First Visit to the Farm

Saturday night Paige took her first visit to the farm for dinner to see Grandma and Grandpa (as well as some others).


It was the longest car ride she has taken so far and did really well on the way out there. On the way be she started to fuss about 3/4 of the way home. I think she was just getting over tired and was probably a little hungry.


We had a nice visit and got to see a lot of people but didn't get to go see the sheep. Still a little to small for that.

Paige also got to hang out with another adoptive Grandma and two of her adoptive aunts. Paige found that the thumb of one was really good.

Update

Well, the past few days have been fairly uneventful. Things have been slowly getting better but there are still struggles here and there. As I may have mentioned before, she might have her days and nights mixed up as she sleeps a lot during the day and then tends to get up more frequently. Friday night she did sleep for about 4 hours straight which was nice.

Paige got a visit from her Uncle Jim on Friday which was nice even though I put him to work by going and renting a log splitter since he didn't have to go back to work for the afternoon.

Saturday morning Paige helped send the Venturing Crew off on their trip to Washington, DC. She did well with it but it meant that we had to get up a little earlier on a Saturday then originally planned.

Bath Time!

Paige got her first official bath tonight and she did great!

She hardly complained at all and even got her diaper changed and got some lotion.

"Fighting" over Paige

So we have these friends, who shall remain nameless, that live over, uh, west of Bloomington who really wanted to come over and see the baby but couldn't make it right away.

So I get an email from the husband Monday afternoon that he was going to be in Bloomington on Tuesday for work and wanted to know if he could stop by later in the day to see Paige. Sure, no problem.

Not too long after that, 16 minutes to be exact, I get an email from the wife complaining that he was going to get to see Paige before her and she wanted to come over the weekend but he kept saying that he had to go into work but then never did.

Later on Monday the wife called Toni to see if it was okay for her to come over Monday night and see Paige because there was no way he was going to see Paige before him. So she came over, by herself, and hung out for awhile and got to see Paige before him.

He did make it over on Tuesday night and got to see Paige.

Back to work

After taking Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday plus Monday off of work I (Dan - obviously) went back to work. If it hadn't been for a full day of meetings (seriously, pretty much the whole day) I probably wouldn't have gone back but it worked out okay. My mom is at the house for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I took Friday off, the last of my five days off for the baby. Any more time and I will need to use vacation time but it was nice to have five days to use instead of say, none.

Going to work wasn't too bad. I got to talk about Paige most of the day. But, I was feeling rather baby deprived by the end of the day.

It was nice to come home and see her.

Monday's Doctor Visit

Paige had her first check up after being born with Dr. Pogue on Monday. She weighed 7 lb 1 oz, so she lost about 6 oz from the 18th which is pretty normal. Dr. Pogue mentioned that the jaundice looks okay and that since the test results were below the threshold for treatment he wasn't worried and wasn't going to have another test done.

Paige has another visit for her two week check up and the doctor would like to see her back at her birth weight by then.

That shouldn't really be a problem. She is eating a lot better (and more frequently it seems) so we don't have a concern there.

For those of you who may not have been aware we are going the "natural" route rather than formula so it has taken a little bit of time to get everything working.

The risks of taking pictures of a naked baby...

One of our friends, Amanda, came over to take some pictures of Paige. Several of the pictures were of Paige laying on the couch, sans clothing. Right towards the end Paige showed us that she should have had at least a diaper on as she decided to poop all over the couch cushion. It was quite funny as some of it had some good distance on it.

But it is cleaned up and everything is fine. She was a very good baby throughout all the pictures and stayed awake through them as well. We'll get the pictures loaded as soon as we can.

New Photos

Check out the photos of Paige and family at on our Photobucket ablum.

We will be adding pictures as the pictures are taken.

Check back regularly!

http://s304.photobucket.com/albums/nn172/eagle_scout98/

Paige's first walk

Sunday night my parents came over and had dinner. Afterwards we decided to go for a walk to Miller Park and see the new splash park and other things they are building. The walk went great. Once again, she fell asleep in her car seat and didn't cry or anything.

The park is going through some major renovations with an new splash park (small water park), mini-golf course, pavilions and other playground equipment. Best part is that the splash park is free.

Hospital Photo

Below is a link for the photo on the hospital website. Not the best picture, she was a little unhappy when it was taken.

http://www.bromenn.org/services/womens-and-childrens/online-nursery/babyphotosdetail.aspx?BabyId=e9098957-eab5-41ae-b1a9-22361cef68b2

Follow Up Doctor Visit

The test at the hospital Saturday (jaundice) came back with levels below the threshold for doing any kind of treatment. The doctor isn't worried about it. We have a routine check up with the doctor on Monday so they will probably check it again then and see if anything needs to be done.

Saturday was an eventful day. We ran some errands after the hospital visit and she did really well in the car. She slept the whole time.

We had the first real bout of crying Saturday night for about 45 minutes but everything worked well in the end.

First night at home...

The first night went pretty well. We got her to sleep about 9:30 - 10:00 and she slept until about 12:30. She woke up at about 2 and then 4 and then about 6:30. We found out that she likes the swing and slept for about a half hour in it.

I thought the night went extremely well, due in part to the fact that I didn't hear her cry at all and was not woken up. So I got about 8 hours of continuous sleep. We'll have to see how long that lasts. She has slept most of the morning as well.

The cats are doing extremely well with her. Both basically don't care. They have kind of checked her out and are going about their business as usual.

One of them did find a pacifier from the coffee table since I found it on the floor in another room. It wasn't chewed up, just played with. Their favorite toys are those they find (soda bottle tops, rubber bands, hair ties, etc). So we'll just be sure not to leave them laying around.

Later today we go back to the hospital for another jaundice test.

Home

After what seemed like a ridiculous amount of steps to go through to get out of the hospital and home we are home.

Paige got her first car ride! She did really well with it. We kind of expected her to scream since she hadn't really slept all night or in the morning. But she slept a little bit on the way home.

She is a little jaundice and we need to go back to the hospital tomorrow for another quick test. The pediatrician isn't concerned but just wants another test.

So far home is going okay. The two cats are pretty good everything so far but it's only been about an hour or so. We did bring some blankets home and put them around some of "their" spots to let them smell the baby before we came home. Don 't know how well it worked but they slept on the blankets so it wasn't that bad.

The 2nd Night...

Well, the second night was not as good as the first. Instead of all three of us being asleep by 9 pm I was the first to go at about midnight. I think that Toni and Paige were up most of the night. I woke up around 4 am and then took over about 5 am while Toni got some sleep.

Paige is becoming more alert and getting hungry. Not quite there yet on the nursing but Paige is doing well with it.

New Arrival!

Paige Marie Martin was born at 11:25 am on June 18, 2008. She was 7 lb 7 oz and 20 inches long.

Both mom and baby (and dad) are doing well. We wound up deciding to be induced since the doctor was going on vacation and if the baby didn't come naturally while he was gone we would have to wait 2 weeks before he was back to have her induced.

So we got to the hospital at midnight and the pitocin started about 1:30 am. The delivery went very well and turned out to be quicker than we expected.

We were also lucky that most of the local family was able to be there for the birth or right after.

All the doctors have been around and everything is progressing just fine. She has slept quite a bit but we still haven't gotten that much sleep.

We are scheduled to come home tomorrow (Friday).