get ready. Go out to eat as much as you can, go on dates with each other, run errands, and stay as active as possible. I stayed so busy during my pregnancy, that I swear it is the reason that three weeks post-delivery, I am back in my pre-maternity jeans. I really enjoyed pregnancy, and will always look back on it happily.

2. Labor and delivery - it is completely out of your control. Let it go. It is totally up to your baby. Think about that. When I was pregnant, I was progressing on my own, getting great reports, and thought for sure Preston was coming vaginally. When things didn't work out like I planned and I was told I would be having a c-section I was so bummed. Looking back, that was so silly. I should have never been upset. Preston wasn't coming without a c-section. Now, I don't even think about how he came into the world. He is here, he is healthy and he is ours.

3. Newborns are hard. And don't feel guilty for thinking it. Preston's first two weeks of life were some of the hardest, longest, exhausting (physically and mentally), scary, and overwhelming days of my entire life. I felt guilty because I had a beautiful, healthy baby boy... why was I not enjoying this more? People kept telling me, it will get better, it will get better, but I couldn't see the forest through the trees. Before I knew it, my body started adjusting to no sleep, my hormones calmed down, and I realized, "Hey, I CAN do this." But it took me a good two weeks to feel that way.

4. Breastfeeding - this is the one that I could really go on about. But of course, I won't. All I will say is that I'm still not really enjoying breastfeeding yet. It's painful, time consuming, and left me with a lonely feeling. It's not something anyone can help me with. How long I will breastfeed, I don't know, but I don't plan on giving up anytime soon. I feel too invested, because Preston and I both have worked hard at it and are slowly getting better. No part of breastfeeding comes easily or quickly. It requires patience, which for those of you that know me, is not a personality characteristic of mine. Preston and I faced our own challenges with breastfeeding. My body couldn't (and still can't) keep up with his incessant need to eat and we still have to supplement with formula occasionally. Brian was awesome through this, because at first, I was bummed because breastfeeding didn't go like I envisioned and we were having to give him formula. But, my husband, in his infinite wisdom said, "Cami, it's the difference between steak and cheeseburger." He is really right. If it doesn't go like you plan, it's fine. In the words of our pediatrician, "It doesn't matter what you do. He is going to grow up. That's what humans do."

I do want to say that while being a new mom is scary, I see this face and I melt.

This may sound silly, but he looks at me with those big blue eyes and I see so much love for his mommy. Sometimes I feel so inadequate... I think, "Preston, you are so precious to me. How can your dad and I ever give you what you deserve?" But then I think about all the people that love him and know that he has so many things in his life to look forward to. I think we're doing a pretty good job so far and through the trials of raising a newborn, I've learned that I have more patience than I thought I had, more love than I knew I could give, and am a lot stronger than I thought I was.

Preston - you are HARD, but your daddy and I love you more than you will ever know.

Happy Birthday and Valentine's Day B!

Each year, we usually celebrate Valentine's Day and Brian's birthday the same night because they are just two days apart. So, we do one, nice evening together. This year, we felt like we had even more to celebrate... Brian turning 28, being new parents, a healthy baby boy, and a great marriage. So, we went all out.

Saturday night we went to a VERY nice dinner at Folk's Folly. It was my first time leaving Preston and it wasn't hard for me, thank goodness! To be honest, I was ready to get out of the house. With the c-section, I can't drive for 4 weeks, so I am totally homebound. Plus, with cold and flu season upon us, I can't take P anywhere anyway. My in-laws came over and stayed with P for the hour and a half we were on our date. When dinner was over, we thought about maybe staying out a little later, but I told Brian all I could think about was SLEEP.

Sunday it was so beautiful here in Memphis. We got up, had a few visitors over to meet P, then decided we would take him on his first walk. Look at how much he enjoyed it!

Today, Daddy has gone back to work and it's just me and P. For Preston's 1st Valentine's Day, I decided to dress him for the occasion.

His shirt has Pigpen from the Peanuts and it says Love Stinks. He also has some Vday socks, but he keeps kicking them off so I gave up :)

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! And Happy Birthday to the best husband in the world and the best daddy a little boy could ask for!

First Night Home

My mom took this video of us on our first night home with Preston. We took him on a tour of his nursery and Brian rocked him to The Beatles lullabies. Then we take him on his first trip to the pediatrician.

PS - Is Brian not the best dad in the world or what?!

PPS - Ignore how I look the night we got home from the hospital. YIKES.

Preston's Birthday

Here is the story of how Preston came into the world.

Sunday, January 30, 2011. 39 weeks and 2 days pregnant.

Brian and I decided we were going to 10:30 a.m. Mass. I got out of bed to get in the shower first. I'm always super careful about getting into the shower. I took one step in and my foot slipped out from under me. I couldn't catch myself, so I fell... HARD. I hit the bath tub with my right elbow and the right side of my head. I blacked out, and the next thing I remember is sitting Indian-style on the floor of the bath tub with blood all around me and the shower running. I screamed Brian's name, but by that point, he was already next to me because he heard me fall. He asked me where the blood was coming from and I said I think my head. He pulled my hair back and saw that a huge section of my right ear was missing. He grabbed a towel and told me to hold it on my ear and don't move it and that I would definitely need stitches. I told him to call my OB's office. Within seconds Brian was on the phone with my OB, Dr. Chauhan with Ruch Clinic. She said she would meet us at Labor & Delivery. We took about 5 minutes to collect our things and tried to grab stuff in case they decided to induce early.

The car ride to the hospital was one of the scariest moments of my life. I was praying that Preston was okay and would have a heartbeat and wasn't hurt. I thought I was for sure having contractions and that the trauma of this was setting me into labor. I was hyperventilating by the time we pulled up at Methodist Germantown. When we walked in the door, they were waiting for us. We got rushed back and immediately hooked up to a fetal monitor and an ultrasound machine. I heard his heartbeat and burst into tears. BEST. SOUND. EVER. After a very thorough ultrasound, we determined that Preston had no idea I fell and was perfectly fine.

Next was addressing my ear. My OB took one look at it and said a plastic surgeon needed to be called in. We waited hours and hours on the plastic surgeon. Finally she arrived and said she could fix it, but that the pain was going to be intense. Because of my pregnancy, they essentially had to perform a full plastic surgery without putting me to sleep. The labor and delivery nurses assured me that both a vaginal and cesarean delivery would be nothing compared to fixing my ear. The plastic surgeon told me that my ear had essentially shattered - she used terms like "blunt force trauma" and "reconstruction" and that was SCARY. My ear decided to shatter where four different nerves come together. The nurses and Brian held me down as the plastic surgeon shot my ear with 5 shots of lidocaine - to numb each nerve and the back of the ear. I screamed at the top of my lungs. To this day, I have NEVER felt pain that intense.

After she sewed up 15 stitches, my ear looked so much better. In fact, I don't think people will ever be able to tell how damaged it was. They decided to keep me overnight for observation and send me home first thing Monday morning. Since Preston was doing great, we decided to keep our scheduled induction date for Feb. 4.

Monday, January 31, 2011. Preston's Birthday.

I woke up in the hospital Monday morning and Brian and I started getting ready to go home. The nurse came in and Brian asked when we would be discharged. She looked at us funny and said that one of the OB's from Ruch Clinic was coming to talk to us. Dr. Pickens came to our room. I hadn't ever met him in the office, but he seemed really nice. He told us that I had a few alarming contractions overnight in my sleep when I was on the fetal monitor. One of them lasted almost 8 minutes and Preston's heart rate dropped. Dr. Pickens asked us how we would feel if Preston came today. I looked at Brian and he was grinning ear-to-ear.

Prior to induction, I was fully effaced and 2 and half cm, so I had already gotten a good start. He told me it might be harder to push with the head injury. I thought about it and we were already in L&D, my IV was already in, and it just seemed like the practical thing to do. I thought about our house, which was 85% ready for baby... then I thought about the baby to-do list that was sitting on our kitchen table. I also thought about how we hadn't brought the car with the car seat in it (we took Brian's car to the hospital), we didn't bring Preston's hospital bag and there were still other items missing. My mother-in-law helped by running to our house and grabbing some of the last minute stuff, and my parents stocked our house with groceries, since we had nothing at home. But I could not get over the look on Brian's face thinking of how today could be the day. I asked if I could shower first, since I never got to on Sunday. They let me take a long shower, blow dry my hair (which was super difficult with the ear) and then they started the Pitocin. They broke my water, which was totally painless, just a little uncomfortable. They asked me if I wanted to go ahead and get the epidural then, even though I hadn't really felt any contractions yet. I told them yes... I just wanted to get it over with.

The anesthesiologist came in and started preparing for the epidural. Internally, I was freaking out. You always hear about how awful they are. Let me tell you, the epidural was NOTHING. To me, it was like getting my blood drawn. I started to feel the effects quickly and before it my lower back, bottom, and legs were tingling and numb. They were heavy to lift, but I could still lift them and I could still feel when a contraction was coming on. To me, perfect balance.

After a little while, I got checked. 4 cm, then 5 cm, then 6 cm. At around 5 cm, I felt my epidural wearing off and could feel the contractions. They were a lot more intense and wrapped around my body, starting in my lower back and rolling around the front all the way down my thighs. The anesthesiologist came in and tried several different types of anesthesia. I finally felt a little numbness and got some relief from the contractions. Dr. Pickens rolled of his shift and Dr. Sullivant rolled on. Another doctor I hadn't met, but I instantly liked him. I instantly felt comfortable with him and trusted him. Brian knew his son in high school. He spent time with us, checked me again, and I was still 6 cm. At this point, I had been at 6 cm for almost 5 hours. He reviewed all of my contractions and came in the room to talk to Brian and me.

He did a VERY invasive internal exam to see what could be holding Preston up. He told us that my contractions were PERFECT, his head was low, and my pelvis was a good size. He said that the very top of my pelvis, the inlet, could be the problem. We talked it over and decided that a cesarean section was the best for me and for baby Preston. I was really bummed. This was not what I had hoped for, but we knew that it would be the only way he was going to be able to meet us. Brian and I talked it over for a while and we knew that

Before we knew it, we were being prepped for the c-section. Dr. Sullivant warned me - "Now Cami, all of the modesty goes out the window from here on out!" Boy was he right. WHOA. They moved me onto a stretcher and had Brian go and put scrubs on. He waited outside the OR while they got me set up for the surgery. They started the numbing medicine through the epidural but I could still feel everything. They decided they had to redo the epidural. I was okay with that, since the epidural was easy the first time. As they pulled the tape away to take out the first epidural, they realized that my first epidural WASN'T IN. The only numbing I felt was residual... not a true epidural. Dr. Sullivant applauded me in the OR for going through natural labor so easily for 10 solid hours... haha!

After the epidural went in, I felt nothing. They called Brian into the room and he came and sat next to me. He told me later that sitting outside the OR by himself was one of the scariest moments of his life. He said he prayed every Hail Mary and Our Father he could possibly say. For him, he said he was putting his whole life into the hands of the doctors and nurses inside the OR. Once he came in the room and saw me ready to go, I think it calmed him some. His face was right next to mine during the surgery.

The surgery was so strange. Dr. Sullivant and the nurses were talking to me and asking me questions. At one point, Dr. Sullivant said, "Cami, you have absolutely no body fat in your abdomen at all. You are going to have an awesome recovery!" I had to laugh, because I mean, how weird is that? He was sitting there looking at my insides and we were chatting! I could feel tugging, pulling and pressure. I kept asking, "How much longer?" The reality of my son being here in a matter of minutes was crazy. Dr. Sullivant then said, "You are in the right place. He wasn't coming out Cami. The inlet of your pelvis is TINY! And his heard is turned slightly, so there was no way. We made the right choice." That was reassuring. Then, Dr. Sullivant yelled over the curtain, "Brian, stand up and look if you want to see your son come out!" Brian, who is usually pretty queasy in situations like this said, "Wait, let me get the camera!" We got some very personal pictures, but it was truly amazing to see just how Preston came into the world. Then, I heard Dr. Sullivant say, "You've got a good looking boy. Great size!" It was a moment I will never forget.

A couple seconds went by and we heard a WAIL of a cry. I burst into tears. Brian was beaming from ear-to-ear. Then they said, "Hey Mom, check out your little boy!" I looked to my left, and there he was! So perfect! With so much blonde hair. This picture is the very first time we laid eyes on our little boy.

They checked him out. Said he was born at 7:59 p.m. Told me he was 6 lb, 15 oz. Meanwhile, they were finishing my surgery up and I was asking questions like crazy. How long is he? The nursery would have to tell me (he ended up being 20 in). What's the apgar? Apgar was 8, and I had a big sigh of relief. Brian was with Preston on the other side of the OR taking pictures like crazy while he screamed. They swaddled him up, and he was one happy baby after that.

After the c-section, a lot was a blur. They wheeled me out of surgery and Brian went to tell our families that Preston was here. From what I hear, there was a lot of cheering and crying in the waiting room.

While Brian was with them, Preston and I were wheeled back to recovery. Brian met us there after he had spread the news. We had to stay in recovery an hour together. I tried to breastfeed Preston, but the medicine from the surgery made me sooooooo SHAKY and Preston was screaming his head off, because let's face it, being born is hard work. After our time in recovery, they moved us to a different room and they put Preston in the nursery for our families to see him through the glass window. They went in shifts - the Fields first, then my family.

The next few days after his birth were primarily spent on breastfeeding and getting to know our little guy. Feeding was tough in the beginning... my body had been through a lot of trauma with the plastic surgery, labor for 10 hours, then a c-section. It took a while for my body to catch up with Preston. At one point, Brian was syringe feeding Preston whatever I could pump out to make sure he got every mL of colostrum my body produced. We called Preston our baby bird :) Thank goodness I married Brian - he never made me feel alone in the feeding stuff. He was and remains so supportive and such a part of all of it. We soaked up every moment with Preston in the hospital. I went through some crazy hormonal surges, and am thankful that those are mellowing out. At night, I would cry when they would take Preston to the nursery, even though I knew he needed to go so I could rest. It was CRAZY! The separation anxiety I felt in the very beginning was intense. Thanks hormones!

All in all, we will forever be thankful for our nurses and our doctors who not only took care of Preston, but took care of me after major surgery. We are recovering well and are actually getting some sleep here and there. We are totally in awe of our baby, and LOVE being parents. We feel like Preston was perfectly picked for us. It has brought our marriage to a level we both never expected, and we are loving all this family time together.

Preston was SO meant to be, and I love being his mom. I have this new feeling... this tiny little tinge of anxiety that is constantly with me. I think most new moms have that. God has given us this awesome gift and responsibility. I love Preston more than I ever knew I could love someone. He and Brian are my heart!

So, on today, Preston's one week birthday, I am feeling sentimental because my sweet baby is growing up. We took him to the pediatrician today and got a great report from Dr. Bubba. Then he pulled suckers out from behind our ears :)

Our lives have changed dramatically over the past week, and I can't wait to see what the future will be like for our little family.

PRESTON IS HERE!

Preston is here and he is beautiful! We are totally in love. When we get home and get settled, I'll dedicate a post to his birth but here are the highlights for now:

Preston Robert Fields was born January 31, 2011 at 7:59 p.m. He is 6 lb, 15 oz and 20 inches long. He has a full head of blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes. He was born via c-section because his mamma could not progress past 6 cm.

Early Sunday morning, I was stepping into the shower and had a very bad fall. I split my ear wide open and got banged up pretty bad. We rushed to the hospital because I knew I was going to need stitches (I ended up with 15 just in my ear!). We were supposed to go home first thing Monday morning, but I started having contractions overnight, so induction was the plan for the Monday. We happily accepted the offer to induce a few days earlier than scheduled and prepared ourselves for the day.

Here are a few pics from his birthday:

Thank you for all the wonderful emails, texts, and phone calls. We cannot wait to show off our sweet P! We are so thankful for a healthy baby boy and fall in love with him more each minute. Can't wait to see what the future holds for our little family!

PS - We'll be here in the hospital until Friday morning. We are taking visitors, but please call BEFORE you come here just to check to see if its a good time. We are trying breastfeeding, and all three of us need rest.