Dear Friend and Family,
Our son, Jacob Elijah Hillstrom was born on Monday Aug 20th at about 5:15pm. We had an appointment that day to try and turn him from his breech presentation. He was not able to turn. Then I was found to be preeclamptic with high blood pressure, protein in the urine, and elevated liver enzymes. This explained why I had a headache, right sided abdominal pain, and felt like garbage all weekend. So Jacob was delivered 8 hours from the time we tried turning him via caesarean. He weighed 5 lbs. His feeding and weight were a big concern because I had gestational diabetes and he had resultant hypoglycemia so we had to be diligent in feeding. I was on Magnesium the first 24 hours to prevent seizures and felt awful (intense itching, vomiting, and could hardly keep my head lifted to look at my son), but thankfully felt much better off of it.
We have had to continue to keep Jacob well fed, warm, and low on the stress because he doesn’t have much reserve as far as body fat. We are doing are best to breast feed, but because his mouth is so small we have to use and nipple shield and supplement by putting a feeding tube down inside and adding formula through a syringe. It is a big job and definitely requires 2 people. My mom, Eli, Nathan, and Corinne are taking good care of us. Jacob became a little jaundiced and had to spend the night in the NICU which was sad initially because my mom referred to it at “baby jail”, but once we met the nurse and saw the beautiful facilities at
11 comments:
CONGRATS HILLSTROM FAMILY!!
He is so small and adorable.
Janel, you are so amazing and such a good Mom, he is certainly in good hands.
I love that picture of baby and Mama! So sweet
That really is such a sweet picture of you & Jacob! (Such a great name, BTW).
It's amazing how much they change in a few short months! In the beginning they seem to change every day.
Congrats Janel and Eli. I've been thinking about you all week. I'm glad everyone's doing good. Jacob is so darling.
Wow, he is finally here and so dang tiny! I hope that everything goes so good with you and your cute baby!! Nursing is so hard, we had to use the nipple shield too. Sydney didn't nurse well until she was 2 1/2 months old so I am sure that little Jacob will pick it up in no time. Congrats again!! -Caralee
Thank you for the encouragement!
Just curious. Did you just use the breast pump in the meantime?
I was instructed to pump every 3 hours regardless just to keep from drying up.
Oh wonderful....Congrats!
He is sooo beautiful. What a teeny cutie pie.
Yes I used the pump every three hours and was dubbed the Dairy Queen by my friends and family. Because I started out pumping at the the very beginning, I had soooo much milk, I probably had enough to feed triplets. It didn't calm down until she started to nurse and then my body regulated for my baby's needs. If your milk supply is big you could try pumping every 4 hrs or not pumping until your empty because then your body gets the message that it needs to make more milk. Good Luck! Let me know if you need any advice! -Caralee
Oh CONGRATS!! He's aDORABLE!!
What an adorable LITTLE guy! Congrats!
If you pump and have excess milk you can always donate it to your local milk bank. I did that for a few months with Lincoln. They use the milk in the NICU and then some banks, if they have too much, send it to places like orphanges in Africa, etc. Let me know if you want more info & I'll see if I can find a place in WA. (The one I went thru gave me a sweet double electric pump and supplied all the bottles, etc and they came to my house to pick everything up. Super easy and I got a nice pump out of it!)
Oh my heavens! I had no idea you were even planning on having a baby anytime soon, then I get this comment on my blog from you, then I visit your blog and discover you've JUST HAD YOUR BABY! Holy cow, the shock is overwhelming. CONGRATULATIONS YOU GUYS!!!! And that's from Jared, too.
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