Whoa! Hospital!

Esther, Jered and Uni took a trip to Mary Immaculate Hospital for our hospital tour.

Let me tell you: Whoa!

We had a list of questions all prepared and thought we would be asking them, drawing information from our tour guide. The opposite was true. We walked up to the Labor and Delivery wing and got to sit in a birthing room. It was spacious and we got to learn how the whole “birth” thing unfold. Not the baby birth mechanicals, the hospital delivery ones.Each birthing room has a shower (so Esther can soak), and plenty of room for her to walk around.

After the baby is born, and hospital staff gets the baby cleaned up, Esther and I will get to spend an hour with the baby in the birthing room before Esther gets moved to a postpartum room and I follow the baby to the nursery. Once the baby is in the nursery, the nurses do test and checks and generally make sure that the little one is doing well, we get separated from Uni for about 3 hours. I hope he or she doesn’t get lonely… maybe there will be some other babies in the nursery.

The baby gets to stay with us in the postpartum room, which has a recliner for me, so we all get to stay together, kind of a “sleep over at the hotel” deal. While on the tour I did learn a hospital term that I would like to adopt into every day speak: Rooms labelled “Nutrition” = kitchen.

All in all, the tour was very informative, the labor and delivery unit is very secure (don’t worry about all of the baby stealing stories) and the NICU is a level II (Esther says that’s good, I think level X is better. She says I’ve played too may games in my youth.)Finally, we get 4 people in the birthing room, Me, Oma (Esther’s Mom), Clayton, and… send us a note and we’ll consider having you there.

Meet Uni!

As promised, we have decided to post together about our fantastically baby-filled day, yesterday. We started our day off at the OB with our 20 week ultrasound. The ultrasound tech was great and she explained everything to us as she was taking measurements of the baby. Everything looked healthy and normal, including the baby’s heart, brain, kidneys, liver and all sorts of other things.

Here is a picture of Uni’s foot (on the left side of the picture, viewed from below so it looks like a foot print). Next to the foot is what we think is Uni’s butt (not quite sure)

The ultrasound tech was great about making sure we didn’t find out the sex of the baby. We had her find out what it was so that we could write it down and put it in a sealed envelope- but other than that it isn’t written anywhere, not even on our medical chart!
Here’s another shot of Uni- this time the face- a little scary, but we’ll pretend it’s cute!

The Tech then gave us these fantastic shots of Uni sucking his/her thumb (or picking that Benoit nose, not sure which)


The second one definitely looks more like nose picking- what a cool baby!

Just when we thought the ultrasound couldn’t get any more amazing the tech switched transducers and pushed a few buttons and voila, 3D images of Uni!
Apparently my placenta was in the way (in case you were wondering) which kept us from getting a completely clear view of Uni’s face, but we still thought this was really cool. Here are the three pictures we got- two of them look a little like smiles, albeit alien smiles, and the other you can see the two hands in front of something that vaguely resembles a face.



The 3D images were easier to distinguish when they were “live” and we were able to watch the baby moving around. You can make out a little hand in one of them. It was amazing to watch the baby wiggling around!

And finally, the image that my mom likes best- Uni all laid out with arms by the side. You can make out the little umbilical cord, and no that other projection is not what you think it is- we asked the tech about that!

After the fantastic morning at the doctor we went to our first BABIES class (Birth and Bonding, Infant Education and Safety). It is going to be very useful to us- they really emphasize the role of the father as coach which we both appreciate. We start floor exercises next week- hard to believe we are already going to start our breathing and relaxation techniques! The class is long- 3 hours a week for 12 weeks, but it includes prepared childbirth (Lamaze-type stuff), infant care and nurturing, and infant CPR among other things. The instructors seem great and there are at least 10 other couples- we are very excited about it and glad to be doing it now so that we have enough time to complete all 12 weeks (hard to believe that 12 weeks from now we’ll be 6 weeks away from having our baby!).

Hope you all enjoy the pictures, feel free to leave comments or give us a call if you have trouble making anything out.

A preview of tomorrow’s post…

We had a wonderful day today. Jered is going to post all about our fantastic ultrasound experience (the baby is healthy and doing great!) as well as our first prepared childbirth and infant education class which we also had today. Here is a little glimpse of one of the many photos we got of our little one today.

Laying down a beat.

Esther and I had another appointment with the doctor. It was going to be a mixed bag. A few days ago, Esther got some questionable lady exam results. A nerve-wracking thing regardless of the time it is received, but particularly when we are taking about having a baby.Esther was a trooper, her husband, almost not. During the procedure, Jered was holding her hands during the uncomfortable bits, learning how truly uncomfortable those things can be. As the doctor was wrapping up, It must have been too much, because I nearly passed out. I was teetering on the edge of fainting, white as a ghost, clammy, sweating and light headed. This has proven that I can’t become a doctor, but has also made me a little nervous about delivery, not in Esther’s performance, but mine.The doctor’s outlook, after doing what was needed, was that it really should be nothing, and it is ultimately to stop something down the road, which is never a bad thing.The coolest part of the appointment was getting to hear the baby’s heart beat!The nurse brought in a little microphone and speaker and we managed to capture it below (you can press the play button to listen for yourself).After we heard the heart beat, Esther was much more relaxed (didn’t help me much…), and we were both a little teary eyed.”You look like you’re going to cry” Esther said to me.”Yeah, that’s a big thing [for being such a small noise].” The brackets are what I should have said, so please read them as though I did.So all in all, it was a good appointment, a little scary, but a lot happy![display_podcast]

Rhesus Monkeys

No, not the monkey, the rhesus factor- it has something to do with blood. Well, I found out today that I’m Rh negative. The doctor told me it’s no big deal unless Jered is Rh positive and our baby turns out to be Rh positive which is likely. It’s still not too big of a deal because they have a shot they will give me at 28 weeks and again just before or after delivery to ensure that I don’t build up antibodies against any future Rh positive babies.

I’m a little confused by this because I thought Rh factor had to do with whether or not your blood type was positive or negative. All my life my mom told me I was A+, which I assumed meant that I was also Rh positive. Of course, I had my last blood test when I was about an hour old so who knows! I think I’ll have to talk with the doctor about this because I’m a little confused- maybe Rh factor and positive/negative blood types aren’t really related at all, or maybe they are. Either way, though, I was told there is nothing to worry about.

And…they did another ultrasound to try and pin down a more accurate due date, and it is amazing to see how much the baby has grown already- Uni is nearly twice as big as on the last ultrasound. I’ll post pictures over the weekend! If anyone has information about Rh factors and blood types, let us know!

Prenate DHA aka the biggest vitamins ever created

At our appointment Monday the nurse gave me some samples of some prescription vitamins that contain DHA and extra folic acid. I was written a prescription (which I have yet to have filled, still living on the free gigantic samples). The thing about these vitamins, they are huge! I can’t believe they make pills so big- each one measures almost an inch long and it’s a strange teal color. Thank goodness they’re coated!  I take my monster pill every morning because of the benefits that the packaging claims:

Enhances Cognitive Development (who wouldn’t want that?)
Improves Visual Accuity (because I want an eagle-eyed baby)
May maximize fetal growth and development (grow baby grow!)
Enriches quality of breast milk (we drink organic, why shouldn’t the baby?)
May contribute to advancement of childhood mental development (how this is different from cognitive development I do not know)

Sounds pretty good, huh? Gotta go take my horse pill!

Uni strikes a pose

Our first appointment was this morning and it went really well. The baby is developing right on schedule and we got to see it’s little heart beating on the ultrasound machine. We even got these sonogram pictures to take home. The very first pictures of our quite tiny baby.

Today is a very happy day indeed!

It won’t suck…right?

Today, Esther and I bought a Dyson vacuum. While not directly baby related, it will make for a nicer home that baby will come home to. Let me tell you, that thing has some major suction, our floors are cleaner than they have been in years.

Monday, October 29th, tomorrow, Esther and I have our first appointment with the OB. We should get a full work-up and an ultrasound. I guess we will get to hear the baby’s heart beat. Esther showed me some fuzzy, blurry photos of 8-week ultrasounds tonight. Between you and me, they look like blips on the radar and not much else.

If we get any pictures of the radar blip, I’ll post them here. Wish us luck!