Diapers… Monday, December 31, 2007

I cannot believe how many diapers we’ve changed… and just how gross they can get without making me overtly sick.

I won’t bother going into the details but, I will take a moment to warn my brother-in-law – you’ll have to get over the aversion to poo if you plan to help your wife at all. I’ve seen only a tiny fraction of wet-only diapers…

All-in-all, we’re doing pretty well around here. The latest feed/sleep scheme between Susan and I is working fairly well. I think I got enough sleep last night to cover me for a full day in the office. We’ll be talking with the doctor on Thursday about what to expect going forward and how we can make this period a little more survivable.

I’m not sure if we’ll be up for the ball drop in any American time zone… but if Olivia wants to see it, she’ll make sure we know!

Happy New Year everyone – thanks for all your love and support.

I, Robot. Sunday, December 30, 2007

I am a milk machine.  The past few days have been getting better due to a new system, but I’m still feeling a little less than human.  My sleep has vastly improved (but I believe at a cost to Ian so I’m going to have to re-evaluate the system).  Neither parent is sleeping in an actual bed.  Olivia isn’t either, for that matter, but I’m working on it even now.  She is currently sacked out in the crib just over my shoulder and has been like that for over an hour.  My incision is healing very well and I’ve been off the pain medicine for about half a week (not even the ibuprofen!).  The area just around the cut is still pretty numb and I get the occasional twinge and ache when I turn or sit up, but nothing I can’t handle.

Olivia is fabulous.  She is beautiful and unintentionally funny, making faces and strange noises at all times.  When she cries (thankfully fairly rarely), she sounds like a tiny velociraptor from the movie “Jurrasic Park”.   She is a never-ending black hole into which milk disappears at an alarming rate.  She looks like her mommy except I do believe she’s going to have her daddy’s coloring.  When her eyes finally decide what color they want to be (right now they are stubbornly gray), I’ll know for sure.  She’s my favorite human being on the planet.  I mean, just right up there with her daddy.  Being a parent is still a little surreal and there are moments when I question my good sense for becoming one, but for the most part this falls under the “Best-decision-ever” category.

Little girls vs. little boys Wednesday, December 26, 2007

I’d heard plenty of the story of little boys spraying down their parents and/or other diaper changing agent.  I knew that with us having a little girl, I’d be avoiding the problem of liquid geysers.

Or I thought I knew I would.

No – she didn’t pee up my sleeve.  She pooped across the changing table.

Don’t click if you don’t want details…

Faux Hawk Wednesday, December 26, 2007

We gave Ms. Olivia her first bath at home today. We all did fairly well with it, but it did give her a good chance to show off her lungs.

It gets better, it gets better, it gets better… Sunday, December 23, 2007

That’s been Susan’s mantra since about 11p last night… approximately one hour after we climbed into bed for real.

I’ve changed 3 diapers (or was it 4) and the last one was a total blowout – she pooped all the way out of her diaper and onto her clothes.   Susan has fed her for hours and hours, with a cumulative yet to be determined.

All in all… wow.  This isn’t for the faint of heart.

I’ll post more later.

Going home day Saturday, December 22, 2007

We all got a good amount of sleep last night, what with Ms. Olive spending most of it in the nursery, per a number of people’s suggestion.  She fed right on schedule and the heavy milk sent her into a beautiful slumber each time.

We’ve seen both of the doctors, Susan’s and Olivia’s, this morning and they’ve both given us the okay to head home.  We’ll see the pediatrician again for a 2 week visit, thanks to the fact that Susan’s milk has come on strong, plus Olivia’s jaundice levels are on the drop.  Everyone has been mesmorized by her little beauty and have been impressed with her ability to nurse so well.

Our little Olive came out of the womb and was practicing her root reflex almost immediately.  She was searching while she was under the warmer in the first nursery, so once she got ahold of her mother, she has done great.  After a little practice, she’s even learned just how wide her mouth has to be to get the latch the first time.  Susan has barely had to break a latch over the last 24 hours.

Its going to be strange, not haunting the hospital halls at the wee hours of the morning.  On more than one of our trips around the ward, I’ve contemplated just how much effort it would take create a track around our house!   Olivia is quite found of rolling around in her bassinet, as we travel through the halls.  It seems to be a decent cure for the gassy times in her life.

I’ve carried one bag out the car already, and we’re going to wait for Susie’s lunch to come through before heading home.  I’m going to turn off the laptop now, ending our marathon blogging session for now.  Hopefully we’ll find the time to post updates, but after seeing several of the other bloggers’ lights grow dim in the first week, I wouldn’t be surprised if our posting rate slides.

Photos… Friday, December 21, 2007

We’ve not been taking a huge number of pictures, but I think that may be because we’ve seen all of this stuff over and over again. The other thing is that so many moments are very private, keeping us from sharing them with everyone. We have, however, managed to get a few great ones.

The wide eyed photo is just after a feeding, where mom was working on getting a burp. She opened her eyes wide and managed to focus in my direction. It was around the same time that she gave Susan and I some fantastic moments – looking directly at us with a purpose. With me, she heard my voice and looked right into my eyes. Its amazing… growth every single day!

The red and white jumper was a git from one my coworkers and, in fact, we got her portrait made in that particular outfit! From the portrait studio, we got a few wallets, a few mid-sized photos and one 8×10 that will end up on our wall.

We’ll be headed home tomorrow in the early afternoon, so I’d imagine we’ll have plenty more photo opportunities popping up, so keep watching the Flickr collection.

As a final note – please include Lesha’s father in your prayers. He’s headed in for surgery on an aneurysm behind his eyes on Thursday.

Mother’s milk Friday, December 21, 2007

Susan has successfully “dropped her milk” and is providing plenty of it to Olivia’s crying mouth.  Ms. Olivia, in turn, has decided to significantly up her feeding schedule, but has yet to produce the number of bowel movements we expect.  Additionally, the extra feedings seem to be producing a fair amount of gas in her tiny tummy and she does not like that feeling.  Yesterday we witness to one huge tantrum, and today has given us one or two of them.

Of course with all the extra feeding, Susan hasn’t really had an opportunity to get any sleep.  I suppose its a good thing we decided to stick around for that extra night in the hospital.

Oh yeah – we’re not leaving the hospital until tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon.  This decision was mostly made around the idea that Olive’s jaundice could be monitoring more easily while here in the hospital and any treatment required would be easily administered.  As it stands, her levels have remained basically equal from last night at 5p and this morning at 5a.  She’ll get stuck again in about 30 minutes for another check.  She was a 13.5 on Thursday morning, a 15.3 on Thursday night, and then a 15.2 on Friday morning.  With her age, the pediatrician is okay with her current levels, especially since Susan’s milk has come in.

We had to change rooms this morning because of a little problem with the shower.  Susan was napping while Olivia was still away in the nursery.  While I noticed that the shower wasn’t draining quickly, I never considered the idea that it would overflow.  Once I finished and stepped out, I realized there was a small lake in the bathroom.  Upon opening the door, I found that lake extended into the room and to all the way under Susan’s bed!

Facilities was quick to come in and repair the problem – and no, it wasn’t clogged with my long flowing hair – but we went ahead and moved just the same.  The problem was from the recent renovations on the floor, when the shower was resealed, wax had covered 80% of the drain underneath the metal cover!  The facilities guy was very displeased with that discovery…

We got to see Sam, our nurse from the first two days, again today.  She isn’t covering our room, but is working the nursery today.  She stopped in to visit and check-in with us, which was a delight.  She and Susan discussed the fact that Sam does PRN work, something Susan is very strongly considering after Olivia is a few months old.  (PRN would allow Susan to set her own schedule, and because of a lack of benefits, the pay is a bit better.)  We also gave Sam a gift of chocolates, which she was quite appreciative of!  I’d asked Susan on Wednesday what a nurse could need and her first response was “time off,” but a close second was food, so we decided to show our deep appreciation via her stomach.

All the staff her at the hospital has been fantastic.  While its been a parade of workers coming through, they’ve all been extremely polite and wearing smiles, no matter the time of day.  You can tell that these people absolutely love working with babies and really care about their patients.  I couldn’t imagine having it any other way.

We’ve got a few pictures to post and I’ll handle that in a little while.  As it stands, I need to collect Olive from her mother’s chest and move her toward the nursery for her heel stick.  We expect to see a few more visitors tonight… which is a lovely thing, having adult interaction!

Fat head Thursday, December 20, 2007

Susan’s OB/GYN came by this morning to check up on her, so we had a brief conversation with her.  Of course, she’d she a doctor from the practice yesterday, but having the actual doctor in the room was a little different.  She asked how Olivia was doing and reassured us that things sounded as if they were right on target.

As she checked Susan’s incision, she clarified the statement she’d made in the OR about the baby not being able to make it out by any method other than c-section.  Apparently, the doctor had to struggle a bit to get Ms. Olivia’s head out of the incision, an incision that was basically the largest this doctor had ever made.  She guesses that the diameter of the incision would have been around 13cm, meaning her head would be about that same size.

The canal she was aiming for?  It maxes out at 10cm.

In other doctor news, the pediatrician came by and visited as well.  She said that she’d lost some weight, as expected, but was still doing just fine.  She, too, noticed the slight yellow tint coming into her skin, so she’s ordered some tests to determine her level of jaundice.  Of course this was also nothing to worry about, per both doctors, as it is pretty common with babies, especially the heavier ones.  On top of that, our family history pretty much guaranteed it – we and our siblings were all jaundiced!

We finally got a solid answer on when we’re leaving – when we decide to!  Of course the insurance only pays for 4 nights, but we could leave as early as today, which we won’t be.  Its still a toss up as to whether or not we’ll go home on Friday or Saturday.  We’re going to let Olivia’s tests and a discussion with the pediatrician be the deciding factors.  Its nice knowing the nursery is a short walk away…

Susan’s postpartum nurse noticed that her milk may be in the process of coming in, so that’s a big positive.  Its not fully expected until the 3rd or 4th day, and as the doctor pointed out, Olive will only be 48 hours old at noon today.  I think that neither of us felt it had been such a short period of time.

Olivia stayed with us through the night, leaving around 5:30a after a decent length feeding.  She was due back by 6a for the doctor’s visit and her bath, so we figured we’d take that 30 minutes to jump-start our sleep.  We’re both cat-napping and feeling pretty decent right now.  We’ve got an appointment in the portrait studio at 11a, Susan’s going to slip in a shower between now and then, in addition to dropping into the lactation shop for a fitting.

Right now I’m getting impatient, waiting for the nursery to bring my little girl back to us.  Its not that they are late or ignoring our request – they brought her at quarter after 9 yesterday – I’m just excited about seeing her!

Oh!  We ordered our birth announcements / Christmas cards last night.  We’re not going to show anybody, though, so it’ll be a surprise for everyone.  It, as you can imagine, isn’t going to be a glamor photo, but we think it does the job nicely.

Feeding schedule Thursday, December 20, 2007

If you don’t really care for the minute details of Olive’s feeding schedule, just skip on by this one.  It isn’t gory, just potentially boring!

Big eater… Thursday, December 20, 2007

After an inadvertently long stay in the nursery, Olivia returned with a thirst for milk.  She left us around 8:30p and we went to sleep expecting her to return by 10p or so.  When the nurse tech came in for her midnight rounds, we realized we had no baby!  We called the nursery and she was with us soon thereafter.

When she got to the room she was awake and giving off early hunger signs, so we got her latched on.  She ate for 30 minutes, feel asleep and we figured she was done.  Nope – she went back on for another 15.  Done?  Nope.  10 more.  Now we think she’s done, since she disengaged herself on this one.

We got one more dirty diaper out, and it was pretty small.  Maybe the meconium is just about finished.

We’re headed back to sleep now, hopefully with her sleeping in the room with us.  Maybe we’ll go another 5 hours for the next feeding?

Happy Family! Wednesday, December 19, 2007

This is one of the beautiful photos that came from Lesha… we’re going to have to move her to Nashville if she keeps this up.

Lesha’s photos are up! Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Lesha took some time, weeded out the duplicates, and got her photos uploaded to Flickr!

We’re dropping all of the sets, from all the different cameras into a single collection for easy location.

Happy campers! Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Things are progressing nicely here – Susan has gone for a nice walk around the OB ward and returned with plenty of energy remaining. She also made the crucial step of passing gas, indicating that all is well post-op and she can graduate to solid foods. Amusing how excited one can be about a fart, isn’t it?

As for Ms. Olivia, she is doing quite well. When the family left, we unwrapped her from her swaddle thinking she’d like to feed, but she didn’t care to. Instead, she got some quality fetal position, skin to skin time with her mom, napping quite contentedly. Our wonderful nurse Sam dropped in and we started discussing with her our concerns – she looked a bit yellow (indicating jaundice), she hadn’t wet or dirtied a diaper in hours, and she wasn’t interested in eating after a 3 hour break.

Just to prove us as nervous parents, I took a turn holding Olive at which point she gave two giant burps and dropped a pant load of poo. After a diaper change, she dove right into eating for the next 30 minutes. Oh well – proves we need to be patient.

Speaking diapers, I’ve gotten to change all of them (excluding the ones during nursery time) since Susan has been somewhat confined. This includes the very first diaper – a full load of the tar-like meconium. For the uninitiated, this is the stuff she’ll push out for the next few days and if she didn’t, she’d move toward being jaundiced. This first diaper had nasty from front to back – right under the belly button to the small of her back, from side to side. Lucky for me, our nurse Sam popped in just after I popped open the diaper. I burned through 3 little wipes before Sam clued me in on the wash clothes – then three of those got covered, but the baby was clean as a whistle. I got a pat on the back for handling it all so throughly and not being unnecessarily careful or shy about it.

She got a little tour of the OB ward when Susan did her afternoon walk – which went very well. Olivia proved to us a second time that she’s a “take a ride, take a nap,” kind of kid, as she quickly drifted off to sleep. From that experience she slept for the next 5 hours!

We got to visit with Susan’s co-workers and then with her family again before she was really ready to eat again. We tried 3 hours into the nap, but she’d have none of that. It wasn’t until the second try that she’d go for it. It was also a treat for the family to see all of Olive, instead of a swaddled version thereof. She gave them a nice sized tantrum (I was warm and comfortable, thank you!) when I pulled the blankets off. They got to see the big ham-hock legs kick and stretch.

The nursery has called and is looking to bring her in for a daily check-up, so we’ll have a short break before heading into our night shift.

Thanks, everyone, for the well wishes, thoughts, and amazing numbers of lookers on the website. Yesterday topped out around 650 visits, when we’re normally around 100!

(Lost post) Steady at 5cm Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Just so you all know, I was doing my best to keep the updates streaming yesterday, as evidenced by the sparse text below.  This was sitting in my drafts folder when I logged in this morning… I had to have been typing it when all the action started.  Just thought it’d be amusing to add it into the mix…

- – - – - – - -

The dilation is steady at 5cm, without much else changing. The contractions are coming pretty