Six Weeks and Smiling

Gabe is now 6 weeks old. I can't believe that he has been here for 6 weeks. Oh, how time flies when you aren't getting any sleep.

In other news, Gabe had his first real smile today. I wish it had been just because he was happy to see me, but nope, he thinks toys that make funny sounds are more amusing. Hopefully soon he'll think Chris and I are worthy of smiles too. :-)

It's been a while since I've had a few moments to post so we've missed all sorts of fun stuff.

We somehow finished all our Christmas shopping in time to enjoy the holiday, but if you took a closer look at all the gifts we purchased this year you can see an interesting development. All gifts purchased pre-Gabe were selected after due consideration. All gifts purchased post-Gabe were last-minute gift cards. I figured that since we were caught a little off guard by his early arrival, the people left on our Christmas list could do the shopping (with gift cards in hand) so Gabe and I didn't have to trudge through busy malls and holiday traffic for too long. Everyone enjoys picking out their own gifts right? Unfortunately, the gifts for my Brother Paul and his wife Amanda are still sitting on our buffet. Oops! We'll get it to you guys soon.

We hope you all had a great Christmas! Gabe sure did!



New years was a pretty mild one this year. We had pizza with our good friends Brad and Jenny and their daughter Kate. She came fully prepared to rock out in her pajamas. Oh, how I wish it was still acceptable to show up at a party in my pajamas.

Gabe had his first professional pictures taken to celebrate turning one month old. He wasn't too thrilled at first and we had to leave and reschedule for later so he could eat and be in a better mood. We got a few really cute shots. I may be biased but he's pretty much the cutest baby I've ever seen. :-)

The past few weeks have been pretty uneventful here at the Thomhouser household but some of our friends have had exciting news. Our friends Emily and Mike welcomed their new little girl, Mickaela, into the world on January 15th. She is just as precious as can be. A good friend from work, Becky, just found out she is expecting a girl and Andrea (also from work) is expecting her son Logan any day now. Brad and Jenny are still waiting as well. I'm predicting their little one will come this week! We'll see how well my psychic powers work. :-) Needless to say, it is baby season and I can't wait to meet all the new little ones. Gabe is pretty excited as well. Six weeks old and he's already surounded by girls. I knew he would be a heart breaker.

Finally, the one question I have been asked a million times now is, "Are you going back to work?" The answer to that is yes. Probably not until March, and then it will only be part-time starting with weekends and possibly moving up to taking a few weekday evenings. That's the plan for now, anyway. I may want to work more or start earlier. Only time will tell. Until then I am just enjoying my time with Gabe and hoping he will let me sleep a little bit more some time soon.

First week as a family of three

This last week has been absolutely wonderful. Other than a lack of sleep and a little Jaundice, Chris and I couldn't have dreamed of a better experience of bringing Gabe into this world and then bringing him home.

My water broke at 3:15 am Saturday morning and contractions started about 10 min later. Right from the start they were about 2 to 4 min apart, which scared me just a little and put us in a hurry to get to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital at 4:45 and they took us right in to the delivery suite. Might I just add that the delivery suites at Plano Presbyterian Hospital are very nice and very large. Right away they started checking me for dilation and started my IV as they sent Chris down to the ER to officially check me in. Upon arrival to the hospital my contractions were starting to come on very strong and were pretty consistent at 2 min apart, I was also dilated to 4cm. By 7:30 I had gone through the necessary 1 and a half bags of saline in order to get my epidural, and by 7:45 I was finally feeling good again.

After about 45 min my epidural had slowed down my contractions a little and the doc decided to give me a little pitocin to keep my contractions on track. After 7 min of pitocin I was 10 cm and ready to push. Pushing while the bottom half of your body is numb is a strange experience. You don't quite know if you are pushing hard enough or even in the right place. But, apparently, I was doing it right as I only pushed for about 22 min before Gabe made his appearance.

Chris was great through the whole thing. He held my hand through the contractons and my neck and leg through the pushing. He even cut Gabe's cord and not once did he panic or turn green at the site of all the blood. Also, because Gabe decided to come so early in the morning and on the one weekend where my sister Jessica (who was going to be our photographer for the big day) was out of town, he did a great job taking pictures of the big event in addition to his other duties. Within about 30 min of Gabe's birth we had ordered and eaten breakfast and then moved to our room on the maternity floor where we would be for the next two days. Gabe got to stay with us the whole time, except for the few times we sent him down to the nersury for some check-ups, his circumcision and yes a few hours of sleep after some long nights.

