Our Sick Little Monkey

Somehow our little Sara Belle picked up a pretty nasty chest cold and has been miserable for the last couple of days. There is nothing more awful than hearing a 2 week old baby hack like a smoker. To make matters worse, Mom has the same ailment and Dad may be coming down with it as well.

Nursery Video

Here is some video that I took right after Sara was put in the nursery. I wanted to post it earlier but I didn't have the proper software at the hospital to extract the video from the camera.

Blue Man and a Baby

Escape From The Hospital

Free at last. We are finally, free at last.

It wasn't easy though. We had a beeyotch of a nurse this morning who seemed content to ignore us into staying another day at the hospital if it was up to her. By nine in the morning we had gotten the OK both from Rosey's doctor and from Sara's pediatrician to head on home. So, I started packing all of our bags into the car. The only thing that we were waiting for was for the nurse to come remove Rosey's staples and then turn off Sara's security device.

After waiting an hour, I very politely nudged the nurse and asked what was left to do before we go. She looked at a bunch of papers, and said that there were just a couple of formalities to take care of and then we were free to leave. She then disappeared. I presumed that she disappeared to wrap up those formalities, but began to doubt when we hadn't heard anything from her in another hour. So, once again, politely asked her what else needed to be done for us to check out. A second time I got an identical response... few things to wrap up and then disappear.

After waiting three hours, I was starting to get a little upset. I called her up one last time and asked a little less politely for her to help us leave the hospital. She finally comes storming into our room all pissed off and then blows up at us because Rosey is still in her hospital gown. She gives us a dirty look and says, "Your wife isn't even dressed and you still have all these bags to take out to the car. You're not even ready to leave yet."

She seemed unphased and unapologetic when we reminded her that the reason that Rosey was still in her gown was because no one had yet removed the staples from her incision. And, by the way, the only bags remaining in the room were the ones containing Rosey clothes and the baby's things. I had removed all of the others hours ago.

With an ugly scowl on her face she removed Rosey's staples without saying a word to us and then disappeared. Another nurse, a much nicer nurse, then offerred to do the final release and walk us out to our car.

It was funny to compare all of the different nurses that we got while staying at the hospital for several days. Every one of them had their own little quirks, but for the most part they were all really good at what they did and really pleasant to work with. It's funny that the worst nursing experience we had was with the very last nurse that we had assigned to us.

Marathon Hospital Stay

It feels like we have been at the hospital forever now. Thankfully, there is an end in sight. It looks like we'll be let go on Saturday morning. We've been here since Tuesday night... ugh.

Sara is an exceptionally healthy baby. She is very alert and seems bigger and stronger than most 2 day old babies. Our only trouble has been that she seems to get a lot of gas. As I was burping last night, I asked in a baby voice... "Where's all the gas coming from, huh?"... and then the answer occurred to me: GENETICS. Poor girl.

Rosey seems to be getting better by the hour. She has been able to get up and walk around and seems to be relying a little less on the pain medication. It's still no picnic for her though. We're hoping that she'll be feeling back to normal within a week or so.

After hearing and/or reading about how much trouble some women have with breast feeding I was almost surprised to see how natural it seemed to come to Rosey and Sara. Sara has a killer grip... a lesson which I learned to Rosey's consternation when I tried to pull her away from Rosey's breast without unlatching her first. I won't make that mistake again. I also think that Rosey's success is largely due to the months of reading and research that she did to prepare herself. I'm really proud of all the work that she has done and it's fun to see it all paying off now.

C-Sections make for lucky fathers that get to spend more time with baby since Mom isn't feeling well. Because Rosey isn't very mobile, I have been charged with most of the other care duties outside of breast feeding. Largely this means, burping, soothing, and changing dirty diapers. Because of little Sara's gas this has been no small task. I have also quickly become acquainted with the affects of sleep deprivation. I woke up this morning at 1am after only getting about an hour of sleep and it took me several minutes to remember who I was and what I was doing. It was seriously a creepy kind of feeling.

Rosey's Mom has been with us here in the hospital and has been a huge help to us both. I think that the only reason that I've gotten any sleep at all in the last two days has been thanks to her. It's funny how your perspective can change so quickly. Before the baby came we were convinced that we were going to be able to handle everything by ourselves and that Mom's help would be superfluous. I would say that it took less than 8 hours after Sara was born to realize just how wrong we were and now we are immensely grateful that Rosey's Mom is here to help us. Thanks Mom.

More Baby Photos

Sara Belle Christensen

9 Days To Go and All Is Well

This is it. The final stretch. We had an appointment this morning and everything looks fine. Rosey's blood pressure is holding steady and they are predicting a very normal healthy birth.

21 Days and Counting

Only 21 more days until little Sara is ready to pop out. We are back at the original doctor after a short stint with a doctor and office in Payson that we were even less happy about. Rosey's blood pressure has stabilized now (in fact it was almost normal at her last visit) and we suspect that she is going to carry full term without any complications.

Our biggest dilemma now is what to call her. We can't decide (agree) between:
Sarabelle Christensen
Sara Belle Christensen
Sara [non-Belle middle name] Christensen
or maybe even a latecomer,
Emma Christensen

Hmm...

An Early Delivery?

Rosey and I finally got fed up with her doctors constantly sending her to the hospital despite getting positive test results over and over again. So, we decided to switch to a new doctor based out of the hospital in Payson. We figured that the new doctor may not be much better, but at least:

• there would be only one doctor to deal with instead of getting a different doctor at every appointment.
• the new doctor was a female OB-GYN and came highly recommended by everyone that had heard of her.
• the clinic is Payson is much closer and therefore means less travel time even if Rosey did end up going to the hospital as frequently.

Rosey saw the doctor for the first time on New Year's Eve. The jury is still out on whether or not we are going to have a better experience with this doctor.

Although Rosey's blood pressure continues to be only slightly elevated, and neither she nor the baby is showing any other signs of distress or pre-eclampsia, the doctor was concerned. Enough so, that she said that she will monitor Rosey over the coming weeks and decide week by week whether or not she wants to induce labor and get the baby out early. She said that she could do this as soon as the baby reaches 34 weeks and has mature lungs. That would be next week :)

Even if everything goes well over the coming weeks, she said that she will probably want to get the baby out one way or the other when she reaches full-term at 37 weeks. As you can imagine, neither Rosey nor I are very happy about this. Neither of us want there to be any danger for little Sarabelle, but unless there is an imminent risk we would prefer that she get to cook for as long as possible. And so far, every test, other than the blood pressure reading itself has come back showing that there is no imminent risk.

It's very frustrating to feel like you are at odds with your doctor. I understand that doctor's are concerned about taking risk's that could lead to lawsuits if something goes wrong, but on the other hand, I feel like they put their own interests (of covering their own asses) ahead of the best interests of the baby.

In any case, if the doctor gets her way, we may be parents a little sooner than expected. So much for having a valentines baby :)

Baby Stuff

Rosey and I finally went and did our shopping for Sarabelle's nursery yesterday. Between some money that I had set aside and a generous gift from Dad, we were able to get pretty much everything we needed in one shot. Let me tell you... Babies 'R Us made a killing yesterday :) It's amazing how quickly you can blow through money buying stuff for baby.

We got:

• Stroller System (Graco Tour Deluxe)
• Dresser/Changing Table Combo
• Nursing Glider
• Baby Swing
• Baby Carrier
• All manner of bottles, sheets, cloths, rags, diapers, ointments and miscellaneous "stuff" that you just need to have :)

We were afraid that it might not all fit in the car, but we just barely made it.

The dresser was the only thing that we weren't able to take home with us. They didn't have the one we wanted in stock and had to order it in. I suppose that was a good thing as we wouldn't have been able to fit it anyway.

We spent the afternoon assembling. I was actually surprised how easily most of the stuff went together. The most difficult piece was the swing. Other than that, the bulk of the work was mostly unpacking, unwrapping and shuffling stuff around.

Pregnancy Update

With less than 70 days until the birth of our daughter, Sara Belle Christensen, we are entering the home stretch of the pregnancy. Little Sara seems to be really healthy, but Rosey has started to have some problems with elevated blood pressure. The numbers are right on the border of where the doctors are concerned, and we aren't really sure if this is just her chronic hypertension acting up in response to stress of if she has a mild case of pregnancy induced hypertension.

Either way, the doctor suggested (ordered) that she quit working and try to spend as much time as possible relaxing. I don't think that she's on official "bedrest" yet, but they are continuing to monitor her condition and run tests. In the meantime, Rosey actually feels pretty well despite what the doctor says. We are still going on frequent walks through the neighborhood, which we have discovered actually helps to lower Rosey's blood pressure and is fun for the both of us.

It's a ...

Rosey and I had our first ultrasound today and discovered that our baby is... uncooperative :( The baby had it's legged crossed beneath it in a way that made it impossible to determine it's sex. We tried to get the baby to move, but it just seemed way too comfortable to budge.

Fortunately, we'll get one more shot at it today. We have another appointment in a couple of hours to see if we can get a better look. Wish us luck!

Pregnancy Appointment #3: Anticipation

I'm late posting this. Our third pregnancy appointment was last Thursday. It was easy to forget about though because we are actually more excited for our next appointment... the one in which the sex of the baby will be determined. We are scheduled for an ultrasound on Thursday, October 11th. So we, nor you, will have to wait much longer in suspense.

Rosey has a pretty strong feeling that we are going to have a boy. I used to have that feeling as well, but now I'm really not sure which it will be.

I'm glad to say that Rosey is feeling much, much better now. She used to listen to people telling her that things would get better after the first trimester and was convinced that, despite that, it would never end for her. I was even beginning to believe that the sickness and fatigue might last for the entire 9 months. But, somehow as if magically, she is feeling better. She doesn't have to choose her food so carefully anymore and actually has more energy for hiking and other activities than a pregnant woman ought to :)

Pregnancy Appointment #2: It Lives!

Rosey and I had our second pregnancy appointment today. The highlight of the appointment was that we got to hear the baby's heartbeat. Wow, how cool is that? He/She must have been excited too because his/her little heart was beating really fast. I guess that's normal though.

Less exciting but equally notable was that Rosey discovered that there may be some relief for the problems that she's been having. First the nurse told her that it was perfectly OK for her to be taking her Claritin. Second, they gave her a Vitamin B shot which they claimed would help with her nausea and lack of energy. And third, if the Vitamins didn't help the nausea then they gave her a prescription for something that should. She was ecstatic to discover all of this but at the same time upset that she's been sufferring for so long... why didn't the previous doctor mention any of these things???

Pregnancy Appointment #1

Rosey and I just got back from our first official pregnancy appointment. We are roughly 8 weeks pregnant right now. Everything went great. The doctor was really nice and it looks like Rosey is really healthy and everything is going well with the exception of a slight anemia (which is apparently common among pregnant women). We discovered that her uterus is roughly the size of an orange right now. Mmm, citrus :) Our next appointment is in 4 weeks when we will get to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time. I can't wait!

I'm Going To Be a Daddy!

It's official! Rosey and I are pregnant (well, she's really doing most of the 'being pregnant'). We are due, I believe, sometime in February. I can't think of a better person than Rosey to tackle parenthood with. She will make a wonderful Mommy.

Of course there is the small detail of a wedding that will be planned in the coming months. I never was good at doing things in the right order :) I'll keep you posted with details as we settle on plans. I'm so excited!