My first month as a new mother

Poe Byron Jones was born October 13, 2009 at 9:19 pm after 22 hours of active labor and one week of inactive labor. He was 6 lbs 8.7 oz and 20.75 inches long. He now weighs in at 7 lbs 7 oz as of one week ago today and is already 4 weeks old. We spent the first week of his life at the hospital with him on antibiotics since he was born with a fever and higher than normal white blood cell count. I think this was due mostly to the cold I had caught a week earlier but wasn't quite over yet. The docs even informed me while I was in labor that I had a fever although I didn't notice it or feel sick from it. All his blood work and cultures came back negative so the docs are feeling bewildered as to why this happened in the first place. We got to bring him though once he was 7 days old and had received what the docs felt was enough antibiotics to be safe to bring him home and not have him become sick. He has been growing like a weed and gaining weight fast, and eating us already out of house and home. So much so, we've had to resolve to supplementing with formula just to keep up with him. He eats twice as much as what the docs say a kid his age should be eating on average. So much for waiting for him to be a teenager first, huh?

We have found he sleeps through anything, and I mean ANYTHING, from TV and the vacuum cleaner, to a video game war zone. Not even the sirens of an ambulance have woken this kid up. But if I set him down for a second lately, instant crying. Hence, I have been up all night with my little one attempting fruitlessly to try and put him to bed. But to no avail. If I'm not holding him, he isn't sleeping tonight. And yes, the pic above is how my son sleeps on a regular basis: head back, mouth open, hands behind head even. He sleeps like his daddy, eats like his daddy, and sleeps through most anything like his daddy. However, he is acting like me so I'm told, by getting upset every time someone sets him down. This kid is good so long as he is being held. My DBF and I are finding ourselves having to take shifts so that each of us can acquire that mystical thing commonly referred to others as 'sleep'.

My nephew is finding himself facing competition for attention at my mom's house for the first time as well. Life is tough as a 6 year old. He got upset for being told not to do something that could result in broken elephants and became more upset that my son was not yelled at alongside him. Well, my son being only 4 weeks old, can't very well start getting into stuff yet so naturally he wasn't in trouble. But then we got the sob story of a lifetime on how we loved the new baby more than him as a result. So we spent the next hour trying to explain to a 6 year old boy about newborn babies and why he got yelled at. This worked out well... sort of. He continued to cry at the dinner table even after we figured this was over. Apparently, we forgot the melodramatic side of the family is also genetic. We had to send him to his room until he was ready to eat dinner with us. And then the wails started. We thought we had a banshee in the house. So we couldn't help but quietly laugh at the attempts for pity all the while trying to make sure he couldn't hear us. He would only have wailed louder I'm sure. After a while of seeing this wasn't working for him, he decided he was ready to eat dinner. Never a dull moment with kids around...

And as for the pets in our house, we have yet to have a single problem with any of them. My cat thinks she can curl up in my son's lap despite the fact that she is bigger than him, and the dog thinks she is still the baby too. Remy checks on our son regularly, gives him lots of kisses, comes to get us if he's crying, and has even cuddled at his feet on the couch to nap with him. So much for Pitbulls being vicious, huh? So far she is only more protective of the house now that we have a baby around. I think she is going to be just fine.

A little bit longer....

Apparently, I'm one of those people other women are disgusted with. I've been in labor I found out since Wednesday afternoon or evening. And I misread things just a little bit as to when the baby is coming yesterday. I had my doctor's appointment like clockwork and was told I had started to dilate and efface and was at 1 cm.

Ironically, I had called my mom when we left the doc's office to give her the update since she had asked me to do so and told me they were expecting 3-8 inches of snow tonight and when she saw the weather report, she thought, yep, she's going to go into labor tonight. And such would be my luck afterall. Leave it to me to go into labor on the first big snow of the season.

Then, not more than 90 minutes after my doctor's appointment, I stood up off the couch and felt something wet on my leg. So I went to the bathroom to check it out and see what was going on. A tiny piece of mucous and an almost clear fluid with a pale brown tint was to blame. Because it seemed to be a slow and steady trickle, I thought, 'Yes! Finally! My water broke!"

So, thinking that it was finally time to go to the hospital and have my son, we rushed to target to pick up a few last minute items we knew we would need since my DBF had just gotten paid. We picked up an infant carrier while we were there since the two car seats we were given are more upright and would require the baby to be able to at least be able to support his head, along with some extra diapers, wipes, nursing pads, and a nursing bra for me.

We then proceeded straight to the hospital from there, while I'm making phone calls telling everyone it's 'time' since our family list can be a bit lengthy and they have all been waiting for this to happen. When we arrived, we parked in the long term patient parking area and got checked in. They gave me a room, hooked me up to a fetal monitor which again Poe repeatedly tried to dodge the whole time we were there and a monitor to check my contractions. My cervix was checked multiple times and they even took samples of the fluids leaking from me to verify if it was in fact amniotic fluid. I began losing my mucous plug we found out, along with 'bloody show' starting to appear.

In an effort to see if things would progress, they had me walking around the maternity floor for about thirty or so minutes and then checked everything again. I had barely gained half a centimeter at this point. I was then left on the monitors for quite a while longer and they even did an ultrasound to check the fluid levels around the baby, which turned out to be at a healthy level, and any fluid leaking my doctor said was from my cervix, not the amniotic sac like I had hoped. Naturally, I was a bit disappointed to find out the baby was not coming just yet.

I was having contractions, but none of them were strong enough to get things going and proceed into active labor. My mother had arrived shortly after we got checked in and kept looking at the graph printing out and kept asking me, "Can you feel anything right now?" And, for whatever reason, I told her I couldn't, it wasn't strong enough to be felt or cause any pain that would register on my radar. Naturally, she was disgusted with me since she felt every one of her contractions when she had my sisters and I. Knowing this, I commented how she was going to be jumping for joy when I finally did feel something. However, the whole time, the most I felt was a slight (and I mean very slight) achiness to my lower back and maybe occasionally an indication of soreness or a muscle tightening somewhere. But otherwise, absolutely no pain.

After being there for a good 4 hours or so, they decided to release me since both baby and myself were doing fine, but full on labor was not in the cards just yet. I was sent home much to my delight and disappointment. Delighted, because I was hungry and if it was labor, they were not allowing me to eat anything just in case. Disappointed because I would love to have this baby already. I was told if my water breaks or I start experiencing painful contractions, to come back to the hospital then. So now I'm at home, waiting for these contractions to actually progress, but unable to go walking around the neighborhood to try to speed things up due to the cold weather and unable to drive out to the mall to walk around either. I'm still hopefully actual active labor will set in before the weekend is out.