Theo Update #5

Theo is home.  He was discharged yesterday at 11:30am.  We are staying at Emily's parents until Thursday because he has a checkup appointment then.  All is well.

First night out of the hospital.  Did very well.

Theo Update #4

Baby update #4

So we had the nurse write down the big fancy name of the thing about the air in his chest.  He had a case of pneumothorax.  He also had a case of pneumomediastinum.  Essentially at some point in the first few minutes of birth, there was a hole (or holes) in his lung that allowed air to escape into his chest cavity.  The air gets trapped there and makes it difficult for the lungs to fill up and so he can't breathe very well.  This leads to low oxygen absorption and such.  However, within an hour of his birth he was breathing room air just fine and didn't need extra oxygen.  This means the holes must have sealed and the air bubbles in his chest must be getting smaller.

Baby Update #3

Baby Update #3: Theo is doing well.  His infection is clearing up and they still feel confident the air will work itself out of the wall of his lungs.  Emily is being discharged tonight and Theo will likely be discharged tomorrow if his chest x-ray looks good...he'll probably get that tomorrow morning.  We may stay in Logan for a day or two before heading back to Bear Lake.  Thanks for all the well wishes everyone.

He loved his tanning bed (aka warming lamp).  He'd just stretch out and soak up the rays.

Mulletron: I wish I could have gotten a better picture of his mullet, but you can kind of see it here. Love it!

What's in a name? Lots of stuff.

Our beautiful baby boy has a name: Theophilus Kwame Stocking

Theophilus is a name Emily has always wanted (and I love it too).  It is unique and we like that.

Kwame is a Ghanian name.  It means Saturday born (male).  While we were in Ghana we learned of this naming tradition and loved it...so we hoped he was born on a day with one of the names we liked...some of them are little hard to say, but this one isn't too bad.

It is fun to hear people's reactions to the name.  Everyone keeps asking us to spell it.  It is fun. 

We will call him "Theo" most of the time.

Baby Stocking is here!

Emily's water broke at 3:33am (yesterday 11/12/11).  I woke up to her informing me she was dripping all over and I immediately started running around everywhere.  We headed into the hospital soon there after.

Then our baby boy was born at 6:35pm (yesterday 11/12/11).  He is 8 lbs 11 oz. He is 20.5 inches long. He has chubby cheeks and quite a bit of hair (he even has a little rats tail). Emily got to hold him skin to skin when he was born and he was crying good, but then started panting a little so they put him on a CPAP machine to help him. They took him to NICU and found he has a bit of air that is stuck in the wall of his lungs (not the part where air should be). Emily is doing very well.

6 seconds after birth.  Isn't his mom good looking?

Babies used to all look the same to me when they were born...not now.

We like this pic.  We wonder how many times in our lifetime we will look at it.

Helping him breathe a little better

Official weigh-in. (8 lbs, 11 oz.)

In NICU getting skin to skin time (at midnight).

We are very happy to have him here.  The staff was great.  Our doctor (Blackett) wasn't available so we had Dr. Kirkham deliver him.  We feel very blessed to have him here.

About a month ago my friend Ryan reminded me that he had kayaked across Bear Lake last year and told me it was a lot of fun.  So then he said he wanted to kayak the length of this year.  This sounded adventurous to me, since I'd never really done any kayaking, so I told him I'd do it with him.  We decided to do it about 5 times but the weather would get bad the day before or one of us would be busy.  Finally this week we just decided we were going to do it.  I was a little worried the day before because it looked like it was going to be cold.  We had planned to start at 8am originally (it would have been 28 degrees!)  We drove up to the North Shore about 11am, and by 11:30am we were paddling away from the boat launch area.  (Thank you Emily for dropping us off.) 

It was sooo nice when we were starting.  We had picked the perfect day.

The lake was really glassy most of the day.  I am sure that made it a lot easier.  After about 2 hours my shoulders really started to ache, but Ryan told me that if you push through it you'll get numb, and luckily he was right.  We only had two problems the whole day.  Problem #1 - There was no way to go to the bathroom.  Problem #2 - My battery in my phone was dying and it was sending out a live feed of our GPS location and also recording the time and distance.  So we made pit stop into Ideal Beach where Emily, Ginger, Zailey, Zenick & Zaxton met us to give us a battery charging pack and we used the bathroom.  Then it was just 2 more hours to Rendezvous Beach.  We finished just in time.  It was getting dark, cold, and the lake was getting rough.

Anyway, that was my fun adventure for the summer.  Below is a time lapse of the first 2 hours or so (the battery died on the camera too...when you decide to do things last minute you miss details like charging cameras.)

We were excited to be done.  Compare this pic with the beginning pic.  The weather had changed a bunch.

One more Month and Halloween Party

You read the title correctly, one more month till we will be holding our little boy in our arms. I can't believe how fast this pregnancy has gone. Although it feels like it was forever ago that we took the pregnancy test and found out that we were pregnant, I definitely don't feel big enough to only have a month left. I have felt very lucky at how easy this pregnancy has been for me. The biggest annoyance that I have had is nightly heartburn but with my new friends Zantac and Tums I am doing pretty good at dealing with that. Other than that nothing has been that bad. I just got back from my 36 Week doctors appointment and the doctor said that we are pretty close to being on schedule so to plan on delivering very close to my due date: Nov 9th!

Since last Halloween Chuck has been talking about being the Teletubbies for Halloween. When we moved up here and decided that we were going to be in Garden City for Halloween, Chuck was very excited because we would have four people to be all four of the Teletubbies. Every Halloween a group of their friends have this big couple's Halloween party with games, food, and a walk-off. Prizes are given for winning games and the walk-off. Chuck and Ginger really wanted to win the walk-off so we went all out. Bought Teletubbie costumes, made a video, learned a dance, and even added accessories to make it the best walk-off yet! It was a lot of fun to see everyone's costumes and little skits. It was nice to get out and meet some new people and get to know others better. (Yes Halloween isn't for a couple more weeks but due to hunting season they had it really early)  

The Whole Group from the Party

Our Dance

The Teletubbies!

One of the games was who could kick the highest: It came down to Bro. Pugmire and Joey

Joey won!!! I took third place, everyone was amazed a pregnant women could kick so high, so was I!

36 Weeks 

Here are some pictures to catch up from previously.

Joey working at Ideal Beach Resort doing Boat and Sea Doo Rentals

30 Weeks Along

Another 36 Weeks pictures

Moving into our new home and reopening all of our wedding presents!

Bear Lake Calder Raspberries

We were able to pick our own raspberries they were delicious!