Watching football with daddy... hook em!
When the arms go limp, you know you've got a good sleep.
Napping with daddy!
Sleep face.
Practicing lifting my head is hard!
I think I can, I think I can....
I give up.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
Heiko's First Bath!
Heiko lost his cord stump about a week ago, and today we gave him his first bath. He didn't like sponge bathing so much, so we didn't know what to expect... but he loved it! He sat in the water and looked around with wide eyes, no complaints at all. =) And now he is super relaxed and napping with daddy. Here's our little bathing boy!
First Walk in the Park!
Heiko loves walks in the park! We have been quite a few times now, it is so nice to get out and enjoy this gorgeous weather and get some fresh air. Heiko sleeps like a champ through the whole thing, he likes his carseat a lot. =)
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Heiko's Birth Story
Well, after our long post-version weekend, we had a nice little c-section scheduled for September 16th. It was so exciting to know when we were finally going to be meeting our little Schnitzel! Well, Schnitzel had other plans.
I had Monday and Tuesday off, so I spent Tuesday night making to-do lists... the many things I needed to do to get my class and my sub ready for my maternity leave. We went to bed as usual, and at 1:00am I hobbled to the bathroom as usual. I hobbled back into bed, and started drifting back to sleep. At 1:15, I was startled awake by a "pop" down there... followed by a gush. I knew I hadn't wet my pants... I had just gone to the bathroom! So that left only one other option; my water had broken. I woke Jonas up and told him the news, and we realized we were about to have a baby. I was so excited I couldn't stop smiling, Jonas was a little nervous. We had only halfway packed a hospital bag, so we ran around the house throwing in this and that, and then headed off to the hospital; just the two of us for the last time.
The hospital we delivered at is only about 10 blocks from our house, so we got there pretty quickly, got admitted, and got ready to have our baby! By the time we got to the hospital, I started having contractions. They were about 30 seconds long, about 4 minutes apart, and much more bearable than the 4 minute vomit-inducing contractions I had over the weekend. By 3:30am I was on the operating table. The anesthesiologist administered a spinal (ouch!) and away went all feeling below my chest, but in came the shakes. The combination of the drugs and the freezing cold temperatures of the operating room made my arms and hands shake uncontrollably. It was a very uncomfortable feeling, so I was ready for them to start slicing and dicing! The doctors began their quest for Schnitzel, and I couldn't feel pain at all, but I could feel something. It was such a strange sensation, very difficult to describe. Jonas was by my side the whole time, encouraging me and anxiously awaiting the arrival of our baby boy. At one point the anesthesiologist asked Jonas if he wanted to see when the baby came. Jonas took this to mean when the baby was all the way out. That is not what he meant. The doctor pulled Jonas up to look over the curtain in the middle of the process of pulling baby out, and Jonas immediately sat down, eyes wide, all color drained from his face. The doctor didn't try to pull that move again.
At 4:12am the doctors said, "here he is!" and held Heiko Bode Philipsen up over the curtain. We got to see our baby for the first time, and it was indescribably beautiful. He was this perfect little thing with 2 arms, 2 legs, and a perfect little head. He even let out a little cry for us! Jonas went with him over to the table where the nurses bundled him up and handed him over to daddy. I couldn't touch him, but Jonas was able to keep him right up by my face, and even through my tears of joy I could see that he was perfect in every way.
After they fixed me up, we were taken to the recovery room where I was finally able to hold my baby boy. From the second he came out, he started suckling motions and noises (and that hasn't let up since)! So the first thing we did in recovery was nurse, and our little pro latched on right away. After they had sufficient time to monitor my vitals, they took us to our mother/baby room where we would spend the next few days.
It has been amazing getting to know this perfect little creature. We are thrilled to have started a new leg in our life journey!
*We got a new camera, so be ready for a barrage of Heiko pictures.*
I had Monday and Tuesday off, so I spent Tuesday night making to-do lists... the many things I needed to do to get my class and my sub ready for my maternity leave. We went to bed as usual, and at 1:00am I hobbled to the bathroom as usual. I hobbled back into bed, and started drifting back to sleep. At 1:15, I was startled awake by a "pop" down there... followed by a gush. I knew I hadn't wet my pants... I had just gone to the bathroom! So that left only one other option; my water had broken. I woke Jonas up and told him the news, and we realized we were about to have a baby. I was so excited I couldn't stop smiling, Jonas was a little nervous. We had only halfway packed a hospital bag, so we ran around the house throwing in this and that, and then headed off to the hospital; just the two of us for the last time.
The hospital we delivered at is only about 10 blocks from our house, so we got there pretty quickly, got admitted, and got ready to have our baby! By the time we got to the hospital, I started having contractions. They were about 30 seconds long, about 4 minutes apart, and much more bearable than the 4 minute vomit-inducing contractions I had over the weekend. By 3:30am I was on the operating table. The anesthesiologist administered a spinal (ouch!) and away went all feeling below my chest, but in came the shakes. The combination of the drugs and the freezing cold temperatures of the operating room made my arms and hands shake uncontrollably. It was a very uncomfortable feeling, so I was ready for them to start slicing and dicing! The doctors began their quest for Schnitzel, and I couldn't feel pain at all, but I could feel something. It was such a strange sensation, very difficult to describe. Jonas was by my side the whole time, encouraging me and anxiously awaiting the arrival of our baby boy. At one point the anesthesiologist asked Jonas if he wanted to see when the baby came. Jonas took this to mean when the baby was all the way out. That is not what he meant. The doctor pulled Jonas up to look over the curtain in the middle of the process of pulling baby out, and Jonas immediately sat down, eyes wide, all color drained from his face. The doctor didn't try to pull that move again.
At 4:12am the doctors said, "here he is!" and held Heiko Bode Philipsen up over the curtain. We got to see our baby for the first time, and it was indescribably beautiful. He was this perfect little thing with 2 arms, 2 legs, and a perfect little head. He even let out a little cry for us! Jonas went with him over to the table where the nurses bundled him up and handed him over to daddy. I couldn't touch him, but Jonas was able to keep him right up by my face, and even through my tears of joy I could see that he was perfect in every way.
After they fixed me up, we were taken to the recovery room where I was finally able to hold my baby boy. From the second he came out, he started suckling motions and noises (and that hasn't let up since)! So the first thing we did in recovery was nurse, and our little pro latched on right away. After they had sufficient time to monitor my vitals, they took us to our mother/baby room where we would spend the next few days.
It has been amazing getting to know this perfect little creature. We are thrilled to have started a new leg in our life journey!
*We got a new camera, so be ready for a barrage of Heiko pictures.*
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Monday, September 5, 2011
Giving Labor Day weekend a new meaning.
Wow, what a roller coaster the last few days have been. This might not be one of my happier pregnancy posts, although I'll start by saying that Schnitzel and I are fine and dandy now, back to normal.
It all started Friday with the version procedure. I had a bad feeling about this procedure from the beginning when it was first presented to us as an option for flipping our breech boy. It just didn't feel right, and maybe I should have trusted my instincts... but alas, hindsight is 20/20, you can't turn back time, and I was happy at the time with the decision to try anything to get him to turn.
The procedure was awful. Terribly painful and traumatizing for both Jonas and I, and as I'll explain later, my uterus too. One of the doctors was a very nice woman who explained everything thoroughly, made us feel comfortable, but told us beforehand that she wasn't hopeful it would work because of my small size and athletic build (Thank you, doctor. For a girl with 30 new pounds she's never known before, those words were music to my ears.). Then the other doctor came in. The biggest man doctor I have ever seen. His hands were the size of frying pans. Those frying pans were about to turn my tiny little baby. Well.... it didn't work. I hung in there for about 2 1/2 attempts before crying uncle, but Schnitzel was not going to budge. Jonas, who got to witness the whole thing (or HAD to witness the whole thing), said that his head only moved from about 11 oclock to 9 oclock, and then bounced right back to 11. It was incredibly painful, I vowed I would never do it again, but I didn't regret trying. That would come later.
Now we get to the traumatized uterus. They monitored me at the hospital after the unsuccessful version, and Schnitzel and I both seemed fine. So 30 minutes later they sent us on our merry way, Jonas went back to work, and I went to rest on the couch and recover from the horror. At midnight, after one of my many nightly bathroom visits, I got a really painful cramping/contracting sensation in my lower abdomen and around my back. This was the start of a very long 36 hours.
