A Very Happy Thanksgiving

We enjoyed a fantastic Thanksgiving at Sean's parents place. The feast was incredible and it was wonderful to be surrounded by family. I hope everyone had an equally enjoyable Thanksgiving. I am extremely thankful for all my friends and family across the globe and Sean, Finn, Lily and I send our love!

Hydronephrosis

We went to Finn's specialist appointment yesterday. They reviewed his previous ultrasound pictures and confirmed that he does have hydronephrosis in both kidneys. It is deemed minor in the right and mild in the left (or vice versa, I don't remember the scale of severity). They want to keep him on antibiotics and then determine the cause of the reflux (fluid refluxing into the kidney). It can either be due to a kink in the ureters or other such ureter blocker or it could be due to the valves where the ureters enter the bladder. To determine the cause, they are going to do a voiding cystourethrogram (VCUG). This is a procedure where they place a catheter into the bladder and fill it with liquid dye that can be seen in an x-ray or fluorometer. Then, I guess Finn will be monitored over the course of his childhood with ultrasounds to make sure the problem corrects itself. He will have to remain on antibiotics until the issue is resolved. If it does not resolve itself by the time he is 5 years old, then surgery will be considered. I think this is worst case scenario, which it doesn't look like things are that severe. Right now, so long as he remains on antibiotics all is well. The reflux itself is not a problem, but it can cause serious damage to the kidneys if he were to develop a urinary tract infection, hence the antibiotics. We are waiting for them to call and schedule the VCUG and they said that it usually takes up to a month to get in. I feel pretty sad for the little guy to have to go through this. They said that they don't do any anesthesia for the procedure and this bothers me. I don't see why they can't at least do local anesthesia for the catheter. The nurse said the babies don't mind the catheter, they just mind being held down and that it is harder on the parents. Well, it seems to me that they don't know what the baby is experiencing and that is something they just tell the parents. I realize he will not remember this and it needs to be done, but I wish it wouldn't be such a distress on him too. Alas, I will keep you all posted on when his appointment is.

For now, I hope everyone has a fabulous Thanksgiving. It will be Finn's first holiday!

3 weeks old

Finn is 3 weeks old today! In some respects, the time has flown by, in others, it has felt like the longest 3 weeks of my life. I am really happy to report that things are looking up. The mastitis has cleared up and I am feeling so much better. Nursing is getting better. Finn still has some issues with latching initially (he likes to chomp down with his gums), but he is getting better and I have had a few nursing sessions that actually felt good and so I have high hopes that we can figure this out. I am feeling so much better than last week, I might as well be a new person. I haven't cried in days, so hopefully the early baby blues are passing. Finn and Lily and I just got back from a nice long walk and Finn is napping so I thought I would throw together this blog post.

Tomorrow we have the specialist appointment concerning the hydronephrosis. I am looking forward to speaking with someone who can give us specifics as to what Finn's condition is. I am confident he is going to be just fine.

We are really looking forward to Thanksgiving this week and the kick off of the holiday season. I am so ready to crank the Christmas tunes and sing my heart out to Finn!

Here are a few photos from this week. We are seeing more and more of Finn's eyes as he is awake and alert more often (unfortunately, sometimes at 3am!):
He enjoys posing with one hand near his face. He must have liked that in the womb. He always looks so contemplative when he does it.
We were surprised on Friday with a visit from Finn's Papa who brought us a swing. It has already been great in soothing Finn when he is having a hard time and needs some swing time to get to sleep.

Quick Update

Thank you to everyone who wrote me and called after my last post. I didn't mean to concern everyone, but I am very glad to have such a wonderful group of friends and family, a true support network. I wish I had time to contact you all individually.

We had Finn's 2 week check up today. He is weighing in at 9 lbs 4 oz. and his length is 22 1/2 inches. It is great he has gained weight, but he is still below weight for his height. It is confusing. I guess his height is 95 percentile, while his weight is 70 percentile. I don't know that this is a big deal really. I honestly don't know how I felt about the pediatrician. Overall, she said Finn looked good, but she wanted him back in 2 weeks to check him out again.

Breast feeding continues to be a crazy experience. I developed mastitis on my right side last night. I didn't really know that was what it was. I spiked a small fever and I had a lot of redness and soreness in the breast. It is a localized pain. I went to see the lactation consultant today and she said that it was definitely mastitis and I needed to contact my OB. Apparently, the prolonged cracked nipples can introduce bacteria into the breast, add in some tiredness and stress and here comes mastitis. I feel like we are having a string of bad luck right now. My OB put me on antibiotics and a prescription nipple cream in hopes of healing the nipples as quickly as possible. The lactation consultant said that Finn is latching on well, so I guess a lot of my pain right now is just residual. I am really hopeful that by the weekend things will be looking up. Unfortunately, I have to breast feed as much as possible to keep the mastitis breast empty and that means less sleep at night. Not that we have been getting much anyway.

So, we are still on the rollercoaster, but I am hopeful we can ride things out and it will get better. This is only temporary. I just wanted to let you all know we are doing okay and I am going to hunker down for a few days and hopefully be in contact with you next week with good news.

2 Weeks

Two weeks old today! I am afraid today started out full of tears. I thought Finn and I were making vast improvements in the breastfeeding department, but we had a rough night of not much sleep and Finn just hasn't been latching on well. My nipples are bleeding again and the whole thing is so painful. This morning when I went to feed him, I got so worked up because everytime he tried to latch it was painful and I just couldn't stop crying. The crying wasn't all about the pain, but just the fact that this whole thing is so challenging. I feel like I am doing something wrong, but I don't know what. Sleep deprivation really adds to my mood as well. Finn was worked up too. I think the poor kid was hungry and I just wasn't getting him the milk. It was not a good way to start the first day that Finn and I are home alone together. Poor Sean, I think he was so nervous to leave to go to work. I called the lactation consultant and she was surprised to hear we seem to have regressed since we were doing well. She told me to watch a video online on proper latching and to continue to use soothies (gel pads) to promote healing. I am also supposed to express quite a bit of milk before trying to get Finn to latch so he isn't overwhelmed initially. We have had a few more successsful feedings since then. It is still difficult initially to get him to latch properly, but he does eventually. I know he is getting enough food, but I really don't know how long I can handle the pain. If it continues, I will probably be going back into see the lactation consultant. I am so sad and frustrated about the whole thing. I know in the grand scheme of things, we have only been at this two weeks and I should recognize there is a learning curve, but I so want this to go well.

Luckily, I did get a nap in this morning and I am feeling a little more rested. Finn and I did have our first adventure by ourselves. I got him bundled up and put him in his stroller. It is a snap n' go which is a frame that you just set the car seat in. We had to go to the post office and then we went to the library (to check out breastfeeding books). Then, we came home and picked up Lily to go for a walk around the neighborhood. It worked out really well and I feel good having gotten some fresh air. Well, Finn is resting now and I should take advantage and get a bit of a nap in too.

Appointments and News

This has been a busy week of appointments. We had the visiting nurse come see us on Tuesday morning. She checked Finn's weight and temp and examined him all over and said he was looking great. Then, Tuesday afternoon we went to visit a lactation consultant. This was hugely beneficial. She worked with us on getting a correct latch so that Finn isn't hurting me and she gave me some tips on how to heal up. I am feeling much better about the whole thing. I am still a little paranoid since Finn has a tendency to sleep through feeding times, but we don't have to go to the extreme lengths that we did initially to get him to wake up. Alternatively, when he is awake, I am not very good at reading hunger cues. I don't always know if I should feed him if he ate not too long ago or not. He seems to be doing well though and we have an appointment next week for his two week check-up and I can ask the pediatrician some of these questions. I am not too stressed over it anymore which is a good thing.

On Thursday, we had a follow-up ultrasound to look into the hydronephrosis issue. Finn was given an ultrasound hours after birth and was deemed okay, so I wasn't very worried about this one. Unfortunately, I just got a call from our pediatrician informing us that Finn definitely has hydronephrosis and will have to be seen my a urologist. They are putting him on antibiotics for now to prevent any bacteria flowing from the bladder back into the kidneys and causing an infection and we will be scheduling an appointment with the urologist next week. I don't know the severity of the problem so we will just have to wait to see what the specialist has to say.

We have had a really fun week with my Dad in town. Finn loved meeting his Babou. Babou brought Finn's nursery furniture from Colorado so we have been setting that up. Pictures to come when complete. Here is a picture of Finn sporting his due date Halloween gear. The hat was knitted by his Great Grandmama. It is the cutest thing. I think he looks like a little snowboarder when he wears it.
Lily is still enjoying getting cozy on the couch whenever someone is holding Finn:
We have been trying on all sorts of outfits. Here is the Wicked onesie:
We discovered we can put Finn in his bouncy chair at dinner time and we can all sit around the table for a meal.

And, I am in love with my Moby wrap! Every new mom needs one of these. Finn fits in really snuggly and I can have my hands free and my back supported while walking around with him. It is awesome!

Holy Moly, one week already!

Wow, I am in complete disbelief that Finnbar is already 1 week old! And what a week it has been. Becoming a mother is by far the hardest thing I have ever done. It is also the most awe-inspiring, emotional and joyful thing, but definitely a roller coaster! Here is what I remember:

Sunday 11/2 & Monday 11/3: Our Birth Story
I will try not to go into the really gory details of labor and delivery, but I will give you the low down as you all read about my anticipation of it all. I can say it was absolutely nothing that I could have envisioned based on all the reading of birth stories that I had done. On Sunday throughout the day, I was feeling a bit crampy, but didn't pay too much attention. Towards the late afternoon I was feeling it more periodically, but apparently, I was in denial and really didn't think it was the beginning of labor. I actually made some homemade bread (my mom swears it was the kneading that really got labor going) and we made dinner. After dinner I started to feel cramps more intensely and I thought something might be going on, but it still wasn't too bad and I thought I was just feeling some pre-labor symptoms. My mom and Sean and I played Sorry (Sean won) and at the end of the game I began to realize that these "cramps" might be time-able. Sean and my mom got on the contraction master website that allows you to just hit the space bar at the beginning and end of each contraction and it will time the frequency and duration which is a lot easier than trying to use a watch and record things. We realized my contractions were coming about 3 minutes apart and lasting around a minute each. Sean called the hospital and they had us come right in for monitoring particularly because of the 2 vessel cord thing. We rushed around getting the last minute stuff in the hospital bag. I still couldn't quite believe it was happening and figured we might be coming home. Once we got to the hospital at around 8pm, they hooked me up to external fetal monitoring in the triage area and said they would monitor what was happening for a while. Sean and I were hanging out and I was just breathing through contractions. Then, I felt really ill and lost my dinner. The nurse came in and said, she always recommends not to eat your favorite meal anytime near when you could go into labor as this is a common occurrence. However, I was hoping that getting it out of my system would make my stomach feel better, but every other contraction or so I continued to get ill. When the nurse checked my progress, I was at 6cm and 100% effaced. She checked us in and said we were not going home without a baby. At that point I was pretty happy because I felt the pain was manageable and things were progressing quickly. They hooked me up to antibiotics due to the group B strep positive status. It was really cold going into my arm and I got the shakes. I kept shaking uncontrollably. In the room, I pretty much just sat on the birthing ball breathing through contractions. It was not enjoyable as the contractions were tough and I was periodically getting sick and shaking, but I still felt pretty good about going med-free. The nurse really thought I would have the baby on Nov 2nd. She actually wanted me to make it to the 3rd to get a second dose of antibiotics in me at 1am. In my head I was thinking, okay, I can do this. Both my mom and my sister had very quick deliveries and I thought I must be on the same route with those genetics behind me. Yet, around 1am I got my antibiotics and they checked me at I was at 9cm. I seemed to have stalled out there for around 2 hours. I finally decided to let them break my water as the pain was really starting to wear me down and I wanted to get things moving despite wanting the least amount of medical intervention as possible. Once they broke my water, things got more intense and the nurse said we just needed to wait until I felt the urge to push. It took a long while for any sort of feeling like that and I am always questioning myself so it was really tough. We started pushing around 3am I think. We tried a lot of positions, but I liked the squatting bar best. About an hour or so into pushing I heard the nurse call the doctor in. I was hopeful this meant we were getting close. Unfortunately, it was to check the fetal readings which apparently were becoming concerning. It was really hard to try to overhear what they were saying while, I really was beginning to feel out of my mind with the pain of contractions and the ordeal of pushing. They actually had me breath through some contractions in an effort to see what the baby was doing, and that was the absolute worst experience. I had no control over the pain at that point. After awhile they decided they had to put in internal fetal monitoring on Finn's head. I kept pushing and I wasn't completely aware of all that was happening. At one point I heard them talk about an emergency c-section because Finnbar's heartrate was decelerating. They were calling in the team and our room was flooded with people ready to whisk us away. The doctor told me she would try first with the vacuum and if we couldn't do it, then c-section it was. She told me that the vacuum would help guide the baby, but I still had to do all the work. I wanted to cry at this I was so exhausted and I was beginning to feel like a c-section was inevitable. It was really scary to try to cope with this and the pain of contractions and pushing. The vacuum was also a mess because Finn had so much hair they had a hard time getting it on him. I kept pushing and pushing and all of a sudden when I heard someone say that I had to have this baby in the next 10 minutes one way or the other, his head crowned and everyone was shouting to look at my baby being born. He came out quickly and they placed him on my chest. He cried really quickly and all the pain and exhaustion left me immediately. I couldn't believe it. I had to have a 3rd degree episiotomy which took a long while to stitch up, but all in all we were doing well. Sean was able to cut the cord and stayed with Finn while they weighed and measured him. I should say that Sean was phenomenally supportive during this whole thing. I cuddled Finn skin to skin all day on Monday and couldn't sleep for wanting to look at him the whole time. My mom came to the hospital and then Sean's parents and Kate and Jonathon and Carrie and Jon. Everyone was overjoyed to meet Finn.



Tuesday 11/4 and Wednesday 11/5:
We were in the hospital for about 2 1/2 days. It was a whirlwind. I had no real concept of day or time and could only focus on Finn. There were constantly nurses coming in and doctors and various tests they had to do on Finn or me. I was meeting with lactation consultants to try to figure out breast feeding. That was quite crazy as trying to figure out the advice of all the different people was overwhelming. I was definitely uncomfortable after the delivery with all the stitches and moving around was difficult. I was happy to have made it med-free through the delivery, but I definitely took them up on percocet and motrin afterward. I had a breakdown in the middle of the night crying for no reason (or every reason), completely overwhelmed with hormones and emotions and nerves of how I was going to take care of this little guy. We were discharged on Wednesday afternoon and made the trek home.


We made it home and I was happy to get out of the hospital and feel comfortable and home and try to figure out this whole parenting thing. First, we had to introduce Finn to Lily and they have already become fast friends.


Thursday 11/6:
Breast feeding is incredibly challenging. Finn is a sleepy sleepy boy and it was taking him a long time to rouse and nurse, then promptly falling back asleep. They gave this chart about how many solid diapers we should be seeing every day after birth. I began to panic when he hadn't had one in over 24 hours since the hospital. So we call the pediatrician who recommends we go to the ER to have him checked for dehydration. I am a complete wreck and crying easily. We go to the ER where we meet a most fabulous doctor and she puts my mind at ease saying Finn has gained some weight and appears completely healthy and he will soil his diaper when he is ready, but just keep feeding him. I was so thankful for this woman. Of course we go home and Finn is still having a hard time waking for feedings. I am stressed and crazed calling the lactation consultants. They had me pump and feed him from a bottle which made me feel very sad and inadequate. Luckily, he ate and eventually he had a soiled diaper. He has since gone back to breast feeding and both he and I are getting better, but there are so many questions. Despite all the books, it is such a difficult and confusing process. I have an appointment tomorrow to speak with the lactation consultants. I am feeling a lot better about the whole thing though and I am sure we will be doing well soon.

Friday 11/7:
We had to go to the pediatrician for a follow-up regarding our ER visit. Finn is again given the all clear and pronounced a healthy boy. Finn also got his first bath at home.



Saturday 11/8:
A good relaxing day. We got to sleep in and Sean was home all day (Finn allows about a 3 hour stretch at night, but I have been napping during the day some). It was wonderful. Jan and Peter (Nana and Papa) came by with a beautiful changing table for Finn. He is now wetting and soiling diapers left and right and we are becoming better at folding the cloth to adequately catch newborn poop explosions.

Sunday 11/9:
Another good day. We are figuring out breast feeding more and more, but still lots of questions. My entire day right now is devoted to trying to feed, change diapers and sleep. Thank goodness for the most amazing support from Sean and my mom. They wait on me and make sure I am eating and resting when I can. My dad, Finn's Babou arrived in the late evening from Colorado. He trekked across the US to meet his new grandson. It is wonderful to have him here for the week too. It is going to go quickly and then my mom and dad will be off and Sean and Finn and Lily and I will be on our own.

Monday 11/10:
Well, here we are! Finn is one week old and I am amazed at the whirlwind of the week. I am sure I missed lots of details. Here are some more photos and I will try to update every once and a while with more (we have already taken hundreds!).

Welcome Home

We are pleased to introduce Finnbar Reed S.
Born November 3, 2008 at 6:27 am
8 lbs. 7.7 oz.
20 3/4 in.

We are home and coping with the challenges of new parenthood. Labor and delivery were quite difficult and I will post details soon. I am feeling better day by day though, and I am completely in awe of Finn. I am being spoiled by my mom and Sean and getting as much rest as possible. I do want to be in touch with each and every one of you as soon as I can. I will also try to update the blog and share all the photos we have taken of this beautiful baby boy!

The Evolution of a Belly

Since I still have time on my hands waiting for Butterball's arrival, I thought I would take a peek back at how I have looked through this pregnancy. We took the 40 week belly picture today and hopefully there will be no need for a 41 week picture! Boy, I had no idea how great my body was back in the day. If anything pregnancy is good for putting your body image into perspective!

Here is a good close up of 40 weeks. Seriously, I can't get any bigger!