clueless and confused

Here's a whole new arena of worries to add to my plate. What do you do when you think your baby might be sick, but you aren't positive because each symptom could be normal baby stuff — or it could be a sign of something that needs attention. Sometimes his nose sounds stuffed up and runny, like he has a cold. Other times, his breathing is clear. Sometimes it sounds like he is gagging when he nurses. Other times, he takes it like a pro. Twice today, he spit up — not just a little, but what seemed like his whole meal, all over a burp rag. He hiccups a lot. He cries a lot — is he uncomfortable, or just hungry/lonely/needing a clean diaper? His face is covered with infant acne. Is it the normal stuff, or does he have an allergy to something in my breastmilk? Mom and dad feel clueless.

According to the two main baby-reference books we have on the coffee table, any of these things might be normal baby fare. Babies spit up. Babies cry. Babies hiccup. Babies break out. Babies even get gurgly-stuffed-up nose sounds. Yet I can't help thinking something might be wrong, like he might be sick. I look things up in the index and read all the symptoms of something like gastroesophagal reflux, and I wonder: Do Daniel's symptoms fit the pattern? Does he have a cold? Or is he just a normal baby with incredibly concerned, protective parents?

I feel so hapless at times like this. When do we call the pediatrician? How far do we go trying to figure things out for ourselves from the book? In the meantime, this little boy sure is getting plenty of love and coddling!

daniel is one month old!

Needless to say, I went crazy with the camera. I think he is the most adorable boy in the world. :)





Liz came over Friday. To steal a line from Casablanca, I think it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship!

lifesavers

I cry every day. The hospital nurses told me I would, and they weren't wrong. It can be about anything. Hormones are messy like that. The other day, I cried as I watched Jon Bon Jovi on Oprah, giving Katrina survivors the keys to the new houses he'd spent $1 billion to build through Oprah's Angel Network. It was just so moving to see how happy those people were when they saw their beautiful homes. This morning, I cried because ... well ... because I wasn't sure if I could make it through another day. A touch of post-partum depression? I'm not sure ... maybe. I have my moments. But I don't feel like dwelling on them here. There are good things, too — things that make me laugh and smile. Here's a short list.

Audrey Hepburn dancing to ACDC's Back in Black in the new Gap commercial for skinny pants. Two of my favorite pop culture icons, coming from two completely different places, juxtaposed into one ad — I've gotta love whoever thought of that combination ... surely a kindred spirit "from the Tribe of Joseph," as Anne Shirley might say. I may not look as good in black skinny pants as I did in high school, but that doesn't dampen my desire to get up and dance every time Audrey (from Funny Face) says, "I rather feel like expressing myself now."

The "good deeds" commercial. I don't even remember what it's advertising, but I love watching it. It's the one where a guy picks up something a baby dropped from its stroller, starting a chain of "pay it forward"-type events in which people do generous acts of kindness for other strangers, like moving a guy's coffee cup out of the way so it doesn't fall off a table. I love it. I cry at this one, too, actually.

Daniel's beefcake pose. It's actually just a stretch he does after he's finished eating: I lift him into an upright position to burp him, and he puts his fists next to his cheeks and lifts his elbows into the air, arching his back and thrusting his chest forward as he looks upward at me with his chubby little cheeks. It's so darned adorable — I can never resist kissing him all over his little face! He does it sometimes when we put him to bed, too. Steve dubbed it his beefcake pose, and the name stuck.

The Happiest Baby on the Block. This book and DVD set by Dr. Harvey Karp have made our lives a lot happier by teaching us the five "S" words for calming a baby: Swaddling, sideways (or stomach) carrying, shushing, swinging and sucking. Some combination of these things usually helps calm Daniel down, which has cut down on another s-word for mom and dad: stress.

Grey's Anatomy. I've been watching the first two seasons on DVD, and I'm totally hooked! I usually save them for night-time feedings — they give me a reason to look forward to being awake at 3 a.m. One 42-minute episode is just the right length of time to feed Daniel, burp him and rock him to sleep until the next feeding a couple of hours later. With Dr. McDreamy at the touch of the remote, my nights with Daniel McGrumpy aren't half bad. (Actually, I enjoy nursing him. It probably the time when we bond the most.)

My husband. Steve has bent over backwards to try to help me adjust to full-time motherhood. Once last week, he came home for lunch so I could take a 45-minute nap, which saved me for the afternoon. Yesterday, he took a vacation day to stay home with us. Every night when he gets home from work, he takes over baby care and encourages me do something for myself — a bath, a walk, a trip to the bookstore. I could not ask for a better, more supportive partner.

