Caitlin after her bath. I just love the curls.
Friday, September 26, 2008
3 Weeks Old
Happy 3 week birthday. I can't believe that Caitlin is 3 weeks old today. The time has gone by so quickly. She is getting better at being in a routine and trying to sleep through the night. We have our fussy nights where she would rather play or be held then sleep, but that is okay because sometimes I would rather hold her then sleep myself. It has been a pretty easy transition to going from a family of 2 to a family of 3. I don't think Derek and I would have it any other way. I think we are also glad that she is already here, as today is my actual due date.
I could not imagine having to wait that extra 3 weeks to have her here. I know several people say it, but its true, You can't ever imagine your life before them or without them. We are very blessed to have a beautiful and healthy little girl. So many firsts to look forward to, not that we are rushing any of them, but we are truly blessed to have her here with us.
I could not imagine having to wait that extra 3 weeks to have her here. I know several people say it, but its true, You can't ever imagine your life before them or without them. We are very blessed to have a beautiful and healthy little girl. So many firsts to look forward to, not that we are rushing any of them, but we are truly blessed to have her here with us.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
A picture while you wait.
Caitlin Rae Loseke born September 4th, 2008 at 9:29 p.m. at Methodist Hospital. She weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces and was 20.25 inches long. Her first thoughts.... "Happy Birthday Daddy".
Hospital Stay...Beginning of Day 3
We have new updated levels. Her biliruben level as of 7p.m. last night was 12.1!!!! We have had some major drops in her levels. Monday was 23.7 upon admittance, 4 hours later it was 19.8, 4 hours after that it was 17.8 and now we are sitting at 12.1. I am so excited and hope they continue to drop. This is the area in which they let people go home. We did stay through the night without her on the lights so that we can make sure that the level stays or even continues to drop. Lab was up in her room around 8a.m. so hopefully we will be getting some great news in a few minutes or so.
Caitlin had a great night of sleeping, in a normal crib without any lights on her. She was a little stinker and pulled out her feeding tub...not once but twice. So I would say we have one strong little girl on our hands. The tub was inserted through her nose and into her stomach, I am guessing she just wasn't having any fun with it there anymore. She also did pretty well as far as sleeping through the night, which was great because it allowed for Derek and I to get some much needed rest. You can only sleep so well on a hospital couch/sleeper.
That is all we know for now but will keep you posted as soon as we know more. Hopefully the next post will be from HOME! I also promise to get pictures up just as soon as I can.
Caitlin had a great night of sleeping, in a normal crib without any lights on her. She was a little stinker and pulled out her feeding tub...not once but twice. So I would say we have one strong little girl on our hands. The tub was inserted through her nose and into her stomach, I am guessing she just wasn't having any fun with it there anymore. She also did pretty well as far as sleeping through the night, which was great because it allowed for Derek and I to get some much needed rest. You can only sleep so well on a hospital couch/sleeper.
That is all we know for now but will keep you posted as soon as we know more. Hopefully the next post will be from HOME! I also promise to get pictures up just as soon as I can.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Fourth Visit......but new hospital
Okay so when I said last hospital visit...I meant as far as having the baby goes.
Derek and I took Caitlin to the Dr's office on Monday as she still had not had a bowel movement and she started to look similar to a pumpkin. We did not have an appointment so we got lucky that Dr. Woodruff was able to see her. We did the standard weight check and she is now down to 6 pounds 15 ounces, which her birth weight was 7 pounds 9 ounces, so just down a little. Dr. Woodruff looked at her eyes and stomach, she does has a little bit of a newborn rash, but he was more concerned with the yellow/orangish color of her skin. So he sent us off to Children's Hospital to get her biliruben levels checked.
Miss Caitlin did great getting her little heals pricked, as they couldn't seem to find a vein in her arm to use. So as any good dad, Derek bought her a stuffed animal for her behaving so well. Then we just waiting for a phone call to tell us her levels.
While waiting we decided to make an appearance at our corporate office, where everyone seem to love her and collectively decided that she is an adorable baby! We probably spent close to an hour and 1/2 there, being told how adorable and how much hair our daughter had...we didn't mind. It was also there that we got a phone call from the Doctor letting us know that Caitlin needed to be admitted to the hospital because her biliruben levels where 24!
So here we are now, watching our little girl get poked, stuck, become a human pin cushion with I.V.s and blood test to see what they can do to get these levels down. She is currently in a incubator full of lights and will be here for a few days.
Derek and I took Caitlin to the Dr's office on Monday as she still had not had a bowel movement and she started to look similar to a pumpkin. We did not have an appointment so we got lucky that Dr. Woodruff was able to see her. We did the standard weight check and she is now down to 6 pounds 15 ounces, which her birth weight was 7 pounds 9 ounces, so just down a little. Dr. Woodruff looked at her eyes and stomach, she does has a little bit of a newborn rash, but he was more concerned with the yellow/orangish color of her skin. So he sent us off to Children's Hospital to get her biliruben levels checked.
