Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! We hope you had a happy and safe holiday! This week went pretty well with the exception of the lack of sleep! Emma still has her days and nights confused so most of our days are spent in a zombie like state. :) We took Emma in for her 2 week checkup which went really well. She's up to 8 pounds even and everything looks good. She's gained about half an inch of height and about half a pound of weight since being born. Her next appointment will be in February for her 2 month checkup and her first set of shots. She definitely has an appetite and is eating quite a bit and quite often.

Christmas this year was a lot of fun. Christmas Eve we had family over and Caitlin seemed to enjoy opening gifts for herself, Emma, Maddie, you name it. :) Christmas morning I got up a little early to setup the camcorder so we could record Caitlin's reaction when she saw her gifts. She seemed a little stunned when she came downstairs and saw what Santa had brought for her. She immediately started playing with her new kitchen set and then spent a good part of the morning sitting in her new wagon opening gifts. She likes spending time with each gift after opening it before opening another so her gift unwrapping took almost 4 hours! She got a lot of nice presents and enjoyed opening presents for Emma as well.

This week Emma also got to meet a lot of her family. Her family from Corpus Christi came out to see her early in the week and then Christmas afternoon her Grampa Andres, Aunt Cuqui, Uncle Fernando and cousins Steven and Lissette. This week will be my last week home before returning to work. It seems like it's gone way too fast!

1st week home

What a week! Last week was our first week home with Emma and we're starting to get into a routine. Emma is pretty well behaved and doesn't cry too often. The hardest part right now is that her days and nights are switched so sleep at night is incredibly hard to come by. We've both tried sleeping during the day with mixed results. I have a really hard time sleeping during the day so most days I've felt like a zombie. :) Although we're not getting much sleep right now, I will say that things are definitely easier this time around. I think a lot has to do with the fact that both Toni and I were a little more prepared having gone through all this with Caitlin. This week Emma also got her first bath which she really didn't enjoy much. After getting out of the bath, her hair became very fluffy. We thought when she was born that she had curly hair but it looks like she got my straight hair just like Caitlin did. Right now, we both think Emma looks a lot like Caitlin did when she was born. I'll try to put together some side by side pics soon.

Caitlin has done very well with Emma so far and her favorite thing to say now is "baby sister is so cute!". She's been very helpful with Emma and will help us when we're changing Emma's diaper and will come see if everything is alright when Emma cries in the night. She's taking to her role as big sister very well. :) She also likes to give Emma her pacifier and likes to feed her. She also makes a point to kiss Emma and tell her goodbye every time we leave the house and is always very anxious to see Emma when she gets home.

Emma got several visitors this week which was nice. Cousin Maddie came over with Uncle Dan and Aunt Sarah. It was nice to have everyone together and watch the girls together. It's gonna be so cool in a few years when they're all old enough to play together. Emma was also visited by her Nana Bev as well as her Grampa Joe and Magda. This weekend Toni's family from Corpus Christi stopped by to meet Emma. Caitlin had a lot of fun playing with her cousins and visiting with her Aunt and Uncle. Next weekend Caitlin will get to meet more family including her Grampa Andres who is extremely eager to meet her and to visit with Caitlin. He talks to Caitlin pretty much every night and I think Caitlin is very excited to see him as well.

This week should go by fast and I really hope we can get some sleep. I'm looking forward to Christmas this year. Caitlin knows how to open her presents now and I think she's going to be so excited on Christmas morning!

Emma Faith Vargas

This was an incredible week in which we got to welcome our 2nd daughter, Emma Faith into the world! So much has happened that I'm sure I'm going to miss something but I'll try to put down everything I can think of. The week started out with a sonogram that estimated that Emma was weighing between 8 lbs 3 ounces and 8 lbs 13 ounces! Toni spent a good part of the week having warm up contractions and on Thursday night we went to the hospital with a false alarm. They sent us home but on Friday around noon, Toni's water broke and we were sure that it wasn't going to be a false alarm! Overall, this delivery was a lot easier for Toni. The labor lasted only 8 hours compared to the 16 for Caitlin and Emma came out so easily that we actually weren't sure she had even come out! Overall, Toni was pushing for about 45 minutes.

