Seriously. We just got back from the 4 month well baby visit, complete with two shots, and he’s the happiest he’s been all day. I think it’s related to the fact that he has just recently discovered his feet. He’s now coordinated enough to grab them easily, although they haven’t made it into his mouth just yet.
His hand-mouth coordination is getting good too, although we’re still working on aiming the pacifier the right way.
Quite conveniently, a friend of mine live in a building two blocks away that just so happens to also have a hair salon downstairs. She graciously offered to watch David while I went to get a much needed hair cut before we headed over to baby story time at the library. Here is David hanging out with her daughter, Dawson, who is just four weeks younger than David.
Due to being too lazy to get my hair cut except once in about three years, it was about the longest it had ever been. With post-partum hair loss kicking in, I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.
Before:
After:
Yes, that’s right. We’ll be putting David in various costumes throughout the month of October. Does anyone really think just one day can contain all this cute?
I saw this at Thrift Town and just couldn’t resist. It’s actually sized 18 months, so it fits him like a bunting now, and should still fit him next year with his legs sticking all the way out.
Stay tuned, we’ve got more costumes coming…
Let’s start this with some background information:
1. I hardly ever get sick. When I do, I rarely take anything.
2. I was drinking at least 6 cups of coffee daily.
3. I was 3 months into a 20 hour/week internship in addition to continuing to teach 30 students ( 20 hours in the studio) weekly in Mountain View, a 45 minute commute. And performing 2-3 times a month. And running media at church one weekend a month.
The first trimester sick kicked my butt. I was nauseous all the time (calling it morning sickness is misleading, I had all-day sickness), but luckily never puked. I hate throwing up, and from what I’ve read, you don’t even get the usual relief after throwing up when it’s caused by pregnancy. The fatigue was hard to deal with also, but it was made so much worse by the need to cut caffeine. The recommended daily caffeine intake is 200mg. That’s one cup of coffee. I was used to six.
At first, I tried having just one cup of coffee in the morning, but there was no way that was enough. I decided to switch to decaf to fool myself into feeling like I was still getting coffee, because I could still have two or three cups in the morning. For a solid week, I really struggled to function. It was worst fatigue I’ve ever dealt with. Normally, I can power through not feeling well, or being a little tired, but there was no powering through this. It wiped me out.
Around week 14, things finally started getting better. The sick and tired went away and I started feeling normal again. Soon after, I would finally start to look pregnant.
I finally got around to taking pictures in February.
22w1d: I felt I looked pregnant enough to take a picture. Ha! Little did I know how much more pregnant I could look.
27w3d: A little bigger.
29w1d: This shirt shows off the bump more.
Jump to 36w1d: Third trimester, getting big.
36w6d: A little bigger.
37w1d: Bigger. And maybe I had “dropped.” Not that that meant anything.
38w3d: Still getting bigger.
40 weeks! The due date came and went, which is to expected in a first pregnancy, but that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable.
At 5 days past my due date I went to a 4th of July party. I have to say, it was kind of fun answering people who asked when I was due with “5 days ago.”
I was still pregnant two days later, and opted to be induced at 41 weeks. 28 hours later, I would no longer be pregnant.
The jazz group I perform with, Resonance, spent the weekend in the studio recording eleven tunes for a CD release. Eleven tunes in a weekend is a pretty intense schedule, requiring about ten hours each day. Since I’m currently David’s only source of food, it was either pump like mad or bring the baby along. So, we brought the baby along.
He really loved listening to the cello. Even when were all playing to set levels, he didn’t care that mommy was right in front of him playing viola, he stared at the cello.
Luckily, he didn’t have to actually stay in the studio for long. Charles was away at the Cornerstone men’s retreat, but came home just after we had to leave. After unloading his drum set, he was able to meet us at the studio just about an hour and half after we got there. We were still working on setting levels, so it was no problem having David in the studio.
In addition to the recording studio, we also had access to a really nice lounge with a full kitchen, huge sectional couch, and great dining table, so daddy and baby had a nice place to hang out. Charles had done a lot of recording of the band at the men’s retreat, so he spent some time mixing those recordings while we were in the studio recording. He also spent a lot of time in the booth checking out the massive 48 channel board (SSL 4000 G-series) and geeking out with the engineer. When they needed to get out, he had the stroller to go for nice walks around Berkeley.
Luckily, David has recently become a much more efficient eater, needing only about 10 minutes every 2 hours for meals. We took that many breaks anyway, so I was able to feed the baby in a break and then get right back to recording. It was so nice to have him at the studio with me. Thanks daddy!
The studio was super nice, and many famous musicians and bands have recorded there. It was quite an experience.
This guy!
After two and half months of trying to shove his entire fist (or sometimes both) into his mouth, David has finally figured out how to separate his thumb from the rest of his fingers and get just that into his mouth. He can then get into a good suck pattern and even put himself to sleep sucking!
I'm a big fan of the sleeping baby, but not a fan of the idea of having to break him of this if it becomes a habit.
October 23rd, 2011: We were only on our third month post-quitting-the-pill. I was charting, so I knew I was already four days late. I took the test first thing in the morning and that plus sign lit up before I could even set the test down to wait for the required three minutes.
One of the more agonizing waits was the time between taking the test and going to the first doctor’s visit. They won’t see you until you’re at least 10 weeks along since there’s not much they can do other than give you the same urine test that you take at home. By 10 weeks, they can sometimes find a heartbeat with the doppler and see the tiny gummy bear on an ultrasound.
I had to find a new practice to go to also, since I had been going to a nurse practitioner down south and I needed to find someone in the city. I did some research and liked looks of the birth center at UCSF. They also have a great midwife program and my first visit was with a midwife.
After the standard weight check and blood pressure test, and the midwife came in to chat. There wasn’t much I didn’t already know, since in the time between the positive test and the office visit I had basically read everything on the entire internet having to do with pregnancy.
One thing I didn’t know was that I have a tipped or retroverted uterus. Basically, my uterus points back to my spine rather than forward, meaning there was no way the doppler was going to pick anything up and the little portable office ultrasound couldn’t see anything either. When those two tests failed to find anything, and not knowing yet why, she offered an internal ultrasound. That was an experience. It took a bit of searching (real fun) until she found my uterus, but then we got our first glimpse of the little gummy bear shaped 8 week old with his tiny blip of a beating heart. Seeing that was really special, but sadly, we have no pictures of that time.
We do have photos from the 12 week scan. At 12 weeks, they do an NT (nuchal translucency) scan. The main purpose is to look at the fluid and fold at the back of the neck. Low fluid can be an indicator of Down’s or other chromosomal abnormalities. You also get a fantastic shot of the whole baby.
Everything looked good at that scan. The next glimpse we would get of the baby would be the anatomy scan which is usually done around 20 weeks. We went in at 19. It was amazing. They are basically looking inside the baby to make sure all the bones and organs are in place. They can also tell the sex at this scan, but we chose not to find out.
All the bones of the spine where in place. I specifically asked for a print out of that one because it was just so amazing to see.
I would get to see the baby several more times on the inside. As my blood pressure was trending high, I started antenatal testing at 36 weeks. It came with an ultrasound to check fluid levels and 30 minutes of sitting on the monitor to make sure the baby’s heart rate was reactive during movement. I got some good views of his face, but it was nothing like seeing his face for real when we finally kicked him out.
