Happy Easter!!


Family time.


Tired out.


Feed the bunny.


Sleepy baby.


Bigfoot spotting.


Happy Birthday to me.

Melissa, Tony, and Ben got back from the beach on Wednesday and headed back home on Friday so we got to spend a couple more days with them.  The only change this week for Claire is that she now weighs 8lbs 8oz and is moving her arms and legs around a bit more.  On Saturday and Sunday Claire wasn't eating or sleeping well and we couldn't figure out the reason why.  Finally on Monday we realized that the only change we made was having her sleep in a onesie wrapped with one swaddle blanket instead of her thick sleeper wrapped in two blankets.  We made this change because she was now over 8 lbs and her temps have been regulating fine for quite a while so we didn't think it would be a problem.  Obviously it was!  We went back to the thick sleeper and one swaddle blanket and she's doing great again!

It was my 33rd birthday on Sunday so I celebrated with a few margaritas.  It's been quite some time since I've had my salty treat.  

Jen's parents came in to visit and stayed with us this week.  Here's Alice feeding her first grand daughter.


Jim and Budinski became fond of each other during the course of the week.  Jim also gave me a hand with the deck and gave me some direction on some other projects that I'm looking to tackle around the house.


Claire getting ready for her first walk.  The anticipation put her to sleep.


Claire executed the walk flawlessly.  Jen did a great job pushing her.


Speaking of firsts......Claire's umbilical cord finally popped off so it was time for her first real bath.  Grandma K. delivered the first bath on time and within budget.


We decided to give Claire her own hollywood star for the walk of fame but as you can see that didn't work out as planned.


My two favorite ladies are tuckered out.  Jen had to have surgery this week to clean up some remaining pieces of pregnancy.


Jen has been pumping breast milk and we're delivering via the bottle because Claire hasn't quite gotten the hang of the boohah yet.  We're going to rent a baby scale next week to see exactly how much she's taking from Jen at each feed.

RECAP:
We had Jen's parents staying with us this past week.  During that time it seemed like Claire grew quite a bit.  At the tail end of the week she was 7lbs 0oz and looks and acts like a typical newborn.  Her due date was supposed to be tomorrow so I guess that makes sense.  Her body fat around her arms and legs has finally filled out and her skin color looks great.  Her temperment continues to be sweet as can be and very tolerable but when she gets upset she can blow it open if she needs to.  She's feeding around 3oz per feed and she's on about a 3 hour cycle between feeds.  We've started cluster feeding her at around dinner time and topping her off with a dream feed at between 10pm-11pm.  We're working towards getting her to sleep a 6 hour stretch at night.  Right now she's been sleeping around 4 1/2 hours so we are still waking up a couple of times each night. 

Here's what her typical day looks like for feeds: 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 6pm (cluster one), 8pm (cluster two), 11pm (dream feed), and 3:30am.  The idea is to feed her enough throughout the day that she slowly starts to wake up less during the night. 

A typical cycle looks like this for this week:
* Wake with some wimpers and will escalate to a full cry if we're not quick enough
* Eat for 30-40 mins
* Activity time for 30-40 mins of mainly just talking to her, reading, singing, moving her arms & legs, etc
* Sleep for 1 1/2 to 2 hours
* Repeat.......

After the 6pm feed we started to give her a bath followed by a book and a swaddle.  That's her current bedtime routine.  All of the feeds after the 6pm feed (8pm, 11pm, 3:30am) we just feed her in a lowly lit room, re-swaddle her, and put her back to bed without any activity time.  We're doing this to try to get her to associate the difference between day and night and eventually sleep through the night.

It was nice having Jim and Alice staying with us.  Alice helped out quite a bit with Claire and Jim gave me a lot of pointers on the deck project along with some future projects that I'm looking at taking on.  He is quite a riot to be around and keeps things fun.  It's always nice to see family!!

Next up my sister Melissa, her husband Tony, and baby Ben will be coming in to stay with us this Friday for a week after Jen's parents head home on Tuesday.  We're looking forward to seeing Ben again.  I'm sure he's grown a ton since we saw him at Christmas.

Here's the view from the cockpit.


Singing opera after her sponge bath.  "La-la-la-la-la-laaaaa".


Then moving straight into air guitar after warming up the vocals.


Jen calls me disgusting......I call me DIAPER MAN.


After years of fueding the cats are giving peace a chance.

BY THE NUMBERS:

Day	Intake	Feeds	Weight
Mon	400 ml	8	5-5 1/2
Tue	440 ml	8	5-5 1/2
Wed	470 ml	8	5-7 0
Thu	425 ml	8	-
Fri	505 ml	9	-
Sat	500 ml	7	5-11 1/2
Sun	570 ml	8	5-13 1/2

The only major changes that Claire has made over the last week is that she's eating higher volumes and is keeping her eyes open for longer periods.  She's also showing a bit more character with her facial expressions.  Aside from that she is still on a 3 hour cycle and sleeps a lot.  She's building a bit more body fat which is shown by her weight change from 5-5 to 5-13.

Our days are running into each other and some days I don't even know the day of the week.  Jen and I have come up with a system that I take any feeds from 10pm to 2am and she takes 2am until morning.  This gives us both a chance to get a good block of sleep and has been working well to this point.

This is Claire's "I've got gas" face.


She does this a lot!!  About 2 out of every 3 hours.


Claire got some more visitors this week.  Hanging with Jocelyn.


Christa giving Claire a feed on Saturday night.


Shawn telling Claire about his navy seals week long training experience.

BY THE NUMBERS:

Day	Intake	Feeds	Weight
Mon	275 ml	8	-
Tue	310 ml	9	4-15 1/2
Wed	315 ml	8	5-2 1/2
Thu	325 ml	8	5-2 0
Fri	350 ml	8	5-2 0
Sat	380 ml	8	-
Sun	440 ml	8	5-4 1/2

RECAP:
We got to take Claire home from the hospital again on Monday and she continued to eat more and started to get a little more lively as the week went on.  We went back to the doctor on Thursday and her temp was still a little low but all other vitals were great.  By Sunday her body weight returned back to her original birth weight which was exactly what we wanted to see.  She's doing really well and has her pattern down.......SLEEP, EAT, DIAPER CHANGE, SLEEP.........

I started working again this week but worked from home all week.  The lack of sleep is definitely affecting my motivation and concentration but I know this phase won't last all that long in the grand scheme of things.  Even though we are tired.......we're really enjoying the whole process.

Change baby's diaper and apply socks to feet.


Put baby in sleeper while she's playing pretend flute.


Wrap baby like a burrito in swaddle blanket #1.


Wrap baby in layer #2 even if she looks disinterested.


Place hat on baby's head to give her a hard prison look.

Claire straight chillin right from the womb.  "The outside world is a breeze."


Showing the cats who's boss - marking her territory with her gang signs.


Sun bathing to try and get rid of the jaundice.


Lit her up like a lightning bug for her jaundice.


The apple shows how tiny she really is.  Don't let her size fool you....she's tough!


Claire using my pinky finger as a pullup bar.  Knocked out 3 sets of 20 like it was her job.


Claire's got a good support crew from day one.  Thanks everyone!!


She's got some chubby cheeks along with long fingers and toes.

BY THE NUMBERS:

Day	Intake	Feeds	Weight
Mon	7 ml	1	5-4
Tue	116 ml	10	-
Wed	178 ml	9	-
Thu	166 ml	8	-
Fri	180 ml	7	-
Sat	241 ml	9	-
Sun	238 ml	8	4-14 1/2

RECAP:
Claire came 5 weeks early and with that comes a couple of potential issues: jaundice & body temp regulation.  Jaundice occurs because her liver didn't quite get fully developed and the body temperature regulation issues occur because she didn't grow the body fat necessary to insulate heat.  That's my understanding of it anyway.  During this first week Claire was very sleepy.  She was so tired all week which is normal.  I don't think that we saw her eyes until late in the week.  She would basically just eat, sleep, and soil her shorts.  Because she was early we needed to wake her up to eat every 2-3 hours.  So the routine went like this: Wake, Eat, Diaper Change, Sleep.  Her only activity time was during her feeding and while we were changing her diaper.  Speaking of diapers.....during the first week her poop was black and tar like.  I got plenty of practice changing black loaded diapers. 

We spent Monday through Thursday in the hospital at CMC University and were able to take her home Thursday afternoon.  On Friday we went to the doctor and Claire had a low temp of 93-94 degrees.  Our doctor didn't feel comfortable with that (and neither did we) because of the chance that she could have an infection so we took her to the ER at around 6:30pm on Friday evening.  In the ER they poked and prodded taking blood, urine, and they did two lumbar punctures.  This was very scary for her new parents and was quite stressful throughout the night.  We spent the rest of the weekend at Levine's Children's Hospital where they took good care of her and we were able to take her home on Monday after all of her blood work came back negative for infection.  They deduced that she was just having a hard time keeping her body temperature stabalized.

Claire is as sweet as can be.  She's got a very mild temperment.  I find everything about her to be so cute.  It's even cute when she cries.  She starts off with a little wimper that turns into a sheep type "baaaa" and then a full cry.  Once she gets what she needs she goes right back to sleeping.  I have a feeling it's not going to be this easy in the coming weeks but we'll take it for now.

As new parents, Jen and I think we are doing a good job of taking this all in stride.  We've got the routine down: Eat, Diaper, Sleep.  By the tail end of the week she was on a 2.5-3 hr cycle with her feed & diaper time being a total of about 45 minutes and her sleep time being around 2 hours.  During the first few days I became the master of the swaddle along with top feeder and diaper changer........but who's keeping track.  I've still got a lot of catching up to do since Jen carried her around for 9 months and then pushed her out!!  We are both really enjoying the process of parenthood and look forward to what's soon to come.

Our hospital room at CMC University.  Jen's contractions started at 6am.


Excited parents waiting for their baby girl's arrival. 


Jen starting to push and feeling the thunder from down under.


The first photo of Claire Nicole Frank.  5 lbs 4 oz & 18 1/4 inches.



All dressed up and nowhere to go.


Pushing for 2 hours was well worth it for Jen and Claire.


I'm so pumped to finally meet my little girl.

CLAIRE NICOLE FRANK
Born 2/15/2010 @ 8:08pm
5 lbs 4 oz & 18 1/4 inches

Jen and I decided to start trying to have a baby back in November of 2008.  After a few months Jen told me she was pregnant but at 11 weeks she miscarried.  During that process we found out that she had an ovarian cyst the size of a tennis ball so she had surgery to have that removed.  We started trying again a few months later and in July of 2009 she was pregnant again.  She bled during her first 16 weeks of pregnancy so we were hesitant to get too excited knowing that it was possible to miscarry again.  At 20 weeks we found out the baby was going to be a girl and started getting everything ready and became more excited.  All throughout her pregnancy Jen kept on saying that she thought the baby was going to come early.  We were thinking maybe 2-3 weeks early.

At 6am Jen started to feel some cramps but still trained her clients at 6:30am and 7:30am.  After that she came into the bedroom and said that she thinks "today is the day".  We were both a bit surprised since she was only at 35 weeks so I was a bit skeptical.  We started timing her contractions and they were coming 7-8 mins apart.  Jen called the doctor's office and after talking with them she threw up after one of the contractions so was a bit frightened and we called again.  They told her to come in and when we got there she was 5cm dilated.  We headed over to the maternity ward at around 11:45am and got checked into our room.  Her contractions were now around 5 mins apart and she was very uncomfortable and looking to get some epidural. 

The epidural came at around 2pm and Jen started to feel much better.  By 6pm she was ready to start pushing and continued to do so for 2 hrs.  It didn't look like much fun from where I was standing and I was thankful that the women deliver the babies.  During the pushing process I was helping Jen to pull her legs back and curl her head forward.  Every once in a while I'd take a look down to see the baby's head coming out little by little.  After a while the doctor decided to make an incision to speed the process because he said Jen would most likely tear anyway.  And moments later our baby Claire let out her first cry followed by me cutting the umbilical cord.  After the nurses cleaned her up they took her to the NICU for about an hour for testing and then we were able to have her in our room with us for the rest of our stay.  We were so excited that we stayed up most of the night just looking at her while she was sleeping.  What an experience!!