And we're out!!!

Kind of. I instilled a schedule last Thursday. Baby Wise style, I guess. We had been trying a loose form of it but no crying it out used. So we started a 2.5 to 3 hour eat, play, nap schedule. It worked! At night, we got 4 and 3 hour stretches from start to start of night feedings. We woke up feeling close to human on Saturday and decided to go out to eat and my favorite breakfast spot because it is always empty, is a large open area (no germs) and it's super close. One of the things it has going for if (being empty) turned out to be its demise. We pull up and the darned restaurant closed down. But it turned out there was an equally empty Mexican food restaurant in the back of the shopping center. We had a lovely brunch and Reid slept the whole time. It was great to be out somewhere besides physical therapy! I even had 1/2 of a mimosa...!

The coolest part of lunch was when the greeter asked us if we needed a sling for the carrier. Why, yes we do. Because that's what parents with a baby in a carrier need. It felt so surreal!

Ok, enough about us. Little Reid updates are:
His cold is much better!
Physical therapy is loosening his neck up and his foot is much better.
We think he weighed 10 lbs, 6 oz as of Monday
He has started spitting up some. In fact, he just lost a whole meal all over me...wondering if that is normal? Most the time it is less than that. Ok now worried...
He is in between newborn and size 1 diapers.
He peed on his physical therapist again this week!
He is sooo sweet when I wake him. He gets rowdy if he wakes himself, lol.
His hair is looking red!!
He loves to eat and finds comfort in it. So much so he has milk blisters on his lips. Which means I spend a lot of time in my breastfeeding chair!
Reid is 3 weeks old.
Pics from our outing below.
*It has only taken me 5 days to write this post a little at a time. And at this point the schedule is a little rocky! Poor Reid had a rough day yesterday! Hoping for a better more restful day today.

An Aunt Meredith's Account...

Mike's sister, Meredith, is the original blogger of the family.  She has three beautiful sons that Michael and I love like our own children; her blog has let us follow their endeavors before we moved back to Dallas and even now when we can't make important events we can relive them through her posts.  I absolutely love her writing style and honesty about raising a family and being an all around wonderful person (not that she writes that she is one, but one scan of her blog and you'll know why I love her so dearly and declare her just about perfect).  Like Anne, she wrote a beautiful account of Reid's birth.  Please check it out below. 

http://countyourblessings.typepad.com/count_your_blessings/2011/04/reid-michael-robinson.html

Hopefully, I'll write my own story at some point!  My pictures don't compare though.  Michael took some great ones, but we were kind of "in the action"!

Love...

And just when you thought...

things were kind of leveling out. I mean big guy turns two whole weeks tomorrow. He is back above birth weight. His skin color ranges from white boy to crimson when mad (no more yellow). And he had started to kind of like sleeping in his crib. Then two nights ago Reid's nose started sounding like a turbo jet. We broke out the humidifier and the saline drops, held him all night on Sat. and Sun. so he could drain. But we still took him to the doctor today to find out he has a cold. This little thing has been so sheltered and cared for; how could he have a cold? Maybe it was the hospital visits for jaundice checks. Or maybe it was physical therapy. I didn't realize his little immune system wouldn't kick in until 6 weeks. Sooo, please pray little guy doesn't get a fever. He had just a tiny fever today but just a smidge low grade.

Also please pray for mommy. Michael leaves on a business trip tomorrow. He's only gone two days and one night but that seems like an eternity especially now knowing that Reid is under the weather and his sleep deprived mom will be in charge of making decisions even though she is exhausted. My mom will be here so at least there will be another adult in the house!

Reid also had physical therapy today. To say the least, he does not like it. He kept with tradition and peed on the therapist again. How, we do not know! We diaper with care! His neck has loosened a bit. When I asked her about the severity of his torticollis she classified it as severe but not the worst that she's seen.

I now eat my words that I'd be glad when he's out in the world and I can hold and care for him and protect him...I mean I am so glad he is here but parenthood is so humbling. I want to protect him from everything but so far the birth canal (caused torticollis) and probably physical therapy (cold bug) have made him ill, two things that are supposed to be a good thing! I don't want to wish away his infancy but I will be glad when he is a little stronger and has an immune system.

Anyhoo, that was our day. I'm laying here with a snotty angel on my chest knowing I'm the luckiest mom in the world because he is God's creation. We were chosen to raise God's son while he is here on earth. What an amazing responsibility to be given!

Torticollis update

Reid started physical therapy for his neck on Wednesday. He has torticollis from being in the birth canal for so long with restricted movement.  Torticollis literally means twisted neck.  He also, to a lesser concern, has a compressed foot which will get therapy as well. To put into perspective how restricted his neck is, he can turn his head to the left about 110 degrees. He can only turn 40 degrees to the right. We have stretches to do at home and spend time each day on our tummies and flexing feet.

The physical therapist believes it may take close to a year of treatment...2 to 3 times per week.  Say what?? Mind you Michael travels during the week...it's a little daunting to think that we have make the therapy that many times per week but of course we're ready to do anything for him.  There is a chance his foot my have to be splinted and even crazier that his misshapen head may have to be banded or helmeted as it was too stuck in the birth canal for over 6 weeks.

I am intentionally staying away from the subject of how I feel about this as a mom...it breaks my heart.  That post is for another, less hormonal, day. For today, I am so grateful that we have a huge amount of PT sessions allowed by insurance and that we only have a $10 co-pay per session. I truly feel God's protection because these sessions could be anywhere from $10 to $15 k if we didn't have so many sessions allowed.  Thank you Lord and thank you, United.

Reid managed to pee on the therapist, need to stop and nurse and have a mjor blowout to conclude our first session! Ahhh, the joys of being new born...

Please pray for a successful rehabilitation of Reid's neck and foot. We also pray that he be spared of having to be banded or wearing a helmet as we can only imagine that neither option is comfortable for our little guy.

How cool is it that there are pediatric physical therapists out there to help our baby???

An Aunt Anne Account...

of Reid's arrival!

My sister-in-law, Anne, wrote a lovely blog post about Reid's birth day!  She's super clever, crafty, stylish and pregnant too!  You'll like her blog.  Especially the post about my kiddo.  :)

http://preppy-bohemian.blogspot.com/2011/04/reids-birthday-april-5-2011.html

Jaundice Update

Reid's biliruben came back much lower after yesterday's bloodwork. Yay!  No more re-checks as long as he keeps eating well. We start physical therapy today for his neck torticollis. He ate alllllll day yesterday so we take that as a good sign (although he was also awake all day, lots of the night and had upset tummy...we're hoping this is due to the supplementing which we're done with now).  He's still the cutest baby on the block.  This pic is Reid protesting another heel prick!

Reid is here!

We welcomed Reid Michael Robinson on April 5th at 12:10 pm. He weighed 8 lbs and 12 oz and was 19.75 inches long...his labor & delivery was the  most wonderful memory of both our lives. He is the most perfect thing I've ever seen and I love him with all my heart.  It's hard to explain but the little guy is like an extension of his daddy and loving one of them just strengthens my love for the other one...ahhh, it's amazing.

There have been some challenges since our time in the hospital.  In fact, it's been a whirlwind since our discharge on Thursday. We found out that Reid was jaundice right as we were leaving the hospital & that he would need to be retested on Friday. Physically I had a very hard afternoon on Thursday once home...it kind of set us off in an alarmed fashion at home between the jaundice and my ailment.  Friday we found out that Reid had lost too much weight and that his jaundice had worsened. Immediately we began supplementing with formula but his lethargy from the jaundice made it all but impossible to get him to wake to eat (except at night!! he was ready to party all night, lol...). We had to retest again on Saturday and it did get better and he gained some weight back. We focused on feedings and sunlight Sunday and I'm happy to report his weight is much better as of Monday (thank you milk coming in). We have to have his jaundice tested again Tuesday as well as his one week pku screening.  So that means we've been at the hospital for bloodwork or doctor's office Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday.  BUT, we are on the mend and Reid is doing much better.  Thanks be to God.

We'll stay on top of the jaundice and weight gain but we'll also add in some physical therapy this week because little Reid has torticollis in his neck. He also has some compression on one foot and one side of his face. The compression is from being so big with no room to move! We think it should go away in time but we'll get it checked out.  The torticollis is probably from Reid being in the birth canal and so low for the last 6 weeks. His little neck is just kind of stuck in one position. Sooo, the moral if these two paragraphs is that Reid's mommy and daddy have been a little worried about him!

I have been awful at returning phone calls, emails and texts until he got better. However today I started carrying my phone closer and resuming normal household 'stuff'. I know we'll look back on this first week one day when he's really sick or facing a big challenge and laugh at ourselves...when we were 31, thought that wanting a baby so bad would make us better parents and instead it just makes us crazy first time parents!

I can't explain how much we love him. I felt like I knew him so well in the womb and he is exactly like I imagined. We're already great friends. He was meant to be right here right now...

More pics to come!

Food Crawl!

What should an expectant mother and father do when they are mere days away from giving birth? Most would probably do something super productive. The Robinsons, however, prefer to eat. Friday night we had date night at Pappasitos as I was craving their chicken fajitas. No other queso or fajitas would do. Period. It was fantastic...the people we encountered were odd, though. Some lady basically attacked Michael to give him a hug and tell him he was cute and then gave him a peppermint. Our waiter might have been the moodiest person I've ever encountered and every person that visited the bathroom as much as me was drunk as a skunk! But it made us very happy to bring our full bellies back to the burbs when we were finished.  We had a great time together!

Yesterday at lunch Michael made me his "Made with Love" sandwich. For those of you who do not know, Michael makes the best sandwich known to man.

World famous, "Made with Love" Sandwich

The Chef

Last night, we were supposed to go to III Forks for my big steak dinner (I mean, really?? Am I five years old?).  However, I just couldn't get it together or bring much of an appetite so we decided to stay in and grill instead.  We had fresh salmon, corn and black bean succotash and fresh green beans.  It was yummy.  I even had a few sips of white wine...Later in the evening, just when I was feeling like I had made very healthy choices during the day, my hubby brought me vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and bananas.  Mmmmm, I gladly ate it up! 

We always eat this healthy, lol.

This morning we had planned to go to church.  Then our procrasination got the best of us and we wound up at my favorite little breakfast dive called the Mecca.  It is on Harry Hines...if you leave with your hubcaps you are in luck.  However, the blueberry pancakes are worth the drive even if you have to donate your hubcaps or billfold to get out of there.

Mecca!

Yet again, we anticipated going to III Forks tonight but we're both still full from breakfast so we're just going to hang out.  (Plus we have lots of leftovers from our 2 day gorging!)

We have our last OB appointment at 2:45pm tomorrow and we check in to the hospital at 5am on Tuesday!  Everyone keeps reminding us to make the best of these last few days and I think we are just in our own little way of being together and talking about the future...as in what's for dinner and how we are going to raise this boy!