I promised to write a bit about everything around the delivery of the baby, and since Michelle is home right now, I get a little bit more time (even though I will need to write this over multiple parts of the day before it comes online as a whole haha).

Last week, on Saturday August 22, Michelle woke me up around 6.30am, saying she saw blood after she went to the toilet. She was a bit worried and my first reaction was that it would probably be a hemorrhoid or something. It was exactly the same during the last time she saw some blood, and you have a lot of chance of hemorrhoids during your pregnancy, so it’s usually not something to worry much about.

She told me “no, I really think it is a vaginal bleeding”. I understood that I would not be able to sleep for a while so I asked her if she wanted me to take a look. After she told me that she wanted this, I took a soft and clean tissue to see if there was any blood coming from the hemorrhoid. Nothing. I then swiped gently near the labia and noticed that there was indeed some blood coming from that area.

It was no serious bleeding or anything, it was a bit red, nothing else. My first thoughts went to something my sister told me before, that when you cough, that it can happen that a small vein can collapse. It happened to her during her pregnancy and since Michelle coughed a lot (still from the flu earlier this year), I didn’t think it would be so weird if she actually had the same going on. I told Michelle that she shouldn’t worry too much right now and also checked online to see what else it could be.

Everything I read on the internet was different from what she had. Heavy bleeding, abdominal pains, nausea and so on and so on. She did not had any of those things, it was just a bit red. I told her that we might as well sleep some more and, if she would still be worried in the morning, or if the bleeding would become worse, we would call to the clinic. And so we did.

When we woke up a bit later that morning, Michelle went to the bathroom again, and noticed that it was still bleeding a little bit. She was a bit worried about it, so we called the clinic to see what we had to do. They told us on the phone that we would be better off by calling the hospital itself as there was no OB/GYN available at the clinic that day (Saturday) and so we called the hospital. The hospital told us that we could drop by that day, we could just come in on whatever time would be best for us, so they could take a look. About an hour later or so (we still had to wash ourselves, dress and eat something), we drove towards the hospital and went to the ‘labor & delivery’ floor.

Once arrived at ‘L&D’, Michelle got a delivery room assigned and she was told to put on a gown from the hospital and that a OB/GYN would take a look soon.

When the OB checked on Michelle, they did all kinds of tests. Michelle had to give some blood and urine, they felt her belly, the heart rate of both Michelle and the baby was checked, the blood pressure of Michelle was measured, and a lot more of these kinds of things. They also took an ultrasound of the belly, and they looked if the uterus itself was still in tact.

It showed that the delivery process didn’t start yet and that everything, at first look, looked ok inside the belly. However, they thought her bloodpressure was pretty high, it was around 155/100. We had to wait a bit more for the results of the blood and urine samples, and until that time, Michelle had to lay down on the bed that was available.

After a while, the doctors came back with the message that almost every value of the blood was ok, except for the white blood cells, which was a bit too high. The urine showed a higher amount of protein and since this all could show a preeclampsia (toxemia), they said they needed a 24 hours urine test. To conduct such a test, they need to collect urine over 24 hours and that meant that Michelle had to stay a night in the hospital.

The next morning, the doctor went to Michelle and told us that they found a much too high amount of proteïn inside her urine. He explained that when the value goes above 300, it is a mild form of preeclampsia. When the value is at 5000, they speak of a severe form of preeclampsia. Michelle’s values were above 7000, which meant a very severe case of preeclampsia according to the doctor. The high blood pressure and the thick (fluids) ankles also added to that diagnose. The doctor said that he wanted Michelle to stay another day in the hospital, and that they would give her magnesium-sulfate through her IV to prevent a seizure to happen (this is something that might happen during preeclampsia) We also had to take into account that the baby might be born premature, and since this also brought a risk for the baby, they told us that Michelle would receive two injections of steroids in her hip (one directly, the other 24 hours later), so the lungs of the baby could mature a bit (the lungs are normally not ready before 34 weeks of pregnancy and that makes the respiratory issue a big risk). A bit later that day, a woman of the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) dropped by to tell us what would happen in the situation that the baby would be born prematurely. For me, I really started to think that the baby would be showing herself within only a few days from then. The doctors were not so sure they said, but in a way, I already knew.

The magnesium-sulfate Michelle received is apparently a real mess. I read on the internet that some people compare it to an electrocution, and while Michelle did not agree on that, she did become very sick (probably also in combination with the preeclampsia). She felt warm, and was really nauseous. She couldn’t eat or drink anymore as it came right out of her stomach again (one of those nights, she actually vomited 6 times). They gave her medicines against the nausea and that made her very sleepy, she slept more than anything else after that. This was good for her as she would not feel the nausea any more (until the medication would stop working, of course). I already read it on the internet, and I agree on it: it is really strange to see that they make your wife sick because of the medications, just to give the baby a chance of survival. Because that was what they wanted to do, wait as long as possible so the baby would receive as much survival chances as possible.

Last Tuesday, the day of the delivery, it was not any different. She felt very sick and slept a lot, while she hardly ate or drank (she was not allowed to drink by the way, she was only allowed to take some water or ice to wash her mouth with) because of her IV which brought a lot of fluids into her body. The doctors would make a decision on this day to see if they would let the baby come, or not. And around the afternoon, the word was finally there: they would let the baby come through the normal way, the baby was in the right position and Michelle had a contraction now and then. I was happy with this news because Michelle was getting sicker and sicker each hour. The reason of that was of course the toxemia, which caused a lot of things, think about Michelle’s problems but also the fact that the heartbeat of the baby went slower and slower. It should normally be between 120 and 160, but more and more it was between 110 and 120. Not the best thing to have, although they did say the baby was healthy.

Here’s a picture of the monitor that measured almost everything:

The orange-like 113 shows the heart rate of the baby. The number in green is to see if there’s a contraction (it should be around 20 when everything is normal, 40 or above could mean a contraction). Below the baby’s heart rate, you can see Michelle’s blood pressure (upper and lower values) and next to that, in blue, you can see the oxygen Michelle is getting (the 99) and next to that is Michelle’s heart rate.

They brought Michelle from the bedroom (or whatever you want to call it, I mean the rooms where the women are brought to after the delivery is over) to a delivery room (she had to move between both rooms a lot last week. Around 4pm, they gave Michelle a third IV, this time with a fluid (Pitocin) so they could start the contractions. I asked the nurse how long it might take on average before the delivery would really start, and she told me that it could take anywhere between 5 hours and 2 days. Brrr.. that’s long.

Anyways, about an hour and half, to two hours, the OB went to check on Michelle. They felt a bit on her belly, and they suspected the baby to be in a breach position. The ultrasound, which they made right after this, confirmed their thoughts also and they decided at that point that it would be better to get a cesarean section. It would be possible that the baby still would turn around, but they couldn’t guarantee this, and turning her around themselves might be fatal as the baby might be chocked by the umbilical cord when it comes around the neck of the baby. They explained Michelle and me a lot of things and then they had to ask the question if Michelle approved a cesarean section (they wont do anything without your consent over here, really a difference with the Netherlands, but ok, that is probably because you can be sued for the most silliest little thing over here, which is very unlikely in the Netherlands). Michelle approved and they started everything so they could do the cesarean section.

They asked me if I wanted to be in the operating room during the cesarean section, of course did I want to be there. I received a short explanation of where to sit (at Michelle’s head, so I could stand her by), and received some clothes to wear. Here’s a picture of my head that I took with my video camera:

Just like the real deal haha. Michelle told me later to keep those clothes as she thought I looked handsome in it. I didn’t exactly follow her request and gave the clothes back after all haha.

