A Week of Many Firsts

Well, we have been home from the hospital with Liam for a week now.  We have had a lot of firsts this week.  I thought many of them would be best shown with pictures.  Enjoy!

First Car Ride!

First Sunbathing....per doctor's recommendation, he needed to be in the sun as much as possible over the weekend to help with his jaundice.

First three way kiss from his brothers and sister!

First "portrait" with his brothers and sister.



First Bath....we did have a picture of his first fountain as well, but we thought we should not post that on a blog, but it was a pretty perfect pee fountain just before his bath.

First St. Patrick's Day!  Daddy's all dressed up with his littlest boy.

First Trike Ride!

Today I am thankful for the ability to take all of these wonderful pictures.  Without pictures, I would forget so many of my precious memories.  I'm blessed to have a wonderful camera to capture all of these great memories. 

 

Silliness

Okay, today I am thankful for the silliness in life.  I'm imagining that I am going to be posting several of these types of posts.  So, I have to warn you all this post is going to be a little embarrassing to write, and maybe for some of you to read.  It involves some facts of pregnancy and child birth that are rarely discussed.....so read on with caution!

Today, George did one of the cutest things I have ever seen.  We were needing to leave the house to run some errands, and he really didn't want to leave.  He wanted to stay and play at the house more.  So, we started telling him what we need to go do.  I told him that Mommy needed to go to the store get some medicine.  He said, "what you need medicine for?"  I said, "Mommy needs medicine to make her bottom feel better."  He said, "I have medicine for you bottom."  He proceeded to run into his bedroom with great excitement and get something.  He said, "See Mommy you can use my bottom medicine to make you bottom feel better."  I looked down to see a tube of diaper rash ointment on the counter.  So, if that weren't cute enough, Daddy then said, "Mommy also need some smell good spray for her smelly toots."  He then ran into the bathroom and came out with Daddy's B.O.D. spray, and said, "here Mommy you can use Daddy's spray, we don't need to go to the store."

I'm thankful that I have cute, creative, and very silly kids that keep me laughing.  George especially has a knack for being super cute and silly.  Sorry for the content, but I though this was too cute not to share. 

BTW, while I am writing this post, he is running around the living room with his underwear on backwards (with the characters on the front instead of on his bottom), with a blanket on his head running acting like a super heo.  So precious!

Wrong Video.....

Luckily, I didn't post the one of me having bad contractions.....that would have been embrassing!

We are workng on getting the other one uploaded, but we are having some technical difficulties.

Liam's Arrival!

I'm excited to post some information, pictures, and videos of Liam's birth.  He has already been such a blessing.  He's an awesome baby, and is handling all of the love of a big family very well.  So, here goes....

After several weeks of anticipation, Liam decided to wait until the day I was scheduled to be induced to arrive.  We had a few false alarms, where I thought I was in labor, but Liam wanted to make things exciting for us.  We arrived at the hospital at 7:00 on Wednesday, March 9th.  I had to get a dose of antibiotics in as soon as possible to cover my GBS+, so they started my IV right away.  As soon as that was in place and my antibiotics were started, my doctor arrived to break my water.  At approx 8:20, he broke it, and started to give me an IV to start the contractions.  The nurse informed me that they knew I wanted an epidural and that they would need to let the anaesthesiologist know, and give me some fluids prior to getting the procedure. 

At around 9:30, I was having regular contractions and feeling just a little miserable.  I told the nurse I was feeling badly and I wanted to know when they were going to come for the epidural.  She had been waiting for me to tell her I was ready.  Confused, I nicely said, "did you need me to tell you I want it, I thought everyone knew." Her response was, "I'll get you on the list."  I said, "I really hope it is a short list."  I then told her that I was feeling pressure, she decided to check me, only after an hour I was dilated to a 6.  She stepped into action, and said she would let the anaesthesiology know right way that I needed it. 

He was in very quickly, and started the epidural.  After 25 minutes he was done, but I was still feeling even more miserable.  I told the nurse and she checked me again.  I was dilated to a 9.  So, she said they would start to ready the room for delivery.  About 10 minutes later, I told her I was feeling a lot of pressure.  She checked again and said my cervix was gone and she needed to call the doctor.  He got there in about 5 minutes and started the delivery at approx 10:20.  Liam was "sunny side up" as the doctor referred to it, so I had to push a little more than expected.  He came out at 10:41, happy and healthy. 

Then, came the fun part of introducing Liam to his brothers and sisters.  We had a special meeting of George and Liam.  George was the first sibling to meet little Liam.  He came to the hospital soon after we got into our hospital room.  He was so excited to meet his new baby brother.

and here's a little video, he does get a little distracted in the middle by the new video camera that Daddy is using, but the main part is all about his new baby.  Very cute!

