I tried and I'm tired

Obviously I am tired because I find it funny that "tried" and "tired" have the exact same letters just tossed up. Jake kept napping yesterday. Actually he is kind of doing it today too so I better hurry and wake him up again. Anyway, I got Jake to bed last night and he slept for four and half hours straight. Problem? I never went back to sleep after we got up at 0345. He was messing around about eating. He would nurse for fifteen minutes and go to sleep and I couldn't rub or poke or tickle him awake. So I would put him in his bed and less than five minutes later (if that) he would be awake and wanting to finish his meal. Then the dogs and one cat started whining on me. I got Jake asleep long enough to be walking a dog before 5 am. Yuck! Then I had to serve another mini meal before I could take the second one out. Man do I wish we had a normally fenced yard. I could save at least fifteen minutes every morning. I think about that every single morning too. We have tried to figure out a way to fence off an area within the fenced yard but with the layout of the yard it just doesn't work. Anyway, since I was up so early I managed to get myself and Jake ready to go to church. Many of the church ladies had yet to meet Jake so they were all tickled!

So that is why I am tired, now about trying. My mom was gone from last Sunday to Thursday for a work meeting. I called her Thursday evening. (I even missed most of Betty so I could talk to my mother!) I called to invite her to come to my house Friday after work and she could spend the night and be here in the day Saturday and then go home. She was just tickled about it. She hasn't seen Jake since the eighth and we knew we were living on borrowed time. I thought it would be better to invite her by my terms rather than just have her show up on her terms like she so loves to do. Anyway, she was very happy. Friday Jake was awake almost the whole day and I was having trouble getting things cleaned but I was getting there. My mom called around 4 to tell me she was sick and wouldn't be coming. Have I ever mentioned she is a hypochondriac? The last time we know my mom worked a full five weekdays was the week Jake was born. That is not unusual. I can't imagine having her as an employee. She calls in at least three times a month. Crazy, isn't it? Anyway, so she was calling to tell me she wasn't coming Friday night but would Saturday if she was better. I was like wait a minute here. So she said she was just probably run down from the work shop and it was probably just her sinuses and all she needed was a good night of sleep. This was after she said one of her coworkers at the training had been sick all week. I told her we could talk about it Saturday morning. She was coming anyway because she gets her hair cut here and as long as she could stand she would be coming, but at that moment she was having trouble standing because of her head. What?!? You can't stand because your head is so bad and you think you should come hold my baby?

So I was mad. I called my sister and vented to her. I told her I wasn't going to let my mom come but I did think that maybe she could reschedule her hair appointment for the next Saturday and she could come visit us then IF she was well. So I called her back after I got off the phone with my sister and she got all pissy with me! Well of course she would be better by next week and she was not going to reschedule her hair appointment because she had already rescheduled it once. Then she said she just wouldn't get to see her grandson again until he was two months old and his other grandparents can see him every day! Well, his other grandparents have only been seeing him once a week. Anyway, she drives me nuts!

So what happens? She calls Saturday morning (and wakes me up by the way) and tells me with the most pathetic voice she could muster that she was wasn't going to be coming down and she called and rescheduled her appointment for next damned Saturday and she would see me then! Grrr!!!! I tried. I don't think I ever said all the things she did when we were trying to have Jake. I am trying to forget how she blatantly ignored the boundaries I thought I established. But I don't remember if I typed this or not. She said that it felt like I was having her first grandchild because it was the first time it was real to her. I have THREE nephews! But she only saw my sister pregnant once with the third child and they live so far away so this is like her first grandchild. OH MY GOD!!!! I will NEVER tell my sister this and I tell my sister almost everything. I got mad at my mother for saying it. How dare she! My sister keeps telling me I should move and I wish we would/could! Oh, but I do love my mother even though she is certifiable.

Weighing in

It was so nice to get to go to OUR doctor yesterday. She is very nice and a good doctor. She is kind of quiet but takes her time with you and really listens. So for the important stuff! Jake weighed in at 10lbs 14oz. He is now 23 and 1/2 inches long and his head is 16 inches around.

I have been worried about one of his ears because the external ear (the part that goes in where your ear canal is) isn't normal. It is comes out instead of going in and the opening to the canal is pinches and more of a slit than a circle. I had a ton of ear infections as a kid and so I have been worried about his ears. The opening to the canal is actually a bit more of an oval than it was two weeks ago and she said the canal is nice and open so hopefully this won't increase his chances for infection.


Last night we had an awesome night. I got more sleep than I have in a really long time and I got it all in my bed. When we did finally get up today this was the face I got. I put him in the chair with the good old boppy while I dashed in to pee. When I came back he smiled when I walked up to him. I know babies start smiling for real at about one month, but I wasn't sure if it was for real or not and then he did it again and again. I didn't manage to catch the best ones on camera but I still got some pictures. Now I can't wait to get giggles.


The one problem with all the sleep we got last night is that Jake doesn't want to sleep today. I think he has managed to sleep maybe an hour since before eight this morning when we got up. He is crying in his crib right now and I am hoping he will settle down and go to sleep. I am terrible about picking him up as soon as he cries so I am trying to let him go a bit longer in hopes that he will sleep or at least settle himself down. He has settled him self down a lot today. He would cry while sitting in his bouncy seat but then he would stop and watch TV. I have a couch potato already! He loves to watch colors and movements. My sister said she will send us some of her collection of baby ein.stein videos for him to watch so it isn't Op.rah talking to transgendered teens. That is probably a good thing!

I can't take the crying any longer. I have to go pick him up.

4 Weeks today

My little boy is four weeks old today! I can't believe it. On one hand it seems like it was just yesterday that I was being riped in two pushing him out and then on the other had it seems like it has been much longer. Maybe it is the total lack of sleep but I can hardly remember my life without him.

His poor little face is still terrible. It doesn't look too bad on these pictures and I am hoping it doesn't look too bad on our family pictures. I took these after he had his bath tonight and his hair was still fuzzy. I love that. His hair has started falling out and that makes me sad. I was expecting a bald baby and all, but I have really come to love his hair. So far it is just the spot on the back of his head where their little heads rub against whatever is behind them. The thing is, that is exactly where his wound was and it looks awful. I think it is just temporary, I hope. He also has a pimples on that area of his scalp and it just looks terrible. I'm sure it will be okay, right?

We have our four week appointment tomorrow morning. I can't wait to see how big he has gotten. It feels like he has gained a lot but we will see. He seems to be in a growth spurt right now and both very tired and hungry. I am looking forward to when we can give him a little cereal before he goes to sleep so his tummy is full longer. I am just really looking forward to seeing our family doctor instead of the other one. The day I got a wee bit upset when they said we were going to have to stay two nights in step down my husband called and left a message for my doctor. He said I was really upset with how things were going and that he wanted her opinion and he thought I needed her support. She was down in my room (during the middle of her morning office hours) within the hour and was there for at least fifteen minutes. It made me feel much better. She wasn't very happy with the doctor over the NICU either. He told her we were going home on Tuesday and here it was Thursday. She called and said she could understand why he wanted us to stay one night but two was uncalled for regardless of whether Jake lost weight overnight or not. Anyway, I am looking forward to seeing her. Plus I have this rash that is driving me nuts. It started on my tummy the last month and moved to my thighs right after Jake was born. It is very itchy and now I have it on my lower legs, upper arms, and tonight it appeared on one of breasts. It has long been gone on my tummy though. They told me it was hormones in the hospital. Okay, well it is now driving me nuts and I scratch without thinking.

Not yet!

Today I had to go in and sign up for shifts at work. I wanted to cry. I have been having nightmares about going back to work. I don't want to leave Jake and I don't want to go back to the stress of my job. I have been sticking my ear out there a little bit about some different jobs but I don't really want to change jobs either. I don't like the work at the jobs I have seem available with "normal" hours. I would be bored to death, but I would be able to take my baby to daycare and pick him up everyday. The other issue with those jobs is money. There aren't many other places I could work (even within the hospital) where I would make the same money. Of course with all the changes that have happened I may not make as much money in my department from now on either. I don't know. What I do know is that I don't want to leave my baby. Not yet and maybe not ever. I wish I could have the option of working one or two days a week, but I don't... I guess I had better go buy another lottery ticket then.

First car trip for pictures

We went and got our pictures taken this morning. My husband says we are crazy because we drove 80 miles one way just to get a few pictures snapped. I keep telling him it will be worth a drive a lot longer than that for the quality of pictures we will get. Jacob did great. He slept the whole way down and back. He wasn't too bad for the pictures either. A little crying and we had to stop to give him a bottle. We had to stop for some clean ups too. He was naked for all the pictures and well, things happen. We hadn't even started five minutes when he pooped on my leg. Then he the other leg got peed on a little later. She had him posed laying on his tummy and he started wiggling around. He peed again.

I was so happy to get this photographer. I called before Jake was born and they said they would have to try and work us in. They called while I was in the middle of a crying fit at the hospital to tell me they just weren't going to be able to work us in. Like I said, I was already crying and I told the photographer's assistant that I had meant to call and tell them that Jake was in the NICU and we weren't sure how long he was going to be there so we wouldn't be able to just come when they were able to fit us in. So it just seemed that was how things were meant to be. The assistant was super nice and wanted me to call and just leave a message when Jake got out just so they would know. We talked about when to make an appointment for his six month and year pictures so we would get in. One day when I was walking to my car from the NICU to go home for lunch they called and said they felt so bad they would get us worked in. She likes to get the pictures done earlier than three weeks but we will take what we can get. I was so happy. It turns out the assistant had a baby born at 34 weeks and had a 4 week NICU stay. Her baby was here at my hospital and she had to drive that 80 miles every day plus she had two other kids to care for. One of the photographer's kids had also had to have a two day stay in the NICU so they knew how miserable it feels. I just can't wait to see the pictures. They are pretty expensive but this is something so totally worth the money to me.

I get an email today that a new charge showed up on my hospital account. It was Jacob's bill. It isn't itemized or anything and it only covers the hospital, not all the doctors too. It was a horrible number but not as bad as I thought it would be. It didn't have my hospital bill on there though so I'm sure it will be much worse. It was more than I paid for my SUV when I bought it but not a lot more. Thank God for health insurance. Between the two of us we are going to have cost our insurance between 75 and 100,000 and the year isn't over. They can't drop us right?

My men

I love the men in my life very much. My husband has been wonderful since Jake has come home. When we were in the hospital he tried to not be there as much as possible. Mike is almost phobic of hospitals and I was hoping this good experience would help him feel better. He did pretty well with the two wrist surgeries I had but we were in and out of the hospital in a very short amount of time. He was pretty nervous about my gallbladder surgery but, after all, I was pregnant.

This experience just helped reinforce his hatred of hospitals. Actually, it is just that bad things happen in them for him. His dad has had multiple hospitalizations that have resulted in LONG ICU stays and have involved multiple surgeries. I don't blame him for getting panicky. I sometimes feel that way, but it is more that I just really don't want to go to work, usually because of someone.

So Mike would go up with me every morning to see the doctor and visit Jake and then he would go up every evening, usually to take his parents to visit. But he didn't hang around for most of the day like me. Sometimes he was there longer than others, but in general, not for more than an hour a day, unlike my 12 or so hours.

Anyway, Mike has been wonderful. He has been helping a lot. Every night he lets me go to bed around nine or ten and he takes care of Jake until one or two in the morning and then it is my turn. There is usually a lot of crying in this time frame. Mike has gotten Jake to actually sleep in his bed instead of just on me. For the first week he would only sleep on my chest in the chair at night. He might sleep in his crib in the day but not at night. That makes mommy very tired! One night I even got to sleep in my bed for 6 straight hours. It was a dream!!!

He helps me give him his bath. He changes lots of diapers and he gives him most of the bottles that he still gets. What is the common theme here? MIKE IS STILL HOME FROM WORK!!! Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE all of his help. It is wonderful, however, no work equals no pay! It has been a month now and I am freaking out! He has got to go back to work. The crappy thing is that he keeps telling me he won't help me like he has been when he goes back to work because he needs sleep. That is true, but so does mom.

We go and get our pictures taken tomorrow and Mike claims he will sign back up for work when we get home. Some how I see it stretching into Saturday and then to Monday but we will see...

I can't get over how much Jake looks and acts like Mike. I keep asking if I have any genetic contribution in this child. Mike says he has my chin. I asked which one since he has two. He certainly has Mike's temper, which isn't good. It is calm to majorly pissed in less than 2 seconds. I see this face a lot. Sadly, it is the same only hairier on my husband.

