It's a boy!

I'm happy to announce that we had a baby boy on Saturday 20th September 2014.

He decided that he couldn't wait any longer and popped out at 36 weeks and 4 days.

So after having a date for the c-section booked in for the 14th October, and then bringing it forward to the 3rd of October and then finally the 25th of September, nature took its course and forced the issue.

I was in the middle of feeding some of our pets when Fiona yelled out to me "Mike, I think we have a problem". From there it was a  bit of a rush to grab some clothes and organise to drop my first child off to be cared for whilst I drove Fiona to the hospital.

Arriving at the hospital at 8:15am Fiona had some basic tests done to check the condition of the baby and then we had to wait for our turn in the theatre.

At 9:30 our time had come and we were sent off to prepare for surgery.

Waiting for about 20 mins we were told that we had been bumped! a higher priority case need to use our slot so off to the waiting room we went. Another hour passed and we had been called up it was our turn again.

Entering the theatre everything was still very surreal. and just as we were about to start things the theatre staff were told that we had been put on hold due to an emergency birth down the corridor where a woman was giving birth to twins but had only manged to deliver one so far and that our staff may be needed if the second twin continued to have issues. The staff told us it was a very unusual day with alot of emergencies surgery occurring. This out of schedule workload was a once a year event and we had manage to pick it!.

We got to know some of the theatre staff well over the next 30 mins as Fiona sat on the operating table and surgeons awaited permission to proceed.

Full speed ahead and Fiona was finally having her epidural. The anesthetist said the initial needle felt a bit funny going in. The anesthetic was taking a while to work and was being boosted. A further top up of the anesthetic could potentially palatalize Fiona's lungs so if this last top up didn't work a general anesthetic would have to be applied. Luckily for Fiona it took hold and the obstetrician was able to proceed.

A couple of minutes later the curtain was dropped and we saw our baby boy for the first time.

Unlike my first son, this was didn't have any fluid on the lungs and didn't require any neo natal care so it was straight into the recovery room for him and Fiona.

Or baby was 3.36kg born at 12:36pm and we now had to decide on a name... and 9 days later we are still deciding on the name :) an announcement is immanent!

36 Weeks...

We had our 36 week scan today. We were expecting it to confirm our super sized baby was indeed big and we weren't disappointed. Our baby is estimated to be 3.67 kg using the ultrasound measuring. At 36 weeks this make this baby bigger than the normal range. Our first child James was born at 38 weeks weighing 3.6 kg. That's 0.07 kg less and two weeks further on!

A C-section seems to be a certainty now, which is disappointing from Fiona's point of view as she would really like to have experienced labour pains and contractions, but it makes for a little less stress for me as there won't be any unexpected 3am panic drive to the hospital!

In a couple of days time we will meet up with the obstetrician and confirm the enviable C-Section booking and the planned date of birth of our second child which could be as soon as NEXT WEEK!

We did have a surprise today in that we were able to get some really good 3d/4d images of the baby which is very unusual at 36 weeks especially given the lack of room in there for the baby to move.

Supersize me

I haven't posted for a while as everything has been going along smoothly. We do have a little bit of news now to write about though.

Both Fiona and myself have both noticed that she seems to be much bigger than at the same point with our first child (James). At our previous check up with the obstetrician Fiona's size was checked and was apparently the correct size for this point in the pregnancy. However, on Friday Fiona was checked again and it now appears that Fiona has been on a growing spurt and has progressed from being a 31 week pregnancy size to a 34 week size. So our 34 week scan has now been brought forward two weeks to tomorrow so that the ultrasound can measure the baby accurately and give us a better understanding on the baby size as opposed to Fiona's baby bump size.

What does all this mean? Maybe a big baby, maybe just a big baby bump... does this mean the baby will come early? Does it mean we have to have a C-Section?

Tomorrows scan should help to answer a lot of these questions, but I'm guessing we have a big baby now and that a C-Section is on the cards at the 37-38 mark and given the dates the obstetrician does planned C-Sections  it makes the birth date somewhere between 26th Sept and 3rd of October. Anyone want to place some bets???

We're running the gauntlet...

Or at least that's the way I'm seeing it. We've made the decision to have a C-Section as plan B instead of plan A. Last time with James we didn't have the choice and Fiona really feel she missed out on felling contraction and going through labor pains buy having the C-Section. 

I see it in a different light, as most guys probably would. Why go through the pains and uncertainly when there's a nice controlled (as best it can be) process where both baby and mother can have the best of care in a pain free environment. Oh and of course it means I don't need to be on edge stressing out how to get to the hospital quickly, safety and with a very pregnant wife at 1am in the morning as we approach D-Day and then it arrives and passes by!

The other note worthy thing was today when the obstetrician went to listen for the babies heart beat there was a slight moment of anxiousness as she seemed to have problems finding it with the doppler device. I couldn't see Fionas face at the time be it must have looked like she was a bit concerned as Dr Cheung went to ease Fiona's concern by saying its nothing to worry about sometimes the baby likes to hide. Dr Cheung then got the ultrasound device going and immediately found a wriggling baby with a nice strong heart beat. 

Funny thing was I wasn't anxious at all until Dr Cheung told Fiona not to worry! That immediately sparked my concern but it was all good in the end, and we got to see the baby on the ultrasound again which was pretty cool as we could easily make out a lot of features from hands and toes to its mouth opening and closing.

