Baby Kyle is HERE!

Baby Kyle Is Here!

As some of you already know, Baby Kyle joined us on Monday after a lot of hard work, pain and effort – but he joined us happy and healthy, and Janice is doing well. I want to talk about so much – what an experience. And I’ll definitely detail all of it over time.

Figuring out how to organize my thoughts, share them in a reasonably digestible way, within whatever “free” time I have – quite the challenge! I wish I could promise more detail other than I will share it as quickly as I can, but as I am sure you understand, I now have an extra mouth to feed, diaper to change, body to wash, etc. And he is SO CUTE!

So I will finish what I was writing about as we went into last weekend to finish the story through at least today. That way those interested can read about the beginning of the inducement on Saturday, the labor on Sunday, the birth on Monday and all the craziness since. (Well, probably not all the craziness…)

That being said, this blog has in the past been more of a vehicle for me to share a few windows into my life rather than a regular blog – a lazy-man’s website – but this experience seems to lend itself to more regular check-ins. No promises, but I do think I am going to try to post more regularly.

The focus might change a bit – Kyle seems a bit important now (understatement) – but I will still post about other things such as music and sports. For example, I can’t wait to talk more about how the music therapy aspect of the birth of Baby Kyle went – which will be an interesting exploration of some new music I hadn’t experienced before, but also a completely different level of musical experience.

On the sports side, I sure wish FC Dallas were playing better, but hopefully the fresh faces and returning depth (from injury, national team duty and acquisition) will allow them to get healthy and sharp. I am excited about what the Stars have been doing. I am glad to see the Rangers pull out of their seeming irreversible auger-in. I am excited about A&M football, but concerned about a certain Derek Jeter fan….

But back to the star of the show – here are a few pictures of our new, wonderful baby boy – Kyle David Lindstrom:

Baby Kyle Update - August 10, 2013

Baby Kyle Update

August 10, 2013

So here we are - we are set to go in to the hospital tonight (Saturday) in preparation to be induced on Sunday. This is just a quick note about the events of today, and a thank you to everyone for all the help and support and love being sent our way. As I said on Facebook a few days ago, we have such a great circle of friends and family.

We were able to get a good night’s rest, and per doctor’s orders, Janice has been eating well today. My parents came up from Austin and we went with them and Janice’s parents for lunch. It was nice to see the family getting together like that.

We had another conversation with our advisor, Kate Taylor, and feel like between her, other friends (yes, including you, Carolyn D!) and the medical providers at our hospital and with our OB-GYN, we are in great hands. (BTW, to hear Janice’s radio show with Kate back in February where they talk about music therapy and childbirth, go here or use the link below.)

Find Additional Health Podcasts with Janice Lindstrom on BlogTalkRadio

You can see Kate Taylor's business Facebook page here.

Now we are off to a birthday party for one of Janice’s brothers, then back to the house for a bit of a nap and one last check to make sure we have everything, then on into the hospital for what we hope is some basic medication, a good night’s sleep, and then tackle the Big Push tomorrow. It is a small thing, but if we are lucky, Kyle will be here in time to watch the FC Dallas match against LA….. But frankly, FCD better win. Kyle and his mother are grouchy when FCD doesn’t win and that’s no way to start off in this world, is it?

Baby Kyle Update - August 9, 2013

Baby Kyle Update

[Quick note – the current situation is that we are set to go in to the hospital Saturday night in preparation to be induced on Sunday. I am going to update this as I can, but as you can imagine, I might be a bit busy!]

August 9, 2013

We came into today thinking we might get to meet Baby Kyle - very very exciting! As we were to find out later, our excitement was premature, but nothing unhealthy, just misunderstood.

After some contractions happened on Thursday, we thought that this might be the beginning of true early labor, and had planned on spending the day managing the contractions. We didn’t exactly start off on the right foot, though, as there was construction being done on our place of abode that started a bit earlier than we would want. As in, “7 am” early. Now, we had had this start on Wednesday and Thursday, but for some reason, we thought surely this couldn’t go on for a third day, could it? Dumb on my part – as we found out, it is going to continue until Monday at the latest….

So, not fun. But we are blessed with Janice’s parents living very nearby and they were willing to let us come over and try to relax there.

The contractions had continued through the night, and during the day as well. I call them contractions because they seemed like they might be contractions and we were treating them like real contractions, and they seemed to feel like legitimate contractions. So we went back to the basic contraction management activities from the night before as best we could.

Between the early mornings the past few days and general lack of sleep as happens late in pregnancy, though, Janice was pretty tired and being able to continue became more and more difficult as the day went along.

This continued throughout the day until about 5:00 when we realized that things weren’t really progressing. I personally think that *I* should have figured out a few things at this point – more later – but at the time, we had too many things in the air and a few concerns. One, Janice was having a little pressure in her face when she was having the contractions, and that was a concern. Two, Baby Kyle wasn’t moving as much as he had been in the past. Not enough to be a serious concern, but enough to raise a bit of a red flag. Third, we were tired and frustrated and had gotten a little turned around.

The construction was done at home so we thought the thing to do was go home and focus on us 100%. Not being at home, being around other people was just very distracting. Getting home was good, but it wasn’t what we had hoped – we would walk around, do other things, but rather than helping the contractions progress, they just made Janice tired. This was a fourth concern – we knew that when things got deep into the process, it was going to be very exhausting and if Janice was *already* tired….

After 11:00, we decided to go into the hospital to get a checkup. The Labor and Deliver people are great about this, and it was easy to go in and get things checked out. We wanted to make sure we knew what was going on, and just to verify that everything was okay with Baby Kyle.

The staff was very professional and understanding (not surprising, but just setting the scene). It turned out that, as I think *I* should have figured out, they were just Braxton-Hicks contractions – false labor. And everything was fine with Baby Kyle – good heartbeat and movement.

So overall, good decision to go in, and found out that all was well, we were just over-thinking things. (Me? Overthink things? Never.)

In the end, we went back to Janice’s parent’s place to get a good night sleep, which we did, and we’re back to the original plan – go in Saturday night to start the medicine to eventually be induced sometime Sunday. Basically, the peace of mind was very worth it, and now we can spend Saturday eating and sleeping and relaxing. If real contractions show their face, great, but otherwise we feel confident in how the medical professionals will handle things.

Baby Kyle Update - August 8, 2013

Baby Kyle Update

August 8, 2013

So here we go. The contractions started this afternoon (Thursday) around 4:00 p.m. It began more as pressure rather than pain, so it wasn’t very clear at first, but soon thereafter, it became regular enough to be real solid. The intervals were a little varied, but usually about 30 minutes apart, and duration was around a minute.

They were gentle and spaced out enough that it wasn’t a real challenge. This allowed us to call our parents and other family members. I made Janice some smaller meals (soup, chocolate pudding, toast, etc.) and we watched some of her favorite shows. Disappointingly, there wasn’t a Rangers game on, but oh well. Lots of cuddling and back rubbing and quiet excitement and nervousness.

One of the most fun things, though, was when I got out one of Janice’s guitars and played Kyle’s Song. It is a tune that I had actually written in college and had never really found a home for. It actually served as one of the songs for Janice’s radio show when it was first launched, but was just background music. But then early on in the pregnancy, we were playing around with music ideas and I just started playing this one tune, and the lyrics just fell into place as if by design. Janice was playing around with some basic melodies and then she was writing lyrics and it all came together. We’ve worked on it some, but the basics are there from the first writing.

We had previously recorded a version of it and I will see if I can post it here at some point.

The fun thing tonight, though, was when we were singing it, Kyle got real active and the contractions got more intense, to the point where we actually stopped. The contractions eased up a bit after that, but if they don’t start getting more intense tomorrow morning, I’m thinking we break it back out to get things moving forward.

That is all for tonight at this point.

Baby Kyle Update!

Baby Kyle Update

August 7, 2013

So now it is getting very very real. Janice has had some of her energy spurts, resulting in us getting some stuff done but also a pretty big crash and a (minor and very kind) lecture from the doctor. Baby Kyle is moving like crazy – it seems sometimes like he is doing a handstand on her pelvis – and if we have our understanding of his position correct, we think he is going to be left-footed. At least, that seems to be the foot he is kicking with the most!

I haven’t really written much about this to date, but I have been amazed at how much information there is about childbirth that just isn’t out in the general public. I guess this is very much something that is experienced within the family, which is great, but boy what an education it has been! But that is probably a separate post when I have a little more time. This post is all about our baby boy that Janice is carrying, Kyle David Lindstrom!

I hope to post some of the better sonogram pictures, and will update this once I have it figured out.

This one is from 13 and a half weeks:

Everything seems to be going according to Hoyle – average for weight, growth, development. And Janice has been doing well, too – her blood pressure and weight gain have been all deep within normal limits. She worked really hard over the last few years on her diet and exercise, and while it may have only had a moderate impact on her outward appearance, from all accounts she really developed her body to that of an athlete, ready to take on this challenge with . . . well, I can’t say “ease,” because nothing about pregnancy is easy, but she definitely has made the transition smoothly and effectively.

I think with her age and other factors, we all had some questions as to how this would go, but all signs point to everything going really well, and I attribute a lot of it to the focus and effort she put into working on her nutrition and exercise, and also her mindset and the time and effort she put into understanding the process so that she could be at her best.

So we have been getting a LOT of sonograms. We don’t need to go into each one individually, but here are some general things. Apparently Swedes have abnormally sized heads, and Kyle sure seems to be fitting that mold. Guess the baby really is mine! ;-)

His heartbeat has been strong and consistent. Let me just say I cannot put into words how it makes me feel to hear the doctor say “four chamber heart”. I know it is a natural process, and maybe I am attributing too much of it to the whole “heart as where emotion comes from” Hallmark thing, or maybe it is just that it is such a complex muscle and I know how much of a complication it can be do have problems there, but it just makes me grin like a fool.

We have been having a hard time getting good pictures of his face in large part because he has been head-down for so long, sometimes looking at Janice’s spine, and because he almost always has a hand or arm in the way. We can almost always see one of his cute little cheeks, though…

And to add to the reality of it all, at today’s appointment the doctor basically said, “Plan on coming to the hospital on Saturday night.” We will be scheduled to attempt to induce the birth on Sunday!