Andrias's Birth, Part 4 -- The babymoon

The first week was delicious.  By midwife's orders, I was on bed rest.  Baby and I spent all of our hours together.  We slept, we snuggled, we nourished ourselves.  I breathed in the scent of his new skin and stroked him.  There is no touch like that of newborn skin; there's nothing smoother or softer.  He spent his first several days naked, wrapped in blankets or wool sacks. No diaper to squish his bottom into.  No forcing his arms and legs into tiny clothes.  And he never left the room.  So there was no wrestling this tiny, fragile frame into the straps and buckles of a car seat or exposing him to the harsh elements of the outdoors.  No swirling cacophony of people, places, lights, sounds, and smells to fill his senses.  Only calm, only us.

When we slept, he wriggled his way to my breast, latched himself on and fed.  Breastfeeding has been so easy this time.  Painless and easy.  And when he pooped, I held him in my arms and put a little bowl or blanket under him to catch it.  The beginnings of EC, and it went really well.  On day four, I caught four poops.  I knew him, his rhythm, and his body language already. 

Everything was easy, and so natural.  Effortless.  I felt myself naturally become Mother in a way I never had with my first. 

At night, Baby slept, skin-to-skin with either George or myself.  Regin slept with us too.  And something strange happened to him that first night that became more and more obvious that first week:  he grew about 3 feet and gained about 20 pounds.  George laughed about the teenager that was suddenly in our bed.  Our little one had become our big one, relatively speaking anyway.

Regin loved his brother right away.  We had to hold him back a little from smothering the tiny infant with his kisses.  And in their sleep the two brothers kept drifting towards each other, trying to snuggle.  We tried to keep them separate early on, because we were worried that Regin would be rough in his sleep.

Everything was easy, except for the little matter of his name.  We'd chosen three candidates, but when Baby Boy arrived, we didn't agree on the name.  I leaned towards one of the Faroese names, Andrias, George leaned to the Spanish name, Eliseo. We waffled on it for several days, and on her check up visits, our midwife, Sena, reminded us that she needed to send in paperwork with the name by about a week.  My pull to my cultural heritage made me want to choose Faroese, plus his hair was light and reddish, like a viking!  But it was only fair to give George the choice, since I'd made the final call on Regin's name.  So, at around 6 days old, Baby lived with the name Eliseo for a day.  We told my mom and I was surprised to hear her highly linguistic tongue absolutely struggle with the name.  Then I began to feel more and more guilt over not passing on my culture to him.  Latin culture, after all, is so prevalent in the world, but there are only 50,000 people in the world that call themselves Faroese.  Plus Regin had such a lovely story to go along with his name.  So, we decided to switch back.  Andrias it was.  Sorry George.  Eliseo is a wonderful name.  We told everyone else his new name, and it seemed we made the right choice.  Even my mother-in-law had negative associations with the name Eliseo, the only person who preferred it was my dad, who still thinks Andrias sounds like a girl's name.  Haha!  Well, that's why family wasn't invited to be involved in the naming process!

The story behind Andrias's name?  Other than just being a Faroese name we both loved, it's also one of my grandfather's nine names.  He was named after the crew of a boat from his village that all died at sea.  His name was Oli Hans David Frederic Andrias Guttorm Elias Mellamgord Jacobsen and his named wrapped all the way around the back of his driver's license.  He's also one of my favorite people who has ever lived, an artist, a teacher, a giver of deep, warm hugs, and I miss him.

Andrias's middle name is Micael after my father, Michael. Who is also wonderful and thankfully still with us.

I've been surprised to find that his name is difficult for some to pronounce, so once again it's:  Ahn-DREE-ahs Mee-kah-ELL.  And for those who don't know, big brother's first name (Regin) is pronounced RAY-ihn, I assume you all know what to do with his middle name, Oscar?

---

During my week of rest, my mom and George were both there taking care of me.  Sena made several house calls to check on me and the baby.  That's another thing I love about home birth and midwifery.   There's so much respect for the mother's recovery process and baby's need for calm, quiet, and being left in the comfort of home with the mother.  I think Andrias was 6 weeks old before he really needed to venture outside of the home (by car). 

I stayed mostly in our bedroom, lying down. Occasionally I'd venture out to the loft to sit and watch a show with the others.  But the pain of sitting was intense.  My tailbone and all was extremely sore.  We bought me a donut to sit on, but it was still unbearable and I mostly stayed reclined. After a week, my body began bouncing back already, though I still took it easy, and at that time my mother left just as George's mother arrived in time to celebrate George's birthday.  He had a very special birthday present this year, one I worked really hard on!

Six months old today and ready to share his story!

Six months ago today I was in a lot of pain.  I was walking circles around our bedroom, stopping every few minutes to get through another contraction.  I labored and birthed at home.  After 17 intense hours, our beautiful boy, Andrias entered our arms.

We're halfway through our first year, and so much of his personality has been coming through.  I can't believe in just a few short months he'll be entering his toddler years, and making his way toward independence.  For now I'm trying to enjoy every day of his babyhood, and today I find myself reminiscing about his birth.  So I thought it only fitting to finally go back and finish writing his birth story.

It's super long... no big surprise there, when have I ever written anything short?  So I decided to put it up here in installments over the next few days.  Here's part one.  Enjoy!



Andrias's Birth, Part 1 -- The scary back story (i.e. Regin's birth)

To understand my experience this time around, I think you have to understand a little bit about my last experience, which is the one I was hoping not to repeat.  (If you want the original account, I wrote my full birth story here on the blog and a retrospective on it three months later.)

With Regin I was completely unprepared.  I was naive and didn't think I needed any preparation.  I was completely, 100% unafraid of our planned home birth, or at least I thought I was and I thought that being unafraid would help make the pain less severe so that was really all the preparation I needed.  When it came down to it, the pain did scare me.  Not the idea of it.  I thought I was going to be so ready for it because of the years of dysmenorrhea I'd had.  But when each wave of pain hit me, my body tensed up and fought it.  I said "no no no no no," as it hit and I begged and cried.  I was weak and powerless against it all.  And I hated being told I was doing great because I was doing nothing; it was being done to me.  This unbelievable force was acting on my body, and the force was torturing me every couple of minutes and would keep me in excruciating pain for up to three minutes at a time.  Do you have any idea how long three minutes is?  I can say with certainty that I do.  And the pain towards the end was so severe I actually asked George to knock me out so that I could be taken to the hospital. 

So much for my beautiful and empowering home birth.  So much for not needing preparation. 

To add to it, George's father was fighting a losing battle with cancer when labor started which he ultimately lost during the middle of it all.  That devastating news, as well as other things like an ill-timed, though wonderfully soothing bath slowed my labor down greatly.  By the end of it, it was nearly 48 hours long, I'd missed two full nights of sleep, and I was well into the third night when Regin was born.  Further, we weren't really aware of all of my issues with food (hypoglycemia & allergies) or how to handle them.  When Regin finally arrived, I was blinded by pain, completely fatigued, totally sleep deprived, and in the middle of what was probably a major hypoglycemic crash.  I was so weak I had to be fed and my brain snapped.  I didn't know what was going on anymore.  I didn't have the rush of joy and love that women get when the hormones are doing all the right things.  I didn't even know what this hot lump of flesh was that was handed to me, and whatever it was, it certainly didn't come from me.  I was for a long time unable to look at the first photo of Regin and me together because I could see my fear and confusion reflected back at me in the photo.

Love and bonding was slow in coming.  It took weeks if not months.  I was fond of my boy from the beginning, but not bonded.  By the time the affection had finally grown to the point where I was mad with love for him, I cried and cried with the grief I began to feel for the moment he and I didn't share when we first met. 

The physical pain lived on in me too.  My body took a while to recover, breastfeeding proved to rival birth in its level of pain, and I willed myself to hold on to the memory of my labor pains.  The memory was so strong and clear that I could literally feel them when I thought about them.  I wanted that.  I wouldn't let go of them.  I wanted to remind myself of how intense and, sadly, how horrible my experience had been. 

When you sum it all up into one word, my first birth experience was one of trauma.  Home-birthing women don't like to use that word.  We birth at home in part because of the trauma stories we hear about in the medicalized environment.  Truth is, birth trauma isn't necessarily iatrogenic; of course it isn't.  Even having the exact birth you want, regardless of environment, can still result in trauma.  Not all births are happy -- even when you have all ten fingers and ten toes accounted for and functioning fully.  Although I must say, I'm still glad I birthed at home.  I still believe in the reasons that compelled me to choose home birth and if I had gone through the same thing in the hospital, I don't imagine it would have gone any better.  Plus I would have been in a colder environment and if I'm going to go through something that hard, I want to have the comforts and familiarity of home around me.

Regin's birth also had permanent effects on my health.  I have never been the same.  My hypoglycemia rose to a new level of sensitivity (and worsened still after a half marathon I did later that same year), and I've yet to get it under control.  Although we'd never planned to have an only child, the trauma I (we) went through, plus the effect it had on my health made us think I might not be able to handle more.  When I found myself pregnant again last year I was terrified.  It took me some time to come to accept it, and when I finally did, I knew I would do everything in my power to make sure my experience this time would be different.  And it was.

To be continued.
Part 2 -- Preparations, coming tomorrow...

El Chapulin Colorado!!!

Regin FINALLY agreed to put on the hat we made him for his Halloween costume -- only three months late.  They tell you about toddler time, but they don't tell you it can be months off your desired schedule!

January '10 album

Just put up the rest of the January '10 album on Facebook as well. Not much in there. We didn't take a lot of pictures in January. It was mostly just baby prep going on. We also had people here a lot to help me in my final weeks of pregnancy. Here's the album. Highlights below:


I had dinner out with both my sisters -- just us girls!  What a great treat that was.  :)



Regin began a new obsession with letters, ESPECIALLY the letter H.  He makes them, he points them out.  All. The. Time!



Baby prep this time includes our new 100% pure wool, undyed carpet with natural rubber padding underneath; a new, king-size, organic mattress; and a custom-built bed frame (by my awesome dad) to hold the new mattress.  Awesome stuff!



Slats going in.



Mattress getting reassembled.  It's too floppy and heavy to move without taking it apart.


Regin enjoying the bed.



C'est finis!

Pregnancy Album up!

I sadly lost my pregnancy album from my first pregnancy.  Kodakgallery.com took it down because apparently I misunderstood their instructions for keeping my account up to date.  I plan to at some point try and reconstruct it as best I can and put down things I remember.  But a lot of those memories are lost.  Such is the digital world.  Sigh.  However, I have a new pregnancy album up on Facebook for this pregnancy.  Yes, I know I should back it up somehow, and no I haven't done that yet.  But if you want to take a look, it's there.  And it's almost finished!  Baby should be arriving REALLY soon!


Pregnancy Album

Last Snuggles With My Only Child

I'm laying here next to Regin in our family bed, all snuggled up and warm, and I'm feeling something bitter-sweet. I'm relishing this moment together and the peaceful stillness of the morning with my little one curled up against me.  But I can't help but wonder... How many days or even hours do we have left to be just the two of us?

Our relationship will change so much soon. His life will change. Three is becoming Four and Only is becoming First or Older.

Somehow even at his age I get the feeling he somehow understands his life is in transition. Even though he's going through a powerful Papi phase, he clings to me and cries for me more than ever.  He's become suddenly hyper and more difficult for an easily overstimulated Mamma to handle and it's been a sudden shift. We've talked about the baby in Mamma's tummy, how it's going to come out soon and how we'll love it and care for it when it does.  We've read Welcome with Love and We  Have a Baby together.  But can a two-year old understand what's happening?

Even if he doesn't, I do. And it makes me think back over the last almost three years...

His birth was long and difficult and I didn't bond with him right away, but when I started pulling out of my post-labor fog, and I looked at his poor little face that had been squeezed out of me, I recognized him and I smiled at the large feet he'd inherited from his Papi.  And on that first night together, as he slept on my chest, I listened to and learned the timbre and cadence of his voice in his breath.

In the early days I couldn't believe I'd made him.  When I looked at him sleeping next to me I marveled at the thought that I had made something so beautiful and I whispered to him that things would stay as they were and we'd never fight.  As he learned to focus his gaze on mine, I saw his love and felt mine.

In the following months, I learned how he and I would be together, that the books and websites were often wrong, and that I could trust what we developed together.  He learned to smile almost right away, earlier than supposedly possible, though he'd never let me catch it on camera, and after months of stressful and painful breastfeeding, I learned that I could go lengths of time without feeding him from my breast and still not lose my milk.  So in tune were we that if I was ever out of sync with his feeding schedule, even if it had changed suddenly and I wasn't there to know it, I would leak, and not any time I felt emotional or heard a baby cry like they show on TV.

As he's grown, I've been astonished at every new thing he's learned and wished I could track his language acquisition (English, Spanish, ASL, and even Faroese) and record every word as it came to him.  I tried a couple of times but just couldn't keep up.  I chuckled at my little climber, who did amazing stunts, scaling relatively high furniture before learning to walk.  I've seen him fall in love with identifying monkeys ("mono!"), motorcycles ("moto!"), balls, balloons, airplanes, fire trucks, robots, trains, and now letters, especially his favorite: the letter 'H'.  And I've watched him study his world as a scientist while using the same 'concentration face' I do.  I love that face, Little One, even though at some point you'll be misread as grumpy when you use it like I've often been and your Omma was before me.  It's funny that the 'sign name' that Tía Monica gave you is based on the word 'happy' (because you were always so happy as a baby) when others have often commented how serious you are.  I know you're just as silly as you are serious though.

He has gravitated towards boyish toys and interests despite having had no reinforcement for that from us.  So, maybe building and cars and shooting (SERIOUSLY don't know where he got that one) really do have something to do with the chromosomes.  Or maybe it's just coincidence.  After all, I did gravitate towards similar interests as a child even though I consciously made efforts to make myself like baby and Barbie dolls like my friends did.

He has his particulars with his foods as most children do.  Since graduating from purees, veggies and wet foods have been completely out, there is no limit to the amount blueberries he can eat, and as of the last six plus months, he has to have a glass of water and a glass of milk with every meal, including cereal.

He's always been extremely sensitive and empathetic and I adore that about him.  When he sees me upset or hears me yelp he asks me what's wrong and comes over to offer his kisses and rubs to make it better.  He uses pleases, thank yous, you're  welcomes, and such of his own accord, I frequently get an "I love you too, Mamma," and sometimes even get an unsolicited "I love you."  He's a hand holder, like me, and loves to hold our hands off and on when we eat together at the kitchen table.

Every day I learn something new about my boy.  Every day I get to laugh, even through the struggles and yes, fights, and delight in all the silly things he does.  I love even the things that annoy me like his singing Smilla-de-Lilla or Heffalumps and Woozles for hours on end, though I must say his aggressive display of affection for Smilla is not my personal favorite. 

Most of all I love the morning wake ups together; our snuggles and tickles and all the good stuff that comes before he insists we get up to eat.  I hope that a new baby won't interrupt that morning ritual too much, I hope it won't be too long before (s)he joins in the morning yumminess and that another member of our snugglefest only enhances the warmth of it.  But for now I want to savor the last moments we have alone together.  I love that it's just we, my little boy and me.

Smilla-Dee-Lilla-Dee-Lilla-Dee-Hey!

A while ago I started singing this variation on a Faroese nonsense song where I change the words to "Smilla-dee-lilla" which is something we sometimes call Smilla.  Regin loves this song!  He walks around singing it all day!  And if I sing along and then stop, he says, "Mamma, can you sing Smilla-dee-Lilla?" and I have to sing it some more.  Course, once I recorded it on the computer, all he wanted was to hear our recording.  Have a listen...

One of those parenting moments...

This weekend when we were shopping at Target, Regin picked up a large ceramic ball ornament, thinking it was a bouncy ball. I ran over to him saying, “noooooo that’s nooooot a toooooy!!!!” but I was too late.  By the time I’d reached him, he’d already held it high over his head and thrown it on the ground as hard as he could.

SMASH!!!

I gasped! I started telling him, “you see? Mamma said it wasn’t a toy…” but the poor guy was completely shocked and embarassed. He ran around the corner and hid. I stayed and apologized profusely to the Target workers, while he watched from a distance with his Papi, and saw as they cleaned it up and assured me repeatedly that it was no big deal and I didn’t have to pay for it. (thank goodness it was a cheap, Target item!). Poor guy. It took a long time to recover; he was pretty mortified.

I can’t really blame him. It did look like a fun ball!

October Photos - Snow Storm!!!

We had a HUGE snow storm on the 28th and 29th.  My mom was up to hang out with us that week to make sure I was ok (after my emergency room trip), and she was helping us prepare for the Halloween party we threw.  But the storm put a serious kink in our preparations.  We ended up being days behind on costumes.  I didn't even get to start my costume until around 7pm on the 30th and I had to wear it to a party that evening!

The storm was a lot of fun though.  We got Regin all suited up and out there playing in it.

Two buddies.  Cracks me up that Smilla squishes herself onto those steps to avoid laying on our hardwood floor.  Poor thing needs a dog bed!  The sweater is one my mom made for my nephew Elias who is now 17.  I have a pile of handed-down knitwear in our closet.  Cool stuff!


She LOVES the snow.  How lucky are we to have found another dog that loves the snow?  She even ran around the yard and lept up into the air to snatch snowflakes out of the sky!


Regin loved being out there too (he's been asking me since then, "Mamma, where's the snow???").  But he had a lot of trouble getting himself up every time he fell down in that chunky snowsuit.


At first I suggested we throw snowballs at each other, but with his aim I knew I would get grumpy with that game fast, so then we teamed up and threw snowballs at Smilla.


We made the beginnings of a snow fort using a bucket to mold the bricks.  We got about three bricks high and 5 or 6 bricks wide before I had to come inside.  My clothes might look warm, but it's all show.  They soaked through and I was growing icicles.  Regin, on the other hand, could not be convinced to come inside without serious bribery.  I need some better snow clothes.  I wonder what I can find for pregnant chicks.

DAY 2
The snow didn't stop all through the second day.  George worked from home that day.  He got some of shots of how thick it was on his iphone.

Those things on the left are our sunflowers.  Never did measure them at full height, but I estimate around 11'-12'.  I think they must have had a good foot of snow on top of each flower.

So much for that snow fort.  Where did it go?


George got to shovel the driveway.

Check out my car!


You can see the rest of our October photos in our October 09 album.

October Photos - Misc

We filled our time with silly things once GEORGE STARTED HIS NEW JOB!!!

One day, I found Regin sitting peacefully in the window sill.  He looked so sweet staring out at the snow.

Turns out...

He was actually looking at and playing with the dead flies in the sill.  Ew, gross! 

I had a crazy day the Friday of George's first week.  I had an INTENSE dizzy spell that continued to get worse even though I laid down on the floor, and I got pouring sweats and chest pain.  So I ended up going to the emergency room.  Dear Teddi came over to make sure I was ok until George made it home from work (I think he was there for about 30 minutes that day!) and he took me.  Since the three of us were recovering from a 'cold' we were asked to wear masks.

Our drive home...

The emergency room doc didn't even want to hear about me talk about a cold.  He immediately corrected me and told me I had the flu.  "The flu?" I asked.
"If you've got flu symptoms right now, it's gotta be the flu.  Swine flu."
"Really?"
"Yep."
"I was wondering since just about everyone I knew got sick at the same time - even all around the country!"
"Yep.  We're seeing around 30 cases a day around here right now."


We got a new sweater from Omma.  Isn't it awesome?


Almost lost it before it was ever worn!  We left it in a diaper bag at a store in Boulder and it was about 3 days before we realized!  Thankfully the store (Ellie's Eco Home Store) held on to it for us.  I was SO relieved!


You can see the rest of our October photos in our October 09 album.

October Photos - Leaf Fight!!!

We went out and played in the leaves.


Uh-oh!  Here he comes!


JUMP!





AAAAHHHHH!


There were lots of lady bugs in the leaves.

 You can see the rest of our October photos in our October 09 album.

October Photos - Museum of Nature & Science

One of the cool things in Denver is all the free events and free days at local museums and such.  George took Regin to the Museum of Nature & Science on their free day in October.





Who wants to "learn" when you can play with regular toys.



You can see the rest of our October photos in our October 09 album.

October Photos - Pumpkin Festival & Anniversary

On October 3rd, we went with the Meyers to a pumpkin festival.

We got to take home a free pumpkin...


See some cool birds of prey...


Eat some free pancakes...


Play on a firetruck...



Go on a hay ride...


And play on some jumping castles!
What a fun day!

After that we went to JoAnn's house and George and I had a belated anniversary dinner at the Sherpa House in Golden.


You can see the rest of our October photos in October 09 album.