The new job

Yesterday I started my new job and so far it seems okay. I'm still in training mode but should be starting to take calls on Friday. The only worrisome thing is that most of the people I work with seem to be expecting massive layoffs soon and some are even predicting that the entire department will be gone within a few weeks. I'm not too worried either way. For now I'm enjoying the 5 mile commute that's taking me around 10-15 minutes to complete. :) Toni and Caitlin are doing great. Caitlin is still eating well and hasn't been keeping us up too much so that's been nice

The week in review - Week #2

Well, this week was definitely less stressful than week #1 was. For the most part, Toni and I got to spend a lot of time with each other bonding with Caitlin. We don't have any Doctor appointments for Caitlin for another 3 weeks and she's eating well and seems to be gaining weight. Caitlin seems to be adjusting well to life at home and last night we actually got 5 uninterrupted hours of sleep so that was nice.

This coming week should be interesting. Toni is still off work for a couple more weeks but I will be returning to the workforce tomorrow. I am starting my new job tomorrow and for my first week, I'll be working 9-6. After that, I'll be working 10-7 which should work out really nice for me. My new job is 5 miles from the house and with those hours I should have a 10 minute commute and run into little if any traffic. I'm feeling mixed emotions about starting a new job. Like any other big change in life, I'm a little nervous about how things are going to be, excited about the possibilities and even a little bummed to be going back to work. I know there's a lot of people who say that they could never retire because they'd be bored out of their mind but I am definitely not one of them. I have thoroughly enjoyed not working over the last 2 1/2 months. There's a saying that "you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone" and I can definitely agree. I never realised just how stressful my old job was. Maybe the stress would have been worth it if I had been doing something big like curing cancer or helping to provide food to starving children but I wasn't. It's kind of sad when a work environment is more stressful than being unemployed. Hopefully my new company will be a lot more enjoyable on a daily basis. The only negative things I've found about starting over are losing my seniority and vacation hours and not seeing my old co-workers. I will definitely miss all of the people I worked with. If nothing else, I can use my experience of being laid off as a cautionary tale to teach Caitlin about character and honesty. Hopefully it can serve as an example of my motto in life, "hope for the best, but prepare for the worst." :-) I'll let everyone know how my new job goes and how Toni's first week with Caitlin by herself goes. Hope everyone has a great week!

Doctor visits

Just a quick update today. Today we had 2 appointments for Caitlin and both of them went great. First, we met with the Pediatrician and Caitlin's weight is up 8 ounces in the last 5 days. She's tipping the scales at 8 pounds 10 ounces. The Doctor said she likes to see at least 1 ounce of weight gain per day and Caitlin far surpassed that. Caitlin's color is also looking great so any worry about jaundice can pretty much be forgotten at this point. Caitlin continues to eat quite a bit and has a big appetite. We don't have to take her in for another checkup for another 3 weeks which was great news.

After that, we went to the hospital for Caitlin's newborn test. They checked her blood for 6 different disease markers which if present can be treated now and not become something that she'll deal with later in life. I don't have the list with me but we should get the result back in the next 2-3 weeks.

I've added more pics to the picture section so be sure to check them out!

Holy exploding diapers!

This weekend was a fairly relaxing one. Caitlin is doing great and seems to be adjusting to life at home very nicely. The advice from the new lactation department is working out great and Caitlin is responding very well. Today we had a follow-up appointment with the lactation counselor and everything went well there. It's amazing how much more professional and what a better experience it is compared to dealing with Amy at North Central Baptist.

A couple of people have mentioned that it appears by the pictures that we are dressing Caitlin in several different outfits a day and treating her like a dress up doll. If only that were the case... With Caitlin's appetite increasing by the day, let's just say that the wardrobe changes have been out of necessity! 2 things that I underestimated with having a baby was how many burp cloths and rags we would need and just how messy diaper changes could get. We've already had some changes that were so bad that it was easier to just put Caitlin in her tub and hose her off rather than trying to clean her up on the changing table. So far, I've ended up with most of the messy changes but Toni has ended up with the messiest one by far. :-) In fact, the outfit Caitlin is wearing in the picture above was pretty much destroyed beyond recognition by Caitlin last night.

