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Friday 27 June 2008 at 5:53 pm
Not too much is new this week. Greta fights a little bit more while she is eating. It only seems to happen in the afternoons/evenings. It doesn't feel pleasant to me, but I suffer through. Greta still loves her bath. I took a video of bath time this week. She grunts so much. I just don't know why or what it means. It isn't a poop related grunt, but more of I can't get comfortable grunt. I really think she wants to sleep on her tummy. She sleeps so much better when she is laying on either Matt or I's chest. Yesterday she fell asleep during tummy time. Last night we got our first 4 hours of sleep out of Greta. Of course I wasn't asleep for the first hour and a half, but still she slept for 4 hours in a row! I also kept waking up because I couldn't believe she was still sleeping and I also had to check on her and make sure she was still breathing (yes I am an overprotective parent).
On Monday I went to the doctor to follow up after my antibiotics and to have my post-partum visit. We got a picture of Greta with my doctor.
Last night we also had our first real vomit from the little girl. I'm pretty sure she threw up her entire feeding because I got totally covered and then about an hour later Matt got totally covered. We don't really know what the problem was, but it didn't happen again, so it was most likely just something I ate or something not sitting right in her belly. She really doesn't spit up very much at all, only a little bit probably once or twice a day. Usually it happens if you lay her down too quickly after a feeding, so I just try to always hold and burp her for about 15 minutes before laying her down. As you can see, Greta is getting quite chubby. She goes to the doctor on Monday, so we shall see how much she weighs. According to our highly scientific method of me getting on our inaccurate scale by myself and then with her, she weighed 11.5 pounds two days ago. The scale only measures to the half pound, so it could be anywhere between 11 and 12 pounds.
We took a family picture of ourselves this week. It took a couple of tries, but this one looks pretty good.
Greta's hair continues to get longer. Her hair color is quite similar to my hair color, although mine was lighter as a child, but I was born with pretty dark hair. Her eyes are blue and getting lighter by the day. They will most likely stay blue as both Matt and I have blue eyes and my entire family has blue eyes and most of Matt's family has blue eyes. We just don't know what shade of blue they will be.
Greta continues to hold her head up exceptionally well. It really doesn't require much support unless she is sleeping. Matt said that she rolled from her belly to her back once this week. She hasn't done it again or really come close. When she did roll over she was quite upset, so maybe being upset made her flip. I bet she will be rolling sooner rather than later though.
I'm going to end with a couple of questions:
1. At what age do you introduce a security object (i.e. a blanket or stuffed animal)?
2. When did you start to offer a bottle and what were your experiences (i.e. was it a good time to introduce or do you wish had started sooner or later)? What pump do you use and do you recommend it?
3. Has anyone tried an
Ergo carrier?
Friday 27 June 2008 at 5:25 pm
You can find the previous cloth diaper segments here:
Part 1 - Prefolds
Part 2 - Contours, Prefitteds, and Fitteds
Part 3 - Covers
Pockets
Pocket diapers are what they sound like, diapers with pockets. Fun huh? Pocket diapers contain an outer waterproof layer, usually made of PUL. Again there are oodles of brands and tons of homemade ones as well. The flexibility of the pocket diaper allows you to stuff a varied amount of absorbent material into the pocket depending on your child's needs. For example, if your child sleeps through the night you may need extra stuffing to hold all of the nighttime pee. Or if you are going on a outing, you may want an extra layer or two so you don't have to change the diaper while you are out and about. The stuffing is made of a variety of stuff: microfiber, hemp, cotton, bamboo or a mix. Different materials have different benefits, so sometimes an insert (or stuffing) is made of several materials. I believe that microfiber can hold lots of pee, while hemp absorbs the pee faster and are trim. Most pocket diapers come with an insert, but you can always order or make additional ones. Pocket diapers come in a variety of sizes from newborn to x-large or toddler. Many companies also make a very popular one-size diaper. Pocket diapers tend to be a little more expensive than fitted diapers because the cover is already included. All you need is the pocket diaper and you are good to go. They range from about $13 (on sale) to $35, depending on the brand and materials used to make the diaper. Pocket diapers come in a variety of patterns and colors, just like all the other diapers. They also have snaps or aplix closures, like the fitted diapers and covers. Some popular brands are
Fuzzi Bunz,
BumGenius,
Happy Heiny,
Blueberry.
