First Month

Taylor said that I should write a post about the first month.  I can't believe Gabriel was a month old on December 24th.  We had family over that night to celebrate Christmas Eve (I'll have to post some pictures of his first Christmas later too).

Taken 12/24/2012 (he was being a little wiggly)

I don't really know how to sum up the last month at this point.  It's been dominated by getting in the routine of having no routine.  Some days are good and some days are. . .challenging :)

For example: yesterday he was awake ALL DAY.  He woke up to eat the night before at 1 am, 3:30 am, and sometime a little after 6.  He would not take a nap, even though he seemed very tired.  He fussed like crazy every time you put him down. There was just no pleasing him.  It was a more difficult day to say the least.  Then, last night, he slept from 11:45 pm until 5:45 am.  I woke up wondering what had happened (and shocked by the fact that I ended up getting 5 hours of continued sleep).  He's been snoozing on and off all day today so far.  There's no predictability whatsoever.  And I get that that's how it goes with a newborn, but it's just an adjustment every day.  I like schedules.  I like to make lists.  I like to have a plan for the day.  I can't do that anymore.

Don't get me wrong though.  I may get frustrated with him, but then I have to remind myself that he's a baby. He's not supposed to come with a schedule.  That's something that I need to give up for the time being (along with the hopes of ever really feeling totally rested).  When he's a little older he can have some sense of a schedule, but of course it's not going to be like it was before he was here.  And that's ok.

On a day he would not stop fussing.
We bundled up and walked outside for a bit.
He was shocked into silence

I could type about so many different things, but then this would end up being really really long, and who wants that?  So, to sum up:

1) He's eating really well (we think he's over 8 pounds now.  We'll go to the doctor again on January 8th).
2) He's pooping a lot (he's a baby, what do you expect?)
3) He's successfully left the house a couple times for short little errands/meals with minimal freaking out in public (we went to lunch on my birthday, went to finish a little Christmas shopping, went to Caribou for coffee, went to Waffle House on Christmas.  We still have yet to venture out when it's just the 2 of us, but that's ok.  I'm not sure I'm ready for that).
4) He's very noisy (who knew that babies grunt so much?  I know they make poop noises and the like, but the grunting is something I knew nothing about. He sounds like a cross between a horse and a dolphin)
5) He's really cute (even though he's probably still smiling for no reason, it still just melts your heart)

After bath time.  He actually had his first tub bath the other day.
He actually really likes the warm water and LOVES having his hair washed

Staring and squirming

Ready to to go Caribou to get some coffee

Really amused (even if only for a few seconds) by some finger puppets

So cuddly

Weigh In

We went back to the pediatrician's office today and saw their nurse practitioner (who, like the pediatrician last week, said that Taylor and I are very relaxed parents.  Who knew?  I'd never place myself in the "relaxed category").  Anyway, Gabriel shocked us with a weight of 6 pounds 13 ounces.  Way to gain a pound from your birth weight!  And up from 5 pounds 10 ounces when we left the hospital last Wednesday. He's starting to eat like a pro :)

Gabriel Meets Loki

We couldn't put it off forever.  Loki eventually had to come home from my mom's place (where she had been since Gabriel was born.  My mom was so great to go and pick her up and take her for an extended vacation at her place, where she probably got way more treats and attention than she would have over here the last week and a half).

We took Gabriel over to my mom's to pick Loki up, since someone suggested it might be better to introduce them on neutral turf (so Loki didn't come home to find that someone had taken over her space).

Wearing his "I'm meeting the dog" outfit

Never has Loki looked big in comparison to anything until this picture :)

Everyone hanging out with Taylor while he does some work

He apparently put them both to sleep :)

It's only been a few hours, but at least Loki hasn't freaked out yet.  We're trying to give her some extra attention.  She was not a fan of me feeding Gabriel, however.  She wants her spot in my lap all to herself.

And here are just a couple more random pictures:  

He makes the goofiest little faces

Special Care Nursery

The day after little Gabriel was born is a little bit of a blur to me.  So many things happened.  But to back up to where I left off last time. . .

When we were in the delivery room after the birth Dixie remarked that the placenta was quite small.  Due to that and the fact that his heart rate had issues during labor the protocol was to send the placenta to pathology.  Also, when she was collecting the cord blood for banking she remarked that the cord was exceptionally small and she wasn't sure if she could get enough blood.  I thought very little about either of these thing at the moment (I was too busy being overwhelmed by the fact that I'd just met our sweet baby boy).

A NICU nurse came to the delivery since there was some meconium present when my water broke.  She checked Gabriel's blood sugar shortly after birth and commented that it was low (I can't remember the exact number.  Somewhere between 30-40).  He ate a tiny bit and she checked it again about 30 minutes later.  It was slightly above 40.  She told us not to worry, but that they would check it every hour for a couple hours to make sure that it kept going up.

As the night went on I can't remember exactly how many times they checked it (his poor little heel still has scabs on it) or exactly what the numbers were, but by about 6:30 am on Sunday morning the nurse came to tell us that it was still less than 40.  I could not get him to eat anything and the nurses in the nursery could not get him to take any formula either.  We were told that they were moving him to their Transition Nursery (basically, you can stay there for a few hours until they decide if you're stable enough to stay on the postpartum floor or if you need to be admitted to the NICU or Special Care Nursery).

The neonatologist came to see him shortly after he was brought down.  We were there when he came by.  He took no time in saying that the safest thing was to admit him for 24 hours to monitor him and make sure that his blood sugar stabilized and that he was able to eat.

I don't think that I've ever felt so scared and overwhelmed.  I hadn't slept in who knows how long and this was certainly not a scenario that I had prepared myself for.  I know very little about babies, but I think that my nursing brain tends to jump to the worst care scenario when it comes to medical things.

Anyway, over the next couple days the drill was to try and get him to eat.  If he couldn't take in a certain about the nurses would supplement it with tube feedings.  His blood sugars stabilized once he was able to get adequate intake going, but it really was mostly tube feeding at this point.  He had very little energy to eat anything himself.  Also, his bilirubin climbed for a couple of days and his platelets dropped for a couple of days as well.  On Sunday and Monday he ate very little himself, but the nurses assured us that at some point a switch would just flip and he'd start eating himself.

Talking with the neonatologist (who was great, by the way), he said that all of it could simply be explained by the fact that his placenta and cord were so small.  He just didn't grow like he should have toward the end of the pregnancy.  There's really no way to know exactly why that happened, since the ultrasound at 20 weeks was normal.  When I talked to the midwife about it the day we were discharged she said she'd seen that happen when people got very sick toward the end of their pregnancy.  I had a virus for several weeks in October, but who knows if that contributed or not.

I was discharged from the hospital on Monday night, and little Gabe just wasn't ready to come home with us.  That was a rough night too.  I did not anticipate packing up the car to go home without him when I anticipated his birth.  He was moved that evening to a different part of the nursery though, where babies that aren't quite as sick can still be monitored, but there is a little more privacy and space.  They took him feeding tube out that night as well.  Even though he still took a very long time to eat and had to be forced a little, he could at least get down enough to stop tube feedings.

On Tuesday the doctor decided that he needed just one more day before he came home.  His platelets started trending up, but he wanted to make sure that the bilirubin had peaked since it was still climbing.  As frustrating as that was, we certainly wanted to make sure that after everything that he'd gone through he was ready to come home and wouldn't be bouncing right back into the hospital.

One more thing that I simply must mention.  I have never been so impressed with a group of nurses as I was with everyone we came in contact with in the nursery, on the postpartum floor, and in the lactation department.  I've seen a lot of nurses in a lot of different hospitals and work environments, and never have I seen a group so competent, compassionate, and passionate about what they do.  Every single one of them was so supportive and helpful.  They let us ask a million questions, let us take care of him (feed him/change him/hold him) as much as we wanted, taught us all kinds of tricks and ideas for how to get him to eat, and at the same time encouraged us to rest and take care of ourselves.  One night when we were there the nurse told me that I had to go and take something for pain and sleep, even if that meant missing his 3 am feeding.  I needed someone to give me that permission since I had been up all day and night and had barely rested myself.

This has gotten long enough :)  Needless to say, we got to take Gabriel home on Wednesday afternoon.  He is still learning how to eat better, which is frustrating, but we're trying to maintain perspective.  He's doing so much better than a week ago.  We can't expect him to learn it all in one day.  When we went to the pediatrician on Thursday he had gained a little weight and we'll take him to get checked again later this week.  Never have I been compelled to pray about something so fervently, and never have a seen God so quickly answer prayer.  Every day he is so much better and I am amazed.  What a beautiful blessing this sweet little boy is to our family.

Labor and Delivery

For those who do not know, Gabriel August Rollo made his debut on Saturday, November 24th at 6:58pm!

Holding him just a few minutes after he was born

And while I may be sleep deprived at the moment, I probably won't remember the details of all that transpired any better on another day than I do today (and I have a few minutes before he will need to eat again and not enough time for a nap.  Good time to type some of this up.  Sorry if this gets long). . . . . . .

