November 1, 2010

November 1st means I go back to work. I cant believe that my 7 weeks on maternity is over already! Not to mention that Hunter is going to be 7 weeks old too! Where did the time go? I have enjoyed my time home with Hunter more than anyone could imagine.  It was hard to leave my little guy and go back to work! I am not sure that Hunter missed me as much as I missed him! Hunter is going to a lady that babysits at her home. Our lady that watches Hunter is wonderful!! She really impressed me from the 1st time I met her and I couldn't be happier with her. I know that she treats my son like he is family. We have a sitter for 3 days and my dad watches Hunter the other 2 days. My mind is at ease knowing that I have Hunter with great people when Brent and I can't be home with him.

Hunter is growing so fast and changing so much. My little sweet baby boy has been changing and getting soo much personality.  I am so excited to see how my little guy amazes me next!!

Hunter's !st week at home.

We came home Friday night and Monday Hunter went for his first doctor's appointment to get a referral to go see the doctor at the Children's Hospital that was supposed to give us the results of Hunter's Echo cardiogram and EEG that had been done in the nursery at the hospital.

When we took Hunter home he was weighing in at a big whopping 5 lbs 15 oz. When Hunter got weighed on Monday we were told that we needed to work on getting our little guy to gain some weight. Hunter was spitting up quite a bit so it was near impossible to get Hunter to put on the weight that everyone wanted us to. 

We got the referral to the Children's Hospital and we saw Dr.Ty Hasselman.  Dr. Hasselman read the results of the EEG and the Echo and had said that he wanted to keep and eye on Hunter's heart murmur. Hunter had 2 small holes in his heart.  Hunters heart was working properly even with the 2 small holes. The heart murmur was not affecting Hunter. We were told some things to watch for and if we saw anything in Hunters behavior that concerned us to just give his office a call and leave a message and we would get a call back and if doctor thought it was a concern he would have us bring Hunter back to see him. Doctor wanted to see Hunter back in November to do another EEG and Echo cardiogram to see any changes. Dr. Hasselman had said that he expected the holes to close up in just a matter of months.

I had been worried about the results since the Echo was done at the hospital and it was a week later that we got the results. I was glad that Dr. Hasselman didn't think that the heart murmur was going to be a problem. Hunter threw a little crying fit in his office and he did say that there was no problem with hunter's breathing even when he was throwing his fit. I was glad to hear that the doctor expected hunter to grow out of the heart murmur.

 Hunter got to meet some family and was a big hit in his first busy week at home! Hunter even surprised all of us with sleeping basically for the whole night. He might go to bed late and wake up early but still he was sleeping all night long!! Yippee!!

Brent and I got really lucky!! Hunter was a really good baby and even with the heart murmur he is a healthy little baby boy!!

Friday September 17 2010 - Going home with Hunter

Release day!!! Brent and I were happy to be going home...Hunter and I  were to be released at 11:00am or sooner. The time just was not moving fast enough. We were ready to go home with little man!!

Everything was all packed up and ready to go we were just waiting for the hospital to release me and Hunter.  It took what felt like forever and no one was releasing us. Finally at 10:00am we finally start seeing the nurses and they were waiting for the hospital release paperwork. Then one of the nurses came rushing in and said Hunter needed to go for an ECHO CARDIOGRAM because of his heart murmur. Remember here that we found out about the heart murmur on thrusday and the nurses acted like it was no big deal and that it was a pretty common thing for a baby to have a heart murmur.  Now they are acting like it was a life and death situation!! This scared the crap out of Brent and I because no one had really told us why they were doing the echo and no one was letting us know why it was a rushed deal all of a sudden. Me being new mom and all I could have just cried and I felt helpless the only thing I knew is that Hunter was being taken to the nursery for a test and they were going to look at his little heart!!  The nurse started to take off with Hunter then she said "Oh well you can go too"!! You bet your ass I am going with my son!!! So dad and I went with hunter to the nursery for his echo cardiogram.  I could hear the guy doing the echo talking to another person in the nursery he was showing the other guy what the doctors like to see in the echos but they really were not talking to Brent and I they were just talking to each other. Of Course when you don't know what is going on it scares you even more!!! My heart was dropping to the ground as they were speaking because I did not know anything.  We learned that Hunter has 2 small holes in his heart.  I thought that Hunter was acting pretty normal and he did not seem to be acting like the holes in his heart were affecting him. After the echo was done we were sent back to our room to wait to hear from the doctor on the echo.

We literally were waiting for hours to hear nothing.

No one had any news for us.  The nurses kept peeking in on us to see if we needed anything and some even kept checking to see if the doctors were ready to release Hunter yet.  I was as nervous as a new mom could be and Brent was getting really impatient because we were waiting such a long time. The later it was getting in the day the more worried I was getting. I called my mom who reasured me that if Hunter's heart murmur was going to be a problem and was a life and death situation I would have heard something right away. So that did reasure me a little bit. I was really wanting to hear from the doctor just to know if our little guy was ok or not.

Brent was my rock. He kept me calm when I was getting irritated.  I was ready to climb the walls! I was getting agitated because I just wanted to know that little Hunter was ok to take home and I wanted to know what we needed to keep an eye.  It was around 4:00 ish when we finally talked to a nurse and one of the bosses up on the mom and baby floor that said that they were going to find out if we can be released. We did get released about 20-30 minutes later and we were told that we had to take Hunter to his doctor on monday and get a referral to go see the doctor at the childrens hospital that was going to read the echo for the results.

Homeward bound!! We finally got released and we were on the way home with our little man!!

 

Thursday September 16th 2010.

I cant believe I left out a funny story to Hunter being born! Bad mommy!! After I held Hunter for the first time. The nurses had taken him from me to get his weight and length and get him cleaned up. I looked over at him in the little crib as they were cleaning him up and I just happened to see these little baby feet sticking up in the air and kind of kicking around. Well the first words out of my mouth was "Oh look he has monster feet" I think he looks like he has Rick Snare (my dad) feet. Brent thinks he has my feet but I think Hunter's feet will be much bigger than mine!!

I also left out the story of my nurse. Oh boy she was a dandy!! This was actually the day Hunter was born too! I honestly felt pretty good after I had Hunter. I was up and walking all over the hospital just a few hours after I gave birth to Hunter. I even walked to Subway with Brent for a little walk and some fresh air. I was feeling ok but my mom insisted that I ask for some ibprofen before bed so that if I started feeling not soo great it would take the edge off. I finally agreed that the ibprofen was probably a good idea. I was not hurting but I was feeling pressure from being swollen. So when the nurse came in I asked for my ibprofen. The goofy nurse offered me narcotics. I declined the narcotics and said "I only want ibprofen." That goofy nurse asked me repeatedly if I wanted any narcos...she asked me soo many times before she left my room...I think it was her that wanted them!! Then the goofball kept coming in my room and asking "do you want some narcos?" I was about to ask how many time I had to tell the woman no I don't want any more but if I do need something stronger I will ask for it. Brent had made the comment that you come in to have a baby without a drug problem but with this nurse I could have left with a drug habbit.

Ok now for the details to Thursday September 16th 2010.

We were still working on getting Hunter to eat better and we were working on keeping his temperature regulated better. The nurses were not taking him as often to do vitals as they were at first...most of the nurses took his vitals right in our room. The nurses did take him and put him under the heat lamp when they felt his temperature needed to be higher but other than that we had our little man with us!! 

There were nurses that checked him out from the childrens hospital that is in OSF St Francis hospital. We had found out that Hunter has a heart murmur. We were told that the heart murmur was pretty comon in babies and was nothing to really worry about.

We figured out that Hunter wasnt eating very well because he was being fed with a standard nipple on the bottles and he needed a slow flow nipple at first...its almost like he was getting the formula too fast!! Once he was given the slow flow ones he was eating better!!!  Thanks mom...mom was the one to get the nurses to bring us the slow flows to try...and it worked!!