The many faces of Nic

Nic's face is starting to become more expressive! It is interesting also to watch his face change as he gets older!

I don't think this was a real smile but we can pretend.

Jac: Two top teeth

Jac's two top teeth have poked through. Wow! They are just through but I never would have known from his behavior. He has not been more fussy or anything. The first two (bottom) definitely caused problems so it is great to have him doing so well with these.

You can only see them when he smiles so I haven't managed to get a picture of them yet. Pretty soon he is going to have a toothy grin!

Jac: Six ounces in 3 days

Jac is now 14 pounds and 4 ounces (he was weighed for his first Synagis injection of the season). He just gained 6 ounces in 3 days! Amazing!

Here he is at Best Buy helping Daddy buy his new cell phone! Helping!

Jac: The joy of opening and closing doors

Jac has discovered the joy of opening and closing doors. He is always curios to go into the bathroom in the hall. For some reason every time he leaves his room he heads into the bathroom before proceeding down the hall. The night before last he discovered opening and closing the bathroom door while Daddy was outside the bathroom and he was inside. He did it again with me today. So fun!

Reminder: Look down the page for new posts

Hi All,
Sometimes I do posts that should have been put up a few days earlier. When I do that I post them with the date they should have been put up rather than the current date. I do this for historical accuracy! So - when you are visiting the blog - look down the page a little bit and you may find a post you haven't seen before!

Mommy's blood pressure is down but the headaches are still there

I went to see Dr. P today and my blood pressure is down some (144/82). Now that my diastolic is in the 80's Dr. P is halving my Labetalol to 50 mg twice a day (I was on 100 mg twice a day since I left the hospital). He wants to make sure that my blood pressure doesn't get too low (I could faint!). I still have quite significant headaches though - but at this point it is not clear what is causing them.

Last week I had some dental work done (Old fillings in two teeth that were starting to cause problems) and my mouth has been hurting ever since. So.... It is hard to know. I am going to let things settle out a bit and see what effect the change in dosage of the Labetalol does. I have taking Tylenol pretty much all of the time for the headache! Let's hope it all just works itself out.

On the positive side my blood tests for Thyroid levels and Zinc level all came back in a normal range!

It is not clear how long I am going to have to be on Labetalol. I have my six week post-birth check in a few weeks and Dr. P will reevaluate at that time.

Jac is growing!

I took Jac to see his pediatrician today because he has been congested for over a month. While we were there we weighed him. 13 pounds 14 ounces. He was 13 pounds on October 16! He gained 14 ounces in 11 days! It seems that Ama's Asian cooking agrees with Jac! He has been eating all sorts of things! I have started offering him my PB&J sandwich and he really enjoys taking little bites off of it. Dr. B told me today that I was not supposed to give Jac peanut butter until he is 2! Ooops! She said that now that he has had it and been fine it is okay to keep giving it to him! I thought he could have it at a year! Ooops!

Take a look at his weight chart! It has spiked! - Let's hope he is able to continue this progress!

Jac: My own little Schroeder

Nic: Happy in the bath

We have started giving Nic baths now that his umbilical cord has fallen off and healed. The first bath Daddy gave him he cried a lot but he has enjoyed them ever since (I think we are now at 4 baths!). We think the first one may have been a bit too warm in terms of the water and we didn't do a good enough job of keeping the parts of him that were out of the water warm. Now that Daddy has adjusted those things he is a happy little camper!

Joseph does the baths in our bath tub, first Nic and then Jac. We are all four in the bathroom during this process. Jac likes to stand by the side of the tub and watch Nic have his bath. As we have mentioned before Jac loves the bath and gets very excited when we get in the bathroom. Prior to this for the last couple of months Joseph has been giving Jac a bath without me - while I get things done around the house (it is amazing how much one can get done in 15 minutes!). But now that we are bathing Nic I am in the bathroom for the first part of the bath. Jac is hilarious because he gets really excited and screams while he watches Nic have his bath. I try not to laugh, because the screams are ear-splitting, but it is really funny.

Jac's first drawing (with Mommy's help!)

A little while back I purchased some designed for little hands (they have a big bulb kind of thing to hold on to which is still a bit big for Jac's hands). Jac is still a bit young for them but I thought we would give it a try. I showed him to scratch back and forth while holding the crayon and hehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif did it a few times.

Jac: Walking with the Radio Flyer walker wagon

We bought Jac a Radio Flyer walker wagon - which he started using immediately (as soon as Daddy had built it!) but has laid off of since then. It seems right now that he knows that he can get wherever he wants by crawling, really quickly, so he is putting off the walking. He does like to cruise along the couch though and does this frequently. He is very cute when he uses the Radio Flyer though and I expect he will come back to it soon!