Other than the exploding diapers, Caitlin has been incredibly well behaved. We are able to get a few hours of continuous sleep and she doesn't seem to get fussy for no reason. When she cries, 80% of the time it's because she's hungry and the other 20% of the time is for diaper changes. It has been working out well at night for us to be covering things in shifts as well. By doing this, we're both able to get around 5 hours of sleep each a night. Not a lot but it's so much better than I was expecting. In other news, Caitlin's umbilical cord came off tonight and she now has a flat stomach. It's comforting not have to worry about accidentally hurting her by pulling her cord while we're dressing her of changing her diaper.

Tomorrow we have an early appointment with the Pediatrician and then we're going to the hospital to get Caitlin's newborn screening done. I'm not sure what exactly is involved but they have some things they need to do after 7-10 days so we'll go get that taken care of this week. I'll update more tomorrow and let everyone know how things go with the appointments.

The week in review

Wow! I can't believe that Caitlin has been with us for a week tomorrow! This has been an incredibly busy week but I'm going to try to update everyone on our first week as parents. Caitlin entered the world on Sunday July 13th, 2008 at 10:09PM Central time with the following stats:

Weight - 8 lbs, 11 ounces
Length - 20 1/2 inches
Head - 14 1/2 inches
Chest - 14 1/4 inches

Monday - The day after Caitlin was born was a busy day. After Caitlin was born, I went to the nursery to watch her get cleaned up and spend some time bonding with her. I got home around 2am and tried to get some sleep. I got back out to the hospital around 8 or so. While the nurses and everyone we dealt with through the delivery were great, the customer service started to unravel after Caitlin was born.. In an effort to save money, the hospital hires some contract nurses rather than paying a little extra for people who actually have a vested interest in the hospital. What should have been a great experience for Toni (her first time to feed Caitlin) turned out to be every parent's worst nightmare - they brought Toni the wrong baby!! Luckily the issue was fixed quickly but it was still an inexcusable mistake for a hospital who prides itself on their security... The staff and supervisor apologized profusely to Toni and Caitlin was brought in quickly but it was still an extremely unprofessional mistake.. The rest of Monday was spent bonding with with Caitlin and with Toni trying to get some rest. Toni was also treated to a complimentary 20 minute massage from the hospital to help her relax.

Tuesday - Tuesday we got to go home! Before going, we had our "Stork dinner" - a complimentary lunch provided by the hospital. It was a nice relaxing meal before going home. I had chicken cordon bleu and Toni had filet mignon. It was actually a very good meal and the quality far surpassed what I expected from a hospital. I wouldn't have been upset if I had gone to a restaraunt and paid for it! The pediatrician (Dr. McCray) was concerned that Caitlin looked a little yellow but the test for Jaundice showed that she was in good health and that she was cleared to go home. We got home around 2:30pm and spent the rest of the day bonding. Shiloh was very excited about Caitlin and we were both pleasantly surprised that Caitlin slept pretty well her first night at home. Toni and I watched her in 3 hour shifts and she only woke up once for each of us. I quickly found that I will probably never sleep a full night again in my life though. I now know what parents mean when they say that you wake up at the slightest sound after your baby is born.

Wednesday - This was our day to relax. I took Toni's dad to the airport in the late afternoon and we had some of my family come by but Wednesday was spent entirely at home trying to recuperate. This is also the day that the poor customer service from the hospital showed up again.... Dr. McCray told us that we needed to monitor Caitlin's diaper changes to make sure she was getting enough food. We should get a couple dirty and a couple wet diapers a day. By about mid afternoon, we had only had 1 wet diaper all day. Toni called the lactation department at the hospital and their advice was as follows - Don't give Caitlin a bottle because she'll never attach to the breast. Force her to the breast and if need be, entice her with a few drops of formula on the breast. But do not give her a bottle... Now, I didn't go to lactation school but I'm not stupid either. Their advice hinges on 1 very important variable - how much milk Toni is producing. To find out, we used a breast pump and found that Toni wasn't yet producing much milk. We decided to ignore the advice of the lactation people and give Caitlin a bottle. Our 2nd night was pretty rough. Caitlin was extremely hungry and was making up for lost time by eating as much as we would give her. She also was spitting up a good amount of the formula as well. Luckily we had an appointment with Dr. McCray the next day...

