Mae at six weeks
I've been putting off updating about Mae because I still don't have any pictures uploaded. We're having camera problems. =( Since I do have one to steal from thatpatti, I thought I'd make a post. Mae had her one month doctor's visit a week ago and is very healthy. She's a little over 10 lbs and 20 inches long! Here's my chubbster: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thatpatti/316118692/
Mae has been smiling a bit lately, mostly at Ben or Sage. I was holding her while we ate breakfast this morning and she gave Sage a huge grin! He got in her face and made some baby talk, which really got her smiling. Then he looked at me and said, "Mae loves me." So cute!
She's probably the easiest baby on the face of the planet, I swear. She prefers being put down in her bassinet with a pacifier than being lulled to sleep... she pants rather than cries when she gets hungry (at first, anyway)... she sleeps between five and eight hours at night... and now that I've said so, she's going to turn into Colic Baby from Hell, I'm sure. =)
She does have a little acid reflux problem that causes her to spit up a lot, but it's mostly been solved by some changes in routine. I feed her less formula more often and sit her in a carseat or bouncy chair after she's eaten. It's really helped with her spitting up and she's much less fussy in the evening. She is still clusterfeeding, though yesterday she did that all afternoon and then slept from 9pm to 5am. There's still no rhyme or reason to her schedule, however. Some nights she'll clusterfeed and sleep forever. Other nights she'll wake at midnight, 3am, and 7am. It's unpredictable, but it doesn't really matter. I'm getting enough sleep that I'm not miserable and a cup of coffee in the afternoon takes care of the rest of the day.
Sage is another matter entirely. I won't get into a rant about his toddlerness today, but damn... what a temper!
I thought I'd reminisce a bit about Mae's birth in the form of a birth story-
I spent the last month of my pregnancy in false labor. Contractions would come and go, psyching me out every other day or so. Two days before Mae was born, my OB swept my membranes and it caused some back pain and contractions. The night before my water broke, I went to the hospital in the evening because of the backpain. I was sent home after a few hours in triage because I hadn't had a single contraction. The next day was Sunday. Ben, Sage, my mom, and I went to Oakland Nursery to buy bulbs and shrubs for the front yard. As we were unloading the shrubs from the car to our front porch, I felt a pop and a gush. One of my bags of water had broken! We got all excited and I paged my OB. The on-call doctor returned my call and told me I could come in to be induced. I was so very done being pregnant at that point that I agreed. I sat on the toilet for a bit while I waited for Ben to finish doing something... showering, maybe? I forget. I remember crying because I had asked my mom to watch Sage while we went to the hospital and she had asked us to find someone else because she wanted to go to a jazz concert. So I called Ben's mom but she couldn't come until the evening and I couldn't reach Ben's dad or stepmom. I was so frustrated that I sat there and cried. My mom came in and apologized and agreed to watch Sage until Debbie could come and get him. Then I stuffed a towel in my underwear to soak up the leak and we left for the hospital!
I vaguely remember being in triage and then going to the birthing room. The first nurse set me up with an IV, which seemed to take forever. Then around 5pm, she started the pitocin drip. Her shift ended shortly afterwards and another nurse came in. I remember laying on my side breathing through contractions and asking him if I should be laying there or if I should get up and walk around. He told me that there was no need to walk around because it wasn't a proven method to speed up the labor process. So I stayed in bed until yet another nurse took over around 7pm. She told me that if I wanted to deliver without pain medication that I'd have to get up. She set me up on a birthing ball, which alleviated the pain a lot. At some point, Ben's dad and stepmom arrived to keep us company. Around this time I started having to go to the bathroom often, which was awkward because I had to take the IV pole and my fetal monitor belts with me. I remember the belts accidentally getting dunked in the toilet and having a good laugh about that.
The contractions started getting very painful around 9pm and I was pretty sad that I couldn't get into a tub. I was still determined to get through without pain medication, but then a woman down the hall started hollering. Around 10pm she was screaming, though the nurse assured me that she was just practicing lamaze very loudly. Whatever she was doing, she freaked me out and I lost my calm. I knew the rest of the labor would be a struggle with fear and I didn't want that. So I asked for an epidural. Just my luck that the anesthesiologist was helping with an emergency c-section, so the nurse offered me nubane. I accepted it and was basically loopy for the rest of the delivery. The epidural went fine and kicked in quickly. I lost feeling in my legs and then settled down to sleep for a bit. I was at 7cm, so the nurse told my in-laws that I wouldn't be delivering for a while. They went out into the lobby to hang around while I slept, and then the nurse left. It was about midnight. Seconds after she left, I felt an intense pressure in my bottom. Then my body started to bear down and push. I pushed the nurse's call button and probably said something incoherent, but she rushed in and checked me. I was 10cm and fully dilated! The baby was crowning, so we started pushing. Ben held one leg and the nurse held the other. I pushed for maybe fifteen minutes and then received an episiotomy. Another few minutes of pushing and out came Mae's head!
According to Ben, I stopped pushing at that point. I remember that the cord was around her neck so the doctor had to cut it. But then instead of telling me to keep pushing, he just stared at me expectantly. I probably stared back at him blankly until he told me to push her out. When she was out, I remember grabbing her and bringing her to my chest. I had told the nurse that I wanted to catch her, but no one had relayed that information to the doctor. Ben says that he just stared at me in surprise for a moment and then asked to know the sex. Heh. I hadn't checked yet becase I was too busy rubbing her with towels, but when I saw she was a girl I was in disbelief. I had to check twice! And that's when I started hemmorhaging. The doctor was trying to stop the blood and had to ask three times for a shot to stop it. Then it finally stopped and he sewed up the episiotomy. He later explained that I'm anemic and have probably been through my whole pregnancy. Oops, no one caught that before!
While I was getting stitched up, Mae was getting weighed and measured. Ben said she was blowing bubbles, and I don't remember her crying at all. It seemed like forever until I could hold her again. Her temperature was low so we didn't have any skin to skin time right away. She wasn't interested in nursing, so she got passed around to grandparents for a while. When I got some feeling back in my legs, we were moved to the recovery room where we spent the next three days. She nursed all night long the first night and we got to snuggle a lot. By the second night I had decided to bottlefeed again, so she stayed in the nursery for a few hours so I could get some sleep. She was born on Monday, October 30 at 12:21am and came home with me on Wednesday afternoon. The rest is history!
Mae has been smiling a bit lately, mostly at Ben or Sage. I was holding her while we ate breakfast this morning and she gave Sage a huge grin! He got in her face and made some baby talk, which really got her smiling. Then he looked at me and said, "Mae loves me." So cute!
She's probably the easiest baby on the face of the planet, I swear. She prefers being put down in her bassinet with a pacifier than being lulled to sleep... she pants rather than cries when she gets hungry (at first, anyway)... she sleeps between five and eight hours at night... and now that I've said so, she's going to turn into Colic Baby from Hell, I'm sure. =)
She does have a little acid reflux problem that causes her to spit up a lot, but it's mostly been solved by some changes in routine. I feed her less formula more often and sit her in a carseat or bouncy chair after she's eaten. It's really helped with her spitting up and she's much less fussy in the evening. She is still clusterfeeding, though yesterday she did that all afternoon and then slept from 9pm to 5am. There's still no rhyme or reason to her schedule, however. Some nights she'll clusterfeed and sleep forever. Other nights she'll wake at midnight, 3am, and 7am. It's unpredictable, but it doesn't really matter. I'm getting enough sleep that I'm not miserable and a cup of coffee in the afternoon takes care of the rest of the day.
Sage is another matter entirely. I won't get into a rant about his toddlerness today, but damn... what a temper!
I thought I'd reminisce a bit about Mae's birth in the form of a birth story-
I spent the last month of my pregnancy in false labor. Contractions would come and go, psyching me out every other day or so. Two days before Mae was born, my OB swept my membranes and it caused some back pain and contractions. The night before my water broke, I went to the hospital in the evening because of the backpain. I was sent home after a few hours in triage because I hadn't had a single contraction. The next day was Sunday. Ben, Sage, my mom, and I went to Oakland Nursery to buy bulbs and shrubs for the front yard. As we were unloading the shrubs from the car to our front porch, I felt a pop and a gush. One of my bags of water had broken! We got all excited and I paged my OB. The on-call doctor returned my call and told me I could come in to be induced. I was so very done being pregnant at that point that I agreed. I sat on the toilet for a bit while I waited for Ben to finish doing something... showering, maybe? I forget. I remember crying because I had asked my mom to watch Sage while we went to the hospital and she had asked us to find someone else because she wanted to go to a jazz concert. So I called Ben's mom but she couldn't come until the evening and I couldn't reach Ben's dad or stepmom. I was so frustrated that I sat there and cried. My mom came in and apologized and agreed to watch Sage until Debbie could come and get him. Then I stuffed a towel in my underwear to soak up the leak and we left for the hospital!
I vaguely remember being in triage and then going to the birthing room. The first nurse set me up with an IV, which seemed to take forever. Then around 5pm, she started the pitocin drip. Her shift ended shortly afterwards and another nurse came in. I remember laying on my side breathing through contractions and asking him if I should be laying there or if I should get up and walk around. He told me that there was no need to walk around because it wasn't a proven method to speed up the labor process. So I stayed in bed until yet another nurse took over around 7pm. She told me that if I wanted to deliver without pain medication that I'd have to get up. She set me up on a birthing ball, which alleviated the pain a lot. At some point, Ben's dad and stepmom arrived to keep us company. Around this time I started having to go to the bathroom often, which was awkward because I had to take the IV pole and my fetal monitor belts with me. I remember the belts accidentally getting dunked in the toilet and having a good laugh about that.
The contractions started getting very painful around 9pm and I was pretty sad that I couldn't get into a tub. I was still determined to get through without pain medication, but then a woman down the hall started hollering. Around 10pm she was screaming, though the nurse assured me that she was just practicing lamaze very loudly. Whatever she was doing, she freaked me out and I lost my calm. I knew the rest of the labor would be a struggle with fear and I didn't want that. So I asked for an epidural. Just my luck that the anesthesiologist was helping with an emergency c-section, so the nurse offered me nubane. I accepted it and was basically loopy for the rest of the delivery. The epidural went fine and kicked in quickly. I lost feeling in my legs and then settled down to sleep for a bit. I was at 7cm, so the nurse told my in-laws that I wouldn't be delivering for a while. They went out into the lobby to hang around while I slept, and then the nurse left. It was about midnight. Seconds after she left, I felt an intense pressure in my bottom. Then my body started to bear down and push. I pushed the nurse's call button and probably said something incoherent, but she rushed in and checked me. I was 10cm and fully dilated! The baby was crowning, so we started pushing. Ben held one leg and the nurse held the other. I pushed for maybe fifteen minutes and then received an episiotomy. Another few minutes of pushing and out came Mae's head!
According to Ben, I stopped pushing at that point. I remember that the cord was around her neck so the doctor had to cut it. But then instead of telling me to keep pushing, he just stared at me expectantly. I probably stared back at him blankly until he told me to push her out. When she was out, I remember grabbing her and bringing her to my chest. I had told the nurse that I wanted to catch her, but no one had relayed that information to the doctor. Ben says that he just stared at me in surprise for a moment and then asked to know the sex. Heh. I hadn't checked yet becase I was too busy rubbing her with towels, but when I saw she was a girl I was in disbelief. I had to check twice! And that's when I started hemmorhaging. The doctor was trying to stop the blood and had to ask three times for a shot to stop it. Then it finally stopped and he sewed up the episiotomy. He later explained that I'm anemic and have probably been through my whole pregnancy. Oops, no one caught that before!
While I was getting stitched up, Mae was getting weighed and measured. Ben said she was blowing bubbles, and I don't remember her crying at all. It seemed like forever until I could hold her again. Her temperature was low so we didn't have any skin to skin time right away. She wasn't interested in nursing, so she got passed around to grandparents for a while. When I got some feeling back in my legs, we were moved to the recovery room where we spent the next three days. She nursed all night long the first night and we got to snuggle a lot. By the second night I had decided to bottlefeed again, so she stayed in the nursery for a few hours so I could get some sleep. She was born on Monday, October 30 at 12:21am and came home with me on Wednesday afternoon. The rest is history!