Dear Paxton and Michael,

Our first days as a family of four were physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting.  We were moved from labor and delivery to our regular room around 4:30 in the morning.  Michael still hadn’t had a bath, we had been up all night, and I was in a ton of pain.  We were happy to move, though, because there was a “screamer” in labor and delivery and she was showing no signs of slowing down.  Our door was closed and we could hear every single descriptive word out of her mouth.  Your daddy told me when I was pregnant with you, Pax, that he thought I was going to be a screamer.  I took that as a challenge and was completely silent while pushing during your birth as well as your brother’s.  This lady must have turned down the epidural from biker chick.  But it sure sounded like she was regretting that decision.

We got up to our new room, room 1325, and got settled in.  It seemed like it would be a great time to catch up on a little sleep, but there were people coming in every 5-10 minutes for one thing or the other.  One nurse was in charge of me, another was in charge of Michael, then there was a technician that came in and did my vitals every half hour or so.  Then there was housekeeping, room service, medical students, and probably complete strangers walking into the room to get a peek of the world’s cutest little boy, or the world’s most exhausted momma, not sure which.  They finally took Michael away for a quick bath.  They brought him back wearing a 6 month shirt…this still makes me laugh.  I swear they think my kid was a giant baby.

When we delivered at Springfield, they give you the option of keeping the baby in the room with you or having the baby go to the nursery.  I was under the impression that there was no way once the baby was out and mine that ANYONE was taking that baby to the nursery.  When I saw that we had our good friend as a nurse, I jumped all over the opportunity to catch a little sleep after you were born, Pax.  Did I feel a little guilty?  Absolutley.  Was it a good decision?  You better believe it.  At this hospital in Colorado Springs, the baby stays in your room at all times.  Here’s the thing about being a mother, you don’t relax.  Ever.  You spend 9 months worrying about every little bit of development happening inside your body, everything you’re eating, and preparing for this baby to enter the world.  Then, the baby is here and all the sudden there are a MILLION other things to worry about.  Is he getting enough to eat?  Is he comfortable?  Did that person that just touched him wash her hands?  Can he see?  Is one eye a little different than the other?  Is he gassy because of something I ate?  What if he hurts and he can’t tell me?  You find yourself consumed with these thoughts and you can’t rest.  So there you were, Michael, in this little bed next to my hospital bed.  You were breathtakingly beautiful, and I know you’re not supposed to say that about little boys, but you were.  You were the perfect amount of little bitty baby features with not so little fat rolls.  I spent several hours just memorizing your features- you have your daddy’s eyes (just like you, Pax), you have your momma’s narrow feet and not so narrow thighs. 🙂  You look quite a bit like your big sister, but have less hair on your head than she did…don’t worry, you make up for it with the hair on your back!  When you were born, I tried to wipe off your shoulders with a blanket because I thought something was on them… turns out it was just your back hair!  You like to sleep with your hands up by your face and mittens were a must from the beginning.  Your skin is heavenly and I had trouble keeping my hands off of you so you could rest a bit.  You make little squeaky and grunting noises that remind me of a little piglet.

Paxton, I couldn’t wait for you to see your little brother.  You’ve spent several months patting my stomach and saying, “Baby Mike!”  You’ve been singing Happy Birthday to him for weeks now and I couldn’t wait until it was the real deal.  I worried that you’d be jealous and confused because you are so used to being the center of attention.  When you came in to meet him with Ammy and Pop-Pop, my heart exploded.  Honestly, that’s exactly what it felt like.  You were so excited to see him.  You kissed his head, gave him kisses with your giraffe, and drew pictures to show him.  You immediately asked to hold him, and the entire time that you did, you patted his back and belly and said, “Happy baby.”  It was magical.

 

It was so good to see you after that long day and night.  I needed your spirit, your crooked little smile, and just the way you look at life in general.  I needed to know that you still would love your mommy even when I brought another little life into our family.  I needed to know that you still needed me.  You climbed right up with me in the hospital bed and got mad that I had an IV in my arm (you hate bandaids or anything out of the ordinary).  You pushed entirely too hard on my belly and I tried so hard not to cry because I knew it would hurt your feelings if you hurt me.  You told me all about the fun that you’ve been having at Ammy and Pop-pop’s house.  I can’t imagine trying to survive this roller coaster without them for a hundred different reasons.  They took care of you while their dog was really sick, and Pop-Pop even spent 3+ hours that afternoon signing paperwork so we could buy our house.  Love knows no limits.

