Sleep, Eat, and Poop, Sleep, Eat, and Poop

This is the remarkable routine of a newborn that becomes the centre of a new parents world. It is amazing how exhausting this routine can be. Especially when the sleep part of the routine turns into the crying part of the routine from about 11pm until 4am.

I have concluded that God is extremely wise to make babies so damn cute because otherwise they would drive us crazy in the wee hours of the night with their inexplicable wailing. They've been fed, their diapers are clean, they've been burped, we've tried holding, rocking, swaddline, putting them down, and picking them up again... in dark rooms, light rooms, quiet rooms and loud rooms, and still they cry. Sigh... At least it's only for a few hours at a time.

Thank goodness K doesn't do this every night. But the first few weeks at home were a bit of a trial, and rather alarming. We weren't sure if there was something wrong with him. But by the time morning rolled around he was usually sleeping peacefully, and would generally sleep peacefully (as his routine cycled) until evening. Which is why E & I never managed to get out of be for the day until at least 11am, usually noon. And why I often just stayed in my pj's all day long.

A Baby Story

Welcome Kian Erick Dirks Pay, born on June 21 at 11:45pm, 8pounds 5 ounces, 22 inches long.

At 5:00pm on Saturday the 21st, we finally recived the call from the hospital saying that we could come in at 6:30 to be induced. This was supposed to be a 1 hour appointment and then we would return home and wait for labour to get going.

Instead, we got to the hospital to find out that I was already in labour and that my water had already broken (which I hadn't noticed at all). I got all hooked up to some moniters and an IV and they began to moniter my contractions and Kian's heartbeat.

After about an hour of being monitered, our nurses and my docter were concerned that Kian's heartbeat would go down after every contraction. No cause for alarm yet, but in 4 or more hours this could become a real problem. Especially since my labour wasn't really progressing, at least not quickly enough.

Our doctors wanted to make sure Kian was doing okay, and to do so needed to take some blood samples from Kian's head. Which meant I needed to get an epidural. And since I was planning to get one at some point anyways, plus on the off chance they needed to do a C-Section, I figured why not.

So, after they did the blood tests, both of the attending doctors recommended that I go in for a C-Section. They gave E& I a few minutes to talk it over, but we both agreed that we didn't want to risk anything happening to Kian by waiting for a natural delivery.

By 11pm I was wheeled into the operating room for prep. The actual surgery took less than half an hour, and Kian joined us at 11:45pm. Apparently the umbilical cord had been wrapped around his neck, and there was some concern about his oxygen levels and blood sugar levels. So all I got was a quick peek before he was whisked off to the neonatal ICU for monitering.

I was wheeled over to the recovery room for a few hours and then moved to a regular room. I didn't get to hold my Kian until the next morning when I got a wheelchair ride down to ICU to try and feed him.

But all is well, and after a few days in the hospital we were able to take him home.

So far, the hardest part is the few hours of 'cluster feeding' (crankiness and lots of wanting to eat, without the usual sleeps in between) that happens sometime between midnight and 3am every night. The rest of the time I mostly sleep when baby sleeps, which means I'm taking 2 hour naps every couple of hours, all day & all night.

But I love the little guy like crazy, he is sooo beautiful, and I'm getting to know what his different facial expressions mean, and can sort of predict when he'll wake up next for another feeding.

I'm sure I'll have lots more to write about K as we figure out this parenting thing.

1 week and counting

It's June 17th today and still no baby. This waiting around is starting to drive us a little crazy! If the baby doesn't make an appearance by the weekend I will be getting induced on Saturday. I hope we don't have to wait that long.

Still no baby...

It's Thursday June 12 and I'm now 2 days overdue. I'm pretty sure I'm not in labour right now either. I hope we don't have to wait too much longer.

Any day now...

I decided to take my mat leave starting a week early - so I've had this week off. I needed it. I have started clearing space in our office for the baby's half of the room. I've washed all of the baby clothes and made a short list of the few other things we need to pick up, I'm napping in the afternoons, and I'm slowly cleaning the apartment (it's gotten pretty messy in the past few busy weeks).

Today my list includes: dropping my work keys off at the university (the new staffer will need them); going to baby stores to find cloth diapers, a nursing pillow, and whatever else seems important; calling more daycares and getting us on a few more waiting lists; and cleaning at least one bathroom. We'll see if I get it all done!

Last week my thesis proposal was approved by my committee (with a few changes). So I've made those changes and completed my ethics approval application forms. Hopefully I don't need to make too many changes to my ethics application. I won't hear back about that one until I likely have my baby in my arms and I'm not sure how motivated I'll be to work on it at that point!

Well, that's all for now. No baby yet... I'm betting on June 13 but I'm starting to feel like it may be more imminent than that!