More Photos

Here are more pictures of our family and ourselves with Henry =)

Family Photo

Mike with Louis and Henry

Cousin Tiff and Henry

Cousin Chloe and Henry

Cousin Chloe, Great Aunt Betty and Henry

Cousin Ann, Henry and Chloe

Two Weeks Old!

Yesterday our little man turned 2 weeks old! The time has really flown by. So far we're still doing really well. The last two nights we've had a meal at 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. and then we're up again at 7:30 a.m. Usually around 9 he's wide awake until about 11 and then he naps for a few hours. It's still exhausting but I'm getting used to the lack of sleep. I keep trying to nap with Henry but something always comes up or I can't sleep. I don't nap well but I'm trying to learn.

Henry's cord finally fell off and the smell is gone. He's a clean smelling little boy again =) He has his two week appointment this Thursday. We're anxious to find out how much he's grown since his last appointment. He eats really well so I'm sure he's about 9 pounds by now.

Henry's a great baby. He travels well and we're grateful for it. We've already taken him with us to a few restaurants and he's done nothing but sleep through the whole experience. We also took a long track to Grandma and Grandpa Dozeman's last weekend to see a movie and let Henry stay with the grandparents for awhile. We saw "Take Him to the Greek." Not a bad movie but not as funny as we hoped it would be.

We're still getting a steady stream of visitors which is nice. My friend Jessica organized a meal delivery schedule for us through our friends. We're super thrilled about having meals delivered since food is usually the last thing we have time to think about. Mike is great about going to get take out for us but fast food had gotten old very quickly.

In other news, Henry will be baptized July 18th at 1 p.m. We had the class last week and we're all set for the date. I need to get myself together and send out invitations soon. We'd like to have a little get together for close family members after the baptism at our house. Hopefully in a month I will feel more organized than I do now =)

Mike went back to work yesterday and Mom came over to help me out. She's still helping out a lot with the housework. I'm not sure what I will do when she stops coming! It's been heaven not having to do our laundry or ironing or picking up =) She's going to keep coming twice a week until I can get on top of this schedule with Henry. I'm still healing from surgery but I had an appointment yesterday at the doctor and they say I'm doing really well. I have permission to drive again which is a huge relief. I can also start lifting a bit more but I just need to be careful not to overdo it.

Otherwise, we're pretty boring around here now. I spend my days feeding/changing diapers/taking care of Henry and the house and watching whatever is on daytime television. Mike is about done with my obsession with America's Next Top Model. It's not that the show is fantastic but really there is nothing on TV! Now that I can drive again I will try to get myself out of the house and away from reality shows =)

Photos of Henry

Here are some random pictures of our little man =)

Dressed all in blue

The bib says it all

In Dad's hands

First time in his bouncer

Not liking his first bath

What an angel...

Friends & Family Visits at the Hospital

Here are some photos from our hospital stay and shortly after of friends and family who came to visit us and meet Henry. There isn't a particular order to the photos =)

Grandpa Dozeman & Henry

Grandparents Dozeman & Smolsky with Henry

Grandma Marilyn

Grandma Lois

Grandma & Grandpa Dozeman with Henry

Uncle Steve & Henry

Great-Aunt Mary & Henry

Great-Uncle Norm & Henry

Melanie & Bruco with Henry

Uncle Paul & Aunt Camla

What's that smell??

So things are improving in the Dozeman household. Henry has finally figured out when day is day and night is night. We're still not getting a lot of sleep but we're working with quantity instead of quality. According to most people with kids, we should just get used to this kind of sleep anyways.

Saturday we were grateful to have our parents here full time again. Lois spent the night and of course Henry was a perfect angel and didn't wake up every hour like he did with me on Friday night. Sunday we were starting to get the hang of things and sent the parents home for the afternoon. Mike and I made it through the night with little problems. Henry was a good boy and let us sleep about 3.5 hours straight and only kept us up for about 45 minutes before we had another stretch of 3.5 hours. We're adjusting but it's slow.

We're still struggling with breastfeeding. We have a crazy schedule. From 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. I will attempt to breastfeed. From 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. I will pump and Mike will feed just because it's faster at this point. When breastfeeding, it's a whole process for us to get it to work. First I use previously pumped milk to give Henry about 1/2 oz up front to kill the crazy hunger he has when he first wakes up. Then we attempt to feed and latch which takes a bit of time. Then when we think he's about done or he gets too frustrated to finish, I pump while Mike feeds him from a bottle the rest of whatever was left from my previous pump or he puts him to bed. I know it sounds complicated but we somehow have it down to a system. Unfortunately it seems like by the time we finish cleaning up from one feeding it's time to start over again.

