David goes to IBC

Today David and I went for a visit to my work to meet my co-workers. Of course they all thought he was just adorable!! Since the only clothes that fit him are his onesies and his pajamas we went and bought a pair of khaki pants at Old Navy yesterday for the occasion! Isn't he handsome! He was on his best behavior at IBC mostly sleeping but he did wake up for everyone to see his cute smile!

When we got home I decided to ask David how his day was...the video captures the entire conversation. Obviously he can't really tell me about his day but what makes this clip so cute is that his babble actually sounds like the real words. When I ask him how his day was his babble sounds really close to "it was good" and then when I tell him to say bye it sounds like he says bye!! Maybe it's just me but I swear it's true, but again I leave it up to you to decide!

*video edited for optimal cuteness!

Something to Brighten Your Day!

Can you believe that our little David is now 7 Weeks old?! Holy crap where did the time go?! This update includes a new video as you can see from the title he gets the hiccups a lot but that doesn't stop him from getting the giggles. It's been edited down to show only the cute stuff! My favorite part is when he makes a dolphin sound at the end. At least that's what it sounds like to me it could be a mouse sound...I leave it up to you to decide!

In other news, and I am hoping that I am not jinxing myself by mentioning it, David slept for 5-1/2 hours straight the last two nights! I am not sure, this could be a fluke or a stroke of good luck, but it seems as if he is starting to come up with some sort of schedule! I am not going to get too excited just yet! He is also smiling and laughing more and more everyday!





The Doc and I had a discussion the other night about how you don't realize just how much having a baby interferes with your everyday life. Even watching your favorite TV show becomes a challenge. While I wouldn't trade this for the world it was just an interesting observation that we made!! So I have decided to come up with a list of things that change once you have a baby even typing this blog post is a challenge!! Check it out below:

P. Sophie's Top 5 Things A Baby Changes:

1. Sleep - forget about ever getting a good night sleep again...EVER! When you have a baby (especially if you're nursing as I am) remember the baby makes the schedule. So you can just forget about the days of sleeping in until noon because those days are now OVER!

2. Eating - whether it's eating a home cooked meal, ordering take-out or even being brave and going to a restaurant...how you eat will never be the same.

Trying to cook a meal becomes a challengebecausee it's either I wait for the Doc to come home or hope that David will nap long enough so that I can be in the kitchen. And when he naps long enough for me to cook the food...guess who wakes up just in time for me to eat the food and wouldn't you know he's hungry too!

Ordering take-out usually is a little easier but again if the baby is awake and I ordered a tasty Italian Hoagie for dinner...I have to wait until I can put the baby down to eat it.

The Restaurant is the most fun/challenging because while the little angel falls asleep during the car ride over to the restaurant he will most likely wake up at some point during the meal. And while he is sleeping you're holding your breath the whole time hoping that he won't wake up so you can finish your tasty cheeseburger and fries without having to take him out of his seat and bounce him. So while it can be done (we do it all the time) it is very different than when it was just the two of us!

3. Watching Television/Movie - Unless you have TiVo or any other DVR be prepared to be interrupted at some point. The Doc and I hope that if David is going to be fussy that he will fuss on a commercial but that wasn't the case during the last 5 minutes of House last night. My secret trick (which doesn't always work) is to nurse him during the show! A movie is easier because it can be paused but that just means it takes longer to watch. For example the Doc and I are trying to catch up on Season 2 of Lost and so while we can pause the DVD it takes over an hour to watch 42 minutes of show.

4. Shopping - used to be just pick up and go. Not anymore. It's feed the baby before we go, get him into is car seat, grab the diaper bag, put the baby into the car (while he is usually fussing), hope he falls asleep in the car (which he usually does) and go! Once we get to the store/mall and get him into the stroller it's pray he doesn't wake up and start screaming! Now the advantage to nursing is that you don't have to worry about bottles but if your not very good at it like me, nursing in public can be awkward. If I have to feed him while I am out I usually do it in the car and that just means I have to take him out of his car seat and go to the car (very time consuming).

5. Personal Hygiene - the days of taking a nice long hot shower are now gone. If he is sleeping I worry he will wake up and if he is awake I have to sit him in his bouncing chair and hope he doesn't start fussing. There were even a couple days I was so tired I didn't get to brush my teeth - know, your thinking how gross - and it is, but it happened to be on a day that I didn't sleep much and I crashed on the couch all day and slept in between David's feedings - believe me if you were as tired as I was I don't think clean teeth would've be a high priority to you either.

So there you have it - the top five things that have changed for us in the last 7 weeks - more for me than the Doc because I am pretty sure his patients wouldn't like it if he hadn't brushed his teeth and took a nice long hot shower. And as long as David gets his num nums and his diapers are changed regularly he doesn't care if I have stinky breath! There are other things too but those are the big ones. I suppose our circumstance makes it a little harder since the Doc has an unconventional work schedule and we're away from friends and family. But we're surviving and the cute pictures that you see make it so much easier! Although, it would be nice to have the grandparents close by for babysitting so we can go on a date once in a while. It's not easy to keep the romance alive when you smell like spit-up (wink)!!!

New Kid on the Block:

On Sunday we introduced David to Brady. Brady didn't quite know what to think and tried to pat his head and instead whacked him...it was cute. It was funny to see the two next to each other. I mean Brady is almost a year so of course he is going to be bigger but just seeing it in person was too funny! We figured that it's the GIANT head that makes the difference! Check out the cute picture:

My Little Angel:

This past weekend we were in NH for David's baptism. What a wonderful weekend it was. It was nice to see family and friends and introduce our little guy to everyone. We got into town at about 2am. We left Philly around 8:30pm because we were picking up our new car!! We are now the proud owners of a 2007 Toyota Corolla. Saturday morning I got some "me" time and was able to spend the rest of the weekend off duty from being a Mommy (with the exception of feeding time!) I enjoyed every minute of it! Put a baby in a room full of family and friends and I didn't have to hold him once!

On Sunday we had our baptism ceremony. It was really nice and David was an angel. He slept the entire mass and even when the pastor poured the water over his head. His baptism gown is made from my wedding dress. It even includes a cute little bow tie at the top. The woman who made it did a wonderful job, he looked like a little angel. After the ceremony we held a reception back at MIL and FIL's. It was really nice. My Aunt made homemade meatballs and baked ziti and we ordered cold cut platters and mini sandwiches. We couldn't have asked for a better day, it was absolutely gorgeous outside.

Thanks to everyone who was there to share it with us!

David's First Babble!

Tomorrow David will be 5 weeks old and yesterday we went to the doctor for a one month weight check and wouldn't you know our little porker gained exactly two pounds since his birth. David is now 10lbs 2oz. He is also a lot more alert and awake during the day so we try to spend some time with him on Gymini Super Deluxe Light and Music activity mat. He is also starting to babble more. It's so cute. I was able to get a couple babbles on video and just had to share.

David's Birth Story:

Today marks David's 1 month birthday! I can't believe it has already been a month. I am still tired although some days are better than others. I have spent most of my days on the couch watching TLC all day long. On the good days where I actually get a little sleep we will go out for a drive or a walk. Some days I envy the Doc when he leaves for work because he is able to be with adults and have adult conversations. David is cute and all but our conversations are pretty much one sided!!

On Monday we will go back to the pediatrician to see how much he has grown over the last four weeks. The way he has been eating lately I would guess that he is upto 9lbs - but who knows! To mark this milestone - I have finally finished his birth story and even included some video clips from our birth video. Enjoy!

David Charles Birth Story

We arrived at the Hospital at 9:15am - we were scheduled for 7:30am but they had a full house at the time so they asked us to come in later. We sat in the waiting room until 10:30, at which point the charge nurse came and told us that they still had no rooms available - instead, she put us in a recovery room just so she could get us set up. I changed into the gown and she proceeded to put in my IV and take my blood pressure etc. We finally got to our room around noon time. The nurse hooked me up to all the monitors and then we waited for the doctor to come and check me so that they could come up with a game plan for the induction process. I was 3-4cm dilated and 2cm effaced so they opted to only use Pitocin - I wouldn't need Cervidil.

