Really tough to be annoyed at him, though. I gave up and brought him downstairs for a play and he wraps his orangutan around himself, picks up a couple of cups from his kitchen and starts running around yelling "daddy!"
:bro: Keep up with it. Persistence is key. Did that switch over from being in the room to not a couple months ago. First week was the WORST but got progressively better.
Now it's down to point of he wants to do the bed time routine and go down.
My 23 month old daughter is now finally coming out of the woods of doing a lot of that crying and fighting us. When we put her down for bed now, when we leave the room she no longer cries but she will look at you with a stuck out bottom lip and it's heartbreaking, but we're sticking with letting her fall asleep on her own since it's what she needs to do.
She went from a couple months of throwing huge fits at every diaper change and every time we tried to get her in the car seat to actually coming to us to let us know when her diaper is dirty and being very good during changes, and mostly(not every time) being really cooperative with getting into the car seat.
I think it's just tough to be a little toddler going through all the changes they go through, and trying to learn how to be more independent while also still just wanting mommy and daddy to know what's on their mind all the time.
We had about 9 months of throwing fits during nappy changes, too. Suddenly two weeks ago that changed to him going and lying down on his changing mat if he was upstairs, or pulling his portable one out from his nappy bag and handing it to us if downstairs.
Toddlers are equal parts frustration and adorable, apparently.
I'm now watching him on the monitor try to cuddle his duck, bear and last bunny after some more milk and a final story. I convinced him that Gordon the orangutan didn't need to come to bed.
Hopefully this is the end and two hours later I can get myself some tea!
The one about the fucking space hairdresser and the cowboy. He's got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin
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FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
Yeah, we've spent a lot of this week fighting over bedtime. He used to be great, but suddenly he's decided that sleep is not something he wants to do. It's been a bit exasperating.
Nothing much to do but try and work out what works, unfortunately.
And take him out on outings to try and tire him out as much as possible.
I know you've been getting updates from @Shadowfire about Jaina, but I'm his wife and I just wanted to share a great picture of her from today. She's so much more active and awake. She grabbed our fingers.
My baby girl Cora is getting closer to 3. She had a meltdown tonight before bed but is finally asleep. I'm trying to relax before passing out myself. Tomorrow is our play day, where we spend all day bouncing between library and park and home for naps and eats.
[img][/img]
MiB on
I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against.
Malcolm X
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MichaelLCIn what furnace was thy brain?ChicagoRegistered Userregular
edited April 2015
I think our CC is finally doing the potty thing. Been in underwear all week and has been telling us she needs to go. Just like her paci, it had to be on her terms.
Cora is doing that too. I put diapers on her when accidents would be problematic, but it's undies the rest of the time and she's good about going in the potty anyway.
Dear Lord, are my days of wiping butts coming to an end?
I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against.
Malcolm X
So, I meant to post this two and a half months ago in the last kid thread. Here's my long-winded natural birth story!
It all started at 930pm on February 1st. My husband had already gone to bed since he had to be at work at 8am, and I was puttering around, brushing my teeth and the like. We'd gotten the new car seat into the car (and this comes back to bite us later), I packed my labor bag the week before, and all pertinent things were placed by the door. The due date was Feb 12th, but we knew the baby could come any day, so we figured, shit, let's just get everything ready in case we have to go early. So, I was feeling pretty good.
Suddenly, I had this feeling. For some reason, I just HAD to put certain numbers into my landline's directory. So, I pulled out my contact sheet and put the number in for my doula and for my OB. Then I went to bed around 950pm and feel asleep. At 1050pm, I woke up to a contraction. It felt different from the Braxton-Hicks contractions I'd been having the previous weeks, so I breathed and fell back asleep. 1152pm, I had another contraction. 1251am, another contraction. This kept happening until 450am. My husband sorta woke up 'cause I had to shift positions and he saw me doing my breathing.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"I'm pretty sure I'm in labour. Been having contractions since 1050 last night and they've been coming every hour on the hour. They feel different."
So, he called work and said he wouldn't be in.
Fast forward to about 11am. The contractions were about 15-20 minutes apart. I called my doula and my OB and they both said, "That's good! Keep going about your day, but don't overdo it. Make sure you rest up and call us when they get to be about 7 minutes apart. We'll send someone out to assess you." So, we did that. Around 5pm, my contractions got to be about 7 1/2 to 8 minutes apart, so we called my doula and OB again.
My doula sent her back-up out to assess me. She said I was definitely in active labor, but I wasn't in transition yet. She said, "Probably the best thing for you to right now is to go to bed and rest up for the next couple hours." So, I did that. Around 9pm, I woke up to a really really hard contraction. This is where it started getting crazy.
A snowstorm rolled in while I was sleeping and my siblings were frantically trying to figure out who was going to get me to the birth center, as my husband didn't have his license yet. Meanwhile, my contractions are getting harder and closer together. I was definitely in transition at that point because any time I had a contraction, I was pretty much consumed by it. I mean, I was perfectly aware of what was going on around me, but I was unable to respond because I was also wrapped up in just riding the contraction out.
Eventually, my sister showed up. We drove on shitty roads to the birth center. My husband was a bundle of nerves so he couldn't give coherent directions to my sister, so I was in the front seat, having contractions and navigating. It was less than ideal, but we got there. It sucked though, 'cause I felt like pushing on those shitty ass roads since they were so bumpy and badly plowed.
So, it's about 1045 or 11 on the night of February 2nd at this point. Already been in labour for 24 hours. My doula and my OB are there, the birthing room is ready for me to use and I immediately get my ass in the sweet, sweet spa tub they have. My husband gave me water to drink and fed me while I was in the tub. According to him, I was only in there for about 30 minutes. I wanted to come out because I felt my pulse going super fast.
After that, I was helped up into a giant, super comfy bed, and I slept for as long as I could between the stupidly strong contractions. I was getting to a point where I felt like pushing, so I made pushing grunts. My doula had to step out for a few hours, and her back up returned. She said, "You're only about 5cm dilated. Instead of doing that fourth pushing grunt, I want you to breathe as gently as you can. I normally would not tell anyone who has the urge to push to stop pushing, but you are pushing waaaaay too early."
I took her advice and it helped, but oh my Lord, was it hard. I whispered to my husband, "I don't think I can do this."
"Yeah you can. You've done it this far. You can keep going."
That was all I needed. After a while, my doula came in to check on me, and my husband gave me more water and food. I decided I needed to be on the toilet because I felt like I had to poop really badly. So, they helped me down off the bed and I walked into the bathroom on my own. I was on the toilet for no more than 5 minutes. I reached under myself and felt something hard in my vagina.
"I think she's crowning!" I called out.
My husband and my doula helped me off the toilet and back to the bed. At this point, I couldn't walk by myself. Then when we got to the bed, my doula said, "Okay. We need you up there on the bed and on your back."
"You're out of your damn mind if you think I can get back up there," I said.
"Relax, here's a step-stool. Just use that," my husband said. So, they helped me up onto the bed and I was pretty much mooning everyone.
"I dunno how you expect me to get on my back for this."
"Very carefully," was the answer I got. Somehow, they managed to get me flipped over.
My OB was summoned from the other room and I felt the super overwhelming urge to push. And this is how it went.
Think of a soprano singer, singing a continuous note. It's not an especially high note, but it would be one of those notes that you would visualize the hole in the top of your head for. That's the noise I made for my first push. Breathe 1-2-3-4-5.
I was told to bring it down. So I did. I sounded like a tug boat for my second push. Breathe 1-2-3-4-5.
Tugboat. Breathe 1-2-3-4-5.
"I can see the baby's forehead."
Tugboat. Breathe 1-2-3 "I can see the baby's nose!" Tugboat. *pop* *splash* "Ooookay, now the baby's head and shoulders are out." Breathe 1-2. Tugboat. "And there's the rest of the baby!"
That pop-splash was my amniotic sac breaking right as my daughter was coming out. So, at 303am, February 3rd, Rúna Charlotte was brought into the world via natural birth with no interventions. After they handed her to me, I looked at my husband and said, "Yeah, I could do this again."
Apparently, I had an amazing birth by 1st-time mom standards, and an excellent birth by multi-time mom standards. Things that I came away with during this experience were that a woman's body is an amazing creation, pushing wasn't painful (this time), and I now know the true meaning of what it is to be exhausted vs. overtired.
I'll tell my emergency story another time. Probably tomorrow. And I'll get my pictures up finally so y'all can see the baby that holds up lines and inconveniences clerks with her cuteness.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
I haven't posted an update in a couple days, though my wife took care of it Friday. I went home Friday night so I could take the dog to the vet Saturday and take care of the cats for a day. They're all high stressed right now, so we hoped a day with one of us would help them.
Jaina is doing relatively well. She was not extubated today like we were hoping, but they are going to do it tomorrow. They're also going to remove another drain, leaving only one. She's been making lots of angry faces today, and has a death grip she's not afraid to practice with people's fingers. Her fingers were turning white because she was squeezing mine so hard.
Baby's squeezing adult fingers is quite possibly my favorite thing.
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
My son was never at any point a big finger-squeezer. He's always been more of a kicker.
He's just started stamping his little feet during his tantrums and oh god it's so hard not to laugh at the tiny righteous fury of a 2-year-old boy who really wants the coffee he is so unjustly being denied.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
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GrobianWhat's on sale?Pliers!Registered Userregular
My son was never at any point a big finger-squeezer. He's always been more of a kicker.
