Visiting with family

My parents came and visited from Nov 5th until Nov 10th. They came the evening we were attempting to suppliment Jason with formula so he was pretty fussy. I'm wondering if they felt like turning around and leaving...but they've been there and know what it's like. Fortunately, it wasn't long until Jason was a happier baby and my parents were good support. My mom cooked great food and helped to get me to transition Jason to sleeping in his bassinet instead of always in my arms. They got some good pictures that I was able to move to my computer before they left.While they were here I gave Jason a bath...I can't believe we didn't get pictures from his first at home bath but this is his second! Doesn't he look happy? :-P We also took him on his first walk. He probably cried about 1/3 of the time but it was nice to get out. It was a beautiful day.

Lots of people have asked us how Bonnie is handling the transition. Although she's been having a hard time with the decrease in attention and the demotion from "baby" to "dog", she's been a good "big sister" and a pretty good baby monitor. Whenever Jason cries, she is right there at his side. It was a bit frustrating at first because when Jason would cry, so would Bonnie so it was really noisy. She doesn't do that anymore, she just kind of stares. We still love our doggie.

Today, Jason got a visit from his Aunt Abby and (future) Uncle Terry. It was a nice little visit.
Abby is our closest relative - only 3 hour away in Kansas City so hopefully we'll see a lot of her.

This is a cute picture, despite one of my signature weird angles:

Best laid plans...

My first week with Jason was quite an experience. When I was pregnant there were a few things that I was sure I would not do. These didn't quite pan out in the real world

#1: I will not feed my baby any formula

The first few days of breastfeeding were rocky to say the least. Jason demonstrated a good latch on our first session with the lactation consultant and since I was determined to breastfeed I figured we'd be in good shape. Unfortunately with the stress of being in a hospital and recovering from labor and the episiomy I got off track with nursing him often enough so that first night in the hospital was rough because all he wanted to do was nurse but nothing came out except colostrum and he didn't seem happy with that. The next day I vowed to follow a "nurse every 3 hour" schedule. He did a lot better that night but was still pretty fussy. By wednesday, Jason was having fewer wet and dirty diapers than he was supposed to and he would cry for a long time. My milk hadn't come in yet and I was really upset that I couldn't comfort my baby. I was instructed in the hospital by the lactation consultant how to use the supplimental feeding system, which was composed of a syringe and a small tube you can put into the baby's mouth and when he sucks he can get a bit of formula at the breast. I didn't want to have to use it but after what seemed like tons of dry mouthed crying I decided to give in and give him some formula. The decision was really hard for me and I think I was crying as much as him but at least he finally was able to calm down and get some sleep and get his little system working again. I called the lactation consultants first thing in the morning on Thursday (since the lactation clinic is only open Mon-Wed-Fri) and they gave me more instruction on using the supplimental feeding device and how much formula to use (I had no idea on how much formula to feed him because I had no intention of doing that). Fortunately, I started to feel like my milk may be coming in. I even tried feeding him in the afternoon just on the breast and he seemed ok. Unfortunately a few hours later (right before my parents showed up) he had another fussy meltdown and I had to break out the formula again. It was very disappointing since I was sure my milk had come in....it just wasn't letting down enough yet. After feeding him I pumped for about 2o minutes and got enough to give him breastmilk through the supplimenter that night so that made me feel better. I was able to breastfeed him all that night and since then he has been doing better and better. Now he's nursing like a champ and peeing and pooping like he's supposed to and he's such a happy baby. I'm so glad we got through that rough patch!

#2: I will NEVER co-sleep!

I know how dangerous it is to sleep with the baby in bed with you. I've seen some sad cases come in the hospital so I was adement - My baby would sleep in his crib (or pack-n-play bassinet in the bedroom). Well.....things didn't quite work out that way...

