Merry Christmas!

I don't send out Christmas cards, so don't be offended if you didn't receive one from us. Maybe next year we'll send out some cute cards with Cassidy's picture.

So for this year, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

3 months

Cassidy made 3 months on thursday! We've been doing tummy time every day, and she's lifting her head and shoulders better each day.

She's also started drooling like crazy over the last couple of weeks. I think we are going to have puddles of drool when teething starts.

On thursday, she rolled from her tummy to her back for the first time! She hasn't done it again since the 3 times in a row that day, but I think it'll only be a short time before she's rolling from back to tummy because she's turned onto her side every night when I check on her. I'm completely dreading this because I know I'll be going in to turn her onto her back several times a night.

Meanwhile, we are completely spoiled. Cassidy's been sleeping through the night for about 3 or 4 weeks now. First she started sleeping from 10pm until around 4, then until 5am. Then it became 10 until 7:30 or even 8:00! If she wakes up to eat at 5, she usually goes back to sleep until 9 or 10, sometimes later. If she sleeps until 7 or 8, she's up for the day. The only bad part of this is that she won't nap much during the day, and then gets cranky in the evening... but I'll take that any day if it means I get to sleep more at night!

I'm feeling really thankful and really blessed these days.

I couldn't be any happier.

November Birthday and Turkey

Mom's birthday was November 19, and she requested a home cooked meal by me. So we had grilled Chicken Cordon Bleu, Vegetable Kabobs, Grilled Pineapple, and brown basmati rice, with brownies for dessert.

We followed dinner with presents...

A beautiful fleur de lis necklace from dad, a massage pillow, shirt, and umbrella from Jeff and I.

Mom and dad went to florida to spend thankgiving with grandma, so Jeff, Cassidy, and I were on our own. Jeff brought home a smoked turkey from work again this year, so we decided to pass on the traditional turkey day dinner. Instead, we had a thanksgiving lunch on Friday, with smoked turkey, oyster dressing and yams from Rouse's, mashed red potatoes with gravy, and green beans.

A huge portion of the turkey went to a giant pot of smoked turkey and white bean chili, and the remainder ended up on salads, in sandwiches, or as turkey salad.

I'm done with turkey until next thanksgiving.

Walking in the Park

Mom and Dad have found that they enjoy spending their late afternoons or evenings enjoying the weather with a walk in one of the parks nearby.

There is a bird sanctuary there and they always take bread to feed the birds.

New Lighting

Several months ago, I replaced our kitchen ceiling fan and light with a new candelier I had bought at a southern living party.

Since then, I've heard various comments from Jeff, Mom, and Dad about the lack of lighting in the kitchen. So I've finally given in and moved the candelier to the corner of the kitchen and replaced the light fixture above the kitchen table.

I also replaced the other two light fixtures in the kitchen with matching fixtures.



This one hangs down a bit lower than the previous fixture, which is fine for us since we are fairly short people. However, if you are over 5'10 and come to visit, watch your head in the kitchen!

Meeting Grandma and Grandpa

Fred and Josie made a trip down to visit and to meet Cassidy last weekend! We spent most of our time at the house relaxing and finding ways to sooth Cassidy, who had several really grumpy days in a row. Here are some great pictures with grandma and grandpa.

Go LSU!

Thanks, Becky and Jessica!

Weighing In

Cassidy had her appointment with the Pediatric Orthopedic yesterday to look at her foot. (Her right foot was very crooked at birth because of the lack of space due to the fibroids and our pediatrician recommended that we see an orthopedic doctor.) Over the past 5 weeks, her foot has straightened out considerably, and we were hopeful that it was a positional problem rather than something actually being wrong developmentally. Our hopes were confirmed at the doctor's visit, where he checked out her foot and did an ultrasound of her hips (apparently being a first born, breech, female with a crooked foot puts her in a high risk category for hip problems). We got the "all clear" on both. He wasn't at all concerned about her foot and said we should continue massaging it, straightening it into the proper position and it will be just fine; and her hip ultrasounds looked great!