Miss Caitlin did great getting her little heals pricked, as they couldn't seem to find a vein in her arm to use. So as any good dad, Derek bought her a stuffed animal for her behaving so well. Then we just waiting for a phone call to tell us her levels.
While waiting we decided to make an appearance at our corporate office, where everyone seem to love her and collectively decided that she is an adorable baby! We probably spent close to an hour and 1/2 there, being told how adorable and how much hair our daughter had...we didn't mind. It was also there that we got a phone call from the Doctor letting us know that Caitlin needed to be admitted to the hospital because her biliruben levels where 24!
So here we are now, watching our little girl get poked, stuck, become a human pin cushion with I.V.s and blood test to see what they can do to get these levels down. She is currently in a incubator full of lights and will be here for a few days.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Third Hospital Visit....
..and last!!!!
On Wednesday the 3rd of September we had an appointment with Dr. Robertson at Methodist Hospital. We went in thinking we would be sent home and ready to wait another week. Well that was not the case at all. He made a few phone calls and the next thing we got told was to be back at the hospital that night after 5 to be set up for induction. So of course we went home and waited for 5 to show up and headed to Methodist Hospital. We got to Methodist and checked into Labor and Delivery, which has some of the greatest nurses in the world. We got checked in, filled out paper work and then they inserted a pill to get things rolling while we settled in for the night. Some contractions had started, but the sleeping pill they gave me did nothing, so they gave me a shot of something in my IV and I was out withing seconds according to Derek
Thursday morning was pretty eventful with my water breaking on its own around 6:30 am. They started the Pitocin drip along with magnesium (to prevent seizures since I was pre-eclamptic) at about 9. Contractions came and went as I was occasionally checked to see how dilated I was. Throughout that time, I felt pretty good as they had also started my Epidural around 9am as well. However, the epidural ran out so they started me on another batch. Around 4pm, I was dilated at about 3.5 cm but feeling a lot of pain and pressure as the baby's head was pushing on the front right of my hip. The anastealogist gave me a shot Lidocaine and I slept though some contractions, and between others, for about an hour. About 1 1/2 hours after the lidocaine shot, I was at about 5cm. I had some hard contractions where the good news was that in 15 minutes, I went from 5cm to 7cm, the bad being that I could feel the contractions very intensely. At that point, they called the anastealogist up again, and he gave me a shot of something else "that would hopefully get her though the rest of the ordeal". In about an hour, I went from 7cm to no cervix from what they could tell, so it was about time to begin pushing.
The nurse, Lisa, did an excellent job at coaching me and telling me how to push correctly. Derek was putting me under some pressure as well as he really wanted to have Caitlin on his birthday, but there was only about 4 1/2 hours left in the day. After some strong pushes, we had to take a break to get my oxygen levels up to get the baby's heart rate back up. Pushing went pretty fast after that as I soon was crowning. Unfortunately, Dr. Thatcher was 20 minutes away, so I had to breathe though some VERY intense contractions as they couldn't start the birth without her. After about 15 minutes, I was growing very agitated wondering where she us, but she showed up on time at 20 minutes.
Pushing with Dr Thatcher went really well. After about 5 or so minutes of hard pushing, we had our baby. We sighed a collective breath of relief when we found out what the sex was (she had a very pink room waiting at home), Derek snipped the umbilical cord, and we cleaned up. All in all, it went really well, but I felt faint when the nurse told me a bit later that my epidural had pretty much worn off 2 hours before, and I essentially went without the painkillers.
Mom and Marty were still at the hospital and were able to come in right away (they were waiting in the hall) after Caitlin was born. Derek called up his mom who was already in town, and she and his siblings came shortly. It was all very surreal, but a very joyous occasion. Even now we both have times where it's hard to believe we have a baby in our home.
After the birth, they moved us to a clean birthing suite. They didn't want to move us downstairs yet to Maternity as I was on a Magnesium drip for another 12 hours, and during the night, the nursery noticed Caitlin's oxygen levels dropped slightly). They put her on a monitor but all worked out. Around 10:00 the next day, they moved us to Maternity where we remained for the next day an a half. We were happy to share our joy with family and friends, but it turned out it could be a bit much at times. Nearly all of our immediate and extended family showed up to see the baby, and share in the love. They next day, with much waiting, we were finally released to go home where we had more family and friends waiting to see the new baby.
The first night was rather uneventful except we were exhausted, and due to the occurrence of a thunderstorm as well, we convince mom to stay. We couldn't have done it without her. At about 2am, she woke up hungry, but wouldn't really eat (we had issues with her falling asleep while nursing throughout the previous day, and it didn't get any better. We finally resolved to Derek giving her an ounce of formula and wrapping her up. I was immediately out, and Derek took over watching her (and sleeping with her in the bassinet next to her in a different room so that I could rest).