I'm not sure exactly when I officially went into labor.  I didn't feel right all day on Friday.  My stomach felt tight and I felt super uncomfortable, but I'd felt more uncomfortable each day for the past several weeks as it was.  I woke up Saturday morning around 2 am having some mild cramping.  I stayed in bed, but decided to time out how often it was happening after it happened a couple times in a row.  It was every 10-12 minutes and not too uncomfortable (but enough to keep me from going back to sleep).

And so this continued through the night.  They of course got closer together, and by about 5 am they were every 5-7 minutes or so.  I decided to go ahead and get up and take a shower "just in case".  While the actual contractions weren't awful at that point my back was really starting to hurt with each one.  By about 10 am they had actually spaced out a little and were not regular (ranging from every 5-10 minutes).  My back, however, was becoming beyond painful.  I don't know how to describe it really, but I felt like I was being stabbed with each contraction.  I decided to go ahead and call the midwife at our practice at this point, more because of the back pain.  I knew that the contractions weren't close enough or regular enough to warrant rushing into the hospital.  Thankfully when she called me back I was actually having a contraction and she could hear how it was making me feel.  She told me to come into the hospital so she could check things out.

A couple shots of the Labor/Delivery room

We got to Northside around 11 am.  The nurse got me admitted and it turns out I was only 3cm dilated.  The midwife, Dixie, came to see us shortly after (I also need to mention that the the practice that we chose has both MDs and Certified Nurse Midwives.  One of each is always on-call and at the hospital.  You can chose a midwife or OB for your delivery, but they both assist each other if there are emergencies, etc.  I like that setup).  I was so glad that Dixie was on-call.  We had seen her more than anyone else in the OBs office and she also taught our childbirth class.  Anyway, after she checked things out she suggested that I go ahead and get an epidural if I wanted one, since my back was hurting so badly, and try to get a little rest.  She anticipated that I still had many hours of labor left and I'd already been up all night (she guessed I could deliver a little before midnight).  The problem with the pain was mostly because Baby Rollo was flipped over with his head pushing in to my back.  Ouch.  Taylor and I walked in the hall a little, but the pain in my back really was horrible and getting much worse.  I went ahead and got an epidural and Dixie broke my water to get things moving.

So, the plan was to get a few hours of rest.  That plan didn't really play out.  I think I may have had about 20 minutes to close my eyes around 4 pm.  My contractions slowed down considerably and the nurse started a very low dose of Pitocin.  When she did that the baby's heart rate dropped.  That was really frightening.  All of the sudden there were a couple nurses in my room and they paged Dixie.  I know that they gave me something to relax my uterus and they flipped me in several positions before things resolved.  I kept thinking they were going to take me for an emergency C-section.

Next they decided to stop the Pitocin and make sure that the baby's heart rate stayed ok.  However, the contractions that I was having were becoming increasingly painful even with the epidural.  I felt minimal discomfort in my abdomen, but again my back felt awful.  The nurse actually gave me a bolus in my epidural twice and called the anesthesiologist to the bedside to push something stronger.  Neither had much effect on my back pain.  The nurse eventually started the Pitocin again at a low dose.

When my back was unbearably painful and nothing was touching it, the nurse decided to check things again. And, much to my surprise, I was at 10 cm.  I had progressed much faster than I thought was possible.  While Dixie was paged, the nurse suggested trying to push a little just to see if I could get the baby to move and maybe relieve the pressure on my back.  When she said the words "try pushing" Taylor and I were both a little shocked.  How could it be time to do that already?

Speaking of Taylor, he was so wonderful the whole time.  He hadn't gotten any more sleep than I had (he woke up sometime around 3 am and didn't really go back to sleep either).  He sat there by my bed and held my hand and did whatever I needed (which changed from moment to moment).  Thankfully when they put the epidural in he waited until after the doctor was done to say "that was one big needle!" :)

Anyways, so when Dixie got there it all happened so fast.  I don't know exactly how long it took, but I was only pushing for maybe 15-20 minutes before our beautiful little miracle arrived.  Pushing was so much less painful than what I had already been feeling (my back was thankful for the relief).  I was surprised that he came out so quickly, but I think that was due in large part to the fact that he was much smaller than I anticipated (but all of that will be saved for another post).  Here are some pictures of the first precious moments of his life out in the world. . .

39 Weeks

One week from today is our projected due date--November 26. One week! Of course, we all know that means it could really be any time now. Erika and the baby are chugging along. We had an OB appointment again today and everything was fine. Here is the latest progress photo:

As always, here is the latest from a biological point of view (courtesy of Baby Center):

Your baby's waiting to greet the world! He continues to build a layer of fat to help control his body temperature after birth, but it's likely he already measures about 20 inches and weighs a bit over 7 pounds, a mini watermelon. (Boys tend to be slightly heavier than girls.) The outer layers of his skin are sloughing off as new skin forms underneath.

