6 weeks!

So, it's true what they say about each child having less photos taken than the one before. My in-laws requested a recent photo of Jacob to use for a Christmas ornament.  Looking at my camera, I realized that I hadn't taken any recently! So we did a mini-photo shoot to get a photo for Nana & Pop-pop.  Here are a few photos of my 6-week old cutie!

Thankful for Family!

As I think about how thankful I am for the many ways our family has helped us through the busy and demanding days of bringing a newborn home, a great place to start is with my mother-in-law.  On the day Jacob was scheduled to be delivered by c-section, November 4th, Tim lost a wonderful uncle.  This was very sad time for the whole Lehr family.  Both during the final weeks of Uncle Dave's fight with cancer and for his funeral, Tim's parents were able to stay with us on their way to visit and pay respects.  But even with all of these important events and Mom's regular responsibilities in her home area, she took the time to stay with us for the better part of a week.  She brought her pressure cooker and helped Tim can his first bit of venison, she held babies, changed diapers, did dishes, folded laundry, took our first family photos with Jacob, and many other helpful tasks.  I am so grateful for the helpful spirit God has given her and for the wisdom she imparts during time spent together.  When it comes to in-laws, I have the best, I'm sure.  I am so grateful them and the many ways they build into our family.

We were also blessed to spend and evening with my brother and his family celebrating the arrival of Jacob. Dave and Callie brought over a delicious homemade meal (with enough for leftovers!) and this cute cake (which accidentally got stepped on in their van while it was still in the bakery box ... oh well! It was still delicious.), not to mention gifts.  It was really nice for the kids to be able to play and for Jacob to meet his aunt, uncle, & cousins for the first time.

On the way home from an appointment with the doctor, my mom and I stopped in to see my grandpa.  He came to visit me in the hospital, but did not make a second trip out after I had the baby. This is a picture of his first time meeting and holding Jacob. Whenever he is holding Jacob and I come to get him, grandpa tells me that I can't have him back. Grandpa just loves holding his great-grandsons, especially when they are babies. Seeing him delight in my little guys blesses my heart more than words can say. 

My Dad finally held Jake for the first time when Dad stopped by one evening, and later, Jacob had his first photo shoot with Grandma & Grandpa.

We all made a trip back to grandpa's place to celebrate his 94th birthday! At first he wanted nothing to do with my silly party hats stating that his birthday was nothing.  However after our Chinese food take-out lunch (his favorite), he was in a better mood.  He put on the hat and began stopping everyone who passed by to tell them it was his birthday.

So that my sons could get a perspective on how wonderful it is to celebrate grandpa's birthday I brought along a bag of M&Ms for grandpa and the boys.  Each person was allowed to have as many M&Ms as they were years old.  Matthew was really excited about his five M&Ms as compared to Nathan's two.  Then you should've seen his eyes pop when we counted out grandpa's NINETY-FOUR M&Ms!  Now that's something to celebrate!  We had a great afternoon celebrating a great guy, no doubt about it!

Halloween 2011

Halloween was rather "extra" this year, with bringing home a new baby only days before. We did, however, try to take a few fall pictures and carry on with some usual Halloween traditions.  Matthew actually enjoyed helping carve the Jack-o-lantern for the first time this year. He was all smiles traveling the neighborhood as Iron Man, delighting in his increasing candy colleciton.  And Nathan, who has a great fear of people wearing masks, became the saddest little Giraffe you ever did see.  He grudgingly wore his costume to a few houses, clearly not enjoying one bit of this, and became especially upset when "Iron Man" wore his mask.  Even free candy from neighbors didn't sweeten the deal for him. It's true what they say, "You can't please everyone --" even with free candy, it seems.

Jacob's First Days at Home

I have been so amazed at how much easier bringing home baby #3 has been .  I was a partial basket case after bringing our second son home, fretting over my inability to be everything my first son needed while still meeting the demands of a newborn. Not to mention that Nathan was my first newborn, so I was in very unfamiliar territory.  Now Matthew and Nathan have each other as playmates, and we have had some previous experience with a newborn.  Even though Nathan has been slightly turned off by this new baby that mommy is always hauling around, he is already used to sharing mommy and daddy with one sybling, so why not two?

I have been trying to soak up every minute of these precious newborn days. Holding, cuddling, caring, and snuggling with my little guy who is growing so quickly.  He's a great sleeper and hardly every gets me up more than once a night.   I look at him all the time and think that he wasn't "supposed" to be here until November 4th, but we were so blessed to have ten "extra" days with him.

My friend, Kim is a very talented photographer.  After she took newborn photos of Nathan two years ago, I had to ask her back to take photos of our new little guy.  Matthew and Andrew had a great time bowling and playing other Kinect games (with Tim supervising) while Kim and I worked with Jacob.  I was especially grateful that she agreed to take his pictures, being that she was 8 months pregnant with a surprise miracle of her own.  Proofs of a few of Jacob's photos are below. He was 10 days old at the time they were taken. I just love that his hair has a reddish cast in the daylight (I hope it doesn't all fall out like Nato's did!). The precious shot of him with his eyes open is my favorite - so hard to capture that during these sleepy newborn days!

Birth Story

Well, I asked Tim to take this photo the Sunday before Jacob's birth.  I called it 'my little pumpkins picture' and said I'd make it my facebook profile pic until we had the baby.  None of that materialized because I was admitted to the hospital the next day after my weekly doctor's appointment, and two days later Jacob was born!

During the appointment, the baby's heartbeat was all over the place and running a baseline lower than the doctor liked to see.  She sent me for an ultrasound down the hall.  The ultrasound technician looked at me and said, "Are you ready to have a baby?"  "Sure, but not today!!" I replied.  But the way everyone was acting, I could tell that they were thinking it just might be today.

You gotta be kidding me!  My house is a total mess right now!  My parents were watching the boys for my appointment, and I had dropped them off early to make a quick grocery run alone.  My shopping took longer than expected, making me late for my appointment.  I rushed home, shoved the items that need to be cooled in the fridge (which was quite the task given the fridge was jammed packed with Tim's venison), and left everything else piled on the kitchen counter.  From there, I sped off to the doctor's office.

Once at the hospital I was immediately on a liquid diet.  Oh, did I mention that this was one of the extremely rare days that I just skipped lunch (so that I could get my grocery shopping done)??!!  After midnight, they took away my liquids even and started an IV.  The doctor's orders made it seem like we had a national emergency on our hands.  When every nurse that entered the room to read the printouts from the heart monitors, however, each one made a multitude of comments about how well the baby was doing. "Everything looks perfect."  "Cant ask for better than this."  "Wish they all were like this." and "This is a happy baby! Beautiful, looks great."

So there Tim and I are in the hospital in a rather confused state... We knew they'd be pressuring us to deliver the baby by c-section early (most likely the next day) after they did a test to check for lung maturity.  But we weren't sure if this was right thing to do.  Were we there because my doctor tends to be very "thorough" and is extremely cautious?  Were we there because our baby had a "hiccup" at the wrong moment in the doctor's office earlier that day?  Why all the drama, rushing to the hospital, liquid diets, etc. while the nurses were all saying that baby looks "perfect?" 

OR we there because God new all these things would happen and He had a perfect plan in motion?

Quite honestly, I was frustrated (this happens pretty quickly when you take away my food!), and it took me a bit of soul searching to get to the point where I was saying yes to that last question.  Yes, God knows how my doctor will react to even the smallest "hiccup."  Yes God knows what He is doing by bringing us here almost 2 weeks before we expected to be here, and His ways are perfect.

So the next morning doctors studied baby (exactly 38 weeks gestational age) on ultrasound and took a sample of amniotic fluid to test for lung maturity.  All results confirmed that baby was ready for the outside world, and because my doctor was still not fond of the continued low-end-of-normal baseline heart rate, she was encouraging me to have a c-section that day.  We agreed, but the O.R. was booked until 6:30pm!  So that was the time slot we were given, and I was extra diappointed about another day without food or liquids - not to mention being strapped to monitors the whole time.  Don't ask me why I would expect having a baby to be comfortable, but I was dispointed nonetheless.

Jacob Daniel Lehr was born at 6:39pm on Tuesday! (7 lb. 15 oz. and 19.5 inches) He did have the cord wrapped around his neck and the doctor also found a thin spot on my stretched-to-the-max uterus.  Between concern over rupture or him doing himself harm with the cord and extra fluid levels, we felt a great sense of confirmation that we had made the right decision.  We are grateful for the doctors' pre-cautionary approach, and we praise God for His perfect plan in all of this.  All heart rate concerns about Jake were quickly put to rest as he checked out great and even got a 10/10 on his Apgar.  (All the doctors and nurses were exclaiming how rare that is.  Many said they've never seen a 10/10 before.  OK, little Jacob, you're off to a good start. We are expecting great things from you, buddy!)

We are beyond thrilled to welcome our third miracle into the world! Three boys!!! We just keep saying it over to ourselves with hearts full of joy over God's perfect plan for our family. 

Here are a few pics of our hospital stay and the first day at home.