We love vegetables!!

This is Gabriel with zucchini on his face. It's his favorite vegetable - also the first one we tried. He just loves it. He's not making a super happy face right here, but that's mainly the effect of the camera, not the food. So, yes, we are eating veggies now, so far just zucchini and carrots. We just started the carrots a few days ago, but we've been doing zucchini for a couple of weeks. And we've given up on rice cereal. It is just too boring. Now we're eating oatmeal instead, and later this week we'll try a multi-grain cereal. Gabriel is also getting better at drinking water, both out of a real cup and a sippy cup. Yesterday I gave him diluted juice for the first time. One of the moms in my PEPS group suggested pear juice for constipation, so that's what we're trying. When I mentioned constipation in the last post, I was being naive - he was not constipated then. Now I know the difference! So anyway, hopefully the juice will help . . .
I don't really have any pictures this week unfortunately, my camera needs batteries before I can get any new ones from it to the computer. Fun things are happening besides vegetables though . . . we've discovered clapping!! Clapping is Gabriel's new favorite thing. And it really is the cutest thing in the world to see. I've started doing some baby signs with him, and now we're working on waving. He just loves doing things with his hands, and watching my hands. He also LOVES getting into EVERYTHING!! He can't even crawl, yet he manages to get into everything within reach, and many things that are just barely out of reach. He is working really hard on figuring out this crawling thing, so we really need to start paying attention to what's around him. I think Gabriel is going to be a very very entertaining (and a little bit difficult) little mover!
Another thing that happened since my last post was that we turned six months old!! So there was a doctor's visit, which went fine. Gabriel is right about average for both height and weight (oddly enough he's just above for weight, just below for height). He's about 18 lbs and a little over 26" long/tall. His head circumference is still well above average though, which I find amusing. He just needs a big head to hold that large brain of his!
And what post would be complete without a sleep update? Well at least we are getting good naps!! And night time sleep is a little bit better, but that's mainly because I've just completely given in. Which is a good thing. Sometimes you just have to let go and admit that you have no control over a situation (or person!). So when Gabriel simply will not stay asleep on his own in his crib, I just sleep with him. Unfortunately our bed is not big enough for the three of us, so this means Gabriel and I sleep on the couch, which is actually very comfortable, more so than the two of us in the bed. I'm also trying out sleeping in his room, on the recliner, when he is sleeping in his crib. This hasn't seemed to make a difference so far, however. Last night we actually got our longest stretch of sleep in ages, I think it was close to six hours! Of course it was on the couch, with Gabriel in my arms, but still. I read something by a mom who was going through a similar thing with her baby, and she said that she had to just stop worrying about the bad habits that the books told her she would be creating, and just give her baby what she needed. And it worked fine for her. So that's what I'm trying to do. If Gabriel needs to sleep with me for a little bit, I can do that. His sleeping habits will get better some day. I know they will . . .
Sorry for the super-boring pictureless post! I promise more pictures next time.

Father's Day and a visit from Grandma

Well, I have more complaining about sleep (or lack there of) to do, but I think that we're all pretty tired of that, so I won't. I'll just say that it's not really getting better yet, but now I think that constipation is the problem (we're just putting all the gory details out there!). So anyway . . . naps are getting back to normal though. Yesterday I moved him to his crib for his naps and he did fantastic! So that was exciting. I'm looking forward to moving him into his crib at night too. I was waiting until he was sleeping better, but if we hit six months and are still having problems, we'll just deal with it in his crib instead. He's too big for his bassinet now anyway.
The solid food is going well this time. It's probably the culprit of the constipation, but other than that he's handling it well. This week I'm going to start giving him servings at breakfast too, and maybe lunch when we're home. I'm waiting until he hits six months to introduce something other than rice cereal, unless he lets me know he's just super bored with it. I plan on making his food, except for the cereals, because I really don't see any reason to buy it when it seems so easy to make. I'm sure there will be updates on that, we'll see how it actually goes in practice. This is Gabriel eating in his chair - the other little baby seat was too hard to keep clean, and this one's meant for eating in anyway.
Our big news for this week was we had a surprise visit from Grandma Mary! She had been planning on coming up soon, so it wasn't a huge surprise, but we weren't expecting her this weekend until just a few days before. So she and her boyfriend Nick were able to join us for Robert's first Father's Day, which was fun. On Saturday we went to the Fremont Summer Solstice Festival. We took the bus into Seattle, because parking is always impossible. We caught some of the parade. We were going to try to take Gabriel in the Baby Bjorn, but he's pretty much grown out of it completely. He's just too tall, so no matter who's wearing it, you get hit in the chin with his little head. So we had to take a stroller into the madness. In order to avoid dealing with the car seat + stroller combo on the bus, we just put Gabriel in the big kid side of the stroller. He can sit up well enough, he's just a little small. So he looks kind of funny. But I think he enjoyed the different perspective.
We did practically nothing on Father's Day, just hung out all day. We did finally give Gabriel a mohawk, although his hair is so fine, and we only had hair wax, it didn't really stay up. But it was cute while it lasted. His hair is really goofy - because most of it fell out on the sides, the top middle is just super long, and the hair that has grown back in on the sides can't keep up. When it's not looking like a mohawk, it looks like a comb-over, which might be equally hilarious.
Here's hoping I have better things to report on the sleep front next week!
**Edit: sorry for cutting you partially out of that top picture Mary! Blogger can't seem to deal with a picture that big - maybe on different computers it displays better . . . **

