…continued from Pregnancy Flashback: Birth-Day

So at this point in the birth story, my contractions are pretty close together. Apparently this wouldn’t be a long, drawn-out affair after all. We decided that rather than coming to the house, our doula would just meet us at the hospital. It was all I could do to get down to the car. I have a vivid memory of kneeling on our wooden staircase mid-contraction, thinking a home birth was very possible.

Daddy-to-be was now racing around like a crazy man, loading the car and trying to help me. My request for some towels was met with more confusion. To me it was very obvious- when you’re delivering a baby outside of a hospital, you need towels and boiling water, but boiling water wasn’t practical to bring in the car so we should at least have towels.

The 20-minute ride in my Dodge Neon was less than comfortable. Elastic-waist pants have never felt so tight, and I began thinking that a snowbank on the side of the highway would be a perfectly fine place to give birth. 

Our doula met us at the hospital entrance with a wheelchair, but at this point I was entering my zone, eyes closed and not really able to make my legs get out of the car. My husband still brings up the fact that this was very irrational of me. We checked in, a quick exam revealed that I was ready to go, and they wheeled me into a room to start pushing.  

It took me a few rounds to figure out that the pushes were a means to an end…more pain meant the baby would arrive faster! I remember glancing up at the clock occasionally and thinking it couldn’t really be happening this quickly. My friend Allison had only eight hours of labor which seemed crazy-fast, so surely mine would take at least that long. But Tate had other plans and was born just before noon. Four days early, with less than six hours of labor. I guess I was a little misinformed about first babies!

Amazingly, since she’s one of 15 doctors in her group, my OB was on call at the hospital that morning. I teased her afterwards that she’d done amazingly well in delivering our son without access to my carefully-written birth plan. In all honesty, though, I was so appreciative that she remembered the conversations we’d had during my prenatal appointments. She acted according to my wishes while also using her professional judgment during the delivery. My husband, our doula and the nurses were great coaches! In those respects, the birth was as I hoped it would be. The speed, honestly, was a little faster than I would wish for future births, but that’s probably not up for me to decide!

Looking back at some of the pictures from the birth, it still seems a little surreal. Just the beginning of our brand new life as parents! Here’s our first family photo:

Was your birth as you expected it would be? If you’re pregnant, what are some of your expectations, hopes or fears?

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One day you’re in, and the next day you’re out. If you watch Project Runway, you’ll recognize this as one of Heidi Klum’s overly-repeated phrases. But the same is true of a baby, right?! I can’t quite believe it was only a year ago that this photo was taken (the last one of my sister-in-law and I both preggers), just three days before Tate was born.

In the final weeks of pregnancy, I was waiting for my discomfort level to eclipse my nervousness about childbirth and becoming a parent. I finally got there, as you can tell from the super-flattering picture. Could I be any more puffy?!

But while I was ready to have the baby, I assumed that I’d go at least until my due date (that next Saturday), or probably later. First babies are always late, right? Plus, I’m over six feet tall, so the kid had plenty of room to stretch out in there. It didn’t really seem like I’d dropped yet, and I hadn’t had any Braxton-Hicks contractions. On Monday I went to work as usual, and went to a jewelry party at my friend’s house that night.

Around 4am on Tuesday, I realized that my water had broken. I went back to bed and told my husband, and we both tried to get a little more sleep (guess who was more successful?). My contractions started at 6am and I started timing them with my alarm clock. I got up at 7 to send some emails to the office, but also sort of thought maybe I’d go into work to kill some time. Because again, labor is long and slow with first babies…

Both our doula and our Bradley instructor had recommended eating a good meal once labor began. So with a bowl of yogurt, fruit and granola balanced on my belly, I called my mom and our doula with the news. I finished adding final items to my hospital bag and took a shower to keep the contractions going (more doula advice). And not just a shower, but I decided to shave my legs. Turns out bending over to shave is VERY difficult during contractions. Probably not very safe either, in retrospect.

My husband got up at 8, glad to have gotten a full night’s sleep before his long day (hopefully just one day?) as labor coach. While he’d been pretty laid-back throughout the pregnancy, he was suddenly very concerned that we didn’t have the balance ball recommended by our doula for labor. He wanted to run out to Target, despite my protests that women had labored for thousands of years without balance balls and I’d probably be fine without one. 

As the contractions suddenly started getting much closer together, I finally convinced him that he shouldn’t go to Target and also could he please get me a bowl? My big breakfast wasn’t feeling like such a good idea anymore. I was picturing a nice large mixing bowl; he returned with a cereal bowl, wondering what I needed it for. We weren’t quite a finely-tuned labor-partner machine yet…

Wow, this post is becoming very long- thanks for sticking with me! I think it will have “to be continued”…

Around six inches of snow fell here this past Friday night. My husband had to work all day on Saturday, so Tate and I were moping around, feeling housebound with long hours stretching ahead. Okay, the moping part was only me. I know it wasn’t my husband’s preference to work, but that didn’t stop me from feeling sorry for myself, all alone on a Saturday. 

My pity party reminded me once again of this great article from Parents magazine. It’s written by a single mom who’s sick of hearing her married friends complain about what their husbands aren’t doing, or aren’t doing the right way, when she would love to have a parenting partner- especially one that loves her and her baby! A must-read!

Anyway, I decided it was worth the effort to get Tate and myself bundled up in snow clothes so that we could go outside and play. I don’t quite have the timing perfected…it seemed wise to put on all of my layers first so he wouldn’t be sitting in his snowsuit too long and pulling off mittens, but then I got all sweaty wrestling him into the snowsuit, and had to de-layer myself a bit. Once both of us were sufficiently bundled, we headed outside.

When we all went sledding on Christmas Eve, Tate got a big kick out of crawling around in the snow. I thought maybe he’d just play on the deck a little while I shoveled the sidewalk. Much to my surprise, he just sat there in exactly the same spot the entire time. This is not a kid who generally sits still for anything. I think he was stunned.

Eventually he started to whimper so I plopped down next to him, realizing that playing in the snow was perhaps not an intuitive skill. It was too fluffy to pack together but I showed him how to make piles of snow, push it around, taste it, etc. Nope, he wasn’t having any of it, as this picture reveals. (Mom, if you’re reading this, I promise that the mittens were only off for a minute, so that he could feel the snow, and then we went inside!). I guess Minnesota winter must be an acquired taste.

Have any of you found fun things to do in the snow with your little ones?

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I used to make my husband watch Jon & Kate Plus 8 with me when I was pregnant, so that our new life with a baby wouldn’t seem so stressful, in comparison. Now that Tate is here, I’m in complete awe of those who have even twins, much less three or more babies. We won’t go into octuplets…

Are you preparing to welcome multiples into your family? Browse through these adorable birth announcements for twins. If you’re having triplets or more, ask our great customer service staff about modifying these or one of the other designs in our collection, to include more photos and stats.

Perhaps a friend or family member is expecting multiples- share this post with them, but more importantly, find out how you can help! Pamela Prindle Fierro, a mom of twin girls writing at About.com, suggests that you make specific offers, such as running errands or allowing mom to go into the store while you stay in the car with the babies. Or maybe there are chores that you could help with on a one-time or regular basis: dishes, laundry, housecleaning, yard work or car washing. Be creative!

Do any of you have twins or more, or know someone that does? What was most helpful, especially in those first few months after bringing the babies home?

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Tate didn’t want to eat his banana or Cheerios this morning. He had a slight fever last night, so maybe he’s teething again. I mention this only because him not eating breakfast = minimal time in the high chair = minimal time for me to make my own breakfast. Selfish to think of myself when my son is out of sorts, I know.

When I opened the fridge to get my grapefruit, he raced right over. The fridge door, filled with all sorts of interesting bottles, is his favorite party spot lately. The funny part is that for the last couple of days he actually puts the bottles back onto the shelves after he’s done playing with them. That’s my little firstborn!

But back to my story…Tate was happily pulling lime juice and salad dressing spritzer out of the lowest rack in the door, so I let him play there for a couple of minutes. I realize that’s not very energy-conscious of me. Family and friends, I’ll understand if you no longer want to eat meals at my house, for fear of food poisoning from a warm refrigerator. But come on, you can’t spoon out grapefruit sections while holding a child on your hip! So my back was to him as I ate, and I may have also been reading the paper a little bit.

When I turned around, this is what I saw. As you can see, my son has excellent taste in breakfast food. Why would you want a banana when you can have chocolate?

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Laying Tate down tonight, I marveled at how long he has become. When he scrunched up his little newborn legs, his toes barely reached my belly button. Lately, I have to give a little extra oomph on my tiptoes to get his feet over the crib rail. Having just passed his first birthday, I find myself marveling at a lot of “look how far we’ve come” things…

The biggest one is sleep. We were not blessed with a naturally good sleeper, and definitely made some parenting errors that made the situation worse. (Read the whole three-part saga, beginning with Our Sleep Journey.) But now, and for the last several months, this is not a struggle. He goes to bed around 7pm, wakes for an early-morning feeding, sleeps a little more and is up for the day around 7am. We can even have babysitters put him to bed. It’s wonderful!

Another one is food: from the first watery rice cereal at four months to the sudden demand for all finger food (Don’t Spoonfeed Me!), he’s now eating a lot of the same things we eat. Advice from many of you has been really encouraging- Allison, you said to try the spoon again every once in awhile. Sure enough, he’s been willing to do yogurt, avocados and now applesauce. Lisa, you told me how you mixed the rice cereal flakes with Bisquick to make pancakes good enough for the whole family. (I’m using up my ground Super Baby Food grains for this.) John, frozen peas are a hit! The self-feeding is obviously more messy, but it’s also pretty fun to see him enjoy new things, especially things I wouldn’t think a baby would like- BBQ meatballs, pepper jack cheese, parmesan risotto. Plus while he eats, I can usually make a quick meal for myself.

In Tate’s first few weeks of life, I hardly ever bathed him because it was such a traumatic ordeal for both of us. The nurse had done such a good job of holding him and getting him clean in that little plastic tub at the hospital, but I quickly realized that I was not as skilled. Once we switched to the infant tub with a hammock-style attachment, voila, bathtime was happytime! (Even though he doesn’t look super-happy in this picture.) Eventually we moved into the real bath tub. I laid him on his back in just an inch of water and he kicked his little legs furiously, surprised when he’d occasionally splash himself in the face. Now it’s all playtime- toys, splashing, “Tate, we don’t stand up in the tub!”, etc.

There are lots of other fun things, like playing with toys and reading books, instead of him simply eating both of them. He understands many directions and loves to be a helper.

And of course some not-so-fun things, generally associated with asserting independence and opinions-  cries that say “I want that and I want it now!” or “Mom, why are you setting me down when I know you can brush your teeth while you’re holding me?”. I’ve noticed that we have far fewer pictures of the last few months, largely because when I pull out the camera, he wants to grab it instead of being in a picture.

We bought more plastic bins last week, to hold the latest round of outgrown clothes. They’re lined up next to the infant car seat, the baby bath tub, and the sleep positioner. Each item had a period in which it was essential, and now they wait to be needed by a someday-little brother or sister.

Remembering all these changes suggests that maybe this first year hasn’t gone by as fast as it feels. I can’t wait to see what the next year will hold!

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Since Tate’s first birthday is this week, we’re in celebration mode! I’m excited to share this huge list of birthday freebies from Mommy’s Wish List. These restaurants all offer something free on your birthday, or when you sign up for their membership club. I just registered at Chili’s (free chips and queso, my favorite!) and Maggiano’s, which is where we celebrated my birthday last year.

I’ll add one of my own, that I look forward to enjoying every year: Caribou Coffee gives you a free drink, any size, on your birthday. I recommend a large Caramel Cooler- mmm!

Photo Courtesy:
Theresa Thompson

We celebrated Tate’s first birthday this weekend with a family party. Amazing to think it’s already been a year since the same group was at our house to welcome him into the world! That day, we had Tater-Tot Hotdish to celebrate our little “Tater-Tot”. (Here’s a recipe in case you don’t know what that is, i.e. you don’t live here in Minnesota).

This time we had regular tater-tots along with our “down on the farm” lunch: beef sandwiches, corn on the cob and green beans. It was inspired by these cute Old MacDonald party supplies that I found online at Parties 4 Kids. Old MacDonald is one of our favorite songs- for me, because it magically makes Tate stop crying when he’s unhappy in the car or on the changing table.

We had one cake for singing Happy Birthday, blowing out the candle, and for the adults to eat. You’ll notice that candle-blowing required an assist from me, which for some reason ended up like one of those old Primatene Mist commercials. Seriously, three tries and it wasn’t a trick candle! Maybe I have parenting-induced asthma. And yes, one of Tate’s favorite toys is a bag of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. Had he not been allowed to hold it, these pictures would have included tears even if we sang Old MacDonald instead of Happy Birthday. The magic has limits.

Tate’s “smash cake” was courtesy of a local grocery store chain that offers a freebie on a child’s first birthday. (Smart move on their part, since we bought the big cake there too.) As you can see, he did a pretty good job of devouring it! Who needs party games when you can sit around and watch this? In retrospect, it would have been wise to take off his cute farmer shirt and overalls before cake-time.

How was the post-frosting sugar high, you ask? Well, we’re relatively new parents, but wise nonetheless…we went to a wedding right after the party, while Granny & Grandpa took care of Tate. I think we owe them one, but everyone seems to have survived pretty well!

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The “Terrible Twos” are famous, or perhaps infamous is more appropriate. (Laugh along with me if that makes me think of The Three Amigos.) With Tate nearing his first birthday, however, I feel like we’re getting a little preview. Generally he’s a happy guy, playful, inquisitive and loving. But every once in a while, there’s a flash of Angry Tate.

Angry Tate appears when Normal Tate feels very strongly about something and Mommy doesn’t feel the same way. It’s a little Jekyll and Hyde-esque. For instance, last week Normal Tate wanted to hold Mommy’s coffee cup. Mommy was willing to let him have a sip of her coffee (remember, no judging other mommies!), but not to let him hold the cup. Enter Angry Tate, stage left, with screaming, flailing around, etc. Lovely.

Remember when I told about my mom and her friend, advising that babies don’t like it when their mommy is on the telephone? Well, the modern equivalent appears to be that they’re not big fans of emailing either. For his entire life, I’ve at times caught up on email while nursing Normal Tate. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but today in the middle of our multi-tasking, he decided to bite me. I told him sternly not to bite Mommy, and set him on the floor. COMPLETE meltdown, including Angry Tate making fists and turning red in the face, he was yelling so loud. Wow! Maybe we’ll just focus on one activity at a time for awhile, but that was ridiculous.

I’m hoping this is just a phase- a short one! If there was any area in which I hoped my son would be advanced, it wasn’t entering the Terrible Twos a year early! Has anyone else had a similar experience? What worked for you?

Photo Courtesy:
Yogi
Upsilon Andromedae

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Confession: Tate is often shoeless. He has two very cute pairs, but he doesn’t often wear them. My husband thinks this is why he’s not walking yet, and admittedly he slips around on our hardwood floors in his stocking feet. Even when we leave the house, I rarely put on his shoes. He was barefoot all last summer. My friend jokes about Tate’s “sans shoes” fashion statement. 

Maybe if I had a girl it would be different- my niece has bazillions of pairs of shoes, and always has just the right pair for every outfit. Okay, that may also be a reflection of her stylish momma. But I think little girls do lend themselves a bit more to accessorization.

It could be that I’m getting my “girl fix” in other ways. Confession #2: I love to dress up my envelopes. Both Tate’s birth announcements and our Christmas cards had return address labels and envelope seals that matched the enclosure. The addresses are written with a matching pen for the finishing touch.

I’ll admit to being pretty sad that the United States Postal Service chose a primary-color nutcracker design for this year’s holiday stamps, which completely threw off my aqua and lime green palette. Don’t even get me started on the pink monstrosities I had to use on my green and black wedding invitations…

Anyone else out there love a pretty envelope? There are so few occasions for which real mail is sent nowadays, it seems a shame not to make them all they can be. Check out these adorable options for envelope seals and return address labels:

There are lots more designs online to match your birth announcements, shower invitations, holiday cards and thank you notes. Have fun playing dress-up!

Photo Courtesy:
USPS

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