Now that we have officially announced Rocket's arrival, we thought we'd take a bit more time to relay some of the details. (Don't worry; there won't be anything explicit or gross!)
Lately we'd been getting a little behind on our posts here. A number of topics from the last few weeks are as of yet unmentioned: our latest Alton Brown party; several recent visitors; an update on our garden; some photos of deer bouncing around the yard; and our anniversary weekend in a swanky hotel in Portland, to celebrate the last of them without kids. As it turns out, we managed to sneak in that last trip in the nick of time!
Corinne had two baby showers scheduled for this past weekend: Saturday, 9/20 in Seattle and Sunday, 9/21 in The Gorge. So on Friday morning we piled into the car and headed North to Seattle. We stopped at the airport along the way to pick up the surprise visitor of my Mom, who traveled from NJ to attend both showers. Friday night Corinne and I went to our friends Malinda and Jean's place for chinese takeout and some last minute shower preparations.
Saturday early morning, all of our plans changed quickly.
Corinne woke up at shortly before 7am to use the bathroom. Right after she got up, she roused me and told me to run to the bathroom to get her a towel. I was still pretty asleep, so it took me a few minutes to figure out what was happening. After a few quick phone calls and consultation with both our mothers, we determined that it was likely that her water had broken and that we should probably head to the hospital. If I had learned one thing from all of the pregnancy books that we received, I knew that the next 48-72 hours (or longer) would be extremely busy and tiring. So I managed to get a quick shower before all 4 of us got in the car and drove to Overlake Hospital in Bellevue. We hadn't heard of this hospital, but someone suggested to us that they had a good birthing center. And we certainly weren't going to drive all the way to Hood River at this point!
We arrived at the hospital at about 8:30am and Corinne was admitted and given her own labor and delivery room. The first exam at about 10am showed that she was somewhere around 5cm dilated already! In retrospect, we think that she was probably in labor for some of the previous 2 days which would explain why sleeping Thursday night was the worst of the entire pregnancy (no longer than 1 hour intervals). This exam also showed that
meconium was present, which meant that there was no going back; we weren't leaving the hospital until this baby was delivered! At this point it was clear that we weren't going to make our 11am shower; we contacted the organizers of both the Seattle and Gorge showers to let them know of the change in plans.
One of the biggest advantages of this unscheduled early delivery was that so many friends and family had scheduled to be in Seattle for the shower. In particular, Clare (wife of Corinne's cousin Tor) who is a OB-GYN nurse in Tulsa, OK was visiting for the long weekend. She arrived at the hospital at about 10:30am that morning and was with us for the entire day until delivery. We had hired a doula in Hood River, but obviously that wasn't going to help us in Seattle. Clare was that and more - awesome!
At about 11am began what would be the most difficult part of the day. Corinne's contractions started to get stronger and started to get increasingly painful. We hadn't prepared an explicit "birth plan", but we did have a desire to keep the birth as natural as made sense. For about an hour, Corinne endured the pain while Clare and I applied pressure to her back and massaged muscles to try to relieve some of the pain. She did an incredible job keeping the pain from overwhelming her and focusing on the end result, but the pain was just getting to be too much. After some mild pain relievers didn't seem to help much, we opted for an epidural. We wanted to try to keep it on the milder side so that she could still feel contractions and would be able to push more easily when the time came. Our anesthesiologist did a great job, and within about an hour the pain was gone but she was still able to move her legs normally and feel the contractions but without the pain. Thank goodness for modern medicine!
Corinne's latest OB-GYN appointment in Hood River was only 2 days earlier, on Thursday, where they took samples to test for Group B Strep (GBS). Unfortunately, those results hadn't come back yet, so the hospital administered an antibiotic through her IV as a preventative. By 1pm she was fully dilated, but the nurse wanted us to wait for the remainder of the antibiotic to flow through her system. That was just fine with Corinne, though. Now that she had the epidural, she was more comfortable than she had been in at least several weeks! She enjoyed some much needed relaxation time. Then 2pm came, and it was time to start pushing.
Pushing was actually rather uneventful compared with the painful contractions of earlier in the day. When each contraction came, she would push and we would instruct and encourage her. In between contractions the room was relatively quiet and relaxed. Rocket was progressing slowly, but was still progressing. After about 3 hours the doctor suggested using vaccuum to help speed the progress. Rocket was close at this point, so with the help of the vaccuum was born after just two more contractions.
It was at this point that we received our next big surprise. The doctor held Rocket up and exclaimed: "And... it's not a girl!" Many of you had already written to us saying "hey, didn't your doctor tell you that she was SURE that you were having a girl?
Yes, she did. I'm sure she'll be surprised when we meet with her. ;)
After we got over the initial shock, it was all smiles. We had lots of fun "exposing" all of the family and friends to Rocket's unexpected gender. Everyone (including us) had the same reaction: shock and utter disbelief, dropped jaws, followed by laughing. I had particular fun sending a "closeup" of the juicy bits to Corinne's brothers Leif and Loren, letting them figure out the rest on their own. I hope that doesn't get me in trouble for distributing child pornography or something ridiculous like that.
Since Rocket came a little early and was technically considered a preemie, the hospital ran some extra tests and did some additional monitoring. His blood sugar levels were low, so we had to start feeding him formula shortly after birth in order to try to get them up to normal. We were concerned about
nipple confusion and tried to avoid having him bottle fed so early on, but we didn't have much choice as breast milk takes some time to come in. Six hours of monitoring and a few feedings later his levels were near normal, but we would have to continue to feed him formula until he could breastfeed. Rocket needs to be fed every 2-3 hours, to make sure that he gets enough nutrients to finish his development.
It was great to have so many visitors at the hospital! The group photo that we included in the announcement is indicative of the amount of support we got from friends and family during the whole weekend. We weren't prepared for any of this and weren't in our home town, so we had to rely on others to fill in the gaps. Our friends Malinda and Jean loaned us a number of key items, including a car seat so that we were able to take him home from the hospital. We bought our own car seat, but of course it was at home. Corinne particularly enjoyed the Dr. Pepper and latte that she was brought while in the hospital; both are things which she gave up during the pregnancy!
By Sunday night we were tired and ready to go home - at least home to West Seattle. We can definitely understand people who want to home birth. We definitely wanted to have the security of all of the facilities available at a hospital, and the folks at Overlake were friendly, knowledgeable, and cared. But at the same time a hospital is not exactly the most relaxing place. In between feedings the nurse would tell us to try to get some rest; 10 minutes later, however, someone from a different department would come in to do some test or draw blood or give us some forms to fill out.
When our 24 hours was over we were extremely tired and ready to leave. After about 5 hours of trying leave, we finally made it out and were home in bed at about midnight on Sunday night.
Now that we've left the hospital, it's up to us to take care of him! I wonder how we do that?
- Mike (and Corinne and Rocket)
It's hard to believe that the first week of life for Anders Rocket is now over! He spent that first week in Seattle, and in many ways it was lucky that he arrived when and where he did. We had so many people around to help us, which became even more important when we left the hospital.
Once home we needed to continue to feed him every 2-3 hours, whether he woke up or not. Thankfully, we all ended up comfortable with the 3 hour interval. We also needed to continue to supplement his breastfeeding with formula, as he wouldn't be able to get enough just yet. After a few days we had it down to a pretty good system, but feeding time was definitely a two person endeavor at this point. Since we didn't have anything lined up as a bed for him, our Mom's improvised for us. Yes, that is a suitcase. We were pretty sure he wouldn't know the difference.
The pediatrician ordered treatment via an in-home service called "Infant Home Phototherapy." Treatment for jaundice involves exposing the skin to certain frequencies of light that help breakdown the bilirubin molecule into a water soluble form, to reduce the work that the still-developing liver has to do. This service brings a light bed into your home along with a visit from a nurse every morning to draw blood for the bilirubin test. He then sleeps on the bed - which looks very much like a flatbed scanner - with bare skin, getting the most light exposure possible. We liked to call it his "Space Bed." By mid-week when his levels still rising, the nurses brought an additional light paddle to place on his stomach. We were a little concerned that he would have problems sleeping, but they were all unfounded.
Our nurses were also trained lactation specialists and could do many of the things for which we would otherwise have needed to go to a doctor's office. As a result, after Monday we had no additional checkups outside of the house - nice! We're sure that if we had delivered in Hood River, Anders Rocket would have had to remain in the hospital for the week until the jaundice disappeared. Not only that, these nurses were so skilled that they could do the bilirubin blood draw with no crying from Rocket!
Once we had given him a name, we told our nurse Camille on her next visit. When she came back the next day she said that she had liked the name so much that she relayed it to her 12 year old son. His response was "That's so cool - why didn't you name me Rocket?"
