2 Month Appointment

I can't believe that Gabriel turned 2 months old today!

We went to the pediatrician for another check-up and everything is looking great!  He is now 11 pounds, 4 ounces (40th percentile), 22 3/4 inches (50th percentile), with a head circumference of 15 3/4 inches (50th percentile).  Way to grow!

This appointment also meant getting his first round of immunizations.  I have to say he handled it better than I thought he would.  He of course cried when he got them and then sounded really pitiful for a couple minutes afterward, but after we got home he seemed fine.  Tired, but fine (he's currently sleeping).  I almost cried though.  Poor little guy.  Hopefully he won't feel bad this evening.

Spending more time talking to his bird friends

So what else has been going on the last couple of weeks?  Well, as his weight gain shows, he is now wearing size 1 diapers and not fitting into most of the newborn clothes that he's been wearing since birth.  I've had to put a bunch of them in a box in the closet.  He's also smiling a lot more and has even more to say.  Last weekend he took a little trip to the mountains for a few days and got to wear his bear outfit (it's the first thing that I bought for him once we found out that we were having a boy.  Taylor isn't a fan of him being dressed like an animal, but there's no denying that it's CUTE). . .

So warm and happy

Family shot at the cabin

He has also discovered his thumb.  He doesn't put it in his mouth too much, mostly because he's too busy trying to fit his entire hand in there, not just his thumb. . .

And as much as he still hates tummy time, some days he finds it more tolerable than others.  This was a couple days ago when he was really on a roll.  He kept his head up long enough for me to take all of these pictures.  Other days he just keeps his face down in the blanket and whines.  His head is much stronger though.  When you hold him on your chest he keeps his head up pretty well looking over your shoulder.

In other news, his sleep is still all over the place.  While we were previously letting him stay up late (11 pm) in hopes that he'd sleep more through the middle of the night, he now seems "done" for the day somewhere around 9 pm.  I'm thankful that he sleeps so well at night in his crib.  Give him bath, some food, a story, and his ocean sound machine and he drifts off fairly quickly.  While he sometimes wakes up 2-3 times after that over the course of the night, at least he still always falls back asleep fairly easily after he eats.  Sometimes he wakes up at 1 and then again at 4 and then again at 7.  Other times he skips the 2 am session (and wow is that nice).  He is usually "up" for the day between 6:30 and 7:30.  We're working on getting him to take naps a little more easily during the day.  Some days he will and some days he cries from being tired but has a very hard time dozing off unless he's being held.

He also really seems to like going outside.  I again put his super cool hat on him and we went out for a few minutes and got some fresh air.  He was all smiles when we came back inside. . .

That's the update for now!  He just woke up!

See What Gabriel Can Do. . .

Here are some things that Gabriel has recently discovered:

That he can hold things by himself

That putting your hands in your mouth is interesting

That he can actually put any number of things in his mouth

Fun stuff

That there is a little blue bird hovering over his head.  He sits in this little seat every day, but this evening he all of the sudden noticed that it was there and had a lot to say to his new little friend :)

1 Month Appointment

Today was Gabriel's 1 month pediatrician visit (even though he's now 6 weeks old).  There weren't very many appointments available right around Christmas when he officially hit the 1 month mark.  So, we'll be going again in 2 weeks for his 2 month appointment.

When he hit the scale he was a great big 10 pounds 5 ounces.  I knew when I picked him up one day last week that he felt significantly heavier, but I didn't expect him to creep over the 10 pound mark.  Way to grow little man!  For his weight he's now in the 25th percentile (up from the 10th percentile a month ago).

He's also 22 inches long and in the 25th percentile (he was also in the 25th percentile last month).

His head circumference jumped from the 25th percentile to the 50th (is this any wonder?  I have the biggest head.  I stretch out Taylor's hats if I wear them)

 He's also starting to make some very cute faces.  And we're still not sure if he's smiling for any reason other than being gassy, but he sure seems to be making lots of eye contact and at least finding Taylor and I much more interesting.  Here are a few pictures we took while we were waiting for the doctor:

Ohhhh. . .fascinating

Well, if you're going to take my picture I might as well look innocent

What? No shots until 2 weeks from now?  Hooray!

You take one more picture of me wearing nothing but my diaper and I'll punch ya in the teeth

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.