One month!

We can't believe that Sam turned one month old yesterday! His checkup is later in the week, so we will post his official stats then. We expect him to be around 10.5lbs (maybe more). He is definitely getting taller too, because some outfits are getting too short for him.

Overall Sam is still a pretty chill baby. He loves to snuggle, and honestly I'm pretty happy to just snuggle with him :-). He has been a little fussier the past few days, but the pediatrician warned us that fussiness peaked around 4 weeks. With josh the fussiness peaked around 6-8weeks, so this might just be the start of a few rough weeks.

There are not a lot of milestones to look for yet, but we think Sam is starting to track with his eyes. A week or so ago I caught a smile, but didn't know if it was a real smile. But, today he started smiling at me! We don't think Josh started smiling until closer to 2 months, so we aren't sure if these are real smiles...but I'll take it!

His sleep is still pretty unpredictable, which is totally normal for one month. Some days he is up every 2-3hrs at night, but one day last week he slept for 6 (!!) hours. Hopefully we will start getting at least one 4-5hr stretch consistently soon.

Overall we have been settling into life as a family of four. We have been going on some outings as a family, and even made it up to Baltimore for "Big Truck Day".  Getting everyone out of the house is a still a bit of a challenge, but we are learning. Sam usually cries when he is put in the car seat until we get him in the car, so it is a bit of a race to get Josh to cooperate, put on his shoes, and leave the house. I guess it will take some practice :-)

All smiles!

Big boy growing up

With the focus being on Sam and Josh having less frequent doctors appointments we haven't done a general Josh update in a little bit, so here it is.  Josh is growing up so much and becoming such a big boy.  It really is a bit strange to look at Sam and Josh since they are so different in terms of development at this point.  It just makes Josh seem so much bigger.

Josh's communication skills continue to get better.  He mostly speaks in complete sentences and has a very large vocabulary.  Almost every day he says something that we didn't know he knew about.  When you ask him a question he knows how to respond and he uses the proper pro-nouns and sometimes the proper tense.

Josh continues to learn more at daycare.  He can count to 12 (he seems to skip 13 for some reason).  He knows most of the alphabet (he skips a few letters in the middle) but I don't really think he understands the alphabet at this point.  He is learning how to draw letters at daycare and they are looking pretty good.  The other day on the way home he just started yelling out "two-thousand fifteen" and we always talk about what day of the week it is.  If you do an event with him he will remember it and talk about it months later.  He likes to remember that I broke the drill when putting up some shelves (in reality I broke the drill bit, not the drill).  If you tell him something will happen on Saturday, he will hold you to it and ask about it on Saturday.

He is still extremely active and always moving.  I have no idea where he gets his energy from but if we could harness it we might solve energy independence!  He loves to play at the playground and run around outside.  On occasion I pick Josh up from daycare before he has gone to the playground and that makes a very unhappy Josh.

Josh has been forward facing in the car for a few months now and he loves to point out when we see a bus or truck.  Sometimes I don't put on my seat belt immediately when I get in the car and he tells me "want daddy put on seat belt!" or the more forceful, "daddy, put on seat belt!"  He knows you have to stop on red and can go on green.

We are squarely in the terrible twos at this point and Josh isn't an exception.  When he doesn't get what he wants he often loses it and screams.  We've done our best to not positively reinforce his bad behavior and to ensure we explain why he can't have something he wants.  Josh was being difficult before bed but we think it was partially due to him not understanding what it means to be a big brother.  Once I told him I was a big brother and so are many people around him he seemed much happier and not as concerned.

Josh seems to be very happy with Sam and not jealous at this point.  Josh likes to lie on the floor with Sam and helps to rock Sam in the Rock and Play when Sam is being fussy.

We are still getting used to our bigger family but it's fun to see how our two boys are growing up!

Building with blocks

Hanging out on the floor

2 week stats

Well we had Sam's 2 week checkup last week and he is doing great! He weighed in at 9lbs 3oz, so he is back to birth weight! It took Josh almost a month to get back to birthweight, which was very stressful. We are glad that Sam has not had the same problems. My milk came in much faster this time, so Sam did not lose as much weight as Josh which helped get us off to a good start.

Last week we also met with a lactation consultant (Dawn from Bethesda Breastfeeding) because Sam's latch was shallow and causing me a lot of pain. We worked with Dawn when we had weight gain problems with Josh, so it was great to work with her again. She helped me get Sam to latch better and made sure he didn't have any problems like tongue tie. Even though I breastfed Josh for 17 months, Sam is a very different baby and it was really good to have someone help us out.

Sam has been spending more time awake, but is generally a pretty happy baby. He mostly cries when something is actually wrong, and is content other times. Sometimes he just wants to be held, and both Julian and I have been enjoying chilling with him. Whoever has the baby has a good excuse to chill on the couch and hold him :-)

Chillin'

Nap time with Daddy

Josh sharing a cookie with Sam :-)

Week One

Our first week as a family of four started out pretty well and then quickly got harder. We spent the weekend in the hospital and Josh came to visit us with Julian's  dad. It was great to be able to see him and he was being a very very good boy. Julian, Sam and I spent the first full night in the hospital but the second night Julian went back home to stay with Josh and take him to daycare in the AM. Sam and I survived our first night alone. We brought Sam home on Monday and tried to settle in a bit before Josh got home. We had a rough bedtime because Sam needed to eat and Josh wanted me to put him to bed (but only after using every possible stalling technique....).

Over the weekend Josh developed a bit of a runny nose, we had hoped it was just a cold but on Tuesday morning Josh was acting a bit sick. He didn't feel warm so we took him to daycare anyway. Unfortunately he had a rough time at drop off and daycare called 2 hours later to say Josh had not stopped crying. Daycare was being very supportive and really didn't want to send him home because the knew we just had the baby. We decided to go get him, and it was a good thing we did. He was having a really hard time talking and breathing and was super upset. We got him home and  Used the nebulizer in him which seemed to help. By the afternoon Josh had a fever of 101.5, so we knew he would not be back to daycare the next day. This left us terrified of Sam getting sick at less than a week old, and overwhelmed with caring for Josh, Sam and me. Fortunately the next day my parents came over and played with Josh in the basement for a few hours. This allowed us to keep Sam away from Josh, and only have to care for Sam. The rest of the day Julian took care of Josh and I took care of Sam, and we tried to stay as separate as possible. Unfortunately we realized later that keeping them apart sort of scared Josh because he didn't really understand why his family wasn't all together.

Taking care of Sam by myself also was really hard on me physically. Overall Sam being a bigger baby has been awesome, it makes it easier to feed him and he is very sturdy. But getting up from sitting with him and going up and down the steps with him was harder for me since he is about 2 pounds heavier than Josh was at this stage.

By Thursday Josh was feeling much better and had no fever for 24 hrs, so we took him to daycare. He had a good day there and was in a good mood. I was able to rest up for the weekend since Sam's favorite activity is sleeping on me :) 

Overall Sam has been a pretty chill baby, which has made things possible for us. We know things will get harder as he gets into the more awake and fussy stage in another few weeks, but for now we are really enjoying how chill he is :)

Milk coma :-)

Checking out the swing

My boys!

Josh is excited to play with Sam, Sam seems unsure

Brothers

We are working on a post about our first week as a family of four but it isn't quite ready yet.  In the mean time here is a fun video of Josh and Sam together.

Batter Up

This post was written the day Sam was born and the events described are from a few weeks ago.  I meant to post it over the weekend but well, things got in the way.  In any case, enjoy!

As I'm sure everyone knows I'm a huge baseball fan.  I don't get to go to as many games as I used to but I still watch plenty of baseball (to Margaret's frustration).  For Christmas Josh got a t-ball set so with the nicer weather we decided to let Josh play with it outside.  Josh immediately enjoyed it but to my pain he had some initial trouble holding the bat properly.  I tried to show him the right way to do it but he refused to listen.

Here is a video if his first few swings.  Margaret said that if he ever becomes a professional baseball player and they want to show a video of his first time, this will be it.

After a few minutes  I was able to fix how he held the bat and he seemed to see the benefits

I'm still working on teaching him how to throw and catch but I'm pretty happy with the beginning of his baseball career.  Here are a few more pictures

Keeping his eye on the ball

Keeping his head down through the swing - good form!

Welcome to the world Sam!

Some of you have heard the story or part of it, but here is the adventure that led us to Sam's birth.  Not exactly how we planned it, but the result is great!  Because we were both a part of it and want to share our side of the story, here it is with Margaret's point of view in blue and Julian's point of view in red.  

For the entire week Sam was due I was having contractions everyday. They would get closer together or slightly stronger, but nothing like the true labor contractions with Josh. We went to bed a few nights thinking for sure I would wake up in labor but it never happened.

I had contractions all day Friday (my due date), but they never got stronger or progressed. I complained to everyone that would listen that I was grumpy and still pregnant. I headed to bed on Friday night a little after 11 pm. I started noticing much stronger contractions at around 11:30 and thought this might be it. We waited a bit to call Julian's dad and the doula because we wanted to see if there was a pattern to the contractions and to be sure this wasn't a false alarm. At 12:20 we decided that this was it. Julian called his dad and I texted the doula. 

We had asked my dad to watch Josh while Margaret was in labor but we didn't want to call him too early.  He lives 30 minutes away and we didn't want him to come over for a false alarm in the middle of the night. In hindsight we probably should have called earlier...

I then headed to the bath tub to better manage the contractions. We talked to my midwife and she said to call back when our child care arrived and we would decide when I should come in.

By 1 am Julian's dad arrived and the midwife told us that we should head to the hospital based on how close my contractions were. I started getting dressed and ready to go, but the contractions were very hard to manage. Julian had to really help me through each of them. I thought for sure that I would be getting an epidural ASAP. The doula arrived and helped me through a few contractions while Julian let her know how things were. My water broke after one or two contractions and our doula told us we needed to really hurry now. She helped me change quickly and we were out the door. 

I could sense from the doula that we really needed to leave - I didn't even tie my shoes racing out the door.

I couldn't sit in the car so I kneeled backward in the front seat.  We had 2 carseats in the back. Less than a mile from our house I had a feeling we weren't going to make it.... Julian didn't fully believe me and we kept going.

Maybe I was just hopeful we would make it.  I couldn't believe we would be those people who don't make it to the hospital...

I felt an intense urge to push with each contraction. By the time we were on 270 Julian was giving me time updates and telling me to not push, while I could do very little to stop things. 

"Only 5 more minutes!"

I could feel the head starting to crown, but at the end of a contraction the baby would be still inside. When we finally got off 270 I told Julian that the baby was coming out and he had to stop. 

"Crap crap crap crap"

He stopped and our doula came running just in time to see the baby starting to come out. She told Julian to call 911 and one push later the baby was out and she caught him. Sam didn't cry right away, so she massaged his chest and got him to cry. 

"Breathe... breathe... breathe...."

The 911 dispatcher was talking to Julian and telling him what to do. They had him find a string (his shoelace) to tie off the umbilical cord. 

Good thing I didn't tie my shoes!

Julian and the doula then focused on trying to keep me and Sam warm. The ambulance arrived a few minutes later and took over. They cut the cord to get me out of the car, and Sam and I rode in the ambulance and got checked out. The EMT that took Sam commented that he was big and he thought he was 9lbs. I told him no way--clearly I was wrong!  Julian and the doula followed and met us at the ER. I'm really not sure how Julian managed to keep it together and drive to the hospital! (Or how he managed to drive with me in labor next to him).

The EMT asked if I was ok to drive - I knew my adrenaline was pumping and I felt fine so I told him I was ok and would freak out in an hour or two.

When we got to the hospital the midwife sort of laughed, because she figured something like this must have happened since we were very late getting to the hospital. She asked if we were in the grey SUV because she passed one on her way to the hospital. She said she considered stopping. She did a great job taking care of me and fortunately I didn't deliver the placenta until the hospital. The doula stayed with us while they checked us all out. Sam weighed in at 9lbs 2oz and 21 inches long.

We had been on the fence about hiring a doula and we are SO glad we did. I don't know what we would have done without her!! Even once the baby was out it was so nice having someone helping me so that Julian could stay with Sam while he was checked out.

Money well spent!

We are all recovering well and fortunately Ellie's pants and a towel we had took most of the brunt of the damage, so we think the car will recover. We are so thankful for our doula and the speedy EMTs!! (And dark leather interior!). But most of all I am thankful that Sam is healthy and recovering so well!

My active labor with Josh was about 16 hrs. I labored at home for about 4 hours and showed up at the hospital at only 2cm. Everyone says your second labor is faster, and most people say it is about half as long. I was expecting about 8 hours of active labor. So start to finish of a little over 2 hrs was a pretty big shock....whoops! I never in a million years would have guessed my labor would be that fast!

Overall neither of my births were at all what I expected. Both were surprising and perfect in their own ways. :-)

Special thanks to Julian's dad for watching Josh while we were in the hospital and thanks to Heather for helping out with Josh as well - we couldn't have done it without you!

Smile from the delivery room!

Welcome Sam!

Proud Daddy

Josh meeting his baby brother

Josh sharing a cookie with Sam

Family of 4!

The Werfel men

Josh on the left, Sam on the right