The First Six Weeks

Six weeks ago today, I was in labor. It was snowing, and I refused to believe I would actually have to be out in that nastiness on my way to deliver. And yet... here we are.


Things I have learned over the past six weeks include...


During Delivery

• People will come in and out of your room without announcing their presence
• People will be all up in your va-jay-jay without introducing themselves
• People will continue to ask you questions even though you do not have the presence of mind to attend to them AND to the labor contractions... and you're more likely to attend to the latter

After Birth

• Despite being SO incredibly tired, you might just not be able to sleep for the excitement of meeting this little person you've been waiting to cuddle
• You might not get many visitors... and that's okay
• ...and if it's not okay, if you had your baby at the hospital, there are plenty of staff to be in and out of your room all day and night

Coming Home

• By the third child, it feels like that baby was always there; you just have to reconsider sleeping arrangements
• Your newbie's siblings may fall instantly in love... or they might willfully ignore the fact that the n00b is here
• Your eldest might tell the (now) middle child that she loves the baby more than him
• The (now) middle child might tell you that he wishes the baby would die
• You might cry because of these things

The First Two Weeks

• ...well, they absolutely still suck. Even though baby #3 feels totally like he's always been there, the adjustment to poor sleep and frequent feedings takes a lot out of you
• ...and a lot out of your partner, who is picking up the slack around the house for everything else you can't do now that nearly 100% of your time involves having an infant hanging off your breast or being up to your elbows in mustardy-poop
• You are likely to have less patience with each other, and with your other kids
• You might decide it's best to have daddy sleep elsewhere in the house so he can get a good night's sleep and not be the devil-parent (someone has to be nice, at least)
• You might really miss each other
• Your breasts hurt like a sonofabitch - you realize you forgot that the "natural" breastfeeding isn't exactly, like, naturally easy to do
• You might have experienced engorgement, a lump, and the desperation of trying to keep baby awake long enough during a feeding to squeeze out that painful milk backlog
• Your partner may offer an ice cube to wake up baby, and it becomes a running joke ("Want an ice cube?")

The Second Two Weeks (weeks 3 and 4)

• Ah, adjustment! You are finding your groove
• You discover this growing person also has a little personality
• You understand his language, know his sleepy cry from his hungry cry, and his likes and dislikes
• He likes, for example, to be near you - and has started to coo when you talk to him
• He can see a teeny bit farther and knows which blurry blobs are his parents and siblings
• You may feel adventurous enough to go on outings
• Your breasts are starting to feel semi-normal again... except that they are at least twice the size they used to be and you can't wear many of your "regular" shirts
• Your maternity pants are too big, and your regular pants are too small.... ah, sweatpants will do (preferably with drawstring)

The Third Two Weeks (weeks 5 and 6)

• My word, he smiled at you! The real kind, not the gassy kind
• And thank goodness he smiles and is so cute, or otherwise you'd probably hate him because he's decided to eat and sleep on some crazy new schedule you haven't figured out yet
• And you realize that his love of cuddling with you extends now to only sleeping when you are holding him, and that he wakes when you put him down
• You'd really like to go pee without bringing the baby along
• Or eat lunch without worrying about dropping food on him while he dozes in your lap
• Oh, and you have to go back to work next Monday, which reminds you that you need to pump
• And your partner isn't back in your bed yet because nobody trusts that this baby is going to sleep in his own space without disturbing the whole house
• But at least the (now) middle child has warmed up enough that he kisses baby goodnight
• And you might have figured out that he needs to sleep on your dirty clothes in the crib to have your smell on him
• And despite all of this, you're still sad that the convalescent-getting-to-know-you time is almost over already

So we're on the eve of his 6 weeks birthday. And I am both extremely happy and terribly sad, as patient as a saint and as frustrated as humanly tolerable, alert and exhausted. This is motherhood.

"Get Out" - T's Birth Story

This is the story of our little monster-baby, T, and his arrival to "the outside."


Wednesday, 4 March
I rescheduled my 40-week appointment to today (one day earlier than originally planned) because of the threat of snow. Like, a lot. They were saying 6-12 inches. I pretty much knew school would be canceled, and if they closed the clinic, my appointment would be canceled. So, I wanted to be seen. I had a membrane sweep done. This was against Hubby's better judgment. Maybe I should have listened, but then again... maybe it was for the best that I just went for it. I was 3cm (and could stretch to 4 cm) dilated, but not effaced. Went on about my business.


