Baby Carlson's (Danielle Nicole Carlson) journey

Saturday was spent at a Parenting class learning the basics from labor, to delivery to even bathing the baby afterwards. It was very educational and taught us a lot, we were glad that we went to the one day class instead of the every night for 2 hours class. Walked away with a lot more information that we needed. We even got a free lunch from the cafeteria, which was decent. Lasagna was very tasty. We got a tour of the nursery and of one of the rooms. Very well done. The baby doesn't even spend time in the nursery, she will be in the room with us, after the birth, which is very cool.. Video can be done prior to and after delivery, not during, which is ok with us.

So Monday evening was spent learning about Breast Feeding. Such holds as the foot ball and clutch were mentioned. As well as bulleyeing the babies mouth to the nipple and not the other way around.. I wonder what the baby is thinking when it suddenly is thrust against a mothers chest??? "FOOOOOD!!!" Anyways the class was very educational, and I ended up winning the "prize" for knowing what the walnut on the table represented. Some answers were "Brain, stool, etc" and I answered Stomach, which was correct. The instructor laughed and said in a previous class a man had answered with Testicle.. The whole class laughed at this. It was definitly 2 hours well spent. Shannon also had a regular check up, and everything seems to be good

So for a little over a month, Shannon has been complaining of not getting enough rest, falling asleep while driving, at work, etc. We first thought it may be due to Pregnancy, but one night and there after I noticed that Shannon would fall asleep fairly quickly and start snoring, she would then be silent for a bit and then with a loud snore resume. This would continue through out the night. I mentioned this to her and she didn't believe me, and said that she would wake up multiple times at night to go to the bathroom but didn't realize she was waking up at other times. I finally decided to video tape her on one occasion when she had fallen asleep on the couch. For 5 minutes she stopped breathing 2 times or so. She was amazed at what she saw once I woke her up, and she then scheduled an appt with a General Practioner, Dr. Gee, who then refered her to a sleep specialist. Her first night was on Tuesday, she was hooked up to multiple wires and monitors.

As Shannon recalls the evening was horrible. First she couldn't fall asleep because they said that she had to be on her back as much as possible, which is almost impossible for a pregnant woman. Along with all the diodes and monitors all over her face and body. She finally fell asleep and got the recordings the technician required, that proved that she had Apnea. The next morning I picked her up at 5:30 and we went to work. She was dead tired due to lack of sleep. On Wednesday she had appt with her GP and came to find out that she has HypoThryoid, which also can be a cause of Apnea. She was prescribed a medication to boost her Thryoid.

On Friday, She again had another sleep study but this time with a CPAP machine which forces air into a person to help them breath. Saturday morning came and Shannon said that she slept wonderfully. And the technician said that they had controlled her snoring. Unfortunately, her appt to meet with the Dr. and get her Machine isn't scheduled until the 17th, but we are hoping for a cancellation before then. Until then Shannon is still not getting that good of rest and is still tired through out the day, althought he thyroid medication is helping a bit.