Our little girl had her first flight with us to San Francisco just before turning 12 weeks old. We’re visiting for 5 weeks for Alec’s work before flying back to Sydney for Christmas.
A few pics from our newborn shoot.
Week 5 – Sept 17 – Sept 23
Alec was sent to California for work at the last minute, so we hired a baby night nurse for the week to help me take care of E. While it was really odd to have a stranger in the house taking care of my baby, it was AMAZING to get 8 hours sleep. I felt like a new person, had more energy, and was able to deal with E’s fussiness during the day with much more patience. In return, E was a more relaxed baby. Win!
On the Sunday before Alec flew out, we had a lovely day out to the Brooklyn Book Fair and Brooklyn Heights Association dog show. Living in Brooklyn can be so much fun, there’s always so much going on all the time.
Held her head up on her own for the first time! (19/9). Having more awake time, taking in her surroundings, looking cuter and cuter every day.
E still won’t sleep on her back in the crib. Even the night nurse can’t get her to do it, which makes me feel a lot better!
At her 1 month check up, E weighed in at 4.25kg (8 pounds 6 oz), measured 21 inches (length) and 37cm (head circumference). The doctor was very pleased with her weight gain and progress. She has to have a repeat sonogram of the hips next week, and if it still shows problems, she will have to go to a specialist.
I’ve been making more of an effort to get out with E now during the day, such as meeting friends for lunch or afternoon tea and taking long walks to get some exercise. When I walk with E in the sling, she’ll get in a good 3 hour sleep. Winner for everyone!
I’m happy to notice as the weeks go by that E still isn’t a vomiter. Praise be. She may not sleep on anything other than me and be the gassiest baby alive, but at least she’s not a vomiter as well 🙂
I have been reading a lot lately about silent reflux (thanks Katia for sending me the link!) and E has all of the symptoms. I went back to see the pediatrician and thankfully he agreed with me that she has silent reflux and prescribed her medication to help with it. We have to give it 10 days to see if it works.
I had a great mother’s group meet-up this week where we all had a mini-facial. I also managed to get out for a few hours with my friend Carly to have lunch and get a much needed pedicure. It’s amazing how much better that made me feel!
One more big milestone for E this week – her first real smile! On Friday (23/9/11) she had several big smiles for Mum and Grandma.
She’s also getting so much more aware of the world. After her doctor appointment (23/9), she refused to have her head in the sling on the way home, insisting on having her tiny head sticking out to check out the world around her the entire way home.
Week 6 – Sept 24 – Sept 30
Last week with Grandma in town.
We had another sonogram of her hips and the results were completely clear. So relieved. E also was in a great mood and hardly made a peep the whole time.
We had another check up with the pediatrician regarding her reflux – not much improvement so far, so we are seeing a specialist next week.
I had my 6 wk check up as well, and was given the go-ahead to exercise. Super excited – if only I was getting enough sleep to actually go and exercise …
This week E and I started a 6 week Mom and Me Movement Class at the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn. E made it through about half the class before cracking it – not too bad!
Developmentally, E has started sucking on her hands. Her favourite thing to do is lie on her change table and stare at the window.
Week 7 – Oct 1 – Oct 7
This week was tough. E stopped wanting to feed and started screaming more, in five hour blocks.
We took her to see the gastro pediatric specialist this week, and she gave us some great tips on managing reflux in babies, like making her take breaks while feeding and putting her in chairs/swings that don’t crunch her tummy by being at a 90 degree angle. After the specialist we had E’s first walk through Central Park and midtown. She was really great, sleeping through most of it.
After the specialist visit, we tried her advice and put E to sleep in her Fisher Price Rainforest vibrating bouncer. She slept for 2.5 solid hours. Breakthrough!! We repeated this the next few nights, but sadly also had a night where she woke up every time we tried to put her down, bothered by the reflux.
Alec worked from home this week, and it was great for us to bond as a family. Sleep deprivation also made us snappy at each other however.
We had a great mothers group meet up this week in Cobble Hill Park. E loved sitting on my lap, checking out the light in the trees.
Week 8 – Oct 8 – Oct 14
Special visitors this week! Shelley, Eric and Isla spent Columbus weekend with us. We had a fantastic day in Prospect Park and Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, where E was an angel. No screaming, taking long peaceful feeds. Some kind of miracle occurred …
We also took E for her first trip to Tiffany & Co. She loved it and can’t wait to pick out her first diamonds at a later stage …
I had a killer stomach virus this week that totally floored me. Thank God for Alec helping me out or I couldn’t have gotten through the week.
A highlight for the week was Eloise laughing for the first time at a black and white canvas print of her and Alec that we have hanging on our wall. She loves the picture, laughing at it for a about 10 minutes. (13/10/11)
Eloise spends a lot more time awake now. We have a good 2 – 3 hour morning play time where we read her books, play on the activity mat, look at the Wimmer-Ferguson Stim-Mobile on her change table and stare at the fan. She is so alert and gets bored really quickly. The mobile over the change table is such a blessing – I can strap her down on it for up to 30 minutes at a time and she will smile at it like it’s her best friend.
The reflux doesn’t seem as bad this week in general. A few bad days, but not anywhere near as bad it was a few weeks ago. We’re not sure if this is due to the medication, the extra things we’re doing to try and help it cause her less discomfort, or just growing out of it.
Eloise has been growing like crazy this week. She has been feeding non-stop, and every day she looks bigger. She has outgrown socks that I’m pretty sure she fit into only last weekend.
The big event of the week was Eloise’s 2 month check up and immunisations. The check up went great. She now weighs 11 pounds, 1 ounce/5kgs, 22.5 inches in length, 38cm head circumference. She has put on 1.75kg, grown 2.5 inches and her head has grown 2 cm. The shots were not so much fun. She had three needles and while initially sleepy when we got home, she was cranky all afternoon and evening. Not fun at all!
Week 9 – Oct 15 – 21
Eloise had a bad few days after her shots. She was grisly and whiney and generally irritating to be around. Thankfully, on my first day home alone with her, she woke up a happy smiley baby. As the week progressed however, she became more and more difficult to be home alone with. On Friday, she refused to take naps during the day, leaving her one very cranky, exhausted little person by the time evening came around – and leaving me completely shattered. We also had an embarrassing moment at out baby movement class. I took E out of the pram, ready for class, and she opened her mouth and started wailing like she was being stabbed. Her face turned bright red and tears were streaming down her face. I was unable to calm her, so had to turn around and go straight back home again. Not fun!
I did however manage to make my first trip without Alec into the city, to meet Meg, Laura and their little babies for lunch at Madison Square Park. E was great on the subway, but had a bit of a howl in the park which resulted in me doing a few laps around the park with my screaming baby. Thankfully she did calm down, and was great for the rest of the trip, plus the subway home. Success!
We had a sleep coach come visit us on Friday night to help us get some kind of sleep with the little terror. She gave us some really great tips, and we saw a vast improvement even on the first night. Hopefully this means things might start to improve in the sleep department, and we might have a less cranky baby when she is awake as a result!
Eloise is so much more alert and wake now. She loves her activity mat and is starting to notice the little animals swinging over her head. She has the cutest little blue eyes that open as wide as saucers when we are outside, trying to take in every single detail of the world around her.
Week 1 – Aug 20 – 27
Week 3 – Sept 4 – Sept 10
This week got even harder! E suddenly turned into a fussy baby. Crying for no reason, her gas getting even worse, cluster feeds every hour for 8 hour stretches, less sleep. I think she had a growth spurt that made everything worse during this week. She also had a sonogram on her hips to make sure they were all looking ok (when she was born the pediatrician noticed she had a clicky hip that slipped in and out of its socket). The sonogram was very traumatic for us both. She screamed like she was being murdered for over an hour, and was unsettled for the rest of the day and night.
We bought a great new sling this week – a Sakura Bloom swing, that I love to take her out in. She had outings for the first time this week both in the Baby Bjorn (which Alec prefers) and the sling (which I prefer). It’s so much easier to take her out in the sling than in the pram.
