A New Home For Henry

Yesterday Henry headed to a new home- his old crib! No more isolet he is a free man! We are so close to going home now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FK0vcGSARI
See the video of the big move.

Bad Meme!

So...my mom can not remember Henry's name and I have proof.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaVs8OlYZ5M

Here is a video link (below) of our little guy. I set up a YouTube account in which I have posted quite a few short videos of Henry. If you watch this one, you should be able to get to our page where there are more. Video number 11 is right after he is born, I look like a balloon-pretty awful. I had no idea how swollen I was until I saw the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lra46Ra8Y4Y


We are still at the hospital, Henry is doing wonderful. He is considered a "Grower and Feeder" now, basically he is just here to gain weight. He is still in an encubator and eating through a feeding tube that is in his nose for every other feeding but I am able to use pumped breast milk for all feedings now. I spend most of my time pumping and feeding.
We were very relieved to talk to the dr. today, she reassured us that all will be perfectly fine, which we really needed to hear. She is guessing we will be here at least 5 more days, tomorrow is Christmas Eve, so maybe early next week. We are still staying in the same room and everyone is really nice. My swelling is still bad and now my back hurts pretty bad, which I think is due to my ever growing boobs.

Okay- not a lot of energy to post now but lots to write about the birth and Henry. Right now he is in the intesive care unit working on gaining some weight. He is doing very well, he is breast feeding well and seems to be one of the more fortunate babies in the NICU. We are thinking we will bring him home sometime this weekend (around Dec. 26 or 27) He is absolutely beautiful and we love love love him! thank you everyone for your phone calls, texts, and especially prayers. We can feel it and we know it is working. Thank you! Henry is on his way to being a very healthy boy!

Of course i will have lots more pics later and some videos to post but this all for now!

3 Ultra Sounds in a Week

Okay, I'm done sugar coating this whole bedrest thing. It is awful. I am on week four of not making food for myself, going days with out setting foot outside, letting the dogs eat trash because otherwise I would have to chase them. I constantly do not feel well and sleep about 3-4 hours a night. This is a true test of my patience which I have always lacked. Not to mention extrememly depressing. Chris is working is butt off to make sure the house is clean and I eat and trying to get ready for this baby. He still needs to install the car seat in his car and pack his hospital bag and lots of other things. At this point I can go at anytime so we are trying to be ready.

I still don't know what I am doing about having a doula, the hypnobabies teacher hasnt returned Chris' phone calls and we obviously can not go to the classes, I was only able to attend two of them but I am keeping up on the reading. But honestly with all these complications I don't have much passion to try the natural birth anymore, I feel so exhausted and discouraged that I kind of just want to let the dr. do what ever she wants at this point, I am almost afraid to argue about anything and my chance of having a c-section has increased again.

On Monday Chris and I went in to the dr. office for my regular NST (fetal monitoring) and the baby was not moving and increasing heart rate like they wanted to. After about an hour of monitoring and drinking juice they decided to send me to radiology to do further testing. Preeclampsia can affect baby's movement among other things. I actually went to the triage area of the maternity ward first, where they did more fetal monitoring before heading to radiology (where I am pretty sure I was surrounded by people with TB and other horrible contagious diseases) Here, Randy, our tech, did an ultrasound to check for 4 things- watch the diaphram move on baby, check cord blood flow, check heartrate (NST stuff that we failed earlier) and check body movement including fine motor skills-where they want to see baby move fingers or toes at least once. We passed all the tests except the heartrate and fine motor skills. He tried for close to an hour to get baby to move its fingers and it never did so we went back to triage.

In triage, we asked the nurse if we would see my dr. and she said no, there is no need. And then 10 minutes later she came in and said Dr. Stuhldrer will be down to see you guys in a few mintues and left. Now I freak out. I think the nurse heard me becasue she came back in and told us that the baby scored a 6 out of 8 points on the test (failed heartrate and NST) and so Dr. is probaby going to admit us over night. With a score of 8 we would go home and with a score of 2-4 we would probably be having a baby tonight but with a 6 it is up in the air and probably just want to keep monitoring me overnight. About 5 minutes later Dr. walked in and immediately started laughing and said that is what I wanted to see and we looked at the monitor and there was a little bump where the baby finally showed us a stronger heartbeat. After that ,it went up and down like it was supposed to. Dr. said that she is happy with that and we can go home, if that wouldnt have happened we would have been spending the night.

She told us that she wanted us to get to the high risk OB again as soon as possible to monitor this more and check on baby's size. Our last ultrasound which was on Thursday showed that the baby was measuring small which was a little concerning becasue preeclampsia can affect growth as well. I asked her if she thought I would go to my due date and she said no, not after this, we will shoot for 38 weeks, that puts us at Dec. 27- but that is a Saturday so it will be before or after is my guess. All I know is that it better be before January becasue we will definitetly hit our out of pocket limit.

So we headed home and Chris took the rest of the day off of work since it was already almost 4 p.m. Nothing like spending an unexpected day in the hospital.

The next day my mom and kathy came over and cleaned the house and made returns to Babies R Us, (which by the way dont register there, they are total jerks). At 2:45 I got a call from the dr. and they said they scheduled me with the high risk OB (Tony Dungy's sister) at 3:15 so we rushed over to make the appt. They did lots of measurements and said I looked good, baby is measuring at 34.5 weeks now which is not bad. Baby is in the 20th percentile which is a little small but okay. She said if I were to go into labor today, baby would be fine. That was very reassuring. And since I have had contractions for about a month- this really is a possibility.

So here I am again, back on the couch and waiting waiting waiting. I actually slept last night which I think was due to exhaustion and a little help from Tylenol PM, but regardless I feel much better. Headaches continue, heartburn makes me vomit almost daily and very unexpectedly, my hips are moving and really hurt (dr. said baby's head is very low and that is causing my hips to shift and hurt) and I am just tired and tired of bed rest. I keep thinking that as soon as this baby is out I am joining a gym and letting the gym daycare raise my baby. ha, not really but I love the idea of being able to walk around the block instead of just straight to the pody and back to the couch.

This baby better be cool.

Week 34- 3rd week of Bed Rest

So I am late on posting on the blog, I have been very busy on bedrest! Not really. Since the last post we had Thanksgiving, my birthday and 3 dr. appts so I guess I have been a little busy.

For Thanksgiving we had our families visit and then once they left Chris made an entire Thanksgiving meal including a 9lb turkey for the two of us. Everything was really good and I even sat at the table. I know, exciting.

On my birthday (29 years old, gross) our families visited once again and brought me lots of gifts. On top of that, I have had lots of visitors, Katie and Catherine brought me lunch this week and Kathy and my mom hung out with me too. Kellie is coming over today and Adrienne is visiting tonight.

We have had lots of news since the last post. On Monday Chris and I went to the dr. They did the fetal monitoring, which they do everytime to make sure the blood pressure is not affecting baby, and then we saw Dr. Stuhldreyer. She said that bedrest is agreeing with me and she feels that she can let me go full term now (at this point I wanted to slap her, the thought of prolonged bedrest was upsetting) originally she said that we would be induced at 37 or 38 weeks, that would have been right around Christmas, but now it looks like we will go to the due date which is Jan. 10. That means I will be here on the couch for Christmas like Thanksgiving. She did say that she would not let me go past the due date but I don't really care when baby comes if we head into January- I will have to pay the 2009 deductible already and I would rather baby come when baby wants to come.

So, this is all kind of depressing but the good news is that baby can develop longer and ultimately be as healthy as possible which makes me happy. Other good news is that she is no longer planning on a c-section, she thinks I can do a regular delivery which makes me REALLY happy! However strict bedrest still applies and I still have to do the fetal monitoring 2 times a week and dr. visit once a week.

Yesterday (thursday) I had yet another dr. appt. Dr. wanted to see how big baby was so we had an ultrasound. My mom came with me to this one and once again tried to get me to find out the sex of the baby- I said nope. The baby looked huge in the ultrasound but only measured to be about 32 weeks along, so that means baby is a little small. She said it looks like baby is around 3.60 pounds but thinks that baby could get over 6 lbs. by full term delivery. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Really tiny babies make me nervous, I feel like I will break them!

In the ultrasound I was able to see the baby's face- baby actually looked like a ...baby! instead of a skelton in the ultrasound. I could see baby sleeping and he/she is pretty cute if I do say so myself. I have been having dreams that the baby looked like a little monster, but everything looked porportioned and normal! No gonzo nose or giant ears, however I did ask the ultrasound tech if she could measure the nose and ears just in case, she laughed at me and said it wouldnt work.

Okay- that is it for now! Maybe this weekend I will have Chrisopher take a picture of me on the couch with my fat swollen face!

Week Two of Bed Rest

All though I am on strict bed rest I am pretty lucky to have had lots of visitors and tons of help-
mostly from my mom, jill, Kathy and of course Chris. Catherine and Adam dropped off a 'bed rest' gift bag full of movies, popcorn, candy and magazines. Meghan dropped off the complete seasons of Sex and the City and Whatley gave us some manly movies to watch as well. Alicia and Seth brought us dinner one night and it was awesome. Kathy, Jill and my mom have been keeping my house clean and taking me to the many doctor appts. that I am now going to in order to monitor the baby and my blood pressure. Michele also took me to an appt. Jeanne has brought over dinner and stopped by to visit many times too, she brought me Chris' moses basket for the baby, which is pretty cute. Kevin and Renata brought me flowers and Katie and Josh stopped by as well. And on top of that i have had endless offers from friends and family to drive me to dr. appts., visit and bring food, which i will probably have to take advantage of eventually.

And obviously Chris has done a million and one things including putting up with my 'tude once no one is around. This bedrest thing is extremely frustrating and sometimes he takes the poop end of it all and he does it with a smile-which then makes me feel bad! I am pretty lucky to have him and I can't wait to watch him as a daddy. Right now he is in the basement putting up shelving to get things organized down there. Just before that he painted the kitchen lights and reorganized the art room and made me dinner in the middle of it all after a 10 hour work day. Geez, he is a good hubby.

Today at the dr. they decided to run blood tests once again becasue i have had a headache since Thursday, it is now Monday. They wanted to make sure my uric acid levels were in normal range, if they were not they were going to admit me and medicate me through IV for as long as possible before they had to get baby out. That freaked me out to say the least. My mom and I came home and packed my hospital bag and baby's bag just in case. They finally called back and all looked in normal range for the time being but they said they will do this routine week by week and there is no saying what will happen from here on out. I do think the baby will be okay if delivered in the next week or two, I am just not ready yet!

These headaches and other pains are getting pretty unbearable. Lots of people have said to me that it would be nice to be on bedrest but this is not nice, it hurts and I am going a little crazy. I basically watch HSN and QVC all day along with Food Network. I can't really read because of my head and I can only be online when Chris brings his laptop home at night. Sitting up at my computer is not really an option anymore, I can do it for about 15 minutes before it gets painful. Okay, well, this is depressing! Bo and Newman on the other hand want me to remain on bedrest for the rest of my life. They can sleep for 20 hours out of the day and prefer to do it on my lap. They do keep me company and I love them. They are in for a rude awakening though, they have no clue what is about to happen.

On a lighter note, I was able to have Chris take some photos of my belly. Even with not feeling well, I was bound and determined to get a few 'pregnancy shots' of my belly. I left my face out of it because I look ill in all of them. We took these photos in a matter of 10 minutes, Chrisopher is quite the photographer if I do say so myself. I'm glad we did these photos.

Week 32 Picture

Here is week 32 photo. This is just before the Hawkin's family shower. Lots to update but will do that later, I am going to try to get some sleep through this nasty heartburn. My new home for the next month is the couch and bed. I was put on bed rest today by the dr. until baby arrives. Not fun but baby is strong so I am happy with that. Dr. thinks baby will be here before January, probably before Christmas. My hopes of a natural delivery have dwindled and we may be looking at a c-section, the one thing I really did not want. Oh well, not much I can do but hope for the best, maybe I will get lucky, if not the baby is immediately going into time out when it is born.

Week 31 Picture!!

Here is the photo from week 31 finally! This is just before the McHugh shower.

This weekend was very eventful, both good and bad! I had a shower with my girlfriends on Saturday thrown by Mary, Michele, Katie and Jill. It was so nice, the food was awesome and I got to see all my girlfriends. I got lots of great gifts for baby from newly experienced moms so I am feeling pretty good about what to do when this baby pops out.

On Sunday, I had another shower thrown by the McHugh aunts which was also awesome. They had awesome food too and everything was so nice, they always do such a good job. This is the first grandbaby to be born on that side of the family and they are all super excited to be Great Aunts and Mama said that she thinks she 'is finally old enough to a great grandma' I was so happy Mama was able to come, I know with her dizziness and backaches, leaving the house is a challenge but she made it and stayed the whole time and threw in lots of little mama jokes. It was wonderful.

Bad part- on Saturday night I was having trouble breathing. I thought the baby was probably just pushing on the diaphram or something of that nature. I could barely sleep but eventually slept sitting up so I could breath. I was short of breath and had to keep focusing and taking deep breaths. Eating was hard too.

On Sunday at the shower I told my mom that I was having trouble breathing. She told me to call the dr. a.s.a.p. My mom is a Red Cross instuctor and she said 'you don't mess with not being able to breath' so I figured she was right and called my dr. thinking she would say just take it easy it's normal. Nope. She sent me straight to the ER.

They were looking for a blood clot in my lung. They said this is something that can happen to pregnant women and the first sign is shortness of breath. The clot normally starts in the pelvic area near the uterus. The uterus is preparing to clot for childbirth or something like that. So they did an EKG- which showed a few signs of a blood clot and then they did a CAT scan, which is super wierd and I thought I peed my pants as the dye went through my body. I hated the CAT scan, they had to put a shield over the baby to protect it from the radiation and made me sign a waiver- I didn't like that at all. They said it is normal and babies born at 32 weeks undergo chest x-rays all the time. So that made me feel a little better.

After the CAT scan I went back to the room and my mom and Aunt Diane showed up with lots of 100 calorie snacks that they tried to force feed me. Soon after, the dr. came and said everything looked NORMAL! I didn't have a blood clot which was so relieving! However, my blood pressure is high now, so we are on the look out for preclampsia (spelling?) They thought a reason I am short of breath is from the heartburn- acid is coming up and then going back down the tubes to my lungs which will irritate my breathing. So good news is I am okay! Baby is okay! Bad news is we will have a giant medical bill and we missed a really great Colts game!

Oh- and more bad news- notice I have no picture on this post. Yep- our computer broke too. Heading to the Apple Store tonight- Hang on Mary! I will get Connors pics to you soon!

Here I am at 30 weeks. I wasn't able to post at 29 weeks because of work but now I am HOME FREE!!! The Buckaroo Bash is over and I can focus on Baby now. The baby is the size of a cabbage.

I am actually wearing maternity pants here, I broke down and I (well..my mom) bought some maternity clothes, I am alot more comfortable and have more options of what I can wear, it is really nice. Thanks Mamabird (and Jill and Kathy for forcing me to go into a maternity store)!

This week we start birthing classes, we are taking Hypnobabies. Read more here on their website- I am really excited about it, not sure if it will work for me or not but we are going to give it a try. You basically 'hypnotize' yourself into a relaxed state to lower drug intake or take no drugs at all.

Baby is moving around constantly and I can usually tell where the head and butt are. I am getting more and more excited/freaked out/anxious than ever. Today Chris said he thinks the baby will look like a hamster. I love hamsters.

Everyone thinks this baby is a boy. Even strangers that talk to me about the baby always say they think it looks like a boy. Today a little girl in Costco told me I was having a boy. We'll see about that!

We are at 28 weeks now! it is crazy to think that in a little over 2 months we will have a baby, it is still so surreal. I have 2 baby shower invites on my fridge and I had my first baby shower with work friends on Thursday thrown by my friend Kelllie, it was a lot of fun. I got some really awesome things including a home made blankie from Kellie that I love. Lots of people try to guess what we are having and most say a boy but we'll see. We are really trying to think of names but it is sooo hard. We have a few possiblities but nothing set in stone, I don't think we will know until we see baby.

This weekend Kevin and Renata got married, it was really nice, Katie let me borrow a prego dress, thank goodness because I couldn't find anything in the stores. Kevin and Renata looked really happy. They got married by Annie Christ at Jeanne's house and then we met family and friends for brunch at El Torito and then headed back to Bob and Marilyn's for more food.

This coming Saturday is the Buckaroo Bash, the event from hell, so I am working no less than 12 hours a day preparing. It is a lot harder this year lugging around 24 pounds of new fat and 2 pounds of baby (hmmm....that ratio does not seem fair). Oh well, I will get through it...I think.

27 Weeks

Here we are at 27 weeks! Baby moves like crazy. I am getting fat, Chris and I weight the same now. BOOO. We went to the Baby Expo at the Fair Grounds, it was stupid, except I did get a pumpkin on my belly. Chris thinks I'm a hillbilly.

26 Weeks!

Here we are at 26 weeks! We decided to redo the kitchen cabinets...finally! I have been wanting to paint the cabinets since we moved in. Friday night we sanded the framework and all the cabinets and drawers and primed the framework from 6-12:30 p.m. Then on Saturday we painted from 10 a.m.-11:30 p.m. and my mom came to help. Had she not helped this would have taken another weekend! But we finished it all and my mom and I even got to take a break to take Bo and Newman to pug club. We still have some things to do but the kitchen will be awesome by the time baby comes. I guess you can say that I am 'nesting'. We LOVE our kitchen now!

Baby moves constantly, especially at night, it likes to kick my bladder unless I am rocking back and forth. I have a feeling this baby will want to be rocked all the time. I can tell the baby is getting bigger and stronger by the day. I also have had lots of dreams that the baby is a girl but I still think boy. dang it!

The baby's room is complete! Well, for the most part. We may put one thing on the wall by the rocker, its a little bare. Here it is so far!

Here we are at 25 weeks!

We can see the baby moving now which Chris experienced for the first time yesterday. He got really excited. I had a dr. appt. on Wednesday and everything was great, finally! We listened to the heartbeat, they measured my belly (baby is right on schedule) and then I was on my way. My dr. did tell me that I was on the higher end of weight gain for pregnancy, which stinks because I am pretty healthy and walk all the time, but oh well, what can you do!

Yesterday we actually went and bought some clothes, I didn't go with maternity though, for some reason the crotch on maternity pants hangs down low. I just got some 'bigger' jeans and a pair of work pants at Kohl's. It's amazing how much better I feel in pants that aren't cutting off my circulation.

We made a mobile today for the baby's room! I love it!

We painted the room finally! We found paint in the basement, I know, classy, and we painted two of the walls and left the other two dark brown. The new paint is the same color as the paint in our family room- a tan color. It looks nice and we stayed away from making the room look too 'baby' yuck.

While we were painting we had to move the rocker and ottoman into our room. That is when we discovered Newman's intense fear of the ottoman. He hid under the pillow the rest of the night. Ottoman's are scary. He is under the polka dot pillow in the photo.

Here are some photos I am thinking about putting up in the room. I took these photos and then messed with them in Photoshop, I'm sure my ideas will change another 10 times though!

6 Months and one day!!!!Chris and Newman discussing how to put together the new rocker for the baby's room.

My belly has really popped now, its hard to find clothes to wear but I manage. I have been really tired the past week, I hope it is a fluke and goes away, I don't want to repeat month 2 and 3! Other than that I feel great, still no odd cravings.





The baby room is almost complete. We got the rocker put together and now we just have a few walls to paint, we found a can of beige paint in the basement that we are going to use for 2 of the walls, the other two will remain dark brown. We bought some white picture frames that I will hang, not sure of what yet. The big challenge will be to move all the clothes and junk we have in the closet and dresser drawers. This rocker is ridiculously comfortable! We love it!

23 Weeks! I decided not to shower on this day so excuse my greasy hair.
Almost to the third trimester. I feel really good now. Small things are a little more challenging, like stairs and putting on shoes. I hit my belly with the fridge door a lot, I forget I have a big belly.

I don't really crave any food except I do like an egg and cheese biscuit in the morning, but I only have time to make that on the weekends! I spend most work mornings trying to find clothes that fit.

Next Saturday will be 6 months! It is really hard to believe that in 3 months we will have a baby, Bo and Newman don't believe us. We ordered a rocker from Baby's R Us and that will make the nursery complete, with furniture anyway, we still have no clue how we want to decorate.

Here we are at 22 weeks. Right now the baby is the size of a spaghetti squash, about 11 inches and looks like a newborn now instead of an alien. I am really tired in this picture. We had Quest for the West at work and I worked a 14 hour day yesterday and a 11 hour day Friday and was on my feet the whole time. I feel like doo doo but today is the first Colts game so I need to perk up. Chrisopher got baby a colts cap for Super Bowl. oh- and a foot bath massager thingy because my feet hurt so bad after the weekend! Nice hubby. Got to go get an O'Douls and get ready for some football. Chris just admitted that he still has not looked at this blog.

Some photos I took for the baby's room.

Chris just admitted to me that he has never looked at this blog!

21 Weeks! 4 months to go.

Here we are at 21 weeks. Last Monday at our 20 week ultrasound we had a little (felt big) scare. They found calcium deposits in the baby's heart. They sent us to a high risk OB (Dr. Dungy- Tony Dungy's sister, we really liked her) She did a level II ultrasound in which they were actually checking for down syndrome. They measured limbs, the skull, checked blood flow and a whole bunch of other stuff I don't really remember. Regardless, after a long week of worrying they said baby looked perfectly healthy, I guess calcium deposits are a common finding but that didn't make it less scary. So we are very happy with the news and moving on with this pregnancy! We are keeping our fingers crossed to stay out of the hospital for the next 4 months. To celebrate a healthy baby I decided to chop my hair off once we left the hospital- I have been wanting to do that for awhile. In the meantime, Chris has really started letting himself go (note picture above) but I don't say anything.