July 29 2006

Levi makes his first appearance at church. He was a good baby and slept for the first 20 minutes or so and then we had to go to the Mother's Room as he was hungry. Susan and Lille are in town for a visit and we all went to my mom's for lunch and that was very fun, we dug out my old baby books and compared notes and infant photos. I was very tired and actually fell asleep by 9 pm this night. Last night Levi slept from 1:30 am to 7 am.

July 28 2006

Levi's 2-week appointment at the Pediatricians. Our normal doctor is on vacation so we saw Dr Kirby who was very good. Levi was weighed again and is 7 lbs even. I was kind of disappointed about that, I thought for sure he would be back to his birth weight by now. He was also measured and is 20 1/4" - a quarter inch shorter than when he was born. My baby is shrinking! LOL The nurse said the difference in height is due to his head shape changing and sure enough it was an inch bigger in circurmference. He is in the 10th percentile for weight, 25th percentile for height and 30th percentile for head cir. Also at this visit they took more blood from his foot for the PKU test. Everything else was normal. We ran some errands afterwards, he got to go to Wal-Mart for the first time, woo-hoo!

July 26 2006

Today I had my postpartum appointment with Dr Karmy and not much exciting to report there. Decided to go with the mini-Pill for B/C so got a prescription for that. We talked a little bit about other things and that's about it. Matt's mom and grandma arrived about 10 pm and will visit for a few days.

July 20 2006

Today was Levi's circumcision at 8:30 am. I was so exhausted and emotional when we took him in I almost started crying. I could not stay in the room, but Matt did and for that I was glad. He was a trooper and didn't wail as much as I expected. I think the lack of sleep has finally hit me. Levi likes to be awake and fed every hour from about 9 pm to 3 am so we are trying to adjust. He is so alert and happy when he is awake I love to just hold him and watch him no matter what time it is. The dogs are all adjusting well to him. Buddy and Missy ignore him for the most part. Bonnie is curious but after a quick sniff she is off to other things. BeBe is in awe and always by our side. She will lay next to me when I nurse him on the sofa and follows me around the house if I am carrying him. It has been interesting to see their different reactions to the wee one.


Levi's first bath

July 19 2006

Levi is a week old today! I got a call from Tiffany from church and she asked if we had anyone preparing meals for us and I said no. So she got to work on that and brought us a nice dinner as well as organizing meals for us for the next week. How wonderful! Later this evening we took a nice long walk around the neighborhood. I put Levi in my carrier and tried that out. He slept the whole way. We walked about 2 miles (although very slowly) and it was nice to get some exercise.

July 17 2006

Today Levi had his first doctor's appointment with pediatrician Tom Bolduc. The nurse had us undress him and put him on the scale. She had us slip off the diaper just before the weigh-in. Well he weighed 6 lbs 13 oz and promptly peed a giant puddle all over the scale. Thankfully I was prepared with the diaper bag right away and Matt and I got him cleaned up and back into something dry. I believe his weight at discharge from the hospital was 6 lbs 12 oz so his weight is starting to come back up. Everything else checked out normal. Tom said he has just a slight yellowing on his face but nothing to worry about for jaundice. He also made the comment..."well he looks like dad, but...I don't want to say old man...he has very adult proportions." I have to agree, he doesn't have that typical big-eyed baby look about him. He has a mature face for such a little guy. :-) He fussed a little during the stethescope check and temp check but once Matt took him he quieted right down and fell asleep. We ran some other errands today, post office and the bank, and all it takes is that noisy car starting up to quiet him down. I think he likes the v8. ;-) hehe Well that is about all the news for today. Last night he woke me up about every 3 hours, and then we napped this morning together until 10 am.

July 14 2006

Today we came home from the hospital about 1 pm. I am really feeling good about how things are progressing. Levi has been pronouced "Perfect" by his pediatrician and we have both made good improvements in breastfeeding. So I am more comfortable with all of that and it has been just amazing to me what a bonding experience that can be. I was honestly a little worried about how good of a mother I would be since I have never had that motherly instinct, or felt that I was ever even good with kids. I have always been indifferent. Well this baby has changed all that, I am so in love with him and so enamored over the miracle of it all. He is just beautiful and wonderful and I feel so blessed to have such a fantastic little family now. Matt is a wonderful father and so proud, it is really neat to see him in this new role. At the moment that I write this he is cuddled with Levi on the sofa watching Star Wars. At the time that I passed out after labor, and they put the oxygen mask on me Matt came over with Levi and I looked up at him and did my best Darth Vader impersonation... "Levi, I am your mother..." hahah It has been so much fun already and it is just the beginning.

July 12 2006

The birthdate of our baby. Time to decide on a name. We had been keeping everyone in the dark about any name ideas but when he was born Matt and I both looked at him and knew he was a Levi. So now it is time to make the introductions to Levi Lee Bobbitt. He made his very eager and vocal (wow, what a set of lungs!) appearance at 2:17 am, weighing in at 7 lbs 5 oz and measuring 20 1/2 inches long. He has long fingers and big feet and reddish hair. He looks nothing like me at this point but is very much Matt's boy.

After delivery and everyone said their hellos and he was breastfed, I decided I needed to use the bathroom. The nurse walked me over there but once I sat down on the toilet I guess I passed out because the next thing I knew there were 3 nurses around me and they had amonia under my nose. "What is that!?" They said "Are you with us??" and I said "Yes, get that stuff out of my face." Well they walked me back to my bed and I guess I passed out again. I woke up and they were putting an oxygen mask on my face and hooking me up to the IV. Matt said I was looking at him the whole time but I have no recollection of it. They asked me when I had eaten last, well noon before my water broke. So that combined with all the blood loss, it is no wonder I was gray and light headed.

Once we were settled in our postpartum room the nurses would come in and do their checks on me and the baby and at one point I had to get another shot of RoGam since the baby was A+ and I am O- bloodtype. The nurse told me to breathe in and then out so she could give the shot. I hardly felt it. I guess once you go through labor, other things no longer seem as painful. That was amusing to me.

We had so many visitors, we really enjoyed everyone coming to say their hellos and well wishes. We also got some gorgeous flowers from friends and from work that brightend the room. The phone would ring or someone would stop by about every 30 minutes it seemed.

July 11 2006

4:40 pm my water breaks at work. Thankfully I was in the bathroom at the time! I printed out my timecard and told my boss I had to go! Drove home and told Matt the news. Called my doctor to let her know and since contractions hadn't really started, decided to stay home and take it easy for awhile. Had time to get a shower and put our overnight bag together. Contractions started coming about 8 minutes apart around 8 pm so we decided it was time to head in to the hospital. Called mom (and everyone else) to let her know we were on our way. When we got to the hospital I guess there had been so many births lately the birthing rooms were all full so they put me across the hall in a normal room. When I was first hooked up to the moniter I had a contraction that spiked at over 100. I started having some very bad back pains with the contractions. After a little while the nurse came in to tell me some good news, one of the other laboring moms was being moved so once the room was clean they could move me. YES PLEASE! The labor rooms had jacuzzi tubs in the bathrooms for laboring up to 8 cm dilation. I had told them that while I was open to whatever happened, I would prefer not to use any drugs. It seemed to take forever but we were finally moved over about 11 pm. The jacuzzi made such a difference in the pain management, my back pain vanished. Twice when the nurses checked me I was at 5 cm dialation, so they left me alone for a while after that. When the contractions started getting really really bad I told Matt he better have them come and check me again because I was wanting to start pushing. They checked and I was at 9 cm - time to get out of the tub and call the doctor in! This was about 1:30 am by now. Dr Karmy came in and said she had been trying to stay up watching a Clinton Anderson training video and was about ready to fall asleep when the nurses called her in. She got there, checked and told me to start pushing. What an unreal experience. By now it was very painful and I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. ;-) I think my mom was disappointed because I was concentrating so hard on breathing up to that point, I wasn't making any noise. Well that changed when it was time to push. I got some good screams out. I can laugh about it now. I ended up needing a grade 2 episiotomy but overall it was a good experience. The nurses were wonderful, Dr Karmy did a great job, my mom and aunt Kim and cousin Alison were all there and it was really neat.