Week 3

 

First Real Bath

 

We were worried about giving Muppet his first real bath hearing that sometimes it can be a baby's least favorite thing.  But it seems like we must have a little Water Baby on our hands because he loves it!

Love might be the wrong word, but he tolerates it nicely without so much as a peep so we've incorporated it into our nightly routine.  Most nights it's just water, but every few nights we work some soap in there.

 

Playdate   

 H came over with her son for Muppet's first playdate.  S is a little over 2 months older than Muppet - but look how big he is!  He started out a little munchkin, about a pound lighter than Muppet when Muppet was born.  And now he's a giant baby!

The two didn't interact too much, but frankly Muppet is just now working on focusing on things other than our faces, so it's not too surprising.  I'm certain they'll be besties in no time.

Return to Running

Less about Muppet, but this week also marked my return to the road.  It's been hard not running and I've been waiting a bit, but 3 weeks sounded like a good time to get back into it.  And so the day Muppet turned 3 weeks old I left him with J and headed out for a nice and easy 2 mile run.  Just to test the waters.  It ended up being a lovely run and I was faster than I anticipated.  

My plan is to keep up the 2 miles every other day for the next week and then up it to 3 miles once I get that under my belt and make sure everything is okay with this new addition.

Adjusting at Home

 I think we hit the two week growth spurt, which meant very little sleeping for any of us, especially Muppet.

It's just part of having a newborn.  Those days we spent basically camped on the couch trying to sleep as possible.  It was nice having my mom near enough to run over treats like frozen yogurt for an afternoon pick me up.

We did manage to get out a couple times, including a trip to the mall so I could get fitted for a nursing bra.  Because holy hannah did those puppies grow!  Which was obviously necessary to keep up with Muppet's eating habits.  Other than that, breastfeeding has been going unbelievably well.  Better than I thought it would.  He latches like a champ and I haven't had any nipple soreness, cracks, peeling, or bleeding.  And he's gaining weight as he should be.  Or at least it seems like he is.  We'll know more for sure at his next appointment.

Next Appointment: Thursday, November 3

Sleep: The first night we let Muppet sleep without waking it took him forever to get to sleep.  We started putting him down at 10, but he didn't go down till midnight.  However, at that point he slept till 6:30.  We got a little too excited as he spent the next couple of nights taking forever to go to sleep and waking up every 2 hours.  3 week growth spurt?  We decided to start a "sleep routine" which has definitely helped.  Sometime between 5 and 7 when he's ready for "dinner" I feed him.  Then we give him a "bath" (most nights just warm water, no soap).  Then we read him a bedtime story and "cuddle him to sleep."  This has resulted him getting to bed at a reasonable hour - even if he is still getting up every 2 hours for eating.  At least he goes right back to bed after a feed and I get in a couple hours before he wakes up for his first night meal.
Best moment this week:   Seeing our little guy with the big little guy and thinking how one day he'll be that big too!

Milestones:   

*Muppet is attempting to focus on other things.  He stares at spots on the wall, his art cards, and the toys on his gym mat.

Week 2

Second Doctor's Appointment

Back up to birthweight
Still a little jaundice, but nothing bad
Everything looks good

Outings 

We're still taking Muppet on walks as often as the weather permits - when it gets too wet out we skip it.  It's a good time for all of us to get out, including the dog!

 

We also went out to lunch and a walk along the beach.  Which means more carrier time!  I don't know how people live without baby carriers.  We use it every time we have an errand.  Which includes walking to the grocery store when we need to pick something out.  It's great to be hands free.

 

On Saturday, October 15, we took Muppet for our annual "Zoo Walk."  We got him all bundled up for the 2.5 mile walk.  Here he's wearing a hat his grandma made for him.

Muppet spent most of the time sleeping, so we entertained ourselves by taking pictures of him with the animals.

Adjusting at home

I'm really lucky that J took off the whole month to stay home.  He's an incredible help.

With Muppet's sleep schedule this week, he's been getting up when I'm done feeding and spending the ridiculous amount of time trying to get Muppet to get back to sleep once I've woken him up.  In the morning when I'm doing the "breakfast feed" he makes the two of us breakfast.

