Wow. Nicholas is 5 months old. I have meant hundreds of times before to write about him, but he does occupy quite a bit of my time. I wanted to write about the first times he smiled at me. How I felt like he and I were in on a big secret the first time he melted my heart with his little grin, how I now believe that Motherhood causes your heart to enlarge infinitely and your brains to shrink in inverse proportions. How blessed I am that I have a healthy baby, and how blessed I am that I have a good baby. How it almost brings tears to my eyes when his eyes connect with mine and he smiles with all his heart. How awful I felt when I saw tears form in his eyes for the first time. How absolutely powerless I felt when he was in pain or sick, and there was nothing I could do but love him. How I feel like a milk cow, now that I now know what breasts are really for. How I would do ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING for him.
I had an epiphany when he was about two or three months old one morning, as we were lying in bed: I can not believe that my mother loved me this much. She must still love me this much. Wow. That makes so much sense. I can't believe she has taken my crap for so long. I see everyone in a different light now. My heart is bigger, and compassion is still overflowing. I even think of my dad when he was Nicholas' age, how much his mother must have loved him. My paternal grandmother lost two of her three children in childhood. I would imagine that would kill me dead. I never met her, but I can only imagine how strong a person would be able to survive something like that. See, even now I have to put thoughts like that out of my mind so I don't break down.
I read in the paper about all of these families that needed help during the Holiday season. A family would be listed, and their wish list of sorts would follow. Most of the things they wanted were just what you or I would consider basic necessities, like a new air conditioner or a nebulizer for an asthmatic child. I couldn't even read them all becaue I was ready to clean out my bank account trying to help them. I can't thank God enough for giving me the most valuable and important gift possible, the health of my child. I can only love him as much as I can and try to make the best choices for him. May God grant me the strength I will need.
Okay, enough of that. Here are the good things: Nicholas just rolled over for the first time yesterday. He's a little late in comparison to his "peers," but he's a very heavy baby, so it was pretty difficult for him to sling all of that weight over his center of gravity. I can't believe he is already 5 months old! I've known him for almost half a year!
His new thing is squawking like a bird. He mostly does it in inhalations. He loves to squawk, and he's gotten pretty good and loud about it. If you do it back to him, he'll "answer" you, so it's pretty easy to get into a screech-fest with him. He just seems to be enjoying the exploration of his voice, which is really funny. It is not funny, however, when he does it at 5 in the morning. He's been waking up (and going to sleep) earlier, and his new greeting is pretty loud. Until now, he would always just open his eyes and grunt a little. I would hear him or feel him squirming around, and I would open my eyes to his wide awake face right there.
He is still sleeping with us. I've tried the last two nights to put him in his own room, but honestly, I haven't tried very hard. I did begin feeding him rice cereal last night in the hopes that he would stay asleep longer. I put him in his crib at about 9, but he woke up at 11:30 wanting to nurse. I don't really believe that he wanted to nurse because he was hungry, but rather just for comfort. We had a few people over, so when I brought him downstairs, he was too interested in the activity in the house to really stay asleep. When I tried to put him back in his crib, it was a No Go. I brought him to bed with me to nurse, hopefully until he fell asleep so I could put him back in his own bed. Well, I beat him to sleep, so once again he spent the entire night with us. I'll try again tonight.
I was going to feed him rice cereal again this morning, but I couldn't really justify it. I want to breastfeed for a year or so, and I feel like if I rush him into eating three squares a day, he won't want to nurse. I don't want to put him on formula. I think that for now, I'll just stick to the evening cereal/food feedings in the hopes that it will allow him to sleep for a longer period of time.
I do love sleeping with him. He's such a little snuggle bug. I love to put his little (big) legs up on my legs as I kind of spoon around him. He's so soft and squishy, and he just smells so wonderful. Honestly, I haven't tried very hard to get him to sleep in his own room. Now that I have his crib in a safer place, I've eliminated another excuse to not let him sleep alone. (It was underneath a vent that was blowing some sort of dust onto his sheets... I can't let my baby sleep under that. I'm going to have someone come out here and clean those ducts out, pronto.) I am going to try harder, and hopefully by the end of this week he'll be snoozing in his crib solo. I will be so sad.
