Alone

Today is the first day that Mia and I are alone. At first, I didn't know if I would be able to handle it. It's just so overwhelming to feed her every two hours and be alone and bear the pain of the feedings. When I look at what at angel she is, it helps me to focus. I feel that I can't give up though, because I want my baby to have the best I can give her. I want her to be healthy and happy.

Grandma Jeri

Today my mom came over to help with the baby. I don't think I really needed help; just someone to talk to and be there for support as I struggle to breastfeed. She says Mia reminds her of the infamous "Baby Allison". She says Mia seems familiar to her. Some of her mannerisms/facial expressions are similar to mine as a baby. We went on a short outing to Fresno Unified Payroll downtown and to the mall to exchange something. Because of the baby's tight feeding schedule and my discomfort walking, the outing was short, but it was nice to be out for a short time anyway.This afternoon, my mom got a big surprise while changing Mia's diaper. Once the diaper was off, she had a huge blowout. While my mom was trying to figure out how to get the baby out of the mess and get a diaper on her, she peed all over the changing table. It was quite a mess! I ended up cleaning up the baby on the floor while my mom washed the changing table cover.

It's off to work I go . . . by Troy

Today was my first full day back to work. I got to work about 30 mintes late. Allison and I were up at 2:00am and 4:00am and 6:00am. I wanted to sleep a little more. I got up and went to work at 9:00am. The day was busy and very stressful. We had a few problems last week and today I get to continue fixing them. For some reason when I leave the office everything starts to unravel. I would have liked to have been able to take more time off to spend with Allison and Mia but financially it will not work if we don't make money at the office. I could bore you with work stuff but I will fast forward to the end of the day at work.All day I had been looking at the clock counting down until I got to go home to see Allison and Mia. I look forward to going home and helping around the house and of course changing diapers. Allison's mom ,Jeri, stayed with her today to help with my transitioning back to work and we are very thankful that she was able to take a couple of days off from teaching to help out. We are very grateful that she could help. She will be coming by tomorrow as well. - TroyVisitors:Rosie Cutler brought by a great meal. She made Tri-Tip, Russett Potatoes, and vegetables. Mmmmmm... Can't wait for left-overs.

Ears by Troy

Visitors:Todd called to say congratulations

Activities:Today was my first day back to work. I went with Allison to the Lactation place at Community Medical Centers in Fresno. I went into work at noon and worked a half day. I was watching the clock to see how much longer I had to wait before I could race home and see Mia. I usually look at the clock during the day wondering where the time went but today the time was going so slowly. It was great to get home and hold her again. I have the wonderful job of burping and changing diapers. I never thought I would say this but I love to burp and change Mia. - Troy

Fun Stuff:Allison was nursing Mia and she had her hands on ears. It was so cute to see her holding her ears each time she goes to eat. We ended up taking pictures of it. - Troy

Explosion! by Troy

Visitors:Julie Wheelock and Dave & Karen Spaulding

Activities:We took pictures with Dave & Karen and had Panda Express for lunch. Very good. Also, Julie brought food over for us from the "Chicks" and we are going to be having ham for dinner. My job as dad is to keep Allison rested when I am here and also to wake up Mia before she eats. I have to wake her up, usually by striping her down to her diaper and mittens. The other thing I do as I wake her up is to change her diaper. Today when I was changing her I had just finished cleaning her off and was getting ready to put on the new diaper. I grabbed her legs to lift her up to put the diaper on and she "Let One Go" all over the changing table. This is not the first time this has happend. Usually I move Mia from side to side and she is good about finishing off her business. This time I didn't wait long enough.Fun Stuff:Put Mia on her stomache on the jungle mat. Very cute.

Mia Tortilla by Troy

Visitors:Grandma Radar, Jeri, Matthew

Activities:They dropped off dinner for us. Green enchiladas. Mmmm. Also, bought us a hamper for the babies clothes, shopping cart cover, hangers, and French baby words.Got a card from Sam and Marilyn gift card.

