Wow, I haven’t posted a blog since I was 25 weeks pregnant,
and here we are, Silas is not only here, but he’s 3 months old! So let’s start back with the rest of the
pregnancy.
Let’s see, the first trimester I thought for sure we were
having a girl. All signs pointed to
girl. Then the second trimester, I swore
we were having a boy. Then after that, I
was so confused, I just didn’t know. And
I gotta say, I really did want a boy SOOOO much! When Silas came out, and they shouted It’s A
Boy, my fist shot up into the air, and I said over & over, literally for
the first two MONTHS of him being here, “I cant believe we had a boy, I cant
believe we had a boy! Thank you Jesus!
I’m so happy we had a boy!” I’ve
wanted to girls & two boys my entire life!
God is SO GOOD!!!
Ok, that wasn’t about the pregnancy, ha! … Since I didn’t
document much, all I can recall at the moment is that it was pretty smooth
sailing after the migraines were done!
Those shooting pains I got in my tights that I got with Sayda did happen
this pregnancy too, but definitely not as many or as often.
I was still planning on going after my due date, since I
always had before, and when I went in for my check up at 39 weeks, I was not
expecting what happened then! I believe
I was one cm at the appointment the week before, and then not surprised to find
out that the same was true of this day.
I did want to inquire about Dr. Warner’s availability, to see if there
was a way to make sure she was the doctor who delivered Silas, since I had such
a wonderful experience with her last time!
(I also need to note that when I saw Dr. Warner earlier in the
pregnancy, I planned to tell her how much I loved her & reintroduce myself
and remind her that she delivered my last child… but as I walked in, she said,
“I’m Dr. Warner, I delivered your last child.”
I was like, “I know! I love you!
I’m surprised you remembered that!”
She replied, “well it was quite memorable.” How cool!!!
I also saw her out one day, at Shades Beach and she made a point to say
hello and to chat for a few. This woman
is very special to me!) So I was at my appointment on a Monday. They told me that Dr. Warner’s only
availability to deliver was the very next day! …or not again until the
following Tuesday. So I had about ten
minutes to call Jake and my mom, and to decide if we were going to be induced
tomorrow (a week early!) or see if we could wait another whole week! We all agreed that tomorrow would be best, to
play it safely. It was a bit of an
interesting feeling to us, going early instead of late, and I even had a bit of
apprehension about it, but I was still confident in our decision. I had felt for the past 2 weeks or so, at
that point, that this baby was fully developed, and taking up so much of my
being, so I guess I felt ready to have him, even though I still battled with
feelings of letting him come closer to his due date. We decided that having a good experience with
the doctor who delivered was important to us, so they sent us home to get
ready, and back to the Women’s Center in a few hours!
They planned to give me cervadil for the evening, which
would prep for me induction early the next morning. Well, I sat in the hospital for about 4 hours
until a doctor came to see me! But when
she checked me, I had gotten from 1 cm to 2cm, so they decided against the
cervadil. Cool for me though, I night
off from cooking & cleaning at home, plus sit in bed, free meals, AND
Danielle came to visit me! Not a bad
night, hehe! So they began the Pitocin
in the morning, and I’ll just note a few labor details here. Dr. Warner was amazing, as usual! My mom & jake were wonderful coaches, as
usual. I do remember being upset with
myself a bit, after delivery, that I didn’t do as well as I expected myself
to. Which, of course, the docor and mom
and Jake thought was absurd. One thing I
will mention, during pushing, I had a sciatic spasm. My right leg straightened, and I felt, well,
like a nerve spam shooting through my hip, belly, back, leg… and I believe I
said, “Ah! My hip! Belly! Back! Leg!”
This, then, later resulted in my not being able to walk properly for an
entire day, and almost two. I could use
the leg, and move it forward, I just couldn’t lift it off the ground to take a
step. I would take a step with my left
leg, and then drag my right leg. I was a
very helpless and debilitating feeling, to need help to walk! So it was about 6 hours of labor, and 7
minutes of pushing. Silas was born at
1:23pm. Weighing in at 7 lbs. 10
oz. Measuring 21.5” long (same as
Sayda). As I said earlier, we could not
have been more thrilled that we got another boy!!!
Here’s a quick story of how we got his middle name. It was about two weeks before he was born,
and we were still undecided on a boy’s middle name. I was in the sunroom, Jake’s guitar case was
sitting out there. Diella walked in and
said, “daddy, what does that word say?”
He replied, “Gibson.” And then he looked at me, and excitedly said,
“Silas Gibson!” and I replied, “I was just thinking the SAME thing!” And there
ya have it.
After we had Sayda, we were going through a VERY difficult
year. We were trying to decide if we
wanted to go ahead and have a forth child, like we’ve always wanted, during
this difficult time. We also didn’t want
to wait and have a forth one later either.
When we were trying to decide, I remember thinking, “I didn’t really
enjoy my pregnancy with Sayda as though it was our last one. I didn’t savor her infancy in a way that I
would never have this again…. Like I would have it I had known for sure that it
was our last… since I always planned to have a forth.” We had originally planned to try to get
pregnant in December, and as it was approaching, we were still deciding if that
was going to be what we were set on or not… having the forth baby. And then we got pregnant in November instead,
ha!
