Okay, I'm officially a hippie now.

Adam's been telling me that for years, but now I have no choice but to agree on this one.

Shoot, I swore I'd never be one of those parents-- you know, the ones that blather on about their kid's potty habits and make you inwardly scream, "TMI! TMI!!!" But even hippies have to potty-train their kids. And you have to admit, a potty training one-month-old is a bit out of the ordinary. But I apologize for the TMI-ness, anyways.

So, I've been wildly interested in trying Elimination Communication, the art learning to recognize a baby's cues that it needs to eliminate, and respond by helping him use a receptacle other than a diaper. Babies, for the most part, are born with a dislike of sitting in their own waste. Hence why my little guy likes to spray every other time I take his diaper off (lucky me!). EC appeals to me because I don't see the logic in getting a baby used to ignoring that inborn dislike, and then trying to undo the damage later during the terrible two's or three's. Not to mention the decreased diapers! I'm all for that!

So Sunday night, I was like, "What the heck, let's give it a whirl!" and I put him in cloth diapers without covers so I'd know exactly when he went. From this, I was going to put together a rough idea of his elimination patterns. Supposedly, most babies have times that they'll predictably go: upon waking; 5, 10, 15 minutes into a feeding, etc. For other times, they will give cues: grunting, wiggling, staring off into space... It's all about learning your baby's individual cues and patterns.

Well, about 29854 wet diapers into it, I looked at the clock. It had only been a few hours! I'd had enough of pattern watching, and decided to try the real deal, since he had been dry for a little while. I held him over the bathroom sink, started making sssss pssss sounds.... and then he went!


This happened a few more times. I was absolutely floored by how little encouragement it took for him to do his business (although now that I think of it, is there ANY baby that needs encouragement to be a little poop machine?). I'm still working on learning his cues and figuring out a pattern, which is a little complicated since we've been going out quite a bit lately, and of course I need to put him back in diapers for that. Oy veh. But, of course, this is a skill that takes time to learn!

Today, I took a giant leap of faith and let him go diaperless. He's just lying on my lap with a prefold under his little baby butt, and so far, I haven't been a target, lol! Actually, while I was writing this, Baby D finished a feeding and started grunting. I've observed that he tends to have a bowel movement around feeding times, so I rushed him to the bathroom, and... sure enough, he had to go! Yay for us!!!

In short, this has been an activity that yields amazing results for so little time and effort invested so far. I'm hoping he's not lulling me into a false sense of security before he does something outrageous, the little stinker. I'll keep you posted on how it goes!

Here are some links about EC, in case you're interested:

http://www.diaperfreebaby.org
http://www.tribalbaby.org
EC YouTube video

Three Things to Celebrate Today

1. Baby D is one month old today!

2. I was able to cram into wear my pre-pregnancy jeans for the first time again!

3. I got the little guy to eliminate in the toilet today! Several times! Yes, I am totally serious. I'm hoping to write a post on it tomorrow, but here's some reading for now, in case you're curious.


Call me vain, but I think I was the most excited about the jeans, haha.

Hang the environment! I want to see my floor again!

When I was much younger, a favorite family vacation place was Ainsworth Hot Springs in beautiful British Columbia. The resort gift shop had an assortment of interesting items, the best one being the disposable swimsuits that were invariably a huge hit with the Japanese tourists. The swimsuits were made of an uncomfortable plastic material, held together by elastic at the arm and leg openings, and puffed out like a marshmallow. I scoured the internet for a photo, but it seems that even Japanese tourists are ashamed to be photographed in such a monstrosity. The best comparison I can come up with is those horrid old-fashioned diaper covers:

Probably not the Beach Babe you were envisioning.

After two weeks of having Baby D home and not getting a blessed thing done around here, including laundry, those disposable swimsuits are starting to look reeeeeeeeeeeeal good.

Baby D demands to be held at all times, and I am all too happy to cuddle with him 24/7! But if I have to trip over one more dirty shirt...........

Or hunt for one more clean spoon............

Or go one more night without putting sheets on the bed...........

Ainsworth will be hearing from me.

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid!

Today was Baby D's second well-baby checkup. After the NICU fiasco, I'm always nervous that they'll find something wrong, especially with weight gain or other feeding-related aspects.

Well, I needn't have worried!

In the ten days since his last checkup, Baby D has gained (drumroll, please) three quarters of an inch in length and over one pound!

At twenty-seven days old, my boy weighs 11 pounds, 5 oz.

Evidently, the nursing is going well. :-P

The Birth of Baby D: Part 3 (The Hospitalization)

Now here comes the hardest part to write about. What had happened to me was of little consequence: the laboring to exhaustion, the major abdominal surgery-- that was not nearly so bad as watching what happened to my little boy next.

When I came to, either Adam or a nurse (I forget which) came by to let me know that Baby D's blood sugar was dangerously low, so they had put him on an IV and placed him in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). I'm a little fuzzy on what happened next, but eventually, I was settling in my hospital room. The NICU was closed at the moment, so I couldn't visit Baby D, but Adam turned on the TV and flipped the channels until we came to a live video feed of our little guy. What a cutie! Since we couldn't really do much else, we both fell asleep. I woke up a few hours later and asked the nurse what I needed to do in order to see Baby D. She promised a wheelchair shortly and left.

The nurse for that day was simply not on the ball. She had to be asked repeatedly for everything-- pain meds, breast pump materials, and... the wheelchair. Around 11 a.m., I was starting to lose it-- it had been twelve hours since Baby D was born, and I hadn't even gotten to get a good look at his little face yet, much less hold him. Adam woke up, saw me crying, and walked out into the hall, where there were a bunch of wheelchairs parked about twenty feet away. Nursing FAIL!!

Adam wheeled me into the NICU, where we were instructed to scrub our hands/forearms intensely and don disposable hospital gowns before actually entering the room. Adam led me past several beds of tiny, tiny preemies before stopping at the bed of a massive bundle.

My baby's birth weight? 9 pounds, 9 ounces. He was truly a giant among NICU babies!

My poor little guy was hooked up to all sorts of monitors, as well as an IV drip. With all the cables and cords everywhere, it looked like I'd given birth to a cyborg baby! I gently picked him up...

... and it was LOVE.

Adam and I talked with the nurses about Baby D's situation. In order to get discharged, Baby D needed to stabilize his blood sugar enough to get completely off the glucose drip. It would probably take a few days, so all we could do was wait it out.

Now here's where the frustrating part came in. The hospital has a strict feeding schedule. Every three hours, a baby is given a very specific amount based on some scientific formula. I firmly believe that this made my baby stay in the hospital unnecessarily long. It was a crap shoot as to whether Baby D would actually eat at the appointed time, because sometimes he'd just be dead asleep. Other times, I would have to sit there and watch him fuss and root around for an hour because he happened to get hungry an hour early. His feedings could ONLY last a half hour or less, because the hospital staff was quite paranoid about him burning calories.

So, oftentimes, his feedings looked like this: either me or a nurse waking him from a dead sleep, trying to force feed the drowsy baby, and giving up after a fruitless half hour. Baby D would then wake up hungry later and would be denied food because it wasn't exactly on the next three hour feeding slot! I can't tell you how maddening this was!

With Baby D's inability to conform to the hospital's feeding schedule, he was labeled as a "lazy feeder," and now not only did he have to get off the glucose drip, but he also had to perform up to the hospital feeding schedule in order to go home. One morning, when I walked in to see my little boy, he had a feeding tube running out his little nose. Apparently, he had slept through too many feedings.

On Tuesday, I was discharged. Baby D was not.

The days after that were a never-ending cycle of driving back and forth to the hospital, holding the baby, dealing with nurses, eating fast food, and getting up at all hours to pump milk. Since I wasn't supposed to drive for two weeks after birth, Adam had to chauffeur me everywhere. Oftentimes, he'd simply drop me off early, and I'd basically live there for the whole day while Adam went to work.

Poor little Baby D was such a trooper! In spite of being surrounded by beeping monitors and screaming preemies 24/7, being taken care of by an ever-changing assortment of nurses, as well as a mommy and daddy that always had to leave, and enduring so many painful medical procedures, he was very mellow and hardly fussed at all. He had an IV needle that was always changing locations. One day, it would be in his little hand. This never lasted long, because he was always pulling it out there. Other days, it would be in his foot or even in his scalp, which always made him look very Borg-like. On more than one occasion, a nurse would stop me at the door and say, "You probably want to wait a minute," and I would hear Baby D scream as they put the IV in somewhere else.

Poor Baby D's heels were full of scabs from being pricked so many times for the glucose blood test. One nurse told me that it would be a good idea to give Baby D foot massages because NICU babies often start associating pain with people touching their feet. Isn't that sad??

My mama bear rage moment came one day when one of the older nurses took the IV out of his scalp. She must have been feeling lazy that day, because to my horror, she skipped using any type of adhesive remover and just ripped the tape right off. Baby D cried, of course, and to this day he still has a bald patch on his head. I was livid, and so was Adam when he found out. Fortunately, that nurse never was assigned to Baby D again, so he got to keep the rest of his hair. >:-(

The one bright spot in all this was our breastfeeding relationship. Baby D latched on like a champ right from the beginning, and I never had any problem getting him to take the breast-- except, of course, the feedings when he was dead asleep. We tried using a nipple shield a few times, but we did so much better without, that I finally ditched it. My milk supply was great when I pumped-- so great, in fact, that the lactation consultant recommended I pump less, lest I get engorged once I had baby home and wasn't pumping anymore. As I've said before, the only irritating part was the hospital feeding schedule. They'd weigh Baby D before and after a breastfeeding session, to see exactly how much he got (however "short" we were, they'd give the difference through that feeding tube). I could only try feeding him during the feeding time slots, and they'd basically say, "Okay, it's 12:04, you have thirty minutes, see what you can do." Somehow, in spite of the pressure, and dealing with a sleepy baby so much of the time, we still managed to do well anyways.

Long story made a little shorter, one morning we walked into the NICU to see a nurse unhooking Baby D from all his monitors and breaking down his little station. The nurse practitioner came up and said, "Well, are you ready to take him home?" We were dumbfounded and quite unprepared! So we called my parents, who were in town at the time, and had them run the car seat and some baby clothes over.

Baby D finally came home! I was starting to wonder if we'd EVER get him out of the hospital! He was in the NICU for 12 days altogether.

We're doing great at home. We're breastfeeding on demand, and he's gaining weight just fine! In spite of all the obstacles, Baby D and I have bonded wonderfully from Day 1, and it totally makes my day to just hold him and enjoy his little personality!

I realize that women who go through what I've been through are prime candidates for post-partum depression, so I've been monitoring myself like a hawk. Of course, there is grieving that naturally goes with this. I'm very sad that my birth plans blew up in my face, and that with the C-section, I'll be facing severe obstacles to getting a natural birth for subsequent babies. I'm really sad to have missed out on Baby D's first hours, and you have no idea how bad I feel that Baby D had to spend his first two weeks in such a sterile environment and endure all that pain. I seriously feel sometimes like we're victims of some horrible crime.

But, I am soooo happy to finally have Baby D here with us, and what's past is past. It's been smooth sailing since we've been home, and I'm very eager to keep on moving forward. Writing about all this, however boring it may be for everyone else, has been a step in the right direction. I've been wanting to post all this for weeks, and now that I have, I can get on with the posts showing off my incredibly cute little boy. :-D You're all dying to see him, right? Right?? :-D Okay, since you asked so nicely, I'll close with a picture from a couple days ago:

The cats are very happy that I've found something else to stick in the Moby Wrap. :-D

The Birth of Baby D: Part 1

The Birth of Baby D: Part 2

The Birth of Baby D: Part 2 (The Birth)

When we got to the hospital, my midwife Heather was there to meet us. Oh my word, let me just pause here and say that I will NEVER do another birth without a midwife/doula! Heather was such a great support during this entire ordeal, and having her there really helped take a lot of the pressure off Adam.

We got checked in, and spirits were somewhat high. Adam and I were joking around as the nurse had me fill out paperwork and got the IV in. Around 9:30, I was induced. Before long, the Pitocin started to work its magic-- although I couldn't feel them yet, the monitors were picking up contractions.

The first few hours passed pretty uneventfully. My sister Annalynne, who currently lives a few hours away, called to let us know that she was on her way. "Don't have the baby without me!" she said. Har har har. I tried to get some sleep, knowing that it would soon become a precious commodity.

To make a very long story short, Annalynne needn't have worried. I labored all day Friday, with very little progress. The contractions became very painful, but nothing that I thought to be unbearable. My doctor came in periodically to do a cervical exam (which seriously hurt WAAAAY more than any contraction) and discussed that he really wanted to give me the chance to do a natural birth, which is why he was letting me labor so long. I was fully aware that most doctors would have thrown in the towel after about twelve hours, so I appreciated the opportunity to keep laboring! Starting around noon or so, the nurses came in and increased the Pitocin, until I was at the maximum dosage by around 6:00 P.M. Still no progress. I tried to sleep, but I was woken up every few minutes or so by a contraction.

I think I dealt pretty well with the pain. One thing that helped immensely was humming low scales during contractions to help focus my breath and relax. I'm sure everyone else was sick of hearing scales by the end, but it really did help me deal with the pain! Adam was a trooper, and held me as much as I needed him to. I did a lot of walking around, as much as the IV and the zillion monitors strapped to me would allow, as well as sitting or bouncing around on a birthing ball. Another thing that helped was applying an ice pack to my back. Heather says I was her first client that had actually requested cold and found it helpful. Whatever works, I guess!

One lame thing was that the hospital didn't allow me to eat. At all. Their logic was just in case I needed a C-section, and just in case I lost consciousness, they were afraid I'd regurgitate and then aspirate my food, or something highly unlikely like that. Adam, Heather, and Annalynne were all like, "Heck with that!" and continuously sneaked food to me all day. Every time I ate, the contractions picked right back up. Hooray for hospitals and their sometimes counterproductive rules!

Around 10:00 P.M, my doctor came in and had a talk. After laboring all day, I was only dilated to a 6, and I had been stuck there for quite a while. At this point, he thought that it was counterproductive to labor more. As for me, I was exhausted and really weary of the contractions every two minutes. The doctor told me that after having so little progress after so long, that further labor would probably not be productive. It was time for that which I had worked so hard to avoid: a C-section. He prayed with us, and then left us to prep for the surgery.

I shed a few tears. Heather assured me that I had done wonderfully and given it my best shot. At that point, I had been in labor for twenty-five hours. Adam put on a funny-looking set of coveralls for the operation, which barely fit his 6'2" frame. The nurse unhooked me from all the monitors (hooray, freedom!) and wheeled me into the operating room.

I will not deny that I was quite a bit scared. I'd never had surgery before, and the operating room was a scary place. It was unnaturally cold in every way possible-- an unearthly shade of white on the walls, cold tile floor, and a freezing physical temperature. Adam wasn't allowed into the room yet, so I was all by myself.

The anesthesiologist got me all set up with the spinal block-- immediately, my toes went numb, and before long, I was completely numb from the waist down. Weird stuff! The nurse set up a screen over my waist and led Adam in to sit down beside me. He grabbed my hand and said, "Well, if it's a boy, I guess we're naming him _____, then?" Yes, that is right, ladies and gentlemen, we were still debating a boy's name right up into the operating room!

The doctors got to work, and I could feel tugging and pressure on my abdomen. Just a couple of minutes of that, until I heard....

A little cry.

And then the doctor: "It's a BOY!"

The doctors continued their pulling and tugging. Adam went over to be with our new son! After a few minutes, a nurse came by with Baby D., let me give him a kiss, and whisked him away.

I, my work accomplished, totally konked out.

(and guess what, I never aspirated and died on that food I was sneaking) :-P

The Birth of Baby D: Part 1

The Birth of Baby D: Part 3

The Birth of Baby D: Part 1 (The Diagnosis)

Wow, what a crazy three weeks it's been! We increased our household by 33% and our cumulative cuteness by about a gazillion percent. Check it out:

I've had the bulk of this written for a couple weeks, but I've been just a little busy. :-) This was kind of a painful story to write, but I think it's important to share, at least for me, in order to get it off my chest.

PART 1: The Diagnosis

So, as I've mentioned before, I was having some health issues towards the end of pregnancy. On Wednesday, my midwives took a blood sample and sent it off to be tested. On Thursday morning, I got the call: it appeared that I was in the early stages of toxemia, and it was now necessary for me to transfer care to a physician. My midwife Heather gave me the number of a doctor that she highly recommended, and I called his office and set an appointment for that afternoon.

That afternoon, before the appointment, Adam and I made a very delicious stop at Famous Dave's. My mother-in-law had very thoughtfully arranged for us to get a hearty meal there; we just hadn't been able to have a convenient time when Adam and I would both be off work! So, we thought, "Well, we're not doing anything this afternoon, and who knows when that baby's coming-- let's go eat!"

Little did we know that this would be a VERY good idea.

After finishing off the last of those BBQ ribs, we made our way down to the doctor's office. Let me tell you one immediate benefit of midwife care: NO WAITING!!! Out of the two or so hours spent at the doctor's office, I think we actually saw the doctor for twenty minutes. Next time I go, I'm bringing a book!

So when we finally got to see the doctor, we did all the tests: blood pressure, urine, and... the cervical exam. Dear God, that was seriously the most painful part of the entire birthing experience. Contractions were nothing next to that! After all that unpleasantness, they took my blood pressure again, and for some odd reason, it was sky-high. Gee, I wonder why!

Anyways, the doctor left the office, and returned a few minutes later with his prognosis: my condition was starting to get dangerous, and he very strongly felt that the best thing would be to induce labor as soon as possible.

And the slot for "as soon as possible" was in two hours. The doc told us to go home, do whatever we needed to do, and come back at 7:30.

We drove home and I kind of wandered around in a state of shock. We were not prepared at all for Baby D's arrival! I had always thought that when labor started, I'd have some time to tidy up the house and do other last-minute baby preparations. I had Adam throw a random assortment of baby stuff in the laundry, because I hadn't even washed any of Baby D's clothes at that point. I called my midwife. I had NO idea what to pack for a hospital birth, because I wasn't supposed to be giving birth in the hospital.

So, we tried to relax, packed some things, and took one last preggo picture:

I tried to choke down some food, but for once in this entire pregnancy, I had no appetite. Good thing we had that giant meal at Famous Dave's!

The Birth of Baby D: Part 2

The Birth of Baby D: Part 3

Pause. Breathe.

I can finally now relax. Somewhat. I am a mom now, after all, so there's not a whole lot of relaxing to be done!

We just finally brought Baby D home today.

I've been trying to write Baby D's birth story when I can, but unfortunately, that story ended in a twelve-day stay in the Intensive Care Unit, so for the past week and a half, I've been living in the hospital. Today is the first day I finally got to hold my baby without a tangled mess of cords and monitors attached, and the first time I've gotten to breastfeed without a legion of nurses saying, "Okay, you have twenty minutes, let's see what you can do." Whew!

So I am very glad to be home. WITH Baby D! Well, I have some hard-core snuggling to do, so I'm off. Here's a picture for your daily megadose of cuteness!