On the Rebound

I've only got a little bit of time before Iver wakes up, so hopefully I can race through a post.  That's what I've found out about this whole process: how much time it takes.  By the time I nurse him, one of us gives him an ounce from a bottle, and then I strap myself up to the breast pump, I've got a limited window of time before everything needs to be repeated.

The good news is that Iver gained 3 ounces between Monday and Wednesday.  We have another weight check scheduled for Monday, so I'm hoping that the positive weight gain continues.  The other encouraging step is that since Wednesday I've been in possession of a hospital-grade breast pump.  This little device, which apparently costs about $4000, is a rental, of course.  Although it doesn't look or feel dramatically different than my borrowed Medela "Pump in Style" (you gotta love these names) that I was using, this is apparently the Mercedes of extracting breast milk.  It seems to be doing a good job so far.  While my pumping sessions are not much, much different, I have seen an increase in production over the past couple of days.  At this point, I'll take anything that is in the right direction.

That's all for now.  Iver is beginning to stir and that means our cycle is about to start again.  It's a good thing he's so cute and perfect (there's no mother's bias in that statement, of course) because it's not hard to want to do all of this just for him and his health.

Two Ounces Down

We brought Iver in yesterday for a weight check and, causing me some mild (ok, medium) anxiety, he had lost two ounces.

The nurse/lactation consultant, Brenda, was not terribly alarmed by this.  At least not like I was.  She simply said we need to try to increase my milk supply.  To do this I need to try pumping every time after I nurse the little guy.  In addition, we need to give him one ounce of formula, or, when I can produce via pumping, of breast milk following each feeding.

I know this is a not a unique situation where a baby needs to be supplemented with formula, but it's a little tough on my maternal ego.  I want to be able to supply Iver with all of his needs -- at least the nutritional ones.  What makes me feel slightly better is knowing that I am doing everything I can to produce as much milk as possible.  I don't know what makes me not as prodigious lactation-wise as I need to be, but I suppose trying to guess the reason(s) isn't particularly constructive at this point anyhow.

So this is where we are.  Nursing every 2-3 hours, with 15 minutes pumping at the end of each feeding plus a bottle feeding -- all of which takes about 45 minutes to complete.  Since you start the clock from the beginning of each feeding until the start of the next one, this gives me between 1.5 to 2.5 hours where I'm not in milk supply and delivery mode.  (KLC does the bottle feeding, diaper change, and re-swaddling so this doesn't really add extra time to my routine.)

Brenda said this pumping after every feeding thing will be "short term" so hopefully it will be enough to get the little guy to bulk up in the short term and boost my milk supply in the long term.  We go back to the doctor tomorrow for Iver's almost-2-week check up so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there will be some demonstrable positive difference in his weight.

Adventures in Babysitting Babyfeeding

Iver is now a week old.  This means we've had 7 days to work on our team effort to breastfeed.  Some times we do well, other times not so much.  I think, however, we are learning.

About 30 minutes after he was born, a nurse gave Iver to me and he latched on immediately.  I thought, hey, that was easy.  After all, I had heard all of these horror stories about how difficult it could be to breastfeed.  Maybe this was another baby myth I shouldn't have bought into?

Well, not so fast.  Like I said, this has been a work-in-progress since.  There's no way I could do this without a) KLC who nursed the twins for 13 months despite thrush, mastitis, and other challenges early on, and b) all of the nurses/lactation consultants I have had access to through the hospital and my doctor.

Letting Iver treat my nipples like chew rings?  Yup.  Allow the baby to dictate how long he nurses -- ie, for 1.5 hours twice on Wednesday night/Thursday morning.  Why not?

Like I said, it's a good thing I have help.  Even though "my milk is in," it's not quite running like a river so I need to do things to -- pardon the pun -- pump up production.  This includes feeding him every 2-3 hours, but only for 10-15 minutes per side.  If I let him hang out indefinitely, not only do my breasts feel like they have been through a meat grinder, they also don't have enough time to replenish their supply.

The other recommendation has been to use the pump for 15 minutes or so after I'm done feeding him to stimulate production.  This is extra fun when you have 5-year-old twins in the house who find you doing it.  The result is this:

And this:

For those of you who can't decipher, this is the twins imitating me while I am pumping.  Fantastic to have an audience for these things!

The Name

It might not be obvious where our new little guy's name comes from -- or even how to pronounce it.

"Iver" (rhymes with "diver") is a Scandinavian name and also a family name on KLC's side.  Specifically, the name comes from KLC's mother's favorite uncle.  We thought it was different enough not to have him end up "Iver W." in school, but not too unusual that he would have to spell/defend it for the rest of his life.

There's also a family connection for the middle name.  My Uncle Ted was an important person in my mother's and our lives.  It was also the name of KLC's great-grandather on her mother's side.

BTW, if you are a parent or caregiver of any sort and need a laugh, I highly recommend this book: http://shttymom.com  I think the title speaks for itself.

Iver Theodore Has Arrived

I am very happy to say that on Saturday, September 8th, Iver Theodore Watzke was born.  Maybe because he shares his mother's sense of punctuality, he even managed to arrive on his due date.

Of course, the labor and delivery was a story itself.  On Friday, it was about 85 degrees here in Seattle. This is hot for anyone around here, but I felt it was extra taxing for me as I hit the 40-week mark of pregnancy.  Because of the heat (I thought), I was particularly uncomfortable.

KLC picked up the twins from kindergarten and then we went to our favorite bookstore to let the kids pick out a new book as a treat for finishing their first week of school.  I was sitting on a chair while they looked around and I felt some pressure in my lower abdomen.  Thinking it was the end of the day, I just dismissed it as general pregnancy discomfort.  After all, I had gone to the OB on Thursday -- just a day before -- and was told my cervix was still completely shut.  I took this to mean that it was unlikely I'd go into labor any time soon.

By the time we got back to the house and we did dinner and bath with the twins, I was feeling this "discomfort" more regularly.  Still not believing they were contractions, I agreed to KLC's suggestion to at write down what time I was feeling things.  There wasn't an obvious pattern at first, but then it seemed like they more or less were at 10-15 minute intervals.

Around 10pm, I conceded these very well could be contractions and called my doctor.  Luckily, my OB was on call that night so she answered and told me to call back if the contractions became 5 minutes apart, 1 minute in duration, for 1 hour.  (This is the "511" thing to memorize that they teach in birthing classes.)  She also said the contractions could stop and so not to necessarily expect to be giving birth any time soon.

Over the next couple of hours, I was half tracking the contractions and half falling asleep in between them.  By midnight, I was fairly sure I was reaching the 511 threshold.  I called the doctor back.  And waited.  And waited.  For some reason, my doctor didn't call me back (she could have been delivering a  baby or who knows what else.)  I was trying to be patient and not be the overly anxious first time mother, so I waited too.

Around 2:00am, I told KLC that I thought the contractions were closer than 5 minutes and thought we should just go to the hospital.  We called GSP, the twins' co-parent, who had agreed not only to watch the kids but also Comet (I don't what we would have done without her.)  She came over right away and we were off to the hospital.

We got to the maternity floor at Swedish Medical Center around 3:00am where the nurse promptly told me I was already 5cm dilated.  (You have to get to 10cm before you can push.)  While we were waiting to go the delivery suite, my water broke.  This, by the way, wasn't a huge flood as I imagined.  It was just another element of this whole process that doesn't fit the way it's portrayed on movies and TV.

Let me just pause here to say all of the doctors and especially the nurses we had were great.  At Swedish, you have a dedicated labor and delivery nurse who is with you at all times.  Zoe was young (she mentioned she was just a year out of school), but knew what she was doing.  During the contractions, she was totally calm and got me to breathe and move and work through them.  Between her and, of course, KLC, I had some phenomenal coaching and support which made a world of difference to me.

Between 3:00 and 6:00am, I tried just about everything I could to deal with the contractions.  I was in bed, I stood up, used the bouncy ball, and got in the tub.  The two things I thought would be most helpful -- the ball and the tub -- turned out not to work for me.  For example, the tub was great for the couple of minutes in between the contractions, but once it hit, I almost jumped out of the water because I felt claustrophobic.  Standing up and swaying ended up being probably the most (relatively speaking) comfortable position when the contraction was at its most intnse.

My OB came to the room around 7am and I finally got "permission" to push.  Up until this point, the nurse told me I had to wait to push until the cervix was completely gone or else pushing could make things go awry.  It seems funny, but that not pushing was one of hardest physical sensations I've ever felt.  So that even though the pushing was painful, it also felt like a relief.  (I've also heard women say it was good to feel like you were doing something as opposed to just bracing for the next contraction to hit.  I completely agree with this.)

After about an hour of real pushing, with KLC on one side, a nurse on another, and the doctor in the middle, I pushed and felt his head come out.  KLC was able to help pull the rest of him and then cut the umbilical cord.  Immediately, they put him on my chest for the skin-to-skin contact.  I was so grateful he was there and relieved that the pushing was over that I barely noticed anything else like the placenta or any of the tests they were doing to him or me.

We stayed in the delivery suite for a couple of hours, where Iver nursed for the first time.  After that, we went to our postpartum room where we were waited on by nurses and the room service food for the next 24 hours.  Because everyone was healthy, we were able to get all of the tests done and checked out of the hospital by noon on Sunday.

Sorry if this reads like a boring litany of events, but I realized that I would probably forget all of these details if I didn't write them down somewhere soon.  In hindsight, it was a great experience on so many levels.  I couldn't have done it, of course, with my partner in life for everything, KLC.  We have a lot to figure out and work through over the next weeks and months with a new baby, two high-energy five-year-olds, a 10-month-old puppy, an ornery cat, and 4 chickens (who are by far the lowest-maintenance members of the household), but I'm looking forward to doing this and everything else with our newly expanded family.

The Non-Labor Labor Day

Well, at least it is for me (as of 1pm) it is a non-labor Labor Day.  I am over 39 weeks but the little guy seems happy as a clam in there.  I had an OB appointment last Thursday and my doctor predicted it wouldn't be happening this week.  But she also prefaced that with, who knows what will happen and babies do whatever they want on their own schedule.

So as much as we have advanced in medical science, it is still a complete crapshoot as to when a woman goes into labor (unless she has a scheduled C-section or is induced -- neither of which I am planning on.)

The exciting news -- if you can detect my sarcasm -- is that my ankles and feet are swelling pretty regularly in the past week.  I know that many, many women have it much worse than me in this department, but I may be getting dangerously close to having cankles.  That alone is worth wishing labor gets going sooner rather than later.

Except that the twins start kindergarten on Wednesday.  Believe it or not, we've managed to have two fairly big life events planned for virtually the same week: the twins going to 5-day-a-week, full-day kindergarten at a new school for the first time and my having a baby.  Since I didn't give birth over the long holiday weekend (again, as of yet), we're basically hoping the little guy decides to stay in there at least through Thursday so that we can have a couple of days of regular drop offs and pick ups at the new school.  We'll see what he decides to do.

My OB says virtually every woman will go into labor on her own by 41.5 weeks.  That means that I could potentially have two more weeks of pregnancy.  If that's the case, I just hope my ankles will forgive me.