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!