Happy 1st Birthday Vincent.

I can't believe a whole year has gone by. One year ago today you made me a mommy and your dad a daddy. We became a family one year ago. I learned what unconditional love was when I saw you and my heart felt as if it would burst with pride and sorrow at the same time. We miss you little boy. Love you always.

Oh Grant...how we love you

The other day the husband was outside and cleaning up the yard while the dogs were running in the woods behind the house. A neighbors tiny little yappy dog ran up to my husband barking like crazy. Now this is bad for 2 reasons. First of all, Grant doesn't appreciate any dog barking at us, never mind running up to his yard and barking at us. Second of all, this dog is really tiny, as in the size of his stuffed animals that we have to take away when he pulls all of the stuffing out of their eyes after shaking them violently.

So Lou gets the dog to calm down while the owner comes and retrieves him. He really is a sweet little tiny guy :) All of a sudden Lou hears it, a tiny jingling sound coming from the woods. The distinct sound of Grant's tags clinking together as he runs full speed. Lou tells the guy to get the dog and go, the guy looks confused and then sees Grant running full speed at him. Complete with tongue lolling out to the side and his dingo look in his eyes. He doesn't even look as he runs and leaps off the back patio 3 feet to the ground without breaking his sprint. Lou actually needed to tackle him on the front yard because he was going for the kill.

Grant was so upset that night that he "failed" in protecting his property. He just wanted to lay around with us... did I mention he likes to wrap himself in the babies blankets - crazy dog. He has now had two more confrontations with this dog in the middle of the street now - so now we need to watch him more when he is outside. Thankfully he is not the aggressor - but unfortunately he would kill this dog without ever realizing it was not a toy. He keeps us on our toys.

as a sidenote on my health: I think I am o.k. :) I haven't checked my BP in 2 weeks honestly, I need to start again because I usually lower/ go off BP meds when not pregnant. I have a follow up glucose tolerance test that I have a feeling may come back as prediabetic or type II. I have tested my sugars a couple of times since being home and my after meals are good - but my fastings are too high. We will see how it goes but I am prepared for it to be shitty. Oh well, we have survived worse. So I am good. Actually have a cold it feels like so I am just taking care of baby and pumping and that is all. Pumping has been the same - still only producing about 50% of what little man eats - but I am not worried about it. I am not going crazy with the pumping either - I am only pumping 6 times a day maybe 7, not the recommended 10-12. As it is, pumping for 2-3 hour a day is rough, I can't imagine doing it more!

Where does time go?

Wow, time is starting to run away from me. I have no idea what month it is never mind what day or time! Lou is a tiny ball of time stealing energy. But that is the way pregnancy is supposed to work, right? You get pregnant, go into labor and bring home a baby. Once you get that baby home, your time is consumed with feedings and changing them and constantly having a list of things to get done in a small time frame between feedings. Here is a pic of his coming home from the NICU on 4/7

I definitely feel that having lost Vincent before having Lou has colored my attitude a bit. I don't mind waking up to feed the baby when I am so tired I am about to collapse. The voice in the back of my head doesn't shut up about how this is how this is supposed to be. The bad part about this voice is a problem that many women can develop called "motherhood idealization". In this case, you make motherhood out to be such a wonderful event that you are blessed with that you feel awful when you have difficulties adjusting to life with a newborn. This is most common with people who undergo IVF and of course, those with a loss. Let me tell you, I idealize motherhood. I am constantly saying I will do anything for this little man , but I will also admit - having a newborn is HARD! We are getting into a schedule a bit and it is easier some days than others - but come on, of course it is hard! So those of you pregnant with your rainbow babies, don't feel bad when it is hard. The pregnancy will be hard at times and having your newborn will be hard at times. Don't ever feel guilty for feeling things are hard. Just because these little guys have made it and are home alive with us doesn't mean everything is sunshine and lollipops - it just makes it easier to smile when you are on 36 hours of being awake and feeding the little one!

So what do we do at home? We try to sleep when Lou is sleeping! His schedule seems to be getting better lately and he sleep for longer chunks of time -3-4 hours :)

We learned he doesn't yet like the vibrating chair yet, I think it overstimulates him. This picture was taken right before the wailing began. He looks so tiny in the chair!

His face is filling back out and he had gained weight and was 5 lbs and 7 ounces at his first doctor check at 13 day old. I love rubbing my face over his soft and spiky hair!

My biggest challenge has been pumping. I started pumping in the hospital to try and give him breastmilk after he was all set with nursing. I have gotten him to nurse successfully a few times, but mostly I pump every 3 hours. I struggle to make 10-14 ounces a day though. I should be averaging 20+. I may eventually ask my doctor in a week or two to start reglan to increase my supply. I still have a few weeks to play around to try to get it up. For now he gets about 50% of his feeds breastmilk. If that is all I can do - so be it. It is better than nothing. Now I need to go pump yet again.

Hope all is well with everyone else!

I am home. Sorry I had no internet for a few days and no time to have the hubby reconnect it - even less time to use it!

I came home Monday on more meds than I went into the hospital on! But things are good. I am still very very swollen and sore when I am active. That c-section was brutal, but it gave me little boy :)

It was awesome to come home and see the daschies and nest a bit. Since I never had a chance to nest before baby, Monday night I cuddled with the dogs and went through all the babies clothes. It was sad to see that pretty much nothing we had would fit Little Lou. So we made a late night baby store run and bought all the preemie clothes we could find. Unfortunately, there wasn't much so he only has a handful. The hubby was so mad - we wondered around the whole store and finally needed to ask where the preemie stuff was and was led into a small corner section. It makes you feel odd not being able to dress your child due to lack of proper clothing.

Little Lou came home in a carbed on wednesday. He failed the car seat challenge again and actually needed to be given oxygen after his episode in the car seat. He will be retested in a few weeks. He is an awesome baby who eats like a champ and sleeps great too! Of course it is still hard and tiring, but I think he is making it easier on us then some babies do - maybe it's his thanks for all the bed rest!

The hardest part has been keeping the dogs out of the living room which is home base right now. We have a gate up so they stay in the other rooms. They love the baby and have been doing great with him - but Grant gets over excited so we are being extra cautious. Belle cries when the baby cries, kisses his little feet and is such a sweet girl. Grant loves kissing the babies hands. Grant occasionally gets this crazy dingo look in his eyes though and starts panting loudly looking at the baby... so that is behavior we are discouraging!!! He does this with things he wants to play with though too. However, they are both doing great and as well as could be expected with the new guy.

Well, I am off. I need to take some pain meds, let the dogs out, pump some milk and fix a bottle and judging by Little Lou's sleepy but stirring face I have less than 5 minutes to accomplish all of this :)

Not Quite Smooth Sailing

We have some choppy seas ahead. It was really nice when Lou, I and Little Lou were "practicing" for home in my PP room. He roomed in with us, we attended his every little squeak. I love my boy. We were supposed to be going home yesterday. This morning we were supposed to waking up on our first Easter morning as a family, together in our home.

Since Little Lou was under 5 pounds, and younger than 37 weeks, he had two reasons to have a car seat challenge. Well, he failed his carseat challenge. His oxygen saturation and heart rate decreased. They then tested him in a car bed, he failed that as well. So now Little Lou is hanging out in the NICU. I gave a picture of mommy and daddy to look at. I am going to make him a sign with his name on it soon. He is in a regular bassinet, just monitoring his vitals. Turns out I didn't escape the NICU after all.

I was supposed to go home yesterday as well. Then my pressures spiked out of no where. I am suddenly rocking BPs of 170s/80-100s. Yep, PP PE. The earliest I may get to go home now is Monday. I'll live, I just look around this hospital room and wish my little man was still here with me. It has been so emotional. I actually called down to the NICU yesterday and asked how Vincent was doing. Then I cried for being such a bad mom I forgot his name.

Little Lou's hospital photo shot emailed me the picture site. Check out little Lou's pics! Leave him a comment and some love. I want to save these for him so some day he can see how many people all around the world cared so much about him :) That first 4 letters of my last name are Dell

http://www.our365.com/NewbornPortraits/BabyDetail.aspx?birthid=36924443-911c-468b-a3f4-5a93ae33878f

Well, I am heading down to the NICU in 10 minutes-waiting until my next dose of oxy before going down. I want to buy him a stuffed animal or something. Or a locket with his picture in it- I love picture 8 - don't you?"I need to talk to a lactation counsellor. Right now I am pumping and dumping because I had a CT with contrast. I am still not sure wether my milk is in. It increases every day, but still seems so little. I don't know. I hear the NICU lactation consultant work miracles!

I need a new blos design - blech. Maybe that will be a project for another day!

Much love and HAPPY EASTER. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

much love,

Jamie

Sprout has Arrived

So Thursday night (4/1) I was supposed to get my cervix ripened. Friday am (4/2) the pitocin induction was to begin. You may have figured out that didn't happen :) And thank you to Jess for sending her love and letting people know when I was beginning this crazy thing called newborn care.

Here is the birth story!

Monday I woke up at 4 am with a backache when I had to pee - I pee so much through out the night - nothing unusual there.. Eh, finally these hospital beds must have got to me. It was consecutive hospital bed rest day 36. The beds are not exactly anything resembling comfy. I watched some really fascinating documentary on people who keep chimps for pets - scary - they are like little face biting babies that do not kill your social life like a human baby does, but rather just kills you one day. I never watch tv at night and thought it was funny I turned that on and watched it. So then, of course, I went back to sleep for a few hours and had a odd dream that my baby was born covered in hair like a chimp. Definitely interesting.

I got up early like usual and the back ache was still there - it was mild. About a 4/10 on the pain scale. Just a back ache. Then I had some mucousy discharge (TMI but nothing new there). Pretty much the only difference beside the back pain was I was in a horrid mood just kind of feed up with living in the hospital and started to pack up my belongings in anticipation for the end of the week. I was a bit crabby with the hubby too, but felt fine.

Then I went down for my NST and BPP. I told the hubby he could stay home because I was a little bitchy and it was just routine testing and I would call him when I was done. Plus, there was so much to do before I had a baby at the end of the week! During the NST, which he passed with flying colors, the tech asked me if I was feeling o.k. I mentioned my backache and she laughed. It turned out I was contracting every 5 minutes. Really?!? So we assumed they were just the beginnings and would either stay the same strength or get stronger.

When I got back to my room, my doctor came in and wanted to check my cervix since the contractions were new. Fine by me - I was dying to know how inducible I would be on Thursday and was hoping I would be 1-2 cm dialated. Well, she starts feeling around and her face kinda dropped abit. She took off her gloves and asked me how I felt. I told her fine, I was playing on the computer, just a backache. She then broke the news to me I was dialated 3-4 cms!

I was hooked back up the contraction monitor and it showed no contractions now. The question was, was i really in labor? Sometimes back labor doesn't show up on the machines. My doctor was paged and it was awesome that he was the MFM on call that day! Woo hoo! The resident came back into the room and told me my doctor decided I was going to be having a baby! There was no way the little guy was going to wait until Thursday anymore and since I went into labor on my own, they were not going to stop it.

I frantically called the hubby and told him we were having our baby!

I was transferred down to labor and delivery and hooked up to the machines again. Guess what, I was contracting... often! However, do to the baby's position it was hard to get an external heart beat monitor on him. We were going to have to place an internal scalp monitor as soon as I got the epi (which my doctor wanted me to wait until 5 cms for). I was checked and found to be at a 4 cm, so the pit was started. An hour later I asked to be rechecked so I could get the epi. I was a 4-5, so it was time for the epi! My doctors were all quite pleased with how quickly I was progressing. At this point they made me go empty my bladder and I had my hubby call my best friend who was going to be attending the birth and let her know it was very likely going to be soon. Non of this 18 hour labor stuff for me!

So he was telling her to head in and where to go and anesthesia was swabbing my sterile back for an epi placement. Then I looked up at my nurse and informed her my water broke. "Are you serious?" - she asks me. I lifted up my gown to display gushing liquid and replied, "yeah, I think I am pretty sure!" So my water broke, and then gushed again and then the anesthesia guy gave up and I gushed some more. So I am standing there in a puddle of amniotic fluid while the hubby is getting off the phone with my friend and the nurses are changing the bed. My hubby looks at me and asks why the hell I was just standing there. "ummm - you have no idea that my water just broke do you?". "Really!?!". So yep, I was on my way. This is actually the point that things started going wrong - but I didn't know it at the time.

So my epi goes in and the doctor is paged to place a fetal scalp electrode. After about 15 minutes they got a monitor on his scalp. They looked at the reading - suddenly I was being rolled from side to side with an oxygen mask on my face. 4 nurses run in, 3 doctors, one nurse tips my bed so my head is upside down and then suddenly my hubby is back standing next to me in scrubs. At this point I realized we were heading into a C-section. Then my MFM comes running in and looking at the monitor. Thankfully, baby's heart rate climbed back into the 120s from the 70s it had been hanging out in. My MFM sat next to me and explained baby's heart rate dropped dangerously low, but was recovered now. He would watch it, and to just trust him. He promised everything was going to be alright. "This baby will live" he told me.

The next two hours I labored on my left side with an oxygen mask on. I was progressing quickly but everytime I moved off my side the bay's heart rate would drop dangerously low. Every contraction, his heart rate would drop low. I was being checked every 10 minutes and was quickly at an 8 - 90% effaced. At this point my MFM walked up to me and said that he was not happy with how the baby was tolerating labor. It was time for an emergency C-section.

I was given terb to stop my contractions since I was now at a 9 and rushed into the OR. 10 minutes after telling me I needed to have the section - my MFM was making the uterine incision while my husband was being brought into the room. "Here's the problem" he exclaimed when opening my uterus. The baby had the cord wrapped tightly around his neck. Every movement and contraction was strangling him. Thank god my doctor acted when he did.

Louis Vincent DellaGatta Jr. was born by emergency c-section on 3/30/10 @ 1:02 a.m. His apgar scored were 9/9. He weighed in at 4 lbs 10 ounces and is 18 inches long. So far he has been able to room in with mom and dad and hasn't needed any special nursery care.

Hopefully he will be coming home with us Saturday! I am so scared to think of how close we came to losing him as well, thank god my doctor acted fast. Here he is -

Some exciting new... some bad news... and some talk of pee

So I am just going to get the bad news out right now, Sprout has not gained any weight in the 4 weeks I have been in the hospital. Why? Well, my placenta sucks of course. Last growth scan we hoped the results were just a fluke because he was measuring big at 32 weeks. Maybe the tech measured him too big at 32 weeks and that made it look like he hadn't grown in his belly at 34 weeks even they he most likely did. Well, 36 weeks, still no gain. Not a fluke. Here is a stark visualization of how quickly he has dropped off in growth. We estimate next week at 37 weeks for him to be under 5 pounds and off the chart.

So even though he will be small, hopefully he will be healthy. I hope he hits 5 pounds. I can't believe I am now looking into buying a preemie car seat (thanks to me being optimistic and buying one rated at 5 pounds) and some preemie clothes. we thought he was going to be huge based off his original growth chart so we now need get newborn clothes he can wear too. It is slightly intimidating to deal with worrying about preemie issues, when he will be full term. But if he is healthy, that is all that matters. He is practicing breathing and passing his BPPs all the time - so hopefully he is getting enough from me to keep him going. His NST today showed some variable decels - I hope it is not a sign of things to come.

So, a funny story. Wednesday I was having a heart beat check for little Sprout. The nurse came over and went " OH my you are having one heck of a contraction!". The funny part was I was rubbing the top of my uterus trying to lovingly bond with Sprout - since I haven't done that much. So I was rubbing the hard part and trying to guess what body part it was, when the nurse informed me I was caressing a contraction :) I am oh-so maternal!

I laughed with my hubby that I was one of those women who wouldn't know they were in labor unless their water broke in a huge gush and that I would probably have the baby in my bed 2 floors up from labor and delivery because I would be clueless :) Later on that day I was going pee and I stood up when I was done - and noticed a trickle of fluid going down my leg. Clear fluid. Small puddle formed. So then I went and sat down and stood back up and another trickle. In light of the conversation I had with my husband earlier in the day, I decided to call down to the nurse.

How can we help you? Well, I think I peed myself a bit but I am not sure if I may be leaking fluid. Whoosh! Suddenly there are 4 people in my room telling me to get my legs in the air, swabbing and telling me we would not stop labor and let's go! The results : I peed myself a little :) Or it was the rest of my mucous plug because the doctor said my cervix was a bit bloody.

The next morning my doctor came in and saw the bed pan they propped my bum on for the exam and laughed and said " peed yourself a bit?" I was like yup. I love that man.

The exciting news................

I HAVE A DATE

I will get some cervical ripener Thursday 4/1, Friday we will start the pitocin. I should have little Sprout here 4/2 or 4/3 !!! He will be 37 weeks, but he will be the size of a preemie and will most likely have some preemie issues. He may need the NICU but he may not.

He will be small, the next week will be full of scares (especially since my BP 15 minutes ago was 140/96, I have gained 2 pounds overnight and my output isn't matching up with my intake anymore as of today, and Sprout is harder to feel and having those decels). We will be watched closely. Delivery threshold is low. Let the countdown begin....