Archive for the 'Pregnancy' Category

Pregnancy: Making a delivery room “Go” bag

too much luggageOne topic that came up during our Lamaze class was preparing a “Go Bag” or duffel bag with everything we’d need for the delivery. You will end up with two different bags. One for delivery and one for your hospital stay after delivery. Considering that the delivery is generally the shortest period of your hospital stay, your delivery bag will be somewhat small and have basics.

Don’t make the same mistake I did. When my wife went into labor barely eight months into our pregnancy, I had to run around the house like a madman on a scavenger hunt trying to find everything we’d need. You should put your go bag together four to six weeks before your due date at the latest.

Luckily, my wife had written down a list of items to take. Had I not had that list, I would have been twice as lost.

The whole purpose of the bag is to have essentials and comfort items “JUST” for the delivery room. Your hospital bag will probably be much bigger and should be left in the car when you go to the hospital until after the baby is born.

Delivery rooms aren’t very large and there isn’t Continue reading ‘Pregnancy: Making a delivery room “Go” bag’

Hell at the hospital

evil nurseSo, having officially arrived at the hospital on Thursday since we checked in after midnight, we could stay there until at least Sunday and could stay until Monday.

Friday night I left the hospital and wifey was feeling well and positive. I expected to come back on Saturday morning finder her feeling great. We had already talked it over and decided we’d stay in the hospital until Monday so that we would have an extra day of help with the baby and an extra day of monitoring showing us that everything is going well.

Fast forward to Saturday morning. I call wifey to see how she’s doing and let her know that I’m on the way. She’s crying and says that she wants to leave. I ask for details and find out that she’s had a day from hell.

She’s experiencing a lot of pain from the C Section incision and is taking pain killers. The nursery brings the baby to my wife’s room every three hours since we’re breast feeding and don’t want the baby on forumula.

When wifey needs help to put the baby in the cradle and so she can go to the bathroom, she hits a call button next to the bed. It’s an intercom that rings the nurses station. She was pushing the call button and asking for help for several hours. Each time, she was told that her nurse would be there shortly. No one was coming.

Two hours passed at one point when my wife was laying in pain as she had a full bladder and was holding the baby. She couldn’t put the baby in its cradle and couldn’t get up by herself. Continue reading ‘Hell at the hospital’

Expecting: Home Fetal Heart Monitor (Doppler)

Listening to your baby’s heart beat can be one of the most comforting things you can experience.
One of the best purchases we have made during this pregnancy is our home fetal heart monitor. I can’t tell you how many times it has saved us from paranoid trips to the emergency room out of fear that something was wrong with the baby.

From what I understand, it works similar to a sonogram. The machine sends sound waves into your tummy which bounce off of whatever they hit. It measures how long it takes the waves to bounce back and plays the result as sound.

When the heart is beating, the machine detects the pulses and plays them. Early in the pregnancy, it sounds like a little whoosh-shoosh-whoosh sound. If you get the same model we have, it has a small digital display that shows the heart rate in numbers. You’ll find that the baby’s heart rate is Continue reading ‘Expecting: Home Fetal Heart Monitor (Doppler)’