Long Awaited Update

Well, I bet you're all dying to hear what's been happening since the bundle of joy came bouncing into our world. Well, my story is completely outside the timeline, but maybe I'll come back and streamline it all. Until then, you'll have to deal with my stream of conciousness.

Savannah will be 7 weeks old this Saturday (for all you non-pregger people, that's about a month and a half). It's strange, pregnancies are measured in weeks, not months, and it's amazing how different the timetables get when you do it that way. Unfortunately, once you start converting everything to weeks, you forget to stop. I promise, I'll try not to do the whole... 184 weeks bit. I will go to normal people's time soon. :)

This little girl is awesome. Of course, I'm biased... but if I weren't, I would say the same. She is very quiet. There are few things that upset her. Cold, hunger, gas, and laying on her back. She is impervious to noise, but she is certainly not deaf. She simply doesn't care. Her grandma was holding her about 4 feet from an electric saw cutting through wood and nails, and she remained completely passed out - and she was only a week old! The phone ringing, or the smell of dinner, will occasionally wake her.

Mikey, the oldest cat, gets very concerned when she cries. He comes up and sometimes meows at her to make sure she's OK. I have to pet Mikey to soothe him, while taking care of Savannah at the same time.

I've learned to juggle her and working from home. I've about got the one-handed-feeding skill down. Actually, it's more like a feat. :)

She doesn't cry just to cry. When she cries, something is wrong. She's never been collicy, she's never puked (yet.... I know that will change with the introduction to solid foods), she doesn't spit up, she doesn't need to be entertained or stimulated to eat, sleep, or anything like that. Just holding her is good enough for her.

She's not a huge fan of pacifiers, but she'll use them from time to time. She's already into the 1-month diapers. No more newborns for you little girl. You ate too much to fit in them anymore. ;)

She lost her embilical stump after about 2 weeks. Her poor father picked her up, and felt something crunch. It scared him to death. He looked, and saw it dangling by a thread of skin. He felt so bad, that he had injured her or something. But it hung there, like a loose tooth. We were strangely fascinated by it, and we stared at it for a few minutes... poking at it, seeing if it would come all the way off if we touched it again. When we were certain it was still fairly well attached, her daddy picked her up again, and the rest came flying off her belly. It was probably very comical from a third person's point of view. He kept appologizing to his daughter - who was more upset by being partially unclothed and on her back while we inspected the 'wound' than actually losing it. I was actually relieved when it fell off. It was one less obstical when changing her diaper!

Her room is coming along. My mother bought her a bedding set - a nice light sage green with ladybugs and black & white check accents. Now all we need is a mattess to put it on. But she's not sleeping in her crib yet.

She slept with us in a co-sleeper between us in bed until this week. We brought up her converta-crib (it's a playpen that has an attachement that turns it into something of a crib) and it's next to the bed now. So she's still not far from me, and she's still in the co-sleeper, it's just in the porta-crib now, to keep her from rolling around too much. When we feel more comfortable, we'll work her way into her room.

She sleeps pretty well. I usually only get up about once... Maybe twice a night. She doesn't like baths much. It gets cold getting out. I don't blame her. I was the same way.

Her favorite game is pulling dad's chest hairs. I think it's her personal goal to make him cry. She grabs a nice handful, then throws her body weight in the opposite direction. He's been very good not to scream. >:) Wicked little child. (Yup. she's definately our spawn!!) lol

She doesn't like to breastfeed, much to my displeasure. I'm stuck giving her formula, because the hospital ruined it for me there. As soon as she was born, her blood sugar was 'too low' so they stuck a bottle in her mouth right off the bat to get her levels up again. Sure, it worked... and her levels stayed good, but now she refuses anything else but plastic.

Our holidays were pretty uneventful. We took some candid Christmas pictures of her, and that was about it. New Year's, we took her outside to watch the neighbor's fireworks. She stared at the sky, but wasn't bothered by the noise at all.

She's growing too fast! When she was born, her 4 fingers would wrap around my index finger and from the tip of my finger, the width of her 4 fingers would only reach my first knuckle. Now they already reach the second joint. too fast. I couldn't wait for her to be out of my belly - but then I wanted to freeze time after that. No more growing!! lol.

A big part of me would love to be a stay-at-home mom. If I could afford not working, I think I would quit in an instant. That's not to say I don't love my job. The people I work with are awesome, and my bosses are super-cool. But... with the way things are in this day and age, I don't want anything to happen that I can't take care of instantly. As it is, I give her divided attention most of the day. I feed her, but focus on the computer. I don't like that idea much, but there's little I can do about it at the moment.

When she was born, she had a bout with some eye infections. Her tear ducts weren't developed yet, so her eyes would ooze a bright yellow goop. A little bit of erythromycin and a few weeks solved that.

Savannah was also born with jaundice. It was pretty bad. They stuck her under the lights twice to try to cure it. The first time, her bilirubin levels went down, so they pulled her out. But, she rebounded just as I was being discharged. That left me free to go - and her trapped in the hospital - under the lights, working on her tan (not literally tanning - but it certainly looked like a mini tanning booth).

This was probably the worst time. I was far away from home (Galveston island is a long drive on a good day), no phone, no supplies (my hubby somehow managed to leave without getting my the suitcase I had packed and the cellphone he did bring me died in no time), and no vehicle. So the hospital put me up in the local Ronald McDonald House a block away. $10 a night plus daily chores and I got free shuttle rides to the hospital any time I wanted them, free food, free clothes, toys, use of video games, you name it. Sadly though, everything about the House was kiddified, which only made me think more about the daughter I couldn't bring home. I lasted a day there, and that night I had gone through half a box of Kleenex (post partum hormone drop didn't help things). So I called my husband and told him I couldn't take it anymore and needed to come home to get my mind off it. My parents were driving in that night, so they came with my husband and picked me up. The next morning, I called the hospital, and they said Savannah was free to go. Her bilirubin levels had dropped enough.

If there was one fantasy I had about having a kid, it was being wheeled to the curb with her, as her dad came and picked us up... but that didn't happen.

As for the delivery itself, it HURT LIKE A SUNNABITCH!! My little mantra of "It has a time limit..." was the only thought I had.

I used very little pain meds. I asked for a half dose of their lightest stuff to take the edge off. Mostly because the night before her delivery, I had a bad (unexplained) fever with violent shakes and it drained all my energy. I needed any kind of relief I could get. The staff kept asking if I wanted an epidural, and I was adament against it. I was in a lot of pain, but I didn't want that. The pushing was the worst. The contractions were OK in the beginning, and very tough in the end. They gave me pitocin because of the fever, despite she was coming along at her own pace quite well. (I was 4cm dialated and 80% effaced by the time I got there). But because I had a fever, they wanted her out of there faster.... and let me tell you... no one ever tells you how much it hurts having them determine "how far along" you are. That was worse than the contractions!

They gave me only one stitch, and without anything to numb it. Yup. 1 stitch. (She said... "I can stick you 4 times and stitch you, or I can poke you another 3 times for the anesthesia, which will hurt more than 4." No brainer there. After all that... what was four little sticks?) They didn't cut me. I didn't want to be, and my husband made sure they knew that. Which was good, because I the light sedative they gave me had me passed out between contractions, so I wasn't aware of my surroundings. But at every contraction, I had a deathgrip on the siderail of the bed. Hey...better than breaking my husband's hand. lol Instead of being cut though, I did ask for a hot compress - and that made ALL the difference! Of course, the midwife laughed at me and made a comment that "someone's done some reading!" Damn right I did... and I was glad for it! Going in blind would have been dreadful. I felt more in control by knowing what was happening or going to happen.

My poor husband didn't know what to do. He wanted to help me, but there was nothing I could think of that he could do for me that would actually make me feel better. The classes that say I needed distractions, and massages.... that might work for most people. But I wanted to just get through it. There was no distraction strong enough to pull my attention away from that kind of hurt. At one point during the contractions, I had him rub my feet. It was the only place that didn't bother me during the contractions. I had him get me ice chips and call the nurses when I needed something else... but unless they had figured out how to let men have children, there was nothing else he could have done then that would make me feel better. At the worst of it, they had put an oxygen mask on me to make sure I was getting enough air...but come time to push, it was almost making me feel chlostrophobic (sp) and I couldn't breathe with it on. So I about ripped it off.

One thing that disturbed me about the delivery, was that they used internal monitors. I didn't mind so much, until later that day, when I was holding Savannah and I asked why she had little scabs on her scalp. They told me that's where they clipped the monitors! I didn't realize they were injuring her head. It was bad enough that my contractions had bruised the back of her head pretty badly, as well as the back of her arm where she was laying on it. Then to see the scabbing... I wasn't amused.

They had a chair that folded out into a sort of bed that my husband tried to sleep on that night. Not very comfortable for him. The room was decked out with ammenities that I barely used. They had me on an I.V. because the fever had me dehydrated, so I didn't get to walk around or do anything (not that I would have). Halfway through labor, they thought they'd have me turn from one side to the other. That didn't work. It felt tons worse, and Savannah seemed to not like it either. They had the large exercise balls available (or so they told me), but really, moving was not in my interests. I was too tired and exhausted from the fever to be active. I did take a shower when I first got there, which helped.

I had checked in the hospital at about 7 in the evening on the 17th. She was born the next morning by the coolest midwife. I gave her a lot of grief, but she gave it right back - which I totally needed! I guess I needed to be pissed off enough to push, because I Really didn't want to. lol. If I wore hats, I'd take it off for her. She was awesome. She had a sense of hujmor too. She told me I had to push, because Savannah didn't have a handle to pull. Of course, when she was out, and all that was left was the placenta, the midwife grabbed the umbilical cord and with a smirk said... "But this does have a handle". I think I laughed. It was all a blur. Once the head was out, the rest of her just flew out. I'm glad they didn't try to stop me to clean out her nose before she was all the way out. I don't see the purpose of that. And at least they didn't grab her by her ankles and smack her ass. I think that's going out of style. Yay.

She's already holding her head up pretty well. She likes to kick and climb on daddy's chest hair. She likes to lay on her side the most. She doesn't like to play with things too much. We put a silver rattle in her hand, and she doesn't pay attention to it. Doesn't care. I introduce small toys, and she doesn't seem to care. She will, however, watch the Baby Channel.

If we keep her up during the day, she sleeps pretty well at night. If we don't wake her up enough, she wakes us up very well at night. :) It took her a good 2 weeks before she realized that she had a set of pipes. Now she uses them often when hungry, or burping, or gassy, or getting a bath. She's not a screamer, but she will cry. Most of the time she just looks at us crosseyed with those big, steel-grey-blue eyes. =)