He's just started stamping his little feet during his tantrums and oh god it's so hard not to laugh at the tiny righteous fury of a 2-year-old boy who really wants the coffee he is so unjustly being denied.
Our neighbours/friends have a 3 year old. He was always lusting for their coffee in the mornings and it sometimes was hard to keep him from it. So they figured they'll just give him a small drop on a spoon, he won't like it because it's bitter and that will be it.
From that day forward he always gets a little bit of coffee on a spoon every morning
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
Yeah I'm not seeing any evidence of that 'kids hate the taste of coffee' thing. He has stolen my coffee when I wasn't looking so many times.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
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RobonunIt's all fun and games until someone pisses off ChinaRegistered Userregular
When my in-laws come to visit, FIL makes coffee every morning. Early on my son decided that he would simply. die. without having his own coffee too. So he gets a splash of coffee with a whole bunch of milk in his mug and he reads the paper with Grandpa while Mommy gets an extra hour of sleep. Winning!
My son is 10 and has been drinking coffee for a few years now (in moderation, like once every few weeks). He started the same way too - the splash of coffee mixed with milk. I don't mind though - the flip side is he rarely gets any soda so his sugar/caffeine intake isn't a concern for us.
My friends just gave their child a teaspoon of unsugared coffee if they asked for it. It takes 1-3x that before they won't ask again in 99% of cases, because children have a stronger developed taste of bitter so it just tastes like poison.
So, my cousin inherited my late uncle's Corgi, who is now about fourteen years old and doesn't see too well anymore. Yesterday, my niece (her daughter) asked my cousin for the truck keys and debit card, because she was going to go to Walmart and get Jojo some new eyeballs.
Why Walmart? Apparently because they have "an eyeball department."
So, my first week as a mother was hard. Here's a story!
Everything seemed to be going well after the birth. She seemed to take well to the boob, she was generating the appropriate allotment of diapers. My doula came by and said she was doing well, but she looked jaundiced. She gave me advice on how to deal with that and everything was happy.
Then, my milk came in. Oh, man. That was a pain I was not ready for. My breasts got so swollen and weirdly shaped they looked like an implant operation gone wrong. It hurt to even have a little gust of air blow across them. The lactation consultant dropped by to see how we were doing, and she said that Rúna was latching well, but it was odd that she hadn't pooped in a while. That was Feb 5th.
After she left, that's when I realized Rúna hadn't pooped in 24 hours. And then she was screaming non-stop her third night. Her little voice was hoarse and I kept attaching her to my breast and she'd suck for quite a while and fall asleep for five minutes and wake up screaming again. She was thrashing around so much that my husband had to hold her tiny arms and legs still while I tried to express milk from my swollen and super hurting breasts and drip feed her. That was the night of Feb 5th and the weeist of hours of Feb 6th.
My doula came out again. She called my general practitioner for me and explained what was going on. An appointment was made. And here, the madness begins.
Remember how in the last story I talked about the car seat coming back to bite us? Turns out the instructions were so poorly written we installed it wrong. My other sister came out to drive me, and said, "Nope. not doing that. Call the doctor, tell them you'll be late because we're not going anywhere unless that carseat is properly installed."
The doctors were cool about it and said they would stay until 5pm. My sister and husband got the carseat install correctly. Wouldn't ya know it, but the car batter died! My sister had turned on the car to warm it up, but it hadn't been turned on since I got home from the birthing center on Feb 3rd. It had gotten so damn cold that the car stalled. My sister hadn't noticed and the thing died in the 2 hours it took her and my husband to decipher the directions and get the careseat installed.
She called the doctor this time and said, "look. My sister is a hot mommy mess with a screaming infant and the car died. There's no way we can make it to the appointment, where should we go?"
They were cool about it. They said "go to urgent pediacare. They'll help you out." So, my sister and husband uninstall the carseat, install it into her car, and away we go. In the meantime I've had maybe an hour's worth of sleep. We get there, Rúna is diagnosed with dehydration, after much poking and many attempts to draw blood and get some fluids in her. They also stimulated her little butthole with a thermometer to get her to poop.
In the meantime, my sister runs to Target and buys me some things. One of which was a breast pump. I finally had relief and the baby took a bottle from another person quite well. So, that was good!
Anyway, it gets late and her condition isn't really improving, so an ambulance is called. And we're taken to the hospital. They run a full round of sepsis tests. If you don't know what sepsis tests are, that's when they take urine, blood, and SPINAL samples from your baby to rule out a bacterial infection. The reason for this round of tests? The sample of urine they took came back positive for nitrites. Nitrites are what's left after bacteria poop. Bacteria in urine means a potential UTI, which can be fatal if it spreads in a newborn. And infections spread FAST.
We asked "what are the odds that the sample was contaminated?" The answer we got was, "Oh, extremely low."
Well, that meant that we had to stay. She needed to be given antiboitics. We were all hustled up to a room to stay in. She was hooked up to IVs, pumped full of fluids and antibiotics. I was able to breastfeed her through it all because I would be damned if I let this set me back. This took place from the later hours of Feb 6th to the wee hours of Feb 7th. At this point, I had had maybe.... 3 hours of sleep since Feb 5th.
There were tons of shenanigans regarding this hospital. They would take her to do tests and her results would be wildly inconsistent within the same tests. So, a doctor came in and told us that there's a laundry list of rare disorders that she might have, asked us if there were any problems with the pregnancy or birth and would just be confused when we said "no, everything went perfectly."
Finally, a nurse came in and said, "Uh, turns out some of those tests were done on faulty equipment. She's totally normal." The doctor, to his credit, apologized profusely for scaring the shit out of two new parents that hadn't slept in like... 4 days. We still had to wait for the bacterial cultures to come back, though.
So, Feb 7th and 8th passed with us being slightly more rested and the shit scared out of us. On the 9th of February, the tests finally came back: NEGATIVE of anything that would not otherwise already be there. Guess what? It turns out that initial urine sample they took at midnight of Feb 7th had been contaminated by an outside element and she didn't need any of the antibiotics.
We were discharged and we got home around 5pm on the 9th. Showers were taken, food was consumed, and sleep was had. Turns out the reason she was dehydrated was that my breasts had swollen so much that while it looked like she was latched, she was definitely not.
TL;DR: My first week of parenting was spent freaking out about my daughter potentially dying and me feeling like shit because I couldn't breastfeed right.
Breastfeeding is one of those things that you can either do or can't. Fantastic if you can, but there's benefits if you can't, too (bonding time with dad, help with overnight feeds, you can leave her with some one else overnight, etc). Try not to feel like it's a problem and concentrate on being a great mum! Sounds like you're doing a good job of that, though.
Meanwhile we're on day 8 of sleep regression. Finally got him off to sleep at ten to ten, leaving me with 40 minutes to then try and do all the things you plan to do when your children are asleep like washing up, showering, laundry, walking the dog.. Good thing this particular phase only lasts between 2 and 6 weeks apparently.
The one about the fucking space hairdresser and the cowboy. He's got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin
Thanks for the encouragement, @SporkAndrew! She's a thriving little girl. She rolled over at 1mo 2 days and is so alert that everyone thinks she's older than she really is.
Also, baby sleep cycle changes are the bluuuuurst. I hope Rúna's sleep cycle stays the way it has been for the last 3 weeks: asleep by 1015pm, wake up at 4am and nurse for 20 minutes, and then sleep until 7am. I have a feeling that's a pipe dream because babies change their sleeping habits at the drop of a hat sometimes.
Oh yeah! It's picture time!`
2 weeks old:
2 months old:
My sister's camera is haunted. The date won't stay correct ever.
And this one is my favorite so far (2 and 1/2 months old)
I'm not convinced about sleep regressions. Like, I'll fully admit that there's definitely periods where your kid will suddenly stop sleeping well for some reason. But folks like to classify "Oh, that's the four month sleep regression", "That's the eleventeenth sleep regression, they must be having a wonder week." To me it just sounds like good old human nature trying to fit a pattern onto a series of random events.
Oh, that feeling of betrayal when your kid's been sleeping well, and then all of a sudden it's wanting to be up for two hours in the middle of the night. It's like "I thought we were done with this." That cautious feeling of relief 3 days later when they stop doing it.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Jaina got her breathing tube out today! A drainage tube came out as well, so good news there! They found some chyle in her tubes today, meaning she's not digesting the fat correctly, so the breast milk she's getting has to be skimmed now.
Otherwise it was a bit of a rough day. With the breathing tube out she was very grumpy, lots of crying (or trying to, since she didn't have much of a voice), and they stopped feeding get in case there were complications with the tubes coming out. She finally started getting food again around 7 tonight, then calmed some by 8, so that's good.
Then we had an irrational (maybe?) moment of fear when we heard "code blue" to her wing of the floor. It's the first time we've called the nurse in her room since we got here, but she's fine, and apparently had been sleeping since we left.
I haven't been able to upload a picture to the forum in a while for some reason, so here's a link to Jaina being watched over by her frostwolf pup. Thanks again, Blizzard!
ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
When my in-laws come to visit, FIL makes coffee every morning. Early on my son decided that he would simply. die. without having his own coffee too. So he gets a splash of coffee with a whole bunch of milk in his mug and he reads the paper with Grandpa while Mommy gets an extra hour of sleep. Winning!
Okay your FIL is a goddamn genius. Today Miles Drank a bunch of whole milk that was about 4:1 with decaf coffee.
