River is 4 Months Old

River is 4 months old. 

-He weighs about 15.5lbs according to our digital scale when he's naked.

-He is about 27 inches long.

-His hair is quite blonde and his eyes are blue.

-His bottom two teeth are playing peekaboo and causing him (and us) lots of grief. 

-He is always mouthing things and chews and sucks on his hands a lot. He also licks the floor a lot. 

-He’s even worse at taking a soother now. He just chews on it and can’t keep it in his mouth at all. 

-He’s still kind of a terrible nurser. His latch is good, and my supply is perfect (plenty but not too much), but he just doesn’t seem to like to eat. During the day it’s hard to get him to nurse every two hours. If he does, it’s for 1-2 minutes and then he’s cranky and fussy and won’t nurse for a long time, usually not until he wakes up from a nap and it’s been several hours since he last nursed. He has some good days, but overall it’s pretty frustrating. 

-Getting him to sleep at night is still a long process. Getting him to nurse before bed usually involves me nursing him while bouncing on the exercise ball next to loud white noise. He still won’t nurse in the rocking chair. It’s very annoying. Then I bounce him on the ball until he’s actually sleeping. Then I transfer to the rocking chair for awhile before I lay him in bed. 

-He used to always wake up and I’d have to put him back to sleep once or twice at the beginning of the night, but that rarely happens anymore. 

-At night he sleeps anywhere from 1-3 hours at a time.  We hit the 4 month sleep regression a week before he turned 4 months. For two weeks he was waking up and nursing every 1-1.5 hours. That lasted two weeks and now the past three nights he’s waking up every 2-3 hours. That’s a lot, but much better than every 1-1.5 hours. 

-He typically sleeps 11-12 hours at night (waking up to nurse many times). 

-He is a tummy sleeper and has been since about 2 weeks old. 

-Just days before he turned 4 months he’s stopped screaming in the bath. He still doesn’t love it but he doesn’t scream and cry anymore. 

-We babywear for every nap, with blaring white noise. I have laid him down in bed for some naps, but they are ALWAYS short  if I do that. 

-Just after he turned 4 months he seems to be down to

3 naps. One or two of them are usually long, and the others are short. 3 naps works a lot better when two of them are long, and sometimes he still has four naps. Four naps are hard to fit in the day, though. 

-His awake periods are an hour and 45 minutes to 2 hours. 

-He still doesn’t love being worn. On Halloween when we were trick or treating he was in and out of the Tula frequently. 

-He really enjoys everyone in our immediate family. He has giant smiles for all of us and small smiles for other people. 

-We try to make sure he has lots of time with Justin when he’s home, so he really likes him now. 

-He still really likes his doorway jumper for about 10-15 minutes as long as we’re sitting there with him. 

-He started rolling back to front at 14 weeks and does it automatically if you lay him on his back. His play at has become kind of useless because of that. He doesn’t roll from front to back yet. 

-He still loves diaper changes.  

-He rarely ever poops, which makes him painfully gassy and sharty, which gives him a rash from constantly having a tiny bit of poop in his bum crack. He usually only goes once a week. He recently went 15 days!  

-He wears Flip diaper covers with various prefolds, flats, and inserts. I prefer prefolds because it makes diaper laundry faster, but when he’s sharting a lot I use zinc cream on his bum and when I do that I use Birdseye cotton flats. 

-At night he wears a sloomb medium OBF with a Geffen Quick absorber on the outside and a Disana wool cover. 

-He is adorably talkative and shrieky and smiley. 

-We don’t need to blare loud music in the evenings to stop him from crying anymore!  Sometimes we have to play music to stop fussing but it’s less necessary than it used to be. 

Things are SO MUCH BETTER this month than they were at 3 months. He likes his dad, so I don’t have to juggle him by myself at all times anymore. We have some more peaceful evenings. He is much less fussy during the day. And when he IS fussy, it’s now typically for a reason (tired, hungry, gassy - he has a lot of painful gas because of his infrequent pooping). 

Just before 4 months I went through a really rough time. I was very depressed. I was kind of hating what I had done by having another baby.  I was always feeling tired of my life, tired of everything being hard, and tired of River. And I was  feeling really guilty about it. 

It got to the point where I felt I needed to go on medication. Feeling angry at my baby wasn’t okay. And then I realized I can’t make it to a doctors appointment because of River’s unpredictable “schedule”. And I’ve been through worse before. Last summer when my baby died and then I almost died, I was in deep depression and managed to pull myself out. So I was determined to do it again. 

I started meditating and reading positive quotes. I decided to pretend that every time my kid was fussy or crying that he was really suffering (instead of fussing and crying for no reason, like how he screamed constantly for no reason during colic). 

I’ve had a lot of healing to do from colic. I have some ptsd from it, and I had a lot of resentful feelings toward River. But writing this paragraph now (at 4.5 months) I’m feeling so much better. It still takes effort sometimes, but it’s a lot better. 

Overall River is a pretty happy baby now. He’s not exactly “easy,” but he’s so much better than he used to be and we all really enjoy him.  I’m really glad he’s part of our family!

100 Days

It’s been 100 days. 100 days since I pulled my little baby out of the water.  It was 3am, the big kids were sleeping, the midwives hadn’t arrived yet, and everything was calm and quiet. Labouring and giving birth to River all on my own was so peaceful and powerful. Nobody telling me what to do, or checking me, or suggesting I try a new position.  I was free to do exactly what my body and instincts wanted without thinking about it or being watched. His birth was probably the most amazing experience I’ll ever have, and I wish I could do it again. 

The past 100 days, though... I do not want to relive those. We have felt every single one of those 100 days, times three. River can be such an incredible delight, but also such a trial. The days of non stop hysterical inconsolable screaming are over, but they’ve left some pretty deep scars.  

It’s only this week that River has had some days where he acted a little more like a normal baby, and I remembered that babies can actually be nice to have around. Every day for 14 weeks I wondered why I wanted to do this again so badly.  It’s hard to explain the guilt and sadness I feel that this has been the case; and yet, I’m not sure how I could possibly have felt any differently considering what we’ve been dealing with. Yes, there were moments of great joy in those 14 weeks, but the overwhelming mood was misery. 

I really think I could use some counselling to help me deal with all these feelings, both toward myself and toward River.  Unfortunately he’s still impossible to plan anything around so that can’t happen right now. 

I’m looking forward to better days ahead. 

River is 3 Months Old

River was 3 months old yesterday. 

-He weighs about 15lbs according to our digital scale when he's naked.

-He is 25.5 inches long.

-His hair is quite blonde and his eyes are blue.

-His bottom two teeth are playing peekaboo. 

-He is always mouthing things and chews and sucks on his hands a lot. 

-He’s not good at taking a soother, even though it makes him happy when he does. 

-My oversupply issues seem to be under control, but River still doesn’t really comfort nurse because if he’s not hungry he can’t handle the fact that he’s getting milk. 

-He nurses on demand, which ends up being about every 2 hours. He isn't usually hungry more often than that. 

-He often has issues nursing in the late afternoon and evening. I often have to stand up and bounce him next to loud music to get him to nurse, even when he’s hungry. It’s so frustrating because he’ll scream because he’s hungry but then refuses to actually nurse.  And he’s never had a bottle so it’s not like it’s a preference thing. 

-He never ever nurses to sleep except in the middle of the night. 

-Getting him to sleep at night is way easier than it used to be, but it’s still a long process. Getting him to nurse before bed usually involves me nursing him while bouncing on the exercise ball next to loud white noise. He won’t nurse in the rocking chair. It’s very annoying. 

-I used to have to wear him to sleep every night because it would take an hour and a half to get him to sleep, but now it’s a little shorter and I cradle him while bouncing on the exercise ball until he falls asleep. Then I transfer to the comfy rocking chair until he’s MORE asleep, and then lay him in bed. 

-He used to always wake up and I’d have to put him back to sleep once or twice at the beginning of the night, but recently we’ve had more nights where that wasn’t necessary.  It still happens though. Last night he fell asleep pretty easily and I was pumped, but he woke up smiling right when I put him down. He thought he had a nap. It took 45 minutes of bouncing him on the ball in the Tula to get him back to sleep. 

-At night he sleeps anywhere from 1-4 hours at a time. The 4 hour stretches only happen a few times a week. Usually he’ll have his longest stretch at the beginning of the night and then be up every two hours, but sometimes he’ll do another three hour stretch and sometimes it’ll be as little as an hour. 