36 hours of false/pre/early labor; the doctors had many different names for what was happening. For the most part, my contractions were 10 minutes apart during those 36 hours. A couple of times I would have a 30 minute break with no contractions, and at other times I would contract every 2 minutes for an hour. Some of the contractions were manageable and I was able to breathe through them, others were so intense that I was on my hands and knees screaming, crying, and at the worst, even throwing up. We went in 3 different times to Labor and Delivery to try and figure out what was going on, and it turns out my uterus had become quite irritated from the version, and possibly some labor hormones had been released prematurely, which had put me into false/pre/early labor. The contractions were intensely strong at times, but they were not causing my cervix to dilate. So we were in this no-man's land of labor. My uterus would either finally calm and heal and the labor would stop, or the contractions would continue and cause me to dilate, which would lead to a c-section at 4 centimeters.
Well, I never made it past 1 1/2 centimeters after many hours and days, (Jonas and I had no idea what day it was come Sunday), and the contractions kept coming. Hence the multiple hospital visits... we just had to wait in our zone of confusion and see what would transpire. I cursed the day I decided to mess with my uterus (the evil External Cephalic Version). At the 3rd visit, the one where the contractions were so strong I was vomiting, they put me in a morphine-induced sleep. The first 4 hours I still felt my contractions every 5 minutes, but then they finally slowed and stopped and I was able to sleep for about 4-5 hours. When I woke up, the contractions were gone. Every contraction-free hour that went by added more and more relief. And now here we are, almost 24 hours later, and I am feeling back to normal. Phew.
Schnitzel was fine throughout the whole ordeal. His heart rate never changed, and he was wiggling and kicking like everything was normal... although I'm sure he probably heard some new noises coming from his mother.
So, our little Schnitzel gets to cook for a bit longer, 11 more days to be exact. Our scheduled c-section (barring any additional surprise bouts of labor) is for September 16th, 10:30am. After all the craziness of the last 3 days, today I celebrate Labor Day with a whole new perspective. Rest well, laborers of all kinds!
It all started Friday with the version procedure. I had a bad feeling about this procedure from the beginning when it was first presented to us as an option for flipping our breech boy. It just didn't feel right, and maybe I should have trusted my instincts... but alas, hindsight is 20/20, you can't turn back time, and I was happy at the time with the decision to try anything to get him to turn.
The procedure was awful. Terribly painful and traumatizing for both Jonas and I, and as I'll explain later, my uterus too. One of the doctors was a very nice woman who explained everything thoroughly, made us feel comfortable, but told us beforehand that she wasn't hopeful it would work because of my small size and athletic build (Thank you, doctor. For a girl with 30 new pounds she's never known before, those words were music to my ears.). Then the other doctor came in. The biggest man doctor I have ever seen. His hands were the size of frying pans. Those frying pans were about to turn my tiny little baby. Well.... it didn't work. I hung in there for about 2 1/2 attempts before crying uncle, but Schnitzel was not going to budge. Jonas, who got to witness the whole thing (or HAD to witness the whole thing), said that his head only moved from about 11 oclock to 9 oclock, and then bounced right back to 11. It was incredibly painful, I vowed I would never do it again, but I didn't regret trying. That would come later.
Now we get to the traumatized uterus. They monitored me at the hospital after the unsuccessful version, and Schnitzel and I both seemed fine. So 30 minutes later they sent us on our merry way, Jonas went back to work, and I went to rest on the couch and recover from the horror. At midnight, after one of my many nightly bathroom visits, I got a really painful cramping/contracting sensation in my lower abdomen and around my back. This was the start of a very long 36 hours.
36 hours of false/pre/early labor; the doctors had many different names for what was happening. For the most part, my contractions were 10 minutes apart during those 36 hours. A couple of times I would have a 30 minute break with no contractions, and at other times I would contract every 2 minutes for an hour. Some of the contractions were manageable and I was able to breathe through them, others were so intense that I was on my hands and knees screaming, crying, and at the worst, even throwing up. We went in 3 different times to Labor and Delivery to try and figure out what was going on, and it turns out my uterus had become quite irritated from the version, and possibly some labor hormones had been released prematurely, which had put me into false/pre/early labor. The contractions were intensely strong at times, but they were not causing my cervix to dilate. So we were in this no-man's land of labor. My uterus would either finally calm and heal and the labor would stop, or the contractions would continue and cause me to dilate, which would lead to a c-section at 4 centimeters.
