Life with Eli

Eli's first bath

Grantham giving his baby brother a kiss. I didn't ask him to do this...he loves giving Eli spontaneous kisses :)

This is kind of like the last picture but I wanted to post it because I like the way Grantham is holding Eli's hand (again, I didn't ask him to do this).

I didn't mention this in the post but as you can see we have a bit of a chunker. He weighed 11 lbs 5 ounces at 3 weeks...WOW!!!

Well...I think we have officially gotten into the swing of things with another newborn. Eli is such a great baby! We have really gotten into a good routine and he is an excellent eater and sleeper (praise the Lord :). To be completely honest, as I approached the end of my pregnancy, I was absolutely dreading having another newborn in the house. I was not dreading having another child...I would just have preferred him to be born 3 months old so we could skip the "newborn stage." I'm not a big fan of the first 3 months because they're just plain hard. I remember when Grantham was 12 weeks old we had a significant shift in the feeling of everything...it just got a lot easier at that age.

With all that being said, I have been very pleasantly surprised at how everything is going. Eli really is such a great baby. We have definitely had our tough days at the Martin household but those are actually more related to Grantham than Eli. He is in the process of dropping his morning nap which has been a rough transition for him and for me (that's a whole other post though :) Don't get me wrong...the newborn phase still is not my favorite. I'm definitely looking forward to the days of being able to sleep through the night again but it's not nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be. Juggling 2 kids really isn't that hard if you have both of them on a good routine. The days just go a lot faster now. I'm trying to enjoy each day for what it holds...even if it's a tough one :)

I've posted a few pictures of Eli's first 4 weeks of life.

Renovation Pictures

Playroom (used to be a covered deck)

Kitchen (added granite countertops, backslpash and appliances)

House with garage added

Renovation Pictures (continued)

Half bathroom that we added underneath the stairs (used to be a closet)

Full bathroom in the bonus room

Bonus Room

Deck

Elijah James Martin

First I want to provide an excuse for why I haven't blogged in over a month (other than the fact that my life has been absolutely crazy :). When we moved Grantham to his big boy room we lost our office for a while; therefore, the computer has been in storage until recently. Now that the renovations are done, the bonus room is doubling as an office and we have the computer back.

Now on to Eli....he is here!!! Elijah James Martin arrived on January 25th at 2:45 A.M. weighing 8 lbs, 11 oz and measuring 20 and 1/2 inches. He is absolutely beautiful and we are already in love with him.

Everything was great with the labor, delivery and the entire hospital experience but once we got released things got a little rocky. We got home around 1:15 on Thursday afternoon and found a very sick little boy. I was concerned about Grantham so made an appointment for him to see the doctor that afternoon. Jamie took him at 3:00 and he was diagnosed with RSV and we were informed that Eli and I would have to leave the house for a few days so Grantham could get over the most contagious part. It's very serious for a newborn to get RSV and if Eli were to contract it we would be in the hospital for a minimum of 48 hours. So our amazing pediatrician...and Sunday School teacher...and friend worked it out for us to stay at one of his family member's vacant houses. Mama came up to help me and the three of us stayed there for a couple of days.

When we took Eli for his "follow up from the hospital" appointment, the doctor said that his lungs were clear and that he thought it would be ok for us to come home as long as we were super careful to keep Grantham away from Eli as much as possible. We have been very careful to wash hands and keep things wiped down with Lysol and so far Eli has shown no signs of RSV. We started to notice an improvement with Grantham but then found out that he has double ear infections so he was really irritable with that for a few days. Just today we started to see glimpses of the Grantham that we love so dearly....my happy boy is starting to come back :)

On top of everything else, last night I started to feel a little bit congested so I called the pediatrician today to see if it was possible that I had RSV. I went to the office to be tested and sure enough I am positive. The baffling thing is that I feel totally fine. I wouldn't even call what I have a cold...I would simply call it a stuffy nose. Apparently, when adults get RSV it's very mild and just looks like the common cold. Even though the symptoms are so minor for adults they can still pass it to children in which case it's a lot more severe. So Jamie and I are having to wear masks anytime we interact with Eli and still remain super cautious with the handwashing, etc. Our pediatrician said that this is the worst season of RSV he has ever seen...I can believe it.

So that's where we are currently. I would just ask everyone for lots and lots and lots of prayer that Eli doesn't get infected. I've asked lots of questions over the course of the past week but I know that I will never understand why all of this happened the week we brought our second child into this world. I do know that I serve an All Powerful God who gives me strength and I know that even though it may feel like it, He will not give me more than I can handle. I know that I will look back on all of this in the future and it will be a distant memory that made our family stronger. Thank you for your prayers!!!