For the last month I haven't really done any work. The last week or so I've been feeling out of sorts. I love being at home with Fiona, but I really need to work on balancing being a mommy and being me. Lucky for me one of my clients sent me some work today, and another client has been unbelievably understanding that it took my a little while to complete a project. I have just felt the need to create lately. And its really hard to create when I constantly have another person to take care of. Mark is really busy with work lately and hasn't been around as much as I would like him to be, so I've also been feeling a little lonely. I need to see if I can find a mommy group in the area...hmm I think their used to be a rose garden moms group. I'm going to have to look that up again.

We leave for Austin in a few days. I'm really not excited to go. THe whole traveling with a baby thing, plus Mark will be working so he won't really be available to help with Fiona. So I will just be hanging with Mark's parents alot. At least when we get home it will be almost christmas, and I will get to see some family and friends that I haven't seen in awhile.

Its hard to believe Fiona is 4 months already. Her personality is really starting to come out, and she is so much fun to be around. She is a total "talker", and will chat up a storm during play time or when we are in the car running errands. Most of the time she is a happy, smiley baby. She is just starting to get into a schedule, which is really nice. She started sleeping through the night when I was swamped with work and she kept it up.

At her 4 month appointment she weighed in at 13lbs 11 oz and measured 24 inches tall. Both of which are in the 50th percentile for her actual age (not her corrected age)! Its amazing that she caught up so quickly. Her pediatrician was impressed with how well she was doing. At the moment she is on target for the normal milestones for her actual age; rolling over, putting weight on her legs, babbling, laughing, etc. Since she is doing so well we get to start feeding her real food, well rice cereal. She doesn't eat much of it, but her dr didn't expect her too. Its mostly just practice with using the spoon. Although she does eat less in her night bottle since we started the rice cereal. Which could be that she is eating a little and feeling fuller or that she changed her schedule a little and is getting a full feeding before bed (if she ate at 8 pm, she would want to eat again at 9pm when we get her ready for bed... and in an hour I wasn't producing much, but she changed her schedule so now she eats at 6 or 7pm which gives me more time to make milk before her 9pm feeding.)

My parents got to meet her last week, it was nice introducing them. And next month we head to texas to visit with her other grandparents. I'm a little nervous about flying with a baby, so hopefully it goes well.

Wow, its been awhile since I've posted. I think I last posted when Fiona was 8 weeks old and Mark was heading back to work. Now Fiona is almost 3 months! First its insane that she is almost 3 months old. Part of me feels like we just brought her home and the other part feels like she has always been here. Fiona is doing great, and is growing so fast! She is almost 11 lbs already, which is insane considering she was due a month ago. She has completely out grown all of her newborn clothes and has even started to out grow some of her 0-3 clothes. She is alot of fun to play with and will "talk" up a storm when playing on the floor or on her activity mat. The smiling and cooing definitely make up for the times when she cries and is fussy.

Oi... I started the above entry almost 3 weeks ago, then I got busy and didn't finish it. The above is all still true. She is a little chatterbox when she plays, I love listening to her talk and coo. She sleeps for longer stretches at night. We aren't quite up to sleeping through the night yet. She normally falls asleep around 10:30-11pm and then gets up around 5am then goes back to sleep for another 3 or 4 hours. We are working on getting her to sleep longer, but for now I do fine with the amount of sleep that I get.

I'm starting to get busier with free lance, at least for the next 2 weeks I'm super busy. When I'm not busy working Fiona and I stay pretty busy; play dates, story time at the library, mommy groups, book club, ect. In another 2.5 months we get to start swim lessons and the 1-2-3 grow class at my gym, I'm looking forward to those!

This is a short drive by post, but I have a client meeting that I need to get ready for (meaning change out of the t-shirt covered in spit up).

Its hard to believe that Fiona has been home for over 3 weeks. Mark took off of work for a few weeks and today is his first day back at work. I spent the day meeting friends for coffee, then lunch, then spoke to a potential new client. All while feeding Fiona a million times. Ok, not quite a million, but she seems to be going through a growth spurt and all she wants to do is eat. Speaking of eating... I mentioned before that my freezer was being taken over by milk, here is a photo of my freezer a few days after she came home:




We are running out of room for food in the freezer. We use bottles at night, so I try to use a mix of fresh and frozen milk so that I can go through some of my supply.

Since she has been home we have tried to include her in all of our normal activities. We walk the dogs, and have even taken her on a hike in Muir Woods:



And the other day we took her to see friends in Monterey and check out their new house, which has an AMAZING view. While we were there we took a walk on the beach:



Erica - as you can see we get alot of use out of the moby wrap!


Its amazing having her home, she has settled in to our lives so seamlessly its hard to believe she hasn't always been here. Now I get to work on juggling being a mommy, maintaining the house (at least somewhat), and working from home. I have a meeting with a new client on wednesday, and I've started emailing my old clients letting them know that I am getting back to work. I am incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to work from home so that I can be here for Fiona. Hopefully I will be able to juggle it all and not go insane. I'm sure it will take a little adjustment.

