Happy 2009!

Another holiday season has come and gone! We had an eventful time visiting family and enjoying our time just the 4 of us. Santa brought way too much stuff. The look on Austin's face was priceless though. We had told him to call out to us instead of just coming downstairs like he sometimes does. Shane went up to get him and immediately he saw a Dora at the Dentist book. (This kid is obsessed with being a dentist!) He came running down and it did not take long for him to discover the many other gifts waiting. He also racked up at the Grandparents house. He has enjoyed his GeoTracks additions and especially his Pirate football outfit. He began jumping up and down when unwrapping the helmet. After seeing that it was an entire outfit, yes including pads and chin strap, he and dad set out to dress up. His entrance would not have been complete without his very excited dad announcing, "Here come the Pirates!" As you are probably imagining, he ran out with his helmet in place and expected everyone to clap along. There has not been a day yet when he has not put on that outfit when he comes home. He also has a special place on his headboard for the helmet at night.

Caleb's Christmas was of course a lot less impressive. He pretty much slept all day long! There were some presents but what does he really need besides diapers and wipes at this point. Watching Austin open his presents for him was the highlight of his day.

It is amazing seeing how fast each of the boys change. Austin is definitely being a 4 year old. He has an independence problem and thinks he can do anything he wants (by himself of course)! He is getting a little attitude and spends some quality time in his room almost daily. Caleb is now smiling and laughing at times. He is at the stage where he is very aware of what is going on around him and wants so desperately to be a part of it all. He likes to sit in the Bumbo seat for about 10 minutes at a stretch. He has such great head control that we will let him try to sit there for a short time each day. He weighed in at a whopping 12 pounds 9 ounces 1 week before Christmas. Yes, that is the 75th percentile! He is almost 23 inches long. We are in the process of weeding out the 0-3 month clothes and going up to 3-6 months. I guess that is good since he is 11 weeks today.

Monday is the first day back at work. I am ready in some ways but not in others. I totally trust the place Caleb is going to and have no worries about him. He had a 3 hour stay on Wednesday and did great. He has no trouble taking the bottle for them! I also know that I need some adult interaction throughout the day and that my patients need me. I am not looking forward to the stress and trying to juggling the nightly routine of dinner, baths, bedtime and then bottle making. I guess I will get back into the hang of it soon enough.

You will notice that I have changed the look of our blog just a bit. I have been looking at others and realized we were "plain!" I have also added several links to others on the right side. The two families there now have extensive blogs. They were both blessed with babies around the time Caleb was born. They, unlike us, were not fortunate enough to have good health on their side. I wanted to include their names here and encourage everyone to keep them and those not as fortunate as we all are in their thoughts and prayers. Both babies are doing great now, but it has been and will continue to be a long road for them both. As we wrap up a wonderful holiday season, I think it is only fitting to be thankful for what we have! Until next time.........

Getting ready for the holidays

So it has been a while since our last posting. Caleb will be 8 weeks this Friday. Where has all of the time gone? In between changing diapers and nursing every 1 1/2 to 2 hours, there are days when a shower seems like a luxury. We are actually sleeping rather well most nights. This means usually a stretch of 5-6 hours. If he eats at 11pm then this makes for a great night. If he last eats at 9 or 9:30 then we could have several wakings every 2 hours before we see the sun. The days go pretty smoothly but without much productivity at times!

The pictures up top are of the boys at one month. Everyone keeps saying how much alike they look. Now that Caleb has filled out in the face some they are even more alike. The one on the left is Austin and the one on the right is Caleb. We did not put up Caleb's first picture from the hospital. Here is a link to the web nursery but you cannot add coments or anything from this part of the site. http://www.our365.com/NewbornPortraits/BabyDetail.aspx?birthid=d962a6b5-baab-4d66-93c3-3e76a08389ef

Austin continues to do well. He has become more concerned with feeding the baby and has made several attempts while our backs are turned (shirt up and all!). He can't wait for there to be more bottles so he can have a turn. His excitement over Christmas is building. If he sticks to his word, we are supposed to be able to have a picture with Santa this year. Of course, he has made sure Caleb will be there too! We had some "big boy time" on Sunday and went to ride the train with some of our friends. He had a great time riding and seeing Santa and Frosty. At the end, he admitted that he was ready to come home and see the baby. He has enjoyed ECU Football again this year. He has also gone to a UNC Football and basketball game already.

Caleb is becoming his own little person. He has started smiling and "laughing." He weighed 9 pounds 8 ounces at his last check up but that was about 3 weeks ago. He will go back next week and will probably come away with some shots. I would not be surprised if he was 11 or 11 1/2 pounds by now. He is becoming heavy. He definitely loves his big brother. Sometimes just having Austin beside him calms him right down.

Thanksgiving was very low key. We visited both of our families and went to the ECU game. Christmas will be much of the same. Until next time, we wish everyone a Merry Christmas and safe travels.

Settling In

We are a week and a half into our new adventure. Things are actually going really well. Caleb is sleeping well. Last night we slept for about 4 hours at a stretch. He is an eating, peeing and pooping machine. We are keeping the diaper company in business right now! Everyday he is a little more alert and is staying awake for longer periods of time. Every now and then you will catch a smile (which I am sure is just a little gas!) but it makes it all worth while. Last week we went for a test on his kidneys and everything has checked out fine.

Austin is taking things very well. He is very proud of his new brother and will show him off to anyone. We went to his Halloween festival at school on Friday night and he had just as much fun showing the baby to everyone as he did playing the games. He enjoys holding him and talking to him. He was very proud to help with his first bath. He is also very fast to find out who or what is making the baby sad when he cries.

We will try to keep things up to date as much as possible. Some things just tend to go on the back burner when there is another mouth to feed and poopy diapers to be changed. Until next time...

Introducing...

Meet the newest member of our family: Caleb Landon Renn! He was born at 10:30am this morning, weighed 7 pounds 8 ounces and measured 21 inches long. Everyone is doing fine. We arrived at the hospital at 6am but the process did not really start until about 7:30am. Everything went so fast that there was almost no epidural! They had told us he should be here by lunch but even the doctor thought things went really fast. He has ten fingers and ten toes and is eating like a champ. We are hoping to sleep at least a little tonight!

Big brother Austin was absolutely fascinated when he saw his brother for the first time. Dad picked him up from school and the entire class was excited to hear the baby was here. For about the first hour, he just wanted to hold the baby. He would hand him off and try to go for a walk but never made it very far because he needed to check on the baby. He did not want to go home tonight due to not wanting to leaving mommy and baby at the hospital.

Right now we hope to be going home on Sunday unless we hear otherwise. Sitting in one room is neither one of our favorite pasttimes. We will keep you up to date on the happenings. Time for a nap!

The Plans Are in Place

It is official. We will go to the hospital Friday at 6AM for induction. I have been placed on "bed rest" due to blood pressure issues. It had been creeping up for a while but on Friday I felt like something just was not right and my blood pressure turned out to be pretty high. I was put on bed rest for the weekend and did some more tests yesterday. Everything is still semi-normal but according to the doctor I am sitting on the fence post for pre-eclampsia. We will buy a few more days by just staying on bed rest. I go back on Thursday just for a blood pressure check but Friday is definitely the day.

Over the past few weeks, we have definitely slowed down a bit due to my ever expanding figure and increased shortness of breath when moving around. Austin had his birthday party. It turned out not as elaborate as we had hoped but a fun time for all. After having a hissy and not wanting anyone to sing Happy Birthday, he had a great time passing out cake to his friends and opening presents. They had pumpkin decorating at school today and he had a great time making a huge mess. He started by painting his Duke Blue but then realized what he was doing and the end product definitely has more of a Carolina coloring. He was very adamant that it was for his dad! We think that he is starting to understand that the baby is coming soon. Last night we put up the Pack N Play in our bedroom and I think he got a little upset when he realized that the baby would be staying in our room. We went on Sunday and had his 4 year old pictures taken as well as a few others. They are below. Just what we needed, proof of the major expansion my body has undertaken.

Well, I cannot guarantee that we will get a post up right away from the hospital but we will let everyone know just as soon as our new little one arrives! Have a great week!

Coming Down the Home Stretch!

Over the past several months, we have been very busy as you can imagine. The pregnancy seems to be moving along smoothly at this point. We finished all of our ultrasounds for the Fifth Disease and that all came out fine. Through all of those pictures though they found out that this boy has big kidneys just like Austin did and after another ultrasound 2 weeks ago, they decided he will have to see the pediatric urologist. We are very relieved as things could have been a lot worse. They also discovered that he has the potential to be a big one. He weighed in at 5 pounds 10 ounces at 33 weeks. The doctor continues to believe that he should just fall right out like Austin did. I am not so sure about that at this point!

Austin found out that he was getting a little brother about 2-3 months ago. At first he just wanted to take the baby out but now is better about being gentle. He is very excited when talking about everything he will be able to do to help. We have not settled on a name just yet but he has come up with some interesting choices.

We went for "vacation" in August and it is in quotes because it was mom's education trip for work at Myrtle Beach. Having the seminars broadcast into the hotel room made things very convenient! Austin and dad went to the water park at the resort or went out for a while letting mom "watch" a seminar or two every day. Austin had a blast at the water park going down the slides and just playing around. There was a lot of wind so we did not spend much time on the beach. He also played his first 9 holes of par 3 golf with Dad one morning. Evidently he is pretty darn good. We just have to work on the putting. To end the week, we headed back to Raleigh for the Wiggles concert on Friday night. Yes, that's right! The Wiggles! He had a great time dancing, singing and actually getting to shake hands with a couple of the guys. It was more entertaining than Elmo!

At school, Austin has moved up to a Pre-K class even though he will not be old enough for kindergarten next year. His teacher is pretty hard core but he seems to be responding well. He is getting better at writing his letters and wants to cut up everything. He also is getting better at picking up on other kid's bad habits.

Today is Austin's 4th Birthday. It is funny how it seems he just yesterday started to talk. (Now at times we wish we could shut him up!) We went to Chuck E Cheese's for dinner and let him play some games. He got a new scooter and a PeeDee the pirate picture for his room. We will be having his birthday party in another week due to the football game this weekend. (By the way, he loves ECU football and will sit and watch an entire game!) He is very excited to have his friends over. It will be a sports theme and Dad has plans of painting the yard for lots of games. We will get pictures next time!

If everything goes as planned, we may get induced at 38 weeks so our next post may include the big revealing of the newest Renn family member. We will definitely let you know when anything interesting happens!

Never A Dull Moment

Since we first announced the pregnancy, there has been some minor drama. Sickness continued on a daily basis with some days being better than others. The fatigue has been extreme and to the point that if there is no afternoon nap, things are much slower than normal. At 16 weeks we went for a regular check-up and took the information provided by Austin's daycare earlier that week about a child having Fifth Disease. After talking to the doctor, he decided it would be best to check that and several other things just to be sure that the sickness was only from the pregnancy. After waiting 4 days, the call came at 9:15 one night from the doctor. There was good and bad news. The good news was that they now understood what was causing the extreme fatigue and sickness. The bad news was that it was definitely the Parvovirus or Fifth Disease. After freaking out completely, we have educated ourselves and are thankful it occurred at this point in the pregnancy. The only complication of this disease is that if the baby contracts the illness there is a 6-10% chance of it developing anemia and not making it to delivery. Due to this, we went to have a Level 2 Ultrasound back on May 28th. Things looked good then. We now have been doing weekly ultrasounds and will have to continue for a total of 10 weeks. Today, we had our 6th in the series and went back to the specialist. So far, so good. They told us somewhere along the way that by 24 weeks we should be out of the woods. Only 2 weeks left.

Through all of these trips, we have gotten quite a picture album on the little munchkin. We found out that it is indeed another boy and it has been confirmed on several occasions. We both were very happy with the news, especially since we already have most everything we need! By the way, we still have not told Austin and are waiting a few more weeks. He has not even asked why mommy is getting so fat yet! The sickness slowed down by about 20 weeks and now the nausea is only there in the morning for the most part.

Austin has had several new adventures over the past several months. He is very excited about his new swingset. It was a neighborhood project just to get the thing together. He went to his first Durham Bulls baseball game of the season. He now understands and will actually watch the game. He also went to the driving range for the first time. He did very well hitting the ball but does not understand why you have to come home. He will be moving up to the 4 year old class at school next week and we are fully prepared for several weeks of horrible behavior since he deals with change so well.

We will keep you up to date but are hoping everything is downhill from here!!