Sunday, December 6, 2009
Bar hopping with baby
We waited until Micah was 5 days old until we took him to the bars. That's long enough I think. :) We watched the Florida/Alabama game with Nana, Papa, Matt&Meg at a bar near Megan's house, which gave us a nice place to run to when Micah got fussy. Danielle gets more props for attempting a public breast-feeding with a fussy baby. He still gets a little frustrated when he begins eating, and it can take up to 20 mins to calm him down. So for now, long outings require being close to a safe place to cry and relax.
Walk around town
This was Micah's first outing : a walk around Golden. It was quite cold, ~35deg, and a little icy. I was very nervous because we had to bundle him up so much that I wasn't sure he still could breathe! But, I was just being a nervous dad, and he has totally fine. Didn't even give a peep when the wind picked up. Danielle also gets big props here - this was almost a 2 mile walk only 4 days after her surgery! Way to go momma!
Friday, December 4, 2009
First vids
Here are some vids that might normally be considered quite boring to any other than close family members. :) Although the one where he is picking his nose is pretty funny. Enjoy!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The Story
The morning of Nov 29th (my 30th birthday), we took a walk around our neighborhood to try to get some contractions started again. That didn't work, so Danielle took her shot of castor oil with a fruit smoothie for breakfast. We hung out around the house, did laundry, watched a movie, and headed up to Boulder for a nice birthday hamburger. Soon afterwards, she started to have painful contractions, so we walked around Pearl street a bit to try to encourage them. After a couple hours, we went back home and hung out. The contractions built up to one every 5-6 min by 5:00 or so, and we stayed around our house watching movies until about 8:00pm. At that point, they picked up a bit so we figured it was a good time to head down to the hospital.
The first pic is Danielle in the evaluation room, which is the first of many rooms we got put in. There, they measured her and decided to admit her because she was in active labor. We got taken up to the next room, the labor and delivery room, where she continued to have painful contractions until about 11:15, when her water broke. As most women who have been through labor will tell you, the water breaking brings on Extremely Painful contractions. In the amount of time it took to get some meds, she went from 4 to 8 cm. Then came a very brief calm period, where she had a couple contractions and didn't have any pain. Yay!
Unfortunately, this calm only lasted about 10 mins. Then we had a big shock. Her contractions had been fairly irregular - happening two or three at a time. And one of the big ones took the baby's heart rate down to ~80 bpm for several minutes, and even below 60 bpm(the typical rate was 120-130 when he was sleeping and 160-170 when awake). The contraction seemed to prevent the baby from getting oxygen for some reason, and because her contractions were irregular, the baby couldn't recover quickly. At that point the doc said, "Ok, we're going for a walk." Which was not a good sign. They(at this point we had several people involved) told me to gown up from head to toe in clean garments(a familiar activity for me, working in a clean room), and rushed Danielle into the OR(roughly 12am). The plan was to continue to monitor the baby for another couple minutes and, if he didn't recover, do a Cesarean section delivery. They gave Danielle a drug to prevent any further contractions. There aren't many parents who plan on having C-sections, and it definitely was not in our plan. However, the doc knows the risks the best. I did my best to convey that we strongly preferred a vaginal birth while still understanding the situation, in hopes that the doc would give the baby a good fighting chance. Fortunately, the baby has some good genes and recovered back to 110-120 bpm, so the doc put down her knife and wheeled us back into the labor and delivery room. Phew....
The next bad news was that Danielle's contractions weren't picking back up. They were only mild contractions happening every 8-10 mins. The baby's heart rate still dropped a little during the larger contractions, but because they were fairly mild and not close together, the baby recovered fairly quickly. However, Danielle wasn't increasing in dialation at all, so the docs came in to discuss how to proceed. They thought that waiting would not increase Danielle's contractions and mentioned doing a planned C-section. Another suggestion was for Danielle to try Pitocin to speed the contractions up with the risk of the baby's heart rate dropping for too long and forcing a speedy C-section(harder than a planned C-section). Danielle and I opted to try the pitocin out. They slowly increased the Pitocin, and Danielle's contractions slowly got bigger and closer together. However, the bigger ones were still sending the baby's heart rate to below 80 bpm, far too low to continue. So, at ~3:30 am, the docs again came in to discuss a C-section. Danielle thought that maybe getting into a different position would help relieve whatever was preventing the baby from getting oxygen during contractions. So, she got into a fairly upright seated position(not usually a position that helps this sort of thing), and continued to wait while the pitocin was slowly increased. Her plan worked, and she had a lot of contractions without the baby's heart rate dropping at all. This was very encouraging. After an hour, the doctors measured her to find that she increased in dilation to 9cm.
After another hour of successful strong contractions, at around 6:30am, the docs came in and remeasured. She was pretty much fully dilated and was almost ready to start pushing. However, this good news was followed by more bad news. The doc's inspection followed by big contractions put the baby into another long period of erratic, but overall slow heart rate. The heart rate didn't recover like normal so we again wheeled into the OR. At this point, the docs thought that a C-section was the best choice. Even if the heart rate returned to normal in the OR, the baby would most likely not be able to handle the pushing well. Pushing can take a long time, and if the baby's heart rate was slow throughout, the lack of oxygen could cause permanent damage. We agreed with the docs.
