Day 9 - Halloween Spirit

8:37pm



My day off today. We were able to get out and run some errands. However, it took Brynlee a few hours to decide that she was ready. First, she was hungry, hungry, hungry. Then of course, after we got her ready in nice fresh clothes, she decided to poop, while she was being changed. So naturally, it got all over everything. But once that was all taken care of, we ventured out.
 


We took my car today. My car is a lot smaller than my wife's. But I would say it worked out pretty good. We had a lot of driving to do, so my car is much better on gas.

We visited my Grandma, and Grandpa, because they are leaving for out-of-town tomorrow. They will be back in a few days, but they wanted to see Brynlee before they left. My Grandma made us Philly cheesesteak sandwiches for lunch, and Brynlee had breast milk. If I was her, I would be ready for something besides milk every day. How boring. At least maybe throw some chocolate in there, and mix it up a little bit? Better not. That's not in the "Newborn Handbook". (That we don't own)

Another stop at Babies-R-Us, our home away from home, because she needed a bottle warmer. We had been warming the milk in the microwave, in a glass bowl, because that was our only option. We had gone to Babies-R-Us before to get the warmer, and ended up getting home to realize that we forgot it. So now we have one, finally.

Halloween is coming up, and we think it's only appropriate to dress her up, as long as ourselves (though, I will probably have to work). We actually have an outfit or two, already, but we like to look, too. Spirit Halloween store has a ton of cool costumes, and gadgets. We didn't buy any costumes, but we did pick up a few house decorations, since we don't really have any.

 

She was really good all day, especially during the shopping. She stays pretty quiet, or asleep. But our last stop was at Carter's baby clothing store and she fussed the whole time. She is eating a lot, but seems to spit up a lot of it afterwards. I looked up online the causes, and basically they say that baby's spit up naturally. To try giving her less at a time, making sure she is burped, and to use pacifiers, too. We are thinking maybe she isn't feeling too well, either. Not really sure. She seems OK at the moment. 

Be sure to visit one of our favorite FREE sample directories, Sally Saves!

*FTC Disclosure - Some pages on this blog may contain affiliate links, all opinions are 100% my own. 

Day 6 - Free Huggies!

2:31pm

I want to give a special thanks to a fellow dad blogger, Jim Higley, for congratulating us with a whole crapload (and used for crap-loads, you know) of Huggies diapers. He did some work for Kimberly-Clark, and they allowed him to give away a bunch of Huggies to a lucky family. Well, because Brynlee was born on Sunday, the day of the giveaway, he was nice enough to make us the winners! So thanks again, Jim. 

Oh and he also invited me to be a part of the #BigLeagueDads Campaign by Dove MenCare. This includes attending a Chicago Cubs baseball game tomorrow. Unfortunately, I have to work! 

Brynlee slept good last night. We did had to get up at around 2am to feed her. But it wasn't so bad. She got back to sleep pretty quickly. 

My wife's sister came over last night and we ordered pizzas. She is in love with Brynlee and vice versa. She loves her aunt, and her aunt sure spoils her! 

My wife caught this photo this morning while she was sleeping. I said she must be dreaming about her dad again! 

Remember to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or any other of the social networks for even more updates and fun!

Day 2 - Guess Who's Home?!

10:55pm



We are exhausted! So much going on the last few days, it's just great to be home. Brynlee is already enjoying her little rocker/sleeper and is passed out in there as I am typing this.

We were able to leave the hospital after our Doctor released us. He wasn't able to show up until about 7pm this evening. I think the extra time waiting was good for us though, because we learned a lot of valuable tips from our helpful nurses.

Before we left, we asked the Doctor about the "newborn insert" that you can see in the car seat in the photo above. It is an extra accessory that fits into the car seat to help support newborn's heads, and bodies, because the car seat is actually too big for newborns. I posted a picture on Instagram of just the car seat with the insert in it, ready to go for when she was born, and I received a lot of criticism about it. Several people told me that they are extremely unsafe, and not covered by the car seat's warranty. But the Doctor told us that we SHOULD use it, because her little head needs to have some extra support. So for anyone wondering if they are safe or not, I'm not sure about that, but our Doctor did recommend using it.

We had great service the whole time during our hospital stay. And we would recommend it to any of our friends. So if you are in the Chicagoland area, ask me and I will fill you in. 

My wife is recovering extremely quickly, and has been an awesome mother already. As a matter of fact, I slept all through the night last night, in the hospital, and she got up a few times with Brynlee to feed her. She said that Brynlee never cried during the night, and that she actually had to wake her up to feed her. Hopefully she stays like that because that would make our lives a lot easier.

I am going to go to work tomorrow, because they are so short-handed, and because my wife insisted that she will be fine. I will probably take Thursday off to help get everything settled back in to the house. We have a couple bags packed for the hospital, that need to get put back away. And my wife's hands are going to be quite full. I will help with all of the household duties. 

Time for some much needed rest!

Do you have any questions about her delivery? Labor? Pain? Epidural? Feel free to ask, I would love to answer any questions!

Week 39 Day 7 - Water Broke, Here We Go!

9:59pm

She's here! And she is adorable! She looks just like her momma!

Her water broke at 5am this morning. We were both half awake already because she was having painful period-like cramping every 15 minutes or so. Possibly contractions? But when it broke she knew right away. She felt the "pop". She turned to me and said "Kevin, my water just broke". I responded with a quick, "Alright, let's go!"

We called the doctor and he said we have some time to shower and get everything situated. So we both took a shower, and got all of our stuff put together (bags were already packed but not ready in the car). I had to talk my wife out of doing her makeup. There's no time for that!

Her contractions started after she showered and were progressively worse during the 20 minute car ride to the hospital. By the time we arrived she was asking for an epidural, though it was still too early for that. She actually stayed pretty calm throughout the whole labor. 

We moved from the triage room to a delivery suite. She came in dilated at 4cm and a -2 head position. (Dilated to 10cm is when you start pushing, and they want the head to a +2 or +3 from what I can remember them saying. Correct me if I'm wrong). About an hour after we were put into the delivery suite, she was already at 7cm. Not long after, 9.5cm. They determined that she had preeclampsia so they ran some magnesium stearate through her IV to help with preventing seizures. High blood pressure, the main problem with preeclampsia, can cause seizures. 

12:00pm and it's time to push!

The IV's in her hand

 

Her epidural situation...

Holding hands, ready to push!

To be continued.....

Week 39 Day 5 - Preeclampsia Scare

8:08pm



Well, we had quite an evening last night...


What started off with an easy morning of overtime, and then a great game of golf, turned in to most of the night at the hospital!

We had a doctor's appointment at 4:40pm. My wife didn't get home from work until about 4:20pm, and she had to change and then we had to get to the office, about 10 minutes away. So she rushed to change, and we hurried to the office. We were about 10 minutes late. (Normal for us, actually).

They always take her weight and blood pressure, and then do a vaginal exam to see how dilated she is. Yesterday she was at 1.5cm. And the baby's head was low, which is good. However, her doctor was concerned with her blood pressure.

It was somewhat high, and high blood pressure could be a sign of Preeclampsia.

Preeclampsia is a medical condition characterized by high blood pressure and significant amounts of protein in the urine of a pregnant woman. If left untreated, it can develop into eclampsia, the life-threatening occurrence of seizures during pregnancy. (Source - Wikipedia.com)

So, after a quick stop at KFC (because we need to eat!), we headed to the hospital. 

They took us into the Labor & Delivery wing, and gave us a room. About an hour went by before a nurse came in. My wife was ready to leave, because that is ridiculous. Turns out, they forgot about us, and the nurse that noticed, had just started her shift at the time that she discovered us. She was very nice and helpful, also knowledgeable. We were at the hospital from about 6pm to around 11pm.

A blood pressure monitor was hooked up to my wife's arm, a baby's heartbeat monitor to her belly, and they took a few vials of blood for testing. Oh, and urine, they took some of that, too. 

Her blood pressure fluctuated the whole time we were there. It would start to go down, but then next time the machine took a reading, it would be back up to risky levels. We thought that maybe because we had rushed to the doctor's appointment, that could cause the blood pressure to rise, and it could, along with a lot of other possibilities including diet, and stress.

Her blood results came back perfect. So her doctor decided that the hospital could release her, even though the blood pressure was still a little higher than normal. She is now required to save her urine, so that they can further test and monitor the situation. If preeclampsia becomes determined, the only real way to stop it is to deliver the baby. She would have to be induced.

She was also told that she is no longer allowed to work, and to take it easy. Bed-rest, basically. Her work already knows that she is due on Tuesday, and it's pretty surprising that she was able to work up until now. A lot of pregnant people stop in their 7th or 8th month of pregnancy. We got lucky. Plus, she makes more money than I do, so that helps!

Still no baby. She obviously stayed home from work today, and a few of her coworkers called to check on her. I thought that was nice of them. 

In other news... At 7:30am this morning, a drunken neighbor went on a rampage through the subdivision. He drove his truck into several parked cars, took down a few trees, hit some buildings, and drove through a garage. Finally ended up, in the parking spot in front of his condo, like nothing ever happened. He was arrested. I left at about 6:15am this morning, so luckily I made it out of there before it happened. My wife thinks that she heard it happen. She said there was a lot of loud noise around that time, and that she woke up. He didn't come by our place, so that's good. I just don't get how he did so much damage. He had a big Chevy truck, fairly new. I remember seeing it parked there the day before. Crazy.

Driver being arrested.

Every day is something different! Always some sort of excitement.