Month 3

Oh my friends and family, I miss you all. It's been hard keeping up with people. And it's not for lack of wanting, I just find that I don't have too much to talk about. I can tell you the same things I put on here, that the baby is wonderful and cute. We're getting to the place where we can actually take her out and play with her, but only just. She's still a bit of a challenge outside the home. Homebody like her mommy! But she loves people when they come to the house. 

I've still not regained much of a fitness routine. I went running a couple times and it felt horrible and amazing all at once. I miss it. I miss the slog of true, physically challenging work. Yes, yes, carrying a baby for many hours and all her baby stuff is definitely challenging, but, well, you know what I mean. Running will fall into place - I wish it would get here faster. My reading is still slacking too, I'm watching more TV than ever with these late nights. Thank god for Grey's Anatomy and Doctor Who. I'm sure I'll delve into Netflix soon to pass the wee hours of the morning. If you're wondering what hours I speak of, it's 1:30, 2:30, 4 and 5. And then the day starts. Oof. Ed does a great job of helping us get through the morning, making breakfasts and getting her changed, while I try to transform from zombie to mommy again. A Mombie. 

Speaking of Ed, he's still very well. Working and being an amazing dad. I think I've definitely got a daddy's girl on my hands. The two of them talk forever and he definitely has better idea of what she likes to wear. I love catching them together, cooing and making silly faces. 

My cousin was here for a visit and it was awesome. It's so nice just having a friend around, especially one that Elise loves to death. It was adorable. You'll see plenty of the pictures below. On Tuesday my mom switched places with Kate and she's here for a bit before going down to visit my sister in L.A. I can't wait to post pictures of the adventures of Omi and Elise... She has all sorts of workouts and adventures planned for this baby. Poor Elise :)

 What We Are Like:
Such a happy girl. Everyday gets more normal in terms of naps and schedules. There's not a schedule yet but I know it's coming around. That is a hugely amazing thing. She loves people - when we went to vote in the primary, she was smiling at the polls and talking to people.

We Like:
* Our two fingers. We haven't picked one hand over the other, but as long as we get two fingers to suck on, we're feeling good about life.
* Mobiles and hanging toys. She's soooo close to reaching things consistently. The other day she held a rattle for a few minutes and swung it around. It's the little things folks, they are amazing when a baby does it.
* Talking to family on facetime. She seems to recognize voices more and notices the funny pictures in the phone or ipad.
* Our "friends" with big eyes - Mr Starfish, the yellow dangly stroller bee.
* Makin' a whole lot of noise. She's a pretty expressive vocalist. I'm definitely pushing the 'mama' on her. I'm sure she'll end up saying Mum or some other British inflected word in 6 months thanks to all the Doctor Who.

We Don't Like:
* Still not into tummy time. It's getting better when I do it with her on my chest.
* The mall. I attempted an excursion during the day and it was just so loud, so many people. Even in her covered stroller, it was way too much. Ah well.
* Car rides. Still. Womp. This makes me sad because it would be so nice to take her out places more. I try now, but it means bracing myself for a really ugly experience one way, sometimes both ways, to whatever venue.

Not Sure About:
* Still not a fan of my singing. Someone said that might change... at 6 years old. Crimany.

And now the picture smorgasbord! I tried to organize them in some semblance of order but it gets hard with so many....

This is our reaction to photo shoot time being over:

Some of our favorite things! Muslin swaddles, wubbanub and our starfish puppet! They are piled on top of her because my helpers had had enough of being bossed around during the photoshoot :)

 A little visit from Dad and Debbie!

And then Kate came to visit!

Facetiming with Great Uncle Tom

 

Slowly but surely growing our crazy hair on our peanut head like I did.

Kate even bought us our first super frilly cupcake like dress. I think she kinda likes it!

This picture was from the day we went to get her birth registered. So Elise is an official citizen in the states now! We had to dress her up. I had wanted to take a picture after we signed everything, but a meltdown was in the works so we scuttled out of there right quick. The sweater was ???

The beginning of the transition to the crib... Not going horribly so far...

Finally put up Mom's beautiful embroidery piece that she started for me as a baby and finished for Elise. I adore it.

Sonoma for the day! My first extended time away from the baby. Kate and the wine were very helpful with the anxiety. :)

Brief pass through on the beach... Kate ran to the water to check out how cold it was, reported back, it was indeed very cold.

