Learning by Accident

As I mentioned in the last post, we are definitely seeing Abby's personality develop.  It's so fun to see her figure new things out.  We don't always know if achieving these "developmental milestones" are an accident or not, but I figure they probably all start out as accidental, then a baby realizes, "Hey, that's something I can do!" Abby's been working on a few.

Smiling

You've seen the pictures.  Abby's been smiling like a champ for weeks, and her smiles just get better and better.  She's such a charmer.

And, in case you missed the video on Facebook:

Tummy Time

We got this spiffy little tummy time mat at the WeeCycle Consignment Sale  the other weekend, and Abby actually seems to enjoy tummy time on it.  There's a mirror, too, and she loves looking at the baby in the floor.  So, I don't know if it's her age or the mat, but at least she's getting to enjoy some tummy time.

Reaching for Things

This may have been an accident, but last week, while sitting in her rocker, she reached up and touched the toys dangling from it.  Ok, it may be more that she was flailing about and happened to touch them.  She did it more than once, though.

To be honest, she hasn''t been successful with this since, but she continues to reach!

Talking

Abby has become a little Chatty Cathy!  We have full on babbling conversations.  The thing is, she gets shy as soon as I start videoing her.  I did catch her cooing a bit while playing on her new play mat.  She loves talking to the baby in the mirror!

Thumb Sucking

This also has only happened once, so it might have been an accident.   I have mixed feelings about the thumb sucking - I sucked my thumb for a LONG time - until I was six - and had to have a head gear, braces, the whole shebang.  But at her age, it IS developmentally appropriate - not to mention, freaking cute.  :-)

S.F.P.

In college, I was notorious among my friends for having what we affectionately referred to as a "severe facial problem."  Meaning, if there was a situation that required a poker face, it was guaranteed that I would have just the opposite.  For example:  The boy my roommate has a secret crush on happens to sit with us at lunch and unwittingly makes a double entendre - which is only a double entendre if you know that roomie has a crush on said boy.  I was unable to take this in stride.  My face would contort as I struggled to keep it from showing surprise, then amusement, then turning red as I tried to not laugh.  This resulted in me drinking copious amounts of tea in college, as that was  my escape.  Awkard moment = me getting up and saying, "I'm gonna get some tea."  And then try to hide my face behind my teacup, should further hijinks ensue.

The "severe facial problem" became such an inside joke among my friends that when I made my own webpage (as was fashionable in the late 90s, before MySpace and Facebook and all that), I had one dedicated to "Severe Facial Problems," featuring photos of friends with unusual (and usually funny) facial expressions.

More and more, when I look at myself and Abby in the mirror, I have to admit that, at least for now, she looks more like her daddy.  I tell her, "That's ok, you're daddy's pretty good-looking."  However,  some photos make me wonder if she might share her mother's propensity for "severe facial problems:"

"Mom, I'm only 2 months old.  I'm not ticklish, yet."

"Well...."

"World domination?  No, of course, that's not what I was thinking about."

Also, that sleeper no longer fits her. : (

"Mom, like I even know it's Dad's birthday."

I love that we're starting to see her personality come through more and more.  :)

Smiley Girl

For the past several weeks, we've been transitioning Abby from pumped breast milk to breast feeding.  Now, we're at every other feeding on the breast, so I still need to pump about 5 times a day.  As Abby has gotten to be more alert, it can be challenging to squeeze in a pump while she is either asleep or in a good mood.  Little girl wants to be held almost any time she's awake - she doesn't tolerate sitting alone for too long!  And pumping is one of those things I can't really do while wearing her.  For the past few days, it's been working well to have her lay on my lap while I pump.  She  was actually pretty happy last Friday:

I love when she is like this!

The Lady with the Baby

When I wrote what I thought about being pregnant, I mentioned that everyone is nice to you.  I've discovered, though, that as the mother of a newborn (or nearly newborn), people are still really nice to you.  Or, I should say, they are nice to your baby.  People see our charming little baby and say things like, "Oh look, how sweet/precious/adorable/awesome (we did actually have someone tell us she was awesome)," and I have to remember to be polite and say, "Thank you," and not, "I know," which is what I'm thinking.

Women dragging toddlers and preschool children look at me pushing little Abby Bear, and they aren't thinking, "Gosh, I sure am glad my child can walk and feed himself and use the potty and sleep for six hours in a row."  No, they are thinking, "Gosh, I miss when he was that small."  I can see the wistfulness in their eyes.  And I think, "Do you really?  Do you really miss planning your day around feedings that are two hours apart?  Getting no more than 2.5 hours of sleep in a row?  Not being able to figure out why your precious little one is screaming her head off and not knowing what to do about it?"  However, I'm sure there are a thousand challenges that toddlers and preschool children present that I have no idea about, that when I have children that age, I might shrug and say, "Maybe I do miss it."

Therein lies what I am realizing is a paradox of parenthood.  For every hour of sleep I long for is someone saying "It gets easier."  And, although I still wonder WHEN, I can still see that it already has.  Kevin and I say things like, "We can't wait until Abby ________."  Sleeps more than three hours, laughs, is more interactive, can tell us what's wrong.  We can't wait to take her to the playground, have tickle fights, go swimming, try "grown up foods," etc.  But I am keenly aware that for every "can't wait until" that comes to pass, we lose something.

A couple of times a week, Abby and I go to a breastfeeding support group that we affectionately refer to as "Baby Breakfast."  This week, at one of them, I realized that Abby is no longer the tiny baby there.  We first went when she was only five days old, and I looked at several month-old babies like they were giants.  But now, I see babies who are even three weeks old, and born weighing more than Abby, and think they look so tiny.  And while Abby is certainly still small enough for snuggles, and will be for awhile, she's already gotten so much bigger.  The tiny baby phase is fleeting, and I try so hard to be conscious of that.  I don't want to spend so much energy "waiting until" that I don't appreciate how precious she is now, and at every stage, and how she will only pass through each for a short time.

"The days are long, but the years are short."  I try to remind myself of that during every long day.

"Would you do it again?"

In "Do You Like Being Pregnant?"  I speculated that I would be willing to do the pregnancy thing another one, maybe two times, but that I couldn't speak for the actual birthing part, yet.  Before the memory of Abby's birth got washed in the haze of precious newborn nostalgia, I wanted to take an honest look at the experience and ask myself, "Would I do this again?"  I made sure to ask myself this before I even left the hospital, because I know women notoriously somehow "forget" the pain of childbirth, which I can't really imagine.  Six weeks out, and, no, I haven't forgotten.  If you think of that pain scale that medical professionals always ask you to use to rate your pain, I've tried to imagine what a "10" would be.  Getting shot?  Getting dunked in acid?  Maybe having acid poured into your gunshot wound?

I will tell you, happily, labor is not as painful as acid in a gunshot wound, or even just getting shot.  Or, I should say, since I've never been shot, I don't think it is.  But the "crowning" (when baby's head actually makes the exit into the world) was definitely the worst pain I've ever experienced, so I would give it around an eight, I think.  I was one of those women in the movies, whose screaming terrified the poor women in the rest of the maternity wing, just starting their labor.  I probably inspired more women to go for the epidural than not.

I wanted to write this down, because I don't ever want to fool myself into thinking it didn't hurt, or that it was easy.

Despite the fact that labor and delivery were hard, I would do it again.  Even without medication.  I know I could look at it like, "Ok, you did it.  You proved you could do it; you've experienced it - so why not make it a little easier on yourself next time?"  Instead, though, knowing that I can do it makes me want to do it again.  Besides, they say the second birth is usually easier, and I at least have a vague idea of what to expect this time. (Yes, I know, every birth is different).  And, when it was over, it was over.

That's not to say I wouldn't do some things differently.  Next time, I'll know that those cramps aren't gas, and even if they might be Braxton Hicks contractions, when they start, I am going to crawl into bed and sleep until I can't sleep anymore.  Nothing to lose if I'm wrong and it's not active labor, but at least I'll be rested.  Same with eating.  I will have a huge, nutritious meal before I'm too sick and in pain to enjoy it.  I think being exhausted and weak with hunger made my labor much longer and harder than it needed to be, so I would do what I could to avoid that.

I might also pack my hospital bag a little sooner, and make sure the hospital had all of our paperwork before we got there.

Do women actually "forget" the pain of childbirth?  I also know that not all women experience it as painful, not even those who forgo medication.  Am I close enough that I still remember, but the memory will fade with time?  Will I look back on this post and Abby's Birth Story and think, "Oh, it wasn't really that bad?"  From where I sit now, the notion of "forgetting" what childbirth is like sells women short.  I'd like to think more that we look past it, or decide it's worth it, or, that, compared to future trials, it's not really that bad. Moms who are more experienced than me, what do you think?

I already think of the pregnancy that way.  Shortly after we brought Abby home, I waxed nostalgic for the days when Abby was still in my belly, even though that meant I could barely roll over in bed at night or put on my shoes.  But more about that nostalgia, later.

Yay, you read the whole post!  Here's a picture of our family the day we got home from the hospital.

Abby's Birth Story, Part II

I should have included this in the last post - the last picture of me pregnant - there was a terrific kid under that shirt!

I made this for Kevin for Valentine's Day one year.  He's never worn it.

...and here's the rest of the story of how that terrific kid came out.

(By the way, we took that picture as we were packing for the hospital, know it was probably the last time we could!)

I don't know if he would admit it, but I think Kevin had been envisioning the drive to the hospital to be one plucked out of a prime time TV drama - me, panting, moaning and pushing, while he deftly navigates the hills and turns of our "shortcut" to the hospital, running stop signs and dodging pedestrians.  I'm sure he was disappointed.

He had the car warmed up by the time I waddled out, but I wasn't ready to go just yet.  Nope.  I had to vomit three times in the front yard, first.  When the nausea hit, Kevin asked if I wanted to go back in side.  Like I ever would've made it!  In case you lost count, I threw up three times in the last entry, so by this time, all of the noodles and broth I had eaten were pretty much gone.  I finally felt well enough to get in the car, but we brought some bags, just to be safe.  Kevin sped up the driveway, and I had to beg him to slow down.  The turns and bumps were torturous to me - between the nausea and feeling like I could barely sit.  I did, however, muster the strength and wherewithal to post on my Facebook page, "I think this bun is done!"  :)

To Kevin's disappointment, I'm sure, we took the non-bumpy, non-shortcut through the hospital.  With the general pain peaking in contractions every few minutes, it was a slow walk from the parking garage, although I think Kevin wanted to hustle.  I just couldn't.  It was a beautiful morning, though.  A little misty with the sun just breaking through, and crisp and cool.

The worst part of our hospital experience was checking in.  I was weak, lightheaded, and in pain, and the check-in process was incredibly slow.  The receptionist needed a ton of information, and was not in any type of hurry about processing it.  All I could do was prop myself up against a chair and think, "Can't you see that I'm not well?"  Finally, our doula came and could comfort me and help me relax while Kevin finished checking us in.

The next thing I knew, we were in our room.  We were hoping for the room with the birthing tub, but it appeared unavailable.  At that time, I didn't even care.  Then, again, once we got in the room, the nurses needed to ask a battery of questions and get a dozen vital signs.  It seemed like an hour (I don't think nearly that long in real life) had gone by before a midwife showed up and said, "Should we see how far a long you are?"

YES, PLEASE.

Seven centimeters.  "You didn't want an epidural, did you?" the midwife asked.  Luckily, no.

Now, here is the thing about the rest of my labor.  It's a little hazy to me.  Not because it's been bathed in the glow of newborn bliss, but because I was truly out of it for most of the labor.  I was exhausted and weak with hunger.  I think the only way I got through the labor was to sort of check out.  Our doula later said that she was amazed at how calm and well-composed I remained. I appreciate the compliment, but I was really barely there.  Time got a little loosey-goosey, too.

I didn't move around much while I was dilating.  I think people kept asking me if I wanted to get up, walk around, but I didn't much.  Kevin remembers that I walked around with him a bit, but for the most part I stayed in bed.  It's funny, when we took our birthing class, the instructor told us to make sure we changed positions every 45 minutes or so, and I remember thinking, "That's crazy!  Who can stay in one position for 45 minutes, anyway?"  Exhausted me in labor, that's who.  They had to prompt me to roll from one side to the other in bed.

I remember being coached to breathe, and breathing.  I remember focusing on a single point on the ceiling.  It was painful. The whole time, never mind the contractions.  It's like the norm was bad period cramps, and the contractions were that times ten.  I whimpered about it hurting so much.  I squeezed Kevin's hand; he put a cold washcloth on my forehead.  I thought about how I completely understood why a woman would choose to get an epidural.

And we weren't even pushing, yet.

That's when things were supposed to get better, right?  The pushing?  I mean, not easier, but I was supposed to feel productive, and the end was supposed to be in sight.

I reached 10 centimeters around 11 AM.  Someone I get up to push; how about trying the toilet?  I felt like sitting was impossible, but the toilet actually felt...I wouldn't say comfortable, but not like I was sitting on a baby's head.  I sat there, feeling pathetic, and said to the doula, "It shouldn't be long now, right?  How long do people usually push?"

"It could be as short as a half hour," she said.

"Ok," I thought, "I can do that."

We tried pushing on the toilet.  The doula coached me to push with calming breaths.  Then, we tried pushing squatting next to the bed, squatting on the bed, on all fours, lunging on the floor.  It was not entirely productive.  People kept asking me what position I wanted to be in, what I wanted to do.  THE ONE THAT GETS THE BABY OUT.  I really had no idea.  I was barely present, much less in touch with what my body wanted me to do, which is probably why I pushed for ABOUT THREE HOURS unsuccessfully.

As much as I was a proponent of not laboring on my back (it's unnatural; you don't have the help of gravity, The Man keeping us down, yadda yadda), in the end, it was all I could do.  The doula finally had me switch tactics - rather than breathing through pushing, I was to hold my breath and give it all I had, three times through each contraction.  She and Kevin held my feet, while I pulled myself up and pushed.

The thing was, after those three hours, my contractions were still 3-4 minutes apart.  I was vaguely aware of the nurse and midwife glancing at each other.  A little before 2PM, the midwife said, "We're going to hook you up to some Pitocin."

My eyes filled with tears.  I had wanted so much to do this on my own, but even as my eyes filled, I knew I couldn't.  I wanted to be consulted, though, not told, so I asked if we could wait until two o'clock to see if things changed on there own.  They didn't, but in the meantime, they explained how small the dose would be, and how it would just make the contractions a little more powerful.  At the end, I was thankful.  I was too weak, too exhausted to keep doing what I was doing.  I think if I hadn't had the Pitocin, my labor would've ended in a C-section.

I got the Pitocin around 2PM.  The contractions increased in strength and frequency, and I thought that the baby must be just about out at least 2 dozen times.  Oh my goodness, there was so much pressure, so much...stretching feeling, and so much pain, how could the baby not be out, yet?  I kept saying that.  I thought for sure I felt a head coming out, but no. At one point, I thought I felt a burning sensation, so I was like, "YAY, CROWNING!" but I apparently had totally underestimated what that particular burning sensation would feel like.

Kevin and the doula continued to encourage me and help me push.  Kevin wiped my head and gave me sips of water, although he needed to be prompted now and then.  He will tell you that I pushed him across the room to get a drink of water; I really just nudged him to get his attention.

Finally, oh finally, more nurses came into the room, bringing tables and medical instruments. That meant they thought it was almost time.  Oh, thank goodness.  I had been saying for about three hours that I didn't know how much longer I could do this, and why wouldn't the baby COME OUT???

I put all the energy I had into pushing, screaming with effort between each breath.  Finally, around 3:20 PM, I felt the burning and the worst pain I've ever experienced, and screamed bloody murder, but AMEN, here was the head!  And they turned to me and told me to stop pushing (so they could make sure the cord wasn't around the baby's neck or anything), and I was like, "I CAN'T!" It's like running at full speed, then just stopping on a dime.  Apparently it all worked out, though, because moments later, a slippery blue baby was laying on my chest.

"Dad, do you want to tell her what it is?" the midwife prompted Kevin.

It was a girl.

I cried.  Out of relief, and out of wonder that this little creature that had grown in my belly for nine months was now laying on me, screaming her head off.  And out of gratitude that the universe had given me the little girl I wanted so much.

The doula took some pictures, Kevin cut the cord, and we latched the baby - Abby - to my breast to feed.

So, to review, and maybe you should've jumped to here if you wanted the quick version:  I began having contractions around 2 or 3PM on Wednesday, December 12th.  They organized themselves in the middle of the night.  We got to the hospital around 8AM on Thursday, December 13th, and I was dilated 7 cm. I got to 10 cm around 11AM, then pushed with varying degrees of success for 4 hours.  Well, I guess successfully, ultimately. I was in labor for about 24 hours, had been awake for about 36 hours, and had vomited up anything I'd eaten since dinner Wednesday night.

So, I might have felt in an "other-worldly" state because of the magic of giving birth, but I'm guessing hunger and exhaustion played a role.  Family came in and passed Abigail around, but I could barely focus on conversation.  I really felt like I was seeing everything through a haze.  But our baby girl was here, and now, we could sleep.

Mommy meeting Abby

Daddy cutting the umbilical cord.

More photos to come!

Sleepy babies aren't all they're cracked up to be!

It amuses me that some people on Facebook are dying of suspense from the birth story!  That's really exciting for me.  But, come on, you know generally how it ends - we have a baby girl, right?  :-)  I do want to finish that story, but first, I feel compelled to share our major challenge over the last month.  I know new parents typically have no time and get little sleep, and probably all have their own unique struggles.  I don't know how much folks talk about them, though, so here is ours - with feeding.

I'm sure many parents do this - before your first baby, your head is full of ideas about how things will be and how babies work.  Before Abby was born, when Kevin's mom told us that Kevin was such a good sleeper that she had to wake him up to eat, my two thoughts were:

1. Great!  I was a good sleeper, too, so maybe that means we'll have a good-sleeping baby!
2. You had to wake the baby up?  Hogwash!  Babies will wake up when they are hungry!

Guess what?  Abby is a sleepy little baby.  We still have to wake her up to eat.  At first, we ALWAYS had to wake her up to eat.  And, she would fall asleep in the middle of eating.  I'd have to mess with her - pinching her, tickling her, wiping her with a damp washcloth - to keep her awake to eat.  And, a few times, nothing we came up with would keep her awake.  It's only been within the last few days that she's expressed hunger without us waking her up of a dead sleep, first.  Guess what else?  Having a sleepy baby isn't as great as it might sound, although I can see where those with fussy babies might disagree.

Being sleepy is just part of the equation, though.  I had a little bit of a challenge with breastfeeding in the hospital, which I chalked up mostly to lack of experience/practice.  Also, she was especially sleepy those first days, and at that point it was okay to let her sleep, so we weren't even breastfeeding that much.  From the get-go, though, the lactation consultants thought that she might have a tongue tie.  A tongue tie is when the frenulum - the narrow piece of skin under you tongue that connects it to the bottom of you mouth - is too short or too tight.  When a baby has a tongue tie, they often can't latch onto the breast properly.

So, for the first few weeks, we were having very long feedings - 45 minutes, an hour - one night, I was switching her from breast to breast for an hour and 45 minutes before it seemed like she was done.  By taking her to the local breastfeeding support group, though, and weighing her before and after a feeding, I learned that for all that time, she wasn't taking in quite an ounce, which wasn't really enough, especially with all the work she was putting into it.  The lactation consultants advised me to pump and supplement her with a syringe after breastfeeding.

Then, we had a few days when we couldn't wake her up to breastfeed or keep her awake to eat for more than a few minutes at time.  It was very stressful. Also?  Either because of her tongue tie or weak suck or something about my breasts, nursing was pretty painful, and I had blistered nipples and everything.  I am thankful for all-purpose nipple ointment.

So, anyway, this all added up to much worrying and very little sleep or time to do anything else - I was nursing something like 12 hours a day.  It was especially rough over the holidays, when Kevin's family, and then my family visited.  I spent half the day tucked in our bedroom feeding Abby.

Things are starting to look up, though.  I started attending another breastfeeding support group at Mercy, and I like it a lot better than the one here in Harford County.  The consultant there was very concerned about Abby's weight gain, so I am pumping and we are primarily bottle-feeding at this point to get her weight and strength up.  The plan is to transition back to primarily breastfeeding.  This pumping and bottle feeding thing is for the birds.  Kiddo eats 10-11 times a day, so that's how many times I need to pump, and after just a week and a half, it's getting kind of old.  But she's putting on weight at a normal rate, now, and while she is still relatively sleepy, she will let us know when she's hungry and will stay awake during feedings.  We also took her to an ear, nose, and throat doctor to have her tongue tie looked at, and got it and an upper lip tie taken care of.  In case you're wondering, the procedure was not a big deal at all.  Just a little laser zap, and she was good to go.

I'm hoping the next few weeks we'll be able to get back to primarily breastfeeding, and that we will be more efficient at it.  I think I'll feel like we have a little more freedom after that.

Birth Story Part II is coming!