Friday, February 9, 2024

4.5 months

Baby updates: we have a rolling boy! He started going from belly to back a couple weeks ago and then on Monday he just decided it was time to start rolling back to front. So he did! Now he's obsessed with rolling and hates being held or put in any kind of contraption. He just wants to be on the floor, rolling free. Even when he should be sleeping (sigh). Amazing how these transitions just click one minute and then you have a baby who won't stop moving. 

I'm slightly dazed by this development, actually, because Jonah didn't start rolling until he was almost 8 months old. Looking back on it now, that is sort of incredible! For 8 months I could just set him down and be confident he wouldn't move — how amazing! Not going to have this luxury with Gabriel, alas. But on the plus side the doctor won't be vaguely concerned about motor delays this time. Though I'm sure they'll find something else to worry about. 

I'm back at work and generally happy about it, apart from the regular annoyances of working with other humans. I think I'd be able to withstand the day-to-day annoyances with more grace if I was getting more sleep — Gabriel may have mastered rolling but he's not quite mastered sleeping. Last month was awful. Last night was also awful. He's started slowly improving but it's not consistent enough to be of much help. I hate this part of parenthood. Sleep deprivation is torture. 

The baby sleep accounts on instagram are stalking me. I'm trying to ignore them! I still think it's quite cruel to promise a sleep deprived person that if they just figure out their baby's nap schedule everything will fall into place. That's telling someone if they learn to fly they'll get places faster. No shit! If I knew my baby's perfect nap schedule and actually had the power to execute it I'm sure my life would be perfect. Unfortunately, I live in the real world where my baby goes to daycare and I'm thrilled if he sleeps for 40 minutes at a stretch. 

Monday, December 18, 2023

12 weeks

Gabriel is 12 weeks today. He's a cute little guy, smiles a lot and has recently discovered that he has hands and can make them do things. He's got a bit more hair now, but we still can't really tell what color it's going to be. And we still can't tell if his eyes are going to be blue or brown. 

Sleep, uuuugh. I forgot how hard sleep deprivation gets by the third month! He's doing well overall, but man, I am tiiiired. I would sell a kidney for a week of good sleep at this point. He slept 10 hours straight a few nights ago and I felt like I had a whole new brain. It was glorious. Alas, it has not been repeated. 

He's turned into an excellent napper, though, regularly doing multiple 2 hour naps a day. It's lovely, but now I'm worried he's sleeping too much during the day and therefore waking up more at night. Sigh. I tried explaining "wake windows" to my mother and she was so confused. What did they do back in the 80s? Did they just, like, let the babies sleep whenever?!? In any case, Gabriel is starting daycare in a few weeks and naps will be terrible there so I won't have to worry about this "problem" for much longer. 

Jonah is turning 3 at the end of the month, which is hard for me to comprehend. He is a huge amount of fun now, but also an epic pain in the butt — he whines and cries and has a meltdown now over every tiny problem. This morning there were multiple rounds of tears: first, I did not let him eat an unlimited number of graham crackers. Second, I had the audacity to tell him he couldn't wear his winter hat to daycare (because it's 61 degrees outside). Finally, he was unable to zip up his coat by himself. So many tears! But he also told me he loved me and asked to cuddle, so does it even matter?? 

Thursday, November 16, 2023

month two

Rapidly closing in on 8 weeks of babyhood. The major headline this week: he now coos and smiles occasionally! This is when things start getting better for me; I enjoy my babies much more once they smile. He's doing well at night too, generally going 6 hours for the early stretch, though unfortunately that stretch starts at 8pm. I know there will be regressions but I can just begin to see a light at the end of the sleeping tunnel. Hallelujah. 

Poor little guy has already had two colds, both brought home by his brother from daycare. Baby sneezes and baby coughs are so adorable and so, so sad! This is yet another difference between covid and non-covid babies: Jonah wasn't sick at all until he was about 6 months old, even after he started daycare. Though of course he just caught everything later on, and is still catching everything. But it hits different when they are so little. 

I cannot believe that Thanksgiving is next week. How is it not still October? Speaking of illness: last Thanksgiving we cooked an huge meal and I baked two pies and Josh and I both came down with a terrible stomach flu. Fortunately for Josh he started feeling ill before he ate anything. Unfortunately for me, I did not. The charming experience of puking up Thanksgiving dinner appears to have put me off the holiday entirely. I have no desire to do anything this year except order takeout. (Or maybe it's just that I have an infant?)

