Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Friday, May 12, 2017
Charlie's Birth Story
This birth story is going to be a short story compared to Lucy's! :)
The false alarm:
On April 5th I returned to working in La Crosse after a several month stint in Caledonia, MN. In the middle of the night I noticed some contractions starting when I had to let Sully out (He must have been readying me for night time wakings). By the time my alarm went off I was having contractions every 3 minutes and my app was telling me I needed to head to the hospital. The odd thing was, the contractions were not painful at all but they were wrapping around to my back just like with Lucy. I thought maybe all my self hypnosis was paying off and I would just have a painless labor (ha!). I talked it over with labor and delivery and family medicine and decided to just be checked in family med. I cancelled my morning patients and headed into Gundersen to be checked. It was determined to be a false alarm and after about 24 hours the contractions quit and I went back to normal and felt like the baby wouldn't be coming for a few more weeks (which would be a good thing because this was 3 weeks early and very little was ready/packed). I returned to work that afternoon feeling a little silly as the 2nd time around I thought I'd know what I was doing.
The real deal:
Exactly one week later I headed into work and first thing in the morning told a scheduler that it felt like this baby was not coming anytime soon. By mid-morning I was feeling uncomfortable with a sense that the baby was riding lower but wasn't having any contractions. I remember barely being able to sit still during my goals meeting with my manager. Around 10:30 am I started having what I thought could be contractions but it was just a very low pain, nothing at all like the contractions with Lucy. After my false alarm, I was gun-shy on calling it labor so I just wrote it off. Around 11:30 the pain was every 4 minutes and was shooting to my tailbone, so I decided to cancel out my patients after doing one last new patient evaluation at 12:30. The patient was extremely chatty and I had to politely re-direct her multiple times and then just plain had to tell them that I was in labor and we needed to stay on task. I left Gundersen around 2pm and was having contractions every 2-3 minutes at that point. As soon as I got home, I texted Isaac and said he better get home soon. We turned around and headed back to Gundersen around 3pm. I played some of my relaxation audiotracks on the way to the hospital which helped me sit still in the car so we didn't have to stop and get out every contraction. I continued to use these tracks during the 30 minutes of fetal monitoring where they just make you lay still in bed (that = no fun). Upon getting to the hospital I was 7-8 cm and Dr. Bahr was paged immediately. She was a little shocked to see me as I just had my 38 week check with her the day before and had absolutely no signs of progression.
She suggested I get into the tub if I wanted a water birth (again I think I was in a bit of denial that things were progressing this quickly and thought I might be there a few hours first).
At about 9.5 cm my water still hadn't broken, so Dr. Bahr suggested that she break the water and then I'd likely be able to push. Breaking the water bag did indeed immediately progress me to 10 cm and after about 5 minutes of pushing, Charlie was born! During this process, I did opt for nitrous oxide which wasn't an option when I had Lucy. It didn't help with the pain at all but it did help calm me which was helpful as I was feeling a little panicky. Isaac was worried that I was going to pass out and drown in the tub I looked so relaxed after taking some drags, HA!
Charlie's big gulp:
For some inexplicable reason, Charlie took a gulp of water on his way to the surface. This isn't even supposed to be reflexively possible, but he managed to do it. (We joke that he'll never be a swimmer). So his first 1-2 hours of life consisted of a lot of grunting noises as he worked on normal breathing. This was nothing imminently dangerous as the fluid wasn't in his lungs, just in his digestive tract. The nurses decided to suck out his belly and they were able to get a bunch of water out. Because of his labored breathing, they didn't let him nurse but he ended up also having a low blood sugar reading so he needed to get some calories in. They gave him a formula feed via tube and that brought his sugars back up.
Charlie's visitors:
Aunt Molly brought Lucy to see Charlie the following morning. Lucy was adorable and kept saying how cute his hair, little nose and little ears were. She was excited to receive a big sister gift from Aunt Molly (a Dora the Explorer backpack along with Boots the monkey!). Lucy even got to meet the Easter Bunny when he stopped into Charlie's room!! We were thrilled she was able to come visit because soon after that Charlie was transferred to a different room and couldn't have any more visitors.