As I’m looking at my notes here, I’m going to have to refer
back to a few things about my pregnancy with Silas. I could not drink ice water. Well, I could, but Silas would go nuts in
there! I had to drink room temperature
water, which I actually prefer anyway, but I just found it funny that it
happened every single time I had ice water!
Silas was probably as active in my belly as Diella was!
One night during pregnancy, Jake and I were laying in bed,
watching a movie. Silas was being Very
active, so I had Jake place his hand on my belly to feel it. Jake left his hand there for some time as we
both smiled & giggled as the rolling & kicking continued, and
continued, and continued!!! I watched
the clock throughout, and Jake’s hand remained there. Silas was crazy active for over an hour! It never gets old, even the forth time
around. It was a wonderful experience
for us!
Silas was rolling from tummy to back, pretty much
always. As a brand newborn, when I would
put him on his tummy, once or twice did he roll to his back. I thought it was most likely a fluke, but he
did it often! He continued to do it each
week, and hasn’t stopped! He is my only
baby who has really enjoyed being on his belly.
The other kids didn’t hate it, but Silas seems to really like it! Even now (just turned 3 months old), while on
his tummy, the amount of movement is pretty amazing! He rolls from side to side until he’s turned
over. He also kicks his very strong
legs, very often! What a little mover
already!
When he was 6 weeks old is when we noticed that he started
to be very attentive! Around 11 weeks
old he slept 6 hours straight! But this
hasn’t been completely consistent. Now,
at 3 months old, he usually will do 4 hour stretches at night, and sometimes 5,
but he has almost always slept at night, only waking up to eat twice, and
lately only once. Then he goes right
back to sleep after eating. He has only
kept me up all night maybe 3 times ever.
Up until a few weeks ago, this kid slept like a newborn! So Much!
Now I’ve totally noticed a pattern.
After he’s awake for a little over an hour in the morning, he’ll take a
nap around 2 hours, then he’ll be awake for another 2 hours or so, then he
takes a long 3-4 hour nap usually, and then is awake almost the rest of the
evening, except for maybe a short cat nap, and then to be later around
10-11pm. No complaints here!
Silas really doesn’t like the hiccups. Well, they don’t seem to bother him as much
as they used to. He doesn’t cry, but he
just gets so wiggly. The first few
months he was a pretty gassy baby, like Sayda, ALWAYS burping, tooting,
hiccupping, wiggling, but its getting better now! Now that he’s doing so much less of those
things, the gassiness is being displayed as spit up, but its not much, so eh,
whatever.
Silas, like Sayda, did not like the binky at first. Just like with his sister, we strongly
encouraged (ok, forced) him to take it.
It took some time, but now he’s a fan!
The nickname that caught on pretty fast when he was born,
was Handsome. I called him that all the
time, but then I started to call him Mister, and that’s the one that has
stuck. He’s my little Mister!!!
I’m noticing lately that he is very “handsy” like Ethan
was. Grabbing at things, and hands by
his face. He also is pretty cuddly. Once in a while he buries his face into my
neck, which I think is adorable!
It really seems as though Silas loves Diella! She plays with him often, and can almost
always make him smile. It’s a joy to
watch the two of them enjoy each other!
I know all babies are “momma’s boy/girl” but I really felt
he was one night after I came home from Chi Alpha. He was 2 months old. When I came home, and picked him up, he
pressed into me So closely, and was grabbing onto me desperately, and it was as
though he was trying to melt his body into mine, like he couldn’t get close
enough to me. It was a great thing to
come home to!
Up until shortly after he turned 3 months old, Silas went to
Chi Alpha with us every Thursday, and one week our friend Tiffany was doing
this thing she does to make us laugh.
She is a great singer, but she can sing off key on purpose, and it’s so
funny! Well I was holding Silas, and just
a moment after she started, he began to cry.
It was hilarious! I’m thinking he
already has a good ear, and just couldn’t stand the sound of the off-pitch
singing! HA!
Right when he turned 3 months is when Silas started to laugh
for real. I don’t remember any of the
other kids laughing as hard as he did that young! SO entertaining!
When he turned 4 months old is when he discovered his feet
& loved to play with them! Also at 4
months is when my milk supply (even though I’ve been taking both Fenugreek and
Blessed Thistle), was getting progressively lower, and I had to introduce
formula. I hate that it’s come to this,
but I’m doing all I can. We’re still
hanging on, and he’s still nursing the majority of the time. He takes only one bottle a day, and the rest
of the feedings are nursing. We’ll hold
on as long as we can!
Ever since the day he was born, when we look at him, we
think & say the same things we did when we looked at Diella as a
newborn. “Gorgeous, just SO
Gorgeous!!!” Any time anyone asks me,
“how’s the baby?” my reply has been, “I’m just SO in love with him!” I am truly soaking up him being our last
baby, and enjoying him so much!
