Two+ weeks

Piper turned two weeks old yesterday! We celebrated the day feeling exhausted and out of it, after a night that passed by in its entirety without any sleep for the three of us. I think she had gas, as she seemed to just not be able to get comfortable and we could hear the bubbles gurgling inside of her, but burping her wasn't productive. Luckily, she (and therefore we) slept pretty well last night so Reid and I were able to recuperate a bit. It's a good thing they make babies so cute and lovable because it definitely makes this process tolerable, and somehow, even enjoyable. Here's a picture of the little cutie from last week ...

Piper also had her two week doctor's appointment yesterday and she impressed the pediatrician by rolling back and forth on the examination table. He should have seen her climb over her tummy time play mat at 6 days old, but I digress ... anyway, she's up to 7 pounds 7 ounces, which is great because apparently babies are supposed to be at or above their birth weight by two weeks. Her jaundice is gone and everything looks good! As usual, we had lots of questions for the pediatrician ... is the fact that she sneezes a lot normal? Yes, she's still getting rid of amniotic fluid from her nostrils. Since her cord fell off of her belly button last week, when can we give her a real bath? Last night was his answer, but since Reid and I were tired, we opted to just do a sponge bath. That has become familiar and we're pretty quick at it, but tomorrow we'll break out her new tub. Is the rash on her left hand normal? Actually, it looks like it's a birth mark, but one that will likely fade by 5 years of age. Since Reid is gluten intolerant, when do we test her? Not until she's eating wheat, or probably at about 12 months. And should I avoid peanuts while I'm breast feeding? The answer to this made me happy - since we don't have a family history, I shouldn't be too worried about having to avoid peanuts. I forget what else we asked, but it's amazing to feel so clueless about someone so tiny. Two weeks in, I feel totally confident that we can handle this whole process, but I feel like we have SO much to learn all the time.

Last week another important milestone passed for us - the anniversary of last summer's miscarriage came and went at the end of last week. I thought about it and remembered what it felt like last summer, but I didn't get overwhelmed with sadness and I finally felt completely healed. I'm sure I'll never forget, but it's a huge relief to feel like that chapter in our lives is closed, and more importantly, that I finally feel at peace with everything. When we did miscarry, a few of my friends got us a beautiful hydrangea bush. All of the flowers bloomed on it last week and it's gorgeous.

Since Piper is sleeping, I'm going to try to get a quick cat nap in as well. Everyone says sleep when the baby sleeps, but I do think that's easier said than done. If you do that, when do you shower? Unload the dishwasher? Check email? Blog? Hmm ... I'm clearly still figuring this whole balancing act out, and once I do, I hope to have the posts become a bit more energetic and frequent again!

Way overdo post ...

It's amazing how the time has flown over the past ten days and how my desire to communicate went on a hiatus. I have spent so little time on the phone or online since Piper was born ... I just haven't been able to take my eyes off of our new little angel and have been enjoying every minute with her. Plus we had a 48 hour speed bump with jaundice and had to go back to the hospital so Piper could get some photo therapy to lower her bilirubin levels so that was a stressful experience and I feel like we needed to adjust to being back home with her again. But now all is well with her and with us and I'm ready to share what was an unbelievable experience 10 days ago today. Here's the play by play ...

July 6, 2009

6:00 am - The alarm goes off and I hop in the shower before heading in for our scheduled induction. I was excited, nervous, happy, scared - so many emotions at once and needing to get last minute things together. Reid slept until I was out of the shower and then he got going as well.

7:15 - When we should have left for the hospital to be on time. I'm getting antsy.

7:20 - When we actually left. I hate being late, but we did the best we could. At least my angst of being late served as a good distraction for all of the other emotions we were feeling!

7:35 - Reid drops me off at the hospital entrance and I go upstairs to check in. They're immediately ready for me and I meet the two nurses (one finishing up her training and then her teacher - both are super chipper and nice and I feel immediately comfortable) that will help us through the labor and delivery process. They lead me down to our room and I get changed into a gown and Reid comes upstairs with our first load of stuff. Yes our hospital packing list was long and we packed more than we needed, but I wouldn't change that. It was nice to not have to wish that we'd brought something. My mom arrived too and I was super happy to have her and Reid there for the whole process.

8:30 - The midwife comes in and checks me. Still 4 cm dilated and 80 percent effaced. We decide that she'll break my water and see if that will get things going. Next thing I now, the water is broken. Wow, no going back now! After that, I get out of bed and start doing laps in the hospital wing. Contractions started and they were no big deal at all. I was all smiles and thinking that this whole deal wasn't that bad. I mean, the first 4 cm happened without me really ever being very uncomfortable. How bad can this be? I was worried it was going to get tough, but on and on we walked.

