Malachi's First Month

Malachi's First Month

Wow!!!  I can't believe Malachi is already a month old.  Time has flown by.  What is so weird though, is the first three weeks, didn't seem to fly by.  But then all of a sudden he was a month old and we were taking month old pictures.  Time has flown ever since then.

I have truly enjoyed the first month.  He has done a great job getting on a schedule and sticking to it.  It took us a couple of weeks, but by week 3 we were well on our way to a daily schedule.

Our schedule looks something like this.

7:00- wake up time

7:15-clean diaper and breakfast

8:30- diaper change and back to sleep

11:00- diaper change and lunch

12:30- diaper change and mid afternoon nap

3:00- diaper change and mid afternoon meal

4:30-5:15- diaper change and nap

5:15-5:45-diaper change and play time

5:45-6:30- nap before Daddy gets home

6:30-7:00-play time with Daddy

7:00- Daddy gives you a bath

7:30-swing, bouncy seat, or play mat time, while Mommy and Daddy eat

8:00- Rocking time and sleep

11:00- diaper change, another feeding, and back to bed

3:00-4:00am- diaper change and last feeding of the day

7:00am- another day begins

I think Malachi is about to drop his 3:00-4:00am feeding.  Instead of taking a full 5 ounces, he only will take a couple and then goes straight back to bed.  We are going to try to give him an extra ounce at his 11 o'clock feeding.  I am hoping this will get him through all night.

I have always said I wasn't going to rock my kids to sleep, but...Malachi loves to be rocked!!!  I guess all the constant moving and rocking I did while pregnant has had an effect.  Oh well, I love to rock him.

Malachi had his first official bath at two weeks old.  He looks really big in this photo but I think it's the angle of the camera.

 

Here are some other photos from this month.

Malachi and Daddy's first story.  Malachi has heard this story about once a week since he was conceived.

He loves this giraffe.  Thanks Mimi and Pop!!!

 Malachi had not been sleeping very well on his back.  I know you are not supposed to let babies sleep on their tummies, but we tried it out during nap time for a couple of days before letting him sleep on his tummy at night.  During this experiment I stayed in the den with him, which is where his pack n' play is.  I never left the room.  I discovered he slept the entire 3 hours of his nap, instead of constantly waking up.  He also struggled with breathing and spitting up on his back.  This also disappeared with the tummy sleeping.

I mean look how cute he is on him tummy.  After a couple of days we decided it was OK for him to sleep at night on his tummy.  I was truly OK with this because we have an Angel Care Movement Monitor on top of a video baby monitor.  I of course watched him like a hawk for most of the night, but woke up at 6:00am and realized he hadn't woke up to be fed at 3:00!!  At first I was petrified.  I ran into his room and found a perfect little bundle sleeping so soundly.  Well sleeping through the night was short lived, and the very next night he woke up around 3:30 to eat!!  Oh well, waking up once a night is perfectly OK with me.  He eats at 11 before I go to bed, then between 3-4, and usually wakes up around 7!!  It works great for us. 

Malachi's Birth

Malachi's Birth

Well our story started on November 10th at our doctor's appointment.  I had a feeling I was getting ready for Malachi's debut because I had been having Braxton Hicks Contractions the entire week.  Well I didn't get myself too worked up, because I was affraid he was going to tell me Malachi wasn't coming any time soon.  But to my surprise I was already making some minor progress.

Justin was planning on going to the deerlease that weekend, so we were wondering if he could still go.  The doctor said "no way" and that he was going to be very surprised if I wasn't in the hospital that weekend. 

My contractions continued the rest of the week and into the weekend.  So to help get our little bundle of joy here we walked every where we went in Keller.  We walked to Sonic a couple of times and all around our area.  We probably walked 5+ miles in two days. 

On Sunday night, the contractions were still going on, but they started coming more regularly, so Justin started watching the clock.  My doctor said to go to the hospital if they were coming every 5 minutes for 2 hours.

We called the doctor after about 2 1/2 hours and to our surprise we were on our way to the hospital within 10 minutes.  I was affraid to go because I wasn't in very much pain and I didn't want to be sent home.  We ended up getting checked in and all hooked up.  I was most certainly having contractions every 5-10 minutes but hadn't made any more progress since the doctors' office on Thursday.  SOOOO home we went.  Luckily they gave me some Ambien and told me to stay home from work on Monday.  I slept from 2:00am until 4:00pm Monday afternoon.  I woke up for breakfast and lunch and went right back to sleep.

Needless to say we were very disappointed!!!

I went to work on Tuesday and Wednesday contractions and all.  I taught from my chair most of the day because they were getting more intense.  My doctor appointments were usually on Thursdays but I had scheduled this one for Wednesday in case I could sweet talk him into inducing me on Friday, if Malachi still hadn't come.

My doctor thought that I had already left work for my maternity leave but I was still working.  He told me I couldn't go back to work, that I needed to stay home and rest.  We had previously scheduled an induction for Monday the 21st just in case.  He was very surprised that I hadn't made any progress still and sent me home to rest. 

I was very thankful to stay home the next two days and rest.  On Friday, Justin came home from work and we worked on putting up Christmas decorations while watching Elf.  About 10:30 I started feeling funny and wanted to go to bed.  So we turned off the movie and headed to our room.  Justin continued watching TV and I quickly fell asleep. 

Around 1:45 I woke up feeling something a little wet.  I went to the bathroom and thought, is my watering breaking???  I went and woke Justin up and told him I thought I was going into labor but I wasn't sure.  I told him I was going to go the living room and he stayed in bed.  He wanted me to come get him in 30 minutes.  I was anxious and unsure if my water had broke.  So I started cleaning!!!

I was sweeping the floor, finishing the dishes, and apparently making too much noise, because Justin came in to check on me.  I continued to feel small gushes of fluid but honestly didn't know if it was my water or if I was peeing on myself.  Yes I know ewww gross, but it's true!!

Anyway, we decided to finish Elf and see how things went.  After the movie I continued to have small gushes of fluid so I told Justin we should probably go to the hospital.  He took a shower, while I got dressed and double checked my bags.

We left for the house about 4:00 and arrived at the hospital about 4:30.  When I arrived I was about 2 cm and was informed that my water had definitely broke and I was there for the long haul.  I asked why it gushed several times and they told me it was probably because he had moved down and was blocking the water from coming out, and as he moved around more would come out.

They started me on pitocin to help move things along and my contractions started coming more quickly and stronger.  I had about 5 hours of very strong contractions before the "assistant anaesthesiologists" could come in to do my epidural.  Finally around 2:00 they came in to do my epidural, but because of my back they had a very hard time getting it in.  The first guy tried at least 5 times for about 45 minutes.  By the time he gave up Justin and I both were crying. 

They called the "real" anaesthesiologists in and he got it in the first try.  They had to go extremely low and put it in at a weird angle.  But thank goodness it worked like a charm.  I was finally able to relax, not sleep, but relax. 

We had lots of visitors in and out and I didn't care at all.  I made sure Justin had lunch and was taken care of.  I was trying to stay calm and relaxed for him.  Around 7:00pm, I was ready to start pushing!!!!  I pushed a couple of times and he was moving down, but we discovered Malachi's head was turned to the side.  So they chose to have me stop and to watch him.  They were hoping he would move his head on his own, which he did pretty soon there after.  However, after that my blood pressure fell drastically to 60/40 and I spiked a fever of 102 degrees.  So I had to stop again.  They finally got my blood pressure back up by giving me more fluids, but my fever didn't go away.  Around 8:10, I was able to start pushing again.

Finally at 8:51, Malachi came!!!  Nothing can describe the rush of feelings and emotions I had when he was placed on my stomach.  Because he was so big, 9lbs 5.5oz, they were concerned about his blood sugar so he was whisked away to have some tests ran.  Luckily they were able to do them in the room with us, so Justin went back and forth between me and Malachi.  Justin went to tell our parents he was here and how much he weighed and no one believed him.  He had to show them a picture of Malachi on the scale. 

We were blessed again to find out he was perfectly healthy and happy!!!  They let us stay alone for about an hour before any visitors were allowed in.  Everyone came in and couldn't believe his size or hair.  Justin and I both were born in dark long hair and so was Malachi!!! 

We truly feel blessed to have this precious miracle in our life.  We had wanted a baby for a long time and tried for a while too.  We were so thankful to have a healthy happy baby boy!!!

Maternity Pictures

When I was about 37 weeks we had maternity pictures taken at the Botanical Gardens.  Here are a few of my favorites!!!

We had a lot of fun taking these pictures.  I am glad we captured this special time in our lives. 

These pictures were taken by a great family friend.