So Kiernan is now a week and two days old. Well technically in 2 1/2 hours, it'll be 3 days...not that I'm counting :)
Things are going well. He seems to be getting better with his jaundice. We went on Monday to have his blood tested, and it had gone up from the last time we were in the hospital. So they had us go in the next day to retest. and it had gone back down. both times, the number wasn't high enough to have us use the lights at home, so I just need to make sure he gets fed, and that he doesn't get sick in other ways (fever, not eating, etc). So far, so good. He's eating 10-12 times a day with at least 10 minutes for each session (usually it's at least 20...he's a big growing boy). Also, starting yesterday, he has started to be awake for a period of time, just looking around, listening, and taking in the sights. This is a good thing as it means he's got enough energy to be doing that instead of just sleeping through everything.
We spend Thanksgiving at my parents house. We went down on Wednesdays, and just got back tonight. It was nice to go there, and have everyone see him. It was also nice to have other people take care of him. I honestly just don't realize how tired I am. I think I'm fine, until I find myself just dozing off at random times throughout the day. I just don't feel that tired, until I get to nursing, or just simply holding him, then I tend to conk out. Unfortunately, this doesn't work as well at night :) I'm still too paranoid to be able to take my hearing aids out at night when I sleep, this explains a lot of why I'm so tired, besides the fact that I get up about every two hours to feed Kiernan. :) I'm not used to hearing sounds in my sleep at all, so to hear the baby's slightest whine or movement, i wake up and make sure he's doing ok, I now also wake up to the husband's lovely snores. :) We'll see how long keeping the hearing aids in at night lasts.
It was nice not to have to worry about doing laundry, dishes, cooking, food, and things in general when we were at my parents house. In fact, mom loved it. She felt bad that she couldn't just come and check on us everyday like her mom did. She was more than happy to have us there for three days and help us out. She really did, she held him when I needed to eat and Bryan was asleep or doing homework. She also took him today when it was very obvious that I needed to sleep (fell asleep while burping him). Even though I only slept for an hour, it seems to have made a world of a difference.
My incision isn't hurting nearly as much anymore. I'm still well aware of where it is, but it doesn't hurt nearly as much to get up from sitting down or to sit down, or to shift positions in my sleep.
Looks like Kiernan is expecting an early feeding, so off I go. :)
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Home now!
This morning, the doctor came in and had a smile on his face, so I knew it was good news :) His jaundice has been going down now that he's actually nursing consistently, so there is no need, so far, to have the lights at home to help him get over the jaundice. We talked about the things I should or shouldn't due since I've had the surgery, questions I had, etc. Then the nurses took Kiernan to do one more thing for lab testing, not sure what, and didn't care since it wasn't important enough to tell me, or to cause a concern. I ate breakfast, the nurse came back with Kiernan, and we started talking about what to do before getting discharged. I was glad this was discussed, because I could basically leave whenever I wanted, which motivated me to hurry and start packing quite quickly :)
All that was left to be done for me to be discharged was to take the staples out of the incision and replace them with the "tape stitches", sign some papers, ask questions, and get a shot. All that was left for Kiernan was to get the IV out of his head, and get him dressed to go as well. the poor kid did not like the IV coming out, he has hair, and now has two bald spots because of where the tape was on the IV. The nurse who took it off said they definitely overtaped it, and later I talked to my mom and a nurse had told her they had a VERY difficult time getting an IV for him, so to be super careful. But it's out, and he's healthy, with the exception of slight jaundice.
We got home, and we all slept for a bit. It's been nice to be home, and I'm excited to have almost all of this week off (I have one class I need to attend on Tuesday for three hours, that's it though). It's also surreal to me that we now have a son in the household, and I'm loving it with every second I see him. :)
Thank you all for your help, kind words, encouragement, well wishes and prayers. They obviously have helped us a lot, and we cannot thank you enough for the support you guys have given us, even if it's just through e-mail.
All that was left to be done for me to be discharged was to take the staples out of the incision and replace them with the "tape stitches", sign some papers, ask questions, and get a shot. All that was left for Kiernan was to get the IV out of his head, and get him dressed to go as well. the poor kid did not like the IV coming out, he has hair, and now has two bald spots because of where the tape was on the IV. The nurse who took it off said they definitely overtaped it, and later I talked to my mom and a nurse had told her they had a VERY difficult time getting an IV for him, so to be super careful. But it's out, and he's healthy, with the exception of slight jaundice.
We got home, and we all slept for a bit. It's been nice to be home, and I'm excited to have almost all of this week off (I have one class I need to attend on Tuesday for three hours, that's it though). It's also surreal to me that we now have a son in the household, and I'm loving it with every second I see him. :)
Thank you all for your help, kind words, encouragement, well wishes and prayers. They obviously have helped us a lot, and we cannot thank you enough for the support you guys have given us, even if it's just through e-mail.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Success!
He's now in the room with us! :) Just need to keep him extra hydrated because he's on the lights for jaundice, but, yay! he's here! We tried to take a picture, but the camera has some error code on it, and we're both too tired to figure it out, so we'll wait until bryan's had some sleep. I got some sleep fortunately in between the feeding times earlier tonight, so I can be awake for now to watch him...he'll just have to be patient with my response time as it takes forever to get out of bed.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
one more night
Sadly, despite the hour of nursing (i suspect he was using me more for a pacifier than a food machine), his blood sugar was 52. That means we don't get him tonight *sigh*. So that's two days now, going onto day 3 that we haven't been able to keep him close to us. Yeah, I know, I get him for the rest of the time all the time when I go home, it's just...come on I just gave birth to this kid. My family doctor this morning kind of gave the attitude that she felt the dr in the hospital for kiernan was being over protective, never said anything about it, but you could tell it wasn't something she would do. After talking (read as bawling) to the nurse (blame pregnancy stuff, pain pills, what not, I just broke down when I asked her why), it seems she feels the same way as my family doctor, that this dr is just being overprotective because the blood sugar is just int he lower range of normal, not TOO low. But we shall see, he usually comes in around 8 in the morning, so I guess that's when I'll hear from him again. Kiernan is now in a bed with lights for his jaundice. Poor kid.
Birth story
This is a long post :)
Some of you know the details, some of you don't, so if it's redundant, I apologize. This is also being posted on my facebook.
The original plan was to do a vaginal birth, let it progress normally. However, the last few weeks, my blood pressure was slowly creeping up, and I was swelling a lot. Then towards the end of last week, I was getting headaches, tingling in my hands and feet, and some trace amount of protein in my urine, which meant that it was going to lead to pre-eclampsia pretty soon. I was also not dilating very fast at all, so my doctor put off induction as long as she felt comfortable doing so. When i went in on monday, she saw my blood pressure and some results from the monitoring they were doing with me at the hospital for the past two weeks, and decided it was time to induce me that week. So we got scheduled to go in the hospital the next night. We got there at 6:00 PM, they gave me cervix membrane thinning meds at 7:00. At that point, there was a change in nurses. This nurse checked on me a couple hours later, and said I was 90% effaced, and was a little more dilated, and called my doctor. She had said to go ahead with labor inducing drug. So we started it somewhere around 9ish. then there was another switch of nurses, this one was much more experienced. She checked me and said I was actually only 70% effaced, and was still just barely a one. So we had started the labor inducing drug a little too soon, but just kept it going anyway in hopes that things would improve. I could feel some contractions, but not many. i didn't get to sleep until about 4:30 because I was so anxious, and excited. My doctor stopped by at 8 AM, and checked me. I was still a 1, maybe a 1.2, and a little more effaced, but not quite 90% yet. She decided to break my water to make things go faster. All this time, we're gradually increasing the drug, the max level they normally go at is 20, and once I got to that point, I had asked for an epidural, because the contractions were getting strong, and I was feeling sick. Once I got the epidural, things were great and dandy for me. I was checked again several times, by 5:00, I was dilated to a 2.8, and 90% effaced. My doctor was going to a concert, and when she got back around 11:00, I was a 3+ and 90%. The problem at this point was that my blood pressure was now increasing, and I had a fever. The fever is what made them really worried, so the schedule the c-section, and about 40 minutes later i was in the operating room getting the surgery.
The surgery was hard. they had said it would be about an hour, turned out to be longer than that for two reasons. I was losing a ton of blood because my fatty tissue had an abnormal amount of blood vessels running through it, so they had to work with that for awhile before getting to do anything else. the other reason was because Kiernan turned out to be so big. They had trouble getting him out, finally they just had to yank him out, and you can probably see that in the pictures if you look carefully enough. Then it took quite sometime to get me put back together, cauterized, and stitched up because of the abnormal amount of blood vessels thing. I finally made it to the recovery room around 3:00 AM. There we took some vitals and such, tried to see if he would nurse, didn't work out, and I was still really loopy because of the morphine that was still in my system. Since he wouldn't nurse, we went ahead and said to take him to the nursery (that and we were both dead tired...). My dad, sister and her fiance came to see the baby around 5:00 before my dad and sister went to new york for the week (they had to leave the hospital by 5:30). and it was at that point that I was informed that Kiernan was in the special care nursery room. Apparently, they had noticed that when he cried he would go completely purple, and they were concerned about his oxygen and what was causing him to go completely purple. His lips didn't go purple, they stayed pink, apparently that's a very good thing. Turns out he did have low oxygen levels, either because of the infection that was causing my fever and got into him, or because he had too much fluid in his lungs.
Fortunately, he was well long enough for my dad, sister and her fiance to see him real quick. I then got to see him around 8 AM and was told they would be putting him on antibiotics for the possible infection, and monitoring him. When I saw him, he had three wires that hooked up to a monitor checking his heart rate, oxygen levels and breathing rate. He also has an IV in his head (they had a hard time finding a place for his hand, and you can see the bruises on both hands). And a big bandage around his foot where they take the blood for blood testing. It broke my heart, but I was glad to see that he was doing better. At this point, they informed me that he had been doing well, and that he definitely had fluid in his lungs. They also said they were going to do the antibiotics anyway just because of the risk of having an infection because I had the fever. he continued to do well throughout the day, and the nurse told us we might be able to keep him in our room that night (last night). So when I went back to and attempt feeding again (had issues, but happily, that is now resolved!), we asked the doctor, and he said no, not tonight, MAYBE tomorrow morning.
This morning, when i went to do the 4 AM feeding, turns out his blood sugar level was really low, and that concerned the doctor. He won't let him go until he's had two blood sugar results above 60 in a row. And Kiernan also was showing a small increase of signs of an infection, small, but made them glad they were doing the antibiotics. They will continue to do them until Sunday morning I believe. The doctor had also informed me this morning that Kiernan SHOULD be able to go home with us, depending on how things go today. We won't know until 6:00 (two hours), which is also the time we find out whether or not kiernan can be in our room with us or not. Then, at an earlier feeding, we found out that Kiernan has jaundice. But he'll still be able to be in our room with us if he has jaundice, so all that they are worried about now is keeping his blood sugar up. The last one tested at 82, so hopefully it's still up this time. They';ll take him out whenever he's schedule for his antibiotics, but will bring him back if everything is ok.
So all in all, the poor kid has had a hard time coming into this world, but really is doing well. Everybody keeps talking about what a big boy he is (he really is big!), and how cute he is (I also agree with them here too). He's now feeding every 2-3 hours. He was only feeding every 5ish hours yesterday, and would sleep a lot, hence why the blood sugar level was low, and was a concern. He is also more awake and active when feeding, so we're pretty sure he's ok blood sugar level wise now.
I'm recovering pretty well, they say. The special care nursery is at the other end of the maternity ward area, so Bryan or a nurse will take me over to the nursery in a wheelchair when it's time for me to go feed him. I wasn't really able to walk all that much yesterday, but I could move and shift in bed quite a bit. Today I've been able to walk short distances, and stand long enough to shower and enjoy the shower, so things are improving, it'll be kind of a long recovery process, but everyone says everything is going well, and I'm going to believe them. :)
I will be discharged on Sunday, and hopefully Kiernan will be as well, and then we'll finally get to be in our homes again! It feels like we've been here for a very long time, and we have. I haven't seen my apartment since Tuesday night, and everyone had expected me to be home last night. I'm excited to have Kiernan around us all the time soon, and to be able to go home soon. I feel much better than I have the past three weeks of my pregnancy, despite the fact that I have huge smile of stitches on my abdomen :) They say the morphine has worn off by now, I'm taking oral pain meds, and everything is pretty much tolerable. It only hurts if I'm walking for a longer period of time, and if the binder (i think of it as a belt that squishes all my innards together) isn't on very tight.
Other than that, things really are going well. :)
Some of you know the details, some of you don't, so if it's redundant, I apologize. This is also being posted on my facebook.
The original plan was to do a vaginal birth, let it progress normally. However, the last few weeks, my blood pressure was slowly creeping up, and I was swelling a lot. Then towards the end of last week, I was getting headaches, tingling in my hands and feet, and some trace amount of protein in my urine, which meant that it was going to lead to pre-eclampsia pretty soon. I was also not dilating very fast at all, so my doctor put off induction as long as she felt comfortable doing so. When i went in on monday, she saw my blood pressure and some results from the monitoring they were doing with me at the hospital for the past two weeks, and decided it was time to induce me that week. So we got scheduled to go in the hospital the next night. We got there at 6:00 PM, they gave me cervix membrane thinning meds at 7:00. At that point, there was a change in nurses. This nurse checked on me a couple hours later, and said I was 90% effaced, and was a little more dilated, and called my doctor. She had said to go ahead with labor inducing drug. So we started it somewhere around 9ish. then there was another switch of nurses, this one was much more experienced. She checked me and said I was actually only 70% effaced, and was still just barely a one. So we had started the labor inducing drug a little too soon, but just kept it going anyway in hopes that things would improve. I could feel some contractions, but not many. i didn't get to sleep until about 4:30 because I was so anxious, and excited. My doctor stopped by at 8 AM, and checked me. I was still a 1, maybe a 1.2, and a little more effaced, but not quite 90% yet. She decided to break my water to make things go faster. All this time, we're gradually increasing the drug, the max level they normally go at is 20, and once I got to that point, I had asked for an epidural, because the contractions were getting strong, and I was feeling sick. Once I got the epidural, things were great and dandy for me. I was checked again several times, by 5:00, I was dilated to a 2.8, and 90% effaced. My doctor was going to a concert, and when she got back around 11:00, I was a 3+ and 90%. The problem at this point was that my blood pressure was now increasing, and I had a fever. The fever is what made them really worried, so the schedule the c-section, and about 40 minutes later i was in the operating room getting the surgery.
The surgery was hard. they had said it would be about an hour, turned out to be longer than that for two reasons. I was losing a ton of blood because my fatty tissue had an abnormal amount of blood vessels running through it, so they had to work with that for awhile before getting to do anything else. the other reason was because Kiernan turned out to be so big. They had trouble getting him out, finally they just had to yank him out, and you can probably see that in the pictures if you look carefully enough. Then it took quite sometime to get me put back together, cauterized, and stitched up because of the abnormal amount of blood vessels thing. I finally made it to the recovery room around 3:00 AM. There we took some vitals and such, tried to see if he would nurse, didn't work out, and I was still really loopy because of the morphine that was still in my system. Since he wouldn't nurse, we went ahead and said to take him to the nursery (that and we were both dead tired...). My dad, sister and her fiance came to see the baby around 5:00 before my dad and sister went to new york for the week (they had to leave the hospital by 5:30). and it was at that point that I was informed that Kiernan was in the special care nursery room. Apparently, they had noticed that when he cried he would go completely purple, and they were concerned about his oxygen and what was causing him to go completely purple. His lips didn't go purple, they stayed pink, apparently that's a very good thing. Turns out he did have low oxygen levels, either because of the infection that was causing my fever and got into him, or because he had too much fluid in his lungs.
