Wil & Jess

Friday, May 23, 2014

7 Months

Lily is 7 months old now. Holy crap, time flies! At her 6 month well baby check up, she was average weight and height but had a head in the 90% range. Her doctor also told us that she is doing extremely well developmentally. He was pretty surprised at some of the things she does. He said that some of the things she does are more common in a 9 month old. Yeah, our baby is just awesome like that. She is also getting teeth faster than most babies. She has had her two bottom front teeth since she was 4 months, has just recently cut one of her top front teeth, and will be getting at least 3 or 4 other teeth before long. At this rate, I feel like she might have a full set of teeth by the time she's one.

First time in the pool

Her Minnie hat is adorable!

In line for our first ride

I love staying at home with our little girl and watching her grow and explore. We recently took her to Disneyland and it was a blast. She also went to the pool for the first time while we were in California. She did amazingly well on both plane rides and was a good sport about being in her stroller for most of the time we were at Disneyland. Her first Disneyland ride was Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. She loved it! She loved all the colors and tried hard to get my laser gun away from me. She got to have lunch with the princesses and didn't seem that interested in them until Princess Minnie came. Princess Minnie was making kissing noises at Lily and Lily kept trying to grab her nose. Minnie tried to steal Lily and when that didn't work, she tried to take me too, but we didn't let that happen.

She LOVED Princess Minnie

Lily loves to sit and stand and doesn't like laying down much unless it's time for sleeping. She LOVES music and dancing, especially if Daddy is the one singing and dancing. She and Sirius are good buds and play well together, although she still tends to hurt him by pulling on his face. She hasn't learned how to pet him very well yet. Her favorite spot to be is on Daddy's shoulders. She even turns her feet in to help hold herself in place. She's got very strong leg and stomach muscles. She is such a happy baby. She smiles so often and easily. She seems to have the ability to brighten people's days by just being in the room. People are seriously drawn to her. We love our Lily Bug and are so happy to have her in our family!

Monday, March 31, 2014

After Delivery

The story of Liliana's birth doesn't end with the delivery. Because of my infection and the fact that she didn't seem to want to breath when she was first delivered, the doctors and nurses were worried about Lily. After being able to hold her for less than a minute, she was rushed off to the NICU for treatment. It was one of the scariest and crazy moments of my life. It was so hard for me to see them take away my baby while I laid in bed, helpless.

Wil stayed with Lily while my doctor fixed me up. I only had 2 small tears so it didn't take too long. Once I'd been taken care of, Wil came back in with his parents, and my mom. He let me know that Lily was fine, but they were giving her antibiotics to make sure that if she had an infection, they could stop it before it became anything serious. Finally, I was able to be moved to a recovery room. Since the epidural hadn't fully worn off yet, the nurse helped me into a wheelchair.

She asked if I wanted to stop by the NICU to see my baby. I really wanted to see her so there was no hesitation in my answer. Only the parents of the baby are allowed in the NICU so the nurse told our parents what room I'd be in and how to get there while she took Wil and I to the NICU.

Lily was hooked up to an IV to get her antibiotics and she was asleep. The nurses wanted to get her to breastfeed as soon as possible so they asked me to try to feed her. We all tried to wake Lily up enough for her to try to eat. She made a very half-hearted attempt, but was too tired to really try. The nurses said it was fine and we'd try again later. They were checking her blood sugar levels, and because I'd been pumped with stuff through my IV, she was fine and would be for a few more hours.

We got to my room and we all were just waiting around. It was awful. I wanted my baby. I'd spent 9 months with her and now that she had been born, I couldn't be with her. It was the longest day of my life. Finally, six hours after her birth, she was brought to my room and was able to be with me. The nurses told me she could stay in my room with me, but would need to go to the nursery twice a day for about an hour to continue her antibiotic treatments.

I tried again to feed her but she was still too asleep. The nurses were still not too concerned but wanted her to eat as soon as possible. Finally, around midnight, Lily was awake enough to eat. After that, she did well with feedings. She was beautiful and seemed totally healthy.

Because of the infection I had, the pediatrician on call (who works in the same office as our pediatrician) wanted to keep her for a week or up to a month (if it turned out she had meningitis). They did testing but never really figured out what, if any, type of infection she had. Lily even had to have a spinal tap to check for meningitis. Sadly, the sample had blood in it so they couldn't use it and couldn't rule out meningitis. The doctors decided to treat it as though she had meningitis and it was decided that she would stay in the hospital for 14 days of antibiotic treatments to be on the safe side. The last thing any of us wanted was for us to take her home and then have her get seriously sick due to an infection that wasn't fully cleared up.

I was released on Friday afternoon. Luckily, the hospital has this thing called hotel stay. It's a thing that would allow me to stay in my room at the hospital with Lily on a night by night basis. If there was room in the hospital, and we paid $35 a night, I could stay. It was great because it allowed me to continue to breastfeed Lily without having to drive to the hospital (even though it's close to our home) for every feeding or pump a lot, or have her supplemented with formula.

Those 2 weeks dragged on! I stayed in the hospital room for most of that time. Lily was with me in our room all the time, except for twice a day when she went to the nursery for her antibiotic treatments. The worst part about the 2 weeks was that every morning, the pediatrician on call would come in to talk to us about Lily's progress and what the plan was. Lily had to have an IV in order to get her antibiotics. Unfortunately, an IV can only stay in a baby for at most 2 days. That means that she would have to get poked a lot, and not all attempts and placing an IV would be successful. There were a few times when the pediatrician came in in the mornings and said that she might have to go to the NICU where she would be set up with an IV that is more invasive, but stays in longer. One doctor, that Wil and I both disliked, said it was the best option and we would have to do it by noon that day (this was on Sunday, so it was only a few days in and we wanted to try all IV sites we could before going to the NICU if possible).

I was really upset about this idea since it would mean that I couldn't stay with Lily anymore and feedings would be a lot more complicated. We were able to put it off and got a hold of our pediatrician for advice. He agreed that we should wait on going to the NICU and set things up so that the head NICU nurse could come look at Lily and see if she had enough IV sites to hold off. The NICU nurse agreed with us that she should stay out of the NICU as long as possible and that Lily had quite a few sites to work with. It was a crappy day, but worked out in the end.

So, that's what we did. She had a new IV site every day and a half to two days. The one that bothered her the least, but looked the worse was in her head. The grandparents were really bothered by it, but it didn't bother Wil or me much since she seemed more comfortable with it. The ones on her hands and feet had to be wrapped in a diaper to keep her from messing with it. She's always been a super squirmy baby so it was a real possibility that she'd damage it or herself.

Finally, the long, boring, stressful two weeks were done. Lily had grown quite a bit and was doing great! She never looked or acted sick at all, but we were going on the cautious side of things to make sure she was totally healthy. Lily was finally going to be able to come home. She was so big that none of the newborn clothes we had for her fit by the time we brought her home. It was so nice to have her with us. Sirius did great with her when we first brought her home. He was so excited to see me and have me back that he didn't seem to care too much that there was a new person with me.

Lily has been great! We love her like crazy and are so glad that things worked out in the end. Those first two weeks of her life were emotional, stressful, boring, and just generally crazy, but having Lily home, happy, and healthy makes it worth it.

Friday, January 17, 2014

Birth Story (warning-LONG!)

First off, I was fully aware that I might not get the birth I wanted, but I wanted to prepare for the birth I wanted anyway and hope for the best. Here is what I had prepared for and planned on. I wanted a natural childbirth, no drugs, no induction, and definitely not a C-section. I decided to go with the Hypnobirthing method since it made sense to me. Wil and I took classes and I practiced the breathing techniques and the relaxation. Wil was a bit skeptical at first, but was a good sport and went along with it and helped me with my relaxation exercises. I was really excited about Hypnobirthing.

On the evening of Monday, October 28th, Wil and I headed to his family party. I had been having contractions off and on, but nothing had been consistant. Wil wanted me to walk around to try to get things moving, so we figured a big family Halloween party would be great for that. We arrived around 5:30 pm. The food there was good, as it always is at these parties, but I had no appetite and got a little nauseous when I tried to force myself to eat. I needed to eat, but couldn't stomach it so I stopped. As the party continued, the contractions started getting stronger and closer together, making it more difficult for me to focus on people talking to us and on walking. Finally, at 7 pm, they were really close together (about 2-5 min) and I told Wil that we needed to go home.

The contractions continued and became consistently 5 minutes apart (sometimes less) and were lasting a while. They weren't really too uncomfortable, especially if I remained relaxed and breathed through them like I was taught to in Hypnobirthing. When it came time to sleep, I tried to lay down, but I knew I wouldn't be able to fall asleep. Wil had to work at 6:30 the next morning and I didn't want to keep him up with my tossing and turning, so I went to the nursery and laid down in my recliner instead. I relaxed and maybe dozed a bit, but contractions were still consistent so I couldn't actually sleep. By 2 am, I was exhausted. They were coming 2 minutes apart and lasting for at least a minute every time. I decided it was time to go to the hospital.

