a little hectic

We are 6 weeks in to being a family of four and I can say so far, it has been nothing like I was expecting.  I was thinking I'd be bringing home this adorably cute baby who would eat, sleep, and poop.  Sure he's adorably cute.  Yes - he eats, sleeps and poops.  But I was forgetting one huge thing.  He screams!!  ALL.THE.TIME!  If he isn't being held, he is screaming.  Even when he's being held, he's screaming.  I had beautiful visions of Zachary having tummy time while I did arts and crafts with Samantha.  How many times has that happened, you ask?  0.  Yes, zero.  I feel like I have been neglecting poor Samantha the past 6 weeks.  I know eventually we will find a groove and things will get normal again.  Hopefully it will happen sooner rather than later, or else I'm going to be one bald mama from pulling all my hair out.  On Monday after almost 24 hours of not eating, we got Zachary into the pediatrician and put onto Pepcid to help with acid reflux.  Since then his spitting up has improved slightly, the screaming has improved slightly as well.  But he still screams a lot!  Thankfully Samantha has been taking it all in stride and happily plays by herself and finds things that I can do with her while holding the baby.  She helps soothe Zach by covering him with blankets and sticking the paci in his mouth...and then promptly removing said blanket and paci once he is finally calm!  I'll say that for now, the stressful days are far greater than the non-stressful days, but I love them all the same.  I'd take all the stressful days in the world to have my two beautiful babies.  Eventually, once things settle down, I WILL post regularly, I promise!  But for now, I just try to survive the day with all of us in one piece.

And then there were 4...

Wow, I really suck at updating, huh?  I was all set to get back into the swing of blogging and then Zachary happened, lol!  Back on December 4th I requested an ultrasound to check fluid levels since they had been low a few weeks prior.  Although my doctor felt that everything was okay, to please me, he let me get the ultrasound.  Turns out, it was a good thing I asked.  I went immediately from the doctor to the hospital for the scan where we found out my levels were 5.3 - even lower than they were with Samantha when I was rushed to an induction.  Thankfully this time, they let me go home to get my bags and get childcare for Samantha taken care of.  I arrived at the hospital around 2:00pm and the induction got started.  I needed to get prostin gel because my cervix wasn't favorable and after 2 doses I was in full blown labor much to everyones surprise.  I ended up laboring so quickly that I couldn't get an epidural and my OB didn't even make it to the hospital in time for the birth.  Zachary was born on December 5th, 2012 at 3:46 am, just 26 minutes after my water broke.  He was 6 pounds 15 ounces and 20 1/3 inches long.  It turns out the cord was wrapped around his neck 3 times and there was a small rupture in my placenta which may account for the super fast delivery.  Even through all the pain, I am thrilled to be able to say I have given birth naturally.  (Well without the epidural.  I did have a small narcotic about 4 hours before he was born, but it had worn off by the time I was pushing.)  Then a little over a week after the birth I started having some new symptoms and went back to the doctor.  Even though I mostly felt fine my doctor took a swab and again, it was a good thing he did.  The following week I got a call that I had an e. coli infection in my uterus.  Fun, no?  I was on antibiotics for a week which was less than pleasant since I am breast feeding and was unable to feed him for 6 hours after taking the medicine.  Thankfully I was able to pump bottles for him and he had no troubles switching back and forth between bottle and breast.  Zach is now 5 weeks old and doing amazing.  We are so thrilled he is here and he has been a welcome addition to our family.

Tomorrow I will post an update about Samantha and then an update on Zachary!!