Three Weeks Old

Lincoln is three weeks old today. Daniel says it only feels like a week since he's been born but with everything that has happened plus the lack of sleep from nighttime feedings, it definitely feels like 3 weeks to me :) We have really enjoyed getting to know Lincoln a little better. He's a sweet little boy who has been smiling in his sleep since he was a few days old. He even laughs in his sleep. It's so funny to hear/watch such a little baby laughing. He must have pretty funny dreams. We've gotten him to smile a few times while awake but we're never ready with the camera.

One of the things I love most is that he is very cuddly. He LOVES to be snuggled. He sleeps best when held which makes it a little difficult to get things done around the house. Thank goodness for slings!

Lincoln rarely cries which is very nice. The only exception is when we change his diaper. He really hates having his diaper changed. Stephen always loved having his diaper changed so this is a new thing for us. The good thing is that when he falls asleep while nursing and I can't wake him up, I just change his diaper and he's good to go.

I think he just hates being naked which means he also really hates bath time. He screamed through his first bath and couldn't be consoled until he was wrapped in a towel. Since then he has gotten slightly better with each bath but it's definately not his favorite activity.

He looked a lot like Stephen for the first week or so but now he's starting to get his own look. We're excited for his looks and personality to develop more and more as the days pass.

I love dressing him in holiday attire - here's a montage of my favorite outfits in the order I like best:

First Snowman!

We awoke yesterday morning to a load of good packing snow. After it warmed up a little in the morning I couldn't resist the temptation of a little romp in the snow with Stephen.

As we rolled a big ball for the base of our snowman, I realized this was Stephen's very first snowman building experience so we ran in and got the camera.

We had a great time building the snowman but his interest began to wain before we had time to find materials for eyes and smile, etc. So I just used the leaves that we picked up as we rolled for the eyes and called it good. (These pics are a little small but if you click on them, they'll get bigger).

Stephen gave the snowman a big hug and then proceeded to knock him down. Gotta love boys!
After we played with the snowman pieces, Stephen and I went to an untouched area of the front yard and made snow angels. Not only was it Stephen's first time making snow angels it was my first time too :)

Stephen & Lincoln

So how is Stephen handling the addition of Lincoln to our family? Much better than we had expected. We attribute the ease of the transition to having Grandma Earl here showering attention on Stephen so he doesn't feel left out.

At this point, Stephen is really enjoying having a baby around and refers to him as "my baby Lincoln." He asks to hold him quite often - 'course it only lasts like 8 seconds at the most :) He loves to give Lincoln "hugs" which basically means that Stephen lays his head somewhere near Lincoln's body (it's rather comical to watch all the creative positions he gets himself into). Stephen giggles at all of Lincoln's squeaks and burps and when Lincoln is fussy Stephen gets in really close and says, "It's OK Lincoln, it's OK. No cry - HAPPY!"

We realize that all of this might change when Grandma Earl goes home but our fingers are crossed that Stephen will always enjoy his little brother.

Delirium

We had been home from the hospital for a couple of days and everything seemed to be getting back to normal. Then as I was getting ready for bed I started feeling a little "chilled." I figured it was because we had forgotten to turn the heat up. But then it got worse and then I'm told I said some pretty crazy things. Seems I had a temperature of 104. I took medication to try to bring it down but it would only work for a little while and then shoot back up. I don't remember much except that I kept asking Daniel for his belly measurements. He kept telling me that I was delirious but I was confident that I wasn't because it made so much sense to me. I remember explaining very carefully that we needed the measurements because we were moving to a new house and our bedroom was rather small. I needed to know how big his belly was so I could calculate the volume to see if he could fit in our room. Since everyone was pretty concerned about the fever it was good I could bring some comic relief to a stressful situation by being temporarily insane.

The next day I still had the fever and felt absolutely awful - I thought it was just a flu and it would pass in 24 hours but Daniel was insistent that we call my OB. It's a good thing we did, they had me come in immediately. I must have looked as bad as felt because a couple nurses apologized for not recognizing me. One sweet nurse came in and held me for at least 5 minutes as I sobbed. It's been a long time since I was that sick.

My OB said that I had endometritis which is an infection of the uterine lining. He said that I was bad enough that he considered sending me to the hospital. I was so happy when he decided that he would try the outpatient treatment first as long as I promised to call in if my symptoms worsened in the slightest. I was sooooo relieved not to have to go to the hospital again. Fortunately, my body responded well to the outpatient treatment and in a few days I was feeling like myself again. In times past, they calculate that endometritis was responsible for 16% of the maternal mortality rate. Thank goodness for modern medicine!

Baby Blues

Lincoln has been such a good little baby except for one little bad habit - he occasionally stops breathing. He stopped breathing for a bit when he got stuck in a gag reflex on n the hospital, but then the day we were supposed to leave the hospital he had a full on "blue spell" that lasted over a minute. It was very scary. The night before his blue spell, the nurse had talked to us about what to do if our baby ever turned a "dusky blue" color. While she was talking I thought to myself, "I wonder what dusky blue looks like?" Well I definitely found out and it's not a color I like at all.

The weird thing is that just a couple hours after his blue spell they went ahead and released us from the hospital and we came home. A few hours later he stopped breathing again. I was stressed to say the least. How would we ever sleep? We'd have to take turns watching him all night long.

We called the pediatrician and he was very upset because they had never notified him about the breathing problems. He said he never would have let them release us if he knew, so he met us at the hospital and checked us all into the pediatric ward.

The worst part of the evening was all the blood work they had to do to discover if there was some type of infection causing the apnea. They kept trying veins but they were so small they couldn't use them very well. At the end of a very long hour, Lincoln had bruised hands and arms and they had only filled half of the vials. After they left I scooped up my little babe and wept with him.

Next came x-rays and hooking him up to a monitor. The monitor was actually rather nice. We could see his oxygen levels, every time he took a breath as well as his heart rate. The alarm went off occasionally through the night, half the time it was a false alarm and at other times Lincoln just needed a little stimulation to get breathing again.

The bed they put him in was huge! He looked so tiny in that big crib. They had a nice bed for me and a tiny recliner for Daniel to sleep in. Needless to say, I slept better than Dan did that night.

The next day he did much better - the monitor didn't go off very much at all and all of his tests came back ok. I rocked the baby and daddy worked on his laptop until the doctor came to see us. He diagnosed Lincoln with reflux induced apnea. Stephen had reflux as well, but he was always a good breather :) So, the pediatrician put Lincoln on the same medication that helped Stephen and prescribed an apnea monitor for us to take home. The monitor has given us a lot of peace of mind. Sometimes new babies breathe so shallow you wonder if they are breathing at all. It's nice just to look over at the monitor and see the little flashing light that tells you that he is actually breathing. After taking an infant CPR course, we were finally released that evening and came home for keeps :)

Poor Stephen had seen very little of mommy and daddy over the last few days. Luckily for him and the rest of us, Grandma Earl showered him with attention. We're so glad she's been able to stay so long.

Lincoln has been doing extremely well since the hospital stay. To the right is a picture we took a week after his blood tests were done. His little hands still look bruised but they are healing up very nicely. The apnea monitor goes off very rarely and we haven't had any more blue spells. It looks like we'll only need the monitor for a couple more weeks. We're so grateful for all our family and friends who remembered us in their prayers. We feel so blessed.