Just got an update on Hannah!

So, we are still waiting for our agency to get our daughter's file.  Supposedly, they will get it any day now which would be amazing because we are really getting tired of waiting :-(.  It's been 4 months now since we first got "soft-matched" with her and the thought of her being in an orphanage when she could be home with us is depressing!  Also, the other steps have known timeframes which seem shorter.

But, while we have been waiting, our agency (Gladney)'s SuperKids team has visited our daughter - in the past 3 weeks or so.  And we just got the information from that visit!  We received a bunch of pictures and two videos of her yesterday and today, we spoke with the head of the SuperKids team and received information about how she is developing!  We literally just got off the phone with her, so I want to write this all down so we have it!

So our little girl has a repaired cleft lip.  They don't see any cleft palate which is so wonderful and apparently very rare to not have both.  She had surgery at about 1 year of age to repair her lip so she has a healed scar there.  Her lungs were clear and heart sounds normal.  She also has a skin tag next to her left ear, but looking at the ear, the structure appears to be normal.  They did a rudimentary hearing test with low noises, high-pitch noises, etc... and she seemed to respond to all with both ears.

She came to the evaluation with the head nanny.  Apparently, Hannah is now part of a program where a family takes her home on the weekends and at nights.  The family consists of a mom, dad, little boy and a little girl and they say Hannah has become very close to them.  This makes us so happy because it means she is getting much needed attention and she is developing attachments which is a concern for children when they have been in an orphanage.

Since she has been with this family she has made huge development strides including language development.  In February, her language started exploding and she has a relatively large vocabulary and is speaking in 3 to 4 word sentences.  She was asking questions and saying stuff to the SuperKids team.  Her caregivers also state that her language is understandable.  This is so great, bc with a cleft lip, a lot of times speech can be a relatively major issue and children can need a lot of speech therapy.  So the fact she is at least talking and sounds like pretty well, is a big deal!  Yay!

She goes to the Half the Sky pre-school program at the orphanage and really likes it.  She is very girly and likes dolls, playing kitchen and stuffed animals.  What a difference that is going to be!  I just got her a dollhouse from an online garage sale, so it sounds like that will be a good fit!  We also have already gotten her a baby doll :-).    They also apparently told her about us and gave her the gift that we had them bring her (a stuffed panda bear).  I wonder how much she understands - she is 2.5 years old.

She has a serious personality which I love and reminds me a lot of Mack.  She is also fairly timid.  But the team did get her to smile and giggle with bubbles.  :-)  She really loves  tabletop activities like puzzles, stacking cups, writing.  She has a good attention span, because she is doing all this with a ton of other children in the room.  In the video you can see her concentrating - it is so cute!

Her gross motor skills are fine, but behind - which sounds much like our kids.  She walks great, but she wants someone to hold her hand going up and down the stairs.  She also just isn't interested in the gross motor skills.  Like she wouldn't jump when they asked her to jump.  She started walking in June 2014 which means she didn't walk until 20 months!  But Cooper didn't walk until 18 months and he lived in a home with a mom that stays home and got a ton of attention.  It sounds she has a cautious personality.

She can already imitate a line by drawing one which apparently most of the other children in the orphanage cannot do.  She likes crafty stuff.

She is starting to show interest with other children and does parallel play, but not playing with other children.  She showed off toys to the older children.

She is telling her caregivers when her diaper is wet or dirty, but isn't potty trained.  I think that's really good!

She gets overwhelmed by loud noises.  We need to make sure she has an environment where she feels safe.  She eats well and is not picky.

We love love love getting these updates!  Our main concern has been language development and sounds like that is falling in line.  Oh, we can't wait to get her home.  Hearing how she is thriving being a semi foster family, makes us so excited to see how she will thrive once she is home with us!  Pray that our agency gets her file quickly!!!

We wait...

... and wait... and wait...  We are still waiting on our daughter's file to be designated to our agency which will set the process in motion so we can wait...  Uggh!  It is a bit painful, but we are lucky in that we have had little things to help us feel like we are making progress...

