Weeks Two Through Eight: The Sound and the Fury

First, a mea culpa...

I had these grand plans about blogging after Jack arrived.

I would take beautiful photos, write thoughtful, introspective posts about his development and blossoming personality, and connect with other mama bloggers to share this incredible journey together.

Maybe that will happen eventually. But not right now. No siree.

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Things have been a tad hectic the past few weeks. We decided to list our house for sale about a month ago. It officially went on the market last Wednesday. It went under contract four days later -- and thank goodness for that, because I'm not entirely sure what we were thinking trying to stage a house for showings with two hairy dogs and a newborn baby.

(A grumpy newborn baby, at that.)

Now we're on the buyer side, looking at homes in the suburbs. And tomorrow morning, we're leaving for a week-long vacation in Hilton Head. We are attempting a 12-hour-drive with our baby. Again, we might be insane -- and if we aren't quite there yet, we most certainly will be when we arrive in South Carolina on Saturday.

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So here is a summary of Jack's life after that awesome and awful first week. It's not particularly thoughtful or introspective. The photos aren't beautiful. But it's the best I can do for now.

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Somewhere between weeks two and three, Jack started waking up. He wasn't a snoozy, brand-new newborn anymore. I was excited for about five minutes... and then it became clear. He was not a happy camper.

Grumpy old man

I wouldn't say it was colic, though I Googled it approximately 100 times. Instead, it was a combination of insatiable hunger and ridiculous gas.

When he wasn't sleeping (and I quickly started trying every soothe-to-sleep strategy in the book, because he and I were both much happier when he was unconscious) he wanted to eat. And eat and eat and eat. When he was awake and not nursing, he was pretty much furious. So I was nursing all the time. Of course, this meant that he wanted/needed to poop constantly too. But that part didn't come as easily as eating (pun intended). So he spent a good bit of time straining/screaming.

Sounds like bliss, am I right?

I can never not laugh when I look at this picture

I tried the 5 S's (Happiest Baby on the Block style), but swaddling him without access to his hands in the highly-touted Woombie led to hours of rage. I tried the swing and the bouncer with little success. I tried gas drops (they might have helped, but it could have been the placebo effect?) and gripe water (horrific, projectile spit-up). I even tried the Windi -- basically a butt catheter.

(Dear Future Jack -- sorry I wrote so much about your pooping habits as a baby. But dude, you put me through a lot).

The only things that really worked were nursing, and walking around with him in the Baby K'Tan, with the Sleep Machine app playing on my iPhone right in his ear.

All this nursing and walking meant that I lost a lot of weight, and he gained a lot. I put on 20 lbs while I was pregnant -- to date, I've lost 31. He was 7 lbs 4 ounces at birth, around the 40th percentile -- and 12 lbs at his one month check up, in the 90th percentile for growth. I'm banking on that medical advice that you can't overfeed a breastfed baby... here's hoping. Because yeah, he's a piggy.

Chubbs McGrubbs, snoozing in the sling

He started smiling in his sleep very early on, but it took quite awhile -- like, until he was 7 weeks -- to get a real awake smile. He just wasn't a very happy newborn baby -- and to be honest, I was bummed about it! I'm generally a happy, easygoing person, and I completely expected my baby to be the same way (Rookie parent mistake #23,874) In the early weeks, I thought I was doing something wrong. I also felt guilty that I just wanted him to sleep and sleep, because I didn't really enjoy him when he was awake.

I don't feel guilty about that anymore. I loved him from the moment he was born, but I have fun with him now too -- and I've realized, reading about other newborns, that a lot of other moms don't massively enjoy their babies in the early days either. After the first month, he was still super fussy, but I started finding ways to have a good time anyway. I'd sing all sorts of ridiculous lyrics to him while he wailed away: "Why does love always feel like a battlefield?" or "We found love in a hopeless place," those sorts of songs that took on a whole new meaning with a grouchy newborn.

A not-so-soothing soothie

That's not to say that I didn't sometimes cave into the miseries again as well when he cried and cried. But it became less "This is tragic/there's something wrong/why am I such a failure as a mother" and more "This is okay/he's hungry again/I'm doing a good job."

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Now, at 8 weeks and 4 days, I can confidently say that he's a much happier baby. He definitely still has fussy moments -- there is no doubt about that -- but they are fewer, shorter, and less intense.