Sunday we noticed Henry's diapers smelled really rancid. I didn't think they would start smelling until he started on solids. At first Mike thought I was nuts and then he started to smell it too. Finally we noticed the smell and Henry had a clean diaper so we were confused. Then, we smelled his umbilical cord. Oh. My. Gosh. Gross. The thing smells like what we will later hear and agree with, a dead mouse. Being the paranoid parents that we are we called the pediatrician after hours number and they told us to clean it with alcohol and make an appointment for the morning. We got an early appointment and took our stinky little man in to be checked.

Thankfully the cord looks fine and it's just a bit thicker so it's taking awhile to dry out completely. Because it is technically rotting flesh, that is what it smells like. Usually they tell people to leave the cord alone and let it dry out but with us we have to apply the alcohol with every diaper change until it dries properly. We will just have to live with the smell. It does improve a bit with the alcohol but it's a bit embarrassing to have our little guy stink and not be able to do anything about it!

After our doctor appointment we made another trip to the breastfeeding center and worked with their lactation consultant again. We were surprised and embarrassed to learn that Henry is not the problem - it's us. He's trying to feed and latch but we're making it hard for him and we're doing a heck of a lot more than we should to get him to feed. I was very frustrated with the lady got him to latch in less than 2 seconds when it takes me a full 5-10 minutes sometimes. We left with more tips and hopefully they will help us switch from the bottle-breast-bottle system we have going now.

We were very proud to make it through lunch at Steak and Shake with Henry. He slept through the whole thing and we were able to eat in peace. We did sit next to a family with two children and we watched one little boy tip over his plastic cup into his highchair table and knock the majority of it around splashing him and everyone around him before his mother could stop him. We're not quite ready for that phase of childhood yet... Baby steps.

Henry's First Few Days

Well the first few days home is going well so far. In the hospital we were spoiled with plenty of nurses to help us get through the night when Henry was particularly fussy. We survived our first night alone last night but it was a bit rough. Henry has his days/nights mixed up so he wants to be up from about 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. or he cluster feeds so he wants "snacks" every hour. For us it was rough to keep getting up and down all the time. I've struggled quite a bit with the up/down especially since my incision is still healing and doesn't like sudden movement! Mike is great about helping me by bringing Henry to me or helping feed by the bottle.

Right now we're also struggling with breast feeding. Henry has a great latch but he's too impatient to wait for the milk to flow. With the help with breast feeding consultants, we were able to do a combination of pumping and feeding. We have to feed him a little first so he isn't famished and then we kind of get him started on the breast by squirting the bottle on me and him so he gets that the breast is where he needs to eat. It's extremely time consuming but everyone says it will get better and I think it is as the days go on. Henry just wants to eat but he's not really fussy about where he gets food. He'll go from breast to bottle in a second if we want him to.

We had our first pediatrician appointment today. Overall Henry is doing great and in the normal range on everything. He has had an issue with jaundice though. The first three days they tested him once or twice a day to keep an eye on the level. On the day we left the level was still high so they wanted to check once more today to see if it continued to climb. Luckily the test came back better so he's out of the danger zone! We'll continue to watch it but according to the pediatrician we shouldn't have a problem from this point on.

In other news, I'm not sure Mike and I would have survived our first week with the help of our parents. Both sets have been incredibly helpful with everything. They took shifts going to our house to feed pets or take care of plants. My mom has been here every day trying to catch us up on laundry. It seems like the more she does the more we make but somehow she's getting ahead =) They have brought us meals and done quite a bit of shopping for us. We have plenty of food and they've taken care of the extra stuff like bottle returns and taking out the trash. It's a good thing they're helping because I'm not sure Mike and I could do much more than take care of Henry right now! It's overwhelming the amount of work a little 8 pound child needs.

Every day is getting better though. Mike and I are so attached to this little guy. He's demanding and what most would consider a "fussy" baby but somehow just seeing him watch us closely or sleep soundly makes it all worth it. I'm still sore on the labor part and swearing I will have a c-section next time no matter what but I feel pretty confident I would go through it all again for our little boy. We're also learning more about his personality and that's making life with him easier. So far we have learned the following about our son:

Henry:

* Does not like to wait for food - ever
* Likes to eat - a lot and often
* Will not sleep if he isn't full, clean and at the right temperature
* Does not like his diaper changed
* Will sometimes remember he needs to pee mid-diaper change
* Does not like to be waken up or moved mid-nap
* Loves to be held/cuddled

Henry's Birth Story

Well the remaining weeks at work went well. It's still overwhelming but I'm really excited about the opportunity. The week of my due date (May 27th) I was done being pregnant and told my boss May 28th would be my last day. The doctors appointments were telling me that baby was fine but we were no where near labor and/or dilation. It was depressing.

After my last day of work I spent some time trying to relax and get ready for baby. Saturday Mom and Mike worked on getting flowers planted around the house. I watched from a chair and crossed my fingers something may happen while they were there. Of course nothing did and after the flowers were all planted Mom went home and Mike and I got ready to meet up with Cam and Paul.


Cam and Paul came up from South Bend to spend some time with us since the little one was running late. We had a super nice dinner and then went to see Robin Hood at the theaters. Mike and I didn't get to bed until midnight. At 2:30 a.m. I woke up having a contraction. I didn't get too excited because I've had a lot of false alarms. I got up and tracked the contractions and they were consistently 3 minutes apart. I woke up Mike at 3 to let him know things started. I labored until with consistent 3-5 minutes apart contractions for a few hours.

Around 5 a.m. I started having back labor and it was excruciating. We did all we were taught to in our classes to help turn the baby but by 8 a.m. I was in what is considered the transition stage of labor. I was pretty rough. We decided to go to L&D to get checked. After hanging in a little room laboring for another hour, they determined I was BARELY at 1 cm. They had us walk around the hospital to see if labor progressed.

Two really, really long hours later they checked me again and I was just at 2 cm. It was depressing. At this point in time we were still hoping to have a natural birth. Although I admit I was wavering. The doctors offered to admit me and start on pitocin but I was against any drugs to make the contractions worse considering I thought they were all I could take as they were. In the end we decided to go back home to labor some more and come back later when I would hopefully be further along.

Six long hours later and many sobbing sessions, frequent position changes and consistent 3-5 minute back-labor contractions, Mike took me back to the hospital. About this time I had been in "labor" for 17 hours. When I was checked in the room I had made it to a grand total of 3 cm, only 1 cm better than when we left. I was pretty broke down at that point. I told I Mike could not do it anymore and I needed something, anything to take the edge off.

After being admitted they gave me two doses of IV drugs to take the edge off. I have to say they were crap and did NOTHING for my pain. I felt in pain AND buzzed at the same time which didn't really help anyone. In the end I was demanding an epidural and Mike finally gave in. He was supposed to keep me away from them (for birth plan) but in the end he agreed the pain was too much for me to handle when I still had 6 cm to go.

After the sainted anesthesiologist gave me the epidural I was in heaven. I could still feel the contractions but they were nothing compared to what I had gone through so long. Doctor broke my water and stripped my membranes hoping to progress labor now that I was calm. Three hours later they came back and I had dilated to 4 cm. It's about 9 p.m. now and they decided I wasn't going far on my own. At 9:30 they started pitocin. By midnight they checked me again and I had made it to 5 cm. I was highly discouraged and the doctors were warning me it wasn't looking good for a vaginal delivery.

In a last ditch effort, they increased my pitocin again and gave me another 3 hours to dilate. In the end they actually waited 4 and when they checked me at 4 a.m., I hadn't changed a bit since my last check at midnight. I never made it past 5 cm.

At this point they said it's obvious the baby is either too large to fit or he's in such a position that he just can't come down anymore. I was immediately taken for an unscheduled c-section and 40 minutes later the whole thing was FINALLY over.

Henry Michael Dozeman
Born May 31, 2010, 4:53 a.m.
8 lbs 1 oz
21 inches long

I'm thrilled our little man is here, healthy and doing well. I'm struggling with the breastfeeding but so far so good. Henry is a great latcher and sucker but kind of lazy so we have a lot of latch and relatch stuff going on now. I hear it's supposed to get better and after all, the little guy is only a few days old. He has a lot to learn and so do I =)

Tomorrow (Thursday) I will have my staples removed and they will send me home if all is still going well. I'm looking forward to my home environment but it is really nice having 24 hour help AND room service =) I will miss the extra help...

I have to give a shout out to Mike. He's been great about all things baby. He supported me throughout the labor and through the hospital process. He asked a lot of questions and always kept baby and my health first. After Henry was born he's been constantly taking care of him (especially when I was out of commission and barely able to sit up). I wouldn't say he's a pro at diapers yet but he's definitely getting the system down. Mike has spent every night at the hospital. Sometimes he's gotten less sleep than me just so he could watch the baby and give me a few hours reprieve. I'm going to really miss him when he has to be go back to work and I'll be on my own during the day =(