Friday, January 22, 2010

Holy Moly it's been a long time!

Sorry about that. Life got crazy with the holidays and a ton of family coming into town. Adam and I went back to work on January 4 and Darren started at daycare.

Wednesday marked Darren's 10 week mark! Last Friday he had his two month check up. The last time he was weighed and measured was when he was three weeks. At that time, he weighed 8lbs 5oz and was still measuring at 19.5 inches. Last week, he weighed in at 10lbs 5oz and measured 23.5 inches!!! Can't believe how much this little guy has been growing! He eats all the time, especially when he's home from school. He's been smiling more and more, and is alert much more than he is asleep. He has been sleeping through the night since he was 4 weeks old....we are truly blessed with a good little guy! We both love him so very much!

Here are some pics from the past month.
Sleeping on Thanksgiving morning while mom and dad prep dinner.

Mommy, Uncle Sam and Darren

Tarot snuggling with her boy.

Darren and Daddy after bath time (ducky towel provided by GeeGee and Great Papa)

Cousin Jason came to visit.

All bundled up to deliver goodies to the neighbors.

Hanging out

Mommy and Darren on Mommy's birthday

Christmas jammies

Bathtime at Grandmommy's house

First day of school

Puppy outfit

Happy boy

Darren and Mommy

Airplane

Sucking his thumb

Smiley boy!

Monday, December 7, 2009

SNOW!!!

We have snow!!! In 24 hours, we have received more than 2 feet of snow!!! Adam came to bed around 1a.m. and mentioned we had about a foot. It was wonderful to wake up this morning at 8a.m. to 18 inches or so!

Darren before I bundled him up

It's cold out there boy! Here's a kiss to keep you warm!

Darren after I bundled him up in a snow suit that was given to us by a friend (before he was born, so it's actually for a girl)

Daddy taking a break from shoveling

Family Snow Photo

King of the Snow Hill

Helped by Dad, of course!


It would be nice to get some more snow over night, but we'll have to see if that happens. Tomorrow it's expected to be sunny, with the low being 8 degrees and the high being 28 degrees.

Hope everyone is enjoying whatever weather they are having. I know this little family is!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Welcome to the world, little one!

On November 11, at 11:45 am our son, Darren Keaton Plain, was born! I realized I haven't posted an official blog about his birth, and thought it would be appropriate to do so before Thanksgiving since I am so incredibly thankful for our amazing boy!

On November 10, Adam and I checked into the hospital where I was scheduled to be induced. The first step was to have a medication called Cytotek placed on my cervix to help with dilation and effacement. We started the process at 9pm and finished it at about 6:30am (My mom was there until about 11pm, when we realized nothing exciting was going to happen that night. We sent her home to get some sleep so she'd be fresh when we got things going in the morning). After that, I was given a dose of Pitocin to start my contractions.

Waiting anxiously to get started with the Pitocin


After having a few small contractions, the nurse came in to monitor the baby. Turns out the little one REALLY did not like it when I had contractions and protested by bringing his heartbeat down to 50 bpm (normal baby heart rate is 120 to 160 bpm). The nurse took me off the Pitocin after 20 minutes and told me the baby was showing signs of stress and that we were going to hold off on inducing until after she had spoken with my doctor. We continued monitoring the baby's heart rate and found he also did not like me getting up to go to the bathroom. When I would lay down again and put the monitor back on, the nurses would come back into the room within seconds to monitor him. My mother-in-law, Sally, made it to the hospital shortly after I was taken off the Pitocin since we had asked her to be in the room with us when the baby was born. Well, things definitely changed from there!

The doctor came in a few hours later to talk with us about our options. Basically, the baby was showing all the signs of stress that a baby shows after mom has been in labor for 15 hours and being close to being born, not only a short time of very early labor. The doctor did not feel comfortable with us putting the baby through more stress from labor and then possibly have to have an emergency c-section, so we decided to go ahead with a scheduled c-section early in labor. I was scheduled to go into the OR at 11:15. At 11:10 the nurse came and got me ready to go.

Silly hat for surgery? Check!


I walked in to the OR where they started prepping me and I met the anesthesiologist. He put in my spinal block and then I laid back on the table and waited for my husband (They only let one person in the OR for the actual procedure. It was a no brainer on who it was going to be!) to come in as my body got more and more numb.

Adam prepping for the surgery



Adam and I nervously chatted while we waited for the baby to finally be out. The anesthesiologist told us we had about 10 minutes to baby time...and I swear, not 1 minute later we heard our baby crying and the doctor tell us "It's a boy!" We got the brief glimpse of our little man before they took him to clean him up. Then they brought him to us.

Hi Mommy!

Our first family photo

Close up of our little man


After Darren was cleaned up and we took pictures as a family, Adam took him to the nursery for his tests and I stayed to get stitched up and moved to the recovery room. Normally, new moms would stay in recovery by themselves until they can wiggle their toes (usually about an hour), but I asked if my mom could come in and stay with me while I was in there. It wasn't their normal policy, but they went and got my mom and we had a nice visit for about 10 minutes before Adam brought Darren in! Turns out, he kept putting his fists in his mouth while he was in the nursery, so the nurses said he needed to go be with mom for bonding and eating. He latched right on and I just stared at him and cried over our blessing. The four of us (Adam, my mom, Darren and I) got to hang out in the recovery room for about 45 minutes or so before I could wiggle my toes and go back to my room.

