Baby Cuddles + Kitten Cuddles = Fun Times

It's Rawley's second life in the "real world" and with quite a few literal and figurative hiccups, we're all making it through and mostly enjoying the process. My mom left at the beginning of the week to go up to Idaho, so we were on our own as far as taking care of the baby and everything else. That admittedly had us pretty tired by the end of the week, but we've noticed a lot of growth and improvement on Rawley's part.

The, "I've been crying for two minutes and you finally fed me so now I'm super chill" face.

We went to Rawley's first pediatrician appointment this week at his two-week mark. We were woefully under-prepared for our first real outing with a newborn. We literally brought nothing - no diapers, no nursing cover, and I accidentally left a small bottle of milk in the car. Needless to say, he was screaming for the majority of the appointment. 

We decided to take a few more pictures of me with Rawley this week to prove that I actually hold him since all the pictures last week were him with Paul.

The doctor evaluated his health, and at one point held him with one hand around his rib-cage. Rawley immediately arched his back and was straight up planking on the doctor's hand. "He's sure a strong little guy!" exclaimed the doctor. I think he was legitimately surprised - Rawley's definitely a surprisingly strong baby, although I'm not surprised based off of the kicks he was giving me during pregnancy. He has some flaky skin which is apparently normal, especially out here in Utah where it's so arid. It's already starting to go away at this point.

Rawley the little bean - sounds like a good storybook to me. Paul caught us taking a quick nap.

Asleep in his crib.

Rawley is in the 73rd percentile for weight at 9.33 pounds (a good increase from his 8 3/4 pounds when he was born), is in the 80.52 percentile for head circumference (which is very unusual for a Larsen baby - we generally have giant heads so he definitely is more normalized by Risk genes), and is very tall at 22 inches (same as when he was born) in the 97th percentile. 

The face of much tiredness, but happiness. I'm *mostly* recovered at this point but still taking it relatively easy as far as physical stuff goes.

We had noted during the week that Rawley seemed to be having a much more difficult time eating than he had in the past - he had begun choking on the milk, unlatching a lot more often, and seemed generally a lot more distressed. We asked the pediatrician about it, and he said that this was completely normal and expected - apparently, at about the 2 week mark, babies suddenly lose their newborn ability to breathe and suck at the same time. It suddenly becomes exceedingly difficult for them, which takes a lot of adjustment and is a bit of a shock to their system. Rawley was not enjoying that change at the beginning of the week, but seems to at least be past the crying about it point now.

One of my favorite Rawley faces. He likes to do this while he's getting burped for some reason. He looks like he's seeing a ghost.

Speaking of crying, we're pleased to report that he's crying and screaming a lot less than he did initially. I hear this may be because he's learning to trust that when either one of us is near or touching him, his needs will shortly get taken care of. He's also been a lot more pleasant during the times that he's awake, looking around and really focusing on our faces now. We also think we saw his first legitimate smile - my mom claims it's too early for that, but it definitely seemed to be in response to me blubbering/kissing on his cheek a few times with Paul and I both looking down at him one night at 12 am. He seemed pretty thoroughly pleased.

We actually have a baby model on our hands.

He sleeps for 2.5 to 3 hour intervals still at this point. It definitely has us getting run kind of ragged with how little sleep we've been getting. During the week I take more "shifts" than Paul to go and take care of him (Paul feeds him with a bottle of breast milk maybe once or twice a night) since Paul has work (my internship thankfully is more or less finished at this point and I'm just wrapping up some loose ends.) It's so nice to have Paul's help and feel that I can really rely on him. We were pretty grateful for the weekend when it came, though, for the chance to catch up on some sleep.

Note the umbilical cord remnant still attached in this picture.

We got a bit of a surprise this week when Becca, Paul's sister, came over for a while and we were all sitting out on the couches in our living room while Paul and Becca played a computer game against each other. Paul was holding Rawley at one point when Becca asked, "Where's Rawley's umbilical cord?" Paul and I looked at each other and realized we hadn't even noticed it had fallen off (it's supposed to.) We eventually found it on the bed, but that was an unpleasant little surprise we almost didn't notice.

"So... I get to keep her forever now, right?"

