FREEDOM!!!

Finally!

Michelle, Daniel Braden, and myself our free of the hospital.  Don't get me wrong, the hospital staff was really good and I would recommend anyone who is looking for a hospital to check out that one.  

Unfortunately hospitals are not the best places to get rest in.  I know that everyone is thinking, "Duh Daniel, you have a brand new baby, you aren't going to get rest anywhere!"  So let me explain.  Baby Daniel sleeps for about 3-4 hours at a time.  If you are efficient, you can knock out all the baby business, feeding, burping, changing, pretty quickly and therefore have about 2-3 hours or more of sleep at a time.  Not so at the hospital.  As soon as you think you have a good routine going, a nurse comes in to check vitals and pass out pills.  She is usually followed by food service people who leave the door open behind them, then housekeeping, lactation consultants, dieticians, phlebotomists, pediatricians, gynocologists and just when they all clear out, food services shows up to take your food tray away.

They are just doing their jobs, and they do their jobs very well.  The timing of it all just seems to be orchestrated so perfectly wrong that you are constantly teased by the thought that you just might finally get some rest.  Oh yeah, and to top it off the nurse comes back in and tells you, "just try to get some sleep, you need it!"  

So finally, we are home, in our own beds, getting as much rest as possible.  Yes I'll wake up in another three hours and change a dirty diaper, I'll probably wake up in 45 minutes and freak out thinking that my son isn't breathing, but at least I am in my own bed and if anyone walks into my room they are leaving with a freaking bullet hole!!!!  6 and a half days in a hospital will make a guy go crazy.

I think I am going to walk around the house naked now just cause I'm home.

-dg

The Moment We've Been Waiting For...

Hey everyone, the moment we have been waiting for finally happened on Tuesday night the 22nd at 10:47 pm.  Daniel Braden Gallagher was pried from his mommy's uterus...

So we went back to the hospital on the 19th for more blood testing on Michelle.  The results came back and her blood platelet count had dropped again.  The good news was that we were able to go home, but the other, umm, ok news was that we had to come  back on sunday the 20th for another blood test and the good possibility of being admitted.  So the nurse gave us instructions to bring our bags and all the stuff we needed for having a baby and sent us on our way to one last night of rest in our own bed. 

Sunday the 20th we arrived at the hospital at about 10:50 am, with no coffee mind you, and headed up to the maternity ward to get some blood tests done.  When the results came up they started all the paperwork and basically told us to settle in.  I made a bunch of phone calls and the inducing began.  The doctor had Michelle put on a small dose of Patocin to stress test the baby and her. She began to have mild contractions and the baby's heart-rate did fine.  Sunday night they turned off the Patocin and used another medication, I believe it was called Cytocin, to soften her cervix and help her body get ready for labor.  

Monday was pretty much the same, but they gradually increased the Patocin from about 2 mls/hour to 10 mls/hour.  The results of another blood test showed Michelle's platelet count had dropped again, but she was making forward progress and the baby seemed fine so the doctor decided to give it another day.  Our doctor was really hoping that Michelle would 

be able to deliver the baby the "Old-fashion" way and was trying to avoid an unnecessary C-section which I really appreciated.

Tuesday is when things really started to get exciting, Dr. O'Callahan (Killer name by the way!) promised Michelle the baby would be out by day's end.  Michelle was started on Patocin and the waiting game began.  Each time she was checked she was a little more dialated.  Around 1:30 pm she really started to go into intense labor and went for about 2 hours of straight up hard-core contractions.  At about 3:30 she had dialated to about 5-6 and was ready for an epidural!  

Our biggest concern about the epidural was that it would slow and possibly stop labor.  Not so with Michelle!  She gradually progressed to about 8 centimeter and the doctor had her push once to see if it would move things along. Because Michelle had progressed so good the doctor gave her an hour to see if anything would change.  During that hour the baby took a turn for the better and it looked like everything was going to move forward.  Dr. O'Callahan checked again and Michelle was at 9 centimeters and really close to full dialation.  So the doctor gave us another hour to progress, but she wanted Michelle to start pushing with every contraction.  

When the doctor came back, Michelle was doing good, but the baby's heart rate decelerated at the end of every contraction.  Michelle was fully dialated but the baby was still really high and we couldn't really figure out why.  The doctor had Michelle push for a while, but the baby's heart rate began to take longer and longer to recover after the contractions.  The doctor decided it was time for the c-section.

The c-section went really good, I believe most of it was caught on video, and we disco

vered why baby Daniel was struggling to come out.  He was huge!!!  Dr. O'Callahan exclaimed, "You're having a three month old!" and another doctor laughed and said, "That's not a baby, that's a toddler!"  I watched a good portion of the surgery through a reflection and when they pulled Daniel Braden out, I was shocked at how big he looked!!!  Everyone took bets on how much he weighed, but most were conservative around the 9 and a half pound mark.  He weighed in at 9lbs 14 oz!  

Everything has been great so far, he is very healthy, just a mild case of jaundus and Michelle is recovering wonderfully. We will be at the hospital until Saturday so I am not sure if we will get another chance to blog until then.  I'm off back to the hospital to go take care of my family.

-dg 

Happy Almost Birthday?!

So here's a picture of me today strapped to some machines at Sequoia Hospital to monitor the baby and my blood pressure. No need to worry, I wasn't in any pain... or feeling sickly... I just wasn't wearing any make-up! HA! Let me back up...

We had a doctors appointment today and my blood pressure was higher then usual (again) so my Doctor sent Daniel and I across the street to the hospital to get some blood work done and so they could monitor the baby and I while they processed the tests. And the baby is doing GREAT - he's happier than a tornado in a trailer park! Sorry, I couldn't help myself. We are mainly concerned about me and my body vs. the pre-eclampsia that's trying to creep its way into the picture. So I had my blood drawn in the hospitals lab, then we went up to the maternity wing and they set me up in a room for about an hour, then I got sent down to radiology to get an ultrasound to measure my amniotic fluid, and then went back up to the maternity wing again to rest, and then we were giving the thumbs up to go home. 

My doctor was going to have us do the same thing again on Monday with a good possibility of being induced that night but instead of going in Monday I'll be going in tomorrow. So, I'm not really sure if I'm just doing the tests or getting the tests and getting induced tomorrow! I guess it will all depend on how those tests come back! 

All for now folks... Wish me luck!

-mg

Quick update!

I am officially done with work now! I was scheduled to work twice this week, which would have been my last two days but when I went to my doctors appointment last week I was on the boarder line of having pre-eclampsia so everyone (including Daniel) felt it would be better to just get those shifts covered and be done with it. So now I'm trying to take it easy yet still be somewhat productive considering we've only got about three weeks left until our due date! 

I feel like baby Daniel gets a little bigger everyday. At this point I believe he's "good to go" and considered a full term baby if he decided to be born now which is cool. He's doing great by the way. Still moving around and kicking my ribs all the time! I'm posting a picture of what I see when I look down these days - which isn't much other then the tips of my toes IF THAT! 

Anyways, just wanted to keep ya'll in the loop!

-mg

It hurts so good...

I joined a gym.  As a Christmas gift to myself I marched my rear down to Granite Planet and signed up.  Granite Planet is a rock climbing gym that has all the weight machines, free weights and cardio machines you could ask for.  Oh yeah and there are some bitchin' climbing walls!!!  

I've spent the last two days climbing around in one of the two bouldering rooms and feeling the burn in my forums.  I was proud of myself the first day.  I climbed all of the routes rated V0 and most of the V1's... V1=pansy, V=wilting pansy.  Then today I was determined to complete all the V1 routes in the room only to be embarrassed by a 17 year old girl making the V4's and V5's look like they were escalators, V4=badass, V5=spiderman.  So I hung my head in shame and headed to the locker room.  Suddenly a voice calling for more rope caught my attention about 25 feet above me.  I raised my head only to see a 14 year old girl rapidly climbing a wall that was rated at 5.10 (I think 5.10 also = spiderman) and she was doing the hardcore "leading" thingy.  That means that she was attaching the safety rope to anchors on the way up.  For us newbies they have ropes that hang down from ceiling so we don't kill ourselves.

I got a long way to go, but I couldn't be happier!!!!

-dg