The Vestal Family

Friday, June 27, 2014

“There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God" 1 Samuel 2:2

The Birth of Charles William

I thought I should take the time to document our Charlie's birth into this world as soon as possible, before I forget all those special details. It was quite an experience and one Tim and I will treasure forever, just like we do Andrew's birth.

We scheduled Charlie's induction for Wednesday morning, June 18th. My doctor told me that if I wasn't progressing the way she'd like, then she'd have me come to the hospital the evening before and start a procedure to help move things along before we actually began the Pitocin on Wednesday morning. Since Charlie was perfectly comfortable staying in Mom's tummy forever and showed little signs of coming out soon, we ended up going in on Tuesday evening.

Tim and I were anxious and excited to welcome Charlie. Since my body wasn't progressing like it did with Andrew's, we were a little nervous about how long the induction might take. So DD came over on Tuesday afternoon, and Tim and I headed to the hospital around 6, stopping for dinner at Corner Bakery beforehand. The hospital ended up not having room for us until closer to 8pm, so it ended up being a sweet little date for mom and dad before heading in to the hospital, including dinner and a leisurely trip to Costco. ha!

Once we got to the hospital and got settled, the nurses told us that I was still only dilated 1cm. They started the Cervidil and Tim and I watched the TCU baseball game (they were in the Championship), which they ended up losing. Tim left before 10 and I slept the rest of the evening as best I could as the contractions started to get stronger and stronger.

Mom and Charlie before his birthday

All smiles before things start getting real :)

Around 5am, the nurses came in and we started the pitocin. They told me I was dilated to "maybe" 2 cm... and that's when the fear set in. The contractions were already intense, and I was afraid of the dreaded pitocin contractions which are always fast and furious. Tim arrived around 7am to a very fearful and tearful mom. He quickly settled in and helped calm down Mom. The doctor arrived between 8am-9am to break my water, and that point, I caved and asked for the epidural. I expressed all my concerns and fears that the epidural would only slow everything down, and cheerful Dr. Neville only laughed and said not to worry. Let's get an epidural!

The epidural went pretty smoothly (much better than the dramatic one with Andrew's induction) and I was quickly VERY comfortable and immediately fell asleep. The doctor came to break my water around 9am and told me I was 5cm already. Tim and I were going to have a baby soon! I fell right back to sleep.

Around 11am, Tim woke me up to tell me he was concerned about the baby's heart rate dropping. I checked the monitor and noticed that I was in the middle of the longest contraction ever, and I knew the baby was on his way now. We called the nurse, who took one look and called the Dr immediately. She had the room set up for delivery in minutes. I was excited, but could feel nothing going on... it was quite surreal. Dr. Neville arrived quickly, and we started pushing. Tim and I were geared up for a long push session, but we didn't realize that Charlie had done most of the work for us. After three pushes and one contraction, Charlie arrived!

7lbs 14 oz and 22" long!

Charlie had a rough ride out into the world. Dr. Neville tried to tell the nurses that she thought Charlie had broken his shoulder during delivery, but the nurses were convinced that all bones were ok. When we saw the pediatrician, Dr. Jones, a few days later, he confirmed that little Charlie had a broken collarbone. He reassured us that there's nothing to worry about and that babies are designed to break those bones if necessary to get out. He also had quite a bruised forehead when he arrived, but this seemed to be altogether gone after just a couple of days. The most worrisome detail of his birth was that he has a slight heart murmur and his little heart seems to skip a beat here and there. Dr. Jones says he's not concerned and that we'll keep watching this over the next couple of months. We did have an EKG run on Charlie before we came home from the hospital and Cook's Childrens' pediatric heart doctor did not feel like Charlie's condition warranted any further testing at this time.

We were immediately flooded with family visitors to love on baby Charlie! We also had visitors from Beth and the Moreys.

Miss Delilah and baby Tabitha (in Kara's tummy) came to see you Charlie! :)

While we were in the hospital, DD, Aunt Kobie, Rayli, Lexi & Emmi took good care of Andrew! He was so happy to have some cousin time, I don't know he noticed Mom & Dad were gone :) Andrew made a quick visit to the hospital, but we waited to make a true baby brother introduction until we came home from the hospital. Here we are coming home from the hospital...

And here are some pictures of Andrew on his vacation with the cousins!

Carrying his new backpack around all over the house!

Now we are a family of four! God has blessed our family tremendously and we are so overjoyed to have two healthy baby boys in our home.

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Monday, June 16, 2014

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His lovingkindness is everlasting. Psalm 136:1

Well it didn't take long after the last post for Andrew to figure out that he's brave enough to walk! Here's our first videos of this guy taking his first walking adventures all by himself. One day I was at home with him and he just got up and followed me all over the house like he had been walking forever. He's pretty fast now too!

Tim and I went driving some different cars over the weekend and we also caught some of A's sweet dance moves on video. This video doesn't truly capture the shoulder moves and rhythm.

And I had to try and capture how much Andrew loves Miles right now. Miles always makes Andrew feel better. We are so thankful for Miles' patience with Andrew as he shows Miles all his books, pulls his tail relentlessly, and generally wants to be near him at all times.

We also had our first swim lessons this week. The water was pretty cold and Andrew wasn't into all the performance pressure. He'd much rather just hang out casually with dad in the water. Maybe next year will be more successful.

Joyner was there too!

Miss Cailtyn teaching us some scooping moves

kick those legs Andrew!

Not a big fan of going underwater

As we waited last week on brother Charlie's arrival, we took our nanny Amanda with us to the church playground, the zoo and the museum! So much fun play time for Andrew and a whole new world for mommy now that Andrew is walking.

watching the monkeys with Miss Amanda

Shopping for groceries at the museum

And finally we got to have lunch with Daddy on Friday! What a fun week!

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Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Philippians 4:3-5

This is such a fun stage in Andrew's life, and Tim and I are cherishing each day we have with Andrew. Since our family is just a few weeks (maybe days?) away from becoming a family of four, we definitely want to tuck these memories away of how precious Andrew is now before things get a little more hectic and exciting with 2 little boys in our home.

Andrew is 14 months old now and is proving to be quite the cautious boy. He's been trying to walk for the last 2 months, but is still hesitant to take off on his own. He loves to push his red Pewi bike around the house or hold Mommy or Daddy's finger to give him a sense of security. The last couple of days, though, he's really made some bold progress and even dared to walk across the living room all by himself. There were 2 new events in his life that may have influenced his little mind after he had time to process - we went to small group gathering with lots of older walking toddlers that he wanted to keep up with and he got promoted to Toddler 2 class at church where everyone else is walking. I was so happy that he's no longer in the Crawlers class at church... I think this was holding him back a little and not challenging him.

Andrew is extra giggly these days and finds humor in so many things. Miles is still his main source of humor throughout the day, and he spends countless time throughout each day going over to Miles to roll around on his belly, press his head to Miles' head, and just love all over him. He thinks everything Miles does is funny... except when Miles gets excited about his ball and knocks Andrew over, which happens every day.

New words are learned every day, and Tim and I are laughing this week, because a very popular new word is "Bobby" in our house. We have no idea who Bobby is, but he's mentioned several times by Andrew each day and always accompanied with a laugh. He must be a funny guy :)

Charlie is still growing and getting perfect reports each week from the doctor. So far he's measuring up at almost 7 lbs at 37 weeks along, has long fingernails and flowing hair from what we can see of the sono pictures, and is measuring in the 70th percentile for growth and size. We're so excited to meet him! We are still amazed that God has chosen us to be the parents of 2 little boys. We are praying every day for a safe and easy delivery, and that Charlie is a good eater and sleeper when he arrives.

We have a new nanny at our house who started working at the end of May. Amanda is wonderful so far, and Andrew is starting to get used to having her around and feeling comfortable with her. We still miss Tita very much, and I think the transition has been very difficult for Andrew. Tita has come to visit us each week though, and we hope she will always be a part of our lives.

Andrew has gotten to visit the pool several times already since it opened after Memorial Day. He loves the water, and Daddy plans to take him to swim lessons next weekend! Andrew loves watching the other kids and also getting to see Delilah at the pool. Delilah is so patient with Andrew and very nurturing of him when he falls or gets frustrated. We're thankful for her sweet, patient and loving spirit :) Baby Tabitha, who will be here this fall, is already so lucky to have such an awesome big sister.

Here are some pictures of what we've been up to lately!