The delivery, or surgery, was quick and went fine. All in all it lasted less than an hour (including the preparation of about half an hour). Michelle didn’t feel a thing but she did feel a bit nauseated during the surgery, even though she had some medication that should have prevented it. One of the nurses asked me somewhere during the surgery how I did, and I did perfectly ok I thought… I just felt sorry that I couldn’t look into Michelle’s belly while they took the baby out haha. Luckily a bit of blood doesn’t make me sick or anything

When the baby came out, they first cleaned her and before they would put her into an isolette for transport to the NICU, they showed Isabella to both Michelle and me. I filmed this moment, so here it is:

She was only just cleaned and put into warm blankets. She even looks into the direction of her new daddy as you can see in the video. I asked later on how much they could see, and even though they cannot see things as we can, they do believe that they can see shades and such. Faces they should also recognize. Who knows, she might have been thinking ‘is that the guy who I always heard talking?’ haha, who knows. I just thought it was great she looked into my general direction.

After they showed her to us, I went with the baby downstairs, to the NICU, so the brandnew mommy could come to her senses again on the recovery room. They did a lot to her in the NICU, as you could also see in the previous posts, just look at the cables and such. Sometimes it really hurted me when they put another needle into her.. I know they have to, but it’s not much fun.

And that’s about the whole story. I might have forgotten something, but I cannot figure out now if I did and what it would be.

Instead of 2 days of a delivery process, it turned out to be just two hours. When I see how fast Michelle is recovering, I think this has been the best solution for her. Pretty quick after the surgery she started to feel better, the first day a bit sleepy but when they finally removed all of her IV’s 24 hours after the delievery, she woke up pretty fast to go and see the baby and after three days (yesterday) she was allowed to get out of the hospital.

The only downside that I see right now, is that we don’t have the baby at home. Especially for Michelle this was a bit harsh yesterday when she was allowed to go home with me, she wasn’t so close to the baby in the hospital anymore. But oh well, it does give us some time to get everything ready for the baby here, within no-time Isabelle will be here, just watch.

In my last post, I wrote that I would tell you more about the start of the birth, and the birth itself, and everything around it soon. However, you will still have to wait a bit on that as I am currently really busy because I am more in the hospital than somewhere else, and when I am at home, I have a lot of things to arrange and do. It will come, but some patience is needed

I do have some pictures of Isabelle that I can show you, however. The first pictures are from last night, when Isabella was still in a open thing, but after those, you will get to see some pictures of today after Isabella was transported to an Isolette. They did this to reduce the risk of an infection, since she is so small. Here they are:

Well, some of you might not believe it, but on August 25, 2009, at 7.08pm, Michelle gave birth of a little baby girl: Isabella Johanna Joosten.

It is a lot earlier than we planned, the due date was originally on October 27, 2009, so this is about two months early. Michelle has been in the hospital since last Saturday due to severe preeclampsia, or toxemia, and they decided today to bring the baby into this world today.

I will tell you a bit later with more detail about the preeclampsia of Michelle, and everything around it. Thing is, I really want to go to get some sleep as I did not have much sleep during the last days (neither did Michelle), but I couldn’t go to bed without posting a small message and adding a short video of the newborn.

Isabella is, even for her 31 weeks, way too small. This is due to the preeclampsia, but fortunately she will make up on this loss soon enough. She only weighs 2lbs and 10.9oz (1220 gram) and is 13.5 inch (34cm) in length. She is born through a Cesarean section because Isabelle was in a breach position (with her butt down first) and they did not want to wait much longer because of the severity of the preeclampsia.

Anyways, as said, it is getting late right now (it’s around 1.45am), so I will tell you guys more later about everything. Here’s a small video of the baby to show you, though (more will follow later):

Michelle and I finally sorted out the last parts of the stuff in the nursery, as it used to be one of our two ’storagerooms’ (you might say rooms with lots of junk haha). Everything we wanted to keep went to the other room, so there was only some stuff left over in that room which will go to the junkyard this Friday.

Time to finally start on the nursery (I wanted to be finished by now, but oh well, everything here goes on island speed (like someone from my old job would say: “There will be another bus tomorrow”) haha). Today I removed all the plaster from the ceiling (I think it was plaster) as it was getting pretty old and ugly, I can tell you, it was quite a mess of all the dust that came down. I bought protective glasses out of precaution, together with a respirator (one of the better mouthcaps, not that thin stuff that doesn’t really close and still let everything go through) and, even though it felt pretty warm, I did not have any problem the dust and breathing or that something would fall into my eyes. I was happy I bought that stuff.

Of course I was pretty white afterward haha, here’s a photo that I took of my arm (no, not with that nice beautiful camera, I’m not that crazy haha):

But ok, what does the nursery look like, right now? Well, here it is:

Don’t you think it is a nice mess? Haha, nah, it’s not that bad.. those boxes are still there (they will go to the junkyard, this Friday) but all that plaster is gone by now, I already cleaned it all and took a shower

The ceiling is pretty clean now:

I wonder if we should plaster it again or if we should just paint it. Michelle’s mother thinks I should just paint it as it will be the easiest, but yeah, she also says I must be crazy for doing so much on that room haha. Oh well, it is for the baby, so.. Larissa also had a beautiful room and even though I would not be able to get the same great quality (I had lots of help from my mom and grandmother, they were really great with these things), I still want to try to make something nice out of it

I’ll keep you updated whenever we did something new to the room again =)

Well, that’s something we hoped to find out today. We had two appointments, first at the clinic for the follow up meeting of the first trimester screening, and in the afternoon we had an appointment at the obstetrician.

We had to wait a bit at the clinic this time as someone else apparently entered quite late earlier that morning, which made that all other appointments had to shift a bit, it wasn’t so bad though, it was fun in the waitingroom hehe. When it was our turn, they asked me if we wanted to find out today if it would become a boy or a girl (Michelle was not in the vicinity as she first had to empty her blatter), so I told the lady that we indeed wanted to find out, if possible. She said that she would try her best and that she couldn’t guarantee it because of the baby has be in the right position, which seems logical to me

When Michelle arrived, she started with the ultrasound to see if everything was there. We could clearly see the fingers and toes, we’ve seen the stomach, the brains and the heart were perfectly ok, the baby also has normal lips, which is also important, and everything else was also ok. The length of the baby in the ultrasound was about 13 centimeters (about 5.1 inches), but since the legs were kind of folded up, the total length would be around 18 centimeters (about 7 inches) according to them, which is a normal size for a baby of 17 weeks old.

After that she tried to find out if she could find the gender but she didn’t seem to have much luck in the beginning, the baby was laying in a bit of a odd way which made it quite hard to find the gender at once. I think the baby turned a bit later as she could tell us that it would become .. well, look for yourself on the picture if you can see it:

Yeah right, it’s written on the picture.. haha, the woman who did the echo wrote that down. Oh well, it doesn’t matter, but yeah, it will most likely become a girl.

Most likely?

Yepz, they can’t be completely sure, with a girl there is always a (small) chance that the gender is a bit hidden behind a leg or the umbillical cord or something.. the chance is pretty small but it is there. The doctor, who also looked (they did some sort of double check) told us that. He also came to the conclusion that it has to be a girl but that you can only be sure “the moment you can look into the diaper”, as he said it in his words.

I think he is right about that but I think I just assume that it will become a girl

Some people asked me today if I was ok with a girl and if I didn’t rather had a boy (mostly because I am ‘the last’ of our family) and, actually, I don’t care if it is a boy or a girl, as long as it is healthy, I am just as happy with a girl as I would have been with a boy!

Of course I would like to get a boy some day who can take over this ‘heavy job’ (haha, I am exaggerating, of course) of being the last of the family.. well, not really the last of our family, but the last one with the male gender who carrys the name Joosten in our branch of the Joosten tree (which started in 1854), none of my dad’s brothers, or sisters, has male grandchildren with the name Joosten and, as far as I know, my greatgrandfather only brought one boy to this world (I have been working for a bit on my family’s genealogy lately, I’ll tell you about that later in a different post).

But oh well, like I said before, I don’t really care what it will be in the end, as long as it is healthy, that is the most important thing to me!

