Baby

gifts for the mom-to-be

Jun232009

Baby gifts are so much fun and I think part of the fun is thinking about what you would have liked when you were a kid. Now that I’ve had a baby and have had a chance to use all of the gifts, I know what gifts will save your life in the middle of the night! My other favorite gifts are the ones that I think he will remember when he’s older and what items he’ll always cherish.

These are some of my favorite favorite gifts that I received that weren’t on our registry.

Fill in the Blankie

These blankets are so wonderful and such a great keepsake! A friend of ours in Dallas sent one to us after Hudson was born and it lists his full name, birthdate, time of birth, and weight.

The examples shown below are for a baby’s baptism, but these blankets can pretty much be used for any occasion and you can personalize them however you want to.

So precious! And they are perfectly packaged!

fill-in-the-blankie-2

Engraved iPod and Docking Station

Todd gave me an iPod nano for Mother’s Day with Hudson’s name engraved on the back so we could have all of Hudson’s favorite music playing in his room. We already have a Bose docking station for our living room, but we needed another one for the nursery. Todd got the Sony Dream Machine because it has FM andAM radio and a clock. (and it’s not nearly as expensive as the Bose version) When you’re timing every feeding, nap, and diaper change, a clock is completely essential!

We’ve already over-played all of the songs on Hudson’s iPod, so we’re in the market for more tunes for him. Now I can’t imagine sitting in the nursery for so many hours without a soundtrack. Seriously, this is a great gift for a mom-to-be!

ipodnano_hero20080909 dream-machine

Sleep Sheep

The Sleep Sheep is a really cute sound machine. It has four different soothing sounds like a mother’s heartbeat, waves, rain, and whales. It clips on the outside of the baby’s crib and makes noise for 30 minutes while your baby is falling asleep. It has seriously been a lifesaver.

And… it puts me to sleep, too. I can hear the Sleep Sheep in the baby monitor while I’m trying to fall asleep and it puts me to sleep immediately.

sheep_studio

Swaddle Designs blankets

Now that we swear by the soothing and calming methods in The Happiest Baby on the Block, we have to have the ultimate swaddling blanket.

Some say that the hospital blankets are the best swaddling blankets, but that’s just not true. The Swaddle Designs blankets are a perfect square and are just big enough to wrap all the way around the baby and tuck in nicely.

They also have some handy-dandy swaddling instructions in case you forget which side folds up and which side folds down. We love these blankets!

sd-050pb

So next time I have a baby shower to attend and all of the good items have been purchased off the registry, I’ll be picking up one of these great gifts for mom and baby. What is your favorite gift to give at a baby shower?

two weeks post-partum

Filed Under: Baby, Pregnancy

Jun202009

Right before I found out I was pregnant, I helped launch Weight Watchers Wednesdays with my blogging buddies, Mojito Maven and LyndsAU. It was only a week later that we found out we were expecting and the WWW had to go out the window for the next 9 months.

I was concerned with how much weight I was going to gain, but because I was so sick for so long, when I finally started feeling well exercise was the furthest thing from my mind. At 5’8″ I ended up gaining 42 pounds. My doctor never told me that I was gaining too much weight or that she thought I should try to cut back. This is what I looked like at the very end of the pregnancy.

last-import-160

taken June 3, 2009 (the day before I was induced)… and seconds before I fell down those stairs!

So because so many of my pregnant friends have been concerned about weight gain and how to manage it while you’re pregnant, I have pretty good news. I saw the tummy in the above picture for many weeks and would wonder every day how that big tummy was ever going to go back to normal. I lost 20 of the 42 pounds while I was in the hospital. I had a baby that weighed nearly 10 pounds and I lost 2 quarts of amniotic fluid. I don’t even know how much water I was retaining, but 20 pounds was just gone like that.

Now, two weeks after Hudson was born, ten more of those pounds have come off– on their own– and probably with the help of breastfeeding. I can’t be too sure how it’s coming off. My appetite isn’t nearly what it was when I was pregnant and I’m BUSY. I don’t even have time to think about what I’m going to eat.

