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BarniganFlarn
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Name: amber
Birthday: 1/30/1986
Gender: Female
Interests: christianity, photography, reading, writing, camp counseling, children, college, volunteering, hanging out in coffee shops or at the beach, shows, concerts, car rides, friends, randomness, violin, piano, guitar, the season of autumn, seasons in general, nature, camping, traveling, knitting, baking, sleeping, dreaming, people watching, learning, rebelling, eating,
Occupation: Program Director
Industry: Other
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  becauseiamtricky
Member Since:
1/19/2004
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| Dear Eisley,
Well look at that! you have a name! I don't have to address you as "baby" any longer!
Two days ago, you were 1 week old. Holy cow, kiddo! You're growing up much too quickly! Already, your dad and I feel like you're getting heavier. One of the first nights you were home, you slept on my chest, and just this morning, I put you there again and felt a noticeable difference in your weight. Maybe it's my imagination, but the first night you were home, I felt I could fit you sideways in your bassinet. Already that seems like way too cramped of an option. Your face seems fuller and your hair is fuzzier. It's developed little blondish red highlights and your widow's peak is starting to fill in a bit. Unfortunately, I don't have a scale, because I would just love to see your daily progress, but before you left the hospital you had lost 7 ounces, and two days later at your first checkup with the doctor, you had gained it all back. The doctor says this is incredibly good, and that you're growing like a champ. Which means I'm feeding you properly, which makes mama feel good inside 
One thing you've done that has made us incredibly happy is adopted a nighttime feeding schedule. We're not so naive as to think this won't abruptly change, say, tomorrow, but we're happy that you've seemed to work out that night time is generally for sleeping. The first night home from the hospital, you cluster-fed from 11 p.m. until 3:30 a.m. I would fill you up, put you down, and ten minutes later you'd be crying for more. We'd try everything else first, of course, but it would always come down to the fact that YOU WANTED TO EAT AGAIN. I'd let you latch on and you'd gobble down ANOTHER full meal. Lather, rinse, repeat. At 3:30 a.m., you started sleeping in half hour increments and waking up again to eat. So I essentially fed you ALL NIGHT LONG. Maybe it was because my milk came in that day, who knows, but it was a rough night, followed by another rough night of identical proportions.
The past few nights you've been on a roughly 7-11-3-7 schedule. Meaning that you want to eat at 7 and 11 p.m., and then again at 3 and 7 a.m. Can I stress to you how wonderful this schedule is? Every four hours? yes please. Beyond that, you maybe wake up once or twice because of a needed diaper change, but that's your dad's job, so between the two of us, we have managed to get some solid nights of sleep the past few nights. Once you even managed to sleep in until 9:30, for a full 6 hour stretch of sleep. I'm counting my blessings and dreading the next growth spurt.
When you do sleep for long periods, I feel like I should wake you up to feed you, especially since my boobs start screaming to be emptied, but nothing wakes you up when you're determined to sleep, Eisley. I have tried stripping you down, tickling your feet, diaper changes, etc., and you will sleep through them all if you're tired enough. So I have decided that since you're obviously growing, I'm not going to worry about it too much. Sleep when you want to sleep, and my very swollen breasts will be here waiting for you when you wake up.
That sounded weird.
Anyway.
Yesterday was your baptism, and just about everybody you're related to, and a bunch of friends too, came out to see you. We had a "private service," since sunday was looking much too busy for everyone, and about 50 people showed up. The service was short, only about 20 minutes long, and consisted of a hymn, followed by the pastor talking about baptism, followed by the baptism itself, followed by another hymn. I think you screamed and cried through everything but the hymns. Silly girl. Pastor was like "by the way, it's ok to cry through your own baptism if you want. That's a rule." and everybody chuckled. When they poured the water on your head, you acted like you were going to DIE, it was that dramatic, and in just about all of your baptism photos you are making an exceptionally cranky face. Of course this prompted some unwelcome comments, like when your great grandma sidled up to me and hissed "when did you last FEED the child?" Right before the baptism, grandma. Sometimes babies just cry, and there is no stopping them. After the baptism, we had cake and ice cream and chatted with everyone who came to see you, and you were passed around from arm to arm and slept through it all, happy as a clam. After I fed you, we went out to eat with the grandma and grandpa C and the great grandparents and once again you didn't make a single peep. You slept in your car seat carrier the entire meal, oblivious to the world, even after Grandpa C insisted on holding you again. Your grandparents can't seem to get enough of you. They were arguing over who got to hold you next
We got a ton of presents at your baptism and I'm pretty excited to open them! We know a lot of the cards contain money, and all that money is going to start a savings account for you. As you grow, I'll teach you to divide your money into spending, savings, and charity, and by the time you turn 18, you should have a few grand saved up for college or wherever else life takes you. My parents did this with me, and I'm forever grateful. I'm glad I had money saved up at age 18 and didn't just spend everything I received as a child.
