1 Month Old

December 4, 2008: I cannot believe how quickly Julia's first moth has gone by. It is SO different with your second baby. You just do not have the time to obsess over them the way you do with your first. Sometimes it makes me sad, like I do not know her as well as I knew Casey. I do not know her signals and faces and patterns as quickly as I did with Casey. But on the other hand I have not stressed over her the way I did with Casey. You just keep moving and don't worry about every little detail like you do with the first. I know for sure that the time has passed so much more quickly because of it and also because of how much attention Casey requires.
Julia has had a good first month. We moved her out of our room 5 nights ago. I was nervous about it, seeing as we kept Casey in our room for about 6 months. Julia makes so much noise when she sleeps, she grunts and makes these throat clearing sounds that are very annoying when you are trying to sleep right next to her. It is not ideal to have to get up and go to another room to feed her instead of laying in your own bed, but hopefully we'll end up getting more sleep because of the change. In fact, the last two nights have been great. She eats around 10:30, and we are all asleep in our own beds around 11pm. The past two nights she has not cried until 4 or 4:15 and after eating has gone right back down until 7 or 7:30.
Julia has had a little bit of baby acne, but it has never gotten too bad, at least not yet. Her eye lashes are becoming more noticeable. She takes a paci but does not love it the way Casey did. I think I have seen the first hints of a smile from Julia, but just fleeting moments.
I already feel like every entry I write about Julia is how her habits compare to Casey's.
Julia seems to be doing better since she has been on the Pepcid for her acid reflux. I had been giving her too little medicine for the first 10 days so it probably was not even doing anything in the beginning. She does not love tubs, usually cries a lot.

The rough patch of our family's health has continued. I thought we were all getting better but now Casey had a runny nose, cough and fever of 101. I've got the cold part of it but no fever. Also Casey threw up again last night while sitting in her high chair. If Julia makes it through this unscathed it will be a miracle.

The More Trying Times

November 30, 2008: My first week alone with the two girls went so smoothly, I just knew that it could not be that easy. Sure, there were some chaotic moments, but that was to be expected. This past week however has been a huge test and I can't be thankful enough that it happened during Thanksgiving vacation so I had James with me to handle it all. On our first day and first hour of vacation we were in the car headed to Greenwich when Casey threw up in the car. It was a big mess and the car reeked. We could not open the windows because it was about 10 degrees and we would have frozen Julia and Casey. So we cleaned her up as best as we could and tried to hold our noses the rest of the way. We thought it was just car sickness but then she threw up again that night, just wen we were about to lay her in bed, so we had to do another big clean up and we had no spare pjs. The next day it turned from throwing up into diarrhea. That lasted all week, including middle of the night blow outs and several showers and/or tubs during the day. James and I both got sick to some extent but not as badly as Casey. We have done everything possible to keep Julia from getting it. Our hands are raw from so much hand washing and purell use. Today is the first day that we all seem to be taking a turn for the better. All the diaper changes, clothing changes, sheet changes, random tubs and showers...I don't think I would have made it thru that week alone. We were at our parents' houses too so we had extra hands to help out.

Thanksgiving

Some Pix From Thanksgiving at the Duvals...
She ate enough saltines to make "goalie" gear out of them

Whole Family
Back Row: Lou, Jon, Geoff, Cameron, Dave
Middle: Donna, Meme, Jenny, Emily
Front: Andrew, Heather, Sally, Casey, Julia, James

Olives!

