The First 2 Weeks

The first two weeks of Wyatt's life were very stressful. To start off, the day that Joseph and I went to the hospital, Lexi had a low grade fever. We had been outside a lot with the family reunion so we just assumed that she had gotten too much sun. Then, her fever jumped up and stayed high for about 4 days. It was 104 degrees with both Motrin and Tylenol. My mother is a saint and got up with Lexi every 4 hours to give her medicine since the girls stayed with my mom while I was in the hospital.

Paige then got sick with whatever Lexi had and then got a bladder infection. The girls didn't even get to come up to the hospital to meet Wyatt and didn't get to hold him until he was 2 weeks old.

On top of dealing with the girls being so sick, Wyatt decided to give us some stress of his own. When he was first born, he had low blood sugar levels and so they had to prick his heel a ton. At first it was every half hour, then extended to every hour, then every three hours. His poor heels were like pin cushions. When we left the hospital on Tuesday (2 days old), the nurse commented that he was starting to look a little yellow. His billirubin levels were at 8 so not too high.

On Thursday (4 days old), we went to the doctor and she was concerned about how jaundiced he looked. So, we went in for another billirubin check - meaning, another heel prick! His levels were elevated from the hospital but weren't at a concerning level. The doctor wanted me to have it checked again on Friday (5 days old). She said that if his levels got to 16 that he would have to have phototherapy at home and if they got to 20, then they would admit him back into the hospital.

Friday levels were 15.1. My doctor had already left for the day so the on call doctor called. She said that their levels usually peak at day 5 and if he was eating and pooping okay, she was comfortable with me not having him checked all weekend. On top of that, I thought that Wyatt was starting to look better and less yellow. We were seeing our pediatrician on Monday so she would be able to check on him then.

Monday (8 days old) is when everything got really stressful. We took Wyatt in that morning to get circumcised. First off, the doctor said that he was glowing so we would need to get his levels checked again. Also, he had lost an ounce from when she had seen him on Thursday and was still below his birth weight. She wasn't real concerned about his weight and figured that it would work itself out once we got the jaundice under control. Still, in my mind, I felt like we were at 2 strikes.

Wyatt's circumcision went great. Joseph was in the procedure room with him. He hardly cried. When they brought him back to me, he nursed really well. The nurse checked his circumcision before we left and it looked great. They circumcised him using the Plastibell procedure so the nurse said that he shouldn't bleed at all after the procedure. If he did bleed (and it is RARE for them to bleed afterwards), then we would need to go to the ER immediately. After leaving the doctor's office, we went and had his billirubin levels checked. He bled a ton when they pricked his heel - more than he had with previous checks - but we didn't think a whole lot about it. They were able to get the bleeding to stop without effort so we went on our merry way.

The doctor's office called a few hours later and Wyatt's levels were at 17.2. They called Norco and were having phototherapy equipment delivered to the house. After arranging with Norco to schedule delivery of the equipment, we decided to change Wyatt's diaper and then I would feed him. When Joseph pulled the diaper back, it was FULL of blood. He could see the blood before he had even gotten the diaper off. We both panicked. I called the doctor's office since it was still business hours and they said to go ahead and bring him down there instead of the ER. That was the longest drive ever!!!

Once there, they started applying pressure and using this gauze type stuff called Stericell (sp?) that is supposed to help stop bleeding. They also gave him a Vitamin K shot to try to help his blood clot. We were there for about an hour and a half and they still couldn't get the bleeding to stop. I was crying in the nursing room and Joseph was in the procedure room with the doctor trying to get the bleeding to stop. It was finally decided that we needed to take Wyatt to the ER and have a pediatric urologist look at him. We were told that he might have to go into surgery in order to get the bleeding to stop.

When we got to the ER and met with the pediatric urologist, the bleeding had seemed to stop. I think that the Vitamin K shot had finally started to kick in. The doctor said to take him home and watch him. She said that if the bleeding started up again to follow up with her at her office. The reason that he had bled wasn't due to the circumcision being done wrong. For some reason, his body just wouldn't clot after the initial bleeding that every little boy has when circumcised.

When we got home, I was a wreck. Wyatt had to start phototherapy and I couldn't hold him while he was in his "tanning bed". All I wanted to do was hold my baby. Some good friends of ours found out what was going on and offered to come over and give Wyatt a priesthood blessing. I was given one also. In Wyatt's blessing, he was told that his body would heal itself. He was told that he would not need surgery for the bleeding, that the jaundice would leave his body, and that he would rapidly gain weight. In my blessing, I was told that I would have peace. Wyatt started to bleed again that night, but it was very minimal so we decided to just watch it.