And they're funnier, because we know he's going to be okay. He's just our Hungry Jack.

He smiles at us all the time, and has started cooing a lot too. He can hang out in the car seat, stroller, or swing for a little while without crying. He is super strong -- he rolled from front to back at 4 weeks old, and does push ups and high kicks during tummy time every day. 

Straining the snaps on his 3-6 month outfit. Thinking it's about time to eat some more.

He's always been pretty easy overnight, and we now regularly get 5.5 hour stretches of sleep, from 10:30 PM to 4 AM, with another 2 or 3 hours after that spent snoozing away too. We've even had some nights with 6 or even 7 hours straight here and there. I'd say he's sort of sleeping through the night right now. Not 100% there yet, but knocking on the door.

His favorite place to be is still snuggled up against me in the sling, but that's just fine. The bigger he gets, the more my shoulders ache after carrying him around for most of the day -- but he's still teeny tiny, and I know he won't be like this forever. From the looks of things, he's going to be a very active little guy, so in no time at all he might not want these snuggles so much. But for now, he can have as many as he wants.

He is such a boyish boy -- and he's mine :) And those fists of fury just don't scare me anymore.

Week One: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

Jack's first week of life was a serious roller coaster. Soaring highs and horrible lows.

Labor and delivery went so smoothly. It wouldn't be fair to say that giving birth was easy, not at all... but I was lucky and my doctor and nurse were great, so it wasn't all that hard either. Jack received a gold star 9 on both APGAR scores at 1 and 5 minutes after delivery -- a very healthy, hearty newborn! He was lifting his head and peering around right away. We spent over an hour snuggling him and marveling over how perfect he was after delivery before they wheeled him to the nursery for the standard newborn tests.

Once we were settled in the tiniest recovery room possible, they brought Jack back. Our little slice of heaven passed all of his tests with flying colors! Our families came to see him. We continued to stare at him in amazement. He mostly slept (he'd been hard at work over the past 24 hours!) I felt great. I felt like I could have ten more babies! This was going to be easy.

That night, we had Thai food delivered to the hospital and posted way too many photos of Jack to Facebook. He was wheeled off to the nursery -- after being awake for the past 36 or so hours, I wanted to try to get some sleep. After attempting (unsuccessfully) to snooze in the recliner, Kyle went home to get a few hours of rest too.

Jack arrived the next morning, wailing, around 6 AM. "He's hungry!" the nurse said. And then she left.

I tried feeding him, but he kept crying. I realized that I hadn't once burped him after a feeding -- oops. I tried burping him, swaying him back and forth, feeding him again... nothing was working. I called the nurse, feeling completely ridiculous. "Can someone come to my room? My baby is crying." I had no idea how to stop it!

The nurse came, said he probably just had a burp he couldn't get rid of, said she felt gas bubbles, and took him back to the nursery to try jostling him around a bit there. I called Kyle in a slightly murderous rage -- why wasn't he back yet? He was "so tired." Not what a new mom wants to hear, am I right? I had a nice, long cry in my room. They brought Jack in again -- still hungry, and now, angry! I tried feeding him again, and he fell asleep. Ah, success!

More family visits. They moved us to a larger recovery room. I fed Jack every hour or so (this nursing business is no joke!) I still felt really good though. Walking around was alright. I cut back on the pain medicine.

Then the nurse came to the room and said he was slightly jaundiced. They were going to put him under the lights for awhile and see if his bilirubin level would drop. Nothing to worry about... I just had to make sure to feed him as often as he'd like (a common theme in his short lifetime so far).

The next morning, thanks to phototherapy, Jack's bilirubin level was back to normal. The pediatrician still wanted to see us the following day, but we were given the okay to leave. We drove home from the hospital with our little bundle, a family of three. Five, counting the dogs, who were bonkers when I walked in the door. I cried again, feeling a little overwhelmed as they raced around. But Kyle brought Jack inside, we made the introduction, cooked a dinner with him snoozing in the bouncer, and felt like things were going to be okay.

The next day, we took him to the pediatrician. She thought he still looked yellow and sent us to get a heel prick. We were annoyed that he had to get stuck yet again. She called us back later that night, when my family was visiting with a homemade meal. "You need to take him to the ER at Children's Hospital," she said. "Can we eat dinner first?" Kyle asked. "No, you need to go now."

I thought she was completely overreacting, so we did eat before driving to the ER (Mom Lesson #1 -- when in doubt, overreact). After all, Kyle and I both had jaundice when we were newborns. My mom parked me next to a window to soak up the October sunshine. Kyle, on the other hand, spent six days in the hospital nursery under the lights (I didn't know that at the time!) I'd never realized jaundice could be severe. I thought it was basically harmless.

When we got there, things went downhill very quickly. His bilirubin level was extremely high. Like, approaching permanent damage kind of high. He was closing in on hearing loss, brain changes, his-life-will-never-be-the-same stuff. About twenty different nurses were trying to get an IV into his tiny, three-day-old veins -- and not one of them could manage it. For over an hour, we watched and listened to him scream while they stuck him with needles in his arms, hands, and feet. They finally put it into his scalp. That was the worst hour of my life. I still get sick to my stomach thinking about it.

Then they put him into an isolette, under phototherapy lights and on top of a phototherapy pillow. He was moved to the NICU and given lots and lots of fluid. Kyle and I sat and looked at our baby and each other in shock. We couldn't touch him at all. We drove home around four in the morning. Just the two of us. We had to leave him behind.

The next two days were tough. His bilirubin level started dropping almost immediately, but it took awhile to get back into the normal range. Once we could take him out of the isolette and hold him for a few minutes, it was scary to snuggle him with the IV in his head. I'm sure you can imagine how much fun breastfeeding was. There was also the fact that I was just a few days removed from giving birth -- and no matter how "awesome" I felt after delivery, I was not supposed to be walking through parking garages, up and down stairs, and in endless hallways like this. I was stressing about the lactation consultant's advice right after he was born: "Don't pump! Don't supplement with formula!" These were things we had to do now, because this whole situation was no longer normal. And none of it mattered to me -- none of it. I just wanted him to be okay.

Kyle and I knew we were lucky, comparatively speaking, in the NICU -- there were babies and parents in those halls dealing with things I cannot even comprehend. And once Jack was discharged, I was incredibly grateful. He was healthy! The IV was out, and our baby was coming back home.

But in spite of that, over the next few days I felt (physically and emotionally) like I'd been hit by a freight train. It wasn't the way his first week of life was "supposed" to go. I felt like I'd done something wrong, like the jaundice was my fault. I worried that the experience had traumatized him.

I cried a lot (as much as Jack?) on Saturday night and Sunday morning, watching the clock and remembering every detail from the previous week (at this time we were getting admitted to the hospital... at this time Kyle went and bought the Monster energy drink and chips for his dinner... then the Pens won in a shootout...I decided to get the blessed epidural...the nurse said we were ready to go...he was born...the sun came up...)

The day Jack was born was the happiest day of my life, and the days that followed had moments that were funny, touching, and beautiful. But that week also contained some of the saddest, scariest, and most confusing times too. I guess that's how it is for everyone -- the beginning of a baby's life is bound to have both the miraculous and the overwhelming. They're all separate versions of the same song. Ours just started out on a more tremulous note than I expected.

Bunny: It's A Boy!!!

Over a month ago now, just before dawn, we met our bunny at last.

Jack Michael Stevenson was born on Sunday, March 10 at 5:41 in the morning. He was 7 pounds, 4 ounces, and 20 3/4 inches -- long and lean. He was screaming and squawking right away. When they held him up and Kyle said "It's a boy!" -- that right there was the best and biggest moment of my life. It probably always will be. It was pure magic.

Birth is the sudden opening of a window, through which you look out upon a stupendous prospect. For what has happened? A miracle. You have exchanged nothing for the possibility of everything.

William Macneile Dixon

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It's high time I shared how this first month has gone. It's been so many things: exciting and exhausting, funny and frustrating. We are both so in love with this little guy -- it's amazing to see his personality emerging. I'm already (obnoxiously) convinced that he's exceptional ;)

But -- such is life with a wee one -- I have to divide up this story over several posts, because I just don't have the stretches of time now to write out one big whopper.

We'll go week by week over four posts. They're coming soon. But for now, I have some big blue eyes to attend to. Happy Friday!!!