Four Weeks Old: What's Happening

Your baby can probably focus on and track moving objects now. Try giving her new skills a workout by slowly passing a toy in front of her face or by having a little "staring contest" during which you walk slowly back and forth in front of her. Watch how her eyes lock with yours and follow along with your movement. This skill is a building block for hand-eye coordination, which will come later. Your baby may gurgle, coo, grunt, and hum to express her feelings. A few babies also begin squealing and laughing. Be sure to coo and gurgle back, and talk to your baby face to face. She'll enjoy holding your gaze now. If you have things to do, your baby will still enjoy hearing your voice from across the room. And don't feel silly about using baby talk — babies are particularly attuned to this high-pitched, drawn-out way of communicating, which can actually teach your baby about the structure and function of language.

Something's Wrong Here...

I remember reading that the noise level in the womb is about like a vacuum cleaner, and that babies are sometimes soothed by this. I decided to test the theory, and it apparently is true. Every time I turn on the vacuum cleaner, Emily goes to sleep! This morning, she just wanted to be held and wouldn't stay content in her bassinet. Since the floor needed to be vacuumed anyway, I killed two birds with one stone.

The problem is that either Emily really is soothed by this, or she's trying to give me a hint that there's entirely too much dog hair on the floor. In case you're wondering--yes, the vacuum cleaner is sitting in the middle of the floor (turned on) while I post this :).

Making Progress

We've really had some challenges in the breastfeeding department, and I was close to the point where I was ready to give up on trying. By the time I fed Emily, got her to sleep, pumped and ran to the kitchen for something to eat or drink, it was time to start the whole routine over. She was consistently eating every two hours, and I was pumping every 3-4 hours to keep up with her feedings. I was exhausted and frustrated, but really wanted her to have breastmilk instead of formula, so we were sticking with it.

Yesterday, I finally decided to make an appointment with a lactation consultant at Northside. We met with one in the hospital and she was terrific, but I wasn't having the same challenges then that I am now. Luckily, they had a cancellation for this morning at 9:00 AM, and I took it. I was a little worried about getting organized enough to leave the house in rush hour traffic and make it by 9:00, but Mick was a huge help, and we pulled it off (we were even early!).

The consultant we met with was awesome. She weighed Emily before we started (by the way, our little piglet is up to 8 lbs, 6.5 oz) and then after we finished to see how much milk she was taking in. It took us a while, but she had about 2.5 oz total (to put it in perspective, she normally eats 3 oz at a typical feeding), and never really got frustrated. I was elated when we left, and came home with a plan to try breastfeeding for two of her feedings today and tomorrow, and then increase to three. We came home this afternoon and she breastfed for a solid 30 minutes, and seemed so content and happy when we were done. It was such a relief to know that it's not too late for us to catch on to this!

The consultant also gave us some other resources--there's a Mom & Me Breastfeeding Support Group that meets every other Tuesday, so we'll go to that next week (Mick said it sounded like AA for Breastfeeding). She has us scheduled for an appointment to check Emily's tongue--she said her frenulum is really tight and that she might be considered tongue-tied. This would explain some of her breastfeeding challenges, as well as her difficulty with holding onto a pacifier. That appointment is next week--it's an easy fix if they decide she needs anything fixed. In the meantime, we have some exercises to do before each feeding to get her to stretch her tongue.

All in all, it was a great day and we're making progress!

Two Thumbs Up for Moby Wrap!

A friend had given me a sling carrier for a baby shower gift (we had registered for it because I thought it would be helpful to be able to carry Emily around and still get things done). Then we ended up returning it when we saw that it was recalled for safety reasons not long ago.

The same friend had recommended the Moby Wrap, so I decided to order one and try it. I got it last week, but hadn't had a chance to use it yet. We've had a lot of family in town, so Emily has been held nonstop :). Last night, I decided to try it while Mick was here to help if needed (there's an instructional booklet that shows different wrap styles, and it takes a little practice). Emily loved it! She snuggled right in and slept through her 7pm feeding. I was able to have her close to me and be completely hands free, which was great! I'm convinced this will be a lifesaver when we're at home by ourselves.

First Family Photo

Here's the first picture of the Jackson Five!

We've been wanting to take a picture for three weeks now, and are just getting around to it!

