Wednesday, February 24, 2010

1 Month Old!

Amelia is a whole month old today. And of course, i cannot believe how fast the time has gone (i blame sleep deprivation). I had planned on putting her in her coming home outfit and taking a picture so that everyone can see how much she has grown but she's sound asleep on Cheyenne's chest and I just dont have the heart to move her....so instead i'll post that tomorrow.

One is the loneliest number...

I can not believe that I am saying this and I'm sure that you wont (unless you are one of the ones sitting there saying "told ya so") but at 4:00am this morning while I was rocking my fussy baby back to sleep it hit me... I kinda (sorta) miss being pregnant. Let me clarify: i don't really miss being pregnant (because let's be honest, it was horrible) but I miss my "womb-mate". Here are the things that I miss the most...

1. bath time - As everyone knows I enjoy a bath like none other and during my pregnancy it was the only physical relief that I ever got. I think for this reason it was also the most active time for my then fetus and it was so sweet to have those moments with just the two of us swimming around in our respective watery baths while i tried to imagine what gender I would have and what he/she would look like and if he/she would be healthy and later a good person.

2. the shadow - On the landing of our attic/family room the light hits in such a way that the best way for me to truly see how much I was growing was via the shadow made by this light. No mirror or picture showed me what I looked like quite as well as that shadow and it was fun to see it change every week. Now my shadow looks as it used to but I find that I am still in the habit of checking it and i get a little melancholy....just a little.

3. the guessing game - Each night as we went to bed the baby would wake up and start in on his/her gymnastics routine and Cheyenne would put his hand on my belly and we would play "name that part" for a while. It was endlessly entertaining to see/feel a head/hand/foot/knee etc....now we sleep in shifts at different times and i miss these moments.

And to be fair, these are the things that I don't miss at all...

1. GERD - I had acid reflux something terrible (it's been proven that there is a link between this and fetuses having hair...i think Amelia is a good exhibit A of this) and I had to (no exaggeration here) take 3 Tums every 60-90 minutes and even that didn't cut it. It's nice to no longer breathe fire.

2. breathlessness - from about my 4th month on I never felt like I was getting enough oxygen and would gasp and gasp for air.

3. bed rest - Obviously.

But in the end....here are the things that I most love about being a mom

1. Secret moments - I have what is the longer (6.5 hours vs 4 hours) sleep shift but it is also the "easier" one because she sleeps during most of it. She sleeps in a co-sleeper between us on the bed and when she's fast asleep i curl around it and wrap my arms around her and listen to her breath with my face so close to her that i can feel her breath on my face. The other night while doing this she adjusted, cooed, and reached out her tiny hand and put it on my face then went back to sleep...it left me totally breathless and overwhelmed with love.

2. Cheyenne - My husband and child have their own "Secret moments" and once in a while I'm lucky enough to catch one of them and it's beyond sweet.

3. Growing up - It used to be the single scariest thing about being pregnant but actually it's really awesome knowing that it is up to me (and Cheyenne) to create a good, honest, funny, smart, kind, and unique person who makes a difference (large or small) in this world...I think we can do it.

And of course, because of sections 1 & 3 of this post Mother Nature has shown me exactly why and how people are convinced to have more than one child...that sneaky witch!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Little person

As of today Amelia is 3 weeks old and in that short amount of time she is already showing us who she is (so far as someone who sleeps 18 hours a day can). Here's what we know:

Likes:
"skin to skin" contact - The AAP was right; skin to skin contact is the best thing on Earth for a wee one. Whenever her furies get too terrible or if we just need some time to bond, stripping her down to just a diaper and taking off our shirts (Cheyenne and I both do this) and laying her on our chest above our hearts makes the whole family coo with happy feelings.

Being looked in the eye and talked to - she loves it, and obviously she has know idea what we are saying but you can tell by the look on her face that she's learning something and taking in little things like facial expressions and tones of voice. it's simply amazing to watch her watching the world and figuring things out and taking it all in. She also loves being read to in the same fashion.

Josie - our daughter and our dog have a unique and obviously loving relationship already. Josie does not let this child out of her sight. When Amelia is in her crib and gives out a cry or any unhappy noise at all Josie will come running to us barking as loud as she can to let us know that her baby needs help. When we wake up in the mornings Josie comes over to Amelia and gives her a sniff and a lick and Amelia is as happy as can be.

Massage - Studies show that babies (especially preemies) get huge benefits from infant massage and not to stray from the pack Amelia is no exception. She gets a massage every night (lucky girl) and it's so calming and soothing for both of us.

Sitting up on Daddy's knees - this position is always what makes her most alert and content to "play" she and Cheyenne coo and "talk" to each other from this angle for hours a day.

Things she outright hates:
Having to wait more than 1 second for a meal - if you cant "get" her "I'm hungry" signs beforehand then God help you...it WILL end with her screaming in anger.

The binkie - Please note that Cheyenne and I had no intention of ever using a binkie. However, with a bit of colic setting in we broke down one night and decided that if she has been crying for hours and nothing seems to work we can break down and give her a binkie. Of course, with our luck, we have the one child on this planet who wants no part of such a thing.

having her tummy rubbed - when getting her massage we have to avoid the tummy rub if i want to keep her angelic, and when she has gas we can do bicycle kicks but she wont stand for the clockwise tummy rub.

Her swing - Again, this is something that i thought all children naturally loved and mine will have nothing to do with hers. If put in it she'll sit there for no more than 5 minutes tops without a meltdown.

The hours between 11:00pm - 3:00am - we call 11 the witching hour and with good reason. when the colic strikes it is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS in this window of time.

Like any new parents we spend most of our days and nights looking at our new baby in awe and taking in her every look and sound and from these moments i have gotten the impression that our daughter is inquisitive/curious, reflective, loving, aware of what she does and doesn't like and pleased to have others know the same things, funny in a quiet way, calm like her father but with her mothers lack of patience...in a nutshell: she's perfect.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

We love the Rhoads family!











Some new photos for you
















The day she was born

Yes, I know, it's been far too long without a real post (forgive a woman) so i plan on catching up today. First up? The details of Amelia's birth.
On January 26th, as you well know, Cheyenne & I were told that we would need to move our c-section date from February 12th up to January 27 due to weeks of low amniotic fluid and a breech position that did not significantly change even with strict bed rest.
As you can imagine we went into a total panic! Of course, we knew that we were going to have a baby fairly soon but it's quite another thing altogether to be told that "soon" actually means tomorrow and at a specific time to boot. We spent the day running around town trying to get any last minute things that we thought we might need but hadn't picked up yet (what with us thinking we still had another 2 weeks) and because it helped take our minds off of the panic that was setting in.
That night we made sure to go out to dinner and chat (i had removed myself from bed rest since it seemed unnecessary at this point) since it would surely be a while since we could do so again with any kind of peace of mind. When we got home i took a sleeping pill (as recommended by the doctor) and Cheyenne had a cocktail to help calm our nerves and get some much needed sleep, though even with these things we didn't get a lot of zzz's that night.
Our doctor asked us to be at the hospital at 1:00pm so that we would be all settled in for our scheduled 3:00pm c-section which means that getting up at 7:00am was hardly warranted on our part but of course, we didn't get any sleep.
At the hospital we were checked in and set up in a "recovery room" where we would spend the hour before the appointment and where we would be taken for 1-2 hours after surgery before being taken to our post-op maternity room. My mother showed up at 2:00pm buzzing with nervous and happy excitement and my dad showed up (late as always) at 3:00pm on the dot and was filled with just as much, if not more, excited energy. To say that it was a happy room is putting it very mildly.
St. Vincent's Hospital is the busiest maternity ward in the state and in 2009 they delivered over 6,000 babies in this location alone, given this information we should not have been surprised to learn that our c-section was just one of 12 for that day and that (of course) they were running behind and ours would be delayed (this being hardly calming info to the nerves), we didn't end up going into the surgery room until 4:15pm! Over 20 babies were born in that hospital on that day alone!
Once we got the ok to go into surgery the whole thing hit me: i was going to have an operation and it would end with me being a mother. I'm not sure which part of that scared me more but either way it ended with me being speechless and shaking.
Once in the room i was prepped with a spinal block (which wasn't as bad as i had thought, though it does confirm that when we have our next child i will be going natural - assuming it's a V-BAC) after which Cheyenne was allowed in the room (by the by, he looked adorable in his scrubs and charmed the pants off of the doctors and nursing staff) and the surgery began. It only took about 10 minutes from the moment that they started until our baby arrived, just long enough really to fill each other in on what had happened to each of us while we were separated during prep time (i told him about the bizarre numb feeling and how i got through the whole thing without fainting and he told me all about the other dad waiting for his wife to get prepped) and then the doctor turned to us and asked if we wanted her to lower the screen so that we could see with our own eyes what gender our child was (no thank you, i don't need to see myself filleted, just tell us). "It's a girl" was happily sung out and immediately followed by the wails of our daughter and just like in the movies all of our fears vanished and were replaced by uncontrollable happy sobs from both of us. The nurse brought her around the screen so that we could see her and right then Cheyenne turned to me and said "that's our Amelia" (we had been trying to decide between 3 names if the baby was a girl and figured that we would know which one was right when she arrived and we could see her) and he was right, she was always an Amelia right from the start.
After the baby arrived Cheyenne got to go over and watch her APGAR test, her first bath, and her measurements being taken (the test scores were an 8 and a 9, her bath was a scream fest, she was 19.5 inches & 6 pounds 6 ounces) while i was put back together like Humpty Dumpty (of note, my doctor interned with a plastic surgeon and didn't use a single staple or surgical tape - both of which can leave gnarly scars- but instead used teeny tiny stitches and now that I'm all healed on the outside I can tell you that you cant see an incision line at all).
After the surgery we were supposed to be taken to the recovery room for just an hour or two tops then moved over to the room that we would be staying in and where the anxiously waiting friends and family would be able to see the baby (only mother, partner, doctors, and baby are allowed in the recovery room). Well, since there were so many children born the wait went from 1-2 hours to 4 hours which i assure made my parents and our friends crazy. Cheyenne took pictures of all of us and went out to the waiting room to tell everyone that we had a little girl and to show off the pictures, each person (I'm told) cried with happiness.
We finally got moved into our room at 9:30pm where Grammy (my mom), Grandpa (my dad), & Aunt Holly got to hold Amelia for a bit and coo over her after which the three of us as a family settled in for our first night together...

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Facts...

It's been a while since I had enough sleep to feel refreshed enough to be able to make an actual post. Here are some little facts about our little one:

Her name: Amelia Grace -The name Amelia is of Latin and Old German origin, and it's meaning is "industrious, striving; work". It is a blend of two medieval names: the Latin Emilia (see Emily) & Old German Amalia meaning "work". I/we came up with the name as an homage to Amelia Earhart who first and foremost was an amazingly brave and brazen woman who is not only a fabulous person to look up to but who is also from Atchison Kansas (not unlike several beloved family members on my side) so the sentiment is that even though my daughter is a West Coast girl through and through she will always carry a bit of her mother's homeland and her roots with her through life.
The name Grace is of Latin origin, and its meaning is "favor; blessing". A virtue name referring to God's grace. In Greek mythology the three graces were the goddesses of nature. Grace has always been one of my very favorite names and we believe that when combined with Amelia it is utterly feminine and at the same time a very strong name to be proud of and something we hope she would want to live up to.

Her Birthday: Wednesday January 27, 2010 at 4:35pm PST

Her astrological sign: Aquarius - Represented by the water bearer. Aquarius is the sign of the future and the water bearer reflects the idealism of the new life the future promises. Don't expect an Aquarian to follow the crowd. They are individuals who like to do their own thing and they enjoy being different. Aquarians take pride in their intellectual independence. They can be liberal and progressive in thought, and yet still fixed in their opinion. However, they are fair judges of different opinions because they don't let emotions get in their way.
Aquarians love more than anything to be in the company of other people. One of the friendliest signs of the zodiac, they are true "people" people. Aquarians will find their kindness helps them attract friends wherever they go. Their humanitarian beliefs make them concerned for the welfare of all. Yet, while they love people, they tend to avoid getting too deeply involved in a relationship for fear of losing their independence.
Aquarians are creative and imaginative, but better at dreaming up ideas rather than putting them into practice. They would rather spend their time thinking up new ideas than putting the ones they have already thought of into motion. They leave that job to others. Those born under the sign of Aquarius are true visionaries and leaders.

Her Chinese zodiac sign: The Ox. Occupying the 2nd position on the Chinese Zodiac, Oxen possess such character traits as dependability, strength and determination. Oxen are tolerant individuals who believe that the road to success involves hard work and scrupulous behavior; they don’t believe in taking shortcuts. They characterize those who don’t work hard as lazy individuals not worthy of respect.
Oxen are capable of trusting others and will listen to their opinions with an open mind. However, Oxen prefer making decisions that are based on their own research. Oxen favor strong, life-long alliances to casual acquaintances.

Her birthstone: Garnet. The garnet continues to be the protective gem of journeyers. A gift of garnet is thought to be symbolic of love and the desire for a loved one's safe travel and speedy homecoming. It is January's birthstone, but far from being only a winter gem, the garnet, with its brilliance and multitude of colors, is truly one for any season.

Her birth flower: The carnation. The general meaning of the January Birth Flower, the Carnation is love, fascination, and distinction.

Who shares her birthday: Lewis Carroll, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, & Mikhail Baryshnikov

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

First Bath Part II

First Bath Part I

Amelia's umbilical stump fell off yesterday morning. My worst nightmare came true when the dog grabbed the stump and i had to pry it out of her mouth while choking back vomit. On a happier note it meant that we got to give the baby her first bath...please enjoy