Update from the wife

This blog has gotten super boring, and all the nagging in the world isn't getting my (admittedly, very busy) husband back to it, so I (the wife) am popping in to give a quick update. Things are changing rapidly around our house!

Two weeks ago, we accepted placement of an 8 year old girl. She is very funny, and very mature for her age, but does not sleep through the night. Like, ever. Like... our 3 month old sleeps better than she does. It has been rough, friends. We are extremely tired, especially now that I'm back to work.

My husband would never admit it, because he wouldn't want to make me look bad, but he is a MUCH better night-time parent than I am. Like... no comparison, not even in the same ballpark, better. It is all I can do to muster up the energy to feed the baby, and I mainly do that laying down. So this is kicking my ass. And by this, I mean... it's kicking my ass when my HUSBAND gets up to go deal with her. Sneak peak of our night last night, and it was one of the better ones...

7:30pm: Baby goes to bed.
8:00pm: 8 year old goes to bed.
9:30pm: Husband and wife go to bed. (Yes, we go to bed this early to deal with all of the nightwaking!)
1:00am: Baby wakes up to eat, wife mostly cheerfully pulls out boob, goes back to sleep.
1:30am: Knock knock knock. Husband goes to deal with 8 year old.
2:15am: Wife shakes husband awake. "8 year old is crying loudly, go deal with it."
3:30am: Baby wakes up to eat, wife moans loudly, protestingly pulls out boob, goes back to sleep.
4:45am: Baby wakes up for no discernible reason, wife pulls out boob, does not pacify baby, shakes husband awake. "Baby is awake. Will not go back to sleep. Holy hell, I'm so tired. Whinewhinewhinecakes."
4:45am: Husband and sleepy whiny baby retire to the nursery, where husband will rock baby while watching Netflix until 6am.
6:00am: Husband wakes wife as requested, hands her hungry baby. Wife moans about lack of sleep. Husband promises to do as much as possible tomorrow night.

I realize this does not make me seem like a super delightful person, or parent. Yet it is the bitter, bitter truth. My husband is a saint.

Anyway, this will be a short term placement. Background checks have cleared and house walk-throughs are being accomplished to move her to a relative placement. She is delightful during the daytime, but we will not be super sad to see her go. Sleep is important.

Baby update: Baby has started daycare with my sister-in-law. He spends his days hanging out with his two year old cousin. He is almost 14 pounds, teething, and mostly very smiley. We are very pleased with our progeny.

Home update: Remember how I mentioned daycare? Like... last paragraph? That's not going to be lasting very long. I don't know how you people who work full time with small children do it, but it is making us Insane. Capital I. I will be working out the end of the year, and becoming a full-time Parent, Housekeeper, Errand Runner Extraordinaire. I have promised the husband that I will get up with the baby every single time, as soon as I stay at home, and he works a million hours to make this possible.

I hope the baby sleeps through the night by then, or I'm screwed.

It's Been A Long Time...

Shouldn't-uh left you.

That was just for The Wife.  And anyone else that recognizes mid to late 90s girl rap music I suppose.

It has been brought to my attention that I have really been slacking on the blog.  That may be because I've posted about four things since May, but who knows really.

The Boy is doing very well these days.  He's up to 12.4 pounds and just keeps gaining.  Today he's 2 months old.  That's not to say he wasn't doing well before, but he had the IV antibiotics in the hospital for the mystery illness that didn't really exist.  At this point, I don't even remember what it was called, but I was told by a nurse that lots of babies get it and then they take the medicine and it goes away.  Every time.  So that didn't really make sense to me, but he's good now and they let us leave after a few extra days to complete the week, so we'll call that a win.

His hair fell out one day.  Seriously... in one day.  Weirdest thing ever.   We thought that we had gotten past the hair falling out and then all of a sudden it was gone.  He does still have a patch that seems to be sticking around for a while at the bottom of the back of his head.  It happened around the five week mark.  It's starting to come back in dark and fast.  He went from completely bald (minus the patch) to having basically full coverage, albeit thin, on his whole head.

In the last few days, we have actually been getting some sleep.  He likes to sleep on us, which isn't a big deal... except for the fact that he's THE LOUDEST BABY (OR MAYBE PERSON) EVER.  He lets out giant sighs in his sleep and occasionally he barks like a puppy.  We don't have a dog, so he's doing this all on his own and hasn't heard it elsewhere to imitate.

He also is super smiley in the mornings and actually enjoys getting his diaper changed... even at 4am sometimes.  Other times he screams, but the majority of the time, he just smiles away.  It's a lot to take in at the crack of dawn... but we love him anyway.

We consider ourselves very lucky to have such a happy and healthy baby and we can't wait to see what he does next.  He'd really like to sit up, stand up, and crawl all over the place... but his coordination and motor skills are not quite up to where they need to be for those things.  All in good time friend.... all in good time.

Window Shopping

Is expressly forbidden in the NICU.

You can ask Rachel.  Here's a picture of her and Scott the night that they met The Boy.  She was back the next day and was helping The Wife with some feeding tips and the nurse informed her that she was not allowed to touch the baby.  Clearly there was some sort of missing link in the communication chain.

Maybe she isn't touching him in this picture... camera angles are tricky

I'm not saying that it's not important for the NICU to have their rules and guidelines to follow, but when a perfectly healthy baby is there just because he needs IV antibiotics for some mystery infection (I'll get to that in a later post), I think there are some rules that could be adjusted.  Same thing as when parents are allowed to pick up their baby when the baby is a healthy weight, but then they aren't allowed to if the baby is super small (or sick) and in an incubator.

