Ellis is now three weeks old. He is doing pretty well though I do spend the nights sleeping with him and I am hoping that ends soon! His nickname is Angry Man though. When he is unhappy, he tells us LOAD AND CLEAR. He goes from 0-60 in less than one second. He does love to be held though and it is hard to argue with that because he cuddles up close to you.
Wearing him the sling has helped a lot. Giving me some hands to have free to do things around the house. Clara seems to be adjusting OK. She has been asking repeatedly for Mommy and Daddy hugs so she is a little bit starved for attention. I feel bad for her sometimes but when I am nursing Ellis and she is trying to sit in my lap, it makes it a little hard.
Ellis is almost in 0-3 clothes. The one pieces work well but the two piecer newborn sizes still fit him well. It is just a matter of how to keep his socks on! I looked back at Clara's baby book and he is about a week ahead of her on that.
I think that Ellis smiled at me today. I was talking to him while he was awake and I thought I saw a fleeting smile! It is so hard to tell because he does it in his sleep so often. They are really so sweet when they do that.
He still has his quivering lip and when he stretches, his hands still twitch. I forgot how sweet that is, you forget about all those newborn quirks until they are right in front of your face. A lot of the times, he makes faces that remind me so much of Clara. He purses his lips like Clara and it is amazing how much they look alike when they do things like that.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Monday, October 09, 2006
Ellis Stats and his first week
Ellis was born 6 lbs 15 ounces, 20 3/4 inches long at 5:39 PM on 10/3/06. When we left the hospital, he weighed 6 lbs 12 ounces and was back up to 6 lbs 13 1/2 ounces at his first doctors appointment when he was 5 days old. We had to go back to the hospital that day to get his bili test done because the doctor thought he looked a little yellow. Fortunately, Ellis was OK and no more of those tests! They are not fun to deal with.
Things are going well. Clara has been an absolute wonder adjusting, I think it helps that we have people around specifically for her. In the last two days, she has shown interest in the baby. Asking to see the baby and even kissed him a few times. I do miss hanging out with her! I got to spend some time with her playing with the camera this morning which was fun. Her new game, which is actually a rather annoying but sweet one is, she wants to see herself on the camera but has no patience to let me take the picture first. So as soon as the camera comes out, she says, "I see Clara?" over and over again and gets upset if you try to take the picture first to show her! This morning, she was asking to see baby on the camera. It is funny because she knows who Ellis is, that Ellis is his name, but she only calls him baby and refuses to say his name. She has said it a few times and when Heather K. asked her who Ellis is, she looked at the baby but still did not say his name. It will be interesting when it is going to just be the three of us hanging out. Thanks goodness I have some time before that.
At night, Ellis does not like to sleep by himself. It is odd because he will do it during the day as he is right now. But at night, he often fusses unless I hold him. So we have been sleeping on the couch together, just as I did with Clara. I am not really sure what to do about this situation because I know it is not the safest but it sort of works for us.
For the most part, Ellis is a great baby. Only cries when he has a reason. He loves to look around when he is awake and reminds me of Clara so much. A lot of his facial expressions are EXACTLY the same as Clara made. There is this one face where his lips are pursed and I swear he looks exactly like Clara because she used to do that face all the time. He has started to smile in his sleep, that phase where he is sort of sleeping but sort of not and a huge smile comes over his face. He even laughed in his sleep once already. Ellis has this great sad face too. Weird to say so but his eyes frown before he cries.
Things are going well. Clara has been an absolute wonder adjusting, I think it helps that we have people around specifically for her. In the last two days, she has shown interest in the baby. Asking to see the baby and even kissed him a few times. I do miss hanging out with her! I got to spend some time with her playing with the camera this morning which was fun. Her new game, which is actually a rather annoying but sweet one is, she wants to see herself on the camera but has no patience to let me take the picture first. So as soon as the camera comes out, she says, "I see Clara?" over and over again and gets upset if you try to take the picture first to show her! This morning, she was asking to see baby on the camera. It is funny because she knows who Ellis is, that Ellis is his name, but she only calls him baby and refuses to say his name. She has said it a few times and when Heather K. asked her who Ellis is, she looked at the baby but still did not say his name. It will be interesting when it is going to just be the three of us hanging out. Thanks goodness I have some time before that.
At night, Ellis does not like to sleep by himself. It is odd because he will do it during the day as he is right now. But at night, he often fusses unless I hold him. So we have been sleeping on the couch together, just as I did with Clara. I am not really sure what to do about this situation because I know it is not the safest but it sort of works for us.
For the most part, Ellis is a great baby. Only cries when he has a reason. He loves to look around when he is awake and reminds me of Clara so much. A lot of his facial expressions are EXACTLY the same as Clara made. There is this one face where his lips are pursed and I swear he looks exactly like Clara because she used to do that face all the time. He has started to smile in his sleep, that phase where he is sort of sleeping but sort of not and a huge smile comes over his face. He even laughed in his sleep once already. Ellis has this great sad face too. Weird to say so but his eyes frown before he cries.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
L & D of Ellis Matthew Owen
I was told the Thursday before my 39 weeks that we were going to deliver on 10/3 if I did not go into labor on my own. At that doctors appointment, I was 1-2 cm so the goal for the weekend was to make that a little better so I did not have to go in to the hospital on 10/2 for Cervidal (mostly because it did nothing for me when I had Clara!). At my doctor's appointment on Monday, I was 2-3 and they decided to have me come in on Tuesday (which is a good thing since I was at the hospital with Heather all day Monday since she had a timely bleed). Tuesday morning, they called at 6 AM and told us to call them at 8 since they were a little busy and wanted to wait to induce me. At 7:15, we got another call and we were told to come in! We got out of bed, and headed to the hospital.
We arrived to a slow start. They did not start me on pitocin until about 10:30 and turned it up. I was already having my own contractions but these brought them to about 3-4 m minutes apart. We watched a DVD while they got all my drips in order (insulin, sugar, pitocin, iv) and all of a sudden at around noon, my water bag broked on it's own! It was a strange feeling because I was not expecting it at all. That was good news for me though because it was one less thing the doctors had to do for me.
Shortly after that, the contractions starting getting pretty bad. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people at the same time asking for an epidural so I had to wait for over an hour and half for one. They had to call a second doctor in to do the floor for epidurals since there was such a demand. I got that second doctor and by the time he came in at 2:30 I was in a LOT of pain (and about 5 CM) so he gave me an epidural AND a spinal. The spinal kicked in right away and I was pain free for about an hour or two. Shortly after THAT, I started to feel the contractions again. We did a boost of the epidural twice but my pain was multiplying more than that so I did not feel it. They checked me again (I would say sometime before 4) and I was 8 cm and shortly after that I was 9. I was feeling so much pressure though, they decided that I should start to push. We did that with the nurse and after pushing for a while, the called the doctor who told me to STOP pushing because he was delivering another baby and needed to be there when I got the baby out. That was probably one of the most painful and awful experiences of my life, having those full on contractions and not being able to push. We waited for far too long, maybe about 40 minutes and finally they let me push. I probably had to push for another 20-30 minutes (for a total of an hour and ten) and he came out! The doctor said he is a star gazer, facing the wrong way which is why the delivery was so awful. I could feel almost all of it. When they were going to make the cut, they asked me if I could feel the knife and I could so they had to give me a local. And I still felt it when he cut. I must say, Clara's was a walk in the park compared to this delivery. I was rather immune to what was going on "down there" for her delivery.
But in return, I got a perfect baby boy! You could not ask for anything better.
We arrived to a slow start. They did not start me on pitocin until about 10:30 and turned it up. I was already having my own contractions but these brought them to about 3-4 m minutes apart. We watched a DVD while they got all my drips in order (insulin, sugar, pitocin, iv) and all of a sudden at around noon, my water bag broked on it's own! It was a strange feeling because I was not expecting it at all. That was good news for me though because it was one less thing the doctors had to do for me.
Shortly after that, the contractions starting getting pretty bad. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people at the same time asking for an epidural so I had to wait for over an hour and half for one. They had to call a second doctor in to do the floor for epidurals since there was such a demand. I got that second doctor and by the time he came in at 2:30 I was in a LOT of pain (and about 5 CM) so he gave me an epidural AND a spinal. The spinal kicked in right away and I was pain free for about an hour or two. Shortly after THAT, I started to feel the contractions again. We did a boost of the epidural twice but my pain was multiplying more than that so I did not feel it. They checked me again (I would say sometime before 4) and I was 8 cm and shortly after that I was 9. I was feeling so much pressure though, they decided that I should start to push. We did that with the nurse and after pushing for a while, the called the doctor who told me to STOP pushing because he was delivering another baby and needed to be there when I got the baby out. That was probably one of the most painful and awful experiences of my life, having those full on contractions and not being able to push. We waited for far too long, maybe about 40 minutes and finally they let me push. I probably had to push for another 20-30 minutes (for a total of an hour and ten) and he came out! The doctor said he is a star gazer, facing the wrong way which is why the delivery was so awful. I could feel almost all of it. When they were going to make the cut, they asked me if I could feel the knife and I could so they had to give me a local. And I still felt it when he cut. I must say, Clara's was a walk in the park compared to this delivery. I was rather immune to what was going on "down there" for her delivery.
But in return, I got a perfect baby boy! You could not ask for anything better.
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