leapfrog

attention, those of you who knit for small persons!

if you do not already know about it, it's time for you to check out petite purls, an online knitting magazine featuring items for and of interest to children. it's 100% free, and i must say--it. is. awesome. this magazine is the love child of my friend allegra, and her friend brandy--their model is much like that of knitty.com, with more of a focus on natural fibers and knitting green for your little ones. they've attracted a ton of attention from the knitting community, and for good reason. their patterns are great, from great designers, and so far, very reliable. highly recommend.

i don't have nearly the time to knit that i wish i did, but i do manage a thing or two here and there. and i actually managed to get these little pants (rav link here) finished before the squeaker was too big to wear them. in fact, i made them ages ago, but have neglected to post about them till now because i FINALLY managed to get some decent pictures of him wearing them. this may not come as a shock to most of you, but it's rather difficult to get good pictures of a moving baby!

i bought some AWESOME blue sky alpacas dyed cotton especially for these at the salty sheep (still my favorite yarn store). the yarn is a joy to work with and oh so soft. i also find that i am a lover of the worsted weight yarn in general. when you don't have a ton of time, you want what you knit to MOVE, and even i can see my progress when i am knitting with worsted. i would most certainly use this yarn again, and you should, too.

the pattern is leapfrog, from annika barranti--very well-written and easy to follow. i am in LOVE with the braided cable down the sides! i love that it doesn't look feminine at ALL. patterns for boys are so much harder to find than those for girls. i think these pants actually ARE gender-neutral. the only change i will make if/when i knit these again is that i will add a little shaping to the bottom of the leg so that it flares just the tiniest bit. the straightness of the leg makes them fit just a little more like leggings than i would prefer, so i think that a little increase here and there might alleviate that issue. other than that, however--perfection!

the babies, part squeaker

finn is six months old today! he has been such a joy and such an adjustment! he's a fat, happy baby almost all the time, and man, his toothless grin is one of my favorite things in the universe.

the squeaker is huge--in the 85th to 90th percentile in all categories. he eats and eats and eats. when kieran was a baby, breastfeeding didn't come all that easily--we had to supplement with formula from very early on--not so with finn! the boy is all business. he's been on a pretty tight feeding schedule almost from day one, and has cluster fed exactly in line with every growth spurt. he started trying to grab my food at 4 and a half months, so i started giving him cereal then. everything you read says not to start a breastfeeding baby on solids until he's 6 months old, but you try telling that to this baby. now he's nursing as much as ever, eating cereal 3 times a day, and eating fruits/veggies 2 times. that seems nuts for a baby who's not even 6 months old, but that's the way it is, man. at 21 pounds, he's as big as a lot of 1-year-olds, so i guess it shouldn't be a surprise.

finn looks a LOT like kieran did at his age, and yet, there are enough differences to keep it interesting. k's hair all fell out, then came back in white blonde, and by this age, it was clear that k would have blue eyes. finn's coloring is different--he has dark, wavy hair, and has from day one, and his eyes are a mystery. they are still that baby blue-grey that could become anything. it's funny to me that kieran means dark and finn means light, yet their coloring is becoming just the opposite of that.

so far, finn is on target developmentally, but without the insane gross motor development that kieran displayed. finn is just blissfully normal. he plays with baby toys exactly as they were designed. he is on the verge of crawling and sitting up by himself, exactly as a 6 month old baby should be. i can't tell you how glad i am that he's not doing crazy stuff like climbing the stairs! a second baby should be laid back, and this one definitely is.

the daycare thing has been the biggest adjustment with finn. it's still a little strange to have him not with a person we know and love and trust from the beginning, but in a situation where i feel like he sometimes gets lost in the crowd. we started him in the daycare across the street from my office, and his caregiver there, zoe, was just fantastic--she absolutely helped me adjust to the whole thing, even though i won't say it was easy. now he's in the same daycare as kieran, which is far more affordable. and, while i am not concerned that they aren't meeting his needs, i do kind of feel like he's viewed as just another baby there. i think i just want one of his caregivers to show some signs of attachment to him or something. anyway--i don't mean to turn this into a whining session about daycare--i just miss zoe and having finn close to me at work.

finn is still small, but he has a ton of personality. he's ticklish as all get out and giggles if you even touch his feet. he loves toys, he loves us, and he loves his brother above all. he laughs all the time, more than about any baby i've seen. but he also has a little temper, and won't hesitate to shake his fists if you take to long to feed him or pick him up. he likes his scenery to change pretty often, so we cycle through play mats, a quilt on the floor, the high chair, the exersaucer, a bouncy seat, the bed, and our arms. if he's tired of a toy, you know it because it goes flying away from him. he's also super duper cuddly, which is awesome. his head still smells so good. he's the kind of baby that makes people want a baby--no joke.

having two is hard. having two is so different from one--there's never a break for me or for the hippie, which sometimes wears us down. but having #2 be like finn is worth it. and there's a light at the end of that tunnel, too. having two also makes the time fly by at a rte i would not have thought possible. finn is six months old today--where did that go? i really need to write more so i don't forget these heady first months with him. he's a treasure, and i want to hang onto every day!

the new normal

boy, what a lot of adjustments.

when i was out on maternity leave, my nanny quit. she had really good reasons for this and had a super hard time making the decision to do it, but man--it was tough on all of us. the critter has known no other care since he was 6 weeks old, and he was/is a part of their family. very hard for him to get why he was suddenly not there with them every day. at least i was still on leave, so he got to be home with me and finn for a month.

i spent a few weeks researching the heck out of all the options, and in the end, decided that daycare was the best thing for us. right now, the boys are in two different daycares. turns out that wait lists for babies are really long, so it proved to be impossible to find a place that had an opening for both a 2-year-old and a baby without paying an INSANE amount of money. having them in two places is good and bad. it's good in that i really feel like both of them are in the best places they could be. it's bad in that i have to schlep finn and and out of kieran's daycare twice a day, and that i am losing any kind of sibling discount i'd get by having them in the same place.

kieran LOVES daycare. loves it. he's happy to go in the morning, and happy to come home in the evening. he's excited at the end of the day to tell me about what all he did and played with. his vocabulary is exploding. he has taken to it like a duck to water, and i am SO grateful! i love his center and his teachers and the staff at the front desk, and really--i could not be happier about how it's working out so far.

finn, after two days of daycare, got sick, and has been sick for three weeks. he gave it to kieran, then me, then the hippie. so that's been fun. i love the woman who is taking care of finn, but i still very much wish that he was with a person rather than at a center for the first few months. it's hard for him to sleep there with all the noise, and it seems like the hands on time with him is just, by necessity, limited. the awesome thing is that he's directly across the street from my office, which means i can go across and feed him a couple of times a day rather than pumping. pumping stinks, and i am super happy to not be doing it. i am also REALLY lucky that i have bosses who support this. finn's situation, while both good and bad, is also the best i can do right this minute, so we're learning to deal with it.

the weekdays are a flurry of activity. i know every family with two working parents deals with this, so i am not going to get whiney about it. but sometimes, i'll tell you--it's tough. that said--we're getting into a rhythm where it works for us. i'm managing to feed us home-cooked breakfasts most mornings, and home cooked meals most nights. we're all getting some sleep. we're all clean (mostly) and dressed in clothes that are clean. the house hasn't (yet) become a pit of utter chaos. the boys are happy for the most part. now if we could just all get healthy again, this new normal would be working for me. we're getting there...

on birthin' babies, part 2

so--where were we... oh yes, the doctors wanted me to schedule a c-section, so i did. i did make my favorite doctor at my practice sit down and use statistics to convince me i was doing the right thing. and in the end, i have to say that, odds of vbac success were so low for me that i think i probably DID do the right thing. there's a part of me that will always wonder...

anyway--the differences between finn's birth and kieran's were nothing short of astounding, for so, so many reasons. here are the highlights:

1) pre-op appointment
for obvious reasons, you don't get this with an unscheduled c-section, and there was a part of me that was like--why do i need this? i've already had one c-section, right? i was so wrong--there's definitely an advantage to this appointment. for example, i learned that with kieran's birth, they gave me a dose of sedatives after he was delivered for no reason at all. this explains why the recovery, first feeding, and eventual move to the post-partum hospital room are all a blur. the doctors could not explain why i was given these drugs and why i wasn't told about it before hand, or even afterwards, but at least i knew enough this time to tell them not to do it. also, at this appointment, we filled out all the admission paperwork and had all the bloodwork done ahead of time, so there was no waiting when we got to the hospital

2) scheduling
with finn, we had a scheduled surgery at 10am on monday morning, which meant we needed to get to the hospital at 8am--perfectly civilized. and we did--we got there on time, went through prep, and had plenty of time to meet the OR nurses in charge of things. the nurses went over what to expect in the OR, what the spinal tap would feel like, and what to alert them about with regard to the drugs i had to have. this was also an opportunity to let the anesthesiologist's nurse know that i wanted no sedatives. she seemed surprised by this, but went with it. everything went as scheduled, and we were out of recovery and in our room at 1:somehting pm.

in sharp contrast to this schedule, with kieran, we had a "scheduled" induction, which means the hospital jerks you around for a day or so then tries to make you come in at 3am to be induced. we ended up with a pitocin drip at noon, fully dilated and pushing by 5pm, the decision to have the c-section at 8:30pm, and birth at 8:49pm. recovery took a while, and we finally got to our post-partum room at 2am.

now, the reason this matters is that, after you have a c-section and after you get to your room, they have to monitor your vitals every 30 minutes for 4 hours, and then they drop it back to every 3 hours. with finn, we were done with this monitoring by 6pm. with kieran, it was 6am. plus with kieran, we were both exhausted from the whole process. this time around, we got some actual rest after the birth--i can't tell you what a difference this makes.

3) expectations
going in for a scheduled c-section, you have nothing but acceptance to deal with. you are no longer hoping for a natural birth, or wondering who's on call, or whether or not you will need pain meds. you have accepted the surgery, chosen your doctor, and are no longer fighting the system. i can't tell you how much this reduces the anxiety for both you and for your partner.

4) drugs
the afore-mentioned sedatives, which i would have utterly rejected, had i known anything about them. what a difference not to have them this time!!! in the OR, i was alert, focussed, and able to talk to the doctors and nurses. in recovery, i could ask questions and understand what was going on. and last, and also most importantly, i was able to focus on finn and jason and myself. finn's first feeding went beautifully, which i think is a credit to the clear head. thank god for the clear head!

5) hospital crowding
when kieran was born, it was in this weird peak period of baby deliveries at our hospital. this means we ended up in the overflow to the overflow to the birth center in a crappy, tiny room with nurses and techs who were either called in from other hospitals or who had worked multiple shifts. they ranged from kind of tired and impatient to outright bitches, with two notable exceptions. we also never had the same nurse twice. this time, there was NO overcrowding at all. we were in an awesome new room in the birth center with the same day and night nurses both days. all of the nurses and techs were helpful and friendly and in good moods because they weren't completely overworked. it's truly amazing what a difference this makes. i wish i had had gifts to give these women.

this is all stuff i didn't know was bad the first time, until it wasn't bad the second time. this time, it felt like cheating, things were so smooth and easy. i am thankful i had good people all around me, in the OR, in recovery, and in the post-partum care. i am also thankful, they let us go home a day early, even though i am still kind of stunned that they let us.

and speaking of thankful, i am thankful i have a healthy baby, that the breastfeeding is going so well this time (which i fully credit to that first latch), and that i have healed beautifully in spite of over-extending myself during recovery. (hard not to with a 2-year-old in the house!)

the only bad thing i can say about the whole experience this time was that i came home with some nasty chemical burns. they hospital changed the type of adhesive they use on the pressure bandages sometime between kieran's birth and finn's. my sensitive skin does NOT like the new adhesive, and my belly was covered in some large, painful burns and blisters that were hiding under the bandage. i discovered them when removing the bandage--VERY unpleasant. but still--nothing some neosporin hadn't fixed up in a couple of weeks.

again--i would never encourage anyone to choose surgery over a natural birth. i will ALWAYS wish natural birth had been an option for me. and maybe it was, but not without defying a doctor i trust and possibly risking my or the baby's health. not worth the risk.

in conclusion--second birth experience WAY better than the first.

on birthin' babies, part one

as i write this, it's 2am, and i am nursing my new boy. finn william coposky was born at 10:27am on monday, july 12th. he weighed 7lb. 13 oz. and was 20 inches long. he's the sweetest thing ever, and so far, everyrhing about him has been criminally easy. i can't even begin to tell you how lucky i feel to have two super-healthy babies at my "advanced maternal age" or really, at any age. given all that can go wrong in the development and birth of a baby, i know full well what a miracle i have on my hands. and dear lord, i am thankful!

let's talk a minute about birth, which has become such an industry in the US. y'all know me well enough by now to get that, given the choice, i'd rather have had my boys naturally than any other way, and that it hasn't been an optuin for me. when kieran was born, by blood pressure was slowly creeping up at the end, which means that my doctora were pressuring me to induce. i still, and will always, wish i could go back in time and fight for more time. actually, i'd love to go back and get a midwife, but this is because i didn't know then what i know now. but i digress... anyway. with the critter, i was induced 4 days after my due date and ended up having a c-section after full labor and 3.5 hours of nonstop pushing. not the best experience.

things were pretty different this time around.

this time, i never developed the gestational hypertension we were all waiting for. they monitored the crap out of me, but there was nevernany sugn of any problem whatsoever. however, given the facts of the first birth, my odds of a successful vaginal birth this tume were on the order of 25%. couple that with the fact that the doctors really didn't want me to go past my due date given my age, the size of the baby, my blood pressure issues, and my personal risk of developing pre-eclampsia, and with the hippie's desire to never watch me go through that whole meaa again, and i decided not to buck the system. i had a scheduled c-section 3 days before my due date.

now, let me make two points:

1) all of my doctors recommended that i schedule the surgery on my actual due date to give my body as much time as possible to go into labor on its own. however, the hospital schedule was full, so it wasn't an option. neither was the day after. then it was the weekend, and they don't schedule them on the weekend. they didn't wabt me to wait as long as the following monday, so... you start looking the other direction. the due date was a thursday. the doctor on call on wednesday is the dude who atripped my membranes last tine without talking to me about it. tuesday was doctor death--no thanks--i'd rather have my mother do the surgery. monday waa the doctor i trust the most, with whom the hippie was most comfortable, and who delivered the critter. dora that seem like a no-brainer to anyone else?

2) all of this said, if you are pregnant, i would encourage you to try a natural birth, with a midwife if possible. and if it's not possible, then choose your practice carefully. and do not be afraid to trust your instincts and stand up for what you want. listen to the doctors, but make your own decisions, and don't let them bully you. they will. keep in mind that your doctor, no matter his opinion of himself, is just a person and not the boss of you. you are an intelligent, grown woman. read. learn the facts. ask queations. be a pain in the ass. and if, after all that, you need medical help, take it! and if you end up with a medicalized birth, try not to feel like you have failed. harder than it sounds, but important.

ok the kid has finished eating, and i am about to pass out, so i am going to finish this tomorrow with a discussion of what all was different about this c-section and the previous one. so many things made this such a different experience!

pregnancy update: entering the home stretch

34 weeks

seriously, people--only 6 weeks to go. i've been sailing though the past month, refusing to stress over anything, and telling everyone, including myself, that june is my get-my-shit-together month. it is upon me. i spent my lunch hour today ordering stuff for the baby's room. i have an official registry set up for the shower some friends are unexpectedly throwing for me. i have a plan of attack. what i am trying to do now is quell the sudden urge to repaint the new baby's room. so far, the urge seems to be winning, in spite of the fact that the room is a lovely green that's perfectly acceptable. i long for a light, clear, teal. *sigh*

anyway. pregnancy is progressing normally, in spite of the dire predictions of the horrible death-focused doctor at my practice. it's also not without its concerns, in spite of the pie-in-the-sky doctor's assessment. it's funny how well you get to know these doctors when you are on your second round with them and going in twice a week for tests. if anything is going to make me ill, it's the fact that i am spending too much time there. lol.

