Tales of Baby McCabe: November 2011

These past few weeks have flown by! While we haven't been getting much sleep, we've been having a lot of fun snuggling Nolan and showing him off to friends and family. Nolan still loves being in our arms and prefers to sleep with one of us holding him. While we do give and in and do this during the day, we do want him to get used to sleeping in his pack n play, crib, swing, car seat, etc., anywhere so we can get some sleep, too! We've had some successful nights and some not so successful nights. We're tweaking things here and there to find out what works best for Nolan (making the room a tad warmer, warming up the mattress with a heating pad before we lay him down, etc). We're still trying to figure it out. Nolan seems to take after my sleeping habits somewhat...or at least he is acting like that now. He fights sleep so much some days! He'll be fast asleep for five or ten minutes, wake himself up, and then fights it when his eyes get drowsy. It can be frustrating! Hopefully its just a stage that will pass quickly and he'll figure out a nice sleeping pattern.

We managed to make it to both families for Thanksgiving. Jason's extended family hadn't seen Nolan yet, so they had a lot of fun holding him. Of course since he was being held the whole time he slept nicely and didn't fuss!

We've introduced a pacifier to Nolan because he seems to have a strong need to suck for comfort. He takes it sometimes, but spits it out when he's hungry, which is good that he's not confusing the two. Tomorrow, when he turns three weeks old, we are introducing the bottle for the first time. We were advised at our breastfeeding class to introduce it at three weeks so he is used to it when I go back to work. So Jason will give him one bottle a day from now on. Jason is excited to finally be able to feed him and I am excited for a break here and there!

Looking back at the pictures from my last blog and looking at the ones I am about to post I can see that Nolan is already changing and growing so much! His newborn Pampers are getting pretty snug on his growing tummy. We'll be switching to size 1's here pretty soon. He's still fitting into newborn clothes (for the time being), but that will probably change pretty soon as well!

Try number 2 with the 0 month onesie

Nolan is so excited to be one week old!

Beautiful bracelet that Jason gave me. It has Nolan's initials on it!

Nap time.

Love that hair!

Activity gym time.

Keegan just has to get in on the activity gym time!

Nolan loves his jungle friends.

Nolan's first Thanksgiving!

Grandparents with their grandchildren.

Nolan's way of letting me know he is hungry and it is time to eat!

Bath time!

Trying to warm up.

Look at those curls!

Hair combed down...

And it springs back up! Sleepy baby.

All tuckered out after his bath.

Nolan David McCabe has arrived! He arrived one day early, giving himself the rhyming birthday of November 7, 2011 (11/7/11). He must like palindromes, because he was born at 9:19am.

Nolan's labor was very fast and he had a dramatic and scary delivery. Thankfully everything turned out fine, but Jason and I were very scared at one point. Here's the story:

My water broke at 2:30am, we got to the hospital at 5:00am, and I was fully dilated by 7:45am. It went very fast! At 8:45am the nurse came in so I could start pushing. As soon as she started to raise the bed, his heart rate dropped. She put an oxygen mask on me, which helped raise it back up. I pushed through a contraction, it dropped again. She laid the bed back down and his heart rate went back up. She called another nurse in to come help monitor. She had me push through another contraction, same thing happened. She laid me all the way back down on my left, got his heart rate back up, and said no more pushing until the doctor gets here. She emergency paged the doctor who was there within minutes. The doctor had me push through one more contraction, same thing happened again. They laid me back down and got the heart rate back up. I asked if the cord was around his neck and they thought probably.

The doctor did not like how low his heart rate was dropping so she said she was going to give me one more contraction to try pushing and she was going to try to suction him out, or else it would be an emergency c-section. Suddenly there were about 6 nurses in the room preparing for a c-section and the doctor was yelling for the anesthesiologist to come as fast he could. The next contraction came and I had about 8 people yelling at me to push as hard as I could. The doctor and I were able to get his head out. Sure enough, the cord was wrapped tightly around his neck like a noose. The doctor cut the cord and then I pushed his body out.

Thankfully he was pink from head to toe and cried immediately (which was the best sound I could ever hear) and was wide eyed, alert, and wanting to eat! Nolan's been a great baby so far and loves to cuddle! I'm glad he is a little peanut; if he had been much bigger, I probably wouldn't have been able to get him out with just one more contraction, and would have had to have a c-section. So it was very scary and intense, but thankfully everything worked out fine and we were able to go home on Wednesday!

Nolan does have jaundice, but it has not been enough to need to use the lights. When we were discharged we were told to get him to the doctor within 2 or 3 days instead of waiting the standard week so the pediatrician could check his bilirubin level. We got an appointment last Friday morning with a pediatrician (who also is a Gustie!). Nolan had maintained his hospital discharge weight - 6 lb 13 oz, which the doctor was happy with. She didn't like the "suntan" he had (yellow in his skin) so she ordered a blood test to check his bilirubin. We went to the lab and the nurse pricked his heal, which made him scream and cry. Jason and I hated that part. A few hours later we got the phone call from the doctor that Nolan's bilirubin was high, but still considered in the normal range (same as it was in the hospital). She told us to make sure he eats on demand and does not go for more than three hours without eating, because eating and pooping will naturally lower his bilirubin level.

We went back to the doctor this morning to check Nolan's level again and were happily surprised that he gained 8 ounces since Friday! He has surpassed his birth weight of 7lb 1oz and now weighs 7lb 5oz. Looks like he won't be my little peanut for long if he keeps that up! He'll be my chubby guy. The doctor thought he didn't look as jaundiced today but wanted to be sure, so she ordered another blood draw. Nolan acted like a pro and didn't cry this time though, so it wasn't as painful for Jason and me to watch. :)

A few hours later we got the great news that his bilirubin level was lower! Because he already is gaining weight (the goal is to be back to birth weight by 2 weeks old) and his jaundice is getting better, Nolan won't need to go back to the doctor until his 2 month checkup.

Nolan has been a great baby so far. He only fusses when he's hungry, which is an easy fix. The first few nights home Nolan refused to sleep unless Jason and I were holding him...he wanted to snuggle! I read that this is completely normal for newborns; they have realized that they aren't in the warm womb anymore and the next best thing is snuggling up to a warm body. Laurie and Nick gave us some great tips though! We bought him a womb sound teddy bear (recommended by Laurie and Nick) which simulates the mom's heartbeat heard in the womb. The other tip is when putting him down in the bassinet, lay him down with his cheek touching my cheek and wait 10-15 seconds before pulling away. The last three nights Nolan has slept in his bassinet inbetween feedings and will sometimes sleep in his swing when he naps during the day.

Both Jason and I have been peed on while changing Nolan. Today he started peeing at the exact moment my hand was moving to grab his onesie, and the pee ricocheted off my hand and went all over Nolan, his outfit, and the changing table. He definitely got a bath after that one!

Keegan has been a great big brother to Nolan. He is interested in him, sniffs him, but doesn't try to lick him. He respects his distance with Nolan and hasn't seemed to be too jealous of him yet. Jason's been great with taking Keegan on walks to play fetch and we both have been trying to give Keegan lots of attention.

Other than being extremely tired (why is it that I'm always wide awake when Nolan's asleep - I haven't been successful at sleeping when baby sleeps), Jason and I are so happy and in love with our little guy. We are so happy that everything is going well with him. We could stare at the cute faces he makes all day long; it never gets old! We can't believe that Nolan is already one week old. Time can slow down now.