3 Pacifiers, 2 Rants, and a Trailer

Rant #1

Dear Strangers, 

Please stop telling me how small my child is and then proceed to ask 20 more questions about how much she weighed at birth vs. now, what she's eating, if she's peeing/pooping, etc. I assure you that any parent that has a child that is underweight is acutely aware of that fact and is doing everything in their power to fix it. Also, I promise that they are talking to their medical professionals and I highly doubt that you will be able to diagnose and "fix" the problem while standing in the grocery store check-out line buying your four obese children Doritos and Coke. So after saying "How old is your baby?" go ahead and say "Oh, she's so little" but please stop there. Thanks. 

P.S. This not does not apply to friends or family with babies that are larger and/or older than Lily, just to judgmental strangers. 

Rant #2

Dear Medela and Target Nursing Clothing Producers, 

Please check your sizes. As someone who was a pre-pregnancy size Medium (sometimes Large in pants) and who has lost 23 of the 30 pounds gained during pregnancy, I disagree with your determination of my new size as Extra Large, particularly in bra sizes. There are many, many women out there with breasts much larger than mine that I would classify as Extra Large long before I fall into that category. Where are they buying nursing clothes? As proof I have included a photo. Thanks.

This week we experimented with pacifiers because after feeding Lily wants to just lie there and suck and suck and suck and suck for hours while she sleeps. If I try to take her off, she wakes up and screams until she's sucking again. So, for my sanity and my poor body's sake, we decided to try a pacifier. There are about 80 million different kinds out there, so we decided to start with three to see 1) if it would work at all and 2) which kind she liked. Turns out she's not such a huge fan. Today was the first day we had moderate success with a Nuk Orthodontic Pacifier. All the others were abject failures. After feeding today I took her off before she was very asleep and quickly gave her the pacifier. She  just wanted to play with it for a little while and then took to sucking it quite vigorously with some active management on my part. She would suck and then spit it out and then suck and spit it out over and over again, but she wasn't getting upset it was more like a game. Then she decided to keep it in her mouth for about half an hour and passed out. As soon as she was asleep it fell out of her mouth and she just kept on sleeping for another couple of hours. I tried this same trick this afternoon to no avail. It was like she was onto us. So, we'll keep trying. 

Also this last week Joe's parents came to visit us. It was nice to have them around to help with some meals and for companionship. And I am very grateful that they were willing to drive a U-Haul trailer full of about 600 lbs of our stuff back to Chicago. They're still on the road, so I hope things are going ok! Here's a picture of them as they're leaving their hotel on Thursday morning. 

Finally, Lily had another well-baby appointment yesterday. She gained some weight and is now up to 6 lbs 0.5 oz, almost her birth weight. She's also gotten more than an inch taller and is now 19.75 inches. The pediatrician is not too concerned about her slow weight gain, even though she's only in the 3rd percentile. I started pumping today so we can supplement with a bottle of breast milk in the evenings when she is most ravenous. It's hard to figure out when to pump though when all she wants to do is stay sucking after a feeding or has passed out on my lap and does not like to be moved once she's asleep. So far I managed to do it once today and have produced less than an ounce for my efforts. I know it will take a while to build up my supply, so I'm trying to be patient. 

Here are this week's pictures. One thing that does usually calm Lily down is putting her in the Mei Tai carrier and walking/bouncing/swaying around while shushing in her ear for about 20 minutes, and then she goes to sleep. Usually she's pretty curled up and sucking on her fist so you can't really see her face, but this particular afternoon she was feeling more relaxed. It reminds me of some of my high school students when they fell asleep in class. 

And this one was taken right after being fed and having a bath. She was pretty excited about listening to The Talk of the Nation on NPR on Friday afternoon. 

Birth Story

Three weeks later, here it finally is. 

Quick recap: I was having high blood pressure issues so the midwives decided it would be good for me to go on modified bedrest until the baby came. My blood pressure continued to increase and on Saturday, July 17 I had a horrible migraine. I called the midwife that was on call for the weekend because severe, sudden headaches can be a sign of pre-eclempsia. After describing my symptoms we came to the conclusion that it was just a migraine (ha, "just") and not a pressure-induced bleed in my brain. I had an appointment with another midwife on Tuesday who was very concerned about the headache, especially given my freakishly high blood pressure at the office and she ordered another 24-hour urine test. If this test came back positive for protein, I would have to be induced immediately. So I turned in the sample on Wednesday, and we would have to wait until Thursday for the results. In retrospect, I should have used that time to come to grips with the very real possibility that I would have this baby in the hospital in the complete opposite way I had wanted it to happen. Instead, I convinced myself that this was just going to be another false alarm and everything would be ok. 

Thursday morning we got the call. The protein level was 1000, and 300 is the cutoff. I needed to come to the hospital ASAP and start the induction process. I was absolutely crushed. Like I said, I should have known this was likely to happen, but it still felt like I had failed at being a good parent even before I was one. It's a very disconcerting feeling to get a phone call and then know that you are going to have a baby. That day. I had been imagining starting labor at home and going to the birth center once it had progressed. It feels very unnatural to have your body feel so unready to have a baby, but be off to go do exactly that. So I showered, we grabbed the hospital bag, and off we went. Here's a picture of me just before we left. It's weird to look at it now and think about how uncomfortable and humongous I was. 

When we arrived at the hospital, we had to wait about an hour for one of the labor and delivery rooms to open up. I wept the whole time we were sitting in the waiting room. And then I started to feel really guilty because there were two other women waiting as well, and they were clearly excited about having their babies. Also, they had chosen this hospital over other places. I felt like a horrible person sitting there being upset because I wasn't going to be giving birth in the birth center. Our baby was full term, healthy, and I was there just in case anything were to go wrong. I had no right to be as upset as I was. Of course, that only made me upset about being upset which led to more weeping. 

We finally got to our room about 11AM. Carrie, our Centering midwife, was the midwife on duty that day. She met us in the room and we talked about what was going to happen. They started me on a round of Cervidil, a drug to help ripen the cervix before labor. It takes 12 hours to complete the cycle, so we knew we were going to be there for a while. We had some lunch, watched some episodes of Bones, and just generally hung out. Zach brought us some Chinese take-out for dinner so we wouldn't have to eat hospital food. We both went to bed at 9ish to try to get some sleep before meeting with the midwife again at 1AM. I was only 1 cm dilated, so the midwife recommended another round of Cervidil. I started to notice some pretty regular contractions at about 2AM and they continued until morning. I didn't get much sleep that night because I was too freaked out about everything and the hospital bed was pretty uncomfortable. Joe camped out on the couch-thing that was in the room. Here's a picture I took of him before he woke up. 

As my contractions got stronger, I found that I was REALLY uncomfortable being in the bed. I was pretty restricted in my movement because I had to be on the fetal monitor and blood pressure cuff constantly. There was enough slack in the wires for me to stand next to the bed or sit on a labor ball. I stood for a while, and kind of paced/rocked back and forth. Then the nurse brought me a labor ball and suggested I try sitting on that. It was amazing. I had brought a notebook along to keep track of things and the last thing I wrote at 10:30AM was "Labor ball = awesome." 

Carrie's shift ended, and the midwife on call for Friday was CiCi, and she was training a midwife, Maya. At 1PM I was 2 cm dilated. I was hoping to use as few medications as possible, so the midwife suggested we try something called Balloon Catheter. Basically, it is a contraption that is made up of two balloons, one goes behind your cervix and one below and they each get filled with saline. Then it applies pressure and manually helps the cervix open and thin out. Having that inserted was possibly the most painful thing I have ever experienced (up to that point, I guess). However, it worked like a charm. My contractions were almost instantaneously stronger and more regular. The plan was to leave the Foley Bulb in until I was about 4 cm dilated, and then to have my water broken at 6 cm. Just after the Foley Bulb was put in the Pitocin was started as well to make sure that labor kept progressing. The midwife was very explicit in her directions to the nurse, we were going to start with 1 unit of Pitocin, and work up to NO MORE than 4 units over the next 4 hours. Ten minutes later there was a shift change, and we got a new nurse, Carol. 

Up to this point, the nurses had been super awesome. They all knew that we were from the Birth Center, and that being in the hospital and getting induced was not our choice. They made sure that we were using as few drug interventions as possible, and were pretty lax about keeping the monitors in place (they kept losing the baby's heartbeat because she was wiggling around so much and the blood pressure cuff kept falling off). The baby's heartbeat was strong whenever it was measured, and my blood pressure had been low the whole time I was there so there was no real pressing need to be continuously monitored. Then came Carol. Carol was mid-40's and definitely a proponent of the "traditional hospital birth" (read: Pitocin, epidural, done). 

By now the only position that was comfortable for me was on my hands and knees on the bed. I had the IV in my left arm, but the drip was on the right side of the bed and the monitors were on the left side of the bed so there was a tangle of tubing and cables. Carol insisted on keeping all of the monitors going all of the time and that I wear the blood pressure cuff on my right arm (another cable to drape across the bed). She was obviously annoyed that I refused to just lie down on my back and give up. She was adjusting the monitors every 3 minutes or so, regardless of the timing of my contractions. It is extremely distracting to have someone squirting goo on your stomach and sliding a small disk around and readjusting a belt while trying to focus and breathe through a contraction. I was annoyed at the time, but now that I think about it more I'm really angry at how invasive she was. 

She kept asking Joe to move from the position I needed him to be in so she could fix the stupid blood pressure cuff. The best place for him to be was at the head of the bed where I could hold his hands and press my forehead against his during the worst part of the contractions. That meant he had to carefully weave his way through all the cables and tubing and every time the blood pressure cuff fell off he had to move and then come back. Once you've figured out how to make it through a contraction, the last thing you need is to have someone say no you can't do that. It was particularly frustrating because this could have all been solved by putting the cuff on my left arm, and we suggested we do that, but she was having none of it. 

Aside from being stubborn and doing everything possible to make me uncomfortable, she apparently missed the notes from the midwife about the Pitocin administration. Usually, they push it much faster, but because we wanted as little intervention as possible and the Foley Bulb had worked so great they were going to use as little as possible. Unknown to us, Carol had other plans. There was another birth happening that the midwives had to attend to, so Joe and I were left alone with Carol at about 2PM. This whole time each contraction was significantly more intense than the last with only a couple of minutes between each one. Also, the baby was posterior (sunny side up), which meant I was having back labor. It's really hard to describe what that feels like. The baby's head presses on your spine so that when you contract the pain shoots through your entire body. It feels a bit like hitting your funny bone, but a thousand times harder, and throughout your whole skeleton. Between each contraction I was shaking uncontrollably either from exhaustion or pain, probably both. 

Weeks earlier, Joe and I had discussed the use of pain-killers during labor in case the baby was posterior. I absolutely did not want an epidural, but the Birth Center (as well as the hospital) offers some other, milder drugs that do not interfere with breast feeding. We had decided that if I was having back labor, and it was becoming unbearable I would use one of those. Well, we got to that point at about 4:30PM. I was weeping and hyperventilating with each contraction. Joe asked to have CiCi paged so we could talk about our options. Just as CiCi arrived, Carol was about to administer the next dose of Pitocin, 10 units worth! CiCi was like, um, please stop I don't think she needs any more as I was writhing in pain. Carol had administered more than twice the amount in half the time that the midwives had ordered. This explained why my contractions were intensifying so quickly. Things were progressing so fast in fact that my body wasn't able to keep up. Because each contraction was worse than the last, I never had a chance to recover or prepare for the next one and my body couldn't produce enough of its own pain killers. While CiCi was explaining the different kinds of drugs I could take, my water broke, with the Foley Bulb still in. Cici removed the Foley Bulb manually, and gave me one dose of Fentanyl, a narcotic that stays in your system for about an hour. At 5:30PM I was 7 cm dilated. Before giving me the Fentanyl, CiCi had asked on a scale of 1 to 10 how bad the pain was, and I said 10. After an hour of Fentanyl, she asked again and I said 9.5. Apparently everyone thought this was hilarious. I don't know that it actually helped dull the pain at all, but it definitely helped me calm down enough to focus and breathe through it. 

Then, about half an hour later the contractions suddenly intensified even more, and the midwives had me lie down on my side because I was collapsing between each one. Apparently, this was transition. I remember screaming through 2 or 3 contractions, whereas previously it had just been a low-pitched moan, and then I knew I had to push or I was convinced I was going to die. So I hopped back up on my hands and knees (ok, hopped is an exaggeration) and away we went. After a while the midwives said you could see the head and asked if either Joe or I wanted to touch it. We both definitely did not. I just wanted to be done, and I wanted Joe to stay where he was. Then, at 7:30PM after two really hard, really long pushes, there she was! The midwives laid her on the bed beneath me (I was still on hands and knees) and told me to lie on my side so they could put her on my stomach. I was a little disoriented and was terrified I was going to crush her, I couldn't really tell where she was. Eventually I was lying down, and she was on top of me. At some point, I don't really know when, Joe cut the cord and they took her off to the side to get cleaned up a little and have her vitals taken.

Here's a picture of Joe holding her in the recovery room after her mandatory stay in the nursery. She was 6lbs 1oz and 18.5 inches long. 

 

Two weeks old!

Lily is two weeks old today. She's been lots of fun so far. After a whole week of hermit-ness we have finally started having visitors and making excursions of our own. She's been nursing great and sleeping for four to five hours at a time during the night. She's still only about six pounds so clothes, even newborn sizes, are still pretty big on her.

And here are this week's pictures. It's hard to have a bad day when you wake up to this silly monkey.

Here she is on the play mat Angela gave us. Her favorite thing to do is stare at the plastic keys as they lie completely still on the ground. It's like she's trying to use some Jedi powers to make them levitate. 

And finally, here she is next to my dried wedding bouquet. Our landlord requested that we empty out the storage shed this week, and this was in there. We decided to get rid of it, but not before taking a picture first. Joe insisted that Lily be in it, too. I like it. 

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.