Calvin makes faces

I'm back! Sort of. :)

Hi everyone, it's Monica. I just wanted to give you all a quick update on how I'm doing.

I'm finally feeling sort of back to normal. After 3+ days of pitocin pumped into my body, and then loosing a lot of blood (about a liter?) with the stuck placenta, my recovery was perhaps a little slower than it would have been otherwise. But now I'm feeling good and am incredibly happy to have a healthy, happy son! :)

Calvin Pictures

Cal says... "Dad, let's make like a shepherd,"

And get the flock outta here!

We're going home today around lunch. They fried the bad stuff out of him with the UV lights and all is going good.

He wears sunglasses at night

They are giving him some UV to prevent jaundice. Pretty normal thing to do. He's also got his hearing test & passed no problem.

Some more pictures

Everyone doing good. Learning how to be parents...

Calvin Theil Hoke

Has arrived (actually about an hour ago). 79 hrs after they started inducing. About 12 hours of labor and 2 hours of pushing. A little complication with a stuck placenta afterwards (I didn't look) but everything is settled down and good now. 6lbs 10 oz (Not bad for 3 weeks early!)

My blogging is done. Monica will take over when she can.

I think the kid is grounded until he is 13 for putting us through this.

He cries like a wookie

Getting Closer

Long night, a little touch and go with the baby responding badly to strong contractions, but OK now, and very close! Almost completely dilated.

Soemthing good

Monica's temp and the baby's heartrate have both come down, looks like they responded to antibiotics. Still ramping up pitocin, contractions coming more regularly but a long way to go to get them as strong as they would like.

A little more complicated

Looks like Monica has a bit of an infection, they are giving her some antibiotics, and the pitocin doesn't seem to be doing anything with the cervix.

So they are going to put in an intra-uterine pressure monitor, which will allow them to understand exactly the strength of her contractions, which will then allow them to amp up the pitocin as much as possible to see if they can get things to progress. If that doesn't work... well we'll see. She is getting an epidural put in because they are going to make the contractions as strong as possible.

I'll try to update when I can.

Thanks so much for all the support. I show Monica the comments now and then and it makes her feel better to see them.

Going for it

Water's broken, stuff's happening, they are going to hit her hard with the pitocin now and see what happens. One way or another this little dude needs to be here in 24 hours. Not in labor yet, but hopefully soon.

A little geography

According to wikipedia: A waterfall is a place where flowing water rapidly drops in elevation as it flows over a steep region or a cliff.

The largest waterfall in the world is Inga falls in the Congo. It has a volume flow rate of 1.5M cfs (cubic feet per second). That's a lot.

The tallest waterfall is Angel falls in Venezuela, it is 3,212 ft or 979 m tall (or 6.544 x10-9 Astronomical units, or9.790 x 10^12 Angstroms according to my sweet iPhone app)

Oh, and Monica's water just broke, all by itself! That rules. We'll keep you posted.

Waiting is the hardest part

Middle of the day Monday. Midwives are going back to cytotec? tablets. Monica frustrated and tired, but everyone is perfectly fine health wise, including the baby. We're just waiting and hoping something will kick off labor.

Still here, still no news

They've been upping Monica's pitocin every half hour all night, pretty high doses now, but her body isn't responding... no contractions. They might restart from zero? She slept through most of the night so we are definitely ready to get this show on the road. Hopefully some progress today.

48 hrs

No real news other than 48 hr milestone. Still not in active labor. But everyone feeling OK.

Hopeful

A little progress. Foley bulb has done its work, she is at 3 cm and starting pitocin again. Going to ramp up slowly. Encouraged!

By the way -- I apologize for the "the wait is on" title of the last post. Cheesy! I'm tired.

The wait is on

Good news is, Monica (and I) have been able to get quite a bit of sleep as we wait for her to get dilated to 3-4 cm using a "foley bulb." -- won't go into detail. But she is off pitocin still, had lunch, and is sleeping. Bad news is -- still taking forever. And we wait...

Intermission

New midwife on duty, been about 37 hours since we got here. She decided that 24 hours on pitocin and without food was long enough for now, so she is letting Monica eat breakfast, off pitocin, and maybe even a shower. Good news, hopefully she'll be ready to go for act 2.

Some sleep

With just a little bit of help from the IV, Monica was able to relax and get a couple of hours of sleep in about 30 min intervals last night. Very helpful, although things still progressing very slow. About 2 cm now. Contractions picking back up again this morning.

and counting...

No real updates. Contractions still stronger. She's trying to get some intermittent sleep. Will try to update if any significant changes

24 hrs and counting

Things are finally progressing a little bit, with increasing doses of pitocin. Still a long way to go, but contractions are definitely stronger. Hopefully in the next 24 hours?

Slow but Steady??

Well, here we are. about 4PM on Saturday. Still very little progress with the tablets, so they've started Monica on a pitocin drip to try to get things started. Nothing so far. This could take awhile. Meanwhile we are watching some olympics and playing cards with Monica's parents. Could be a few days...

But not before he's ready

First night done, they gave Monica a couple of tablets to get things going, but not much results so far. A few contractions (and a few more now) but still a ways to go I think. She's a little frustrated but they say it will take a while to talk her body into doing this when it isn't ready. Monica ordered room service and we are waiting for that to come. Should make her happier. Us misc significant others have to go down and pay for food.

That's it for now, here's a picture of Deuce all sad as we were leaving for the hospital and of us in the room

It's really gonna hatch!

It's Bryan, Friday night about 9:30 PM. We are all checked in and everything is well. Monica is hooked up to the baby telemetry system (aka monitor) and everything looks normal. They've started the process of induction but they have to go through a lengthy process, kind of easing her into it, so we should be able to sleep some through the night.

We'll post some updates as we go along!

Update

The amnio went well this morning but the results came back that his lungs aren't quite ready. So the new plan is to induce on Friday, 8pm. The midwives have warned me that the whole process could take up to 3 days (yikes!). So my job over then next few days is to rest and eat and stay prepared.

Change of plans!

We have news. Seems I have developed intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy, a liver problem that causes bile salts to build up in my blood that cause itchiness all over my body, especially in my hands and feet, with no rash (weird!). But for the baby it's much worse - there's a higher risk of stillbirth if the pregnancy goes beyond 38 weeks and some other possible complications toward the end of the pregnancy. So my midwives and their doctors want to induce labor before then. I'm about 36 weeks now, and tomorrow morning (Wednesday, Feb 10) I'll go in for an amniocentesis to check our baby's lung development. If he's ready, they'll induce labor that night (~8pm)! Holy cow! This is a whole month early! If he's not ready, they'll wait up to a week to induce. So either way, he's coming early.

We found out about all of this a week ago today, and since then we've been in high gear to get everything done and ready. It is very strange to have it all scheduled - I'm a little disappointed I won't go into labor like normal and a bit nervous about being induced. I had planned to attempt a natural labor, and still will for as much as I can, but inducing a month early may make this more difficult. We'll see what happens, and regardless, we're very excited to have our baby sooner!

Anyway, we're doing fine, considering the change of plans. We'll know more tomorrow after the amnio - we'll try to post an update if we can.

Gifts of love, advice, and baby gear

We are so incredibly fortunate to have such wonderful, supporting, and generous friends and family in our lives. The advice and gifts that we've received have reminded us of the wonderful support group we have, and have considerably helped us to prepare for little Xerxes. Without your help, we would be no where near as ready as we are now and the overwhelming list and cost of things we need would weigh much heavier on our thoughts and wallets. Being soon-to-be new parents and living so far from either of our families, it has been very reassuring to have so much support from friends near and far - it warms our hearts to know you care so much. And even with the distances, the help we've received from family has been wonderfully generous and greatly appreciated - it makes you seem not so far away. With all our hearts, we thank you.

The Diaper Dilemma

Cloth Diaper Pros (+) and Cons (-):
(+) $$$. We can save hundreds to thousands of dollars if we use reusable diapers over disposables, even with the added cost of extra laundry, and especially if we have more kids after little Xerxes.
(-) We're going to have to use disposables anyway when little Xerxes is in daycare, so it's not like we're really getting the full financial benefit out of using cloth diapers.
(+) Greenest option. With reusables we aren't contributing to the tons of diapers in the landfills that take 500+ years to break down. Even biodegradable disposables that take something on the order of 50 days to decompose are still disposable, with higher carbon footprints both in production and disposal than reusables. And while cloth diapers do use up more water and electricity in order to wash them, it is not enough to move them out of the greenest option ranking.
(-) Time and convenience. No doubt, pulling a disposable out of the bag, putting it on the baby, and throwing away the dirty one is the most convenient way to go. Especially for new parents who both work, are overall not so organized, don't necessarily keep up with laundry and other chores as well as we could, and enjoy our down-time. And with reusable diapers we'll have to spend extra time getting the poop off the diaper, washing/drying the diapers in between uses, etc.
(+) Non-toxic. Disposable diapers, or at least most of them, are extremely toxic. It seems almost a given that Pedro will find a way to get to a diaper and eat it, whether it's when we forget to lock the baby gate or while we're frantically cleaning up a poop disaster and aren't paying attention or even straight off the baby's bottom when we aren't looking. And with disposables, it's kind of disconcerting to think that we'd be putting this toxic, chemical, incredibly not-natural thing on our baby all day, every day, for possibly the first 2 or so years of his life.
(-) Less effective. Cloth diapers can be bulky, some stay moist and don't wick moisture away from the baby's bottom, and some aren't as good at keeping messiness in. Also, some have an odor even after washing (or so I've heard). There is no perfect cloth diaper.
(+) Improved design. Cloth diapers have come a long way from the old days of a rectangle of material and diaper pins. These days reusable diapers can be very similar to disposables in appearance and use. There are styles that wick moisture away from the baby's bottom, even some that claim to prevent and treat diaper rash. I've only heard of the odor issue from competing cloth diaper companies (cotton is supposed to not keep an odor whereas fleece does?), though friends who have used fleece lined cloth diapers (which are better at wicking moisture away) swear by them as being the best and don't mention an odor issue. Many styles come with extra leg gussets to help hold in mess, and you can get a disposable biodegradable liner to "easily" remove poop. Also, I've seen little spray nozzles that can attach to the toilet for easy poop clean-up (better than swishing, I guess).

Did I miss anything?
_________________________________________________

It's hard to say what is the better option for Bryan and I and our lifestyle, so our current plan is to start with disposables and gradually work in some reusable cloth diapers and go from there. We'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter, especially from anyone who has used the biodegradable disposables, for which I've heard no balanced reviews from friends or online. We'll try to provide our thoughts and experiences too, once we have some dirty diapers to deal with. :)