1 month

Dear Luke,

You're probably going to wonder where your 1 month letter is amongst all the other monthly letters I wrote to you. So I decided to look back and let you know how your first month went. Mommy was knee deep in figuring out how to take care of you still at 1 month old and definitely didn't think about writing you a letter! I promise though, I'll never forget those first 4 weeks we spent together, getting to know each other. Learning to be your mommy those first few weeks was the most challenging and MOST rewarding thing I've ever done!

Watching you grow, gain weight, learn new things, and become more alert was so fun. You started out almost swimming in your newborn clothes, but by 1 month most newborn clothes fit perfectly! Your Oma told me you would never be tiny enough for NB clothes so I probably didn't need any, boy was she wrong! My tiny little man needed a whole NB size wardrobe!

You pooped like a million times a day, and the funniest thing was we could HEAR you poop from across the house! It sounded like a fire hose! Once Oma was holding you in her arms, and your poop scared her so much she jumped up and almost tossed you!!!

When daddy was home, he would get up with me during the night feedings to keep me company (most of the time). The funny thing is, sometimes he was just "sleep walking" and didn't even fully wake up. I would ask him to hand me a diaper, or wipes, and he would say "okay" and then just roll over and go to sleep again... I would have to shake him to get him up!

You slept in our room in your monkey rock n play sleeper. It was nice that I could just lean over and pick you up to feed you at night, but all your baby noises ended up keeping me awake all night even when you were sleeping! I finally figured out I should change your diaper BEFORE feeding you, and not after because it woke you up after you had nursed yourself to sleep. But I hated hearing you cry while I changed you because you were ready to eat (you still do this!)

We had lots of doctors appointments for you, we went to the pediatrician many times, and down to the ENT to correct your tongue tie. We visited a lactation consultant, and you even had your first of many Target trips!

You lost almost a pound after your first few days, and then after we rid of your jaundice gained it back and then some! You started gaining a little more then an ounce a day!

That first month seemed really hard, but looking back it was such a precious time of getting to know you. I wouldn't change a thing! I love you baby man!

Love,
Mommy

Bringing home baby

I have to say, the first few days of Luke's life were pretty rough (on me). Emotionally and physically! Post partum hormones really mess with you! I am so thankful for my amazing husband and wonderful mom who basically did everything for me and Luke those first few days. My mom stayed through the first weekend, and then had to go back to work, I sobbed as she left that Sunday, I seriously didn't know how I could do it without her help!

daddy bringing us home! 

Oma on baby duty 

Mark was amazing through, he basically did everything for me, so I could focus on Luke. He ran all the errands, fed me (sometimes ACTUALLY feeding me with a fork because my hands were occupied) ensured I was drinking, had my meds, got small spurts of sleep, sat in the bathroom while I showered incase I fell over from exhaustion! Everything!

My little ski bunny in his bili light goggles! 

Luke was born with a tongue tie, super common, his frenulum was connected all the way to the tip of his tongue. We took him to an ENT on Monday after he was born to get it corrected, as it was inhibiting him from nursing properly. Before we could get it fixed, I noticed he started sleeping more then usual for a tiny baby, he wasn't waking up easily to eat at night. I was worried to I called the pediatrition early Saturday morning and we took him in. Turns out due to the tongue tie he wasn't able to get enough to eat and was hungry (poor baby!!) and was jaundice because of it. We decided to supplement with formula a bit due to his weight loss, he was down to 5.12. We took home the bili lights, and had to keep him under the lights whenever he wasn't feeding to try and get his bili numbers down. We took him back to the ped daily to get his numbers checked, I think we had the lights for a about 4 days before his numbers had decreased enough to stop. Thank goodness too, because I hated putting him under the lights! He hated it too, he was either too warm or cold and most of all wasn't being held like he wanted! :(

I hated having to put him in here and not hold him

I realized that Sunday I was in a bad place, I was so exhausted, and I wasn't eating enough. I knew I needed to eat, but I couldn't even stomach the idea of putting food in my mouth. Thankfully Mark's mom and her boyfriend came over to meet Luke that day, and watched the baby while I took a nap, and brought me some much needed nutrition, carnation instant breakfast! For the next 2 weeks I lived off of that stuff!