The No-Cry Sleep Solution

As of last Thursday, we have given up on letting our little boy "cry it out". It was really just terrible. Honestly, I think it is a solution that can work for some babies - I'm not necessarily totally against it just because it didn't work for us. But it really really didn't work for us. Once you've listened to your baby scream his head off for more than two hours every night for five nights straight, you might come to the same conclusion. So now we're trying the appropriately named "no-cry" sleep solution, from the book of the same name, by Elizabeth Pantley.
Pantley's method is a collection of tactics to help your baby sleep better. She presents them all, and then you put together your own "sleep solution" from her ideas. Most of them were ones I'd at least heard of, some I've tried. The great thing about the book is that it is so encouraging. Like I said, I'd tried some of these methods, but when you don't see immediate results, you move on to the next thing. Pantley reminds you that expecting immediate results from anything is inappropriate. She has you log your progress only once every ten days - otherwise you won't see the progress you're looking for. So yes, it takes time. But she promises results, you must simply have patience. There's a lot more I could say about the book, because I really do like it, but there is also a lot more to say about Gabriel, and I like him better.
One of the suggested solutions that you can add to your plan is to introduce a "lovey" (or a snuggli, as I like to call it). Here is Gabriel with his snuggli - it's a little blankey thing that my Aunt Robyn made for him. In this picture he has pulled it over his face. He does this all the time now, with whatever blanket-type thing is handy, usually when he's sleepy. In this case, he pulled it over his face and then just lay there while I finished changing his diaper, and even while I ran and grabbed the camera. One of the times he did this I thought he was actually trying to play peek-a-boo with me, but I think now it might have been a coincidence. He was on the changing table, with his blanket over his face, and I said "Where's Gabriel?" He immediately yanked the blanket off his face and was smiling at me! But I've tried it since then and he hasn't really done it again, so it may have been just a super adorable coincidence.
In food-related news, we have reintroduced rice cereal. I've started using a super cool bib that I dug out - not sure who gave it to us, but both Gabriel and I really like it. It kind of distracts him while he's eating, but pretty much everything distracts him, so that's no big deal. So far we seem to be doing good with solid food - I've stopped giving Gabriel his multivitamin though, because I started it around the same time as the food, but if he has any problems, I won't know which it's from. So now hopefully I can narrow it down a little bit better.
And here is a picture of Gabriel doing his baby yoga. He's very limber, as babies are. This is the sort of thing he does when he's sleepy - he looks for something to snuggle against, and if nothing's close, he just flops over and rubs his face on his toes. Another cute thing he does now is play with his pacifier. I wasn't sure how I felt about pacifiers, although Gabriel really seemed to enjoy his, and he definitely needs them for sleep. But now I've decided that they're okay. With the one he uses during the day he is developing his fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. You can actually see the little wheels turning in his brain as he picks it up and figures out how its supposed to go in his mouth. He's really good at picking most of his toys up and manipulating them. It's a lot of fun to watch.
In mom-related news, I am excited to say that I am down to my pre-pregnancy weight. I have felt like I've weighed less since I was sick, but yesterday I confirmed it - I'm back to "normal". My goal was actually about five pounds less (I figure I might as well go for lower), but I honestly feel really good at the weight I am. I may always have a little mummy-tummy, but I'm not really concerned about that. Once I'm not suffering from so much sleep deprivation and able to consistently work out again, I may get down another five pounds. But I'm more concerned about staying active at this point. So hopefully we'll get this sleep deprivation problem solved soon.

Napping!!

Surprise, surprise, another post that revolves around sleep. I told you I was obsessed. But in this case I have mostly good things to report! Gabriel has decided to create his own naps during the day, right on schedule. According to the books (I know I shouldn't rely on what I read so much, but I can't help it), he's supposed to be developing two long naps, with a possible short late afternoon nap. And he's totally done it! I was just focusing on getting him down for at least 45 minutes after he'd been awake for an hour and a half or so. But he sort of shifted into these one and a half hour to two hour naps within the last week. I've been reading Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Marc Weissbluth, and he makes a big deal about "protecting the naps". He gives tips on how to get your child to take these two naps, and then stick with them for as long as they need them. I'm pretty stoked that we've already passed one step. Next is making sure he can actually fall asleep on his own. Currently we don't have much of a problem when it comes to falling asleep, but he does always do it while we're snuggling, on my lap. At least I've broken the rocking him to sleep habit!! So for naps, that's the next step. But I'm very happy with where we are right now.
This is Gabriel after he woke up from a recent nap. The funny thing about this picture is that he's turned himself completely perpendicular to the way I laid him down. And the blankets with the little bunnies on them? Those are supposed to act as bumpers on either side of him, simulating the wedge. He didn't seem bothered by all this movement - this was one of the long naps. I've since put the little music box/white noise maker in one of the cubbies below where he sleeps, now that he's become such a little mover. So no more cords in the bed, don't worry!
In further sleeping news, we have spent the past two nights trying the cry it out method, in very specific circumstances. Like I said, we don't have much of a problem falling asleep, although that is something we will work on in the future. The problem is the "night waking", and I don't mean for feeding. Gabriel will simply not stay asleep through the night, with the problem being the worst before midnight. I decided that I was tired of spending my evenings fighting to get him back to bed. So on Sunday night, when he woke up around 8 o'clock, I didn't go in to put him back to sleep. Of course he cried . . . for two and a half hours. So that was absolutely no fun. Once he fell back asleep, I went and checked on him, and he looked surprisingly similar to how he does in the picture above. He woke up again an hour or so later, which was a feeding wake-up, so I fed and changed him. He fell immediately back asleep and slept for eight hours without waking up. This seemed miraculous, and I was hopeful about future nights. Last night was terrible however. He didn't cry the whole time, in fact he had many quiet, talking to himself periods. But he didn't fall back asleep for three hours. After those three hours, I finally just picked him up to feed and change him. And then he woke up every couple of hours for the rest of the night. Of course, we don't want to have him crying it out when he's still sleeping in the same room as us, and Robert has to go to work the next day, so after midnight I just do my normal soothing back to sleep routine. So we're kind of a mess. Maybe I should have waited to try this until he is in his own room (which will happen soon, in the next couple of weeks). I am just so so tired of dealing with his waking up all the time. Dr. Weissbluth says that if babies are getting enough sleep, night waking should go away on its own - so protect the naps and put them down for early bedtimes. I'm going to try again tonight, but I'm giving it only two more nights, and if there's no improvement, we'll put the crying it out method on hold until he's in his own room.
Okay, that should be everything I have to say about sleep. In other news, we stopped the solid food feedings. I only did it for about a week, but he was having a lot of problems with his reflux and sleeping, and the solid food was not making it better, and was maybe making it worse. He recently started refusing his medication by clamping his little jaws shut (see picture), so I now have to force it down the back of his throat. But at least he's getting his full dose now. We went through a few weeks where that wasn't happening. So now his reflux is bothering him less, so we may try the solid food thing again soon. He at least seemed to enjoy it.
Other than the night-time sleeping/waking thing, we've been having fun. I was really sick last week (apparently breastfeeding just makes you more susceptible - I even got three cold sores!), but Gabriel managed to fight it off. He got a fever for one day, and was lethargic for a couple days, but he didn't get really sick. During that time however he started making this face. It's combined with heavy breathing through his nose, so it's really funny, even though he doesn't seem particularly happy when he does it. I thought maybe his nose was bothering him. I think that may have been the case, because he's been doing it less the past few days. I don't know if he appreciates us laughing at him and making the face back at him every time, but it's kind of hard not to.
Gabriel is sitting up really well, and all the time. He lets me know he's done eating by clenching his stomach muscles and trying to sit up on his own. I still put him on his back and his tummy for some play time, but for the most part we do this. I just vary the location and the toys involved. We also use the exersaucer, but not as much. When he's on his tummy he tries to crawl - he lifts his butt up off the ground and gets on his knees, but then of course he can't go anywhere. He's still not rolling over, but he's getting closer to doing so, and he actually seems like maybe he wants to now. He falls forward sometimes when he's sitting up, and ends up on his tummy. Usually its when he's trying to get something that's out of reach. I think that's what's going to get him crawling more than anything else!
I think that's about it - hopefully next week I will have positive things to report about nighttime sleeping!! Meanwhile, enjoy some more pictures. This is the hoped-for picture of Gabriel munching on his toes. And this is Gabriel with his friends Avery (left) and Brian (center). I get together with their moms Merrie and MJ (and one other mom Jennille and her little girl Piper) about once a week. Merrie recently went back to work, so we'll be seeing her only once a month or so from now on. I'll also be getting together with the ladies I met in my PEPS group (another new moms group) on a weekly basis, so maybe I'll have more to say about them soon.

Sleep - it's always about Sleep

I'm pretty sure that just about every mom has a single issue that consumes their thoughts about their child, an issue that they bring up every time they talk to another mom, simply because they can't help thinking about it. For me, that issue is sleep. At first it was nighttime sleep, then it became napping, and now we're back to nighttime sleep again. It's a little sad how obsessed with this issue I am.
Lately we've been having a big problem with staying asleep at night. We had gotten to the point where I would put Gabriel down for bed around 9 or 10, then he would sleep till 7-ish, with one wake up during the night for feeding. Well I decided that he was ready for an earlier bedtime, one that would allow me to actually see my husband when he came home from work, before I collapsed into bed myself. Gabriel had proven that he could sleep from midnight to 7-ish, having done so a handful of times, so I thought we would just move his feeding time, and just do one feeding for the whole night. What I neglected to realize was that this was effectively removing one feeding. It seemed okay at first, but over the past few weeks, it's just gotten more and more difficult. Gabriel will typically fall asleep when I want him to, but for the past two weeks, he has woken up every single hour until his midnight feeding. This does not help Robert and I get more time together, needless to say. You'd think I would have figured out that he was still hungry because I'd eliminated one of his feedings, but no, this simple fact did not dawn on me until this weekend. So the new solution, which is already working better, is that I do our normal bedtime routine (with one new addition! see below!), then I feed him around 9-ish when he wakes up. Then I feed him again in the middle of the night - it's been around 1am the past couple of nights. I think he's still not getting quite enough to eat at that middle of the night feeding - he's been waking up between 4 and 5 every morning, then I get him back to sleep until 6-ish. I think he just needs to get used to the new schedule still; I'm really not interested in doing three feedings at night - he's big enough that he shouldn't still need that many.
Other sleep issues that we have recently come up against deal with where Gabriel sleeps. Since we first brought him home, he has slept in the bassinet top of our pack'n'play, right next to the bed. When he was diagnosed with reflux, we were given this sleeping wedge for him. I finally took some pictures of him in it. I really wish I would have done so when we first got it, just to compare how much he's grown. As you can see, being swaddled while in the wedge is a pretty funny sight. (A friend of mine said he looks like Frankenstein's monster on the table.) He's pretty much grown out of it, and while they can make me one that he will fit in until he's six months old, I decided we were just going to end it. So for the past two days he's slept with the mattress raised, and two little bumpers on either side of him, so that it feels similar to the wedge. So far this seems to be working great.
And now for some fun, still sort of sleep-related news! We have started Gabriel on solid foods! Sunday night was the first time. As you can see, he had a great time. It was very entertaining, and I think he even swallowed some. Last night I fed him again, and he actually "ate" all that I made for him. This was only a couple of tablespoons, but still. He definitely got some inside his tummy! He really seems to enjoy eating, and we've had no bad reactions to the rice cereal. I'll be sticking with rice cereal until he's six months old. I'm going to take it really slow with introducing new foods because of all of my own food allergies. Hopefully he'll be like his daddy, and have no food allergies at all! (I mentioned that this was sleep-related because hopefully having solid food in him will help him stay asleep better.)
I will do my best to post weekly from now on. There's always something new going on. Besides everything else, Gabriel managed to get a big toe in his mouth last night! I'll be working on getting a picture of that this week.

Pictures!

Okay, so here is the picture post that was promised. Blogger sometimes does funny things, so I am apologizing in advance if this post looks goofy. Sometimes it displays fine on my computer, but looks all screwy on other people's. Hopefully it won't be too bad.
So first we have pictures taken when all of Gabriel's West relatives visited. This was at the very end of March, so Gabriel is almost three months old in these pictures.
Here's Gabriel with Uncle Alex.
Next is Gabriel with all the West boys: Alex, Jacob, Robert, and Grandpa Jim.
Next is a picture of Aunt Katie with a sleeping Gabriel.
Then we have two pictures of Gabriel in his baby carrier - one with Robert at Pike's Place, one with me at the dog park.
The next four pictures were all taken of Gabriel during the month of April. We have him sucking his thumb, rocking tummy time, hanging out in his swing (which he will no longer do), and sitting in his baby chair with George.
So there you have it. I'll try to post more often from now on, maybe even weekly!!

Holy Cow time flies by

Yes I know! I can hardly believe I'm posting either!! But here we are . . .
So last time I posted was about three months ago. And sleep was such an issue. Ah, sleep, ever the issue. It's amazing, once night time sleep became less of an issue, napping was all I talked about. I'm obsessed. We're still working on the napping/sleeping stuff, but more on that later.
First, updates and stuff! I think I'll be skimpy on the pictures right now, and do a whole picture post later (the first picture is from around six weeks, I think, and the last is the most recent one, from just a few days ago!). So . . .
When we hit six weeks, which as I mentioned is supposed to be when things settle down, we ended up taking Gabriel for his first Emergency Room visit. On Valentine's Day! We went to the wonderful Seattle Children's Hospital because our poor baby boy was unable to eat. Skipping all the drama, we found out he had Gastro-Esophageal Reflux Disorder. Otherwise known as baby acid reflux. So he's been on medication for that ever since then, and its been a fun experiment with keeping him upright as much as possible. He's been sleeping on a giant foam wedge ever since then, but I think all the propping up made him able to sit up earlier, and actually helped strengthen his little neck muscles. He should start growing out of the reflux soon, and I'm already cutting down on the medicine, trying to slowly phase it out. He's practically grown out of the wedge, so we'll be seeing what sleep is like out of that soon.
Speaking of sleep, we now get nice long chunks of sleep, or we were, until I recently decided to mess with it. My friend Merrie, from my You and Your New Baby class, recommended giving swaddling another try. That did the trick, and we got to where Gabriel was only waking up once during the night to eat, around 3 or 4 in the morning. Well I decided I wanted to put him to bed earlier (he wanted it too), so now he goes to bed at 7pm or so. This means he's hungry earlier, more like midnight or 1am. Then he sleeps (theoretically) until 7am or so. Robert has been taking that late feeding, with the idea that I could sort of sleep through it. But Gabriel is having a really hard time adjusting, so he has a very hard time falling back asleep after the midnight feeding. Hopefully we'll get it all straightened out, because being awake for two hours in the middle of the night again is not what I had in mind!
I've been breastfeeding exclusively since Gabriel was about eight weeks old. He didn't really need the supplemental formula after his first month or so, but we kept it up anyway. Then I decided that it was unnecessary, and I now breastfeed in public and pump to supply bottles. He still eats every two to three hours during the day, but he's gotten much more efficient. We may start rice cereal soon, we'll be seeing the doctor on Thursday to discuss it.
As far as napping goes, we've got a pretty good routine down. However Gabriel has been super cranky the past few days, and I think its due to lack of sleep. He's also periodically cranky from teething (early) and really bad gas (which also took us to the hospital, twice), but this is different. So normally I let him nap for as long as he wants to, which is usually only 45 min to an hour at the most. But right before I began this post, he woke up from a 45 minute nap, and I said, "Nope, you are going back to sleep mister." And he did! One habit that we'll have to break soon is the rocking back to sleep thing. He needs to be able to fall asleep on his own, not being rocked all the time. But right now I just want him to sleep.
There's all sorts of fun developmental stuff going on too, but I'll update that later as well. Really I will!

Fussy Time!

I have been meaning to post for a week now, and just haven't gotten around to it. I've been a little bit busy! So now Gabriel is almost four weeks old, if you can believe it!
At three weeks babies start getting fussy, and some get colicky, although we haven't had that problem with Gabriel. But we sure have seen the fussiness! And this kid can scream when he gets pissed, that's for sure. We've had a couple of truly sleepless nights, the worst being this last Saturday, when Gabriel decided that he really really wasn't going to sleep, and he was going to cry off and on for no reason that his parents could figure out. He also insisted on eating every hour, which was really making me crazy (and even more exhausted!). At three weeks babies also go through a growth spurt, so I think we were facing a combination of issues. The third part of our combo was the fact that I drink coffee on the weekends. Not all babies are sensitive to caffeine (supposedly), but I've decided that Gabriel is. So now we know.
We have seen some fun milestones in the past couple of weeks. As I mentioned before, his umbilical cord came off. We gave him a bath last week, and took a couple of videos. (I will try to include a little clip montage that I made with our video software.) Gabriel is interacting a little bit more with us and with his surroundings as well. He swipes at objects, usually the toys on his little play mat, although he doesn't always hit them. He also seems to enjoy being sung to, when it involves direct eye contact. He sometimes takes a minute or two to start reacting and interacting, but once he does, it's obvious that he's taking it all in. He can maintain eye contact and focus on a face. He does okay with tummy time - sometimes he just falls asleep, but he has been known to lift his head and turn it to the other side. He's also grown, although by how much it's hard to tell.
We have our first "You and Your New Baby" class on Wednesday. That should be exciting, and will give me practice taking Gabriel out and spending significant amounts of time somewhere other than home. I have taken him out, but only on brief shopping trips or walks to the park, nothing that involves him interacting with anything (he's usually asleep) or staying somewhere long enough to feed him or change his diaper. So we'll see how it goes!

Two weeks old

Gabriel turned two weeks old yesterday - it already seems like he's been with us for longer than that!! It has been a rather momentous two weeks, I suppose.
We're all doing well, just getting used to the sleep schedule. Of which there isn't really one. I was running just fine on five hours a night (divided, depending on his feeding schedule), but now I'm starting to feel the effects more. It will still be a while before he's even sleeping for five hours straight, so I suppose I just need to get used to it. It's not so bad, since I can try and take naps during the day. The worst is when Gabriel won't go to sleep and we can't figure out why. That usually happens when we're trying to go to bed, around midnight or so. Last night he decided he was going to stay up until 3am, for no particular reason. Usually its more like 2, if he does it. Otherwise he just goes down after I feed him, and we're able to get to sleep. I think it's only been once that he's decided to stay awake after a later feeding - although granted I am all muddled when that happens, from lack of sleep, so I could be forgetting instances.
For a week or so Gabriel seemed to be doing this cluster feeding thing that was really tiring. It seemed like he just wanted to eat constantly, which was really draining for me. When you're breastfeeding, the baby can eat as often as he needs to, so if he thinks he's hungry, he should be fed. It just gets tiring after a while. For the past few days its been a little more normal, but supposedly he'll have another growth spurt at three weeks, so we'll be in for more heavy feeding I suppose. My milk has totally come in, so I'm no longer worried about him getting enough food from me.
We took Gabriel to the doctor last week, when he was nine days old. She weighed him again, and he has passed his birth weight, which is good news. He was just under eight pounds. That puts him in the 25th percentile for his weight, but he is in the 50th percentile for both his length and head circumference, so I suppose he just needs to continue to put on weight. Which I am quite sure he has been doing. He got a clean bill of health from the pediatrician, and won't see her again until he is two months old. The next day we took him back to the hospital for a final series of metabolic tests. We haven't seen any results, but the pediatrician is supposed to call us when she gets them. They took a ton of blood for these, poor little guy.
In other big news, Gabriel's umbilical cord just fell off this afternoon!! It was looking very uncomfortable, so I'm glad it's off now.
We've taken Gabriel out on two walks this week in his stroller, when the sun is out. He doesn't really seem to know what to make of these adventures. I'll have to take a picture of his face the next time we go - it really is hilarious, very pensive. And George seems to have totally mellowed out concerning Gabriel. No more barking when he hears him cry. He really enjoys sniffing Gabriel whenever he gets the chance - I think he's still trying to figure things out a little bit.
Those are the updates I can think of right now. I've included more recent pictures, although not in any particular order (this last picture is of Gabriel with his Grandma Mary, who is staying with us this week). I'll experiment with uploading videos as well - not really sure how that works on blogger, we may have to put them on youtube first. I brought home a stack of books from the library today, all on newborn care and development. We'll see if any of those prove useful to our new life with the little guy.