We have a bunch of
one-size BumGenius diapers because they get pretty good reviews and will be useable for most of the baby's diapering life. My mom also sells these kind, so if you are interested in any let me know! I really want some of the one-size Blueberry minky diapers, they just look so soft and I love the patterns! We also bought a package of
microfiber towels from Costco that we will use as doublers. I have heard that they should work just as good as some of the more expensive microfiber inserts that you can buy.
All-in-Ones
All-in-One diapers are the simplest kind of cloth diaper. They are essentially like a disposable diaper except that you wash it and reuse it. There is an outer waterproof layer and then a variety of sewn together inner layers for absorbency. Like all the other diapers, the inner layers vary from cotton to microfiber to hemp to terry, etc. These are commonly referred to as daddy or babysitter proof because they are that easy. Not that the other kinds are that difficult, but with all-in-one diapers more people are willing to try cloth diapers (and trust me many dads will use any diaper, some are just pickier than others).
BumGenius makes all-in-one diapers as does
Thirsties (both of which my mom sells). The Thirsties are called pocket all-in-one diapers because they can be used by themselves or stuffed for extra absorbency. All-in-one diapers come in a variety of of colors and patterns and can close with either snaps or aplix. There are oodles of other companies that make all-in-one diapers. These diapers tend to be in the $15-$30 range, depending on the maker. The main negative that people site for the all-in-one diapers is that they take a long time to dry.
We have some of the Thirsties as well as the BumGenius, plus a few random all-in-one diapers we picked up along the way when they were on sale.
There will be one more installment talking about where to buy, how many to buy and how to care for your diapers. Then I shall write about our experiences so far.
Thursday 26 June 2008 at 2:24 pm
We have had several people ask about Greta's name, so I thought I would explain a little. We tend to like classic, traditional names and we also like family names. Margaret is after a few people: Matt's Great Aunt Marguerite, my two Great Aunt Margarets, and my confirmation name is Margaret. We both actually liked Marguerite more than Margaret, but we really wanted to use the nickname Greta and didn't think that really worked as well with Marguerite. Plus Marguerite is a bit harder to spell and say, so Margaret it was. We have a great name book that my sister gave us, called
The Baby Name Wizard. Along with names, it lists the nicknames that go with names and we just loved Greta as a nickname. We also love Maggie, but it is a bit more common and decided to go for something a little different and something we loved even more. We also noticed that
St. Margaret's feast day was June 10, which was just one day shy of her due date of June 11. When we were still debating names and I looked up the different saint days, I saw that Margaret's was June 10, and that convinced me we needed to name her Margaret. Although now that I look at other websites it appears that there are different days listed as feast days, so who really knows.
Genevieve is named for my grandmother. As most of you know, my grandmother was very important in my life. I really wanted to honor her by naming a girl after her. Matt also really wanted to use the name Genevieve because he loved my grandmother as well. She was a real firecracker right down to the end. And so we have our baby name.
Yes her name is very long, but since she will mostly go by Greta (at least until she decides otherwise), it won't be that long. Our boy name was also family based, but we won't be sharing the name because it may be used in the future if we have a boy.
Greta is doing well, getting bigger everyday. Yesterday according to our inaccurate scale at home she weighed 11.5 pounds fully clothed and diapered. We go to the doctor on Monday, so we shall see how much she really weighs then, but she has definitely gotten bigger. She can't wear any of her 0-3 month clothes anymore. Her newborn cloth diapers haven't fit her for almost two weeks. She loves her bath and is getting cuter everyday.
There are lots of new pictures up on the
Greta page. Yes we know there are repetitive pictures, but we don't really have the time to pick and chose what gets posted, so they are all there. And really there are only so many ways to photograph a child who does very few activities and stays in the same house all the time :)
The baptism is next weekend, July 5. Family begins arriving on Tuesday. Should be fun, exciting and hectic.
Friday 20 June 2008 at 11:50 am
This last week has been a little less eventful, thank goodness. No hospital trips, no doctor's appointments, just mostly hanging out at home. My mom (CeCe, as she wants to be called) was here last weekend. She left on Monday and was sad to leave little Greta. But she will be back in less than two weeks, so she shouldn't miss her too terribly much. We really enjoyed and appreciated having my mom here. She cooked and cleaned and did laundry for us. She left us some food to eat and frozen meals so we wouldn't have to cook too much. Here is a cute picture of Greta smiling at my mom before we left for the airport.