Thursday, 5 March
This was quite a day, so I'll break it down into a timeline.

• 2:30am - Was awakened by a painful contraction. But, it was alone, so I went back to sleep.
• 10:00am - Started having more contractions. Or, at least, I noticed I was having more. Downloaded an app on my phone to track them. They were ranging from 30-60 seconds in length, and were all over the place in terms of interval. Seven minutes, then 15 minutes, then 5 minutes, then 20 minutes apart. Also, they weren't painful or seeming to grow more consistent.
• Mid-day - Convinced by a friend's Facebook post that I, too, was having "prodromal labor," I continued timing these inconsistent contractions, not realizing they were doing something. Hubby was convinced we needed to at least alert people that "stuff" was happening.
• 4:15pm - Snow was everywhere. We had gotten about 7 inches by this time. We let the neighbors know we might have to go to the hospital, but I was still not 100% sure. However, I had another painful contraction at this point.
• 7:00pm - Hubs realizes we only have a quarter tank of gas and decides to see if he can creep to the nearest gas station on the un-plowed roads. Turns out, only our neighborhood was not plowed. The adjacent streets are snow emergency routes and are (relatively) clear. They'd been plowed before the snow had stopped, so there was still a bit of a mess to deal with. He gassed up the car and came back home.
• 7:45pm - Kids' bedtime routine, and I was still able to give baths and read a bedtime story, but was decidedly more aware of the contractions. They were getting into a more regular interval (between 5-7 minutes apart) and growing a little more painful.
• 8:45pm - Watching TV with the Hubs, and I got one of those contractions that made me get off the couch and hug the ottoman. Hubs was not exactly pleased, and he asked more directly if we needed to go to the hospital now. I was like, "Uh... I don't know. No?"
• 9:30pm - Hubs and I head to bed. He jokes, "Maybe I should sleep in my clothes." Then, he asked me, "So, exactly how close should they be before we go to the hospital?" I momentarily suffer from amnesia and tell him (between contractions) to Google it. By this point, they are lasting from about 45-60 seconds and are about 2-3 minutes apart.
• 10:00pm - Hubs calls Labor and Delivery to let them know what's up and to find out if they are on deferral (and if we need to go to a different hospital). When they ask about my contractions, the on-call nurse says, "Uh, you should have left already." Got the stink-eye from Hubs. He texts our neighbor to ask her to come spend the night with the kids. She doesn't respond, so he heads over to their house and gets his feet wet in the snow because it came over his shoes.
• 10:05pm - Neighbor arrives, Hubs changes shoes, and we go.
• 10:30pm - Arrive to hospital. I am wheeled (in a wheelchair) to L&D because walking has begun to make me angry. Plus, I wasn't sure I would make it down the long hallways to get to L&D without having to stop every few feet to contract.
• 11:00pm - I am checked, baby's HR is good, my contractions are monitored, and I am dilated somewhere between 4-5 cm and effacing (but not totally there yet). I'm asked whether I want to be admitted at first, and then encouraged to be admitted but to walk around. But I won't be allowed to leave the room for some kind of liability reasons, so it's just walk around the room. I groan, probably from a contraction, but also probably from bureaucracy.
• Sometime before midnight - I am given a room and connected to monitors again. I hate continuous monitoring. Hate it.

Friday, 6 March
Most of these times are estimates. I only know for sure the last time listed. I was a little too busy to attend to the clock much on the rest.