This video is from the first night Jac had the walker (10/22/08) and the second or third time he had walked with it! This is progress from his Pampers box (which he still seems to prefer).

Jac: Learning to get off of things

We are trying to teach Jac how to get off of things by turning around and getting on his stomach. He is starting to get the idea. Prior to learning this way of getting down he would go head first which is how he ended up falling off of the bed. Fortunately he seems to have learned from that experience and he is now staying away from the edge of the bed and he has not made any further attempts to get off of it by himself.

Nic: 8 pounds 14.5 ounces at 3 weeks (21 days)

Oh man can this kid eat! I am not getting much sleep because Nic is up all night nursing. I am trying to keep him awake in the evening so he will sleep at night but it is not working right now. Last night I think I got about 3.5 hours of sleep! But wow! He really is going to be as big as his brother in no time. At night I feel like I have no milk left to give but he seems to find something there, at least enough to keep him latched on!

Milestone: Jac: Putting things "in"

Jac has figured out how to put things "in." I have been trying to teach him to do this forever! And this morning Ama got him to do it and now he is putting things in a small bucket like a champ! Yeah! It is amazing how much he is growing up and really starting to respond to language! He is doing "So big", asking to get "Up", and now putting things "in." Yeah!

Mommy is going home

I have been in the hospital since Friday morning - and it is now Monday morning. Prior to this the only time I had been in the hospital was after each of my C-Sections. It has been far more disturbing to be in the hospital with an illness, not knowing what is going on and when I am going to get to go home and be with all of my boys!

Dr. P. did not release me on Sunday because my blood pressure spiked back up to 140/102 during the night and at 4:30 am the nurse had to give me an extra medication to bring my blood pressure down.

Dr. P. thinks I have Pregnancy Induced Hypertension (PIH) which is just really showing its ugly face now. Four days before I had Nic my blod pressure was really getting pretty high (140/100) but it came down while I was being monitored.

But, I am acting a bit weird in how the PIH is showing up which makes Dr. P. think that I may have some underlying disease process going on. I have a lot more investigation to do to try to figure out what is going on.

The end result is that I am going home on Labetalol. It is a beta blocker which is helping to lower my blood pressure. I am taking 100 mg twice a day. Dr. W. came in this morning and told me I could go home and that she thought that I would probably need to be on Labetalol for six weeks or so.

Nic has gotten more Mommy booby time in the last 3 days! He has been eating, and eating and eating! And not sleeping as much as I would like! I think he actually likes it a lot more noisy and he sleeps the best during the day at home when there are all sorts of things going on! You can start the dryer right outside the room he is sleeping in, with the door open, and he sleeps like a baby ;) But here in the hospital where it is very quiet it is really hard to get him to go to sleep. He likes his swing at home and the swing that we borrowed from the NICU here he doesn't seem to like - I was never able to get him to fall asleep in it.

I have really missed Joseph and Jac. I have had visits but it is not the same and I can't wait to get home and get back to figuring out how to take care of two boys. Fortunately Ama (my Mother-in-Law) is here to help!

(P.S. - I accidentally posted this as Joseph - this is of course Taj!)

Mommy is in the hospital

In the middle of the night on Thursday night/Friday morning, when I woke up to feed Nic, I woke up to a blinding headache. I think it is the worst headache I have had in my life. After an hour and a half of feeding Nic and trying to get him back to sleep I finally had to go wake Joseph up - my brain hurt so much I could barely function. Fortunately Nic went back to sleep after some rocking by Daddy and I was finally able to get a little bit if sleep.

We went in at 8:30 am (Friday) to see Dr. P (my OB) and finally saw him at 9:30 am. When I arrived at his office my blood pressure was in the 140/100 range - I started my pregnancy at 98/65 - so this is very high for me. My blood pressure had been creeping up during the end of my pregnancy with Nic and I had a pre-eclampsia scare four days before Nic was born. Fortunately I was fine at this time and we were able to make it to Nic's planned C-Section day. While I was in the hospital recovering from the C-Section my blood pressure crept up a little more but was still not in a dangerous range. I had it checked twice since I left the hospital and it had still been high for me but still not dangerous.

Dr. P. did not think that my blood pressure should be causing me such a bad headache so he admitted me to the hospital (back in the same room as I was in after I had Jac) and had me monitored and given pain meds. I also had an MRI. The MRI showed a perhaps, diffuse bleed in my pituitary gland but the neurologist that came to see me said he did not think if I had the bleed (which is debatable) that it should not be causing me such a headache and he also did not think my blood pressure was high enough to cause me such a headache.

Well, after a day of pain meds that did not help and just made me feel foggy and miserable, I finally got Labetalol (a beta blocker that helps to reduce blood pressure) and I felt better in a couple of hours. I took my last pain meds at 8 pm last night and my headache has been better since then (not gone but much better.)

My nurse last night thought that I would be discharged today but I had a feeling Dr. P would ask me to stay another night to monitor me and make sure the blood pressure meds don't "bottom me out." (Meaning that they lower my blood pressure too far to the point that I could pass out)

So, here I am in the hospital (Saturday afternoon). Nic is sleeping (he let me sleep for several, several hour stretches last night, and then was awake and eating all morning (literally from 8 am to 2 pm!)

Dr. P said if I feel okay tomorrow I can go home!

I miss Joseph and Jac, who have been out and about with Akon and Ama. They came to see me this afternoon and Jac slept most of the time, and then was fussy when he woke up. D'oh! Hopefully I will get to go home tomorrow and see my happy baby!

Jac: Bottle in bed (and everywhere else)

Before Nic came home (a few days really) we started pushing Jac to hold his own bottle. Up until this point we had been holding the bottle for him (although I had made the change to get him to hold the bottle in the car a month ago or so). In 24 hours Jac was holding his bottle without complaint, almost all of the time. Amazing! It is a mistake to underestimate Jac because he is small - which is easy to do - he learns really quickly and is more flexible than I sometimes give him credit for! He is now even holding it when he is falling asleep! Good job Jac!

"The boys" and "The girls"

My brother and sister-in-law have two girls and we now have two boys. So on my side there are "The boys" - Jac and Nic, and "The girls", Madeline and Caitlin. Cute!

Jac: Explorer Baby

Jac is becoming a real Explorer Baby! He is crawling all over the house and trying out all sorts of things! Unfortunately, all of them are not good. Yesterday, Daddy put him down on the bed while he was getting dressed, something he has done a thousand times without incident. This time, Jac took off and launched himself off of the bed. Daddy got his shirt over his head to find Jac on his back on the floor, screaming. I heard Jac crying really hard and came running, with Nic in tow. My poor little baby. He recovered fairly quickly but, oh man were Joseph and I both a little freaked out. We are hoping that Jac learned from that experience and won't do it again but there is no way to know.

Today he was exploring the rest of the house and crawling all around. I was doing chores around the house and checking on him to make sure he was okay. I am trying to give him space to explore while still making sure that he is safe - and sometimes I am surprised what by what he can do in 30 seconds! The picture above is what I found (he had never done this before!). I had to help him down off the box, he couldn't figure out how to reach the floor!

Jac is 15 months old - growth update

Jac had his 15 month appointment with his pediatrician today. He now weighs 13 pounds! When we took him to the doctor just a week ago he weighed 12 pounds and 3.5 ounces. I am really wondering if that was wrong because it seems so unlikely that he gained so much in such a short period of time. But I do believe his weight from today. We measured it twice! (He was 11 pounds and 5 ounces at his 12 month check-up).

Jac is now 26.25 inches tall (he was 24 inches at his 12 month). Wow! 2.25 inches in 3 months. I knew he had gotten taller but wow! When I really look at him I can see it - but when you are with him every day it is not so obvious.

Jac's head is now 44.1 cm (it was 43.5 cm at his 12 month). I can also tell that his head is bigger which is good to see!

Jac: Walking with a Pampers box

Jac started, yesterday, using a Pampers box as a walker! It is really great to see him doing this - he is pretty good at it already and he can go all the way across the living room without sitting down!

(Update from Taj - 10/16/08) Jac's OT (Occupational Therapist) explained to me today that it is good for Jac to start his walking in this bent over "bear" walk position. This position helps to strengthen his trunk, shoulders and arms and does not require as much balance as walking standing up more upright. After Jac has had some practice with the Pampers box we will need to get him a walker so that he can practice walking in a more upright position. After he does that then he will be ready to walk on his own!

Jac is very curious about Nic

It is very cute to watch Jac with Nic. He is very curious. He wants to check him out and touch him. We are teaching him to pat him gently (and Jac is starting to say "pat" - which is more like "pa", but he is trying!). He likes to touch his mouth and his nose and his head. Sometimes he uses him to stand up when Nic is in my arms on the couch and Jac is next to us.

Jac is eating more

Jac is doing a better job of eating! Yesterday his Occupational Therapist was here (we have switched back to in-home therapy services through Imagine) and he had a good time eating. He has been enjoying eating Medium Hot Japanese curry! Hard to believe but true.

He ate quite a bit of curry off of a piece of celery. The celery was suggested by his OT as a way to help move his gag reflex back. We think that the reason he has so much trouble eating foods is that he has a very strong gag reflex which is quite forward on his tongue. This means that when he gets some food on his tongue and he is not sure what to do with it or how to move it around or swallow it he sometimes gags on it and then throws up.

After he finished with the curry he had some tapioca which he also enjoyed. I am happy to see him be able to eat the tapioca as it has the little bits of rice in it that he has to navigate.

He has gotten very good at eating the Gerber Graduate Crunchers and Stars and we give him those every time he sits down.

I have contacted the GoodLife clinic at Children's Hospital in Denver. I am trying to see if I can find an MD to help us figure out how to get Jac to start gaining weight. His weight has stalled for the last 3 months right around 12 pounds. The good news is he has not lost weight with all of his extra activity but he really needs to gain weight.

When we go out to Kangaroo Kingdom it really strikes me how small he is and next to Nic I realize that Jac should be so much bigger. I, of course, know all of this intellectually but it hits me emotionally more and more frequently the more active Jac gets and the more he interacts with other kids.

We haven't been to Kangaroo Kingdom since I came home from the hospital and I miss going and I am sure Jac does also. He has had a cold though, and that in addition to Nic means we haven't been. I am hoping that Jac is going to make it to KK this Saturday.

Nic sleep!

Nic likes to sleep in his swing. Jac used this swing a little bit shortly after he came home but he was never a very big fan. Nic will sometimes sleep in the swing for several hours!

Nic really likes to be swaddled. When we unwrap him to change his diaper he sometimes get really upset and as soon as he is wrapped up again he calms right back down. I used to keep him swaddled while he was nursing but I have started unwrapping his arms. This seems to help him eat a little more. He has started nursing from both sides in one session which is nice.

Last night I kept him up for several hours eating and hanging out next to me before we went to sleep and he only woke me up once at 4:30 am until we got up at 8 am. Progress!

Nic and the Diet Coke can

Of course we needed to take this picture! Nic is 12 days old!

Nic's birth day pictures

Joseph took some very nice pictures on Nic's birth day. I have uploaded them to flickr.

Jac: Shaking of the head

Jac has been doing this funny little head shake for a few weeks now. It looks like he is shaking his head "No" but he does it at all sorts of different times. It is really cute and he seems to really enjoy doing it.

Nic: Easy baby

Nic is an easy baby! He sleeps a lot, nurses a lot and poops and pees a lot. Hs is very sweet when he is awake. He likes to be swaddled and we keep him that way most of the time. I have found that he nurses well during the day swaddled but at night I have to unwrap him a bit to get him to wake up enough to eat well.

I have also taken to try to keep him up for several hours before we go to bed so he eats a lot and is tired out a bit so he will sleep longer. It worked last night - I got to sleep for one 2 hour period and one 3 hour period.

The funny thing is that he sleeps through anything! during the day. We took the boys and Grandma Toni out to breaskfast this morning and to Sam's Club and after nursing he slept all the way through Sam's Club in his car seat in a shopping cart! I am not used to this newborn sleep through anything stage as Jac was in the hospital during this early part of his life and when he came home he did not really ever sleep well in teh car seat or out in public! I have to say it is pretty cool!

As I mentioned in a previous post Nic has been nursing well and regained his birth weight in 9 days! It is a real joy to be able to nurse Nic but it has brought back some feelings of grief over not having a breastfeeding relationship with Jac.

Jac: Milestone: Pressing buttons with an index finger

Jac has been using his index finger for quite a while now to explore his world. He loves to inspect things and put his little index finger in little nooks and crannies of almost every object he comes in contact with!

But, up until now he had not been using his index finger on its own to press buttons. This is considered a developmental milestone and he has now reached it!

How Nic came to be named NIC

It took us a long time to come up with a name for Nic. For a long time, when we did not know Nic's gender we had no names at all. It seems that the need to come up with two names paralyzed us! When we found out that Nic was a boy it was easier to think about a name. We wanted to name Nic with a three letter acronym, like my name and Jac's name. As we went through the possibilities for three letter acronyms that work with "C" as the last letter I really liked "NIC" so then I needed two names for the "N" and the "I". Joseph's Taiwanese name is I-Jen - which he uses as his middle name. We don't have any family names with an N so I started looking at all of the boy "N" names and Nicholas was my favorite and I think it sounds good with I-Jen.

Joseph liked the idea of using the acronym "NIC", but he was much less sure about Micholas and I-Jen but eventually he decided that he liked it! (Joseph if you would like to add to this post please feel free to clarify your position!) But, if Nic decides when he is older that he doesn't like his name it is definitely me he has to blame!

(As an aside - I call NIC, Nic all of the time at home but when I call the doctor to make appointments for him I have to call him Nicholas - and I haven't gotten used to that yet. It reminds me so much of when Jac was in the NICU and I had to call and say "This is Joseph Chiu's mother, can you connect me to his nurse." I still sometimes do a double take when I do official stuff for Jac and I have to call him Joseph!)

Jac: Milestone: Clapping

Grandma Toni has taught Jac to clap. It is really fun to clap and have him imitate it. A lot of times he claps on his own - he seems to do it most when he is happy or excited about something. He has started to imitate other things also - like doing "So Big". It is so much fun to interact with him as he is really starting to respond which is new!

Nic sleeping in his car seat

Grandma, Joseph, Jac, Nic and I went out to breakfast at the Old Pancake House in Boulder this morning. Joseph and I have been taking Jac there for a long time and it was nice to go with Grandma and Nic also. Nic does quite well in his car seat and so I took a nice close up picture of him. The older Nic gets (in days!) the more he looks like Jac. When he was first born he was a dead ringer for his Daddy but as his eyes open up a bit more he is looking more and more like Jac!

Nic: Regained his birth weight

I took Nic for his second doctor's appointment since he left the hospital today. He had his second Newborn Screening blood test. This is where they prick his heel and fill up five circles on a piece of paper with his blood. He handled it pretty well - he cried while the nurse was doing it but he nursed right after and was fine.

Nic has been nursing very well - sometimes too well in the middle of the night. He has been cluster feeding at night which has been difficult as I don't get a lot of sleep! I am hoping to progress to feeding him lying down when he is a little bit older but for now I have to sit up and do it! And sometimes I almost fall asleep while he is nursing.

Nic's weight at his doctor's appointment was back up to 7 pounds and 12 ounces which is his birth weight. I thought he might have even progressed beyond that weight as he feels so solid! He is definitely his father's son in the eating department!

Jac: Happy 15 month birthday

Jac is 15 months today! Hard to believe. He seems so much older now that we have Nic as the "little one!"

Pictures posted to flickr

I will post these pictures directly to the blog later but for now you can see some more pictures on flickr. There are about 10 pictures from today of Jac coming home and spending some time with his brother!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thechius/sets/72157607774750078/

Nic is home

Nic came home today! It took me several more days to make it out of the hospital than I had initially thought it was going to.

I was feeling pretty good the day after surgery, and I was still doing pretty well two days after - but then things started to go a little more downhill. I started to swell up and this made it harder for Nic to nurse. That is getting a bit better now and Nic is able to latch on well and eat. My milk has come in fully and he seems to be really enjoying getting a full belly and then sleeping for a few hours. I will put up a more full post of all of the goings on of the last few days but right now I am going to bed as Nic is going to have me up soon to feed him - and I can't have Daddy do it!

(This was written by Mommy and accidentally posted as Daddy!)

And then there were four

These first few days as a family of four have been very challenging. Nic and I are still in the hospital - it is really me that is still in the hospital - he could have gone home several days ago. Joseph and Jac are staying at home - without me. It has been weird and hard.

A couple of Nic videos

Nic getting weighed-in shortly after birth.


Nic just resting quietly in the evening.

More pictures from today...

Jac knows how to say bye-bye

I'm not as convinced that he knows about the word "Ball"... But, I'm now fairly certain that Jac knows how to say and wave bye-bye. After leaving the hospital this morning, Grandma Toni and I stopped at Wendy's to get some food. One of the ladies from Taj's OB office (they adore Jac) was there, and as she was leaving to get back to work, she said "Bye Bye, Jac" -- to which Jac responded with "Bae, bae", and moved his right hand up and down, and then sideways. And he did this without any prompting from Grandma or me.

Welcome Nicholas I. Chiu ("Nic")!

Our baby is here! He weighed in at a hefty 3.5 kg (7.7 lbs.), and 21 inches. His head measured 14 inches!

Nic had a good cry immediately after he came out, peed soon after, and got nice and pink very quickly. Taj had a chance to be with the baby soon after that.

I went with Nic to the recovery room, where his stats were taken. He was alert within a few minutes. The doctors and nurses have all said that he appears to be in perfect condition. No vents, no IV's, no monitors, nada this time. Just a warm blanket and a cap to keep him warm!

Once Taj was brought into the recovery room and settled into her bed, she got to hold Nic, and he took to her nipple right away. Wow. That was wonderful to see.


Older brother Jac was fascinated by the baby. Wow - two boys. We are very happy! :) :) :)