Tucker Birth Pics

Getting ready for the c-section to start.

Tucker's head coming out.

Tucker is here!

Getting all cleaned up.

Proud Daddy :)

Cooper seeing Tucker for the first time!  His shirt says, 'If you 'mustache', I'm the big brother.'  :)

Mommy holding Tucker for the first time.

Can you tell Daddy picked out his hat?  :)

Getting ready to go home!

Picture Overload

It's been a while since I've posted pictures, so I'm finally getting the chance to go through our camera and download them. 

Halloween 2012 - Cooper as a gnome and Maggie as a ladybug :)

All the grandkids on the Thirtyacre side.

I celebrated my 31st birthday on December 31st.  My golden birthday!

Cooper holding his baby brother.

We celebrated Cooper's 2nd birthday on January 12th at Happy Joe's in Muscatine.  He was so confused when the siren went off and when everyone sang him Happy Birthday.  If you told him Happy Birthday, he'd tell you Happy Birthday right back.  :)

Cooper's Jake the Neverland Pirate birthday cake.

Cooper blowing out his candles.

 

Cooper opening his presents.

Tucker Jack

Tucker Jack was born Monday, December 17th at 6:01pm. He weighed 8 lbs 14 oz and was 22.75". I had been having contractions days leading up to his birthday, but they were irregular and knew that was common at the point I was at in my pregnancy. On that Monday, I was having the same thing happen until about 2:30 in the afternoon. I was at work and noticed that they were coming every 2-9 minutes. I had my 38 week appt that afternoon so I decided to wait until then. I left work at 3:30 to get to the appt and the contractions were coming every 4-5 minutes. They didn't hurt and I honestly thought it was just a fluke and they would stop eventually. I got to my appt and told the nurse that I was having them and she said she'd have Dr. Ehle check me. He came in, did the usual listen for the heartbeat (which he couldn't find because the monitor was broken), and then checked me. When he was done, he turned around to Jason and I and announced that we were going to have a baby today! He said I was 3-4 cm dilated and they did not want me going into labor and have to deliver naturally. They just don't have the staff for a VBAC and were worried that my uterus could rupture among other things. So we were admitted and sent up to labor and delivery to be monitored as well as draw blood and ask a million questions. About 5:15 they rolled me down to surgery where I got my spinal and at 6:01pm, little Tucker was born. :) My family was there to meet him and after I got out of recovery and met Tucker for the first time, Jason ran home to pack our bags. I had a great experience again and was so thankful everything went great.

Since then, he's been such a great baby. He basically only cries when he's hungry and has gas. Dirty diapers don't seem to bother him at all. He gets up every 3-4 hours at night to eat and then goes back to bed. I'm currently working on getting him to nap in his crib and it's not the greatest. Yesterday was our first day so hopefully within the next couple weeks he will get used to it.

Still Pregnant :)

Well, I am currently 37 weeks and 3 days pregnant.  No signs of going into labor.  I'm getting pretty anxious and surprisingly while I'm a little uncomfortable, it's tolerable.  Sleeping is a chore, but I'm getting enough and it's only to prepare me for the sleepless nights to come.  We have an appointment with the surgeon, Dr. Ehle, today and we're going to start filling out the consent forms for the c-section.  I also only have 6 days of work left before the scheduled c-section on the 26th.  I'm pretty pumped about this one.  :)

Jason shaved his head yesterday to support 2 co-workers who have been diagnosed with cancer.  I thought it was a great gesture and many of his other co-workers have done the same.  I can't get used to seeing him without hair and I think he looks like someone else!

Cooper is talking up a storm.  The child doesn't stop!  And he's getting to be such a big boy.  He's so independent and doesn't snuggle anymore, which makes me sad, but there are times when I can sneak a snuggle in or two for about 30 seconds without him figuring out what I'm doing.  As soon as he does, he tells me no and pushes my arm away.  He's very into tractors, combines, farm animals, and choo-choo trains.  Little does he know that Santa will be bringing him some of these things for Christmas.  :) 

We're trying to get him accustomed to his big boy room, but it's not going so well.  We set up his Cars bed among other things in his new room and he's not having it.  He likes to play in there, but he does not want to sleep in there.  That's okay with me though as it's just a sign he's not ready.  He'll get there in time. 

Our countertops are being installed this Saturday and I'm beyond thrilled.  We have to pick out a new sink before then, which I think we've done.  And then all we have left is to install the tile backsplash, paint, and flooring!  Jason is going to be a busy boy!  The wallpaper removal is a slow going process, but I completely understand why.  It takes forever and there is quite a bit of it.  I'm thinking I can work on it little by little on maternity leave too. 

That's pretty much it for news for our family.  We're obviously sticking close to home for Christmas since the surgery is scheduled for the 26th and also because I could go into labor at any time.  We'll be sending out New Year's cards once the baby comes.  I just didn't want to send out a Christmas one and then another one, so hopefully those will be coming out sooner rather than later.  :) 

Updates

Halloween was great this year.  Cooper kept his costume on the entire time and even wore his gnome hat!  I have pictures, but I'm not quite sure where the husband put our camera.  So, when I do find it, I'll post a few.

