We have progressed to play time!

Aspen is now just over 5 weeks old and has started to spend slightly longer chunks of time awake, which is the perfect opportunity to start incorporating some play time! Generally we start out with a little tummy time.  Baby girl is very strong and can lift her head really well off the ground.  However, since she didn't feel like cooperating with any of my recent photo shoots I don't have any documentation yet (sigh).  Just more adorable cuteness!

I am practicing my smile, when I finally bust it out its going to be a real zinger!

Who is that other baby?!?

Mommy, I am not convinced that you are funny. Do you see me laughing right now? Exactly.

Hey look over there!

That all was a lot of work, so now it is nap time on the couch.

As of yesterday Jamie is gone for over a week to a meeting in Alaska.  We will definitely miss him! Fortunately, mom is here to help out which should be a lot of fun! Here is one more pic of the our family hiking again last Saturday.  So far we have managed to get out every weekend! :)

Exactly one month old!

Happy 1 month birthday to me! 

I have to say that I am pretty fantastic and aging well!  To celebrate being one month old I took my first shower with mommy.  Fortunately, I liked it as much as I like baths, which happens to be a whole lot.  A shower wasn't necessarily in the plan, but mommy left the house to go for a run and I got hungry. Daddy tried to feed me pumped milk from a bottle, but I said "heck no, its my birthday and I don't want no stinkin' bottle!".  So by the time mommy got home (a whole 30 minutes later, can you imagine!) I was really angry and wanted food RIGHT THEN. Unfortunately it is hot out so mommy was sweaty, therefore I got all sweaty, and then because I was mad I wanted to yell in between gulps, which means breast milk got sprayed everywhere...essentially it was a sticky, milky, sweaty mess!  


Also, for a solid 20 minutes everyone is the house was mad. I was mad because I do not believe in delayed gratification. Mom was mad because she only left for 30 minutes and it was the first time she has been entirely alone in several days and she really really wanted to take a refreshing shower immediately after her run but she couldn't. Dad was mad because he really really wants to be able to feed me, but I'm going to make him agonize a bit longer before I cave in. 


However, the shower fixed everything!  I liked it, mommy got clean, and daddy helped sponge me down while mommy held me and they were both reminded of how adorable I am.  (These parents of mine are such suckers, all it takes is a few funny faces and no matter what their mood is they start cooing and drooling over me.)  Ergo, I love showers and baths!

Drying off after my shower debut!

Whoa..who are you crazy people?!?

Even though she knows it's a reflex, mommy's always a sucker for this one!

I am sure there is more celebrating to do, but first I need to take a little nap!

Not a routine persay...

Aspen is now just over 3 weeks old and we are all settling in nicely.  I wouldn't say we have a routine, but we have do have some emerging patterns.  For example, she usually sleeps ~3hours at a time (but sometimes it is just 2, others 4...at night we like the 3-4 much more than the 2!).  Upon waking we immediately feed her and change her diaper (not necessarily in that order)....sometimes multiple times in a "eat, poop, eat, poop, poop, eat...sleep" pattern.  Fortunately she seems to be figuring out night and day in that she isn't awake too long at night, just tends to do her business and conk back out.

Sleeping on daddy in the evening in what we call her "peanut" position.

In the morning she is awake for a little bit of a longer stretch and is content to hang out for a while (meaning maybe 15-30 minutes which is hours and hours in baby time) and we have some tummy time.  Pretty much every afternoon mommy and baby take a nap together and if Jamie is home he joins in as well (sidenote: if I don't get this nap I am a real crank). In the evening she is also awake for a little bit longer similar to the morning so we do some more tummy time, but she is also usually a little fussier.

Jamie and I have slowly been increasing our sphere of movement with her.  She has been to several friends house's and parent hotel rooms to watch the Women's World Cup.  We go for a family walk almost everyday, where Jamie usually carries her in a sling.  I met a friend for lunch downtown with her  yesterday (carefully orchestrated to coincide with sleepy time).  And, last, but not least, we made our first family field trip last weekend to the Aspens with her! It wasn't for long, just a picnic breakfast, and it wasn't that far off the beaten path, but it was lovely!

Our breakfast picnic location!

Sleepyhead slowly waking up at the end of our picnic!

2 weeks old and still adorable! ;)

Aspen is now 2 weeks old and passed her well child visit with flying colors. She was born at 8 lbs 14 oz, but when we left the hospital she was 8lbs 7 oz.  A week and a half later? A whopping 9 lbs 4 oz! I guess I don't need to worry that she isn't eating enough!

Even though she's not really a girly girl, mom just can't resist putting head bands on my head for photos.  Silly mommy!

Hand in hand with eating well Aspen also poops like a champ, much to daddy's chagrin ("Again?!?" is the common refrain). Fortunately, the cloth diapering is going well, although we initially didn't have enough diapers so we've had to do laundry every day.

Since coming home we've had some new parent anxieties, but everything has turned out just fine.  Our pediatrician actually nicely snickered at me when I anxiously confessed to picking a big dried booger out of Aspen's nose with tweezers.  ("Was she having trouble breathing?" "I wasn't sure..." "Does she have to unlatch from the breast while feeding to breath?" "No..."  "Does her chest sound congested?" "No..."  "*snicker*")

I'm really strong and can hold my head up to stare at daddy!

My favorite napping position is on someone's chest!

And finally, some pure gratuitous cuteness.  Of course what all those facial expressions really mean are "feed me? please? how bout you feed me right now? feed me. feed me now. put down the camera woman and feed me!" :

The best laid plans of mice and men...

often go astray. – Robert Burns

It's been a week and half since Aspen was born, and exactly two weeks since the whole process of her arrival began. After much agonizing I decided to go ahead with the induction on Monday night at 7:30 pm June 20th (see last post).  This may or may not have started the chain of events that led to Aspen Sky's arrival into the world on Wednesday June 22 at 7:04 pm.  However, it is definitely the start of Jamie and I's process. (Warning: This is long so you can scroll to the end for pictures if you want.  Also there are a few graphic c section pics.)


Monday 6/20 7:30pm – Induction Begins
     When we arrive at the hospital I am ~1-2 cm dilated and 0% effaced. They hook me up to a fetal monitor and give me the Cervadil in the hopes that overnight it will kick start something. Theoretically I am supposed to sleep, but that doesn't really happen.

Tuesday 6/21 by ~ 5:00am – Contractions
     By Tuesday morning I am definitely having regular contractions, but my dilation hasn't changed and effacement has only slightly changed.  This initiates a series of "gels" they put up near the cervix.  The general process is apply gel, sit still in the bed for an hour, walk around for an hour, get monitored until they get a good reading on our squirmy baby (this always takes a long time)...repeat 3 times.

Tuesday 6/21 by ~ 7:00pm – Go Home
     By the end of all the gels, I am still only 2 cm dilated and about 50% effaced.  We weren't interested in stepping up to the next level (i.e. Pitocin) so we decide to go home.  Mind you, I have been having regular contractions the whole time, they just seem to be affecting my cervix very very slowly.

Tuesday 6/21 by ~ 10:30pm – Water breaks, go back to hospital
     At home my contractions continue and increase in intensity until they are ~ 3 minutes apart.  I am trying to utilize breathing techniques and they are bearable, but definitely not pleasant.  I am paranoid about whether I will know if my water breaks or not because I tested positive for Group B Strep and if my water does break they want to give me antibiotics as soon as possible so I can't pass it on to our baby. I convince myself that my water is breaking, but in small gushes, so we go back to the hospital.  It promptly fully breaks all over the labor and delivery triage room floor.

Tuesday 6/21 from 11:30pm-Wednesday 6/22 7:30 am – The long dark night (or Labor Labor Labor)
     We really wanted to try and not have any medications for labor. This chunk of the night was very very hard, and is rather fuzzy in my brain.  I moved around as much as I could..swaying, walking, birthing ball, shower. But I also had to be stuck in the bed for periods of time when I was receiving antibiotics for the group b strep and when they needed to monitor the baby.  (Unfortunately Aspen girl wasn't really cooperating with them so the monitoring lasted longer and was more frequent than I liked.) I ended up developing 4 different kinds of breathing to get through contractions...often using all of them for the same contraction.  The most intense was more of a loud moan than any special breathing technique. Around 4:30am they checked my cervix and I was ~5cm dilated and 75% effaced.  I thought I would be farther along, but at this point in time it still seemed like there was light at the end of the tunnel.  For the next three hours my contractions were very frequent (a minute or two apart) and very intense.  There is no way I could have made it without Jamie, who was amazing, and this period of time was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Wednesday 6/22 7:30am – Abandoning the "natural" plan
     Some of the most demoralizing news that I have ever received occurred when they checked my cervix again at 7:30am...and told me I had made essentially zero progress from the 4:30am cervix check.  Still 5 cm dilated, slightly more effaced. I had been working so hard and had been barely surviving struggling through without losing it for the last 3 hours of contractions. On top of that I was completely exhausted since I hadn't slept for 2 nights. So we decided to go for the epidural, realizing that we were also up against the clock of wanting the baby born within 24 hours of my water breaking because of increased risk of infection.

Wednesday 6/22 7:30am-6:00 pm – The epidural
     The epidural immediately made me feel 1000% times better.  We learned later that Aspen was sunnyside up so I was probably having back labor, which was part of why it was so intense.  They also started with pitocin to see if that could help me dilate.  This whole period of time was a long waiting game of ramping up the pitocin and waiting for my cervix to dilate grudgingly one hard fought centimeter at a time.  It also turned out that for one 4 x 6 inch spot on my lower abdomen the epidural didn't work so I still felt contractions, although the edge was definitely taken off (except when the pitocin was cranked really high, then it hurt a lot).


Wednesday 6/22 6:00 pm – The C-section decision
     By 6:00 at night we had to face the potential reality of a c-section.  I was fully effaced, but still not fully dilated and Aspen hadn't really dropped (she was still at station 0). We could have continued on for another hour, but at that point it felt like we were delaying the inevitable so we gave the okay for the c-section. Once the decision was made, the process was amazingly fast and we got to meet our baby girl, Aspen Sky, at 7:04 pm

Aspen emerging from my abdomen.  Jamie got to watch and took all these photos.

The umbilical chord was wrapped a gazillion times around her tiny legs.  I don't know if this affected labor at all, but I do wonder if she was essentially bungee jumping internally.

The first words I heard from the surgical team were "You gave birth to a toddler!", both because she was so big and because she had so much hair.

The second words I heard were "Oh look at that pout!" and they held her up so I could see her.  This is the first facial expression I saw on baby girl and it is most definitely a pout!

Announcing Aspen Sky Pace Lamit at 8lbs 14 oz, 21.25 inches long, and a full head of hair!

Our unit of two is now a family of three.  Out of all of the pictures of the last two weeks, this is still my most cherished favorite.  Mostly because of Jamie. :)

About 24 hours after giving birth, life turned even more complicated when the doctors became concerned that Aspen may have a bacterial infection and she spent Friday night through Sunday night in the special care nursery.  This was a very scary time for Jamie and I, but all turned out well. We never did get a picture of our "circuit board baby" (Jamie's term), but she had a feeding tube down the nose, lung and heart monitoring electrodes on her chest, an oxygen saturation monitor on her foot, and an IV for administering antibiotics entering via her umbilical chord.

The last night before we took her home we got to stay in a "hotel" style room with her.  This felt like a test, but we were grateful that we didn't have to go home without her.

Jamie and our little peanut.

Just before going home, Aspen posing with her sign from the special care nursery.

Monday 6/27 – Home at last!

Baby girl all swaddled up and in her newborn napper.

Falling asleep after breast feeding.  How precious is that face!