Jeffrey - 2 weeks (3/11/2010)

Head circum. 14 3/4 in (50-75%), Length 22 in (90-95%), Weight 8 lbs 11 oz (25-50%)

Jeffrey's 1st Bath (3/4/2010)

And here is a picture from another day of Jeffrey actually in the bathtub!

Jeffrey's 1st checkup and jaundice

We took Jeffrey in for his first checkup on March 1st to find that he had lost a significant amount of weight, he was down to 7 lbs and 15 oz! The doctor also thought that he looked a bit jaundiced. So as were were headed down to Cook's to get Jeffrey's bilirubin levels checked I was thinking, here we go again.

Jeffrey decided to copy his brother and wanted to stay at Cook's too. We were fortunate that while his level was high, it was not as high as Jason's was when he was born. Jeffrey and I stayed at Cook's overnight and then were released home the next afternoon. We also had to continue with home photo therapy, which is not the most fun thing, but is is certainly more comfortable to do at home than at the hospital.

I did feel like it was a little easier to handle since we had been thru this once before. In the grand scheme of things, jaundice is not a very serious illness. Yes, it needs to be treated because too high levels for an extended period of time can lead to complications. However, the phototherapy treatment is very effective in getting the bilirubin levels down to an acceptable level, and the end result is a happy healthy baby.

Going through this twice just made me thankful for all the wonderful doctors out there who help take care of our children and my heart goes out to all the other mothers that have to deal with this and/or more severe illnesses.

Jeffrey has family visitors and Jason meets his little brother

Papaw with Jeffrey






Mimi with Jeffrey






Meeting little brother






"He's really little!"






Family of Four






Happy Day!

Jeffrey's Big Day

Jeffrey Michael
born February 25, 2010
4:56pm
9 lbs. 1 oz. , 21 inches in length
Welcomed by proud parents, Justin and Jill and by big brother Jason

Here is some of what I wrote down early Fri morning, not even a full 12 hours after Jeffrey was born.

Words cannot express how truly grateful I am right now. My mind is racing and a million different thoughts are tumbling through my brain so I thought I'd try and capture them. It is now 2am Fri morning. I should be sleeping, but after such a day and with all this adrenaline still coursing through my veins, I'm finding sleep impossible. So here is a recap.

We went in to see Dr M at 7:15 am. Both Justin and I were worried we'd be sent home, but hoped we'd be able to have Jeffrey today. Dr M did an u/s and everything looked good then checked to see if I was dialated and measured me at 6cm! We were going to be sent to L&D to have our baby!

My nurse was named Kim, and she was very cheery, I liked her instantly. She hooked me up to the monitor to measure my contractions and the baby's heart rate. I actually started having some fairly regular contractions, but they were not increasing in intensity. Mom arrived shortly after and I was so glad to have her here. There's just something about having your mom around for a big event like this. Kim did have a bit of a problem getting my IV started, and I have multiple pricks and bruises to show for it. The 3rd nurse who came to help got me squared away. Kim felt really bad, and I'll admit it was unpleasant, but I knew I needed the IV to get my pitocin so I persevered. So we got the pitocin started around 10:30am.

I had expressed to Kim my concern over when to get my epidural since I felt like a waited a bit too long with Jason, so after we could tell the pitocin was working we went ahead and called for the anesthesiologist. He was a nice man, Dr. A. I liked how he told me everything he was doing. I get nervous for any kind of blood drawing, needles, etc. So the combo of Dr. A calmly talking and Kim standing in front of me just being supportive and talking to me, reminding me to breathe helped me through the epidural set up. And I'm so glad we got it when we did. I could still feel pressure and could tell when I was having a strong contraction, but it was not painful. I think this epidural was a little bit stronger than the one I had with Jason. I'll have to check and see what Justin wrote down, but I think I got the epidural around 11am.

The rest of the afternoon was spent letting the contractions work to get me dialated to 10cm. We had the Olympics on and chatted. Kathie arrived and then Dad. Dr. M came and checked me twice and Kim did a couple of times too. I had to lay on my right side for a while because the baby got tired of me being on my back. This was fine until laying like that caused the medicine from the epidural to leave the left side of my body (since that hip was higher in the air). Luckily it was time to switch sides. Unfortunately I never got comfortable laying on my left side but that wasn't a problem for too long. Kim checked and found I was dialated to 10 cm. Earlier when Dr M checked me she said the baby's head was still high so she wanted me to labor down, so thankfully I got to switch to a sitting position and we let good old gravity help us get Jeffrey into position for the next stage of labor. There was about an hour in there where no one came to check on me for a while when I got frustrated. More than anything I did not want to continue laboring if it was time to push and somehow cause unnecessary stress to Jeffrey. We called the desk and Kim came and checked and found that Jeffrey had moved down. It was time to call Dr M and get the ok to push.

The pushing stage felt a little strange to me this time. First of all it was very quiet in the room. Just Kim, myself of course, Mom and Justin. When I'd start a contraction, Mom and Justin would help me sit up and push while Kim monitored everything. I had to kind of re-remember how to push, but got the hang of it. It was just weird how quiet and calm everything seemed in between contractions, but I guess we were all concentrating. It felt like it was taking a while and then Dr M(she got impatient that I'd been pushing for over an hour) came in, and I felt like everything moved pretty quickly after that.

I love Dr. M! She is so assertive and confident, you just know you are in good hands. The next thing I knew they were placing a beautiful big handsome boy on my chest and Jeffrey was here. As soon as he started crying I did too. I was just so happy he'd finally arrived at 4:56pm 2/25/10. I'm so proud of myself for how well I handled labor and delivery. I still can hardly believe he is so big at 9 lbs 1 oz and 21 inches in length. He has beautiful chubby cheeks and we think his hair will be darker than Jason's. I cannot wait to see Jason's interaction with Jeffrey tomorrow when Kathie brings him to visit.

I may work on this some more tomorrow, but I think they are about to bring Jeffrey back from the nursery to be fed. Hope you enjoy Jeffrey's story!

And here are some pictures of Jeffrey's big day!


Here's our big boy!





All swaddled up.




Proud Mom and Dad.





In the nursery.

Jeffrey's "eviction" notice

I wrote this 2 days before Jeffrey's arrival. You can tell I was getting antsy!

Dear Sir,

You are hereby given notice that you are in breach of your tenancy of the premises located at mother’s womb under the terms of the lease dated June 28, 2009, between Jill Carrier as landlord and Jeffrey Carrier as tenant.

You are in breach because you are 4 days delinquent in your payment to the undersigned of the sum of 1 birth for February. In addition, you have failed to comply with the terms and conditions of your tenancy, as follows: your mother expected you to be born by now. Since your brother was 3 weeks early, she expected you to be at least 2 weeks early, but we are quickly approaching 39 weeks of pregnancy and we find your arrival is past due.

To remedy the above breach, you must do the following: aid in starting labor either by causing contractions to increase in frequency and intensity; or lend a hand and cause your mother’s water to break. Please consider this letter a final demand for you to remedy this situation.

If you fail to comply, the undersigned may commence eviction proceedings against you and/or exercise other available rights and remedies under the law. This will most likely be accomplished by a scheduled induction to occur the morning of March 1, 2010.

Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.



Yours sincerely,

Jill Carrier, mother

Jeffrey's Room

We decided to decorate Jeffrey's room in a Dr. Seuss theme. I picked out the pictures I wanted displayed on the walls and did a little bit of the tracing, but that is where my involvement ended. All of the credit goes to Justin and Nana, who executed the plans and did an amazing job!



And here are some pictures of the room all ready for Jeffrey's arrival. The Dr. Seuss stuffed animals and bedding were given to me at a surprise baby shower thrown by my wonderful sister, my great friends Jana and Rebecca and my Aunt Sandy.

We're Back!

So it's been ages since we've posted anything. I guess you could say we've been a bit busy. I'm going to try to have a few posts soon to recap everything we've been up to, but for the time being you will notice that I finally changed the blog name to include our newest addition, Jeffrey!

It's a BOY!

It's a GIRL BOY!

We were originally told at my 20 week ultrasound that we were having a girl, but found out at 28 weeks that they made a mistake, and the baby is a boy. Below were my thoughts after the 20 week appointment and what I originally wrote for this blog post.

On October 20th, we had our big ultrasound appointment. We had been eagerly anticipating this appointment, for we knew that we'd get to find out the sex of the baby. Some people like to wait until birth, but I would be a wreck if I didn't find out. In fact, I knew that I would not do a single thing to the new baby's room, which is currently kind of a junk room, until I found out boy or girl. Our doctor announced to us about halfway through the ultrasound that we were going to have a girl and I actually started crying, I was just so excited! How lucky are we to get a boy and a girl. We truly feel blessed. Jason is very excited that he is going to have a little sister, and says he will take good care of her and be nice to her. Although he has told us at least twice that he is going to want a little brother too. I think as we get closer to the due date he will start to get a better idea of what to expect as we begin to get the nursery ready and talk with him more about the baby's arrival. In the meantime, we are trying to spend as much time together as a family as possible. Everything is about to change, and we really want to enjoy this special time with him.



We have also decided on a name, she will be Jordan Lucy. Jordan was my paternal grandmother's maiden name, and Lucy is my maternal great-grandmother's name. We can hardly wait to meet our little girl.

At 28 weeks we went in for another ultrasound, both Justin and Jason came with me, and much to our surprise we found out that the baby was in fact a boy. Needless to say, we were surprised.

I've had a lot of people ask me if I was disappointed, but I can honestly say I was not, and remain very excited about now having a boy. In some ways having another boy will be easier, most of our baby gear is for a boy, we already have a stock-pile of boy clothes, and I've always wanted Jason to have a little brother. I also already had a boy name picked out, Jeffrey Michael. I think I've had it picked out since I was pregnant with Jason.

I also think I must have subconsciously known that this baby was NOT a girl. All before the 20 week ultrasound, I thought the baby was a boy. Even after being told at 20 weeks we were going to have a girl, I did not go out and buy anything pink! How weird is that? OK, I did buy one thing, it was a little bib that said "I Love Daddy" in pink with pink trim, but that was all I could commit to. The only other thing we bought, and this was a week before the 28 week ultrasound, was a bedding set, and that was only because I felt like we were running out of time and needed to get that room painted. Luckily, we were able to return the bedding, and I got to get the upholstered glider and ottoman I wanted. All in all, it hasn't been that hard a transition for me to go from having a daughter to now another son.

Jason on the other hand has had to adjust. We had worked so hard on getting him to understand that the baby was going to be his little sister, that I think he thought we were teasing him all of a sudden when we switched to boy. I think he is getting the hang of it now and is finally convinced that the doctor made a mistake and now he is having a little brother.

The other thing that really surprised me is that as I've been telling people "No, actually we found out that the baby is in fact a boy," I have had numerous people tell me that that the same thing happened to their sister or a friend. I had not really heard of this happening very often, but now I've heard so many stories now, and people finding out at delivery or right before their due date that the what they were originally told was wrong. It just goes to show that ultrasounds are not 100% accurate (just as advertised).

When it comes down to it, we really just want a happy and healthy baby, and everything looks good, so we are happy! We truly feel blessed.

Below is a picture from our 28 week ultrasound. I know its hard to tell, but I think he looks like Jason!

Special Announcement!

Jason has a special announcement everyone:


That's right, we are increasing our household by one more! Jason is very excited about being a big brother, and loves his new T-shirt we bought to celebrate our good news.

Jacob is here!

Jacob Harper arrived Saturday September 6, 2008 at 12:26pm. He weighed 7lbs. 1.2 oz. and was 20 1/2 inches in length. Justin, Jill and Jason all went to see Jacob and his parents at the hospital on the Sunday after he was born. The new Mommy and Daddy were doing great and so was baby Jacob. We got to visit with Mimi and Big Daddy too, Rebecca's parents, who drove in from Arkansas.

So far Rebecca believes that Jacob has his Daddy's chin, and lips, and nose (we agree). We were also told that Vince had no trouble with his first diaper changing, but he was still trying to master the art of swaddling.

Jason was so cute and excited and kept saying "Hi Baby!" We've tried to get him to say Jacob, but so far all we can manage sounds something like "Dub Dub." (Does this have anything to do with his always referring to Sponge Bob as "Bob Bob"?)

Congratulations Rebecca and Vince, you did a great job; Jacob is such a handsome boy!