Just Jordan

Calder officially became a big brother when Tripp was born, but when Boone was born the title took on an all new meaning. Calder has been kind and gentle with Boone. He is quick to tell us Boone is crying and often runs to Boone's bed to give him a hug in an effort to console him. The first few nights we were home with Boone, Calder would wake up during the night when Boone cried and would come to our room concerned about what was wrong with Boone. Calder's favorite hugs with Boone involve him nuzzling his face close to Boone's, feeling Boone's soft skin on his cheek. Once Boone was a bit on the hungry side when Calder nuzzled in and Boone latched on to Calder's nose and started sucking. Hugh thought it was so funny that he has been trying to orchestrate this event to happen again ever since :-) Calder has been a bit out of sorts these first few weeks. Having Boone in the house has been an adjustment for him. Calder has been quicker to get upset and has been...

Just wanted to let everyone know Boone's last blood work results came back normal. We are thrilled :-) We are now on to everyday medical things like clearing up diaper rashes! Hooray!

On the evening of Tuesday, March 12, I thought I was going into labour. My braxton hicks were much stronger than they usually were and I had a few other "symptoms" that I'd rather not share ;-) I wanted desperately to get things going so I did everything I could to stay active around our house. After an hour of house work the contractions faded.  I was annoyed to say the least! On Wednesday evening, March 13, when my braxton hicks got stronger and I got the same list of other "symptoms" I didn't get my hopes up. Instead, I parked my butt on the couch with Hugh and watched a couple of episodes of "Fringe" (Mine and Hugh's latest Netflicks obsession). My runny nose, sore body, and frequent trips to the bathroom had kept me (and Hugh) up most of Tuesday night. Not wanting to disrupt Hugh's sleep on Wednesday night I decided to sleep in the basement. As I laid in bed I realized that the Braxton Hicks were getting stronger. I started timing th...

We were back at the hospital today to get the rest of Boone's blood work done. One hour, 6 attempts, and a call to the NICU resulted in the bloodwork being taken. Since it took so long to get the blood, the neonatal hematologist was worried the results might not be in today. She is going to call us by Friday to confirm that things are good :-) She gave Boone a newborn check-up and pronounced him completely perfect! Just exactly what we wanted to hear!

Calder's birth weight: 5 lbs 7.5 oz Boone's birth weight: 8 lbs 0.5 oz The health nurse came yesterday to check on Boone and I. Boone left the hospital on Friday at 7 lbs 11 oz. On Monday he was 8 lbs 2.5 oz. The health nurse told us she had never seen a newborn surpass their birth weight at the 4 day mark! He is going to be a pork chop in no time :-) Calder Tripp Boone Hugh and I thought that Boone looked like Calder, but now when we look at these pictures it seems like he looks like Tripp! Calder This might be a better photo to compare Boone and Calder. Boone currently fits the sleeper Calder is wearing very similar to how it fits Calder in this photo. Everyone is asking, "Who does Boone look like?" We can't decide! You be the judge :-)

Hugh drove Boone and I home on Friday! There were 3 blood tests that needed to be done to test for Neonatal Hemochromatosis. They tried to do the blood work twice on Thursday, but didn't get all the results they needed, so they tried again on Friday morning. They had to poke Boone at least 15 times to get enough blood for these tests (all 4 limbs and multiple places in his head). His blood is quite thick and as the nurses said, "He doesn't like to give it up." In the end we only got results from 2 of the 3 tests, because his blood in the vials kept clotting making it unusable. Both test results we did get had levels that were slightly above "normal", but these levels were no where close to NH levels. For example, Ferritin levels in newborns are around 70, Boone's level was 137. NH levels are above 800. Boone also had an ultrasound on his liver Friday afternoon that was normal (this wasn't shocking, because we had such positive results on the bloo...

Calder missed nailing our baby's arrival by 4 hours. Boone James Hamilton was born at 3:59 this morning. Boone is doing well. We got back some positive test results today and will hopefully get the remaining few tomorrow. He gets to spend the night with us and at this point that is all we can ask!

My almost 2 day absence from here has nothing to do with having a baby :-( I have come down with what Calder had last week. Thankfully it hasn't developed into the mouth sores tonsillitis yet. My throat is SORE, my nose is SORE and I am feeling sorry for myself that this baby hasn't come. Poor Hugh. Like 8 day overdue Jordan wasn't enough to deal with! hahahaha! Yesterday I met with Dr. M2. I am now 3 cm. No labour though! I see her again on Friday for another ultrasound (to check fluid levels) and have another stress test (they measure the baby's movement and heart rate over approximately 30 minutes). Those two things along with me feeling good baby movement should give us through the weekend to wait for this baby to come on its own!

I usually get around 350 page views a day on my blog. The last week and a bit I have been getting more than 550. My brother's fiance, Brittany, was telling me about how everyone she knows has been asking her, "Any baby news, yet?" I shared with her the increase in traffic on my blog. I had been speculating that people are coming back more frequently to see if we've had the baby yet! Brittany confirmed this for me, saying she has been even checking it multiple times a day to see if there is any news. I had a good laugh about this! Brittany (and other members of my family, I'm sure) may be inflating the number of hits on my blog and they are the ones that are going to be informed the moment we even head to the hospital! I feel like the pregnancy talk is getting old. But that's all I think about and apparently, I'm not the only one :-) So here's some more. . . I met with my ObGyn's partner on Friday, Dr. M2. My ObGyn is on holidays and won't...

Four years ago today, I became a mother. And it feels like ever since then I have been meaning to write down the details of Calder's birth story. . . On March 7, 2009 we had our good friends, Jordan and Danielle Clarke over for supper. My sister, Jes, was in town for some sort of gymnastics thingy and was at our house as well. After supper we headed downstairs to play a bit of Mariokart on the Wii. At about 10 pm someone cracked a joke and we all burst out laughing. I not only started laughing, I peed my pants a bit. Well, so I thought. I tried to "squeeze" the pee off, but had no luck. I quickly handed my controller off to the person sitting out and dashed up the stairs. When I got to the bathroom it became VERY clear that I hadn't peed, that in fact, my water had broken. I had been having Braxton Hicks all night, but getting 30 - 40 of those a day was very typical, so I hadn't paid attention to them. (To this day, Hugh says that it was the fact that he was ...

I lost the pool. Sitting on my couch still pregnant. Today is Hugh's day. I can tell he is ready to meet our babe. Today is probably the day I am most likely to go into labour. Hugh is the luckiest person I know (and not just because I married him :-). In fact, it can get annoying how lucky he is! UPDATE: Hugh is a loser too. Still pregnant on Thursday, March 7.  Now I am going to see what I can do about NOT having this baby tomorrow (Calder's birthday)!

I'm at a loss these days as to what to write about. Mostly because I am STILL pregnant.  Last week my family started a baby pool. Everyone picked a date for delivery and included what they thought the sex and size of the baby was going to be. As of this morning the only people left in the pool are me (March 5), Hugh (March 6), and Calder (March 13). I guess the bottle of Baileys I put up for the winning date will be staying at our house! Calder is still sick. We had him checked out and he has tonsillitis. The worst part is his poor mouth. His gums and lips are swollen and he has a number of canker sores on his tongue and cheeks. Apparently this can be a symptom of tonsillitis. Calder bit into a bun on Sunday night and started crying it hurt so badly. Later we then got him to try some apple sauce and the spoon came out of his mouth bloody. Needless to say, he was on a purely liquid diet yesterday. I am hopeful today we can get him to eat more of the apple sauce and yogur...