9:15 - The baby looked like she (ok, so we didn't know sex then, but now that Piper is Piper, there's no way I can call her an it!) was hanging out on the right side of my uterus so they decided to try to get her to spin around by having me kneel with my stomach on ice and a warm pack on my back. The theory here is that the baby heads away from the ice and toward the heat to get into a better position to come out. It's an interesting theory and spinningbabies.com covers it well. After 30 minutes of this, I got back up and started walking and the contractions really set in. From here, they got stronger and I was no longer smiling the whole time during my walks around the wing. When each one came, I would stand against the wall and take deep breaths with my eyes closed. I could tell Reid felt helpless, but I really needed to just deal with each contraction in my own way, which was independently and internally - typical of how I deal with all pain (emotional and physical)!

12:30ish pm - I'm guessing on time now since I pretty much stopped looking at the clock, but at some point, I had a cherry popsicle since that was all I was allowed to eat besides ice chips and I was starving. By this point, the contractions were getting really tough and we asked when it was too late to get an epidural because I didn't want to miss that window. I forget the answer ... at some point, my OB came in to check on us and he advised that we just order it. Things were clearly only getting worse so why not get a bit more comfortable.

Soon thereafter, the back labor set in and holy hell it was the worst pain I have ever experienced or could have imagined. When the contractions were in the front, they were tolerable. I mean, they sucked by that point, but they didn't make me feel like I was dying. The ones that were in my back though were unreal. They were HORRENDOUS and made me sick to my stomach. The anesthesiologist was called and it would be about a half hour before he could come up. I thought I knew who it was going to be - a Dartmouth alum whom I had met originally when I had the D&C for the miscarriage. I was hoping he would be the one to do the epidural since it would be comforting to see a friendly face. Alas, the good doctor arrives (and yes it's the one we were hoping for!), we discuss the procedure (in between contractions, which are so terrible I can't really concentrate) and then he gets to work. Now, it was well worth it, but to get the epidural, I had to lay on my left side, which caused tonic contractions. It was 4-5 minutes of constant back labor contractions and the pain was so terrible that I threw up my red popsicle and everything else in my stomach. Finally, the worst was over. The epidural started working almost immediately and I entered a state of painfree euphoria. The change was unbelievable, and since I was able to chat and mak jokes again, Reid started taking pictures. You can tell the pain is GONE because I was able to ham it up for the camera around while eating my ice chips :-)

1:45 pm - The midwife comes back in to check to see how dilated I am - 10 cm. Fully dilated. Time to push and become parents. I was a bit shocked to be honest. I'd only had the epidural for 20 or 30 minutes at that point and all of a sudden, the time was here!

From 2 - 3:20 pm - Pushing. Pushing. Pushing. Each push gave me terrible heartburn and I threw up again, but after I threw up, they had me reach down and I felt her head. At that point, I just wanted her to come out so that we could meet her! The epidural was perfect too. I could tell when a contraction was happening, but there was no associated pain, which enabled me to really push productively. Everyone was getting really excited in the room because we knew she would be out soon so back to work I went!

3:25 pm - One final push and Piper Elizabeth arrived!

I will admit that I had come to the conclusion that she was a boy so I was shocked to see a little girl. Shocked and immediately and completely in love. It sounds cheesy, but my heart was bursting with love and I could tell the same was true for my husband. I'm so glad we waited to be surprised by her and she was definitely worth the wait. I counted her fingers, five on each hand, but couldn't yet see her toes. Then Reid cut the cord and they whisked her off to the warmer to clean her off and weigh her. At 21 inches, 7 pounds and 4.5 ounces, she's a lanky little girl, but she's our little girl and she's perfect. And yes, she has all ten toes too.

So that's how little Piper came into this world. From start to finish, the whole process took about 7 hours - MUCH shorter than some horror stories I have heard so I certainly have no complaints. If I had it to do all over again, the one thing I would change would be that I would get the epidural a half hour earlier. It really made such a huge difference, and it likely sped up the dilatation process.

And ten days later, I'm pretty tired, but we're settling in nicely. Piper doesn't look so hot in her daddy's glasses, but she does look great in pink, which is a good thing because she now has a ton of it!

And now that we're feeling more settled, I'm looking forward to posting more and chronicling our journey as parents. It's sure to be a wild ride ...

We're home!

We got home a little bit ago with our new daughter, Piper Elizabeth Hutchins, born July 6 at 3:25 pm, weighing 7 pounds, 4.5 ounces and 21" long. Pictures and more details to come soon ... right now, we're enjoying our expanded family and are tired from lack of sleep, but also the overwhelming love and joy that we feel. She's amazing!

