A White 1st Christmas

Christmas Eve 2009 and we are "snowed in". Ashtyn's first Christmas is a white one! A beautiful snowfall today. Some of the largest snowflakes I have ever seen. Normally, I refer to snow as "the white death" but admittedly, snow is nice at Christmas. However, due to the LARGE amount of snow we are unable to travel or leave the house to be with our family. We were supposed to be at Peter's uncle's house this evening and then head north to Tulsa to visit my family for a few days Christmas morning. Instead, we find ourselves snuggling with Ashtyn and playing our new Wii Fit Plus. We should probably be organizing closets, picture albums, etc. while we have the time, but hey...it's Chirstmas! So, we have opted to just relax with our newborn daughter and have fun together. Now...only if I had some hot chocolate! Oh...and a snow shovel. Note in the picture above, Peter is using a rake to try to clear the snow bank by our garage door.

Christmas & Friendship

This Christmas Peter & I are thankful for the safe arrival of our brand new baby girl. We are also thankful for great friends who have been there for us along the way. So many wonderful people kept me entertained while I was on bed rest. I do owe a special thank you though to Abbey Richards & Jenn McEvoy who stopped by on multiple occasions, bringing me lunch, smiles, understanding, & a lot of great advice!

We are blessed to have many great friends and luckily some of them have recently had children that will be Ashtyn's playmates. We look forward to spending time with these wonderful families now & in the future.

The pictures above show Ashtyn with Nate Hopper & with Maggie Richards...enjoy!

Here Comes Santa Claus

Ashtyn meets Santa! We did it! I had been worried that we wouldn't make it for Ashtyn's first Santa picture this year due to her young age and my "first-time mom fears", but we had success today at Penn Square Mall. Since it was a Tuesday afternoon there was absolutely NO LINE and we were in and out in minutes! Thankfully, Peter was able to take off work this afternoon so I still have never taken Ashtyn anywhere in the car or stroller alone. We even spent an hour or so shopping and had lunch in the food court. Ahh...it felt so good to re-enter society today and now...a cute picture with Santa!

Ashtyn's 1st photo shoot

Ashtyn is only 9 days old and today she had her 1st photo shoot. The photographer we used, Beth Jansen, specializes in children's photography and likes for the newborn pictures to feature babies less than 10 days old. Ashtyn did great except for one tiny tinkle on the photographers blanket. Other than that, we put her in what I refer to as a "milk coma" just before the photographer arrived. She also brought a mini heater to make the area where she was photographing cozy warm so Ashtyn would be less likely to wake up. It worked well, she slept the entire two hours the photographer was here.

The "turtle" is actually a Mexican flowerpot that was on my back patio and Beth loved the color. In fact, most of her work is full of vibrant colors and is just beautiful. Check out her website at bethjansenphotography.com.

Here is a preview of Beth's work with more to come!

Ashtyn's Arrival

We are thrilled to announce the arrival of our lovely daughter, Ashtyn Barlow Nguyen! She arrived at 8:12 a.m. by scheduled C-section on 11/11/09, weighing 6 lbs, 6 oz and measuring 19 3/4 inches long. Peter and I are so in love with her and were able to video her immediately after her delivery in the operating room at OU Women's & Children's hospital.

During her brief hospital stay she developed jaundice, however she was able to be discharged to home on 11/13/09 with the help of home health nursing care once a day to check her lab values by a blood "heel stick" and a bilirubin light blanket for use during the day and night. She did well although we were exhausted with the every 2-3 hr feeding schedule. The doctor allowed us to discontinue treatment on 11/17/09. It was difficult to feed Ashtyn b/c she was so sleepy she stopped breast feeding on her own, so I would have to spend 20-40 minutes pumping before we could feed her breast milk by a bottle. Calculate that time with the 20 minutes or so it took to wake her up (apparently elevated bilirubin levels make one extremely sleepy) and then also to change her and get her back to sleep and we were up about every hour or so to begin the entire process again. Luckily, my mom has been staying with us to help but she is going back to home to Tulsa this morning.

Her lowest recorded weight with treatment was an even 6 lbs. Yesterday, she weighed 6 lbs, 2 oz so she is still not quite at her birth weight. We are scheduled for her first "new baby" appointment with her pediatrician, Kelly Stephens, M.D. , tomorrow morning.

Ashtyn has not had many visitors yet due to the H1N1 virus scare (the hospital had strict visitation restrictions) and also due to her being "under the lights" for her jaundice. We are hoping to begin having a few visitors this week. We are however, keeping her somewhat isolated from the public due to the H1N1 virus. Peter stood in the cold for 3 hrs the other day in order to receive the vaccination and my parents plan on receiving their vaccination on Wednesday.

It is a busy time, but we are so thankful for every moment we have with her!

Waiting for Ashtyn

Peter & I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of our daughter Ashtyn. Since we have had a couple of alarming events during this pregnancy and we are so thankful to be able to say that today she is technically a "full-term" baby at 37 weeks. I have been on bed rest or some modified form of bed rest since 8/19/09 and I am so grateful that she has made it this many weeks. We would like to thank all of our family and friends that have offered us support during this time and have come by to visit me during the weekdays to help relieve me of my stress, loneliness, & boredom.

I have been scheduled for a C-section on 11/11/09, this coming Wednesday. It is hard to believe that we will be meeting our daughter in 4 days! My mom & dad will be driving down from Tulsa early that morning and my mom plans on staying with us to help out for at least the next week 1/2 or so. This will be great since I will have had surgery and have never taken care of a newborn.

On another note, we were told that the hospital currently has strict visitation restrictions due to the H1N1 ("Swine Flu") virus. We are only allowed 2 visitors at a time in our room and I was told that my own husband counts as "1" visitor! We were also told that visitors are not allowed to wait in the waiting rooms on the OB floor at this time as they do not want crowds of people who may be ill spreading germs to each other. And, no visitors younger than 14 are allowed on the OB floor at this time. Luckily, I received the H1N1 vaccine last Wednesday and was told that some antibodies from the vaccine could be given to my daughter through breast milk. This is great since children less than 6 mos old cannot receive the vaccine.

We feel anxious but ready. We have already welcomed her into our hearts and our dreams. Now, we are ready to welcome her into our home and our lives. Our hospital bags are packed and in the car. Her nursery is waiting for her...with lots of pink.