The First Four Weeks

Gah, time flies.  Here's how it's been going since we became a family of four.  Fear not, there are also pictures.

Clara: Clara has taken to life on Earth like a champ.  She is pretty much a textbook baby: she follows the schedules (eat, play, sleep) the books say you are supposed to follow.  She eats every 2-3 hours during the day and every 3-4 hours at night.  She is able to sleep on her own without touching a person.  She has her days and nights sorted out, mostly (other than a 10pm-10am sleep schedule).  She has the uncanny ability to fall asleep on her own, pretty much anywhere.  If I had had her first, I might have been the kind of parent who told you exactly how to fix your baby with an air of confident authority.  No, instead I am more and more convinced that infant sleep is mostly out of parents' control, and we really need to adapt to our individual children, instead of letting someone else make us feel bad for not doing what should be done.  I'm also glad I had my bad sleeper first -- it makes this seem like a cakewalk!

She is still breastfeeding and gaining weight like nobody's business.  I swear she's been smiling since she was two days old.  She loves to do pushups and hold her head up.  She's very alert and into looking around at everything.

Andrew: Andrew is such a big boy.  At 14.5 months, he's constantly mistaken for a 2-2.5 year old.  He's still not talking, but communication is definitely up.  He is signing "more" and "all done" - actually he signs "more" for pretty much everything - points to things he wants, answers back conversationally in baby babble, and follows directions pretty well.  We are also starting in the toddler tantrum stage - especially when he can't have what he wants.  Here's hoping that this phase is related to not having language and that it will pass pretty quickly.  He loves drumming with his drumsticks, climbing on playground equipment and stairs, and the mouse on the desktop computer.  He makes goofy faces.  He sings little ditties that he makes up.

He has 15 teeth (his upper left cuspid is the "last one" to come in), which means he's only lacking 2 year molars now, and his chewing ability has gotten a lot better.  He likes eggs for breakfast, meat and cheese of all kinds, broccoli and brussels sprouts for vegetable, white and sweet potatoes.  He is not a big fan of fruit, no matter how I try.  He likes the applesauce packets that you squish into your mouth, and very occasionally I get him to take a few bites of banana.  All in all, though, he's a very adventurous eater, and I'm pleased.  He is still drinking 3 or 4 bottles of whole milk a day.  It has slightly decreased and he drinks lots of water too.

His sleep is fairly stable, and rough nights only happen occasionally.  He is an absolute champ as putting himself to sleep for naps and at night - I am so thrilled.  Lately he's been resistant to me leaving the room,  but his protests are very short, and he is able to get himself settled in very short order.

I probably owe an entire post to the progress Andrew's foot has made, but we'll just say for now that he's responding incredibly to the therapy.  We can get his feet to be basically the same size now, although the right one will still puff back up if we don't compress it somehow - either with bandaging (his "special sock") or shoes.

He is very curious about and protective of his sister.  He uses gentle touches most of the time but occasionally has to be reminded - he is a rambunctious toddler boy, after all.  We haven't noticed any regression or emotional distress from becoming a big brother, so that's really good.  I'm really trying to make sure he's getting a lot of attention.

Us: Speaking of Andrew getting attention, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the *only way* we have survived the past four weeks has been with the stellar help of both sets of grandparents.  My mom was the last one to leave this past Thursday.  Travis was at work at the time, and after Andrew decided to skip his nap, I only managed to make it through one hour of being alone with two kids before having a massive breakdown.  So major thanks to the grandparents for being there, especially for Andrew, during this crazy transition time.

So yeah, us with two kids.  As long as both of us are around, it's going great!!  Two parents handling two kids is totally doable.  I am working on trying to get to a place where I can handle them both on my own, and to be totally honest, I still can't see it.  I'll get there, slowly.  Someday.  Somehow.

And now, pictures:

Grandma Mary Ellen

Skin to skin time with Daddy

Grandpa Jerry

First Bath time!

Big Brother wants to help!  (With Excedrin)

That wasn't so bad, was it?

Nap on a hot day

First ride in the double BOB

Miss Shanti and Baby John came to visit!  (Not pictured: Annie and Gregory)

Bathtime with Grandpa Mike

Playing guitar

Clara bakes cookies with Grandma Joyce

Hairs need trimmed!

New slide/climber in our outdoor area!

Bouncing on the ball - just like brother used to like

Gma Joyce helped us finally get Andrew's 1st birthday Time Capsule sealed - it got used as a drum, of course!

Hop on Pop is one of our *favorite* books - just like it was for mommy!

Napping in the 100-year-old family cradle

Welcome, Clara Joy!

Please join us in welcoming our newest addition, Clara Joy, born in the water at 3:56am on June 16. 7lb 4.5 oz, 19-1/4 in long. Total labor time was 3.5 hrs... this was a sprint, not a marathon!

Hopefully I'll get the birth story up here sooner rather than later.  For now - we're just basking in the birth glow.

Look Out! Here Comes #2!

So here's a piece of juicy news for you: we are expecting again.  That's right - Andrew is going to be a big brother.  I am due June 20, and it's a girl!

There is a long story behind this, and perhaps the reason that I've been so quiet about posting lately.  Let me tell you how it all went down.

Around Andrew's six-month birthday (October 28), I experienced a decrease in pumping output.  I had been pumping 20-24oz a day, and over a two week period, I started pumping around 7oz. a day.  Andrew needed 12-16oz. a day.  This was pretty concerning, as I really wanted to make it to a year on breastmilk and not have to give him any formula.  I was upset - I felt like my body was failing.

I looked online and in my books and found two items of interest: (1) pumping output is not an indicator of total milk supply - your baby can get more from you than the pump can, and (2) if you have an oversupply, it will re-regulate itself around six months.  I never considered myself to have oversupply, because Andrew never complained that it was too much or too fast, but I did pump extra.  I found it weird that my supply would re-regulate to less than Andrew was needing, but okay.  As for the first part, I was relieved that we had two long-ish trips coming up (France/Spain for Thanksgiving and home for Christmas), and Andrew would be able to nurse from me a lot.

Right around that same time, Andrew went from sleeping a nice 5-6 hour block followed by some shorter blocks to waking up every 2 hours on a good night, every hour on a bad night.  He also started to get a little moody, a little clingy, a little cranky, until, by Christmas, he wanted to nurse every 20 minutes.  If I was in the room, he had to be on my body.  Daddy could no longer help out at night.  Our happy little boy seemed to have disappeared.  This I also explained by saying 'well he's dealing with teething, then the onset of object permanence, then learning to crawl.'

Over Christmas, Andrew had his first honest-to-goodness cold complete with fever (no fever for the first 8 months - impressive!), and by the time we got home to Colorado, he was mostly better but still coughing.  Worried that it was going to turn into pneumonia or something, I took him into the Children's Hospital urgent care center on December 31.  As part of triage, they weighed him, and he weighed in at 17.5 lbs, clothed.

My heart seized.  At his six month well-baby visit two months earlier, he had weighed 18 lbs, naked.

Since this wasn't our normal ped with all of our records, no one noticed that anything was amiss.  I was too shocked and ashamed to say anything right then, but I was starting to panic.  When I got home, I told Travis, and he *really* started to worry.  I realized that I didn't have just a pumping output problem, but a total milk supply problem.  Andrew wasn't cranky and clingy because he was developing object permanence, but because he was hungry.  And had been for two months.  There's only one thing I could think of that might totally tank your milk supply just out of the blue like that.

I had been meaning to take a couple pregnancy tests for a while -- all of my tests left over from the "conceiving Andrew" timeframe were expiring.  In fact, I had taken one, and the pink dye smeared all over so that you couldn't even see the control line -- definitely expired and useless.  But I hadn't taken another one.  On New Year's Day, I picked three out of my stash, an internet cheapie dip strip, a First Response Early Result, and a Clear Blue Easy Digital.  I peed in a cup so I could use all three, and dipped the cheapie.  By the time I got the package for the First Response open, two lines had appeared on the strip.  All three tests came out clearly, undeniably positive.

I could say I was shocked, and I was definitely surprised that it was really real, but I was mentally preparing myself that this was the missing piece of the puzzle that I had been trying to solve.  Travis and I spent the rest of the day trying to wrap our brains around the idea that we had another little one on the way.  See our strategy following birth was to not try, of course, but also not to particularly prevent anything.  We figured we'd trust in the protection provided by exclusively breastfeeding, that statistics said we wouldn't catch the first egg, that after my first period we'd know to be more careful, and that if all of this was wrong and we got pregnant anyway, well, we wanted another child someday, so there you go.

Well, as Steve says, "If you're not preventing, you're trying."  And apparently my body didn't recognize pumping at work as exclusively breastfeeding.  And statistics failed us.  And it's a really good thing that we were planning on having another babe, even if it wasn't necessarily so soon.

I estimated, based on when my milk supply dropped, that we had probably conceived sometime around the end of October, and based on that, I was probably 11 or 12 weeks along.  Imagine my shock when I had a dating ultrasound and found that I was 17 weeks instead!  Not only had I skipped the entire first trimester, but I was almost halfway done!  And we could have the anatomy scan in 3 weeks!  My due date is June 20th, and if this one comes on the due date like Andrew did, the kids will be one week shy of 14 months apart.

Subsequent to finding out about Andrew's weight loss and the positive pregnancy test, we started Andrew on formula, and he drank up like a man in the desert.  In spite of my intention to keep breastfeeding as much as possible and only supplement with formula, he weaned himself pretty quickly once he realized he could have unlimited formula.  He has done really well with it, and has chunked up quite nicely - he has gained two pounds and one inch just in the last month alone.  Also we took the opportunity of stopping night-nursing to do some non-cry-it-out sleep training, and he picked up on that really quickly as well, and can now put himself to sleep from practically wide awake in his crib.  I feel like he has grown up and matured so much in the last month.  Maybe he will be ready to be a big brother.

Since I haven't been posting to the blog, anticipating this announcement, I've been storing up posts from the last month to go back and post once the news was out.  So those will go up shortly.

We are so thankful for the gift of life and love that's currently inside me.  Yes, it was a surprise, but what an incredible thing.  She's going to turn our world upside down again, but I say bring it on.

Hello there, cutie

Hands up by face

Toes (upper left)

Dating and Viability

Today we had our first ultrasound to try and date the pregnancy.  Boy, was it a shocker.

I had tried to estimate how far along I might be.  I figured, the only sign I had was the drop in my milk supply, which occurred right around November 1.  Assuming I got pregnant around the end of October, I'd be due in the end of July, and that would put me at 11 or 12 weeks along right now.  That seemed pretty reasonable.  And Andrew would be 15 months old at the birth.

So we went over to Swedish to the doc that Mountain Midwifery recommended.  It was a bit annoying - we got there 10 minutes early to fill out paperwork, but they didn't even start my paper work until 10 minutes after my appointment time.  And then it was the longest medical history *ever* - I was like, dude, I'm just here for a scan!  And then the doc didn't come in the room until a full 40 minutes after our appointment time - and our appointment time was first thing!  Bah.

Anyway, the doc came in, and he was chatting with me about what clued me in (drop in milk supply) and when I took the pregnancy test (New Year's Day), and I notice that he's got a condom in his hand.  And then I realize he's going for the trans-vaginal ultrasound wand, as if he's looking for a speck or a blob or some really early thing.  I said, "Um... I think I'm more like 12 weeks along."  And he said, in sort of condescending fashion, "Well, let's just take a look and see what we see, hm?"

As soon as he put the thing in, a beautiful, perfect leg, knee, calf, and foot appeared on the screen (standing right on my bladder, which explained why I had to pee even though I just went).

Well, hello there, future soccer star

Doc said, "Whoa.  That's a big baby.  That's a BIG BABY."  And I'm thinking, "Please stop saying it like that!"  His resident, who was in training, came over and palpated my abdomen, and she said, "Your uterus is at your belly button.  That's, like, 20 weeks!"  I plaintively responded, "Well, I might have a bit of a full bladder."  And doc said, "A full bladder can make 16 weeks seem like 20 weeks.  Let's get the right tool and take some measurements."

He got the wand for my abdomen, and quickly took some measurements of the head circumference and all the long bones. The machine did its little algorithm to average the measurements together and spit out that I was 16wks5days along, due June 20.  About 5-6 weeks further along than I thought!

Baby's face, looking up at us

The doc seemed in a hurry and didn't seem keen on just browsing around looking at my beautiful kid who I didn't even know was there, so we didn't get much of a "tour."  We did see that I have a nice-looking posterior placenta, which explains why I could feel clear kicks at 16 weeks along.  I asked if he could see the gender, since I know that 17 weeks is right on the cusp of being able to tell, but the doc just blew me off and said, "We'll look next time."  Well, maybe you would have time to look if you hadn't been running 40 minutes behind!

During all of this, Andrew was playing happily on the floor or on Daddy's lap, oblivious to his new sibling appearing on the screen.

I went back out to the reception desk, and the lady asked if he wanted to see me again.  I told her yes, in three weeks.  She asked if the doc had said what the appointment was for, what kind of ultrasound?  "It'll be the 20 week anatomy scan," I said.  Her jaw about hit the floor.  "They told me it was a 1st trimester dating scan!" she gasped out.  "Yeah, well, that's what I thought it was too!"

It was definitely another surprise, but I'm slowly getting used to the idea of my Irish twins (they'll be about 14 months apart).  I know that it will be hard at first, but I really think there are a lot of good things about it.

Can't wait to see what else this kid has in store for us!

the state of the union

Here's a round robin update on how we're doing here.

Breastfeeding: I'm shocked at how much more efficient Andrew is lately (10 minutes each side, 13 if he's dawdling) and shocked also at how much I miss when he would lollygag for 30 minutes on each side.  We have continued to go to a breastfeeding support group sponsored by our lactation consultant, which has been awesome for us, and for me to socialize with other new moms.

Sleep: Andrew defies all conventional wisdom on baby sleep.  He only needs 9-10ish hours a day, including naps.  He rarely takes long naps, mostly just cat naps - except for today, because we apparently wore him out on the weekend.  If he goes to bed before about 9:30pm, he wants to get up for the day (or at least throw a party) around 330-4am.  I thought babies were supposed to need a lot of sleep!  I'm working on letting go of the idea that "what the books say" doesn't necessarily apply to us, and things are getting much easier for us.  We co-sleep at night for the most part.  Once he started to be able to sleep by himself in the crib, I started putting him down there for the first 3-hour segment and then bringing him in to sleep with me, so that I could get some more restful sleep myself.  The problem I had with that is that I would put him down and then stay up to get things done or just spend time with my Travis, and i ended up more exhausted than before.  So we are back to full time co-sleeping, and he goes to bed when I do between 9:30 and 10:30.

Travis has been sleeping in the spare room since his paternity leave ended. This works out really well for us because he gets enough sleep for work, and then if Andrew does decide to throw a 4am party, he is freshly ready and able to entertain him, and I can get rest, and we both end up with a reasonable amount of sleep.

For naps Andrew will sleep in the crib in the nursery, in the cradle in the living room, or in the swing in the dining room.  I'm encouraged that after a rough start of needing to sleep on someone ALL THE TIME, he seems to be rather flexible in his sleep situation.  We swaddle him whenever he is sleeping by himself to help him not get distracted by his own hands.

Cloth diapering: we are also using and loving the BumGenius 3.0-4.0 one-size models.  I'm definitely loving the cloth diapers.  We do disposables on the road/for travel days and I can't wait to get him back into the cloth at the end of the day.  He has stopped pooping overnight, so I've been doubling the liners and he's been going all night on one diaper, which gets me even more sleep, because now when he stirs, I just roll over, start him feeding, and drift back off to sleep.  I don't even have to wake up.  Not bad.

Currently my biggest stress is going back to work.  I am in the throes of trying to determine what childcare is going to be and I'm completely freaking out about it.  I'm having visions of him being left in a crib to cry, and I have the same nightmare for a nanny as I do for a day care center.  He's pretty much the easiest baby in the world - never cries without a reason, always very easy to soothe - which is why leaving him to cry would be absolutely tragic.  I'm getting emotional just typing that.


On the positive side, some of my pregnancy pounds have melted off.  It's never been easy for me to lose or maintain a healthy weight, and so to see some of it slip off so easily is ridiculously exciting.  I attribute it some to breastfeeding, some to getting back to exercising, and a lot to cutting out dairy.  I may want to continue that diet even after Andrew is okay with it again!

That's my world right now.  Here are some pictures and highlights of this week:

Daddy gives a bottle of mama's milk.

Sitting up supported! Like a couch potato.

Grandpa and Andrew play on the baby gym.

My new friend, Maulee Brown

This beautiful girl pictured above followed Travis home from his morning walk the other day.  She's a pit bull. I have rarely seen a dog so obedient and well-behaved.  And so friendly and affectionate!  She hung out on our porch all morning and didn't seem to know how to get home even when I took her on a walk to the vicinity of her house and said, "go home!"  When her mom came to pick her up, she was grateful that she was found by people who were friendly to her - some in the neighborhood apparently don't appreciate her very much.  It was hard not to be friendly to such a wonderful dog!

It's gotten very warm again, so we decided to do Andrew's bath on the porch:

Bathtime still life.

Naked baby!

Tub with a view

After the bath, we went out to get some exercise and walked from Morrison to Quincy and Wadsworth (~7 miles) through Bear Creek Lake Park.  We pushed Andrew in the BOB.  It was quite the adventure.

http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/41709904

We've had lots of storms.  With storms come rainbows. And internet outages.

We took Grandma and Grandpa off-roading.  First we drove over the (smooth) Boreas Pass Road.  Then we attempted Georgia Pass:

The family cradle now lives in Colorado.  Andrew broke it in with a three hour nap today.