Meeting Meme

Grandad

Julia's First Two Weeks

November 19, 2008: Julia's first two weeks have been pretty smooth for us. The one thing is that she spits up or throws up her feedings quite a lot. Casey did this too, she would throw up a whole feeding about once a day for a few weeks. I had her checked out and they told me that it was normal. So at first I was not very concerned about Julia's similar habit. But then it seemed to be happening more often than not and I decided to take her in to get checked just to be sure. The doctor looked her over and decided that we should have an ultrasound to see if she had pyloric stenosis. This is when a valve in the stomach is not open and the food hits the closed valve and bounces back up. This is something that runs in families and since my older brother Teddy had it the doctor wanted to check. I took her in the next morning and she slept thru the entire ultrasound. It turns out she does not have this which was a huge relief, I was not looking forward to her having surgery at such a young age (she would have had to go in the next day to get the procedure done to correct the closed valve). So now he thinks she has acid reflux which is common in babies. She is taking pepcid for babies to help and we're hoping it will have a positive effect.
While we were in the doctors office for a visit her umbilical cord stump fell off. Also we had noticed a few days ago that Julia has a big red mark on her left leg on the outside of her knee.

I didn't really notice when it appeared. That sounds awful, but to be honest, when it is your second baby you don't have the time to look her over all the time like you might with the first. Her sponge baths are always a confusing, rushed event and diaper changes are the same way. Plus, with the winter weather she is not laying around in onsies and/or naked like Casey did being born in the Spring. Anyways, she has a birth mark called a hemangioma, and it is the size of a quarter. It will continue to grow in size for the first year or so then get smaller after that.
Julia is a fussy baby. When she is not sleeping or eating she is usually crying. She has brief moments of being happy and content but they are brief. All in all things are still going well and continue to be manageable.

Do they look alike?

Casey



Julia

We see a lot of similarities in these early pictures...

Beginners Luck?

November 14, 2008: Today was the first day I was home alone with both girls for the entire day. My mom left yesterday morning and so I knew we had to cut the cord eventually and see what I can do. I must say that today went as well as it possibly could have. Julia slept well last night, I woke up startled at 7:15, knowing Casey had probably been awake for at least an hour in her crib. I went up and she was just hanging out in there like she always does, such an easy kid. I held Julia while Casey and I had breakfast. Then we got everyone out of pj's, clean diapers and I even got to take a shower. Julia sat in her bouncy seat in the bathroom and Casey chatted with me thru the shower curtain. We packed up and headed to a 10am playdate at our friend's house. Julia slept in her car seat the entire time and Casey had a blast with her buddies. We went home at noon for lunch with James. Casey had a good 2+ hour nap. I gave Julia a bath and then she and I took a nap too. We all played this afternoon at home. James got home from work around 6 and we all had dinner. Then Casey had her tub and went to sleep and here we are. Survivors of Day 1 of our new life and no worse for the wear. We'll see what tomorrow brings!

Question of The Day

How has Casey handled the change?????

Casey has been great so far. She was a little out of sorts when we were gone for three days in the hospital. She came to visit us there twice and did not seem to know what was going on or take much interest in Julia. When we sent her home with my parents the night before I was induced I cried. Hormones are raging, plus there was an element of sadness for me about our family unit of three coming to an end. I also cried a few times in the hospital when my mom would report that Casey seemed a little off, I just felt badly for her and knew she would be confused. But since we have been home things have been pretty good. She is a bit more whiney, acts up a little bit more often from time to time, and is waking up very early in the morning (5:30am).
She interacts very lovingly with Julia, and says 'Baybee Juuuleeeah" in the cutest way. She likes getting her face very close to Julia's and looking at her and gives her hugs and kisses. James and I have tried to spend as much quality one on one time with Casey as possible and keep her life and routine as uninterrupted as we can. I think she is dealing with the big change as well as can be hoped for and expected.

Julia's First 10 Days

November 14, 2008: So far Julia has been a great baby. She had her first doctor's appointment at the beginning of this week. She weighed 7 lbs and 1/2 an ounce. So she was only half an ounce shy of her birth weight which is great, after being discharged at 6 lbs 8 ozs. She is eating well, albeit often. There are times she wants/needs to eat every hour and other times she goes longer stretches. Some days she is more alert than others, and she also has very sleepy days, like today. These kind of days make me feel nauseous as we head into night time, thinking that because she has been asleep all day that she will be up all night. There are times I just dread the onset of nighttime thinking that I will get no sleep. Last night was a good sleeping night though. Although she was up a few times to eat she always went back to sleep quickly and easily. She throws up about once a day, almost an entire feedings worth of milk. Casey did this a lot too at this young age, so I am not worried. We've given her 4 sponge baths which she does not enjoy. I look forward to her cord stump falling off so I can give her a normal tub. She has been out of the house three times, once for the dr, once to go to the playground with her big sister, and once we went up to the field hockey game and hockey rink. Anyways, all in all she is a good baby. LaLa and Eddie have been very helpful to us and we were sad to send them home yesterday.

Just Some More Pix

Welcome Julia Jeanne Duval

Born 11/4/08 9:29am 7 lbs 1 oz 19 1/2 inches

My labor story

On Monday, November 3rd I went in to the doctor's office for my weekly check up. I had an ultrasound first to check the baby's growth due to the fact that I had been measuring small. The ultrasound showed that the baby weighed only 6 pounds 2 ounces and when plotted on a growth chart from my previous ultrasounds, the growth seemed to have stopped. This was concerning enough to my doctor that she wanted me to get induced the next morning for fear that my placenta had stopped working efficiently and that the baby was no longer receiving enough nutrients from me. She assured me that the baby was fine, but it was still a bit stressful and emotional for me. During my exam that morning the doctor did a procedure called 'stripping the membranes' which separates my amniotic sac from the cervix in hopes to get the labor process going. It worked. I started having mild contractions Monday afternoon and by about 7 in the evening they were strong enough to clock. James and I had time to prepare for the birth and everything that needs doing. My parents picked Casey up and brought her to their house since we would be going into the hospital at 6:30 the next morning. I was only able to sleep from about midnight to 2am when the contractions became too strong to sleep through. So I got up and wandered around the house, packed last minute things and read my book until 6am when James got up. We headed to the hospital. At this time the contractions were coming every 4-6 minutes apart. They were strong but not brutal. I was in my hospital room and lovely 'johnnie' gown by 7 am. The doctor came in and broke my water at 7:30 am. Immediately after he did this my contractions ramped up in intensity and frequency. James left after they broke my water and went back to school to teach first period. We figured we would have many hours of boring, tv watching labor to come before the baby arrived. We were wrong. Luckily my mom came to be with me until James returned. The contractions started coming every two minutes and lasted for a minute, so I had one minute of pain and one minute of rest. The anesthesiologist was tied up in a c-section and did not administer my epidural until close to 9am, which turned out not to take anyways. Somewhere shortly after I told the nurse the baby is coming and she called for the doctor and I told my mom to call James and make sure he got up there. He was parking the car and made it back just in time. Once my doctor and James arrived I pushed for only 5 minutes and our second daughter was born at 9:29am, Tuesday November 4th. She weighed 7 pounds one ounce and is 19 1/2 inches long. She is perfectly healthy and the concern was for naught.

18 Months Old & 1 Week To Go?

November 1, 2008: Casey is 18 months old and she celebrated by wearing her own skates for the first time. She could not do it at all but she loves being out there and skating along with James.


Yesterday we went to her check up. We were trying yet another new doctor since we were asked to leave our last one due to differences in opinion regarding vaccinations. Casey got two shots yesterday and handled them well, she cried for about 10 seconds and once she saw the cats on her bandaids she was finished. Casey is healthy as can be, and continues her streak of measuring in at long and lean. She was 33 inches tall (86th percentile) and weighed only 21.2 pounds (10th percentile). We liked our new doctor and he is very close to home, we walked to the appointment. So hopefully this one will stick. Her new trick of the week is walking on her tip toes. We took her to the faculty Halloween party. It started out with a group photo of all the faculty kids and then they had a special dinner for the kids with decorations and stuff. We went out trick or treating after that but only did a few houses. She was on the verge of being terrified the whole time because once we got to the party and she saw the older boys dressed as the grim reaper and whatnot we got off to a bad start.









I am now 39 weeks pregnant, due one week from today. Last week at my check up everything was still status quo. I go on Monday morning for another ultrasound to check on the baby's growth since I am still measuring small and also for my weekly check up.