First Outing and Another First

I was going a little stir crazy being in the house all day everyday so Brian and I decided to pack up Oliver and head to Thunderbird Coffeehouse yesterday afternoon. It was his first trip outside the house that wasn’t for a doctor’s visit and we figured a coffeehouse was a good place to start since we could pack up and get out quickly if we needed to. We called up Laurie and Robin and had them meet us there with Lydia. It was so nice to be out in public again and Oliver did really well. He was conked out when we arrived and proceeded to sleep until Laurie and Robin pulled into the parking lot. At that point he started to wail so we were forced into another first - our first feeding in a public place. Now I’ve had to feed him at the pediatrician’s office but most people there are used to the site of a woman breastfeeding so I was still a little nervous about trying to nurse him with a bunch of strangers around. But we covered up with a blanket and he ate and all was well. He fell asleep soon after eating and we got to spend a nice couple of hours hanging out with Laurie, Robin and Lydia.

It was a great day for his first outing since Oliver had a really good day yesterday. The switch from formula to breast milk only seems to be sitting well with him. On Friday night he let me sleep for nine hours (not in a row, obviously, since I had to get up to feed him a couple of times but still...). His whole day yesterday consisted of eating and sleeping. He had some trouble getting to sleep last night but my mom finally got him down at about 1:00. He ate at 4:30 for about 15 minutes and then slept again until 7:30 this morning when I woke him up to eat again. I know we still have many rough nights in our future but I’m really grateful for the bit of a reprieve we’ve been granted the past couple of nights. I really needed to catch up on some sleep.  

Follow Up Visit for Jaundice

We took Oliver in to the doctor this morning for a follow-up visit due to his jaundice issues. The doctor just wanted to weigh him and take a look at him to make sure his jaundice isn’t getting any worse. It was an appointment full of good news. Although he is still a little yellow, the doctor feels the jaundice is improving and was very happy to see that he has gained another 4 ounces to weigh in at 8 pounds, 1. 4 ounces - almost back to his birth weight! She said we didn’t have to do another blood test and just to keep an eye on his coloring and bring him in if we feel it’s getting worse. She also said that since my milk has come in (with a vengeance, by the way), we can stop using the formula to supplement and just breastfeed from here on out. That is great because every feeding with the formula was a pain in the butt since it took so long to get the supplemental nutritional system set up. Now feedings should be much shorter although the doctor did warn us that there might be more of them now that he’s only on breast milk. It’s not like we were getting much sleep anyway.

At Home and Feeling Tired

We are all home and doing well. We were released from the hospital on Tuesday afternoon. Oliver is having some jaundice issues but was deemed healthy enough to head home. We are all adjusting slowly but surely to our new lives with no sleep and we are very very grateful to have my mother here with us. She saved us last night when Oliver would not stop fussing by taking him in the other room and letting Brian and I get a few hours of sleep. We are erecting the monument to her this weekend since that is the longest stretch of sleep that I have had since we got home. Grandmothers are amazing things.

The stay in the hospital was a little rough. The first night I got absolutely no sleep because I could not stop staring at Oliver. Every time he moved I jumped and when he was still I had to check to make sure he was breathing. The second night Oliver entered full meltdown mode. He was eating so voraciously after he was born that he drained me of colostrum (the first milk) within twelve hours and my body never recovered enough to make more. By the second night he was so hungry that he wouldn’t sleep. He cried for hours and hours and Brian and I felt pretty close to melting down ourselves. In our delirium Brian called Oliver “she” or “her” about three times and called him Miles (our dog’s name) a couple of times. I called him Lydia and both of us told him he was a “good dog.” We were so tired. 

We finally called for the nurse who proceeded to tell us that Oliver was hungry (well, duh) and that we would need to give him formula to get him to sleep. That made me burst into tears since I wanted so badly to avoid giving him a bottle so that we could breastfeed exclusively and he wouldn’t get any nipple confusion. Plus, I felt like a failure since I couldn’t feed my son. I finally broke down and consented to the bottle because I felt it was the only way we were going to get any sleep. The nurse brought the bottle in and Oliver point blank refused to take it when Brian offered it to him. I finally ended up dipping my finger in the formula and letting Oliver suck it off. We did this for about twenty minutes and then he finally fell asleep. 

The next morning the pediatrician came in to check Oliver out and I told her about the night we had and how upset I had been about having to offer him a bottle. The doctor wrote us an order for a supplemental nutrition system that lets Oliver get the formula while he is at my breast (it’s kind of a cool set up). She recommended we supplement with the formula for awhile since I wasn’t producing enough for him and she thought he looked a little jaundiced. I was so glad that she respected my wishes to keep him away from artificial nipples and came up with a solution that would allow me to keep breastfeeding while making sure he is getting what he needs.

In order to get rid of the jaundice, Oliver needs to eat and poop a lot. We took him in to the doctor’s yesterday and he is putting on more weight which means he’s eating well but his jaundice is still a concern. His bilirubin levels were higher today than they were in the hospital but still not so high that he needs to be treated for it. The doctor also said she expected the levels to rise once we left the hospital. We take him in tomorrow morning to get him checked out again. 

There is a lot more going on but since Oliver is taking a nap right now I’m going to take the opportunity to take one, too. I will try to update more soon.

He's Here!

Oliver Mott Contine was born at 7:49 PM on April 12, 2009 after putting his mommy through 20 hours of labor (which she cheerfully endured after hitting the twelve hour mark and meeting the nice nice man with the epidural). 

He weighed in at 8 pounds, 3 ounces and measures 20 inches long. I will post our birth story when I get a chance but wanted to let everyone know that everyone is healthy and happy (and a little exhausted). You can see more pictures on the photo page and we will be posting some videos in the next couple of days as well. We can’t wait for you all to meet him! 

Practice Run. Or, Discharged With No Babies

Brian and I participated in a first-time parent’s rite of passage last night - the late night call to the doctor and a trip to L&D that doesn’t result in bringing home baby. Around 9:00 last night I started experiencing some very bizarre vision disturbances. I felt as though I was watching the world as a dream scene in a movie - the edges of my vision were completely blurry. When it was still going on ten minutes later I decided to call the doctor’s office since all of my pregnancy books said that vision disturbances warranted an immediate call to the doctor. The nurse on call called back within ten minutes and I described what I was experiencing. She asked if I had experienced high blood pressure during my pregnancy and when I told her I had she told us to go immediately to Labor and Delivery - do not pass Go, etc. Turns out vision problems are a symptom of preeclampsia so the blurriness combined with the high blood pressure readings I had at the office a few weeks ago meant we needed to get checked out.

So, we loaded up the car and headed to the hospital. I called my mom on the way in and told her what was going on. We got to the hospital and headed up to Labor & Delivery. They already had my paperwork ready to go since the nurse had called ahead and told them I was coming in. They set me up in the pre-op room (I think their rooms were full last night and we had pre-op to ourselves) and hooked me up to the monitors - one to keep track of Oliver’s heartbeat and one to measure for contractions - and a blood pressure cuff. The nurse asked a ton of questions (so many that I was really grateful I wasn’t in labor because it might have annoyed me if I had been) and checked me for swelling. They drew some blood and took a urine sample and gave me some Tylenol since I had a headache (another symptom of preeclampsia but I think was due more to stress at that point). Then they left us in the room while the labs were run and kept me on the monitors. The machine took my blood pressure every five minutes. The first readings were very high (probably due to the stress I was under) but my blood pressure came down with every reading. And, Oliver’s heartrate was strong and he was moving around really well the entire time we were being monitored so it was a relief to know that he was doing okay. 

After three hours of being monitored, my labwork finally came back and the doctor came in to check me out. I was having a few contractions that I couldn’t feel but the doctor let me skip the internal exam since I had just had one the day before. He checked my legs for swelling (there was none), poked Oliver a few times (who obligingly kicked him back), and then told us that all of my bloodwork and urine sample looked fine so he was going to let us go home but that because my blood pressure was still elevated that I needed to “be a couch potato” from now until our induction appointment on Tuesday night. No more walks, no going out - just sitting around doing nothing. I’m on hour three of that and already pretty bored but I know it’s best for me and for Oliver and at the most it will only be for four days. They checked us out and gave us our discharge papers which inspired the title of this post since there was a field that says: “Discharged With: No Babies.” 

It wasn’t the greatest way to spend a Friday night but I know we did the right thing in going in. Plus, now they will have all my paperwork and even some bloodwork all set for when we go in on Tuesday night (or earlier, if a miracle occurs and Oliver decides to come before I have to be induced).   

Two Days Overdue

1 cm, 90% effaced and baby is “really low.” That’s all I’ve got to show for progress according to the doctor’s appointment I had today. That and Oliver is measuring over 8 1/2 pounds. So, big baby staying put is what I’ve got and, although I’m trying to keep a good attitude, I was pretty upset by the lack of progress in the past week (had my first “I’m going to be pregnant forever” crying fit on the way out of the office). On top of being *very* ready to not be pregnant anymore and to meet our son, I’m afraid that the little progress my body has made so far is going to cause problems when we go in for the induction next Tuesday night. Since I’m not very dilated my odds of an induction ending in a c-section are much higher. So, my goal/hope now is to avoid the induction and somehow miraculously go into labor naturally. 

I remain hopeful that tonight’s full moon will have some sort of labor-triggering effect on Oliver even though I’m pretty skeptical when it comes to that sort of thing. (Although the nurse practitioner we met with today did say that in her experience working in labor and delivery, full moon nights were always the busiest... so, we’ll see). In good news, although he’s big, Oliver is still looking very strong and healthy and appears to have enough amniotic fluid in there to keep him set until next winter and my blood pressure is back down to normal. Apparently I’m really good at being pregnant but not so good at figuring out how to get the kid out.

Yesterday we had an awesome visit from Laurie and Lydia. It was so nice to finally have a baby in the house. Laurie and I put Lydia in Oliver’s car seat and stroller and took her for a walk. I am so grateful for the opportunity to practice putting a baby in the car seat and to figure out how all of it works. Lydia was a little crabby/gassy yesterday but I’m at the point where I’ll take a fussy outside baby over a quiet inside baby in a heartbeat. She seemed to love the walk we took, though, and did settle down slept on my belly for a little while. I tried to get her to tell Oliver how nice it is out here in the world. We didn’t let her meet the dogs, though, since I’m still nervous about how Miles and Coltrane will react to a baby and I’d rather test them out on our own rather than a borrowed one. They’ll have a baby soon enough (right?!). 

How To Spend Your Due Date (Sans Baby)

Our due date has arrived... and Oliver has not. So, I decided last night that since we obviously weren’t going to have a baby tying us down today that we should treat the day as a sort of holiday rather than thinking of it as a disappointment. This is the day that we’ve been looking forward to for so long, it’s been on our calendar for the past 35 weeks, so we can’t let it pass unremarked even if it’s not how we originally thought we’d be spending the day. 

Brian had class this morning but when he got home we went out for a lunch date at East Side Cafe (one of my favorite Austin restaurants). I had the smoked salmon ravioli with a house salad and broccoli. And for dessert we split a Ghiradelli brownie with Blue Bell vanilla ice cream on top. (Gotta say, I’m really going to miss being able to order dessert whenever I feel like it). After lunch, I dropped Brian off at home and then went and got a manicure and pedicure. It was so relaxing and my toes and fingernails look great - all ready for the numerous photo ops that are soon to come their way (and, if anyone’s interested I’ll tell you all about the Sweet Potato Queen who was in the chair next to me and all of her baby cluelessness). This afternoon Brian and I took Coltrane on a long walk - but only because it’s beautiful outside today not because I’m trying to kickstart labor. I’m done with trying the home remedies - he’s on his own timetable and I can’t make him hurry up. Tonight we will have dinner and I’m going to treat myself to a half a glass of red wine because I feel like after this long carrying this kid around, I deserve it. Then I will take a hot bath, watch some Gilmore Girls on DVD and then go to bed at ten and enjoy the fact that I can sleep at least four hours at a stretch without being woken up (that’s how long my bladder lets me stay asleep if I’m really nice to it). 

Tomorrow I’m looking forward to a visit from Laurie and Lydia. Laurie hasn’t been able to see the nursery in person yet and I’m looking forward to showing it off. And it will be great to finally see a baby in there! 

My plan from here on out is to take one day at a time and before each day is over think of one thing that I’m looking forward to the next day. Tomorrow, it’s Laurie and Lydia coming over, on Thursday it will be our ultrasound, etc. That way each day that I don’t go into labor is an opportunity to do those things I’m looking forward to and not a letdown.