So last night I caved and gave baby his first binkie. The result: 6 hours of blissful uninterrupted sleep.
Tonight Jon is going to give him a (pumped) bottle and I may get another night of 6 hours (or dare I say more?) I can't get used to this though, I may feel almost human again.
In other awesome news, I was going to but one of these strollers that the car seat fit into because baby is too small to sit in his fancy stroller . So I have to stick his car seat on top of the stroller and it is a shitload of gear for me to manage by myself.
I was going to eat it and just spend the $50 bucks, and I thought let me just check craig's list again. And low and behold someone was selling theirs for $10. Can you even imagine how excited I am? So we went and picked it up. Now baby and I and Motu can stroll all over SF.
Fanfuckintastic.
Friday, December 30, 2005
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
One Month Old
So today the little elephant is one month old.
It is amazing what a month will do. He is laying in his crib staring at his mobile. I figure I have a few minutes.
Baby had his 1 month check up yesterday and he has put on 2 lbs. I can't figure out the math but 2 lbs in a month when you started at 7.10, seems impressive. They took some blood from him to check his bilirubin level. I couldn't stand to go in so I made jon. He said they prick his heel and just let it bleed into the vials that seems awful.
My in-laws were here for xmas. They stayed in a super fancy hotel, The Fairmont. I was duely impressed. They were both sick. MIL by the end of the trip would sneak into where the baby was and hold him. I told her I wasn't so concerned about the baby getting sick, but if we get sick we will be down for the count. I mean the lack of sleep and all that. She said, oh my god, I never even thought of it that way. Can you believe someone could be that selfish? I mean I can't imagine how bad it sucked not being able to hold your grandson but WTF? Give me a break. Jon was getting anxious as shit about the whole thing - oddly enough.
In other news, I have lost 20 lbs but I still look like a fat whale. I have also stopped bleeding and that is a relief. I loathe the maxipad.
Baby has diaper rash and baby acne. It is sad. I think this weekend we are going to try the bottle for the first time. Until now I have been pumping and exclusively breastfeeding him. He looks so cute when he is eating. He makes these little guppy faces and coos and is just the cutest. I feel like it is one time I know I am doing the right thing. The rest of the time who the fuck knows?
I keep kinda waiting for the PPD to set in. I mean I feel a general sense of what am I suppose to be doing and guilt but I think that is ok. In case you are new I am not the most emotionally stable girl on the block. Sometimes when I think of the foreverness of my new stature I freak out a little but I think it is like AA. One day or one hour or one minute at a time.
But like now what should I be doing with baby? He is alert and stuff. I feel bad leaving him to stare at his mobile, but he doesn't really seem interested in "playing" yet. Should I be shaking toys in his face anyway?
I read to him and he likes that and then we go for walks in the afternoon. I don't know. Any suggestions?
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Luke Gabriel
Congratulations Maria.
Luke was born 12/17/05
2:42 am
7 lbs 3 oz
19 3/4 long.
welcome little man!
Luke was born 12/17/05
2:42 am
7 lbs 3 oz
19 3/4 long.
welcome little man!
Then we went home
It seems weird to be trying to recap this now that it is nearly three weeks later.
We were moved to the post pardom room which was smaller and cozier than the big birthing room. We tried to nap and relax but people were coming in every couple of minutes. The nurse that took over was a real bee-hatch. We had two unreal nurses in the L&D. In recovery we had one lame ass nurse, then the rest were swell. So we are hanging out bonding with baby who is getting cuter and cuter by the minute. They kept coming in to check the baby and my vital signs. Then some med student came in like 8 or 9 hours after delivery and gave me a vaginal exam. What the fuck? It hadn't been through enough?
I couldn't get baby to latch on and the breast feeding thing was really giving me a lot of adjida. The recovery room was pretty uncomfortable for jon, and we couldn't put the baby down. One of us was always holding him. Jon was sitting in the chair skin to skin with him. It is good for the bonding I wanted to take him so jon stood up and handed him to me. The blankets dropped away and we saw that jon was covered with what looked like chocolate syrup. Baby had pooped for the first time all over his daddy. It was hysterical. I thought I was going to bust my stitched laughing.
