Life at Home

I have a couple of pictures for your pleasure. Yippee! This first one is of my amazing 2 year old. He has just been so wonderful with Marin's arrival. He helps and generally doesn't get jealous. He loves to kiss Marin a thousand times a day. I am so so proud of him. He will always be my best boy! :)

This photo is one of Marin that I think is kinda humorous. She is making a funny face. I think she was only about 2 weeks old when this one was taken, so it isn't particularly recent, but you just have to take what you can get. I haven't really taken many recent ones lately.

And these next two pictures are from Marin's first Sunday at church. She was 3 weeks old (we were going to go when she was 2 weeks, but I got sick, so we didn't get to). I love the photo of David with the two kids. I actually have that one on my desktop right now.


A couple weeks ago, the four of us and my mom went to Main Street Days (a festival in Grapevine) to see some bands play and let Cade play on the carnival rides. We all had a great time. Cade loved the hot dogs and the carosel and getting to ride the ponies!


And I lied. I do have some recent pictures of Marin, but she is screaming her head off in them. We were finally able to give her a bath for the first time two nights ago because her umbilical cord FINALLY fell off. The pediatrician had to put a chemical on it to speed up the process...but it's gone and it left a very attractive innie in its place. As you can tell, she just LOVES the bath so far... Cade screamed his first few baths, too, but now he's all over it. So we'll just give her time.

Marin Regains Birth Weight

Well -- it takes most babies 1 week to do it, but apparently Marin wanted to create havoc with a bazillion pediatrician copays by waiting until she was 4 weeks old to reach her birth weight again. Granted, she was a chunker at 8lb 10oz, but it was still a VERY slow climb back to that weight marker. Thank goodness she made it, though, b/c the doctor was about to tell me that I needed to start supplementing with formula to make her gain more quickly and I think with all I've been through with mastitis and continuing to nurse through that -- I would've either punched out the doctor or broke down bawling. But she's right at 9lbs now and doing fabulously, so all is well. And she's gotten much cuter than when she was born. She had a rough few days for sure on the looks... but she's a great baby, so I could handle a few days with an awkward-looking newborn! ;)

I am feeling human again now that the mastitis has subsided. That was literally hell on earth. I wanted to die. I laid in bed with tears streaming down the sides of my face and into my ears because I just felt so cruddy. David was so nice through it all. He felt so bad that he couldn't help me at night with feedings and stuff b/c of nursing and all, but he was supportive and great. He always is, actually. He's the best dad in the universe. I always watch him with the kids and am just so proud of my family.

My in-laws are here right now. They got here this evening and I am WAY excited!!! They are going to be able to bond a bit with Marin since they hadn't seen her since her birth with all the drama that insued... PLUS they can help a bit and I can get some well-deserved (I think) sleep. Maybe even a nap during the day????? WOW!!!!!!! Or they could get up with Cade when he wakes up at 6:30am (that has GOT to stop) and I can sleep until Marin wakes up. That will be awesome!!!

My mom has offered to help as much as she can with how busy busy busy she is with Mary Kay right now, but Cade has temporarily been banned from long visits at Ima and Popsy's house because he likes them too much. He ALWAYS wants to go over there and when we get him back, he has to go through about 48 hours of Ima and Popsy Detox. He just cries for them and throws fits when he can't go back. It's really cute, actually, because he is so in love with them. Maybe we'll lift the ban soon and he can go back and visit. I think the detox was just really bad this last time because he was over there so much during Marin's birth and then we had to stay there during the power outage right afterwards for 4 days... so he was basically there for a whole week non-stop. We'll have to break him back in slowly with small visits... :)

We feel so blessed to have our new little family unit! God is amazing!

The 2 Week Mark -- Still Alive

Well, I wish I could say that things have started to run smoothly again at the 2 week mark, but I'd be lying. On Saturday, I had to go to the emergency room because (warning: the following might be TMI) my fever climbed to 103 degrees in a matter of an hour and ... yes... my right boob felt like it was going to fall off it hurt so bad. It was so swollen and tender and BRIGHT RED. I feel wierd putting that on a blog, but it's the truth. I was in so much pain and my fever was so high, the doc said to go to the ER since it was Saturday. It is what they call "mastitis" which is a severe breast infection. It's a lot of pain and lasts for up to a week, but it apparently is extremely treatable and I can continue nursing through it, which I am glad about because nursing is actually going really well this time around. I would've hated to have to quit b/c of something out of my control. So I have been bedridden for 48 hours and am just starting to feel a tad bit better, but I wouldn't have told you that last night at about 10:30pm when my temperature soared again to 103.5. GEEZ!!!!!

But get this everybody -- MARIN SLEPT FOR 7 HOURS STRAIGHT LAST NIGHT. Holy gosh. I have never heard of a 2 week old that could do that. She geared up for it for sure by eating non-stop from about 4:30pm to 9pm and didn't sleep hardly at all during that stretch, but I certainly didn't expect her to sleep that long. Somehow, I guess God knew I needed her to since I was so severely ill... hope that's a repeat performance someday. Cade didn't do that until he was months and months old... wow. I did pray while I was pregnant for an easier baby than Cade was and apparently I got it. I don't know what it's like to have a baby that doesn't scream constantly, fuss while eating, hardly sleep and require constant bouncing/walking/rocking. It's bizarre. I feel blessed to have had the easy baby as the second baby. But of course, Cade's great. I don't mean to sound like I didn't love him to pieces anyway... ;)

I'll post more pics when I take some... it's been a bit much the last few days to try and snapshot anything. Plus... she sleeps all the time! Yippee!!! :)

Welcome Marin (i.e. Drama, drama, drama...)!!!

Marin Anne Williams was welcomed into the world on April 30. She weighed in at a whopping 8lb 10oz and was 21 1/2" long! Long girl! She was a full inch longer than Cade... wow. That's exactly how long Kelsey was when she was born. Cool. Plus... she kind of looks like her Aunt Kelsey did when she was born...

So, I'll spare you the birthing details, which were kind of intense. I will share the fact that I didn't get my freaking epidural until I was 7 cm dilated. HELLO! Talk about pain people. They had trouble getting in my I.V. b/c my veins kept collapsing or something. They had to call the anesthesiologist to come put in my I.V.... that took 30 mins for him to get there. Then I had to wait for the drip of fluids to get in me... another 30 minutes. Then I could get the epidural... minor complications with that... so that took 30 minutes... GEEZ! But Marin is here nonetheless and there you have it.

She is a wonderful baby. She has her days and nights mixed up for sure. I have to literally wake her up in the day to feed her after she's been asleep for 4 hours straight... and then at night... well, let's just say I basically try to sleep in the glider between nursings while holding her because the second I put her in the bassinet she wakes up. I think I might have gotten 3 hours of sleep last night and even that was interrupted sleep. Hopefully she'll figure things out soon. I'm just trying to enjoy the moments we have together.

So -- the story. About an hour after Marin was born, my father-in-law collapsed in the waiting room when his back gave out on him. So... he was wheeled down to emergency and doped up on super narcotics. My mother-in-law was keeping Cade, so she had to leave to put Cade to bed. Well, my father-in-law couldn't even sit up on his own, so he couldn't go in the car with her to our house... so he slept on the couch in my recovery room for the night. Glad we had the room and glad he was so doped up he didn't know what was going on around him. If you don't know it, the night you have your baby isn't exactly glamorous. Your body is displayed for all to see and you have lots of blood/nasty issues. Anyway...

The next day, he still couldn't sit up. So they wheeled me in my recovery bed out of the way so that they could get him out on another stretcher. He went back to emergency and took enough drugs for Carol (mother-in-law) to get them both home to Hot Springs. They made it...so that's good. But there goes our house/dog/Cade-sitters. So my mom and dad took Cade, some friends from church came and let out the dogs. But woops! My chihuahua BIT HIM when he was getting her out of the crate. Drew blood, people. Not good. I felt horrible about that.

We get released from the hospital on Wednesday, only to get to the parking lot to find a flat tire. Had to fix that on the way home.

Got home. Time to relax with the new baby. Just kidding!!!! Two hours later, a huge storm left us without power and neighborhood rumor held that it could be several days before it was back on. So pack up 2 dogs, diapers, new baby, clothes, food from the fridge, and head to my mom and dad's house. It was a good thing we did, too, because we didn't get power back until Saturday. So we spent 3 nights there.

It was trying and David and I did our best to keep our senses of humor roaring, but it was a rough week. Things are better-settled now as we get to know our new family-of-four unit. We've already eventured out to Target with the clan and all went well there... of course, I had David to help. I'm wondering when I'll get the adventuresome spirit up to do an outing... gulp ... alone. We'll see.

Anyway, for now, enjoy the pic of our new beautiful baby girl. I just gaze at her in amazement. God is so good.