And to round it out, this is post photo shoot :)

Month 1

Boy has time flown by here! Hard to believe my family has all come and gone at this point. I think our next visitors aren't slated until June? I'd say that seems so far but time holds no meaning anymore. This first month has really felt like one long day! I remind myself of what Gretchen Rubin says in The Happiness Project: the days are long but the years are short.

I'm writing this up pretty haphazardly so I'll be brief and let the pictures do most of the talking. Thank you to those who have sent diapers, clothes and other gifts - it's been so helpful. Who knew an amazon wish list could make things so easy!

And for our 1 month  update!

Don't worry it's not on - just showin' support for Dad's work!

It was not all smooth sailing with the photo shoot...

 What Are We Like:
* I looooove to laugh in my sleep. Im not a particularly smiley baby yet, but when those eyelids close, I have the funniest dreams and I chuckle and giggle galore.

(My heart wants to explode every time I get to hear it/see it)

* I'm still doing disposable diapers until I'm a bit bigger and then it's onto cloth diapers hopefully!

* Ive got a ton of energy. Mom doesn't know how I stays awake for as long as I do, but I do. And it's not for lack of trying to go to sleep either.

* Two types of sleep: Sleep sleep (0) & pseudo sleep (1). Pseudo sleep (1) generally occurs between 2am and 8am. I will coo, cry and move, but only for 5-10 seconds, then go back to Sleep sleep (0) for 15-20 minutes so that mom and dad can get some rest. Basically, I'm a very noisy kid!

What We Like:

* Music, although, not necessarily mom singing it.

* "Yard Time" - we let her lay out unswaddled and just dance. She especially likes this when it's sunny outside

* Cat naps. Usually, less than 5 minutes, but sometimes as long as 15! Just long enough to get very little done.

* Sunlight and fresh air. We love our walks and staring out into the patio on bright sunny days.

* Staring at nothing on the wall or ceiling and freaking out Mom and Dad in the middle of the night.

* Food. So much food! We've already had a couple growth spurt days that required hourly feeding. That was... intense. But our socks are already fitting better - it's amazing to actually see milestones of her growing like that. Socks that fell off in minutes before now stay on all day!

What We Don't Like:

* Sleep. This baby... the first 3 1/2 weeks were pretty rough. We had many days where the cumulative amount of sleep had by all (baby included) was ~4hrs. That's right, a mere four hours from midnight to midnight. You may have read newborns sleep on average 16 hrs. We didn't even care if it was 'through the night.' We just wanted sleep and it was oh so elusive. We're finally coming around in this 2nd month to something more normal... but good god was that hard.

* Clothing. We're a diapers and socks only kid. And that's mighty ok in this household!

* Baths. We're getting better here, everyday she's a bit more tolerant of the process. I hope she likes being immersed in water and swimming in the near future

We're Not Sure About

* The swing or bouncy chair. Everyone said these would be lifesavers but she would have none of if until the past 3 or 4 days. Who knows. 

* Our bassinet. It's been quite hard convincing this baby to sleep in her pack n play. She much prefers sleeping with Mom, the couch or most recently, the swing. 

* The cats. She's not aware of them but they love to watch over her. Rosie is particular will standby to help if Elise seems upset or is kicking a good deal. 

* Car Rides. These are hit or miss. There's little else as stressful as driving with a crying baby and being able to do nothing about it.

Ed and I keep saying it, we're very lucky to have such a great baby. The sleeping thing is hard, but she's really not a crier or screamer. She's tolerant of our flubs and she never startles unless she does it to herself (mostly sleep jerks). Even when she occasionally bites a nipple and I yelp and curse, she contentedly continues as if nothing happened. A very sweet baby indeed.

Otherwise, Ed and I are hanging in there. Trying to sleep when we can. Ed is keeping the coffee industry afloat. I was surviving on candy bars (twix and snickers mainly) for 3 weeks to give me energy at 2am. 

Also, we finally recieved a garden plot from the community garden. Great timing considering we started a ton of seedlings when my mom was here. 

I'm working on a list of products we've found valuable this first month, for the next post. I really found opinion pieces like that helpful when I was combing through blogs I like, looking for baby advice.

 Til next time!

Elise's Birth Story

Ok ya'll, I'll try to keep the tmi to a minimum, but let's be real here, it's a birth story so... it's not all rainbows and sunshine and glitter. I'm half writing this for myself, to not forget how it went down, and half writing this for other women interested in having a home birth that may stumble upon this account.

So, I'd say things really started Friday, March 14th around 9am. I had been up for awhile after sending Ed off to work and mom and I decided to go for a walk. At some point I started having painful cramping and we started doing the usual exercises to lean into the sensation - lunges, squats to look at flowers and snails...

Squats at the end of our walk

We'd been doing these every night and I'm sure the neighbors got a real kick out of a hugely pregnant lady doing things seemingly straight out of the ministry of silly walks. The cramping wasn't regular and I was too nervous to say anything was really happening. I chalked it up to Braxton hicks. Carolyne, Joe and Emilia were due to meet us for lunch at Apple main campus so we made our way over. I had intermittent pains during lunch... Joe said he thought he was the only one really concerned I appeared to be in labor and that this baby was just gonna pop out at Apple HQ! I told Ed I would let him know if anything happened, but he made an executive decision and came home early not long after that! 

After lunch we decided to go for a swim with everyone because it was a really beautiful day. I think when the pains forced me to pause at the poolside wall in the middle of my laps, I knew it was possible this could be it! So I did a couple more laps and we all started to make our way home. 

I can't remember what I did for the next couple hours... Ed and I watched TV (I remember not enjoying any of the shows that involved yelling and preferred funny shows). We had dinner... Nothing crazy happened, just worked through the pain. But around 6 or 7 things became regular enough that I felt confident saying I was truly in labor so I called my midwife to let her know.

My midwife actually had another birth going on at the same time so when she did finally stop by around 10, she said it seemed pretty early and that I should call her when my contractions were longer, more intense, when my water broke, etc. Fun fact - some women have contractions that don't get longer! Mine stayed a solid 1 min long from beginning to end. The pain was as promised though...

So, we went back to listening to James Taylor on the record player and I kept laboring away. I felt so noisy. I was a big fan of the moaning noise to get through. The pain was getting pretty intense and I could feel it moving from my back to front to both areas. I tried getting in the shower two times and that only worked for me the first time. I really wanted the birth tub to be set up but we had to wait for the midwife to return and well, spoiler alert, she didn't come back in time for that!

It all gets really fuzzy for me after midnight to be honest. Mom and Ken had been babysitting Emilia and came back around this time. (Ken spent the rest of the night listening to the craziness from their room upstairs - you're a trooper Ken!) The pain was breathtaking and it was all I could do to fall to my hands and knees and try to moan and rock through it. I was hot and cold and had the shakes and was so tired. Mom and Ed would try to prop me up with their bodies but I would complain I was hot and they were crowding me :) Sounds like me right? At one point I woke up and Ed had his forehead against mine holding me up!

Mom encouraged me to try to lay down or lean to my side... Which turned out to be the one place I couldn't handle because as soon as I did that I immediately puked. There was a fair bit of stomach emptying at that point from the pain. This was around 2am. I couldn't keep any liquids down after that. 

I also had this Regina Spektor song stuck in my head and I kept trying to sing "ooooooopen" when I could form words. 

If things were fuzzy before, now they're just a blank for me. Around 4am Mom and Ed started asking if I was pushing and I realized I was starting to... At 4:15 my water broke. I was not disappointed in that moment - it was pretty much the dramatic movie moment I thought water breaking would be! At this point I'm told Mom and Ed started freaking out thinking they were going to have to deliver this baby on their own because we couldn't get ahold of the midwife. I remember asking for the tub and repeatedly saying "where the hell is the midwife?!" Around 445am the midwife and her assistant showed up and by this time I was on the floor flat on my back pushing this baby out. At 5:04am, Elise came out yelling at all of us!

I was in total shock at this point and immediately started shaking violently. I didn't realize that happened in normal labor - in class we talked about it happening to c-section patients, not in normal labor, so heads up ladies! Anyways, Elise was placed on my chest and for me, created a wall of screaming that made it impossible for me to hear what anyone said. I could, however, tell that something was a little wrong because there was a lot of tense shuffling and administering of shots and medications because I was bleeding "more than they would have liked." I don't know how long that went on but it felt like ages and the things they did to stop the bleeding were a pretty big and uncomfortable surprise. Uterine massage? I was prepared for that. Uterine sweep with gauze? I was not. Several massages (do not be fooled by the name), pills, shots and many tense minutes later and things started to get more under control. I don't know how long this went on, but I'm sure it felt like a very long time for Mom and Ed.

Obviously, it all worked out. I can't even say I was too scared because I was still just in shock and shaking like crazy, with a baby screaming in my face so I wasn't 100% aware. I won't go into the details of the rest, but I was surprised at how long the process was, involving clean up and stitch up and general just being awake post labor. I just wanted to sleep and be warm.

Getting her stats and stamp of approval :)

It all felt like the whole process happened very fast and generally, very much like what I expected. I'm so happy to have had the birth I wanted. I never got angry, only a couple times felt like crying from the pain, and mostly handled it better than I thought I would. I could not have done it without all the coaching and help from Mom and Ed. Ed remained calm the whole time and was super flexible about what I needed him to do, whether it was rubbing my back or just letting me hold onto him through the contractions. Even the midwife commented on how amazing they were and how lucky I was to have them helping me with so much love.

One of the reasons I was so stressed about being past my due date was that at 42 weeks the law has you moving from a midwife and home birth to an OB and the hospital. I truly did not want that at all after all our experiences at the hospitals with Ed. Hospitals are great places when you need them, but I really didn't think I needed that. So, thank you Elise for adding a little extra drama to the waiting game. I'm so happy she's here and so grateful for the experience. She's a brilliant handful and I couldn't ask for anything more. It's almost her 1 month mark and that will probably be the next post - updating on what she's like and how life is now!

P.S. If you're interested in homebirth, don't hesitate to ask me any questions, I'm obviously not too concerned with modesty here... I was offered advice from ladies who had done it and that guidance was invaluable. A big thank you to them :)

Elise Louise

She's here! Elise Louise Mitchell!

She started making her grand entrance Friday morning around 9am, March 14th and finally joined us at 5:04am on March 15th. 8lbs 10.5oz, 21 inches long. With enormous feet. I felt as if I recognized that one foot that was continuously in my side! And imagine my surprise when she came out with a full head of hair. It's hard to tell but she sure looks like Ed - a real California girl with blonde hair, blue eyes (for now), and skin that looks like it just might tan. Ill give a full account of her birth in a post soon, when I get another moment to write things out this week. For now I'll say it was a perfect homebirth without any complications - exactly what I was hoping for. 

Ed is responsible for the first name choice. It's from a song by The Cure, "Letter to Elise" which he can sweetly play for her on his guitar. I got to pick out the middle name, Louise, same as my own and my mother, originating from my great aunt Hazel who passed away in a car accident far too young. 

My new mantra is "one thing too many". Bathroom, shower, water refill and a snack? One thing too many. Sleep, pump, feed, and brush teeth? One thing too many. It's not always the same thing that gets sacrificed although often sleep is the first to go... But it's amazing how Elise seems to know that I'm trying to squeeze one last thing into her downtime and she'll pop right awake!

She's really perfect and we're such saps for her. It might sound weird but I even love her cry. She's one loud kid - came out crying, didn't even wait until she was all the way out! She sings to herself and coos, loves to dance and flail, and I just can't get enough of all of it. Except the part where she's not a fan of sleeping from 8pm to 3am - that's tough. One benefit to her taking her time making her arrival? She's amazingly alert. She just seems like an older baby all around. I look at her and already feel like there can't be enough time in all our days to witness her growing up as much as I want. Like I said, huge saps. :) 

The kitties have been great little guardians and just hang around keeping an eye on things.

Ed was such a great birth coach. Another birth story tease - the midwife didn't show up to help in earnest until 20 mins before Elise came out into the world and I had already started pushing. So for hours on end it was just Ed and Mom making do and they were incredible. Ed is an amazing dad (surprising no one, right?). He and Elise are so in love with each other. My mom and sister are still here helping and seriously, they've been invaluable. I'm so grateful they have the time and ability to be out here for such an extended stay.  I'll be incredibly sad to see them leave on Wednesday. We're enjoying every moment left and looking forward to upcoming family visits!

The view from the rental apartment in our complex where Ck is staying with Emilia

Omi and Elise selfies! :)

Emilia cooking her giraffe and super excited about it

Thank you to everyone who has expressed joy and love for our new addition. I'm a big emotional mess and all the sweet things you say get me every time. :) And so a little extra treat for you, here's my adorable (and comparatively so big and grown up!) niece seemingly taking her first real selfie: