Growing up green isn't easy!!

Today, we have a guest post from the one and only....Abby!

I'm one week old today! Hooray!

Mommy and daddy (mostly daddy) have decided to bring me up green. Apparently it's not just about saving the environment, but also about saving mommy and daddy some money (which means they can buy me some toys, oh yeah, and also maybe send me to college!)

Today, daddy spent some time raking and mowing the leaves so that he could put them in the compost pile. He composts most of our leftover food too. He also prepared the strawberry bed by putting straw on top of them. Hopefully next june we'll have some delicious strawberries.

Also, daddy makes me drink room temperature milk. Apparently, daddy says you can't microwave breast milk. I don't even know what a microwave is.....Daddy could run it under warm water, but he doesn't like to waste hot water, so I just drink it at room temperature.

Here I am looking adorable in my first cloth diaper! Mommy and daddy started using those today, and I must say, its gone fairly well. Mommy and daddy have yet to wash any, but I think they're ready.


And here is the clothesline that daddy put up to hang dry his and my clothes and diapers. Here you can see my laundry drying. Daddy's even going to put my diapers up there for the whole neighborhood to see! Can you believe that? I don't see him hanging his underwear up there. Oh, wait, yes he does....


And here I am at Thanksgiving with my favorite great grandpa Pleimann.


And here I am with my favorite great grandma Buerck.


And here I am with my favorite cousin Lily! I am so proud of her...she didn't want to hold me in the hospital, but tonight she was so happy to hold me! And she did such a good job too! I can't wait to get older so we can play together.

The Joys of Parenthood

We (and by we, I mean Abby) had TWO, yes TWO, major blowouts today. In the first, Peggy was changing her (and by her, I mean Abby) diaper. Just after Peggy took the old diaper off....EXPLOSION! We won't get into the details, but lots of laundry needs to be done. Apparently she pooped and peed at the same time. Then, just a couple hours later, I noticed she (and by she, I mean Abby) was a little stinky. So, we went to change her and noticed poop on her onesie. The diaper just didn't do the trick.

All you cloth diaper haters out there can stop the hatin' right now, because we haven't put cloth diapers on her yet! Our good friends Matt and Linda recommended not to start the for about a week or so. Again, I won't get into the details but the poops at the beginning are nothing short of road tar....anywho....

I think we're going to start the cloth diapers tomorrow instead of today like we were planning (just in time for grandma Colleen to come to town).

And now, what you've all been waiting for, more pictures!

Baby Abby has found her thumb! Auntie Sally (a chronic thumbsucker), is very proud. Interestingly, there is a orthodontist in the same building as Abby's pediatrician. You have to choose which door to enter when you go in the front door. I told Abby that we'd probably be there in a few short years. I'm sure the thumb sucking will only help that.



Abby is already preparing to follow in her daddy's footsteps by being a teacher when she grows up. Here, you see her practicing the "raise your hand if you have a question technique." I called on her, and she just farted, and then laughed....she is her daddy's child.



Abby, being just plain adorable:



As many of you know, Peggy and I are quite the photographers (it's how we met after all). So, of course we had to do a naked baby shot. Abby was not very cooperative, so we may have to do it again soon, but here is the best shot we got.

More updates and pictures!

It's been a busy couple of days. Abby is doing great, as is her mommy. She had her first checkup today, and is well on her way to getting back up to her birth weight. She's currently at 8 pounds 10 ounces. Clearly mommy is feeding her well.

I got puked on for the first time last night. I usually do the burpings, because that's what I'm good at. I'm not quite so good at the breastfeeding, haha. Usually Abby gives me a couple good burps then falls asleep on my chest. Not last night! I gave her a bottle so Peggy could get some sleep. She ate a bunch. Then I was burping her and, blllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh....everywhere. I was laying in bed at the time. It got all over me, all over the pillow and all over the bedsheets. Luckily, Abby didn't get any on her! Imagine that!

Alot of people have been asking if Abby looks more like me or her mother. So, we'll let you decide! I think it's pretty conclusive. In fact, I think Abby might be an exact replica of her mother, but maybe you'll have a different opinion. I put up a new poll on the right side. Feel free to vote.

David as a baby:


Peggy as a baby:


And baby Abigail, well, as a baby:

More Pictures!