I woke Wil up and we made our way to the hospital. I felt a little bad since Wil was supposed to work that morning, but I knew his bosses knew that I was going to have the baby any day, so I didn't stress about it much. We arrived at the hospital and they checked me. I was having consistent contractions, but I was still only 1 centimeter dilated (just as I had been the day before at my doctor's appointment). There was no change. Everything else looked fine, so they decided to send me home. Since I hadn't slept, they gave me some Loritab to try to take the edge off of things so I could relax. I took it with some grape juice they offered to try to get some sugar in me. Both of these turned out to be bad ideas. Within about a minute, I threw up. I forgot that my stomach isn't fond of grape juice (and neither are my taste buds for that matter), and that I wasn't super fond of really sweet things since getting pregnant. That grape juice was about as sweet as you can get and was nasty! Loritab also shouldn't be taken on an empty stomach and I hadn't really eaten since lunch on Monday. Anyway, they sent me home with a bag in case I needed to throw up on the way home.

When we got home, Wil had to get ready for work (it was about 6:15 am on Tuesday at this point). He had already called and let them know he would be late. I laid down and tried to sleep. It didn't happen and I was getting more and more uncomfortable as the morning progressed. To try to get things moving along and hoping I would start dilating more, I sat on my balance ball and bounced and rocked. I walked around the house a little, but stopped that before long since I was so weak and tired. I tried to eat some toast, which usually helps when I have an upset stomach, but just ended up throwing up again. I couldn't keep anything down, not even water. I was really starting to feel miserable.

Wil ended up getting off work early and came home around 1 instead of 2:30 or 3. He said he was worried about me and wanted to see how I was doing. I could barely talk or focus on him. I was so tired and my body seemed to be pretty dang worn out. I didn't want to go back to the hospital again until my water broke, since I didn't want to be sent home again. I figured that once my water broke, I would be dilated more. Around 4:30 pm, I told Wil I didn't think I could take it anymore and wanted to go back to the hospital to get checked and hopefully have the baby. He questioned me to make sure that's what I really wanted. I decided it was and he came over to help me get up. He put his arms around me from behind and lifted my belly a bit to try to help relieve some pressure. As soon as he did, we both felt a pop. I ran to the bathroom (more like waddled). Sure enough, my water had broken. We headed out to the hospital again.

When we got there, I could barely walk, so I got into a wheel chair and went to a delivery room to get checked again. As I was changing into the hospital robe, another gush happened and the floor became very wet. When the nurse came in, she said my water definitely broke so I wasn't leaving until I had the baby. I was checked and was still only 1 centimeter dilated and 75% effaced. It seemed it would be a while before my baby came.

At this point, it had been more than 24 hours since I'd slept and almost 24 hours since I'd eaten. I was really out of it. My doctor happened to be the on call doctor that night (which I was very grateful for since she is amazing). I didn't want an IV, but since I hadn't eaten, and the baby's heart rate was a little low (not scary low, but not where they wanted it), I got put on a drip to help with my blood sugar levels. When they checked me, they also found out that I had a uterine infection. Apparently, my water broke before I thought it had and I got an infection so I was also put on antibiotics as well. My doctor said there was a chance that my baby would have an infection as well when she came out.

Around 7 pm, I still hadn't progressed at all and was having a very difficult time focusing on the questions the nurses or my doctor asked and could only focus on breathing. My doctor said it would probably be another 12 hours before I had the baby. She recommended that I get the epidural even though she knew I wanted a natural birth. Somewhere around this time, she mentioned that if something didn't change, I would have to get a C-section, but she was holding off on that. I also had to be put on oxygen to help stabilize the baby's heart rate.. Because of my infection, lack of sleep and food, and the fact that I was having consistent contractions, but not dilating at all, I decided to get the epidural. I needed to rest and I was way beyond exhausted at this point. We all hoped that me being able to rest would help things progress.

Within minutes of getting the epidural, I started chatting with Wil and the nurse and making jokes. They both commented that I looked SO much better, and Wil confessed that he had been really worried about how out of it I was. We were both glad I'd gotten the epidural. I was giddy and VERY awake for a little while after that so it took a while, but I was finally able to sleep a bit. The baby started doing better as well, so everyone was happy. Since I wasn't dilating on my own, even after the epidural, Pitocin was added to my IV line to get things going. Thankfully, it worked, and with the oxygen on, the baby was doing fine so we were able to avoid a C-section.

With the help of the Pitocin, I finally started progressing. Finally, I was fully dilated and ready to push. The baby was turned in a not so ideal position, so my doctor, who should have been off by now, but wanted to stay to deliver my baby and see how I was doing, had to turn her. The baby turned easily and I pushed for 45 minutes. When the baby's head became visible, my doctor and the nurse kept saying, "That's a lot of hair. Wow look at that hair," and other things along those lines. I wanted to do skin to skin contact for a while once the baby was born, but wasn't able to because the baby wasn't transitioning well. Our doctor verified that the ultrasound was correct and we had a baby girl, but cutting the cord couldn't be delayed. She had the nurse call the NICU team in.

