Brothers!

Colin adores Caleb, he wants to help every chance he can and is so careful and easy with Caleb.

Passing time in TLF

Here are some of the things we did to pass the time while hanging out in TLF waiting for Caleb to arrive and for his passport to come back so we could leave.

We built a lot of Lego sets...

We did a little rock climbing...

We played a lot of "bear pong"...

We took a couple squishy goo baths...

We did a lot of snuggling...

 We went to the dinosaur museum...

 And to the aquarium...

Welcome Caleb Garrett Goetzman!

Tuesday 21 Jan 2014 1000

OB clinic visit and NST. Docs say Caleb’s heart rate looks great, no signs of stress. I’m still only dilated to a 1, maybe a 2 and the soonest they can get me in for induction would be Friday night for a Saturday delivery. Sigh. Friday??  So. Far. Away!

Tuesday 21 Jan 2014 1800

I start passing pieces of my mucous plug. Yay for progress! Not getting too excited as I know that you can lose the plug and still wait days for labor to kick off.

Tuesday 21 Jan 2014 2100

I go to bed and start having contractions. I still don’t get too excited but around 11:30 they are still seem to be coming pretty regularly so I start timing them. They are very consistent at about 7 minutes apart. This continues all night long, no sleep for me! I still haven’t told Shelby, who is sleeping in Colin’s room because no one wants to sleep with a 40 week pregnant woman with insane acid reflux that has to pee no less than every 60 minutes. I’m trying my best to make it until morning to wake anyone because I know Colin will be bonkers off the wall if I have to wake him up to take him to the babysitter’s house before school starts. Plus I really don’t want to have to disturb the babysitter in the middle of the night and hand her my crazy, excited kiddo who will most definitely not be going back to sleep at her house! About 3 AM contractions are coming about every 5 minutes and worried this may be my last chance to do so I take a shower. Shower feels amazing but speeds up contractions which are now 3-4 minutes apart. Crap! Get out of the shower and lay down with my feet up hoping to slow the contractions back down just a little bit and buy myself a few more hours. It works! 

Wednesday 22 Jan 2014 0700

Shelby wakes to find me packing my hospital bag and is a bit confused. Contractions have now slowed down to about 10 minutes apart. We drop Colin off at school and take his things to the baby sitter’s house just in case and then we go walking. We had some errands to run so off we went, walking, walking, walking. Contractions coming a little closer together, but still not good enough to warrant a trip to L&D. We almost consider giving up and heading home to rest but right about that time they seem to speed up a little and begin to get more intense. So instead we go to the hospital to walk the halls there and see if that will do the trick. We walk the hospital halls for three hours and FINALLY my contractions are now 3-4 minutes apart and feeling pretty good. And by pretty good I mean not so good! We head up to L&D and they take me in to monitor me and see how the contractions and heart rate look. Of course as soon as I got in the bed the contractions started to slow up and I’m thinking we are doomed to be sent home any minute. We did notice Caleb’s heart rate often spiking up into the high 160’s during the monitoring. It is normally 140’s and would spike up and set off the alarm. This didn’t seem to alarm the nurses, but then the alarm went off again because his heart rate dropped way down. As in just totally dropped off the monitor. A nurse came in asking me if I had moved or gotten up and if I had messed with the monitor. I told her no, no, and no. She calls another nurse in and asks her where the staff is and tells her they should all be in there NOW. She sounded serious and she began pushing on my belly and moving monitors around. Then within seconds there was a team of people in there turning me over, putting oxygen on me, starting an IV and shouting orders. After a couple minutes the activity dies down and the midwife explains that his heart rate flat lined and they lost it on the monitors for a good 3 minutes. She said he could have just grabbed a hold of the cord or moved so that there was too much pressure on it, but it also could have been a sign of stress. She said that I would not be going home, they would definitely be admitting me and begin an induction as long as his heart rate tolerates it, but she warned that if his heart rate tanked like that again I would be going in for a C section. So…scary as all that was I guess we are going to have a baby today after all!

