A lesson learned

Greetings from a tired mommy!

The past few days we have learned a key lesson: naps are a vital part of a babys day and if baby doesn't sleep during the day, it will make for a rough night...the more exhausted baby is the harder it is get baby to sleep! Oh man. Yesterday Eli decided he wanted to take the whole world in and refused to nap for much of the day. After his 630 pm feeding, he stayed awake for about 7 hours. Poor baby was so mad cuz he was so tired but he would not go to sleep! Mommy and daddy tried EVERYTHING in the books to get him to sleep. Finally at 130ish, he fell asleep! Today naptime is going much better.

On Wednesday, I took Eli to the doctor about his circ. He is now on Clindamycin oral antibiotic as well as nystatin cream to treat the infection, which is already looking A TON better. We have also started him on Poly vi sol vitamin supplement and infant probiotics (to help with spitting up) and he gets a dose of mylicon in the evening cuz he gets gassy. Poor guy is on a whole bunch of meds! But he is doing well! He was 8 lbs 6 oz at our appointment so he is gaining and breastfeeding is going wonderful.

Eli will be going on his first big roadtrip in about a week. My dad is flying down on Feb 5 and then we are driving to St Louis together. Eli and I will be spending a little over 2 weeks up there. Cory will be joining us on Feb 16th and we will return to Texas on Feb 22nd. I cannot wait for my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins to get to see Eli. And I know Eli's grandma and grandpa are just itching for him to get up there! Looking forward to this trip!

So we took Eli to Freebirds and Cory ordered an Eli sized burrito LOL. I have added more pictures to his baby album on facebook so click HERE to see pics of Eli from the last week :)

Have a great weekend and blessings to you all!

Special thanks to Great Grandma and G-pa!!

Great Grandma and Grandpa got Eli this swing and he LOVES it :) Special thanks to Great Grandma and G-pa!! This blog post is for you :) Love you both so much!

Love

Mommy and Eli

Welcome to the World, baby Eli

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Happy 2 week birthday ELI!

Ok so when I said I would blog tomarrow, I meant 6 days later... ;)

Eli is doing great! He had a rough first few days but he is doing much better.

We arrived home on the 8th. I was continuing to breastfeed,but noticed on Sunday that he was only having 2 or 3 wet diapers, his mouth was dry and his fontanel was slightly sunken :( My poor baby was dehydrated. So I called his pedi (Dr. King) and got him in asap. Dr King informed me that I needed to pump to quantify how much milk I was making and to ensure that Eli was getting 2 oz (60 ml) of breastmilk at each feeding. He had lost 16% of his weight and was weighing in at 6 lb 8 oz. We were informed that we need to supplement whatever he didn't get from breastmilk with Similac. I was saddened about this :( First, my body wouldn't cooperate and made me preeclamptic and have a c-section and now I couldn't make enough milk for my baby and made him dehydrated! You can imagine the tears I shed. I was beginning to feel like an inadequate mommy :/ And on top of that, we had specifically picked a urologist to do his circumcision. Dr king also informed us that his circ was cut at an odd angle and caused it to get infected! OH MY GOSH! My poor baby :( At this point, I was even more sad cuz I thought I was making a great decision by having a urologist (someone who specializes in that "down under" department" but apparently that didn't work either. So it was a rough few days for mommy. I just felt bad for Eli. So we went home with orders to pump until the next appointment and to put antibiotic ointment on his circ. I also started an herbal supplement called Fenugreek which is suppose to increase milk supply. After starting that and talking with a lactation consultant a few times that week and using her expertise, my milk supply went from 1 0z total to 5 oz! So we didn't have to supplement very long with Similac.