Luckily, none of the nurses heard us joking about how Rachel was there to see which baby she wanted to take home.

He's Here

The boy, scheduled to make his grand appearance on Thursday (the 25th), decided that he just didn't like that date and took it upon himself to push his birthday back a day.  Here is a quick breakdown of our last few days...

4:15am - Alarm goes off

4:30am - Leave the house

4:35am - Retrieve and consume breakfast from QuikTrip

4:55am - Arrive at hospital to find the main door locked

4:58am - Find that the emergency room is the only way in the hospital before 7am

5am - Check in, get assigned a room, wait

6am - Still waiting because they didn't have the "orders" for what was supposed to be happening, even though we were there for a scheduled induction

7am - Pitocin gets started (she was at about 2cm)

9:30am - The doctor came in and decided that it was just as good of a time as any to break The Wife's water

12pm - She's at 5cm!!!

4pm - She's at 6cm!!! But the pain was coming on and the need/time for an epidural was quickly approaching

4:30pm - I left the room.  I have no problems not being the hero that can see a giant needle inserted in a loved one's spine

5pm - No pain whatsoever... up to 7cm

8pm - Clearly the progress has slowed down, discussion of pros and cons of c-sections start occurring

9pm - Suddenly she jumps to 8cm and the nurse and doctor say that things are about to start happening soon

2am - "Soon" turns out to mean "five hours later"... but it's time to push

3am - Still pushing, nurse says that The Wife is doing a good job, but she can't feel it and all we can do is take the nurse's word for it

4am - Doctor comes in, pushing has essentially stopped with no further progress being made

4:10am - The Wife leaves the room to head to the operating room for the c-section

4:25am - I leave to go join her

4:44am - The Boy makes his appearance, weighing in at a healthy 9 pounds, 10.2 ounces and 20 3/4" long

It was such a long day/night and very stressful on everyone involved, particularly The Wife, but we finally got to meet him almost 24 hours after we arrived at the hospital.  While The Wife was being stitched up, I went to the incubator to start taking pictures and to see how he was doing.  There was some meconium in the amniotic fluid when the doctor had broken her water, so the NICU was on hand to make sure that he didn't aspirate on the meconium.  Luckily, he did not.  He hardly needed any suctioning and came out mostly just needing a bath.  I went to the NICU with The Boy and The Wife went to recovery, where her mom was waiting.  We didn't think the first thing that the baby should have happen is that he's whisked away to be poked and prodded by a bunch of people with no one around that he "knows".  For now, I can say that both The Wife and The Boy are healthy and happy and things are going fairly well for having a brand new life to watch out for.

More entries to come, as a lot has happened in his 59 hours of life up to this point.

The Phoebot

Happy Birthday to our niece!  Today, she is 2 years old.

Tomorrow, The Girl, The Wife, and myself will head on over to her (ugh) Barney birthday party.  Unless, of course, The Boy decides to come before then... which would be ideal.

She loves the shirt that we got her for Christmas

Preparations

As of right now, next Thursday (at 5am) is the day.

Our bags are packed as much as they can be, since we still have to do things like brush our teeth and shower and such.  We have the list ready to go and just have some more things to throw in the bag(s) the night before we go to the hospital.  Good news is that we only live about five blocks from the hospital, so if I have to make a run back home for anything we forget, I can be there and back in less than ten minutes.  The Wife spent a little while compiling a playlist for the room, since they have speakers built in that you are able to hook your iPhone, iPad, etc into.

Some of the songs that she added:

Beatles - Here Comes the Sun

Bob Dylan - Forever Young

Death Cab for Cutie - Stay Young Go Dancing

The Decemberists - Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect

Jukebox the Ghost - Empire 

REM - At My Most Beautiful

U2 - Beautiful Day

Emeli Sande - Next to Me

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah

John Lennon - Beautiful Boy

A few of the songs that I suggested that were shot down, probably for good reason:

Nelly - Hot in Herre

Jenny Owens Young - The Fuck Was I

Salt 'n Pepa - Push It (this was a from a website, but was still shot down)

Multiple Eminem songs were suggested

While they may not be "labor appropriate", I would really like to see the look on the faces of the nurses and doctor when one of those come on over the speakers.

The Wife has a call into the doctor's office today to see if we can move up the date at all, due to some concerns that come into play in the last week of pregnancies, as a result of the gestational diabetes and SUA.  We have no reason, based on this pregnancy, to be worried, but it sure would be nice to not have to think about it for a week.  Hopefully we'll at least get some news of a few days earlier than we are scheduled... or a few days from now.  

16 Days

We're down to the last 16 days of waiting for The Boy to arrive.  Not much has changed in the last few weeks.  At 2cm and 40% effaced, we're just hoping that one of those numbers jumps up quickly and we can get him here faster than the scheduled induction.  The Wife was at the doctor today for her weekly appointment and when she said, "see you next week", the doctor responded with "maybe".  He seems to think that it could happen at anytime now.

We spent yesterday cleaning and getting final preparations done.  We re-arranged some furniture and cleaned every single room in the house.  The goal was to be able to leave for a few days and come back to a clean house.  Now we just have to maintain our cleanliness.  So really, the faster he comes, the easier that will be on us.  Later this afternoon would be awesome.