Um Hello?!?

So yesterday I mentioned that having my mom stay and help could either be heaven sent or catastrophic. Well, it is definitely more on the catastrophic end. My poor dad has to hear about it from both of us over the phone, actually I know he finds it comedic considering that he knew this would happen and the fact that he is hundreds of miles away and doesn't have to witness it firsthand.

So my mother and I get on each others nerves almost instantaeneously, and this time was no exception. I am getting hammered about how AJ doesn't nurse for very long and that he could be losing weight, so here we go to the lactation nurse. I actually don't mind seeing a lactation nurse because I am still not very confident with breastfeeding but that is besides the point. Turns out AJ is fine and has exceeded the amount of weight gain that was to be expected. So that is good news, and it was nice to get some time away from mi madre.

Hello World (Wide Web)!!!

Today is absolutely gorgeous!!! I was able to get Tyler to school on time, paid a visit to the coworkers, stuff my face full of chinese, and set up the stroller in our backyard for me and AJ to enjoy and soak up some sun rays...all before noon today!! To top it all off, my mom is coming today to stay with us for a couple of days. This could be great or it can be a catastrophe, we will see.

On another note, we now have the laptop and all we need to do is activate our internet connection again. No more perusing the internet from my phone!!

My Stomach Hates Me

Ryan, bless his heart, took the extra time out of his morning to go and drop off Tyler at daycare. This equated to one extra hour of sleep for me this morning. I even was able to sneak in a shower after Andrew's first feeding. The only downfall, when I was getting out of the shower it felt like there was a little gnome in my stomach trying to bring death upon me. Perhaps that is an overstatement but it definitely felt anything but good, or normal. I ended up talking Ryan into coming home after only four hours of work. My poor husband will be out of paid time off before I even return to work.

As the cookie always crumbles, my stomach was feeling much better before my hubby even stepped foot into the elevator. Given that he had already informed everyone he needed to be home to take care of me, he decided to still come home instead. Gosh, I love him. I love him even more because he decided to stop by and pick up some Vietnamese sandwiches since it was not pressing for him to be home in a hurry. We all know how much we both love Vietnamese sandwiches (seriously, go try them).

We had gone and looked at laptops last Sunday since Bestbuy had some decent advertised deals. After being at home for a week without a computer or internet we finally succumbed and decided to buy a new laptop. With Tyler being in daycare, it only made sense to go back and take our time to look at the laptops.

We decided on the cheapest Toshiba laptop Bestbuy had to offer. It didn't bother us that it was only a 14" screen and that it had less memory and the hard drive was mediocre compared to the rest. We essentially only needed a netbook and this laptop was cheaper than most of the notebooks in the store. The only downside, the Bellevue Bestbuy was sold out of the laptop we wanted. Of course that would happen to us! Even Burlington didn't have any in stock either (one of my longest and dearest friends works at that store). Bummer. The sales guy helping us did mention that some place called Silverdale had them in stock. In fact, they had 5 in stock. Granted he didn't know where Silverdale was and was hesistant to even pronounce it correctly. How does one not know where Silverdale is? Then again, most people do not know it even exists.

God does indeed love us and we will be able to have a laptop considering that my dad would be able to pick up the laptop AND my parents are on their way to our place tomorrow! My mother has willingly (sort of) taken time off of work to come and help us out. So tomorrow we will be connected to the world (wide web) again!

Crickets

I somehow got Tyler off to school/daycare at 9am today! It is different driving into downtown Bellevue later than 7:30am. It was even more weird to not drive to work after leaving daycare. When leaving the parking lot I turned towards my work since it is habit but luckily I can still get home by going that route.

Even though Tyler was dropped off at 9am, he was only the third kid in his group (the group consists of two classes). Everyone else also decided that 9am was a good time to come in that Monday. All the other parents were amazed that I was up and around and out of the house. Then again, this is also the daycare where the families still have nannies at home too (gotta love Bellevue). I will admit, that I do feel bad at times that the other families have so much more to offer but I have to remind myself that all the other parents are about a decade older than Ryan and myself. If only you saw the other expecting mothers at my OB's office, apparently the newest fad is to have kids when your 40. Perhaps that has always been the case and I just missed the memo.

With Andrew being the chill kid that he is, being home alone with him is like sitting around and listening to crickets. It is such a nice change of pace to have a mellow kid. I still cannot believe he is a week old today! Also, I still cannot believe that he still has his umbilical cord. His plastibell fell off during my second diaper change with him. If you do not know what that is, I suggest you just google it but be aware that it might not be what you expect it to be.

The highlight for today has been Andrew's newborn photos. We were able to get one with Tyler and Andrew wearing their big and little brother shirts, respectively. Andrew cooperated the whole time with the lovely Kristen taking his picture. We are definitely blessed once again to know someone that does an amazing job taking pictures and dealing with kiddos. She has done all of Tyler's pictures since birth and we are lucky she had time in her busy schedule to squeeze in Andrew now too! Below is just a peek at what Kristen was able to capture, I am so excited to see the rest!

The Eve of My First Day Alone...

...As a new mother of two of course! This week has flown by too quickly and I can't believe tomorrow Andrew will be one week old! It has truly been a blessing that Ryan took the whole week off to help out at home. He only took two days off when Tyler came, and with everything that has happened this past week I am so thankful that he was able to take more time off this go around.

I had a good laugh today when checking facebook through my phone since we still do not have a computer and internet. It is almost like we are living in the stone age! Anyways, one of my friend's status was regarding the current events going on in Seattle which included the Seahawks game, hempfest, and Lady Gaga. Needless to say, that made for a great mixture of people which I am sad to have missed!

Well, tomorrow should be interesting to say the least! Wish me luck!

It's the Only Proper Initiation

My husband was a bubble boy when he was an infant/toddler and since then his immune system has been, well, non-existent. The same can be the same for my eldest son. Within his first year of life, he was hospitalized twice and let me tell you that Children's Hospital in Seattle is not known for their food for a reason. Not to mention we also had to visit the emergency room with him not even 12 hours after we were discharged from the hospital after giving birth.

The day started with us running late to Andrew's 3 day old appointment and I hate being late. Ryan and I were not on the same page as Ryan thought we should keep Tyler at home while I was all about taking advantage of us paying for daycare and therefore we should have dropped him off. So we were off to Ballard since that is where Tyler and Andrew's pediatrician is. It really doesn't make sense anymore since there are about 200 pediatricians between Ballard and where we live but we are still not ready to part with their pediatrician.

The appointment was at 10:10am and as always we hit the morning traffic into downtown Seattle however we were only a little less than 10 minutes late for Andrew's appointment. All his vitals seemed fine and he looked healthy regardless if he did weigh 7 pounds and 1.5 ounces. Luckily that was a weight gain from the previous day where he weighed 7 pounds even at our postpartum checkup. Phew, we dodged one bullet. So Andrew's height and weight was in the 50th percentile with his head size being in the 15th percentile. Once again, complete opposite of his older brother considering Tyler's height and weight was in the 15th percentile with only his head size being average. I guess you can't win them all.

Andrew seemed healthy witht he exception of the pediatrician seeing lessions in the back of his throat. Another pediatrician in the practice also took a look into Andrew's throat and also saw these so called lessions. Since they commonly see this as a virus in older kids they wanted to be safe than sorry, and so we were off to the ER at Children's hospital.

Fortunately, we can still count on one hand how many times we have had to leave the doctor's office and head straight to Children's hospital (sad, but true). There was definitely a tension in the car ride all the way through the U-district and it definitely got more awkward when we had to take the detour since the 45th street viaduct was still under construction. The detour took us to Montlake Boulevard which is one road that never sleeps. I was still upset that we had not dropped off Tyler at daycare and so now Ryan ended up having to drop off Andrew and myself while he drove all the way back to Bellevue to drop Tyler off at daycare.

By the time we got settled into a room at the ER it was almost 11:30am and by then Andrew was starving. Literally starving and my milk had come in that morning. Starving infant plus my body wanting to explode...I was not in a good mood. The nurses and doctors wouldn't let me nurse Andrew until they had all the leeds hooked up to him and they were getting consistent vitals. Can you imagine a blood pressure cuff small enough for a 3-day old? They don't exist and when an infant is hungry they are definitely not going to cooperate. After 30 minutes of struggling they were able to get consistent vitals but now all of Andrew's vitals were low and they deemed him "lethargic" and considered having to hook him up to an IV. Well shit (pardon my French) but this kid hasn't eaten in 4 hours now, of course he's lethargic, he's hungry and tired of fighting you guys in just his diaper.

I am unsure of how I finally convinced them to let me nurse him, maybe it was the nurse that was pro-bono nursing that convinced the nazi-like nurse practicioner that essentially grilled me to see if we were abusing our 3 day old. I know it's protocol at Children's to see the living conditions of each kid that comes in to make sure they are not getting abused, but I can assure you I am not one to abuse a kid if I am trying to feed him. Sheesh, so finally at 12:15am Andrew was able to get his morning feedings that he had missed and his lunch. The nurse was also kind enough to get me a pump to relieve myself of the pressure, God bless her.

Long story short, it took a team of 2 doctors (1 ER, 1 dermatologist), 2 interns, 1 nurse practioner, and 3 nurses to determine that Andrew has a "red rash" and none of them saw what the two pediatricians saw in his throat. Needless to say, the two interns not only did not know where the supplies where they also did not know how to get Andrew to open his mouth. Ryan was pissed, and neither one of us really had confidence in the team's conclusions. Now we just wait for that ER co-pay bill.

Say Wha?!?

Today I had my postpartum visit at 1:40pm. Guess what time I showed up for it...1:45pm! I hate being late, but once again trying to rally up 2 kids is not an easy task. I have no idea why Ryan thought it would be a good idea to have Tyler stay home from daycare. Apparently when Tyler was dropped off yesterday he had a major meltdown and he NEVER has separation anxiety when being dropped off. When I say never, I really mean it...can I say how odd it is when your kid enjoys being dropped off at daycare and every other kid is sad to see their parents leave? That is a definite sign that we should get parents of the year (please note the sarcasm).

The postpartum appointment went well, Andrew weighed exactly 7 pounds and now we are on weight watch since he has dropped more than 10% of his birth weight. I received a rave review for my breastfeeding even though I am still not that confident that I am doing it properly. I mean my kid is losing weight, there must be something I am not doing correctly. Whatever...but on a better note, Andrew passed his hearing test. I knew he would pass, he would startle every other time his big brother would start crying and pitching a fit.

After the appointment, we were able to squeeze in a grocery run to Fred Meyer and Costco. Mind you, this is my first true public appearance since having the baby. I do not count picking Tyler up from daycare yesterday as a public appearance. They always suggest your going home outfit should be something you fit into when you were 6 months pregnant, I think that is a good rule of thumb. Unfortunately, I must have really loved my belly bump because all of my maternity clothes literally hugged my belly. Thus, wearing my maternity clothing will just hug my postpartum belly.

So here we are "grazing" away at Costco when one of the vendors makes a comment of our newest addition. She does the typically "how cute, he is so tiny", and then asks how old he is. I politely tell her Andrew was born on Monday (so he is now 2 days old) and she commends me on handling a toddler, a new newborn, and then having one on the way. Um, if I just had a baby on Monday how the hell am I pregnant again? I make an attempt to try and point out that the baby was born two days ago but the light bulb was not coming on in her head. I just smiled and pushed my cart away.

I was surprisingly not upset by that encounter, probably because I felt more sorry that she lacked common sense but who knows. It did bother me that I did look four months pregnant but I knew it was temporary and that my belly will shrink down to a saggy but manageable pouch. Sorry for the mental image but it is the truth. I am confident that even Heidi Klum did not have her supermodel figure the days following the birth of her kids. I would still die to have her body though. All of those things aside, I am truly amazed how I handled that situation. Then again, it is those situations and comments that motivate me to better myself.

Discharge Day!

We made it through the first night and it only confirmed that Andrew is a mellow baby! It took a 3am snack run for me to realize how lucky I am to have such a calm child as every room I passed had a baby crying at the top of their lungs! Been there done that! It was so bad for us with Tyler that the nurses took him to the nursery for us, lol.


So Tyler stayed the night at the hospital with us and it was quite interesting watching him and Ryan share the fold out recliner. Let's just say it did not work out too well. The good thing is that Tyler slept through the night when Andrew would fuss and vice versa. Tyler definitely cried more than Andrew that first night! I am sure our neighbors in the hospital probably wondered why the crying did not sound like a newborn cry.

Andrew did fine for his first PKU test, they just poke them in the heel and let them bleed on tiny circles. Due to my lack of medical knowledge, I have no idea what it tests for nor what PKU stands for. Andrew's bassinet said he would have his PKU test at 7am but the lab decided that 5am was better, luckily I was awake and eating away.

My doctor was prompt as usual and did his rounds at 7am and at 9am he came back to whisk Andrew away for his circumsicion. Yes, we had our little AJ circumsized and no, we did not want our kid to have the opportunity to be called Rumpled Foreskin. How daunting would that be?!? This is our 2.5 time going through this procedure and Ryan was the only one to accompany Andrew. It's a guy thing, and I wouldn't know what I was looking at anyways. We had a botched first circumsicion for Tyler and Ryan was definitely confident Andrew's was done correctly the first time. Once again, my doctor rocks and if you need an OB on the eastside I would reccommend him.

Post circumsicion we dressed up Andrew in a long sleeved one piece suit complete with mittens and covered footies. We know it's August but the weather is also struggling to make it past 65 degrees. I did enjoy the mild summer considering I was large and in charge but I must admit the weather was pathetic. We had to take his picture at the photobooth, I must admit I prefer the people that come around and take the baby's picture...like how the heck are we to know how to get a newborn to look at a camera and keep their eyes open. I am sure they strategically put this photobooth by the nurses' station for their pure entertainment. Ryan and I probably spent about 20 minutes to get 4 pictures of Andrew. At least these pictures were free for us to keep.

We finally finished getting discharged around noon and realized that we probably should have just stayed around for lunch. So there we were at 12:02pm sitting in the parking garage with a fully loaded car of balloons and flowers...hungry, nevermind we were starving. Thank goodness for drive thru's and we were back in our game of unhealthy eating. That didn't take long...but it does feel good to have everyone at home, just me and my boys!

The Birth Story: Is There a Labor/Childbirth App?

All things aside, I have determined to turn this blog into my memoirs of my maternity leave. As all things must have some catchy name, I have decided to name it "The Maternity Leave Monologues". That is catchy enough, right? Either way, cut me some slack...I'm an engineer by trade. Without further to do, let me get to the birth story (this will be long, they usually are):

After my first pregnancy, I made sure to always sleep in my bed especially in my last few weeks of my pregnancy. Given that the weekend was consistently in the 90's, we decided to spend Sunday night sleeping on or aerobed in our basement. You can guess what happened next.

I awoke at exactly 1am to my toddler tossing and turning around, but what made me truly awoke me was a slight gush of you know what and you know where. I just laid there without moving in hopes that I didn't feel what just happened and sure enough I finally got up to check what was going on. Was this labor or is it just false labor again? Am I sweating or did my water just break? Is there an app for childbirth? I mean there is an app for everything else, there has to be one and why do I not have it.

As I finally made my way to the bathroom, I realized that I had the 3rd symptom of labor. I guess I would have considered it my 2.5 symptom of labor since I still was not sure if my water had broken. Either way, I started to freak out since my 3rd symptom showed up a day after my false water broke (my term for my first bag of water breaking) during my first pregnancy and now my 3rd symptom decided to rear its ugly head an ungodly 10 minutes later. After waking up my husband, my fellow squirrel friend, and my parents, I finally decided to call my doctor. Big mistake...or so I thought at the time. After trying to convince the on-call doctor that I must be experiencing false labor, my OB must have made it clear in my chart to send me to the hospital at the onset of labor, false or not. So once again I took my time to finish packing my suitcase, deciding what to wear and whether or not I should drive myself to hospital. This was starting to become a nightmare because we had nowhere or no one to watch our son, and what kind of parents would we be to have our 2 year old witness childbirth? You think I would have learned my lesson after my first pregnancy but once again I finally showed up at the hospital...at 3am. That was also after my husband grabbed the car seat on our way out the door and I yelled at him that we might not need...deja vu #2.

Once at the hospital, the triage nurse was convinced that my water hadn't broke and that I was just experience false labor. Somehow, my lab results came back positive that my water had broke however since I had symptom #3 it made the results somewhat questionable. I hear the nurses talking about my lab results and I was certain we would get sent home. I wasn't even having any contractions but after another hour of being monitored I was starting to get pissed since I was thinking I would still need to be at work and it was already 4:30am. But at 5am when the nurse finally comes back, she announces the news that I was going to get admitted. My response: "does this mean I don't get to leave the hospital until the baby is out?" If only I had a picture of the nurse's look when I asked that question.

So as I am getting led into my labor and delivery room, all I could think about is that everyone must be making a mistake. My due date was still 11 days away! I had just discovered gelato and there was still one more pay period between now and my due date. How could the baby want out right now? What do I do now...it's 5am, I have a deadline and cannot call anyone at work, and I have nothing to help me endure a long labor. I was still able to laugh, I couldn't feel contractions, I don't own an ipod (as if there is a docking station in the room), and my toddler is still with us. I finally wrangle my dad to drive out and pick up my son and I learn that I have a small window time frame as to when I can get an epidural since all the scheduled c-sections would be making their way into the hospital around 8am.

So I spend 5am to 7am debating whether or not to get an epidural. I did it once without any pain meds and I am still alive, so why not try it again? Turns out a reason why I was not in active labor was because my second bag of water was still in tact. I was told that my doctor would make his rounds starting at 7am and if it hasn't broken by then my doctor will go in a break it for me. Okay, maybe this epidural sounds like a good idea. The icing on the cake came when I finally asked my doctor how big he thought the baby was and he guesses 7 pounds. Okay, well bring on the meds.

Getting the epidural was a bit of a challenge but I am still here to tell about it. Once my doctor broke my water, my labor went just as quick as my first pregnancy. Well I guess I am glad I went to the hospital, my water probably would have broke at work and I would have had to deliver the baby without any pain meds again. But Andrew John Shelton graced us with his presence at 9:42am at 7 pounds 12 ounces and 19.5 inches long. We couldn't be blessed with a more calm, mellow, and perfect baby! But we'll see how his first night outside of the womb goes...