And the Parenting Begins...

Wow, It's been a while since i've gotten a chance to post anything in almost like 4 months.  I'm blaming it on new parenting brain.  After all if my wife can use pregnancy brain, i'm going to use parenting brain.  So to begin, things have been quite interesting being a new parent.  And the fact my beautiful wife is almost like a new parent as well, it's been quite an experience raising our little fusspot.  She totally has a new nickname around our house as "McFussy."  It partially isn't her fault.  After all she developed a milk allergy, so we had to place her on the gold formula nutramagin.  And by gold, i mean it totally comes in a gold can that only lasts like 3 days and costs more than it does to fill up my car with gas for 2 weeks.  If that isn't the worst part, she totally developed colic.  So our first 2 months was nothing but sleepless nights and days, crying, and throwing up.  The only relief we got was when company came down.  For some magical reason, she was absolutely amazing whenever anybody else was here.  The second they left, McFussy returned with a vengence.  To make matters worse, i now had to return to work.  In a way i was the lucky one that got relief from all the crying by going to work.  Then again i would rather change a poopy baby diaper than a huge 300lb person that has stool dripping off the bed.  Or even worse, having to FLOAT to another unit.  The thought still makes me shudder.   As for McFussy, she as slowely gotten better throughtout the course of the last 3 months.  Some days are better than others and she still has days where she totally has bad days.  Thankfully i have a very awesome wife and mother who has gotten her on a schedule and has been attending to her needs night and day.  Working nights has a slight dissadvantage of requiring me to sleep during the day so i'm not much help, but has the advantage of allowing me to take care of McFussy at night when i'm not overly exhausted from working.  I have been picking up the slack by totally being the one that manages the food around the house.  Even this has been a little challenging because my wife has totally gone to the extreme to even change her diet so milk isn't crossing from her body into her breastmilk.  Just proves we will do anything for our children.  

It's been interesting adapting to life with a little one that can't feed themselves, walk, talk, or really do anything more than being a bump on the log.  Things definitely take much longer.  The simple trip to the grocery store now involves feed the baby, burp her, change the babies clothes that she just spit up on, set her down to change your shirt that she spit up on, pick her up to place in car seat "explosion heard."  Now change her diaper, change her clothes again from the massive blowout, put the dog in the crate, put the baby in the car seat, grab the diaper bag, load the car up with stroller, diaper bag, 5 sets of bottles, 10 pacifiers, 2 sets of clothes, 15 diapers, a box of wipes, car seat, run inside for keys left on kitchen counter, run outside, place pacifier in mouth, forgot wallet, run back inside, run outside, still crying change different pacifier, nope doesn't work still crying, say screw it maybe she'll stop crying when the car starts moving.  Start heading down the road, nope still crying now screaming.  Ten minutes later arrive at the grocery store.  Still crying, trying to remember what i came here for....oh yeah....milk.  Get the stroller out, load up the stroller, place another pacifier in her mouth,  YEAH this one works from the car to the entrance.  Screaming now, wondering why the milk is all the way in the back of the store?  Didn't they have parents in mind when they designed these stores? Grab the milk...left the wallet in the car, place the milk back, push the baby back out to the car, grab the wallet, head back in grab the milk pay.  Load up the car again and drive home screaming all the way home.  Pull into the driveway, the crying has stopped, the baby is finally asleep.  God totally has a sense of humor....

It does have quite a humbling affect when you remind yourself at one point and time you were just like this and now you have all this knowledge.  It really does prove that evolution doesn't exist.  First off if we totally evolved from monkeys as survival of the fittest, how come as humans we actually transgressed by being the only animal on this entire planet that can't do anything really for the first year?  Even monkeys have the strength to hold onto their mothers not long after being born. And even if it's suggested that well they age faster, why would the law of physics totally slow down the aging process for humans and make us develop slower and not anything else?  And the most important question if we developed from monkey why are there still monkeys?  Food for thought.

Anyways i'll try and update more often now that my life has become a little less crazy.

Gotta love a walk...drag

So tonight we decided to go out for a little walk seeing as how the humidity was down and the temperature is quite tolerable.  So we asked Moby if he wanted to go and of course he was extremely exicited.  After all he's a greyhound and used to running at 45 mph around the track.  Granted, they only do one lap around the track per race and usually only race once maybe twice per week.  So for everybody that thinks greyhounds are hyper dogs and need lots of exercise keep on reading.  Stacey took Adelyn in the stoller and walked around the block, while i wanted a little more excercise decided to run around the block with our couch potato.  He was very excited and ran with a happy gallop that kept up to my much slower pace.  We of course had to stop on the way for him to relieve his bowels and bladder.  No big deal.  As we came around our block, now it's approximately 1/2 mile around the block, he was starting to wear down quickly.  I figured i could keep running around and catch up to my wife.  I should have turned around and headed back the way we came to catch back up to her.  After passing the house, Moby had lost almost all energy and was barely keeping up to my rather slow jog.  I had to even encourage him to keep on coming.  About halfway around the block i realized i should have retraced my steps.  I was in a slow walk, the leash was stretched straight out behind me and he was sniffing around to trying to produce some sort of bladder sweat in order to get me to stop for just a second.  I was seriously considering having to run home and get the element to pick him up.  Surprisingly he made it around the second time even though by the end of it was walking very slowly and was practically dragging Moby.  A full 1 mile walk.  After drinking a full bowl of water he totally passed out on our bed. After we got everything cleaned up, he took to the couch where he totally has passed out ever since.  Tongue hanging out very similar to this pic of him and totally incapacitated.  Usually he gets up and follows us when we both leave the room because he is so codependent.  However, tonight that is not the case.  He is so exhausted we could leave the house for the night and would still find him in the same spot in the morning.  He'll be like that for the next two days.  That's about how long it takes hime to recover from a walk.  Which is why 1, most greyhounds only run once or twice a week and 2, moby was a drop out.  So Moby has two speeds in life.  45mph and 0.  More to come...

Firsts

This has been a week of firsts.  Some have been fun, some not so much.  After coming home, we had our first of many sleepless nights....big surprise.  The joys of having a baby.  Other than sleepless nights it's been quite uneventful.  We had our first doctors visit.  Everything is looking great.  We have been given the advice to stay away from public places and lots of people due to the potential infection possibilities.  Something we will definitely listen too.  We've learned somethings new as well.  Adelyn doesn't poop... she explodes.  Nothing like sitting on the opposite side of the room and heard a wet explosion.  If the diaper wasn't there i'm betting she could hit the next door neighbors house.  Surprisingly, Moby hasn't attempted to sniff any poopy diapers, nor has he found the magical diaper genie which is probably a good thing.  Seeing as how he's eaten a sweeper duster and passed it, i wouldn't be a bit surprised if we see a pampers come through one day or another.  Adelyn has also had her first smile.  Unfortunately she only smiles when she is sleeping right now.  Though i'm not quite sure what a 11 day old dreams about  while sleeping.  Possibly milky nipples and warm fuzzy blankets but we may never know.  Another first was Adelyn's first taste of vitamins.  The funniest face i have ever seen.  She hasn't gotten the art of spitting down quite yet, but she sure has the face for it.

Moby has been quite interesting as well.  The crying and fuzziness doesn't seem to bother him at all.  He still manages to sleep through everything.  If anything, he's gotten more and more lazy.  I actually had to wake him up and drag him out of bed at 9 am the other day in order to eat breakfast.  Normally he is an early riser...up around about 7ish.  Lazy dog.

Today I had my Triathlon.  Great time.  I was part of a two person relay team.  Surprisingly, i did fairly well.  I would say i had the easier part, biking.  It wasn't too far only 13 miles.  Things started out great.  Adrenaline is a wonderful thing.  My initial 20+ mph slowly crept down to 19.5 avg.  I would say it felt great passing almost everyone.  But then again, as the miles crept up, my speed slowly crept down.  I'll definitely have to step it up in the next few weeks before my next one.
More to come soon...

Homecoming

It's official, we are all home.  The blood cultures came back negative, just like we thought they were.  After all if she was going to have some sort of positive blood culture, Adelyn probably would have been sicker than what she seemed.  The last few nurses have been absolutely awesome, beginning with the nurse from my last blog.  It's the type of nurses that are more what i was expecting in the NICU environment.  Even though the nurses were awesome, they were still a stickler on the time for the unit.  The good news is that they did allow us to enter a few minutes prior to the change of shift.  Though it really didnt matter seeing as how with feeding, getting ready, packing up, and finally getting the discharge paperwork together, we didn't get to leave until like around 9pm.  Moby on the other hand was quite interested in this new thing that he has never seen.  We were careful not to put her in an orange outfit for fear he may mistake her for one of his loved squeaky balls.  Moby seems to be taken his usual course of action with her in the last few days he's been sleeping just as normal.  Crying and fussing don't seem to disturb his slumber at all.  Things have been getting into a nice rhythm.  But seeing as how it's only been a few days, we have yet to see if they will last.  We are looking forward to the the upcoming firsts.  Monday will be the first visit to the doctors outside of the hospital.  More to come soon...

Dingo Bait

Adelyn Day 1

 So, it has been quite an interesting ride.  Being a nurse has had quite a few drawbacks.  The biggest is finding out which nurses are better than others.  Some of our nurses have been absolutely wonderful.  Everything a nurse needs to be ... compassionate, caring, holistic in nursing care and even encouraging family bonding.  Unfortunately most of the nurses we have encountered haven't held these qualities.  Since we've had to be in the NICU, i would have guessed that most of the nurses would have these qualities since it's such an important time for family bonding.  Surprisingly we've met more resistance than encouragement.  For instance, i was playing soft soothing music

while i was holding my baby and the nurse was like are "you playing music?  you should turn that off."  Really?  Constant soothing music that drowns out the hum of the ac, the ringing of the phones and beeping of the montiors and iv pumps is disturbing to my baby?   Even picking up adelyn has met resistance.  The nurses have said we shouldn't pick up a sleeping baby and we have touch times here.  I totally understand if she was under some sort of care like being in an isolette or under bili lights or oxygen, but she doesn't need anything like that.  Then of course there is the whole entire time issue.  Since i work in the icu, i know it's very important to have time during shift report to not have family members in the unit.  But i'm also realistic in the fact that if family wants to be in so be it.  I can very easily close the door and give report.  I was very surprised when my wife was booted out of the nicu literally right after she just started breast feeding in order for the nurse to do her work.  Shouldn't we be encouraging breast feeding?  Then of course they wonder why Adelyn isn't eating enough.  Then to top it off the nurses gave her a pacifier which was totally against our wishes.  In fact, you need to sign a waiver in order for the nursing staff to give her a pacifier.  We never did and when we brought that to their attention the nurse said well we signed the medically necessary form and it was medically necessary in order to consul her.  How about actually calling down to the room to have the parents come and see if they can consul her?  It's not like we are down the elevator, across the courtyard, throught the woods and across the river.  The good news is after almost 24 hours of dealing with really crappy nurses we finally got one that was awesome.  The chairs in the nicu are definitely not comfortable and condusive to breast feeding mothers.  It took almost all day yesterday to get a more comfortable chair. Then of course our awesome nurse came in and said hey why don't you use the stool we have?  So we are thinking why is this the first time we've heard of such thing?  Then of course there was the entire discharge issue with my wife.  Two minutes after my wifes discharge instructions were written, we were told we have to be out of the room before the hour is up which was like 15 minutes from then.  Then to top it all off, the billing called the room expecting payment.  Seriously?  Not that i'm expecting special gold treatment from being an employee of this hospital system, but i would be expected to be treated a little better than this.

The good news is how Adelyn is doing.  Not that I expected anything different.  The reason we ended up in the NICU was because of the blood work we got back.  Her wbc count was slightly elevated.  Its funny they were using the words sepis when in fact she didnt any organ dysfunction one of the requirements for sepsis.  Since my wife was strep b positive it was more precautions than anything.  The hardest part of the entire process was when they came to take her to the NICU.  Being a nurse i can totally understand not having parents in the room to get an IV on your little one.  But at least update the parents.  It was the longest 3 hours of my life.  The worst of it was they giving small updates like we're getting her settled and we are still tring to get an IV to my wifes nurse who was no longer providing care for adelyn.  Why weren't they giving us the updates instead of the nurse?  Anyways,  they finally established the iv and started her on the antibiotics.  Since she was spitting up a little bit.  They placed an og tube and sucked out all the contents then removed it.  Totally agree with this considering how easy the labor was and she really didn't get all the contents expelled with lots of pushing.  Now the spitting up hasn't been an issue.  I'm sure the projective vomiting will be coming somtime in the next few months thought.  Nothing a change of clothes can't fix.  I just hope moby isn't in the way.

The doctors have been wonderful here.  Very down to earth and realistic. The blood cultures came back with the preliminary result of negative, a wonderful sign.  She's been eating great.  Voiding fine.  She still needs two more doses of antibiotics and we need the blood cultures to come back as officially negative fri afternoon, but from the looks of it we will going home fri night.  The neonatologist seems to think that her elevated wbc count was in response to the entire labor process and not any infective organism.

One thing that totally surpises me is the lack of other parents i've seen in the nicu.  I've seen a few parents here and there but noone really staying with their babies like we have.  Shocking to me but maybe not so much to the nurses in the NICU.  Moby on the other hand has been quite entertaining as well.  Considering he has been lacking in the attention department and has spent most of his time in the crate, we haven't felt a whole lot of compassion considering the first thing he does after peeing and pooping is lay down on the couch or bed.  A few days ago he even got a real treat when i went home to take a little nap and slept for like 2 hours.  He was sprawled across the entire bed.  His time in the crate will be short lived considering my wife will be pretty much a stay at home mom.  Well back to Adelyn with more to come...

Adelyn Calliope

She has finally arrived.  My daughter Adelyn Calliope arrived on 05 July 2011.  She came a little quicker than expected.  It was a great surprise.  We arrived at the hospital monday night.  Totally misssed the fireworks which wasn't too bad considering it was raining off and on all afternoon.  I of course was quite excited, my wife on the other hand was quite nervous considering that she had all day to think about what was going to happen.  After settling into the room, our journey began.  It seemed like quite a long journey, i felt like my patients sometimes.  Sleeping for what seemed like hours and only minutes gone by.  Plus its also kinda hard to sleep in a broken recliner.  But all in all, it was an experience.  The morning brought on the real excitement.  As the contractions became stronger and stronger, i was urged by my wife to head home and take care of the Moby prior to anything happening.  I actually felt bad for him considering he had been in the crate all night long and here i was only letting him out to let him eat and poop.  Of course that really didn't last long before my phone rang saying i should hurry up.  Rush back to the hospital i did.  No stopping for food and no shower.  At the hospital, i got there in time to assist my wife through some of the contractions prior to the epidural. After the epidural was placed, the wonderful world of no feeling in your lower half of your body kinda took over all the work.  I will have to say, my wife is a better man than me.  I would rather take a foley catheter or a ng tube then any sort of needle in the back of my spine.  I would totally have to be sedated in order to do such a thing.  So now time was once again on my side.  I was sent out to get food since i hadn't had the chance to get any and the crapateria at the hospital is less than optimal.  Not too long after getting back and feeling partially human and not starved to death. I was back to providing comfort care.  I had just gotten comfortable when the doctor came in and decided to check my wife to see how she is progressing.  Surprisingly, he's news shocked us.  He said "are you ready to have a baby?"  Her head was right there.  A few minutes later all the nurses came in, two pushes and out she came. The most beautiful baby girl i had ever seen.  I am partial of course but why wouldn't i be.  She was 7lbs, 8oz.  20 inches long with blond hair and blue eyes.  Words can't describe the feeling of overwhelming happiness.  Only the people with children know this feeling.  We have a wonderful beautiful girl....  The best part is the smell.  That sweet baby smell, not the poopy diaper smell.

However,...
Things changed slightly with some of the blood work we got back along with her throwing up a little bit bought her a ticket to the NICU.  So here i am.  Like a roller coaster ride of emotions all rolled up in one.  From the looks of it, she's the healthiest sick baby in the NICU.  The bad news is that it looks like she'll be spending the next 7 days here getting antibiotics and fluids.      It will be the the place i love to be but hate to be at.   Pics to come soon.

Squeaky Balls

First, i'm aware i haven't had a chance to post anything in the last month with everything that has gone on.  I'll be posting about everything real soon.  But this is something that absolutely needs to be posted.  

Moby, our greyhound, loves squeaky balls.  Not just any balls, the balls in the shape of a tennis ball that squeak when you squeeze them.  He loves them so much in a matter of ten minutes, he will have the squeaker disabled and the ball split open so you can flatten it out.  Does the death of the squeaker discourage him?  Absolutely not.   Recently we purchased a three pack of those squeaky balls.  These were the medium orange tennis balls, his absolute favorite.  Of course he couldn't contain himself, nor could he get a hold of one quick enough. After what seemed like an infinite matter of doggie time, the netting package was open.  The very clean, very soft, and very orange ball is now reflecting off the ambient light into the "sushi" look of the greyhound ready to pounce and sprint the 3 strikes to 45mph.  A quick through and a drooled catch and he is gone into the next room to chew to his orgasmic doggie pleasure.  This of course didn't last long.  Long enough to put the other two on the patio table and walk over to the pool and relax with our feet in there when the squeaker suddenly stopped.  Seeing as how his new toy died and remembering there was another two in the package,  he went searching.  Low and behold he found them sitting on the patio table.  Without any regard to a big "HEYYYY",  he snatched the balls off the table, package and all and ran back inside to his chewing delight.  Laughter burst out from the pool as the squeaker of an ill fated ball echoed from inside the house.  This wouldn't be the last....

FOOD OR PLAY?
First off, Moby is on a see food diet.  He see's food he eat's it.  Frankly, he'll even eat the boogers attached to the tissues that we throw away in the bathroom trashcan.  We've caught him going in after the tissues while we take showers.  Why tissues?  I have no idea.  Usually he pukes them up so you would think he would learn by now, but he hasn't.  The good news is that he did learn his lesson after eating the swiffer duster and having to poop it out.  Swiffer dusters are no longer on his diet thanks to 2 days of vomiting before finally passing it out.  I guess it's one way to clean out your intestines.  Anyways, recently he got into the trash can that i left open and had recently threw away some old chili.  The tomatoes, spices, and onions are not a good thing for a dog to have.  So i had the fun job of inducing vomiting before anything get absorbed.  Yahoo.  But how soon we forget... 
So last week my coworkers threw me a daddy shower for the upcoming birth of my little girl whose name is *%&%#)$*%*%(%()$.  Sorry can't reveal it just quite yet.  The one advantage of being a male nurse and working with a bunch of women is they loving doing showers like that.  I was able to take a small cake home and sat it on the counter in our kitchen.  Why not?  It's not like Moby has ever tried to get anything from the counter.  Nope instead he usually tries to raid the trash cans or the dinner table after we get up.  The good news is that he doesn't beg while we are eating he just lays next to us laying in wait... 
A few days ago my wife went out and bought more of the those yellow squeaky balls that he loves.  I of course opened the netting pack and removed one of the three balls and started playing with him.  Without thinking, i placed the other two balls on top of the counter next to the cake.  So yesterday i was trying to get him to play with the one ball that i had already taken out but he wasn't interested in it at all.  What does that little stinker do instead?  I walk back into the living room to find him playing with two balls still wrapped up in the netting package.  Not only did he reach up on the counter to get those balls, he totally bypassed the cake that was sitting right next to it when he had a choice to eat or play with new squeaky balls.  Crazy Dog!!!  I think that's the first time he has every turned down food.  Just shows you how much he really loves those balls.