Today was our first day without a babysitter and Tenz slept alot and so did I. I also did laundry, the dishes, and took a shower. It was a pretty relaxing day and it felt good to know that I wasn't interrupting or inconveniencing anyone. But I am super tired tonite, extra tired even tho I napped, so I don't really have much to add today. Here is T's pic for today, and I have a special super surprise for tomorrow! Yippee!!
Where does the time go? Already I am so shocked at how quickly this week has gone...Little T is nearly 2 weeks old already! I wish I were more healed and not feeling like he were just born 2 days ago, but at least I don't have some crazy infection or anything.
Today was our first day without a babysitter and Tenz slept alot and so did I. I also did laundry, the dishes, and took a shower. It was a pretty relaxing day and it felt good to know that I wasn't interrupting or inconveniencing anyone. But I am super tired tonite, extra tired even tho I napped, so I don't really have much to add today. Here is T's pic for today, and I have a special super surprise for tomorrow! Yippee!!
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Today was a rough day...not really sure why, but T wasn't on his right schedule, he didn't sleep or eat like he normally does nor did his awake time go as usual, he was fussy and grumpy. But he is still a really calm, well behaved baby. Even being fussy, his cries are at a minimum and he doesn't require to be held or rocked or consoled, just to have some attention. He lost his umbilical cord last night...literally. I did his diaper this morning and it was gone! I don't know if it attached to his diaper and came off in the middle of the night or if I will find it in his bed or somewhere (but I did look) but it is just gone. Pretty crazy. Below is a pic of his little belly button without the cord. I also took pictures of him being grumpy and making faces, jsut because they are funny... Boo! I had written today's post and put pictures up and then made the mistake of trying to upload a video and it deleted the whole thing! Raar! So the truncated version. 1. Pete fed our hallow leg little pup last night to the point where it all came back up. So we had to change the sheets, wash the baby, the Boppy, it was a crazy night. This picture is of Pete warming the baby up after his bath that is pretty cute, even if the event was a learning adventure. 2. Baby has a small rash. It looks like baby acne but it is on his leg not his face? So I called the doctor and the doctor said to watch it and see if it spreads and to note any differences. Two differences are we used the Magic Bath soap on him after the accident and he was wearing a nightshirt that had just been washed in Dreft baby detergent...So, both items made for babies and one of them is aggrevating my baby's skin. We didn't bathe him tonight and he is sleeping in another nightshirt that has been washed, so guess we'll see if anything changes. 3. As Pete was preparing baby for bed tonight, he had him looking like a big white sausage and then, like he was being born out of the big white sausage. I had to take pictures, cuz it was pretty funny. 4. Gma W was our helper today and she spent the morning with T and I got in a shower and a nap! What a great day... I had my final spring class tonight and it was very exhausting to get up, get ready, go there, listen, grade, and then come home. I am glad I have 4 weeks off. Well, kinda off. i still have to do work for both jobs, but I don't have to go anywhere and can do the work on my own time 2 am or 10 pm. Good news. Today is a day without a lot to add. Pete's sister and her wife came over and babysat today so I could get some good nap time in and that is exactly what I did. Tenzin ate a lot and didn't sleep as much as he should have. I really hope that he sleeps well tonite. The 3-4 feeding is really hard, he wants to stay awake and look around. I have been working really hard on letting him know the difference between day and night with light and noise and such, but still, that feeding, he thinks is awake time. So we stay up until just before Pete's alarm goes off. Blah. Then we settle in and sleep until about 10. It seems like a lot of wasted time to me...if he would just go back to sleep until 6 or 7 then I could get up and be productive. That would be awesome! But baby's schedules are not our schedules, I get that.
We noticed today that he has the opposite of a unibrow! They don't connect in the middle but connect on the sides and go all the way around. Super funny! I am a tardsty lardsty! I thought about the whole number of days thing, and although Tenzin is 7 days old, it is our 8th day (or half day) with him. Yeah. I think I stillhave some pregnant brain going cuz that was too hard to think out! OY! Anyway, here are some of the things that I have noticed about our cute little bundle that we'd like to share...and remember. He held his head up the first night. Right after being born and having his first dinner, he was raising his head up off of my chest and looking around. It is so adorable when he does it, because his head is so big and his neck and body are so small that it almost doesn't even look natural. I call it the turtle because he looks like the turtle on Finding Nemo or on Never Ending Story. He also does the turtle head move when he is looking for his dinner or when he is hungry. It opens his mouth wide and shakes his head back and forth, it is pretty adorable. He also does this head stretch thing where he puts his chin as high up in the air as he can and he kinda looks like E.T. which is funny cuz his name is Tenzin Ethan, T.E. or backwards, E.T. Hahah. His other look is that he gets all grumpy and scowly when he is crying or waiting to eat and he looks like an old man. We can just see how he is going to look when he is old plus some super wrinkles. He is super adorable! I know, I keep saying that...but he really is adorable in all his wierd little faces and movements. He loves to have his fingers and hands up by his face and moves them around in all sorts of poses. We know he doesn't know what he is doing, but he does the Ohm, Buddha middle and thumb finger together. He also throws the Peace sign and occassionally flips us off. He is always doing some sort sign with his hands. As the picture I posted shows, he is also fond of having his legs folded as tightly and close to his body as possible. This and his Ohm sign proves to me that he is in fact the Dali Lama in reincarnated! ;-P Tenz is a huge hog. He loves to eat and has totally skipped the newborn stage of just sleeping and eating. He eats 4 to 5 ounces at a time, so he sleeps 4 to 5 hours at a time, instead of the usual 2 of each. He also stays awake for an hour or longer in between each of the feedings. So he is looking around and listening and growing accustomed to his envirnoment. He is good at self soothing and doesn't cry a lot. He is a really calm and sweet baby, but he has some lungs so if he does get annoyed, you will know it! He is starting to try and roll over, not completely, but he rocks his shoulder until he gets on his side. Once I would think it was an accident, but he has doen it so often following sounds, we can tell he is trying to move. Since he held his head up from his day of birth, we can't question that he is a strong young buck that just wants to get moving! I wish he'd take a step back just to give me some time to grow accustomed to all the changes. But the eating more so sleeping longer thing is a huge perk, I must admit. He likes to make all these little squeaking sounds that sound like a little bird or something when he is just waking up or just trying to get to sleep. He loves his daddy and whenever he hears Pete's voice, he perks up his head and looks around. I don't know that his eyes can distinguish one blob from another, but he sure tries! It is sad that he has gotten all the baby in the real world skin issues, he is flaking and shedding and he has the little red bumps on his cheeks and the baby acne on his nose. But it is just the way that being exposed to the world works. Anyway, those are the things I can think of to say about our precious bundle right now, but I will keep it up! Here are todays pictures... But I am a day ahead somehow, he won't be a week until tomorrow. I was in labor a week ago today, not in the hospital yet. Hmmm... I'll have to look into my aheadness and maybe repeat this day tomorrow. We'll see.
At any rate, last night at the 3 am feeding, I was looking at little Tenzin and realizing how many changes and funny things he has done in 6 days. It is amazing how much can happen in such a littel time and then I realized that I hadn't been blogging about all of those little details at all...I have become accustomed to writing about my pregnancy, which has been looking into my body and describing. I kinda kept that up on here with my recovery...But that isn't what this blog is about at all. This is about the sweet little boy and his first year. So, with that, I will write today, the last story of his birth, the operating room, and then we will move on to him and his habits and quirks and personalities developments. The pictures today are of the cute prince crown and frog blanket he is sporitng today, him all bundled up and sleeping peacefully, and a pic of him doing his yoga/dalai lama leg pose he loves to do. Such a funny boy! It was April 18th at 4:40 pm and Dr. S had just given us the decision if we should have a C section or try it for "a few more hours" the natural way. She didn't push her opinion, but said that the baby was so high and my cervix so little dilated even on pitosin that she doubted there would be much change, but she wanted to do what I thought was best. Pete and I had long since agreed that we were OK with a C Section. I know I am at high risk because of my age and my hip and other such foolishness and have a small pelvis, and we knew that his side of the family has enormously headed babies...I was so tired and so upset about not having any progression, I said lets just do it. So immediately they started prepping me and Pete to go into the OR. I was shaved and given additional drugs in my epidural and Pete was given this Hazmat outfit and beard guard to wear and they wheeled me off. It was seriously