Updating before the year ends - now with videos added

Well, unfortunately I've neglected this blog for the past several months. Since October - well actually more like July, life seems kind of like a blur. I'm going to try to update on a few things before this years comes to a close.

June was crazy as could be with work. Our chief residents have the last two weeks of June off to prep for boards and then to actually take boards. This means that we get really short-handed at work. I was the sole resident on the onc service and I've never been more exhausted in my life. The service was super busy and my patient's were spread out throughout the entire hospital - literally one patient per floor. I had really, really early mornings and late nights. Most nights I'd come home, head straight to bed just to get up at 4am the following morning to start all over again. With only one major melt down (at work I should clarify, I had several melt downs at home - just ask Ryan), I survived. *sigh* We had our first trimester screen at the end of June and everything turned out great. Here's a few pictures of our little peanut at that time {sorry for the poor quality - these are cellphone pictures of the actual pictures as I do not have digital copies}.

Body Profile - head on the right, back at the bottom, belly on the left.

Legs! Ultrasound is a little difficult to look at but you can see the whole body, the left arm and the head {which is extended} in this picture too.

In July, pregnancy was going well. I hadn't really had any morning sickness up until that point - it was more like evening nausea. This wasn't a problem until I started night float and was up at night :( But I managed and only had a few nights where I felt super nauseated and would sprint to the bathroom to throw up :) Oh the joys! Here's a little video that we took one night with my cellphone of our little one moving and grooving all around. Darn it - I'm having problems uploading video :( Once Ryan gets home from work, I'm going to have him help me.

I think that I figured out how to post videos now. Here's the first one:

One of the highlights of August was our family vacation that I did manage to already post about.  Just before vacation, we had our anatomy ultrasound to make sure our little peanut had all of it's parts - this is also the ultrasound that took a look at the gender :) Here are a few pictures from this ultrasound.

Looking straight at us.

five fingers :)

I was out at our private hospital on gynecology for the month of September. As a third year resident, this is the rotation that is the best. You get to spend a bunch of time in the operating room, the mornings are not as early and the nights are not as late. There was nothing super eventful during this month. I was enjoying pregnancy and I was still feeling good! I'm lucky to have had a pretty easy pregnancy :) Since my placenta was on the front of my uterus, I didn't feel a ton of fetal movement. I was 22-23 weeks pregnant before I started to feel movement. Because of this and doing what I do for a career, this can create a lot of anxiety. A co-worker borrowed me their doppler to use so that I could listen to our baby's heart beat if I wasn't feeling a lot of movement. We didn't listen a ton, but it was fun to listen at night to our little munckin with Ryan. We have a video of Westin's heart beat in utero. I'm not sure if it is going to work - if not, hopefully Ryan will be able to help when he gets home. Nope didn't work. Stay tuned.

Update: 
Here's the video where you can hear Westin's heartbeat and you can also hear him moving around. 

I didn't take many bump pictures. In fact I think is the only one that I took on 9/22/13.

Zoey hugging my baby bump :) 9/28/13

October was completely uneventful. I was on night float which means that Ryan and I barely saw each other. Usually we would see each other in passing as Ryan was getting home from work and I was heading out the door for work. I rarely ever made it home in the morning before Ryan left for work so we would usually wave to one another as we both drove passed each other. My last night float shift for the month ended the morning of Halloween which meant that I would be home to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters. Handing out candy is one of my favorite things to do. We had a bunch of trick-or-treaters again this year, although we didn't keep track of the number like we did last year. I do have to say that the costumes this year were not as good as last year but for the most part all of the little kids were still really cute. Well - that was an easy October update! Ha!

3D picture of our little guy on 10/8/13. I had to go in for an ultrasound as my uterus was measuring larger than my gestation age. Everything at the ultrasound was normal - normal amniotic fluid level and normal sized kiddo in the 50th percentile :) {Pictures like these make me so appreciative of the advances in technology.}

The month of November was busy - actually very busy. I changed rotations and was on the high risk OB service. Being on this rotation means service obligations M-F but then also 3 to 4 nights of overnight home call per week. I was actually very lucky and had fairly uneventful home call nights which was nice since I was feeling more and more pregnant by the week. The first weekend in November, Ryan and I set up the crib for the babe and I caught up on sleep.

Ryan reading the instructions.

I guess here's another bump picture. I have to say I look pretty stellar - ha! (11/2/13)

The finished product!

Being visibly pregnant and working on the high risk OB service is kind of awkward at times. There are times when I wished I could have hid the fact that I was pregnant since I was working with patients who were having less than ideal pregnancy outcomes. I guess it comes with the territory though. I was delivering patients who were earlier in pregnancy than I was and on a few occasions I delivered some patient's preterm that had the same due date as me - it kind of made things a little surreal. It was always a little weird to be triaging patient's around the same gestational age as I was. Hard to really explain without going into more detail than I actually want to put on the internet. Actually one that I can share: I was triaging a patient that was due a few weeks after me. I was asking them about their nursery and they told me they had it all set up and ready for a baby and that it had been that way for over two months! I was thinking to myself - oh my gosh, we only have our crib set up and at that point we didn't even have a crib mattress yet - ha! I guess the logical part of me was thinking that if I went into labor and had our baby in November, the kiddo would have to be in the NICU and then we'd have time to buy additional baby stuff and finish the nursery before our baby would get discharged from the NICU. Good thing we didn't have to worry about that though.

On November 9th, my sisters threw me a family baby shower back in Minnesota. Ryan and I drove up to Minnesota separately {Ryan needed to do somethings at our place in Minnesota and at his parent's work and I wasn't able to take time off of work}. Anyways, in hindsight, that wasn't the best choice. Ryan left for Minnesota on Thursday. I left for Minnesota Friday after work which was 630-ish pm :/ So I drove almost the entire way home in the dark :( Also I had to stop to go to the bathroom all the time :( There was one point during the drive near Worthington that I was in literally the middle of nowhere and had to go to the bathroom so bad that I seriously considered pulling over on the side of the road. It was awful. Do not take bladder capacity for granted because when you're pregnant and have a bladder the size of a walnut, it's awful! Anyways I survived but was pretty tired by the time I got to my parents house that night!!

I slept in a little on Saturday which felt great! My sisters threw the shower in Henderson at the community center. The theme for the party was "Ready to Pop." Everything had some aspect of popping incorporated into it. It was really cute! The tables where decorated with pop-up books, toys that made popping sounds and books that also made popping sounds. For food we had pop-over sandwiches, fruit pops and a treat table with popcorn, cake pops, blow pops, tootsie pops, pop rocks and ring pops {I think I got them all}. My sisters also froze little baby figurines in ice cubes and used them for a game. Everyone got one of those ice cubes and the first one to have their water pop {aka, baby break free from the ice cube} won a prize :) It was good to see a bunch of family, especially since living so far away, I'm not able to make it back home for every family function. A nice surprise was that Anna, one of my high school girlfriends surprised me by coming! I haven't seen her in forever and it was so good to see her! I received a bunch of great gifts for our little baby too :) which was nice.

The tables all decorated.

How cute is this diaper tricycle!!

My mom and me :)

Me and two of my aunts :)

Anna and me :)

Lol - Hillary don't be mad at me, but this is the only picture that I currently have of the snack table.

I just realized that I have more pictures of the shower but I think they are on my sister's camera. When I get those pictures. I'll be sure to share.


While us girls were at the baby shower, Ryan and Hillary's Ryan were working at some stuff at our Minnesota house. Later that night, my uncle Curt came down and took my Ryan, Hillary's Ryan and my dad to the MSU hockey game in Mankato. I guess the game ended up being very, very slow but I believe MSU won with a score of 1-0. While the guys were at the hockey game, my mom, sisters and I went in to visit my grandma and grandpa. We brought some left over popcorn from the baby shower for my grandpa. He was all about the popcorn until the nursing home staff brought him in some ice cream :) It was good to see my grandparents and visit with them. I wish I lived closer to home! Sunday morning after eating breakfast, Ryan and I hit the road for the long, boring drive back to Nebraska.

The following Saturday, November 16, my resident-mate Morgan threw me a baby shower down here in Omaha. I was exhausted and slightly overwhelmed on that Saturday. I basically slept in a tiny bit, woke up, showered and got ready for the shower, went to the baby shower, came home, took a quick nap and then started working on Grand Rounds which I was giving on Wednesday, Nov 20 {more on this in a minute}. Anyways, the baby shower was pretty low key which was really nice. I again received a bunch of really nice gifts for our little kiddo and we ate some really yummy food. Morgan's aunt actually hosted the shower at her house {the same place we had Morgan's baby shower a while back}. Her home is very inviting and comfortable. Morgan's husband made a french toast bake for the main meal and it was delicious!

So onto my Grand Rounds ordeal. Every year, we sign up for a grand rounds date well in advance. I had signed up for December prior to becoming pregnant and having a December due date. Anyways, my initial grand rounds date was December 18 - five days before my due date. Seeing as nobody knows when you'll actually deliver, my grand rounds date got moved up to November 20. This kind of stressed my out, well, lets not lie - this really stressed me out. The date change happened in October, while I was on night float. Being on night float, you don't do a whole lot other than sleep and work so I didn't make any progress on my presentation during October. Then in November, I had already had the two baby showers scheduled on the 2nd and 3rd weekends and the first weekend of November was right when I was coming off of night float which really limited my free time to work on my presentation. Anyways, I had tried to work on it during the week while at work but that time was always interrupted which isn't optimal for working on a grand rounds presentation. Not to mention, I was one tired pregnant mama :( So by the time my second baby shower finished on Nov 16th, I still hadn't even started on my grand rounds :/ I had a hand full of articles but had only been able to read through two by this point. I literally worked on grand rounds all afternoon and until midnight on Saturday, then woke up early on Sunday and worked straight all the way through until 11pm on Sunday night - not to mention, I started home call at 10pm on Sunday :( Then I worked on it again Monday after I got home from work until I was deliriously tired and praying that I didn't get called into work {which I didn't - thank the Lord!} I wasn't on home call Tuesday night {thankfully} and finished up my presentation around 11pm and then went to bed having not even gone through an entire practice run of the presentation {I don't recommend this.} I then woke up at 3:30 am to shower, get ready for work, drive the 20 minutes out to work, rounded on all of my patients for the day and wrote all of my notes by 6am so I could round with my attending and be on the road to the med center by 7am since traffic between the two locations in the morning is awful, awful, awful! I got to the med center at 7:43, I looked through some of my slides quick and then set my cellphone alarm and took a ten minute nap in my vehicle {I was so incredibly tired at this point} and then made it to our grand rounds conference with two minutes to spare {just enough time to take my coat off and load my presentation onto the computer!}. Apparently I was cutting it too close for one of the residents who worried that I might have gone into labor while rounding that morning so he actually called the high risk desk to make sure I wasn't admitted as a patient - ha! My grand rounds presentation itself went great and it was just long enough to fill my allotted one hour time slot {thank goodness as I had no idea how long or short the presentation was going to be since I hadn't even done a practice run!}.

Update:
Here is a picture of Westin helping me work on Grand Rounds :)

Up until this point in my pregnancy I essentially had no lower extremity swelling and felt pretty good. Unfortunately since I sat in our office working on the computer for a couple straight days starting and finishing my presentation, I developed massive lower extremity swelling. By the end of that Sunday before my grand rounds, my swelling was so severe that I felt like the skin on my feet and lower legs was going to split open! Thank you very much grand rounds!! Ryan had never seen pitting edema before and was slightly grossed out/worried about the state of my legs - lol. Anyways, I survived - barely, but I did! Ryan went out and bought compression stockings for me that weekend. I wore those everyday there after and the swelling did go down but it never went away {until after I delivered}. Looking back at those first 20 days of November, I realize how crazy my schedule was - I would not recommend any 32+ week pregnant lady replicate my November - ever! Oh man, what was I thinking - I was crazy! Needless to say, I spent the weekend of Nov 23 and 24 sleeping since I was so run down - not good! The month of November went by so fast and was such a blur. I literally was going, going and going some more.

I was assigned to Thanksgiving call at our private hospital which consisted on 24/7 call starting Nov 27 and ending Dec 2. Luckily I didn't have to take call on Nov 26th and got a good nights sleep because the holiday call was crazy busy starting the morning of Nov 27th. I spent 3 of the first 4 nights at the hospital over that holiday call. It was crazy busy! The morning of Saturday Nov 30, my attending looked at me and joked how I couldn't go into labor for at least another 48 hours as it was too busy and he didn't know how to use the electronic medical record - ha! Well that Sunday, the craziness continued. Both my attending and I were called in Saturday night at 1030ish for a new transfer admission. Once I finished all of the admission orders and my attending finished ultrasounding the patient, we saw a consult and did an ultrasound on her and then ended up having to take one of our other patient's to the OR to be delivered. Literally as they were rolling out patient out of her room at like 1am to head to the OR, another patient arrives who was about to deliver, the front desk wheeled her into L&D and shouted "this patient is going to deliver!" Since there was no time for the on-call generalist to get there {they are just down the hall in the call rooms}, we ended up delivering. Once that delivery was over, they took our patient back to the OR. Since our patient was preterm, they increase the OR temp to 80 degrees {new policy since perterm infants were going to the NICU with hypothermia} which means that we surgeons over heat in our surgical cap, mask, gown, gloves and knee-high boots :/ So for me, this means that I start contracting :( Ugh, so uncomfortable. We finally left the OR after 2 am but I still had to dictate an admission, a consult, the vaginal delivery and the c-section before going to bed :/ Anyways, this holiday call was absolutely crazy. Fortunately after my attending and I finished rounding Sunday morning I was able to go home. I got home at around noon and I think and was able to take a three hour nap - I was exhausted! After getting up, Ryan and I cleaned out our garage and put together some shelving units so that we could reclaim some space in the garage {hello nesting!}. Then later that night my water broke and instead of being the provider, I became the OB patient :) more on that in the next post.

Anyways, I think this somewhat sums up what we've been up to for the past several months. More about my month of December to come :)

~Ashley

He's here!!

Introducing our little bundle of joy!

Westin Travis

12/1/2013

11:58 pm

6 lbs 3.5 oz

19 3/4 inches

We are all doing well and love being parents to this little guy!

What's new around here?

I have to start out and say I'm disappointed that I won't be able to post any pictures in this post. I went to send pictures I've taken on my cellphone to my email and since I had to download the new operating system on my iPhone, there isn't an option to email - just text and twitter. I'm sure there is a way but I didn't have the patience to figure it out. Maybe I'll have Ryan figure it out later tonight :)

Two weekends ago, I was on call and Ryan was in Florida with a friend just hanging out. They had a free place to stay so only had to pay for airfare. Sounds like they had a good time. He has pictures on his phone that I'll have to get and post here. He tells me he took some cool video of Shamu at SeaWorld, but I haven't watched it yet ;)

On the baby front, this kiddo is a night owl! He is a mover and shaker whenever I lay down to sleep. Definitely have a baby bump going on now. I'd post my first bump photo if I could figure out how to get it off my phone :/ It's fun now because Ryan is able to feel him move whenever he wants. {We're still struggling on the baby name front...} It's so weird to feel this kiddo moving in my belly - almost alien-like. Can't describe it but I'm guessing those who have ever been pregnant know what I'm talking about. Made a little video of listening to the babe's heart beat which I'd like to eventually post on here. I passed by glucola which means that I don't have gestational diabetes - woo hoo! I'm such a worry wart about things and knowing a thing or two about obstetrics, I tend to worry and dwell on things that could potentially go wrong. But no gestational diabetes here so that's good :)

I had this past weekend off and oh....my....word.... can someone say nesting!?! It was crazy. Literally deep cleaned and organized for over two days straight. I've never done anything like that before. Torn apart the guest room, went through things in that closet that have been sitting there for the past two years since we've been in Omaha untouched and either pitched things or donated it to Good Will. We now have a nearly empty guest bedroom closet and guest bedroom so there is space to put baby things. We decided to make the nursery in the guest room since that room is used way way way less than our office which was the only other potential nursery room. Anyways, we still have a few things left to do in that room before we're able to transition it to the nursery/guest room but we made HUGE progress this weekend. Also gave the two bathrooms a deep cleaning including even the base boards. Ugh, bathrooms - I hate cleaning them but they're clean now. Installed a new garbage thing in our kitchen that fits in one of the cupboards - not sure the exact name - but we no longer have our garbage can just sitting next to the counter. Harvested the carrots from our garden and pulled all the weeds/grass that had claimed the garden as their home. Also pulled some of the other bigger weeds in the back yard. Everything from the garden and backyard that I pulled filled our entire yard waste kirby! Lucky for Ryan, because the kirby was full, he had an excuse to not mow the lawn as we had no where to put all the clippings (I not only filled the yard waste kirby but also our regular kirby to the brim! I love cleaning and getting rid of junk!). Let's see, I feel like I'm forgetting something else. Oh yeah, I clean our basement literally from top to bottom - ufta! Seriously, it was so dusty down there! But not anymore. Cleaned up our storage shelves down there and everything and then filled them up with a bunch of paper towels, toilet paper, and kleenex that we just bought for a big discount on Amazon last week. Gotta love two-day free shipping with Amazon Prime!! I think we are set on TP until I finish residency in 1.5 years and we're good on paper towels for likely at least another year! ha! Ryan told me I can no longer give him crap for buying things bulk at Sam's Club - hehehe. We also did a bajillion loads of laundry this weekend and even managed to put it all away!

I think the reason why I started nesting is because I work this weekend and start a month of night float on Monday night :( I'm sort of dreading this night float month - ugh! I think my July night float, on the heals of June which was quite possibly the worse month of residency to date, kind of burned me out on the whole situation. Oh well, no going to get out of it so chin up and power through. But I'll finish my month of night float and then will have less than 2 months until my due date. It's going to be here before I know it! I also have to give a presentation for our diagnostics conference in October (almost done with the presentation) and then grand rounds in November (have yet to start - I have a topic which I guess is a start - ha!). Lots to due and I'm feeling the time crunch! There is never a shortage of things to fill my time.

Anyways, things are good here. We've had absolutely beautiful weather for the past two weeks. We've been able to have the air conditioner off and the windows open. Fall is definitely in the air. I love it!

~Ashley

Baby Kicks

This past Saturday, Ryan and I were getting ready for bed and our little fella was moving around like crazy. As Ryan and I were talking, I said to him 'I can't wait until you can actually feel this!' Ryan then put his hand on my belly but I told him the movements were still pretty subtle and he likely wasn't going to feel them. But then I got to thinking and figured if we cramped the kids style, aka put some pressure on him, that maybe Ryan would be able to feel something. Cramping this kids style really gets him going and the reason I know this is because I'm normally a stomach sleeper and I'm trying to milk the last few minutes of stomach time while I can. The few times I've laid on my stomach recently {with the assistance of my body pillow because otherwise it's just too uncomfortable} this kiddo's kicks seem to become stronger. {Sorry for squishing you little guy!} Anyways, so I had Ryan press towards the top of my belly. I'd ask Ryan 'Did you feel that?!' every time I felt him move. Ryan would always reply something along the lines of 'yeah, I think I felt that.' So then I figured I was going to stop telling him and see if he would tell me when if felt movement. Well just when I decided to do that, our kiddo totally karate kicked Ryan's hand! Ryan said "oh my gosh, was that him!!?!!" And it totally was. It was awesome. I will never forget the look and smile on Ryan's face after feeling that. Twenty four weeks down. We're over half way there!! {yikes, we've got so much to do :/}

~Ashley

Vacation Video

On vacation, we had to navigator our big houseboat through some tight spaces. This one was really narrow, only having a few feet of clearance on each side. I was able to capture it on video. It not only shows the tight squeeze but also just how beautiful it was up there on this trip.

~Ashley

We're having a BOY!

The week before leaving for vacation, we had out baby's anatomy scan. I left it up to Ryan whether or not to find out if this little fetus was a boy or girl and he immediately said he wanted to know. So gender reveal it is! One of my co-residents took our gender reveal photos and made cupcakes with gender specific frosting on the inside for us to take on vacation. There wasn't a lot of time between the ultrasound and us leaving for vacation so when she volunteered to make cupcakes for us, I was more than grateful!

Ryan and I had stopped at Ryan's parent's house to pick up their boat and eat lunch on our way up north for vacation. For dessert, we busted out the cupcakes. There's no pictures but we let Ryan take the first bite, and he got this huge smile on his face and turned the center of the cupcake towards me so I could see. Blue frosting, so... IT'S A BOY!!

Both Ryan and I thought we were having a girl. Ha. We were wrong but we are more than thrilled with having a boy. Ryan promises to have him in skates at an early age :)

We then brought the remaining cupcakes all the way up north with us so we could do a little gender reveal celebrating with my side of the family. Ryan decided to take some pictures of everyone eating their cupcakes. We ate the cupcakes for dessert after our first dinner on the houseboat. First we took a poll and it was Girl 2 vs Boy 3. I believe Kirstin, Hillary and my mom all said boy and my dad and Ryan C said girl.

Everybody getting ready to cut into their cupcakes.

It's a BOY!!

I like how Ryan C is checking out my dad's cupcake to make sure it's the same color as his.

The proof that the frosting was in fact blue :)

~Ashley

Family Vacation Time

At the beginning of August, my family took a vacation up in Voyageur's National Park. I'm a little behind the times, but hey, what's new?! We rented a houseboat for the week and hit the lakes. Ryan and I left Omaha at 10 am on Friday morning. I had just completed five entire weeks of night float and was absolutely exhausted. Ryan agreed to drive {bless his heart} so that I could sleep. Unfortunately, between our house and Ryan's parent's house, I barely got any sleep as I could just not get comfortable. At Ryan's parent's place, we picked up their speed boat and ate lunch. When we hit the road for my sister's place for Duluth, I shunned the front seat and laid down in the back with some blankets and pillows. I literally slept the entire way to Duluth. Even after getting up to Duluth that evening, I was probably only awake two hours tops before going back to sleep. The transition from nights to days and vis versa really throws me for a loop.

Saturday morning, we packed up all the vehicles and headed for Voyageur's {another two-ish hour car ride from Duluth}. Ryan was still driving {I told him if we are pulling a boat, there was no way I was driving}. He really was a good sport about all the driving.

After loading up the houseboat and pulling away from the dock, we were finally on vacation for the week. It was absolutely beautiful up North - chilly and down right cold a few of the nights but beautiful none the less. Sorry in advance for picture overload but I figure its a good way to recap our vacay!

Heading down the Ash River from the houseboat rental site to the lakes.

Our first houseboat site - Wigwam Point.

Ryan, Ryan and Kristin manning the bonfire.

Sunrise at Wigwam Point - gorgeous!

So calm and peaceful.

Sophie, Hillary, Mom and Ryan C taking a canoe ride.

Kristin relaxing on the top of the houseboat.

Mom, Sophie and me catching enjoying the weather.

We had a few rainy days :(

Ryan C brought his MN lakes GPS navigator - I would go boating up here without it!

We had some chilly days - even Sophie had to put on her sweater :)

First bald eagle sighting!

The above eagle flew off and joined a second one.

Then my family got to witness how a bald eagle goes to the bathroom - lol!

The top of the houseboat - complete with a water slide and hot tub.

Another bald eagle.

Pine trees growing right from the granite.

 

It started raining and it was so quiet where we were at the time that the sound of rain drops hitting the lake was so pretty.

One of the several houseboat sites on the lakes.

Kettle Falls {no actual pictures of the falls because of the dam}

 

Ryan and me at Kettle Falls.

 

Sophie feeling left out from the canoe trip.

 

Photo evidence that I will, on very rare occasion, wear a baseball cap.

Check out the slim - so gross!

Our houseboat for the week.

Dad and Ryan caught their fish at the same time - I love this picture.

Dad's trophy fish!

And Ryan displaying his trophy fish.

The only fish that I caught and I refused to touch it - lol.

Trying to keep Sophie warm on the boat.

Kristin trying not to blow away as Ryan was zipping across the lake.

Captain McSpeedy :)

And last but not least - I can 't leave out a big portion of our trip....

They're evil!

 The majority of the group photos are on my mom's camera. Once I get my hands on those, I'll post them. We also have a few videos from the trip as well that I'll have to post. It was a good week and I was able to catch up on my sleep. It is so nice to have vacation time and see family but it is SO hard to go back to work after returning home :(

~Ashley