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The First Few Weeks

Can you tell we are proud parents? Here's a few pictures from Brendan's first 3 weeks of life.

Enjoy our little guy.....

Catching some ZZZZzzzzz's...

First "family" picture - He was about 3 or 4 days old.

Leaving the hospital - first ride in his car seat.

One week old!

He didn't even fit into his sleeper outfit yet. He looked like a sack of potatoes.

Father and son

Grandma Maribeth and Brendan Isaiah

Look how tiny he is with Grandma!

Attempting to sit up with daddy

Motherly love

Two weeks old!

Three weeks old!

Finally, some fresh Alaskan air!

Plights Of Our Preemie

Brendan will turn 4 months old this week and as I look back at his first few weeks of life, I am amazed at how he's grown and developed! It seems strange to go back and write about this now as it was so long ago, but I just have to share some of the funny pictures of him during those weeks. It's taken me this long to simply find time to update my blog....ahhh, life of a new mommy....finding time to do ANYTHING will be tough from now on!

When Brendan was born, he weighed 5 lbs and 15 oz. then he LOST weight for a few days. These pictures demonstrate how tiny he was compared to the nurse's hand.

In between learning to breast feed, we had to supplement Brendan's food supply with formula, but he was so small he couldn't take it in a bottle, so Bob fed him through a syringe and tiny tube. In order to do this, Bob propped him up in his car seat with rolled up blankets all around to keep him upright. What a sight compared to now!

Our very own little glow worm. After Brendan was born, he had jaundice or Bili Rubin. The first step in treating this was to have him lay on a special glowing blanket all day and night. We could hold him with the blanket glowing all around him.

After the doctor's decided the glow blanket wasn't enough, they put Brendan in a special bed, a Bili Rubin bed. It glows and has special heat and lights like a tanning bed. This is to help get rid of the Bili Rubin in his system. While he was in the bed, he had to wear special goggles to protect his eyes - just like when adults tan. The green circular thing in his mouth was his pacifier. It was almost as big as his head! We were limited on the amount of time we could hold him for several days because he had to lie in the bed.

Grandma Maribeth (my mom) seeing Brendan for the very first time.

Look at the size of those diapers! He was so tiny that even the preemie diapers were huge on him.

We like to think he's getting ready for sunbathing and a life on the beach just like his dad always dreams about. In fact, the nurses nick named him Mr. Hollywood because he looked so comfortable in his tanning bed with his arm propped up by his head in the middle of the night.

Brendan had a lot of challenges in the beginning. He had a relapse of the Bili Rubin after leaving the hospital and we all had to go back for a few days. He struggled with eating too, but after you see pictures of him today, you would never know that. He's getting more and more plump with everyday.

Answered Prayers.....

Please meet our newest family addition......Brendan Isaiah!

Our God is an AMAZING God. He never ceases to surprise us. For example, just a night or two after we flew out of our bush village and got settled in Kenai, on the road system, for our month of doctor's check-ups before my delivery, I was having trouble sleeping. I was in a lot of pain and curled up on the floor at the foot of our bed as Bob woke up to hear me cry out a prayer to God to "Please, get this baby out of me soon." Eventually, my pain eased up a bit and I was able to get back to sleep. Let me remind you that was one month before my due date on September 23rd.

Well, a day or two passed and on Sunday night we flew to Homer with some friends for dinner. I began experiencing some pain that afternoon and evening but wasn't really sure if it was labor or not as I had never been through this before. It turns out, it WAS the beginning stages of labor. By Monday morning, I called my mid-wife and she told me to get to Anchorage and not to "dilly-dally" around. We rushed around and debated on what form of transportation to take as the weather was not too great for us to fly and I didn't want to get stuck in the mountain pass with no medical facilities or, even a gas station around for that matter, and have our baby in the car! Thankfully, God opened the clouds up just for a short enough window for Bob to fly us up to Anchorage. We couldn't have asked for better timing.

By the time we landed in Anchorage, it was raining and our window had closed. We were thankful to be in the city with top notch health care. We went to see my mid-wife and she conducted an exam and told us I would have to deliver at the hospital because I was at 36 weeks (4 weeks early). She allowed Bob and I to go to a restaurant to get something to eat before we started the process to check in at the hospital, so we left to go eat. While at the restaurant, I started hemorrhaging. I wasn't sure what was normal and what wasn't so we went back to the mid-wife. She checked me again and immediately sent us to the hospital. In the meantime, the bleeding was getting worse and worse. The blood just kept coming and wouldn't stop. It was scary and it hurt a lot.

As you can imagine, after several exams, the doctor (whom I just met that day b/c I had been working with a midwife all along) informed me I needed to have an emergency C-Section. He said I had an "abruption" where my placenta was pulling away from my uterus and causing the bleeding.

During the C-Section, both Bob and I could hear the doctor's making comments like, "Oh no." "Oh my." and so on. Bob said he could see them making a lot of eye contact with each other like there was an issue but he didn't know what was happening. It turns out, my umbilical cord was completely unraveled. It had been formed like this from the beginning. It is a rare condition call "Vasa Previa." Basically, all umbilical cords are made of three tubular membranes or strands that are woven together and wrapped in an outer tube - kind of like a sausage casing. Mine was in three separate sections. It never caused a problem during my pregnancy and was not detectable during any of my check-ups. In fact, it is never detectable until birth. The scary thing was if they had ruptured or got a puncture or anything during pregnancy or labor, then both our baby and I would've had only 6 minutes before we bled to death! YIKES! Sooooo, we are extremely thankful that God protected us and probably knew about our situation and kept both Brendan and me safe.

Below, is a example of a "normal" umbilical cord and placenta. We found this image on the internet. We wanted to compare images to see the differences.

The next picture is my umbilical cord - completely unraveled.

Finally, the last picture, is my unraveled umbilical cord attached to my placenta that broke away from my uterus too early.

SOOOOOO, the lesson we learned here was:

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU PRAY FOR!!

God does have mysterious ways of working and sometimes he even has a sense of humor. Thankfully, he knew and understood our situation and was able to (in the words of my earlier prayer) "Get this baby out of me soon!" Isn't it really neat how He works in our lives?

Thank You Dear Lord!!!!!

My Pregnancy Belly

I have received many requests for pictures of my ever-growing pregnancy belly. I have to admit, it is rather embarrassing to constantly be taking pictures of yourself especially as you grow and grow and grow. They are not very attractive pictures, but none-the-less, the ones everyone has been asking me for. They are in descending order, so if you are an "order" freak, you might want to scroll to the bottom first and then work your way back up. I like to complicate things....ha ha!

Have a good laugh....

Me and our boy at 31 weeks.

31 weeks after an evening of walking in one of our only days of no rain and a little bit of sunshine.

Somewhere around 26 - 27 weeks. This was taken in St. Louis towards the end of our vacation. Thank goodness we left the heat behind! I can deal more easily with the Alaska summers while being pregnant, although, a little sunshine and less rain would be nice.

26-27 weeks.

Somewhere around 23-24 weeks. This was taken at Table Rock Lake when we went out on a boat with my family for vacation.

This was the first weekend in May, so I was about 16-17 weeks here. I guess, depending on what I wore, I was still able to conceal the fact that I was pregnant, even though all my clothes were getting tighter and I could tell myself.

This was Easter, so it was probably around 13-14

weeks.

This was still in the beginning. These are my girlfriends when we went on vacation in New York for ann extended weekend. I think I was around 10-11 weeks here. I wasn't really showing, but they were all excited to touch my belly with me and share in the excitement of our new child to be!

Da BEARS!

One of the many wonderful things about living in Alaska is all the excitement that abounds when you are sharing your backyard with such wonderful wildlife. Well, this summer, Bob and I have definitely had our eyes opened to learning to live with the BEARS!

Last year, we experienced lots and lots of moose in our yard all the time and this year, in the bush, we deal with being confronted on a regular basis by a big ol' grizzly bear. In fact, just the other night, I told Bob I heard a loud noise and he went outside to inspect. He got to the corner of our house and discovered he was nose to nose with a giant brown bear! You can imagine what went through Bob's mind....The bear made a loud "huffing" noise at Bob and continued to stare him down. Bob, slowly backed up and came inside to get his gun. When he returned the bear had disappeared. The bear's paw prints were all around our garage door and we think it was trying to figure out how to get in there. We keep our fish in a freezer in the garage. We are now extra careful about the freezer and any other smell coming from the garage, like trash.

Due to that incident and many others, like where the bears paw prints had been all over car windows in the morning, or where the bears had gotten into boats and tipped the gas can and everything over etc. etc. We are very careful when we open our door at night or early in the morning. We look both ways before we step outside and we keep our bear spray and guns nearby always.

Below are just a few pictures I took during the month of July. The bears usually came out in the evening time around 11 pm or so, but lately, now that the salmon run is almost over, they've been pretty brave and come out during the day as they search for more food. Most of these bears are the same two brother and sister. We believe they are about 2 years old. We think their momma has been killed so they are learning to fend for themselves. This is why they are so brave because they haven't really been taught very well.

In fact, one morning, one of my friends called Bob to let him know what happened in their yard last night. She started by saying, "I know you can't arrest them, but they really are becoming a nuisance." She proceeded to tell him that they grilled some of their salmon that night on the grill and in the morning, she went outside and found her grill, which stood right next to her house had been squashed several times over and smashed completely flat to the ground by the bears! I saw pictures of it and it was as flat as a pancake! She said, the bear apparently tried to open the grill but couldn't get inside to get to the fish smell, so it kept punching and beating it to get it open and then just smashed it to the ground! Yikes!

A nice evening stroll for the pair of 2 year old cubs seen here.

All of the darker pictures were taken the first night we saw the bears. This was around midnight and we had just come in from filleting our fish we caught that night. We were in the process of sealing our fish to be stored in the freezer when everyone started calling each other to let them know the bears were out. We took a break from our packaging to get some pictures. The bears made a b-line towards the beach where our nets were all sitting. They knew exactly where to go to look for the fish as they could smell what we had gutted and filleted there that night. However, the seagulls and eagles had pretty much eaten everything by that point.

Heading right for our fishing nets on the beach to see what fish guts and all were left for their dinner.

This bear was spotted right in our backyard! Too close for comfort!

These are different from the other two bears. The big one is a momma sow and the teeny tiny fur ball you see next to her is her cub. I took this picture from our bedroom window - in the safety of our house - one night.

I like to title this picture,

"Peek-A-Boo."

This was also taken the first night we saw the bears out. When this guy popped up from the bushes right in front of where Bob was standing! Yikes!

Anyone up for a refreshing and ICY dip in the lake?

This guy was also in our backyard. Oftentimes, they hang out around the corner from our house and they unintentionally cause a little blockade for my girlfriends and I when we want to go on a walk. So, our walks have been seriously limited this summer between all the rain and the bears blocking our path.

Looking for dinner.

Heading to the beach for fish.

As beautiful and cool as these bears are, they definitely have caused many problems and scares for all of us living with them out here. Bob oftentimes goes out in the evenings on "bear patrol" and if any are near homes, he shoots them with these special firecracker shells that have a delayed charge in them. It is supposed to scare them away and teach them not to come around people's homes. This week has been better and we haven't seen as many, but they are probably just moving on to a different food source area as the salmon are not as plentiful right now. Soon, they will be out looking for berries.