Entering new phase

Maybe he thought his parents were getting waaay too much sleep. Whatever the reason, Dexter decided as at yesterday that he would now like to nurse every two hours instead of every three. This means even less to no sleep at all since by the time he finishes nursing and by the time he is swaddled and settled in bed, an hour is gone. This means an hour is left to do whatever we want and right now the choices are: eat, sleep, or do a load of laundry (okay, maybe blog a little but only if Jon is around!).

Maybe it's time to start experimenting with introducing the bottle (breast milk only NOT laced with rum which is apparently the proud tradition in Nova Scotia -- mighty tempting, I must say!).

Another new thing is that he is now crying real tears (I guess the tear ducts are working). It is frustrating enough to see a squirmy, crying baby, and now he ups the pathetic-poor-suffering-baby quotient by adding real waterworks. And of course Dexter is entering this phase just as grandma leaves and mom is going to be alone for the first time! Oh no. What's a mother to do?

Newborn Nappies

Dexter must be growing because he has now graduated to "newborn"-size diapers instead of "preemies!" I guess I don't see him growing because I look at him everyday.

Next appointment with the paediatrician is on Friday so it will be interesting to see how much weight he's gained.

Who edited this article?

Now that we've officially joined the ranks of the most sought after demographic (new parents), advertisers and product developers are aching to get our loyalty.

Today, we received a magazine from a baby formula manufacturer and as I was flipping through the pages, I found the article on coping with motherhood most interesting. According to the article, there are several challenges new moms cope with: first one is exhaustion, and the second is isolation. The article then describes some coping strategies.

To overcome exhaustion, strategy number one is to "sleep when the baby sleeps." This has also been mentioned to me several times by friends. Next item on the list is isolation. Apparently, two strategies to overcome this are by (1)reaching out to friends, family and other people, and (2) getting out as much as I can.

So, the next time you see an exhausted-looking woman asleep on a park bench with her arms out as if reaching out for someone, just think of her as a new mom. It could be me following some sage advice from that multinational otherwise known as Nestle.

Our incredible shrinking house

It's amazing how much supporting infrastructure a baby needs. There's the essential contents of a baby's room such as a bassinet, crib, change table, bookshelves and chest of drawers. There's also the essential straight-backed chair and footstool (what I have instead of a rocking chair) for nursing and expressing milk. Oh, must not forget the car seat, strollers and diaper bags. And then there's the stuffed animals and other toys. We have two stroller bases (one large with inflatable tires, the other smaller for ease of fitting into the trunk) and within the next four months or so will probably also have an umbrella stroller.

Thanks to the generosity of friends, we also have other baby equipment that we will need a little later to amuse the boy such as the exersaucer, jolly jumper, and a playpen. Our house was small before but it's even smaller now with all this stuff. I can see why people need a bigger house as soon as the baby comes. Baby himself seems to occupy maybe a cubic foot of volume, but his accessories and technology is closer to ... ... 1 billion cubic feet! (said in Dr. Evil voice)

Then there's stuff one actually needs to wrap, wipe and warm up baby including clothes, spit-up rags, receiving blankets and towels. When I was unpacking the stuff Joan gave me, I said "how many blankets does a baby need." The answer is apparently, more than I think, since not only do I need all the blankets Joan gave me, we've actually had to purchase more. Dexter's chest of drawers is full and tomorrow, Jon is installing additional shelves in the closet for storage. Then there's the diapers. Dexter goes through about eight to 10 of them a day so we need to lay in a supply of the stuff. And of course, all these blankets and sleepers for baby eventually get dirty which means laundry...sigh...the topic of yet another post.

Nursery Rhymes for Sleepy Time

This was one of Jon's favourites when he was a boy:

Please share some of your personal nursery rhyme/kiddie tunes with us to help us be less useless when it comes to singing/chanting our son to sleep. We think he's already memorized "Good Night Moon" so we should really get the little guy some variety.

Winken, Blinken and Nod

by Eugene Field, 1850-1895.
found in the Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

---

Winken, Blinken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe --
Sailed off on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in the beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!"

Said Winken,

Blinken,

And Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in the beautiful sea --
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish --
Never afeard are we";
So cried the stars to the fisherman three:

Winken,

Blinken,

And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam --
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe
Bringing the fisherman home;
'Twas all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be,
And some folks thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea --
But I shall name you the fishermen three:

Winken,

Blinken,

And Nod.

