ONE Month

Wait what?!?! How is my baby already a month old. It seems like it was just yesterday I was at the hospital giving birth to him. I love my sweet little Lincoln so so much and we fall in love with him more every single day. Even though I say it seems like just yesterday I was giving birth to him, it also feels like he has been in our life much longer than a month. He is such a content little baby & we are loving seeing his personality start to come out! Here are some fun things we have learned about Lincoln in the past month

+ loves baths

+ hates being cold so that means he hates having his diaper changed

+ still in newborn clothes

+ loves the car

+ loves being worn & mommy loves it too!

+ gets kisses from his brothers and sisters all day everyday & doesn't mind it one bit. Linc will be a
dog lover for sure

+ is a cuddler for sure. He loves taking naps with his mamma

+ loves to give little smiles at his mommy and daddy & make their hearts melt

+ has really good control over his head already

+ really good control over his eye movement & can follow things with his eyes

+ sleeps 4-5 hours at a time at night

+ loves to stare up at mommy when I'm holding him

+ gets the hiccups at once a day & HATES them

+ loves his binky & won't fall asleep for the first time at night without it. It drives us nuts sometimes when we are constantly having to get in and out of bed to put it back in!

Pumpkin Patch

Something that is so important to Kelsey and I is getting out and doing things with our kids. We want them to have memories of us, as a family, going out and doing things together. During the holidays it is especially important to me because it is my absolute favorite time of year. We were able to start making our traditions this weekend! We took Lincoln to the pumpkin patch I went to as a kid. Luckily it didn't rain until the very end! It was such a fun day!

The First Weeks

I finally forced myself to put my baby down for a few minutes so that I could write up this little blog post about the first weeks for Lincoln's life. Thank goodness for the mamaroo!

So surprisingly the first night in the hospital was the hardest for us. Kelsey and I look back on it now and just crack up every time we think about it. Everyone says to enjoy the nights in the hospital because you have so much help and everything but let me tell you, it was the WORST! Like I mentioned in my birth story, right after birth Lincoln was rushed to the nursery and put on oxygen for the majority of the first day. Kelsey and I were worried about him so neither of us slept during that time... mistake one. To top it off Kelsey would not sit still, I probably wouldn't have either but since I had just pushed a baby out my body was just too tired to move much. My mom and I kept telling him to rest but he just kept saying he was fine and wouldn't.

Since Lincoln was in the nursery, no one could really come and see him until he came out. So pretty much right when he got to our room until about 8PM that night we had a constant flow of visitors in our room. They were of course welcomed and we were so excited to show him off to all our family and friends but looking back, that was mistake two. We probably should have only invited family that first day. At about 8PM I hit a brick wall. I started to feel like I wasn't in my own body I was so tired and I was concerned something was wrong. I made the nurses come in and check my vitals several times and I just kept telling Kelsey I just felt weird. The nurses assured my everything was fine and I was just so tired I needed to sleep. Well I couldn't. I just laid in bed and couldn't fall asleep which was causing my to panic. By this point Kelsey was crashed out and I kept waking him up to tell him I couldn't sleep and something happened to me and I was never going to be able to sleep again. HAHA Anyways, I finally fell asleep which was right around the time Lincoln started waking up. He didn't sleep well that night which has so far been his worst night of sleep. Kelsey kept getting up and going, "I can't do this. I can't go on." I told him he needed to get ahold of himself and that this was his life haha!

So we made it through the first night and were itching to go home the next morning. Thank goodness we were able to. Let me tell ya, it never felt SO good to walk in my own house and be home. That first night, Lincoln slept for 5 hours straight! I finally woke up on my own to go to the bathroom and started freaking out something was wrong. I even woke him up which he was mad about:) Our nights have gone similar to this sleep wise ever since then. He sleeps for about 4 hours at a time, wakes up to eat and goes right back to sleep. He is pretty much a dream baby. Kelsey and I keep waiting for it to wear off but so far it hasn't!

He also hardly cries. He just whines a little when hes hungry and cries when hes getting his diaper changed. Like I said, he is a dream baby. We loved having Kelsey home the first week and were all really sad when he had to go back to work. Lincoln and I are adjusting to life during the day without him really well even though we miss him terribly! He is also a dream when I have taken him out. He has literally slept through every outing. It has been awesome because I have been able to get out of the house quite a bit which has done wonders for my sanity. I love being his mom. Seriously I have never been so happy and content in my life. I could sit on the couch all day and snuggle him and not complain once. Kelsey and I are just OVER the moon in love with our sweet little boy. We waited so long for him and already can't remember what life was like without him.