At the beginning of the week when Jason was so fussy he would barely sleep at all, let alone let us put him down because at least being held gave him some comfort. Besides, we were both so freaking tired it was easier to just keep the baby in the bed and cuddle him to sleep. We keep a low wattage light on all night so we can keep track of where he is and make sure he's safe. However, this became a problem in that he never let us put him down! We had to carry him everywhere because the second we put him down he would start crying. On Friday it was a beautiful day and we took Jason for a walk and then came home and gave him a bath. After all that excitement he was really sound asleep in my arms and my mom said "maybe he'll sleep in the bassinet if we put a really soft blanket in there". We tried that and it worked!! I felt like I got the gift of time. I got so much done in the 2 hours he was down for his nap that it was motivation enough to really push this sleeping in his bed thing. That night we tried it and got him to sleep in his own bed for a couple hours but he was pretty fussy so a lot of the night was in our bed. Last night he spent most of the night in his bassinet so we're making good progress on that front.

Things are going great now. Jason really is a happy baby. He nurses a lot but that probably means he's growing good. He is just so cute it melts my heart constantly. I thank God every day for this beautiful blessing.

Jason's first photoshoot

Here are the pictures that were taken in the hospital

Jason David is here!

Sorry it took me so long to write this post. New babies are a lot of work! I thought now would be a good time to tell you my birth story.

I was scheduled to be induced November 2nd. This has been my due date I had calculated from ovulation from the beginning so I was pretty happy that he would be born that day.

I checked into the hospital at 5:30am, which is a rediculously early time, but it's not like I got any sleep anyway because I was so excited/nervous. I got settled in the room and after 3 failed attempts they finally got an IV in my arm - my hands are still badly bruised from the blown veins :(. They started the pitocin at around 6:45 or so and I settled in to watch TV and wait. By around 9am I was getting restless and decided to take a walk. I walked around the LDR ward for about 30 minutes and I really think that helped speed things along. By 9:30 I was really feeling the contractions and asked for pain relief. The nurses consulted with my OB and he decided since I wanted to get the epidural that they might as well give it now. This was good news to me because I didn't want to be doped up on something else if it didn't do the trick. The only problem was they had to put a liter of fluid in me before they could start the epidural. That was a long 20 minutes but it gave me time to reflect on real contractions:

1. I felt stupid for thinking I was in labor on Monday...those contractions were uncomfortable but these HURT!!

2. People who elect to go drug-free are out of their minds! No offence and I have respect for you for wanting the full experience or whatever but WOW the contractions hurt enough, I couldn't imagine pushing the baby out without pain meds!

The anesthesiologist arrived at about 10am to put in my epidural. They had me sit on the edge of the bed arched over holding hands with Dan. There was quite a bit of pain, kind of like a bee sting like they said it was going to be. Once they got it in they were cleaning me up and taping up the catheter, Dan started to feel light-headed. Of course the chairs were on the other side of my bed but Dan warned them in enough time to get him to sit down. They offered to get him juice and I was worried that his blood sugar might be low and I told them that he was a diabetic and they said that they probably wouldn't have had him standing during this if they knew that. Dan recovered well and I was loaded up with meds and laid down and waited for them to work. They give you a loading dose of meds to start with that basically numb you from the waist down and they said it would be good time to attempt a nap. So Dan went to get lunch and I attempted a nap. I was very uncomfortable due to my legs and butt being numb and I was somewhat aware of my contractions but they didn't hurt anymore.

At 11am they checked my cervix and I had gone from 4cm at 9:30 to 9.5cm and about ready to push! They called my OB (Dr. Jackson) at this point and he wanted to see one more patient and let me labor down and he'll be there as soon as he can. I wasn't too concerned with how long that would take - I did the math in my head....my appointments with him last a whopping 10 minutes, tops and Wichita Clinic was about 15 minutes from the hospital so it wouldn't be long, right? The baby started to really drop and I was feeling like a good sneeze would shoot him right out. The room was all ready for delivery but where was Dr. Jackson? I was getting very impatient (shocker!) but he finally arrived at a little after noon. Once he was all ready it was time to start pushing! My epidural was still pretty strong at that point because I had progressed really fast so I didn't feel the contractions as well as I should so I had to rely pretty heavily on the monitor. It was very surreal pushing....I couldn't feel anything and of course I had never pushed a baby out before so it was all new to me. After pushing for about 10 contractions, Dr. Jackson realized I was going to tear if I didn't get an epesiotomy. This was bad news, but I kind of expected it...I know my body and I figured I had a big baby. Once that was done, I only had to push 4-5 more times and he was out! Officially born at 12:54! He was 8lbs 2oz and 20.5 inches long.

The whole thing was very surreal....I looked down and there he was! This baby all covered in goo with a torpedo-shaped head. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. They took him to the back to clean him up and I told Dan to go back with him. I had to be stitched up and I'm sure he wouldn't want to be there for that anyway. I was kind of bummed that it took so long for me to see my baby but I guess when you have to be worked on there isn't much you can do. I was surprised that the birth of my baby didn't make me cry. I'm a pretty emotional person and I cried when people on TV/movies had babies, I must have been overwelmed by the whole thing. Dan did cry though and since I may have seen him cry once in my life it was pretty powerful. He was here! Our baby was here! He was healthy and beautiful and all ours! I finally got to hold him and it was just so amazing. A lactation consultant came in soon after and gave me some instruction in that regard and Jason latched on like a champ and started sucking. I was so worried my baby would have trouble with that so I was so relieved that he was such a smart baby already! I stayed in the LDR room until my epidural wore off enough that I could stand and then we were transported to the postpardem rooms (around 3pm or so). Those are nice. They have a queen-sized bed and a bassinet for the baby since it's a room-in hospital and they don't really have a nursery that they babies are kept in. We had a nice evening with me recovering and Jason sleeping soundly most of the time. He had some nice big meconium stools including one that never ended. It was like a play-doh fun factory...we'd wipe and more would come, swear we went through like 20 wipes on that diaper change. He also did that boy thing were the pee went everywhere...on him, not us (hahaha). Things got rough when we tried to go to bed though, he wouldn't let us put him down in the bassinet and cried pretty much all night.

He and I got a clean bill of health the next day and as soon as his neoscreen was done when he was 24 hours old, we left the hospital. I'll write about his first week home later, I just wanted to get his birth story out there....and some of his first pictures :)

I told Dan to go take a video of the baby while I was being stitched up so I could see him, so this is Jason's first taping!

Bad Blogger update

Yes, I've been bad again so I'll catch you up week by week

38 weeks - 10/19

I made it! Dan went to his brother's wedding and I did not go into labor. What a relief! I was so stressed out all week about it but it all turned out great. I had a nice relaxing weekend at work and Dan had a good time at the wedding. I've seen the pictures and it looked like a beautiful event and of course I wish I could have been there to see it and visit with all the family. At my OB appt I had dialated to 3cm, 90% effaced. My OB said to me "If you're still pregnant I'll see you next Monday, but I doubt you'll make it that far (then adding no promises)". I was pretty excited to hear this and told a lot of people that I would probably have the baby this week!

39 weeks - 10/26

So much for the prediction! I did not have the baby last week, not even close! At todays appt I was 3.5 cm dialated same amount effaced and the baby was at about zero station, plenty low and head down. Once again my OB said I was likely to go into labor very soon but if not we would schedule an induction for either Monday or Tuesday next week. After the appointment I went to work and while there I was having contractions about every 5 minutes. They were pretty uncomfortable and regular so I thought that this might be it! I called Dan and told him to get stuff together and call the friend of ours who could come over and check on our animals in case I was in labor a long time. I had about 3-4 contractions on the way to the hospital and I was pretty sure this was it! We got checked in to LDR triage and they hooked me up to the fetal heart rate and contraction monitors. I was still contracting pretty regularly and they brought a resident in to check how dialated I was. He reaches in and checks and says "I'm having a hard time finding the cervix....baby's head is really low.....I'm going to say about 8cm?" What?!! I thought I might be 4-5 cm, but 8?! He had the nurse in the room with us check and she said pretty much the same thing. I thought for sure I'd be in more pain than that so I was a bit perplexed. Then the nurse who usually works in triage came in and checked me and after a fair amount of a very painful "human puppet show" routine she said "she's about 3.5 maybe 4cm". Well that made more sense! I guess the baby's head was so low it pushed my cervix into some hard to reach place (oh goody) and she had to pull it out a bit to check (yes, this was painful!). They called my OB and told him what was up. Since I hadn't made too much progress since my appt that morning he told them to keep an eye on me and see if I progressed any. While I was there they brought a lady in who was SCREAMING. This got me thinking.....I don't think I'm in enough pain yet, uncomfortable, yes, in pain? not quite. Anyway so they let me sit and contract for about an hour and brought in a new doctor to play "find Kathy's cervix". He did a better job than the last guy and I was still the same. They didn't want to send me home just to have me come back so they wanted to monitor me one more hour. My contractions started to get a bit weaker during this wait and less consistant. At this point I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I was not in labor :-( They checked me one more time (no progress) and sent me home around 3:30 am. I drove us home because Dan was pretty much asleep and my contractions weren't too bad anymore. I was just so disappointed and felt stupid for not knowing that I wasn't actually in labor. What do I know? It's not like I've ever done this before!

Anyway, after the stress at work of worrying that I could go into labor at any time, I decided to take my maternity leave early. I was originally scheduled for the rest of the week which was kinda dumb looking back on it but what did I know? I felt kind of bad for leaving work in a bit of a lurch but I couldn't do it anymore.

So I've spent the rest of the week being uncomfortable, tying up loose ends around the house, contracting every so often and basically not going into labor. My due date was yesterday so now I'm officially overdue. Seems silly how stressed out I was a couple weeks ago that I would have the baby early. Now it looks like I'll be induced!

My induction is scheduled for Nov 2nd. I have to check in to the hospital at 5:30am - which is kind of rediculous to me...I sometimes go to bed at that time! I'm sure I won't get any sleep the night before between my inabiltity to go to bed before midnight and my excitment/anxiety. At least this time in the words of my OB nurse, I "won't leave the hospital without a baby". I'm excited....it's not going to be too much longer!

As a bonus and since I can't have a post without pictures, here's my Halloween Costume/ 40 week belly picture:

Oh yeah, and I put the valences up in the nursery! JC Penny said I won't get my shades until Nov 20th (bastards) so I got some cheap $8 rollar shades from Walmart and put them up. At least it's something!

37 weeks and Nursery is 95% done!

THE FURNITURE IS HERE!!!!!

I'm so happy! It came in on Wednesday and we got it all set up this weekend. The room is so cute! I can't wait to put the baby in there. Of course, we aren't totally done :( Stupid JC Penneys is being slow with my roman shades so I haven't been able to put up the window treatments yet. As soon as those are in I can finally be done with this nursery. Here are the pics of what we got so far with some cute letters from my shower on the windowsills for good measure.

And here's me at 37 weeks:

36 weeks

I'm doing this update late but I thought I would post as if I did this last week ;)

We had our hospital tour on Oct 3rd. It looks like it will be a good place to have a baby. The lady who gave the tour was like 100 years old and a former childbirth education instructor so there was some odd "here's something in the room you can focus on" suggestions. When I asked if they had WiFi the conversation went like this:

Me: Do you guys have WiFi

Old lady: What?

Me: Wireless internet?

OL: hmm....I think there might be somewhere to plug that in around here....I don't really know...

Me: great

A few minutes later Dan found a WiFi box in the hallway so hopefully I can get online and chat with people and update the board as I'm going through the labor process. Obviously, I have no idea how it's all going to go down so who knows what kind of time I'll have.

On Monday (Oct 5th) I had my 36 week appt. I was already 2 cm dialated! It's hard to believe I'm already making progress towards having this baby. I think I started to lose my mucous plug later in the week too - yet another step closer. This kind of made me freak out and I set up my nursery with temporary furniture (PNP where crib goes and plastic three drawer thing where dresser goes). We did get our glider and ottomen and I picked up a side table at Target so they are there and Catalina-tested.