Sunday, April 26, 2009

Julia and the case of the hiccups

Well, I set Julia down on the floor this morning (two weeks old now) and decided I was going to film her really quickly wrapped up in her Winnie the Pooh blanket. So I grabbed the camera and started filming and I noticed she was having hiccups. She seems to get them all the time. Of course I think every little thing like this, and sneezes, and farts are great so hopefully I will also get some videos of that as well to share with you. Here is Julia with her congenital hiccup problem.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Julia's First Video Montage

Last Christmas, I told my wife that we needed (yes needed) a new computer and video camera to record Julia's life in vibrant color. What he did not tell her was that he really wanted the computer to play video games (but that's another story). So with Julia finally here it is time for me to make good on my promises. Here is the first video I have created. I know it's not much but it actually took me a lot of time to put together (sad I know).



As you can see, I have a small problem because I recorded everything in 16:9 ratio and the smallest youtube embedded object is still too large for this blog. I'll have to work on that sometime. (Hopefully embedding it in Blogger has now fixed this problem. I think I might see about editing the blogger page layout by making in wider so the youtube files fit.)

Next I will have to start creating video's of the rest of her life. This is probably going to take some time but we have a few activities planned over the summer which should provide us with plenty of opportunities for additional video montages.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Picture Updates

Julia kept us awake most of the night and has slept most of today (She seems to have things backwards). So after catching up on sleep this morning I just wanted to let everyone know the Julia and Mom are still well and good. Here are a couple additional photos that some of you have requested.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Introducing Julia Grace Wheat

The wait is finally over and Melarie is finally feeling more comfortable. Julia Grace Wheat was born at 8:33 PM at Pomona Valley Hospital. She weights 7 lbs 10 oz. and is 20 inches long. Both Mom and Baby are doing extremely. After a short 10 hour labor and 30 mins of pushing, we have the following pictures available.

Mommy with Baby Julia about 30 mins after birth. She (Julia) was so content to be held by mommy. I got a great video of it the first time Melarie held Julia. I will post it as soon as I have time to go home and do some editing (probably a week).

Daddy with Julia, she only crys when I hold her but here she is calm with both eyes open.

First time grandma, Fatima Sandberg, holding Julia for the first time. Julia did cry for her a little only after being passed to her from Robert.

Easter Baby??????

Some of you may be aware of this already but for all others here is a quick post to let you all know that Melarie has been admitted into Pomona Valley Hospital this morning at 10:30 AM. She is currently resting comfortably in bed waiting for the baby to come. The nurses have told us to expect an Easter baby (we really hope it does not go any longer than 12 hours). So I will be keeping everyone posted here and let you know how things develop. Mel will probably log in later and correct my post to meet her liking but right now I am free to run a muck.


We got a little nervous around 12:15 when Melarie was getting uncomfortable after sitting on her back for over an hour. In moving around she went into a contraction and the baby's heart beat dropped slightly. The nurse came in and nervously tried adjusting the monitor straps and could not get the baby heart beat to speed back up so they put Mel on oxygen and set her on her side


The heart beat came back up after a couple minutes but they left her on oxygen for thirty minutes to be safe. At 12:45 the nurse came in and took her off the oxygen and both baby and mother are doing well. Here is a look at the baby heartbeat monitor. Melarie does not like it much but still thinks it is a good idea to have around.


4:00 PM Update

Melarie has continued to progress slowly since around 2:00. She received an epideral at 2:15 and has really enjoyed the absence of pain. Just before the epideral she had dilated to 5cm. She was originally admitted after a 4cm dilation. This progress has been slower than the "normal" progression of 1cm every 90 mins so the doctor recently decided to give her Pitocin, which will speed up the delivery process. We found out how to turn the baby monitor down so we don't hear the constant heart beats.

We are thankful for the monitor now because Julia's heartbeat has occasionally dropped to unhealthy levels during some of Melarie's contractions . The contractions are occasionally very long, which can cause increased stress on the baby, possibly accounting for the drop in heart beat that usually follows these long contractions. The nurses don't seem overly worried about it, so we try not to worry either.

