Emerson's First Week

Our sweet boy is one week old! It's been a busy week, but we already can't imagine life without our sweet Emerson! When we checked out of the hospital on Sunday Emerson was jaundice. His bilirubin levels were 7. So we were told to go to the hospital on Tuesday for labwork to see what his levels were doing. On Tuesday, the levels had gone up to 14. We were told to feed him frequently and keep him in the sunshine. So I was feeding him every two hours around the clock! Which meant because it took him 30 minutes to eat, I was waking up every hour and a half to feed him. On Wednesday, we were back at the hospital and levels were up to 16. Thursday and Friday they had not gotten worse. They had leveled off at 16, but they weren't coming down. So over the weekend we continued the frequent feedings and sunshine. We are surprised the little guy doesn't have himself a tan! On Monday levels are still high at 14, but they are coming down! They think it is just going to take a little longer to resolve itself. They will check him out on Friday at his two week checkup.

The boys have adjusted so well to their new baby brother! Ricky takes on the baby as a new responsibility. He loves to help out. Everett calls Emerson his baby and hopes every day that he ends up with brown eyes like him. We have to watch Sawyer carefully because he is always hugging and kissing Emerson and trying to hold him. Sawyer adores him except when mommy is nursing. That is the one thing he really has not adjusted to. He wants to sit in my lap the entire time. So I am trying to nurse during meal times or snacks when big brother is occupied.

Life as a family of six is quickly becoming life as we know it!

Pumpkin Carving and Vampire Blood

After our pumpkin patch visit, we spent the entire day outside enjoying the day as a family! Each of the boys helped daddy carve their pumpkins. Ricky wanted a friendly pumpkin, and Everett wanted a vampire pumpkin. Sawyer wanted nothing to do with cleaning the pumpkin. He would not touch the guts. He just kept shaking his head and saying no! While working on our pumpkins, the boys all drank some vampire blood (soda). Later that night with a few tricks up my sleeve, I produced photos of what they look like now that they've been turned over into vampires. They were so excited, they ran screaming into the bathroom to look for their fangs! We had Emerson spend the day outside in the sunshine to help with his jaundice! While he was sunbathing, we got creative with our picture taking! We got a great pic of our little guy! It was a really nice day spent as a family of six! Before bed we ate our pumpkin seeds daddy cooked up for us. Yummy!

Pumpkin Patch 2011

Our annual trip to the pumkin patch was cancelled due to our newest little pumpkin. So we ran up to a local church for a quick trip to the patch to pick out our pumpkins. Our visit was short and sweet, but the boys really enjoyed choosing their own pumpkins. They couldn't wait to get home and carve them! 

Ricky

Everett

Sawyer

Emerson


 

Our own little pumpkin patch!

Our newest pick!

My four blessings!

Welcome Baby Emerson!

Friday, October 21, 2011 I woke up at 3:00 am very anxious to meet our fourth son. I played games on my phone to pass the time, got up and took care of some last minute things around the house, packed up last minute items, and got ready for the day ahead of us. At 4:30 am, I called labor and delivery for the time for me to come in. They told me 7:00. While Rick rejoiced in the extra time to sleep, I was disappointed because I was ready to go. My mom was already on her way over, so when she got here we just chatted and then got the big boys ready to go. When we left for the hospital, my mom fed the boys breakfast and then took them all to school. We headed to the hospital and checked in. They took us right to our room. When I went to change into my gown, I lost my mucas plug right there in the hospital! I was hooked up to the IV and found out I was dilated to a 3!!! Which has never happened to me, so we were pretty excited that maybe we would have a fast labor and delivery! The doctor broke my water at 8 and started the pitocin by 8:15. I had my epidural by 9:00. It was all going so fast! The doctor told the nurse to try to hold me off until noon! We couldn't believe it! But then I started to feel really bad. My blood pressure dropped to 70 over 30. And I felt like I was just going to drift away. I started to get scared. They gave me a dose of ephedrine to bring my blood pressure back up. It went up and down many times and they had to give me 2 more doses of ephedrine to get it to be stable. It was still low, but at least not dipping as low as it had been. They adjusted the epidural to see if that would help. I was having so many contractions too close together,  they turned off the pitocen to slow them down. But then turned it back on to increase dilation because even with all the contractions I wasn't progressing. When I was checked I wasn't any further than when I came in and they found that my cervix had shifted and he was not in a good position. Which of course did nothing for my worrying! I made it to a 5 and just stayed there for hours. Fortunately, his position changed again and he was where he needed to be. They had the pitocen up so high to bring change and nothing happened, that they finally decided to cut the pitocen in half to give my uterus a break. Talk of a csection was in the air. I am so fortunate that my doctor doesn't rush to do a csection. He knew I didn't want that. So at 9:15 we turned off all the lights, turned off my phone, and relaxed. At 10:25 the nurse came in to check me again and I was at a 10 and ready to go - hallelujah! She had to go call the doctor to come up to the hospital. He got there, I pushed 6 times in 3 minutes and Emerson made his way into our arms! After so many hours of not making progress, it all happened so fast after that! Between 10:25 and 10:46 I was a 10, the doctor drove to the hospital, they prepped for delivery, and I was having finally having my son! Those 21 minutes flew by after such a long, roller coaster of a day! But holding my sweet baby was worth EVERY second!

Finally our sweet boy made it!

Born at 10:46 pm. Weighed 7 pounds 2 ounces. Measured 20 1/2 inces long.
Got a 9 on the Apgar scale. He's just perfect!

Enjoying his first bath

Our sweet little pumpkin!

Proud Mommy and Daddy

Love my Emerson! So happy to have him in my arms!

Coming home!

Big boys meet their baby brother!

Sawyer was SOOOO excited!

Everett says Emerson is his baby!!

Ricky could not have been any happier holding his new baby brother!

Hanging out in the swing showing off his owl hat!

Wide eyed - so handsome!!

Sweet Emerson - making our family complete!

Thank you God for our many blessings!!

39 Weeks Pregnant

We made it to 39 weeks! The doctor decided to induce due to swelling. Ricky was with me at the doctor when he told us it would just be two more days. When he told us, Ricky started jumping up and down screaming he was so excited! He wrote on a piece of paper "Emerson 2 Days" and ran around the office showing everyone! Mommy and Daddy on the other hand were quite shocked! Since we've always been late, we just assumed we would be this time too. So Wednesday night, we ran around getting last minute things taken care of. On Thursday night, we went out to dinner as our last night as a family of five! We went to Chi for Sushi and it was a big hit. We're ready for Friday to meet our new addition to the family - Emerson Ryan Kuhn!



Sawyer and the Hendersons

Sawyer is having a ball with Karen and her family! We are so blessed to have them in our lives! Sawyer adores them all! He jumps out of my arms into Karen's in the mornings he's so excited! And Karen does so many fun things with him. They go on walks, play at the park, they even go rock climbing and more! He spends most of his days outside! He loves to play with Karen's boys Sam and Mark. He just eats up the attention from the big boys! Here are some pics of Sawyer and his days at Karen's!

Sam and Sawyer

Mark and Sawyer

Random Sawyer pic - I couldn't resist putting this one in!