Ryan: Month Two

Ryan's second month brought some fun developments for all of us.  Here are the highlights:

The biggest and best development of the month is that he started to smile - and not just gas smiles!  Ryan started responding to our faces and voices with sweet little baby smiles.  It really floored me the first time he recognized me: Matt was holding him and I walked by and said "hi baby!"  He lifted his head off of Matt's chest, turned towards me and grinned the biggest smile.  It was incredible!  It is so rewarding to have him recognize and prefer us - makes all of the hard work worth it :)

On top of that, he started to find his little voice during month 2.  Tiny coos and gurgles come out whenever he is calm and content.  He just sounds so sweet and amazing by everything when he "talks" to us.  Since I am writing this a month late, I suppose I could update and say the talking has only gotten more frequent and intense.  He cracks us up with his early morning vocalizations that sometimes border on excited yelling!  Love to talk to our little one.

Baths are another one that Ryan started liking in month 2 and has only grown to love more.  As a newborn, he despised bath time, so we limited it to every 3-4 days as a necessity.  Somewhere along the line, he made a hard shift and started really enjoying baths.  He kicks his little feet and smiles at his reflection in the mirror while he bathes.  Now we have made baths part of our nighttime routine before bed: bath splashing, lotion and massage, new PJs, then food and bed.  And for the 4th month update - now it is like being in a splash zone at Sea World when we give Ryan a bath.  He is crazy about kicking the water while he grins at me and Matt.

The ceiling fans became Ryan's biggest interest this month.  I had heard a few moms joke before about how much their kids loved fans and now I am seeing it first-hand.  He is crazy about all of the fans.  All of them.  No matter where we are, if there is a ceiling fan, he is smiling up at it like a fool.  Doesn't matter if the lights are on or off, or if the fan blades are moving.  Love.

He also started experimenting with finding his thumb this month.  We don't have much luck with getting him to take a pacifier, so we were excited at the concept of him being able to self-soothe with his hands.  It is really funny and cute to watch him try to coordinate getting his thumb to his mouth.  Most of the time, he would give up and just suck on his whole fist or whatever fingers happened to be nearest to his mouth.  He still hasn't perfected the thumb on a regular basis, but can get it from time to time as he lays down for naps.  We'll keep trying!

And finally, we got our first glimpse of his giggles this month.  Ryan was sitting on Matt's lap facing him while I was in the next room.  Matt started saying "boop!" in an excited voice while he tapped Ryan on the nose and brushed his cheek with his fingers.  Apparently that's hilarious to babies, because I suddenly heard adorable giggling and squealing and ran in to find both boys cracking up over the exchange.  Now it's become a goal of ours to get as many giggles a day as possible.  It melts my heart!

Month 3 update to come and then I will be caught up for now... :)

Starfish Hugs for Aunt Kim

Chillaxin

With his best bud Zev

Snuggling with Dad

Sweet Sleepy Baby

Little smiles

Hanging out in the Moby

Ryan: Month One

Let's be real, this blog is mainly going to be about our kid from now on.  Good thing he is changing a lot and we will have a lot to update!  The first month getting to know him and his personality were amazing.  Never have I ever felt so many different emotions within the span of a day or sometimes even an hour.  Exhaustion.  Fear.  Amazement.  Inadequacy.  Confidence.  More exhaustion.  Total and pure love.  It has been a roller coaster, but now that we are (well past) the other end of his first month, I feel like we are getting the hang of things and are able to enjoy him even more.

Maybe someday Ryan will want to read this and know what he was like as a little baby.  More likely, I will use this to look back and remember all of his milestones and all of the wonderful "firsts" and how they made us feel.  So this is my recap to Ryan of some of our most memorable moments for his first month on Earth:

• We called you our little Tomato Head.  When you would get upset about anything, you would work yourself up so much that your entire body would turn the brightest shade of red.  It was especially apparent on your little round head with the contrast of your intense blue eyes.  Your dad and I would joke with each other that we had to figure out what was wrong with you and meet your needs before you turned into a tomato, hence the nickname.  At five weeks, you grew out of this almost completely.  Call it a combination of you figuring out the world and not getting so upset over every little thing and us figuring out how to be parents to you.  It was a hilarious and sweet thing in the midst of some tough moments to see our Tomato Baby and I will always cherish that early memory.
• You snore!! It's not always incredibly loud and it's not all of the time, but when you are truly exhausted, you will emit the cutest little snores.  One morning, after I had been up all night with you and we were both at the end of our ropes, I woke your dad up to take care of you for an hour so I could get some sleep.  He took you out to the living room where we were keeping your swing, and set you in there to help you relax.  Apparently it worked, because you passed out and he got to hear your first snores.  He recorded it on his phone so I could listen when I woke up and I'm so glad he did!  It was adorable, and helped me get through that day and many others.
• We put you down on your "activity mat" with toy animals hanging from it every morning to play.  So far, your favorite is the Whale that sings the alphabet.  You love the ABCs and will pretty instantly calm when you hear the tune.  Twinkle, Twinkle also soothes you, as it is set to the same tune :)
• You get your dad a good calf workout with what we call the "Daddy Bounce."  We would spend a lot of our days trying to calm you by bouncing you, walking you around the house, swinging you and swaying you.  But the best way to get you to sleep when you are overwhelmed is to have Matt sling you into the baby carrier and do calf raises that bounce you while you remain close to his chest.  We watch your little fists go from clenched to limp as it puts you right out so you can get some rest while your dad gets killer calves.
• You really hate being restrained.  All babies are supposed to love swaddling, so we perfected the tight burrito wraps that are supposed to help babies sleep longer.  You can't STAND having your arms restrained!  You scream and fuss until you can wiggle your arms out of the swaddle and put them on your face.  Once they're out, you seem a lot happier, so we gave up on the swaddle and now just put a light blanket over you while you sleep.  Car rides are not your favorite either.  I think you don't like the sensation of being buckled in and restrained.  We will have to work on this, since we have places to go and you can't walk anywhere in the Arizona summers! 
• Your little wobble head cracks us up and scares us.  You try to use your neck muscles to lift your head off of our chests, but your head is so heavy in proportion to the rest of your body that it bobbles around erratically.  A lot of times, you wind up slamming your head into our face or chest in an effort to get up.  But you are getting stronger every day and this won't be an issue for long.
• Holding you is probably the thing I will remember most from the time you were so little.  For the first two weeks, you would only sleep in my arms so I ended up spending the nights in our recliner holding you.  The rest of the waking day wasn't much different - I think I probably averaged about 20 hours a day with you in my arms!  But as tiring as that was, it was such an amazing bonding time for us as mother and son.  You were comforted by my touch, and I just loved having you close enough to feel your soft skin and smell your sweet hair whenever I wanted.  You didn't really recognize my face the first month, but you knew when I was holding you and you would relax and melt into my arms.  And I would look at your sweet face so much that Matt warned me I was going to pull a muscle in my neck from staring down at you!  

The first month, it was just so hard to believe you were real and really living with us and sharing our home and our lives.  We felt a love for you like we have never felt before, and each day brings us more and more joy.  Happy one month tiny tomato!

With big sis Jordan






Newborn photo shoot






Gas smiles still count as smiles!






Sleepy love

Our Family

Easter 2013

Welcome Ryan!

I wanted to get down some of the details of Ryan's birth while the memories are still clear in my head - although how can you forget the day that changes your life forever?!

The official due date that we were given by our midwife was March 4th, but she warned us not to latch on to that date since "most first time moms go late."  Still, we couldn't help but be excited and wait impatiently for our little guy to arrive.  The week of his due date came, and there were no signs that labor was going to start any time soon.  We went into the doctor's office for a well-check ultrasound and fetal non-stress test and everything seemed to look fine, which meant we didn't have to take any medical action at that point.  However, they warned us that if he got too close to 40 weeks, we would need to schedule an induction since post-term babies can have just as many issues as pre-term ones.  We didn't think that would be a problem, and figured he would be there any day, but apparently he was pretty content in his little belly home, because the next week rolled around and still no sign of labor.  We went ahead and let the midwife schedule an induction for March 15th, but I started to panic about all that induction entails.  I didn't want Pitocin that would make my contractions too strong, I didn't want to be hooked up to monitors from the very start of labor, I didn't want any of those things.  So we went home and tried every old wive's tale to start labor - eating tons of pineapple, walking around the neighborhood, doing squats, etc.  

When I woke up at 5:30 in the morning on Wednesday, March 13th, I felt some cramping in my belly.  Throughout the pregnancy, I had been worried that I wouldn't know the difference between Braxton-Hicks contractions (which I had been having for months) and the "Real Deal" contractions.  Boy, was I worried for nothing!  They were completely different, and I started to quietly get excited that things were starting up.  I laid in bed and started to time the contractions - only 7 minutes apart, then 5, then 5, then 6.  By 6:30 in the morning, I felt confident enough that I was in true labor to wake Matt up.  We got up, ate some breakfast, and emailed our work to let them know we wouldn't be in that day.  Then the fun hours laboring at home started.  Matt lit some candles and turned on the TV in our room and we sat on the floor, sat in the recliner, leaned on the bed, and just moved around with the contractions while we watched TV and tried to relax.  They really were not too terrible to start, and I was able to breath through each contraction calmly.  

Things started to pick up as the day went on, and I decided to get in the bath to relax better.  That was nice for a while, but then I needed to get up and lay down in the bed.  Matt suggested we do some lunch since we didn't want to go to the hospital starving, so he made us some smoothies.  For whatever reason, halfway through lunch, labor kicked in to high gear and I was having trouble focusing or breathing through the contractions as easily.  Matt got out the timer and the contractions were only 2-3 minutes apart and lasted over a minute each.  So he quickly packed up the rest of our hospital gear into the car and off we went to the Mercy Gilbert Medical Center.  The car ride was not bearable, but waiting to check in to the hospital was a true challenge for me with the hard plastic chairs and the constant questions :)  Once we made it up to triage, they hooked me up to the monitors to get a look at how we were progressing.  Contractions were strong and regular, but when the nurse checked me, she declared that I was only dilated to a 3.  She asked how we felt about walking around the labor floor for about an hour to move things along, but it was really more of an instruction than a question.  So that's what we did.  Walked around slowly, stopping every 10 feet or so to lean against the railing through a contraction.  It was a miserable hour and I felt my enthusiasm and patience wearing thin.  

After an hour, I was so glad to go back to triage to hear how far we had progressed.  The nurse checked me.  Still at a 3.  I could have cried I was so disappointed.  The nurse called our midwife, who directed her to just admit us since I was 9 days past due and my water had already broken.  She suggested that I try a shower and then re-evaluate my need for pain medication.  Into the shower we went, but the showers at that hospital were terrible!  All it did was make me cold and ruin my hair :)  Since I have had bad reactions to narcotics in the past, we decided to just go straight for the epidural.  Once the anesthesiologist got to my room (what seemed like hours later), I was dying for some relief.  The epidural was fast and the pain slowly started to melt away.  They checked me again and found out that I had gone from a 3 to a 7 in no time - oh the power of relaxation!  Once I could finally relax, we called and texted our families to let them know that it was baby day.  Kim stopped by to bring Matt dinner and coffee and to hang out with us.  She also curled my hair and did my makeup so I could look presentable in the photos that everyone would be taking - hooray!

Our midwife continued to check in on us, and around 8:30 said that she would come back at 10:00 (when she guessed I would be fully dilated and effaced) and we could start working on getting that baby out.  Sure enough, when 10:00 rolled around and she came in, it was action time.  They turned down my epidural so I could feel what I was doing and push more effectively.  And the midwife and our sweet nurse coached us for the next hour and a half as we worked that baby out of there.  As we got closer and closer to the birth, the midwife instructed Matt to either scrub his hands or put on some gloves if he wanted to catch the baby.  Matt quickly threw on some gloves and made it over just in time to help deliver his son.  It was unreal.  Matt put him up on my chest so I could get a good look at him and he was simply perfect.  He was warm and pink and squirmy and crying, just like a newborn should be.  Matt got to cut the cord, and then since there were no medical concerns, the nurse gave us a warm blanket to cover us up and just let us bond as a new family for a few hours.  We held Ryan and talked to him and kissed him and I was able to start nursing him right away.  

Once things settled down a bit, the neonatal nurse came in to give Ryan a bath and take stats on him.  The official measure:

• Born at 11:35 PM on 3/13/13 (cool birthday, right?!)
• Weighed 8lbs, 10oz (big baby)
• 21.5 inches long (tall baby)
• A score of 8 on his first Apgar, 9 on his second (healthy!)
• Beautiful blue eyes and a good amount of dark brown hair

After that, they tried to move us into the post-partum room to get some rest and recover.  But my iron levels had dropped too much, so I fainted on the way to my wheelchair and had to lay back down for a few hours - yikes!  Once we finally made it to the recovery room, Matt tried to get some sleep on the uncomfortable pull-out couch while I tried to nap through the dozens of people rotating through the room to take stats on me, stats on Ryan, etc.  We had to wake the baby up every 2 hours or so to eat since newborns are super sleepy and often won't get up on their own.  And Ryan was stubborn about it too - we had to dab him with a cold washcloth, tap him on the cheek, tickle his feet, and try every other trick to wake him.  Wish we had that same "problem" later on at home when he was waking up every 30 minutes crying :)  By the next morning when visitors started arriving, we were all 3 pretty wiped out.  But it was so nice to see all of our friends and family and introduce them to our new little love.  Friday morning, we packed up shop and headed to our house to start our adventure of raising our child.  So far, it has been incredible.  I feel so blessed and so fortunate to have this healthy, beautiful baby in our lives.  And a wonderful birth story with a very happy ending (Ryan) to fondly remember for our whole lives.  

Our family

Matt holding his baby

Sweet little guy

Aunt Kim

Alert little man

Heading home to start his life!