Friday, June 29, 2012
Rachel's hospital bath
Another difference between this hospital and the last was that they waited until the baby was at least 6 hours old before they gave Rachel her bath. I thought it would be fun for the kids if we waited for them to be there before she got the bath. So, late in the day, almost evening of Rachel's first day she got her first bath. This has to have been the craziest thing I have ever seen. The aide put down a paper sheet thingy that was to soak up the water in her bassinet.
She kept squeezing water on Rachel from the wash cloth and then she would wash her.
I think you can see it here in this picture, the inside of the bassinet is soaked with water.
Gwen was the ever patient watcher. Once Nate was sure Rachel wasn't crying out of stress, he just sat back in my lap.
I can't remember what they were talking about here, but it sure looks interesting.
Wet and angry, see the water?
Finally hair washing.
We apparently didn't take any pictures of the clean baby, I think it ended up being time to eat and the kids left shortly after that, Nate possibly traumatized for life. Gwen happy to help with bath #2!
Rachel's birth
I know some of you are likely curious what happened with Rachel's birth. Rachel was at least 10 days past her due date by the time I went to the hospital on Sunday. I was not in labor, showed no signs of going into labor anytime in the near future, but it seemed like it was past time to get her out. I really thought she would come out before the agreed upon induction date, but what do I know, apparently. If you don't what to hear about Rachel's birth in detail, I would stop reading now. I have not included any pictures, so you don't have to feel obligated to continue on this post.
Our induction time was 11am Sunday, so we went to Church, went to the hospital and checked in. They started me on the IV antibiotic and told me I would need 2 doses before I started anything and those doses needed to be 4ish hours apart. Can I make an aside here, penicillin IV BURNS! Just an FYI! So they started the first IV at 12ish, when it was done we started walking the hospital, had some lunch and did some birthing exercises (squats, lunges, stomping) until dose 2 at 3:30. At 4 they tried to break my water, that did not work, they could not get a place to break. Rachel was still high and I wasn't much dilated. My only option was pitocin. Those that know me know that I wrestled with this for some time. I wanted nothing to do with pit, but it was truly my only option, so we had some dinner and I got some pit, probably around 6. The cool thing about the teaching hospital was they have all the latest things (well, I don't know that for sure), but they had wireless waterproof monitors, so I could walk around the floor while they monitored the baby remotely. COOL! They continued to monitor and increase the pit until I was at a good contraction level. The thing I noticed is while I was doing the aforementioned exercises I could feel no pain, but as soon as I finished I would get another one. The Dr checked me around 8 and broke my water. Rachel had moved down a smidge and they started to decrease the pit to see if I would continue laboring without the pit. The pit was turned off completely around 10 and the midwife checked me at around 11, still no more progress, so we had no choice but to go back on the pit again. I laid down in bed to rest and they started the pit at 12ish, I was at 4cm. By 12:30 I was in real labor, at about 1:30 Eric suggested the shower. The nurse came in, informed me I finally looked like I was in labor and started to get the room ready. At 2ish the nurse checked me, I was at 7. About 10 minutes later I declared it was time to push. They moved me to the bed and said I was at 9, but NOT TO PUSH. At this point I was over their suggestions and told them I was pushing. They kindly informed me that my cervix wasn't all out of the way yet, I didn't really care. Finally my cervix was clear, but the midwife still told me I couldn't push because I would tear, I told her I couldn't help it I had to push. She told me to breathe and look at her, I made it through most of the way through the contraction without pushing, but the last 10 sec or so. And EVERYONE was yelling at me not to push. I maybe was a little cranky! Finally, she said I could push and I did, but apparently not good enough because they were fussing at me again. But, I finally got the head out and the shoulders (which BTW when you have a baby with a 14.25 head circumference, you really don't notice the shoulders!) and they laid Rachel on me. It was 2:21am. Apparently now they do a delayed placenta cutting if possible, so they didn't cut the cord until 2:26! This apparently allows the stem cells to flow into the baby after birth, seemed like a good idea, before birth, during birth, I realized I was still having contractions and although Rachel was on me, it felt like an eternity.
