the cutest baby

completely biased and unashamed... but how cute is my baby!

i snapped this photo of him on sunday and he seriously looks good enough to eat. i can barely deal with the cuteness. 

baby alex, you are adorable! ♥

a jar of jam

i always used to make jokes about having a third baby so i could complete my neapolitan ice cream tub. i'd say that i had my strawberry and my vanilla and that i just needed a chocolate baby to round it out. obviously i am well aware that the chances were slim to none, but i held fast with my comments, saying that if doug came out red as a throw back, why couldn't we have throw back to a previous darker generation haha.

but here he is - and he's in no way a chocolate baby. i've given up on my neo dream, because i got a jar of jam!
joseph alex and madeline,
two strawberries with a dash of vanilla. they are perfect and i couldn't love them more if i tried! ♥

baby alexander: one month old

look at this little chunkster! he was one month old two days ago, but with our trip to rottnest and sam leaving i haven't had a chance to get to this post, so here we are...

baby alexander has just fitted perfectly into our family. he is warm and cuddly and oh so cute. i am in love, the kids are in love, doug is great with him and it's been so easy to have him join our family. we are all just a little bit obsessed.

i have covered everything that happened at the hospital within the first week in previous posts, but here is what has happened since:
- alex had a pucker mark at the bottom of his spine, kind of like a dimple, which the hospital decided to check just to be sure. they did an ultrasound and it all came back a-ok. so okay in fact, that he was so relaxed and cozy that he fell asleep and the ultrasound tech asked us if she could have one of the girls in training come in and look because it was such a perfect still view of a babys spine, as most of them cry and won't stay still. what a good boy!
- in just two weeks, he put on almost 500g. that is phenomenal.
- a few times overnight he has slept for almost 5 hours. keep it up kid!
- he has already begun to turn his head when he hears voices he knows
- miss madeline loooooves to carry him about and show him off. a few of the mums at school have been horrified thinking she had a doll and then realised it was actually a baby!
- he just loooooves his food. just before a month old, he ate 6 times (like proper feeds, not just a little suck) between 4-9am. what a guts, no wonder he's putting on so much weight!

baby alex, you are so beautiful and we are so happy to have you in our lives! ♥

baby alexander james kendall

well, he is here! baby alexander james kendall arrived in a rush this afternoon, at 1:47pm, weighing 3550g (7lb, 8oz). he is the sweetest little babe and i am obsessed already! he has dark blue eyes and a little tuft of red hair at the back of his head... another redhead to add to our little clan! he looks very similar to madeline as a baby - and is basically a carbon copy of his daddy!

i was induced yet again, when i reached 41weeks+3days (the longest they allow you to go overdue here in wa) at midland hospital. the midwife broke my water at 12 noon and we waited. an hour passed and towards the end i was having small contractions (which i could feel), but nothing really huge enough to show well on the machine that measures them, so the midwife said she assumed the dr would ask them to start the drip which triggers them. thankfully when she arrived at the end of the hour to check in, she said she'd asked her superior and i was given permission to go another hour and see where i was at once that was over.

well... that was when the action began. i started to feel really unwell and went into the bathroom, cried for a bit to doug and then came back to the bed. then boom, it all happened at once. huge contractions began... i was fully dilated and had to start pushing. i know now, my full labour period was a very brief 17 minutes, which left all the midwives in complete shock... and my baby in the special care nursery! :(

my poor student midwife ash couldn't do anything more than watch as midwives ran about... no one expected it to happen so quickly, so much so in fact that the midwife (sam) who was looking after me had gone to have her lunch break while nothing was happening, left me with another midwife (georgia) and walked in just in time to catch the baby. my entire labour and delivery happened within that half hour period. nuts!

baby had a brief feed a while after he was born, then doug had a very short hold but his breathing began to speed up and he was taken off to the nursery to be assessed. i was feeling positive, but eventually hours later had a little cry when it was all apparent that i would not only not be taking him home the following day, but that i wouldn't even be taking him to my room. it's looking to be a long few days ahead.

this pic we snapped prior to being moved to special care is so dear to me, baby alex looks exactly like his daddy as a baby. so so cute!

being assessed in special care by the lovely midwives. they were all so amazing and reassuring. i'm so grateful we were in a good place to be cared for so well.