A Peek at Life as a Natic

Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of our time in the hospital for Preston here

Well, it has been a while since I have posted  – sorry about that.  We have been very busy with our awesome visitors and enjoying our time with Preston.  I’m sure you can understand LOL.

Preston is doing very well.  He has been such a great baby and is just so cuddly and sweet.  The only time you hear a peep from him is when he is hungry or he is being unwrapped to change him.  He loves to be wrapped up and warm.  As you may know, I am normally queezy and get grossed out often.  This made the first diaper change was quite interesting LOL.  With Alisha being as sore as she was I needed to jump in and be super dad for a while.  He pooped and as I was wiping him while I had his legs up and he began farting.  I was scared to death thinking that some poop cannon was aimed at my face.  It scared the heck out of me LOL.  It was really funny scary, but Alisha very quickly found out that she cannot laugh without being in some serious pain due to her c-section. 

Preston has lost a little weight since birth but we are monitoring it to make sure that he is getting enough from breastfeeding to be sure that we don’t need to supplement a little bit.  Alisha is very committed to breast feeding as we truly believe it is the best for Preston and we have the time to do so.  We have had a lactation consultant come by a few times to give us some tips as well as tell what we can do to make sure that he is getting what he needs.  We can certainly tell that her milk has not come in yet, but we just want to make sure that he is getting enough to keep him healthy until then.   

We were told about the new recommended skin-to-skin contact that is really being pushed throughout the industry.  I took the time to read quite a bit about it and it is really interesting actually.  They basically say that skin-to-skin (SSC) is extremely important for newborns and that it stabilizes heart beats, regulates body temperature, reduces stress, and does a lot for their little brains.  With the increased need to feed today, Alisha has been spending a lot of time with him to make sure that he eats whenever he wants / needs to regardless of the amount of time that has gone by.  Sometimes he is eating every hour today.  We expect this to be quite frequent until her milk comes in.  The lactation consultant really gave her kudos for sticking with this and not just jumping to formula because of the number and frequency of his feedings.  You can read about the benefits of breastfeeding and skin to skin care for yourself here:  http://www.kangaroomothercare.com/whatis01.htm .

The doctors are keeping an eye out make sure that he is not too jaundice and that he is not loosing too much weight.  They are expected to check on him again tonight to get a better idea of where we are.  Hopefully all checks out well.  He is not really at any risk, but if he continues to drop weight we will most likely need to supplement the feedings with some formula so that we are sure that he is getting enough food and nutrients to keep him healthy.  We would prefer not to formula feed at all, but we will do what we need to do so that he does  stay healthy.

While I was typing this I sent Preston to the nursery to be weighed and he did lose another ounce even with all of the feedings.  Basically he is just not getting enough from Alisha right now as her milk is not in to keep his weight stable.  We are now feeding him some formula to supplement his breastfeeding. 

Alisha is doing great as well.  She is feeling a million times better.  After the c-section she was quite sore.  It really took a toll on her.  She was in a fair amount of pain especially as she tried to get up from bed.  They removed the epidural that they had in place and began giving her percocet to help her with the pain.  The first dose they gave her two and it knocked her on her FACE!  She was totally out of it and just passed out after about 5 minutes of dozing off.  We then decided to scale that back down to one per dose and that has been doing much better for her.  She is now getting in and out of bed and has really been doing well.  We are walking around the floor making sure to keep her mildly active so that she does not get to sore and to keep her muscles from staying so tight. 

Thanks to everyone who has called, emailed, facebooked, texted, visited, and thought about us.  We are doing very well and appreciate your thoughts and care!

Final Update: 10:55 P.M. -  See below

Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of our time in the hospital for Preston here

All updates will be added to the bottom of this post and the time it was updated will be above so you know there is new information.  So just scroll down and read away!

We got the call that we could head to the hospital last night at about 6:00.  I got home from a tough day at work at about 6:30 and we needed to leave around 7:00 to be here around 7:30 to 8:00.  I grabbed some Asian Table (mmmmmmmm!  Thai food!)  on the way home for Alisha, her mom, and I and we had a quick dinner before heading out to Northside Atlanta.  

