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Alright, here it is people, the nitty gritty, blow by blow of the hours leading up to the birth of our beautiful baby boy. Proceed with caution – there may be more information than you want. 

Saturday:
40 weeks & 3 days pregnant

I really needed to get out of the house, so when we were invited to hang out at the beach while our friends surfed, I jumped all over it. We packed up a quick lunch, took the dog and spread a blanket on the sand. It was so relaxing and I’m glad we did it. It was there that via my Facebook iPhone app. I found out our friends John & Angel had their baby that morning. I was initially pretty jealous because that was her due date and I had already gone well past mine. It wasn’t fair. I was ready to no longer be pregnant, and most of all I was ready to meet my baby.

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We are knee deep in a 2 week growth spurt around here. From about 5 pm Saturday on, Maddox has been asking to be fed about every 45 min. No kidding! It’s madness. I am a milk machine. About twice a day I get a break for a couple hours. It’s just long enough to take a quick nap or take care of my healing body. I’ve learned to do some things while nursing, like feeding the dog, feeding myself, and even taking a shallow bath. It’s all about maximizing his sleeping time- which basically all comes back to “sleep when the baby sleeps”.

 

I’m starting to become more aware of the fact that I’ll be alone with baby in not too long. My mother at some point will need to rejoin her former life, and Dallas will go back to work. I think this is all going to be even more difficult with baby #2 someday – when Maddox will be a toddler demanding a schedule and my attention. I love all of this, but how do people ever get caught up on sleep??

Tonight we went out to our first social event with the baby in tow. Up until tonight we had been to 3 doctor’s appointments (2 for me, 1 for Maddox), and one trip to Natural Resources, which is only blocks from our house. The big difference right off the bat is that the hospital (and actually NR) is set up for us. They don’t mind if I whip out a boob out to feed, they have a nice bed or changing table for diaper changes, they have running water and a sink, a trash can with lid, and even anti-bacterial hand junk. For our first outings it was super nice to have these amenities, it gave us the chance to ease into it all. 

I wasn’t sure if we were going to be in over our heads taking on this dinner tonight. It was a super special sneak peek dinner at Nettie’s Crab Shack that we had been looking forward to for a while. We put Maddox in his car seat in the stroller and there he slept for almost the entire meal. It went off without a hitch! He woke up around the time we were ready to leave, so I whisked him to the restroom, changed him on the sink/countertop (like a pro, I might add), and even gave him about a 10 min feeding standing up before returning to the table. This was enough to get him home without incident. At this point its all a crap shoot as far as timing goes. Every day is different, so we don’t really know when he’ll be asleep, awake, or nursing.

I was such a proud parent tonight walking down Union Street pushing the stroller. It was like our coming out to the public. This was me and my husband out with our baby in the real world. A little family. Pretty amazing stuff.

Tuesday, Sept 23
These past few nights have been a feeding frenzy filled with round the clock cluster feedings. When we saw the pediatrician she said that it was baby’s way of catching up on his weight lost since birth. She said typically the birth weight is fully regained in two weeks. Our little Maddox has ben taking this job very seriously and has blown away the competition by fulling gaining back his birthweight and surpassing it in only 1 week! Go Maddox!

Stats:
Birth weight 9-15-08
3730 gr (8 lbs 3.57 oz)   

Discharge weight 9-17-08
3455 gr (7 lbs 9.87 oz)

9-18-08
3415 gr (7 lbs 8.46 oz)

9-23-08
8 lbs 4.6 oz (3759 gr)

At 2 weeks old we are told to expect a growth spurt accompanied by another feeding frenzy. The pediatrician said that normally the first feeding frenzy bumps up against the second, but since Maddox has caught up on his weight gain early we MIGHT get a short break.

Thursday, Sept 25
Turns out we did get our little break! Maddox has been a fantastic night sleeper (really a fantastic baby overall). He has been sleeping in 3-4 hour chunks the last few nights. This has really allowed me a chance to catch up on some sleep. Perhaps “catch up” is a little extreme, but it has allowed me to get enough sleep that I almost feel like a normal person. (A normal person that lives in a robe, gets peed on frequently, and still has to be taken care of by her own mother).

I LOVE my life and my family. It would be a whole different scene without Dallas, my mother, and all the love that my friends have been sending our way. I am grateful for all of it. Thank you everybody!

No hands to type…
Here is a photo from our second night at the hospital. That night it was just me and Maddox.

At this moment I have, count them, three bodily fluids soaking into my pretty shirt.
– breast milk (I’m leaking like no ones business)
– urine (the pee-pee cover shifted during M’s sponge bath and I got sprayed down)
– cord stump grossness (can’t wait till that thing falls off)

This mother thing is not so glamourous, but I’m loving it! (Though not so much the lack of sleep part). So for all of you that read my blog, be prepared for more baby info than you ever really needed. I’m up at all hours with little else to do, but enjoy my baby and document the entire thing.

How cute are these? They are so easy to make too! I have the feeling Maddox is going to have some great birthday parties! By the way he turns 1 week old today. He is growing up so fast. 

It’s 6am and I’m feeding Maddox again. Total sleep last night for mommy was 3 hours, served up in two 1 1/2 hour increments. Pretty standard now for the last 3 nights.

The first night at the hospital (day 0), he was out cold. He had put all his energy toward bring born that there wasn’t much left for eating. (By out cold, I mean he ate twice, each time for a half hour, and had only 2 diaper changes before 6 am.)

Night 2 (at the hospital), I was told would be full of cluster feedings. I sent Dallas home that evening to get a solid night of sleep – no sense in us both being zombies. Maddox did not dissapoint. Total sleep for mommy = 1 hour (not all at once). 

In addition to being woken up to feed or diaper Maddox, there were nurses giving me meds every three hours and vitals taken from each of us twice in the night.

Night 3 (at home) – What to expect: “Marathon Feeding Frenzy”. Again, little maddox was right on schedule.

I must say, even though night feeding means I’m not sleeping, I really enjoy those quiet hours alone with my son. He is an angel and I am madly in love with him.

I’ve been dying to write a blog post about the new baby, but I just haven’t had two hands to use all at once! I only have about 2 minutes now before he demands food, so I’ll instead I’ll leave you with a couple more photos.  

I’m doing well, but have pain that makes it difficult to be mobile.  Maddox is doing super great and seems to be a happy little baby!  I find myself staying awake longer than I should in the middle of the night just because I enjoy being with him so much. So freaking cute, really. We are all pretty blissful right now, even with no sleep.