Feeding Frenzy

Wow. I know we're not doing anything wrong, but wow. Evan just finished his first growth spurt. During this growth spurt, he just never stopped eating. I feel so bad for mommy, but he never stopped eating, and so she never got much sleep. I didn't make it to work Thursday because he didn't sleep at all Wednesday night. It was a rough night...

Thank the gods for Netflix. We've gone through so many shows: 8 seasons of Family Guy, Better Off Ted (a riot), Pushing Daisies, Futurama, and now Arrested Development. Remarkable. Netflix and a laptop are great for middle-of-the-night feedings, and for general all-nighters.

He'll be four weeks old on Monday. It's hard to believe. He's still just as cute and lovable as the day he was born; He just poops more :-)

The blurry second half.

The second half of the birth story.

Where did I leave off? Recovery? Recovery, yes.

Here's what I remember:

A nurse wheeled us upstairs to recovery. Room 319 was our room for the next two days. These two days are mostly a big blur to me because I got something like an hour and a half of sleep during the first 24 hours and then maybe two or three during the second 24 hours. I suppose the fact that I'm writing this all out 3 weeks after the fact doesn't help, but I'll do my best.

Pain. Even though the hospital bed adjusted it's air to what I "needed", it was nearly impossible to find a comfortable position. Getting out of bed was a nightmare. Getting into bed was a nightmare. It became clear to me that Evan REALLY did a number on me on his way out. They gave me 800mg of ibuprofen every 6 or so hours, but I'm pretty sure it didn't help. Luckily, they have me a catheter, so I didn't have to get up to "recycle". Peeing without feeling the need is the most bizarre thing. Unfortunately, because I couldn't get out of bed, G had to do everything. I felt helpless, but he handled things like a champ. He changed all of Evan's diapers, mastered swaddling, helped me get the hang of breastfeeding, and fetched snacks when I needed them. Meanwhile, I stayed in bed, mastered breastfeeding, and paged the nurses during the few times exhaustion got to us and we needed help. I was topless for two days straight and didn't really care who saw me. Nurses, visitors, cleaning crew...it didn't matter.

At one point, one of the nurses told me that I needed to be unpacked. I didn't actually see what was used to pack me, but after it's removal, I'm thinking it was the world's gauze with the world's longest tampon string and HOLY JEBAS getting that string out FUCKING HURT. A little later, I was told that they had to remove the catheter and that it would hurt. It was NOTHING compared to the "tampon". Then, I was told that I had to pee twice or they'd have to put the catheter back in and was warned that I really didn't want that to have to happen because that hurts, as well. At some point, I finally got the nerve/energy/motivation to waddle to the tiny room of food for patients. I lived off of banana nut Otis Sputmeyer muffins and diet ginger ale the entire stay. Several sodas later, I'd peed enough to make the nurses happy.  Go me.

I wasn't the only one in pain. G had to deal with the room being as ridiculously cold and the bed being ridiculously uncomfortable. Evan had to deal with living on the outside AND having his heel pricked on a pretty regular basis: They tested him for diabetes and did some vaccinations.

We had about a bizillion different nurses help us during our stay. Some were good. Others were just plain awesome. If I hadn't been severely sleep deprived and on an adrenaline rush , I might be able to recall some of their names. Unfortunately, their faces and names have all blended together by this point.
A few people visited us while we were in room 319. Karina stopped by. Then, Tammy.

Nurse Tina visited during her shift. As did Nurse Holly.

September 1st was discharge day. The nurses removed Evan's baby lo-jack and sent us home sans safety net. G and I had decided that we wanted a few days at home...just the three of us...before we allowed visitors. I'm REALLY glad we did this. It might've annoyed some friends and family, but it was TOTALLY worth it.

2 Weeks.

Little Evan is 2 weeks old today. Because of this, he had his two week well visit at the pediatrician this afternoon. We can happily report that he now weighs 7 lbs, 8.5 oz...which means he's gained back the more than 10% body weight he'd lost during the first few days AND that his seemingly constant connection to my boobs is actually doing him some good. Yay!

2 weeks is also the time we gave ourselves at home before G would even consider going back to work. After briefly considering taking a few more days, we decided that it was time. Today was the first day I stayed home with the little guy. No G to back me up. No safety net. Just the two of us...and we made it through the day unscathed. Go us!

11 Days

Our baby boy is an eating machine. It seems like he eats, stops, gets burped, eats some more, stops, gets burped, rinse and repeat. This is a change for the better, though, since he was dehydrated after we brought him home from the hospital. Thankfully, our first pediatrician visit was the day after we left the hospital. They told us to supplement his eating with formula, which we really only had to do for a day. Now, he's a pooing, peeing, eating, sleeping machine!

It's Been One Week

Evan's been home one week, and it's been eventful. The parenting learning curve is pretty steep, and it's the kind where you just kind of get thrown into the deep end of the shark-infested waters and must both learn to swim and to fight sharks. Well, sharks, suck it!

Evan Matthew Ambler.

Sunday, August 30th, G and I stayed up to watch the Emmys and ended up going to bed little later than usual. As per usual, my bladder woke me up in the middle of the night. At 3:20AM, I took what I can only describe as an EPIC pee...which I thought was kinda weird because, well, I hadn't really had all that much to drink while Emmy watching. As I settled back into bed, I felt a two or 3 contractions in a row and decided to time them...just because. They ranged from 2 to 7 minutes apart. I whipped out my phone and used the handy dandy Droid app Contraction Timer and headed to the kitchen to grab the leaflet reminding me "when to call". With our track record, it said to call after an hour of contractions 5 minutes apart. An hour later, G woke up momentarily and asked me how I was doing. "Well, I've been having contractions for the last hour..." We got out of bed and I called my OB. Doctor Bird was the doctor on call. She told me to head to Labor and Delivery, but we didn't have to rush. We listened. It was nice, too...no traffic that early in the morning. :)

Terrifying Day 1

It all started at 3:45 AM, though I wasn't to know that for an hour. Mom woke up with contractions. After timing them for an hour, she woke me up to let me know that they were the right frequency. And so the day began...