On Tuesday (9 days old), the bleeding stopped in the early afternoon and he hasn't bled since. The pediatrician and I decided that we wouldn't check Wyatt's billirubin levels that day because he had been through so much. Since he was on the phototherapy, we decided that we could wait until Wednesday. On Wednesday, his levels had come down to 12!!!! We were able to take him off phototherapy. 2 of his 3 issues were resolved and I felt so blessed!

I took him in to be weighed when he was 15 days old and he had gained 12 ounces from the week before. I then took him in at 18 days old and he had gained another 12 ounces.......in 4 days! He hasn't been back yet to check his weight. We will go on Thursday.

I feel so blessed that our prayers were answered. I am so thankful for a loving Heavenly Father who knows each and every one of us and our situation. Most of all, I am thankful that Wyatt's issues are resolved and that we have a healthy baby boy!!! In those first 2 weeks, we were either at the hospital or the doctor's office almost every single day with one of the kids.

Here are some pictures from the first two weeks.......

Getting his glasses on to go "tanning"

In the "tanning bed"

Making one of his MANY cute faces!

I love this little boy!!

Wyatt's Birth Story

Since Wyatt will be three weeks old on Sunday, I thought that I better get with the program and document his birth before I forgot the details.

From the time that I got pregnant, Joseph and I assumed that Wyatt would come on Saturday, June 26th because that was the day I would be 36 weeks. With the girls, I have had them at 36 weeks to the day since that is when the doctor stops preventing my preterm labor. As it actually got closer to the day, Joseph and I started to wonder if it would really happen that day since this pregnancy went so much better. No bed rest and no month long hospital stay on magnesium sulfate!

The weekend that Wyatt was born was a big family reunion here in town for Joseph's mom's side of the family. Since we were anticipating his birth that weekend, we didn't commit to attend a lot of the reunion events. After being at Eagle Island on Friday and Paige having so much fun on the big slide, we decided that we would try and go for a little while on Saturday - long enough for Paige to get 5 rides on the slide. We got there about 12:30pm and my contractions were 2 to 3 minutes apart. About every 2nd or 3rd contraction was strong enough that I was having to breathe through it. I could feel the others and they were uncomfortable but I could still carry on a conversation through them.

At about 2:30pm, Joseph and Paige had finished going down the slide and we had eaten lunch. The contractions weren't letting up so we decided that we would head into the hospital. Even if they sent me home, at least I would have a baseline of where I was at to go off of. After we dropped the girls off, but before we got to the hospital, we walked the greenbelt for about 45 minutes just to make sure that my contractions would stay consistent and that I wouldn't look like a total idiot going into labor and delivery with contractions that had stopped.

We got to the hospital at 5:00pm and they checked me. I wasn't really dilated at all and I was 75% effaced. The nurse told me that she was going to call my doctor but that she was 99% sure that he was just going to send me home. I was a little disappointed at the prospect of going home but Joseph reminded me that our number one goal in coming to the hospital was to get a baseline of where I was at. He also said that he had woken up that morning feeling like Wyatt would not be born until the 27th. Joseph and I decided that we would pick up a movie on the way home and I would just relax in bed for the rest of the evening.

To both the nurse's and my surprise, the doctor wanted me to walk around for an hour to make sure that I didn't go into active labor. My doctor knows how fast my labor goes, especially after my water breaks, so he didn't want to risk me not making it back to the hospital. So, Joseph and I started walking. I was kind of annoyed because I felt that it was just false hope. At this point, I just wanted to go home and go to bed. I felt like walking for an hour was prolonging the inevitable - going home.

At 7:00pm, we got back to triage and my doctor came in to check me. I was shocked when he said that I was 100% effaced and dilated to between a 2 1/2 and 3. I looked at him somewhat confused and asked if this meant that I wasn't going home. He said that we were having a baby that night. I then went into panic mode because in my mind, I was going home and now all of a sudden, I was going to be having a baby within a couple of hours.

We decided that I would go ahead and get an epidural and then the doctor would break my water. With Paige, I went from a 4 to a 10 in about 30 minutes after my water breaking so we figured that everything was going to go really fast. It was about 8:30pm or 9:00pm by the time that I got settled over in labor and delivery.

The anesthesiologist came in and gave me my epidural. He told me to tell him when I started to feel a tingling in my feet. I waited and waited and the tingling never came. An hour to an hour and a half later and still had nothing. I could pinch my legs and feel it. So, he pulled the epidural out and went a vertebrae higher. I was almost in panic mode (again!) that an epidural wasn't going to take. My doctor was wanting to go ahead and break my water but I insisted that I had a good epidural in before he broke my water. I didn't get an epidural until I was dilated to a 10 with Paige so I knew how bad contractions would get. Thankfully, he agreed to wait.

I was relieved when the second epidural kicked in. The doctor came back in at 11:30 and broke my water. I don't remember exactly what I was dilated to when he broke my water but I believe it was a 3 or 4. After that, my contractions pretty much stopped. My nurse said that it was normal for the contractions to slow down or stop for about 45 minutes after the epidural kicked in. However, my doctor decided to start me on pitocin. This really scared me because I was doing a VBAC and I knew that my risk of rupturing my uterus was somewhat higher with pitocin. They ended up having to turn my pitocin up to a 3 to really get my contractions going.

At midnight, Joseph laid down to get some sleep and I attempted to get some sleep. Every time that I would start to drift off to sleep, they would come in and turn up my pitocin which would wake me up and make me more nervous. I tried watching tv to help me relax but there was nothing on (even with cable) that was taking my mind off of my worry.

At 1:45am, my nurse was getting ready to take a half hour lunch and wanted to check me before she went. I was dilated to a 5 1/2 to 6. 5 minutes after she left, I started to feel pain with every contraction on my lower left side. I was laying on my right side so I assumed that I just needed to switch sides so that gravity could help the epidural medicine kick back in on the left side. Switching sides didn't help and the pain was getting increasingly worse. At 2:15am, the nurse came back in and I asked her to call the anesthesiologist to come and boost my epidural. She wanted to check me before she called the anesthesiologist and I was at a 10.

I woke Joseph up and the doctor came in. I started pushing sometime after 2:20am and Wyatt was born at 2:27am. I literally pushed 2 1/2 times for a total of less than 5 minutes. It took me longer to wake up Joseph and longer for the doctor to get prepped than it did for Wyatt to be born. NICU then checked Wyatt out to make sure he was okay since he had been born 4 weeks early. They gave him a thumbs up and then I got to hold my son. It was one of the most amazing moments in my life.

Joseph was right and Wyatt was born on the 27th. His first few weeks have been stressful as he has had some complications but we couldn't be happier to welcome our son into our family!!!

Here are the first pictures of Wyatt.......

Bright eyed and wide awake.........

Getting ready to head home.....

What Better Reason

to return to blogging than to announce the arrival of this little guy..............

Lincoln Wyatt LaMar Danes

Born 6-27-2010 at 2:27 am
5 lbs., 15 oz. - 18 inches long

More details and photo overload to come!

July 24th, 2010

Joseph and I went to the doctor today for our first baby appointment. We were able to see the baby on the ultrasound for the first time and also heard the heartbeat. I have loved this baby from the moment that I found out that I was pregnant but the moment I saw the baby on the computer screen, I.Fell.In.LOVE!!!!

I think that it also seems a lot more real for Joseph. He was grinning from ear to ear through the whole ultrasound.......such a proud daddy! We were both fascinated (you would think that this was our first kid or something, not our THIRD) by everything that had already developed and what we could see on the ultrasound at just 12 weeks. We were able to see the baby's hands and fingers and it's stomach and bladder. The baby even had it's legs crossed which was so cute to see. Sorry, I am not scanning and posting pictures. I really haven't felt good these last few days and so I use the laptop and am not near the scanner.

Anyway, since I am a repeat offender for preterm labor, I will be getting a weekly progesterone shot. I was really nervous about this until I visited with my doctor. He is the best and due to my reproductive issues, I have seen him since I was 15. I felt a lot better about the shots after talking to him. I am still not excited to get a shot in my rear end every week for 17 to 19 weeks, but I will do what I need to for this little guy or gal. We are hoping at the very least that it will keep me out of my month long vacation at the hospital. However, the doctor said that he does still have some patients who end up in the hospital on magnesium sulfate even with the progesterone shot. We are going to keep our fingers crossed.

He also moved my due date up to July 24th. However, my due date never matters much to me since I delivered both of my kids at 36 weeks.

Joseph starts school on Tuesday.....not looking forward to that. I have loved having him home the last several weeks and he has been an amazing help and support to me since I have felt like crap and spent a lot of time in bed. The girls and I go through major withdrawals every time he has been home on a break and then goes back to school. He is taking 18 credits so he will be busy. Glad that the baby isn't scheduled to come until after the semester is over.

Finally, I have started a blog documenting my new year's goal. If you want the blog address, send me an email at danesenterprises(at)gmail(dot)com and I will give you the address if you are interested in taking a peek.