Life with Lily

So Lily is now one week old. It feels much longer than that to me. Joe, Lily and I have been hanging out at home, basically being hermits. It's been nice to get to know each other without a lot of other people coming in and out. 

Even while being hermits, this has been kind of a busy week. We had our first appointment with the pediatrician on Tuesday. Lily had lost 10 oz since she was born and was looking slightly jaundiced. Luckily, later that night my milk finally came in (it was delayed because of the pitocin... long story still to come in the birth story post). Since then she has gained 4 oz and is looking just peachy. She's still pretty scrawny, only 5 lbs 10 oz, but she's doing great at nursing and there are no more concerns. 

Some things that Lily likes:

1) When dad wraps her up in various blankets, shushes in her ear, and swings her around. 

2) When mom washes her hair. 

Some things that Lily dislikes: 

1) When dad changes her diaper. 

2) When mom washes any other part of her. 

And now for pictures!

This scene is what I was greeted with when I got out of the shower yesterday. Don't they both look so peaceful? I especially like the closeup because she has a little smile. 

I call this one her "Glamour Shot." It cracks me up. I particularly like her faux-hawk. 

And this one is from today, so one week old. We were on our way back to the pediatrician's office for our follow up visit. She's so small even newborn sized clothes look humongous on her. You can't really see it in this picture, but she's wearing a little onesie with bugs all over it that she is just swimming in. And her socks look like snowboarding boots. But her eyes are open for the first time in a picture! 

Lily Sofia Hammon

For all you non-Facebook-ers out there, here are some pictures of our daughter, Lily! She was born on Friday, July 23 at 7:32 PM after being induced Thursday afternoon (full birth story still to come in another post). She was 6 lbs 1 oz and 18.5 inches long, with a full head of fine, dark hair. Right now her eyes are a dark bluish-green color (when they're open, which is not very often). We were released from the hospital Sunday morning, and have been adjusting to life at home since then. I'll be sure to add more pictures soon as we're settling into some semblance of a routine. 

It's been a weird adjustment to start thinking about Lily "The Person", rather than this abstract concept "The Baby which may or may not have be named Lily". It's starting to sink in that she's really ours and we're actually responsible for her well-being. Duncan is having a stressful time getting used to having a crying creature that smells weird and wiggles in all of his favorite places. He has taken to making various nests in Joe's Man Cave because that's the only room she hasn't been in yet. I'm trying to remember to take a few minutes and pet him each day so he doesn't get too stressed out. He'll get over it eventually, he's always been very affable. 

In this picture, Lily is one day old, wrapped up in the hospital blankets. 

In this picture, Lily is three days old, and wrapped in the baby blanket I made for her. It is made in a diagonal, rainbow striped stocking stitch pattern, and she loves it. 

Words can't even begin to explain how amazing Joe has been through everything. As a quick example, I have not changed a single diaper yet. 

Quick Update

So.... yesterday was 39 weeks and we had another appointment with the midwives. Turns out my blood pressure was a little high, but had dropped by the end of the meeting. That, combined with the migraine I had over the weekend, puts me on the "watch carefully" list during labor and means another round of testing. If there's been any change in any of my blood tests, they will have to induce at the hospital probably on Thursday. If everything looks ok in the blood work, and I go into active labor on my own during or before next week we can have the baby in the birth center. So for now, more waiting and thinking relaxing, low BP thoughts. 


We've had our first couple of monsoon rains this week. They make for crazy evening skies and wonderfully cool, damp mornings. Also, I finally finished the baby blanket I've been working on forever (bed rest does have some advantages). I haven't been able to take a good picture of it yet, but it will show up soon. Joe is now done with work and that makes the days go by faster. 

Still waiting...

So the 38th week has turned out to be similar to the rest of this pregnancy, full of unnecessary worry, hospital trips, and lying down. At Centering on Wednesday night my blood pressure was significantly elevated. This was concerning because so far it's been remarkably steady and low. Also, I had been feeling nauseous and had a slight headache all day. All of those symptoms combined usually lead to something called Pregnancy Induced Hypertension (PIH), which can develop into preeclampsia and eventually eclampsia. The midwives rechecked my BP at the end of the night to see if the first reading was just a fluke, but somehow it rose even further to 145/90. I didn't even know those numbers were possible. For comparison, I'm usually at 110/70-ish. That score earned me an immediate trip to the hospital for blood tests and fetal monitoring. My BP dropped back to normal pretty quickly, the baby is doing just fine, but of course one of the three blood tests came back borderline. That means I've been on modified bed rest since Wednesday. I'm allowed to sit up, do some yoga in the morning, and go for a walk in the evening, but that's about it. No packing or cleaning under any circumstances. 

