First Week at Home

The first week at home with Connor was great. He did not cry too much, but he is starting to cry more now that he is getting bigger. At his last doctor's appointment he weighed in at 4 lbs 9oz and I think he may be over 5 lbs now that it has been a week. Mario and Hobie are adjusting well to the new baby. Mario seems a little stressed, but he is tolerating Connor well. My mom came and stayed with us for several days last week which was a great help.

Last Week, Cathy Earlson from uposed photography came over and took newborn photos of Connor. I think they turned out great! You can view them at unposedphotography.com. Click on clients and the password to view them is "connor."

John and I have enjoyed many meals from family and friends the last few weeks and we are very appreciative. I am starting to feel much better. My blood pressure was back to normal when I had it checked last week. Hopefully it is down for good.

Movie of Connor

3 Weeks Old

Hat From Anne
Dad and Connor

Mario loves Connor

So Cute!

Not so Happy.

Connor's Room

2 Weeks Old

1st sponge bath at home

2 Weeks Old

Car bed for little babies

First Dr. Visit

We took Connor to his first appointment with the pediatrician on Thursday. We were planning to meet with Dr. Beaty the Monday that I was put in the hospital, so Connor's first appointment ended up being the day we met him. He was great with Connor and I am pleased with our choice of Doctor. He came highly recommended by many people. Connor weighs 4 lbs 3 oz now and is growing strong. When the doctor did the strength test he told us to watch out because Connor will be the baby who rolls off of the changing table or the couch. His strength measures comparable to a 4 week old term baby (7.5 weeks ahead!!)

I was concerned about his growth lag and his head size, but the doctor showed me the charts and assured me that he was fine. I was nervous because the hospital informed me that the health department had to make visits and follow up with us because of his growth lag/ head size. We still have to have visits from the health department, but Connor is fine.

More Pictures!

Connor at Home

Connor is Home!!!

Connor came home last night. We went to the hospital yesterday at 1:30 to meet Erin for our car bed fitting. She got us all set up to take Connor in our car. After the car bed fitting, I put Connor in some of his own clothes (the hospital has clothes that he has been borrowing) for his photos. His pictures should be posted on the hospital website soon. After his photos, we gave him his 2:30 feeding and were ready to go home. Well, his nurse on this particular day was overwhelmed with babies and was not very focused when it came to getting us checked out. We spent the entire afternoon sitting there waiting on her to finish getting us out of there. We finally left at 5pm.

Connor didn't mind the car too much. We made it home and into the house without too much trouble. When we got home, we put him in his cradle in the living room and he seemed to like it. Lori came over and brought us dinner that Dana made and a really nice card with gift cards for dinner from my wonderful co-workers. I can't thank them enough for all they have done for us. We enjoyed a really good dinner last night while we watched Connor sleep in his cradle.

The first night was not too bad. Connor likes his pack 'n play in our bedroom. He makes funny noises sometimes in his sleep which kept me awake because I am worried that it is not normal or that he is choking or something. I am sure I will get used to it soon and that all new parents wake up at every little noise. We took turns getting up and feeding him. Right now his food is breast milk mixed with a high calorie formula for weight gain, so we have to go to the kitchen to mix it up. (tough at 2am!) I think he got a little cold a few times, so we turned up the heater and added some blankets. He didn't cry too much, only a little bit when he got close to feeding time.

We are completely in love with our son Connor and are so happy to have him home. Today we are going to his first doctor's appointment with his pediatrician.

1.11.10

Monday's hospital visit was full of exciting surprises. Connor did not have a feeding tube anymore! He had successfully taken all feedings the day before so they removed his tube. He had also been circumcised which is another step closer to coming home. I was so excited to see his progress. The nurse then told us that he may be going home on Wednesday if he passed his car bed test that night. We will be renting a car bed from the Children's Hospital for the next few weeks since Connor is too small for a car seat.

1 Week Old

1.08.2009

Today I am having a much better day. My mom stayed with us the last couple days to take care of me and the house. I really appreciated all her help. Today she left and John's sister Becky came over to help me. I have been laying around following Doctor's orders. Yesterday I was not allowed out of the house to see Connor and that was really hard. I know it was best to not overdo it though.

Today I was feeling better, so I went with John to the feeding after work and stayed for only an hour. It was wonderful to hold Connor again. Connor's nurse, Carly, is so nice and I am so glad he has her to take care of him. She gets excited about all of his accomplishments and tells me all about his day when I visit. When I went over to his incubator tonight I was so excited to see that he has graduated to an open air crib! My baby can regulate his temperature and no longer needs the incubator. I am thrilled. In other good news he gained more weight. He weighs 3 lbs 15.7oz! We are almost to the 4lb mark.

I changed his diaper tonight and when I was changing him, he peed all over everything (outfit and 2 blankets). What a fun adventure with a little boy. Even after the outfit change, weighing and diaper he still took half a bottle from me before getting too tired. I just love holding Connor. Aunt Becky read Curious George to Connor while he got his feeding tube.

High Blood Pressure

I went to my one week visit with Dr. Teverbough yesterday. I learned that my blood pressure is still very high. She prescribed me some medication and let me know that sometimes it can take a few months for it to regulate because of the pre-eclampsia. She also thinks I have been overdoing it by going back and forth to the hospital so much. She suggested that I try to only go once a day and keep my activity to a minimum.

I went to visit Connor after the appointment and while I was there I had another seeing spots episode. The nurses sent me to the E.R. because I was dizzy and my arm was starting to get a little numb too. I spent the afternoon in the E.R. and was told that I need to be back on full bedrest. They did not want me traveling to the hospital to see Connor until I was better and the medicine was working.

I am very upset that I cannot see my baby right now. I really hope that my blood pressure will get under control soon. My mom is here taking care of me this week which I am grateful for. She has been cooking and cleaning and keeping me in my bed. I have not had a headache all day which is a really good thing.

Last night when John visited Connor the nurse had some wonderful news for us. Connor took his entire 5:30 feeding by bottle! He did not get too tired to finish it for the first time. This is great progress. The most he has ever taken is 1/3 by bottle and the rest by tube, so this is huge.

Connor's Birth

An hour before the c-section was scheduled, the nurses put us on the monitor to check on how the baby was doing. He was doing really well with a strong heart rate. Just before 5, the anesthesiologist came in. She took one look at my IV and determined that the sky was falling because the IV was absolutely wrong. This is the IV that took 2 attempts to place on Monday and was very painful. She obviously did not know about my needle fears because she began pulling at all the tape and wires and was freaking out about my veins and started making turnicates on both my arms. I lay there completely helpless and very upset. She was freaking out and yelling about the IV and that she needed more liquids squeezed right now!

She ran to get a better IV and redid it on my other arm while I was freaking out. This may have been the most traumatic part of the entire evening. Once the IV was placed, John was given his scrubs and I was wheeled down the hall with my anesthesiologist to the operating room. She was still freaking out about the IV and the liquids. My nurse was trying to calm both of us down.

When we got to the operating room, I saw Dr. Teverbaugh and few other people. I was pretty scared to get my spinal block for the surgery. They had me sit on the table and relax while I received my fluids. John had to wait outside in the recovery room while all of this was taking place. There were two anesthesiologists and they worked to get my blood pressure back down and then began to place the spinal. This was the easy part. She numbed my back with a tingly shot and then I never felt the huge needle that everyone talks about.

Once the spinal was in place, I laid on the table and just felt tingly and heavy, but I could totally feel everything. They kept waiting for it to start taking and it took a while for me to get numb enough for them to start. They kept pinching me with metal clamps and I kept saying OWW I feel this! So the guy would pinch my arm and ask if it felt the same as it did on my tummy. This went on for quite a while and I have lots of bruises now to show for it.

They would not let John come in until after they made the incision because they wanted to make sure that they did not have to knock me all the way out. The incision was made and the only things I felt were pressure, so they let John come sit by my head. John and the crazy anaesthesia lady held my hands as the surgery began.

The big curtain was so tall and blue. This is all I could see. I felt a great deal of pulling and pressure that I even yelled out because it hurt. I was waiting anxiously for his little cry. The team of baby doctors was in place from the NICU and he came out at 5:53pm. We heard him cry and it was a wonderful sound.

The doctors put him in the isolette and looked him over and cleaned him off. John went over there and could watch them. He even cut the cord. I could not see anything because of all the doctors in the room. John went with the baby to the NICU while they continued the surgery.

I was so glad that he was breathing on his own and that he made it out. I was so thirsty and the pressure was terrible. I could wait for the surgery to be over with. It seemed to take forever.

Down in the NICU, John was able to observe the doctors cleaning Connor and examining him. He scored an 8 and 9 on his Apgars and was doing really well. John got lots of pictures and video to show me in the recovery room.

I was wheeled to recovery and on the way there I asked for ice chips because I was so thirsty. I got the ice and then we started out toward the NICU so that I could hold him on my way back to the room.

Holding my baby was amazing. I am so excited that they let me do this. John got to hold him right after me and it was wonderful. Connor is beautiful and he has blond hair and I think he looks like John.

What a New Year's Eve! Our son was doing well and the nurses even said he was the healthiest baby in the NICU. At 8pm, the Pfleeger's and Aunt Jenny and Uncle Matt came to visit. They were so excited about their new little family member. John made lots of proud calls to friends and family.

I was feeling so much better after the c-section because my headache was gone and I had lots of medication. I couldn't believe that he was here already. We slept great that night knowing that we were all ok.

The next morning the Holmes' and Aunt Becky came to visit Connor and found out that he would be graduating from the NICU to the level 2 nursery. This is a huge step for him and we are so excited about his progress.

12/31/09

Now that I am feeling a little bit better I want to take a minute to write about our week.

On 12/30 we got the news that I was doing much better and that we would plan to deliver at 35 weeks on Sunday 1/3/9. John and I hung out during the day in the hospital room and I was feeling pretty good. My parents and sister came to visit us and brought us Christmas cookies and stockings. What a treat! We decided that since things were looking good that John should go ahead and go home to sleep and take care of the cats on Wednesday night. He was going to get some good movies and do a little laundry and then meet me back at the hospital on Thursday to keep me company. We even made plans for my Mom to come hang out with me Thursday afternoon so John could go home and re-paint the bathroom ceiling (one of several projects for his week of "vacation"). The doctors decided to cap my IV and let me hang out without being connected to so many wires. We were set to camp out at OSF for the next 5 days. I was even planning to get a pedicure the next day.

After John left, I went to sleep and woke up with a terrible pounding headache (sign of high blood pressure). Throughout the night I continued to have very high pressure and the pounding headache. I woke up in tears because it hurt so bad. The Tylenol was not working and the nurses decided too have a doctor check on me around 3am. The resident doctor was really nice and she decided that I needed to lay on my left side and brought me some cold wet towels for the headache. At this point they were trying everything to keep my pressure down. The pain was getting so bad that I was shaking quite a lot and couldn't do anything about it. The nurses were coming in frequently to check on me at this point and I called John around 5am because I was getting pretty scared. I asked him to come to the hospital a little earlier because I was feeling really bad.

Nothing would relieve the pounding headache and the shakes. I tried moving around, wet cloths, ice packs counter pressure, everything. When John got there, he came over and held my hand which helped me mentally. Dr. Teverbaugh came in to see me and decided that we would do some blood work to see how the pre-eclampsia was doing. She told me that they may need to do the c-section that day, so all Tylenol, food and drinks had to stop until my blood work came back. I was also re-connected with my IV.

All I could do at this point was lay there in my bed and try to be calm so that my blood pressure would go down. I was able to sleep for a little bit which helped me a lot. Around 8am my blood work came back and showed that the pre-eclampsia was still in a safe zone, so they decided to just monitor me throughout the day and go back to the plan of delivery on Sunday. They brought me some Tylenol to try to bring the headache down and also brought me a breakfast tray.

Just after eating the food and taking the Tylenol, the headache, dizziness and shaking returned with full force. There was nothing I could do to make it all stop. The nurses were still monitoring me very closely and my pressures were steadily climbing. I told John that I did not want him to leave me alone at all that day because of how I was feeling, so we called my Mom and told her not to come over because I needed to rest. John sat by my bed and rubbed my head while I tried to stay quiet and calm. I could barely even get out of bed because I was so dizzy.

The parinatologist, Dr. Gross and Dr. Teverbaugh decided that we would probably need to do the c-section because I continued to get worse throughout the day. Since I had eaten, they decided to schedule the c-section for 5pm. I had a NICU doctor come in to talk to me about what to expect when the baby arrived and to prepare us for the premature birth. I really can't remember much of this conversation because I was in a lot of pain, but I do know that I appreciated feeling informed.

This was it! We were going to have a baby around 5pm!

Connor Charles

Happy New Year's Eve!!!

Connor Charles Holmes was born on 12/31/2009 at 5:53pm. He weighs 3lbs 13.5oz. Mom and baby are doing well.