Bathroom emergencies...on a whole new level

Catchy title eh? I knew if anything it would make you curious enough to want to read more. Joni and I experienced our first bathroom "emergency" with our little one. Before I get into that one, you should know that Ellie eats like a champ. Its supposed to take a couple of weeks for a newborn to return to their original birth weight, but Ellie has already surpassed it and then some and its only been a week or so.

This is probably because we are having to feed her with Joni's milk from a bottle. Ellie just can't get the latching-on part down because she always sticks her tongue to the roof of her mouth. We've worked with 4-5 lactation consultants and its just not happening. We are tag teaming the feeding sessions with Joni pumping and me feeding, sounds weird, but its exhausting. Not only that, but Joni feels bad because we can't feed our baby the "normal" way. All feelings aside, all we care about right now is that our baby is eating and stays healthy, so the sacrifice beats putting her on formula for now and we are happy that Ellie is our little chunk.

So the other night I had daiper changing duty, and I learned an important lesson about speed changing. I was having a great old time changing a poopy daiper, singing to Ellie, telling her how cute she was and taking my sweet time when KABOOOOOOM!...she let me know that she wasn't finished...poo was everywhere. I started yelling for Joni to come help (who was in full breast pump mode on the couch), and as you can imagine she came running in expecting the worst. We both moved frantically but it was too late, Ellie was just drenched from her toes all the way up to the back of her neck in recycled breast milk. We gave her a quick bath in the sink to clean her off, then the second I put her back on the freshly cleaned changing table she started peeing...it went everywhere. By this time Dilly was having the time of her life with all the wonderful smells and pieces of clothing falling to the floor.

After losing a few pounds of sweat, going through 3 daipers, 2 outfits, 12 baby wipes, 6 paper towels, calming a screaming baby, and keeping Dilly away from toxic clothing all in about 10 minutes, we were through our ordeal. Sure enough no more than 3 minutes after our adventure came to an end, Ellie gave us a reassuring smile that everything was going to be allright, and that this was only the beginning of a long, dysfunctional family relationship. May the poo Gods smile upon us in our sleep tonight.

Our Hearts Are Full

Everyone has a different experience in having thier first child, this is OUR story.

Everything couldn't have gone smoother the day we went into the hospital. I always imagined weaving in and out of traffic while Joni was hollering in pain, then rushing into the hospital in a wheelchair or on a stretcher. We walked in on our own at 8am, checked into our room, then sat and talked as we watched students on the UNC campus walk to their classes. Joni was induced at about 2pm on Friday. After some longer and more frequent/painful contractions began a couple of hours later, she took the epidural. That was the first time I think Joni felt a lot of pain, the contractions were painful, but I could tell things were real then.

The drugs were awesome, from then Joni didn't feel as much pain but there is always the pressure. We got used to the consistency of contraction, and Joni started getting the "shakes" which is consistent with having epidurals and transitioning into larger dilation. At about 11pm the doctors told us that she was fully dilated and that as soon as she felt pressure she could push. In that moment I started to wonder if I was going to be able to help Joni or end up on the floor upon fainting. All of the waiting suddenly came to a point that we felt overwhelmed and underprepared. I found myself taking the same deep breaths as Joni so that we could both relax.

The pushing began at 11:15 and everything changed. I suddenly felt a confidence and I saw the same reaction in Joni's countenance after the first push. It was me, the nurse, and Joni in the room and we were doing three reps of pushes at the heighth of each contraction. After 45 minutes our little girl came out with eyes wide open. She was looking around at everything, and she kept them open until her eye drops were put in.

Now, a lot of people react differently when they see that baby for the first time. I've heard even the toughest guys tell me they balled their eyes out, but that just wasn't what I felt. Joni was so happy and crying, and all of my attention was on her telling her that she did it and how happy I was for her. I looked at the baby with wonder, what was she? how did she get there? how is she breathing? Is this all real? I could never have imagined what she looked like, and it threw me for a loop when I was finally looking right at her. There is a connection that mother's instantly have with their kids, it was amazing to see, and I knew Joni literally transformed in just a few seconds. For me, every time I hold our baby I feel more attached and I love her more and more, for Joni it was instantaneous.

Ellie Ryan was born at 12:02am, weighing in at 7lbs 5oz. To everyone else she probably looks like a baby, but to us she is so beautiful and unique. We are fans of her every move. Here are some pics in order of her short little life so far.

Her skin was so beautiful and clean right when she came out, this is just moments after she was born. Her feet aren't black, this was just the ink.

We ended up staying at the hospital for 4 days instead of the usual 2. Ellie had jaundice and had to be under the lights in the nursery for 3 days. We spent a lot of time waiting, talking, throwing sticky breast gel caps at the window to see how long they would stick, and holding the baby.

Ellie has opened up a part of our hearts that we didn't know existed and no words can define our feelings these last couple of days. We do know we never imagined being able to love anything this much...

We are happy to say that we are now home and happy to have a beautiful, healthy baby girl.

Past due

Today was Joni's last Doctors appointment, it was also the due date for the baby. It appears that she is nowhere close to coming out even though she keeps growing each day (the baby not Joni of course). Joni is at the stage now where people stop and stare, I couldn't help but laugh when a couple of ladies at the doctors office all stopped mid-conversation, pulled the suckers out of their mouths and as soon as she passed said, "she looks like she's ready to POP". Joni can't wait for the stares to stop and this little girl to come out. If there is one thing I have learned, girls are never ready on time. If this is any indication of our future, we will never be on time for anything again.

The good news is that if nothing happens this week, then we will be going into the hospital this Friday November 6th to be induced at 8am. So if you don't hear from us before then, there's a good chance we haven't had anything happen yet. If Joni is induced, it could be anywhere from 1 to 36 hours after that for the baby to come. We were told that now they induce no matter what at 41 weeks, so despite some of the risks, its the right thing to do. We've heard there are things you can eat/drink/swallow to help push things along but Joni wants things to just happen on their own until Friday. My feeling right now is that nothing is going to happen, but you never know.

Joni's mom is here to help us out for a few days. Not much else we can do right now but wait, play some cards, wait, go on walks, and wait. Thanks for checking in on us, we will do our best to keep you all in the loop. Bye for now.