Luke was sleeping in our room in the rock n play sleeper we had (best baby item ever!) Mark would wake up to sit with me during Luke's feedings, keeping me company. Although sometimes he wouldn't hear Luke cry and would sleep through a couple of feedings, I seriously have no idea how men can do that! All the crying and commotion and still sleep? Crazy.

swallowed by the swaddle blankey

At two weeks old, Mark had to go back to work and my mom came back to Austin to stay with Luke and I for 10 days. I was SO thankful for her taking time off work to come be with us. She was such an amazing help during this time. I was struggling with breastfeeding, and needed a lot of help and emotional support. I ended up going to see a lactation consultant who helped us a lot, and thankfully I can say at 13 weeks old Luke is still only getting breast milk! It's been one of the hardest journeys I've gone through, but I'm glad I stuck with it. I'll write about my struggles in another post.

For me, the first few weeks were really hard. I always thought I'd love the newborn baby stage, but honestly it was pretty tough. The older Luke gets the easier it has been, not that I didn't love that tiny baby, I loved him more then anything in the world! I was just hard. I actually tried really hard to be honest about how I was feeling and dealing with it all when people asked. All to often you ask a new mom how she is and she just gushes about how amazing the baby is and how she's tired but it's all so wonderful! I think that makes it hard for those of us that don't have that same experience, and have a really tough time. Breastfeeding make me weep, tiredness made me weep, everything made me weep! I thought I was doing it all wrong, I was trying to mother and care for this precious baby and yet I would get so frustrated when I just wasn't coming naturally! Now, 13 weeks out things are smooth as they can be, and I'm sure next go round those first few weeks will be easier now that I know what to expect. The hormone dump can really screw with you... But that baby, is the most amazing thing, aside from my husband, that every entered my life! Love you baby Luke, welcome home!

Just born :) 

tiny baby, big daddy 

A Grand Entrance

Luke arrived on 3/20/13 at 12:34 pm weight 6.9 lbs and 21 inches long, our birth story is a bit long and got scary, but in the end my little guy is perfect and we're so thankful he is here!!!

38.3 weeks pregnant, I'd been up all night with a searing headache that all the Tylenol in the world couldn't shake. I was working from home and thought it would be smart to check my BP since it had been creeping up, and with the swelling I had, a headache was worrisome as it's a sign of pre-eclampsia. I took my BP, and it was 140/95. I started to panic a bit, called my mom who told me to call the OB. I chatted with the nurse who decided it was best for me to come into the office to get checked out as a pre cautionary measure. I made an appointment for 10 that morning. Mark had been gone on a trip and was scheduled to arrive home that morning as well around  the same time as my appointment. That week I had decided I was going to do whatever I could to make Luke come sooner rather then later! I resolved to walk, walk, walk him out... well, I never had to do that :) 

I arrived at my appointment with my home BP cuff in hand (I wanted to ensure my cuff was accurate and not just giving false high readings). A check of both the office BP cuff and mine confirmed  my BP was very elevated. I wasn't spilling any proteins yet, which was good though. My doctor wasn't working that day, but her PA Ashley was in. She came in to chat with me, look at my swelling and numbers and went off to call my OB to consult. I figured if anything they would monitor me closely the next few days before birth, and maybe schedule an induction for 39 weeks (which would have been Saturday). Ashley walked back in and said she spoke to Dr. Abi and, I was having a baby today. I literally started panicking! I wanted Luke to come soon but I NEVER expected it to be that soon. Ashley said Dr. Abi was pretty concerned at my increasing BP and the only way to ensure it would come down was to deliver the baby. Ashely checked my progress and was still only 1cm dilated. She originally wanted to send me straight over to the hospital from the office. I asked nicely if I could have a few hours to get our things together and re-group with Mark since he just got home, and she asked us to check in at 7pm that night. So we had 8 hours to do EVERYTHING we had planned to do that coming week! 

I texted Mark from the table and said "Hi love, we're having a baby today"... he had JUST landed in Austin, and was pretty shocked himself! His first response on the phone was "Well, I need to get my hair cut!" hahah, I think we were both in denial. Since we got a few hours of clearance, I told Mark to get his hair cut, and I rushed home to shower, pack, clean, etc! I called my mom who immediately left work to get on the road to Austin. When Mark got home, we rushed out the door to Costco for toilet paper and.... a big screen TV!! ??? yeah, I have no idea what we were thinking. For months we have been wanting a new TV, the one we had was like 24 inches and drove Mark crazy. We had talked about getting one before Luke arrived and now it was now or never! I mean, what crazy people go out and buy a 50" TV the day they have a baby, we do! It's the important things in life :) 

My mom arrived around 6, just in time for us to say hello, give her instructions on the cat, and rush out the door to the hospital! She planned to get settled and come up later that evening. 

Last family picture without Luke!

7pm- we checked into the hospital, I have to say it was kind of nice to walk up to the check in desk not in pain and get my paper work in order :) they walked me to my labor room which was down at the end, nice and spacious and introduced me to my nurse. She reviewed paper work with me, showed me all of the monitoring equipment, had me change into my gown and they started to hook me up. My BP actually was higher at this point then earlier in the day, I don't remember exactly what it was, but I know she talked about possibly giving me magnesium if it didn't come down. That freaked me out as I've heard horror stories about how awful magnesium makes people feel! Luckily it dropped back down to around 140/95 again and I was able to avoid it. 

She explained how the induction would go, they would give me two doses of Cytotec, a small pill placed next to the cervix to help me dilate (I had asked what the Cytoec would do, and if it would send me into labor. The nurse assured me that would be very rare, and that it would just dilate my cervix and labor would start the next day when I got pitocin), and then in the morning they would start pitocin as soon as Dr. Abi checked on me, and break my water. That would get labor moving along at that point. 

9pm- The gave me the first dose of Cytotec, Mark and I were just relaxing and my mom was there. I was hooked up to the contraction monitor and was having contractions although I couldn't feel them. Within the hour I started having an increase in contractions, both in duration and intensity. The nurse was pretty surprised as that was rare that it put me into labor like that. I was supposed to get another one around 1am, but that never happened. It seemed the one dose of Cytotec sent me into full blown labor on it's own (looking back Dr. Abi told me I probably would have gone into labor on my own the next day given how I reacted to the meds). I was feeling pressure and was uncomfortable during the contractions but they weren't terrible yet. My mom left to go sleep, Mark was napping as he had flown a red eye the night before, and I took an Ambien to get some rest. 

3am- my water broke on it's own. I called the nurse before waking up Mark, and as he hears me telling them I think my water broke he popped up in bed! I felt a rubber band snapping feeling and noise! I knew something happened... sure enough my water broke on it's own, also pretty shocking for an induction! I called my mom, and immediately after my water broke, I started having pretty terrible contractions. The pain was awful! I truly never expected it to be that bad because I had anticipated having an epidural by that point! Unfortunately I was only dilated to a 2-2.5 at that point and they wouldn't give me an epidural until I was 4cm. It was torture, at this point Luke heart rate started dropping with each contraction. They weren't sure why, but were having me change positions to get it back up and put me on O2 for the rest of my labor. I was in SO much pain, I was begging for anything... I never expected to be one of those screaming labor ladies, but... I was. My nurse Sarah was incredible, she helped Mark and my mom manage my pain through counter pressure, and coached me herself. Finally at some point I got fentenyl followed by morphine... both of which only lasted temporarily... 

7am- I was FINALLY at 4cm, enough for an epidural. The anesthesiologist came in and went over the paper work... I was willing to give him whatever he wanted for the drugs, ANYTHING! Then the kicker, he was ready to administer, but he needed a doctor on the floor to sign off due to pre-e and being high risk. OMG.... at that point I think I was yelling at everyone in the room to FIND A FRIKIN DOCTOR NOW! 5 people searched the floor for someone, and thank God, finally I got my drugs around 7:30am. The anesthesiologist gave me the good stuff, but oddly enough I could still move my legs, I could have walked if they would have let me. I didn't realize at the time this meant trouble for pushing.... 

The next few hours we're good, felt much better with the epidural in place. I was progressing faster at this point. 

11am- My nurse checked me and I was at 9cm. Almost there. At this point I started to feel some pretty intense pressure down below, it wasn't painful yet, but I could definitely feed something happening. My nurse told me probably about an hour to get to 10cm, and then we would start pushing. 

Literally 10 minutes after she walked out the door to eat her lunch, it was game over. I felt the worse pain/pressure every!! I knew something was about to happen. I called the nurse and the nurse covering for mine came in... she was AWFUL... she pretty much ignored me, refused to check me even though something was different then 10 minutes before.. FINALLY after screaming she checked me and guess what, I was at a TEN! I knew it... although I was shocked how much pain I was in suddenly as I had expected the epidural to mask a lot of the pain at this point. The nurse started walking around getting things ready but honestly wasn't in too much of a rush. Luke HR was still dropping at this point depending on my position. I was screaming in pain asking for more drugs, it turned into chaos quickly. 

