4.5 months and GROWING

We took Marian in for her four month appointment and boy has she grown.


The photo is not exactly a flattering one, but symbolic of the fact that she's in the 95th percentile for height and head circumference and the 90th percentile for weight (15lbs6oz)! She is growing like an (adorable) weed and full of energy and determination to move, move, move. Her Grancy got her a jolly jumper for Christmas and it is her most favorite activity (perhaps second only to eating!) - she'll sit in it and bounce and bounce and bounce, stop, contemplate, spin, then bounce, bounce, bounce. She's jumped to 6-9 month clothing, which fortunately she got a lot of for Christmas as well.
This stage of her development is a really fun one. She consistently smiles when she catches someone looking at her. And she laughs now -- the laughs are the best. There's nothing that consistently makes her laugh so when she does it catches us off guard and makes us laugh too. Sometimes it's being taller than us, when we hold her up in the air; sometimes it's when we change her clothes; sometimes it's when we're intentionally being goofy and sometimes not; sometimes it's when she catches sight of herself in the mirror. No matter what, it's wonderful.
She's also bound and determined to learn to crawl. She "tripods" with her head -- when lying on her back she'll use her legs and her head to inch backwards toward what she wants (usually her dad) and she'll attempt to do that when on her belly as well. Sometimes she'll "swim" on her belly, moving her arms and legs in an attempt to figure out the coordination of movement, but she hasn't quite learned to put weight on her various appendages and then coordinate them.
She's also obsessed with her dad -- if he's in the room, she's looking at him. Right now we split her child-care evenly so it's not as though he's strange to her; she just loves to look at him. It's adorable and proves that she is and has always been daddy's little girl.We've just begin to start her on solids -- rice cereal mixed with formula until she gets the hang of it and then the fun really begins. Stay tuned!

2 months and great developments

First, look at this photo and tell me you can actually resist the urge to laugh:
Why yes, I did carve a pumpkin with the face of a crying baby -- it is the most horrifying thing I could think of and I did happen to know what Marian's Halloween costume would be!
Second, the stuffing in the costume aside, that is an 11lb2oz baby in that there pumpkin, and it is true that 11lbs is the magic number -- for the last 4 nights Marian has slept between 7-9 hours, awaking to two very happy parents. Her dad has the magic touch for getting her to sleep so long, so he puts her to bed every night and we alternate who will get up with her. She's also starting to eat more in a sitting, bumping up from 4oz to 6oz of formula or so. She continues to be so very active -- trying to climb, crawl and fly at times.

She also continues to get cuter and cuter:
she smiles readily, easily, and without coaxing, and if you rub her belly and smile at her you're almost guaranteed to get one back. She's started to recognize voices and faces and has learned to turn her head toward them, thus leading to a heart-melting scenario of her turning to look at you, taking a moment to register your face, and then bursting into a happy smile. It's impossible not to smile back. The other day she squealed from happiness for the first time too, and I'm looking so forward to hearing her first laugh. In the meantime she regales us with coos, squeaks, grunts, shrieks and ahs.
We have switched her to cloth diapers during the day and so far they are working out really well. We had a couple leaks the first few times we used them but learned to button the legs a little tighter and haven't had a problem since. It feels very gratifying to be saving the money and the landfill space by using "Fuzzibunz," and since they have multiple snaps they're easy to use and will grow with her right up through potty training.
Life with Marian continues to fly by, and each week seems to bring new excitement and new achievements...stay tuned!

One month down...hundreds to go!

9/23/10 marked Marian's one month anniversary. It did go by quickly, but only in retrospect!
We marked the day by taking her to the pediatrician, poor dear -- fortunately she's not due for immunizations until her two-month. Instead, we found out that she's 9lbs3oz, and we learned how to put her on a sleep schedule. Basically, we put her down at 8pm every night, awake or not, and we wait out her crying, and she falls asleep. The longest she's cried is about 45 minutes -- the MD said we can check on her every 15 to make sure nothing's wrong, but we have to wait 2 hours before we can soothe her. We've never had to do that -- her average crying jag is 15 minutes and then she crashes out. When she wakes up again, we feed her, change her, and put her right back down, preferably awake. In this way she learns to self-soothe. The idea is that eventually as her sleep cycles end and she wakes up, she'll learn to just go right back to sleep without needing us to intervene.
Her longest sleeping jag has been 4.5 hours, but the average is more like 3. Lately it's even shorter -- she hit the 6 week mark and is experiencing a growth spurt (apparently 6 weeks is a common time for a growth spurt) and she becomes hungry within practically an hour and a half of being fed, when as I said it used to be more like three. We're starting to feed her more per sitting to see if we can satisfy her. So far we can't seem to stuff her for long. But the book says these "cluster feedings" last a couple days and then chill out, so hopefully that will be the case. Steve and I are still alternating nights for who gets up to feed and change her, so each of us is getting mostly-consistent sleep every other night.
This Wednesday I'll have my 6 week postpartum check up to see how I've been doing. I'm hopeful that everything will be fine and I can exercise again -- I really miss it. And I really need my ab muscles back (what there was of them) because my back is compensating and getting achy. Marian's 9 pounds can feel much heavier after a long enough time holding her. Holding her though, no matter what, is such a sweet feeling.
For most of her life during her calm and awake states she will go through a repertoire of mouth movements and gestures that make it look like she's trying to orate. She's becoming more diverse in her vocal range as well -- "ahs" and "icks" and grumbles and squeaks and squeals and sighs. Those who meet her and know babies almost always describe her as alert, but she's upped the ante for the last few weeks: she's been in nearly constant movement when I sit holding her against me on her belly. It's like she's trying to mountain climb: her legs are kicking, her hands are grasping, she's looking up over my shoulder like the horizon is right there, calling to her.
Get used to that, kiddo -- it really is.

a new formula for success

Well, I tried to coax Marian back into nursing but she wasn't having it. Unfortunately bottle nipples are much easier for babies to draw sustenance from than the real thing, and she was not interested in going back to doing it the hard way. So I adjusted by pumping so I could still feed her breast milk, but that made my supply decline, because the pump is not as stimulating to milk production as the baby herself. So I called the office again to report my low volume and they said to supplement with formula if she'd take it; boy did she ever. When we went in today for our 2 week well baby visit, our pediatrician told me I should just go with formula and save myself the trouble. I've been a little heart sore that she lost all interest in nursing, since she used to obviously take so much pleasure from it; the contrast between the first week and the second has been making me sad. But supplementing with formula has made our lives so much easier -- Steve was able to watch her through the night for the first time and he thus allowed me the first 9 hour stretch of sleep I've had since before I went into labor. Last night, I did the same for him. Now we can alternate nights so we each get some decent rest every other night, and it does wonders for us. At a lunch gathering today a colleague who met us for the first time said that as new parents "we both seemed so calm." I took that as a huge compliment.
With the supplementing of the last week, Marian jumped in weight -- she's now 8lbs even! The assistant at the pediatrician's office actually double-checked if the scale was calibrated properly, and indeed it was. (Marian took that moment to pee on Steve; she's pretty mischievous that way.) She's in the 75th percentile for height and cranial circumference and the 50th for weight, which Steve noted makes her "just like her mom." I'll take that as a compliment as well.
Marian has turned out -- knock on wood, no jinxies -- to be such a good baby. The occasional bout with gas makes her cry, but most of the time she's snoozing, or awake and looking at the world with quiet wonder, or eating...she's healthy and happy and adorable. We are feeling very lucky.

Into the fray...

...a.k.a. you mean, we don't get to take the hospital staff home with us??

Not surprisingly, I've been bad about updating the blog. We are busy, and happy, and tired, and adjusting. On top of our new daughter,I've had work orientations all this week and we are coming up on the school year starting and thus the ability to get started on an actual, lasting routine for the first time since Steve started his Wyoming job back in April. Whew!
Things with Marian have been good, and challenging, and hysterical, and scary. For example, the first few days of figuring out breast-feeding were hard, but suddenly she was latching like a pro. At her second well-baby visit on Tuesday she'd gained back all the weight she'd lost since birth, which was very exciting. And then last night all of a sudden she would latch, let go, latch, let go, latch, let go, never fully glomming on and getting a full meal. We finally called the pediatrician's office this afternoon, after I became a wreck from being totally disturbed by her abstinence and my mom swooping in with suggestions and support and Steve working to keep me sane. Turns out the MD thinks she has a problem with dairy in my diet and must have just last night got fed up with the tummy turmoil and thus wouldn't really eat. She slurped down pedialyte like it was mana from heaven at the doctor's office and was not running a temp, so we don't have to worry about her being sick or having something major. So as the dairy passes out of my system over the next few hours, she'll enjoy some more pedialyte and then we'll try again later tonight. It was our first real trial and our first immense relief; one of many I'm sure.
When I first held her over those couple days in the hospital, I could NOT believe this beautiful little infant was ever inside me, the same way as I was going through labor I could not comprehend how there was ever going to be a baby at the end of the process. My pregnancy and Marian's existence seem somehow disconnected, and I can see how the stork legend came into play; it seems somehow more believable that a wild animal dropped her in my lap!
As a social worker I've been prepared for baby blues, keeping an eye on my hormones and ready to be a little weepy and down if it happened. So far, aside from my fears this morning, I've only felt joy, adoration, and pride. She's been allowing me about 6 hours of sleep total per night and I'm counting that as pretty lucky; Steve is able to get a little more since he doesn't have to feed her, but he's been great about taking shifts of simply watching her in between feedings to make sure I get actual time in bed without my maternal-baby-sounds-radar going full tilt.
Holding her when she's full and happy and awake and taking in the world around her is the best thing in the entire world. That and her smell. All the baby books mentioned the smell and I thought it was schlock, but it really and truly is unique and intoxicating.
That's about where things stand today, on Day 9. Each week she attains in her life feels like a small triumph and another step toward new and different and exciting developments.
Given the ramping up of my job and our continued adjustment to the baby, I know blog updates will likely be more infrequent than anyone might like, but it comes with the territory. I'll do my best to check in when I can.

the labor and delivery of a little oak sapling

As most of you know by now, Miss Marian Saranne Chesney-House has made her appearance in the world!
When last we left you, I was pretty despondent over the lack of dilation after a full night of contractions. After an afternoon of napping that was mostly contraction-free, the contractions started up again that evening. I was not at all graceful about it -- cursing in my head for the entire night as they came, painful but irregular, allowing me to sleep for at most 10 minutes at a time, and sometimes only 4 minutes apart. This continued all...night...long...
By 8am or so on Monday morning I made myself some oatmeal, sat down to eat it, had a contraction that stopped me just as I was putting the spoon to my mouth, preventing me from fulfilling yet another basic human need, and burst into tears. I was FED up, and Steve, who had slept through the night in the other room, came running, concern on his face. We called the OB office to schedule a non-stress test as requested by the midwife from the day before (to check on how the baby was doing during all these contractions) and I was fully prepared to demand that they induce me right then and there, because I could not take another two nights of these useless, unproductive, but sleep-defying and totally painful contractions before the scheduled inducement on Wednesday. We got there at 10am and met with Lesley, one of the midwives, and found that Acorn was doing just fine. Since I was there, Lesley decided to check me out too.
She looked at me, and said, "Elise." And then the happiest words in the English language: "The baby has fully dropped, you're at 5cm and 100% effaced!" (She also said that she was astonished I was at 5cm and still walking and talking. Apparently I'm a little tougher than I thought I was, given my despair.)
She actually offered to let us go home and wait it out another couple hours, or we could go ahead and admit to the hospital and break my water to move things along.
You can guess what I chose!
They had us in in no time -- all our bags were still in the car from the day before so we didn't need to go back and get anything -- and got me started on an IV right away, since I needed a full bag's worth of hydration before I could get an epidural. I had planned to see how much of the labor I could tough out -- to see if I could go totally natural -- but after two sleepless nights of contractions I decided to opt for the epidural if only to be able to relax for the first time in 48 hours and have the energy for the rest of the labor. The epidural was an incredibly weird feeling -- not often that you have something go POP! in your spine and think "oh thank god" -- but it was perfectly measured out so that I could still wiggle my toes and bend my knees and feel just enough pressure to be able to push. By the time the epidural was in and working and Lesley came by to break the amniotic sac, I was already at 10cm. So that painful dress rehearsal on Saturday night and Sunday morning was worth something -- it made my body incredibly efficient during the actual labor.
I ended up pushing for 2.5 hours or so. The epidural made this a pleasant experience and one I could manage with some stamina. Each time I had a contraction -- about every 3 minutes -- Steve and our delivery nurse, Enza, would lift my legs into a squat position, and I would curl forward and push as hard as I could 3 times in a row for 10 seconds each. In between, we chatted with Enza about her own (grown) kids, about their career choices and parental influence and college majors, like we were meeting over a cup of coffee with a long time friend. It was kind of funny in retrospect, but also kind of a lovely experience.
Finally Acorn's head was visible, and Lesley came back for the final pushes. I could feel pretty well -- not the pain, but the positioning and pressure -- so it didn't take much longer before Marian came out into the world at 4:29pm on 8/23/10, purple and slimy and quick to squall and then relax. She pinked up right away and got an apgar of 9 or so (apgar just indicates the baby's color, reflexes, and general health at the time of birth and then again 5 minutes afterward, and is on a scale of 1-10 where 10 is perfect).
She is absolutely beautiful, and born on her dad's chosen date for the baby lottery as well as being the gender he'd guessed all along, clearly already daddy's little girl.
Some of you wondered how Steve handled it -- he was a total champ. We both were so delighted by the news that I was at 5cm that we got a ton of emotional momentum back. He stroked my head through the final contractions I could feel before the epidural, helped coach me through the breathing during the pushing, kept me laughing, and was exactly the kind of support I needed at every given moment. He also got to cut the umbilical cord and held Marian for a long time while they finished up with me (I had one small tear but am otherwise fine).
I wanted to get this story out for those of you who were curious, but as we speak Miss Marian is looking a little hungry -- more to follow about the reality (and surreality) of the first 48 hours of her life!

Jinxed

Well, we got the okay to head to the hospital, got all signed in and hooked up to the monitors, and got ready for the big event -- only to discover that I hadn't dilated. At all. Not even a little bit since the 1.5cm last noted on Wednesday. They gave me the option to walk around for an hour and check again, which I did -- nothing.
I can't convey how incredibly frustrating it is to go through some seriously painful contractions -- not the worst I'll feel, but still, much more than a nuisance -- for hours on end, with maybe 3 hours of sleep last night, only to find out that they were literally doing nothing but causing me pain.
So after around four hours at the hospital, we were discharged with instructions to call if the contractions got much stronger, much shorter in interval, or if my water broke or other unequivocal symptoms happened. Also to hydrate as much as possible. We've been home for probably an hour and I've had maybe two contractions since then.
It's looking like we might be checking in on Wednesday night for that induction after all, although the discharge nurse was sweet and said she was sure we'd back sooner than that, that a woman next door was sent home at 1cm and had just come back 4-5cms. How nice for her!
So to anyone who was holding their breath after the latest two entries, sorry, but it's time to breathe again. I'll probably be a bit more cautious about updating until we have concrete evidence that this kid is actually planning on showing up.