Photo Session

I hope you all have received your announcement by now. The picture I used was from a photo session that the hospital offers before you leave. Of course I gladly took them up on their offer and Hannah did so good. She slept through the whole thing and I love all the pictures. Looking back at what she looked like at two days old, she has already changed so much, but I will never forget how beautiful she was when we first saw her. Now that I have purchased the ultimate mommy package, my photos are online for viewing. Click on the link below, then click "client viewing" the password is tatum. Hope it works. Enjoy.
Client Album Viewer

Princess Hannah

Well Hannah officially rules the roost. We moved to a two bedroom apartment this year so we'd have a place for her stuff only to learn that our family room and bedroom would also be taken over. She eats eight times a day and Tim and I are try to scarf something down with one hand while holding her in the other. Tim's co workers have been very nice and have arranged to give us meals two days a week which we are enjoying. Other changes besides the lack of sleep (which is to be expected) include only showering at night once Tim is home, not caring about milk stains on clothes, bed sheets, furniture, etc., and realizing that many days Hannah looks adorable in her outfit while I am still in my pajamas. Hannah is also starting to show signs of her own little schedule. She has about two distinct wakeful periods during the day lasting about 2 hours. It's fun to see her alert and interested in her surroundings. Usually we sing songs as she loves music like her Gramps "DJ VON." One favorite is "He's got the whole world in his hands." This one is great because it can last forever. I assure you all that at some point your name has been inserted because if she is quiet I just keep singing and keep thinking of names to use. She loves it. I can't wait until we can play with toys, read books, color pictures, etc. She sleeps in our room at night. We try to keep her in her little bed as much as possible, but often she ends up on one of our stomachs. Tomorrow we see our second surgeon so stay posted regarding that appointment. Off topic, I know when she was first born every one's first reaction was "she looks just like Tim." After carrying her for nine months I thought I desearved at least one feature. Now that her eyes are open much more, I think they look like mine. You be the judge...

"Hannakins"

Here we are, 2 1/2 weeks after her birth and we couldn't be more in love. Hannah is honestly the sweetest little thing. She is so good and really only cries when she is hungry, gets a bath, or gets dressed. She is so easy to calm. Being held is her favorite thing. She loves to snuggle and be 'smooched up' as her auntie says. Another one of her favorite activities is listening to the music on her mobiles. We are so lucky to have such an amazing daughter. She is a little more alert each day. After two and a half weeks of help, tomorrow will be our first day on our own so wish us luck. I know you're probably all pictured out, but I can't help it because to me she gets cuter each day. Snapfish has probably never had a better client.

It Takes a Village

I've heard the saying "It takes a village to raise a child," and after today's meeting at UCSF boy did I found out how true that is. Who would think that my 15 day old baby now has her own team of cranio-facial experts. This team includes the infant plastic surgeon, hospital director, nurse, orthodontist, speech therapist, ENT, geneticist, and social worker/therapist. Today we were able to meet with 5 out of the 8 team members. Yes, you heard correctly my baby with no teeth has already been seen by an orthodontist and despite having no sounds other than crying has a speech and language therapist. It is all very overwhelming especially when they said even after the surgery she will have yearly appointments with the entire team until she is around college age. My overall impression was that all the specialists were very kind, knowledgeable, and thorough. We were there for 3 hours and return again in 3 weeks to meet with the whole panel and see how her mouth is growing. If we go with their team, the surgery will be in the fall, but I meet with another cranio-facial team next Friday to compare. I was very pleased today with what I saw. The plastic surgeon is the Chief of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at UCSF. He graduated cum laude from Yale University. He does about 50 cleft repairs a year and has done over 1,000. He is the current President of the American Society of Pediatric Plastic Surgery and has been voted one of America's top doctors several years in a row. Cleft palate and lip are his specific areas of interest. He even travels to third world countries to provide the surgery for babies in need. Hannah is so good. She never cries even when all the different people poke at her. We are hopeful that all she will require is the repair, but understand that it may be a long road as many children with cleft can have speech delay, ear problems, brain deficits, and dental problems. We think she is very smart and believe she will pick up on things quickly once she has the surgery. I was happy to hear that the 'm' sound doesn't require a palate so she should be able to say mama. Dada on the other hand requires the palate so poor Tim will have to wait. He knows she loves him anyway. All in all we were pleased with our first visit. Overwhelmed with how intensive the whole thing is and sad that our precious baby has to go through all this at such a young age, but she is a trooper and perfect in every way!

