Half a dozen of the other

And here we are… A post that includes our birth story!

We did it!  We made a baby!  We grew him, jen birthed him, we brought him home, and here we are. He snorts and grunts and squawks and we are learning his language.  I am reawakening.  It has been some time since there was a baby ’round casa halfadozen.  In some ways, it is like riding a bicycle for the first time since childhood.  I feel shaky, and unsure,  but confident enough to keep trying, to not get scared off.  The rhythms feel familiar, the smells trigger memories, the motions (like bum patting while swaying back and forth) are reflexive.  And yet it still feels new,magical and miraculous.

This baby continues to be our teacher.  Much like our realizations at the time of his conception, labour and the baby’s first few weeks continue to challenge us to recognize the limits of our control and the importance of staying present.  We have found our TTC/infertility mantra of “we don’t get to chose” to be particularly relevant; we didn’t get to chose when we got pregnant or who got pregnant despite every attempt to orchestrate the “perfect” scenario.  Similarly,we did not get to chose how our baby would ultimately move from the womb to our arms, what his temperament would be, or how he would eat or sleep.

Jen’s labour was not what we had hoped for but mostly everything we could have wanted.  If that makes any sense.  Jen never went into labour naturally despite our best efforts.  These included $500 of acupuncture, spicy foods, sex, nipple stimulation, walks, a whole bottle of castor oil (as in two treatments!) etc.  We struggled more and more as we approached the 42 week mark.  We were provided with many anecdotal induction techniques, the usual ones listed above and some more unusual ones (including drinking a can of Guine.ss, and consuming an eggplant parm resipe that supposedly catapults women into labour).  But nothing worked.  At 41w 4d, 2 cm dilated and 50% effaced we went in for the induction.  We got there at 10 am as per instructions.  By 2 pm we had been seen and a plan was made:  Jen’s water would be broken and if nothing happened after an hour or so, she would go on the 0xytocin,  At 4:30 pm, the water-breaking procedure was done.  We walked the halls for HOURS.  Not a twinge.  Not a cramp.  Nada.  Zilch.  Zip.  At 7:30 pm the drip was started.  The first few hours were fine.  By 10:00 pm Jen was in that crazy place that only the drip can take you.  Suspended in a reality of pain that has no name.  She requested the epidural and by 11:45 pm it was in.  We rested, restlessley through the night.  there was some dozing.  there was lots of poking, prodding, shifting, temp taking, monitoring and everything else.  Those night time hours were filled with a magical, ethereal energy I can’t name.  It was the combination of being up all night, knowing that our baby was on his journey, and the surreal nature of the whole thing.  Around 4 am she was 7 or 8 cm.  

Around 8 am, the OB came in to check on her and Jen was at 10 cm.  But the baby was still at -3 station.  She said she would give us an hour and if the baby didn’t drop we would have to discuss next options (as in c-section).  We panicked.   I called the MW who said not to, and that she would be right over (if you get an epi they only come at 10 cm because there is a transfer of care to the OB until the baby’s birth).  I urged jen to visualize the baby dropping and I went to get a bagel.  Around 9:30 the OB came back.  The MW,  Jen and I all held our breath while the OB checked.  And the baby had fully dropped!!!  he was at +1!!!  The OB called the nurses and told Jen it was time to push.  They turned down the epi and Jen started.  It was hard at the beginning but as Jen got the hang of it and the epidural wore off, it got easier.  There is no way to describe how amazing it was for me to watch (as an aside, now that I have both laboured and watched labour, I found it much scarier to watch then to actually do myself).  And Jen was a rockstar.  And on Friday January 6 at 11:46 am our second child was born.

He was beautiful and perfect.  And covered head to toe in poo.  Unfortunately it was a meconium birth.  Which they didn’t know ahead of time because of how he was positioned– it meant all the fluid was behind him, and so when he came out, it was in a sea of meconium. They called in the emergency pediatric team and ran him to the warming table.  Which was beyond terrifying.  He was blue and not breathing (which is what they want since they didn’t want him to aspirate it) and they intubated him and suctioned him and bagged him and rubbed his little chest while saying “come on baby” and I swear I almost lost my mind.  Thankfully jen was too out of it to know what was going on.  The MW kept smiling and nodding reassuringly at me.  Finally they let him cry and managed to get his breathing regulated and his blood-ox came up to 100 and within minutes they all disappeared.  It was crazy.  Supposedly it is normal and routine but the 20-30 minutes that the whole event lasted were some of the longest and scariest of my life.  

By 12:30 pm the room was empty.  The baby was asleep.  Jen was stitched up.  The room was lit with the golden light of mid day.  Our midwife, the same one at M’s birth was speaking in her impossibly calm, grounding, reassuring tones.  It was quiet and peaceful.  And she told us that once Jen peed and could walk, we could go home.  We called Pav and Chip who were with M.  They arrived at 2pm to meet the baby and we all walked out an hour or 2 later.  At 4 pm, less than 5 hours after the birth, we were at home. 

So like I said, it was not what we planned,but magic nonetheless.

And so it has continued.  I can tell you what 13 days of getting to know this baby has taught me about who he is:  He appears to be very chill, and not bothered by sound (good thing because his brother is noisy); he can sleep in lots of places– the bassinet, the swing, our arms, the b0ppy, our bed, his brother’s arms; he doesn’t cry much; he hates cold wipes and diaper changes more than anything; he is a decent sleeper and on a few occasions has made it between 5 and 7 hours in a row at night; he was born tongue tied with a very severe tie which meant he has not been able to nurse (jen has been pumping and he has been getting 95% BM via tube and now bottle); he is no longer tongue tied as he was snipped on Tuesday; today, with the help of the most awesome lactation and BF clinic ever, he had 2 good sessions at the breast, so we are hopeful that he will get there full-time one day; he has blonde eyebrows and light blue eyes; he is very strong; he is incredibly flail-ey (is that a word?); swaddling is his best friend– it is like a drug– and the minute he is swaddled, his eyes droop and close; essentially, this baby is completely different from  his brother in nearly every way.

When M was born I was a disaster.  For at least 6 mos.  M was premature (born at 35 weeks after 2 weeks with PROM on bedrest at the hospital) and intense.  Seriously intense.  He needed to be held All. The. Time.  Or he would lose his mind.  So we did.  he nursed slowly and had to eat on a rigid weight-gaining schedule.  For the first 18 mos of his life he never slept more than 3 hours in a row.  He was sensitive to noise, and transferring him from one place to another was nearly impossible– it was an art that few could master.  While I deeply loved my baby, I was beyond tired, and mourning the loss of my life; the lifestyle change was very hard.  Before K was born, I was very worried about going back to that place.  I wanted a do over though, a chance to really rejoice in my newborn.  I was worried that the big brother factor would make that impossible.  That the one chance I had to have a newborn with no other distractions was wasted in my crazy post-partum state. But what I found has been the complete opposite.  Despite the BF challenges which have been very discouraging, I feel far more grounded, more open to it all and less stressed.  M loves the baby and wants to hold him all the time and kiss him and talk about him– frankly, I find it shocking.  I was sure he wouldn’t care at all about a baby that does nothing much.  But he loves having his brother in his family.  And we are loving having this baby in our family.  The 2 boys are so different so far, and while it is true that K is not even 2 weeks old until tomorrow, the difference is already remarkable.  I love our intense little M more intensely (for lack of a better word) than I ever thought possible.  But I am welcoming experiencing this different kind of baby, and am looking forward to all I stand to experience and learn through loving this wonderful little boy.

So I would say, all in all, we are doing pretty good.  

More pics to come soon.  Password the same as last time and available upon request…

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