The first week home with Michael has been wonderful. Anthony and I are both very tired, but we've been doing ok taking naps when the baby sleeps or taking turns napping. We spend most of our time changing diapers, feeding, and holding the baby. I think I may have taken a thousand pictures of him, mostly sleeping. To anyone else they may all look the same, but to me they are all priceless. I want to capture every moment. It sort of makes me sad to think he will only be this small for a short time. I am looking forward to seeing him grow, finding out what he likes and dislikes, seeing what he will look like as he grows, taking his first steps, saying his first words, and I can go on and on.....So far this week, here are some of Michael's firsts:- He smiled and cooed after a meal on his fourth day home.
- He managed to go through 4 outfits in one day.
- He is a champion eater (roughly every 2 hours with snacks in between)
- He goes through about 10 diapers a day.
- He has his mommy and daddy wrapped around his little finger.
Michael 
Anthony Riso arrived on August 22nd, 2010 at 10:05 am. It was the most wonderful day of our lives! Here's how the day(s) 
unfolded: I 
checked into Clovis Community Hospital at 10:30 Saturday morning for one of my routine NST tests. Anthony decided not to come with me because so far they have been pretty uneventful. I usually get sent home after 20 minutes. They hooked me up to the machine and as usual, Michael looked strong and healthy. His mother, not so much! My blood pressure was extremely high, a problem the doctors have been monitoring closely, and I began to see stars. These are all signs of preeclampsia or toximia, which can be harmful to mom and baby. After many tests, the doctors decided to induce my l
abor because the symptoms were not going away. On this day, I was 37 weeks and three days pregnant and Michael should be healthy enough to be born. I was surprisingly calm and made the phone call to Anthony who was racing around the house doing last minute chores I didn't do because I was not expecting to have a baby that day! We are down to one car becuase we recently sold Anthony's 300 to save for a truck. That means he had to have our neighbors take him to the hospital! I called my mom and she got right in the car and started to make the drive to Fresno. My dad booked his flight and was expected to arrive the next morning. So Anthony and I just sat in the NST room waiting and waiting until they took us to the labor room around 3:30. It was such a strange feeling that very shortly we would have our child with us! The nurses started the meds to get labor going right away, but it took a good 6 hours before I could actually feel any REAL pain. Anthony just kept looking at me in amazement. I guess he expected me to act like a wild animal screaming in pain and being mean to everyone. We basically spent the hours laughing between my contractions. They were painful, but tolerable. The nurses were checking my blood pressure every 15minues to see how the preeclampsia was doing. Unfortunately, my blood pressure kept going up. If the numbers got too high and the baby started to get stressed, they would do an emergency C-Section. MY WORST NIGHTMARE! I was determined that I would do anything I could to avoid this. Anthony helped me with my breathing and reminded me to turn on my side every 30 minutes to lower the blood pressure and keep the baby's heart-rate up. Finally the nurse said that if I were to get an epidural, it causes blood pressure to go down. I agreed to it around 1am and within minutes I could feel nothing! I honestly could not believe epidurals made you feel completely numb from the waist down. This was going to be a breeze! My mom, Anthony, and I turned the lights down in the room and decided to try to get some rest since I was still only 4cm dilated. It felt like time was dragging and I was the only one who could not sleep. I watched the clock instead, wondering when my little boy was going to enter the world. A short time later, the left side of my body started to feel pain. I mean ALL of it! My right side had no idea what was going on but the left was completely aware. The anesthesiologist tried to fix the problem by repositioning the tube in my back and upping the dosage, but nothing worked. I just stopped asking and toughed it out. Around 8am, the nurse said it was getting close and she was right, he came in an hour and a half!. I know people make it sound like labor is the worst thing in the world to experience, and perhaps they are the ones who did not have any pain medication, but it was the opposite for me. My experience was positive. Although I was exhausted from lack of sleep and 24hours without food, it was all worth it in the end. Anthony and I now have Michael, and we're both so in love with him!
So yesterday I went to the hospital for one of my many many many weekly appointments to check on the baby. When I say many, I mean 3 NST tests, one ultrasound, one OB, and a diabetes appointment PER WEEK! (Michael better appreciate all I'm doing for him already! ;) The ultrasound looked great so they sent me upstairs to do the NST test.They had me all hooked up to the machines and the nurse told me the baby looked great, but my blood pressure was EXTREMELY high! Not surprising since it was high the day before at my OB appointment. But that was an easy fix then, just lay on your right side for 5 min and it goes down! So that's what should happen now, right?! WRONG! What was supposed to be a 20 minute test turned into 4 1/2 hours of checking my blood pressure, stuck on my left side, hooked up to machines that basically consist of having two seat belts wrapped around your giant gut with goo under them, having blood tests done, and waiting waiting waiting. I tried to explain to the nurse that the woman in the bed next to me that was moaning and crying with what seemed to be the worst pain of her life was making my blood pressure high but she wasn't convinced.They told me that if the blood test came back abnormal they would induce me that night!!! My heart really started racing then, and the blood pressure went up! I couldn't imagine that I could be just like the woman in the bed next to me in just a few short hours! At that moment, I wanted to run out of that room seat belts an all! Anthony on the other hand looked as if he could leap up and do a giant heel-click! He couldn't wipe the smile off his face!It turns out, at around 8:30, the blood tests came back normal and they let me go home. I have an appointment with my OB today to talk about what happened and what we're going to do about it. I took the day off of work, those poor students have only been in school for three days and I'm gone already! Not that I'm complaining, it's great to be home when I'm this huge and uncomfortable! I should be relaxing on the couch, but here I am blogging, and I just got back from the grocery store. I swear I only went because I had to check my blood pressure at the pharmacy! ;)
So we had an amazing photographer, Anna, come to our house to take pics of my belly before the big day! She set her backdrops up in the kitchen and we had a little photo shoot. It was so much fun! We even used some of Michael's Notre Dame clothes in some of the pictures! She gave us two pictures so far as a little teaser while she is editing the rest. I love these two so much, I can't wait to see the rest! I'm so happy that our neighbor Nicci recommended Anna to take these photos, she's even going to come take newborn pictures of Michael a couple weeks after he is born!
