Tales From The Crib
Alexander likes his crib mobile. Check out his cheeky grin as he watches it in motion. Such a handsome little guy!
Also, there are a few more pictures up on flickr.
One Month
In some ways, it’s hard to believe Alexander has been here for a month already. And in others, it feels like the longest month that ever was.
So many people have told me that having a baby and raising a child is the hardest thing they have ever done. This month, I began to discover for myself what that really means.
It’s not just the sleep deprivation that makes it difficult, although that certainly doesn’t help. It’s the sheer magnitude of being completely responsible for the most perfect person in the whole entire world, whilst feeling thoroughly unequipped to carry out the task set before us.
When Alexander cries, it sends a jolt through my whole body and all I want to do is comfort him and make it better. And when he cries and cries and cries and I can’t seem to do anything about it, it makes me cry too. Not just any old tears either; big, fat, rolling tears that fall so fast they blur my vision and reduce me to a sobbing, quivering mess.
There have been some good days, where Alexander has nursed and pooped and burbled and napped and bathed and slept. Days where we’ve made it out the house and had lunch at the coffee shop and been for long walks in the stroller with Rosie. And there have been some bad days, where Alexander has screamed and cried and puked and writhed and kept wanting to nurse until I honestly thought my boobs might fall off. Days when I was convinced I wasn’t able to produce enough milk to adequately feed my boy. Moments when I just wanted to cut my ears off or bang my head against a wall, anything to make it all stop.
For the first couple of weeks, I found it impossible to sleep even when Alexander was sleeping, even though I was ridiculously tired. I kept endlessly checking the baby monitor, and when that didn’t satisfy me, I would slide out of bed and creep over to the bassinet, just to watch Alexander breathe in and out. I was so relieved each time he wriggled or squawked in his sleep. Mark ended up taking the monitor away from me, and put himself in charge of waking me up when Alexander woke up to nurse. Somehow, with Mark ‘in charge’, I was able to relax enough to snatch some sleep in between feeds.
Fortunately, things get a little better every day. Not to say that there aren’t hiccups along the way, there are. But at least now we’re getting a handle on the basics – the nappy changing, the swaddling, the bathing. We’re learning as we go along.
The love I feel for our little guy is so huge, so all encompassing, so wonderful and so, so terrifying.
The Chicks, They Dig Him
Things I really liked when I was pregnant, in no particular order:
Olay Body Firming Reviver Body Lotion. I slathered this stuff on after every bath, and believe me, there were a lot of baths, particularly towards the end of the pregnancy. I don’t really know whether there were any particular benefits directly associated with this lotion, but it smelled good, and it kept my skin from feeling itchy in the cold weather.
My Habitual maternity jeans. Yes, they were very expensive, but I’m so glad I had a pair. I basically washed them and wore them on a continual cycle. They look like normal jeans, and they have belt loops, so I could keep the jeans from slipping down (a permanent problem with just about every other pair of trousers I wore for the last ~3 months of my pregnancy). I did have to get a bigger belt though
.Michael Stars maternity tops and anything by Ripe. I had a couple of items of clothing from both these brand that I just wore and wore. Comfortable, cute and good to wear for work.
Taking baths. By the end of my pregnancy, I was in the tub at least once a day, sometimes twice. It was the only place I was ever truly comfortable.
Olive loaf from Whole Foods and avocados. I didn’t really have mad cravings for any particular food, but I did very much enjoy olive load and avocados. Oh, and chocolate. And Whole Food scones. Mmm.
The big body pillow (which I got from Target). I’ve always been a stomach sleeper, and the big body pillow made sleeping on my side much more comfortable.
The “No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” series by Alexander McCall Smith. These light, easy to read books kept me happily engaged when I was awake in the middle of the night. Which was pretty much all the time. I’m so glad Grandma Jones gave me the first book in the series for Christmas!
Prenatal yoga and walking. I stopped biking around 16 weeks into my pregnancy, and although my intentions were good, I ultimately stopped swimming shortly thereafter also, because although I love to swim, it was really bloody cold getting into and out of the water, and I just didn’t want to do it. But I needed to get some sort of exercise – I slept so much better on days where I got some exercise. This Gaiam prenatal yoga DVD was great. I also got this Perfect Pregnancy Workout DVD, but I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the yoga one.
Knitting. It was hard for me to slow down and sit still in the early months of my pregnancy. Taking up knitting helped me to relax and gave me something to do while I was sitting still.
Lost. I started watching Season 1 of ‘Lost’ on DVD early on in my pregnancy. Season 2 got me through a tough business trip to Asia. Usually, I love having free evenings and weekends when I’m traveling for business, because it gives me a chance to catch up on work email, visit with colleagues and friends, explore the city, go shopping and eat as much of the local food as possible. All of these things were much less appealing towards the end of my first trimester – I just wanted to hole up in my hotel room, eat ‘safe’ food and rest. Having Season 2 of ‘Lost’ to watch made that experience much less miserable. Well, except for the occasional Lost-induced nightmare where I was being chased by monsters in the jungle.
Massages. During the last 5 weeks of my pregnancy, my sister Katie hooked me up with a massage therapist at her gym, who was keen to get some more experience on working on her pregnancy massage techniques. This woman worked miracles on my tired, aching body, and generously offered me a reduced price in return for being her ‘gineau pig’ as she polished and refreshed her prenatal massage techniques. Fantastic stuff.
That’s all I can think of for now. It’s almost time for my boy to wake up from naptime for his next meal. Gotta go!
Birth Story
I’ve been trying to write this entry for ages….so here goes…
On Friday evening of March 16th, the day before Alexander arrived, Mark, Katie and I went out for Indian food at Madras Pavillion. Popular opinion (urban legend?) says that spicy food is supposed to help induce the onset of labour, and we joked about coaxing the baby out with some help of a hot curry. We shared a paper dosai and a couple of the South Indian Thali meals between the three of us, washed down with a sweet lassi and some masala tea. I left the restaurant feeling full and happy, if a little worried about the potential for indigestion.
I pottered about the house when we got home, putting off bed time in order to give my meal a little longer to digest. I thought I felt a few contractions, but wrote them off as Braxton Hicks and I finally went to bed a little before midnight.
At 3am I woke up to what felt like a contraction, but I wasn’t at all convinced that this was the real deal, so I tried to go back to sleep. I was drifting off to sleep about 15mins later when another one came along. Huh. So I sat up in bed and started to try to time the contractions to see if there was any sort of pattern. After about an hour of watching the clock, it seemed like the contractions were coming about 10-15mins apart, so I woke Mark up at 4.30am to tell him I thought I was possibly in labour. He stayed up with me for the next hour, timing contractions, which were now coming every 8 – 10 mins. By then, I was starting to believe that I was actually in labour, and realised we most likely had a long day ahead of us, so sent Mark back to bed to get some sleep.
Meanwhile, I sat on the sofa, ate some oatmeal and googled “contractions 8 minutes apart” to read up on what might happen next. I also called my parents, who were in Chamonix at the time, to let them know I thought I was in labour.
Mark got up at around 7.30am and we sat around in our pajamas for another hour or so, timing contractions and discussing what needed to happen next. We called the doctor and our doula at around 8.30am to let them know we thought we’d be heading to the hospital later in the day to have the baby. The nurse practitioner called us back shortly afterwards and we could come into the hospital at any time, but that she definitely wanted us to head in once my contractions were coming 5 minutes apart for an hour.
Contractions increased in intensity as time went by, but we were still doing just fine labouring at home. I paced slowly around the living room, bounced on an exercise ball, and occasionally squatted or sat on the sofa. Mark ran me a bath and I floated in the tub, which took the edge off the contractions.
By around 10am, contractions were coming at intervals between 3-5 minutes, and were starting to get painful. We gathered our stuff together to head in to the hospital. Mark called the doctor and also the doula to let them know we were on our way.
We arrived at the hospital around 10.45am, and Mark dropped me off at the entrance while he went to park the car. I lingered in the waiting area near the entrance. Random people in the waiting room area talked to me – saying things like ‘Congratulations!’ and ‘Good Luck!’, but I wasn’t really in the mood to chat. The woman behind the Accident and Emergency admittance desk was thoughtful enough to tell me I needed to go to Labour and Delivery, as I couldn’t have the baby there, and tried to get me to sit in a wheelchair, which I did not want to do. I was in the process of telling her that I was fine, and I was just waiting there for my husband to park the car when Mark showed up and ushered me upstairs.
We checked in at the nurse’s station at Labour and Delivery, where a seemingly unnaturally cheerful and chatty nurse gave us paperwork to sign and talked to us about how many other women were having babies that day and made other small talk, which I really wasn’t able to participate in, and after what felt like an age, but was probably no more than 5 or 10 minutes, finally took us to our room. It was around 11am.
Mark parked our stuff and I changed into a hospital gown. Our doula, Kathryn, showed up as we were getting settled. We met our nurse, Teresa. Once all the introductions were done, Teresa said my doctor would be along shortly to check on my progress, and then had me get into the bed so I could be hooked up to a monitor to check on the baby. I was very uncomfortable in the bed. Fortunately, everything looked good, so after about 20mins, I was able to get off the monitor and out of the bed. Teresa said she would need to monitor me and the baby again in about an hour.
The doctor came in to check on me around noon, and said I was 4cm dilated and 90% effaced. I had been at the doctor’s office about 24 hours before, and had been told I was 3cm dilated and 80% effaced, so I was a little discouraged to hear that I had only progressed 1 more cm and 10% more effacement after labouring all morning. Bah! I felt like I had so much further to go, and I was already in pain.
By now, contractions were really getting painful, and I was feeling somewhat nauseous. Mark and Kathryn did their best to make me comfortable, massaging my back and shoulders, applying counter pressure to my lower back, or my knees, talking to me etc. I sat on the birthing ball for a while, and then in the rocking chair, and spent some time bent at the waist, leaning over the sink. Kathryn put together a concoction of peppermint aromatherapy oils on a piece of cloth, to try to take the edge of my nausea. I think it helped.
My water broke around 1pm, and the pain got even worse after that. I told Mark I wanted meds, and initially he tried to encourage me to keep going without meds, that I was doing great. That worked for a couple more contractions, but soon I was asking for drugs during every contraction. Mark asked the nurse to get the doctor, but the doc was attending to another birth, and said she would be there in 20mins. So we kept going without meds. Soon, I was pleading with Mark to get me something for the pain. I don’t really remember this period of time in great detail, but it felt like it went on for a long time.
Then it was time to hook me back up to the monitor, which meant the nurse wanted me to get in to the bed. I did not want to get into the bed. At all. But after some coaxing from Mark and Kathryn, I climbed in and rolled over on one side. I was very uncomfortable lying on my side, and switched to hands and knees on the bed. The nurse wasn’t able to get a good reading from the baby with me on my hands and knees and put me back on my side, which made contractions seem so much more painful.
The nurse came and told us that the doctor was still busy with another patient, but that she had approved the nurse to give me something to take the edge of the pain. Around 2pm I accepted the offer of stadol gratefully, and sank into a drug-induced haze on the bed.
The next 3 hours are a complete blur to me. I think I pretty much dozed between contractions and complained to Mark and Kathryn during contractions. I kept telling Mark I needed counterpressure on my back, which I elegantly communicated by saying one of three things – (1) contraaaaaactioooon (2) counter pressuuure or (3) Maaaaaaaaaark!
Apparently, at one point, I also told Mark and Kathryn that I was done, and I wanted to go home.
And I do remember apologizing to Mark and Kathryn at one point, because I had originally wanted to get through labour without drugs, and I somehow got the idea into my head that they would be disappointed in me for ‘caving’ and asking for meds.
Eventually, the stadol wasn’t taking enough of the edge of the pain for me, and I asked for an epidural.
I have no idea on the logistics of how long it took to get the anesthesiologist to come to my room and administer the epidural, and I remember very little about the whole process of getting the epidural, except that contractions were coming thick and fast, and I needed to stay still while they placed the needle in my back. Mark held me steady and talked calmly to me throughout. In return, I think I tried to take a bite out of his shoulder.
The doctor came in to check on my around 5pm, right around the time the epidural was taking effect, and pronounced me 10cm dilated and 100% effaced. In other words, I had basically had the epidural while I was going through transition, and now that it had finally taken effect, I was just about done.
Once the epidural started to kick in and the stadol haze lifted, things began to come back into focus. Since I was no longer in much pain, I was able to relax and soak in what was going on around me. I talked with Mark and Kathryn and with our nurse, Teresa. They were all full of encouragement, laughing and joking. I was feeling pretty tired at this point, so it was nice to have a rest and calm down.
After a little while, at Kathryn’s prompting, I had a go at pushing with the contractions. I found it hard to push at first, because the epidural had taken away most of the sensation and made it difficult to get my body to do what I wanted it to. Kathryn told me she could see the baby’s head, which I found hugely encouraging. I wanted to see the baby’s head too, so Kathryn found me a mirror.
I never originally thought I would want to see what was going on with the actual delivery, but it ended up being a great experience for me. The mirror enabled me to close the feedback loop I needed in order to get my body to push the way I wanted it to, because I could see the product of my efforts.
Sometime around 5.45pm, the nurse was checking on me and chatting away, and I asked her and Kathryn, so……what happens next?
Teresa asked if I was ready to have a baby, and I said yes, so she went to tell the doctor and bring in the medical team.
The doctor and medical team were all in position by around 6pm. The mood in the room was great – we were joking about the fact that I had been telling Mark I was hungry, and asking for pancakes.
Then it was time to push for real. Mark and the doctor encouraged me along, and after all of three pushes, Alexander just popped right out! He arrived at 6.14pm, and promptly started to cry. The doctor rubbed Alexander down and waited for the cord to stop pulsating, so it could be clamped. Mark took a few photos and then cut the cord.
Alexander was taken off to be weighed and measured, and Mark watched over this whole process, while the doctor delivered the placenta. I don’t really remember much of this – I was just lying back on the bed in a happy haze.
Alexander was soon delivered back to me, and the nurse showed me how to get him to latch on for his first meal. Meanwhile, Mark had begun the process of sharing our good news with our families, telephoning our parents and siblings around the globe.
My sister Katie arrived shortly after this, with a take out order of food from Kerby Lane, including a short stack of delicious blueberry pancakes. I was so hungry!
After we had eaten, Mark followed Alexander, who was taken up to the nursery by a nurse for his bath. Katie and Kathryn came with me to settle me into my post-delivery room. Mark and Alexander came to the room after the bath, and our little family settled in for our first night together.
All in all, a terrific, if somewhat terrifying experience.
The staff at Seton were great, my husband was wonderful, and I am so, so glad I had Kathryn as my doula to support us through labour and delivery. I feel that the little things that Kathryn did made a big difference to my overall comfort and confidence level throughout labour – the massage, the peppermint essential oils for my nausea, the soothing background music, the cool washcloths and just the continual reassurance and reminder that I was doing great.
Also, I’m so glad Mark and I went through Bradley birth classes together. Although I did end up having a medicated birth in the end, I still feel like the classes were worthwhile preparation.
Alexander is amazing. Totally worth it!
[In case anyone out there is interested, here are the contact details for Kathryn Smith, who was our doula: Kathryn Smith, RMT tel: 512 328 4111
and Candace Hutchens, who was our Bradley Birth teacher: Candace Hutchens, AAHCC tel: 512 467 9862]
It’s Frickin’ Freezing, Mr. Bigglesworth
It’s Frickin’ Freezing, Mr. Bigglesworth.
Originally uploaded by krisalis.
It’s 34 deg F, 1 deg C. In austin. In April. That’s just wrong.
Additions
There are more pictures up in the Arrival of Alexander set on Flickr.
He’s growing already!