I was able to blog lots more immediately following Amelia's birth than I have been able to now. The irony is, Amelia was a much more difficult child to care for.
Yes, I am going to compare my experience with newborn Amelia to my experience with newborn David. I think it is difficult not to compare your children to one another, particularly when they are so different. I know that may make some of you wince, but I think it's okay to point out the differences.
And the simple truth is this: it is far easier to make little David happy than it ever was for little Amelia. After a few weeks of simply rather easy baby care, James and I both started to worry that we were both actually complete wimps when we received Amelia, and maybe she wasn't that hard.
Well. I pulled out my journal, and the evidence is irrefutable: I haven't had to walk David around the block for hours in the middle of the night to get him to stop screaming even once! We haven't had episodes of SCREAMING for no discernable reason (there's always a reason; you just might not know what it is). Amelia WAS a difficult baby to care for.
David gets "fussy" sometimes, true. But when something isn't quite right for him, I feel like I have a sixth sense to know what it is. I can tell when his "fussiness" is just him complaining about how uncomfortable his intestines are while learning the complicated skill called pooping. (No, newborns don't necessarily know how to do that perfectly at first. They have to learn how to simultaneously tense the right muscles and relax their little sphincters and let it all out... Great drama in the meantime.) I can tell when he needs a good burp. I can just tell.
And then when I can't get him calm simply with cuddles and nursing, often all it will take to calm him down is to stand up and start walking until he's asleep (within five minutes instead of an hour of pacing! amazing!) or maybe give him to James and let Daddy bounce him on the yoga ball. He likes being bounced. Even if the bouncing doesn't put him to sleep immediately, it will at least calm him down so that he's in that nice "quiet, alert" state rather than ballistic.
He doesn't scream the entire time he's in his car seat. We give him a pacifier when we strap him in, and then he doesn't imitate a banshee. (Yes, he does accept a pacifier! What is this black magic?) He will often go to sleep instead. Amelia would scream persistently for hours upon hours no matter what we did in the car.
He allows us to put him down, and he likes the swing. Not like some mythical babies I've heard, but he likes or tolerates it long enough that I can go to the bathroom, or clip my fingernails, or eat a bowl of cereal, or do any other such activity that is best suited to a person with two free hands. It is fabulous.
I can still imagine an easier baby than this, but considering that Mr. Gregarious (James) is his father, I'm not convinced it's possible for us to actually produce one. I suspect this may be as mild as a Dilts can get.
Nursing has gone flawlessly. No problems. Had slightly sore nipples for a few days, had a little engorgement right when my milk came in two days after birth, and then it's been sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows from then on. (Only the sunshine is more like milk lasers. Milk LAZORS!)
More evidence that nursing is going along all right... David is growing pretty quickly. Amelia did, too, but she was screaming whenever she wasn't nursing, so she nursed a lot. I was hoping David wouldn't grow quite so quickly... I mean, Amelia grew quickly enough that I was soon overwhelmed with how heavy she got, and how speedily she got into size 5 diapers and 12-month size clothing. But David is as big as Amelia was at six weeks old, and he is only three weeks old. Dang. Looks like I might end up with another chubster.
Oh, he sleeps, too! A lot. Especially at night. He doesn't really wake up in the night... I mean, he kind of does. He wiggles enough to wake me up, and I offer him noms before he has more opportunity to startle himself awake. I have to make myself disturb his happily sleeping self to change his diaper once a night so the two of us don't wake up in a puddle of his pee. Ew, gross.
Now... all this is great. But lest you think I am living a perfect new mom life, no problems whatsoever, let me remind you that I also have a tot.
Amelia must have heard rumors that when you get a new baby, the parents are not supposed to sleep for the next few months (or even years! I hope she didn't hear that rumor, even if it is true...) following acquisition of said baby.
She is doing her very best to ensure that James and I are getting as little sleep as possible.
Two nights ago, for instance, she would not go to sleep. She screamed for hours while James held her down in bed... and when David finally figured out how to sleep through big sister's screams, I left him to sleep on his own and then I held her down to sleep. She finally passed out at 2am. That's a new record. I mean, maybe she did that a few times as an infant, but gosh. For the tot version of Amelia, this is a new record.
All things considered, Amelia is adjusting excellently to having a new baby brother. She likes him a lot. She is known to exclaim, "CUTE!" and insist on holding him, and nearly smother him lovingly to death (actually quite scary for me) if I ever leave him unattended. She really loves her little brother and hasn't even once demanded we put him back wherever we found him. She is happy to have him.
All the time, that is, except for bedtime. Bedtime, don't you know, is Amelia's special cuddle time with Mommy.
Well, unfortunately... most of the time, now, when bedtime rolls around, Mommy is nursing and/or cuddling little brother. Which means that Mommy is unavailable to cuddle Amelia.
This has directly resulted in the Amelia-not-going-to-sleep-at-night problem. She had made lots of progress at learning to fall asleep without me before Dragon was born, but she still hadn't mastered it. Obviously. Hence the screaming until 2am. Oh well. The super late nights are (very gradually) happening less often.
James is having a really hard time losing this much sleep. He thinks it is partly so hard because it's more directly Amelia's fault rather than Dragon's fault. In his mind, it would have been easier to cope with lost sleep if it the newborn was to blame, because a newborn doesn't know any better. A toddler, though! Phaw! A toddler should already have adult sleep habits! (Okay, so he knows that isn't true. But he wishes it were. Oh, how he wishes.)
Sure, he is getting more video game time in the late nights while Amelia settles down from hyperactivity to a somewhat drowsy state. But these sleep mishaps are having an effect on how well his mind works during the day, which for an academic is a serious problem. Being able to think at your highest capacity is really important when your job is to mathematically prove something new and super awesome. Oh well.
Now, Amelia hasn't been getting enough sleep either. It's not just James and I who are tired. For those of you who have ever had a sleep-deprived toddler, you can see where this is going.
We have a chronically sleep-deprived toddler. Yeah. She isn't at her rosiest lately. My goodness, she is a volatile mess way more often than we parents are used to dealing with. Rosy toddlers can be a joy, but thorny toddlers without enough of those blossomy moments can really just suck. Especially when you are adjusting to having more than one child at once.
So sometimes we parents are less than stellar at fulfilling her needs. She would probably be doing even better if we weren't so physically and emotionally sapped, because then we'd be able to give her more of the love and attention she is craving, but alas. We are somewhat sapped and it is showing.
It is, however, tough to get too upset with Amelia. Her cries, though deafening, are immediately followed by wails for a hug. I think that's a good thing. She recognizes that she needs help to calm down, and even if you are really ticked at some horrid mess she's made, it is hard to stay too angry when she says she just needs a hug.
(Amelia's cries have gotten LOUDER these last few weeks. Enough so that I one point, instead of responding to ear-shattering shrieks like any normal person would, I just laughed and mourned to James that we didn't have an instrument to measure how many decibels the sound coming out of Amelia's face was. It was simply an awe-inspiring level of noise, and I just itched to measure it in quantifiable terms. Ha.)
As I said, all things considered, things are actually going fairly well. We have a new baby and a chronically sleep-deprived tot who sometimes doesn't feel like she's getting enough hugs, but! Things are going well.
Oh, what about me? Uhh... Well, as I like to shout from the rooftops... I'M NOT NAUSEOUS ANYMORE! HUZZAH!
Other than that, I am recovering pretty well. My down-there stitches hurt for a while, as could be suspected. Now they itch sometimes, as can also be predicted. I'm no longer actively bleeding (you bleed for roughly two weeks after giving birth, kind of the mother of all periods). "Down there" is doing fine.
The bad news is that I overexerted myself soon after David was born so my recovery isn't as fast as it could have been. I could tell I overdid it because my pelvis got really upset at me--sore, and more uterine bleeding, and the urge to sleep for forever.
I know what did it. We went to a science museum-type place a few days after David was born, and Amelia had a blast. I was attempting to follow James and the tot around while carrying David in the car seat, because I really wanted some cute tot pics, but this proved too much for me. My pelvis decided to start yelling, "HEY, LADY! Would you puh-leez quit it? I just pushed out a baby, and I need some time to recover! LIE DOWN!" It was kind of a bummer. I finally had the energy to chase after a tot, and then my body wasn't ready to handle it yet.
So yeah. I had to force myself to relax and not pick up the thirty-pound tot, or the ginormous boxes full of baby clothes, or the heavy car seat containing a not-so-heavy infant, even though I finally felt able to. I had to depend on James a lot more.
(My journal tells me I did the same thing after Amelia was born. I forgot and made the same mistake. Doom! Note to self: After your third baby, resist the urge to do ALL the things! I know you feel great, but you won't feel great if you do ALL the things!)
I am doing pretty well now. Again, I have energy! Yay! In the week following birth, James kept saying, "Wow. You OBVIOUSLY feel better." It was apparently like night and day. I was suddenly smiling and laughing so much more. Making jokes. Moving more like a healthy person. I don't know. You'd have to ask him to elaborate. I wasn't exactly an outside observer.
So yeah. Now... all that leaves to tell you, I guess, is the big thing that has been really stressing me out for the last week. I am now feeling a lot better than I did when I found out last Wednesday during David's two-week well baby checkup... I'm not freaking out about it anymore. I have plenty of time to freak out about it some more later.
David is perfectly healthy except for one thing. That one thing has a fancy name (hypospadias) but all it means is that his urethra ("pee-hole") is not where it's supposed to be.* Whoops. He may need a surgery sometime between six months and eighteen months old to correct it.** It's not for sure, though.
Sometime between three and six months old, we will take him to see a pediatric urologist to check it out. Until then, we won't know whether or not he will actually need surgery, but I predict that he will indeed need it.
Doom. This'd be very stressful for me, even if it's not a "major" surgery. As far as I'm concerned, any surgery is a major surgery on my baby. :( I had a really hard time emotionally this last week just because of this idea of likely surgery. On my BABY.
I think so far I have only mentioned this to James, my mom, and my best friend here in Oregon (and I guess a few others overheard when I told her). Even though I am usually quite open about a lot of things, it was hard to talk about this for some reason.
I think it might be hard to talk about because it's a penile abnormality. It's not exactly your standard bit of conversation. "Oh hey, my son's penis is a little wonky. By the way. This isn't awkward or anything." Yeah. How do you even bring it up? It is easier to bring up the possibility of surgery before bringing up the reason for the surgery. If it had been any other body part, it might not be so hard. Oh well.
So yeah. Hypospadias. Darn it. Between this, my research to help us decide whether or not to circumcise our son (we didn't), and the nature of my work at the fertility clinic, I now know WAY more about the male reproductive system than perhaps any laywoman has any right to, ha. Possibly more than James does. Okay, definitely more than James does.
Love and milk lazors,
Jenna and Amelia and David
*The urethral opening is on the underside of the head of the penis. Yeah. Not where it belongs.
**Not correcting it will theoretically lead to problems when he's older. Like having to pee sitting down because the pee stream is... very messy, or multiple streams, or whatever. Okay, that's not too bad... But also, more importantly, difficulty with erections and such. Possibly painful erections. Important. If we want grandbabies via David, we will have to consider these things. (Gosh, it is strange to think that my infant son will grow up someday.)
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Friday, October 10, 2014
After David Was Born
Okay, so I was a bit naughty and left you guys on kind of a cliffhanger. You'll have to forgive me. I'd just given birth earlier that day, remember. And then, instead of delivering the continued story the next day as I had promised, I didn't write anything on my blog for a heart-wrenching three days. You'll have to forgive me again. I did have a newborn and a toddler to tend to, and James has been going to work for at least a few hours every day since Wednesday. (I think maybe I will allow him to go back to work all day again on Monday.)
