Almost 9 months!!!

Can you believe that it's been months since we have updated and that Jaden is now almost 9 months old!!! It's true when other parents say to savor every moment because time really does fly, and that sweet little baby that just looks around and coos is now wreaking havoc on your house :-). Wow there are so many updates I don't know where to begin! I guess I'll start with a list of Jaden's current milestones for those of you who haven't got to experience him pretending that you are his personal jungle gym. There will also be pictures from when he was dedicated back in March to our current evening activities of going to the park or wrestling around the living room.

Jaden at 8 1/2 months:

* Has four teeth, 2 top and 2 bottom with one more coming in on the bottom
* Just started saying Dada last week, although I was hoping his first word would be Mama ;-)
* Has been crawling since around the end of 6 months beginning of 7 months
* Pulling up since 7 months
* Cruising with the help of walls, furniture, and basically anything he can hang onto
* Eating many different foods such as bananas, avacados, puffs, and whatever else we are eating in addition to some baby food
* Drinks out of a sippy cup at lunch and then becomes distracted and realizes that it can become a projectile that I will continually pick up for him. One of his favorite games!
* Has started Kindermusik and LOVES it! He took a 3 hour nap after the first class!
* Smiles and giggles all of the time!
* Loves socializing anywhere we go!

Okay at least that is a start and I promise we will be better about updating! Here are some pics over the past few months- enjoy!!

New (sort of) Pics

Okay, so I finally have sat down and put some pictures together that we have taken over the last few months. The funny thing about these pictures is that they are pretty old, I guess that's not that funny, he looks so different than he does in these pictures. He looks so small compared to the giant he is now. We've got so many pictures and so much video that the hard drive on my computer is full. We bought an external hard drive to store all this stuff on but I am really having a hard time hitting the delete button on my computer after I put them on the hard drive. Maybe I need a backup for the backup. I'll try and post some more once we have some empty real estate on the computer.

Has it really been 4 months since we posted??? No it's been 5!

So it's been a while since our last post and I am sure that anybody who used to check our blog has moved on to much more interesting things. But in case anyone is still checking it, I'll try and update everyone as best I can as to what has been going on since our last post.

First of all, our little 8 week old baby, who seemed so small at the time, has turned into Jaden the Destroyer. At each of his checkups he has measured in the 90th percentile for height. He started out pretty slim (25th percentile) but is now in the 70th percentile. I think the best way to describe him is how my close friend Michael refers to him, The Beast. Our last checkup was at 4 months. We have been extremely blessed with him being perfectly healthy and no major problems thus far. The biggest obstacle was a bout with reflux. Which was easily fixed with a little medicine.

Since our last post we have also gotten to have a lot of "firsts" in terms of Holidays. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas were all a blast with the little guy. There are pictures below from all of these. Halloween was fun, we had some close friends over and handed out candy. All the kids in the neighborhood liked seeing Jaden. Thanksgiving was fun as well. We went to Stillwater and Edmond to see the grandparents. Thanksgiving was the first time we were away from home with him since he'd been born. Christmas was much of the same. Jaden got a ton of great gifts. I believe his favorite toy he got was a Dewalt mitre saw. He's a little young to be using it so I'll make sure its taken care of. Another great thing about Christmas was that he got to see Aunt Jenny and Uncle Kory. They got to see him very briefly a week or so after he was born but this gave them a chance to get to spend a lot of time together.

Milestones: At almost five months, Jaden has hit all the milestones that "they" tell you babies should hit by his age. He was smiling and laughing pretty early but it took him a little longer to get strong enough to hold his head up consistently and roll over. As I am writing this he is rolling circles on the floor in the living room. He started out rolling from back to front but after getting frustrated enough on his stomach he finally figured out how to roll back on to his back. You can tell he's proud of himself after he does it. It's pretty funny. He also is starting to have a tooth pop in on the bottom. This has brought back some early mornings that we thought we were past. A little orajel and some soothing and he's back to sleep pretty easy. We have been EXTREMELY fortunate in the fact that he has been pretty much sleeping through the night since about 12 weeks or so. There are a few nights when he doesn't sleep to well but the majority of the time it's asleep by 8:30 and up between 6:45-7:30. That has been so nice. He is usually waking up about the time I leave for work and it gets me everytime when I lean over his crib in the morning and he gives his big grin. He has been squeeling and "talking" for a while but lately he has taken it to another level. He loves to talk and his new thing is blowing drool bubbles. It's pretty funny, just not when it's in your face. The other day Sandra was feeding him rice cereal which he started in January, and blew it all over her face. She wasn't as amused but Jaden thought it was pretty funny!

Hopefully my next post wont be in July. God Bless.

Nipple Confusion???

Well, we are 17 days into this new adventure and I have learned a new term that I never knew existed. Nipple Confusion. We are all adults so I think this is an acceptable topic for discussion. According to Hiedi Murkhoff, author of "What to Expect, The First Year", Nipple Confusion is when a bottle is introduced too soon and the child no longer wants "mommy". Seriously.

This topic came up at the Weaver household the other day as Sandra and I were both trying to come up with a way for us both to get some sleep. "If we could just use a bottle". "Then we both wouldn't have to get up and we might possibly be able to get more sleep". Our arrangement now is that I change diapers before she feeds, most of the time anyway. So we are both waking up 3+ times a night. Oh, but a bottle could change all that. The ability for us each to get 4 hours or so of solid sleep could be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Right now we are almost willing to do anything for a few extra z's.

In the book it says, "While your baby may well be puzzled by the bottle at first, and may even reject the first few attempts, he will soon get the hang of working the combo". What is this boxing? Jab, jab, hook. We have decided to start our own focus group and I will report back with the progress.

On another topic, last Saturday we had Jaden's newborn pictures. I have to admit that I was somewhat skeptical about the photographer coming to our house to take the pictures, but once we got started I could tell how good they were going to come out. Our photographer's name is Kristen Mackey. Someone Sandra works with recommended her to us. After having her take Sandra's maternity pictures and Jaden's newborn pictures, I would absolutely recommend her if you are in the market. Her website is www.sonkissedphotography.com/. It is actually very convenient. She comes to your house with all sorts of stuff and then uses natural light from the windows. The package we purchased included Sandra's maternity pictures and Jaden's newborn, 3,6,9 and 12 month pictures. Not a bad deal. The slide show below is a few pictures from his session.

8 lbs 3 oz and 21 inches of JOY!

I had every intention of creating a post the day Jaden arrived but I soon realized that I drastically underestimated the amount of time, energy and focus that would be required the week we were in the hospital. So I decided that since I am lying here between late night feedings and diaper changes I would attempt to put the emotional roller coaster that was the past week into words.

In my previous post I mentioned that the plan with Sandra and Jaden was that if she didn't go into labor before Sunday at 5 pm then her Doctor wanted to induce her which is exactly what ended up happening. We hoped and prayed that he would decide to come on his own but as it turns out this was just the first phase of his "stubbornness" to enter this world.

We arrived at St. John hospital, late as usual, to realize that our doctor did not provide labor and delivery with the orders to begin the inducing process but after a few minutes they were able to get things straightened out and "check" us in to our room. The nurses then started Sandra on her first round of medication that was intended to get her body ready for labor and then were going to start Pitocin Monday morning at 6 am. What ended up happening was that the first dose of meds that they gave her was enough to push her body over the edge and send her into labor. She began having contractions around midnight and they steadily increased in intensity the reminder of the night. By 7 am she was dilated to a 5-6 which meant that she was able to get her epidural line put in.

Somewhere around 7:30 am the anesthesiologist arrived to give her the epidural and we were both extremely happy that one, she as getting it and two, that it was from one of the doctors she works with and knows that he does a really good job. During the epidural they made me go out and wait in the waiting room (which was a relief because I didn't want to pass out at the sight of that needle) and they gave me a pager like the ones you get at restaurants when you are waiting for a table and said they'd page me when she was done. The procedure was only supposed to last about 15 mins so after 30 I began to start sweating. I walked back to her room and the nurse told me I could go in. I was of course expecting the worst, that my wife would be paralyzed or something and come to find out they were just catching up and chatting the whole time. Thanks for that.

After the epidural they increased the amount of Pitocin she was getting because they wanted her to increase about 1 cm per hour. It turned out that Sandra and Jaden were both sensitive to Pitocin so they couldn't up the dose too much. It made Jaden's heart rate run in a less than desirable pattern which only added to my anxiety.

At about 8:30 her doctor came in and broke her water and they found meconium in her water. Awesome.

At about 12:30 Sandra was fully dilated and ready to begin pushing. All the labor and delivery classes in the world cant prepare you for this. I was comfortable with everything but no one ever explains the amount of effort, pain, suffering or whatever you want to call it that your wife is about to go through. I learned that day why it's called Labor. After the longest 3 1/2 hours of my life the nurse called the doctor over to the hospital and the doctor looks at Sandra and says "he's laying in there kind of funny". Sweet. He was facing the wrong direction, face down when it should have been up or vice versa. Whatever it was it was wrong. He was also coming out with his head tilted onto his shoulder. Fantastic.

