Welcome Home Baby Henry

On July 12, 2013 at 7:55 in the morning, Henry Matthew Waterman joined the world.  The labor went fast. Due to placental complications, I had been on bed rest for a few weeks and had been seeing a maternal fetal medicine specialists to closely monitor the pregnancy. On Thursday, they decided it would be best to go ahead and induce and scheduled me for the following Tuesday. Dr. Stevenson, our OB, did an exam and gave me the green light to walk around, etc. to try and naturally encourage labor. That night, we went to dinner (had eggplant parmesan per the old wives tale that it helps induce labor) and to Best Buy and apparently that is all that it took. I was having pretty regular contractions by midnight, but thought that I would try to sleep and go in to the hospital in the morning (you know, the whole labor at home thing). When I woke up at around 2:30 am, the contractions were pretty close together and very strong. We called the doctor, packed a bag and headed to the hospital. From there, everything went very very fast. In fact, so fast that the doctor was not yet to the hospital when it was time to push. The nurse did everything in her power to get me to wait, but by 7:30 am, I pretty much accosted one of the residents that stopped by to check on me. After asking her if she had previously delivered a baby (which she responded she had - but, based on the lack of detail in her response, this might have been her second), we started pushing. Dr. Stevenson arrived a few minutes later - just in time for little man's arrival!!

 

We knew baby Henry was going to be small because he was not getting the necessary nutrients during the "growth" period in the womb. The placenta was working fine until later in the third trimester, so his development is good (i.e. all organs, brain, etc. developed), he just wasn't able to experience the rapid growth that happens in the last few weeks because the placenta was basically giving out. They expect him to do just fine outside of the womb and expect him to catch up in his growth - which is good, because at birth he weighed in at 4lb 10oz....so he has a way to go!! [Spoiler alert - I will post another entry about his one week check-up appointment, but he is making great progress on catch-up growth. He put on an impressive 1/2 lb since leaving the hospital. The kid was hungry!]

  

Here is our little guy making his arrival:

 

 

 

 

A few hours after his birth, baby Henry was having issues regulating his glucose levels. This is normal with smaller babies and so they had to give him some glucose to try to jump-start his system. It did not work and so, after being alive for 8 hours, baby Henry was admitted to the NICU. This is, by far, the hardest thing Matt and I have ever had to go through.  It took four attempts to get his IV started and he was hooked up to numerous monitors.  He handled it much better than his mom - who was crying the entire time. It was just horrible and there are no words to express the anxiety that consumed the next four days. As most of you know, I am a huge breastfeeding advocate and so I stayed in the NICU for pretty much the entire 4 days feeding him every 2 hours and pumping in between. The doctors all agree that it is best for the baby, but the NICU makes it very difficult for breastfeeding - mainly, because the hospital discharges mom after 2 days. This means that there is no where to stay in between feedings. Even though we live less than 5 miles from the hospital, there is not much time to drive home and then back when you are nursing every two to three hours (not to mention, it would not have been that safe considering I had not really slept). We were lucky enough to have nurses that let us hang out in the post-partum room until they needed it and then were able to room-in with baby Henry the night before he was discharged. There were, however, so many families with little ones in the NICU that had been there for weeks. It really makes us realize how blessed we are that Henry made such a fast recovery.

 

Here are a couple pictures of little man. The first IV was in his arm, but the vein gave out after a few days and they had to put it in his head. It looks worse than it is. I was there when they put it in and he did awesome.

 

 

 

We were lucky enough to have Granny D and Hayley to take care of David. They did a great job of keeping him entertained and bringing him to visit mom and dad. He got to meet baby Henry at the hospital, but was a little intimidated by all the monitors and IV. Even with that, he was so sweet and loving to Henry and was so excited be a big brother. We have been so impressed with how great David has been through the entire process.

 

Couple pictures from the last night before he got discharged from NICU when Henry stayed in the room with us. You can tell how much happier he looks...

Finally, Henry made it home!!

David singing himself to sleep

Baby Henry Update

Baby Henry is doing great and is slowly growing (which is great news).  After a few days in the hospital (and a lot of IV fluids), my amniotic fluid levels are better and the blood flow in the cord has improved (at least, in each case, improved to borderline levels so that we can buy baby some more time in the womb). Best of all - I convinced them to let me wait it out at home (thankfully, all those years of negotiating for a living came in handy). I do, however, have to go in daily for sonograms to make sure my placenta is still hanging in there. After all the medical tests and diagnoses - here is my breakdown of what is going on. My placenta is like an old Honda car with 200K miles on it - the A/C has gone out, the windows won't roll down and there is a knock in the engine........but it is still running. So, for as long as it is still running and baby is ok, we are going to wait it out.

I very much believe that your body knows how to handle pregnancy and that my body will tell me (and baby) when it is time to evacuate. But just in case, I have lots of super qualified medical professionals watching daily...so I think we are good. I will let everyone know if anything changes and, most importantly, when little baby Henry makes his arrival. I am hoping that he is much more low key than the last few weeks of this pregnancy have been.

David is doing great and still enjoying his summer. He had a really hard time with me being in the hospital - especially the first night that he realized that they had to leave me there. He was very concerned and had lots of questions about whether I was going to be okay. Matt spent a lot of time explaining to him that they were just checking on baby Henry, but every time David came to visit - David insisted on asking the nurses if "mommy was ok"... I think he just wanted a non-biased second opinion to make sure Matt and I weren't sugar coating anything. David was very happy when I got back home and just wanted to lay in bed with me, read books and snuggle:

Baby Henry

As most of you know, we have had some issues with this pregnancy the last couple weeks and I have been seeing a high-risk maternal fetal medicine specialist for checkups three times a week. Without going into too much medical detail, they were worried about baby getting all the nutrients he needed from the placenta and so they were watching baby closely to make sure no signs of distress. The check-ups have been going well until yesterday. We went in for our growth check and BPP (the sono check they do) and, although baby looks good and happy, my amniotic fluid was low and the blood flow into/out of cord had some signs of resistance........ so I had to be admitted to the hospital. They are giving me IV fluids and some other treatments and are going to rescan me on Sunday. They will either induce then or see if I can make it another week or so to give baby time to get a little stronger. I will be 37 weeks on Monday - so that is considered full term and baby should be fine (although he is a little small). Not exactly the way I wanted this one to go, but we are dealing.

Kitchen Remodel

They are still putting the finishing touches (and a few doors and the panels for the fridge) on the kitchen, but here are some before and after pictures:


Old Kitchen:

 

The tear out:

 

 

 

New Kitchen (with iphone pictures, so I can't get the good wide angle pictures). There are a few cabinet doors missing and the panels on the fridge are being installed on Friday.......but we are getting there!!

 

 

 

Old dining room:

 

 

 

 

Old living room:  

 

 

Happy 4th of July

Summer continues

David's summer of fun continues...

Brandin, Shawna and the kiddos came over last weekend. We are so excited to see them more now that they moved closer!!

We took David to his first movie. It was a great experience, but we might have picked the wrong movie. We saw Monster's University - a cute movie, but David was not a fan of the end where the monsters go into kid's bedroom and scare them. As I type this, it even sounds crazy - who is making these movies?? We left early (David informed us that it was scaring him and he wanted to leave), but not before enjoying some popcorn and lemonade. We also had a few nights of leaving the light on for him..... predictably, he was scared of monsters coming into his room to try and scare him.

With the weather being so hot and me being so pregnant, we have been finding in-door activities for the weekends. Matt and David's current favorite - bowling. We went on father's day and have been back a few times since....

It must be the white trash in my blood, but I am a much better bowler pregnant than non-pregnant....

My little swimmer...

Good-bye Emma

I have been putting off writing this post for a while because it is still so hard to believe, but on June 14th, we said good-bye to Emma-dog. She had a great life and was an amazing dog. She had been part of my family since 2000 and had been with me thorough a lot - college, 9/11, law school, moving to Dallas, meeting (and marrying) Matt, having David.... I still have not adjusted to her not being here. It was a sad day, but it was the right thing for Emma and our family. Even though David was not able to play with Emma much the last year or so (because she was old, had lost her eyesight and tended to snap when she got nervous), he loved her and talked often about his "puppy".  We had a brief conversation about her passing when we got back from the vet, but he didn't seem to care much. After a few days, however, he had a lot of questions about our conversation and what happened to Emma. The whole experience makes me realize how much he really takes in and how he is absorbing the world. Like everything, it gets better with time...but he has occasionally mentioned how much he misses her - which reflects how all of us feel.

This is what we are dealing with...

I get up to go to the restroom numerous times throughout the night and this is what I woke to around 4am this morning. David is huge and gets in the oddest sleep positions...