Yesterday was his 2 week follow up. He is no longer dehydrated and in fact, within 24 hours of making sure he had 2 oz each feeding after his first apptment, his symptoms disappeared. (guess it pays off to be a baby nurse!) He weighed 7 lb 10 oz yesterday so he is nearly back to birth weight! His circ is looking much much better. We are continuing to put antibiotic ointment on it and once the infection is completely cleared up, we will take him back to the doc where he will be able to get a better view of the skin (where the urologist cut) to see if we need to see a different pediatric urologist. We are praying that it will heal and we will not have to do anything else. Dr King reassured us that it will heal to look normal, but may need a small skin repair...we just have to see. And I have gotten the clear to pump once a day and breastfeed the rest. No more pumping every feeding! Our plan is to breastfeed exclusively during the day and use our tommy tippee bottles at night so Cory can feed him too.

Eli is a pretty happy, easy baby and for this we are thankful! He is letting us sleep about 4 hours at night before alerting us to the fact that he is hungry or needs a diaper change, and he is on a 3 hour schedule during the day. He loves to look around and take in the world. My favorite moments are when he looks right into my eyes and just blinks sweetly. At least once a day, I tear up a little when he looks at me like that. Looking into the eyes of my baby boy, a life that God, Cory and I created. It is amazing!

Click HERE to see pics of Eli's first 2 weeks at home :)

Happy 2 week birthday, my sweet boy!

A baby is born!

On January 6, 2011, at 8:42 am, a baby was born! Meet Elijah James Farley, our son! He was 7 lbs, 12.9 oz and 21 1/2 inches long!

Let's begin the birth story of Baby Eli.

Eli was due on New Years but had been given us trouble since about 34 weeks. He was threatening to come early and I had threatened signs of premature labor. I went on modified bedrest and early maternity leave in hopes of keeping the little guy in there. Then lo and behold, his due date comes and goes and still no baby! Guess I did a great job of keeping him in there ;)

On Tuesday, January 4, with family in town and ready for a baby, Cory and I go to visit my OB, Dr. Hopkins, and are surprised by the news we hear. We are told that we must induce that night or the next day because I have become pre-eclamptic. Preeclampsia is basically pregnancy induced hypertension, but can lead to eclampsia which is life threatening and causes siezures. The only way to cure it is to have a baby. I had the main symptoms: high blood pressure, protein in my urine and massive amounts of rapid water weight gain. I was so proud of myself for only having gained 33 lbs, then I gained nearly 15 lbs in water weight. In the pictures, you can see that I had blown up to proportions that just weren't good for me! So that night, we went to the hospital at 6 pm to begin induction via cervadel. By Wednesday morning, I was dilated to 1 cm and was contracting quite well. Dr Hopkins came in around 830 am and broke my water and we were ready to get this show on the road so we could meet our baby! That morning, they also started pitocin to make the contractions stronger. Everything was in full swing to have a baby! That afternoon, I had dilated to a 4 and was hurting pretty good at that point but I was determined to not get an epidural til i was in between a 5-7. But sadly, I got stuck at a 4...forever. Dr Hopkins came and saw me that night and said he would allow me to continue to labor through the night as long as me and Eli were ok. He is an amazing doctor and I really appreciate that he let me at least try for a long period of time to have him naturally. The nurses suggested I get the epidural to relax my uterus and that often times that will help the labor progress. Well, 24 hours later and 2 epidurals (none worked!), still no progress. They had to bolus me with pain meds on 2 different occasions becuz my epidural was not working. Eventually, early Thursday morning, they took out my first epidural and put in a new one, which also failed because at 6 am, I was in excruciating back labor...I was in tears...that was probly one of the worst pains I have ever felt in my life but breathing techniques got me thru it.

Dr Hopkins arrived around 8 Thursday morning, January 6, and we both came to the conclusion that 24 hours with my water broken was long enough. The risk for infection was to high. So c-section it was. I had at least 2 big melt downs because I REALLY did not want to have a c-section. I wanted to experience the WORK of having a baby, but the end result is a healthy baby and that is exactly what I have. Cory and I go to the section and I cannot even describe the overwhelming feeling of love when I first heard him cry and especially when I saw him for the first time. AMAZING feeling that only a parent can understand. How is it humanly possible to love someone this much? Oh its indescribable.

Here is an album of pictures from our stay in the hospital. Hope you enjoy meeting baby Eli. Tomarrow I will blog about his first few days of life :)

Meet Baby Eli