Ross Christopher Russell

Ross Christopher Russell was born in January 16 2020. The week leading up to his birth I had a ton of false labor with him, going in a few times to get checked. I fully lost my

Mucus plug on the Friday before and really thought I would have him by the following Monday. The Tuesday I woke up at 8 am and didn’t feel well. Around 430 I started getting very strong contractions while exercising at 630 pm we decided to go to the hospital to get checked. It was official I got admitted to the hospital as I was 4 cm dilated, we decided to stay at the hospital and do stairs, walk around to help my labor progress. An hour later I was fully effaced but I had not dilated at all. We decided to do more walking but this time we went home to labor at home for a few hours. At 1030 pm we went back to the hospital and I was 5 cm dilated so got to go to the delivery room since I needed antibiotics before his birth. While in the room my labor stopped so I asked the nurse if I was able to walk around the unit to hopefully make my labor progress more. Around 1 am I really got uncomfortable and asked to labor in the tub I was approximately 6 cm at this time. The labor in the tub got really intense and luckily Jesse was a great support and I just asked him to stand in front of me while I pulled his hand down to help “ground” a contraction. It wasn’t long after at 1130 that I wanted to go and have an epidural. The night I went into labor it was -58 with the wind chill and the anesthesiologist was doing 2 c sections before she would be able to give me an epidural. The labor was really hard, jesse was still amazing and again I just sat at the edge of the bed and pulled his hand down with both my hands to “ground” the contractions. Finally at around 1 30 am I was able to get an epidural, she shot my back 10 times with lidocaine to numb my back. She then tried 3 times to get the epidural catheter into my back. I got a contraction that was so bad that I couldn’t even feel the catheter go into my spine at this point she asked if that was a “pushing” contraction. It was but I was so resilient to not give birth naturally that I lied and said no I don’t feel like I have to push so I could get the epidural. My epidural didn’t end up taking anyway. Right after she was done at 245 am. I was already 10 cm and ready to push. I had a resident dr. Thomas, a family physician dr. Greig, my labor nurse Heidi and jesse help deliver him. The pushing was hard getting his head out was easy but delivering the shoulders really hurt. At 333 am he was born into the world. I guess when he was born he was completely black and Jesse knew he wasn’t alive at that point. I guess the nurse was giving him cpr while he was on my chest. A few nicu nurses were there and took him to reassess him and get him

Breathing. I saw him begin to get colour quickly and he peed on the nurse to make sure to let them know he was ok haha. They said he was 6 lbs 15 oz and 17 inches long. I was in complete shock, my dr said I was measuring 2 and a half weeks ahead so to prepare for a 9 lb baby. Since the epidural didn’t take I was able to get up half an hour later and shower take my things to recovery. I didn’t tear at all with him and he was observed in nicu for a few hours since he was a bit “grunty”. My delivery with him was so massively different from Macy’s. I was calm, the contractions hurt so bad but I was strong through them and focused on the end of the

Contraction. we are so grateful this sweet little being chose us and that he blessed his mom by coming early at 39+2 weeks. I am extremely proud of my body for going into labor naturally and pretty much delivering him

Naturally since that was not part of my birth plan. We love him so much already 💙

our first week as a complete family of 4

After the birth of our son..son can you believe it? I always imagined myself to have girls and instead I have my million dollar combination of a girl and a boy. I am so excited I get to experience both genders.
I got discharged from the hospital 2 days later, I was not happy about it at all. I wish it was sooner. I got no sleep in the hospital, to start off with it was cold as anything. I was the patient nearest to the window and normally nurses do not encourage for babes to cosleep with their moms, but they asked both my roomate and I to cosleep with babes to keep them warm. In the hospital all he did was cluster feed so again not much sleep that we ended up having. When we got home Macy pretty much loved up her brother, and he was her baby and no one else's. She loved to feed him a bottle or give him his soother.
When we got home, again we did not get much sleep he cluster fed again the following night. The day after that I thought he had jaundice and took him to emergency to get his levels looked at which wasnt bad at all. While I was leaving, I put his car seat onto the stretcher and when I went to grab the handle of his bucket seat my hand slipped. Poor Ross got flung across the floor but luckily he was buckled up really tight. On top of that I discovered that macy put almost a whole tin of peanuts in his car seat because they went all over the floor. The nurses just looked at me trying to calm me down and say accidents happen. I just burst out laughing saying "Didn't do it with the first kid haha but had to do it with the second."
Later on that day I went in to get some groceries and Macy and her dad waited in the car. When I was walking back with the groceries, I could hear macy singing "Let it go" from 10 cars away, let it go blaring, and when I got to the car Jesse was fast asleep on the drivers side, I only went in for groceries for about 10 minutes, and he was passed out.
We got our newborn photoshoot done with Aly, luckily she is a great photographer and she took the photos in less than 5 minutes. Both Mason and Macy were acting up and throwing tantrums where we got photos done, but they ended up being beautiful anyway.
My post partum healing isn't going as great as I thought it would, I have bad post natal contractions where it feels like I am in labor. Bad headaches, blistered and bleeding nipples from him having a bad latch the last few days. Luckily I have a friend that is a midwife that sent me videos on how to get him to properly latch, after that I didn't have engorgement anymore, or the stabbing pain when he would feed.
Macy would watch me feed her brother and whisper while pointing at my breast "titty". Something her dad taught her one day haha even though I wasn't pleased with that. She would watch me breastfeed him and she would mimick the motion with her puppy and "breastfeed" him. Its been a bit of a learning curve with macy, she is retaliating a tiny bit with her going through a phase of hitting and biting again. We are trying to do outings but its hard when all the adults are tired.
When we did get home our church organized for someone to feed us each night throughout the week. Its been great so far, we have had chicken tacos, sheperds pie with salad, pizza. Its been great to not have to worry about dinners as exhaustion is hard to deal with.
Ross is a good baby as well, he only ever cries when getting his diaper changed and when hes hungry.