Pregnancy Photos

We got our pictures today from the pregnancy photo shoot that we had done back at the end of September. I thought that I'd share a few.  Thanks Kevin and Brittany!

38 Weeks

Well... we are getting closer and closer down to the wire. The due date is just two weeks away: November 26. We hit 38 weeks today:

Erika's blood pressure has been high lately. It does not appear to be preeclampsia, which is good, but it is something that is concerning nonetheless. Please be praying for it to stay down and for Erika to be able to rest a lot, which should help it some. 

As always, here is the latest from a biological point of view (courtesy of Baby Center):

Your baby has really plumped up. He weighs about 6.8 pounds and he's over 19 1/2 inches long (like a leek). He has a firm grasp, which you'll soon be able to test when you hold his hand for the first time! His organs have matured and are ready for life outside the womb. Wondering what color your baby's eyes will be? If he's born with brown eyes, they'll likely stay brown. If he's born with steel gray or dark blue eyes, they may stay gray or blue or turn green, hazel, or brown by the time he's 9 months old.

37 Weeks

Today we hit 37 weeks. Here is the latest collage and progress photo:

We went to Babies 'R' Us today and purchased the final items from our registry that we need before the baby comes. Fortunately, our friends and family have been generous and we only needed a few more things, most of them small. The only major one was our car seat-stroller combo. Now we just need to install our bases in our cars and get them inspected. Then we will be ready to take him home whenever he comes.

As per the tradition of these posts, here is the latest from a biological point of view (courtesy of Baby Center):

Your baby is now considered "full term," even though your due date is three weeks away. If you go into labor now, his lungs will likely be mature enough to fully adjust to life outside the womb. (Some babies need a bit more time, though. So if you're planning to have a repeat c-section, for example, your practitioner will schedule it for no earlier than 39 weeks unless there's a medical reason to intervene earlier.)
Your baby weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel (like a stalk of Swiss chard). Many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long. But don't be surprised if your baby's hair isn't the same color as yours. Dark-haired couples are sometimes thrown for a loop when their children come out as blonds or redheads, and fair-haired couples have been surprised by Elvis look-alikes. And then, of course, some babies sport only peach fuzz.

I hope our baby is an Elvis look-alike! That would be awesome, though I should probably not get my hopes up.

This and That

This post may be about a few random things, but that's me -- random.

We had our 36 week appointment today.  Everything is still looking just as it should.  I'm measuring right at 36 weeks and 1 cm dilated (which is completely normal at this point -- sorry if that's too much information for some people).  We will be checking in with one of the midwives every week from here on out!  I'm feeling pretty good at this point (just generally a little uncomfortable).  I had a virus that took a week to get over, but thankfully it's almost gone.  I'm pretty tired too.  The only other thing that really bothers me daily is my right hand.  It tends to go completely numb when I sleep (I've been wearing a wrist brace to bed to help with that).  During the day I usually cannot fully feel the tips of 3 of my fingers.  It's just due to the mild swelling in my hands, but it is a little annoying and it makes it hard to write sometimes.

Moving on, after our appointment Taylor was nice enough to agree to do a little shopping with me (every guys favorite things to do, right?).  We have been so blessed to be given almost all of the baby clothes that are currently in the dresser, but I was feeling like I wanted just a couple warmer pieces that could be layered over what we already have (especially since it's been so cold the last couple of days!  Reminds me that winter is on the way).  We went to Kid to Kid in Duluth (http://www.kidtokid.com/duluth) since they were having a sale this week (buy 1 baby item, get the 2nd for half off).  Their prices are already so low, and with the extra discount I wanted to take advantage.  I'm glad that Taylor came though, because my already indecisive brain is feeling even more so these days.  We found some great items, mostly picked out by the Dad-to-be himself!

This was not something that we needed at this point, but when we saw it (and very much on sale) we had to get it.  I think we'll find Taylor a matching one ;)

This doesn't quite capture everything that we bought, but you can at least see most of it

We ended up paying a little less than $25 for everything, which was pretty exciting to me.  I don't feel the need to buy any more clothes at this point either.  Like I said, we've had so many people give us clothes (both new and used) that I think we're set for the moment.  We've got great friends and family :)

And I've got great co-workers too (to throw out one more random thing in this post).  My co-workers at LifeLink had a baby shower for me yesterday.  I didn't take any pictures, but they were so sweet to bring in lots of of yummy food and many wonderful presents for Baby Rollo.  Thank you all so much!  Below is one gift that I absolutely love (and is going to drive Loki absolutely crazy) :)

This bear talks and plays peek-a-boo

So cute!