Thursday - We met with Dr. McCray and explained our run in with the lactation department. She said we did the right thing in feeding Caitlin because Caitlin had lost a full 1 pound since being born. We also told the Dr. about the spitting up and she showed us different ways to burp Caitlin and told us to take little breaks and burp Caitlin more often during feeding. While we were being shown these techniques, Caitlin started spitting up quite a bit and the Dr. decided that Caitlin may have a sensitive stomach as well. She gave us hypo-allergenic Similac and that seemed to agree with Caitlin's stomach much better. Dr. McCray also asked us to go have another jaundice test done on Caitlin immediately because she was again concerned about her color. Because we had to get the Jaundice test done, we had to reschedule our appointment with the lactation department to Friday. Later in the day we got the results of the Jaundice test and everything looked good. Caitlin's result was a 15. Anything from 17-19 would require Caitlin be put under special lighting and anything 20 or higher would require her to be admitted back into the hospital. With everything checking out alright, we continued feeding Caitlin from the bottle and our 3rd night was a lot quieter for us.

Friday - We started the day back at the hospital to meet with the lactation department. We met with the head of the department (Amy) and I was floored by her complete lack of compassion and professionalism. She told us that we made a mistake feeding Caitlin from a bottle and that Caitlin may never latch on to the breast now because of it. When we argued that we weren't going to let our daughter starve to death and that she lost a pound doing things their way, she again reiterated that we may have caused more damage in the long run. We left the hospital disgusted and went to meet with Dr.McCray. While there, Caitlin was weighed again and it showed that she gained almost a quarter of a pound since we started with the bottle and her color looked like it was getting better so the jaundice didn't look like a problem. We also explained our problems with the lactation department and she was shocked. She sent us to another hospital to meet with a different lactation team. She managed to get us an immediate appointment and Toni and I were so glad to be dealing with someone other than Amy. We met with Patricia from Methodist hospital and she was a Godsend! She spent 2 hours working with Toni and Caitlin and got Caitlin latched on. She gave us a feeding schedule and explained how often Toni should pump and how much Similac we should supplement with breast milk based on the amount of milk Toni is currently producing. She's going to meet with us again next week to re-evaluate and give us a new plan if needed. While Amy had all the people skills of a cactus and should never man a suicide hot line, Patricia was one of the nicest and most compassionate people we've met thus far. She really helped take away a lot of the stress Toni and I had been feeling. After leaving her office, we both didn't have an overwhelmed feeling anymore for the first time since leaving the hospital. Last night we also gave Caitlin a bath and kept on the feeding schedule assigned by Patricia and Caitlin slept through the night, only waking for her feedings.

This weekend our plan is just to relax, de-stress and get some rest. I've added more pics of Caitlin to the album and will post more soon.

Pics!

You've asked for them and here you go! There's not a lot right now but as soon as I get the pics from my family, I'll be posting more. For now, enjoy these pics. I'll update more as soon as I can.

http://picasaweb.google.com/vargas11055/CaitlinJulianne

Relaxing at home

I am happy to report that Toni and Caitlin were both released from the hospital today with clean bills of health for the both of them. We have to go back to the hospital on Thursday for some follow up appointments and to meet with the Pediatrician but we'll at least have tomorrow to just be at home and try to catch up on a little sleep. So far Caitlin seems to be doing well at home and our dog Shiloh seems a little jealous and confused as to what's making so much noise every time Caitlin cries. I am totally in awe of everything that has happened over the last few days and I really feel very fortunate. Every time I look at Caitlin I marvel at how incredible it is that I helped create her.

I've had a couple people ask me some questions that you may all be wondering so I figure I'll post them here in case you are wondering them yourself. The #1 most asked question to me so far is, "did you make it through the delivery without passing out?" To that, I can happily report that YES, I did make it through the entire delivery without passing out! Now I really didn't pay attention to the "action" and we did request that when Caitlin came out that they not plop her on Toni's stomach but instead take her and clean her up but yes, I managed to get through it alright. Helping Toni count the contractions and even listening to my ipod in 1 ear to distract me helped as well. :)

The other question I have been asked more than once is, "how did you feel the first time you held Caitlin in your arms?" That's a hard one to answer actually. I didn't have that moment where it all hit me that I was a dad and there wasn't the flood of emotion that I was expecting. I've heard many people say they cried the first time they held their baby but I was actually just speechless. It was almost like it wasn't actually happening to me and the entire thing was a dream or something. It was an incredible experience to be sure but I think for me, I was more relieved than anything else. Which brings me my next point....

The person who said that men have it easy when it comes to childbirth must have been a bitter woman with an uncaring husband. For me, the day was the most physically and emotionally draining day of my entire life. By the time the day was over, I was seriously running on empty. Seeing Toni in pain and being unable to do anything was incredibly stressful for me. I spent the entire 20 hours as a bundle of stress and believe it or not, I would gladly have switched positions with her to spare her having to go through it. Toni was incredibly strong throughout and I admire her more than ever for her strength. It was definitely worth going through the experience to be able to hold Caitlin in my arms but it wasn't the cake walk that I've heard some women complain that their husbands experienced.

Now that she's home, I find that the thing I'm enjoying the most is just having Caitlin lay on my chest and listening to her breathe. It's incredible to look down at this beautiful little life that I helped create.

I'm going home!

Quick status update

I have to say, I'm extremely touched to hear that so many people are keeping up with this site and are interested in what's going on. When I started this site, I really wasn't sure if anyone would even follow it. Thank you everyone for your support and for sharing this incredible moment in our lives with us. I'm going to keep the update short tonight because I'm extremely tired and need to get some rest. Toni and Caitlin are doing great. Caitlin has passed all of her health screenings so we are both VERY happy to report that we have a HEALTHY baby girl. Toni and Caitlin should be coming home sometime tomorrow so I will try to update the site with more pics and updates then. Again, we are both extremely grateful to have so many good friends and family. Thank you.

First morning

8 lbs 11 ounces!!

Caitlin Julianne Vargas was welcomed into the world at 10:09PM. Mom and baby are doing great!!

update

Increasing pitosin and decreasing epidural. Will start pushing soon.

10!!

baby's head still has to drop a little before she can start pushing. Almost there!

9 cm's

Toni hit 9 cm's. Dr is going to check again in 45 minutes and Toni should be able to start pushing then. Pushing could take up to 3 hours worst case. Toni is comfortable and loves the epidural. :)

Still sleeping

Toni is still resting. Looks like the contractions are still coming strong according to the monitor.

6 cm's and countng

toni's been able to get a little sleep and is feeling better. She is 6 cm's and her cervix is thinning. Should take another 4 hours or so at least.

resting

The epidural kicked in fast. Toni is sleeping now Pain was getting pretty bad for her. Doing much better now.

Epidural taken

4 cm's and holding

No more dilation but contractions are stronger and closer

No more h2o

they've broken toni's water and she's at 4cm's.

Pitosin upped to 20.

Status update

Things are going along fine. The pitosin level is up from 6 this morning to 18 now. Toni says the contractions are bearable. The doctor should be here in a while to break toni's water so that should get things moving.

status

Everything is going good so far. Contractions are every 3 minutes or so. Toni is sleeping right now.

drip.. drip....

they've started the pitosin and are now going to check on Toni every 20 minutes to see how she's doing. she's currently at 3 cm's.

First light

Well, our journey has begun! We got up around 3:30 and we are in now in our room. The nurse should be in shortly to get things started. we're both excited. I think I'm more nervous than Toni at this point.

The final appointment

Today we had our final visit with the doctor and as usual, there's more change on the way. I know it sounds crazy to talk about change in the Vargas household but today we were told that the on call schedule has changed for the Doctor so now we will be doing the induction on Sunday at 6AM rather than on Saturday at 5AM. Hopefully that will be the last change. Or better yet, hopefully Caitlin will get bored and come early! :) Anyway, today's appointment was very fast and everything on the NST came back great. So with all of the appointments behind us, we're focused in on the finish line. We're both very excited and I have to say that this has probably been the longest 9 months I've ever lived! I will try to update the site from my phone on Sunday throughout the day just to keep everyone posted. We're both extremely excited that within a few days we're going to be able to hold our baby girl for the first time!

T minus 4 days and counting...

Today we had our second to last NST test and the results were great. Caitlin's heartbeat looked perfect and the test showed that Toni's contractions are increasing in intensity. When we started these tests a few weeks ago, the contractions meter was reading around 10 out of 100. Today, the meter was averaging in the 40's and even peaked as high as 66! Toni's muscles are definitely getting ready. She is currently dilated to a "solid" 3 cm's. We have one more NST on Thursday morning and then Saturday is the big day! We need to be at the hospital on Saturday morning at 5AM so they can induce labor! We're both excited and nervous at the same time. Right now, I think the nervous feelings are outweighing the excitement a little bit for both of us but I think that's to be expected.

On the job front, Wachovia called me back yesterday and said they have reconsidered me for the Help Desk position. I will be starting on 7/28 so that will give me 2 weeks to be home with Toni and Caitlin. :) The schedule and location will be good and hopefully there will be room for me to move up quickly.

My next update of the site will be after Thursday's final NST before the delivery on Saturday. I have setup this site so that I can send updates via my phone so if you're interested in following the delivery be sure to check the site during the day on Saturday. As soon as I get a picture of Caitlin with my camera phone I'll update it to the site. :)

3 cm's and counting

Today Toni had her second appointment of the week for a Non Stress Test (NST) of Caitlin's heart. Once again everything sounded great. They checked Toni's cervix and she is now at just about 3 CM's (birth happens at 10). That means that over the last 9 days, she's increased by about 1 CM. Last night she began having Braxton-Hicks contractions. (Warmup contractions). They lasted for several hours and for a while were happening every 8 minutes like clockwork. She is having light contractions today as well but not as hard as last night. We're just going to stay around the house this weekend and take it easy. While it's unlikely she'll go into labor over the weekend, we don't want to stray too far from the house just in case. We've got all of the bags packed and we're ready to go whenever Caitlin's ready. I'm not sure if she'll come before the 12th but it might be a close race between her coming on her own and being induced.

We postponed our visit with the Pediatrician yesterday. We're going to go with her either way so putting it off a few days shouldn't be a big deal. If Caitlin is born this weekend, the hospital has pediatricians on staff so it's not a big deal if her normal pediatrician isn't there for her birth. I spent a good part of yesterday at a place called Right Management. It's a company that offers assistance in the job search process. They offer resume services, networking, etc.. The service is paid for for 1 month from my old employer so I figured I may as well take advantage of it. The good news is that if I decide to take a few weeks off when Caitlin is born, all I have to do is tell them and those days won't count against my 30 days.

We hope everyone has a great 4th of July! Have fun and stay safe!

Ch-ch-ch-changes.....

This morning we had another appointment and once again, there's a change in store. This time, we met our third doctor.. Apparently with our main doctor leaving and the replacement unavailable, we have been assigned to another doctor for the rest of the pregnancy. Hopefully the third one is the charm... I will admit though that when she started reading over Toni's file and offered her congratulations for our upcoming twins I got a little nervous... Seems like changes are just par for the course these days. Be it career or doctors, instability is king.. It's ironic but I remember thinking when Toni got pregnant how great is was that we are both in our 30's having our first child. After all, our lives and careers were so much more settled than they were in our 20's.. Oh well... As long as we're all healthy, that's all that matters at this point. :)

So.... The biggest news today was that while Toni hasn't dilated much more than last week (she's a little over 2CM's now) our new doctor offered us the option to induce labor on a weekend rather than during the week. Specifically, Saturday July 12th since she's on call that day anyway. Of course, this isn't set in stone and Caitlin could come early, the doctor could be called away for an emergency delivery or something could come up and push it back into the week. We still have to go to a couple more appointments between now and then. They have stepped up the appointments to twice a week for this week and next and should make a final decision about induction at the end of next week. Right now, we're just staying flexible and waiting.

Tomorrow we're going to meet with our new Pediatrician and then we have another appointment on Thursday morning to do another NST (Non-Stress Test) to listen to Caitlin's heart. Her heart sounded great today and the results showed that Toni is starting to have small contractions that she currently can't feel. Looks like her body is starting to gear up for the delivery. :) With appointments the next 2 days, I'll try to update and let everyone know how things are going.

We're currently halfway through week #37. Check out what's happening here! http://www.babiesonline.com/pregnancy/week-by-week/week37.asp

Countdown to Caitlin guesses. (Due date is 7/26)
Toni and Sarah - 7/4
Mike - 7/7
Me - 7/10
Karen - 7/11
Mom - 7/16
Lissette - 7/16
Cuqui - 7/18
Bella and Efrain - 7/20