Rolling

Here is Eli's new skill.  Yesterday most of the day was dedicated to him mastering this roll.  It became less and less effortful and more and more effortless as the day went on.  Unfortunately for me it is also effortless at bedtime and he doesn't particularly love being on his belly.  So he'll be almost asleep and then roll himself over and start yelling about it.  Guess he'll have to learn to roll back soon too.

But it is pretty darn cute!

Cuties

2 months

Here's Eli on his 2 month birthday (5/17).  We went to the doctor a day or so later.
He weighed 13lbs 12oz  which means he'd added 3lbs 5 oz in 4 weeks.  Go buddy! (a healthy baby averages about 1.5 lbs in 4 weeks)
His head grew an inch and was 16 inches
His body was 22 1/4 inches.

So that put him at 25th percentile for length, 75th for weight, and 90th for head!
As Max said: "He's short, but he's fat!"   Go Boy!

I love our pediatrician because everything I ask about is a total non-issue.  With Sabine it was always do this thing that totally doesn't go with how you want to parent.  With Eli it's like: well, what's the big deal.  it's only a short time out of your whole life that he'll be a baby, don't worry about it.  So sweet.

Just born babes

A friend of mine just had her third and put up a post of all of her kids just born.  It is super cute.  So I thought I'd do the same.
Here's a view of my babes just a few hours old.

Sabine
5lbs 10ozs
19 inches long
13 inch head circumference
12in chest and shoulders









Eli
8lbs 1 oz
20 inches long
14 inch head circumference
14.5 inch chest and shoulders

Changing it Up

Eli is growing fast.  He's 7 weeks already which is hard to believe.

We're already cycling through some changes and learning more and more about him.

asleep in his basket at a week old.
that is not how he fits in it now, and
that blanket was outgrown weeks ago

For the last two weeks or so he's been waking up around 5 or 5:30 and then going back to sleep but being very fitful.  Moving all around, waking and going back to sleep, kicking his legs and making cranky noises.  It didn't make for good sleeping for me because he's still in the little basket in our room.  Many mornings he found his way into my bed to nurse some and sleep some and try to keep quiet.  I was getting pretty tired.

So two nights ago around 5am he woke up again and this time I changed his diaper which was plenty full.  He went back to sleep and slept until 7:30 (praise the Lord) and he might have gone longer if the rest of us hadn't needed to get up.
Last night, same thing. changed him when he woke up at 4:45 and off he went back to sleep and he woke up with smiles at 7:20 this morning.  Ah.

that extra 2 hours of real sleep rather than waking and half-sleep is HUGE!

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The other thing he changed is that in the very beginning I was giving him a pacifier to help him suck and calm down because I don't want to become his human pacifier.  Then he just absolutely started to refuse it.  And when I say 'absolutely' I mean it.  He seems personally offended when I offer something he doesn't want and he very loudly lets me know that's not the right thing!

Pacifier face at 2 weeks old

Last night he was cranky and we're not sure why. He kept making the hungry noise and rooting so I'd try to nurse him and he'd latch on enthusiastically.  Then he'd suck, and get loud and push away and start to cry.  But immediately want to try again when nursing was offered.  I know he was getting milk because he was spitting up.  I wonder if it was something I ate.  It was incredibly frustrating because I wanted to help him and nursing usually calms him down, but this time it wasn't working.
 It took both of us bouncing and walking him all over for almost 2 hours to finally get him off to sleep. And then, he woke up after 20 minutes.  I got him settled and again it seemed that he wanted to wake up so I saw the pacifier sitting there and took a chance with it... popped it in his mouth and that did the trick.  He sucked soothed and dropped off.  It dropped out, he started up again, I popped it back in and off he went.. 2 more rounds of that and finally we got a good night's sleep.  whew.

Postpartum with Nancy

With Nancy on the morning of Eli's birth

 I had my 6 week postpartum visit with Nancy yesterday.

She called me late last week to ask me to come by and re-sign the birth certificate.  She'd filed on the old form because the health department kept not providing the new state form to her.  So all of her births for February and March had to be re-filed on the new form.  When she called she realized I was at 6 weeks and it was time for me to come in.

So yesterday morning while Sabine was at school I packed up Eli and we went out in the rain to Nancy's house for the last time. The visit was quite straightforward.  She checked me out and I'm "perfect" and healed quite well.  (eventually I'll share the birth story and you can read all about it, woo-hoo).
She checked my weight and I've lost 18 of the almost 50 lbs I'd gained.  But if you count Eli's 8 lbs,  only 10 have gone from me... and most of that was probably fluid.  She said there's an initial drop in the first 2 weeks, then a plateau, then a drop around 3 months, plateau, drop again around 6 months or so.  She says the belly stays for 6 months to a year and then comes back at menopause.  "It's just as annoying around menopause as it is now" she says.  But she told me it's important fat, it is there in case something happens so that I can still make milk for Eli.  Eli needs that milk for the first year so it is there for him.  Put in that perspective I can be a little sweeter to myself about still feeling like I look like I'm pregnant when he's already a month and a half old.

She asked about birth control and gave me a recommendation of a book to read about how the female anatomy effects arousal etc.  She said I have a posterior uterus which means fewer nerve endings concentrated in that space.  Positive to that is less pain and faster labors.  Negative well... fewer nerve endings means less feeling and I'll leave it at that.  So the anterior uterus people have harder slower labors but more feeling at other times.
The book is: Woman's Anatomy of Arousal by Sheri Winston    I can't recommend it because I haven't read it, but I trust Nancy.  I bet it's pretty good.  She told me Max would like that I read it (and "it isn't porn")

As I was leaving I told her I was sad to go.  She said that maybe I'd be back one day but we're pretty sure Eli is our last little addition to the family.  So she told me to come back and bring something for the room where she sees clients.  As we left she hugged me and told me it's not good-bye yet.  Which was pretty much what I needed to hear because I don't want it to be good-bye.  (though it is)  I'll print some pictures for her room and bring them, and bring a huge thank you letter telling her what a profound impact she's made on my life and hopefully get to see her at least one more time.

And, Eli slept the whole time!

40 Days

Today is Eli's 40 day mark.

It's a big day.  40 days out from birth is a big marker in traditional societies because finally Mom and Baby are out of the initial danger of the newborn period.  We would have been kept under close watch and totally cared for for all of this time and only now would be re-entering the world.  I like that in some societies the woman is welcomed back much the same way a warrior is welcomed in returning from battle.  And of course the baby is a proud addition to any clan.

40 days is just 2 days shy of 6 weeks.   It is a powerful shift of a time and still only halfway to 12 weeks, when you finally turn out of the '4th trimester' of blob-hood into real personhood (the 3 month mark).    At this point I feel so much stronger than I did even 2 weeks ago.  I feel pretty good and Eli is doing amazingly -- eating up a storm, and sleeping a ton  -- GROWING is his main agenda it seems.

I also feel a little sad today.  The more and more we go out into the world (which I do think is good for me, and our family) the further and further we move from his birth and from the sweet sacred time of laying in.  It will never come back and it was so short.  That, and I've noticed there are only about 3 or 4 photos of me with him.  All of this time we're practically glued together and not a picture of it around.  It's like this time will totally disappear.  It won't, I know.  It's somewhere glued into our psyches. And thank goodness for it for both of us, it is transformative.  But I do want to document it.  (I cornered Max this morning and demanded that he take our photos more often)

Some things we've done as a family to make the first 6 weeks more smooth:
- Food delivery - Friends and family and schoolmates of Sabine brought in food.  Not having to think of dinner plans every single night but still having healthy stuff to eat has been wonderful!
- HELP - we hired some help.  We've had Holly come in two times a week and help us out with whatever we need.  Sometimes it was driving Sabine, sometimes it was cooking, sometimes it was laundry. She drove me to his Dr appointments and even took me clothes shopping.  just having an exra set of hands made all the difference in the world.
- Clothes - I went and got some new clothes.  Nothing I owned before I got pregnant fits and I just felt awful wearing winter maternity clothes.  So I went and picked up a few summer things in the right sizes and that makes me feel SO much better.  Who cares what the size is?  that doesn't matter. If I look good I feel good and I look better in real clothes than in sweats.
- Chiropractor - I had an adjustment at 3 weeks after Eli's birth and my entire body shape changed.  I felt A-mazing.  Wish I could do that every single week.
-Friends - so many friends have helped us out.  What has been a real treat has been the number of playdates Sabine has been to.  Every week someone from school has offered to keep her which really makes my days more manageable.  I owe a LOT of favors next year, and that's fine.  And just having friends to talk to and to text with about the shift has helped us too.

It's been a busy time but a magical time.  I feel like I want him to stay a sweet little baby forever.  But I guess a full-night's sleep would be welcome too.  Ah.

earlier this week

Eli is Here!

Eli Cyrus Fischer

was born

Sunday March 17th 2013 at 4:41 am

He weighed 8 lbs 1 oz and was 20 inches long

His head was 14 and his chest was 14.5

Big Boy!

(I just read over the previous post, where I write about false labor on the night before he was born.  I thought I was just going to go to sleep that night...  apparently not.)