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...