Emma came into the world at 7:40pm on Friday, December 10th. She weighed 7 lbs 11 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long. A full 1 pound lighter and 1 inch shorter than Caitlin was. Her head measured 14 inches and her chest 14 1/2. Everything checked out good on her health screenings and I spent several hours with her at the nursery until they cleared her to go back to Toni's room. The only problem we had was that she had swallowed a lot of amniotic fluid so she was spitting up quite a bit and didn't want to eat much. The nurses suctioned out a large amount of fluid from her stomach later that night and she was able to start eating without any problem. She definitely has a big appetite and will guzzle down her formula very fast. I have a feeling she's gonna pack on the weight pretty quick. Because of the problem with the fluid in her stomach, they kept Emma and Toni at the hospital until today just to make sure that Emma was eating and that there were no problems. Both Toni and Emma were released today with clean bills of health. It was an interesting feeling driving home with my 2 girls in the back seat and Toni said, we've got a full car now. It kinda hit me at that moment that I now have 2 little girls!

Caitlin is doing pretty well with Emma. She enjoys holding her until she starts crying at least. :) She knows her name and is very concerned whenever Emma cries. There's definitely some jealousy right now but that's to be expected. She is being very clingy toward me whenever I have Emma. We're making sure she feels included and I think she's going to do fine. In the picture that she's crying, I think she thought Emma was in pain or sick when she saw her in the nursery. She even had tears in her eyes. :(

So far, we both would have to say that it's definitely easier the second time around. Thankfully the stress level isn't nearly as high as it was when Caitlin was born and I think that has a lot to do with having already gone through it and knowing what to expect. Emma seems pretty quiet so far and even when she does cry, it's not the ear splitting crying of colic. Hopefully we won't have to re-live that! Tonight will be our first night at home with her and hopefully it will go well. It's an amazing feeling holding Emma and Caitlin in my arms. I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are the 2 things that I am most proud of in my life.

I'd like to thank everyone who followed the last few days either here or on Facebook. We're both thankful to have so many good friends and family and appreciate all of the support during this incredible experience. Toni will be off work the next 6 weeks and I'll be off the next 3 helping take care of Emma. As always, I'll continue chronicling the lives of the Vargas family and hope you'll continue to follow it.

Emma Faith

Emma Faith Vargas

7 lbs 11 ounces. Born 7:40pm. Baby and mom are doing great!

10!

10! She's gonna start pushing soon!

8 cm's

8 cm's dilated. The epidural seems like it's not working as well as it should on her left side and she's feeling a lot of pain. They've adjusted it and hopefully it'll help with the pain.

Epidural taken

They've given Toni the epidural and started the Pitocin. Contractions are already measuring a steady 60 out of 100 and peaking over 100.

4 Cm's

We're all checked into the hospital and they've started an I.V. Currently at 4cm's. They are going to start the Pitocin soon to move the contractions along. Contractions are showing around 40 out of 100 on the charts but are spiking to 75 every now and then. Probably take the epidural along with the Pitocin.

It's on!

Water has broken! We're at the hospital now. Looks like Emma is coming today!

December 13th

This was another busy one for us. On Monday Caitlin had an eye appointment which went well. We have an annual appointment to check on her eye and everything came back good. You may recall that Caitlin's right eye muscle never developed so her right eye won't move to the right. It sounds worse than in actually is. It doesn't affect her vision at all and to compensate, she simply turns her head to the right. They want to check it once a year to make sure that there's nothing getting worse. The other big news was that Toni had 2 appointments for Emma. Both went very well and the Doctor now wants to induce labor early and as of right now, we're scheduled for induction on Monday December 13th at 5:00am. That will mark week 39 for us in the pregnancy. Her diabetes Doctor wants to do a sonogram this coming Wednesday and there's a chance we may be induced even earlier than that. We'll see what happens..

