My beautiful little girl

We’re very thankful for friends and family who have emailed, called, IM’d, DM’d, texted, etc… You all mean the world to us. Thanks for being a part of this huge day for us.

I could describe the experience in a million words and never quite do it justice. So, there are a few photo galleries here for your perusal. Enjoy!

Tessa’s Birth

Tessa’s First Bath

Tessa’s First Visitors

Thanks again all for your support!

We really appreciate everyone stopping by and showing your support. Susan and Janelle, you guys rock! Tricia is so blessed to have you as Mom and Sis! Jesso – so glad you could come and be with us right afterwards! Cortney, thanks for being a part of this with Tricia and I.

We’ll try to add to this gallery as more visitors come!

 

We sincerely appreciate your thoughts and prayers. It’s been fantastic to get emails, DM’s, IM’s, text messages, and all the other kinds of mails or messages… You all are fantastic. We’ll update you if anything changes!

Ben, Tricia & Isaac

Thanks all,
Ben, Tricia & Isaac

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Thanks for all of your prayers and support – we are excited!

Ben, Tricia & Isaac

The last month has been a lot of fun and has flown by! We have enjoyed getting to know our little man and introducing him to the world. Parenting really is a learning experience. We had our first set of vaccinations today and thankfully he did really well. Of course he cried when they poked and prodded him but he has been a content little boy the rest of the evening. At the appointment he was measuring 24 inches long and 12.4 lbs. We were happy with that considering we had a rough go the first few weeks. Ben and I have really noticed how big he is getting this last week. It seems like he sprouted over night.

Well, here are some milestones, or items that we have learned about our son over the last month.

1. We had some serious bouts of projectile vomiting. For awhile I thought that I (Tricia) was doing something because I seemed to be the one always taking a shower in regurgitated formula but it turned out that Ben got his fair share of showerings too. Thankfully this has subsided the last week or so.

2. Ben suggested about a week ago that we stop sleeping him in his car seat (which we were doing to help with the spitting up). It seemed like when he was gassy he couldn’t work out the gas by kicking his legs when he was in the seat. And Ben was worried about his posture. . .So we made the transition to sleeping on his back in his bed. Of course, this has caused a change in sleep patterns. We were getting at least one 5-6 hour stretch and now we are back to getting up every 4 hours. Still not bad but we are looking forward to the long stretches again! However, his spitting up and gassiness has really improved so it appears that Ben’s suggestion was a good one.

3. He hasn’t really been smiling a whole lot. They say they start smiling socially between 4-8 weeks but we aren’t too worried, it will come. He actually has started more smiling the last couple of days which is turning out to be fun. He really is pretty ticklish too. Ben particularly likes to tickle his lips which usually gets him smiling (probably because he anticipates there may be food coming soon).

4. I can’t resist him when he wears these pj’s! I can’t remember who exactly got these for him but they drive me crazy! He looks and feels like a giant teddy bear. A cute cuddly teddy bear with an adorable cute kissable face. And when he does his little whimper while in these pj’s I practically melt into the floor. I think he knows that he can get away with most anything when he is wearing them!

5. He is holding his head up a lot more these days. He loves to look around. And like most babies he stares at bright lights. Some days I worry that about his eyesight. Is it really good for him to be staring at those bright lights?

For more pictures check out the 2nd month gallery! Clicking on the pictures give you details.

Until next month. . .

I was waiting until I got today’s doctor report but I made an appointment with the lactation consultants at Kettering Medical Center to discuss looking into my low supply issue. They are absolutely fabulous there. I am going in tomorrow (Wednesday) to feed Isaac there so that they can help me figure out how we might remedy the problem. I am excited (yes, excited), perhaps we can get to the bottom of it!

Thanks to everyone that has been praying for our son, we are so grateful!

We have had Isaac home for two weeks now. He is amazing and we are enjoying every moment of having him in our lives. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been huge things to learn or hours and days of frustration and disappointment. I am amazed at all the things that doctors, nurses, and educators assume you know!

For instance, when you are in the hospital, at your nurse home visit, and at the doctor they always ask – how is breastfeeding going? Isaac has always taken well to breastfeeding. He latched on right away, the first hour of life in fact. When he eats it takes a good 45 minutes to get through the feeding and he is usually feeding well. Looking through the breastfeeding books I have he shows all the signs of doing everything right. So when asked this question my answer is always – “He eats like a champ”. Of course, they ask you about stools and wets – that was going pretty well too. But there is a whole slue of other questions they don’t ask, like “is he usually happy after he eats or fussy?”, “does he still seem hungry?”, “do you think he is getting enough milk?”

The one sign that they are getting enough would be weight – here is where we run into problems. Isaac was born 7lbs 14oz, he left the hospital at 7lbs 4.8oz and the next day at a pediatric appointment was 7lbs 3 oz. By week two (September 2nd) he should be back up to his birth weight. At two weeks he was 7lbs 5.5oz. Good that he hadn’t lost more but not good because he needed to gain. So starting last week we got put on a schedule of waking him no matter what every 3 hours and went back on Friday for a weigh in. So there were many sleepless nights. He is normally pretty good but night is a whole other story (which everyone told us was “normal” for a newborn). Starting at around 10pm he would eat and then fuss, scream and cry for a good 30-45 minutes while we tried with exacerbation to get him to sleep. Meanwhile, I am looking at the clock doing the math 45 min of eating + 45 minutes of crying = 1.5 hours of sleep. YIKES!

Well, the weigh in on Friday didn’t go well – despite the strict schedule. He still only weighed 7lbs 5.5oz. So we got put on the strict schedule with an added oz or more of formula after each feeding. So now our schedule looks something like – feed with mom for 45 minutes, take a bottle from dad, while mom continues to pump (in hopes of increasing supply). Still only 1.5-2 hours of sleep but he actually goes to sleep! That alone shaves off 5-10 minutes of crying by mom as she recovers from listening to her little one cry.

We have another appointment on Tuesday (Sept 9) to see if we have put on weight. We are praying. But we think that the adding an oz of formula is really helping. We see a dramatic change in him already. Not in weight (we don’t have a scale at home) but in satisfaction. We really didn’t think he was that fussy before but now that he is getting lots of food he is way more content and so much easier to get to sleep. It is like a whole new child! And whereas I am getting less sleep, at least I can go to bed with the knowledge that he is getting his needs met. I just feel completely sad that my baby was starving for 2 weeks! How upsetting!

So in two weeks I think I have learned more than in 6 years of college. Thanks Isaac! At this rate I should earn my Ph.D. by Christmas!