3 Weeks Old

Baby Mac, you must have known that today you were turning 3 weeks old because you stayed awake from 1-4 am for a party!

You are eating well, spitting up about 75% of all feedings, and everything else seems to be working great. You eat all the time which means mommy is making a lot of milk so hopefully I will get a lot stored up before I have to leave in 3 weeks to go back to work.

While you were my biggest baby you have also been my easiest recovery. You did amazing on our road trip and you take a bottle like a champ.

You don't like to sleep anywhere except our arms. (Duh! What baby likes to sleep alone?)

You are a mamma's boy and very slowly starting to tolerate your daddy.

Your eyes are still blue and your hair is still brown.

You like your cloth diapers so far and aren't fitting into newborn clothes anymore.

You fall asleep every time we get in the car.

You like your pacifier but sucking on your arm or fist will do in a pinch.

Your sisters look for you first thing in the morning and wont go to bed without kissing you goodnight.

You hate bath time, which happens at least once a day to get spit up out of your ear, hair, neck, face, body, etc.

You have three faces that you make.  The feed me I am hungry face, the grumpy face, and the content face. Not very many gas smiles for you yet.  

 grumpy face above

Content face above

It sure seems like it has been longer than 3 weeks, but maybe that is because we knew you before you were born and you just fit so perfect in our family. We love you baby Mac.

Newborn previews

 We had newborn pictures taken when Baby Mac was 9 days old. I have seen some of the previews and I can't handle how amazing they are. I don't want to ruin the surprise of the newborn announcement just yet (are you getting ready Mallory to make me an announcement?) But here is just a snippet of the amazing pictures. 

Check out my photographer in Phoenix at http://www.poshcreative.com/ 

Okay, fine, just this one more of Daddy and his baby boy. 

How do they compare?

Ryann had a skinnier face than Cara and her hair was more blonde.

Cara had a more "filled out look" (or so I thought) and slightly red hair

Mac with his chubby cheeks and brown hair. 

It looks for now that they all have the same nose and lips and hair line (widows peak). It also looks like they will all have blue eyes even though I know it is too early to tell for sure with Mac. 

We weighed Mac this morning and he is 9lbs 13.5oz. My big boy is growing. 

Swimming at Grandma Great's

While in Napa we visited with Grandma and Grandpa Great. Mac enjoyed his time being snuggled.

 Ryann enjoyed the diving board and cannon balls!

 Neither girl would let me put their hair in a pony tail this trip, and I really didn't have the hands to do it anyway, so the enjoyed hair in their faces the entire time we went swimming. 

Train Town Part 2

Cara and Dean had a lot of fun together at train town. They had to ride on the train sitting next to each other. They both had to feed the same goats, both had to pump the water together, both explored the "jail" together, and basically they had so much fun doing things together. 

 Ryann on the other hand was typical Ryann. She did all the exploring herself. She also brought her leap pad so that she could take pictures of the llamas, goats, and sheep. She took pictures of the fountain and the carousel. 

 Both of these girls are so much fun and it is so neat to watch how differently their personalities are showing through each day. It makes me wonder how little Mac will grow up.... but not too fast of course!

Train Town

 We took the kids to train town for a quick trip. We rode the train, fed the animals, and rode the carousel. 

 It was perfect weather and Mac did great. Thanks for the fun trip grandma!

Wagner Farms

We love going to Napa and spending time with grandma and grandpa, cousins, and friends. We especially love picking blackberries, 

 Playing with cousin Dean in his garden, 

 Looking at all the things growing (like the pumpkins!), 

 having snail races, being silly, feeding the goats, 

 and trying to catch the chickens.

We also spent a lot of time picking plums so that grandma could make some jam. 

The plum tree fell over because it was too top heavy and we didn't want the plums to rot, so picking them was necessary. For some reason the girls thought it was more fun to throw the plums and apples over the fence to feed the goats, but they were so cute doing it that we let them go for it.

Road Trip

I am not sure who takes their 2 week old on a 12+ hour road trip?

I guess we do. In my defense it is stinking hot in Arizona and I am not going to be able to take any time off for probably the rest of the year! We also split the trip into 2 days to make it tolerable. 

We talked about going to California on Saturday. I didn't feel good about leaving on Sunday for some reason, but then on Monday I felt like it was a great idea. We packed Monday morning and headed out Monday afternoon. 

 We told Cara to bring a box of toys and she seriously brought like 3 stuffed animals is all. Nothing to color, or anything else to play with. Thankfully we had the DVD player.  Ryann on the otherhand is a little better at packing for herself and she brought a lot of things to entertain her. Especially since she was in the way back seat and we couldn't interact much with her. 

 Baby Mac did pretty well. I sat between him and Cara for part of the trip. I would pump and feed him a bottle (which he did excellent with) or I would nurse him when we made a stop for food or gas. 

 This stellar man drove the whole way and I even got a couple naps because of his quick thinking to bring a pillow for me!

 Cara obviously didn't need a pillow. Wow. Not sure how that is comfortable, but whatever. I think we need to invest in some neck pillows for these kiddos. 

Happy Birthday Grandma Mingo

We celebrated Grandma Mingo's birthday this past weekend with lunch, some princess candyland and some swimming in her backyard. 

I am not sure who had more fun, the girls or Grandma Mingo from laughing at the girls.  They can be quite the riot. 

He is GINORMOUS

Here is a cute picture I had to include of my Dad and Midwife, the ones who helped deliver Mac. 

 Here is the obligatory homebirth photo with the dad weighing the baby with the fish scale. 

 Seriously, when Jen told me that he was 9lbs 6oz I laughed because I knew she was wrong. I said, don't you mean 8lbs 6oz? She laughed right back at me and even took a picture to prove it. 

Like I said before, I had NO IDEA that he was so much bigger than the girls. I always asks my patients if the baby is bigger or smaller than their previous ones. Most of them can tell if they are bigger or smaller. I knew he was bigger, but I didn't think he was that bigger.  Can you tell I am still in shock?

He dropped down to 8lbs 13oz at 2 days old, but then by 6 days he was back to 9lbs 2oz, and today we are going in to get his weight checked again to see how he is doing. 

Visitors

We have been blessed with some fun visitors. 

Grandma loved matching you in her stripes. 

 Grandpa Cochran didn't think he could remember how to hold a newborn.

 Grandma Great, or Gigi, remembered all right, here it looks like he is trying to smile at her!

 Then we tried to get Cara to sit still for a picture, but that wasn't happening... come on, we got better pictures with a 3 day old than we did with a 4 year old. 

 Ryann was more than happy to sit with them though because Grandpa great likes to count your ribs to make sure they are all there. 

Also Auntie Erin came to visit, but for some reason I don't have a good picture of them both today... but this is a pretty cute face Mac is constantly making. 

1 Week Old

In your first week we have had lots of birthday presents. Here is a cute one from cousin Dean (the outfit and Sophie the giraffe)

You have big yawns.

You are almost back to birth weight (at 6 days old you were 9lbs 2oz)

 You have only had 1 bad night.

You sleep with mommy on the couch after that bad night. 

You eat great and a lot! I can sometimes feed you for more than an hour straight.

You will take a pacifier. The brand hasn't mattered so far.

You spit up. You never act like you are in pain, so I haven't changed my diet at all, but you do spit up after most feedings. I think it is because you secretly like baths and like to watch your mom and dad run to clean you up. 

 You have had 2 blow outs from your diaper. We are struggling to keep you in size newborn diapers because we want to finish off what we have. We haven't even used our cloth diapers yet because we want to use up the disposable ones.

You love babywearing and the Moby wrap.  You nurse in there and you sleep great in there.

In the next couple days we will take you to get your weight checked at the pediatrician and then to get your PKU testing done at the lab.  

Those are your only adventures in your near future. 

Well, that and Costco. We are out of laundry detergent.

After the Fact

 Both girls were pretty excited to be there for the birth of "Baby Mac"

 (Cara won't call him just Mac, it is always Baby Mac)

Ryann did tell me at one point she was a little scared when I said "I can't do this" but then she told me that she knew I could and it really wasn't scary after that.  

 His face was a little bruised because of how he was born, but it quickly resolved by the next day and when we took him into the pediatrician to check for jaundice, he came back clean and clear. Thankfully we didn't need to go back for a second heel stick. 

We are pretty happy to have this little man in our world. He has had a lot of visitors and we are being well fed and taken care of. 

We have only had 1 really rough night, but most haven't been that bad so far.

Welcome to the World (part 2)

Time gets blurry for me after 8:00 when my midwife and her student show up. I was in some good labor at this point and I didn't have my cell phone to write things down. I do know that I was really concerned to not go poop in the tub (sorry for TMI, but this is my birth story). While it would really not have mattered to Rich if I did, he sort of freaked out a the thought of the fish net to scoop out poop if it did happen. Since I was concerned about this I noticed any time I felt like I had pressure. So, a couple times when I had pressure I would check myself to see if I could get up and use the bathroom. 