Winken and Blinken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is the wee one's trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fisherman three:

Winken,

Blinken,

And Nod.

Water Baby

We figured out why he showed up so early - he wanted to be a fish (Pisces) rather than a ram (Aries). This boy really loves his baths. Well, not so much the "wipe my face with a cloth then put soap in my hair" part, but dunk him in a tub full of warm water and watch him fall asleep!

The photo series shows him:

1. getting his hair washed (not his favourite part of the process)
   
2. wide awake and happy after his post-bath diaper change
3. snoozing away afterwards, looking damp and downy

It's nice to have a water baby in the house. Grace is now officially outnumbered, since Jon is also a water boy (Cancer, not Bobby Boucher).

Wheels on the Bus ain't in my repertoire

Jon noted that we should purchase some baby music since he caught me singing what he considers to be inappropriate music for the boy. Apparently, singing Tom Waits' version of Waltzing Matilda does not pass the lullaby test. I kinda see what he means, but there's very few songs where I know the lyrics. Mind you, Dexter is not complaining. Or maybe he's just too wee to protest the music selection and/or the quality of my voice.

Also on the list of inappropriate content:

Beat on the Brat by the Ramones
Born to be Wild by Bruce Springsteen
the dentist song from Little Shop of Horrors musical
any Tom Waits song

But Jon is right. I don't know any baby songs beyond Twinkle, Twinkle and Baa Baa Black Sheep, the only songs I remember singing to my nieces and nephews when they were kids.

No natural gas shortage here

Dexter proves himself to be a clever Alberta boy with his ability to convert boob juice into natural gas.

Feeding time takes awhile because he needs to be constantly propped upright and a nice burp or fart coaxed out of him. This seems to take an eternity some days. It also seems to frustrate him. When he's frustrated, he does the Jack Jack thing (like in The Incredibles) where he morphs into different entities -- alternate variations of stiff, leaden, red, and/or peaceful baby -- while at the same time arching his back and doing this erratic version of baby kata, the form of which I cannot define (maybe his own version of karate, kung fu, and tae kwon do combined).

Eventually, between the Jon and I tag-teaming it, we manage to get a nice, manly burp out of him (I know, how sexist of me), the sound of which seems to simultaneously startle and confuse him.

But seriously, it's very upsetting to watch and listen to a squirmy, crying, frustrated baby and not be able to do anything about it, especially at 4 am. When the poor guy is in obvious pain, I get quite frazzled and feel completely helpless.

Stumpless

Today's highlights:

Dexter's umbilical cord stump fell off. It's currently on a shelf in his bookcase. Unsure what we will do with the little crispy thing. Maybe the cats will save us the trouble of figuring it out, either by playing with it or eating it...

Tony and Lynne came to visit and brought pasta dinner and a beautiful handknitted crib blanket with matching hat.

Hailey, Deb and Harold dropped by to visit. Hailey picked out a cute little frog bathrobe that will be great for Dex in a few months.

Proud parents finally cracked open the champagne. Jon brought it to the hospital the day after Dexter arrived, but we were both too tired to partake. Still tired, but it tasted great!

Grace had some of Jane's cranberry bran muffins for breakfast and her lentil soup for lunch. Our friends and neighbours continue to shine, with gifts, food, flowers and lots of love & support.

Discovered Dexter's second superpower: the ability to store large volumes of liquid in his mouth and spew it at unsuspecting targets. One hopes that as he matures, he will have better control of the volume of liquid plus distance and aim of projectiles. Not sure if we're hoping for more volume and better distance (Olympic spitting-up team credo "stronger, faster, higher, more volume"?) or less.

We're home

Two weeks and 12 hours later, Dexter finally arrives home. He is now 35 weeks old and/or -5 weeks old.

The pediatrician at TEGH proclaimed him fit to go so we left the hospital at around 1 pm today. Dexter is now five pounds and three ounces and the expectation is that he will continue to put on weight with the feedings I give him every three hours. No more 24-hour nursing care for us. If we thought we were sleep-deprived before, now the real fun begins!



The photo shows Dex dwarfed by his gigantic car seat. Actually, the car seat's normal size, as is the soother that's about 1/4 the size of his face... our boy is small (but still big for his age, since he's not supposed to be here yet).

He's already pretty comfy with the whole car seat thing, given that he was strapped in for 90 minutes a couple of days ago while he took his car seat test.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... the cats are not happy about this new addition to our family. We'll see how this goes.