Well, I never made it past 1 1/2 centimeters after many hours and days, (Jonas and I had no idea what day it was come Sunday), and the contractions kept coming. Hence the multiple hospital visits... we just had to wait in our zone of confusion and see what would transpire. I cursed the day I decided to mess with my uterus (the evil External Cephalic Version). At the 3rd visit, the one where the contractions were so strong I was vomiting, they put me in a morphine-induced sleep. The first 4 hours I still felt my contractions every 5 minutes, but then they finally slowed and stopped and I was able to sleep for about 4-5 hours. When I woke up, the contractions were gone. Every contraction-free hour that went by added more and more relief. And now here we are, almost 24 hours later, and I am feeling back to normal. Phew.
Schnitzel was fine throughout the whole ordeal. His heart rate never changed, and he was wiggling and kicking like everything was normal... although I'm sure he probably heard some new noises coming from his mother.
So, our little Schnitzel gets to cook for a bit longer, 11 more days to be exact. Our scheduled c-section (barring any additional surprise bouts of labor) is for September 16th, 10:30am. After all the craziness of the last 3 days, today I celebrate Labor Day with a whole new perspective. Rest well, laborers of all kinds!
Thursday, September 1, 2011
I love your baby.
There is something to be said about the natural maternal instincts of a woman, and apparently the instincts of little girls too. Random little girls that I don't know all over school have been smiling at me, waving at me, and giving me the cutest looks of awe you've ever seen. I've gotten quite a few random "I like your baby" comments from little girls, and lots of inquisitive questions about him, but yesterday's sweet moment takes the cake. As I was walking to pick my students up from lunch, a random little girl came up and hugged me, rubbed my belly longingly, looked up at me and said, "I love your baby." It was the most darling thing. I told her, "I love him too."
And I do! Today marks the point where our boy is full term, so he could come any day now and would be expected to thrive. Technically we still have 3 weeks until our due date though, and the longer he stays in, the more weight he will gain and the stronger his lungs will become. So, no rush, Schnitzel. Plus I have a gazillion things to do at work to prepare for my long-term sub to take over. Everyone tells me I won't care once the baby is here, and that the kids will get along fine without me, but I just can't help but obsess over making sure things are perfectly in place. Does it count as nesting if you are preparing for 25 children that aren't your own?
We had to go back to the doctor today to check on our breech boy (although after this week we would have started weekly appointments anyway), and sure enough he is still breech (which we already knew since you can pretty much see him through my stomach). The midwife strongly suggested that we attempt the ECV turning procedure, and even asked us, "what are you waiting for?" So, alas, tomorrow morning we check into labor and delivery to see if this little booger will turn. Fingers crossed! Think happy thoughts of little pain, and happy baby. If he turns, super! But if not, that's okay too. =)
The midwife was surprised today when she found Schnitzel's heart rate so low on my stomach compared to his head, and suspects that we have a long baby. Then when Jonas stood up, she wasn't so surprised anymore. If you haven't made your guesses for the baby pool yet, there's a little nugget of info for ya! http://bebepool.com/BabySchnitzel
And I do! Today marks the point where our boy is full term, so he could come any day now and would be expected to thrive. Technically we still have 3 weeks until our due date though, and the longer he stays in, the more weight he will gain and the stronger his lungs will become. So, no rush, Schnitzel. Plus I have a gazillion things to do at work to prepare for my long-term sub to take over. Everyone tells me I won't care once the baby is here, and that the kids will get along fine without me, but I just can't help but obsess over making sure things are perfectly in place. Does it count as nesting if you are preparing for 25 children that aren't your own?
We had to go back to the doctor today to check on our breech boy (although after this week we would have started weekly appointments anyway), and sure enough he is still breech (which we already knew since you can pretty much see him through my stomach). The midwife strongly suggested that we attempt the ECV turning procedure, and even asked us, "what are you waiting for?" So, alas, tomorrow morning we check into labor and delivery to see if this little booger will turn. Fingers crossed! Think happy thoughts of little pain, and happy baby. If he turns, super! But if not, that's okay too. =)
The midwife was surprised today when she found Schnitzel's heart rate so low on my stomach compared to his head, and suspects that we have a long baby. Then when Jonas stood up, she wasn't so surprised anymore. If you haven't made your guesses for the baby pool yet, there's a little nugget of info for ya! http://bebepool.com/BabySchnitzel
In the last week, I've gained 3 pounds... I swear I only ate ONE doughnut.
Most of my shirts give under-belly peep show now.
Dropping things is my worst enemy.
Jonas won't leave the iron on the floor once Schnitzel is mobile, he promises.
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