Wednesday 22 Jan 2014 1700

The nurses got me all moved from the temporary room where I was to a larger delivery room and we got all set up there.  Contractions are getting stronger and closer and are not feeling too great anymore. Dr. Downer came back in to put in the Foley bulb in order to dilate me and get the induction started and was pleasantly surprised that I was already a 4-5 and 50 % effaced and didn’t need the Foley bulb. Yay! He said he’d give me a little more time to see if I would progress more on my own without Pitocin. I was thankful for that because contractions were already strong and I know what Pit contractions feel like from Colin. I got the feeling I was progressing just fine without it because contractions now totally sucked and were coming back to back less than two minutes apart.

Wednesday 22 Jan 2014 1800

I wave the white flag and call for the epidural. Unfortunately they tell me NOW before I can have one I have to get a whole bag of IV fluids in me, so I suffer through another hour of contractions willing that damn bag to drip faster. About 1900 the fluids are in but it’s shift change and all the docs and nurses are at report, so I wait some more for the new anesthesiologist to get updated and over to my room.

Wednesday 22 Jan 2014 1945

Epidural takes what feels like forever to go in. First try was a bust so he had to stick me twice. Biggest problem was my contractions were not giving me any down time in between and staying still through them was very difficult. Even the anesthesiologist felt bad for me and asked the nurse if I could have a shot of Fentanyl to take the edge off while he finished. I said I just wanted it done ASAP though and didn’t want to wait for my OB to sign off on that and just told him to push on. Ten minutes after the epi is in place my water breaks at 1955! Almost there! (Or so I thought…)

Wednesday 22 Jan 2014 2100

Things are supposed to get BETTER after the epidural, not worse! When I had Colin my epidural was a BEEE-UUUU-TIFUL thing. I got it, I instantly felt better, I felt no pain, could still move and somewhat feel my legs, went to sleep right away and woke up able to feel enough to push. This time it was miserable. I felt like my legs were two giant balloons and I had ZERO feeling or control over them. They felt so foreign and strange and it was driving me nuts. Worse that than was that I was so OVER numb from the thighs down but not numb enough from the waist to the hips. So I was still feeling pain from contractions. Now the edge was definitely taken off, I was able to breathe through these without wanting to die, BUT I was scared because I knew I was only a 6-7 and feeling this pain and that I still had to go to a 10 and push with it. I was also having trouble because I was in pain and now my legs were limp sausages and I was unable to move them or control them enough to find a comfortable position to breathe through the contractions. I started to have panic attacks at this point. They told me to push the button to up the dose on my epidural which upset me more when they did it because I already didn’t like how it felt and just wanted it to go away. Eventually there was enough meds in me to numb the contraction pains but it was still a horrible feeling. As I transitioned from the second to third phase of labor the shift in hormones had me shaking uncontrollably and feeling frozen. I remember thinking I was having some kind of reaction and was probably about to die. Shelby and the nurse assured me I’d be fine but I was not convinced. The doctor had said he would come check me at 2230 and watching the clock waiting for that to happen was torture. I tried to prepare myself in case he told me that I wasn’t ready to push yet, but I knew I’d fall apart if he did. I had been awake for almost 40 hours by this point and was just ready to get it over with and get the epidural out.

Thursday 23 Jan 2014 0010

The doctor finally comes to check me MUCH later than the 2230 time he quoted me. I guess he thought I wasn’t ready. But the good news is Caleb’s head is RIGHT there! The nurses start making preparations for the delivery and setting up the baby warmer. My nurse works with me to do some prep pushes to get his head down under the pubic bone and ready to come out. Thankfully, even though I cannot feel anything, including the contractions and the urge to push, I am able to push effectively and it only takes about 5 rounds of pushes to get him to crown. The doctor wasn’t even back yet and had to come running in and throw on a gown just in time to catch Caleb who was basically coming out all on his own now.

