Thursday, April 30, 2015

Aunt Stephanie

Aunt Stephanie also came last week on Friday as she didn't get to hold Carter either when he was born.  Laura also got to go shopping with Stephanie and Avery and left Carter home with me for a solid hour!!  She could only stay for the day, but Avery woke up the next morning and asked where Stephanie was.
 Carter was pretty cute that day.  Not quite a smile yet, but we are working on it.
 Stephanie getting the hang of bottle service.
 I think both of them had fun.

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

More Visits

I may have all of these visits in the wrong chronological order, but we have had a lot of family come and visit over the past few weeks.

My parents and sister came back because my dad had not had a chance to hold Carter yet.  For some reason, we didn't take a picture of it, but I did take a couple pictures of Mom and Dad spoiling Anna and Avery.

Those are Ru's hands pushing the girls in the wagon.
 And this is a picture of me pulling an empty wagon after the girls decided they wanted to get out and run.
 Gigi with her girls!

Friday, April 24, 2015

Visit from Papa

Also this past weekend, Papa came to visit as he didn't get a chance to hold Carter at the hospital because he had to go home before Carter got out of the NICU.

A smile for Papa.
 And then passed out shortly there after.
 Avery enjoyed the visit as well.  Here she is sneaking up on Papa to play something.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

First Date

This past weekend Mary, Jimmy, Easton, and Ellie came up for a visit to see Carter and to bring us some food (delicious).  As expected the big kids ran around like crazy people and the little kids took some pretty good naps. 

The little ones were awake at the same time and did take some pretty good pictures.  Ellie is about 4 months old and it was crazy to see how big Carter will be in a few weeks.

 The siblings were in love talking about their little baby.
 Carter going in to hold Ellies hand...
 4 cute kids.
 Ellie was wide awake
 The big kids (including Jimmy) also had a blast playing with all of the toys.

Friday, April 17, 2015

2 Weeks Old

Carter is now 2 weeks old.  We have been figuring out a routine at home, but I think we are getting the hang of it.  He spends more and more time awake each day and we are having a lot of fun figuring out his personality.
A cute little sleeping bear...
Milk drunk smiles and smirks...

 Avery reading a Easter Card to her little brother.




Thursday, April 16, 2015

Avery and Anna

While we were in the hospital; Gigi, Ru, and Sara brought Anna and Avery to visit.

The pictures were cute.
 Best Buddies.
 A hug for her cousin.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Take me out to the ballgame

On Tuesday before Carter arrived, NC State was playing UNCC in the new uptown baseball stadium.  While Avery preferred to go to a football game, we convinced her that a baseball game would be fun as well.

The view from the seats was pretty impressive of all the big buildings.
Avery wanted to be on the front rail for all of the action.
  A happy family of 3....
 Best Buddies!
 Nothing like snacks at a baseball game.

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Big Sister

The question we get asked most after "How Mommy and Carter is doing?" is "How is Avery liking her new brother?"  So far, she has been in love as much as we have been.  It obviously was a rough start to the new adventure, but Brittany Hunt (Lily's mom) and my mom did a great job taking care of Avery when it all went down.  

This is Avery's face the first time she saw her little brother.  
She didn't get to be too close to him as he was still in the special care nursery, but I think the smile says it all.
Once he made it to our room, Gigi brought her by for a closer look.
And once we were home, Avery did her best to try and help take care of the little guy.  Here she is making faces for him since he was actually awake for a little while.  She makes sure she says good night to him every night and goodbye every day leaving for school.


Thursday, April 9, 2015

The Story of Carter

Carter Edward Marshall was born on 4/3/15 at 3:51pm weighing in 5lbs, 9oz.  This is the story of his arrival.

Laura and I had planned on taking a few hours off on Friday afternoon to go look at a new car for the family without an impatient toddler begging us to leave at every turn.  This turned out to be one of the best decisions we have ever made.  Laura woke up early on the 3rd with a few contractions, but they didn't seem too severe and weren't very regular.  We thought they were the Braxton-Hicks contractions, so Laura just went on to work for a half day.  

She got home from work around 1:15 and said that the contractions got really strong on the drive home and started getting very frequent, very quickly.  She called into her doctor and they said to go ahead and come to the hospital.  Luckily I was working from home so we threw some things in the car, made her two PBJ sandwiches that she ate between screams, and went to the hospital around 1:45.  I apologize to everyone I cutoff and everyone I tailgated in order to get to the hospital, but it was obvious from the frequency and the volume of Laura's screams that something was going down.  I certainly didn't want to give birth on the side of 485, so Laura pushed through.

We showed up at the hospital around 2:15 and they wheeled her into the room.  They got her hooked up to IV's, monitors, and checked her dilation.  She was at 4cm and then around 15 minutes later it was up to 6.  They called for the anesthesiologist and started on her epidural.  It took him a few minutes to get it going, but it never really took.  During all of this the nurses were paying attention to the monitors with serious faces while we were waiting on the OB.  The OB showed up a few minutes later and checked her and Laura was fully dilated.  He took a look at the monitors and decided that we needed to have the baby now.  They broke her water and gave her a few minutes to see if Carter was going to come.  Within 2 minutes of the water being broke, we were headed to the operating room to have a c-section.  

I had to get dressed to go in, but I was told a few minutes later that I wouldn't get to come in.  Carter had to be taken out very quickly and they need to take care of him without me having to watch.  Laura also had to be put fully under as the epidural never had a chance to get fixed.  After hearing about how it went, I am glad that I was not there.

The nurses came to grab me around 4 o'clock and told me that my wife and my son were both doing ok.  Carter (unnamed at that point) needed to go into the Special Care Nursery, but I could come see him on the walk from the operating room to the nursery.

Have you ever seen such a cute, sad little face?

Carter had released meconium in the womb that was causing him distress and triggered the early arrival.  He had a tough time getting going coming out of the womb, but luckily the doctor had made the decision to get him out as quickly as he did and Carter was in the right place to be helped.

Carter would end up spending the next few days until Monday morning under the care of the Special Care nurses.  I got to go see him around 9pm that night while Laura was still recovering from her surgery.

Talk about tough...He had to have some help breathing to make sure his lungs opened up and antibiotics to get all of the meconium out of his system.  

He was able to get off of the oxygen early on Saturday morning and we were able to get a good luck at him.

I didn't get to hold him until the next morning on Saturday.


Laura was able to make it out of bed on Saturday afternoon to go meet him for the first time.  
Carter was in the Special Care Nursery until Monday morning, so several times a day I would hold Laura's hand as she shuffled down to the Nursery, scrub in, and get to hold Carter for his feedings.  We tried to let him rest as much as possible, but he struggled to get going on his eating.  Eventually he started to get the hang of it and came to our room Monday afternoon and we were able to head home on Tuesday.

Finally at peace with mommy.