Happy one month old birthday to Joseph

Good news--we are all still alive.

Between recovering from a C-section, figuring out breastfeeding (oh the drama), learning how to take care of TWO boys at the same time (how do people do it?), Mike being gone on a business trip to Asia (Tokyo, KL, Singapore, China), and getting no sleep, my big accomplishment is that I have kept my boys alive. Hooray.

Happy three weeks old

Happy three week birthday to our little Joseph.

A few more pictures

Joseph getting a sponge bath from dad.

Joseph reading his book.

Andrew and Joseph having quality bonding time.

Letters at the park

Andrew loves letters (the A-B-C kind of letters I mean, not the mailed/stamped kind of letters). He reads them all day around the house. He has a set of wooden blocks and instead of building them up and knocking them down (like every other normal kid) he pulls them out of the bin to sit and read the printed letters. Anyway, we have always known he knew a few letters here and there, but last week at the park he surprised us all.

Andrew ran up to this "WATER" man hole and read W-A-T-E-R out loud. It was quite a surprise to us as parents. He is 21 months old.

He also loves the letters on the sign language post at the park. His favorite letters are Z, X, and O.


Here are some other pictures from the park.



We take Andrew here every morning to keep up the same routine to make the transition of a new baby a bit easier. Usually Mike will take him (or the grandmas when they are here), but this time Joseph and I went just to get out of the house.

Baby Joseph's first doctor visit

Baby Joseph's first doctor's visit at two weeks old:

11 lb 14 oz (90%)
22 inches (80%)
38.5 head cm (96%)

He was such a trooper and let them prick his heel for a vaccine.

Look mom, I'm four days old!

The hospital photographer took some photos of baby Joseph before we left for home. Here is our favorite one. He was four days old in this photo.

One week old

Our little Joseph is now one week old. How does the time fly so fast?

Here are the rest of the hospital pictures. Below is Mike putting on Joseph's first real outfit to wear home.

Below are the last of the hospital pictures. I am dressed to go home.

Mike is putting Joseph in his car seat for the ride home.

We made it!

First day at home. Andrew is getting used to having a baby around.

It helps when Grandma Marianne comes! Thanks to Emmie and Lukie for their present of tigger for Andrew. He loves his tigger.

And lastly these pictures were taken yesterday on his one week old birthday.

Happy one week birthday Joseph!

Baby Joseph

Our darling baby Joseph was born on Saturday. Here are some pictures to update you on his birth story.

We were hoping for a VBAC this time around (since Andrew's emergency C-section birth story was quite traumatizing), so my midwife let me go overdue by two weeks hoping that I would go into labor naturally. Unfortunately, I never actually went into labor (despite my best efforts), so we scheduled an induction for Saturday morning 7am July 31st.


Before they started me on Pitocin the midwife gave me an internal exam in which we learned that not only was I only dialated to 2.5, but the baby's head was up over the pelvic bone, lending a natural birth fairly difficult if not impossible. Knowing I wanted to try for a VBAC, she gave me the option of still trying pitocin to see if the contractions would move him back into place, but gave me her honest opinion that it had only a 20% chance of working. Mike and I asked for some time to ourselves think and pray, and finally decided to schedule a c-section and spare ourselves all of the emotional energy. Three hours later, the baby was out and I was getting stitched up.


The above picture is the very first picture we took of little Joseph. He is still white and has monitors hooked up. He didn't cry at all when they pulled him out.

The above picture is my labor team. From left: my midwife Monique, our L&D nurse Lorri, me, baby Joseph, our doula Danielle, and my fabulous labor coach Michael.



The above picture shows Joseph a few minutes old after he is bundled up with the eye ointment on. I wanted to make sure we got a few pics of him before they put the eye cream on!

Sweet little toes (above).
Below, when I first got to hold him, he just stared at me for a long time. It was so cute.

That afternoon my mom brought Andrew to the hospital to meet his new little brother. We were all curious to see how Andrew would react, but the funny thing is that he didn't really react at all. He didn't even seem to notice the baby. He just wanted to jump on mom's bed.

We even had a hard time getting him to sit for family pictures. He just wanted to be running around exploring the room and playing with my iPhone.

My mom watched Andrew the whole time we were at the hospital and she was amazing with him. He learned new colors (now he knows blue, green and red) and became a digging expert at the park.

My mom uses the term "Grandma heaven" to describe the below picture.

Mike is so cute and possessive with his new little son. He also missed Andrew a lot which I think is adorable. He couldn't wait to get home to play with him.

All in all, my experience with this second C-section was much better than my first so I am counting my blessings. Little baby Joseph is so sweet and it is so much fun having a new baby around. There is nothing better than a newborn baby!

I love you little Joseph...

July 31, 2010 12:59pm

Joseph Gordon Featherstone joined our family last Saturday, born 10 lbs 3 0z via c-section at St. Joseph's Hospital in Towson, MD. We named him after Mike's dad (Joseph) and maternal grandfather (Gordon), who have both been inspirations to our family. Erin and Joseph are doing great, and should be home tomorrow.

More updates to come later, but here are a few pics from the weekend.