I can't believe today is the last day of 2010. Insane! It's been quite a whirlwind year. Lots of ups and a couple downs for us.
~Fertility treatments til March
~Lost my job in April :(
~Found out I was pregnant in April :)
~Went to Florida for our one year anniversary in May
~Struggled with pretty bad "morning" (all day) sickness til 22 weeks of pregnancy
~My 25th birthday in June ...kinda a milestone :) quarter of a century old!
~Alan & Cassie's wedding in August!
~Baby is a BOY!! in August
~Andy took over as head teller in October
~Accepted my new job in November
~Andy's 30th birthday in November!
~Andy got a raise in December and will soon start taking some classes to become a loan officer by April 2011
~Austin made his arrival December 16th!! :)
Looking forward to what 2011 has in store for our family. :)
Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, December 30, 2010
I've missed blogging and I bet my readers (all 10 of you) have missed me. :) Or so I hope! We've been very busy!
I can't believe 2 weeks have already gone by since Austin was born. Things have been more busy than I thought they would be. I, naively, thought I would give birth, breastfeed on demand and lounge around with my baby boy all day. :) I wouldn't change being a mother for anything though. I love it!
We were told that every baby loses weight and I learned in school that up to 10% is ok. Austin never got that low but lost weight after he came home which is a no-no in the Pediatricians eyes so we had to make some adjustments to our feeding schedule on the 4th day of life. We've have to breastfeed every 2 hours during the day and every 3 hours at night and then give 1 oz of formula afterwards. This takes a lot of time! My sink fills up with bottles fast! We had 3 weight checks to monitor him and go back on Monday for his 2 week well baby visit. Hoping to be able to stop the supplementing at that time or at least cut back on doing it after every feeding! He is doing much better breastfeeding which makes his momma happy. :) It's amazing how a mother can sustain her infant's life just by doing that.
In addition to the weight loss issue Austin developed viral pneumonia which was diagnosed on Christmas Eve. :( No matter how careful you are and how much hand sanitizer you have people use your baby can still get sick very quickly! Not fair! So we've been more stingy on who holds him this past week. He seems completely over the pneumonia but we certainly weren't expecting our baby to get sick in the first week of life. Hopefully the continued breastfeeding will give him more antibodies during this cold/flu/RSV season.
So that's why there has been a lack of blogging! That and the disrupted sleep pattern is catching up with me. I will try to blog more so that I can keep a record of what's happening in our lives and keep everyone updated. Makes scrapbooking easier if I stay on top of blogging/picture posting. :)
I can't believe 2 weeks have already gone by since Austin was born. Things have been more busy than I thought they would be. I, naively, thought I would give birth, breastfeed on demand and lounge around with my baby boy all day. :) I wouldn't change being a mother for anything though. I love it!
We were told that every baby loses weight and I learned in school that up to 10% is ok. Austin never got that low but lost weight after he came home which is a no-no in the Pediatricians eyes so we had to make some adjustments to our feeding schedule on the 4th day of life. We've have to breastfeed every 2 hours during the day and every 3 hours at night and then give 1 oz of formula afterwards. This takes a lot of time! My sink fills up with bottles fast! We had 3 weight checks to monitor him and go back on Monday for his 2 week well baby visit. Hoping to be able to stop the supplementing at that time or at least cut back on doing it after every feeding! He is doing much better breastfeeding which makes his momma happy. :) It's amazing how a mother can sustain her infant's life just by doing that.
In addition to the weight loss issue Austin developed viral pneumonia which was diagnosed on Christmas Eve. :( No matter how careful you are and how much hand sanitizer you have people use your baby can still get sick very quickly! Not fair! So we've been more stingy on who holds him this past week. He seems completely over the pneumonia but we certainly weren't expecting our baby to get sick in the first week of life. Hopefully the continued breastfeeding will give him more antibodies during this cold/flu/RSV season.
So that's why there has been a lack of blogging! That and the disrupted sleep pattern is catching up with me. I will try to blog more so that I can keep a record of what's happening in our lives and keep everyone updated. Makes scrapbooking easier if I stay on top of blogging/picture posting. :)
Monday, December 27, 2010
Austin's Birth Story!
Woke up with pretty intense back pain/labor at 5:45 am on 12/15 which steadily progressed to contractions in the front around 12pm. Back and front labor contractions got intense enough to where it was hard to walk around by 2pm so we put our stuff in the car and headed to Dupont Hospital praying that this was for real and not false labor!! Andy had a half day so he had been home since 12:30pm. :)
We were admitted into Labor & Delivery triage at 2:14pm and I was 2cm dilated and 50% effaced. The monitor showed contractions every 2-4 minutes apart and Austin was tolerating them well. Dr. Lorenc was called and updated on my status (he wasn't on call that night :( . The nurse decided to have us walk to see if I would continue to progress. This is standard...but was it was hard to walk while having such bad back labor pain! (hopefully the second baby doesn't do that to me) So we walked for 30ish minutes and then I was checked again and found to be still 2cm so they left me on the monitor for 15 minutes to monitor Austin's heart rate and my contractions and then I had to get up and walk for another 25 or so minutes. After this Dr. Lorenc was called again to be updated and he decided to let the on call doctor come in, examine me, and determine what to do since it was after hours. She (Dr. Thomas) decided to admit me since my contractions continued to be 2-4 minutes apart and I was in quite a bit of pain.
I was admitted into my room at 5:30pm. An IV was started. I got my epidural at 6:30pm. I did not do as well with the epidural going in even though they numbed the spot. You can still feel it or at least the pressue of it. It was very hard to stay still and I was crying quite a bit which didn't help matters! Then I had to lay on one side for a few minutes and then the other side to spread out the medication. Also had to keep rotating sides every hour or so to keep the epidural effective. Didn't know that you had to do this with an epidural but it makes sense.
The nurse then broke my water at 6:45 pm...which was painless but kinda weird since small amounts of amniotic fluid would leak out with contractions! I was 3cm when they broke my water and 70% effaced. My parents were then allowed to come in and visit. :) My mom couldn't believe I was about to talk through my contractions and text people. Texting was a nice distraction because I still felt a lot of pressure! At 9pm I was 4cm. At 10pm I was 5cm.
Sometime after 10pm I was feeling increasing amounts of pain but didn't say anything because I figured it was part of the labor experience. Finally asked my nurse about it and they called the anesthiologist back into my room. My epidural had been turned off by accident! Yikes. So he got that all taken care of and gave me a large dose of pain medicine. At first I was worried about the effect of pain meds on Austin but epidurals only numb nerves so Austin was quite protected and safe. :)
At 11:15pm I was 8cm. So...3 cm progress in one hour!! Woohoo!! At 12:30am I was 9cm. This is when we started really trying to guess when Austin would make his debut! :) At 1:30am I was 10cm! Time to push. My parents, Andys mom, and Andy's sister were cleared out of the room and a bunch of stuff was brought in along with an extra helper for my nurse.
I started pushing at 1:45am and the nurse said I was doing great but then I started to get scared of the burning pain! That hindered my pushing even though she tried to talk me through it. The on call OB, Dr. Hanson, came in and gave that area a couple shots of lidocaine to help me and then decided to just stay in the room until I delivered. Normally the OB doesn't come in until you are closer to delivering. After that it was a little more bearable to push but still an unreal kind of pressure. I was able to reach down and touch his head when it was partway out. Andy looked just once and decided that was all the more looking he would do! lol! Austin's head was facing to the side so after they delivered his head Dr. Hanson delivered one shoulder and then the other. That's when I tore..boo! He really didn't think I would but oh well...Austin is worth that extra amount of pain. Andy was an AWESOME coach and did a FABULOUS job!! I pushed for an hour and 20 minutes.
Austin came out screaming at 3:03am! Andy cut the cord! They placed Austin on my chest for a minute before taking him to the warmer bed to be assessed and dried off. He weighed 8lbs 2oz and was 20 inches long. Could not believe he was so big! He is perfect and I am so in love with him. He is a great combination of the two of us. :)
Woke up with pretty intense back pain/labor at 5:45 am on 12/15 which steadily progressed to contractions in the front around 12pm. Back and front labor contractions got intense enough to where it was hard to walk around by 2pm so we put our stuff in the car and headed to Dupont Hospital praying that this was for real and not false labor!! Andy had a half day so he had been home since 12:30pm. :)
We were admitted into Labor & Delivery triage at 2:14pm and I was 2cm dilated and 50% effaced. The monitor showed contractions every 2-4 minutes apart and Austin was tolerating them well. Dr. Lorenc was called and updated on my status (he wasn't on call that night :( . The nurse decided to have us walk to see if I would continue to progress. This is standard...but was it was hard to walk while having such bad back labor pain! (hopefully the second baby doesn't do that to me) So we walked for 30ish minutes and then I was checked again and found to be still 2cm so they left me on the monitor for 15 minutes to monitor Austin's heart rate and my contractions and then I had to get up and walk for another 25 or so minutes. After this Dr. Lorenc was called again to be updated and he decided to let the on call doctor come in, examine me, and determine what to do since it was after hours. She (Dr. Thomas) decided to admit me since my contractions continued to be 2-4 minutes apart and I was in quite a bit of pain.
I was admitted into my room at 5:30pm. An IV was started. I got my epidural at 6:30pm. I did not do as well with the epidural going in even though they numbed the spot. You can still feel it or at least the pressue of it. It was very hard to stay still and I was crying quite a bit which didn't help matters! Then I had to lay on one side for a few minutes and then the other side to spread out the medication. Also had to keep rotating sides every hour or so to keep the epidural effective. Didn't know that you had to do this with an epidural but it makes sense.
The nurse then broke my water at 6:45 pm...which was painless but kinda weird since small amounts of amniotic fluid would leak out with contractions! I was 3cm when they broke my water and 70% effaced. My parents were then allowed to come in and visit. :) My mom couldn't believe I was about to talk through my contractions and text people. Texting was a nice distraction because I still felt a lot of pressure! At 9pm I was 4cm. At 10pm I was 5cm.
Sometime after 10pm I was feeling increasing amounts of pain but didn't say anything because I figured it was part of the labor experience. Finally asked my nurse about it and they called the anesthiologist back into my room. My epidural had been turned off by accident! Yikes. So he got that all taken care of and gave me a large dose of pain medicine. At first I was worried about the effect of pain meds on Austin but epidurals only numb nerves so Austin was quite protected and safe. :)
At 11:15pm I was 8cm. So...3 cm progress in one hour!! Woohoo!! At 12:30am I was 9cm. This is when we started really trying to guess when Austin would make his debut! :) At 1:30am I was 10cm! Time to push. My parents, Andys mom, and Andy's sister were cleared out of the room and a bunch of stuff was brought in along with an extra helper for my nurse.
I started pushing at 1:45am and the nurse said I was doing great but then I started to get scared of the burning pain! That hindered my pushing even though she tried to talk me through it. The on call OB, Dr. Hanson, came in and gave that area a couple shots of lidocaine to help me and then decided to just stay in the room until I delivered. Normally the OB doesn't come in until you are closer to delivering. After that it was a little more bearable to push but still an unreal kind of pressure. I was able to reach down and touch his head when it was partway out. Andy looked just once and decided that was all the more looking he would do! lol! Austin's head was facing to the side so after they delivered his head Dr. Hanson delivered one shoulder and then the other. That's when I tore..boo! He really didn't think I would but oh well...Austin is worth that extra amount of pain. Andy was an AWESOME coach and did a FABULOUS job!! I pushed for an hour and 20 minutes.
Austin came out screaming at 3:03am! Andy cut the cord! They placed Austin on my chest for a minute before taking him to the warmer bed to be assessed and dried off. He weighed 8lbs 2oz and was 20 inches long. Could not believe he was so big! He is perfect and I am so in love with him. He is a great combination of the two of us. :)
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
38 weeks today! 14 days to go...or less we hope! Had contractions Friday night and last night..nothing consistent or timeable and they went away...booo.
In other great news...my cousin Amy gave birth via C-Section to her twin boys Friday night. She was admitted for low blood count levels on Friday and they decided to go ahead and deliver the boys that night. Both are in the NICU and the neonatologists are estimating them to be 34 weeks gestation instead of 35 like we thought. Ezekiel Lee weighs 5lbs 10oz and Elijah Arthur weighs 2lbs 11oz. Elijah has had IUGR (growth restriction) the entire time so they knew he would be smaller. Both are under phototherapy lights, in isolettes and being fed through IV's/tube feedings. Amy is going to get the opportunity to attempt to breastfeed Ezekiel tonight possibly. She has been able to hold him twice a day so far and is unable to hold Elijah at this time.
They live in Michigan (about 2 hours from my house) so I've not seen her or the babies yet. Eagerly awaiting pictures though!! Pray that they continue to grow and thrive and will be able to come home by their due date (mid-January). Amy did not end up needing a blood transfusion so that's great and she is scheduled to be released on Tuesday. :) Congrats to Amy & Curtis!
In other great news...my cousin Amy gave birth via C-Section to her twin boys Friday night. She was admitted for low blood count levels on Friday and they decided to go ahead and deliver the boys that night. Both are in the NICU and the neonatologists are estimating them to be 34 weeks gestation instead of 35 like we thought. Ezekiel Lee weighs 5lbs 10oz and Elijah Arthur weighs 2lbs 11oz. Elijah has had IUGR (growth restriction) the entire time so they knew he would be smaller. Both are under phototherapy lights, in isolettes and being fed through IV's/tube feedings. Amy is going to get the opportunity to attempt to breastfeed Ezekiel tonight possibly. She has been able to hold him twice a day so far and is unable to hold Elijah at this time.
They live in Michigan (about 2 hours from my house) so I've not seen her or the babies yet. Eagerly awaiting pictures though!! Pray that they continue to grow and thrive and will be able to come home by their due date (mid-January). Amy did not end up needing a blood transfusion so that's great and she is scheduled to be released on Tuesday. :) Congrats to Amy & Curtis!
Thursday, December 9, 2010
OB appt went well. Weight was down 1lb...totally normal. Blood pressure and urine were fine. I am now measuring behind this week (and last week) but that's a good thing because it means that his head is moving further down into my pelvis...yay! (just causes some presssure!) His heart rate was 159. He was moving around though...hence why it was slightly higher than usual. :)
TMI....
I'm 1cm and 50% thinned out. Still have a soft cervix. Dr. L also "stripped my membranes." I didn't even get a chance to ask him his opinion on this procedure! Guess he isn't against it. Very painful! You have to be somewhat dilated and fairly thinned out for the Doctor to even attempt it so it's not like he is "jumping the gun" or something. It has about a 50/50 success rate in starting contractions within 24ish hours-3 days so we'll see. But I'm assuming since he felt it was a good time to strip me that things may be about ready to go. He said I do need to be patient and he will come when he's ready. It's just hard to wait especially when everything is sore! He said (again) that labor will prolly happen before my next appt but we all know how good his predictions are!
Next appt is December 16th at 3:30pm...so not looking forward to an afternoon appt...greatly increases the odds that the office will be running behind!
TMI....
I'm 1cm and 50% thinned out. Still have a soft cervix. Dr. L also "stripped my membranes." I didn't even get a chance to ask him his opinion on this procedure! Guess he isn't against it. Very painful! You have to be somewhat dilated and fairly thinned out for the Doctor to even attempt it so it's not like he is "jumping the gun" or something. It has about a 50/50 success rate in starting contractions within 24ish hours-3 days so we'll see. But I'm assuming since he felt it was a good time to strip me that things may be about ready to go. He said I do need to be patient and he will come when he's ready. It's just hard to wait especially when everything is sore! He said (again) that labor will prolly happen before my next appt but we all know how good his predictions are!
Next appt is December 16th at 3:30pm...so not looking forward to an afternoon appt...greatly increases the odds that the office will be running behind!
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
I think Dr. L has gotten all of our hopes up...lol! Everything is basically the same for me as far as how I'm feeling...
My lower back is very sore and my lower abdomen is also very sore. Continue to have the "lighting crotch" pain when I stand up or if walking for a long period of time. For those that have never been pregnant....it's something fabulous to look forward to...not! lol! My feet & lower legs are now puffy for most of the day instead of just in the evening (this is a new development which I think I might mention to him at Thursdays appt). Boo...good thing I'm not working right now otherwise having shoes on for long periods would prolly hurt.
I know this is selfish but it would be really nice to have him within the next few days so that I get to spend as much time with him as possible before I start my new job on Feb 21st. Hopefully my body has made even more progress by Thursday's appt. Pray for a smooth, easy delivery and a healthy, happy Austin when the time is right.
My lower back is very sore and my lower abdomen is also very sore. Continue to have the "lighting crotch" pain when I stand up or if walking for a long period of time. For those that have never been pregnant....it's something fabulous to look forward to...not! lol! My feet & lower legs are now puffy for most of the day instead of just in the evening (this is a new development which I think I might mention to him at Thursdays appt). Boo...good thing I'm not working right now otherwise having shoes on for long periods would prolly hurt.
I know this is selfish but it would be really nice to have him within the next few days so that I get to spend as much time with him as possible before I start my new job on Feb 21st. Hopefully my body has made even more progress by Thursday's appt. Pray for a smooth, easy delivery and a healthy, happy Austin when the time is right.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
OB appt went well. :) Austin's heart rate was 145...so consistent lately! My weight was up 2lbs from my appt 2 weeks ago. Blood pressure was fine. My GBS test came back negative so I don't need antibiotics during labor. Woohoo...one less thing to remember! He said I don't need to take my Brethine anymore for contractions and that the hospital won't stop labor anymore if I do need to go in.
TMI warning ....
I'm 1 cm, 30% thinned out and have a soft cervix. So I've made good & normal progress for how far along I am! Dr. L said Austin's head is very low and that I could deliver anytime now. He predicts within the next 7 days but he, of course, can't see into the future. I hope he's right though!
Next appt December 9th at 8:30am.
TMI warning ....
I'm 1 cm, 30% thinned out and have a soft cervix. So I've made good & normal progress for how far along I am! Dr. L said Austin's head is very low and that I could deliver anytime now. He predicts within the next 7 days but he, of course, can't see into the future. I hope he's right though!
Next appt December 9th at 8:30am.
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