Two Months - July 24, 2009

At his two-month checkup on July 27th, Liam weighed in at a whopping 13 lbs. 4 oz. and had grown to 23 inches long. The first thing the doctor said when she saw his weight was that it was amazing that this was the same kid that we were worried about two months ago because he wasn't gaining weight. He clearly is packing it on now - we've had to pull out the 3-6 month clothes already. He's almost caught up to his cousin Brynley who is 6 months and just over 14 lbs.

Here he is with the monthly monkey.

He had his first vaccinations at his appointment and it was really sad to watch.

Other firsts in July also included:
First Roadtrips - he's now been in six states (RI, MA, CT, NY, NJ, and PA) with a few more coming this month. Including the trip to the pageant and two to PA, he logged at least 1800 miles and about 36 hours in the car.
First Smiles
First Swimming Pool
First MLB Game
First Babysitter (yes, I cried)

Liam loves to be held and loves to be moving. He really enjoys going for walks and almost always stays awake in the stroller - gazing around and taking it all in. He also loves bathtime and hates it to end. He's trying to condition me to not take him out by peeing all over me as soon as I take him out of the bathtub. I still take him out, we just wash his towels a lot. He also enjoys tummy time (especially if there is a mirror nearby). He's staring to make a few more noises but still prefers to grunt to get your attention and doesn't keep it a secret when he's uncomfortable or lonely.

Hill Cumorah Pageant

Several months ago, I was called to be the activities committee for our ward. Luckily for me (as we also teach primary and do Cub Scouts) it's been a pretty low-key calling. Sometimes less is more, right? Well, sometime last year our Bishop decided that a trip to the Hill Cumorah Pageant would be a fun activity so he reserved some cabins at a church camp. When it was first announced, I figured I would help with the planning but that we probably wouldn't be attending because we'd have a newborn. Well, after mentioning something about that, the Bishop informed me that his wife went straight from the hospital to a ward activity after one of their sons was born. If you know me well, you know that as soon as he said that, I knew I'd be going.

So, after our first successful roadtrip to Pennsylvania and doing the planning for the trip, we decided it was worth it to make the 12-hour round-trip drive (we didn't stay in the cabins - but neither did the bishop's wife :)). Like any good plan, however, it didn't go exactly as planned.

We had planned to go part way on Friday (the rest of the ward was leaving Saturday morning) to break up the drive so we got a hotel room in Albany and were planning on leaving around noon. After he had packed the car, Will checked his email and found an invitation to apply to teach at Johns Hopkins University's summer program for talented youth. He decided it was worth sending his email and a phone interview, unpacking and repacking bags and the car, and seven hours later, he had a job offer. The only hangup was that they wanted him in Lancaster, PA Saturday morning (as in 14 hours later).

So, Will drove with us to Albany where we stayed Friday night. Saturday morning we dropped him off at the train station to catch a train to Lancaster. Many tears were shed. Then, Liam and I continued on to Palmyra. Luckily, he was wonderful and slept almost the whole way. I stopped once to feed him and he only screamed the last twenty or so minutes.

Luckily for me we have an amazing ward family and I was well taken care of. The food and ward activity pieces went off without a hitch and Sister K even drove me to the pageant, to our hotel and back to the camp for breakfast and church in the morning. Liam was great and didn't seem to mind being passed from one pair of warm arms to another. Bill and Marie came to the pageant to meet us and even saved 30-40 seats for us when they got there before us! One of our primary children rode home with me and was great at talking to Liam and making sure the sun didn't bug him too much. On the way home he cried the last twenty or so minutes as well - not bad for a six-hour ride with only one short pit-stop.

I'm grateful for a ward family that is so great. I'm also grateful that we were able to attend the pageant and to be able to visit the church history sites so easily. I love to feel the Spirit and to have my testimony of the restoration of the church confirmed to me again. If you've been to the pageant, you know that there are a lot of protesters that come and try to get to the attendees with their megaphones... The young men and young women from our ward were visibly upset when they were being harassed in the parking lot. While the experience was upsetting to them, it provided an even greater contrast when we walked nearer to the Hill Cumorah and heard the hymns playing. That contrast made the difference between having the spirit and not having it almost tangible.

Unfortunately, because my hands were full and I was minus Will, our camera stayed in the trunk the entire weekend. If I get some pictures from someone else in the ward, I will post them.

July 4th, 2009

In addition to celebrating our Nation's birth every 4th of July, we also get to celebrate Grandpa Bill's birthday! We decided to take Liam on his first road trip and headed down to Pennsylvania to celebrate (and to hang out in the pool). Some highlights of the weekend:

Liam - ready for some pool action, flip-flops and all.

Liam and mom swimming - he really loves the water but the weather was abnormally cool so we didn't stay in the water long.

All decked out for the festivities!

We decided to get Bill tickets to the Phillies game for his birthday. Unplanned, Grandma Marie had gotten Bill and Liam Phillies hats for his birthday!!

The gang at the Phillies game. It was a great day for a baseball game and they won! Liam also got a certificate for attending his first Phillies game. Six weeks isn't too young for professional sporting events, right?

Other highlights that I don't have pictures of:
Will riding in the backseat with Liam the whole way to PA
Grandpa dancing with Liam to patriotic music (I do have video, I should learn how to post it)
Intense tailgating at the baseball game
Philly Cheesesteaks after the game
A fantastic pool-side Sunday afternoon BBQ

Liam was a trooper - he was excellent in the car. He may be rethinking the decision to behave so well because this was only the first of several roadtrips in July!

Tummy Time

June 24, 2009 - One Month!

We can't believe that this little guy has been in our lives for just more than one month. It's amazing how quickly he is changing and growing and becoming a little person with a personality (not that he hasn't had quite the personality since before he was born).

At his one-month checkup, he weighed 9 lb, 6 oz and was 21 in. long so he's grown two pounds and two inches! He's starting to get perfectly chunky and eats a lot. He is also very vocal and makes noises all the time, whether eating, playing or sleeping (makes him an interesting roommate). Our favorite noises so far are the laughing in his sleep and the sheep noises - his favorite noises seem to be grunts.

Mom and Dad are also growing into our new roles and learning to live with new sleep patterns. We have a lot of fun trying to keep him awake when it's time to be awake and almost as much fun trying to get him to sleep when it's time to sleep. I'm hoping he'll learn to blog soon so he can keep everyone updated on his adventures!

We're going to try to remember to take pictures with the monkey every month to show how much he is growing.

I also did an impromptu photo shoot during his awake time on Wednesday and it turned out pretty well - he was very cooperative!

He is a really sweet boy. I think this picture almost captures how sweet he is.

His less serious side.

Showing off the milk belly.

William Martell Doutre

Baby Liam
more formally known as
William Martell Doutre
born
Sunday, May 24th, 2009 at 4:11 pm EDT
weighing in at 7 lbs. 6 0z.
(not bad for coming three weeks earlier than planned)
19 in. long

Many more pictures and fun stories to come!

We're getting around to putting some pictures up of our new little guy. More to come after we're home and settled in a little (we're headed home from the hospital tomorrow after a week and are very excited!).

***Disclaimer - the next few posts were written from a hospital bed following a week of extremely limited sleep and consumption of various narcotics. Read at your own risk!***

The New Parents

Grandma Ronda

We are so blessed that my mom was able to fly right out as soon as we found out we were coming in to the hospital. She has been such a wonderful help and a lot of fun to keep me entertained and happy while cooped up here for a week. We love her and are very grateful for her. (I think we're also wearing her out!)

Liam Love

Liam was so blessed that he had so many people here to meet when he arrived. Grandma Ronda flew in on Friday from Utah and Grandpa Bill and Grandma Marie drove up from Pennsylvania early Friday morning. Uncle Dave flew in to be here for Will's graduation and got to be here for Liam's big day as well!

Liam's Birth

Thursday evening at 7:00 we checked in to Women and Infants' Hospital. We met with an in-house midwife who informed me that they were going to start "ripening" me to be induced right away. Starting at about 9:00 on Thursday night until Sunday morning, they did exactly that. I will spare you all the gory details, but it was not a fun 60+ hours. They did all they could to get labor going. Unfortunately, my body and the baby were well-informed and knew that this pregnancy still had at least three weeks left to go and did all they could to reduce the induction. Baby Liam was not ready to come out and my body was doing all it could to keep him in there.

As a bit of history, Will and I had been working very hard the past nine months preparing to have this baby with as little intervention as possible. We were planning on birthing in the alternative birthing center at the hospital and took classes to prepare us for a wonderful natural birth. When we came into the hospital on Thursday we still thought that could happen, for a few days (!!).

After all of the trying including an entire day of extremely painful induced labor on Saturday and a night of a really strange reaction to morphine, I was exhausted beyond my ability to cope. About 4:30 on Sunday morning, Will gave me a beautiful Priesthood blessing and I was finally able to sleep. Will got up early Sunday morning and went to his graduation from Brown (Yay!!!) and when he came back, together with an amazing midwife and surgeon, we decided that my body was just not going to give us this baby and that it was urgent enough to get him out that a c-section was probably the best option. Once we had made that decision, everything came together very quickly. We told the midwife our decision right around 2:00 and Liam was born at 4:11. The operation went super-smoothly and there were quite a few confirmations that we made the right choice for him to come to the world the way he did.

Here are some pictures:

This is the view from our room (nice sunsets saved my sanity more than once).
Heading in to the OR.
Also heading in to the OR.

Just a few minutes later. Baby Liam's first photo.

Dr. Bowling giving me a peak at our little guy. Note how unhappy he is that we found a way to get him out despite his strong resistance for several days.

First family photo.

Mom and Liam in recovery.
Dad and Liam a couple days later - the first time we were able to catch him with his eyes open.

Itchy Feet

About a week and half ago, my feet started to itch a lot at night. At first I just added it to my list of pregnancy conditions that inhibit sleep and encourage restlessness, but they continued to itch more and more each night. At my appointment with our midwife last Tuesday, I decided to ask her if it was normal for my feet to be so itchy. She said that it might just be something random happening but that there was a very small chance that I had developed a condition with my liver. She decided that we should run the test for the liver problem just in case, but assured me that it was very rare and that I didn't have any other symptoms so we weren't worried. As we were leaving, she mentioned that I should call the office if any other body parts started to itch...

Talk about power of suggestion - as soon as we got home I was convinced that my whole body itched. I had a very itchy night and while it calmed down a little Wednesday morning, it was clear that the palms of my hands were itching from something other than just paranoia. I called the midwife's office and they asked me to come in Thursday morning to have a non-stress test and ultrasound to check on the baby. (Meanwhile, Wednesday night we went to Boston to a club to see my cousin sing, which was very fun!)

Thursday we went into the office and they did the non-stress test (listened to the baby's heart for twenty minutes while monitoring his movements) and the ultrasound and he looked great! They also decided to do some other tests on my liver because the results from the initial test would take at least a week. The midwife assured us that the possibility of any abnormalities in the tests was very rare - even more rare than the other test.

Then, about 5:00 on Thursday afternoon, the midwife called. She said that the liver function tests had come back with some really elevated results and that they felt they could diagnose me with intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (google it if you want to know more but basically the pregnancy hormones affect gallbladder and the liver and cause a build up of bile acids in the liver which can spill into the bloodstream). Because cholestasis can cause stillbirth and is harmful to both the mother and the baby, they don't like to let moms with cholestasis go beyond 37 weeks in their pregnancies. Since I was going to be 37 weeks on Friday, they had booked a room for me at the hospital to come in Thursday night and be induced as soon as possible to make sure we had a healthy delivery and baby.

So, that's how we got to the hospital Thursday night, much much earlier than we had planned. I can't believe we've been here almost a week.

Fenway Park - Opening Day

April 7, 2009 -- Red Sox vs. Tampa Bay

Not long after we moved into our ward, we found out that our Bishop and his wife have season tickets to the Red Sox. We secretly were hoping that they would invite us to a game sometime this season but were blown away when they invited us to opening day! It was supposed to be on a Monday but was rained out so we went on Tuesday with Sister K and her sister. We had a fabulous time and are so grateful for such generous friends.

From the pictures below you can see that seats were pretty amazing. We were behind home plate, probably 25 rows back. We had a great view and luckily, it was a great game. Fenway Park really can't be beat, Senator Kennedy threw out the opening pitch, there was a flyover, the Easter bunny was there, we didn't freeze or get rained on, and the Red Sox won!

I've even found myself becoming a bit of a Red Sox fan. It's nice to live somewhere where the team wins at least some of their games (sorry Nationals). I'm sure if we live here very long, the baby will grow up being a Sox fan. We've even bought him his first Red Sox clothing. And, speaking of clothing, I must say that the shirt my mom and I found for me to wear to the game was quite cute! Another pregnant woman sitting near us told me she had looked everywhere for a maternity shirt but didn't find one. (If you can't see it in the top picture, it has a cute baseball on the belly that says "Future Fan.")

My bump, my bump, my little baby bump...

I've had mixed feelings about posting pregnancy pictures on the blog. (Maybe I've had mixed feelings about blog posting in general.) Pregnancy has been pretty good to me. After 22 or so weeks of throwing up almost every day, that finally stopped and I've felt pretty good the last half of my pregnancy. I'm learning to adjust to getting up to use the bathroom in the night and I suppose I'm being prepared for not sleeping much when the little one arrives. Luckily I have a pretty flexible schedule and can sleep in most mornings.

Another reason pregnancy has been pretty good to me is that I haven't gained much weight. In addition to throwing up, being disgusted by anything sweet or rich led to some weight loss the first of my pregnancy and even now, I've only gained six pounds. Unless something crazy happens in the next few weeks, I will probably weigh less when he's born than I did when I got pregnant. However, as a result of being overweight when I got pregnant and losing weight, I haven't really felt like I've looked very pregnant. Even now, people think I'm not nearly as far along as I am and friends think I look smaller each time I see them instead of bigger. Not complaining about that, just saying...

February 2009 (5 months)

March 2009 (6 months)

April 2009 (7 months)

May 2009 (8 months)