Emmett Joseph

ANNOUNCING: Emmett Joseph! Born September 30, 2009

8 pounds 6 oz, 21.5 inches long

I love this baby; he is so mellow! It was actually neat to get to spend a day in the hospital with just me & the baby. It'll probably be the only day we'll have together as just Mommy & son for a long time. There's nothing wrong with sharing time with Tyson and Emmett, but having 2 kids is different than having 1, and I was glad to have a day alone with my second son. It's fun to see his personality already. From the moment he was born, I could tell he's got a personality all of his own. He's so easy right now--he doesn't squirm in his sleep, he calms himself down fairly easily, and he's not fussy.

Mitch did a better job with the delivery this time around--he didn't get queesy! He's a proud daddy (and handsome, too).

Emmett, "Burrito style".

Me & Emmett

I love him!

Labor was awesome, despite my fears. This time around the epidural worked and I didn't feel every pain like last time...I actually didn't really like that, though, while I was in delivery, because I had to be told when I was having a contraction and when I should push. Fortunately, the labor part was fast this time, and Emmett was in my arms quickly.

Tyson holding his baby brother for the first time. He was so excited!

Because of all of the precautions with the Swine Flu, no children under 12 are allowed to visit any of the hospital floors, even if they are siblings. I was sad about that, but fortunately my hospital stay was only a couple of days and Tyson came with Mitch last night to bring me & the baby home. We took these shots as a family in the lobby as we were taking Emmett home.

Seeing Tyson run down the hall was one of the sweetest moments of my life. He saw me & the baby and said, "Mommy, Mommy! Baby Emmett!" Tyson's voice was full of emotions--it was a mix of, "where have you been the last few days", excitement, nervousness in the new setting, and happiness at seeing his baby brother. The lady pushing my wheel chair stopped & Tyson crawled up on my lap; after exclaiming "He cute," Tyson gave Emmett a hug and kiss. He then held my hand and walked along the wheelchair as we headed to the exit. He was smiling so big and as we loaded my kids in the car he was so excited to be in a car seat next to Emmett. He giggled as he said, "He cute, he cute!" and then he repeated a couple times, "I love Emmett." It was such a precious moment in time.

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Monday, September 28, 2009

This whole pregnancy, I've kind of avoided taking prego shots of myself. Then I looked at my summer time pictures on my blog & realized I've got chubby photos of myself all over the place, so I might as well just embrace the pregnancy image while I've got it even if I am excited to get skinny again after Emmett arrives. I've only got a couple days of pregnancy left anyway--it's about time I accept what I look like. : )

This pregnancy has been so different than what I expected. It's been way harder than I ever imagined. I really didn't know how good I had it when I was expecting with Tyson. I truly understand the meaning now of being "heavy with child". This experience has weighed heavily on my mind, emotions, and physical capabilities.

• I expected to have to take the hormone progesterone in the first trimester. That wasn't any big deal to me, because I knew it was coming (I can't keep a pregnancy unless I take the hormone for the first 12-14 weeks). I thought things were going great, because this time around my body accepted the pill form the entire time & I didn't have to do daily shots.
• Then the morning sickness came. Oh, was that lovely. It was so lovely when I had to leave my classroom to puke in the school bathroom. It's a little funny now, but was not so easy then. With my first viable pregnancy I threw up a total of 5 or 6 times. Once I was doing that in one day I realized things were not going to get better for me without some help. After a month of being ridiculously sick I got the "magic pills" and thought things were looking like they'd return to "normal".
• As soon as the Zofran started kicking in I found I had placenta previa, so the normal idea went right out the window as I had to quit exercizing, walking any sort of distance a regular person could walk, quit lifting my toddler, or laundry baskets, or vacuuming. If I didn't follow the doctor's rules, the reprocussions were scary, because I had spotting and cramping. Fortunately with a lot of faith and prayers, it corrected and I'm just glad I didn't have to go on complete bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy. From the time I was sick to the time my placenta previa corrected, it was seriously all I could do to teach every day. It took me all of my evenings and weekends to recover enough to go back the next work day with enough energy to do it all over again. I'm so lucky I had the best class in the world.
• About the time my placenta previa was correcting, the school year was ending, so I was pulling my hair out in general anyway with all of the final projects we were doing, getting grades done, and packing my classroom.
• Then I suffered the longest and most terrible summer of my entire life. Summer used to be my favorite season of the year. It probably will be again someday, but it's my least favorite season when I'm pregnant. It's now my least favorite time to pay the SRP bill, too.
• Oh, yeah, I had to get my wedding ring cut off due to so much swelling (it got resized from a 5 ¾ to an 8 ½ ). Fortunately in 6 months I can go back and get it sized back down for free.
• As my belly grew I had weeks of back and abdominal pain and muscle straining. (I had to get a "pre-natal cradle" brace type of contraption. So fashionable!) After I got the back corrected by the chiropractor, I thought my life would return to "normal"...I've got to quit wishing for that!!!!
• That's when my final school check got spent & we had to adjust our income for realzies. I'll just say that's been quite an adjustment as we've been paying COBRA insurance as well.
• THEN I found out I had an infection that awakened chronic fatigue. About the time I started to break out of the 4-6 weeks of fatigue I had to start taking medicine for other infections.
• Now, my belly is so large I can't roll over & it takes so much more effort to do anything a regular person would do, and the abdominal straining has returned, but the good news is that delivery is right around the corner.

This pregnancy has been quite the ride. I think that I will choose to not expect anything to be normal about labor and delivery...that way I may possibly be pleasantly surprised. It's been a long road these past 9 months. All in all, I feel fortunate that I'm having another baby. Sweet Baby Emmett, you may never know or understand everything I went through to get you here, but I do know that it was worth it. I love you so much & I can't wait to meet you.