Week 5 (9/16-9/22)

The current state of Houston is similar to the financial markets, total chaos, but things are starting to calm down. It has been a quiet week around the Aichele house, not necessarily a quiet week for my family back in Arkansas. My nephew and Sawyer’s best friend arrived into the world on September 19th, Sawyer’s due date. I have big plans for J.R. (Sawyer) and J.D. (Jackson David) to have lots of fun adventures together. Like anything pertaining to my family it was not a smooth process getting Jackson here, but he and mom are both on the road to becoming healthy.

Clint and I are looking for a routine because we feel the last few months have been chaotic for us. Sawyer is a very easy baby, but he is trying to train us. His main goal is to get us to hold him while he sleeps. Obviously he wins a lot because he is so cute. This week he has been smiling at me when I make a total fool of myself. I can only get him to smile if I shake my hair in his face, punch his little fist against my face and make every goofy noise in the book all at the same time. It is worth it.

We got to go to church this week and to lunch afterwards. Because our church still had no electricity, we spent the service swatting giant mosquitoes. They are the size of birds right now (thanks Ike). I also attached a picture of Sawyer with his eyes open. He is getting more and more alert everyday.

Week 4 - Hunker Down (9/9-9/15)

This was a big week for our little guy. He discovered his lungs (started to cry). Also he decided he prefers to be held at all times. Sometimes it is obnoxious, but most of the time I love the love. Thank God for the baby sling and the baby bjorn. Also I realized this week I can’t hold him with one hand anymore. He really is getting to be a big chunk. But the climax of the week was Hurricane Ike. Clint and I didn’t want to evacuate with a baby and a dog so we decided to ride it out. We only lost electricity for 18 hours and had very little damage to our property. The storm was 12 hours of blowing winds and about 2 hours of that was roaring. Sawyer had no idea what was going on. Heidi weathered the storm well too. As you know South East Texas was hit pretty hard so we were very fortunate.

Little “J” (Clint’s recent name for the little guy) and Clint trying to stay cool without electricity.

Clint is cleaning up the damage left by the storm.

Look at the chub on his face.

Week 3 - First Outing and More (9/2-9/8)

Sawyer had his first check-up on 9/2. Everything looked great and the little chunk weighed 7 lbs 6 oz and was 20 ¾ “ long. He really grows fast. Clint’s mom left on the fourth of September. This week Sawyer had his first outing, a picnic to the park. We had a nice quiet week other than that. Towards the end of the week, we were able to wean Sawyer off the bottle and only breastfeed. He also started sucking his thumb (he takes after his mom).

Week 2 - Homecoming (8/26-9/1)

Sawyer came home on Monday, August 25th! We were very happy to get settled in.

My dad arrived shortly afterward and my mom, my dad, and Clint got the baby explosion (all his stuff) under control and the nursery put together. My parents left on Wednesday and Clint’s parents arrived on Thursday. For two weeks our moms spoiled me and took care of everything around the house. I will be eternally grateful for that. As spoiled as I was, we made it our primary goal to offer our little guy as much love as possible.

During his second week he started growing eye lashes and eye brows, making eye contact, started rooting toward the end of the week, self soothe with his hands and his umbilical cord fell off.

Week 1 - NICU

As Sawyer got settled into the NICU, I got settled into my room just down the hall. By the time I woke up on Wednesday morning, my mother had arrived in Houston. She was a life saver considering Clint and I were in total shock. Sawyer spent 6 days in the NICU and I was allowed to stay 5 days in the hospital so we were only separated for one night. Clint and I tried to give him all his feedings and changings and tried to hold him as much as they would let us. The milestones Sawyer achieved in the hospital were he started holding his own temperature, he took a bottle (quite passionately I might add), he was taken off the IV fluids, his hemoglobin stabilized, and he started breastfeeding. The NICU is a very sad place, but we were fortunate as Sawyer was the healthiest baby in there.

Sawyer"s Arrival!

Clint returned to Houston on August 3rd. We decided to have a weekend of playing, a weekend of our birthing classes, and then we would get to work on the nursery, laundry, and all the other important baby preparations. We did visit friends the weekend before Sawyer came and the picture below is taken just 3 days before his arrival, hence it was my latest pregnancy picture and I was huge!

Well Sawyer came a little earlier than expected so we never got a chance to get ready for him. Tuesday, August 19th began like any other day. We both left for work at 6:00 a.m. I was feeling great and had big plans to spend the next few weeks getting the baby's things together. At 7:30, while sitting at my desk, I noticed I was bleeding. I had a good friend and coworker rush me to the Women's hospital where Clint met us by 8:30. Shortly after that the bleeding stopped. Some tests were performed and it appeared that I had a slight abruption of the placenta. The baby appeared to be fine so I was told that they were going to observe me for 24 hours then send me home. At 10:30 p.m. I had another round of significant bleeding and the doctor immediately made the decision to take the baby. I was rushed back to the operating room for an emergency c-section.

