Week 6

The only thing better than the looks you get at the liquor store when you are 8 months pregnant are the looks you get pushing a stroller with an infant out of a bar at 10pm. I’m pretty sure that woman thinks I’m the worst mother in the world and will up until she has her own babies and realizes that this is the perfect age to take them out.

Devon experienced his first Superbowl (or Superb Owl as Russ says) party and made lots of new friends. He also perfected his ‘it’s good!’ move and did this most of the game:


We’ve continued to make treks to the Y alternating between walking on the treadmill and the track with the stroller. I noticed last week that the babysitting service at the Y takes the kids out in these 3 kid big strollers and rolls them around the basket ball court. You would think being the Y, the staff would actually ‘walk’ with the strollers, but no. They set themselves up in a triangle pattern and push the strollers to each other. Huh. I noticed when they let the kids out to run around there are a variety of personalities the kids display– some immediately RUN FOR THE HILLS, some sit right down and start playing, some want to push the strollers or explore them in more detail and some hang on to the grownups. It makes me wonder which camp Devon will be in and what personality traits will be most prominent.


Just this week we started putting him into the Baby Bjorn in the hopes that we take walks or just have him in there in the future. So far, he hates it. Maybe once he gets a bit more head control it will be ok, but for now it’s akin to Tummy Time and we all know how torturous that is.
On Tuesday, Devon and I visited a lactation consultant to get some help. He has been a VERY rambunctious eater. He latches on just fine but then flails about, pulls off the nipple frequently and bites down a lot which as you can imagine I am not a fan of. I was also concerned because he would only eat for about 5 minutes at the most and even though he appears to be gaining weight fine I was nervous that this would hurt my milk supply.

We met with a very nice lady who weighed him and watched as he ate. We did our usual on/off/cry/on/cry etc routine and in between she would weigh him to see how much he was eating each minute. Well, the problem is not that I don’t have enough milk or that he is a lazy sucker – I actually have so much milk it’s basically being poured down his throat. So he has been just trying to keep up. In 5 minutes he could easily drink about 3 ounces of milk (4 is what he should be eating at the most per meal right now). She also thought since it was so fast he was getting tummy cramps and that the foremilk was causing him a good amount of gas. Since then, we’ve made some adjustments that help reduce the amount of foremilk, changes in positioning and more use of the nook and it has definitely made a difference. It’s not perfect, sometimes he is still restless and upset but overall I feel like this is more doable than I did a week ago. We go back this Thursday for a follow-up visit. Mine as well since that out of pocket maximum is done for the year…

Devon’s Nanny (the lady formerly known as Gramter) flew up for a visit on Thursday for a few days. I got to catch up on some stuff and some naps and cooking which was great. She got to see how much he has grown since her last visit! This week’s big advancement is he has started to notice when I play peek-a-boo with him. If he’s in the mood, he’ll smile and wiggle once I pop up and he sees me. Mornings appear to be Devon’s Happy Time – that’s when he talks the most and has the most smiles to share. Perhaps he has to tell us all about the dreams he had last night. This morning in particular it was like a talk show going on in the dining room while I fixed myself some breakfast.


Friday night Russ and I left Devon with his Nanny and went on a date!

We had an excellent dinner at the Craftsman up the street (have the pheasant sandwich, it’s awesome) and then stopped home quick so I could pump a bottle and then laughed at Comedy Sportz for a few hours. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to stay awake the whole time, but I did and enjoyed the evening. Hopefully we’ll start trading date night babysitting with some friends so we can make sure to continue.

Devon hosted his first dinner party last night with the Browns, our neighbors (for the moment) Andrea and Adam and Nanny and Auntie Becca. Happily he slept through dinner in his swing and then made a social appearance after for a bit.

It was great to have so many folks over to the house and enjoying themselves. All in all, this was a very good week. It’s a quiet one coming up and then Grammy Jan comes to town for several days so she and Devon can get to know each other.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Week Five

I'm wondering when I will feel it's time to stop titling all of our posts by Devon's age in weeks...

