One Month Old

I know I'm a few weeks late in posting about Emerson's first month but better late than never.  His first month went by so fast and I can't believe we're already going to be coming up on his second month in just a short couple weeks.  He has grown and changed so much from when we first brought him home from the hospital.  As of a couple weeks ago, he weighs 8 pounds and is still about 20 inches long.  Going from 6 pounds to 8 pounds may not seem like much but you can definitely tell that he is heavier.  He doesn't have those tiny chicken legs anymore; he's starting to get some rolls on him which is good.  He loves to take baths now.  Whenever I put him in there, he smiles and has a great time with it.  The only time he cries is when we take him out of the bath.  He's not a huge fan of me washing his hair and face but he deals with it and doesn't cry, just squirms a bit.  Every time he takes a bath, he pees haha.  He's gotten me a few times but I've gotten pretty good at predicting when he will just let it flow so I'm able to move my arm and get out of the way.  He hasn't pooped in the bath yet.  I've timed that just right but I know it's probably only a matter of time before he decides to just go ahead and release.

He's a loud eater.  He doesn't suck loud but he coos and purrs while he eats so he makes a lot of noise.  He's a pretty clean eater which is nice for me.  Every once and a while he'll have a little formula goatee but for the most part, he stays pretty clean while eating.  He's now up to eating 4 oz. at each feeding and sometimes maybe even 5.  When we first brought him home, we were lucky to get 2 oz. in him but he has definitely turned into a little porker.  He eats every 2 or 3 hours during the day so we go through a lot of formula.  He goes through a big can in a week!  As he grows, he's going to go through those cans a lot faster.  Hopefully later rather than sooner because formula is expensive!

He is fitting into his newborn clothes perfectly.  They used to be pretty big on him but now they fit just right.  He's starting to fit into some 0-3 month clothes.  They're a little big on him still but they work.  I'm excited for him to be able to wear new clothes but I'm also sad that he's already starting to grow out of his newborn clothes.  He's still in newborn diapers but we can already tell that those are starting to get a little small too so he'll be in 1 month diapers pretty quick here.

As of the beginning of October, he slept through the night for the first time.  He slept 7 hours!  He doesn't sleep through the night every night but he now usually sleeps for about 5 hours at a time so we really only get up with him once or twice a night.  He slept through the night last night so I'm hoping that it becomes a habit.  He definitely has his nights and days figured out and knows that during the night, he needs to sleep longer.  For the most part, he tends to stay up most of the day, taking naps here and there.  As soon as it gets dark, he knows it's nighttime so he starts to sleep much longer.  I'm so glad he has his nights and days figured out because if he didn't, that'd be a nightmare.  Side note, he snores and makes little cute noises in his sleep haha.

He is a smart little kid.  He has figured out how to get mine and Jordan's attention.  When he wants out of his crib or just wants Jordan and I to pay attention to him, he will grunt a lot because he knows that if he does it enough, we will probably go in and see what's wrong.  I've learned to just let him grunt because he tends to do it when we're trying to get him to go to sleep.  It's hard to leave him in his crib alone when he's awake and not wanting to be in there but I've gotten used to just letting him make some noise until he finally decides to fall asleep.  When I check on him, I have to be very sneaky because if he sees me, he starts his grunting and I just have to let him make noise all over again.

He's getting pretty good at lifting his head and trying to lift his body.  I really don't have to give him much tummy time because he gets his tummy time practice in when I'm just holding him over my shoulder.  He loves to be up looking around.  He doesn't mind laying on the ground but he definitely prefers to be sitting up so if he gets fussy, I just pick him up and put him over my shoulder and he's totally fine and just looks at all his surroundings.

He's started grabbing this too.  He tends to grab a whole chunk of my hair and pull it out.  It hurts haha.  I try to keep it behind me so he can't get to it but he always somehow manages to find it.  He does try to grab his bottle when we're feeding him.  He will sometimes grab our hands if he sees the bottle and pull it into his mouth.  I'm looking forward to the day when he can hold the bottle himself because he takes a long time to eat and sitting there with the bottle in my hand gets kind of tiring sometimes haha.

His first official outing outside of Rexburg was to Rigby when we went to the pumpkin patch.  It was kind of cold but he didn't cry at all and seemed to enjoy being out.  Can't wait to take him on more outings like that.

I would say that this pretty much wraps up his first month.  He's doing great and growing a lot.  Can't wait to see what his next months have in store for us!

Bath time :)

Gettin chubby cheeks

Sleepy boys after church

Emerson's Baby Blessing

Emerson was blessed on October 19, 2014 by Jordan and it was great!  We had a lot of friends and family come out to support us and were very happy to share in this experience with them.  It was fun having our families here this weekend and being able to just take some time to ourselves and hang out with family.  There were 3 blessings in church on Sunday so sacrament meeting was a little crazy but it was great seeing everyone and their new babies.  We were very happy to see how many people showed up to show us their support.  Thank you to all who attended :)

Emerson looked so cute in his blessing outfit

Sibling photo :)

It was great to have so many friends share in this day with us!

Pumpkin Patch

Today Jordan and I took Emerson to the pumpkin patch with a couple of our friends.  We had a lot of fun!  Even though Emerson wasn't quite sure what was going on, we still had lots of fun taking him and I think that he enjoyed himself just a bit.  We bought Emerson his own little baby pumpkin and are excited to carve something fun for him.  I'm excited to be able to take him to the pumpkin patch again next year when he understands just a bit more why we're there and what we're doing!

Just sittin on a pumpkin with dad

He was obviously thrilled to be there

Even though it was cold, we had a blast

First official family photo :)

About Jordan and I

Just a quick little background on Jordan and I.  I'm pretty sure anyone who is reading this blog already knows pretty much all of this but just in case you don't, here's a quick overview.

Jordan:
-Going into his 4th semester at BYU-Idaho and is studying geology
-Loves cars....Subarus (especially his really old one)
-Hot wheels enthusiast (you're welcome Jordan)
-Works at Walmart back in the sporting goods department (but he can tell you where pretty much everything is in the store)
-Loves yelling at the dumb kids (in his dad voice) at Walmart when they decide to run around and push each other in shopping carts.
-Oldest of 9 kids
-Born in Provo but family now lives in Monticello

Lindsey:
-Graduated in April with a major in Sociology and minor in Marriage and Family Studies
-Loves being a stay at home mom
-3rd of 6 kids
-Born in Escondido, California but raised in Bellevue, Washington
-Netflix...enough said haha

Jordan and I got married on April 18, 2013 in the Seattle temple.  It's crazy to think that we have now been married about a year and a half and already have a one month old baby.  Life is just great!  Jordan and I actually met on an online dating website (LDS Planet just in case anyone was wondering).  I always thought dating websites were stupid and was only on there because one of my friends decided to make a profile for me one day.  Jordan kept popping up as someone that I might like to get to know but I always ignored it until his profile started popping up a lot.  I decided to send him a message and after talking online for a while we decided to exchange phone numbers.  We talked for about a month or so and then met up in person when I came back up to Rexburg after Christmas break.  We started dating about a week later and dated for about 10 months (6 of which were long distance) and then got engaged at Yellowstone on September 29, 2012.  After we got married, we came right back to Rexburg for school and have been here ever since.

Looking forward to the day when Jordan will be wearing that cap and gown

Couldn't resist putting up our baby announcement 

Best wedding picture ever!

Engagement day!!!  We had a lot of viewers haha.

Birth Story

I have been asked many times about my labor and delivery and without going into too much detail obviously, I thought I would write it down so that #1, I can remember it all and #2, so other people can read about what it was like for me.

My due date was September 1st and as it was drawing nearer to that date, I started doing things to try and jumpstart labor like going on walks and trying to eat lots of pineapple.  Unfortunately my heartburn only allowed me to eat just a little bit before I decided that I was about to puke.  My due date came and went and I was convinced that I wasn't going to have this baby until at least a week past my due date.  I woke up at 7:30 the next morning (September 2nd) with these pains that I was pretty sure were contractions.  I thought that they would probably just go away but they weren't going away and I couldn't fall back asleep so I started timing them.  They were about 15 minutes apart so I decided to wake up Jordan just to let him know what was going on.  We kept timing them for the next 2 or 3 hours and found that they weren't as regular as they were earlier that morning so I figured it was just a false alarm and Jordan went off to work.  All throughout the day they kept coming but they were so irregular that I didn't think too much of it.  I had a doctors appointment that day and as we were sitting in the office, I noticed that my contractions were starting to get worse and were coming a little bit closer together.  The doctor checked me and I was dilated to a 4 and 100% effaced and he decided to go ahead and strip my membranes.  I asked him if I would be having the baby that day and he just said "well, it could be tonight or tomorrow or not for another few days."  He didn't want to make any promises and have me be disappointed so we decided to go ahead and set up an induction date for that next Friday just in case the baby decided not to come within those couple days.  After my appointment, Jordan went back to work and I called my mom and sister to let them know what was going on and that I could possibly be having a baby that day but wasn't 100% sure.  After sitting at home for about an hour or 2 after the appointment, my contractions started to get worse and starting coming about 7 minutes apart.  I decided to go take a warm bath to help ease the pain (which didn't work at all).  When Jordan got home from work about an hour later, my contractions were about 5 minutes apart and I was in a lot of pain.  Jordan asked if I wanted to go to the hospital and I was like "no, we need to do our laundry.  I'm all out of clean underwear!"  About 20 minutes into doing the laundry, I was like "nope, I can't do this anymore.  Jordan, we need to go to the hospital."