less than 10 minutes and I was off. My mom wasn't there yet and there wasn't even time for me to talk to her before I was going. Pete gave her the heads up and to just come to my room as they would wheel me back after that and me, him and the baby would see everyone in there then. And that is where the normalcy ended. We were in a dimly lit room all focused on relaxation and calm and I was wheeled, roughly, down the hall into a blindingly white lit hallway that noticiably changed temperatures as we wheeled further on. I know that the surgeons need light and I know that it is colder in ORs to kept bacteria and infections down, but geez, give a gal a heated blanket or something! If I had only known this wouldn't be the worst of it! So, on we went and even though I wasn't yet numb, they wouldn't let me move over to the operating table, they had to hoist me on this wood slab thing, but not before they totally removed my hospital gown and I sat naked on the table. I knew I wasn't going to be knocked out, but it just seemed wierd to be totally stripped down and then rolled onto a wooden slab and then rolled onto a cold table without one person saying one word to me. No one told me what they were going to do, no one told me who all these new people were, and they were just treating me like a dummy. Then, I sat there and nothing happened. I presume other things were going on around us, getting prepped for surgery, but again, no one talked to me. They were all laughing and joking and talking about their lives and whom they were dating and what they were doing over the Easter weekend and making jokes back and forth and Bon Jovi was blaring on the radio and someone was just singing and saying something about how no surgery was a good surgery without Bon Jovi. By this time, I had been in this room for quite a few minutes and Dr S was not there yet and then I heard them talking about how when they wheeled me in she got notice that another patient was delivering and after she finished that one another lady went into delivery. Obvioulsy, I am the one who can be postponed, but again, no one told me anything about it. No one told me how long it would be or what was going on and all the time, I'm laying there naked on the metal table in the cold room and being ignored. I remember that I began to shiver. I was so freezing, I couldn't contain it, I was just shivering and shivering and knowing that everyone in the room was just going about their jobs not even noticing. It is a very uneasy feeling being in a room full of people who are supposed to be there to help you and they aren't even paying attention to you. I began to worry a little that they would be so negligent if something were to go wrong, up to this point, I hadn't even considered that something could or would go wrong. So anxiety was then added to my shivering, freezing self. Anxiety that I didn't need to have if they had just treated me like a person. Finally, the anathesiologist (spelling is wrong and I still don't know how/where the stupid spell check is, sorry) came in and he talked to me. Asked me if I was numb and did some prick tests on me. He also noticed that I was shivering and covered my arms with heated blackets. I am not sure if I have fully explained the horror of the setting, I felt like I was in SAW or some sadistic horror movie. I was naked, laying on this tiny operating table with my arms straight out strapped down, with straps going down the whole of my body. There was a blue sheet blocking me from the chest up so I was bisected. All this while I shivered and chattered. My belly had been totally iodined and was that gross rust reddish color. What a sight! I wish Pete had gotten a picture, just for an exact visual, but I'm probably very happy that no picture such as that exists. Dr. S then comes in and apologizes to me and explains the deliveries and again, I felt a little better. I know Dr. S and she is a little aspie, but she is nice and is a good doctor. She does the whole cutting thing and I can feel pressure, but no pain and then I hear the ana saying that I'm about to be a mom and I see Pete stand up out of the corner of my eye and I passed out...I remember coming to only for a brief second and saw Pete holding our baby up to me and I took a quick glance but couldn't really focus and then I felt this pain in my pelvis and I said, I can feel them on my pelvis and then I was gone. I didn't know it, but the ana took two huge syringes and injected me on both sides as soon as I said that. The good part is I didn't feel whatever scraping or whatnot they were doing in my guts, the bad part, I don't have a clear or accurate or emotional memory of first seeing my little baby. I feel kind of jipped by this, you always see people crying when they first see their baby, and I had no such emotion or even chance for it because I had waited on the table for so long I had lost my numbing, and this was after having to have a second epidural! OY! I don't remember anything else happening, I was just back in the room and they were handing me the baby and Pete was there and I kicked everyone out so we could name him and have a minute alone together as our new little family. It was only then that I was able to ask if he was OK, if he had all his fingers and toes and if everything was well. Which it was, but it all just seemed foggy and surreal. I haven't quite figured out how I am going to deal with this... talk to Dr S about how I felt? Complain to the hospital? Complain to the state? Something has to give, but in the end, it was all done properly and me and Tenz are OK and that is really what matters. Happy Birthday to William Shakespeare!! And as luck would have it, our baby is 5 days old instead of just being born today as Ms. Kamie said he would be, but if he had, his name probably would have had Will in it. So, someday in the future we'll see if he is happy about that or not.