Everyone says to us (repeatedly) that the time goes so fast when babies are little, but I did NOT feel this was the case for his first month – it’s hard to believe it has only BEEN a month. I felt like I was taking each day as it came and they were really long and sort of indistinguishable from one another. Feeding, changing diapers, try to shower and sleep in cat naps. The second hospital stay sort of set us back farther than if we hadn’t had that interruption. Now we are finding more of a groove.

Devon is routinely sleeping from about 1030pm until 4am and then again from about 430 until 7 or 730am. He had his first Well Baby check up this week and did very well. He was:

a) Awake and happy the whole visit, even when the doctor put him on his tummy which he hates with a passion when his parents do it (see below)


b) 9 lb 6 oz which is right on target

c) 22 inches which is also good for him

Our big issue at the moment however is eating. We start off great and then a few minutes in its like someone put him underwater – he gasps for air and flails about like he’s trying to swim. Often he then refuses to go back on the boob so his meals are super short. I know he’s getting enough to eat, but this is hard on me. So we’re going to get some help with that next week to see if we can find a solution to calm him down.

The other not so great news is I’m not entirely healed yet. I have some sort of tear in my colon and I’ll just let you imagine what that means for daily life. We’ve got a plan and hope that all is healed in about a month. If not, there may be more details in this blog in the coming weeks than you really want to know about. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. It appears that pregnancy is not an issue for me, but the post partum time is a real kicker.

This week Devon met a few new friends and had some new experiences. He went to his first Monday Night burgers (baby in a bar!) and showed everyone just how much he loves being a monkey:


The look we got from a woman as we pushed the stroller out of the bar around 10pm was priceless.

Emma Boren and her parents paid us a great visit this week too. Emma was less interested in Devon and more interested in magnets, ribbons and running about. It’s amazing to think Devon will be about her size in just 11 months. And eating mac and cheese! Then on Thursday he met his new best neighborhood buddy, Benjamin. They are a month apart in age but many months apart in size! Devon is a bit of a peanut and Benjamin is a bit of a lumberjack. Both are healthy kids and happy kids, just completely different body types. It was hilarious to hold one and then switch to the other. Benjamin’s mom Jody and I are certain they will be the best of friends. Can’t wait to have play dates in the park!

Devon watched his first episode of Lost this week with some buddies. I really don’t think it matters much that he hasn’t seen the previous seasons. I have and I was still rather confused about many aspects of the ‘plot’. But he really enjoyed the chair. I guess we'll have to let him grow into it a bit - tough to reach your bottle when it's like 2 feet from your hand.



Bathtime has been a tough time for Devon in the last few weeks, but on Monday we had our first Quiet Bath. Which is very different than the past Oh-my-god-they-are-drowning-me-and–isn’t-anyone-coming-to-my-rescue-Baths. Maybe we’ll try the pool in a few weeks…
Tonight we are headed to a Superbowl party (Devon can’t wait for the commercials) and this week is fairly quiet for us until my family comes into town next weekend briefly.

As expected, Devon is learning about his vocal cords for activities other than crying. Here’s a video I just adore of him exploring making these noises. I call them his monkey noises. If you have a baby in your house, bring them to the screen for this as I hear they often talk back.

Week Four! One month!

This week brought many new firsts for both Devon and me. My mom was with us for a whole week to help out and get to know her first grandchild and I do believe overall it was a very successful week. His other grandma, Grammy Jan, is set to visit us at the end of February for a similar visit. I am feeling much more confident in taking Devon out of the house and in general feeling more like my usual self, albeit tired. The trick now is learning how to time things – how many errands can I do in his 3 hour window between feedings? How do I balance out wake time and nap time so he’s tired at night and sleeps longer? Etc etc etc.

So for those of you keeping track, Devon has now been to:

IKEA

Costco

The Y

Pearle Vision

Daisy Nails (Pedicures!)

Riverstone Salon (mom and I got haircuts)

Uptown Natural Care Center

And of course for a MN baby:

Target

Like most babies he is very good at falling asleep in the car and then staying asleep through whatever errands are after the car ride. So while he’s been many places, his eyes weren’t open at any of them.