On Saturday we took her out for her first big outing – lunch and a long walk down to Brooklyn Bridge Park. I fed her outside for the first time (victory!) and she slept most of the time happily in the Baby Bjorn.
We are getting no sleep at night due to E not wanting to be put on her back, so we are going to try co-sleeping instead next week. I have managed to get her to briefly sleep in a swing that our neighbours gave us, but she won’t stay in it for long periods.
We have also gotten her to stay on her back in her crib briefly while she is awake as she loves to stare at her crib gallery and black and white picture books. She will only tolerate this for 10 – 20 minutes however.
E is getting more and more alert – trying to see things around her, trying to touch things already. Her eyes are still blue, but are changing already – getting lighter.
Week 4 – Sept 11 – Sept 16
She’s starting to enjoy the bath more – still screams when it’s over, but she seems to like the warm water.
We had a tough week this week. Eloise started to get more and more grisly as well as the not sleeping on her back. The gas pains are bothering her a lot, and she will writhe in pain for hours sometimes trying to get the gas out.
I also found out this week that she has sub luxation in her left hip, which means the leg joint is still really lose. I have to book her in to see an orthopedic specialist to be checked out further. Hopefully it will only be a minor thing she can grow out of without needing treatment.
I managed to get out on my own with E to mother’s group for the first time this week – victory!
We also visited a great place called Brooklyn Farmacy on the weekend, where we managed to eat our entire lunch while E slept. Afterwards we took her to get her passport photos taken, which made her cranky for the rest of the day. She seems to get really worked up easily into a state where she can’t easily calm down from. This leads to us being extra careful not to do things that will upset her. Unfortunately we can’t avoid things like doctors visits, which make her furious!
Week 1 – Aug 20 – 27
At her doctor’s check-up this week, she’s put on an average of an ounce a day since birth instead of losing weight, which most babies do. At two weeks, she’s at 7 pounds 12 oz, up from her birth weight of 7 pounds 4 oz.
Week 3 – Sept 4 –
Things are a bit less chaotic as we all get to know each other better. Little E gets plumper and cuter every day. We still can’t get E to sleep on her back in the crib, so are looking into every other option we can. Borrowing a swing from neighbours, buying a sling to wear her around the house in. Alec and I had our first outing with her on Sunday in the Baby Bjorn carrier, going to lunch at a local French patisserie, then a walk to Cobble Hill Park.
I can’t believe it’s exactly a week since little Eloise came into the world. She’s had an eventful week. Birth. Earthquake. Hurricane.
Eloise has been such a great, adaptable baby, as well as being the most beautiful little person I could imagine coming into our lives.
One week old! Love you, my little girl.
On Friday, August 19, 2011, I was having dinner with my friends the Sonegos, when my water broke while I was sitting on their couch. It was around 7:30 in the evening – 10 days before my due date. At around 8:30, I experienced my first contraction – but none came after that. Alec was still at work when my waters broke, so he rushed to come to pick me up in a cab. After speaking with my doctor, we went home to Brooklyn to prepare.
After calling the doc at midnight, with no more contractions, we went to bed, hoping nature would take its course during the night. I woke up at 3am with the start of contractions, like period pain, at about 20 minute intervals. The back pain had intensified, and I noticed that she had dropped at about 4:30am. Deep breaths for the first time in months!
I wasn’t able to sleep after that, so I paced the corridor for the next hour and a half, until I could wake Alec up just before 6am, and called my doctor at 6am to let him know that I was indeed getting contractions, which by then were coming at 10 mins apart.
We called a town car and drove through Manhattan to the hospital, Mt Sinai, on the upper east side. Driving over the bridge from Brooklyn into Manhattan while the sun rose over the city was a surreal moment.
Once we arrived at the hospital, we had to wait over an hour and a half to be taken to a room. My doctor came by at around 9, at which stage my contractions were every 5 minutes. I thought this was good progress, but when the doctor examined me, he said I had only dilated 1cm. The decision was made to put me on Pictosin to speed up the contractions since it had been a while since my waters broke. Over the next few hours, my contractions went from being a little uncomfortable to absolute agony. I was screaming and crying in pain, and was given a combination spinal block and epidural. This helped my pain significantly, but my labour wouldn’t progress.
The doctor came to check on me every few hours through out the day, but even though I was getting regular contractions at around 2 mins apart, I was not dilating at a significant rate, and by 7:30pm that evening, I was only just 5cm dilated. At 24 hours exactly after my waters broke, my temperature started to rise and the baby’s heart rate started to drop. The doctor said infection was starting to set in, and we needed to have a C section straight away before my temperature spiked any further, which would result in not only me getting sick, but the baby needing to spend time in the NICU. I was feeling pretty ill at this stage, hot, queasy, headachy, and as I was rushed into surgery I started vomiting – which continued all the way through the surgery and while I was recovering. I also started to shake as I got the chills related to the fever.
The whole operation, even though I couldn’t feel anything, was horrible. I felt so ill, and when my baby girl came out, at 8:44pm, instead of elation, I felt ill. I was in some kind of shock, watching this tiny screaming creature appear out of nowhere, and being told it was my daughter.
I told Alec to leave me and see her, take photos of her first moments of life. While I was being stitched up, our little girl was wrapped up and given to him to hold. He came by my head for me to see her, but I was shaking too much to touch her. The numbness in my body continued to spread after the baby was removed, so my feet were numb, as were the bottom half of my lungs. I felt vomit rising, but was unable to get it out because I couldn’t feel anything. I was so terrified that I was going to choke on my own vomit and die right there on the operating table.
After I was stitched up and wheeled into recovery, I slowly started to feel better as the drugs in my system simultaneously wore off (narcotics) and set in (antibiotics). After a while I felt well enough to have my little girl placed next to me to touch – another surreal moment. I was so relieved that she was okay, and couldn’t believe that this was the little person I had been waiting to meet for so long. Once I started to get feeling back in my body, I felt even more relieved!
I was wheeled into my room at around 10pm, completely exhausted and unable to move. The decision was made to have the baby taken to the nursery for the evening to give my body a chance to recovery from the trauma it had been though, in hopes I would be able to sleep. Unfortunately, I was woken up every hour or so by doctors checking my vitals, giving me medication, checking my incision, etc, so morning came and I was no more rested then the night before! I felt well enough the next morning however to stand up and walk around, and was finally able to sit up and hold my beautiful baby girl for the first time. I thought she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and felt overwhelmed with love for her.
Week 28: Had my seven-month check-up. My weight gain is great (now 75.9kgs, which puts me in the healthy weight gain zone), but the baby is apparently on the big side! She is a week ahead of where she should be in terms of her size. My doctor puts it down to my “strong Aussie genes”. Hmmm. The glucose test came back all normal, so no gestational diabetes, hooray! Thank you genes for my high sugar-tolerance.
Baby will be getting some color this week — eye color, that is. Pigment will fill in your baby’s irises, but it might take six months after birth for the eyes to settle into their true color. Eyelashes, eyebrows and hair are continuing to grow, and brain tissue is rapidly increasing.
Week 29: Back to running to the bathroom every 10 minutes. Sometimes I can feel her actually kicking me in the bladder. Alec can feel her move all the time now – we spend most nights after dinner on the couch watching TV – with Alec’s hand on my side feeling her perform a water ballet. I’m starting to get more tired – I think due to lack of sleep. I haven’t slept through the night in about three weeks. Scary to think of how long it will be before I get a full nights sleep again. I’m so thankful right now that I don’t have to work. I don’t know how women work full-time during this trimester. I can barely get out of bed some mornings at all! My belly button is also trying really hard to pop out this week.
Baby’s now the size of a squash!
Baby’s energy is surging, thanks to white fat depositing beneath his skin. And since he’s growing so fast (weight will triple by birth), things are getting kind of cramped in the womb. What all this means for you: Get ready for some more kicks and jabs to the ribs.
Week 30: I can see the baby moving now through my stomach – like a strange little alien. My feet have started to hurt a lot this week – and my right foot has been swelling up at night, just the right! During my check up this week, the baby was indeed on the right side – head pushing down on my bladder! The doctor said the baby is looking perfect, and her size is around the 50 – 75% size range. She’s been incredibly active! Head is down, feet are kicking the bottom of my ribs constantly.
While your brain might seem to be on hiatus, your baby’s brain is expanding by the day, taking on new functions like temperature regulation. This week, the brain is starting to get that wrinkly, indented look, which will help the brain tissue expand as the baby develops into adulthood. Besides the brain, your baby’s body is continuing to grow — now at just over 3 pounds and 17 inches long.
Week 31: Alec and I went on a mini babymoon this week – to Boston over the 4th of July weekend. It was so great to have a few days holiday, particularly since Alec has been working so hard lately. It was incredibly hot in Boston however, and we didn’t really do a lot – more so a lot of walking from park bench to park bench! No baby updates this week – I can really clearly see and feel her hiccuping now though (turns out a giant slurpee will give a baby in utero a serious case of the hiccups). Her feet keep getting up under my rib cage, and a little elbow sticks out from my side occasionally. I think she recognises Alec’s voice too, as sometimes she responds vigorously to him talking when he gets home at night.
Don’t worry if you’re feeling longer periods of quiet from your little gymnast in there, as the baby is now spending longer stretches of time snoozing. Also, as baby continues to grow and the living quarters get more cramped, he/she will start making more deliberate elbow and knee jabs instead of spastic kicks and movements.
Week 32: It’s hot, hot, hot in the city. I’m trying to stay cool! We’re starting to get more prepared this week – ordering furniture and all the things we’ll need for our new arrival. Baby doctor appointment this week – the doctor tells me again that the baby “isn’t small” and thinks she currently weighs about 2.3kg. Based on expecting her to grow by a further third or double in size, she is likely to be between 3.2 and 3.8kgs. The doctor puts her size down to our genes, but also advises I eat more protein, less carbs.
This week your baby is weighing in at around 4 pounds — which means there are only a few more pounds to go! (Yes, it is possible for your belly to get bigger, believe it or not.) Your baby’s lungs are continuing to mature, producing increasing amounts of surfactant, a fatty liquid that lines the inside of the lungs and helps the sacs within expand efficiently for breathing. Your baby is also practicing sucking and swallowing (which fully coordinates between 32 and 34 weeks), but he/she would still need to be fed with a tube if born this week because suckling might not be efficient.
Week 38: This week is all about anticipation. Waiting, waiting, and waiting some more. Extreme tiredness, a pinched nerve in my shoulder, and pain in my teeth and fingernails. I’m craving chocolate milk like mad, and drinking a litre a day, easy. I’m fetting foot rubs from Alec for my painful, swollen feet – the only time during our relationship he has agreed to touch my feet…
We still haven’t decided on a name – we have a long-ish list, and can’t decide on a first OR last name.
I’m starting to get concerned about things like “what if I go into labour on the subway? Or on the sidewalk when I’m on my own? It’s making me want to be a hermit and not leave the apartment.
At my doctor’s appointment this week, I’ve put on 2 pounds (I thought I was meant to be losing weight in the last few weeks?), and the doctor is unable to get good measurements cos she won’t stop wiggling. I’m getting another full ultrasound next week to measure her growth more accurately. The doctor did say however that he thinks she will come a week late. Oh god, I hope he’s wrong. The Braxton Hicks contractions are getting more frequent and painful every day, along with the stabbing pains in my pelvis. How can this not be leading to something soon?
We saw our last pre-baby Broadway show – Book of Mormon. It was fantastic, but baby also thought it was fantastic and wouldn’t stop moving the whole time, which made for a pretty uncomfortable few hours of sitting for me!
Your baby has really plumped up. She weighs about 6.8 pounds and she’s over 19 1/2 inches long (like a leek). She has a firm grasp, which you’ll soon be able to test when you hold her hand for the first time! Her organs have matured and are ready for life outside the womb. Wondering what color your baby’s eyes will be? If she’s born with brown eyes, they’ll likely stay brown. If she’s born with steel gray or dark blue eyes, they may stay gray or blue or turn green, hazel, or brown by the time she’s 9 months old.
