Sturm Haus

floating

OK, this VBAC thing? Brilliant! I cannot stress how much better this recovery has been. Poor Otto. Poor me. We had a rough go that first time around. Not to knock the difficulties of normal childbirth, but that whole abdominal surgery/drug cocktail c-section thing took me months to get over. I felt better an hour after this birth than I did a week after Otto's. Thank God.

This week we've been getting up in the morning, the kids and me, and getting Otto ready for school. He's been coming into our room in the morning and heading straight to the co-sleeper to look at Annabel -- "it's the baby! Oh, she's so cute!" He's been really great, happy to go to school and keep his routine. Annabel goes in with us, and she's been cooed over by 90% of the kids and teachers. He's been fine with that. Next week he'll start going Mon-Wed-Fri and we'll have Tuesdays and Thursdays to hang out together, which will be fun (I hope). Usually Annabel and I run an errand or two after dropping Otto off (today we went to Kroger), but I'm trying to limit my running around. After all the doctor's appointments last week it's been good to stay close to home. Tomorrow we might visit Indigo Forest and Tree City Diaper to check out baby slings and cloth diapers and toys, just for fun.

Annabel and I are sleeping pretty well (with the exception of last night, when she asked to nurse 3 hours in a row - I'm blaming a growth spurt), and I usually get 3 or so 2-hour naps during the night between feedings. That might not sound like much, but it's working pretty good for me. Then we take a little nap in the afternoon, which sort of rounds things out and gives me the energy to tackle the evening.
She still has her nights and days switched around, but today she was awake during a good part of the afternoon, so I'm hopeful that soon she'll start sleeping a bit heavier at night and be awake more for dad and brother in the evening.

And that's kind of it. We're trying to keep things simple. I have my hormonal moments, of course, so far they've been manageable. The living room floor is covered with Otto's toys and there are 6 baskets of clean clothes that need putting away, but Otto's pretty happy, there's milk in the fridge, and the baby's thriving.

Life, as they say, is good.

big brother

detour

There is a sweet, fresh little person snuggled into my shoulder right now.

She wears a white onesie and pink knit pants, and she's waving one hand around and making squeaky noises as she tries to decide whether it's time to wake up and eat again (almost). Her knees are tucked up close to her tummy so that she's lying in a sort of inverted lotus position.

She has the softest black hair, a downy fluff that's almost long enough to lie against her neck in back. On top it's short enough to be spiky. Half the time she's sporting a fauxhawk. Her brother had no hair to speak of, and what he did have was strawberry blonde. Otto loved being swaddled, Annabel prefers being able to kick her legs out. Beyond those surface differences, there are a lot of similarities between them. Expressions they make. The way they latch on to nurse. General sweetness of character and love of snuggling.

Oh, and jaundice. Otto went home from the hospital looking rather yellow, and so did Annabel.

Tuesday we went to the doctor's office, where the sharp-eyed nurse picked up on Annabel's yellow tinge and ordered some tests. Turns out my girl and I have different blood types, and the ABO incompatibility + elevated bilirubin level + being 3 weeks early + weight loss sent us to the hospital Tuesday night for phototherapy and more testing. On our way to the hospital I told her we were making a deal: I would feed her, and she would eat. The only way for babies to excrete excess bilirubin is through the kidneys and intestine, so the more feeding we did, the better she would feel.

It was a loooong 24 hours. Annabel had to spend the majority of that time lying diapered (no jammies or blanket) in a bassinet with a blue UV light glaring down on her and a glowing blue bili blanket under her back. She had to wear a black-foam eye cover that kept slipping down over her nose and needed adjustment every time she wiggled. Around 2am the house pediatrician decided we shouldn't even take her out of the bassinet for nursing, and that we should try a couple of formula feedings to see if that would help clear out her system. So I fed her while propping her up under the blue light and we spilled stinky formula everywhere because the nipples they had were too fast-flowing for a baby used to pulling milk from mom. She tolerated the whole thing well, which was proof to me that she wasn't feeling good. And despite the odd situation, we each upheld our end of the bargain -- she ate like a trooper, and when I couldn't nurse we did bottles and I pumped.

Thankfully the tests came back relatively OK. No further complications were found from the blood type problems, which could've been bad (evidently). My milk had come in the night before, so her weight stabilized and started climbing, plus she was hydrated enough that they never had to start an IV. By 10am, when our own pediatrician came around on rounds, she was looking better and we got the OK to nurse again. We were discharged that evening and were back at our house by dinner time.

