Wow, my baby is 18 days old. How in the world did that happen? He is doing great, gaining weight and getting longer each day. An inch in two weeks, how crazy is that? He is still as skinny as a pole, hopefully he will start filling out instead of growing upward sometime soon:) The only issue we are dealing with is silent reflux. From Chris and I both having GERD I knew something wasn’t right when it looked like he was choking back his formula and getting wheezy after meals. The doctor agreed with my diagnosis and we started him on new formula. We tried that for three days and since we didn’t see enough of an improvement we started Zantac today. As of today(knock on wood) the reflux does not seem to bother him, he is still a very calm boy. He has been sleeping in the rock and play sleeper from day 1 so I am sure that has helped tremendously also. I am hoping we caught this all in time so that the medicine will at least neutralize his stomach acid so he won’t end up with a burning esophagus and a colicky baby.
You will all get a laugh out of this…I always liked the name Jack but Chris really wanted to do Jackson. With Jackson you have the name choices of Jack, Jax, or Jackson plus the in utero nickname I gave him, Jack-Jack. Now I can’t decide what the hell I want to call him so I am constantly trying out different variations. Today I stuck with Jax most of the day which I like but I just don’t feel like it is a good infant name. I wonder if our parents had the same issues as my name is Katherine and DH’s is Christopher. I know I started off as Katie but as I got older I switched it to Kate. Identity crisis anyone?
Here are some pics of us pumpkin picking when Jack was just 10 days old…
I am sorry for the way this is written, it is mostly a copy and paste from the bump!
Our first day was interesting/scary as hell. The c-section prep itself wasn’t too bad. We got to the hospital around 7:40 and my c-section was supposed to start 2 hours later. After they got me undressed and all tucked into bed we were informed that an emergency section was going in before me so we were going to be bumped a few hours. We were prepared for this but holy hell when you are all ready to go and then are told you have to wait it can be a bit much and lucky for us DH’s best friend showed up and kept us entertained until it was time to go in.
The first spinal site they tried was sending pain down my legs so they had to pull it out and try again but once they got the medicine in I was fine. Then came the section itself, DH and I felt like we were sitting there forever when my doctor starts saying “come on out baby, he’s stuck”. Oh fantastic…I kept relatively calm because I figured well they have to get him out somehow. We kept waiting for a scream and we didn’t get one. Jack was out but he wasn’t breathing. DH kept me so calm, thank god he didn’t faint. We were watching the clock above the infant warmer waiting for a yelp. I don’t think I have ever been so scared in my entire life. After everything we had been through how was my little man not breathing. I know surviving IF doesn’t give you a free pass for anything but hell it was about time I got one. I was told later that it was about a minute into it that he started breathing on his own and started wailing. DH and I were both in relieved hysterics at this point they showed me him for a second and then whisked him away to the NICU with DH and I was stitched up. I didn’t even get to give him a kiss.
At this point I have no idea what’s going on in recovery and I knew I was going to be there a while since my temperature was a bit on the low side. At this point both my and DH’s best friend were with me in recovery keeping me calm and dealing with the phone calls/texts and DH was with Jack. If Ash(who is now doing clinicals at the hospital, yay:) and Adam weren’t there I am positive I would have had a mental meltdown not knowing what was going on in the NICU. DH came and told me that they kept insisting that he was at least two weeks earlier then we thought and that his lungs weren’t mature(once I got in there I set the nurse straight telling her we were IF patients so I know for sure how far along I was since I had been having ultrasounds from day 1. She sort of just huffed and walked away). He was never placed on oxygen, they were just monitoring him since once he started breathing it was so labored. Since I have been home DH showed me a video of him trying to breathe and it just broke my heart. You could see his little diaphragm erratically moving in and out while he was gasping to breathe. I could also see how purple/bluish he was at the time. I was told I had to go up to my room and that they were going to monitor him some more. At this point they weren’t sure if it was just extra fluid in his lungs from me having the c section, if his lungs were still immature for some reason, or if we were dealing with some other issue. Jack started doing much better and he finally came up around four hours after the c section and we finally got to hold him. It was the best feeling ever! Those few hours he was in there just makes my heart break even more for all of the NICU families who have extended stays and I know how incredibly lucky we are that he was only in for a few hours. I have no idea how my own parents dealt with me being in the NICU for five weeks.