OH and I'm sure you are ALL wondering how our furry babies are adjusting! Well the answer is great. I have to admit I was concerned how they were going to do, especially Kirby because he is so attached to me but it has been great. The first week or so, Kirby and Bella were trying to figure out their place with me now that Lincoln was here. They wouldn't come near me when I had him. But we have all figured out a way to all still snuggle with Lincoln too:) Kirby is a great big brother and is so protective over him. It is so cute and it melts my heart when they give him kisses. Linc already doesn't mind. He is going to be a dog lover for sure. Sorry for the super long post! Now time for a picture overload.

Newborn Pictures

I'm so obsessed with these! Terri did such a good job!!! We love our Lincoln so much & already can't imagine what life was like without him. I have never been so happy or content in my life.

Lincoln Henry Bernard

I can't believe that my sweet little boy will be a week old tomorrow. The last month of pregnancy went by so so so slow and now time is going by too fast! I am going to attempt to write his birth story here so that I can remember it.

Last Tuesday I spent the majority of the day on the exercise ball. I was feeling really discouraged because the doctor still wouldn't check my cervix at my 39 week appointment so I had no idea if I had progressed or not. That night as Kelsey and I were going to bed he said well tonight could be the night and I just looked at him and said yeah right I'm going to go past my due date just get used to that. I went to bed and wasn't even having a single contraction so I settled in for the fact that another day had gone by with no baby. That night at 3 in the morning I was dead asleep and felt this pop. I woke up immediately and jumped out of bed thinking oh my gosh my water just broke. Sure enough as soon as I got the toilet water started gushing out. I yelled to Kelsey my water had broke and he jumped out of bed and started rushing around to get our things ready. I called my mom who rushed over and we headed up to the hospital.

By the time we got there and got all settled in it was about 6. My contractions had started but they weren't too bad. At about 7 they had gotten out of control so I told the nurse I needed something for the pain. They checked my cervix and I was only at 1. I was so mad since I had been dilated to a 1 for 3 weeks! I got some morphine which ebbed off the pain for 5 hours. At about noon that wore off and the contractions had gotten way worse. I couldn't take it anymore and decided I needed an epidural. Once I got that I felt much better other than the fact that I couldn't move my legs at all! They were tree trunks. I didn't like the feeling but it was better than the contractions. So I labored like this until 7PM when the nurse came in to check me again. I thought I would be close to being ready to push but nope I was only at a 5. She said it would probably be after midnight until I was ready to push. After that I mostly was in and out of sleep until she came in and checked me again at 12:30. At this point I was so so uncomfortable I told Kelsey and my mom if she came in and still said I wasn't to a 10 I was going to loose it. Luckily I was but they wanted to give Lincoln more time to move down before I started to push.

At about 1:30 AM I started pushing. This continued for 3 hours. Towards the end I was so so tired and didn't think I could push anymore. Thank goodness for Kelsey, my mom and amazing nurse who kept encouraging me otherwise I couldn't have done it. During the whole labor my mom and Kelsey were by my side every second encouraging and holding my hand. I know for a fact there is no way I would have made it through labor without them.

At 4:17 AM our sweet beautiful Lincoln was born 6 pounds 14 ounces, 20 inches long of perfection. I was pushing and all of a sudden the doctor told me to stop and that she was going to have to cut the cord. The cord had gotten wrapped around his neck two times and was really tight. I got him out and they put him up on my chest. Kelsey and I just looked at each other and then at him and started sobbing. I couldn't believe my sweet boy was finally here and he was perfect. Then I noticed something was wrong, He had not started to cry yet. Finally he let out a small cry but was struggling to breath. They took him right off my chest and started working on him. Because he didn't cry right away, he got fluid stuck in his lungs and was having trouble breathing. He had to spend the first 10 hours in the nursery on oxygen while they worked the fluid out. It was scary and I was so sad I couldn't hold my baby hardly at all for the first 10 hours. Everything worked out okay and we were able to go home the next day! Start to finish labor was 25 hours for me and was nothing like I expected although I didn't have many expectations because I knew labor never goes as planned. I love my little family more than anything in the world and I am SO grateful to have my sweet Lincoln in my life. I was hoping to get some pictures after he was born but that didn't go as planned. I'm glad my mom was able to snap a couple quick shots before all the chaos started to happen.