faboo mama

It was nice to be able to come home. I was so anxious about the condition of our apartment, that I couldn’t relax in the hospital. Besides every time, I was about to fall asleep, the phone would ring, then a parade of people would be in and out of the room checking me and such.

Anyway, I’m not going to caption the photos below, they’re pretty self-explanatory.

Ilia loves Alton! Adrian brought me a birthday dinner to the hospital and Ilia got to meet her baby brother for the first time.

Here I was explaining how she needs to be gentle with him.

She wanted to hold him, so we got her all settled and she was a natural. The most surprising thing to me was how much older she got in that short time. When I went into the hospital, I had a baby, a toddler…seeing her with a newborn made me realized how much she’s grown the last 2 years. It’s amazing. Nothing about her seems “small” any more.

Kisses…she loves kissing the baby. If she can’t hold him, she’ll kiss him. After every kiss she then makes this face:
It’s the funniest thing…she’s pretty much stopped it now, but the first 2 days, she had us rollin’.

She’s so gentle with him…he started fussing and she quieted him down. Impressive. I missed her tons while I was in the hospital, but I guess she did well here without me. Adrian said he explained to her why I had to be gone from home and she took it well.

She was a big hit at the hospital. When I went into L&D at the end of Oct. all the nurses and doctors up there fell in love with her. I wasn’t “Anika”, I was “Ilia’s mama”. We got so many compliments on her and you could hear her greeting everyone up and down the hallway. When I went back on the 9th, some of the same doctors and nurses were there and immediately asked where was Ilia. I told them that this time we left with neighbors. They all told me to give her kisses and whatnot. Um. Okay. When I went to the hospital on Friday, we took her with us until our friend could get to the hospital to take her. Again, all the nurses and doctors were just enamored with her. The day I delivered, about 8 different doctors and nurses came to my recovery room to see Ilia. I told them that she wasn’t there yet, and they looked crestfallen. On Sunday, the same thing happened. My day nurse, Anna, was bummed that she didn’t get to see Ilia before she left for the day. Alton’s day nurse, Sara said the same thing. My phone was ringing off the hook with staff calling to see if Ilia would be there before they went home. It was insane and she loved every minute of it.

Below are the pics we took after the NICU nurses and doctors were done with him.

It was a long night for all of us and we were glad that it was over and we could hold the little guy. As you can see, his eyes were still gunky from the birth stuff. Nevertheless, he still tried to open his eyes when I finally got to hold him. He got them open for Adrian too!

He had to be in the nursery under observation for his first day. Since he was early, he was having trouble maintaining his body temperature, so he had to be in an Isolet. He was also having blood sugar issues and they had to resolve those. Luckily, he was able to room-in with me by mid-morning on Sunday.

The YAY part…this is where Alton is born. As mentioned in my birth story, I started pushing at 4:20am and he was born at 4:32am. Not bad. With Ilia, I started pushing at 4:15am and she was born at 6:05am, so basically I bested my last time. What every champ desires.

Here is Alton Mihai at 3 minutes old. He’s still covered in that vernix stuff, but look at those cheeks!

Measuring his head…they never tell us the results…I’m guessing 10cm based on the tape measure.

3437 grams = 7lbs. 9oz. Not a bad size for a baby 5 weeks early. Could you imagine if I had gone to term? YIKES…I would have had a linebacker. This is one more reason I could never have another kid. See, Ilia was 3 weeks early and weighed 8lbs. 3oz., Alton is pretty big too…the next baby would be born at 7 weeks early and be like 6lbs. It just ain’t right.

Here he is a little cleaner. Such a cutey!

Adrian couldn’t get over how strong he was when he was first born. Here’s a close up of Alton’s slender fingers. He has my fingers, which is funny because Ilia has Adrian’s fingers. Genetics rule!

Here are a few pics of me laboring. It’s not the most fun time in the world. The pain is annoying and since my water was broken, I was confined to the bed so that the cord wouldn’t slip out of me (EWWWWW!!!!). We were ready this time. I had the laptop with my music on it and we brought CDs and movies. We had the PSP and those games, Adrian brought his book and if we got really desparate we could have turned on the TV.

This is the digital labor…check out the laptop, mobile phone and PSP games. I actually watched the last half of Jackie Brown and the first half of Elizabeth during most of my labor. Movies kept my mind off the contractions for the most part.

Okay, maybe not this contraction.

This is one of those “posterity” photos. Basically, this should be the last time you see a pregnant belly on me. Unfortunately, this was during a hard contraction session, so the face I’m making is my “happiest” one out of all the pics we have.

We are so pleased with our little girl. We were so concerned about how she was going to react to her baby brother. We should have known that Miss Adaptable would have no issues. The girl absolutely adores “baby Alton”. She is always asking to hold the baby, but when she can’t she settles for being able to kiss him. She’s always been helpful and it’s amazing to watch her right now. Whenever we need to change the baby she gets his diaper for us, though she’s annoyed we use “her wipes” on him. When he’s crying she’ll tell us and last night in the car, she sang to him to calm him down. I hope once the novelty wears off she’s still this generous and loving.

I keep getting emails asking about my recovery. I feel like it should be dramatic since everyone is acting like I’ve been receiving treatments from a network of highly skilled doctors from around the world and I’d only been given 3 days to live.

Sorry to disappoint, but it’s nothing that bad. For everyone who knows about my painful discomfort from Ilia’s birth, this one is nothing. Saturday, I was walking the halls of the hospital and the nurses kept commenting on how shocked they were that I had given birth that morning. Sunday, I didn’t feel any pain initially, but later that day the weird pelvic pain I had been experiencing for the past 3 weeks came back. I thought that it would go away with delivery, but it’s Wednesday and still here. I have no idea what it is and Adrian wondered last night if something is dislocated down there. It’s hard to explain, I don’t feel it when I’m sitting, but standing up and walking is horrid. It’s most painful if I close my legs–it feels like my bones are being pulled apart. If I’m laying down it’s magnified–rolling over, getting up, doing almost anything brings on the pain. I’m going to call the doctor today to see what’s up with that. Maybe all I need is an adjustment and a massage.

Other than that, I’m pretty fine. The places where they stuck the IV in my hand and the needle for the epidural in my back hurt a bit, but not enough to complain about. Extra Strength Tylenol is helping and I’m trying to move as much as possible to get rid of the baby weight and regain muscle control.

Alton Mihai  was born on Nov. 12^th, 2005 at 4:32am. He weighed 7lbs. 9oz and was 20 inches long.

It’s weird to know you share a birthday with your kid. That’s right. I didn’t make it to my due date of Dec. 18^th. Shocker, right? What with my birthday and our baby shower planned for Nov. 12^th, something was bound to turn up. Needless to say that was the baby.

I woke from my nap around 4:15 to get Ilia some milk. When I sat up, fluid rushed from me. I thought it was pee, so I ran to the bathroom to finish up. I thought it was strange that so much came out. I got Ilia her milk only to realize I was still leaking. Another oddity since I didn’t seem to be incontinent this pregnancy. Thankfully, Adrian was home. He was supposed to be in West Hills taking photos. I told him about the liquid, and detective that he is, he asked me if I was sure. Luckily, since we had been at the hospital on Wednesday, all the stuff was still in the car. Unluckily, no one was around to watch Ilia. So she had to go to the hospital with us.

This time it only took Adrian about an hour to pack up everything he needed. We headed to the hospital, both of us glad that in that traffic, we hadn’t moved further away. He did manage to get a chance to get a hold of Lisa, so she could meet us at the hospital and take Ilia. Yay!

We got to the hospital and they hooked me up to the monitors. I wasn’t really having contractions at first. Those that I did have, didn’t feel like much. I was monitored for close to 2 hours before I was moved to the labor room. Since I hadn’t had a chance to get a Group B Strep Test, I was hooked up to antibiotics around 7:30pm. Before that, I was checked only to learn that I was 2cm dilated, 50% effaced and at –3 station. That means I de-dilated a centimeter in a day!

Anyway, we moved to the labor room around 8pm and got a great nurse named Lori. She hooked me up to the pitocin since I wasn’t having constant contractions. Man, that changed everything. Around 8:30pm, I began having harsh contractions that peaked high and fast and slowly went down. Every 2 – 3 min. Yucky. I wasn’t having fun, add to the fact that I could only worry about who was watching Ilia, it was just too much. I was checked at still at 2cm dilation and the baby was still high up inside me.

I was very impressed with me though, I managed to hang on until 12:30am before I got my first shot of Demorol. Not that it helped or anything. I didn’t even feel it! I received a great dose of medicine around 1:15am. Lori got a group of doctors and nurses to come sing Happy Birthday to me. That was great! Anyway, I got a second shot around 1:45am. That one I felt immediately–very drunk feeling–finally felt like I could sleep. I was checked again and had progressed to 3cm dilated and 75% effaced. They called Dr. Wyatt who was on-call for Dr. Carter and told him.

At this point, we moved into the labor/delivery/recovery room shortly thereafter. I was going to get my epidural, which was great because the pain from the contractions was HORRIBLE. I didn’t think I’d live through the pain. No one should ever feel that kind of pain. The epidural was finally administered and I was hoping that the pain would diminish. It kind of abated, but the pressure was still there. They checked me around 3:45am and had progressed to 7cm dilated, 100% effaced and at +1 station, so they called Dr. Wyatt again.

Turns out that was unnecessary. I finally realized the pressure I was feeling was moving into an urge to push. At 4:10, they checked me to see that I was 10 cm dilated, 100% effaced and ready to go. I started pushing at 4:20am and Alton popped out at 4:32am after 5 or 6 contractions. Wow! I’m so lucky, I had a great team to coach me on this. Dr. Wyatt showed up around 4:45, surprised he missed it all. Dr. Han, was great at the post delivery stuff to. She got all the major clots out of me and I didn’t even tear or need an episiotomy. I did rip a little inside and got like 2 stitches for that.

Just like Ilia, Alton came into this world with his hand stuck up near his head because the cord was wrapped so many times around his body and neck. Thankfully, he was much smaller than Ilia. He’s officially considered a preemie because he came at 35 weeks exactly. Should be interesting to see how he develops. I’ve already tried to breastfeed, but it’s not happening just like with Ilia. Looks like I’ll have to pump again. I’ll keep trying though. His little face is bruised, so he could just be in pain. Anyway, it’s amazing how much he’s a lot like Ilia when she was first born and how different they are too. I’m just glad he’s joined us on the outside. Even if we do have to share a birthday.

Anika ~ Nov. 12, 2005

That’s right. Last night, I got to go to Labor & Delivery, again. This time we left Miss Ilia with neighbors. It all started around 3:30pm when I was awaken from my nap with the most horrible pain in my abdomen. Okay….breathe. I did that. Then 5 min. later another. I laid there for an hour, with these painful contractions coming every 5 min. At 4:30, I got up to tell Adrian. He had work for me to do. Naturally. So, then an hour later, I’m still in pain and Adrian’s still more concerned about work. We had things that had to go to FedEx, so he took Ilia and went to drop that off, while I stayed home and got ready to go. Packed up everything, and waited. When he got back, he took the next 45 min. to pack up all his toys. By the time we got in the car and headed to the hospital (around 7pm), I wasn’t in so much pain. The contractions were still coming, but they just didn’t hurt as bad.

In all fairness, I kinda didn’t want to go to the hospital. We still aren’t ready for the baby to be here. With me on bedrest and Adrian being Adrian, we hadn’t done a single thing since the last time I was in the hospital except buy a bunch of stuff. Our apt. was still a mess and we hadn’t even done laundry!

When we got to the hospital, I was wheeled up to L&D and hooked up to the monitors. They had a time finding the heartbeat of the baby. The contractions were still coming, but the pain had abated. I was checked and they said I was still 30% effaced, but now 2cm dilated. In my mind, that means terbutaline. They checked with the Dr. to see what the deal was. Terbutaline.

They gave me the shot and monitored me for an hour. Now, I kept having something that felt like contractions every 5 min. The monitors were not picking that up, so we had no idea what that was. It was horrible though, in my back and down my legs. Instead of my stomach cramping up, it felt like someone trying slice me open with razor wire. Ugh. They came to check me again. This time, I had moved up to 3cm. I didn’t want another shot of terbutaline, so I started hoping they would send me home.

They spoke to the Dr. who said to send me home, but another Dr. wanted to check me again. So I had to wait for her to show up. She said that even though I’m 3cm dilated on the outside, my cervix is long and it’s still 2cm inside. They’d rather me labor at home…blah, blah, blah…can I go home now? Yes? YIPPEE!!! (I actually did tune her out, so I have no idea what they told me.) According to the paper they gave me, I’m still on bedrest and I should try to keep my appt. with Dr. Carter next week.

As miserable as I am, I’m hoping to be able to keep this kid in for at least another 2 weeks. I had contractions the whole night. Just a dull constant cramping every 5 - 7 min. On the rare occasions I finally was able to sleep, I was awaken with either a painful contraction or the urge to puke. That was very weird. I spent the first half of the day in the bed, but got up around 1ish to get some cleaning done. I’m still having the contractions and the pain comes and goes. Adrian is doing laundry (YAY!) and it should be done today, though now I have to fold all those clothes before we go to bed tonight. Tomorrow, I think we’ll attack the garage.

I think maybe I forgot the news of bedrest because when I went in for the check up, I was told that I lost 5 lbs. I didn’t feel like I lost weight, especially 5 lbs. in 4 days.