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Terrific Thursday

We are still hanging strong in the hospital. Will's pediatrician says that we should be able to leave after his 5pm antibiotics. We haven't heard anything about the blood culture, but with these "no news is good news". Ella should be up here soon so that we can all play together for a little while. Oh, and William and I got an A+ for breastfeeding from the lactation consultant...so I guess that's going pretty well. I'll try not to put too many details about that on here, so you'll have to email me if you want more! We are having a great time just hanging out with our little guy and figuring out boys.

Mitchell Family Photo

Visitors

Grandma and Ella came up to visit and meet William:


Katy, Sara, Micah and Mimi came to visit and check in:

Michael, Katherine and Judah Kramer came by to bring us dinner and introduce the boys (pictured are Katherine with Judah & Andrea with William):

More William Pictures

I only had a few pictures on my camera, Sara has most of them on hers and there are a TON, so I put together the small amount of mine in a slideshow. It's about 7:30am on Wednesday and we are doing SO much better!! Joe and I have both gotten a fairly good amount of sleep, he's sleeping now as I play on the computer, you guys didn't actually expect me to stay away the whole time did you?? William is in the hospital nursery. After he was born last night it seemed like EVERYTHING took forever. We got to hang out with him for about an hour in the room afterwards and everyone got to hold him and kiss on him. About 9pm they took him to get washed and weighed (which is why updates took so long) and they did a LOT of bloodwork. I was still in recovery and didn't even get to my room until after 10pm (and FINALLY got to eat). They are treating William for GBS, which is the bacteria that made Ella so sick. I was given antibiotics the ENTIRE time I was here yesterday (every 4 hours) but they are being super cautious with Will. They are giving him the same meds that Ella had in the NICU and they are running a full blood culture on him. We will get some results by about 9 or 10 tonight, but they will continue with the antibiotics till the 48 hour culture is back (and clear). He has had a little bit of grunting, which is a cautious sign, but after I fed him last night (early this morning) he has seemed to be better. We finally got him in our room about 2AM, he had his first feeding and is taking to it very well. After eating at 2 they said he went back to the nursery and slept until they brought him back here around 5am and we fed again...he did great. He's a good sleeper and doesn't fuss much at all, but hates being uncovered from the blanket. He has a FULL head of dark hair and looks a LOT like Ella did when she was born. We would love your prayers that he continues to stay healthy and that the blood culture is 100% clear.

We are still trying to figure out how to manage visitation, so please be patient if we can't have everyone up. We'll find out today if we are going home Thursday or Friday, so we may be able to space people out a little better.

Ella hasn't met William yet, but we are hoping to have the whole family together at some point today. I got to see her for about 15 mins yesterday and it's SO hard being away from her, but she's being taken care of very well by Joe's folks.

More soon, I'm sure!!

Presenting....William Cutler Mitchell

William was born today at 7:51 pm ,7 lb 10 oz, 21 inches. He and mom are both doing great. Andrea did great in labor and made is look as easy as baking cookies. At this time we would like ask that you wait to visit until they have had a chance to settle and have some quality time as a family. I will post as soon as they are ready for visitors. If you would like to send flowers you can either send them c/o the 8th floor post pardum nurses station at Medical City Dallas or you can send them to the house. They should me going home on Thursday, however they are running a 48 hour round of antibiotics on Will to prevent him from any possibility of going through what Ella went through. Also I would like to request no Lillie since Andrea's allergy's have very low tolerance for strong fragrant flowers. The Mitchell's appreciate all of your prayers and thoughts over this time. Here are a few pictures I took and I am sure Andrea will post more once she is up and moving around.

In His Grip- Sara

5:45pm Update

As of 5:45pm we still have no baby. Doctor said things are looking good but Andrea is not making much progress. We are just waiting at this point for changes. Please say a prayer for safety, health and comfort for all involved as well as wisdom for the doctor making any decisions.
In His Grip- Sara

2:45pm Update

WATER IS BROKEN !!! The doctor came in 12:30 and broke Andrea's water. She s currently 4 cm and 75% efaced. They just increased her pitocin to help her contractions push Will down. I will update more as we get them. Andrea and Joe are doing well just ready to see their son. Be blessed.
In His Grip- Sara (andrea's sister)

Birth-day

Hanging out till "water breaking" at noon:

10:55AM...sorry, it took FOREVER to load that swimming video so I'm just now getting to update our day. We've been here since 6AM, I have had one round of antibiotics (second to come at 11AM), have had pitocin (induction meds), and epidural...love me some meds. The doctor is breaking my water at noon-ish. We have no dialation and efacement details because he said it doesn't really matter, since he's not doing anything till after he breaks my water.

