Parker you are a child of God

On August 1st we had our little boy, baptised at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in North Liberty. It was a great day and Parker was awake for the whole ceremony. He's excited about Sunday school and meeting lots of other little kids.

Updates on Parker, all 12 1/2 lbs of him

Well our little buddy boy has done alot of growing in the past 2 months! He has learned how to roll over (one way) although its mostly by accident. He has started daycare as mommy went back to work. AND he's really close to sleeping through the night. Right now he wakes up 1x/night @ around 2am for a feeding, but other than that he is a sound sleeper and easy to put down. Thanks to "On becoming Babywise" we are enjoying every minute we get to sleep. He's really easy to put back to sleep too, he knows the routine and is very comfortable in it.

Going back to work for me wasn't too terrible, although staying at work past 4pm is getting harder every day. I can't wait to get home to see my boys, and I get away from work as soon as I can. Parker has started smiling but is still pretty shy about it, but mommy and daddy can coax it out of him. He's very well behaved at daycare and they brag about him all the time. And don't worry he's well taken care of there. :)

Parker's first two nights at home

Well we're finally home! Parker was very excited to see the place his parents talked about non-stop. No i.v. lines, no respirators, no needles, just a nice warm bed and two very eager parents. Surprisingly, Parker was only up 2x last night (for his feedings), which each take about an hour.

I'm doing well and almost back to myself. Turns out I developed severe pre-eclampsia, which caused my blood pressure to rise, and caused my kidneys & liver to stop functioning optimally. Thankfully it never progressed into full-blown eclampsia which can cause seisures and if untreated can eventually cause organ failure (and death). On Friday, when we went in (due to a blood pressure scare), they started me on i.v. magnesium sulfate ("mag") to prevent seisures, and decided to started the induction (originally scheduled for Tuesday) right away. After insisting upon a cheeseburger, I would not eat or drink again for 52 hours. The induction worked almost right away and the contractions kicked in. Once I was on the "mag", I started feeling pretty "out of it", almost drunk, and was kept in bed for a further 24 hours after Parker was born.

In total we were in labor for 30 some hours, but I wasn't keeping track- it was so worth it.
I was still able to get an epidural, which I thought would make the labor a piece of cake- but that wasn't exactly the case. After the first wave of numbness subsided, I started getting periodic patches of sensitivity, and we'd have to change positions frequently to allow the meds to circulate more evenly. By the time Parker was ready to make his debut, I was feeling alot of pain, and the anethesiologists were sick of hearing me complain and said I had exhausted all my pain management options. Thankfully I was fully dilated and the only thing left to do was push the baby out! Oddly, pushing was the only time when I had some level of pain relief. I pushed for a total of 2 hours, but it felt like only about 10 minutes and Parker was born.

Parker, who was also drunk from the "mag" didn't cry for quite awhile, which was good because they wanted to suction his lungs for the meconium that he'd aspirated inside me (a serious complication that can cause pneumonia). That was very scary, as I could barely see him, and couldn't hear him at all! After being stabilized with a respirator they finally wheeled him over so I could see him. However it would be another 24 hours before I saw him again, and even longer before I could hold him for the first time. Patrick was wonderful though, and brought me pictures and updates around the clock on how our son was doing. Despite staying in the NICU, Patrick (or I after I'd recovered) managed to give Parker all his (bottle) feedings, except the very first one after he was born.

Once I was discharged, we stayed at the Helen Rossi rooms at the hospital, so we could have access to Parker around the clock, and not have to commute from North Liberty. In case you can't tell from the pictures, we didn't get much sleep and didn't maintain the highest level of hygeine- as there was alot of paperwork, procedures, feedings to schedule and try to be present for.

Alot of good came out of Parker's stay in the NICU. We got around the clock expertise from nursing staff & others on how to bath, feed, diaper & medicate our little boy. Plus we had tons of help from lactation specialists and as a result, Parker is breast feeding very well.

We are so blessed for all your well wishes and look forward to introducing you to our little boy soon!
Kristin

Wednesday Morning

Tuesday was a good day for the three of us. Parker did a great job feeding. The Doctors decided he could eat as much as he wanted. Parker loved this decision. They took the i.v. fluids off. He still has the i.v. in so he can get his antibiotics, but that is the last thing he has in. He still has other monitors on that go off now and then, but that is mostly just because he is moving and contact is lost. The doctor that was in yesterday morning thought that he should be able to come off of the antibiotics soon. The only holdup would be if his last lab culture came back positive.

