Hanna's first two weeks

Wow, the past few weeks have really flown by! Here's a summary of the events since March 22nd to get everyone up to speed.

Mommy ended up being induced on Friday, March 23rd as scheduled. We checked into the hospital the night before for a very long night of "preparation." The nurses started the pitocin at 5:00am and then my water broke at 7:30am on its own. After that things went pretty fast. I got my epidural at around 10:00am, and shortly after that I was fully dilated and ready to start pushing. After almost 2 hours of pushing, Hanna arrived at 12:28pm. Jason and I were so excited to finally meet our beautiful 8 lb 5 oz baby girl!

The first few hours after Hanna was born were a blur. Right after birth she was very alert and looking around at everyone. The nursery nurses took her to get cleaned up about an hour after she was born, and by the time she came back to our room she was fast asleep for several hours. That first day we were convinced that she didn't even know how to cry because she was so peaceful!

The hospital stay was very stressful for everyone, especially poor little Hanna. Her glucose levels tested low her first night so we had to give her formula to get her sugar levels to a decent level. Breast feeding went pretty well the first day in the hospital, but unfortunately Hanna wasn't getting enough nutrition from my milk to keep her sugar high enough and we continued to have to offer her formula to keep her healthy. Thus began the battle between the bottle and the breast, which continued several days after we were discharged from the hospital.

We were discharged from the hospital on Sunday. Over the next few days Hanna's feedings became more and more difficult, and Jason and I were concerned that she wasn't getting enough to eat. We had two pediatrician appointments that week to check on her weight gain, and at the second one Dr. Kyle noticed a heart murmur. We were referred to a pediatric cardiologist the very next morning, where Hanna had to get both an EKG and an ultrasound of the heart. When we met with Dr. Ramos, the cardiologist, he gave us the news that Hanna does indeed have a congenital heart defect called VSD (Ventricular Septal Defect). This was the cause of the "panting" we had noticed and also why Hanna had such a hard time eating. As upsetting as this news was, he did explain that this was the "best" heart defect she could have and the chances that the hole closes on its own are good. For right now we are just supposed to treat her like normal and we will have a follow-up in 6 weeks.

So that was Hanna's very stressful first week in this world. Luckily by the end of the week she was eating well and was already back at her birth weight! Even though hearing that Hanna has VSD was very difficult, Jason and I were both somewhat relieved to finally understand why Hanna had had such a difficult start. She was just trying to tell us something was wrong and we couldn't understand without the help of some wonderful doctors. We pray every day that the VSD will correct itself and Hanna won't ever remember this!

Hanna's second week has been full of lots of joy. She is getting into a routine of eating and sleeping that we are now able to somewhat plan around. She is definitely eating more, which was evident at her two week checkup when she already weighed 8 lb 12 oz! Every day we notice that she is more alert and awake for longer periods of time. She is very vocal, making lots of little grunts and coos at Mommy and Daddy. :-)

Hanna had her first "glamour shots" on April 1st and the results are fantastic! She really is a beautiful baby girl and very photogenic! (Or maybe I'm a little biased?). We'll be choosing our favorite photos to put up all around the house and also to do her birth announcements.

Thank you to everyone for all of the well wishes and prayers over the past few weeks. Although things have been difficult, Jason and I and all of our family are so overjoyed that Hanna is finally here. She is the greatest blessing in our lives and we are so thankful for every moment we have with her.

Stay tuned for more posts and lots of pictures!

Love,
Jason, Tara & Hanna

The date is set, the time is near. Watch out world, Hanna's almost here!!!

Tomorrow night (Thursday) the action begins. I am checking into the hospital tomorrow at 5:00pm to be induced on Friday morning. They will be prepping me tomorrow night and starting the Pitocin around 4am to get labor in full swing. Around 7 or 8am Dr. Burroughs will show up to break my water, then it will be baby time! We will keep everyone posted on Friday and send out lots of pictures!!!

Tonight Jason and I went out to a nice dinner for our last evening out as just the two of us. We went to the Melting Pot for fondue and I even enjoyed a nice glass of Riesling. (Why not at this point!?!?) It was wonderful to eat great food and relax and talk about the exciting couple of days ahead of us.

So next time we sign in Hanna will be here!!! We cannot wait to meet Hanna on Friday and share the great news with all of our family and friends. Stay tuned!

The Home Stretch ...

5 weeks to go! We are officially on the home stretch, just waiting for Hanna to decide when she's ready.

We had the 35 week ultrasound on Friday, where they measured Hanna and made sure everything still looks good in utero. The U/S tech said she measured at about 5.8lbs, but the machine is sometimes a little 'heavy' so she's probably closer to 5.25 to 5.5lbs. Either way, that explains the massive amount of pressure I have been feeling in my pelvis and especially on my bladder! She is head down already, so she is in the correct position for labor. The tech took a lot of pictures, but she's getting so cramped in there that most pics are difficult to distinguish anything in. There was one great picture of her face where you can see her nose and pouty little mouth.

We zoomed in for a close up too and we are pretty sure she has Jason's nose!

This past weekend we finished everything up in the nursery so we're prepared when Hanna gets here. Jason installed and tested the car seat in both cars, he put together the pack 'n play, and we set up the monitor (trickier than we thought!). We have about 150 diapers ready to go next the changing table, so hopefully we're prepared for at least the first few days at home! Here's a few pictures of the nursery now that it's all finished.

Now that we're approaching D-Day, we are not sure when the next time we'll have an update is. We're on Hanna's schedule now! We will keep all of you posted if anything significant occurs and obviously when Hanna gets here. We're almost there!

2012 Updates - the Year of Hanna!

Happy 2012! We have been super busy so far in this new year, so our apologies on the lack of blog updates. There have been several OBGYN appointments to check on Hanna and Mommy, but they have been pretty uneventful (except for the part when I get on the scale- ouch!). Except for the normal aches/pains and general uncomfortable feelings of pregnancy, everything has been totally healthy and wonderful. Hanna is very active every day, but over the past month she has started running out of room in her uterine home so the movements look and feel more like something out the 'Alien' movie. Here is a photo taken this morning that shows how big we are both getting. :-)

Over the past month, we have had 3 baby showers! The first was on January 20th at GulfQuest, where Jason and I work, with all of coworkers. The second was February 4th in San Antonio with family members and family friends. The last one was this last weekend, February 11th, in Houston for all my closest female friends and family. Each one was so beautiful and a great opportunity to catch with family and friends. I especially loved hearing some of the women's advice on motherhood and stories about their children.

Between the 3 showers Hanna has more stuff than any baby could ever ask for- she is one lucky girl! The nursery is almost completely done, although its a little chaotic right now until we finish putting away her gifts. We will post pics of the finished nursery later once we have everything finished. We did want to share this one picture of Hanna's tree, which Mimi (my mother, Mary Anne) painted for her. It is my favorite part of Hanna's room and I am sure she will love it too once she gets here.

Our next OBGYN appointment is this Friday, February 17th. At this time I will be 35 weeks pregnant, so they will do an ultrasound to estimate Hanna's weight and check her position (hopefully head down at this point!). Dr. Burroughs will also check me to see if I've started dilating yet. Basically this will be the beginning of the pre-labor countdown and I will start going to see the doc every week until Hanna is here! We will keep you all posted as we hear more details!

'Tis the season

Wow, lots to update everyone on! Since our last post, we had one OBGYN checkup, a glucose tolerance test (yuck!), another ultrasound at the hospital, and a trip to Nashville. Not to mention that my belly is getting HUGER every day. It's been a busy 6 weeks!

About a week ago was the one month checkup at Dr. Burroughs' (my OBGYN) office. It was at this time (25wks) that I had to do the glucose tolerance test, which luckily I passed. Yay, no gestational diabetes!!! Then I had a quick meeting with my doc and we listened to Hanna's heartbeat (still strong and healthy!). Next appointment is Jan 6th, then after that it's every 2 weeks until my 9th month. It's going so fast ...

This past Friday (Dec16th) was the big follow-up ultrasound at the hospital. Luckily we didn't have to wait very long to get in or to hear the news we were anxiously awaiting. The ultrasound tech was able to tell within 10 seconds that the placenta is "like 6 blocks away" from my cervix (her exact words!), so everything is all clear now. J and I sighed a breath of relief, then went on to get another ultrasound show of our baby. This time was better than the last because she is so much bigger and very active. She kept moving around when we we tried to see her, which was cool to see on the screen and feel in my belly at the same time. The tech said Hanna weighs 2lb 2oz right now and is in the 61st percentile for size. Jason's and my favorite part was watching her swallow; you could actually see the fluid moving down her throat- so cool! Here's a profile pic where you can somewhat tell she's swallowing.

Here's a cool picture of her right leg and foot. She's getting so big that you have to move all the way across my belly from the head to see a leg.

This one is a little harder to distinguish at first glance, but this is a straight-on picture of Hanna's face. You can see the eyes, nose and mouth, although the bottom side (her left side) of her face is shadowed.

Last week I encountered my first real illness during the pregnancy. I got a cold starting on Tuesday and ended up missing a day of work and generally feeling cruddy all week. Here it is Sunday and I am still congested! Oh well, colds are just a part of life that apparently don't stop even when you're preggers! I've also been experiencing round ligament pain a lot more, which is basically the ligaments and muscles and everything in your abdomen stretching out to accommodate the expanding uterus. Unfortunately the cold did not help this situation, as I had a horrible cough all and all the coughing made my abdomen hurt more from the strain. I'll be very glad when I'm feeling healthy again!

Like I mentioned before, my belly has taken on a life of its own lately. Every day I stare at it, shocked at how big it's getting. (And yes, I know I still have 3 months to go and grow!). This picture was taken this morning on our way out the door for the gym.

As we're wrapping up 2011, Jason and I looking forward to a little R&R. Christmas is a week from today, and we will be visiting my family in Boerne. We're taking that whole last week of December off to spend time with family, go hunting (J, not me!), and basically relax. As excited as we are for Hanna to be here, we also are looking forward to our last Christmas just the two us. This year we have so many blessings to be thankful for and this truly feels like a magical Christmas to us.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of our family and friends. More updates to come in 2012!

The Good, the Bad and the Oh-So-Cute

Friday morning we did the big ultrasound at the hospital. The lady that did our ultrasound was very sweet and helpful, we really liked her. She asked us at the beginning if we wanted to know the sex of the baby, and we said we wanted "confirmation" of the sex. She told us not to tell her what we knew already so she could make an unbiased assessment. :-)

We started the ultrasound, which took much longer than normal because the tech was looking at every part of the baby and taking a lot of measurements. We first looked at the skull and brain, the arms, the spinal cord, then the internal organs such as the kidneys and liver. Here's a pic of the spinal cord and one of the little arms.

At this point the baby flipped over for the tech to show off her little girl parts. Hanna is definitely still all girl!!!

Then the baby started being difficult (takes after Mommy) and did not want to cooperate with the tech. She was trying to get good pictures of her legs, feet and heart. This required a lot of time and unfortunate jabbing of the ultrasound device into my belly. (not comfortable!) After much effort, Hanna finally started cooperating and we got some really great pics.

One of the final pictures was our favorite. Hanna flipped over to give us the perfect profile shot. What a cute little face! This is my new background on my phone and makes me smile every time I see it. :-)

After the ultrasound tech finished with the pictures and made a lot of notes, a doctor came over to review everything with us. The doc went through most of the pictures very quickly, but slowed down once she got to the heart. She was studying the pictures and then watching the video of the heartbeat for what seemed like forever! I think both Jason and I were holding our breath the whole time. Luckily at the end of her review she told us that everything looked great and there were no visible defects found. What a relief!!!!

This morning I had another checkup with my OBGYN. She listened to Hanna's heartbeat again and answered my normal list of questions. We then discussed the ultrasound results from Friday. She informed me that, although I haven't had any symptoms, I have a condition called placenta previa or low-lying placenta. Basically this means that the placenta is on the bottom of the uterus and is partially covering my cervix. This can result in complications later in the third trimester and ultimately require a C-section, but it is still early enough in the pregnancy to correct itself. Apparently this is somewhat common and 90% of women who find this in the second trimester experience that the placenta moves away from the cervix as the uterus grows. My doctor ordered me to take it easy (not bedrest, just laying low) for at least 6 weeks until I go back to the hospital for another ultrasound assessment. Chances are everything will be fine, but I will keep everyone updated on the situation.

Two weekends ago I was very happy to have Daddy (Jason) home all weekend. He ended up cleaning out the room and painting the nursery in one day. It looks great! We also got to pick up the crib and put it together that Sunday. I also started on an art project to cover the letters in Hanna's name in cute fabric, which Grandma Mimi helped me finish. Here's a picture of the results of our busy weekend.

Time has really been flying by lately. I can't believe I'm already 20 weeks along. That's halfway there! For the most part I feel great, but I have started feeling some physical symptoms more lately. I am hungry ALL the time. My lower back is getting sore, but only when I do a lot of walking or standing up. The other day I had a big sneeze and I felt my uterus and other muscles seize up in my abdomen, then I was pretty sore afterward. Very weird feeling, so let's just pray I don't get a cold this winter!

I also recently started feeling Hanna moving. It is so faint that I'm afraid I'm imagining it, but I'm sure within a couple of weeks it will be hard to ignore!

Lots of love,
J & T

What is that I see? A B or a G?

Jason and I have had a very exciting and busy week. Last Thursday we had a doctor and ultrasound appointment. I was almost 17 weeks, so we were quietly hoping we may be able to tell the sex of the baby from the ultrasound. The ultrasound tech was very thorough, guiding us through the many parts of our baby and pointing out all of the organs and limbs and even tiny digits! We saw two kidneys, a functioning bladder, and a heart with 4 visible chambers (see below). Everything looks absolutely perfect so far.

However, whenever we tried to check out the baby's boy or girl parts, Baby R would not cooperate. We had one shot of a leg with the other foot in the crotch, another one with the legs crossed . . .

Finally SHE decided to give us a break and let us check her out. We got two pretty good pics of her girl parts; the biggest indicator is the three little lines in the top picture (or the lack of a pee-pee in the second one!). The ultrasound tech said he was 99.9% sure she was a girl!

Needless to say Jason and I were very exited. We have both felt this was going to be our daughter since the beginning of the pregnancy, so this confirmation was very welcome. The tech got us two really great pics of her face that we'd like share. Please meet our beautiful daughter, Hanna!

She is beautiful, isn't she? Maybe we're a little biased! :-) So this all happened Thursday morning, after which we quickly called grandparents and family to share the wonderful news. Everyone was thrilled, and I think some grandmothers may have been so excited that they felt a shopping trip for baby girl dresses was merited. :-)

This weekend was also very fun, as Jason and I went to order a crib (attempt #2) and did some more registering at Babies R Us. We picked out the theme for her bedroom, which will be a feminine jungle theme with shades of lavender, ivory, brown, yellow, green and orange. We also test-drove a few gliders for the nursery and found a very comfortable one fit for us giants. And of course, we registered for a few cute little girl clothes that we just couldn't resist. It was a lot of fun! Jason had his eye on a particular outfit that he said we just had to have. I think someone is going to spoil this baby girl rotten!

So as you can tell, it has been a VERY exciting week for the Rehovskys. Words cannot describe how happy we are. The next few months are going to fly by and before we know it Hanna will be here. We cannot wait to meet her!

Our next big milestone will be on November 4th for the big 20-week ultrasound at the hospital. We will get another confirmation of the sex and the doctor will do a more thorough look at all of her organs, etc. Although so far everything has looked perfect with Hanna and the pregnancy, we are still looking forward to the confirmation that there are no birth defects or complications.

On a separate note, we are so excited that the holidays are coming up! We cannot wait to see family for Thanksgiving and Christmas in Nasvhille and Boerne. I'm growing a really nice belly for you guys to rub when we get there.

We hope that all of our family and friends are doing well and we truly appreciate all of your love and support. We feel so lucky to share this wonderful blessing with all of you.

All our love,
J and T (and H!)


P.S. Sorry for the delay with updating the blog! We were waiting to get electronic pictures from our ultrasound last week to share with everyone. :-)