stories from the homefront.

I have been in a baby fog but here are the bits that are sticking with me right now:

1. love: I have never fallen so in love so fast and hard.    I have a hard time not staring at this baby.   It did not happen the moment he was born – as I thought it would be.    I am sure that has a lot to do with the C-section and the fact that I was absolutely convinced that we would have a girl.    As in we did not even have a middle name for him picked out – I was sure that would not be a problem.    He has the softest head.    I love holding him and stroking his head – he seems to like that too.

2. sharing: I have been having trouble with this.    I welcome sharing him with H.   I love seeing him with her.    He loves to sleep on her, and actually seems more peaceful there then with me (I think because he can not smell my milk as much).    I have been having trouble sharing with my MIL.   She is here this week to help me, as H is back at work (( which totally sucks)).    Sadly her idea of help is to take the baby for walks, or holding him.     Both are difficult for me.     Her taking him for walks is hard because I really invisioned this time as us walking around our neighborhood and me talking to him about all of our favorites.    But instead, I am house bound because of the C-section and the 4 flights of stairs.     I could hold him all the time – I don’t ever feel like I “need a break” from him as she says.      She is so well intentioned.   So well intentioned.    I have been just taking some deep breaths and practicing letting go.

3. feeding: I have a bucket load of milk.  My shirts are soaked and in the morning I wake up in a puddle of milk.  Our lactation consultat actually insinulated that it was because I was from a rural state – so funny.   I do seem to have flat nipp.les which means that he has been having a really hard time latching on.   This lead to tears on both sides of the nipp.le and I have now purchased a nipp.le shield.   It seems to have relieved a lot of anxiety on his side.    I am a bit worried that he will not be able to nurse with out it.

4.  sleeping: His is completely varies.   sometimes he sleeps for 4 hours, but more frequently it is 2.5 hours..   My sleeping is good.   I love being able to sleep on my back again.   LOVE it.

5. moving:  we have moved our moving date back.   we now will begin our next adventure on the 15th of july.    This has brought some peace into our life.    It would have been crazy to move so soon after his birth.   I never anticipated he would be so late nor that I would have a C-section.

6. birth:  so many feelings.   I am going to write a seperate post once I figure out some of those feelings a bit better.

Thank you everyone for your congratulations.    It is wonderful to feel so loved.

Protected: Our hearts are split open with joy…

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

He is here!!!!

Just a quick post to let you know that our son has arrived.    The birth was amazing and as different as it could be from what we imagined.  L had a C-section after a 14 hour labor including 3 hours of pushing – this boy just did not want to be born.   However,  he was finally born on Sunday morning at 12:26 and was 8lbs 11oz.    He is incredible and we both have completely fallen for him.   We are all going home from the hospital today and will do a bigger password protected post latter on tonight or tomorrow.   Please email for the password.     Here are some pictures of the boy in the meantime.

Ahem.

So, you know how sometimes after many conversations with your midwife and loved ones, many thoughts and feelings, and hours of weighing your options you decide to go ahead and induce labor because you are one day short of 42 weeks pregnant and are afraid you will be told you have to have a c-section?  And then you wake up at 5 am, eat a huge breakfast and head out to the hospital only to get a call from your midwife while driving to find out that there are no rooms available at the hospital– they are totally full– so you can’t actually go for your induction right then, but maybe later?  Then you hang out in the Upper West Side most of the day, but no rooms open up, but you may get called before 10 pm to come in, but then you don’t get called in so you have spent the whole day waiting with no result?

Yeah, that happened to us today.

The good news is that we had a biophysical and non-stress test and everything looked great.  Sprout is doing awesome and they don’t think s/he is too big.  We have a plan to try again tomorrow, but honestly, I do not have my hopes up.  This (month long) labor has taught me a lot about not getting too excited or counting on anything until it actually happens.  It could be so much worse and really things have entered the realm of a farce.  We are all (yes, there are still 4 of us- L’s mom has been here for 3.5 weeks and her sister has been back for 1.5 weeks) in pretty good spirits.  It will be a great birth story to tell Sprout every year on his/her birthday.  We have gotten so much love and support, and really, what can we do but just laugh at this point?

We will let you know when there is more to report.

Please let this happen tomorrow.

–H

a missive

Dear baby,

You are getting so big I can hardly call you Sprout anymore.   That nickname seemed so fitting when you were a little lima bean that was swimming in there.    But now I recognise that you are probably feeling like a big kid now.    I certainly know that you are running out of space in there.     I have grown to calling you “the kid” or “chicklet” when I am talking about you to your mom.     Speaking of which we are talking about you all the time.  We would love to know what you are thinking about your landing date.

We welcome you anytime really, although we miss you out here.    We are always getting stuff ready for you, we have been since we knew you were coming to us, but I don’t think there is a thing left for us to do.    We are ready.   Your mom has read the whole Dr. Sears book on babies (we felt like that was maybe what was holding you back – that we had only read books on getting pregnant and birth – if that was the case it is okay, we understand why you would be nervous coming out to parents who did not really know too much about a baby’s needs – but we are ready now).  We are feeling even more confident in our commitment to babywearing after reading this book and although you are a kid now you should know that when you come out you are not going to be alone in this big world.   We are excited to have you to hold.   I have pulled out the breast pump, and I know how to use it… I bring this up to say not that you are going to be bottle fed at the get go dear baby but to say that I have tons of colostrum – you will be fed my chicklet when you get out here – don’t worry.

I am really happy that you have loved being inside so much.   I want you to know from the bottom of my heart that I have loved having you in there.    It has been some of the best moments of my entire life and I love how your existance has already changed my relationship with your mom.    You are lucky to have her you know.    She is so on top of all the details of your care and also mine.     We are really ready for you to be held by her too.    She loves you so much she gets teary talking about you these days.

She is not the only person who is here and waiting for you, your nana is here, she has been here for 3 weeks.    It is wonderful that she is so excited to see you.    It would be so nice for us if she could go home.     Also one of your aunts is here.   She loves you too.

So, I don’t want you to feel pressure.   We are now past when you could be born at the birth center.    I am sure you have felt me crying about this.   I hope that did not stress you out.     I am feeling better about that dear chicklet.    You must have your own mind and I think you are teaching your anal and plan obsessed mama that she should not expect that you will always conform to her ideas.    I get it and I will try my best to remember this lesson.   So I have let go quite a bit my plans for this birth.   That being said, I would really like to not have to have a C-section which means that if you could manage to stay under 10lbs until after our appointment on friday that would be great.    Also if you could just put down your landing gear and arrive before next monday night that would also be great so I do not have be induced.    I would really like you to be very alert and wake when I first meet you dear baby.

I write all of this to say our little chicklet, that we are so ready to meet you and if you are ready come out please do so.    We will work out all the other details as soon as you are here.

We love you so much, beyond words really and we don’t even know your eyes yet, or what your skin feels like, or if you are a boy or a girl.

your mama (and mom too)

June bug

Our baby must have wanted to be a June baby.    If I don’t go into labor actively by midnight then we are going to be in labor and delivery.     There are worse things – I am hoping that my body decides labor is a great idea in the next 7 hours.    No pressure.    We will of course keep you guys updated.

gross part duex

Well 2nd dose of castor oil is now done and we have made up a song to the tune of “Shout”

Sprout, Sprout come on out

you are the baby we are talking about

come on, were talking to you, come on….

send us luck and speed.

xoxo

The good, the bad and the things I can not control….

The Good:

1. I love my wife… over the moon in love her.
2. We are going to have a baby.     I have doubted that there is a live baby in my belly but this morning I felt his or her reassuring kicking.
3. I love my family – even if I am feeling a bit oppressed by them right now- I do want them at this birth and they are doing everything possible to make that happen.

The Bad:

1. Castor Oil was ineffective.    I don’t know why.    I did not go into labor.    I have been given the go ahead to try it again on saturday which honestly is good but also so gross.    I can’t really think about it too much or I want to throw up.
2. If I do not go into labor by Monday then I will be risked out of the birth center.    I am beyond sad about this.    I am trying to not get head of myself.   That is four days away.    But I have been on the brink of labor for two weeks and there has been no action.   Something as got to work in four days right???    So the deal is I have two due dates, I gave the midwifes my older one which was 5/26 and you can go into labor at the birth center until you are 40 weeks and 6 days.    By my due date based on conception (5/23) I am at that point.    I am so so glad someone told me to give the latest date possible and I am really glad that our sprout was a slow grower in the beginning.     The birth center is so much better then labor and delivery for me and H.     H could spend the night with out us shelling out $750 for a private room, and I would not have to be on a monitor.
3. If, and I am saying to the universe a please “no thank to you” to this,  I reach monday and I have not had the baby then I will have a bio-physical done of the baby and if they think the baby is over 10lbs then I will not be allowed to be inducted and I will be signed up for a C-section…. blah.    Our baby is big.    I am measuring at 42 weeks.   I am hoping he or she is not over 10lbs.

The Things I can not control:

1. all of the above.    I am trying to surrender to this all.    I am doing everything I can do.    Acupuncture, nipple stimulation, sex, red raspberry leaf tea, membranes have been stripped, evening primrose, walking, squatting, blue cohash, and general talking to this baby.
2. I can not control when this baby will come.  This baby will do its own thing.   We will have it.    In the meantime I just have to surrender.    This is hard for me.

The eviction plan

Well I think I have the comfiest uterus ever.    The baby is kicking and happy in there.    So this morning we intitated our eviction plan.     I had some castor oil mixed with Ting – Our midwifes suggested Fres.ca or Orang.ina but neither were available at out NYC bodega last night so grapefruit Ting it was.     It was pretty gross.    I suspect we will be just spending time at home until something happens more concretely and they really don’t want you to go into the birth center until you are pretty dialated.     Of course my body has really held on to this baby.   As my midwife said yesterday: “you have the ripest cervix I have seen  in a non laboring personin a long time.”     Hopefully castor oil will do what blue cohash, 3 accupuncture appointments, and a million walks did not do.      We have been feeling everyone thinking of us and thank you.    We will let you know when there is another update.

We are still here and without a baby

Well we have a baby it is just still in utero.     I am sorry for the radio silence on our end.    We both have been so preoccupied with the waiting and it is difficult to spend time on the computer with my mom in our small apartment.  That is right – my mom is still here.     When I woke up this morning to go to the bathroom at 4am I realized that my mom has almost been here for two weeks and I freaked out a bit.    I know that it has been hard on H. too.     Family is challenging even if they are wonderful and you love them.     We are trying to proceed as normal around here but it is clear that nothing is normal.     We saw star tre.k last night which was fun and we are going to a picnic/walk tonight in the park.      This is a strange time in the baby waiting game.     I certainly don’t wish to go back to TTcing time but I liked knowing the day I would have an answer.      There have been some tears in the house and one of us (usually me)  has be reminded that the baby will be born.     It sometimes feels a bit mythical at this point.       I really wish my mom had not rushed down here and we could have proceeded a bit more like we not on baby watch 2009.

I am working on catching up with everyone this morning and I promise we will send a quick update when we are actually in a more active labor.    xoxo L.