Right. So. Fixing that cliffhanger business. So.
After about two hours of labor, I pushed David out. They put him on my belly, and he started talking and complaining about his exit immediately. Seriously, really cute baby noises. He sounded like the cute baby dragon or baby dinosaur noises you hear on cartoons and movies.
I felt much better, and I felt far better than I had after, say, my labor with Amelia. I felt pretty good, actually. Except that those private bits between my legs were a bit upset. Don't get me wrong, though, it felt much better than the sensation of having a baby trying to get out from there. They just weren't happy again yet.
For those of you who read Amelia's birth story, you may recall that I got an epidural. This time I was completely unmedicated. I hadn't even had Tylenol or anything. Or even a warm bath for pain management (cough, James). Not that I had wanted an epidural, but I have this feeling there wouldn't have been time for one even if I had demanded such a thing. So I had a bit more sensation down there in the nether regions this time with which to feel the delivery of the placenta.
Placentas are slimy, and a lot less bony than babies. It felt kind of gross coming out. I was curious how much the placenta weighed and had them weigh it. It was about a pound and a half, so definitely not record-breaking. After it was out, I can say that I was no longer nauseous.
Meanwhile, David was making cute baby dragon noises and looking around. By this point, I think someone had toweled him off some. (He hasn't had a bath or anything yet besides that quick towel-dry straight from the womb.) A few minutes after birth, the umbilical cord stopped pulsing, and someone (not sure if it was one of the midwives or the nurse) clamped the cord and helped James cut it.
David had come down so quickly that my tender tissues hadn't really had time to stretch out enough, so I had torn my perineum (the skin between the vaginal opening and the anus) a little... though one of the midwives (Anne) told me it was just a little bit. She wasn't sure it was bad enough to even need repair at first, but she decided to put a few stitches in anyway, just to make sure it heals up nicely. Again, given the lack of epidural, I could feel a lot more of this process than I had last time, even with the local anesthetic. Pokey needles are pokey. Ouch.
So yeah. More cute noises from little Dragon. Once he even made a sound that sounded a lot like "uh oooh!", and both Anne (the midwife-in-training) and Annie (the postpartum nurse) kept laughing at how adorable he sounded.
I was starving. I made James spoonfeed me lemon yogurt. Ah, I knew I had brought him for something, besides transportation to the birth center. (I don't know if he'll believe me, but I think I could have driven myself if I had needed to. It would have really sucked, but... yeah. I could've done it, frosty windshield and all! Bahaha!)
I had basically ignored him throughout labor, especially after his cold water faux pas. I'd been too grumpy to actually get upset at him for that... Ah, wait... I suppose I did use him for something during labor. I neglected to mention that I vomited during labor, and James handed me an emesis bag all helpful-like. He might've said (okay, did say...) a few encouraging words (too exuberantly, of course). Otherwise, he was just kind of an annoying, bouncy, excited, and far too happy presence in the room.
(Gosh, James is bad at containing his excitement. In the weeks leading up to birth, whenever I'd have a particularly uncomfortable contraction, James would respond by expressing glee, presumably because he was excited about the baby coming. Despite my attempts to train him to respond with sympathy for my pain instead of glee--we had plenty of time to practice this--I don't think it really sunk in. Sure, he stopped saying things like, "Yay! You're in pain!"... But um, the more intense labor got, the more James bounced up and down with adrenaline and happy excitement. Gosh. Stop being so happy.)
David started nursing pretty quickly. He was really interested in it, but it took him a little while to find the nipple. His latch was pretty good, thankfully. (Amelia had significant trouble with nursing at first, likely because she was over two weeks early, and possibly also due to disorientation and other side effects of the epidural.) David tried to find the second breast, too, but he was so bad at locating the nipple that even with help he eventually just gave up and napped instead.
But, boy! He was persistent. He nearly crawled off my chest (more like nearly launched off, despite lack of wings) more than once, and sucked and licked all over my belly and my chest--everywhere except the nipple, that is. He spent a long time looking for the noms before deciding being born had been hard work and that a nap was in order.
Once David and I were suitably cleaned up, they left us alone for a while. As I said, David fell asleep, draped across my chest. We were both still naked, and we had a warm blanket over the top of us. I still hadn't really moved since I had given birth. I think maybe they had had me scoot over a few inches at some point so they could remove the mess out from underneath me (all the amniotic fluid and blood and exciting stuff that comes out with baby) and put new, clean things there, but otherwise I was in the exact same spot I had pushed in. It was kind of nice to just kick back and relax.
Though... at this point, I was starving. Again. I had James bring me flower juice (water with elderflower syrup in it), string cheese, and a granola bar to tide me over until... well, next snack time. I think Amelia came and visited at this point.
Oh, Amelia. She did just fine. We had brought our friend Cassie Anderson to help out. Despite being woken up at 5:25am, Amelia was in a great mood. She and Cassie apparently had a grand ol' time playing and sharing snacks.
Cassie tells me, though, that when I was making mighty screams, Amelia's eyes got all wide and concerned, and she put her hands up to her mouth, and said, "Oh no! Mommy!" "Are you worried, Amelia?" "Yeah..."
When Amelia saw David, she said, "Ooh, beebee! Cute!" I think, though, that the visit was mostly for her to make sure I was okay. And, well, I was smiling and happy at this point, so I guess that reassured her enough that she could go and play some more with Cassie.
At some point, I handed David over to James, and I walked over to the bathroom. The nurse had the tap water going, hoping that would encourage me to pee, but it didn't really help. After sitting there for ages, I finally did pee, and I exultantly proclaimed, "I peed!" ... just like Amelia does. I felt a little silly for being so proud of myself, but I suppose that's okay.
