rivka

Colin update: We had him weighed yesterday, because our pediatrician likes to check breastfed babies' weights at one month. (Colin is five weeks old, but I figured the neurosurgery appointment was all the medical care we could stand for last week.)

If he had continued to gain about an ounce a day, he would've tipped the scales at 9 pounds, 8 ounces yesterday. Instead? TEN POUNDS. Over the last month, the boy has increased his weight by 25%.

I declare an official and permanent end to me being neurotic about whether nursing is working.

Also? Social smiles have appeared, and man are they awesome. All three of us have gotten big happy smiles from him in the last couple of days.

Alex update: Her behavior is pretty typical for a displaced formerly only child, which is to say that she's acting up a lot. Last night's festivities included the wholesale removal of books from her bedroom after she decided to throw them all to make a point about not wanting to go to bed. (How did "you can have a few paperbacks in bed to look at by nightlight" lead to the pile of twenty-three books she had next to her pillow and ready to throw? Because she's our child, that's how. Oh well, twenty-two of them are gone now. Pandora is just lucky that there was one under the blanket that she didn't notice when she was throwing them.)

On the other hand, she really floored me yesterday with a surprising bit of thoughtfulness. She's been invited to a birthday party on Sunday, and when we opened the invitation she told me "You can just drop me off." This is starting to be the age of drop-off playdates, and the party invitation specified that drop-offs were okay, so I figured maybe the birthday girl had mentioned this special big-kid possibility to Alex.

Then, in the car on our way home from buying a present, she told me: "Clara has a cat, Mom. That's why I planned for you to drop me off."

Aww. "Thank you, sweetie, but I'd be okay at the party as long as I don't touch the cat. So if you want me to stay, I can."

"You're allergic to cats, Mom," she said with finality. "That's why I planned for you to drop me off."

I am just amazed that she put that together. I've known plenty of adults who aren't that capable of forseeing problems that might exist for other people.

Rivka update: I pretty much rest and feed the baby, and watch TV. I am not very interesting right now. But! I am excited that the SUUSI catalog is out. It lets me dream of having a more interesting life months down the road.

And I'm looking forward to our trip to Montreal next month, which is really going to happen now because we have plane tickets and a hotel reservation and all of us now have passports in the works. (Mine had expired. Michael's was going to expire while we were in Montreal. The kids didn't have them. Getting our passports was an exciting and colorful experience which I hope never to repeat, although now I know an awesome way of getting passport photos for a newborn.)

I decided that my plan to take a year off from Religious Education only means that I won't teach, not that I won't take anything. So this morning I got to church two hours early (!) for the first session of a class called "Parents as Resident Theologians." From the course description:

Though we do our very best to provide a comprehensive religious education to the children and youth in our congregation, the ultimate blessing and burden of religious education rests with parents and other family members. Faith development happens mostly in the home.

"Parents as Resident Theologians," led by Director of Religious Education, Becky Brooks, is a curriculum written by-and-for Unitarian Universalists. The course is designed to help parents and other adults with children in your lives explore your own theologies and philosophies so that your conversations and experiences with your children can be more comfortably grounded. Using the tools of the curriculum and the wisdom of our unique group of people, we will explore how to be better religious educators for our children and youth.

There were about ten people at the first session, all mothers (except for our DRE facilitator). It was a nice mix of people I've known for years and people who are brand new to the church. All of them seem like really interesting, engaged, thoughtful women. I was pleased to see that the class goes right up the age spectrum; Colin is the youngest child of a class parent, obviously, but the oldest is turning 18. I think having that range will lead to interesting and productive discussions.

Today was mostly introductory. We introduced ourselves, talked about what we hoped to get from the class, picked out and discussed words that describe ourselves (mine were mama-researcher-feminist-geek-writer, because I missed the first part of the exercise and somehow thought we were looking for nouns rather than adjectives), and started to talk about the values we want to pass on to our children.

Poor acceberskoorb. She had set up a lovely ritual in which each of us went up and inscribed our children's full names on a piece of cloth that lay under the chalice, and then spoke the names aloud to, I guess, bring the children's presence into the room. She discovered that it's very difficult for a group of mothers/churchwomen to sit peacefully experiencing a ritual when they could use that time to talk about six or seven other things. I suspect that she will be working to reform us on this one.

I'm really looking forward to next week, when the topic is addressing children's religious questions. God knows I'm challenged by Alex's. I broke down a couple of weeks ago and answered a question I had been avoiding ("How did Jesus die?"), only to turn around a few days later and find that she was earnestly explaining the Crucifixion to a three-year-old friend. (He hadn't asked. She just thought it was a good story.)

