My Baby

My amazing friend McCall came and took these pictures of Miles a few days after we brought him home from the hospital. Oh they grow up so fast, I cried 3 times while uploading these pictures just thinking about it. Thank you so much McCall! They are so sweet.

 

I am so in love.

Getting to know Mr. Miles

Baby Miles is now 2 weeks old and has been home with us 7 whole days! Here's what we've learned about him and life with him so far:

-Miles loooves tv. If it is ever on, he is glued.

- He looks more and more like Easton. Still definitely his own little person, but more like E and his daddy.

- The boys are enamored with him, but I'll be honest, Caden is the most. Easton couldn't stop talking about him coming, but it's Caden that is constantly by my side when I'm taking care of him and trying to do things for him. He seems mesmerized by him and as hard as he tries, he can't resist kissing those pouty lips or touching those tiny fingers. Every time Miles makes a peep Caden says something like, "Oh it's okay baby. Come here. Where's your blankie? I love you baby."

- He's getting better at eating, still a work in progress though.

- He sleeps- A LOT! He's supposed to eat every 3 hours and a lot of the time we have to wake him up to eat. He has to eat though since he's so tiny, so sometimes if we can't get him to wake up we just stick a bottle in his mouth and move his jaw up and down so milk goes in his mouth and he has to swallow it. We're all getting pretty good at the force-feeding around here and I can't wait till Miles is big enough we don't have to wake him up anymore!

- He is very easily over-stimulated. I always wondered why the NICU was kept so dim and quiet but now I know- these kiddos can't handle too much excitement! Miles only has a few times a day when he is alert for about an hour but if things are too bright or loud during that time he can't calm down and gets overtired and then can't get back to sleep for hours and when he finally does he doesn't sleep peacefully. Poor little guy!

- He LOVES to have his back rubbed.

- I know it's still early, but so far he is very mild-tempered. Unless he gets overtired, he doesn't really ever cry or fuss too much. I hope this temperment lasts!

 Look at those gorgeous eyes. Caden, you're a doll.

Easton, of course, loves him too and always says, "Oh hes so cute and tiny! I just love that baby!"
- We've learned that he really is tiny. The NICU gave us a growth chart for preemies and by each of the other boys' gestational ages they were in the 50th percentile for weight and height. Miles, on the other hand, is in the 10th in weight and height, so he really is a tiny little thing. When we left the NICU a week ago he was 5lbs 4oz, almost up to his birth weight. He's now 5 lbs 9 oz so he's getting bigger!

- Miles loves his brothers, too. He stares at them and looks like he's fascinated with them.

- He loves to suck. There are several times when I think he must be hungry but nope, he just wants to suck on his fingers or a binky. He sure loves when he finds that thumb and actually gets it in!

Flashback! These are from his time in the NICU. We couldn't take him over to the window till he was off oxygen so when he was 2 days old the boys finally got to see him! They were SO excited! Our friends were visiting and so they got to be in on the excitement. That's their cute boy in the brown shirt. It was a good practice run for him for baby excitement since his mom is having one next month!

Caden started bawling and wanted to come in and hold him. Poor kid was so disappointed, but he gets plenty of baby time now!

The boys had SO much fun setting everything up for Miles. They found this car seat cover and took turns being the "baby." They also would play with the bouncer and playmat and one of them would be the baby while the other one was the dad and took care of them.

My dad feeding him in the NICU.

Going Home! Exactly one week after birth.

My mom came down a few days after he was born and my dad joined her the next week and Jonathan's parents and sisters are coming down tomorrow! The boys have been in heaven having so much family around.

Here are the little studmuffins on Sunday. I couldn't resist taking their pic when they look so studly.

And don't worry, that handhold is not forced. These two love each other, they really are best friends. They play together for hours on end and tell each other that they're best friends and have their brother forts and all the wonderful things I've been so excited for. They really enjoy playing together and even though they still get in fights, they've grown to adore each other more and more the older they get. How lucky to have a best friend who is with you all the time!

Welcome to our family, Miles J Peck!