anyway, as you all know, i have had high blood pressure since my youth, which means there are things they watch for when you get pregnant, especially if you are 40. they monitor my BP of course, as well as the baby's size, the fluid levels in my uterus, the placental function, esp as related to the variation in the baby's heart rate, my weight, my kidney function, and any tiny signs that i might be becoming pre-eclamptic. well, so far--everything is a-ok. the baby is gigantic, my BP is running lower than it has since i was 16, there's no sign of anything wrong anywhere.

dr. death still talks about stillbirth a lot. dr. sunshine gives me unrealistic statistics for VBAC success and the ability to let nature take its course. dr. reality--the dr. who performed my surgery with the critter, is somewhere in the middle. it's pretty likely that i will end up with a c-section with him again this time. i am trying to come to terms with that, although it's still depressing to me that i am most likely not ever going to experience a natural labor and delivery myself. i am somewhere between the anger and acceptance phases of my grief over this. i keep reminding myself that the healthy mama and baby at the end of this process is the goal. but it doesn't change the sadness at the lack of control and over not being able to let nature do its thing without taking a bunch of possibly unnecessary risks.

anyway. my point here was--i'm feeling pretty good. the baby's doing great. we're sailing into the home stretch. my belly is huge, and once again, it's hard to believe it can get any bigger, though i know it can...

on the down side, i am bone tired. i am getting up probably 5 times a night with either leg cramps or to pee, or both. i have considered naps at red lights more than once in the past couple of days. my gums are so bleedy, it looks like someone has punched me in the mouth every time i brush my teeth. my pants are all falling off because the baby is stealing my ass much like his big brother did.

on the upside--he's a mobile little critter, and i am firmly in the land-sharking phase of this pregnancy. it's comforting really, having all that motion from him--let's me know every day that he's ok in there. i am motivated as all get out to Get Things Done. i have a temp lined up for my leave. i am eating all the cookies i want.

could be much worse.

pregnancy update: snakes, snails, and quilts

19 weeks, 5 days

so it's taken me a few days to get around to posting anything, because well--life is busy. and also--hello? i'm pregnant and tired. but anyway. the level 2 ultrasound was last thursday, and it was all good. we're having another boy, which is really bittersweet for me. i am happy for the critter to get a little brother, and i'm REALLY glad to have a healthy and normal baby above all things. but it's hard to let go of the idea of ever having a girl. it was a little bit this way when i found out the critter was a boy, too, but then, there was at least the possibility that we would have another baby. this time, we really hope to be done. so this time, it's really the last chance for a girl. and while i love my boy, and i love the idea of two of them running around together, and while i love the bond that brothers share, there is a part of me that will always mourn the loss of pigtails and dresses and ribbons, and a daughter who might have loved my grandmother's china. this is life, right? greener grass and all that. all of that said--yay for another little boy! i hope he and the critter will be great friends for life like my brothers have been. and also--yay for getting to reuse all those cute and adorable clothes i have bought over the past two years, or at least some of them.

here's what the little man looks like right now:

there were more pictures of him, but these are the most clear. and further, i don't think i need to post the pics of the man parts, even in utero! i will tell you that he spent half the ultrasound sucking his thumb and the other half investigating those parts. there is no doubt that this baby is all boy. lol.

so i've been shopping for stuff for his room, and i've been wholly uninspired by what's availble. it's all either too formal to just too damned blue. i like blue a lot, but man--they really pour it on for the baby boys.i get a little overwhelmed by it. i want more than one color in the room, and i don't want it too pastel or too crayola primary either. tough. the only alternative to that seems to be formal. yuck. so anyway--i've been poking around on etsy for ideas, and found this quilt:

it's from an etsy shop called red staggerwing designs, and i love it! i love the amy butler fabrics in it, and i love that it's blue, but not ALL blue, and green, but not all green, and that it has many colors in it. i pounced on it, and i can't wait for it to arrive. i am going to make a blanket for this new baby boy like the one i made for the critter, but in a lovely dove grey, and i will use these two pieces to start designing a new nursery. yay! and maybe by the time i get around to picking out things like a bumper pad, there will be something out there i like that doesn't cost $400+.