Amelia Ryann

On Tuesday, March 3rd, I had my second prenatal massage!  It was outstanding and my massage therapist, Tiffany, took time to hit all the labor-inducing pressure points!

On Wednesday, March 4th, I woke up at 8:30 and my water broke!  Thank you, Tiffany!  I called the hospital and the OB nurse at the hospital told me I could take about two hours to get my things together and then head to the hospital.  At 10:45am we were on our way to the hospital!  Despite me having very few contractions, Ryan drove like a crazy person!  I guess he was excited!

We spent the rest of the day hanging out at the hospital waiting for some big contractions.  Unfortunately they never came.  My doctor came in to deliver the bad news... we had to start a pitocin drip.  This was my worst fear.  In fact, the first thing I told the nurses when I was admitted is that I did not want pitocin!  I had no choice, because my water broke and after 12 hours there is an increased risk of infection.

My contractions started very slowly.  Finally, I was starting to feel some real pain but I didn't think it was quite bad enough for any drugs.  This time around I wanted to try to go without the epidural, but I was pretty set that I wanted to use the IV drug called Fentanyl.  My nurse, Ami, suggested a hot bath and I gave it a try.  It felt really nice, but after about 10 minutes my contractions were bad enough that I wanted to get the drugs.  I got out of the tub and scrambled to the bed.  Nurse Ami checked my cervix and told me it was too late and I would be delivering my baby very soon!

Everything from that point on is sort of smashed together!  I remember the nurse asking me to let her know when I felt like I wanted to push.  I quickly responded that I wanted to poop and she jumped into action!  Apparently that is the same feeling!  With Clay I never experienced that because of the epidural.

Within a few minutes the doctor and another nurse entered the room and I began pushing!  In about a half hour, Amelia's head appeared.  Unfortunately, so did the umbilical cord.  It was wrapped loosely around her neck.  Within seconds my emotions turned from excitement to fear...

As the doctor tried to routinely move the umbilical cord over Amelia's head it ruptured!  She needed to be delivered that instant and her shoulder was stuck.  The doctor ordered the nurses to push hard on my abdomen while I pushed with all my strength!  Amelia was born at 5:57am on March 5th.

Amelia was rushed to the crash cart to clamp the umbilical cord and stop her from losing too much blood.  Unfortunately, she did not start breathing on her own either.  The doctor, nurse, and a respiratory specialist worked with her to get her to start breathing and finally things were starting to look up for her! 

Once she was stable they let me hold her.  After about 3 minutes, they took her away to run tests and do a chest xray.  Ryan went with her and I anxiously laid in the hospital bed.

About 2 hours after she was born, Amelia was determined to be healthy and I was able to hold and admire my perfect baby girl! 

However, that's not were our story ends...

We spent the better part of two days in the hospital and were excited to be heading "home" with Amelia but we were waiting on results from one last blood test.  And of course the results were not good!  Amelia had high bilirubin levels and needed to stay at the hospital overnight.  She spent the the next 24 hours under bilirubin lights and her blood was checked every 12 hours.

The next day we were told again we would need to stay the night for her to have another 24 hours of phototherapy!  Things had not improved as much as they had hoped for and she needed more time.

Finally the following morning (March 9th) we were told we could go home and bring Amelia in for one more blood test in the morning!  We spent a relaxing day at Bill and Sue's house and enjoyed cuddling our new baby!  I also spent some time packing up because we were planning on taking a ferry the following evening to finally get home. 

This brings us to today... We went into the lab this morning to have Amelia's blood tested and about an hour and a half later we received a call with the results.  Amelia's bilirubin levels had risen quite a bit overnight and we were to be admitted to the hospital immediately to get her under the lights again!

So I am sitting here watching my baby girl get her suntan on.  Ryan rebooked our ferry home for tomorrow evening and Amelia will be tested again in the morning to determine if we actually get to get on the ferry this time!

It has been very difficult to watch our precious baby be unhealthy.  Ryan has been a giant ball of stress and anxiety!  He has a hard time even being at the hospital.  So I have sent him on numerous quests for food and supplies.

Ideally, as each day passes, her liver will mature and start affectingly eliminating the bilirubin on its own.

So after all that has happened in the last 5 days I think we can accurately call Amelia our little miracle!

The Chaos We Call Life

On February 4th we were officially handed the keys to our first home!  I spent a little time each night that week cleaning the new place to get read to make the big move on Saturday and Sunday. 

Over the course of last weekend, boxes and boxes of our items were brought to the house by Ryan and our guy friends.  I stayed at the new house with a couple girlfriends and unpacked as much as we could.  I really cannot believe how much stuff we had packed into our tiny house! 

It was a crazy weekend and I can honestly say that I have never been more tired in my life.  I was on my feet cleaning, moving, and unpacking from 9am to 9pm.  We didn't even sit down to eat lunch or dinner... both meals were pizza on the go!  But all our hard work paid off on Saturday evening, when we could sleep in our own home!

Over the course of the next week, I spent time after school each night unpacking the new house and cleaning the old house!  Finally, yesterday morning, the rental was clean enough to call done.  It felt so good to finally take that off my plate and focus on the new house. 

We are loving our home more each day!  I've been working like a maniac because I am on a time crunch and nesting for the new baby!  I would highly recommend not buying a house when you are 36 weeks pregnant!

I leave this Friday to go to Juneau to wait to have our little lady!  Ryan will be coming up the following week and Clay will be staying here with Eddie Grandma (she gets here on Wednesday).  I will have plenty of time while I am waiting by myself for a week, so I plan to put up house pictures and such then, so stay tuned!

As for a little look in to the world of Clay....

He has been growing up so fast and everyone tells me he will suddenly be huge when I return with a baby!

He has started counting and learning colors.  He knows his numbers 1 through 10, not always in the correct order, but he says them all!  Everything is yellow or green, but he loves to say the right color after we tell him what it is!

Today at church I said "It's time to sing" and he proceeded to carry a tune with the word 'sing' for the entire song! 

Clay has also started stringing words together to make little sentences.  Today he put his toy Pluto upside down in a boat and told us that Pluto was stuck in the boat.  "Do-do, stuck, boat." 

He also like to tell us frequently what he is doing.  "Day-day eat."  And that we are mean when he doesn't like something we have done.  "Da-da mean".  And he says mean in a lower drawn-out tone!  It's actually adorable!

My last little piece of adorableness happened today too.  I took Clay and Milo for a walk and Ryan was out running.  After a while we met up and walked the rest of the way home together.  Clay was so excited that Daddy was walking with us, he made Ryan hold his hand during the walk.  The best part is Clay was riding in the stroller!  What a good Daddy!

I have to say it sure feels good to sit down for a moment and take a break!  My view says so much about how my life is theses days...boxes and babies!  But I wouldn't have it any other way!

Taking a nap after a tough stroller ride.

Happy New Year

Since Halloween life with the Howe's has been crazy and exciting!  Enjoy a peek into our life...

We missed you all so much this Christmas, but enjoyed a relaxing holiday at home!  Thank you so much for sending Clay (and us) so many wonderful presents!  It was a blast watching Clay open and play with all his new toys!  He sure is a lucky, loved little boy!

We love you!  Happy New Year!

Halloween 2014

Clay is growing so quickly!  Halloween was a bunch of fun!  Clay really got into carving pumpkins and trick-or-treating!

He loved carrying his own bucket and picking out the candy himself!  He would say "thank you" in sign language (which everyone mistook for a kiss & thought it was so adorable) and he said "Byes" as he left each place!  Clay was also excited to tell everyone that a dinosaur says "Coo Coo"!  He makes a train noise because he watches the tv show "Dinosaur Train" on Saturday mornings.  We think it is so funny!

This morning, Clay helped me wrap Arabella's birthday present.  We got her a mini classical guitar, so before wrapping it we tuned it and I learned to play "happy birthday".  Clay was singing "happy happy b"!  He is such a sweetie.

Clay has also been walking around all morning with the cardboard tube from the wrapping paper.  He is such a little boy!  He gave it to me and the first thing that popped in my head was to sing "Old MacDonald" into the tube.  So I sang the first line and Clay surprised me by singing "E-Ni-No-No-No-No"!   It is really amazing how much he is learning everyday!

Some other big news is that we are in the process of buying a house!  You can check it out here!  We put in an offer and the couple accepted it, so now we have to meet with the bank and go severely into debt!  It is really scary and incredibly exciting!  I couldn't even sleep last night because I kept thinking about painting and moving and other details we could change about our new home!  The couple living there now does not plan on leaving until early February, so it will be a while before it is ours.  We cannot wait!  Now we will have a place big enough for everyone to come visit!  Start planning your trips now!

Baby Girl Howe is growing right on schedule!  She is about 10.5 inches long and moving around like crazy!  My students are really excited about the baby and always ask about her.  They also had a bunch of name ideas, so I have a baby name suggestion box in my room.  We have a bunch of great names to choose from!  Right now our favorite is Amelia Ryann.

We miss and love you all!