Ethan, the big brother!

Sunday, September 9th, 2012, 4:30am...

Tammy "Dale... WAKE-UP! My water broke!"

Me "Huh?  What?... Crap.. k, I'm up..."

Still in a daze, I get up and start putting gathering our prepared bags for the hospital, we call Eileen (or.. mom), and say "Tammy's water broke, can you come now?"

As we wait, I see something in Tammy's face that I don't ever recall seeing, fear. She was actually scared of this. Not really sure why, maybe it was just that she was startled because of the 'water'. Maybe it was knowing the pain of labour? Either way, I knew I had one option... comfort her.

Eileen shows up, we show her what she needs to know and are on our way to St.B!

We got there around 5:45 or so, get a room just after 6:30am, all the nurses are extremely nice and comforting! Tammy's confidence is back, and it's visible... as is the pain. (Interesting side note: Tammy, when in pain is actually quite quiet. At 6cm's, she barely said a word about the pain).

Last time, as some of you know Tammy was put in a room of 3 other moms, and stuffed in a corner because "She doesn't have her baby, so she doesn't need the room.". This time the question "Would you like a Private room, or semi-private." the answer... "Private, no question about it." And we got one, it was a HUGE room too!

Our Dr., Dr. Best isn't in, but we get a Dr. Katz, who was FANTASTIC! Very calm, very kind, and OH EHM GEE efficient!

The first question Tammy asks our nurse "Am I still in the window for an epidural, I know it's closing fast if I am.?".. the answer wasn't one she wanted to hear. "It's closing fast, and it's shift change for them."

Anyway, we wait, and wait, and wait until Tammy says "Ok, it's time to push!" So, the nurses start working with her to push, as am I. The nurse had given Tammy N2O2 to inhale (laughing gas), which did help her both in breathing and taking the edge off. But... it certainly didn't help much with the actual pain.

Then... it's go time! Dr. Katz had just walked in after about an hour and 15 minutes of pushing and announces "It's not up to him when he comes" (yes, we told the doctor we knew what it was).

At 11:22am (15-20 minutes later), we have a 9lbs 2oz baby boy! Yes, you read that right...and without any pain killers!

So, after the clean up, and the other not so pretty stuff, visitors start showing up. I take that opportunity to go home and clean myself up (change the Dill smelling hoodie I am wearing), and bring Ethan back to the hospital to meet his new little "big" brother. True to form, Ethan points to Tammy and declares "Momma!" then sees Dean "BABY!" We take a few pictures. my mom and Auntie Heather take Ethan down for supper, when they come back up he had learnt 2 new words "Dean" and "brother". then, he proceeded to put on a show for everyone!

Dean, had decided to put on a show for mommy and daddy earlier, taking to eating fairly quickly (though, hasn't perfected yet), peeing, and even pooping!

As Ethan is at home, I leave mommy and Dean to take care of him.

The next morning I receive a text message "When does Ethan go to daycare?' And.."Ok, I'll be there before then, I have some stuff to drop off."

I wait till Eileen (mom), shows up, she says "It's sort of heavy, can I get a hand?" I walk out the door...and BAM! Uncle Dave had flown in over night to be here!

He and I take Ethan to day care and head to the hospital. I walk in, Tammy is like "who is that?" behind me... then "WHAT THE????" It was a great surprise!

We find out VERY early that Dean is being discharged today, and by 11:22am we're already loading the car up. What a day! Something neither Tammy or I have ever experienced before... taking a baby home when they should be taken home. This also poses new challenges... like "who is going to take care of this baby for us!" lol

What a great day, and on Auntie Heather's b-day to boot!

When Ethan got home we ate supper and he wanted to see Dean a bit closer up. As we had Dean in his car seat, Ethan and I rocked him gently in it. What a sweet big brother!

I have a feeling this is the beginning of a B-E-A-utiful friendship! I also have a feeling that Tammy and I should be a bit worried! haha!