At 11:59 p.m. on August 19th, Sawyer Philip Aichele was born weighing 6 lbs 13.5 oz and 19 inches long. Because he was premature at 35 weeks he was immediately taken by the neonatologist. Clint was allowed to go with him. They quickly realized that the abruption of the placenta was more serious than first thought and Sawyer had lost a lot of blood and fluids. He was placed in the NICU the first night and received two blood transfusions and put on IV fluids. The abruption was moderate with a 20% separation of the placenta from the uterus. Typically it is the mother who suffers with loss of blood during an abruption, but our situation was unique with Sawyer losing the blood. He had a scary arrival into this world, but fortunately he was greeted by loving parents, grandparents and more. You can see in the pictures below how sick he was. He is a survivor and he perked up quickly.

Cabin Construction

Clint spent 3 ½ weeks in Colorado working on our own cabin on some of the Aichele land. This is a continuous project, but Clint and his crew (his dad and some close family friends) made a lot of progress. The septic system was installed, the foundation was laid, and the trees were logged and milled for the cabin. It is important to remember that this is not an easy feat being on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. I am very impressed and proud of the work Clint did, but I did have a large and in charge moment to get Clint back to Houston.

Meanwhile I was back in Houston hanging out with my special gal Heidi, getting bigger by the minute, and trying to get things ready for our little guy. My girlfriends in Houston threw me a fabulous shower and my parents came to visit one weekend which they worked their little booties off with baby preparation. Other than that I was desperately lonely.

2008 - A Crazy Year

Obviously this blog will mostly be about our precious little guy, Sawyer, but I thought I would start this blog by providing a quick summary of 2008. This essentially is also a quick recap of my pregnancy. Little did Clint and I know that 2008 would be a roller coaster of a year.

2008 started with a typical New Years celebration. Clint and I don't make New Years resolutions, we make a New Years motto. The motto for 2008 is "Live in the moment". This actually has been quite challenging given the year we have had. Clint ran the Houston Marathon without training on January 13th. He finished in under 4 hours, but he nearly crossed the finish line on his hands and knees. The look in Clint's face is total fear about what he got himself into. The look in my face is total fear because this is the day I realized I might be pregnant. I think I made the right decision to wait until after the race to tell Clint.

Shortly after confirming that we were indeed expecting, Clint ended up in the hospital with a serious bug. Was he really sick? Did the marathon push him to his limits? Or did the fear of fatherhood force him into the hospital? We will never know.

February and March were fairly uneventful months. I slept a lot being in the first trimester of my pregnancy, and surprisingly Clint was experiencing fatigue too (sympathy pains). So he slept a lot too.

In April we went on a cruise with my family and some close family friends, the Barnett's. It was a great time and we made a lot of memories.

In May my girlfriends in AR threw me a baby shower and we went to the lake for memorial day weekend. It was great to see everyone. My childhood friends have all turned out to be beautiful, successful women. Clint and I went through baby boot camp with my niece and nephew at the lake. They are precious, but I am glad babies don't start out at two and four.

June was a quiet month getting ready for our trip to Colorado. Clint did celebrate his 27th birthday. All he wanted for his birthday (not including the long list of expensive toys) was stuffed crust pizza and an oatmeal cream pie cake. Pizza hut took care of the first, but I had to be creative for the latter.

The end of June approached as did our big trip. We loaded up the jeep and made the 20 hour drive to Colorado. It should be noted that there is no A/C in the jeep and I was 7 months pregnant. We had a great time on the road trip and were very happy to get to Colorado.

Once we got to Colorado, Clint had a prenatal massage waiting for me. We had a great week with the Aichele clan at Clint's parent's cabin hanging out, celebrating my birthday, celebrating 4th of July, fishing, and going on a boat trip. Everyone was very supportive to modify the activities to accommodate my growing gut.

After our week was up, Clint and I drove to Denver where we flew to Seattle. We spent a night in Seattle then caught the scenic train to Vancouver, BC. Clint had a conference in Vancouver and I just went along for the ride. We spent one afternoon driving through the mountains and eventually ended up in Whistler. I spent the other days of the conference exploring the city of Vancouver. We had a great time, but probably our lingering memory of Vancouver will be coffee and pizza (we consumed a lot of both).

I flew home from Vancouver and Clint flew to Colorado to work on our cabin for the next 3 1/2 weeks. I don't know how it worked out that the pregnant lady had to go back to Houston alone to bring in the bacon (and yes my car broke down the first day I got back to H-town) and Clint got to go play in Colorado for 3 weeks.