We have been home now since Monday afternoon and have had a lot of help from family and friends. All of the food has been great and has certainly made life easier and let Chris and I get to know our little guy and adjust to life as a family. We are now partaking in a new journey this week as Chris goes back to work. I get to be with Gabe and figure out how we will spend the days without daddy's help while Chris gets to find out how work is going to go now that our nights are frequently filled with dirty diapers and feedings. Thank goodness that my mom is here to help for the next few weeks as Gabe, daddy and I adjust to our new schedules.

Gabe has really been a great baby. He only cries when he's hungry or dirty. And really, if you listen to his cues he sometimes doesn't even get to the crying part, it's more like a small complaint. He seems to be pretty consistent during the night as well: he eats around 12:30 and then again at 4:30. Which so far works out for me as I can sleep in a little, but we may have to try and adjust this schedule as Chris needs to be up at 5:45am for work. We'll be working on that change in the next few nights. Hopefully Gabe understands. :-)

Our next adventure will be finishing up our Christmas shopping. We planned on finishing it before Gabe got here but he decided to surprise us with an early entrance. We'll keep you posted on how our first outting goes. Until then, here's a photo of his first bath...which he thoroughly enjoyed.

Our Little Glow Worm

After our first day in the hospital Gabe started to get a little jaundice so our pediatrician wanted us to come in and see him today just to make sure everything was going well. So we had our first trip out since coming home. I can now see why anyone with a child can run late for anything. It seems that no matter how early you start getting ready there is always something else you need to make sure to bring or another diaper to change. With Gabe it was a last minute feeding. So with a hungry baby we headed out to the doctor's office. Thankfully, we were able to start and finish his lunch there at the appointment.

While we were there, poor little Gabe had to get his heal stuck for a blood draw not once or twice but three times! It hurt my heart to hear his little cry. Anyway, the whole reason for the visit was to check on his jaundice. Unfortunately his levels had gone up and the doctor wants to see us again on Friday. In the meantime, Gabe will have to undergo photo-therapy. They delivered the gadget to us today. We are to only take him out for feeding and diaper changes. Basically we have to wrap this long flat light around his body and then wrap him in a blanket. It makes a lovely blue glow when you turn out the lights. So far he doesn't seem to mind it very much but I think it's going to be a long couple of nights for his mommy.

He's here!

That didn't take long at all.  Becca gave birth to our first child, Gabriel Shane, at 9:03am.  He's 6lb 9oz and 20.2 inches long.  Mom and baby are doing well.  Here are a few photos.  Click any of them to visit our Flickr site for more.

We'll post additional information and photos once we've recovered for a while.

The time has come

Here's a quick update: the baby is on its way.

Becca's water broke at around 3:15 am and we got to the hospital about an hour later.  Everything seems to be going well and the doctor thinks we'll have the baby before lunch.

More details to follow as events unfold.  We'll include any PG rated photos.

37 Weeks: Full Term

We made it! Our little guy is now considered fully baked.

At our sonogram today we discovered that he didn't gain any weight this last week. Unfortunately that's not good news. In the last weeks he should be gaining at least 1/2 pound per week. According to their measurements, he measured 1 oz smaller than last week and that makes the doc think we might have to keep a closer eye on him. So, if he hasn't gained enough weight by next Tuesday we might be having a baby next Wednesday. We'll keep our fingers crossed that he beefs up a little. We'll also keep you all informed but for now we will keep him in there for at least another week. Good thing my last day at work is Saturday! Other than the weight issue everything else looks good. Fluid levels are good, placenta and umbilical cord are in the right places, our little guy's heart rate is awesome and he isn't in any stress as far as we can tell. Also, he had hiccups last night for the first time. That was an experience. Kind of felt like a slow heart beat near my belly button...weird. :-)

We also got to see his little face - more or less. He looked really squished in there so we couldn't really get a good picture. I'll get them scanned and posted soon. In the meantime my bag is packed and we are pretty close to being ready, as ready as you can be, for our little guy to arrive. It's all getting so close we might have to plan a date night this weekend because I have a feeling it might be a while before we get the opportunity again.

Do we want to take some bets on weight, time, hair color and so forth? The doc did say he has some hair. We just don't know how much: peach fuzz, 'fro or somewhere in between. It's all so exciting.

If, for some reason, we don't get to post again before he gets here we will be at Plano Presbyterian. We will also post pictures as soon as we can on our Flickr site. My sister Jessica has been kind enough to offer to join us and take pictures of the big event so be sure to check back next week. :-) Till then...