Averie Jane Dexheimer

Ready to go home from the hospital

As with most blogs I start to regularly contribute to, I tend to become forgetful and my weekly updating turns into sporadic updating and soon after, an abandoned site full of good intentions.

Two more months have gone by. This pregnancy, although not officially verified, was the fastest pregnancy in the history of mankind. She was pregnant with Hayden for about three years and two months if I remember correctly. The last couple of months consisted of basically the same symptoms as before. Random vomiting, sore joints, puffy feet, etc.

It had been a relatively healthy pregnancy despite these ailments until we got closer to the end. Mom's blood pressure had become increasingly elevated for the last couple of weeks. We had twice weekly doctor's appointments for the last six weeks. One in Portland and one in Tillamook. The afternoon of the 1st, she had an appointment where they drew her labs and would call us the next day with the results. After the appointment in Portland, we made our weekly Monday afternoon drive to the coast. Since we left the office in Clackamas at 4:30, we hit rush hour and didn't get home until nearly 7:00pm. I had to work at 10:00 that night and remarked to some of my coworkers that I couldn't believe there was only 12 days left until the baby would arrive. I left work at about 9:30am the morning of the 2nd and went home to take a nap.

After I took Hayden to school at 11:00am, the nurse called and told Nikki that her results were elevated and that she needed to be admitted to Emanuel Hospital that same day to be monitored. If the doctors felt that her health was declining, they would have to take the baby immediately. We were a little freaked out and packed everything that we thought we might need just in case she had to give birth.

The thoughts started swirling. Was my wife going to be okay? Are we ready to bring the baby home?

We left the duties of watching our cat to our neighbor, who stopped by earlier that day to say she was worried she hadn't seen us all weekend and to offer to watch the cat when we did have to go to Portland. So we picked up Hayden from school, explained his future absences, and headed to Portland. We hit traffic on Hwy 26 at about 5pm and had to make our way to Gresham to drop off the five year old and double back to Emanuel. At some point during the car ride, I jokingly said to Nikki, "I hope this doesn't interfere with me watching the Blazer game tonight." I got evil eyes shot back in my direction. After all was said and done, we arrived at the hospital at 6:15pm.

We were put into a room and I watched the Blazers narrowly defeat the Denver Nuggets. The room was pretty comfortable (for me) and we were able to weasel free dinner (sub sandwiches) out of the hospital. After checking her vitals, the doctors decided that, based off the data they had collected, her health wasn't immediately in danger. They did explain that they wanted to hold her overnight and have her collect her urine for 12 hours so they could monitor her kidney function to make sure she wasn't slipping into the early stages of preeclampsia.

To the Family Birth wing we were taken to spend the night in a smaller, less comfortable room. We brought our laptop so that we could Skype with Hayden and tell him goodnight. After a few issues with the volume, we called it a night. I slept on a bed that was about 5 1/2 feet long. Problem is, I'm over 6 feet tall. Plus it was by a window and was drafty with only a thin hospital blanket. I'm sure Nikki was less comfortable with a giant baby inside her and being hooked up to an IV.

Morning came and after more blood was drawn and the urine was collected, we had to wait for all the labs to come back. When they finally did, it was around 10am and a few doctors came into the room to discuss the results of the lab work. They told us that everything was pretty normal considering her recent history but they were worried about the amount of protein in her urine. It was slightly over the range the want to see in pregnant moms and significant enough that they decided that they wanted to take her via c-section that night.

Whoa...12 days just turned into now.

They waited until the evening because Nikki had requested a certain doctor to perform the surgery. We started to notify the immediate family that our new addition was arriving tonight. More nurses and doctors started filtering into the room to discuss the operation and to prep her for surgery. They asked if she wanted her tubes tied. I tried to keep the mood light by being my typical smart-ass self. Joking with the nurses was how I dealt with my nerves and tried to keep Nikki at ease. She's been through this before, but her last experience was awful to say the least.

The last time she did this, it was preceded by 12 hours of labor and maybe an hour of sleep due to nerves. It was our first time so we didn't account for the constant parade of visitors that day. It allowed for no rest or relaxation and added to the stress of the situation. The operating room was somewhere in the 55 degree range. It was way too cold to have a pregnant woman in there. She was strapped to the operating table and was severely shaking due to the anesthetics. Two spinals and an epidural led to a slight fever after her first operation. All those thoughts were in her head as she prepared to go through hell again.

The anesthesiologist came in and discussed what he was going to do. Nikki mentioned her apprehensions about anesthesia and the doctor reassured her those things were unlikely to happen again under his care. I asked him (Dr. Pack was his name) if anyone ever called him "Pac-Man" to keep the mood light.

More doctors and nurses arrived to lead us to the operating room. Nikki elected to walk to the OR and I was directed to a recovery room, much like the first room we were in. They needed to give her the spinal and get her all situated while I got into my daddy scrubs. A full body suit, mask, hair net (yes, even baldies have to wear them) and finally a beard net completed my ensemble.

After what seemed like an eternity, I was finally summoned into the OR to be with my wife and welcome our baby girl into the world. It was a bright room that was bustling with activity. The OR attendants (there were about 10) were counting supplies (so they knew how many not to leave in Nikki) and getting ready to operate. The anesthesiologist noticed that I had my mask on upside down. I guess with all the nerves I didn't pay attention on how I put it on. After I got it on the right way, it was a few minutes until go time. I asked her how she was and she reassured me that she was okay and that she was already having a better experience than last time. The room was warmer, the people were nicer.  I later found out that she broke down into tears in the room before I came in there because she was scared. One of the nurses, Kate, (who would refer to me as Ryan all night) held Nikki in her arms and calmed her down while she received her spinal.

Hello world

The operation began after I took a pre-op photo of mom. All the sights, sounds and smells seemed familiar to me although there was no horrible 80's music playing this time. The doctors got down to business. Throughout the operation, I talked to Nikki and tried to keep her calm. She assured me she was fine and that she couldn't feel anything they were doing except for occasional pressure from the doctors pushing on her. To prove this point, about five minutes into the operation she asked me, "Have they started yet?" About 10 minutes went by when the doctor announced, "We're gonna have a baby here in about 28 seconds." When the time came (6:04pm), the anesthesiologist told me to stand up and look over the sheet and I caught the first glimpse of our baby girl. I think the first thing I said to Nikki was, "She looks just like Hayden." The doctors let the baby just kind of sit on Nikki with the cord still attached for two minutes. The doctor explained that they like to do this to allow extra blood and other nutrients to flow into the baby immediately after birth. They also don't stick the bulb syringe down the baby's throat to suck out extra amniotic fluid.

They moved her to a warming table where they monitored her breathing and put her briefly on a CPAP machine to help her. After she was warmed,

Not an actual Anne Geddes baby

she was moved to the scale to weigh in. Everyone in the room put in their guesses as to how much she would weigh. We told everyone that Hayden was 10 pounds so the guesses were in the 9 pound range. She surprised everyone by weighing in at 8lbs 1oz. She was finally wrapped up and taken to mom. I wasn't going to show Nikki the pictures I had already taken of her because I didn't want her to see the baby for the first time through my phone. Nikki was in love at first sight. She commented on how beautiful she was and the nurse offered to take a few family photos.

Nikki was closed up and cleaned off and transferred to a hospital bed. We all got matching bracelets while Averie was placed in Nikki's arms and she was wheeled into a recovery room. I thanked all the doctors and Pac-Man and we spent the next two hours looking at our newest bundle of joy. I kept asking Nikki how she felt and she was surprisingly alert and chomping down ice chips. Averie was measured, footprinted and monitored. This is where we said goodbye to nurse Kate, who was off at 7:30. It was probably the first time I ever hugged a nurse. After the two hours passed by, we were wheeled into the Randall Children's Hospital where they take all of their recovering moms and babies.

The final transfer was...interesting. The newest nurse's name was Ashley. She told us that she wasn't great at driving the motorized bed Nikki was in. Her nickname was "Crashley" because she got into many car accidents in Southern California where she was originally from. After she ran into the doorknob, I said, "they trust you to drive these things?"

Our room at the Children's Hospital was nice. It was big enough to be comfortable but there wasn't really anywhere comfortable for me to relax (which is the point, I guess). That night, Hayden was brought to visit with his Aunt Cari. He brought a home made painted sign that said, "Averie I love you." He kept commenting on how cute she was and he was even brave enough to hold her for a little bit. 