I kept begging for my nurse Sarah to return, and finally Irl, a student nurse who had been with me, went in search for her. My mom followed him into the hallway to ensure he knew he MUST find her and bring her back! This other nurse was AWFUL! Finally, Irl returned with Sarah, who was livid as the one covering for her never called my doctor!!!!! Sarah started preparing the room, getting me ready and told me we would start practice pushing... I pretty much said no, we're just going to do this because I was in so much pain, no way I had time for practice pushing, I needed him O U T. 

My doctor bursts into the room in full gear, I believe she was prepping for a c-section when she was called for my delivery, thank goodness she was close! She got in position and I started pushing, almost instantly Luke HR dropped... more people flooded into the room and thats when details get a bit fuzzy for me. I know I pushed a few more times, and suddenly I hear Dr. Abi yell for the vacuum, and she got in my face and told me "you have 3 tries to get him out, then I'm taking you for a c-section". He was in distress and time was of the essence. I pushed for a total of 11 minutes, and he came out! 

At this point I had no idea what was going on, all I knew was normally they put the baby on your chest after delivery, and they took Luke away across the room to a team of people. I was exhausted, in pain, and overwhelmed. I just laid there and watched. At some point someone filled me in, Luke's heart rate had dropped to 40 for over 2 minutes during pushing, thats when she gave me the ultimatim. When he came out he wasn't breathing... they were working on him in the room in an incubator. His initial APGAR was a 2. Thankfully, after some O2, he came around and his APGAR went up to an 8! I think they had him for over an hour ensuring he was stable before they FINALLY gave me my baby! Up to this point my mom and mark were showing me pictures of him from across the room. 

He was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I honestly was in shock from the chaos that was going on, and wouldn't fully understand what happened until days later. 

Luke was born with a true knot in his cord, and it was wrapped around his neck. A true knot occurs in 1 in every 2,000 births, and of those, only 10% of those babies survive. The majority are still born. Luke is my little miracle baby :) If not for my pre-e and being monitored throughout my entire labor, we could have lost him. God knew what he was doing when he sent me to the hospital early. He knew I needed to be monitored the whole time in order to save my little guy. 

Luke is the most amazing miracle I could every ask for, he is such a blessing to his daddy and me!!! We are SO in love with this little guy, and praise God for him daily!!! His entrance wasn't nothing like we planned, and was scary, but in the end we were so blessed with a perfect baby boy! ! ! Welcome to the world Luke William Segaloff! We're honored God chose us to be your parents! 

 

A letter to my son before his birth

March 8, 2013

To my precious baby boy,

I cannot believe that in just 3 short weeks you will join us in this world! What an incredible gift God is giving us in you. I remember the months leading up to finding out we were pregnant, my whole life all I wanted was a family, being a mommy was my dream job! And each month that passed, I hoped and prayed next month would be it! That one night in July when I realized I had seriously been eating WAY more at night lately then I am used too, I was curious if maybe that was our lucky month! Your dad was on a trip, but I just couldn’t wait to find out until he was home the next day. I took a test and it was positive, and I was in disbelief. I had waited SO long for this moment and my emotions were all over the place! I was thrilled and wished your dad was with me at that moment, but I knew I had to keep it a secret until I could share the amazing news with him the next day when I picked him up from the airport. I went to bed that night knowing God has blessed me and I was going to be a mommy, and I hardly slept thinking about you all night!!!

Here we are almost 9 months later preparing for your arrival. Everything is done, your room is ready for you, and your dad and I are prepared and ready to welcome you home any day! I’ve organized, washed, decorated, put away and purchased just about everything I can think of! I hope you like planes, since your daddy is a pilot I’ve gone a bit plane crazy assuming you will love airplanes as much as him! Every night daddy and I are together, we keep talking about how “in X number of days we’re going to have a baby!”, it’s such an exciting yet strange feeling. I keep asking your dad, what will we do with you once your home from the hospital? I assume take a lot of pictures!  I’ve been sheltering you, growing you for the past 9 months, and one day soon I’ll share you with the world! I’m trying to cherish every move you make, and our alone time together. It’s so special to be able to be your provider for everything for these 9 months. I hope I’ve kept you comfortable!  I always wonder if you can feel me rubbing you through my belly and if it’s comforting to you, will you remember that when you’re outside the womb? When I get down about what I look like at 9 months pregnant, I remember how worth is this all is, to be growing you inside of me! And what a sweet blessing it is. We got to see your face on the ultrasound screen 2 days ago, and it was such an amazing sight! It was like suddenly, it all made sense, there you were, a perfect little boy, the most adorable face I’ve ever seen! I feel so hard in love with you, I had no idea I would ever feel that way!

I have anxious thoughts about you joining our world; will I be able to protect you enough? Love you enough? Will I constantly worry about you? I know God will ease my fears, and with his help we will do our best as parents. I will try my hardest to be the best mommy to you that you could ever ask for! I know your daddy feels the exact same way. I pray that we give you everything you need in life to grow into an amazing man one day.

It’s funny, only God knows how you will make your grand entrance into this world, I’ve been anxious for you to come lately. Will it be soon or late? Will labor be quick or long? Will you dad be home or will he have to rush home from across the country? Will you look the same as the ultrasound picture? Will you have hair? Will you be a good eater? So many questions, and soon we will know the answer to them all!

I sit here right now, and all the aches and pains of pregnancy dissipate as I think about your sweet face, and holding you so soon. Luke you are so loved, you’re about to make us a family, me a mommy, my lifelong dream, and I couldn’t be more excited!!! I love you!

Mommy

End of pregnancy only a few months late :)

So it's June and I've had a baby for about 3 months now :) although my blog world wouldn't know it because I went MIA around mid February! Let me recap the end of pregnancy, and birth will follow in it's own post.

Around 32 weeks I started to swell pretty significantly. I seemed to be following in my moms footsteps as she got fairly swollen both of her pregnancies as well, although not as early as I did. My BP started to creep up around the 32 week mark as well, so I monitored it closely at home as well as at my biweekly visits at that point. Mark was still traveling quite a bit being based in Newark, NJ still. I started to get pretty worried about him actually being home or close enough to home come birth time! Many many hours were spent strategizing with  him, my "backups", and in my head about all the different scenarios that could play out!

Luke's nursery was pretty much complete around 34 weeks, and we were just buying the last odds and ends we needed, like pack n play and a few smaller items. I actually had everything pretty much completed around that time, so I started re-washing previously washed baby clothes just to keep busy! Bags were packed, plans were made, work had started to wind down with my replacement taking over. Around 34 weeks I started feeling pretty uncomfortable daily, sleeping was non existent, and I was pretty crabby most of the time! I felt like Luke was HUGE and every movement started to hurt! I would get frustrated and want him to stop moving, but in the same breath WISH he was moving so I knew he was alright! :)

Mark got his schedule for the month of March, it had him off the week before I was due, and going back to work a day or two before my due date. We had decided that if I hadn't given birth by my due date he definitely wasn't going back to work! It wasn't worth the high possibility that he would miss it at that point! My swelling was still getting worse and my BP was kind of all over the map. I hadn't tested + for any proteins yet to indicate pre-e, but I was watching myself pretty closely mainly due to my severe swelling. I had to buy special support hose from a store filled with elderly people getting fitted for them as well! They helped, but were incredibly uncomfortable and ridiculously hard to get on with a giant belly!

Lovely swollen feet with trendy support hose! 

36 weeks came and I decided to just start working from home mostly. I was getting exhausted just walking short distances, and driving was uncomfortable due to the lack of room. We had my 36 week appointment which had an US to see Luke's position and size, that was so exciting! We got to see a profile shot in 3D and see his face! I seriously melted... he was so adorable! From the looks of the US he seemed to look like me with chubby cheeks! He was estimated at around 6 1/2 lbs, so if he was full term it seemed he could be 8 lbs or larger! That freaked me out a bit! My brother was almost 9 lbs though so I knew it wasn't out of the question. Everything on the US looked great, he was in position, and I learned I was dilated to 1cm! I was pretty excited about that 1cm... even though from all my reading I knew it really didn't mean much.

37 weeks and looking huge! 

37 weeks didn't come with much change, I went to my weekly appointment, same swelling issues and elevated BP. My OB didn't seem to concerned at the time though. Same with 38 weeks, I was waddling around, panicking about Mark being home for the birth, and just trying to pass the time! I was 38 weeks on a Saturday, and I actually never made it to my weekly 38 week appointment which was scheduled for that coming Wednesday, because Luke decided it was time for his arrival!

around 38 weeks 

I got my hair done right at 38 weeks to last through maternity leave, smart decision! 

It was a very chaotic and crazy arrival he made into this world. Birth story coming up!