I had a check-up Friday morning to draw some more blood and my BP was well within the normal range again. The new blood tests came back clear too, but I'm still on bed rest until tomorrow's appointment. Hopefully they'll tell me I can go back to doing things, at least somewhat. I'm trying to keep myself occupied with knitting, reading, and getting caught up on some random paperwork stuff but it is driving me crazy to look at all the stuff I could be putting in boxes and not be able to do anything about it. Also, I feel absolutely disgusting. I was feeling humongous before, but I was able to workout everyday to at least feel like I was not turning into a giant walrus. Now it feels like my muscles are atrophying and I'm turning into Jabba the Hutt. I'm also not hungry at all because I'm doing anything. That in turn leads to me not eating enough, which makes me feel even more nauseous and less hungry. It is not fun. 

On Thursday, Joe's work threw a goodbye party/baby shower for us. Because I had just been placed on bed rest, I was not able to go. Joe sent me lots of pictures, though. Here's one of the cake. He also brought home about a quarter of it. It is a delicious chocolate sheet cake with just a little bit of chocolate frosting so it's not too sweet. This is Joe's last week at work, so he's been training his replacement. 

Since I've been mostly immobile during the day, Duncan has decided that I am the best new piece of furniture there ever could be. In particular, he feels the need to be on or near my belly at all times. At one point I was lying on my side with Duncan perched on top purring loudly. The baby kicked pretty hard in Duncan's direction, at which time Duncan decided to kick back. They went back and forth for a couple of rounds before I shoved Duncan off. I thought feeling a creature move around inside me was weird, but it's definitely weirder to have the creature interact with another creature on the outside. Here's a picture of him snuggled up in my lap one afternoon.

Finally, I have to talk about how grateful I am for Joe. While there are thousands of reasons I love Joe, at this moment, there are three main reasons: 
1) Joe can, and is willing to, cook real food. I am usually the one to cook dinner, but now I can't given the whole bed rest thing. Joe and I cook together on the weekends, but over the last week he's prepared almost every meal as well as taking care of the shopping and working. I am so grateful that he can make real food and not just frozen pizza. Even though I'm not super hungry, I feel better eating fresh produce and healthy food. 
2) After July 16 and until classes start September 20, Joe will be home full-time. The couples at Centering have been talking about maternity and paternity leave and when they have to go back to work. One woman has to return to her job part-time beginning at 2 weeks. I am extremely grateful that we will be able to be together so much for the first couple months of our new life as a family. Also, that we have the resources for me to be able to not have to go back to work right away. Between having a baby, moving, and Joe starting law school I don't think I would be able to handle trying to find a job without freaking out as well. It is extremely comforting to know that is one pressure that I can put off for several months until we're somewhat settled. 
3) Joe is unflappable. While I'm panicking about whatever is happening around me, he manages to remain extremely calm and rational. Not only can he remain calm, but he is pretty good at helping me calm down too (not an easy task, I assure you). Most importantly, he manages to do so in a non-patronizing or annoying way. This makes me feel better about labor, delivery, and childrearing knowing that at least one of us will be sane. 

Let the countdown begin

As of yesterday, I am 37 weeks pregnant. That means that if I go into labor anytime over the next four weeks we can go to the Birth Center, and not the hospital! Woohoo! No signs yet, but it really could be any day now given the uncertainty in my due date. According to my records, I am officially 37 weeks and 1 day along, but Kerry, our Centering midwife, thinks that I could be anywhere from 37 to 39 weeks. They gave me the later due date for the official paper work so that there's less of a chance of having to be induced and end up at the hospital (anytime after 41 weeks). Baby's giving me wicked heartburn, and still moving a lot. While I'm grateful for the indication that everything is still ok, it does get a little bit annoying to have a squirming gremlin feel like it's trying to escape from inside of you. Yesterday Joe had his head next to my belly and the baby punched him in the jaw when he said something to me. (We don't really know what body part it was, but it was small and knobbly. From the position, it was probably a knee.) I guess that means baby's ears are working just fine and was either really excited to hear dad's voice or really angry. 

Here's a really awkward picture of myself. Yes I am barefoot and pregnant standing in our kitchen. And no I don't have to go to the bathroom as suggested by my poor hand placement. 

This weekend Joe and I did a ridiculous amount of cooking and baking. We're trying to use up miscellaneous items in our cabinets and fridge so we don't have to throw away a bunch of food when we move in August. For this weekend, that lead to: lemon poppy seed pound cake (pictured below), buffalo chicken wings from scratch, matar paneer, chicken biryani, very random salads, buttermilk pancakes, biscuits and gravy, and grilled steak. So far, everything's been good. Now we're getting down to the more unusual ingredients so we'll see how creative we can get. I have to say, I make pretty good pound cake. It tastes like a lemon poppy seed muffin with a light lemon glaze on top. It's fluffy like a muffin, but moist like pound cake. And is extremely refreshing served cold from the fridge with a super thin layer of butter on top.