The birth of Gabriel

Here is the story of Gabriel's birth, complete with pictures, although the pictures may not be in any sort of order.
As I mentioned in a post last week, the doctor had decided to let my body go ahead and go into labor naturally, but it had not done so by last Monday when we were at the doctor's office. Because of the "maturity" of my placenta, the doctor decided to induce on Monday evening. So we checked into the hospital at 6pm on Monday the 4th, and began the cytotec induction at around 6:40. Labor began for real a little while later, but was still a result of the cytotec, so they were keeping an eye on my progress, and thought they might do pitocin (to further augment the labor) if my body didn't do it on its own. But by midnight, they decided that my body had taken over and I was able to progress without anything else (for which I was very grateful). Around that time my contractions were three to four minutes apart, and becoming so that I could no longer talk through the peak of them. My mom was getting some sleep at that point, and I was trying to, so there wasn't much talking going on anyway. The nurse would periodically come in and check, and even though sometimes the contractions would spread out a little bit (to more than four minutes apart), she still decided I was good without pitocin. She checked my progress a few times, and I had progressed to 3 and a half centimeters or so by 4am-ish. (The checking was the most painful thing I had endured up to that point - it was way worse than the contractions I was having then.)
It was around then that my contractions became more unbearably painful. Up until that point I had been doing shallow breaths through them, and that seemed to really help. Time went by fairly quickly. Sometime close to 5am, however, they got so bad that I had to take really deep breaths just to distract myself, and squeeze something really really hard with my hands to get through it. I am not much of a noise-maker, so the nurse said I looked calm, even though my pain level was getting up to an 8 or 9. The worst part was that my contractions started slowing down, with more time in between, but they were lasting for longer, sometimes feeling like there were multiple peaks. This was not what they want to see in labor, it doesn't count as any kind of progress. I endured about an hour and a half of this before the doctor came in. She checked me and said that not only had I not progressed in dilation in more than a couple of hours, but also that the baby had moved out of position. This meant that labor would only slow down further, without him pressing on my cervix to get it to dilate. She broke my water, and said that we would try a few different positions to try to help him get back into position again.
Throughout this whole entire process, Gabriel's heart rate was not consistent. They had seen this in a couple of my non-stress tests (the monitoring they were doing at the hospital in the weeks before the birth) - his heart rate seemed more stable in certain positions; it wasn't bad in others, but was not as good. But at those visits it was not enough to worry them. The night that I was in labor, it was bad enough that the only position that his heart rate did not drop in was on my right side. Anywhere else I turned, or when I got up dropped it, sometimes by half. So that was concerning, but because labor was progressing all night, they weren't too concerned. I was just more uncomfortable.
Around 7am or so, they started helping me change positions in order to get Gabriel to move back into position. Because of the heart rate issue, however, they had to keep me on oxygen, otherwise it would drop. Unfortunately, none of the positions helped, and my contractions were at their absolute worst. I was so exhausted that I was falling asleep in the minutes between them, but then they would come and I would be practically incapacitated. They were so bad that I began throwing up after every few. The worst part about this was that I still wasn't progressing, and Gabriel still wasn't back in position, so I felt like I had to look forward to several more hours of this when I could barely handle it then. The doctor had mentioned that an epidural may be a good idea, not for my pain management, but in order to help the baby move back into place. As much as I did not want to do an epidural, I had to think about the option. When my water broke, there was myconium in it, which meant that we would already have a neonatal doctor and a few more nurses in the room for the actual birth - they would have to do more with Gabriel to make sure he was okay right after birth because he was obviously already in distress. So the side effects that worried me about the epidural were basically already happening. The idea that I might have to endure more hours of that level of pain and exhaustion were more than I could really bear, so I went ahead and got the epidural. That was sometime between 9 or 10 in the morning, so I had been in labor for about twelve hours, five of which had been at the limit of my pain threshold.
Sometime around 7 or 8, so before I got the epidural, Gabriel's heart rate began to drop with each contraction. This is expected right before birth, because the baby is heading down through the birth canal. It is not a good sign when you are barely four centimeters dilated. This was yet another sign that Gabriel was in distress. After getting the epidural, my contractions got a little more regular again, but they were still unable to get Gabriel to move into position at all, and I did not progress past four centimeters in the few hours that I was laboring in different positions (even with the epidural, I was able to change positions with help - I just couldn't get out of bed). So around 1pm, the doctor came in and said that with as many hours as Gabriel had been in distress, we needed to do something different. She said he was still doing okay, but they could not do anything else to progress my labor. They could not give me anything that would make the contractions harder or more regular, such as pitocin, because his heart rate was not stable enough. Leaving my body to continue the way it was was only wearing us both out, and not getting the baby delivered. So she decided to do a cesarean section. I was so exhausted and frustrated that I was not really bothered by the idea. I was worried about what had gone wrong that caused Gabriel to move, when he'd been in that position for a week or more. It happened when my body was no longer on the cytotec, so it was not that, but it really is unclear what actually caused it. The whole heart rate thing was worrying as well. So although I absolutely did not want a C-section before, now it seemed like our best option for delivering a healthy baby.
Because I was already on the epidural, they just changed the medication to make it so that I could have the surgery. They gave Robert some scrubs, and told my mom she would have to wait in the waiting room. They wheeled me to the operating room and were ready within a half an hour. Robert joined us, and they got started. In less than ten minutes I heard Gabriel crying. I started to cry, even though I couldn't even see him yet (I'm tearing up now just thinking about it). They cut his cord and sucked out the amniotic fluid and myconium that had gotten in his nose, mouth, and lungs. Then they took him over to the scale and began the process of weighing and recording everything. Robert had brought the camera, so he took some pictures, and I think one of the nurses took a couple as well. They were already sewing me back together by then.
Gabriel was completely healthy, just screaming bloody murder. The doctor said that the umbilical cord had been in his face, but did not really look kinked or anything, so she did not think it was the cause of distress. They sent my placenta to a pathology lab to see if they could find out if it was the cause. But otherwise, we have no answers as to why things happened the way they did.
My recovery has been really good. I really do have a pretty high pain threshold, so even though I had major abdominal surgery, I don't really feel bad. It still doesn't feel quite real. I was afraid that I'd be disappointed or upset if I had the sort of birth experience that I ended up having, but I am honestly okay with it. It may be that if I hadn't been induced at all, the chain of events that happened would not have happened that way, and I would not have needed the Cesarean. But when the doctor got the pathology report back on my placenta, she said that it showed signs that would have led to an infection in the amniotic fluid in a day or so. That is very bad, and is something that might not have been caught had the doctor sent me home to go into labor on my own. Who knows? That was not the cause of the baby's distress either, but just one more thing that we learned about what was going on. I do not feel guilty for my choices during the birth, or for not having a natural birth as I had wanted. We did the best we could at the time, and Gabriel and I are both healthy and doing well. That's really the most that we can hope for after any birth.

