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.
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:
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'sdroppage 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."
Some really thoughtful people decided to give BDR a fun surprise party Thursday. (And I thought I was going to hear a Powerpoint presentation about a mission trip to Brazil.)
Alas, as it was a surprise, I was without camera to capture some of the more classic moments. I hope some pictures will be coming my way, but until then:
The bounty of baby presents.
Kevin was excited to see these among the cache.
It was at this party that Kevin decided to challenge and then destroy a 5th grader at a cake eating contest. Both boys ate a huge piece of cake with these huge icing booties on top. (It may be safe to say that neither won, really, based on Kevin's insomnia later that night.)
The booties are enough to give you type-2 diabetes.
My list of wanting to have this baby now is growing daily. Of course, Kevin and I are excited about meeting Clementine Rose or Max Power, but recently it occurred to me that I'd like to have the baby out for less...parental...reasons.
(1) A return to the ability to walk around as a private citizen. Apparently, being pregnant is akin to wearing a huge neon sign that says "please talk to me about my life!"
Have you ever seen the movie Soapdish? There's a scene where Whoopi Goldberg, trying to lift the spirits of an otherwise depressed Sally Field, takes her to the mall so that Sally Field can be mobbed by fans of her soap opera. That's kind of how I feel now: going out is just an attempt to bring glowing and warm attention to myself.
Especially when I'm just trying to bag my own groceries.
(2) Knowing what sex the baby will be. If only so I don't ever have to hear the question, "is it a boy or a girl?" again.
Although, I suspect it will still be in my future, as yesterday Kevin leaned over to me and said, "you know, we'll never know the sex of our babies. Ever."
So, when someone asks, I shrug my shoulders and say, "it's a surprise!" in my most cheerful voice, and, depending on the crowd, throw in, "well, I hope it's a baby."
(3) Stepping out of this bizarro spotlight that's been placed on me by virtue of the fact that I am a reproducing human.
So, obviously I have a little problem with being the center of attention, especially since it's not like I'm actually doing anything particularly cool.
I try to remind myself that people are just happy for us, but I'm getting a little tired of having attention drawn to me just by walking into a room.
(4) A return to the ability to call my parents without feeling guilty.
Because every time I call now, I think I get their hopes up.
(5) A return to the ability to plan more than three or four days in advance.
Like today, when we went grocery shopping, and we had no idea what kind of food to buy. Because what if we have a baby tonight and we can't cook these vegetables?
I'd always kind of liked my birth story: my mother was in labor on Labor Day, and I was born just after midnight on that Tuesday.
I like it even better after talking with my father Sunday.
Apparently, as my father was settling down to watch Monday Night Football (Week 1, Baltimore Colts versus Dallas Cowboys), my mother said, "the baby is going to come tonight." My father, ever the gentleman, asked if they needed to go to the hospital right away. My mother said, no, they had time.
At halftime, my mother said, "OK, let's go to the hospital."
Then, my favorite part of the story: my mother was escorted back to the birth and delivery room while my father remained in the waiting room, watching the second half of MNF. And, according to my father: "A few minutes after the game was over, they came out and told me I had a new daughter."
I love the fact that my father's football watching was completely unimpeded by my birth. I also love the fact that my father was nowhere near the birth itself. When I asked him about it, he reminded me that "it was a different time," but conceded it was something that both he and my mother were on agreement about.
For some reason, this doesn't surprise me.
The only sad note to this story is that it seems the MNF game itself was kind of lame. Dallas beat the Baltimore Colts 38 to 0.
Today, Dr. Sukhdeo (the other doctor from our clinic who may deliver BDR) confirmed what we'd suspected:
1. BDR is still high as a kite. By this I mean, she's not engaged at all. Her head is located somewhere just under my belly button. So much for my hopes of early delivery.
2. BDR has, in fact, been sticking her bottom out at us for the past few weeks. We'd suspected a bulgy lump on my right side was her bottom, but today we had confirmation.
3. I am not to tell the patients in the waiting room just how easy my pregnancy has been.
Contrary to our suspicions, however, I still have not cracked 170.
Kevin noted while we were waiting to make our (fingers-crossed) final appointment that the doctors seem very unconcerned about my pregnancy. And, truthfully, we are too. We don't really have questions when we visit the doctors, and our concerns tend to be of the more trivial kind.
Like: what happens if my water breaks when I'm out in public? (This was a greater concern for me when I still was working: what would happen if my water broke while I was trying to wrangle a bunch of 6 year olds?) I mean, seriously. What would I do? Should I start packing an extra set of clothes?
Or: does the hospital provide ice chips?
Or: Is that really BDR's bottom sticking out at us?
First: have you ever been in a room full of pregnant women? It's kind of creepy, like some bizarre science experiment gone haywire.
Second: Our instructor tasked us with asking our husbands how "average" our nipples are. Because, in her experience, husbands are a much better judge of breasts than women are.
Third, and I quote: "...Your baby needs unlimited access to your breasts." It just got PG-13 up in here.
Fourth: Kevin was momentarily horrified when he though he'd have to eliminate peanut butter and nuts from his diet (as his lunch invariably contains a peanut butter sandwich, almonds, and dried cranberries). I think in that moment, he might have seriously considered formula-feeding BDR.
Fifth: Our instructor used a "My Buddy" doll for a visual aid, referring to it as her 10-pound baby. Funny for some mothers in the room, but my cervix just staged a protest. While BDR will not be 10 pounds (fingers crossed), she certainly will be a tub.
Otherwise, the class was informative. Now that we have feeding down, and KJ has permanent diaper duty, we just need BDR to get her act together and arrive already. (Can you tell someone's impatient? Just a little?)
Could you PLEASE get that camera out of my face?
Peter's lungs get a rest, much to The Old Dude's relief.
