Corin: 14 months - Abby: 14 days

I WROTE THIS A FEW DAYS AGO AND PLANNED ON GETTING SOME PICS IN THERE BEFORE I POSTED IT. BUT WE HAVE HAD A ROUGH FEW DAYS, SO PICS WILL HAVE TO WAIT.

Corin hit the big 14 month mark the other day. He is certainly looking less and less like a baby and more and more like a little boy. He and I have been having a lot of fun together while I'm off work. Since Kristi is nursing she is doing almost all of Abby's care and I'm doing almost all of Corin's.
Last week Corin started swim lessons at the city pool. He is taking them with his buddy John (who is just a couple months younger than Corin). The lessons are pretty much useless for kids their age as far as actually learning anything, but they have fun playing in the pool together. The older kids will kick when you tell them to or blow bubbles in the water. If you put Corin's face in the water he just starts drinking it. But at least he isn't scared of the pool, which is nice.
Corin did have his first "Time Out" the other day. On our living room end table we have several items plugged in as well as the phone line running to the table. We have it blocked off with chairs but he has figured out that he can crawl under the chairs and get to all the wires. Once there he yanks on them and pulls everything off of the table down on top of himself. I told him 'No' and took him out of there, but then he just ran right back and crawled under again. After I took him out four times I put him in his crib and closed the door to his room. He cried while he was in there but was fine after I took him out. The next day I walked around the couch and he was just starting to crawl back under the chairs towards the wires. I said "Corin...NO." He turned his head and saw me, then started shaking his head 'No' and crawled backwards out from under the chairs. It was very sweet and very funny.
He's been having a rough couple of days with some SERIOUS teething pains, but this too shall pass.
Abby is doing great. She hit 14 days old on Saturday. Based on her diapers, she is getting all the food she needs from Kristi. We go into the doctor on Monday for a weigh-in, so we'll confirm that everything is on track then. Her only real problem is that she sleeps quietly through the day and then for some reason wants to make noise and be held during the night. This doesn't work out very well for Kristi, who would rather be sleeping than dealing with a fussy, gassy baby. I'm sleeping in the other room, so at least one of us gets a solid night of sleep so we can keep up with Corin during the day. I help with Abby at night when called upon, but Kristi is a rock star mommy and doing a great job.

Happy Father's Day / Abby's first check-up

Corin helping Daddy with the yard work.


Our babies together.











Things continue to go well with the new addition to our family. Abby has been home for just under a week, and has slept for most of that time. Unfortunately for Kristi most of the time that she is awake is in the middle of the night. Her days and nights are still a bit mixed up, so she is sleeping a lot during the day and then will be awake for 90 minute stretches in the middle of the night. Kristi is staying strong to try and only breast feed her, so for now there is not too much that I can do to help. I'm sleeping in the other room so that at least one of us is well rested to take care of Corin, who doesn't care how much sleep you have had, he would like to play right now please.
I had a wonderful Father's Day weekend with my family. Grandma came up on Friday and Sunday. My whole family came up on Saturday. So there were lots of visitors and people lining up to hold Abby and play with Corin. On Father's Day Kristi had Corin drawing on the envelope of a card from he and Abby. So he was scribbling all over it and then started drawing on his arms, her arm and the table. So Kristi took the pen away from him and put him on the floor. He was very unhappy about this. She handed him the card and told him to "Take it to Daddy". So he walked over to me holding his card for my, crying the whole way. It was very sweet.
Abby had her one week appointment this afternoon. She weighs 6 lbs, 8 oz, which they are happy with. All babies drop weight after they are born and it can take up to two weeks to get back to their birth weight. So we go back next week to make sure that she is still gaining weight well.
Abby is a happy baby most of the time...well, actually she is asleep most of the time. Most of the time that she is awake she is a happy baby. She really only seems to cry when she is cold (like when we are changing her, giving her a bath, or undress her to try and awake her up so she'll eat). Corin is also very happy most of the time. He does get fussy when he's ready for a nap or when his teeth are bothering him. But all you have to do to make him happy is to take him outside. He loves to play outside and he cannot get enough of the lawn mower. He will stand at it and grab onto the start cord and is endlessly entertained. He stood at it for about half an hour the other day while I was doing yard work. And no matter how long he has been there, he is always upset when you take him away from it.
Thanks so much for all of the love and well wishes. We are pretty much in our groove at home, so if you are around and want to visit the babies, just give us a call. We'll gladly let you entertain them for us.

