do babies come with user manuals? i think not...

The past seven weeks have been... happy, sad, exciting, worrisome, busy, stressful, tiring, joyful, fun, hectic, exhausting, the list just keeps going. I knew what we were getting ourselves into, I mean, all I've done my whole life is babysit and take care of other peoples' babies. But even with all of the experience, all of the know-how, and all of the advice, one can never fully prepare themselves to bring their newborn home and just "be" a parent. It's hard. And between trying to get the hang of nursing and sleep deprivation, throw some major holidays into the mix and you have a recipe for gut-wrenching, hair-pulling, tear-inducing stress. But in the midst of all of this stress, there is a beautiful, tiny little life that is relying on you to be strong and get through the hard times. And that's just what we're doing, one day at a time.

The first three weeks, we had a really really hard time with the whole nursing thing. I developed a new found respect for all women who nurse their babies, yet I also understand why so many mommies find formula feeding so attractive. I wanted to switch to formula so badly that second week, but I told myself I would try my hardest to get through the first six weeks, which everyone says are the hardest. Mason's little mouth just wouldn't open up wide enough, at first, so after using a nipple shield for a week or so, we finally got our latch fixed and we've been nursing champs ever since.

This baby definitely lives up to his in-utero behavior of constantly kicking and moving around; Mason loves to be awake! And boy oh boy, he knows how to kick those feet! He is such an observer. Since day one, he has loved nothing more that to look at you and study your face and just listen to you talk to him. We got our first "gas smile" at four days old but he really started smiling at about three or four weeks old, and now at seven weeks he smiles all the time. He talks (coos) like crazy now, and if your really lucky he'll give you a little laugh.

He has been growing like a weed, too. Mason weighed 7 lbs 12 oz, 20" long when he was born, and was 7 lbs 3 oz when we left the hospital that Friday. The lactation nurses asked that we come back the following Monday to get his weight checked to make sure he was gaining a little and when we went back in, he was already back up to 7 lbs 11 oz! He weighed in at 8 lbs 3 oz at his two week check up, and grew a half an inch! And at his last appointment, his one month check up, he weighed 9 lbs 12 oz and grew to 21 3/4 inches! But all of that growing didn't come easily. The first four weeks of nursing were rough (even after we got the latch right) with lots of painful gas and spitting up most of what he ate. He never actually lost any weight, so he was never diagnosed with reflux, but I self-diagnosed a problem with lactose, and ever since I've cut out most dairy from my diet and switched to lactose-free milk, the spit up has been practically eliminated! The gas is still a terrible problem; sometimes he wakes up screaming because it hurts him so bad. The gas drops that we were giving him with simethicone in them are made to help stomach gas, and he has trouble with intestinal gas, so they weren't effective most of the time. I don't really like giving him any sort of medicine that could have harmful side effects, and since most gripe waters having things like baking soda in them, which aren't regulated by the FDA and can lead to side effects. Thank goodness we found Colic Calm (and no, I'm not paid to say that; we just tried the product and it truly works for us!) It's a homeopathic gripe water consisting of nothing more than all natural products like aloe, vegetable charcoal, chamomile, peppermint, and ginger, which means that you can't overdose; the body just absorbs what it needs and dispels the rest... and the product is regulated by the FDA, all of which makes this momma very happy.

All in all, we have an incredibly well mannered baby, he is so good. But I have really been struggling with his sleeping habits. I mean, don't get me wrong, I realize that newborns and babies younger than three months don't really have a set "schedule" quite yet, but this child is such a picky sleeper. Which has led to mommy sleeping on the couch for the last seven weeks. He absolutely HATES sleeping in his crib; the longest he has ever slept in his crib was about 10 minutes. He won't even sleep in the crib if I swaddle him. We have one of those Fisher Price "Rock'N'Sleep" bassinets, but with all of his tummy troubles, he doesn't like to be quite as "squished" as that. So we've had to lay a pillow in the bassinet before putting him, which seems to be just the right mixture of laying flat but being slightly elevated. I know every parent and doctor and child safety advocate is shaking their head at me right now, but it gets him to sleep. Now that he's seven weeks old though, I think it's about time to start sleep training and trying to get him to sleep in his crib. I'm not ready to make him cry it out yet, but we're going to try to implement a bedtime routine for the next several weeks, and maybe start crying it out for naptime when he's about three or four months. Although we've got some time to get all that worked out, I'm definitely looking forward to remembering what it's like to sleep in my own bed, so stay tuned to see how that all works out.

And we've already experienced two major "firsts"... holidays! Mason was two weeks old for his first Thanksgiving, and we just celebrated his first Christmas. Obviously, they weren't very eventful; Thanksgiving was mostly just time for family members to meet baby boy for the first time and me and Hubs didn't even "get" any presents for Mason for his first Christmas (no worries, everyone else spoiled him rotten this year!). Next year he will be one and walking and talking (hopefully) and the holidays will be so much more fun with him being able to tear into presents and what not.

So that's what we've been up to lately. This momma has lost her sanity and regained it, and doesn't remember what it's like to sleep in my own bed anymore, but baby boy is growing so much each and every day, and we love him so much. We may not be doing everything according to the books or what doctors say, but we're figuring this whole mommy and daddy thing out. Who actually reads a user manual anyways... don't most people just try to figure it out as they go? Isn't that what parenting is? =] As I was typing this, looking back on the last seven weeks, I can't believe that we've already gone from a newborn to a baby who's almost two months old!

two weeks

three weeks

four weeks

five weeks

six weeks

seven weeks

the birth of mason alexander...

So I suppose that it's been seven weeks since having a baby, and I should probably start making time to get this blog updated. And what better way to start that than with our sweet baby boy, and the intense (and terrifying) story of his birthday.

And I'll warn you, I talk about peeing and sitting on the toilet and other fun stuff, like birth (duh) so if you don't wanna hear it, I wouldn't suggest continuing on with this post.

I had my 39 week OB appointment on Monday, November 7th, and we were still only about 50% effaced and dilated to about 1 1/2 cm, so I spent the day finishing up the painting in the kitchen - we got the walls painted that Saturday, and I got the outside framing of the pantry cabinets painted Sunday, so I got the actual pantry  drawers painted on Monday. And Tuesday was supposed to be my day to make arrangements with a new pediatrician (since I had really procrastinated getting that figured out and taken care of before I was 39 weeks pregnant) and get all the baseboards painted. Well... that's where our plans veered off track. After going to bed, exhausted, on Monday night, I woke up around 6 am on Tuesday morning having to pee (for the seventh time that night) and I felt something wet "down there". I sat up, thinking to myself, "Self, did you just pee your pants?!" I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom, only to realize "Holy shit! My water just broke!", and then to realize that my underwear and pajama pants were soaked, so my plan to put on a pad and go wake up Hubs was shot. So here I am, sitting on the toilet, leaking amniotic fluid, yelling as loud as I can "GREG! GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEG!!!!" And let me tell you, he must have taken his sleeping pill that night, cause he didn't hear me at all. So I let 10 or 15 minutes pass by, trying to decide what to do; every time I went to get up off the toilet, more fluid came out... I felt trapped, but I needed to get some new undies and pants, and I needed to tell Hubs that the baby was on his way! So I grabbed a few pads and a towel, fashioned a big ole diaper of sorts and waddled my way into our bedroom to wake him up, much to his surprise. Now, my OB's office doesn't open until 8 am, and it was only about 7 am, so after cleaning myself up (as best as one can when they are leaking amniotic fluid everywhere and about to have a baby) and getting some pants back on, Hubs needed to get a few things done for work really quick (good thing the plant he was going to is only about 7 minutes from our house), so I put some towels down on the bed, just in case, and tried to lay down and get some rest before we called the doc to let them know my water broke and that I needed to come in to get checked out. It was about this time that I actually started to feel some contractions - the real, this-kind-of-hurts contractions... and it was two seconds later that I realized my whole entire kitchen was torn apart and that I needed to get it back together ASAP (cause I'm crazy OCD and I didn't really want anyone else trying to put my stuff away, it needed to go a certain way). I couldn't sleep anyways, my  mind was going a million miles an hour, worrying about said messy kitchen, and if we got everything ready for the baby, and if I was forgetting anything, and that I needed to call my mom, and worrying that maybe we should have just gone straight to the hospital, and oh my gosh, what if the baby comes crazy fast and I become that lady who sat down on the toilet to pee and the baby fell out, worst of all while Hubs was gone?! You get the idea... So I got back out of bed and tried to get the kitchen cleaned up before 8 o'clock rolled around. Hubs got home a few minutes later, we got our bags and stuff packed and then I called the doctor. And whadya know, the nurse said "You should just go straight to the hospital. I'll call Dr. Marshall and let her know what's going on, and I'll call the hospital and let them know that you're on your way up." So that's just what we did. We got the car packed up, car seat and all, grabbed some Gatorade, and headed to the hospital!

Ready to have a baby!

Hubs took a picture of his phone, so we would know exactly when we left!

Beautiful day to have a baby!

We got to the hospital a little before 9:00 am, got all signed in and hooked up, and they started me on a bag of antibiotics, since my water broke before we got to the hospital. The nurse checked us out, we were still only about 1 1/2 cm dilated, so I called my mom and told her that she could come up whenever, but that we weren't progressing very quickly, and it was just a waiting game, now.

Talking to the registration nurse and getting my IV hooked up

Mommy and baby are all hooked up now!

Baby's heart beat up on top, Mommy's contractions down on bottom.

Ready to get this baby boy here, finally!

An hour or so goes by and we still hadn't really progressed very much, except for my contractions getting a little bit stronger. The nurse called Dr. Marshall to see what she wanted to do, and they started me on a Pitocin drip to help speed things along. Hubs' mom got here first (they only live about 10 minutes away from the hospital), his dad would be there later, and my mom said she was on her way, and my dad had to work, so he would be there as soon as he could get someone else there to cover for him (my parents live about 40 minutes away).

Our last picture together as just "the two of us".

By the time my mom got to the hospital, my contractions were starting to get pretty intense, so I asked for some Nubain to try and relieve some of the pain, before jumping straight into an epidural. An hour went by and the Nubain had no effect, and the contractions were getting a lot stronger, so the nurse checked me, we were at about 4 cm dilated, and Nancy, my anesthesiologist came in and I got my epidural. (Which ended up being a blessing in disguise, as you'll see later) And this is where the craziness began. My original plan was to take a nice little nap after getting my epidural, and getting some rest before having to push later; the Nubain had made me really drowsy, so I wanted to sleep, but with all the excitement, I only slept for a few minutes. About an hour after getting the epidural, the nurse came in to check me again, and we had jumped to about 8 cm dilated, almost 100% effaced - which meant that it was almost time to start pushing! Our nurse called Dr. Marshall and told her how close we were and that she should come over (she was at the office, right behind the hospital) We started to get excited and were trying to make sure that certain people - namely, our dads - were all going to be there in time. Several minutes went by, and Whitney (our awesome nurse at the time) came back in to check on us and told us that they wanted to keep an eye on the baby because his heart rate was starting to drop after each contraction; they weren't too concerned, because his heart rate would bounce right back after the contraction, but they wanted to keep an eye on him, just to be safe. The nurses kept coming in and out, messing around with the fetal monitor on my belly, trying to get it in the right spot, and after a while, Whitney came back in because the baby's heart rate was starting to not come back up as fast as it should after each contraction. She checked me again and we were fully dilated, and started asking where Dr. Marshall was. This is where everything kind of started to blur all together, because things were escalating, nurses were rushing in and out, and you could feel the sense of urgency in everyone. The baby's heart rate started to drop really low, down to the 80s and 90s (it should have been up in the 140s, which was normal for Mason) They put me on oxygen, to help the baby, and Whitney was checking me out, trying to feel how the baby was positioned and what was causing the drop in heart rate. [[About this time, Hubs' dad was on his way, and my dad was about 5 minutes away]] A few minutes went by (Hubs and our moms in the corner of the room, presumably freaking out) and Dr. Marshall came wooshing into our room and jumped on my bed and starting checking me out, and at this point the baby's heart rate kept dropping - he was now down into the 60s and 70s. And that was it. Dr. Marshall jumped up and said "We need to get this baby out now. Call surgery and let them know we're on our way" (Lucky for us, the OR and staff were in-between scheduled deliveries, so it was ready and waiting for us) As Dr. Marshall and Whitney went rushing out, a whirlwind of other nurses came rushing in, started disconnecting the fetal monitors and my IV, covered my bottom half back up, and quickly told Hubs and our moms that we needed to do an emergency c-section and that our moms needed to go to the waiting room and Hubs needed to come down to the OR with me. As we were getting rolled down to the OR, Hubs' dad had just gotten there, our moms met him in the waiting room and told him that they just rushed us down to the OR, and my mom called my dad (who hadn't gotten there yet, he got stopped by a train) at let him know. We were whisked into the OR, Hubs went one way to get suited up, I went the other to get rolled onto the OR table, numbed up, and cut open. It seriously went that fast... Four minutes. And it's a good thing, too, cause when we got into the OR, the baby's heart rate was down into the 50s. Nancy came in and pushed more drugs into my epidural to completely numb me, and two seconds later, Dr. Marshall was slicing and dicing. Four minutes from the time we got on the table (4:30 pm) to the time Mason was delivered (4:34 pm). And get this... Hubs wasn't even in the room as they pulled Mason out!!! They forgot about him being back there until it was almost too late! He walked in right as the nurse was taking the baby over to the warmer; Hubs started walking towards me, and the baby was getting walked the other way! And let me tell you, this baby was so "pale" that he was blue. Come to find out, when we quickly progressed from 8 to 10 cm in a matter of minutes, the baby dropped down quickly and his cord got caught between his head and his way out, which kinked like a hose and cut off most of his oxygen supply; it actually left a big, long, red indention in the side of his face and head, in the exact shape of his cord - Dr. Marshall took a picture of it on her iPhone to show me (and she actually still had the picture on her phone when we went in for my 6 week postpartum check up). But all 7 pounds, 12 ounces of his 20 inch long self started crying right away - after they sucked all the goop out - and they put him on oxygen to help get his counts up where they should have been.

Here's our sweet baby boy!
You can see the mark his cord left on his head.

Hubs and baby were only in the OR for a few minutes, they brought him over for me to kiss on real quick, then they wheeled him back down to the room because they were still a little worried about him and wanted to check him out completely. So now they started stitching me up (Dr. Marshall actually glued my incision shut, so it just looks like a paper cut; no staples, yay!) and I took my opportunity to catch a few zzzz's. (Little did I know, I actually stayed in the OR for about 3 hours - it was about 7:45 pm when I got back to the room - so I got some sleep while they were working on me) One of the nurses came back in and told me Mason was doing great, and was really starting to pink up, and another one came in after they got me all closed up to take an x-ray (just to make sure they didn't leave any instruments in there). It was about this time that I started to shake really bad; the nurses finally realized that they were in such a rush to cut me open and get the baby out safely, that no one covered me with any warm blankets (and let me tell you, that OR is freezing!) Between the hormones after delivering a baby and the extreme cold, I was full-body, practically convulsing kind of shaking. Nancy (one of my favorite nurses of our stay, besides Whitney, from that night, and Karen, from a couple days later) got me loads of warm blankets and started trying to warm me up. After we got the okay from the x-ray guys, I finally got to return to our room and hold my sweet baby boy for the first time.

He finally pinked up, and after taking a couple different blood tests and what not, the doc said he was a-okay, perfectly healthy. He scored an 8 on his Apgar test, the two points were taken off only for how extremely pale he was when born. And that's all folks, that's the crazy, exciting, terrifying, wonderful birth story of Mason Alexander; born Tuesday, November 8, 2011 at 4:34 pm, weighing in at 7 pounds, 12 ounces, and 20 inches long. He's got blonde hair, blue eyes, his daddy's nose, momma's mouth, and let's face it, he's a little mini-me of Hubs, so everything else comes from him. And I'm perfectly okay with that.

I'll get you caught up on the last seven weeks of our lives tomorrow... and maybe friday, too; a lot has happened in the last seven weeks, I'm not sure if I can cover it all in one post. =]