Baby King

Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

DJ slept a lot the first two days. He was still having trouble latching. He would try and then cry and then fall asleep. We just figured that he was still tired from the whole being born thing.

On Monday the postpartum midwife came by. As Darius had suspected earlier that day, DJ was jaundiced. It was all the way down to his navel. Also, when the midwife weighted him, he weighted only 6lbs 5oz. He’d lost 8% of his birth weight. This was not good. It upset me a lot. She said that I was doing everything right, but because he was small, latching can be a problem and he doesn’t have the reserves of energy to keep him going so he’ll just fuss himself to sleep. Also, she was worried about my milk not coming in, but as we got him to nurse, I noticed that it was starting to turn more milky.

So I decided that we were going to make this work. I used an iPhone app to keep track of his feeding and sleeping. We made sure that he was eating every 2-3 hours, with one longer period if he would take it over night. I used the nipple shield because he could latch onto that. I kept him nursing for as long as he would, which lead to some 45 minute nursing sessions. My milk came in on Tuesday, without pumping. My nipples were bruised, but I kept at it. We also opened the shades and spent some time in the sunlight. On Wednesday my breasts were so full that they hurt and I was worried about engorgement. On Wednesday we (and by we, I mean my mother and sister because I ran out of energy) gave DJ a bath, which he loved. Also, my father and stepmother came into town that day as well to meet their grandson.

The grandparents with their grandson

Somewhere in all of this, I started singing to DJ, “This little prince of mine, I’m gonna let him shine. This little prince of mine, I’m gonna let him shine. This little prince of mine, I’m gonna let him shine, let him shine, let him shine, let him shine.” I also started making up other verses with words that rhyme with shine and randomly calling him “my little prince.” In fact, I call him “little prince” or “my little prince” way more often than I call him anything else. I’ve been thinking about decorating the baby’s room in a “The Little Prince” theme, but I’m not 100% sure yet. So I’m going start calling him Little Prince (or possibly LP for short) on this blog as well.

On Thursday morning my breasts started leaking on their own and the feeling of engorgement died down. We kept at the nursing schedule. The postpartum midwife came by in the afternoon. I was really nervous. However, I didn’t have to be. My little prince weight 6lbs, 15oz! He was up a whole ounce from his birth weight! Also his jaundice was up to his shoulders, which was really good progress. We’d totally done it!

My Cross-eyed Little Prince

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On Friday when I went in to the Birthing Center for my nonstress test, I got my membranes swept. This was probably around 2pm or so. Came home. Got some work done. Around 4:30pm I was resting on the bed when I started to feel cramping and my hips started to hurt. I didn’t think I could possibly be in labor yet, and the cramping wasn’t totally letting up. But then I started using my timing app and found out that the contractions were about 7 minutes apart and lasting just under a minute. Somehow I still couldn’t believe that I was in labor, mainly because I’d never heard of hip pain happening. I spent a lot of time on the toilet exiting my bowels and making it through that way. I also spent some time leaning on the railing by the stairs and leaning over the bed. At about 7:30pm I was at my computer and then felt a contraction so I stood against the wall. I felt a pop and a gush, so I was pretty sure my water had broken. I called the Birthing Center hotline and also my doula, Namaste. The midwife on call was Mary. She said that I could keep laboring at home and she’d call me back around 10pm if she hadn’t heard from me. An hour, and a lot of hip pain later, my contractions were at 4.5 minutes apart, lasting about a minute. Sometime after that I was feeling tired so I tried to rest, but it wasn’t working. Around 9:30 I knew I was not managing the hip pain well. It just wouldn’t go away, no matter what I did, so I asked Namaste to come over. At 10pm Mary called and I was contracting every 3-4 minutes, lasting for around a minute. Mary said it would take her 30 minutes to get to the Birthing Center and which room did I want. I had originally wanted the Santa Fe room, but since they changed it to the Barcelona room, the Windsor room was more appealing to me. I set a timer for 20 minutes because I knew it took 10 minutes to get to the Birthing Center.

The Windsor Room, fit for a King

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On Thursday evening my mother and sister came into town. On Saturday we had my baby shower. It was really fantastic and made both Darius and I feel loved and cherished by our friends, family, and community.

The shower was dinosaur themed. So mom and I made dinosaur egg shaped cake pops by using a plastic Easter egg and dying melted white chocolate (and also using milk chocolate). Once they were dry, we set up the nest display made out of floral foam and fake moss. Then Darius did a great job artistically arraigning them. Darius’s mother surprised us with a lovely Edible Arrangement that showed up a few hours before the party. It was so thoughtful of her (and very delicious!).

The party itself went very well. We probably had about 15-20 people show up. We had social time for about an hour and then my sister broke out the games. It started with giving everyone a candle and asking them to inscribe a wish for us. The idea is that whenever they think about Darius, me, and the little one they light the candle and send us good wishes. We’re also asking that people light them as soon as they find out I’m in labor to send the good wishes our way. Yes, sometimes I’m a total hippie pagan. We went around and everyone introduced themselves and told us their wish for us, which was really sweet.

Then my sister had everyone put a note card on their head and draw what the baby would look like. Darius and I picked our two favorite and our two least favorite. Then we had a “name the baby” contest and a “guess these random facts about Darius and Athene’s childhoods” while people cut a length of yarn that they thought would be the size of my belly.

Some of the names that I loved:

What’s really interesting is that Joseph made a few people’s lists. While we wouldn’t do Joseph as a first name for several reasons, the name actually runs in both families and we’ve been thinking about using it as a middle name.

As for the string around the belly, we played it with Price Is Right rules. I guess I must look bigger than I am because almost everyone totally overestimated. There were two people who got it dead on.

Then it was time for cake pops (yum!) and presents, especially as it was already getting late and some people had to leave. We got lots and lots of great things, some from our registries and some not, but everything we got was definitely stuff that we need. One of the gifts that touched me the most were toys and books and things from a friend’s children because they didn’t need them anymore. I know how hard it can be to give up those sorts of things, so it was really sweet. We also got some presents from my mother’s group of “lady friends” who had thrown her a surprise shower the other week. Lots of great New Orleans stuff so the baby will know his roots. However, the absolute BEST.PRESENT.EVER. was the baby sized Jayne hat. You can see from our faces just how excited we were by it. Yes, we are nerds and Browncoats and we will have the world’s biggest nerd baby (until he grows up and becomes a jock or something).

Lots more pictures from our shower, some from our camera and some from my mother’s:

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My sister also took pictures. Here are the ones from her camera:

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Now to actually set up the baby’s room, organize all the stuff that we got, and figure out what we still need.

In the past two weeks I’ve started feeling Stree kick. At first I wasn’t sure that that was what I was feeling. It felt like a little gas bubble popping, so I wasn’t sure if it was just gas, the ability to feel my pulse in stomach (which I can do sometimes), or kicks. But they have been happening more and more frequently, especially in the last week, so now I know they are kicks/punches/movement.

Sometimes he is really active and I feel a bunch all at once, or within a few minutes of each other. Sometimes I just feel an odd one or two. Sometimes I just feel heavy in my pelvis, as if he’s just settling down in there for a while. They still come to infrequently and are too light for me to determine any perceptible pattern. And nothing can be felt or seen on the outside yet, but I can’t wait for the day when Darius can feel his son move.

In belly news, none of my pre-pregnancy pants (other than yoga pants and leggings) fit anymore at all. I’ve been pretty much living in maternity pants/jeans, yoga pants, and Darius’s pajama bottoms. While I don’t look “to strangers” pregnant, I feel as though I’m finally moving out of the “ate too many cheeseburgers/pizzas” stage to the really looking pregnant stage (except for when wearing a large sweater…but it’s been so cold out lately).

In symptom news, still burping all the time but the hemorrhoids have seem to have cleared up mostly (for now). Also I’ve been getting tired a lot lately again and my back has started hurting on and off. Scoliosis + pregnancy = back pains earlier in pregnancy than for most people. Doing yoga can help somewhat. I have an appointment with a chiropractor on Monday! I am so looking forward to it.

My sister is in town this weekend, loving the pregnant me. We went out yesterday to look at baby things. She bought Stree a couple of cute onesies from Once Upon A Child, which is really really close by. Then we went to Babies R Us to pick up my Dad’s present to Stree. We have a Travel System (stroller/car seat/travel bassinet) now! This is really the only thing that we actually need need need when Stree is born, so yay! After that, my sister and I went a little crazy with the registry gun at Babies R Us, but it was kind of fun. There are a lot of cute things with monkeys on them out there if you want to go all ape over that kind of thing. We also checked out BabyEarth, since it just opened, but it was totally over my price range for just about everything.

Today we went out with my BF in Austin and hit up some thrift stores and Target to look for cute maternity clothing for me. Amongst some of the horrible and very questionable things, we actually found some stuff that was rather cute. It was really fun hanging out with the two of them in general.

I’ve been reading Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, which is even more hippy than Birthing from Within, but it is really nice to read positive stories about natural birth. She has some great points that I’ve been copying down since I’m just borrowing the book from the library, but that deserves its own post.

Called my sister in tears about an hour ago.

I was watching a thing on TV about the making of the Harry Potter movies and I started thinking about movies 7.1 and 7.2. Read the rest of this entry »

This early pregnancy thing is weird.

First of all, while I am 95% sure that I am pregnant, no period, lots of pregnancy symptoms, etc. I am still waiting for the doctor to be 100% sure. This means going back to the clinic by work and getting my blood drawn again. This is to test the change in the amount of the pregnancy hormone.

Second, because I spent so long waiting to see if I was going to get my period, I still keep checking to see if I got it every time I go to the bathroom. I think it’s kind of habit after all those years. After a certain number of days past last period, check for new period. Also I’m checking for blood because that’s a sign of a miscarriage and i’m really scared that i’m going to miscarry.

My pregnancy symptoms are really tender breasts and nipples, being tired a lot, frequent peeing, and mild uterine cramping. All of these are normal early pregnancy signs. The cramping does freak me out a bit, but since it’s centered and not sharp, it’s seems like it’s the normal early pregnancy cramping. Oh the cramping is aggravated by orgasms. I masturbated the other night, was having this fantastic orgasm, and then OMG lots of cramping pain! Also sex the other night was good and orgasms were light and fine until the very end. So, no sexy times for a little while cause of the ouching. No fair!

What’s really strange is that I haven’t had any nausea at all. There were a few times where i thought i was getting nauseous, but then i told myself that i wasn’t and i really wasn’t. Knowing me and how easily I can feel nauseous/throw up, I’m really surprised about this. ~knocks on wood~

Cimmy and I are already coming up with silly baby names. Well, basically we just looked at this list of words that end in “king” and pulled the best ones. So far I like Frolic, Merry May, Strea, and Vi. Actually, I’m calling the little thing “Stree” or “Little Stree” in my head cause it’s naked. Get it? Get it?

Edit: Also, I’ve had a craving for cheese. I usually can only eat one thing of string cheese at at time. I went through 4 of them in under an hour yesterday. Oh, and when grocery shopping, I almost got some yogurt. I don’t even like yogurt.

I’m so bad at keeping this a secret, but I’m really trying to. So other than family, you all, and my best friend at work who guessed, no one else knows. Please help me keep it that way until I give the okay.