Thursday 23 Jan 2014 0113

Caleb Garrett Goetzman is born! There was some meconium present at delivery and the doc rushed to cut the cord, Shelby didn’t get to do it this time, in order to get him to the nurses before he took his first breath and sucked it in. No luck. Caleb started crying just as he was handed over, but the nurses suctioned him right away and his Apgar scores were 9/9 so it didn’t seem to be an issue. It did require them to watch him a bit longer though and while they were cleaning him up he pooped AGAIN all over the warmer and himself. Apparently I’ve got a super pooper, that’s twice already and he was just born! He weighed in at 8 pounds even and 21.25 inches long, just a quarter inch shorter and a few ounces less than his big brother. He has the same beautiful red hair that Colin was born with and he’s absolutely perfect. It was a very, very long hour later before I was finally able to hold my baby and try to feed him. He immediately latched on to nurse and knew just what to do. I got to hold him and love on him for a bit and then I started to feel sick. Hormone shifts get me every time! Thankfully the nausea wasn’t as bad as right after Colin was born. I was over it pretty quickly.

Thursday 23 Jan 2014 0500

One thing I did not get over quickly was the epidural. They shut it off as soon as Caleb was born but hours later I STILL couldn’t feel my legs or move them. I was beginning to think it was never going to wear off and I had some wacked spinal injury. Shelby was exhausted at this point and I was stuck in the bed just lying there unable to move so he went home to sleep for a few hours.

Thursday 23 Jan 2014 0615

I can FINALLY wiggle my toes! And I can semi feel my legs again! As I got my feeling back the nurse helped me get up and out of bed and to the shower. Best. Shower. Ever. After my shower it was about 7:30 and they brought me a tray with breakfast to eat. I ate that and then gathered up my stuff, and finally about 9 AM I was able to leave Labor and Delivery and move to the Mother Baby Unit. Most people make that move about 2 hours after giving birth. Lucky me, I managed to swing an extended stay.

Thursday 23 Jan 2014 0930

After being up all night having a baby and up all night the night before that with contractions I was more than ready to get to my room and get to sleep. So I was less than pleased to be shown to my room on the Mother Baby unit and discover I was sharing a room and I had a roommate. And roommate had her new baby, husband, and two small kids on her side of the room. Fortunately they were leaving that day and were awaiting discharge paperwork. Unfortunately discharge paperwork means every doctor and nurse on the floor must come to the room no less than six times to speak with you prior to sending you home. And when nurses and doctors were not coming to see my roommate they were coming to check on me. Then the birth registration lady came to take Caleb’s passport photo and collect all my documents so they could be hand carried to the embassy in Frankfurt. I soon realized chances of sleep where slim to none.

Thursday 23 Jan 2014 1300

Shelby got his rest and went to pick Colin up from school early to come and meet Caleb. Colin was so excited and he brought Caleb a little ball toy as a present. He couldn’t get over how small Caleb was and he was so sweet with him. It was so fun watching the two of them together, Colin couldn’t be happier about being a big brother.

Thursday 23 Jan 2014 2000

Finally, sleep! Shelby and Colin headed home, my roommate was discharged and I have the room all to myself now. I got about an hour of sleep before Caleb woke up to eat and then after he ate he was fussy. He just wasn’t happy no matter how I held him and so he cried and fussed for two hours. Then, about 11:30 at night a nurse came in and started preparing the other side of the room for a patient and told me I would be getting a roommate in about two hours. I was NOT happy. There were several empty rooms on the floor and I had no idea why they were making people share rooms when the single rooms were empty and available. When she gave me the news I was not very nice, I told her I hoped my new roommate didn’t plan to sleep all night because my baby was fussy and had been crying for two hours. She must have sensed I was exhausted because after she fixed the other side of the room she offered to take Caleb and I went down the hall to the bathroom since I had the chance to do so without wheeling the bassinet down there with me. She actually managed to get him to sleep and then I got a few hours of sleep myself. My roommate didn’t come in until about 6:30 the next morning instead of the middle of the night, which was nice. 

Friday 24 Jan 2014 0900

The next day I started telling the nurses I wanted to go home. The pediatrician came around and said hospital policy was usually 48 hours after birth before discharge, but said she might be willing to sign off to go early. I just kept telling anyone that would listen I could NOT spend another night in that hospital. That I was exhausted and I wasn’t getting any sleep there and I needed to go home. Finally they agreed that they would do Caleb’s circumcision and IF he took it well AND he had a good wet diaper they would discharge us all. We had to wait about 6 hours for him to pee after his procedure, but finally he did a little bit. So little in fact, that we were not 100% sure he had peed in the diaper. So we called a nurse down to confirm (I was not messing up my chance to bust out of there!) and while he was checking Caleb’s diaper out Caleb peed all over the nurse and Shelby! LOL Now there was no question he had finally produced! Sign those papers and let’s go home! The sweet nurses had already done all the paperwork and had everything ready to go upon urination, so we were sent on our way in no time. Home sweet (temporary) home!

Family picture we took just before leaving.

Wheeling his little brother out to the car. 

Wordless Wednesday

Kindergarten News

Colin had his share day at school on January 6th, the teacher made sure to move his day up so he could fit it in before he left for his trip. On their share day the kids get to be the "main assistant" helper in the classroom that day. Also, they get to bring in an item from home that they do a sort of show and tell with and discuss with the class about their item. Colin chose his Lego coast guard helicopter that he got for Christmas. They use the details as a learning opportunity for math (they measure and compare the item) and literacy (they write sentences, edit punctuation, use phonics and storytelling skills) during this share time. It's really fun to watch the kids share and the main assistant does the editing on the Smart Board while all the other kids in the class are doing it on their own laptops! Amazing isn't it? Here is the paper the teacher sends home on their share day, showing what Colin had to say about his helicopter. There are short notes about what he said and the tally marks show how many sentences he said about his item for each category.

We got his kindergarten school pictures back just before they left too...

Taking Flight!

Off they go! Colin and Daddy set out for the airport first thing in the morning. Prior to me leaving one of the patient travel coordinators for the clinic suggested that we have legal write up a form for us giving Shelby permission to travel abroad alone with Colin. I thought she was nuts, Shelby is his BIRTH father, he is on Colin's birth certificate and Colin's last name on his passport matches Shelby's! But to avoid any problems we had a power of attorney done up granting my permission for Shelby to have sole responsibility and guardianship over Colin in my absence to include international travel. Good thing we did because when they got to the airport they would not issue boarding passes to Shelby without legal documentation that the mother had given consent for the child to travel. I guess it's a good thing they are so cautious, but at the same time it is irritating that a legal custodial parent would have to obtain such proof and further disheartening that enough people have tried to "take off with" a child that there is such a requirement in place.

Anyway, end rant. Here are some pictures of Colin on his way to Germany!

It was a looong day for them as the flight from Lisbon to Frankfurt was delayed (surprise, surprise...it's NEVER on time!) and they didn't end up arriving in Frankfurt until about 11:15 PM. By the time they got luggage and met me it was close to midnight and we still had to drive an hour and twenty minutes to Ramstein. At least we can spend the weekend catching up on sleep and snuggles! 

The waiting game...

The days here in Germany have been ticking by and actually the three weeks without the boys have gone by fairly quickly. I think their three weeks have gone by at home a little faster with all the fun and activities they've been doing. Shelby has been doing a fantastic job handling everything while I've been gone and it's a huge relief to know everything has gone smoothly without me there. They fly to Germany tomorrow and I am so ready to have them both around again and have some laughter and noise back in the house.

