I still haven't lost any more weight. very depressing. And I didn't go work out tonight--- I was feeling very sleepy and down and postpartum bluesy. I ate well today though, and I haven't missed since last Tuesday. I would like to be down to 165 by my 6 week f/u appointment on 11/11, but that's 5 pounds in ~2 weeks and since I didn't lose any weight this past week, it's not looking hopeful.

Jeremy is working from home tomorrow. he has been working from home alot.

Liam's 1 month f/u appt went well. His little baby acne is clearing up. his cheeks are still very rough. The nurse said that stuff on the back of his head looks a little yeasty, but it is drying up.

he's a little bull. mama's the heifer, and he's the little bull. pretty soon he will be 20 pounds... craziness.

I think he is waking up. I had better go get him so Jeremy can sleep.

170.8 lbs. next weigh in on Thursday. Hopefully, I will break the 160's.

So, our plan to not co-sleep has hit a snag as Liam will not tolerate being by himself for even a few minutes. I slept better last night, but still not great. he's on a 1.5-2 hour schedule at night instead of a 3-4 hour schedule like he's on during the day. but, I was alot nicer last night.

my uterus is not on the same game plan as me.

I love the Liam. Sometimes, Jeremy and I will just be sitting there with him, and we'll get teary-eyed just because the emotions are so strong. It's like this ache and overwhelming love is just too much to contain.

and every time he looks at me and crosses his eyes, I crack up. he's the best little guy. except when he gets frustrated and kicks my boobs. they are still pretty sensitive and man, his little nails are like razors.

Even though 3am feedings suck because they are at 3am, I think they may be my favorite time with him. I love watching him.

well, 172.8 pounds. Which is good news because when i weighed myself at the scale at the Liam's doctor's office, I had only lost a pound and I was pretty tore up about it yesterday. i know that 9 pounds a week isn't realistic, but I'm glad that I'm over half way to my goal weight. 65 pound weight gain is rough. I walked at the gym for 2 miles and did 25 crunches. I was going to do the ellipitcal for 20 minutes, but I want to make sure that I don't push too hard.

Jeremy's mom came and saw Liam for the first time. I took a 3 hour nap and by the time I woke up, she was ready to leave. I was having alot of anxiety about it, so I think it was the best for how it worked out.

Little liam has so many hiccups. poor little guy.

Tomorrow Jeremy is working from home all day, so it will be a 10 hour test run to see if I can handle Liam on my own. so, pending emergency or mama breakdown, I'll have him all by myself.

liam had his one week f/u a week late. he gained 6 oz (9 pounds 12 oz) and is now up to 23 and 3/4 inches.

grandma's visit

I wish
liam would feed based upon the status of my boobs and when they are on the verge of exploding. instead, he only wants to feed ebery 4 hours or so during the day and makes up for it at night by wanting to eat every hour or so. getting old fast

The other interesting thing is that he freaks out when he's in rhe bassinet. Jeremy thinks it is because the walls are so close. So, he's been sleeping in the crib the past 2 nights (the first night, he slept on me or Jeremy because we were up all night with him). I was literally up every 5 minutes when he was in the crib the first night because he was so far away. i was worried he was too cold/too hot, not breatrhing, crying and I couldn't hear. I even thought about putting a sleeping bag in the nursery. I finally realized that it was okay when i was laying in bed and heard him poop from down the hall. he is so nosy, but never seems iN any discomfort.

well, it has been a very long week. Going to the hospital every 3 hours is exhausting, just in case you didn't know.

Little Liam hopefully will come home Wednesday morning. They took out his nasal canula at 3am and they need to watch him for 24 hours and arent' going to discharge him in the middle of the night. So, wednesday morning. hopefully.

I feel like I'm in this bizarro repeat cycle where it's been a month of getting up, pumping, going to the hospital, visiting with baby, going home, going to sleep. And then repeat. Every time we start over, it's like a new day. I have to force myself not to change outfits every time because wearing something for an hour doesn't count as being dirty.

My feet swelling has been going down. When I checked into the hospital, I was 204. I weighed myself on some random scale in the hallway the day after the birth, and i was only 192... and Liam was 9 pounds, so there's no way the scale was right. we were able to stop by the gym on the way home from the hospital and walk in; I was down to 181... that seems more realistic.

I love him so much it hurts. We have been tryin gto limit the visits to 30 minutes so that we can come home and have a decent amount of time for sleep, but it never works out. I think maybe I have been getting 4 hours a sleep a day (broken up in 30-45 minute increments); jeremy has been getting more because I have had people shuttle me to the hospital once a day so he can stay in and sleep. The plan was for me to stay home one session too, but I have to still get up and pump or my boobs will explode, and I usually just end up going to see Liam. He's also gets to sleep an extra 20 minutes when I get up and pump.

So, about 75% of the newborn clothes are too big for our gigantor baby:) we are very grateful though that he has no other problems (low birth weight, jaundice, heart issues, permanent respiratory problems).

birth story--- written as a letter to Deb, our bradley instructor

So… Here’s our birth story.

Liam Sebastian Fields was born at 5:07pm on 9/28 at St. Joseph’s East Women’s hospital. Virginia and I both think the labor and actual birth went about as well as possible, although there have been some post-birth complications that I will get to in a minute.
Before I get to the labor though, here’s a quick side note about our physician. We selected Dr. James before we had any intentions or real knowledge of natural birth, but stayed with her because at the time we felt comfortable with her. A couple weeks out from the labor though we started having second thoughts as we picked up on some things that caused concern. At Virginia’s 38 week exam, she stripped Virginia’s membranes during a vaginal exam and told her after the fact, which upset both of us greatly. She then offered to induce Virginia after telling her that she would be out of town on Liam’s due date. The same thing happened an exam week later on 9/27; Virginia was only 3cm dilated and she wanted to send her over to the hospital for “augmentation”, not inducement. Of course, we declined. Dr. James actually was out of town beginning 9/28 and Liam was delivered by Dr. Steele instead. We were very happy with Dr. Steele so it all worked out. Dr. Steele and every single one of the nurses was up to date on our birthing plan and we heard several people discussing it within the first 5 minutes of us arriving.
The evening of the 9/27, we went to the gym and walking the mile or so that she usually did every evening and had pineapple for dessert after dinner. She really wasn’t having consistent contractions through out the day (maybe one or two every hour if we were lucky). Virginia began feeling regular contractions around 2:45am on 9/28 (every 5 minutes) after she got up to go to the restroom. She monitored the contractions for the next 6 hours with a nifty iphone app (I was able to sleep until 5:45). Around 8:30 the contractions started to pick up steam (3-4 minutes apart—the drive to St. Joe East was 2 minutes) and we went to the hospital at 9am (after I finished baking chocolate chip-oatmeal-walnut cookies for the nursing staff). At check in she was 4 cm, 90% effaced and 0 station. After getting situated, the nurse wanted to keep Virginia on the fetal monitor for 30 minutes because her first blood pressure was a little high. They ran a pre-ecalampsia screen but every single BP after that was normal so we think it was a cuff placement issue. They did 20 on 40 off for 2 hours and then just kept the monitor off completely. Periodically though the nurse would just press the monitor to Virginia to check on the baby’s heart rate. They were never super rigid about checking though and were flexible if Virginia was in the middle of a lap around the floor. Until about 1pm or so, Virginia walked laps around the floor, tried some different positions in bed, and also used a yoga ball, provided by the hospital, to labor. She tried to squat during one contraction, but it didn’t work out too well. Which was disappointing because she has been training like crazy with squatting the past few months. On a similar note, Virginia wanted me to make an ipod play list of songs she thought would help her relax. This sounded good in theory, but she was done with the music by the 2nd song. She was all about the room being as dark as possible during a contraction, so every time one came I would kill the lights.
At 11:30am Dr. Steele examined Virginia, and she was 5 cm, 100% effaced, but I didn’t catch the station. Dr. Steele offered to break Virginia’s water, which we of course declined. She said that she would likely not be able to deliver the baby since it would be late in the evening before the baby would come since we were declining to have the water broken and another doctor on call would take over care. At 1:40 pm, Virginia’s water broke spontaneously during a particularly strong contraction. Our nurse Barb was actually holding the fetal monitor to Virginia at the time, so we got to hear a popping sound when it occurred. Shortly after the nurse examined Virginia and she was 7 cm. For the next 2 hours the contractions picked up intensity and took a lot more out of Virginia, but she was still very much in control. Around 3:40pm Dr. Steele checked her again and she was 8 cm. Sometime between 3:50 and 4pm, Virginia started transitioning. This was as intense as advertise. Virginia went from “ I’m not sure if I can do this,” to “I CAN’T DO THIS!” Each contraction was an ordeal but she got through them one at a time. Afterward, she said she was had complete knowledge that she was hysterical during these contractions, but there was no way to stop it. She was able to relax really well between contractions, and mentioned at one point that she wanted drugs during one of these down moments, but did not use our code word that we had discussed several times. Our nurse also picked up on what was happening and stayed by our side. She was so great and knew exactly the right thing to say and just how to say it, at least for Virginia.
If someone has never seen a loved one suffer, I don’t think it’s possible to prepare yourself for hard it is to see your wife in such anguish. At one point the nurse did pull me to the side to let me know this is very normal, but if I thought Virginia should consider intervention I should talk it over with her (Virginia). She also told me she would not ever offer it to Virginia and she never mentioned it to me again. Quick side note. When processing in they insisted we sign the epidural consent form just in case, but assured us they would not ever push it on us, and they stayed true to their word.
At 4:30pm Virginia was 10 cm and ready to push! Just before she started pushing I could hear Dr. Steele reviewing the birth plan with her team and making sure everyone was aware, which was very reassuring to me. Virginia was in a much better mental state now and even conversational with the staff in between contractions. I didn’t count but I would guess took about 10 contractions with pushing to get him out. She pushed for 37 minutes. Once he crowned, he came out very quickly. Virginia doesn’t remember the ring of fire happening (they added lots of topical lidocaine) and didn’t really think the pushing was painful. She was surprised that she felt like her ears were going to pop every time she pushed. She did have some second stage tearing that required stitching, which was pretty uncomfortable even with some lidocaine injections.
Liam was put skin to skin immediately after birth but soon it was apparent he was having some respiratory distress- lots of grunting that didn’t improve with the suction bulb. They took him off to the side (I went with him) and suctioned 12 ml out, but he still wasn’t breathing well and was grunting with each breath. They tried skin to skin for a few more minutes to see if that would calm him down and allow him to feed, but it was very apparent this tactic wasn’t working. They took him down to the nursery (I went with him) and after seeing his O2 saturation was too low, they started him on oxygen. He coughed up more mucousy fluid, but was still laboring to breathe. The pediatrician came by and recommended that the neonatalist take control. Dr. Jundy ordered up x-rays and blood work, and they admitted him to the NICU. X-rays showed a lot of fluid in both lungs and a pneumothorax in his lower right lung. They determined that he aspirated fluid while being born. They put him on some various medications that Virginia can elaborate more on and put a breathing hood over his face for over night O2 treatment. The next morning after new x-rays, the pheumothorax had resolved on its own, but they were now treating him for aspiration pneumonia. His breathing rate was still very high and his O2 saturation would drop whenever he was distressed from over stimulation. They did remove the hood though and are delivering oxygen through his nose now. Because he is on restricted stimuli so keep is breathing rate down, I have yet to hold him and that is one of the worst part. We are both aching to cuddle him.
This morning (9/30) he looked much improved. He seems much more comfortable and less distressed. His breathing rate is still too high though and x-rays have not yet shown noticeable improvement. He has a good appetite and his body functions are starting to normalize. Virginia was able to pump 10 ml of colostrum after birth, which they gave him, and has been pumping regularly since with mixed results- we have been using pictures and one of his blankets to help her. Whatever she is getting though, they are giving to him. Virginia will be discharged today, but unfortunately the earliest Liam could possibly go home is Sunday, but at least we’re close to the hospital. We will be going to the hospital every 3 hours to visit and delivery whatever Virginia has been able to pump.
Even though this post birth isn’t what we hoped for, we do feel the best course of action has been taken. The NICU nurses along with the neonatalists Dr. Jundy and Dr. Ang have been great. We also feel the labor floor nurses were also great, especially Barb. Everyone was very cognizant and respectful of our birth plan although things got derailed post birth. Virginia labored at the hospital for 8 hours and we felt the facility was a reasonably quiet, private, and suitable place to labor. Also, there’s no way a successful, textbook natural birth would have been possible without the 12 week Bradley course and supplemental guidance from related materials. Deb, the accounts you gave of your real world experience as a natural birther and doulah were absolutely invaluable to us. The Bradley material although, good and informative, really hit home with us when you would relate it back to your experiences. For that we truly thank you for sharing and helping to make Liam’s natural birth possible.

10/1/10 update: chest xray is better, breathing rate is down but not quiet where is needs to be, we get to hold the baby this afternoon!, planned discharge from NICU still on Sunday hopefully.