November 2004 Archives
Last night was a particularly long one for me and Doug. Finnegan was fussy and suffering with nasal congestion. We cleared his nose and he was breathing fine, but then it got stuffed up again. I felt so bad for the little guy, but there really wasn't much more we could do to make him comfortable.
Doug had to wake me up several times during the night to feed Finnegan and I was in such a deep sleep that I just couldn't open my eyes let alone physically get my body out of the prone position. I have a real hard time sitting up due to the cesarean and also my back injury adds to the dilemma. I'm basically like a turtle on it's back.
Anyway, I know that this process of sleeping patterns will eventually work its self out, but I'm really tired right now. I wish that the super sleep pill that has been in the news lately gets to drug stores soon because I'll buy it.
For now, I'll just have to catch my forty winks anytime that I can.
I tell people Finn's a really easy, good baby, by which I mean he stops crying the instant you figure out what he wants, and he's so cute. Then they immediately ask, "is he sleeping through the night?" Here's a look at why that makes me laugh :) You can see what the last week was like here. The blue areas are sleeping, yellow awake; and of course we are awake throughout the day too to do other things. 
I love taking care of him, but, it's just to explain why we don't get a lot of other stuff done. It is kind of interesting though to really get aware of the 24 hour clock, really get a feel for how long (or short) a whole day is. Every day is precious.
It's been a week since Finnegan made his debut and it's been quite an adventure. In the past seven days I've learned so much that my maternal experience has debunked many baby myths and introduced many realities.
1) Babies are fragile, but they trust you to do the right thing.
2) Breast feeding is not as difficult as many people will have you to believe. If you just give in to your natural instincts you and the baby will figure it out.
3) Labor & delivery is hard, but it only lasts for a short time. In my case, 25 hours was pretty long, but in the context of everything it was a short time.
Whether you want a natural childbirth vs a medicated childbirth only mother nature can determine the outcome and you shouldn't feel guilty if your birth doesn't go as you had planned. I ended up having a cesarean for the health of the baby and that was all that mattered. I don't think he's disappointed about it.
4) Careful preparation will ease the transition when you return home, take time to properly prepare for the first critical days following your discharge from the hospital.
a) Buy plenty of food to reduce the need to leave the house. Have some meals prepared and stored in the refrigerator.
b) Get some help lined up before the birth. We didn't have anyone set up to help us out except for a pet sitter, which alleviated our worries for Grenade and Spoon. Since we didn't really know when Finnegan would be born because everyone told us that the first baby is always late. Finnegan was right on time. We also didn't want any family members with us in the delivery room because we wanted to keep the experience to ourselves and make Finnegan's arrival a gentle experience for him. We would have had a better transition if I had not had the cesarean.
c) Have your suitcase packed and in the car at least two weeks before the due date. I am very glad that we had our bag in the car because I had to go to the hospital for a routine test and they ended up admitting me a few hours later because I was having some really long three minute contractions that were causing the baby's heartbeat to decelerate. Luckily I was able to park the car, get my bag and check into my room.
Suitcase must haves:
* still camera
* video camera
* going home clothes: I wore maternity pajamas and a sweater
*toiletries kit, keep it simple and add a bit of makeup and a hairbrush
* big non-slip socks to keep your feet warm
* baby book to record baby's story and have available for the nurse to put the footprints and handprints in the book
* special hat or headband to pull hair away from face
* laptop to watch movies and to record your story and special milestones
*list of phone numbers to contact family members. I didn't do a very good job of this because I forgot to tell Doug to call my father who didn't find out until a week after the birth. I felt bad, but I was recovering from a cesarean and didn't have a clue.
