Growing!

We had a follow-up at the pediatrician on Thursday. Eliza's chest x-ray looked good, so she thinks the blue face is related to acid reflux. We're doing our best to keep Eliza upright after meals, but it's sometimes hard to hold a floppy infant who immediately zonks out after she eats. We've started propping her up in her Boppy after meals and she seems to enjoy it. She also enjoys looking around at the world.

Eliza enjoying her Boppy!


I'm hoping the constant seated position will help her stay awake during the day and make it easier to get her days and nights turned around. Sleeping isn't her strongest skill. Eliza is starting to try to smile a bit and is doing a great job trying to push herself up and look around when she's lying against someone's shoulder. She also makes a solid attempt to hold her own bottle and pacifier.

I'm currently operating on less than three hours of sleep. The baby spent the better part of last night wanting to eat constantly. The doctor thinks Eliza is overeating, so she wants us to limit her intake to 2 oz. of expressed breast milk at a time. I think we're going to try to eliminate as many bottles as we can, assuming she seems to be getting enough to eat.

As for me, I'm still working on healing from the c-section. I have a home health nurse coming daily to take care of my incision. It hasn't entirely closed since my stitches popped open almost three weeks ago. There's concern that it isn't healing quickly enough, so it may require further action when I see the doctor on Wednesday. We'll see. My blood pressure and blood sugar seem to be returning to normal, though! Isn't that great news?

We're otherwise doing well. Adapting to working on little sleep, but happy to be enjoying our very adorable little girl. Sorry for the gap between posts. I can't even imagine how anyone with multiple children finds time to breathe, let alone blog!

Let the sun shine in....

The baby is adjusting to home life by becoming a tan junkie.

The baby had a bit of breastfeeding-related jaundice, so she's been hooked up with a little tanning bed to use in her pack n' play. She looks like such a little Paris Hilton tanning it up. The good news is, her jaundice is clearing up and this should be the last night on the machine. Here she is tanning:



Our daughter is, as expected, rather precocious. She's very curious and constantly surveying her surroundings. She was trying to hold her bottle at 3-days-old and trying to lift her head up to look around the room at 4-days-old. Last night she didn't make a peep for FIVE HOURS in the middle of the night. I even got up and checked on her around 3:30.. She was awake and looking around quietly while we slept. What a kid! She's already working on her impressions. So far she's doing a pretty good Christopher Lloyd and a FANTASTIC Dana Carvey.

As for the rest of us, we're exhausted and proud and so very excited to have our daughter at home. The c-section recovery has gone fairly well. My blood pressure is still an issue, but hopefully that will clear up soon. I'll be interested to see what happens with the gestational diabetes. I plan to ask about that at our doctor's appointment on Friday.

Most of the Eliza pictures have been taken by family members. While we wait for those to roll in, let me show you a couple of my favorite pictures from our time with Eliza.

Brian at the hospital taking care of the baby while I showered:


Eliza on the way home:


The BEST picture. Ever:

8 Days.

Everything looked a little TOO good at the doctor today. I'm happy to report that the baby put on 5 oz. They were a little worried because she hadn't really gained much since 34 weeks. If she hadn't gained any weight, we would have induced this Wednesday for sure. My blood pressure also looked pretty good while we were there. As it stands, I have one more doctor's appointment and bpp on Friday with induction planned for the following Wednesday, August 27th. I'm a little disappointed. I'm entirely ready to get this over with. However, the nurse practitioner/midwife made Brian a little nervous when she mentioned that the baby could still be prone to breathing problems at 37 weeks. I think Brian's relieved. I, on the other hand, am over it and I was ready to get this show on the road.

Still, one more week and we'll have a baby!

Counting the days...

Doctor's appointment again tomorrow afternoon. We're hoping we get the news we want and Eliza will be here soon.

Janie's BP has been weirdly lower the past two days, though, so we're not sure what that means. It was 120/70 all day yesterday, and it's 130/90 today. Fasting blood sugar has been down both days too.

To try and speed the process along, Janie took down an entire container of fresh pineapple with supper tonight. Nothing yet. We're open to other suggestions. I thought about tapping on Janie's chest like a bottle of ketchup, but I'm told that doesn't work.

Beautiful Baby. Finally in 3D!

We've had a very hard time getting 3D pictures of our little girl. Today during our bpp the ultrasound tech. switched it over to the 3D so we could get a look at our baby girl's face. The pictures were still pretty blurry (or else I'd scan them for you), but she's adorable. She certainly has my nose, but she also has Brian's lips EXACTLY. She was even holding her mouth like Brian. So far she looks like a good blend of both of us.

As for the doctor part, looks like I'm just barely dilated at all. The doctor upped my blood pressure meds (Aldomet) from 250mg twice a day to 500mg three times a day. That makes a little nervous 'cause this medicine already made me feel a little loopy at first and sometimes still does late at night. I guess we'll see how that works out tonight. I'm supposed to come back and see them next Monday for another bpp and exam.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think they were discussing possible induction for next Wednesday. She was discussing how far along I'll be next Wednesday for sure. 37w2d, to be exact. Trust me, if she wants to induce I shall not complain.

Otherwise, one of the nurses looks like somebody. She kinda looks like Cameron Diaz, but it's somebody else, too. I hate when this stuff happens 'cause it drives me nuts trying to figure it out!

Another week, another doctor visit.

This afternoon we head off for our weekly biophysical profile (aka how big can this baby possibly get? appointment) and visit with the doctor. My blood pressure has been staying mostly reasonable, but I've had a couple of pretty intense spikes. The stress of worrying about the blood pressure is probably worse than the actual blood pressure. According to me, the baby is officially being evicted. Do you think it would be creepy to have a sheriff come and escort her out? Anyone have any good labor induction tips or tricks? Someone mentioned a full moon on Saturday and that could help get things rolling.

I'm hoping the doctor will have a plan for baby delivery. If she even hints that she might let the baby go to term, I'll probably cry big, weepy sitcom tears right in her office. I don't think I can handle four more weeks of bedrest and bp meds.

At the moment, I'm planning to spend my day watching many episodes of Entourage (have to get my Ari fix) and once again trying to force myself not to want to clean the house. My nesting instinct has kicked into full gear and it's taking every ounce of will I have to keep me in the bed. If I'm still stuck in the bed next week, it'll probably take actual straps to keep me down.

Sofa bed and rainbow sheets.

Right now I'm camped out in the living room on the sofa bed. We set it up with some 80s retro rainbow sheets so I can rest comfortably w/DirecTV. Right now the absolutely underrated Dead Again (starring and directed by Kenneth Branaugh)is on HBO. I'm recording it so Brian can watch it with me later. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you do so!

Last night I slept fairly well, but I took my bp in the middle of the night and it was in the 190/100s range again. I took my medicine at 7AM and it seems to be sticking in the 130/80s range for now. Unfortunately, this bp medicine makes me feel slightly drugged and a little "off". I'm hoping that wears off after a couple of days.

I'm not feeling stir crazy yet. Hopefully my trip to the doc. tomorrow will keep me from feeling too trapped. The baby is, as always, extremely active and kicking constantly. She reminds me why I'm here and why I have to keep my wits about me and make solid decisions when things get scary.