Thursday, October 29, 2009
Two Weeks
Miss Beatrix is now two weeks old. She is healthy and getting a little chub on. Her weight is up in one week from 7lb 15oz to 8lbs 7 oz. Pretty good eh? This girl loves to eat and cuddle. She rarely cries and is getting stronger everyday. We have had a pretty good couple of weeks since coming home from the hospital. My sister in law Megan came to visit and help out (thanks Megan!) for a few days. She cleaned my house, cooked, and held little girls which was awesome. Now my Dad is here and Anya and I are both loving having Grandpa around. So here are a few photos of the last week.
Monday, October 19, 2009
We're Home!
Introducing
Beatrix Elizabeth Pinette Sandor
6 hrs old
Here's the stats
Born Thursday October 15, 2009 at 11:23 am
7 lbs 15 oz
21 inches
10 mins old
Here's the story
Chattin' on the phone Thursday night with my mamma. All of the sudden I am all wet. Question, did I pee or did my water just break. I make my way into the bathroom to find that indeed my water just broke but it is green. Meconium. Great. My birth plan did not include the observation that is necessary when meconium is present. So Adam calls our midwife while I take a shower since I somehow did not get to showering that day. The midwife tells us to meet her at the hospital in an hour so she can check out my stats. We pack up and drop our Anya off at some friends for the night and make our way to the hospital. By the way, we were planning a hospital birth this time so I was not freaking out yet. Why go to the hospital since I despise the place? Remember how I told you in the last post that we moved to Quebec? Well Quebec = bureaucracy= Ontario midwives can't deliver in Quebec= really sad Chrys.
We arrive at hospital with some mild surges (hypnobirthing talk for contractions) happening about every seven minutes. My midwife hooks me up to some machines and we wait. I watch movies on my laptop, Adam attempts to sleep in a hospital chair and we get excited about seeing the baby soon. Problems occur. The babies heart rate is quite high and is not going up and down with the surges like they should. Our midwife consults with the bad bad OB guy (we actually we really comfortable with him, and he was worried about the baby since there was no variability in Trixie's heart rate) and he says that if things don't progress in the surges department he may have to intervene and perform a C-Section. So, obviously all surges stop dead and the babies heart rate stays high.
Seven am rolls around and extra midwifes have arrived. They, with the OB guy decided it would be best to start the Oxytocin. Really far out of my birth plan but Adam assures me that I can handle it and we go ahead with the IV. Now I am attached to the IV as well as the monitor so my water birth plan is totally out of the question. The surges pick up speed as well as the intensity. Hypnobirthing to the rescue. I breathed and relaxed and Adam talked me through each surge (which were way crazier as a result of the oxytocin). The baby is still not doing great so the OB man decided to do a PH test, so he attempted to reach inside (ouch!) and prick the top of babies head with a little razor thing to get some blood to test and make sure she was ok. But luckily the baby would have none of that. Apparently she didn't like OB guys either so he gives me a time line. Two hours and he will do a section. I get up and start moving around more. The surges are awful by then but Adam somehow makes it all ok. About 40 minutes later and only 20 minutes of birth breathing (pushing) and baby Beatrix is born.
Favorite moment of the birth besides having it over with: Imagine me sitting on a birth ball with Adam on the end of the bed. I am leaning over him in the height of a pretty heavy surge. I am pushing on Adam's legs letting all the pain go into him. When that surge is over Adam tells me that I am beautiful. I laugh and say that it is not possible at that moment. He says no, I am beautiful and we move into another surge.
Immediatly after the birth Beatrix was taken by Adam over the the heating tray to be checked out by the Pediatrician. Adam rubbed her and talked to her and she told him stories of her journey. The Pediatrician cleaned the gunk out of her mouth and throat. After noticing that Miss Trixie was super pale and not gaining color they ordered blood tests. After a while they came back to tell us that her hemoglobin level was super duper low. Like scary low. It should be 140 and Beatrix's was 85. They said that they wanted us to hang around and see if it would go up by the evening. Unfortunately during the course the afternoon it dropped to 71. So they decided to transfer her to the children's hospital where there are neonatologists that would know what was going on. This photo is while we waited to the transfer people to come and pick her up.
From thursday night until monday afternoon I spent almost every second with Beatrix at the hospital while Adam spent his time moving back and forth from home to the hospital and moving Anya around between various friend's houses. Beatrix was put on oxygen soon after we arrived because when you have no red blood cells you don't get enough oxygen through out your body. She was off it on Saturday afternoon after she had improved a bit and eaten some. She had been sleeping a ton, even for a newborn because of the anemia, but she eats really well so she started to pick up. They did several blood tests and decided that in the last few weeks before delivery, Beatrix had been transfering blood to me. During the first two days they checked her hemoglobin levels and they were, 73, 75, and then 76. After that they decided to wait 48 hours before checking again in a effort to allow her to build some more cells on her own. This morning the test showed a hemoglobin level of 88 so they decided that we could go home. We are very grateful that she is such a strong sweet little girl.
Upon arrival at home I found a sick two year old who was super excited about having a baby sister at home. Anya is totally in love with baby Beatrix which means that she wants to help with everything involving Trixie including feeding and holding at all times. I guess too much love is something that we can deal with.
Beatrix Elizabeth Pinette Sandor
6 hrs old
Here's the stats
Born Thursday October 15, 2009 at 11:23 am
7 lbs 15 oz
21 inches
10 mins old
Here's the story
Chattin' on the phone Thursday night with my mamma. All of the sudden I am all wet. Question, did I pee or did my water just break. I make my way into the bathroom to find that indeed my water just broke but it is green. Meconium. Great. My birth plan did not include the observation that is necessary when meconium is present. So Adam calls our midwife while I take a shower since I somehow did not get to showering that day. The midwife tells us to meet her at the hospital in an hour so she can check out my stats. We pack up and drop our Anya off at some friends for the night and make our way to the hospital. By the way, we were planning a hospital birth this time so I was not freaking out yet. Why go to the hospital since I despise the place? Remember how I told you in the last post that we moved to Quebec? Well Quebec = bureaucracy= Ontario midwives can't deliver in Quebec= really sad Chrys.
We arrive at hospital with some mild surges (hypnobirthing talk for contractions) happening about every seven minutes. My midwife hooks me up to some machines and we wait. I watch movies on my laptop, Adam attempts to sleep in a hospital chair and we get excited about seeing the baby soon. Problems occur. The babies heart rate is quite high and is not going up and down with the surges like they should. Our midwife consults with the bad bad OB guy (we actually we really comfortable with him, and he was worried about the baby since there was no variability in Trixie's heart rate) and he says that if things don't progress in the surges department he may have to intervene and perform a C-Section. So, obviously all surges stop dead and the babies heart rate stays high.
Seven am rolls around and extra midwifes have arrived. They, with the OB guy decided it would be best to start the Oxytocin. Really far out of my birth plan but Adam assures me that I can handle it and we go ahead with the IV. Now I am attached to the IV as well as the monitor so my water birth plan is totally out of the question. The surges pick up speed as well as the intensity. Hypnobirthing to the rescue. I breathed and relaxed and Adam talked me through each surge (which were way crazier as a result of the oxytocin). The baby is still not doing great so the OB man decided to do a PH test, so he attempted to reach inside (ouch!) and prick the top of babies head with a little razor thing to get some blood to test and make sure she was ok. But luckily the baby would have none of that. Apparently she didn't like OB guys either so he gives me a time line. Two hours and he will do a section. I get up and start moving around more. The surges are awful by then but Adam somehow makes it all ok. About 40 minutes later and only 20 minutes of birth breathing (pushing) and baby Beatrix is born.
Favorite moment of the birth besides having it over with: Imagine me sitting on a birth ball with Adam on the end of the bed. I am leaning over him in the height of a pretty heavy surge. I am pushing on Adam's legs letting all the pain go into him. When that surge is over Adam tells me that I am beautiful. I laugh and say that it is not possible at that moment. He says no, I am beautiful and we move into another surge.
Immediatly after the birth Beatrix was taken by Adam over the the heating tray to be checked out by the Pediatrician. Adam rubbed her and talked to her and she told him stories of her journey. The Pediatrician cleaned the gunk out of her mouth and throat. After noticing that Miss Trixie was super pale and not gaining color they ordered blood tests. After a while they came back to tell us that her hemoglobin level was super duper low. Like scary low. It should be 140 and Beatrix's was 85. They said that they wanted us to hang around and see if it would go up by the evening. Unfortunately during the course the afternoon it dropped to 71. So they decided to transfer her to the children's hospital where there are neonatologists that would know what was going on. This photo is while we waited to the transfer people to come and pick her up.
From thursday night until monday afternoon I spent almost every second with Beatrix at the hospital while Adam spent his time moving back and forth from home to the hospital and moving Anya around between various friend's houses. Beatrix was put on oxygen soon after we arrived because when you have no red blood cells you don't get enough oxygen through out your body. She was off it on Saturday afternoon after she had improved a bit and eaten some. She had been sleeping a ton, even for a newborn because of the anemia, but she eats really well so she started to pick up. They did several blood tests and decided that in the last few weeks before delivery, Beatrix had been transfering blood to me. During the first two days they checked her hemoglobin levels and they were, 73, 75, and then 76. After that they decided to wait 48 hours before checking again in a effort to allow her to build some more cells on her own. This morning the test showed a hemoglobin level of 88 so they decided that we could go home. We are very grateful that she is such a strong sweet little girl.
Upon arrival at home I found a sick two year old who was super excited about having a baby sister at home. Anya is totally in love with baby Beatrix which means that she wants to help with everything involving Trixie including feeding and holding at all times. I guess too much love is something that we can deal with.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
New Apartment and Projects.
I thought a post before the baby comes might be a good idea. Just to update everyone on where we are and what's up in our lives. We left the DC area at the end of August to move back home to Ottawa. Some wonderful friends found us an apartment in Gatineau Quebec. Ottawa is located right on the border of Quebec and it is commonly referred to as the Ottawa/Gatineau area. Quebec is substantially cheaper for rent then the area in Ottawa we are willing to live in (we must stay in our ward boundaries). So our apartment is a good sized three bedroom with a full unfinished basement which means that we can throw all of our "stuff" in the basement and we bought a washer and dryer (yeah for no more laundry mats!). When we moved in we had to re-paint everything so we spent the first couple of weeks painting and moving furniture around, not quite done with that but done enough that it now feels like home. We are in a great location, right next to a major road that has tons of buses for Adam to get to school quickly and super close to the river and paths that I love about the Ottawa area. We are even super close to the good English/French immersion school so in a couple of years Anya will be able to go to Jr Kindergarten there.
We have all been super busy since coming home. Adam and I both were called to fairly big callings. Adam is crazy busy with his Phd. He is having to read tons more than his Masters and still trying to do his own research for publication, work on scholarship applications, working as a TA. I have been trying to get some of the bazillion projects done around the house. Curtins have been made for Anya's room but not yet for ours, I finished a hand pieced quilt for the new baby which I will show as soon as it gets back from the quilters (oh, that's my mom. She is awsome.) And various Christmas presents are on the go. I thought that i would share one project that I have been working on for the last couple of days.
Before
The tenants who lived here before us left this Dutailier glider for us. It was is terrible shape. It was covered in a super thick layer of cat hair and the fabric was stained badly. The wood finish was very warn and it is totally not my style. I have always wanted a Dutailier glider but they are way out of our price range so.... Now I have one that I like. The above photo was taken after hours of scrubbing and washing so don't think that I was just being picky. I spray painted the whole thing a satin finish black which makes it totally match our Broyhill furniture and then I took an old red microfiber duvet cover that I had and recovered the seat and back cushion. I have never made covers for anything like this before so it was a creative process to get it done but I am pretty happy with the results, we just won't let my mom inspect it. So the whole transformation cost me two can's of spray paint and I am super happy with the results. Anya loves it also, I often find her in the office rocking with some book. Now we just need a baby to come out so that I can rock it.
We have all been super busy since coming home. Adam and I both were called to fairly big callings. Adam is crazy busy with his Phd. He is having to read tons more than his Masters and still trying to do his own research for publication, work on scholarship applications, working as a TA. I have been trying to get some of the bazillion projects done around the house. Curtins have been made for Anya's room but not yet for ours, I finished a hand pieced quilt for the new baby which I will show as soon as it gets back from the quilters (oh, that's my mom. She is awsome.) And various Christmas presents are on the go. I thought that i would share one project that I have been working on for the last couple of days.
Before
The tenants who lived here before us left this Dutailier glider for us. It was is terrible shape. It was covered in a super thick layer of cat hair and the fabric was stained badly. The wood finish was very warn and it is totally not my style. I have always wanted a Dutailier glider but they are way out of our price range so.... Now I have one that I like. The above photo was taken after hours of scrubbing and washing so don't think that I was just being picky. I spray painted the whole thing a satin finish black which makes it totally match our Broyhill furniture and then I took an old red microfiber duvet cover that I had and recovered the seat and back cushion. I have never made covers for anything like this before so it was a creative process to get it done but I am pretty happy with the results, we just won't let my mom inspect it. So the whole transformation cost me two can's of spray paint and I am super happy with the results. Anya loves it also, I often find her in the office rocking with some book. Now we just need a baby to come out so that I can rock it.
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