Another milestone…..

Well you have officially grown out of your Newborn outfits….sigh….but you have so many cute 3 month outfits!!! So I am really excited to dress you up in the new ones :)

4 Weeks Old....already!

Wow…four weeks old today!!! You will officially be one month old in three days!! I can’t believe how fast the time has gone by! So what has happened over the last month?

You are still wearing your newborn diapers and clothes but starting to grow out of them. You are becoming that in between size; not quite newborn and not ready for the three month size yet.

You are starting to focus on our face which is so neat!! You will turn and look at us for periods of time and starting to follow our movements!

You are going longer in between feedings and sleeping better at night. We are on a four hour schedule now. After your first morning feeding when I put you in your bouncer you usually take about a five hour nap before you wake up for your next feeding.

Dad and I went on a date to Cracker Barrel so your Grammie and Grampie got to watch you last Saturday for a few hours and they loved it!

You have had two Doctors appointments and will get your first set of shots in December.
Here are your stats from your two Doctor’s visits.

October 27th:
Weight: 8.1lbs,
Height: 20 inches
Head circumference: 14 ½

On November 11th:
Weight: 8.14lbs
Height: 20 ½ inches
Head circumference: 14 ¾

The First Week!

You are now a week old or 168 hours and we just can’t get enough of you!! You are such an amazing, wonderful and beautiful baby! In the last week you have brought so much joy to our lives as well as to many others!

The first day home; Fri. Oct. 22nd from the hospital was such a fun day! You had so many visitors that came by the house to visit you! I think you only hit the floor one time and that was for 20 minutes otherwise you were being held by someone. Needless to say the first night was a little rough but we loved every minute of it!!! You’re Daddy and I stayed up all night because you were a little fussy since you were not use to falling asleep in your pack n’ play. During the times that we were not holding you, I couldn’t put down the baby monitor; I just kept staring at it all night. Every little noise you made, every little turn or twitch of the hand I jumped up to check on you! You have no idea how much you have your Daddy and I already wrapped around your finger!

Saturday and Sunday night were much better! We had you staying up a little more during the day so you would be more tired at night and it worked! Right now you are on a good schedule of feeding every three to four hours.

On Saturday Oct. 23rd you got to meet your cousins; Camryn and Kelsey by video conference. On Sunday you got to meet your Aunt Brittney as well! You got your first washcloth bath on Sunday Oct. 24th and did great!

Your Grampie is already wondering when he can take you fishing and your Uncle Michael is asking when you are going to start walking!! You have and will always be surrounded by so much love Taylor!

So far, the items we seem to use the most are; the boppy, the changing table, the bouncer and the pack n play.

Checking In- Mon. Oct. 18

It’s finally here!! We checked into the hospital Monday Oct. 18th at 9pm to start the process of being induced. Your Daddy and I are so excited to meet you and keep saying “in less than 24 hours we will be parents” or “in less than 12 hours we should be parents!”

When we got to the hospital they checked us into a room and hooked me up to the IV, which looking back was the most painful part of everything! Once they got the IV in and all the monitors hooked up they realized I was already having regular contractions so they had to call the Doctor to see if they should still give me the pill to soften me. The Doctor said to go forward with giving me the pill so now we are another step closer to meeting you!! They put the first pill in around 11 and the second one in around 3am.

On Tuesday morning they checked to see how dilated I was and when they did, I was only at a two but was about 80% effaced. So they decided to start the pitocin drip. That was going for about 45 minutes when they started to notice a not so good pattern. I was having lots of contractions but each time I did your heart rate would drop so they took me off of the pitocin until they got in touch with Dr. Beckner.

Dr. Beckner made it to the hospital around 8am and came in to check and see if I became more dilated but was still only at a two. So while he was there they went ahead and started the pitocin drip again so he could monitor what was going on. He sat in the room and talked to us for a bit while he monitored the charts and unfortunately we both were still having a bad reaction to it. He made the decision to stop the pitocin.

He then told us he was afraid that if he let us go home and go into labor naturally since I was already having contractions that once we came back in it might be more of an emergency situation. Dr. Beckner said if I was his wife or his daughter he would recommend going forward with a C-section and Jeffrey and I both agreed right away that is what it was going to be because your health was the most important thing. It is now about 8:40am. I called my Mom to tell her that the Dr. recommends a C-section and that Jeffrey and I have agreed that is the best thing. She asked when she should come up and we said it would be a while and that she has plenty of time to go and vote.

Right after we hung up the phone the Doctor came back in the room to say he was going to have the Nurse’s get us ready!! The Nurse came in to get us ready and said they would be taking us back within the next ten minutes because the Doctor had a 9:30am appointment! Jeffrey called my Mom back to tell her to come up as well as his parents because it was going to be a lot sooner than expected!

It was great because both his parents and my Mom made it up to the hospital before they rolled us back at 8:55am. My Dad did not make it there before we got rolled back but was there waiting for us to get out of the surgery.

Once they had us ready and started to wheel us back I began to get a little emotional. I was so excited to know that we would be seeing you very soon but was so nervous about the needle I was about to get in my back!

I remember the double doors being open and seeing the surgery room and table where I was about to begin the next step. It was kind of scary looking, a table in the middle of the room with lots of bright lights around and every one wearing the blue scrubs over their clothes.

They moved me over to the surgery table and got the needle ready! I was very nervous about the needle but had such a wonderful Nurse and Doctor that both helped sooth me during the process. Once they did the needle; which really didn’t hurt nearly as bad as I was working myself up for it to be my whole lower body went numb. Once I was numb, Jeffrey got to come in once they were through with the needle. They put the catheter in and started cutting away.

You were born at 9:28am and you’re Daddy and my heart melted! You weighed 8lbs 6oz and measuring 19 ½ inches. Daddy got to hold you first since I was still on the surgery table and he had the biggest smile on his face!! He finally brought you over to me and I got to give you a big kiss! What an amazing feeling!! I couldn’t wait to get off of the surgery table and hold you!

They finally got done with my surgery and wheeled me back to our recovery room. Once we got settled into the room, they brought you in for me to hold and feed you!! What an amazing moment, one I will never forget!! You are so beautiful and perfect!! You did so well on our first feeding and have done so well since!

Once we were done with the feeding you had so many visitors that day! It was so much fun to see everyone and to show you off!!

36 Week Check Up and work Baby Shower!

We had our 36 week check up and Ultrasound on Thurs. and the Ultrasound Technician said my placenta had moved up!! So now if we were to go into labor we can just go ahead and go into labor instead of rushing to the hospital for a C-section. It was so great to see Baby Taylor on the monitor!!! She is still facing down and is really, really low they said which is good and right where she needs to be. They said she weighs approximately 6lbs 8oz. right now and her heart beat was a strong 140 beats per minute. We now start going weekly to the Doctor!

We had our work Baby Shower on Wed. and it was so much fun!! It was over the lunch break in the University Room and so many coworkers showed up. We played a really fun game where everyone was broken up into four teams and had to draw a card out of a bag. On that card was a Nursery rhyme along with several genera categories. They had to pick a music category; Reggae, Country, Jazz, Rap, Opera, etc. and sing and dance the Nursery Rhyme for me while I got to judge the teams for a winner! The winner was the Country version of Old McDonalds Farm! Baby Taylor got so much stuff!! She has more clothes than we are going to know what to do with and they are all so cute!!!

We can’t wait to meet our little Taylor!!

34 Week Check Up

Last Thursday; Sept. 9th was my 34 week check up and I just love getting to hear Taylor’s heartbeat!! It is such a soothing sound to hear! The Doctor didn’t have any answers for me as to why I got so dehydrated and sick the other week which is kind of frustrating. All he said was that the Baby was ok and that is the most important thing. The Doctor said she is face down already so the little hump I always feel under my ribs is her little tush =) He did say for my next appointment; 36 week check up, we will be doing an Ultrasound to make sure my placenta has moved up because at my last Ultrasound when we found out if she was a Boy or Girl he said my placenta was low. I really hope it did! He said 95% of the time it will move up as the Baby grows. I asked him what if it didn’t and he said we would have to do a C-section. So I am praying that it moved up and we can have a Natural delivery.

We are getting so close!!! Only 5 more weeks left until we get to meet our wonderful Gift from God!! Thank you Lord for blessing us each and everyday!

A Night in the Hospital

For the last week I have felt very light headed at times and nauseas. At my Dentist appointment last Thurs. I had to ask them twice to lean me back up and for some water because I kept feeling like I was going to pass out. It was not a very fun feeling but at least I got out of the fluoride part =)

Then all day Thursday at work I kept getting that feeling again of light headedness and nauseated. I called my Doctors Nurse at the office to ask her about it and she said I may becoming anemic which is very common in your third trimester and for me to start taking an iron supplement like Slow FE. By the time I got home from work at 5 I started throwing up and not feeling good at all. I tried to eat a bowl of cereal after that and within 20 minutes of finishing that it came right back up. My Mom suggested that I call the on call Doctor and see what they say because by this time it was 9pm and I had thrown up 16 times. I called the Doctor and she said try drinking just water and fluids and if you are not able to keep that down then I need to come up to the Labor and Delivery part of the hospital immediately because they did not want me to get dehydrated. As soon as we hung up the phone I made a huge glass of ice water and laid down for about an hour and a half before it all came up. I called my parents; they always make me feel better when I am sick and they came over and took me to the hospital at 11. Once we got there they had me do a urine test to see if I was dehydrated and sure enough I was. They then took some blood to continue running tests. Next they hooked me up to an IV and gave me some nausea medicine because I kept feeling like I was going to throw up and sure enough once they got me hooked up and gave me the medicine through the IV I started throwing up again. My body was not reacting well to the nausea medicine they gave me so they called the Doctor to see what they could do. All I wanted was a glass of water but they couldn’t let me have one because the ice chips they gave me earlier were making me throw up. She told them to give me another kind of nausea medicine and all I remember was that I think it started with a G and it worked. I was finally able to fall asleep. It took three full bags of IV fluid before I was finally starting to feel better and rehydrated. Once I woke up they gave me a couple of ice chips and two saltine crackers to see if I could keep those down and they said once I was able to keep something down they would let me go. I was able to successfully eat the ice and crackers without throwing up so we got released Friday morning around 9:30.

They got all my blood work back and everything was fine which was good. They were able to rule out food poising and the flu but were still unable to figure out what caused all of this. They said they have seen cases of this before so that made me feel a little better. I would have to say out of everything it was such a great feeling getting to hear Taylor’s heartbeat all night because I was hooked up to monitors so they could monitor her as well. And the ice chips they give you are really soft and good!

I am finally starting to feel better but all day Friday when I got home all I did was sleep which was much needed because those hospital beds were not very comfortable.