And the rest is history. We may be taking her in tomorrow to the Dr as she hasn't had a stool movement in a day and a half but the On-call doctor thinks it's because she hasn't eaten much and she's in the phase between eating from me and eating on her own. She is also starting to look a bit yellow on the skin and eyes, so we want to have that checked out as well.
On Wednesday the 3rd of September we had an appointment with Dr. Robertson at Methodist Hospital. We went in thinking we would be sent home and ready to wait another week. Well that was not the case at all. He made a few phone calls and the next thing we got told was to be back at the hospital that night after 5 to be set up for induction. So of course we went home and waited for 5 to show up and headed to Methodist Hospital. We got to Methodist and checked into Labor and Delivery, which has some of the greatest nurses in the world. We got checked in, filled out paper work and then they inserted a pill to get things rolling while we settled in for the night. Some contractions had started, but the sleeping pill they gave me did nothing, so they gave me a shot of something in my IV and I was out withing seconds according to Derek
Thursday morning was pretty eventful with my water breaking on its own around 6:30 am. They started the Pitocin drip along with magnesium (to prevent seizures since I was pre-eclamptic) at about 9. Contractions came and went as I was occasionally checked to see how dilated I was. Throughout that time, I felt pretty good as they had also started my Epidural around 9am as well. However, the epidural ran out so they started me on another batch. Around 4pm, I was dilated at about 3.5 cm but feeling a lot of pain and pressure as the baby's head was pushing on the front right of my hip. The anastealogist gave me a shot Lidocaine and I slept though some contractions, and between others, for about an hour. About 1 1/2 hours after the lidocaine shot, I was at about 5cm. I had some hard contractions where the good news was that in 15 minutes, I went from 5cm to 7cm, the bad being that I could feel the contractions very intensely. At that point, they called the anastealogist up again, and he gave me a shot of something else "that would hopefully get her though the rest of the ordeal". In about an hour, I went from 7cm to no cervix from what they could tell, so it was about time to begin pushing.
The nurse, Lisa, did an excellent job at coaching me and telling me how to push correctly. Derek was putting me under some pressure as well as he really wanted to have Caitlin on his birthday, but there was only about 4 1/2 hours left in the day. After some strong pushes, we had to take a break to get my oxygen levels up to get the baby's heart rate back up. Pushing went pretty fast after that as I soon was crowning. Unfortunately, Dr. Thatcher was 20 minutes away, so I had to breathe though some VERY intense contractions as they couldn't start the birth without her. After about 15 minutes, I was growing very agitated wondering where she us, but she showed up on time at 20 minutes.
Pushing with Dr Thatcher went really well. After about 5 or so minutes of hard pushing, we had our baby. We sighed a collective breath of relief when we found out what the sex was (she had a very pink room waiting at home), Derek snipped the umbilical cord, and we cleaned up. All in all, it went really well, but I felt faint when the nurse told me a bit later that my epidural had pretty much worn off 2 hours before, and I essentially went without the painkillers.
Mom and Marty were still at the hospital and were able to come in right away (they were waiting in the hall) after Caitlin was born. Derek called up his mom who was already in town, and she and his siblings came shortly. It was all very surreal, but a very joyous occasion. Even now we both have times where it's hard to believe we have a baby in our home.
After the birth, they moved us to a clean birthing suite. They didn't want to move us downstairs yet to Maternity as I was on a Magnesium drip for another 12 hours, and during the night, the nursery noticed Caitlin's oxygen levels dropped slightly). They put her on a monitor but all worked out. Around 10:00 the next day, they moved us to Maternity where we remained for the next day an a half. We were happy to share our joy with family and friends, but it turned out it could be a bit much at times. Nearly all of our immediate and extended family showed up to see the baby, and share in the love. They next day, with much waiting, we were finally released to go home where we had more family and friends waiting to see the new baby.
The first night was rather uneventful except we were exhausted, and due to the occurrence of a thunderstorm as well, we convince mom to stay. We couldn't have done it without her. At about 2am, she woke up hungry, but wouldn't really eat (we had issues with her falling asleep while nursing throughout the previous day, and it didn't get any better. We finally resolved to Derek giving her an ounce of formula and wrapping her up. I was immediately out, and Derek took over watching her (and sleeping with her in the bassinet next to her in a different room so that I could rest).
And the rest is history. We may be taking her in tomorrow to the Dr as she hasn't had a stool movement in a day and a half but the On-call doctor thinks it's because she hasn't eaten much and she's in the phase between eating from me and eating on her own. She is also starting to look a bit yellow on the skin and eyes, so we want to have that checked out as well.
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