Anyway back to the bad stuff. So we alerted everyone that we wanted to leave. After we had been there one night and 36 hours. We were all ready to go home.
My midwife told me in the morning that if I was feeling up to it that I should just go home, since I would be more comfortable in my own environment and all that jazz. It was fine. Everyone was like trying to talk us out of it but not in a very serious way. Then at 5pm, we were planning on leaving at like 6. The resident from the nursery comes in and is all aggressive about us leaving. She was so mean. Saying she was concerned about how he hadn't latched on enough for them to be satisfied. I was like listen, we put the baby in the nursery for like 2 hours, so we could sleep, and when he came back in he had a pacifier in his mouth. We went through the roof. He was sleepy and there were a million interruptions so he was reluctant to nurse. She is like well if you leave today you have three choices, you can either bring him back tomorrow, get a home visit from a traveling nurse, or go to the pediatrician tomorrow. I was like we'll take the home visit. She leaves and comes back in like one minute, "I couldn't get you a home visit". Like the bee-hatch even tried! I was in tears by this time. Just fried from not sleeping and being in the hospital and all this shit. So we call our pediatrician and make an appointment.
This means that we had to take our 2 day old baby out into the world. Not to mention, I am out in the world 2 days after giving birth. Yikes!
But we finally get out of there.
The first night was rough. We all cried. I didn't know why the baby was crying and was just shot in general. After that it got better.
By Friday, my MIL was here. She cooked for us and cleaned my apartment from top to bottom. It was wonderful to have her here. She held the baby while jon and I slept.
She was great.
My parents left yesterday, it was a different story. But I think this one is long and boring enough.
We were moved to the post pardom room which was smaller and cozier than the big birthing room. We tried to nap and relax but people were coming in every couple of minutes. The nurse that took over was a real bee-hatch. We had two unreal nurses in the L&D. In recovery we had one lame ass nurse, then the rest were swell. So we are hanging out bonding with baby who is getting cuter and cuter by the minute. They kept coming in to check the baby and my vital signs. Then some med student came in like 8 or 9 hours after delivery and gave me a vaginal exam. What the fuck? It hadn't been through enough?
I couldn't get baby to latch on and the breast feeding thing was really giving me a lot of adjida. The recovery room was pretty uncomfortable for jon, and we couldn't put the baby down. One of us was always holding him. Jon was sitting in the chair skin to skin with him. It is good for the bonding I wanted to take him so jon stood up and handed him to me. The blankets dropped away and we saw that jon was covered with what looked like chocolate syrup. Baby had pooped for the first time all over his daddy. It was hysterical. I thought I was going to bust my stitched laughing.
Anyway back to the bad stuff. So we alerted everyone that we wanted to leave. After we had been there one night and 36 hours. We were all ready to go home.
My midwife told me in the morning that if I was feeling up to it that I should just go home, since I would be more comfortable in my own environment and all that jazz. It was fine. Everyone was like trying to talk us out of it but not in a very serious way. Then at 5pm, we were planning on leaving at like 6. The resident from the nursery comes in and is all aggressive about us leaving. She was so mean. Saying she was concerned about how he hadn't latched on enough for them to be satisfied. I was like listen, we put the baby in the nursery for like 2 hours, so we could sleep, and when he came back in he had a pacifier in his mouth. We went through the roof. He was sleepy and there were a million interruptions so he was reluctant to nurse. She is like well if you leave today you have three choices, you can either bring him back tomorrow, get a home visit from a traveling nurse, or go to the pediatrician tomorrow. I was like we'll take the home visit. She leaves and comes back in like one minute, "I couldn't get you a home visit". Like the bee-hatch even tried! I was in tears by this time. Just fried from not sleeping and being in the hospital and all this shit. So we call our pediatrician and make an appointment.
This means that we had to take our 2 day old baby out into the world. Not to mention, I am out in the world 2 days after giving birth. Yikes!
But we finally get out of there.
The first night was rough. We all cried. I didn't know why the baby was crying and was just shot in general. After that it got better.
By Friday, my MIL was here. She cooked for us and cleaned my apartment from top to bottom. It was wonderful to have her here. She held the baby while jon and I slept.
She was great.
My parents left yesterday, it was a different story. But I think this one is long and boring enough.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Part II
Don't worry the rest goes quick:
The nurse was a freakin idiot. She put in my hepalock (sp?), that thing that put in your veins to take blood out and put drugs in. Then I asked her to draw the water for the jacuzzi.
She did and I got in, by now my contractions were through the freakin roof. I guess they were like 2 minutes apart or somewhere thereabouts. I yelled at jon to shut off the jets during the contractions because the pressure from within combines with the pressure from outside was just too much. The nurse asked me if I felt like I had to push, I evaluated the situation and realized yes I did have the vague notion of pushing. Little did I know what the "urge to push" really felt like. It is unmistakable.
So I got out of the tub and the resident is there. I got checked for the first time and I was 5 or 6 cm dilated. This was good news but I felt sure that I was closer. So I laid there in the bed. All my reading and research about active labor and different positions to try were all for naught. My contractions were right on top of each other. Somewhere in there the awful nurse was taken away and replaced with this unbelievably awesome nurse Lucy. She had such a dramatic impact on my labor I couldn't believe it. She was pissed at the lame nurse because I was supposed to sign all these papers. So I was like well have jon do it. She said she was really really sorry but I had to sign them. So I had like 15-30 seconds between contractions to try to sign these papers. I could have been signing anything. My signature looks very funny, now.
Then the urge to push was there. And shit I can't even describe it. So Lucy called the resident again and asked her to check me. The resident is all like, but I just checked her, and Lucy insisted. I was 8cm. This was "transition" the shortest and hardest part of labor. I think at this point I was crying and begging for drugs. They give me a shot of fentanyl, which did nothing. I wish I hadn't got it.
Somewhere in the labor haze a man walked in and asked me questions about allergies. I am trying to be cordial and he wanted to know if I want an epidural. Lucy is like 'she is 8 cm' the guy (who was the anesthesiologist) was all huffy like 'well when did she get here?'
At that point things get really fuzzy. I was checked again and there was just a cervical lip so I was almost there. I had been doing little panting breathes to try to resist the urge to push. Jon was keep ing my focus and breathing with me. There was very little I could do to stop my body from pushing. It was like I could hear each second pass. I was super aware but also in this labor zone. It was extremely primitive.
So the next thing I was aware of was the room filling with people. They are setting up the baby station. I felt like I was on alien autopsy. There was this bright light spotlighting between my legs and people in eerie masks with plastic face shields on them. Someone checks me again. Guess what? Getting checked hurts like a fucking motherfucker. The cervical lip is gone and it was time to push. It was tough trying to transition from holding and fighting the urge to push to finally be able to give into it. I am not sure how long I pushed - but I don't think it was 10 times. I don't think it took 10 minutes. I had my eyes closed the whole time. I felt him slip under my pubic bone. They said to reach down and feel the head. It felt super soft and slimy and warm. Then his head was out. They told me to pant again. Then his body was out. We asked them to hold off cutting the cord until it stopped pulsing. They pulled this grey bloody weird thing out of me and put it on my chest. They were suctioning him and rubbing him and he started crying. I just stared at him.
Then there was some serious craziness in the room. Apparently #1 came out with his left arm up by his head, superman style. Thusly I tore from here to eternity. There was a lot of blood. They gave me all these shots and the gave me an IV of pictocin. I was bleeding a lot. The resident kept fisting me and pushing really hard on my uterus from the outside. I was like what the fuck are you doing? I just had a baby! The shit they did to me afterwards was WAY worse than the actual labor process.
So the baby was born at 7:10. I held him for 15 minutes while they "worked on me." I was in so much pain that I was afraid I would drop the baby so I gave him to Jon.
They proceeded to sew me up for an hour! They kept having to give me more vaginal novacaine and the resident was telling the other resident to "take smaller bites" while she was sewing me. I asked her how many stitches, she said well we are doing a running stitch so it isn't like that. I asked her to guess and she said 20. Can you fucking believe that? Who gets 20 stiches? I asked her if I was a clock what time I tore at and she said 6. The fucking horror.
I have to stop now. I'll finish with the hospital (and how I was brow beaten by the staff) and then get on to the good stuff post pardom recuperation and breast feeding).
The baby is crying and I must feed him.
The nurse was a freakin idiot. She put in my hepalock (sp?), that thing that put in your veins to take blood out and put drugs in. Then I asked her to draw the water for the jacuzzi.
She did and I got in, by now my contractions were through the freakin roof. I guess they were like 2 minutes apart or somewhere thereabouts. I yelled at jon to shut off the jets during the contractions because the pressure from within combines with the pressure from outside was just too much. The nurse asked me if I felt like I had to push, I evaluated the situation and realized yes I did have the vague notion of pushing. Little did I know what the "urge to push" really felt like. It is unmistakable.
So I got out of the tub and the resident is there. I got checked for the first time and I was 5 or 6 cm dilated. This was good news but I felt sure that I was closer. So I laid there in the bed. All my reading and research about active labor and different positions to try were all for naught. My contractions were right on top of each other. Somewhere in there the awful nurse was taken away and replaced with this unbelievably awesome nurse Lucy. She had such a dramatic impact on my labor I couldn't believe it. She was pissed at the lame nurse because I was supposed to sign all these papers. So I was like well have jon do it. She said she was really really sorry but I had to sign them. So I had like 15-30 seconds between contractions to try to sign these papers. I could have been signing anything. My signature looks very funny, now.
Then the urge to push was there. And shit I can't even describe it. So Lucy called the resident again and asked her to check me. The resident is all like, but I just checked her, and Lucy insisted. I was 8cm. This was "transition" the shortest and hardest part of labor. I think at this point I was crying and begging for drugs. They give me a shot of fentanyl, which did nothing. I wish I hadn't got it.
Somewhere in the labor haze a man walked in and asked me questions about allergies. I am trying to be cordial and he wanted to know if I want an epidural. Lucy is like 'she is 8 cm' the guy (who was the anesthesiologist) was all huffy like 'well when did she get here?'
At that point things get really fuzzy. I was checked again and there was just a cervical lip so I was almost there. I had been doing little panting breathes to try to resist the urge to push. Jon was keep ing my focus and breathing with me. There was very little I could do to stop my body from pushing. It was like I could hear each second pass. I was super aware but also in this labor zone. It was extremely primitive.
So the next thing I was aware of was the room filling with people. They are setting up the baby station. I felt like I was on alien autopsy. There was this bright light spotlighting between my legs and people in eerie masks with plastic face shields on them. Someone checks me again. Guess what? Getting checked hurts like a fucking motherfucker. The cervical lip is gone and it was time to push. It was tough trying to transition from holding and fighting the urge to push to finally be able to give into it. I am not sure how long I pushed - but I don't think it was 10 times. I don't think it took 10 minutes. I had my eyes closed the whole time. I felt him slip under my pubic bone. They said to reach down and feel the head. It felt super soft and slimy and warm. Then his head was out. They told me to pant again. Then his body was out. We asked them to hold off cutting the cord until it stopped pulsing. They pulled this grey bloody weird thing out of me and put it on my chest. They were suctioning him and rubbing him and he started crying. I just stared at him.
Then there was some serious craziness in the room. Apparently #1 came out with his left arm up by his head, superman style. Thusly I tore from here to eternity. There was a lot of blood. They gave me all these shots and the gave me an IV of pictocin. I was bleeding a lot. The resident kept fisting me and pushing really hard on my uterus from the outside. I was like what the fuck are you doing? I just had a baby! The shit they did to me afterwards was WAY worse than the actual labor process.
So the baby was born at 7:10. I held him for 15 minutes while they "worked on me." I was in so much pain that I was afraid I would drop the baby so I gave him to Jon.
They proceeded to sew me up for an hour! They kept having to give me more vaginal novacaine and the resident was telling the other resident to "take smaller bites" while she was sewing me. I asked her how many stitches, she said well we are doing a running stitch so it isn't like that. I asked her to guess and she said 20. Can you fucking believe that? Who gets 20 stiches? I asked her if I was a clock what time I tore at and she said 6. The fucking horror.
I have to stop now. I'll finish with the hospital (and how I was brow beaten by the staff) and then get on to the good stuff post pardom recuperation and breast feeding).
The baby is crying and I must feed him.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
One week Old
It seems really surreal that the baby has been out for a whole week now. I have just been totally blissed out and enjoying life.
Birth Story pt I
11.28.05
1:19 pm.
My water breaks while I am at the computer looking up the times for the public pools in SF. I was hankering for a swim. I thought I peed my birthing ball, which is what I had been sitting on at the time. I looked at it and it wasn't yellow and it didn't smell like pee. They tell you to smell it so you can tell them on the phone.
Jon decides to come home even though I told him I was fine and was sure that the hospital was just going to send me home. He gets home around 3ish.
We go to the hospital.
They are not sure that my water actually broke so they have to do some test. They put me up in the stirrups and put the speculum in and fluid shoots all over the place, all over the resident and the floor. I start apologizing as if there is some way I can control it.
It is confirmed that it is fluid and I say I want to go home. When we got the hospital there were 0 contractions. I was feeling nothing. At some point, in the 3 hours it took to confirm I was leaking amniotic fluid, I started really super mild contractions.
They send the chief resident in to say all these scary things to me about how they want to admit me right away and that I really shouldn't go home and all these horrible like .0003% chance statistis of horror, of what I could do to the baby. I am adamant. I am going home. We get home around 7pm.
We walk a little but it is pouring rain out so we don't walk too much. Motu doesn't care for the rain.
We come home eat some dinner. The appropriately we watch the movie "Birth" with an elphin Nicole Kidman. It is a weird movie in which some inappropriate things happen.
My contractions are like 20 minutes apart then sometimes only once or twice an hour. I am thinking how I am going to have to be induced.
11/29/05
We watch Conan. I fall asleep around 1:30am.
At 1:54 I am woken up by a whole new type of pain. The "contractions" I thought I was having before had nothing on this pain. All the coping techniques I had read for pain were like, "don't try to escape the pain" Fuck that. I was literally running around the house trying to get away from the pain. I tried to distract myself with the internet and I have a little pad when I was writing down contractions. They were about 8 minutes apart and I was pretty sure I was dying.
I wake jon up at 3 am. "I am going to get into the shower and then I think we should go to the hospital. These here contractions are really intense. I need you to listen to me in the shower and make sure I am ok."
Jon says ok. And promptly goes back to sleep. In the shower I am in a world of pain and start to panic that the contractions are really coming on fast and furious.
I wake jon up again.
I am past the point of talking. Jon is asking me questions and I can't answer him. We go and get our friend kelly's car, who btw is a saint and was awesome about letting us commandeere her car for the next two days.
Her car is literally 4 doors down from us and I am not sure I am going to make it.
Jon is asking me directions to get to the hospital and hitting every bump on the road. I am feeling slightly nauseous. But do manage to remark on how cliche it is to be making the 4am dash to the hospital with the distinct possibility that the baby will be born in the car...
We get to the hospital and I am praying for a wheel chair. But it is 4 am. There is no one there but the night guard. The way UCSF is set up, the L&D floor is like 1 mile away. You have to walk this infinite hall to the elevators and then take the elevator to the 15th floor.
