Goody Ouchless Hairties

Love these little hair ties! They look great, hold my hair back, and seem to be everything I'd hope for in a hair tie. My only issue is how thick they are - if they come out with a thinner version, I'll be adding them to my shopping list!

Growing, growing, growing

The past few days have been a whirlwind. Let's start with last week...

Last Tuesday, Aaron had his 2 month checkup. At this appointment, he was only 9lb 6oz (birth weight was 9lb 5oz). His doctor was a bit concerned and scheduled a follow-up the following week. Hurricane Sandy put a kink in things and his appt got canceled (ya know, since it was in the middle of a hurricane). Long story short, we got screwed over by our insurance and had to see a different doctor at a different office (Quantico). At this appt, he was 9lb 9oz. I thought a 3oz gain in a week was good, but boy was I wrong. The doctor was incredibly concerned and after 3 hours at the doctor's office, we were sent to the hospital. 

The doctors ran all sorts of tests on his blood and urine, and all came back just fine, thank goodness. Best they can tell, my breastmilk just isn't doin the job. Either I'm not producing enough or it doesn't have enough calories in it; either way, we're now supplementing with formula. After a 2 day/2 night stay at the hospital, we were sent home. He weighed 10lb 4oz at discharge - almost a pound heavier than 2 days prior! The formula is doing wonders for him and he's already starting to chunk up a bit. Oh, and he's on meds to help his spitting up/throwing up, and it's helping a ton. 

The downside to all this is he loves bottles now, and not my boobs so much. I'm worried our breastfeeding journey is nearing an untimely end. But I'm ok with it now. He's doing so well with the formula, and it's nice not having that pressure of being the only foodsource. Definitely not giving up, but we'll see what happens.

Birth Announcements

I finally ordered Aaron's birth announcements today!

Aaron Folsom

Aaron Folsom Pritchard

Born August 23rd, 2012 at 3:22am

at Ft. Belvoir Community Hospital, Ft. Belvoir, VA

9 pounds, 5 ounces

21.25 inches long

A head full of dark brown hair and pretty blue eyes

(sorry - the pictures are all out of order!)

hospital!

hanging out in the room

our awesome delivery room

painful IV #1

right before they started everything



last kiss before it all started



monitoring baby

painful IV #2

view from our room

Grandfather & Grandson

my son!



sweet boy



hehe.

daddy & son

daddy & son

first mommy & baby picture

sleepy boys

feeling much better after a shower!

shhhh...sleeping baby

love

lil man with his awful IV and cute leg warmers





mommy & son



his very first picture!



father & son's first picture





finally headed home



Birth Story

Whoa - I'm way behind! A lot has happened in the last 2 months, but the most exciting thing is that our precious baby boy was finally born! So, here's the whole story...

Tuesday, August 21st - I was 41 weeks, 4 days pregnant and went to Ft. Belvoir Community Hospital to finally be induced. I wasn't even dilated to a full 1 cm so we knew it was going to be a long process. They (the doctors/nurses - we went through a ton of them, so I'll just refer to all hospital staff as "they/them") started me off with a dose a Cervadil - a gel they put on my cervix to soften and dilate. The first dose didn't do a whole lot, so they gave me a second dose after which I was finally 1 cm! Next, they put in a foley bulb (basically, a balloon they stick in my cervix to manually dilate it - definitely not comfortable!) which after 4 hours, finally got me dilated to a 4. As soon as they took it out, my water broke. Soon after, they started my pitocin. The contractions started to get really bad so I caved and got an epidural.

My original birth plan was completely thrown out the window. I didn't want to be induced, no epidural, no pitocin, no c-section. HA. What a joke.

The epi was wonderful, except at first it didn't take on my right side. They turned me so I was laying on that side and the medicine started working all over so things were great for a while. I was dozing off, just waiting to dilate more, when all of a sudden, several nurses & doctors rushed in, put an oxygen mask on me, and flipped me on my left side. Aaron's heart rate had dropped really low due to the pitocin, so they had to stop that (restarted it a while after). After a few minutes, they got us both stabilized and things were good again, except the epi was no longer working on my right side but they wouldn't let me roll over again for fear he would go into distress. The anesthesiologist came back and gave me several more doses of multiple drugs in an attempt to numb the right side, but nothing worked. They let me roll back over, thank goodness, and then my entire body from boobs to toes when completely numb! I couldn't feel ANYTHING - which was not what I wanted! At least it was better than the awful back contractions I had been having.

Around 1:00am on Thursday, August 23rd (remember, I was admitted on Tuesday...), I was finally dilated to a 10 and ready to push. We started the process with Jonathon on my left, Bunny (my favorite nurse - she was incredible - I couldn't have picked a better nurse to deliver me) on my right, a midwife coaching me, and my doctor checking on me every now and then. After 2 hours of pushing, we ended up with Jonathon, Bunny, 2 midwives, 2 doctors, a pediatrician, and at least 4 or 5 various other doctors/nurses/medical people (most of whom I "met" mid push. Talk about awkward first impressions!). The room was packed, I was delusional (at this point, I was running a high fever plus was all drugged up on who knows what) and completely exhausted. Around 3:00am, my doctor told me they were going to try the vacuum. He said I got one chance, and if that didn't work, then we were headed straight to the OR for an emergency C-section. I was terrified. Of all the things I didn't want, a c-section was at the top of the list. One doctor secured the vacuum on Aaron's head while another doctor tried to manually pull him out during the most intense pushes ever. At the very end (they ended up giving me 3 pushing sessions, not just one like he threatened), they cut me (a level 3 episiotomy), used the vacuum, pulled, and I pushed, and he was finally out!