Blog Description

Last year our blog description at the top of the page was as follows.....

Ethan Hardy Carriere was born January 8th, 2011, a more beautiful baby one has never seen (obviously our unbiased opinion). Sadly however, his life so far has not been easy. This is our blog about his life, the challenges, the triumphs! Hope you enjoy!


Thought it was time to change it to a more positive message since the tough times are over! Thank God!

A few videos for your enjoyment!

Playing in the pool with Gramma

Beginning of the bouncing

Apparently this is how Ethan likes to play his piano

Beginning of the army crawl!

Jumping, jumping, jumping!

There's one other video where we're helping Ethan to walk, but it's taking too long to upload and it's waaayyyy past my bedtime! So will try again soon!

XOXOXO

Ethan is ONE YEAR OLD!

I still cannot believe we just celebrated Ethan's birthday! Over the past couple of weeks we've been reminiscing about where we were at this time last year.....right now Ethan was still in the NICU at St Boniface, had 2 major surgeries, was transported in an ambulance from one hospital to another, was poked and prodded, had been intubated twice, had a catheter twice, had IVs in every limb and even his scalp and a pic-line in his leg, had an NG tube from his nose down to his stomach, had spent a lot of time under billireuben lights....and many, many, many more things......BUT all that being said, we are so happy and thankful that we are here today and that he is healthy, happy, thriving and getting so much bigger and stronger every day!

We had Ethan's birthday party on Saturday, January 7th and there were soooo many people there to help us celebrate! The kids (and adults) seemed to have a lot of fun with the magician. Ethan LOVED the cake! Check out the pictures below! And then on Sunday, January 8th, his actual birthday, we had a nice day at home and he got to have a cupcake after lunch (which was devoured!)

I started back to work on Monday, January 9th. It has been bittersweet....I'm sad for me that I went from 12 hours a day with him down to about 3.5. Quite a shock! He's been doing really great with our friends Dave & Andi, they have 2 children of their own (Chloe is 2.5 and Christian is just a few months younger that Ethan) and they all have lots of fun together. So despite me wanting to be selfish and keep him to myself, it is really great for him to interact and play all day long! :)

Ethan took his first couple of steps this past Sunday (January 15th). Hasn't really taken many since. In the afternoon Dale and I were sitting on the floor helping him walk between us and then later that evening we were chatting and Ethan used the laundry basket on the floor to pull himself up to standing, took about 3 steps and dove head first right into the basket full of clothes and started laughing like crazy! We were clapping and saying, "YAY!" and he puffed up his chest and had a big, proud smile on his face! So precious!

Here are pictures from his birthday! He's had cake before, but never left to his own devices on how he wanted to eat it.......watch as the story unfolds........ :)

Well that's about as up to date as I can get! Hopefully it won't be another 6 months before we post again! Hope you are all well! Love you!!

XOXOXO

A lot can (and did) happen from Summer to Winter!

Needless to say it has been quite a long time since out last post. Many things have happened...lots of good stuff and no health issues! Which is so nice to report! I am going to try to put together a summary of the past few months!! (Also apologizing in advance for any spelling/grammar errors, I'm typing fast and it's pretty late!

In the summer we went to London and Aylmer Ontario for Grandpa Hardy & Grandma Loey's wedding and we had a great time! Ethan was really good on the plane, which we were a bit worried about! On the way home one woman a few rows up from us said, "What? There was a baby on this plane? Way to go Momma!" We spent time with friends and family and had so much fun at the wedding....I was able to put Ethan in a wrap and we danced all night while he slept peacefully. We also spent a weekend at our friends' cabin, which was lots of fun and interesting....Ethan was just starting to eat solids so we had a few mishaps with gagging/throwing-up! And we took a day trip out to Gimli to visit Auntie Heather and another day we went to Camp Morton to visit friends that were camping there. Attended a few birthday parties and a family reunion!