I get to the 15th floor and they immediately put me in the deluxe birthing suite. It is a corner room with really nice view of the bay and the bridge but it was 4 am and none of this was to be seen.
I get this idiot nurse who is bumbling and trying to put this girdle thing on me for the monitors. I yell at her that it is too tight and I need the little belt things, she is like oh, ok.
Part II to follow...
Birth Story pt I
11.28.05
1:19 pm.
My water breaks while I am at the computer looking up the times for the public pools in SF. I was hankering for a swim. I thought I peed my birthing ball, which is what I had been sitting on at the time. I looked at it and it wasn't yellow and it didn't smell like pee. They tell you to smell it so you can tell them on the phone.
Jon decides to come home even though I told him I was fine and was sure that the hospital was just going to send me home. He gets home around 3ish.
We go to the hospital.
They are not sure that my water actually broke so they have to do some test. They put me up in the stirrups and put the speculum in and fluid shoots all over the place, all over the resident and the floor. I start apologizing as if there is some way I can control it.
It is confirmed that it is fluid and I say I want to go home. When we got the hospital there were 0 contractions. I was feeling nothing. At some point, in the 3 hours it took to confirm I was leaking amniotic fluid, I started really super mild contractions.
They send the chief resident in to say all these scary things to me about how they want to admit me right away and that I really shouldn't go home and all these horrible like .0003% chance statistis of horror, of what I could do to the baby. I am adamant. I am going home. We get home around 7pm.
We walk a little but it is pouring rain out so we don't walk too much. Motu doesn't care for the rain.
We come home eat some dinner. The appropriately we watch the movie "Birth" with an elphin Nicole Kidman. It is a weird movie in which some inappropriate things happen.
My contractions are like 20 minutes apart then sometimes only once or twice an hour. I am thinking how I am going to have to be induced.
11/29/05
We watch Conan. I fall asleep around 1:30am.
At 1:54 I am woken up by a whole new type of pain. The "contractions" I thought I was having before had nothing on this pain. All the coping techniques I had read for pain were like, "don't try to escape the pain" Fuck that. I was literally running around the house trying to get away from the pain. I tried to distract myself with the internet and I have a little pad when I was writing down contractions. They were about 8 minutes apart and I was pretty sure I was dying.
I wake jon up at 3 am. "I am going to get into the shower and then I think we should go to the hospital. These here contractions are really intense. I need you to listen to me in the shower and make sure I am ok."
Jon says ok. And promptly goes back to sleep. In the shower I am in a world of pain and start to panic that the contractions are really coming on fast and furious.
I wake jon up again.
I am past the point of talking. Jon is asking me questions and I can't answer him. We go and get our friend kelly's car, who btw is a saint and was awesome about letting us commandeere her car for the next two days.
Her car is literally 4 doors down from us and I am not sure I am going to make it.
Jon is asking me directions to get to the hospital and hitting every bump on the road. I am feeling slightly nauseous. But do manage to remark on how cliche it is to be making the 4am dash to the hospital with the distinct possibility that the baby will be born in the car...
We get to the hospital and I am praying for a wheel chair. But it is 4 am. There is no one there but the night guard. The way UCSF is set up, the L&D floor is like 1 mile away. You have to walk this infinite hall to the elevators and then take the elevator to the 15th floor.
I get to the 15th floor and they immediately put me in the deluxe birthing suite. It is a corner room with really nice view of the bay and the bridge but it was 4 am and none of this was to be seen.
I get this idiot nurse who is bumbling and trying to put this girdle thing on me for the monitors. I yell at her that it is too tight and I need the little belt things, she is like oh, ok.
Part II to follow...
Sunday, December 04, 2005
New Arrivals
Sorry for the long delay.
Birth story to follow but for now just the stats:
Baby E
11/29/05
7:10 am
7 lbs 10 oz
19 1/2" long
no epidural
400,000,000 stitches.
He is a clone of his father, and about the most terrifyingly beautiful thing in the world.
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