His new favorite thing is biting my chin. He's teething, so I know it probably feels good to him, but it does not feel good to me. Although he doesn't have any teeth yet, his jaws are very strong. That hurts. He grabs hold of my hair (from behind my neck), and he pulls me into him in order to bite me. This is one strong little baby! The hair pulling really, really hurts. Sometimes, if he can't grab my hair, he'll go for my ear. That hurts too, and I'm very afraid that he's going to rip my earring out (my new diamond earring, thank you JohnStewart).
He's currently sleeping his his swing in front of the tv. He was watching one of his Baby Einstein videos, and he finally just conked out. He's holding a chilled teething ring tightly, but he never put it to his mouth. I think he's about to wake up. The squirming has begun. See, in the past, I would have taken these few minutes that I have spent writing this to take a bath or clean the kitchen. Today is New Year's Eve, so I think it was entirely appropriate that I took this opportunity to reflect on this year and the single most important thing that has ever or may ever happen to me. I would really like to have another baby, but I may not be in agreement with the other necessary party on that subject. JohnStewart says "one and done," but I think he is mostly teasing me. I want Nicholas to have a sibling that he loves as much as John loves his brother. I want him to have someone to play with and someone to idolize him (besides me). I'm ready now. Honestly, I was ready ten minutes after he was born. I'm sure that if his birth hadn't been as perfect and easy as it was I'd probably be singing a different tune, but I want to experience this joy once more.
Wide awake baby.
Happy New Year to you all. May you be blessed as much as John and I are.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Our Birth Story
So... I have been meaning to write this all down, but my free time has been a little limited as of late.
Nicholas Clifton Stewart was born on July 26, 2006. The following is an abridged version of our birth story:
Scheduled to be induced on Wednesday the 26th, I went in to see my doctor on Tuesday the 25th. I was very dialated and effaced, and I was instructed to be at the hospital before 7 the next morning. Wouldn't you know, I started having contractions almost immediately after returning home from seeing my doctor.
My contractions weren't painful at all, but they were regular. Every 6 minutes, like clockwork, for 4 hours, until I decided to call my doctor. Upon her recommendation, we went to the hospital to make sure I would be able to get my epidural. I would need to get IV fluids and have labs drawn before I could have this epidural, so we needed to go ahead and get on the move.
We arrived in Triage, where we had to face the Triage Bouncer, a lady who was quite overwhelmed by the masses of pregnant women there attrmpting to give birth. There were certainly more people there begging admittance than there were rooms to accomodate them. The ladies on either side of us, I'm afraid, were both sent home. (This night was not only a new moon, but also a little more than 9 months after Hurricane Wilma.)We were green lighted and given a room rather promptly, and we soon received nice nurses.
I was immediately given an IV and hooked up to many monitoring devices, and I was told that I could have nothing to drink, something that was simply horrifying to me. I was so so so thirsty! Our nice nurses made us very comfortable, but my contractions began to suddenly get much, much more intense. By 1 a.m., I was asking for my epidutal. It was then that I learned that the only anesthesiologist there was performing 5 C-sections that night, and I would have to wait my turn. On top of that, the noise that I kept hearing outside our window was not the lawnmower that I envisioned, but the trauma helicopter delivering people who also needed the asesthesiologist's attention.
So by 1 or 1:30, without my beloved epidural, I asked for the drugs. Please give me drugs. I was given Nubain, which made me feel like my tongue was bigger than the space that my mouth had to offer. I now had to focus all of my attention on simply swallowing. I could still feel my contractions, but I just didn't care so much about them. This was fine, but it kind of started to wear off by 3:30. Thankfully, that was when my saint of an anesthesiologist arrived.
A small break in his schedule allowed him to administer my epidural. Had the next trauma arrived five minutes sooner, I probably would have had to go until after 8 a.m. without it. For some reason, John was asked to leave the room, but he came back around 4:30, when I was extremely, extremely happy. I couldn't feel a thing. But thirst. My wonderful JohnStewart fed me ice chips almost all night long. When he wasn't doing that, he was attempting to sleep on this little foldout chair contraption. He was awakened probably every thirty or so minutes, between my nurse Julie and our doctor coming in to check on my progress.
Sadly, the drugs and the epidural slowed down my labor. By 6 a.m. I was only dialated to 6 cm. We decided to wait for the next doctor's shift to begin at 8, at which time she would break my water.
So that's what we did. Dr. Cook and my new nurse, Erin, broke my water, but I still resisted dialating further. John and I slept all morning. By 11, they decided to place the baby's monitor on his head. When they secured the monitor to his scalp, he moved, and the rest of my water -- and I mean THE REST OF MY WATER -- came out. Now things really got moving.
I needed my epidural refreshed around noon. The damn thing had stopped working as effectively, and I could now feel my contractions all along my left side, wrapping around to my back. That was NOT pleasant. I don't understand why anyone would want to feel that if they didn't have to. After receiving my epidural refill, I was once again as happy as a clam, but still very thirsty. I was checked again around 1 p.m., and I had dialated from 6 to 9.5 since 11. By 1:30, we were fully dialated, and Dr. Cook asked me if I would like to push.
Yikes.
I remember the lights in the room being very dim, and we got down to work. I pushed for about 25 minutes. I was able to feel the beginning of the contractions, so I knew when to begin to push, but I didn't know when to stop. I'm not a very good breather, so the hardest part for me was being able to push for the entire count of 10. (Three pushes during the contraction, each push lasting through the count of 10.) I received kind words of encouragement from my team, which consisted of JohnStewart, Dr. Cook, and our nurse Erin. Only about 10 or so pushes were necessary, because we were graced with the presence of Nicholas Clifton Stewart at 1:58.
He was placed on my chest while they cleaned him up, and I was just amazed by how warm he was. I guess that made perfect sense, since he was inside me, a snugly 98.6 degrees. His head was just a little pointed, but it looked good. He weighed in at 8 lbs. 3 oz., and he was 21 inches long. And he was absolutely beautiful.
My birth went exactly as wonderfully and perfectly as I ever could have planned. I would do it again in a minute. The nurses at St. Mary's Hospital were fabulous. We couldn't have asked for anything more.
Several hours later, we were transferred to our new room in another area of the hospital. On our way, we passed women on gurneys out in the hall in labor, since there were still not enough rooms to accomodate everyone. We passed them and a Maternity Class Hospital Tour, carrying our new bundle of joy, on our way to our new room.
The lady who "teaches" the Maternity Class, the "Birth Nazi," remarked as we passed her that she remembered us from a recent tour. I'm sure she did remember us, since we were JUST there!! She wouldn't let us take the class until like the end of May, and I had been trying to schedule it since early March.
Nicholas Clifton Stewart was born on July 26, 2006. The following is an abridged version of our birth story:
Scheduled to be induced on Wednesday the 26th, I went in to see my doctor on Tuesday the 25th. I was very dialated and effaced, and I was instructed to be at the hospital before 7 the next morning. Wouldn't you know, I started having contractions almost immediately after returning home from seeing my doctor.
My contractions weren't painful at all, but they were regular. Every 6 minutes, like clockwork, for 4 hours, until I decided to call my doctor. Upon her recommendation, we went to the hospital to make sure I would be able to get my epidural. I would need to get IV fluids and have labs drawn before I could have this epidural, so we needed to go ahead and get on the move.
We arrived in Triage, where we had to face the Triage Bouncer, a lady who was quite overwhelmed by the masses of pregnant women there attrmpting to give birth. There were certainly more people there begging admittance than there were rooms to accomodate them. The ladies on either side of us, I'm afraid, were both sent home. (This night was not only a new moon, but also a little more than 9 months after Hurricane Wilma.)We were green lighted and given a room rather promptly, and we soon received nice nurses.
I was immediately given an IV and hooked up to many monitoring devices, and I was told that I could have nothing to drink, something that was simply horrifying to me. I was so so so thirsty! Our nice nurses made us very comfortable, but my contractions began to suddenly get much, much more intense. By 1 a.m., I was asking for my epidutal. It was then that I learned that the only anesthesiologist there was performing 5 C-sections that night, and I would have to wait my turn. On top of that, the noise that I kept hearing outside our window was not the lawnmower that I envisioned, but the trauma helicopter delivering people who also needed the asesthesiologist's attention.
So by 1 or 1:30, without my beloved epidural, I asked for the drugs. Please give me drugs. I was given Nubain, which made me feel like my tongue was bigger than the space that my mouth had to offer. I now had to focus all of my attention on simply swallowing. I could still feel my contractions, but I just didn't care so much about them. This was fine, but it kind of started to wear off by 3:30. Thankfully, that was when my saint of an anesthesiologist arrived.
