The Shrine

I'm scheduled for a Csection tomorrow morning at 8:30am. They gave me some time to avoid a csection, but nothing is happening and they said that if they tried an induction, it would be a VERY long labor that they dont want to stress me out on, which may not work anyway. They can't wait any longer because they don't want to risk my PE getting worse.

So tomorrow it is!!

I'm not too nervous yet..but I know I will be tonight and tomorrow.

I'll have Sine update when he can with pics and stuff

Good luck, Shellie. I'm sure everything will be fine.

How exciting! I hope it all goes quickly and without any problems!

Don't worry about posting news for when the baby actually arrives. We'll all know it's happened when we feel the tremors and the sky turns blood red.

Good luck! Hope everything goes as planned!

Good luck.

Hope things go well. My Mother was induced when she had me and it was not an enjoyable experience (also the doctor who wanted to do it was an asshole and it was unnecessary), so I hope there's an alternative for you.

Still, if they do it you totally get to guilt your child into being a better college student 20 years later. Trust me. Ugh.

lol Im surprised you would remember it being not enjoyable Shrin

I'm not being induced, it's a csection, so no labor, but it IS major surgery so recovery will be a bitch. But Ive been in pain for the past couple of months so I'm ready hehe

Seraphina wrote:lol Im surprised you would remember it being not enjoyable Shrin

D'oh. Daaaamn you English language!

Good luck, Shellie. Try not to get too anxious about it. Sure, it's major surgery but it is relatively routine and something that women actually choose as an option nowadays, as unbelievable as that is. Risk is relatively low considering. No surgery has zero risk but you don't have to worry too much about this one. You have more of a chance of getting hit by lightning than having anything serious happen to you or the baby. Recovery will be a bit of a bitch but it's not too much worse than natural childbirth and you'll have a full recovery. You really have nothing to worry about and it ain't gonna help you if you do.

I know everything will go well and we all want to hear from you guys (and see pics) as soon as it's comfortable for you guys to do so.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2 ... a4affe35ac

Sebastian's still in NICU because of his lungs. Either underdeveloped or still has fluid in his lungs. He's in good hands over there, so he'll pull through okay. Apparently, this is pretty common in c-sections. Hr should be out in 48 hours.

Mom is doing good, too. She'll actually be out longer than Ian, but she's already starting to walk around.

Congrats you two!

Awesome! Congrats!!!

Sine's a daddy, haha. Grats

Congrats to the both of you!

I'll get to the shelter and wait for the black rain to fall.

Woo Congrats! Take it easy in the meantime... it's the last break you'll get

good job team! You made a baby for reals.

Congrats guys!

NgratsCONgrqts! (huh, my Safari auto-spell check picked that word....)

I meant to say Congrats!

Congrats, guys. NCIU is often more of a precaution after the first little while and it looks like the boy's doin' great.

How big is he? Looks like about 8 lbs. Mine were under 6 each, he looks huge in comparison (but nothing close to Andrew's boy)

Congratulations, guys.

Thanks guys

Itturns out that his lungs are a little under developed. He is also rejecting the supplement for his lungs, so it will take a little longer for them to develop. He is on a ventilator to help him breathe, but he is also doing a lot of it on his own as well. He even coughed out the vent once heh

Its pretty hard to see him like that, especially since we cant touch him. They want him stress free right now, apparently he has a temper (*looks at Sine*)

He weighed 7lbs 11oz...very close guess Zeus 19.5in long at 37.5weeks

I will get to go home Friday or Sat, but it looks like he will be here a little longer now. The Dr guessed maybe Monday, but we will see.

Im doing well, still very sore, but nothing that isnt manageable. the section was pretty easy, except for the spinal block. I have a mild case of scoliosis and cant arch my back much, so it tok them longer to get the needle in there. The whole experience was so freakin weird. Cant feel anything from the chest down and 5 mins later this screaming baby appears from behind a blue sheet lol

Seraphina wrote:The whole experience was so freakin weird. Cant feel anything from the chest down and 5 mins later this screaming baby appears from behind a blue sheet lol

The doctors are actually 12 level mages.

I remember having an epideril when I had my surgery for my chest. Wow, that was intense. I was on it for 3 days and it was NOT fun.

Yeah, that would be rough. Our kids were in the incubators for a week before we could take them home and it was a few days before we could take them out to feed them or even touch them much. They were giving them the formula through IV or down the nose. It's never fun seeing the kids like that but in your case and ours, it's more of a precaution thing than anything else.

You just had the baby and all you want to do is hold it and you can't. It sucks ASS as a new parent. But it sounds like the boy will be fine so it's just a matter of time. That's the great news.

My kids were 5lbs14oz & 21 in (girl) and 5lbs5oz & 21.8 in (boy) so they looked quite odd as they were thin but damned long at 34.5 weeks (they're still quite tall now, particularly for premies). Your boy looks relatively well proportioned and looks like he will be a little strong feller.

Ya gonna stay at the hospital with them? Not sure how it is down there but my wife rented a room in the NCIU unit for very cheap ($5 a day) so she could be with them all the time and breastfeed, which was quite important to her. As it was I was going after work and staying there 'til bedtime every night for a week. That was pretty tiring. It's hard if you're planning on breastfeeding going back and forth every 2-3 hours.

They have Ronald McDonald rooms available for free for parents of babies in the NICU, but its limited space and the worst cases get priority. One of the Drs thinks he will be home Monday, so I dont think I will worry about staying there. Id hate to take a spot over a tiny nicu baby's mom. We live about 25 mins away...and the breastfeeding thing isnt looking good for me unfortunately. Its just not working out. Im still working at it though....and Sine is a slave driver!

I got to change his diaper last night! That really helped me bond I think. I didnt get to see him but for a few seconds when he was born, and by the time I was able to get up, he was in the NICU and we couldnt touch him.

He has some jaundice now, which isnt a big deal, and his breathing is getting much better. He's doing most of the work now. I think they plan on starting to feed him now through the tube in his nose..unfortunately I dont have anything for him, but as long as he gets nutrition, Im ok with it. They were just giving him proteins and stuff through his IV.


My mom was here yesterday and she got to talking to a lady in the cafeteria. Her daughter was also in from a csection due to pre-eclampsia. Apparently she was taking a shower and started getting really dizzy, etc. Apparently she is one of the rare cases that delivery did not cure her condition, and it got really bad. She started having seizures and brain swelling causing bleeds in her brain. Shes here in the hospital in a coma.

Mine is fine, and there is a huge difference in my blood pressure now. I had borderline high bp before being pregnant, and now they have to take my bp before they give me my medicine to make sure it isnt too low. I dont think its quite stabalized yet, but its definitely much lower than it was when I was still pregnant.

So all in all, things are looking great. Sebastian is getting better every day and hopefully he will be able to come home soon.

Awesome news-- he'll be watching episodes of LOST with you in no time

So I'm home today. Sebastian is still in the NICU, but he got his ventilator out today and he is no longer sedated! He is still having a hard time breathing but it's much better and he will get better with time.

I got to hold him for a second today while the nurse changed out his blanket...I think Sine was a little jealous He opened his eyes a couple of times and made some noises..so cute

We don't have an exact day when he will be home, but it shouldn't be too much longer.

That's great to here Shellie. Can't wait for the little guy to come home.

Sounds like everything's fine just a matter of time. That's awesome

Sebastian is off oxygen now, and all his tubes and IV's are out except the nasal feeding tube. They are only keeping that just in case. He gets fed by bottle now and they monitor his respiratory rate before/during his feeding to make sure it stays normal. If his RR is too high, they feed him by tube, but so far since yesterday, he's been nothing but bottle!

Sine and I got to finally hold him and feed him tonight, it was awesome

Baring any setbacks with his breathing, he will be home Friday!

That's awesome. No real issues, just a little precautionary in the first week to make sure all was well.

Nice to finally be able to hold 'em and feel like you're providing for the child, huh? We went through that exact process for a week with the twins since they were a month premature. Now they're both above the 75th percentile in size for their ages. You'll see how fast the boy will grow once you get him home and on a good routine. It's amazing.

Sine, Shellie, did you guys get to bring him home? If so, we want pics! :-)

Oh yeah, he's home. lol Been so busy trying to sleep between feeding/burping/diapers the first few days I havent taken any pics of him home yet. This will be resolved soon

He's actually a very good baby. But he has a voracious appetite! When he's hungry he gets so frustrated till he gets a bottle, it's funny. Last night was the first good night where he actually slept for a good 4 hours-ish between feedings. Hopefully that continues from now on hah.

4 hours between feedings already? That's pretty good. Sounds like you'll have a good sleeper on your hands. That makes a world of difference with babies, you'll appreciate that very much. He should be sleeping 6+ hours at night within the next few months.

Oh, you think he has a good appetite now, huh? Just wait 'til he's past the 6 month mark and he's eating 3 or 4 large jars of baby food, the equivalent of two large baby food jars of cereal (once in the morning with fruit and once at night), and 4 8oz bottles a day. That's what my kids are doing now.

Suggestion: when you do get to the point where he's eating cereal, feed him a bowl/portion around 8pm to 9pm or an hour before you put him to sleep on top of his pre-sleep bottle. It will help him from getting too hungry too early in the morning and help him have a full night's sleep since he'll be on a full stomach. We found with our kids that they were too famished in the morning (they sleep 8 to 10 hours each every night) if we only fed them a bottle at night after they got a bit older. They woke up cranky because they were starving. Of course, this is assuming he will be a full night sleeper which it sounds like he may be.

Tessian wrote:Awesome news-- he'll be watching episodes of LOST with you in no time

LOL I was just looking over this thread and remember this post.

He has been watching Lost with us the past couple of nights

Zeus wrote:That's awesome. No real issues, just a little precautionary in the first week to make sure all was well.

Well, he did have some nasty respiratory issues in the beginning. I'm still not sure if he just had a lot of fluid in his lungs from birth, or if his lungs were still slightly immature. They did say he was surfactant deficient so probably both. He had a VERY gurgly cry when he was born. He couldnt keep his O2 levels up, so they put him on the vent.

He completely turned around though and the nurses said it was like he was a different baby. Apparently, he was very skittish and would get stressed when touched.

Now hes completely normal and happy. And cant stand not being held heh

All babies love to be held. That's something that you'll have to determine when you're going to decide not to do that anymore, pick them up 'cause they want it. There's different schools of thought on whether or not it's habit forming when they're really young. With our kids, it wasn't so bad. They were never too colicky when they were younger, we could just put them down. And they will still be alone for hours in the Exersaucers (highly recommended purchase) or their high chairs no prob. But every now and then, they try to throw tantrums or half-cry to be picked up. But these are very short outbursts 'cause we don't react to them and they know that so they don't keep trying. But man, when those kids came back from 6 weeks in Israel where they were held almost the entire time they were awake by various family members? It took us a week to get rid of that habit.

At least it wasn't too serious and he made a full recovery on his own in a very short period of time. From what you were describing before, it didn't seem like it was going to be so bad. I asked my wife (she's a nurse) about it and she says under-developed lungs or fluid in lungs are not too uncommon (she worked in the NICU for a bit) and not something to worry about too much. These units are very aware of how to deal with stuff like that. So my words of encouragement weren't just me trying to be nice, there was some merit behind it. But when it's your baby and you see them like that for the first couple of weeks and you hear these things, it's hard not to worry....A LOT.

Now that he's home and healthy, the real fun begins :-)

Yeah, he already does these half-cries in his sleep, which I give him a bit before I respond, but I think he's has a gas problem. The kid can fart in one room of the house and you can hear him on the other side of the house lol. He gets burped plenty and he's a great burper, and we use the vent air bottles so he's not getting too much air in his belly, but he still seems to have a major problem with gas. He goes to the pediatrician Friday, so we'll see if it's normal, or maybe his formula isn't agreeing with him. Also got him some gas drops today, so we'll see if those help too.

Overall, he's a great baby, but sometimes it's hard to transition from bottle/rocking him to sleep to putting him in the bed and keeping him asleep. Sometimes it takes a lot more rocking and holding to get him asleep enough to where he can be put in his crib and not wake up crying. Which sucks at 3am

As promised:


Just got back from his first pediatrician appt today. He's gained a pound in a week! The boy loves his bottle.

Awwww, he grew out of that Dr. Evil phase.

Seraphina wrote:As promised:


Just got back from his first pediatrician appt today. He's gained a pound in a week! The boy loves his bottle.

Adorable....and a LOT of hair. Looks like we're gonna be exchanging cutie picks for a while.

Speaking of that, my cuz just took a bunch of pics of my kids. I'll upload them to Flickr soon and send ya'll the links

LOL in a few years, we'll need a Kids Stuph forum for talking about all the Shrine kids

Seraphina wrote:LOL in a few years, we'll need a Kids Stuph forum for talking about all the Shrine kids

Oh god no lol.

Eric wrote:

Seraphina wrote:LOL in a few years, we'll need a Kids Stuph forum for talking about all the Shrine kids

Oh god no lol.

Oh God, yes. Then all of you could see the video of my son eating Cheerios that my sis posted on Crackbook. It's quite adorable :-D

Zeus wrote:Oh God, yes. Then all of you could see the video of my son eating Cheerios that my sis posted on Crackbook. It's quite adorable :-D

That's actually why Facebook is there. What is your Facebook login, anyway?

I didn't post it, my sis did. I lack the minimal level of vanity require to log into my Crackbook more than once every two months.

I only have a Crackbook account for very, very specific purposes. I don't really use it.

Zeus wrote:I didn't post it, my sis did. I lack the minimal level of vanity require to log into my Crackbook more than once every two months.

I only have a Crackbook account for very, very specific purposes. I don't really use it.

You know, some of us use Facebook without it destroying our schedules, personalities and souls...

Seraphina wrote:

Uncanny, really :-)

Just wait 'til his cheeks puff up and he's got the baby fat on him. They look far cuter then

Replay wrote:

Zeus wrote:I didn't post it, my sis did. I lack the minimal level of vanity require to log into my Crackbook more than once every two months.

I only have a Crackbook account for very, very specific purposes. I don't really use it.

You know, some of us use Facebook without it destroying our schedules, personalities and souls...

But how many notifications and wall posts do you have to wade through to get to that point? It's fucking irritating every time I get on Crackbook to see all that shit about NOTHING.