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When Cate was born, we knew she was tiny, but she seemed totally healthy. Her five minute APGAR score was 9.9, so we figured that hey, all is well, she’s just really small. Five pounds and 14 ounces isn’t considered a preemie, so no problems.  

Before we left the hospital, they told us that she was jaundiced and that we needed to follow up with our pediatrician the next day. Dave and I both thought that was odd, since jaundiced babies are supposed to be yellow, and she was just about the pinkest thing I’d ever seen. But ok, sure, we’ll do as we’re told.

By the next day, the pink of her skin had been replaced by an awful lot of yellow. We saw the pediatrician that afternoon, and found out that her weight had dropped to five pounds, five ounces. Nine ounces in two days. It’s pretty typical for babies to lose weight the first week - it’s just that when you’re starting with such a small baby, you don’t have a huge margin to work with. Here’s the problem: the primary way to cure jaundice is to make sure that the baby has plenty of food in her tummy, because it makes the digestive tract start working to move things along. And on Monday, my milk still hadn’t come in. The pediatrician told us that it was time to start supplementing with formula.

The thing is, I knew I wanted to try breastfeeding because of all the health benefits for the baby and for me, but I’ve never been that militant about it. I wasn’t breastfed myself, and if anything, I’m probably too bonded with my mother (we talk on the phone every day), so I wasn’t worried about that aspect of it. Also, I read Amalah’s blog when she was struggling with nursing, and it broke my heart - that, combined with a lot of the other mommy blogs where women have talked about their guilt about breastfeeding (or lack thereof), made me decide that no matter what, I was not going to beat myself up about it if nursing didn’t work out. I’d give it my best effort, and that would just have to be good enough.

So, per the pediatrician’s orders, we’ve started supplementing with formula. It’s actually kind of a relief, because it lets Dave be involved in feeding time, which he loves. And which I love because it means that I actually get a break every now and then. As a bonus, I don’t have to worry about whether the baby is starving because my milk supply hasn’t completely come in yet.

Yesterday, we had our post-partum follow-up appointment at the hospital. The nurse practitioner told me that since my breast size didn’t really increase when I was pregnant (does half a cup size even count?), and my glands were still only partially full, I may never get a full milk supply. Which means we’ll always have to supplement with formula.

And you know? The only reason I feel guilty about that is because I’m kind of relieved, because (warning: Bad Mother Alert) I really don’t like nursing. It hurts, it takes forever to get Cate into the right position, I’m never sure if she’s latched on right (I thought we had it nailed until the lactation nurse yesterday told me that I was doing it totally wrong, oops), and I never know if she’s getting enough. I rented a breast pump from the hospital, and I actually prefer to use that because I know exactly how much I’m producing. And it doesn’t hurt as much.

My original plan was to try to breastfeed for the first six months. At this point, I’m starting to think that maybe we’ll try it for a month and take it from there. Also, we’re only on Day Four, so I’m trying to relax and just see how things progress. Maybe I’ll feel completely different in a week, who knows.  

My number one goal at the moment is to make sure that our baby is well-fed, growing and getting healthier every day. As long as she’s thriving, my Mommy Guilt can take a big fat hike.

And it can wear a cute little matching fleece hat and jacket when it goes.

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I started trying to write this over 24 hours ago, if that’s any indication of how crazy things are right now. (If I owe you an email, I’m sorry. I’ll get to it, I promise.) So! Here’s the timeline of how it all happened:

3:30 a.m. - My water broke. I called the hospital, and they said that since I wasn’t having contractions yet, I didn’t have to break any land speed records trying to get there, but “you definitely need to come in and have that baby today.” Okie-doke. Dave and I each took a shower, since we figured we had time. I even put on my make-up, which Dave totally laughed at me for, but I think it was more because I was afraid to leave the bathroom since I was leaking water everywhere. I was just sort of standing on the bathmat trying to figure out what to do (and, um, not panic), so hey, why not mascara? I guess that during times like this, when you know that something huge and scary is about to happen, the familiar is comforting.