We got to the hospital at about 8:00 and were given a room right at about a 8:45 last night and we got settled in – us and our 4,000 pounds of luggage that Alisha packed LOL!    We literally have two large suitcases and one small one plus my laptop bag and her purse.  It was insane lol. 

They administered Cervidil (used to thin the cervix) last night at about 10:50 PM and inserted her IV.  Contractions started within about 30 – 45 minutes.  At 12:10 she had them give her a shot to reduce the pain so that she could sleep.  Unfortunately for her it had to be given in her butt cheek LOL.  I woke up, rolled over and saw her getting a shot and cringing as they gave it to her.  LOL.  I hear those hurt like hell.  I am doing my best to never find out first hand.  She finally got to sleep at about 2:00 AM

We were woken up at 5:10 to have the Cervadil removed.  She was then allowed to take an hour to take a shower and get ready.  At 6:10 they started her on Pitocin and her IV.  The Petocin will be upped every 15 minutes throughout the day.  At 6:15 AM they started her blood pressure cuff which will monitor her blood pressure every 15 minutes. 

Stay tuned for updates!  They will be on here first….

update:  10:00 AM:  The Dr. came in about 20 minutes ago and tried to break her water.  It did not break then but 15 minutes later she got up to go pee… yep… there it went.  She stood there like a kid who just peed himself  in the bathroom LOL.

update:  11:10 AM:  Contractions are starting to get a little stronger now.  Alisha is debating whether or not to get the pain medication through the IV.  While they are not strong enough to get an epidural, she is trying to hold off on that as much as possible as it will slow the dialation and; therefore the delivery process in general.  So she is going to try to get some pain medication through the IV first (can only get three of them) and then get the epidural a little later… obviously she is going to need to do so before it is too late though

update:  11:30 AM:  Not labor related but we have just destroyed our previous hit record on the blog site and it is only 11:30

update:  12:05 PM:  Picture link was added above.  I will update everyone the same way when more pictures are added.

update:  12:40 PM:  At 12:15 Alisha caved and finally asked for some pain medication through her IV.  She was in a good amount of pain.  It hit her like a ton of bricks though.  She instantly felt dizzy and drunk feeling.  It did not remove the pain entirely like the epidural will, but it helped.  She is looking drowsy.  All in all she is doing well and we are progressing.  We are not sure about dialation or anything as the Dr. did not check her when he came back because she was not in enough pain to really warrant it. 

update :  1:15 PM : Pain is getting quite a bit rougher.  She is up to 26 out of a possible 37 milliliters per hour. 

Alisha has asked for an epidural, and they said she could have that or try to do an additional dose of the pain medication through the IV.  She decided to try the IV route but it is not working very well.  She is in quite a bit of pain and is looking forward to the epidural which unfortunately she cannot have for an hour we think.  She is hanging in there…

update: 1:35 PM:  They said she can have the epidural whenever she is ready and she is ready.  She will be getting it here in a little bit to alleviate the pain.  You natural birth moms are a special breed LOL

update: 2:30 PM:  They just administered the epidural.  Alisha is no longer feeling the contactions like she was.  She was taken back by how much the epidoral actually hurt.  I, as you expected, was not in the room for that event.  I was outta there!  We are currently waiting on Dr. Graham to come back in to check to see how much she has dilated.  She has not been checked since 9:00 AM when they broke her water.

update:  3:30 PM:  The Dr. just left after checking her cervix and she is now 80% effaced and 1 cm.  Dr. Graham thinks that it will be tonight for sure and not overnight or anything.  Now that she got the epidural this process will slow down as well but the contractions are decently strong so that is a good thing. 

update:  6:06 PM:  The nurse just checked Alisha’s cervix and we are now at 3 cm dilated.  Making progress … now get out Preston!  LOL

update:  9:15 PM:  The Dr. came in and checked Alisha again and and she is now 8 cm!!!  The baby is still high so they are trying different positions but we are making progress.  We need to get him down so that we can get him through the birth canal so we are hoping

update:  4:20 AM:  Goodness… where do I start.  It has been a heck of a day.  After the 9:15 update we tried a few different positions to get Preston to come down further so that we could push.  Unfortunately none of these did any good and the Dr. was convinced that Alisha’s pelvis was too small / his head was too big.  Dr. Graham then recommended a C-section but gave Alisha the option.  We agreed that we did not have too much hope for being able to deliver vaginally.  They booked an Operating Room and prepared Alisha for surgery.  I was a little worried as I was thinking I would pass out during normal delivery… what the heck was I going to do in an Operating Room?!?  Many of you probably already know that I am an absolute WUSS with this kind of stuff.  I just get queezy at the thought of stuff… now I was going to be there with it happening!

They took me with Alisha to the Operating Room after getting me all scrubbed up.  I had the full Operating Room gear and waited outside while they got her all setup.  While doing so I heard someone just loosing it.  I was talking to Dr. Graham at the time and thought that it was Alisha.  I asked him how much longer that was going to go on and he thankfully told me that there was someone who was “not all there” that was going in as well and that was what I was hearing.  PHEW!  There was no way I was going to stay composed with that going on.  A few minutes later they brought me into the room.  They brought me up to her head and began the procedure.  Alisha was an absolute MESS.  She was soo upset.  She was freaked out by the fact she could feel the pressure, by the curtain being too close to her face and by the situation in general.  I was somehow okay.  I dont know if I knew that I had to be there for Alisha or what, but I was not only okay, I was great.  I was talking to her to calm her down and the doctors were talking to me as well.  They asked me to look while they pulled Preston out and I took pictures like crazy.  Poor little guy had a heck of a cone head.  This is expected to go away within 24 hours.  Afterwards, Dr. Graham asked me to look at some anatomy… and I did!  It was rather interesting.  They brought Preston up to us so that Alisha could see him and said that Preston was looking healthy but they were going to take him to have him looked at a little further.  Preston Michael Natic was 6 lbs 6 ounces and 20 inches born at 11:05 PM on Wednesday December 16th.  He was doing a little grunting and reverse breathing which happens sometimes as fluid is in their lungs.  Since he was not forced through the birth canal, that excess fluid was not squeezed out as much and therefore that happens sometimes.  I went with Preston and Alisha went to recovery.  They stated that he needed to go 2 hours with normal breathing patterns before he could be released to us.  This felt like an eternity!  I checked on Alisha and headed back to Preston to watch his first bath. 

Afterwards,  I went back to Alisha.  They were releasing her from her recovery room to a post partum room.  We called our family and friends back in and anxiously awaited 2:30 so they could release him (we hoped).  Fortunately they did but we did not get him back to our room until almost 3:10.  The family said their hellos and left shortly after to allow us time to rest.  When they left Alisha spent about an hour trying to feed him.  He ate for about 15 minutes and passed out.  As we were ready to allow him to go to the nursery, we checked his diaper to find a mess   Daddy got his first lesson on this lovely task and changed his diaper.  We then let him go to the nursery to get some sleep.  They will bring him back every 3 hours for feedings so it will be a rough day tomorrow as well as we try to catch up on this lack of sleep we are working off of.

We have now been up for over 24 hours without a bit of sleep, and the night before I got about 4 hours of sleep and Alisha about 2 at best.  We are just completely beat.  We have had a rough day.  Alisha was poked and prodded and most of it came with extreme pain.  She was incredible to withstand all of this and I am honored to have her as wife and have a baby of our own with her.  I am proud of you Alisha.  I love you so much!  You are going to be the best mommy in the world!

Thanks for keeping up with us.  Our blog has never seen this much traffic… ever!!!  Our previous record high was 147 hits in any 24 hour period (12:00 AM- 11:59 PM) which was the day of her miscarriage just over a year ago.  Here we are today absolutely DESTROYING that number with a total of 903 hits yesterday and there have been another 35 hits since midnight.  Yes you read that right.  That is incredible!!!  Thank you to all of our friends, family, facebook friends, and blog stalkers for your interest and support.  I am glad to report that we are all doing well and are healthy.

Good night and stay tune for pictures tomorrow once I get some energy back.

-The Natic Family-

update:  3:00 PM:  More pictures have been added including pictures of Preston. 

update: 10:55 PM:  This will be  the final update for this post.  All others will be a new post above this one.  More pictures have been added to the Labor and Preston album.

