Two Week Checkup

We had two doctor appointments today--urologist and pediatrician--and both went well! First was the urologist at 8:45am: this directly interfered with Ava's feeding time so we (Mom and me; Craig is working) were going to wake her early and feed her at 7:00am...well, she decided not to go back to sleep after her 4:15 feeding until nearly 6:00, so I put her in her cradle and showered (I've been waking up drenched in sweat ever since I got home from the hospital, it's hormonal) and then fed her and we left. She had an exam and ultrasound and her kidneys are looking pretty good, but they put her on antibiotics and are scheduling her for a voiding cystogram next week. They'll have to fill her bladder and watch her pee to make sure there isn't any reflux in her kidneys. Ugh...I am NOT looking forward to taking my baby to the hospital to be cathederized...poor kid!

After the urologist we stopped by Starbucks for awhile, which was nice and relaxing for Mom and I, then home to feed Ava and feed ourselves before going to the pediatrician. At the two week appointment, the doctor is checking (among other things) to make sure she's regained her birth weight. That means Ava would have to be back up to 8 lbs. 13 oz....and she weighed in today at 9 lbs. 3.5 oz.! So, she's doing very well! We like our babies fat and happy. :o) Everything else seemed to check out okay except they want to do an ultrasound on her tailbone in a few weeks to take a look at something but she should be fine.

That is all...I can't do any picture updates at the moment, maybe this weekend....

this is not my child...

Last night, I fed Ava around 7:30, we bathed her and put her to bed in her crib. Sometime between 8:30 and 11:30 last night, someone took my sweet little girl and replaced her with Rosemary's Baby. I AM NOT KIDDING. She woke around 11:30 to eat, I changed her (she had a mess in her diaper and then, before I could get a new one on her, she made a mess all over me and the towel she was laying on. This should have been my first clue...) and put her to bed in her cradle. She fussed, kept spitting out her pacifier, and then started full-on screaming. I tried putting her on her belly and patting her in case she was gassy...nothing. Gave her a "snack" (Craig's words) around 1am and this helped for about ten seconds. At nearly 2am I finally took her downstairs and alternated between patting, swaddling, shushing, laying her on her Boppy cushion, giving her a pacifier and cuddling her; and she alternated between shrieking and whimpering. At around 3:45am she finally calmed down enough for me to put her back in the cradle. Well, apparently she decided at 4:15 that it was time to eat so I fed her (again) and she only ate for about ten minutes before passing out. I put her down, thankfully she decided she'd sleep, and then after her 8:15 feeding I handed her off to Mom and slept for about three hours. My mom thinks that Ava has decided that the early half of the night (approx. 12-4am) is her "awake" time...I think we will be modifying that over the next few weeks, because that's just not going to fly.

Two doctor appointments tomorrow...I'll update about those after they've happened.

three cute pictures

Just because :o)

My Favorite Baby Things

Babies require a ridiculous amount of products to keep them healthy and happy...and keep in mind, this is coming from someone who feels like she didn't register for a lot of the "extras"...over the past ten days there are a few products I've especially liked. (I already knew that I'd like and need certain things like the Boppy pillow for nursing, etc.) Anyhow, here they are:

1.) Bobby Luxe Infant Lounger
This is not something I registered for, in fact, I never even heard of it until someone sent it to us as a gift about a week ago. This is the green "pod" that Ava is laying on in a few of the pictures in the last post. It basically looks like a big, soft Boppy pillow without the hole in it, and the baby just lays on it. We've had her on it constantly since we got it and she's always cozy and content. (She's on the couch next to me in it right now :o) If you are having a baby, I highly recommend registering for it!





2.) Baby hats
These are a given since babies have trouble regulating their body temperature and lose a lot of heat through their heads...especially if your kid is born in the winter it's nice to have a few on hand. Plus, unless your baby was small and came out quickly or was delivered via C-section, he or she will probably have a lumpy conehead for awhile. Hide it. (Ava didn't have it TOO bad and her head is pretty much the normal shape now, but it's freezing here so she's keeping the hats on for awhile yet!)





3.) Carter's Receiving Blankets
They are pretty and lightweight and make it easy to swaddle the baby...I actually like them better than the pre-made swaddlers, even though those are nice and convenient too. I just liked the receiving blankets more than I thought I would. Plus they can double as burp cloths. (All right...at this point, just about anything can double as a burp cloth. Ask me how many times my cute black shirt got barfed on yesterday.)





4.) Nuk pacifiers
We don't want Ava walking around with pacifiers when she's four years old or anything but for now, they're wonderful...she usually just uses one to soothe herself for a few minutes before spitting it out, which is good. I like the Nuk ones best...I don't know why. She got a MAM one from the hospital but the nipple isn't as good.





5.) Burt's Bees Baby Bee products
I could tell you that I'm addicted to these products because they're all-natural, yadda yadda...but the truth is they just smell wonderful. Who cares if they're way more expensive than normal baby products...this is my first kid, I'll be practical with the next one! (Don't worry, Anna--I'm not going to be constantly sniffing my kid like that one lady.... ;o)





So what's my least favorite baby item thus far? Definitely the breast pump. I really thought that the breastfeeding would be weird and the pump would be my best friend but it's totally the other way around...I pumped yesterday and that thing is SCARY, and it hurt. Unfortunately, I seem to be producing more milk than your average dairy farm (that's actually a good thing because I never have to worry about whether or not I am providing enough nourishment for my baby), so I'm going to have to pump a lot. Ugh. I've already started freezing bags of milk so that Craig will be able to help with feedings.

Ava's first week

Here are some more pictures of Ava's first week home. Between the two sets of grandparents there are many more, but this is all I have time for right now! Things are getting a lot more settled around here...I'm able to sleep much better between feedings, and Ava is a remarkably good baby: she only screams at bath time (we can't give her real baths yet because of the cord stump, when we can actually sit her in the warm water she'll do better) and during most diaper changes (poor thing has a bad rash already) , she eats about every four hours, and sometimes longer. I've been setting my alarm every 4 1/2 hours so that if she is in a deep sleep I can wake her up to eat, which I guess is what you are supposed to do with newborns. We go for her two week checkup on Tuesday so if she's gaining good weight I may stop doing that at night, or go for every five hours. She usually wakes on her own between 3 1/2-4 1/2 hours though. Nursing is still going well for both of us, Craig is anxious for me to start pumping so that he can take part in feedings too, but that has to wait until she's used to the real thing for awhile.

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Please note...in the pictures where she is sitting in the sun, I'm not torturing her for the sake of a photo op...she had a high level of bilirubin when she was born, this has something to do with jaundice, which is not good. The doctor told us that putting her in the sunlight helps break down the bilirubin, so we did just that. The sunglasses were a fun touch, though. ;o)

the things I've learned

All right, before I write anything I'll give you some pictures. :o) There are more to follow in the next day or two, but I have to empty my camera, and I have to wait for the grandparents to email some to me as well...in addition to my mom and dad, Craig's parents were here over the weekend so there are a LOT of pictures from that visit. Six adults spoiling one baby...she has such a hard life... ;o)

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Now, here's what I've learned in my first week as a parent:

1.) Breastfeeding, which seemed like such an alien concept before, is not creepy at all. Luckily, Ava started out like a champ with the latching/sucking business and we only had to supplement with formula for about a day or two before the milk started, and we've been doing great ever since. When it's time for her to nurse, she scrunches up her face, opens her mouth up wide, and dive bombs my chest with her face, which is highly amusing to watch (no footage of that will be available, however...TOO MUCH INFO).

2.) Childbirth IS as bad as some people say it is. I'm sure it isn't always, or for everyone, but my experience was rather unpleasant. For the first few days after Ava's birth, I got nauseated every time I thought about it again. Ugghhhh.

3.) Finding time to sleep is less difficult than finding the ability to sleep. Last night was the best so far...I put her down and for once, wasn't too darn worried to get some sleep between feedings. I DID launch myself from the bed as if shot from a cannon at one point when I heard her make a funny sound, but that's it.

4.) Dignity really doesn't come into play in the delivery room, even for someone like me who was devastated by the thought of losing it. Craig witnessed the birth of his daughter with awe, not disgust. And I really didn't have time to think about how gross I probably looked while trying to shove the kid from the inside to the outside. I'm now laughing at myself for bringing a hair dryer with me to the hospital...I DID put on a little bit of makeup and clean myself up the next day but the hair dryer was overkill.

So, I'm going to admit that people were right and I was wrong about quite a bit...the person you are outside of the delivery room...totally not the same person inside the delivery room. And that's okay. :o)

Ava's Birth Day

As you can imagine, a LOT has happened over the past week...I'm going to have to update in a few different posts. This one will be Ava's birth and in the next one, when I have a little more time (ha ha!) to put it together, I'll do pictures. So here it goes...

Last Tuesday, January 8th I woke up at 4am with cramps...felt like I was having normal period cramps, but every so often they'd get REALLY bad. It seemed pretty regular so I woke up my mom and we timed them for awhile, woke up Craig, called the doctor, and was told to come in. We got to the hospital around 6:30am and they set us up in a delivery room...the contractions were pretty regular at about 5 minutes apart, painful but not unbearable, and I had dilated to 4 cm. (Oh, and it turns out one of my favorite doctors was on duty that day, which was great.) Anyhow, things progressed very slowly and I spent a lot of time just watching TV, fooling around on the computer, and clenching my teeth through the worst of the contractions...unfortunately they were getting weaker and further apart so finally the doctor came in and broke my water...the feeling grossed me out so much that I started crying, which had to have been a total bizarre hormonal reaction because it's not like it hurt or anything. But, ugh....gross. That didn't seem to speed things up much, so after a few hours they hooked me up to some Pitocin, which really got the contractions going--a lot more frequent and a lot more painful. (Craig and my mom enjoyed watching the contraction monitor to see what it was doing...Craig reported back to me on the strength and duration of each one because, I don't know. I was having the contractions...I was well aware of the strength and duration, thank you!) I finally requested some Staidol (sp), which is a narcotic they can put in the I.V...not quite an epidural but let me tell you, it was GREAT. It didn't so much take away the pain as make me too giddy to care. For about an hour I was laughing every time someone said something, or nothing at all.

After about an hour the Staidol wore off I lived through a few more contractions before finally requesting the epidural...that itself didn't hurt, but the numbing they did to my back in order to prepare me for it felt like being attacked by a swarm of bees...not fun, but it effectively knocked out the pain of contractions so that's what's important. By now we were getting into the evening, it must've been about 7pm and I was feeling a lot of pressure towards my tailbone when the nurse said it was time to push. I don't know how to describe it, just that the pressure would get stronger and that's when I was supposed to do the pushing. I had my legs up in some scary looking contraption, my mom sat near the foot of the bed and Craig had one leg while the nurse had the other. It wasn't too bad at first. For some reason, I was under the impression that the "pushing" phase was about ten minutes long when in reality it's about two hours for first time pregnancies. TWO. HOURS. My pushing phase lasted around 1 1/2 hours or a little more and I didn't do too badly for the first part but after awhile I was screaming for the nurse to just pull the baby out. (They don't do that.) Towards the end the pain was excruciating and in hindsight I'm pretty sure the epidural had somewhat worn off...the last few minutes were horrible and I didn't think I could continue with the pushing...I hadn't eaten in over 24 hours and I was panicking that I wouldn't be able to get the kid out. I yelled for my mom, who ended up taking the leg that Craig wasn't already manning. Lots of screaming, and the nurse had to yell at me to get me to calm down (I feel like an idiot, but I can't describe the panic...it was bad). FINALLY they could see the top of her head (my mom says that when the nurse told me she could see hair, I said, "WELL THEN WHY DON'T YOU GRAB IT AND PULL HER OUT LIKE A CARROT!") so the doctor came in and after another couple of minutes she was out! You have to have actually experienced it to completely understand the feeling of sheer relief when the baby finishes exiting your body. Oh, and I felt a little better about all the screaming I did because when the doctor held her up, she and the nurses all exclaimed about what a big baby she was. I think I said, "HOLY CRAP, DID THAT JUST COME OUT OF ME?!" or something to that effect. Craig was offered the privilege of cutting the cord, which he declined (I so do NOT blame him, I'd have passed too) so my mom did it. She's a nurse AND she's the grandma, so that was pretty cool for her.

So, my legs are still up in that awful contraption because, yippee--I have to deliver the placenta and also, I'm ripped open and need to be stitched up! Woohoo! (This is why I think the epidural wore off, they had to re-numb me before giving me the stitches...I'd have thought the epidural would have taken care of that.) But they handed me this screaming, only sort-of slimy baby and for a few minutes it really didn't matter anymore...I've never particularly enjoyed the sound of a screaming baby but at that moment it was the most awesome sound I ever heard. They cleaned her up, wrapped her in a blanket, and then Craig and my mom took turns holding her and taking pictures. (Craig also videotaped me holding her for the first time. This film had to be edited, as he didn't zoom in close enough and there was a lovely shot of my legs still up and the doctor stitching me. We discovered this when playing the video back for my parents....wonderful.)

After awhile we were wheeled up (or down, I can't remember) to the recovery room where we'd spend the next two days with the newest addition to our family...the nurses had to give me a lesson on how to clean myself after using the restroom since everything below the belly button was stitched, bruised, swollen, bleeding, and sore....the process was so time consuming that by the time it was finished, I had to use the restroom again. I don't remember much else from that night--I called people, I sent some emails/posted some updates, got woken up every few hours to have my vitals taken and to try nursing the baby. It was probably the longest, scariest, most painful day of my life but it DID have a happy ending. :o)