Baby Noah!

Mommy, pre-op thinking "it's eviction day baby booger!"
We got to the hospital around 5:20AM and started the check-in process. We were put in one of the labor and delivery rooms to get ready for surgery. They put in the IV, drew some blood, and a few other things. The doctor stopped by to say hello (and also help us decide on a boys name....haha). We've had our girls name for probably 6 months. The boys name proved a little more difficult. We had been thinking Noah for the past month or two, but also had a couple of others in mind. We decided we really liked Noah, but would wait until we saw him (if it was a him!)

Around 7:30, the time came and Peggy actually got to walk into the OR. Certainly a much different experience than with the last baby! They make the dad sit outside of the OR while the mom gets prepped. The first nurse told me that she'd be back for me in 10 minutes. At least 10 minutes (probably more like 15) passed, and I was still all alone. Then another nurse walked by and told me 7 more minutes. Argh. I remember this same feeling when we were having Abby. It felt like FOREVER. I was left out there with thoughts of a healthy birth and if it was a boy or a girl. My mind was whirling. Finally, they called me in.

I sat up by Peggy's head, and couldn't see much. She looked SO much better than with the last baby. I guess 31 hours of labor will do that to a girl. She wasn't shaking and seemed in very good spirits. After 10 minutes of cutting, it was time to get the baby out.

He was apparently a bit large to get out easily. Which is incredible to me, because it was a C-section! How could a baby be too big to get out? Well, the doctor tried for a minute or two, but couldn't get the head out. So, she had to use suction. She attached that, and pulled what appeared to be pretty hard! So the head was out. We were so excited....it was almost time to find out the sex! It had been a long time coming, but at this point it made all the waiting completely worth it.

Then came the time for the rest of the body. I thought the hard part was over. Apparently I was wrong. The doctor grabbed the baby around the head and pulled.....HARD! I was getting worried that she was going to break him or her. She pulled for a good 20 seconds with no luck. Then the nurse took her fists and pushed really hard into the top of Peggy's abdomen while the doctor was pulling. Still no luck. I was starting to get worried at this point (of course I didn't tell Peggy that!) She had no idea how hard they were pulling or about the fists in the belly.

Then the doctor stuck her hand inside and hooked a couple of fingers under the baby's shoulder. This did the trick. With a bit more pulling and pushing, the baby was finally out. I of course wanted to know the sex right away and Peggy was asking, but the doctors arm was in the way (for what seemed like forever....in reality it was probably only 2-3 second). The moment of truth....it was a boy!

We were soooooo excited. We were both so happy, we shed a few tears.

His first picture:
They took him over to the table to get him cleaned up. I got to cut the cord again, which was pretty cool. Then they did the baby footprints on a piece of paper. He (still unnamed at this point) decided it was a good time to pee. So, up shot this stream of pee right on the piece of paper! Haha. He peed for a good 20 seconds. It was like he had held it in for 9 months and just couldn't wait to get it out. I'm sure in his head he was thinking "ahhhhh." The nurse said "well, at least we know that works!"

Then we needed to figure out that name. We talked about it for a few minutes, and decided Noah Thomas it was.

It was then time for the scale. When we had Abby, Peggy predicted 9lbs 4oz. We all figured there was no way she could be right again. So, I asked her what she thought. 9lbs 11oz was her answer. And sure enough, we put the baby on the scale and 9lbs 11oz it was. We were all blown away that she guessed it correctly again.
We were in the OR for another 20 or so minutes while they finished up with Peggy. They also did a blood sugar test (standard protocol for babies this large). It was at the very low end of normal (43). They said that we'd have to keep a close eye on that and retest soon.
Peggy getting to hold Noah for the first time:
Then they wheeled her back into the room. She got to hold the baby on the way back this time (instead of being knocked out like last time), so it was really nice.

Aunt Sallie brought Abby by for a visit. She was pretty cautious at first, but soon warmed up. She held baby booger, and did a might fine job! She was pretty wary of being around Peggy. I think she just didn't understand why mommy was laying down and had all sorts of wires around her.

Abby's first picture with Noah. So cute!
Then they gave Noah a bath and some other stuff. We tried feeding him for the first time, and it was a really good start! Abby had a lot of problems with feeding and never really got the hang of it. So, when Noah started doing really well, we were very excited.

He had enough hair to make a mohawk during the bath!

They tested his blood sugar again and it was down to 36. Not good news. So, they asked us to give him some formula to help get it back up. They tested again a bit later and it was back up to 43. Good news, but not good enough. If he wasn't able to keep it up, he would have to go to the nursery and get an IV. Not the news we wanted, but overall he was doing pretty well, so we couldn't complain.

Also around this time his temperature started to drop a bit. He had just had a bath which made him a bit cold. They were worried that raising his temperature up would lower his blood sugar.

Then we moved over to another room, and were told that we would have to get his blood checked before every feeding. By this point his poor little feet were turning black and blue and had small bandaids everywhere.

Then my parents came by for a visit:
My students from STUCO sent us an edible arrangement. SOOO nice and thoughtful of them! I love my STUCO kids....
Later in the evening, Kai stopped by for a visit:

Then Sallie and Abby came back for another visit.
Abby was very excited to hold baby Noah. She asked to hold him three different times! Hooray!

Our first full family picture:
Nicole and Mike also stopped by to round off our visits for the day.

His blood sugar continued to stay at normal levels throughout the afternoon and evening. So, no more blood sugar tests! (as far as we know at this point). He has also been nursing very very well. We're quite excited about that.

He's mostly been sleeping throughout the day. We're thinking of trying to get some sleep in a bit. But, he just nursed for 30 minutes and is now wide awake! This could be a rough first night!

We are so lucky and happy.

First Baby Picture

Announcing Noah Thomas Pleimann. He was born at 7:54AM at 9lbs 11oz. Many more details to come later! He wouldn't move his hand for a picture. He's not nearly as blue as in this picture, the lighting was just bad. We'll post more pictures later!

I had a dream.....

that it was a girl!

It was kind of a weird dream too. Let me explain.

We had to get up at 4:00 this morning in order to leave for the hospital by 4:50. I woke up around 3:50 and had just had a very strange dream.

It was the day before baby booger was supposed to arive and Peggy and I were watching a homemade family movie. Abby was nowhere to be found in the movie, but baby booger was on the driveway walking away from the camera (couldn't see his/her face). But, baby booger (no longer a baby) was wearing a pink coat.

After seeing that, Peggy turned to me and said in a very angry tone "well, I guess we know it's a girl!" Then we talked about how we should have known that baby booger was going to be in that video and how upset we were that we spoiled the surprise (after waiting 8 months) the day before baby booger was here.

This dream made complete sense when I first woke up and told Peggy. Only then did I question how on earth we got a hold of a video of booger before he/she ever arrived.

So, I'm going on record.....I think it's a girl!

We'll find out soon because we leave for the hospital in just 5 minutes!

The Ice Storm of 2011

A few weeks ago, we got some ice. Scratch that. Not just some ice. We got 2.5 inches of ice and sleet. It was about a quarter inch of ice followed by at least 2 inches of sleet. I've never seen anything like it. I had the ENTIRE week off of school. The temperatures were so cold (around 5F-10F for highs) that the salt wasn't working very well on the roads. The ice was so packed that your foot would barely sink into it when you walked across it.

Getting ready to go out into the icy cold!
So cute!
Abby "helping" to clean off the driveway.

"Clearing" off a spot to take a seat:
And taking a much deserved rest:


This was after a good 1.5 hours of cleaning off the driveway. I've never shoveled anything quite like this stuff. You had to basically scrape at it in order to get anywhere. It was basically the consistency of a very frozen over slushy. It was a PAIN. And it was incredibly heavy. Oh, and all of this I worked on was completely covered again by the end of the day. After a few days of this, I just gave up. We still had ice on our driveway over a week later. I ended up getting just the very end (near the street) clear so we could park our cars. After a couple of days, it converted from a frozen slushy to a three inch solid ice block. Simply crazy.After some good playing time outside.

Talking to mommy, who was at work. "I played outside!"Finding out mama was not coming home that night.

Trying to warm up while watching a "kids show."It's been a pretty crazy winter thus far. We've had a total of 13 days off of school! And apparently the farmers almanac is calling for 20 inches in March. We'll see....

Get out the Kleenex!

Because baby booger is almost here! Haha, get it??

Abby's last day of school is tomorrow. She'll stay home on Friday with Sally while we go to the hospital. Then she's staying home with mommy during maternity leave. And Peggy's maternity leave will end right around the end of the school year. So, as soon as Peggy goes back, I'll be able to watch the kids. That means no more daycare cost until next August. Hooray!

We have to be at the hospital at 5:30 AM and surgery is scheduled for 7:30AM. So, we're currently just 36 hours away from finally seeing baby booger! Hooray!

It almost seems surreal that we will finally get to find out the sex of the baby. It's been a loooong time coming, and we are SOOOO excited to find out if it's a boy or girl! It's starting to get a little nerve wracking. We were pretty lucky that we had the house sale thing going on for the entire first part of the pregnancy. That kept our mind off of constantly thinking if it was a boy or girl. So, it's really just been the last couple of months that we've been thinking about it a lot.

We'll try to keep updates as best we can. But, last time we were in the hospital, our computer wouldn't connect to the internet. So, we're going to try our best to post to the blog and facebook. Check both for pictures. We'll do our best.

Superman

It was a great Saturday night at the Pleimann house. Dave spent most of the day at school, this morning the student council kids had to decorate for their winter formal, then he stayed to work on his paternity leave plans, came home for dinner and had to leave again for the dance.

While Dave was away Abby's big girl furniture was delivered, yeah! She took a nap this afternoon without a problem and went to bed without any fight. But before bed she wanted to play "superman" not sure where she learned this. And usually she is clothed but she was changing into her jammies when she decided she need to put on her cape and "fly". She cracks me up.

Birdie Update

The baby chicks have turned into birdies and yesterday they traveled to daycare with Abby. She was adamant that the birdies had to go to school. Which is fine except they didn't survive. Yeah, apparently while playing kitchen with some of the other kids, someone ate the birdies. Abby didn't handle it well, she cried about the birdies for an hour. She was extremely upset and her teacher Mrs. Lauren even thought about calling us to pick her up. Yeah right. I'm not picking her up from school because her imaginary birdies died. Dave and I just laughed at the idea of trying to explain that to one of our bosses. Anyway this morning she had new birdies that she was playing with before school and before she could even ask about bringing them to school I suggested they stay home today and play with Proton. She was happy with that idea. Thankfully Proton didn't eat the birdies.

Chicks and Boobies

First, an update on the chicks story from a couple days ago. Today, Abby brought me another baby chick, and gave both Peggy and I one. When she gave me mine, she said "you no eat baby chick Daddy." Hahaha. I couldn't help myself, so I brought my fake birdie up to my mouth. Her lower lip immediately poked out. I said "what? and pretended to give the birdie a kiss." She was then happy again....

Now on to the boobies. We were walking through wal mart today down one of the main aisles. Abby saw the racks of bras, pointed and said "Just like mama's boobies at home." Haha, yes dear, just like mama's boobies.

Hanging Out

This morning while eating breakfast, Abby and I were discussing the day. I told her I had a doctor's appointment and she said "you bring home Booger today, please." I explained that we still had two more weeks until Booger gets here. The OB says she has little hope that I'll go before the c-section. So I'll just keep waddling around for two more weeks or just hanging out. Dave took this picture the other night after work. I know I'm huge, but just a few weeks to go. Just the home stretch now.

And these two keep me going. Aren't they cute?!

Chickens and Daddy

Last night we were playing dollhouse with Abby when she decided to hand out imaginary chicks. She gave one to Mommy and one to Booger. Mommy was holding both the chicks, petting them and letting them run around her belly. When Abby gave Daddy his chick, he ate it. Apparently Dave thought she said chicken so he thought he should eat it. Abby's lip was stuck out so far. She couldn't believe that Daddy would eat the baby chick. She was SO sad. Daddy then tried to give the chick back. But Abby said "no you eat it" so she wasn't impressed. Apparently you can pretend to have a chicken, but can't pretend to bring it back to life after you eat it.

Over the past few months Abby has picked up on me calling Dave by his name. So she started doing it. Well, obviously this didn't go over too well with Dave. So, he corrected her each time she did it. Well, whenever you correct her on something (even if you're not yelling at her), she gets very emotional. You might say she's a very emotional girl. So, lately each time I call him Dave, Abby turns to me and says "No, you call him daddy." It's hilarious.

Wx Update

Still stuck at work, not as much ice or snow which is a plus. We did get a lot of sleet overnight and into today. But its what tonight and into tomorrow will bring that has the weather crew guessing.... anywhere from 1-10 inches of snow. I know that seems crazy but its all about the Low Pressure System, and which way it will fall across St. Louis. The hotel is okay, I'm getting tired of bonding with my co-workers. I'm hopefully I'll be able to go home tomorrow, fingers crossed.

Abby is having a hard time understanding why Mommy hasn't come home yet. After the New Years Eve tornadoes she learned about "bad rain" meaning the tornadoes, that day her "Emerald City Church" lost shingles and many of the subdivisions by our house were damaged. So we've been using the "bad rain" word again to explain that Mommy has to go to work and tell everyone to be safe. I'm sure she doesn't really get it but she does know Mommy has a tv show that she can watch, too bad she can't see Mommy working tirelessly during the show. This crazy storm on top of my ever growning belly has me exhausted and not sleeping well.