While he was still inside, he had pooped and there was meconium inside me which meant that they would have to immediately attend to him. Thank goodness they explained it to me before I had him otherwise I would have lost my mind. They wouldn't let him breathe until they had cleared his passageways so he wouldn't breathe in the mec...which meant they wouldn't let him cry - the sound you always want to hear right after birth. The second he came out, they showed him to me, quickly cut the cord and took him straight to be taken care of. It seemed like forever, but he finally cried, let Jonathon cut the rest of the cord (they had cut it long so that he could cut it later - they wouldn't let him do the first cut cause of the meconium), the doc birthed the placenta, and brought my baby back to me. I got a whole hour with him and nursed him for the first time. He had a cute butt chin (a dimple!), a scrunched up face, long fingers and toes, and a cute little tush! While we were bonding (oh yea, Jonathon too!), the doctor was busy sewing me up - took him a full 45 minutes. I asked the nurse how many stitches, thinking she'd say something normal like 5 or 6. No.....she kinda giggled and said she lost count, but it was between 30 and 40! NOT what I was expecting to hear.

I mentioned before that I had a fever. Well, apparently I had an infection that caused the fever and Aaron had a fever too. This meant that we were both to have 48 hrs of antibiotics. After my hour of bonding, I went straight to sleep while they took him to the nursery to get fully checked out and start his antibiotics. When they brought him back, his little arm had a brace holding his IV in - it looked so awful and so painful on my tiny little man! Heck, my IV hurt like crazy, I can only imagine how painful his was. They got his fever down pretty quickly, but mine stayed high for several hours. I was pretty out of it for a while - I just remember a lot of nurses coming in and out, lots of sleep, my family coming in for a bit, and having to nurse frequently. I was in so much pain, Jonathon had to take care of me 100% for the next 24 hours. Every bathroom trip (talk about a good hubby - he did everything for me and didn't get grossed out or complain or anything), any food/water, anything I needed, he was there. I couldn't even pick Aaron up or roll over without him.

Saturday afternoon, we finally got discharged!

And those are the highlights! Perhaps I'll come back and add more details, but this is all the important stuff.

35 weeks, 2 days!

Of course, I'm way behind on posting as usual. So here's the highlights:

• I finally started my maternity leave as of July 2nd. I was going to work through that week (of July 4th, so I could still have the 4th off and get holiday pay, hehe), but my company isn't doing so hot so they decided to shut the plant down for that whole week, meaning I still got my holiday pay, plus a day or 2 of paid vaca that I was forced to take. Long story short, I got extra $$ and an extra week off. Woohoo! Some days, I wonder if it might be smart to go back for a few weeks once my mat leave is done, but then I think about leaving Aaron home with some stranger and it snaps me back into reality. 
• Both our cars are fully paid off! Made our last payment today on my car and was all psyched, until I looked at the big scary balance on my student loan. Talk about a buzz kill. Oh well, at least the cars and little bills are done!
• At my last appt, I was measuring a week ahead, so I'm measuring around 36.5 weeks - 37 weeks is full term, so basically he could come any time now and he'd be good to go! I asked my doc if he'd be big, and she said "well, I definitely don't think he'll be small". Yay?
• We almost have everything we need for Aaron's arrival! The few things I still need:
• wet bags for the cloth dipes (for upstairs & downstairs)
• a changing pad/cover for upstairs - finally got one for downstairs!
• a humidifier
• breathable bumpers for the big crib and mini crib
• disposable diaper liners for the cloth dipes, per hubby's request
• mini crib sheets that I have to special order
• crib bedding

Other than that, we're good to go! 

•  The nursery is finally coming together. The dresser/chest of drawers fit nicely; the changing table is set up; decorations look fantastic so far - only thing left is for hubs to put the crib together and move the TV out of the nursery and into the guest room. The closet system is AMAZING and is going to make my life so much easier.

baby legwarmers - i couldn't resist!

• Yesterday, I was in one of those weird "I have to rearrange the living room NOW" moods and hubby wasn't willing to help, so I moved our ultra-heavy couches all by myself....and now I'm really regretting it. I definitely overdid it, but Aaron's still kickin around and no other bad side effects other than I'm exhausted and sore, so I guess all is well. Not my brightest idea, but it is what it is. By the way, I'm much happier with our living room now :)
• The house is trashed. And by trashed, I mean, TRASHED. There's trash everywhere. Big boxes from the furniture, tags from baby clothes, plastic wrappers from misc baby items. It hurts to bend over and pick everything up, so I'm just waiting for my magic fairy to come take care of it all for me one night while I'm sleeping. I hope she hurries up, cause I'm so irritated just looking at it all!

No other news in my life at the moment, but I guess that's enough for now! 

29 weeks, 5 days

Woohoo, guess who DOESN'T have gestational diabetes! This girl right here. Yay :)

I went in on the 22nd for my three-hour test. It wasn't as bad as everyone said it would be, but it definitely wasn't enjoyable. Fasting for 12 hours, being stabbed 8 times (most of which were in my hand, in the same vein, and hit every nerve possible), and drinking the ultra-sugary fruit punch isn't a recipe for a good time, but really, it wasn't all that bad. My doctor called 2 days later and almost gave me a panic attack (my doctor never calls unless there's a problem), but it ended up being good news - only one of the 4 blood draws was high which means I'm GD-free! 

I've officially decided to start my maternity leave on July 6th - so in about 5 weeks. It seems like the best date to me - especially since the last week will only be a 4-day week and I'll get holiday pay for July 4th...heck yea (yes, I totally planned it this way). 

And in other news....I got a pretty new cell phone today. I'm extra excited because this one has a forward-facing camera. Never really cared about one before, but I've been wanting one recently so that then Aaron's born, I can Skype with my momma and daddy...and hubby if I'm ever away from him for any amount of time.  Time to go play with it! 

Pictures coming later, seeing as how all my pictures were on my old phone....