Rich and Kath’s Weblog

We took Alison for her first of what will be many trips to Fitler Square. She met the goat, and the bear and the turtles (as you will see, she seemed to be a little cranky by the time she met the turtles). For those not from Philly, Fitler Square is a lovely little park in my favorite neighborhood in the city (our apartment last year overlooked the park). We will look forward to attending the Halloween parade, Christmas Tree lighting, Easter Egg Hunt and other events they have for kids at the park.

Ali loves to look all around and take in everything

As my friend Kim said, maybe the turtle was moving too fast for her

What a difference a day makes. After some of the changes we have made with medicine and formula, Alison is doing better. She still has fussy episodes, but nothing as bad as she was about a week ago. Above is Rich holding her in a position that is supposed to help colic babies. As you can see, he was not very successful then, below you will see how she took to it one day later.

She loves her new chair (it’s one of the things that has helped calm her)

In deep contemplation

Alison had her first real bath last week. Unforunately the tub we got doesn’t fit in our sink, so she had her bath in the sink. Luckily our doula, Lorra, was here to help.  She seemed to be okay with it until her hair got washed, she was not pleased at that point. The last week has been very challenging. Alison has become very demanding and fussy and we fear she has colic (that’s what the peditrician says it sounds like). She wants to be held all the time, so I haven’t been able to have much freedom during my days to do anything. And at about 6:00 the last 4 days, she screams inconsolibly for hours. We have started her on some medicines, changed her formula, and tried some behavorial things. That has helped her during the day, but as far as her evening freak outs, we fear there may be no cure (as we are told, there is nothing you can do about colic).  Tonight was better than the last few, so that’s encouraging, but we aren’t getting our hopes up. So, this has made it difficult to stay in touch with people, check emails, or post on this blog. So, I apologize to anyone who I haven’t gotten back to. Hopefully over the next few weeks things will get better and I will be back in touch.

Safe and Sound after the bath

First Tummy Time (which she seems to love)

Our girl seems to like to pose for the camera sometimes. She’s already a little actress. We had friends visit on Sunday (Mike, Megan and Jeremy) so we were able to get some shots of the 2 of us with Alison, so we finally have a few good family shots. I’m sure we will have many, many more over the years.

Cover girl

We took Alison for her first walk to her first doctor’s appointment last week. The peditrician said she is very healthy and she is already over her birth weight. For those who don’t know (if you don’t have children you wouldn’t) babies lose weight over the first couple days after birth and then start to gain it back. As of 14 days old it is hoped they will have gained all their weight back. Well, Alison was 1 ounce over her birth weight by 12 days, so she’s a little porker. Rich got his wish for his chubby baby. Things are still going well, Alison is still a happy, sleepy baby except when she wants to eat. She makes the stength of her lungs know then. The cats seem to be adjusting to her. I think Garfunkel barely notices her, Gwinn will sneak up to sniff her once in a while and seems confused. I do think Gwinn is a little jealous, since she was the baby girl before Alison arrived. We are doing our best to give her the attention she needs, but since she used to cuddle on Rich’s lap every night, and now there’s a baby there instead, it’s hard to give her all the attention she wants. Here are some pics from the last few days.

Alison’s first outing

Alison in her new outfit from Aunt Tricia

Rich cuddling with his 2 baby girls

Pretty in pink

Garfunkel cozying up

Time for a nap

Rich’s first Father’s Day as a dad.

Rich’s parents were in town this weekend, so we had a relaxing Father’s Day hanging out at home and letting Alison get to know her Grandma and Grandpa. It was a nice, low key weekend.

Alison is playing a little shy with her dad.

Meeting Grandma and Grandpa

Please welcome our little girl, Alison Surraya. She arrived 3:41 Thursday morning. She weighed 8lbs 3oz and was 21 inches long.   If you ask us, she’s about the cutest baby ever, and of course that is unbiased.

 The Birth Story (more pics at the end of the story):

 As most of you know, I had gestational high blood pressure and the doctor would not let me go far beyond my due date. Although I was not happy with the decision, we checked into Pennsylvania hospital at 8:30 am on Wed., June 4^th. I was having minor contractions on my own, and my blood pressures were all low for several  hours, so I tried to convince the doctor to send me home so it could happen naturally the way we wanted it. Of course, he didn’t go for it, but I gave it a shot.  Shortly after this, my water broke and they started me on a low level of pitocin. Within minutes I was experiencing intense contractions that were only 3 minutes apart. It was quite off putting, but after about 30 minutes in, I went into some sort of zone and mentally left the room for the next 8 hours.  I’m told by Rich and our doula that it was like a switch went off in me and I was in another  world.  I focused on the music we brought (luckily there was a lot of The Dead on our play list, that seemed to help the most). I was very determined to get through it without drugs (I couldn’t stop them from giving me pitocin, but I could prevent everything else if I just focused). It must have been a strong will of both me and Alison, because my contractions continued to become more severe and productive, so I was able to stay on a very low level of pitocin. Labor progressed very well, and apparently I was a star pusher because they had to tell me to slow down my pushing and find the doctor to deliver. One of the best reasons to not get the epidural is that you can feel the pushing much better and I was able to push only when I felt the urge. Rich says when the doctor came in he had obviously been sleeping and wasn’t expecting to be delivering so soon. I remember him saying to the nurses as he walked in, “wow, look at that”. After a few more pushes he said to me, “you are so close I can tell you that your baby is not blonde.” Shortly after that he said to the nurse, “what’s the baseline heart rate?” I can’t remember what it was, but I remember knowing it was too low. I said to him, “is the baby in trouble?” and he said very matter of factly, “you know what, this baby is just going to be born on your next contraction – you are going to push the baby out”.  And that is exactly what I did on the next contraction. Luckily Rich and I did not notice at the time, but our doula told us later that the cord was wrapped around her neck pretty tightly, but the doctor took care of it. They took her immediately for evaluation right next to us because her breathing was a little labored.  They had her for probably close to 10 minutes until we were able to hold her, it was torture. She also took a few minutes to cry, those were the longest minutes of my life. But in the end, they brought her over to me and I started singing the song I sang to her in the womb everyday. She immediately looked up at me and stopped crying, it was amazing. She was taken up to the nursery to ensure her breathing was okay, and her temperature was  little high. They assured me these issues almost always resolve once the baby has a bath, so I was pretty calm about it. It was a good thing she left the room, because there was then some post labor drama. After my level 3 tear was sewn (by the way, a level 4 requires going to the OR, so I was just shy of that) they realized I was clotting blood. I will not go into the gory details of the method, but the clots needed to be broken up. Rich was told to look away and I was told to brace myself and to go “back into my zone”. The pain of this process was as bad as labor and I hemorrhaged 15% of my blood supply. I was border line for needing a blood transfusion. So, this has caused very slow recovery. The first day I couldn’t get up from my bed without assistance and I fainted once. The post partum area was so noisy that I couldn’t get much sleep. I had gone over 40 hours without any sleep at all and several of those hours were spent in labor. So, it’s been hard getting back on my feet, but Rich has been an amazing support. I already knew he was a wonderful husband, but now I see how amazing of a dad he is. Alison has definitely stolen his heart.

So, with all the drama and complications, we are doing well and Alison is about as perfect as a baby can get. We are amazed with how much love we feel for her after being here for only 6 days. She is absolutely adorable and incredibly aware and so far, she really doesn’t cry much.  And I don’t want to jinx it, but last night she didn’t wake up crying even once, we had to wake her up for feedings. So far, we have been blessed with a very good, calm baby and she has been a complete joy.

Following are the pictures I know many of you have been waiting for. We will continue to update the blog as Alison grows up. When looking at these pics, remember that the doctors told me my job is simply to feed the baby, eat and rest and nothing else. I have pretty much followed that advice, so when looking at the pictures, keep that in mind, and focus on the beautiful baby and not the exhausted mom!