It's a boy!!! The nurses had a great time showing him off to the "grandparent paparazzi"

Daddy and Darren in the nursery





When we got back to our room, we had many visitors: Grandmommy Kathie and Grumpa Shawn, Grandma Sally and Grandpa Doug, Uncle Sam and Great Grammy. Everyone got to hold little Darren and took pictures with him. Mommy, Daddy and Darren got some rest after everyone left, and then our friends, Josh and Katrina (and of course, little Jack, who unfortunately wasn't allowed to come in the room) came to visit. Even though Jack weighed the same as Darren when he was born, Katrina couldn't believe he was ever that small!

We had a great first night just the three of us. Daddy changed all of the diapers because I couldn't get out of bed yet. It wasn't until very early Thursday morning (like around 1a.m.) before the nurse got me up to stretch, and I didn't get taken off the IV, foley catheter and leg compression machine (to prevent blood clots) until about 8a.m. It was very slow going, so I stayed in bed most of the time except to use the bathroom and stretch. Friday I was VERY ready to go home, and got my staples out before I could be released.

That's our hospital/birth story...before I get out of here to go feed the little one, here are a few more pictures of our little guy!

Darren in the recovery room with Mommy

Trying on the hat great grandma GeeGee made for him


The "going home" outfit...we ended up taking off the green mittens. They didn't stay on very well!

Not too sure about this whole car seat thing

Monday, November 9, 2009

Induction

Well, went to the doctor today and still only made very minimal progress as far as my cervix dropping and opening. Adam and I had gone over our options and weighed each one over the past week and decided to go for the induction this week.

So, tomorrow at 7pm we will check into the hospital where I will be set up on an IV and monitoring system. Then I will be given a tablet (not sure if it will be orally or another way) of a prostaglandin based drug to help soften my cervix and help with effacement and dilation. After four hours of monitoring, they will give me a second dose of the drug, which will be followed another four hours later by my first dose of pitocin, an oxytocin based drug that will take me pretty quickly into hard labor. We'll go from there! There is no telling how well my body will react to either drug, how long I will be on the pitocin, or if we will have to do a c-section or not.

I am so totally excited to know that by Wednesday I will be holding my little baby in my arms instead of wrapping my arms around my belly! But I have to admit, I am extremely nervous and anxious about the whole thing. Good thoughts tomorrow and Wednesday would be greatly appreciated by all!

The next time I update this will most likely be with pictures of the new addition to the family!!!

Friday, November 6, 2009

Due date has come...

...and gone!

I am now three days past my due date and am feeling VERY anxious and VERY ready to have this little one! I've been having some contractions and cramping, but nothing that stays consistent through the night. They are always consistent during the day when I'm awake, but when I lay down, not so much.

Not really sure what else to post today. Hopefully I'll have an update with happy news soon!

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Baby's Room

Yay!!! The baby's room is 95% complete! We just have a shelf to hang over the changing table and then we're done. So, I thought I would post the pics of the room, including the custom piece of artwork that I made out of three gift bags from the baby shower and a few pieces of tissue paper.

The dresser and hutch in the baby's room.


A closer view of the hutch. The top of the hutch is lined with all of the different rubber duckies from my baby shower.


My favorite rubber ducky has to be the Cat Ducky.


That's a long line of duckies!


I just love this Ducky bank! A client of mine gave it to me. I love that it has a toy chicken next to it!


A sweet little plant I picked up from one of my favorite little stores in downtown Carson.


The baby's crib, complete with the artwork I created tonight.


A closer view of the artwork I created.


A peek into the crib.


Rubber Ducky pictures on the wall above the light switch.


The comfy chair to comfort little Boss. We have a glider in our room for those late night feedings!


I picked up this sweet little chair at a garage sale for $3!!! It matches the rest of the furniture perfectly!


We're at the end of only 5 days left before my due date. Yesterday was my official last day at work. I'm hoping that by being off and really being able to relax/go into nesting mode will help this baby move down into position so we can get the show on the road! I bought an exercise ball today. They are good for doubling as birthing balls, and if you sit on them and bounce gently, they are also supposed to help the baby move into position. I bounced for an hour today.

Adam's parents bought us a camcorder for our Baby Shower gift. We went and picked it out today. It's charging right now, but I'm looking forward to playing around with it tomorrow. We're also going to finish cleaning the rest of the house. Adam wants to take everything out of the garage tomorrow and organize everything. We also had some mice staying with us for awhile, so he's going to clean that mess up, too. While he does that, I'll be super cleaning the fridge and pantry. I'm going to take everything out of the fridge, wipe it all down from top to bottom and then only put back the good stuff. In the pantry, I want to take everything off the shelves and reorganize it so I can actually find what I want.

Today, October 31, is technically not Halloween for Carson City. Because Nevada was admitted into the Union on October 31, 1864, the state of Nevada, and more specifically, Carson City, celebrates Nevada Day instead. What does this mean for us as far as trick-or-treaters go? Well, Carson City had it's "official" trick-or-treating night yesterday. How did it go? Since we live in THE neighborhood for trick-or-treating, we had an amazing turn out! Between 6pm and 8pm, we had 234 kids show up! We went through four COSTCO sized bags of candy. We had to shut down at 8pm because we ran out of candy! Between 7:20 and 7:30 alone, we had 63 kids!!!! The best costumes of the night went to the KISS army and the Pacman accompanied by his Ghost friend from the video game. It was a great night and we had a great time passing out candy with our friends Josh and Katrina (who brought their 3 month old, Jack, who was dressed up as a dinosaur).

That's it for now. Hope everyone is having a great weekend and I'll keep you all updated about when Boss decides to make an appearance!

 
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