so apparently there have been rumblings. the public wants new photos. well, the public wants what the public gets.
but first, a few notes. i went to the hematologist last friday and he ordered a bunch of tests. so this week, i had 12 tubes of blood taken for tests. 12, people. it was supposed to be 19, but they were able to combine some tests. what the heck. did the doctor not understand that i was in his office because i had LOST BLOOD??? my follow-up appointment is in about two weeks.
charis has been sleeping 5-6 hours at a time at night...the trick is getting that started late enough that it's beneficial to us :)
derek and i took a walk tonight...my first walk since charis was born. it was nice to get out. we put charis in the stroller, and that lasted about halfway thru the walk. then derek had to carry her because she was too fussy.
oh! big news! derek and i went to lunch and a movie yesterday. my mom watched charis, and we went to see wall-e. it was a great movie, and we recommend it to anyone. charis did pretty well at mom's...she cried for about half an hour after we left, and then ate and then slept the rest of the time there. it was so much harder than i thought it would be, leaving her there. she's 5.5 weeks old now, and it occurred to me that most people go back to work when the baby is 6 weeks old. there is no possible way i could imagine leaving her all day at this point. i wanted to cry when we left mom's, and we were only gone a few hours. that little fuss-bucket has wormed her way into my heart, for sure.
today we were at church all afternoon working on set build for the musical. derek had his power drill, i had charis. i put her in the ergo, and it worked fabulously. she slept in there most of the day. we didn't even use the infant insert -- she does so well holding her head up, i thought i'd try it...and she's so small, the back part is tall enough that it comes up to the bottom of her head and gives her head support anyway. it worked great, and she really liked it. yay!!
ok, you've done your dues, reading my ramblings. you will now be rewarded with pictures.
ok. actually there will be no pictures because, sadly, all the new pictures were somehow lost in transfer and then deleted from the camera automatically. :( we lost some cute ones. :(
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
one month and six hours.
charis is one month old today!!
charis slept 6 straight hours last night!!
two very good reasons to celebrate. oh, let's celebrate with pictures, yes? yes.
(all were taken today)
charis slept 6 straight hours last night!!
two very good reasons to celebrate. oh, let's celebrate with pictures, yes? yes.
(all were taken today)
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
new pics and baby zits
so like most babies, our little girl has acquired some baby acne :) we still think she's cute, though! here are some new pics for you to enjoy...
charis practicing her best air guitar pose
grams holding charis at daddy's graduation ceremony
(our camera battery died, so we have to wait for pics from grams and grandpa of all of us celebrating)
(our camera battery died, so we have to wait for pics from grams and grandpa of all of us celebrating)
daddy and charis hanging out on father's day
examples of mommy exploiting cuteness and taking far too many pictures, also on father's day
charis practicing her best air guitar pose
the shape of things to come (who can resist that pout???)
home again.
well, things didn't go quite as planned yesterday.
the surgery went well. the procedure itself, that is. and according to my dr, about 1 minute after he completed the procedure, i hemorrhaged. i had even talked to him beforehand, begging him to not let me bleed afterwards. and there i went, bleeding after a procedure that's supposed to REDUCE bleeding. things were pretty dicey for about an hour, and they called for blood and thought they would need to transfuse me. i was a bit out of it for a while (more because of the blood loss than the anesthetic).
they gave me some medication to help stop the bleeding, and apparently that did the trick. things normalized over the next couple hours, and by 11, i was asking for ice chips and snacks. they told me that if i was able to get up to go to the bathroom without getting lightheaded, they could send me home. that never ended up happening...so my dr decided the safe thing was to admit me for the night and check my blood again in the morning.
before surgery, my hemoglobin was 11.9 (12 and above is considered normal). this morning, it was 7.4. that's a pretty big drop. as i mentioned after the birth, 6 is where they transfuse. the dr suggested transfusing this morning, but said that since i was able to be up for short periods of time without light-headedness, he thought i should just go home and take it easy. so i was released this morning around 11.30.
derek had charis all to himself for about 24 hours, and i would like to say publicly how amazing he is. charis took bottles of my milk from him until we ran out, and then had to have some formula. she took it like a trooper. and derek just did a great job with her.
the next step is to find out why i have these bleeding issues. it's just never been a problem for me before. so i'm being referred to a hematologist and we're going to try to get to the bottom of this.
so the three of us are home now and resting. the windows are open and the fresh air is so relaxing for me. i'm still in disbelief that i've had three hospitalizations in 4 months. i've never had any issues like this before, and it is taking a long time for my body to recover. it's frustrating. but i've learned not to push it too much.
the surgery went well. the procedure itself, that is. and according to my dr, about 1 minute after he completed the procedure, i hemorrhaged. i had even talked to him beforehand, begging him to not let me bleed afterwards. and there i went, bleeding after a procedure that's supposed to REDUCE bleeding. things were pretty dicey for about an hour, and they called for blood and thought they would need to transfuse me. i was a bit out of it for a while (more because of the blood loss than the anesthetic).
they gave me some medication to help stop the bleeding, and apparently that did the trick. things normalized over the next couple hours, and by 11, i was asking for ice chips and snacks. they told me that if i was able to get up to go to the bathroom without getting lightheaded, they could send me home. that never ended up happening...so my dr decided the safe thing was to admit me for the night and check my blood again in the morning.
before surgery, my hemoglobin was 11.9 (12 and above is considered normal). this morning, it was 7.4. that's a pretty big drop. as i mentioned after the birth, 6 is where they transfuse. the dr suggested transfusing this morning, but said that since i was able to be up for short periods of time without light-headedness, he thought i should just go home and take it easy. so i was released this morning around 11.30.
derek had charis all to himself for about 24 hours, and i would like to say publicly how amazing he is. charis took bottles of my milk from him until we ran out, and then had to have some formula. she took it like a trooper. and derek just did a great job with her.
the next step is to find out why i have these bleeding issues. it's just never been a problem for me before. so i'm being referred to a hematologist and we're going to try to get to the bottom of this.
so the three of us are home now and resting. the windows are open and the fresh air is so relaxing for me. i'm still in disbelief that i've had three hospitalizations in 4 months. i've never had any issues like this before, and it is taking a long time for my body to recover. it's frustrating. but i've learned not to push it too much.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
the belated aftermath.
so things took a little turn today.
i had some excessive bleeding overnight and as a result, we called the doctor around 1am to get his thoughts. he wanted me to come in this morning to be examined, and when we arrived at the office, they had scheduled me for an ultrasound.
the ultrasound showed that there are "products of the pregnancy" still present in my uterus...so the dr said i need to have a d&c. (you can read about it at http://www.emedicinehealth.com/dilation_and_curettage_dandc/article_em.htm)
i am scheduled for the procedure (an outpatient procedure) at 8.30 am on monday. they had wanted me to do it tomorrow, but with derek's graduation on saturday, i asked if we could wait until monday. the dr felt that would be ok, that if something catastrophic was going to happen, it would've happened already. if i should have a lot of bleeding between now and then, we would need to go to the hospital and have the procedure done right away. but he thinks we are safe to wait until monday.
i will be under general anesthetic for the procedure, so that will affect my milk. that will mean that for several hours afterwards, i won't be able to feed charis. the only problem with this is that she has yet to accept a bottle (with my expressed milk...not formula). so during this time, she will either be very very hungry, or she'll learn to take the bottle.
here i was thinking that my recovery was almost complete, with my hemoglobin testing at 10.9 last week (i'm still anemic, but recovering well). so this is a bit of a set back. but i've had friends who have had the procedure before and haven't seemed to have problems or very much recovery with it. so although i'm a little freaked out, it's a fairly common and low risk procedure, and i'm optimistic. although, prayers are always appreciated. :)
i had some excessive bleeding overnight and as a result, we called the doctor around 1am to get his thoughts. he wanted me to come in this morning to be examined, and when we arrived at the office, they had scheduled me for an ultrasound.
the ultrasound showed that there are "products of the pregnancy" still present in my uterus...so the dr said i need to have a d&c. (you can read about it at http://www.emedicinehealth.com/dilation_and_curettage_dandc/article_em.htm)
i am scheduled for the procedure (an outpatient procedure) at 8.30 am on monday. they had wanted me to do it tomorrow, but with derek's graduation on saturday, i asked if we could wait until monday. the dr felt that would be ok, that if something catastrophic was going to happen, it would've happened already. if i should have a lot of bleeding between now and then, we would need to go to the hospital and have the procedure done right away. but he thinks we are safe to wait until monday.
i will be under general anesthetic for the procedure, so that will affect my milk. that will mean that for several hours afterwards, i won't be able to feed charis. the only problem with this is that she has yet to accept a bottle (with my expressed milk...not formula). so during this time, she will either be very very hungry, or she'll learn to take the bottle.
here i was thinking that my recovery was almost complete, with my hemoglobin testing at 10.9 last week (i'm still anemic, but recovering well). so this is a bit of a set back. but i've had friends who have had the procedure before and haven't seemed to have problems or very much recovery with it. so although i'm a little freaked out, it's a fairly common and low risk procedure, and i'm optimistic. although, prayers are always appreciated. :)
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
pronunciation guide.
it's probably a little overdue, but we've noticed a lot of you are wondering how to pronounce our little girl's name. so here is a handy guide.
it's pronounced like "kare-iss"
...
or think of it like "paris" with a "k" sound at the beginning.
also...my blood work came back and my hemoglobin continues to improve, but i'm still anemic. i'll keep taking the iron supplements and probably get tested again at my 6-week appointment. tests for von willebrand's disease came back negative...which is good in that i don't have it...bad in that we still don't know why i had a blood issue during the birth.
it's pronounced like "kare-iss"
...
or think of it like "paris" with a "k" sound at the beginning.
also...my blood work came back and my hemoglobin continues to improve, but i'm still anemic. i'll keep taking the iron supplements and probably get tested again at my 6-week appointment. tests for von willebrand's disease came back negative...which is good in that i don't have it...bad in that we still don't know why i had a blood issue during the birth.
Monday, June 9, 2008
long time no post.
well it's been a while, hasn't it??? we've been going through a phase here. that phase is called "i don't sleep unless mommy is holding me." the difficult thing about that phase is that it coincides with another phase called "i want to be held when i'm awake." so basically, we have to hold her all the time. which doesn't make typing very easy. or anything else. but we're working through these phases. we've learned that when she falls asleep in our arms, if we try to put her down somewhere on her back, she just wakes up because she doesn't want to be on her back. so we've learned to lay her down on her side and that seems to be doing the trick the past couple days. so i'm actually getting some baby-free time, which is great.
a lot has happened since our last post. at the pediatrician last thursday, she measured 21 1/4 inches (a 1 1/8 inch gain from a week prior) and 8lb10oz (a 12oz gain from a week prior!). everything checked out well in general, so our next appt with the pediatrician is when she's two months.
my checkup went ok. my blood pressure was a tad low, but obviously better than when i was in the hospital. the dr. ordered some blood work to check my hemoglobin and see how i'm recovering. he also ordered a test for a thing called von willebrand's disease. it's a form of hemophelia and may explain what happened to me after the birth. we're waiting for the results, but if i do have it, it just means i'll get some medication in my iv during the next birth to prevent excessive blood loss.
last monday, my cousin holly came down from columbus to visit and meet the baby. turns out, charis ended up being born on holly's birthday! here's a pic of the two of them...
on tuesday, we managed to give her a "happy" bath:
and here's charis helping daddy with his final project:
apparently, this is me and charis taking a nap together. i, uh, didn't know this photo was being taken :)
and here are a couple other naptime photos:
i can't think of much else to say. mostly we spend our days feeding her and calming her down to get her to sleep. she's sleeping in about 4 hour segments at night...once in a while we get 5 or 6 at a time. so she's doing fairly well in that department we think.
this is an important week around here...derek has his end of quarter show tomorrow night at UC...then his final critique on wednesday...then graduation saturday...then father's day sunday. whew! it will be a busy week for us.
a lot has happened since our last post. at the pediatrician last thursday, she measured 21 1/4 inches (a 1 1/8 inch gain from a week prior) and 8lb10oz (a 12oz gain from a week prior!). everything checked out well in general, so our next appt with the pediatrician is when she's two months.
my checkup went ok. my blood pressure was a tad low, but obviously better than when i was in the hospital. the dr. ordered some blood work to check my hemoglobin and see how i'm recovering. he also ordered a test for a thing called von willebrand's disease. it's a form of hemophelia and may explain what happened to me after the birth. we're waiting for the results, but if i do have it, it just means i'll get some medication in my iv during the next birth to prevent excessive blood loss.
last monday, my cousin holly came down from columbus to visit and meet the baby. turns out, charis ended up being born on holly's birthday! here's a pic of the two of them...
on tuesday, we managed to give her a "happy" bath:
and here's charis helping daddy with his final project:
apparently, this is me and charis taking a nap together. i, uh, didn't know this photo was being taken :)
and here are a couple other naptime photos:
i can't think of much else to say. mostly we spend our days feeding her and calming her down to get her to sleep. she's sleeping in about 4 hour segments at night...once in a while we get 5 or 6 at a time. so she's doing fairly well in that department we think.
this is an important week around here...derek has his end of quarter show tomorrow night at UC...then his final critique on wednesday...then graduation saturday...then father's day sunday. whew! it will be a busy week for us.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
illinois family.
so as i mentioned, derek's parents and sister came to meet charis this weekend. we had a nice time with them. how could you not have a nice time when there's graeter's involved. may i recommend the blueberry sorbet? yum.
so here are a few pics of the grandparents...
charis went to church for the first time today...she did fabulous. i had her in the moby and she just slept the whole time... at one point, i did leave the service because she was grunting quite loudly...but she never woke up or cried. hopefully this is a trend.
here are a few more pics to enjoy...i took these this morning before church.
so here are a few pics of the grandparents...
charis went to church for the first time today...she did fabulous. i had her in the moby and she just slept the whole time... at one point, i did leave the service because she was grunting quite loudly...but she never woke up or cried. hopefully this is a trend.
here are a few more pics to enjoy...i took these this morning before church.
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