Going Home

Jason got Cooper ready to come home from the hospital. We were expecting a bigger baby!! Cooper is not fitting into the new born sizes. His outfit is a little big, he is cute anyway!! We went home from the hospital on Thursday and we were all ready.

Cooper was out of the NICU by 3:00 pm on Tuesday. It was a long wait.

Cooper James has arrived

Cooper James Rogers was born 8/3/09 at 11:57 pm. He weighed 6 lbs. and 12 oz. and was 19 1/2" long.

I started contractions around 1:30 am on Monday morning and they continued through the morning. I called the doctors office to see if I should come in and the nurse told me they were not consistent and that I should drink some water and lay down and take a nap I was probably dehydrated. I took her advice and the contractions stopped. Needless to say I was not happy. I was ready. So I sent Jason to work.

I woke up from my nap and felt pretty good around 2:00 the contractions started again. I waited until 4:00 to call Jason. At this point the contractions were 20 minutes apart. By the time he got home from work at 4:20 the contractions were 5 minutes apart. We followed the instructions from our labor classes and packed our bags and I ate something light. At 6:00 I had Jason call the hospital to see if I should come in. They did not hesitate and said yes. I was so excited. By the time we got in the car the contractions were 3 minutes apart. I was not so comfortable at this point.

On the way to the hospital Jason asked if it was okay to stop and get something to eat. I said yes it could be a long night. Right, it is our first baby this is going to take a while. It was the longest 5 minute wait for him to come back out to the car.

We arrived at the emergency room around 6:30pm, I was up in triage around 7:00. They checked me and I was at 3cm and the contractions were still at 3 minutes apart. The nurse said you are going upstairs to labor and delivery. The nurse had told me they just sent 4 women home ahead of me. I was nervous that I was going to be number 5. I was very uncomfortable at this point and refused to be put in a wheel chair and walked to my room. By the time we got to our room I was dilated to 4cm.

The doctor came and said give her what ever pain meds she wants. We are going to break her water. After they broke my water I sat in the whirlpool tub for an hour and half. I had to wait for and epidural so the whirlpool kept me distracted. By the time I got out of the whirlpool I was dilated to 8 cm and it seemed like 2 minutes later I was dilated to 10 cm. No time for an epidural. I was not sure at this point how I was going to do it. Two hours of pushing and Cooper arrived.

Cooper spent the first night in the NICU. He was not breathing well when he came out. So they kept him over night for observation. I was able to see him and hold him for the first time around 3:00 am on Tuesday. We are so excited that he is here. We can not wait for everyone to meet him

Week 37

Last Wednesday was the 37 week appointment. The doctor was a little late showing up for the appointment because she was in delivering a baby. She was a little frazzled and trying to get her day back on track. Everything with Shelly and the baby checked out great again. Shelly's 2 cm dialated and the cervix was 70% thinned out. Baby rogers was resting while we were there and the heart rate was down to 131. That was it for the excitement of the week 37 appointment.

Now on to today's excitement. Kari and Aaron had their first baby this morning at 3:30 a.m. Shelly and I got to meet Nolan Aaron tonight. He's a healthy little boy weighing in at a little over 8 pounds. It was exciting and a little scary realizing that it will be us in one of those rooms very soon! It may be sooner than we're expecting. Shelly hasn't been feeling well today and wasn't feeling as much movement from the baby so we were advised to have her get checked out, which was convenient since we were already at the hospital. Our nerves were eased when everything checked out good. They hooked two monitors around Shelly's belly. One measured the baby's heart rate and one measured to see if Shelly was having contractions. The baby's heart rate ranged from 133 -172, and to Shelly's surprise the other monitor was picking up "tightening" in her stomach about every 3 minutes. The nurse didn't call them contractions and didn't seem too worried about it. They did check the cervix again and it's 90-100% thinned so it really could be any day now. They were prepared to keep us there for a few hours to monitor everything but the doctor on call let us go home. So tonight was an exciting one! We'll be back at the regular weekly doctors appointment on Wednesday.

Shelly's Belly!

Two post's in one night! I'm on a roll. Here's another picture of Shelly's Belly. The baby is growing great and her belly is filling out. I've also just posted a quick poll on the right to get everyone's predictions.

Shelly was back at the doctor again today. Everything keeps checking out normal which is great. She's having some problems with her feet and legs swelling up. The swelling just doesn't go down overnight anymore. The doctor doesn't seem to concerned about it yet, so Shelly is still working and just taking it easy when she's home after work.

The baby is still very active and had a great time last night. Shelly thinks the baby flipped into postion and the head is down. I think the hot wings she ate last night for dinner did the trick! At her appointment today the doctor did say that the head is now down and in the right position. Shelly also think that the baby has "dropped". By looking at the picture it sure seems like something has changed.

If we have the baby anytime after next Tuesday it will be considered full term and with it finally heating up outside Shelly is ready!

Time is Flying!

It's been a long time since I've had a chance to update the blog. I'll try and remember back to our previous doctors appointments. I believe we've had 3 since the last post. All has been well. The week 33 doctors appointment was a simple checkup. The heart beat was back down in the 140's and everything else checked out good with Shelly. That was our last bi-weekly appointment and now we go every week until the baby is born.

Last weeks appointment they checked to see if Shelly is dialated and she is already dialated to 1.5 cm. They'll check this every week now until that baby is here. The only other thing they did was check the heart beat measure Shelly's Belly and check her blood pressure. The heart beat is in the low 150's. Shelly's Belly is measuring at 33 inches. The doctor also had a little fun with us before the appointment was over. She performed a very un-scientific test to tell the sex of the baby. She has a string with nail attached to one end of it. Once she settles the string if it rotates in a circle the baby is a girl and if it just swings back and forth it's a boy. She say's it's been fairly accurate for her so we'll have to wait and see if it works. I suppose you all want to know what the string did? We'll be posting a little poll to see what everyone's opinion is, then maybe we'll give up the inside information!

Week 31 appointment

We had another doctors appointment last Wednesday. Everything keeps checking out the way it's suppose to. The baby's heart beat went back up to 156 bpm and Shelly's belly is up to 30 inches! The baby had an extremely active weekend kicking Shelly in the ribs and punching her bladder. She's still getting swollen feet after long days at work or trying to do to much around the house. She's loving her sexy new compression socks, they're nice and cool for the summer! She'll go back to the doctor again next Wednesday. She'll be 33 weeks along and just 7 weeks until the baby arrives.

We had our second baby class last Saturday. They went through all sorts of different labor positions that we can try ans see what works best for Shelly. Then they took us on a tour of the hospital and showed us where they'll take us when we get to the hospital, then the type of room we'll be transferred to after we're checked in and they've done a few check ups on Shelly and the baby. After the initial check in we'll be moved to a labor and delivery room. The best thing about these rooms was the lights they had pointing down at the bed. They had a little "remote" with a light at the end of it. The nurse will click it and the lights adjust themselves and point at the remote! No need for Shelly to be in the exact right spot on the table, the lights will adjust themselves. After the baby is delivered we'll stay in that room for a couple hours then be transferred to another room where we'll stay until they send us home. I think they said we'll only be there for 24 hours before they send us home to fend for ourselves!