Blog Posts

Please see Craftily for new baby blog posts! :)


Here!

4 months already!

Wow, it's so hard to believe that it's been 4 months already.  So many things have happened since the last post.  Little Avette has 3 teeth coming in now, she weights 14.5 lbs, she grabs things with her hands, she only poo's every other day, she doesn't spit up as much, she babbles a lot, she gets a kick out of banging on a pot with a spoon & many, many other changes.  It's amazing to watch how much they learn in the first few months.

I'm at the point now that I feel like everything is second nature.  She starts grunting & I know she's sleepy.  She whines a little & I know she's hungry.  Little Avette has brought so much joy to my life, but it's still so easy to get swallowed up in the melancholy of winter.  I feel like we've been stuck inside for days now, only escaping when it's my turn to walk the dog.  I took the semester off school because we didn't want a stranger watching our tiny baby & some days have been hard.  Luckily, I do work two days a week, so that gets me out of the house too, but it can still be very trying.  The temperatures up here have been so cold that it just doesn't make sense to take her out in it, unless I have to.

Now that Avette is teething, she wants to nurse constantly at night.  We have mastered the art of the side-lying position, otherwise I think I'd be delirious right now from sleep deprivation.  Being a stay at home mom has not been easy for me, I love to hustle around and have never been one for sitting in the house.  For now, I'm not living a selfish life (which is a major adjustment), but I know it's only temporary and being with her every day is such a joy that it truly is worth it.

You still stink like sour milk.  Your poo is no longer so cute to me.  Somehow you seem to spit up right down my shirt at least once a day.  You smile at your doggy when he licks your tiny fingers.  On a good night you wake me up at least twice to nurse.  Your fussy because you're teething.  When you smile your eyes glisten and I love you for all these things.

The end of a phase & the start of a journey

Looking back, pregnancy now seems like such a blur. It's only been two weeks since our daughter was born & wow it still feels so strange saying that.

We weren't trying to get pregnant, in fact just the opposite. I still have three semesters of school left. When I took the pregnancy test at home, my initial reaction was unsavory and filled with question. How will I finish school? What am I supposed to do now? Can this be a fluke? What the hell! And, through my tears, I looked at him. N had a huge smile on his face. God, that made me feel so good so suddenly. I thought he wouldn't want a baby. I was so afraid of getting pregnant because I didn't know how he'd react, but in an instant those fears faded as he promised me we would be fine & I would still finish school.

Then came morning sickness for the first few months. They never tell you it's actually all-day sickness. They also never tell you your gums will bleed when you brush your teeth or that you may have a runny nose because of all the excess mucous your body's producing. They never tell you how every day is a new experience while your pregnant and you can never predict how you'll feel. I say this and I was one of the lucky ones who didn't experience any real complications during the 40 weeks. Ahhh yes, and there's the whole pooping on the delivery table thing...

On October 5, 2010 Avette was born. After having semi-consistent contractions for two days my midwife & OB decided to break my water because they thought it could be exhausting for my uterus & the baby and at 8:10am on Tuesday, that's exactly what they did. I felt like I was peeing myself when they broke it. Boy, am I glad it didn't break while I was out to coffee with my girlfriends.

Labor was everything I thought it would be. Once my water was broke the contractions slowly became more intense and the last few hours they were downright painful. So much that I nearly gave into the temptation of painkillers, but N helped me stay strong & I trusted my body. Once the time came to push I had forgotten everything I read & studied about labor. My midwife had to remind me & N was able to talk me through it & coach me. As I was pushing the baby's heart rate was slowing way down into the range of 70 bpm & 50 bpm and at times they couldn't find her heart beat at all. She wasn't tolerating it well. My midwife was concerned that the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck, so she called the pediatrition to come into the delivery room & a few more nurses. She was reaching in to rub the baby's head so she stayed stimulated & kept her heart beat going. I remember her saying to me, "Randa, we can't make this a long thing, you have to push her out right now because she's not tolerating this. Next time you push you have to get her out." She was concerned & my body kicked into gear and pushed her out in 15 minutes. As soon as she came out it was a tremendous relief of pressure & she started screaming instantly. The umbilical cord wasn't wrapped around her neck. Our midwife handed N the scissors and said, "Set her free daddy." N cut the umbilical cord while sobbing and they plopped that baby down on my bare chest and within two minutes she was latched on to me and nursing; it felt amazing. She pee'd and pooped on me and her little fingernails were so long they had to cut them. She had a head full of black hair. She is absolutely perfect.

The whole time I was pregnant I felt as though it was a stranger inside of me, but the instant I saw her I fell more deeply in love than I've ever been before. It's a love I've never experienced until now. It's so odd to think you can fall into such a strong love with a baby instantaneously. It was something I had never even considered before.

We were in the hospital until Thursday. I didn't shed a single tear the whole time until we got her in the car and began driving home. Everything hit me at once. I cried hysterically, this tiny person is ours. She's amazing and beautiful and perfect and so helpless. She depends on us for nearly everything. I've never even been around an infant before this and now I have to keep one alive. It's crazy.

When we got home from the hospital I was exhausted. N told me to go lay down and nap while he & his parents watched the baby for a little while. I laid down in bed and a deluge of tears poured from my eyes. This body did not feel like me any more. I felt like I was inside somebody else, a stranger's bones. Like there was something missing. I've never felt like that before. N came up to check on me & saw that I was crying so he brought Avette in to see me. That made me feel better. I was holding what was missing. She was no longer in my belly, she is now here, in my arms.

It's true, what they say, the third night has been the hardest so far. My milk wasn't in yet and she was hungry. She nursed all night yet still screamed and cried. Luckily my parents decided to come up and got here first thing in the morning. I needed my mother. They were such a huge help and I was a nervous wreck. Why hasn't anyone ever said how stressfull it is having a newborn? How every single noise she makes squeezes an invisible clamp around your heart. I couldn't even sleep for the first few nights because I was opening my eyes to check on her every five seconds. It's awful. SIDS is a real thing & healthy babies die for no reason, all I can think sometimes is that if I'm always able to keep my eyes on her then I will see if anything doesn't seem right. But then you get tired and grouchy and that can affect your milk production. This baby needs me to be rested and unstressed.

Avette spits up a lot. She's gaining weight, so her pediatrition said it's nothing to be alarmed about, but it IS alarming when she spits up in her sleep an hour after I fed her. If she lies flat on her back, she could choke. It runs out of her nose and mouth all at once sometimes. It happens constantly. It makes me s o   n e r v o u s.

Finally, after a week of sleeping with her in my arms (because that's the only way I can sleep) I decided a couple days ago that I would put her in her in her bassinet and try to sleep in bed with N and Avette next to the bed. Well, that evening I put her in her rocker for a minute to clean up our desk and when I looked back at her she was all red/purple and stretched out with all her muscles tensed up. Her mouth was hanging wide open and she had spit up coming out her nose. Oh my god, she was chocking! I grabbed her and called for N. She wasn't coughing or breathing. He grabbed her nasal aspirator and sucked a bunch of spit up out of her nose. She coughed once and N used the aspirator again. Finally she started coughing then crying hysterically. She didn't calm down for so long. And of course neither could I. I was finally feeling slightly confident that I didn't need to have her attached to my hip. Well, there went that. Everyone keeps saying not to sleep with her, to put her down when she's not awake. I finally came to terms with the fact that doing that will not make me happy right now, it will only make me feel more stressed, worried and anxious. For now our bedroom will be the living room and I'll sleep with her instead of N so I can feel if something isn't right with her. It's the only way I can get any sleep while she's not being watched constantly.

It doesn't matter how often I bathe her, she still stinks like sour milk; it's adorable and I love her for it. It seems to take her about half an hour to actually wake up, she starts making little squeeky noises and stretching then she finally awakens. Her head looks too big for her body. She makes these awful sounds like a duck. Her poop looks like pumpkin puree and smells like a loaf of bread. When she cries her chin quivers. When she's hungry, if she smells or hears me she opens her mouth and turns her head around like a little birdy. She has her dad's lips and ears. I'm crazy for her.