Fortunately, he was well long enough for my dad, sister and her fiance to see him real quick. I then got to see him around 8 AM and was told they would be putting him on antibiotics for the possible infection, and monitoring him. When I saw him, he had three wires that hooked up to a monitor checking his heart rate, oxygen levels and breathing rate. He also has an IV in his head (they had a hard time finding a place for his hand, and you can see the bruises on both hands). And a big bandage around his foot where they take the blood for blood testing. It broke my heart, but I was glad to see that he was doing better. At this point, they informed me that he had been doing well, and that he definitely had fluid in his lungs. They also said they were going to do the antibiotics anyway just because of the risk of having an infection because I had the fever. he continued to do well throughout the day, and the nurse told us we might be able to keep him in our room that night (last night). So when I went back to and attempt feeding again (had issues, but happily, that is now resolved!), we asked the doctor, and he said no, not tonight, MAYBE tomorrow morning.
This morning, when i went to do the 4 AM feeding, turns out his blood sugar level was really low, and that concerned the doctor. He won't let him go until he's had two blood sugar results above 60 in a row. And Kiernan also was showing a small increase of signs of an infection, small, but made them glad they were doing the antibiotics. They will continue to do them until Sunday morning I believe. The doctor had also informed me this morning that Kiernan SHOULD be able to go home with us, depending on how things go today. We won't know until 6:00 (two hours), which is also the time we find out whether or not kiernan can be in our room with us or not. Then, at an earlier feeding, we found out that Kiernan has jaundice. But he'll still be able to be in our room with us if he has jaundice, so all that they are worried about now is keeping his blood sugar up. The last one tested at 82, so hopefully it's still up this time. They';ll take him out whenever he's schedule for his antibiotics, but will bring him back if everything is ok.
So all in all, the poor kid has had a hard time coming into this world, but really is doing well. Everybody keeps talking about what a big boy he is (he really is big!), and how cute he is (I also agree with them here too). He's now feeding every 2-3 hours. He was only feeding every 5ish hours yesterday, and would sleep a lot, hence why the blood sugar level was low, and was a concern. He is also more awake and active when feeding, so we're pretty sure he's ok blood sugar level wise now.
I'm recovering pretty well, they say. The special care nursery is at the other end of the maternity ward area, so Bryan or a nurse will take me over to the nursery in a wheelchair when it's time for me to go feed him. I wasn't really able to walk all that much yesterday, but I could move and shift in bed quite a bit. Today I've been able to walk short distances, and stand long enough to shower and enjoy the shower, so things are improving, it'll be kind of a long recovery process, but everyone says everything is going well, and I'm going to believe them. :)
I will be discharged on Sunday, and hopefully Kiernan will be as well, and then we'll finally get to be in our homes again! It feels like we've been here for a very long time, and we have. I haven't seen my apartment since Tuesday night, and everyone had expected me to be home last night. I'm excited to have Kiernan around us all the time soon, and to be able to go home soon. I feel much better than I have the past three weeks of my pregnancy, despite the fact that I have huge smile of stitches on my abdomen :) They say the morphine has worn off by now, I'm taking oral pain meds, and everything is pretty much tolerable. It only hurts if I'm walking for a longer period of time, and if the binder (i think of it as a belt that squishes all my innards together) isn't on very tight.
Other than that, things really are going well. :)
Friday, November 21, 2008
Our baby
Due to 24 hours of inducing and only dilating to a three, and developing a bad fever, we ended up doing a c section. Kiernan is 9 lbs 8 oz, and 22.5 inches. He's healthy and doing fine :) we'll be home on Sunday!
http://picasaweb.google.com/paulistano/KiernanSBirthday#
http://picasaweb.google.com/paulistano/KiernanSBirthday#
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
small update
Went to the stress test this morning. He was moving the whole time, very active, and his heartbeat is great. The fluid is at 19.something, so that's good as well. Really, the concern is me. My blood pressure was still high 147/80. Better than yesterday, but still high. Yesterday's blood pressure was taken later in the afternoon, the one I got today was taken almost first thing this morning after I woke up, so I won't be surprised if it got higher throughout the day. My feet are still swollen, well I should say my entire body is swollen, but my feet are the worst, and so much now lately, that they hurt constantly.
The doctor called while I was getting my stress test to check up on me, and we're definitely still on for tonight. Just need to call in three hours to find out exactly when I go in.
I did sleep last night, which was nice. Bryan and I went out to dinner as our last of being a couple only family, so we went to Red Robin (so good!), then came home, and I basically just crashed after that. I'm glad we're all packed, and that we've been working on getting things that will be needed at home bit by bit this past week. I feel almost no pressure outside of school. I won't be missing any class time for one class, so that's nice. My Thursday class, she rescheduled to have a one on one meeting with me for three hours on Tuesday next week to make up for the class. As for my Saturday class, I have yet to hear anything about it. So tentatively, I'm either going, or I'm missing it without making it up (i really doubt that she would make it so I couldn't make it up due to past experiences of what we've done to accommodate a possible birth last week, and an exam the other student had to take). The only real pressure is, will I be able to get some homework in on time? We shall see :)
Work, there is no pressure there. They know I'll be back around December 1st, probably working less than I have been, just to check in and get the very basics done to keep them going (and to give me a little money for Christmas!). But definitely no pressure there, so that's nice. :)
I do hope he comes by Wednesday night. My dad and sister are leaving to go on a trip on Thursday to NY for her graduation present, so it'd be nice if they could see the baby before they leave. If not, then oh well, they'll just have to wait :) I'm also kind of glad it's happening now, that means I'll have some time to recover a bit before Thanksgiving next week with everyone around in the same house.
I'm excited, but my nerves are so crazy, that I look like I'm just meh about it. Honestly, I really am excited, just nervous. I've never had anything invasive before, no major surgery. The most invasive stuff ever: annual exam, 4 stitches on the inner part of my lip, and getting my wisdom teeth out (was awake for the entire process), so yeah...child birth....a much more daunting task. :)
...I should get back to work :)
The doctor called while I was getting my stress test to check up on me, and we're definitely still on for tonight. Just need to call in three hours to find out exactly when I go in.
I did sleep last night, which was nice. Bryan and I went out to dinner as our last of being a couple only family, so we went to Red Robin (so good!), then came home, and I basically just crashed after that. I'm glad we're all packed, and that we've been working on getting things that will be needed at home bit by bit this past week. I feel almost no pressure outside of school. I won't be missing any class time for one class, so that's nice. My Thursday class, she rescheduled to have a one on one meeting with me for three hours on Tuesday next week to make up for the class. As for my Saturday class, I have yet to hear anything about it. So tentatively, I'm either going, or I'm missing it without making it up (i really doubt that she would make it so I couldn't make it up due to past experiences of what we've done to accommodate a possible birth last week, and an exam the other student had to take). The only real pressure is, will I be able to get some homework in on time? We shall see :)
Work, there is no pressure there. They know I'll be back around December 1st, probably working less than I have been, just to check in and get the very basics done to keep them going (and to give me a little money for Christmas!). But definitely no pressure there, so that's nice. :)
I do hope he comes by Wednesday night. My dad and sister are leaving to go on a trip on Thursday to NY for her graduation present, so it'd be nice if they could see the baby before they leave. If not, then oh well, they'll just have to wait :) I'm also kind of glad it's happening now, that means I'll have some time to recover a bit before Thanksgiving next week with everyone around in the same house.
I'm excited, but my nerves are so crazy, that I look like I'm just meh about it. Honestly, I really am excited, just nervous. I've never had anything invasive before, no major surgery. The most invasive stuff ever: annual exam, 4 stitches on the inner part of my lip, and getting my wisdom teeth out (was awake for the entire process), so yeah...child birth....a much more daunting task. :)
...I should get back to work :)
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