We’ve been busy! Eleanor Claire arrived on June 6th,
the day after her due date and a week before her big brother’s birthday.
MommaSue came the Sunday before, giving us a much-appreciated mellow week. Toby
got used to having her run his routine, and I relaxed enough that my back was
feeling better than it had in months by the time I went into labor (although
that pulled muscle in my hip from Toby’s bedtime routine was still sore!). Here
I am with a week to go.
I had a prenatal appointment scheduled for the due date.
MommaSue drove me there, and our doula Hannah met us and went in with me. Dr.
Samawi (my favorite) saw me, and he told us he’d be on call the next day. I
seem to have good luck with that sort of thing (having willed Toby’s delivery
by my favorite midwife in Michigan), but was still surprised when I woke up at
2am with regular contractions. Since I’d had perceptible contractions starting
late in the first trimester with this second pregnancy, and even fairly sharp
ones for the last three weeks, I didn’t believe it at first. At 2:45 I finally
gave up, got out of bed, and started timing them. By 3am I woke up Matt, and we
decided after another ~15 minutes that it made sense to call Hannah and my mom
(thanks to the time change, this wasn’t a totally cruel thing to do to poor
Noni, who immediately started working on getting a flight to Portland).
Contractions were already 4-7 minutes apart and fairly
strong. Hannah arrived by 3:45, and less than an hour later we decided to head
to the hospital (partly because Toby often wakes up around 5am, and labor was
advanced enough that having him awake didn’t sound fun to me). I figured this
was the second baby, I’d probably be holding her by lunchtime! But, of course,
these things are unpredictable…
We checked in a little before 5am, 5 cm dilated. Dr. Samawi
didn’t come on his shift until 7:30, so I spent the first three hours on
continuous fetal monitoring. They SAY you can walk around and get in the tub
with those strips strapped around your pregnant abdomen, but in reality that
causes them to slip, making the Doc say “let’s just do 15 more minutes…” for
THREE HOURS. The only way it really worked was if I was laying on my back in
the bed, which slowed the contractions down and made them more painful. Even
when Dr. Samawi showed up and let me off, he insisted I do it for 15 minutes
every hour, which meant 45 minutes of working up to good contractions only to
lay down and have them slow again. (This is why women choose home births,
people!) Here I am at 7 cm in full fashion, ready to walk the halls with Matt.
So it took a while – 18 hours of active labor, dilating
about half a centimeter an hour. On the upside, slowing it down may have kept
it mellow – this labor never reached the intensity that I experienced with
Toby. I felt like myself between contractions right up until the end. I sat in
the tub, we walked the halls, I did squats and lunges, I even napped a little …
Matt was right with me nearly the whole time. We kept waiting for the water to
break, knowing things would probably speed up then. We had an amazing nurse for
the first 12 hours, Shelley – she used to be a practicing nurse midwife, and
was super supportive and knowledgeable about natural birth. We found out after
Nora was born that the rate of unmedicated vaginal births at this hospital is
3%, so having staff with experience was something special. She and Dr. Samawi
were encouraging, and kept saying I was doing great and we were in no hurry.
But as the sun was setting I started feeling tired, and by 8:30ish I decided to
have my progress checked again and have the amniotic sac ruptured if things
were still moving at the same rate – I couldn’t see doing another four hours of
this work when there was a simple way to speed it up. At 9pm I was at 8-8.5 cm,
and asked Dr. Samawi to break my water. He and Hannah both warned me things
might go quickly after that, and I was like “Yeah, yeah, whatever!” I
remembered with Toby, things got more intense but it was still several hours of
hard work. If I had been more aware (less in laboring-woman-haze) I would have
noticed that there was a bustling, more people in the room, and Dr. Samawi was
making sure everything was set up before he ruptured the sac. He waited for me
to say the latest contraction was over, and then he reached in and I felt that
tremendous warm gush of amniotic fluid.
A moment later I felt the pressure of the baby’s head on my
cervix, and almost immediately an incredible contraction. After a break barely
long enough to draw a breath, a second contraction hit along with an
irresistible urge to PUSH like nothing I’d ever felt before, and I yelled “I
wanna push I wanna push I wanna push!!” Dr. Samawi had me pant through the
third contraction to resist the urge to push, and then (10 minutes after the
water broke) I was fully dilated. Pushing Nora out felt almost like one rolling
contraction (and felt great), although it was probably three. I could tell she
was moving down fast, and there was a lot of movement and chatter in the room
(which had been so quiet all day), with the doctor yelling for things and
working to minimize tearing. Still, I was surprised to feel her head emerge so
quickly. A fast end to a very long day: after five minutes of pushing, our
little girl was born.
Well, she was relatively
little, arriving at 8 lbs 12 oz (13oz heavier than Toby at birth, big enough
that they had to give her extra heel pricks to test her blood sugar.) They
handed her to me right away, covered in vernix and quickly turning from purple
to pink. We could already see that she had fat cheeks and lots of dark hair.
Matt and I cuddled close to her, and she nursed enthusiastically in the first
half hour (she takes after her brother that way). She was delightfully alert.
The staff didn’t take her out of my arms for the first two hours. Here she is
saying hello to Doula Hannah for the first time.
Toby came to visit the next morning with MommaSue and Noni.
He was so excited to finally meet Nora. He wanted to hold her right away, and
then use all the interesting equipment in the hospital room to “test” her. Matt
and I were surprised to see how BIG Toby was the first time we saw him after
Nora’s birth. When I was pregnant with her, I heard about a recent study
showing that mothers underestimate the size of their youngest child. I
experienced this acutely; for maybe the first week after we brought the new
baby home, Toby would alternately seem enormous and still very small – sometimes
it was almost as if he was changing in front of me. It was disorienting, and
thankfully it gradually settled down.
Over the next couple
of days, we got to know Nora better. Her nose and toes are like Toby’s, but her
red skin and longer dark hair are all her own – the grandmas even suspect this
hair might not fall out! (Normal for a Royer baby, but highly unusual for a
Schultz – as of four weeks she’s lost a little in the very front.) Her fat
cheeks (see the next picture) turned out to be mostly fluid, so her overall
face shape is more similar to Toby’s than we initially though, and her
deflating eyelids revealed beautiful long eyelashes (Toby was born without any)
and dark slaty eyes that quickly turned to a fairly convincing brown. For all
her bruiser size, she’s not as strong as Toby was – more in the normal range
for a newborn.
My milk started coming in two days after the birth, when we
headed home from the hospital. Engorgement was manageable this time, probably
largely because I was already comfortable with the breast pump and understood
from experience with Toby that it would soon pass. I pumped off ~8oz on the
third and fourth days postpartum and then things settled down – minimal pain
and trouble, and 16oz of milk already in the freezer! I’m still making more
than I need, but comfortable again. In fact, overproduction is my normal state,
so we’re working through the problems that engenders just like we did with
Toby.
Nora is sweet. Like Toby as a baby in a lot of ways – both
snuggly, both generally easy to nurse, and she makes the same sleep happy face
when she’s done that he did – tilting the head way back, pursing the lips and
somehow squeezing the cheeks out to maximum chub.
But different too, of course. And although she shares her
brothers’ enthusiasm for and skill at nursing, her style is different – where
Toby nursed super efficiently for ten minutes every hour, she nurses on and off
in 2-4 bouts over 30-45 minutes, and then doesn’t need to eat again for another
2-3 hours.
This makes for the only difference I would say is a definite
improvement – sleeping! I’m only up 2-3 times a night with Nora, and once the
diaper is changed and the feeding is done, she usually falls asleep. I remember
being up for hours with Toby. For the first week, part of it, I’ll admit, is
that I gave up on not keeping her next to me. Toby might have been every bit as
easy if I’d not been constantly trying to get him to sleep 18 inches away from
me, instead of next to me where we could feel each other’s warmth and our
hearts could beat back and forth to each other. I sleep more peacefully this
way too – I remember waking regularly to reach over and be sure Toby was still
breathing. Plus I’m so much better at nursing that we started side nursing as
soon as she came home – that means I only sat up when a diaper had to be
changed, so nursing was less tiring and falling asleep again was easier. I even
figured out how to burp her without sitting up, but leaning her against my
side. This made me feel like a SuperMama (but eventually had to end with the
beginning of fussiness). For the first couple of weeks I was still tired, but
not quite as tired as I was with Toby.
After that, Nora got increasingly fussy. At first I thought
it must be the onset of sensitivity to milk in my diet, which showed up at
about the same time with Toby. I eliminated dairy, and the fussing got WORSE.
Then I eliminated wheat. Now we’re trying block feeding and reclined nursing to
combat oversupply issues, using gripe water, giving her probiotics, holding her
upright for at least 10 minutes after feedings in case it’s reflux… and hoping
something works. Things have gotten a little better (less green poo!), but she
still fusses each night for 1-3 hours, and sometimes for an hour in the early
morning as well. So now I’m pretty tired! On the upside, she’s gaining weight
well, and although she cries a lot, she’s not inconsolable – she just requires
a new entertainment every few minutes (currently in rotation: pacifier,
bouncing on the exercise ball, rocking in the chair, dancing around – all more
challenging at 4am than 7pm, but each offering respite from the howls). So
thanks again for those great rocking chair cushions, Nana! (But we don’t take
pictures of her fussing, so here’s one with Noni where Nora demonstrates how
you can fit that much baby in one small lady. And yes, Toby has already asked
when she’s going back in – as MommaSue explained, that train has left the
station…)
We still feel like we’re up to dealing with things most of
the time, and definitely feel more confident about all of the parenting skills
we perfected on Toby – feeding, burping, diapering, soothing, nonchalantly
disregarding any number of weird rashes. This is good, because we need all of
the energy we can muster for the new challenge of having two children. Toby is 90%
sweet, but most interactions over 30 seconds long end in a smack, pulling a leg
or arm, or - new last weekend – head-butting! This is still a little scary for
me, but we’re trying our best to nip it in the bud, and I’m appreciating that a
newborn is more robust than I’d realized (since I never let anyway slap or yank
on Toby, I didn’t have a chance to figure this out before). Even when he’s not
kissing/admiring/hugging/smacking Nora, our big 3-year-old is incredibly busy.
Usually doing wonderful things, but occasionally and unpredictably doing
naughty things like chasing the cat, pouring water on the floor, and ripping up
the tomato plant that was just starting to flower. I wasn’t good at keeping up
when I was pregnant, and postpartum felt a tiny bit harder (I’m just lucky the
birth was as easy as it was). Fortunately my healing has kept pace with the
departure of help and Matt’s gradual return to work. And no surprises – we have
enough friends with multiple children that we knew what we were getting into,
and we’re grateful to have our own chance at the exhaustion and befuddlement of
raising siblings.
One thing that isn’t any different the second time is the
incredible emotional experience of birth and bonding. Crazy hormones and
processing the absolute miracle of having another baby… there are moments of
completely absorbed bliss, staring at Nora and memorizing her every feature,
trying to fathom how ephemeral this precious newborn period is. There is
mourning for the quick passing of time, as well as eager anticipation of the
next stage. I will be so sad when she’s no longer my nursing, snoozing nugget!
I’ll be so happy when she can make eye contact, reach for things, giggle! It
helps to look at Toby, remember how much I love him as a three-year-old, and
how much more slowly he changes now than he did when he was tiny. Then I have
faith it will go that way with Nora too.
