Home Sweet Home

Thanks to a wonderful team of doctors and nurses at Women's Hospital and perhaps to a better than average tolerance for pain, I was allowed to leave the hospital one day early this week. I missed Brooklyn soooooo much, and I just wanted to sleep in my own bed and sit on a couch. So, once I was checked and approved for release and (most importantly) Jake was approved for release, we came home on Wednesday, October 28th.

Brooklyn, as we expected, was a bit hesitant at first when we brought this little munchkin home. She started off by ignoring him, and then she wanted him to try out all the baby stuff that we had set up for him last week. She's warming up...and each time she sees him, she is a bit more interested in what he's doing. She's also been a great help gathering items from around the house and pushing him in the swing when we wanna eat. Maybe one of these days I will get a pic of her actually touching HIM. :-)

I had forgotten how much I love when they fall asleep mid-burp.

Trying out the "new to him" swing

Absolutely precious!

He slept soooooo well in his first night in the pack and play in our room. Chad had a "sleepover" with Brooklyn in her room, so I tried soloing it last night and it went really well. He ate every three hours and pretty much would go right back to sleep after eating. I am so hoping that this is how this child rolls!

I am recovering slowly but surely from the c-section, but that is to be expected. One of these days I need to document about that experience...what a crazy thing c-sections are (especially when you are completely aware of what is going on and soaking it all up). With Brooklyn it was so quick and crazy (and exhausting after laboring all day), but with Jake everything was so methodical. I definitely had time to take it all in.

Jake's Debut

Here are some pics of our 12 hour old son, Jake. He's doing great, and we are so blessed already.

Birth Announcement!

We are so happy to report that Jake Edward Johnson joined our family at 9:25am this morning. It was a great c-section (relatively speaking), and soooo convenient to be able to check in the hospital at 7am and two and a half hours later, get a son! :-)

Here are his stats:
8 pounds 12 ounces
20 3/4 inches long
feeding/latching on real well (shocker, I know!)

I'm doing well....got up and walked around about an hour ago when the numbing wore off, but still working off a catheder and an IV. I'm hoping for a real dinner later....

We'll try to post pics later this evening.

Thanks for all the prayers and well-wishes!

Visit(s) to the Pumpkin Patch

With the impending arrival of baby Jake, we wanted to make sure Brooklyn got her fair share of pumpkin patch visits with her Shout sisters. Here are some snapshots from those two visits...

The (probably) last Johnson 3 picture:

Brooklyn and her "big sister" Allie H:

The littlest sister Callie:

Another little sister, Allie K:

Brooklyn and Zoe- BFF's:

38 Week Ultrasound

Monday I went to the doctor for a "bonus" ultrasound to do a size check of our little football player. My belly has been measuring a week or two ahead, and I was concerned about entering the hospital early and not being able to deliver him "naturally." If he doesn't come before Monday at 9am then I am definitely doing a c-section, but if he came earlier, then I had an option. I basically just wanted to make an educated decision. Had he measured about 9 pounds yesterday, I would feel good about going into the hospital and saying "scrub up! we're headed to the ER." But, as luck would have it, he's measuring about 7 pounds 12 ounces, give or take a pound either in direction. So.....if we head into the hospital this week, I still have options. :-)

37 Weeks

As so enthusiastically expressed a few days ago, we have reached full term- 37 weeks! It's such a great feeling on one hand, but at the same time I am feeling every bit of those 37 weeks on my joints and muscles. I went to the doctor today and had a good appointment with the midwife on staff because my beloved Dr. C is on vacation this week. Some of the normal: blood pressure is 120/70, minor swelling in the ankles (cankles, anyone?) and the hands (cannot get wedding band off- oops!), pelvic pain and pressure (normal at this point when the baby is engaged and ready to go), and heartbeat of Jake was 140. Some interesting points: I am measuring at 40 weeks (about 2 weeks ahead) and concerned about the size of this baby. My plan is to have a VBAC unless we go to 39 weeks and then I will just have my scheduled c-section on monday, october 26th. However, with the size of little Jake growing dramatically, I expressed concerns today about going in and laboring for hours, just to have to end up in a c-section anyway because he was too big to deliver. She valued my concerns and said she completely understood. So....we scheduled an ultrasound for monday afternoon to do a size check. That way, when I enter the hospital I can make an informed decision about which route to take. I'm excited about seeing our (possibly not so) little man on the sonogram on monday...it will help this last week go by quicker.

What Babycenter says:
How your baby's growing: Congratulations — your baby is full term! This means that if your baby arrives now, his lungs should be fully mature and ready to adjust to life outside the womb, even though your due date is still three weeks away.Your baby weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel (like a stalk of Swiss chard). Many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long. But don't be surprised if your baby's hair isn't the same color as yours. Dark-haired couples are sometimes thrown for a loop when their children come out as blonds or redheads, and fair-haired couples have been surprised by Elvis look-alikes. And then, of course, some babies sport only peach fuzz.

You know you're fat...

As this pregnancy comes to a close and I seem to grow inches by the day and pounds by the hour, I found this forward particularly funny...However I will NOT be laughing in a few weeks when it's time to start the diet again. :-)

You Know It's Time to Diet When:
You dance and it makes the band skip.
You are diagnosed with the flesh eating virus, and the doctor gives you 22 more years to live.
You put mayonnaise on an aspirin.
You go to the zoo and the elephants throw you peanuts.
Your driver's license says, "Picture continued on other side."
You ran away and they had to use all four sides of the milk carton for your picture.
You learn you were born with a silver shovel in your mouth.
You could sell shade.
Your blood type is Ragu.
You need an appointment to attend an 'open house'.

Full Term! Yee haw!

Life is good! We are full term. This baby is almost done cooking! Stick a fork in me....

36 Weeks...Seriously?

There are some days when I think this pregnancy will never end and there are some days when I think "wow, where did the time go?" It's a great feeling to be in the home stretch, but unfortunately, that's the only "great feeling" I have lately. The body has just about given up. Things are tired, sore, achy, and stretched to the limit. I find myself groaning more, debating over whether its worth it to roll over, and getting frustrated with myself when I am up every hour at night to pee.

In related news, I saw my doctor today.....
Weight gain: None since last week (yay!)
Blood Pressure: 120/76
Heartbeat: 150
Belly: Measuring 37 cm...we are back on target
Complaints: My pelvis is stretching as little Jake's head is wedging farther and farther down south. This is causing a good amount of pain, especially at night when I am laying down or when sitting in the car driving. No dialation yet (except a wee bit that is caused only because I have had a pregnancy before), but he is "in station" and ready to go. My doctor is on vacation all next week, so I am hoping to hold out (pain and all) until the week of the 19th when she returns. But, as we all know, Jake may have other plans for us.

Note to self: Pack hospital bag.

How your baby's growing: Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. He now weighs almost 6 pounds (like a crenshaw melon) and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. He's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered his body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected his skin during his nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of his first bowel movement.At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.)

Brooklyn is doing well...she was sick Sunday-Tuesday this week, but back to school today. Hopefully she had a great day. She has a bit of a cough still, but apparantly so does the rest of her class, so she is in good company. We took advantage of Monday and Tuesday as sick days and spent good "Mommy Brooklyn time." I wonder if this minor fever/sickness was a gift from God allowing us some much needed quality time together...the calm before the storm. :-)

New Camera- Part 2

So this is the true test of my technological abilities. We bought this particular camera because it also shoots HD videos. Hopefully I did everything correctly, and this video of Brooklyn and me testing the camera comes through. :-)

New Camera!

We made a (semi) big purchase this weekend and upgraded to a nicer camera. We bought a Canon PowerShot SX20 IS and as soon as I figure out how to use it, I know we will be very happy with it. :-) In addition to learning the basic "point and shoot," I did figure out how to edit the actual pictures while they were still on the camera, so I was pretty excited about that.

Here are some samples:

Here I took a basic photo and just switched the color to black and white:

And here I took a photo, cropped it on the camera and then changed the color to sepia.