Sweet Feet

Ethan is growing every day. Today I took some cute pictures of his hands and feet because they look so tiny and delicate! Its amazing how small they start and how big they get quickly! I wonder how much he weighs now? We will see in a few days when we go in for a quick weight check. For now we just keep on trucking... nursing, sleeping, and diaper changing. ;)

Father of the year!

Erich is such a sweet hubby and good dad! I just had to share that. He fixes me dinner, brings me water, changes diapers, feeds the baby when I just need a break and he enjoys holding Ethan and cuddling with him. My recovery is sure to go quick with such pampering.

Sunday Visit

Today in the early morning we met with Ruthy Wilson to work on our BF'ing issues. She drove down from the Cocoa area so it was quite a haul for her! After playing with the baby and watching us she helped us get to nursing. Ethan nursed for almost 40 minutes in the football hold while we talked about general concerns and issues. It was pretty neat to FINALLY have him latched and nursing correctly. He was using a shield, but who cares, he was nursing without the bottle!

I am so glad we went ahead and had her come out to help us! It was worth it and maybe the insurance company will reimburse us since we have an Rx for her consultation. We will see.

Later in the day, my family arrived to visit and meet Ethan. Stef, Tommy, Dad, Mom, Tici, Grossmama, and Granddaddy all came and visited. It was fun visiting with everyone and having the great grandparents and great great grandpa hold Ethan. The man with the silver hair in the photo is Ethan's Great-Great Grandfather and the redhead holding Ethan and Tommy is my aunt Patricia. The redhed holding just Ethan is Ethan's Great Grandmother Grossmama. The picture to the left of Grossmama is my mother holding the boys!

1 week and growing

Ethan is 1 week old today and finally updated my website to include his birthday pictures! WOW, it just seems like he came home yesterday.

Ethan is doing great. He is thus far a super sweet and quiet baby. He wakes and grunts and smacks his lips which means “FEED ME SOON OR ELSE” then he acts a bit fussy which means change me and burp me, then he gets this drunk baby look meaning “oh yeah... I’m full and the siesta can begin.” Being a mom is great and every day he does something new that makes me holler... get the camera quick. Erich loves to cuddle with the baby, and we often find our selves saying ‘I’ll hold him’ ‘That’s OK, I’ve got him’ ‘But you can go rest if I hold him’ hehehehe... It is pretty comical.

6 days old, Dr visit and first group meeting

Friday, 6 days old

Today was quite a busy day! We first went to the doctor for our weight check and with the Hawaiian diaper on, he weighed 8lbs 1oz! There is no way he put on that much weight in 3 days, but obviously he is heading the right direction as far as weight is concerned. The doctor was quite pleased with his progress.

We have been working with Ruthy, a LC, over the past 3 days to get my supply up so we do not need to supplement. Ethan has been eating exclusively from a bottle since we have been home, but it has been filled with expressed milk. So he is getting the good stuff. At this point, he eats(which is every 2.5hrs like clock work), drinking mother's milk tea, and eating oatmeal. This has helped SOOO much with getting my supply from only getting out about 15ml total to about 2 oz every session. Ruthy is great!

We got to meet Ruthy today at her mommy zone group meeting which she holds every Friday at 11:30. She encouraged us and we set up a meeting on Sunday for her to come to the house and work with us one on one. The group was a lot of fun. t is a chance to get out of the house and meet some other mom's and their babies! Will be back!

Oh, we caught Ethan sucking his thumb on camera today! He has been doing that since the hospital but we finally remembered to take a picture today! So cute!!!

Jeff and Angela also came to visit today. It was nice seeing them and visiting for the day. Ethan had his first visit fom out of towners.

Ethan's First Doctor visit

Wednesday, 4 days old

Ethan had his first doctor visit today. Our ped has a very small office which is his own practice. We filled out paper work, got weighed and talked with the doctor. Dr. Eggen is very nice and not as stiff as some of the other doctors we visited with prior to Ethan being born. He uses the weight charts as guides and not absolutes, so the weight Ethan lost in the hospital did not bother him at all (8lbs 3oz at birth, 7 lbs 7 oz at discharge). He is very supportive of breastfeeding and, with the exception of tetanus shots, he will honor our request to delay vaccines. He has some strange mannerisms, but overall Erich and I both like him as a doctor for Ethan. We will be back on Friday for a brief weight check per the doctors orders.

We're Free

At around 9am on Tuesday the 23rd, our doctors cleared us both to be discharged from the hospital. I was extremely tired of being at the hospital, reporting to the nurses every time the baby ate, had a wet or dirty diaper, having my blood pressure checked all the time, nurses telling me I need to supplement with formula, etc... just being there was stressful and exhausting.

It took the hospital 3.25 hours to get there act together and discharge us... So, around noon I was in my wheel chair holding the car seat with the baby already in it being wheeled out of the hospital with Erich in tow. Putting the car seat into the car was quite an experience. Me being the take control kind of person I am, grabbed the car seat and proceeded to lean into the car and place it on the base at which point I about doubled over in pain. Who knew leaning over holding a 15lb package out at arms reach would use my abs?!? Ouch! Note to self... don't do that again. At 12:15pm we were in the car driving away! Yipee!!! Erich is taking 2weeks off to help me around the house with the baby and drive me around. Doctors orders... no driving or doing much of anything stressful for the next 2 weeks at least.

Ethan has his first ped appointment tomorrow with Dr. Eggen. We will see how that goes.

He is Alive!