Corin getting down to some sweet Creed on the radio.

Homeward Bound (again)

Pop and Lola have an easier time taking care of two babies at once than daddy does.


Corin's first lollipop...a sticky mess.




Abby came home from the hospital yesterday. The high intensity blue light that she was under brought down her bilirubin count very quickly, so the one extra night was all that she needed. So we have all been home for a little over 24 hours now…so far, so good.
Kristi’s milk has come in with a vengeance and she is pumping a little bit just to make herself more comfortable, as she is creating more than Abby is eating right now. But Abby nurses every three hours or so, and is getting better and better at it.
Corin hasn’t had too much to say about Abby yet. He has touched her a couple times, and looks at her when she makes noise, but nothing major yet. Kristi did say that when they were in the hospital the other day that Corin did try to give Abby his pacifier. When she wouldn’t take it after two attempts, he decided that he would rather suck on it himself.
Corin had his first physical therapy session with the First Steps program yesterday. He is crawling well (I’m finally putting some video of that up today) and they like that, but he still has some pronation issues with his feet. So they prescribed some orthotic inserts for his shoes. It will take a little while to get those made, so we’ll have to wait and see how that goes.
We’ve had a steady stream of family coming to the house, which has been fantastic. Abby got to meet Aunt Emily and Uncle Matt last night. So was so excited that she promptly fell asleep. We are just all very happy to have our complete family home and healthy.

Another day in the hospital

Corin eating on the floor out of a room service lid (although it looks like he is eating out of a dog food bowl).

We had a great first full day with Abby in the hospital. She spent the night in the nursery, and they just brought her in to us when it was time for her to eat. So Kristi and I got a few blocks of sleep throughout the night, which was great. We did the same thing last night, figuring we might as well take advantage of the nursing staff while we’ve got them.

Abby’s bilirubin levels have been climbing up a bit (just like Corin did) and she is a bit jaundice as a result. Yesterday they had her on a little bili-blanket, which makes her look like a little glow worm when she is all wrapped up. Her level was still climbing this morning, so unfortunately Kristi will be checking out of the hospital but Abby is going to have to spend another night. There is a hotel attached to the hospital and Kristi will stay there so she can come down throughout the night when it is time for Abby to eat. It is a little frustrating not to be able to take her home with us, but it should just be for one day and this experience hasn’t been anything close to what we went through with Corin.

We had visits from our friends Erica and Kristi yesterday, along with Aunt Faye, Lola, Grandma and Corin. Corin saw Abby for the first time, but didn’t seem too interested.

Thanks to everyone for your warm wishes and congratulations. We love you all and should all be home after tomorrow and ready to introduce Abby to everyone.

Abby’s Birthday

Abigail Elaine Orr was born on June 12, 2010. This is her story…

Since Corin had come six weeks early, Kristi had always said that she just wanted to get to 37 weeks and one day before giving birth to our daughter. Well yesterday was 37w + 1d, and Abby has already started listening to her mother. Kristi, Corin and I went to our neighborhood pool for an afternoon swim and got done a little after 3pm. When Kristi got out she said that she was “leaking” but that it may have just been pool water. This slow, intermittent, but undeniable leaking continued for a couple hours. We certainly knew what this could be, and I packed up the car in the event that we had to make a dash for the hospital.

We had planned on going out to eat Friday night, and knowing that if we did go to the hospital Kristi wouldn’t be allowed to eat anything, we kept our family date night and went out for a little Mexican to see if some south-of-the-border spices could coax the baby out. Dinner went fine but Kristi continued her light steady leak.

When we got home Kristi paged the doctor and explained the leaking. At that point she wasn’t having any serious or regular contractions. But since it had been a little while since she had felt the baby move, the doctor wanted us to get to the hospital right away to make sure that everything was okay. We called Grandma and got her on the way and then Corin, Kristi and I headed back to where Corin was born to see what we could do about getting him a little sister.

We got to the hospital at about 7:30 pm. The nurses hooked Kristi up to the fetal monitor and we could tell right away that the baby was fine. Her heartbeat was on pace and regular and there were no signs of any distress. They then took a swab of Kristi’s leaking fluid. This was not a pleasant experience for Kristi. The “instant test” showed positive for amniotic fluid, but then another doctor had to look at the fluid under the microscope to confirm it. While they were doing that I took Corin home and dropped him off with Grandma. She stayed with him while Pop and Lola were called into action and made their way to our house.

When I got back to the hospital Kristi said that the doctor didn’t see what she needed to under the scope and that our delivering doctor wanted to do another test to confirm whether or not her water had broken. So she had to have another uncomfortable test. But this one clearly showed that her water had broken (as everyone pretty much knew) and that we would be spending the night at the hospital and having a baby. At that point Kristi was dilated to about 3 cm.

We were moved from an examination room to a delivery room and Grandma arrived to provide her support. Kristi continued to have fairly regular contractions which continued to increase in their pressure. Despite these contractions, when she was checked at midnight she was still only dilated 3 cm. Our WONDERFUL nurse Amanda said that she would be back in a couple of hours to check on Kristi’s progress. So Grandma stretched out in the recliner and I got into bed with Kristi so we could all try to get a little sleep.

About 20 minutes later, things kicked into high gear for a bit. When Kristi’s water had broken earlier, there had been a “high bag break”. So the bag had broken above the baby and fluid was leaking out. This left a little cushion of fluid between the baby’s head and the cervix. This was making things much more comfortable for Kristi, but also slowing things down a bit. While we were laying there Kristi tensed up and it was clear she was having a very strong contraction. The lower portion of this bag had broken and now the baby was pressing hard to try and get that pesky cervix out of the way. This increased Kristi’s pain substantially, so at about 1:00 am Kristi (who was at 5 cm) had her epidural placed.

The epidural made Kristi much more comfortable, and again Amanda told us that she would be back in a couple of hours to check on Kristi’s progress. Amanda and the doctor came in at about 2:50 am to start checking on Kristi, but they were having trouble finding the baby with the monitors that were placed on the outside of Kristi’s belly. So the doctor checked under the hood and said, “Oh, that’s why we can’t find her on the monitor. She’s right here.” She told the nurse to get everyone together because we were about to have a baby.

Corin came in only six pushes, and we didn’t think that there was any way that this birth was going to be easier than his. But we were wrong. It only took five pushes to get her out, and the doctor even told Kristi that she didn’t need to push so hard.

At 2:56 am, Abigail “Abby” Elaine Orr was born. She was 6 pounds, 12 ounces, 19 ¾ inches long. She started crying right away and her skin pinked up beautifully. She got to go right to Kristi’s chest, which was a wonderful moment we missed with Corin when he was rushed back to the NICU. I cut the cord and Abby was moved over the baby warmer to get heated up a bit and cleaned up. Kristi has having a huge adrenaline dump and was in the bed just shaking, but very proud of her obviously dominant childbirth skills. Grandma headed back to our house to try to get some sleep.

We were all moved up to our nursery room at about 5:30 am. Abby was taken back to have some tests done and get a bath. Kristi and I took the best constantly interrupted 90 minute naps that we could, but any sleep was welcome at that point.

Pop and Lola came by for a visit. Grandma is here now. We are all just trading off holding the baby, taking pictures and taking naps. Kristi is breastfeeding like a champ. And the legend rolls on…

I know that this is poor video, but it was more for the audio so you could hear her cries when she came out.