The C-section went very quickly and well. Because the baby's heart rate recovered in the OR, they could take the time to increase Danielle's meds and do things properly. She was totally painless, and we both got excited to soon meet our already stubborn son. At exactly 7am, Micah was born, gorgeous from the start. His umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, which was the source of his distress during contractions. They had Danielle back together and cleaned up in less than half an hour after the surgery, which went without any complications. During this time, they cleaned and roughed up our purple son to get him that rosy pink shine he has now. He did very well on his first 2 tests, scoring an 8 and 9 on the APGARs. Danielle, Micah and I made a 2 hour stop in the recovery room before being taken to the final room, the mom and baby room. The next pic is of a happy and healthy mom and baby getting close in the recovery room, and then of me taking my first longarm pic with Micah. In the end, the C-section was the right choice, and we are both very excited and happy to have Micah with us. WOOOHOOO MICAH!!!
The first pic is Danielle in the evaluation room, which is the first of many rooms we got put in. There, they measured her and decided to admit her because she was in active labor. We got taken up to the next room, the labor and delivery room, where she continued to have painful contractions until about 11:15, when her water broke. As most women who have been through labor will tell you, the water breaking brings on Extremely Painful contractions. In the amount of time it took to get some meds, she went from 4 to 8 cm. Then came a very brief calm period, where she had a couple contractions and didn't have any pain. Yay!
Unfortunately, this calm only lasted about 10 mins. Then we had a big shock. Her contractions had been fairly irregular - happening two or three at a time. And one of the big ones took the baby's heart rate down to ~80 bpm for several minutes, and even below 60 bpm(the typical rate was 120-130 when he was sleeping and 160-170 when awake). The contraction seemed to prevent the baby from getting oxygen for some reason, and because her contractions were irregular, the baby couldn't recover quickly. At that point the doc said, "Ok, we're going for a walk." Which was not a good sign. They(at this point we had several people involved) told me to gown up from head to toe in clean garments(a familiar activity for me, working in a clean room), and rushed Danielle into the OR(roughly 12am). The plan was to continue to monitor the baby for another couple minutes and, if he didn't recover, do a Cesarean section delivery. They gave Danielle a drug to prevent any further contractions. There aren't many parents who plan on having C-sections, and it definitely was not in our plan. However, the doc knows the risks the best. I did my best to convey that we strongly preferred a vaginal birth while still understanding the situation, in hopes that the doc would give the baby a good fighting chance. Fortunately, the baby has some good genes and recovered back to 110-120 bpm, so the doc put down her knife and wheeled us back into the labor and delivery room. Phew....
The next bad news was that Danielle's contractions weren't picking back up. They were only mild contractions happening every 8-10 mins. The baby's heart rate still dropped a little during the larger contractions, but because they were fairly mild and not close together, the baby recovered fairly quickly. However, Danielle wasn't increasing in dialation at all, so the docs came in to discuss how to proceed. They thought that waiting would not increase Danielle's contractions and mentioned doing a planned C-section. Another suggestion was for Danielle to try Pitocin to speed the contractions up with the risk of the baby's heart rate dropping for too long and forcing a speedy C-section(harder than a planned C-section). Danielle and I opted to try the pitocin out. They slowly increased the Pitocin, and Danielle's contractions slowly got bigger and closer together. However, the bigger ones were still sending the baby's heart rate to below 80 bpm, far too low to continue. So, at ~3:30 am, the docs again came in to discuss a C-section. Danielle thought that maybe getting into a different position would help relieve whatever was preventing the baby from getting oxygen during contractions. So, she got into a fairly upright seated position(not usually a position that helps this sort of thing), and continued to wait while the pitocin was slowly increased. Her plan worked, and she had a lot of contractions without the baby's heart rate dropping at all. This was very encouraging. After an hour, the doctors measured her to find that she increased in dilation to 9cm.
After another hour of successful strong contractions, at around 6:30am, the docs came in and remeasured. She was pretty much fully dilated and was almost ready to start pushing. However, this good news was followed by more bad news. The doc's inspection followed by big contractions put the baby into another long period of erratic, but overall slow heart rate. The heart rate didn't recover like normal so we again wheeled into the OR. At this point, the docs thought that a C-section was the best choice. Even if the heart rate returned to normal in the OR, the baby would most likely not be able to handle the pushing well. Pushing can take a long time, and if the baby's heart rate was slow throughout, the lack of oxygen could cause permanent damage. We agreed with the docs.
The C-section went very quickly and well. Because the baby's heart rate recovered in the OR, they could take the time to increase Danielle's meds and do things properly. She was totally painless, and we both got excited to soon meet our already stubborn son. At exactly 7am, Micah was born, gorgeous from the start. His umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, which was the source of his distress during contractions. They had Danielle back together and cleaned up in less than half an hour after the surgery, which went without any complications. During this time, they cleaned and roughed up our purple son to get him that rosy pink shine he has now. He did very well on his first 2 tests, scoring an 8 and 9 on the APGARs. Danielle, Micah and I made a 2 hour stop in the recovery room before being taken to the final room, the mom and baby room. The next pic is of a happy and healthy mom and baby getting close in the recovery room, and then of me taking my first longarm pic with Micah. In the end, the C-section was the right choice, and we are both very excited and happy to have Micah with us. WOOOHOOO MICAH!!!
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