I'm one month old!

And as cute as can be! We've decided that he looks more like my Dad than DJ. I'll post a photo of the two of them together soon so you can see too.

Baby Tag

My girl CaseyLu tagged me so I thought I'd share with you all =>

1. Where were you when you first found out you were pregnant?
At home in my bathroom. (Though Amie, Chris, Tori & Denise told me I was expecting two weeks earlier at one of our scrap booking nights, when I was only 6 days preggers!)

2. Who was with you?
My husband.

3. What was your first reaction?
Shocked, excited, scared, shocked.

4.What was your husband's reaction?
Excited and worried about me and my medical problems.

5. Who was the first person you told?
Mom and Amie.

6. Were the pregnancies planned?
Surprise to us planned by Heavenly Father.

7. Was everyone happy for you?
After all the docs gave us the thumbs up that I was doing well everyone was ecstatic.

8. What was the sex?
Boy

9. What was the nursery theme/colors?
Barn Yard animals.

10. Did anyone throw a shower for you?
Toni, Amie, Chris & Barbara threw me a shower with all the ladies from church. Tiffany threw me one at work.

11. Did you get any outfits you wouldn't use?
None I wouldn't use, but some I can't just due to the AZ weather.

12. How much weight did you gain?
5 lbs.

13. Did you get stretch marks?
I already had those, so they just made a reappearance.

14. Did you crave anything crazy?
Nothing really crazy. I never had a real love of chocolate before I was pregnant and I loved all kinds of chocolate afterwards. I really loved spicy foods and would eat anything I could witha kick to it. I also could not get enough oranges, and I'm still totally hooked on them eating 2-3 a day.

15. Who or what got on your nerves the most?
The pain from my arthritis that kept me from being active at all or being able to do simple things like towel off my lower half after a shower or put on my pants un-assisted.

16. Where were you when you went into labor?
Hospital, lol. I was induced.

17. Did you have any complications?
Yes, lots. Read the post titled Caden's journey to hear the whole story.

18. Did your water break?
Doc had to break it, ouch that hurt lots!

19. Who drove you to the hospital?
Husband.

20. Did you go early or late?
3 weeks early.

21. Who was in the room?
Husband and mom.

22. Did you video tape it?
Nope.

23. Did you have any pain medication?
Epidural that wore off 3 times and by the time it came to push had completely worn off from the knees up so I felt everything, EVERYTHING!

24. Did you have a c-section or natural?
Natural.

25. What was your reaction to the birth?
Thankful it was all done after 27 hours. Worried that he was ok. Tired.

26. How big was the baby?
7 lbs 2 oz.

27. What was the baby's full name?
Caden John C.

28. Did your husband cry?
Nope. But he did declare me his hero =>

29. When is the next one coming?
3 -4 years

30. If you could, would you do it all over again?
Absolutely without question, in a heartbeat.

Ok I tag the following people: Toni, Tiffany, Jenna & Tori

Made me laugh right out loud.

First let me say I had a great birthday! I think people thought I was upset yesterday that my day wasn't the way I wanted it, when in fact I was absolutely content snuggled into my bed with my son asleep in my arms for most of the day. I got flowers (my most favorite treat in the whole world) from my parents and my best friend in CA, who I also got to talk to on the phone for a few minutes. Amie brought over some yummy cupcakes! DJ brought home Pei Wei and we spent the night snuggled in bed just the three of us watching some mindless TV, it was absolutely perfect.


Now to share with you all the funny that made me laugh right out loud. My friend had given me a copy of Paul Reiser's (the actor who played the husband on Mad About You) book on becoming a parent Babyhood. We had both loved his book Couplehood when we were planning our weddings so she had thought I would enjoy his antics on becoming a parent when she had found out that she was pregnant. I had read the book back then but not really enjoyed it as I was just starting to deal with the infertility issues that would plague my next 6 years. However once I found out that I pregnant I picked it up again and had some good laughs. I thought I'd share one excerpt that made DJ and I laugh out loud for a good couple minutes.

Warning - there is candid discussion of an adult matter in the following excerpt, read at your own discretion.

