Update

Grandma and Grandpa (on Dad's side) have arrived back from looking after Dad's Aunty and are thrilled to be spending time with Linc and Carter (Cart?!). Grandma has become attached at the hip to Carter and simply adores him. Grandma also took Linc shopping yesterday and spent even more money on toy cars for him... we always knew she would spoil the grandchildren! Linc and Grandpa have hit it off and Linc had great fun yesterday grabbing all of his toy cars to put in Grandpa's hand..one after the other...!



The below photo shows Linc as he was walking around yesterday holding Tad and copying what he sees us do with Carter when we walk around holding him and patting his back - it was hilarious. Linc still can't say truck - it's still grrrrrrrrrruck. But he also says uck uck uck which is his universal word at the moment - it means 'get up' 'let me outside' 'pass me that toy' etc. etc.  He also tried his first real apple on Saturday - he almost choked to death on a big piece of it, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

Lincoln 'burping' Tad

Carter is still only sleeping for a few hours at a time, and we're still fine-tuning our routine; hopefully one which will fit in with Dad when he goes back to work! I can see Mum is going to have her hands full when that time comes. He loves his bath time and just sits back and relaxes - which is in contrast to Linc who didn't really take to bath time all that quickly.



Carter relaxing in the bath



Carter's 1-4 week checkup - 22/9/10 3700 g

Carter had his 1-4 week check up with the MACH nurse yesterday.  He appeared to pass most checks, but is still a bit jaundiced and has a slight click in his hip which will need to be monitored.

Carter - 22 September 2010 3700 grams

He has gained 270 g in five days (avg is about 150 g in a week) and now weighs a whopping 3700 g.

Mum also continues to improve, with some very low blood pressure readings in the morning (113/74), and is now going into the evening without getting sick anymore (although her headache remains for most of the time)...

Collecting the newspaper and having chips for lunch

A beautiful day of 21 degrees and the family made the most of it, spending lots of time in the backyard (after Dad had finished mowing as it was quite overgrown!). Carter got quite a bit of sun and is looking a bit less yellow.

Linc has been collecting the newspaper from the driveway with Dad most mornings as it is not too cold - this photo is from this morning. Isn't it amazing how a haircut can change how someone looks - in this case, it's made Linc look so much older!

Linc at almost 20 mths old

Kingsleys for lunch today and Linc gets so excited as he knows we will let him eat some chips. This is Linc helping himself to some chips that were a little too close to the edge of the kitchen table!

Linc thinks the Kingsleys chips are pretty awesome too...

10 days old and things slowly getting into a routine

Mum is slowly getting better, but continues to get quite ill in the evening where her blood pressure is raised. However, she now feels almost normal in the morning with a fantastic blood pressure of 130/82.

Carter did very well last night, having a feed that finished at 2am and sleeping through until 6am! He's still a bit jaundiced, so we're trying to give him a bit more sunlight - which is hard at the moment as there has been a very cold wind hanging around, messing with some beautiful sunny days. Tomorrow will be 19 though, and Tuesday forecast to be 21!

Carter 1 week old...



Carter resting after a feed



Family

Where would we be without family...

Aunty Christine and Carter

...without Mum's sister, Christine, we would have struggled to find someone so wonderful to look after Lincoln while Mum was in the hospital. So thankyou to Christine and Andy, and Bec, Will and Lizzie, for welcoming Lincoln as part of your family while we were in the hospital.

It was a huge load off our minds as we knew Lincoln was in fantastic hands...what we didn't know is that he would mature quite a bit while going through his adventure away from home; he's now eating better than before, and just appears to be, well, bigger! Although I have heard from a reliable source that Lincoln was always bound to look huge after the birth of our little boy Carter! He's certainly not a baby anymore, and he almost feels too big to be putting on a change table to change his nappies!

Grandma and Grandpa with Carter

Also thankyou to Dad's Mum and Dad for visiting briefly on their way to support Dad's Aunty who has just been diagnosed with breast cancer (for the second time). Our best wishes for Aunty Marg and a speedy recovery!

It was nice to have Dad's parents here to lend a hand with Lincoln, and to provide another two sets of hands to assist with keeping Carter's number 1s and 2s to within the confines of the change table!

And finally, thankyou to all of Mum and Dad's other family members and friends for their messages of congratulations and wonderful gifts!

3430g 15 September

The birth has taken a heavy toll on Mum as far as her blood pressure goes.  She has had consistently high readings, sometimes as high as 160/105. This has made her sick, given her a thumping headache that panadeine doesn't touch and, as a result, she is not eating much. These facts, combined with a lack of sleep have made her dead on her feet, with very little energy to do anything.  To be honest, I've seen ghosts with more colour than she has. Despite the advice of the obstetrician (who said to leave it and monitor for a couple of weeks) she had a check-up with her Doctor today who has put her back on blood pressure medication; hopefully by Friday things should be looking better...

Carter's check-ups have all gone well. He is suffering a bit of jaundice, so we had him out in the sun for a bit today (a top of 15 degrees helped, but the cold wind certainly didn't!). He has lost 100 g in the six days since birth, which puts him at 3.43 kg; this is an excellent result, and it means he is feeding well (Lincoln lost 60 g in his first five days of life outside the womb).

And let's not forget little Lincoln. I can assure you all, that he certainly hasn't been forgotten in all of this, as he has been showered with new toys and five times as much attention from Dad (as well as the Grandparents who stayed with us for a couple of nights)! As a direct consequence of all the goings on, he has now turned into Dad's shadow and constantly follows him around. It was so heartwarming to see Lincoln give Carter a kiss today without even asking him to. He's such a lovely little boy. Let's hope he stays that way.

It's also coincidental that the Holden Special Vehicles E Series 3 was released today. I think that's a sign that Dad should buy one to ferry the kids around (wouldn't Mum look cool taking the kids to Radford College in that!)...

HSV E Series 3 GTS

Carter's first bath at home

Last night Carter had his first bath at home. And who should bath him, but Grandma who thought it was an extra special treat on her 60th birthday!

While Carter did have a bath in hospital, this one was a bit longer and quite a bit more relaxing as he didn't need to be scrubbed down from head to toe!  As per usual, Carter didn't like having his bits hanging out and screamed as he was undressed - but as soon as he relaxed in his bath (the laundry tub!) he calmed down and appeared to really enjoy it.

He's quite a spewy baby in comparison to Lincoln, and we've been caught a few times with spew on us - but he is still feeding quite well - so well in fact that he isn't feeding for as long as Lincoln used to - Carter just feeds till he's done and that's it - no more.  He's feeding about every 3.5 hours and sleeping very well - and I mean very well - he's the exact opposite to Lincoln - we used to struggle to get him to sleep; now we have to work to keep Carter awake!  Although I should say that Carter still has his days and nights mixed up, so is very alert at night time...

The birth

"So, do you want to have a baby today, or tomorrow?" Those were the exact words Mum's obstetrician used when she had her Wednesday appointment after her blood tests... But let's go back a bit first...:

Monday was the usual checkup with the obstetrician.  But on taking Mum's blood pressure, it was discovered that it had risen quite sharply since the last appointment. So Mum immediately underwent some tests, which came back all clear. However, she was then asked to do a blood test first thing Tuesday morning and to come back Wednesday morning to discuss the results.

On Wednesday morning the obstetrician advised Mum that it was better to have the baby sooner rather than later as the blood tests had showed evidence of pre-eclampsia - in this case, a reduced platelet count. The low platelet count wasn't too severe (136), but the obstetrician had just had another patient whose blood platelets dropped to 20 in a very short amount of time - and he didn't want that happening to Mum as it may mean a caesarean. So, rather than wait a week (in which time Carter probably would've come along naturally), they booked Mum in to be induced on the Thursday morning.

Mum was admitted to hospital Wednesday afternoon where they performed a procedure to ripen the cervix. Then first thing Thursday morning they wheeled her off to the birth suite to have her waters broken. A short time after that was done, Mum started having some light to moderate contractions, so everybody thought that we would be having a baby within a couple of hours. However, by 12pm, things hadn't progressed as far as planned. I should add that by this time, Mum was in quite a bit of pain!  So they started her on a very low dosage of oxytosin to give the contractions a little helping hand; at around the same time Mum opted for an epidural. The epidural dosage was also quite low, as everyone knew that Mum was very close to giving birth...and sure enough, within a couple of hours, Carter was born.

He was quite grey at the start, but soon started to go a lovely healthy shade of pink as he nuzzled into Mum to have some quality bonding time. His first feed was at 1523 and by this time, he had already started opening his eyes!  What was also incredible was his head control - from birth he has been able to lift his head up from your shoulder when you are holding him.

This is Carter at 4.5 days old...:

Carter Aston...photos...

Carter...only minutes old

Kisses from his big brother!

Lincoln drinking to a job well done, Mum!

Carter's hand - very different shape to Lincoln's (much more like Mum's hand!)

Mother and son

Father and son

Fast asleep...

The boys' first weigh-in...Lincoln V Carter...

 Lincoln V Carter vital stats:

39.5 weeks V 38.5 weeks gestation

3.07kg V 3.53kg

6lb 12oz V 7lb 12oz

48cm V 50cm long

35.5cm V 36cm head circumference
2.5hr V 5hr labour!

Introducing...Carter Aston born 9/9/10

On September 9, at 2.46pm, after a 5 hour labour (twice as long as Lincoln), the family welcomed Carter Aston into the world weighing in at a pound (460 g) heavier than Lincoln at 7lb 12oz / 3.53 kg. Carter is 50 cm long with a head circumference of 36 cm.

He looks more like Mum than Dad, and appears to have Mum's long pointed fingers with thin fingernails. He's been a fantastic baby and, while not giving us much sleep (which is to be expected!) has taken to feeding quite well.

Mum is very much looking forward to coming home today to spend some time with Lincoln as she misses him terribly! The baby capsule is in the Focus (thanks to Dad working till 11pm last night [do you know how hard it is to find a washer that drops down under the rear seats?!!] and we're all looking forward to kicking off the next chapter in our lives with the latest member of our family! Welcome Carter, love Mum, Dad and Lincoln.

Stay tuned for an updated blog header, and a full rundown of the events leading up to the birth!

12.8 kg 31 August

Linc continues to grow well and, just like his Dad, is built more like a greyhound than a bulldog. 31 August weigh-in was 12.8 kg, with a near miss as Linc would not lay down and almost slid right off the scales (see above photo!)...

He continues to have nights where he has difficulty dropping off to sleep without someone stroking his cheek with his wrap (see below photo - one for each ear!). It's definitely down to the fact that at this age, toddlers have trouble switching off at the end of the day. This was evidenced tonight by Linc reliving some of the events of today - like when he was sneezing in the car on the way back from the shops. He found it funny and so was doing pretend sneezes. But he never did it again all day, until tonight when he relived the event as he was trying to 'switch off'. Pretty amazing. Another thing that isn't helping is that his molars are STILL coming down, as well as teeth either side of his bottom teeth - that's why he has his dummy more often than we would like - without it he just sucks on his fingers until they are a bleeding mess.

Dad's second fathers day with Linc today - he was lucky enough to get a DVD boxset which Mum and Dad can watch in the 5 weeks Dad has off on leave for the birth of 2.0. Linc also got Dad a 'Wheels' subscription, 3 new ties and a shirt...very lucky Dad!