Before the pictures, just a quick update. The first night home was TOUGH! We weren't sure if we were ever going to get some sleep. But, around midnight, baby Abby finally got to sleep. But then she woke up again around 12:30 to feed. She got some food, and then went down for the night. She didn't wake up again until around 5:00!! And today she's done so much sleeping! We had a couple successful feedings, which makes mommy and daddy very happy, since she didn't have such a good day in this department yesterday. It helps that mommy is producing a TON of milk today. Abby was milking on one and Peggy was dripping like a leaky faucet on the other!

Needless to say, today has been much much better than yesterday....and daddy is excited to introduce baby Abby to his favorite (soon to be her favorite) show tonight, The Big Bang Theory. Abby is looking forward to daddy's weekly singing of the theme song.

So, here's some pictures:

First of all, click here to see (and order if you would like) her hospital pictures.

We also downloaded almost all of the pictures from the hospital stay to snapfish. We are going to be putting in everyones emails that we can think of. You should be getting an email if we have yours. If not, please send one of us an email and we will add you to the list. If you don't want to do that, and you have facebook, then all of the photos are also there, under both of our profiles.

We're home!

We made it home this afternoon around 2:00PM. All is well. As soon as we walked in the door Abby decided it was feeding time and wouldn't stop crying! We didn't even get the car unloaded! But, after that, she took a nice long nap. We're about to do another feeding, but thought we would post some pictures before we do. More to follow, but enjoy!

We didn't post this one earlier. This was in the OR...you can see baby Abigail's head just starting to poke out of Peggy's belly.


Matt and Linda brought their beautiful daughter Charlotte up to visit her future BFF:


Kevin was quite excited to hold baby Abby.


As was Ryan.


Abby's first Mizzou outfit! Daddy was so excited to buy her a little cheerleader outfit.


Abby LOOOOOOOOOVES tummy time with daddy. Daddy has become very good at burping during this time! She feel asleep on me last night for more than an hour. Peggy was a trooper and fought the pain to get in a few good photos.


She was zonked!

All's Well

Abby's one day old! Here are some more pictures from last night and today. Just in case you didn't believe that David changed diapers, here's proof. Notice the rolled up sleeves.



Abby's had several visitors, including Uncle Mike, Aunt Erin and Cousin Lily, and of course Grandpa and Grandma.







She's such a sweet baby.









If all continues to go well, the new Pleimann family will be coming home Sunday.

The New Family

Here are a few more pictures of the happy new family. They are settling in and getting to know each other. Mom is looking great and should be out of bed and walking tomorrow. Dad had the pleasure of changing a REALLY gross diaper today. Way to go, Abby!

A Long Journey

November 18th, 2008
7:00PM: We called the labor and delivery department to make sure they have an available bed. Unfortunately they didn’t! They told us to go to bed and they would call us when they’re ready, hopefully not after 9:00PM.

November 19th, 2008
1:00AM: The hospital FINALLY calls. We roll out of bed, do some last minute packing, and head for the hospital

1:45AM: Check in and get settled into our room. We meet our nurse, Julie. She is incredibly nice, and we really like her. She checked Peggy’s vitals and did an exam. Peggy is still only 1cm dilated!
Then the fun came…good cop bad cop. Julie wanted to be the good cop, so she called in another nurse to put in the IV. Needless to say, it didn’t go very well. Thirty minutes, three nurses, 15 minutes of hand massaging, and three needle sticks later, the IV was finally in.
2:45AM: Julie then put in the Cervidel (have no idea if that is the correct spelling). This is supposed to soften the cervix. It takes 12 hours to work, so now it’s a waiting game.

3:00AM: We try to get a couple hours of sleep (unsuccessfully)
3:30AM: Julie comes in to check on Peggy and informs me that the chair folds out into a couch! Wahoo! Now I can get some sleep!

5:30AM: We sort of wake up. We spend the next couple of hours watching all of the traffic in the “real world” out our highway view window.

7:00AM: We get a new nurse, Jo. Peggy almost had a heart attack when Julie told us “Jo’s” name before Jo came in. Peggy was very worried that “Jo” was a guy.

7:05AM: The cafeteria finally opens and Peggy gets to order some breakfast! Life is good!

7:45AM: The food finally arrives….life is even better!

