an open letter to Gram Cracker

Dear Gram,

As you can see, I'm going shirtless until I can rock out in style.

Your grandson,

Peter Ramone

Genesis 17: 9-14

Our last shot of all of Peter, after his favorite activity ever.

Today, Peter was circumcised. Ouch, indeed. I won't go into the discussions that we had that led up to the snippage, but Kevin's reaction after he saw the results show was: "I'm glad I don't remember mine."

But, our Piglet did a really great job during the procedure; Dr. Soriano said he slept through almost 80 percent of the procedure, and freaked out only when he needed to be strapped down. (Apparently, our baby is one of the rare ones who hates to be swaddled - or, at least, hates to have his arm movement restricted.)

In other news, our son is a tub. He weighed in at 9 pounds, 9 ounces - a POUND increase from 6 days ago. Gigantor, indeed. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised: when the medical assistant asked us what we use to calm him down (like a pacifier, or giving him a finger to suck on), my reply was that he liked to eat. A lot. It's pretty much the only thing that works. (Not that we've had much need for serious comforting.)

more sleep!

I'm not saying it's a trend, but at least n=2: eight more hours of sleep!

Alas, I suspect it will not last, due to today's events, but we'll be rested enough to tough it out.

All I can say is thank goodness for cosleeping. It's really made all the difference.

A day of many firsts

This is how Peter's rocking his style today.

We might have been inspired by last night's exceptional night of sleep, and managed to do the following:

- Go to Target to purchase MORE diapers. (Unlike our other escapades, we've actually purchased diapers that fit.) And, since my mother was with us, she couldn't help but splurge on some baby-blue clothes for Mr. Chompers.
First: Peter's first album purchase, the new Modest Mouse.

- Take a nice long walk to return overdue library books, pick up stamps for thank-you notes, and to drop some stuff off at St. Joseph.
First: Breastfeeding in public, leaky diaper, using a public baby-changing stall.

- Sponge-bathe Peter.
First: uh, the bathing-a-squirming baby part.

Peter, much calmer after his bath is over.

sleep!

I don't want to really jinx anything, but take a look at these stats:

10 pm - 2 am: asleep
3 am- 5 am: asleep
5:30 am - 7:30 am: asleep

If my math is right (and with such a good night's sleep, it ought to be), that's EIGHT hours of sleep. We're still running a sleep deficit, but suddenly things don't look so grim.

Our next task: figuring out how to change Mr. Chomper's diaper without him "showering" us all with his "love."

thank goodness for my mother

Gassy baby smiles from a gassy baby.

My mom arrived yesterday, just in time. Sleeplessness is fine if you're (1) able to counterbalance its effects with caffeine or (2) not critically responsible for the well being of something completely helpless.

Today, we were advised by our lactation consultant that Peter's seemingly ferocious midnight feeding is really a sign that he's on the wrong time zone - he's mixed up his days and nights. I suspect this is a way he's trying to bond with The Old Dude, who makes middle-of-the-night phone calls to what we've "scientifically" concluded is France, based on the fact that The Old Dude's name might be Rene.

Anyway, my mother has what is now the most magical touch of all: that of soothing a fussy baby. Which allows me to post pictures like these:

Kevin and Peter, in a rare moment of co-sleeping. (Kevin's actually faking it. And this photo was taken during a rather pleasant but overall poorly timed nap: from 5 to 8 p.m.)

Peter's first not-freak-out stroller ride up Castro Street. During which he slept like a log. From 1 p.m. - 3 p.m.

Note: Peter only enjoys sleeping in the following places or positions:
- On Kevin's chest;
- On my chest (although, for obvious reasons, this poses a risk of distracting him from sleep);
- Snuggled in the bed between us;
- While I'm stuck in an awkward feeding position;
- And, most importantly not at all on his back, so don't even ask him to, American Academy of Pediatrics.

In other all-Peter news, his furious eating is paying off in some ways. Kevin insists Peter's gained at least half a pounds since his last check-up on Monday. He's able to hold his head up with surprising strength for someone only a week old.

And, today, he managed to do this:


Unswaddle himself and roll on his side, all within two minutes of being placed in his new pack-and-play bassinet, a gift from his older cousin Charlotte and her parents, Erin and Tim.

At this rate, he'll be shooting layups in a month.

Peter, the wide-eyed wonder

Dr Evil plotting his next 8-hour awake stretch?

So apparently Peter Davis-Ross is a little boy who likes to stay awake.

Which is fine, except for that I can't help but feel that he ought to enjoy sleep more. I certainly do. He's really only getting a few more hours than we are at this point, which seems sub-optimal on many levels.

At any rate, he's still pretty much the most adorable thing ever.

Oh, no, not again with the camera. Will it ever end?

And, yes, I really hate my car seat.

Peter, Day 3 and 4

Could you PLEASE get that camera out of my face?

First, please excuse any glaring spelling, grammar, or syntax errors. It's tough to think straight when you have a newborn. (You should have seen me trying to figure out how elevators work at our lactation appointment today. It was kind of embarrassing. This after struggling to figure out where we needed to go, and not understanding why it wasn't on the map even after Kevin pointed out that we were on the wrong floor. At least I was able to brush my teeth this morning.)

Peter's been a busy little boy at his few days at home.

Yesterday we visited Dr. Soriano for his first appointment, and it went very well. During pregnancy - and now - the word most used to describe Peter was "thriving." He's a big, strong boy. It's probably his overall health that allowed him to make such a quick turnaround after his birth.

Today, we checked in with a lactation consultant, who again used the word "thriving" when talking about Peter. He's almost up to his birth weight, which apparently is remarkable for a four-day-old. (Tell this to my father; a few days ago he asked how much weight his grandson had gained. He also wanted to know if Peter sounded "manly" when he cried. I think my dad's a little excited about the new shortstop in the family.)

Then, a somewhat ill-advised trip to pick up some much needed items, including diapers that actually fit our son. Alas, we failed in this department...again. Who would have thought that there is such a range in what fits an almost-9-pound baby?

There's been talk of taking a walk to find the baby ducks, but we've also had word that the baby ducks may be gone, lost at the hands of some evil raccoons. (In a stroke of bizarre coincidence, one of our NICU nurses lives in our complex. We had an extended discussion about the baby ducks.)

And, I'm somewhat afraid to report that The Old Dude and The Girlfriend, who live upstairs, seem none too happy that a healthy baby boy's lungs have moved in downstairs. The Girlfriend studiously avoided eye contact with me when our paths crossed at the mailboxes today. Luckily, Peter's not much of a crier.

Yet.

Peter's lungs get a rest, much to The Old Dude's relief.

You can always check out new photos, posted daily by request.

Hello, Peter Joseph Davis-Ross

Born: May 7, 5:53 a.m., at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. Weight: 8 pounds, 10 ounces Length: 21 inches.

Dr. Shin, upon delivering Peter: "How did he fit in you?"

So, I'll preface this by saying that I really, truly did have every intention of having a natural, intervention-free pregnancy.

Until labor started.

And really, labor wasn't so bad, except for the fact that after 12 hours of it, I was only 30 percent of the way dilated and experiencing minute-long contractions with only a minute of rest. And it was 7 p.m., which meant I had a long night ahead of me.

So, yes, I got the epidural.

But putting that aside, delivery was pretty easy, until the end. I started having contractions Sunday morning, right when I woke up, and they progressed pretty rapidly throughout the day. By 2 p.m., I was convinced I was well into the second stage of labor, a.k.a. the "go to the hospital" stage.

I was not. We went in and were sent home.

By 7 p.m., I again was convinced that it had to be time to go to the hospital, since the contractions were so frequent.

It wasn't time, really. But, we went and stayed this time, mostly because I couldn't bear the thought of 40 more minutes in the car.

When we got to the hospital, we were glad to see that Dr. Shin was still the OB on-call. She was pretty excited to see us too, as she'd asked us on Friday to have the baby this weekend while she'd be in the hospital. I should have told her that we'd be there Sunday, since I've known for a while that we'd have the baby on May 6. (As it was, we missed it by about 6 hours. Which I think is pretty remarkable.)

So, we got the epidural, we got settled, and we started sleeping - which was nice. Everything was going well, until the last half-hour of delivery. I had just started the "push" stage when it became clear that the baby was having some problems - he'd had a bowel movement and his heart rate was dipping very low. So, I got some oxygen (which, unexpectedly, felt like it was suffocating), and we got to some serious pushing. After a few attempts, the nurse nicely told me that it looked like we had about 1.5 to 2 hours of pushing ahead of me.

Then, Dr. Shin came in, to let me know that I had about 15 minutes to push the baby out, or they'd have to suction him out, because he was having that much trouble.

So, 15 minutes later, out pops Peter.

Unfortunately, Peter had done just what everyone was afraid of - he'd inhaled some of the bowel movement, which is just as terrible as it sounds. The result was that he wasn't able to get his first few good breaths, and even after intervention from the Neonatal Intensive Care team in the delivery room, he still wasn't able to breathe properly.

Peter was taken away, to the NICU, to have some emergency interventions performed. It was really terrible for all of us: Kevin, who went with Peter to the NICU; me, who had to stay behind without holding the baby; and the delivery nurse and Dr. Shin, for whom everything had been going so well.

The first half of Monday was pretty tough. We spent it in one of the shared recovery rooms - with a mother and her baby. Also, we had no idea how Peter was doing. Every update we received was more and more positive, but no one suggested that he was fine. By noon, he'd been intubated (which he pulled out), he'd had a spinal tap; he'd been put on an IV and had antibiotics pumped into him; and he'd had an artery tapped through his umbilical cord for easy blood samples.

I'd spent the morning in bed, and Kevin went to visit Peter, bringing me this picture. It was tough to see.
I'd also tried to get rest, but spent the morning being interviewed by everyone, from a lactation consultant (sorry, not going to happen) to a social worker.

Luckily, we were able to move to a private room, and we were able to see Peter later that day.

And, even MORE luckily, Peter continued to make incredible progress. By late afternoon, we were told that we could hold and even try to feed Peter. By Tuesday, Peter was off of his IV and I was his primary food source. (Which meant that I was actually excited to get midnight phone calls telling me to come feed my baby. We'll see how long that lasts.) Also by Tuesday, we were told that Peter would more than likely come home with us Wednesday.

One of the few times Peter didn't cry when Kevin held him.

Bonding with Peter

Going home

So that's where we are now: home. Our little NICU baby is healthy and happy, and sleeping with Dad right now.

A ton of photos from the first few day's of Peter's life are here:

Hello, Peter

56 photos

And, a few funny videos. (Really, not so funny - they're mostly for Grandparents.)

BDR: locked and loaded

Today's appointment with Dr. Shin revealed that BDR has indeed dropped. Kevin and I had been wondering about this all week, but had come to no definitive conclusion. Apparently, her head is "quite low." I should note that it has NOT gotten easier to breathe, as I have been promised.

I blame our inability to determine BDR's droppage on her gigantism - that is, even though she may be lower, she's just so BIG she takes up all available room.

Also, she's still sticking her bottom out at us.

Also...I cracked the 170 mark. Mostly because of some crazy swelling and water retention of late. The water retention is entirely my fault, since I've been all kinds of busy this week as we prepare for first Eucharist tomorrow and the last day of faith formation Sunday, and have been crossing my legs and standing up and not elevating my feet. And eating In-N-Out for lunch, because I'm 39 weeks pregnant and deserve it.

Kevin, after looking at my sausage-feet: "Don't ever get really fat. I am so unattracted to you right now."