Fun Stuff: Took pictures of Mia’s little feet crossed like she was in the womb. Also, I love to call her, “Mia Tortilla” because she looks like a little rolled up tortilla. The other funny thing that she does is when she cries she has a little snort like a little piggy. We like to call her our little piggy too.Fun Stuff:Allison took pictures of Mia and Troy with matching white shirts.

Thanks

Visitors:Darrell Schmidt

Activities:Darrell dropped off food for us. Chicken salad sandwich, grapes, and cookies.

Houdini by Troy

Activities:Hospital to see lactation people. (Troy was sad throwing away diapers. For a split second I didn’t want to throw them away.)

Fun Stuff:We call Mia our little Houdini because we wrap you up in blankets and you continue to get your hands free. It is the funniest thing. We leave you and come back to see your hands out of the blankets.

Sleep Deprivation by Troy

Visitors:Jim, Jeri, Paul, Matthew, Heather, Ericlee, Dorina & Meilani - made dinner), Rosie to help Allison.

Activities:First bath by Papa Troy

Fun Stuff:Allison told me this morning that she tried to wake me up to get the blanket off the floor and I handed her my shorts instead with the belt dangling from it. Then she woke up again to see me burping the pillow. She said to me, “Troy, you are burping the pillow,” and I replied, “Ohhhh,” and went right back to sleep.

Help with the baby

Rosie to help Allison, Dave & Linda Vasquez

Meeting Mia

Anne Brandt, Dave & Linda Vasquez

More Visitors

Aunt Joanne, Aunt Kathy, Jeri, Paul

Mia's First Visitors

Aunt Joanne, Jim, Jeri, Paul, Dorina, Cori, Grandma & Grandpa Rader

Let the fun begin! by Troy

3:00am: “Troy… Troy… TROY!” Allison said as she was in the bathroom. “Haaaaaa,” I replied. “I think my water broke,” Allison said. I jumped out of bed and said, "What should I do." Allison was VERY calm and it was starting to scare me because she is never calm in stressful situations. Allison said not to rush and wanted me to calm down. She decided to go and take a shower and I told her I would pack her car (White 2000 Toyota Corolla.) Allison, being the perfectionist, already had everything packed and ready to go. All I had to do was move everything into the car. I kept running back and forth and back and forth, double and triple checking that we didn’t leave anything. Allison finally got out of the shower refreshed. I thought that meant that we could leave BUT of course that means we can blow dry our hair and put on our make-up. So, I made the bed and straightened up a few things before we left.Allison was finally ready and off we went to Clovis Community Hospital.

We decided to go down Herndon and ended up behind a drunk driver at around Cedar Avenue. Allison and I were trying to decide whether to call the police but decided to follow a little while longer. The person was going between lanes and ended up putting on their hazard lights as well. Then we decided that this person could really hurt someone and called the cops. I had Clovis PD saved in my cell phone (Nextel i730) because my office (200 W. Bullard, Suite B4, Clovis, CA 93612) was in Clovis and we had been burglarized before. So we called and spoke to a really nice lady on the phone. We described the situation and they said they had a cop coming the other way on Herndon. We turned off onto the freeway to get to the hospital and lost sight of the drunk. The cops called back because they couldn’t find them but we told them we already turned. Finally we were at the hospital.

We drove up to Clovis Community at about 4:15am and had to go to the emergency room side of the hospital. We had to go to this side because the regular hospital side is only there from 7:00am to 7:00pm. We gathered the essential items and made our way to the door. Allison was feeling good and hadn’t had any contractions yet. Little did we know what was to come. We walked up to the counter and filled out the paperwork and headed off to the elevators. The delivery and recovery was on the second floor. Allison was in a wheelchair and I wheeled her up to the second floor.We accidentally went to the recovery area and pressed the intercom button. No one answered the call. So we went to the other side and remembered that this areas was for delivery. I should have known this but it was a little too early to remember everything. As soon as I pressed the intercom button the doors opened. We walked (and rolled) up to the counter and they said keep going this way to door number 506. It was a straight shot from the hallway.

