Grayson Brooks | 3 Months

My baby is 3 month old! I don't know how that is possible since we literally just came home from the hospital like 5 minutes ago.

The last few weeks have been so fun! It's like someone just flipped a switch and all of a sudden he's SO aware and so into everything that we're doing. He likes to look at the dogs and stare at himself in the mirror.

He loves his jungle play mat and plays on it everyday. He kicks and squirms so much when he gets excited and loves to grab onto his Sophie giraffe and shake it. He's babbling like crazy and has been making us laugh so much. He's so strong and can hold himself up on his arms when he does tummy time.

He's the happiest in the morning right when we first wake up, and when he's on the changing table he's all smiles. He's super ticklish and curls up into a ball and squeals when he tickle him. He's trying to laugh but that's about all he's been able to get out so far.

He loves bath time and is so cute splashing in the water. I've been bathing him on the fishy sponge in the sink but he's growing so fast that he probably won't fit in there much longer. He loves going in the big bathtub with me too.

He's been taking a bottle of pumped breast milk when he stays with his nanny Miss Darlene or with his Auntie but doesn't really seem to like it much and fights it a little bit. Especially if it's me or his Daddy giving him the bottle. Otherwise he is eating so good and is gaining weight right on track and has new rolls on his chunky little thighs every day. We haven't had to introduce any formula and I hope that we won't ever have to. My supply has been doing great. I started to notice that I wasn't making quite as much as before so I made a batch of lactation cookies {which were delicious by the way} and they totally worked immediately.

We've been reading lots of books every day and he likes to look at the pictures but gets bored and starts yelling and squirming in the middle of the books. Such a boy.

He loves when I wear him especially when I'm doing stuff around the house and usually conks out after a while with his mouth wide open. He is such a good sleeper. I cannot believe how blessed we have been in this department. Last night... he slept for 12 hours. He wakes up once or twice in the night to nurse but since he's sleeping right there with me it's so easy to just feed him and fall back asleep. It hardly even feels like waking up. I'm so grateful for all of the sleep we have been getting!

We had a brave moment and decided to take Grayson to his first A's game for opening night. He actually did really good and made it through dinner in the restaurant, through batting practice and the opening ceremonies. He slept through almost everything in the Moby wrap until it was time to head out to our seats and pretty much on queue, he woke up and decided he didn't want to be there anymore. The people sitting around us were so sweet and kept telling us how awesome we were for getting him to his first game at 3 months old and told us not to worry about him crying. It was sweet but neither of us was comfortable with him crying and it was loud and starting to get cold so we decided to go home early. Second inning early. Regardless we both considered it a success but probably won't be trying it again for a while.

We are loving life with our boy so much. Everything is better now that he is here. Better than I could have ever imagined.

We love you to the moon and back sweet boy. Thank you for choosing us.

 

Newborn Photos



Back in January, when little G was just 8 precious days old. He was so fresh and so squishy. Now he's 9 weeks and those first days home already feel like they were ages ago. Our favorite photographer, Lisa, with Ellevor Photography came to the house for some baby snuggles and a quick newborn session. She  also did our maternity photos back in November. I love her style. She really captured our family and the joy of our sweet boy without feeling too much like your typical newborn photos.



This picture makes me laugh. I have no idea why we're both making that face.

 

He was so good when we did these outside photos.  It was a little chilly so we put the blankets in the dryer for a few minutes and then wrapped him up. Once he fell asleep we pulled little bits of the blankets off at a time so he wouldn't get cold and woke up. He just snoozed the whole way through!

 

 

Those first few days at home felt like such a dream and I'm so happy that we have these photos to remember how tiny and new he was.

Grayson Brooks | Six Weeks



I'm not going to set myself up for the terrific failure of trying to do monthly baby updates. I'll do them as often as I can and call it good. Good?

 

 

We've survived tue first month! 6 weeks actually. It's been a whirlwind of a month and it has been so wonderful. I am absolutely loving every minute of my time home with G. It is starting to feel a little bit like the movie Groundhog Day though. Truth be told, I wouldn't mind these days lasting forever. 

He now weighs 10 lbs 4 oz and is 23 inches long. The doctor said he's exceeding his expectations for growth and I'm so proud! He's starting to chunk up and is getting adorable rolls on his arms and legs. 

 He has officially grown out of his newborn clothes and diapers. We've moved on to the 0-3 month section of his closet and he's in size 1 diapers.

