Calvin David

By popular request, here are some more pictures of Calvin from the hospital. We've been trying to adjust being home and have had some ups and downs, but things seem to be settling more now. Right before they sent us home on Monday, I was having horrible headaches that only happened when I stood up, so they determined I had a spinal headache. There were too ways to treat this, the first being the conservative method, where they pumped me full of fluid and gave me two doses of pain killers. That worked and so we decided to go home and see if that was all I needed. Well, Tuesday morning I woke up with a bad headache again and by 8am I was ready to die. I've never had a migraine, so I can now sympathize with people who have them, this was horrible. I could barely walk to the bathroom. We decided to take me back to the ER and have them do a blood patch, where they give you an epidural and inject your own blood into your back to seal the hole where the spinal fluid is leaking. (This happened because they gave me spinal anesthesia instead of epidural anesthesia for my c-section.) After being there for 7 hours, they finally did the procedure and I went home and was so grateful when I woke up the next morning and only had a tiny headache...which has now officially disappeared. Like I said, it's been a bumpy road, but Calvin has taken it all in good strides. How's Mia doing? She really likes her new brother and is constantly bringing animals or letters to him to teach him, he's going to be one smart cookie after his sister is done with him.

I gave it to Brother, cause he's got HAIR!

Here's Brother, also known as Calvin David Sturm. Mommy and Daddy are so proud.

Calvin

Calvin David Sturm was born at 2:55pm and weighs 7 pounds 14oz, and is 20 3/4" long. Pictures to follow tomorrow. Praise God!

Today!

We can't believe that today is the day that Brother is coming...it's hard to believe that our little family of 3 will now become 4. We are excited to meet the little guy. My OR time is 1:30, so we have a little waiting to do, but in the mean time, here are the final pictures of his room!

Is this the day that Brother comes?

No. But Saturday is! I had my appointment and Brother hasn't progressed at all and since I'm almost to my due date and my doctor doesn't want me to go much over my due date, he's coming this Saturday whether he likes it or not. :) I've scheduled my c-section, it should happen around 1:30 (of course we know hospital time schedules and know that isn't how it always works...). I'm excited, I'm nervous, I'm excited...I love that there is an ending date. I believe that if God wants him to come vaginally, He can make it happen in the next few days and if not, then Saturday it is. So please just be praying for a safe delivery and a healthy baby.

Mia weighed in close to 23 pounds today, she was a few ounces shy, but I'm still happy that we are maintaining a weight we've never reached before. I trust that we will slowly keep gaining weight. :)

Still no brother though, I've been officially told by everyone that anytime now is acceptable for him to come. All the grandparents are around, so we are ready...did you hear that brother? Everyone is ready. Are you?

How do you read your books?

Yesterday we got Mia fitted for orthotics. They are called SMO's and she'll initially just wear them at therapy and at home when we are working on certain exercises. And then we'll see how she does, if they are beneficial and we need to wear them for longer periods of time. I think it's a good, safe, conservative plan for getting feet sorted out. Just like her helmet, they are made of plastic and you get to pick out the design on the plastic. We went for farm animals, she liked the sheep on there. :)

Last night I went to a class on breastfeeding. Because Mia was born with so many problems and couldn't eat right away, I had to pump and store milk for her. Those first few weeks were super stressful and I had some knowledge, but had received lots of different opinions on how to pump and how long, etc. Needless to say, I didn't produce much milk and by the grace of God, my best friend was able to supplement my low supply with her awesome supply so that Mia could get breast milk for a good period of time in those beginning months. So my hearts desire is to breastfeed and I just have this huge fear that I am going to fail again, especially if I have a c-section, but this class really helped to put me at ease and encouraged me that if I do have another c-section it's going to be ok.

Oh Brother

So today was my day for another check-up with Brother. I'm 38 weeks and he is still head down, but hasn't dropped down at all. At this point, my doctor is not super hopeful that he is going to drop down. She said that next week we will see what happens and if there is still no change, we'll start talking about a repeat c-section. I do not want another c-section, but at the same time, I have completely given this over to God. I want to trust His ultimate plan for Brother's birth. He can make Brother drop down if He chooses or not, I'm completely ok with either way.

We got the results of Mia's biopsy back today. Her intestines are great, there was no inflammation at all, so they are super confident that she is not Celiac. She did have some slight inflammation of her esophagus and think that might be due to some reflux. Since she has been doing a bit better with eating/gaining weight since we've been loading her up on iron, they don't want to add in any reflux medicine yet. We'll see her doctor in another month and then decide if we need to do that. And they did say that it was very minor irritation, so more than likely she won't need anything for that.

Today she got a package from her cousin (Brad and I were discussing how it was from his cousin's wife, so does that make it Mia's second cousin or first cousin once removed in-law...heheheheh :) ). It doesn't matter, what matters is that it had big foamy letters for the bath tub and she was in alphabet heaven all evening long. She even took the "Big Red H" to bed. We know she's obsessed, but we think it's adorable. :)

I am so excited, I just weighed Mia and she's now 23 pounds! Praise God for this little success, I hope she maintains it. I've made just a few minor diet changes, so I'm hoping that combined with her being a much better walker (maybe it takes less energy to walk around now) is what's causing her to gain weight. Regardless, I was so excited to see a 23 on the scale!

No brother yet, I'm 38 weeks, so we've still got some time. :)

Family Pictures

We had some family pictures taken a few weeks ago and got them today. Lorie did a fabulous job and we are so pleased with our pictures. Here are a few of the many for you to enjoy.

Mia Advances Her Reading

Tonight Mia decided she has had enough with picture books, here is her reading our book on vaccines.

We've been really busy these past few days, Brad's sister was in town with her husband and we were trying to spend as much time with them as possible before they left today. It was a very nice surprise! We went over to Brad's parent's house on Sunday evening and all of a sudden they come walking out from the back bedroom, they thought they scared me so much that I was going to go into labor. I was genuinely surprised. But no labor yet. :)

Yesterday we went to LA to see Mia's orthopaedic surgeon. We wanted him to look at her feet and see if she needed braces. He was still indifferent to the idea, he thought that her feet would still correct on their own as she gets stronger and didn't really think the braces would help, but in the end signed a prescription for them for us to use with her at therapy. We've decided to get a second opinion (we've learned that second opinions never hurt and can be extremely beneficial), so now we are just trying to figure out when to do that and who to go see. We know that for feet development, the crucial time is before they are about 5ish, so we just want to make sure we are doing the right things for her in the long run.

Today I had a visit to the doctor to check on Brother. He's the same as last week, head down, but no where near ready to go. I did sign a consent to try a VBAC and am feeling much more at peace about that. It really depends on brother and my own body on whether or not that will happen, but I'm willing to try. You can be praying for a complication free delivery at the right time. I'm officially 37 weeks, so brother could come any time now and I'm achy and ready, but that doesn't mean he is ready, so I'm attempting to be patient. :) Plus, brother has heard many times already that he's not allowed to come until August 16th so all grandparents will be around when he arrives. ;) We'll see if he listens.

Tonight when I tucked Mia in she was desperately asking for the letter J, of which we don't have a large foam one, we only have fridge magnet ones. So, I thought I could make her forget about that by reading our ABC book to her. She has a great memory and as soon as we got to J, she asked again, signing "please J", so I hurried along in the book hoping to distract her some more and I noticed her eyes welling up, as she was becoming more and more distraught. We got to the P and she asked, "please P" with big crocodile tears ready to overflow...it just tugs at your heart strings, so I went and got her the magnetic P and J, of which at that point she only wanted the P. That's our alphabet lover! She was very happy and went to sleep quickly after that. :)

The Letter A

Mia loves the alphabet and she's rather jealous that Brother's room has an A,B, and C on the wall. So at nap time today, she decided she wanted to sleep with a different foamy letter A that we have. Normally she'll choose an animal to sleep with, but today it was the letter A and of course, tonight, she went to sleep with the letter A also. Here's a picture of our sleeping beauty.