The people at the clinic gave us another CD-rom with some pictures and some short movies on it, I have made a short compilation of it, you can see it here:

After this appointment, we had another appointment at the obstetrician, we didn’t get an ultrasound there, probably because we did it earlier today. The obstetrician listened to the heart, they took some urine from Michelle, she told us about the results of the blood tests which they took last time (everything was perfectly ok, there was no problem at all) and they asked a few short questions, and that basically everything.

If I have to believe what the obstetrician told us, then it will be like this for now. Michelle has another appointment in 4 weeks but they will only take some urine to check, take Michelle’s weight, bloodpressure ask some questions and that’s about it.

I can tell you that it is a bit disappointing to know that we wont get any extra ultrasounds for now… we probably wont be able to wait until the baby is born and most likely go out and get a few ultrasounds ourselves, we would have a hard time without our little one (yeah, I can hardly say peanut now as she doesn’t exactly look like one anymore)

Today we had our new appointment at around 2 PM, just like I told in a previous post.. we were there right on time, at around 1:55 PM.

Michelle was called around 2:45 PM (yep, after 45 minutes) to pee a bit in a cup (we have no idea why but oh well). Then Michelle came back to sit with me and wait a bit more… when it was 3.10 PM we were called and could take place in the consulting room.

Once in that room, we jokingly said to each other that they just moved us just because nobody was available but since they read my last blogpost, they were afraid that we might just walk away haha.

Yeah, it sure is something… anyways, after a new wait of about 5 minutes, the obstetrician came to talk to us and said “sorry but we have nobody available”…

Haha nah, that is a joke hahaha!!

Everything was true except for her announcement haha.. nah, what she basically did was listening to the heart of our baby through a doppler machine (the ultrasound will be done by the other company so we have to wait until May 19, which is a bit sad as we were hoping to see some of our kid today) and she asked mostly things to Michelle and myself about our physical wellbeing, if we had certain diseases and that kind of stuff. I think we have been inside for like 10 minutes, after that they took some blood from Michelle (the poor kid was really pale after the 4 tubes that they took from her… nah, just kidding she didn’t notice much of it she told me) and we received a package with some magazines and some information about the hospital.

Our next appointment will be on May 19 with this, and the other company. In the morning we go to the other company for a few things, one will be the ultrasound and in the afternoon we will go to the obstetrician where we will be doing I don’t know what

One of the things we found in the information package of the hospital is the possibility to get the first picture of your baby on a website, you will be able to see this first picture on the baby’s first website by entering the birthdate and a password… this is something we most likely will do.

We had an appointment at 11.30 AM with the obstetrician.. or so we thought…

Michelle went ahead because we had a hard time finding a parkingspot. When I finally found a spot to park our car, Michelle was there already, telling me that our meeting has been rescheduled to the upcoming Tuesday…

Right… I can tell you that this was something I was not exactly happy with.. it is like there is always something over there.

When we went there for the first time, we were waiting for about 45 minutes, only to find out that the obstetrician did not had any time for us.. I agree, that happens. The meeting after this was cancelled by phone, just before we would go there, nice. After this we got an appointment which actually did happen, but I did feel like ‘if they cancel it again, we really don’t come back again and we will go somewhere else’..

But ok, today we had a new appointment, and we have some things we need to ask, but this appointment was also cancelled.. the reason of today was that the obstetrician, which Michelle needs, couldn’t help us because this obstetrician isn’t covered by our insurance.. yeah, now I ask you.. couldn’t they tell us last time? They knew before what insurance Michelle has.

Right.. so we have a new appointment, with a different obstetrician (at the same company, though) which is allowed to help us under our insurance

The score at the moment is: 4 appointments from which only 1 continued..

I think it is a little bit ridiculous. Anyways, this is the last time.. if they don’t want to take our money (or actually the money from the insurance company), then it is their problem and we will go to a different place.. this only costs us time and effort for nothing.

ps. no, our insurance is perfectly ok.. I tend to think that if she isn’t allowed to help us, that this says more about her than about our insurance

Today we had, or actually just Michelle, a first trimester screening. During a first trimester screening, they look if there is a higher risk for a child with the Down syndrome or if there are any birth defects and such. They did this today through an ultrasound and by taking some blood.

I can’t say much about it, really, just that everything was perfectly ok, that is at least what they could tell us from the ultrasound. The results from the bloodtest will take a bit longer before we know a result of it but I think it will all be ok, I am not really worried about it all

It was pretty fun to see the echo today because our peanut starts to look more and more like a real baby. The length of the child was about 5.1 centimeters, or about 2 inches, according to the info on the screen, which reflects a pregnancy of about 12 weeks and 1 day, this is about right (it should be 11 weeks and 6 days according to our info).

There actually was a double surprise (the first was that they actually did an ultrasound, which I didn’t expect as they told us up front that they would just take some blood from Michelle), the second surprise was that they also did a 3D echo (or is it 4D? I don’t know lol).. that was something we really never expected, we thought we had to do something like that later at some different place but now we got it for free along the whole thing

They gave us some pictures on paper, of course, but we also received a CD-rom with some pictures and some short movies on it (all just a few seconds). I placed the movies behind each other in one movie, you can see them below:

And then to think that Michelle told me yesterday “you don’t have to go with me, if you don’t want to”, this was mostly because we didn’t expect that something special would happen. So, yes, I am happy I did go after all, this was really great to see.

We went to the obstetrician today, like I mentioned earlier. We expected that our meeting wouldn’t be much of a deal since it was the first meeting but to our (happy) surprise, we heard that they already could make an ultrasound of the baby, even though it was just 8 weeks old.

The only problem was that Michelle’s health care plan starts april 1st and only then everything which is pregnancy related would be paid for so the question was if we wanted to this right away since it would cost about 186 dollar out of our own pockets. Now we had the choice between waiting for it or still go for it right away.. we did it anyways and could see the first pictures of our little one.

They looked at the images for the heart, which was already beating and with a speed of 169 beats a minute, pretty fast but apparently, this is perfectly normal.. I am unable to remember what Larissa had for a heartbeat (for those who don’t know her, she is my (almost) 12 year old daughter who lives in the Netherlands) when they checked on her but I guess it was about the same. They also measured the baby and according to the length, it was 8 weeks and 2 days old.. we calculated it and according to our calculations it should have been 8 weeks and 5 days but that is close enough I think.

Of course we asked for some pictures, here they are:

The obstetrician said it also, it looks a bit like a peanut, so yeah, the baby already has a nickname haha.

The white particle next to the baby, on the right side, is something the obstetrician called ‘yolk’… in Dutch that translates to eggyolk..

…..

…….

Eggyolk? Nah, I think it is the human variation of it hahaha.. that would be something.. if we don’t watch it, they might tell us that we would have to hatch some eggs hahaha!!

Anyways, I thought it was all worth it, now we have at least the ultimate confirmation that there is indeed a little kid growing inside Michelle’s belly.

So at the end of everything we received the bill… 90 dollar… and I can hear you think “where did the 186 dollar go to?”… well, apparently we received an employee discount.. the mother of Michelle’s best friend works there and she is like Michelle’s second mother, Michelle also calls her her mother, for example, so it is really seen as family. So that was good news for us, it saved us almost 100 dollar and that is a lot of money.

Right, our next meeting is planned for April 17, 2009. We will then get some more examinations as it will then all be insured by Michelle’s insurance. We also get some other examination at a different location in a couple of weeks, we will receive a call for the appointment and this is for bloodtests and such, to see if there is a chance to get a baby with the downsyndrome, to see if it has an open back/spine, and a few more of these things.

More news about our little peanut will follow soon!

We had our first visit to the obstetrician planned for today.. and guess what, we’ve been inside for like only 45 minutes as the obstetrician had to leave all the sudden for a delivery haha… oh well, these things happen.. it will be our turn in about 7 months

Right, the next visit is now planned for this friday, I’ll report back by then