On a slightly different but still adorable topic, we rented a kitten on Saturday. There's a business in Provo called "Puppies for Rent" that allows people to rent puppies for an hour and a half or up to several hours. This week, for the first time ever, they had kittens for rent. We definitely, definitely rented a kitten, and I'm glad Paul agreed that we could do it, haha. It was an adorable little Siamese kitten, and I wanted to keep it so badly.

She sure liked that white ribbon we used to play with her. She had a patch shaved on her belly and what looked like a little surgery - not sure if that was from getting "fixed" or something else.

Paul enjoyed it and kind of likes cats, even if he might not publicly admit it.

One thing I hadn't quite accounted for when we rented the kitten, however, was the fact that Paul and I are completely exhausted all the time. So for about a half hour we played with the kitten and had fun with it... but then we were both super duper tired. It ended up that all three of us fell asleep but I got to nap with a kitten cuddled next to me, which is one of the most inexplicably comforting and rewarding things there is (for me, at least.)

Cat nappin'.

I'm sure the kitten appreciated it, since the rental kittens and puppies probably get overstimulated quite often. That kitten was adorable... not quite as cute as Rawley, but pretty close.

I don't even like cheesecake, but this one tasted pretty good.

Spinach, onion, tomato, feta cheese, eggs. Oh, and I flip them without a spatula cuz I'm super skilled.

We also made some delicious food this week - Greek omelettes (which I learned to make at my job in the student food center here at BYU last year) and cheesecake made by Paul. We have honestly not been doing a great job of making dinners this week or doing other chores, but we're getting better. Here's to hopefully a slightly more well rested week and more fun baby news to come this next week.

To Delivery - And Beyond!

Rawley enjoying his bouncer and fox towel after his second bath. 

So, this post has a few different functions. First, to inform everyone about how we (and Rawley) are doing and what's been going on. Second, to document what happened for me during labor for reference and so if I have daughters they'll have something to go off of (my mom has been out here for a week with us, and she's been super helpful but didn't remember too much about her births since they were a relatively long time ago.) Third, to put a bunch of cute pictures and videos of Rawley out there without flooding Facebook with them. Because of this I've separated the blog into two sections - Labor/Delivery and Rawley's First Week. If you want to read about all of it feel free, but I'm sure a lot of people are more concerned with Rawley than an in-detail account of what happened during delivery.

Labor/Delivery

Because literally everyone has some shots like this - these were taken on our anniversary, August 1st. I'm SO glad I'm no longer this big - shortly after these were taken I fell on some steps and broke both my sandals and cut up my foot badly/still have some bruising on my toes from it. My klutziness has decreased by a lot by this point.

It all started on Wednesday night, August 3rd at 11:00. Paul was already in bed, mostly asleep, and I slowly made my way into bed (everything was slow with an extra 40 pounds getting carried around.) I laid there for maybe 10 minutes, looking at Facebook and reading my scriptures on my phone. I suddenly started to feel a very weird pressure in my abdominal area for about 15 seconds, and then there was a large gush of liquid. I was quite positive I had not peed myself, and there was a large amount of fluid, so I jumped up out of the bed before there was a chance for the bed to get soaked and ran into the toilet. Sure enough, my water had definitely broken. I waited for about 5 minutes for it to run its course a bit, then went in and awakened Paul with, "Hey, my water just broke. We need to go to the hospital." There's few things that wakes a guy up quite like hearing those words, haha. We got together a few things to take to the hospital with us while I was still gushing out liquid occasionally, and Paul gave me a Priesthood blessing before we left. We got in the car and drove 5 minutes to the local hospital, which predictably is one of the top hospitals for baby delivery numbers in the world.

Right as we first got to the hospital, after my water had broken.

Once we got there, we quickly got signed in and were taken to the delivery room. I was put into a hospital gown, and a nurse hooked me up to some monitors designed to monitor Rawley's heartrate and my contractions (I don't really know how that works, but it was pretty cool - it did a great job of measuring them each time.) We then were faced with a dilemma. My water had indeed broken, but after several hours of sitting in the hospital it became fairly clear that my body just wasn't ready to go into real labor yet. The nurse checked if I was dilated yet (I was only slightly) and my contractions on the monitor were only very, very faint and not increasing. (For future reference - if your water breaks and labor hasn't started yet, don't let them check your cervix. That act alone can introduce bacteria that could cause an infection, so they pretty much have to induce you sooner rather than later after that happens to protect you and the baby. Without the check, they can wait a lot longer before induction to see if labor starts naturally.) We ended up waiting for 7 hours, hoping labor would start on its own, and I was so nervous/excited I barely slept at all during that time. 

The nurse eventually came with the news that she had called my OBGYN, who highly recommended I get induced to stave off infection. That's the unfortunate part of having your water break early - although that's always how they show it in movies, only about 10% of women even have their water break before labor starts, and it actually carries a higher chance of infection and complications. We decided at that point to start me on pitocin, which simulates contractions and labor. Sure enough, very soon after they started me on a low dose of it, the contractions began. Now, going into this process, I had the idea I'd like to avoid getting an epidural, and planned to just use the mild narcotics they can give through the IV. After about 5 hours of doing contractions on just a narcotic however, I had definitely reached my level of tolerance - the contractions were too strong and too frequent, giving me little time to recover or cope (something common with pitocin.) 

Here's a cute post second bath video to break up the labor story. The first bath was a screaming session, but the second went pretty well.

Paul was a champ throughout all of this - although he did get to sleep during the initial 7 hours before I was induced, he was giving me back massages for the pain, helping me get in better positions, and doing his best to help me not hyperventilate. The anesthesiologist who came to administer the epidural once I requested it got there just in the nick of time though - by that point, I was breathing rapidly and couldn't really feel my hands anymore. The epidural worked like a charm, though (and getting the needle stuck in wasn't bad at all) and the pain (and all feeling below my waist) quickly went away. That was super important, because I was actually able to sleep maybe 3 hours or so after that during the labor process. They would come back occasionally and wake up up to check how much I had dilated. There was fairly rapid progress from there. Paul had to keep helping me switch sides I was laying on throughout the following 7 or so hours, because the epidural will begin to settle on the one side you're laying on and the other will start to get feeling back again. It actually takes quite a bit of effort to flip someone on their side who can't more their legs, so I'm glad Paul's strong - the nurses helping weren't very good at it without his help, haha. 

A nurse eventually woke me up and said I was completely dilated to 10 cm, and it was time to start pushing. That was not my favorite news to hear, as I honestly wanted to sleep some more, but it did also meant he process was coming to a close. What we started doing was as my contractions came (I couldn't always feel them that well because of the epidural, but the nurse was able to watch and help me know when they were coming), and then the nurse and Paul each picked up one of my legs and pushed them up to create a better position for pushing. We did this for a maybe two hours, with honestly not that much effectiveness. The nurse was trying to be helpful in telling me how to push, but I think I just wasn't really getting it. The epidural allowed me to feel pressure, but not really specifically where I should be pushing. Then my OBGYN, Dr. Broadbent, came in, and a different nurse. The second nurse was very animated about helping me push, and Dr. Broadbent was helping try to pull Rawley out by this point, which was giving me a better idea of how I should be pushing. All in all, from that point on I made decent progress, but still not enough. I was so incredibly exhausted that although my pushes were more effective, I was too exhausted to do much more. Dr. Broadbent said (Paul tells me later) that at that point he was either going to have to use forecepts to get the baby out or it would be an emergency C-section. I really wanted to push Rawley out on my own though, so I told Dr. Broadbent I'd push a few more times and if not a lot of progress was made he could do the episiotomy (vaginal cut to make the opening wider) and use foreceps to pull Rawley out. That's what we ended up doing - and thankfully Dr. Broadbent did manage to get ahold of Rawley and pull him out with a pop that I definitely felt, and the kid shot out. He cried for maybe 20 seconds, but quickly quieted down once the nurses started cleaning him up.

Post delivery (obviously) - the exhaustion is palpable. 

Paul got to cut the umbilical cord, and at this point I was so exhausted that everything is kind of a blur. My legs were shaking pretty violently afterwards, and I was not feeling very good at all, predictably. They soon brought Rawley over to me though and I certainly felt a lot better - he is very adorable and there's something calming about having your baby in your arms after all that hard work, effort, and pain. Dr. Broadbent then pulled out the placenta - I didn't even push. There was a lot of blood, all over Dr. Broadbent and even on the floor - I've never seen so much blood in my life, that's for sure. Rawley sustained a bruise under his eye and on his head from the foreceps. I was just sitting there holding Rawley for a little while (during which Dr. Broadbent was stitching my episiotomy for like 15 minutes - felt like forever), but the nurses soon said they needed to get him down to the nursery for antibiotics since both he and I were running slight temperatures during and after delivery - a possible sign of infection. I didn't really want to give Rawley up but I was so tired by that point that I knew he needed to go and get the right medicine and I needed to rest. They took him away and I just closed my eyes as the nurse did some documentation for a while. Paul left to go talk to Becca, his sister, who had shown up part of the way through the delivery and wanted to see Rawley (she was able to through the nursery windows.)

In the nursery - you can see the bruise on his left cheek from the forceps. 

Business in the front, party in the back - our lil' dude's got a mullet.

Becca visiting us in the hospital. 

I was wheeled down to the recovery area shortly thereafter, and they gave me one of those awesome maternity diapers along with an ice pack in it. The nurse that was helping us then proceeded to explain the contents of a packet they were giving us, and I was so tired all I could do was just nod my head and pretend to be listening. She left and I was immediately fast asleep. The nurses would come in and check my vitals every now and then, and at one point I felt like I needed to pee so she helped me stand up to go to the bathroom - and there was suddenly blood all over the floor. She reassured me that happens all the time, but she was very kind and helped me to the toilet and then proceeded to clean up the floor and my legs and everything. I have never had experiences with nurses before - this is the first time I've been committed to a hospital since I was about 7, and that was just to get an IV for the flu - but they literally are heroes. They put up with a lot of nasty stuff like blood all over the floor and it takes a lot of compassion, understanding, and steel nerves to be doing what they do, I figure. I'm exceedingly grateful for all their help during our stay there. Anyway, after that incident the bleeding and other aches and pains slowly got better as I was able to sleep a LOT that first night. I also ate food for the first time that night after the 23 hours from the beginning of the whole process, and that food tasted SO good. Seriously. I've never been so hungry-tired in my whole life.

Although it's obviously best for newborns to be breastfed first thing, that wasn't really an option for us since I was so tired and Rawley needed his medicine, so for the first night he was fed by bottle by the nurses in the nursery. I woke up Friday with some pain, but they gave me medicines for it and I was still on an IV with various drugs and antibiotics to try and stave off infection (as was Rawley.) I attempted a few times to breastfeed him, without success. He was generally very sweet in the hospital and didn't cry too much that first day. We also discovered the deliciousness that was the hospital food - I know people make fun of it normally, but man, with salmon and steak and many tasty things - we were very impressed. We took that day to sleep, bond with Rawley, and recover. The nurses also had to put a catheter in because I wasn't able to urinate - something they don't tell you about birth. Apparently the trauma to that area can be bad enough that you might not be able to pee for a while afterwards, or defecate for quite a number of days. The things you learn.

Saturday I really wanted to breastfeed Rawley, and a lactation consultant came in and talked our ear off without really being all that helpful. I kept telling Paul that I felt like I wasn't feeding Rawley enough with the pre-milk I was producing, but the consultant told us it was fine. Soon, though, it became clear that day that Rawley was pretty upset and every time I tried nursing him he got even more upset - which made me really upset because he was obviously very angry and we couldn't figure out how to help him without giving him a bottle, which we did eventually do. There were many tears as my emotional and physical state just wasn't quite ready for that type of seeming rejection. Eventually we asked a nurse to bring in a breast pump, however, and it soon became clear that I really was hardly producing any pre-milk at all, meaning that poor Rawley was getting half starved because the lactation consultant told us to just keep trying and it "would be enough." I felt super bad because we made our baby so hungry that day, but at least at this point he's nursing pretty well although we're still supplementing just a little bit with formula sometimes. I'm pretty glad we got that all figured out though!

Another cute fox baby video.

We drove home with Rawley Saturday night at 9:00. It was very fun for all three of us to get in the car together and drive off - a real little family for the first time. Thankfully my mom was also there that first night to help us, as I could still hardly walk at all (my tailbone must have been bruised during delivery - a level of pain I wasn't expecting, and has continued for a week but is mostly gone now) so she would bring him in from the crib in the living room where she was sleeping to me so I could nurse and feed him when he cried. 

My mom with Rawley on his first night home from the hospital.

I think that's about it as far as the labor and delivery experience. I will say that women who claim that labor and delivery are completely beautiful, natural, and amazing experiences are at least in part lying to themselves in my opinion. Rawley is the beautiful, amazing result of something that is actually pretty awful, and was actually designed to be:

Genesis 3:16 - "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children..."

Granted, the epidural made everything at least tolerable, and my contractions were probably worse because of the pitocin, but I'm pretty sure that labor is not supposed to be an "enjoyable" experience. If some women can somehow twist it to be so in their minds, that's cool, but I will never be one to claim that labor is something awesome - the whole experience was overall the most painful and difficult thing I've ever done physically and possibly mentally, but with Rawley here it was indeed worth it.

I mean, just look at this lil' chub. Our 8 and 3/4 pounds and 22 inches long baby.

Just our hungry little caterpillar. Big thanks to my Aunt Skye for making this for us and sending the book along too!

Rawley's First Week

Oh, the drama!

We sure do love Rawley, also known as Little Paul! This first week has been made a lot easier by my mom being here to help out, but it's taken a lot of adjusting to wake up every 3 to 4 hours (which is good for a newborn) to take care of him. Paul's been as helpful as he could with the nighttime waking up, but since he's working he needs the sleep a bit more than I do. I'm still working on my internship stuff, but that's finished more or less tomorrow so that will be nice. Paul's been very helpful this weekend though, especially when I feed Rawley for 45 minutes at 3 am and then he spits up everything I just fed him and is hungry again - Paul helped out with that situation and a few others like it. 

Enjoying his camo American pillow - we always feed him on this. It's Paul's pillow he's had for ages. He's really just a baby burrito when we put him in his swaddle cloth.

Rawley's got the hiccups - he gets them pretty much 5 times a day.

Rawley's been making rapid progress, as far as the word can apply to a week old baby. Initially he rarely opened his eyes, but he opens them relatively frequently now and looks around, often at our faces although I don't think he's focusing on them all that well. He also lifts his head up from our shoulders quite often when we're burping him and is pretty active in kicking and waving his arms around (although he has pretty much no coordination yet.) He only smiles a little in his sleep, and doesn't really make too many noises at this point beyond crying.

The first one is his "I'm really trying hard to poop" face. The second is his "I'm actually a mini Buddha" face.

I think Rawley definitely takes after Paul's side of the family in his looks - when I first met Paul and Becca at pioneer trek many years ago, I thought they were half Chinese because of their dark hair and somewhat Asian looking eyes. Rawley's got those same eyes, but I think he might have a slightly more Larsen mouth. But let's be real, it's hard to tell when he's so young. Looks like he might have kind of bluish green eyes so far, which of course will likely change as time goes on. Rawley also was born with a mullet - a lot more hair in the back than on the top and sides, and he seems to have a slight wave to his hair so far. 

This is his favorite position when it's Paul's turn to burp him.

Rawley's a pretty chill baby. He sleeps for 3 to 4 hours at a time, and lets us know with some crying when he's awake. After feeding him, burping him, and changing his diaper, he is generally pretty happy and just goes back to sleep or hangs out with his eyes open during the day, looking around at everything. 

He hiccups quite often after feeding, which he was doing all the time while in the womb. I think he inherited that from me, since I get hiccups all the time, but he gets his strong sneezes from Paul. If that sort of thing is inherited, which it probably isn't. 

Dreaming with his eyes kind of open.

Another picture with mom and one of him rolling around in his bassinet which we got for $15 on a Facebook yardsale page - it's been good to have him in our room sometimes during this early time period.

For those who have been asking/wondering, we also do have a baby registry, although we have most of the stuff we actually need at this point. It's mostly clothes and a few odds and ends we realized we needed or wanted now that he's actually here. Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/registry/baby/395LUZQ6AOJ21

To quote Paul, "He's a pretty cool baby." There's ups and downs with early parenting, but we are learning and growing as well. As Paul says, these days are teaching us a lot of patience, charity, and love both for Rawley and for each other. We're so glad for all the family support and love for this lil' guy as well. It's going to be so much fun for our friends and family to meet him - either this summer or at Christmas when we go back to Virginia!