So we had a "non" normal heart rate, meconium in her water and now he's "laying in there kind of funny". The doctor gave us two choices the first was that he could try and reposition him or we could do a c-section. He gave us 40/60 odds that he would be able to turn him. In my mind I was saying to Sandra "take the c-section!" but wanted it to be her choice and thankfully that was the one that she chose.

After we decided to go that route it was literally like a SWAT team came in and the next thing I knew I was putting on scrubs. I was trying to hurry so much that I ripped 3 pairs of the shoe covers. Apparently not too many doc's wear size 12 cause I could barely get my feet in them.

After we got in the operating room it was literally like 3 minutes and it was over. I remember looking at Sandra who was in la la land and then all the sudden we both heard his loud wail and looked at each other and started crying. It was one of the best experiences I know I'll ever have. Thankfully he came out and everything was perfect. He didn't aspirate any meconium and everything else checked out perfectly. The most amazing thing is that he came out looking exactly like what I had pictured in my mind. Joseph Jaden Bryant Weaver was born at 3:15 pm on September 21, 2009! Yeah my kid has 4 names, deal with it.

After the delivery they took him and did all his tests and then I got to take him back to see the grandparents that were waiting while they were finishing "closing" Sandra up. The look on everyone's face was priceless.

The best part of the whole experience was when they brought Sandra back in the room and we had an hour or two where it was just the three of us. It was great. Seeing Sandra get to hold him for the first time and just the realization that we were now a family instead of a couple made all the anxiety and nerves of the last 9 months totally worth it.

We stayed in the hospital from Sunday until Friday. We had to stay an extra day because Jaden had a moderate case of Jaundice that we wanted to have monitored. They were going to let us go home Thursday but we asked if we could stay one more day (our insurance allows 4 nights for c-sections so...don't tell Obama I am contributing to the rising costs of everyone's healthcare.

We are all home now and have been since Friday. First doctors appointment was yesterday and he gained back 6 oz's since leaving the hospital Friday.

In closing I'd like to apologize for the marathon post but alot's happened in the past week. There is so much more I'd like to share but there's a crying baby in the background that probably needs a diaper changed. Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers as we were going through one of the most exciting and nervracking days of our lives. Below is a video I put together that has some great pictures of our perfect little boy. You will need to pause the music at the bottom when you listen/watch it. God Bless.

First Post

Here is the first of what will hopefully be many postings to come.  I began working on this blog about 3 or 4 months ago and then put it in the back of my mind thinking I had PLENTY of time to finish and get some posts in before Jaden came.  We'll it is September 17th and Jaden is due any day.  We met with our doctor today and the plan going forward is that if Jaden doesn't decide to come before Sunday, September 20th, we are going to begin the "inducing" process.  These last few days cant go by quick enough.  Sandra and I both are so excited to finally get to see the face we have been picturing the last several months.  I know it can't come soon enough for Sandra.  She has been amazing through this whole process.  For those of you who don't know, she is a nurse at St. John hospital.  She continued to work through 37 weeks.  This may or may not seem like anything to spectacular but if you saw her feet and saw how she looked when she got home, you could tell that it took everything out of her being on her feet for 8 hours.  So hopefully Jaden will pay her back with a nice smooth and easy delivery.  

It seems that the question that we have been hearing a lot lately is "are you ready?".  I never know how to answer that.  How can you possibly know if you are ready for one of (if not the) biggest change/experience you will ever have in your life.  I think I am as ready as I can be and I am actually kind of looking forward to learning on the job.  I can honestly say that I have never changed a diaper but who better to learn with than my own son.  I think that the bumps in the road will be the opportunities for me to grow as well as build a stronger bond with my son and with Sandra.  I guess we'll wait and see.  Maybe in six months I'll give myself a grade on where I think my parenting skills stand.  Or better yet, I'll have Sandra grade me. 

In closing I want to thank everyone who has offered us all the help and support we could ever ask for over these last 8 1/2 months.   We are so fortunate to have any amazing group of friends, family and coworkers.  Thank you Jennifer (Sandra's sister) for flying in from DC and throwing an amazing shower for Sandra.  After it was all over our house looked like Babies r us.  Between that shower and the showers from my work as well as Sandra's work, I think we have everything you could possibly want, need or even dream about.  I never knew a baby needed so many Boppies, Bumbo's, Bodysuits and Burpclothes.  

Hopefully I will be able to get a post or two in before the arrival but if not, please keep Sandra, Jaden and I in your thoughts and prayers as we enter into another exciting chapter in our lives.