One cute little thing you try to do on a regular basis is lift your head. For one week old, you're actually quite good at it. Sometimes you will be lying on your tummy and you'll lift your head straight up, just like a turtle, and stare at us with wide, unblinking eyes. Then, as quickly as you lifted your head, your neck muscles will give out, and you'll face plant back into the carpeting. Other times you'll fight the face plant, and your head will start rocking up and down, just like a little bobble head doll. It's like your rocking out to music when you do this, and we always have to chuckle at your expense. You are just too cute.
Did I mention the sounds you make? We liken them to dinosaur noises, lacking a better description. You make them mostly while asleep, along with grunts, snorts, snores, and farts. You're one of the noisiest little sleepers I have ever met, kiddo. Hopefully it's just a baby thing  Right now you're sawing wood right next to me and your hand is sticking straight up in the air, and I have no idea how you're holding it up there while clearly sleeping, but you seem to be quite comfortable, so I won't ask.
We can't believe a week has passed already. If this is any indication of how fast you're going to grow up, I better be sure to appreciate each and every moment. | | |
| Extended family dynamics are fascinating to me. The hidden untold tension residing just beneath every tenuous connection, shared blood bringing people together who otherwise would have absolutely nothing in common. Everybody smiling, while all the while each person is inevitably judging the next, making a continuous and abiding internal "wtf" face:
At least I know I am.
Seriously, put a bunch of incredibly eccentric or quirky people from completely opposite sides of the social spectrum together in a room and just watch what happens. If you had to give it a title, it would probably be called "family reunion."
Today, my daughter Eisley was baptized. And just about everybody who shares our blood in some way came to witness the event. Which means there were more than a few times I was left wondering "who ARE these people?!"
Like when we're standing up in front of the church, my husband and I, with our new baby in hand, and the great grandparents are taking turns standing next to us so about 12 people with cameras can snap a photo, and everybody else in the church is watching us up front, and it's my husband's grandma's turn to stand next to us and instead of cooing over the baby or making the usual awkward jokes and faces people tend to make when they have twelve cameras pointed at them, she grabs my elbow, leans her head towards me while facing all twelve cameras, and through clenched, smiling teeth hisses "don't. drink. the. tea."
"The tea?" I hissed back, "What tea?" (Inside thinking: what does this have to do with baptism or our child?)
"The tea!" she responded, "The tea from Christmas!"
"That you gave us?" (Completely confused by this point.)
"No, that tea is fine. The other tea. The tea from HER."
"From who? What? What tea are we talking about?"
"From M----," (husband's dad's new wife) "I drank the tea, and it made me sick. Do not drink the tea."
*click* the last picture had been taken, and she hustled off down the stairs. Here we were taking pictures with the grandparents on their great grandchild's special day, and the whole time she's hissing through her toothy smile about THE TEA! FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE DON"T DRINK THE TEA!" Well gee, thanks for the warning nanny, but I'm pretty sure that tea is long gone. And no, it didn't make any of us sick. But more importantly, doesn't it strike you as odd that you chose THIS time and place to warn us about the tea? With literally everybody in the room staring at us, including M? Couldn't it have waited until some discreet time while we're out in the hall eating cake? So weird.
Weirder still was when M-- herself approached me and said "I like the photos you posted of your baby on facebook. So I was wondering if you would photograph my dogs' wedding."
"Your dogs? They're uh, getting married?" I asked, trying to pretend this wasn't an odd conversation.
"Yes, Deianeira and Mr. Withers! I assume you have seen them on facebook?"
Yes. Yes I have.
To enlighten the rest of you:
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
I'm sure it will be a beautiful wedding.