He might be my new favorite person.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
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RobonunIt's all fun and games until someone pisses off ChinaRegistered Userregular
IKR? I totally lucked out in the in-law lottery. When I was pregnant I had to be on bed rest for 4 months, and they came in and helped DH and me for almost all of it. (My folks couldn't come from out of state because Dad had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer 2 weeks after I was put on bed rest.)
I'm not convinced about sleep regressions. Like, I'll fully admit that there's definitely periods where your kid will suddenly stop sleeping well for some reason. But folks like to classify "Oh, that's the four month sleep regression", "That's the eleventeenth sleep regression, they must be having a wonder week." To me it just sounds like good old human nature trying to fit a pattern onto a series of random events.
Oh, that feeling of betrayal when your kid's been sleeping well, and then all of a sudden it's wanting to be up for two hours in the middle of the night. It's like "I thought we were done with this." That cautious feeling of relief 3 days later when they stop doing it.
That's another thing they need to tell new or potential parents about babies. You need to know that your kid's going to go through a series of profound mental and physical changes over the first two years, sometimes at the same time, and most of the time the only way they have to communicate those changes is to fuck up your life in various alarming ways. It sucks and all babies violate the Geneva Convention at some point but understand that it is worth it and your kids are awesome, even if it doesn't always seem like it.
Yeah, at least with my first daughter we never really thought about X month sleep issues. She took longer than we expected to sleep through the night without wanting to wake up to nurse, but for the most part she did pretty well. She'd just wake up in the middle of the night and cry hard until she got to nurse herself back to sleep. And then she had a few week period where she would inexplicably wake up at like 2 AM fully awake and climb on me and my wife's heads until we woke up too. It was hard as hell, but honestly looking back I have fond memories of those few nights where we had some 2 AM play time, even if I was crazy tired the next day from it.
She's doing really well now, and has even stopped crying when we leave the room after putting her down to sleep. She just rolls over and lays down and cuddles her little stuffed kitty that she loves so much. Next step is buying her a toddler bed, which we said we're going to do around her 2nd birthday(next month), and hopefully she adjusts well to that, since she's slept in our bed since birth.
A while ago I posted a story our older kid had written. He's 8, our younger guy is 5, and now Nicholas is starting to write stories as well. He still has a bit of work to go on spelling, but the basic idea is there, I think:
Once upon a time there was a prince who loved pizza.
Also, they're having a spellathon at school today, and the differences in what you get in kindergarten -vs- grade 2 are pretty striking:
(though to be fair the latter one is customised for Oliver a bit, as not every kid has listened to the "disney singalong" playlist on songza as carefully as he has, and thus won't know what substitutiary locomotion is.
Sleep regression being a thing or not aside, 2 weeks ago he would run to his cot and ask to get in then curl up with Neville and go to sleep, now it's an hour after bedtime and we're listening to him try to make himself sick so we'll go in. The screams start when you put the last book down.
Last night he fell asleep exhausted in my arms at 10. After we'd both reached the end of our tethers and gave up trying controlled crying. I spent 45 minutes walking a circuit of his room singing twinkle twinkle little star.
The one about the fucking space hairdresser and the cowboy. He's got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin
I feel really lucky, because our almost 2 year old went from staying up until past 9 most nights, and only going to sleep by nursing to now coming and grabbing my wife or me(most nights my wife but I get my turns) and dragging one of us to the bedroom and going up to the bed. Then when we lay her down, she'll just cuddle up to whichever one of us and lay there until she falls asleep. If it's my turn, I'll sing her a song or tell her a little made up story, but she likes to be in the dark so I can't read her a book or anything. At first she'd cry for a while when we left the room, but after a week or two she has now switched to just lying and going to sleep on her own when we leave the room without any fussing.
I'm sure your little guy will turn the corner soon. I always try to think of it from their perspective, like maybe lately he's just feeling like at bedtime he just wants more mommy and daddy and just doesn't want to go to sleep yet. You can't fault a little one for wanting even more parent time. I know i want more daughter time all day while I work.
It sounds like you're doing a great job, and making the necessary sacrifices for your little man.
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Oh, wait, now he has his phone too
Now it's down to point of he wants to do the bed time routine and go down.
It's just typical that he's having a really rough night when it's just me and him.
She went from a couple months of throwing huge fits at every diaper change and every time we tried to get her in the car seat to actually coming to us to let us know when her diaper is dirty and being very good during changes, and mostly(not every time) being really cooperative with getting into the car seat.
I think it's just tough to be a little toddler going through all the changes they go through, and trying to learn how to be more independent while also still just wanting mommy and daddy to know what's on their mind all the time.
Toddlers are equal parts frustration and adorable, apparently.
I'm now watching him on the monitor try to cuddle his duck, bear and last bunny after some more milk and a final story. I convinced him that Gordon the orangutan didn't need to come to bed.
Hopefully this is the end and two hours later I can get myself some tea!
Nothing much to do but try and work out what works, unfortunately.
And take him out on outings to try and tire him out as much as possible.
http://imgur.com/XiFvE3Q
I'm not sure if the upload worked since I'm on my phone.
I wanted to say thank you all very much for the kind thoughts and words. We both appreciate it very very much.
Current obsession: Overwatch Battle.net: Raziya#1552
Malcolm X
At 3, we are very ready to be done.
Dear Lord, are my days of wiping butts coming to an end?
Malcolm X
Suddenly, I had this feeling. For some reason, I just HAD to put certain numbers into my landline's directory. So, I pulled out my contact sheet and put the number in for my doula and for my OB. Then I went to bed around 950pm and feel asleep. At 1050pm, I woke up to a contraction. It felt different from the Braxton-Hicks contractions I'd been having the previous weeks, so I breathed and fell back asleep. 1152pm, I had another contraction. 1251am, another contraction. This kept happening until 450am. My husband sorta woke up 'cause I had to shift positions and he saw me doing my breathing.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"I'm pretty sure I'm in labour. Been having contractions since 1050 last night and they've been coming every hour on the hour. They feel different."
So, he called work and said he wouldn't be in.
Fast forward to about 11am. The contractions were about 15-20 minutes apart. I called my doula and my OB and they both said, "That's good! Keep going about your day, but don't overdo it. Make sure you rest up and call us when they get to be about 7 minutes apart. We'll send someone out to assess you." So, we did that. Around 5pm, my contractions got to be about 7 1/2 to 8 minutes apart, so we called my doula and OB again.
My doula sent her back-up out to assess me. She said I was definitely in active labor, but I wasn't in transition yet. She said, "Probably the best thing for you to right now is to go to bed and rest up for the next couple hours." So, I did that. Around 9pm, I woke up to a really really hard contraction. This is where it started getting crazy.
A snowstorm rolled in while I was sleeping and my siblings were frantically trying to figure out who was going to get me to the birth center, as my husband didn't have his license yet. Meanwhile, my contractions are getting harder and closer together. I was definitely in transition at that point because any time I had a contraction, I was pretty much consumed by it. I mean, I was perfectly aware of what was going on around me, but I was unable to respond because I was also wrapped up in just riding the contraction out.
Eventually, my sister showed up. We drove on shitty roads to the birth center. My husband was a bundle of nerves so he couldn't give coherent directions to my sister, so I was in the front seat, having contractions and navigating. It was less than ideal, but we got there. It sucked though, 'cause I felt like pushing on those shitty ass roads since they were so bumpy and badly plowed.
So, it's about 1045 or 11 on the night of February 2nd at this point. Already been in labour for 24 hours. My doula and my OB are there, the birthing room is ready for me to use and I immediately get my ass in the sweet, sweet spa tub they have. My husband gave me water to drink and fed me while I was in the tub. According to him, I was only in there for about 30 minutes. I wanted to come out because I felt my pulse going super fast.
After that, I was helped up into a giant, super comfy bed, and I slept for as long as I could between the stupidly strong contractions. I was getting to a point where I felt like pushing, so I made pushing grunts. My doula had to step out for a few hours, and her back up returned. She said, "You're only about 5cm dilated. Instead of doing that fourth pushing grunt, I want you to breathe as gently as you can. I normally would not tell anyone who has the urge to push to stop pushing, but you are pushing waaaaay too early."
I took her advice and it helped, but oh my Lord, was it hard. I whispered to my husband, "I don't think I can do this."
"Yeah you can. You've done it this far. You can keep going."
That was all I needed. After a while, my doula came in to check on me, and my husband gave me more water and food. I decided I needed to be on the toilet because I felt like I had to poop really badly. So, they helped me down off the bed and I walked into the bathroom on my own. I was on the toilet for no more than 5 minutes. I reached under myself and felt something hard in my vagina.
"I think she's crowning!" I called out.
My husband and my doula helped me off the toilet and back to the bed. At this point, I couldn't walk by myself. Then when we got to the bed, my doula said, "Okay. We need you up there on the bed and on your back."
"You're out of your damn mind if you think I can get back up there," I said.
"Relax, here's a step-stool. Just use that," my husband said. So, they helped me up onto the bed and I was pretty much mooning everyone.
"I dunno how you expect me to get on my back for this."
"Very carefully," was the answer I got. Somehow, they managed to get me flipped over.
My OB was summoned from the other room and I felt the super overwhelming urge to push. And this is how it went.
Think of a soprano singer, singing a continuous note. It's not an especially high note, but it would be one of those notes that you would visualize the hole in the top of your head for. That's the noise I made for my first push. Breathe 1-2-3-4-5.
I was told to bring it down. So I did. I sounded like a tug boat for my second push. Breathe 1-2-3-4-5.
Tugboat. Breathe 1-2-3-4-5.
"I can see the baby's forehead."
Tugboat. Breathe 1-2-3 "I can see the baby's nose!" Tugboat. *pop* *splash* "Ooookay, now the baby's head and shoulders are out." Breathe 1-2. Tugboat. "And there's the rest of the baby!"
That pop-splash was my amniotic sac breaking right as my daughter was coming out. So, at 303am, February 3rd, Rúna Charlotte was brought into the world via natural birth with no interventions. After they handed her to me, I looked at my husband and said, "Yeah, I could do this again."
Apparently, I had an amazing birth by 1st-time mom standards, and an excellent birth by multi-time mom standards. Things that I came away with during this experience were that a woman's body is an amazing creation, pushing wasn't painful (this time), and I now know the true meaning of what it is to be exhausted vs. overtired.
I'll tell my emergency story another time. Probably tomorrow. And I'll get my pictures up finally so y'all can see the baby that holds up lines and inconveniences clerks with her cuteness.
Jaina is doing relatively well. She was not extubated today like we were hoping, but they are going to do it tomorrow. They're also going to remove another drain, leaving only one. She's been making lots of angry faces today, and has a death grip she's not afraid to practice with people's fingers. Her fingers were turning white because she was squeezing mine so hard.
He's just started stamping his little feet during his tantrums and oh god it's so hard not to laugh at the tiny righteous fury of a 2-year-old boy who really wants the coffee he is so unjustly being denied.
Our neighbours/friends have a 3 year old. He was always lusting for their coffee in the mornings and it sometimes was hard to keep him from it. So they figured they'll just give him a small drop on a spoon, he won't like it because it's bitter and that will be it.
Why Walmart? Apparently because they have "an eyeball department."
Then, my milk came in. Oh, man. That was a pain I was not ready for. My breasts got so swollen and weirdly shaped they looked like an implant operation gone wrong. It hurt to even have a little gust of air blow across them. The lactation consultant dropped by to see how we were doing, and she said that Rúna was latching well, but it was odd that she hadn't pooped in a while. That was Feb 5th.
After she left, that's when I realized Rúna hadn't pooped in 24 hours. And then she was screaming non-stop her third night. Her little voice was hoarse and I kept attaching her to my breast and she'd suck for quite a while and fall asleep for five minutes and wake up screaming again. She was thrashing around so much that my husband had to hold her tiny arms and legs still while I tried to express milk from my swollen and super hurting breasts and drip feed her. That was the night of Feb 5th and the weeist of hours of Feb 6th.
My doula came out again. She called my general practitioner for me and explained what was going on. An appointment was made. And here, the madness begins.
Remember how in the last story I talked about the car seat coming back to bite us? Turns out the instructions were so poorly written we installed it wrong. My other sister came out to drive me, and said, "Nope. not doing that. Call the doctor, tell them you'll be late because we're not going anywhere unless that carseat is properly installed."
The doctors were cool about it and said they would stay until 5pm. My sister and husband got the carseat install correctly. Wouldn't ya know it, but the car batter died! My sister had turned on the car to warm it up, but it hadn't been turned on since I got home from the birthing center on Feb 3rd. It had gotten so damn cold that the car stalled. My sister hadn't noticed and the thing died in the 2 hours it took her and my husband to decipher the directions and get the careseat installed.
She called the doctor this time and said, "look. My sister is a hot mommy mess with a screaming infant and the car died. There's no way we can make it to the appointment, where should we go?"
They were cool about it. They said "go to urgent pediacare. They'll help you out." So, my sister and husband uninstall the carseat, install it into her car, and away we go. In the meantime I've had maybe an hour's worth of sleep. We get there, Rúna is diagnosed with dehydration, after much poking and many attempts to draw blood and get some fluids in her. They also stimulated her little butthole with a thermometer to get her to poop.
In the meantime, my sister runs to Target and buys me some things. One of which was a breast pump. I finally had relief and the baby took a bottle from another person quite well. So, that was good!
Anyway, it gets late and her condition isn't really improving, so an ambulance is called. And we're taken to the hospital. They run a full round of sepsis tests. If you don't know what sepsis tests are, that's when they take urine, blood, and SPINAL samples from your baby to rule out a bacterial infection. The reason for this round of tests? The sample of urine they took came back positive for nitrites. Nitrites are what's left after bacteria poop. Bacteria in urine means a potential UTI, which can be fatal if it spreads in a newborn. And infections spread FAST.
We asked "what are the odds that the sample was contaminated?" The answer we got was, "Oh, extremely low."
Well, that meant that we had to stay. She needed to be given antiboitics. We were all hustled up to a room to stay in. She was hooked up to IVs, pumped full of fluids and antibiotics. I was able to breastfeed her through it all because I would be damned if I let this set me back. This took place from the later hours of Feb 6th to the wee hours of Feb 7th. At this point, I had had maybe.... 3 hours of sleep since Feb 5th.
There were tons of shenanigans regarding this hospital. They would take her to do tests and her results would be wildly inconsistent within the same tests. So, a doctor came in and told us that there's a laundry list of rare disorders that she might have, asked us if there were any problems with the pregnancy or birth and would just be confused when we said "no, everything went perfectly."
Finally, a nurse came in and said, "Uh, turns out some of those tests were done on faulty equipment. She's totally normal." The doctor, to his credit, apologized profusely for scaring the shit out of two new parents that hadn't slept in like... 4 days. We still had to wait for the bacterial cultures to come back, though.
So, Feb 7th and 8th passed with us being slightly more rested and the shit scared out of us. On the 9th of February, the tests finally came back: NEGATIVE of anything that would not otherwise already be there. Guess what? It turns out that initial urine sample they took at midnight of Feb 7th had been contaminated by an outside element and she didn't need any of the antibiotics.
We were discharged and we got home around 5pm on the 9th. Showers were taken, food was consumed, and sleep was had. Turns out the reason she was dehydrated was that my breasts had swollen so much that while it looked like she was latched, she was definitely not.
TL;DR: My first week of parenting was spent freaking out about my daughter potentially dying and me feeling like shit because I couldn't breastfeed right.
Pictures of the cutie next post!
Meanwhile we're on day 8 of sleep regression. Finally got him off to sleep at ten to ten, leaving me with 40 minutes to then try and do all the things you plan to do when your children are asleep like washing up, showering, laundry, walking the dog.. Good thing this particular phase only lasts between 2 and 6 weeks apparently.
Also, baby sleep cycle changes are the bluuuuurst. I hope Rúna's sleep cycle stays the way it has been for the last 3 weeks: asleep by 1015pm, wake up at 4am and nurse for 20 minutes, and then sleep until 7am. I have a feeling that's a pipe dream because babies change their sleeping habits at the drop of a hat sometimes.
Oh yeah! It's picture time!`
2 months old:
My sister's camera is haunted. The date won't stay correct ever.
And this one is my favorite so far (2 and 1/2 months old)
Steam Switch FC: 2799-7909-4852
Oh, that feeling of betrayal when your kid's been sleeping well, and then all of a sudden it's wanting to be up for two hours in the middle of the night. It's like "I thought we were done with this." That cautious feeling of relief 3 days later when they stop doing it.
Otherwise it was a bit of a rough day. With the breathing tube out she was very grumpy, lots of crying (or trying to, since she didn't have much of a voice), and they stopped feeding get in case there were complications with the tubes coming out. She finally started getting food again around 7 tonight, then calmed some by 8, so that's good.
Then we had an irrational (maybe?) moment of fear when we heard "code blue" to her wing of the floor. It's the first time we've called the nurse in her room since we got here, but she's fine, and apparently had been sleeping since we left.
I haven't been able to upload a picture to the forum in a while for some reason, so here's a link to Jaina being watched over by her frostwolf pup. Thanks again, Blizzard!
Okay your FIL is a goddamn genius. Today Miles Drank a bunch of whole milk that was about 4:1 with decaf coffee.
He might be my new favorite person.
That's another thing they need to tell new or potential parents about babies. You need to know that your kid's going to go through a series of profound mental and physical changes over the first two years, sometimes at the same time, and most of the time the only way they have to communicate those changes is to fuck up your life in various alarming ways. It sucks and all babies violate the Geneva Convention at some point but understand that it is worth it and your kids are awesome, even if it doesn't always seem like it.
She's doing really well now, and has even stopped crying when we leave the room after putting her down to sleep. She just rolls over and lays down and cuddles her little stuffed kitty that she loves so much. Next step is buying her a toddler bed, which we said we're going to do around her 2nd birthday(next month), and hopefully she adjusts well to that, since she's slept in our bed since birth.
(though to be fair the latter one is customised for Oliver a bit, as not every kid has listened to the "disney singalong" playlist on songza as carefully as he has, and thus won't know what substitutiary locomotion is.
Last night he fell asleep exhausted in my arms at 10. After we'd both reached the end of our tethers and gave up trying controlled crying. I spent 45 minutes walking a circuit of his room singing twinkle twinkle little star.
I'm sure your little guy will turn the corner soon. I always try to think of it from their perspective, like maybe lately he's just feeling like at bedtime he just wants more mommy and daddy and just doesn't want to go to sleep yet. You can't fault a little one for wanting even more parent time. I know i want more daughter time all day while I work.
It sounds like you're doing a great job, and making the necessary sacrifices for your little man.
Parenting is hard. Who knew, eh?