-He typically sleeps 12-13 hours at night (waking up to nurse many times). 

-He is a tummy sleeper and has been since about 2 weeks old. 

-I only give him a bath a couple of times a week now because he screams through every single one. But before every bedtime I always lay him on a towel on the counter beside the sink and wash his hands and face and diaper area. He really loves laying there and is really sweet and smiley even if he’s been crying up until then. But if I put him IN water, watch out. 

-We babywear for every nap, with blaring white noise. 

-Most of his naps are short 30 minute ones. He is definitely happier and easier to deal with when he naps longer, but unfortunately I can’t FORCE him to sleep. I would if I could. 

-His awake periods are about an hour and a half. 

-Just within the last week he’s not immediately crying as soon as I wear him. I’m using a different carry (front cross carry) and I don’t know if that’s it, but it’s only since I started using that carry with the beastly toddler worthy Pavo Trillium that he hasn’t started crying as soon as I wear him. 

-His contentedness is getting better but it’s still a challenge to keep him from fussing after the first 45 minutes of awake time.    

-He no longer immediately loses his mind when he’s with someone else. He likes being with me best but if he’s in a good mood he can handle a bit of time with someone else (just a bit). 

-He loves watching his brothers play.

-We just got him a doorway jumper this week, and he seems to really enjoy it for about 10 minutes as long as we’re sitting there with him. 

-He can go on his playmat and be entertained for about 5 minutes. He likes batting at all the toys and is getting better at actually grabbing them intentionally. 

-He still loves diaper changes.  

-He's been wearing AMP size small and Applecheeks size 1 with Geffen Baby xs and Thirsties size 1 hemp prefolds inside.  Just this week I’ve been sick of stuffing pocket diapers so I’ve pulled out our new Flip covers (the elastics are too relaxed on our old ones) and I’m using them with flats, prefolds, and inserts. 

-At night he wears a sloomb medium OBF with a Geffen Quick absorber on the outside and a Disana wool cover. 

-He is adorably talkative when he's happy. He has the most amazing smiles when he's happy. 

-He’s not grunting at night or in the morning anymore!

-He goes up nice and high on his elbows when he’s on his tummy (he’s shrieking with delight on his tummy as I type this). He can also travel really far when laying on the ground, although it’s not really purposeful. 

-We recently have been able to leave the house for very short periods (like half an hour) in between naps, so that’s progress. It’s only been a few times once in awhile though, and it’s still stressful. 

I don’t think colic is really behind us. If it weren’t for loud music and loud white noise River would still be spending hours and hours screaming every day.  But it’s better than it was. 

Things are not wonderful. Life is still hard. This week was especially hard compared to last week. But doing this update and comparing what things were like at 2 months to now, there has been improvement in most areas, even if it’s not vast. 

He brings me a lot of joy, and also a lot of... I don’t know how to say it without sounding horrible. It’s just hard with him. Very very hard. Hopefully things will keep improving!

It Will All Be Okay

I had a mental breakthrough yesterday with my friend, Laura. 

I was talking to Laura about how I feel bad for my older kids that we can't go out and do everything we would be doing if it was just the two of them and we didn't have a dragon baby. I was saying how the dragon baby would bother me less if I didn't feel bad about my older kids being stuck at home. I was talking about how Isaiah was a dragon but then got better, but how I realized we basically stayed home for an entire year, out of necessity. Like seriously, we didn't really go ANYWHERE. He hated the car and I accepted that and we stayed home. And it was fine and it didn't last forever. It was just a year, and frankly it was a lovely year at home with my two boys, because I just met my child where he was at and didn't put ANY pressure on him or me to do something I knew would turn into a disaster. 

River is fairly easy to handle at home now. He's not actually easy, but we have methods to cope with it. Which is great, if we just stay home. 

And Laura was like "So stay home. Just stay home."

And it just clicked for me finally. We can stay home. I don't have to sign my kids up for all the cool homeschooling activities available while we're in this difficult time. I can send them to gymnastics with my dad if I have to, and stay home with River. And that's ALL I have to sign them up for. I don't have to pressure myself or River to be ready to sign up for library stuff or gym and swim in September when I don't know if it'll even work or not. 

