Well Fed

Katie's 1 month checkup was today and she's gained almost 3 whole lbs. She's 10 lbs 1 oz. I kind of guessed she'd be about that much, but it was still a bit of a surprise. Where'd she put it all? I guess she's bigger... She's fitting better into the 0-3 months clothes and less well in the newborns, certainly.

Not as good, apparently, is that her umbilical cord hasn't fallen off yet. It's looser, but the doctor put some silver nitrate on it to dry it out more and told me I have to bring her back if it hasn't let go by next week. Bah.

1 month tomorrow!

Katie is one month old and I'm one month post-surgery tomorrow. To celebrate, I shaved my legs. Wooo! My leg hair was seriously long enough to spin into yarn and make something. Sexy, huh? On that note, Bobby and I have had sex twice. It was also not sexy, since I was petrified it would hurt and super tense the whole time. It did hurt a little, but I think it was more because I was tense and not exactly into it than any unhealed internal stuffish.

Saturday I developed a breast infection. It wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been; I've heard horrible stories. I have a low fever Sunday, but was feeling better Monday and pretty much fine Tuesday. Hopefully I don't get another one. They're both a little sore, but I think it's mostly just the new stresses of being filled and emptied constantly. Breastfeeding is no joke, people.

I need to go to the grocery store, but I was supposed to go with my mom. However, the later it gets, the crazier the store is going to be. I went at noon on Monday, and it was already pretty busy. Normally, no big deal, but I am kind of paranoid about the baby around a lot of strangers because of the flu (hell, I'd flip if she caught a cold right now). Also, she can be a little unpredictable on outings, especially the kind involving long lines. Screaming one month old in a crowd of impatient people? Ugh.

So what fills my days now? Bones, What Not to Wear, and NCIS. I've never watched so much television in my life. I could read, but I have a hard time focusing/staying awake. TV is just easier.

I had more to say, but it's already taken me most of the day to write this much and now it's Katie's fussy time. So.. yeah. I'm going to go spend the next 3 hours rocking and humming and bouncing and swinging and intermittently breastfeeding. Woohoo.

We're Insured!

I finally picked and applied for a health insurance policy. It's just under $400 for the three of us, which isn't so bad. It's doable, at least, even if it will be a tight for a few months with all our medical bills. It's a fairly comprehensive plan, so all Katie's shots are going to be covered and I can take her to the doctor whenever she needs to go. Same for Bobby and me, but we don't usually go much. I ended up going with CIGNA. Fingers crossed that I never have cause to regret it.

Pictures!

Just the ones already uploaded though, because I'm lazy. (And Katie is squirming around in my lap fussing.)



My girlie




Looking pretty for her 3 week photo




One of my favorites




Just born




Me, mid contraction.




Just home, Bella investigates (and flees)




Jack is also curious

Woo! And she sleeps! All right, all the fun details. After much debate, we finally decided to name her Katherine Inara and call her Katie. I've always loved both names, and Bobby likes the diminutive and agreed that Katherine would be better when she's 20 something and sending out resumes. In the hospital I started calling her Kate Monster after the character in Avenue Q and it's kind of sticking.

She was 7lbs 4oz at birth and gained 10 oz in 10 days. If the trend has continued, she should be about 8 and a half lbs now. She was 19" long. My mom thinks she has big feet. I disagree.




See? Perfect. I think she has Bobby's ears and my toes. Bobby's lips and my hairline (widow's peak). She doesn't look like me, Bobby or baby me, but she does look a little like baby Bobby. My favorite thing so far is sometimes when she sneezes, she yells afterward. It's like she feels another sneeze or it felt good, so she makes the sound, but there's no sneeze attached. So it's "Atchoo! ....Aaaaa!" It's a really happy sound and totally adorable. Bobby and I crack up every time.

Katie's Mom Part II

Okay, Katie is in her swing staring at the motor like it's from space. Hopefully she'll progress to sleeping, but for now, at least she is quiet & seems content.

So, me, table, doctor, scalpel. When they got ready to pull her out, someone starting pressing down on the upper part of my stomach really hard. To push her down, I guess? Bobby says the first thing he saw was a foot and part of a leg, but he wasn't supposed to be looking over the curtain and the next time he peeked, she was all out. All I knew was that I could take a deep breath all of a sudden and then I heard her cry. It wasn't as loud as I thought it'd be and she only gave a couple squawks before calming down. Bobby went to look at her while she was getting cleaned up. I was starting to lose focus, and I just barely remember them bringing her around so I could see her before taking her to the nursery.

I was apparently in surgery another 20 minutes while they sewed me up, but I really don't remember. It didn't seem that long. They wheeled me into recovery, and I think I dozed there, though I remember talking to the nurse about nursing. Bobby says I was there an hour, but, again, it didn't seem that long to me. He came to see me for a minute and showed me pictures he'd taken of the baby, but I wasn't very coherent. My mom saw Katie through the window in the nursery, but went home before I was out of recovery. They took me to a new wing for me to stay in for the rest of my hospital time, and I think I dozed in there too. Richard and Jessica came to visit, and they brought Katie to us a couple minutes after they arrived.

I do remember that part better. I was so tired (and still feeling the morphine), but holding her the first time still made an impression. I'm glad I didn't lose that. After Richard and Jessica left, Bobby and I tried to get her to nurse the first time without much success. (It didn't help that my mobility was severely limited and restricted to the bed.) The pediatrician took her away for a while for her examination, then brought her back and said she looked great. A little while later, a nurse came in and took her away to take her vitals. A little after that she came back and told me that Katie's temperature was a little low and she'd put her in the warmer for a while, but it hadn't come up. She said she was going to leave her in the warmer another hour and see if it would. (It was about 10 by then; we were both snoozing and I'm sorry now I didn't ask more questions.) After an hour, she came back and told me her temp had not come up and her blood sugar was really low, so they were going to put her in the NICU. Ugh. I'm tearing up thinking about it, so I'm not going to talk about how THAT made me feel.

I couldn't get out of bed yet, so Bobby went to see her by himself in the morning. I went with my nurse as soon as I was allowed to walk. It was so awful seeing her in the little box with her IV. They let me hold her for half an hour, then wanted her back in the incubator. The next time I came back, I fed her formula, which they'd started her on to get her blood sugar up. That was all the long trips down the hallway I could handle that day, but I did all her feedings the next day. In the afternoon, the lactation specialist and her NICU nurse supervised her first breastfeeding. Since I didn't have milk yet, it was more for her to get used to the idea. She got formula right after.

48 hours after her admittance to the NICU, her second blood test screening came back good and they released Katie to my care for the night. Bobby and I didn't get much sleep, but we were so happy she was okay. The next day was hectic getting everything ready to go. We were released from the hospital about 1:30 pm. (She's been fine since. Bobby and I suspect she was fine the whole time and that the nurse who said her temp was low was not taking it correctly. The thermometers they used were really crappy, and the nurse who came the next day said they were frequently incorrect. They had temporal thermometers that worked much better, but they didn't use them every time.)

So, that's Katie's birth story. At the same time, I was learning how to move around again. The first shower I had Bobby do most of it. (That's love, people.) And before they'd let me leave, they made me use a suppository to aid the first post-surgery bowel movement. Which I hope to never have to repeat. Ever. The IV wasn't as bad as I thought, though it was in my wrist and uncomfortable if I tried to move the joint. The catheter was convenient and didn't hurt to remove the way I thought it would. Ditto the staples. The only pain killers I got after the morphine wore off (which was fantastic, btw) were lortab 5 and 800 mg ibuprofen. They gave me a prescription for home, but I didn't need them. 1 week after, I was standing and sitting pretty easily. 2 weeks and I could dress myself, climb stairs, and drive (cautiously). 3 weeks, I can sneeze and laugh and cough. I still have a little soreness inside (my incision is healed) if I stretch or twist. Hopefully that will pass soon, and I can start getting some real exercise. I'm 20 lbs below my pre-pregnancy weight, but none of my clothes fit yet. Bah.

Yesterday, my doctor told me I can start having sex again next week. And I discovered I'm really paranoid about getting pregnant again.

Katie's Mom

So I've added a new identity to myself, and I'm feeling pretty good about it. (It helps that the chickie slept last night. Katie was born October 26 at 3:25 pm. I figured I should record my recollections now before they get foggier. I started having back pain on Saturday. Around 8pm, I started to suspect it was contractions. Bobby looked up back labor and got both of us all freaked out about it. I ended up sleeping on the couch. Around 10 am Sunday I started timing the pain cycles and called the on-call doc about noon after taking a shower. I described what was going on and he told me that it could be nothing, but since I obviously felt it necessary to contact the emergency call center to get in touch with him, I should come in and get checked out.

Bobby grabbed my backpack and sped me to the hospital. (He said it was the only time he had a real reason to give the cop for speeding. I told him not to get pulled over in the first place.) The nurse was skeptical about my being in labor, but hooked me up to the monitors. An hour later, the doctor told her to get me settled in to stay, because my contractions were too close together to send me home, even if I wasn't really dilated. We called my mom to let her know I was in labor and settled in to wait. I tried to read, but it was kind of hard in 3 minute intervals. Bobby watched the monitors, fascinated by the peaks of my contractions. My mom arrived and made sympathetic faces and turned on the tv. Hours passed. I regretted my decision not to eat lunch. Mom sent Bobby home to sleep. I wiggled around trying to get comfortable. I gave my cervix stern talkings to about its lack of dilation. Around midnight, I stood to go to the bathroom and discovered blood and other liquids dribbling down my legs. I put a towel on the floor to stand on and rang the nurse's desk. They checked me out and told me I hadn't dilated more, but if my water broke, progress was made. I went to the bathroom and got back in bed.

Then came a blurry couple hours in which the pain was worse and I was tired and frustrated. Finally, a nurse gave me good news: I was dilated to a 2 and could have my epidural. Did I want the epidural now, or did I want to wait? Now, now, now! hah. The anesthesiologist came and made many pains in my back, but when I asked when it would start working, the nurse said, "I'd guess it already is, since you've had 6 contractions without noticing them." Oh. Hmm. Good stuff, this spinal block thing. I finally got some real sleep, but woke up again eventually. At this point everything really is blurry. I know Bobby came back, I know I dilated to a 5 before starting on pitocin when my doctor came in. I know the nurses checked on me and changed my fluids and took my blood pressure. I know I asked over and over again for them to check me again. But the timeline of all that, even the order in which it occured, is beyond me.

With the help of pitocin, I dilated to a 7 before I stopped progressing. I know I went 3 hours without changes because the doctor said so when she suggested a c-section at 1 pm if I hadn't changed by 2. By that point I was exhausted and watched the clock avidly for 2 pm to arrive. (The epidural didn't block everything; I felt lots and lots of pressure that wasn't exactly pain, but still very uncomfortable and made me want to push during the contractions.) I hadn't changed at all by 2 and I agreed quickly to the c-section, so I was prepped for surgery. They gave me morphine through the epidural and I went all cold (starting at my shoulder, strangely enough) and then numb. I could still move my bits, but I lost all sensation. I was stripped and strapped to a table, and though it occurred to me to feel shy about this, it was very distant. They painted me with iodine and (Bobby says) put saranwrap over my belly. They cut me open, and I kept waiting to feel something, but mostly I just felt them moving around.

And now Katie is awake and yelling, so I'll finish up later, I suppose.

Two nights with sleep!

Katie slept about 5-6 hours two nights in a row. I hope it keeps up!

Getting the hang of things

The first couple nights with Katie home were pretty rough, but we got through them. I couldn't fall asleep the first night, I was so anxious. Yesterday Richard drove us to her pediatrician for the first checkup, and I fell asleep while we waited. When we got home, I left her asleep in her carseat and napped on the sofa. Bobby's parents arrived in the afternoon, and they entertained her this morning while I got a bit more sleep. I'm feeling pretty okay now, but looking forward to sleeping again.

We put together the pack and play, and she's sleeping in the napper in that instead of in her crib upstairs. That's making it a lot easier for me, since I can sleep with Bobby in my bed and still hear her easily and get up with her. I did spend a bit of time on the couch, though.

My mind is mushy. I'm so glad to have help. I'm afraid of how it'll be when they leave.

Interrupted

Katie was born yesterday. More to follow.

Other blogs

I've been spending a lot of time reading other parents' blogs, and I'm a little afraid I've started an addiction I won't be able to feed once Katie's born. Tragic.

Anyway, one of them today observed, "But at some point, we owe it to our children to point out the difference between participation and striving." He was talking about how we reward kids for trying in competitionless sports. There's no "winning," it's about playing the game. I'd never had an opinion on this topic before, but it was very interesting to think about. Now I've got a fledgling leaning on the subject, but I suppose I should reserve judgment until I've actually got a stake in the outcome.

Pardon, it was a comment on a blog that got me started. Located here: http://www.dadcentric.com/2009/06/how-you-play-the-game.html#more

Oh, and today is my due date. I'm a little achy, but no contractions. =(

But they were yummy!

I am home from the doctor, and there is no indication that my pregnant self is going into labor any time soon. (Besides the fact that there's a being inside me who must eventually exit.) Oh, well. All else fails, I'll be induced on Tuesday. I'm ready. So ready. Just let me go already!

And, in case I ever get pregnant again, I should keep in mind that eating gingersnaps when I have heartburn is a baaaad idea.

39 Weeks

I'm ready! Let's go! Come on! (If only it worked that way.) I realize my pregnancy has been extremely "easy," but still. I'm so over it. I've got tums stashed near all my hangouts in the house, I sleep in late, then take marathon naps, and I haven't felt properly hydrated since January. Mostly, it's the lack of energy that gets to me. How do women work through this? I always intended to work 'til I went into labor, but I just don't see how it's done. Especially for women that haven't had such a smooth ride as I have. Maybe if I'd been working the whole time, I'd feel differently. Maybe I should feel lucky I got laid off when I did. Impossible to say, but what else do I have to do but think about these things? (Hah, plenty, but fat chance.)

Bobby makes me laugh. Twenty minutes after complaining about how many books we have and labelling me a "book hoarder," Bobby called to ask me to find a purchase a book he heard about on the radio. 'Sup, irony. Meet my husband. In all truth, though, I do have an awful lot of books. I really hope I can get my kid addicted to reading too.

Parenting

The Mommy Files : Maurice Sendak tells parents to go to hell

I know it's a little off for me to be expressing my opinions on parenting before I've actually done any, but I'm going to express 'em anyway, dammit!

I laughed aloud reading this article. "...go home. Or wet your pants." Ahahaha. Fantastic. And that's exactly right! No one's going to be surprised that there are monsters in the movie. (At least, I hope not.) And of course, some kids are going to find it scary. Some won't. The point is, it's not up to film makers to decide if it's appropriate for your kid. Parents need to do their own screening. In the bastardized words of Neil Gaiman: Is it good for your child? Maybe. Every one of them is unique and on their own level. What's appropriate for one 6 year old might be totally crap for the next.

Or something like that. Sadly enough, I was probably the kid who would have nightmares after a slightly disturbing movie. (Coraline, for example. I haven't seen Where the Wild Things Are.)

Two more weeks!

My due date is in exactly two weeks. My doctor thinks I'll make it, so I've kind of chilled on the "OMG, I could go into labor at any moment!" front. Still in the back of my mind, of course, but two weeks is close enough. With Bobby's hellacious job situation, I decided to induce the Monday following my due date if I haven't gone already. Maybe the experience won't be as natural as I might prefer, but I'll take that over having to do it without my best friend to hold my hand. He'll have that whole week off, which will make bills squishy, but (again) not really any better options.

My appointment yesterday went well. I'm dilated 1 cm (same as last week) and the baby is about 6ish lbs. I talked to my doctor about whether or not induction would make a c-section more likely and when the optimal time for my epidural is and I'm actually feeling pretty good about my options. I'm still concerned about the episiotomy/tearing possibilities, but there's not really anything I can do about it. I suppose I should start thinking about packing a bag for the hospital before I get even more ungainly and sluggish, but I'm not a master procrastinator for nothing.

There are still a few things I need to acquire, and I haven't really finished in the baby's room, but it's really about all I can do to be awake and get some food in my tummy. I slept until 10:30 this morning, but I have been yawning ever since. Just thinking about getting some stuff around the house done makes me feel exhausted. I am feeling less sick, at least.

Insurance. Thinking about insurance makes me want to cry. If I don't hear from the guy I've been in contact with over the last couple of years, I'm going to find someone else. I have to have insurance go into effect on December 1. It has to. I am going to call United and find out what I have to do to add a kid for a month and then cancel. I've been forgetting to do it for 2 weeks, so here I go. Right. Now.

Shoot me now

I have bronchitis. I am going to bed.

P.S. Sick, pregnant women should not try to read The Stand by Stephen King for the first time. Can you say paranoid?

Tick.. Tick... Tick....

I went to the doctor again today, and she assured me I would not be having a 13 lb baby to rival my Aunt Freyja's. Yay. I am, however, starting to get very nervous about delivering even a significantly smaller child. I know I've been aware of what's going to happen for quite a while now, but I'm looking at my enormous belly wondering exactly HOW that's going to work. Also, there's no set order for how this happens. There's no one thing I'm waiting for that is going to be like, ping! You're in labor! It's making me very anxious to be waiting for something to happen and not know what. And for some reason, a lot of people seem to think I'll go early, so I'm afraid this unknown something might happen at anytime. On the other hand, I am officially full-term, so my baby could be born and not require additional life support at this point. Which is a little comforting.

Procrastination

Getting ever closer to my due date, and it seems to be making me lazy. Or I was lazy already, and now I just have a ready excuse. It's probably the latter, but I've nicely justified it to myself by saying I have to slack before a tiny dictator arrives. =D Total sense, right? This week I have to clean however, so I'm procrastinating with Gilmore Girls and blog posting.

Bobby called me slightly panicked this morning: he thought his parents were going to be here at the same time. My mom's baby shower is this weekend, so they were both invited, but my mother in law seems to be boycotting group visitation. We already told Bobby's dad he could have the bed in the nursery. His mom emailed yesterday to confirm it was okay for her to come October 2, and Bobby told her she could have the bed. Then, this morning, he realized that the baby shower is this weekend, and, for some reason, thought it was also October 2. So yeah, obviously, he was a little concerned about having promised the same bed to each parent and accompanying spouse for the same weekend.

So, about that. I kind of thought my mother in law would have taken an interest in one of the baby showers. She's sent a couple emails about the baby. When we first told her, she sent an announcement to her mailing list and forwarded the well wishes she got back. She sent us some pictures of Halloween costumes ideas for next year. I'm not sure if she's making token outreaches because she feels obligated or if she wants to be more involved and isn't sure how to go about it. It is, however, terribly difficult to make delicate inquiries into Ann's thought processes. She reads into things. So, uh, yeah. Not sure what to do there. Then again, I thought it would have been easy enough to attend a party with 30 other people, half of whom she was related to. Now I'm wondering if she would've come to the wedding if Bobby and I had done that whole thing. No reason to dwell though, right?

Gilmore Girls is so awesome. I feel like a dork, kind of, watching tv on my computer by myself. I just love the sarcasm. And I love that Alexis Bledel has hips. It makes me wonder about how to build a relationship like theirs (and mine with my mom) with my daughter without being a single mom. Or, more simply put, it makes me hope extremely hard that she likes me. Not that I wasn't hoping that anyway. I think I'm safe for about a decade though, yeah?

I'm glad she's not a boy. I'll have a much easier time giving the sex talk to a girl. Get some practice in, then have it with the boy we're hopefully going to have next. I might be a little ahead of myself here. I also read a book about how to deal with the colic I don't know she'll develop. Granted, I thought it was about forming good sleeping habits when I bought it. Then once I realized it wasn't, I figured the knowledge couldn't hurt and read it anyway. I still want a book on the sleeping thing. If there's a way to help a baby sleep, I want to know about it. You know, short of head injuries and spiked bottles.

Scary Day

Today was a very bad day. I called Bush Leasing to set up a payment plan for the property taxes they billed us for, seemingly at random. The most they would agree to was 2 months, and I really wanted 3 to be able to pay it off. The guy I spoke to was very condescending and completely unmoving. He told me they couldn't stretch it out more because they'd had problems with people bailing on paying it at all. I told him I was willing to set up a direct draw from my account and pointed out I had a perfect payment history. He asked if I thought I deserved some sort of reward for doing as required. I asked if I could have some sort of indication of how regularly we would receive this tax, since we'd already paid it once this year. He told me that they don't receive it at regular intervals and can't find out from the City when it should be processed. He said, "The city has a lot more to do than just a contractor would. I see how you wouldn't understand how difficult it'd be to get that volume of paperwork processed." I was so pissed I literally saw red.

Towards the end of the call he informed me that I was actually on a conference call with his supervisor and the account billing person and that they all agreed that what I wanted was impossible and I was being very unprofessional. Holy hell. All that fury combined with my hormonal self, and I started crying when I got off the phone. Then I started hyperventilating. I called Bobby when my chest started to hurt and I started to kind of panic. He freaked out because I couldn't get words out intelligibly and called my stepdad to see if she had a way to get in touch with my mom. He told me he was going to call an ambulance if I couldn't calm down. It was all very upsetting. What finally worked was standing in front of the open freezer and taking deep breaths. My mom called as soon as she got off work. I guess I freaked everyone out, not just myself. Fuck Bush Leasing.

Not much to say today...

But it's my three year wedding anniversary! Go us!

Questions for Elizabeth

But now you gotta answer the questions too.

1) What is your name. Or, what do you prefer to be called online. My name is Paige. I usually use Absidey or some variation of that as my online alias.
2) How old are you? 23
3) Where do you live? Dallas, TX (Well, Carrollton, really, but that's getting picky.)
4) What is your occupation? Bobby calls me a philosopher, but I guess I'm a house wife soon to be stay at home mom? As my feminist inner child wails in the background...
5) What is your relationship status? Married.
6) If you're in a relationship, give me a brief synopsis of "your story" We met during my senior year in high school ('04) and moved in together when I graduated with much drama. We immediately started acting like an old married couple, and made it official in September of '06. Bobby got laid off that December, and we relocated to TX in January/February. We are currently in the process of entrenching ourselves more firmly into boring, responsible adulthood and giggling about it most of the way.
7) What are your hobbies, outside of internet? I like to fiddle with things. My last big project was building Bobby a new computer. Next I want to try to turn our collection of old parts into an FTP server. I also like to read.
8) What are your biggest passions in life? Well, I love my husband and my kittens. I'm passionate about debate and fiction and science.
9) Do you have children? Describe. If you don't have any, would you like them? I have a worm. Seriously, all she does is wiggle and squirm. In 6 weeks-ish, she should graduate to full on spawn.
10) What is most important to you in a friendship? Honesty
11) Are you religious? No
12) What are your favorite bands? Books? Movies? I really like ... oh, drawing a blank. Books, I like things by Neil Gaiman and Robin McKinley the best, but supplement between their publications with lots of things. Movie Love: The Princess Bride, Because I Said So and comedies in general. And I still can't remember the name of the band. But I also like Vanessa Carlton. OHOH. Ludo! Yes. Them.
13) Ask me one thing you would like to know about me. Well, as soon as you get pregnant, I want to hear all about it, of course. In the meantime: how do you feel about tv/video games in kids' rooms?