Wednesday, February 29, 2012

New Routine

I have always been a very organized and routine person. I can’t relax until everything in the house is done and perfect. I hate to admit it but I like to get house stuff done even before getting down on the ground to play with Hannah. I just feel so distracted if there is chaos around me. Yes that sounds very silly, our house is FAR from chaos, but really I like things in their place and then I can enjoy my day. Hannah and I had a pretty good schedule down, we would relax in the morning, I could shower, get stuff done around the house, and we would even have time to do something fun before it was time for school. But then Mr. Jacob entered the “routine” and I thought he’d just slip right in seamlessly. Ha Again, I know that sounds silly Smile

 

Well, to say our routine is not going as “seamlessly” as it was before Jacob is an understatement. I feel like I’m racing against the clock every day to get stuff done and get Hannah to school on time. Before I know it, it’s 11:45 am and we have to hop in the car to get Han to school and we hadn’t even had any fun time. And the baby is in the middle of a bottle. And I still have slippers on. And… I could go on, and on. The TV has been on a little too long in the mornings, I’ve been making excuses for why I “need” to sit on the couch and search the internet mindlessly before I can go play but then it’s time for me to shower or I.won’t.have.time.to.dry.my.hair! What a catastrophe! I really hate to actually admit all this, Hannah and Jacob should always come first. I have such a short time at home with my precious kids and really, I am wasting it on the internet and drying my hair?? Something HAS to change.

 

As much as I feel like I might be slowly “dying” from sleep deprivation, I’m not. I can and will survive with a little less shut eye. I will also survive if the house is not perfect ALL the time. AND blog and facebook posts will still be there 3 hours later, they aren’t going anywhere if I don’t look.at.them.at.this.very.moment. So, how am I going to change all this and enjoy this time that is slipping away so quickly?? I will be starting my day before the kids start theirs. *If you know how much I value sleep then you know this is a BIG deal for me* Getting up early will allow me to have some “me” time. I can wake up leisurely with my coffee and peruse the social media sites I can’t seem to live without, I can shower and dry my hair! I may even be able to eat something before 11:30 am! What a concept! Maybe get the house picked up and a load of laundry started. I typically like to run in the morning to get it out of the way, but between that and showering it eats up 2 hours of our morning! So I’d like to save my running for 2 evenings per week and the weekend mornings. Another rule I am making for myself, no blog reading in the morning after Hannah is awake. I have 3 hours while Hannah is at school and if Jacob keeps to his current nap schedule (hahaha- expecting a baby to continue a schedule they are currently on? Why do I tease myself like this…) I can get a couple hours of me time or a little shopping or house cleaning time in then, too.

 

I plan on trying to get out of bed and shower between 6-6:30 am, then I can have the quiet house to myself or even chat with my hubs before he’s off to work. Another bonus, if I can get used to waking up this early then getting back into my work routine in a couple months should be just a little easier! It felt so nice today to put the computer down and play “shop” with Hannah, then work on a puzzle, and help her with her homework. And I know she enjoyed the morning too. I need to get out of this rut and just enjoy our time together, it’s so fleeting with me having to go back to work and I don’t want to miss out.

 

And just because they are so cute, I’ll give you something to look at…

IMG_0967

IMG_0850

Monday, February 27, 2012

Sleep

It'd be nice to know what that is again... Jacob has been the worst sleeper at night these days. We noticed he normally has 1 bad night per week, well this week he had a couple. And last night he only went 3 hours in between feedings and then wanted to party for an hour or 2 after he ate! Um, I think he forgot he's 5 weeks old and not a newborn anymore. Maybe I should remind him that he can go 5-6 hours between feedings at night...