• A little after midnight - I alert Hubs to the monitor screen and show him "TOCO." When TOCO goes up, I go berserk. TOCO is monitoring the contractions. When it is around 20, I'm okay. When it goes up above 50, I am unhappy. TOCO was pinging 100+ by now.
• 12:45am - The anesthesiologist shows up to get my consent for epidural and general anesthesia if needed. I humor him a little, but I let him know I had no intention of having any meds. He's persistent, however, so I hold up my "wait" finger during a particularly owwie contraction. I want to hold up a different finger. Hubs knows it. He is smiling behind eager anesthesiologist's back. Finally, I am able to scrawl some semblance of a signature on the "just in case" form.
• 1:15am - TOCO is going over 200 now. And it gets back to maybe 50 before going up again. I'm not getting a break anymore. The nurses are in awe (apparently, and according to Hubs) because I'm coping like a champ. A crowd gathers. They expect it will be any time now. But... it's not happening fast enough, and I can see people starting to leave after a few minutes. I get discouraged but can't really share my feelings.
• 1:45am - They get me on my back (which I hate) to check me. The OB on duty asks, "If I can get to it, do you want me to break your water?" I think I say yes. In my head, I say yes. Bad news, though... meconium in the water. My risk level just went up.
• 1:50am - I am allowed to be on my hands and knees. Grateful for the position change, I now feel like it's push time. And I start to push. And, oops! Poop. I apologize, but everyone says not to worry and keep doing my thing.
• 2:00am - Baby's HR is dropping to the 120s during contractions now. People are unhappy with that. They want me to roll back over on my back and start grabbing my legs. So, I do. And, oops! Poop again. I am screaming "Get OUUUT" at this point. I'm not sure why he hasn't been born yet. It should be easy with the third, right?
• 2:05am - Feels like I've been pushing forever. But it's only been a few times. They've put me on oxygen by now (might have happened a little bit before now). The OB says she needs to get out the vacuum. Baby needs out.
• 2:10am - The vacuum going in has a certain "wrong direction-ness" to it that I can't explain. Everything in me is like, "Nope. This is ebb tide, y'all. No swimming to shore." I think I protest about this somehow, but I might be sounding like a blithering idiot at this point. I'm not exactly lucid. I haven't opened my eyes in the last ten minutes at least. It's too much stimulation.
• 2:15am - I'm pushing, and pushing, and pushing. They fuss because I keep grunting during my pushes, when I should be holding my breath and using all the musculature in my body to get the baby out. I finally manage to get three or four in a row without grunting.
• 2:17am - He's out. Along with lots of shit-water. Hubs is grossed out. He says the boy is a "literal shithead" because his own fecal matter is all up in his hair. And he's pretty much brown all over.... until they clean him off.

It felt like forever, that they had him, working on him and helping him breathe. He cried when he emerged, but it was a sputter. They were concerned he may have aspirated the meconium, which can lead to a serious lung infection. They did suction, then deep suction. "Neonatal resuscitation" is on his chart. His APGAR scores were 6/8 because of low HR, poor color, poor motor response, and something else I can't quite recall.


When I finally got him (which was only like 20-30 minutes later, but it felt like FOREVER), he immediately latched like a champ and nursed. I still had no stats on this boy other than the time of his birth. I kept asking and no one was listening. After I'd been stitched up (because a vacuum-assisted birth does a real number on the nether regions), I was assisted to the bathroom. The nurse who took baby T from me said she'd weigh him. She and a resident commented that he felt like an eight-pound-eight-ounce baby. While I was in the bathroom, Hubs hollered in, "So... remember how they said 8 lbs, 8 oz??" I was like, yeah. "Well, how 'bout more like, 9 lbs, 9 oz." My jaw dropped. T is officially 1.5 lbs bigger than his brother, who was 1.5 lbs bigger than our girl. If we kept going, we'd have an 11-pounder next time! Regarding length, still not accurate information. We are going with 20 inches because the resident who attempted to measure him said, "He's wiggly, but we'll call this 20 inches." He was 20.5" at his appointment 3 days later, so we're really not sure. Maybe this is a difference between first-child and subsequent-children? I might care more about really knowing this information, but I also might not. He's perfect. So who cares?


He had to be "stuck" a bunch of times because they were concerned about diabetes. His blood sugar was 46, 47, 55, and 49 on each of his four fasting glucose tests (his poor little heels!!) - and it had to be above 45 for him to get the green light. So, he passed. Pediatricians checked out his lungs several times. He passed his newborn audiology test. He threw up a bloody mess, and I got freaked out, but it turns out this is normal for babies to ingest some of the blood of delivery. Gross, right?


Anyway, this baby boy is amazing. He sleeps well during the day, and sometimes also at night. He loves to cuddle. He is quiet and doesn't really make much fuss. He hates a wet diaper but doesn't seem to care about a poopy one. He would rather sleep with me than in his bassinet, but I don't sleep when he's in bed with me. I've probably been feeding him 3-4 times a night, with cluster feeding at the front-end (for like 2 straight hours, from 10-midnight). Hubs has been sleeping on the couch so he can be a better dad to the other two, who are handling new siblinghood in their own special ways. Took J about 3 days to decide he would hold his brother. Took E about 5 seconds upon walking into my hospital room to ask if she could hold him. They are not the same kid after all.


