Nurses & Car Shopping

Tammy and Tracey have both been over to check up on Johnny regularly, as well as Brenda. Thats three home nurses! You'd think I would have lost them after giving birth, but at least Tammy is sticking around until he turns 2. Today we learned that he is up to 7lb 6oz, which is really good to know. Having him weighed only every month or so isn't nearly as interesting as weekly while he is still this tiny... Other new discoveries include:

There is no sunscreen suitable for children under 6 months of age. That means that this entire summer must be spent under umbrellas, blankets, and any shade tree we can find. I think I might have to invest in a beach umbrella for at the lake in August.

You can not give a child under the age of 1 any honey. It contains some type of spore that can give them a very serious illness. Doctors are leaning towards no corn syrup either, as more and more studies find that it may contain that same spore. Not that any of this probably matters, I haven't ever heard of someone giving a little one honey or corn syrup for any particular reason, but it's good to know.

Any form of pain killer made for infants should not be used under 6 months, but the gas relief medication can be taken once they reach 1 month old. I have to say, I'm very happy about the latter, as the poor little guy was up all night and most of the day today with a horrible tummy ache. I could hear it! It was the first time he hasn't really slept through the night, and though that is okay and normal, I really hated to watch him in pain like that. I feel so bad that I couldn't take it away, I'd do anything to make him feel better. It turns out that the gas relief meds work much like drain-o in that it isn't absorbed by the body at all, it just passes through and breaks up air bubbles along the way, hence the safety at an earlier age. Steve thinks I'm weird because I compared it to drain-o. They're both types of plumbing!

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In other news, today we went car shopping. We ended up being at the Saturn dealership for 4 hours because the guy helping us was incompetent and extremely slow. Johnny was amazing the whole time, didn't fuss, and was rather incredible I must say. I was whining more than he was, by far!

The deal is that Dotty was going to pay the payments on Steve's Ion for the rest of the time he is in college as her way of supporting him since she payed for tuition, room & board for his sisters the whole way through their undergrad degree. Well, Saturn called her and made a proposition since the lease she has on their other Ion ends this month... 0% financing, KBB trade-in pricing for both cars, and fair pricing on any new car she wanted. Since Steve's Ion hasn't been the most dependable car in the world, Dotty thought that it might be a good idea, especially since Johnny came along. She offered to stick to the same deal with Steve of paying the payments until he graduates, provided the monthly is around $300 or less. We think thats a wonderful idea, especially since the trade-in value we would walk away with is much higher than it would be on the Ion in 2 years... either way we look at it, we either will have a new car we really like and would finish paying off ourselves, or we'd have a car that is better than our current one with more equity toward the car of our choice from any dealership.

We test drove the Vue and the Astra. Out of the entire Saturn line, we would definitely buy the 4-door manual Astra, but as they stopped making them, it is hard to find one new. The 0% financing deal is only good on new cars. The local Saturn also seems to mark up their prices astronomically, as it normally starts just under $17k and theirs were an absolute minimum of $20.5k. In the end, the "deal" they offered on the phone ended up being total bull, so Steve and Dotty and I walked away. Our next (and most likely final) stop will be the Honda dealership. Steve and I have both wanted a Honda Fit since they hit the market, and Dotty said she has bought a lot of cars through a particular man at Dix that would give us the best deal in town. As the Fit starts at just under $15k, I'm thinking it is already a better idea! Hondas are more reliable, safer, and it would get over 10mpg more than the Astra. Um, sign me up!

Now we just have to go to Dix...

Lazy Day

This morning Johnny and I took our time getting up. We hung out in our pjs, enjoyed a nap from 10-11, and have slowly cleaned up and started to work our way outdoors. I am excited for the weather to start staying nice! My family's yearly trip to Lake Erie can't come soon enough.

I am absolutely loving being a mother, but I have found a downside to giving birth. Though it is totally worth it to have such an amazing gift as a child, I am rather bummed that I'll never fit back into my pants! My hips widened too much! I'm actually 5lbs under my pre-prego weight, but my hips aren't exactly going to shrink no matter how much weight I lose. I never really had hips prior to giving birth, and Stephen says he likes that I'm more curvy now, but I don't think our budget is too happy about it. I'll have to hit up the Goodwill and see if I can find anything to hold me over until we can save up some money. Then again, it's about comparable to Walmart in price these days...

In other news, Johnny is as much of a musician as his father already. He loves to have something playing in the background 24/7, and is still humming and singing as much as he did when he was born. I know you'd think a kid that young couldn't have preferences in music yet, but he honestly seems to. I have certain genres he wants to listen to at different times during the day, and others he just can not seem to stand. Sleep classical, morning Jars of Clay, afternoon awake time rock, after dinner oldies, and late night classic rock. Too funny if you ask me!

Well, I do believe more outdoor time is in order. Sunshine is really one of the greatest things God ever gave us to lift your mood!

Last Hospital Visit

Johnny is up to 6lbs 12oz, steadily following the growth pattern the doctors want him to be on. He continues to sleep through the night with no problems, and is a very pleasant baby all day long! He rarely cries, loves to look around, and rolled over for the first time when he was 13 days old. Thankfully he has only managed that once more since, but we have a "sleep positioner" in the crib for him to make sure nothing bad happens at night.

Yesterday was the "big day"... at least it was labeled as such on the calendar. We had to take Johnny into the hospital to complete a procedure that is typically done the day after a little guy is born. Because of my own history of Von Willebrands disease, we had to wait on some lab work to come back and verify whether or not Johnny had inherited the bleeding disorder from me. Friday we got the go-ahead, he doesn't have any problems, and so they scheduled our visit to Mount Nittany Medical Center for 9:00am. Everything went very well, he was more relaxed about it than most, and only cried for a little while afterward. Throughout the day he napped a few extra hours and for the most part was silent unless he wanted to be cuddled with. Today we were able to see he is recovering well, and also managed to loose the last of the umbilical cord too!

Sunday we plan on going on an outing for the afternoon with aunt Christy to enjoy the wonderful weather! State High has a girl's rugby game that day, and we can't wait to soak up some sun.

Big Johnny

Today I received a call from my brother in Iraq. It was the first time we've been able to talk since little Johnny was born, other than on facebook. I can't explain how good it was to hear his voice again.

In about three months Johnny will be returning to the states and coming home to State College for a short time. Against what I personally would prefer, he has reenlisted for another five years and will be stationed far away in Washington state. This means very few visits and I am quite bummed about it, but Stephen and I plan on going out to see him there as soon as we can get up the money in a year or two. At least I know he will be on U.S. soil and not overseas again, which is quite a dramatic comfort.

It is hard to believe that about seven years have passed since Johnny first became a part of our family. In ways it feels like he was always there, and in other ways time has just taken off faster than ever before. When people ask me why I chose the name I did for my child, I can't help but think back to those first months when my brother began living with us. To be totally honest, I took the adjustment the least well out of the family. To this day I am ashamed to say that it was almost a year before I fully accepted the amazing boy who would one day mean more to me than I could ever express. It wasn't that I didn't like him, it was simply that I was going through a rough patch in my life and was entirely too focused on myself.

Over time Johnny made the slow transition from living with his mother a few days a week and with us the rest to being with us full time. The house that we lived in was small, but he didn't seem to mind using the living room as a bed room. Down the road, I shared the living room with him for the summer between high school and college to allow my sisters the chance to split up for the first time and each have a room of their own. I wanted to be there for the decorating process, the fun move, and so I took the couch and Johnny had his futon. That was the most memorable summer of my life.

Every night we were up until at least 2am, playing video games and cooking midnight dinners. At one point my parents finally forced us to stop grilling burgers outside past 10pm because the grill resided right outside of their bedroom window. Somehow Johnny mastered the art of cooking a hamburger in a skillet and still having it taste good... to this day I can't do that to save my life. More often than not it would reach dawn before we would finally settle down, and it took me years to break the habit of listening to that same CD he played every night to fall asleep.

When I started college, I quickly found that I enjoyed the new atmosphere, the new people, and the new life I was starting. As much as the other kids expressed homesickness, I found that the one person I truly missed most was Johnny. We had become close over the two years we had lived in the same house together, and when I would sit awake at night unable to sleep, I wished he was still there to talk to or even just watch a movie with. As with many college students, my internal clock was reversed, but that had happened three months prior to starting school thanks to my brother.

Now today, years later, I look back and can't imagine my life without him. Johnny for all intense purposes could have been born into our family, because he is and always will be my brother. Though we don't see each other nearly as often as before, it is to be expected that with age comes the natural parting of ways that all siblings have when it comes to their paths in life. This has not made us any less close, and when it came time to come up with a name for the baby boy I was to give birth to, my automatic reaction was to name him Johnny. Who else would be best as a namesake for the beginning of a new generation of my family?

I love you poo.

1-Week Checkup

This morning we went to see Dr. Prince again to look into how Johnny is doing. Great news, he's wonderfully healthy and thriving! He is in the 10th percentile for his height and weight, which is amazing for a preemie, and only 1oz off his birth weight. The slightly jaundice look he came home from the hospital with is totally gone. Even better than anything else, we were able to view the test results that finally came in for the Von Willebrands disease... he's in the clear! It's not like it is nearly as much of a problem to deal with for men as it is women, but I'm still glad he doesn't have to worry about it at all and we can go ahead and schedule his outpatient "snip snip"...

The greatest proof I've had in a while that I am indeed one of the whitest women alive is that everyone I talk to seems to think I'm extremely anemic still. We had our WIC appointment today after Dr. Prince's, and I am apparently almost back on track with my hemoglobin levels. I'm not anemic, I'm just uber white! Better yet, I'm not only out of the clear for the anemia, but I am officially only 8lbs over my pre-prego weight! I kind of look like I have an old man's wrinkly belly, but they are saying most of the stretch marks should go away, and I think by the end of this I will probably weigh less than I did going into it. Hooray!

I guess all of this leaves me going back to the normal ins and outs of life. Now that I'm no longer bedridden or huge, I can clean and cook and be "all domestic 'n stuff" again. I think the trash needs to be taken out...

Home!

We've been home since last Wednesday afternoon. As you can imagine, life has been very hectic and full of a lot of visitors and trips to meet various friends and family around town. Today we went into Gary's office to give him a chance to show his grandson off to all of his coworkers. The man was in his glory like I've never seen before! I was really glad we got a chance to let him strut his stuff, he very rarely does.

Johnny's first easter was also the one-week mark in his life, which meant baskets from everyone! As most usually contain candy, Steve and I have more sugar than we could possibly ever go through in our house at the moment, and it really isn't promoting the loss of my remaining belly. In a positive light, though I gained 41lbs while pregnant with Johnny, I lost 28 by giving birth. I'm now only 13lbs over what I was pre-pregnancy, and it is all focused in my belly. My goal is to have worked it off by the end of the summer.

There is one question everyone is constantly asking when it comes to the newest member of the Delafield family; do you get any sleep? Yes, indeed, we all do! Johnny has been sleeping through the night since we brought him home. If anything, I get less sleep than the men in this household simply because I have been getting up twice a night to pump. Well, that and I can't help but staring at my little guy as he sleeps... Being a mother is amazing. I can't wait to see what the next day brings!

Um... SURPRISE!?!?!

Talk about a whirlwind of a week... I still am not completely sure what day it is. Someone said he was born the 5th? Sounds 'bout right...

As you all know, it has been quite rocky for the past few months, especially more so as of late. To cut to the chase as far as the weeks go, the doctors just went back and forth on what to do with me and whether or not they thought I needed to give birth early at Danville just to be safe. This past Friday comes, we go to our scheduled appointment, and the doctor just about has a heart attack and the latest results from some of my labs, (elevated protein yet again, only we're talking like 1000x what it should have been) and called down to Danville right away. Danville said send her home with strict instructions to keep her Monday morning appointment, and a list of symptoms to look for that would mean she should go directly to Mt. Nittany Hospital.

An hour later... contractions 8 minutes apart, we were at Mt. Nittany. Four hours later I was on a morphine drip being told I would have to spend the night, and that the specialist in maternal fetal medicine from Danville happened to be the guy on call at Mt. Nittany that night due to a staff shortage, so he would be taking care of me. Um, yeah right. The minute he walked in the room to review my case he told them to find an ambulence, I was headed to Danville immediately, and to start me on a bunch more meds that would make sure I made it the hour and a half drive without giving birth. The contractions were about 5 minutes apart at this point, and I was officially in labor. (3am?)

One long ambulance ride and an entire IV bag of Magnesium Sulfate later, we pulled into the parking lot at the hospital in Danville just in time for me to puke from all of the drugs combined with motion sickness and staring out the back window. Meanwhile, Stephen and my father were on their way somewhere about 15 minutes behind. They got me unloaded, pulled me up to the maternity ward, and proceeded to attack with about 10 different doctors and nurses. In the end they finally established who would be on my case, and I was down to 3 nurses and 3 docs, one of which is the chief resident.

For those of you who have no clue what Magnesium Sulfate does to a body, join the club. I was woozy and half-drugged from that point on. No, not pain meds kind of drugged, just really confused and completely aware that the words coming out of my mouth didn't always make sense anymore. Anyway, once the crew had reviewed my case and were all on board, they decided to monitor me and see how the contractions went on their own. I was given more fluids via IV and a second bag of Mag (which is a muscle relaxant) and hooked up to all of the classic monitors. Steve and my dad arrived right around that point and settled in to wait with me. 8am came Saturday and the only difference was that the contractions were about 4 minutes apart, and the doctors continued to watch and wait. My mom, Chris, Grandma Jean, Mindy & Christy all arrived around noon to be with us because the doctors were fairly sure that Johnny was going to be coming out, it was only a matter of time. Not long later Dotty, Gary & Elizabeth showed up to join the party in the waiting room. Though I saw visitors on and off, I was in a lot of pain and basically just trying to hang in there. No pain meds, I wasn't allowed.

Once the doctors had decided we were in for the long haul, they added penicillin to my drip. Though this may sound like no big deal, especially as I am not allergic, it was probably the most painful thing I have ever had injected into me in my life. It stung so bad that after a few hours my arm felt like it was on fire and I was screaming for them to at very least switch hands that it was being pumped in through. Like the Mag drip hadn't been enough?! -- This all occurred around 7pm on Saturday, and with my arm covered in an ice pack I started to really freak out. No one would allow me my normal medications at this point because I was in a new place and they wouldn't really listen when Steve was yelling that I am bipolar and should be given my normal dose asap since they had missed the last two in the mix of things. The contractions were less than 3 minutes apart and the most painful thing I had ever experienced, and yet no doctors would tell me what the next step was. I'd been like that for over 18 hours and it was just getting worse with no sign of an end. All I wanted to hear was that we were definitely moving forward and that if it went on much longer they would somehow help it along. I tore off my blood pressure monitor and was attempting to do the same to the straps that followed my contractions and the baby's heart rate when my mom and Steve finally held me down and told me I wasn't allowed to leave, no matter how incompetent the doctors seemed to be. Did I mention I was loopy from the Mag still? Bag after bag of that stuff!

Finally around 1am Sunday morning a doctor came back to visit me and said that he planned on checking how dilated I was (for the first time since I had been at Mt. Nittany) and taking steps from there. I was about 5cm, having progressed all naturally, and he said there was no problem, he would start me on a hormone that would cause the contractions to speed up and me to dilate a little quicker. This is when my mom, Chris, Mindy and grandma, and dad finally went home for some sleep. Christy stuck around because she is Johnny's godmother and wanted to be there for me. God bless her, I still don't think I could have made it through without her.

Around 4am the anesthesiologist on call came in to talk to me about an epidural. Stephen and I had previously decided this was a good idea, and the head doctor from that department in Danville had seen us the day before to confirm our plan. Well... apparently that was NOT the case in the on-call lady's mind because she proceeded to give me a 30 minute lecture on how I was going to end up paralyzed and it was going to kill my baby and she did not in any way shape or form want to put it in for me. The nurses, Stephen, Christy, and my already-confused self just stared at her. I was in PAIN, severe pain, in the middle of labor, and she chooses this as a time to lecture me, after I've had no drugs and no help thus far with the promise of an end in sight the minute they put the epidural in? Steve told her to get out.

So... we proceeded with just a small bit of IV drip pain meds, which my two-nurse team basically said didn't work on anyone and might as well be a placebo. 6am Sunday morning comes - the doctor finally decides to break my water. To be honest, if I was unsure of what time of day it was and where we were before this point, it was nothing compared to the next 12 hours or so.

From 6 until almost 10 I pushed. Solid. Breathe for two seconds, wait a minute for the next contraction, (if I was lucky enough to have that long of a break in between) and then push. When they say child birth is the hardest thing a woman can ever do in her life, I'm not sure they are right. It isn't that it is hard, its that you have no choice but to keep going!!! It is definitely the most PAINFUL thing I think I will ever experience, but you hit a point where its no longer a matter of being hard or easy, it just has to go down.

At 9:52 Johnny officially crowned. The nurse said to stop pushing for a second, she was paging the doctor. At 9:52 and 1/2 seconds I said "okay" and paused. At 9:53 Johnny came flying on out with so much force and a very surprised mother, father, and aunt watching as the nurse managed to catch him before he fell to the floor. My child did not enter the world like a civilized normal being, he rocketed into it with enough energy and determination to blow half the world away.

This is the point where everything started to blur into oblivion for me. It was like an episode of ER with the entire NIC Unit flying in the door to take care of him, half the janitorial staff trying to clean everything up so no one fell over, three or four extra doctors I hadn't even seen before, and every nurse on the floor all yelling and working over top of one another. Somewhere amidst all of this two docs descended on me to do my post-labor care and next thing I knew there were bright lights on so various people could see what they needed to, and somewhere across the sea of people was my husband, standing over the warming unit Johnny was in, (who I still couldn't see) staring at him. My one moment of complete clarity was when I saw Stephen's face and said "It's okay... you can touch him," as he finally reached out to meet our son for the first time.

I think it was about 45 minutes later before they finally handed the little guy over to me and I got to see the person I'd been carrying around all this time. Beautiful, full head of blonde hair, long skinny fingers, dark blue eyes and his mother's nose to boot, Jonathan Stephen Delafield weighed 6lb 9oz, was 20.5in long, and was singing to the whole room. He proceeded to hum this squeaky little tune for the rest of the day, and on through most of the night. No crying, no screaming, just these little noises to let us know he was here.

Around noon on Sunday everyone started showing up again, and there has been a pretty consistent stream of visitors ever since. The rest of that day past noon was once again a blur, and though I barely slept, I was barely awake either. I still have not gotten more than 3 1/2 hours of sleep, as the doctors spent the entire night running tests on both Johnny and I. Because of my hemophilia issues, they were very worried when my blood loss was so high. My mother later told me that I looked like someone had bleached my skin I was so white. They were planning on giving me a transfusion, but I convinced them to hold off just another hour to see if I could regenerate some. My body successfully did this, with the help of a lot of IV bags, but they refused to take me off of the Mag until at least 12 hours had passed. I spent the parts of the night where they weren't bugging or prodding me with my son laying on my chest, humming to each other. Meanwhile, we were able to get Stephen and my father, who had stayed to help out, a good number of hours in to recoup and ready them for the morning.

Around 5am Monday I finally handed Johnny off to the nursery to try for some sleep because I was in too much pain to lay comfortably with a baby in the bed as well. This is when I got those few hours I mentioned, and then was woken by the nurses with Johnny for morning feeding time! He was scheduled for his circumcision at 8am, but needed a good meal before he could do that. One long but successful fight later, he was fed and ready to go, but the baby doc came in to inform us that they were putting the procedure on hold. Last minute thought-- what if the baby has the same hemophilia as the mom? So he got blood tests instead!

Tomorrow morning we will find out what the results from the lab have to say, which will then determine whether he goes home and gets snipped later or can go ahead and do so before we leave the hospital. They wanted to keep me under watch for a little while longer as well, so it all worked out. Meanwhile the day was filled with yet more visitors, including Johnny's aunt Elizabeth and aunt Christy Lynn who drove up from DC just to meet him! Aunt Mindy got to meet him for the first time as well, and aunt Christy Michelle finally got to hold him. Grandma Kathy took more pictures than she will know what to do with, and even Sara Smith was able to join in on the ride up.

As it is now past 1am Tuesday morning, I believe I must try for some more of that sleep everyone keeps insisting I get, but Johnny and I have one more feeding session to go first. I will try to keep everyone updated as things go along, but in the meantime I am still stuck at the hospital! Feel free to pass along information to anyone who asks, as I can't keep track of who all I was supposed to call or keep up to date. At least now I'm off that Mag drip!!! I can see straight again!!! :-)