Bags packed:

Our Little Frog

Manic Monday

Well, I had some contractions last night, but nothing worth timing or even waking Joe about. Today is our crazy day. Ella has 5 therapies today and I will start turning over some my day to Joe's mom, who is going to be helping a TON with Ella for the next few weeks. We leave tomorrow morning at 5:30am and check in at 6am. We will be using my cell phone voicemail to update...just call and someone will have updated the message with our status (don't forget to hang up BEFORE the beep so that it doesn't fill up the mailbox).

Andrea's Cell Phone (972)743-5916

Still Preggers Sunday

I'm getting a little better at not pouting quite so much (my mom has called me out on it a few times now). I know that we'll be checking into the hospital in about 42 hours...ha, not that I'm counting or anything. We went to a great dinner last night with some friends (photo below is from afterwards) and then Joe let me sleep in today and he took Ella to church. I have to say, my husband is pretty amazing. He knew that I wouldn't have a lot of days anytime soon where someone didn't need something either during the night or in the morning, so this was a good relief to just sleep...not have to do breakfast or get anyone dressed or worry about anything. Besides, I love the fact that instead of everyone staying home he feels the importance of making sure Ella is always in Sunday School and never misses, we stick to that pretty closely. So, Will's not here yet, but he will be soon enough and then our quite Sunday mornings will change for a while. I just can't WAIT to see him. Oh, and I guess some people have asked what we are going to call the kid...I'm sticking to "Will" for now, but I catch myself saying "William" fairly often; Joe has decided on "Billy" and that's fine too. Honestly, I don't care what his nicknames are, except "Willy"/"Willie"...I'm not a big fan of those (sorry if that's your name). Till tomorrow's update, I hope you are having a blessed Sunday.

Playing with Daddy

Same-Ole Saturday

William is hanging on strong. Just wanted to update for anyone who is checking to see if we've gone into labor yet. The answer would be "nope".

Freezing Friday

William is holding on strong, for those of you who think he's trying to stay warm...today is the perfect day to NOT come, or at least not right now. It's nice to be warm and cozy at home with Ella today. I don't think there actually ended up being any ice on the road, but the idea of trying to coordinate getting to the hospital and having Ella taken care of, doesn't sound fun today. Joe is really working on me being patient. He reminds me that the LAST thing I want is for my water to break BEFORE we get to the hospital...this baby needs all the chance he can get to be on the antibiotics that his sister should have gotten. I really want to have a perfectly healthy baby, so I can wait 4 more days if that's what it takes. (Can you tell I'm trying to talk myself in to being okay with the delay?!)

Thursday Update

No baby. Just hanging out and getting things done. Starting to realize that I'm trying to over control the time that I will have to leave E with others while I tend to William...never really thought of myself as a control freak before!

Small Update

Yeah, so just figured I'd keep all of our blog-family in the loop. Still no baby, no contractions, lots of poking from the little sucker though. I'll just write every day and let you know the latest. As of right now we've gotten scheduled for 6am on Tuesday the 29th. So, I guess the 29th will be the latest he'll be here. I'd really like to go into labor on my own (without my water breaking) so I guess I could use some prayers for my body to start the labor process on it's own...and if you are into "extra" prayers, then I would love it to happen SOON.

Change of Plans...GRRR

Yeah, so I went to the doctor this morning and nothing has changed so we have been rescheduled for NEXT Tuesday the 29th. Yeah, if you ask I'm okay, but it really stinks. The doctor would rather be safe than sorry and wanted to prevent a c-section.

Bags Packed

Well, we've packed bags for each other and for William. We're as ready as we are going to get at this point. I went to a movie with my friend Stephanie tonight and I feel like I've done all that I needed to do before he gets here. Oh, and my AMAZING friends in our Sunday School class gave us a "diapers and wipes" shower today and we got so many great goodies.

The appointment is for tomorrow morning at 9:30am to find out if we are "ready" for Tuesday. If we ARE ready then we go in Tuesday morning at 7:30am for inducement...if not then I think he'll schedule it for the following Tuesday. I know anyone reading this who has not had a kid in the recent future can't remember, but having to wait ANOTHER week is going to be REALLY hard...oh, and have I mentioned that I really HATE schedule changes!!

Okay, I'll let you all know tomorrow what they say. Say a prayer at 9:30am (Central Time for you out-of-towners) that my body is ready for this baby to come!!

love and God bless,
Andrea

Baby Wells

Baby Shower for Taylor Wells and the newest member of the family...Virginia "Ginger". Congrats Alex and Taylor!!
(Pictured: Valerie Dent, Taylor Wells, Noelle Gaspard, Allison Aars, Andrea)

Freedom Dinner

We had a WONDERFUL dinner as my "last night of freedom" before William is here (and we have 2 kiddos) as well as Mike's first night out on the town since being back from Iraq!! It was a great night of great food and family. Oh, and Ella got to attend Night OWLS for the first time and we were SO pleased with the program. We even saw our friend Isaac Lynch volunteering. What a great ministry for parents with special needs children. We can even drop William off with them as soon as he's old enough.

William's Room Part 2

Okay, it's coming together a little more:

Honesty

I have always thought that I had a gift for probably over explaining how I felt about things. I could probably be a little too open with my feelings, usually it was when I was sad more than when I was happy, but all the same. I was never a very secretive person.

I read a LOT of blogs...I'm probably a little bit of a stalker. I have about 66 blogs saved on my computer. I check all of them every day...since right now I actually have some down time. Some are people I've grown up with at church, some are new friends that I've met since being an adult and others are Cerebral Palsy families who we have met since Ella has been diagnosed.


As I read all of the blogs I realize something...honesty is a big deal. People really want honesty. Whether it's the honesty of a mother's broken heart or the funny things that happen to someone on a weekly basis. When I'm reading blogs I find myself skipping over the posts that seem to complain...it's hard to read about constant complaints. However, if someone is being raw about their emotions or excited about something going on then it's so great to read about it. I hope as you read my blog that you see my raw emotion. Whether it's about my struggles and joys of raising a child who has cerebral palsy or the fears and uncertainty of adding another person to our family...I hope you hear my honesty. Life is hard. God told us it would be. Whether you follow Him or not, life is going to be hard...and at times it's going to be unbearable (but if you ARE a true believer in the one true God then you have a hope that no one else will have). I appreciate it when people struggle out loud so that others can learn from their lives.

I hope my blog brings a little bit of light to your life and that it's a place you enjoy coming to read and look at pictures of our crazy lives. May you see Christ in everything that we do.

Updates

I have realized that I haven't updated on a few things...so here are some items to keep you up to date on the Mitchells:

• William MAY not be here next Tuesday. To save you a lot of details, my cervix isn't ready. We are going to recheck it on Monday (1.21), if everything looks good then we will induce on Tuesday (1.22)...if my doctor feels that we aren't ready to go then he'll schedule for the following week. I'm really ready to have Will here, but I don't want to do anything that will cause him any stress. The biggest difference for my inducement is that the doctor wants to wait till the VERY end to break my water so that there isn't any chance of infection.
• Will's room is ready...well, pretty ready. Thanks to our friends we have gotten a lot of decorative stuff and this past weekend we went and finished making sure that we got everything we could possibly need. I'll upload some pictures and let you know how it looks.
• Ella hasn't had anything by tube in the past 1.5 weeks!! We have given her everything by mouth...which has been both a relief and a challenge. It's a lot of monitoring and we have to pace her and make sure she is swallowing very well while she's eating. We are still doing our VitalStim, but looking to stop with it and just work on oral motor skills. We had a swallow study yesterday to compare to the very first one we did and she's looking really well.
• She's also started waving. It's a little delayed and looks a little rough, but it's so fun to watch her wave and then wait to be praised for doing a good job. She really loves the attention.
• Oh, I'm doing good with the virus. I'm not in as much pain as I was and I feel a lot better. I'm not really sure how you know when you aren't sick anymore, but I'm sticking to the "lots of fluid, Tylenol and some rest".
• BIG NEWS: My brother-in-law, Michael (married to my sister Sara), is back from Iraq. Some of you keep up with their blog, but just to catch you all up...he landed today at Ft. Hood in Kileen (about 2.5 hours from Dallas). Sara is on Cloud 9 and couldn't be any happier than to have her husband and her son in the same place...and Mike doesn't have to go back overseas!! After 15 months the Witschorke family is back together again.

Kissing Cousins

Micah giving William some kisses before he gets here:

More standing

Take a roll in Life...

...cereal that is.

Happy 59th Birthday Oompa