Owen

Owen is one month old today. Crazy how time flies when you aren't getting much sleep! I finally downloaded the pictures of his birth and since I am using this as my scrapbook/journal of our family I wanted to post a few and write down a few things I want to remember.

I can't believe I am posting this picture, because I got a little mad at Brent for taking it and because I look like a train hit me. This is after our first night at the hospital. My water broke around 11 pm, but I really didn't have any big contractions until many long hours later. Even then I didn't really start feeling anything significant until I had been on pitocin for 5 hours. After I had been on the highest amount of pitocin for 1 hour, the on-call doctor concluded that I wasn't going to progress any further and that they would have to do a c-section. I was very nervous, but about 1 hour later we had our little boy! He weighed 7 pounds 3 ounces and was 20.5 inches long.

We thought we were going to get to go home on Sunday morning, but early that morning they came in and said that Owen had a really high bilirubin count and so he was going to have to have phototherapy. They insisted on telling us that he also needed a formula supplement because his count was so high that they were convinced it wouldn't come down unless he got more food to move the bilirubin out of his system. There was a lot of drama about how high his count was and at one point we had a doctor come in and tell us if it didn't go down soon they would have to start considering other options like a transfusion. As it turned out the next morning his count dropped so much that they concluded that the really high count must have been a false reading. Nice. Way to go people. Scare the heck out of brand new parents by making them think there baby is in danger of hearing loss and brain damage. What a joke. Needless to say we were happy when his count had dropped enough that they let us go home on Monday night.

This is Owen under the phototherapy lights. He actually did pretty well and didn't even cry that much while he was under them.




They sent us home with what they call a bili-blanket. We had to wrap him up in it and pretty much keep it on him at all times. It wasn't really like a blanket and it actually was quite annoying to always have to have it on him. I was sure glad when they told us he didn't have to wear it anymore. I called him my little glow worm, since while he was wearing it he was all lit up!

Things I want to remember about Owen’s birth:

• The way I felt when I first heard him cry. It melted my heart.
• Being so relieved and grateful that he was healthy and realizing my pregnancy was finally over.
• Watching Brent care for and change Owen’s first diapers.
• Hearing Brent call the nurse's station and saying, “Umm…our son finally went number two, can you come get it?” (They asked us to save the first one). I wanted to laugh so hard. I say wanted to because I started to laugh but it hurt so bad I had to have a good laugh about it a week or so later.
• Getting a good laugh when we took him to his first doctors appointment and them telling us his height was 18 inches. So I guess he lost 2.5 inches in a week and a half? Come on people, let's be a little more accurate!