3 Weeks Old: What's Happening

Hard to believe, but not all or your newborn's cries are alike these days. Your 3-week old baby now has different sobs to communicate different needs: short and low-pitched when hungry (accompanied by frantic finger sucking and rooting); intermittent fussiness and whimpering when bored; and continuous and whiny when uncomfortable or overtired. Learn by observation (and through trial and error) to tell them apart and respond accordingly, and you may actually be able to cut down on your baby's daily crying time. In other words, crack down on crying by cracking the crying code. These days, your baby is also keeping busy (and keeping you busy) with lots of bodily activities, some entertaining, some not so much.

And while older babies are known for their smooth complexions, three-week-olds definitely aren't. Among the conditions that may be keeping the skin your baby's in colorful but less-than-flawless. Fortunately, all these skin imperfections are temporary (some like the pimples and mottling will go away on their own — others like diaper rash and cradle cap will respond well to treatment) — which means that clear baby skin is just around the corner.

On the developmental front, your baby is both more interested and more interesting. With improved concentration and focusing skills, your three-week-old is all eyes — and is using those eyes to take in his or her surroundings in a much more sophisticated way. Complex shapes will be more engaging than simple ones, so ditch the circles and bring on the zigzags. Another skill your baby's probably picked up: being able to track things as they move. Put this skill to the test by trying this experiment: Wave a scarf, soft toy, or a spinning mobile slowly around baby's head and watch as those eager little eyes follow every movement.

Great News!

While we were in the hospital, the pediatrician who checked Emily out the morning after she was born told us that she had a hip click and he wanted us to make an appointment with an orthopedic specialist when we got home. Worst case, he said she would probably need to wear a brace for a couple of months or she might develop hip dysplasia, which would cause problems for her once she started to crawl and walk. Her pediatrician made us worry a little more on her first visit, when she told us she could easily dislocate Emily's hips during the exam. She referred us to a couple of places--one to see a specialist, and one to have an ultrasound.

Today, we went to see the orthopedic specialist and were shocked and thrilled when he told us he didn't feel anything other than a hip click, which was nothing to worry about! We're still keeping the ultrasound appointment, but we're very optimistic now that they'll find nothing abnormal when we go. That appointment will be May 17--after 6 weeks old, which means a more accurate image.

Two-Week Checkup

We went on Friday afternoon for Emily's 2-week checkup with Dr. Bramwell. We're really glad we chose her as our pediatrician--we like her more every time we see her, and Emily seems to feel at ease with her.

Everything is looking great--Emily has definitely put on some weight! She's up to 7 lbs, 6.4 oz and 19 3/4 inches already! Dr. Bramwell said she was just hoping she'd be back up to her birth weight, but she has exceeded expectations! We weren't that surprised--she's been eating so much we've changed her nickname from Wiggles to Wiglet the Piglet :). She is filling out a lot more, but still too small for most of her clothes.

We'll go back for another checkup in two weeks! Here's the picture of sweetness for today.

2 Weeks Old: What's Happening

Your womb was a warm and cozy environment, and it takes time for your baby to adjust to the various sights, sounds, and sensations of life outside your body. You may not be able to detect much of a personality just yet as your baby spends his time moving in and out of several different states of sleepiness, quiet alertness, and active alertness. The only way your baby knows to communicate is by crying, but you can communicate with her through your voice and your touch (she can now recognize your voice and pick it out among others). Your baby probably loves to be held, caressed, kissed, stroked, massaged, and carried. She may even make an "ah" sound when she hears your voice or sees your face, and she'll be eager to find you in a crowd.

Here's the last of the belly pics! I got this idea from a friend, and have been wanting to take the picture for two weeks now...just got around to it :).

Videos from the hospital

These videos are some we took in the hospital--the first is Friday night after Emily was born and we were in our hospital room. The second is early Sunday morning. I thought they were sweet :).

I know I'm a little late posting them, but we just got the video camera unpacked today from the hospital bag!

First Bath

Emily has had a couple of sponge baths since coming home, but today was her first real bath in the baby tub. Since I was by myself, I didn't get any pictures during the bath itself--only after she calmed down in the towel. She really didn't seem to mind the warm water, but when I didn't have the washcloth on her, she was very unhappy!

Sleeping Solo

Probably our biggest challenge so far has been getting Emily to sleep by herself. She seems to only want to sleep while being held by Mick or me! We're getting very good at sleeping with her on our chests or in our laps, but in the last day or so, she's been getting better about sleeping in the bassinet on her Pack 'n Play or in her bouncy seat.

Hopefully, by tonight or tomorrow, we'll be able to sleep in our bed again with her in the bassinet!

A Little Scare

Emily decided to give us a good scare on Thursday. First, her umbilial cord stump fell off (we noticed it when we were changing her diaper), and I thought it was way too early, but it didn't look red or infected, so we didn't put anything on it. I think it will be fine--I read online that if it got infected, it could cause a fever and the baby to be very sick, which worried me a little.

She'd had such a good day Thursday, but decided to make up for it last night. She was eating fine, but around 9:00 PM, she started crying and was just inconsolable. She went on for more than an hour. I rocked her in her room with some soft music playing, which seemed to calm her down for a little while, but not long. She felt really warm, so we decided to take her temperature and it was 100.2. The hospital had told us not to worry until she was above 100.4, but we decided to call the doctor just in case. We talked to the nurse, and she told us to play it safe and head to the Emergency Room since Emily was less than a week old. This sent us into panic mode, and we ran out of the house without her diaper bag. On the way to the hospital, I realized we had no food/bottle and no diapers for her, so we stopped at Kroger and I picked up the essentials.

We got to the ER and they took us right back (nice to know that if this had turned out to be a real emergency, they take situations with newborns very seriously). They checked her vital signs and said all looked good. They took her temperature and she no longer had a fever. The doctor came in and looked at her and said she looked perfect (we had fed her at this point, so she had stopped crying of course). We were there for a total of about 45 minutes, and felt a little like we had overreacted by the time we left, but were glad we went and felt better.

Home from the hospital

I know I'm a little late on saying thank you to everyone for the cards, flowers, balloons, calls and e-mails while we were in the hospital. We got home around 4:00 PM on Sunday, and it feels really good. It's a little intimidating knowing we're on our own now with no nurses or doctors to run into our room if we need help, but it's also nice not to always have someone checking blood pressure or taking our little Wiggles to the nursery for a 3:00 AM weigh in (really, is that necessary!?).

Thank you to everyone who sent beautiful congratulatory wishes! I have pictures posted on the photo website. We are very lucky to have such a supportive, loving family and group of friends surrounding us. We're especially thankful for Emily's grandparents--Mick's parents came to see her in the hospital, and stayed at our house until Sunday morning. When we got home, the house was clean and even decorated--there were pink balloons on the mailbox and throughout the house, and a cute "It's a Girl" banner over the fireplace! Then my parents came on Tuesday and brought us what we needed most by then--FOOD! They stayed a couple of days and made sure we were well fed and able to get some rest. Emily is so lucky to have four grandparents who love her so much already!

Pictures from the hospital

Northside has a professional photographer who comes around to everyone's room after new babies are born. She visited us on Saturday, and here's a preview of the pictures. Keep in mind as you look at these that we were working on absolutely no sleep, and neither of us had taken a shower yet, so we're looking a little rough. Obviously though, we aren't the star of this show :).

We knew they weren't the best pictures ever, but we bought the CD that will have them all on it so we can print what we want later. Check out the pictures here: Northside Photos

New Photo Website

I've posted all of our pictures on a new Shutterfly website, which I think will be easier than trying to e-mail attachments. Just click on the Emily Claire Jackson link to the right!

She's Here!

I woke up at 2:30 am yesterday with very irregular contractions, but they were fairly intense, so I knew they were different than all the Braxton Hicks contractions I'd been having. I stayed in bed and found that just changing positions during a contraction helped enough to manage through them. I decided around 6:00 am that I wasn't going into the office because they were beginning to get more painful. Mick went in to work but left his stop watch with me, and I kept track of contractions on and off.

By mid-morning, the contractions were coming about every 10-15 minutes, but still not consistent. Sitting on the birth ball or kneeling with my arms on it seemed to help me breathe through them and take some of the pressure off.

Around noon, I noticed they were about 8 minutes apart and lasting 80 to 90 seconds each. Mick kept calling to check on me, and it was around 1:00 pm that he could tell by my voice he needed to come home. He got home around 1:30 and made some scrambled eggs and toast for me. I ate them, but they didn't stay down long. I thought at that point I was probably farther along than I realized, but Dr. Graham had told me to call when I'd had contractions every 5 minutes for at least an hour, and I was afraid I'd get to the hospital and they would tell me I was 1-2 cm dilated and needed to go home.

Around 3:00 pm, contractions were between 5-7 minutes apart and much stronger, so we called the doctor. The office is closer to us than the hospital, so they told us to come in and they'd check me before we went to the hospital in Friday afternoon rush hour. By the time we got to the office at around 4:00 pm, the contractions were much more painful, and about 3-4 minutes apart. The doctor looked at me and said I'd waited too long to call. Once she checked me, she said I was 6 cm dilated and needed to get to the hospital.

We got in the car and made it to the hospital in about 30 minutes. By the time we arrived at about 4:45 pm, the contractions were so intense I didn't think I could stand them anymore, and felt like she was going to be born in the car. I wasn't trying to push, but there was so much pressure, and since I was sitting up, gravity was working with her too. Mick and I were both panicking a little, and he parked in front of L&D and ran into the hospital. A minute later, he ran out with about 6 nurses behind him. They brought a wheelchair and got me inside and to a delivery room at 4:54 pm. I really wanted to have a natural childbirth, but I had lost confidence in myself by the time we got in the room and was asking for something for pain. The doctor checked me and told me I was fully dilated and ready to push, and there was no time for medication.

The first time I pushed, my water broke and there was meconiumin it, but they were monitoring her and said she was doing fine. The doctor said with a couple more pushes she would be out. I pushed again and he told me he could see her hair. The next push, her head came out and the umbilical cord was wrapped on the top of her head. The doctor moved it and went ahead and cut it so she could come out. One more push and she was out! I couldn't believe it when I saw her, and I think Mick felt the same way. All this time, and she was finally here.

They checked her out, dried her off, weighed and bathed her right in our room, so she never left our sight. Mick took lots of pictures, but the camera battery is dead right now, so I'll post them later. While the nurses were taking care of Emily, one was still taking care of me, massaging my uterus to get it to start contracting back down. There was a lot of bleeding because she came so fast, so they started an IV with pitocin to help with the bleeding and contracting after the placenta was delivered. We were in the L&D room for about 2 hours after she was born, and then were moved to a regular room in the Family Centered Care unit.

Emily Claire was born at 5:12 pm, 18 minutes after we got in the hospital. She's 19 inches long and weighs 6 lbs, 8 oz. We're all doing fine, and she's more beautiful than we ever imagined :).

Week 38 Checkup

I went to see Dr. Graham today for my checkup, and things are looking good. My blood pressure is still fine, and I haven't gained any more weight since last week, so I'm at 24 pounds total for the whole pregnancy. Emily's heartbeat was in the 140s, and Dr. Graham said she has definitely dropped and is much lower in my pelvis. I could already tell that, since my heartburn has almost completely disappeared, and when I sit down, it feels like she's in my lap now.

My cervix isn't dilated yet, and is still about 50% effaced, so I haven't changed much in the last couple of weeks. Dr. Graham is on call on Wednesday the 31st, so my homework assignment is to go to Scalini's on Tuesday night to have eggplant parmesan. There's a local legend that if a pregant woman eats this, she'll go into labor within the next couple of days. Their website has a page for Eggplant Parmigiana Babies that's really cute.

I also told Dr. Graham that I've been having a lot more Braxton Hicks contractions--sometimes more than 4-5 in an hour. He said that's good, but I still need to be having more before we're ready.

So we'll see if the eggplant works...if not, my follow up appointment is next Thursday, April 1.

Car Seat Check

We finally got an appointment scheduled with the Police Department to get Emily's car seat checked. It was a lot more difficult than we anticipated--because of the liability, there are a lot of places that won't do the inspections anymore. There's also nowhere we could find where you can just take it by without an appointment.

I got a call this afternoon from an officer who told me he had a one-hour window today if I could meet him. Since we didn't know when the next opportunity would be, we took it by this afternoon, and he did find a couple of things we needed to correct. We thought we were being extra safe by using the LATCH system and the seatbelt, but he said not to use both. He also showed Mick a different place to hold the base when he tightened it in the car--that made a huge difference and makes the seat feel a lot tighter and more secure.

I've always heard those statistics about 70% of carseats being incorrectly installed, and thought we were smart enough to be in the other 30%...I guess not :).

Belly Art

I had read and seen a lot about pregnant belly painting, and was hoping to do it a few weeks ago when there were people here to help me, but the weekend of the shower was so busy, we never got around to it. Since Emily could technically be born any day now, I decided to use a rainy Sunday afternoon to give it my best shot!
I chose a ladybug, thinking it would be easy to paint. It wasn't! I didn't plan very well, and I ran out of room at the top, so no antennae. The spots got a little out of control too.

Bella was very curious to see what in the world was going on. The food coloring has now stained my skin, so when I go to the doctor on Wednesday, Dr. Graham will probably be entertained :).