Mommy's Last Brody Check-up

On Tuesday, February 20th, I had my last doctor's visit for this pregnancy. We had started seeing Dr. Cone in November of 2008. We very quickly got familiar with he and his staff as things did not progress the way they were supposed to and we were at the clinic LOTS of times within about 4 weeks. I don't even want to know how many times we made that trek to Houston in the past 16 months. The good thing is that we have a break for an entire year! Wooo! This is very bittersweet for us. We absolutely LOVE Dr. Cone and the people who work for him. I was on the verge of tears when we walked out on Tuesday. They have all been very helpful and supportive throughout our trials and tribulations. They were never frustrated when I would call with silly questions. We appreciate everything these great people did for us. We couldn't leave without pictures.

Nurse Becky and Brody~She wanted to steal him from us, but she only got away with a kiss!


Dr. Cone and Brody

Nurse Angela and Brody-Angela is the floor nurse so she knows EVERYTHING about me.

Nurse Lynn-When I was 38 weeks preggo, Mom, Jamie, Jill, and I saw Lynn and her daughter shopping at Memorial City Mall. It was neat that she knew my name outside of the clinic. That may seem silly to some people, but this clinic sees lots of people. There were 9,300 babies delivered at our hospital and most of those are OGA patients.

We are very blessed to have these wonderful nurses and doctor. Can't wait to use them for the next baby.....yearssssss down the road!

My Preppy Little Redneck!

I like boys in sweater vests or button downs with jeans. The "preppy" outfits are my fave. Nick has (very surprisingly) let me dress Brody in whatever I pick. He had even agreed with me on not putting Brody in John Deere baby clothes. When he's a little older, I'm sure he'll have a JD t-shirt or two, but it was just something I didn't want to subject him to as a teeny little infant. Well, today we got a very cute, teeny tiny little cap from the Schaefer's for Brody's birth. He looks sooooo cute in it, but we still aren't running out and buying him a JD onesie!


Nick Jr.

Brody, your Mommy DOES exist!

The only time I am in a picture or video is if I ASK someone to take a picture of Brody with me. How sad! Here are a few of you and me, little man!

Businessman

How can you NOT laugh at this??

Happy St. Paddy's Day

I thought it would be fun to take pictures of Brody with something for every holiday. Well, I missed the first holiday Brody was around for. Brody was only 12 days old on Valentine's Day so I was unable to take him shopping. I would have bought an outfit early, but we didn't know to go girl or boy so we will just pretend it didn't happen this year! ;) Nick and I did get to sneak out of the house for about an hour on Valentine's Day. He arranged for his mom to come watch Brody while we went out to eat. Of course I trust her, I just didn't want to leave him! It was a nice little outting though.

The next holiday to celebrate with Brody was St. Paddy's Day! Not that special of a holiday, but it did give me an excuse to take these funny pictures. Isn't it terrible how I torture the poor guy? He actually was very sweet and didn't get mad at me at all.


I love me little leprechaun!

One Month Update

Dear Sweet Brody,

This coming Tuesday you will be 6 weeks old. The time we have spent with you has flown by way to fast. You are constantly changing and Mommy is always telling you to slow down, but you are obviously not listening. I'm very glad that you are healthy and growing the way you are supposed to, but it's just tooooo fast! Since your birthday you have done so much and have grown in so many ways. Since your Mommy has been a bad blogger because she NEVER puts you down we've got to put all sorts of stuff in one post rather than a daily update. (I'll try to be better!)

At your 2 week check-up you weighed 9lbs. and 22 1/4 inches long. That means you gained 1/2 lb. and grew 1 1/4 inch. Your pediatrician is Dr. Shaffer and we absolutely love him. He is the team doctor for the Rice Owls. He knows alot about Texas State because the coach from Rice used to coach at TX State. (This is what sold your Daddy on keeping him instead of getting someone closer.) We think you will love him too. He sang to you and you stopped crying when you were freezing cold (naked) in the room and he was checking you. Although you weren't very happy with him when he pulled your rotten umbilical stump off because it just wasn't coming off on it's own. Mommy wasn't happy either, but I he didn't really warn us that it was going to happen. After your check-up with Dr. Shaffer, we had to go to the hospital for your 2nd PKU test. Only one person got to go to the back to witness the poking so I immediately nominated your Daddy. He will get to do all this manly stuff with you from here on out.

Since your 6 weeks of life, we have made 2 trips to Shiner with one being our 1st overnight stay. Daddy joked that we packed everything but the kitchen sink. Even though we packed MORE than enough of everything, we were still afraid that we were going to run out of formula because you were just sucking it down so fast. We ended up with the exact amount. I'll be bringing a brand new can from now on. That weekend you got to meet lots of relatives and friends that weren't able to come see you in Wharton including your great grandmas and great grandpa. Saturday we attended your great great aunt Delores and great great uncle Sylvester's 50th wedding anniversary. You were a sweetheart as usual. You have attended 3 birthday parties...Lexi Joines' 1st (she's our cute little neighbor, your future girlfriend ;)), your great uncle Louie's 56th birthday (we are sooo very blessed that you have been able to meet him), and your Uncle Luke's 30th birthday. Tomorrow we will celebrate Auntie Jamo's birthday and Auntie Jill and Uncle Tom's wedding shower in Shiner. I almost forgot to mention how much these Auntie's love you. They spoil you rotten! Seeing how much they love you touches my heart beyond words. It is really the neatest thing to see. Mommy loves her sisters more than ever and I thought that wasn't possible.

You have gotten to go out to eat with us several times. We really love taking you out when the weather is nice and showing you off. People always stop and tell us how handsome you are. You are always very sweet and usually sleep the entire time right until our food comes. You must feel left out so you demand that you eat right then too. Speaking of eating, you are up to 6 ounces of formula. You don't eat the full 6 every time, it just depends. You usually go 2 1/2 to 3 hours in between each feeding. At night you eat the full 6 before you go to bed at about 10:30. You seem to always wake up at 2:20am, 6:30, and 9:30. This past Monday we started you on a Level 2 nipple because you were giving me a run for my money. You woke up almost every hour and ate about 2 ounces. It took you about 45 minutes to eat it and you would fall asleep. It was our first bad night. We fixed that problem real quick. You are a happy camper again. When you were first born, the plan was to strictly feed you breastmilk, but like everything, plans were changed. Breastfeeding was painful! You had two little bumps where your two bottom teeth were going to come in. When I told the lactation consultant that you had teeth, she was rude and didn't believe me. You were at the nursery getting something done at that time so I told her to go look for herself. Boy was she shocked! This made me give up breastfeeding rather quickly had home. We pumped for 4 weeks. You are now on formula only. Dr. Shaffer told us that they weren't teeth, but they would come in sooner than most babies. Well, they are officially in!

Because you are such a long boy, you are in 3 month clothes. Most open foot pant onesies look like shorts on you. 3-6 months are way to big. You also bypassed the cute little newborn diapers and are still wearing size 1.

On Monday, your Grammy rode with us to Sugar Land so that I could do a little shopping. It was your 1st trip to Babies R Us. Thursday your Granny came to visit and we took you on your first REAL shopping trip. You got to ride around the mall in your awesome stroller and you were such a little angel. Just fyi-we are breaking you in as early as possible because you have LOTS of shopping trips ahead of you with Granny and Aunties, even though you are a boy. It's our favorite past-time together! Yesterday Granny and I shopped for a tuxedo for you to wear to both auntie's weddings this year. You are going to be the cutest ring bearer ever and the busiest baby too. We decided to wait a few more weeks until we buy you one.

As of yesterday, we decided that we need to start calling you by your name. Mommy always calls you handsome and Daddy calls you his little pal all the time. It would be very cute to us in the next few years if you told everyone your name was handsome, but everyone else might think you are a little conceited.

Daddy has Spring Break next week so we are going to take you to San Marcos and Gruene on Sunday and Monday. We are soooooooo pumped about showing you our old stomping grounds. Daddy has been wanting to buy a mini TX State baseball cap for a loooong time, it will be the 1st thing we do when we get into town. We will also be taking our first round of family pictures with one of our awesome wedding photographers named Efro. We can't wait to see how you do.

Brody, you are such a sweet little angel. Mommy always wonders how and why we were blessed with such a perfect little sweetheart. You don't give us much trouble at all. You have such an amazing little personality, but we knew that when you immediately waved at us at our first ultrasound. You are a smiley-boy and people love holding you because you never cry. You do a fake little whine and that always means, change me or feed me. You have had one major crying fit and that was because you were freezing cold when I was changing you at Uncle Luke's birthday party. You are also such a little cuddler. You love being held. I just love the way you tuck your legs under your little booty. You are just perfect in every way possible. Our life has completely changed with you in it. We love you more than words can say. We are so very blessed to have you as a son!

Love,
Mommy

P.S. I think your Daddy is a little jealous because you are a Mommy's boy! :) (That's just what I wanted!)

Welcome Brody Nicholas!

Sweet little Brody entered the world on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 4:51pm. He tipped the scales at 8 lbs. 8ozs. and was 21 inches long. He was delivered naturally without any complications. He is the most handsome and sweetest little man I've ever met!

Here's my delivery story:

At my last doctor's appointment they told me that I would be an "on-call" induction. Because of the high blood pressure, I would take precedence over anyone else scheduled for induction. I liked the sound of this! I was to call the hospital at 5pm on Monday, the 1st, to make sure they had a room for us. I started my morning pretty early. I had to fast at 9am so I went and had breakfast at Diamond S. While I was at Diamond S, I got a call from the hospital asking when I was going to be there. ???? I was confused and didn't know if I should tell them I'd be there in an hour and rush around like crazy or just wait until 5. I decided to tell her that I was told to call at 5pm. Evidently, she thought I was supposed to call at 5am. The rest of the day went by rather quickly. I hung out at the house and just made sure that I had everything we needed for the big day.

4:45 came so I went ahead and called the hospital. This call did not make me happy at all!! The lady said that I could call back at 7, but they probably wouldn't be ready for me until 9 or 10. Not good news! Especially since I was already hungry and I had no idea when the next time I'd be eating would be. All I could have was water and apple juice. I usually hate apple juice, but came to really like it since that day. I was sick of being in the house so Nick and I rode around Wharton for a while and then made our way to Wal-Mart for a 6 pack (of apple juice!). We shopped around and visited with several people and ended up walking out at exactly 7pm. I called on our walk to the truck and much to my surprise they told me to start making my way there. We went back to the house to switch vehicles and were off! We stopped at Kroger to fill up and Nick got dinner at Sonic. He was nice and didn't eat it in front of me. When we arrived at the hospital, we were admitted to our room immediately. We met our nurse and she did more registering in the room. Unfortunately, our night nurse wasn't all that great. She was moody and snippy from the get go. Not at us, but at everything else. She hooked me up to an IV after a few pokes and then checked me. I was still 1cm dilated and thanks to the castor oil and evening primrose oil I was 70% effaced. She went ahead and started the induction process and we tried to get our last night of sleep!


February 2nd-Dr. Cone came in at 7:45am to check progress and we were STILL 1 cm and 70 %. I just knew that we were going to have a c-section. Dr. Cone went ahead with another type of gel for induction. At about 8am I was in PAIN. I had immediately vomitted. Not much time went by and I felt a little snap. I told our new,VERY sweet nurse, Melanie, that I needed some pain medicine and that I thought my water had broken. She told me that I didn't want any yet because it lasts about 1.5 hours and I had a long road ahead of me and she didn't think my water broke. A few minutes later it went everywhere and she said that indeed it did. At one point, I got up to go to the restroom with Nick's help. I think I was in tears and told him there was no way I could do this and if I could please just have a c-section right then. I kept asking for drugs and she finally gave me something after about 1.5 hours of pain. Since it was my first baby, I didn't know what the pain should feel like and I think she thought I was over-reacting. It was very painful to me. The pain medicine took the edge off a little. I could feel when each and every contraction was coming at about every 2-4 minutes. I pretty much put myself in a zone where I didn't speak to anyone. I just couldn't do it. When family members came to visit I ignored them and I didn't want to hear them talk either. Mind you, I was VERY nice through all of this. At one time, when my very excited Mom and very excited Mom-in-law came in talking a bunch like they did several times before, I kindly whispered to Nick to tell them to stop talking. :) They started whispering to Nick. The nurse had to wait 1.5 hours after giving me the pain medicine before she could check me again. The time finally went by and we surprisingly made progress. Lots of progress....5 cm and 90%....time for the epidural! Thank you Jesus!

The anesthesiologist came in to administer the shot. Immediately after the epidural, I was absolutely pain free. We visited with everyone one last time before we started the pushing. I was in much better spirits with everyone. I even got to put makeup on. After chatting with everyone, we got the ball rolling with Melanie. I thought the pushing part would be the painful part, but it was a piece of cake. The only thing that I felt was the onset of each contraction. It wasn't pain, it was just a very very little amount of pressure. I would tell Nick and Melanie that one was coming and she would look at the machine and say, "Yep, let's push." After a few practice pushes, I had it figured out. There's definitely no need to take a class for it! We pushed a little while and we were then at a 9 and 100%...time to call Dr. Cone. Between each contraction we visited and laughed. It was a very pleasant experience. Somewhere at the beginning of all of this, Melanie suggested that I watch with a mirror. Ehhhhh! We decided to go for it so that, I could see the actual birth. It was amazing, once you get passed the ick factor. Not knowing the sex and seeing the progress we were making made me give 110% with each push. I gave my last push, which I didn't know it was going to be the last, and the first thing I noticed was that Brody was definitely a HE. Nick cut the umbilical cord and they placed the baby on my chest. Sooooooooo amazing. There was so much going on in the room, but it seemed like time stood still at that moment. Like it was a dream...he was in my arms and the hustle and bustle continued around me, but all I could do was stare at him and smile. After a little while, they took him from me and got him all cleaned up in the room. Nick then went out to announce that HE was here! We fed him and then everyone got to come and meet him within the 1st hour of his life. He was then taken to the nursery for a good cleaning and everything else that they do.

THE BEST DAY OF OUR LIFE!!!

Last day of being pregnant!

After the epidural....all smiles!






Popo and his first grandson!