Later, on the drive home, my husband got a phone call. And all I could hear him saying was "Yes, I already drank it. Uh huh. Well, thank you for your concern, but it's already gone. I'm sorry the tea made you sick." Then he hung up and said, "our relatives are weird."
Yes. Yes they are. | | |
| I'm working on a post all about Eisley and her arrival but in the meantime:
Our first post-baby "date" consisted of Jimmy Johns subs, Stone Creek iced coffee, and blissful, uninterrupted time during which Eisley slept quite peacefully in the other room. The flowers, given to us by various relatives at the hospital, were a nice touch. We didn't go anywhere or do anything spectacular, but it was "alone time" nonetheless, and I'm totally counting it as a date. Sometimes it's the little things.
I am happy to announce that so far, my husband and I seem largely unaffected by any and all of those terrible things that are supposed to happen to our relationship post-baby. We've been really great at sharing the work load. So far, he's been on leave from work and has been so helpful and involved that I think I've only had to change one diaper. Not even joking. When the baby needs to be fed, that's obviously where I step in, and that ends up being a 24-hour long job sometimes. Our first night home was awful in terms of getting absolutely no sleep. Eisley demanded to be fed from 11 p.m. until 3:30 a.m. Meaning, I'd fill her up to the brim, she'd stop eating and look sleepy, I'd put her down in the bassinet, and five minutes later she was crying her hunger cry. She'd go right back to eating as though she hadn't seen a breast in years, and eat a full meal too. When she wasn't hungry, she was crying for a diaper change. After 3:30 a.m. she started sleeping for 45-minute-long increments and waking up at least every hour, until finally zonking out at 7:30 a.m. Whew! What a marathon night! Our second night home was much the same. We were exhausted and wondering what happened to the docile baby who woke up every 4 hours to feed while at the hospital? Still, throughout the stress and lack of sleep that comes with living with a newborn, we kept our spirits up, told ourselves that this is only temporary, and had zero fights about whose turn it was to do what. I'm pretty proud of us.
Mike goes back to work soon and I'm going to miss him and his help around here SO MUCH. Then begins my voyage as a "stay at home mom." I'm hoping to transition this title soon into "work at home mom" or "mom with at least a part time job." But for awhile it will definitely just be me and Eisley and Indie feeling lonely without our fourth family member around to give us kisses and make us smile.
I love kissing my husband Silly thing to say, I know, but while pregnant, it was really hard to kiss him well :-p I felt like no matter which way I turned, my big ol' belly was in the way. If I gave anyone a hug I either had to stand sideways or else bend way over and stick my butt out, whereupon my face would inevitably be buried in their chest. Either way, awkward. A few days ago I was standing in the kitchen next to Mike and he pulled me in for a hug and a long kiss and I said, "hey! I can do this facing you, now!" It's a good thing, too, because it's just about all we CAN do for the next six weeks. I have a feeling we will definitely gain a renewed appreciation for making out, because we're already crawling the walls here. Not that we want any more babies anytime soon. While the last nine months were an incredible experience, I don't really care to repeat them immediately. Maybe when my first kid is just about out of diapers. Then we'll talk
For now, we're just soaking up every precious moment with our little baby girl. | | |
| 
This little girl has been keeping me busy.
Her name is Eisley Anne And she is awesome. | | |
| Man, this baby has me dangling by its puppet strings, jerking my body from one crazy dance to another. Last night when my husband got home, we did not, in fact, "induce" as planned. Instead, I took a 2 hour nap while he wrote some music with his game boy and then we just chilled around the house until we, or rather, he, went to bed. Neither of us was upset at this arrangement. We've tried plenty of inducing over the weekend and nothing came of it, so I guess we both just needed a break from caring. His impatience at work was pretty much gone by the time he got home, and we were both just feeling mellow and relaxed.