We can stay home for a year if we have to and the kids will be fine. They have each other. We have friends who will come here and are willing to work around our dragon baby. 

It will all be okay. This will pass, and in the meantime we will all be okay "missing out" on stuff. I wanted a baby who would fit into our life as it was, but it doesn't seem as if we've gotten one. So we just have to meet him where he's at and not pressure him to be different or pressure myself to find a way to deal with him out in public. We don't actually HAVE to go out in public if it's going to be hell. One day we'll be able to again. 

This will all pass. And in the meantime, it will all be okay. We will all be okay. 

I feel very free.

River is 2 Months Old

I can't believe River is 2 months old. As in, I can't believe he is ONLY two months old. The last two months have been the longest two months of my life. It's felt like AT LEAST 6 months. 

-He weighs 13.5lbs according to our digital scale when he's naked.

-He is about 24.75 inches long.

-I believe his head is 16 inches around.

-His hair is quite blonde and his eyes are blue.

-His bottom two teeth are playing peekaboo. 

-I'm still dealing with some oversupply, which is annoying. River can't ever nurse for comfort. EVER. And that sucks, because he would love to. And I would love nothing more than to sit on the couch all day nursing, instead of spending the entire last two months bouncing around (literally from two days old he absolutely required bouncing at all times even while sleeping). 

-He nurses on demand, which ends up being about every 2 hours. He isn't really hungry more often than that. 

-We babywear for every nap. When he's awake and we put him in a wrap or carrier he automatically starts crying. Just automatically. Unless he's in a really good calm mood. It really sucks. The only thing to do to calm him down is to blare music at top volume. Our house is so loud all the time. 

-For the most part recently at night he has been sleeping approximately 3 hours, 3 hours, 2 hours, 2 hours. It's usually a little bit shy of 3 hours actually but in my mind I say 3 to make myself feel better. And those 2 hour stretches are usually shorter too. More like 1.5-1.75. 

-Last night he surprised me by sleeping 3.5 hours, 4 hours, and 3 hours. 

-He is a tummy sleeper and has been since about 2 weeks old when nothing else had worked. We spent many hundreds of dollars of different swaddlers and sacks and a stupid $250 DockaTot. But he just kept choking on his spit up and waking up every 30-60 minutes. Putting him on his tummy got me some 2 hour stretches of sleep. 

-I give him a bath almost every night at the beginning of bedtime routine. And he screams through every single one. They are the fastest baths ever. 

-For the first 6 weeks of his life if he was awake he was crying. Now he will be happy for awhile.  We can usually count on about 30 minutes of pleasantness after he wakes up. After that it's a toss up. Sometimes he can make it to an hour. But after that he's fussy. And then crying. And the only thing that will calm him down is being worn and listening to loud music. Those two things have to be done together. Neither one will work alone. He will just keep crying/screaming. 

-He is not happy with anyone but me. He could be perfectly pleasant, but if I give him to another adult (including Justin) he will be crying within a couple of minutes. He will get REALLY worked up, and when I get him back he starts to calm down. It's clear he immediately knows when I'm holding him. 

-He loves diaper changes.  He screamed through every change for the first 2-3 weeks, but then started liking them. For awhile it was the ONLY time he wouldn't be crying, so we would drag those changes out as long as possible. 

-He's wearing AMP size small and Applecheeks size 1 with Geffen Baby xs and Thirsties size 1 hemp prefolds inside. 

-I just stopped changing him at night within the last two weeks. He wears a sloomb medium OBF with a Geffen Quick absorber on the outside and a wool cover (either sloomb or Disana - they work equally well). 

-He is adorably talkative when he's happy. He has the most amazing smiles for me, and his brothers when he's happy. Rarely his dad, unfortunately. Maybe Justin just hasn't been around enough because he's keeping the big kids entertained. 

-He is still grunty while he sleeps, but not until he's about to wake up. Although from about 4am onward he grunts a A LOT more. 

-He has a very strong neck. He's been holding his head up straight since he was 9 days old. 

The worst part of everything is that we can't leave the house. Every time we try it is a disaster. If we can't turn on music and wear him when he gets fussy he just ends up crying and crying and will not stop. We are prisoners in our home. I feel bad for my older kids. There are so many homeschooling group activities I want to do this fall and I'm afraid to sign up for and pay for things only to not be able to go because River is friggin impossible to deal with. 

