Thank you Jess!

Jessica sent Jack a few items yesterday.. A miracle blanket (which we haven't tried out yet but she knows he has to be swaddled when he sleeps!), burp cloths, a snuggli, a picture of her boys (this was for me), and a binkie with an attached animal. Jack loves the binkie! He holds it and won't let it go. Too cute! I had to attach a picture! Thanks Jess! This put him straight to sleep. I was loving it too for that reason! Today Jack's Aunt Poco comes in town so he is really excited. He has been napping to get ready for the big visit! She gets here at 7:00pm. Jack whet to the doctor yesterday and he has gained more weight. He weighs 10 pounds now and 9 ounces. He has also grown 1/2 an inch. He got all good reports except the doctor thinks he has acid reflux. The more people I have talked to it seems many babies have had this but for all of you reading please say a prayer. I have been explaining to her (the Doctor) that when he eats he kicks, screams, cries, and arches his back when we go to burp him. She had said he was just greedy and likes his formula. (I am sure this is true- but it has gotten so much worse and you can tell he is in pain.) Not to mention he has started spitting up EVERY time he eats. He also just started this thing where he acts like he forgot how to suck when you first put the bottle in his mouth. I was explaining all this to her and luckily it was feeding time and she experienced a (very minor) episode. She said "Ohhh he has acid reflux!" She told me to change his formula, try feeding him less but more often, and prescribed him some medicine. We are scheduled for a return check up in 2 weeks. Anyway- Even if it is common please say a prayer for him because I hate to see the little guy in pain and there is a slight possibility to have long term effects from this on your digestive system and other areas. (This is what I have read online.) Usually babies that get this have under developed digestive systems and it usually is fine by 4-5 months. Definition is below: Reflux most commonly occurs when the ring of muscle that joins the stomach to the esophagus does not function properly. This muscle, the lower esophageal sphincter, or LES, usually opens very briefly for swallowing or vomiting, and then closes again. But in reflux cases, the muscle stays relaxed and food and stomach acids can flow back into the esophagus. Basically- his throat burns with acid. So please say a prayer for BABY JACK! Regardless of how common things are you still worry as a parent! Love you all! We will update with adventures with Poco.

Sarah and Jack
Jack and Mommy
Mike and Jack
The Graham Family
(Yes I can not believe I put this pic of me on here but it was bedtime after a long day!
Plus Daddy and Jack look cute so I had to! )
Another Picture of Bath time!
Hello! I thought I would give you a few updates on what The Graham Family has been up to and what new adventures Jack has encountered. Sarah and Mike came in on Friday. We were all so excited to see them and Jack was very excited to meet them finally. Jack and I made the trip to the airport to pick them up. He didn't allow me to take a shower beforehand so I was a little worried about his temperament pre-car ride but he did GREAT. Like most babies, he loves car rides and went right to sleep. Friday night we decided to venture out (1 mile down the road) to eat at the club house with Mr. Jack. We figured this would be a great 1st outing because if he got upset we were not far from home. Sarah and I rode around the neighborhood 20 minutes beforehand to make sure he fell asleep while Mike and Greg went ahead for the reservations. We sat outside and it was great weather. There was a terribly loud party right next to us but it didn't seem to phase Jack. This was so interesting because all during the day he wakes up if someone barely moves or whispers but not in public! (At least not so far!) We had dinner and were actually out for close to 2 hours and Jack continued to slumber. We did move from outside to inside once it got a little chilly. When we got home Sarah and I gave him a bath. He then went straight to sleep as she rocked him in her arms. He loves his Aunt Sarah! Jack is very lucky to have such great Aunts! He is thankful to get to meet them lately! His Aunt Poco comes next week! He is getting spoiled! Sarah is a very light sleeper so when Jack got up for his first feeding for the night around 2:30am Sarah joined us for some TV. :) The next day we hung around the house and Mike and Greg played golf. Jack spent time with the girls and towards the end of the day he was exhausted but would not go to sleep. Sarah and I could only get him to take cat naps and they only lasted 10-20 minutes at a time. At one point we were literally confined to my bedroom laying right next to him because wouldn't fall asleep anywhere else but on his boppy between the girls. That night we decided to be daring and venture out to dinner in Birkdale. (A shopping center about 10 minutes away.) The guys went ahead and got our table. After numerous attempts to get Jack sleeping all day Saturday- the second we got in the car to go to dinner he was out! When we walked up to join the guys- we noticed a great band setting up across the street. We were worried it would be loud but the music was great and at a great volume. Everything was going perfect and THEN it started to get dark and cloudy and VERY windy. A storm was coming and we were on an uncovered patio. We moved inside and while Jack woke up several times he always went back to sleep. He didn't even wake up until we were home for 40 minutes or so. (Yes- I am a bad mom and left him in his car seat onces he got home for awhile.) He had not slept much that day and I didn't want to wake him. We had bath time again and Sarah put him to sleep. She has really enjoyed taking care of him. She changed diapers, gave him baths, rocked him to sleep, and loved on him during the day. She also did his laundry and got his bottles ready. He will be sad for her to leave tomorrow and we will as well! We have had a low key weekend but that is perfect for us! Hope everyone is doing well! P.S. Go to the posting below of my mom and Meredith's visit to see pictures!

