She's here!!

Charlotte Elizabeth

We are proud to announce that on Friday, September 24, we officially became a family of 4. Charlotte Elizabeth Nold was born at 2:03 pm, at a weight of 6 pounds 13 ounces, and a length of 19 1/2 inches.


Here's a photo recap of the last few days. Wednesday was my last day of work, and on Thursday, my mom (Grammy Jarvis) flew in from Vermont. After picking her up at the airport, she accompanied me to my last prenatal appointment. We arrived a bit early, so to kill a few minutes of time, we went across the street from my doctor's office (on Michigan Ave) and checked out the Bean.



Later that evening, we went out to Grandma and Grandpa Nold's house to drop off Jack and Lou. Here's Jack in some of his last moments as an only child :)



Grammy, Andy, and I arrived at the hospital bright and early Friday morning at 5:00 am. I started receiving Pitocin around 5:45, and about 8 hours later Charlotte arrived. The only good thing I have to say about the labor is that it was shorter than with Jack (his lasted about 18 hours). Also, I didn't have to push very long--just about 20 minutes. Apart from that, I'll just say I thought I had experienced the worst pain of my life with Jack's labor, but the pain this time was on a whole other level. I really don't like to think about it.

My post-delivery experience was excellent. There were some things I really wanted with Charlotte that I hadn't known much about at the time with Jack. I wanted her skin-to-skin with me immediately after delivery, and for most of the procedures (measurements, eye prophylaxis, bath, Vitamin K shot, etc.) to wait until after Charlotte's first feeding. Our main nurse was great, and she was perfectly willing to adjust her normal post-delivery routine around my wishes. I had gone into the hospital that day all prepared to battle with the staff if necessary to get what I wanted, and then it turned out I didn't have to worry about that at all :)




Grandma and Grandpa Nold brought Jack to the hospital later that evening. Jack's overall reaction to Charlotte so far has mostly been ambivalence. He's been basking in all the attention from his grandparents and the gifts that people have been thoughtful to get for him.

I wasn't a big fan of my hospital bed, but Jack seemed to like it.




(We're still working on getting a picture of the 4 of us together.)

We were discharged from the hospital Saturday evening, but up until today were back at the hospital every day. Charlotte tested positive on her Coombs test, so her bilirubin levels and risk of jaundice were a concern. (I'm probably not saying this exactly right, but the Coombs test is kind of a mother-infant blood-type incompatibility indicator; temporary for a newborn, but one of the side effects can be increased risk for jaundice).

She's still looking a little yellow now, but fortunately, her bilirubin level remained stable and at a safe level from Sunday-Monday, so she didn't have to get admitted for phototherapy like Jack did. (Jack's jaundice wasn't due to Coombs; it was a bit of a mystery, but I still maintain it was from being exposed to Pitocin for such a long time.)

Perfect timing...looks like our little girl is waking up from her nap, so I will wrap this up. We have lots more pictures, so hopefully I can post those in the next day or two.

Baby Update

Our little girl will be here within the week! If she doesn't come on her own by Friday, I will be induced. Now we're just holding our breath that she'll stay in position. True to form, she was properly head-down this Monday, had a big dance party Wednesday night, and flipped breech again.

We decided to do an external version to move her, like we did with Jack, to increase the likelihood that she'll be positioned properly if I go into labor within the next few days. My doctor performed the procedure yesterday afternoon, and fortunately all went well--no complications, no emergency c-section. She flipped very quickly, like Jack did, and it was all over in about 5 minutes. (It is not a pleasant experience, and I have the utmost sympathy for women whose procedures take longer.)

We are so excited to meet our baby girl! It's hard to believe that after waiting all these months, I will finally be able to hold her in a week.

Football fan

Jack making his daddy proud yesterday; he was enthralled by the end of the Michigan-Notre Dame game (I will admit, it was much better entertainment than the Dawgs game).

Does the tongue help? Michigan won--maybe so.

Labor Day

A Happy Birthday shout-out to all the Fields' family September birthdays: Uncle Stephen (yesterday), Grandmomma Fields Thursday, and Aunt Anna on Saturday. Looks like our baby girl will be in good company with her September birthday.

Grandma and Grandpa Nold hosted a Labor Day party yesterday. Thanks for all the great food, entertainment, and to Grandpa Nold for getting a rare picture of the 3 of us together!

Did you know riding in a toy car can be a hair-raising experience? We didn't either, until yesterday. This car caused quite the impressive case of static electricity!

Andy with a couple of the Ridgewood ladies--Jan Word and Jean Plunkett.

Some of the neighborhood children came over to play. Here's Jack with Bobby and Tai.

Tai and Bobby each wanted to push Jack around on the cart. Jack was happy to oblige!

Night-night

Jack is slowly but surely making progress with his speech. He used to just say the sound "Nnnn" for "night-night," but recently he's progressed to saying the whole word. Sort of. He draws it out in a very long and slow pronunciation--pretty darn cute!


He also likes to practice his tumbling on the couch!

Ultrasound

I had my last level 2 ultrasound of the pregnancy today. Toward the end, the doctor said he had a surprise for me. He switched instruments, and all of a sudden, our baby girl's face popped up on the screen! It was such a wonderful surprise I even teared up a bit. We never had a 3-D ultrasound with Jack, so this was my first experience with one. We also got some more traditional pictures--here's a profile shot, with her hand in front of her face. It's estimated she weighs about 5 pounds, 12 ounces right now.


She'll be here in less than a month! I'm 36 weeks today. So far (knock on wood), this pregnancy has been much better, medically speaking, than my first. My blood pressure has behaved itself, and it's taken less than half the dosage of medication to keep things under control. She's also VERY active, which helps me get through my twice-weekly non-stress tests more quickly than with Jack.

The only negative thing right now is that she won't seem to move in the right position. I have ultrasounds every week, and she's always transverse or breech. The doctor said today that in order to get in position, she needs to turn counter-clockwise, and the placenta seems to be in her way. Hopefully she'll get things figured out, but if not, we may need to do an external aversion to flip her around, like we had to with Jack.

I'd also like to avoid being induced this time, but we'll see what happens. Because of my high risk for superimposed preeclampsia, my doctor thinks it's dangerous to let me go past my due date. If we're lucky, she'll decide to make her grand entrance on her own sometime during the 39th week.

We'll see what happens! Won't be long now.

Table

You know it's been a slow weekend when the only pictures to post are of a table. But I don't mind--we've been so busy lately that we've really enjoyed the chance to relax a little. Here are some pictures of the brand-new dining table Andy bought for us. After years of living in small condos and our townhome in Chicago, we finally have an official dining room! I was even able to dig out the placemats that were given to us as a gift years ago, but we never had a table for.

Jack thought the table was more fun when it was still in the box.