My Little Bunny

It’s just a bit strange now….my little boy is not so little compared to the new baby.  We were gone for about 5 days and that is probably the longest we’ve ever been away from him.  When we came home he was so happy to see us.  He was acting shy but he was also very very keen on looking at the baby.  Unfortunately, he was sick while we were gone, which also was terrible.  I was worried about him but my folks were doing the best they could and now he has no fever and a lingering cough.  He is extremely interested in his baby sister and couldn’t wait to see her.  He kept asking about her when we were away.  I had told him, before we left during the week we were getting ready, that he was going to have a baby sister and that we were going to the hospital for a bit but would be back.  He understood and unbenknownst to me, was anticipating it.

One of the nurses suggested on my doctor’s appointment, before delivery, that we get a gift for our little boy from his new baby sister.  I thought it was such a great idea.  We ended up getting him a little toy digital camera, that takes real digital pics, video, comes with a usb port and has a nice big screen.  We saw power couple’s kid have one, J.  It was a nice vtech camera.  We wrapped it and boy was he so happy to play with it.  Apparently our preschool does a photo session and sells the pics to parents for outrageous prices.  There my little bunny learned to pose.  I kid you not.  We had no expectation or idea of what those photo sessions were going to be like.  They dress up each child with the costumes they bring.  One my little bunny had a suit on and the jacket was thrown over his shoulder, kinda like a CEO shot.  It was TOO FUNNY.  One they dressed him in a captain or pilots uniform.  With a white cap and the whole nine yards.  It was hilarious.  Then of course they did some kinda skiing pic where he is wearing a red checkered shirt, a ski is in the background and he’s decked out like he’s at some ski resort.  The last one was a newsie’s boy, kinda like a 1920’s paper boy outfit and he is holding a newspaper and a wearing a checkered hat.  Of couse my mister saw them, cracked up.  He knew they were highway robbery but what he does is he buys the large 8 x 10’s, scans them in at a high resolution and then we print out our own wallets and smaller sizes.

I just wondered what the girls wore.

My little boy has been very good with his baby sister.  He touches her head and is overall very interested.  Comes in, in the mornings to see her and is the first thing he’s wanting to do.  He is a little fussy in that he doesn’t want to really listen to us when we are all in the room, but fine when he’s downstairs with grandma.  So I think that’s his mild way of acting up a bit or just really trying to figure out the new family dynamics.  My mister has been taking him out on his own since he’s been couped up and enjoys spending time with his daddy.  They are out on a costco run and seeing the doctor for his cough and afterwards my mister will take him to a car wash, something he loves to do.

What They Do To Newborns

They draw blood from the heel to test jaundice, etc.
The baby is poked and prodded.  The temperature is taken daily.  Under arm.  They ask about her nursing schedule, how often, what bowel movements and how often, whether it was urine or poo.  They already checked out her vitals when she was born.  Not much else since our little girl is pretty healthy.

Gosh I’m Hormonal

I miss my bunny like something awful.  I teared up looking at my blackberry picture of him.  I am hormonal.  Very.  I looked at my mister with just thoughts of how awesome he is, as a father and husband….. not that he’s not great, but he is, and a well of emotions just bubbled up.  A commercial for some food came on, and it showed all these touching moments and I cried again.  Good gracious.

The Name

So we took all this time to decide on a name.  The people from the office downstairs kept coming up to get the birth certificate and social security form (which needs a name).  Couldn’t decide!  Our contenders were:

Kayleigh Paige

Kayleigh Abigail

Originally it was only Abigail Paige or Paige Abigail

My mister introduced Kayleigh (means who is like God).
Paige means helper

Abigail means the joy of the Father.

We decided…drum roll please……you’ll see it on the announcement email!

Nurses

We had a great night nurse the first night.  She was pregnant but she was super personable, without being weird (more on that later), and she was super good.  I mean she checked on me frequently, helped me clean up and was overall just extremely competent and nice.  She was a good nurse, GOOD.  The next day we had another nurse.  She had this sadness about her eyes that I noticed.  She also liked to talk about her life, in great detail.  We found out about her first marriage, the tragedy of her first husband having post war syndrome, which ruined their marriage and so she left with her son.  We know that her son married an Icelandic flight attendant, her son is color blind, wanted to be a pilot, could not, and live in Iceland with her grandchildren.  She visits twice a year.  This was all in one sitting.  I thought she was a nice lady, good nurse, very caring.  I just noticed a little bit of a sadness around her beautiful blue eyes.  She, for the life of me, did not look 61 but she was.  Me and the mister were shocked, SHOCKED.  She was aging well and we told her so.  The next day we had the same nurse with the sad story.  Today we had a nurse who was really uppity.  She proclaimed (yes, proclaimed), that her parents were European and taught her manners.  Hence she announced who the nurses were on staff today, which was nice.  She said she says please and thank you’s, because that is how she was raised.  It was hilarious because she was a bit imperial about it all.  However, she was nice enough.  She did talk our ears off again in her next visit and talked all about one subject over and over.  Not sure if it’s our demeanor or what but some of the nurses like to yak.  I think my mister must have that extroversion energy as well.  Overall most of all the nurses here are great.  My recovery has been much better than when we had our little bunny.  I was walking around the first day.  The first c-section with my little bunny, I couldn’t get out of bed without being dizzy for 4 days.  It was, suffice to say, horrible.  I had tremendous pain and I was swollen.  This time around I am tired, but I feel great.  I am walking around and able to move around without any help at all.

 

Baby Girl Is Here…continued

My mister puts on his bunny suit. It’s like a white hazmat looking all body suit and things to go over his shoes. He jokes to the nurse how he is not sure why he needs his cap since he has no hair. The nurse cracked up at that comment. We were soon ready. I was sitting on the bed and the nurse said, we’re gonna walk you over now. So I said, ok, do I swing my legs over. She said, no you need to walk over. I said, oh! I didn’t realize! I got up and started walking. It was quite surreal, to be honest with you, to walk the corridor towards the surgery room. I get there and it’s colder than a walk in fridge, apparently, to kill the germs or keep them at bay. The anethesiologist preps me for the spinal tap. He pokes me once for the numbing and then he inserts. He doesn’t get a straight line the first time around so he pokes me once. Gets the local numbing in and it hurts and stings when it goes in. It hurts like the dickens. He then tries to get a line in and says, I can’t get a straight line. At this point my confidence in him is waning. He pokes me two more times and then announces he is going to move the line. So I will have to endure another stinking episode. I am getting annoyed at this point. So I bear it and try to relax. He wants me to keep my shoulders loose, as much as possible. How easy is that, not very when they are poking you with a needle and you anticipate the stinging that goes into your spine. To top it off, he hit a nerve so my knee jerked and felt weird. He says, oh! where’d you feel that. I was soooooo nervous at this point. wahhhhhhhhhhhh. He said, that’s why I don’t like going through parabolically (or something to that effect).

Finally I’m feeling some numbing so I’m gaining my confidence back in him but can’t help be nervous. Luckily after that everything was going well and the anethesiologist is chatty so it helped because he talked me through the entire process so it was less nerve racking than the first time. That redeemed him in my eyes. Good bedside manner. The surgery this time was quick. I felt tugging and some pulling but the baby came out and I couldn’t believe we saw her, finally. After 9 months of wondering what she looks like and she was beautiful.

Baby Girl Is Here!

Friday, October 30th, we wake up at 6:30am or 7:00-ish and get ready. My hospital has this new procedure where they make you scrub twice, with the scrubbing brush and solution surgeons use when they scrub in for surgery. Except they ask you to do this to your entire body. Except the problem is on the package it says that if you get this solution into your ears it can cause deafness. And on top of it, it can cause blindness. And to keep it away from your private areas. Ok. So with alot of trepidations, I scrub down the night before. Then they ask you to do it again the morning of. I never felt so clean in my whole entire life, and disinfected.

The night before our kitchen was still being worked on. Yup, still being worked on. The handle hardware was going in. They needed to come back Saturday to do the last touch ups. All in all the kitchen is gorgeous and turned out great. What we realized with this remodel was that there’s not much to remodeling, but there are alot to the details. There’s not much to remodeling in the sense that we didn’t move walls so that’s why our’s was straightforward. There was alot to it in the sense of details because there are alot of things to decide on. Floor colors, tile, baseboards, style, hardware, paint colors, positioning of the hardware, etc.

I was also packing my bag to take with me to the hospital. Suffice to say, I didn’t feel ready at all. Not to have the baby but the house and being packed, the house in order, the room in order. Oh well. At the end of it I pretty much just threw my hands in the air.

So the next morning we head out. I say goodbye to my little bunny. Who just knows I’ve been going to the hospital alot these days and wants to go with me. This morning he was not interested, just said goodbye and gave me a kiss. I’m gonna miss him. We said bye to my folks and headed out. I started getting excited when we got closer to the hospital. Before that, there was just too much on my mind to really think about it. I know, you’re wondering how the heck is that possible but that’s just my nature, to not think about those types of things until the bridge needs to be crossed.
We got to admitting and they took their sweet time to get to us. Or it was that I was getting antsy now.

We get our paperwork and head up to the 2nd floor. We get my admitting done, questions and paperwork in order. I change into a gown, my mister signs in and we only had about 15 minutes left at this time before showtime. The anesthesiologist had come in to brief us on the spinal tap, no epidural this time though both are administered through the spine.

It was a lengthy discussion, as it should be, and it made me realize again I’m going through major surgery.

To be continued…

H1N1 – The Elusive Holy Grail of a Vaccine

So on Friday I went to the doctors for my bi-weekly checkup.  I pass by the front desk to see if I could get the nasal mist vaccine for my bunny.  The lady gives me erroneous info saying only 6.5 months and under can get it.  All that I’ve read said the contrary, including the website to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) and Dr. Sears, whose a reputable baby doctor, online.

I go downstairs to the pediatrics front desk and the lady gives me much better info.  She passes me a bright orange form to look over.  My bunny is considered high risk and should be able to get the nasal mist vaccination according to this form.  She won’t let me make an appointment, asks me to call back Monday since my pediatrician is out.  So I go home.  Again with the runaround fresh in my mind and annoyed.  But the most important thing is she told me that yes they do have limited supplies for high risk patients and to call for an appointment.  I go home and call in and the scheduler tells me they do not have any and don’t know when.  I correct her and tell her I was at the front desk that day and they told me otherwise.  She got flustered and asked I talk to my pediatricians nurses aid.  I leave a message and another nurse calls me back, confirms I should get it and to call for an appointment.  I complain to her about the runaround but she tells me to call back for the appointment and let them know I spoke to her.  I do and they ask me to call back Monday.  So Monday morning, 7:04 am sharp, I call.  I talk to a lady, who again says she has limited info on the vaccine and shipments.  I tell her, I spoke to a nurse, they said I should call, I have a form, my son qualifies.  She puts me on hold.  She’s talking to a supervisor about some difficult woman.  She comes back and tries to dissuade me and I say, let me have an appointment so the doctor can evaluate me at least.  I want the doctor to tell me no, not the scheduler.  My sense of entitlement gets the better of me.  I pay for PPO, not this.  I get to schedule when I want with who.  Why am I paying for this insurance if they’re going to limit when I can see a doctor for their policy?

She finally schedules it for 8am Monday, today.  I take it.  And I know she’s just been told what to do but clearly, this is all very unreasonable and the wrong info is given and people are flat out lying about it.

We go and see our doctor who confirms he needs to get it and it’s because he goes to preschool, between 2-9 years of age, I’m pregnant, about to have a baby.  He also confirms my mister and I should get the vaccine when it’s available due to the newborn.

I swear, it was the most teeth pulling experience.  Very frustrating and you almost have to get very very mean and demanding to get the results you know are right.  After we get the vaccine for my bunny, I keep repeating to my mister, “Oh my gosh, how hard was that.  We finally got it, the holy grail of a vaccine.”  Could it be any harder.  I’m thankful we got it and understand the shortage and understand people are trying to do their jobs but let’s do it within reason and practicality.

We’ll need one more follow up vaccination for my bunny in about a month to complete his cycle of vaccination.

Sheesh….

Update On Kitchen – Granite Is In

The granite is in and the backsplash (6 inches) is done.  I have to say there is one section on the right hand side that I’m not happy with but otherwise it looks good.  The problem is the stone we picked out was not all matched exactly and cutting it and fitting the “movement” as my mister likes to call it is hard if they don’t all look exactly alike.  Our pattern was not as simple or as monochromatic.

The doors will go in tomorrow?  Stove tomorrow.  Hardware tomorrow.  Faucet tomorrow?  We are almost there….

Cootie Guard For Kids

Public bathrooms are a nightmare with little toddlers who use the restroom but don’t know not to touch everything, then touch your face and eyes, all unwittingly.  Well now you can fully cover the nasty toilet with a cootie guard.  Great invention.  Below is the blurb on their website.

http://www.cootieguards.com/

What’s a CootieGuard?

CootieGuards provide your child total protection from public toilet seats with a sanitary barrier that guards against wetness and germs while protecting from lower surfaces where children touch. Use CootieGuards to help reduce the stress of potty training, provide support and prevent smaller children from falling through. They’re easy to use, disposable and your hands never have to touch toilet surfaces. Take along CootieGuards in your purse, pocket or backpack. Great for traveling, those trips to the mall or out to a restaurant. Perfect for the family on the go.

• Total protection from toilet seats
• Disposable convenience that leaves germs behind
• Great for potty training
• Makes trips to restrooms a breeze