Home, sweet home.

Last night, Woodwinds got completely full. The baby stayed one more night to finish up that tan
she was working on, but her Mommy had no place left to sleep there. So, (since the hospital is about a 30 minute drive from home) we went to a nearby motel to get some sleep and came back to visit and feed.

In the morning, the pediatrician found Lydia to be doing much better and said she can go home! To be on the safe side, we’ve been given a glowing bili-blanket to keep her wrapped up in for a few more days.

Working on her tan.

Update: As is normal for someone born 3 weeks early, Lydia's bilirubin level has started going up. So, she has been spending some time under the lights, as did her brother Noah when he was her age.

It's a girl!!!

Welcome Lydia!

7 lbs, 5 oz

Born at 8:57 this morning at Woodwinds hospital after a fairly short, induced labor.

Growing Up

We've always had a little trouble remembering to start the dishwasher in the evening. So, sometimes we would wake up with a dishwasher full of dirty dishes. We finally came up with the solution of working it into Isaac's bedtime routine. Now, between "brush teeth" and "read a book" is "start the dishwasher". And, as you can see, he seems very proud to be able to do this himself (we'll see how long that lasts). Baby update: Actually there's not much to report. At our weekly perinatalogist appointment, because we didn’t have a sitter lined up and we were curious what Isaac would think of watching the ultrasound, we took the kids with us. He thought it looked pretty cool, but I don’t think he could quite make out the images of a baby. After the ultrasound (everything still looks fine), we had a non-stress test. This is where a couple hockey-puck sized sensors (actually, I have no idea how big a hockey-puck really is, but it's probably pretty close) are strapped onto the mom’s belly to chart out the baby’s heartbeat and the mom’s contractions. Sometimes, like this time, there’s a button to press when the baby kicks that prints a mark on the printout to compare activity to the heartbeat. Isaac spent some time laying on the hospital style bed next to mommy. She decided to let him hold the button and press it when she told him to. I think he enjoyed this. After a little while the nurse came back, looked at the paper and said "I see you’ve had a couple contractions. Can you feel those?" to which Isaac replied "Yes." The nurse then turned to him and asked if they hurt. He said "not too bad." The next several minuets showed spikes on the contraction printout - a result of laughing.

Vacation Video 2006 ***

We took a little trip to Orlando, FL a few weeks ago, and maybe you've been wondering why I haven't posted any pictures from this trip (or maybe not). Well, I've been working on a little movie with pictures and video clips, most of which were taken with our handy Sony Cyber-shot. It's about 5 minutes long and you can see it here. Enjoy.

Christmas 2006

Here's the annual kids Christmas picture. Believe it or not, they're wearing the same pj's as last year. It's getting harder and harder to take this picture. This year took about 40 takes. (Sorry, Noah doesn't have a right hand.)

Definitely not a dinosaur.

This morning, we had our first visit with the perinatologist (not to be confused with a paleontologist). This visit started with the most thorough ultrasound exam I’ve ever seen done. She measured everything you could possibly see and took some doppler readings of the blood flow in several areas including the brain and umbilical cord. The baby looks perfectly healthy, and again estimated to be just over 5 pounds.

These appointments will continue weekly until birth, as well as visits to Deb’s new doctor.

Home, sweet home.

After 3 1/2 days, Deb came home from the hospital about noon today. The ultrasound this morning showed a very healthy baby estimated to be about 5 pounds, and which the technician referred to as a "wiggle worm."

Since the baby appears to be very healthy, Deb is continuing on one of the three drugs which were used to slow down contractions while in the hospital. This one is called Procardia - a drug mainly for heart issues, but can also be used for this with few side effects, and happens to be hard to find (our local pharmacist didn't have it, and the hospital pharmacist didn't have enough for the full prescription).

Tomorrow morning will be a special doppler ultrasound screening that will look at some specific things about the baby's blood flow - one of the best ways to watch for rh disease issues.

At this point we're taking everything one day at a time. A big thanks to all our friends and family for their prayers, and Grandma for helping out with Isaac and Noah these days.

100 cuddles

To Isaac, if anything seems to be too many to count, it must be 100. So, if you ask him how many there are, there's usually 100 stars in the sky, 100 cars on the road, 100 people in a crowded room, etc.

This afternoon I took him to visit his mom in the hospital. They hadn't seen each other since Deb left for her evening Bible study 3 days earlier. After some hugs, and some "what was on the TV just before I came in, can I watch [such and such]?", they together watched a video of Isaac performing the parts of Caesar Augustus and a Shepherd in our church's Christmas program that morning. Several people told me that he stole the show. Of course, I agree.

After a little while, I told Isaac to gime mommy one more cuddle and then it was time to go. His response was "No, 100 cuddles."

Now that I've explained the title of this post, here's an update on why Deb is in the hospital.

Our baby's due date, as determined by a couple early ultrasounds, is February 5th. Deb came home from Bible study last Thursday (32 1/2 weeks) a little earlier then normal saying she was having strong and frequent contractions. We timed a few and found them to be about 5 minutes apart, and so the HealthEast midwife on call was called and we were told to come in to get things checked out.

After arranging a last minute, overnight sitter (thank you Christine), we went to Woodwinds hospital, where BTW Isaac and Noah were both delivered by midwives through unmedicated waterbirth.

After 3 different medications were successful in slowing down the contractions, but not stopping them, Deb was transferred to St. John's hospital on Friday morning where they have a more complete Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for babies born this early. Special steroids were also given to help the baby's lungs mature a little faster.

To make things a little more complicated, Deb's rh antibody levels have started going up again. So, at this point, only God knows if this baby is really better inside or outside. Tomorrow morning will be some ultrasound tests to see if the doctors can answer that question, but we take comfort in knowing it's all in His hands.

"I'm a block!"