Maybe three hours after birth, we finally measured David. He weight 8 lbs, 8 oz. He was 21.5" long, 14" around the head, and 13.5" around the chest. He hated it. He made his first truly distressed cries. They were actually even kind of loud. (He is so quiet compared to Amelia. Straight out of the womb, Amelia's cries were piercing, and David's are... mild squeaks.)
Went back to bed and cuddled the newborn some more. He was still naked. And, um, he made it quite obvious that his bowels were working fabulously. He pooped meconium all over me. Twice. We eventually decided to put a diaper on the kid. He soiled that one.
The nurse did a pulse oximetry test to screen for congenital heart defects, but he didn't pass it immediately, probably because he was working hard on both a giant loogey out his top end, and several giant poops out his bottom end. After he got those cleared up, we would be allowed to leave. (The pulse oximetry results had be normal before we could go home. The pushing phase of labor had been so incredibly brief, that although most babies get some help expelling the mucus from their airways during the pushes and squeezes on the way out, David did not get that benefit. He just came out so fast.)
Before we left, he soiled yet another diaper, so much so that the nurse was shocked. It was the biggest load of meconium she had ever seen a newborn produce. And this was meconium load number four. (I am so grateful that he held all that poop in until after he was born.) "Just like daddy," I commented. No, seriously. I am convinced the man child has inherited his father's gastrointestinal system. Darn it.
James had fed me many snacks by this point, but I was still starving and both he and Amelia were starving and tired and just itching to leave. Itching. They had both been ready to go right at the four-hour mark (you are required to stay at the birth center for at least four hours after the birth), but we had to stay for five hours while David was working hard on spitting up mucus and pooping out meconium. Once he finished that and the pulse oximeter read normal results, we got ready to go.
So we all loaded up in the car and headed home. Kind of. Again, we were all so starving. Obviously, we had to stop at Five Guys for bacon cheeseburgers. Then we went home and napped all afternoon. (The one lady at Five Guys who bothered to ask how old the cute baby was ended up completely dumbfounded and shocked upon learning that he was only six hours old... and that I was walking around out of the hospital and snarfing bacon cheeseburgers already. And impressed.)
Tada!
Love and bacon cheeseburgers,
Jenna and Amelia and David
Right. So. Fixing that cliffhanger business. So.
After about two hours of labor, I pushed David out. They put him on my belly, and he started talking and complaining about his exit immediately. Seriously, really cute baby noises. He sounded like the cute baby dragon or baby dinosaur noises you hear on cartoons and movies.
I felt much better, and I felt far better than I had after, say, my labor with Amelia. I felt pretty good, actually. Except that those private bits between my legs were a bit upset. Don't get me wrong, though, it felt much better than the sensation of having a baby trying to get out from there. They just weren't happy again yet.
For those of you who read Amelia's birth story, you may recall that I got an epidural. This time I was completely unmedicated. I hadn't even had Tylenol or anything. Or even a warm bath for pain management (cough, James). Not that I had wanted an epidural, but I have this feeling there wouldn't have been time for one even if I had demanded such a thing. So I had a bit more sensation down there in the nether regions this time with which to feel the delivery of the placenta.
Placentas are slimy, and a lot less bony than babies. It felt kind of gross coming out. I was curious how much the placenta weighed and had them weigh it. It was about a pound and a half, so definitely not record-breaking. After it was out, I can say that I was no longer nauseous.
Meanwhile, David was making cute baby dragon noises and looking around. By this point, I think someone had toweled him off some. (He hasn't had a bath or anything yet besides that quick towel-dry straight from the womb.) A few minutes after birth, the umbilical cord stopped pulsing, and someone (not sure if it was one of the midwives or the nurse) clamped the cord and helped James cut it.
David had come down so quickly that my tender tissues hadn't really had time to stretch out enough, so I had torn my perineum (the skin between the vaginal opening and the anus) a little... though one of the midwives (Anne) told me it was just a little bit. She wasn't sure it was bad enough to even need repair at first, but she decided to put a few stitches in anyway, just to make sure it heals up nicely. Again, given the lack of epidural, I could feel a lot more of this process than I had last time, even with the local anesthetic. Pokey needles are pokey. Ouch.
So yeah. More cute noises from little Dragon. Once he even made a sound that sounded a lot like "uh oooh!", and both Anne (the midwife-in-training) and Annie (the postpartum nurse) kept laughing at how adorable he sounded.
I was starving. I made James spoonfeed me lemon yogurt. Ah, I knew I had brought him for something, besides transportation to the birth center. (I don't know if he'll believe me, but I think I could have driven myself if I had needed to. It would have really sucked, but... yeah. I could've done it, frosty windshield and all! Bahaha!)
I had basically ignored him throughout labor, especially after his cold water faux pas. I'd been too grumpy to actually get upset at him for that... Ah, wait... I suppose I did use him for something during labor. I neglected to mention that I vomited during labor, and James handed me an emesis bag all helpful-like. He might've said (okay, did say...) a few encouraging words (too exuberantly, of course). Otherwise, he was just kind of an annoying, bouncy, excited, and far too happy presence in the room.
(Gosh, James is bad at containing his excitement. In the weeks leading up to birth, whenever I'd have a particularly uncomfortable contraction, James would respond by expressing glee, presumably because he was excited about the baby coming. Despite my attempts to train him to respond with sympathy for my pain instead of glee--we had plenty of time to practice this--I don't think it really sunk in. Sure, he stopped saying things like, "Yay! You're in pain!"... But um, the more intense labor got, the more James bounced up and down with adrenaline and happy excitement. Gosh. Stop being so happy.)