 

Then he entertains Muppet while I take a shower. (or a nap)

 

 The dog is also adjusting.  In general he'd prefer to have nothing to do with Muppet.  But that's pretty much how he is with all people in general, so I don't think it's anything personal.

And at night, anytime Muppet cries, the dog goes running to the baby's room to check it out.  He comes to get me if Muppet is really waking and not just doing his "I make a ton of noise when I sleep" noises.

 

 This week Muppet became more interested in some of his things.  Like the swing. 
 

 He doesn't love being in the swing if he's awake, but he'll sleep in there for a while if he's already asleep.  J thinks it's the music.

 

And he's great in his pack n play.  For some reason he just gets really calm and happy when he's in there.

 But his favorite thing is the Baby Gym.  We do tummy time there or just lie and look up.  He's not quite able to focus on the hanging toys, preferring to stare into our faces or at us, but he's happy as a clam lying there.

Muppet weighs: 7lbs 6oz
Next Appointment: Thursday, November 3
Sleep: Muppet is a sleepy sleeper at night.  During the day he has no problem waking every 2-3 hours to feed.  But at night?  Not so much.  Which means I have to wake him every 3 hours.  And that's not easy to do.  It takes me an hour to wake him.  I strip him down to his diaper - which I change.  Then I tickle his feet, his ears, under his arms.  Still sleeping.  Eventually I dip a washcloth in cold water and wipe it on his face and he still sleeps.  Once I get him up, he eats and it takes forever to get him to go back to sleep because he's really only getting an hour of sleep between feedings with me trying to wake him and get him back to sleep.  I'm really looking forward to when I don't have to wake him.  Dr. R said that now that Muppet is back to birthweight, he just needs to get a little bit over and once he turns 2 weeks old I can let him sleep at night.
Best moment this week: Taking Muppet to the zoo.  It's one of my favorite places

Milestones:   

*Muppet now focuses on our faces

*Back up to birthweight

Week 1

First Doctor's Appointment
Weight - 7lbs (26 percentile)
Length - 20 inches (52 percentile)
Head Circumference - 13.3 cm (13 percentile)
- We obviously have a little peanut.  Long and tiny!

Dr. R says Muppet is looking good.  He still has a little jaundice, but apparently the normal amount of jaundice for a baby Muppet's age.
No shots for Muppet, but J and I both got the T-DaP.   Our arms were so sore for days after!

 Brit Milah

On Sunday, 8 days after his birth, friends and family from across the country joined us in celebrating  Muppet's Brit Milah. The bris has three main parts - the baby naming, the circumcision, and like any good Jewish ceremony - the food.

The Rabbi who married us performed the naming ceremony. Because of this we headed to my mom's house for the bris.  It was Muppet's first road trip and he slept the whole way.  He tends to do that whenever he's put in the car.  During the naming ceremony, the Rabbi spoke of my father, for whom Muppet was named. Muppet shares both my dad's first name as his middle name, as well as my dad's hebrew name.  Following the brit milah, we took Muppet over to the cemetery where my father is buried so my dad could get a chance to "meet" the baby.

After the naming ceremony, the circumcision was performed by a Mohel. Our Rabbi recommended a couple in the area. We decided not to take chances with our little boy and went with the one who is also the Associate Director of Pediatric Urology at a prominent local hospital.  Muppet was a trooper throughout the whole thing.  Don't get me wrong - he cried.  He wailed.  But as soon as the cutting stopped, so did he.  And he's been really good ever since.

After the circumcision 3 generations surrounded Muppet for a blessing. And then we ate and celebrated while all our family got the chance to meet and hold Muppet.  Again, he was an amazing sport for this and was on his best behavior all day.  No crying, just taking in everything and everyone.

Total weight gain/loss (me): +1
Total weight gain/loss (Muppet): - 3 oz
Next Appointment: Wednesday, October 12
Sleep:  I joke that I'm still getting 8 hours of sleep, it's just taking me 12 hours to get them!  I think I'm sleeping better than when pregnant.  I'm getting up about every 2 hours but when I'm asleep, I am completely out.  And I'm not getting up at 6, so I get in those extra hours I'm losing during the mornings.
Best moment this week: Having Muppet meet the family!

Milestones:   

*First Doctor's Appointment

* Circumcision

* We've been going on daily outings.  Muppet uses this time to catch up on his beauty sleep.  At this rate, he's going to be quite the looker.

 

 

Sometimes we take him down to the trail in his stroller.

 

 

But for errands we've been using a carrier.  J models our Pikkolo

39 weeks

The Birth Story

 On Friday when I went in for my 39 week visit the nurse was taking my blood pressure and we started talking about possible induction dates, given that I was 39 weeks and had made zero progress.  The baby was still relatively high, my cervix was "semi-firm" and I hadn't dilated at all.  I was talking about wanting to wait until after Yom Kippur on the 8th and the nurse looked at me and said "I think today is a great day for an induction." 

"Not today!" I said.  "Let's at least wait till after the due date." 

That's when the nurse informed me that my blood pressure was 150/90.  Prepregnancy my blood pressure was usually 106-110/65.  During pregnancy it's been around 116/75.   This jump in blood pressure worried my doctor.  She wanted to send me in for an induction since I was so close and she was afraid I was developing pre-e.  But because my cervix was totally not ready for labor she sent me to triage for some tests and monitoring. 

We went home, grabbed my hospital bag and packed a separate bag with movies, my computer, and magazines, just in case I was going to get induced.  We knew we'd be in for a long induction if that were the case.  We grabbed some dinner on the way to the hospital for the same reason.

All my tests were fine.  I had no swelling, vision changes, no headaches.  There was no protein in my urine and no indication of anything going on with my liver or kidneys.  But my blood pressure was staying in the 130s so they decided to admit and induce.

As an aside, Friday night my blood pressure dropped back down to where it usually is, 106-110/65.

The oncall doctor flat out said to me "I wouldn't want to be induced if I were you either.  Not with such an unfavorable cervix.  Right now your chances of a C-section are 50%."  But I have to say, all the health care professionals I came across were ridiculously kind, supportive, and wonderful.  I was told multiple times they did not want to do a C-Section on me and we could keep the induction going as long as it took.  In fact, the oncall doctor told me they'd start me on Cytotec to soften my cervix and Saturday morning they'd bring me breakfast before starting Pitocin.


They applied the first Cytotec and four hours later my cervix was still semi-firm but I was dilated to 1 cm.  So they applied another Cytotec and we waited another four hours.  And this time there was no change.  The nurse didn't feel like things were progressing, but the on call doctor was encouraged by the dilation and wanted to start the pitocin right away.  No breakfast for me!


They started the pitocin and for 12 hours we waited.  At this point I was having contractions back to back, less than a minute apart, but it just felt like menstrual cramps since they weren't strong enough to be really doing anything.  In fact, after those 12 hours there was still no cervical change.  By this time I had been in the hospital for 24 hours.


The newest oncall doctor came in to talk to me about breaking my water.  I wasn't really receptive.  I told her I was worried that was going to put me on a timeline for a C-section since I needed to get the baby out in 24 hours.  Once again, I was assured there was no timeline.  I was hooked up to monitors and in the hospital and as long as I was okay and the baby was okay there was no need to rush into a C-section after 24 hours.  Plus they would do everything possible to avoid infection by not doing checks unless necessary.  And so they broke my water.  Which was really uncomfortable.

Those back to back contractions?  Now they were starting to feel like something and I couldn't even get a breather between the end of one and beginning of another.  So I got my first epidural.  Which worked great for about 3 hours - perfect.  I could feel and move my legs, toes, everything - just not the contractions. To be fair though, they were having trouble monitoring my contractions too.  And the baby's heart rate was staying nice and strong - but not accelerating or decelerating.  By this time I was on the third oncall doctor who wanted to insert an interuterine pressure catheter to keep an eye on the baby and the contractions.  J was not happy about this.  He pointed out they were trying to keep any cervical intrusion to a minimum to decrease the risk of infection and chance at C-Section.  But this doctor wasn't as go with the flow as the others.  He felt that I really wasn't making any progress and if I had my way I'd still be waiting to have the baby on Monday.  Luckily the baby's heart rate started showing accelerations and the pressure catheter was deemed unnecessary.


Shortly after that conversation I started feeling my contractions again.  First as mild pressure, then as full on contractions.  I'd pressed the "more more more" button to the max and no relief.  The anesthesiologist attempted to put in another bolster of the drug into my epidural.  No go.  He decided the catheter must have moved in the space and wasn't hitting the window it needed to, so he was going to have to redo it.  After the second epidural they checked me and I was at 7 cm. 

They got the room ready for me to push since I gone from 0 to 60 in about 3 hours. They called the negative oncall doctor and told him not to go back to sleep.  He came in to check on me quite surprised.  "Guess this baby wanted to prove you wrong."  I told him.

They let me rest and told me to let them know when I started to feel the urge to push.  When I called them back in about 40 minutes later I was at 9.5 cm.  They decided to let me "labor down" to 10, but then the baby's heart rate started decelerating down to the 50s with every contraction.  It would go right back up, but was being fairly consistent and they felt that I was a good pusher and could probably overcome the fact he hadn't reached pushing station.  So they got everything set and I was now at 10 cm anyway so we were on our way. 

They set up the squatting bar onto the bed and tied a sheet on the middle.  With each contraction I pulled myself up the sheet as though I were climbing a rope as I pushed.  The second epidural had started to wear off at this point, so I was feeling that pressure feeling every time I had a contraction.  At this point I didn't mind because it helped me know when to push.


40 minutes later, at 2:42am on October 2, Muppet made his way into the world with his cord wrapped around his neck twice.  NICU was there because of the decels and because of some meconium present in my bloody show so he was taken over by them for some aspiration. With everything that was going on, we didn't even know the sex of the baby so I sent J over to the NICU team to check it out.  Muppet was a boy!

He weighed 7lbs 6.5 oz and was 20 inches long.  He scored an 8/9 on his apgar.

Muppet was placed on my chest for some bonding and feeding while the doctor delivered the placenta and sewed me back up.  By this time the epidural had worn off again and the sewing me back up part was really uncomfortable and felt like it took forever!

During the "recovery" period, Muppet's respiration was a little fast.  They checked his oxygen saturation which was fine, but they wanted to keep an eye on his breathing, just in case.  They brought us up to the post partum floor and Muppet was taken to the Observation Unit for pretty much that - observation.  J and I used the time to get some sleep and a couple hours later our little boy was brought back to us.

We spent all of Sunday in the hospital "recovering" which really wasn't bad at all.  Because Muppet was taken to the IOU my chart had us marked down as a "separation" and I got an extra visit with a lactation consultant.  Which was nice because Muppet wasn't a huge fan of breast feeding at first.  He didn't like having to do work to eat - which is proof he takes after his father.  He would latch on, then look up at me like - "Okay I'm here, now what?"  

One of the rare pictures of J sleeping in the hospital.  He refused to sleep because he just wanted to hold his son.  We finally worked out a compromise where I'd stay awake and keep an eye on him while they slept.

I didn't have any sort of post partum pain or severe bleeding so we got the okay to be discharged on Monday. 

The hospital brought us sparkling cider to celebrate

The drive home was nerve-wracking.  Not because of the new baby in the car, but because there was a freeway shooter.  Some guy who was driving up the freeway and just shooting at cars.  The police had closed most of the major freeways and what should have been a 20 minute drive home ended up taking an hour and a half.  But we eventually got home and settled in.  Ready for our next big adventure in raising the Muppet.

Muppet in his coming home outfit

The total roundup:
Total weight gain/loss: +20
Next Appointment: Wednesday October 5
Stretch marks: nada.
Gender: Boy
Belly Button in or out: In - it never popped!


No 40 week picture since I didn't make it there, but I subbed in a 39 weeker instead: