TheLionRampant.net

I need to write this before my memory gets even more clouded. After two and a half weeks, the birth already seems less painful and the recovery minor and pregnancy seems like a walk in the park. I guess the forgetting is why women continue to have more than one baby. For those of you not interested in birth-type things, feel free to skip this post.

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The journey to Ezra’s arrival began on Tuesday, August 28. We went in for our 40-week appointment and because I was 40-weeks pregnant, they did a 20-minute “strip” — where they attach monitors to your pregnant belly, one to monitor contractions and one to monitor the baby’s heartbeat. It was fun to hear Ezra’s heartbeat for so long and to see that I was actually having contractions on my own that felt slightly stronger than Braxton Hicks contractions. After about 20 minutes, I heard the doctor looking at the monitor strip and saying outside the door, “Are these actual dips?” (referring to the dips in Ezra’s heart rate). He came in and explained how to read the strip and explained that the strip indicated that the baby was in some stress (thus, he wasn’t passing the non-stress test) as he wasn’t “reactive” (his heart rate didn’t go much above his baseline hb/minute after the contraction). He checked me and told me I was 1 centimeter dilated and pretty soft; he must’ve stripped my membranes at that point as well since I began to bleed later. He recommended we get going to the hospital to have a non-stress test there and that likely, we’d be having the baby, as they would want to make sure we had the baby in a safe environment given he was already experiencing some stress from contractions. The doctor recommended Bryce drop me off and he then go home and get our things, but we decided we could go home first and both go to the hospital.

We left the doctor’s office literally in a haze. I couldn’t believe it. We were going to the hospital and were going to have this baby. Out went all my dreams of laboring at home for a while. (more…)

So we’ve rounded the two-week mark and on the whole, things seem to be getting a tiny bit easier. First off, I’m feeling much better and am not needing to be on pain meds every 6 hours for the c-section incision pain. In fact, I’m generally only taking Motrin once a day. Secondly, we haven’t had any absolutely awful nights like day 3 and 4 in the hospital, where Ezra was starving and was inconsolable for hours in the middle of the night. Thirdly, we got Francis back from Bryce’s parents last night and so far he’s done remarkably well.

Ezra is now up to 7 lbs. 3.5 oz. as of his last pediatrician appointment, almost a pound above his birth weight. He’s started to acquire a “fussy period” that our pediatrician thinks might be the beginning of colic, but I’m not so sure, as he isn’t inconsolable. Bryce has taken to driving him around Pasadena until he conks out. I’m thinking it could be overstimulation, cluster feeding, or perhaps he’s reacting to something I’ve eaten. Today I’m going to cut out dairy and see how that goes.

It is a very good thing that he is so adorable, because when I’m not sleeping and feel like I’m feeding him all the time, the cuteness does help. We’re having fun watching his funny little faces and his fascination with the light coming in the blinds when he’s on his changing table. Bryce has been “hosed off” a few times and even got his hands in a poopy diaper once and so feels he’s joined the ranks of “real Dad-ness.” We’re doing pretty well functioning on little sleep, but I’m really looking forward to a more consistent sleeping schedule. We’ve had two nights where Ezra has had a 4-hour stretch followed by a 3-hour stretch between feedings. Hopefully that will continue! We’ll continue to update with pictures and one of these days we’ll have something more intelligent to share.

I’ve set up a Flickr account to post pictures of Ezra. Check it out…

Our good friends David and Neyir have also welcomed a son into the world this week! Congratulations guys! We can’t wait to meet Max.

Edit: Now that she has her own blog too, we can also announce that our friends Ben and Julian Friesen have a new baby girl, Eleanor.