Michael, you weren’t too impressed with meeting anyone.  You were more interested in catching up on sleep, and who could blame you?  We spent the rest of the day getting poked and prodded by nurses who weren’t so nice.  The hard thing about having really great nurses (both as friends and in the past) is you compare everyone to them.  Over the next few days we would have numerous nurses in and out, writing their names on the dry-erase board and saying they were here to take care of me for the next 12 hours.  I liked about 1 of them.  Because I was in labor so long, they had me labeled PROM- which meant prolonged rupture of membranes.  In other words, you took too long to come out and meet me!  You had to have extra testing because of this, and I did too.  It meant that the chance of infection was increased.  At 24 hours, you had your screening done and were borderline jaundiced.  We’d been through that rodeo with Pax and I did NOT want to go through it again.

We quickly learned that we didn’t like the food at this hospital.  They had a gluten free menu, which had me all excited, but it got old, real fast.  Your poor dad had to eat every different kind of gross sandwich possible while I ordered food that sounded delicious and tasted awful.  You took right up to nursing, maybe a little too much.  I had to call in lactation consultants because I was so sure that I was going to have permanent damage.  Anyone who says that breastfeeding is easy is a liar.  It’s such a struggle at the beginning, but so worth it once you get over that hump where you want to bite a towel and scream all sorts of obscenities at the top of your lungs when your baby latches on.  I refrained, simply because I didn’t want to be known as a screamer. 🙂  It’s hard when you first start for several reasons, but the hardest is knowing that you need enough nutrition and knowing that I’m the only source of that.  Yikes… that’s some pressure.

We were visited by both doctors from my doctor’s office as well as a pediatrician from the hospital.  We talked about the chance of us having to stay in an extra day due to the whole prolonged labor thing.  On Thursday morning, the doctor told us that we would get to go home that night.  We were so excited to get out of there.  Ammy and Pop-pop came back by to snuggle you and so we could see Pax again.

We didn’t get to go home that night.  They still hadn’t done your circumcision and they needed to check your billiruben levels again.  They also took more blood from me and found that my hemoglobin levels had dropped even more and I had become really anemic.  They started me on iron supplements and pricked your foot for the hundredth time to check your billiruben.  At 5:00 on Thursday evening, they rolled in the phototherapy bed and my heart sank.  I should’ve been prepared, but I wasn’t.  Nothing can prepare a new parent for the whole “You won’t be able to hold your baby except for 20-30 minutes every 3 hours” speech.  It sucks.

Thursday night was the second longest night of my life.  Michael, you hated that bed.  They called it a cozy bed or something stupid like that to make moms feel better.  It didn’t work.  The minute they put you in it with your special sunglasses, you screamed.  All you wanted was to be held, and all I wanted was to hold you.  And all the mean grumpy nurse wanted was to put you in that bed and let you holler.  Of course, she didn’t have to listen to her baby scream, she just had to put you in there and come check on you every few hours.  Every time we got to hold you, the minute you hit my hands, you stopped crying.  You would snuggle into my neck and fall right asleep.  I can’t imagine how exhausted you were…well, maybe I can a little bit.

Friday morning came around and Sloth came on duty.  Her actual name was Amanda or something like that, but it should’ve been Sloth.  I’ve never seen someone move so slowly- let alone someone who was supposed to be in charge of getting my pain meds and getting us the heck out of that place.  The mean and grumpy nurse told us that the lab people would be around at 5 am to check your biliruben level.  At 8:00, they showed up.  I thought it was taking forever to get the results, so I did the only thing I could think of to hurry things up… I cried, real loud, real ugly.  Turns out, when you throw a grown up fit, sometimes you do get your way.  Sloth checked the computer screen and sure enough, results were in.  Your level was down to 8.9 and we were in the clear for circumcision and then discharge.  I had it all planned out in my head to be home on the couch by lunchtime.  I knew once we got to Ammy and Pop-Pop’s house, I would get a huge break.  It would be pass the baby around time while Momma sleeps in between feedings.

The pediatrician came around and asked what would be a good time to do your circumcision.  I said 2 days ago, or maybe right now.  My sarcasm was wearing thin at this point.  She took you out of the room for a few minutes (thank goodness they don’t do that part in front of the parents).  I thought I would take a shower while they had you (your dad had gone to get the carseat), but instead decided to get us all completely packed up.  The minute the papers were signed, I was running out of that place, or wheeling out of it, because there was no running.  Turns out when Daddy went to get the carseat, the car wouldn’t start (awesome) and they had to jump it.  Let the good times roll.  You came back in sleeping peacefully and I didn’t feel like a huge failure of a parent for letting them cut on your man parts.

Sloth disappeared for hours during this time.  I had to call her to get pain meds, and they showed up about 45 minutes later.  Then she said she would go get the paperwork ready for us to leave.  I got you changed into your own clothes and we waited.  Then we waited. And just because it was so much fun, we waited some more.  Sloth had called my meds down to the pharmacy around 10 that morning and Daddy went to pick them up around 11:30.  Finally at 1:30, I called Sloth again and asked when she thought we’d get to go home.  She replied, “We’re just waiting on your meds.”  I told her that we picked them up hours ago and she said, “Ok, let me get started on your paperwork.”  Oh Sloth.  You were supposed to be doing that forever ago.  I may be drugged up, and tore up, and in a genuine pissed off mood, but Sloth, I swear I will walk out of this room, hunt you down, and throw you out the second story window with the awful view of the parking garage that if I have to look at for 5 more minutes I will throw another grown up fit.  And Sloth, you know I can catch you as awful as I feel, because you know what?  You. Are. Slow.  (I was a real peach in the hospital, let me tell you.)

Sloth slowly slinked into the room with our discharge papers around 3:45 that afternoon.  She had to go over a million things like- Don’t shake your baby.  Put your baby to sleep on his back.  Change your baby’s diapers.  Don’t be an idiot.  I signed those papers as fast as she could hand them to me- and trust me, nothing Sloth did was quick.  At 4:15, she said, “Ok, are you ready?”  This is how we both felt…

I looked around for my wheelchair and quickly learned that I wasn’t getting one.  No big deal, Sloth, I didn’t just deliver a huge baby and then spend 4 days in a hospital with no sleep, terrible food, and the world’s slowest nurse.  So, we loaded you in the carseat and said, “Let’s go.”  Well, not that easy.  Sloth wasn’t happy with the carseat straps, so we had to make all kinds of adjustments and trick her into thinking it was fixed.  Then, our parade finally left room 1325-Sloth creeping slowly, followed by Daddy carrying you and several bags, and me waddling AND carrying a huge bag with no wheelchair in sight.  We walked for what seemed like a mile just to get to the desk in the Mommy and Baby wing.  Just to top it all off, one of the nurses stopped us to tell us it was cold outside and she didn’t want us taking you out without a blanket.  At that point, I lost it.  I moaned/grunted/made all sorts of noises and loudly said, “Oh my goodness.  Are we ever going to get out of here?”  That sweet little lady kindly backed away and said, “Have a nice day.”

We continued our long trek down the hallway with no wheelchair and got to the valet and our car wasn’t there.  We waited several minutes and Sloth asked if I wanted a wheelchair to sit in while we waited.  Ummm, you think?  Check out these feet and ask me again if I want to sit down?

Turns out, the car wouldn’t start again and the valet guys had to jump it.  We were really striking out today.  It finally showed up, we loaded you in and headed to Ammy and Pop-Pop’s house on the very bumpy windy roads.  That feels so good right after having a baby.

Life went from busy to busier, crazy to crazier.  We ate a big pot roast dinner, which was amazing after that hospital food.  We snuggled Pax a bit, and then got you all tucked into bed.  You slept amazing that first night, which I was sure was a fluke from being exhausted.  Early the next morning, Grandpa Joe, Grandma Connie, Jodi, and Grady came to visit from Illinois.  I was still in a whirlwind of a daze from the week’s events that I don’t even really know what all went down that day, but they started moving things into our new house and painting.  Pax, you and Grady had a lot of fun playing while I spent the day on the couch with Michael.

Michael, you continued to amaze us with your sleeping.  You started out sleeping at least 3 hours a night between feedings.  By the 3rd night at home, I was waking you up to feed you after 4 hours, because I was uncomfortable.  We had your check-up at the doctor on Monday and your report said, “Beautiful, healthy baby boy!”  There were no concerns with jaundice (although you still look quite yellow to me) and they were amazed at your weight gain for being breastfed.  She gave us permission to let you sleep as long as you wanted because your weight was so good.  You don’t have to tell me twice!

The week followed with pretty much the same routine.  Everyone would leave in the morning to go work in the new house while I would spend the day learning and loving on Michael.  Pax, I missed you so much when you were gone during the day, but I desperately was thankful for this time to get to know my new little man.  I didn’t put him down- unless it was to get some sunshine.  We snuggled and cuddled and napped and figured out this new “life outside of the womb” thing.