Beautiful Girl

Just so you all know Hannah is doing well and is as cute as ever, I wanted to post a few new pics. Tomorrow I start the search for the best infant cranio-facial plastic surgeon. I have my first consultation with a doctor in San Francisco. I will keep you posted on how it goes. The search won't stop until I find the best for our little girl.



My special bottle


She sleeps so much better now that she is getting food:

NICU

Happy due date day! Can't believe how much we have already gone through and how much she has grown and she wasn't even due until today. I sit writing this at 4:30 in the morning while my precious baby sleeps. She is such a good little girl. She hardly ever cries and has the sweetest disposition. The two things we were struggling with last week (feeding and sleeping) now have an explanation. As most of you know, last Friday was the scariest day of my life. My mom was here helping and was just putting Hannah on her back for a diaper change. She all of a sudden yelled for me. I ran out to find my baby bright red and stiff as a board. She threw her head back and wouldn't move. She had stopped breathing. Inside my heart sank and I wanted to lay down and die, but I knew I had to help her. I don't know what came over me, but thank God my reaction was the right one. I flipped her on her stomach and grabbed the bulb syringe (aka: booger sucker). I started suctioning her nose and mouth to find huge globs of mucus. This continued for about 30 minutes. Of course she did start breathing when the suctioning started and she screamed her head off which was music to my ears. You could hear her struggling to breath with each breath like a gurgling of mucus in her throat. Once I got her in a somewhat normal state we drove to the pediatrician. I assumed it was snot build up and that the Dr. would say it was just bad congestion and I got it all out. Instead, she took one look in her mouth and discovered the problem. Hannah has a cleft palate that was somehow overlooked by the two Standford Pediatricians at the hospital and the pediatrician I had taken her to four days prior. Cleft Palate is basically a birth defect in which the back of the throat doesn't completely close leaving a hole for milk to accumulate in thus resulting in her choking. It happens in 1 in every 700 births and is most often simultaneous with cleft lip. Hannah does not have the lip. It requires surgery around 6 months of age and is often correlated with speech problems and hearing loss. For now we are taking one day at a time. While hearing the diagnosis crushed me, it explains so much about the difficulties we have been having with feeding. All along, Hannah has been refusing to eat as a way to protect herself. Now she has a special bottle designed for babies with cleft and she is eating so well. In fact she has gained 9 oz. in five days...making up for lost time I think. And since she is eating better, she is sleeping better as well. Tim and I are probably sleeping worse because we are so anxious about her condition and watch her like a hawk to avoid another choking episode. Luckily we have had help and I think each day that passes we will see that she is okay with the new bottle. Unfortunately we did have to spend two days in the NICU. It was so sad and just when I thought I couldn't be more sleep deprived I found myself by her side for 48 hours. I refused to leave because she just seemed so scared. We met with numerous specialists already and I will be meeting with a surgeon within the next two weeks to discuss the repair. After the repair she should be able to eat like a typical child, but the recovery will be difficult and her speech may be impacted since they are changing the formation of her mouth and building her a uvula (or punching bag as TIm calls it). Poor sweet Hannah has somewhat of a long road ahead, but she is so strong and to me always seems to beat the odds. One of the neonatologists told us that she may have brain dysfunction, but she passed all her brain scans with glowing results. She has also passed with 100 percent on all of her hearing screenings. She is my little fighter and still the perfect baby we brought home from the hospital. Everyone has something they deal with in life and for her I'm glad it's fixable and she won't remember it in the long run. THank you for all your prayers. I know they worked because we were first told she had to stay 5-7 days in intensive care, but after 48 hours they saw how good she was and let us go. She is home now and doing well. Just as cute and sweet as ever. We are told with the new bottle, milk will be less likely to get stuck in the hole. She will be just fine, God is good!

Happy One Week Old Birthday!

Hard to imagine it's been one week since precious Hannah was born. We celebrated today by taking our first stroller trip to the park. Granny also bought her a one week birthday cake. TIm has been back at work the past two days which is so sad. He hates leaving her and we miss him during the day. We are still working on sleeping without being held and eating more, but overall she is so pretty, smart, and strong.

