Shep at 10 weeks

Things to remember about the little mister right now (he does not prove the following generalizations to be true in all instances):

• Is occasionally okay with being set down and left to his own devices and is starting to like being carried facing outward
  
• Doesn't fall asleep or stay asleep during the day well most of the time (only seems to sleep well during the day if we are carrying him while walking or hiking)
  
• Sleeps fairly well at night when we are lying down with him in the bed
  
  (Ha! Tim has a pillow on his face!)
  
• Smiles and coos! (He used to smile socially only in the morning but is smiling more and more often throughout the day now.)
  
  
• Fusses often but inconsistently (We hope we're getting through this colicky phase soon. Having a screaming baby in public can be a little mortifying.)
  
• Kicks his legs like crazy when he's mad and, with help balancing, can support his weight (He also does a funny fist pump and jittery arm thing when upset.)
  
  
• Is growing out of his newborn clothes, which were huge on him at first (!!!)
  
  
  April 16, 2012 (Not excited to be leaving the hospital, oddly enough.)
  
  
  June 21, 2012 (Matchy crying face! He hates having hats put on his head generally.)
  
• Has been in six states including Utah since he was born (we took him on two road trips through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, and California) and has survived the long car trips.
  
  
  Hey, Shep, do you remember that one time you saw the ocean in San Francisco?
  
• Occasionally opens his right eye wider than his left, which looks pretty buggy
  
  
• Widens his eyes really big every time we go under an overpass, in a tunnel, parking garage, etc.(It seems to be the only thing we can count on with this guy!)
  
• Has regrown the hair on top of his head that he was born with and then lost (His baldness pattern resembled Grandpa Rowan's)
  
• Nurses pretty much everywhere we take him (Yellowstone, San Francisco, camping, restaurants, church, etc.) . . . I hope I am not offending anyone (wearing a cover). This results in odd trip photos.
  
• Started taking a bottle in the car and a binky a few weeks ago; rode in his stroller once when we took him on Trax (we felt like we were playing house pushing him around in the stroller)
  
  
• Seems to respond to being called Shepherd, though we call him "baby," "little man," and other various epithets perhaps more often

Anniversary #3

Our anniversary this year (which was on Monday) was kind of pathetic. I guess that's what happens when you've had a baby ten days earlier. I was thinking I would put my wedding ring back on to commemorate the day since my fingers stopped being so swollen after I gave birth, but I keep forgetting to do that. The baby cries every time I think to, or something.

We took the little man to the doctor to get circumcised on our anniversary (sad day), and while we were in the waiting room, I looked over and said "Happy anniversary!" to Tim, who responded by being miffed that I beat him to the chase. He said he thought about it when we were putting the kid in the car seat but then forgot to say something out loud. The baby must have started crying right then, or something. That was the extent of our celebration. Party up in here!

Having a kid together makes me feel like we've really bonded, though. I love my not-as-little man (as well as my little man) and am excited to see Tim grow as a father. He's been great so far.

baby!

Samuel Shepherd Rowan was born 6:23 am on Friday Apr 13th. (We are not sure yet whether we will call him Sam or Shep and we could be influenced by your vote.) He weighed 6 lbs 1 oz, measured 19 inches, and was very aware of his surroundings! He has really big eyes that are always looking out and around, sucking in everything, except when he is sleeping (which he could do more of) and nursing (which he wants to do all the time).

We finally got home from the hospital on Monday afternoon after a rough extra day and night spent there. Amanda was being treated for infection and Sam/Shep was a bit jaundiced so he spent a somewhat tortured night unwrapped and away from his mum under a special blue light. But Monday morning he was just fine and normal and Amanda was sufficiently afebrile. We are all very happy to be home and, after a bit of nursing, we celebrated by taking an uninterrupted two-hour-long nap—literally the longest nap of Sam/Shep's life!

Amanda is good, if a bit sleep deprived, and very happy to be home. On Thursday morning we went in for our regular appointment with the midwife and she was a bit concerned about Amanda's dangerously high blood pressure and had us go up to the hospital. After a long day of testing and deliberating with another midwife, we decided to induce her at about 5 p.m. with this vaginal pill called Cytotec. After four hours of that, Amanda was well effaced but not any more dilated or having much in the way of contractions. So at about 10 p.m., they gave her Pitocin. About an hour later she has having some pretty intense and consistent contractions but she wanted to try to labor naturally, which was part of her original birth plan. She did really well even as the contractions got more and more intense. Finally at about 3 a.m., she was dilated to 5 cm and decided to get an epidural. After that she was able to relax though she never fell asleep. Things went really fast after that! By 4:30 she was completely open and started pushing and by a little after 6 a.m. she had a baby in her arms. Amanda was a little disappointed that things did not go as she had planned (she wanted to go into labor naturally and labor at home for a while before coming to the hospital), but she was able to avoid a C-section and the baby is very healthy.

And now for some pictures, in chronological order:
 

penciled in

Apparently I'm supposed to be giving birth in a few minutes. Tim put it on the GCalendar, see? Apparently it's on his "school" calendar too, so it's something akin to going to class. It's too bad it doesn't really work that way. I'm not sure how it works.

ECV

I went to the hospital Monday for an ECV. It wasn't the most fun thing ever, but the good news is that baby turned. The doctors warned there's a good chance he'll go back to breech, so we're hoping he stays put until he comes out. We're also hoping he comes out soon, which is probable (I have a bit less than 3 weeks until my due date at this point!).

Here's Tim hanging upside down on the inversion table. I did this, too, but usually not at quite this angle.

And here are some before and after shots of my belly. I'm not sure how apparent it is, but the baby is definitely positioned quite differently in there after the procedure and it feels totally different. Which is kinda crazy. I'm told by a select few that it looks different too. It sure feels lower.

The Process of Molding Breech Baby into Head-Down Baby

image from here

We've resorted to some interesting measures recently in order to try to get Breech Baby (that's what we're going to name him) to turn head-down like a normal fetus. Gee whiz, what's his deal? The midwives told us about using moxibustion. So basically my pinky toes have been smoking weed (well, mugwort herb, more precisely) recently. And the apartment and our clothes testify to it. That stuff is pungent. I might have to go outside next time. In full view of the neighbors, preferably, so they can really start wondering/complaining about us.

Other methods we've been using:

• Swimming pool acrobatics
• Playing music to my pelvis
• Applying frozen veggies to the top of my uterus
• Hanging on an inversion table 

My friend from work (who just birthed her own baby yesterday!!! ack, exciting) lent us the inversion table:

At first I was hesitant about the idea. I wasn't sure what an inversion table was, and I read that it can be dangerous for pregnant women, especially those with high blood pressure. Also, it's not like we have a ton of extra space in our apartment. (Our front room looks like a wannabe fitness center with the inversion table and birth ball and exercise mat.) Tim and I have both enjoyed hanging out upside down on this thing. Also it seems like it should be really effective for the remedying of Breech Baby because I can flip back upright quickly without abdominal effort.

Although these would be effective remedies to boredom if we were bored, which I sometimes am, they've proved thus far ineffective as methods to get Breech Baby with the whole preparing-for-birth program. I'm going to be adding the following method to my list of techniques on Monday:

• ECV (external cephalic version)

If you want to watch a weird (mostly in the sense of the musical accompaniment) video showing what this is, please enjoy the following:

The silver lining to this is that I might otherwise be getting pretty anxious at this point to go into labor because pregnancy sucks, but since laboring with Breech Baby could very likely lead to a C-section, I'd like to get him turned first.

Also, I hear the ECV procedure can be pretty painful so that could prepare me well for the pain of contractions? Give me a good opportunity to practice hypnobirthing?

Yeah, we so excited!

breech

This morning, Tim calls out to me, "Amanda, come look at this!"

I come out to the front room and see Tim as pictured. "I can feel my uterus moving toward my ribs!" he says.

Silly boy. You don't have a womb.

So thanks to Tim's contraption, I'm hanging out upside down in an attempt to jostle this baby into head-down position. Silly baby.

Tim's contraption has also necessitated a complete rearrangement of our apartment, as the board being used is the top of the computer desk that formerly housed his desktop machine. I think we're pretty pleased about the adjustments. I'd post pictures just to prove that is possible to rearrange furniture in a <500 sq. ft. apartment, but it's still a mess.