We asked them to weigh her while we were there.... she weighed in at 8lbs 14oz!!!!!!

She's growing so fast!!!!

Meanwhile, I'm pleasantly surprised with my post pregnancy weight progress. I had gained 31 pounds from my 8 week appointment throughout pregnancy (and I was up a few following christmas and mardi gras when I found out I was pregnant). Now, 5 weeks post pregnancy, I'm down 35 pounds. I'm sure being sick in the hospital is responsible for a few of those pounds, but I have to say I'm relieved anyway, as I was pretty worried about the pregnancy weight gain and tried really hard to keep it to a minium -- quite a challenge when not allowed to exercise for the better portion of the pregnancy and craving only carbs!

On Monday I had another CT Scan and they removed the drainage tube from my abdomen! The area being drained was completely clear. There is still a small abscess in another area, but the doctor was confident that it would resolve itself now that any infection should be gone as a result of the antibiotics. So I'm on my way to healing completely!

Returning to Mom

Last night Cassidy didn't want to go to sleep after her 9:30 feeding.

I held, rocked, and sang to her until she fell asleep.

I'm starting to feel like her mom again.

In this picture, she's sleeping on Jeff's belly

(3 weeks, 6 days old)

Cheering Up

Thank you, Sandy.

They're beautiful.

Thank you, Haas Lab.

Love the birds of paradise in here!

Return to the Living.

I'm back.

I'm home, and extremely happy to be here.

I've just returned from another stay in the hospital, this one because of some major complications from the c section that came up last week. After a trip to the ER on wednesday night due to a fever of 103.8 in spite of antibiotics and acetominophen, I was admitted. By thursday night I was hooked up to an IV with several types of antibiotics pumping into me and having ultrasounds and CT scans to locate the problem(s). By friday or saturday (the days tend to blend together when alternating between crying, sleeping, and being stuck like a pin cusion every 5 minutes) I had a tube coming out of my abdomen draining blood and nastiness into a bag which clips to my clothes.

The diagnosis: infection of my uterus, an abscess in my abdomen thought to be caused by a fibroid continuing to bleed after the c-section, and a surface infection on my abdomen near the incision site. (This diagnosis tends to change daily depending on whether speaking to my OB/gyn, my infectious diseases doctor, or the radiologist--- who knew I'd have so many doctors?) What a mess.

I'm home for now, and afraid to be too optomistic. I still have the drainage bag attached and a tube leading into my stomach. I have home health care coming here to change my bandages for my surface infection, and I'm on major doses of oral antibiotics. The next few days will bring more visits to my doctor and hopefully only one more CT scan.

In the mean time, I've given up breast feeding because of all the chemicals pumped into me that wouldn't be good for Cassidy. In addition, I decided that waking up every 2-3 hours to pump to maintain my milk supply would be rather counter productive to trying to fight off infection and actually heal. Cassidy seems to be doing fine on formula, still gaining weight.

Jeff, my mom, and dad are my heroes. They are not only taking care of Cassidy, but are now taking care of me as well. They are amazing and have been wonderful through all of this, visiting me in the hospital, listening to me cry, bringing me food which most of the time I didn't eat more than a few bites of, and just being supportive.

Since I can barely hold Cassidy for more than a few minutes because of the tube in my stomach, I'm pretty much useless as a mother right now. This is not what I expected the first month to be like. But at least I'm alive.

Jeff figured out that I've spent 11 of the last 26 days in the hospital. Crazy.

I'll try to post some more pictures of Cassidy soon.

2 Weeks Old

On thursday, Cassidy made two weeks! We had our first pediatrician appointment, during which I was neurotically afraid they would take her away from us because she already has horrible diaper rash and nose congestion. However, we passed our "test" with flying colors! Our most exciting news is that she gained not just the recommended 5-7 ounces which would have returned her to her birth weight of 5lbs 15oz, but instead a whopping 1lb 7oz!

