It has been so long since I posted. So much to say but so little time to say it all. A lot has changed in our lives some great and some not so great. As everyone probably knows by now, on May 11 I gave birth to our baby boy...Owen. I hope to sit down soon and do a post on my birth experience but until then I will catch up a little. Owen is now 14 weeks old and is growing so fast. He changes weekly. We are so in love with him and can't imagine life without him. He is such a happy baby, always smiling. We had a rough start with him due to a milk protein allergy and really bad reflux. He was so miserable the first month and half of his life. But with several visits to the doctor and 2 pediatric gastroenterology consults he is finally well and doing great. They put him on prescription formula and reflux medication. The whole formula thing is not what I wanted to happen and is whole another story in itself but due to me not being able to produce enough milk and him being a late term preemie I had no choice. I was fortunate enough to be able to take a full 8 weeks off from work and when I returned J started her maternity leave for 5 weeks. This week was the first week we both were back at work. J cut her hours so that we would not have to put him in daycare and between my mom watching him for 3 hours 2-3 days a week and she and I being off the other days he is always home.
On another note my father had a massive stroke 2 weeks ago and he currently in rehab. He could not move his right side at all but slowly regained movement on it. He is now able to walk but is unsteady and can move his right arm but his hand does not work. He is unable to talk and has difficulty swallowing. The doctors are hopeful that with lots of therapy he can regain a lot of the things he has lost. I hope so. He is working so hard. He has 3 full hours of therapy a day. Each time I go there and bring Owen my father's eyes light up and he gives a big laugh. He and my mom are so in love with him. They waited so long to be grandparents. I just pray that he gets well soon so that he can enjoy his grandson.
When I returned to work I started my new position as nurse manager. I has been a good change for me. The hours are regular and I now have holidays off. This is a huge deal for us. If I had not gotten this position it would have been so hard for us. My hours would have changed quarterly and I would have had to do night shifts. I am so thankful things worked out for us. I got a raise and better hours. Can't complain.
I want to leave you with a few pictures of Owen but I promise there will be more soon.

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Sunday, August 21, 2011

It has been so long since I posted. So much to say but so little time to say it all. A lot has changed in our lives some great and some not so great. As everyone probably knows by now, on May 11 I gave birth to our baby boy...Owen. I hope to sit down soon and do a post on my birth experience but until then I will catch up a little. Owen is now 14 weeks old and is growing so fast. He changes weekly. We are so in love with him and can't imagine life without him. He is such a happy baby, always smiling. We had a rough start with him due to a milk protein allergy and really bad reflux. He was so miserable the first month and half of his life. But with several visits to the doctor and 2 pediatric gastroenterology consults he is finally well and doing great. They put him on prescription formula and reflux medication. The whole formula thing is not what I wanted to happen and is whole another story in itself but due to me not being able to produce enough milk and him being a late term preemie I had no choice. I was fortunate enough to be able to take a full 8 weeks off from work and when I returned J started her maternity leave for 5 weeks. This week was the first week we both were back at work. J cut her hours so that we would not have to put him in daycare and between my mom watching him for 3 hours 2-3 days a week and she and I being off the other days he is always home.
On another note my father had a massive stroke 2 weeks ago and he currently in rehab. He could not move his right side at all but slowly regained movement on it. He is now able to walk but is unsteady and can move his right arm but his hand does not work. He is unable to talk and has difficulty swallowing. The doctors are hopeful that with lots of therapy he can regain a lot of the things he has lost. I hope so. He is working so hard. He has 3 full hours of therapy a day. Each time I go there and bring Owen my father's eyes light up and he gives a big laugh. He and my mom are so in love with him. They waited so long to be grandparents. I just pray that he gets well soon so that he can enjoy his grandson.
When I returned to work I started my new position as nurse manager. I has been a good change for me. The hours are regular and I now have holidays off. This is a huge deal for us. If I not gotten this position it would have been so hard for us. My hours would have changed quarterly and I would have had to do night shifts. I am so thankful things worked out for us. I got a raise and better hours. Can't complain.
I want to leave you with a few pictures of Owen but I promise there will be more soon.

Baby Owen Paul

Hello everyone this is J P's wife. P wanted me to update everyone.

On may 11th at 11:44 am we welcomed our little man Owen Paul to our family. He is 5lb 18 inches, with blonde hair. Due to his premature age (although he is considered to be a late premie) he is spending some time in the NICU. He was having trouble stabalizing his blood sugar levels. He is doing good today, and we hope he will get to go home with us on saturday.

P is doing very well. She had to have a csection due to a low platelet count. We were happy to be able to do a epidural and enjoy the moment as there was a question of general anestesia.

Both baby and mom are well. I have added a couple pictures. P will blog more later (and better than I...lol)

35 wk update

Hey everyone this is j ,p's wife! We just want to let you all know that p is having a csection wed at 11am! P went into preclampsia and her platelets became low. She is doing fine and baby is passing all his NST's with flying colors. I will post tomorow after delivery. And p will post later with pics and blog!

27 week ramblings

I am now 27 1/2 weeks. Overall I have been feeling pretty good with the exception of tiredness and emotional waves. I can't believe how easily I get upset and cry now. I have never experienced this before. When I was on the injectables before getting pregnant I was a little moody at times but nothing like I am now.
Last week I had a scare with some bleeding. I was at work and suddenly felt some pressure. I went to the restroom thinking maybe I had to urinate but I immediatly saw bright red blood on my underwear and then on the tissue. I freaked out. I called the ob's office and they wanted to see me right away. I work an hour away from the ob's office so it was torture the whole drive there. J also works an hour away but was able to meet me there. They did a pelvic exam, ultrasound, and lab work. By the time I got there I only had a little bleeding. The only thing they found was a bacterial infection for which I am now taking flagyl for. I followed up with the midwife on Friday and she said everything looks good right now. I always love seeing her over the Ob doctors because she is so calm and always takes her time to answer all our questions. Starting next week I will be going in weekly for NST, bio-physical profile, and follow up with midwife. This plan was developed on the advice of the perinatologist and the ob doctor at my clinic due to the slightly elevated AFP level and the fact that I am being treated for hypertension although my bp is never over 120/84 since starting the medication. I am still anemic and taking the iron but the hct level is holding steady.
I can't tell you how much I love feeling Wynkyn moving around in my belly. It was such a weird feeling at first but now everytime he moves its amazing. It reminds me I have a little miracle inside of me. J got to feel him move for the first time a few weeks back and she was ecstatic. We lie in bed at night and she puts her hand on my belly and feels him move. We also play music for him from the ipod. He seems to respond most to h.akuna matata from the L_ion King. A couple of weeks ago I woke up in a panic around 3:30 am thinking that I had not felt him move all day or night. I did not want to wake J up so I got up and started walking around the house, drinking some cold water and talking to Wynkyn trying to get him to move but none of it worked. After about 15 mins I started to worry so I woke J and told her what was going on. She started to talk to him and tried to get him to respond but was unable. So she had the idea of playing music on the ipod and placing it on my belly. She first put on music from Grea.se of all things and nothing happened but when she put on Ha..kuna Matata he started to move. We both were relieved and finally got some sleep. I am not sure why I woke up in such a panic and normally would not but I think I must have had some kind of bad dream that something was wrong with the baby.
I am going to post some belly shots and ultrasound pictures soon.

Its a boy

We had our appointment the maternal-fetal specialist today and our level 2 u/s done. Everything looked good with the u/s and we are happy to announce we are having a boy. We are very excited that we can now start to buy things for him. I went right to bru and bought an outfit and bibs. My father is super excited. He kept saying I dont care what you have as long as its healthy but when I told him today what we were having we was extra excited. He is going to have a grandson. He will finally not be out numbered by women anymore. I bought a bib that says grandpa's little all star it is so cute.

Anxious

The pregnancy overall has been going well until last night when I got a call from our midwife. On Tuesday Jan 4 we had our scheduled visit to recheck my blood pressure which was a little on the high side ( low 130's over low 80's)at our last visit which is when our Ob decided to start me on a bp pill just to keep things in check as she put it. Now I had all the lab work and the nuchal translucency u/s done to check for pre eclampsia, gestational diabetes, and any downs syndrome/chromosomal abnormalities in my first trimester all of which came back negative. She wants to era on the side of caution instead of waiting till things get out of hand. I had some doubts about starting the medication because of my fear of harm to the baby and the fact that I want to be able to breast feed both of which they assured me would not hurt the baby. The medication is called aldomet. They also started me on vitron-C iron tablets for my anemia. So those two things alone started to worry us a little. We also on our last visit (second trimester) had to have an AFP blood test drawn due to my age to check once again for any chromosomal problems. Yesterday the results came back with a slightly increased value as the midwife put it. She said the normal afp level is 2 and mine was 2.03. This warranted me to be scheduled an appointment with a maternal fetal specialist and for a level 2 u/s which will also check for any structural abnormalities. Now this all scares the shit out of us. J and I from the beginning have said that no matter what our baby will be ours and we will love it no matter what but just knowing that something could be wrong really worries us. We are well aware of the statistics for downs syndrome etc due to my age and such but no matter what our child will be loved no less. The things that do worry us though is the chance that something structural could be wrong such as abdominal, heart, or spinal defects(the fact that our child could be really sick).
Today the specialist called and scheduled the appointment for Monday Jan 17. We will know more then. In the meantime we wait a long wait.

2010 In Review

I wanted to do a post of 2010. Overall 2010 was a great year especially since it was the year that we finally became pregnant. I wanted to do a combination of pictures and script for this post. So here it goes:

January 2010: The New Year began quiet for us since I had to work till midnight and ended up watching the clock strike 12 while at work. The highlight of January was when we celebrated 6 years together in the New Hampshire mountains at the High_lands Inn in Bethlehem.

February 2010: We had a huge wind storm that did lots of damage in our area. We lost power for 6 days. Thank god for the generator.

April 2010: Finally lost the weight (60 lbs) and started TTC process again...lots of blood work done to prepare for IVF. We vacationed with my parents in Mrytle Beach, South Carolina.

June 2010: One of the happiest days of my life our wedding day 6/19/10. It was a beautiful sunny day in June. Held in our backyard with our family and friends.

Also in June J did a 25 mile bike ride in VT with friends. It was a fund raiser for aids. I was so proud of her for this accomplishment.

July 2010: Our first IVF cycle was cancelled due to large cyst, we were very disappointed. We took a trip to Boston to hang out with our friends A & G. We always have a great time with them. We took the ferry over to one of the harbor islands (Spectacle Island) for a hike and picnic. It was a beautiful day.

We also got to see Melissa Etheridge in concert in Hampton Beach. It was a great time.

August 2010: We went to Nantucket Island to visit our friend Chrissie for the weekend. We love it there. Started cycle #2 of IVF.

Attended the Portsmouth Air show where we saw the Blu.e An.gels:

September 2010: Spent Labor day weekend in Crawford Notch, NH camping, hiking, and took a drive up the Mt Washington a.ut.o road:

A rainbow from the top of Mt Washington.

An early morning injection of go.nal F. Oh the things we do to become pregnant.

On 9/19/2010 we did our egg retrieval. They were able to get two.

This was us before leaving to go for the retrieval:

Me signing consents getting ready for the retrieval. I have that nervous goofy smile on my face.

We had our transfer of the one surviving embryo on 9/21/2010.

October 2010: We got our first ever BFP at home on 10/1/2010. We were beyond ecstatic. What a great day.

We went to P-town Ma for our vacation/honeymoon but ended up leaving after one day to head down to Alabama because P's mom was very sick and in the hospital. We ended up bringing her back to NH with us where she was hospitalized for 3 weeks and sent to rehab for another 3 1/2 weeks to recover. P's parents stayed with us from November till January 1st when they relocated to NH to be closer to us and the baby ( It will be their 1st grandchild).

We also attended the Top_sfield Fa.ir for a little fall fun:

November 2010: We were released from the RE to the OB at 7 weeks pregnant. We had our first u/s and got to hear the heartbeat for the first time. What a beautiful sound. We never grow tired of hearing it. We had a scare with some spotting at 10 1/2 weeks that turned out to be nothing. Then we had our 12 week u/s and began our 2nd trimester.

12 week ultrasound picture he/she is an active baby:

12 weeks pregnant:

December 2010: We celebrated Christmas at our home with my parents and J's mom and brothers family:

Our furry babies posing for their Christmas picture.

The newest addition to the family Summer Rose..she looks like J's father who passed away.

I love this picture with J and the kids. She is gonna be a great mom.

So there it is 2010. It has come and gone and now we begin the New Year. Waiting anxiously for the birth of our child in June.