Bringing Home Baby!

On the morning we were released the pediatrician came in to tell us that Elise was a bit jaundice. Not enough to keep her in the hospital for phototherapy, but enough that we needed to see the pediatrician the next day to monitor her color. In the meantime, he told me to supplement some formula after her feedings to get more calories in her. At her appointment the next day her color was still the same (which was good news, as long as her color wasn't a lot worse she's fine). We are just supposed to keep an eye on it, but she looks much better now. She still has a little yellow to her face and the whites of her eyes are still sort-of yellow, but the rest of her has cleared up.

We were released from the hospital last Wednesday and made it home by 11am. We brought Elise inside in her carseat and let Lucas come to her, with 4 adults crowding the scene with cameras to capture this wonderful moment. Well... our wonderful moment was a disaster. Apparently telling a toddler that this is HIS sister lent possession to the equation and Lucas thought that Elise was a toy for him. He wasn't intentionally mean, but he wanted her out of the carseat and in his arms by any means necessary, which was by her neck! Of course this led the four adults into a panic, which in turn sent Lucas into a kicking and screaming melt down... we had Elise and Lucas in separate rooms for most of the rest of the day.

In the mean time, Garen went to Wal-Mart and bought Lucas his very own baby doll! It was a bit hard on Garen's ego, but he knew it was necessary, and it actually worked very well. Lucas played with HIS doll for the rest of the day. When we reintroduced Mommy's baby (which is now how we refer to Elise in terms of possession) it went much better. Lucas still wanted to hold her and we helped him as best we could.

Over the past week he has gotten better every day. We still have to watch him like a hawk near her because he is too helpful and not aware of his own strength. He will pat her on the head one moment, kiss her on the cheek, then whack her on the head! He will try and give her a hug, but he will try and lean on her to do it. When I change her diaper, he wants

to help wipe her and help put diaper rash cream on her. Lucas really is just trying to be helpful!

Elise is such a different baby than Lucas was! She sleeps, a lot! I am certainly not looking a gift-horse in the mouth, and I pray that this pattern continues. She is awake and alert about 1 hour out of 10 a day. I've only had one really bad night. My parents are still here, so I have a lot of help with Lucas, which has allowed me to sleep in some days and take a nap others. I'm trying to regulate myself to going to bed early so I can get up with Lucas and still be alive during the day. Mom and Dad leave on Saturday, and it will be just Garen and me until the new year when Garen goes back to work. I've got another week or so to get ready to be alone with two small children.

Welcome Baby Elise!

I've decided that this format is easier for me to update that the "sites" website that I attempted while I was pregnant. I did a good job of updating Lucas' blog way back when, but with my pregnancy blog - somewhere along the way I lost...interest? time? I don't know! But I did a terrible job of updating that website!

Elise Lauren Grashot was born Tuesday morning at 12:05am, December 15th, 2009. However "pre-labor" started many hours before that. Her birth story is so much different than Lucas'!

I started having contractions around midnight Sunday night. At 1am I got up to time them. They were 4 min apart and 40 sec long for almost an hour. I thought I was going to have to wake up Garen to rush me to the hospital! But toward the end of that hour of timing, they started getting farther apart. Then they started getting longer in duration. I waited another hour and they just became more irregular. I suffered through the night, and I asked Garen to st

ay home from work just in case. I had a scheduled OB appointment at noon and I was 2 1/2 cm (1 cm more than last week) and 50% effaced, but still contracting irregularly. My OB said they needed to be regular before I went to the hospital, but he didn't think I would make it through the night.

By evening, my contractions were STILL super irregular (2.5 min apart, then 11 min apart, then 8 min....30sec long, then 50 sec, then 20 sec, then 90 sec!) but they were getting pretty painful. Garen and I ate dinner and said good-bye to Lucas and were at the hospital at 6pm. I was only at 3cm, and you need to be at 4cm to be admitted, or be having REGULAR contractions that are no more 5 minutes apart and at least a minute long. They monitored my contractions for about 30 minutes when I asked if I could walk around to try and help things progress. Well...that turned out to be an effective but pain-filled request! Garen and I had already walked a LOT yesterday, and I hadn't slept at all the night before, so when my contractions started getting very intense (some of them were only 2-3 minutes apart) I wanted to go get back into my hospital bed, but my nurse wouldn't let me! She said I needed to walk for the entire hour! Painful contractions were new to me with this pregnancy. With Lucas my contractions were very manageable until the doctor broke my water, but by then I only had to work through them for maybe 30-40 minutes until I was given an epidural. At this point with Elise, I had been having painful, albeit irregular, contractions for hours! I was exhausted and I honestly don't know how my legs supported me through many of them. Garen was wonderful at trying to help, but there wasn't much he could do. At the end of the hour, the nurse said the magic number...4! I could be admitted and get an epidural!

Unfortunately, you don't just "get" an epi, you have to have blood work first, and an IV. Then you have to wait for the blood work results, and you have to take an entire bag of saline, and THEN they can CALL for the epi. The process takes about an hour, and I knew this. So when the nurse offered me IV narcotic drugs to "take the edge off", I readily accepted, even though I respond poorly to narcotics. I didn't think I would make it an hour. It was pretty much ineffective; I could still feel everything, it just made them a tad more bearable. It also made me loopy! In between contractions my vision was blurry and I would pass out for a few moments before the next contraction started. I don't know if that was good or bad, but it certainly was interesting.

Right before my epi the nurse checked me again and I was at 5cm. The epi was administered and I was told it would take 10 minutes to fully kick in. They also started me on Pitocin, which increases the intensity of contractions. In 10 minutes my right side was completely numb, but I could still feel everything on the left side and it still hurt a lot. The nurse gave the epi a boost and in 10 more minutes my right side felt like a lead weight, the pain was gone from my left side, but I could still feel contractions in my butt and thigh. Since it didn't hurt-hurt, we left things alone. My nurse said that the doctor would be delivering another baby very soon and after that he would be by to see me and break my water.

Maybe 30 minutes passed and I told the nurse that I was really feeling strong contractions. She checked me and I was at 9cm! By the time the nurses had the room set up for delivery I was ready to start pushing. On the next contraction I pushed 2 times. On the contraction after that, the nurse told me to stop pushing and thing started getting really hectic! The nurse had to hold her IN while the other nurses went in search of the doctor. Of course, the other lady in labor was also ready for him too, but because the nurse was literally holding Elise in, I won rights to the doctor first. It took 7 minutes for him to get to me and on the 1st push Elise was born. Her birthday would be a day earlier if the doctor had been there! As soon as she was delivered, the doctor had to leave me to go deliver the other baby. He was back about 10 minutes later to deliver the placenta and stitch me up.

Elise is completely healthy, a great eater, and beautiful. I'm doing really well too. We get to go home from the hospital today and we will introduce her to her big brother. I'll update again soon (this week) with "coming home" pictures and stories.