My friends and family. Whether it's your encouraging phone calls and e-mails, frozen meals, lunchtime companionship or cyber hugs from afar, you all have kept me going. You know who you are. I don't know what I'd do without you. Thanks!

calling my fellow sunset high alum

Do any of you remember Courtney Taylor, the good-looking guy from the Class of '85 who always sported some cool new wave or mod look and was in a band? I believe there were more than a few girls who had crushes on him. ... Well, Steve and I watched a documentary from Netflix this weekend called DiG, about the rivalry between two indy bands from the West Coast, one of which is the Dandy Warhols. Lo and behold, the film's narrator — and singer-songwriter for the Dandy Warhols — is the very same Courtney Taylor! Apparently, they are quite popular in Europe, and Steve's brother-in-law likes them, too. What a small world.

progress

Things I did for the first time this weekend:

Drove my car! I wasn't supposed to drive for the first two weeks after the c-section, and I gave myself another week off because I was still on Percocet. (No driving on narcotics.) And, to be honest, I didn't know if I was capable of slamming on the brake pedal without rupturing anything. So anyway, driving was fine. Yippee.

Left home without my guys! I ventured out on Saturday for a few hours to get my hair done and to go to Target. I filled a bottle with breastmilk ahead of time, and Steve fed Daniel (his first time having a bottle), and no one went hungry. I did miss them, though. It was so nice to come home to them.

Took Daniel to church! We went to an afternoon Mass at the Basilica, and he was actually pretty good. The homily was spot-on, too — all about suffering for the sake of love — just what I needed to hear at a time when I struggle almost every night with the constant wakings and middle-of-the-night feedings. Daniel started fussing after the homily, so Steve and I went in search of a room where I could feed him. We ended up in the basement social room, but my sister-in-law tells me the bride's changing room is a good spot, too, so maybe we'll try that next time. We got back upstairs right in time for Communion, after which we left. All in all, a good experience for all of us!

Cut a whole chicken into parts! This has nothing to do with babies, but it was a first for me. :) I was making a chicken and potato recipe from Real Simple, which called for chicken parts (although now I think it would be just as good with the standard chicken breasts we usually buy). I couldn't find any cut-up chickens on Simon Delivers, so I bought a whole chicken, thinking it couldn't be too hard, and consulted my cookbooks for instructions on how to divide it into wings, drumsticks, thighs, breasts, etc. It was a thoroughly gross task, full of cutting through tendons and ripping joints out of their sockets. Ugh. As I think I've said before, I would make a terrible doctor! But the end result was yummy, so I'm glad I did it. Maybe the next time will be easier.

Got six hours of sleep! Yes, they weren't consecutive hours, but on Friday night, and then again last night, Daniel actually slept for more than 10 minutes in his Pack & Play bassinet between feedings! I can't tell you how thrilled Steve and I were to have a couple of hours of sleep here and there. And to be in the same bed at the same time! We could actually snuggle! We feel like Daniel might be turning a corner and getting adjusted to nighttime. I hope so.

a day in the life of a three-week-old

Our cranky, adorable boy. I love him so much.

coming up for air

I feel as if I've been living in a cloister for the past couple of weeks. I rarely leave the house, and when I do, it's with husband in the driver's seat and baby in tow. I barely have the time or energy to call anyone, write a coherent e-mail, take a shower or even put on "day" clothes. I feel lucky if I can get two hours of uninterrupted sleep, and that's at night. Daytime naps are almost impossible because Daniel tends to sleep best if someone is holding him, and that means the person holding him must be alert. He's actually doing OK in the car seat, too, so maybe that will enable me to catch a few minutes here and there.

Yesterday was Steve's first day back at work after his two weeks of leave. By the time he got home, I was totally shellshocked. Daniel had barely slept all day, and I had barely slept the night before, and it seemed like he wanted to nurse every hour or something insane like that. I am not used to being a 24-hour milk delivery system yet. And he cried so much, and nothing I tried to calm him seemed to work for long. It was bearable when Steve was home because we could spell each other, but doing it alone is a whole new ballgame. When Steve got home, I handed Daniel to him and proceeded to sink into a long, hot soak in the tub. I don't know how I'm going to do with this in the long term. Today seems to be going a little better, but it's only 11:00, and that's early. I know I ought to call on people who have offered to help out, but most people are at work at the time when I need them most.

My one outlet is being able to find the time to get online and check my e-mail, catch up on message boards and blogs, order stuff I need (since I can't drive because I'm on narcotic painkillers), from groceries to birth announcements to nursing gowns. (I am sick of wearing Steve's old button-down shirts and extra-large T-shirts to bed. If I am going to be up half the night, I want to feel feminine and comfortable.)

People say these early weeks are the hardest and it gets better. Still, despite all my whining, I look at Daniel in his peaceful moments, or even when he's fussing, and realize that these weeks when he is so young and fragile and birdlike are so fleeting. I will miss them when we've moved on to teething and potty training and kindergarten. So I'm trying to appreciate this time while it lasts.

triple the fun

It's been quite a year of ups and downs for my friend Kerry. An early miscarriage in the fall. A second, even more heartbreaking one, in February, when she was 12 weeks pregnant with a baby girl. Months of dark days and sadness. Months of trying for another baby. Finally, this summer, she learned she was pregnant again. Hooray! And then, she found out she was carrying twins — no fertility drugs involved. But it doesn't stop there. Read the latest here. So wild! Just a reminder of how surprising and unpredictable life can be.

oh, the pain

This morning, Daniel was circumcised, and it was one of the harder events I have had to witness in my life. No mother wants to see her baby in pain. I had been dreading this appointment all week, crying and heartbroken, yet rationally knowing my baby would be OK, that most American boys go through this ritual, whether through a religious service or in the hospital or pediatric clinic. (Most parents get it done in the hospital right after the baby is born, but we wanted to wait a couple of weeks and have it done after the trauma of being born was further behind Daniel and he had established a good nursing routine.) I was crying in the examining room when the doctor walked in, and he immediately said, "You don't have to do this, you know." But I had agreed to let Steve take the lead on this decision, and he felt pretty strongly about having it done, so I swallowed my tears and handed Daniel over. Afterward, I think Steve was shaken up by the whole thing, too. But he didn't waver, no matter how hard it was for him to watch his son in pain, knowing he could not protect him from it.

Daniel is sleeping right now, thank God. It is hard for me to listen to his cries. It's hard to write about what it was like, much less think about it. (Geez, I would not make a very good doctor!) They took off all his clothes and strapped his little legs down to a molded-plastic board. They wrapped a thick blanket tightly around his torso so his arms were completely trapped underneath. He was totally helpless. The doctor showed us how to dip a piece of cloth in a jar of sugar water and let Daniel suck on it throughout the procedure, and that ended up being my role — keeping the sugar water rag soaked.

I tried not to watch the procedure. I kept my eyes on Daniel's face, only averting them occasionally to see the long needle enter the base of his penis to anesthetize him, his bloody foreskin being cut away from the rest of the penis, pulled up, gathered together and held with a safety-pin, and finally cut off. What surprised us was that they cut so much off. "I thought they would only nip a tiny part of the tip off," Steve said. Instead, it seems like half his penis is red and raw. (We're supposed to keep it covered with Vaseline for the next 24 to 48 hours.) I asked the doctor about it; he said as Daniel grows, the rest of his penis will grow, and the circumcised part will be smaller in comparison.

Ugh. Now he's awake and screaming (and I need to go feed him). I think he will be OK after a day or so, but right now it must be unbearable for him. He has no way of knowing the pain will go away. It must be so confusing for him. *Sob.*

But the worst is over now. Hopefully, he will never have to go through this again. And neither will his mama.

the first week at home

Tummy time with daddy


Sweetness


Milk-drunk baby, sleep-deprived mother


Getting along


Did I mention that I have a killer case of postpartum edema (fluid retention and swelling) in my feet and legs from all the IV fluids I received? Can't wait for that to go away ... it's more bothersome than my c-section incision.

how daniel met the world (birth story)

I had finally found out the name for the slow, labor-like process I was going through all week. Our doula, my birth books and the nurses at my OB clinic referred to it as "prodromal" labor, which is a labor that takes place over the course of days, never picking up to full intensity long enough to go to the hospital, but never quite going away, even when contractions slow. Mine started on a Friday night, almost a week before Daniel was born. Prodromal labor in general is frustrating and emotionally taxing, and by Wednesday night, it had taken its toll on me. By then, the contractions had traveled from my lower back to my tailbone. They felt like horrible gas pains. Despite the intensity, they were only coming every 10 to 12 minutes, and from all I'd read, that wasn't close enough together to go to the hospital.

But on Thursday morning (Aug. 24), I did call my doctor's office. I wanted to ask about the leaking that had started early that morning. I couldn't tell if my water had broken or if my bladder was completely incontinent, caving into all the pressure on it. The nurse told me to go to the hospital and have it checked out. She sounded more urgent than I felt: If my water had broken, she insisted, the clock was ticking, and the baby had to come out within 18 hours or there was a risk of infection. (I questioned the 18 hour bit, but never mind.)

So Steve and I went over to United's birth center and checked into triage. Just to have this leaking checked out, I figured, and then we would go home. But lo and behold, not only had my water broken, I was also dilated to 6 centimeters! How on earth did I get that far and not know it? I tell you, I was so excited, I cried tears of happiness. This baby was about to be born! Or so I thought.

We called our doula ("six centimeters?!"), and she came over right away, wearing a cute blue sweat suit and a nametag identifying her as a member of Doulas of North America. Together, we were brought to the labor and delivery section and checked into room 2222. Alas, not enough staffing in the all-in-one rooms to let me have one. I was bummed, but it didn't matter in the end because the room we had was just fine. So was our first nurse, Lisa, who seemed tickled that we'd included a photo of ourselves in Ireland on our copy of our birth plan. We all chit-chatted for a while about Ireland, and that was a nice way to get to know each other.

All in all, we would go through three shifts of nurses, and except for the middle one, who wouldn't let me get back in the tub and wasn't as positive as I wished her to be, the nursing care we received throughout our stay was far better than I'd expected, given my initial misgivings about United. Our doula, who has attended births at many hospitals around the Twin Cities but never before at United, said she was blown away by how much respect and extra personal attention we received from everyone from the nurses to the anesthesiologist (even though he messed up my epidural) to the on-call doctors.

For first 12 hours of my labor at the hospital, we walked the halls of United, peeked into the nursery at the newborn babies, took a bath in the tub and later, when things got more intense, a shower. The hot spray felt so good against my lower back. When a contraction came, I stopped what I was doing and leaned against Steve, breathing through it. There was a storm that evening, and it felt refreshing and exhilarating to watch the lightening and wind and rain outside our window. And I have to tell you, labor was such a positive experience for me. I cannot say that it was "painful." It was incredibly hard work. It was exhausting. It felt like my body was working harder than it ever had with every contraction. But I never felt the need for medication or "pain relief." After all, I'd come in at 6 centimeters, I had progressed to about 8, and very soon — I thought — I'd be getting ready to push and meet Daniel. I felt so good, and so empowered about everything.

During the late stages, the part they call "transition," between 8 and 10 centimeters, I entered a sort of trancelike world. I remember that I was kneeling on some soft towels at the side of the bed, leaning over onto my favorite pillow from home, rocking my hips back and forth during every contraction and and breathing through the intensity, barely aware of my surroundings. It was pretty surreal ... they say endorphins kick in at a certain point, and I think they were in high gear then. Nature's narcotics.

Unknown to me, our doula took a picture. It's pretty wild to see what I looked like then:


Then things started to go wrong. First, I stalled out at 8 centimeters, and for several hours, my cervix refused to open any more. Then my cervix started to get swollen. The nurse (the negative one) got the doctor, and at around 2 a.m., they came in and told us what was going on. For some reason, my contractions weren't doing the job well enough, and my cervix was not cooperating. Daniel's head was already sliding into place, and they suspected it might have been turned in a cock-eyed direction. They could already tell he was facing sideways or backwards, so delivery was going to be difficult as it was, unless the boy turned on his own at the last minute. (My friend Kerry tells me this is what happened with her son Quinn, and the fact that he turned was what spared her a Cesarean section.)

For the first time, someone mentioned that I could be headed for a c-section, and I was like, "Huh?" The doctor said the only option he could see that might help prevent one was to put me on pitocin — a drug that mimics the body's natural oxytocin and strengthens and intensifies contractions. I was so low on energy at this point that I knew I wouldn't be able to handle pitocin without an epidural, which the doctor also recommended. The doctor left us for a few minutes to discuss amongst ourselves. I felt out of my depth by now. I had no idea what to make of my swollen cervix or my baby's cocked head. The situation felt alarming, and we didn't know if it would get worse and cause more damage. We decided to go ahead with the pitocin and epidural.

So at about 3 a.m., the anesthesiologist came into the room and administered the epidural. Oops — did I say epidural? I mean, the full spinal block! Yes, he made a mistake and hit the wrong part of my spine, and I soon was so numb that the nurses had to move me around like a rag doll. So I lay there for an hour and a half waiting for the spinal block dose to wear off, and finally he gave me the epidural, correctly this time. It didn't hurt too badly, but needles and anything related to the spine have always freaked me out, so it was ... kinda scary. But the epidural did feel good once it kicked in, I have to say that. It felt good to finally rest.

For another 12 hours, I labored like that — comfortable with the contractions but hooked up to tubes, forced to lie on my right side or left side, hoping and hoping that my cervix would spread open and let Daniel through.

First, it didn't look good: I regressed to 7 inches of dilation. But then the swelling went away, and I dilated back up to 8, even to 9, or even 10 in some parts of the cervix. But not all of the cervix. Hour after hour, the doctor checked me, and no matter how much parts of it dilated fully, there remained a stubborn lip that refused to push back. And therein lie the problem: The doctor did not want to try to push Daniel's head through a cervix that wasn't completely dilated, for fear of worse damage.

Meanwhile, even through the epidural, I was feeling the urge to push. God, how I wanted to push. But I just let the feeling hang in the air and didn't do anything.

We were coming to a turning point. By 2 p.m., I hadn't had anything to eat since the previous afternoon, and I was being hydrated only by an IV line. Daniel was doing just fine, though — his heartbeat never faltered the entire time. Finally, the doctor said, "Let's give it one more hour and see if that lip goes away." I asked if I couldn't just keep on laboring indefinitely, but he told me the pitocin was really giving my uterus a workout, and it wasn't going to be able to go on forever. He told me that was how "women on the prairies" lost their babies or died during childbirth themselves. I wasn't sure whether to believe him, but I didn't have enough information to know for sure. Our doula didn't have any experience with this kind of situation, either. At a certain point, we were going to have to make the call as to whether to have a c-section. The hour passed. The lip did not go away. Frustrated and exhausted, and not sure if continuing to labor would accomplish anything, I agreed to a c-section.

The nurse turned off the pitocin and the epidural drip. Soon, I started to feel my natural contractions again, and this time, they made me angry. I cussed and swore at them. Why should I have to go through these when they're all for nothing, when they aren't going to bring me my baby, I asked Stephen and our doula, finally near tears.

They said our doula could come be with me in the operating room with Stephen. He kissed me goodbye, and I was brought in to prep alone. That part was the hardest. I was scared of what to expect, and even though I felt as if we'd exhausted all our options and made as informed a decision as we could, I was still bummed that all my hard work — and months of preparation and hopes and visions of a natural, drug-free birth — was resulting in the one outcome I'd most hoped to avoid. A c-section seemed so cold and clinical and sterile and ... scary.

But in the end, it wasn't scary. It was so happy. When Stephen and our doula joined me at last, the doula reminded me that I was still having a baby, that a birth was about to happen. That helped me feel less scared. Even better, my regular OB happened to be starting his on-call shift the hospital, so he came to assist at the surgery. It was nice to hear his familiar, grandfatherly voice. And when I felt the procedure start, the reality of it hit me, and I started to cry as I clutched Stephen's hand — tears of joy, not fear: "We're about to meet our baby!" We stared into each other's eyes until suddenly I heard a huge, lusty cry, and there he was — our big boy, born 5:01 p.m., weighing 8 pounds and 9.75 ounces, 21 inches long. (He was born with a sloped head, due to his position in my pelvis, but it went away in a day or two.) Stephen stood up to see over the blue surgical screen. He looked like a big, angry, coneheaded baby, Steve said later. They brought him behind the screen to show us before cleaning off the blood, and it was just amazing and miraculous. I was sobbing. And when our OB proceeded to sing "Happy Birthday" to Daniel, and the rest of the staff joined in, even our doula was teary-eyed.


After they cleaned Daniel, they let Stephen and I spend some time holding him behind the screen, and that was when I first got to touch him and kiss him and cry over him. I think my husband had some tears of joy, too. (I cried with pride, too, when they told us his two APGAR scores — which test the baby's functions at birth and five minutes of age — were 9 out of 10. And no one gets 10s. That's my overachiever!) Stephen and Daniel left together, with the doula and cameras in tow, to go to the nursery and get him weighed and tested.


Meanwhile, I was wheeled to recovery — which happens to be right next door to the tub room where I'd labored the night before. Within two hours, Daniel was back in my arms, and I started to nurse him. That was another amazing moment. If I ever had any doubts about my ability to breastfeed, they went away when Daniel went rooting around for his dinner and found it. He is the most eager and lusty little breastfeeder I could have imagined! Thank God my milk supply is meeting his demand. Although he lost a little weight before my milk came in, he had gained back his birth weight and more as of yesterday. Way to go, Daniel!


So that's it. Daniel is hungry now, so I must go. :)