A Father's Day Gift...

Happy Father's Day, Michael.  Today you received an awesome flash for our camera so you can take even better photos of our boy.

More importantly you got a true giggle session from your son!  Not just a glimmer of a giggle like what we have been getting for a few days, but a true gleeful chuckle!  What a gift.  We have the happiest baby who was just waiting to shine once we got that painful acid reflux under control.  He is the most wonderful gift we could ever hoped to receive.  My thanks is given to God each night for an amazing husband and God's trust for us to raise such a blessing of a child together.

Happy First Father's Day!  I love you more than ever.  And yes, I did get it on video.  :)

Rocking...

I just rocked my 10 week old baby boy to sleep...

I wish I had a picture to share but here's what it looked like: the room was dark except for the night-light of his closet peeking under the closed door, his lullaby was playing on the ipod speakers very quietly, his nap nanny was set up to help fend off the acid reflux, he was swaddled like a little beautiful burrito and his eyes stared into mine until he drifted off to sleep as we rocked to the sway of the lullaby.  Every once in a while I got a little glimmer of a smile before he was fast asleep.  No cries, just a relaxed baby ready to go night-night but not without the comfort of his mommy before bed.

It was heaven.  I think I'll do this every night until he won't let me anymore...

Good call...

Reid turned 6 weeks old yesterday. He also found his arms and went on a sleep strike! We kept thinking...just get to 6 weeks and then everything will level out and we'll find our rhythm. Lol! Reid had other things in mind! Poor guy just swings his arms and legs all night and hits himself in the head no matter now tight the swaddle. All the extra commotion has aggrevated his colic too. So this morning I was feeding him and we were making up with each other for our night time struggles when I got a call from a familiar number that I knew but could not place. I answered it and it was our IVF doctor's office letting us know that they received our announcement and congratulating us on our bundle of joy.  Yep.

Sleepless night? Thank you, Reid, may I have another and another?!  That call was well timed in my sleep deprived state. We tried hard for these sleepless nights and look forward to many more in our future! He's worth every missed zzzz and then some. :-)

Mornings...

Reid usually has his first feeding around 7 or 7:30am. He usually likes to snooze a little after he eats rather than having wake time...I can't blame him. I know I should try to follow Babywise and do an activity, but look at how sweet he is sleeping on my chest! I think for a while, I'll continue to soak these moments up instead of hyperscheduling...

He'll be awake soon enough anyways, lol!

Test

A little different this year...

Ahh, it is Mother's Day.  What a difference a year makes! Last year was so hard knowing that I would one day be a mother...just no idea when God had that planned. I am humbled and grateful that His plan brought our miracle this year.  He was sooooo worth the wait.

Happy Mother's Day to all moms and those who are praying to become moms in God's perfect timing.

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