Three weeks old!

I can't believe how time is just flying since we have been home. It is just too damn fast. I feel bad because there are days when we are just trying to make it through. The ones when you didn't get any sleep, you can't seem to brush your teeth enough, and you just want the baby to go to sleep so you can get something - anything done. Most days aren't like that though. Most days I just feel like a milk machine for a hungry boy!


This was Jake just a couple of hours before they took him away to the NICU. That was so horrible.







We didn't take any pictures of him while he was at his worst. Hopefully that image will fade in my mind because right now it feels like it is burned into my heart. He was the only baby in the NICU that was in a warmer. The rest were all in bassinets like this one that he got to move into. Thank God there weren't any in isolets while we were there. While he was in the warmer they would hardly let me touch him (or so it felt). I couldn't pick him up unless his respiratory rate was less than 80 which was a difficult for him for a bit. Because he was breathing so fast he wasn't allowed to nipple anything. Everything had to be gavaged so he didn't aspirate. Then when he finally did start nippling it just exhausted him and he would only take a little and then the rest would be gavaged. The doctor said he needed to have 70 ml of formula every 3 hours. At his best he would only take 35 by nipple and then he felt full and stopped, that was after his breathing became easier. So then they kept putting it in the tube. Well, this is why we thought we were never going to get to come home. In the mean time I am trying to establish a milk supply when I have yet to have my son nurse. We tried before he went to the NICU, but it never worked. The lactation specialist was gone because she had taken time off around the holiday and I was failing terribly. When they took Jake away from me they brought me a pump kit and said "here, start pumping every three hours." So that is what I did. Come to find out there was a long list of instructions that could have helped me a lot that I did get from the lactation lady the following Tuesday when she came back.

Anyway with a ton of work and lot of help we finally got nursing. But then we had to still supplement with formula by gavage. See these chubby cheeks and double chin? My son that was born at 9lbs 9.7oz topped out in the NICU at 10lbs 7.6oz!! That is crazy. I know there was one day where I was nursing him and then he was getting formula that he gained 3 ounces in 24 hours. I am frustrated with the Dr and the lactation lady really helped me out. Obviously this was crazy since it is normal for a baby to weigh their birth weight at 2 weeks! Mine had gained almost a pound in LESS than one week! So she chewed on the NICU nurses and chewed on the doctor as well. It took a couple of days, but they finally agreed to let him eat when he wanted. Then in the night the nurses were still tube feeding him! I was so frustrated. I thought we were never going to get out. So finally he was nursing or getting mostly breast milk while I was gone and he started dropping weight. Duh! That is normal, and still we had to argue with the doctor.













They finally let us move to step down where we had to take care of Jake in a hospital room all on our own. (I was so pissed because the only reason we had to do that was because it was our first child). The doctor said he wanted us to do two nights! I had a melt down. Mind you, this doctor always manages to come talk to me while I have a child latched on to my breast! He also waited until Mike left the room for this discussion because by this time, Mike truly looked like he was going to kill the doctor. The doctor wasn't stupid. Anyway, we discussed that we would only have to stay one night if his weight was stable. Of course Jake lost just a few grams that night, but it was terrible. We were doing everything we could to stuff milk in this kid before that last weigh in. We felt like we were being held hostage.

Then to finally come home we had to agree to breastfeed and then give him a bottle after every feeding. We had to have home health come to weigh him every other day or we had to go into the doctor. It still felt like we were being held hostage, just at least we finally had comfortable chairs.

The formula they gave us was making him terribly gassy when he was getting both formula and breast milk. We had a really miserable night one night and I cried with him. The home health nurse was awesome. She also thought the doctor is a bit excessive with Jake's weight gain and was supportive of me when I decided that I wasn't going to give him one more damned formula bottle. So for a week he has only gotten pumped breast milk in his bottles. The doctor did give us different formula to try and he did get two or three bottles of that and he did have less gas, but Jake seems to like the taste of the breast milk better. So then when we went to the doctor on Friday I never lied I just was very careful about how I answered the doctor's questions. It was then that he said we could just give Jake an extra bottle when he wanted one and we could just give him breast milk, because after all breast milk is best. Holy crap! So many of us were trying to get this across and finally the last time I saw the doctor he says this! He wanted us to come back to see him in two weeks, but I asked if we could start seeing our regular doctor now. His feelings seemed to be hurt a little, but he said yes. So we were released from him on Friday and then we were released from home health on Monday. We are free at last!!!!!!

