Everett's blessing

Everett's blessing was on January 3rd. My brother Fred was in town and it worked out nicely that my whole immediate family got to be there. It was all the siblings minus Heather, but Scott and the kids came so they represented for her. Tristan's father and brother also participated in the blessing (that is his whole family). It is funny to see how small Tristan's family is and how large my family is. Here are some pictures of Everett in his cute little blessing outfit.





Everyone who was there for the blessing

Luedtke family pictures



Me giving Everett a bottle in the parking lot while waiting to take pictures


We took these pictures of our little family after church using the timer and a tripod. Tristan did not want to put his church pants back on so he is in addidas shorts. It was my first sunday back at church, and Everett's first Sunday at church. Tristan took Everett home after we took pictures. By then only the last hour of church was left and he was getting cranky. I stayed to play the piano for primary and then Tristan had to come all the way back and get me. This Sunday we just had, we planned better. We took two cars in case somebody had to take the baby home early. Everett made it longer this time. He did not go nuts until there was only 30 minutes left of church.

New Years and Everett at 5 weeks

The day before New Year's Eve my brother Fred and his wife Carol and their four children came to town. We had fun hanging out with them and Scott and the kids at my parents house that night. Then on New Year's Eve Scott's family, Eric's family, Fred's family, us, and my parents all met up at the cemetery (we missed you Heidi). We wanted to see Heather's marker at the cemetary. It is beautiful, and the message on it touches me. That is exactly what Heather cared most about in life was that her children new she did all she could to stay with them as long as she could. That she did not just give up and say I would rather die so I can be out of pain. She fought and went through surgeries and treatments even when her doctor's had given up. All because she wanted to keep fighting for her children. After the cemetery we went to Eric's house and had tons of chinese food and played games. Everett was unusually good that night. He fell asleep while nursing at 7pm and slept until 1am at Eric's house. It was so nice because Tristan and I were able to talk and play games. We had so much fun. I nursed Everett at 1 am and we did not even get home until 2am. Boy was it hard to get up at 4 and nurse again. I don't have any pictures of New year's Eve and we did not do anything on New Year's day, but enjoy the following.

Everett at 5 weeks


Everett and mommy


Everett and mommy both asleep


Heather's marker. It reads: May my children know "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my coarse, I have kept the faith"




Pictures of all of us at the cemetery

Christmas with Everett

A few days before Christmas Tristan's grandpa Terry came into town and we were able to have them come over and see Everett for the first time. They live in Utah, so it was nice they got to see him when he was only 3 and a half weeks.

Here is Everett with his great Grandpa Terry.


Here is 4 generations of Terry men


Christmas Day also happened to be Everett's one month mark. We had Christmas Eve at our house with Grandma and Grandpa Terry. On Christmas we were with my side of the family plus the Mitchell family at Heidi and Chad's.



Everett on Christmas checking out all of his Chistmas presents from Grandma and Grandpa Terry. They got him way too much stuff!

Everett with Aunt Heidi. He wore his cute cord overalls she bought him for his baby shower. He looked so handsome.


Our new little family on Christmas. (I could not get that one piece of hair to cooperate).


Exhausted the day after Christmas from all the festivities.


Everett and mommy


Everett and his cousin Isabella

Everett and Aunt Mayra


Everett at almost 5 weeks old taking his first bottle from daddy. He did ok, but did better the next day with the doctor brown bottles. I have been to scared to try any of the other nipples/bottles since he is doing so well. His daddy sure loves him.

Way behind so catch up! (Mon. Jan 11)

I am way behind on my blogging. Everett is almost 7 weeks old. Sorry. I am trying to either clean, do laundry, cook etc while he is asleep, or I try to nap. Unfortunately I never fall asleep while he is napping or if I finally do, he wakes up shortly after. Everett is not a napper. I am lucky if I get one good 2-4 hour nap in a day. He mainly just cat naps. At night he would do his 2-4 hour stretches. Now he is sleeping for 5-6 hours at night. It is wonderful. But once again, I can't fall asleep. I end up getting to bed about an hour after he does (clean up, shower, get ready for bed etc). Then it takes me an hour or more to fall asleep. So I miss alot of the sleep I could get. I need to just shut off my brain and my nerves, but I am having a hard time still.

Here is my plan on catching up. I am going to post one picture of Everett at 6 weeks old. He is smiling. It is pretty close up so he does not look as cute as he is in person. I took it while trying to get him to smile back at me, so it is low quality. Then each day this week I am going to catch up on Christmas/4 weeks old, New Years/5 weeks old, and his blessing which was on January 3rd. Then I can post some really cute pictures of him when he turns seven weeks and you can see what he looks like now.

He smiles up a storm, coos and makes so many noises that keep getting louder and louder, and he loves to stand. He won't play for very long on the floor with me, but he will lay there and play with Tristan for a long time. He just wants to eat when he sees me. He likes his swing now as long as he is not already fussy when we put him in it, but he still does not like his bouncer. We are loving having him in our family. He is so sweet even though he is still pretty fussy despite his reflux medicine and my non dairy diet. It has helped a lot, but from 5pm til 11pm when he goes to bed is rough.

3 week stats

Well Everett finally had a real doctor's appointment. We went to a check-up when he was 2 days old, but this was our first official doctor's visit and we met the pediatrician. I am not sure how I feel about him yet. I don't tell the doctors that I am a pediatric nurse practitioner, I just let them do there thing and ask all my questions that I should or do know the answers to, but am freaking out cause it is my own kid so I ask anyway.

Everett was supposed to be seen at 2 weeks old, but the doctor was full. Then I mixed up appointment days and missed his tuesday appointment. I had tears streaming down my face as the receptionist told me on wednesday that my appointment was the day before. I told her, "Guess I am mother of the year huh?" I was able to squeeze him in an appointment for the next day. So yesterday Tristan and I ventured off to two appointments. One to the lactation specialist and the next to the doctor. Turns out I have one side that feeds the baby too fast so he gulps and chokes and spits up and then has horrible gas. The other side does not have much milk and the baby just plays around instead of eats. New solution, feed first on the poor side each time to make more milk, then do the other side, and finally then pump on the slow side. So now i have and extra 20 minute routine to add to my already 2 hour feeding/burping/putting back to sleep routiune. So fun!

STATS: At 3 weeks and one day Everett is 9lbs and 0.8 ounces and 22 inches long. I can't believe he gained 1.5 inches (I don't think she measured right) and he is already 9 pounds. Just a little less than 2 weeks before that he was down to 7 pounds 3 ounces. He is gaining weight well, but we have some serious digestive issues. Green stringy mucousy poop. LIkely a milk allergy the doctor said. So as of today I am not allowed to eat any dairy products. If that does not help after a couple weeks then I can eat it again. I also was given a perscription for reflux medication but we are going to wait and see if he improves with me not eating dairy. He does not spit up large amounts, but is constantly spitting up small amounts. He chokes in his sleep and wakes himself up, so the doctor thought maybe it would help him sleep longer than a 20-30 minute stretch.

Yes my great baby has disappeared. He is still very alert, so he does not like to sleep and he is gassy/fussy. It takes a couple hours to get him back to sleep between feeds then he only sleeps for a tiny bit. I get about 3-4 hours total for a night on a good night, and an hour during the day. The doctor said as we were leaving, it is probably just colic. JUST COLIC? It's killing me, how am I going to go back to work in three weeks with sleeping so little.

My sweetie

These pictures are in reverse order of his age. The most recent picture is at the top and the pictures at the bottom are right after he was home from the hospital.

This is Everett at 2 weeks old. He is in a Christmas outfit. It has Christmas lights all over it. I will post some more of the Christmas photo shoot later.

This is our first and only walk. Everett was about a week old here. It has been too cold to take him back outside since then.

Another picture on our walk.

I can't get enough of this guy!

Cousin Hannah finally came to visit Everett at one week old. She was so good and understanding that she can't hold him yet. Yes I am a mean auntie, but too many germs right now.

Aunt Mayra with Everett a couple days after home from hospital

Uncle Eric and Everett. They were in Utah when he was born and had to wait to meet him.

This is Everett shortly after home from the hospital.

More of Everett after home from the hospital. Isn't he so cute and sweet?

2 weeks old

Everett is 2 weeks old today. He is such a joy and so stinkin cute. We love him so much. I need Tristan to help me put pictures up. Apparently I have been putting the full image size on blogger and it says I don't have anymore room to put photos up. I need Tristan to show me how to do reduced pictures. So hopefully tomorrow I will have plenty of pictures of my sweet little boy posted. For today I will just update on how things are going. Tristan posted the last post with the pictures announcing Everett's arrival. I don't like those bare shoulder pictures being posted, sorry for those that had to view them.

People have been asking for the birth story. Woke up at 4am thinking did my water break? Same thing at 5 and at 6 and then at 6:45 big gush so we called hospital and went in. Got there at 8. My blood pressure and the baby's heart rate were very elevated so they admitted me right away. They originally wanted the mid wife to evaluate if my water had broken cause at the hospital nothing was leaking. But they admitted me due to the other problems. They watched me for 2 hours, my blood pressure and the baby's heart rate lowered but I had no contractions on my own. The midwife did not want to examine me as at risk for infection with broken water. She said it may be urine not my water broken but they started me on pitocin anyway. 2 hours later I was still not feeling any contractions, but the monitor showed I was having plenty. They upped the pitocin and in 10 minutes it was like hello we are in labor. They had told me to plan on 15 hours as that is the average first time labor. Well a bit later I got my epidural which I asked for as soon as I got to the hospital. They checked me right after my epidural and I was an 8 (no wonder the contractions were really strong), fully effaced and station 0. But they found that my water had not broken. Ooops probably was not supposed to be in labor. I was basically induced. 2 hours later they checked again cause I told them I felt lots of pressure to push. I was a 10 and ready to push. They could not believe how fast I had gone. The pitocin was started aroun 10:30 and around 4:45 I was ready to push. I pushed for about 1hr 15 minutes. They had trouble getting his head out (and it is not big at all). I finally begged for an episiotomy cause I could feel everything going on and was sick of her trying to get the head out by massaging it as I was out of steam and she said I was going to tear anyway. I thought it was funny when the anesthesiologist said you won't feel your contractions but you will feel the pressure and pain below so you can push effectively. What, I thought no pain with this epidural??? I am sure it took of the edge, but I was telling the nurse ok here is another one lets push. It acutally worked out well cause I was able to tell when to push on my own and feel what I was doing. She finally did the episiotomy and a couple minutes later Everett was born. 2 minutes later I delivered the placenta. She said that was record time and she has done over 5,000 deliveries just at kaiser. I was pleased with how fast it all went. He was so alert and nursed right away for a long time.

Everett eats well, and likes to eat. I am up often nursing him and he takes a lot of effort to burp so it takes a bit to burp him and get him to sleep in between feeds. He eats for a long period of time and likes to eat on both sides. it is usually an hour to hour and a half process to get up change him, feed and burp, and put back down. Then he is up in another hour to 90 minutes to eat again. I don't get much sleep, but he is not fussy so I can't complain. He gets gassy but he does not cry, just squirms. I am trying to sleep when he does, but it is really hard to sleep during the day. I am very careful about what I eat too. It is tiring but well worth it, and I am glad he is such a good baby.