Finally Friday came and we were able to go home! I had fun loving on this guy and having one extra day of just me and him before the craziness of real life set in. He is such a sweetheart! I couldn't have asked for a better little man to join our family and we are so in love!
The kids came again on Friday to pick us up and even this little lady had warmed up to the idea of a new baby brother:
{My mom always tells me that my kids come out looking like they are 3-4 months already, and I have to say, I think it's true!!!} :)
She is actually a really good helper and loves him so much, now. Although having the new baby in the house has spurred the need for her to always talk to us as a baby in her baby voice. It drives me crazy! But she does absolutely love her little brother now. Both her and Tucker will stop to say hi to him and talk to him if we are just hanging out and playing, it is so cute!
Getting dressed for the first time:
Not sure what to think about all of this. He was perfectly content in the nice warm comfy hospital.
Saying goodbye to Ben in the parking lot. It was a good thing my mom and mother in law were here to take care of me, because owning your own business sure isn't conducive to having the husband around when you're trying to recover from having a baby! :) The business wouldn't stop for little ol' me and I felt bad, Ben was trying his hardest to take care of us, but still had a TON of work to do! Thank Heavens for moms! :)
{Ben totally doesn't appreciate my mom's papparazzi-ness!} :)
This one little girl was very happy to have me home!
The next few days were all a blur, but full of loves and snuggles and poopy diapers and bottles and sleepless nights but still lots of fun! I was almost embarassed to tell this to people, and felt like I had to defend myself for feeling this way, but I felt GREAT! I felt like I could do anything. (besides a little scare that I still had another baby in my tummy...just joking! But really, my belly stayed huge for a lot longer than I remembered it usually did, and I was kind of freaking out. But no worries, there wasn't another baby in there...turns out it just takes a while for your tummy to go down!) :)
{Brothers!}
The two older ones did a lot of arguing about who got to feed him or hold him.
So alert and content. Just a happy baby!
Big Yawn!
As a welcome home gift from the hospital, my mom and mother in law bought and planted a whole bunch of perennials in my yard, and planters around my house to make it pretty. Something I had totally neglected to do this summer. I figured it could wait until next year when I had more energy, and they did it for me and it was SO wonderful of them! I loved it, it was THE PERFECT coming home gift. This little lady helped them with some planting:
Me and Taylor in front of the planter that she planted for me:
Jackson in his crib at just a few days old, looking around:
I turned on his moblie, and he was trying to find it:
My sweet boy heading off to his circumcision:
{Because of our early travel plans and him only being a week old, he had to have his circumcision at his 3 day appointment since we would be in Alabama at his 2 week appointment which is when they usually do them up here in Washington. Why they wait so long, I have no idea! He took it like a champ though, and there were no ER visits for him like there was for Tucker! :) (When Tucker had his circumcision, I kind of freaked out a bit after he had 3 bloody diapers, since they told me there would probably only be one or two bloody diapers. So I immediately rushed him to the ER, where they checked the circumcision, told me it looked great and changed his diaper. We joke about it now that it was a $300 diaper change!)}
Everything was going absolutely perfect until Saturday night. Well, I guess that makes only one day of perfectness, because I got home from the hospital on Friday afternoon. Anyway...Saturday night I started to get a pain in my upper abdomen that wrapped around to my upper back that was worse than any pain I had ever felt! I didn't know if it was something I ate, or if it was related to my body just having had a baby. It got to the point where it was hurting to breathe, I was laying down just writhing in pain. I took a hot shower, I had Ben rub my back, and finally after an hour or so I laid down with a hot pad on my back and it slowly started to feel better. I called the on call OB doc from my clinic and he just basically told me that if it happens again to go to the ER.
The next morning was Sunday, and it was fathers day! We made a huge breakfast for our favorite father:
Ham, bacon AND sausage, and the hugest omelet I had ever seen, and some fruits. Probably not the best thing to eat if you had been having some stomach pains. But I felt fine in the morning, my mom had taken the baby for me that night and I felt great! So, we ate! We had a wonderful breakfast. Ben then left for church for his before church meetings (we don't go to church until 1 in the afternoon) and the rest of us started getting ready. We had decided to bless Jackson that Sunday because we were planning on leaving to Alabama the next Wednesday, (more on that to come!) and we thought it would be nice to have Ben's mom here for the blessing. Well, it is like 12:30, and everyone is ready. I was upstairs in my bathroom finishing up with my make up when I get the pain again! I couldn't even stand up, or talk. I had Taylor go down and get my mom. I didn't want to risk this continuing to happen over and over, so we decided to head to the ER. My mom rushed me to the ER, I called Ben and he met us there.
The guilty party:
I felt so bad, Jackson was all ready to go in his carseat wearing his cute little blessing outfit:
{The reason it's not white is because when Tucker was born and I was a little bit more frazzled, the same thing happened, we decided last minute to bless him while Ben's parents were here, and I hadn't gotten him a blessing outfit yet, so I had him wear this little blue sweater outfit that I already had. Rather than buy one for Jackson, I thought it would be cute for him to wear the same thing Tuck got blessed in...not that it mattered because he didn't get blessed that day anyway!} :)
So....the plan for the day was, to bless Jackson at church and come home and have a huge Fathers day BBQ at our house. My brother had literally just gotten to our church building from Quincy when I called him to tell him there would be no blessing and that I was on my way to the ER. I got to the ER writhing in pain, actually threw up in the lobby, and then sometime during my 3 hour wait to get back into a room, the pain went away again. I even told the ER doc that I was embarrassed to even be back there since I wasn't in pain anymore. But they ran some tests, and did an Ultrasound on my gallbladder because he said it sounded like either gallstones or an infection in my gallbladder. Sure enough there were some stones! He then asked me if I had had a high fat breakfast that morning. Hmmmm... let's see; bacon, sausage, ham, huge cheesy omelet, I'd say YES. The gallbladder breaks down the fatty foods we eat, blah blah blah...Eating high fat foods can cause stones, and they just will randomly move and get caught in the pumping valve in the gallbladder, and that is what causes the pain. And anyone who knows me knows that eating highly fattening foods is like my forte!! I seriously have the eating habit of a 12 year old boy, anything greasy or deep fried is my favorite! I'm not proud of it, but that is the truth! :) So he set me up a pre-op appointment with a surgeon for the following Tuesday to remove the gallbladder. A day before I was supposed to be flying across the country! I guess when your gallbladder starts making stones, it doesn't stop so they just take out the whole thing and that is what they told me I should have done.
I was so torn. I didn't know weather to pack or not for Alabama. I knew that if I didn't go when my mother in law was here to fly down with me, I wouldn't have any help. I didn't want to not go at all, because we always love going down every summer. But I also didn't want to risk having another attack! So, I just hung out and waited for a few days to find out what the verdict would be. Tuesday finally came, and it was quite the busy day. Jackson's circumcision in the morning and my appointment with the surgeon in the afternoon. The surgeon ultimately told me that yes, I needed my gallbladder out, but it could wait until after Alabama. I could still go and enjoy family for a few weeks. There was no infection in it, so there was no rush to get it out right away. But that I did run the risk of having another attack. He told me I should eat smaller low fat meals. WHAT??? Smaller low fat meals, are you kidding me? And in Alabama of all places! I was a bit bummed about that, but figured it was worth it not to have another attack!
So, we got all ready to head out the next day to Alabama for two and a half weeks,
(Jackson being a whole ONE week old!) just me, the THREE kids and my mother in law. I was so grateful to have her to help on the way down, since Ben just can't take time off work in the summer, and I didn't want to miss our girl/cousin summer time fun that we always have with my sisters in law and my nieces and nephews. It was a long night of packing and getting ready, but we actually did it and got it all together!
And that was one crazy week for us. Besides the whole gallstones thing, I felt fabulous and was so happy to be home with my babe and the family and had a great time with my mom and mother in law! We are so blessed!
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