Posts Tagged ‘newborn’

Here's the birth story! Just check out the pics or skip to the end for stats if you don't want to hear about all the icky birth stuff! :-p

On Friday afternoon I was feeling a little "weird." I guess Ron saw it on my face too because he asked me if I was doing okay. "I'm alright. But I think things are starting to happen." I just meant it as in "these Braxtons Hicks are getting a little more serious and I think he'll be here in a few days" — not as in "rush me to the hospital NOW!" Well, Ron took it all to heart and called Mama home from work. She dropped what she was doing and left her client because she was on her way to the hospital! Well, not quite. Woops! I took a nap and started to feel normal again. After dinner, I fell asleep for the night, feeling a little bad that I got everyone worked up for nothing!

I woke up Saturday at 5:30 in a puddle. Had I wet the bed? (You know, bladder control issues after 2 kids and all that.) No, that's not exactly a common occurrence. Was I leaking? When I went into labor with Rhino, I had leaked for a couple of days. With Heron, my water broke 2 minutes before he was born. Well, as it turned out, my water broke. I felt pretty good and had some Cheerios and walked around. I had some contractions, but they were short and about 10 minutes apart. I called Tiffany, the doula, at 7 and told her that today was probably the day. She said to call back later when things started picking up. I called Matt to let him know what was going on and he talked me through some contractions. He was such an awesome labor coach for Rhino and Heron and I really missed having him by my side, telling me I'm doing a great job, excited to meet his son in a few short hours.

Well, only 45 minutes later I called her back to say that I think they were pretty picked up. It's a 45 minute drive to the hospital and we also had to call the babysitter and wait for her to arrive to watch Rhino and Heron. Tiffany decided to meet us at the hospital. The babysitter arrived and I explained the boys' routine and where things were. Contractions were between 4 and 8 minutes apart (not so consistent) and about 45 seconds long.

I was in labor with Rhino for 18 hours and 8 with Heron, so I was a little nervous that this one would come even faster and we'd have a baby in the car! I think Mama was nervous too and got us to the hospital on base quite a bit faster than usual! She yelled at the gate guard that I'm having a baby and he just waved us right through. I checked in to triage and changed, chatted with a nurse, went to the bathroom. By 8:45 I was officially admitted and given a room. Mama emailed Matt to let him know how it was all going.

For a half an hour, nurses were in and out, talking to me about newborn procedures (they were concerned that I wanted to decline the vitamin K and the eye drops) and gave me a hep-loc in case I needed any medications. I was able to drink a lot of water and contractions were pretty serious by now. I could tell Mama was a little worried, but Tiffany reassured her, told her everything was going just fine and I was doing a great job. I got into "my zone", closed my eyes, didn't move, moaned through contractions. I felt a little panicked at the peak of one contractions and moaned "no" to Tiffany. She cheered me on and told me I could do it.

By 9:30 I couldn't help but push. The midwife showed up and got into position. I had thought I would want to try a squatting position this time, but I the most comfortable position was on my side, like last time. I pushed for 20 minutes, squeezing Tiffany's hand, stopping to breathe and relax. He was born at 9:53 am! Only four and a half hours of labor and he was here! He was placed directly onto my chest and covered with a blanket. I hugged him and greeted him by name ("Raven" to the online world!) and cried and missed Matt. But it was such an amazing feeling! We snuggled for a few minutes, then I cut the cord. Mama emailed Matt with a picture she snapped on her phone. He was so big and pink and beautiful. The nurses and Tiffany and I guessed how much he'd weigh: from 8lb 12oz up to my guess of "he'll break 9 pounds."

At 10:45 the nurses weighed him: 9lb 5oz! Just one ounce more than Heron! At this time, I was losing much more blood than is normal and getting very pale and weak. They put me on Pitocin and got me some crackers and peanut butter and by 11 everything was out and looking better. Raven settled in for his first good feeding and life was so good.

At around 9am, Andrea and Amelia arrived at the house. They drove up from Texas and got there right in time! Andrea relieved the babysitter and watched the older boys. Mama left Tiffany and I at the hospital around 11:30 to get Andrea and the kids ready to visit us that afternoon. Tiffany stayed with me until almost 2 that afternoon, when Mama and Ron, Andrea and Amelia and the boys came to visit. I had gotten "new baby" gifts for the boys. Rhino seemed more interested in his gift (some Melissa and Doug lacing animals) than in Raven. Heron wasn't so happy at first, but when Andrea held Raven and showed Heron, he warmed up and wanted to say hi to his baby! I stayed one night and everything was fine. We got to talk to Matt and the rest of my family then went "home" to Mama's house on Easter afternoon.

I am so lucky to be a mom to three beautiful, healthy little boys! I am thankful that I was able to have three natural births without any complications. Raven's birth was so quick and went wonderfully! I won't say it was "easy" but it was easier than the previous two! The only thing that could have made the whole experience better is having Matt by my side to meet his third-born son. All that aside, it was such an awesome day! Welcome to our family, baby Raven! We all love you so much all ready!

“Raven”
Born April 23, 2011 at 9:53 AM
weight: 9 lb 5 oz
height: 22 in

I'm so excited that I had the opportunity to hold my very first newborn photo session! A friend of mine had her precious baby girl on Father's Day — what a special gift to Dad! We held a shoot a when she was just five days old, but she wasn't in the mood for any pictures then! So we got together a few days later and she was so content. I hope to get my hands on more beautiful babies, soon! Congratulations again, Z family!

On Thursday evening I finally went into labor! Matt was at work and I started noticing regular contractions, about 15 minutes apart, at 6:30. He came home for dinner around 7:30 and by then I thought it might be a good idea for Matt to stay home rather than return to work for the rest of the night. Things were going great and we got Rhino down for bed, got the bags ready, and called Charren. When contractions got about 3-5 minutes apart, around 11pm, she came over to spend the night here for Rhino. That was so much more convenient than waking him up to take him over to her place and have her try to get him back down in a strange place. Thankfully, he didn't wake for her or complain the whole night. He never even knew we were gone!

I got admitted at the hospital around 11:30 and was hooked up to the monitor and checked. Everything looked good, but I was only 4cm dilated. So at midnight I Matt and I walked the hall for about 30 minutes until things got too uncomfortable and I wanted to lie down and relax. The pain started getting worse and worse and I even broke down and tried to convince Matt that maybe having them break my water would be a good idea and that I had changed my mind about the epidural, that it was no longer a big deal to me and we should probably call the anesthesiologist! Well, I'm so glad that he was supportive and didn't let me give in because it didn't last much longer! At about 1:30 my water broke and I started to panic a little from the pain. The nurses checked me again I was at 9cm but feeling ready to push. They called the doctor and told me to try not to push, which was pretty much impossible. By the time the doctor arrived, Matt announced he could see hair and the doctor told me to give two good pushes. I did, but the baby's shoulder got stuck and I needed to try a little bit harder. Compared to when Rhino was born, I think I lost my cool a little bit more and was yelling at the nurse who was yelling at me.

Our little boy was born at 1:56 and was put directly on my chest to feed. The doctor waited to clamp the cord until it stopped pulsing, as we requested, and then Matt cut the cord. I spent about a half an hour with our little guy to feed him before giving him up to get weighed and measured. He weighed in at 9 pounds, 4 ounces and is 22-3/4 inches long. What a big guy! Matt gave him a sponge bath to clean him up as the doctor and I finished up. I had the same issue as I did with Rhino where I lost way too much blood after he was born, so I needed to stay in bed for quite a while. Around 4:30 I was fine and taken to our room. Matt decided to go home and relieve Charren before Rhino woke up rather than room in with me, which was fine. Between feedings, nurses coming in to check the baby's vitals, and then coming in to check mine, and other interruptions, I never got more than 10-15 minutes of sleep at a time. All the endorphins probably kept me awake too, as I was just really giddy for the next 24 hours.

So, all of you who know us personally probably all ready know Baby's name. For the sake of his online privacy, we don't want to use his real name and picked a nickname for him. I think Rhino's nickname is super cute and appropriate and really wanted an animal nickname that was on the same level, but I've had a difficult time finding one. Tonight Matt and I came up with "Heron", in part because of his height. It's not as cool and masculine as "Rhino", but herons are cool and and I need to pick something to call him online!

I was discharged from the hospital Sunday morning and am very glad to be home! It was nice to relax a little bit in the hospital, but I did miss Matt and Rhino and got a little bit bored hanging out with Heron. Today has been nice, although he's pretty much spent the whole day sleeping. Rhino enjoys having him around and always waves to him, cuddles up next to him, kisses him on the forehead, pats his head, and pokes at his hands and feet. So far he hasn't seemed too crabby about anything and is probably just enjoying having a new "toy" around. I love sitting around, feeding Heron and having Rhino snuggle up next to us. He's curious about what's happening when I'm feeding the baby and just likes to stare and point a lot. Our boys are super sweet and I am so in love!

“Heron”
Born July 17, 2009 at 1:56 AM
weight: 9 lb 4 oz
height: 22-3/4 in

So when Rhino was 10 days old we had a newborn photo shoot. Danette just sent me some digital copies of a bunch of our photos to put up online, so here they are! It's so crazy to see tiny, 10 day-old Rhino compared to gigantic, 7 month-old Rhino today! Here's the photo set.

I heard that newborns are most interested in high-contrast images. We can tell this is true with Rhino, he was always looking at the blinds in the daylight or Matt’s hairline. I printed out a handful of black and white images of checkerboards, stripes, and targets and pasted them to cardboard and taped them to his swing. Now most of the time when he swings, he is staring up at the side where an image is taped.

Rhino has often been fussy during diaper changes. We set up a new, more comfortable changing station for him and decided to give him something interesting to look at. I took a mobile that came with the Pack ‘n Play and removed the cute but potentially uninteresting (for now) bears that it came with and taped some of my images to the mobile. It is set up on the changing table so Rhino can look right up at the papers and he obviously enjoys them. Now he has started cooing and babbling and during about half of his diaper changes he holds little conversations with his black and white buddies. This isn’t a diaper change video, but this is just what he does!

Chatty Rhino on Changing Table from Melissa on Vimeo.

Here is Rhino on Matt’s tummy, wobbling and whining and wearing himself out!

Bobble Head Rhino from Melissa on Vimeo.

Here is Rhino, sitting on the couch, looking at the blinds.

Here he is again, kind of smiling, kind of looking devious.

Rhino has such adorable little fingers and toes and they’ve all ready grown so much in a month! I definitely wanted to capture their cuteness while they’re still tiny!

We have a lot of videos of Rhino hanging out on a Boppy pillow or in his swing. Really, he does other things too.

Sleepy Rhino on the Boppy from Melissa on Vimeo.

Rhino (Awake) on his Boppy from Melissa on Vimeo.

Rhino (Awake) on his Boppy from Melissa on Vimeo.

Fussy Rhino in His Swing from Melissa on Vimeo.

Fussy Rhino in His Swing from Melissa on Vimeo.