Husband and I celebrated Baby's 6-week birthday last night with chocolate cake. It was mostly an excuse to eat cake, but also, ze has grown so much in 6 weeks. ze can hold her head up and turn it without help; ze has a laugh--a pre-laugh maybe, but it's definitely a happy sound accompanied by smiles; ze likes to be held sitting up and watch tv with us in the evening (we project Netflix and Hulu onto the wall in our living room); ze has definite ideas about which position ze should be in and will launch hirself to try to get into that position. Ze's cute.
Photos: I won't be posting them here. But we made a private blog for hir for friends and family, and I'm happy to share with long-time readers. So if you'd like to see pics, email me and I'll send you the blog invite. My email address should be in my profile, but let me know in comments if you can't find it.
Labor: I was in labor for 24 hours. Twice, we talked about an emergency c-section because ze was in distress, but it wasn't necessary. I pushed for a little over 2 hours and ended up with a 3rd degree episiotomy turned tear, but I pushed that baby out. The first time a c-section was mentioned, it was because hir heart rate had dropped because I contracted for 7 minutes straight. I was rushed back to the OR, but ze started to recover, so I got to go back to L&D. The second time it was right before I started pushing and was more precautionary because the doctor was concerned about hir position and my ability to push. But we did it. I had planned unmedicated, but I got an epidural which was great. The entire time I had mini-contractions between the "real" contractions, which meant that for 24 hours, I was contracting every 1-3 minutes. I was exhausted. No one, in either of my 2 birthing classes nor on the internet forums I read, told me about mini-contractions (they weren't less painful, just shorter). So be warned. They are a thing and they suck. We were the last delivery of the day, so my room was full of people who didn't want to do paperwork. The doctor, midwife, and resident were all there as well as various nurses. But they were all cheering and it was very exciting. Husband likened it to the cheers when people watch sports. So all in all, it was a pretty cool entry into the world for Baby.
At Home: My mom came out for almost two weeks. She arrived when Baby was a week old, and it was so helpful to have another pair of hands (and to see her). That first week we were a mess. It was a huge blur of poop and doctor's visits (ze was jaundiced so had to go in every 2 days until ze started to recover). The next 2 weeks were a big blur of poop and sleep and grading. I had to grade final projects and do final grades. My colleagues helped with what they could, but there was still a bunch I had to do myself. I do not recommend grading after giving birth. We have now added spit-up into the blurry mix and removed the grading. We're all sleeping better and more regularly, so the blurring is less, though the days do blend as they are all basically the same, but with way more cuteness because ze's awake more. Ze definitely has hir own personality though.
The cloth diapering is going well--cloth and prefolds (though we just bought a couple of pockets to try for outings). I don't see why people think it's so much work. It's just a load of laundry every other day. The diapering itself is easy. But we're not doing all of the crazy steps that the obsessive cloth diaperers do. For example, I'm using store-bought diaper cream when needed, not making my own. Who cares if it stains the diapers. They're diapers and meant for butts. And the laundry is easy. Thanks for the tips, readers. Knowing that we can be lazy about the washing helped make this a very low-stress start to cloth diapering.
Babies are very cute, and I love all of the baby cuddles, but it is exhausting being someone's everything. I'm so glad Husband works from home and is able to put himself on paternity leave. Ze wants to be held constantly, but sometimes Mama needs a break or a nap. And we've had several around-the-clock nursing days, so I am also thankful that ze loves the bottle and that pumping is going fine. That last week before we could introduce the bottle was a hard one. Ze sleeps pretty well at night, but occasionally I've had to walk around with hir in the middle of the night. Mostly ze just nurses back to sleep though.
1 comment:
My son loved to be held constantly (hated strollers... my daughter loved strollers and didn't need to be held all the time), and with him I could not have lived without my ring sling. (We barely used it for DC2, but DC1 lived in that thing.) We got Zolowear brand (as a present), which is kind of the Cadillac of ring slings-- you can get them with fewer cool features (zipper pocket, long tail for coverup etc.) for less, but if you have $80 or $90 or whatever they're going for these days it's well worth the investment for being able to cuddle a baby hands-free.
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