Given how much more naturally compent my wife is at almost all areas of parenting, if I do discover an area where I may have a leg up, I jump on it. I pounce on it like a lion on meat.
One day I walked by to see my wife changing our son's diaper, and I witnessed what, for my money, was a rather perfunctory once around of the boy's young privates. I said, "Babe, what are you doing?"
She was thrown.
"Why?"
I stepped in with unwavering authority.
"That is not how we wash balls."
"Is that right?"
"That's right."
"Sweetie, I've been changing diapers pretty consistently for a while now, and..."
"Maybe. But let me ask you something."
"What."
"D'ya have balls yourself?"
"No, but..."
"All right, then."
"So what? That doesn't mean that - "
"Well, I think I know a lit-tle bit more about the subject than you do. So ... do you mind?"
"Fine."
And as she stepped away, I took over.
"Thank You."
When she was out of the room, I looked down at my son, who I'm pretty sure was smiling appreciatively, and I winked at him. It was the first time I'm aware of having a specifically male bonding moment with my son. (And certainly the first time I ever winked at anybody.)
"Don't worry, Daddy's here. Daddy knows what you need ..."

We had read this just after finding out that we were having a boy. DJ giggled several times that night and declared that he would change the first diaper so he could show me how to take care of the little man. And he kept his word, DJ did in fact change the first 5 diapers and Caden did in fact pee all over him, hahaha. Don't worry he got me too, we were both initiated before ever leaving the hospital.

Happy Birthday to me, my present? A sick baby =< **Updated**

Woke up today a 29 year old with a sick 3 week old. Caden has a head cold accompanied by a bit of a stomach bug. Poor guy is spewing from all ends. We canceled my birthday lunch to go to the pediatricians together. Ahh the joys of hanging in the waiting room with a screaming baby. I think i get to puch one more hole in that mama card I've been issued. I also think I shall hint to my husband that we need to eat take out tonight...........

Caden was tested for RSV - negative, woohoo. He's snuggled with me all day, all 9lbs 10oz of him! Eating is favorite thing in this world so far and he has gotten straight A's in that subject from his Doc! I'm glad we went down to the Doc's today cause in the course of his appointment she discovered he has a heart murrmur. So we're going to see a cardioligist next week to see if it's a simple newborn murrmur or a hole in the heart (diabetic babies a prone to holes in the heart) which is easily fixed if they don't just grow out of it in a couple months on their own. Still glad we can have it checked out. Thank goodness for modern medicine =>

And for those requesting new music...... I always have my laptop (prime source of internet usage in the house) on mute so I had totally forgot that I had Christmas music on there, lol. I will change that tonight!

this thing called postpartum

is really freaking hard. Much harder than labor and doing it alone is a 100 times harder than I thought it would be. Caden has had some pain issues this week due to his formula so he and I have done a fair amount of crying together. Luckily my mom has come over on Mondays and Wednesdays for a few hours and DJ comes home for lunch because otherwise my house is just the two of us and even though I thought that sounded like heaven, it's been a lot more to handle than I had anticipated. Thank goodness DJ is so good at just letting me cry and taking the baby as soon as he gets home so I can have an hour to shower and be quiet. And thank goodness Heavenly Father makes his angels look like this so I can forget the previous 2 hours of screaming. Seriously I have no idea how I'm going to go back to work in 4-6 weeks.

Caden's journey

So my mommy thought that you might want to know how my journey from her belly to our home went. I thought I'd share it with you all along with lots of pictures. Here is me and my mommy (I'm in her belly) ready to go to her last doctor's appointment and get her induction time. She was so tired since she only got 2 hours of sleep that night.

The appointment went well and she was told to come back that night at 10pm to start her induction. Here she is all ready to be hoked up to her I.V.'s and machines to watch my progress. She was very excited and all smiles but only I knew just how scared she was too and sad that our time sharing her body was coming to an end.

Now there was not much to document between when her induction began and when things really got going because mommy was not allowed to get up and move around due to her being so high risk. So what has happened by this point is that they started her on the magnesium sulfate to make sue she didn't have a seizure due to her blood pressure and her water was broken at 8am on the 31st. The magnesium was really nasty stuff and it made her feel just awful, all hot from the inside out and very nauseous. She was able to finally have some regular contractions after her water was broken and Dr. McKernan wanted her to start pitocin. But with her hip problems she wasn't allowed to go on the pit until she got her epidural. That was a really hard experience. It took 3 hours and 3 different times to get her epidural successfully in place. Her arthritis had caused most of the problems. She was in lots of pain by then and had been given some serious pain medication that knocked her out for an hour or so. But when she came to things appeared to have been successful and her pitocin was working very well along with her epidural. By 8pm she was at 9 cm and looking forward to pushing. Then the epidural slipped and her legs were very numb but her hips had come back to life. Mommy was in so much pain she was actually working at not passing out after each contraction, which were coming about every 30 seconds to a minute. Here mom was very good at talking her though the pain and Daddy would let her know when the contractions were almost over. Finally the anesthesiologist came back in and gave her a bolus of medicine and the pain had subsided again. Unfortunately so did the contractions and the medicine also stopped her from dialating to 10 cm. At 11:45pm she was still at a 9 cm and we knew I would not make it by midnight. So mommy, daddy and grandma watched the ball drop in NY and toasted in the new year with some cider. Then it was back to business.


At 1 am mommy was finally ready to push. Grandma was getting very excited that we were getting close.

Daddy was excited and getting a bit loopy!


She got about 30 minutes of pushing in and her epidural slipped again. So after 25 minutes of major pain again and feeling like her hips were going to break right in half she got another bolus of medicine and again her contractions stopped. So mommy had to try and push on her own to keep things going. It was very very hard work on both of us. Her Doctor was getting very worried by 3 am when I still wasn't very far down. So he wanted to get her ready for a C-Section. Mommy, daddy , grandma and her nurse didn't want to have to go through a C-Section so they told Doc that they needed 30 more minutes and that mommy could do this on her own, doc agreed to 30 minutes. Her nurse turned off her pit for 10 minutes and then turned it back on full speed. Mommy's contractions kicked in and she was able to finally feel like she was really pushing. Doc got the call to get to the room and he was barely able to get there in his gown when I came into the world at 3:31am making me the first baby born at Arrowhead hospital in 2009, ya-hoo.It happened very fast and mommy tore really bad all the way through her muscles. She lost a good amount of blood but they were able to stop her bleeding and she was able to stay there while I was introduced, weighed, measured and brought over to meet her.








Here's my doctor. He's the man! We love Doc McKernan!!!!!!!!!
Because I was the first baby in 2009 at Arrowhead the staff gave me this really cool basket full of goodies and samples and all sorts of fun stuff! And then the Glendale newspaper came and interviewed us for a story on my birth. I was a celebrity already at only 6 hours old!

So for my birthday I spent much of it doing this

and this
and this
and mommy did a lot of this.

Then my blood work came back and I showed really high levels of billirubens meaning I was jaundice. So I spent the next 2 days doing my best impression of a beach lounger. It was very hard on mommy to be away from me so much and to think of me in the dark with no cuddles. She did a lot of crying when she got to see me. Luckily her recovery was really hard and she got to stay in the hospital just as long as I did so we did it together.

Our great friends Toni and Brent came down and Brent helped my daddy give me a blessing so that my liver would start working right. It was a really wonderful experience. Mommy got to hold me and Toni was able to stay in the room. Then afterwards they got to snuggle with me.

Mommy only got to hold me for 30 minutes to feed me every 4 hours so she sucked up all the loving she could get each time.

Then it was back to the lights.

Finally at 4pm on Saturday the 3rd we called mommy's room from the nursery to let her know I could go home. She jumped up and ran to get me. We went back to her room and she changed me into my going home outfit. I was very tired by that point.

Daddy went and got my car seat and loaded p the car with all my gear and we were ready to hit the road. I know they thought I was asleep but I caught a moment between mommy and daddy where they realized it was really real and we were going home as a family. They were both crying and I could tell they were overjoyed.

When we got home Grandma was there with dinner and some cider to toast our home coming.
Daddy poured us all a glass.
While mommy snuggled with me on the couch.

Then it was time for me to snuggle in and go to bed with my new family. It was a long journey and there were some moments that were a little scary but all in all it was worth every minute of have my new family.

And my mommy wants to let everyone know that visitors are more than welcome, just give her a call and she'll let you know when is a good time to come snuggle me. I can't wait to meet you all!

We're home

He's perfect! I'll share the whole experience this week. Right now I'm going to go snuggle with my new family =>

Baby Caden is here!

Hi all, this is Amie, posting for Christine who is still in the hospital with baby Caden.

He was born early this morning, Jan 1st, at 3:31. He was the first baby born at Arrowhead and will have his picture in the paper. =) He weighs 7 lbs, 2 oz and is 21 inches long.

Christine will give you all the details, but to summarize, it was not an easy delivery. Multiple complications with the epidural, arthritis, etc. She is very tired!

She likely will not be accepting any visitors at the hospital and will probably be coming home on Saturday.

He totally looks like DJ. =)

The only picture I have is password protected. Go here and put in l0njj452f as the message ID. Then norm68burr as the password.