Monday, April 23, 2012

Getting Back to Normal

After having almost a month off with Zach, he has gone back to work. The last week we had together we tried to get out and do some fun family things before he had to go back to the real world. We took a trip to the zoo, went to Westgate, and just hung out around the house as a family getting to know Levi. The man on man defense (one parent per child) is now going to be more of a zone defense now that Zach is back to work. Hopefully sanity will stay over our house!
Below are some of the pics from our family week.
Chloe playing w/Levi
Chloe & Zach looking at the Tiger at the zoo

Chloe & Zach playing in the water at Westgate
Chloe playing
Chloe giving Levi his pacifier
Levi "smiling"

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Belated Easter

Levi was still in the NICU on Easter and even though Chloe doesn't really understand Easter I still felt guilty not doing anything real special with her. She did go over to her cousins' house for a quick egg hunt, but she didn't really care too much about it from what I was told. So we celebrated Easter a week late. Which is kind of nice because if you get Easter things after Easter they are all on sale! Below are some of the pictures from the day. Enjoy!
Chloe decorating candy eggs
Chloe looking in her Easter "basket"

Levi just chilling on his first "Easter"
Chloe playing with her water table that she got for Easter


Chloe taking a water break

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Past few weeks

Chloe enjoying some DQ ice cream. She is a strawberry lover like her mother. She did not want her dad's chocolate ice cream sundae.

Chloe being silly shaking her water and ice
Trying to get a picture of Chloe winking (mommy was too slow with the camera) while at Subway enjoying lunch after taking our first family walk, Levi included.

Chloe wearing her crazy socks for and picnic at Westgate
Chloe in her new Shades (thanks to Mamaw) and new shirt/dress (thanks to cousin Sydney)
The past few weeks have been challenging at times starting with the crazy man trying to get in and then Levi in the NICU, our A/C breaking and finally bringing home Levi, but they have also been some of the best family bonding times as well. My parents were in town over my Dad's spring break which luckily happened to fall right when I was due so both my parents were able to be here. My parents got here the Wednesday before my due date and since I didn't deliver until the Thursday after my due date we had a full week of spending time with my parents as well as my sister and her family and a few of my dad's friends/old high school teachers of mine for that week. We went to the park, baseball spring training games and bike rides among other things. I should say that by bike ride I mean everyone else rode bikes while I followed in my sister's golf cart. I was 40 weeks pregnant there was no way I would be getting on a bike.

We were also able to spend some good quality time with Chloe since Zach was off as well. I was/am so paranoid that Chloe will feel left out and I want to make sure that she doesn't feel like she is any less special now that she has a brother who needs more hands on care than she does.

While we were going to doctors appointments, our hospital stay and the frequent visits back to the hospital for feeding Levi while he was still in the NICU Chloe was with my parents. She got a lot of quality time with her Mamaw and Papaw as well as her cousins. Chloe has always been a Mamaw's girl, but it was definitely intensified. Even when we were home she would often prefer Mamaw to change her diaper or Mamaw to help her with her toys. She would look and ask for Mamaw and Papaw. It was really nice to know how smitten she was with her grandparents and vice verse. It was definitely reassuring to know that we were leaving her in great hands while we were tending to Levi. We can't thank them enough for helping out and my mom for staying until Levi came home from the hospital even after Daisy ate my mom's hamburger one afternoon and ran out of the house with Buster on both my parents.

In the next few weeks Zach's parents will be in time and I'm sure Chloe will be just as smitten and just as big of a ham when they are here too. She was such a ham for my parents. Chloe is in that fun stage where she is talking a lot more and mimicking everything. I can't wait for the next few months to unfold and all the family time we will get together.

A Little Delay

Levi just born
Levi in NICU
Levi sleeping in NICU
Bringing Levi Home
Chloe saying Hi to Levi
Zach feeding Levi w/Daisy the guard dog
Well this post may be a little delayed, but so was Levi so I guess it all fits.

Levi Allen Batsche was born on Thursday April 5th at 6:31pm. He weighed in at 8lbs 10oz and was 19 inches long. His head was 15 inches around and his chest was 13 3/4 inches around. He has a lot of hair that is a light brown/strawberry blonde and looks a lot like Zach (according to Levi's doctor). He was a big boy compared to Chloe who was 6lbs and 12 oz when she was born! He still looks and seems so small compared to Chloe now. I still feel like he would just snap in half even though he is bigger than what Chloe was when she was born.

Labor was on the same path as Chloe as we had to be induced, but the time was much shorter. We started the induction medication around 9:30am while I was not dilated at all and at 5:30pm Thursday they took me off the medication because my contractions were lasting one minute and one minute apart and they said the could no longer control my body. I was then again put on oxygen for the remainder of the time. I quickly started to feel like Levi was going to fall out and I believe by 6pm I was fully dilated and at 6:31pm he was born. I was exhausted and really cold. In my head Chloe's delivery was all quiet and rainbows and relaxed, but this time there seemed to be millions of nurses and it was chaotic. It was probably more chaotic because it was right at shift change and the fact that I went from a 5 to a 10 in about 30 minutes probably didn't help (normally they say you go up a number about each hour), but I think there were about 8 nurses/doctors in the room with us. After Levi was born he cried, but it was very muffled. The nurse immediately noticed there was some fluid in his lungs still. This is normal and most babies they can suction it out or the baby can get it out within a short time so they continued to clean him up. Once most of the nurses were gone there were only about 4 nurses/doctors and they decided to take him to the NICU to observe him some more because of the fluid and difficulty breathing.

Zach was able to hold him and get a few photos, but I was not able to hold him just to see him from afar at first. What was suppose to be just a few hours of monitoring soon turned into admitting him for a 48 hour watch in the NICU. So we were still planning on taking him home when we were to leave on Saturday. On Friday morning I spoke to the doctor and his words were: "You will bring a very healthy baby home, but just not on your desired time frame." He said it would be the beginning of the next week before we could probably bring him home. This was hard...very hard. I had a pretty healthy baby that I couldn't take home and then I was stuck in the hospital for two days while I only saw my daughter a few times a day.

We finally were able to bring Levi home on Tuesday April 10th around 2pm. Chloe was napping when we got home and so we brought Levi in and put him down for a nap in his pack n play. When Chloe woke up and came downstairs she immediately went over to the pack n play and said hi to her brother. No prompting from us she just knew. It was pretty much the sweetest thing ever. I wish we would have gotten it on video, but we did not expect that from her and the lights were so dim since he was sleeping.

Chloe has been very curious, but very good with Levi. She likes to come over and see him and say hi and tell him he is nice. She also likes to give whoever is feeding him the bottle and put it in the sink when he is done. We are really trying to include her in everything with Levi and show her how she can be helpful and a big sister. I think it has been harder on me more than Chloe because I want to make sure that she is still getting our attention and knows that she is special and it isn't all about her brother.

Its been a rough few days for me. Since Levi came home 5 days after he was born we feel like we missed some of the bonding time and time to figure out his cries and cues. When Chloe came home we had a good grasp on her, but Levi is different and I've had a bit of a hard time, but thankfully nurse Zach is here to help. He is definitely the more natural of the two of us and I forgot a lot even though it was just 17 months since we brought Chloe home. All the nurses in the NICU couldn't believe how confident and good he was with Levi. He had tubes everywhere the first two or three days and Zach would just get in and take charge.

I'm so glad and lucky that Zach has still another week off and I'm off until June!