The Manke Family: February 2014

It has been the month of adjustments for our family of four! We have slowly been figuring out new routines, how to adjust our lives without going too crazy.

The biggest adjustment was for Cameron: going from the center of attention at home to now sharing the attention with an infant. The first two weeks were the hardest but they have slowly gotten better. It didn't help that while we were in the hospital, Cameron got a really icky cold with an awful cough that sounded like croup or RSV. My mom stayed with Cameron while we were in the hospital and one of the nights she held him up so he could breathe easier. We came home from the hospital at 10:30 on a Tuesday morning and Ryan was to the clinic with him for a noon appointment with his pediatrician to get checked out. It was ruled a virus and our biggest job the next few days while he was contagious was keeping him away from Abbie - we didn't want to get her sick!

The temper tantrum and attention grabbers Cameron acted out on in the first two weeks are something he still does, but they are a little less dramatic. I've never seen him lay on the floor screaming and kicking all four limbs, pounding them on the floor until that first week. It was sad for me to see our sweet boy start to become someone he normally wasn't - the tantrums, a lot more hitting, kicking and pushing (especially towards me!) and a lot of tears. Like I mentioned, he still does a lot of those things, they just seem less frequent now, or he tries to do them more subtly hoping we won't notice or discipline him (hitting me less hard, etc.). Listening is another thing we noticed changed - he has a hard time listening and following through on what we ask, compared to what we were used to. Although I've heard this may not get better as they get older! :)

We've been teaching Cameron to be more of a helper and grow his independce, hoping this will help him feel more valued, now that he's sharing us:

- Takes his clothes off and puts them in the dirty clothes hamper

- Teaching him to put his clothes back on (a lot more tricky when he'd rather be naked!!)

- Taking on and off his coat, boats and hat. Putting his coat by the coat rack for us to hang up (the coat rack is too high for him, but he does try to hang it up!)

- Helping wash bottles and putting away dishes

- Getting things for Abbie (pacifier, blankets, etc.)

- Helping me make her bottles by putting on the covers and then placing them in the fridge

The first couple weekends Cameron had sleep overs at my parents house and then at his Auntie DeAnn's with grandma Chris. I had such guilt that we were sending him off the first couple weekends, but looking back I am so glad we did. I thought Cameron would be upset he wouldn't be able to be home or be mad he couldn't be with us. I had to remind myself that he's two and wouldn't remember this time and also, he left happily to both sleepovers - probably because those places were more fun than somewhere where he was getting disciplined by his parents! One routine we've kept in place is sending him to daycare full time to Bridget's - I'm so glad we made that decision because he loves going and I think that routine has been very important to him. We let him sleep in and take him around 9:00. Letting him sleep in has impacted his nap routine (he rarely takes naps anymore!! :-/) but we'll get back into that once we go back to work and he had to get up early again (hopefully!!).

Now that we're over the initial transition of Abbie being here, Cameron really is an awesome big brother! He always has to know where his "stister" is and constantly wants to help with her. He will ask about her if she's not with him and always wonders what she's up to asking a lot of "why" questions (yes, that has also begun for him!!). He also is good at sharing his toys - if we're playing in his room an Abbie is with us, a few toys usually end up in her lap and he tells her to play with them. Or he shares his blankets and stuffed animals by placing them on her - we're teaching him that blankets do not go on people's heads, especially Abbie's!!

As for Abbie - we've been blessed once again with a good baby (I know, she's only 5 weeks and things could change, so I hope I'm not jinxing myself!).

- She's had her days and nights figured out pretty well from the beginning. Only a couple of nights has she had stretches of being awake for more than a couple of hours.

- She's averaging about 4 to 6 hour stretches at night with an occasion wake up after 2 hours. She's gone through a couple of growth spurts and those nights are the longest!!

- She swallowed a lot of amniotic fluid and had her tummy suctioned twice at the hospital. Because of this, she was really spitty in the beginning and had a hard time latching when nursing. I started pumping breast milk and she's been on a bottle from the first week. Now she's so good with the bottle, I rarely nurse and just pump. She started out at 2 - 3 ounces at a time and is now up to 3 - 4 ounces. Thank goodness I have a supply to support her without supplementing nursing!

