Overwhelming few weeks...

Christmas time was very busy for the Harbin Family! We went to Ohio, back to Kentucky, then to Indiana, back to Kentucky and back to Ohio! Geez...it was a lot of traveling and honestly too much! Caleb is a good traveler, he did great in the car. We worked around his feeding times and became very familiar with the rest stops along the way. Even though he did really well it was pretty stressful on me, I worry about everything. I hated that he would get off his schedule a little, get too much unwanted advice from different family members and just missed being home! I love our families but now that Joe and I have Caleb, we are our own family now too. I wished we could have had more time together the 3 of us to celebrate Christmas, when Caleb gets older and realizes what is going on we will not be traveling so much and especially not on Christmas. Caleb received so many gifts! His toys are all over the living room, we are going to have to clear some space in his room!

We finally got a picture of Caleb, Madison and Eli together! It was pretty difficult but so cute!! :) I really need to update some pictures on here!

Adjusting to being a stay at home mom

I have worked since I was 15, sometimes I worked 2 or 3 jobs at one time! I have always been so independent, so now relying on someone else is a huge adjustment! I knew from the start that I wanted to stay home and raise our children instead of a group of strangers at a daycare. But, since quitting my job last June I have had mixed feelings and emotions. I struggled with not helping my family financially, being at the house ALL the time, feel like I wasted money and time to go to college to not use my degree and just overall feeling worthless. The last couple of days I have had to mentally give myself a huge pep talk!

I have realized that I have the BEST job in the world, might not be glamorous and doesn't bring in any money but I get to raise our son and be with him EVERY day - I won't have to worry about missing any milestones. I will be with him the first time he crawls, his first step and his first words! Seriously, what can be better than that?! Other parts of my job aren't as exciting - but part of my job is keeping the house clean, doing laundry, grocery shopping, preparing meals and so on. Obviously I did not go to college to be a stay at home mom/wife but I do take pride in the fact that I can say I graduated with my degree but sacrificed a career to take care of my family.

I have been very productive today even though the house is NOT spotless or even close! I have managed to do 3 loads of laundry, changed the sheets, dusted the WHOLE house (well except for the office and just now realized this lol), wrapped Christmas presents, went to the grocery all while taking care of Caleb. It will be a working progress on the house, I will clean a little each day until I get the hang of it better. Also, I am going to help Joe with the side business more which will reduce his stress level a lot and give me another goal to work towards. :) The last week or so has been very stressful for me but I must stay strong and keep praying! I do LOVE my life, my husband and my son more than anything/anyone else!

"Do not be anxious about anything but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God." Philippians 4:6

Such a smiley boy

The last 2 weeks Caleb has been more awake and alert. He once loved tummy time but now hates it, he will start crying almost immediately. As soon as I flip him onto his back he is kicking and moving all around. He is rubbing all the hair off the back of his head this way which makes it look like we never hold him. :(  Also, all of his beautiful hair has fallen out on top of his head - he looks like an 80 year old man! haha but he is still a cutie :)

He loves to imitate you, especially if you stick your tongue out at him! He will sit there for about 5 minutes just sticking his tongue out! Last week he started to officially social smile!! It is so darn cute! There is nothing better than to start your day out with a big toothless grin!

Spit up, snot and sleep

Caleb is 7 weeks old today! I can't believe how fast the time has gone. My life now consists of cleaning up occasional spit up, sucking out the snot and trying to get some sleep (but we are pretty lucky in this department.)

Caleb has acid reflux, but before we knew that is what he had, I dealt with a lot of vomit! He would projectile vomit ALL OVER me. :(  I would be feeding him and the next thing I knew I was covered with spit up. It would break my heart! I felt that he did all this work to eat then a few minutes later all that hard work was all over the both of us. He never wanted to eat more so I felt like he was starving. It was a long few weeks, but I was so glad that I finally called the doc. The doc actually had him go through an upper GI, so he had to drink all that nasty chalky stuff, which was the first time he had a bottle. After the x-rays I found a little room to nurse him in since it was time (he had to go into the doc with an empty belly) well after he nursed for a few minutes he vomited all over the place! It was a disaster and had no way of cleaning it all up! OOPS!

And poor Caleb...I have a slight obsession with the booger sucker and go at his nose with it at any sign of snot or a booger! haha! I use to see people use that thing on their kids and it would make me sick to my stomach! So it's a little odd that I love it so much! I just want him to be able to breath, since he can't pick it or blow his nose yet. :)

Caleb does really well sleeping at night. During the first few weeks we were waking him every 3 hours to eat until one night I slept through my alarm clock at the 11 pm feeding and he slept right on through too! So the next night we put him to bed after his 8pm feeding and he didn't wake up until 2 am! Now he goes to bed after the 8pm feeding and wakes up somewhere between 4am to 5am to eat the goes back to sleep until about 7-8am!! It is pretty amazing, we are really lucky!

He has already changed so much, that is just crazy! But, will explain more of that later!

Caleb is 2 weeks today!

