Not so cute

This would definately be considered a not very cute stage for Jackson. He has newborn rash pretty bad and scratched his face up!

Hungry Hippo

Ok, this video is slightly disturbing, but so funny. Jackson was so hungry after his bath he didn't care where the milk came from, even if it was from daddy. (Watch Kevin's face in the mirror, it's so funny.)

Daddy's Boy

Wow, I forgot how much hair Jackson had when he was born. I really like this picture of the two men in my life.

Mama Emma

Emma loves her baby brother so much! She calls him "my baby". She always wants to hold him and kiss him. I see lots of colds and runny nose for poor Jackson in the future!

Jackson's One Week Old

Here are some video's of Jackson at about a week old. (Now that he is 3 months old and I'm looking back at these video's I really don't think I appreciated this time in his life as much as I should have. It's amazing how sleep deprivation can make a person so miserable. I just love him so much more now than then, and that makes me sad to say.)

Daddy and Jackson. Jackson is such a frowny child!

Emma's such a little mama.

Jackson just look at me!

Hey mama, what's going on?

Mama and Jackson

If I don't take the pictures of myself with the kids I would never have picture with me in it.
So say "cheese".

Friends

Emma had Katie come over to play today. They both wanted to hold the baby. Katie is the youngest of 3 children and she wouldn't be having a baby brother or sister. So she was very excited to hold the baby. Doesn't Emma look so sweet holding her baby brother, she looks at him so adoringly.

Mema's & Jackson

I think this is Mema's favorite activity.
Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Hope you like your new gift!

Happy Mother's Day to Me

So Mother's Day was 4 days after Jackson was born. I can't believe I now have two children this Mother's Day. Weird. You know what's so weird about it? I've been dreaming of being a mother for as long as I can remember, now it's here and seems so surreal. I've done it, I've been pregnant twice now, and delivered twice now. Crazy, I still can't believe it sometimes.

Kevin was so sweet, he got Emma up this morning and they went down and made me breakfast and brought it up to me in bed. Here is the first picture of our new little foursome family. Not the best picture being that we're exhausted and it's first thing in the morning. I love it anyways because this is my family. Just us, in bed on a Sunday morning. Happy Mother's Day to Me!

Crib

First time Jackson slept in his crib.


(Sorry, there is going to be a lot of "first time" pictures for a while.) =)

Jackson's Gift to Emma

We thought it would be a good idea to have Jackson give Emma a gift when he was born. We had this Cabbage Patch doll sitting at the top of Emma's closet since she was little (a gift from mema). Anyways, now that she is old enough to appreciate a Cabbage Patch doll we thought this would be a good time to give it to her as a gift from Jackson. She thought the doll was cool, she wrapped her up and put her in the swing. She is such a good "little mama".

Here she is a day later holding her baby in the sling, just like mama does with Jackson, except the sling is a bit big for Emma.

And singing a song while rocking her baby too. (I have no idea what she's singing.)

Holding Jackson

First time Emma got to hold Jackson she wasn't so sure of things, now she wants to hold him all the time.

First sponge bath

So Jackson doesn't care for his sponge bath much.

Ahhhhh...

Is there anything sweeter than holding you newborn baby snuggled up under your neck? I don't think there is.

Going Home

We were in the hospital for a mere 24 hours after Jackson was born. We went home on Thur May 9th shortly after 4pm when he was 1 day old. I was feeling great and I didn't want to pay for the another day in the hospital. Plus, turned out Emma got sick while we were in the hospital and I was eager to get home to see her, it was the longest we've gone with out seeing her, we hadn't seen her since Tue night . Emma ended up staying Wednesday with Amy's family and then my friend Laura drove in from Tyler and kept Emma at the house until we got home on Thur. I have such great friends! I don't know what I would do without them sometimes. Laura got up on Friday morning and cooked us the yummiest breakfast ever!!! I was so sad to see her leave on Sat. She even cleaned my toilets for me while I was in the hospital, I'm still not sure if I should be embarrassed or not! =) Oh, and Amy bought us some toilet paper, hehe, when she came over to watch Emma Tue night we had been low (one roll in the whole house) . I had intended to go out and get some the next day, but turned out I was at the hospital having a baby! Amy didn't want us to come home to no TP so she brought some over, what a friend. Anyways, back to Thursday, when we came home Emma and Maddie were napping so that gave us some time to settle in. When Emma woke up Kevin and I went in to see her, we thought she would be so happy to see us since it had been a few days. Boy were we wrong. She crawled out of bed, barely said a word to us and went into the "park" to play. She didn't really speak to us until we told her we brought baby Jackson home, then she perked up a bit. She only shunned us for about 20 min then everything was back to normal. She just loves her baby brother, she calls him "my baby".

Jackson in the Hospital

Shortly after Jackson was born they checked him out and weighed him.



Then I got to feed and hold him. I had to share him with daddy and mema too!



My nurses were so great! The nurse on the right even reminded me to fix my hair a little before pictures, wow, wish I had done that with Emma. =)



After bonding and feeding Jackson had his bath, medication, and measurements.



Resting quietly now.



Looking cute too.


Daddy changing a yucky diaper.


Amy and Katie were our only visitors while we were in the hospital. We missed out on having Emma come to the hospital to see Jackson because of she has a fever! =(




Time to go home.

Jackson's Here!!

Jackson has arrived. He was born May 7th at 3:26pm. He weighed 7lbs 8 ounces and was 20 1/4 in long. Here is the story of his birth.

It was Tuesday night May 6th, I had been on bedrest for the last week for high blood pressure (180/100). I had seen my doctor the morning of May 6th and I had hoped to convince him to induce me on Thur May 8th. That would have made Jackson's birthday 5/8/08, Emma's birthday is 3/5/05, so that would have been neat. Anyways, because my BP was down he wanted me to remain on bedrest for another week until I was 38 weeks. I was so upset, being on bedrest was eating into my maternity leave, at this point I wanted to go ahead and have the baby. Plus my husband was in limbo with working, because I was on bedrest he had to stay home a lot and help take care of Emma. Luckily, I have a ton of great friend that helped out with Emma in the morning. Anyways, back to Tuesday. Even though the doctor didn't want to induce me my body said it was time to have the baby! That night before dinner I took Emma on a short walk outside, I was tired of being on bedrest and I needed some fresh air, well, that must have helped put me in labor because when I got home I started having contractions. The contractions started getting more consistent around 9pm and more intense around 11pm so I called the doctor. Luckily it was my own doctor on call and he told me to come in. I called my good friend Amy who just happened to be getting off the 3-11 shift at work (she's also a RN). She was so kind to come over and sleep on our futon while we went to the hospital. At the time we weren't sure if we were going to be sent home from the hospital or stay and deliver the baby so we hated to wake Emma and disrupt her if we were just going to be back home in a few hours. (Amy took our picture before we left). We got to the hospital shortly after midnight. After getting all set up in a triage room and laying in bed, of course, my contractions slowed down. The nurse checked me and I was only dilated to 1cm. She called the doctor and he wanted me to be rechecked in two hours. Luckily the nurse let me get up and walk the halls because it felt better to be moving instead of just laying in bed. So after an hour or so of walking she rechecked me and I had changed to 2cm! So my doctor said I could stay and have the baby and that he would be in around 6 am to check me, at this point it was about 3am. They moved me from the triage bed to a labor and delivery room. Yea!! I can stay and have the baby! Here's a picture of me happy about that. They had a labor ball that I could sit on and use if I wanted. I did that some and Kevin and I were off to walk some more. I pretty much walked the halls from 1:00am-6am. I even walked the halls alone and let Kevin take a nap from about 4-6 am so that he would be some help to me during the delivery, aren't I such a good wife? My doctor came in at 6am and checked me and I was dilated to 3cm. He said I could have my epidural so that he could rupture my bag of water afterward. I was thrilled to be able to get my epidural. At this point I had been laboring naturally and that wasn't in my birth plan at all! Haha. I had planned on coming into the hospital getting hooked up to the epidural and having a baby pain free, not all this walking and feeling every contraction stuff! That's for the birds! Anyways, my epidural placement when smoothly and I was much happier for it. The doc came in and broke my water. We called my mom around 7am to let her know not to go to work. Around 10 or 11 am my contractions started to stall so they started me on a little pitocin. That didn't last long though because the baby didn't tolerate it much at all. The nurses kept coming in and staring at the heartbeat strip and they started me on an oxygen mask. Now that is never a good sign. The doctor came in and also watched the strip. Now why would they do that in the room when I know that can watch it out at the desk and not get me all worked up about it? Needless to say they turned if off and decided to see if my body would continue to labor on it's own. Luckily for me it did, otherwise I would have ended up with a C-Section. So I labored all afternoon. I tried to take it easy and nap. I remember we were watching the Animal Planet channel most of the afternoon. The nurses would come in every hour or so and turn me and prop me up with pillows. Kevin and my mom would feed me ice chips, apply chap stick, or put a cool wet cloth to my forehead. At 3pm the doctor came to check me and said I was almost fully dilated and he would be back in to check me in 30 min. About 10 minutes after he left I started to really feel my contractions. I remember that the show Meerkat Manor was on and it was annoying me and I asked them to turn it off, hehehe. After several really good contractions I need to bear down and push, we called the nurses in and they called for the doctor. I unintentionally pushed on my side for two contractions while we waited for the doctor, I remember saying "the baby's coming, where's the Doctor". The doctor got there, they put me in stirrups and I pushed during two more contractions and Jackson was born! This time around was so much better, I only pushed for 4 contractions instead of an hour and a half! I didn't have excruciating tailbone pain, and I didn't need an episiotomy! The doctor and nurses followed my birth plan very well. I got to use a mirror and see Jackson being born and they also put him on my tummy so that I could see him! The nurses also did his admission in the room, which as a nursery nurse I know is a big deal, I really appreciated that. His first feeding he breastfed like a champ! I had a difficult time with Emma in the delivery room but Jackson latched right on and nursed for 20 minutes on both sides. In doing so that gave him his first nickname of "Hungry Jack". My delivery of Jackson was a wonderful experience and I'm so glad he's here.




(I'll post more pictures of Jackson's in the hospital in another post)