We were shocked to see how light his hair actually is. I really thought he would have a big head of thick black hair like his Dad. I was pretty blond as a baby so I'm interested to see what it turns into. I'm still guessing dark. We still can't quite see his eye color. There a really pretty steel gray right now but they're starting to look brown. Nick thinks they might be hazel. 

 

My mom brought my baby book down with her when she came to visit. I couldn't believe my eyes, but Grayson is my tiny clone. My baby pictures could be pictures of him. That was so fun to see! Although he's really a perfect mix of the two of us and sometimes looks exactly like Nick.

 

He got to meet his Grandpa {my Dad} and his Auntie and cousin when they all came to visit. Nayeli was obsessed with him and just wanted to pat him and grab his hair. We made Valentine salt dough foot prints for the grandparents and Daddies.

All Nayeli wanted to do was touch G. Even if it meant resting her feet on him.

 

We've taken a couple weekend trips and Grayson has been so great every time. We went to Napa one weekend and to the family cabin for Valentine's Day.We have been having some really beautiful weather and ventured out to do some wine tasting and went out to dinner both weekends. He slept like a little angel in his car seat at the wineries and at dinner. 
 

Snuggling with his Auntie at the cabin

 

He has started noticing his mobile in his crib and turns his head to watch it when I wind it up and likes to look at his Taggies animal on his car seat. He is making eye contact with us and tracking is with his eyes if we get up and walk away from him. He likes looking at the little sheep that hang from the bar on his bouncer that he sits in while I'm in the kitchen and he's obsessed with looking at all of the lights in the house. I've caught him watching the TV a few times too. I'm going to have to start being careful about that!

 

He is trying so hard to smile for us and it is the sweetest thing I've ever seen. He opens his mouth up wide and curls his lip on one side and kicks his feet really fast when he gets excited. He's doing it the most right when he wakes up. It makes me so happy that his happiest time is when he sees our faces. He's got a tiny dimple in his left cheek and I can't stand the cuteness.

 

 

He had his 6 week shots on Friday and it broke my heart into a million pieces. I knew it was going to be upsetting to see but I was so not prepared for it. I've never seen his scream in pain that way ever and I cried like a little baby the whole way through. The poor nurse.

 

We are loving our stroller and I've been trying to get out for some kind of outing either a walk, trip to Target or grocery shopping every day. I've been using the rock n play in the morning to put him down to sleep while I shower and make breakfast and he sleeps in his swing at the end of the day during his long afternoon nap while I prep dinner or clean up around the house. I call it the 5 o'clock shuffle. The last few minutes before Nick comes home from work that I run around doing everything I haven't done all day.

 

I've been wearing him in the Moby wrap to the grocery store, on walks, and around the house. He absolutely loves it and just conks out as soon as I put him in. I'm thinking that this will be the best way to bring him to church when we take him for his first mass in a couple weeks.

His head smells like vanilla popcorn and his breath smells like berries. Sometimes I lay in bed in the morning with my nose in his hair so I can soak in his smell while we wake up. I told Nick the other day that I want to bottle up his smell so I can spray it on him when he's 15. His eyelashes are about 6 inches long and he's got the tightest little cowlick right at his hairline in his forehead. 

He makes the sweetest little noises when he's nursing. He mews like a little kitten and grunts and grumbles in his sleep. He is so noisy at night. He never cries but will let out a few random wails in his sleep. He's been sleeping in bed with us and it has been one of my absolute favorite things. 

 

Part of me still can't believe he's ours. Watching him change and grow has been the best blessing of my life. The amount of love that I have for this small person is paralyzing and terrifying and beautiful and wonderful. 

 

Happy one month sweet baby Gray. We love you to the moon and back. Thank you for choosing us.

Grayson's Birth

The story of Grayson's birth is a long one... mostly because his birth was a long one. Long and incredibly difficult. We certainly did not have any kind of easy time getting him here. But, he's perfectly healthy and perfectly beautiful and that's all that I ever could have asked for.

I can't believe this little guy was in my belly just more than two weeks ago!

This is going to take a while. Consider yourself warned.

I had my 39 week check up on Monday the 5th. I was so uncomfortable and had declared the past weekend our last with just the two of us. I was determined to have the baby before his due date. Saturday the 10th. Nick went to work Monday and I slept in, went to get a pedicure, and then saw my doctor. She had mentioned at my last appointment that if I hadn't gone into labor by my 39 week appointment that she could sweep my membranes and hopefully get things started.  I was already 2 cm dilated and 80% effaced so I asked her to go ahead and do the membrane sweep. I went to the grocery store to pick up some last minute stuff after my appointment and said a quick prayer that my water wouldn't break in the middle of Safeway.