Next stop I think is the 20 week Morphology scan, which we'll get some more ultra sound pics, videos and 3-d scans. My parents have coincidentally timed a week long visit up here during that time and will be lucky enough to come along to ultra sound too!

Here we go again..

So BabyOnTheWay.com.au is in motion again....

I'm excited to announce that my wife Fiona is now 13 weeks pregnant and the 13 week ultrasound has shown that we are in the low risk category for all major issues such as Trisomy 18 or Edward's Syndrome which gave us a scare last time.

So please enjoy the photos below from our 13 week scan... check back with the blog reguarly as I'll be updating more frequently now...

Introducing James

Well that was a long gap between posts... Life has changed a fair bit since that last post, but before i go on, I should give you a quick update on the last two and a half years since the birth of our first child James.

James Michael Hannant was born Friday 8th of July 2011 at 2:34pm and weighed 8lbs. He was born via C-Section as he hadn't spun around probably due to the cord being wrapped around his neck. As he was born via c-section his lungs needed o be dried out a little bit and so spent the day or two in a humid-i-crib.

Since that day James has been growing fast and I'm still amazed to think that he's turning 3 years old in July this year.

A few minutes after being born..

Two and a half years on and talking up a storm...

T’was the night before…

Baby Eve, the night before the C-Section and the birth of our first child. We decided to celebrate a little and have one last night of freedom. We gathered up all the in-laws, nieces and nephews and headed out for tea.

It is kind of surreal to know that this time tomorrow our lives will change forever with the birth our first child. Everyone’s telling us how our lives will change and how we will lose so much sleep in the coming months as they laugh at our naivety of what we have got ourselves into, but I think we have a pretty good idea. We know the hard work in front of us and we also know the rewards that will come from that. So I’m looking forward to this next chapter in our lives raising mini me.

Next time I post I will be able to introduce our new son/daughter to the world. 14hrs to go… time for me to bank some sleep…

Baby Names

Always a difficult thing to do, but so much more when its your first child. I personally don’t find it to difficult as I think a name should have some personally meaning. By this I mean perhaps a relative that you are close to or someone that inspires you.

As this is our first child, it’s the first time we have gone through this process although we have had to name many pets which proved to be just as difficult for my wife. When we bred our toy poodles she struggled to come up with names for them so the last one was called ‘Z’,that’s right just like  the last letter of the English alphabet. Which seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment, with Natalie Portman naming her son Aleph after the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

I’m not a fan of weird names or “unique” names, I go by a simple rule of if you cant find it on a coffee mug in your local gift shop then its not a real name. A lot of celebrities have named their children weird names like willow and apple. To me I just think of that child going to school and having to always explain that yes their name is a little fruity.

So I think if we have a girl we have settled on Adelaide Rosalie Hannant. Adelaide being our home town, and a place I hold close to my heart and Rosalie being my grand mother that I was very close to and unfortunately passed away a few years ago. Our big problem comes with boys names, which in a sense is a bit odd as I come from a family full of boys.

The other problem is Fiona is hunting for a name that just pops out and grabs her, which I just can’t see happening. She has been trawling through all the baby name website and even bought a baby name book but still hasn’t found anything that just grabs her. So her next plan of action is to see if any thing comes to mind once the baby is born and see which name fits it then.

I’m hoping we have this sorted out sooner rather than later, but as my wife tells me we have 6 weeks to fill out the birth certificate and we can change its name as often as we like until then.

Early Arrival

At 36 weeks our baby is still in the breech position with no real signs of it spinning around so its been recommended that Fiona has a C-Section. So the 8th of July we are now booked in and getting ready for our early arrive.

With the baby now being delivered 2 weeks early we have the screws tightened up on our plans with the baby change table and chest of drawers still on back order! We had a baby shower last weekend which was a great afternoon for Fiona, her friends and her family. On Sunday we headed down to Shornecliff beach for a photo shoot before Fiona pops, and yes she’s very close to popping I think.

Will have some photos to show soon, hopefully before the baby arrives!

Baby Strollers and Cots

We finally started to look into getting the nursery furnished and setup. After an entire weekend of looking around and seeing how expensive baby gear is we made our first baby purchase.  Almost $1200 later we have a baby cot, change table and chest of drawers. Although $1200 might appear a bit on the sharp end its actually about mid range with a lot of these baby suites being sold for $1400-$2000.
Just when I thought we had got the big items finalised we started looking  into a baby pram and car capsule. These items combined are collectively known as travel systems as the capsule clips into both the pram and the car. These systems start at around $550 and go right thru to $1600 and remember we are talking about just a pram and a car capsule. Of which the baby will grow out of the capsule really quickly. So quick you can actually hire car capsules rather than buy them.
So once again after spending a lot of time going through baby shops as well as the Big W and Target I think I have narrowed it down to a couple of models. Mum and Dad have offered to put some money in towards these items which is great, but it also means we need to consider even more carefully how we spend the money.
BigW sell a Steelcraft Orion stoller which in my opinion isnt as good but it does have a bigger shopping basket underneath and is around $100-$150 cheaper than the Safety 1st Shuttle system even when you include the Infant Carrier.