Swisher Sweetness: Family of FIVE!!

Well, we had baby! We are now officially a family of five (how did that happen?!). Introducing our newest addition: Colin Danger Swisher. He is healthy, beautiful, and such a sweet baby... and check out all that gorgeous hair:)

Looking back over this blog, I realized I haven't posted one thing about our journey with this baby. Not a pregnancy announcement, no sonogram pictures, no "guess the sex of the baby" post, nothing, nada. And that was both on purpose, and not on purpose. This pregnancy was different from all my others. It was full of stress and worry, and then consciously trying not to worry (and it's actually a lot of hard work trying not to worry. Lol!). There were certain things going on that we didn't tell everyone because we didn't want to worry others. And so while I wasn't purposely not blogging about my pregnancy, I guess I subconsciously chose not to because it felt weird blogging about something and not writing the whole truth about it. So, here is the shortened version of our story with Colin: (And lucky for us all now... remember that we already know the ending and he is a healthy baby boy:)

When we found out we were pregnant, it was not the most joyous news. I know it's not popular for parents to say that, but it's the truth. Duncan was only 9 months old, and I was still nursing Duncan and felt I couldn't possibly go straight into nursing another kid with no break. To nicely put it, it was a big surprise for us. We did eventually come around to the idea and did get excited to meet our newest little guy, but it took some time. We were in San Diego at the time, and I was putting off going to the doctor until we were back in Washington, because we were scheduled to head back to Washington pretty soon. Well, that schedule kept getting pushed back, and then pushed back again, and then pushed back again, etc. So, I finally gave in and saw a doctor in San Diego. We got our first ultrasound when I was about 16 weeks pregnant, and we also got some not so good news. The ultrasound had shown some abnormalities and cysts in the baby's brain. Say what?! No parent ever wants to hear the words "abnormalities" and their kids' "brain" in the same sentence. I immediately started to cry when the doctor told me. And then I cried some more when she told me that cysts in the brain were a soft marker/sign of a potential chromosome disorder with the baby (Examples being Down Syndrome or Trisomy 18 as the most common). To be fair, she did also tell us that there are cases where these cysts go away as the baby develops and he had a chance to be born just fine. But the damage was done... we went through this entire pregnancy knowing we were at a higher risk than normal of having a baby born with a chromosome issue. At times we were successful in staying positive and in telling ourselves that our baby would be ok. Other times we were not as successful in staying positive, and we were sad and scared that our future reality with our new baby would be one with a mentally challenged child. We didn't tell everyone in the family about this risk, because we didn't want everyone to possibly needlessly worry. Plus, we were trying really hard ourselves to think and stay positive, so we didn't want every conversation we had about the pregnancy to be clouded by this sad worry. I only even write about it now because as much as this blog is a way for family and friends to keep up with our lives, it is also our online journal, and I feel the need to be truthful in it and tell the whole story. There were other tests done during the pregnancy and other ultrasounds done to check for any further signs of issues; and while no more warning signs were found, there was still no guarantee any doctor could give us until the baby was born and he checked out either fine or not fine. Needless to say, we were immediately relieved (I cried... again. This time, tears of happiness) when Colin was born, he was placed in my arms, and we were told he was a healthy baby boy. It was a big answer to our prayers. It seems anticlimactic now, to write about 9 months of worry and stress into this one, short paragraph. But, I guess having a "non-eventful" ending to this story is a good thing:) And in the famous words of Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."

The other big worry came at the end of my pregnancy, when I was 36 weeks along and the baby was still in the breech position. I was scheduled to have a procedure called a Version, which is when I'm given a shot of medicine to relax my uterus, and then the doctor pushes really hard on my stomach (it was pretty painful) to try and turn the baby to the head down position. The procedure was a success! And we had our head down baby... until we didn't:( When I was 39 weeks pregnant, we discovered that our dear baby had flipped back again, and was again breech. Two days later I was scheduled for another Version procedure AND for a C-Section right afterwards. The C-Section was scheduled in case the Version didn't work. And to be honest, the doctor didn't have much confidence the procedure would work this time, because I was 39 weeks along now and the baby was bigger this time, and therefore he had less room to move around and flip. She was pretty convinced that I would be having a C-Section that day. But, it worked, AGAIN! Thank goodness! A lot of prayers were answered on this as well... because my scheduled C-Section was cancelled, I was instead induced, and I was able to successfully give birth naturally. The rest of his birth story went pretty routine: I was induced, slowly but surely I started to dilate more, I eventually got an epidural (Thank goodness! Those contractions are no joke!), and then at about 8:15pm I felt the need to start to push, the doctor was called (plus Chris, who had gone home momentarily to check on the boys), and after about 10 pushes our sweet baby boy was born at 9:01pm. It was a real undramatic ending to a very dramatic pregnancy:)

God really heard and answered all of our prayers throughout this pregnancy. He gave us a beautiful, HEALTHY baby boy, and allowed me to avoid having a C-Section (Which, I know people have them and they aren't the end of the world if I had to get one... I just want to try and avoid one if I could). And while this pregnancy was at first, a very big shock and something that took some getting used to... I can tell you that we are 100% madly in love with our new little boy. Heavenly Father really knows what we need in our lives more than we do, because he sent us this precious baby boy and now our family feels complete in a way we never knew it could before. Thank you God, thank you for coming to us sweet baby Colin, and thank you to all of our family and friends for their support and prayers. Haha, but now, for real this time, we are done:)

Colin's first moments on this earth. He was laid right on my chest after Chris cut his cord. The nurses were rubbing him pretty hard here, trying to get him to cry.

Here is our big boy. He was our biggest baby by far; born at 9 pounds & 5 ounces, and 22 inches long.

Awe... just look at those chubby cheeks:)

We thought this picture was hilarious... he put his two middle fingers in his mouth, just like his brother, Duncan does:) Plus, he kept putting his legs up in this frog position (he still does), and the nurse said that is from sitting breech so long in my belly:)

Proud Papa:)

Happy Grandma:)

Check out all that hair!

Big brother, Mitchell, just can't get enough of his new baby brother. He kept staring at him, telling Colin that he loved him, and telling us how cute the baby was:)