I'm now 38.5 weeks and very ready to have this baby. I don't feel as big and uncomfortable as I did when I was pregnant with Colin, but I am still ready to have my body back. I'm still getting around well and I'm not in pain much until the evening. The biggest pain I've experienced this pregnancy is the heartburn in the last half. I currently take three different medications for acid reflux but none of them are able to control it. I try not to eat after 6PM but it makes little difference. I sleep propped up but that doesn't help much either. No matter how much I try to prevent it, I wind up with acid creeping up my throat for several hours of each night. The doctors have said as soon as I have the baby it will likely disappear instantly, and that I am very much looking forward to!

The only other thing I can complain about is sleep. The last two weeks I have hit the point where getting comfortable is difficult and when I do lay in one position too long my legs and/or hands go numb. Combine that with the constant need to pee and I do not sleep for more than an hour at a time without waking and getting up. At first I tried to rationalize that it was just preparing me for when the baby comes, but even a brand new baby will give me 2-3 hours of sleep between feedings! I am so tired, it sounds completely crazy but I know I'll get more sleep once the baby is born than I am getting right now!

I went to the doctor yesterday for my 38 week visit and I was really hoping they would check my cervix to see if I was dilated or effaced at all. No luck with that. The doctor popped in and popped out and barely even caught my name. He wasn't very professional actually, normally they come in and introduce themselves and shake your hand, he did not. He listened to the heartbeat, didn't bother to wipe the lotion off my belly or give me a tissue to clean it up with and instead told me to rub that in as he noted in the heart rate in my chart, told me to come in at 40 weeks for an NST (non stress test) if I hadn't had the baby by then and said we could talk induction at 41 weeks. Then he left. I am just hopeful that I will go into labor on my own soon once Shelby and Colin arrive. I am not only anxious to meet baby, I want to be that much closer to going home to Cooper and my own home.

Wordless Wednesday

Haircut

I've been loooong overdue for a haircut. I just have not had time on the island to get it done and so it was nice to come here where I have nothing but time and get it taken care of. It was really long and I knew it needed several inches cut off to clean up the dead ends. I had planned to take off about 6 inches or so, but the lady at the salon told me if I went 8-9 inches I would have enough to donate to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program. I'm not too picky about my hair and it grows fast, so that sounded like a great idea to me, so off it came. The length will take a bit of getting used to because I am so accustomed to my heavy mop of hair. But it will surely be easier to care for and I don't have to worry about the baby yanking on it now that it's shorter and out of his reach.

Happy New Year!

Our family brought 2013 to a close in two different countries with Shelby and Colin celebrating Portuguese style on Terceira and me back in Germany. I have to say, I missed my boys and wished we were all together, but there is nothing like a New Years Eve in Germany!

The boys went to our friend's house where they enjoyed a crab boil and the kids rang in the new year banging on pots and pans since fireworks on the island are scarce. I went to an old friend's house here in Germany and met up with some island friends there. Our sponsors and friends from when we moved to Lajes are now lucky enough to live here in Ramstein and they joined us. They had some Portuguese friends (a fellow controller in the Portuguese Air Force who still works with Shelby) who came from the island to visit them in Germany and they also got to experience New Years Eve German style. We had a lot of fireworks which we shot off a little early to be sure all the kids would see them. It also let us just sit back and enjoy the incredible views all around us when the clock hit 12. 

Views off in the distance of fireworks going up from just about every house as far as the eye can see.

I love how my camera captured this, it looks like shooting stars!

Here are two videos of what happens at the stroke of midnight, you can hear the booms and bangs from all around:

And another taken about 20 minutes later with little sign of slowing down:

We know some of the changes 2014 will bring to our family. We know we'll welcome another son to the world any day now and that later this year we'll be moving our family from the island to a new home, we just don't know where that will be. We hope that whatever 2014 brings us, that we can find the joy, love and blessings within. May this be our best year and yours as well, Happy New Year!