And we're off...

So we went in the morning of the 28 for an induction. I get my IV started and blood drawn. The blood clots so lab has to come draw it and the girl was an idiot. She stuck me twice with my fully loaded pregnant veins and couldn't get any blood. The next woman comes in and is out of the room in less than two minutes. Now that is service!

So the doctor comes in and says, "now you know this doesn't always work the first time." I now hate those words with a passion. Jacob's head had dropped more and it pushed my cervix around posterior where it had not been before. Now the nurse couldn't even reach it and so I didn't get checked until the doctor came over at lunch time. The pit got started at 0830 and I started having contractions almost right away. They gradually increased the pit and we plugged along. The contractions weren't too bad. I thought I might just be able to make it through this. So my doctor checked me at lunch time and was not pleased with my cervix at all. It hadn't changed and was still so far back. Now he says that I should have come in the night before for cytotec. Of course my cervix wasn't like that at my appointment the previous week so he said it wasn't necessary. I am not so happy. I am damn upset because I want to have a baby!!!! The pit keeps going up the contractions stall some and pick back up. I change nursing shifts and we start discussing what our plan of action is going to be. I am upset again. I want this baby to be born, damn it!

So we decided at 1700 that the pitocin is going to be shut off at 1800 and I am going to be monitored for awhile, fed, and sent to a room to get two doses of cytotec through the night. There are lots of tears at this point. I wanted a baby not this. My husband tells my mother who has been out in the waiting room and she manages to get her way back into the delivery room where I don't want her. She will be back earlier tomorrow she tells me. Great!!!

So Mike gets to go home and sleep and I am stuck in a hot room with a quarter of pill shoved up to the cervix no one can reach and stuck on a monitor. This is when I am supposed to be "getting some sleep for my big day tomorrow." Mind you, I had called over and talked to someone at work because I wanted to know which doctor was on call. The answer was not mine of course because he was on the day before. He told me he would stay with me as long as he could, bastard (sorry I am a bit bitter still).

They had to cancel another induction for Wednesday since I didn't deliver. I am so sorry to that woman. I can only imagine how I would have felt if I had gotten that call. I got my second dose of cytotec around 0500 and they wanted me to stay in bed as long as I could without getting up and going to the bathroom. Hello! I am 41 weeks pregnant and they have an IV going at 125 an hour. I had asked if we could turn it down to TKO but I was told no. I don't quite understand that because I was allowed to drink as much as I wanted. Anyway, I made it the required 90 minutes before going to the bathroom and the last 30 I had been suffering with bladder spasms. I was dying! So I got up and peed for about ten minutes and I started contracting. They hurt a far amount like when they shut off the pit the evening before. (when they shut off the pit they had hyper stimulated my uterus and I was having three contractions back to back that were lasting five minutes and then I would get a minute off and start over again). So I started contracting at about 063-0645 and they kept going. I had to stay in bed until 0800 and then I got to get up and take a shower to get ready for my big day. They had a c-section and another induction starting so they made me wait awhile to go back to the labor room which it didn't matter because I was already in labor.

So my cervix had moved back around and had thinned almost completely and I was having adequate contractions. My doctor came and checked on me and so did the doctor on call for the day and her resident. Not so happy. This guy is from South Africa, I think, and his social interactions are much different than those of most Americans. So the doc on call breaks my water over the lunch hour. I am in much more pain than I was the day before. I am actually quite miserable. They had set up an epidural for me I just had to wait until after my water was broken and then the call would be placed to anesthesia to come and put it in. I know very well that sometimes it can take awhile for them to have someone available to send someone over to OB so I was a bit worried and accepted the offered Nubian. That made me goofy. As luck would have it, there was someone available to come over immediately to put in my epidural. Actually, there was no luck involved, it was a very kind coworker waiting to come put in my epidural because they knew I would be getting one soon. It wasn't a perfect epidural, but it was still wonderful! I was able to get some rest finally. The best part was that our phones had to be shut off with the epidural pump and so for the first time in many days there was silence. We were unreachable!

Things kept progressing and by a little after 1720 I was complete, but still didn't have the urge to push with the epidural and all. The nurse wanted me to start pushing and the doctor said to just wait until I felt like it. My body would keep working and Jake's head still had a ways to go. So we waited and at 1745 I decided that I wanted to start pushing. I couldn't wait any more even though I still didn't feel pushy. So I pushed and pushed and pushed. I couldn't get his head to come around so the doctor got out the vacuum. She weighs all of about 90 pounds (you think I'm kidding and I'm not) and wasn't strong enough to help pull him down. So at 2000 she brought up c-section. Now I was absolutely exhausted at this point but I was not going to let this woman cut me. I was mad because my doctor bailed on me and I thought that wasn't going to happen. Then I am left with the one, the only one I didn't want.

So she says c-section and some how I managed to gather all the strength I had left in my body and I pushed Jacob out. He was born at 2023. He was absolutely covered in meconeum. The cord was around his neck once and he got a horrible wound on the back of his head from the suction cup. Mike didn't get to cut the cord because they were worried about his lungs. I barely got to see him pass by to the nurse. Mike was still at my side looking all the way across the room at Jacob so I told to get his camera and go be with his son.

Mike walked over to the warmer and said "Hi, Jacob" and he turned his head toward his daddy's voice and Mike started taking pictures. This is the first one of his life.















Then he reached toward his daddy.














Mommy watched from across the room as she was getting stitched up. A doctor was sewing until 2130. I kept telling them my epidural had worn off completely and she didn't believe me until she took the catheter out 2 hours later. I kept getting upset during the suturing and she then felt bad. I had a third degree tear, a deep vaginal tear, and a tear to my urethra. That is the one that has really, really hurt!



That scale does say 9 pounds 9.7 ounces. He was 22 inches long with a 15.25 inch head. I am hoping I will be in a better place by the time I get back to work but I keep wondering how things would have or could have gone if I had my doctor there instead. Would he have let me push so long or would he have said enough? Would things have been so stinking traumatic for Jacob and I or not? (the application of the suction to Jacob's head caused some of my internal ripping).



This is the wound that Jacob had from the suction cup. It looks like he has a giant, deep laceration from the cup. As they got it cleaned up better they saw that it was more like a horrible burn. They had to call in the doctor for the NICU to come and look at this wound. He contacted a neonatologist in Denver because he was concerned with a wound like this on the head with Jacob having been absolutely covered in his own stool. They didn't want him to get an infection right next to his soft spot and then into his brain. Not a good idea huh? So Jacob got whisked away from us. The nurse passed by and let me take a quick look as Jacob went to the NICU for all this looking over. They were worried about his lungs too and they took a chest xray. It took two hours before he came back and then when he did the nurse put him over in the warmer across the room from me and left. I wasn't allowed to get up yet and it was me and Jake but there wasn't anything I could do to get closer to my baby. Mike came back and moved the warmer as close as the cords would allow so at least I was finally able to touch my baby. We were in recovery for a long time. Jake had to have a sat monitor on and I bled quite heavily so I had to just hang out for extra time to make sure I was going to be okay. It was awful. I never want to repeat this experience and then it got worse but I will go into that in the next chapter...

We're HOME!!

Hopefully in the next day or so I can get some pictures on here and get a few words written about our little "journey." Nothing has gone as planned or even remotely as expected. I guess that has been true about the entire process of getting and being pregnant. Why should I think things would change now???

We got home yesterday afternoon and now we are trying to figure out what the hell we are doing. We are preparing for the mass of visitors and I am being forced to stuff my baby to the point of his getting sick (not at all happy about this front). But I had to beg and plead, not to mention cry my eyes out, to get the hell out of the hospital. Anyway, we are finally HOME!!!!

quick update

I only have a minute and I can't get the f*c*i!# computer to upload the pictures off of my camera and I am pissed. As we all know I can, I will give a more lengthy explanation later but nothing happened as it was supposed to or as I was hoping for. Jacob Wayne was finally born at 2023 on August 29th instead of the the 28th. This didn't go all that well and my 9lb 9.7oz boy is still in the hospital and I am not. I never ever dreamed my baby would be in the NICU but he is and I am heading up for another feeding right now.