Last prego picture. 39 weeks and 3 days!

My dad was in town for the night so we cooked dinner {and by we I mean Nick} and chatted. I started to feel contractions coming on around 8:00 that night. I was so relieved that the membrane sweep had worked and started to get excited. I texted our Doula {Sara from here on out} to give her the heads up that we were hopefully in the early stages of labor and that we might be seeing her the next day.

I tried to go to sleep that night but woke up around midnight with contractions coming every 6-8 minutes and lasting about a minute each and I absolutely couldn't sleep anymore. I went out to the living room to sit on the yoga ball and watch tv while I timed the contractions on my phone app. After Nick woke up around 6:00 I decided that I was ready to go to the hospital and went to take a shower. My dad and Nick were both laughing at me for being so determined to get a shower and do my hair when we should have been rushing to the hospital but I told them I didn't know when I was going to be able to shower again and wanted to go to the hospital clean. Thank goodness I did.

We left for the hospital and my dad took pictures from the front lawn. When we got to the hospital they checked us into our room and we met our nurse, who just happened to be the same sweet nurse that helped with our ECV procedure just a few weeks before! They hooked me up to the monitors and Sara came to meet us armed with coffee for the nurses. Nick sent a text to the family and some of our closest friends to let them know that things were starting to happen and that Grayson was on his way. My contractions really weren't progressing and they ended up sending us home after a few hours. We picked up sandwiches on the way home, which I did not eat. Labor really does make you loose your appetite.

We went for a walk around the neighborhood and spent the afternoon trying to nap. I sat in the bath for a few hours and Nick sat next to the tub and timed my contractions. My Dad left to go home and my mom arrived to stay for a few days. By 8:00 that night my contractions had become pretty intense and we called Sara to come back to the house to help. She sat with me through the evening and pushed on my pelvis and rubbed by back through each contraction. Around 10:00 we tried to go to bed. My contractions had intensified so much but started spreading out to about 12 - 15 minutes apart but stayed that way through the night. Nick woke up with me for each contraction to apply pressure to my hips which really helped.

By 4:30 am we couldn't sleep through the contractions anymore and I got up to try to eat something... and ended up puking everything up instead. We went for another walk and watched the sun rise. Sara went home and we went back to bed to try to get some sleep. By the time we woke up I was starting to feel so desperate for some relief and I started talking about going back to the hospital to start Pitocin and ask for an epidural. Not at all part of my original plan.   We called the doctor around noon and she told us to go back in and that she would call the hospital and tell them we were coming. My contractions started getting incredibly intense and we rushed to get everything into the car. By the time we pulled into the parking lot I was in tears and starting to panic. When we checked in to labor and delivery the front desk ladies joked that this time we were there to stay. Clearly I was way too happy when we showed up the morning before.

While the nurses got the room set up for us I got in my gown and got into bed. I asked the nurse right away if they could set me up to monitor intermittently so that I could get up and move around. It was so much more uncomfortable to have contractions sitting or lying in bed. The nurse checked me and found that I was at 6cm dilated and still 80% effaced. I was so happy to hear that we had finally progressed some. After 20 minutes on the monitor and my first dose of GBS antibiotics they let me get up to walk around the hallways of the hospital. This ended up being one of the stranger parts of this story. Apparently not many laboring mamas ever leave their rooms at this hospital. Every time I would have a contraction while walking in the hallway we would be approached by a nurse, a volunteer, or some kind of admin staff asking if I needed a wheelchair or if they needed to call our L&D nurse. I ended up feeling really uncomfortable about how much attention we were getting and decided after a few times walking the halls to just stay in our room the rest of the time. I actually preferred to be hooked up to the monitors. Hearing the baby's heart beat made me feel calm.

The family started filtering in and sat in the room with us for a while but we ended up having to send them out to the waiting room. I was getting distracted by talking to them and started skipping contractions but then would have one twice as strong the next time, or would have a "twin" contraction where the contraction would peak and then start to go down and then peak again even stronger before it was over. Those were absolutely the worst and continued all the way through until we started pushing.