I can't believe it has already been two weeks!! Wow, it sure has gone by fast! We are all doing really good here at the Harbin Household. Caleb had his first doc appt on the 24th, everything went really well. Except the doctor did scare us for a second, when she was looking over his chart she kept saying, "oh no, this can't be right, something is wrong with this." At this point Joe and I are kinda freaking out, but it was his weight. Most babies lose weight in the first couple of days of being at home, but not this baby! He gained almost a pound in the 3 days of being home! He was born 8lbs 6 oz, left hospital on Friday at 7lbs 15oz and than Monday he weighed 8lbs 10oz! I have a chunky monkey on my hands :) I had been concerned about his weight because breast feeding was a little challenging at the beginning, he was latching good but apparently I was producing way too much milk for him and he was nursing for about 8 minutes on one side then would be done! But, now he is nursing for almost 20-45 minutes, I kinda miss the 8 minute sessions. But, oh well, haha. We are already on a set schedule. He eats every 3 hours, and we have to wake him up at night to nurse! Joe is a huge help too! When it is time to feed him, Joe gets him up changes his diaper and brings him back to me, when he is done nursing Joe gets him back into his bassinet. The first week or so it was really hard for me to reach into the bassinet but now I am healing more and it is a lot easier!

Caleb is more alert at times. He is just so dang cute I can't get enough of him. He is also started to cry more...he definitely has learned how to cry the last few days. It might be time for a paci soon :(  I have mixed feelings about this because it will be something we will have to break later. But, I guess it will be easier to take a paci away then to have him stop sucking his thumb or fingers.

Well I wanted to write more but it is time to feed him! :)
Sorry if there are any kind of typing errors but I don't have time to read over it.

Caleb's birthstory!

I finally have time to share my birth story...Caleb Scott made his appearance on October 19th. I arrived at the hospital at 5 am to start my induction, I was started on pitocin around 5:45. (I was being induced because he was weighing in at around 9lbs and they were afraid if I waited much longer I would end up c-section). I started to have some mild contractions, nothing major. My doc broke my water around 8:30, and the contractions immediately jumped off the charts back to back. I was not getting any kind of break between, I really wanted to go all natural but after about 2 hours I BEGGED for an epidural and boy was it sweet! Even though it took awhile for it to kick in, the anesthesiologist had to keep pumping me full of medicine and eventually had to give me the full surgical strength before I was getting any kind of relief. They gave me some additional medicine to be sure my blood pressure wouldn't drop b/c of the meds, well about 10 minutes later I was talking to my sister and 4 nurses came running into my room, my blood pressure was dropping and Caleb's heart rate dropped into the 40's they pumped me full of more meds and finally his hr went back to normal. This was really really scary. 

By 11:30 I was at 6cm. By 5:30 I was STILL at 6cm. Doc started talking c-section, she was afraid he was too big and couldn't get settled into my pelvis to help me progress. I started crying because I was absolutely terrified to get a c-section. Joe and I discussed the whole situation for about 30 minutes and basically decided that it was time to move forward with c-section. Doc checked me at 6:05 and I had jumped to 9cm! By 6:30 I was complete! I labored down for about an hour and did some practice pushes, by 8:05 it was go time I started pushing and he was here at 8:38! All 8lbs 6oz and 21.5 inches of him. It was love at first sight and I still can't get enough of him!

 Joe was absolutely amazing through the whole labor/delivery process too! He helped me breath through the contractions and helped me wait as long as I could before getting the epidural.  I told Joe before hand that no matter how much I begged for an epidural to not let me get one, but I didn't realize that I would jump from basically no contractions to the kind of contractions you have right before baby makes his appearance. When it came time to push Joe was right there with me helping and talking me through it. He would sometimes go check out what was going on down there, he got to see Caleb crowning and told me he had hair! lol :) Joe said, "he is about to be here!" I didn't believe him and then about 30 seconds later Caleb was laying on my chest for some skin to skin. It was the sweetest and best moment of my life! I couldn't believe that he was finally here and that Joe and I were officially parents.  We got to leave the hospital that Friday, it was nice to be home with our family of 3 instead of 2. :) 

I will update more later but Caleb is still asleep so I am going to take a nap as well.

Last day before we become parents!

Wow, here we are last day before Baby H will be in our lives! You would think we would be out doing fun and exciting things, but instead all I want to do is sleep (I got no sleep last night and probably won't get much tonight either, lol). I made little treats for the nurses, updated my Ipod, and not much else as of yet. Joe has been finishing some business things and tried cleaning out our little pool. We are going to go for a walk, still hoping I can walk this baby our before tomorrow morning. Mom is also having one last dinner tonight before the new addition :)  I believe she is making one of my favorites - stuffed porkchops! YUM YUM!

People keep asking me how I am feeling today, which is a very hard question to answer. I feel excited, scared, nervous, mad, hopeful and just about every other emotion you can think of. I can't wait to meet our little (big) man but it isn't happening the way I had envisioned the last 9 months! The thought of being induced and possible c-section never crossed my mind! But, Baby H is weighing in at 9lbs so induction is necessary and doc thinks a c-section might be the only way he will make it out. My doc wanted to induce me yesterday but respected my wishes and let me go until tomorrow morning. I will be arriving at the hospital bright and early (5am!!!) to get things started. Hopefully, my body will allow me to deliver vaginally but if not, I am slowly starting to accept the idea of a possible c-section. I am obviously going to do what is in the best interest of Baby H and myself so that both of us be okay.

Even Lilly is ready for the big day! Joe just gave her bath so she won't be stinky when Baby H comes home :) We are going to take pictures tonight to get a few last shots of the belly.

Next time I write on here I will be a Mommy. :)