Two tests done, one more to go

Dexter passed the challenge test and the car seat test! The challenge test was the all-you-can-eat test I mentioned the other day. The car seat test is when they strap the baby on the infant car seat and observe them for 90 minutes to make sure they are strong enough to stay upright and not slink down. If they slink down, there is the danger of strangling on the harness.

Tonight, we are doing the 24-hour test where Dexter stays with us in the room in the hospital all night to see if we can manage to keep him alive. If all goes well, we might be going home tomorrow!

Jon went to work today, but I stayed with Dex in our room. Let's see, the highlight of my day was learning how to burp... Dexter I mean. Just as they have no suck reflex, preemies also do not know how to burp. If you don't thump them gently on their back after feeding, I guess the milk has the potential to go back up and choke them.

---

I was just telling Judy the other day that in a way the hospital stay has been good. Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't wish the stress of a premature birth on anyone, but in a way, we're lucky that Dexter was a little early and that he happened to be relatively healthy. In the last 10 days, I've had the best of both worlds. I had 24-hour nursing care for our son, daily visits from the pediatrician and access to a lactation specialist eight hours a day. It was like baby boot camp for me.

I don't know how I would have coped if I had done a normal delivery and discharged after 24 hours.

Another photo

Here's another one of our little family. This one was taken a few hours after Dexter's birth.

We were still at Mt. Sinai Hospital.

Bye bye Princess Fiona

I have ankles again! I just realized today that my feet and legs are no longer swollen. I got a pedicure about two weeks ago and it still looks good. I guess when I was all swollen, I couldn't see past the thick ankles to admire my own toes.

So long ogre feet!

All You Can Eat Buffet

Today was "challenge day" for Dexter. The thing with preemie babies is that they do not have well-developed muscles to suck for dinner and they need to be trained. The object of the challenge is to see how well he can feed from mom's breast in a 12-hour period.

For the last 10 days we've been monitoring how much Dexter has been feeding at each session. If he did not get enough, the nurses simply topped him up with additional breast milk that they gave him through a feeding tube that went directly into his stomach. He's been doing really well with the part breastfeeding/part feeding tube system, but before they can discharge him from the hospital, he needs to perfect the breastfeeding thing.

It was a long day for both of us. I was at the hospital for 14 hours today, with me feeding Dexter every three. Dexter was a real trooper and he actually did really well. However, by the last feeding, he was simply exhausted by having to work for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This self-serve, all you can eat thing was new to him and he was completely wiped. I was as well but it would be nice to get rid of that feeding tube and passing this test is another step closer to going home.

Dex Index

3 : number of hours to go from 0 to 10 cm dilation
3 : number of pushes to deliver Dexter
4 : total number of hours of labour for Mom
5 : weight at birth (in pounds)
6 : Apgar score at birth
9 : Apgar score after five minutes
33 : number of weeks gestation at birth
0:49 : exact time of Dexter's birth on February 24, 2007
10: average number of dirty diapers per day
2: longest stretch of sleep for Mom, in hours, between Dexter feedings

Introducing....

Dexter Gordon, after a short, decisive and hasty journey, joined his family at 49 minutes past midnight on February 24, 2007 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.

He apparently has people to see and places to go because he bolted from the womb a little early (33 weeks), preferring perhaps to be a Pisces rather than an Aries. Total labour from onset to birth was just a shade over four hours. Apgar score after five minutes was a nine. We suspect he is precise as he weighed in at exactly five pounds (sturdy for an early arrival), and literal (it's our fault for constantly telling him "We can't wait to meet you").

Daddy is mighty proud of his son. Dexter is a good-looking healthy boy despite shipping well ahead of schedule. We know that things might change yet, but so far, Dexter seems to have Daddy's chin and nose. We're still working our way through the family tree to see where Dexter got those square ears (please report any theories to us with proof of ear pictures). The full head of dark hair comes from the mother's side of the family, of course.

The next day, the first of his superpowers became apparent: Mommy believes that his special power is that he can manipulate emotions from a distance. He can make Mommy and Daddy smile or cry in his sleep!

At 33 weeks, we like to think that he is not early, not late, but just in time. He simply must have known how long we have been waiting for him.

Dexter is still growing and getting stronger at Toronto East General Hospital. Grace and Jon are looking forward to bringing him home. For now, we spend lots of time adoring him, feeding him and changing him at TEGH.