Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Ceci meets the Vaughans-well at least some of them!

Today, my aunt, Anne, brought my grandparents to Birmingham to visit Dad in the hospital. (long story about that-he is doing better though)Since they were coming to visit-I wanted them to be able to meet Ceci-their first-and only-great grandchild. I got up this morning and dressed Ceci up and took her to St. Vincent's hospital where she met Jackie, Ed and Anne for the first time!!! Since we were on a limited time schedule, I only got a few pictures. But the gist of the story is that they loved her and thought she was precious. Here are a few pictures of the event.



(Dad was hospitalized on Friday for a massive infection that had caused his white cell count to rise above 23,000. He had a very hight temperature-102.7- and was feeling generally terrible. He has been at St. Vincent's ever since. They did a CAT scan and found that a spot of his diverticulitis had ruptured, causing an absess to adhere to his bladder, infecting it from the outside-in. He then got a bad kidney infection from the growing bacteria in the absess. His temperature is around 99 now and they are taking him for another CAT scan this afternoon to see if the absess is still as prominent as it was on Friday. Say your prayers for him because he is never sick like this-much less in the hospital. I will continue to update as I get information.)

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Scenes from her first photo shoot

Here are some scenes from Cecilia's first photo shoot that occurred last night. Our friend, Marie, came over and took priceless photos of Cecilia. There were so many to choose from-I only picked 15 to upload because it would have taken hours to upload them all! Without futher ado-here they are!

Oh-and the Home Health people came today and picked up the Billibed!!!!! They didn't weigh her but I can tell that she looks so much better already. Tonight is the real test to see how she sleeps without being restricted. She is beautiful and we are all doing well. I will update more later!

Sunday, April 13, 2008

She's Here!


Cecilia Elise Adkinson arrived on Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at 6:31am. She weighed 6lbs and 1oz and was 19 inches at birth. Everyone is home now and is trying to adjust to life as a new family. Cecilia has had some problems maintaining her temperature, eating and she has jaundice. As of today, the home health nurse is encouraged (her name is Nurse Ceci by the way-really-she has the same name!). Today, Ceci's billirubin count has gone down by 2 points and is now at 12.6. She also gained an ounce-weighing in at 5 lbs 8 ozs! We have seen the pediatrician everyday but today and we are supposed to go back to see her tomorrow at 8:30am. Ceci is also starting to eat a little better, which is encouraging. We are having to feed her every 2 hours-we set alarms to stay on schedule. She has also taken her first bottles of breastmilk. We found out at 3am this morning that even the newborn bottles give her too much milk at once, so Papa Vaughan rescued us by getting Preemie Bottles from BabiesRus. She took to it like a champ-he got to do the first feeding by the new bottles! We are all tired and are looking forward to Ceci not having to sleep on the Billibed any more. She looks so uncomfortable and has made it clear to us that she doesn't like being constricted in her pod (she looks like a glow worm baby all zipped up on the light bed). She has improved her temperature as well and has not gone under 97.2 degrees in the past 2 days. We are trying to be encouraged. Say your prayers for us b/c this is definitly stressful. I will try to upload pictures in the next day or so. I know that there are many who are looking forward to seeing them. For now, I will just add this one. More later!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

The Big Baby Shower

On Saturday, March 22, I had my big baby shower. It turned out so great! We got a ton of great clothing and were very blessed to have gotten several keepsake items as well. There were several blankets that people had knitted, another dress and cap that my grandmother (Jackie) made and a picture frame with pictures of my grandfather (Papa, who is deceased) and me in it. There were WAY TOO MANY PICTURES TO UPLOAD, so I am choosing to put the link to the Kodak Gallery in this post. You don't have to join it to view the pictures, but it is very easy to upload and order from them if you did choose to join (it is free to join). Without further ado-here is the link-

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=wktwpr9.30qp5555&x=0&y=204e60&localeid=en_US

If you have problems looking at the pictures, drop me an email or leave a comment on the page and I will see if I can help. Thank you to all who came to the shower and who put so much effort in to making it a beautiful experience for me. I know that Ceci will enjoy all of her gifts!

a nervous father-to-be

During this whole process-really since I was hospitalized on Friday evening-Jesse has been wonderful! He has tried to anticipate my needs and even thought to bring the laptop to the hospital so that I could have access to the outside world. He has been having tummy troubles though-more than his usual. Yesterday, he finally admitted that he was nervous. I thought it was really sweet! He went to the pharmacy yesterday and told them he was having stomach problems-when they asked him what was wrong, he told them we were "having a baby in +/- 7 days". They gave him Pepto, Pepcid, Zantac, Immodium, Emetrol, Tums and Alka Seltzer-of which he has already taken half the box! Hopefully, having this stock of meds will make him feel better. I know that he will be a great dad. I just wish I could convince him that we do have the capabilities to take care of "another human life", like he keeps saying. I am sure that this is totally normal, but I think that it is indearing! He keeps calling and saying "everything ok? how are you feeling right now? are the contractions increasing in intensity or frequency?" It cracks me up, but I love that he is showing such concern. We are on the countdown! 5 days away!!!

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Released from the shackles-well partially anyway

I was released from the hospital yesterday around 6pm. Today, I am at home, just "cooling my jets" so to speak. I went back to the doctor today and they did yet another sonogram (my 17th this pregnancy) and did another AFI (amniotic fluid index) and NST (non-stress test). Both were fine. The fluids were back in the normal range and there were no other problems noted. Dr. Brown checked my cervix today too and said that it is still 1-2cm dilated and 40% effaced. She said that it was "very soft" though, which is good considering there is still a lot of stretching to do before Ceci can be born. She said that if I have not gone into spontaneous labor by next Tuesday (April 8th) then I will be admitted that afternoon and induction will start on Wednesday (April 9th). SO.....with any luck, we will have a baby by this time next week! I will continue to update everyone as things happen. Thank you to all have been praying for us. Say some prayers for my sanity since I will not be returning to work prior to the birth, as I have been put on bedrest. I can get up for 1 hour at a time and have been told that I don't need to get "heavily involved" in any activity. So, that is the update. More later!