I also get to go back to the gym next week... yaaa!!! I am looking forward to being able to swim again and to get back in shape.

I've been bad about updating lately. Fiona got to come home on August 6th, after an emotional roller coaster the day before. Originally she was suppose to come home on the 5th, she was even discharged but as I was feeding her before we left (in a different position with a very forceful nurse) she had a brady cardia episode that was bad enough that they didn't want to release her. At that point I had complete melt down and cried for almost 45 minutes. All I wanted was my little girl to come home. I ended up staying at the hospital and did every one of her feedings. Since she hadn't had any more problems the next morning they decided to release her. We left as soon as they discharged us, and I FINALLY got to leave the hospital with a living baby. And yes I cried as we left, but they were tears of happiness.

Having her home has been amazing. She has grown so much in the 2 1/2 weeks. She has gained 19 1/2 ounces and grew 1/2 an inch. She is now 6 lbs 7 oz and is 20 inches. She has already outgrown most of her preemie clothes (expect the Jack and Jane ones, those are bigger and are her best fitting clothes at the moment).

I love to sit and hold her and just watch her many expressions, and boy is she expressive! So far she has been a relatively easy baby. Doesn't cry too much; is happy sleeping in her bassinet (most of the time); and settles pretty quickly when she is upset (which is mostly when she is hungry and we are not fast enough in feeding her).

Speaking of feeding... that has so far been the one problem. Not with her... with me. I've gotten mastitis 3 times now. First in the right, then the left, and now the right again. She doesn't like to feed from me when the infection first starts, and I don't blame her, I normally run a fever of at least 102 for a few days. The first time the fever reached 104.4 and I ended up going to the ER. Luckily this time it wasn't so bad. But unfortunately it did decrease my milk supply. At the moment I still out produce her, but I don't know for how much longer. I'm hoping the right side recovers (its the side that keeps getting infected and the side that the milk supply decreased).

I have a ton more to update on and a bunch of photos to upload but it is someones dinner time and boobie (who we joke has become its own entity in the house, at meal time Fiona "battles" boobie... sometimes literally because she likes to flail about and hits and scratches me) is being called into action.

Having a new born in the NICU is exhausting. First there is the physical exhaustion of having a newborn. Even though she isn't home I still have to get up every 3 hours to pump. And I'm at the hospital now for the 8am, 11am, 2pm, 8pm, and 11pm feeding, which take at least an hour. So at night I dont leave until almost midnight, I get home, I still have to pump and then get up 1-2 more times (depending on my pump schedule) and then get back up by 7am to get back over to the hospital. Its exhausting! I try to get at least a few minutes nap in, but I can't really nap at the hospital so I only get a nap around 5:30.

Its not only physically exhausting its also mentally exhausting. Everyday you need to mentally prepare for a bad day but hope for a good one. And every nurse has a different opinion on how to do things and how Fiona is doing. I spoke to the neonatologist (for the first time!) yesterday and he says that she is doing really well we just need to work on her gaining weight. Its great to hear that she is doing well, it puts my mind at ease and lets me tune out the more negative nurses.

We are hoping that she will get to come home soon, but we really have no idea. No one will tell us when, because they dont want to get our hopes up if it doesn't work out. But they are starting to prepare us for when she comes home. They told me today to bring in her carseat so that we can fit her in it, and MAYBE do her carseat test (which all babies in the NICU have to pass before they can go home, they have to be able to sit in their carseat for an hour with all of their monitors on and have no problems).

I'm off to pump and squeeze in my nap before I head back to the hospital.

So its been a busy few days...

Wednesday morning I woke up when the doctor came in to check on me. I had been having contractions all day on tuesday. Tuesday evening the contractions were pretty strong, but eventually they had tapered off and eventually stopped. I had spotted a wee bit tuesday night, but by the time the periantologist came to check on me I was feeling pretty good. She left and I got out of bed, as soon as I stood I felt wetness. I didn't think too much about it, but it didn't stop. I took the few steps to the bathroom and by the time I did I was covered in blood. It was all over me, in the toilet and on the floor. I pulled the little cord next to the toilet and the nurses and periantologist came running back in. They surveyed the mess and pretty much decided on the spot that I was going to deliver. They were trying to guess how much blood there was, and they were guessing it was about 900cc's. So they called my main OB, and she rushed over. They got me back into bed, and tried to put the baby on the monitor (which was hard, because little miss thing kept squirming all over the place). While they did that, I reached over to call Mark and tell him that he better get to the hospital. He didn't answer his phone so I called his brother and asked him to stick his head into the bathroom to tell Mark to get out of the shower and to head over to the hospital. My OB showed up and did a quick ultrasound to determine how the baby was doing. My ob decided to hurry things up and started preping me for surgery. So I called Mark back (this time he answered) and told him that he needed to hurry up and get here because apparently the baby was coming, and she would be here SOON!

