Andrej, Jessica, Kaiya and Tobi

We are back home, after an exciting weekend, with a precious brand new person, two delightfully exhausted parents, two overjoyed grandparents and one big sister who can't get enough kisses and big "huggies" from baby Tobi. We couldn't be prouder or more thankful for the new blessing God has given us. Our little Tobi is healthy, beautiful and the sweetest little boy I've ever seen, and rightfully named as Tobias means "God is good!" The following is a recap of his birth story. (Read more …)

… for the hospital. Our son, who may remain nameless, is getting ready to make his appearance. Updates coming soon…

Today, Baby Ciho and I had our 37 week OB appointment. We are now going every Friday to see the doctor and will continue until the baby arrives. However, it COULD be sooner than we think! I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but I really really really want this baby to come soon. Dr. B checked me today and confirmed that the baby's head is down and that I am already 2 cm dilated and about 25% effaced. I know this may not mean much as I could hang out at a 2 for weeks, but at least that's 2 cm closer to where I need to be, and without any pain. (Read more …)

Thirty two weeks and counting! I can't believe we only have eight more weeks until Baby Ciho's due date. I'm not counting on him coming early, or even on time, as Kaiya was eight LONG days over due. However, I am getting anxious and excited to meet the newest member of our family and I hope he doesn't decide to hang out in there as long as his big sis did. We were able to see the little guy on March 23, as we had our follow-up ultrasound. We learned a couple of really neat things during the ultrasound: (Read more …)

Baby Ciho and I had our 24 week OB appointment today. Thankfully, I only added one pound to the massive amount of weight I gained before my appointment last month. I also measured exactly 24 weeks. Our doctor let Andrej and Kaiya use the wand to find the heartbeat. Kaiya grabbed the wand and turned it around and stuck it right on my belly as if she had done it a hundred times before. Thankfully she let Andrej operate it from there and it didn't take long before we heard the familiar whooshing noise. Baby Ciho's heart rate was around 148. It really is a beautiful sound. (Read more …)

Today Baby Ciho and I are 21 weeks along in this pregnancy. It is so hard to believe that we are already over half way to the finish line. So far this pregnancy is flying by. Last week, I had my 20 week OB visit and besides gaining way too much weight over Christmas, baby and I both are doing great. Following the doctor's appointment, Andrej and I headed to the hospital for the 20 week ultrasound and our first glimpse at Baby Ciho. In addition to seeing our baby we really wanted to find out the gender. We both had a feeling that it was going to be another girl. I informed the technician right away our desire to know the gender and to please let us know as soon as she could tell.  (Read more …)

(Imported from haveyouhadyourbabyyet.blogspot.com)

I'll try to recap the timeline of yesterday.

* 7am - medium strength contractions
* 7:45 - Andrej off to work
* 9:00 - strong contractions
* 9:50 - Jessica's phone call to Andrej
* 11:00 - Jessica and Andrej leaving the house off to the hospital
* 12:00 - We're in a delivery room, dilated at 3, contractions every 3-5 minutes
* 2:30 - Epidural
* 3:30 - Baby's heartbeat started to fluctuate so instead of the regular 140-150 it was 50-175 and repeatedly sounded the monitor's alarm. Multiple resident doctors present at our room just staring at the monitors, whispering to each other, and turning the alarms off.
* 4:00 - Completely dilated, contractions almost continuous (our doctor still not present)
* 4:20 - All the staff (6-8 by now) started seriously considering C-section due to baby's fluctuating heartrate.
* 4:40 - Our doctor showed up and brought an expert on forceps to see if there is any hope of the baby coming naturally - the decision was to give it a quick try otherwise… Jessica showed them some serious pushing which gave all of us hope.
* 4:50 - Baby was delivered by the help of forceps. Baby came out fine and the initial scary blue turned into more natural color. Since they had to deliver the baby very quickly, they weren't able to be as gentle so Jessica is going to be recovering a little longer.
* 5:30 - Jessica was finally allowed to hold the baby (until then they were still working on Jessica - so I had the baby almost all to myself).
* 6-7 - First shot on nursing went quite well.
* 7:30 - They moved us to the postpartum section of the floor where we should stay until Thursday if all goes well.
* 12-12:45 - Second nursing went quite well.
* 12:50am - Jessica's parents finally made it to the hospital (one of their flights got canceled due to some T-storms.)
* 2:00 - The went baby to the nursery so we could get some sleep (which ended by 5:00am due baby's hunger)

I hope this brings to light into my scattered audio posts from yesterday. Thank you for your prayers once again!

Andrej