Welcome to the world, Gabriel Joseph West!!

That's right, he's here!! Our beautiful little boy was born on Tuesday, January 5th, at 2:39 in the afternoon. He weighed seven pounds, twelve ounces, and is twenty and a half inches long. He really is the most beautiful baby boy ever!! I have lots of pictures already. I'll post some here. I'm going to try to keep this updated as much as possible, but obviously its taken me almost a week to get this post up, so we'll see how that actually goes.
Gabriel is doing really well, after getting off to a rather rough start. I will do a separate post to tell all about his birth. The short story is that I ended up needing a Cesarean section to deliver, but the only effect he really suffered from that was having more amniotic fluid in his digestive system than usual. He spent the first day or so spitting that up. He passed all of his blood sugar tests, for which we were grateful. However, on Thursday, the day we were supposed to leave the hospital, we were noticing that his lips and mouth were really dry - his lips were even sticking together! None of the nurses really noticed this when they checked him. Robert pointed it out to his pediatrician when she came by for her second visit. She realized that Gabriel must be really dehydrated. She ordered that we put him on formula supplements to get him rehydrated. They also weighed him, and he had already lost ten percent of his birth weight, which is the most they want to see babies lose. I think it usually takes them three or four days to get to that point though, and then they start putting on weight again. Our little Gabriel was simply not getting enough to eat!! I felt like I was feeding a lot, so it was probably my breast milk that wasn't getting enough hydration and nutrients to him, and not his inability to feed. He was so super fussy those first two days in the hospital. He was really gassy, so we thought that was the main problem, but as soon as we started getting formula into him, he began to feel better. We waited for a few extra hours at the hospital, hoping for a wet diaper (which he hadn't had for 24 hours), but eventually they just sent us home, with a promise we would see the pediatrician in the morning.
On Friday morning we got our wet diaper, finally. The pediatrician was relieved, and so were we. Gabriel was obviously feeling better as well! On Saturday we had a visit with the lactation consultant, and we learned that Gabriel had gained back five ounces! He was eating so much, but its obvious that he knew what he wanted. The visit with the consultant showed that as of Saturday, my breast milk still was not providing quite a full meal for Gabriel, although my milk started coming in. She told me what I could do to help it along, and already its helping. We didn't give any formula supplements at all last night, because Gabriel didn't seem to be hungry after breastfeeding. Sometimes he eats so much more than the "typical" amount per feeding, but I think that if he's hungry, he needs to eat! He knows what his body needs better than my books do. I am glad that my own supply is starting to be enough for him though.
Life with Gabriel is lovely. It seems to consist of constantly feeding for me, but I know that there are other things going on as well. He's started sleeping a little more, and he has nice long quiet alert periods that he likes to spend staring at his daddy's face. We still have some frustration with feeding, as he hasn't gotten the hang of latching on down to perfection yet. But for a baby who is less than a week old, I think he's doing wonderfully. We also are still trying to figure out a lot of his crying signals. He still seems to be really gassy, so he almost always needs to be burped. That makes him unhappy, but sometimes its hard to figure out that's what he needs. Otherwise he's a lovely, happy baby.
Okay, this is the longest post ever, but I'll finish up by saying that George has been home with Gabriel for a little more than a day, and he seems to be doing okay. For the most part the only thing that upsets him is when Gabriel cries. Not every time - throughout the night George just kind of comes over and checks on him. But sometimes it really startles him, especially if Gabriel is asleep in the other room. Then when George hears him cry he freaks out and runs into the other room barking and growling. Gabriel doesn't seem to mind (he's already crying, after all), but it's still not great to have the dog running over and barking in his face. George calms down really quick when this happens, but it sort of mystifies us. I'm sure he'll figure it out eventually. Otherwise, he's really cute around Gabriel. He'll usually come over and check him out if he's on somebody's lap, getting close enough to sniff his ear. It's hard to tell what he thinks of the whole thing. He knows that he's no longer allowed on our bed, and this change doesn't seem to bother him too much. We'll keep an eye on how things progress as Gabriel gets bigger.
I'll try to do another post tomorrow, telling Gabriel's birth story. Also, I have to mention that having my mom around has been amazing. She leaves tomorrow. This post is already super long, so I'm stopping now. (Here is a link to the Picasa web album I've created - I'll be updating it as regularly as I can, so check there for pictures!)

Almost there - with pictures!

These will probably be the last pictures of my pregnant tummy, which is exciting for everyone! I had Robert take two, so you can see the difference - I feel like I don't look as huge when I'm clothed. He also took these pictures from sitting down, which makes them a little off, but overall they're a fairly accurate depiction of how large I am. I even developed a few stretch marks here at the end, just in the last couple of weeks. They are just hiding below my belly button, which means that I can't really see them - even in a mirror they're difficult for me to find. The only ones I can see are a fairly amusing "x" that has appeared atop the scar from my naval piercing. That was looking odd enough without the stretch marks.
After the past couple of weeks excitement about when the doctor would decide to induce, it now seems that she has decided that my body can handle itself. This going back and forth is making me a little nuts, but I can't really complain, since I would like to be able to go into labor naturally, if my body will do so. I guess that just shows how well I've done over the past few weeks, in terms of keeping my blood sugar under control and what-not. It's still not great, but Gabriel is still doing fantastic, and the doctor is no longer as worried about either of us suffering terrible side effects. I don't even have to go to the hospital for extra monitoring this week! Now I just get to hope I go into labor this week. My due date is this Saturday, and I don't believe the doctor will let me wait for labor on my own after next Monday. And we are ready for this baby! We really thought that she would want to induce early this week, so we are pretty good to go. My mom is flying in tonight, so that she can be here for the birth. I'm glad we'll have at least a day or two with her without the baby, because she'll be able to help me look at the baby's room with new eyes, and hopefully figure out how to organize it a little better, I think.
So we should all think labor-ful thoughts for me this week! I have been feeling stronger contractions since early this morning, but still nothing regular, or even strong enough to pay much attention to. Maybe we'll get a New Year's baby after all!
And just for fun, I thought I would include a picture of our little Christmas tree, and the other member of our small family, George. We had a lovely Christmas just with our own small bunch. I missed seeing all of our family as we are so used to, but it was nice to be able to be relaxed and just focused on ourselves for this year. As I mentioned before, we feel as though Gabriel is already here enjoying it all with us. We are so ready for him!! Soon . . . and maybe by the next time I post it will be with a new baby to show you!

32 weeks - That's 8 months people!

Here is the latest picture, although it doesn't really give you a good idea of how large I feel. There is seriously a baby in there - either that or an alien creature, but we're pretty sure it's a baby.
The main stuff I have to report in this post is just how freakin' uncomfortable I've been!! My hips hurt almost constantly, as do my ribs, especially on the right. I keep expecting to see swollen and bruised skin, but it looks normal. It just hurts! The past couple weeks have definitely made a difference, and that baby just keeps pushing everything out of his way. My lungs are compressed so that I am almost always short of breath, no matter what I'm doing. And my poor stomach is squished - heartburn was bad enough, but now I feel queasy a lot of the time as well.
So that's my whine/rant about how uncomfortable my third trimester is. Sleeping has become difficult, but I've perfected my ability to nap, so that's not that huge. I'm not keeping up with school like I was because I really just can't sit at my computer for that long anymore. But that's okay. Now I'm back to how I was doing when I was working and in school. I am super glad that I am lucky enough to not have to work during this part of the pregnancy - I am just not one of those women who could do it!
I have another doctor's appointment this week - soon we'll be seeing her once a week! We'll see how much bigger I've gotten in two weeks. Also, I get my swine flu vaccination today. I think that's pretty exciting. I had decided not to get the regular flu shot, but now I'm wavering on that decision again. I've never gotten it before, and if it were just for myself, I would not be getting it this year either. But it's supposed to protect your baby even after birth, which is good. So we'll see.