In general Greta has been awake a bit more this week, sometimes for up to 2 or 3 hours at a time. We enjoy having her awake, and try to play with toys or read books or just talk to her. She seems to like pretty much all activities. She also loves bathtime. She doesn't splash around yet, but she enjoys sitting in the warm water. She pees almost immediately after you take her out of the water. Once it was all over me, the other time I had her wrapped in a towel and laying on the changing table, so I didn't get wet.
Greta really tracks things very well with her eyes. She follows the camera quite a lot. Matt's mom will be happy with that since she loves when the kids are looking at the camera. Hopefully she will still be tracking the camera when his parents arrive in a week and a half.
Greta still is busy making lots of noises, especially when she is trying to get to sleep. She grunts like crazy. Yesterday Greta was kind of a cranky, whiny pants. She did not want to be put down. I don't think I put her down for more than 3 minutes until about 4:30 pm, and then those 3 minute breaks were to go to the bathroom. Oh well. Hopefully today will be better.
The plans for the weekend include a trip to the post office for me, and a trip to get a copy of Greta's birth certificate. We need the birth certificate in order to have her baptized, which is coming up soon. I am a little less worried about the baptism since I realized she will be 5 weeks old at the time. Greta still hasn't been anywhere besides the hospital, doctor's office and our house. Hopefully we will be able to keep that up a little longer. Last night I was able to run to the grocery store which was exciting!
Matt's mom sent us some baby pictures of him. So now I need to dig out the baby pictures of me and scan them all in for a comparison. My mom says I changed an awful lot in the first month of life. She said I looked like a totally different baby at birth and one month. I'll leave it up to you guys to decide who Greta looks most alike, although I already have my opinion :)
Thursday 19 June 2008 at 09:35 am
My PICC line is officially out! No more tubes hanging from my body!
In other news, Greta loves tummy time. She is really following us lately. Yesterday she seemed to smile a little when I was waving a toy in her face. She smiles all the time when she is sleeping or gassy, but usually not in response to external stimulation. Greta holds her head up really well and overall is very strong.
I want to thank everyone who has sent us presents and cards. We really appreciate them and thank you notes will be on their way shortly. Our birth announcements should be arriving today, so hopefully those will go out in the next few days after I address them.
We have lots of new pictures to upload, hopefully I will get to that today or tomorrow.
Tuesday 17 June 2008 at 2:36 pm
I should be doing other things like writing thank you notes, or cleaning up the house, but for now I will write a little bit of the birth story while Greta is sleeping. There will probably be way too many gory details for many of you, so feel free to just ignore this whole post. I want to write as much down as I remember before I forget it all.
On Thursday I went to the doctor. She checked my cervix and it was 1-2 cm dilated and 75% effaced. She thought I would probably go before my due date (which was about 2 weeks away), but didn't think it would be before the weekend. Before bed on Thursday evening I noticed a slight pink discharge, but figured it was just from the doctor sticking her fingers up me. On Thursday night/Friday morning (5/29), I got up to pee at about 12:30 am. I felt a strange pop of sorts, but didn't really think anything of it and went back to bed. At 1 am I felt a gush/squirt of water. I contemplated staying in bed because I was tired and wanted to sleep. Side note: all along I was really hoping I would go into labor at about 8 am, so I would have had a full night of sleep before hand. However, little girl didn't seem to think that was such a great idea. After a couple of minutes I decided to get up to go to the bathroom and check and see what was going on. My pad was entirely soaked through. I decided that my water must have broken. I woke Matt up and told him that I thought my water had broken. The doctor told us to call her if my water broke because of the risk of infection. Since I was also Group B Strep positive it was extra important that I get to the hospital shortly after my water broke to get on antibiotics to prevent the baby from contracting Group B Strep. So I called the doctor and started getting the remaining things ready for the hospital. The doctor called back and said to come in and get checked out. My doctor was not on call, and actually turned out to be out of town at a conference on Friday, so I didn't get to see her at all during the birth process. I was kind of sad about that because I really like my doctor.
We arrived at the hospital around 2 or so. I was still feeling fine, but did notice several more gushes of water, so I figured we were going to be staying at the hospital. After going through the ER to be admitted (it was completely empty), I was escorted to a room, got a hospital gown and asked a zillion questions. Matt was not allowed in the checking-me-out room, so he went around and moved the car to the parking garage. They also put the monitoring belts on me to see if I was contracting at all. It turns out I was having some mild contractions, but I couldn't really feel them at all yet. Since I was contracting and my water had broken I was sent off to a room. Matt came in and we got settled in. The nurse came and started my IV to give me fluids and antibiotics. The nurse also checked my cervix and I was 3 cm dilated and mostly effaced (I think maybe 90% or something). We tried to rest for a while, but were pretty excited and the contractions had started getting more noticeable and were waking me up. They weren't very regular, sometimes 2 minutes apart, sometimes 10 minutes apart. They told me I couldn't really move around because my water had broken. I was allowed to sit in a chair or in the bed for the most part. Because they were pumping me full of fluids and the baby was still inside, I had to pee every 20 minutes or so. That was definitely annoying. I think it was also annoying to the nursing staff because I had to unplug the monitors every time and we could never seem to find the baby's heart rate when we plugged them back in, so the nurse would have to come and find it. Oh well. I was hoping not to be monitored the entire time, but they didn't seem to want that. When we went on our tour of the hospital they said that they monitor the baby's heart rate for about 20 minutes every couple of hours. I don't know if my situation was different because my water had broken and I was on antibiotics or what, but the monitors were on constantly. Every time I moved we would loose the baby's heart rate. Apparently the shape of my belly made the monitors hard to stay in position. they would just slide down. Everyone commented on my basketball belly.
As time went on the contractions definitely got stronger, longer, and closer together. A new nurse came in at 7 am. I liked her much better than the previous nurse. The baby's heart rate was dropping a little after some contractions, so they wanted me to stay in bed, lay on my other side and get a good 20 minutes of data to make sure everything was ok. It turns out it was, but they really wanted me to stay in bed. I was not comfortable at all in bed. I wanted to move around. If you know me, you know that I can't sit still at all most of the time. It drives Matt crazy. It usually takes me a good 15-20 minutes of moving around in bed to get in the perfect position to sleep. I can stay in the same position for about 5 minutes before something must be adjusted, whether it is my leg, arm, or maybe I just have an itch. I am fidgety and this does not seem to work well with labor when the nurses want you to stay perfectly still. At about 9 am I had enough. I couldn't get comfortable and the contractions were painful and coming too close together. I feel like if I was able to move maybe the baby would have moved down faster, but who really knows, that is just what the books tell me. Matt kept telling me I could do it and that I didn't need the drugs, but I had started to believe differently. I had hoped to go drug free, but that apparently wasn't happening. The nurse checked me to see how far I was dilated to determine if I could get the epidural yet, and I was about 5 cm dilated. Eventually the anesthesiologist came in and gave me an epidural. I felt immediate relief. We were supposed to rest, but we mostly talked because we were excited. And we called our families because we could actually talk now without me having a painful contraction. With an epidural comes a catheter, so no more trips to the bathroom. I'm pretty sure I was most excited about that part of the relief. I didn't have to struggle to get up to go to the bathroom and then have a contraction on the way. I could just sit there and let the pee collect in a bag.
The doctor decided I also needed pitocin to speed up labor so that the baby would come out sooner. I'm not convinced she had any real good reasoning, other than the risk of infection because of the water breaking and also being GBS positive was greater and they didn't want the baby sitting in the birth canal for too long. My doctor had originally said I would be allowed to drink, but this doctor wouldn't allow me, so I only had ice chips, which of course melts down to water and then you can drink it :) Matt went down and got breakfast and lunch during the next few hours. He ate downstairs in the cafeteria so I didn't have to see him eat. Of course he didn't leave until I had the epidural because I wouldn't have been able to survive without him. At about 1 pm, they checked my cervix again and I was fully dilated. They decided I should start pushing. However my nurse also had another patient who was ready to push. I waited about an hour before the nurse came and we started pushing. The doctor came in to check on the progress several times and was not very positive. My nurse (and Matt) kept telling me I was doing a good job and making progress. The doctor would come in and say "She isn't pushing good enough, or hard enough, or something". Hello, doctor lady, I can still hear. I really wanted her to leave and not come back. She had already told me I would need an episiotomy before I even started pushing. I had discussed this with my doctor previously and she said that she rarely preforms episiotomies and prefers for people to tear. Everything I had read said tearing is better. The doctor didn't agree. She didn't want me to tear forward and risk tearing the urethra and causing incontinence problems later. This made me dislike the doctor even more.
I was pushing mostly on my back. After a while of pushing (I have no idea how much time), they turned down my epidural to help me know better when to push or something. This was fine and dandy except the position they were making me push in was killing my back and the epidural was doing nothing to stop that pain. The pain in my back was about as much pain as I had been in the entire day. I kept asking to sit up, but they wouldn't let because I was making progress in the position I was in. I was super annoyed, but apparently pretty funny. Another nurse or two came in to help. One tried rubbing my back between contractions, but it only helped a little. I know that I did say something about turning up the epidural to get rid of the back pain. They had just given me a new bag of epidural drugs and then they turned them way down (or what felt like way down). I wasn't having any back pain until they turned it down. I didn't understand whey they had given me a new bag of drugs and then wouldn't let me use them. I was highly annoyed. Most of this time I had my eyes closed. After a while it started to get really noisy in the room, I have no idea how many people appeared, but too many for my liking. And they were all talking and being annoying. I told them to be quiet, luckily they listened. It was highly distracting to me to have people talking like I wasn't in the room and talking about all kinds of stuff. I was definitely getting very testy.
At some point the doctor came in a suggested the vacuum. Again this is something I did not want and my doctor said she had only used the vacuum once or twice in several years, so I most likely would not have to worry about that. Apparently her partner didn't feel the same way. I definitely pointed out to this doctor everything she did that was against what my doctor had said would be possible. Sure I understand circumstances change, but I felt like this doctor just wanted to get rid of me as a patient and she would do everything to get the baby out so she could leave me. She said we needed the baby out and I wasn't pushing hard enough on my own (or at least that is how I took it). At this point my back was killing me so bad that I would do anything to get the child out, so I guess I agreed. The anesthesiologist also came and gave me a shot of something for the back pain. She used the vacuum on a few pushes and then I pushed the baby out on my own. The doctor held my little girl up and then gave her to the nurses. Again things I didn't want: cutting of the cord immediately and handing the baby to the nurses. The nurses kept the baby for far too long, probably about 20 minutes or so. Matt went over and saw her and took pictures, but they wouldn't give me my baby. Again, highly annoyed. I kept asking for my baby. They wanted to watch her for a little while to make sure she was ok. Apparently her reflexes were a little slow at the beginning. I have to say that would be expected with all the darn drugs she had received, so just give her to me already. The doctor was busy stitching me up. I overheard that I had a 4th degree tear down to the rectum. Lovely. The doctor never really told me this, which I found and still find annoying. I like to be informed of what is happening to my body. The entire time she was stitching me up I was shaking uncontrollably. Apparently that is due to the hormones, but it was quite disturbing. My hands would just shake and shake and I couldn't do anything to stop it.
I finally got to hold my little girl. We snuggled and tried to breastfeed. She wouldn't latch on right away but eventually did, and did a little bit of sucking. After a while, the nurses were ready to take her up to the nursery for her bath and evaluation. I was supposed to go up shortly after her, but it ended up being about 2 hours. I just sat in the room by myself for a long while. Matt had gone up with Greta to watch her bath and keep her in his sight. It turns out there were too many other babies in there and he couldn't go in or really see her, so eventually when I was heading upstairs he came back to see me. After about 3 hours we were finally reunited as a family. Apparently it was pretty crowded in the nursery that night with lots of little boys needing their circumcisions. I wish they would have let Greta stay with us until they had time to check her out and such. But they didn't. We were now all happy in our room.
Overall, it wasn't the birth I was hoping for, but in the end we got a beautiful, healthy, happy baby girl.
