Today is 11/2/12 and we have been home with our little Emmry for about 5 hours. While I was at the hospital the last time I took the time to read back through Jackson's Story and it brought back a lot of memories that I had forgotten. Oh how many wonderful memories I have with my son that I can no longer remember. I thought that at the very least I wanted to write the hospital story of Emmry so I wouldn't forget.
If Jackson's story was a nightmare, then Emmry's was a dream. Whereas everything went wrong the first time this delivery happened the way we wanted it to...almost.
10/30/12 - Amy went to the doctor to do her final check up and schedule an induction for 11/3/12. We did not want to go to full term since Jackson was so big. We figured 1 week early would be soon enough. While Amy was being examined, Dr. Falk stripped her membrane. Amy had not asked him to, and when he started she told him to stop because she didn't want to have a baby on Halloween, but what was done was done. That night Amy began feeling contractions.
10/31/12 - Luckily this day Jackson had already been to 3 Halloween parties, because he was not going to make it to one on Halloween day this year. When I woke up Amy told me she had been feeling contractions all night. Luckily her mom was here to help out in the morning. At around 9:00 Paula went home to get a bag ready for the hospital because it was becoming pretty apparent that Emmry would be coming sooner than we thought.
I was at work all day and kept checking in every hour or so. Amy was having contractions about every 10 minutes all day. She stayed off her feet and tried to relax. If she had been up and moving around I think Emmry would have definitely been here on Halloween. I came home and Amy was still in the same state. I helped back bags for Amy, myself and Jackson and we tried to take it easy in case we did not end up going to the hospital. However, by 9:30 PM we knew that we needed to go down.
We dropped a sleeping Jackson off at my mom's house and headed down. For the next 90 minutes we had to fill out paper work and they examined Amy. All the while she was having contractions every 3-5 minutes and they were getting intense. About 11:30 we finally were in our room and they had the epidural administered. Finally Amy was able to relax.
11/1/12 - Emmry's birthday. Paula showed up about midnight and her an Amy chatted while I drifted off for a few hours. At about 2:30 Amy's water broke...well, it didn't break, the sac actually came out. The nurse told us that this was a sign of being 'born into greatness.' she called it being born en-caul. And apparently Julius Caesar was born under the same condition. the head is actually delivered into the water sac.
The nurses took great care not to break the sac. The started getting Amy ready for her delivery. We did a few trial pushes and everything looked like it was going good. At about 3:45 Dr. Hazelrigg came in, because again Dr. Falk ended up not delivering our child, and took charge. He immediately popped the water sack that we were trying to preserve and told Amy to start pushing. The head showed very quickly and I couldn't believe how fast everything was going. I stood by to help, but didn't feel as needed as with Jackson's delivery when I was the coach during the whole event.
Amy said that she never really felt the urge to push. The nurse just told her to push when the machine said she was having a contraction. That was a much more pleasant experience for her than the first delivery.
Emmry's long hair is the first thing I remember seeing. It was noticeably dark and long before I could see anything else. Then the Dr. made two incisions in Amy which seemed unnecessary until we saw that the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. Amy pushed her the rest of the way out and they removed the cord on our healthy new baby girl, 9 lbs 6 oz and 21 3/4" long.
After she was born we took a few hours getting her cleaned up, fed and had to have some time holding and loving her. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We spent most of the day trying to figure out how we wanted to spell Emmry. We had a whole dry-erase wall filled with different ways of spelling it, but finally ended up with Emmry Autumn Petersen. Hopefully she likes it as much as we do.
My favorite visitor of the day was Jackson who came in and was so excited to see his baby sister. He was so good with her and he was also good with my mom during the whole experience.
That night we sent Emmry to the nursery so Amy and I could try and get some sleep, which is not easy to do in a hospital.
11/2/12 - I was ready to leave by about 8:00, but with all the paperwork and check ups and everything else we ended up being at the hospital until 3:15...ridiculous. They were somewhat concerned about her jaundice levels. They said we could wait at the hospital another day or take a billy blanket home for her. We opted for the blanket. We have experience with it from Jackson and I was going stir crazy in the hospital.
So here we are about 8:30 at night, she is in her billy blanket and Jackson just fell asleep on the couch. I am a lucky guy to have such a perfect little family. It's amazing how quickly you can fall in love with a child. After seeing her for only 30 seconds and realizing that I will be her daddy for the rest of my life I immediately fell in love with my new little princess.
Amy is still in a lot of pain, but it's not as bad as it was with Jackson, and Emmry will be in her blanket at least until Monday, but things are going quite well overall.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Driving on the Playground
Andrew and I went shopping for a nice suit for Andrew for Easter. We decided to check out Chandler Mall. After walking around for a while checking out one of Jackson's favorites, a "Choo-Choo" that meanders throughout the mall, we strolled through the pet shop and then decided to let Jackson play at a play yard area near the book store. We watched from the side lines as he darted into the area and disappeared into the excited crowd of kids sprawled throughout the toys.
We found him first going straight for a stationary jeep complete with a steering wheel and a passenger seat. Jackson and about 4 to 5 other toddlers meandered over to it. A kid was in the drivers seat haphazardly spinning the steering wheel back and forth. Jackson was too busy trying to get his foot over the rim of the jeep on the passenger side to notice the driver or the line of toddlers standing behind him eyeing the jeep. The driver was at least 5 and very focused on driving, when he looked over to see Jackson attempting to join him. A booming "No" came from the really annoyed driver directed at Jackson.
All of the toddlers quickly scrambled into several different directions, tottering off as fast as their little feet would carry them, all that is, except for Jackson. He had kept on trying to get into the jeep, completely oblivious of the drivers annoyance with him. Once again the 5 year old, much louder this time, wailed out a loud "No" in Jacksons direction. This time Jackson noticed, he paused and looked up and the kid driving. Jackson's cheeks turned red, he stood up as tall as he could and at the top of his lungs Jackson half growled half roared "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" face full of anger, fists bawled. It was obvious that Jackson wasn't going to take this, and that this kid was going to share this jeep if he had anything to do with it.
Andrew and I were baffled it hadn't been even 5 minutes since we sat down and we were clear across the play yard from him. We had no idea what Jackson was like with other kids when we weren't there. As soon as Jackson stood up to this kid, a little ponny-tailed girl raced in to rescue her big brother (she was 2 1/2 at the most). She grabbed one of Jackson's arm and with all of her might was trying desperately to pull him away from the jeep and from her big brother. Jackson however didn't budge. He instead continued to try to climb into the jeep, dragging the girl along with him as he went. Their mother must have looked up just then because she darted to her feet and shouted at the little girl to "let go," while racing us to the jeep.
By this time Andrew and I had finally managed to get through the maze of tots and busy kids to reach Jackson. The mother profusely apologized for her children's behavior and openly scolded them. We told her not to worry about it and that her son obviously had the jeep first. Jackson during this time was kicking and screaming in mid-air, arms flailing, as we held him suspended over the coveted jeep and driver. With each step, as we walked away, Jackson's yells grew louder and angrier as we took him out of the play yard and continued into the mall.
Out of all of the tots in that playground that day, we learned that ours was by far the most fearless. He couldn't care less who or how big the kid was in the driver seat of that jeep, all he knew was that this kid told him "No" and he wasn't going to take it from that kid, and it didn't seem to phase him that we were trying to interfere, he still wanted to finish this....Luckily he did get a turn with a steering wheel. We ended up renting him a mall stroller that was a bright red fire truck with steering wheel and all (which he loved). We had forgotten to pack his stroller that day.
Never being very fearless myself, this play yard incident has me a little worried about what adventures Jackson may get himself into for the future and what may be ahead for him. Life is funny that way I guess. All I know right now is that we sure do love our little man and that is all that matters ...but perhaps, sewing some extra padding into his clothes wouldn't hurt for the time being.....just in case.
We found him first going straight for a stationary jeep complete with a steering wheel and a passenger seat. Jackson and about 4 to 5 other toddlers meandered over to it. A kid was in the drivers seat haphazardly spinning the steering wheel back and forth. Jackson was too busy trying to get his foot over the rim of the jeep on the passenger side to notice the driver or the line of toddlers standing behind him eyeing the jeep. The driver was at least 5 and very focused on driving, when he looked over to see Jackson attempting to join him. A booming "No" came from the really annoyed driver directed at Jackson.
All of the toddlers quickly scrambled into several different directions, tottering off as fast as their little feet would carry them, all that is, except for Jackson. He had kept on trying to get into the jeep, completely oblivious of the drivers annoyance with him. Once again the 5 year old, much louder this time, wailed out a loud "No" in Jacksons direction. This time Jackson noticed, he paused and looked up and the kid driving. Jackson's cheeks turned red, he stood up as tall as he could and at the top of his lungs Jackson half growled half roared "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" face full of anger, fists bawled. It was obvious that Jackson wasn't going to take this, and that this kid was going to share this jeep if he had anything to do with it.
Andrew and I were baffled it hadn't been even 5 minutes since we sat down and we were clear across the play yard from him. We had no idea what Jackson was like with other kids when we weren't there. As soon as Jackson stood up to this kid, a little ponny-tailed girl raced in to rescue her big brother (she was 2 1/2 at the most). She grabbed one of Jackson's arm and with all of her might was trying desperately to pull him away from the jeep and from her big brother. Jackson however didn't budge. He instead continued to try to climb into the jeep, dragging the girl along with him as he went. Their mother must have looked up just then because she darted to her feet and shouted at the little girl to "let go," while racing us to the jeep.
By this time Andrew and I had finally managed to get through the maze of tots and busy kids to reach Jackson. The mother profusely apologized for her children's behavior and openly scolded them. We told her not to worry about it and that her son obviously had the jeep first. Jackson during this time was kicking and screaming in mid-air, arms flailing, as we held him suspended over the coveted jeep and driver. With each step, as we walked away, Jackson's yells grew louder and angrier as we took him out of the play yard and continued into the mall.
Out of all of the tots in that playground that day, we learned that ours was by far the most fearless. He couldn't care less who or how big the kid was in the driver seat of that jeep, all he knew was that this kid told him "No" and he wasn't going to take it from that kid, and it didn't seem to phase him that we were trying to interfere, he still wanted to finish this....Luckily he did get a turn with a steering wheel. We ended up renting him a mall stroller that was a bright red fire truck with steering wheel and all (which he loved). We had forgotten to pack his stroller that day.
Never being very fearless myself, this play yard incident has me a little worried about what adventures Jackson may get himself into for the future and what may be ahead for him. Life is funny that way I guess. All I know right now is that we sure do love our little man and that is all that matters ...but perhaps, sewing some extra padding into his clothes wouldn't hurt for the time being.....just in case.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
GOT TO LOVE SCIENCE: BALANCING GRAPES, THE LAW OF GRAVITY & OTHER THINGS THAT MAY OR MAY NOT FLOAT
1/14/11 Jackson (the littlest scientist) has taught me many things. Today my lesson was all about a little bit of patience...and a lot of science.
A Balancing Act
I watched in amazement as Jackson created a one-man-balancing show. He placed a single grape a-top of the thin straw-like rim of his sippy-cup and left it there, a true triumph! I stood there amazed, (What 15-month-old did that?), and to think that he came up with it all by himself too! His grape would stay perfectly in place until a gentle nudge would send it sprawling into the 20 or so all ready aligning the grape splattered floor. This pattern continued for several minutes, often accompanied by Jackson's small "yea!" he would give himself after the grape would stay in place. I celebrated his little balancing science experiment with him, then removed him from his high chair and released him to wonder the room. I quickly began to attack the grape splattered all over the floor and high chair. I'd forgotten about all of the 'fun things' I'd left around the house. Who knew? Floating Experiment Act I
After I'd conquered the high chair I began to notice how eerily quiet it had become. I quickly ran to the couch to find that Jackson was not only talented, but had been very observant as well. That's when I'd discovered 2 remotes to our T.V. bobbing in my once very full glass of water (just so you know they were floating - at least I'd like to assume he was going for some sort of scientific angle -right?) So the clean-up crew was at it again...Apparently...This doesn't Float. Act II
A few minutes later (I was on a roll) I began to gather trash with my little helper by my side. We went from room to room. I'd just reached the bathroom, and had barely began to bend down to gather the trash, when I heard a loud "plop." I then turned to face a very somber and yet, innocent looking little face. My gaze drew me to his shadow which lead me strait to the bright red pen that laid sparkling in the bottom of the commode. So, I did what moms do, I carefully fished it out, washed and re-washed my hands and headed back to the main room.. Cause & Effect
Again my little helper had wondered off in the process and an alarming nothingness was filling the air..something else was definitely a-miss. Into the living room I went. Once there, I'd discovered an extremely soaked little boy. Every inch him was covered with water, an empty cup lay at his side and a big smile was spread across his face. He stood-up, (diaper swishing behind him) and tottered away. Oh, how I love my little scientist! LOL What will tomorrow bring? Oh Gravity!
P.S. In the 5 minutes it has taken me to write this, he has somehow managed to learn how to climb onto the couch all by himself (you know, the one he likes to stand on and throw himself back-first off of). Wish me luck!
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