Evan's 5 month update

Our little guy is 5 months now...

He has 2 teeth, and knows how to use them. Breastfeeding has become painful at times because he likes to bite. I have been assured by some breastfeeding pros that with time he will stop doing this.

He likes to be cuddled and entertained. Evan is a happy go lucky little guy, until he is put down by himself or is ignored for a few minutes, then he can shriek like a banshee. I love having him close, but do find it hard to have to hold him so much. We did just introduce the bouncer, which he LOVES, so that has freed me up a little as he is content to stay in there by himself for a little while. He will also take an afternoon nap in his swing, which gives me some free time too. The twins love his swing too though, so I can only use it when they are napping or upstairs.

He is growing like a weed. He didn't get measured this month, but his clothes keep getting tighter and he has some nice chub. He is still tall and skinny like Anna and Alex, but not as slim as he once was. He loves to eat and nurses a LOT (1 to 3 times in the middle of the night still). I also have to give him a little formula in the later part of the day to keep him satisfied and gaining well. I hate doing it, and wish he could be exclusively breast fed, but the few oz he gets are just a small percent of his daily intake, yet make the difference.

Evan is obsessed with food and tries to grab it off my plate, out of my hand, out of my mouth etc. He will stare at me and mimic chewing motions and drool. He will really be ready to eat when he hits that 6 month mark (if I don't give in before).

He is on the move all the time. Wiggle wiggle wiggle. He rolls over both directions, pushes himself backwards and around in circles and is trying to scoot his knees up underneath his bum. It really isn't going to be long before he is on the move in a forwards direction. I hope he takes a while longer...

4 month update

Evan is 4 months now and doing great. He is a happy little guy and a real joy. All 4 off us Frossts just love him. Anna and Alex are great Big Sisters and Brothers (most of the time).

He had his 4 month Drs appointment this week and weighed in at 14 pounds and is 64 cm long (I think). He had his needles too, which are never fun. I nursed him through the needles though and he seemed to handle the pain okay and didn't have any reactions the next day.

Birth story: part 2 Evan's arrival

It has been 4 months now since Evan arrived and I haven't finished writing down his birth story. Well at least not the 2nd part. I think the time has come to finish it up.

After discovering that my water had broken and that I was a few cm dilated I was admitted to the hospital and given a room on the birthing unit. I remember very clearly the relief I felt at that time.

I was hungry and the nurse said I could eat, so Ian went out and got me a bagel and a smoothie. By the time he was back another nurse was there and she told me I couldn't eat. I explained that the first nurse had said it was okay, and she agreed to pretend we had never had the conversation where she told me not to eat. I knew I still had a long way to go and needed something to give me energy.

My contractions were coming about every 3 minutes or so, with a little break between each one. I would lay down for 2 minutes and then have to jump up and get moving again to deal with the contraction. I was unable to control the pain unless I was moving. A lot of this time was just a blur of contraction after contraction and hours of walking in circles around the delivery room (which was large and sunny with a nice view). I did take a hot shower for a while and the running water helped to make it through each contraction. There was a tub available, but it was just a regular sized one, not a birthing tub (or even a big soaker tub like we have at home) so it didn't seem worth it to try to soak in the tub. They kept wanting to come check me for things (monitor babies heart rate, take blood etc. and it was basically impossible for me to sit still. Everyone was nice though and would try to do what they had to do in the short breaks between contractions.

Finally as the evening wore on they offered me some pain medication and I decided to go for it hoping that it would take the edge off the pain enough to get a little rest. They gave me an injection of pain killer, saying it would last about 3 hours. The injection (morphine I think), Did really help with the pain, but it didn't help enough to allow me to be still. I still had to keep moving during every contraction.

Because I had had a c section previously, and because labour had been going on for so long, they encouraged me to have an epidural due to the risk of having a uterine rupture. I decided to get one put in place just so if there was an emergency it was there. At the time I didn't want it to be activated, and they assured me it didn't need to be that it could just be there for safety reasons. Well I guess the explanation I got before they put it in was different (or I misunderstood) but it did apparently need to be activated for a little while to see if it worked and then could be turned off so I could be free to walk around. I remember being terrified that the epidural would stop my cervix from dilating, and since it was moving so slowly anyway, I didn't want anything to slow its progress down. So I finally agreed to have the epidural as night was arriving.

I had had 2 before, so I knew what an epidural involved, but it is much harder to sit still when you are contracting. Fortunately the Dr was quick and the epidural was in before I knew it. Because they had to turn it on for at least half an hour to make sure it was working properly they wanted to use this time to monitor the baby. I was hooked up to the monitors and was enjoying feeling very little pain for a while. It was nice to finally (after days of not being able to) lay still through a contraction.

Then things started to go wrong... They were having trouble keeping the monitor on the baby and decided they needed to put a fetal monitor on his head (up my vagina). This now meant that I couldn't get up to walk around as easily. They also hooked up an IV. I was starting to feel like a patient instead of just a woman giving birth, and was not happy. My plans to turn the epidural off and to continue to walk around were quickly fading. I was going to be stuck on the bed and I knew with out the freedom to move I wouldn't be able to deal with the pain.

And then alarms started going off... The babies heart rate was decelerating. Drs started rushing in, and there was mass confusion. Nurses were yelling at me to change position and everyone seemed in a panic. I could smell C section in the air. The Dr came to talk to me, and I knew if I said okay to a c section at that moment I would be on my way. Everyone was pushing for it. I once again changed position (not to a very comfortable one sadly) and the decelerations stopped. Baby was okay. I had an oxygen mask on and as long as I took big deep breaths his little heartbeat stayed regular. If I took the mask off or moved too much he would have issues. So I decided not to move. And as the monitors stopped beeping , people started to drift away and calmness returned.

After almost a week of constant pain the epidural was a total relief. I could barely feel the pain from the contractions. I was tired, couldn't move, so I went to sleep. The night passed in a blur of people coming to check me, sleep, etc. The epidural was set up so I could push a button to give myself some more relief.

I woke during the morning shift change. I hadn't pushed the button for a while and could feel the contractions again, but on top of the contractions I had a huge urge to poop. I really truly thought I might poop myself. The new delivery nurse arrived and I told her I needed to poop, she decided to check me and low and behold I was a full 10 cm dilated and his head was "right there". It wasn't poop, it was a baby!

The Dr. hadn't arrived yet, but the nurse got everything ready for me to deliver asap. I have no memory of her name, or even what she looked like. All I remember is that she was young, had a trustworthy face and a pleasant voice. I basically closed my eyes and listened to what she told me to do. I have to give thanks to this nurse, because she was wonderful. Encouraging, clear, reassuring. She got me into position (with feet up on a bar) and started talking me through the pushing. At some point the Dr arrived, said something about getting changed, I heard the nurse say "no time, here's your gown". It was less than 20 minutes from starting to push until Evan arrived.

The delivery was the most magical feeling I could ever imagine. I had enough epidural working that I wasn't in horrible pain, but I could feel everything very clearly as his head emerged and the gush as his body followed. I am so glad that I got to experience those moments as there is nothing quite like it.

I had always dreamed of my baby being placed on my chest straight away, but because he was over due, because he was born more than 24 hours after my water had broken and because he had been having those decelerations they had a NICU team set up to check him out first ( they warned me that this would happen before I delivered him). There were a scary few minutes for me as I waited to hear him cry. Apparently he was breathing fine, just really slow to cry. The Drs had to ping the bottom of his feet to get him to respond apparently.

During the time Evan was being checked over (Ian was with him on the other side of the room) I delivered the placenta and then was stitched up. The delivery was quick for a first vaginal delivery and there had been some tearing. I had 2nd degree tears according to the Drs. At first they thought I must have enough epidural to be able to stich me up without it hurting. No way! They froze me and then the stitches didn't hurt as badly.

Finally I was all put back together and Evan was checked out as being okay except for low glucose from being over due. I finally got to hold my little guy. The first time you hold your baby, being number 1 or number 3 is magical. I was so happy and relieved that he was here in my arms and that FINALLY the contractions were over.

Big kid beds

Last week Anna and Alex made the move into their big kid beds. We had purchased single sized beds for them for their 2nd birthdays, and had them set up in the room across the hall from their shared room. We had attempted to make the switch to their beds a couple of times, but it always ended up in a pj party with one or the other twin in tears and out of frustration we would move them back to their cribs. Well last week , after putting them down for the night, we heard the pitter patter of little feet. They had both climbed out of their cribs and were running around. After a few attempts to get them to stay in their cribs, to no avail, they were moved across the hall to their beds. Eventually tiredness took over (after 10 at night) and both collapsed into bed to sleep. This pattern continued for the next few nights, until it was decided that enough was enough. The cribs were moved and a bed was placed in each room. They now sleep in their own room, in their own beds, by themselves at bedtime AND for naps. It has been close to a week now and it is peaceful. They both look so cute and tiny in their big kid beds by themselves in their huge bedrooms.

On breasteeding...

I am happy to say that now we are nursing exclusively, but at first I was both nursing and bottle feeding (except for 4 days of exclusively nursing when he first came home which did not go well). My little guy had low blood sugar and jaundice and then as soon as he came home he caught a cold from his brother and sister, so we got off to a rough start with nursing, which caused me to have a dip in supply and he was losing weight after the first week. I started nursing him (when he had the energy to latch), pumping afterwards and topping up his feed with a bottle of pumped milk and/or formula. I also started taking Domperidone (prescription), Fenugreek, Blessed Thistle ( both capsules from the health food store) and drinking Nursing Mothers Tea. It took a couple of weeks of doing a lot of pumping/bottle feeding as well as nursing before I felt like he was able to nurse exclusively again. Now things at 6 weeks are going wonderfully, it has been a couple of weeks since he has had a bottle at all.

Some tricks/things I think helped get to this point (for anyone who is like me and wants to avoid having to wash/sterilize/pump/bottle feed etc.and wants to exclusively nurse):

* I would use an oz or so of pumped milk or formula in the bottle and would get him started sucking on that, then would quickly switch him onto the breast. I called it his "primer". It helped trick him into latching on the breast. Sometimes I had to "prime" him a few times during a feed to keep him on the breast. I no longer need to do this.

* I breastfed on demand, if he was awake I offered him the boob and let him suck as much as he would. I woke him up every hour or so through the day and every 3 hours at night to nurse as well if he didn't wake up. This helped get my milk supply up. I also let him cluster feed ALL evening. He still does this, and from 8 until 11 I feed him about every half an hour.

* I used the Medela Calma nipple system to bottle feed with. This works similarly to a human nipple, only giving them milk when they latch on and suck. I think it helped to avoid him developing a preference for a faster (easier) flowing bottle nipple.

Those few weeks at the beginning when I was scared I wouldn't be able to exclusively breast feed him were hard. I ended up in tears a number of times. I am so happy that I persevered and didn't give up on the nursing. I am doubly happy when I have to leave the house and don't have to stop to think if I have the bottles, pump, formula, boiled water etc. all packed. I carry his food supply with me wherever I go :)

REMEMBERING

On remembrance day I always used to make a point to visit or call my grandfather Ben. He had served in the navy during WWII. Ben passed away in 2010 at the age of 99, so I am no longer able to phone him on this day. I do find myself, in the spaces between the craziness of a household with 3 kids under 3, taking the time to remember today. Not only to remember my Grandfather Ben, but to remember all the men and women who have fought.

Evans arrival:our birth story part 1

Evan was due on Monday September 26th, so when I was woken up with contractions on Wednesday Sept 28th, I wasn't surprised. Previously for the last few weeks I had been having occasional bouts of contractions, but they were never painful. These contractions were painful enough to wake me up from a sound sleep at 5 in the morning. I knew not to panic, as I figured once the contractions started I would have plenty of time before rushing to the hospital was needed. What I didn't know at this point is just exactly how much time I would end up having. I remember that morning doing a load of laundry, packing my bags and getting Ian to load a few things into the car "just in case". Contractions were still irregular coming anywhere from 20ish to 7 minutes apart. I would have them 7 to 9 minutes apart for an hour or so, then they would slow back down again. They were painful, but manageable. I had to stop and breath through them, and had a hard time getting comfortable, but wasn't in severe pain. I remember spending most of that day sitting on my exercise ball. My Mother, fortunately, was able to pack up and drive to our house that afternoon to look after the twins. I wasn't in a very nurturing state, and often needed Ian's support, so having another caregiver in the house was a huge blessing. I had been told that when my contractions were regula, and 5 minutes apart for an hour to come to the hospital. This never happened. Bedtime arrived and we all decided to head to bed early just in case we had to get up in the night to go to the hospital. I got very little sleep that night, as every contraction would wake me up and I found myself watching the clock, hoping they would start coming 5 minutes apart. I remember being excited that my baby was going to arrive on the 29th, exactly 1 month before my birthday. It seemed too perfect to be true...

Thursday the 29th arrived, and the contractions continued some were 20 minutes or so apart, others as close together as 7 minutes. They hurt a lot. In between contractions I felt perfectly fine and would run around getting stuff organized, the last details packed, etc. I was getting excited to meet my new baby soon.

I had an ultrasound BPP appointment to attend Thursday afternoon to check on the baby, my fluids and placenta. Because my blood pressure has at times been high and because I had had a C section with the twins, I was being carefully monitored. My OB was willing to let my try to have a VBAC but she wanted to be careful.

We packed up for the appointment, loaded all our hospital bags, car seat, cloth diapers etc. into the car. I gave the twins extra special cuddles and cried because I didn't think I would see them again for a few days. I was pretty sure that at any moment my contractions would start coming faster together and that this baby would arrive.

We went to the 7th floor and waited to be called in for the ultrasound. I had occasional contractions while waiting. I could mostly sit through them and control the pain with breathing. Finally they called us in and did the ultrasound. Everything looked great. Baby was doing big and small movements, he was practice breathing, I still had a normal amount of fluid, the doppler on my placenta was normal. Even though I was overdue I was free to carry on. No C section that day. I did have some contractions during the ultrasound, so they recommended I head over to be assessed.

We had to go through admitting, and then wait for hours and hours in a tiny room waiting for a Dr to come and look at me. Having contractions in the comfort of your own home is not fun, but in a small room with no where comfortable to sit (except a gurney) and no room to walk around, they feel way worse. Finally after being told a number of times that the Dr was coming, and then being told he wasn't due to an emergency c section, a Dr finally arrived. I was checked and basically not much was happening. My cervix was only slightly dilated. Such depressing news as it had now been over 36 hours of no sleep and contractions. They said they would keep me in the hospital if I wanted, to be reassessed in the morning. I chose to head for home, determined to only come back when my contractions were regular and 5 minutes apart.

Thursday night, Friday and Friday night passed in a blur of pain, much pacing up and down the hallway, long soaks in the jacuzzi tub, back rubs, walks outside, hot showers and 10 minute dozes in between contractions. I waited and waited to see the contractions coming every 5 minutes for an hour, but they just seemed to fluctuate between 7-20 minutes.

Finally, early Saturday morning I realized that they were coming about 5 minutes apart, instead of 7 or more. I decided to go take a long hot shower to see if they would continue. In the shower they continued to come even quicker, every 3- 5 minutes. I got out, got dressed and we decided it was time to head in to the hospital. By this point the contractions were so strong that I couldn't stay still through them, I had to be moving, or rocking on the ball or the toilet. I knew the long drive to the hospital would be a test of my mental strength, but I was excited to do it as it finally ment the baby was coming. YAY!

As the sun was rising Saturday morning we arrived at the hospital. We were quickly admitted and sent to the assessment unit again. This time we were given a much larger room, with a comfortable recliner for Ian and a bed for me, plus a private bathroom. Luxury compared to 2 days before. But even though our accommodations were nicer, we still had to wait for what felt like forever to be seen by a Dr. When the Dr finally arrived and checked me, once again it was disappointing news. I was fully effaced, but only dilated about 1 cm. Basically nothing was happening and I wasn't in labour. By this time my contractions had slowed down as well and were back to their old pattern of varying between 7-20 minutes. They were very intense now though and literally took my breath away they hurt so much, I couldn't imagine them getting much worse.

The Dr told me to go away for a few hours then to come back to be checked again. It is about a 45 minute drive to go home, so it would have ment driving, and soon turning around and driving back the other way. The most painful place to be for me was in the car, where I couldn't get up to move through the contraction. We still needed some baby clothes (boy stuff) so we decide to do some shopping and headed to the consignment store. After that we went to visit our friends Jamie and Ian and their twins. Jamie had some used baby clothes she was willing to share with me. It was strange to visit with friends while every so often having to leave the room to go have a contraction. Between contractions I still felt 100% normal and fine, then for a minute or so I would be in great pain, and then once it passed I was fine again. During our shopping/visiting my contractions seemed to slow once again and were mostly around 20 minutes apart.

I was starting to feel a little desperate and was worried that my body just wasn't going to go into actual labour on its own as I had progressed from a fingertip dimple on Monday the 26th to 1 cm open on Sat. morning after over 3 full days of contractions. I had had surgery on my cervix and knew I had scarring on my cervix. I was worried that this ment it would never dilate.

We headed back to the hospital around supper time to have another check. This time we were put into an even smaller room than the first one, without even a window. Basically a closet. Again it seemed that the Dr was continually being called away to the operating room or to emergencies and it took forever to be checked. This room didn't even have a chair, just a stool for Ian to sit on and a hard gurney for me to lie on and a bathroom shared with other people.

Finally, close to bedtime a Dr arrived. I was so happy to see a familiar face as he was one of the Drs who had done my c section and had seen me a lot after the surgery when I had a hematoma and an infection. He has a lovely bedside manner and inspires confidence. He checked me and it was sort of good new. I was between 2 and 3 cm dilated, fully effaced and he could feel the top of the babies head. Finally there had been some changes. He took the time to chat with me, basically telling me what I was going through was extreme, but still within the ranges of normal, that these changes were an excellent sign, but that I still had a way to go. He told me to go home, take painkillers, and to come back when I was back to every 3-5 minutes apart. He cautioned me that if I came back to soon that "Drs like to do things to you". Since I couldn't be safely induced due to having had a previous c section, doing things to me would have ment a repeat C section. I really wanted to avoid that. I had already gone through 4 days of intense pain, I wasn't about to give up on my desire for a VBAC very easily. We decided to head home, once again. This time I was even more determined not to go back to the hospital until "the baby is crowning" I joked.

Saturday night, Sunday and Sunday night again passed in a blur of pain, fatigue & more pain. I felt like I had already run a marathon, and that I was being asked to turn around and do it again. I was also determined that I was going to have a vaginal delivery and that I wasn't going to head into the operating room.

Sunday night/early Monday morning 2 things happened. First off I finally lost my mucus plug or had the "bloody show" I had read about. I had had some bleeding after the internal exams,where they had done stretch and sweeps of my membranes, but it hadn't been accompanied by large clumps of snot. The 2nd thing that happened was I peed myself. One position I found that helped during a contraction was to sit on the toilet, with my hands on my knees and to rock. I found the ring of the toilet seat put pressure on my thighs and kept the contraction pain from radiating all the way down my legs. It also seemed to be the right height (like the ball) to rock on. I had peed previously and didn't need to go, so stood up after my contraction and peed all over myself and the floor.

Monday morning arrived and still no baby. I was now one full week past my due date. Because I had had the bloody show in the night, we were debating if we should head back to the hospital to get checked or not. I was also in even more pain than before. There was no "breathing through" contractions. It was scream, swear, thrash, whatever I could do to deal with the pain. I even bruised my own thighs from gripping them so hard. Contractions were steady every 7 minutes (still not 3-5). I could tell that my Mother and Ian were both finding dealing with my pain hard. Then the phone rang. It was my Drs office asking me to go to the hospital for another BPP ultrasound.

We headed , for the 3rd time, to the hospital. I was terrified that there would be something that indicated the baby was in distress and I would have to have a C section. I was terrified that there had been no further changes since Saturday. I was terrified that I would be allowed to continue and that there would be days more of this intense pain. The pain I had during my contractions was incredibly intense. Women try to tell you about it, but not having experienced it yourself, it is hard to understand. It is a very primal sort of pain that starts in your center, radiates outwards taking over your whole pelvis, back and thighs, that holds you in its claws and then slowly releases you out of the pain. The moments after a contraction stops feel amazing, and then you remember a minute later that it is coming again, and you try to relax to keep it from gripping you once more. You want them to come, to do their job, to bring the baby out. You also feel like they are ripping you apart.

I am not sure if it was something my husband said to the receptionist, or watching me have a contraction, or just luck, but we had one of the shortest waits we have ever had to get in for the ultrasound. And there I discovered one of my fears had come true. My amniotic fluid was low. The ultrasound tech searched for a fluid pocket, but couldn't find any. Other than that everything looked great. The baby was fine, placenta was fine. No fluid meant the baby would have to come out ASAP and I was terrified they were going to tell me I needed a C section. The ultrasound tech sent for the Dr to examen me. When the Dr came she told me I was dilated about 4 cm, that the head was "right there" and that she could feel hair. She then asked me if my water had broken, and I clued in. I hadn't peed myself after all...

Finally something was happening and I was admitted to the labour and delivery unit. Yay! It was time to have a baby. Maybe? At least it was starting to look like it might be soon.