Our induction time was 11am Sunday, so we went to Church, went to the hospital and checked in. They started me on the IV antibiotic and told me I would need 2 doses before I started anything and those doses needed to be 4ish hours apart. Can I make an aside here, penicillin IV BURNS! Just an FYI! So they started the first IV at 12ish, when it was done we started walking the hospital, had some lunch and did some birthing exercises (squats, lunges, stomping) until dose 2 at 3:30. At 4 they tried to break my water, that did not work, they could not get a place to break. Rachel was still high and I wasn't much dilated. My only option was pitocin. Those that know me know that I wrestled with this for some time. I wanted nothing to do with pit, but it was truly my only option, so we had some dinner and I got some pit, probably around 6. The cool thing about the teaching hospital was they have all the latest things (well, I don't know that for sure), but they had wireless waterproof monitors, so I could walk around the floor while they monitored the baby remotely. COOL! They continued to monitor and increase the pit until I was at a good contraction level. The thing I noticed is while I was doing the aforementioned exercises I could feel no pain, but as soon as I finished I would get another one. The Dr checked me around 8 and broke my water. Rachel had moved down a smidge and they started to decrease the pit to see if I would continue laboring without the pit. The pit was turned off completely around 10 and the midwife checked me at around 11, still no more progress, so we had no choice but to go back on the pit again. I laid down in bed to rest and they started the pit at 12ish, I was at 4cm. By 12:30 I was in real labor, at about 1:30 Eric suggested the shower. The nurse came in, informed me I finally looked like I was in labor and started to get the room ready. At 2ish the nurse checked me, I was at 7. About 10 minutes later I declared it was time to push. They moved me to the bed and said I was at 9, but NOT TO PUSH. At this point I was over their suggestions and told them I was pushing. They kindly informed me that my cervix wasn't all out of the way yet, I didn't really care. Finally my cervix was clear, but the midwife still told me I couldn't push because I would tear, I told her I couldn't help it I had to push. She told me to breathe and look at her, I made it through most of the way through the contraction without pushing, but the last 10 sec or so. And EVERYONE was yelling at me not to push. I maybe was a little cranky! Finally, she said I could push and I did, but apparently not good enough because they were fussing at me again. But, I finally got the head out and the shoulders (which BTW when you have a baby with a 14.25 head circumference, you really don't notice the shoulders!) and they laid Rachel on me. It was 2:21am. Apparently now they do a delayed placenta cutting if possible, so they didn't cut the cord until 2:26! This apparently allows the stem cells to flow into the baby after birth, seemed like a good idea, before birth, during birth, I realized I was still having contractions and although Rachel was on me, it felt like an eternity.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Rachel!
Rachel was born this morning at 2:25 am, she is a rather large baby and I will detail her birth in another post, but I wanted to post some pictures. Here she is right after they weighed her! Wow! I can not believe she is so large!
She has been a good baby so far, although I am finding it difficult to keep on her hat.
The big sibs don't really know what to think yet, but they appear to love holding her, and get upset when she cries. She is so large that really they have to hold her together!
Grandma enjoys holding her also. She was holding her and holding her and holding her and Gwen wanted to know why she couldn't hold her again, when Grandma had one of her extended holdings.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
So as not to repeat myself
Today we had our final Dr's appointment before the baby makes its grand entrance. As those of you who have been with us through all 3 pregnancies, you'll know that our babies are late. Eric and I were both late, why wouldn't our babies be. Today I am 40 weeks, 5 days or some such nonsense. Hardly dilated but I think the baby has moved down a tad. Conditions are "favorable" for birth, she just has to move down and she is taking her own sweet time. The Dr said I looked well rested, and not near as exhausted as I did the previous week, which can be attributed to the visit from my Aunt, who basically took over all responsibility while I just rested. Thank you Auntie!
Tomorrow I will be having a stress test-basically they hook us up to monitors and check the baby's heartbeat over 20-30 minutes and make sure she is comfortable and not in duress. We have an induction scheduled for Sunday, just in case the baby doesn't come over the rest of the week. I asked for as late of an induction as possible to give this girl a chance to make her exit naturally. We are hopeful that she be here soon!
So there you have it, yes I am still pregnant and I am ok with that, thank you for asking. I would like her to finish her business and come out before Sunday though, I'll even let her pick the day! Now off to get ready for Grandma who arrives soon!
Tomorrow I will be having a stress test-basically they hook us up to monitors and check the baby's heartbeat over 20-30 minutes and make sure she is comfortable and not in duress. We have an induction scheduled for Sunday, just in case the baby doesn't come over the rest of the week. I asked for as late of an induction as possible to give this girl a chance to make her exit naturally. We are hopeful that she be here soon!
So there you have it, yes I am still pregnant and I am ok with that, thank you for asking. I would like her to finish her business and come out before Sunday though, I'll even let her pick the day! Now off to get ready for Grandma who arrives soon!
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Art project
I decided that we should do art projects everyday! Then we did this first project and we haven't done one since! The kids loved it, but I feel like it was an utter failure! We took all our broken crayons and wrapped up some cookie cutters, and cupcake holders in foil and proceeded to put in the broken crayons. You can see Gwen diligently working here.