Grandma got to give Andrew his bottle.  Andrew is still getting used to the bottle thing.

Roundup

Many little things have happened this week, so before we embark on our next adventure, I'm noting them for posterity.

On Monday, after several rounds of a bit of blood in his stool, we saw the ped and tested positive for allergic colitis - that is, cow's milk sensitivity/allergy.  This is really common in babes, and mostly they grow out of it.  The result is that I am now off of dairy products and on calcium supplements.  There is already a difference in Andrew.  His poops (tmi, sorry, I know, but hey, it's my blog) are much less runny/mucousy and have a thicker more pasty texture, and he has much less gas.  On the plus side for me, cheese tends to be my diet downfall, so hopefully this restriction will help out with my post-partum weight loss.

On Tuesday, Mr. Andrew turned two months old.  For the first time ever, he slept for a full nap (2 1/4 hrs) all by himself in his crib - not touching a person and not in motion (in the swing or the car).  And then that afternoon he did it again for an hour.  And the next morning.  So we got brave last night and put him down for the first segment of night sleep at 8:15pm in his crib, and he slept there soundly until 11:45pm!  I knew it would happen, but didn't really believe it - our boy is able to sleep by himself!  On a non-moving flat surface! This is incredibly exciting.  He's growing up!  Now if only he'd put himself to sleep instead of crying for help and needing rocked or bounced.  Ah, someday.

Also on Tuesday, it was very warm outside, so we had some naked time on the porch.  This was suggested by one of my books as a developmental thing to introduce him to his body.  We took off all his clothes and just let him feel the breeze.  Plus he's got a really cute bod.  ;)

Yesterday, we went to see Andrew's first movie - Cars 2 - with Shena Auntie.  It was SO FUN.  We went to the first matinee of the day, and there were plenty of little ones chit-chatting, so any noise we made was really no big deal.  Andrew was great!  He nursed, and then he watched the movie for about an hour.  He was really entertained by all the colors, lights, and sounds.  Then he made his "I'm tired" fuss, so we cuddled up and he slept for the rest of the movie.  Not bad.  I think I'll make it a goal to see more movies before I go back to work.

Baby's First Camping Trip

On Friday, Andrew had his two month doctor's visit.  He's 62%ile for weight, 51%ile for height, and 54%ile for head circumference.  He's grown two whole inches since birth!  I'm so impressed.  He also got his first round of vaccinations, which made his leg very sore all afternoon/evening.  The poor guy - we put on his diapers really loose and let him sleep on our chests while he recovered.

Battle scars

Also of note around Pine Hill -- all the birdies are hatching their babies!  A finch couple made a nest in the hanging flower basket that Travis and Andrew got me for Mother's Day, and a few days ago, we started to hear the cheep-cheep of little beaks.  It's hard to get a good shot of them without disturbing them - the nest is tucked down in the (impressively flourishing) flowers, but here's a good attempt from Travis.  You can see the little fluff balls and one little beak.  There are four chicks in there.

Flower basket location

The bluebirds who nest in our little birdhouse also have chicks - we can hear them peeping.  But they are too hard to see.

The main event for this weekend was that Andrew had his first camping trip!  We went up to Pike National Forest just east of the Lost Creek Wilderness.  All of the established campgrounds were full and very very crowded, so we ended up freedom camping at an established site up on a ridge at Stoney Pass.  Andrew enjoyed all of the sights and sounds of the outdoors, and we had a nice hike up the 4wd road in the BOB stroller.  He even slept really well at night!

We had made the assumption that there is a dichotomy paradox for tents similar to the way there is a dichotomy paradox for duffel bags.  That is - no matter how much stuff you've got in there, you can always get one more thing in.  We have an REI Half Dome 2+ tent, which is a two-man tent.  We figured, well hey, Andrew's just a little bit more person, we should all be able to cuddle up in there, right?  Yeah not so much.  Andrew may have slept well, but mommy and daddy had a fairly rough night all contorted up to make room.  So, uh, next on the list is a three man tent of some sort.  To accommodate our little man.

Other than that, it was really super fantastic to be in the mountains again, and we can't wait to get back out there again... with a little more elbow room.

Nursing in the great outdoors.

The view

4... er... 3wd stroller

Super action video of off-road stroller

Happy Andrew

Summit photo!! ...as much as this ridge had a summit...

Napping with daddy after a tough hike.

Getting ready for bed.

Sleepy parents.  Awake baby.

Outdoor diaper change

Bonus Photo!  Today's post-bath handsome hair: