Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Killean-One Month

One Month Old
Killean is one month old now!  I can't really remember, but I feel like Killean's first month went by way faster than Rowan's first month.  I'm sure a lot of it had to do with everything else that went on during his first month.  But anyway...

Killean has been growing like crazy!  He is solidly in 3 month clothes now.  When we went for his 2 week check, he was up 2 pounds from birth weight and weighed 9lb 11oz.  I'm not sure what he's at now, but I'm sure he's over 10 pounds.  I wouldn't be surprised if he was pushing 11 pounds now.  He's getting the cutest little rolls on his hands and arms too...I love the chubby baby he's turning into.

Sleeping angel
His sleep is...alright.  He's starting to sleep better at night.  He's not the most sound sleeper-he tosses and turns and fidgets a little bit through the night, but it doesn't seem to bother him too much.  He will sleep for 4ish hours at a stretch. Sometimes he sleeps about 3 hours, and on a very rare occasion he'll sleep for 5 or 6.  He is starting to be more willing to sleep without being held.  While I miss holding a sleeping baby, it's nice to know he's content to sleep in his swing or bed so I can get something done around the house.

I'm not quite sure what his personality is going to turn out to be.  He seems to be pretty chill most days, which is great since his brother tends to climb on him and disturb his sleep as much as possible.  We see smiles every now and then which just makes me so very happy.  He does have a serious face on most of the time though...and he gets cross eyed a lot, which is pretty funny to see.  He does get pretty upset when he's hungry though that's really the only time we see him upset.  Well...hungry and tummy time.  And he goes from fine to starving in about 30 seconds.  When he gets upset, he cries (of course) and then starts to snort.  He's quite adorable when he snorts and grunts.

Buddies
Rowan is starting to show an insane amount of affection towards his brother.  Whenever Killean is laying down playing on the ground, Rowan insists on laying down next to him.  He will help to burp Killean after I feed him, and is pretty good about bringing a blanket, pacifier, or toy to Killean when we ask him to.  Rowan is still learning how to be gentile with Killean...and sometimes thinks it's a fun game to give him a pacifier, and then take it away, and then give it back, and then take it away (you get the idea).  I guess that's just a sign of some of the brotherly love they'll display as they get older.

While he's only been here for a month, it's starting to feel as though he's been around forever.  Our family has grown so much with the addition of Killean and I'm very excited to see how our family will continue to develop with him in it.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Killean's Birth Story

We're approaching Killean being 'out' for a month, so it's about time I do a little blogging about him.  Guess I should start with his birth story.

The week Killean was born, I was contemplating driving up to Omaha every day that week for a meeting for work.  Monday of that week I had a doctor's appointment.  At that appointment, the doctor said we were about 4cm dilated.  At that point we were certain Killean would be born that week, so I opted out of driving to and from Omaha for work.  Instead I figured I would wrap things up at work and then get geared up for a day or two of phone duty before he was born.  Well Killean had other plans, I ended up working the full week...and getting more frustrated every day that we were STILL pregnant.  I was over it and ready to be on leave.  Instead, Killean decided he wanted to stay on the inside for a while longer.

I came home on Friday knowing that I was not going back to work on Monday.  I had no more work to do, and I didn't really feel like asking for more work to do from my coworkers, so I decided to start my maternity leave...even if Killean wasn't born for a few more days.

We spent that night just hanging out.  I went to bed around 11:00 that night.  I woke up at 1:00am (yup, 2 hours later) and had to go to the bathroom.  I was very confused when I went to the bathroom because my shorts were wet.  After my brain woke up a little bit more, I realized my water had likely broken.  I stayed up for a little bit longer to see if my water had actually broken...and yes, it had.  I told Ian (who hadn't been to bed yet) that it was time for us to head to the hospital.  I woke my mom up and let her know we were headed to the hospital.

We got to the hospital and checked in and were all ready to go.  The nurse did have to verify my water had broken, and in doing so discovered that there was meconium in my amniotic fluid.  That of course made me a bit nervous.  The nurse explained that having meconium in the fluid meant we would have a larger audience during delivery-a couple of NICU nurses and a respiratory person would be there in addition to the normal nurses and the doctor.  If Killean cried at delivery, there wouldn't be anything different about his care after birth.  If he didn't cry, he would have to have some extra care.  Nothing was mentioned about a potential NICU stay, but I figured that depending on what the evaluation after birth showed, that a NICU stay was possible.  My first thought was "Great, both of my boys are going to end up in the NICU after birth"  Everyone was very calm about the fact meconium was in the fluid though, so that helped me calm down and know it doesn't mean anything bad was going to happen.

Even though my water broke at 1:00, my contractions weren't really regular even by 4:00.  So we decided to start walking the halls and see if we could get them going. The doctor wasn't feeling like we had to get going on pitocin right away (awesome) so we had time to get labor going on our own.  Contractions started to pick up a bit, but they still weren't that close together.  After about an hour and a half of walking the halls we were checked and were between 5 and 6 cm.  The contractions were only about 7 minutes apart, but getting fairly intense.  I went into labor not 100% convinced I'd had an epidural, but not 100% against the idea either.  At this point, realizing contractions weren't that close together and not sure when pitocin would be administered, we opted to have an epidural.  It went in smoothly and I started to go numb pretty quickly.  Contractions were picking up at that point, even though I just felt some pressure and no pain.  Killean was not dropping quite yet, so the nurse had me lay on my side to try and get Killean to drop down.  Nurse also told me to let her know when I was feeling pressure down by my rectum as that was an indicator he was in position.

We didn't have to wait long (we only got about half way through Wreck it Ralph) before I was feeling pressure. We buzzed the nurse and she stopped in for a minute. She had to go and get something...or check on someone else..or do something...I don't know, but she left and said she's be back. Well the pressure started getting greater so we buzzed again after about 10 minutes.  They checked and we were ready to start pushing.  They got everything set up and I pushed through a contraction and a half before they told me to stop and called the doctor. Doctor came down after about a minute and I pushed through one more contraction and Killean was there at 9:29 am on a beautiful Saturday morning.  He cried (best sound ever!!!!!) and we knew he was going to be just fine.  The longest umbilical cord known to man was wrapped around his belly and neck (twice!), but we eventually got him untangled from the cord.
Checking out my beautiful baby boy

The nurses put him on my belly/chest immediately which was awesome.  We had requested skin to skin time with Rowan, but didn't really get it.  This time we got it right away. It was amazing.  Killean started nursing and stayed latched for a long while.  We didn't find out his weight/length for a while and that was A-OK.  We headed up to the recovery room with no mention of checking his blood sugar or anything.  I was so grateful that Killean's color was good, lungs were working, temperature was good, and was all around healthy so that we didn't have to go through another NICU stay.  Though I was a little nervous about bringing home a 2 day old baby since we didn't have to worry about weight loss in the first week of life with Rowan, but we guessed we'd figure it out.

Mr. Bright Eyes
All in all, Killean's birth was pretty uneventful and a relatively relaxing experience for me.  I was in labor for about 8 1/2 hours (same as with Rowan) and can't complain about that for one bit.  I won't say child birth is easy, and I'm not trying to imply that it is, but I didn't feel as though there was any pressure to get him out within a certain amount of time or really worry about any potential complications.  Maybe it was because I had "been there, done that".  Maybe the different hospital and staff made a difference.  May I was just delusional from having 2 hours of sleep before embarking on labor rather than a full night like I had with Rowan.  Who knows...but it was a very different experience and a positive one as well.  I'm so very grateful for that, and feel amazingly blessed to have another healthy baby boy to love and care for in our family.