Here are 2 molds, we put them in the oven at 200 or so and then let them melt.
Nate was our broken crayon label peeler...tough job for a tough kid!
Gwen and her handy work...
Here they are partially melted
But this was the problem, we couldn't keep the melting crayons contained as hard as we tried.
We did get some successful crayon pieces and the kids loved it, and now we have way less crayons, but Eric was not pleased with the clean up...I was too pooped to do anything but peel all the foil. We did eventually figure out that boiling water worked cleaning the crayon wax...we might never do another art project this summer.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Happy Birthday, Nate!
Today is our little man's birthday. Such a crazy little guy! He is full of life and energy who keeps us on our toes. He will be starting preK this fall and he is looking forward to it.
He is really getting into LEGOs this year and Superheroes. He is also making up hilarious stories. If you talk about something, says ghosts, he will tell you about an involved story he has made up about his experience with ghosts. Very funny.
He is still our cuddly little guy who loves to sit and read. He will sit for a long time and look at books for a long time, but he will happily listen to you read him a story.
He is struggling to drop a nap, he really needs to still nap, but with his sister home and no afternoon car trip to pick up his sister, it is a real struggle. His listening skills drop to nil and he loses impulse control. I am hoping this is a short transition, but you never know.
He does make have a pretty funny way of saying things and we can tell he is going to be a pretty smart kid. I am hoping the structure and learning he will get at school will calm him down a little. He seems to be pretty hyped up and has a lot of energy, I am hoping to one day learn how to channel his energy for good!
We sometimes forget he is only turning 4 today because he often acts older and his vocabulary is so advanced. He loves our camera and will take numerous random pictures, as a matter of fact I put together a slideshow of his random pictures, a lot of them are from Christmas, but I put a couple of recent additions in there. I will also post his birthday slideshow after that, if you'd like to see it. Sorry, I'm to lazy to annotate either slideshow.
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
Bowling!
We have been burning up the Groupons lately, we got one for 2 hours of bowling. Since Eric can't allow something like that to burn a whole in his pocket we went this weekend. I was thinking of waiting until after the new baby came, which would have been easier and less exhausting for me, but Eric wasn't on the same page. I think the manager was concerned I was going to go into labor. The kids had a great time. They used the ramp for most of the time and they even put up the railings for us also. Let's just say we all did rather well.
We made it through 2.5 games, by the end we were all pretty much done, Eric kept asking if we wanting to leave, but I paid for 2 hours, I was staying. Nate was more interested in the video games than the bowling and I was pretty sore and exhausted, but it was great fun and I am glad we did it. We also took some hilarious video.
This is Gwen at the beginning, I can't remember if this is where she tries to kick her leg back or not, but man the kid is observent and by the end she wasn't using the ramp at all...
Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.
We gave both the children the rules of the alley...first wait until the guy in the next lane goes before you bowl and for Nate I added a special rule, don't dance in the lane, come back over the line...sometimes we had to remind him, sometimes we didn't!
Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.
Gwen's spare, the little kid beat me the first game, but I beat her the second and third game.
Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.
Unfortunately Eric had to do some trick shots, and some "granny" bowling, which meant Nate had to bowl Granny style...Eric had to go up and help him though. I should mention the lady only had to come over once to recover a ball that didn't make it all the way down the lane!
Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.
Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.
This, I think, is the funniest video from the day. Gwen decided to bowl without the ramp, and it I think is funny. She is so cute and after the first time she tried it I recommended a little swinging of the arm. I'd like to call this one, "look Ma, no ramp!"
Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.
This is Gwen at the beginning, I can't remember if this is where she tries to kick her leg back or not, but man the kid is observent and by the end she wasn't using the ramp at all...
Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.
We gave both the children the rules of the alley...first wait until the guy in the next lane goes before you bowl and for Nate I added a special rule, don't dance in the lane, come back over the line...sometimes we had to remind him, sometimes we didn't!
Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.
Gwen's spare, the little kid beat me the first game, but I beat her the second and third game.
Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.
Unfortunately Eric had to do some trick shots, and some "granny" bowling, which meant Nate had to bowl Granny style...Eric had to go up and help him though. I should mention the lady only had to come over once to recover a ball that didn't make it all the way down the lane!
Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.
Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.
This, I think, is the funniest video from the day. Gwen decided to bowl without the ramp, and it I think is funny. She is so cute and after the first time she tried it I recommended a little swinging of the arm. I'd like to call this one, "look Ma, no ramp!"
Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