At 1:15pm they started the Pitocin - the labor has now begun. I would say that I started to feel the contractions soon after. Nothing that was painful, but I could tell when they happened and it was confirmed by the monitors. They would check the progress every two hours. It was slow going and by 5pm as the nurse increased the amount of Pitocin in my IV to the point at which it was no longer very comfortable. I had declared early on that I wanted an epidural, and at this point we reminded the nurse. She told me she wouldn't increase the pitocin any more until the epidural was in, and that she would get the anesthesiologist to put it in. It turns out, however, that we had to wait for the doctors OK to have the anesthesiologist set up the epidural. It ended up being almost a four hour wait. My anesthesiologist was really cool, though. He got it in and I was so happy. I felt like I could fly! I got my second wind and so with that I tried to nap because we both knew that we were not going to have this baby on Tuesday. With the epidural in place they began to increase the Pitocin every 15 minutes but since I couldn't feel the contractions anymore I was happy!

At 1am after another check from the resident I was still stalled at 5cm. I was very discouraged because I was tired and I couldn't seem to get comfortable and just wanted it to be over. The decision was made to break my water. As soon as she did it I felt a surge of pain - it sucked. I was not happy anymore. Apparently, when the epidural was placed it came out a bit when the anesthesiologist pull the guide needle out, so the positioning was less than ideal, a situation that was coming back to bite me. My two awesome nurses (one was in training) paged the anesthesiologist and he came and gave me a boost in my epidural. In about 2o minutes I felt some relief.

At 3am I was still at 5cm - I couldn't believe what I was hearing but the resident told me that since I was fully effaced that she would expect more change in the next two hours. Well, she wasn't kidding; after about an hour of feeling this intense pressure the resident come back to check me and told me that I had gone from 5cm to 8-9cm. I was so happy I started to cry. By about a half hour later the pressure was so intense that I told the nurse that it felt like I may have to push soon. She paged the resident again and sure enough I was ready to go - fully dilated and fully effaced! She had to go get permission from the doctor (I was considered a "private" patient) but that she bet I could start pushing soon.

The chief resident came in at 4:30 and said that he had a message for me from our doctor (he was a really funny guy) - he said the message was "wow, and go ahead and start pushing!" I thought that this would be over in no time. I couldn't have been more wrong. Two and a half hours later the Doctor came in to check on me and said that everything was fine and I was pushing well. I was having some decelerations in the fetal heart rate, but that was likely from the baby getting his head squished on the way out. They put a nasty O2 mask on my face (Charlie was a bit annoyed that they didn't have any nasal cannula on the floor) and had me not push every contraction to keep my baby's heart rate up. The doctor also told me that if anything went wrong he was far enough out that they could have him out in about a minute. That sounded nice because I was exhausted. I think I may have even zoned out in between contractions.

He came back 15 minutes later and told me that they were going to get the baby out "now". He had a vacuum in hand, and they turned the room into a delivery room. All I remember was a lot more people were in the room and I just kept on pushing. The head came out and the baby was delivered about 5 minutes later! It turned out that the real reason for the vacuum was because his heart rate went from 140's to 80-60s and wasn't going back up. Poor guy! The last 20 minutes were awful; it wasn't the pushing or the baby coming down - I got a leg cramp so bad that after each contraction I remember screaming "rub my leg, rub my leg!" and after three hours of intense pushing we had a baby!

Happy Birthday John!

Happy Birthday little brother! The Big 25! Hope it was a good one!

Mood Swings:

Below you will see two pictures of our little peanut...take a guess at which baby we like better?!

Happy Birthday To Me:

So today is my birthday. I am 27 today. How did I celebrate you ask? Sitting on my couch in my normal position with a baby in my lap. We did however get out today to pick up lunch from the Cheesecake Factory and finished our Season Two DVD of House, M.D. - awesome show by the way. I am a slave to David's schedule and wouldn't you know that it's different every day! Did I mention I miss my sleep?! My Dad says that this is it...no more ever feeling like my old self again. Until this child moves out on his own my days of a goodnight sleep are officially over. I don't remember signing up for that! (wink).

At least I got my cake this year! Well it was cheesecake but it's good enough for me!

Oh yeah - and a happy anniversary wish to P. Bride and her man...the days of being a newlywed are now over! Can't believe it's been a year already! Someday this will be you! Wait as long as you can!!!!!!! Just kidding!