6:00 PM Update

Everything is progressing slowly but time seems to pass by really quickly. I am really hoping for an Easter baby so I hope she comes before midnight. Melarie has spent the last couple hours resting and trying to get some sleep. She is now back on oxygen because it seems to help keep the baby's heart beat higher. Our OB nurse, Marissa, has started getting the room ready for delivery by putting stuff all over the room. Melarie is now dilated up to 7 or 7.5cms. Also to note, they have decreased the Pitocin drip because Melarie's contractions have not been as regular/frequent since the drip started. Next update to follow in a couple hours.

8:00 PM Update

The Dr. is on the way and Melarie is fully dilated to 10cm and has started pushing the baby down. The nurse expects delivery by 8:50 because she has pushed the baby all the way down. Things are looking really good.

8:33 PM Update

Julia Grace Wheat has officially arrived at 8:33 PM PST. She weighs 7 lbs 10 ounces and was 20 inches long. Pictures will be available shortly.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Contraction Master!

Since I can't sleep I thought I'd write a little about a fabulous invention that I am much appreciative about right now. Back when I first got pregnant I was watching A Baby Story on TLC and the couple was timing the contractions using a website. At the time I thought it was kind of ridiculous, I mean, can't you just look at your watch? Well, yesterday evening I started to feel more regular and stronger contractions than my daily dose of Braxton Hicks contractions (those were getting pretty annoying) and decided I better actually time the contractions. I thought back to that episode and it dawned on me how useful that might actually be. So I did a google search for "contraction timer" and the first site that popped up was Contraction Master. I set up the laptop on my nightstand and tried to fall asleep. All I had to do to time the contractions was push a button when one starts and push it again when it ends. So now I have this online log telling me how long and how far apart my contractions have been since about 10:00 last night (except for about 2 hours it looks like I did fall asleep) and all I had to do was sleepily push a button. They started out about 20 minutes apart and are now down to about 7 minutes apart.

Update: Darn it, they died down again. A very restless night for nothing? They were definitely very regular. I think I need to go walk around the mall, after I take a nap.

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Come on Baby!

I've officially reached that anxiously waiting period of pregnancy. Everyday I think, "Come on Baby! Let's make it today!" My due date is next Tuesday and I would love to be holding my baby before then, but alas, when baby is going to make her grand arrival is the big unknown right now. But I'm ready, I've done everything I wanted to do before she came and now I'm just hanging out. Well, okay, there's still stuff that can be done so I'm not just sitting around, but nothing that had to be done. Robert has worked from home the past two days and he has been keeping me busy with his go go go personality. In the past two days we've been to Costco, Best Buy (three times), the bank, the library, the post office, Target, the pool supply store and signed a contact to get all the windows replaced in the house. (And thanks to the stimulus tax credit and market competition in the end it will cost us $1,500 less from the tax credit and who knows how much less from contractors competing for our contract.)

In the last few weeks we've also visited some of Robert's relatives in Newport Beach who were in town for wedding, which we also went to last Thursday. At the wedding we picked up Robert's Mom and she stayed with us for the weekend and helped Robert out with the front lawn. The lawn used to look like this:then after the hard day work of Robert and his Home Depot friends it looked like this:and now after Robert and his mom worked on it all Saturday morning... it still pretty much looks the same, except the dirt is darker because we've been keeping it wet and it smells awful because it's covered in manure. BUT, hopefully it will soon start looking green once the seed they planted starts coming up.

I finally dropped on Monday. I was beginning to think baby was just going to wait until I went into labor to get snug down there. I'm not sure if I look any different, but I can definitely feel that baby is lower. I had my latest OB appointment on Monday and they said I was 1 cm dilated. I've also been having a lot of braxton hicks contractions. But the sad truth is that doesn't really mean anything. Baby can come tomorrow, or she can wait until next week. *Sigh* But she will probably be induced if she doesn't come by next weekend so there is some kind of deadline here. Well, back to waiting.

P.S. The reason I had two doctor's appointments the other week was because I had an ultrasound to check up on baby's size since I am small. They told us she was about 6 lbs 10 ounces, and referred us to see specialist the next week to check her internal organs. The specialist told us all she saw was very healthy 7 lb 8 ounce baby. Hmm, how big do you think she really is? Point is though, she's fine.