- She has a strong head! Even when she was born, the nurses commented on how strong she was. Ryan is very good at doing tummy time with her and she can even lift her head up and turn it from one side to another! And she doesn't mind tummy time - let's hope it stays that way!!

- She is very grunty and makes LOTS of noise! The pediatrician said this is very normal and it's something she will outgrow - her airways are so small and she tries to breathe faster than she needs to, so it comes out noisy.

Abbie has been growing like a weed! Here have been her check up stats:

Two day check up:

8 lbs, 2 oz and 21 1/2 inches

Two week check up:

8 lbs, 15 oz and 21 3/4 inches

One Month check up:

10 lbs, 5 oz and 22 3/4 inches

He even learned how to help throw diapers away!

Hard at work washing bottles!

Two Weeks

Four Weeks

Someone took my spot! (No, she doesn't sleep with us like this, just snuggling before bedtime :))

Her pirate eye - Arrrrrr, matey!

Great Grandma Sorenson

Playing outside with daddy

Our mini snowman (that later Manson smashed with his paws!)

Snuggles with Auntie

Making Valentines Day cards for his friends

Snuggling Shaquanda, her first dolly from Auntie Ashley

Cousin Elijah

I'm watching you, Mommy...

And we can't forget about still giving Manson some love... <3 He also feels left out in this transition!!

The past two weeks have been a fun and interesting adjustment for us! Abigail was born on Sunday, January 26 at 9:00pm and we couldn't be happier to have our family more complete!!

For those of you that don't want to be bored with the details of the day of her birth, you may want to jump to the end of the post. I want to capture and remember the details so someday Abbie can know exactly how she came into this world :)

On Saturday night, I was woken up by a few contractions, but didn't think much of it - I had a few false alarms in the days and weeks prior and so I didn't want to get excited about anything! By 4:20am on Sunday, I knew something was different so I got up to move around and see if my contractions would change - they didn't! As I did laundry, paid some bills, finished packing our suitcase and cleaned the kitchen, I counted consistent contractions around 10 minutes apart until 6:15. I decided to call Labor and Delivery (L&D) to see what the nurse had to say about the length of the consistency, even though they were still 7- 10 minutes apart. She suggested I wait until they were 5 - 7 minutes apart and then come in since the roads were a bit slippery, it was way below zero and because we lived about a half hour away. As I contemplated waking up Ryan, the contractions just stopped altogether - go figure I jinxed it by calling L&D! I finished whatever I was doing and decided to go back to bed and try to sleep - if this was the big day I thought I should at least try to rest a little bit.

Around 7:30, they started back up and at this point Ryan woke up to me as I tossed and turned in bed. I showed him my phone where I was keeping track of the contraction timing and told him we weren't going to church that morning - I was pretty sure this had to be the start of true labor (no more false alarms!!). He got up and also went into "nesting" mode: snow plowed the driveway, got a few other things done outside and then made my favorite caramel rolls :)

I knew to keep things going I had to stay active, so after breakfast our family of 3 loaded up and went to Target where we walked around the store for 2 hours (and of course spent about $350!). That did the trick because when we got home, my contractions were still the same but stronger: consistently 10 minutes apart but I had to hold myself up to get through them. Ryan kept asking if we should go in but I kept shrugging it off saying that they weren't quite close enough. At 2pm, Ryan's mom called to see how I was doing. During our phone conversation, my contractions were so intense I couldn't even talk to her through them. It was at that point she convinced me to call my parents to come watch Cameron and to have Ryan take me in. I still wasn't fully convinced we needed to go because I figured in the back of my head they would just send us home.

We both went into nesting mode again cleaning up the house, trying to spend a little time with Cameron (who I'm pretty sure knew something was up - he wouldn't nap and he was being extra sweet that day which pulled on my heart strings even more and made it hard to leave him!!!), and getting the car loaded up. My dad arrived around 3:30 and we were at the hospital, checking in at 4pm (might I add on the trip to the hospital, my contractions were the strongest ones I'd felt - at that point I was glad we were going in!)

After checking in, I had a couple strong contractions and the nurse told me we weren't going anywhere - I was at a 4, 90% effaced and baby was at a +2 position in the birth canal (that rating goes from a -2 to a +4, indicating how far down in the birth canal she is. +2 is pretty low considering I was only dilated to a 4!) We decided to start the epidural (I wasn't even going to attempt it naturally - I have no pain tolerance!) and get the show on the road! By 5:30pm, the epidural was in but I hadn't had many contractions. Why you may ask - because between the epidural, my IV and a blood draw, the anxiety I had from freaking out over the needles made my body stop contracting. That's how much I hate needles!!

At 6pm, the doctor broke my water and by 7:30pm, I had only progressed to a 5 and was 100% effaced. They decided to start the first level of pitocin (doses of pitocin start at the lowest level and can only be increased every 40 minutes). Ryan's mom, Chris, and sister Nicole came to the hospital and so we were just visiting while I rested and waited to see how long the pitocin would take to do its magic - since things had slowed way down, I figured we wouldn't be delivering baby girl that night! At 8:10, they came in and upped my dose of pitocin. Ryan's mom and sister were going to head down the road to grab a bite to eat. Before leaving, Chris jokingly told me not to have the baby before she came back. I laughed and told her not to worry, it would be a long night. I called my mom to check in on Cameron and during our conversation, I twice felt the slight sensation to push, but figured that was too soon and too good to be true. Then all of a sudden I REALLY felt the urge to push - I interrupted my mom, told her I had to go, threw my phone at Ryan (I don't think I even hung up...) and hit the nurse button. She came in and checked me and sure enough, it was go time!! I was at a 10 and baby girl was already making her way out! Ryan looked out the window and his mom was just pulling out of the parking lot in her car - I guess we will have the baby while she was away!!

The room turned into a swirl of activity with another nurse being called in to get everything ready. They wanted me to do a "practice" push to make a little progress before the doctor came. Half way through the "practice" push, the nurse said that the baby was coming and immediately paged the doctor and had me stop pushing. After the doctor rushed in, I started pushing again at 8:44 (trust me, I wasn't watching the clock, they just told me that later :)) and 5 pushes later at 9:00 on the dot, little Abigail Marie entered the world. She came out quiet and a little blue so they put her on my chest right away to snuggle. It didn't take long for her screams to follow and we will filled with joy! She was FINALLY here!!!

Abbie stayed on my tummy for the first 20 to 30 minutes while the doctor finished up (little missy came down the birth canal with her head sideways. The doctor had to turn her face down, which resulted in a second degree tear - ouch!!). After she was weighed and checked out, Ryan also got to spend snuggle time with her wrapped in a warm blanket. Abbie was absolutely mesmerized by her daddy - it was so sweet to watch. I always figured she'd be a daddy's girl but it was at that moment I knew it would be true.

My sister Jill surprised us by coming to the hospital to meet Abbie - it was a fun surprise! She, along with Chris and Nicole, were in the waiting room during delivery and came into the room about 10:30. Abbie's first visitors!

The next day was the coldest day of the year with temps around -20 and -30 without windchill so our amount of visitors was few, but we were ok with that. My mom brought Cameron in around noon to meet Abbie and then Ryan and the two of them had lunch at the cafeteria. Auntie Amber, one of Ryan's other sisters, came for a few hours in the afternoon and then that evening, my parents brought Cameron back to the hospital and we all had supper together. Cameron really didn't want much to do with Abbie and I don't think fully grasped what exactly was going on. But he did hold her once and then went back to the goodie bag that Abbie gave him as a gift (full of stickers, crayons, a slinky, and cars)!

We were discharged around 10am on Tuesday morning and we were both excited to be bringing our little bundle home and start the new adventure as a family of four!