Ethan Erich Mirabal was born on January 20th, 2007 at 9:36 pm. He was quite a stocky fellow weighing in at 8 lb 3 oz and measuring 19.25" tall. Dr Zylman delivered him via c-section after 18 hours of natural labor in the birthing suites of Holmes Regional Hospital in Melbourne, FL.

Erich was present in the delivery room while the rest of our family waited in the waiting room. Present thru out the day was Pily (Ethan's Oma), Stefanie and Tommy (Ethan's Aunt and cousin), Lisa (our Doula), Jose and Maria (Ethan's abuela and abuelo), and WL and Sue (Ethans great aunt and uncle).

Ethan's Birth

My birth experience was part exactly what I wanted and part compromise... Most importantly it resulted in a beautiful healthy baby boy. This post is going to be long so ignore it if you do not care or want to know details of how Ethan came to be (min out of the gutter) on the 20th of January.

It all started on Friday the 19th... It was an off day for me and Erich took the day off to spend with me running around doing things I wanted to do.

I will update this later when I have more time
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So today is April 14th, 2007 and I am finally updating my birth story. I wrote it as a letter to Ethan...

Dear Ethan,

I am going to try and tell you about your birth without writing a huge novel. So here goes….Your dad and I anxiously awaited your arrival for the 40weeks 4 days your grew in my stomach. The week before you were born I went to work and dealt with everyone looking at me like I was crazy to be working since you were officially due on Tuesday the 16th according to the doctors. I took half days all week, but I worked.

The day before you were born (Friday the 19th) was my non working Friday so your dad and I spent the day walking, talking, relaxing, eating ice cream, watching ducks by the pond, and towards the end of the evening we went to the spa so we could get massages. After the spa at 8pm, we headed home to go eat and than do your belly cast so we could remember how big you mad me grow J. Around 11pm we were done with the cast, I ate a sandwich and off to bed we headed thinking we had a few days left.

As usual, around 3am, I woke up with you pushing on my bladder and I really had to go use the restroom so I stood up and got really confused since I was leaking all over my self. I ran to the restroom and finally realized what happened. My membrane ruptured spontaneously… I was so excited because this meant that in less than 24 hours we would be meeting you. There was maconium in the fluid which worried me a little, but after calling our doula and the doctor it was off to the hospital.

Around 4:30am we arrived at the hospital and checked into our labor room. It was one of the small ones, but it did not really matter since I could not get into the tub with my membranes rupture anyway. The nurses checked me and I was only 2 cm dialated and not having any contractions. So we waited to see what would happen. Around 6:30am the doctor arrived to let us know that we needed to start pitocin to get contractions going and try to get labor moving along. So we started pitocin and the contractions were then moving along nicely. Between 8:30 and 10:10am, I was having contractions every three minutes and your Dad and Lisa, our doula, were there to support me. I was happy, excited, joking around with everyone, and relaxing great thru all the contractions.

At 10:25am the doctor checked me and I only had progressed 1 cm to be 3cm dialated, but I had moved on to being 80% effaced. Over the next 4 hours I progressed about .5cm each hour and you were hanging out really high in my tummy (-2 station). During that block of time your Oma, Aunt Stefanie, Abuela, Abuelo, Aunt Sue, and Uncle WL all arrived to wait for you. Since we were progressing so slowly I wanted to move around some and sit on the labor ball, but since you hated the heart monitor so much, they made me get back into bed.

By about 5:30pm I was dilated to 8cm and was resting well with deep relaxation. The doctor had me flipping from side to side to change position to try to help you move down into position. At 6:45pm they checked me and I was at 9cm and you moved down to zero station, so real progress had been made. However, at 8:00pm they checked me and I still was only at 9cm. The pitocin was on so high that I had been having back to back contractions for the past 2 hours and was starting to get tired.

They put oxygen on me to make sure you would stay strong and by 8:30 all that had happened was my cervix was getting inflamed and irritated from all the pushing when it was only dilated 9cm instead of the needed 10cm. Dr. Zylman called for a c-section at 8:45pm because she felt the cervix would not dialate any further due to the inflammation.

So the prep for surgery began. Your dad got dressed up in white cover ups, while I begged the nurses to turn off the pitocin (by now it just plain hurt and since they were going to go get you I did not want the contractions to occur anymore). They wheeled me off to the operating room and onto the surgical table where they gave me an epidural so I could stay awake during the surgery. At 9:30 they cut me open and your dad came into the room after the surgery had began. Shortly after he arrived, I felt a bunch of tugging and pushing on my abdomen and I heard the doctor announce “9:36… boy he’s a big one, there is hardly anything left of you!” Your dad snapped some pictures and the doctors wisped you off to the warmer so they could clear your lungs and finally we heard you scream. It was a beautiful sound. Your dad went over and watched the doctors clean you up and wrap you in a blanket as the doctors started putting me back together. They brought you to me and I got to kiss your head and touch your cheek before your dad went with you to the nursery while the doctors finished stitching me up.

I went to the recovery room and everyone came in to see me after the surgery. After all the visitors arrived in the room, your dad came in carrying you to me so I could hold you for the first time and announce your name to the family. I kissed you, talked to you, and sat there happy as a clam! What a wonderful day! You were born at 9:36pm weighing 8lbs, 3oz and measuring 19.25” long. Your apgar scores were 8 and 9 and you were a perfect little man! Your dad and I were so happy to meet you finally after our 40 week 4 day adventure!

Love,

Mom