Nathan's 2 week check-up

I took Nathan in to the pediatrician this morning for a routine check-up. We were not able to get an appointment with our normal pediatrician so we saw someone else. He weighs 8 pounds 3 ounces now! He's gained 9 ounces in 3 days! YIKES! The doctor says everything looks good. Even tho he is still a little yellow they didn't see a need to test his bili levels. We are glad to have a good report from the doctor and we go back at 2 months.

Visits with Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Joe

The boys great-grandparents came by the other day. (A little slow updating still.) Brian enjoyed climbing all over Grandpa Joe and untying Grandma's shoes. They brought him a foamy book and he loves it. Here are some pics from our visit.

Bouncing around

I dug the bouncy seat out from the back of the boy's closet the other day. It was wedged in there pretty good! When I brought it downstairs Brian thought it must be for him again and climbed right up in to it and started bouncing around. I got some pictures of both boys bouncing around!

Random pics from the hospital.

Some random pics from the hospital.

It's been a week!

Nathan turned one week old on Tuesday. Sorry I haven't updated much but I'm realizing that life with a 14 month old and a 1 week old is rough. Brian is NOT gentle! His main goal in life these days is to either poke Nathan's eyes out, beat on his head, or rip a limb from his little body. Poor Nathan!
We went to the Pediatrician on Wednesday for a routine checkup. He weighs 7 pounds 8.5 ounces now. Dr. Ballard thought he looked pretty yellow still so she wanted to check his bilirubin levels. The nurse picked his foot, which he hated, and drew his blood. 20 minutes later the results came back. The numbers were too high to do the home photo-therapy blanket so he had to be admitted into the hospital.
We got to the children's hospital and they put him under 3 high intensity lights and had a UV blanket underneath him. He had to wear a special blindfold to keep his eyes safe. He was hooked up to a pulse-ox meter to measure the oxygen percentage in his blood and a heartrate monitor. Nathan shared a room with another little baby which made getting any sleep impossible! The other baby cried all the time and is monitors went off alot! Around 1 am they pricked Nathan's foot again and at 2am his levels were down from 17.4 to 12.6. They took 1 of the spotlights off and removed the pad from underneath him. When the doctor came around in the morning they decied to take all the liights off of him! I got to see my little man's eyes again! We were finally discharged from the hospital at about 5pm.
It was so nice to sleep in my bed again!
We had to take him back to the doctor to follow-up and his levels were around what they were when we left the hospital. They just wanted to make sure it wasn't going up. He also weighed 7pouns 10.5 ounces! I can't believe he gained 2.5 ounces in 2 days! We go back on Tuesday for another routine check-up.
We are finlly getting back into a routine and hopefully we will stay out of the hospital for a little while!

Blindfolded!

Nathan under the lights


Nathan's bed


Mommy's "bed"


His poor little pricked feet.

Nathan James is here!

Nathan James was born this morning at 9:45am. He arrived weighing 7 pounds 10 ounces and is 21 inches long. 12 ounces and 2 inches bigger than Brian.

The story:
I was sitting on the floor at 7pm with Brian watching Wheel of Fortune last night. I thought I might be having labor contractions but I wasn't sure if they were real or Braxton hicks. Around 9pm I thought that maybe they were real so we got ready just in case. They didn't really hurt or anything so we went to bed about 9:30. I woke up a couple times during the night to go to the bathroom and I felt contractions but still wasn't timing them. By the time 4:30am rolled around I had had enough sleep and couldn't sleep anymore so I got up to see if I as still contracting. I loaded the dishwasher and did some household chores in case we went to the hospital. At 5:45 I called my mom to tell her I think i am in labor but not really sure. The contractions were about 5 minutes apart but didn't hurt at all. I knew that 5 minute contractions hurt a lot with Brian so I had my doubts. I called the doc to see what he thought and he said to come in and get checked out, which I knew he would say. 10 minutes after I hung up the phone the contractions hit! I woke dean up, and we loaded up the truck, and then got Brian ready.
We arrived at the hospital at 7am. It was the longest 40 minute truck ride and the bumpiest ever! Dean was speeding, and that wasn't helping me so I told him my contractions were still 3-5 minutes so he wouldn't speed, but really they were about 2 minutes apart. He dropped me off at the door and I went to Labor and Delivery while he parked. I got to the desk and said all in one breath "my name is Jaime DeVries, I'm 39w 2d, this is my second baby, first delivery was 6 hours, he's coming fast, you better be ready". The nurse rushed me into my room, and checked me. I was at 5cm at 7:20am. My water bag was bulging, and she said, "as soon as it breaks I'll dilate right away and he'll be here". My doctor was in surgery, and had two back to back. So I had my contractions, stood in the shower, did all that laboring stuff, and was checked again around 8 (which I checked 7cm). My breathing techniques to relax were really hard to do since it hurt so bad, but Dean kept reminding me to relax, and breathe in, and out. He was great! My mom showed up with Brian, he wasn't very comfortable seeing mommy in pain, and really didn't like it when the doctor came in. My mom took him out of the room so Dr. Lepore could do his thing. He finally came in at 9:30 between surgeries and checked me, and broke my water with his finger. It was a little murky but they weren't concerned. He said he would be back after the next c-section. I had one contraction and I yelled for him to come back because I had to push bad! He looked and got all his doctor stuff on and broke down the bed and I pushed a couple of times and out he came! I didn't have any tearing this time and I didn't poo on the table! Whoo hoo! They cleaned him up and gave him back to me. He had swallowed a lot of fluid since he came so fast so he wasn't screaming but raspy crying. They suctioned him with a tube, and said he checked out great! My mom came back in with Brian and he didn't really care about the new baby. They let him stay with us for about 45 minutes and then wanted to take him to the nursery to clear his lungs some more. I showered and then walked over to my recovery room where my family was waiting. Brian still doesn't really care about the baby. I'm sure that will change when he's home with mommy and daddy.

Update on Nathan

Sorry I haven't updated about my latest appointment. It was on Tuesday. Again he says, "Be ready for any day now." I'm tired of being ready for any day now. I've been ready for 2 weeks! I go back to see him on Tuesday again and hopefully we've made some sort of progress. I've been doing everything I can to get him out. We had chinese food one day, another day we had spicy spicy Mongolian, I've walked up and down the stairs (Brian is a pro now), and a ton of other things. I'm going to be walking the mall today with my mom, hopefully that gets thing going. I'm confident it will work. She's a much better person to walk the mall with than Dean. He hates the mall and walks to fast. So keep your fingers crossed that Baby Nathan will start his journey into the word today.