So, be encouraged, pregnant friends. I’ve lost 30 pounds in two weeks. I’m sure the last 12 pounds won’t be so easy.

taken June 19, 2009– two weeks after Hudson was born

The muscles in my stomach are completely gone and my skin has lost a lot of its elasticity. After my six week post partum check up I’ll be back in the gym to correct all of that. I didn’t have any stretch marks while I was pregnant, but as soon as I delivered him I looked at my stomach and it was half the size that it was two seconds before and I could see stretch marks immediately on my lower stomach. Oh well.

Here are some recent pictures of baby Hudson. We’re just so in love with him!

celebrating his one week birthday with a cake ball made by Jenny of Lucky in Love

my mom ordered a stork for our front yard!

Fiona thinks that Hudson is her baby

tummy time!

Daddy time

baby questions: answered

Filed Under: Baby

Jun132009

Some of you have left comments asking questions in some of my earlier posts, so I thought I’d take some time to answer them.

Where did the names John, Matthew, and Hudson come from? And why are you calling your baby by a name that isn’t his first name?

Yes, the dreaded, “You named your baby what?” questions. I’ve always loved four names for a boy, so that’s why we gave him four names.

John is the name of my cousin who passed away last summer. He was Fiona’s (our dog) original “dad” and he was very very special to me. I don’t believe in coincidences, so I think God knew exactly what he was doing with this one. My cousin passed away on June 5, 2008 and baby Hudson was born on June 5, 2009. Coincidence? No way.

Matthew is Todd’s first name and Hudson is my dad’s name and was his mother’s maiden name. I’ve always wanted to name a baby “Hudson” because I just love it and feel fortunate that we have such a wonderful family name in our family. Not all family names are so great!

We put the name Hudson is the middle because it just sounds better. People may get confused and call him John, but we’ll just correct them. My dad goes by Hudson, but that isn’t his first name. My husband goes by Todd, but that isn’t his first name. They both swear to me that calling the baby by one of his middle names will not cause any damage.

Do you normally have blood pressure issues like the issues you had with low blood pressure during your delivery?

No. I had completely normal blood pressure before pregnancy and during pregnancy. I am not anemic. Because I lost so much blood during the delivery, I’m now on iron pills. The low blood pressure right after I received the Bolus drip was due to the fact that I had no eaten or had anything to drink since 9:00 p.m. the night before and my body was dehydrated.

What kind of outfit is Hudson wearing in the first photos of him? Where did you get it?

Hudson is wearing a little Feltman Bros. day gown. It is newborn size, so we had to hurry and get him in it before he’s too big to wear it! We purchased it and most of his clothes at Hip Hip Hooray in Dallas. It’s pretty much the best kids clothes store ever.

Where did you get your crib? Where did you get the rug? Was the bedding custom made?

The crib and dresser/ changing table came from a company called Newport Cottages. They have beautiful children’s furniture. My mom is an approved designer with their company, so we were able to order directly through them. They do, however, sell some of their furniture on Posh Tots, I believe.

The rug came from Pottery Barn. (big PB, not PB Kids) Fortunately, we waited for it to go on sale– slightly– and got it then.

The bedding was custom made by Calico Corners in Dallas. The fabrics are all Annie Selke fabrics and my mom and I selected them and then she chose which fabrics should be used in each place. I love the way it all turned out.

What grandmother name did your mom choose?

My mom’s first name is Karen and she didn’t want a traditional grandmother name. She chose to be called “K.K.” My dad is going to go with Poppie. We’ve been calling him Poppie a lot in order to not confuse him with the baby since they share a name.

I think that covers all of the questions. Please let me know if you have any others– I’m an open book. I hope you’re all enjoying your weekend!

the birth story {or how this c-section advocate pushed out a 9 1/2 lb baby}

Filed Under: Baby, Pregnancy, Uncategorized

Jun122009

Todd and I drove to the hospital so I could be induced at 5:30 a.m. on June 4. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I knew how the process would go and I had been wanting a c-section through the whole pregnancy. Because I felt like I owed it to myself and to my child to try to do things the conventional way, I chose to be induced instead of go through with the c-section.

