The Family's All Home!

Sorry for the long delay on an update! Luke was able to come home from the NICU last Wednesday, just one day after Stephen and I went home. It was so exciting taking home our little son, only 5 days old! Elijah was nearly 2 weeks old when we took him home, so we hadn’t experienced bringing home a baby so young before. It’s been nice being back home & adjusting to life with a family of four. While Stephen’s been back at work, my parents have been helping out during the week. They kept Elijah while we were at the hospital, so he’s been getting a lot of one on one time with his Nanny and Poppy. His Grammy, Stephen’s mom, is going to be helping out the rest of the week and part of next week. It’s so nice to have such sweet family to help out during this recovery time. I can’t pick up Elijah until Luke‘s 6 weeks old, supposedly, so the help has been greatly needed & appreciated. The c-section recovery hasn’t been bad at all. I pretty much feel back to normal, but I still have to take it easy as far as exercise goes. But I'm quite anxious to get my running shoes back on! Luke is doing so great - sleeping a ton and eating very well. He’s been a very good sleeper at night (knock on wood!) so we’ve been quite thankful for that. He’s all healthy, with the exception of a little hip problem. A lot of breach babies have hip problems, so we’ve got another ultrasound scheduled at the end of August to see if it has corrected itself. It’s hard to tell who he looks like just yet…I expected him to be a little clone of Elijah, but he’s his own little person. He does give a few expressions that totally remind us of Elijah as an infant. He seems to have my hair and his daddy and brother’s mouth… the rest is a toss up! Elijah has been enjoying having a little brother. Yesterday morning, he was playing in his room and I was sitting with Luke, who eyes were wide open at the time, watching Elijah play. Elijah kept smiling at Luke and looked as if he felt so much pride showing Luke how to play. And we got the biggest giggle out of Elijah when Luke went on a sneezing spree! Elijah also held Luke for the first time today. He rested his head on Luke's belly to hug him and gave him a kiss without us asking or prompting him to - SO sweet!!! He hasn’t showed too many signs of jealousy yet… We just have to be very careful when Luke’s on the floor in his bouncer or swing, or when he’s sleeping in his pack and play downstairs - Elijah loves to run over to check on him and sometimes shake the pack and play! Yikes! We’re working on that… Right now the adjustment to two hasn’t been that significant, especially since we've had so much help. We’re sure it will be a lot more difficult once Luke’s on the ground more and sleeping less often during the day. We are so thankful to be parents of two sons, who we hope will grow up to be the best of friends. Parenthood is awesome! It’s so amazing watching Elijah grow up and it’s going to be so much fun watching Luke develop into a little man as well. Thank you all for your prayers and support during this time. We have the best family and friends!

Pictures of Luke Thomas Burns

Holding Daddy's hand


Held by Mommy for the first time


Arriving at the NICU


Getting a little oxygen in the NICU


Little man is getting better!


The entire family

It's a..... Boy!!!!!!!

Where do we begin?! We went in for an ultrasound/NST on Thursday and they informed us, due to low amniotic fluid, they wanted to deliver our baby via C-Section (b/c the baby was breech) on Friday. We went into the hospital at 11:30 and, just as scheduled, the c-section began at 1:30. I was quite terrified by having a c-section and didn't know how I'd get through it w/o balling my eyes out. I did pretty good though... was a little nervous right beforehand when Stephen had to leave my side for me to get my epidural and prepped for surgery. But I got to look into his sweet blue eyes and hold his hand (aka take all of the circulation out) throughout the entire procedure. I held my emotions together until the doctor said, "Well Dad, what is it?!" and Stephen said "It's a boy!!!" Luke Thomas Burns was born at 1:45 on July 17th, 2009, weighing in at 6lbs 8oz and measuring 18.5in long. My first thought was that our sweet Elijah now has a best friend for life. Since he as booty down, he didn't get to squeeze all of the fluid out of his lungs naturally and his breathing was a bit irregular. So after Stephen held him by my head for about 30 sec, my man and my new little little man went off to the NICU. He was having trouble at first regulating his color, but it didn't take long to correct. His breathing was quite rapid - 110 per minute when what they'd ideally like is from 30 to 60. His oxygen levels were also lower than they'd like, so they put his little head in an oxygen filled shield. He looked like a little bubble boy, which made me giggle.(Thank you Karen Bowers for the tip to hold a pillow on top of my belly whenever I need to laugh). By nighttime, Luke was out of the bubble and his oxygen levels were up to 99! I was unable to get out of bed until 12 hours post surgery, so all Friday, I just got to see pictures and videos of my new baby boy. At 3am, anxious as could be, Stephen and I went down to the NICU to see Luke. His breathing had slowed down quite a bit; it was in the 80s! Therefore, they allowed us to hold our son, which was such a thrill for both Stephen and I. He looked so great!

ABC...Easy as 123...

This little boy of ours amazes me every single day. He's growing into such a young little man - He so cutely says "excuse me" whenever he burps (or pretends!). He's getting into a great routine of saying "please" and "thank you Mommy (or insert name)"; however, for some reason when he says thank you to Stephen, more times than not he will say "thank you Mommy Daddy." LOL It drives Stephen crazy!
He's showing us how much his little brain can absorb everyday. He's got his colors down and most of his shapes. We've been noticing that he's learning his ABCs too. We'll sing it to him and stop during the song, and he'll usually say the next letter or run of letters. He normally says the correct letter, although he thinks "LMNOP" is "apple bee." =) And we noticed that he pointed out a few of the letters on Stephen's t-shirt the other day just out of nowhere. Well, today during lunch, I decided to run through the alphabet side of some of his flashcards (pictures on one side, letters on the other). I didn't ask them in order of the alphabet - just randomly - and these are the letters he got correct on the first try: Q, G, K, H, O, F, M, E, P, B, N, I, R. He got the letters U and S correct on the second try (after we were done w/ all the flashcards ). A few of the letters he missed, but I could tell he was trying with how he answered - he thought D was B, thought X was K, thought T was I, thought Z was W, thought W was M....I kind of thought those letters either sounded similar or looked similar. I was absolutely floored with our 19 month old son! He's been watching this Brainy Baby ABC dvd in the car on longer trips for the past couple weeks, so I attribute this learning mostly to that, but it's still exciting, nonetheless. We ran through about half of the letters during dinner tonight and he was getting them correct, one after the other. It just makes me realize that I don't need to slack off on teaching him one bit - kids can learn way more and understand more, even at his age, than we usually give them credit.

Pregnancy Update

I had an OB appt this Monday where my Group B Strep test and my first "exam" took place - for any of you who have been pregnant before, this was not exactly a fun appt. =) GBS is a harmless bacteria that some women carry, and I happened to have it when I was pregnant with Elijah. Due to all of my drug allergies, they were unable to administer any of the antibiotics for GBS during my labor, so Elijah either got some strain of strep or a skin contaminant that kept our little boy in the NICU for 10 days after delivery... not a fun situation at all. I had an allergy appt scheduled in January for me to be tested on all of those antibiotics so that we wouldn't have to go through this problem again; however, I had to cancel it when I found out I was pregnant with baby #2. So I have been praying so hard over this situation from day one - that I either would test negative for GBS or that the Lord would just somehow shield this baby from getting it if I was positive. I've been sitting on eggshells for the call from my dr to say I'm positive. I finally called them a few minutes ago and found out that I tested negative! I am so thankful that the Lord cleared my body of this and hopefully will allow Stephen and I to take this baby home after the routine 2/3 days in the hospital. They'll still probably test this baby for it since Elijah was positive last time, but hopefully he or she will be completely healthy. I am still going to be praying hard over this, but I know God is faithful and works everything for our good and for His glory.
I have an ultrasound on Monday to check on the baby's size. I'm trending just a tad small (how in the world, I don't know!!!) so they just want to check how big the baby is and probably check my fluid levels. We have less than 4 weeks now, so Elijah's baby brother or baby sister will be in our arms before we know it! Crazy!!! Speaking of - I can hear Elijah's voice in his monitor, which means his nap is now over... "Mommy...Daddy...bye bye Sage...donkey book...goofy's hat...school bus...airplane..." The things this boy wakes up talking about! I will be posting some fun stories and pictures of the little man asap so stay tuned in!