5 Weeks

Somehow, our adorable daughter is already 5 weeks old! I'm not sure how that happened, but I'm pretty sure that I want to slow things down. Evelyn is already growing up too fast for my liking, though I do have to admit that I am liking not having to feed her quite so often. Here are all the things that have happened since Evelyn arrived:

Feeding, sleeping, and pooping. Yep, she does that. Because Evelyn was so small, I needed to wake her up to feed at least every two hours. As she is her mother's daughter, she does not enjoy being woken up for any reason, even food, and let me know that she does not approve of this. While she's generally a very mellow baby, she doesn't like being woken up when it's not on her schedule. However, as of last Tuesday, Evelyn is now 6 pounds, 9 ounces and growing fast. We've moved on to demand feedings, though I don't let it go more than 3.5 or 4 hours at the most. Yes, you read that right, the baby likes to get 3 to 4 hours of sleep in a stretch at night. I love this child!

Three nights ago, we finally got Evelyn to spend an entire night in her cradle. We had been doing kangaroo care, with Evelyn sleeping on my chest every night. This was fine when she weighed 5 and a half pounds, but she's starting to get a little big for it. It took a couple of nights to convince her that we were close by and would comfort her if something was wrong, but now she's sleeping like, well, a baby.

Darling J has been dealing with all of the output that a child makes. He's been in charge of burping and diaper changes, which I have truly appreciated. I give her as much milk as she can handle and then get to hand her over for cleaning. It's nice. Unfortunately, J went back to work last Monday and I've had to take over both input and output operations. I was expecting the week to be hard and stressful, but it really wasn't bad at all. I spent as much time out of the house as possible and managed to catch up with friends and do a little shopping with my mom. By the end of the week, however, I was feeling a little cocky and thinking that I had this getting up, getting ready, getting the baby changed, fed, changed, and into the car thing down. As it turns out, babies have their own pace and their own schedule to follow. I had a chiropractic appointment on Friday morning at the early hour of 10:30 and thought that I had plenty of time to make it there. Evelyn, on the other hand, decided that she wanted to be changed, fed, changed, fed again, changed again, throw up all over the place, get a new outfit, and then get loaded into the car. Needless to say, I was a bit late.

My chiropractor is great. He's a bit more into the whole focusing energy and centering oneself than I usually go in for, but he does work magic. I saw him once a week for the last few weeks of my pregnancy and it was the highlight of the week. As it turns out, he also works with children and did some work on Evelyn when she was in the womb and then worked with her on Friday. It's pretty amazing to watch a baby go from tensed up to relaxing, smiling and falling asleep. I have no idea what he does or how he does it, but that man works magic.

Evelyn has been very bright-eyed and interested in the world around her from the get go, but she just becomes more interested, and more interesting, every day. This evening she was lying in her crib watching the mobile turn over her. She would focus on one of the bears and watch it rotate until it got to hard and then she would look at another one and do the same thing. She was quite content to do this for a solid twenty minutes or so. It's fascinating to see Evelyn's brain and body develop. She holds her head up for minutes at a time and loves to look around and watch her daddy and I. Too cute.

Evelyn had her first shower this evening. J got her undressed and ready to go as I got in the shower and made sure that it wasn't too hot. In the minute or so that it took to get ready, Evelyn managed to pee through her cloth diaper and all over J. That's the second shirt he had to change in about three ours, as the first one had been spit up all over. As for the shower, Evelyn was none too pleased when she first saw it. Her lower lip jutted out and started to tremble, but quickly got over it. I had to make the water warmer than I was expecting because she had goosebumps and was unhappy with it. Turns out she likes hot showers as much as I do! As I held her under the water, Evelyn kept leaning her head back to get it wet. I would pull her out from under the water and she would lean back again. She was definitely getting into this! As great as the shower was, getting out of it was no fun at all. I continued my shower while J got her dried off and back in diapers. She was screaming full throttle and was not pleased at the change in temperature. A warm blanket and some time on her daddy's chest warmed her up and sent her right to sleep. She's been sound asleep in her crib ever since.

Evelyn is a wonderfully calm baby and she's a pleasure to take out in public. She's been to numerous restaurants and walks around the neighborhood. She doesn't startle at loud noises and can sleep through anything. I can't wait to see the little girl that she becomes.

Evelyn at about 14 hours old. She looks just like her daddy.

With (Blue) Angels Overhead

Evelyn Pirie Zoe Noble was born on October 11, 2009 at 9:58pm. She weighed 5 pounds, 7 ounces and was 18 inches long. She's a tiny little thing, but is perfectly healthy. She loves to eat, watch the world go by, and sleep and she hates having a dirty diaper or being changed. She's not too fussy and is just generally content to hang out and be cuddled. It's a tough life for her!

I had been having contractions for 3 or 4 weeks before I actually went into labor, so when I had a few more early Sunday morning, I didn't think too much about them. I had felt a little off all day Saturday, the 10th, and couldn't fall asleep that night, so I definitely felt the contractions when they started at about 3am. When I got up to use the restroom at about 3:50, my water had broken and we were a-go! Poor J had a nasty cold/flu thing brought on by his flu mist vaccine, so he had taken a Nyquil before going to bed. For future reference, don't take drugs that make you drowsy when your wife is due to give birth. He handled it well, but when I told him my water had broken his response was, "Ok. Do you want me to get up?" It was funny. I did. He did.

I called the hospital to let them know about my water breaking and they told me to come on in. Kaiser in SF fills up very quickly, so I was relieved that they has space for us! We took a quick shower and then headed on over. After checking to see that my water had actually broken, Iw as admitted to the hospital, strapped to a monitor, and then sent walking around the labor and delivery wing. J was incredibly helpful at getting me through the contractions as they got stronger and stronger. My mom helped out with some counter pressure, hand holding, and attempting to not look worried or distressed that her daughter was in pain. Good work, Mom! Thanks!

Labor was far more painful than I thought it would be. I was fine for the first 5 or so centimeters and then things just started to hurt more and I was just too tired to really deal with it. At one point I got back in bed and would fall into a sound sleep between every contraction, which were coming at 3 or 4 minutes apart. Finally I said the magic word and they ordered me an epidural. I made it through 14 hours of labor and was 7 cm dilated. w00t!

After sleeping for a while, I was ready to move things along. I really wanted Evelyn to be born on the 11th, as it is my grandmother's birthday as well. When the doctor had checked my cervix earlier, she had noted that there was a bag of water between the baby and my cervix and had commented that they could break that to move things along. At about 8:30 we asked the nurses to send the doctor on down to do this and she arrived a little while later. The sack broke as soon as she was checking me and I rapidly dilated from 8 to 9cm and kept on going. By a little after 9, I was feeling a strong urge to push, so they let me have at it. I pushed through about 4 or 5 contractions before the nurse told me to stop pushing so they could get the doctor in there. After she arrived, it only took 2 or 3 more contractions before Evelyn was born.

Evelyn let out a mighty holler at being born but settled right down as soon as she was on my chest. She turned her big eyes up to me, stared a little, and then proceeded to stick out her little tongue and start chewing on her hands. She was ready to eat! We got about an hour to bond and start breastfeeding before family started to come in to visit. She took to feeding like a champ and, with a few minor hiccups along the way, breastfeeding hasn't been too bad.

As for the angels overhead, last weekend was Fleet Week, so the Blue Angels were in town and they flew overhead doing their impressive routines as I sat in the hospital and labored. It was fun to watch them and now we can say that Evelyn was born with angels above. Disgustingly cute, I know.

I hope that all of this makes some sort of sense, but as a sleep-deprived new mother, I am under no illusion that this is the best thing I have ever written.

Belly Pic!

This pic is from about a week ago, so I was at 31 weeks. I'm comfortably into my 32nd week of pregnancy and still feeling pretty good, which is nice. I did, however, look down yesterday and realize that my legs have apparently been taken over by an elephant. I no longer have distinguishable ankles! It's not pretty, but if this is the worst thing that has happened to my body so far, I'm definitely not going to complain.

The nursery is starting to come along, with a cradle and a changing table. We have a few onesies and a Beco carrier, a carseat and a swing. We've even hung some pictures up in the nursery, which is quite an exciting thing for us as we have yet to hang anything in our bedroom. Can't rush these things!

Yay quilts!

I'm starting to love my mailman. Well, the USPS in general, I suppose as my mailman is prone to delivering mail to the wrong addresses all over the neighborhood. Yesterday we received an awesome quilt from our friend Kim's mom (thanks Kim and Mrs. Wachter!) I can't wait to wrap the Murloc up in this. If only the baby could come in such an easy way....

Coolest Sister Ever

My awesome sister-in-law Nicole made this murloc for the murloc. How cool is that?? This is quite possibly the niftiest stuffed animal a child has ever gotten. Thanks Nicole!!

Long Time....

Here's a pic of my belly from about 2 weeks ago. J took some more last night and I'll try to get them up soon. I'm a bit pointier than I was in this pick, but there's not a huge change.

I'm sorry I haven't written in forever. After returning from France, J and I headed to Seattle for a friend's wedding and then spent a couple of days kicking it in Olympia with J's sister and her boyfriend. We had an awesome time and it was a nice, relaxing mini-vacation.

Since then, I've been fighting two impulses: nesting and laziness. Unfortunately, laziness keeps winning, but the nesting urge is beginning to kick in enough that it may well win the battle. Also, I'm becoming less mobile by the day, so I know that there are things that I need to get done before I get too huge to do them.

As of today, I'm 30 weeks along! It's hard to believe that there are only 10 weeks to go, or 6 to 8 if I'm lucky. :) I'm totally happy with an early arrival, just so we're all clear. So far, the pregnancy hasn't been bad at all, though my back is starting to hurt more and more and I could do with a fewer kicks to the ribs and punches to the bladder! I'm still sleeping well and have a reasonable amount of energy and I get to eat like a pig. What's not to like about this?

J has taken to singing and talking to the murloc and he likes to put his head on my belly and listen to her heartbeat. It was pretty cool the first time he put his head on me and then got a look of wonder on his face. The murloc, on the other hand, isn't a huge fan of it and likes to kick him in the jaw whenever possible. Did I mention that she's an active one? The doctors have me doing a kick count every day, where I time how long it takes to feel the murloc kick, punch, roll, etc ten times. She has yet to take more than about 8 minutes and she has been known to get to 10 in under a minute. As I write this, my stomach looks like it has been possessed by aliens as she twists and turns.