In other news, Devon has become a big fan of The Nook. He really likes the sucking motion and it often will calm him down if he is upset and then subsequently put him to sleep. Mom and Dad have also become big fans of The Nook for these very same reasons. A few days later we tried our first bottle feeding. No problem. He sucked down 4 ounces of milk in 10 minutes. This made me feel good because he often only nurses for 10 minutes at the most and I was worried he wasn’t eating enough. But this means most likely he’s just a really fast eater aka – an amazing sucker ;)

We think that Week 4 also brought out our first round of smiles. It’s not consistent or predictable but he definitely has some happy faces at times. We’re trying to get it on camera but at this point it’s sort of like taking a picture of bigfoot. This morning at 7am we had a solid 10 minutes of happy so here is what I could catch:

We have some videos on Facebook too which shows it a bit better.

This weekend our friend Nate came over to meet D evon and help us fix the heater in our bedroom. This is a huge improvement and we are so thankful. It will be much easier to keep us all warm at night without having to heat the whole house.

This next week will be the true test for me – Devon and I are on our own Monday – Friday during the day. We have a few doctor appointments and hopefully some trips to the Y in our future as well as lots of long long naps. Have a good week!

Weeks Two and Three

I had hoped to post something each week about our adventures with Devon but we had a bit of a detour last weekend.

On Friday afternoon I put Devon down for a nap and crawled into bed to read. Russ was working at his computer in the next room. I suddenly got really cold. I turned my electric blanket on, put a blanket around my shoulders and Russ gave me his hat. However, I continued to shiver and it got really violent for about 45 minutes. We took my temperature at that point and I had 102 temp and a stellar headache and lower back ache. So we called the clinic and their advice was go to the ER. Just what a brand new mom who is freezing cold wants to hear – take your infant out into the cold to the ER.

But that is exactly what we did. Russ bundled us up and back to Abbott we went. Our dear friend April met us there to help manage Devon and we started the process of trying to figure out what was wrong with me. Being that it’s the ER, nothing gets done quickly so we were there from 4pm until 11pm. Various doctors consulted with us and after determining that I had symptoms to indicate infection (fever, chills, twice the normal white blood cell count) they puzzled and puzzled about where it might be. Two weeks out is pretty late for the normal post partum infections and I wasn’t having any abdominal, breast or kidney area pain which would make it easier to diagnose. They started saying really scary things like blood clots or meningitis as well. After two pelvic exams (Ladies, I highly recommend you AVOID this so soon after a vaginal birth) it was decided I had a uterine infection. The treatment would be to pump me full of hardcore antibiotics and hope that cleared up the infection.

Throughout this, Devon did a great job of hanging out with us, eating when needed and if memory serves really only had one big crying session.

To help combat my massive headache they gave me morphine. When I asked what the side effects to Devon might be the answer was – he could get sleepy. Sold, sign me up, let’s go.

So we spent Devon’s two week birthday right back where he was born, but in a different area of the hospital. Evidently when a baby leaves the nursery they cannot come back because they are now ‘dirty’. The downside of this is that we weren’t in an area where the nurses were skilled at post partum, but the plus was we were in a much nicer room.

Sunday night they determined I had been fever free for 24 hours and run through several cycles of the antibiotics so we could go home! I was really looking forward to my own bed and for a whole 2-3 hour stretch of sleep. You don’t go to the hospital for the food or to get rest – someone is always waking you up to take vitals, bring your food or ask questions. And if they weren’t, Devon was waking me up to eat. Russ was a rockstar all weekend making sure I was ok and taking care of all of Devon’s needs that he could so I could stay resting.

That was the main highlight of Week Two. Devon’s stump fell off so he can now wear onsies and sleepers, but I’ve found I still keep him in the gowns most of the time because it’s so much easier to change his diaper. And it’s not like we’re going out on the town quite yet.



Week Three started off with some amazing hormonal shifts for me. Russ went back to work on Tuesday which is still really hard, I was trying to recover from my adventures in sleeplessland while still being in a new region of sleeplessland and of course questioning every move I make regarding Devon. Needless to say Devon wasn’t the only one shedding tears.

Week Three has also brought with it the dreaded bubbles – gas. The last few nights have been really tough for Devon as it appears gas is causing him a good amount of pain. I’ve adjusted what I am eating (much less dairy, no gassy veggies or beans, onions or garlic) and we’re doing some massage and leg pumps to get the farts out. So the conversations around the house have shifted from talking about poo to talking about flatulence. Awesome.