A small break in his schedule allowed him to administer my epidural. Had the next trauma arrived five minutes sooner, I probably would have had to go until after 8 a.m. without it. For some reason, John was asked to leave the room, but he came back around 4:30, when I was extremely, extremely happy. I couldn't feel a thing. But thirst. My wonderful JohnStewart fed me ice chips almost all night long. When he wasn't doing that, he was attempting to sleep on this little foldout chair contraption. He was awakened probably every thirty or so minutes, between my nurse Julie and our doctor coming in to check on my progress.
Sadly, the drugs and the epidural slowed down my labor. By 6 a.m. I was only dialated to 6 cm. We decided to wait for the next doctor's shift to begin at 8, at which time she would break my water.
So that's what we did. Dr. Cook and my new nurse, Erin, broke my water, but I still resisted dialating further. John and I slept all morning. By 11, they decided to place the baby's monitor on his head. When they secured the monitor to his scalp, he moved, and the rest of my water -- and I mean THE REST OF MY WATER -- came out. Now things really got moving.
I needed my epidural refreshed around noon. The damn thing had stopped working as effectively, and I could now feel my contractions all along my left side, wrapping around to my back. That was NOT pleasant. I don't understand why anyone would want to feel that if they didn't have to. After receiving my epidural refill, I was once again as happy as a clam, but still very thirsty. I was checked again around 1 p.m., and I had dialated from 6 to 9.5 since 11. By 1:30, we were fully dialated, and Dr. Cook asked me if I would like to push.
Yikes.
I remember the lights in the room being very dim, and we got down to work. I pushed for about 25 minutes. I was able to feel the beginning of the contractions, so I knew when to begin to push, but I didn't know when to stop. I'm not a very good breather, so the hardest part for me was being able to push for the entire count of 10. (Three pushes during the contraction, each push lasting through the count of 10.) I received kind words of encouragement from my team, which consisted of JohnStewart, Dr. Cook, and our nurse Erin. Only about 10 or so pushes were necessary, because we were graced with the presence of Nicholas Clifton Stewart at 1:58.
He was placed on my chest while they cleaned him up, and I was just amazed by how warm he was. I guess that made perfect sense, since he was inside me, a snugly 98.6 degrees. His head was just a little pointed, but it looked good. He weighed in at 8 lbs. 3 oz., and he was 21 inches long. And he was absolutely beautiful.
My birth went exactly as wonderfully and perfectly as I ever could have planned. I would do it again in a minute. The nurses at St. Mary's Hospital were fabulous. We couldn't have asked for anything more.
Several hours later, we were transferred to our new room in another area of the hospital. On our way, we passed women on gurneys out in the hall in labor, since there were still not enough rooms to accomodate everyone. We passed them and a Maternity Class Hospital Tour, carrying our new bundle of joy, on our way to our new room.
The lady who "teaches" the Maternity Class, the "Birth Nazi," remarked as we passed her that she remembered us from a recent tour. I'm sure she did remember us, since we were JUST there!! She wouldn't let us take the class until like the end of May, and I had been trying to schedule it since early March.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Week 39, Day 1
I'm big. I'm uncomfortable. I can't sleep. My back hurts.
We go to the doctor tomorrow afternoon, where I will be checked again. I will find out at that point whether or not we will go to the hospital tomorrow night or Wednesday morning. Regardless of when we check in, our induction should take place Wednesday.
In the meantime, I am trying to remain comfortable. I've had a few contractions tonight, but nothing terribly painful. The contractions this evening are also somewhat irregular, and they are not increasing in severity.
More later, if I have a chance. We're all packed and ready to go. Hopefully we will meet this little guy in about 36 to 48 hours. Needless to say, we are very excited to do so.
We go to the doctor tomorrow afternoon, where I will be checked again. I will find out at that point whether or not we will go to the hospital tomorrow night or Wednesday morning. Regardless of when we check in, our induction should take place Wednesday.
In the meantime, I am trying to remain comfortable. I've had a few contractions tonight, but nothing terribly painful. The contractions this evening are also somewhat irregular, and they are not increasing in severity.
More later, if I have a chance. We're all packed and ready to go. Hopefully we will meet this little guy in about 36 to 48 hours. Needless to say, we are very excited to do so.
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