Jack is 4 weeks old TODAY. He is doing well and has gained 2 pounds since his last Dr.'s visit. He definitely likes to eat! He will throw a HUGE fit if you try to take away his bottle and when you burp him he screams! It has gotten really out of control. I talked to his Dr. about it because I thought he was in pain and she said he is just greedy and wants his bottle. He is going to be a little chunky I have a feeling! Most babies this age drink 3-4 ounces per feeding. Today Jack drank almost 7 ounces. INSANE! His doctor said to continue to feed him if he is hungry so I did and he didn't even spit it up. He doesn't eat that much every time but he does always have at least 4 ounces. He is working on getting more sleep during the day. He slept in his crib for nap time today which was a big deal! He is also starting to enjoy bath time more. Greg went back to work on Monday so it has just been Jack and I this week. We made the trip to the Dr. all by ourselves and I was so proud of him he didn't even cry! However- I felt terrible because it was 100 degrees and I couldn't figure out how to get the car seat out of the car. I finally got a lady to help me and she said it was a tricky one! :) I know how now. We attempted to take a family walk and we made it 3 houses down before Jack started SCREAMING so we turned around. Well- That is about all for now. I will update with some PRECIOUS pictures from last week but I honestly think he has grown since then!

Today Jack is 3 weeks old!

GAMBI and JACK
AUNT MEREDITH and JACK
My mom and my sister are gone now. :( Mom stayed for 11 days and Meredith was here for the weekend. We had a great time and Greg and I appreciated the help. We didn't leave the house much but then again Jack is only 3 weeks old TODAY! Every time we left the house I worried to death about him and wanted to get home quickly to kiss on him. :) Meredith cooked several gourmet meals for us (She is quite the cook-fresh blueberry pancakes, spicy pasta with Italian sausage, a seriously fancy chicken salad on pita bread, and a chocolate dessert to die for that she promised was low fat-sure!) and Jack got spoiled with all the kisses from his Aunt and Grandma. That was really weird to type about my mom! Yes mom- you are officially a Grandma. :) Jack is very lucky to have such great family as are we! Mom said Jack grew a lot in just 11 days. We think he weighs about 9 pounds now. (We guessed at this by getting on the scale with him and subtracting the amount from my weight without him.) He does not go to the Doctor for a few more weeks so hopefully he will be even bigger. He has taken a number of baths now and is still not in love with the idea of them but he is getting adjusted to them. We have gone through oodles of bottles finding the perfect brand for him. We have finally reached a winner with Dr. Brown's at the current moment. He was going to go for his first walk tonight but it started storming. We may take him out tomorrow if it is not too hot. Greg was able to take off work for 3 weeks so he does not go back until Monday. We are REALLY going to be sad when he does! He has been a huge help around here. I just wanted to update everyone with the latest. We will continue in the future! Our next guests are Sarah and Mike next weekend so we are excited about welcoming them soon!!! Love you all!

Updated Pics of Mr. Jack Man

The Story

Well it has almost been 2 full weeks since we welcomed Baby Jack into the world. He is so cute and things are getting easier each day. I feel like I have so much to catch everyone up on so I will try my best to start from the beginning. On Tuesday May 20th I went to my morning Doctor's appointment. The checked me out and found I was 1 centimeter dilated STILL. I was sent on my merry way and told it could be anywhere from 1-4 more weeks. I went to work and had a normal day and came home that night and Greg and I had dinner. He was so cute because he had bought me a gift for Jack's arrival and was dying to give it to me early to make sure I liked it. I opened it after a guessing game and it was a purse. This was really cute to me that Greg thought to do this and picked something out. That night we were sleeping (well one of us was), and every 20 minutes or so I kept having very mild cramps. They had happened before and I assumed they were Braxton Hicks, but this time they were coming frequently vs. just a few times a day. I kept trying to sleep and they were getting closer together. I woke up Greg and told him and we started timing them. They went from being 20 minutes apart to 10 then 8 and then 5. We had the computer out and were googling to find out if this could be labor pains because to be completely honest it was not painful and nothing like I expected. Greg kept asking me to describe them and rank the pain on a scale of 1-10. It was about a 4 or 5. I am not trying to sound heroic but I really did not think labor pains were bad at all nor was the birth. I never even cried except for when I got scared about the possibility of a C-section. Anyway- So once they got to be 5 minutes apart we decided to go to the hospital and have them check me out. This was now about 4:30 in the morning. We grabbed our things and headed to Presbyterian Hospital. When we pulled up Greg tried to drop me off up front and I remember feeling silly because I was not feeling bad and told him I wanted to walk. We parked and then went inside after debating on whether or not to bring in the bag. (We thought they would laugh at us since we were not sure this was the real thing.) When we got inside the nurses asked what we needed as we walked up. We told them we thought I might be in labor. They asked if I had called my Doctor and we felt silly because we had not even thought to do that. They said they would check me out but you could tell they also thought it was a false alarm. When they checked me out and found I was 6 centimeters dilated they almost fell out and said I should have come in doubled over in pain and said we may be having a baby in 3-4 hours. We were in shock and truly thinking this labor thing was a cinch! :) They admitted me immediately and hooked up all sorts of monitors to me. I loved one of my nurses. Her name was Melissa and she actually had traveled before with our parent company before going perm at her current job. (I am a DOR of recruitment so my team places travel nurses into temporary jobs across the United States. This is what Melissa had done prior so we quickly bonded!) :) She was so awesome and precious! Anyway- They asked if I wanted an epidural and I said sure although I was very nervous about someone poking around on my back. It wasn't that bad but I was scared and my eyes got teary eyed at the thought. I was amazed at how fast things were moving. The epidural was interesting. I didn't realize you could control how much you received. You can hit a button to make it stronger if you need to. I really liked this because I am paranoid about too much medicine and so I kept it at a low intake since I was not feeling pain already. I wanted to save it incase I needed it at the end! :) So after about 3 hours of monitoring things they told us it would now be 12:00 when Jack would make his appearance. 12:00 turned into 3:00 and 3:00 into 6:00. Then they came in to check me out again and informed us that I needed to have a C-section. I just lost it. This was the one thing I was not prepared for. I did not want to have this done and was so upset. Greg and I discussed it and we decided if that was what had to be done for Jack to be safe we would be troopers. The Dr. said she would give me 1 more hour to see if I was dilated any further and if not she had to move forward. Finally when she came to check she said we were ready to move forward without the C-Section. Things happened quickly and although I could still feel slight contractions it was not painful. The delivery room was laughing at me because I was talking throughout the process in between all the pushing ans contractions. (Why wouldn't you? It keeps your mind off things!) When they said they saw the baby's head and it had black hair Greg said he didn't know where that came from. I jokingly told him maybe it wasn't his! :) Everyone started laughing and Greg was so embarrassed. Of course I was kidding! :) At one point I felt so dehydrated I was having Greg get me water and ice and it seemed like I could not drink enough. Greg was really sweet. He was being a good coach and cheering me on. I did look at him at one point and told him I loved him dearly but I didn't need to hear any more "Come on baby's!" :) LOL He was perfect though and is now a wonderful daddy and of course husband. During the whole process there was an emergency downstairs and my Dr. had to leave!!! At this point my nurse Melissa was back on her night shift again and she had been with me the whole time. She almost had to deliver the baby because it wasn't until about the last 20 minutes that another Dr. they had paged finally arrived and helped out. When he came in he scrubbed in immediately when he saw how far along we were. I will tell you this- no one had told me how long the "pushing process" is. Everyone kept saying I was almost there so I thought it would be quick. The way I have thought to explain it is-you signed up for a 1 mile race and start running and when you are about to finish you find out it is in fact 26 miles. This was how I felt. They were telling me I was almost done and how fabulous I was doing and when I asked how much longer they said "Well most people take 3 hours with their first baby but you will probably only push for 2 hours." I almost died! We ended up getting to meet Jack after 1 hour and 45 minutes of pushing with a grand total of 20 hours of labor. CRAZY! It was not bad though. Just scary because we were worried about his stress levels. At the last 15 minutes someone came in and asked for the Dr. to come to another room for an emergency. I literally looked at him and politely told him that we paged him and I was also an emergency and asked if he could please finish the process before leaving like the last Dr. He smiled and told me to focus on my job and he would work on his and then he told me they were going to vacuum little Jack out. I asked him the risk and that is when he told me to be quiet. I did just as he asked and minutes later Jack was welcomed into the world. :) He was so cute! He got cleaned up and they left us alone with him to hang out.. Greg was so cute with him. I couldn't quit looking at him myself. That night Melissa came and took him and gave us some time to sleep. The next day the Dr. who delivered him came back in and called me the comedian.. :) He checked out Jack and myself and said we all seemed to be doing well. We had a fabulous day nurse named Mandy and she helped us out tons as well. I even got her number when I left so we can get together in the future. Once we got home we had zero sleep and went to the ER twice in the first week. Once was a false alarm and the second was because they were worried he was dehydrated but he is ok. Anyway- I will write more later because Greg needs me right now. Have a great day!