Things not to bring:
* robe is too bulky and you won't want to ruin it
* books, you won't have time to read
* personal soap or body wash, the hospital has all this stuff
* don't really need a toothbrush and toothpaste, the hospital has that too
d) Helpers: Hire a doula to help you during your labor. She will help you ease into the delivery and help you focus on the task at hand. My doula helped me immensely by giving me massage as my back pain set in. If you want to record the details of your birth, hire a photographer or have a trusted person take photos for you. We had a photographer and she did a great job. Eventhough we had a cesarean which Doug photographed, Rachele, captured the moments when we came back to our room with the baby and spent the first hour with us. Hire some one to clean your house either before you leave for the hospital or while you are are away. I was not able to do any good cleaning before the baby was born and coming home to a clean bathroom was the greatest thing.
5) Be kind to your spouse. I wanted to make sure that Doug knew how much I appreciated his help and that I love him very much. So, I made sure that even in the worst moments of pain I did not get mad at him or utter any unkind remarks and every time he did something for me I said, Thank you and Please. Doug was just as nice to me and cared for me so gently and attentively that I admire him more than I ever did.
Today, was the first time that I ventured out of the house since Nov. 4th. Well, it's 14 days later and I am shocked to see that all the colorful Fall leaves were lying on the ground and the trees were skeletons of there former glory. I felt colder seeing the bare branches on the trees as Doug drove us to the pediatrician's office for our well-baby appointment. My mood was dampened by the fact that I felt so weak from being severely anemic and recovering from childbirth.
For his part, Doug has nursed me to health for two weeks taking care of all my needs and taking care of Finnegan too. Doug has prepared all of my meals, given me my vitamins, helping get to the bathroom and gave me my pain pills. Then he cared for the baby, did all the laundry, cleaned the house and did everything possible to ease my pain and to help me feed the baby without getting out of bed. My recovery has been compounded by the fact that I am severely anemic and very very week. Doug is so very tired, but he loves Finnegan so much that he would do more if he had to. I am so lucky that Doug is willing to do so much to take care of us, that sometimes I just cry because I am so grateful. Everytime I look at Finnegan's beautiful face, I think of all the prayers we said asking God to bless us with a child and now four years later, we have our little boy. It might be the hormones, but my tears are from being thankful for the love we have for one another and for Finnegan.
Yesterday, Doug discovered that his truck was missing from in front of our house. He was really upset because he thought that one of our neighbors had it towed away because he left it there for four days. He was too busy taking care of us to go and unpack the photography equipment and tools that he had picked up from the old house that we just sold. I suggested that we contact the neighbors, the police and the towing company. Doug put a note on the neighbor's door and I made some phone calls. The police and towing company didn't have any record of our car being towed and that's when I told Doug to file a stolen vehicle report. An hour later, the report was filed and Doug was talking to the insurance company. I felt really bad for Doug because he worked so hard taking care of us and his reward was having his truck stolen and all of the equipment in it. Doug felt bad because he kept thinking that he should have unpacked the truck and my equipment would still be here, but I'm just too tired to be upset about it. It will cost more than $4000 to replace everything, but it is replaceable and we weren't physically hurt by the theft.
When we were at the Pediatrician's office Doug received a call from the Auburn Police Department informing him that his truck had been abandoned in Auburn and that an officer would be there for the next hour if we could come and claim the truck. We finished our appointment and drove 35 miles south to get the truck. When we arrived Doug inspected the car and everything was missing, the stereo & speakers, spare tire, all of my equipment and it was filled with Taco Bell wrappers and a blanket from Stadium High School. The truck was not drivable and I could not drive my car because I'm not strong enough yet to do so. After an hour a tow truck arrived and loaded up Doug's truck and drove away. During our wait the police officer informed us that Jeep Cherokees are amongst the top ten vehicles stolen in the state of Washington and there isn't anything much that can be done to the kids who steal the cars. The kids are under the age of 18 and stealing cars is a misdemeanor with light punishment of juvenile detention and their records are sealed once they become adults. The people who lose are the owners because our insurance rates go up, we have to repair the vehicles or get another one and our sense of security is shattered. It's just not fair and there's not much hope of changing things anytime soon.
On the the drive home we talked about getting an alarm system for the house and the new car and fixing the front doorbell. The main thing we are concerned about is our personal safety in our own home to protect Finnegan, the dogs and ourselves. It's too bad that we have to be subjected to crime when we have a newborn, but at least our happiness and sleep deprivation has kept us from getting too worked up about the whole thing. Despite the loss we are just too happy being a family to let it get us down.
I'm feeling much better today. I think eating lots of spinach and iron-rich foods is starting to pay off. I'm pretty tired right now and will go to bed in a few minutes, but I've had a busy day.
I managed to go upstairs six times today: 1) to make my lunch because Doug was taking a nap with Finnegan, 2) to feed the dogs their dinner, 3) to make some dinner, 4) to get the rest of our dinner, 5) to make some snacks to eat while watching a movie and 6) to return dishes to the sink.
Believe me this is huge progress for me, but now I feel really tired and my hands are shaking and I don't think that I can pick Finnegan up until I get a nap. I also managed to take a long shower this morning without feeling like passing out. I'll keep eating the spinach.
Finnegan kept me occupied most of the day with nursing him and holding him in my lap. He's real sensitive to the cold so I held him close and he slept for about five hours in my arms. Even though I felt like my arms would fall off, I didn't want to put him in the crib. He looked so angelic while practicing his smiling during his nap. I was just amazed at how beautiful babies are and especially Finnegan. This evening I put him on a donut shaped pillow called a boppy so he could practice lifting his head. He doesn't usually enjoy it, but this time I got right down on the floor and looked into his eyes and encouraged him with try while patting his back and caressing his face. He didn't fight or put up a fuss at all and as soon as I noticed that he was getting tired, we stopped in order to reinforce a positive event. Babies are so smart, I'm amazed at how alert he is.
The more I hold him the deeper I fall in love with this little guy and I can't wait to hold him again.
Last night was a long night for me and Finnegan. He woke up at 3 a.m. and wanted to eat and eat and eat. I don't know how he does it, but he just doesn't seem to be satisfied no matter how much he eats.
Last week Doug had to rent a breast pump in order for me supplement his feedings and boy did he get used to it. Now my milk production is up and he's gaining more weight, but nursing takes a lot longer sometimes up to an hour or like last night a total of two hours. Since birth Finnegan has been nursing for a total of 50 hours and 20 minutes. That's 25 minutes of nursing for each of the 125 feedings that he's had in the past 15 days.
We've also changed lots of diapers or rather Doug has done the lion's share and I've done a few of them when he's been sleeping. The diaper total is 59 wet diapers and 58 hassle diapers. Fortunately, when I was in the hospital I was not able to change any of the meconium diapers, but I did see the evidence. It's pretty amazing stuff.
Even though, I was up late last night for three hours with Finnegan there's nothing more wonderful than holding a sleeping baby who looks so much like Doug and is happy to cuddle up next to me.
We changed our 100th diaper yesterday. Nancy did the honors. I've done almost all the others because she's been so tired with anemia. You know it was one of the things I was kind of worried about, but diaper changing Finn is actually pretty easy and kind of fun. You get to talk to him and watch his face. He gets angry if you do it wrong, which is funny too. He is so small that cleaning him up is really not that hard - you only have to clean about 1 1/2 square inches. We just use cotton balls - they are plenty big enough! Spoon is happy to shred one into little pieces if we need it to be bigger.
Can't stop programming, even at home. I've integrated the BabyTracker app with the MovableType weblog system we've got set up here, so now Nancy and I can write some little journal entries for Finn while we're logging his diaper and sleep habits. Tomorrow I'll try to get drag&drop image posting in as well, so we can have a nice series of "Pics of the Day" of Finnegan.
Well, here I am! This breathing thing - you guys do it ALL the time? Doesn't that get old? Well at least I got a cool hat out of the deal.
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