Ready to Go Home!

Here is a picture of me and my little man, ready to head home. It took FOREVER to check out. All of that paperwork to fill out, blah blah blah... It took forever! But now I wish I was still there!

Visitors

Ahhh. When I look at these pictures, I sigh. I really loved my time at the hospital. I seriously stayed until the last possible minute. This blog post shows a few of my visitors, but I really messed up by forgetting to take a picture of my best friend, Pooh. She drove all the way up from Salt Lake City to see me - she is the greatest. And I never got a shot of my mom. I just was kind of out of the Taking Pictures mode. Oh. And Ben's boss. Okay, so I missed taking pictures of a lot of people! :) When Ben's boss came, I was asleep, and my glasses were off, and I had just taken a Percocet, and I see his fuzzy frame in the doorway, and I go, "Dad?" I was just a little confused. And I feel like Nat's family came one day, and Nat came another day, just by herself, but I seriously cannot remember. So anyways, here are pictures of some of my visitors.

Sadie:

Ben brought me Quizno's my first lunchtime there at the hospital. It was awesome. The hospital food wasn't my favorite. Here I am, grudgingly sharing my chips with Sadie:

Dylan:

And both of them together, driving me insane. Dylan is constantly teasing and tickling Sadie. She was enjoying it for one millisecond in this photo. I'm sure that, the next moment, she started hitting Dylan and screaming at him and then Dylan started crying. That's usually the sequence of events with the two of them:

Ben, the Baby Hog. He LOVES to hold and cuddle babies. If there is a baby in the room, he is holding it. He just loves this new little guy:

Me, relaxing. Something I haven't done since we got home:

Dad. He is so awesome - he visited me both days I was there, and the second day, he brought me my very favorite ice cream - Baskin Robbins Mint Chocolate Chip. I couldn't believe he remembered that! It was wonderful. He was having a ton of fun trying to wake Micah up for feedings. He would open Micah's little eyelids and say, "Hellloooo.... hellloooo...":

Nattles. She brought me some flowers that are STILL ALIVE! I have been a bad water-changer, but the yellow daisies from the bouquet she and Beads got me are still hanging in there:

Random Micah Hospital Pictures

Hey. Again, sorry for the delay in posts. Life with three kids is SO BUSY. Plus, I'm trying to put together a birthday party for Dylan for this Saturday. I know; that's a little too ambitious, but all of Dylan's friends have had parties for their fifth birthdays, and Dylan and I already planned it all out weeks ago. So I'm going to do my best. (Amy, thanks for telling me about that website. I got tons and tons of great ideas for the party. You rock.)

Another reason for the delay is that I've just been... too grumpy to post. My friend, Alicia, once said that on her blog. She just felt too grumpy to do it. And that's how I've been for the past several days. Micah continues to give us a run for our money. He'd just rather not nap. Ever. Which then makes him grumpy. But we're sticking to our guns and sticking to a schedule. Sometimes miracles happen and he actually sleeps. But mainly, nope. He'll get it figured out. It took three weeks to get Sadie on a schedule when she was a newborn - I just need to remember that it takes time.

My health...well, I'm doing okay. I had to go into an Instacare on Saturday to get more antibiotics for this killer bladder infection. So the meds for the pain and urgency feelings are helping a ton. The mastitis is gone. I only pump about four times a day now, and it continues to be a really emotional thing for me, to watch my milk supply slowly wane. I don't know why I'm so emotional about it. I guess I just had such high hopes that I could finally get breastfeeding to work with at least one of my kids, and again, it didn't.

And I just want to say, thanks for reading and commenting. To know that so many people understand and support me really makes a huge difference in my ability to cope. I have the best friends and family in the world!! Sorry about the long epistle! Here are the final pictures of just Micah in the hospital. Next time I'll post pics of my family when they came to visit me there.

Even though Micah is a difficult newborn, I still love him to pieces. I could kiss his little toes and face all day long.

In the following picture, you can see the dang bilirubin light glowing from behind Micah. I hate those things! But they're a necessary evil for a jaundiced baby. Micah's jaundice is finally under control, so we're getting him circumcized this Thursday. Poor boy. He won't be a happy kid.

Help!!

Can anyone figure out why I suddenly have two headers, one on my sidebar and one above my blog posts? I went to blogger help and found a guy who had the exact same problem, but the blogger helper dude's suggestion was really complicated and scary. Just thought I'd ask...

First Bath

I'm sorry for all the pictures. I just think Micah is so flippin' cute... I can't just put five pictures of him on my blog and be done with it. I hope you understand. :) I thought I'd put up some pre-bath and some first bath pictures from the hospital. Here are some of Micah, post breastfeeding and pre-bath:

And here's his first bath. He loves baths. He takes after his mommy in that way:

All done!:

Yesterday and today have been pretty great with Micah, which makes me feel so much better about life. Yesterday, he lay on the floor and wiggled around for half an hour, looking all around and not fussing. That was the first time he has ever been awake and not crying, ever. Seriously. And right now, he's taking his second nap!! I can't believe he's sleeping soundly in his bassinet. And I can't believe that Sadie is cooperating and taking her nap, too! So now I'm going to nap... I should work on my baby announcements, but sleep is on my mind right now.

Right After Delivery

This is Micah, getting wiped off. This was right after the normal suctioning of the mouth, but before we knew that he wasn't breathing. It's like he was holding his breath for a really long time:

Still holding his breath, while Ben cuts the umbilical cord:

This was after we realized that he wasn't inhaling or exhaling. There were three nurses working on Micah. That big turquoise bag was for sucking the blood out of Micah's stomach:

This was after the suctioning was done, and the nurses were giving him oxygen:

Here he is, finally out of danger:

They were finally able to weigh him and do all that normal stuff:

Heaving a sigh of relief, and still kind of heaving from all the pushing:

Then the nurses bundled him up...

And gave him to me!!:

Micah and me, after a successful first breastfeeding:

The success didn't last long, sadly. When I got mastitis, my breasts weren't producing enough milk for Micah, so we had to supplement, and we noticed that my milk really upsets his stomach, no matter how careful I was in what I ate. His tummy is much happier on formula. So I decided to just make him a formula baby. It's hard, because I'm weaning my breasts now, and it's emotionally difficult for me to see all that breast milk that my body is making - dumped right down the sink. I feel like a total failure of a mother. Of course, everything is emotional nowadays. I went to work last night and cried the whole time. But today has been kind of an okay day. Micah still isn't sleeping very well, but hopefully he'll figure it out soon.

My Labor

Sorry, dude. I'm trying to keep on top of things, but as you can tell from my recent lack of blogging, I'm not doing very well. Newborn Time is always a hard time for me. Even with Dylan. I just can't get my act together. Heck, I still felt, a couple of weeks ago, that I still haven't gotten my act together from having had Sadie. I'm just trying to take things minute by minute, because I tend to get overwhelmed.

And Micah is... kind of a butthead. I love him, but he's a bit difficult. But so were Sadie and Dylan as newborns. You know that whole thing where newborns "sleep all day"? Not my kids. And Micah is following suit. He sleeps when he should be eating, and then he screams when he should be sleeping. If he's awake, he's pissed. He's never awake and calm. It's been tough. Sometimes I have to let him scream it out in his bassinet while I make lunch for the kids, bathe them, make dinner, etc. I just cannot hold him every second, like he wants. I'm tentatively putting him on a Baby Wise schedule. I put Sadie on Baby Wise when she was six weeks old, and it seriously changed her into a new baby. A much happier, sweeter baby. I just need to remember that it does work, and that I need to stick it out. For those of you who haven't read Baby Wise, it's a book about putting your baby on a schedule. It did wonders for Sadie. So we're trying to get him on a schedule, but so far, he hasn't been cooperating very well, and I'm too tenderhearted when he cries to let him cry for very long. And he is so young. So we'll see. I'm just grateful when I can get any kind of sleep. I'm averaging three hours per night, with no naps in the day. Sigh... Thanks for letting me vent. I'll be okay in a few weeks, I'll bet.

I thought I'd put a few more pictures from Micah's birth up - these are all pictures of the labor part.

Ben likes to take a nice picture of me, out in nature, with each pregnancy - I like to put that picture in each of the kids' baby books. But since Micah came very unexpectedly, we never got the chance. So, in between a set of contractions, I had Ben take my picture. He had me pose in front of our tree in the backyard:

My dad thought it was so strange, how upbeat and peppy I was when I answered the door when he came over to watch the kids. But then he saw me go through a contraction. When we were waiting for him to come over, between contractions, I was doing laundry, cleaning up my dining room, etc. This is me, between contractions, with my pee cup :) -

Waiting for the nurse:

My mom has never seen any of my kids born, so she came along this time:

During a contraction:

After my epidural. Ahhhh:

They always have me breathe through the oxygen mask:

Literally trying to hold the baby in while waiting for our doctor to show up:

Alright. I'm going to lie down with a heating pad on my tummy. I have a sweet neighbor who is watching my eldest two, and Micah is asleep for a blessed moment. My cramping is still pretty painful, but my mastitis seems to have cleared up. And I'm still suffering with my bladder infection. But hopefully things will improve. And hopefully I'll be able to blog sooner than later.