Carter and Rylan

Our boys ...


Carter is doing really well adjusting to having Rylan around. He's doing much better than we had expected. However, I haven't had the two of them on my own yet. Things may change then because right now there is always someone to give him attention.

Carter likes to point to Rylan and say "baby". He knows who we're talking about whenever we say either Rylan or baby.

So far Carter has been gentle with Rylan. It took him a day to warm up to Rylan, but Carter likes to rub Rylan's hair the most. He's also started patting his tummy and touching his toes. We've been trying to teach Carter to not touch Rylan's face or hands though (to help make sure he doesn't pass on any germs).

Carter gets a little jealous when Brian is holding Rylan. He'll point to Rylan and then point to the bouncer if he sees it indicating he wants Brian to put Rylan down. He hasn't been too bad yet.

When I feed Rylan downstairs with the nursing cover on, Carter likes to put his head under the cover too and look at Rylan and laugh.

Carter has been asking to hold Rylan more. He puts his arms out like we taught him to do to catch a ball. Today he started getting the Boppy pillow and putting it around himself since that's what I do when feeding Rylan. Carter likes to have him on his lap for about a minute and then he's over it.

I think Carter realizes that Rylan is here to stay. And I think he's happy about it.

A Few Videos

Carter meeting Rylan the day he was born ...

Rylan at one day old making noises ...

Rylan yawning ...

Rylan's Birth and Our Hospital Stay

I'm going to do a separate post with Rylan's birth story (hopefully I'll do it quicker than I did Carter's), but here are some pictures and a few details.

My c-section was scheduled for 12:30 pm on Monday and my doctor showed up around 12:45 pm (a little late, but I expected worse). I was prepped in the same room we'd be in for the rest of our stay at the hospital. I walked to the operating room where I got the spinal block while Brian got into a sterile suit and had to wait until they were just about to begin.

I didn't feel too much while they were working on getting to Rylan.


The end hurt a lot as well as all the sewing up. The nurse anesthetist gave me some extra pain medicine a few times through my IV, but it didn't help much. I made it through though.

My doctor showed us Rylan right after she pulled him out (he was purple but doing fine) and then they went to work on him.

Rylan when he was 5 minutes old ...


Rylan at 8 minutes old ...


At 10 minutes old ...


After they finished with Rylan, Brian got to hold him for about 20 minutes while they finished up on me. The nurse anesthetist took this group shot of us ...


Rylan and me recovering when he was 2 hours old ...


Sarah came by for a quick visit when Rylan was 2 1/2 hours old. It was great to see her!


She took another group shot for us ...


My mom stayed with Carter the whole time we were in the hospital. She brought Carter over in the evening to meet Rylan.


Brian and his boys (I'll do a separate post about how Carter is doing with Rylan, but so far, he's been very gentle and somewhat interested in him).



Family photo (we'll have to work on getting a better one soon!) ...


Rylan and me on Tuesday (our second day in the hospital) ...


My dad drove over to Knoxville on Tuesday to meet Rylan ...


He also got to spend some time with Carter. Carter LOVES this new water toy my dad got him. You fill it with water and toss it to someone. If they don't catch it just right, they get covered with water (there was no water in the toy when this picture was taken!).


Some sweet photos of Rylan ...


Finally, a picture with his eyes open!




Brian with Rylan as we were getting ready to head home ...


All ready to go!

Jumping

Carter started doing this yesterday and did it again today ...

I would think this would hurt his butt but it doesn't seem to!

Introducting Rylan David

Rylan was born on Monday, June 28th at 1:18 pm. He weighed 9 lbs and was 21.5 inches long.









We have been home since yesterday afternoon and I plan to try to catch up on posting this weekend. My priority the last couple of days has been trying to spend as much time as I can with my buddy Carter to make up for being absent this week.

Last Belly Picture

We're off to the hospital in about an hour. Here's the last picture I'll be taking of my belly!


So, I'm up to 164 lbs this morning. I gained 45 lbs this time! I'm 6 lbs less than when I had Carter but only put on 40 with Carter.

By the way, waiting for a 12:30 pm c-section stinks when you can't eat or drink anything. I am SO HUNGRY! Hopefully I won't pass out!

Pool Jumping

Here are a couple videos of Carter jumping into the pool today.