The blood sugar battle:
Babies need to have 3 normal blood sugar checks in a row before being considered stable. I was supposed to wait every 3 hours to nurse Charlie or nurse when he showed signs of hunger. He passed 2 blood sugar checks in a row and then the 3rd was low so we had to do a formula feed and some oragel to bring it back up. The next round the same thing happened again with 2 good ones and then a 3rd one crashed into the 20's (we needed the numbers to be above 50). The doctor decided Charlie needed to be transferred to the NICU in order to be set up on a dextrose IV drip to help things stabilize. It took several hours for them to get the IV in-poor guy! I nursed every 2-3 hours and then pumped after nursing to supplement with dropper feeds and the rest was supplemented via formula in order to make sure Charlie was getting the exact right amount of food. Over the next 36 hours they slowly decreased the dextrose drip and Charlie was able to maintain a normal blood sugar level. By this point Isaac was getting stir-crazy as we were just sitting around the NICU waiting for a doctor to do the circumcision. Finally, around noon on April 15th, we headed home!
The false alarm:
On April 5th I returned to working in La Crosse after a several month stint in Caledonia, MN. In the middle of the night I noticed some contractions starting when I had to let Sully out (He must have been readying me for night time wakings). By the time my alarm went off I was having contractions every 3 minutes and my app was telling me I needed to head to the hospital. The odd thing was, the contractions were not painful at all but they were wrapping around to my back just like with Lucy. I thought maybe all my self hypnosis was paying off and I would just have a painless labor (ha!). I talked it over with labor and delivery and family medicine and decided to just be checked in family med. I cancelled my morning patients and headed into Gundersen to be checked. It was determined to be a false alarm and after about 24 hours the contractions quit and I went back to normal and felt like the baby wouldn't be coming for a few more weeks (which would be a good thing because this was 3 weeks early and very little was ready/packed). I returned to work that afternoon feeling a little silly as the 2nd time around I thought I'd know what I was doing.
The real deal:
Exactly one week later I headed into work and first thing in the morning told a scheduler that it felt like this baby was not coming anytime soon. By mid-morning I was feeling uncomfortable with a sense that the baby was riding lower but wasn't having any contractions. I remember barely being able to sit still during my goals meeting with my manager. Around 10:30 am I started having what I thought could be contractions but it was just a very low pain, nothing at all like the contractions with Lucy. After my false alarm, I was gun-shy on calling it labor so I just wrote it off. Around 11:30 the pain was every 4 minutes and was shooting to my tailbone, so I decided to cancel out my patients after doing one last new patient evaluation at 12:30. The patient was extremely chatty and I had to politely re-direct her multiple times and then just plain had to tell them that I was in labor and we needed to stay on task. I left Gundersen around 2pm and was having contractions every 2-3 minutes at that point. As soon as I got home, I texted Isaac and said he better get home soon. We turned around and headed back to Gundersen around 3pm. I played some of my relaxation audiotracks on the way to the hospital which helped me sit still in the car so we didn't have to stop and get out every contraction. I continued to use these tracks during the 30 minutes of fetal monitoring where they just make you lay still in bed (that = no fun). Upon getting to the hospital I was 7-8 cm and Dr. Bahr was paged immediately. She was a little shocked to see me as I just had my 38 week check with her the day before and had absolutely no signs of progression.
She suggested I get into the tub if I wanted a water birth (again I think I was in a bit of denial that things were progressing this quickly and thought I might be there a few hours first).
At about 9.5 cm my water still hadn't broken, so Dr. Bahr suggested that she break the water and then I'd likely be able to push. Breaking the water bag did indeed immediately progress me to 10 cm and after about 5 minutes of pushing, Charlie was born! During this process, I did opt for nitrous oxide which wasn't an option when I had Lucy. It didn't help with the pain at all but it did help calm me which was helpful as I was feeling a little panicky. Isaac was worried that I was going to pass out and drown in the tub I looked so relaxed after taking some drags, HA!
Charlie's big gulp:
For some inexplicable reason, Charlie took a gulp of water on his way to the surface. This isn't even supposed to be reflexively possible, but he managed to do it. (We joke that he'll never be a swimmer). So his first 1-2 hours of life consisted of a lot of grunting noises as he worked on normal breathing. This was nothing imminently dangerous as the fluid wasn't in his lungs, just in his digestive tract. The nurses decided to suck out his belly and they were able to get a bunch of water out. Because of his labored breathing, they didn't let him nurse but he ended up also having a low blood sugar reading so he needed to get some calories in. They gave him a formula feed via tube and that brought his sugars back up.
Charlie's visitors:
Aunt Molly brought Lucy to see Charlie the following morning. Lucy was adorable and kept saying how cute his hair, little nose and little ears were. She was excited to receive a big sister gift from Aunt Molly (a Dora the Explorer backpack along with Boots the monkey!). Lucy even got to meet the Easter Bunny when he stopped into Charlie's room!! We were thrilled she was able to come visit because soon after that Charlie was transferred to a different room and couldn't have any more visitors.
The blood sugar battle:
Babies need to have 3 normal blood sugar checks in a row before being considered stable. I was supposed to wait every 3 hours to nurse Charlie or nurse when he showed signs of hunger. He passed 2 blood sugar checks in a row and then the 3rd was low so we had to do a formula feed and some oragel to bring it back up. The next round the same thing happened again with 2 good ones and then a 3rd one crashed into the 20's (we needed the numbers to be above 50). The doctor decided Charlie needed to be transferred to the NICU in order to be set up on a dextrose IV drip to help things stabilize. It took several hours for them to get the IV in-poor guy! I nursed every 2-3 hours and then pumped after nursing to supplement with dropper feeds and the rest was supplemented via formula in order to make sure Charlie was getting the exact right amount of food. Over the next 36 hours they slowly decreased the dextrose drip and Charlie was able to maintain a normal blood sugar level. By this point Isaac was getting stir-crazy as we were just sitting around the NICU waiting for a doctor to do the circumcision. Finally, around noon on April 15th, we headed home!
Charlie Week 4
Highlights: Charlie and Mom took their first road trip together to visit Abbey in Madison. He made it the whole way to Madison and we had to stop once on the way home. As long as the car is in motion, he seems to be happy. Mom entered a living nightmare when there was stop and go traffic with interstate construction as Charlie starting wailing in protest. Luckily the construction was short-lived.
Changes: Charlie continues to be more alert. He has a longer period of wakefulness around noon and again in the evening. Isaac continues to work on bottle feeding and is doing well with this. Mom even got away for a dinner gathering without Charlie! He also seems to be just starting to have social smiles. Another major change is that he is fitting into 3 month clothing. Yikes! Most of the newborn stuff still fits but his torso length is starting to max the items out.
Sleep: Every 3rd night or so we are getting one 4 hour stretch! (That feels amazing. Mom doesn't even get crabby during the diaper change after that amount of rest). Most of the time we are continuing with the ever 2 hours trend though.
Changes: Charlie continues to be more alert. He has a longer period of wakefulness around noon and again in the evening. Isaac continues to work on bottle feeding and is doing well with this. Mom even got away for a dinner gathering without Charlie! He also seems to be just starting to have social smiles. Another major change is that he is fitting into 3 month clothing. Yikes! Most of the newborn stuff still fits but his torso length is starting to max the items out.
Sleep: Every 3rd night or so we are getting one 4 hour stretch! (That feels amazing. Mom doesn't even get crabby during the diaper change after that amount of rest). Most of the time we are continuing with the ever 2 hours trend though.
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| Taking a snooze on Grandpa Pischke's sun porch. Look at those cheeks starting to fill out! |
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| Mom, Charlie and Sully always go out for a walk on the nice days. The marsh trails are our favorite lately. |
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| Starting to get smiley when we make fools out of ourselves. |
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Charlie Week 2
Highlights: We have our sweet Lucy back to herself. She just needed to settle into her old routine which was largely helped by a return to daycare.
Changes: Charlie is far more alert this week. He spends much more time with his eyes open and is able to lift and turn his head during tummy time. Another shocking discovery was that Charlie actually enjoys tummy time! He doesn't fuss at all and would likely just fall asleep if we kept him there long enough. He does track our faces and turns his head to follow sounds while in tummy time.
Sleep: Unfortunately nothing new to report here. Still waking every 2 hours almost to the minute around the clock.
Changes: Charlie is far more alert this week. He spends much more time with his eyes open and is able to lift and turn his head during tummy time. Another shocking discovery was that Charlie actually enjoys tummy time! He doesn't fuss at all and would likely just fall asleep if we kept him there long enough. He does track our faces and turns his head to follow sounds while in tummy time.
Sleep: Unfortunately nothing new to report here. Still waking every 2 hours almost to the minute around the clock.
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| Lucy holds Charlie every day after getting home from daycare. Here she's reading him a book. |
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| Look at all that hair!!! |
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