We spent the next several hours hanging out and not doing much. Watch some TV, read some magazines, etc. Oh, and I spent several hours trying to get our internet connection to work. It doesn’t, so no live blogging! Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

11:30AMish: My parents stop by for a visit. It was nice to see some familiar faces. And they brought me some Lion’s Choice roast beef sandwiches! They also brought Dad’s laptop in hopes that we could get that to work on the wireless network. I ate, then spent the next hour trying to get the internet to work. Again, it doesn’t! Why is it so hard to connect to a wireless network?

12:30PMish: Peggy gets to eat a small lunch! Life is good again! And they tell her that at about 2:30, they’ll take the cervadil out and let her take a shower! Life is really really good! She’s had contractions about every 2-7 minutes, but most of them she doesn’t even feel since they’re not strong enough.

2:30PM: Jo takes the cervidel out. The next 30 minutes were heaven for Peggy! A shower! She was very excited to get a shower.

3:00PM: Jo tries to do an exam, but can’t find Peggy’s cervix!!!! They start Peggy on pitocen. They start with a low dosage, and plan on gradually increasing it every half an hour.

For the next 5 or so hours, we had a nice little routine down. Jo would come in and up the dosage, and we would take a walk. They switched Peggy to the wireless monitors, so that freed her to walk down the halls. We did laps around the nurses station. Somewhere around 5ish, I found my way down to the cafeteria to get some dinner. I had some spaghetti, meatballs, and mac and cheese! Yes, carb loading I know….it’s going to be a long night! Plus, that’s all that really looked good down there. Oh, and I also got some grading done during this time! Wahoo!

7:00PM: We get our third nurse of this whole experience, Ashley. We were supposed to get Julie again (which we were incredibly excited about), but she was assigned to watch over the women who are in L&D long term. We were very bummed, but she stopped by around 7, and talked to us for a while….very nice of her.
Ashley is nice and tells us that she’s here to cause Peggy pain. At this point, we say that we’re fine with that, because she’s hardly felt the contractions at all so far.

8:00PM: Dr. Clancy (Peggy’s doctor) has asked that they do another exam on Peggy to see if the pitocen has had any effect (we didn’t think it had). She was nearing the highest dosage of pitocen that they could give here. Ashley wasn’t able to find Peggy’s cervix, so she went to get the on call doctor. The doctor found it, and said she’s about 1.5cm, and 70% effaced. She then says “maybe we should just pop your bag of water.” The nurse says that she’ll call Dr. Clancy to find out. The on call doctor said, “no, I know her, we’ll just do it.” So, a couple minutes later, they popped Peggy’s water! They did more to progress her in 5 minutes than what happened naturally in the last 18 hours since we got here! Everything looks good, and the doctor says the baby just has a little bit of peach fuzz on his/her head! Our baby is so close!
They knocked the dosage of pitocen down a bit since they expected the broken water to make a big difference. They also put in an internal monitor to track the contractions. This means that Peggy basically can’t get out of bed until she has the baby.

8:30PM: We watch some Mythbusters…..good times…..and the contractions got stronger! FINALLY!

It’s now about 9:20PM, and Peggy’s definitely progressed a lot. I’m writing all this between contractions, which are coming about 3 or so minutes apart….not much different from earlier, but they are MUCH MUCH stronger! We’re starting to think this may happen after all!

Ok, time to get my hand squeezed a bunch more! I should have brought gloves or something!

10:00ish: The contractions were getting really really strong. Peggy was told anytime after her water broke, she could have an epidural. She was being a tropper though, and holding out as long as possible. She was afraid that if she had the epidural, that the contractions would stop.
At this point, Peggy was between 3 and 4 centimeters. The nurse told her that she had already made it quite a ways past what most women do before they get the epidural. I think that put her at ease a bit. She made it until around 10:15 before she couldn’t take it anymore. I could just see it in her eyes, so I told her it was time, and she agreed. I went to get the nurse.
10:30PM: The nurse and anesthesiologist (Bill) came in. We already had Peggy in position. Bill was an interesting character to say the least. First of all, you could hardly understand what he was saying….no, not because he’s foreign, but because he spoke fast….really fast. Peggy asked him if he’s an auctioneer on the weekends. Haha, at least she still has her sense of humor. I’m not sure he appreciated it too much, but oh well.
They also put the catheter in at this time. Peggy was pretty excited that both of these procedures didn’t hurt as much as she had heard.
We were then told that we should try to get some sleep.

