Julian is two months old today!
As of yesterday, he weighs 11 pounds, 10 ounces. He has a whole new ability to focus on objects in front of him, so now we can put him in his crib and he'll stare at the mobile and watch it move, and he gurgles and smiles and flails around. He has also discovered that if he flails his arms in the right direction, he can suck on his fingers, and he seems to like that when he manages to coordinate it all. And he has suddenly begun to coordinate pushing his feet out and arching his back, such that we expect rolling over any day now and we have to be very careful with him on the changing table or in the bathtub!
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Sunday, July 1, 2007
We're all about sleep
We're fulfilling the cliche about new parents being able to talk about little other than sleep. (I'll spare you the discussions of diaper contents.) The news is good: Julian has, for the past two nights, slept from around 8:30 PM to after 3 AM! That's nearly seven hours at a stretch! Then last night he added another 3 hours after that, so I'm actually feeling comparatively well-rested today. All of this sleep has been helping his cognitive advances; now he makes all sorts of cute little noises, and he's getting better at sticking his tongue out and smiling at us!
He is still the cutest baby in the known universe:
In his bouncy seat, 7/1/07:
He is still the cutest baby in the known universe:
Saturday, June 23, 2007
A quick update
Julian now weighs 10 lbs, 14.5 oz, according to the scale at the hospital yesterday. We went in for a mom's group meeting, and it was fun to see the range of ages and sizes and realize that in not too long, he'll be able to hold his head up and sit up by himself. He has a bedtime now, 8 pm, and last night he slept from 8:30 until 1:30! We appreciated that. Now we just have to work on getting him to sleep for a second long stretch for the rest of the night, which is tricky as he's often too sleepy to eat very much before falling asleep, and wakes up hungry an hour or two later. He had a bath in his bathtub yesterday and didn't object to having all the spit-up washed out of his hair, thank goodness, and now he has just woken up from his nap and is probably hungry!
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Lots of posting
I've just posted a whole lot of pics from the last month, plus the story of Julian's arrival in the world. The posts are backdated, so you may have to scroll down the page a ways to see them all, but they're worth it, I promise!
Birth story
Early Sunday morning (5/6/07) I woke up around 4 to go to the bathroom. While I was up, I had a contraction or two, but not enough to make me want to stay awake. So I went back to bed, and then when I woke up at 9, I quickly realized that the contractions weren't going away. I started timing them, and they were about a minute long and between 5 and 10 minutes apart. So I had some breakfast, and when Oliver woke up I told him that we might be having a baby soon!
For the rest of the morning, I sent some email, called my parents, knitted, and took a shower, breathing through contractions every few minutes and timing them. I called the doctor, who said that it sounded like we still had "plenty of time," since it was my first baby, and to come to the hospital when the contractions were consistently less than 5 minutes apart for an hour. By around 2:30 things were starting to get intense and kind of painful, and I knew that I wanted to go to the hospital soon or else I'd be very unhappy about sitting in the car. Oliver had been packing our bags and tidying up the house all day, so we were ready to go. I called the doctor and the doula, Oliver drove carefully, and we arrived at the hospital around 3:30 in the afternoon.
Maggie, our doula, had already told the concierge we were coming and booked us a room with spectacular mountain views. The nurse did a quick exam and told me that I was about 2cm dilated. All that work and only 2cm! I was kind of annoyed. To get things going, Oliver and Maggie took me for a walk around the hallways. Every time I stopped to have a contraction, I grabbed the railing along the wall, and the two of them rubbed my back. Eventually I decided I was tired of walking and we went back to the room.
I'm not quite sure of the sequence of the rest of the afternoon. I spent some time trying different positions in the room: leaning on the bed, sitting on the exercise ball, leaning over the head of the bed - that one felt good for my back, but not my stomach, and I threw up all the water and gatorade I'd been so carefully drinking all day. I was happy to get an IV for some much-needed fluids and a shot of anti-nausea medication. Eventually I decided to try the bathtub, which was nice for a while, especially with Maggie pouring warm water over my back and stomach, but then the contractions got worse and I couldn't deal very well.
I got back in bed, I tried different positions, I did a lot of hard breathing, but I needed something to take the edge off. Enter my new friend, fentanyl. The first dose was great and made me feel much better for the next half-hour or so. The second dose was pretty good. By the third dose, though, the contractions were way too much to deal with. I think at this point Lisa the night nurse did another exam and I was just about 4cm dilated. Maggie and Lisa tried to be helpful and suggest other coping techniques, like going for a walk or getting back in the tub, but I couldn't face any of them, and I looked at Oliver and he read my mind and said, "Or do you just want the epidural now?" Yes yes yes, please and thank you. They called in the anesthesiologist, and soon I was sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on a chair, having my back covered in iodine. The idea of an epidural is a little scary, but quite honestly, it was a total breeze and hurt less than having the IV put in. The doctor was very good about fitting in the "hold still" parts between contractions, and I suspect that the remaining fentanyl helped me deal with the whole process.
The epidural was great. For an hour. I was kind of out of it - this was after 10pm and I'd been in labor for 12 hours already - so I wasn't quite aware of what was going on. Maggie, however, was sitting next to me in a rocking chair and could hear me breathing hard through contractions again. She called the nurse, who called the anesthesiologist, who came back and re-did the epidural. Except it didn't work that time either. Apparently I have some veins in the epidural space that were getting in the way and the catheter wouldn't stay put. Eventually, at 4 AM, the third time was the charm and I was blissfully unaware of any pain for the rest of the night.
I slept for a few hours, and when I woke up around 7 AM, I started having real pushing contractions. We decided to let them work for a little while to move the baby down, until I was really feeling the need to push and felt like active pushing would be less painful than the contractions. The rest is a little hazy. It was not fun. I started pushing at 10 AM and tried a lot of positions, and none of them worked very well. I didn't feel confident in the least that I was actually going to push out a baby. Eventually, though, the doctor came in and started setting up for the birth, and that was a real shot of energy; she wouldn't be doing all that if I weren't making progress! I asked for another boost in the epidural and that, plus seeing a little bit of the baby's head in a mirror, was what really made the difference. Maggie, nurses Carla and Danielle, Oliver, and Dr. Jones all told me what a great job I was doing, I pushed, and yelled, and pushed more, and finally I gave birth to Julian Alexander at 12:40 PM.
He weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces, and he had a nice round 14-inch head. Oliver helped Dr. Jones deliver him. The cord was wrapped around his neck, he was (I'm told) a complete mess of blood and mucus and meconium, and he didn't cry or in fact breathe right away. The nurses whisked him away to a warmer in the corner (Oliver followed along) and got him breathing after a minute or two, and then they brought him over and put him on my chest while the doctor stitched me up. I wasn't worried about him at all; I couldn't feel much but relief that it was over, and I knew it was all going to be fine.
My blood pressure was pretty low, so they kept me in bed for a little while, but eventually we moved over to a nice recovery room with another mountain view, and a queen-size bed so we could all stay there together. Recovery went pretty well; the staff were very helpful, the food was surprisingly good, and by Wednesday I was shuffling around without too much trouble. 
Julian developed a little jaundice, but the pediatrician told us we could do his phototherapy at home. So we packed our bags and took our boy and went home on Wednesday afternoon.
(Six weeks later, those early weeks are something of a blur, but I'm happy to report that Julian is very healthy, weighing in at 10 pounds; breastfeeding is (obviously) going quite well, he's started sleeping for longer stretches at night, I'm feeling mostly recovered, and we're having a wonderful time at home with our adorable little boy.)
For the rest of the morning, I sent some email, called my parents, knitted, and took a shower, breathing through contractions every few minutes and timing them. I called the doctor, who said that it sounded like we still had "plenty of time," since it was my first baby, and to come to the hospital when the contractions were consistently less than 5 minutes apart for an hour. By around 2:30 things were starting to get intense and kind of painful, and I knew that I wanted to go to the hospital soon or else I'd be very unhappy about sitting in the car. Oliver had been packing our bags and tidying up the house all day, so we were ready to go. I called the doctor and the doula, Oliver drove carefully, and we arrived at the hospital around 3:30 in the afternoon.
Maggie, our doula, had already told the concierge we were coming and booked us a room with spectacular mountain views. The nurse did a quick exam and told me that I was about 2cm dilated. All that work and only 2cm! I was kind of annoyed. To get things going, Oliver and Maggie took me for a walk around the hallways. Every time I stopped to have a contraction, I grabbed the railing along the wall, and the two of them rubbed my back. Eventually I decided I was tired of walking and we went back to the room.
I'm not quite sure of the sequence of the rest of the afternoon. I spent some time trying different positions in the room: leaning on the bed, sitting on the exercise ball, leaning over the head of the bed - that one felt good for my back, but not my stomach, and I threw up all the water and gatorade I'd been so carefully drinking all day. I was happy to get an IV for some much-needed fluids and a shot of anti-nausea medication. Eventually I decided to try the bathtub, which was nice for a while, especially with Maggie pouring warm water over my back and stomach, but then the contractions got worse and I couldn't deal very well.
I got back in bed, I tried different positions, I did a lot of hard breathing, but I needed something to take the edge off. Enter my new friend, fentanyl. The first dose was great and made me feel much better for the next half-hour or so. The second dose was pretty good. By the third dose, though, the contractions were way too much to deal with. I think at this point Lisa the night nurse did another exam and I was just about 4cm dilated. Maggie and Lisa tried to be helpful and suggest other coping techniques, like going for a walk or getting back in the tub, but I couldn't face any of them, and I looked at Oliver and he read my mind and said, "Or do you just want the epidural now?" Yes yes yes, please and thank you. They called in the anesthesiologist, and soon I was sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on a chair, having my back covered in iodine. The idea of an epidural is a little scary, but quite honestly, it was a total breeze and hurt less than having the IV put in. The doctor was very good about fitting in the "hold still" parts between contractions, and I suspect that the remaining fentanyl helped me deal with the whole process.
The epidural was great. For an hour. I was kind of out of it - this was after 10pm and I'd been in labor for 12 hours already - so I wasn't quite aware of what was going on. Maggie, however, was sitting next to me in a rocking chair and could hear me breathing hard through contractions again. She called the nurse, who called the anesthesiologist, who came back and re-did the epidural. Except it didn't work that time either. Apparently I have some veins in the epidural space that were getting in the way and the catheter wouldn't stay put. Eventually, at 4 AM, the third time was the charm and I was blissfully unaware of any pain for the rest of the night.
I slept for a few hours, and when I woke up around 7 AM, I started having real pushing contractions. We decided to let them work for a little while to move the baby down, until I was really feeling the need to push and felt like active pushing would be less painful than the contractions. The rest is a little hazy. It was not fun. I started pushing at 10 AM and tried a lot of positions, and none of them worked very well. I didn't feel confident in the least that I was actually going to push out a baby. Eventually, though, the doctor came in and started setting up for the birth, and that was a real shot of energy; she wouldn't be doing all that if I weren't making progress! I asked for another boost in the epidural and that, plus seeing a little bit of the baby's head in a mirror, was what really made the difference. Maggie, nurses Carla and Danielle, Oliver, and Dr. Jones all told me what a great job I was doing, I pushed, and yelled, and pushed more, and finally I gave birth to Julian Alexander at 12:40 PM.
He weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces, and he had a nice round 14-inch head. Oliver helped Dr. Jones deliver him. The cord was wrapped around his neck, he was (I'm told) a complete mess of blood and mucus and meconium, and he didn't cry or in fact breathe right away. The nurses whisked him away to a warmer in the corner (Oliver followed along) and got him breathing after a minute or two, and then they brought him over and put him on my chest while the doctor stitched me up. I wasn't worried about him at all; I couldn't feel much but relief that it was over, and I knew it was all going to be fine.
My blood pressure was pretty low, so they kept me in bed for a little while, but eventually we moved over to a nice recovery room with another mountain view, and a queen-size bed so we could all stay there together. Recovery went pretty well; the staff were very helpful, the food was surprisingly good, and by Wednesday I was shuffling around without too much trouble. 
Julian developed a little jaundice, but the pediatrician told us we could do his phototherapy at home. So we packed our bags and took our boy and went home on Wednesday afternoon. (Six weeks later, those early weeks are something of a blur, but I'm happy to report that Julian is very healthy, weighing in at 10 pounds; breastfeeding is (obviously) going quite well, he's started sleeping for longer stretches at night, I'm feeling mostly recovered, and we're having a wonderful time at home with our adorable little boy.)
Saturday, June 9, 2007
One month!
Julian is one month old!
Then
Now
How time flies when you're not sleeping... but in a small miracle, he seems to have decided that he's a big boy now, and no longer needs to eat every two hours all night! Over the past several nights he's slept in stretches of up to four and a half hours, which is fantastic. He needs some help getting to sleep in the first place, and he tends to wake up at 7 and be annoyed that we just want to lie in a dark room and not interact with him, but it's still a great improvement.
He now weighs a healthy 10 pounds and is starting to grow out of his smaller outfits. He's much more alert, staring at faces and looking around at his environment, and he likes going for walks in the stroller. He also seems to have a sixth sense for exactly when his mother is about to eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and starts wailing accordingly. Fortunately he doesn't seem to mind too much if I drop crumbs on his head.
How time flies when you're not sleeping... but in a small miracle, he seems to have decided that he's a big boy now, and no longer needs to eat every two hours all night! Over the past several nights he's slept in stretches of up to four and a half hours, which is fantastic. He needs some help getting to sleep in the first place, and he tends to wake up at 7 and be annoyed that we just want to lie in a dark room and not interact with him, but it's still a great improvement.
He now weighs a healthy 10 pounds and is starting to grow out of his smaller outfits. He's much more alert, staring at faces and looking around at his environment, and he likes going for walks in the stroller. He also seems to have a sixth sense for exactly when his mother is about to eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and starts wailing accordingly. Fortunately he doesn't seem to mind too much if I drop crumbs on his head.
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