A Day With Topher

I have loved having the chance to stay home with Christopher for the first weeks of his life. I feel like at first we just ate and slept with no rhyme or reason and although that might be frustrating for some, I loved it. We've fallen into a little bit of a routine lately so I decided to document each hour of our day to celebrate Topher's 8 week birthday.

7:00 AM-- Dad scoops Topher out of bed, changes his diaper and gets him ready for breakfast.

7-8:00 AM-- Breakfast with mom

8:00 AM-- Play time, snuggles with Dad before he leaves for work and general hanging out

9:00 AM-- Nap time, sometimes with mom. Okay, most mornings we take a nap at the same time. I am trying to break him of the habit of nursing to sleep but he still insists on it in the morning. He's a very polite nurser and always folds his hands when he eats. It is the cutest thing!

11:00 AM-- Fat roll inspection time! New diaper and new outfit followed by lunch for Christopher and lunch for mom. More snuggles and another nap.

1:30 PM-- Time for second lunch. This is where our day tends to loose it's structure. The afternoons are just hanging out, eating whenever he seems to be hungry, intermittent naps, sometimes errands. There is no norm during this point in the day yet.

3:00 PM-- Took a walk around the neighborhood to our friends house and back. It was 49* so we just had to get outside. We are having an unseasonably warm January and I am not complaining! This time last year we were under 3 feet of snow already.

4:15 PM-- Poops so hard it requires a full outfit change. Nurses for a few minutes but isn't too interested.

5:10 PM-- He still can't decide if he's hungry or sleepy. Tries out a new toy- bumbo chair. Not to sold on this one yet. Also, I know his bumbo is purple, it was a hand-me-down so that is just the color it is. Deal with it.

6:00 PM-- Dad gets home from work! Woo hoo! Baby has some dinner then mom and dad get some too.

7:00 PM-- play with his wrist rattles, he's still trying to figure out what the heck they are. A little bit of tummy time and some games with dad

8 PM Post dinner snack, a little fussing, more tummy time with dad

9:45 PM bath time! This kid loves his bath! He is so calm, his favorite part is when we wash his hair, he gets so calm and relaxed. We've learned to put his diaper back on after we wash his body and before we do his hair. He may have peed on us a time or two. I completely forgot to get a picture of this yesterday so this picture is from his first bath when he was just a couple days old. He still uses that shark towel and it's the most adorable thing ever.

10:15 last meal of the day. Sometimes it's a fight to keep him awake to eat and other times it's a fight to get him to bed. You just never know. 

This is real life- no makeup, blurry baby trying to head but/eat your face

11:15 PM baby is finally in bed, sleeping like an angel. Sometimes he won't be asleep when I lay him down but he will calmly watch his night light change colors until he falls asleep. It is the greatest! He hasn't woke up in the night pretty much since we brought him home from the hospital so once he's down we don't usually see him again until about 7 AM. (He ended up sleeping until 8 AM the next morning!)

Motherhood has been so much more enjoyable than I ever imagined. People always talk about how difficult it is and how tiring it is (and it truly is) but it is also the most rewarding thing I have ever done. Sometimes I just sit and watch Christopher sleep for a few minutes before I go to bed and I am overcome with gratitude for being his mom. He is the best baby, so content and happy, he sleeps through the night and rarely cries. Even on his worst days it's all worth it when he flashes that toothless, gummy grin.

To all those who wonder if parenthood is a worthy use of their time and effort, to those who doubt their abilities or lack confidence to have children of their own- it is so much better than you imagine! You really can do it! It's difficult to describe but there is something about throwing yourself wholeheartedly into another human being that is so satisfying. It sounds counter intuitive but giving up everything to taking care of Christopher yields rewards that far outweigh any sacrifice. I am excited to see who this boy becomes and I am just so very honored to be his mom and be able to watch him grow and learn.

The First Two Weeks

On December 1, 2015 at exactly 10:30 AM our little boy was born.

Christopher Golden Reed

I couldn't believe how immediately I fell in love with this boy! I guess I had been falling in love with him all along but when I actually held him in my arms it was a whole different story.

He has been such a good baby these past two weeks. He has learned to eat like a champ and sleeps five, six and sometimes seven hours a night. He loves to take naps on mom's chest and snuggle with dad while looking at the lights on the Christmas tree.

The first two weeks have flown by! I have loved being a mom way more than I expected to. I have loved every second with Christopher. I miss him like crazy when he sleeps all night and I can't wait till he wakes up so I can see him again. I love looking at his hairy little ears, back and thighs and kissing his chubby cheeks. He is so perfect!

Bringing him home to the nursery we'd spent so much time putting together was surreal. So many times I had walked by that room and imagined what it might be like to see a baby in the crib. It is so much better to see him there than I could have dreamed. I love spending time with him there.

My best friend, Melanie, came up from Texas for 5 days starting the day after we got home from the hospital and I can't even begin to say how enormous a blessing that was for us. She gave me such confidence in my abilities while she was here. She cooked and cleaned and changed so many diapers. She coached me on breastfeeding and snuggled Topher so we could nap during the day and sleep in.

How do you thank an angel for coming to help like that?

There have been a few days while dad was at work that Christopher and I didn't have anything to do so we just sat on the couch all day. That is heaven I tell you! We have changed so many diapers and been peed on almost daily.

Christopher wasn't a huge fan of sponge baths but sink baths are one of his favorite things.

Christopher is so content and happy, he has the sweetest disposition and I can't believe he is ours to keep forever and ever. 

Labor & Delivery

At my doctor's appointment on November 30 my doctor said I had not progressed towards labor one little bit. Everything about my body was just as it had been for the three weeks prior. I was a little disappointed to say the least. She scheduled me to go into the hospital the next evening to begin the process of being induced. That eased the disappointment a little bit and I began to get very excited that there was truly an end in sight. 

Thomas and I got together for lunch at Casa Blanca in Andover and talked about the plan for induction. I ran a few errands in the afternoon and started not feeling too great. I was taking a little nap when Thomas got home from work. We had pork chops for dinner and puttered around the house finishing up a few little projects we had been working on. I still wasn't feeling great and my hips kept aching but I didn't think much of it.

I couldn't get comfortable anywhere so I went to repack the hospital bag while Thomas fell asleep on the couch listening to Christmas music. I got him up and into bed and then laid down to try and sleep myself. My hips kept aching! Once I was lying in bed I started to realize that these aches were coming and going at fairly regular intervals. It was about 11 PM when I started timing them on my phone. The first two were only about 5 minutes apart. Then another one five minutes after that and another few after that. I got up to go to the bathroom and although my water didn't break I definitely felt like we needed to start thinking about getting to the hospital.

I timed a few more contractions before I finally woke Thomas up and said, "I think it's time to go honey, we need to get to the hospital!" He jumped out of bed and started getting ready. On the drive we had Christmas music on the radio and Maria Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You was on the radio. We both chuckled that all we wanted for Christmas was our baby.

When we arrived at the hospital the contractions felt like they were right on top of each other. I kept timing them with my phone and could barely get the timer to two minutes before another one hit. I was still in a bit of denial that I was actually in labor at this point. I was assuming that they would check my progress and tell us to go home again. I just thought there is no way this will go so smoothly, this can't possibly be happening.

Well, they checked me and sure enough I was in full on labor! The nurse initially said I was dilated to a three but I heard her tell another nurse that I had come in at a four. I was shocked! I was basically a zero just a few hours earlier!

The contractions were getting really painful by this point. I would say still not as bad as having kidney stones though. At least with contractions you get a tiny break between each one and at the end of it all you know you'll have a baby to hold. With kidney stones all you get to show for the days of pain is a tiny grain of sand. Don't get me wrong, it was plenty painful and I was starting to have a hard time keeping it together. 

The anesthesiologist came in around 2 AM to get the epidural going. It went really quickly and relatively painlessly . Before I knew it my legs were starting to feel like they were full of sand. I could have kissed that anesthesiologist! I laid down and tried to get a little rest. By then it was about 3 in the morning. The only thing was that every contraction sent charlie horses down the back of my left leg. The baby had loved sitting on that hip all through my pregnancy and he was blocking the epidural from numbing that leg just right. They upped the epidural and had me roll over to my other side and within minutes the baby was off of the nerve and I was able to actually get a little sleep in relative comfort. Just writing that makes me so grateful for modern medicine!

The nurses came in to check me every once in a while and I continued to progress rather quickly. By about 7:30 AM I was at a 9 and they came to break my water a few minutes later. They said at 8:30 we'd start pushing. By the time 8:30 rolled around I was more than ready to really start getting that baby out. The nurse told me an average time to push was 1.5-2 hours. With that in mind we started in on it.

Thomas held my right leg though each contraction and the nurse held my left. At first I really didn't know what to do. It took a while to understand exactly how to push, where I needed to focus my energy and how many pushes I could get into one contraction. Most of the time I could do four pushes but sometimes I would just run out of energy on that last one. In my mind I kept singing the Primary song I Love to See the Temple. I don't know why, it was just the only song that I could think of. I thought so many times about Mary, the mother of Jesus too. It must be the time of year or something but she was definitely on my mind. How she ever gave birth in a stable is beyond me.

At some point they gave me an oxygen mask which made my mouth dry as cotton but helped me feel a little stronger. My hands were hurting from pulling on my knees and I sometimes got queasy if Thomas fed me too many ice chips. All I wanted was ice chips, I was so thirsty!

At one point I looked at the clock (something I had tried not to do too much while pushing) and saw that it was 9:45 AM. I remember praying a lot while in labor but at that moment I told Heavenly Father that I wasn't sure I could do this for much longer. In 45 minutes it would have been 2 hours of pushing and that was all I had planned on since that is what the nurse said was to be expected. I sort of made a deal right then that I would push until 10:30 but after that I wasn't sure I could do any more.

I remember the doctors and nurses telling me how each push was moving the baby and as I felt the progress it gave me more determination to keep going. I think some of those last pushes were the hardest ones, I was exhausted and just ready to see my baby already!

The end seemed to come all at once. There was one last great push before the doctor told me to wait. The baby's head was out and then all of a sudden the rest of him was too. They whisked him over to the warmer to suck out his lungs- there was a bit of meconium in my water when they broke it and they were making sure he didn't inhale any. Thomas trimmed the umbilical cord and I watched as they got him all cleaned up and weighed. He was 8 lbs 4 oz, bigger than I thought he'd be.

I can't get over the look on Thomas' face

Just look at those lips!

Then the most amazing moment in my whole life- they laid my little baby on my chest. I could hardly believe my eyes! He had so much hair and he was so tiny! People always talk about how it feels to hold your baby for the first time and although I had imagined it many times it's something you can't wrap your head around until it happens to you. It's overwhelming and so normal all at once. From that very first moment it's just seemed like he'd always been with us, life before our baby just melted away and I don't think I have ever been happier.

We got to spend a couple hours in the delivery room recovering, eating lunch and just staring at our boy. He was so content and so were we.

When all was said and done the whole labor and delivery thing wasn't as traumatic as I thought it would be. Maybe I'd just heard so many horror stories about days long labor and awful anesthesiologist that I assumed that was what I'd experience. I can't say it was the most enjoyable thing I've ever done but I had a really positive experience overall. When you get a baby at the end of all that pain and discomfort it really throws things into perspective.

We are just so in love with this boy and over the moon to have him part of our family.