Tales from my life as a mom of 2 sons and 2 daughters

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Cheli On Friday, February 29, 2008

Well it's already been another week since I updated so let me update again while I have a minute of down time :)

Journey is now 2 weeks old. WOW. He had his 2 week check up today. He was 7 lbs 6 oz and 19 inches long (one week ago he was 6 lbs 6 oz and 18.5 inches according to their measurements) so he's growing :) He is still a peanut though. Only in the 3-5 percentile for height and 10-25 for weight. He's still only able to fit in preemie clothes and depending on the brand some of those are still big on him. I went through his clothes this morning and discovered that we go from the few preemie clothes we have straight to 0-3 months which swallow him whole at this point.. we don't have any newborn clothing. Oops. He's a good baby for the most part. We are still adjusting to the sleepless nights but even nights aren't too bad. He wakes every 2-3 hours to nurse and then conks back out for another 2-3 hours. We are already noticing some difference in his personality from his brother. For one, Journey HATES to be put down. We've just recently been able to get him laying in the swing for an hour or so at a time but for the most part he's held or nursing. At night we've tried a few times to put him in the co-sleeper/snuggle nest but he won't have it. The instant we turn the light off he starts to cry to be picked up and then as soon as he's picked up and laid on someone he passes out. LOL. Doug has been sleeping on the couch with him on his chest while I heal from the c-section and now neither of us can remember how we broke River from this behavior (he did the same thing of sleeping on our chests on the couch). We have discovered that Journey has a temper. The instant you take his diaper off he screams as if he's being tortured and then pees from the strain of screaming LOL. But he is quick to be calmed and is such a cuddle bug. I love it.

River has been doing okay with Journey. He is a great big brother. This morning when he woke up Journey was in his swing and started crying, River ran over to him and goes "ut oh baby" and looked around, he founda bottle of expressed breast milk on the table and put it next to Journey in the swing with out so much as distrubing the rocking motion. The first thing he does whenever he wakes up is look for Journey. He is very gentle with him, rubs/pats his head softly and says "baby"or "brudder" (brother). He is so beautiful and has such a gentle heart.. I love him so much. The only bit of jealousy I've seen isn't really even jealousy so much as trying to adjust to the changes. His night time routine has been really screwed up ever since I went into the hospital. When we got home he was turning his rain maker up to ear shattering decibals and screaming while standing in the middle of his room as if he was afraid of getting into bed at night. We've been working with him every night now to help him get over his fear (even though we have no idea what it is that scared him). The rain doesn't go up so loud anymore and he climbs right into bed now but still fights going to sleep every night. I don't know if this is just him being 2, or if this is him adjusting to the changes in the house, or if something really did scare him while I was gone for 3 days. He amazes me every day now with the new things he says and does. He has perfected jumping from small ledges (the hearth) or just hopping around the living room. He's doing much better about asking for things using words and his vocabulary continues to grow by leaps and bounds every day. He is so smart. He is learning his colors and for the most part can find you anything you ask for if you name it with a color "can you get the red ball?" "can you find mommy's white shoes". He can name some colors if you show him as well. His favorite color right now is "boo" (blue) and everything will be blue if asked. He's learning how to dress and undess himself but still perfers to have daddy or mommy do it. He's just an amazing little man.

I filed bankrupsty a few weeks ago. I'm due to appear in court in April to finalize it. Getting that taken care makes me feel so much better. I made a ton of bad decisions when I was 18 years old and ended up with alot of credit card debt and medical bills from being uninsured and I've known for a while now that there would be no way for me to climb out from under it. So finally when income tax came in, we agreed that it was time to file. We were also able to get all of our bills current and even pay in advance for a few of the bills that we know will be staying the same for the next few months. Now we have bills taken care of up through April (when Doug graduates and when I can go back to work) so we can stay current and caught up and continue to climb out of the hole that nursing school and bad decisions/planning put us in. We still fully plan on moving back to Tennessee this summer but we don't have an exact date picked yet. We've decided to wait until both of us can work for a few months down here again so we can build a nest egg and stay on our feet when move back up there. Plus remaining down here long enough for Doug to work as a massage therapist for a few months will give him some history in the feild before moving to a new state and will hopefully make it easier to transition to a new job for him up there.