When we got to the hospital, it was about 8:30 in the evening and they checked me and said I was dilated to a 5 and decided to put me in a room.  I was laying there for probably about 10-20 minutes when they asked me if I wanted the epidural.  YES PLEASE!!!  Contractions are probably the most painful thing in the world.  They handed me the form to sign saying that I understood the possible things that could happen if I got the epidural.  I didn't even care to read it or anything.  I signed it and told them to drug me up haha.  It took about 20 minutes for the anesthesiologist to get there.  Thank goodness it wasn't any longer because at that point my contractions were probably every minute or two and getting more painful each time.  The epidural didn't even hurt or bother me but that was probably because I was in so much pain.  Normally I have issues with needles but at that point I didn't even care.  It only took a couple minutes for it to kick in.  I probably felt only one more contraction and then after that was totally fine.  I was pretty high on life for a little while after they gave me the epidural because I was just so happy that I couldn't feel anything anymore.  My right leg was completely numb and felt like it weighed 100 pounds but my left leg still had some feeling it so it was weird having one leg numb and the other not so much.

After laying in bed for a little while, the nurses noticed that the baby's heart rate was dropping so they decided to go ahead and turn me over to my side.  That seemed to help but after probably 30 minutes of laying on one side, they came in and moved me to my other side because his heart rate was dropping again.  They had to move me from side to side the whole time I was there because his heart rate would start dropping again.  It freaked me out when that would happen but the nurses were all calm and said that he was just fine.

At about 3 or 4 in the morning, they told me that it was probably time for me to start pushing.  I all of a sudden got really scared and told them that I couldn't push.  The nurse was very nice and asked me why and I kept telling her that I was afraid it was going to hurt and that I wouldn't be able to do it.  She assured me that I wouldn't feel a thing so I went ahead and gave my first push and just like she said, I didn't feel a thing and had no problem doing it.  After a couple pushes, there was a knock on the door and the nurse said that my sister had just arrived so she made it just in time for the birth.  I had to push on my side because of his heart rate so after a few contractions, the nurses would turn me again to the other side.  After I had been pushing for about an hour and a half, my doctor showed up.  Funny story about that.  One of the nurses had come in a few minutes prior laughing.  We asked her what was so funny and she said that she had just gotten off the phone with my doctor and he told her that he had been trying to get up to the hospital for the last 2 hours but couldn't because he was stuck in his garage due to a skunk.  He had been sitting there googling ways to get rid of skunks and eventually decided to just make a run for it and walked to the hospital.  He couldn't get to his car or his bike because of the skunk.  That story definitely lightened the mood and when the doctor finally got there, the nurses were all giving him a hard time telling him that he should've just shot it instead of sitting there for 2 hours googling ways to get rid of it.

After my doctor arrived, I could tell that it was getting close because I could feel a lot of pressure and I just felt like I was always needing to push.  I only pushed for about 20 minutes when the doctor got there.  When I had finally pushed the baby out, I honestly thought I had gone to the bathroom so I looked down about to be very embarrassed but instead saw that my baby was what I felt.  It was so crazy and unreal I honestly felt like I was in a dream when they handed him to me.  He actually pooped on his way out of the womb so they cleaned his little booty up a tiny bit before they handed him to me but he had it all over and got it all over me in the process.  I'm just glad that he did it on his way out rather than doing it inside me because that would not have been good.  After they got him out, they figured out why his heart rate kept dropping.  Turns out his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck and foot but luckily it wasn't a problem when they got him out.  It was so surreal holding him in my arms and I couldn't believe that my pregnancy was finally over and that he was here with me and Jordan.  They took him from me after a little while to weigh and measure him.  He was so small!  He weighed 6 lbs. 1 oz. and was 18 inches long.  All of the nurses thought he was premature and I just kept telling them "nope, he's actually a couple days past his due date."  He was born on September 3rd at 6:05 in the morning.  I was in labor for only about 9 1/2 hours which the nurses were all impressed with.  They just kept telling me I was meant to have babies being that my first labor and delivery progressed so fast and wasn't long at all.

The whole labor and delivery process was not nearly as bad as I had expected it to be and would do it again in a heartbeat.  It was so amazing to see what 9 months of torture had to offer me.  My last trimester of pregnancy was really rough on me and I kept telling Jordan that I never wanted to get pregnant again but after holding Emerson for the first time, it was easy to change my mind and remember why I would want to get pregnant again in the future.  Words can't really describe the thoughts and feelings that run through you when they first place your baby in your arms.  All I can say is that it was amazing and I couldn't stop looking at him and didn't want to put him down or hand him off to anyone else.  Those first few hours right after he was born were amazing and it just felt like a dream the whole time I was there.

A few hours after birth

Hanging out in recovery

One of the nurses decided to give him a mohawk

A few hours after delivery

My First Post...Ever

So I am completely new when it comes to blogging and don't really have any clue what I'm doing but I figured that this was probably the easiest way for me to document things and let people know what's going on at the same time.  As you all probably already know, Jordan and I welcomed our son Emerson to the world on September 3, 2014 which makes him one month old today!  It's crazy how fast the time flies.  I feel like I was just in the hospital giving birth to him and now he's already a month.  I know that one month doesn't seem that long but when it comes to babies, it means that so much changes.  Just looking at pictures from the hospital versus today, he looks so different.  When he was born, he looked so much like Jordan but I'm slowly starting to see pieces of me when I look at him.  He's still in that stage though where all he does is eat, sleep, and poop and throw up on occasion but he's still so much fun to play with even if he doesn't really react too much.

Emerson is such a good baby and does a really good job sleeping during the night.  He sleeps in about 3-4 hour increments at night so we only really get up a couple times to feed him.  It's nice being able to get more sleep than I thought we would be getting but it's still hard trying to get used to not sleeping through the entire night.  We are definitely looking forward to the day where he sleeps through the night.  Even though he's a good baby, he does have his off days just like anybody else would.  We recently discovered that he is a very very gassy baby so we switched over to a formula that was for sensitive stomachs but found that wasn't really helping so we bought gas drops for him.  They work a little bit but not as much as we would like.  He'll wake up randomly and start pushing really hard to try and let out all those gas bubbles.  I feel so bad for him because his face turns bright red and he tries so hard to get them all out but sometimes just isn't that successful.  Even though it's frustrating and hard to listen to him getting so upset, I just remind myself that it could be a whole lot worse.  Luckily those gas bubbles are just gas and not something else...

I have just recently started being able to do things around the house now that I've figured out how long he'll sleep for during the day.  As long as I start doing things right as he goes to sleep, I'm able to get a lot done.  I've even been able to start cooking real dinners again.  Jordan is pretty happy about that.  There are days where he just doesn't want to sleep at all unless I'm holding him (like today) but I like to take advantage of those times when he just wants to be cuddly because I know that eventually he won't want to be cuddly at all.

Jordan and I love to watch him make the funniest faces.  He'll just be sitting with us and will randomly crack out a huge smile or the weirdest face.  We love it!  He tends to break out into little smiles in his sleep when he passes gas.  That's really funny and Jordan and I get a kick out of it.

Emerson was so small when he was born that he couldn't even really fit into his newborn clothes we bought him but he is now starting to fit into them.  They don't drown him anymore which is nice.  He's still pretty dang small but he's definitely getting bigger.  I can tell that he's getting heavier because it's not as easy to hold him in certain ways as it was when he was first born.  He seemed so much more fragile when we first brought him home because of how small he was but he doesn't seem as fragile to me anymore.  I used to be afraid to change his diaper and give him baths because I was afraid I was hurting him but I definitely got over that and have no problem changing him and bathing him anymore.  I actually have more trouble feeding him than I do changing him.  I have to hold him on my lap because whenever I put him in my arms to give him a bottle, he just throws his head all over the place.  He takes about 15-30 minutes to eat depending on the day so I like to let Jordan feed him whenever he gets the chance.  It works out great because I really don't mind changing his diapers so I'll change him and then let Jordan feed him.  There was only one time where I was too traumatized to change his diaper when he was first born but I've gotten over that now.  When he was only about a week old, I was changing his diaper and as I was cleaning him up, he started pooping right there while I was holding his legs up and wiping him and all I had in my hand was a wipe so I quickly caught the poop in the wipe before he decided he wanted to go all over the floor...little did I know that this pooping frenzy would last a whole 5 minutes!!!  I probably went through at least 10-15 wipes as I tried catching it all.  I didn't even know something so small could produce so much!  I was pretty traumatized after that diaper changing experience that I didn't change his diaper for about 2 or 3 days and made Jordan change every single one.  He has yet to do something like that to me again but I'm still always prepared just in case he decides he wants to have another one of those experiences again.

Even though he's a little puke and poop machine and sometimes just wants to cry, we can't imagine our lives without him now and are so happy that he is finally here.  Pregnancy was a long road and a tough one might I add but it was definitely all worth it when we finally were able to meet him.  We're excited to see him grow and develop but hope that he doesn't grow up too fast.

Just one of the many funny faces he likes to make

Another fantastic blank stare

The after bath face