Hayden's First Week

Hayden spent much of her 1st week in the hospital while she and mom recuperated. Here are some pics from our time there.


Hayden and Daddy taking a nap


Hayden with Nana Vorhees


Me & Hayden with the beautiful roses Daddy bought


Hayden & Nana Vorhees

On Tuesday, it was time to go home. Jason had been with the movers all day and my dad had been at the new house waiting for the FIOS installer. Mom had stayed with me in the hospital the last 2 nights and we were ready to go home. Discharge is normally around 11 but we had a pretty rough night on Monday with a nurse who kept pushing us to give Hayden formula. I had experienced GREAT nursing care up to that point and so this was pretty discouraging. When Hayden got checked by the pediatrician earlier in the day, they checked her billirubin level and we waited for those results and a consult. Her billirubin was high, and they offered to have us stay one more night, but we had already packed up and I knew that we could manage her jaundice effectively at home with extra feedings and some indirect sunlight. So we made an appointment to have her checked the next day and headed home.



The first night was really rough, Hayden had her days & nights mixed up and Daddy was up with her most of the night except for when I would get up to feed her and pump every 2.5 - 3 hours.


Jason, Hayden & Meg

Last night was much better. We had Hayden on an every 2 hour feeding schedule. I would get up, nurse her, pump, and Jason or Gran would feed her a bottle. Then we would change her, put her down for a bit and then get up and do it all over again. I pumped or nursed her 15 times in the last 24 hours, we gave her 8 bottles and we changed 18 diapers. We are going to have to keep this schedule up until her jaundice goes away but that should be in just a week or two.

Today we went to the Dr. again (it was my 8th consecutive day at OHSU) but got wonderful news. Her levels have already decreased significantly (down from 17.4 yesterday to 14 today) and she has started to gain weight (up to 6 lb. 1 oz today from 5 lb. 14 oz yesterday). We are all doing well and I'm so glad that I have so much support from Jason & my mom. I couldn't do this without them.

Now, for those of you who think Hayden looks like Jason, take a look at these pics of me as a baby.

Me & Mom


Gran & Hayden


Me & Dad


Hayden with Daddy Jason


Baby Karyn


Baby Hayden

I'll continue to take pictures and update the blog when I can, but with the gruelling schedule I've outlined above, I'm sure that you can understand why it takes such a long time.


(No, that's not our new carpet...there was a snafu and so we are living on the pad until the new carpet gets in around June 15).

Overall, we are settling in nicely and feel so thankful that we have been blessed with this little life. We are all managing to sleep when we can and enjoying every moment of this special time.

Hayden's Birth Day(s)

On Wednesday night (5/20/09), Jason and I went out for one last date before Hayden's arrival. We were scheduled to induce labor the next morning because of some liver problems I was experiencing. We had a great time @ the Chart House and after dinner went to the airport to pick up Hayden's gran.



On Thursday morning, we arrived at the hospital at 8 am for the induction. Here's a last pic of my pregnant self.



I was induced and was able to walk around, went to have lunch in the cafeteria with Jason & my mom but once I got back to the room, I was put on pitocin. At that point, I was hooked to an IV pole so I wasn't able to do a lot of the natural measures for dealing with the pain that I'd intended to. At about 2:30 in the afternoon I decided to have an epidural put in. My labor continued to progress but slowly, and the nurses kept increasing the pitocin. It was nice to be able to rest and sleep here and there Thursday night. Unfortunately, my labor eventually stalled out when I reached about 4 cm and I stayed there for several hours. On Friday afternoon, I had been in labor 30 hours at that point and still wasn't making any significant progress, the doctors recommended we have a c-section.




Things moved very quickly after that and Hayden was born at 2:35 PM on Friday. She was perfectly healthy with an APGAR score of 9 out of 10. After spending a couple of hours in recovery and getting to meet both Gran and Nana, we headed up to our room. That evening, nurse Mary came in to give our girl a bath...





Gran and Nana picked out an outfit and got her all dressed up.





Here's a pic of Gran holding Hayden today- thanks to Daddy Jason for the amazing roses. :)



I will get some pics of Jason & I up soon, I'm up and walking around today and feeling much better. I even lost some of my pregnancy chubby face, which I'm thrilled about. :)