Not quite. It has actually been the warmest weather of the year so far. We've got the fans going right now to try and cool the house down (right now about 80 degrees). I've uploaded a few photos you can view HERE. Here are a few new videos too:
That last one was pretty recent. It's my new favorite noise she is making!
Well, our first week home has passed. We have survived, much to the help of Jan, Jill's mother staying with us! We spent 4 out of the 5 week days this last week at the doctors office or hospital. The final day being Friday, the day Jill got her follow up appointment from the transfusion. I am pleased to report that her blood pressure is now much closer to normal. I don't recall the exact number but it was 130 something over 80 something. She continues to heal and her strength is coming back to her. Thank you all for your prayers, they certainly were an encouragement in a time of uncertainty.
Baby Evelyn continues her cycle of sleeping, eating, pooping [repeat]. Her umbilical cord just fell off yesterday without any drama. It has been fun to catch some glimpses of her smile. She seems to do it involuntarily just as she is drifting off into baby dreams. I would also like take a moment at this time to proclaim: I am a swaddling expert. I think I could swaddle about anything. Changing diapers is another story. I haven't perfected the art of holding the wildly flailing feet and wiping at the same time. Jill usually needs to help me. Also I have made an observation, I'm afraid she slept through the EWU championship win 2 nights ago, and the Seahawks surprise win yesterday. So, I'm sure if she is the sports fan her mothers side of the family would like her to be. Time will tell. It is all good though, we both feel blessed to have what seems to be (to us novices) a pretty easy baby.
Jill and I would like to introduce to you the new member in our family. Little Evelyn Josephine Bishop was born early in the morning of December 30th at 2:45 AM. She was born 7lbs 7oz, and 20in long. She has a beautiful pair of peepers that love to explore her surroundings, a healthy appetite and set of lungs, and a full head of light brown hair. Here is a little more background to her story of how she came into this world.
We went to the doctor's office (10:30 AM, Tuesday, 12/28) for what we thought was going to be a routine visit. All proceeded as normal until the midwife (Kirstin) took Jill's blood pressure. It was abnormally high, so she took it a second time with a similar result. Kirstin was concerned and sent us to triage at the birth center in the hospital. They did a blood and a urine test, as well as a few more blood pressure checks. After the results came back early in the afternoon, they sent us home and told Jill she would need to remain on bed rest until the next appointment. Well, shortly after we got home we got a call back from the office and they asked us to come back in. After further discussion with some doctors, apparently they wanted us back in to be monitored over night.
Later that evening (Tuesday) they diagnosed Jill with pre-eclampsia. The only cure for this condition is to deliver the baby, so they started giving her some medication to try and induce labor, first a cervix ripener. This didn't seem to have much of an effect that evening and Wednesday morning, when the therapy resumed. Later that morning, they tried the medication Pitocin. As we were nearing evening, there didn't seem to be much change due to the induction, so they were talking about inserting a manual cervix expander over night, but suggested that she take a shower and get ready for bed. She did, and while drying off, her water naturally broke at about 8:15pm (Wednesday).
At around 9:00 PM contractions started. By 10:30 PM Jill was clearly having to "work through" each contraction. Around 12:00 the blood pressure wasn't looking so good, and they made her lay down on her side through the rest of the labor process. At 1:15 AM, Thursday morning, she had dilated to 5-6 cm. It was near this time Kirsten (the midwife) talked with Jill about lowering her blood pressure with either magnesium (which is used to prevent seizures in high blood pressure cases) or an epidural. After consulting with the doctor on call she recommended the magnesium. I'm pretty sure they also took into consideration Jill's desire to have a natural and/or pain medication free birth.
When checked again at 2:20 AM, she was 10 cm and Kirsten suggested Jill should push. About 5 contractions and one final push later, at 2:42 AM, Evelyn was born! Wow, on a personal note, I've never seen anything like that before in my life. I don't honestly don't know how she did it. Amazing, I'm very proud of her. I still don't understand the physics of what happened... I'll try not to think about it too much.
So, anyway... The down side to magnesium was that it gave her flu like symptoms, and probably helped cause some blood loss problems. It can hamper the uterus from contracting after delivery, which would normally stop the blood flow. Jill, lost a lot of blood over the next day and blood tests were showing that her hemoglobin count was down significantly. They offered her the options of a slow recovery with iron supplements and LOTS of rest or a blood transfusion. She chose the former.
Yesterday on 1/1/11 we had the pleasure of leaving the hospital and returning to our home with our little bundled baby. We had some visitors at the hospital, but we are trying to keep that to a minimum to ensure momma gets lots of rest in her anemic condition. Jill's mom is staying with us for a few weeks this next month and I'll have 2 weeks to take off too.
Phew what a ride! We are getting the shock treatment of adapting to a newborn baby's sleep/feed/poop cycle and doing well so far.
Baby is doing great. She seems to be pretty mild-mannered so far. She doesn't like tooting and loves to look around the room when she is awake (which is rare). I'm looking forward to more play time in the future, right now it seems to be a lot of sleeping (more during the day, less at night). Sorry for the long length. Oh, and you can see some photos we'll keep posting to this album HERE if you would like.
We'll try to find time to keep you updated in the future!
Here's a new picture of the growing belly from yesterday at 21 weeks--it's weird to think we're over halfway there already! Then again, this tummy's going to grow faster from here on out and I only have so much space left in my long, non-pregnant shirts I thought would last 'til the end! I did buy my first pair of maternity jeans, and I have to say, they're very comfy. I should have shown them as I'm very fond of them, but didn't think about it. Baby much prefers the stretchy tummy band over the tight rubberbanded button!
The weather hasn't been so nice this week and I had several recipes I wanted to try so it was a perfect time to practice! I did Patti's cream puff's for Jason as he heard they were having them during harvest and seemed a little left out:) They weren't as hard as I always thought, and pretty tasty. I also dabbled with an Allrecipes sticky buns recipe that turned out way too buttery & sugary, so I gave some to Jason to take to work today:) Finally, I tried white bread which has a pretty good texture. I must say it's a bit more labor-intensive without a mixer to do the kneading though! I'll probably lay off baking so many carbs for awhile, but it was fun and I definitely have figured out the rising technique with this oven!
The weather's supposed to be nice this weekend, so we may venture over to St. Kilda beach where they have a small amusement park--they have '...the oldest continually operating roller coaster in the world. One of only nine of its kind still operating...' I don't think I'll be testing that one out to make sure it still works, but should be fun to see the other ones.
That's right, it's a GIRL! Or so we think:) She didn't move her legs much from the folded position they were in but our tech said at the end, "I've seen it a couple of times, and it's safe to say it's a girl." We'll probably have our 32-34 week ultrasound while we're here (at 31 or 32 weeks) so, they'll have a second chance to confirm it then.
Just letting you all know that the ultra-sound went well this afternoon. There is a healthy baby in there! More details about this weekend and the baby to come tomorrow.
Well, I had my first apt. with my OB here today, and it went well! She went over my previous paperwork and did a quick check of basics and a short scan to check out the baby. It was cool--she had a Phillips basic ultrasound machine, which doesn't give as clear of a picture as a true ultrasound, but it was neat to see baby again--she was just checking out the heart I think and she said it looked good. At our next apt. in 3 weeks, she'll go over the ultrasound we're doing on Monday and bloodwork I had done today with us.
Posts
All Comments
© Blogger template 'Minimalist E' by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008
Back to TOP