I cannot believe that we are getting so close…. so close to having our first child in our arms!  We are 27 days away from our due date!  Obviously he can come earlier or he can come later, but either way we are getting so close!

Alisha is doing very well and has had such a great pregnancy.  She has had no cravings, no issues, no pain, no discomfort.  Just all in all smooth (other than the sickness in the beginning).  She has gained only 17 pounds total throughout the entire pregnancy and just flat out looks great!  We went to the doctor this morning for another checkup and he was head down but the cervix is still completely closed so there is no dialation this week.  Hopefully this show will get started in the coming weeks.  I just want to be able to make it to Athens next weekend, so slow your roll Preston… you can make your appearance after next Saturday

36 Weeks 1 Day

We are so excited to hold our son for the first time.  It is going to be so great!

Saturday morning was a big day as Hector and Reagan were heading back to the 3d/4d ultrasound studio to get their gender confirmation and I was excited to watch the UGA Auburn game with Lin.  It was bound to be an excellent day!

So in the morning we woke up, got ready, and headed out the door to meet Hector, Reagan, and Geni and the ultrasound studio on Marketplace blvd to do their gender confirmation.  This was the same place that helped us out when we were in need and I highly recommend them to EVERYONE trying to get a 3d /4d ultrasound done.  See the bottom of this post for a full shout out.  We went back and confirmed…. ITS A BOY!!!  Looks like Preston is going to have another partner in crime to hang out with just like I did with Hector when we were young.  It is going to be great for these two to grow up with another family member their age.  I know it was huge for me.  After the ultrasound we headed over to ihop for breakfast with Hector, Reagan, and Geni.  We had a delicious start to the day and then headed off to go shopping at the outlet malls while they headed up to North Point Mall to do some shopping of their own.

After brekfast we headed up to the Dawsonville Outlet Mall to check out Baby Gap and pick up a few things for Preston.  I have fallen in love with that store and before anyone gives any lectures, I’ll be sure to mention that we buy things when they are on sale and they are no cheaper than any other place we look for clothes and they are much cuter and nicer.  We use coupons and watch the sale racks and love every bit of it.  I can’t wait to dress Preston!!!  We then grabbed lunch and headed back towards the house to meet up with Kara and Lin before the UGA Auburn game.

As you know I am a UGA fan and Lin is an Auburn alumni and huge fan as well.  Well… today was the day.  UGA was playing Auburn in Athens and it was bound to be a great game.  Before it all got started Lin and I headed out to Home Depot to pick up some double sided sticky tape and then over to Taco Mac to grab a few beers and watch a little bit of the games on the tvs there.  We had a some good guy time and then headed back to the house to meet up with the ladies.  We caught some shit about disappearing for a while, but hey… we had some bonding time right?  When we got to the house Jason Lucas had come buy on his way home from work to drill a hole in a keg for me before having to head back up to his house to get things done preparing for his move back to MD… damn you Jason…. we will miss ya buddy!  Courtney was also there as she was in the area to work for the night and stopped by.  I did not get to see her much but it is always great to see her.

We had Bobby, Danny, Kelly, Kara, and Lin over to watch the game and had a blast doing so.  Auburn took an early lead and then after the half it was a battle to the end.  UGA pulled off a HUGE win over the Auburn Tigers making my weekend!!!  GOOO DAWGS!  It was a great day full of things to do and excitement.  Congratulations to Hector and Reagan!  We are so happy for you two!

I want to recognize A Window to the Womb on Marketplace Boulevard in Cumming GA for helping us out when we were in need and providing such a great service to people.  It was a beautiful studio with a huge screen and amazing technicians.  If you are in the market for this type of ultrasound, please support them!  Window to the Womb

Last Sunday we decided to spend the day picking up the additional things that we needed for Preston so we are prepared when he is born.  We went down to Babies R Us and printed off our registry and started shopping away.  We know that if you wait until closer to our due date that we would get a coupon for 10% off of our registry, so I decided to do some online searching to match it.  I found a few other coupons but was sure to bring the 10% off your total purchase to be sure that we got the same savings we would have if we waited a few more weeks. 

Well it is a damn good thing we brought that little coupon with us because we sure spent a bunch.  We still needed a bunch of stuff including bottles, sheets, and many other day one things and we are glad to have all of that checked off of the list of things to buy.  One of the major items was the video monitor which was like $200 but Iknew for a fact that I could find that online somewhere cheaper… yeah.. .great idea.  I picked it up for $117 shipped on ebay.  Daaaaamn riiiiight!

After shopping we headed to lunch at Qdoba on Windward pkwy (after finding out that Amandos Caribe had closed permenantly ) and then headed to the house.  Once we got there Phil and Krystle stopped by to drop off a gift (thanks so much guys) and hang out for a little bit.

It was a relaxing and rather uneventful Sunday and we are so glad to have everything that we need for Preston!

Well, it feels like it has been forever but we are getting close.  We are now 60 days away from our due date! 

We have most of the nursery done (just some decoration left to do), have had the family baby shower, and have the friends baby shower early next month.  We are just counting down until December to finally have our baby in our arms.

December 22nd is the due date…. lets hope that these next two months go by quickly and smoothly!

Yeah I know… i have been slacking on this blog and leaving you guys hanging… new posts coming soon.

We have just been trying to get the nursery and the house ready for the family baby shower this weekend.  To our friends, dont worry…. the friend shower is the beginning of next month.  Invitations are being done now (heck, they may be done already).

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures Preston’s Nursery Painted at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.

So this nursery has turned out to be a TON harder than I ever imagined… no … not the wood work – the paint!  Really?!?  Is painting really that hard?  Apparently so

So after the lines were all taped off I went ahead and through the high gloss paint on there to get the different sheens which will create the appearance of 2 different colors.  In reality they are the exact same color with two sheens.  Most people use a flat for the entire wall, tape off the stripes, and then paint the semi gloss paint in the taped of stripes.  Well, since it will be in a nursery, we decided to go with a satin paint and then use a high gloss to create the sheen contrast.  – yeah- terrible idea.  So after spending HOURS taping off the high gloss stripes and then painting them, we pulled some of the tape down only to find out that we could not see the difference in the sheens very well at all.  We then tried to put a high gloss polyurethane over the high gloss stripes to add additional sheen – no go!

Flash makes it look better... look at right wall

After debating on whether to give up on this project or move the tape over to the satin stripes (which is another 3 hours of work alone) I decided to do it right.  I took all of the tape down, moved it all over to the satin and bought another gallon of the paint – this time in flat like it should have been the whole time.  I painted the stripes as well as the rest of the walls (other than the high gloss stripes) so that it would all match.  I was through the roof livid to find out that we still could not see the stripes.  Talk about mad -  I was piiiiiissed!  I was so frustrated.  I wasted so many hours in this nursery and still dont have the look that we want and it is the paint that is giving us such a hard time!  Really?!?!

So after much debate I decided to bring the flat paint back up to Lowes and have them add an additional 25% of the color back into the paint.  Came back home and painted just the stripes in this new very slightly darker color.  Removed the tape and ….. PRESTO!  it worked!!!

Stripes Painted

I have no clue why the normal method for this type of look was such a failure for us… I just dont get it, but I do know that this worked for us:  Flat paint with +25% color next to a high gloss of the same exact color (other than the +25%).

It looks great and we are so excited about having this done.  I just need to retape a bunch of the stripes and fix where the paint decided to pull the paint off of the wall.  Unfortunately, this whole process took too long and the tape really started to adhere to the walls too much.

Check out the gallery for pics of the nursery in its current state!

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures Preston’s Nursery at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.

Preston's room painted - visit the gallery for chair rail pics!

Saturday was the day!  Earlier in the week I had gone to pick up the wood that we will need to complete the nursery as well as the playroom downstairs.  Our plan is to put chair rail in the nursery, paint sheen stripes below the chair rail, add crown molding in the nursery and the play room, as well as bead board with chair rail in the play room.  Yeah – lots of work!!

In the morning my dad came over to get a start on this whole project.  We are trying to get it done before Alisha’s family shower, but we dont know how possible that really is.  Either way we are going to give it a serious shot.  The worst part about these projects is that none of them can really be done on my own.  I always need an additional hand measuring, or cutting, or nailing… it kinda is frustrating.  I know that other people have lives of their own and I feel like I am always bothering them when I ask for help.

Well throughout the day we did pretty well.  We got the chair rail up in nursery and it looks great.  Now I need to caulk it and paint it.  We really tried to get the crown molding up in the nursery as well but we were confused as hell.  Seriously, we wasted about 16′ of crown molding before giving up for the day.  We were told it was a chore, but I had no clue.  The cuts just didnt make sense at all. 

Time flew by and we grew more and more tired and to top it off the damn mitre saw kept tripping my breaker so we had to call it a day.  I was not too happy about the ending and it just put a damper on a rather successful day.  I just get frustrated when things should be easy and end up being so darn hard -ugh!

btw, dont mind the wall color in the pictures.  The lighting is very poor in there and the color just comes out very off at times. 

Kevin and Mike's steak trumping Alisha's and mine lol

So after working all day we headed over to Mike and Aubree’s house to watch the UGA game, cook some steaks, have a few beers, and just relax.  The game was painful to watch and was a nail biter for sure, but it was still great to watch it with our friends.  Kevin and Mike had steaks to throw on the grill as well, but both of them were like 4 times the size of mine LOL.  They were massive!!!  It was a great night – Sunday was set to be another busy day!

Here is the most recent belly picture that we took last night.

23 Weeks 1 Day

To see the progression click here:  Belly Pictures

On Sunday we had planned to head up to North Point Mall to begin registering for clothes, cups, spoon, baths, car seats, and everything else under the sun.  We went to Babies R Us and spent about 2 hours going through the store deciding on what we needed.  After our 2 hours there, we headed to Target to spend another 30 minutes or so wrapping up what we did not find at Babies R Us. 

We have been asked numerous times where we have registries, so if you were waiting for this post please see below:

Babies R Us:  Click Here -

BTW, their website to find registries sucks as does their registration process.  When searching for the registry, I had to use all lowercase letters or it would not find the registry.  If you try to find it in the future, please keep that in mind.

Target:  Click Here -

Child Seat – Click Here -

This seat is only available online in our area.  If you purchase it, please make sure it is CRIMSON.  Shipping is free on this product. 

Most of our items are on the Babies R Us registry and a lot of the clothes and other items are online only.  Don’t be scared to order them LOL.  We are still trying to find out about a crib that was offered to us so that is not on the registry. 

This morning Alisha and I were just being lazy watching some tv and she asked me to see if I could feel Preston kick.  She put my hand on “the belly” and sure enough I DID!  It felt just like a bump beneath my hand - it was so cool!

You are in trouble now Alisha…. you told Kara she cant touch your belly until you can feel him kick.  LOL

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of Alishas gifts at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.

So today I surprised Alisha with a few very much deserved gifts.  She had a busy day and I had been wanting to do so for some time so it worked out really well.

Alisha's Gifts

I went to Build a Bear yesterday and purchased one of the things you can record your own sound on and brought it home.  I knew that I had a clip of the baby’s heartbeat from this video when we did an ultrasound earlier in the pregnancy.  I basically took the part of the heartbeat out of the video and saved it to the computer.  Because the clip was shorter than I was looking for, I set it up  back to back 4 times on a new video and saved it.  Then I took the build a bear recordable sound piece and recorded the heartbeat playing from the computer as I played the video.  It came out PERFECT!

I headed back to build a bear and had a bear made, put the recording in his hand, and dressed it up to bring back home.  I grabbed a quick card as well as some chocolate covered strawberries from Godiva and headed home.  I set it all up and Alisha came home shortly afterwards. 

The bear is named Preston which will be the baby’s name by the way   When you press the button in his hand you hear his heartbeat.

Alisha loved it and I am glad.

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of our baby clothes at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.

So now that we just found out that we are having a boy, you can imagine that Alisha is having a tough time staying out of the stores.  LOL  Click the link above to see some of the clothes that she has already purchased.

Alisha has a BUNCH of websites already to purchase clothes from.  I’ll have to have her post them for any other expecting mom’s browsing our site. 

We are so excited!

I have uploaded the belly picture from after our ultrasound on Monday to our Belly Pictures album found here.

Whoops.. just noticed it is the wrong orientation but you get the point LOL.