Wednesday (today) may be the day we get to go home. Parker just had his circumcision completed. We have never heard him so unhappy. Hopefully it was a good decision and he heals up just fine. I saw a lot more of his blood this week than I expected to this week.


The nurse is trying to get us through all the checkout items. It still sounds like later today we will all get to go home. Hopefully the Doc comes around soon and agrees. I added some pictures from the last couple of days.

Thanks again for all the prayers and well wishes!

Love,
The Schwickeraths

Monday

Hello, Kristin and I got to move to a postpartum room early this morning. It feels much more like a hotel room. Kristin is feeling much better now that she is off all the medicine from the delivery. She is on her way back to being 100%. The best part about our move is that Kristin finally got to see Parker for more than a few seconds after delivery. Kristin and Parker got reacquainted around 2:00 this morning. It was wonderful.

Our family had our first visitors yesterday. Parker met all four of his grandparents. It was a very happy day!

Thank you to everyone for the well wishes and prayers. There are some new pictures below. We will try to get some of Mom and Baby soon.

Love,
The Schwickeraths

Parker Edward

Hello All! Parker Edward was born at 11:07 PM on May 15th. He weighed 8 pounds 8 ounces and is 21 inches long. Kristin and Parker had about a 27.5 hour delivery. They did very good! Parker is in the NICU to make sure he is breathing well and doesn't get an infection from any of the pregnancy complications. Our family is doing very good! Hi from all of us.

Love,
The Schwickeraths

Induction is planned!

Met with the doctor today, with the elevated blood pressure and now elevated liver enzymes, she thinks it best that we have an induction. So we'll be checking into the hospital no later than Tuesday of next week. Of course there's still a possibility that we'll go into labor before then.

I'm happy that we're finally going to meet our little one, but I sort of thought they might induce sooner than Tuesday, especially because the elevated liver enzymes can be an indicator of the HELLP syndrome (a life-threatening variant of pre-eclampsia). She made it sound like Tuesday was the earliest they could schedule the induction.

I'm having alot of contractions, just not regular or very intense yet- so who knows what will happen.

A few updates on our plants

The new Rose of Sharon







Below are some highlights of our shade garden.



























The diathus are starting to bloom (in red and pink)















Our lonely dwarf lilac,
the other didn't survive


Coral bells













Ajuga in the shade garden (purple)





The seed geraniums are starting to blossom.











Our pulmonarium is so happy











The two new autumn blaze maple trees

Our garden just alittle later!!!

Now our garden is actually showing off some of its beauty. The tulips are blooming, the pulmonaria is thriving, and our primrose are goregous. Patrick is so proud. The hosta are slow coming up but just wait, they'll soon be up and happy.

Our garden

For those of you who don't know Patrick, he loves plants! And we have done lots of landscaping and gardening since we bought our house. We got several (dozen) hosta from my mom, and we bought a few others. We also have primroses, dianthus, columbine (which my mother started from seed), we also have 2 bleeding hearts (one red and one white), and then we have a bunch of bushes and trees. We also put in about 2 dozen tulips and a bunch of daylillies, the later of which have yet to bloom- and we can't wait. This year Patrick put in 2 autumn blaze maples, a rose of sharon, and about a dozen potato plants. Unfortunately, just the other day the potatos were damaged by some late frost- so we're still sad about that.
Great trick we have learned is to use compost in our plant beds- the Iowa City dump and the Cedar Rapids dump have great compost (often free) which we fill our beds with every year. As the compost continues to decompose, we add new compost and the plants just love it. Oh and very important- all those walls you see- Patrick made! I thought he was insane because he insisted on leveling every single block- but who can argue with the results! They look wonderful and the plants love them.

Nursery is all set, any day now.

The nursery is pretty much ready for our little one. We have a very nice changing area, a rocker for feeding, crib and bassinet and of course a carseat, stroller (not shown), pack-n- play (not shown), high chair (not shown, and actually on recall :-( ). Plus while on bedrest I made 2 covers for the changing table pad, and a cover for the pack-n-play. Plus I knitted a bunch of items, maybe I will post pictures of those later.