At 6:00 my doctor came in to break my water and check on us. Things started happening pretty quickly after that. My contractions got incredibly painful and it started to be too uncomfortable to be on my feet anymore. Up until this point I had been sitting in a chair next to the bed that rocked or was leaning over the bed so that either Nick or Sara could push on my pelvis. I threw up the ice and little bit of Jello that I had been able to get down earlier. By 9:00 I was frantic and begging the nurse to let me start pushing. She kept telling me, over and over again just to wait another 15 minutes. I'm pretty sure she said that for at least an hour. Finally at 10:00 we started pushing and made pretty good progress in the first half hour. At that point the nurse discovered that Grayson was face up and that he was stuck on my pubic bone. She told me that we would have to try extra hard to get him to move past that point or we might be headed into a C-section. We tried pushing in pretty much every possible position to help him move and nothing really seemed to be helping. His head would not come down at all.

Around 1:00 am, after pushing three hours, the doctor showed up. She was very serious and told me that we would have to use vacuum suction to get him out and that I was going to have to give it absolutely everything I had left. At this point I was on oxygen and pretty much passing out in between each contraction. I told her I literally had nothing left to give but somehow powered through. They started the vacuum but the suction cup kept popping off. We didn't know it at the time, but they can only attempt a vacuum delivery three times. On the third suction she was able to pull him free and on my very last possible push he came out. I didn't even realize what had happened until I opened my eyes and she was holding him up. I've never experienced such relief, or joy, ever in my life.

They rubbed him down and put him on my chest and Nick cut the umbilical cord. I will never forget looking at his face for the first time. He was just so beautiful. I looked up at Nick, we were both crying, and I kept saying oh my God, hi baby, hi baby. Because of the vacuum delivery the Pediatrician and baby nurse had to take him right away to measure his head. He had a really huge, bulging bruise on his forehead from the suction cup and a pretty bad cut where my bone had scraped him.

The Pediatrician had to take him from me pretty quickly to examine his head. They were concerned because the suction cup had been placed partially over his frontal soft spot and they were worried about bleeding from his brain.

{Okay... this is where it gets ugly. Sorry...}
While all of this was going on my doctor discovered that my placenta had ruptured and a piece of it hadn't come out and I was loosing quite a bit of blood. Again, also something we didn't learn about until the next day. They distracted Nick by giving him the baby and had him sit on the other side of the room. I had 2nd degree tears and she was rushing to get me stitched up and I remember saying that this must be why everyone gets the Epidural, so they don't have to feel the stitches afterwards. Seriously. I felt every single stitch. She was able to get the last piece of the placenta which saved me from a secondary surgery. {Another fun fact we learned about the next day.} I cannot even imagine having to go into surgery after that entire ordeal. My doctor is a Saint. Sure, I may have been threatening to kick her in the face the entire time but she was amazing. She absolutely went over and above to keep me out of a C-section. I think a lot of doctors would have called it off long before and I wouldn't have had the chance to have a natural birth. We had discussed my birth plan quite a bit during my prenatal appointments and she really did everything possible to help me stick to it.

 

So, after 56 long hours of labor, 3 and a half hours of pushing, a suction cup, 2nd degree tearing, and not a drop of pain meds, sweet little Grayson Brooks was born. 7 pounds, 10 ounces, and 21 inches of purple, wailing, perfection.

After the doctor was done torturing me and the room was transformed back the nurse handed me my beautiful baby and he latched on right away to breastfeed. By now it was 3:00 am and the family, who I was shocked to hear were still waiting, was finally allowed to come in to see us. The poor Grandmas. They were terrified after not hearing from us since 10:00 and after getting word from some random L&D employee that Grayson was actually a SHE. Which... he is definitely not.

Auntie Caitlin popped a bottle of champagne and my nurse pumped a lovely little Norco cocktail into my IV. She told me she wasn't offering, and that after everything I had been though over the last few days it was necessary and that I would thank her later. I ate a few saltines and graham crackers but skipped on the champs.

Around 4:00 the nurses came back to take Grayson to the nursery. They had to keep him for observation for a few hours to make sure that the trauma to his head was only on the surface. The family left to go home and Nick and I were left alone together for the first time. We both immediately fell asleep for a few hours before they brought G back to us.

We've talked a lot about how frighteningly close we came to things going really wrong during his birth. It's taken me a while to be able to write all of this out. The truth is, his birth was actually pretty traumatic and I still get really emotional when I think back to re-live the whole experience.
We have some loved ones in Heaven who I know without a doubt were there watching over us last night. We are all feeling so incredibly blessed by our boy. Every moment, even long sleepless nights and times that we feel like we really have no idea what we're doing, have been amazing.

He is absolutely the best thing that I've ever done.