He looks like a mash-up of both of them. Lips like sister, eyes like brother. Stork bite like sister, quiet calmness like brother. He is exactly the baby we need during this very stressful time in our lives!!

T, at 9 days of age

Co-sleeping and the can of worms

The can of worms...

Everyone has an opinion about whether or not sharing a room with a newborn is wise, safe, and healthy. But I must clarify... Co-sleeping means simply sharing a room, while bed-sharing (also known as family beds) is a sub-component of rooming in. Most people think of sharing a bed when they hear co-sleeping being discussed.

Here's my opinion and why I have it.  Co-sleeping (as in, rooming in) is a fantastic idea for newborns.  Nursing on demand coupled with new babies and trying to get acquainted with one another, learn what their cries mean, and all that goes with newbornism make it more practical for rooming in for those early days.  However, bed-sharing is an absolute no-no.  I say this with the caveat that I admit to falling asleep while nursing my son in bed.  However, he has never spent an entire night in our bed and neither has our daughter.  Mostly it is not for the fear of suffocation or any reason that is most frequently listed by most anti-bed-sharing folks.

Simply stated, I do not want to create a monster that will take over my sleeping space.  I paid a lot of money for my fantastic Sleep Number bed, and I don't want to share it with my little ones.  Selfish?  Not really.  I have given them each their own sleeping spaces, and I want them to use it.  I mean, siblings just don't get made when the other kids are sharing your bed every night.  At least, not in my world.

Children are very keen on adapting to change.  Good or bad.  They can and will adapt to being in a different room from the parents.  Just as, if given the chance to sleep in your bed every night (or even just when they are sick), they will adapt to that so that breaking the habit becomes more and more difficult.  Bottom line, a five-year-old simply does not need to be in bed with his/her parents.  I want my children to be individuated, independent, self-confident, etc.  Although I will not say that these traits cannot be imparted among children who sleep in a "family bed," I will say it's much easier to identify these traits among kids who have their own space.

Now, if you choose to comment on this blog, be nice.  This is just my opinion and why I choose this option among all child-rearing options out there.  Nobody is making you do it too.

Feels like the first time.... almost.

I have noted several similarities between our girl and our boy.  And, despite the obvious biological difference, many other differences as well.

Our son J is already 4 weeks old.  Actually, he is 4 1/2 weeks old now.  At 4 weeks, he can lift his head up (which he did at two days old in the hospital).  His sister did the same.  Thus, I was not surprised by this (this time).  He has also smiled, cooed, and gave me a full-on belly laugh which I really wish I'd caught on tape (if not for the fact that he was nursing at the time).

A major difference between our son and daughter is how exceptionally needy the boy is.  He wants to be held much more than his sister.  He cannot be put down for long before he is yowling to be picked up again.  The baby swing, though not used nearly as much for E, has been a savior for J.  Well, a savior for us so we can put J down while we do laundry or something.  He was in the swing long enough for me to clean the poop out of my daughter's underwear (she had an accident at school today), but shortly after he was wailing.  As of now, he is peacefully curled up against my chest as I type with the keyboard sitting atop the Boppy pillow behind him.

In similar parenting efforts, J moved to his own room last night (at about 4 1/2 weeks), just as his sister did 3 years ago when she was his age.  I am thankful that the effort to do so went off well and we all got more sleep than the previous weeks.  This would be a huge can of worms because everyone has his/her own opinion on it (and there is mounds of research to go either way) but I do not consider co-sleeping (as in, sleeping in the same room - NOT the same as bed-sharing) beyond one month worthwhile.  I do not consider bed-sharing to be a good idea in the slightest (although I admit to subconsciously caving in to this as I have fallen asleep while nursing several times).  I will address these concerns in a separate blog, but the main point here is that when co-sleeping I hear every little squeak and peep he makes.  This makes my night very long and arduous and sleep is fleeting.

Delightfully, our son seems to be as charming and as curious about the world as his sister was.  He also seems to be a lover of his own image in a mirror and already seems to know when a camera (or camera phone) is nearby.  He will be a flirt, and I'm excited to see his personality develop.  Even if he's a little needy right now.