Friday 13 June 2008 at 3:04 pm
Since I never got around to finishing my first week post, we will now have a first two weeks post. First, labor was hard and painful, but eventually little Greta did make her appearance. I will write a longer post about the actual labor later sometime. The first night we were exhausted since we had been up since 1 am the previous night. Greta was tired as well, but anyone who knows much about breastfeeding knows you should wake the baby up every two hours to try and feed. Well waking her up seemed nearly impossible. She didn't really eat anything in the first 12 hours. She did latch on and suck right after birth, but we didn't have much luck after that. The nurses at the hospital were pretty useless and didn't have any ideas other than what we were trying. Sometimes she would latch on, but didn't seem to want to suck. She wanted the food without the work. The next morning we met with the lactation consultant. She gave us a nipple shield and a little syringe of formula. Greta would latch on after we gave her a little squirt of formula to entice her. She started sucking and we assumed she was getting something. It was pretty much a big juggling act the rest of the time we were at the hospital. Get the nipple shield on, squirt a little in her mouth, shove the boob in her mouth and hope she would suck for a little bit. The nurses kept trying to get us to give her a bottle but we stood our ground. I can totally understand why so few people actually breastfeed. If you aren't determined on your own, there is a very good chance that someone will convince you to give the baby a bottle. Our hospital was supposed to be pretty good with encouraging breastfeeding.
We went home Sunday evening and had a screaming child all night long. The only thing that would keep her happy was to suck. Whether that was sucking on a finger, or a boob or whatever, but always with a squirt of formula to start her off. She wanted to suck. We thought we just must have a very high needs baby and were preparing for a few long hard months/years. Monday we went to see the lactation consultant (LC) again. The LC was surprised by her behavior and commented that she had never seen a baby need such instant gratification before. We learned that she didn't care whether it was milk from me or formula, but she needed something squirted in her mouth to get her going. Since my milk was beginning to come in, we could now pump a little and then squirt that into her mouth. The next 24 hours we ended up with a totally different child. She didn't cry hardly at all, she started latching on directly to me and stopped needing the little squirt to get started. We couldn't believe the difference. We know that breastmilk is supposedly all babies need, but it appeared that little Miss Greta was just hungry and until my milk came in she wasn't getting quite enough to satisfy her hunger and she didn't like that.
We went to the pediatrician on Tuesday and she had gained 4 oz since the day before at the LC. Of course the scales could be a little off, but still, now that she was getting milk she was happy and growing! At the doctor's office I was peed on for the first time. I put Greta on the scale to be weighed and took her diaper off. Once I picked her up she started peeing everywhere. My shirt was soaked and there was pee all over the floor. Oops. I realized then that I should probably pack an extra shirt in the diaper bag for me as well as for Greta. Everything checked out just fine at the pediatricians. The next two days were mostly the same stuff, eat, sleep, and poop.
Then Friday it was back to the hospital. Not too much fun, but Greta seemed to adjust just fine. On Sunday, my mom came in town. This week was mostly the same until Wednesday. Tuesday night I had a fever again. I called the doctor and she said to stay home until the morning (thank goodness). Then I was readmitted for another round of antibiotics and Greta stayed at the hospital again.
Now that we are back home she seems to have settled into a little routine. Well not a total routine, but enough of one that I am happy with it. She eats about every 2 hours during the day and then every 3-4 at night. I try to wake her up every two hours during the day so that she will hopefully sleep for a little longer at night. She definitely seems to have times of day when she is most awake, usually she is awake for 30 or 40 minutes in the morning after a feeding and again in the afternoon and then again around 10 pm. Both Matt and I are getting much more sleep these days. Matt mostly sleeps through the night, usually stirring when Greta cries, but he falls back asleep. I get up and feed her and put her back to bed. I am getting probably about 7 hours of sleep at night, which isn't too bad. Of course that is broken up into a couple of blocks, but that is alright.
Greta smiles a lot, although not in response to us just yet. Sometimes she smiles when she is awake, but I don't know what she is smiling at. The smile is not usually followed by gas, so I don't think that is it, but maybe. She also smiles a lot when she is sleeping. It is adorable. Her cord fell off last Saturday/Sunday in the middle of the night sometime.
Greta has quite a little temper and gets worked up quite quickly when she is left crying. She also turns bright red when she cries. She seems to have quite sensitive skin, which turns red when she is laying on a side or whatever. Albert doesn't seem to care too much about Greta. Sometimes he will come up and sniff her, but other than that he seems to ignore her, unless he wants attention and we are holding her.
Yesterday (Thursday) morning Matt took Greta to the pediatrician for her two week checkup. She gained 19 oz since the previous Tuesday. They were expecting her to gain about 9 oz, but she clearly surpassed that. She weighed 9 lbs 5 oz and was 21 inches long. She is definitely growing! I was sad I wasn't able to go to the doctor's visit, but I couldn't leave the hospital. Everything else looked fine at the doctor's. She seems quite strong and the doctor seems to think she has good muscle tone. The other day I was holding her while sitting with her back to my chest and she pulled her whole body forward. I was quite impressed. She has very good head control, which seems common on Matt's side of the family.
If you saw all the earlier pictures of me in the hospital, you will see that I had a lot of swelling. In the first week after Greta's birth I lost 22 pounds! I didn't realize how much swelling I had until I look back at the pictures and then look at myself now.
Greta loves her daddy very much. Matt is very good at calming her down. He holds her and pats her back 3 times and instantly she is calm. She clearly knows who we are and calms down much faster with Matt than anyone else (although she does calm down with me as well). For those who were concerned or made comments about Matt's beard and hair, it is all gone now. He has no beard, and got a haircut. These were planned for before the birth, but Greta decided to arrive a bit earlier than we were expecting.
Greta came out with quite a lot of hair. And it seems as if it continues to grow and fill in everyday. When her hair is wet, it has a little curl to it. It is adorable! Her hair already looks like it needs a haircut in the back. I'm pretty sure she has what could be classified as a mullet. My mom thinks it is almost time for a little ponytail in the back. More and more hair is growing in the front, but it still looks a little like Matt Lauer's hair (what Matt observed this morning).
Alright that is about all I can think of for now. Eventually I will write about the actual labor and birth and all about how the cloth diapers are working out. Also one day I will finish the cloth diaper series (again little Greta decided to appear before we were quite ready). We are all very happy and in love with our little girl. She really is a wonderful baby and my mom keeps reminding us of that. Will we be that lucky with the next one? Probably not. But for now, we will rest and be happy and enjoy our content, happy baby.
Thursday 12 June 2008 at 7:20 pm
On Tuesday evening I had a fever again. I called the doctor and they said to monitor it overnight and come to the office in the morning. I did. It turns out I had some late growth blood bacteria that showed up on Monday in the blood cultures from last Friday. The doctor thinks it could have been a contaminant but wanted to treat it since I was having a fever again. I also was developing the beginnings of a breast infection. So back to the hospital I went. We spent the night there last night and just got home now at around 7 pm. For you medical folks the blood bacteria that came back on my cultures is called
pseudomonas fluorescens. Apparently it is pretty rare. I am now on at home IV antibotics. Actually I have a PICC line to receive the antibiotics rather than an IV since a PICC line is sturdier. I have to receive antibiotics for 7 days, but will be able to get them at home. Hopefully then everything will be fine and we can get on with normal life.
I have to say that when I had a baby I expected some things such as lack of sleep, trouble breastfeeding and a crying baby, but I didn't really expect to go back to the hospital twice in the two weeks following the birth. Oh well. You learn something new every day.
Sunday 08 June 2008 at 10:10 am
I have completed Greta's picture page. I will continue to add new pictures as time allows, so keep checking back. I'm sure I will also be posting some of my favorites here as well, but that will be the general repository for most pictures.
Enjoy!
Saturday 07 June 2008 at 7:46 pm
I had planned a lovely update for yesterday about our first week as a new family and to reveal the new Greta picture page. But at about 9 am yesterday (Friday) I got some really bad chills. I laid in bed for about an hour before deciding to take my temperature. It was 101.6. I called the doctor, she told me to come in and I was admitted to the hospital for 24 hours to get IV antibiotics and see what was going on. All of my cultures came back negative so we still don't really know what caused the fever spike, but we are now home safe and sound. Hopefully we won't be back at the hospital anytime soon. Greta and Matt were both able to stay at the hospital with me, so that was good, especially since I really didn't want to try and get Greta a bottle this early. My mom arrives tomorrow for a week. That should be nice and Greta will get to meet her first grandparent! Hopefully in the next few days I will post a more substantial update and lots more pictures (trust me, we have tons more).
Monday 02 June 2008 at 07:36 am
Our newest addition...
Margaret (Greta) Genevieve born Friday, May 30, 2008 at 5:40 pm.
8 lbs 8.5 oz, 20 inches