Toni is ready for Emma to be born. The constant heartburn, difficulty getting around and the sleepless nights are starting to wear her out. Watching her stomach quiver when Emma pushes on her looks extremely uncomfortable to me. Not to mention I half expect a re-enactment from Aliens and an arm to come ripping out of her stomach! It doesn't look comfortable at all. We'll hit 38 weeks tomorrow and honestly neither of us are sure that we'll make it to next Monday without Emma coming on her own. Toni is already dilated to 2cm's so I think it's gonna be close.

This weekend we got all of Caitlin and Emma's presents wrapped for Christmas and even got their new kitchen set put together. Unfortunately it's so heavy that we couldn't easily get it into the garage so we decided to instead move it against a wall in the living room and cover it with a blanket. So far Caitlin hasn't noticed it so hopefully we'll make it to Christmas without her curiosity getting to her and her finding it. :)

Caitlin continues to amaze us every day. This morning she wanted to help make pancakes for breakfast and went to the drawer and go the measuring cup out all by herself. Then she sat on the counter stirring the pancake mix. She was so proud of herself. :) She's talking so much and learns new words so fast. I sneezed this morning and she looked at me and said, "bless you daddy". Tonight I was getting her clothes together to bring them downstairs and she started helping. In fact, she loaded her laundry basket all by herself. It's amazing how fast she's learning. She refers to Toni's belly as Emma and calls Emma her baby sister. She's also told us that she's going to be a big sister. :) I think she's excited but I'm not sure how much she fully understands what's going on though. Friday Caitlin got to go on a field trip at school. They went to the San Antonio Zoo to ride the kiddie train. Caitlin was so excited to tell me about the "cho-choo train" after she got home. Toni was able to stop by to have lunch with her and I think they both had a lot of fun. Today she also watched The Wizard of Oz for the first time and she really seemed to enjoy it.

Toni has a Doctor appointment tomorrow and then a sonogram on Wednesday. Wednesday we should get the final word about the induction date and if she doesn't come on her own before then, it's looking like Emma will be born December 13th! I'll let everyone know how things go! Should be an interesting week. Stay tuned....

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We hope you had a great holiday. We enjoyed our time together a lot. We started the week with an appointment for Emma. Everything looks good and her heart rate sounded good. It averaged in the 140's which is where it should be. They are now talking about inducing labor after 39 weeks which means 2 weeks after tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll hit 37 weeks! There were no contractions measured during Toni's tests which was a little unusual because she started having small contractions with Caitin around week 34 if I remember correctly. Toni has 2 appointments on Tuesday to check on Emma and the final sonogram has been pushed back to the following week (week 38). At the sonogram they will make their decision about induction so we should know the date soon. I'm kinda hoping for 12/11/10 but we'll see what happens. :)

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. On Thursday we made a small Turkey dinner here and had Nana Bev and Grampa Bob come over. We had a nice and relaxing day here at the house. In one of the pictures, you can see that Caitlin is even helping Toni cut green beans with her plastic knife. :) Today we went over to Nana Bev's house to have dinner with them and Aunt Sarah, Uncle Dan and Cousin Maddie. We had a lot of fun and Caitlin especially enjoyed herself. She got really into watching Star Wars at one point on TV and no matter how much Maddie climbed on her or pulled her hair, she just kept watching it. She also had fun chasing Mandy (the dog) around the house. We had a great meal and Caitlin especially enjoyed her Turkey. She's so polite asking saying please and thank you when she wants something. :) When we got home tonight we went outside and installed Emma's carseat in our cars. Needless to say, we now both have essentially no back seats to speak of. :)

Yesterday we took Caitlin to the mall to get pictures with Santa. We got there when they opened and Caitlin was really excited about seeing Santa until he actually came out. Once she saw him, she wanted nothing to do with him. She immediately started crying and the picture here is the best picture of the bunch. :) It was funny though that as we were leaving and were a good distance away from Santa, she started waving bye-bye and blowing him kisses! Maybe next year she'll be more excited and will smile in the picture. For now, we have another year with a picture of Caitlin vs. Santa. :) After the pictures, we went and walked around the mall for a little bit and did some shopping for Caitlin with a coupon we got from the picture place. We got her some nice clothes and she really enjoyed walking around. She did really good holding my hand and walking with us until the very end when she was tired and wanted to go home. Later on, we went and got our Christmas tree and later on we decorated it. Caitlin did a good job putting on ornaments but it became immediately clear that any important ornaments that we don't want broken will need to go on the top half of the tree..... The tree came out nice and I'll try to post a pic next week. Friday we also took Caitlin down to see Elmo at the Freeman Coliseum. It was a cute show for her and she seemed to enjoy it until the end. Toward the end she started getting bored and wanted to walk around. :)

There's been 2 other things that I've been meaning to post but keep forgetting about. Caitlin has started saying her name! She will point to herself and say, "my name Kate". It's cute to listen to her. She can't quite say her whole name yet but it's amazing to us both to listen to her. The other thing she's started doing is when we ask her how much she loves us, she'll spread her arms wide and say "big!" Totally awesome. :)

This week should be pretty busy. Tomorrow afternoon I'm taking off work to take Caitlin to her annual eye appointment. Hopefully that'll go well. Toni has 2 appointments on Tuesday and then we'll probably try to take care of any loose ends including getting Toni's bag packed and in my car and finishing decorating the house. We're definitely in the home stretch now and while this pregnancy has gone much faster than Caitlin's, it hasn't hit me yet that we're actually going to have another baby soon! When Cailtin was born, I chronicled the delivery through this blog but this time, I'll probably update everyone via Facebook. If anyone who follows this blog isn't friends on Facebook, send me a request and I'll add you on so you can keep up with the action. Hope everyone has a great week.

Counting to 14!!!!

This week was pretty exciting. Toni had an appointment for Emma on Tuesday and 2 Doctors did sonograms and both came to the same conclusion - Emma is getting big! They currently estimate her to be around 6 lbs, 11 ounces and judging by Toni's belly, they're now talking about inducing labor early! Toni has another sonogram scheduled the week after next and then they will set the induction date. So it's looking right now that Emma will be born sometime between the 6th-14th of December. It all really comes down to what day the Doctor is at the hospital. Seems crazy that in as little as 2 weeks, we'll be welcoming Emma into the world. Everything with the appointment went well and her heart rate was 147. She had her hands in front of her face so we weren't able to get any good pics but it looks like before long we'll have plenty of good photo opportunities. :) Toni is ready for Emma to be born. The sleepless nights fighting heartburn and the difficulty doing pretty much anything are wearing on her. Hopefully it won't be too much longer. :)

This week I applied for FMLA and we continued getting Christmas decorations up. We put up an old fashioned aluminum Christmas tree complete with modern LED color wheel. Caitlin helped decorate it and it looks really nice. Caitlin had fun putting the ornaments on but seemed to like grouping them together. At one point we had a blob of at least 6 ornaments on one branch! We also put up a Snoopy inflatable lawn display which Caitlin seems to really like. We went out this morning and she walked over to it and started pointing at it. When we started pulling out of the driveway, she started saying, "bye-bye Snoopy".

The biggest news for Caitlin this weekend was that she actually counted to 14 on her own! Granted, she skips the number 2 every time but she got all the other numbers down. I was completely shocked listening to her count! She's done it several times and it is still amazing to me!

This week should be nice with Thanksgiving. I'm going to make dinner for Toni and Caitlin and then on Sunday we're getting together with my family to celebrate. It should be fun. I'd also like to take a moment to congratulate my Cousin Jill and her husband Nate, they announced that they are expecting their first child in May of next year! We wish them all the best as they go into parenthood! I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

Starting to decorate!