Weirdly, I have become less and less into holidays since I've had kids. I feel like it's supposed to be the reverse? Maybe once they are older it will feel more like fun and less like an enormous hassle. I keep seeing all these ads for matching family holiday pjs and it makes me feel as though I am visiting from another planet. Do people really spend money on matching pjs and then wear them together? This was not a thing people did before social media, right??

Saturday, October 21, 2023

month one

Baby G is four weeks old on Monday. Amazing how having a newborn is simultaneously exhausting and also mind-numbingly boring. It helps to know firsthand that they do eventually become more like people and less like blobs, but man, time sure does drag during these first months. 

My blob baby right now looks like a sad blend of hormonal teenager and elderly man. (He has acne, greasy skin, and a receding hairline.) He's not going to win any cute baby contests. And when I say things like this, the baby people look highly scandalized. I'm sorry, baby people! I respect the fact that you enjoy everything about these little blobs, but that doesn't mean I understand you. I do love my baby, I just don't think he's super cute or interesting right now. Sue me. 

(Secretly I think people who really love babies have tyrannical souls: what sort of person so enjoys having complete authority over totally helpless blob creatures?)

Other than the boredom, the most trying thing about having a newborn is having a newborn and a toddler. Someone on Instagram somewhere said that having a first kid is an existential crisis, but having a second kid is a logistical crisis. This rings quite true so far. The hardest part of the day is toddler bedtime, because it inevitably coincides with the baby having a meltdown while Josh makes adult dinner. I only have two hands! I cannot feed the baby in a dark quiet room while also giving Jonah a bath and reading him a book. 

So far in these scenarios the baby loses, because the baby doesn't really know the difference and he can cry for 15 minutes without it being a huge problem. But once the baby becomes more like a person I think this will become even harder. 

To his credit, Jonah is taking all this like a champ. He's not super interested in the baby, because the baby doesn't do much, but he clearly likes him. He's always giving him hugs and "helping" me give him a bottle. So far he's a very good big brother, but we'll see how it goes when the baby is old enough to want to play with his toys! 

Nights aren't great, though he did give me a five hour stretch a few days ago! It was amazing. I have no idea what caused it, but I'm hoping it gets repeated soon and often. 

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Birth

Back in March I wrote about how I never wanted to give birth again and now, having given birth again, I can reaffirm that yes, giving birth is terrible and I was right to never want to do it again. 

Don't get me wrong: this particular birth was far, far superior to the first one. Mostly because I entered the hospital at 8:30 on Monday morning and I had the baby out of me by 11:04am. Waaaay better than the 60+ hours I spent trying to get the baby out before the extremely painful surgery last time. 

And this c-section was not painful at all! I had a very frank conversation with the anesthesiologist before I went into surgery, where I basically told him that if I felt any pain I was going to put a hex on him and his entire family.  And god bless him because he understood the assignment, and I felt absolutely no pain at all. If anything he may have taken me a little too seriously, because I was so sleepy during the operation I could barely keep my eyes open. But I am not complaining! 

The baby apparently had no intentions of coming out the regular way, either. They checked me for contractions for weeks before delivery and up until a couple hours before I went into surgery – nothing, nada. Not even a little braxton hicks! It's so strange to have had two full term pregnancies and never experienced a single contraction. It's hard not to wonder what would have happened to me before modern obstetrics. Maybe I just have 43 week babies? Seems like a bad strategy! 

The c-section recovery has been about the same as last time, except for one hiccup: when I went into the hospital, I had a slight head cold. I didn't think too much of it, which in retrospect was really, really dumb. Turns out, coughing or blowing your nose while you have an abdominal wound is exceptionally unpleasant. 

Long story short: the cold festered while I was lying in a hospital bed for several days, and now I have a double ear infection. And while I don't think I've pulled any stitches from coughing, I'm sure it hasn't helped my recovery much. I'm on antibiotics and already feel better, thankfully. But going to urgent care for amoxicillin 7 days after giving birth was not ideal. 

My conclusion: I sincerely hope that I do not have to be back in the hospital for at least 40 years. 

In baby news: the little one is pretty good, as far as infants go! He's already sleeping for fairly long stretches at night, which actually I find somewhat disconcerting. I keep thinking that the other shoe is about to drop. Honestly, I find newborns very boring: cry, eat, pee, poop, repeat. But he's cute, and he appears to have dark hair like me, which makes me happy. His big brother is very excited about him, which also makes me happy. He calls him "Grabriel."

While Josh and I were in the hospital, my parents came to stay and take care of Jonah. When they arrived on Monday morning they took him out for pancakes so he wouldn't be upset as we were leaving. My mom wished me luck and gave me a hug. And Jonah, who is in a phase where he mimics people, turns to me and says in his little almost-three-year-old voice: "Good luck, Julia!" Cool as a cucumber. What a kid. 

Saturday, September 23, 2023

41 weeks

41 weeks today. So very, very tired. My back aches, my hips ache, I can't walk for more than 15 minutes without needing to take a break. There is no position — sitting, standing, or lying down — that is comfortable. I swear that I can feel my organs compressed into my chest — my poor, poor intestines. And, man, acid reflux is really disgusting. Have I mentioned I hate pregnancy? 

I have never been in labor so I don't know what it feels like, but apparently I have no obvious signs of someone who is close to being in labor. Given my current status, I really feel that this is highly unfair. At what point, exactly, does my uterus have a chat with my spine and my bladder and call it quits?? It's like my own body is taking the baby's side over mine — which, of course, is exactly what's happening. Biology is cruel. 

I have a c-section scheduled for Monday. My doctors wanted to do it earlier, but I'm glad I waited until 41 weeks because I am now uncomfortable enough that a c-section will feel like a relief. Even if it's as painful as last time, at least it will be over in about 20 minutes and I can be done. 

It's really a bummer to be one of those women who stay pregnant way longer than necessary. This baby could have been born perfectly fine and healthy three weeks ago. At that point I was feeling ok and excited to meet this new person, and now I don't really have the energy to think about anyone but myself. Intellectually I know that the baby is whole point of all this, but the animal part of my brain is taking over now, and all the animal wants to know is when this will end.  

I've been trying to make myself feel better by remembering that these are the last few hours I will ever be pregnant. And that the next time I'm feeling this terrible, it will be because I'm actually ill, and no one will expect me to be happy or excited about it. I do find some comfort in that. 

Thursday, September 14, 2023

Almost 40 weeks

40 weeks on Saturday. I can now definitively say that the first and last trimesters are tied in terms of disagreeableness. There is just something so tedious about having all your organs compressed and a baby's head sitting in your pelvis for weeks on end. You can never quite catch your breath, or sit comfortably. Or stand comfortably. Or walk comfortably. More succinctly: I am uncomfortable.

Last time, I was anxious for it to be over, which is why I was ok with being induced at 40 weeks. I wasn't particularly nervous, just impatient. Now I am in the unfortunate position of wishing fervently for it all to be over and also dreading the ending. It's like wanting a reallllly terrible movie to finish, but also knowing that someone is going to stab you as soon as you leave the movie theater. I know that I eventually have to leave the theater. All I can do is hope the assailant has a very small knife. 

Being this pregnant, everyone has started to tell me their birth stories. My mother is a repeat offender. She loves to tell me how she, my aunt and my grandmother all had babies three weeks past their due dates. Her point (I guess?) is that late babies run in the family, though I have explained to her many, many times that no doctor would allow this today. I have also reminded her that dating a pregnancy is a bit more sophisticated now, what with ultrasounds and all. Her response: there's no way that all of them were wrong in their due date calculations and I have no idea what I'm talking about. 

Other than my mother, I don't mind hearing people's birth stories. They are all entirely unique, which I find reassuring. It's also sort of fun to hear about someone's precipitous labor, or their water birth, or the time when the nurses forgot to insert a catheter. I mean, when else do people share this level of personal information with you?! It's highly entertaining. It's also sort of gratifying to see the look of horror on everyone's faces when they learn that I had a c-section after a failed induction that lasted three days. Veterans have their war stories, and I have this, apparently. 

It's so enticing to think that you can predict the future based on what happened in the past. But it almost never works that way. I am trying very hard to accept that I cannot predict how this will go. I don't know if I will go into labor before my c-section date. If I do go into labor, I have no idea what that will be like. And if I do have a c-section, I don't know that it will feel anything like the last one. 

I don't know anything, really, except that I will not be pregnant in October. And amen to that.