The NICU nurses rushed in and and took my baby before I could really see her. They were finally able to get her to breath. Once she had been weighed and measured, 7 lbs 15 ounces and 21 1/2 inches long (my doctor guessed she would be 8 lbs so she was just slightly off), my doctor laid her on my chest for about 30 seconds and then they rushed her away. Because I had an infection, they had to take her to the NICU to start antibiotics right away to make sure she would be ok

As I said when I started writing this, nothing went as I had planned or had wanted. The only thing on my birth plan that I got was a vaginal birth, and honestly, I'm ok with that. Would I have preferred things had gone differently? Of course, but I ended up with a healthy little girl so I am satisfied.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Liliana

On Wednesday, October 30th, 2013, at 11:15 am, Liliana was born! She was 7 lbs 15 ounces (so pretty much 8 lbs), and 21 1/2 inches long. She came out with a full head of reddish hair and very long fingers and toes. Things did not go as I had planned, and nothing like I expected, but in the end, I have a beautiful baby girl and I am happy and satisfied with everything. That's the short version of the story. For the full version, check the next post (warning...it's long. I did have 40 hours of labor).

Friday, October 25, 2013

Waiting Game

Tomorrow is my due date. I can't believe it's been 9 months! It has seriously flown by. Pregnancy has not been what I expected, but that's a good thing. It's been much easier than I thought it would be and I've been in good spirits through most of it.

I'm so excited to meet my little girl. I know she could decide not to come anytime soon still, but I'm hopeful that she'll make her appearance in the next few days. Baby's have their own time lines though so who knows?

I am starting to get uncomfortable now, but it's still totally manageable so I don't mind. I'm not good at being patient and waiting, so not knowing when she's going to come has been difficult for me. I like to be able to plan and prepare and now that everything is all ready, I feel like she should just come already. :)

I hate to make plans for anything at this point, since I have no idea if I'll be able to keep them. I don't like to be flakey, and although I know people wouldn't consider the canceling of plans due to having a baby being flakey, it still bothers me. Anyway, nothing else really to report. We're just in a bit of a holding pattern until she comes.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

5 More Weeks

I can't believe I only have 5 weeks until my due date! This pregnancy has gone by so much faster than I ever expected. On Wednesday, we had another ultrasound to make sure the placenta was away from the cervix. This little girl is seriously stubborn though. She was asleep when we started the ultrasound and the tech woke her up because her head was so low on the cervix the tech couldn't get a good look at what she needed to see. The tech tried to get our little girl to move away from the cervix, but she was having none of that. The tech also tried to get us a 3D photo of her face so we could see what she looked like. Of course, little girl didn't want any of that either so she had her hand by her face/mouth and turned her face into my body so we couldn't get a look at her. We got a few seconds of a glimpse but not enough to get a picture. She was far to squirmy for that.

When the tech was done doing what she could to get the information they needed, she had a doctor come in. The pictures weren't clear enough so the doctor asked me if it would be ok if she pushed on my lower belly to try to get the baby to move off the cervix. I agreed since I didn't see any other way of them getting what they needed. The first time the doctor did it, it was uncomfortable, but baby didn't fit it since I think it startled her that someone was pushing her head up. She quickly settled even further onto my cervix though so the doctor had to try to do it again. The second time, it took a lot more effort and it was seriously uncomfortable for me. Our little girl did not want to move out of her comfy position. They saw what they needed to see though, and everything is great!

I spent the rest of the day in discomfort. Baby girl was not happy that she had been moved so much and she made me pay for it the rest of the day. It's ok though. I know she is there and moving, so it's worth it in the end. Baby girl is measuring a week ahead and is weighing in (roughly) at 6 lbs already! She is healthy and everything looks great.

I'm getting even more excited and nervous about her arrival. On Saturday, I had my dad and brother, Josh, come over to help move the furniture into place in the nursery. Everything is set up and ready to go now. Yesterday, I began washing some of her clothes and blankets and putting them away so that if she decides to come early, I hope not, her room will be ready.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Nursery Painting

Senica and Sid agreed to paint a mural in our nursery for our new baby. Sid did some mock up designs on his computer and they were fantastic so we went out and bought paint. In 3 days, we had an amazing mural on one of the nursery walls. I can't believe we are so lucky to have such talented friends who were willing to do this. Here's a few pictures of the process: