Sadderday

I'm writing this from Wendy's hospital room at camp Riverside. It is about 9:00pm on Saturday, Jan 31, and we are still here. We were supposed to have gone home yesterday, but Wendy's blood count was still dropping. So, we were given one extra day. We thought we would be home for sure today. However, a 7:00am visit from our OB changed all that. Wendy's bloodcount took another drop. The doctor told us we'd be here for another day. She also ordered an ultrasound to see what, if anything, was happening. Plus, the doctor went ahead and ordered a blood transfusion, as the count was so low. The ultrasound informed us only that there were no "significant issues," which is good - no surgery needed; Wendy is just healing slowly. The transfusion took about four hours, and Wendy now looks and feels better. They took a blood count this evening, will compare it to one they will take tomorrow, and, if things Look stable, we will finally go home. But, as of now, it is an unhappy Saturday for my girls.

As to baby Julia, she is getting prettier everyday, and has become quite the cuddlebug. I do love her so.

Those who keep asking for photos, please be patient. As soon as I get to a real computer, I will upload a few. Until then... Grace & Peace to you all.

Baby - Day 2

Our little angel is now almost two days old. The universe appears to have smiled on us. Not only is she beautiful but she is also very well behaved. A real angel sent for us to love.

Some of you may have noticed that we've not given you a name yet. Truth is, we've been all over about what name we think is best. After lots of discussion, we finally came up with a name we think fits, so say howdie to ...

Julia Katherine Smiseck

As for mom, she is doing fine. There is a slight concern with her hemoglobin level, which may keep her here to Saturday, but we have yet to hear. As of now, I still hope to take my two girls home sometime late today.

She's Here!

Wonderful news, everyone! Wendy and I welcomed out beautiful baby girl into the world at 11:28am on January 28. She was six pounds- six ounces, & 18 inches long. The delivery was a little too eventful for this dad. They had to use the wicked vacuum device to get the baby out, as they were a bit worried when they had trouble tracking her heartbeat. This procedure resulted in her having trouble getting her breathing started, and I think I aged ten years in the few moments it took to get her off and running. But, the baby is a trooper and is doing great. She even reached out and grabbed her daddy's hand. Talk about wrapping me around her little finger! Took less than five minutes of life for her to steal my heart.

Things were not so pleasant for mom. Wendy's placenta grew into the muscle wall of her uterus. The condition is called placenta accretia. No need to go into details here. What is important is that Wendy had to endure 2.5 hours of her OB basically scrapping the placenta off the uteral wall. This was neccessary because leaving the placenta intact could cause hemeraging. Wendy held up well, even having the OB and a whole coven of nurses laughing despite the discomfort. Some drugs are good.

All Is now well. They're watching Wendy close to make sure she does not bleed, and they are also going to keep us in the hospital a day or two extra to make sure Momma is healing up well.

We do have photos to share and more info, but I have no computer access to post everything yet ( I'm doing this on my I-touch, which takes forever.)

Now, if the hospital staff will just stop coming in every ten minutes so we can rest ...

Grace & Peace to all

....and so it begins

Just want all to know that Wendy's water broke at 11:45 pm on Tuesday Jan 27. After a crazy drive through the ice and snow, we made it safely to Riverside hospital. It is now after 3:00 am, and we're chilling out awaiting all the fun! I'll update you as I can

Whew - Close Call

We had a bit of a scare last Friday at our checkup - things initially were looking good: baby's heartbeat going good, dilated one centimeter, looking good in general - but when we went in for the NST, they were concerned about Flipper's position. She had gotten annoyed and moved north, so they were worried that she hadn't turned. This lead to an immediate ultrasound - now pipe down; we didn't get any new pictures because she's too big to get a good shot of, but believe me, she seemed fine. Anyhoo, as they were checking (and yes, she's head down now), they noticed two things: one, that the amniotic fluid was low, and two, that the placenta was starting to age and calcify. Now with the fluids, I am known to drive my vehicle until the gas gauge is riding the "E", which makes Steven nuts; our OB does this, too, so I felt somewhat vindicated, but in this case, having low fluids is not cool, so I was ordered to drink fluids like they were going out of style AND to spend quality time lying on my left side doing nothing. I complied completely with edict one and mostly with edict two (we had some nursery work to do). Placenta aging is another issue, apparently affected by fluid levels; it gets old, just like the rest of me, and functions less and less. This happens with all placentas, but in *ahem* younger women it is seen after 40 weeks instead of earlier.
So, today's checkup was a bit of a nail-biter because if the fluids weren't up, we'd be on our way to Riverside hospital. The good news - fluids were up and that makes both Flipper and the placenta happy (yes, the placenta looked a lot happier when I saw it on the ultrasound - smilin' and everything) and we got another centimeter. Doc says we bought some time and every day Flipper spends cooking, the stronger she gets. Friday she "weighed" in at just over six pounds - they can do this with the ultrasound somehow, which is pretty cool).
On the sort-of bummed or wistful side, we were ready to go today - packed up and relatively mentally prepared for a birthday. I know when Kennedy gets home from school she will be an unhappy camper because she is really, and I mean really, excited about being an older sister. But, as the doc said, we bought some time - exactly four days; we go back in this Friday to do the NST, ultrasound, and internal check again to see what's up - Kim (OB) was not guaranteeing anything after Friday, so we may be going at the end of the week, or we may advocate to schedule for a day that we all can agree upon, at least getting us into February AND having our OB available. Of course, she had to throw in that with the snow coming, a drop in pressure could trigger the water to break - apparently they see that a lot this time of year. Now why did she have to go and harsh my mellow? I was cool with just hanging out until Friday but now I have to worry about spontaneous uncontrolled leakage? Oh, and here's the kicker: with a twinkle in her eye, Kim informed me that because of my "advanced maternal age" I was classified as "elderly". Guess I'd better start practicing chasing kids off the yard with my cane and signing up for my Golden Buckeye card - hey, where do elderly people hang out these days? Anywhere cool?

Flipper's Shower

This past weekend, we were treated to an awesome baby shower by Steven's mom and sisters - as you can see from the picture, we enjoyed ourselves (note laughter abounding to the left). And to appease those who keep asking to see what I look like, take note of picture to the right which demonstrates not only my buffalo belly, but the approximate position and activity of its contents.
It was a beautiful and cold day, but despite the frigid temperatures, we were very happy to spend time with friends and family - in fact, we were overwhelmed by the love and generosity! It was a great day - thanks to all who were a part of it!
Alas, after a great party and some additional time with family sorting through gifts and assembling stuff that requires some assembly, we retired to our customary places in the living room, in our PJs, doing what we normally do on a Saturday night (hanging from chandeliers, making prank phone calls, egg tossing . . .) when tragedy struck - the frozen water pipe issue we were trying to solve turned ugly. Yep, the pipe cracked. Behind a wall. And flooded three areas. At the time, we didn't know it was behind the wall - we thought it was under the concrete. So, quick action stopped the water flow, Sham-WOW and a shop vac caught some of the worst flooding, and the patience and help of Steven's parents kept us in comfort while we sorted through repairs and clean-up.
In the meantime, amidst the chaos of our house, we were able to take a time out to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama all the while explaining to Flipper the significance of a day she'll never remember, even though, in a way, she was there. She was pretty active the whole time, moving around and pushing (she's been advocating for room expansion for the last few weeks - I told her "no").
All in all, it was an emotional roller-coaster of a weekend/week start but I can't say that it was bad at all - we got to see people we love, spent time together as a family in both fun and adversity, and saw history unfold. It's definitely a time we'll never forget . . .

So Far, We're Fine and TOMORROW is 30 Days

Ok, so a non-stress test (or NST, as they refer to it) is basically me sitting in an easy chair-like chair with heartbeat monitors hooked up to a thing that looks like a polygraph machine - you know, with the graph paper and all. The basic idea is to capture Flipper moving around to see what her heartrate is when active - if she's taking a nap, it doesn't work for them. So you sit around hoping the kiddo decides to play, read whatever magazines they have on hand (note to self: bring something in that's cool) and listen to the machine do its thing, which can be a little freaky, especially if you watch too many "Forensic Files" shows and slip into a moment when you think you're supposed to be answering quetions and yell for your lawyer. Anyhoo, we didn't get to talk with our doctor, which was a bit puzzling - the graph paper disappeared into the hall and next thing we know, we're told all is fine and "see you next week and then each week after in which you'll be doing this again." Wait, what was that? We hadn't gotten the "you'll be doing this often" memo, but I guess since I've got gestational diabetes (which the doc says is looking fine) and creeping blood pressure, they need to monitor closely. The weekely checkups start, well, I guess now. The technician working with us informed us that not only were we going to get to know her quite well, but that we were naming Flipper for her (her name is Lillian, by the way); for the record, no on the name, although I'm sure we'll get somewhat familiar with her - you tend to get to know people who put goo-covered monitor things on your exposed belly. In the near future, I'm sure I'll be great pals with the medical staff at Riverside hospital, whether I want to be or not.
In other news, we didn't get to do the ultrasound - apparently they were very busy yesterday and we hadn't been scheduled for it, even though both of us heard that Kim wanted to see what was going on - we plan to ask about that next week. So the bad news: no pictures to share this week. The good news: we must be doing ok because they sent us packing.
Last week I was griping about heartburn and insomnia; this week I will continue to gripe about insomnia but will add to it having a cold (thank you, Kennedy, for bringing that home) and doing a masterful job of pulling a lower back muscle - you know when you do it right, you can almost hear the "ping" of the muscle as it pulls. Anyhoo, that last action made life as I know it pretty interesting - it's already a task to walk, sit, stand, roll over (my God, I'm starting to sound like a trained dog), but add to that a reminder that I shouldn't have been putting dishes in the dishwasher . . .yes, I strained it doing something as simple as putting a bowl in the dishwasher. Isn't that pathetic? Of all the things . . .anyway, it's better now. Let's just hope I don't do some other benign activity and throw it out again.

Update

My last entry said something about updating you all on January 5th - we had a bit of a delay and didn't see the doc until today . . .something to do with a vehicular breakdown in Indiana and a hormonal pregnant woman meltdown, but I won't bore you with the details.
Here's the scoop:

• The 24 hour urine test (which I did study for, ad nauseum) came back as normal which is a very, very good thing. The main concern was that I might be dumping protein, but I'm not (in fact, it sounded like I was well within normal perameters). Too much protein in the whiz means naughty things are afoot, so from that standpoint, no nautiness.
• On the other hand, the blood pressure issue is a matter for caution. Although it's not off the scale, it is elevated for me, so Kim is keeping her eye on me. This means another appointment Monday with what she calls a "non stress test" (the meaning of which is a bit confusing to me, but apparently does not involve me having my feet massaged while sipping a glass of wine and watching live video of a calm beach in Belize) and - oh excitement of excitement - an ultrasound to see what Flipper is up to. Oh, and to see if the amniotic fluids have decreased and how the blood vessels and placenta are doing - you know, important stuff like that. I have never had a late stage ultrasound before and am super excited, even though the reason is to check for problems. Did I mention I was excited? We'll get to see pretty much what she will look like when she's born - that's really cool.

So, that's what's up. In related news, chronic heartburn sufferers have my complete sympathy, seeing as how it now keeps me up at night (and for which I now have a remedy - thank you Kim), insomnia comes and goes but tends to have a lot to do with my body getting sore at night and a little somebody thinking late night bathroom trips are her cue to start playing, and I have a belly that seems to resemble something akin to a watermelon (although much less green). I am sadly watching my navel go from "innie" to "turkey timer". Still, Flipper is a daily source of entertainment for Steven, Kennedy and I and will continue to be so, even when she's busy doing whatever she's doing now on the "outside" (and I'm hoping to catch some of her shenannigans while seeing ultrasound so I know just exactly what she's been doing).