Student midwife Rose

My midwife Jen checking his heartbeat

The next time I checked myself I was 7cm. I think it was my sister Devyn on Facetime at that point who asked what I was doing. I laughed as I told her I was checking myself. Then I think someone in the room started laughing about how funny/strange/weird it is to have a patient who knows too much about themselves and labor. Some people who do homebirths, and even hospital births with my patients, decline to have vaginal exams, but that really wasn't me, I wanted to know what was going on. So after I checked myself I got up and went to the bathroom. By the time I got back to the bathroom I was feeling sort of nauseated, but never threw up. I also noticed after I got back that I stopped listening to my sisters on Facetime, and really stopped interacting with almost everyone unless it was to have them help me or to ask them to do something for me. 

During this time the girls were sent downstairs to watch TV. I had spent a lot of time preparing them for this birth. We talked a lot about it, we watched videos and I also reassured them a lot that that they didn't have to watch him be born if they were scared or afraid. Both girls said they wanted to be there and Rich told me later that during the last hour or so Cara had come upstairs at least 3 times to see if it was time for Baby Mac to be born yet. If you know my girls and TV you know it is a big deal for them to leave the TV for any reason, so when I started pushing I did have them come up to be there. 

I ended up checking myself one more time and I was 8cm and my water hadn't broken. Around 9:15 or so I started pushing on my own and I started to feel his head come down so I had my parents come back in the room. I also made sure Rich turned on the video camera- since my birth with Ryann we forgot to turn on the camera until she was born, and my birth with Cara got recorded over by her first bath- it was pretty important to me to have that recorded. I haven't watched the video yet, but it was on a tripod, so we will see how well it turned out. Once I get it uploaded to the computer I get to send it to my sister Ashley who wasn't able to be connected to us during the birth. :) And I guess any of my other siblings or in laws who want to see it (Pete???)

Once I started pushing I felt my water break. My midwife and I announced it at the same time. As I kept pushing I realized that he was a lot bigger than Cara. I was expecting maybe an 8lb baby because he felt bigger, but I had gained less weight than with Cara so I just felt that he wasn't a lot bigger, but some. My ultrasound the day before estimated 8lbs 7oz. When he wasn't coming out faster than Cara, as most 3rd babies do, I was starting to wonder just how much bigger he was. I tried pushing in a couple different positions. I pushed a couple times on my hands and knees, then in a more traditional way, and finally I was using my doula and Rich to help lift me and my mom was helping hold up my head to give me more force. 

Turns out his head was a lot bigger than Cara's. He was also coming down with his hand by his face which can also make pushing a lot harder. Once his head was about half way out I was able to look down and see that he had hair. It looked pretty light to me, but then again most of my patients are Hispanic and their babies have lots of black hair. (Turns out his hair is brown for now)

I finally was able to push out his head but his shoulders didn't slip out very easily. My midwife let me rest for a little while but then reminded me that I still needed to push out his shoulders. I wasn't having a contraction, so I didn't really want to push, but then when I did start pushing I didn't really feel like I was doing anything to get him out. 

Homebirth midwives are a lot more hands off than we typically are in the hospital. So part of us were just waiting for my body to do the rest of the work, but then I started to realize that I needed some help to get him out. If babies in the hospital have their heads out but the rest of the baby isn't out then we have a few maneuvers that we use to get the baby out. I knew this, was thinking about this, and requested my midwife to just "pull him out" a few more seconds and I just yelled for my dad. I will have to listen to the video of it, but I really think I just said, "Dad! Help!" 

My Dad isn't one to interfere or intervene without being asked, but as soon as I said that he was telling me what to do, he jumped in the birth tub and had Mac out within a matter of seconds. I know Mac would have come out fine without my dad there, but it was really nice that he was there and was able to intervene, because I was sooo done.

My midwife joked later that it was our secret plan to get my dad to do his very first waterbirth.  :)

Daniel Richard McCrary Hamilton  or "Mac" was born on July 10, 2013 at 9:30pm.

He weighed in at a whopping 9lbs 6oz (almost 2 pounds bigger than my last baby)

with a head measuring 14inches and a chest of 14.5 inches. 

21.5 inches long

3 days past his due date. 

He was born at home, a waterbirth, with a midwife in attendance. His daddy was there, grandparents were there, his 2 big sisters, a student midwife, 2 aunties electronically, a doula, and a wonderful friend. It was hard and chaotic and peaceful and amazing and wonderful all at the same time.