Birthstory

Dear Baby,

I am starting this tonight, a few weeks before your first birthday. I am feeling surprisingly sad tonight realizing how quickly you are growing! I just put you to bed in your own room for the first time and this is making me sentimental. It is bittersweet- tonight your dad and I have our room back for the first time since July 2, but it also means you are getting to be a big boy.

On the night you were almost born...
It was hot. The day had been about 30 degrees Celsius; the night wasn't much cooler despite all the fans blowing.
There were lights on everywhere in the house. We thought you were going to be born at home, but you had other plans.
There was a swimming pool in our dining room, but it was too hot and I didn't want to stay too long in the warm water.
Your dad was everywhere and always by my side at the same time. He was strong, yet scared. Me too.

Two days before you were born...
July 28th, at 7 pm, while lying in bed watching tv, my water broke. I panicked- did this mean I was in labour?
Your dad called Jane the midwife. She calmed us down. She said Relax, Sleep, it could be awhile before things started to happen.
We slept. At least I did, your dad said later he couldn't sleep much at all.

The day before you were born...
July 29th, around 730 am, Jane called to check on us. We discussed inducing, but I said no.
She said walk, drink some castor oil, start thinking of babies being born.
In the sweltering heat we took the dogs for a walk in Cowichan Bay. I waddled 2 kms, very uncomfortable. It was so bright my eyes hurt. It all felt very surreal knowing we would see you soon.
Mahone swam and swam in the water.
Later that day I drank the drink and it made me feel weird.
I mowed the lawn in the heat.
Still no sign of you.
We waited.
Around 4 pm you decided it was time to start arriving.
I watched more tv. Breathed through the pain. Started my hypnobirthing. We called the midwife. She came.

On the night you were almost born...
I listened. To hypnobirthing music. To midwives. To pain. To my strength.
I dealt with it. I kept going. I held on. I took breaks when I needed them. I resisted moving.
I walked down the driveway and back to shift you. So long. So painful. Each fence post a crutch through the surges. Your dad's hand.
Trying to be quiet in the dark.
Hoping for progress. None to be made. Using aaallllll my energy to make you budge. You didn't.

On the morning you were born,
Dawn, pale blue, pale gray, pale rose.
Driving through town. Not stopping at lights. Your dad controlled but fast. Jane right behind.
Hospital. Can't sit in the chair- who makes wheelchairs without padding????
Slowly walking to delivery ward. Stopping. Starting. Straining.
Arrive. Bed. First IV ever. It is ok.
Nurses, doctor, new faces.
Same old same old no progress only the same old same old
EPIDURAL.
Afraid of needles.
Scared.
But what could be worse? Pain is BLACK WALL. Harder to get through.
Tried to rip you from me, NOT RIGHT.
Kind man, anesthetist. Gentle. It is ok, needles. needles. needles.
What is this? Where is the pain?
I cry. Why? No pain. Black wall, black wall......... goooonnnnne.
Go ahead, get my baby!!!
Cheerful, happy, relieved.
Your dad? Happy, there again (disappeared for a bit while I was in my head). Woozy, seeing things I can't.
Fourth? time lucky, you are HERE. In my arms, slippery. Blonder. My boy, my boy, first glimpse. Dad it is our boy!
I love you I love you I love you

Mom

Walking around the house

The baby is independently walking around the house now- has started only over the past few days. Has gone from standing up at a table to navigating from table to chair to couch to....door, oh my gosh almost out the screen!!!! Yep, have to suddenly watch very closely and have started to move ANYTHING that he shouldn't be into. Electrical cords, computers, papers, any non-board books (he eats the paper pages).

Baby's first birthday is fast approaching and we are having a big hoopla. Mostly family and a few friends, big and small. We hope it will be a nice day and are planning to go to the beach and have a bbq.

Mr W is still working 5 days a week in Vancouver. He has been there almost 3 months! We are surviving on both sides. Makes it harder now that the baby can quite clearly say "Hi Dada!" (and to the right person!). Baby was playing with the cell phone this morning saying "Dada! Dada!" when Mr W phoned. I answered and I think the baby was just too overwhelmed by it all and sat down and started crying. Good thing Mr W comes home tonight :)

I have been busy looking for bits of work. It is tough, I seem to get extra stressed about work right now. I have no plans on how I would work if I got any- i.e. no daycare lined up. I don't even want daycare. Mom says she will help out, so I think I will also look for a nanny. Of course I say that but have made no move in that direction. I feel he is too little to be in daycare a few mornings a week, but lots of kids are in daycare at that age. If I have a choice, I think I will try and find an alternative in the meantime.

On the creative side, I made a book for baby's first birthday, based on a song we sing. I also am still knitting up a summer top in the hopes I might get to wear it soon! Will post pics if I do.

Baby Talk

The baby seems to go through talking phases. One week he is screeching loudly, pleased with how loud he is. The next he is content to babble away to me, his favourite words being Dadada dada and Bababa. When I point to myself and say Mama he occasionally will make a sound that a mother might think is "mama" but I am not sure he gets it yet. Sometimes when he sees the dogs though he says something that sounds truly like "Dogggssssss!"
He also sings. He has been singing since he was only a few months old. The first time was when his Grandma was rocking him to sleep singing "Hushabye Hushabye Baby" and he started quietly saying "heh heh heh" along with her. These days he turns on the music on one of his toys and does something similar but with a lot more confidence.
I didn't teach him sign language. Partly because I think we communicate pretty well. If he is really thirsty he moves his mouth a certain way (or grabs my breasts for milk... not so cool). If he is tired he rubs his eyes. If he is bored he starts hollering at me and looking at me pointedly (Mom my toys are sooooo boring!!). If he is hungry he lets me know too. We communicate. He understands what I am telling him more each day. Pretty cool :)

Shhhhhhhh, the baby is sleeping!

Yes, there have been some changes around here. But only recently. Up until two days ago I was wandering around half crazed from lack of sleep, at times found staring off into space as I thought "So THIS is what being a little insane feels like", trying just to get through each day without too much stress and/or tears. Chocolate was my coping mechanism, amongst, of course, the support of my husband, friends and family. I knew things were bad when my friend phoned "just to check in" after a long chat about how little sleep I had been getting.

But not to jinx anything, I am not saying things have gotten all perfect around here, and I fully realize that I could once again have sleepless nights. I am just saying, things might be getting better (touch wood).

I was all ready to let the baby start to cry it out at night. I was shocked to realize that since I hadn't been doing that, I was actually parenting in a style I hadn't intended. Now there is nothing wrong with attachment parenting, I just hadn't intended to be following this method. But I was, and it was wearing on me.

Fortunately I got a very good book out of the library which outlined several reasons why a baby might not sleep at night, and one of them was because they are "Snackers" who are used to eating frequently throughout the day. The book suggested that I could try to spread meals out a bit during the day, with the result that the baby would want to eat less at night as well. Magic. Day one, I did this with no protest at all from baby, and the night was... better. He still woke up but I was able to pat him back to sleep very quickly in his crib. I fed him twice at night (rather than 4-6 times!). Day 2, last night, I only got up twice to soothe/feed. Oh my that is ok!

I have also stopped feeding him to sleep during the day. And what I thought would be a battle is really quite painless. He sometimes cries a bit, but not for very long at all.

This is all good timing because Mr W starts a job in Vancouver next week for the next couple of months. Meaning he will be away 5 days a week. Tough for him to do, but necessary financially. We are looking a for a place which won't mind baby and dogs visiting from time to time though so we can spend more time together than just weekends.

But yes, baby is sleeping so I think I will go catch up on my reading- I purchased Twilight the other day, and I am hooked!

Sleep

The past few months I have learned a few things about sleep. I CAN survive on much less of it than I ever imagined. That 3 hours at a time seems like luxury. That I can't nap during the day (I kind of knew that but I managed to sleep when pregnant). That babies sometimes sleep better as infants than when they are teething.

And that there is an emotional response to lack of sleep, which borders on insanity.

The baby is up an average of every two hours every single night. When much smaller he slept through the night, or at least for 4 hours at a time. Then his teeth erupted. Two on the bottom. Two on the top. Then two more on the top. Probably two more on the bottom too, but I am not sure. Comfort for him is nursing close to me at night. How do I deny this? How do I change this? Lots of advice on the internet, from moms who have gone through this before, but mostly just sympathy and reminders that "This too, will pass."

Mr W was away for a week, but now he is home and takes on some of the earlier evening feeds, which helps me. It is nice to only get up 2-3 times instead of 5 or 6.

So we are hanging in there, but sometimes I think barely. Good thing spring is on the way and I can mentally plan my garden in the wee hours!

A little bit debt free... or debt unburdened?

Today is the closing day for our refinanced mortgage. By taking advantage of lower interest rates, Mr W and I were able to refinance our mortgage, add $45k to the mortgage for debt repayment, and: 1) not increase our semi-monthly payment OR 2) not increase our mortgage term. I played the banks fairly hard I think. Once approved by ING at 4.34% I called CIBC where our mortgage resides to see if they could get us a better deal. They came back at 4.3%, which ING countered at 4.29%. In the end, ING was far superior in response time and customer service. CIBC simply dropped the ball - taking several days to get back to me with an offer, whereas ING responded within hours of my emails. ING also allows to pay back up to 25% a year without penalty, a huge advantage for us to eventually start paying our mortgage down.

So while we are obviously not debt free, the debt burden has been lessened. Our monthly debt repayments have been reduced by hundreds of dollars, and we are saving thousands and thousands on interest. We still have our government student loans to pay off, which now seems achievable. This will be our first debt goal. Our mortgage has amount is still considerably below assessed value too, just in case things start to fall in this neighbourhood. In 2008 our house still increased in value by 6%- a slow down, but not a downturn yet.

Ahhhh spring. Time for reworking the finances :) Mr W is also away welding (although it is -32 with windchill in Prince George- Nancy I guess everywhere slightly north is cold too? Especially compared to the south coast!) which he often does in the spring. My bulbs are up, and yes, today we have a snowfall warning!

Since I have been posting finances lately, and little about the little boy, here is a recent pic from one of our geocaching adventures.

On breastfeeding

I have had an awkward relationship with breastfeeding the little babe. I can`t say I love it. I can`t say it is the worst thing in the world. There are moments I hate it. Moments it is pretty cool. For the first six weeks it was the most painful thing - the baby wasn`t draining the milk (said the lactation expert) and so I was experiencing pain for several hours after a feeding. Now it is mostly better, although it still hurts sometimes. I like the convenience of it, I like how much the little one LOVES it. Does it keep him up more at night? It must, I am feeding him every 2 hours right now, though to be honest, he used to be a much better sleeper. I love it though, at those moments when I have him snuggled up to me and he is oh so content. Our little world is compressed into a little bit of space which is me and him. I don't know I am going to miss it when it is gone though.

And I must say I think that our society has gone a little too much "pro-breastfeeding" only in that you are made to feel very very guilty if you use formula at all. Yet I see many other mom's skulking in the formula aisle at Wal Mart too. After all, don't we all need a break? Doesn't Dad need the chance to bond with his son/daughter too? Yes, it is possible to pump, but when that was an option for me, it didn't give me the time away from my breasts and breastfeeding I needed (mainly when it was very painful to feed). Sometimes, it is best to leave all the guilt alone, and let people make the decisions for themselves that get them through the day I think.