2 Months

Month 2 went a billion times better than Month 1!!  I feel like I'm getting the hang of this "having a baby" thing, and I'm really enjoying watching her grow and get new skillz (yes, skillz with a z because they're that awesome to watch!)  My friend Tamara had her baby girl, Hannah, on Oct 3rd, and I really truly forgot how teeny tiny my daughter used to be.  We went to visit them shortly after Hannah was born, and Bryann and I both held her and said "There's no way Callie was ever this small!" even though Callie was 6 oz. smaller when she was born!  Just goes to show you how fast they grow and you don't even notice!  As cute as she was when she was a newborn, I wouldn't trade these days for newborn days again. 

Breastfeeding is a billion times easier.  Sleep is a billion times better.  Going places produces a billion times less anxiety.  We've got this thing figured out!  I took her on a wine tasting day-trip with some girlfriends, I've taken her to book club gatherings, and dinner out with friends, and Wine & Dine parties.  We figured out the bottle feeding thing, so I can have more than 1 drink.  I started working part-time from home, and we have a pretty great routine going during the day.  Mostly the Baby Whisperer routine of Eat, Activity, Sleep, "You" time, and she does really well entertaining herself in her Pack N' Play. 

We are past the super fussy phase, and we have the 5 intervention line-up to intervene when she does get fussy.  First, give the pacifier.  Second, bounce her a bit or rock her.  Third, swaddle her up.  Fourth (if 1+2+3 doesn't work) feed her.  Fifth (and rarely needed because she zonks out with the 1+2+3 intervention) Shushing, singing, or white noise.  With these powers combined, we have a calm, quiet, often sleeping baby. 

Stats: 10 lbs. 6 oz., 22 inches long and 15 inch head size. She's dropped in percentile for height and weight, but both have dropped proportionally to each other, so the Doc said not to worry about it yet.

Health:  She has some dry skin on her face, and we saw the beginnings of "diaper rash" this month.  I'm not sure if it's "diaper rash" so much as general moisture rash in her fat folds.  Her blocked tear ducts is all cleared up though, and she spits up slightly less often than she did last month. 

Sleep:  I almost don't want to write about her sleep for fear of jinxing what we have going.  We moved her from the co-sleeper on our bed, to putting the co-sleeper in her crib in her room for her 1 month birthday present.  (More a present to us, really!)  Since then, she's been sleeping progressively longer stretches at night.  The first night we put her in her crib, she slept for a 5 hour stretch!  We both woke up in the middle of the night wondering why she hadn't cried yet, and if she was still alive!  Since then, she slept for progressively longer and longer.  She dropped the 11pm and 1 am feeding right away, then dropped the 3am feeing a few weeks later.  Now she usually falls asleep for good around 9:30, and then sleeps until about 5am.  Then she goes straight back to sleep until around 8 or 8:30am.  My sanity took a drastic change for the better once we moved her to the crib.  I'm not sure if she's really not waking up as often, or if it's because I was interpreting her sleeping grunting sounds as waking sounds, and waking her up to feed more often than she needed to. 

Getting her to bed is still kind of a struggle.  We have a bedtime routine of feeding around 7pm, then wake and play time till about 7:45, then change, swaddle, feed, story, lights out, white noise on, put in bed.  She'll sleep for about 30-40 minutes, then she'll wake up again.  Then we're in and out of her room, sticking the pacifier back in for the next 40 minutes, until she goes to sleep for good.  I do feed her again most nights between 9:30 and 10pm.  Most of the time, she's asleep and it's a nice "dream feed".

I'm not sure what to do in the meanwhile hour because 90% of what I've read says she's really not old enough to just let her cry until 3-4 months.  So I guess for the next month, we'll continue what we're doing, and hope for the best. 

Clothes/Diaper Size:  Callie is still in her Newborn or 0-3 month clothes.  Also still wearing the size 1-2 diapers from Costco.

Diet:  Exclusively breastfeeding.  We started her on a bottle at around 5 weeks to try to get her used to it (not out of necessity), and it didn't go well to start off.  Bryann took over a feeding every evening, and she cried and squirmed and fussed and got milk all over her face.  He was pretty stressed out about it.  I even tried to bottle feed her once, and I think it went worse for me.  She was looking at me like "WTF?!  I KNOW where the boob is!  Don't try to pull this shiz on me!"  It got better with more exposures, and we even got to have a "Date Night" while Reezy babysat and took over a feeding!! 

Baby Gear Love:  We've been using the BabyErgo every time we take her out to places.  It is the most amazing contraption EVER!  Also, we've really enjoyed the Bob stroller.  It's been a very strange Indian Summer (still sunny and low 60's) so we've been going on lots of walks around the neighborhood and to Cook Park down the river trail. 

The Pack N' Play has been used on a daily basis, as has her baby papasan (not sure what else to call it... It's a floor seat that bounces and vibrates and has dangling birds for her to goo at) as places to put her where she can entertain herself for a few minutes if we're busy doing something.  She's also been napping well in her swing
. 
Nicknames:  Goo Goo, Callie Bear, Callie Flower, Callie Lily, Stretchy Moo, Fussy Wussy.  Reezy's favorites are Gal Pal Cal and Dumple Bumple

Favorite Songs/Lullabyes:  Blackbird, Die Nachtigal (The Nightingale), Dona Nobis Pachem, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, multiple and varying versions of "Good Morning to You".  I tried to change it up a little bit this month.

Milestones/Firsts:  Calista started social smiling this month, which is the best thing ever to see!  She's also started speaking, saying highly sophisticated things like "Goo", "Goo Goo", "Ooh", and "Gah".  Callie's also getting a bit more physical.  I caught her rolled over on her side twice, and she's extending her legs and kicking with a good amount of pressure.  She also has more control of her head and can *almost* keep it upright when we've got her balanced. 

Likes:  Watching her bears on the mobile in the Pack 'N Play.  Watching the birds in her swing and baby papasan.  Talking.  Going on tours around the house and looking at stuff.  Bath time. Getting kisses.

Dislikes:  Being cold and wet after a bath, having clothes put on her 

Things I Don't Want to Forget:  Most of my "Don't want to forget" moments are watching Bryann and Callie together.  He's so wonderful with her and he loves her SOOOO much!  He makes goofy faces, or says ridiculous things in baby talk, and I've even caught him SINGING!  *GASP*  Some things in particular though:

Her first night in her crib, we went a little overboard in taking precautions to make the transition smooth. To make it as familiar an environment as possible, we put her in her co-sleeper in her crib, a smelly tshirt underneath her, on top of her, and hanging on the crib rail behind her.

When the Braves lost the playoff series against the Dodgers, Bryann was heartbroken.  But when he picked up Callie and she smiled at him, he told her she just made it all better.  My heart burst.  <3

We were watching an episode of HIMYM on TV where Robin and Barney get engaged, and Bryann starts tearing up a little bit - I thought at how cute the scene was - but then he said "I don't want to give Callie away at her wedding!"  I also pointed out a cute scene in a commercial between a dad and his daughter and told Bryann he missed it.  He said he looked away on purpose so he wouldn't cry. 

Meeting her BFF Hannah for the first time!

First bath without screaming!

Playing with her BFF Clara

Her many Patriots outfits, as picked out by Bryann

Snoozing away in her baby papasan

Some baby laughs!

Her Halloween costume made by Auntie Belinda.

Calista's Birth Story

I'm already starting to forget the details of Calista's birth, so I need to get this down before all I can remember is "I went in, got the drugs, pushed the baby out"!  Hold on to your hats, because it's a long story!

My OB had been telling me for over two weeks that Callie could come any day because I'd been having really frequent and regular Braxton Hicks contractions.  I even got one of those timer apps because they were so close together, I was sure they would turn into labor contractions at any minute.  I suppose I was hoping that if I timed them, and if they consistently lasted for 1 minute, 5 minutes apart, for an hour, that by sheer force of will, they WOULD turn into labor contractions.  The point is, we were on high alert for over two weeks.  My mom stayed in Portland so she would be here just in case.  We ended up just sitting around staring at each other waiting for me to go into labor.

The morning I finally DID go into labor, I had some of the symptoms I'd been reading about.  I was pretty sure I had been losing my mucous plug over the past 2 days, I had some bloody show that morning, and I was having the menstrual cramping feeling I'd read about.  I still had contractions for most of the day, but they finally started to feel slightly different around 3pm when Bryann got home from work.  I told him what I'd been feeling and he suggested we go to the mall to walk around a bit and see if they got any worse.  I also decided to take a shower just in case I was in early labor and I wouldn't get another chance to shower for a few days.  (One of the better ideas of my life!)

We went to the mall, walked around a bunch, then went to Bridgeport and walked around a bunch, then came home and ate dinner (big mistake...you'll see why later...) then walked around the neighborhood a bunch.  From about 4:00-9:00 I was having frequent, consistent contractions that were gradually getting harder to deal with.  Not painful yet, but harder to breathe through and definitely made me stop and grab Bryann's shoulder.  By 9:00, I called L&D at the hospital and told them I thought I might be in labor but wasn't sure and they said that since it was still early-ish, why don't I come in and get checked and if I was indeed in labor, they could admit me before it got too late at night and the hospital got less accessible.

So in we went!  I walked in laughing and in good spirits, still having contractions, joking with the nurses.  Our nurse measured me at 3cm dilated and told us to walk around the floor for an hour, and if I made progress, they would admit me.  Around the floor we walked, and BOY did those contractions get WAY worse WAY fast.  We walked around from 10pm-11pm and by the end of that hour, I thought I was going to die or pass out or some act of God would prevent me from having to experience any more of that pain.  I measured at 4cm, they admitted me, and I continued to labor naturally in our room, on a bouncy ball for another hour when I asked to try the fentanyl to manage the pain.  I guess by all appearances, I was handling the contractions pretty well with my breathing because the nurse commented on my high pain tolerance, but I was honestly thinking "kill me now.  Just put me out of my misery.  I can't do this anymore."  Unfortunately, the dose of the fentanyl didn't do a damn thing, and I asked for the epidural.  I had made it as long as I could tolerate, and I didn't think I could mentally endure the pain for the next 12 hours or however long it was going to be until I birthed that baby.  I appologized to Bryann because I told him I would try to do this birthing thing naturally, but by that point, he didn't care anymore.  He saw how much pain I was in, and he was exhausted.  He jokingly asked if me getting an epidural meant that he got to go to sleep.  hahaha

The nurse anesthetist was amazing, and put in the epidural pretty painlessly.  The hardest thing was trying to hold still through a contraction while she threaded the needle into my spinal cavity.  She had to do the epidural twice because it wasn't quite numbing my legs the way it was supposed to the first time, but by then it was no biggie and I was well on my way to being comfortable again.  Once the epidural was in and it had begun to take effect, it was about 2:30am.  They laid me down in bed, which unfortunately triggered the heartburn I'd been having all pregnancy, and since I couldn't sit up and burp, I ended up vomitting up my dinner (shouldn't have had that last Oreo...) and then an hour later, whatever remnants remained in my stomach, until they put some Pepcid in my IV.  After that, it was happy town!!  Bryann passed out on the couch, and I got to doze off for 30 minutes at a time until the blood pressure cuff went off, or the nurse came in to check on me.

At 6am, the nurse came in to check my progress.  I was at 6cm and during the exam, my water broke.  The nurse said there was some slight discoloration and it was possible that the baby had passed some meconium while in there, but that it wasn't a concern at that point since I was progressing fairly quickly and there wasn't enough discoloration to cause concern.  Bryann woke up when my OB came in around 7:30am to do an exam.  I was still at 6cm but she said she could easily stretch it to 7cm.  She said I was progressing excellently, and I would probably have the baby some time that afternoon or evening.  She asked the nurse to do another check at 10am and to call her with updates.  As soon as I was ready, she would come back in to deliver the baby.  Bryann called my mom to give her the news, and mom showed up at the hospital around 10am.  We spent the morning dozing in and out of sleep, and watching reruns of Frasier and Will & Grace while I labored away painlessly and blissfully.

By 11:30 or so, I was feeling a lot more pressure on my pelvic floor during contractions than I had previously, and I mentioned this offhandedly to the nurse, and also that I had felt the urge to push a few .  She waited to check me until 11:50 and said "Welp! Better call your doctor and get her down here immediately!  Baby is coming!"  My OB showed up at 12:20 and they got me in a better position to push.  I had a moment of panic where I thought "Wait!  I'm really going to have a baby soon?  You're going to let ME have a baby?!"  I had had such an easy, relaxing, enjoyable morning, it seemed like things had gone a little TOO easy after the epidural went in.  I was waiting for something dramatic to happen to make me feel like the time had come.  I'm guessing that's why people like to labor naturally?  Anyway, they brought in a mirror so I could watch the baby's progress and get all motivated to push her out, and we started the birthing process.  It was so relaxed and nonchalant.  I waited for a contraction, then pushed real hard, 3 times, for 10 seconds each, until the contraction was over.  I pushed for maybe half an hour, through probably 6 contractions, and then Callie was born!  I wasn't sure about the mirror, but I'm glad I watched.  As soon as I saw her head crown, I got REAL motivated to meet her and gave it my darnedest until her head emerged all the way.  The doc told me to look down instead of at the mirror, so I could watch her come out.  The doc also told me ease up on the pushing once her head was out.  It was just one more push, some twisting and she slid right out at 12:52pm!

Once she was out though, things went a bit down hill.  She ended up coming out with the umbilical cord wrapped around her, and she had swallowed some amniotic fluid, so as soon as she came out, I got to say "Hi" real quickly, Bryann cut her umbilical cord, then the Respiratory Therapy team took her to a table and had to pump her lungs and resuscitate her.  I had also torn pretty badly, so they had to find a surgeon to come in and stitch me back up.  Bryann unfortunately had a better angle downwards than I did, and said there was a looooooooot of blood.  I think he got a little overwhelmed, woozy, and scared for my safety there was so much blood.  And while they were stitching me up, they still had Calista on the RT table working on her and no one was really talking to us.  They were pretty focused getting her breathing and getting me to stop bleeding, and at the time I was pretty worried she wasn't going to make it.  I was gripping Bryann's hand and glancing nervously at him.  She started breathing again just fine though, and they let me hold her again for a few minutes before they took her down to the nursery for 4 hrs of protocol observation and to get shots and meds and stuff.

Bryann went with Callie down to the nursery while my mom stayed in the room with me while the surgeon and my OB stitched me back up.  Bryann brought back pictures and a video of our new baby girl, and then went back to the nursery to keep her company.  I was stuck in the L&D room for another 2 hours until the epidural wore off enough for me to get from the bed to a wheel chair, so I could go down to the nursery.  I finally got to go down to see her around 3:00.  I got to nurse her, and hold her, and just hang out talking to her for about half an hour before they took me down to our recovery room.  It wasn't long afterward they brought her in the recovery room with us to stay.

The next two days in the hospital are kind of a blur.  We stayed two nights after the birth, and had a whirlwind of friends and family come visit us in the hospital.  The first night, Calista slept in the room with us, and Bryann was up (since I couldn't stand up unassisted) at EVERY noise making sure she wasn't choking on her tongue, or that she was still breathing.  The 2nd night we had her stay in the nursery from 9-12 so we could sleep more soundly, but after they brought her back in to eat, she went right back to sleep and we were much less worried.  Since I couldn't really move, Bryann did all the diaper changing, swaddling, and moving the baby, and became a pro by the time we left.  I didn't change her diaper until we'd made it home!

After the birth and after the epidural wore off, I was in quite a bit of pain.  I was hopped up on Oxycodone and Ibuprofen, and could barely move let alone stand up and walk to the bathroom.  It took at least another 6 hours before the epidural completely wore off and I could stand and walk on my own, and even then, I was still in a lot of pain from the tear.  I remember saying at the time though that I would take that pain than my contractions pain any day of the week!  And if I had to do it all over again, I would have made the same decisions.  Bryann thinks it was good that I labored naturally for as long as I did because he suspects that's what got my progress moving so well and let it continue to progress quickly over the next 11 hours after I got the epidural.  I'm frankly amazed I was able to have a spontaneous vaginal birth at all.  I'm a pretty petite person, and I don't have any hips to speak of, and my mom had a c-section with both me and my brother, so I didn't think there was any WAY I'd be able to have a natural birth.  But the human body is a crazy amazing thing!

Callie's birth wasn't IDEAL, but it was pretty darn awesome, and I'm even willing to go through it all again for kid #2 some day.  I'm glad I went in with an open mind about how the process could go.  I think aside from her having to be resuscitated and taken to the nursery right away rather than get the skin-to-skin time I wanted, the whole birth went pretty spectacularly.  I remember marveling that I was just laying around, watching Will & Grace, glancing at the monitor every now and then - watching my contractions come and go - that pretty soon we'd have a baby and how easy and enjoyable all of that was.  I hope for a similar experience the next time around.

The monitor showing my contraction spacing at the bottom