James is 2 months old

and you know what that means - SHOTS. Not the fun ones you drink in a bar, but the painful ones that attempt to prevent or at least mute illness. Luckily in this advanced biotechnological age he was only given one oral plunger and 3 shots for the 6 diseases he was vaccinated against.

The first part of the visit was spent with little tears. A lot of the visit was spent discussing his current routine, normal check-up stuff like listening to his heart, and seeing how well he startles (still causes some tears) and James was given a clean bill of health. He is currently weighing in at 11 lbs 2 oz, 22.5 inches long (although probably about a half inch longer since he refuses to stretch his legs out and his head was turned a bit sideways), and 14.75 inch head circumference. His height and weight put him firmly in the 25th percentile (he is bigger than 25% of his same age/same sex peers) and his head size puts him in the 10th percentile. Although his head is a bit small it has a great trade off - James has superb head control and can currently look around the room with very little jerky movements now.

The second part of the visit was not as much fun for James. I was hoping he would be the one infant in a million who would take his shots stoically, but not this visit at least. The shots are given in both of his thighs and when you see tiny thigh and long needle you realize pretty fast there is no way that is going to happen without tears. I wasn't disappointed. The entire shot giving process took about 30, maybe 45 seconds. This nurse knew what she was doing, fast and efficient must have been her two middle names. About halfway through the first of 3 shots he began crying and by the end of that first shot it was full on terror scream - beet red face and high pitch shrieking. I don't think I knew James could make such a high-pitched noise! She was done so fast though and as soon as I picked him up he calmed down pretty quickly. The extreme trauma of it all really wore him out too, since he fell asleep pretty much immediately after I put him back in his carrier after the shots. Sleepiness is also a possible side effect of the vaccines, although so is unending crying, so I am glad sleepiness is the side effect his body chose.

Luckily he won't have to go through that for another 2 months and I assume he will be bigger, so the needles will hopefully look smaller next time around.

Here are a few pictures of James over the past month. As you can see, he is getting a lot more expressive. 

Ready to Move

James for weeks has had pretty good head and leg control. If you hold him under his arms he can bear weight on his legs and if he is resting on your chest he will try to use those powerful legs to climb up over your shoulder. He also has become a lot more mobile during his tummy time. This is of course really spastic movement, but he really wants to move. He is constantly flipping his legs in the air like he is trying to roll over just his bottom half and more recently he does get some forward momentum when spending time on his stomach and does a ton of screeching and grunting to show his displeasure that his body is not following his mental commands.

A Whole New World

James has really started to notice the world around him over the past week. Not always, since he definitely still enjoys staring at a blank wall over our shoulder, but he has recently been a lot more interested in objects in front of his face.

He is also staying awake a lot more after feedings for an hour here or there and just happily lying in bed or in his swing cooing and smiling around.

Here is a video of him taking interest in his world surroundings.

Sleep

Another silly idiom that runs through my head at this time of night is "sleeping like a baby". Who the heck came up with such a silly idiom? Maybe they meant the adorable noises or startles that a baby makes while sleeping, because they surely could not mean the ability of a baby to fall asleep or stay asleep in any reliable or scheduled fashion.

To be honest, we can't really complain regarding the length of sleep blocks that James has. He has consistently, since 3 weeks of age, slept at least 4 hours at a time at night and has even slept 7 to even 9 hours straight (for example, last night), but going to sleep is an entirely different ball game...

James consistently refuses to be put to sleep at night. I can count on one hand when we have gotten him to fall asleep before 11pm - I think twice. Granted many parents would say stop complaining if your baby once asleep - no matter what time he fell asleep - slept for at least 4 hours after that, but I suppose any parent can find something to gripe about.

For example, last night James was a total nightmare. He cried for nearly 3 hours straight. He was hungry, would slurp down some milk and then puke it all up and then cry some more. It was just constant upset and inability to be soothed by walking, rocking, eating, etc. We finally got him to sleep by 12:30am and then crazily he slept until 9am the next day. I am not sure how much longer he would've slept, but I heard a noise and in my sleepy haze saw that it was 9am and was like omg he needs to wake up and eat ASAP and jumped off the couch (sadly I am trained to wake up at 5am which is when he normally wakes and since he was still so conked out I just pumped and fell asleep on the couch afterwards).

I know I am not as sleep deprived as many parents are at this juncture or even all that much past the first week of James' life, but it would be awesome to coax our child into a routine of going to sleep when we want him to. I almost wouldn't mind if he only slept for 4 hours at a time if he would fall asleep at 10pm - well, almost :).

Hopefully by the time I go back to work we will have trained him to continue sleeping 4-6 hours at night but starting at a more reasonable hour since we won't always have the luxury of sleeping in until 9. Here's to hoping that naturally good sleeping children are also easily trainable children.

With that, I will leave you with a short video of what James looks like when he is sleeping like a baby.

Smooth as a Baby's Bottom

I am not quite sure where this saying came from since I don't think a baby with diaper rash has all that smooth of a bottom, nor were they considering baby acne.

Luckily we have so far avoided diaper rash, but I assume there is a good possibility of him getting it at least once or twice over the next 3 years (average time before a boy is potty trained). So in this sense James' bottom is quite smooth, but what isn't is his face and his trunk! He is covered in acne - if I didn't know this was normal I would've thought he had measles or something awful. His trunk and arms just recently had a bad rash of acne that cleared up pretty quickly, but his face has had a continuous stream of acne breakouts. His cheeks cover up with acne and just when they start going away there is a new batch cropping up right on top and around the old spots and thus continuing the cycle of non-smooth skin on his cheeks.

He also has a bit of a contact rash right between his eyes and on the bridge of his cute nose that made him look (at its worst) almost like a Klingon! Luckily that is clearing up rather quickly. No alien life-form looking baby's in this house.

I would say that I am rather proud of myself for not picking at the acne, being a serious picker at any skin flaws on myself. Apparently the acne doesn't bother a baby and rarely is it pus-filled, so I have restrained myself from scratching at it and allowing it to come and go as it pleases. It is supposedly due to the constant flux in hormones and should dissipate by 8 weeks. I will definitely be watching at that 8 week mark for it to really reduce and go away for good.

For the uninitiated, here is a picture of some facial and trunk acne:

Labor and Delivery

Once you start going to the doctor weekly, their favorite question is about fetal movement. So right before bed Sunday night I was trying to think when the last time I really had felt James moving around a lot and I could not remember. I decided to let it go until morning when I knew he would move around after breakfast, nothing like a bit of sugar to jolt a baby into moving around, but when he did not start doing flips I got a bit worried and called the doctor's office. Since we were at 40 weeks they asked me to come in immediately (this was around 9:30am). So I went in and of course while waiting James started moving around a lot more normally, but since I was already there I decided to stick around for the appointment I had made. They did an ultrasound and everything checked out perfectly - movement, breathing, amniotic fluid - but since I was at 40 weeks and clearly becoming anxious my doctor decided we should begin induction that day even though I was still 0% effaced and only 1 cm dilated. She told me to go home and pack my bag and come back to the hospital where they would be waiting for me to begin induction.

Needless to say I wasn't all that excited about induction and rushing to the hospital, so I ran a few errands and took my time before heading to the hospital. So, after running to the office to say goodbye to my employees and lounging around the house for a bit; I ate lunch and then Adrian and I headed to the hospital. We got to the hospital on Monday 5/14 at 1:15pm and that is when the 73 hour hospital trip began.

Once we were admitted we were settled into the nice and cozy labor, delivery, and recovery room (LDR 3) where we spent the next 30 hours of our life. It is a nice idea, it is a decent sized room where you - barring complications - stay through your entire labor and delivery process. Amenities included a tv, a private bathroom, an extremely uncomfortable bed for me, and a terribly uncomfortable chair for Adrian that sort of lounged into a bed. Once introduced to my 1st nurse I was hooked up to a fetal monitor and a contraction monitor. Both of these are little paddles attached to stretchy bands around your waist/stomach. They also put a port in my arm and took some blood samples and left the port in for future use. The doctor then came in and let us know we would start Cervadil (the induction drug) at 4:30pm and that it would be 12 hours before we did our next check. They also failed to mention before putting in the Cervadil that I wouldn't be able to eat for 2 hours until they were sure James and I wouldn't react poorly to the drug. This sucked because I was definitely hungry at 4pm and now had to wait until almost 7pm before I could think about eating. Adrian and I were also a bit surprised that nothing at all would happen for 12 hours and that due to the administration route of the drug I couldn't get up except to use the restroom for that 12 hours either. I finally ate around 8pm and then of course heartburn hit me and since I couldn't get out of bed it was difficult to relieve. It also prevented me from taking advantage of eating again before my midnight cut-off. So we hunkered down for an extremely uncomfortable and boring evening. Adrian and I did not sleep much that evening. Around 1:30am Adrian went home to let out and feed the dogs and I finally fell asleep and my very helpful 2nd nurse thought it was very important to come in to alert me that I was having really strong contractions. I felt like I could've lived without that knowledge since it was the only time I ever fell asleep the entire night! So now it is 2am (13 hours in the hospital so far) and since it was so close to the time we would take the Cervadil out the nurse decided we should start the IV fluids. By this time I am a bit cranky since I hadn't eaten since 8pm and every trip to the bathroom now required me to unhook the IV stand and roll that in with me along with the two monitors I had been unhooking previously. At 4:15am they removed the Cervadil and I was only 50% effaced and still only 1 cm dilated. This was extremely depressing to me as I was starting to get concerned at this point that we would end up getting a C-section, I had spent one nearly sleepless night in the hospital, and already 13 hours. After removing the Cervadil they let us know we would start the Pitocin (contraction IV drug) at 6am and they allowed me to take a shower and stand by my bed until then. This was a significant amount of freedom for me. I couldn't leave my bedside because I was required to be monitored at all times and they needed a steady monitoring before they started the Pitocin.

They started the Pitocin and after 1 hour told me they would be in at 8am to break my water, yet another decision made without really discussing with me, but it made sense since I was not really progressing. After breaking my water and having been given the Pitocin drip for 2 hours I didn't really feel like I was progressing, but the nurse kept coming in looking a bit worried. It turned out it was because instead of having waves of contractions with peaks and troughs I was having one long continuous contraction. I knew I felt uncomfortable, but I did not realize it was because I was just in contraction without release, which is apparently not conducive to pushing a baby down the birth canal. So the nurse over the next hour kept lowering the amount of Pitocin that was in my IV drip until she finally turned it off. Once turned off, my contractions started evening out, but I still wasn't feeling regular contractions I just felt extremely uncomfortable lower back pain which as my contractions got stronger turned out to be what contractions felt like for me. I waited out a few more hours (until about 11am) before I started getting very ancy and wondering how far I had progressed since 8am. When the nurse finally checked me I was between 2.5 and 3 cm dilated and about 80% effaced - total bummer. I was supremely uncomfortable by this time and decided to go for the epidural. I had to wait another hour to get the required fluids to keep up my blood pressure before they gave me the epidural which the anesthesiologist input by noon. The epidural was pretty fantastic, as I am sure Adrian would attest to, as my mood went from extremely cranky to relaxed and delighted. Adrian ran out to get lunch and let the dogs out while I relaxed and waited for my next check-in. They checked me at 2:30pm and had progressed to 10 cm and 100% effaced and said we would start pushing in 30 minutes. For once on time, at 3pm we began pushing and at 3:44 James had joined us! It was a bit exhausting and I really felt for women who push for hours. Adrian was a bit jealous of my oxygen mask, but luckily he did not steal it from me.

Once born James immediately snuggled with me and since he was rooting around they encouraged me to begin breastfeeding. It was such an experience and although they say it gets muted with time the wonder of it all definitely will not.

Month 1

The first month of James' life has been an interesting learning experience for both Adrian and I. To me the first two weeks were the most interesting and difficult and since then we have gotten into quite a nice routine. Here are some of our recollections of James' first month.

Week 1 (by far the most disruptive):
To be honest, almost the entire first week is a complete blur. From the first two days in the hospital we  probably got a total of 5 hours of sleep - so although we spent a lot of hours awake I can't say I recall much from our stay in the hospital after little James came into this world. Personally, I recall being in some amount of pain, uncomfortable in my hospital bed, unable to sleep either from the constant check-ins from the nurses or from James rooming in - this combined for a pretty miserable and fuzzy recollection of the first 46 hours post-delivery. We luckily had two parents who were "driving" distance away from us who got to Austin before we left the hospital - Richard (Zoe's dad) who couldn't sleep once he heard I was in labor jumped in his car at midnight and drove down to Austin through the night from Arkansas and Peggy (Zoe's mom) left from Florida after work the day I went into labor and was in town late the next day. Both being lucky to meet James at one-day old. The 3rd night in the hospital my mom stayed with me and Adrian went home to prepare and soothe the dogs for our new arrival. 2 days of Adrian coming in and out and not sleeping at home was probably a bit disorienting for our first children so we decided it would be best for Adrian to stay home the last night before we brought James home to assure the dogs they were still part of the family. Post-delivery, James spent most of his time those two days eating and sleeping through the day and crying all through the night. He was barely ever out of our sight those 2 days except for a few hours where they took him to the nursery for pediatrician check-ups and weigh-ins and I believe those were the only times I caught some z's. When we finally left the hospital (discharge was such a pain) I came home to an immaculately cleaned house (thanks to Adrian and my mom) and I immediately fell asleep for 2 blissful hours. I believe this was the longest stretch of sleep I had had in the past 72 hours and it was amazing (sadly, not an exaggeration)!

We had a tremendous amount of help those first two weeks. My parents had gotten in on Wednesday and stayed through the following Monday and Adrian's parents got in on Saturday and Margaret stayed until the following Sunday. So, like everyone says I came home and although I didn't sleep every time James did, I did ignore all the housework. Adrian and our moms did all of that - from cooking to cleaning, soothing James to sleep and even diaper changing - and my only responsibilities were to feed James and myself and sleep when I could.

Our first "I don't know if we are doing something wrong moment" of parenthood came when James did not poop the first 30 hours of leaving the hospital and according to the doctor we saw on Saturday morning (4 days old) we, like many parents, were "poop obsessed." I found this to be a rather rude assessment since all accounts of baby feeding and bowel movements seemed to agree that a baby is supposed to have at least 4 poop diapers in a 24 hour period if they are getting proper nutrition, so I blame the literature on our bowel movement scare! The doctor that saw us though assured us that many or few bowel movements are quite normal and that since the rectal temperature taken by the nurse caused a rather large bowel movement there was definitely nothing to worry about and that, if needed, coaxing bowel movements by such means were not uncommon and that if we were worried again we could do the same ourselves. Luckily by Monday (his one week appointment) his bowel movements were much more regular and we were not needed to stimulate them along!

By 1 week he was already gaining weight again and was looking happy and healthy. He had not yet overtaken his birth weight, but we were hopeful since my "mature" milk had finally come in over the weekend. Our doctor told us James had a thing called tongue tie that was fairly mild, but were warned if he had any issues nursing this could be a cause. We decided to wait it out and see.

Week 2:
In week 2 we still had Adrian's mom helping us out and by the end of this week I was finally able to start pumping some. I found feeding every 2-3 hours very difficult to time - what with making sure James was getting enough per feeding (which sometimes took 45 minutes), then grabbing something to eat for myself, and then thinking about sleeping only to be back at feeding James again. It was a difficult cycle to master and finding time to pump in those first two weeks was extremely frustrating and exhausting to even think about! By the close of the 2nd week though I was getting the hang of it and was able to work in a pumping session or two. It was also great to be able to pump because then I could skip a feeding or two and allow Adrian or his grandmother to take over, which was a wonderful luxury. Adrian and I even got to go to a movie (MIB III- I would recommend) while Margaret watched James for a few hours. The last part of week 2 was just Adrian and me before he had to go back to work. This was a nice change of pace to see how we did completely alone for a few days before Adrian was scheduled to start back at work. I'd also like to comment that even amidst caring for a 2 week old Adrian did an Olympic length triathlon on Memorial Day (13 days old) and got first in his age group despite being sleep deprived (very proud of him being able to keep up his training). Week 2 was also when we had the doctor perform his circumcision. It was not something we had time to do in the hospital since none of the attending's performed it and we didn't want to wait in the hospital for one to come along so we just had a pediatrician at his regular doctor's office perform it. This physician did the plastibell procedure which I think made our job pretty easy in care since we didn't have to vaseline up diapers or anything, just keep it relatively clean and wait for the string and plastic circlet to fall off in 3-4 days. So that is what we did and in 4 days it fell off without a hitch, minimal bleeding and as far as we could tell discomfort.

Weeks 3 and 4:
Adrian officially back at work full time. Not as hard as I assumed, although I learned pretty quickly how nice it was to have an extra set of arms around! By week 3 we actually had a routine. Luckily Adrian has always been a relatively early riser and we have one of those obnoxiously perfect children they only talk about in fairy tales that sleep for a 3-4 hour chunk at night - granted falling asleep at night is still the hardest part of the routine, but we have a wake, diaper change, eat, sleep routine that has kept pretty steady since about 3 weeks. James falls asleep with a lot of rocking, bouncing, swinging, walking, etc. somewhere between 11pm and midnight and then sleeps until 3:30-5am depending on what end of the spectrum he fell asleep. I wake up and change and feed him and then at 5-6am Adrian gets up to work out/get ready for work and feeds James a bottle when he wakes up again around 6-8am while I continue sleeping which sometimes can last until 10am. I rarely take a nap during the day anymore because I get a decent amount of sleep from midnight to 10am, but every now and then I take an afternoon nap with James if I'm tired. James eats/sleeps most of the daytime and then around 5-7 is ready for a feeding which Adrian may do if he is home from work and then James is pretty much awake until 11-midnight to start it all over again. During week 3 we also ended up surgically fixing James' tongue tie (ankyloglossia) because I was starting to notice some latch issues that were not corrected by all sorts of position changes. So we had an ENT snip the frenem or frenulum underneath the tongue. It took about 3 minutes and James was mostly cranky about the fact the doctor had his hands in his mouth since he would stop crying every time the doc took them out. He had very minimal bleeding and he was able to eat immediately after with no issues or complications. Since then latching has been much less of a problem although it does seem that we created somewhat of a monster as he now sticks his tongue out of his mouth all the time!

James still needs a lot of help falling/staying asleep which is why it is so hard to write a blog (especially with how long-winded I am) he likes to fall asleep in your arms way more then he likes to sleep anywhere else. So most hours of the day I am holding James watching TV or reading a book. Usually his mid-day nap is the deepest and I am able to put him down for a few hours, but I won't lie that I don't enjoy just holding him while he sleeps even if it means I can't do much of anything else.

We of course have both been initiated into being peed on and having explosive poop shoot at the wall while changing diapers. Luckily we are getting better and better at noticing the signs and covering him up in time, but every now and then he douses us or himself. We are still waiting for his umbilical stump to fall off so we can bathe him in his spiffy bath tub, but for now he continues to get sponge baths.

He is still a pretty normal (boring) baby. He does look around more and more, he really enjoys being held up to your shoulder so he can swivel his head around like the exorcist whipping it back and forth checking things out. He doesn't necessarily love "real" tummy time on the floor, but he's pretty good at picking his head up when you hold him at your shoulder. He will sometimes look at you if you call out, but only if there is something less interesting for him to stare at. The dogs barking does not startle him nor does their licking him, but other disturbances like the diaper genie shutting get him every time. He does not yet track with his eyes or smile back at you, although, he does have an adorable smile, but it is mostly reserved for passing gas or for no reason.

Can't wait for month 2 when he will appear less blind to his surroundings and hopefully a continuously stronger neck.

Here are a few favorite pictures from month 1: