Good day for Esme. Bad day for Cricket.

Today was an awesome day for Esme and Mommy! She slept really well last night and we ran around a bit today without major incident. We drove to Starbucks so Mom could get some very needed yummy caffeine. Then we dropped Cricket off for her haircut. When we got home, we went for a walk around the neighborhood. Esme seemed to be pretty happy most of the time. She even let me take a shower this morning which can be hit or miss. She sat in her bouncy chair and looked around at all the lights in the bathroom.

Unlike yesterday. Esme had a terrible sleep the night before and she was pretty miserable all day. She seemed to only be happy when I was holding her. She would be completely asleep and then as soon as I put her down, she would start crying within a couple of minutes. I was so frustrated. By the time Aaron got home from work I was in tears, exhausted. Here's what he figured out at about 1 am this morning. Whenever we put Esme in her crib she cried. The bedding in her crib was probably about 4 -5 days old, but clean - or so I thought. She does spit up in her sleep some and I suppose it gets on the sheets. Anyway, Aaron thought maybe if he put her in the crib the other way (head facing the opposite) maybe she would like it better. And she did! She slept great, which led to our great day today. The thing we were thinking is that maybe she could smell the old spit up??? I have no idea, but when she gets it on her onesies, I can completely smell the sour smell, so it makes sense that maybe she could smell it on the sheet. We'll see. I washed the bedding today and we'll see what happens tonight. Or maybe she just likes facing the other way and we're thinking too much about it.

Anyway, the drama today was with Cricket, not Esme. Aaron got a call from his vet (which is where we take her for her grooming) saying that they accidentally cut her leg and that the grooming was free, they gave her antibiotics for free and they put glue on the cut. She of course licked off the glue after being home for an hour so we wrapped the wound. It looked like a pretty big cut! We probably won't be going back there again. When she got home she wrapped herself up in a blanket and it was really cute. Poor thing.

Sunday

This morning we went for a walk around Rice Lake. We made it about half of the way around and then Esme let it be known that she wasn't very happy. We changed her diaper and fed her a little bit and soldiered on. She still wasn't super happy, but she was better. Aaron says it's because he started pushing the stroller and she preferred to look at his face... :)

When we got home we took our first bath. Esme did pretty well. We thought for sure that she would cry. Initially she did, but then she did fine. She even seemed to like it. We got all done and got her bundled up in a blanket and swinging in her swing when Aaron said to me "We should have taken her picture". Oops! We (I) was so nervous about giving her a bath that I completely spaced on it. So no picture today. But we will make sure to take a picture of bath number two. :)

She's now been sleeping in her swing for several hours. I'm not sure if a child can be over-swung. I hope not. It seems to be her favorite place to be right now.

Here's a video that maybe only parents can watch with interest, but you can see her smiling a few times.

Social Butterfly

Thursday was a big day for us. First we went to Maple Grove to my doctors appointment with Dr. Sarkinen. Our appointment was at 9:50 am, but I swear I started planning and getting ready to go at 8pm the night before. It's a lot more work to go places. I'm thinking that this will get better - hoping anyway. I'm told it will.

When we saw Dr. Sarkinen, I told her that I had about 3 questions about me and about 30 about Esme. Even though she is not a pediatrician, she is a Mom of two with and MD so I thought she was qualified and she was. We couldn't stump her! It was fun to share stories with her. She was telling me about when she had her first child and she was scared to death to give him a bath. She said "I can perform major surgery, a hysterectomy for example, but I was scared to bathe my infant". That made me feel better. We also got a couple of pictures of her with Esme and myself because even though she didn't deliver Esme, she was the one who took care of us both up until the last minute.


After the Dr. appointment we went to Target to get a birthday card for Todd. His birthday was last weekend. I got him a card at the grocery store and when I went to mail it to him, I couldn't find it. I looked everywhere, but no luck. I'm not sure if it got left in the cart, or if the check out woman forgot to put it in the bag??? Regardless, I couldn't find it. Of course, then it took me a week to get another card. I'm telling you, this parenthood thing slows you down! So Todd will get his card a week or two late. Oops. I hope he can chew me out about it sometime soon!

Then we went to Wayzata to see the people at my work. Esme was VERY popular! Even some of my patients were there and wanted to hold her and say hello. It was fun. We stayed for a couple of hours.


Finally after dinner and taking some quiet time at home, we went to Costco with Aaron's parents. They didn't have newborn diapers but we were able to get some formula so that was nice. We were also going to get a computer program called Photoshop Elements, but they didn't have it in stock. Not our lucky day.

All and all, it was a great day. Esme did a great job being Miss Social!

Chicken pox???

Yesterday, the phone rang in the morning and as usual I didn't hear it until well after the fact. I only have a cell phone and it's never in the same room as I am. When I checked to see who called, I saw that it was Kirsten, my next door neighbor. For those of you who don't know, Kirsten has twin 16 month old boys. We live in townhouses so literally I could knock on the wall and get her attention. I love, love, love that she is so close because right now I am the Mommy who has 10,000 questions and she is like my own personal Dr. Spock. Needless to say, I am ALWAYS calling her for advice. So when she called me, I was surprised. When I called her back she was kind of quiet and I asked what was wrong, thinking that maybe I could actually help her for a change.

No such luck. It turns out that one of her twins Charlie, has chicken pox. Because we live so close to each other and it's summer, we are often out on the patio together. The day before Kirsten called me, we were all out there. Aaron was sitting on the grass farther away with the dogs and brushing them. Charlie really loves the dogs, so he was over there watching them. He walked past Esme and I maybe one time, but they never touched. Unfortunately, chicken pox is airborne. We go to the same pediatrician and she said that they had told her to call me and have me call them right away. That doesn't sound good!

So I called them and they said "We were expecting your call" (again, not a good sign) "let me get the nurse for you". The nurse got on the phone and the first thing he asked was whether or not I had had chicken pox. I have. That seemed to make him feel better because evidently Esme still has my antibodies, so she should be protected. But the incubation period can be up to 21 days. So I have to check her carefully every day and if I see anything at all, I have to call them right away. Evidently, it can be pretty serious when newborns get chicken pox.

So that was our adventure for yesterday. Hopefully, I have strong enough antibodies that they will keep those darn Bakken cooties away from us! :) Today we have an appointment with Dr. Sarkinen and I will ask her about it. I will probably ask her 1700 questions about Esme and not much about myself. It's funny because the pediatrician saw Esme every day that she was in the hospital and then after one week at home. Now they won't see her for 2 months. I have too many questions for that. I think they should have a 3 week appointment, especially for new moms. But they don't. At least I have Kirsten next door. I'm super thankful for that, chicken pox and all! :)

BTW - here's a picture of Esme and me. Since I'm the one who usually takes pictures, I'm not always in them. We'll try to get Aaron to take some pictures too.

Big Day

Esme had a big day today!

First of all, her social security card came in the mail today. So she is officially official!

Secondly, after a couple of days of bleeding around her umbilical cord stump, it finally came off! All but a string of it that is. We weren't sure how to get the rest off, if we should pull it off or not. We decided that pulling the last little string looked like it would hurt. So we took a scissors and ran it under the hottest water in our faucet (we don't have rubbing alcohol in our house - yet...) cut it off. Now we can start giving her real baths. We'll probably wait a couple of days to do that, because it still looks a little angry around her belly button. But soon! Although, the thought of giving her a bath does scare me just a little bit. One more rite of parenthood that we will partake in.

Happy Father's Day!

This morning Esme let us sleep in. She might have let us sleep all day! She was asleep most of the day except for eating and diaper changes. I'm worried that she might be getting her days and nights mixed up, but I'm not sure how to keep her awake when she just crashes in our arms. She seems to be a pretty sound sleeper and when she's out, she's out. Short of pinching her, I'm not sure what to do.

We went over to Jodie's house this afternoon to celebrate Father's Day and her birthday. Esme slept through the whole thing except when she had her lunch. We had a really nice time though. It was a nice day to sit outside, a little overcast and a breeze. We got to watch Annika and Laurel ride their bikes and Steve demonstrated some spectacular rollerblading moves!


Finally, in the evening, Esme woke up. And then she was awake until about 11:30pm. Earlier, she had her first projectile spit up. Holy cow! There was some power behind that. She hasn't had a poo in a day and a half, so I'm sure that has had something to do with it. Now we find ourselves waiting for the poo. Who knew this would be the most exciting thing for us. I'm just a little disappointed with each diaper change when it's just wet. Parenthood is crazy!

6/20/09

This morning was a busy one. Esme was wide awake early, so she and I went with Daddy for a walk with the dogs. We left the house at 6am and walked for an hour. I was worn out. And to think that last year at this time I ran a half marathon!!!

Later in the morning we got one last visit from Grandma Jackie before she drove home to North Dakota. Cricket decided that she needed to be in on the action also. She seems to like the boppy as well as Esme does. :)


Then Ali came over and Esme had her first photo shoot. It was so much fun. I can't wait to see the pictures! Esme did a great job and was a real cutie. Visiting with Ali is always the fun too. The time really flies.

This afternoon Mike, Karen, Sam, Donna and Gary came to visit Esme. She slept through the whole thing. So they didn't get to see her eyes. :( Oh well, they'll just have to come visit again.


After running a few errands at Arbor Lakes, Esme got to spend some quality time with Mommy and Daddy.

Perspective

This morning my Mom came over and after a great night of Esme sleeping really well, we definitely decided that today was a day we were not going to leave the house!

Mom was getting ready to send out invitations for the shower that she and Linda are throwing for Esme in ND. The shower is going to be the same weekend as my 20 year high school reunion. So I looked online at the website for my reunion to check what time we should do the shower at. I happened to look and see that a classmate of mine had put a message on there about his daughter who was due around the same time that Esme was born, but she was born a month or so early and had some major complications. She is still in the hospital and there is a Caring Bridge website for her. I held Esme and read the entire site for this little girl of this guy that I haven't seen or talked to in years. It really put things in perspective for me. I know that as a new mom I'm going to have a lot of concerns and worries, but I'm so thankful that Esme is as healthy and wonderful as she is. Also, so far today she has had no waterworks out of her nose! I'm just so lucky and my prayers are definitely going out to little Oe.

This afternoon while my Mom was here, I actually took a nap. I should probably have been working harder at doing that this whole week, but it never seemed to work out. Today I got a couple hour nap though and it felt so good.

The other first for the day was that after Aaron got home from work, we were all sitting out on the patio with our neighbors. Everyone was having a beer. I actually had a pomegranate cider. As with everything with me there is a back story. The short version is that it's an alcoholic cider that I drank on my honeymoon and really liked. For the long version, you'll have to ask and I'll tell it sometime. Anyway, it was the first drink that I've had since my honeymoon. Because I had a c-section, I was on pain meds for awhile and so I couldn't drink anything. It was refreshing, but not surprisingly I got a little buzz about 3/4 of the way through. So no more than one for the time being. :)

Emotional Mom Day

Today was the day that we were going to stay home and not go anywhere. We've been running around and I think it's a bit much for Esme and a bit much for me too. We ran to Lunds just to get a few things and then on the way home Esme was really crying pretty hard. When she got home she had a very gunky, yellow goopy eye. So I called the pediatrician and asked about using some antibiotic ointment in her eye. The nurse on the phone suggested that she come in because eye infections can be related to ear infections also and with a newborn they want to be very careful. When we got there we saw Dr. Meier, who I didn't really like. She said newborns are too small to check their ears and wrote me a script for erythromycin ointment and talked to me about lacrimal massage. So I sort of feel like it was a wasted trip, but I think you can't be too careful.

We decided to go to our Maple Grove office to see if we had any samples of the e-mycin ointment, but they didn't. We got to visit with all of the MG employees which was really nice. I hope the word doesn't get out to CLC that we've now visited two clinics besides theirs. We won't be very popular... until we show up, that is, and they see beautiful little Esme!

Since we couldn't get samples, we had to stop at Target to drop off the prescription. Mom and Esme stayed int he car and I ran in to drop off the Rx. As soon as I got in the car, Esme started screaming and she cried really hard the whole way home. It's so hard to comfort them in the car when they are facing backwards! Anyway, she was pretty darn hungry and after she ate and hung out with Daddy for awhile she was fine.


After awhile I was holding her in my lap when all of a sudden she made a little spit up noise and a bunch of clear liquid came out of both nostrils. It was a crazy lot of fluid. It had been a couple of hours since she had eaten, so no formula was involved. I'm thinking it must be saliva? But it reminded me of when she choked a little bit yesterday and being the emotional, hormonal new mom that I am, I cried off and on for the rest of the night. I was certain that something was wrong with her. I also got to thinking about it and I think that must be what happened in JoAnn's the other day. Because she hasn't had a runny nose since then.

We spent the evening visiting with Grandma Barb and Grandpa Dan in their back yard. It was really nice and I got a chance to calm down a bit. Esme had a good night and slept great. She also didn't seem to mind the antibiotic ointment, so that is good.

6/17/09

Today was a busy day. We went to Ridgedale and ran some errands. We had to go to Eddie bauer to buy some clothes for Daddy. We also went to Sears and a couple of baby stores looking for a new hat for Esme. No luck. After that we went to JoAnn's Fabrics to get some fabric for Grandma Jackie to make some blankets for Esme. (When we were checking out it looked like she had a very runny nose it was wet under her nose all the way to her mouth. After that, no more runny nose. At the time I didn't think much of it, but read tomorrow's post and you will see what I think it was.) Finally we stopped at the pet store to buy food and snacks for Cricket and Kaiser.

We had a quieter night at home. But when I went to change Esme's diaper, she spit up a little bit and swallowed/choked on it. She was making squeaking noises and really not breathing for what seemed like 5 minutes. I bet it was less than 5 seconds, but it scared the poo right out of me. I rolled her on her side and patted her back until she finally took in a deep breath. I cried and cried because it scared me so much. I really don't like this sleeping on her back thing. I understand it and I'm sure that she would have been fine even if I hadn't been there, but it makes sense that it would be hard for her if she spits up.

She seemed to be fine the rest of the night though and went to bed great. Phew. Also, I found a couple of cute hats online and ordered them.

Grandma comes for a visit

On Monday morning Grandma Jackie showed up at 6:45 am to help. Esme slept a little late so we had to wait for her to wake up to spend time with her. We didn't do a lot that day, but we went to Babies R Us to pick up some essentials and returned a couple of items at Target. Overall a quiet day.

Tuesday we went to Esme's 1 week check up with the pediatrician. Our appointment was at West Health and all was well. Esme gained a little more weight and was up to 8 lb 4 oz. But just as we took her off the scale, she peed a lot. So maybe she didn't gain any. :) Then we went up to Oakdale OB/Gyn to drop of some paperwork for my short term disability. Dr. Sarkinen was there so we got to say hello to her which was nice. After that we stopped by the NW Eye clinic downstairs and got to visit with some of the people there. Esme was very popular!

Grandma Jackie will be here until Saturday morning. It's been so awesome having an extra set of hands and the company. Plus she brings Starbucks every morning! I'm not sure how we will do next week, but hopefully we will be ok. Good thing Kirsten is next door!!

Oh, here's a video of Esme. She is the queen of hiccups. It's my new favorite sound. :)

Coming home

I don't know if this is telling or not, but on the way home from the hospital, before Esme ever crossed the threshold of her home, she went to Target. We had to stop and get formula. I wasn't sure what kind of formula we were going to use for sure before we went into the hospital so we didn't buy any ahead of time. But here is my 3 day old daughter being wheeled around Target - shopping! :) I'm making sure to start her off on the right foot!

Then when we got home, we saw that our wonderful neighbors had decorated for us.


The first couple of days at home were very nice. The dogs are doing great with her. Cricket likes to smell her like crazy and her whiskers tickle Esme's face. I don't think she likes it very much. Kaiser will give her a quick sniff and a lick and then he's gone. The cats just like her crib and her changing table. So we are working hard to keep them out of her room.

We've been going for quite a few walks with Esme in her (kick ass) stroller and the dogs. I thought for sure that Cricket would have a problem with the stroller, but she does great with it. Between Aaron and I, the stroller and two dogs though, we take up a wide berth. But that's ok. It's been really nice to get out and walk around.

On Saturday we went to Houlihan's for dinner after Annika and Laurel's dance recital. Esme was very good. She slept through most of it and then was a little unhappy when she woke up. I got to try out the public changing stations in the bathroom for the first time. It's funny how clumsy everything feels right away. I'm assuming I will get better and better at it.

I don't think we did much on Sunday. We just hung out. The home health nurse did come and check both Esme and I out. Esme had gained most of her weight back so she was right back at her birth weight and we both got a clean report. Although, it was interesting that the nurse showed up to check out baby Maggie. Wonder where that came from. Not even close to Esme. I'm thinking someone else has the same paper hand outs that we have, but instead of Maggie, they say Esme!

On a sad note, we found out on Friday that my cousin Todd was in a serious ATV accident and has a traumatic brain injury. He is in Billings, MT in the hospital and we hoping and praying that he will be ok.

In the hospital

The time that we spent in the hospital was really nice. We got to spend time with Esme during the day and we got to have great sleep at night because we sent her to the nursery. Lots of books say that you should bond with your infant and that they should spend nights in the nursery with you. But lots of mothers told us to enjoy our last few nights of sleep. So we did. The food wasn't too bad in the hospital and they had great pain meds! :) I sort of think that we should just move in!

I was expecting to get some grief from the nurses for choosing to bottle feed, but everyone was really nice. No one made a big deal of it at all. In fact, all of our nurses were really great and supportive.

We got a lot of visitors in the hospital. Grandparents came again.

Grandma Jackie

Grandpa Rex

Please ignore the finger/thumb in the Grandpa Dan shot. :)

Grandma Barb

Jodie, Annika and Laurel stopped by and so did Eric.

Jodie and Annika

Laurel and Esme

Eric, Laurel and Esme

Karen and Kirsten came with Jack and Charlie.

Kirsten and Esme

Karen and Esme

Aaron's Aunt Terri and Uncle John stopped by.

Terri and Esme

Some Northwest Eye people stopped by too - Carol, Dawn and Sarah. We got flowers from Patty and family which was nice. She even sent flowers for Grandpa Rex and Grandma Jackie.

Dr. Sarkinen called to make sure that we were doing ok. She wasn't able to be there for the delivery because of a death in the family. But I thought it was super nice of her to call to see how Esme and I were doing. I was very lucky to find her as my doctor! :)

When we left, we were excited to get a picture with Colette since she spent the most time with us. But all of the nurses were super nice - Vicki, Colette, Sarah, Maria and Adele. Overall, we were very happy with our experience at North Memorial. We had heard good things and all of them appear to be true!

Welcoming Esme Perle

After 9 months of bad things like morning sickness, heart burn, numb hands and swollen feet; and after 9 months of fun things like decorating a nursery, baby showers and shopping for really cute, really small clothes, I was really not feeling well. Sunday, June 7th, was one of the longest, most awful days of my whole life. So much so that I went to my 10:00 OB appointment on Monday an hour and a half early with my hospital bag packed, prepared to beg my OB to say I could have the baby that day. It turns out, I didn't even have to ask. My blood pressure was a little high, there was protein in my urine and the baby's heart rate was a little low one of the times that they could find it (baby was shy). Dr. Sarkinen told me to head to the hospital and prepare to be induced. She said that I shouldn't even go home to get a bag (little did she know).

So I drove over to the hospital and called Aaron to meet me there. Dr. Manneh was the OB on call. Just before noon she said that I was 2 cm dilated. I had been at 1 cm for the last 3 weeks. That was enough that she said she could break my water which she did right at 12 noon. Then we would watch and see what happened. In the next hour I had 2 or 3 contractions, but nothing was really going on. In fact, I wasn't even sure that I was having any contractions, they were so minor. At 1pm they added pitocin and that started the contractions. They were about 10 minutes apart for awhile. Then all of a sudden it seemed like they were at 3 minutes and starting to get uncomfortable. I asked for the epidural then. But the lab hadn't drawn my blood yet and evidently there are some readings that the anesthesiologist needs before they can do the epidural. So they gave me another pain drug and the lab came and we waited about 40 minutes for the results. Then I got the epidural - yaayy! At that point, I was dilated to about 7 cm, but the baby wasn't moving down and every time I had a contraction, her heart rate dropped. Dr. Manneh thought that having a c-section would be the best.

Once that was decided, things moved really quickly and our daughter was born at 6:09 p.m. She weighed 8 lb, 2.4 oz and was 21 inches long.


We didn't have a first name picked out for her when she was born. We had it narrowed down to 2 names, Breah and Esme. When Dr. Manneh asked us what her name was, we told her our two choices. She asked if we wanted to know what she thought and we said "of course". She said she preferred Esme because it was classic but unique.

Later in the room, we agreed and decided to name our daughter Esme Perle. Aaron had heard the name Esme and really liked it. A lot of people ask if it had anything to do with the book "Twilight". I can assure you that Aaron never read that! Also, there are a lot of "Br" names that are popular right now and we thought Esme was a little better fit for us. Perle is a combination of my Grandma and Grandpa's names, Merle and Pearl. Yes, that really was their names! :)


Esme had visitors right away. Grandma Barb and Grandpa Dan came and Grandma Jackie and Grandpa Rex came all the way from New England, 8 hours away. They got to visit us about 10 p.m. that night. After everyone left, we sent Esme to the nursery so Mom and Dad could get some sleep.

It was a great day!