Grandpa Hardy & Grandma Loey

Sleeping on the plane

Our sweet little family :) 

All the kids at the annual Hardman BBQ

A day by the pool with Gramma Eileen

Out at the cabin

Learning to eat....and make a mess!!

In the fall, which really did still feel like summer because it was so warm! We were a little more relaxed, we went for a lot of walks with the stroller because the summer months were just too hot for the Little Man...and for Mommy! Attended a few more birthdays, had a visit from Grandpa and Uncle Dave because they came in for Daddy's bachelor party at the end of September. For Halloween Ethan has a skeleton costume for inside and an elephant one for outside, we didn't really do trick-or-treating, just went to visit both Grandma's.....next year will be fun because he'll understand it a bit more! We also attended the Harvest Party at St Boniface Hospital, a party for all of the NICU graduates - it was nice to see some of the nurses and talk to some parents that can relate to us....even met a 3 year old little girl that had a very similar diagnosis at Ethan and she was bouncing off the walls just like him!!

Looking cute and checking out some new teeth coming in!

(he now has 4 on top and 5 on the bottom, one of which is a molar! And he really doesn't fuss about the pain at all!)

Elephant costume

Harvest Party!

One night when Ethan would not go to bed for Daddy. He thought it was funny, Dale not so much! 

Skeleton outfit

Smiling for the camera

Saying CHEESE after a bath!

In November Dale and I got married and the day was wonderful! It was everything we wanted! We were hoping Ethan would stay awake until his favourite song "Moves Like Jagger" came on (seriously, it is his favourite song!) But he didn't last and fell asleep with our MC Heather during dinner! As most of you know, he slept peacefully in everyone's arms and we were able to put him down in the playpen in the room off to the side at the Millennium Centre. We were so glad that Grandpa, Grandma Loey, Uncle Dave, Auntie Marj, Uncle Skip, Shawna, Kristi, Mikey, and Veronica were all able to come in from out of town to celebrate with us as well as the rest of our Mommas, family and friends from in Winnipeg (sorry too many to name!). Ethan was pulling himself up and standing really well. And if you know him at all you know that he is forever jumping and has been since the first moment we put him in the exersaucer and jolly jumper! He also had his first fall and fat lip, but he's pretty tough and was okay after a couple of minutes. With his new found mobility (army crawl) and being able to pull himself up really well Ethan has a new-found love of "helping" me around the house - the pictures below say it all! We spent Christmas morning just the 3 of us having breakfast, opening gifts and Ethan took a nap before we headed over to Gramma Eileen's, where we got together with her, Doug, Uncle Dave, Grandma Leesie, and Auntie Heather. Ethan was soooo spoiled! In December, we lost my dear sweet God Father and life-long friend of my Dad's, Don Hutchinson. We are so glad that we were able to spend quite a bit of time with him and Lucy this past year. In Ontario our rooms were side-by-side, we went for lunch, chatted every day, sat together at the wedding and they were also involved in our wedding so we spent the rehearsal, wedding day and day after together. I'm so glad that Ethan was able to spend time with Uncle Don and that they got to know eachother, the photos of them will always be cherished. <3

Unloading the dishwasher

Being SUPER helpful with the laundry that I had just folded!

I almost cried because I was laughing so hard - he had a huge smile and was proud of his "helping"!

~~~~~~

I won't be putting a caption with each of these, so here are a few photos from our wedding....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Uncle Don with Ethan in Ontario <3

Pops, Hutch and Lil Mr.

Ethan's cute little bum on Christmas morning checking out the tree and opening a gift by pulling teeny-tiny pieces of paper off and handing each one to me!

With his farm from Santa!

I just previewed this post and it's humungous! But I'm not going back and dividing it into multiple smaller ones, so sorry about the length! I will sign off here and post a new one for Ethan's birthday and another one with videos if I'm able to upload them, sometimes it takes too long and times out.....

Talk Soon!!!!