Welcome Griffin Everett Wells!!

On June 17th, 2010 at 10:42pm, Griffin Everett Wells was born! He weighed in at 7lbs, 15oz and 20in long. We were lucky to have a healthy and managable delivery!! Thanks to a fantastic midwife team of Joanne and Capri, and to all the nurses at Doylestown Hospital who were fantastic and took great care of us!

We had to laugh because Griffin arrived 8 days early, when I was SURE he's be at least a week late. So I took a risk and Steve and I drove down to DC on the Tuesday before he was born so that I could attend some meetings for work at my DC office. Much to my surprise, at 2am that first night, my water broke!! Luckily I wasn't having contractions, so we packed up in a flash and hit the road back to Pennsylvania, making record time between DC and Philly, making it home still in time for an early morning nap before heading to the hospital to get things started! Guess Griffin's early arrival was my first lesson that I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to parenting!

38+ weeks pregnant, at a hotel in DC, the day my water broke- 2am that night!

Griffin ended up staying at the hospital in the NICU until Wednesday, June 23rd, because of a low platelet count. The neonatologists have determined that we have Iso-immune thrombo cytopena, which means that my platelet type doesn't match Griffin's platelet type, and although he's totally healthy, his platelet count was low because of antibodies that he got from me when he was born. In a few weeks to a few months, his body will take over and expel the antibodies and be fine, but in the meantime they had to give him an immunoglobulin IV while in the hospital to give his platelets a boost. (I hope I got all this down correctly...!) It worked, and now his count is back up to normal. We've been working closely with a hematologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and will have to go for follow-up check-ups for probably the next couple of months. All of the doctors both at the hospital and at CHOP have been great through this!!

A proud daddy!!

Cheers!! We did it!!



Happy Aunt Lindsay!


Beautiful flowers from my wonderful husband!

Tired but happy mom and dad with Griffin, pictured in the NICU, finally being discharged and headed home!

Sleepy in the car, first outing- headed to Philly!

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)

37 weeks and counting...

Today (Friday, June 4th), I am officially "full-term." Which means the baby could come any day now, between now and 42 weeks- so sometime in the next 5 weeks...welcome baby! We had another ultrasound today and he's measuring right on track- last time they were worried he was pretty big, 83 percentile, but now he's only in the 76th percentile and measuring normal for 37 weeks. Phew! But otherwise, everything's healthy! I'm hoping he stays in there for a few more weeks though...lots to do still! And we still haven't decided on a name! :) Yikes!

Memorial Day Weekend with Family

Last weekend we spent Sunday night in Rock Hall, Maryland, on my parents sailboat. It was Memorial Day weekend, which is always a long weekend (Monday off) in the US, and sort of the official "kick-off" to summer. My sister Lindsay and nephew Mason also came down, and we brought both dogs. It was a bit of a zoo, but tons of fun! We actually didn't all sleep on the boat- the marina has a few small motel rooms so Steve and I stayed in one of those. It was really hot that weekend, and with no wind, we didn't actually get out into the Chesapeake Bay, but mainly sat by the pool, much to the delight of 5-year old Mason. Here's a few photos!

A happy Portia camped out on the back of the boat.

Portia, Bentley and Steve on the dock.

The dogs enjoying a romp and a swim in the Chesapeake Bay.


A perfect family memorial day picnic dinner! Burgers, macaroni salad, baked beans, fruit salad....mmmm!

My sister and I by the pool- both overheated at this point, and BOTH pregnant!! :)