April helped us out a great deal this week too by coming over for part of the day while Russ was
gone so I could sleep, shower or just relax and get back to where we were last week. Devon really liked hanging out with her and we thank her for spending so much time with us. We hope you get your toaster strudel soon…
Tomorrow brings the arrival of Gramter and Grampter (my parents if you didn’t know) and Gramter is staying until the following Friday to help us out. Devon will complete Week Three of life on Saturday and as everyone keeps telling me it will get better from here. Here’s to less gas and more smiles in Week Four.

Devon with the monsters - we think they are enjoying each other's company.

Week One

We’re all still snug in our (somewhat drafty) house as this January chill continues on. What a nice week or so to not have to leave the house!
We got home Monday afternoon and slowly have been figuring each other out. Kiddo seems to be working out his digestion and this whole eating idea better as the week goes on. We started off with a good amount of anxiety (ok, so mostly I did) over the amount he was eating and moving through his system – it was not near what they ‘recommend’.
On Wednesday the stars smiled on us and it turned out that despite what we were told by my doctor, we did in fact get a home visit from a nurse. She weighed him and put my heart at ease saying he’d actually gained 2 ounces back from what he’d lost at the hospital. This means even if he wasn’t eating much, he was eating enough! She also helped me figure out some details about nursing that were very helpful. You can read all the books you want but in person guidance is really the key to your confidence it seems.

We are pretty sure Devon is related to his Aunt Becca simply by the number of times a day he gets the hiccups - pretty much every time he eats. He also appears to be fascinated by music and by a visual fractal program Russ has on his computer that makes very interesting images. He quiets right down when he sees it. Now I realize that newborns are small, but I guess I didn’t realize quite how small he might be. We really only had one outfit that fit him well so we had to send his Godfather out to Babies R Us to get us a few more gowns that he didn’t drown in. One that is still too big for him has little stars all over it and we joked that it make him look just like a Wizard because it was so big and he had a hat on that came to a bit of a point. So of course that has morphed into us calling him Mr. Wizard:


I’m starting to hit a bit of a wall. Trying to sleep when he sleeps, eat and occasionally shower (which I know Russ appreciates). A little sunshine would probably help, but that is in short supply at the moment and not really an option to be headed outside for a quick walk.

All this time at home has given Russ a good chance to explore his new camera and a few programs he’s been looking at for a while including Facebook and Flickr. Hopefully in a few weeks we’ll be more situated and he can start to finish up the kitchen again. Hooray for a dishwasher in the future!

Russ and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary yesterday, January 8th. To celebrate we watched a movie together as a family and had a bit of wine. Next time however we won’t get a movie about a couple who lose their baby and the wife passes away earlier than expected. That just about put me on the floor I was so upset. Luckily the movie gets lighter and has some comedy to bring you back but man, that really gave my hormones a run for their money. Luckily I had Russ on my left and Devon in my lap to hug and comfort. We have our first well baby checkup Monday morning. I’m sure we’ll spend the solid hour before that packing up, getting him to eat and generally fussing about before leaving the house for the 8 block drive to the clinic. Here's my favorite shot from the week:

Welcome Devon James Colliton

On a chilly Friday afternoon we calmly drove to the hospital, parked the car and made our way to the OB floor to check in. Then we were calmly shown to our labor and delivery room. We unpacked a bit and I got lots of vitals taken. I really didn't expect this part to be the calm part of our experience, but it was.

The rest of this story may have parts that if you are super sensitive or queasy you'll want to skip. Like the whole thing. For example, Christopher, my brother in law, probably won't make it through the next paragraph. Sorry buddy.

They put the first planned medication in, which was called Cervadil - it's an 8" long white knitted thing like an extra flat shoelace with a strip of paper with the drugs in it in the end. This goes pretty much around the cervix with the intention of getting it 'going'. I apparently had what they call a VERY posterior or backwards facing one so it was pretty tough for the nurses to get the little web of medicine to wrap around it. Once in, it started to release the meds right away.

We had a very exciting dinner of substandard chicken soup, salty mashed potatoes and limp salad for me and a terribly underwhelming sandwich from McDonalds (Fried chicken and pickle slices on bun. Gross? Kinda. Funny? Yes.) for Russ. We also got the party started by watching Short Circuit while the temperature plunged outside.

I didn't sleep too much Friday night. The contractions began to get painful about 11pm or so at a level of maybe a 4 out of 10. I got a little medicine to help me sleep and take off the edge so I could be more rested for the next step. It helped a little bit and I did sleep some. One of the 'side effects' of the Cervadil was that I had to stay hooked up to the fetal monitoring system so they could make sure Kiddo didn't get freaked out. So, every time I had to go to the restroom, I had to get someone to unhook me. And they had to come in all the time to adjust the sensors as Monkey moved around and hid.

At 5:30am Saturday they took the strip of Cervadil out and then just watched us until about 9 since I was having really regular and strong contractions by this point but only at a pain level of about a 4 or 5 - very manageable with breathing and massage and I actually slept a bit more. My cervix had dilated to 3cm when she checked it around 6am but was in a much better position. Around 7am they had me go on my right side and gave me an oxygen mask because kiddo's heart rate and movements were decreasing but my contractions were getting stronger and harder on him. At the same time the started giving me IV fluids. (Over the next five hours, they would give me six liters of fluids.) That seemed to do the trick and we continued to wait to see if things would progress on their own without needing to start the Pitocin drug which would stimulate contractions.

At 9 the nurse said things were pretty stable so if I wanted to, I could take a shower. Yippie! Sure thing, here I go. [shuffle, shuffle] May as well be clean going into a potentially long induced labor process. The shower felt great and the contractions were still only at about a 4 on the pain scale and pretty much non existent while I was in the warm shower.

However…

As soon as I got out of the shower the show began. I suddenly started having what felt like a really long contraction at about a 9 pain level . Russ quickly went to get our nurse and she ran in and helped me get dried off and back into the monitoring equipment and my labor clothes. Things were a bit hectic since I was in a lot of pain and we nearly missed one of my arms when putting the tank top on. It was like someone had just turned on a heat lamp (rather ironic considering what it was doing outside here) and made everything super bright so we had to close the blinds. Too bad since we had a great view from our room! From this point on things get a little hazy for me.

I had a number of really, really tough contractions, which on my 1-10 scale, leaped off the end making it to 11 and finally to 12. After about 3 of these I asked for the epidural process to start RIGHT NOW since I knew it could be a bit before it actually got going. In the meantime I really don’t know how I got through each of the contractions. Breathing techniques were just about impossible since the pain and effort made me search urgently for how I could push or pull myself into a less blazingly painful position. But I found if I closed my eyes there was this sort of square design I could see and there was a really bright one in the center that I fixated on. What’s funny is that in the middle of the previous night during one of the smaller contractions I described the pain to Russ as a square. Why? I have no idea, but the connection seemed interesting to me.

It felt like days but in reality I think it was only about 25 minutes before the epidural was going. I’m sure I said something to the effect of why on earth did we decide to do this at this point. I was fairly certain we had made a big mistake… In the meantime, the nurse checked me and I was now dilated to 10cm. Ok then, I guess we really won’t need that Pitocin to get the contractions moving!

Our doctor came in to check things out and asked Russ if there was anything significant about either of our births. Well, both of us came rather fast (me in about 6 hours start to finish and Russ was almost born on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C.) and when Russ told her that, the nurse actually started to move quite quickly. She set up a table of stuff (don’t ask me what was on it) and the tall, humorless anesthetist worked with me and Russ to make me more comfortable. I was on my side in bed at this point (once you have an epidural you can’t get out of bed) and that was FINE WITH ME. I think it was about 10am at this point.

