Mama Lion

Yes, she's still breathing. No, that breathing isn't strained. Yes, she's still in her crib. No, noone took her out and stole her when you weren't looking.

Being a new mom is an interesting conflict between your left and right brain. All your instincts are clamoring for you to sit right by her and watch her like a hawk 24-7. Unfortunately, you would think that your right brain would help out occasionally. Not so! Your logical side is ready and willing to chip in and keep those irrational fires burning.

Instinct: Is she still breathing?
Rationality: Probably.
Instinct: What do you mean probably, I thought you were here to make me feel better!
Rationality: Well, SIDS is real and there is a statistical chance...
Instinct: You suck.

Laugh if you want. When you have a kid, it will happen to you too. It is getting better. As the lingering hormones work out of my system and lack of sleep kicks in, I forget to worry. I even let Jamey have yardworkers over yesterday. (I didn't like strangers around my territory prior to that. Roar!) Having said all this, everyone who comes over comments at how calm I am compared to when they had thier first kid. I'm going to guess that is age. I can't imagine being able to handle all this as well at 23 as I am at 32. Plus Ruby only cries maybe 10 minutes total a day. It's hard to get stressed out when you have such a happy baby.

The counterpart to the Mama Lion is the Daddy Happy Fun Theme Park. While I'm busy being over protective and worrying, Jamey happily roughhouses with Ruby as if she were indestructible. It's good to be the Dad! Edit: Since this post I realized Jamey has worried about her birthmark, whether her umbilical cord is infected and her ear hair. I guess worry is universal it just happens over different things.

This is normal?

One thing you are not warned about as a new parent is that you will be expected to know a good deal about what your precious bundle is producing. Without forewarning, you will be faced with something like my first pediatrician visit.


Pediatrician: How of often does she have bowel movements?
Me: Uh, alot.
Pediatrician: What color are they?
Me: Uh, poop colored, I guess. Black?
Pediatrician: This poop in her diaper now looks green.
Me: (amazed) Well, looky there, that's new!

My poor pediatrician did not accuse me of being a bad parent, but I could interpret that I was supposed to know the answers and not be shocked that my baby's poop went from the Creature from the Black Lagoon to Swamp Thing. Well, since I do have this time off from work and all, I best become the poop connoisseur that new moms are apparently supposed to be. May I present the first ever issue of...

Poop Spectator 2007

Meconium - A beginner's poo for clearing the bowels - Overall Score 89
Nose: Hardly any distint smell but a hint of grassiness
Color and Clarity: Ranging from black to dark green. Consistency is tar like and sticky.
Best Paired With: Uterine leftovers

Transitional - A more advanced poo Overall Score 84
Nose: A slightly headier aroma with pleasant undertones of spoiled milk
Color and Clarity: Consistency of Natural peanut butter, grainy and mustard colored.
Best Paired with: Three of four days of new food

Formula - A consistent poo for the connoisseur - Overall Score 87
Nose: Still light and not very fragrant, some unpleasant notes of swamp gas begin to work in
Color and Clarity: Seedy and mustard like, looking much like transitional stools but firmer (though still more like very mushy peanut butter than a pellet)
Special Notes: Breast fed babies will have very similar but looser stools.
Best Paired with: Bottle feeding

So armed with this knowledge, I feel confident I can tackle parenthood. Unfortunately, I forgot I need to notice how many they have a day! Darn. Looks like Ruby's Centrum plan (one a day, get it?) is not going to cut it. 2-5 is more normal. Thanks to the helpful nurse, we know we can lather up a thermometer in Vaseline and insert it into, well, let's just say we can make our own Play Dough Fun Factory if need be. Ruby apparently heard this plan and it scared the !@#$ out of her because we never had to follow through with the nurse advice.

Oh, and for a nice little glance into the future, my sister changed her toddler's diaper in Ruby's room when she came to visit. I about passed out from the fumes. Good times a comin' when food is introduced I guess!

Puppy vs. Baby

The first week of a newborn's life is so much easier than raising a puppy. A puppy certainly needs less effort overall for the first year, but I was just so surprised at how (comparatively) Ruby was so much easier than Picasso. Let's compare shall we?

Ruby
Cries when hungry
Pees and Poops in diaper
Have to wake up every three hours during the night for feeding
No teeth
No mobility (unless you count that time she swung her arm over her head and turned on her side)
Smells Good
Seems to have 3 states of being (awake content, awake discontent, asleep)
Time given off work to adjust

Picasso
Gets mean and looks like Fizgig when hungry (which we didn't figure out for awhile)
Pees and Poops anywhere despite being let out every two hours
Have to wake up every two hours for potential potty break
Teeth for biting hands, toys, etc in place and rearin' to go
Completely mobile
Smells good
Seems to have 2 states of being(awake mischievous, asleep)
No time off work

Despite the differences in the species, our dogs are doing stellar with Ruby. They sniff her when she is around and Picasso has licked her foot a few times. (The pediatrician advised against licking, but Ruby didn't burst into ashes so I suppose its fine). When I place her on the floor on the lava blanket, they leave her be. (I purchased a red blanket and called it lava. I informed the dogs when they step on it, that it is indeed hot lava. Loki still stubbornly puts a paw on the edge of it.) I wish I could say we spent time and effort making this great relationship happen, but honestly we forgot to do just about everything they recommend for introducing dogs to the baby. We left Ruby in the car seat downstairs and greeted the dogs alone, then brought her in. Seemed to work fine.

Picasso does have one issue. He really really wants a job associated with the baby. So far he's brought us more shoes than ever when we are holding her and once her brought her baby lotion from the other room. So....any ideas on a good baby job for Picasso would be welcome. Not bringing the lotion, that could get messy.

Oh Nos, My Baby's gots the Jaundice

I'm playing catch up with the events to date. Forgive the dates of the post not matching if you will.


The second day in the hospital, the pediatrician practice sends the on call doctor to check out the newborns. He walked into our room and glanced at a sheet of small paper in his hand and said "Um, your baby seems perfectly healthy; where are you guys from?" After he left, Jamey and I looked at each other and declared it the least helpful conversation with a doctor ever, and it was obvious he had no clue which baby was ours. Thirty minutes later when Jamey and mom were in the other room, I got a phone call from the same doctor. He said "Oh yes, I forgot to mention your baby has jaundice and will need light therapy. The nurses are coming to get her now." (Mind you, we had sent Ruby to the nursery for the night and had only had her back 10 minutes when the call came.) He went on to explain that Ruby had a bilirubin level of 12 and there was no cause to worry until it is 20. This would be like me saying don't worry because it is 12 hot outside and it won't kill you until it is 20 hot. I mean what is the scale here? He also mentioned it is an extra bad case of jaundice because our blood types are different. Not sure what questions to ask, I hung up and debriefed mom and Jamey. The nurse came as promised and took Ruby off for what came to be her first day of two days of light therapy. Ruby got to test out her first eye wear accessory, a blindfold. EEK! Imagine not being able to see for nine months, then able to look around for a few hours, then being blindfolded. Who knows, maybe it was comforting.

Jamey was my hero and went to the nursery to check on her several times and made sure that we got her for feedings. (Apparently, if you bottle feed, the nurses assume they can feed her instead of letting you bond.) Jamey completely charmed all the nursing shifts to the point where they knew him and would buzz him into the nursery as soon as they saw him in the camera. Now, I am a eternal optimist and there were several good things from the light therapy. Mom went to the mall and got me some walking pajamas (the ones I had packed were fine for walking around family but not the hospital) and I was motivated to get out of bed and get moving so I could see her sunbathing. Ruby did very well under the lights and learned to sleep by herself with no swaddling tricks or anything. Of course, there were issues too. To maximize skin exposure to the light, they didn't put a diaper on Ruby. All babies in the hospital wear a tag that sets off an alarm and turns off the elevator if they get close. At one point, when the nurse called for security to turn off her ankle tag with the quote "I've got this baby and there is crap everywhere!" Eventually, they were able to clean her off with Jamey's help. By day 2 the nurses had given up on no diaper and who could blame them? We were discharged late on Day 2 for maximum light time and Ruby finally got to go home with orders to sunbathe in indirect light several times a day.


We winded up seeing 4 pediatricians in her first 5 days of life and I liked all but the first one. Our pediatrician is a very laid back guy but was able to explain why my blood type of O+ was an issue with her blood type of A+. The first two pediatricians were unable to answer my question of "If O+ is a universal donor to + blood types, why is her blood fighting it?". They gave me vague answers of "Infants are different." Mom's favorite pediatrician (because he was cute and a genuinely caring charismatic doctor and did I mention cute?) said he would look it up. Say what you want about medical advise from the Internet, but in the first few days that was (sadly) our best source for what was going on with our baby.

Here were her bilirubin levels as an example of the path they can take. The three really low numbers are when she was under the light. The good news is that once the levels go down (and the liver is up and functioning) they don't go back up so the peak is what you try and control. I added the helpful scale that the doctors gave me.

Put the Hospitality in Hospital

It will happen one day. Friends you assumed were rational logical fun-loving people will decide to have a baby. It will shock you and you may wonder why anyone would put themselves in the biggest ball and chain there is. Trust me, it is best not to question but accept. After all, they wonder why you own a cat.

Despite the majority of my friends being baby-free, they had a surprising skill for taking care of Jamey and I through the pregnancy and at the hospital. I got a lot of questions (which I had no clue how to answer) on what they should do for us in the hospital. Now that I have a better idea, I thought I would share some of the best things and worst things to do for your friends whose life has completely changed.

DO
Bring a basket of snacks. The mom can't eat, but the lunch that we had optimistically packed for Jamey was long gone (and shared with my mom) by early evening when we had the baby. Jamey's mom brought some fantastic snacks which were lifesaver to Jamey and I later on in the stay as well. For the mom, pack good high fiber choices. Her bowels will have to get moving one day and the sooner the better. Apples, bananas, nuts and whole grain crackers work well.
Bring meals to the new parents. Hospital food is still hospital food and is only provided to the mom who will watch others jealously as they eat the delicious offerings from the outside. My mom brought lifesaving coffee (yes, I know that violates the bowel moving philosophy, but nothing had ever tasted as good as the first completely guilt free cup of coffee in months) and breakfast every morning. Evan and Yvonne went out and got us Brio's and a bottle of fine wine one evening which was a welcome distraction to waiting for time to feed Ruby.
Take Cues on When to Visit Everyone seemed to show up at the perfect time and leave before there was ever any need to say we were tired. I was so impressed by that. We had a slightly different hospital stay since we actually had no baby in our room to care for. Ruby had jaundice and had to sit under the lights. Having friends stop by kept us from staring at the clock waiting for our next chance to see her. If you are bringing small children, save your visit for Day 2 of the hospital stay, not the delivery (more on that later) Again, if we had the baby in the room, I'm not sure what it would have been like so you just have to know your friends and be ready to not be offended if they seem tired.

DON'T
Deliver Flowers - This is actually a hard one for me to put in the don't column. I got two absolutely beautiful arrangements which did brighten the room and still look beautiful in my house a week later. However, it is a pain to get those home especially if you get multiples (arrangements not babies, if you have multiple babies, nothing can help you). It may be best to send them to the house once you know the couple and baby is getting discharged.
Bring your 2 year old to the delivery - I know you want your child to experience the miracle of life, but a 1-2 day old baby is still new enough. No reason for the kids to come into the delivery right after mom is finished being sewn up. My energy levels were zero and having to tell people that a 2 year old is jumping up on the warming incubator the baby is in and about to turn it over is stress you don't need. Honestly, they won't remember this hospital visit anyway in the long run. Why not wait a day? In the 2-year old's defense, she did as good as a two year old possibly could do, Unfortunately, she was promised by mom that she could hold the baby. Since I had only held her 30 seconds, there was NO WAY I was passing her around until Jamey and I got to see her and let it sink in. Maybe the second time someone has a baby it would be ok. Maybe... BTW, some friends brought their kids Day 2 and it was just fine.

Side Note: Some people are REALLY into the bows on the doors at the hospital. Consider it the very first display of trying to outparent your neighbor. Jamey and I did not care at all and were the only door in the hopital with nothing. If you think your friends will care about this popularity contest, by all means keep that in mind as a good gift and add it to your DO list.

So for those of you still baby free, do what is best for your friends and you can't go wrong. Then go home to your cat, pick its poo out of the sand and realize humans are some of the strangest creatures on the planet.

More Work than a Pizza

Ahhh... the delivery. My idea of delivery was my husband strategically placed at my head where my calm pushing is greatly assisted by an epidural where I feel less pain than a root canal. Afterwards, I would hold my baby as visitors oohed and ahhhed over the baby and how great I look. Reality was just a tad different. First of all, a big shout out to modern medicine and the ability to induce labor. My physician and I picked June 14th. Although this ruined our Flag Day plans, I was happy to go a week early. Jamey and I played cards in the delivery room as contractions started. Once they were going good, I was offered some pain relief. I decided I could handle it and wait for the epidural.

As we waited, the room got warmer and warmer. Deciding that the air conditioner was broken, they wheeled us out of the 90 degree room to another room. Meanwhile I clawed Jamey's hand every 3 minutes and tried to mimic the breathing of those women you see on TV. I think I more closely resembled a wheezing donkey. Once in the new room, I got the epidural and I must say...women who complain about the pain of the epidural really didn't wait long enough. It was nothing compared to the contractions by that point. The epidural kicked in and things immediately began to improve. My mom showed up and I told her to stay if she would like. She agreed (a decision I hope she later still approved of). Seems like my vision of an easy labor was coming true! Or not... The baby's heart rate started to get a bit stressed so I had to wear an oxygen mask. This is a difficult accessory to pull off at anytime, but I think I managed.

As the contractions got stronger, my happiness with how much I could move around with my epidural turned into horror as I realized it also implied I was going to feel more than I ever expected. After two boosts, there was little improvement. Now it came down to a choice. I was almost fully dilated and ready to go, they could try and redo the epidural or I could tough it out. I would like to say I bravely chose to tough it out, but honestly, my body made the decision and it was time to push. Modesty is pretty far out the window by now, but any remnants are completely removed by the pushing process. My mom helped hold one leg and my husband the other. Then I began to push every 2-3 minutes for 30 seconds each. That went on for 2 hours when they decided progress was not sufficient (gee, ya think?) and called the doctor.

I was told to wait on my side and to take a break from pushing. Here's the interesting thing. The bits and pieces of me not numb from the epidural much preferred me to push. Having something to do felt much better. So I pushed on my side for a bit and waited for the doctor. Of course, rolling to my side caused me to vomit, but that is really small potatoes at that point. (by the way, the throw up bag looked like a really over sized condom with ribs, why is that better than a normal bag?) Well, pushing on my side must have dislodged something, because by the time the doctor got there, Ruby was moving again.

The doctor offered forceps to assist the still somewhat slow delivery. I readily agreed which seemed to confuse her. She was ready for a long defense of forceps and that they won't hurt the baby. My feeling is that you either trust your doctor or you don't. (BTW, having a really cute female doctor does not make you feel any prettier at this point, but you are so happy to see her that, just this once, you will forgive her for being adorable) So, the doctor put on her Darth Vader mask and grabbed her ice cream scoops and away we go. As the head was halfway out and we were waiting for the next contraction to finish, the doctor asked how I was doing. It was such an insane question that it jolted me out of my pain and brought out my natural sweet sarcastic self. "Oh, just great, let's just stop now shall we? This is fantastic." About now, mom and Jamey realize I am just fine. After the head was out I asked if I could keep pushing (I was so not waiting another 2 minutes) and the doctor said "Knock yourself out." If I had known that was an option, I would have done that at the beginning! Out came Ruby and the doctor held up my very own slightly alien looking bundle of joy.
No, other posts won't be this long, consider this one a catharsis.

Begin the Begin

With much inspiration from my brother and sister-in-law and my friend Dawn, I now know that anybody with a keyboard and two thoughts in their head can start a blog. So far, I hadn't felt the need myself, but last week my daughter Ruby was born and I started a new chapter in my life. My friends Atlee and Amanda write a letter to their children at the end of each year and will give it to them on their 18th birthday. An awesome idea, but I'm a horrible letter writer. So in the interest of not forgetting these first forays into parenthood, I decided on a blog as the best method of documenting my (and my husband Jamey's) complete ineptness when it comes to child rearing! I don't promise to update daily, but I will try my best to get in at least one post a week. (insert Scarlett O'Hara impersonation here) While I can't promise the savior fare of my brother's writing, I can promise lackadaisical spelling and maybe some insight into what its like when a 32 year old logical problem solver decides to take on the completely illogical process of raising a human being.