Cooper is into his terrible two's phase.  And it's trying.  I'd say 90% of the time he's a good boy, but when he has a moment, it's definitely trying for all of us.  I seriously don't know how his sitter does it with all sorts of different little attitudes. 

Andy is doing well.  He's done with the antibiotics and still taking pain pills, but he's eating again and chipper!  I don't know what to think, but for now, we'll take our happy boy.  :)

I had my 32 week check-up yesterday and found out that I should have been seeing the doctor for a while now.  I met with the other midwife yesterday, who was great.  I feel her and Kim W. are a lot alike.  She checked with the doctor who I have requested to perform my c-section and I believe they are going to move the date to Dec. 26th instead of the 24th.  Either way it would have worked out, but it will work out even better now.  Coopie can have his Mommy and Daddy with him on Christmas!!!

And we broke down and finally bought a new truck.  Jason's truck was getting old and didn't have that many miles on it, so we thought we'd trade his in and get something bigger for 2 car seats to fit in and luggage in the back.  We bought a Tundra Crewmax and the back is really good size.  We are going to buy a tuneau cover so that we can put all of our luggage in the back when we travel.  We tested out Highlanders, but they still were big enough for Jason in terms of head room and leg room, so we decided on this.  And the bonus is that it has a DVD player with headphones in it for the kids to watch their movies.  We both really love it and are happy we decided to buy it.  The boys will have plenty of room now.  :)

Other than that, all is well.  We're still working on the kitchen and we got our shutters in the mail.  I think Jason is planning on putting them up this weekend when he finds time in between hunting.  The babies room and Cooper's room have yet to be put together.  I'm a little stressed about it, but not too bad.  They both will have somewhere to sleep and that's all that matters.

28 week Ultrasound

2 weeks ago we had our 28 week ultrasound.  Everything went well and he is a fiesty one!  Jason and I both think he looks a lot like Cooper did and we cannot wait to finally meet him.  I'm so excited that I can count down in single digit weeks now!  And there is still no name for the little guy.  Jason wants to have options, but we haven't said these are the two/three names we like.  We have ideas, but nothing is set in stone.  We have a few more weeks to get that all figured out. 

The baby room is still Cooper's room.  I need to get in there and take down Cooper's decorations and put up the new ones.  Also, Cooper's big boy room needs to be painted and set up as well.  I hope he loves his new big boy bed!

And we had family/maternity pictures taken this past Sunday at my parents farm.  For family that would like to order any, I'll send you a separate email when we get all of them and I upload them to Mpix.com.  For now, here is a photo from the shoot that Angela Wyatt posted out on Facebook.

Andy

This past week has been a hard one on us all.  Andy has been not wanting to eat his food for a while now.  Sometimes he would half of his food, sometimes none at all.  On Wednesday, I came home from work as usual, let the dogs out, filled up their bowls with food and water, and let them back in to eat.  Sadie gobbled hers down in no time, but Andy would just drink water, look at his food, look back up at me, and then go lay down.  He just had this sad look in his eyes, so I immediately called Jason and told him we needed to take him to the vet.  Jason left work, came home to get Andy, and took him in.  They didn't run any tests that night, just took a look at him and took his weight.  He had lost 15-20 lbs in 2 weeks, which was hard for us to see because his fur is so thick.  The vet thought at that time that it could be kidney failure, cancer, etc.  They just didn't know without running any tests.  So, Jason took him in Thursday morning at 8am, they drew blood and told him they'd have results within 24-36 hours.  Yesterday the vet's office called Jason and said that the majority of his tests came back normal, except for his liver.  I guess the numbers were off the charts, higher than any they've ever seen.  They've ruled it out to be one of two things:  either a cancerous tumor on his liver or a disease called Leptospirosis.  To make sure if it's cancer or not, we could choose to have an ultrasound done, but we've decided against that and are treating him for the Leptospirosis. Here is the link if you want to read up on it more:  http://pets.webmd.com/dogs/canine-leptospirosis.  Andy is on antibiotics for it and pain killers.  He's eating now and our goal is to just make him comfortable and put weight back on.  We don't know how much time he has, but we're definitely spoiling him and making him a happy boy.  And of course, we're not forgetting about Sadie, she's just not getting as many treats.  :)  Please say a prayer for our big boy, as this will be hard on all of us, especially Jason.  He's been his boy since his college days where he was his fraternities house dog.  He's made all the moves with Jason and been through so much with him.  He's a wonderful dog and although we knew this day would come as he's getting older, it's still a hard thing to deal with.  We love our Andy boy so much and just hope that he isn't feeling any pain.  For now, we're enjoying him and loving on him every minute.  We love you, Andy!