For instance, we know our daughter's file has moved from the province (equivalent to our state) level to the CCCWA level (the China agency that oversees adoption at the country level).   Apparently, if a file is going to get hung up, it will be at the province level.  So the fact it has cleared that should mean we only have 4-8 weeks until we get her file...  And that was over 4 weeks ago, so we could get it any day!  :-)

We have a name!  Our little girl's advocacy name was Alice.  Which fits her personality so well (from what we can tell).  She seems like such a little lady, pretty timid and like an Alice!  But, guess who is having a baby in May?  And guess whose mother in law's name is Alice?  And guess whose baby is being named Alice?  That's right - my brother?  How random, right?  Now, our little girl has never gone by the name of Alice or we would keep that name.  It has only been the name that they give her when they were advocating for her to be adopted on websites, etc...  It apparently makes it easier for perspective parents to keep children straight to have an American name...  

Our daughter has a Chinese name now.  Her last name is the same name of every child in the orphanage and is the orphanage director's last name.  Then her first name is the same as every other child in the orphanage as well (if I understand this all correctly).  An then her middle is her unique name.  Please keep in mind, this could all be way off, but it's how I understand it.  In any case, it wasn't given by her mother and has no specific meaning.  We may keep her first and middle (and combine it) for a middle name for our daughter.  But we are still deciding if it makes sense to have two middle names.

With most of this adoption stuff, we try to put ourselves in her position and act as how we would have wanted adoptive parents to act for us.  So if I were adopted in China to Chinese parents, I would have wanted a Chinese name.  So we figure she would like to have an American name.

I just really wanted to stop calling her Alice (since my brother's baby is going to be Alice).  I still think of her as Alice even though we have decided on a name.  So, I drew up a list of names for Andy who didn't seem to feel any urgency to decide on a name...  So essentially I let him pick a name!  And he did so well.  He liked Hannah and then suggested we name her Hannah Catherine - the Catherine in honor of his mother, and my mother-in-law, Cathy.  And I love it!  I was like - that is great.  Let's do it :-).  So there you have it, we have a name!

Like I said, I still call her Alice b/c of habit, but am happy we have a name so by the time we get her, hopefully I will think of her as Hannah and not Alice!

Other things that have happened is that we have gotten updates on her medical file including height, weight, additional pictures, etc...  We even got a video - a precious video of her playing.  OH, I can't tell you how much that means to us.

...AND Gladney's SuperKids team is in China right now!  So we got a quick picture of her from a couple of days ago and should get an updated physical evaluation, more pics and hopefully more video about her when they get back!

I also have found Facebook groups of parents adopting from China who will be traveling soon.  So some of these families are traveling now, and others will be traveling around when we travel.  Right now, another family from our agency is in China picking up their daughter who is our daughter's same orphanage, and we have reason to think our daughter and she are friends (they are in some pictures together, seem to have the same main care-taker, etc...).  As you can imagine, we are following their journey closely!

So, wow, it doesn't feel like much has happened besides waiting, but I guess a lot has.  Our case-worker told us today that they expect Hannah's file in May and that is not that far away!  Oh yeah, I did 10 hours of training that is required before we can immigrate Hannah.  Now, we just have to get Andy's training done :-).

So, in some ways, not a lot is happening, but in other ways, lots is....  Oh, I bought Hannah a bedspread too and am starting to think about how to decorate her room.  I mean she could be home in 5 months.  I am really hoping we can get her by her birthday, September 7th.  It actually would be pretty great (I think) if her adoption day and birthday were the same day - right?

Okay, so back to waiting...  Hopefully we have something big to report soon!

Joy

Fear has turned to joy.  Overwhelming joy.  We are filled with love for our little girl already.  

We have been unofficially matched - on January 15th we got her file.  And she is absolutely perfect.  It is like God picked her out for us she is such a great fit for our family.  I am so wary to write anything because there is always the "what if it doesn't work out..." fear, but whatever...  I am going to walk in faith and assume God will be faithful as he has been every step of this journey - like amazingly so...  

Do you want to see God at work?  Adopt a child...  Seriously, I have never experienced God moving mountains and speaking more directly than now...  through this process - hallelujah!

So about her...  She turned 2 in September 2014.  She has a cleft lip and gum line, but no visible palate.  Her lip was repaired when she was 1.  Do you know how amazing that is?  We were definitely expecting both a cleft lip and palate - and it seems like she has no palate?  We are assuming she might still have a small hole that isn't visible, but this is such a wonderful thing for her.  It means fewer surgeries and hopefully better speech development/less speech therapy.  She is 6 months younger than Cooper, but will be a year behind in school because of her September birthday.  Cooper will have a virtual twin - how fun is that?  

Her advocacy name is the same name as my brother's unborn daughter (due in May) and it's not a common name at all.  How weird is that?  Just another way of God showing us she is our daughter.  Also the date that we received her file is significant in a way I can't divulge - but let's just say the coincidence is beyond coincidental.  I really can't believe God has been so direct with telling us "Yes, this is your daughter.  Have no doubts."  I didn't even realize the significance of the date because I am dense like that and bad with dates and so God had someone email me to remind me...  He has left no room for doubts and for that I am so grateful.  I am such an over thinker.  One to second guess where I am being led.  And God has indulged me - indulged us - because let's be honest, my dear husband needed the same confirmations...

And miraculously he has changed the hearts of those around us.  Many close people to us have not been on board or supportive - for loving reasons...  They worried/worry about our bio boys and what this might mean to them...  They worry about the unknown and how big the unknown can be...  All real worries and concerns...    But then, all of this directness...  and of course her picture has changed hearts.  I finally released control to Him.  Said to Him, "Lord, I can't convict them that this is your path for our family, so I ask for you to...."  and he has!

So, nothing is final and nothing is sure...  We still have a long road ahead, but knowing who our daughter is and knowing that we are not that far away from getting her (hoping for 6 months or less), gives us JOY...  

So, just to give you insight into what's next...

1) First, our agency has to actually get her file assigned to them from China.  They expect this to happen this Spring...

2) Once that happens, the agency officially "matches" us and we send a letter to China telling them we want to adopt her with our plan to care for her, etc...  There is no exact timeline for this, but I have been told to expect 2-3 months typically...  Until this happens, though, there is a chance that she is not ours.  I was given a 95% odds that she will be ours...  but nothing is for sure until China approves our match to her.

3) Then once China approves us, the U.S. has to approve her immigration which takes another 2-3 months...   Once, we get it, we have travel approval and can go get her!

4) So we will then schedule our travel - probably within 2 weeks of getting travel approval and then we will go get her in China.  That trip will take ~15 days because you get there, go get her, then you have to file all this paperwork while you are there with required wait times/processing times...  You have to do things like go to a doctor and have her evaluated, etc...  But by the end of the trip, we will have officially adopted her and we will fly back to the good 'ol U.S.A. where she will be our child and an American citizen.  Woohoo!

We don't plan to take Mack and Cooper just because we worry about traveling with 3 children.  All of the China stuff doesn't happen in the same city, and we want to be able to focus on her and our bonding with her while we are there.  Our boys are awesome, but they can be.... distracting?  Ha...  We debate this, because we know she will LOVE to have playmates like Mack and Cooper - and they will love having a little sister...  I also think it would be awesome if Mack (who is now 5 and would be able to remember) would be able to witness her "gotcha" day and be a part of it.  But we really want this to be her birth story and for us to be focused on getting all the information about where she is from, the information from her nannies about her sleeping, eating, etc.. schedule.  We want to get good pictures and videos...  And we just see Cooper continually pulling us and telling us "Mommy, I have to tell you something..." like he does now...   Or if they get sick...  And honestly, 3 kids in one hotel room?  Can anyone say - nightmare?  Ha.  We might change our minds, but Andy is pretty adamant about not bringing them...  But we also have to figure out childcare then...  So we shall see!