A couple of notes:

• Carter had already jumped in about 50 times before these were recorded so he was getting tired and not jumping as far from the edge as we like. Also, he was starting to get artistic with his jumps (notice how he was holding an arm with his hand as he jumped).
• Carter insisted on wearing his Crocs, probably because the concrete was really hot today.

Double Trouble

My mom got here today since we're only a couple of days away now from the arrival of the baby. She brought with her a new toy for Carter ...


It's the Take-A-Part Truck like his airplane from Brian's parents. Now Carter is double the trouble with two drills!!!


He can get away with almost anything with this cute face!

38 Weeks & 3 Days Appointment

I had another appointment today - my last before the baby will be here! It was another long one - 3 hours! Luckily Brian was there to take care of Carter when I was busy with baby stuff.

The ultrasound was first as usual. The baby didn't seem to grow as much this past week. He measured ONLY 9 lbs, 7 oz. He was 9 lbs, 4 oz eight days ago. The ultrasound tech said instead of slowing down that last week's measurement was probably a little high and this week's might be a little low. His measurements gave him a gestational age of 41 weeks and 4 days.

After doing measurements, the ultrasound tech checks a handful of other things, like the heartbeat, the heartbeat in the cord, and the amount of amniotic fluid. One of the main things she does is the biophysical profile (BPP) test. This test checks the amount of amniotic fluid, muscle tone (movement of the baby's arms and legs), general movement, and breathing movements. She wasn't seeing the baby practicing breathing so she had to watch his chest via the ultrasound for 30 minutes because babies usually do this at least once every 30 minutes.

Well, after 30 minutes, he hadn't tried to breathe. So I had to do a non-stress test to ensure everything was okay. This just involved me being on a fetal monitor for about 30 minutes. The results of this plus the amniotic fluid measurement were good so it was decided that everything is okay. The baby had some big movements a couple of times and knocked off the heart beat reader. I had a couple of contractions while on the monitor and got to watch that measurement go from 30 to 120.

Last week my doctor said she was tentatively scheduling a c-section for this coming Monday. She was in a bit of a hurry and I didn't really get to ask her any questions. Brian and I put together a long list of questions last night and I was looking forward to getting lots of answers so that I felt more prepared going into the procedure.

Well, my doctor left to go do a c-section while I was having the ultrasound and was not coming back for the day. I was really disappointed but there's nothing I could do about it. I got to see the other doctor in the practice who I've met only once before. She did an okay job answering our questions but I would have felt better asking the doctor that is actually going to do the c-section the questions we had.

Even though my doctor thought a c-section was our best option, this doctor seemed to think we'd be okay trying for a vaginal delivery. But she also said it was pretty much up to us. This is when I really wished my doctor was there so she could see the current measurements and give us her opinion. I know she's overcautious sometimes, but I also trust her. We decided that since she recommended a c-section last week, we were going to stick with that.

I wasn't sure my doctor had actually scheduled a time for the c-section so the other doctor had to go look it up. She had and we're doing the c-section at 12:30 pm on Monday. I can't eat before the procedure so it's going to be a long morning!

We asked several questions about the procedure and feel pretty good about everything. The only negative is that we found out that the doctor on call this weekend is a male doctor that's not part of the practice and who we've never met before. This was the situation for Carter's birth and we have a feeling I'm going to go into labor this weekend and run into the same situation as last time. We'll see!

My other measurements were:

• Weight = 163 lbs
  
• Blood pressure = 100/60
• Dilation = 2+ cm

Checking In

Not much going on here. I'm still pregnant and we're now just sort of waiting for the baby to arrive. There's still plenty of stuff on my to do list, but I've gotten the majority of stuff that needed to be done before the baby arrives completed. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow so hopefully we'll know more soon about a scheduled c-section.

We're still trying to get to the pool as much as we can while we still can. Carter and I went to the pool on our own yesterday and then went with Sarah and Mary Grace and Amy and Caitlyn today. Here's a picture of the kids from today ...


Sarah also sent me this picture of Carter and Mary Grace from last week ...


Carter is getting better and better in the water. He's able to push off the steps and put his face in and get to me. I wouldn't call it swimming yet, but he's occasionally moving his arms and legs to propel himself to me. It's a start! Hopefully Brian will be able to take him a lot while on paternity leave and on the weekends because I'd love for Carter to continue to get closer to swimming.

It's still hot here (in the mid-90s everyday) so we'll be going back to the pool again tomorrow!