First Day At Home

This is what we came home to....



Thanks Nee Nee.

It was an eventful night home together...it consisted of a sponge bath




and a nice bottle of champagne to celebrate Cooper. We all enjoyed "fancy drinks, in fancy glasses."

Proud Parents

Here are some photos we took during our time at the hospital. We came home with Cooper when he was 5 days old and had 257 photos to upload. Some favourites...












Coming home from the hospital. Simon was at his playball program with Grandpa.

Hospital Bath....

As you can see Cooper was not happy with this bath....

Riley and Simon meet their new little brother

Riley and Simon came with Grandma and Grandpa to meet Cooper. Riley was over the moon excited and Simon could take him or leave him. This is exactly how we thought they would react to him.

Checking him out with Dad. Wearing their I'm a big sister and I'm the middle brother t-shirts.


Time to hold him. Riley was so gentle and showered him with kisses. Simon loves to pull on his fingers and toes.





Checking everything out...even the first diaper change.






We are now a family of five!!!!!!!!!

Grandma and Grandpa meet Cooper

Jason's parents stayed with Riley and Simon for the day. Once the kids naps were over they all came to hospital to meet Coop.

Our Third Miracle.....

Cooper Elliot Hubbard was born on Monday, January 19th at 1:34 p.m. He weighed in at 7lbs 11 oz, the tiniest Hubbard yet. He was 21 inches long...the shortest Hubbard yet.

I will work my way through his birth...it became rather dramatic at times.

He we are at the hospital waiting to be prepped for the c-section. I had to have a c-section because Simon was born via c-section and I had a chance of rupture and because Cooper was also breech. I am told that I have antibodies in my blood due to my blood and one of my babies bloods mixing. This has made my blood very rare and they only have 2 pints of it at the hospital. If something happened during surgery they would not have enough blood for me. Surgery may have to be cancelled....not good news at all. In the end they decided that they should be fine to go ahead based on my history. Goodness I hoped they were right.


Jason gets his scrubs on.


I am ready to go. The sheet is up so we can't watch...which proved to be very ineffective. Jason and I were able to watch the entire operation because they did not dim the lights and the mirrored ceilings provided a great...or not so great reflection. Jason watched most of it, I just took a few glances.


Cooper arrives!!!!! He is weighed in and I get to see him for the first time.



Jason leaves the operating room with Cooper to go and meet Nee Nee while I am taken care of. My Dr. tells me that I had 2 placentas and that they may have been a twin at some point. Why none of the ultra sounds showed this...we don't know. How early I lost they second...we don't know. This second placenta was on the bottom, which pushed Cooper up under my rib cage. This explains my inability to breathe over the pregnancy. His head was under my ribs, as my doctor puts it "he was in Sudbury and we had to push him into Simcoe County." There is a whole lot more to this story but, I wasn't aware of it yet....THANK GOODNESS!!!!!



Here's the part of the story that I didn't know until much later. It was a very difficult c-section for many reasons.
1. The anti-bodies in my blood
2. The second placenta
3. Cooper's positioning and location. During surgery I kept saying to Jason that they are really pushing hard on my ribs. Jason was watching and responded "they are not pushing." Later he told me that one of the two doctors was pulling my skin up and over my rib cage in order to get Cooper out. Nice.
4. Cooper had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.
5. Due to the damage that was done during Simon's c-section. He was breech, in the splits and had travelled down my birth canal in labour. Now the damage done to my uterus during Cooper's, they were unable to close my uterus. They came very close to giving me a hysterectomy. My Dr. has advised us to not have anymore children because my uterus is in very poor condition and they would most likely have to do a hysterectomy after that child's birth. We had no intention of having a fourth but this news sure does make that decision absolutely final.

After all this drama, we ended up with a beautiful, healthy baby boy. We are the luckiest people alive...three angels.

Yet another change

I went for my last doctors appointment and for pre-op today and found out that they have moved the time of my c-section from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. This is the fourth change....hopefully the last.

Guilt....Major Mommy Guilt

I am suffering from some major mommy guilt right now. Simon has been doing some things that are not 'normal' for him over the past week or so. He hasn't had an accident in his pants or in his bed in months and months...well, guess who is having them constantly now. During some quiet cuddle time last night he told us that he is going to pee his pants so he can wear diapers like a baby. He also asked us if it's still going to be fun when the baby gets here. UGH!!!!! My poor boy. I know this is considered 'normal.' I have been reading every book I can get my hands on about this...but....it doesn't make it any easier for me.

Guilt, guilt, guilt!!!!!

Belly Shots....

Last night we went to our photographers to get our pregnancy photos done. Natalie has done pretty much every photo of us and the kids for the past 8 years. She was our wedding photographer and now we keep her very busy with the kids. She did a fantastic job as usual. Here are some of the results....



Thanks again Natalie....see you for newborn photos in 2 weeks!

TROUBLE

Jason and I have always said we are in sooooo much trouble when Riley becomes a teenager. She has opinions already about everything and is a saucy little one.

Today I went upstairs to get dressed and when I came down this is what she was doing.... listening to her "pod"....check out that hat too....doomed.

Packed it in....sort of....

I only ended working half a day today. The fact that I could barely walk did me in. I will do a little more work in the next few days in order to pass my job off to someone else and to tie up a few lose ends but I will not be working directly in classrooms or during regular school hours. My nightmare of my water breaking in front of a classroom of kids is officially over:)

I received a whole bunch of cards today from grade 2 and 3 students that I worked with. You have got to love what they wrote. Here are a few of my favourites...spelling mistakes and all.

"I sur hope the babby is cute."
"I hope your babey comes out."
"I hope yor babby is as cool as you."

They sure do make me laugh.

Dance

Riley started back up in dance class today. Here she is ready to go and very excited.