Fresh start...

Well, it has been quite a LONG time since I have posted anything so  I guess I better do a complete update of the past 16 months. :) Warning.. This is gonna be a LONG post!

Update:
Hayden was born at 36 1/2 weeks on October 28, 2008 at 7:40 a.m. at Huntsville Hospital.  He weighed in at 8lbs 10.2 oz and was 19 inches long. I did not get to see him til 3 p.m. the day he was born. He had to be placed in the NICU because he turned "blue" minutes after delivery.  Brooks was with him the entire time when I was in recovery from the c-section.  Hayden spent the entire first two weeks of his life in the NICU and it was the hardest thing I have ever gone through in my life!  I was not allowed to touch him unless it was done during his "Cares" time which was at 8a.m., noon, 4 p.m., 8p.m. midnight.. you get the picture. He didn't tolerate the touching otherwise. He was never put on the ventilator but he came awful close.  I can not explain how much it hurt to leave the hospital without him! It was awful! I could not stop crying and I could not sleep from worrying about him.  It was so bad that I did not sleep more than 3 hrs the first night in the hospital.  Dr. Raiford gave me something to make me sleep and she put me on Zoloft to combat the crying. I mean can you imagine not getting to hold your child til he was 3 or 4 days old?  That was my reality. But when I did get to hold him, it was a magical moment for mommy (and daddy too).  He had to eat through a feeding tube at first and his daddy got to feed him first.  He had to stay in the hospital for two weeks because his lungs were underdeveloped and he kept "desating" on his oxygen. The dr's would not let him go home until he went a full five days with no desats.  Every time he had one, my heart sank.  I just wanted to bring my child home. 16 months have past and I still feel the pain of those first few weeks without Hayden home.  I was discharged on October 31 and Hayden came home two weeks later.  I just wanted so badly to have a "normal" experience that most mothers have with leaving the hospital with their child and having life to begin as a family.  Brooks was amazing through the whole thing. His mother came down and stayed with us for the first two weeks while he was in the hospital. I couldn't drive cause of the csection so she would drive me to and from the hospital to see him during his Cares times.   I'll never forget the first time I got to actually breastfeed Hayden. What a scary yet magical moment.  I was so worried about the whole process but it really was quite natural.  He never did latch on properly but the lactation nurse, Jennifer, worked with me and gave me a nipple shield and he took right to it.   I've always heard that modesty goes out the window when you have children and truer words have never been spoken.  I remember pumping in my living room with my MIL in the room. I would have never done that before!  But the day Hayden came home was amazing and joyous and I'm so thankful to have him!

When we brought him home from the hospital, I felt like I had to be told when I could pick him up. That's what I had been used to for the past two weeks. It was very liberating to be able to hold him whenever and for as long as I wanted too.  Mom and dad came over to visit with us that evening.  I'll never forget, at around 7 p.m. they get up and say "good luck" we've gotta go home.  Good luck, what? you are gonna leave me here by myself?  I was petrified!  No one sent me home with a "how to" manual.  This is it, I'm really a mother now. :)  Hayden ate every hour to hour and a half for the first month or two and I breastfed so I felt like Bessy the milk machine most of the time. :)  Hayden and I did not leave the bedroom the first full day we were home. When he slept, I slept, when he ate, I ate..I was exhausted!  So much for the 4 hr feeding schedule they had him on at the hospital. :) 

First months...
Hayden was a happy go lucky baby.  He loved to cuddle and sleep on him mommy and daddy's chest.  He had really bad reflux though.  We quit breastfeeding at 4 months(when I went back to work) so we had to find a formula.  THAT WASA A CHALLENGE!!!  Brooks and I literally went down the isle at Walgreens and bought one of each kind of Similac formulas to see which one would help him.  The only kind that worked (at first) was Alimentum. Of course it had to be THE most expensive one there, after all he is my child, right?  ($9.25 a bottle)  But hey, if it helps him out, I was willing to pay the premium.  We added rice cereal to the formula at two months to help him keep something down.  When I say really bad reflux, I mean REALLY bad reflux.  It's bad when you walk around all day smelling like puke and don't even realize it! The babysitter would literally go through three or four shirts a day of her own while watching him.
Hayden was also born with High Blood pressure?? Seriously? I didn't know babies could have high blood pressure??? We were refered to a specialtist in Nashville at Vanderbuilt to get him checked out.  We went twice and they ran blood test and checked his pressures and they said there was "no medical reason" for him to have high blood pressure and he should grow out of it.  GREAT NEWS!  He also had a "small" hole in his heart and had to see a cardiologist but at his one year check the hole had grown together and he was fine! GREAT NEWS!