Saturday, March 28, 2009

Back to the lights

G. Jesse's bilirubin didn't go down after taking that medication, so he is back on the lights again. Hopefully his liver will start working again and we can be done with the lights soon. The crazy thing is that at his appointment yesterday he had gained 7 ounces from the last weight check on Tuesday. That would have him gaining a pound a week.... He's going to be huge!

He's NOT happy about the lights this time. To punish me for putting him on the lights, he slept terribly last night. His worst night ever. Just the night before last I woke him up shortly before the 8 hour mark because I was uncomfortable. And last night his longest stretch was 3 hours! Agghhh! I'm not even going to try to have him sleep on the lights tonight. I enjoy 8 hour stretches much more than 3 hours.

And just for your amusement.... Last night Dave was fixing something with superglue and he kept putting the glue in his visor, kind of like it was a pen.... The hat came off, but the glue didn't. Apparantly some glue leaked out and glued his hair to the tube. We cut it out, and everything is fine, but we had a good laugh about it.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

3 weeks old

G. Jesse is 3 weeks old now, and sweet as can be still..... He is still sleeping great at night, eating well, and working on his chubs. Clothes that were huge a week or two ago now fit great, I can't believe how fast they grow! He weighed 6 lbs 5 oz on Tuesday, so he is really gaining. He now has some cheeks and a rounder tummy. We adore pretty much everything about him. He still has jaundice, in fact his level was at 22! Yikes! So he now is on a medication called Ursodiol, twice a day, way easier than bililights. Hopefully it is working, we'll know tomorrow. I'm so glad he's here, I'm having so much fun with him.




Meanwhile, my boys are very creative at keeping themselves busy. Isaac and Dawson came upstairs yesterday saying, "Here come the girls!" And you thought we didn't have any daughters!


Isaac is turning 5 in 2 weeks, and he is having an Indiana Jones birthday. I'll have to post about that later....

Friday, March 20, 2009

2 weeks old and full term!

A day late, but G. Jesse can't read yet, so he won't mind.

As of yesterday he is officially full term. Of course I still have 3 weeks until his due date. I'm sure glad he's here and healthy, and I'm not still pregnant for 3 more weeks!

At 2 weeks old he....

-still sleeps most of the time
-has slept a 7 hour stretch at night, followed by a 4-5 hour stretch all week, wow!
-just started pooping yellow
-loves his Nuk binky
-had his first professional photo shoot
-lost his cord stump (at 8 days)
-is out of preemie diapers and into newborn diapers
-is starting to fit into his preemie clothes

And at 2 weeks I.....

-don't trust him even though he is very sweet and sleeps incredibly well for a baby his age. Newborns can turn on you at any moment...
-still LOVE having a new baby
-think I have the hang of putting 4 kids in the car now.
-can't wait to get to the gym... I feel really fat!
-still have 17 pounds to lose, 5 pounds more than I had with the other kids at this point. Maybe my scale is broken? (While I'm talking about weight, can I announce that I came home from the hospital having had an almost 6 pound baby, and had only lost 4 pounds... very discouraging)
-had an old guy at the gas station talk to me with the assumption that I was pregnant. I couldn't wait for that conversation to be over!
-feel guilty that my little Bubba isn't the baby anymore.
-feel grateful for all the help and nice things people have been so generous with
-think G. Jesse looks like a different boy every day. One day I'll think he looks like Henry, the next Dawson. It's so fun!
-can't keep track of my kids names. For goodness sakes, I'm only 26!
-actually don't want to get pregnant again right away. Wow, I didn't know what this felt like until now!
-love all my boys, love being a mom, and feel SOOOOOO happy!




Here he is having his first bath. He liked it at first, but before long he wanted out!


I don't usually take open eye pictures, because they never look very intelligent, but oh well.


Isaac is a great helper. He always wants to hold the baby, and will hold him for quite a long time.


My itsy bitsy boy.


It's too bad pictures can never remind you how small your baby really was. But here is Dave holding the little 5.5 pound boy. It still looked a lot more extreme in person.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

My random thoughts from the last week, I have a lot of them

Here are a bunch of random things I wanted to write down. I don't know if they are interesting to anyone else, but I have to record them somewhere!

Dawson overheard us saying that the baby looked like him. He doesn't look JUST like him, but he has a lot of similarities. Well, Dawson now calls the baby "me". "Me" is hungry, "me" is so cute, etc. He is VERY defensive about it, if you even dare to challenge the thought that the baby is him. It is a little baby Dawson! These boys love the baby! But I wish Henry didn't notice his existence, he just doesn't quite understand that the baby's foot will break if you twist it around. You know what I mean?

I can't believe how little pain was involved in my natural childbirth. As we searched our phone records we found out that Dave hung up with his parents 1 minute before G. Jesse was delivered. And I didn't scream until after he hung up, so I was only in excruciating pain for 1 minute? Thats no worse than stubbing your toe! I LOVE that I got my natural childbirth, and that I didn't have time to wimp out. I definitely plan on trying for another natural childbirthing experience in the future (distant future), and smirk as I wonder if the next labor will be long or extremely painful.

I LOVE having a newborn. I can't understand why I have to go through that dreaded pregnancy thing for something so wonderful! Probably the Lord knows I would have too many kids if I could have babies without pregnancy. But I seriously LOVE my teensy little baby.

We have two friends who had full term babies a few days ago, and they both were in the NICU for breathing issues. How did I end up with a car delivered preemie who can breathe? I am SO glad the Lord blessed us with a healthy lung-ed baby. I'd like to think that this baby had angels attending his birth that helped him out. Of course he did! I know of two angels who wouldn't miss it.

My doctor sent us a beautiful houseplant/flowers with a car on the top. This was the fourth out of four deliveries he has missed, and he is a doctor who is known for delivering most of his own patients. It's SO strange that he's missed all of mine, but I guess everyone missed this one, so it didn't really matter. But he was delivering cows in Idaho that night, and I was kind of annoyed! He is an awesome doctor, I feel like I got absolutely incredible prenatal care, and it was very nice to send that plant. The note says "Sorry I missed the delivery" and he actually called me first thing Monday morning and apologized many times about the car birth. I don't really see any way that he could have prevented it, my history doesn't match up with something like this happening. I told him we'd have to rethink what we would do for next time though, he was very surprised to hear me say next time after this!

I have been thinking about animals that eat their babies lately. That always baffled me, but I have to admit my baby looks absolutely yummy to me! Okay, not really, but I definitely can't keep my lips off of him.

Dave and I laugh all the time when we look at this kid because he is SO small!!! He weighed in Wednesday at 5 lbs. 8 oz. Nothing fits him. And I have a fantastic preemie wardrobe. He is wearing preemie diapers, and they are really cute!!! Dave's sister Natalie kept laughing at his bones sticking out. It makes me feel kind of guilty that I thought I was going to have a big baby, and he is so small. I really, truly thought he would weigh 7 pounds.

Dave keeps reminding me that he is still supposed to be inside me, and to keep holding him. I was loving the sling so I could hold him and still have my hands free. Not using it now because...

Baby G.'s bilirubin jumped up to 20.5, so once again we have a baby on the lights. It was to be expected, and I should never have let that glimmer of hope sneak in that he wouldn't be jaundiced. The good news is he dropped to 17 the next day, which is the biggest drop we've had with our jaundiced babies. So we are done with the lights this evening.

I don't want to declare this baby a "good" baby, because I know that anything can happen at any time.... But so far he has been an angel. He has been consistently sleeping two 5 hour blocks at night, so I just get up once in the night. Sometimes that one time is very quick, and sometimes it takes awhile, but it's not terrible. He is almost unwakeable, so feeding is sometimes hard as he roots and acts hungry, and then he falls right asleep as soon as I start feeding.

Having 4 kids doesn't seem any different than having 3.... until you try to leave the house. What a scene! Tuesday morning I had to have all 4 kids out the door at 8:15 for G. Jesse's 5 day appointment. It probably takes 15 minutes to get them all buckled in their carseats. As long as I don't go anywhere, life has been quite normal for us. And I feel great!

Here are some pictures. We haven't really taken many as this kid is always naked on the lights.

I don't know who he looks like here, I'm not even sure he looks like himself.


The car houseplant.


The little glowing angel. He actually loves these lights, they keep him nice and warm.


And just a funny picture of Bubba. He just came in from playing in the snow, and he looks hilarious in this snowsuit.

We're on the Herald Journal front page!

http://hjnews.townnews.com/articles/2009/03/11/news/news01-03-11-09.txt

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Pictures and birth story

One handed typing here. I'm feeding G. Jesse. Here are some pictures (we don't have many yet..) and the rest of his birth story. It's been a crazy few days, but I feel great! One of the fun parts of this baby is it is the first time I've given birth to someone I recognize. He has a little bit of each of the other boys in him- Henry's round head and brown hair (yes!), Isaac's nose, and most of Dawson's features. Unfortunately no signs of dimples yet, so not quite like Dawson. And in these pictures, he actually looks more like Henry to me, but in person I feel like I'm looking at a brown haired Daws.

This is his first picture, taken around 2:30 am in the NICU. That is so unlike me, but I didn't really have a choice.

My first time holding him since I got to the hospital. Again at 2:30 am. Carrie told me she saw a picture of me holding him and I told her we hadn't taken any yet. I had no memory of this photo shoot.


His last few minutes in the NICU under the warmer. They actually don't wrap them in the NICU, they keep them naked and warm under this warmer.


The boys first meeting. This was a short visit. Very crazy. Like my future life for the next few weeks, yikes!


The only decent picture I have of him. Wearing his monkey attire, which even at preemie size is WAY huge on him. Oh well, keep eating bud, and it will fit you soon.

Full monkey suit, ready to leave the hospital. He had to be monitored in his carseat for an hour and a half to make sure he was safe on the way home, and he passed of course!


Dave and I worked really hard together to recap the full story. We examined all our phone records and we think we have all the timing accurate now. It was about 20 minutes start to finish for my labor. The story is extremely long and detailed, written for my journaling.

On Thursday the contractions were off and on all morning and started into 3 minutes apart around 1:00 in the afternoon. I went about my day again, and figured nothing new would happen, so at 8:30 I took an Ambien, and at 9:15 I took a quick bath before going to bed. I got out of the bath at 9:30 and had a painful contraction for the first time. I went and sat on my birthing ball, and the next contraction came very shortly after. It was even more painful. I think I might have had one more and I told my husband it was time to go to the hospital. We gathered our things quickly (my hospital bag was right by the door, so it wasn’t hard) and we got in the car. We called my best friend Carrie to come sleep at our house, and left.

The contractions were very close and very hard and I was alternating between hands and knees (On the front seat, kind of awkward) and sitting, and moaning. I was begging my husband to drive faster. He panicked and turned down a backroad and at that moment my membranes exploded! He heard it pop. Luckily I didn’t have very much fluid, and we have leather seats, so I just sat in a little puddle. I screamed at the top of my lungs a few times and he asked me what I wanted him to do, or if he should call an ambulance. I told him to just drive faster because I needed an epidural.

Within probably 10 seconds the baby’s head was out. I told him that. He didn’t believe me. I assured him I wasn’t joking. It was crazy, that part didn’t hurt at all. I pulled down my pants and felt the head. Then I instinctively pulled him out and half way out he started to cry and cough. We think that was at 9:50 pm. No more than 20 minutes after my first labor pain. I held him in front of me and kept hitting his back to keep him crying and coughing, and Dave called 911. They told him to go to the ER. I looked around the car for something to wrap the baby in, but our car was unfortunately clean! Dave cranked the heat up.

We pulled up to the ER and Dave went inside and told them he had a baby out in the car. They looked at him blankly and he said, “No, we JUST HAD the baby in the car.” They kicked into gear and the nurses came running. Our neighbor had just had their baby and the husband just got a congratulations text and was told that we were coming. He saw the nurses running and he said he knew it was us. The nurses came out to the car with a wheelchair. It was 29 degrees outside and my baby was wet and naked, and still attached by the umbilical cord. My pants were around my knees. There was a small group of people standing outside (I don’t know why they were outside). I looked at the nurse who told me to get in the wheelchair and mentioned the fact that there people out there and I was half naked. She told me it was okay, just to get in. I made eye contact with those people, it was so embarrassing. They told Dave to take his shirt off and wrap the baby in it. So he did, but then he remembered that I had packed my blanket and they covered both me and the baby in my big quilt.

They wheeled me into the ER while Dave parked, and I was in a room with probably more than 10 doctors and nurses. They cut the cord, took off my pants and shoes, and whisked the baby off to the NICU. It was such a whirlwind of bracelets, questions, people looking at me, but it was over pretty quickly. They took me up to a L&D room and the doctor on call was there to deliver the placenta. It was amazing, I didn’t even get a tear, and I was in absolutely no pain. I felt great, in fact.

At this point I think the adrenaline wore off and the Ambien took over. By morning I remembered nothing past the delivery of the placenta. Dave filled me in on the details. At 2:30 am Dave came back to my room with roses and my favorite drink and asked if I wanted to go down to the NICU to see the baby. We went down and they recommended we do some skin to skin time. He kept rooting, so I asked if I could nurse him. They let me nurse him, and when I was done they took the CPAP off of him, they said he didn’t even need it but they had put it on just in case.

This baby weighed 5 lbs. 15 oz and was 18.5 inches long. He ate, breathed, and pooped on his own flawlessly, and they told me that the only reason he was in the NICU was because he was preterm and born in a car. They were scared he would develop infection because he wasn’t born in a sterile environment, and sometimes preemies get tired of breathing after awhile and they don’t do as well. So really he was just there for the monitoring. He performed perfectly, was out of the NICU at 6:00 pm the next day, and came home with us 39 hours after he was born.

I wanted a natural childbirth. I read books, and packed a birthing ball and other materials to help me while I was going through labor pains. I didn’t need any of them. Anyone can withstand extreme pain for 5 minutes. My mom said I took the “natural childbirth” thing a little too far birthing my own baby! The birth certificate will actually list me as the delivering attendant! I’m glad I got my natural childbirth as I wanted my labor to be faster this time. My labors have lasted 7 hours, 7 hours, 12 hours, and 20 minutes. I guess it was either 20 minutes or like 3 months. Depends on how you look at it.

It you want some attention, deliver your baby in the car. I think everyone in the hospital knew my story. Apparently it doesn’t happen very often. I had lots of people asking me questions, so here are some of my “FAQ’S” of the last 2 days.
Q. Was it so scary?
A. No not really, I didn’t know he was going to be born in the car until the moment it happened as my other babies were pretty hard to get out. So I didn’t have time to be scared before, and there was nothing to be scared of after he was out, crying and healthy.

Q. Did Dave freak out?
A. No, same thing for him. Luckily we were less than 5 minutes away from the hospital at that point.

Q. Was it terrible?
A. No, I would totally take this delivery over laying in bed all day with an epidural. Not that I dislike epidurals, but I despise laying around all day in that uncomfortable 15 degree angle. Fast labor is quite nice. Just a little bit violent.

Q. Did you push the baby out?
A. I remember thinking it through, thinking I shouldn’t push, but that there was no way I could wait until we got to the hospital. I don’t think I pushed, I think it was my body’s natural instinct, but I’m not 100% sure. All I know is that if I wasn’t wearing pants, he probably would have flew out of me. It was that violent!

Q. Were you laying down?
A. Nope, sitting up in the front seat. It wasn’t a great angle to deliver a baby, but whatever!

Friday, March 6, 2009

Natural child birth achieved. Baby born in car.

After all these days of prodromal labor, the real labor kicked in and the baby was born 20 minutes later...in our car on the way to the hospital. Erica delivered her own baby. He is healthy, breathing and eating. 5 pounds and 15 ounces.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Prodromal Labor

I was officially diagnosed yesterday at my dr.'s appt with Prodromal labor. What kind of sick person has prodromal labor preterm? It's messed up. Tuesday night the Terbutaline was out of my system and the contractions started up 3 minutes apart again. That was around 3:00. They did progressively get a little bit more painful, but mostly I just got tired, really tired. At 7:45 I was at Young Women's and I was so tired I slipped out and came home. I called L&D, and they told me they didn't want me unless the contractions painful. If they're not painful, it's not "active" labor. I wanted her to try them out and tell me if they were "active" or not. So I stayed home. Around 10:00 I just wanted to fall asleep, but those darn contractions were still 3 minutes apart. Finally at 11:30 I took a sleeping pill, and fell asleep even with those strong contractions.

I was awake by 2:30 from the contractions, and tried to sleep some more through them. It didn't work. They did space out, and most weren't as strong as before, but I didn't fall asleep until 7:00 am and woke up at 8:00 am.

My cute husband was right by my side through the whole process. Asking how I was feeling and what he could do for me. He is such a stud! He even googled "How to break your water" and came back rubbing my ankles really hard to try to break my water. It doesn't work, but if you can convince your husband to do something like that, why not? He said, and I think this is so true, "Is it kind of like doing sit ups for 8 hours?" And I said, "YES!" I'm thinking after 16+ hours of contractions super close together this week, I'm probably fully trained for a marathon. But right now, I'm just tired.

I woke up yesterday a complete disaster. I cried a lot, took the best nap I could (I'm a very bad napper), and other than that did nothing else besides take care of my children's basic needs. My dr appt was at 4:15 and shortly before that the contractions started 3 minutes apart again. My poor dr had to see me cry for the first time (Which is pretty good considering it's my 5th pregnancy. I didn't even cry to him when I had a miscarriage) It was cute, he handed me a box of tissues. I told him I really, truly couldn't do another night of this. Not that I'm so anxious to have a baby, I'd love to wait another week or two, but I can't handle laboring every night for another week or two. I offered him $200 to call me 6 cm (the magic number for them to break my water while preterm) or $100 to just hit me over the head with a baseball bat. I told him those were his only choices.

He checked me and I was back to 5 cm, and had progressed to 90% effaced. I wanted to use some bad words to express my disgust in 8 hours of contractions, 3 minutes apart and only 10% more effacement from all of that!!!!!! He asked if I still wanted to go natural. "NO!" I screamed. I need an epidural now! I am way too tired to have any more labor without drugs! Maybe after I get some sleep my outlook will change, but I feel like a total of 16+ hours of labor in a week counts for natural childbirth! Although I still REALLY hate that position they make you lay in when you're on the bed. They kept trying to make me lay like that on Sunday, and I kept rebelling. I do like moving around.

Anyway, he told me he thought it was coming any day, which he usually doesn't make promises like that. But he promised that if I was pregnant next week, he would break my water. SOOOOOO, we know we have no longer than a week.

He also gave me Ambien CR which is supposed to help you stay asleep all night. I actually did. I slept through the night for the first time in months. It was fantastic.

Last night I was able to get the contractions to slow down in the evening. I don't know how I did it, maybe sheer willpower. I had no desire to have the baby in that exhausted state. But now I wait to see if some contractions pick up, or if my membranes of steel which have withstood so much this week finally give in.

I'm still a time bomb. Just waiting to go off. After all this labor and all my crying, I really just want to hold and kiss little G. Jesse, wrap him up in a blanket, nurse him, take a billion pictures of him, and dress him in the world's most fantastic premature boy wardrobe that I just so happen to own after collecting it with the last 2 premature boys I had. That's my reward for the most miserable pregnancy I've ever had.

Monday, March 2, 2009

The night in L&D

Yesterday evening I started into contractions 10 minutes apart. Then they were 7, then 5. I googled false labor vs true labor and it said to take a bath and a big drink to stop false labor. So I got in the bath and they were 3 minutes apart then. After an hour at exactly 3 minutes apart we went to labor and delivery. They told me I was at 4 cm now, and we watched the contractions at 3 minutes apart for awhile. I wasn't in any pain, that's why I thought it was false labor. After an hour I was at 5 cm and further effaced. So she called the dr. and he said lets try to stop it.

So they shot up my arm with Terbutaline and we waited an hour. It muted the contractions but didn't stop them. So they told me I was staying the night and gave me a sleeping pill. I fell asleep at 3:00 am and woke up at 6:00 am, unfortunately. The contractions were far apart and not very strong and I was able to go home around 11:00 this morning.

The dr. said that's the last time they will try to stop the labor. So now I sit at probably 5 cm waiting to see what happens next. And I'm SO tired. Too bad I'm not a good napper. Hopefully I get a good night sleep tonight.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

It's March!

Wow, today it's March. That is the month we are having our baby. That makes me excited.

And some good news, I slept from 2:00 am to 7:00 am last night. That was the longest stretch I've had in a long time. I must have been dehydrated or something. But it felt great.