Then, a little later Cora and Henry came to meet their new brother. 

We were all so excited for his arrival, he is even more precious than we could have ever imagined.  I am extremely blessed with all of my children.  They are the most amazing creations of love that I could ever imagine.  I'm so excited to have another baby to pour all of my heart into.

God's Plans for Us

Well, only three days into the blog and I am already running behind.  I'm not too surprised, I did think about what I needed to post yesterday, but things just got too crazy. 

For yesterday, I am thankful that God looks out for us, even if we make really bad choices.  He seems to move the puzzle pieces around and give us one more chance to do things the way he would like us to.  I don't want to go into specifics, but on a few occasions people in my life have made choices that, if God had not moved around the pieces, it could have ended their lives, one of those occurred yesterday.   I want to thank God for  watching over my 15 year old niece Astara, during this very difficult time in her life.  I pray that she can eventually see the beauty in life and love, and she can start putting all of her gifts to work. 

Yesterday's events also included us finding out that Liam may need some tests on his kidney and bladder.  As of 9:00 in the morning he had only had one wet diaper since birth.  They did some blood work and could see that he was dehydrated.  The doctor asked me to start supplementing nursing with 15-30 mls of formula to see if this helped.  He also needed to pee another time before she released us from the hospital.  So, we did as instructed.  He had a toddler sized pee filled diaper (after being tricked into starting to pee) at around 2:00.  His bloodwork at 4:00 showed improvement to his dehydration.  We were discharged from the hospital around 7:30 and home by 8:00.  We were told to keep supplementing and bring him back to the lab/dr today.  We are off to the doctor right now to see how little boy is doing. 

I'll be back later today to post some video and pics of our sweet Liam boy!

Technology: A Blessing or a Curse

The last few days have been interesting with respect to technology.  Yesterday, during the birth we were praising the ability to keep so many of our friends and family informed by posting updates and pictures on Facebook.  We were able to post pictures with little trouble.  Today, however, I had trouble reaching simple websites, sending basic emails, and now posting items my newly created blog.  So, I am torn with this blessing that is sometimes a curse. 

Technology does so many things for my family on a daily basis that we take for granted.  For us, it is a huge source of our livelihood.  However, it is also a source of frustration for us that has to be kept under control.  We have actually instituted "technology free" time on Sundays.  After church, until dinner time on Sundays, no one in the family can play video games, use the computer, use Ipods, and we have limited use of our cell phones.  It has been great family building time that we are growing to love more and more. 

I am realizing that I need to be more thankful for it on a daily basis, because when it is unavailable or limited when I want it, it is terribly frustrating.  Furthermore, it is a blessing that we need to control so it doesn't consume our daily lives.

FYI: I am going to postpone my blog with pictures and videos until I am back at home with my fast wireless connection at home.  Hopefully, tomorrow will be the day.

A Very Blessed Day

Today we welcomed our fourth child into the world.  Liam Fox Dwyer was born at 10:41 a.m.after a very short and eventful labor.  He weighed 7 lbs 8 ozs and 22 inches.  I need to keep this first blog short, so I will give some more details about the day's events in tomorrow's blog.  We have lots of pictures and videos I want to share with everyone.

Today is also Ash Wednesday, my lenton resolution this year is to blog everyday about the blessings in my life.  Some will be happy blessings, and some may be blessings in disquise.  Our church has emphasized that during lent we do not have to "give up" something, but we can also devote ourselves during this time to bettering ourselves by doing certain actions, such as praying more.  I would like to approach this blog during lent as a form of prayer where I share my blessings with the world.  

I want to thank God today for the blessing of my wonderful family and friends.  I have a wonderful husband, who puts up with everything I dish out.  I have four beautiful, healthly, unique and awesome children.  My parents and parents-in-law, are the most supportive family I can imagine.  My sister is an awesome role model as a mother and wife, and is amazing in so many ways.  My neices and nephews are all blessing in so many ways it is hard to put into a short blog, but they are all near and dear to my heart.  I also have been blessed with awesome friends, in-laws, and extended family.  I could go on and on about all of the wonderful people in my life, but I will stop now in an effort to not make this the longest blog ever.  I'm sure over the next 40 days I will get to talk about all of these great people in more detail. 

It is technically after midnight when I am making this first post, but I will give myself a little break on posting a few minutes late the first day of lent.  I did after all deliver a beautiful baby boy today!

My prayer of blessing for the day:  Lord, thank you so much for the blessing of all of the wonderful people in my life.  They are truly wonderful, and make everyday worth living to the fullest.