We checked in to the hospital, I got changed, and the nurses started pumping fluids into me. Around 6:30 a.m. they started the pitocin drip to induce labor. I was at about 1 cm at 7:30, but was still about 75% effaced. Around 11:00 a.m. the anesthesiologist came in to give me the epidural. The contractions weren’t horrible at that point, but the nurses thought I should go ahead and get the epidural while I was comfortable.

The epidural itself didn’t hurt at all. About fifteen minutes later, when the anesthesiologist started the Bolus drip, I started to fade. I got tunnel vision, I felt really dizzy, and my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. The nurses took my blood pressure and it was down to 70/40. I didn’t faint, though. They started pumping more fluids into me to bring up my blood pressure and about an hour later I was feeling good again. I only got 20% of the usual amount of Bolus that is administered through an epidural.

Around 12:15, the doctor came in to break my water because it wasn’t breaking on its own. I had reached 3 cm and they told me that labor would start progressing more quickly if my water was broken. Holy cow. Breaking my water did not feel good at all, but even worse than the pain was having to lie around in my amniotic fluid all day long. The nurses were switching out my absorbent bed pads all day so I wasn’t really lying in it without relief, but it definitely felt like I was peeing on myself all day long. Who knew that there were 2 quarts of water in there?!

So, the rest of the day and night was just labor. The contractions weren’t terrible because I’d had the epidural. My blood pressure was kind of all over the place all day and I was starving. I started getting sick around 8:00 p.m. when my favorite nurse of the day started her shift. We seriously had the best nurse ever who did everything she could to make me feel better, encourage me, and relate to my experience. I was throwing up about once every hour, which is nothing for me if you remember what the majority of my pregnancy was like.

The doctor came in to check me around 3:00 a.m. and it was finally determined that I could push! The contractions weren’t horrible and I wasn’t going through any kind of torture, but I was so ready to be done with the process. It had been nearly 24 hours and I knew that the big stuff was still coming.

I started pushing at 3:15 a.m. and pushed for over an hour. The pushing wasn’t that bad because I was so determined to get the baby out! I was using muscles that I hadn’t used since I found out I was pregnant and I was working as hard as I could. The doctor and nurses knew that he was big and were encouraging me as best they could. Right at the end of the pushing, the doctor told me that she was going to give me some “help” with the vacuum. I didn’t feel any of that at all. I also had to have an episiotomy. I won’t go into the details of the episiotomy on my blog because I’m still a Southern lady, but if you do have any questions please feel free to email me and I’ll give you lots of straight answers. I know that pregnant women are often scared because they feel like they aren’t given many details about what could happen, but I think you know by now that I’m not into holding back. But… there are just some details that I don’t plan to put out here for everyone to see.

At 4:39 a.m. on June 5, John Matthew Hudson Carroll entered this world and the doctor and nurses were laughing immediately at his size and the size of his big cheeks! Todd took the sweet boy to meet his grandparents who were praying right outside the delivery room. I laid there for about twenty more minutes while they stitched me up. I had a 4th degree laceration.

The theme around our house since the delivery has been, “I’d rather have stiches where I can see them.”

They brought the baby back to me and I got to feed him for the first time. Then they took him to the nursery to be weighed and checked out by the pediatricians. The nurses got me to stand up so I could move to the room where we’d be staying for the next few days, and about ten seconds later I fainted. I knew I was feeling dizzy, but I had never fainted before in my life. They determined that it was because I’d had such an extreme loss of volume. Lots of blood, water, and baby.

About three hours later, I was well enough to move to the room where we’d stay for the next few days.

My delivery experience had its ups and downs, but I’m so thankful that we’re both healthy. I’m still going through a tough recovery and will be for a long while. Because I have such large babies, I’ll be going with the elective c-section next time around. And now I can tell anyone who tries to convince me otherwise that they’re crazy.

But, I’m sitting here right now while my little man is hanging out in his swing, and I know that this face is totally worth everything I’ve been through and will continue to go through.

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