Expect the unexpected

If there's anything I've learned throughout the pregnancy process(es), it's that you have to expect the unexpected. And if you don't have lots of unexpected moments, then I think you are extremely fortunate! We had another one of those moments, and now a change of plans, today.

When I was driving home from the grocery store, I noticed that my vision was funky. It was as if my eyes were working independently and it definitely freaked me out. When I got home, I put some of the groceries away and immediately started chugging water. I hadn't had quite as much water as I usually do by that point in the day so I figured it couldn't hurt. I also threw an English muffin in the toaster since I hadn't eaten in a few hours. By the time I did these two things though, my vision was looking worse. I picked up a piece of paper and had a difficult time reading the words on it. I was also starting to feel just "off", so I called the doctor's office and waited for the midwife on duty to return my call.

Luckily for us, Julia called us back right away. I told her about my vision and she said I needed to come in (no surprise there!). On the drive in, my nausea set in. Maybe it was due to the vision issues, but all of a sudden, I was feeling terrible!

When we got to the hospital, they took my blood pressure and it was high (130/84), so that, combined with my symptoms, resulted in an interesting comment from the midwife ("Oh I bet I know what the doctor's going to say ..."). I didn't ask her to elaborate then, but I had a good idea she was referencing getting induced. My husband had the same thought.

Onto the monitors, blood drawn for labs, pee in a cup. The standard protocol really at this point. The midwife also said she wanted to check me again (to see if I was any more dilated/effaced) and would do that in a bit.

My husband took this picture - I look much happier in it than I was feeling! Sorry for the blurriness. As I've mentioned in my blog before, Palm Treo phones SUCK.

Anyway, back to the gory details. Julia checked me and I was still 4 cm dilated and 80 percent effaced - so no change from Thursday. At that point, I asked her what she was thinking would happen and her response was that she thought the doc would want to induce me, the question was whether that would happen today or tomorrow (lab results dependent). She said even if my labs were fine, the real question was, why would they want me to stay pregnant at this point? The baby is full term (and looking great on the monitor) so he or she is good to come out, and my blood pressure has been spiking a bit and now I have other symptoms. This is what we anticipated, but it was still weird to hear it.

My labs came back and they looked fine. My nausea by that point had subsided and my vision had cleared up, but I still had a headache. After talking with the doc on call, Julia returned and gave us the option of either spending the night in the hospital and being induced tomorrow morning, or coming home and returning to the hospital in the morning to be induced. For comfort reasons, we chose to come home, but we'll be back at the Snuggery tomorrow morning at 7:30 am to start the induction process. CRAZY.

We don't really know how the induction process is going to go. I know there are a couple of medication options, and Julia also said that the midwife on duty may just start by breaking my water and seeing what happens. It's absolutely bizarre to think that we're going to go in to be induced in the morning ... it's not how I thought this would all go down, but as long as the baby is healthy and I end up okay too, then I'm fine with it.

I'm conflicted right now as far as emotions. Part of me is excited to me this little one, part of me is nervous for the actual labor and delivery process, and part of me is just really calm. I'm hoping the third one will win out tonight when we go to bed so that we can actually get some sleep. The nurse that discharged us warned us that people that get induced don't always give birth on the first day. I'm hoping that's not the case with us!

I don't know when the next blog post will come, but I will try to keep my twitter feed (www.twitter.com/jenhutchins) updated, at least every once in a while. Wish us luck!!

Sleepy on the Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July! While not officially on my to-do list, I have used some of my down time to knit a few baby hats. The strawberry is my go-to gift when the parents don't know what they're having - so one of these is for us, and then the other is for our little niece or nephew who is expected to arrive not too long after our little one. If you're reading this Trav, sorry to ruin the surprise! The sunflower hat is for a little girl (TBD who yet) and then I'm also working on a watermelon (my personal favorite), and finally will whip out a blueberry just in case a little boy arrives :-) This is all assuming our little one gives me the time to get the hats done!

Yesterday I had quite a bit of energy and Reid and I had a GREAT day. After hanging out at our house for a while, we went to the outlets to do a little shopping, went aimlessly driving around the east side of Lake George and then had a nice dinner on Glen Lake at the Docksider (food's not fantastic, but the setting is gorgeous). But today I am exhausted ... we hit the Glens Falls farmer's market this morning and then Lowe's for some random stuff and those two errands somehow took all of my energy. I tried to nap, pretty unsuccessfully, and am hopeful that some energy returns before we go to see the Pops concert at Crandall Park (by the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra).

All has been quiet on the labor front. I had a painful contraction in the middle of the night last night - the most painful one I've had yet - but it was only one and then done. That's not going to get anything done unfortunately ... maybe my exhaustion is just my body telling me to chill before the big event. The calm before the storm ... we shall see!

Clearly a false alarm

Seeing as I'm sitting on our screened in porch, having slept in until 9:30 and just cooked a big breakfast with my husband, we were clearly just teased yesterday afternoon/evening by the little bugger.

By the time we went to bed last night, the contractions were gone, and while I've had a couple since I've woken up, they haven't been very painful and certainly haven't been consistent. So when will this little one arrive? Who knows! But seeing as my cervix is very "ripe" (technical medical term apparently - I couldn't have made that up if I tried), there should only be so many of these dry runs until the little one actually makes its grand entrance into the world.

In the meantime, the sun is actually shining so Reid and I have a date by the pool :-)

And then not so exciting ...

Hmmm ... think I may have spoken too soon, or jinxed myself, or something. The contractions, while still coming pretty regularly, don't hurt nearly as much as they did before. I'm no longer thinking this baby may come tonight. Damn!

This is getting exciting!

I'll start this post by saying, I may have a baby in not too long :-)

We had our weekly doctor's appointment today so we went in and my blood pressure was a bit high again. At this point in the pregnancy, this means an automatic trip to the hospital for a non stress test (getting hooked up to contraction and fetal heartbeat monitors), so my husband and I drove over to the hospital and got settled in. This time, the midwife also ordered an ultrasound to check my amniotic fluid levels - this actually excited me because we hadn't seen the baby in what feels like forever.

Oh, I should also add that at my appointment the midwife checked me and I'm 4cm dilated with 80 percent effacement (a measure of how thinned out my cervix is). WARNING: Straight pregnancy talk, such as dilatation and effacement will continue moving forward. I'm not going to sugarcoat anything.

Anyway, so while on the monitors at the hospital, we see that the baby looks great and that I was having contractions every two minutes. They were just little contractions, and honestly I couldn't feel them when they were happening. I guess this can happen after an internal exam - and in the words of our midwife, "labor is progressive," and not to worry, I'll feel the real labor contractions when they really get heated up.

My ultrasound was fine - the baby was moving around and my fluid levels were within the normal range. Then I had to wait to get some labs back to make sure there wasn't a chance of preeclampsia (just like last week). While we're waiting, my cramping began ... so apparently those little contractions are heating up at least a little bit. Labs came back fine so we were discharged, but before we left, I asked the midwife what the odds are of me being pregnant in a week. She gave me 50 percent odds - a coin flip. Well, a couple hours and consistently annoying (I say annoying because I'm crampy, but the pain is no big deal right now) contractions later, I'm starting to think we're getting VERY close to D-Day. Or it may be more appropriate to call it B-day for the little one! Our instructions are to not worry about calling in until I'm having contractions that I can't breath through. Basically, they want me to be very angry and uncomfortable when we go in for the real deal. We'll see what happens tonight ...

More to come, but right now, we're going to go finish packing the hospital bag.

Living in limbo

I feel like I'm in a weird spot in life right now ... I'm on maternity leave, but I don't have a baby to take care of. Technically, I guess you could call me a housewife, but the to-do list around the house is pretty much complete and I'm not supposed to be spending all day on my feet anyway. In truth, I feel LAZY, not to mention a little bit guilty. My husband gets up and leaves for work everyday and I get all set for my day of ... well, not a lot. I know I should be enjoying this time and feel lucky that I have the chance to rest and nap at will since I won't be able to do that again for who knows how long, but it's definitely something I'm struggling with.

I will say that it's nice to have time to cook dinner each night and it makes me feel good to send my husband off to work with leftovers for lunch. Having the time to read again also makes me wish I had renewed my Martha Stewart Living subscription, because now that I have time to be domestic (which I LOVE), it would be fun to have some new ideas to run with. I did subscribe to Cookie today so that will be a fun addition to my reading mix!

The baby seems very content to be hanging out in utero for the time being. I continue to have warm up contractions, but certainly nothing serious or consistent. One of my friends today asked me when I would want the baby to arrive if I had control and I honestly don't know ... we're of course excited to meet the baby, but I also know I'm not due for just over two weeks. I also like the idea of holding (although not delivering!) a bigger baby versus a tiny peanut so that's an argument for wanting it to hang out inside a while longer. And does it matter what I think? I know I've learned that it absolutely doesn't, so wishful thinking or not, this one is going to arrive when he or she decides its the right time :-)