Physically I feel better every day. I go Wednesday to the OB for an incision check and to the midwife for a 2 week post partum check up. I've been monitoring my weight here at home and have lost 20 lbs since I delivered Journey. It is a good start for the 60 I need to lose. I'm hoping when I go to the OB that she will give me clearance drive again and give me an idea of when I'll be allowed to return to work. Now that the craziness of the first few weeks of appointments and adjustments is behind us, I'm looking forward to settling into a routine as a family of 4 now.

Here are few pictures of Journey from today :)

2weeks 001

2weeks 002

Cheli On Friday, February 22, 2008
It's been 1 week since Journey was born... already. WOW. This week has flown by and I know it's just the beginning of time moving even more quickly. This week has been filled with appointments, new experiences, and loss of sleep. *yawn*

First of all, we went to the doctor last Friday for a version (they were going to try and turn the baby). Before they could turn him though they needed to do a NST strip to make sure that he wasn't already stressed out or anything. Come to find out, he was kinda blah on the strip. They call it "non reactive" basically his heart rate was perfectly fine but there weren't alot of accelerations in it like there should be and when I had a good contraction on the strip Journey's heart rate decelerated from the 120s to the 90s and didn't come back up until the contraction was over. So they moved me from the version room into a triage room and watched me on monitors for an hour, said the doctor would be at the end of the hour to talk about my options. After an hour the doctor came in and basically said what we knew was going to come... there was NO way they were going to do the version because Journey was already showing signs of stress. She said I could go home and wait until my water broke and I went into labor and then come back and have the c-section then or we could go ahead and do the c-section that evening. Doug and I talked it over and neither one of us felt comfortable going home when he was having decelerations so we decided to go ahead and go through with the c-section. That was at 3pm on Friday. At 5:30 or so I was wheeled back to the operating room and at 6:15pm Journey was born :)

Due to not going through the birthing canal he had a ton of fluid in his lungs and needed some vigorous rubbing and a lot of suctioning to get his lungs clear enough but then he SCREAMED. It was so wonderful to hear that sound.. River never screamed because he had been too weak at birth so it was wonderful. Journey never left the room the entire hospital stay, he was with us constantly. We had a bumpy start with breastfeeding because he had no suck reflex from being born at 37 weeks and he was/is very impatient and didn't want to wait for my milk to come in but we are doing wonderful at it now.

At his newborn assessment it was discovered that he has a very prominant heart murmur. They were hoping that it would go away before we left the hospital as sometimes they do but Journey's wouldn't go away. So they referred us to a pediatric cardiologist where he was got an EKG, chest x-ray and echocardiogram done of his heart. It was diagnosed as a pulmonary valve stenosis. Luckily the doctor says it doesn't need treatment and may never actually need any kind of treatment as many times kids out grow it and it corrects itself as they grow.. we're hoping this is Journey's case. If it gets worse though they will have to put a catheter into his heart and blow a balloon up in the valve to push it open and help it "unstick". He goes back March 20th for another echo to keep an eye on it. He also lost 10% of his body weight after birth so my little guy now weighs 6 lbs 6 oz according to the scale when we left the hospital. He had a bit of jaundice but didn't need any help with it just nursing and skin to skin contact.

River is doing remarkably well with Journey. The evenings get a bit rough because he wants us all to himself and Journey needs us and of course the one holding the baby is the one River wants. *sigh* But he is very gentle with Journey, stroking his head softly and saying "nice baby" and he looks for him first thing upon waking in the morning.

So far I am loving being the mom of 2 boys. I hope I'm able to continue to love it LOL Now it's taken me about 2 hours to write this post so here are some pictures and then I'm going to bed for a few hours...

Journey showing off one of his cloth diapers



Doug enjoying a cuddle moment with both his boys.


All snuggled up in the bouncy seat.
Cheli On Tuesday, February 19, 2008
INTRODUCING OUR NEWEST BEAUTIFUL BOY!!!

JOURNEY KAI
BORN FEBRUARY 15TH, 2008 @ 6:15PM VIA C-SECTION
WEIGHT 7 LBS 2 OZ LENGTH 19.5 INCHES






Cheli On Friday, February 15, 2008

Wednesday night I started having contractions and by about 6pm they were pretty regular so we decided to call the midwife and let her know that it may be time soon and then went to Wal-mart to finish grabbing stuff we needed for the birthing supply list that the midwife had given us a few weeks ago so I could finish packing my bags just in case. Midwife told me to call back if they developed into a regular and intense pattern. By about 11pm they were 4-7 minutes apart for over an hour so we called the midwife and she came out to the house at midnight to check me out. I was 2-3 cm dilated but still not effaced and she mentioned that Journey was still really high. She said she'd messed around alot with my cervix trying to get a good feel so it might cause me to have alot more contractions and that and some rest might be what it takes to bring Journey down and get the party started. She suggested getting some sleep and said to call her if they picked up or got more intense or anything. Doug and I went to bed and I woke up at 3:30 with more intense contractions and a ton of back pain. Called the midwife about 5:30 and she suggested we meet up at the birthing center, just in case. So we make arrangements for River with my mother in law and then head up to the center. When we get there, she checks me and tells me there is no change and says she still can't feel Journey in the pelvis (which is probably why there is no change). So she listens with the dopple and doesn't find his heartbeat where she thinks she should.. she found it up high.. ut oh. So she gets the fetoscop out to get a better idea of where he is at and sure enough he's breech. She sends me home and tells me to stay off my feet completely, take 3000 mg of calcium/magnesium to slow down the contractions as we don't want my water breaking if he's breech and she said she'd call me later that morning *yesterday* to let me know what she and the other midwife think we should do next.

So we come home and I crash into bed and pretty much pass out from 7:30 until 10:30 when the midwife calls to say that Sharon *the main midwife* wants me to come in at noon for my "regular" appointment time. She wants to take me over to the OB's office who backs her up and use the ultrasound machine to scan me and make sure the baby is breech. So I get dressed and we head up there. I've lost a pound since last week which means I've gained officially 3 lbs this pregnancy LOL and then we waited for Sharon to show up to take us over to the OB. Once we get to the OB she does a quick scan and sure enough his head and feet are up by my ribs and his butt is down near my cervix. He's frank breech. So Sharon suggests that we go ahead and schedule me for an external cephalic version. Basically, the doctor will manually turn the baby into a head down position from the outside. She tells me to wait there and the receptionist will book the appointment with the hospital for as soon as possible. As soon as possible was the next day *today* at 11:45. So I'll be having the version done at 11:45 today.

The midwife thinks that once he is in a head down position and applying pressure to cervix again I'll continue to dilate and move into active labor. I hope so. I'm so afraid that if I don't he'll flip back up. There is a 58% success rate with frank breech babies and versions. Not really high but not too bad either. If he starts to have problems of any kind they will stop immediately but that would mean I would be scheduled for a c-section as early as 38 weeks. *3 days from now* or worse case scenario he really goes into distress and I have to have an emergency c-section today. I'm scared to death.

Then as if all of this isn't stressful enough, Doug, River and I have all been sick for the last 2-3 days. River is on an antibiotic for strep throat. I don't think Doug or I have that but we both have really bad sinus colds I think which involves a ton of coughing, fever, achiness.. blah..

So that's my update.

Cheli On Tuesday, February 12, 2008
37 weeks today!!!!! WOOOOO HOOOOOOO!
Journey can make his appearance whenever he wants!


Cheli On Monday, February 11, 2008
HAPPY BIRTHDAY RIVER!!






Cheli On Thursday, February 7, 2008
I had my 36 week appointment today :)
Appointment went good, boring. 117/68 BP. I gained weight bringing my total weight gain for the pregnancy to 4 lbs LOL. Journey is doing good. He was in a weird position when she tried to get him on the doppler and kept moving away from it when she put it on my belly so she ended up having to literally hold his butt in place ROFL but his HR was in the 120s and he's good. I can deliver at the birth center in 4 days. GBS came back negative WOOT and now it's just a waiting game. Next appointment is Valentine's day at noon :) We talked alot about what to expect when I go into labor and how they are involved etc etc. I'm excited :)