The last time I blogged, I was excited to have a busy and productive October and get everything all set before I had a baby.
Friday, October 2, I was organizing things on my desk and looked over at 'M' and said, "it's so crazy because in a few weeks, I am going to be in the office one day and then the baby will come and I just won't be back to the office the next day!"
I left the office and at 5:45 that evening, my water broke. 6 weeks early!
I called my doctor who told me to come to the hospital. "I had other plans this weekend!" I told him. I hadn't even packed my hospital bag yet. I ran around my house, throwing random things in a bag, shouting at the dogs that this wasn't supposed to be happening. 'N' was an hour away, coming back from a golf event, so I drove myself to the hospital.
Baby X was born at 8:28pm. He was 4 pounds 14 ounces- the tiniest baby I'd ever seen in real life. He was healthy and breathing perfectly (which is the big concern when babies are so early). It turns out, 3 weeks of steroids probably really helped his little lungs and after some additional googling, I found out that sometimes they give women steroids to help build up baby lungs if they think the baby is going to be early. Apparently suffering through the agony of itchiness was worth it to help my baby.
He was in an incubator for 4 days and in the NICU for 10 days before we could bring him home. I spent every day at the hospital. I held him as much as I could, but mostly, babies that small just need to stay warm and grow, so I spent a lot of time sitting next to his plastic box while he slept. I brought my computer each day and worked on raising $10,000.
After 10 days, we got to bring him home and it was sort of exciting, but also, newborns sleep a lot, so I worked a lot.
At the end of October, we registered over 150 kids for early bird registration and I ended up raising $19,000 (NOT including the $10,000 match!).
I've had a baby for almost 2 months and so far I'm balancing baby and work. One month maternity leave was probably a little impractical in hindsight. X's due date was November 10, and the hospital recommended not even taking him out of the house until his due date, so that's more than a month. However, I've been working every day and so, while I'm not in the office, I'm also not completely on maternity leave.
I'm still not sure what exactly I'm going to do with "maternity leave". I can't imagine handing this TINY baby over to anyone to take care of, but I also don't know how long I can continue to not be in the office. I'm a bit anxious about the whole situation, but I'm making it work for now.
Friday, October 2, I was organizing things on my desk and looked over at 'M' and said, "it's so crazy because in a few weeks, I am going to be in the office one day and then the baby will come and I just won't be back to the office the next day!"
I left the office and at 5:45 that evening, my water broke. 6 weeks early!
I called my doctor who told me to come to the hospital. "I had other plans this weekend!" I told him. I hadn't even packed my hospital bag yet. I ran around my house, throwing random things in a bag, shouting at the dogs that this wasn't supposed to be happening. 'N' was an hour away, coming back from a golf event, so I drove myself to the hospital.
Baby X was born at 8:28pm. He was 4 pounds 14 ounces- the tiniest baby I'd ever seen in real life. He was healthy and breathing perfectly (which is the big concern when babies are so early). It turns out, 3 weeks of steroids probably really helped his little lungs and after some additional googling, I found out that sometimes they give women steroids to help build up baby lungs if they think the baby is going to be early. Apparently suffering through the agony of itchiness was worth it to help my baby.
He was in an incubator for 4 days and in the NICU for 10 days before we could bring him home. I spent every day at the hospital. I held him as much as I could, but mostly, babies that small just need to stay warm and grow, so I spent a lot of time sitting next to his plastic box while he slept. I brought my computer each day and worked on raising $10,000.
After 10 days, we got to bring him home and it was sort of exciting, but also, newborns sleep a lot, so I worked a lot.
At the end of October, we registered over 150 kids for early bird registration and I ended up raising $19,000 (NOT including the $10,000 match!).
I've had a baby for almost 2 months and so far I'm balancing baby and work. One month maternity leave was probably a little impractical in hindsight. X's due date was November 10, and the hospital recommended not even taking him out of the house until his due date, so that's more than a month. However, I've been working every day and so, while I'm not in the office, I'm also not completely on maternity leave.
I'm still not sure what exactly I'm going to do with "maternity leave". I can't imagine handing this TINY baby over to anyone to take care of, but I also don't know how long I can continue to not be in the office. I'm a bit anxious about the whole situation, but I'm making it work for now.
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