Somehow Brady turned one month old yesterday. Not sure how that happened! The past 4 weeks have been exhausting, eye-opening, chaotic, and challenging, but they have also been wonderful and beautiful. Brady has brought us so much joy and happiness into our lives and I wouldn't trade the past month for anything, no matter how sleep-deprived I am.

Before I start talking about Brady, I want to give a huge shout out to everyone who has helped us out the past month...family, friends, neighbors, strangers, the list goes on. THANK YOU!! But the biggest shout out of all goes to my mom who stayed with us for almost 2 weeks, cleaning my house, bringing us food, and helping out with Brady when Eric and I were too exhausted to even know our own names. We love you mom and are so thankful for you!!

Now about Brady...

Brady weighs about 7 1/2 lbs and is 21 inches long. He's had a little bit of a problem gaining weight, but he finally back up to birth weight (a little over now!) and is slowly getting bigger and stronger! He is still in newborn clothes and newborn diapers...0-3 month clothes swallow him right up. He is a pretty good eater and eats about every 2-3 hours, however, we are currently dealing with some reflux issues that have kept us up most nights. No fun!

Brady enjoys tummy time and can hold his head up briefly, but he sometimes falls asleep when on his play mat. I don't think he fully understands the purpose of it yet ;)

Brady likes laying on daddy's chest, snuggling with mommy, rocking in his swing and glider, getting his hair washed, being in the car, and white noise.

Milk drunk

Brady dislikes diaper changes, having his arms swaddled, and being hungry. This kid seriously has no in between and gives no sign of hunger. He is either not hungry one minute or STARVING the next. No doubt this is Eric's child.

2 days old

As most of you know, Brady had his tongue and lip tie revision done this month. It was terrible seeing him in pain after the procedure, but he is recovering really well and I can't wait to put that behind us!

Right after the procedure

One day after procedure

Eric has to do stretches/exercises every 3 hours on Brady's tongue and lip to make sure the frenulum doesn't reattach, which is terrible to watch. Brady wails and wails while they are being done and it's the most heartbreaking thing. But we only have a couple more days of doing them, thank goodness!

"Momarazzi" is in full swing over here and I have found that I take wayyyy too many pictures. So enjoy just a FEW of the ones I've taken the past month...

We had newborn pictures done this month too! Our talented friend, Vicky Cummings (Victoria Rose Photography) did the pictures and they couldn't have turned out better. She did some for our Christmas card too, but you will have to wait until December to see those. Brady did so great during the session and was such a trooper! Thank you Vicky for the pictures!

Before we know it, Brady will be 2 months...then 1 year...then 17 years old and going away to college. Okay, I'm gonna go cry now.

Introducing Brady Joseph Udell!

I really wanted to document Brady's birth story, not just for family and friends to read, but also so I don't forget the details of Brady's entrance into this world.

Before this story gets started, you should all know that the night I went into labor, there was a full moon. I had multiple people tell me to that they thought Brady would make his debut...even though he was 3 weeks early. So who know if that contributed to me going into labor, but I'm pretty sure it did.

Ok, so here it goes...
On Thursday, August 18th, Eric and I finished up the nursery (nesting!) and then went for our usual nightly walk around the neighborhood. About halfway through our walk, I started to have INTENSE lower back pain. I honestly thought nothing of it and just chalked it up to yet another uncomfortable symptom of pregnancy. We got back from our walk around 8 pm, ate some dinner, and then started to watch the Olympics. Around 11 pm, I started having really mild, but regular contractions about every 5 minutes apart. I really didn't even think they were that strong, just uncomfortable. But Eric told me to go ahead and start timing them anyways. Around midnight, they started to come every 3-4 minutes apart. I think Eric was ready to take me to the hospital at that point! But we just kept watching the Olympics and timing contractions. At 12:45, I started shivering, which supposedly is a major sign of labor? We had to google it to find that out. And that's when Eric said, "I'm packing the car and we are going to the hospital now." And he was adamant. So Eric sped to the hospital and we made it there around 1:30 am. Of course the hospital took their sweet time putting me in a triage room, as I shivered to death in the hallway of labor and delivery. Once we got in the triage room, the nurse hooked me up to monitors, checked my cervix (only 1 cm dilated and 80% effaced), and told me they were going to just monitor me for a little while. The contractions still weren't super strong at this point, just very regular. 30 minutes later (around 2:30 am), the doctor came in and said they were going to send me home. Not exactly what I wanted to hear. I seriously thought my body was going into shock with all the shivering that was happening. But whatever...I decided to just get dressed anyways. Well as I was sitting up to get dressed, my water broke. And of course the nurse didn't believe me, but Eric demanded that she get the doctor. Doctor came in, checked under the covers, and confirmed that my water had definitely just broken. Thanks Sherlock.
Brady was going to be born whether we were ready or not.

Things moved very quickly from that point. I was admitted, taken to a room, and hooked up to an IV. At this point, I had started having painful contractions about every 2 min apart. Around 4 am, the nurse came to check me and told us I was 2 cm dilated and 90% effaced, and to expect things to happen very fast from this point on. Because of my heart defect, I had to push a certain amount of fluid before they could give me the epidural, and I also had to have IV antibiotics 30 minutes before delivery (which is super hard to time perfectly...). So they kicked the IV in overdrive and I had the epidural at 5 am. Once the epidural was done, my BP dropped drastically and wouldn't come back up for awhile. I had to have 3 doses of meds to get it back up. Once that was under control, the nausea happened. They had to give me zofran to keep things down.

At 6 am, I was 3 cm dilated and 90% effaced. At 8 am, I was 8 cm dilated and 100% effaced. And then at 8:45 am, we were ready to rock and roll. They started 2 different IV antibiotics at 2 different times so they could try to time it perfectly with delivery. At 11:30 am, the nurse gave me the go ahead to start pushing. The actual delivery is a little blurry, so I had Eric document a few things as it progressed. The pushing itself really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It wasn't super painful (thanks mr. anesthesiologist), but it was uncomfortable and it was tiring. I remember my O2 saturation got super low and they had to keep making me take a break from pushing until it came back up. And most of the time it wouldn't come back up unless I had on an oxygen mask, which ended up staying on the last half of delivery. About 20 minutes before Brady was actually born, the nurse told me that my doctor was finishing up a delivery in another room and that I needed to just do slow, gentle pushes until she arrived. (Umm excuse me, what?) That didn't last long. By the time the doctor got to my room, Brady was pretty much here.

Brady was born at 1:48 pm on Friday, August 19th. And it was the most surreal and overwhelming feeling in the whole world. His Apgar was an 8/9. He weighed 6 lbs, 13.5 oz. He measured 19.5 inches long and his head circumference was 12.5 inches. During our hospital stay, he passed his hearing screening, congenital heart defect screening, and jaundice screening.

Last picture with just the 2 of us!

First picture as a family of 3!

We look absolutely exhausted!

I stayed for the required 48 hours and we got to go home on Sunday. I seriously can't believe they let us just walk out with him! I feel like I should have passed a test or something first!

The first week at home has been rough to say the least. We literally have NO IDEA what we are doing, but we are trying to figure it out one day at a time. We are sleep-deprived, emotional (me, not Eric), and hot messes, but we are so in love with our Brady boy and he makes everything so worth it.

He has already had his first newborn checkup at the pediatrician. He weighed 5 lbs 14 oz (so tiny!), but overall, the doctor said he looks great and we go back next week.

I honestly could not have done this whole thing without Eric at my side. He was my cheerleader and supporter in that delivery room, and I am so grateful for him. He has been the best dad to Brady and I'm so glad we are figuring this out together.

Now that Brady is here, I am hoping to start posting his monthly updates for everyone to read about. His one month update will be coming before we know it!