Don't Tell Me About the Labor Pains, Just Show Me the Baby

Before I describe our labor and delivery story (will be in the forthcoming post), first a few photos and update of our little Rosalie.

On her 9th day Rosalie is doing awesome! She's feeding very well and has even woken us up a few times because she is hungry--and that's a good thing. We think she has passed her birth weight too. By our calculations of getting on the scale without  her and then back on with her - she's just over 6 pounds.

This evening her Grandma and Grandpa Bernstein will be arriving to spend the next 10 days with her. She's already met her Nana Joy who arrived from Nevada just an hour after she was born.

Adam and I are doing well - very sleepy, but are hearts are full and happy.

Rosalie on the changing table - she's peed on Adam at least 6 times already

Her typical face after feeding

And then after the yawn...

And finally Adam's time to burp her

A week old today

How do you suppose Rosalie celebrated her first week of life? That's right by sleeping, eating, and pooping!

It's only been a week, but it seems like a lot longer than that in some ways and I can't believe just a week ago today, she made her way out from the inside world to the outside world. How our lives have changed.

Adam and I have had a nice quiet week together adjusting to parenthood and learning how to manage our lives in 2 to 3 hour increments that revolve around this tiny human being. A big change from the first four days, was in the feeding department. Initially, we had to supplement Rosalie's feedings with pumped breast milk. The feedings took at least an hour. Here's how it would break down:

1. Adam would wake Rosalie up by changing her diaper while I prepped the pillows, boppy, burp cloth and nipple shield to be ready for the feeding as well as prepped the bottles for pumping afterwards. (~10 min)
2. Adam would bring Rosalie to me and I would breast feed her for as long as she would stay awake. Sometimes getting her to latch would take only a minute or two and sometimes 15 min. We would do everything we could to wake her when she fell asleep which seemed to be every other minute. Tactics included tickling her feet, moving her arm in a windmill fashion, tapping her chin and when necessary, putting a cold, wet washcloth to her face. (~15-45 min)
3. Once done with that we'd feed her the supplement through a feeding tube into the nipple shield that was on my breast. This was definitely a two man operation, with Adam holding and filling the syringe / tube with pumped milk and me holding Rosalie to my chest so she could drink it. This went pretty fast because Rosalie happily welcomed the free flowing milk that she didn't have to work so hard to eat. (~5 - 10 min)
4. After the feeding was done, Adam would burp her, change her diaper, swaddle her, and wash out the feeding tube, while I started my 15 minutes of pumping, which was followed by cleaning out all of the bottles. (~20 min)

And we did that routine every 3 hours....meaning we had a 2 hour break in between each feeding.

On Monday, we had an awesome lactation consultant come to our house. She helped me with my breastfeeding technique and told us to up our feedings to 10 times a day instead of 8, which enabled us to stop pumping and it also helps Rosalie learn how to better latch on and breastfeed. We've tried this new routine for the past 2 days and it has been working well. Even though we have more feedings, the time it takes is only between 15-30 min as opposed to an hour. 

We also took her to the doctor again to check on her birth weight. She was 5 pounds, 8 ounces on Saturday and on Monday was back up to 5 pounds 11.8 ounces. So only about 2 ounces to go until she's back at birth weight! The doc says she's looking good and we don't have to go back until her one month check-up. 

Below are some photos from her first week. Most of them are of her sleeping, but this first one is of the many funny faces she makes. I did not include any photos of her pooping...but Adam can tell you all about it. We've separated tasks so that I'm in charge of all input and he's in charge of all output. He's been peed and pooped on several times now! 

Rosalie's many facial expressions

Sleeping in her Ergo

Sleeping in bed

Family Cat Nap

P.S. Happy birthday Dad! Rosalie's happy to share the same birth month as you. :-)

Back at Home with Our Little Burrito

Smiling Rosalie

What a week! The past five days have been quite a whirlwind. After spending two nights in the hospital, we were discharged on Thursday and made our way home around 2pm. We are having a great time getting to know our little girl. So far we'd describe her as:

• Big-eyed, alert and curious when awake
• Petite in weight, but with long skinny limbs
• A very good sleeper - we have to wake her every 2-3 hours to eat (and we've slept through 2 of her night time feedings because we both didn't hear the alarm).
• Persistent - she keeps at it even when feeding is tough and agitation creeps in

We have a lot to learn about how to be parents, but are thus far loving it, despite the haze of little sleep. Rosalie is not super fussy, but the times when she has had her better cries, it has been in the wee hours of the morning. Funny how it turns out like that.

Below are a few more photos of Rosalie. I'm working on a post to describe the labor and delivery - don't worry, I won't get into the gross details - and will hopefully post that later for those who are interested. To close out this post, I'll just give an update on why Rosalie was in the NICU, her tongue-tied procedure and how her first pediatrician appointment went today.

Reason for the NICU

Rosalie was in the neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU) for about a day because when they tested her blood sugar 2 hours after she was born it measured very low. She was also a little under weight for her gestational age, so that made them more concerned. Our labor and delivery nurse was great and tried to help us not have to send her to the NICU because the low blood sugar reading may have not been Rosalie's fault. It took 2 hours after delivery before I could feed Rosalie. But at the end of the day, it was probably better to be safe than sorry.

Her Tongue-Untie Procedure

While in the NICU they noticed that Rosalie's tongue is what they call tongue-tied which, "happens when the string of tissue under a baby's tongue (frenulum), which attaches her tongue to the floor of her mouth, is too short. If a baby has tongue-tie, her tongue can't move freely, and this can cause problems with feeding." The doctor said it basically means a tongue-tied baby has to work 10 times harder to get the same amount of milk. A simple procedure for fixing it is called a frenulotomy. A doctor snips the string at the base of the tongue (the frenulum) and it allows the tongue to more freely hit the top of the mouth, making feeding easier. The doctor performed this procedure the morning before we left, and Rosalie was a trooper.

Her First Pediatrician Appt

Today Rosalie had her first doctor's appointment. Her umbilical cord stump fell off right before we left for the hospital this morning, so the doc checked out her belly button which she says looks great. Rosalie seems to be doing very well. She's a bit below her birth weight -- she was 5 pounds, 14 ounces at birth and is now 5 pounds, 8 ounces - but it is totally normal for babies to lose weight at first. But because Rosalie was on the smaller side to begin with, we will return to the doctor every few days until her weight is back up. So the next appointment is on Monday.

That's all for now! Thanks for all the emails of congrats and thoughtful comments. ...Now for a few more photos:

Rosalie a couple of hours after birth

Rosalie in the NICU

Adam reading to Rosalie at home

Rosalie 4 days old with 6 week old cousin Isaac

Rosalie with our cone-head dog Heart

Rosalie is here!

Rosalie made her way into this world on Tuesday, September 9, 2014 at 12:33pm. She weighed in at 5 lbs 14 ounces and measured 19.5 inches. She was a little low on blood sugar levels so spent the first night in NICU, but is now back with us. Here are a couple of photos. We head home with Rosalie tomorrow. More to come soon.

Our new family member!

Rosalie in the NICU

Love,

Em and Adam

Déjà vu - a revised due date so we're back at 39 weeks and 2 days

So….it's Sept 5th and baby Rosalie is still a cookin. I had our NST today and also got an ultrasound. Baby Rosalie is moving well and her fluids are good. We also had a doctor's appointment. I'm same as last week: between 1 and 2 cm dilated, 60% effaced and she's at the -1 station. Our doc started to talk about intervention options, when I told her our theory about our "real" due date being September 10th as opposed to September 4th.

Why do we think our due date is September 10th?

Well, usually doctors base your due date on the date of your last menstrul period, assuming that you have a 28-day period cycle.  This is generally the case for most women, but since Adam and I were intentionally trying to get pregnant and were tracking our cycles using the Fertility Awareness Method we had more information: 1) my cycles are much longer than 28 days - around 40-50 days and 2) we know the date when we conceived (we were tracking!). With that info, the due date calculators put us at Sept 10th. In addition, our first early ultrasound estimated that our due date was September 8th based on the baby's size. We brought this up to our first doctor when we lived in San Francisco but she didn't really want to listen and said she wanted to keep the date at September 4th.

But, our new doctor in Berkeley was all ears and happy to listen to our tracking tale and theory and agreed that with this new information we should change the date to Sept 10th. Usually they will induce after 41 weeks and definitely after 42 weeks because the placenta starts getting old.  So, six days makes a difference when you start talking about interventions like inducing pregnancy. The doc said, she thinks it's good to let the baby decide when she wants to come out and that we'll give her another week. So bottom line - our new date is next Wed, September 10th!

Auntie Nik doesn't leave until Sunday, the 7th so she may still be able to meet Rosalie. In the meantime, Nik, Ren, Adam, Baby Isaac and I had a delicious lunch at East End Pizza in Alameda.

Back to working from home! And til next time. Below are a few photos from this week of waiting.

Working from home

Baby practice with nephew Zach

Rosalie's Aunties with Cousin Zach

39 Weeks and 5 Days - Bun Still in Oven

Family photo while Rosalie is still in the oven

It was a possibility that I could have had Rosalie on Labor Day, but alas she is still baking in the
oven. Weekend activities included a few meals out, cooking some meals for the upcoming week, hanging with some friends, getting our pinball on at the very cool Alameda Pinball Museum, and sharing a nice dinner with cousin Brent and Uncle Jason. We also learned that Brent was featured on Good Morning America yesterday for his review of an "ice cream cleanse." Take that juice cleansers! As a pregnant lady, I wonder if I could do the ice cream cleanse along with still eating everything else? Could I still call it a cleanse?

This morning I had my regular Tuesday NST (Non-Stress Test) and ultrasound. Rosalie's movement was fantastic and I got another great picture of her face. See photo below.

Baby Rosalie's Face - can you see it?

I'm feeling good, although am having more pressure in the general pelvis area, so I'm thinking Rosalie's getting ready for the journey out.

Adam and I still maintain that by our calculations Rosalie's due date should be September 10th, but our original doctor kept it at September 4th. My next NST and doc appointment is Friday, September 5th. So perhaps an update then...or before if our calculations are proven incorrect! Auntie Nikki will be here tomorrow through Saturday, so hopefully Rosalie will make an appearance for her Aunt's special visit.