I went to bed at 10:30 pm, which was my first mistake I should have gone to sleep at 9:00 like he did. Anyways, then he was up at 12:30 am to eat, after feeding him and then hearing him again sometime in the 3 o'clock hour I think I started to wimper a bit. Seriously?! I had just put you back to bed, I barely got my eyes shut and you want to eat again!! I always try the pacifier for about 30 minutes before giving in and feeding him so I'm really up longer than I maybe need to be? But at that moment all I can think about is sleep and that maybe the binki will do the trick. When will I learn my little heffer is never happy with just a little sucking action?? After messing with the binki for awhile Nick got up and fed him. And he's telling me I need to go back to sleep, which is pretty impossible with a grunting, burping, farting infant in my ear, so my sweet hubs took him downstairs to get him to sleep. Then what felt like 3.5 seconds later he was waking up again and it was only about 6:20 am!!

I think I might expire early due to pure exhaustion! If you don't hear from me for awhile I either met an early demise or I'm off drooling in the corner in a catatonic state. Let's hope I get a little sleep so none of the before mentioned happens... 

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Welcome to my Crib


Today was the first day Jacob napped in his crib.

Pretty much from the day we brought Hannah home I put her on a schedule, I knew that was the best thing for all of us to get in a good groove, and they say children do better on a schedule, so that's what we did. With Jacob I wanted to be a little more lax since I would only be home with him for a short time and if I felt like holding him during his nap then I was going to do that, I didn't want to be tied down to a strict schedule like I had been with Hannah. But at the same time I also knew I wanted to get Jacob used to his crib early on so it wasn't a strange environment for him all of a sudden when he's 6 months old and sleeping in there at night. (Because yes, he WILL be in our room until he is 6 months old, I couldn't imagine putting him all the way down the hallway any younger than that)

We are quickly realizing Jacob is not quite as easy of a baby as Hannah was. Is this because he isn't on a good schedule yet? Is he just more tempramental? Does his reflux make him fussy? Whatever the case may be we are trying to figure anything out to help these fussy times and would also like his midnight parties to be kept to a minimum. So, I've decided now is as good as time as any to start naps in his crib instead of having him always sleeping in his chair/swing during the day and maybe get him on some sort of schedule.

So today, I wrapped him in his cozy blanket and rocked him to sleep then put him in his crib all the way up in his room... but of course I turned his new video monitor on which allows me to view him at all times and I can even zoom in and see that he's breathing. Yes, I'm crazy and constantly think my baby is going to stop breathing at any moment so I like to be able to see that his chest is moving up and down :) and his nap was a success! He never has an issue sleeping during the day but I wasn't sure how it would go in his bed, and it didn't seem to phase him. He grunted and moved around like normal but had a good 2-3 hour nap and woke up ready to eat. I'd say it was a success. So unless I'm running errands or doing something with/for Hannah he'll be taking his naps in his crib. 

For Your Viewing Pleasure. 1 Month Old














*Does anyone know how to flip the pictures to be turned the correct way? They are turned correctly before I upload them to blogger and then they go back?? Not sure what that's about...*

Saturday, February 25, 2012

1 Month Old

My sweet baby boy is 1 month old! How is that even possible?? I swear we just brought him home. (I guess a month isn't THAT long and we really did JUST bring him home, but you know what I'm sayin...)


Jacob is such a sweet, cuddly boy... when he's full and has a dry diaper :) He LOVES to be held and I'm (usually) always willing to ablige and hold him. His 3:00 am party sessions can get a little tiring when we are passing him back and forth trying to figure out how to get him to sleep, but he'll just stare at you and give you those smiling eyes it's hard to be mad about losing sleep. Hannah loves her little brother and is always wanting to hold, kiss, and hug on him, it's the sweetest thing. We really are blessed Hannah is such a GREAT big sister, she takes her job very seriously and Jacob is lucky to have her as a sibling.
Now onto the stats...


Weight:
As of 2/22/12 he weighed 8 lbs 7.5 oz which is such an improvement, his birth weight was 7 lbs 3 oz and at the NICU he dropped down to 6 lbs 9 oz, then on 2/03/12 he was 6 lbs 12 oz (so his weight gain was slow but quickly picked up to normal 1 oz per day) and on 2/08/12 he weighed 7 lbs 4 oz.
They didn't measure length since it was just a circ follow-up (which healed perfectly and Nick is happy to report that the dr has mentioned on a couple occasions that his son has quite the size on him :)

Clothes and Diaper sizes:
He still wears newborn clothes, but he can wear 0-3 month size, it's just still pretty baggy on him. He can still wear newborn dipes but they are getting a little snug and size 1 work much better for leakage control! So we are just using up the rest of newborn dipes then he'll only wear size 1.

Feeding:
He eats anywhere from 4-6 oz per feeding, we know that's WAY too much for him at this age but sometimes those 4 oz just don't cut it. He eats every 3-4 hours during the day then in the evenings he cluster feeds and about every 1-2 hours he'll eat 2-3 oz from 5:00-10:00 pm, then he sleeps for the night.

Sleeping:
He sleeps great during the day, we are still working on the night sleep. Once he is down for the night, which is anywhere between 7:30-10:00pm, he'll go about 5 hours from his last feeding, he gets up to eat and *usually* goes right back to sleep, but if he doesn't then the little booger is up for 2 hours, just hanging out! Then he'll go another 3-4 hours and be up for the day, or rather until Hannah wakes up then he takes his morning nap so there's no hope for us getting additional sleep. 


Milestones and Fun Stuff:
He had his first realy smile on 2/09/12, he looked right at me and gave me a big 'ol smile with dimples and all! Now he'll have mulitple smiles per day, I can never catch them on camera though.

From the first tummy time he was trying to roll over, literally up on his side kicking his feet to push him to his back, but he has yet to actually get over.

He holds his own bottle, and pretty well at that! From day 1 he would put his hands right under that bottle and I figured it was a reflex of sorts but he has not stopped! Every feeding his hands are right under that bottle and sometimes we can let go and he's feeding himself.

Loves sleeping on his side.

We burp him sitting up right holding his face in our hand, we can never get a good burp when he's over the shoulder.

He still loves to curl in a little ball so holdng him over the shoulder is difficult but he's starting to like that way more and more, otherwise he just loves the cradle hold.

Around week 3 he started getting real tears when he cries and I hate it, it's so sad.

Smiles every time he poops! Weirdo... :)


*For some reason I wasn't able to upload pictures so again they will be in a different post* And, this was supposed to be published yesterday when he turned 1 month old, February 24th. :)
   

Thursday, February 23, 2012

The NICU


2 Days Old



 Recovery from delivery was great for the both of us. We slept, breastfed, changed poopy diapers, shared baby with visitors and breastfed some more. The only *issue* we encountered was Jacob kept gagging and choking on his spit up, which was very thick and mucousy and had some blood in it. All the nurses and doctors said he just swallowed amniotic fluid and blood during delivery and he just had to clear it out. They put a wedge under his bassinet and took him to the nursery a couple times to suction him out when he would start choking. But it was no big deal and no one was concerned. 

We got discharged Wednesday, the day after delivery, and just enjoyed being home as a family of 4. I continued to only breastfeed, my milk wasn't in yet so he wasn't getting much but what he was getting he seemed to be spitting up. Thursday middle of the night we gave in and fed our ravenous baby 2 ounces of formula after I had breastfed for 2 hours straight and he ended up puked it all up. We just figured he ate it to quickly and his tummy wasn't used to that much food. 

Friday morning was the day of his 2 day check up and after breastfeeding I supplemented with an ounce or 2 of formula and while burping him he puked everything up all over the both of us. This puke seemed different, it was very colorful: green, red, and brown and it included a couple small blood clots. Obviously, Nick and I were very concerned so we brought the clothes and blanket he threw up on to show the dr at his appointment. 

 After weighing and masuring him (he weighed 6 lbs 11 oz and was 21 inches long) we immediately showed the dr what our newborn had produced that morning and told her he is puking everything he is eating. She seemed very concerned and after looking him over quickly left the room to call the neonatologist to get advice on his colorful throw up. She said we needed to wait there and it could take awhile to get ahold of him.

*Insert freak out here* I called my mom and broke down crying, I just couldn't believe anything could be wrong with our perfect baby. We had dealt with so much during the pregnancy we were hoping for an easy entry into the world for our precious boy.

The dr came back in about 5 minutes later giving us instructions to head straight to the NICU downtown, we couldn't go to Roseville because if he needed surgery they would have to transport him downtown anyway since they don't do neonate surgery at Roseville. (Wait, did she just say surgery?) She said don't go to the ER or adminssions, but head straight to the NICU cause she didn't want us to wait.

We arrive at the NICU and they already have a bed and nurse waiting for him there in the high risk room A. We were next to babies that were born as early as 26 weeks. We looked around and felt like we were so out of place with our full term, healthy baby. They explain we will be doing an abdominal x-ray and then a barium swallow to check for a blockage. The green he was throwing up was bile and with newborns they are concerned with a blockage that would have to be fixed with surgery.

The x-ray showed his poor tummy and intestines were full of gas, which was really a good sign meaning things were moving through and he didn't have a full on blockage, but it was no wonder he seemed uncomfortable with all that gas. Then he gets the barium swallow, and poor baby was so hungry from not eating all day he sucked down the barium straight from the bottle, which is unusual, they normally have to do an NG tube to get the barium down. Well, since he did eat it so quickly the radiologist wasn't able to get a picture of the exact spot the surgeon needed to see so he ended up having to get the NG tube done anyways so they could control how quickly the barium goes through him. And let me just say, having to hold your newborn's head down and binkie in his mouth so a nurse can put a tube down his nose and throat was an experience I never want to go through again.

Since I had to pump, Nick went with J to get this study done and the radiologist was able to tell him right in the x-ray room that there was no blockage and the barium went through perfectly! The only thing he did have wrong was reflux. What?! It's just reflux!! We could deal with that! They wanted to monitor him to see how severe his reflux was, because in some instances babies will need surgery to fix the muscle at the top of the stomach to reduce the reflux, but most likely he wouldn't need that.

He was finally able to eat something and they started him on a special formula that was thicker so it would stay down better. We started him slowly and the whole time we were there he didn't spit up once! They monitored him overnight, feeding him every 2-3 hours and then sitting him upright in an infant seat for an hour after feeding, using gravity to keep food down. The next morning he was moved to the room where babies are discharged from. It was crazy to think where we had come from over the last 24 hours, we arrived at the NICU anticipating surgery for our little guy and being told about social services that would help Hannah understand what was happening to her baby brother to Jacob having reflux, needing to eat a different formula and being kept upright for 30-60 minutes after feedings. It was such an emotional rollercoaster and we just kind of went with the flow, I mean what else could we do? It seemed too much to process. 

Around 11 o'clock on Saturday the neonate dr came in to talk with us and asked if we were comfortable taking baby home... um yes please! We so badly wanted to get Hannah and Jacob home, and start our new normal. We were tired of hospitals and just wanted to enjoy our baby. Thankfully, Jacob was healthy enough and doing really well they discharged us with instructions on how to feed him and to follow up with his pedi a couple days later. They didn't want to start him on medication yet if he wasn't going to need it. But after being home a couple days, he seemed uncomfortable and was spitting up some of his feedings so at the follow-up appointment his pedi started him on 1/4 of a pill of prevacid, that worked for about 3 weeks and now he takes 1/2 a pill. 

He's doing wonderfully now, he still pukes a couple of his feedings per day, but we can tell he's much happier and doesn't kick or arch his back in pain anymore. They call him a happy spitter :) 
Being in the NICU next to those tiny, premature babies that had already had multiple surgeries in their short lives really put things in perspective for us. Sure our new baby could have needed surgery but it was so minor compared to what a lot of other babies go through. We wouldn't have had to worry if he would survive it, cause we know he would have, where as the parents in the NICU next to us had held their baby while he was dying but then he pulled through, and they had gone through this a couple times in the 8 weeks he had been alive. I couldn't imagine the kind of emotional rollercoaster those families go through and we feel very blessed with the health of our children and do not take that for granted. We are so happy to be home and are loving our life as a famly of 4, it would be nice to get a little more sleep, but other than that we could not complain :)



Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Jacob's Birth Story

We are 3 weeks into this journey with our little man and being a family of 4! Jacob Ryan is the sweetest, most cuddly little boy and I could just hold him all day long! The last 3 weeks have gone by incredibly fast and I can't believe he's 3 weeks old already but on the other hand it feels like Jacob has always been a part of our family... if that makes any sense. :) Big sister Hannah is adjusting perfectly and she also acts like he has always been around. As of yet we haven't had to deal with jealousy issues, I'm sure they will come, but I'm hoping since she is a little older they won't be quite as severe as if she had been a toddler when we had another baby. Jacob has kind of just slipped right into our routine, he joins us at the dinner table and has yet to miss out on story time, sometimes things take a little longer than intended but it all still gets done! We are so lucky to have been blessed with this sweet boy and are very thankful he is here, happy and healthy! Now onto how he entered this world...

Our last Dr appointment was January 16th and Dr Cueto wanted for me to go the rest of the week to see if I would go into labor on my own and then by Friday he would call me and set up the induction for Monday, January 23rd, morning if nothing had happened. To say the least I was totally deflated after that appointment. I was done being pregnant and so ready to meet Jacob that the thought of another week seemed forever! I had not progressed anymore so Dr stripped my membranes which I had had done with Hannah a couple times so I had zero faith in that actually doing anything. The week goes by and Dr calls Friday afternoon telling me to call labor and delivery Monday morning around 5:30 am to check for an available bed. He said it should be slow on a Monday morning and we would have no problem getting started early. We enjoyed our last weekend as a family of 3 and got the house and last minute things ready to bring baby home. Sunday night we drop Hannah at my parents house and both of us get barely any sleep cause we were too excited about the next morning. We get up early, shower and get the car packed and I call L&D at 5:30 am, they inform me there are no beds available and the charge nurse will call when one becomes available, she (the most rude woman ever) said she had no idea when we would be able to come in and to just wait for a call. We watched tv and around 7 am I called the nurse back just to check, again she informed me (very rudely, I might add) that she would call as soon as a bed was available. Oh to say I was upset was an understatement, I think I instantly started crying. We continued to wait around ALL morning and I made a call to Dr Cueto to find out what the plan was going to be, he finally called me back around 1:30 pm to say the hospital was just too busy today, too many women were in labor and no one was progressing so we would just have to wait for Tuesday morning and try this whole thing all over again. I instantly broke down and cried for pretty much the rest of the day, I layed in bed and did nothing but mope around. I was so upset that we would have to be away from Hannah another night and that there was no guarantee that we would even get a room on Tuesday morning either, Dr Cueto said it was a guessing game and no guarantee's since I was not a risk or "having" to be induced for a specific reason. So, Monday night we bring Hannah back to my parents around 5 and head out to dinner, just the 2 of us. We were literally down the street from Chili's when I get a phone call from Dr Cueto! He asked if we wanted to come in that night and be induced!! A room was available and we should be there in an hour to get things started! We rushed home to shower and get our bags and arrived at the hospital at 7 pm.

We get our room, which happened to be the big room, start paperwork and nurse starts my IV of fluids. Dr Cueto comes in and that's when we find out he's the dr on call that night so he would for sure be delivering, woo hoo!!! (At this point I was still very skeptical that we would be delivering in a timely manner, Hannah's induction took over 32 hours and I was expecting this one to take the same amount of time at least) Dr checked me, I was 2 cm and 50% effaced and very soft cervix, Dr was going to break my water at that point to get things moving (which scared the heck outa me since I knew once your water is broken contractions are so much worse) but baby put his hand on top of his head and Dr didn't want to break my water with his hand there since he would start to come down the birth canal with my water broken and it would make for a more difficult delivery if his hand/arm got stuck there. So we got started on pitocin and told to get comfortable. :) Our nurse was not the most personable but she was nice and would check on us every hour or more if needed. She showed Nick how to plug everything in and reset the contraction monitor so she didn't have to come in after every time I went to the bathroom which seemed like every 10 minutes! I started feeling contractions but nothing painful and they were coming every 2-3 minutes. Around 11 pm Dr Cueto came in to check on us, I was still 2 cm but baby's hand had moved so he broke my water. Now typically it's not supposed to be painful when they break your water but oh boy that was the most painful check I had ever had. I was practically jumping off the bed and the hook kept slipping on the bag of water so it took way longer than it should have but finally it broke and I had that lovely wetting your pants feeling for the next 30 minutes or so. :) Lovely.

As I knew they would, contractions got a lot worse and around 1 am I could not talk or move through them and they were coming every 1.5-2 minutes so I was not getting a break. The nurse said I was 4 cm and 80% effaced! (I was so excited since with Hannah I was 2 cm for about 24 hours into labor and I couldn't believe I was actually progressing this time!) I asked for some pain meds in my IV to help take the edge off so I could try and sleep. Well, it took them a full hour to actually bring medication in my room and I thought I was going to die. The nurse administering the meds asked if I had planned on getting an epidural, which of course I had, I just wanted to wait until I had progressed a little more so the epidural wouldn't slow my labor. She then told me she was going to give me the same meds in my IV that was in the epidural so I would have to wait awhile to get the epi since I would have that same medication in my system already and my labor wouldn't slow since I was on pitocin and they control how my labor goes. It didn't take much convincing for me to say OK!!! to the epidural and that sweet, sweet man came in about 5 minutes later with those wonderful drugs! Getting the epi was so terrible, having to be still during contractions but he literally only took 8 minutes from start to finish! This anesthesiologist was a god send for sure. This was also the best epidural ever, I had the best warm tingly feeling down my legs but I could still move them on my own and I didn't feel any more contractions! At this point Nick and I tried to get some sleep, but since my BP cuff was going off every 30 minutes I couldn't actually fall asleep but I was able to rest.

Around 5 am I was 6 cm and 80% effaced and Dr Cueto said once I hit 6 cm it would go fast from there. Over the next hour I kept feeling like I had to pee really bad, I kept asking the nurse to make sure my catheter wasn't kinked, cause it felt like my urine wasn't flowing but she said everything was fine and that's when I noticed I was getting that feeling with every contraction so I guess the baby was just pushed up against my urethra? I dunno, but I never got the "I gotta poop" pressure they always tell you about so I just thought I was going to have to deal with this feeling for the rest of my labor- which still had to be hours more since I was only 6 cm. Well, since I mentioned this "feeling" a couple times the nurse checked me at about 6:15 am and I was 9 cm!! She said it would probably be 30-45 minutes until I was ready to push since I still had some cervix left and she had me lay on my side. No more than 10 minutes later Dr Cueto walked in and wanted to check for himself and he had me do a test push and instantly told me to stop pushing and we needed to get the nursery in the room cause we were having a baby! I couldn't believe it, it was all of a sudden happening so fast! While he's telling the nurse to hurry and set up, get the nursery in the room, he was staring at baby's head and kept telling me not to push or do anything cause he was going to be here any minute. Finally, about 8-10 minutes later, Dr let me push and it only took 3 good pushes and there was our baby!! The dr was holding him up and I just reached out for him! It was the best moment ever. At 6:34 am Jacob Ryan was born! He was able to lay right on my chest for as long as I wanted, the nursery nurse said I could take my time and that baby looked great. Nick cut the cord and we just enjoyed those first minutes with our new son.

Eventually, they weighed and measured him, he was 7 lbs 3 ounces and 19 inches long (although, at his first dr appointment he measured 21 inches, which seemed more correct), he got his antibiotic eye ointment and vitamin K shot, for which he didn't even cry, he just looked down at his leg wondering what was going on. He was so calm and quiet, just taking everything in. It was all such a wonderful experience. (The only not so wonderful part was getting stitched up, the epidural was starting to wear off and I was able to feel the last stitch and when they were pushing on my stomach to make my uterus contract and get everything out). I never thought I would say I had a great labor and delivery but I really did, sure I was in pain for some of it but overall the entire experience could not have been more perfect. Labor was only 10 hours from beginning pitocin and recovery was even very smooth. I am so happy with how everything went, and most importantly with our end result- our sweet baby boy!

*The pictures weren't able to upload for some reason, I'll put them in a separate post*