5 a.m. - I was all checked in to my room with the monitors hooked up. Still no major contractions. I kept asking the nurse “was that one?” because I’d feel a slight twinge, but nothing that I could pinpoint. I think the nurse thought I was insane. Oh well, she wasn’t there long. We got a new labor nurse (Laura) when the shift change happened at 7 a.m., and she and her nurse trainee were with us for the rest of the day. They rocked.

8 a.m. - Since it was nearly five hours after my water broke and I still wasn’t contracting regularly, they started me on pitocin to get things moving. (The longer you go after your membranes rupture, the more the risk of infection increases.) About a half hour later, I no longer had to ask whether I was having a contraction or not. Ouch. They gave me some narcotic that I had never heard of to take the edge off of the contractions, and told me that I could get an epidural when I had dilated to four centimeters. At that point, I was still in the 2 1/2 to 3 range.

9 a.m. - I asked the nurse probably two or three times the name of the drug they had given me, because it sure was niiiice. (To this day, I have no idea what it was called.) The contractions still hurt like hell, and they were almost entirely in my lower back, but at least I was able to completely relax in between them.

11 a.m. - The labor nurse told me I had finally gotten to four centimeters and asked if I wanted the epidural. Yes, please, thank you. Meanwhile, I guess there was a full moon out this weekend because the hospital was chock full of women having babies. The labor nurse told me that they had twelve other admissions that same night. So it took the anaesthesiologist a loooong time to get to me.

12:30 p.m. - During the hour and a half that it took for the anasthesiologist to arrive, the narcotics wore off and my contractions got really intense. That was the worst part of the entire experience. It was back labor, so Dave would try to apply counter-pressure during each contraction, but it didn’t help that much. I couldn’t even speak during the contractions, I just made moaning and grunting sounds. All I could say was “ok” when it was over, so Dave would know he could stop pressing on my back.

When the anaesthesiologist arrived, Dave left to get coffee. It was my idea, because I know he’s squeamish about needles, and he’d be useless to me if he was passed out on the floor. But trying to manage those insane contractions without him there was really difficult mentally - not to mention that I was trying to hold perfectly still while a very large needle was being inserted into my spine, and I had to keep telling the doctor to stop when a contraction hit. The labor nurses were rubbing my shoulders and telling me that I was doing a great job, but it really took all that I had not to scream/cry during the contractions. If that is any indication of what natural childbirth is like, I’m glad I opted for the drugs. I have a new respect for women who go the natural route, because I know for a fact that I couldn’t do it.

Now, after the epidural? Dude, that rocked. It’s a very strange sensation to be numb from the waist down, but it was amazing to watch my contractions on the monitor (which were 2 minutes apart, lasting over a minute each, and getting progressively more intense) and not even feel them.

1:30 p.m. - The ob/gyn on call - not my regular doctor, but a very nice lady who I liked a lot - came in to examine me about an hour after the epidural. She said I was at about 5 centimeters. We also learned that while the baby was head-down like she was supposed to be, her head was facing the wrong way, and it was way up high even though I was dilating. She told us to relax, because it was probably going to be several more hours before we had a baby.

1:30 - 3:30 p.m. - Since I had the epidural and wasn’t in pain anymore, Dave and I both took naps. Neither of us had slept very much the night before, and the day had already been pretty exhausting.

3:30 p.m. - The doctor came back to check on me. I told her that I was feeling some pressure a bit lower, so I wondered if maybe the baby’s head had finally dropped like it was supposed to. She said she doubted it, but offered to go ahead and examine me just to see. I said ok.

Around this time, Dave mentioned that when he talked to his dad earlier in the day, his dad had predicted that the baby would be born between four and six p.m. The labor nurse laughed. The doctor scoffed. I said that I thought his dad was probably confused by the time zone change between here and England. Dave just shrugged, agreed that I was probably right, and went back to chowing down on my lunch tray of hospital food. (I told him he could have it since I was restricted to ice chips. It honestly didn’t look that appealing, anyway.)

The doctor checked me and everyone in the room was stunned to learn that not only had the baby’s head dropped, but I was fully dilated and ready to push. The hell? I went from five centimeters to ten in two hours. I don’t think it’s a world record, but that was still mighty impressive.

Dave was finishing off the piece of cake from my lunch tray, so he stopped and went to the restroom to wash his hands. By the time he came back, the nurses were already holding my knees in the air and counting down from ten while I pushed. I think he freaked that the whole thing was going to be finished before he got there, but he made it just in time.

The next few minutes were a totally surreal blur. I was trying to push even though I was totally numb, so I was using muscles from memory rather than sensation. I felt the pushes more in my face than anywhere else. I don’t honestly remember much about any of that - I think I pushed through four or five contractions. The labor nurse told me later that the pushing part lasted 14 minutes from start to finish.

3:51 p.m. - Suddenly, there she was. This pink squirmy baby with a head full of dark hair was lying on my stomach and shrieking up a storm. Her little screams were so high-pitched, the first thing I said to Dave was, “She sounds like Teenie!” (Of course I would compare my child to the cat I’ve had for the past 11 years. Totally normal. I am not one of those crazy cat people, I swear.) We also realized that Dave’s dad was wrong by less than ten minutes. Who knew?

Dave and I both just sort of stared at her in shock for a couple of minutes. Dave took her off of my chest, and brought her to the nurse to get her cleaned up. The second he picked her up for the first time, she stopped screaming. And that is how things have been for the two of them ever since. Dave = Comfort. He is the instant end to tears. It is amazing to watch them together. Which is not to say that she and I haven’t bonded - believe me, I am totally smitten and can stare at her for hours on end - but I think she is going to be a complete and total Daddy’s Girl.  

As for how things are now? It’s day three, so we’re still in Survival Mode. Everything is new and foreign and All About The Baby. We’re totally exhausted and happy. Breastfeeding has proven to be a bit tricky, but it’s new for both of us, and between the lactation nurses at the hospital and our pediatrician, I’m pretty sure we can work the kinks out of that system. I’m not too stressed about it, and I’ll get into all that business some other time.

Right now, I’m going to take advantage of Dave’s awake time so I can go take a shower, and then we’re going to see if the three of us can get some sleep. At least for an hour.

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I swear I’m going to write out the whole birth story and all of the gruesome details and everything, but we just got home a few hours ago, and I slept maybe two hours total last night, so I’m exhausted.

I just wanted to let y’all know that I’ve added more pictures to the Flickr set. And now, I’m going to try to nurse her one more time, and then little Cate and I are heading off to bed.

You know, for the next two hours. Until she needs to eat again. Rock on, motherhood.

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Catherine Renee Wilkinson arrived at 3:51 p.m. on January 27, 2007. She’s a teeny-tiny little thing, weighing in at only 5 pounds, 14 ounces; and she’s 19 inches long.

More photos to come soon, as I’m understandably a bit distracted. In the meantime, the set so far is here.

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Around 3:30 this morning, I woke up to pee. As I was washing my hands, SPLOOSH! And thus, my water, it hath broken.

So we’re at the hospital now. Contractions are mild and about every seven minutes or so. I’d like to think that the pain is going to stay this low-key, but I don’t think I’m that stupid.

Oh, and does everyone remember how my mom said she had “a feeling” that I was going to go into labor at some point on Friday or Saturday? And then this happens at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday morning? Yeah. Will someone please get that woman her own damn psychic hotline already? Jeez.

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So… um, hi. I’m still not in labor. Ho-hum.

In fact, there hasn’t been a whole heck of a lot going on at our house lately, other than my constant whining about feeling miserable (par for the course at this point). And Dave is frantically trying to finish up some last-minute work projects so he can take a few days off next week. 

Actually, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but one of the perks of his new job is that he primarily works from home, so it doesn’t really matter if he takes an official paternity leave or not. He’ll still be around to help me out with the baby, and just knowing that he’ll be present is an enormous weight off my mind. He can re-adjust his daily work hours however he needs to, which is fantastic. I’m being very careful to ensure that he gets the amount of “quiet time” every day that he needs, because I think it’s a good habit to establish. We’re pretty good with our boundaries; if his office door is closed, I leave him alone. (Actually, I’m very housewife-y these days, so I do check in to see if he wants a snack or another cup of coffee, but that’s about it.) I know most of our routine will get thrown on its head after the baby arrives, and who knows, maybe Dave will want to go into the office more often, just to get a break. But it seems to be working pretty well so far.

Yesterday, Kris emailed me to remind me that this will be my last child-free weekend, and she wanted to know if I wanted to do something to mark this momentous occasion. Or at least have her come over with some take-out and a movie. Which was very sweet of her, even though I’m not up for it. My attention span can barely keep up with “Friends” reruns on late-night TV these days. A two-hour movie plot? Forget it. My brain is way too focused on its own little internal Baby Watch.

It’s weird, though, it hadn’t crossed my mind at all that this will be our last weekend before the baby arrives. I haven’t been thinking of it in terms of ”my last moments of freedom.” In fact, it’s quite the opposite - I’m very much looking forward to being a single-resident human again, and I think that after she’s born is when I’ll feel “free” again. Most of it is just based on how miserable I’ve been feeling lately, but there’s all the other little things, like hey, I could eat sushi again if I wanted to! Or (gasp!) maybe have a cocktail! What a concept!

So! The waiting game is almost over. We only have three more days to go at the most. And three days is tolerable, right? Actually, it’s less than that - we’ll be all checked in to the hospital in a mere 65 hours. Even better.

Hope all of you have a good weekend. You can probably expect to see some sort of “exploiting the hospital’s free Wi-Fi for all it’s worth” post on Monday. Stay tuned.

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Last night I woke up at 3:30 in the morning, totally drenched in sweat and having a contraction. It wasn’t too terribly painful - sort of like doing an involuntary sit-up, my stomach muscles were literally contracting without any participation on my part. It felt more strange and uncomfortable than anything. I noted the time and tried to go back to sleep.

I kept having contractions every six minutes for the next two hours. I started to get really excited, thinking ok, obviously this has to be it, right? All the books say that false labor has no pattern to it, and that’s one of the primary distinctions between the two. And this was precisely every six minutes, so I thought it had to be The Real Deal.

I didn’t wake Dave up, because I thought that if we were going to be heading to the hospital later in the morning, I might as well let him be as rested as possible. I remembered that our childbirth class instructor had told us that early labor can take a long time, so she suggested that we (meaning the mom-to-be and her coach) try to rest as much as possible. Take naps, shower, eat, whatever - since we’ll be needing our energy later on down the road. That sounded logical to me. And besides, the contractions weren’t too bad on the pain scale, so I figured we had lots of time.

Somewhere around 5-something in the morning, the contractions suddenly dropped from being every six minutes to being ten minutes apart. Then… nothing. I fell asleep, and that was it. I woke up a few hours later, no more contractions. And other than a few sporadic Braxton-Hicks type sensations, there’s been nothing else happening all day today. Zip, zilch, na-da.

So, um, what the heck was that??

I talked to my mom a couple of hours ago, she said she has “a feeling” that I’m going to go into labor on Friday or Saturday. She’s never claimed to have any psychic abilities in the past, so I’m not sure where this is coming from. But she guessed I was pregnant before I knew I was, so who knows? Maybe she’s right.

It would actually kind of suck if I go into labor over the weekend, since my obstetrician isn’t on call until next week, and I don’t know how that works with weekends. Like, would she be there on the Saturday or Sunday before or after her week on call? I only know for sure that she’d be there on Monday. I just really love her and feel comfortable with her, and I want her to be the one who handles the birth. Which is not to say that I have any problems with any of the other doctors in the group, I just don’t know them. So really, it’s no big tragedy either way. As long as we can hurry up and get this baby out of me, I’ll be fine either way.

The funny part of going into labor over the weekend is that it makes me think that maybe the baby overheard all this talk of inducing on Monday, so she’ll decide, “All right, all right, I’ll come out on my own!” at the very last minute. That would be very apropos for a child of Dave’s and mine - the stubbornness factor alone could make her decide to beat us to the punch. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.

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