David started nursing pretty quickly. He was really interested in it, but it took him a little while to find the nipple. His latch was pretty good, thankfully. (Amelia had significant trouble with nursing at first, likely because she was over two weeks early, and possibly also due to disorientation and other side effects of the epidural.) David tried to find the second breast, too, but he was so bad at locating the nipple that even with help he eventually just gave up and napped instead.
But, boy! He was persistent. He nearly crawled off my chest (more like nearly launched off, despite lack of wings) more than once, and sucked and licked all over my belly and my chest--everywhere except the nipple, that is. He spent a long time looking for the noms before deciding being born had been hard work and that a nap was in order.
Once David and I were suitably cleaned up, they left us alone for a while. As I said, David fell asleep, draped across my chest. We were both still naked, and we had a warm blanket over the top of us. I still hadn't really moved since I had given birth. I think maybe they had had me scoot over a few inches at some point so they could remove the mess out from underneath me (all the amniotic fluid and blood and exciting stuff that comes out with baby) and put new, clean things there, but otherwise I was in the exact same spot I had pushed in. It was kind of nice to just kick back and relax.
Though... at this point, I was starving. Again. I had James bring me flower juice (water with elderflower syrup in it), string cheese, and a granola bar to tide me over until... well, next snack time. I think Amelia came and visited at this point.
Oh, Amelia. She did just fine. We had brought our friend Cassie Anderson to help out. Despite being woken up at 5:25am, Amelia was in a great mood. She and Cassie apparently had a grand ol' time playing and sharing snacks.
Cassie tells me, though, that when I was making mighty screams, Amelia's eyes got all wide and concerned, and she put her hands up to her mouth, and said, "Oh no! Mommy!" "Are you worried, Amelia?" "Yeah..."
When Amelia saw David, she said, "Ooh, beebee! Cute!" I think, though, that the visit was mostly for her to make sure I was okay. And, well, I was smiling and happy at this point, so I guess that reassured her enough that she could go and play some more with Cassie.
At some point, I handed David over to James, and I walked over to the bathroom. The nurse had the tap water going, hoping that would encourage me to pee, but it didn't really help. After sitting there for ages, I finally did pee, and I exultantly proclaimed, "I peed!" ... just like Amelia does. I felt a little silly for being so proud of myself, but I suppose that's okay.
Maybe three hours after birth, we finally measured David. He weight 8 lbs, 8 oz. He was 21.5" long, 14" around the head, and 13.5" around the chest. He hated it. He made his first truly distressed cries. They were actually even kind of loud. (He is so quiet compared to Amelia. Straight out of the womb, Amelia's cries were piercing, and David's are... mild squeaks.)
Went back to bed and cuddled the newborn some more. He was still naked. And, um, he made it quite obvious that his bowels were working fabulously. He pooped meconium all over me. Twice. We eventually decided to put a diaper on the kid. He soiled that one.
The nurse did a pulse oximetry test to screen for congenital heart defects, but he didn't pass it immediately, probably because he was working hard on both a giant loogey out his top end, and several giant poops out his bottom end. After he got those cleared up, we would be allowed to leave. (The pulse oximetry results had be normal before we could go home. The pushing phase of labor had been so incredibly brief, that although most babies get some help expelling the mucus from their airways during the pushes and squeezes on the way out, David did not get that benefit. He just came out so fast.)
Before we left, he soiled yet another diaper, so much so that the nurse was shocked. It was the biggest load of meconium she had ever seen a newborn produce. And this was meconium load number four. (I am so grateful that he held all that poop in until after he was born.) "Just like daddy," I commented. No, seriously. I am convinced the man child has inherited his father's gastrointestinal system. Darn it.
James had fed me many snacks by this point, but I was still starving and both he and Amelia were starving and tired and just itching to leave. Itching. They had both been ready to go right at the four-hour mark (you are required to stay at the birth center for at least four hours after the birth), but we had to stay for five hours while David was working hard on spitting up mucus and pooping out meconium. Once he finished that and the pulse oximeter read normal results, we got ready to go.
So we all loaded up in the car and headed home. Kind of. Again, we were all so starving. Obviously, we had to stop at Five Guys for bacon cheeseburgers. Then we went home and napped all afternoon. (The one lady at Five Guys who bothered to ask how old the cute baby was ended up completely dumbfounded and shocked upon learning that he was only six hours old... and that I was walking around out of the hospital and snarfing bacon cheeseburgers already. And impressed.)
Tada!
Love and bacon cheeseburgers,
Jenna and Amelia and David
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
David's Birth Story
[Need I remind you that I tend to reveal all the juicy details? This is a birth story. It involves my nether regions... Read on at your own risk.]
For weeks and and weeks prior to the birth, I'd been having prodromal labor... meaning that I was having some really uncomfortable contractions that never escalated into real labor. They were uncomfortable enough to make me extremely grumpy, though.
Thankfully it was on and off instead of constant. So there were plenty of days in those last few weeks wherein I hardly noticed what my uterus was doing, thank goodness. And then there were the days where my uterus was a complete and utter jerk.
A week ago, I got my membranes swept at my checkup with the midwife. That means she stuck her fingers into my cervix (that's the entrance to the uterus, located at the top of the vagina) and then manually separated the bag of waters from the cervix. It feels really, really crampy. But, seriously, compared to the discomfort my uterus had been inflicting on me for a while, it wasn't that bad.
In theory, sweeping the membranes is supposed to stimulate prostaglandin release, and thus encourage the cervix to soften and dilate, and therefore encourage labor to start. At this point, I was 3-4 centimeters dilated and 50% effaced. Emily, the midwife in clinic that day, thought I'd go into labor quite soon and even told the on-call midwives to expect my call at any time.
Only... jerkface uterus was against this idea, and besides cramping like a monster all of that day, nothing happened. The uterus wasn't too mean to me for the rest of the week. I was supposed to go get my membranes swept again on my due date, but this didn't pan out because a midwife had called in sick and things were hectic.
So I went in to see the midwife in the morning yesterday, a little frustrated that I had made it several days past my due date, especially when I really wanted to have the baby in the birth center. (I would be required to give birth in the hospital after 41 weeks, which was only a few days away.) Oh, and not to mention that I was having pretty much every pregnancy symptom in the book on top of the disgusting nausea and vomiting.
The midwife (Emily again) swept my membranes for the second time. This time, I was 4-5 centimeters dilated and 100% effaced. In the words of my sister-in-law, I was walking around with the door half-open. (Ha.) Emily also mentioned that my bag of waters was "bulging" and that she was afraid that she'd accidentally break it.
I went home and, within a few hours, my uterus got grumpy again. Soon I was having contractions every five minutes apart or so. At this point, I would still label this prodromal labor, but I guess it's hard to say. I say it's prodromal because, although they were really, really uncomfortable and annoying, they were still the kid brother contractions I'd been having for weeks, not really real ones. That said, they were kid brother contractions with an attitude, and I thought they might escalate into real labor, so I summoned James home. This was mostly necessary because I was getting really grumpy with Amelia, who was magically headbutting me in the uterus every single time I had a contraction, and jumping all over me, and... well, if you're having contractions (even the kid brother kind), this is not welcome attention. I swear the kid had a spidey sense, or something.
After James had been home for an hour or so, we decided to go on a walk since the contractions, still every five minutes, had not intensified. We walked outside, and decided the sun was too assaultive, and jumped into the car instead. We headed over to Target and walked there instead. For hours.
Sure, the contractions sucked... But I'd done labor before, and I was under no impression that anything was actually happening with them. They'd been going on for four hours now, every five minutes, and I hadn't had any worthy of the name mama bear... all kid brothers. All of them.
Frustrated, I called the midwife on call (Patricia). Her advice was to go home and take a warm shower/bath, which would do either one of two things: 1) kick real labor into gear, or 2) relax my uterus into a non-labor stupor. It did the latter, which very nearly crushed all of James' hopes and dreams. Seriously, he was more depressed than I was. Patricia had me eat a good dinner, drink lots of water, and go to bed on time, warning me that she suspected real labor would probably start in the night some time.
I had some contractions later in the night before bed, but again, these were all kid brothers. I managed to sleep through them. When I did wake up multiple times in the night, it wasn't the contractions that woke me, it was the full bladder.
Until about 4:30 am, that is. Bam. Contraction! I was suddenly awake. And oh, this wasn't a kid brother. So I pulled out my phone to time the suckers (I hate timing contractions... hate, hate, hate it), and after about three of them, five minutes apart, hurting like the dickens... I determined this was real labor and called the midwife around 4:45 am.
It was Hilary at this point... and her on-call shift ended at 6am. She thought I probably had some time before I'd need to show up at the birth center, and told me just to plan on meeting Patricia (the midwife who'd be on call starting at 6am) there... at 6am. Like... over an hour later. Of course, she said, call back if you really think you need to get there sooner, but I think you'll be fine.
I agreed to this plan at first, thinking it was probably sensible enough. I got into a warm bath, hoping that this'd soothe the pain somewhat, but...
I ended up calling Hilary back at like 5:20am to tell her I needed to go to the birth center before 6am. My contractions were three minutes apart. Oh, and they sucked. All I could think of is that these contractions sucked so bad, and boy, did I not want to be confined in the passenger seat of the car while trying to deal with one. Seriously. That plan was a no-go. Car ride now, not later. (We also called our friend Cassie to come, because we needed someone to watch Amelia at the birth center while James was helping me out.)
Poor Hilary reluctantly met us at the birth center at about 5:45am once I insisted that I really couldn't wait until 6am. I think I was right. Once we got there, I started to get very nauseous. (For the people who don't know, this is a sign that I am almost fully dilated and that the pushing stage is about to happen. I.e. labor is almost over.) We had to wait a few minutes for Hilary to show up, and during that time, I was madly pacing through contractions and keeping an eye out in the landscape for a suitable place to vomit. Because I might have to.
We got inside. I stripped immediately. Well, immediately after a contraction, anyway. I found a toilet. Baby was low. As in, really low. Pushing poop out low. My rectum felt squished, probably because it was. It was like... like... there was a baby's skull pushing down on my butthole from the inside. Kind of like that. Only this was secondary to feeling like my entire pelvic bone was trying to come out. Basically, lots and lots and lots of pressure in the nether regions.
Hilary checked baby's heart rate and my cervix as soon as I let her. Baby was fine. My cervix was 9 centimeters dilated, so she warned me that I'd probably want to start pushing any time now. "Has your water broken?" "No." At this point, Patricia showed up and took over. Anne (a midwife-in-training) showed up, too...
I got in the bath, only to discover that James had failed miserably at making sure the water was warm. It was pretty chilly. Too chilly for the baby, so I wasn't going to be allowed to give birth in the tub, and the water wasn't all that effective at relieving the pain. I supposed that was okay, because my only specific plan for the birth was to do whatever I felt like, but I was pretty annoyed. Not gonna lie. Annoyed.
I elected to stay in the water for a time, though, because of the buoyancy. I started to basically bob up and down with each contraction, because that's what my body felt like doing. I suppose this was getting baby down into the birth canal. In the meantime I was still annoyed at the cold water. Oh well.
Patricia and Anne kept saying things like, "Wow. She is so calm and focused!" between the contractions. I'm not sure what I would have called it. Focused, I guess. Calm...? I might have been. I think there should be a different word for it. I don't know what it is. I felt very primal though. Maybe that's it.
I was bobbing up and down for a contraction in the tub, when... SKIDOOSH. (Not the Wuxi finger hold!) "My water just broke." It felt like there was Diet Coke up there and someone had dropped some Mentos in. Only it was exploding out my hoo-ha. (Pleasant? Uhhh... not really...) Followed immediately by a baby's head.