Mark arrived, and they handed him his bunny suit and told him to suit up. As soon as he was done they wheeled me off to the OR with Mark in tow. It was a little weird how fast everything happened. They got me into the OR and the anesthesologist arrived at 9:15 and got to work. The drugs made me feel completely out of it and really tired (apparently they were worried that since I had been calm so far at some point I would freak out so they gave me something to relax me). I remember my OB hugging me as they got the drugs started (which is unusual she isn't the most touchy feel-y of doctors). They laid me back and brought Mark in. He sat at my head and held the camera. he actually got video of Fiona being born! I pretty much laid back and closed my eyes waiting for things to get started. I could feel them pushing on my belly, but I didn't think they had started yet. Then at 9:30 (thats right, 15 minutes after I got into the OR) I heard the amazing sound of my daughter crying.  I looked over at Mark and asked if that was her, he was all teary and told me that it was (I'm not sure who else i thought would be crying in the OR). I told Mark to follow her and make sure everything was okay while they finished up with me.

So at 9:30am on July 15th; Fiona Mackenzie Heaps entered the world weighing 4lbs 14oz, and was 18 inches long.

They finished up with me and wheeled me into recovery. Recovery was pretty uneventful. I was thirsty but otherwise I didn't really have any side effects. I sat around chatting and eating ice chips while waiting for feeling to return to my lower body. Mark spent most of the time going back and forth between me and Fiona, he would bring me photos and videos of her so that I could see her. Finally 2 hours after she was born I got to see her. I couldn't hold her but I did get to hold her hand through the isolette. Its a little scary to see your baby in an isolette hooked up to oxygen with probes and iv's coming out of her.

They then took me back to my room where I spent the next few hours. Finally at 3pm they let Mark wheel me back over to the NICU and I got to spend some time with her. The next day at 11am was her first feeding; which Mark and I were both there for.



Holding her was the most amazing feeling and it was pretty much love at first sight.I spent the next 4 days spending as much time in the NICU as possible. My schedule was wake up; pump; order breakfast; sleep until breakfast arrived; eat; go to NICU; go back to my room; pump; eat; go back to NICU... you pretty much get the pattern. I was allowed to be up and walk, so I made the long walk to NICU at least 5 times a day and would spend at least an hour with her.

I dreaded leaving the hospital...once again with out a baby. I know it was not the same situation as Penelope but I would still be leaving the hospital with out her. When the time finally came it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it was still hard. Mark agreed that we would go home get me settled back into the house and we would get a bite to eat (woohoo something other then hospital food!) and then we would head back to the hospital.

Which has been the pattern pretty much since I got home. I try to spend as much time as possible at Good Sam as possible. She has grown and changed so much in the week and a half since she was born. Every day new progress is made and I look forward to seeing her and watching her grow. Even though she is doing great it is still an emotional roller coaster with her being there. We are anxious for her to come home, but at the same time the thought is scary. What if something goes wrong? She still has some work to do before she can come home, but hopefully it won't be too much longer. We will have to learn how to raise a preemie and all of the extra work that it takes. But it will be worth it to hold her in her room (her fabulous room that Mark worked on putting together) and to ahve her home.

So this morning I had more bleeding/spotting and more contractions. My doctors pretty much told me that I'm not going home. I kinda knew it was coming, but part of me hoped that I would get to go home at least for a few days.

A friend of mine gave me her netflix log on, so now I have more movies to watch. I'm hoping that I will get used to the increased dose of magnesium and the blurry vision goes away, then I will be able to read and play crosswords.

I do think its cute that our little girl already has a bit of a reputation amongst the nurses. The all know she is a night owl and squirmer. The evening monitoring is usually the hardest since she won't hold still. Any time I get a new nurse I will warn her that the baby like to make monitoring difficult, and their response is that they have already heard and been warned :) A reputation for being difficult, and not wanting to sit still before she even gets here! She is so my child.

Well the hopes that I would just be in the hospital a few days have pretty much been dashed. I was looking good I on thursday and there was talk of sending me home. Then thursday night I was video chatting with Mark I blacked out. I was laying down being monitored and the whole room got all weird and fuzzy and I managed to push the nurse call button before completely passing out. I scared the crap out of poor Mark who witnessed me passing out followed by nurses rushing in, oxygen being put on and them trying to revive me. Because of my heart condition they are limited on what drugs they can give me to stop the contractions. The one they used can cause hypotension, which is what happened. My blood pressure dropped and I passed out. During all of this my contractions started up again and were 2 minutes apart. So we pretty much knew I wasn't going home anytime soon.

( Read more... )
So ummm... incredibly long story short; its been an eventful and exhausting week.

So this pregnancy took an unexpected turn on sunday night.

We had a great 4th of July weekend hanging with friends, and I finished cleaning the house. Sunday was pretty chill. I watched Mrs. Potter while Mark played in the Santa Cruz hills in the morning, then we grabbed some lunch and pretty much relaxed.

As you can see from the photographic evidence there was much relaxing and suggling with the pups. I know; isn't tibi just too cute??? She likes to snuggle the belly when she gets the chance.



( Read more... )