A proud big brother holds her for the first time

We were discharged three days later and we had nothing but a great experience during our stay. The nurses were excellent and tended to our every need (unlike last time). We've spent the last five days with Nikki's dad and sister in Gresham to help with Nikki's full recovery. Averie is doing quite well and tends to sleep for most of the day. Since she was born at 37 weeks and five days, she is technically considered a preemie so the extended sleeping is normal for her. She is a pretty calm customer (knock on wood) and already tries to roll over and lifts her head up frequently. Nikki is doing great this time and has commented how immediately connected she feels to Averie. She is able to be up and about and has been in minimal pain during recovery.

We will head back to our home at the coast on Sunday.

Fourth Quarter

I'm not sure if all full-term pregnancies move this quickly, but time has really been flying by lately. We've had a busy September/October that all culminated last week with my sister (finally) getting married. We've got a full time kindergartener on our hands but sometimes it feels like we're already raising a teenager. The sassiness is out of control. He does seem to be trying to eat his own weight in food every day and if he doesn't slow down soon, he'll give Joey Chestnut a run for his money. He's full of attitude, but will turn on the charm and be the most polite little turd. He really knows how to turn your day around with a giant hug.

Baby Averie continues to develop normally and in the thirtieth week, should be weighing about 3 pounds. Even though that seems pretty small, she sure can wail on her mommy's insides. I can now steadily feel her moving from the outside and she gets going pretty good sometimes. We played a little game last week where Nikki would take my hands and press lightly on her stomach. Averie responded by kicking my hand as if to say, "Leave me alone, Dad!"

We are still ironing out the details of the final days of pregnancy so we can be prepared to drive back to the big city and welcome our baby girl. The baby shower is scheduled for about a month from now. We decided on a middle name of Jane for her as well. I wanted to pick a name that was new to our family. I also like the idea of calling her A.J. so when she's in trouble I can use her full name to scare the crap out of her.

We were able to spend a little time at my sister's wedding with our friends' new baby and it really kind of sunk in that in just a few weeks, we'll have our own "little" girl to fawn over.

Hayden has started soccer with the local YMCA. He is pretty cute running around out there with a bunch of 4 and 5 year olds. He's thrown a couple of fits because he gets knocked on his butt, but I think he's really starting to like it. He was excited to be on "the red team" and was given #19 to wear. Hopefully, the tears stay away today.

Will check back in next week as we round third and start heading home.

Long time, no see

It has been longer than I wanted it to be between posts, but our lives have become extremely busy in the last month. I took a job opportunity out of town and am currently in the process of moving the family. I have been living in a hotel for the last three weeks and it is starting to wear on me and the rest of the family. Nikki and Hayden are now with me and we're starting to become easily irritated with each other.

Big things have happened in the last month. Hayden had a birthday last week and then started Kindergarten in our new town! The first day was hard for mom and dad as we fought back tears when we left. Hayden was too busy making new friends and playing with Legos to care that we had left him for the day. He seems to be doing quite well in his first few days in his new school. I am able to take him swimming in the hotel pool and he is super independent. We got him a flotation device and he swims all over the pool by himself. He is also really brave and jumps and spins into the pool from all angles.

I have the next week off to try and move the house to our new residence. Hayden is enrolled in school so Nikki has to stay behind and take care of him while he isn't learning. Not much of a vacation if you ask me. It will be nice to be settled into an actual home and not stuck in a hotel room staring at the walls. It has been an adjustment now living in a small town for sure. Everything is closed at about 9:00pm and there isn't much to do outside of the hotel.

In baby news, Nikki has really started to feel Miss Averie kicking. I can feel her every once in a while, but she doesn't seem quite big enough yet to really do any damage to anyone trying to feel her from the outside. She really does get moving and sometimes Nikki's breath gets taken away because she is so vigorous.

We were able to make it to another doctor's appointment and were able to see her on the ultrasound again. She looks much bigger and the doctor says she is just over one pound in weight and appears to be healthy. We continue to discuss the options of birth control available to us and try to determine if this will be the last baby for us or not. At times, Hayden makes us crazy and we wonder how we are ever going to handle two of these kids at once.

Nikki is starting to wake up with a lopsided stomach in the mornings, sure signs that a baby is peacefully resting inside. She experienced this same thing while pregnant with Hayden and it tended to creep me out because she would gently nudge the lopsided bump back to center and it would stay there.

We have another appointment near the end of the month, so there will be more news then!

Snipped

Our doctor's appointment brought up an issue that we haven't completely thought through. Will we have baby #3? Or will we undertake a permanent form of birth control? To be honest, it was something I wasn't expecting the doctor to bring up. I don't remember it being discussed the last time Nikki was pregnant. Maybe because we were 25 and 27 respectively and were young enough to spit out a litter of kids still. Maybe it's because, with a beard and no hair prospects, I look like I just hit 40 instead of 30 despite losing 35 pounds.

I still think of us as a young couple and when I see people having kids into their late 30's, I know it's entirely possible. But two factors play in. Do we want to have another kid? I mean, we already have one of each, why not stop while you're ahead? Secondly, Does Nikki want to be pregnant again? Although this pregnancy has been a better overall experience so far for her, she still has four months left to go.

The doctor said that since Nikki is planning a scheduled C-section, this would be the only time in her life that it will be easier for her to undergo a tubal ligation. She will already be taking the risks of surgery, anesthesia, etc. No matter the decision we make, we will need to fill out the paperwork to authorize it because if we decide at the last minute to do it, we wouldn't be able to get the paperwork approved in time as it takes approximately one week to jump through all the hoops.

If we decide against it, it doesn't mean we are going to have a third one right away or even at all. It leaves the possibility open for us to grow our family even more. And when the time comes, maybe I'll go under the knife for once. I've been told it's a good idea to plan it for Fridays in the fall. That way I can spend the next two days sitting on the couch watching football.

Girl You Know It's True...

So if you've been under a rock for the last week, it is a girl! We will have one of each kind of child. It is very exciting news for everyone and we couldn't be happier.

Big brother Hayden reveals the big secret

We planned for this appointment from the moment it was set. It was written by the Gods on high...Hayden would not attend this appointment. For our own sanity, it had to be this way. The last appointment, although relatively short in duration, was an exercise in adult restraint. Four year olds were not meant to attend doctor's offices. They should be banned along with non-service animals. They are a distraction. You are trying to receive critical information about your body or mind all the while you have a preschooler hanging upside down counting to 100 and rambling some gibberish about Power Rangers and Spiderman.

So we dropped him off with his Aunt and made the drive to Emanuel Hospital. May I say, the hospital campus and it's adjoining medical office buildings are stupid. Although I found the building I needed with relative ease, if I were dumb it would have been infuriating. We were called back to the ultrasound room after filling out the required paperwork and the excitement began to build. The ultrasound tech started the scan and we got the first glimpse of our baby in over a month. One thing was noticeable immediately...the baby had grown quite a bit. I know that different machines produce different images and sizes but this looks like an actual baby and not a gummy bear.

A few things we noticed immediately.

The Dexheimer Head. The tradition continues.

Really long legs. Going to be a basketball star. Even better than Keilee.

I get the logic behind checking the gender of the baby towards the end. The parents treat this as the most valuable piece of information they take from this appointment because it shapes the way they raise and treat the child for the rest of their lives. "People need to buy baby shower gifts!" Pink or blue, blue or pink! I get it. It's what we wanted to know, I'm not making excuses. The logic is that the parents need to remain calm for the ultrasound and the doctor's need to measure the baby's various body parts to make sure everything is normal and the baby is healthy. They look for certain things that will alert them to potential problems down the road.

The tech couldn't get a good visual on the gender-identifying parts immediately, but said something to the effect of, "I can't really tell yet, but I'm thinking this is a girl." The smile on Nikki's face was muted. I could tell she wanted to jump off the table and do the tootsie roll but for whatever reason (maybe she was shy around the tech) she smiled a half smile at me while looking me directly in the eyes. I knew she was happy to have a little girl to put in tutus and ruffle-butt undies.

After the tech left to get the doctor to go over the scans, she became giddy.

The doctor came back in and said that everything they could see looked good and healthy. There were a few things they couldn't make out from the scans because the baby was at the wrong angle or position. We will return to the doctor in just over three weeks and they will look for the things they missed the last time.

Then we had to meet with another doctor to discuss Nikki's birth plan and possible future permanent contraception (which will be the topic of my next post). We were starting to get hungry and were glad we decided to leave Hayden behind as our time at the doc's reached the three hour mark. We were finally able to leave and we headed to get balloons.

We like to be creative. We just don't always follow through with our great ideas. We bought three balloons of each color, the aforementioned pink and blue, so we could announce the baby's gender. We also bought a poster board and some Sharpies. With some pink card stock from Aunt Cari, we created the sign and set Hayden up with the balloons in hand so he could let the blue bunch go, announcing to our family and the digital world we were expecting a girl. He didn't completely understand what we were doing, but he had fun with it anyway.

So in mid-December, be prepared to welcome little Miss Averie to the world.

Eighteen

We have set our appointment to have our 20 week anatomy ultrasound. It will be at Emanuel Hospital. I've can remember the last time we did this with Hayden. I was the first one to see the male anatomy and I think it was the loudest I've ever screamed the word penis. We went into that ultrasound not caring what the gender would be.

This time we are a little more invested in the outcome. It could mean trying again for a girl or being done having kids. We haven't thoroughly discussed whether or not we'd want to have more after this. I know Nikki really wants a girl to dress up and play dolls with. Or maybe she just wants to watch me play with dolls. Above all, we just want the baby to be happy and healthy.

Nikki has thought a few times in the last week that she has felt the baby move, but she can't tell if it's just gas or not. It's been five years since she was last pregnant, but it may as well have been fifty years ago. Besides the traumatizing morning sickness and swollen ankles, there isn't much she remembers about being pregnant.

Don't know if I'll get a post in next week. I may just wait until after we find out the sex of the baby.

Edge of Seventeen

~ "Just like the white-winged dove..." ~

We had our monthly checkup on Thursday! Friday marked the seventeenth week of gestation.

Last month, Nikki had to have seven vials of blood drawn. Sounds easy enough until you discover Nikki possesses the veins of a scarecrow. All those blood tests came back normal, which is good news. This time around, she only had to have one vial taken to determine whether or not the baby is at risk for spina bifida. Her results popped up yesterday and again, everything checked out normal. She explained to the blood taker where to draw the blood (her hand) and there was no problem. We were in and out in about 5 minutes.

The doc attempted to listen to the baby's heartbeat and was unable to locate it using the handheld ultrasound listening device. This made us worry for a moment. We were taken to another room and we still couldn't see the baby. I don't know if the doc was having a bad day or what, but she was finally able to spot the baby on the screen and she was wiggling all over...again. No wonder we couldn't hear anything except the baby moving around. I think the three of us (Hayden included) are going to have our hands full in just over 5 months.

Speaking of having our hands full, Hayden was being a complete four year old during the 30 minutes we were with the doctor. He's continuously hungry, can't hold still for longer than 3 seconds and this is all accompanied by constant chattering. Sittting in a chair the right way is a near impossibility. He's gotta lay on his back and hang his head off the chair so when the door in the exam room opens it smacks him in the head. We tell him to sit up, he will take his time and comply for about 7 seconds. Then it's back to hanging off the chair. I think he's testing our will...like will we give him up for adoption or not? We realize this is typical behavior, but damn it if it isn't infuriating at times. He is also having some issues with sharing, but he needs to figure that out pretty quick because he's going to have a little brother or sister drooling and smashing all of his toys here in the near future.

We are going to be scheduled to have the anatomy ultrasound (the big one where I will continue to refer to the baby as a she, or we drop the "s") next week at Emanuel Hospital. Then we will decide how to tell people to evoke maximum excitement. My guess is that Nikki's face will give it away before she has a chance to open her mouth. We'll see. Nikki's sister, Cari has quite the streak of correctly guessing the sex of babies before the parents find out. I believe the streak is around 7 in a row. She correctly guessed Hayden would be a boy so she's 1 for 1 so far with us. She's predicted a girl for us this time so we will see if she is right or not.

Will it be Lucas or Averie?