Danny at 2 months!

Danny is two months old today, so I figured it's a good time for an update :)

First of all I have to say that when people say kids grow up quickly, they're not kidding. It feels like it's been two weeks, not two months. He's so big... 11lbs 14 oz and 23" long (an extra inch if you add the hair!) which is a 3lb 2oz gain in two months! He eats a lot, so that's probably why. Breastfeeding is going well. We had a few problems with an oversupply and an over active letdown, but we seem to be managing that well. He started sleeping through the night last week, which is so nice! I'm now getting six hours of much needed sleep at a time, which after two months of sleep deprivation is very very welcome. We had to get into a bit of a routine, turn off the bright light and put on the lower, nurse him to sleep in our bed, and then switch him over to his. Bedtime varies, but it's usually at about midnight, and then he gets up between 6 and 7am, around when Rob is getting up, nurses again and then sleeps until around 10. It's great.

I'm doing much better. My lady parts are back to their original state (Thank God, I was sore for quite a while) and the rest of me is following suit. I'm only ten pounds heavier than I was before I had Danny. I think it's still baby weight, but Rob thinks it's the 8500 Brownie Bowls I ate while pregnant. Either way, I plan to lose the ten pounds, and then another fifteen on top of it. There's a gym in our building and I plan to take advantage of it. Rob is home a lot more now, so I'll have time to go work out. Actually, I think I'll go do that now :)

2:14 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Home at last!

So today, two weeks from the day he was born, Danny finally got to come home. Grandma Wukmir and I decided we were breaking him out. We scaled the side of the hospital, broke in through a third story window, navigated the ventilation system and stole him from right under the nurses noses! Okay, so that's not true, but it's a funny thought. They discharged him at around 1pm, after he gained a whole ounce. Yes, that is really why they kept him the past two days, to make sure he was eating. Judging by how much he poops it's really not something we need to worry about, though :)

After discharge Grandma Wukmir dropped Danny and I off at Daddy's job so that we could surprise him. Everyone was happy to see Danny and he got a ton of compliments :) What can I say, Rob and I mix very well. We then went out to lunch, where we realized we have the most amazingly well behaved baby IN THE WORLD. He went to sleep as we were leaving Daddy's job, and slept through lunch, and until we got home! That's right, we were able to go out to lunch with a newborn and he slept through the whole thing. Right now he's laying in my lap looking around, as I type this email. Actually, beside when the nurses man-handled him, I haven't heard him cry much at all. I'm pretty good at picking up on his little cues. I know which face means "pick me up" and which face means "Boobies, now!", and I can tell when he's pooping (and usually he announces to the room when he's done) and he fusses a bit when it's time to burp. He burps loudly, too. Sounds like a man when he burps. I know I'm going to get blamed for it, because I've honestly never heard a baby burp so loudly, and it's hard to believe such a big burp is coming from such a small source.

We've got a visiting nurse coming to see us tomorrow, just to be sure he's gaining weight, and an appointment with the pediatrician on Monday. In two weeks he goes for an echo-cardiogram, just to be sure all is well with his heart, but the pediatrician at the hosptial wasn't too concerned about that, it's just to be 100% certain that all is well. I'm sure he's going to be fine, though. He's a little miracle baby, times 3.

3:53 PM - 5 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

Baby Update!!!

So we've pretty much been at the hospital constantly. Danny is doing amazingly well. He started out on a ton of meds (maybe 15-20 different things), a hifi ventilator, and a nitrous oxide machine. Everything was pretty much maxed out, his meds at the highest that they could be, his ventilator on the highest setting and getting as much nitrous oxide as they could give him. He was on meds to sedate him, to regulate his blood pressure, pain meds, a med to paralyze him... I'm sure there were more I just can't think of what. Now he's off the Nitrous Oxide, the ventilator is much lower, and he's only on about 8 meds. They were able to take him off of the med paralyzing him, and when we went back to the hospital tonight and he was moving! He opened his eyes but just barely, and he was shaking his hands and legs around. They had to sedate him a bit more because too much movement will stress him out, but it's great to know that he CAN move. I was asking about when I should have the bottles for him (I'm bringing in the breastflow bottles for him, so that he gets used to sucking the right way from the start) and the nurse shocked me, she said she didn't think he'd be bottle feeding until the end of this week... that's MUCH sooner than I had expected. Yesterday felt like the end of the world was upon us and and today has just been such a good day for everyone. I know we'll get through this and I know everything will be fine.

I'm doing much better, too. My swelling is gone, and I can walk again! I've been pretty much stuck in a wheelchair since Friday, and it's really nice to be able to get up without help. I've been pumping, and it's going really, really well. I started out a bit worried, because my milk hadn't come in yet, but it came in full force today. My first two times I pumped 2oz. each time, and now I'm pumping 4 oz per session, and each session is only about 10min long. The nurses were amazed. I have great pumping partners, though. My sister and my husband have been helping me pump. Honestly, it's extremely theraputic. It's something I can do for Danny. It's really hard to sit there and look at my son and not be able to make things better, at least I can do this, though.

Okay, I need to get some sleep, got another long day ahead of me.

10:57 PM - 6 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Our birth story

Baby Daniel was born on April 11th, at 2:04pm at our home in Framingham, Massachusetts. He's a whopping 8lbs 10oz, and has a full head of blond hair just like his father.

So I went into labor very early on Thursday. Mild contractions, pretty far apart. My parents headed up here at about 12pm, and we ran some errands to pass the time. By about 9pm they were getting much stronger, and about 5-6 minutes apart. We called Joyce (our midwife) and let her know what was going on. She told me to take a shower and have a glass of wine, because we had a long night ahead of us. I took my shower, and ate some dinner, and by then the contractions were about 4 minutes apart and pretty rough, so Joyce headed to our house. We started filling the birth pool, and I was getting really moody in response to the pain. Once the pool was filled I got in for a bit, and it definitely helped me calm down. Rob and I were getting pretty exhausted, so Joyce told us to try to get some rest while the contractions were still tolerable. I slept maybe an hour, waking for contractions, but then I was back and forth between the toilet and the bed. The toilet really helped because every contraction made me feel like I had to pee, and it was also something to brace myself against. I had been getting through them on my own for about an hour or two before I was screaming my head off in the bathroom and Joyce and Rob woke up and rushed in to check on me. Then it was back to the pool. Contractions got worse, and I pretty much screamed and cursed, swore I couldn't do it, begged them to kill me, and during one particularly painful contraction even growled. It was interesting. Then came the pushing. The completely unproductive pushing. At this point I had been in active labor for about 10 hours and my water still hadn't broken. I wasn't at 10 yet, but my body decided it was time to push anyway. Around this time the two doulas/midwives in training, Alexis and Carol got to the house to help out. Joyce wanted to try rupturing my membranes, or helping push the cervix out of the way, but I the last cervical check had been so painful that even though I knew it needed to be done I decided to wait on it. After about an hour or two (I was barely even conscience between contractions so it was a bit hard to keep track of time) I finally gave in and let her at it. It took about five minutes to break my waters! She said I had the most stubborn sack of waters she ever tried to break. She also pushed away what was left of my cervix (there was a little bit left to the side and back) and after that my body was really pushing. I pushed for about three hours. I started the pushing in the tub but it still didn't seem to be getting anywhere, so we headed to the bed so I could get into better positions. Strangely, the best position for me was on my back. Danny just didn't want to slip under my pelvic bones, and we needed to get him there. I labored on my back for a while, helping to guide him by pushing my belly down. It worked, and then I switched to my side, and then the birth stool. I wasn't breathing enough between pushing and that was dropping his heart rate, but I was finally able to focus enough to breath. After pushing for (I think) three hours, baby Danny slid out in a gush of meconium stained fluid.

He was blue, but his heart was beating. The midwives started suctioning out his mouth and nose, but that wasn't enough and his heart rate dropped to 25bpm. It was the scariest moment of my life. I was begging them to save him. I was holding him while they suctioned him and then helping him breathe. Eventually his heartbeat rose, and he was breathing, but barely. I birthed the placenta within minutes and they cut the cord. I swear my body just knew it had to finish with it's part so they could focus on my son. He was still pretty limp and very blue. They put him in my arms and I held him while they called the ambulance. The paramedics were there within minutes. They took the baby first, and in about five minutes there was a second ambulance there for me. We went to Metrowest Framingham Union Hospital. As they rolled me in on the stretcher I passed the room the baby was in. He was surrounded by doctors. They had told me in the ambulance that there was a big fire just down the street, and the hospital already had 17 people in the ER because of it, so to see that they had about seven doctors and nurses surrounding my son scared the life out of me. They took my vitals and then a nurse came in to talk to me about the baby. They told me that he was in pretty bad shape, and they'd have to transfer him to the NICU at  Boston Children's Hospital to be cared for. I, on the other hand, had to be admitted to their L&D ward because I had a blood clot and some tearing. I sent Rob with the baby and I stayed to be patched up. Wow, the things they did to me in the hospital were more painful than the birth itself. After they took Danny in the ambulance the midwives wanted to clean me up first, but I insisted we go right away. They actually had to convince me to get dressed, because I was ready to go naked. Apparently, though, not getting cleaned up was a very bad idea. The blood from the birth (and from a minor labial tear) dried up and pretty much sealed shut my very, very swollen vagina. When I was in L&D I had a full bladder but couldn't urinate, so they had to insert a catheter. So damn painful, because they couldn't even get inside, let alone see what they were doing. Then they had to remove the blood clot, and then stitch me up. My God, I've never felt anything like that in my life. I stayed in the L&D ward until about 10pm and then Rob came to pick me up so that we could go home, get some sleep and see our son in the morning.

As of now Danny is having trouble breathing on his own, because his lungs are filled with meconium. We're assuming it happened only minutes before he was delivered, because there was nothing indicating anything else. They have him hooked up to a bunch of machines, some to help him breathe, some to monitor him and some to deliver meds and fluids to him. He's sedated, and they have him on something that pretty much paralyzes him, so that the machines can do all of the work for him. He's a strong baby though, and we have hope. The doctor said that while it is minute by minute, and he is critically ill, he's also working towards getting better and they're liking what they're seeing. He's in the best children's hospital in the country, second best in the world, so at least we know he's getting the best care possible. It's absolutely heart breaking though. I can't hold him, and I can barely speak to him or touch him because the stimulation will be too much for him right now. I thought that I would spend the beginning of my sons life bonding and nursing him, but I need to accept the situation and deal with what is going on. It's hard though. I've cried so much in the past two days, and I know I'll cry a lot more in the weeks to come. I asked the nurse what the bare minimum we're looking at is, and she told me two weeks in the NICU followed by at least a week of hospitalization out of intensive care, and that's if he gets better without a hitch. We could also end up losing him. If that happened, I don't know what I'd do. I'm taking it one minute at a time.

A few people have asked me if I could go back and have given birth in the hospital, would I? The answer is NO. Actually, I'm really happy that I had him at home, especially because this happened. This would have happened no matter where we were, there were no signs to warn us, and it happened in the last five or ten minutes of labor, when his head was crowning and blocking any fluid from coming out. My midwives saved his life, and the only difference between what they did and what a hospital did was that they let me hold him as they did it. I got to hold my baby for ten whole minutes and that I will forever be greatful for.

4:44 PM - 7 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment