Ellie's Hands

I've become a little obsessed with Ellie's hands. She does the cutest things with her hands, all on her own. I'll look down at her and she'll be posing like a little hand model.

Baby's First Christmas

Ellie's bilirubin levels had been a little high when we left the hospital, so on Christmas day we had to go into the clinic to have it tested again. To our shock, it had jumped up again to pretty high levels and the doctor had her admitted to the hospital. The hospital wouldn't admit her into the NICU, so she was put in the cardiac telemetry wing. All of the nurses commented that she was their first baby patient. She had to spend almost 24 hours under the strong bili lights, but the worst part was they put an IV in her head. They stuck her 6 or 7 times in her hands and feet, but since she was dehydrated, they had to put the IV in her head. I'm not sure if the nurses were just trying to make me feel better, or if this is really true, but they said having the IV in the head is the best place for babies. So anyways, it ended up that the clinic where we had her tested, gave us a falsely high bilirubin result which made everyone panic and she probably would've been ok without going to the hospital. But, better safe than sorry, right?

Little Miss Ellie

Our Little Miss Ellie Sachiko Trowbridge came into the world on December 20, 2009, and what an adventure it was! The day before she came, we had moved out of our apartment in Provo and moved in with my parents in South Jordan.

Around 6:00 am, I started having some contractions, but after having a really long bout of false labor a few weeks earlier, I didn't think much of it. So we got up and started getting ready for church. But the contractions started getting stronger and longer and instead of going to church, we went to the hospital instead. We delayed going as long as possible, because my worst nightmare was being sent home from the hospital. And since we were living in South Jordan, and having the baby in Orem, we really wanted to be sure this was the real thing.

Everything about the experience was a surprise. We got to the hospital at 1:30 pm and to everyone's surprise, I was already dilated to a 9. Surprise #2 came when it came time to push. The L&D nurse was helping me push through a contraction when all of the sudden she yelled, "Stop pushing!" and then "Mike... go get the doctor NOW!" Her head had popped out all of the sudden without the doctor being there. Luckily, our doctor was just outside in the hallway and was able to hurry in and finish delivering her. Surprise #3 was how much hair she had!