I was feeling much more human once the epidural had started to take effect and now felt like I could concentrate on this whole birthing process instead of just being a side observer. Since we were unexpectedly to far along in the birth process, I had to push a button get additional epidural medication every 10 minutes to "catch up". The doctor let me labor him a bit farther down and then I really started to feel the urge to push about 10:40. With each contraction they coach you to push (no breathing in or out, unlike swimming, which was what they compared it to) for a count of 10 and you try to make it all the way to 10 three times. The nurse and the doctor told me I was a professional pusher as each session produced results and I often could do 4 whole pushes per contraction since the contractions themselves were really long. They were also really impressed at how strongly my uterus was contracting. In between each session I felt like taking a long nap as it was really tiring, but I just found my little squares and was amused that Russ, the nurse and the doctor were having a very normal conversation about small dogs playing in the snow while holding my legs in the air. Naturally.

At 11:07am I pushed the last time and out slid kiddo and a WHOLE lotta fluid. He was doing a good job of acting like a cork and keeping most of the amniotic fluid inside until he came out first. They helped me pull him up onto my tummy and dried him off while Russ cut the cord and kiddo exercised his new lungs. 7 lbs, 3 oz and 21 and ¼” – long and lean. Perfect for a biker…

I had to stay on my back for a bit to get some stitches (again, happy to have the epidural for this part) and Russ stayed near kiddo as the nurse cleaned him up and did some assessments on him. Everything looked great so they gave him back to me and we had a little family bonding time while he was awake and alert. And this kid? This is a cute kid. Even if I am biased. We had a short list of names and decided our top pick did suit him just fine. Devon James Colliton. Devon is a name both of us instantly liked while we were looking through options. It’s unique while not being too out there, easy to pronounce and spell and nice to say. It means ‘Poet.’ James is after Russ’ dad.

Next important step? Lunch for mom! That was the best omelet, bacon and fruit I’ve ever had! I had an omelet the next day and realized that perhaps I had been mistaken about the quality …

So our little family got all packed up and moved to our next room to settle in. Devon is a very good sleeper so far (which is of course bound to change as he gets older than 24 hours). We practiced some feeding, snuggling and diaper changing. Last night Auntie Becca and Uncle Chris came by to meet the little guy before they left town today. I’m pretty sure Becca would have taken him home with her if she could have. Her smile was that big...

Today (Sunday) has been about sleep, trying to get Devon to eat and starting my healing process. We hope to sleep a good amount again tonight and then bundle ourselves up tomorrow and head home after breakfast sometime.

Thank you for all the good wishes and happy thoughts. We are so excited for you all to meet and love our little guy. We’ll let you know when he and we are ready for visitors or playdates. Until then we will continue to put pictures up and keep you updated about new and exciting things in our little family!

2010 begins

The last 24 hours have been rather odd for me. I've been comparing it to the scene in Joe vs. the Volcano where they are on the ship in the green haze and everything is perfectly calm but you just know a huge change is around the corner coming closer.

Becca and Chris are in town for New Years so Becs and I walked around the Mall of America yesterday and then they headed out for a night on the town and we went to Maggie and Nick's first dinner party in the new place (looking fantastic and like a great home) with lobsters and steaks. I ALMOST made it to midnight but kiddo just wasn't up for it and about 11:15 we had to make our way home. Hope you all had a great night.

Today we slept in and I find myself very distracted. I am wandering about the house doing little things and tend to forget what I am doing and move on to the next thing before I finish the first thing. I'm not even actually thinking about anything specific but my mind is busy.

I was planning to go to water aerobics today but right before we were about to leave I changed my mind. Mostly I didn't want to deal with the 'What are you doing here?' questions over and over again even though bouncing in the water sure does feel good.

At 4pm we check in at the hospital and they will get me started on a drug called Cervadil which will work for at least 12 hours to get my cervix in better shape to try this whole labor and delivery idea. Open it up and thin it out basically. So tonight will be very low key as this doesn't necessarily produce any painful contractions. It could, but not necessarily.

Then tomorrow morning if things look good in there they will start me on Pitocin which WILL produce the painful and hopefully productive contractions to get Monkey moving. There is also the chance I may need do another round or two (12 hours each) of Cervadil before we start that phase. And then from there isn't anyone's guess. Kiddo could show up this evening or Sunday into Monday.

Thank you again for all of your good thoughts and support. We will have internet so we'll update our Facebook pages as we are able to and let you know if there is anything we need. Besides a happy and healthy baby and mom and dad :)