First Bath and Random Pictures

As you can imagine the last couple weeks have been busy. Leslie is doing a great job with him, and I like to think I am doing OK too. Sterling is a very easy baby to take care of. For the most part he eats, sleeps, and goes to the bathroom. He really only cries when he is hungry. He does have a fussy time which is usually late evening. Leslie weighed him the other day and he is already 9 pounds 2 ounces. He loves to eat and obviously has no problem gaining weight.

Below are some random pictures taken from the last two weeks.

Sterling has been really good about holding up his own head. If you sit him in your lap he will do his best to keep his head up.

Last Saturday we watched the Tennessee game so naturally we put him in one of his many UT outfits.

He is smiling all the time, but due to nothing that we do. Apparently babies smile the first month or so when they are going to the bathroom or passing gas.

Until next time.

The First Week

I am tired.

Sterling has been about as good as can be expected for a week old baby. The first week we fed him when he was hungry, which was all the time. He would eat almost constantly.

Now that he is over a week old we have started following the practices from a book called "On Becoming Baby Wise." It is a book that teaches you how to get your infant to sleep through the night. If we follow the book correctly Sterling should be sleeping through the night between weeks 7 and 9. The book says we need to follow three steps, Feed, Wake, Sleep. After we feed him we have to play with him and keep him awake for about half an hour or so and then we put him down for a nap. The next feeding occurs 2 and a half to 3 hours after we started the previous feeding. Apparently this consistency establish a routine and allow him to sleep. I just hope it works.

Now, I have talked enough and I know everybody wants to see pictures, so here they are.

And finally here is a picture of Sterling's 100 year old Great Grandmother holding him.

We Are Home

Baby Sterling has officially arrived at home. Everything went great with the labor and he is doing awesome.

We arrived at the Hospital around 11:3o PM on Thursday night to fill out paper work. When we arrived we were told that we had no paper work to fill out and that we had to wait in the lobby until midnight, but that they were very busy and it may be a little bit longer. Well we had to wait in the lobby until 1 AM before they let us up to our room. That wasn't fun.

Once we arrived to our room they made Leslie have an I.V. before they would induce with the Pitocin drip. The I.V. took about half an hour and they hooked her up to the Pitocin about 2 AM. We were actually able to sleep a little bit and we dozed off between 2:30 and 6:30. We probably only got about an hour and a half to two hours of sleep though.

The Dr. came in about 8 AM to break Leslie's water and pretty much the second she broke the water Leslie started to have very painful contractions. Within 15 minutes Leslie had the Epidural and was loving life. She was at 5 or 6 cm when they broke her water. Around 11:30 the nurse came in to check on Leslie and told us she was 9 cm and that she would start pushing at 10cm. About 20 mins later Leslie said she felt some pressure and we called the nurse in to check and sure enough Leslie was 10 cm.

We started pushing a few minutes after noon and at 12:44 PM Sterling was born. He weighed 7 pounds 13 oz and was 21 inches long.

This was Leslie minutes after labor. She looks incredible!

As you can see Baby Sterling had not been cleaned yet so at this point I walked him down to the nursery so they could clean him off and Leslie and I prepared to move from our birth room to the room we would be staying in for the next couple of days.

Of course Sterling's going home outfit was one of his one hundred UT outfits.



This was Sterling when I told him UT wasn't going to be a very good Football Team this year. He got a little upset.

Car Ride Home

I am sure there will be many more pictures to come. We have to go to the Dr. for a follow up on Tuesday and I will be going back to work on Wednesday. Hopefully we will be able to get some sleep tonight, but I doubt it.

TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT!

Tonight at 11:00 Leslie and I will drive to the Hospital. We are supposed to arrive at 11:30 and even though we have already pre-registered I am sure we have some paper work to fill out. After we fill out the paper work they will go ahead and start the induction.

We have no idea, obviously, how long the labor will last. We are hoping that it is very quick because she is already 4cm dilated.

Assuming he isn't too stubborn and he is born tomorrow I imagine that we will be released from the hospital on Sunday morning and I will do my best to post pictures. If I have time tomorrow or Saturday I will post a quick blog with how big he is and what time he was born.

Until Sunday.

Quick Blog Post

Another week has passed and there is still no baby. Leslie went to the Doctor Last Monday and she was told that she is now 3 to 4 cm dilated, but Baby Sterling is still being stubborn. This Thursday at midnight we will go to the Hospital for Leslie to be induced if he does not come before then. Leslie has another Dr.'s appointment tomorrow afternoon so we will see if anything comes of that. I will, of course, keep everybody updated.

T Minus Any Day Now

Leslie went to the Doctor on Friday and was told that she is 2 to 3 cm dilated. This means that she could have the baby tonight or she could have it in 3 weeks, every woman is different and it is impossible for anybody to calculate a guess. The Dr. did decide to bump up the due date and has already scheduled an appointment to induce Leslie at midnight on August 20, thus bringing baby Sterling into the world at some time on August 21st.

The final countdown is on and it is exciting to know that there is only 3 weeks left at most, but it is also nerve racking to know that the baby could come at any second.

We think we are as ready as we can be. We have already installed the car seats in both cars and have a hospital bag packed and ready to go. Leslie has already pre-registered at the hospital as well to speed up the process once we arrive.

I will update as soon as baby Sterling comes home from the hospital.

Who Has Time to Blog?

The last two weeks have been very busy. Leslie went to the Dr. about two weeks ago and the Dr. was a littler nervous because all signs were pointing to Leslie having the baby early. At that point she was 32 almost 33 weeks so the Dr. wasn't too concerned about the baby being born too early, but she really wanted Leslie to try to make it until 36 weeks. With that being said Leslie is on Unofficial Bed Rest. She is still allowed to go to work and move around a little, but the Dr. really wants her to stay off her feet as much as possible, which means after 3 years of marriage I have officially been house broken.

Leslie does not like being told she can't do anything, but I have been doing the cleaning, laundry,cooking, grocery shopping, and all that other fun house stuff. She is almost 35 weeks and still no baby so we are doing things right so far. We really want to get to 36 or even 37 weeks and then at that point Leslie will continue to move around a whole lot and try to get that baby out. At that point I will need to go on bed rest.

We have had two baby showers in the last two weekends and our friends and family have been very generous. We now feel like we are ready to bring this baby into the world. We have the nursery ready to go, the car seats, stroller, hand carrier, bouncer, rocker, pack and play, high chair, bottles, pumps, clothes, burp cloths, toys, baby monitor, and 1,000 other things that will hopefully make this little baby happy. Our house used to be neat and organized, but now we are struggling to find places to put everything! I thought we had a big house until recently.

We have our hospital bags packed, and hopefully have a good game plan for when the day comes. Even though we are trying to keep that baby in it is possible that Baby Sterling could come in the next few days, although I don't think he will. I predict early August, but who knows? Knowing our luck it will be September 1st and Leslie will still be pregnant. I will try to update the blog as much as possible, but with me being a domestic husband, it's hard to find the time.