Some members of the church provided us with some meals the first week being home. One of the nights one of the members also brought over some homemade cupcakes for us. I asked Macy to help me carry some stuff up the stairs I was expecting her to carry the bag of chips (enchilada soup that night) and instead chose the cupcakes. As she was going up the stairs she dropped the cupcakes and quickly in a worried voice kept on saying “oh no oh no oh no” over and over again. It was so cute! 

2-2.5!

Our girl is such a spirit. She fully embodies the entity of her red hair that is a fact.

Updates:
We found out that she will be having a baby brother, its hard during this time for me to help with Macy at night, so grandma will be moving in with us for awhile! We had to say goodbye to our favorite dayhome yet as they travelled to go to Ontario, we will miss Jess, Kennedy, Autumn and Jackson!

I ended up going off work early since it was really hard working with my pregnancy. Grandma got to move in with us so she can save up some money and help me out with the new baby. 

Some of our new favorites is Moana, peppa the pig, Elmo and Mickey Mouse clubhouse. She is really picking up her language development and she lets us know when she pooped or pees. She always loves singing and hopping around dancing to songs. She just constantly runs anywhere she goes and it’s hard to keep up with her haha. 

2 years old!

I can't believe our girl is 2 years old! She is such a sassy, funny, smart and creative kid! We are going into the twos expecting some sass and she already has red hair!

Favorite things

Frozen. She loves frozen so much, she doesnt call the movie by its name she calls it "go go", when “let it go” comes on she just screams singing gooooo. She even loves the movie so much if we aren’t watching it we came up with a rule that is the movie isnt on she can read frozen books instead. She decided one day she would need one of her books to go with us to the park. She played with her frozen book on the slide, it was so funny! 

She started a new dayhome and since she has started she has really developed her speech. She has learnt a lot of small words and can decipher between items. “Go away” is her favorite saying. She can be quite bossy and scream “ma” when we aren’t paying attention to her. She loves jumping on the trampoline so we got her one for inside too. She is OBSESSED with cats and sad to say one of these days her dad and I might have to get one. She loves playing with anything with buckles like her car seat. 

She likes to choose her own outfits and put on her clothing by herself. 

She loves to run. All the time anywhere it’s really hard for me to keep up with her!

She really caught onto the word NO, and is really sassy about it. She fully understands the meaning of it, she loves to slam doors, open them and close them by herself. 

She has been taking off her diaper a lot which makes me worried that she's ready for potty training. 

Trips and outings:

She went to Calloway park for the first time with our friends molly and emiley. She loved the train at Calloway, she wasn’t a fan of a tiny car ride. 

We went and visited our cousins in Calgary and had a huge water fight with them! 

Her birthday party was wild. We had to make a back up plan since we couldn't get the church doors open so we used their little shelter outside. Everyone still had fun making elsa crowns and sven deer ears, we had lots of help from our friends at her party to help set up and make it work for her birthday. All the kids had fun and loved running around, since there was so many toddlers we had to break up fights a lot over toys. 

17 months-22 months

Sorry I havent had the most frequent uploads lately. Life just gets so busy! Macy is currently 22 almost 23 months and time has flown! 

Updates:

SO much has changed with our little girl! Macy got glasses, she has almost all her teeth within this amount of time, she got her first haircut, she is talking up a storm and learning new words every single day! All throughout this time she has still been in 12-18 month clothing and in size 4 diapers. She has been on lots of adventures, with grandma, mommy, daddy and with all of our friends. She loves going to the park and loves to go down the tallest slide at the park. She loves to body slam onto the bed, be chased, run.....run all the time. She loves to hug, and kiss. Her favorite person by far is definitely her daddy anytime she sees a truck she runs up to the driver side yelling daddy! A huge update is in May I found out that Macy is going to be a big sister at the end of january! 

funny things:

Our girl is such a character. Her favorite movie is definitely frozen and her favorite song is baby shark. She is still so attached to puppy and I have to try and sneak him to get him washed at least 1 time a week (so gross)! She loves playing with her toy stroller, she loves to help clean up the house, and she loves splashing as much as she can in the bath! Some funny moments I remember during this time is I taught her how to say "coochie coochie coo", one day she took off her diaper and started to play with her lady bits while saying "coochie coochie coo" although it was terrible, I thought that was the most hilarious thing ever. She has a very strange liking to brushing her teeth and she could do it all day everyday if she could. She figured out how to put deodorant on but instead she puts it on her neck. She does this whine that makes me laugh that sounds like "uhhh huhhhhh". She is quite the thrill seeker and enjoys to climb up on nearly anything even if it makes me almost have a heart attack. 

When her auntie was down visiting her she put vaseline in her hair. We had to come together as a team to find out how to get all the vaseline out of her hair and it took about a week for it to fully come out. We found out that if you put cornstarch in the hair it absorbs the oil of the vaseline then you have to wash her hair with a degreaser dish soap to fully get it out. 

When she is way to quiet in a room by herself, we should definitely be scared. Macy dumped and spread out cumin AND pepper all over the kitchen. 

She loves to try to carry anything that is larger than her to show us her strength, whether its a super heavy hydroflask water bottle or if its a wicker basket the size of her at the phsyio clinic. 

She has been putting her puppy to bed by tucking him with a blanket and kissing him goodnight its just the cutest thing. 

Anytime we are on the phone with someone or through a drive thru. She always has to tell them hi and bye regardless if they are talking to her or not. 

16 months

Update: Our crazy chicken is 16 months! She still had 0 teeth, she learned new words like bubbles, nana, hi, bye! She learned how to brush her hair on her own. She is pretty much running! She is currently in 12-18 month clothing and size 4t in shoes! Lastly, her favorite food is anything dipped in ketchup!
Trips and outings: We had an emergency trip to the island to go see Dad's sister since she was in rough shape. It was a really rough trip, we had a flat tire when it was snowing badly, when we got to the island the power was out from a wind storm for the whole time. Our favorite parts of our trip was going to see Mom's sister, auntie kotarah, she enjoyed playing games with us, and we had a turkey dinner for christmas. We got to go on a ferry for the first time, and enjoyed talking with lots of other people on the ferry. Another highlight of our trip was the attendant at the hotel we stayed at, he truly made us feel like family, and made us feel right at home. He was great to bond with and chat about life with.

He let us make a mess of the travel brochures, take lots of extra oranges for Macy, etc.
We also celebrated new years playing games with our friends molly, brett and emiley. It was fun everybody played all night long!  The toddlers made it to new years better than the parents!

15 months!

month update: Just a few days after she turned 14 months she officially took her first steps on her own! The next day she was walking on her own without so much convincing and she chooses to walk whenever she can! She says hi, bye and waves every time she hears it! She learnt how to go down the stairs by herself as well as up the stairs! Her favorite thing to do is throw her toys off the banister to the landing! Her favorite dog is definitely ruff and now that she is walking ruff is finally warming up to her, she loves to cuddle her! She can officially play peek-a-boo with her hands, she loves only walking, and holding hands while she explores the new world through a different view! Changing her diaper is like being part of a WWE match, and she is so busy playing, making messes, and giggling all the time!
Trips and outings:



We hung out with our friends Ashley, Aubrey and little sammy again! Macy loved cuddling with little sammy and shared toys with Aubrey. Macy really enjoyed playing in their ball pit, and bouncing aubrey in sammys bouncy chair.










We went to our friend Ryker's birthday party at the collicut. They had their party in the fieldhouse, they had a bouncy castle, tons of little push cars, baby walkers, hockey sticks, hula hoops etc. The sky was the limit with how much stuff to have. Macy really enjoyed the walkers, and the bouncy castle. She loved bouncing on it and sliding off of it! She tried her first vegan cake and it was a hit, she had it all over her! She got excited and clapped every single time Ryker opened one of his presents. Their party was a huge hit for Macy!

We got to meet the grinch and had a photoshoot with him at a petvalu. It was supposed to be for dogs but we just couldn't resist meeting the grinch! Macy got to wear a dress that mommy wore when she was around her age for the picture!

We went to the festival of trees with grandma and our friends Molly and Emiley. We got to go view the trees (although not good with toddlers that want to grab everything). We painted a birdhouse, we got to decorate a tiny tree with tinsel, and we got a santa hat with her name on it in glitter! It was super busy but we had a lot of fun with our friends!

She had lots of sleepovers with her grandma, and we she now has a new adopted grandpa. Grandma's neighbour Laurence, she loves to cruise the halls of grandma's apartment holding his hand!