Thursday Feb 2, 2012, was a super exciting day for me. I hit 36 weeks and could FINALLY stop taking all 3 medicines and stop the bedrest I'd been on for 3 months. It was like Christmas! I took my last dose of Procardia at 8 am, wondered how long it would take before it was babytime, took a nice long shower, got ready, and then went to preschool. I do a preschool with my friend McCall and I was so excited to get back to it! I was feeling a lot of pressure, but that was totally normal and the contractions weren't as bad as they'd been the few days before so I figured I was fine. At 11 Easton started crying and complaining of a stomach ache so I decided to take him home in case he was getting sick. Well, as soon as we got home he was suddenly fine so I was debating about going back, but I remembered I was supposed to do my last monitoring session. I laid down on the couch and hooked up the monitor. A few people had texted me to see how things were going and I texted them all back saying things were pretty calm and I felt good and probably wouldn't be having the baby that day after all. Well, as I was laying there I realized the contractions seemed pretty close so I started timing them on my own as well. They were every 3 minutes! I think I didn't notice them while I was up doing stuff because I'm so used to them. They started getting stronger, so I told Jonathan we should probably go to the hospital. The boys were already in bed for naps so we called McCall to come over(preschool was over by then) and rushed out. I wasn't in that much pain, but I didn't want to wait till I was since I knew I'd probably go fast. It was really weird going to the hospital without being in much pain. When the nurse came in the room to see me she looked at me and said, "So.. you think you're in labor? Are you having contractions or anything?" I told her they were every 3 minutes and I could tell she didn't really believe me so she hooked me up to the monitors and saw that they were and then she checked me and found I was almost a 5 and my water sack was bulging. Of course then she believed me! So she did an ultrasound to make sure the baby was still breech, called the doctor, and he said he'd be there in 45 minutes to do the c-section. Luckily he knew how fast I would go, because by the time he got there I was in a lot more pain. It was so weird though just chatting with the nurses the whole time, chatting with the anesthesiologist while he gave me a spinal, and then chatting with the doctor as he's cutting me open and pulling out a baby. Way different than my other deliveries, but kind of nice to not be stressed out or dying of pain!

Here I am as we were leaving for the hospital. Last picture being pregnant!

Here's good ole Dr. Martin with the brand new baby! He said the cord was wrapped around his neck pretty tight so it's probably a good thing we had to do a c-section.

I love this picture. I loved when I heard that scream!

All cleaned up 

It was weird being strapped to the table and seeing Miles sitting in the little bed getting cleaned up. I was so happy when they brought him over to me. I may have cried a little.

Miles was doing great but was just having a little trouble maintaining his temperature in his tiny 5 lb body. They took him to the NICU to be monitored, but he started having trouble breathing. They did an x-ray of his lungs and found that he had aspirated some fluid on his way out and they would need to watch him for a few days to see if it cleared up on its own or turned into pneumonia. Unfortunately, it didn't clear up so he's been in the NICU the past 5 days, but he is doing great now and they'll do another x-ray on Thursday and make sure he's clear and can go home! For a while he was on oxygen, under an heat lamp, had a feeding tube, and an IV, but now he is off of everything and just has the IV in his arm for when they give him antibiotics. He also is eating 1 1/2 oz every feed and is doing great! He did have to be on the blue lights for a few days for his bilirubin levels, but they're good now too. His cute eye cover looked like sunglasses though, it was so cute!

The NICU is always pretty dark and we haven't gotten many good pictures, but here's one of Jonathan feeding him.

We go over every 3 hours and feed him, so it's made for a pretty busy few days but hopefully he'll be home soon! I am so so soo grateful every day I'm there that he stayed in as long as he did because there are so many things we don't have to worry about with him being more mature. Our prayers have definitely been answered. They were also answered in the delivery. I was so nervous I wouldn't know when to go to the hospital and would end up with an emergency c-section again, but Easton answered that prayer. If he hadn't gotten sick at preschool I probably wouldn't have been home for at least another hour, and then I don't know if I would have started my monitoring right away or not. I may not have noticed till things were really painful and then who knows how much time we would have had. It was definitely much nicer (although a little weird) to be in a calm situation and for the doctors to have time to do the surgery carefully. I can tell that this recovery is much easier than the one after Caden was. I came home from the hospital Saturday night and have felt much better than I did before. I still have had to take it easy, but I've already pretty much stopped my pain meds and it's only day 5 and I'm pretty sure I took the medicine a lot longer with Caden! I'm really really grateful for how well everything has gone.
As for little Miles, he has stolen our hearts already. I am so in love. I just sit and hold him and snuggle him when I'm there and cry when I'm not. I miss him so much and can't wait for him to be home. It's so wonderful to see that he knows us already and I love seeing him get excited when I get there. I've been taking advantage of my last few nights without a newborn and haven't been going to the feeds during the night, so he always seems super excited to see me in the morning. Little babies are the sweetest creation and I could hold him all day. I'll post more pictures and more about him tomorrow! Gotta go get my sleep in while I can!