2 Weeks

It's been two weeks since Ammon was born and they have been a little crazy. First I tried to breastfeed again and reaffirmed that I just don't produce milk. My poor baby lost 12 ounces in weight. When looking back at the pictures of him taken in the hospital, you can see how skinny he has become. It makes me sad that he lost his double chin and big chubby cheeks. He was such a big boy and now, as the nurse that just saw him at his 2 week appointment put it, "he such a long lean boy!"

At his two week appointment the nurse measured his length, and to my surprise she measured him at 21 inches long. When he was born he measured 22 inches! So I told the nurse and she remeasured him and again said he is 21 inches. Well I know that when he was born he was 22 inches because his length shocked the nurses in the delivery room and they measured him twice there to make sure he really was that long. And Brigham watched them perform the measuring. So my baby shrunk? Man, guess he really was underfed.

Also, Ammon was freaking me out because he never opened his eyes, but he's doing much better! Especially in the last couple of days, he looks around and keeps them open for quite awhile. I still wish he would look at me more and keep eye contact like I remember Lydia doing, but maybe I hurt his eyes :)

Our basement apartment is freezing cold so unfortunately I have to keep him bundled up all the time. I don't get to look at his little hands and red hair as much as I'd like because I have to keep them both covered.

So my poor guy has a hernia. Don't know how he got that. It should heal itself and be fine.
He also throws up. Once a day he suddenly gushes out everything he's eaten. Pretty disturbing. The doctor says it's air build up in the stomach that suddenly pushes everything out and gave me some tips to manage it. Well I thought the tips were working because he hadn't thrown up in a few days. Until.... this morning he didn't just throw up,  he (um note to the weak in stomach, this may make you queasy) projectile vomited curdled formula through his nose and mouth all over himself and me. Man the laundry at my house has been out of control. I'm hoping it isn't pyloric stenosis which runs in my family where a muscle in the stomach is too large and doesn't let food through but we'll see. It's a little early to tell.
Well that's enough of his physical condition. Besides his sleep habits(man I miss sleeping at night), he's a great baby. He has the cutest, saddest, most pathetic cry. It's as if he's crying "pity me, my life is so horrible and sad." It works on his mom. My heart strings are tugged and then I laugh a little. :)
I could go on all day but that pretty much sums up the last two weeks. I think the first two weeks are the hardest and most stressful with the recovery and me being afraid of newborns and worrying that something is wrong 24/7. Now I should be getting the hang of things. Thank heavens for my mom who helped me through the hardest part!

Ammon Samuel Tappana

After trying every way I knew possible to go into labor on 1/11/11, I accepted my fate that it just wasn't going to happen. The next morning I got a phone call at 6;00 am to be in the hospital in an hour and a half to be induced. After five hours of labor, Ammon Samuel Tappana was born on 1/12/2011 at 1:45 pm weighing 8lbs 5 oz and is 22 inches long. The first thing he did was pee all over the doctor :)

The nurses all commented on how little he cried and how good he was. Things are going pretty well. Ammon swallowed a bunch of amniotic fluid before coming out, making breast feeding very difficult. His tummy was full of all the fluid so he never was hungry. He went over 14 hrs without eating! However his blood sugar levels stayed high so he was doing ok. Also a very scary night when he couldn't breathe and choked up so much of the amniotic fluid he soaked himself and all his bedding. He almost had to have his stomach pumped and oxygen levels checked. However, he seemed to have gotten most of it out. He just gags a little up now and then.  There's nothing quite so scary as looking over hearing your child choking and when picking him up discover that he's covered in fluid he's choking up and can't breathe through.

Lydia loves kissing her brother even though she's not sure about him getting the attention sometimes. It's weird to be a family of four now!

Things I learned about this delivery or things that came back to me really fast include:

• I love epidurals, newborn sleeping sounds/faces, and my Mom
• I hate episiotomies, nurses, and hospitals
• Breastfeeding is STRESSFUL and hard
• Pushing is much easier with your second baby
• Labor makes you tired and hungry

This is the little man before coming home. He's pretty adorable. He definitely has sleeping baby syndrome and looks just like his dad. His eyes are definitely his dad's and he has a pretty hard time opening them. He gets a little better every day but I can tell it's hard for him to work those muscles. I love him so much already!! Can't wait to see what this little boy brings to our family :)

39 Weeks

Well the time for the dreaded preggo pics is here. I always have to get my 38-39 week pregnancy pictures. I was curious to compare this pregnancy with Lydia's. This first picture is in my work outfit.

For the next two pictures, I dressed in the exact same clothes as when I took my pictures while pregnant with Lydia so I could see a true comparison. The first is me pregnant with Ammon and the second picture is me pregnant with Lydia.

To me it looks like baby Ammon has dropped or I am carrying him lower than I did with Lydia. All I know is that my belly sticks out significantly :) What do you think?

Sewing Skirts

So I mentioned in an earlier post that I wanted to become more crafty and put my creative skills to use. Well I'm happy to say that I have. Not only have I made some pretty dang cute crafts on craft night, with my sister-in-laws, but I decided to do some sewing for Christmas gifts. I dusted off my sewing machine that's been boxed up for about five years and found a cute pattern online to make a skirt for my five-year-old sister. She loves purple, and luckily I had purple material on hand. Here is what the beginnings of the skirt look like....

And with all the measuring and cutting, and stitching, soon these strips of cloth became this...

Well, after I successfully created this skirt, I decided I wanted to make a similar one for my 17 year old sister. So, I called for measurements and did the math to adjust the pattern size. . . or so I thought. After I cut the material for the second skirt, I realized I was making quite a large skirt. Apparently I did my math super wrong and sewed a skirt that was big enough to fit two of me, and I was eight months pregnant at the time! It took a lot of adjustment, cutting off inches of material, picking, hemming, and removing whole pieces of the skirt to finally adjust it to the right size so my sister would actually wear it. And it turned out quite nice :)

Sadie was able to wear her skirt to church the Sunday we were visiting and Kayleen wore her skirt around the house for two days while I was there. I was pretty pleased that I actually sewed something half decent. It was a frustrating, fulfilling job. Who knows what I will sew next?!