Thursday 27 December 2012

3 weeks old

petite chaton (i think that's kitten in french) is 3 weeks old today! she's still the best baby in the world. she sleeps every night for 5-6 hours, gets up to eat and goes back down for another 4 or more. she has her dad's lips, feet, and everything, but she sleeps like her mom -- thank god! i have to set an alarm to make sure we get up for that late night/early morning feeding. i don't know many other new mothers who have that "problem." we are a very happy and well rested family and i'm confident we'll get her sleeping through the night as soon as that's allowed.

it looks like today she's developed a blocked tear duct, but i've read all about how to treat that with breast milk, so we'll see if i can clear it up without a trip to the doctor. i hate taking her to the clinic where all the sick, creepy island people go. even the doctor said to spend as little time there as possible.



Tuesday 18 December 2012

bath time!

tiny cat got her first official sink bath today and she really didn't hate it like i thought she would.  she screams when i put lotion on her or wipe her down with a rag or baby wipe so i figured she'd freak out about water, but she was mostly quiet the whole time.  she pooped when we were almost done and then she spit up after i bundled her up in the cat towel she got from nana.  i tried to dress her up in some cute outfits from cassondra, but she's just too tiny for all her cutest clothes right now.  she's eating and sleeping a ton so i'm sure she'll grow like a weed in no time and then we'll play dress up :)

Friday 14 December 2012

1 week checkup

kitten had her first doctor appointment yesterday and she's healthy as can be!  she has gained weight and is over 6 lbs now.  she also grew a half inch to 20.  i've been breastfeeding and pumping, but we've also been giving her formula and i think it helped a lot with getting her plumped up.  she spits up a lot and has at least one full on diaper blow-out a day, but she is just an absolute perfect baby.  she sleeps 4 hours at a time and the doctor said to stop waking her up as long as she doesn't go 3 hours past her feeding time.  grandma and grandpa are here so she's getting all kinds of attention and i'm getting some good naps in so i can be up with her at night.  colby is the absolute best father i could ever want for my baby girl.  even when he has to work in the morning, he will get up in the middle of the night to change her diaper or hold her while i go to the bathroom or get her a bottle.  i'm so very lucky to have this perfect family with him!

Sunday 9 December 2012

kitten is here!

i put off writing my 39 week update until after my midwife appointment, but things didn't go as planned that day!  i went to the clinic at 4pm and everything was going really well.  i mentioned that kitten wasn't moving as much over the past 4-5 days, but we confirmed she had dropped and was in the ideal position for labor, and i felt great.  when veronica monitored the heart rate, i eventually noticed that she was taking much longer than usual and she looked perplexed.  she faxed the results to the hospital and came back and said it was probably nothing but she had never seen that particular pattern and she wanted me to go to the hospital where i'd likely be staying overnight for monitoring.  colby had to leave work early and we only had so much time before the last car barge left, so we threw a bunch of random stuff into the hospital bag just in case.

they were expecting us when we arrived and got me straight into a room and hooked up to oxygen, fluid, and monitors.  we waited several hours for the doctor to arrive, watching kitten's heart rate fluctuate all over the place and occasionally drop scary low.  things started to improve right off the bat so they concluded that i was probably just dehydrated, but i knew it wasn't that.  after a few hours i asked if i could take off the oxygen and not long after that her heart rate began to drop again.  when the doctor did a sonogram, she was concerned immediately about the level of amniotic fluid and began talking about recommending an induction.  i had my heart set on a 100% natural birth, and it all went out the window because we probably had to get her out right away.  the doctor left me hooked up to sleep for a few hours to see if the fluids they were giving me would improve my amniotic fluid levels, but in the morning nothing had changed and there was actually a period of 4 straight minutes of heart decels that were very concerning, so we had to do something.

at 9:05 am on thursday morning, we began pitocin induction despite the fact that i was not dilated and only slightly effaced.  i had zero hope of anything but a c-section when we started out because i've heard all the horror stories.  i tried to stay calm and nap, but there were women in rooms on both sides of me giving birth and not handling it very well at all.  one woman was literally howling the exact way sebastian does when he's super upset about me leaving.  the other one was screaming and wailing and had a screaming toddler with her also.  as the day went on, things progressed surprisingly well.  i went from 0-2 and then to 4 within a couple hours and without feeling a single contraction.  when i began to feel contractions, the nurse offered me demerol for pain and i went ahead and took it.  i didn't expect it to be so strong, but it pretty much sent me to outer space for a while and next thing i knew i was at 8 and my water broke on its own.  at this point, i was f'd up, in pain, shaking violently from the demerol, and starting to feel like epidurals were pretty awesome and i might want one.  turns out my insurance doesn't cover that and we'd have to come up with $1200 up front so i accepted my fate.  colby, however, couldn't stand to see me in pain so he set out to acquire $1200.  even if he had been able to, there wouldn't have been time because i was ready to push shortly after that.  colby says i pushed for 2 hours, but it seemed like about 45 minutes to me and honestly wasn't bad at all.  i didn't scream or cry, i didn't poop, and i only had one minor internal tear.  i was able to get immediate skin to skin and delayed cord clamping.

colby was so supportive and excited the whole time and i couldn't have asked for a better partner.  he kept telling me that what i was doing was amazing and thanking me for going through it for us.  he got to touch kitten's head while she was coming out and even though he had said he didn't want to, he jumped at the opportunity to feel and cut the cord.  it wasn't the birth experience we planned, but i have to say it was awesome!

catherine amory thompson was born at 6:39 pm on 12/6/12 after 9.5 hours of labor.  she's a petite little cat at 5 lbs 12 oz and 19.5 inches long.  she's absolutely the most amazing thing ever and we're so ridiculously in love.