So right now the main thing I want to figure out is what her name will be because we want to start referring to her with that name.  Believe it or not, I have tons of boy names figured out, but I am not good at girl names.  Think we have one we are close to agreeing on - I hope so.  We love her advocacy name, but my brother has dibs on that as it is my SIL's mother's name so the claim is legit.  (And she has never gone by that name.  It is just used on websites to advocate for her since an English name sticks in Americans memories better than a Chinese name...)

So, our current prayer is timing.  That we can get her as quickly as possible.  That she doesn't spend one day longer in that orphanage than is required...  If you would like to pray for us, please pray for that.  I have a feeling that will happen to show us yet again how God is working in this journey.  Our agency is telling us to expect her file late Spring/early Summer, but I'm thinking late March which would be early Spring.  All we can do is pray for that and that she is well tended and loved by the nannies currently caring for her.  She is in a Half the Sky orphanage which is the best situation we could hope.  Praise God!  

When we are officially matched, we will post pictures!

Fear

What I never see discussed by those adopting is fear...  I admit I am fearful.  Very fearful.  I think I get past it, and then it rears its ugly head.  The questions creep in.  The unknowns start to overwhelm.    In typical me fashion, I do my research and uncover every stone there is to be uncovered, ask every question there is to ask (I think), etc...  But the answer to a lot of those questions is another question or a simply "we don't know."  Nothing creates fear in me like the unknown.   Someone could tell me definitively something horrible is going to happen and that would generate less fear in me than the unknown.  Weird, I know.  But with the latter, I can prepare and develop a plan of attack.  With the unknown ...

Also, in an effort to prepare you, everyone prepares you for the worst - and I will be honest.  If the worst were likely to happen, we would not be adopting.  

Maybe that sounds heartless.  Maybe we aren't strong enough.  But right now we feel we have an obligation to the two boys we have been given.  And, although I'm sure they will survive if the worst happens - in fact, they will probably be better people for it - we don't wish for that for their lives...  Funny how we know that trials make us grow and give our lives depth and meaning, yet we don't want them...  

Of course, if the "worst" does happen once we are her parents it will be the same as if that would have happened to Mack or Cooper.  We know we are not guaranteed a life free of trials and our love is not and won't be conditional.

I will admit that when I am being faithful and am close to God, I am not fearful...  He has provided us many reassurances and been very direct with us.  For that I am grateful, and when we start to fear, we recall all those things and the many families we know who have gone through this before us to a happy "now", etc...  But when I get lazy and start to let things slide, the fear inevitably sneaks in.  We are lucky that God has been so direct with us in this journey, otherwise, I don't know if we would be able to complete it.

Most of those fears went away once we actually received our "non-official" match of the little girl we will most likely be adopting on January 15th.  She all of a sudden became a "known" rather than an "unknown".  She is adorable and has a repaired cleft lip which seems to us a very manageable/minor special need.  We are actually over the moon that it is so minor.

We got an update today on her and the updates are good.  A lot of the updates are vague and not very helpful.  But, we have weight, height, etc... measurements to see how she is physically developing.  She is now 26.5 lbs - and is 2 1/2 years old.  Cooper was 30 lbs at that point, and he is big, so that seems good to me.  Of course, we sent this info to the international adoption pediatrician with whom we are working.  We received pictures of her gum line (she has a repaired cleft lip) and to me her gum line looks pretty great - and honestly we have been prepared for worse.  Our #1 concern is mental development and from what we know she seems to be developmentally on track - but with any child, that is such an unknown.  But we know she stacks cups, plays well with other children, can be stubborn, etc...

I only write and admit this because I want others to know that fear is part of the process.  And I don't think it is necessarily bad thing.  Fear can help guide you, lead you to the right questions and remind us that God is in control.  But I also think Satan uses fear to keep most of us from doing the things in our lives we should be doing.  The fear of being uncomfortable or having to work harder or do with less when we are among the most blessed in the world...  How weak are we?

I am hopeful and pretty positive that a year from now, we will be singing the praises of adoption and how we are so grateful we moved in this direction.  I pray, we look back at this post and are so happy that we moved past the fear and didn't let it hold us back from receiving the blessings she will bring to our family and providing her with a forever family.  When I look at Cooper and Mack, I can't imagine a world without them.  I am guessing we will feel like that shortly about Yin Xiu (American name still to be determined :-)).

In other news, I have already bought her a Christmas dress that was on clearance for next year having no idea what size she will actually be (bought a 3T).   Yes, that might be a little bit of "jumping the gun".  :-)

Party of Five?

We have big news!  We are in the process of adopting from China...  ...and it looks like some exciting things might start happening with that very soon.  So, I wanted to capture the events that led us to begin exploring adoption...   I want a record of how it all came to be so that she and we can look back on it and remember :-).

...We had "decided" two kids were enough.  Before marrying, I had negotiated with Andy that we would have two children with an option for a third if the two were same sex :-).  I always wanted three children.  Andy wanted two.  But, Cooper's birth and first year wore me out.  I was approaching 40 and worried about having a healthy pregnancy anyways...  So, despite my having the "option" with Andy to have a third, I resigned myself to the fact that we were going to be a family of four.

Our boys are precious (I'm not biased at all ;-)).  I have never felt I had to have a girl to complete our family like so many moms seem to have.  I honestly feel so lucky to just have what I have.  I have a wonderful husband and two amazing boys - things I wondered if I would ever have.  I also really wanted private schools for our boys - and where 2 kids in private school is doable, 3 is a lot.  So, I thanked the Lord for our blessings and was content.

But, around a year ago, someone asked me if we were done having kids.  And I responded "Yes, unless we end up adopting..."  And that got me thinking...  Wait, Cooper is about to be two.  Adoption takes 18 mo - 2 years.  If we want to adopt and have our children close in age, we are already behind the curve ball...  So that got me started on investigating adoption.

I brought it up to Andy and asked him what he thought.  He surprised me by saying, I always thought when I married you that we would end up adopting...  That was not what I expected to hear from him!  But I went with it :-).

I had also been praying to God about how he wanted to use us.  I am big on purpose and having one.  Don't get me wrong - being a wife and mother to the guys I have is a big purpose.  But, reality is, our family is blessed beyond belief.  We don't consider ourselves "rich", but did you know, that most people who are rich, don't think they are?  That is all of us in the U.S.A.  We are all rich!  If you are middle/upper class in the U.S.A. you and we are the 1% of the 1% of the world.  I would ask "God, why have you blessed us so?" and He clearly said to me "I have blessed you, b/c I know you will bless others with your blessings...".

Andy and I were both blessed with good parenting.  Parenting that has taught us how to fend for ourselves, live independent lives, good educations, the Gospel, etc...  And, so, it all came together that look, if we can take one child that doesn't have a mother and father, if we can raise and provide for her and help her to have a productive life - what a way to bless others...    And, we get blessed in return by getting another child to love and raise.

Around this same time, a friend from church hosted the IF Gathering Conference at her home.  As you can tell from the name a the theme is/was "If God is real then...."    That's a really powerful question...  If God is real, then...  Am I prioritizing my time and resources correctly?  If God is real, is sending our boys to private school more important than providing a home to a child that will have none?  Whoa.  And, if God is real, do I not trust in his ability to provide for my family?  If we who have so much, think we don't have enough to be the ones to care for the orphans, then who do we think will?  

And, honestly, then and there I felt like God was kicking me in the pants, telling me to get off my bottom.  I felt an urgency that there was a child out there that needed Andy and me as their parent and we were supposed to go get that child - and we needed to start now.

So, we started doing our research.  I knew that in the U.S. children to be adopted are in demand and there are a long list of infertile couples who wait a long time for those children.   We don't want to compete with infertile couples for a child.  We want to provide for a child that needs a home and might not find one otherwise.  

When I was 30 and single, I had made a plan that if I didn't meet my husband by age 35, I would adopt a little girl from China because I knew they allowed single women to adopt and little girls needed homes because they were abandoned because they were not boys.  We also have two boys and thought if we are adopting a child, it would be nice to have the opposite sex so that she felt special and not competitive with her siblings.  So, we were led to China.  We were shocked to find out that the wait to adopt a healthy child from China was 7-8 years, now, for a variety of reasons.  But, we were introduced to the special needs program where the wait was 18-24 mo for a minor special need like cleft-lip/palate, club foot, etc...  

Honestly, the special need thing really stressed us out.  Heck, to be honest, it still does  But, we also began to see the beauty of it...  How wonderful that not only could we provide a home, but we could provide medical care that would help a child to live a completely normal life...  How many people are in a situation to do that?  ...and yet we are!

God kept working in our lives...  I was still stressed about being able to provide what we wanted for our family, and at that exact moment God provided us with three instances of unexpected financial blessings...  Just to show us - have faith.  I will provide.  We had just bought a home with 5 bedrooms  - so more than enough room for another child - and across the street from an amazing elementary school in a neighborhood where the boys would have friends who were also taught to love the Lord....    I randomly saw a sign in a store that said "what God leads you to, he will lead you through..."  Just so many things that all pointed towards God's plan for our lives...

And, we started to see how the Lord had been working all along to bring us to this point.  First, Andy and I didn't meet and marry until we were 32.  We wanted two years of being married before having kids (actually Andy did - I wanted one - but I didn't fight him on it. ;-))  It then took us over a year to get pregnant with Mack despite us having no infertility/physical reasons for this to be the case...  ...and it took 16 months after having Mack to get pregnant with Cooper..   ...And all that left me having Cooper at 37 (but two months from being 38)...  Cooper's birth was hard - he was 10 lbs and they had to cut my uterus in a 'T' to get him out where Mack's was a breeze.  I hemorrhaged for an hour after birth and they kept me in observation because they were worried about how much blood I had lost.  Then, Mack got pneumonia and was hospitalized for a week the day we brought Cooper home...

I don't know what your version of hell will be, but mine will be my sick child in a hospital trying to sleep with an oxygen monitor on him throwing off an alarm every time it goes under 90% - because you know waking up a deathly sick kid is probably what's going to help him get better.  So, instead of getting sleep, I watched the monitor all night long so that anytime it dipped below 90%, I could hit the button so the alarm wouldn't go off and he could actually sleep.  Keep in mind, I had just had a horrible labor that turned into a c-section.  I could barely get up and get down because I hurt so badly.   I was completely exhausted because of the birth, surgery and newborn feeding.  And, since I was in the hospital with my son who has pneumonia and Cooper is at home because the only thing that could make this worse is Cooper coming down with pneumonia too - so, I am pumping in the hospital every 2.5 hours.  My poor mother-in-law was home with Cooper who wouldn't take a bottle because he wanted the real thing and I am sure Cooper's birth was as much a nightmare for her as for me.  (Have I mentioned I won the mother-in-law lottery?)  In general, it pretty much made the whole birthing a baby process an absolute nightmare and not something I ever wanted to do again...  Plus, even if I miraculously felt like going through that again, even if I had gotten pregnant 6 months after having Cooper, I would pretty much have been 40 before having another child...  

...and I had always had a heart to adopt...

So, Andy and I talked and both agreed, we weren't ready to adopt at this moment...  But since the timeline of adoption was 18-24 months we thought we should start the process and see where it led us...  So we started the process..  It very much has felt like we have been building an ark on faith seeing where it takes us...   ...and, all of a sudden, it looks like it is about to take us somewhere wonderful!  :-) 

And Cooper makes Four :-)

So, in case you hadn't heard, we have a new baby.  A beautiful baby boy we names Cooper Andrew Sykes.  His daddy is Andrew Sykes so that's where the "Andrew" came from and Cooper - well, we just liked it.  Here's a picture of the new guy:

So, getting him here was a bit of a mess.  So, if you get bored with birth stories, feel free to bail now, but I want to write it down somewhere before I forget it :-). 