After that our stay was pretty uneventful. It turned out that Chris could have stayed with me in the hospital but by that time we had no one to watch the pugs so he had to go home every night. Another interesting thing was that there was no nursery for the babies to go to at night because they are trying to promote breastfeeding…which I am not doing but hey whatever. Having him myself the first night was a challenge since I still couldn’t get out of bed and was pretty drugged up. I had to page the nurses to bring him to me and to change him, some were great helping me and this one bitch asked me what my issue was. Um…I just had major abdominal surgery and I can’t get up. The next day our little guy was coughing a bit so he had his first chest x-ray of to see what was going on in there. They brought the machine right into the room which I thought was pretty cool. Th x-ray came back all clear so that was a relief. Our ped, whom we love, came in each morning to check on him and besides some jaundice he was doing great and we were released on Monday morning. Two final words on the hospital I delivered at…one was the food was pretty good and the second is that the hospital security sucks. They put these electronic bracelets on Jack and I and if we went near the elevator the alarm would sound so it all sounded great but his bracelet was so loose it kept falling off. Or you could have cut it off easily. The funny thing is though that I went to three different hospitals throughout my pregnancy for the hyperemesis and none of them seemed secure. It all clearly worked out, it is just an interesting observation. Oh, and after I threw up on the operating table and once more in my room later I have not been sick since.
The ride home was great, Jack loves his car seat and falls asleep the second he is moving. Now we have been worried about how Peanut would react to Jack and the second he saw him he started kissing him. It was so cute! Buca on the other hand pretty much wants nothing to do with him…the exact opposite of what we thought would happen. Jack is an angel, we are so in love. He is easy to soothe, Chris is like a little baby whisperer. For instance as we speak he is passed out in a swing that doesn’t swing. He could care less. Yep, we got a lemon! We might run to BRU today to return it if I am feeling up to it. My poor little guy does have some diaper rash though so we switched diapers and are only using a wet cloth on his hiney. I also put all of my Johnson and Johnson’s products in a bin for a friend of mine and bought all unscented Aveeno products. Whether he got my skin or Chris’ he is basically screwed so I figure we might as well start now with all unscented products.
My recovery is going well. My staples came out on Friday and the doc says everything is looking great. I haven’t needed pain medication in a few days which is nice since the percocet makes me feel like I am buzzed. I have to wait one more week until I can drive and I have off eight weeks total from work….so that will end up being eight months off of work! How crazy is that, I am not going to remember a thing when I go back but that does give me a ton of time to try and find a new job. Fingers crossed in that arena. Mentally I am doing just fantastic. I have a history of depression and anxiety plus add the infertility and hellish pregnancy to the mix and I seriously thought I was doomed but nothing…nada….not even a hint of the baby blues. The only time I tear up is when I think of him in the NICU or about how incredibly lucky I am to have this beautiful son who just lights up my life. DH says he has never seen me so happy. The people at his work had him in knots over this first week, about how insanely bitchy I would be, how little sleep he would get. One person actually told him she decided against having more children after how awful the newborn phase was. We had a nice laugh over that yesterday. The two or three times I have felt myself getting ready to go over the deep end I have asked him to just stop talking for a while. LOL, it worked though! All the worry during my pregnancy for nothing. Jack is perfectly healthy and we are having a blast with him. I received a ton of flowers and gifts at the hospital but the best thing was a card Chris got me once we came home. It was apparently sweetest day this week and it had two pugs kissing on the front of it. Inside it said “Thank you for never giving up and giving me a beautiful family.” See, now I am tearing up again. I am off to try and catch a few more hours of sleep. I hope everyone has a great weekend!!!!!!!
The calm after the storm 