11:00PM: We started to get some sleep. And get sleep we did! We spent the next 5 hours getting sleep on and off. Ashley came in about every 30 minutes or so. Peggy’s contractions did not level off, and just got stronger (although they don’t hurt anymore!). She also progressed from about 4cm at 11:00ish to about 8cm by 5:00AM. She’s making progress! Peggy’s temperature has been an issue a couple of times during the night. They’re keeping a close eye on it.

November 20th, 2008
It looks like we’re going to have a November 20th baby after all! If you had told us coming into the hospital that we wouldn’t have a baby on the 19th, I would have called you a liar!

4:00AM: They put Peggy on some oxygen to keep the baby moving. The baby still seems to be doing fine, heart rate is doing well.

NOON: OK, folks. Since they never got the wireless connection at the hospital, Grandma is finishing up at home.

Peggy didn't make much more progress by 8:00, so they decided to do a C-section. Here she is--Abigail Jane arrived at 9:14 am, weighing in at a hefty 9 lbs 3.7 oz (Peggy guessed 9-4) and 22 inches long! Of course, she is BEAUTIFUL, and baby and mom are doing great (Dad's pretty great himself!) So, without further ado, here she is:

We've been delayed!

Grrrrrrrrr....NO BEDS. Ugh. Now, we wait. The hospital is supposed to call us back in the next two hours, but we'll see. Apparently the noon induction appointment still hasn't been called in!

And the waiting begins....

All packed and ready to go!

Well, we've made it. We're just waiting now. At 7:00, we call the hospital to make sure they have a bed for Peggy. Assuming they do, we'll head for the hospital around 7:15.

We're not totally sure what to expect, but apparently they're going to give her some medicine to soften the cervix tonight. That's supposed to take overnight to work, and then they'll start her on the pitocin in the morning. This is what we think anyways...we haven't been told many specifics.

We'll try to update the blog assuming we have internet access there like we're supposed to. Also, assuming that we don't have a baby right away! It all just depends on the timing of everything, but I do plan to try to keep the blog up to date with whatever info we have. So, feel free to check back here throughout the next day or so until we have our baby!

After the baby comes, and we get some time to ourselves (with our new baby of course!!!!), then we'll post some pictures. Hopefully this will be sometime tomorrow night, but we'll see!

Wish us luck!

Baby on the Brain!

Just two days until we go to the hospital....and probably 3 days until we get to hold our baby! We're so excited!

Peggy came home early from work today with a lot of back pain. Who knows, maybe we'll going before tuesday?

And now may I present to you Peggy on television! Go to this site to see her starring, ok, (well maybe not starring) role on the morning show last friday.
Click here for video
You have to watch a short ad first, but hey, those are ads that put food on our table!!!!

She's about half to 2/3rds of the way through the video.

Enjoy!

The end is near!!!!

We have a date! No, not a due date silly....that's tomorrow. And we're pretty sure the baby is not going to make it here in time for that!

We have an induction date! We head to the hospital next tuesday (november 18th) at 8PM. Hopefully that is....we may be delayed if they don't have an open bed (here's to hoping that next tuesday is not a full moon!).

The baby is big! Really big! The doctor today thought she is around 8.5-9 pounds already! Woah, thats a big baby!

They're gonna drug peggy up good with some stuff to get that baby moving (hopefully). If all goes as planned, we should have a baby sometime next wednesday (november 19th).

WAHOO! Peggy is quite enthused. She's ready to get our baby out NOW!

So, it looks like one more week of work for Peggy. She's still working (like a trooper) so that she can have a full 7 weeks off with the baby. This means she'll be off for christmas and new years!

Again, WAHOO!

Still.....No.....Baby.....!

After all of this worry that the baby would be here a couple of months early, we're still without a baby!

I do know the hormones are flowing in Peggy though! She tells me that she's getting more grouchy at work everyday. All of her coworkers had been saying all along that she's so pleasant under the circumstances. I'm not sure how much longer that's going to last!

Oh, and the other night she cried while we were watching Suppernanny! Daddy might be in for a rough couple of weeks after the baby's born!

Here's to hoping for a baby soon!

No Progress Part 2

After another weekly appointment, there is nothing to report. I'm still only 1cm dilated, ugh. So if I make it to next week we'll plan an induction date. I'm hoping that doesn't happen.

The weatherman at work says I'll have the baby on Thursday because its a low pressure day and apparently almost all of the women at work have delivered on low pressure days. Works for me.

I'm still feeling good, I have a lot of contractions but they just don't do anything. I've heard I'm supposed to eat the core of a pineapple, but it sounds gross. Any suggestions?

Cloth Diapers Explained

So, as many of you know, we have decided to use cloth diapers. Trust me, they're not nearly as scary as they sound. First of all, take out of your mind cloth diapers of old.....you know the ones with folding and pins that you (or your mother) used? Yeah, cloth diapers aren't like that anymore. Well, some are, but those are for crazy people (not us, hah).

I think we have 24 diapers total, so we expect to have to wash the diapers about every three days.

So, I present to you one cloth diaper, cleaned, folded, and all ready for our baby's bottom. Notice the velcro (no pins!) and elastic around the legs:


Here is the diaper unfolded, as you would do to put the baby in it. You can see the white liner. This is a very soft fleece type material that allows all of the "stuff" to move through it into the insert, which you'll see in the next picture. Just an FYI in case you babysit our child, you cannot put any type of diaper cream on the baby! This reduces the ability of the white liner to let the pee get through to the insert (which means leakage!). Most people say that their children never get diaper rash with these cloth diapers, because all of the moisture is wicked away into the insert.


This is a picture of the two different pieces of the diaper. The outside cover which you just saw, and now you can see the insert that gets stuffed into the pocket (I told you these were different than normal cloth diapers!). This is the "newborn" insert, which is pretty thin. After a few weeks, our child will graduate to the normal insert which holds a lot more. Also, for added protection at night, it is recommended to put one normal insert together with a newborn insert. The inserts are quite easy to "stuff" when sitting in front of the TV. Peggy and I knocked out this "chore" in just about 5-10 minutes.


And here is the outside of the diaper. The outside is made of a waterproof material.


It's kind of hard to see, but notice the small buttons on the diaper. These are to change the size of the diaper. These diapers are supposed to get your child all the way through potty training. I unsnapped the first couple of buttons (on the left side) to show you how to make them bigger. Right now, they'll be set on the smallest of the three sizes. I think the child "graduates" to the middle setting in a few months.


And here are our cloth diapers hanging out to dry. I'm constructing a clothesline outside to dry them (although it might not work too well on those cold winter days). Notice the large assortment of colors (these are much nicer looking than having winnie the pooh plastered across my child's butt for the next 2 years). I think we have 6 colors in all.


The Pro's and Con's:
As with anything there are many pro's and con's we considered before making this decision.

Pro's:
1. Cheap! Yes, our water and gas bill will go up a bit each month (although if I used the hang dry method, these bills won't be much more at all), but we expect these diapers to pay off in around a year or so. Actually, for us they will pay off even faster, because over half of the diapers were gifts from my parents!
2. Easy! Yes, cloth diapers can be easy. The worst part is no doubt going to be the laundry, but I'm pretty sure we'll just get used to it.
3. Environmentally friendly! Did you know disposable diapers can last in landfills for more than 500 years, and that 2% of all the solid waste thrown out every year is diapers?! That's crazy! We're trying to just do our little part.
4. Disposables have all kinds of nasty chemicals in them. I would prefer not to have those chemicals on my baby's bottom (or in landfills for that matter).
5. Less diaper rash. Diaper rash is rarely a problem in cloth diapers because they breath much better than disposables.

Con's:
1. The washing. There's no doubt washing the diapers is a con. But, we already do laundry twice a week anyways, so the only difference is 2-3 extra loads a week (plus the baby's clothes). Like I said, I think we'll just get used to it.
2. The "icky" factor. This is fairly limited with these diapers. There is no "dunking" like in old cloth diapers. They have a hose sprayer now that attaches to your toilet that we will be buying soon. You just spray off the diaper over the toilet, and throw it in a bin until you wash it.
3. Harder to travel with. For small/short trips, we'll just throw a couple cloth diapers in the diaper bag, and we'll have a waterproof bag to throw the old ones in. When you get home, you wash them out like normal. For long trips (out of state, etc), we'll probably just switch to disposables for the trip.

Anyways, this is all I can think of for now. Obviously we've thought a lot about this decision, and it is one we're quite happy with.

The baby may just be a couple days away! In other positive news, I'm off on Monday, so I get to go to the doctor with Peggy for the first time in several months! Wahoo!

And finally, here's a picture of Peggy from yesterday. She dressed up as a pumpkin!