Mom can’t handle the baby clothes apparently. lol

I’ve actually not been nervous about anything regarding this whole event, except 1 thing. That thing is the 90 pound yellow lab named Tusker. Did I have any nerves about child birth, nope. Nerves about sleepless nights, nope. Maybe a little nerves about how to pay for this whole endeavor, but nothing really worth mentioning.

My true concern has been the dog and I have been very worried about it. He is a good dog, but he is a spaz. Very excitable, very nervous, very rough because of his anxiety about everything. He thinks everything is trying to kill him. He pushes everything to exert is authority. He jumps up of course, but that can be dealt with. The big issue is his tendency to think everything is for him. “is this a new chew toy for me to play with?”

The day after the birth, I brought the birth hat to my parents, where Tusker was staying, so he could smell her and get the scent into his head. Then today, I brought a shirt that had been worn by Ashley for 2 days and been peed on. Let him sniff that a bit until he lost interest. Then I brought him home. Mom put Ashley into her crib in her room, which Tusker is not allowed into, and I let Tusker loose.

It was interesting. He got into a walking submission posture, but let out a dominant bark. It was weird. The only thing I can think is since he is low-man on the totem pole in this house, he assumed he would be even lower now with this new smell, but yet attempted to assert his higher role with the bark, just in case he actually was higher. He ran all around in submission posture, sniffing everything until he realized there was nothing there he had to be concerned with. Then he sniffed everything again and again. Once he calmed down, we then brought Ashley out and put her in the co-sleeper that we use to put her down, where ever we are. He sniffed a bit through the mesh sides, and I could tell it was frustrating him, plus he kept trying to get up higher on it. So I took out Ashley, and held her tight, while bending down to let him sniff her. A few pushes and nudges, some a little too hard probably, and he started to lose interest. About 30 minutes then on the couch allowing him to sniff her all over, and he now seems to be fine. Even the cries don’t seem to bother him, though I am sure that won’t be the case in the middle of the night (he’s normally a big baby about noises). Mom even breast fed, he came over, sniffed the situation, then went away to go do his normal stuff.

Big sigh of relief for me. But I still am going to keep an eye on him obviously for the next few days. Until he really doesn’t seem to care at all about Ashley, I don’t think I am going to feel good about it. But it seems to have gone really well.

So Grandma is here visiting now (mom’s Mom “mormor”). Of course, all gaga.

Since American English doesn’t really have any distinction between grandparents, both gramda’s are the same for example. I am gonna do my mom proud and go Swedish on you.
MorMor = Mother’s Mother
FarMor = Father’s Mother
MorFar =Mother’s Father
FarFar = Father’s Father

Sleep has been starting to become possible, but Ashley has a weird pattern that is hard to deal with. She wakes up wanting to feed, but the minute we start feeding, she falls asleep. We piss her off by taking off her clothes and she wakes for a few sucks, then falls asleep, this pattern of piss her off and feed for short, is frustrating. Last night went better. Its a matter of figuring out how to deal with her pattern. Also mom’s milk is slow coming in, so that is probably adding to it. I’m gonna guess 2-3 more days until we get a groove, then i’m sure Ashley will change the rules on us…

Still have not gotten the dog yet to bring him home from my parents house. Already brought a piece of clothing over for him to smell. Gonna bring another, and then bring him home today. I hope that goes well. He’s a great dog, but man is he hyper and spazzy and a bit rough (unintentionally). 90 pound yellow lab named Tusker.

I’m gonna be a bit slow with the posting for a few more days because my soul is still about 12 hours back. So sorry about that, but tough

Posted by mobile phone:
we are eating our last meal and going to be released soon. yeay!

As for cost, not so bad. It doesn’t cost much to make a baby, maybe a dinner and some mood lighting. But, it costs 5 grand to take your baby home. not as bad as we were expecting. Scottsdale Healthcare has package deals which create a fixed, all you need, cost for service. we were expecting it to be more.

Posted by mobile phone:
ashley seems to be doing pretty well. last night we only had 1 incident of her being fussy, like she was on a feeding frenzy. Finally faked her out by givinh her a finger to suck on for a bit while laying down so I wouldn’t need to move here once she was asleep. Yes, I am already lying to my 2 day old daughter.

Both mom and I slept a bit which was good. at least now I think I can drive us home today without crashing into anything.

Mom is doing well, except for a brief bleeding episode this morning.

Ashley is out cold and she has been very good. Breast feeding was off to a rocky start, between mom being a bit afraid of getting forceful and ashley just being sleepy and unenthusiastic about the whole thing. However the last feeding went really well, since she actually would suck for more than 5 sucks before falling asleep. Milk has obviously not come in yet, but the initial stuff, cholestrum, has.

Posted by mobile phone:
now that we have had some sleep in the hospital, and has breakfast I cangive a full report.

7.09oz, 20 inches, 10 fingers, 10 toes, dent in her forehead.

16 hours in triage.
18 in pitocin induced labor.
1 dose of stadol waiting for the epidural.
1 epidural which worked well, but started failing about 4 hours before the birth causing a bit of a WTF by the staff. some moving around and a dose of something else into the line fixed the issue for about 3 hours.
Test pushed for 20 minutes.
waited for 30 since mom wasn’t quite ready it seemed.
10 minutes of pushing.
doctor called, rested while waiting for 10 minute.
Pushed for 4 contractions and it was done.
2:42pm 8/15
34 hours in hospital

dark brown full head of hair, but eye color obviuosly is still up in the air since they are still that cool gun metal blue/grey that babies eyes usually are at birth because of lack of pigmentation.

Ashley makes lots of cute little wimpers and grunts but no real crying, yet… Only twice so far, first bath and pediatrician checkout. There is a full volume screamer somewhere on the floor and wow that would suck.

Ashley is feeding well. Mom is trying to breastfeed but getting a little frustrated because it is very on-off in the way Ashley latches. Everyone keeps telling mom that’s normal in the beginning but that doesn’t seem to matter to her. She’s a bit freaked out I think, but also seems quite happy.

I will be stopping home at some point to take care of some stuff and will upload the photos to flickr.

Posted by mobile phone:
it’s a girl!

http://flickr.com/photos/pokeie/tags/ashley/

mom did great, ashley is upon us.

Posted by mobile phone:
mom has started pushing, though now we are holding for a while because the baby was not moving as far as the doctor wants.

apparently a full head of black hair it would seem. though that doesn’t mean she is going to keep the black hair.

so the short version is, we are back to waiting. again…

Posted by mobile phone:
for the past 2 hours mom’s pain has been increasing tremendously. The floating anesthesiologist had to come in and give her something extra. My realization is that it seems like she spent too much time on one side, which has seemed to cause a gradual increase in pain. Normally she has been turning over every hour but she didn’t for the past 3.

a little crying because of the pain overwhelming her, but she made it through. I think the worse part actually is that it makes her feel very sick.

Also, we are now to 12pm and still no pushing. 1 hour my ass. though I guess that was 3 hours ago.

still no baby though.

Posted by mobile phone:
Doctor stopped by to check and founf that mom is dilated to 9cm. Mom has also been having the occasional urge to push but no actual pushing yet. Dr said probably another hour before we even start. The only issue really is that mom is feeling some of the contractions through the epidural. I’m sure she’ll be fine, but still that sucks. so maybe by 11am pushing will start.