long time coming...

It's been a long time since my last post...a year almost. A lot has happened since then and I started this blog so I could always remember the beginnings of what I hope to be a long lifetime of memories. So I need to play catch up. After finding out in September that we were expecting another baby, we had a lot of preparation. We found out on November 30 that we would be buying blue this go round. We were absolutely elated. Mike was set on only having two children (so to not outnumber us, lol) so I was happy to have one of each. I went out and purchased cupcakes and put blue icing inside and topped them with vanilla icing. I had Mike's dad, my parents and brothers over for the reveal. They bit into the cupcakes and saw that we were expecting a little boy. There was so much joy and I got to finally share my good news with friends. It's hard for me to keep that sort of secret. :-) Then came the naming of our new little bundle. I wanted to name him Bennett Michael, while Mike loved the name Gavin. Since there was no discussion about what our baby girl's name was going to be the first time, I let Mike pick this name. One exception... We change the spelling to match our daughter's name (Kathryn) to Gavyn. So, we had a gender and a name... Next came the room assignments. :-) Kaydee's room at the time was smaller and hardwood, so we moved her to the slightly larger room with carpet so there was more play room for her. We removed all of the sports memorabilia and painted it yellow. It was quite a task and took us a while to complete. We then had to prepare Gavyn's room. We didn't put a rush on it since we knew he would be sleeping in our room for the first couple of months. We did end up completing it before his arrival. I didn't like the nursery theme idea, so we just decided to put up some tinkers from Mike's childhood and hung some biplane pictures that a dear friend had made for us. It turned out great. Kaydee was born via c section and after the doctor told us there was an 8% chance I would deliver naturally, I opted for a repeat section. The idea of having no labor pains this time around sounded like a fabulous way to welcome our newest into the world. God had other plans... I guess he thought I needed to be reminded of how hard childbirth really is...even if it wasn't during childbirth. On March 25 @ 2:30 in the morning, I woke up to what felt like back labor pains (I had back labor with Kaydee so I remembered this feeling well). I was only 34 weeks along, so I decided to wait a bit before calling the doctor to make sure my body wasn't just practicing for the big day. After about an hour, I woke Mike up and told him what I was going through. It was different this time...it wasn't coming in waves...it was a constant throbbing pain shooting down one side of my back. I called the doctor and she instructed me to head to the hospital. By the time we got there, 19 month old in tow, it was 4am and the pain had become intolerable. I was sure I had gone into full blown labor and terrified that my baby was too small and not ready to come into this world. My thoughts were going straight to hopes that whatever doctor was on call would be capable of stopping this from happening and give me at least a couple more weeks of pregnancy so my baby boy had time to grow and mature before heading into this crazy world. After reviewing my symptoms, the nurses thought for sure that it wasn't labor and that I had either a kidney infection or kidney stones. Neither sounded good to me, but it sounded a hell of a lot better than preterm labor amd an early delivery. They did a renal u/s and concluded that it was indeed kidney stones. I stayed in the hospital for four days after staying hooked up to an IV and having fluids and Delotted (for pain) pumped into me . I went home and was taking Percocet for pain at home. My mother-in-law, Sue, came over to help me with Kaydee since Mike had already taken a lot of time off work to be with me in the hospital. She was a huge help and the pain started to come back...with a vengeance. After Sue left for an appointment, my mom came over to help me. After the pain medicine wasn't helping, and I was in more pain than ever, I asked my mom to take me to the hospital. Mike was at soccer practice and it was too much pain to wait for him to come home. Luckily, by the time I was loaded into the car, Mike was pulling into the driveway and we headed to the hospital and my parents took Kaydee. They put me on a morphine pump and by the next day, the pain had subsided and I wanted to go back home. I was just sick of being in the hospital. I was discharged and made it out just in time to go to my friend, Michelle's, 30th bday dinner. I never saw it pass, but it eventually did. I cut out all caffeine and drank LOTS of water and I hope to never go through that again. Gavyn's birthdate was set for May 4th after a lot of contemplation on mine and Mike's behalf. It was a Friday and it was also Audrey Hepburn's bday. Since Kaydee was born on Michael Jackson's bday, we thought it was important to give Gavyn some claim to fame. :-) We dropped Kaydee off with her Nana and Pop and went to meet our baby boy. Gavyn Michael was born at 12:53pm on May 4 and weighed 7 lbs 9 oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long. He came into this world screaming, so we thought we had another fusspot like his sister. He immediately latched on and was an expert nurser. He turned out to be a fantastic baby who slept all the time and never cried. The next three days were spent in the hospital and even though our nurse advised us otherwise, we decided to go home since the doctor cleared mom and baby for discharge. We went home on a stormy night and the next morning Kaydee got to come home and see the new fixture in our home. Gavyn spent his first night in his own room on July 19th and is hopefully going to continue being an excellent sleeper. Gavyn 11 week stats: *Fits in most 3-6 month outfits, but can still wear 0-3 month clothes *Weighs almost 13 lbs and is 23 1/4 inches long. *Size 2 diapers *Spends about 10-20 minutes each day on his tummy and has gotten pretty good at holding his head up *Smiles often and loves to laugh *Coos and gurgles and occasionally blows bubbles. Kaydee is now 23 months old and is just a little person. I sometimes forget that she isn't even two yet and have to remind myself. :-) She absolutely adores her baby brother ('bebes' as she calls him) and is always kissing him or trying to help. I have started planning her second bday party and it makes me sad thinking about how fast these times have already gone. She does new things and learns new things every day and there are times I wish for just a moment with my itty bitty baby girl who first made me a momma. I would start to miss my big baby girl, so just a moment would do. I sometimes think that I can't wait for my children to become less dependent on me so that I can have some more mommy time, but as soon as the thought enters my mind I push it out because these times are so short lived and I want to cherish each second I have with my Littles. Kaydee starts pre school in August and I am already dreading the time I will lose with her while she is there broadening her little horizons (hehe) and gaining new friends. I want to try amd keep up with this blog as best as I can because I washer to be able to look back in five years and be able to remember each detail of my growing family. Pictures to come in the next post.