When I wrote yesterday's post I had forgotten the whole "sleep begets sleep" thing about babies. In fact, last night was a lot better. Colin had one 2.5-hour stretch, one 2-hour stretch, and two one-hour stretches. Which leaves me feeling more or less human in the morning.

I am a better problem-solver when I have slept a little more. It became clear to me at one point last night that he was having some painful issues with gas, and in retrospect that's what was probably wrong most of the previous night. Feeding him moderately and then working on getting rid of the gas (burping, firm backrubs, lying him on his belly on my chest, Mylicon drops although they didn't seem to help) worked a lot better than lots of alternations between comfort nursing and trying to get him to sleep on his back.

Some phrases have very, very few contexts in which you'd ever want to use them. "My kid's neurosurgeon" is one of them. Nonetheless, I am delighted to report that we saw Colin's neurosurgeon this afternoon, and he thinks Colin is normal.

I know, I know, you didn't know anything about this. And for good reason - it's been a really scary process and a really nebulous one, which is a bad combination, and early on we made the decision not to spread the anxiety around. We've only told a couple of family members who have medical training. But now, hey, everyone can share in our joyful relief.

Six weeks ago I had my 38-week midwife visit, the one where Colin had turned breech. They sent me to the hospital for a confirmatory ultrasound. That ultrasound tech noticed abnormal levels of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in two places in Colin's brain: the cisterna magna, which is at the back of the skull, and the third ventricle. The OB brought down to counsel me couldn't tell me much; the clinical syndromes associated with those abnormalities usually involved abnormalities in other parts of the brain as well, and the other parts of Colin's brain looked totally fine. He said we should wait and see.

Michael and I both spent some terrified time wondering if Colin would be severely brain-damaged. One of the terms on the table was Dandy-Walker syndrome, which you shouldn't Google unless you want to be as freaked out as we were. One of my dissertation subjects had Dandy-Walker, and... yikes. But if that were the case, Colin should've been missing a piece of his cerebellum, and he wasn't.

We talked to my sister the pediatrician, and then to Alex's pediatrician. Both of them helped rein in our flights of terrified speculation, and let us know that the worst-case scenario we were looking at was hydrocephalus. Which, you know, still potentially very bad. Best-case scenario: his brain looked funny on prenatal ultrasound because of positioning or something, and the abnormalities wouldn't be present on a neonatal scan.

We waited.

When Colin was born, he had a head ultrasound while he was still in the hospital. The ultrasound showed no signs of an enlarged third ventricle or any other ventricle, which pretty much ruled out hydrocephalus, but there was still an abnormal buildup of CSF at the back of the brain. "Differential diagnosis includes mega cisterna magna, arachnoid cyst, or Dandy-Walker variant," which is apparently not the same thing as Dandy-Walker syndrome. They recommended an MRI at two months. We took the report to our pediatrician, who referred us to a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins.

We waited.

Colin seemed so normal. He nursed well, which shows coordination of a pretty complicated physical task. He had good muscle tone, good head control for his age. He seemed very alert. He started to focus his eyes on things and produce vocalizations. We were encouraged, but also aware that we might be grasping at straws.

We waited.

Today was the neurosurgery appointment. They felt Colin's head, measured it, asked us some questions, studied the ultrasound report, and assured us that we were most likely looking at mega cisterna magna or arachnoid cyst, both of which are essentially normal variants which carry no developmental consequences. They feel that Dandy-Walker anything would be accompanied by hydrocephalus, which Colin doesn't have. They don't feel that the likelihood of serious problems justifies exposing Colin to the risks of MRI (sedation) or CT (radiation), so we're just going to have a repeat ultrasound in another three months.

Through all of this, Michael and I have kept reminding each other that we will be the parents Colin needs. If he were developmentally disabled? We'd be the parents he needed. If he needed brain surgery as a tiny infant? We'd be the parents he needed. Our son is our son, and we are his parents.

So now we can be the parents he needs when he doesn't want to have his hair washed, when he gets the stomach flu, when he's afraid of the dark, when he's roughhousing on the playground and breaks his arm, when he doesn't get invited to someone's birthday party. We'll be the parents he needs through all of that too.

Thanks be to God.

Okay, I got through my first singlehanded day with both kids, and all three of us were alive at the end of the day. So I did my job.

The saddest moment came shortly after Michael came home. He volunteered to take Alex outside to play in the (minimal, as it turns out, but still exciting when you are three and a half and live south of the Mason-Dixon line) snow. Colin was asleep in the sling, so I had high hopes for a few moments of actual time for myself.

The instant the door closed behind Michael and Alex, Colin woke up and started to cry. I mean the very instant. The sound of the closing door was still ringing in my ears.

But the day itself didn't go too badly. We did things. We all got dressed and fed, although lunch didn't happen until 2pm. I broke out a new chapter book I had picked up at the library book sale, and we read five exciting chapters of The Enormous Egg. We got Colin to go down for a nap in the Pack-n-Play and went outside to shovel and play in the snow. Alex turned a tiered mug rack into an apartment building and populated it with characters from her creche and her Fisher-Price schoolhouse, which is how I learned that Mary and Joseph decided they couldn't take care of baby Jesus anymore, so they gave him up for adoption, and now he lives with two of the Magi.

TV: Moderate. Alex and I each watched one show. For all that I'm grateful that people gave me permission to overuse age-appropriate educational children's programming, what I really want to do right now is put on shows for me, because nursing for hours and hours is pretty boring and I'm still not that great at holding a book while keeping Colin properly positioned. Most of what we have on DVD is not even remotely preschooler-appropriate. Which leaves daytime cable. Which is why Alex can now quote pithy little bits from Stacy and Clinton on What Not to Wear. (We all prefer Ace of Cakes, but it doesn't seem to be on during the day.)

Things I completely failed at: staying hydrated. That alone is pretty much a fulltime job right now. I keep one-liter water bottles by my upstairs and downstairs nursing chairs, but I really need to make sure that they're full at the beginning of the day, or I'm not going to get around to filling or drinking them.

Other things we are failing at: keeping Colin remotely dry. Anyone who disposable-diapered boys have a recommendation? Pampers Swaddlers just aren't cutting it, and I'm tired of having to strip off and launder not just his undershirts and sleepers, but also his swaddling blankets.

How parenting the second child is different from parenting the first: I feel totally okay about Colin fussing and crying a little in the sling while I finish making myself lunch. (I then ate my lunch one-handed, while nursing.) I have learned that you have to put on your own oxygen mask first before assisting other passengers.

1. We went to the pediatrician yesterday for a two-week checkup. Colin now weighs 8 pounds, 4 ounces, so he's more than regained his birth weight and is continuing to gain almost an ounce a day. Everything else looks good as well. Words cannot begin to express how relieved I am by all this good weight gain. Hilariously, it prompted my dad to divulge his former theory, not previously shared with me, that I was anatomically unable to breastfeed, perhaps because I was so - how did he put it? - "overly ample."

2. After the pediatrician's office we went to the bra shop. I am more relieved than I can say to report that I haven't actually gotten any larger - my bra was just worn out and needed to be replaced. Poor Alex kept taking little pink lacy things off the racks and bringing them to me, not understanding that those don't come in Mama's gargantuan size. Or in nursing styles.

3. Alex has hit the full flower of the asking-questions stage, OMG. On the one hand, it's good to have her preferred mode of interaction be something I can do with my hands full of baby. On the other hand, these constant questions are killing me. They range from the interesting but difficult to answer - "Mommy, why did people in England think they could tell people in America what to do?" (in reference to the American Revolution) - to the maddening extended-hypothetical - "What if me and Zoe and Leo climbed a tree and got stuck and couldn't get down, and you and Miss Emily and Miss Suzanne were on the other side of a high wall?" "We would get a ladder and climb over the wall and come get you." "Well, what if the branches were too light and you couldn't climb up, and what if we were up there for ten hours?" - to the utterly confounding - "Mommy, what does 'of' mean?" And there are dozens of them per hour. It would kind of be nice if she had a little less intellectual curiosity.

4. Our new couch is ready! I just called and arranged for the old couch to be picked up by the Salvation Army on Tuesday. (Yes, I know, ordinarily I wouldn't do business with the Salvation Army either. But in this case I consider that I'm accepting a service from them, not giving them anything.) Now I just have to call the furniture store and arrange for the new couch to be delivered on Wednesday. I am so excited! And grateful that Colin doesn't really spit up.

5. Have some Michael-and-Colin goodness to make up for the Mamacentric photo in the last post.

I've got to say: it's been ten days, and there's still a pervasive sense of unreality about this whole "we've got two kids now" thing. I keep looking at Colin and thinking, Really? We're really going to have this baby from now on? ...But no one else has come looking for him, so clearly he must be ours.

It's way too early for a social smile, of course, but Colin has these milk smiles that can't be beat. They come just as he's falling asleep. The eyes roll back in the head, eyelids flutter down... up... down... and then he gets a big, goofy, crooked milk smile. It is awesome.

I don't know how generations of people apparently got conned into thinking those early smiles are "gas." Babies with gas look uncomfortable, not happy. It's clear that it's not a social response, yeah, but it's also so transparently clear that he's feeling contentment, not abdominal pain.

Colin is still not very fussy. He's started to have a few more calm-alert periods where he is awake but not nursing, but we haven't hit any real awake-and-unhappy periods. Sure, if he had the motor coordination he'd be speed-dialing Child Protective Services every time we change his diaper or clothes, but when we're not messing with his clothing he is a pretty content little boy. i think 3-6 weeks is supposed to be the peak of the purposeless fussiness, though, and we're only at a week and a half.

Also: there is no reason on earth why a newborn baby should smell this good, and quite a few reasons why he shouldn't. But wow do I love that new-baby smell.

We went back to the pediatrician's office today for a weight check. Since Thursday, Colin has gained 4.5 ounces, bringing him to 7lb, 12.5 oz - just a few ounces under his birth weight. So now I feel as though I can finally relax and say that nursing is going well.

After the total nightmare of trying and failing to breastfeed Alex, this is a huge relief. I've been so worried that history would repeat itself with Colin. But from the very first, he's been a completely different baby to feed.

Within a few hours of birth, Colin already had strong feelings about how he wanted to nurse. I would try to latch him on a half-dozen times and he would refuse. Then I'd hit the right combination of size, shape, and angle, and he would latch on like a remora and start sucking vigorously. Over the first 24 hours, he figured out how big he should be opening his mouth, and latch-on quickly got a lot easier. Whenever he nursed, he was focused and persistent. When I took him off the breast and rested him against my chest to burp him, he opened his mouth like a baby bird and sort of bounced it along my chest, actively searching for the other nipple. When I put my finger in his mouth, he slid his tongue rapidly and firmly along it in a repeated milking motion.

What I'm getting at here is that from the first hours of life Colin has been a vigorous, enthusiastic, reasonably skilled, and rapidly improving participant in our nursing endeavors. And I had no idea. After Alex, I had no real understanding that the baby was supposed to contribute all this stuff. I thought of nursing as something the mother was supposed to get right.

It's possible that someone more skilled, persistent, supported, and experienced than me coul've made nursing work with Alex. But any half-alert halfwit could successfully nurse Colin. The baby makes a huge difference. And in our collective societal rush to make breastfeeding the hallmark of good infant parenting, we totally neglect that difference.

I'm glad he's my second baby. Because there might've been a possibility that I would have been one of those judgmental and sanctimonious nursing mothers, if I hadn't had such a clear demonstration of how little I've earned our nursing success.

More Colin pictures are now in his Flickr set.



( just a couple more here... )

Michael and Colin are asleep together in an armchair, Michael's shirt open and Colin stripped to a diaper (but covered with blankets) so that they can be skin-to-skin. It is such a beautiful sight.

I have just had a shower, which was marvelous, and have read everyone's comments - thanks so much for all your love and good wishes. I should be napping, but I'm too happy.

A few more things about our boy: he has a full thick head of reddish-brown hair. (More color accuracy will be possible once we've washed the vernix out.) He makes these adorable little high squeaky sounds for no apparent reason. He's twenty inches long, and a goodly part of his eight pounds of weight is fat - he's got a double chin and plump juicy arms and legs.

He cried and cried while we were still up on the L&D floor, a time when I remember Alex being very calm and alert. On the other hand, since then he's cried very little at all. He was up for a fair portion of the night, as newborns tend to be, but he alternated between calmly nursing and calmly looking around with wide dark blue eyes. No screaming, no extended fussing. Alex cried for much of her first night and was very hard to settle.

Nursing seems to be going well. He's very particular about how he wants to be put on, but the details of his preferences elude me so far. I just attempt and attempt until he signal that I did the magic thing by latching on. He's got a pretty good latch and a strong, vigorous suck. Newborn sleepiness is not getting in the way of nursing - I don't have to undress him and massage him and all the things I had to do to get Alex to wake up and nurse. He just goes at it. Yay, Colin.

We'll be going home tomorrow. Tonight Michael and Alex are going to come back to the hospital with sushi and cake for a little family welcome party. Life is good.