We got Allison up and she needed to change into her hospital gown.We started to get situated in the room that we were going to be for the next 12 hours. As Allison was getting ready to change into the hospital gown and asked me if she should put on her dress she brought. I told her to just put on the hospital gown and we will try it out for the beginning. The nurse came in a visited for a little and told us she was going to call the doctor to give him an update. It was about 4:30am. I said, “You are going to wake him up?” The nurse said that she has been bothering Dr. Peters all morning. The nurse wanted to give him an update and ask him what the next step was going to be.

So the nurse left and Allison got into her beautiful hospital gown. Allison, came out of the bathroom and got into the bed.A little time had passed and a second nurse came in and said she was going to start Allison's IV. I think this is when Allison started to get nervous. Allison doesn't like the site of needles and decided to turn away as the nurse started the IV. Allison told her not to tell her when it was going in because she thought she would faint. The nurse got the IV in and taped everything down. The nurse left and I told Allison to lay down and try and get some sleep because she was going to need it later. Allison laid down and tried to get comfortable.The first nurse came back in with another devise and told Allison that Dr. Peters said to start her on "Pitocin" which would help start the contractions. Up until this point Allison has not been feeling anything. So, they started the drip. They started her at 1.. then 2... and then the contractions started to really get big.At this point Allison was having a hard time getting through the contractions. We had spoken about getting an Epideral and Allison had not made up her mind. At this point the hospital started to get more active. Others were having babies and we could hear screaming.

The head nurse came into check on us and her name was Wendy Goodfellow. She was very nice and had an English accent. She asked how we were doing and Allison told her that she was in a lot of pain already. We asked Wendy how much worse is it going to get and she said a lot more.It was now about 7:00am in the morning and the nurse that put in the IV came back in to check on us and Allison told her that she had decided that she wanted an Epideral. The nurse looked back and said, "We don't usually give Epiderals to smiling happy patients." The nurse left and Wendy came back in to check on us again. We told her that Allison was going to want to have an Epideral and that we had told the other nurse. We told Wendy what the other nurse had said and Wendy said, "Well, is she in the bed with the pain?" Up to this point we had heard horror stories about people waiting too long and not being able to get an Epideral so we wanted to put in our request early. Wendy said she would try an catch the Anesthesiologist in between the five C-sections that were scheduled for today. She said it might be a little while.Well, two and a half hours later the Anesthesiologist still had not arrived. Wendy came back to check again and decided to give Allison something that would help her relax a little until the Anesthesiologist arrived. This calmed Allison down and helped her get through the next 30 minutes until the Anesthesiologist was able to break away.

It was now 10:00am and the Anesthesiologist was ready to give Allison the Epideral. This was very intemidating because you have to read the disclaimer that you could be paralized and tons of things could go wrong. Once again Wendy was right there by our side guiding us through the stress. She got Allison talking and so did the doctor and this helped her relax through the process. Allison told the doctor that she didn't want to know when the needle prick was going to happen. So, we continued talking and the doctor said that you might feel a little shock and right then Allison jumped. "Wow, it felt like I stuck my and in the light socket." The doctor started an infusion of the medicine and Allison's pain immediatly went away. So, the doctor finished up taping and organizing the cords. He finished up and then Wendy said she was going to put in a calthader and another monitoring device for the actual labor/pushing part.

Nurse:Wendy Goodfellow

Doctor:Dr. Alfred Peters

Visitors:Jeri (coffee in the morning), Jeri & Jim 10 minutes after birth), Dave & Karen

Activities:Moved to new room in hospital

Fun Stuff: We heard Mia’s cry and it sounded like she was saying, “Ah-Huh, Ah-Huh, Ah-Huh, Ah-Huh.” This was soooo cute.

I know we are going to the hospital tonight! by Troy

“Hey Troy, want to rake some rocks?” Well, Allison and I were getting ready to get into the pool at our house when she looked over and saw the rocks next to the pool with weeds all over the place. For some reason today she had more energy and had a “nesting moment.” So, I grabbed the trash can and wheel-barrow and started to help. I jokingly told her that I thought we would be heading to the hospital tonight. Little did I know at the time that I would be, right? We still had another 6 days before the actual due date.