Well, this was another busy one for us! The week started pretty chaotic. Last Sunday night Caitlin was sick. She was throwing up quite a bit so I took Monday off and took her to the Doctor. Turns out she had a stomach virus. A lot of rest and Pedialyte and by Tuesday she was back to her old self. While I was at the Doctor with Caitlin, Toni had 2 appointments for Emma. Both went well but judging by the measurements on her stomach, both the diabetes specialist and her normal Doctor are now saying that they may induce labor early. All of Emma's vitals look good but they are concerned about her getting too big. Toni has a sonogram this week and they should have a little better idea about Emma's size then. Toni's belly has gotten pretty big now and she's definitely ready for Emma to be born. As for all of the women out there who say that being pregnant is a beautiful thing, Toni just ain't seeing it! It's getting pretty hard for her to do day to day things like getting up off the couch even and sleep is pretty hard to come by. Emma's very active and keeps her up most nights.

This week I was on call so I just stayed around the house most nights. I got called a few times, once at 1:30 in the morning but overall it wasn't as bad as the last time. We spent most of our time cleaning and getting Emma's stuff ready. All of her bibs, burp cloths and newborn clothes are ready to go. We've got her room pretty much "move in ready" and it's become Caitlin's new favorite place to play. She particularly enjoys hiding in Emma's closet and then throwing the doors open and running towards us making a roar sound trying to scare us. This week she also was clingier that normal with me and a lot fussier with Toni. We think she knows something is going on and isn't sure about it. I think she'll do fine once Emma is here though.

This weekend started on Friday night with Caitlin going to get her hair cut. She did great and sat perfectly still for the stylist to cut her hair. I can't get over how much and how fast she's growing. Today she told me "Shiloh wants to go outside" and has been making several word sentences quite a bit. When we ask her how she's doing, she'll say, "I be good". Saturday night we had Aunt Sarah, Uncle Dan, Cousin Maddie, Nana Bev and Grampa Bob come over for pizza and a movie. We had a lot of fun and watched Iron Man 2. Today I started taking some of our Christmas stuff out. I know, it's a little early but I figure if Emma comes early, we may not have a lot of time so I'd rather do it now. Caitlin had a lot of fun and was super excited when she saw the stuff coming out of the boxes. She kept saying "wow!". She even put all of the lights in the ceramic Christmas tree by herself! It was incredible to watch and she was was so proud of herself! For the rest of the night she kept pointing at the tree saying "I did it".

Hopefully this week will be uneventful and we'll get good news at the Doctor. I plan on signing up for FMLA this week and maybe doing a little more decorating with Caitlin. Hope everyone has a great week!

Charlie Brown Christmas tree!

Sorry for the late post this week. We had quite a weekend... The excitement started on Saturday afternoon when Toni started having Braxton-Hicks contractions (warm-up contractions). She had gotten these with Caitlin at 36 weeks and they weren't too severe but this time was a completely different story. These contractions were rough and brought tears to her eyes. There was actually a couple hours there that I was thinking we might end up having to take her to the hospital if they kept up. Luckily, they subsided although she still had a couple on Saturday night and Sunday morning. She had an appointment with the Doctor today for a non-stress test and everything looks good with Emma and there's no concern about her contractions. These contractions happened more than 2 weeks earlier than they did with Caitlin though so I'm starting to think that Emma isn't going to wait the full 40 weeks. This pregnancy has been a lot different than it was with Caitlin and I'll be glad when we're though it and Emma is born and healthy. At the appointment today, the Doctor said that she will be giving Toni 2 more sonograms and will decide after the 2nd one whether to induce early or not based on Emma's size. Toni has appointments every week from here on out. We hit week #34 today which is a good thing. I read that a baby born in week 34 has a 98% chance of survival and the same chance of growing up healthy as a baby that goes full term! The most shocking thing I found though was that a baby born at 34 weeks 40 years ago (2 years before I was born) would have had only a 25% chance of survival!

Toni's contractions were just the start to our weekend. On Sunday morning around 2:30am, Caitlin woke up throwing up. We got her cleaned up and took her to our room where she threw up again. :( In total, she threw up around 7 times on Sunday. The only thing she could keep down was Pedialyte. This morning I took her to the Doctor and the Doctor said she's seen a lot of cases of kids with a stomach virus like this and as long as Caitlin was able to hold down liquid and wasn't running a fever, she should be ok. I stopped and got her some medicine the Doctor recommended to help with her stomach and kept her home from school today. She didn't get an appetite until around 2:30 but when she did, she seemed to do pretty well. So far she's managed to keep down lunch and even wanted chocolate milk. She seems to be doing better so she should be able to go back to school tomorrow. We walked down to get the mail around 4:30 and she seemed to enjoy the fresh air. :)

This week also marked a major milestone for us. Wednesday, November 3rd marked 10 years since Toni and I met! I can't imagine where my life would be had I not gone to hang out at my friend Victor's house that night. Toni was there seeing Victor's wife and the rest is history. It doesn't seem possible that 10 years have passed but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that every aspect of my life is better today than it was 10 years ago. I really feel like I'm in a good place right now. :)

The only other news to report is that Emma's room is pretty much done. We've got a bunch of Tinkerbell stickers on the wall and we got her new dresser finished. Now we're just waiting for the big day! We also went to Home Depot this weekend where we found a Charlie Brown Christmas tree! We got it for Caitlin and she seems to love it! She also got a Snoopy snow globe which she's also enjoying quite a bit. I'm hoping Emma leaves us enough time that we can take Caitlin to see Santa again this year to get some pics. :) This month should fly by! I'm on call this week and I'm hoping it won't be too bad. I've already gotten 3 calls today though so it's not looking good. Hope everyone has a great week!

Happy Halloween and Happy Birthday Toni!

Happy Halloween everyone! This was a great weekend for the Vargas family! This year we took Caitlin trick-or-treating and we had a blast! At first Caitlin was hesitant about walking up to the houses but after the first couple, she was walking up and saying "trick-or-treat" like she's been doing it for years! It was so cute to watch her. After people would put candy in her bucket, she would say "thank you" and then "bye-bye". She got a lot of candy but no matter how often I offered to carry it for her, she kept saying no! She walked a couple of streets and carried her candy herself the whole time. I asked her a couple of times if she was having fun and she kept saying yes. :) Halloween is usually the one day of the year that I really miss being a kid but I have to admit that watching how excited Caitlin got made me really happy that I'm a parent. It's so amazing to watch her and see the world through her eyes. This was easily the best Halloween I've had in probably the last 25 years or so.

Today we also got to see Cousin Maddie, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dan. Maddie looked so cute in her flower outfit and Caitlin had a lot of fun playing with her. Toni went to a class today through the hospital for infant care and Caitlin and I hung out and watched some Peanuts and Garfield holiday specials and Lady and the Tramp. Caitlin loves Snoopy now and her favorite Peanuts show is definitely the Christmas special. Today we also carved our pumpkin which looked really cool tonight when we put a candle in it. Caitlin drew a face on her pumpkin (which you can see in the picture). She was very proud of herself and the job that she did. :)

This Friday we had a great day celebrating Toni's 39th birthday! We got up at the usual time and Caitlin gave Toni her present and card and then said "happy birthday mommy". It was so cool! Toni had an early appointment for Emma which went well. I took Caitlin to school a little later in the morning and then got everything together to bring to Caitlin's school to attend a Halloween party at her school. We had a great time having lunch with her and she really seemed to have fun. After lunch we had to take Caitlin to the Doctor though because her eyes had been red for a while and after lunch they were really red. We took Caitlin to the Doctor and the Doctor thought she might have pink eye so she told us to watch her and gave us a prescription but told us to only fill it if it got worse or hadn't cleared up by Sunday. By Sunday it had cleared up so the medicine wasn't necessary. Friday night we decided to take Caitlin with us to dinner at Shogun which was fun. Caitlin sat on my lap the whole time and let Toni enjoy her dinner. She loved the food and it was a great birthday for Toni.

The other big news this weekend was yesterday. Caitlin once again told us that she needed to use the potty and actually went and did it! We are both so proud of her! We also got a dresser for Emma that I put together and I think it looks really nice. Tomorrow marks week 33 in the pregnancy which means that pretty much any time within the next 7 weeks, we should be welcoming Emma into the world! Caitlin seems really excited and talks about Emma quite a bit!