Nora Grace's Grand Entrance...

I apologize in advance for the long post but here is the story of our little girl.

Despite being super sick during my first trimester my pregnancy was complication free. At each prenatal appointment I was measuring right on track and our little girl had a nice strong heart beat, so we were beyond shocked when my water broke late night on Friday 8/30.  I went to work Friday and did not feel any different. I was extremely exhausted but that is nothing new at the end of a work week for me. I had fallen asleep watching TV and Josh was downstairs still up. I woke up to use the restroom and stepped into the bathroom when my water broke at about 10:50 pm. I really don't remember what went through my head at that point. I poked my head around the corner and called for Josh. His reaction was complete shock. Somehow I managed to stay calm and directed Josh to start packing a bag (ironically that was our plan for Saturday) and I called the hospital. Of course they wanted us to come in.

When we got to the hospital they put us in a triage room and the nurse confirmed that indeed my water did break (not really any question about it for us). The doctor and resident were in surgery so we waited patiently to find out what was going to happen. After what seemed like forever the resident came in and told what the options were. Basically the baby would need to be delivered in the next couple of days because after your water breaks the risk for infection to mom and baby increases. That is when it hit us that we were going to be parents much sooner than we thought. The resident continued to tell us that they were not going to start labor and were not going to stop it if it started naturally but either way I was going to be in the hospital until the baby came. We were assured multiple times that babies born at 35 weeks and 4 days do just fine and that the fact that we were having a girl was great because girl's lungs mature much faster than boys. They started to prepare us for what to expect with a preemie. Respiratory issues, feeding, and body temperature were their 3 main concerns. We were told that the average time a baby at this gestational stage spends 10-14 days in the special care nursery.

We spent the rest of the night in triage until around 8 am when a labor and delivery room was available. Neither of us slept and spent the night trying to get our parents back to the cities. Oh yeah, being Labor Day weekend they were both gone. Josh's parents were in Bismarck, ND moving Josh's grandparents, they hopped in the car at midnight or so and started the drive back. My parents were camping somewhere in MN without cell service and I had no idea where they were. Thanks to the diligent work of Marie Mensing we found my parents and the staff at the campground went and told them what was happening. Everyone who was suppose to be there made it and my amazing aunt was also there which was a fun surprise (she filled in for my parents until they got there and decided to stay).

We were told that depending on how well our little girl was doing we would have a little time with her before she needed to go to the special care nursery. My contractions started around 4 am and our little girl, Nora Grace, was born at 10:19 pm. She was a good size for a preemie, 6 lbs, 8 oz and 20.5 inches long. She came out crying which was a huge relief to everyone (we were told she would likely need assistance with breathing when she came out). We got about 5 precious minutes with our daughter before she was swept away to the special care nursery. We had an amazing special care nursery nurse who let Josh carry her to the nursery and introduce her to family on the way. About an hour later (after my epidural wore off) I got to go the nursery to see her. I had never expected with a completely healthy pregnancy to see my baby hooked up to so many monitors and an IV.

Nora in the Special Care Nursery after she was born

The day after Nora was born was a fun day of having both sets of grandparents visit and get there first chance to hold our peanut. The doctors told us that an important part of getting her off the IV was to get her eating so we also spent a lot of the day on that. Feedings were quite the ordeal with trying to breast feed, pump, and formula feed from a bottle (Josh and I decided that if we wanted to get her home we would need to give in to formula until I could feed her enough to have her gain weight).

The second day we found out that Nora would need to be put on a bilirubin light. She did not have Jaundice quite yet but was boarder line and they wanted to prevent her levels from getting too high. Nora remained on the light for 3 days. That was one of the hardest things for us because the only time she could come off was for feedings. It was so hard to just sit and watch your baby and not get to spend the time you were expecting to cuddle her. On day 3 the NP said it was ok for us take her off the light for longer time periods to hold her. In those 3 days Nora did get weaned off the IV which was a huge relief for us. On Labor Day I was discharged from the hospital (2 days after she was born) and we had to leave her at the hospital and go home. I know that if Josh had not been there with me I would not have been able to leave. Never did I think I would be leaving the hospital without taking her with us.  We spent 4 nights away from her. We would stay for her 8 pm feeding and were back the next day for her 8 am feeding.

Nora on her light

On Thursday the doctor was hopeful that if she gained weight overnight we could take her home Friday. We were so thrilled. That night we got everything ready for her and were so excited that we would not have to leave the hospital on Friday without her. When we got to hospital on Friday I knew she wasn't going home. The nurse didn't say anything to us about it until we asked and we could just tell it was hard for her to tell us that she had lost weight. We were devastated and Josh made the decision that he was NOT leaving the hospital again without his daughter. So we decided to stay the night and my parents brought us some overnight items. We did every feeding for her that night and at 2 am the nurse weighed her and she had gained weight! She was going home a week after she had arrived. 

Heading Home!!

Even though this was NOT how we pictured the birth of our daughter we are so grateful that she is home with us now and is healthy. We also learned so much from the nurses at the hospital and had an amazing experience with almost every special care nursery nurse. We are so appreciative of all the support from our family and friends over the last couple of weeks.  They made the transition to parenthood a little easier considering the circumstances.

Our beautiful daughter at home with Mom and Dad!!

Nora has been home for over a week now and continues to be doing well. She had a home health visit and her first pediatrician visit and gained weight at both and is very healthy. We love being parents to our little girl and are enjoying our family time together.

-Heidi

July Update

Good Intentions...

I had such good intentions of keeping this updated on a regular basis... obviously I have fallen way short. So here I am again with yet another long (hopefully not too long) Holle Family Update...

In July we celebrated 2 big milestones on the same day July 2, one being Josh's 28th Birthday and the 2nd being the start of our 3rd Trimester! I am going to start with the latter.

Baby Girl Holle Update...

1. Medically Baby Girl Holle is right on track. She is growing on track and has a strong heart beat. She is getting more active and Josh is now able to feel her move.

2. Mom is surviving but is ready for her to come. Fatigue is starting to set in again and nausea continues if I get even the least bit hungry so as long as I have a handy snack life is not too bad.

3. We are slowly getting the Nursery prepared. We have a paint color picked out but no color on the walls yet, hopefully in the next week. Back at the end of May my mom, Dee, and I spent a day and a half  making the nursery bedding and curtains. Josh and I have also spent the last couple of days on some decoration projects. We have her name letters done (sorry no pictures of that until she comes) and an alphabet decoration. We also spent a fun day at Build a Bear making her a bear (compliments of Josh's Uncle Don, Aunt Denise, and the girls). For big furniture pieces we have the crib and glider. After a long, horrible experience with our dresser and Babies R Us we do not have a dresser but do have one picked out from Target now and are hoping to order it in the next week. Here are some pictures of the nursery.

Crib

Our alphabet art project

We built the big bear for her and then bought the smaller one and rattle

Close up of bed skirt

Homemade crib sheet

Curtains are the plain pink hanging on the side

Glider

 

Josh's Birthday Celebration...

 

1. On Josh's actual Birthday we began the day by starting to to redeem Josh's free coffee drinks with some Vanilla Iced Nirvanas at Dunn Brothers. After work we met our parents and my brother at Famous Dave's for dinner and then back to our house for cake and cards. Josh wants a new camera so he received money for that. He actually has it picked out and we will be going to get it sometime this week so he can practice with it before the baby comes.

 

 

2. My present for Josh was taking him to a restaurant that he has been talking about going to since he heard about it, Fogo De Chao! Since we both had Friday off I thought it would be a good time to go. Despite walking up to the restaurant with a fire truck and ambulance we had a good time (no worries the guy walked out of restaurant and into the ambulance). The food was AMAZING and Josh left just shy of a meat coma. Also, just when we thought we were done they brought Josh a 5 layer chocolate mousse cake. No worries I helped him finish it off, no challenge for a pregnant lady who can't seem to get enough chocolate. It was a really fun time and I am glad he finally got the experience. Here are some pictures from Fogo.





What we walked up to



Josh outside Fogo

Josh outside Fogo

 

Birthday Dessert

Close up of Birthday Dessert



-Heidi

Baby Bargains...

My coworker recommended this book to us and it is fantastic. It was worth the $10 we spent on it for the crib section alone. I would recommend it for any first time parents! 

-Heidi

Gender Reveal...

