Baby's first Thanksgiving

Karsten had his very first Thanksgiving this week. We were a little worried about how he would handle the trip to Stillwater to Brice's aunt's house because he has gotten a little colicky in the past week. He actually handled the trip there and back like a pro and woke up in time to eat while we were still there before having to pack everything up and head home. Brice had to work a shift that day so we could only stay a couple of hours and then I had my first night alone with Karsten all to myself. Of course, him being as inconsolable as he had been lately, I knew it would be an issue. He finally woke up from his nap around 6pm and pretty much screamed for a good 6 hours before he finally decided he was just exhausted and fell asleep. Of course, by then I was completely frazzled because there was no way I could calm my child and all I wanted to do was go to bed myself. By yesterday Brice and I finally decided that we can't keep letting Karsten be so miserable and we invested in some gas drops which, so far, seem to be working. We actually had a happy baby last night that was awake and alert and didn't cry....of course, for me, one night too late. Hopefully gas was his only issue and we don't have a colicky baby forever.

Hey, mom, get that camera out of my face!

Why do I always sleep through the cute picture ops?

Mom, dad and I at Thanksgiving....and I'm sleeping again!

Thanks for getting me those gas drops Dad, I feel so much better!

12 days old

Things we have learned about Karsten thus far....

When he gets upset, he pants like a puppy before he lets out the cry. He is a pig! He can sometimes eat 4oz of formula at one sitting....he should only be eating half of that (he'll gain all of his weight back and then some in no time!) He is overall a good baby; right now all he does is eat, sleep and do a little fussing inbetween.

Being cute sleeping in his bouncy chair. A big thanks to Donna for this gift, he loves it!


His first trip to a sit down restaurant while my parents were here this past weekend.


Napping in his swing (a gift from grandparents Koppinger while they were here this weekend) still decked out in his church clothes.


All else seems to be going well. I am finally starting to feel much more back to normal and can actually venture around the house to get some chores done so Brice doesn't have to do it all. I'm looking forward to finally digging out my normal clothes this week and getting back into them. I'm still venturing around the house in my maternity pants for fear of zippers at my incision site until it heals completely. We are looking forward to the time when he is awake for more of the day so we get to see what his personality is like when he's not hungry or needs a diaper change.

Karsten Brice has arrived!

As you all know, we were scheduled to go in for an induction on thursday to have the first of 2 medications administered. Once the nurses got me all situated and checked my cervix, they found that I was already almost 4cm dilated and having contractions (which I couldn't feel) and the medication would not be needed then. They said we could go home and come back early the next morning to get the pitocin started but I was not going to do that again since they already had an iv in and I just wanted to stay and wait it out. Around 5am on Friday the nurse woke us up so she could get Karsten's heart rate on the monitor for a while before starting the iv up. It was actually a lot slower than they wanted it (in the 110's) so they had the doctor come and break my water so that they could put a probe on his skull and see if the heart rate was better that way....it turned out the heart rate wasn't better and when doctor Hirt broke my water, he found out that Karsten had his first poop inside which is not good. After about 45 minutes of talking with the doctor about what we could do or couldn't do, we decided that I would have a c-section. That was really nerve-wracking for me because I get really nervous about stuff like that and they wouldn't let Brice in the OR until right before they were ready to start. Thankfully, they never told me when they started so I had no idea what was going on and I couldn't feel a thing with the epidural. He was born at 7:25am and weighed 8lbs 10oz and was 21 inches long. Hearing his first cry was so amazing, it's impossible to put into words! I just wish that I was able to hold him right away and take care of him like I wanted to. They did let me hold him for about a minute before they had Brice take him to the nursery to get checked out and for the doctor's to close me up to go to recovery. That was the longest wait! By the time Brice got back to recovery, I had already been there about a half an hour and I still hadn't seen Karsten all cleaned up. They did finally bring him in and I got to hold him and tried to feed him right away but since I couldn't sit up it really didn't work. We then went up to our room and they sent Karsten to get a bath so that he was all clean for us. After that, we had to wait for him for about an hour and a half because the nursery was backed up on baths and I wanted to hold him so bad! After that, everything seemed to go smoothly. He did loose a pound while we were at the hospital and also had a little jaundice so we have to take him to the doctor tomorrow to get him checked out and make sure he is doing better. He seems to be eating much better today now that the nurses aren't always bugging him. Here are a few of his first pictures. I hope you all enjoy them as much as we enjoyed taking them!