Day 5

Sweet baby Hannah is now 5 days old and changes before our eyes daily. It is already going to fast. She is such a little peanut and I just love how she cuddles up in my arms. Last night she was very good. She still requires us to hold her all night long, but she did sleep which was good. Today we had our first appointment with the pediatrician. Everything about her is perfect. The doctor thinks her eyes will be brown, but says maybe green. She thinks they are too dark to be blue like Daddys. The only thing we have to work on is eating more because she is only 7 lbs. now. It is natural for all babies to lose weight the first week, so the doctor isn't alarmed, but we have to go again next week to make sure she starts gaining. This means more food. Oh and did I mention she pooped three times just while we were at the appointment. She has no problems in that department.

Super Strength

I forgot to mention little Hannah's impressive feat. About 10 minutes after she was born the nurse put her into the scale to be weighed on her back. All of a sudden she yelled for the doctor to look as Hannah rolled herself over onto her stomach. This milestone is not supposed to happen for months. The doctor couldn't believe it. He said he has never seen a baby do that in his 20 years of experience. Two days later the hospital photographer came for her first photo session. She placed her on the bed stepped back to snap a picture and again she rolled over completely on her own. The photographer freaked out and was so worried to take the rest of the pictures because she said she has never had to worry about a newborn falling off a bed until now. Today little Hannah held her tiny bottle by herself. Not for long, but I still think it's impressive. Granny is convinced she will be an athlete.

Day 4

Today Hannah is four days old. She is so precious and growing everyday. She is very alert and aware of her surroundings for a little one. Her disposition is very sweet. She loves to be cuddled and held. She is a good pooper (even got mommy all over her shirt). She likes to eat and sleep (except at night, at night she likes to scream). With feedings and crying, mommy is averaging about 3 hours per night. We have been blessed to have lots of help and a daddy who is beyond amazing and does everything to help her. He is the poopy dipe king. Today she had a lot of firsts. She played with a few of her toys for the first time. I think she is still a little small for the swing it kind of scared her, but she loved being on her back on the activity mat. She also had her first bath at home which was a traumatic experience for her. She is just the best baby and I can't stop taking pictures of her. Here are some from day three.

Day 3

Had to post a few more because she just gets cuter every day

Welcome to the World!

Hannah Grace Tatum was born 2 weeks early on January 5, 2011. She weighed 7 lbs. 15 oz. and was 20 in. long. She arrived at 1:04pm after mommy and daddy stayed up all night in labor. She is beautiful and perfect, our little precious miracle. I can't begin to describe how I feel, lets just say the tears (happy ones) have been plentiful. All four grandparents and Auntie Laura drove up when they heard the news of labor and made it to the hospital right as she was born. All of your calls, texts, thoughts, etc. have been so wonderful. I'm sorry if I don't respond and wish I could write more now, but as you could expect I barely have a free minute. We are both doing wonderfully and I hope the pictures below give a glimpse into her little life so far. I will update more when things settle a bit.


Just found it I was in fact in labor (middle of the night of course)


Welcome Hannah!


I love her beyond words


First Family Picture


All because two people fell in love


The most wonderful Doctor, God bless him


Hospital celebration dinner


So beautiful

SItting and waiting

Two weeks to go, maybe less, maybe more, but either way it's almost time. Tim and I are so excited and I would add anxious and scared to my list as well. We are dying to know what she looks like, be able to hold her, and snuggle her up.

I had my appointment today and Hannah is still good. Heart rate and amniotic fluid are both still average and she continues to hang out head down. The doctor checked my pelvic bone again today and is pretty sure the separation will be able to be healed on it's own given a few months time. I was surprised however when he told me that I may want to consider a C-section and that I am a patient he would allow to schedule one because of the bone issue. He went over the pros and cons with me and sort of left it open ended saying there is still time to think about it. He said a natural birth is out of the question and that if I choose vaginal I'd have to take the epidural to which I replied "Not a problem, I was planing on that anyway." For now I have decided to continue with the original plan of a vaginal birth even though I know it will make the pelvis worse and the recovery will be difficult. One good thing though is that as soon as the baby is born he said they can medicate me more effectively for the pain. I did tell the doctor however that if she gets large enough where he thinks it's foolish to hurt myself more, then to tell me and I am fine with the C-section option. Right now he is telling me she'll be around 8 lbs.

The doctor also said that if he had to guess he thinks she will come this week because of family history and she is really low. However he was only willing to guess with 60% confidence and of coarse continued to say "could be anytime." So here I am sitting and waiting on my first official day of maternity leave. I still have contractions daily, but I know now just to overlook them until they are extremely painful. I have my appointment scheduled for next week, but it's crazy to think I may not even make it until next week. Until next time, I will keep waiting...