One Month Old

Nadia is one month old today! I am very happy to say that she went to sleep at 10:30pm (after crying for 5 min) and didn't wake up for 4 hrs. Whew... Then she woke up on the hour three times in a row before sleeping another 2 1/2 hrs. The last 2 1/2 hrs she slept with me; the rest of the night she slept in her crib. And once again I managed her on my own so Daddy could keep working on his thesis. Today I helped him with that - did the page numbering, table of contents, table of figures, etc. Hopefully he'll submit it to his committee members this evening. There will be some relief once it's "off" but then he has to work on the PowerPoint for his defense and such so most likely I won't really get my hubby back until after that's over on Tuesday. I hope tonight he at least sleeps in our bedroom rather than the family room couch as I've now slept alone for a month (well I did share a bed with my mom for two nights in the NICU demo room but of course that's different).

Sleeping has not gone well for Nadia today. She wanted to take her morning nap on me and since I was wanting a nap myself I let her. However when she woke up at 10:45 I decided her next nap would be in the pack n play or crib. Well I let her cry 5 minutes one time, 10 minutes another, and even 15 minutes one time and it didn't work. Eventually at 5pm I caved and decided it was more important she got some SLEEP as she hadn't gotten more than a couple of minutes here and there since 10:45am so I let her sleep for 2 hours (most of the time with me and some with her Great Aunt Debbie). Then I woke her up at 7pm as I could imagine that could have turned into our one four hour stretch which I didn't want to happen. She was very hard to wake up, but eventually I got her awake and fed her. So I am very open to suggestions as to how to get Nadia to sleep in a crib or pack n play during the day. I need to break her of this habit of sleeping on or beside me. The let her cry theory seems to work at night - at least it has 3 times now. Thanks to those who gave feedback. My mom and Lucia both said they waited until 3-4 months to let a baby cry and Lisa and Jo both said they let their children cry even at a young age. So far letting her cry has worked in the night time and has not worked during the day time. Hopefully tonight will be more like last night and less like two nights ago.

After Paul's mom had her 5th chemo treatment today (only one more to go!), she and her sister stopped by so that Debbie could meet Nadia. Debbie brought her two new outfits (newborn size) and some socks -the good kind! By good kind I mean the kind that stay on (bobby socks). :-) I also have learned what is the "good" kind of bottle for Nadia at least of the ones I own - Evenflo's Comfi bottles are the best for her in terms of milk not running out of her mouth. I bought those 3 years ago in preparation for adoption. One of the outfits Aunt Debbie gave her was a dress that I plan to have her wear to church this Sunday. It's purple, and she looks good in purple so she should look rather adorable again this Sunday! Nadia has 3 aunts and 4 uncles. She hasn't met any of them yet, but she's now met two of her Great Aunts (my Aunt Janet and Paul's Aunt Debbie). She's met 3 of her four grandparents; she has yet to meet Grandpa Harton but will meet him next weekend. She also has already met her only Great Grandparent. She's met 2 of her 8 cousins. She'll meet one more on August 2 - her oldest cousin, Holly who is in her 20's. It will be awhile until she'll meet her cousins on my side of the family.

We got the official termination of the contract today on the house. The realtor said in her almost 20 years of being a realtor she's never had a buyer terminate for such a low level of radon. Well obviously we need to put in a radon mitigation system which costs about $750 or so to do. The house we are hoping to buy has one installed and with that the radon level was less than 2 when we had it tested a couple of weeks ago. Maybe we'll still end up buying that house some day. Who knows. I am not nearly as upset about it as I was yesterday. Sleep really helps to improve one's perspective on life!

I was thinking today a lot about one month ago and the experience of being in labor. It's funny as with the fact we waited 6 years to have Nadia, you think I'd have it figured out that life rarely goes "as planned." I had thought through my "birth plan" in terms of not wanting to be induced, not wanting a c-section (so relieved when the placenta previa was resolved although in the end I would have been better off if it hadn't as then I would have had a planned c-section and avoided 19 hours of labor), not wanting to have an epidural, wanting to nurse her ASAP after birth, etc. Well a couple of things did go as I hoped - Paul was at home when I went into labor. I was concerned he might be at school (45 minutes away) and someone else might need to take me to the hospital. Also, I was hoping my water would break first so that it would be really obvious I was in labor. I wasn't wanting to keep going to the hospital for "false alarms." In hindsight, I had been having REAL contractions for a few days (very sporadic). I thought they were different than the BH, but since I hadn't been in labor before, I couldn't be sure. In fact on that Monday morning when I went to the doctor because of the bleeding, I had a real contraction while driving and immediately pulled over and asked Paul to drive the rest of the way as I realized I was not a safe driver while having contractions!

However almost everything else didn't go as planned or hoped for. I was hoping not to go into labor at night as I don't function well those hours. Even as a child/ teenager I didn't enjoy staying up late. I was always the first to sleep at a slumber party! Since I ended up going into labor prior to midnight, I changed my mind about the epidural as I wanted a few hours of sleep before the pushing began. But then I was told I couldn't have one because of my platlet problem. I still don't get that. I plan to ask the hematologist about it at my next appt. And although I didn't want to be induced - I did end up receiving three doses of pitocin. If I had to do it over again, I would have accepted the pitocin earlier in the day than when I did accept it. The timing of when they gave it to me was awful as the last dose was given very shortly before the pushed her head back inside me and told me to stop pushing. Let me tell you it is very hard to not push when you're fully dilated and having a contraction well it's even harder when you add pitocin into the mix. They were telling me - for your daughter's sake don't push. Again it's not that I wanted to do anything to hurt her but it was like trying to defy gravity to NOT push. Of course I ended up having a c-section. I wish they had told me before they asked me if I wanted "help" that if the vacuum didn't work I'd HAVE to have a c-section. I don't think I would have agreed to the vacuum had I known. I can tell you Paul would never agree to a vacuum attempt again after he watched that 3 times and thought Nadia's life was in danger! I never would have dreamed that both Paul or I would miss hearing her first cry and that I wouldn't see her for over 3 hours after she was born. Paul and his parents saw her a few minutes after birth, but I didn't meet Nadia until 9pm. And I looked AWFUL. Many women have nice looking photos of mom and their baby right after birth (or mom, dad, and baby). Mine look TERRIBLE and are only of me & baby. I haven't posted them on the blog. I am glad they were taken as they do memorialize the first time I laid eyes on Nadia, but wow do I look terrible after 19 hours of labor and then general anesthesia. One positive I have to say though is that I think this was my best experience ever with general anesthesia. I think every other time I have thrown up in the recovery room, but not this time! Amazing! I do remember that one of the first questions I asked when I "came to" was what her apgar scores were, LOL (9/9). I also remember that I got the nurses to laugh as they were arguing between themselves as to whether I was awake or not as they were wheeling me back to my room and one asked which room is she in, and I piped in with "5" and they laughed and determined I must be awake, LOL. As for nursing her within moments of birth, I actually didn't nurse her for the first time until two DAYS later.

The other thing I would do differently if I could go back in time was I would have waited to push when I had a contraction. Once the doctors came into the room (about 5:15pm after having pushed for 1 hour by myself and 3 additional hours with Yvonne and Paul holding my legs), I felt very intimiated. There were about 7 doctors around my bed - some OB/GYNs and some NICU pediatricians. I felt badly making them wait in between contractions (albeit they were at most 5 minutes apart). Why it bothered me so much, I don't know, but I felt the need to push nonstop while they were all there staring at me. So sometimes I pushed even when I wasn't having a contraction. I wish I hadn't done that, but probably the end result would have been the same. Of course whether things went as planned or not doesn't really matter as the bottom line is that Nadia arrived safe and sound! The only decision of mine that negatively impacted her was my agreeing to the vacuum. That also probably lengthened our stay in NICU as the bruising raised her bilirubin levels. However we are both doing fine now and that's what matters most! I thank God for this precious gift of life He has bestowed upon our family. We love her sooo much!!

Well here's to hoping for a decent amount of sleep tonight, a buyer for our home, and Paul's successful completion of his thesis. Tomorrow is the big day in terms of Nadia's doctor appt. I am very curious as to her weight! It's hard for me to see a difference since I see her every day, but those who see her less often say they can tell she's gaining weight which is music to my ears!!

Napping on Mommy

Last night was a rough night. Between 9pm and 4:30am I got only about 90 minutes of sleep. I was determined not to pass her off to Paul at all in light of really getting to the last minute on his thesis. At 4:30 I decided to let her cry herself to sleep and thankfully after 5 minutes of screaming she fell asleep and then slept until 8:00am. She's had a rough time napping today as well unless she's napping on me she doesn't want to sleep in either the pack n play or crib. I tried letting her cry herself to sleep earlier and even that didn't work, but I just tried it again a little bit ago and this time it worked and finally for the first time today she is napping someplace other than on Mommy (however this time she only slept 20 minutes so it wasn'y really that succesful). Not that I don't like cuddling with her, but I don't think ALL naps should be on me! I had asked Dr. M about whether to let her cry herself to sleep a couple of weeks ago, and Dr. M said not to do that at this age. So that's why I had been very hesitant to let her cry. Ever since the time in the NICU when they were so cautious about how many calories she was burning, I have been paranoid about letting her cry. Well if I had to do it over again (last night) I would have let her cry herself to sleep earlier in the night. Of course I would only do that if I knew she had a clean diaper and her belly was full. So my question today is, how long do you let a 4 week old cry? I was comfortable letting her cry for 5 minutes (of course I don't enjoy listening to the little gal scream but I mean I thought it was okay for her to cry that long). Anyone know a good rule of thumb in terms of how long to let her cry? Once I know for sure we are out of the woods as far as her weight goes it will be easier to let her cry without worrying about how many calories she's burning. She gets weighed again on Friday.

To answer a few questions posed in the comments of other posts. No, I never got any stretch marks and my belly button never popped out. Of course it probably helped that I gave birth at 36w. It is nice to have my belly button back to normal. Nadia's is still definitely an outie though! As for nursing in public, I don't plan to do that but more just wanted something to use when I am at home and say my father-in-law or someone like that is here while I need to nurse her. Latching on at times is still a MAJOR ordeal (without a shield). Sometimes it takes quite a long time, and there is no way a regular blanket would work. It would definitely fall off!!! Sometimes I just want to throw the towel in when it comes to b/fing, but I know it's best for her plus a lot cheaper than formula.

Four Weeks Old!

Well I have been a bit delinquent in terms of taking photos of my flowers as they bloom, but these stargazer lilies are my favorite so I had to take a photo this morning.

Nadia is 4 weeks old today! She has changed so much already!! Her hair has grown quite a bit so hopefully she won't be one of those whose hair falls out. Nadia's eyes are still blue like her daddy's, but I know we won't know for sure if they're going to stay blue until a couple more months have passed. She's finally starting to grow some eyebrows also. Her nails are getting longer also, but I can hold off on trimming them. She is OFF the shield!!! Cold turkey was the way to go. It's been more than 48 hours since she's used one so I think it's safe to say those are "history" now. Yahoo! In many ways she takes after her Daddy, but I can identify at least two ways she takes after me - #1 hiccups a lot (my parents say I did that a lot as a baby also) and #2 has cold hands. Hopefully in time we'll learn some more "positive" ways she takes after me like maybe she'll also enjoy playing the piano or something like that. :-)

Friday and Saturday nights we didn't have any 4 hour stretches of sleep, but Sunday night she went 4 hours again at one point and then up once every hour after that. Last night was her BEST night ever. She slept for 3 hours and then another 3 hours and then 1 hour and the 2 hours. WOW! We've never had TWO stretches of 2+ hours in one night before. WOOHOO! I didn't go to bed right when she did but still I managed to get almost 8 hours of sleep last night!!! The odd thing is that even when I get more sleep I still feel tired. I guess it will take awhile til I'm "caught up" but still I am very, very grateful to be getting 5-8 hours of sleep on average compared to the 2-4 hours on average the first 3 weeks.

She also is staying awake a LOT more. Yesterday she was awake almost the whole morning while her Grandma and cousin, Brandi were watching her. While they were here I mowed the lawn (most of it anyhow) and did 2 loads of laundry. Then after they left Nadia and I took a 2 hour nap (she napped on top of me). She had been staying awake more and more each day, but yesterday was a very dramatic change in terms of the number of hours she had her eyes open.

I was going to go to ladies Bible study this morning as it's the last time they'll meet until mid September, but I changed my mind yesterday and decided I needed to just stay home today. Donna is coming over this afternoon to rehearse a flute solo with me (for August 3) and also to help me do a little packing. I haven't done ANY packing yet. I plan to do most of it August 4-8 since Paul's party will be on the 2nd. Nadia will get to meet her Uncle Maurice, Grandpa Harton, Uncle Al, and Aunt Millie that day! We are going to move our boxes and some small furniture to the new home on August 9 and then the movers will move the big furniture on the 11th.

I also need to get back to doing a little school work as I have two things I must submit by August 5. Paul is getting VERY little sleep these days as he works on finishing his thesis. He hopes to finish writing it today so that tomorrow he can work on formatting it, doing the table of contents, abstract, etc. It will be SUCH a relief when he submits it (hopefully tomorrow) and even more of a relief once his defense is done (next Tues). I can't wait for him to stop sleeping on the couch and start sleeping in our bed again for one thing! I miss my hubby!!

I'll close by sharing two funny things her Daddy has said to her over the past week. Once he was looking at her and said "if she's as smart as she is cute, she'll be like Einstein." I think that means her Daddy thinks she's awfully cute!! Then once last week when she was really screaming while I was trying to nurse her he said that he was going to have to send her to her room. LOL getting sent to her room at only 3 weeks old, and she was born prematurely at that! Of course she didn't actually get sent to her room. :-)

Magnet!

Well Nadia was like a magnet at church this morning, everyone wanted to meet her! I purposefully got to church about 20 minutes before the morning service as I knew people would want to see her. We also didn't leave until 12:30 as others came over to me to meet her after the service. One woman even shed tears of joy when she saw our precious little answer to prayer, and this brought happy tears to my eyes as well.

She wasn't too crazy about the trumpet solo this morning, and this woke her up so that I left the service to nurse her for awhile before I returned to the service. They have the sound piped into the room for nursing women so I was still able to hear the service while feeding her. I had forgotten the shield and of course didn't have the boppy so it was a challenge at first, but I found a pillow and that helped a lot. This experience made me decide that maybe going cold turkey is the best way to go as far as the shield so although she's shed more tears while nursing than usual, we haven't used the shield today and hopefully the cold turkey approach will work tonight as well.

Then Paul's parents and Grandmother came over. Nadia's Great Grandmother really enjoyed holding her. Before going to Cracker Barrel, we made a quick trip to Walmart. She sleeps when she's in the sling.

So it was a good day, but now I'm exhausted as I wasn't able to take any naps today. Hopefully she'll let me get a decent amount of sleep tonight. Paul's mom is coming over tomorrow to watch Nadia while I mow the lawn as it hasn't been mowed since my mom mowed it on July 1-2. Normally we couldn't go that long without mowing it, but it hasn't rained much at all so the grass hasn't grown much. Enjoy the photos of our sweet Nadia!

3 questions

Let me say she looks GORGEOUS in her pretty dress (peter pan type collar and it has a petticoat underneath!). We gave her a bath this morning (she didn't cry this time!), and she's dressed and ready for her first trip to church! I've been taking a nap most mornings so I hope I find another time to take one today as she didn't sleep as well last night although I did get at least 5 hours of sleep. Then this afternoon Paul's parents are coming over and she will be meeting her Great Grandmother for the first time. Then this evening she'll have her first trip to a restaurant as we are meeting Clark and his girlfriend at Cracker Barrel to celebrate his 40th bday. Whew... busy day considering most days Nadia and I just stay home all day and aren't on any schedule.

Here are my questions that I'd appreciate input from you experienced moms:
1. Do you have a particular nursing cover/privacy wrap that you recommend? I see some available at Walmart and BRU and wasn't sure if one kind was better than another. Just using a blanket does NOT work for me. She squirms too much especially in the initial latching on stage.

2. It seems EVERY time that I change her diaper, within 1 minute of getting the clean diaper on, I can hear her pooping. Is this normal? I was wondering if maybe the act of wiping her down there stimulates her body to action??? Of course sometimes she starts pooping before the clean diaper is on. Fun, fun, fun... LOL

3. For those of you who had a c-section, how long was it until you felt totally normal in the incision area? Also, did the scar remain and if so, how long until the scar at least faded (it's still bright red)? Of course I feel a million times better there than I did 3+ weeks ago. OUCH it hurt soooo much at first (especially doing things like getting in and out of bed).

This and That

Earlier this week Paul received a card and $75 from his graduate chemistry classmates. That was a pleasant surprise! Some of them are coming to his graduation party so they'll get to meet Nadia then. :-) Paul is still putting in very long hours working on his thesis. His defense is on the 29th, and he needs to submit his thesis to the four committee members a few days before that. His goal is to submit it to them by the evening of the 23rd. He has 55 pages written so far.

A week ago our mortgage broker did a credit check on me as a part of the mortgage application. He received 3 credit scores and is supposed to use the middle score. My middle score was above 800 which he said is very rare (the highest possible credit score is 850). He said anything over 720 is considered excellent. It's funny how happy it made me when he told me how uncommon my score was. I think it's because I haven't been a student since December 2002 when I earned my doctorate and so I haven't been "graded" lately and this credit score felt like earning an "A" on a test, LOL.

One story I keep forgetting to tell happened during our 8 night stay at the hospital. One day Paul and I went to the vending machines that were closest to the NICU to get a Snickers bar. It cost $1.25, but instead of using a dollar bill, Paul used all coins from my wallet to pay for it. It sounded like the coins were going back to where you could retrieve them, but the machine kept registering the correct value. So he retrieved the candy bar and then checked and sure enough the 5 quarters had been returned to us. So we had a free candy bar. Well we never went back to the vending machine again as to use it knowing it was broken would be stealing. Well others didn't feel the same way. Another day my mom watched as people were feeding one coin in the machine and retrieving it over and over again and taking lots and lots of chips, candy bars, etc. from the vending machine. My mom said something to some of the people doing this, and no one agreed that it was wrong. They felt justified since sometimes vending machines take your money and don't give you what you paid for. My mom even went and told a couple of hospital employees, but they also didn't see anything wrong with people getting "free" food from the vending machine. I think it's sad that so many adults and children didn't view this as wrong even when my mom pointed out to them that they were stealing.

Due Date

Well by my calculations (and those of a few websites), today was Nadia's EDD; the RE had set her EDD as 7-20. Either way she came 3+ weeks early. If she had come this week, she would probably have weighed at least 1 pound more than she did and we probably wouldn't have spent 8 days in the hospital, but she didn't want to wait to meet her mommy and daddy! :-) If she had known being born before 37w meant she had to do that 2 hour car seat sleep study, maybe she would have stayed in a few more days, LOL.

Our sweet little darling slept for 4 straight hours again last night (11pm-3am)! Thank you, Nadia!!! She didn't sleep as well from that point onward, but over a period of 8 hours I think I did get 6 hours of sleep. I am so happy to have these weeks at home with her. I admit right now I am wishing I didn't have to go to work in the fall, but I am very grateful that I'll only be separated from her about 12 hours a week. I just love snuggling with the little gal. She is soooooo cuddable!!! I can't believe I'm saying this as I was so glad to be told I didn't need to come back to the doctor for 2 weeks, but I actually wish I owned a scale that I could use to weigh her. I just want to be assured that she has continued to gain weight. However then I might stress over her weight too much so probably it's for the best to just wait until the 25th for her to be weighed again. I do wonder how much she'll weigh that day! Yesterday she went 18 hours straight without using the shield, but today we've regressed. Hopefully tomorrow that will go better.

The photo of Nadia was taken by Paul yesterday; that's the chair I place her on when I want Paul to watch her for a minute or two (the chair is near his computer). The photo below that is of a cross stitch that Nadia's Great Grandmother made. Paul's dad's mom is our only grandparent who is still alive. The top photo on the right is of a quilt that Paul's Aunt Diane made (she is one of his dad's sisters & lives in Florida). The photos under that are of the little bows that were on the first 2 dresses she wore this week. I love the little bows & frills that are on her clothing like today she's wearing the watermelon outfit she wore home from the hospital 17 days ago & I love the little ruffles on the backside. :-)

I was wrong about us not owing a dime towards the $70K+ hospital bills. We got our first bill in the mail today. Thankfully it was only for $11. Hopefully all the bills (if there are more) will be that small.

Three Cheers!

I want to give three cheers for Nadia - hip, hip, hooray, hip, hip, hooray because over a span of 10 hours I got 7 hours of sleep. That's 2 nights in a row!!!!!! Again Daddy was up with her some, but from midnight to 4am she SLEPT! I woke up at 3am as my body was ready for a feeding, but after seeing she was still sleeping I went back to bed. I'm still working on weaning Nadia off of the shield. There are some feedings when it is not used at all. At least a portion of every feeding is done without it. She's actually gone through several feedings now in a row without having used it. Hopefully in the next week or so we can completely ditch them!

Nadia has LOTS of clothing size 0-3 months. That's the size I got the most of in terms of gifts. Hopefully she'll grow into that size before it gets cold out. Thanks to my recent eBay purchases, I think she now has enough in preemie and newborn sizes except I want to buy one more pack of onesies in newborn the next time I'm at Walmart. I am very thankful for eBay as they don't sell much in preemie size at the mall nearest us plus I can shop from home and get really good bargains!!

Seven Hours!

I estimate that I got 7 hours of sleep last night over the course of 9 hours. Wow!!!! I hope this wasn't a fluke but rather might become the norm. We shall see. I thought I'd feel better this morning than I did in light of getting twice as much sleep, but I guess one night didn't make up for all the sleep I've lost the last 3 weeks. Paul's mom and Brandi came over for a visit, and I napped part of the time they were here. I should add that part of the reason I got that much sleep last night was that Paul helped some between 10pm and 1am. Thanks, Paul!!!

Two more preemie outfits came in the mail today from eBay. Tomorrow she'll be wearing jeans for the first time! I'll take a photo. It amazes me the great variation in size between clothing that is supposedly the same size.

Three Weeks Old!

I can't believe Nadia is already 3 weeks old. Wow! Although there have been some exhausting nights lately (like last night when I only got about 3 hours of sleep total), I still say I have felt SO much more relaxed since #1 coming home from the hospital and #2 finding out on Friday that she had gained weight. It's also been great to have Paul be able to hold her again as usually once during the night I hand her off to him so I can get at least a little sleep. She sleeps better during the day than at night. Hopefully tonight will be a better night.

This morning I gave Nadia a bath. It's the second bath I've given her since her stump fell off. She hates baths. Hopefully in time she'll grow to enjoy them. I also dressed her in a dress for the first time. :-) After feeding her we ran errands for 2 hours this morning, and she slept the whole time in the car seat and in the sling. First I went to the university as Paul wanted a book that my library has that his doesn't (which he needed for writing chapter 4 of his thesis). Then I went to the grocery store and then picked up some pizza at our favorite pizza place. I was so happy that she slept the whole time! I fed her again as soon as we got home (or I should say as soon as I had put away the groceries). So she had her first trip to a grocery store today. Now if only she could go 2+ hours in between feedings during the night (hasn't ever happened!).

One thing that is really special to me is knowing that she knows my voice. I feel badly for Paul as his voice has no effect on her (yet), but hearing my voice calms her down even when I'm not even in the same room with her. Of course she had to listen to me for many months in the womb so it's not shocking she recognizes my voice, but still I have to say it's very touching to me to realize she knows my voice and responds differently to me than to anyone else. It makes me want to cry (happy tears of course!). Thinking about this brought to my mind how the Lord said that His sheep know His voice. That verse has new meaning for me now. In time I am sure she'll get to know her Daddy's voice too. :-) Speaking of Daddy, he hasn't finished chapter 3 yet, but he hopes to finish it tonight. I'd appreciate prayers for him as we're now down to 7 days left for him to finish his thesis.