And that's when I stood up and somehow got out of the tub. I'm not sure who I used to get out. James, Patricia, or Anne... or all of the above, maybe. In any case, I got out of the tub, and sat promptly on the birthing stool. And at this point the pressure in the nether regions got really bad, that and the stinging. Oh, the stinging!
The stinging is the stretching of the... everything. The perineum and everything around it. We could feel David's head when I got out of the tub. It was so squished that it was super wrinkly. (The midwife later told me one dad asked if that was baby's brains when the same thing happened with his baby. Nope. Just very squished head.) Someone commented that he didn't have much hair. I said "can't" here, I think. I was trying to say that "I can't tell if that's baby's head or just me", but talking was impossible. The stinging felt like I was ripping in half, right down the middle. I have some important bits right down the middle. I was worried about them.
I got fed up with the birthing stool, and waddled kind of spread-eagled over to the bed, because I had this idea that side-lying would be comfortable for me. Only as soon as I laid on my side, I realized... No, no way. Not the side. So I turned onto my back, slightly propped up, and with my legs wide...
And then I really, really, really had to push. I'd kind of been pushing before, but now I pushed. And I vaguely remembered that screaming helps with pain management. So I let out some mighty screams. Best pain management technique ever. It really did help. It also really helped to keep in mind that David was practically almost out.
With a mighty scream, I got his head out. And also, a lot of amniotic fluid. I don't remember if he made any sounds at this point. I wouldn't have realized that he was partly out had the midwives not told me. With another mighty scream, and a lot of my body urging me to just get that sucker out, I got the rest of him out in a giant gush of fluid. James was fortunate not to get splashed.
And then I felt much better. It was 6:39am, about an hour after we'd arrived, and about two hours after labor had started.
They put him on my belly, and he started talking and complaining about his exit immediately. Seriously, really cute baby noises. He sounded like the cute baby dragon or baby dinosaur noises you hear on cartoons and movies.
And then...
Cliffhanger!
I guess this is a good enough place to stop for the night. I can fill you guys in on the rest of the experience in the birth center with the new baby tomorrow or something.
Love and Wuxi finger holds (skidoosh!),
Jenna and David
For weeks and and weeks prior to the birth, I'd been having prodromal labor... meaning that I was having some really uncomfortable contractions that never escalated into real labor. They were uncomfortable enough to make me extremely grumpy, though.
Thankfully it was on and off instead of constant. So there were plenty of days in those last few weeks wherein I hardly noticed what my uterus was doing, thank goodness. And then there were the days where my uterus was a complete and utter jerk.
A week ago, I got my membranes swept at my checkup with the midwife. That means she stuck her fingers into my cervix (that's the entrance to the uterus, located at the top of the vagina) and then manually separated the bag of waters from the cervix. It feels really, really crampy. But, seriously, compared to the discomfort my uterus had been inflicting on me for a while, it wasn't that bad.
In theory, sweeping the membranes is supposed to stimulate prostaglandin release, and thus encourage the cervix to soften and dilate, and therefore encourage labor to start. At this point, I was 3-4 centimeters dilated and 50% effaced. Emily, the midwife in clinic that day, thought I'd go into labor quite soon and even told the on-call midwives to expect my call at any time.
Only... jerkface uterus was against this idea, and besides cramping like a monster all of that day, nothing happened. The uterus wasn't too mean to me for the rest of the week. I was supposed to go get my membranes swept again on my due date, but this didn't pan out because a midwife had called in sick and things were hectic.
So I went in to see the midwife in the morning yesterday, a little frustrated that I had made it several days past my due date, especially when I really wanted to have the baby in the birth center. (I would be required to give birth in the hospital after 41 weeks, which was only a few days away.) Oh, and not to mention that I was having pretty much every pregnancy symptom in the book on top of the disgusting nausea and vomiting.
The midwife (Emily again) swept my membranes for the second time. This time, I was 4-5 centimeters dilated and 100% effaced. In the words of my sister-in-law, I was walking around with the door half-open. (Ha.) Emily also mentioned that my bag of waters was "bulging" and that she was afraid that she'd accidentally break it.
I went home and, within a few hours, my uterus got grumpy again. Soon I was having contractions every five minutes apart or so. At this point, I would still label this prodromal labor, but I guess it's hard to say. I say it's prodromal because, although they were really, really uncomfortable and annoying, they were still the kid brother contractions I'd been having for weeks, not really real ones. That said, they were kid brother contractions with an attitude, and I thought they might escalate into real labor, so I summoned James home. This was mostly necessary because I was getting really grumpy with Amelia, who was magically headbutting me in the uterus every single time I had a contraction, and jumping all over me, and... well, if you're having contractions (even the kid brother kind), this is not welcome attention. I swear the kid had a spidey sense, or something.
After James had been home for an hour or so, we decided to go on a walk since the contractions, still every five minutes, had not intensified. We walked outside, and decided the sun was too assaultive, and jumped into the car instead. We headed over to Target and walked there instead. For hours.
Sure, the contractions sucked... But I'd done labor before, and I was under no impression that anything was actually happening with them. They'd been going on for four hours now, every five minutes, and I hadn't had any worthy of the name mama bear... all kid brothers. All of them.
Frustrated, I called the midwife on call (Patricia). Her advice was to go home and take a warm shower/bath, which would do either one of two things: 1) kick real labor into gear, or 2) relax my uterus into a non-labor stupor. It did the latter, which very nearly crushed all of James' hopes and dreams. Seriously, he was more depressed than I was. Patricia had me eat a good dinner, drink lots of water, and go to bed on time, warning me that she suspected real labor would probably start in the night some time.
I had some contractions later in the night before bed, but again, these were all kid brothers. I managed to sleep through them. When I did wake up multiple times in the night, it wasn't the contractions that woke me, it was the full bladder.
Until about 4:30 am, that is. Bam. Contraction! I was suddenly awake. And oh, this wasn't a kid brother. So I pulled out my phone to time the suckers (I hate timing contractions... hate, hate, hate it), and after about three of them, five minutes apart, hurting like the dickens... I determined this was real labor and called the midwife around 4:45 am.
It was Hilary at this point... and her on-call shift ended at 6am. She thought I probably had some time before I'd need to show up at the birth center, and told me just to plan on meeting Patricia (the midwife who'd be on call starting at 6am) there... at 6am. Like... over an hour later. Of course, she said, call back if you really think you need to get there sooner, but I think you'll be fine.
I agreed to this plan at first, thinking it was probably sensible enough. I got into a warm bath, hoping that this'd soothe the pain somewhat, but...
I ended up calling Hilary back at like 5:20am to tell her I needed to go to the birth center before 6am. My contractions were three minutes apart. Oh, and they sucked. All I could think of is that these contractions sucked so bad, and boy, did I not want to be confined in the passenger seat of the car while trying to deal with one. Seriously. That plan was a no-go. Car ride now, not later. (We also called our friend Cassie to come, because we needed someone to watch Amelia at the birth center while James was helping me out.)
Poor Hilary reluctantly met us at the birth center at about 5:45am once I insisted that I really couldn't wait until 6am. I think I was right. Once we got there, I started to get very nauseous. (For the people who don't know, this is a sign that I am almost fully dilated and that the pushing stage is about to happen. I.e. labor is almost over.) We had to wait a few minutes for Hilary to show up, and during that time, I was madly pacing through contractions and keeping an eye out in the landscape for a suitable place to vomit. Because I might have to.
We got inside. I stripped immediately. Well, immediately after a contraction, anyway. I found a toilet. Baby was low. As in, really low. Pushing poop out low. My rectum felt squished, probably because it was. It was like... like... there was a baby's skull pushing down on my butthole from the inside. Kind of like that. Only this was secondary to feeling like my entire pelvic bone was trying to come out. Basically, lots and lots and lots of pressure in the nether regions.
Hilary checked baby's heart rate and my cervix as soon as I let her. Baby was fine. My cervix was 9 centimeters dilated, so she warned me that I'd probably want to start pushing any time now. "Has your water broken?" "No." At this point, Patricia showed up and took over. Anne (a midwife-in-training) showed up, too...
I got in the bath, only to discover that James had failed miserably at making sure the water was warm. It was pretty chilly. Too chilly for the baby, so I wasn't going to be allowed to give birth in the tub, and the water wasn't all that effective at relieving the pain. I supposed that was okay, because my only specific plan for the birth was to do whatever I felt like, but I was pretty annoyed. Not gonna lie. Annoyed.
I elected to stay in the water for a time, though, because of the buoyancy. I started to basically bob up and down with each contraction, because that's what my body felt like doing. I suppose this was getting baby down into the birth canal. In the meantime I was still annoyed at the cold water. Oh well.
Patricia and Anne kept saying things like, "Wow. She is so calm and focused!" between the contractions. I'm not sure what I would have called it. Focused, I guess. Calm...? I might have been. I think there should be a different word for it. I don't know what it is. I felt very primal though. Maybe that's it.
I was bobbing up and down for a contraction in the tub, when... SKIDOOSH. (Not the Wuxi finger hold!) "My water just broke." It felt like there was Diet Coke up there and someone had dropped some Mentos in. Only it was exploding out my hoo-ha. (Pleasant? Uhhh... not really...) Followed immediately by a baby's head.
And that's when I stood up and somehow got out of the tub. I'm not sure who I used to get out. James, Patricia, or Anne... or all of the above, maybe. In any case, I got out of the tub, and sat promptly on the birthing stool. And at this point the pressure in the nether regions got really bad, that and the stinging. Oh, the stinging!
The stinging is the stretching of the... everything. The perineum and everything around it. We could feel David's head when I got out of the tub. It was so squished that it was super wrinkly. (The midwife later told me one dad asked if that was baby's brains when the same thing happened with his baby. Nope. Just very squished head.) Someone commented that he didn't have much hair. I said "can't" here, I think. I was trying to say that "I can't tell if that's baby's head or just me", but talking was impossible. The stinging felt like I was ripping in half, right down the middle. I have some important bits right down the middle. I was worried about them.
I got fed up with the birthing stool, and waddled kind of spread-eagled over to the bed, because I had this idea that side-lying would be comfortable for me. Only as soon as I laid on my side, I realized... No, no way. Not the side. So I turned onto my back, slightly propped up, and with my legs wide...
And then I really, really, really had to push. I'd kind of been pushing before, but now I pushed. And I vaguely remembered that screaming helps with pain management. So I let out some mighty screams. Best pain management technique ever. It really did help. It also really helped to keep in mind that David was practically almost out.
With a mighty scream, I got his head out. And also, a lot of amniotic fluid. I don't remember if he made any sounds at this point. I wouldn't have realized that he was partly out had the midwives not told me. With another mighty scream, and a lot of my body urging me to just get that sucker out, I got the rest of him out in a giant gush of fluid. James was fortunate not to get splashed.
And then I felt much better. It was 6:39am, about an hour after we'd arrived, and about two hours after labor had started.
They put him on my belly, and he started talking and complaining about his exit immediately. Seriously, really cute baby noises. He sounded like the cute baby dragon or baby dinosaur noises you hear on cartoons and movies.
And then...
Cliffhanger!
I guess this is a good enough place to stop for the night. I can fill you guys in on the rest of the experience in the birth center with the new baby tomorrow or something.
Love and Wuxi finger holds (skidoosh!),
Jenna and David
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