The Last few weeks

So I go back to work tomorrow and I'm kinda freaking out a bit!!!! It came up so fast...I can't believe that Austin is 7 weeks old. Time really does fly. I was thinking back on all that has happened since the last time I wrote so I thought I'd give you all a recap.

The first weeks were really hard...ok so the first month was pretty hard. Trying to adjust to having a little person to care for and mostly just trying to figure out why he was crying. Mike's mom and her husband came right after Austin was born and they were are HUGE help. But then we were on our own...and mostly I was on my own, at least during the day. Mike was able to have a ton of work right after Austin was born, which was such a God thing, but that meant I was at home alone with Austin. It was scary, I didn't know what I was doing.  Mike would get home in the afternoon and he would be my saving grace. He has been a great dad, very patient and is so supportive of me and helps with so many things. But the beginning was hard for both of us, Austin would cry and we would have no idea what to do to help him. But he was about the cutest baby ever and our little miracle and would melt our hearts all the time. It's amazing how you can love something so much.

Now here we are a little over 7 weeks later and we are pros at this...well, ok not pros but we sure feel like we have a better grasp on things. Austin is now able to stay awake for longer periods of time and he is happy more and more of that awake time. He has smiled, but of course I can't catch it on the camera. We love "talking" to him and having him respond in his own little way. He of course loves his swing and is very interested in the high contrast pictures I have taped to everything. 

We are trying to take as many pictures as we can. Sometimes we get caught up in the moment and forget that we need to document what is going on since it's going to go by so fast. But here are a few more pictures from these past few weeks 

Austin's Halloween Costume 

Mike's brother Derek and his wife Laura came to visit for Thanksgiving

We are so blessed to have this little baby in our lives. We didn't know that something was missing in our lives until he arrived. Can't imagine life without him now. As he starts to amaze us with his many talents we will be sure to document it and share it with you all. Thank you for spending a bit of time reading what we have been up to. 

Another video

Yes, I know we are going a little crazy with the video camera...but this is our first baby and hey it's ok because he's cute.

Austin's Video debut

Austin Anthony Peck

Well our little bundle of joy arrived on Thursday October 7, 2010 at 4:42 pm, 8 lbs 2 oz, 21 in long.

On Wednesday evening we went to the hospital because the "normal" contractions that I had been feeling had gotten a little bit more uncomfortable and I was concerned that this might be causing the baby stress. So we went in to see if he was ok...he was and they sent me home. Well around midnight that night I began to feel more pain with the "contractions," I wasn't entirely convinced that it was labor so I tossed and turned all night long. When 6am rolled around there was no denying the fact that I was in pain with every contraction. So we headed off to the hospital at 6am on Thursday morning. They put me in a triage room and hooked me up to the baby heart rate monitor and the contraction monitor to see if I was actually in labor. When they check my cervix I was dilated to 1.5 cm. Every contraction was very intense. Well by 11am we were still in the triage room waiting for the Dr. to come and check my cervix before admitting me. When he checked I was dilated to 4cm, so I was admitted. I made the decision to get an epidural, so that was put in place around 12:30 pm. The Dr. said that he would be in shortly after I got the epidural to break my water.  When the Dr. came in around 4pm to break my water I measured at 5cm dilated and the baby was still not engaged into the cervix. He didn't want to break my water so that it gushed out because he didn't want the umbilical cored to come out first. So instead he pin pricked it and it trickled out. He then placed a fetal monitor on the baby's head to get a better read on what was happening with him. All day the baby's heart rate had been pretty flat...when I say flat I mean that it stood steady at a baseline of around 140-150 beats. They like to see him show some peaks and then return to the baseline and he hadn't done that hardly all day. This concerned the Dr. and coupled with the fact that he wasn't engaged into my cervix and that my blood work had come back with my white cell count elevated (which signified an infection) they decided to do an emergency c-section. So they got me prepared and we headed off.

While I was laying on the table after they pulled the baby out the Dr. leaned over and told me that they had found the infection on the baby's side of the placenta. Because of this he came out of me with pneumonia, which made it difficult for him to breath on his own. They worked on him while I was being stitched up and had to assist him in breathing, it became so bad that they had to take him to the NICU to have a ventilator put in. I still had not seen him. They took me to the recovery room and Mike went with baby Austin to the NICU. After what seemed like forever Mike came into the recovery room to tell me that they were taking my precious baby downtown to the NICU there because they had better equipment to deal with his breathing problems. I cried because I still hadn't seen him. He promised me that I would be able to see him before they took him downtown. I soon was transferred to a postpartum room where I waited for them to bring Austin in so I could see him before they left. I was to be transferred shortly after him as well. When they finally brought him in he was in an isolet (an incubator) on a stretcher hooked up to so many machines. I cried.

The next morning I was finally able to get out of bed and be wheeled down to the NICU to finally hold my baby. He was very sweet. It was difficult to hold him because of all the cords he was hooked up to. We found out that morning that they had taken his ventilator out shortly after he arrived at the downtown NICU. They also told us that he would need to be cared for in the NICU for 7 days so that he could get the full round of antibiotics to make sure that he didn't get sicker after being exposed to the infection in my uterus. We were assured that he was doing great and that they were all pleased with how he was. I really had no idea that a baby could come out of your body sick. It truly is a God thing that he was taken out when he was, I'm sure that if he had been in there any longer he probably would have been that much sicker.

On Sunday I was released from the hospital. They also told us that they could transfer Austin back to the original NICU that he was in so that we could be closer to home and also have access to what they call a "rooming in" room. They were going to let us use an empty hospital room while Austin finished out his antibiotic treatment and we would have a place to stay at the hospital. So he was transferred back to the Meridian St. Lukes Hospital. We were there everyday to hold him and feed him. It really didn't seem like we had a baby of our own yet since he wasn't at home, but we loved being able to go and see him.

Finally one week after he was born we were able to bring him home! He really is precious. Kind of impatient, he goes from 0 to 60 very fast and without warning, but he might get that from me. We are so excited to finally have him home. It seems like his birth story was very much along the lines of the rest of the pregnancy, but once again God provided and helped us get through it. We certainly would not have been able to get through this pregnancy without Him.

As I get more pictures and stories about our little Austin Anthony I will post them in this blog. Thank you again for reading it.