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Leaving for HOME….

                            

We have made it at home for about 1-1/2 weeks now.  And it feels good.  I always want to stay at the hospital as long as possible – you know, you are well cared for (meals brought to you, no pressure to clean the house, someone caring for your newborn every night) and it just feels safe.  But… I come home, and it feels right.  In this short time we have had an onslaught of doctor’s visits to keep us busy.  I had a check up for my incision, and then a follow-up appointment to make sure it was healing. Eliana had her first visit with the pediatrician, and then an ultrasound for a sacral dimple they saw and wanted to check out; all looks good.  Madison went to the doctor for a funny sounding cough that we didn’t want to be passed along if we could help it.  I went to a follow-up appointment regarding my appendectomy.  Jeremy is the only one who avoided a doctor…. although he did go along to a few of those. 

First Doctor’s visit:  Weight: 8lbs, 5oz    Length: 20.5 in   Head circumference: 15 in

                    

                                        

The first week home, Jeremy was here.  It was amazing to watch him be a dad.  I was so busy with Ellie; he became Madison’s go-to person.  She got to fall in love with her daddy all over again.  He was up more at night helping me, since nursing was a bit iff-y those first days.  He was awesome!  Unfortunately, he had to go out-of-state for training.  (He accepted a position with Rettew for a full-time job!  Yea… what a blessing that happened around Christmas time.)  So, my parents moved in for about five days.  They are superhuman, I think.  There was a whirlwind of playing, cleaning, laundry, cooking, and doctoring.  I threw up for the first time in decades on Tuesday and was worthless.  I couldn’t hardly move.  They let me just sleep most of the day.  By Wednesday, I was feeling more human and was thankful it was only about a 24-hour thing. 

Grandparents are special…

                        

                 

Madison went overnight to Yohs to let me recuperate a little longer.  They brought her back on Thursday evening along with supper.  On Friday, they helped entertain both girls while I ran out to one of the doctor’s appointments.  Jeremy returned on Friday late afternoon.  It was so good to see him.  I had missed him more than I thought I would, and I missed our “normal” family life.  It is kinda like the hospital – it is nice to have people doting on you and helping, but you also want things to just feel normal too.  He brought normal back to our house. 

Madison’s first snow (and hanging out)…

                               

Big Sister

So, I know this is late in coming, as will most of my posts be for awhile.  I wanted to dedicate a blog to how special being a big sister is.  Madison was spoiled when Ellie was born.  She got to have BOTH sets of Grandparents come stay with her at our house.  I think she was pretty confused at how that all worked, but enjoyed talking about “this papa, that papa, both papas!”  She came to the hospital on Thursday to visit for the first time.  Ellie had bought her a present to open, and Madison brought a present to give to Ellie.  Madison wanted Ellie to hold all her gifts!  And she enjoyed her magna doodle for  a little while… although there are so many more things to interest her at the hospital!  Here are gift giving pictures:

                                   

        

Madison took some time to discover Eliana, but was fairly tentative to touch her too much.  It was fun to watch her take it all in.

                            

The highlight one day was getting to hold the baby – what a big girl!

                                      

A few family pictures… and one of the favorite parts of the hospital visits – drinking out of the cup with a straw!

              

Madison did some special things at home, too.  Here is a few pics of those memories:

                         

                    

 

She has been wonderful!  Obviously, it has helped to have Daddy here to play with the first week, and Grandparents here to play the second week.  When we got home, she followed me everywhere with her little step stool to watch everything – nursing sessions, diaper changes, putting Ellie in the crib, etc.  It was really cute.  I liked it best when I had my lap free and she could just snuggle with me.  That is what I miss most with her, just having time.  I am sure as we all adjust, we will find time to play together and continue to create special memories; right now, it just feels like Ellie sucks my time up.  Madison is a great big sister though – very gentle and sweet. 

She’s Arrived!

So, it has taken almost a week for this post to happen – guess things go a little slower than with the first… for the record – Jeremy posted pics very quickly on Facebook.  Baby Yoh #2 arrived with fanfare!  Here is the story (pretty wordy, so you can scroll to the bottom if you just want the info) and the stats:

I started having some contractions (a couple every couple hours) on Tuesday evening.  I went into school on Wednesday because they weren’t consistent or too bad, and frankly, I had things I wanted to get done!  So, I headed in; on the way, I had a few contractions while driving, but when I got to school, I got to work.  Besides moving pretty slowly, I felt okay til about 10:30 when I went on the long walk to the office to work with a student.  When I got there, I felt a pretty strong contraction while moving between the student and the desk.  My principal saw me and told me to go home – she would call my long term sub to come in and I needed to go home.  I went up to my room, packed my things, sent a few last minute emails, and told my sub the last few things on my mind.  I drove straight to the doctor (they bumped my appt up) and met Jeremy there.  The doctor said that I was still only 1-2cm.  He asked if I wanted to have the baby today – and I said yes, I didn’t want to feel this way until my scheduled c-section on Friday.  So, he called the hospital, and we were on the books for baby #2 at 4:30pm.  We came home and packed up our things in the two hours we had.  Throughout the afternoon, my contractions got more frequent and more painful. 

We checked into the hospital at 3pm.  While laying on the triage table waiting to go to the operating room, the contractions became more uncomfortable… it definitely didn’t help that I was laying on a not-so-comfortable bed.  By about 4pm, it was no longer anything to laugh about.  Jeremy stepped out to go to the bathroom, and the nurse stepped out to check about the doctor’s status.  While they were out of the room, everything went bad.  My contractions intensified and came in waves for longer…. and no one was there to hold my hand.  At one point, it was no longer intense pain; the pain was accompained by a fire in my belly – hot waves radiating across my entire abdomen… awful!  This started about 4:15 and continued until I got my spinal.  Before going to the operating room, the nurse said we were going to walk there.  I really thought she was kidding.  I said I couldn’t do that.  There is no way in all of creation that I was able to move my legs let alone stand and walk anywhere with the pain that I felt.  So, they wheeled me in, and I rolled over to the operating bed.  I sat up for the spinal while the nurse held my hands; Jeremy had to wait for the surgery prep to be finished before joining me. 

The c-section began like my last.  When they cut the first incision, things were fine.  When they went to cut the uterus to bring the baby out, it had ruptured.  I heard them calmly say “There is a uterine rupture.”  It was calm in the room, but people became serious as well.  I didn’t really know what all this meant, except that it didn’t sound good.  Thankfully, the rupture was along my previous c-section’s scar line, so there was not additional damage.  At 5:08, our second little girl was born – beautiful and crying with a good set of lungs.  After closing the uterus up, the doctor said that my appendix looked enlarged, and he was calling down the general surgeon.  Normally, he said, the appendix doesn’t show itself, but to my benefit it did.  So, the general surgeon came down and removed my appendix, which he said was about 2-3 times the normal size.  Jeremy took a picture of the appendix next to our new baby and joked that we had had twins :)  Jeremy got to cut the umbilical cord this time, which I think is pretty cool.    I was closed up shortly after, and taken up to the recovery room. 

This time, our little addition was in the room with me as I recovered.  Last time, they took Madison upstairs and I had to wait til I was good-to-go before seeing her.  I was glad to see and hold this one much sooner.  From there, we headed up to our new “house” for the next 4 days.  So, that is the story.  here are the stats:

Name: Eliana June (we call her Ellie most of the time)

Birthdate: Wednesday, January 11 at 5:08pm

Weight: 8 lbs, 9 oz

Length: 20.8 inches

State of Emotion – elated parents :)

Pictures:

                

Random Saturday Events

This Saturday was quite a day!  It started this morning when Jeremy and I took Madison over to our neighbor’s house to play with her little friend, Carston. 

Event #1: We headed to St. Ann’s Hospital – not to have a baby, but to try to turn our baby.  At my last doctor’s appt (Wednesday), we learned that baby #2 decided to follow in Madison’s footsteps and turn breech.  Yep, that’s right – there is about a 3% chance that your baby will be breech… and we are now two for two.  This time, we decided we would try a version, which is when the doctor tries to turn the baby externally.  We went into the hospital (because of a risk of the procedure) for the procedure.  I would say the version could be described as uncomfortable, and painful, but not awful.  The doctor literally pushed on my stomach from the top (the head) and the bottom (the bum) and tried to coax the baby to do a little sommersault.  We got close – the doctor thought about 10 more degrees, and Jeremy could see how close he was.  Unfortunately, it didn’t work.  So, we move on.  We have now determined our c-section date and unless the baby turns this week or I go into labor, the baby will arrive on Friday. 

Event #2:  We enjoyed beautiful weather in January!!!  Madison got her bike helmet and big wheels out.  We took off her bulky coat after a few minutes; it was too warm to need it.

              

Event #3: We were laying on the couches during Madison’s nap – me, napping; Jeremy, watching football – when I hear Jeremy say, “Oh!”  This woke me up to the fact that there was a raccoon on our deck – at 2pm in broad daylight.  Now, this follows our hunt for our attic visitors a few weeks ago when we called out Critter Control and captured two raccoons (at a fairly high price).  So, Jeremy decided he would scare it off with his bb gun and a broom. 

                           

That would have been fine, except we received a call from our neighbors about 20 minutes later with the raccoon sighting.  Jeremy called Wildlife Control to ask advice.  Based on the sluggish and non-aggressive manner of the raccoon, they thought he might have distemper.  They recommended that Jeremy catch it and bring it in.  Yep, CATCH it and bring it in.  So, the hunt was on!  It started with Jeremy and a cardboard box.  Then, I joined in with the cardboard box and he got a plastic tote.  Then, we grabbed the broom.  So, there we were – man and boxes, pregnant woman and broom circling around and around a car trying to coax the raccoon into a box.  Jeremy managed to capture it under the cardboard box, but as he was explaining to me what I needed to do to help him get it in the more durable tote, the raccoon maneuvered his body out from under the box!  After that, we were joined by our older neighbor with another broom.  We almost got him when I threw the box on top of him, but I was too scared to actually hold it down.  Then, we almost corralled him into the box by chasing him around and around the garage.  We finally gave up when we were all tired of this chase.  The raccoon was back on our deck a few hours later.  Another neighbor has a live trap; so, we have that set with some cat food and marshmallows (apparently a raccoon favorite) to lure him in tonight.  We’ll see how it goes. 

Event #4: We headed to the park – we haven’t been in ages.  While there, Madison managed to fall off the slide and bump her head.  Which both events had me laughing pretty hard (probably too hard!). 

Overall it was a good day.  I haven’t laughed this hard (my stomach was hurting) since my family’s Christmas when the adults were hanging out after the kids went to bed.  Now, I am tired, so I am wrapping this up and going to bed.  I hope everyone has a great weekend. 

Happy 2nd Birthday!

This post is about a week late, but here it is.  On New Year’s Eve, Madison turned 2!!!  I can’t believe it has been 2 years since she was born.  She has changed so much in such little time.  It is amazing how kids grow and develop in absorb so much.  Little sponges!  Madison picked her pretty skirt out (that her great-aunt Julie gave her at Christmas) for the party.  We had a small party here – grandparents and one little friend, Grace (and her mom, of course!).  We had sloppy joes, mac and cheese, chips and rotel dip, veggies, and chips.  Then, we had cake, ice cream, and berries.  We actually opened presents before the meal since the party started around 11am, and the little girls don’t normally eat until a little later.  After all the cake and ice cream, the girls ran around and around in circles – Madison carrying the balloons and Grace following after.  I said that it was nice that they could entertain each other.  Madison also got to talk to her uncle Jason on on the computer; it was pretty cute as she blew him kisses and waved at him.  By the end, Madison was content to lay on her new blanket with Grandma and read a book.  Here are a few pictures from the day…