All I have to say is, another day, another ailment! I know, I know, I am not sure how I can have another issue either but it seems like every time I am getting over one issue or learning how to deal with it, another one pops up. I am so happy Pete had this week off of school because without him I don't know what would happen to poor little Tenzin. At any rate, I am not going to go into details because I don't even know how or what I would say, but the first Bowel Movement after a C-Section is bad...it may not be as bad as the first after all the ripping and sewing, but I can't imagine it is much better. So I spent the day shuffling back and forth to the bathroom and trying to pump enough milk for this little super eater! Yep, 5 days old and he is eating 3-4 ounces per feeding time. I do not have this much milk, so we are supplementing with Similac, but we are trying to push up my productivity, so I am pumping as much as I can. We are getting into a baby groove that works really well, but Pete goes back to work Monday, so I'll have to get into a groove on my own. Luckily, nites are getting easier as are the days. If I can just get past all these extra little symptoms and dramas...life would/will be great! The things we didn't know the nurses did at night whilst we lay sleeping...
1. change his 6 dirty diapers 2. Lul him back to sleep for 20 minutes after the high pitched screaming and shaking from having a dirty diaper and having to endure having it changed 3. the squeaking and squawking before he finally settles back down and goes to sleep 4. the countless reswaddling required to keep him from sqeaking and squawking after he kicks all his blankets off 5. the getting hit in the face requiring change of clothes for you and baby by projectile poo 6. changing night shirts again for up the back monkey pooing time, twice Those crafty nurses would just wheel him in and say, "he's ready to eat!" and we'd feed him and send him on his way...not knowing that almost all of the time was filled with other things and that very little of that was sleep. Yeah, no wonder the doctors kept asking us if we "really WANTED to go home..." but we were too naive and excited to sleep in the same bed again and for Pete to have a real shower and me not get awoken every 10 minutes for some nursing check up that we blissfully kept answering, "yes! We want to go home!" as of 5 am when I had had absolutely NO sleep and my gut hole was burning fire of pain and I was counting down the seconds until I could have my pills again because all the up and down had aggrevated them so completely, I realized our folly. I took Tenz into my mom and had her do the last feeding with Similac and she did the diaper and all that from 5 until 9 when I woke up. Needless to say, me and the baby had a day of naps and luckily Pete had slept through most of the night's dramas, so he was able to take on a lot of the baby watching today as I slept. We discovered a few very important details...even though my milk came in in full force late last night, it still is work for poor little baby it get it all out, so he tries for a while and then gets so annoyed and angry that he isn't getting enough food that he just shuts down. It is exactly what was happening on Tuesday, but we thought because of milk the Similac that we were helping, but the breast is still a lot of work and slow. So after so much stress to get 2 ounces of milk last night, we realized baby needs/wants 3. Bright and early me and mom got up and left the baby with Pete and went and bought a breast pump. We are going to need one anyway for the summer since I am working 2 days a week, we were just going to wait a while, but not having another night like last night became a priority. We get a pump and bring it home and learn to use it and I pump and only get 2 ounces, adding both boobs! Poor baby! We mixed that with an ounce of Similac to give him 3 ounces of food. This makes him happy and nap and wake up with a big smile and be the sweet baby we saw the first few days. Agghhh... So I have continued to pump and get some milk out, but sometimes it is just a little and sometimes a lot, but it is being given out of a nipple that is harder to suck on than the Similac ones and that is working out pretty well so far. I am hoping that my milk won't give up and not come in, but you can never tell. Physically, I am feeling much better today, but my wound is not. It is a little swollen and as of yesterday I didn't feel I even needed my pain meds, today I am positive I do and been counting down till the time was to take them. Blah. There are so many things I want/need to get to around the house and I know I have 5 weeks to get to them done in, but I want to get a move on, just haven't had the strength to yet. Well, here is the pic of the day. Pete took this as baby and I were napping this afternoon! He's pretty cute, even if I am not ;-S Oh my goodness! Today was a busy day and it is only 5pm!!
First, we saw the pediatrician and baby is A-OK and was released from the hospital. Then, I had my staples removed (pictures below, avoid if you are squeemish) and the steribandaidthingys put on and then, I got released! We packed up and got out of Dodge! Went to Walgreen's and got my RXs and a quick lunch (ala Wendy's) and then came home. As soon as we got here, we had so much bustling to do to get the room prepared! We decided, on the way home, that we needed the Playpen in the bedroom as I can't bend over yet to get Tenz out of the cradle. So we had to get that put together and he was wet so we were all bustling in different directions trying to get everything we needed ready. Then he ate and had a huge poopy blow out! All the way up his little monkey back! Oy!!! It was nice when he slept, and I was able to get into bed easily and slept for a while too. Mom and I put in Northern Exposure Disc 1 and just had a marathon as we were resting. When he woke up, we did the whole thing again. It is easier at home but it is also harder. The hospital has everything and all their gear down to a science and so everything you have is exactly perfect for what you need it for and here at home, things are different. We have too many clothes to choose from, we have too many different sizes of diapers and blankets, our bassinett thing doesn't roll, and we have 2 stories. It is still nice to be home, but it would also be nice to have exactly perfect items and not so much excess. Our bedroom is definately different in just a few hours... baby gear is strewn from here to there and all of our stuff is shoved off to the side. Pretty funny. I feel like my milk will be coming in in the morning. My boobs have really gotten bigger and plumper. Plus they are veiny. That will be devastating for my poor baby who loves being able to eat the Similac bottle instead of working hard for his food by sucking it from my breast. I then proceeded to check all 100 million emails from school since I had to cancel class Monday and Wednesday due to being in the hospital last week. Students will never change! I was very clear and stated in emails, syllabi, and in class several times that IF we cancelled the 20th, your final revisions are still due and will not be accepted late so email them. Send the Word Doc, scan them, whatever, but "we didn't have class" is not an answer. So what was in my in box? Questions...what am I supposed to do with my rewrites when I didn't have class? You are in college! Think for yourself!!! Yay! NOT our son's birthday! Quite a few people picked today as the date of birth, and I'm sure happy that he wasn't born today. For 2 reasons: 4:20 stoner reference and Hitler's Birthday. I think that says enough.
I haven't had a chance to look up on the jump drive who won yet, but I will get to that, I promise. They are taking out my staples tomorrow and we are PROBABLY getting discharged, so that is a good, when I'm home with my things, it will make everything just a little easier on me. Not Pete, since he has to take the place of an entire nursing staff, but he is just as eager to get out of here and that "bed" he has to sleep on as I am. After yesterday, I was over protective psycho mom today. I asked a friend to leave because the room was too full of people and the baby was getting hovered around again. I didn't allow him to be passed from person to person and Pete and I made sure that we were in sync when people talked about visiting. There was a hairy spot in the morning, but we worked it out and made sure he had about a 3 hour nap and rest time afterwards. I am not really an overprotective mama, and I didn't really think that I would be so mama hen, but when poor baby is over stimulated and stressed out because people don't have the good judgement to take a huge step back and not peep at the baby over 3 other people's shoulders and try to touch a finger or his head like he was the pope, it is my job to step up and protect him. I am hopeful, that as he grows, I can relax again and he won't be such a novelity and that all the baby hungries that people have don't transfer over to not newborns. But, we can only hope. At any rate...a wonderful family from school came and visited, our friend from school, Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Katie, Aunt Becca, Aunt Julie, Kevin and Jill all made a brief appearance today. So it was still a bit busy, but well controlled, which yesterday was not. So I feel better about the way it went and he woke, ate, had his diaper changed, went back to sleep all without crying or whimpering. Such a relief from yesterday and a validation that he is a calm baby by nature Aunt Katie and Aunt Becca came into town today, and they brought Tenz these adorable Dwabbit feet that Katie made. A Dwabbit is a hybrid between a Dwarf and a Hobbit and that is our baby Tenzin. So there is a picture of that below. Also below is when the cute baby fell asleep as Pete was burping him...he was so full and happy and content that he just fell asleep. So cute! He had a restful napping day. Here is my great advice from my 3 days as a mom: When the doctors and nurses say your baby WILL BE fine just eating colostrum until your milk comes in...that doesn't mean they won't be tortured and needlessly punished because your body takes forever to kick into milk! Yeah. I have him nurse first on each side to remind my body that it needs to milk it up but then we give him some Similac so he isn't starving and working so hard and getting nothing out of it and a huge stress ball. Just trust me, it is worth it. OP story still to come, maybe tomorrow? if we do go home and I get to be my stuff again. PS still can't find the spellcheck on this Weebly site...I know I know I'm an English teacher I should just have a dictionary in my brain, but I don't, so shut it and help me find the spellchecker Weebly peeps! |
AuthorI am a first time mom in my mid-thirties. This is to share pictures and daily info about our precious little newborn son, Tenzin. Categories |