We've had multiple lab tests since then to keep an eye on her levels, and while they're still a little high, the worst of the danger seems to have passed. I'm grateful we didn't have to stay in the hospital more than a day -- I've not learned how to sleep in hospitals, and didn't manage more than a few 30 minute naps while we were there. My mom came over to keep me company, a welcome distraction that helped me stay calm. It's hard not being allowed to hold your newborn, to watch her shiver and twitch in a hospital bed when all you want to do is snuggle her. I thought about all the moms whose infants start life in the NICU and have to wait and watch and pump for a lot longer than 24 hours before getting to hold their babies and take them home. In comparison we were lucky, but I hope we don't have to go back.

One thing in particular helped us get through. In utero, Annabel liked to press her feet hard into the upper right side of my belly, right under my ribs. I think she started doing it to stretch her legs out, but then I started rubbing her feet to get her to stop poking me and she decided it felt good. Up until the day she was born, we'd communicate that way -- she'd press her feet hard into my tummy, I'd rub her feet, and she'd relax.

Tuesday night, lying blindfolded and naked in her bassinet, she straightened her legs and stuck her tiny feet into the air, searching for some sort of reassurance. I reached over and curled my hand around her heel and she slid back to sleep.

surprise!

June 14, 2008

Annabel Elaine

7 lbs 7 oz, 20 inches long

If Otto's delivery was like taking the slow boat to China, Annabel's was like being hit by a freight train (in a good way).

We're home, O thinks his baby sister is pretty cute, all is well, I'm great. Off to try and sleep now.

true confession

This morning Otto was entertaining himself by playing with a small stack of paperbacks on the floor by my nightstand.

I hauled him onto the bed to get his shorts on, and he took one of the books with him. Lying back on the sheet he looked at the cover for a minute, then said, "dark."

"What's dark, honey?" Tug, snap, shorts on -- time for socks.

He pointed at the cover. "Dark!" he said with authority.

I paused, stretched up on my knees, and stared. He was looking at the cover of a romance novel. It's been on the floor by my bed for a few weeks now, waiting to join its brothers either in the Paperbackswap queue or a donation bag. A scary thought percolated through my brain.

I said, "show me where 'dark' is."

And he pointed to the first word of the title. D-A-R-K. "Dark!" he said proudly.

"Yep," I said, "that's the word dark!"

And I sat back down and thought "oh my God, he's reading."

I called Jon, who's more casual about these things than I am. "Yeah," he said, "I wondered if he was reading a little, but I thought maybe he just had his favorite books memorized."

I realize it's a big leap from word recognition to true reading. And it's not a massive surprise, since he's been all about letters and words and reading stories the past 6 months. But it's still a bit of a shock to have your baby pick up a random vampire romance novel and start reading you the title.

view from the top

view from the top,
originally uploaded by sturm95.

Yeah. Me and the baby. At my desk. It's pretty bad when my legs look spindly compared to my belly.

Have I mentioned lately that I'm uncomfortable? I don't think I have. Even if I have, I can't say it enough. UNCOMFORTABLE.

4 weeks to go, or thereabouts.

I found out this morning that Otto leaked one of our top names to his teacher at school -- waving out the window one morning as I left, he said "bye bye Mama, bye bye Baby X!"

Guess we know which name he likes best.

He's slaying me lately with cuteness. This three-and-a-half stage can stick around for awhile, if you ask me. Naked-running-leaping-after-bath hugs are the best.

Well, this is just... special.

Our a/c has decided to conk out and we've been told the compressor is shot and needs to be replaced.

So, OK. We're trying to be smart consumers. We're getting mutiple quotes. We're looking into competing brands, since this particular compressor (by Trane) has had several problems during its short little life of 9 years.

One of the quirky things we like to remember about our house in Janesville is the ancient, tank-like, highly reliable air conditioner. I think it was older than we were and never faltered. The whole-house fan is another. Ahh... we used to flip that baby on and bedroom doors would slam shut in the breeze. Thankfully, in all our moves of the past several years, we never dumped the fan collection we built up while living in Stoughton. Every one came out of the basement tonight. We will sleep cool.

But here I am, 8 months pregnant, facing a high tomorrow of 92 degrees with god-knows-what-level humidity. This, folks, is one more reason to work up until my due date.

It's also a great reason to go check out the new water park down the road. Assuming my suit will stretch over my tummy, or I can find one at Target. Heck, I might just shock everyone and go with my belly hanging out. The glare should blind anyone foolish enough to look.

I had an hour-long freakout tonight about the timing, the money, the everything. I'm better now. It's been a very long, very busy week and I'm really tired. We will spend the next few days living old-school as far as cooling goes, until we're happy with a contractor and a quote. I will call up my Kansas genetics for strength (you think we have shade out there on the prairie when it's 110 degrees? No!) and try not to whine.

But a few prayers, if you could send them our way, would be a good thing. I'm also going to play dirty by sticking my tummy in front of every contractor who comes to the house. Between the two maybe we'll get this thing fixed FAST.

fini

When we bought our house in Janesville in 2001, we did it with the thought that we'd want to be out of there within 5 years. There were always rumors swirling about the GM plant, that it was on the short list for getting closed should any plants need closing because it was old. And this was before gas prices started climbing -- all they make in Janesville are Tahoes and Suburbans.

Today's NY Times reports:

In what he called “difficult” decisions, Mr. Wagoner said that G.M. would close plants in Janesville, Wisc.; Moraine, Ohio; Oshawa, Ontario; and Toluca, Mexico by or before 2010.
G.M. Closing 4 Plants in Shift From Trucks Toward Cars

Ouch. I hope Janesville's leaders have been planning for this. It'll leave a huge employment hole in a relatively small community. And it's a nice town with great people -- it deserves to thrive. Good luck, Janesville. I miss our house there, but I'm grateful we're not one of the many families facing a move in that situation, in this economy.
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Yesterday morning Otto told me he wanted to stay home.

"Really?" I said.

"Yeah, wanna stay home," he repeated.

"Well, Daddo's at work, and I have to go to work too. Do you think Jake would fix you lunch if you stayed home?"

Otto thought about that, then shook his head. "No."

"Do you think Jake could take you to the park?"

He shook his head right away. "No."

"Well, maybe you should go to school then."

He gave me a long look, his most serious face on, as if working it out. Really, he seemed to be thinking, what kind of mom is this? She would leave me at home with the DOG?

Evidently he believed me. We went on with our routine and drop-off was a breeze. Strangely enough I felt no guilt about the deception. Lately I am all about getting things done with the least amount of battle possible, without giving in to his demands too much. Whatever works.

He's been Dad's boy lately, his little shadow. He loves getting up on weekends and discovering that dad's still in bed because that means he can spend all day with him. Saturday they ran errands together and had lunch at Chuck E. Cheese while I tackled my own to-do list. Sunday I filled the bubbles on his bubble mower so that he could follow right behind as Jon mowed the yard. He imitated every move, from how Jon pushed to how he parked his mower when it was time to empty the bag. Cuter than cute. And so it's no surprise that Monday mornings are a bit of a downer. We all feel that way at the end of the weekend.

I think he's ready for his own calendar, one where we can put stickers for events and mark days off to the approaching weekend. I'll have to find some creative stickers so that we have fun things to look forward to during the week, too. Like a popcorn sticker for popcorn night. And pizza slices for Friday.

As long as I'm making one for him I should make one for myself. I could use mini-goals to get through the week right now too. I'm tired, and my tummy is really out there and really hard, and someone has been busy elbowing and kicking me a lot lately. The a/c in my office isn't working quite right and it's often 74-76 degrees in here in the afternoon. In my current state that feels like a sauna -- I sit at my desk and try to focus while feeling like I've been hit on the head repeatedly with a big foam bat. I am slow and ungainly and increasingly disorganized. On my calendar there will be a big sticker on July 4th weekend saying "the end is near!"

Which really means, of course, the beginning of something else.

too cool for school

Today was "beach day" at school. O's teacher said "he has sunglasses, right? Have him wear them, and if he wants to bring a beach ball or something, that'd be good."

We decided we didn't want to stop there, though. We got out the swim trunks and the floppy hat, too.

Anything to make school as fun as possible, is my motto.

Happy Friday!

happiness

• Jon made chicken piccata for me last night after I got home, even though it was late. It tasted divine and made my whole day. I love it when he cooks things just for me.
• Otto and Jake chased each other in circles around the back yard yesterday evening until Jake was panting. Otto laughed the whole time, and Jake kept coming back for more. At last! Something they can enjoy doing together!
• Otto picked up his guitar last night and did some serious rocking out. He's got some good stage moves already. Jon tried to get him to say "I want to rock and roll all night, and party every day." Otto settled on "rock and roll!" as his catch phrase.
• Before bed Otto helped me measure ingredients into the bread maker so we could have fresh bread this morning. He chowed down one whole slice for breakfast, and liked it so much he took a second slice with him to school to show everyone.
• I met the 3rd midwife in my group today and liked her a lot. I like all my midwives, which is good because my primary midwife is going on vacation July 4th and won't be around on my due date. I measured 34cm today (perfect at 34 weeks) and I'm up 20 lbs overall, which is OK, especially since I feel like it's all baby-related.
• And other than really, really needing a nap at about 2 every afternoon, I'm feeling pretty good. Hmm... I wonder if I could get Jon to move my comfy chair back into my office this weekend...