Our Little Prince

My husband and I are both really committed to being Eco-friendly, living on a small carbon footprint, and therefore using non-disposable baby gear as much as possible. Furthermore, essentially to use as little baby gear as possible. So, regarding diapering we set up a good system: merino wool diaper covers x 3, diaper service, organic cotton/wool “diaper wipes” and a spray nozzle on both the sink and the toilet. This set up does require a certain amount of washing in spite of the diaper service not requiring pre-washing. There’s still the baby, baby bottom, wool diaper covers to various degrees, and the diaper wipes. Given laundry is in the basement and I’m not yet cleared for stairs, we were doing a significant amount of hand washing in the kitchen sink. That’s right, the kitchen counter quickly became the de facto changing station. 

Thus, enter Plumbing Problems: whereby suddenly both our sinks, the kitchen and bathroom sinks, stopped draining. And of course, it’s the weekend. It seems the meconium tailings and frequent olive oil soap residue maxed out our 1926 plumbing. With both sinks out of commission and a 6 day old neonate, it began to feel like my world was spiraling out of control. I must stop to do a gratitude check.

* we have running water

* we have hot water

* our toilet works

* we have a working bathtub and shower with a drain that’s draining great

* we have a happy baby

* he’s eating, pooping, and peeing

* he hasn’t been dropped, crushed, squished, or eaten by cats

* our cats are alive and non-plussed

* we haven’t been burglarized

* no one has been injured or died

Okay, deep breath. We can get through this, Tolle-mummy, the meconium days are numbered. 

One broken plunger, some patience, the loan of neighbor Laura’s key for washing dishes, and one miracle-worker Nana later, the drains are once more free-flowing. Peace is restored in the kingdom of our little prince. And, now the meconium days are thankfully behind us.

Lake wasn’t quite born with a silver spoon in his mouth. I was there and can bear witness. He did, however, have one waiting for him at home thanks to his fairy godmother Bridget Haupt. Behind every silver spoon baby likely lurks a silver bell mama. This is that story. 

I had a normal vaginal birth, albeit strenuous, and my midwife has placed me on a two week bed rest in order to optimize my recovery. This entails no stairs (we live in a second floor walk-up), minimal time out of bed, no housework, no lifting anything heavier than my baby or a spoon to my mouth. At times it can be difficult to rein in my normal independent spirit, outdoorsy walking ways (remember this is the one who went to yoga in 41st week and walked eight miles after the water broke). Mostly, however, I have no inclination to be up and about, and generally get very strong opinions back from my body telling metro get back in bed. Being confined to the bedroom can be isolating. Even in our extremely modest 550 ft2 flat my voice doesn’t have the strength to carry to all corners, especially should my mother (Nana) happen to be talking, or my husband is in the office listening to music. Plus, especially the first week I was a bit weak, and my voice didn’t seem as strong as normal either. Dilemma: how to get the help I need (water, a wet cloth, my phone, help up, etc) when I need it (usually STAT!).

I thought, “what I need is a bell!”

So I have the brilliant idea of bringing out the family silver dinner bell from the upper cupboard.  Nana was amenable to the plan after I gave supporting examples of times no one heard me, and brought the bell to my bedside.

*Ding a ling a ling!* “May I have a glass of sparkling water please?” Bon!

Then my husband becomes privy to the set-up when he spies the silver bell. He’s, to put it mildly, not a fan. We’re all a team here, no servents and Queen Mothers. 

Bell goes away.

Time passes. He acquiesces on his own accord and the bell is restored to my bedside table. A few instances come to pass of voice not being heard and I escalate my calls to include vigorous ringing of the silver bell. It is faintly heard in the other room and a devoted husband happily comes to my aid. Judicious use of the bell is appreciated by all.
Today I defied bed rest to go to my PEPS group in Ballard. It would have been Lake’s 2 week old mark, had he been born at 40 weeks, but the generous facilitator invited me to come anyways, in spite of his super young age if I could make it. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to but I rallied! I can surely benefit from any extra early parent support I can get! It felt refreshing to get out show up for the party. Next week I’m bringing the snacks: on the road to recovery. 

I must say, it will feel mighty good to be able to put the bell back in the cupboard.

Field trip to Ballard: PEPS (Program for Early Parent Support) Babies!

We had a great night last night! Shhh, don’t tell Nurse Ratchet… He slept from 1am to 7am… He was so content to sleep next to Daddy he wasn’t overly-anxious to wake up and eat, and I was loathe to interrupt such a beautiful and peaceful scene… He was cuddled up against him like the little Big Spoon, with his lower hand clutching beneath Daddy’s flank.

Both parties seemed mutually happy with the arrangement, and the parents were refreshed from a sound night’s sleep!

“Lake and leak, leak and Lake, we’re a team. He’s clearly Lake and in his presence I’ve become leak. Periodically my breasts leak when he wakes up hungry and lets us know, and when he latches on to one breast, the other will leak in symphonic harmony. It trickles down like a rivulet. And even my eyes, they leak occasionally and unannounced too.”

“You know that you’re all in for breastfeeding when you contemplate the possible benefits of using leaked breast milk on your face as a facial serum, for skin tightening and creating a fresh faced dewey glow look.”

Cosmetics gold mine?

“Today we beat the heat by celebrating Lake’s one week birthday with his grandmother Julie,  his Nana, and his new friend Lena Meyer. We sat around with chilled grapefruit sparkling water and eating oranges. There was reminiscing about hot summers in Spain and Italy, of enjoying all the plazas and fountains. Daddy led us in the Swedish version of happy birthday (ed- Glad födelsedagen. It’s very peppy). We went outside to catch the breeze. My first outdoor excursion since walking across the street after arriving home from the hospital.”

A hot succulent!

“Umbilical update: it’s looking good! As of today he know longer has his stump and he looks like a real little boy. The stump met an unfortunate fate involving sterilized scissors and two medically minded parents in an incident of kitchen surgery.”

“I’ve given him two doses of Pharmax neonatal probiotics now: one yesterday and one today. I think that it’s really helped minimize his spit up. So now we get the joys of the other side, and maybe we’re working on a blow-out here!”

“I’m concerned about his healing ubilicus, though. I’m not sure that we’ve escalated to page the midwife status yet, but I’m unclear on what the parameters of normal are here. I know it’s supposed to smell like ripe cheese. But if it smells like… fetid… could be a sign of infection. It was doing so well, it was all dry and perfect, but then it got wet. I know I can’t be the first mother to get an umbilicus wet during the first two weeks, but now it seems like it just can’t get ahead. And when it’s like stinky cheese, drying out, then I worry that if it dries out it will give him a weird belly button. Maybe I’m just assigning myself fault and this is totally normal. Maybe I didn’t even get it wet; maybe it’s oozing a bit all on it’s own. Hard to say, being that I’m all new to this! But I liked it better when it was dry and didn’t smell.”

“The nursing staff was really strong on us using disposable diapers until the belly button heals over. It seems highly unlikely a necessity since disposable diapers have not been around since the birth of man. But maybe it’s the best thing to try out now. I really like the diaper service diapers and his little wool diaper covers. He seems so cozy in it, and no skin irritation or anything.”

“Well, at least he’ll have a belly button. Proves his origins. He’s the real deal 100% organically grown baby! …Do test tube babies have placentas? Maybe they have IV port scars instead of umbilicals…”

“Ok, let’s get you some more food huh?”
Scribe: “He really enjoys his arms.”
“He used to push them around inside of mama. One of my coworkers called him super baby, because I was always drinking the Health Force Nutritionals vitamineral greens drink with warrior food protein powder. It’s true: he’s a super strong baby!”

“Lake is very charming, even when he is not.”

“I’m so hot! Whew. Maybe I should take the heating pad off.”

“Lake had several visitors today. Several walking buddies. We’re developing this pattern where after I feed him, really good, and change, we stuff him in the sling. Then Nana takes him out for two hours so I can sleep. We both sleep for two hours. Nana got three walks in today. They walked with Laura Ng in the morning to Gasworks Park. And Lake got to go up to the Ave with cousin Laura and check out the scene, and came home with some takeout from Thai Tom’s.”

“Looks like he’s a lady’s man!  You know what they say about tiny babies with big feet! They like to eat, so they can grow into them just like puppies.”

“There’s a spit up coming on, Lake. You think you’re just a bottomless pit but you’re not!”

“I just have one final joke about breastfeeding. You know you’re in deep when dried spit up and breast milk leaks in your hair.. And you decide that it is giving it texture and body.”

Well baby.

Rebozo scale.

“Yeah! You’re ready for some foodies! Just grab onto my foot and I’ll pull you right over!”

“Hey sweetheart, it’s been a long time. You got your milks.”

“Nana’s your good buddy, huh?  You guys are adventure buddies. You go on your adventures.”

“Look at my little milk friend! Oh my goodness, let’s get that in there! There you go, that was a good chomp!”

“Got to be careful what I say now, I’m on the record.”

“You know you’re in deep for beastfeeding when your nipple cream doubles as your face cream.”

Late night.

“He was born Sunday… I don’t know. It hasn’t been Thursday night yet. This was his third night total. His third night of life.”

“After getting through his third night of life I was paging the midwife for a weight check, anxious about his dropping weight. Midwife Carly came by to do an “emergency” check up for the fretful mom. Knowing that he was only getting colostrum and working so hard for it made me anxious that he was going to dedicate, shrivel up, and die. I drank several gallons of lactation tea.

Carly weighed him in at 6 lb 10 oz, with the rebozo scale (it’s really cool), representing 9% loss since his birth weight, of 7 lb 3.4 oz. He was still in the safety zone, but it was tough being his new mummy and watching him dip while he worked so hard. His third night of life he fed continuously for all but two hours. He breast fed alllll night, and slept from 4 to 6 am.

You’ve got to be careful what you wish for, because after all that the, when the milk came in, owie! Now that the milk’s in, he no longer has to be a marathon nurser, and it’s sweet to see his look of contentment after even just 10 minutes of the wet breast.”

“That’s the look! Thaat’s the look! We keep going. Open open open open.”

Cat life goes on.

“I’m glad that you’re such a good walker, Lake. That was my plan that you would be a good walker. If I don’t want to walk in our neighborhood, well, we have a car seat, we could take him anywhere!”

“$200,000 was too steep so here’s what you get: a dirty neighborhood to walk in at two in the morning. A crime ridden neighborhood.”

“My little snoozer. I’m going to start calling you Sleeper Agent. Maybe that will rub off.”

“What are we gonna do about getting you some food, honey!”

(Breast feeding) “mmmmmfff. ooooooooohh.” “Look at your nose! Your nose gets all kind of smushed.”

“It’s a good thing to start out the day in a wet diaper!”

“It was not really that bad in retrospect, he suckled for 4 hours, and slept for 2 hours. But during that period of time it’s the thoughts that really get you. It wasn’t as bad as the night before when I was envisioning my psychiatric admit, and planning his adoption by my brother and sister in-law. But the thoughts can be pretty dark in the middle of the night. I thought that I could see his fontanels, worrying that he’s gettting more and more dehydrated and weak waiting for my milk to come in. I’d be feeding him and I’d fall asleep. I just couldn’t stay awake. I tried any number of different things: lying in bed feeding him, sitting up on the sofa feeding him, trying to lie him down in his Moses basket. I think predominantly I was on the sofa with the light on so that if he popped off I could ensure that he got a good relatch. I cozied the comforter around me so it was kind of like I was in bed.”

“He looks worried. He does! Stop typing!”

A disused basket.

“Can we think of anything else to do besides suckle? Rub our nose? That’s good. Chew on our fist? That’s good.”

Ahoy! It’s a boy!

(Breast-feeding) “Ow. Insert funny joke here.”

“I feel like this could go better next time, like ‘Tollllleeeeee, it’s time to feed Laaaaaake.”

“We got clearance for discharge this morning from both of our doctors: the pediatrician and the OB attending. Neither of us looked like we were likely to imminently contract or die of sepsis from the prolonged rupture of membranes prior to his birth. We had been 64 hours since the water broke until he was delivered.

It’s difficult being on the other side of the discharge waiting game process. We had clearance but we still needed a second bilirubin screen and for it to come back within normal limits. Then we had to go through ‘how not to kill your baby’ two or three times, with different forms to sign. I melted into tears as the last straw, the car seat our generous friend had given us, was a tad too large for Lake’s tiny frame. We had no idea of how long he would be when he was born, and we had not planned to drive him home from the hospital when he was 48 hours old; we had been planning a home birth. So my Mama Bear defenses quickly rose up and I was ready to leave AMA!

The staff at Northwest Hospital had been so supportive especially Ali Lewis, MD, our rockstar on-call physician who delivered him. But after an endless parade nursing shifts, and not having been able to appreciate being outside for three days at home and two days inpatient, I was on the verge of developing ‘ICU induced delirium’ (This was my bad joke at the time, but the poor lady was just about done -ed). It was a relief to step outside, and I wept as my emotions overwhelmed me. My mom was driving us home. Times have changed: we safely arrived home while joking and reminiscing about the crib on the floor in the back of the VW van that my parents had brought me home in 38 years prior. As I excitedly and proudly gave Lake his welcome home tour, and introduced him to Mr Cat and Mr Silky, he fell asleep before the tour was halfway over. I guess it was his way of telling me that he already had been living here for 41 weeks and he was glad to be back home. We both were.”