A Star is born

Several pictures from our newborn photo shoot with KT Photography.  Cooper was 9 days old!!

(*Disclaimer... the photographer asked Josh to put on a dark shirt that showed a lot of his arm.  We did NOT expect for it to show!  :)  There is no way I would let him wear this!! ha!)

Splish Splash...we love our baths!!

Cooper's first bath!  We have a very routine nightly routine that starts with bath time!  Josh gives the kids all of their baths and we continued our tradition the first night we were home.  Here Josh is giving Cooper his first sponge bath before his belly button fell off.

Since his belly button has fallen off, we've given him a bath with Caroline.  Josh actually got in the first couple of times and Caroline LOVES helping!  She will put the shampoo in his hair and rinse it out.  Such precious moments!!  She loves her little brother (and her baths)!

A Necessity!

One of the first items that I just had to rush out and buy after Cooper was born was a pee pee cover!  The first several days that we had him home were quite funny and just have to be documented!!  Josh seemed to not be able to escape children peeing and was probably more than ready to head back to work.  The first incident happened when we were giving Cooper his first bath.  Of course we weren't quite prepared and it took a little while.  During that time a very tall stream shot out!  Later that same day Cooper's diaper leaked and covered Josh!  Now the funniest of all of the situations actually involved Caroline.  She has quite the fascination with people going to the bathroom and she barged in while Josh was going in our downstairs restroom. She stuck her hand out mid stream and soaked him!!  Needless to say, we did laundry many times per day!!  Just as he had had it with children peeing, he took Caroline's diaper off to give her a bath and quickly set her down on the bathroom floor to get her towel.  She squated and went on the floor!  She had never done this and I have to say that it was pretty hilarious!  Josh definitely gets the best dad of the year award!!

Simply Magical

My absolute all time favorite moment with Caroline was in the middle of the night after she was born.  While Josh was sleeping, it was just her and me in a dark hospital bed staring at each other.  This little thing depended soley on me and she was all mine!  I remember the joy that came over me and just wanting to shout to everyone how excited and honored I was to have this little baby in my life.  I compare everything to that moment and it has made me sad to see her grow from that moment.  After Cooper was born, everything was different and so much more relaxed.  Everyone wanted to hold him so badly that I felt like I hardly saw him the first couple of hours of his life. However, this same moment was so magical once again and again I found myself in absolute awe at this little life in my arms.  I don't think I slept at all that night and just stared at my little boy for hours on end.  He slept so well and was so peaceful curled up on my chest.  I was once again overwhelmed with a feeling of joy!  I'm so excited for the life he has been given and can not wait to see what he will become!  Cooper, you are one special little guy! 

What would we do with out Grami??

My mom was gracious enough to come and stay for 3 weeks!!  She got here one week before Cooper arrived and allowed us to go out for my birthday.  We spent that week shopping and getting ready for the arrival of our little guy.  We might have also tried all things to induce labor, however nothing seemed to work.  The main thing she helped with was keeping Caroline occupied!  She took great care of her while we were at the hospital and then afterwards while I was tending to Cooper.  Caroline found a new love of emptying out all of her clothes from her dresser and scattering the clothes around the house.  Definitely not an easy task to keep up with!

And of course while she was here she got in great snuggle time with Coopster!

We couldn't have done it with out you Grami!!  I miss the early mornings the most when you would get up with Caroline and I could keep sleeping!!  :)  WE LOVE AND MISS YOU!

Making our Escape!

 Cooper was born on Tuesday, March 15th and after not sleeping the two nights before, we decided that we wanted to leave early and go home on the 16th. It was so hard to sleep when nurses and hospital people kept coming in the room every couple of hours to draw blood, give medicine, take blood pressure, etc.  We were a little frustrated by the end, but once we got home we might have wished we had stayed another night.  :)  They had taken Cooper early the morning of the 16th to do routine tests and ended up keeping him in the nursery for 5 hours.  Once the pediatrician arrived, they kept him for observation for an extra hour. We kept waiting and waiting and finally that afternoon they brought him back.  Well he had not eaten all day and was worn out from the circumcision that he slept most of the time.  We arrived home around 4:30 that afternoon and it wasn't until around 7 that he "woke" up.  He must have been hungry because he cluster fed every 30 minutes from 7:30 until midnight.  5 WHOLE HOURS!!  I was pretty worn out to say the least and Josh and I needed sleep!  All in all it was great to stay in our own bed and just be home.  We hadn't quite remembered how it would be with a newborn!  After that night, Cooper figured out his nights and days and definitely has gotten into a good schedule!  He's such a calm and relaxed boy and is now sleeping well!  (As well as you can expect for a 4 week old!)

Caroline was waiting so patiently at home and was SO excited when we walked through the door!  She just kept pointing and saying baby and waiting to be right next to him.  It really makes me smile to think about these two together!  Some of the newness has worn off, but he is still the first thing she asks for in the morning!

Here he comes!

Cooper didn't come before his due date so we headed to the hospital the night of March 14th and started the induction process.



40 weeks pregnant on my due date.  A tad bigger than before!  :)

Everything went perfectly this time and was pretty similar to before.  However, things took just a little longer.  We were so spoiled that Caroline came so quickly and was born by 8am, that when morning came and the doctor said I was only dialated to 2.5cm, Josh and I were a little discouraged.  But our little man just wanted to come on his own time!  The nurse started pitocin around 9:30 am and then my water was broken at 11:15 am. The contractions started to get pretty uncomfortable by this point and I really wanted to get the epidural!  However the hospital had other plans.  There was already a c-section scheduled for that morning so the anesthesiologist was going to be tied up for at least an hour.  Okay I thought, I can handle this for just a little bit longer, but I definitely want to get it soon!!  Well, then another lady was having a bad labor and they decided to do an emergency c-section.  This meant I couldn't get the epideral for at least 2 more hours!!  WHAT??  I just did not want to go so far and not get it and was tired from not sleeping the night before that I just started crying.  All of the emotion just overtook me and I couldn't handle it.  I just kept imagining what the pain would be like.  So my nurse was fabulous and kept going to check on the doctor.  They ended up calling another anesthesiologist that just happened to be stopping by the hospital and he came and gave me the epideral.  Praise God!!  After that, everything was smooth sailing and with about 20 minutes of pushing, Cooper arrived! 

After Caroline was born, she had fluid in her lungs and they took her out of the room immediately.  No one expected her to be born so early in the day so it was about 2 hours until anyone arrived at the hospital.  This was such a different experience!  We had alerted everyone when we started pushing, so everyone was ready!  Once Cooper came out, they let us take pictures and keep him in the room for almost 2 hours.  Everyone was able to come in the Labor & Delivery room and meet little Coop.  I hadn't even had a chance to get out of the bed or clean up before all of our visitors filled the room.  Grami was able to get Caroline ready and she came running in the room EXCITED!  She was smiling, laughing and all around giddy for her brother.  We had talked about Cooper SO much and now she was finally meeting him!