Tongue-tie Update

Okay, so maybe it was a tad naive of us to think that clipping the tongue-tie was going to solve the problem immediately. Ben has been practicing using his tongue like that for months in the womb. It turns out it took a few more days for him to relearn how to use it correctly. It's been completely exhausting and painful for me, but we are hoping that we are past the worst of it. Now Ben is just playing catch-up on his weight.

We took Ben to Dr. Champion (Sam's ENT) yesterday to have the tongue-tie reevaluated. She said it looked great and that she didn't think he would need any revisions down the road. She gave him a full check-up and discovered that he has an ear pit. It basically looks like we tried to pierce his ear. There is usually no concern, but we'll have to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't get infected.

So with the tongue-tie obstacle removed we just have to work on increasing my milk supply. Ben wasn't able to properly transfer milk until that was resolved so he's behind in weight and I'm behind in supply. We are supplementing with formula until that's resolved. It's been an around the clock job with little time for anything else. We were very lucky that we caught it so early. Keep in mind that it is normal for a breast fed baby to lose up to 10% of their birth weight the first week. They are expected to be back to their birth weight by the two week well visit. Here's how Ben is tracking so far ...

10/19 - 7 lbs 4 oz

10/21 - 6 lbs 11 oz

10/22 - 6 lbs 7 oz

10/24 - 6 lbs 7 oz

10/26 - 6 lbs 9 oz

10/27 - 6 lbs 10 oz

We're on the right track and watching it closely. He's a very well tempered baby. He's been sleeping most of the time, but I think that honeymoon is about to be over. He slept all day yesterday. We could barely wake him up to eat. You know that means he was up all night, and so was I. He's been awake and eating a lot more today, so I'm hopeful that he'll sleep better tonight. The first few nights I actually had to set an alarm to feed him. I don't think that's going to be an issue any more.

Sam is in love with Ben now. He really wants to hold him and hug and kiss him. It was great having lots of family around to pay attention to him, since he wasn't getting much from us. I'll post some more pictures after I get a little sleep.

Tongue Tied

Today was an incredibly busy day! After a long night with Ben, the whole family packed up in the van for a trip to Raintree Pediatrics. We were concerned with Ben's drop in birth weight and we had strong suspicions that he wasn't latching properly. Dr. Smith spotted the issue immediately -- tongue tie. This is a condition where the band of tissue connecting the tongue to the floor of the mouth restricts the movement of the tongue. It kept Ben from getting a good latch. Fortunately, the fix is easy; cut the band. With this done, and a few visits to a lactation consultant, I think Ben is now on his way to better breast feeding.

Sam got the seasonal flu shot and H1N1 mist today. He did a great job with the shot. He complained about not wanting a bandage more than the shot!

Sam holding Ben. Sam was excited to hold his baby brother.

We asked Sam what he thought about Ben. He said "I love him."

Dr. Smith with Ben.

We're Home

We were discharged from the hospital around 11am yesterday. It was 62 degrees and raining which is quite different from the 104 degrees it was when we took Sam home.



Ben's "going home" outfit was a little big for him, but quite cute.



He looked so tiny in his car seat.



I was happy to have a short hospital stay though I am going to miss the help of having the nurses in the nursery watch him while I sleep!

Happy Birthday Ben

Look at that proud Daddy. He even got to cut the cord this time!

Ben's birth was amazing and everything that I'd hoped it would be. After laying there all day with little to no pain, I had about an hour of feeling pressure, then about five minutes of pushing and Ben was here. Chris barely had time to grab the camera! I needed Chris's help, so one of the nurses grabbed the camera and got some great shots for us.



They put Ben on my chest right away. He was screaming until I said, "hi, Ben." He stopped, turned his head to me, and reached out to touch my face. He immediately stopped crying and just looked at me while I was talking. It was absolutely amazing. It reminded me of meeting Sam for the first time. I remember that look of recognition on his little face.



Dr. Diaz with Ben.



Here is Sam meeting Ben for the first time. Mimi took Sam to pick out a present for Ben, and Sam was very excited to give it to him.



Ben also got a present for Sam. Sam was very happy about that! After a few minutes of playing with his new Spiderman, Sam asked me if Ben got him any other toys. Maybe this brother thing isn't so bad if he's getting presents.



Here's a picture of Ben getting his bath. He has a cute little birthmark on his tummy that you can barely see on the bottom left.



Mimi with Ben on day 2.



Mommy with Ben. This has been a completely different experience that what happened with Sam. I barely got to see Sam the first 24 hours that he was in the NICU, but Ben has barely been out of my sight. I pretty much stared at him all day today.



Pops with Ben.





Our Celebration Dinner! The hospital offers a surf-n-turf celebration dinner for new parents. The nurses were very excited about it and wanted to make sure that we got ours. I really wasn't interested, but Chris wanted to try it out. I called to place the order and about 30 min later my Dad realized they hadn't asked us how we wanted our steaks cooked. Bad sign. I called back and asked them which cut the steak was. She said "beef." I clarified that I was wondering if it was a filet, sirloin, strip, etc. She had to look it up and said it was a tenderloin, so I asked if we could get it medium rare. Nope. They only come well done. Hospital policy. Yuck. Poor steak.



Here's Chris and Pops "enjoying" the celebration dinner. Mimi brought me a burger from Sonic.



Sam came to visit again this evening. He was a lot more interested in Ben this time. He asked lots of questions ... like "does Ben have feet?"

Sam was apparently a real handful last night. He really missed his mom and dad. We decided that Sam needed Chris more tonight so I'm alone at the hospital with Ben. I think Chris is going to enjoy a night at home with uninterrupted sleep. I'm hoping to take advantage of the nursery at the hospital and try to get some sleep myself. We should be going home tomorrow.

End of a Big Day

Here are a few more pictures from today.

Our family.

Ben, all cleaned up. He has brown hair, and what appear to be hazel eyes, but I'm reserving judgment on the eye color for a while.

Sam and Melanie watch Ben get his first bath.

Melanie with Ben.

Me with Ben.

Today was Stanley's birthday, so Ben and Pops share a birthday! Of course Sam had to help Pops open his birthday present.

Benjamin Stanley Conner

He's here! Benjamin Stanley Conner was born at 6:52 CDT October 19th, 2009. Birth weight was 7 lbs 4.4 oz with a length of 20.25 inches. He's a very healthy boy and Emily had very quick delivery.

Labor and Delivery

Today's the big day! Emily and I got up early this morning only to get a call from the hospital that they needed to delay our start by an hour because of a high demand for the nursing staff.

Despite the late start, things are going well. Here you can see Emily all checked in and waiting for the Pitocin to kick in.

Here's Emily later in the day just after she had the epidural.

So far, so good! Emily's expected to deliver before 9 PM tonight. She's currently 4 cm dilated.

New Van

We got a new van last weekend. It's a 2010 Toyota Sienna. We were not planning on getting a new vehicle until some time next Spring, but my SUV died (2001 Mazda Tribute). We already knew we had $1700 in AC repairs needed, and then there was about $250 for some brake power booster repairs. Then one day I was taking Sam to school and it just wouldn't go over 10 mph. In trying to drive it home something happened between the catalytic converter and cylinder 5 which resulted in melted plastic and at least another $1500 worth of repairs. Oh, and then it would be due for all of the 100,000 mile standard maintenance, like replacing belts. Now considering that the SUV was only worth $3700 for a trade-in, we really had no interest in trying to get it repaired with a baby coming in a week.

I actually wanted to get a Highlander Hybrid, but quickly found out that you have to wait 6 months for one of those, so that wasn't an option. I went in with the intention of just getting a regular Highlander, but I just wanted to take a look at the Sienna. The Highlander was definitely sexier, but nowhere near as practical. I didn't think I would fall in love with a van, but it is amazingly wonderful to drive.

Two car seats installed and ready to go.

View from the third row including DVD player and moonroof.

Front seat, console, and navigation system.

Third row seats up.

Third row seats down.

3 More Days

Only three more days to go! My doctor is not expecting me to go earlier than Monday at this point, but anything is possible. Of course she is out of town this weekend so we are really hoping to make it to Monday. I've even had a day off to pamper myself with a haircut and color, manicure, pedicure, and massage. I've done lots of loads of laundry this week including washing all the sheets and towels. This nesting thing is weird. I swear I'm going to start cleaning out closets pretty soon.

We had a little scare on Tuesday. After the pumpkin patch on Sunday, I started having contractions and pain. By Tuesday it didn't seem like Ben was moving as much as he had been. I went to the doctor to get checked out. They hooked me up for a Non-Stress Test and determined that I was having contractions and that Ben was fine, but just to be sure they also did a sonogram to verify that nothing was restricting his movement. After the sonogram, they decided I wasn't feeling Ben move as much for three reasons:

1) He's gotten so big there's just not much room for him to move

2) When he tries to make a big movement, I have a contraction which absorbs and constricts his movement.

3) His feet are directly under the placenta.

He's in a good delivery position. The sonographer also measured him and said she thought he was about 7 lbs 4 oz on Tuesday. She predicts he'll be 7 lbs 10 oz on Monday.

I saw my doctor for my last appointment today and she said there is no change since Tuesday, just 1 cm dialated with a long cervix. She guessed at Ben's size and estimates that he is already 7 lbs 12 oz today. That would put him right at 8 lbs on Monday. We'll have to see who was closer.

They printed a few pictures from the sonogram for me. Ben is so big now that you can't get much of him in the picture at one time. This is his profile with his chin on his chest.

This picture is looking directly at his face. Just to the bottom right of the label above are his lips and nose.

Of course what sonogram would be complete without a picture of his boy parts.

Stuff Sam said ...

Sam: You're my mommy and nobody else's mommy!

Me: Yes, but I'm going to be Ben's mommy too in a few days.

Sam: Uh-uh! You better not be! You better be just my mommy!

Me: Oh boy

More stuff Sam said ...

Me: I love your elbow

Sam: No ... you gotta love me ... the whole thing.

Pumpkin Patch

We went to the Flower Mound Pumpkin Patch this weekend. It may be the last weekend for Sam as an only child so we wanted him to have a lot of fun and get a lot of attention.

Sam was especially excited that his best bud Hagen went with us. Here they are posing with Dora and Diego.

We got lots of great pictures of Sam playing in the different playhouses.

They had a bunch of bounce houses and inflatable obstacle courses and slides.

Sam loved the big slide and wanted to do it over and over again.

Sam saw an older kid basically jump from the top and thought that looked like a lot of fun.

We asked Sam if he wanted to go run in the pumpkins and he took off. He ran all the way to the edge of the patch and then ran back.

Sam humored me by pausing a few moments for a picture with Mommy.

We didn't plan it, but Sam and Hagen were dressed in coordinating Halloween shirts.

They had lots of picnic tables set up and vendors selling food.

Of course Stephanie and Hagen had to pose with the Star Wars characters!

They had horses, turkeys, a pig, and a huge tortoise.

I think Sam and Hagen would have jumped the fence to see the horses if we had let them.

They had a cool teeter-totter and all of the kids were fascinated by it. I used to love the teeter-totter when I was little, but you don't see them much any more. This one went really high in the air.

Yes, I'm huge. None of my clothes are long enough to cover my stomach any more.

Say pumpkin patch ...

PUMPKIN PATCH !!!

Sam insisted that he go on the merry-go-round. That was obviously a job for Daddy. Nevermind the fact that I am pregnant, but that's also how I knocked out my front tooth in the second grade. Sam looked like he was having fun at first, but he got dizzy pretty quickly.

Sam was fascinated by this "peanut" shaped pumpkin.

Clowning around in the pumpkin patch.

A tickley kiss for Mommy.

We had to get Chris out from behind the camera for at least one picture with Sam.

Other than the "peanut" pumpkin, Sam just wanted a small pumpkin that he could carry. They had these great little wagons for towing pumpkins, but Sam thought it was a better idea for me to give him a ride.

Monkey see, monkey do.

Shawn and Hagen chewing hay at the end of the day.

We had planned on going to the pumpkin patch the weekend before, but we got rained out, so Hagen came over to play.

The bounce house was a big hit, especially the part where the boys battled the daddies with the stuffed animals.

They didn't want the fun to end.

Hiding in the cabinet was a lot of fun too.