When he is happy he is the best. And we are coping much better at home now than we were able to a few weeks ago. Things are definitely so much better than they were before the six week mark. But we have a long way to go before he's not ruining our lives. That sounds bad, and I do love him, but it's true. He has stopped everything in its tracks. Thankfully the kids don't seem to resent him for making it so we can't go do things. I feel bad for them though. And I am sick and tired of having a kid who hates life for no apparent reason. I really didn't think he was going to be like this when I was pregnant. I was so sure I'd have a chill third baby. 

I hope by three months my update is very different. 

River's Birth Story

The Birth Story of River Shiloh Rain

I'm posting this six weeks late... after not posting anything for the majority of my pregnancy!

My "due date" was June 26/27 (it depended on if you considered the day I ovulated as day 1 of pregnancy or not).  June 26 came and went. Starting at 39 weeks I had been trying all kinds of "natural" induction methods. Chiropractic, acupuncture, acupressure, clary sage oil... I had been drinking tons of red raspberry leaf tea and eating six dates a day for many many weeks.  I had a stretch and sweep done at 39+1, and all day I felt like I was in early labour, but by evening things petered out. My stretch and sweep at 37+1 with Isaiah put me immediately into labour, so the failure of this sweep and everything else made me feel like I would NEVER have my baby (I know, so ridiculously dramatic). 

On June 27 at 8:30pm I was super tired and tried to go to sleep as soon as Isaiah was asleep. Unfortunately, the baby was acting like Edward Scissor Hands inside of me.  It literally felt like he was stabbing and scraping me with knives, and it HURT. I couldn't fall asleep, and I missed my "window" of tiredness.  I laid there for the next several hours trying to fall asleep. 

At 11:30 I realized I was having painful contractions, and they seemed regular.  I didn't know how long it had been happening for. This sometimes happens to me, so I wasn't very suspicious.  I got up and went to the bathroom. When I went back to bed I paid more attention to my contractions by looking at the time on my phone every time one started and ended. They seemed to be about a minute long, coming every 5-6 minutes.

At 12:20 I decided to download a contraction timer app so that I could more accurately time my contractions. This confirmed their regularity.  At 12:45 I just couldn't stay in bed anymore.  I still didn't necessarily think I was in real labour, but I was in too much pain to keep lying there.  I got up, tidied up some things that I was too cranky and pregnant to put away before bed, put some laundry in the washing machine, etc.  As soon as I got out of bed my contractions started coming every 2-3 minutes, but they shortened to about 45 seconds long.  They were strong, and I couldn't do anything but lean over something when I was having them. 

For a little bit I still thought things were going to peter out (I was in labour with Isaiah for 52 hours, so I had past experience with this). But I had checked my cervix several times since 11:30, and things were changing FAST.  I had been 2-3 cm dilated for weeks, but I wasn't very effaced.  When I checked at 11:30 I was maybe a little more effaced, but still had a bunch of length left. However, by 1:30 I was fully effaced and maybe more dilated.  It was hard to reach to measure that accurately, but I could tell my cervix was moving from posterior to anterior.

At 1:30am I realized the contractions weren't going away, I was going to have this baby!  I went in to wake up Justin. He was sleeping with Noah, so I touched his leg and he immediately opened up his eyes. I whispered "I'm in labour."  He said "Are you serious?"  I said, "I need you to get out of bed."

He got out of bed and immediately started topping up the birth pool with air (it had been sitting blown up in our living room for over three weeks, and I had asked him to top it up earlier but it never got done).  Then he started filling it with water. 

I was calmly labouring in the kitchen (which is open concept with the living room) and things were strong. At about 1:45 I decided I should call my midwife. I hadn't up until then because it was the middle of the night and I felt bad, thinking I didn't want to wake everyone up if I wasn't going to have a baby until like 6am.  But things were fast and intense, so I figured I should get the show on the road, so to speak.  My midwife was staying an hour away with her daughter who had just had a baby, so I thought she should probably get on the road, or send the other midwives in her place.

So I call Cynthia, and she says she'll leave right away and call me from the car when she's on her way. About 15 minutes later she calls, and by then my contractions are every 1:30-2:00 minutes apart and lasting about 35-45 seconds. I can't really talk, and she says she'll send Lindsay right away (a midwife I'd never met, but she was on call that night so she was the "second" midwife for my birth).

By 2:30 my contractions were every 1:30 minutes and lasting about a minute, so I was only getting about 30 seconds break between them.  The pool still wasn't filled up, but I just HAD to get in.  I kept remembering how amazing the water was for my contractions when I was in labour with Isaiah, and I needed that relief.  So I got in. And the water didn't really ease the pain.  I kept trying different positions, but I couldn't get comfortable or find relief.  The only relief was that I got a slightly longer break between contractions.  Not much, but enough that I noticed and it was very welcome.

Shortly after getting in the pool (at 2:30) I started to feel pushy. My body was just slightly bearing down with each contraction. Justin was still running around getting our birth supplies, and eventually I asked him to rub my shoulders.  He did for about 3 contractions, I think.

Suddenly, at 3am, I had a big contraction and my body pushed like CRAZY. I put my hand down there and felt myself swelling and expanding outward, just like when I pushed with Isaiah. The contraction ended and I calmly said, "He's coming now."  There were no midwives at our house yet. After I spoke Justin stood up and I felt this shift in energy in the room, so I said, "Don't freak out."  Again, I was very calm. 

I checked myself, and I still wasn't fully dilated. I felt quite a bit of cervix still overlapping his head. I basically did a big mental shrug, because my body was pushing and there was nothing I could do about it.  It never occurred to me to be alarmed, or be worried that we were alone.  I was just like, "Alright self, let's DO THIS."

I got on my knees with one arm on the side of the pool and the other hand down below.  With the next contraction his head started coming out.  I felt his water sac break on my hand and then his head POPPED out.  Really suddenly, like an explosion.  I feel like Justin wasn't even in the room, and might have been unlocking the front door. I calmly called, "His head is out!"  I knelt there waiting for the next contraction, which came quickly and his body slipped right out.

I picked him up out of the water and brought him to my chest.  It was AMAZING.  He cried, we snuggled, and then Lindsay (second midwife) walked in the room.  She was great. Totally hands off. She just knelt beside the pool and said things like, "He looks great, nice and pink, what a good cry, way to go!"

I was so focused on his beautiful face and flying as high as a kite, so I'm not sure exactly when Cynthia arrived.  I think it was about 15-20 minutes later.  She later told me (and the other midwives in the office) that it was one of the most beautiful images she'd ever seen, walking into the room, me in the pool looking like a "goddess" holding my baby with our big fireplace behind us.  She was so disappointed to have missed the birth, but happy for me that I got to do it all myself.  She knew I had wanted a hands off birth. 

They were seriously awesome. When I had Isaiah I got rushed out of the pool within a couple of minutes.  With River they just left me alone. I probably stayed in there for 45 minutes just bonding with him, and when my cramps became too much to bear I decided to get out to make it easier to deliver the placenta (I declined the "active management" shot of pitocin that speeds the process up). I held River while everyone helped me out of the pool and onto the couch. I was shaking like a leaf from the adrenaline.  Shortly after that I delivered the placenta.  We decided to not cut the cord yet and keep River attached until we did the newborn exam, so that we could get a picture of him attached to his placenta.

At this point Cynthia and Lindsay went to the other room for awhile to do paperwork and leave us alone. They said to call us if we needed them, but they'd give us our privacy for now.  We nursed and cuddled for maybe an hour, and then I really had to go pee so I called them in to help me and to finally do the newborn exam.

River was 8lbs 9oz, and apparently he was 20.5 inches long (but by 9 days old he was 21.5 inches, and by 2 weeks he was 22 inches, so I think the original measurement was inaccurate). His head was 14 inches around (15 inches at 2 weeks).  Just like my other kids his head had no molding, because none of them spent any real time in the birth canal.  They all just shot out suddenly at the end.

The midwives were gone by about 6:15am (Cynthia came back that afternoon around 3, since River was born in the middle of the night and no one would be around when he was 24 hours old). At 6:30 I went to my room to go pee (since that's where my pads were) and Isaiah woke up while I was in there.  I said "Isaiah!  I had the baby last night!"  He said "No, you're kidding."  And I said "No, I did!  Look, my tummy is smaller!"  And he said "This is so EXCITING!!"  We went and he met his baby brother.  He was absolutely enthralled.

Noah didn't wake up until closer to 8, and he was also totally captivated.  My parents offered to take them to go somewhere that afternoon and neither of them wanted to leave because they wanted to "be with the baby."

This was honestly the most amazing, empowering, peaceful birth. I never intended to have an unassisted birth, but I'm so glad it turned out that way. I never had to do anything I didn't want to do. No one was suggesting I move to a different position, or get a cervical check, or have the heart rate monitored. I just laboured the way I wanted, doing what I wanted to do and what I felt led to do.  Justin is still amazed at how it all went, how I didn't make a big deal about any of it, I just got down to business, all calm and in control, and had a baby.  There was never any concern or panic or fear, just peace.

I do recall that I kept thinking, "F*ck, this hurts.  Labour SUCKS."  But that was literally it.  I never felt like I couldn't do it, or that it was too much for me to handle, even when contractions were right on top of each other.  I did say "I'm not getting a BREAK!!"  And I remember being annoyed that the water wasn't helping my pain.  I also remember briefly wishing I had an experienced woman there to talk soothingly to me and say things like "You're doing great, Lauren, your baby is almost here."  I knew I was fine and doing great, I just wanted that sort of female, maternal presence. But about three minutes after that thought went through my mind, River was earthside.

At birth River weighed 8lbs 9oz, 20.5 inches long (maybe), 14 inch head.

At 3 days old River weighed 8lbs 5oz.

At 5 days old he was back to birth weight, 8lbs 9oz.

At 2 weeks old he weighed 9lbs 11oz and was 22 inches long with a 15 inch head.

At 3 weeks 2 days he was 10.8lbs and 23 inches long. 

At 4 weeks old he weighed 11.4lbs.

At 1 month (4 weeks 2 days) he weighed 11.8lbs.

At 5 weeks and 2 days old he weighed 12.2lbs, 23.5 inches 

At 6 weeks he weighed 12lbs 7oz and was 24 inches long. 

Side note (not meant to overshadow the beautiful birth story):

Despite an overall great pregnancy (mindset wise) and the best possible birth experience, and being born at 40 weeks, River is INCREDIBLY colicky. He started screaming inconsolably at 16 hours old and has only gotten worse since then. The past six weeks have felt like 3 months. Life has been really difficult. Hence why it took six weeks to get this post up. And why there are no pictures. I'm posting this from my iPad while I bounce on an exercise ball with River in a wrap.  He's sleeping, thank goodness.  He spends a LOT of time screaming. 

Maybe I'll write more on that another time. 

Ultrasounds #2 and #3

I'm a bit behind.

Last week on Wednesday November 16 I had ultrasound #2.  Baby measured perfectly at 8 weeks 1 day, and the heartrate was 167.

This past week I had an ultrasound on Tuesday November 22.  Baby measured 9 weeks 1 day, and the heartrate was 180.  S/he was so much bigger.  You could see the arms and legs, and it was wiggling around.  It was so cute.  I wish we could have watched it longer, but our ultrasound tech has 20 years of experience so she's super fast.

I have another ultrasound booked for next Friday.  I'll be 10.5 weeks.  Since this past Sunday I've been finding the heartbeat really easily with the Doppler (I bought a new one), so I figured as long as I can find the heartbeat at home I could stretch it to a week and a half, which would put it right in the middle of the 3 week wait between the 9 week ultrasound and the 12 week ultrasound.

My belly is pretty big and hard to hide.  Soon I won't have to.  But I'm not really looking forward to announcing it to anyone.  I already had enough "cautious reactions" to this pregnancy and don't feel like dealing with any more of them.


Today was my due date with Shiloh.  It's a sad day here, but I'm trying not to dwell on it.

Ultrasound #1

I had my first ultrasound yesterday at 7 weeks 1 day.  I was really nervous before hand, especially considering the fact that the last time I went for an ultrasound, my baby was dead.  It went well, though.  I saw the heartbeat right away, and it clocked in at 146bpm.  The baby also measured exactly to the day s/he was supposed to, according to when I ovulated.  That was a relief, since in my last pregnancy when I went for an ultrasound at 8 weeks 3 days the baby only measured 7 weeks 4 days, and then died within a week afterward.

The baby looked weird to me.  Not that kind of peanut/kidney bean shape, but just a strange triangle shape the whole time. It was weird.  But of course I'll be concerned about anything.

I still don't feel confident, so the doctor booked me in for another ultrasound next week.  She said I might as well come in every week if that is what's going to help me manage my anxiety about this.  I was hemming and hawing because I didn't want to seem crazy, I wanted to be a reasonable person who can go weeks between ultrasounds.  But she clearly saw that probably wouldn't be a great decision for me, so she booked me in and told me I could always cancel it if I want to.


As for symptoms... my breasts are bigger, and they hurt more now than they did a week and a half ago.  I can't feel my uterus much these days because it's not contracting a lot like it did at the beginning (the same thing happened in my other pregnancies at this point), but my belly is stupidly huge for 7 weeks (as usual).  I am so tired.  And I'm not as sick as a dog like I was in my first two pregnancies, but I have definite food aversions (to things I usually love) and gross icky feelings, and sometimes have full on nausea.  It's completely tolerable at this point, though.

My resting heart rate has gone all the way down to 64, from when it was 74 shortly after I got pregnant.  That is so weird to me because it is the opposite of what is supposed to happen - your heartrate is supposed to go up at this point in pregnancy and stay up.  And last time it was a bad sign.  But last time my heartrate went down once the baby died, and this time it's been going down for the past 3 weeks and everything is fine so far, so I guess it's just a weird fluke.

Betas

Here are the betas from my 4th pregnancy:

168 - 14 DPO  (October 18)
226 - 15 DPO  (October 19)
362 - 16 DPO  (October 20)
932 - 18 DPO  (October 22)
2008 - 20 DPO  (October 24)
6441 - 23 DPO  (October 27)

I've had so many done because I'm super nervous.  My heart rate originally went up to 74 when I got pregnant, but has decreased over the past 2 weeks to 65 today.  This worries me because it was one of the signs of my missed miscarriage last time - my heart rate started decreasing at exactly the time my baby died.  My betas were going up properly during the first week that y heart rate was decreasing, so I stopped doing them.  But it's gone down by 3bpm since then and is now way lower than it was before I got pregnant (normal for me is 60-65, but when I was so ill this summer my resting heart rate went up to somewhere in the 80's and never recovered back to normal.  Before pregnancy it was 69-71 normally).

I'm 6 weeks 2 days today and don't really have any nausea.  I feel like I'm getting carsick easier, and I have periods where I feel icky, and I'm having some mild food aversions sometimes, but nothing that really screams "pregnancy symptoms!!" at me. 

My breasts have grown and are somewhat sore, but it's also not unbearable.

I'm super hungry all the time and I'm watching what and how much I eat (I have to eat Paleo because it helps control my autoimmune disease, and grains cause it to flare, so it's not like I can pig out on refined carbohydrates all day like I kind of did in my first two pregnancies to help control hunger and nausea).  But I have a weakness for chocolate and I'm put on a few pounds recently, possibly as a result of too many chocolate covered almonds.  My weight was still low after my flare up, so I can afford a few extra pounds, and I don't mind gaining weight for a good cause.  But I would really rather not gain a bunch of weight and end up with no baby like I did last time.  Carrying extra weight after dealing with a miscarriage is just a pickle on top of a huge crap sandwich.

They say every pregnancy is different but I just can't buy into that for my personal situation.  My two successful pregnancies were very similar, and it was my unsuccessful pregnancy that was different and easier.  I guess I'm just so nervous something is going to go wrong, I just want to be miserably pregnant.  I want all the signs and symptoms to be torturing me so that I feel like everything is okay.  Because my last pregnancy was the time that symptoms weren't torturing me.  The symptoms were mild, and it turned out to be a very bad sign for me.

I know there's still time for the nausea to come.  I was super sick at this point in my pregnancy with Noah, but it wasn't terrible at this point in my pregnancy with Isaiah.  It was pretty bad by 7 weeks, so I still have "time" to get bad.

My ultrasound is in 6 days.  My main goal in life right now is to try to not think about it, to not dwell on the anxiety. There's nothing I can do to change the outcome.