I need a shot

Thursday was Hazel’s first set of shots. Esther and I knew she had gotten bigger than her last appointment, both in weight and length, but we were not ready for the measurements: 12 pounds and 2.6 ounces, and 22.5 inches. Wow! That explains why she has been sleeping so much better (research shows that once a baby reaches about 12 pounds, they can sleep through the night).

Back to the shots, with Hazel clad only in her diaper, the three of us waited for the five shots to be prepared. Yes, five, two in the each leg and one in the arm. A shot is a little anxiety producing for me, but five, that is down right scary. With a shot for every infantile disease, Hazel was in for a … treat.

Mom didn’t want to hold Hazel, it would just be too hard, so I was left that pleasure. Hazel, sitting on my lap, gets held by Dad to stop her from flailing around, while the first shot is administered. It took a second for Hazel to realized what was going on but when she did, the tears and crying started. Hazel looked around for comfort and calmed down immediately with some soft whispers from me and Mom. The nurses then held each leg as they prepared to administer the second and third shots. This is where the screaming began.

Remember when Hazel was born, we said that she had some impressive lungs? Yeah, they haven’t disappeared or gotten any weaker as she has grown. No, they were in fact more impressive than they have ever been. I now know what a cry of pain sounds like, and having to hear it three times in a day was a little rough.

She had the final four shots administered in rapid succession and responded like any baby would. I was worried that rest of the appointment would be difficult due to her uncomfortable state, but Esther and I were able to calm Hazel down before our doctor arrived.

The rest of the appointment was routine, kind of boring after the shots. The rest of the day, in her recovery, Hazel was remarkable. She was not nearly as fussy as people had led us to believe she could have been. She was awake most of the day, taking short catnaps instead of her normal nap schedule. That was made up for that night with a solid seven hours of sleep.

Her system has seemed to be a little off since then, but as I am writing this, Hazel has finally overcome any lingering side effects. The shots were scary, not for Hazel, she doesn’t know. It was scary for Mom and I. I know Mom cried a little and while I didn’t shed a tear, it was very hard to hear her scream in pain. I’m glad she’s recovered, and I don’t look forward to her 4 month appointment, as it involves 5 more shots.

Frustration sets in.

I think I can speak for both of us when I say, frustration is starting to creep in. This probably isn’t a good fit with our hypnobirthing. We are about 10 hours from the due date and at 9:15 tomorrow we will be at the doctor’s office. We should find out how Esther has been progressing. Hopefully there has been significant progress and as soon as the doctor does his exam, he says we should go check ourselves into labor and delivery.

The weather has been really hot recently, which is making life difficult. It is hard to keep cool and that only adds to the frustration. It is hard to go “walk the baby down” when it feels like you could keel over dead from the temperature outside. The humidity hasn’t been very high, in contrast to the temperatures, I guess it is good that this is near the end of the pregnancy.

We will write about our appointment tomorrow, or not depending on the outcome… we may be a little busy.

Hippobirthing

The third person voice in this post is because Jered and Esther are writing this jointly. Generally the paragraphs that sound better are written by Esther, the ones that appear to be written by someone with a basic grasp of English are written by Jered. You have been warned.

Friday was our 34 week doctor’s appointment- our second appointment at the new practice we’ve switched to. We met with the nurse midwife for the first time and were incredibly impressed with how the appointment went. Part of the reason we switched practices was because we were having a very normal pregnancy and were treated as though we did not exist. Our experience at the new practice has been completely different. First, there are only two practitioners- the OB and the nurse midwife. Both of whom seem very nice and caring. They both have taken time to talk to us about our pregnancy and answered all of the questions we had, another reason for switching practices.

After introducing ourselves to the Nurse Midwife, Darleen, Esther explained our thoughts on a med-free birth if possible. Darleen immediately jumped in and started telling us about hypnobirthing (which Grammy J Benoit later misheard as “hippo-birthing”. Thanks, Grammy J). Jered started to giggle, not at the concept of hypnobirthing, but the fact that Esther had been talking about hypnobirthing from early on in the pregnancy. Darleen has had two couples who have used the techniques, both effectively, and she gave us a website and book to research.

The rest of the appointment was routine, although Esther and baby are measuring about two weeks ahead. It was nice to be comforted by Darleen, who said that doctors, nurses and the like generally over estimate baby’s size and weight in women who are under 5′ 5″ (Esther is 5′ 4″) and women who have a standard or short sized torso (which Esther also has). So all in all, the measurements maybe off a little, but the baby is still on track.

Jered and I decided to do a bit more research into this hippo-birthing process and went over to our local book store to see what materials were out there. We found the book our midwife had recommended and decided to go ahead and buy it after browsing it and finding that this method of natural childbirth is one that is very congruent with our thoughts and feelings about pregnancy and childbirth. We have been reading the book all weekend and decided to try and contact one of the local hypnobirthing instructors. We were not sure we would be able to do the class in hypnobirthing as it usually takes 5 sessions- but we got an e-mail back from the instructor today and she is willing to teach it to us in 2-3 sessions

The Hypnobirthing book, Hypnobirthing: The Mongan Method, by Marie F. Mongan is very inline with what Esther and Jered think about the birthing process, particularly after watching The Business of Being Born. Mongan discusses the “medicalization” of birthing and how 99% of pregnancies are normal, requiring little medical intervention, but due to the way childbirth has been formed into a hospitalized experience, interventions and drugs are quite common.

We are excited about the hypnobirthing classes and the tools they will give us as we try to have an un-medicated birth. We are getting ready for the baby to get here and are surprised at how quickly time has gone and time continues to go by as we get closer and closer to B-Day!

Dad’s Baby Purchases

This is my first video post. You may be asking yourself, but who was the voice of Lamb Chop in the first two episodes of The Lamb Chop Show? Not me.

I’m not sure how video is going to work if you are subscribed by email, so please visit the website: http://baby.b3noit.com/pregnancy/dads-baby-purchases/

Basically, Esther and I have been making purchases to get ready for the baby. First it was some baby clothes, with much thanks to Esther’s Aunt Pat. We also ordered the super snazzy Flip Video, it is a super simple to use video camera, and how we are going to share moving pictures of the baby with everyone.

The DadGear bag was the best buy of the lot, in my opinion. Now I feel like I can take the baby out by myself. That combined with the DadGear Vest, I’m a dad ready for when the little one gets here.

A letter to baby

Now that the B.A.B.I.E.S. class is over, I think the embargo has been lifted on a letter I wrote during the class. This letter should be delivered to the baby when he or she is born.

Dear baby,

Hello, welcome, we have been very excited about you getting here. I can’t wait to get you home where your Mom and I can really have fun with you. We have 2 cats and a dog and you’ll get to know them well, you can even ride the dog like a cowboy or girl rides their horse.

We have a puppet for you and not to put any pressure on you, but your great grandparents are expecting a show, but not right away.

Your Mom and I hope that we are good parents albeit hippie ones. We are always trying to do our best to give you the things you need. I’ll be at home for the next two weeks. You and I can spend lots of time together, and don’t worry after I go back to work, we’ll still have lots of fun, like the doggie rides.

I think the baby class ladies want us to eat cheese cake now. It is not a regular thing, don’t worry.

Love,

Jered / Dad

Trekkie baby

Esther and I have been watching a lot of Star Trek: Voyager, particularly since we got pregnant. Esther made an observation tonight: The baby will probably only be soothed by the theme music to the show.

If you are getting this in your email, the sound file may not be visible. Visit baby.b3noit.com and click the play button.

Lifesavers

Last night, Esther and I went to our second-to-last babies and birthing class. When we showed up, one of the couples that we started the class were their with their new baby. He was adorable, and I feel comfortable in my manliness saying that. He had a full head of dark hair and was a beautiful little boy. It was also very nice to hear from a father who was a little squeamish about the birthing process, and I think Esther got something from hearing how she got through birthing.

Back to the class, Esther and I were the only ones there, which felt like Survivor. I was waiting for Jeff Probst to walk out and tell us that we had out played, out witted and outlasted everyone else. Last night was the CPR class, which I thought would have brought people out of the wood work, but we got a private CPR lesson.

It was nice to have the one-on-one attention, I think Esther and I are both super ready should something happen, but we always hope to never have to use those skills.

Lambchop Episode 2: Baking Cookies

Baby Business

Esther added “The Business of Being Born“ to our Netflix queue. It is the only reason we resumed our Netflix queue, because the main distributor of the movie is in fact Netflix.

The movie was an interesting documentary about the loss or minimization of natural child birth. With Ricki Lake as executive producer and star, it does not glamorize birth without medication, instead the film brings to light the statistics of medical interventions during childbirth in the U.S. as compared to the rest of the world.

The numbers were incredible, and considering the infant and mother mortality rates that the U.S. has compared to European countries, even when babies are delivered under the auspices of a doctor as opposed to a midwife.The disappearance of the midwife, the documentary leads one to believe, is the point at which medicine became commercial and worried about the bottom line as opposed to mother and baby’s health.

The movie has brought some salient issues with our doctor to the surface, Esther is probably researching new practices as I write this, and provides a lot of food for thought. If you aren’t too grossed out by the birthing process, which I would have thought I was until recently, I would highly recommend seeing this movie.

Whoa! Hospital!

Esther, Jered and Uni took a trip to Mary Immaculate Hospital for our hospital tour.

Let me tell you: Whoa!

We had a list of questions all prepared and thought we would be asking them, drawing information from our tour guide. The opposite was true. We walked up to the Labor and Delivery wing and got to sit in a birthing room. It was spacious and we got to learn how the whole “birth” thing unfold. Not the baby birth mechanicals, the hospital delivery ones.Each birthing room has a shower (so Esther can soak), and plenty of room for her to walk around.

After the baby is born, and hospital staff gets the baby cleaned up, Esther and I will get to spend an hour with the baby in the birthing room before Esther gets moved to a postpartum room and I follow the baby to the nursery. Once the baby is in the nursery, the nurses do test and checks and generally make sure that the little one is doing well, we get separated from Uni for about 3 hours. I hope he or she doesn’t get lonely… maybe there will be some other babies in the nursery.

The baby gets to stay with us in the postpartum room, which has a recliner for me, so we all get to stay together, kind of a “sleep over at the hotel” deal. While on the tour I did learn a hospital term that I would like to adopt into every day speak: Rooms labelled “Nutrition” = kitchen.

All in all, the tour was very informative, the labor and delivery unit is very secure (don’t worry about all of the baby stealing stories) and the NICU is a level II (Esther says that’s good, I think level X is better. She says I’ve played too may games in my youth.)Finally, we get 4 people in the birthing room, Me, Oma (Esther’s Mom), Clayton, and… send us a note and we’ll consider having you there.