Unfortunately, that relaxation did not translate into me sleeping through the night. This thing has been happening lately where I will be fine all day, will be able to nap for hours like a rock if I want to, and then as soon as I 'go to bed' for the evening, I'm up every 20-30 minutes. Usually I'm awoken by Braxton hicks contractions. Painless, yet uncomfortable, depending on how I'm lying. Depending on how the baby's lying, and whether or not it's putting any pressure on my bladder, I usually very suddenly have to pee upon waking up. As in, immediately. So I roll myself out of bed, do my business, climb back into bed, and get adjusted once again, only to wake up 20 minutes later to repeat the process. It doesn't help that I get so darn THIRSTY at night. I don't know what it is, but I have always drank a ton of water at night. When I was a kid I would chug a full glass or two before bed. As an adult, I have to keep a glass of water constantly at hand on my night stand, and often will get up to replenish it once during the night. Usually, despite my water intake, I can make it the entire night without having to get up to use the bathroom. But it seems like this baby enjoys taking one sip of water and converting it instantly into a full bladder. I go to the bathroom, empty myself, feel a dry, parched throat, take one sip of water, and in ten minutes I have to go again. It's a vicious cycle, and it makes nights tiresome.
It's no surprise that last night I couldn't sleep. I lay awake on my laptop, surfing the net and timing braxton hicks contractions just for kicks. I'd had a few slightly painful ones throughout the day, and I noticed that the ones I was having last night were a little uncomfortable. Nothing concerning though. From 11-2:30, my contractions pretty much looked like this:
13 m, 1 s
28 m, 20 s
12 m, 37 s
25 m, 14 s
41 m, 46 s
54 m, 37 s
34 m, 44 s
70 m, 25 s
Then at 3 I got up to go to the bathroom and started having some serious contractions, along with other early labor signs I won't get into. They were still manageable, not much worse than menstrual cramps, but they hurt, were coming from my lower back and in waves, and felt as I've often heard them described. When I got back to bed I started timing again and suddenly they looked like this:
7 m, 1 s
3 m, 30 s
5 m, 10 s
5 m, 38 s
5 m, 3 s
5 m, 32 s
For awhile they were a very consistent 5-5 1/2 minutes apart. Not wanting to jinx it, I didn't bother waking my husband, as my doctor had said that I shouldn't come to the hospital until I"m having trouble breathing through contractions. Instead, I lay there and timed contractions and inadvertently fell asleep. After that, I have no idea how consistent they were, because I kept being jerked awake by them, lazily attempting to time them, and then falling back asleep. At one point, I let the timer run for 21 minutes before noticing I'd forgotten to hit "stop." Somewhere around 5 a.m., I even managed to fall asleep for a full hour before waking up to another contraction. After that, they were coming at regular intervals again:
6 m, 40 s
4 m, 35 s
4 m, 43 s
4 m, 42 s
4 m, 21 s
2 m, 55 s
3 m, 46 s
1 m, 56 s
4 m, 41 s
4 m, 56 s
5 m, 38 s
5 m, 17 s
5 m, 20 s
I called my doctor to see what she thought about whether or not I was in early labor. She thought it could definitely be the case and to call her if and when the contractions started getting so intense that I was having difficulty going about my day. This is a frustrating description to me. I suppose I'll know that intensity when I feel it, but as I tend to underplay my pain, I'm not sure if any of my contractions were at that intensity or not. There were definitely a few where I had to pause and go "oof" until they had passed. But others haven't been so bad. And since I'm not sure how bad they're supposed to GET because I've never been through this before, I can't rate them on a scale or decide when they have reached an acceptable level of intensity. Other peoples' experiences don't help. Some people tell me that intense labor contractions feel like dying while others say "I barely knew I was in labor. We got to the hospital just in time; the baby almost fell out on the floor!" So what am I supposed to make of this? I don't know. I tend to air on the side of "oh, that was probably nothing."
Since my shower this morning, the contractions have slowed down again. They're still painful when they happen, but they're only happening every 10-45 minutes or so instead of every five minutes. Some have definitely felt more intense than the ones I experienced this morning, while others are nothing at all. In the meantime, I'm going stir-crazy. I want to get out and do something, but every time a contraction hits, I'm glad I'm able to sit here and breathe deeply. Then it will go away, I'll feel great again, and I'll start craving a mocha. I'll wonder if it's acceptable to run down to Stone Creek while in possible early labor. But if I am in early labor, I should be only consuming bland foods and fluids, and I'm reminded why every time the next contraction hits. "Doing things and eating food SUCKS!" my contracting body thinks, and then it stops and I suddenly have the urge to drive to the mall, purchase a 1500 piece puzzle and a cinnabon, and try to complete both before the baby gets here. I wish my body would make up its mind about how it wants to feel and decide whether or not it is in labor or just messing with me. | | |
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