Most of you know the gender of Baby Holle but I thought I would share how we let our parents and siblings know. It was such a special time and we were so excited to have everyone there including Uncle Jason and Aunt Megan (I'll explain that a little later).

Josh and I went for our ultrasound before work so our parents patiently waited all day to find out. We were slightly nervous that we weren't going to find out at our ultrasound. Baby Holle was super active initially and then got tired and was giving the tech quite the search. The tech had me doing toe touches, rolling from side to side, and tipping me backwards to get Baby Holle moving again. Eventually Baby Holle revealed what they were going to be.

That evening my parents, Josh's parents, my brother (Uncle Joe), and Josh's brother (Uncle Jason) and his wife (Aunt Megan). Jason and Megan face timed in from New Hampshire. The first thing we did was have everyone make their guess.
 

Results of the guesses, Josh and I made our guess before the ultrasound as well as Dave (we put 2 treats on the ground and which ever one he went to first was his guess)

We then explained the game. Josh and I had purchased 24 small rubber ducks of varying colors. On the bottome of 1 of the 24 ducks we wrote the gender. Josh and I had prepared Holle Family Trivia questions which contained questions about us as individuals, as a couple, or about Dave. For each question that was answered correctly that person got to pull a duck from the water. We were nervous that it was going to be a short game and they would pull the duck right away. However, it couldn't have worked more perfectly and came down to the 23 and 24th and all the way from New Hampshire Jason pulled the winning duck and announced to the family that Baby Holle is a GIRL!!

 

The Ducks!

 



We are very excited and ready to finish getting ready for our little girl!

 

Dave anxiously awaking for the party to start, love this little guy!

 

 

-Heidi 

Baby Holle Update...

My goal was to use our blog to update on a more regular basis. Unfortunately a disaster of a 1st trimester limited that so this entry will be longer than future ones.

6 weeks: Morning sickness and nausea came in full force. Still wondering if it was completely pregnancy related or a touch of the stomach flu as well. Missed an entire week of work. :(

7 weeks: Continued morning sickness and constant nausea but bearable.

8 weeks: Continued constant nausea and flair up of morning sickness. I ended up going to urgent care and the PA put me on Zofran (medicine for nausea and vomiting). At this point I had lost 8 pounds and really could not keep anything down. At mid 8 weeks we had our first appointment with our Nurse Practitioner, Julie Halverson (we alternate between a NP and OB). We absolutely love her (we met with her for infertility before we got pregnant as well). We got to see our baby for the first time (see previous post for picture).

9-12 weeks: Continued nausea and morning sickness. Down 12.5 pounds. At 12 weeks we had another appointment and met our OB, Dr. Swauger, and loved her as well. Solidified our decision to deliver at Methodist Hospital. We also heard our baby's heart beat which was strong and healthy!

13-15 weeks: Same old same old. Around week 15 nausea started to let up some and had brief periods of relief.

16 weeks: TODAY! Feelng fairly well. Occasional nausea and morning sickness and a little more energy. We decided to start taking bump pictures (see below). We also finally cleared out the nursery so it is ready to be painted. YES we are finding out the gender on May 9th and YES we will be letting people know and NO we will NOT be sharing the name.

Thank you to everyone for helping us make it through this first part of our pregnancy. All the support and prayers are very much appreciated. Also thanks to our family for helping with cleaning, organizing, bringing my favorite foods and the entire Khols maternity pants section to my house, picking me up from work, and taking me to urgent care. We really appreciate it!

16 weeks

Family Picture

Almost empty nursery, computer chair will be moving to the new office

Dave will also be relocating, just not sure where yet

Start of closet

Dave!

- Heidi

Our New Addition

Sorry for long absence from our blog. We got busy over the holidays and then not too much to report... until now. As of October 1, 2013 the Holles will be going from a family of 3 to a family of 4. We are very excited and are so appreciative of our families for helping us get through a rough first trimester.

Baby H's first picture, 8 weeks 5 days, 2.22.13





Holiday Photos...

Here are a couple holiday photos from the Holle Household.

Joshua and my Caramel Apple Pie that we made for Thanksgiving. It was delicious and the cutouts on top are turkeys, acorns, and leaves.

Dave's Thanksgiving Feast

 

Dave's Annual picture in front of the tree

My first attempt at a "mini cake" with my new cake pans and stencils.

 

-Heidi