Yep, you read that right... 1lb7oz, which brings her up to 6lbs15oz!

The doctor was thrilled and said we could stop supplementing with formula. I'm thrilled about that because I've recently come to the conclusion that the formula we were supplementing with was giving her horrible gas, not to mention it will cut down on the amount of time it takes for each feeding.

We knew she had gained, but we had no idea it was so much! We shouldn't be surprised since it seems that all we did for the first 2 weeks was feed her constantly and in increasingly large amounts. But still, I feel rather proud of us when I think of the surprise and excitement on the nurse's and doctor's faces at seeing her weight gain!

So we are now feeding exclusively breast milk, most directly from the source, and some expressed and bottled. I'm a bit concerned about my body's ability to keep up with our little one's growing appetite, but we are going to do our best not to return to formula.

So here are some new pictures of our "not so little" Cassidy!

Introducing... Cassidy Addison

We are thrilled to introduce you to Cassidy Addison. We couldn't decide between the two names and kept returning to both of them, so we decided to go with both!

Our amnio went really well on thursday, with the lungs returning results of unquestionably developed and ready to go! So at 12:08pm on September 11, Cassidy arrived (though she didn't become "Cassidy Addison" until Saturday). She initially had some fluid in her lungs (not uncommon with c-section babies), needed some oxygen passed by her nose briefly, and spent a little longer than normal in the nursery but avoided NICU. Her official stats are 5lbs 15 oz and 17 3/4 inches long.

The c-section went much better than I expected, and my doctor was still patting herself on the back 2 days later ... and rightfully so! There was almost no excess bleeding and were no complications. She got a good look at the fibroids, which are indeed everywhere. The scar goes from the bottom of my tummy around my belly button and extends to about 2 inches above my belly button. It looks like it's healing really well. The scariest part was after Cassidy had arrived. Jeff followed her to the nursery and stayed with her there while they closed me back up. That part took an unually long time, about 1.5 hours, which I assume is because of the fibroids. If the doctor did have any concerns while operating, she hid it well!

Recovery is okay, but more painful than anything I've experienced before. We probably could have come home on Sunday, but my digestive system had some trouble starting back up again, so we pushed to stay one more night. We came home Monday afternoon, and are adjusting really well!

Here are some pictures on day 3 and 4. She was down to 5 lbs 10oz coming home, so our main goal the next week will be to have her gain weight before our first pediatrician appointment. Cassidy's coming home outfit, the preemie size green dress, is quite large on her. We'll have to try it again in a couple weeks.

Our adjustment at home is going really well, and it helps immensely that my parents are now 4 miles away from us, renting a house here. The nighttime feedings are rough, especially since we're breastfeeding, supplementing, and pumping every 3-3.5 hours. Since it takes about an hour to get through each feeding session, that doesn't leave too much time for sleep.

We'll be posting more pictures occassionally, so check back often!

36 weeks - Supersized.

The day before my c-section.

Thursday is the Day

Thursday is it.

Amnio at 8:30 am.

If baby's lungs are developed,

C-Section at noon.

Finishing Touches

The baby's room is done!

I've finished all the small details including changing the hardware on the dressers, closets, and doors to match the dark wood of the crib, painting the dowel that the blanket hangs from to match the crib, painting the base board quarter round to match the trim, painting canvases for some wall decorations, and hanging the shelf (Jeff gets credit for that!). The clothes are sorted by size and either hung in the closet or folded in the dresser. The bedding is washed and the bed is made. The changing table is stocked with some initial supplies, which I'm sure we'll expand on as soon as we get baby home, but it'll do until we are faced with the reality of everything else we need.

We still need to sterilize some bottles in case breastfeeding doesn't go so well, but I think for the most part, we are as ready as we'll ever be ...