First of all, I was HUGE this pregnancy and told that was because Cooper was huge and I had a ton of amniotic fluid.  They estimated Cooper at 11 lbs!  Luckily (I guess) he was only almost 10 lbs (9 lbs, 14.8 oz to be exact) and 22.25 inches long.  He was born at 10:58 am on April 12, 2012.  And here I thought I was going to have a March baby!

Cooper was due on April 4th and since Mack was 3 days early and supposedly second babies come earlier, I thought I was going to have a March baby.  But, nope, Cooper was not coming.  I was doing all the things they told you to do, walked, ate spicy food, put my husband to work, stripped membranes (uggh, hate that phrase!) and he wasn't coming. So, you know what worked?  Castor oil.  That's right.  I glugged some of that down at around 2 in the afternoon and I was in labor around 7 that night. 

I had been to the hospital so many times with contractions that would never go anywhere, I didn't believe it and I kept thinking they were going to stop.  But they didn't - they kept progressing.  And my doctor basically said they weren't going to let me go home until that baby was born - she was getting nervous since he was late and apparently my placenta had started deteriorating.  I was nervous too and just wanted to get my baby boy out already!

So I progressed and all that jazz to 8 cm.  And then I regressed to something like 6 cm - they said b/c his head was too big and kept banging on my cervix which was swelling (sorry if this is TMI, but I seem to have lost the judgment to determine what is TMI and what is not, so you'll have to bear with me :-)).  So anyways, we kept going for another 2-3 hours and no more progressing.  SO, they tell me that it looks like his head is too big and they worry that even if his head makes it out that they might have to break his shoulders to get those out.  At this point, I was so tired and the doctor said we needed to go ahead with a C-section - so I was like "let's just do it". 

So, they pumped me full of drugs which make you shiver like crazy and went to cut him out.  Honestly the whole thing freaked me out which surprised me - I normally don't freak out very easily.  I was crying - not sobbing - but quiet tears streaming down my face.  I was pretty bummed about having a C-section I guess.  And, apparently they cut me and tried to get him out, but he was too big for the cut, so she had to cut me vertically on the uterus as well (so I have a T shaped incision on my uterus).  So I guess if he was too big for even the normal C-section inscision, I should just be grateful I live in the age of modern medicine where he was able to be born healthy and I survived :-). 

So afterwards, for some reason they thought I might be hemoragging?  And here is where I wonder if things were worse than they told me, b/c they sure seemed nervous.  After sewing me up, they kept me in the surgery room for like 2 hours beating up my belly.  They kept pushing in on it a ton and seriously like two people would be on top of me pushing on my belly - I don't really understand how that helps you not to hemmorage, but apparently that is the way.  And then they told me I might have to have a blood transfusion and according to accounts I was deathly pale.  They wouldn't let me out of Labor and Delivery until like 7 pm that night so I would continue to be observed. 

It is interesting b/c I had a vaginal birth with Mack and it is interesting how it affects you differently.  Like I wanted to make sure Cooper was okay, but I wasn't like "oh, let me hold him" (of course, I did) the way I was with Mack.  I don't know if it was the medicine or what - but it was weird. 

Well, I stayed in the hopital for like 4 nights.  I was happy about that b/c it was so hard to move around after a C-section, I was terrified of going home and having to take care of him on my own.  Finally I was able to get up and down on my own and that made me feel like I would be able to manage.  Poor Cooper had jaundice so he had to do the light treatment for that.  But that was just one day and he got better.

So during all of this, my mom and sister had been keeping Mack.  So we got home that day and my mom and dad brought Mack back that night.  It was so good to see him.  Since we thought Cooper would be born near the 4th, he had been with them for 2 weeks and I missed him terribly.  So we got him back and it was so good to finally hold him.