By Thursday, we were “ready” (I say that lightly, because I was a little terrified) to move into our new house.  I feared that you wouldn’t sleep well in her new room, that Michael would stop sleeping so well, and that we would sink without the built-in support system that was Ammy and Pop-Pop.  Grandpa Joe and Grandma Connie stayed with us for two nights as painting and some small projects were finished up.  Saturday was our first night with just our family.  We didn’t have any cable or internet, so it was incredible just to be a family in the quiet-which isn’t all that quiet with you around!  We spent time on the living room floor doing tummy time.  Pax, you helped give Michael his first bath at the new house.  I didn’t take pictures, because I was embarrassed that he’s using your bright pink bathtub.  You slept amazing and so did Michael.  He started doing 5 hour stretches at night in between feedings and I finally felt like I was getting caught up on sleep.

Daddy went back to work on Tuesday, so Ammy comes over to the house in the mornings to help.  Pax, I look at you and see so much of your Ammy.  You two are a pair beyond compare.  You are ornery and loud, creative and smart, but most of all- not shy at all.  You say hello to anyone you pass, and sometimes you stand on Ammy and Pop-Pop’s deck and scream “Hiiiii” to no one at all.  You’re the funniest kid in the world.  When  you walk/run, you swing your left arm back and forth like crazy (apparently, I did this too).  You understand everything we say to you and are an amazing helper with your brother.  You love to kiss his cheeks and give him his pacifier.  You are quite interested with the whole feeding process, and it’s not uncommon for you to be walking through the house saying, “Mommy, boobies” and then lifting up your shirt to check on yours.  You found my box of pump parts and put them up to your chest, but that wasn’t very productive, so you started using them like a horn.  I just can’t get enough of you.  You have become more clumsy the older you’ve gotten.  We were at Lowes on Saturday morning and you face planted while you were running and have a big ole goose egg on your forehead.  You bounce around the house like a pinball, constantly running into things and then blaming whatever is around you- usually Jersey, for tripping you.  You love to give kisses and still like for Momma to read you stories.  You throw your head back and have a hilarious fake laugh when other people around you are laughing.  You’re such an incredible kid and I’m so amazed at the role you’ve stepped into as a big sister.

Michael, you are the world’s easiest baby.  I’m convinced that awful pregnancies and really tough deliveries lead to perfect babies, and I’m ok with that.  You are awake for a bit in the morning and a bit in the evening, but other than that, it’s eating, sleeping, and pooping.  Let’s talk about this pooping business for a bit.  I can’t begin to figure out how to change your diapers.  Going from a girl to a boy has proved to be quite a challenge.  Your daddy was changing your diaper in the middle of the night on our first night home and you had a projectile poop explosion.  I laughed so hard it hurt my stitches.  He already had paint and blood on his shirt from working at the house, and now he was splattered with poop.  The following night, you immersed him with pee the minute he took off your diaper.  It’s a whole different experience.  We went through 5 sleepers in 24 hours the other day.  I think I’m a decent mom, but I’m a failure when it comes to baby boy’s diapers.  I made fun of people who used these things called pee-pee tee-pees, but now I think I should probably buy stock in them.  I’m so excited to learn more about you, what you like, what you want to be, to hear your laugh, to kiss your little dimples.  What a surprise blessing you’ve been to our lives.  I hope you know how loved you are.  Tomorrow, you will already be two weeks old.  I can’t really talk much about it, because when I think about going back to work, I die a little inside.  It all goes so fast, and people never stop telling you how fast it goes, which makes me more anxious about it all- especially knowing we are a complete family.  This is my last chance to hold a newborn that I brought into this world.  This is my last chance to show my own chid an incredible amount of unconditional love.  To raise you in a house where you will be respected, loved, but also disciplined to be a well-mannered, polite young man. We know that God wanted you here for big things, and we can’t wait to see those big things you accomplish.

 

In the past 5 days we’ve been in our new house we’ve had to (and by we- I mostly mean Pop-Pop) replace a toilet, buy a new furnace (our second new furnace purchase this year!), have work done on our hot water heater, buy a new stove, and a million other little projects.  Life is simply a crazy ride.  And just think Michael, yours is just beginning!  Here we are, this little family of 4 + a dog.  It’s our new normal.  It’s exhausting, but it’s so fulfilling.  There’s nothing like being a momma.  I want to bottle up your energy, Pax.  I want to bottle up your sweet smell, Michael.  I want to breathe in these crazy moments where I try to carry both of you up the stairs, because they are so brief, but so important.  I  want to pass out that feeling I get- you know the one where Michael starts crying, and Pax, you come over and pat his back like you’ve seen me do a thousand times, I want to pass that exact feeling out to people I see that are unhappy.  Because that feeling right there- that’s the best.  It means in the mix of the chaos, your daddy and I (along with a whole bunch of amazing people) we’re doing something right here.

I love you,

Your mom.