But he had a nasty cough, and a mild fever, so we gave him some tylenol that night (to bring down the fever) and put him to bed to recover.  The next morning he still had the nasty cough and his fever seemed even worse.  So I made a Dr's appt and brought him to our pedi that afternoon.  He gave him a breathing treatment and told us to come back in a couple of hours.  We did, he gave him another breathing treatment, his breathing was still not improved and so he told us to go to the hospital directly from there!  Cooper is not even a week old at this point.  So the last place I wanted to bring a newborn was a hospital full of sick kids.  So long story short, Mack was in the hospital for almost a week with something like pneumonia.  It was awful.  One of us had to be there at all times and we were lucky to have Andy's mom, my mom and us all doing rotations of either caring for Mack or Cooper. 

Here is a picture of him the first night in the hospital :-(:

I wasn't going into the hospital b/c I was breastfeeding Cooper and didn't want to expose Cooper to this since in a baby I felt it could be deadly.  But no one told me, Mack kept saying "Mommy come soon?" - uggh.  They kept saying he was doing really well.   I can't believe I didn't go be with my boy.  They didn't tell me b/c they thought it was better if I stayed home with Cooper since I had just had a C-section and couldn't lift Mack and I shouldn't expose Cooper, yadda, yadda, yadda.

So anyways, my mom let it slip that he said that and it sounded like Mack wasn't getting any sleep, so I insisted on going in and being with him.  Cathy (Andy's mom) stayed with Cooper - she was amazing - so I could go and it felt so good to finally be back with my boy.  I hated seeing him like that - he looked so miserable.  Luckily, the following day he was released - praise God!  And we finally had our whole family home.

Of course, I worried Mack would really resent Cooper since not only had I abandoned him to his Meemaw and Aunt Evie for two weeks, but then he was stuck in a hospital for another week.  Poor baby.  But he was amazing with Cooper from the get go and really just loved him.  Here is a picture of him that first week back home.  Isn't it adorable?

So now we are 12 weeks in and they are just adorable with each other.  Cooper lights up every time he sees Mack and Mack loves his baby brother.  He always asks me when Cooper cries - "Baby brother all right?" and he'll go give him a hug.  He is so funny.  Occasionally he does say "put baby brother down.  Hold Mack" - but I think that is pretty good.  No complaints here.  Two is definitely more than one, but you also get double the rewards. 

Feel so blessed with this beautiful family.  Thank you Lord!

18 month check in :-)

Our little boy is 18 months old. Where has the time gone? I can't believe it. He is getting so big and learning so much.

So we went to the doctor and I'm happy to report that Mack went from 10% in weight to 15%. Yay! He now weighs 22 lbs and 15.8 oz. I was pretty stressed when at his 15 month appointment he went from 15% in weight to 10%. I mean he is already skinny - I don't want him getting skinnier. He still has a big head at 50 cm (96%) and he is 70% height at 32 3/4 in (wonder if he'll keep that up).

The doctor was very impressed with his development as well. Mack says a ton of words now. Probably over 50. He was talking away in the doctors office and she was like - "wow, he is quite a talker". Then she asked me if he was saying two word phrases. He isn't - but he's not supposed to until 2 years. He also has done almost everything on the development worksheet which goes up until 2 years. I think I am so happy about this because he didn't walk until 16 months - 16 months! I can't believe that was just two months ago. Now he runs around the house. It is so cute and adorable. I will have to post his walking video since I didn't blog about it.

His favorite words are "dog", "ball", "daddy", "duck", "snack" and "elmo". But he says lots of other things like "bubbles", "baba" (bottle), "ready", "light", "keys". "Mommy" is still getting the shaft. He can say it, but to hear it is rare and normally prompted by me. Whereas everytime the phone rings or he sees a phone - he's like "daddy?". He doesn't realize that anyone else calls us. Hahaha.

He loves animals and says"elephant" (sounds like "eh eh fen"), "monkey", "panda"... He also knows where his eyes, nose, mouth and ears are - and can say them too. His favorite song is "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" and it is so cute to see him try and point to his "eyes and ears and mouth and nose" while I sing it. (He's a little slow, but he gets them all right. :-)) He has also started doing the hand gestures for "itsy bitsy spider" and "twinkle twinkle little star".

He is OBSESSED with Elmo - that deserves its own post, so I will write about that later :-).

In any case, he continues to be the apple of our eye.

Love that boy!