In the weeks leading up to the birth, we still had a few
more only-child adventures in store for Toby. Our first Oregon wine-tasting was
one: a picnic at a local winery with my old high school friends Tom and Rachel
Graves and their 4-year-old Eli. Toby thought Eli was AMAZING, and followed him
joyfully around for several hours on the sunny lawn. They played with trucks
and balls, and went rolling and running up and down the hill in front of the
winery. It was the first time I had seen Toby really play with another child,
and it was enchanting.
We followed that up with a wedding on Mount Hood, in the
iconic Timberlake Lodge; my college friend Juliette and her now-husband love
snowboarding, and usually there is powder year-round up there (not this year,
but it was still beautiful). Toby made it through the whole ceremony (a first,
with the help of markers and stickers), and had a blast on the dance floor. Our
usually shy boy was walking up to total strangers and asking them to dance with
him, and when we finally left (pushing 10 pm) we had to drag him kicking and
screaming. Literally. It was also fun for me to catch up with old college
friends Katrina (with a 3-month-old) and Abbie (6 months pregnant). Having
babies in your 30’s is all the rage.
The Willamette Valley is having an unusually warm summer
already, so we’ve broken out the shorts. I looked back at old photos and
confirmed that some of the ones Toby is wearing are seeing their third summer
with him! They still fit beautifully – I think it’s a combination of losing the
extra padding of diapers and growing longer without growing broader. Pretty
sure this is the last summer for these fun plaids, though.
In the months before his sister was born, Toby got
interested in unpacking drawers and laying things out all over the floor.
Usually in tidy patterns, sometimes turning his entire bedroom floor into a
tetris of shirts and shorts. Maybe a way of dealing with uncertainty? I found
it fascinating and funny, except that he wasn’t generally interested in putting
things away again. (Not that I didn’t do the twice-as-much-work of having him
do it anyway sometimes).
Right after Nora’s
arrival he had some trouble with hitting, pushing, and over-eager hugging at
the YMCA. This sad mama even got a phone call from Teacher Elizabeth about bad
behavior. But happily, that seems to have settled down the last couple of weeks.
He still talks a lot about his favorite friend Drake (they are usually the ones
hitting each other), supporting my contention that he hits Nora because he
likes her.
Toby’s birthday this year was a special affair, since it
fell on a Saturday, he had his new sister, AND three of his grandparents were
in attendance. I made a chocolate cake (his request) from scratch with vanilla
buttercream frosting, and decorated it with a yellow Jeep Wrangler (also his
request, and a strong contender for his favorite vehicle, although it does
change from day to day!). He was excited about all of his presents – including
a drum set, raincoat, racecars on a semi, sandbox, and cuckoo clock. The clock
is safely ensconced out of reach in his bedroom, but he runs in multiple times
a day to catch it cuckoo-ing. When he sneaks into our bedroom in the night, I
can hear him say “Bye cuckoo clock, I’ll see you in the morning!”
The car obsession continues, and he’s now learned more
brands than I can recognize. Toyota, Honda, and Subaru were the first (most
common in the YMCA lot), but now he also calls out Acuras, BMWs, Volvos, Jeeps,
and of course P.T. Cruisers on the
fly. It’s baffling. And he’s no-nonsense; a few days ago I told him I’d get him
home in a jiffy, and he said, “It’s not a Jiffy, Mama, it’s a Toyota.” We may
be reading him too much Amelia Bedelia.
Because including random Toby quotes is jolly, here are a
few other highlights from the last few weeks. “I drawed a telescope with
toothpaste for studying the MOOOON.” And... me: “Toby, are you a speed turtle?”
T: “No, I’m just a little boy, because I took a shower.” Me: “So, if you hadn’t
taken a shower, would you be a speed turtle?” T: “Yes, I would.” (Also, he is
good at putting on his underwear and pants now – backwards.)
The other things he’s been enjoying the most lately include
playing in the sandbox, drumming on EVERYTHING, squishing the latest fresh
batch of playdough, blowing bubbles, dancing, and drawing. (He’s a very, very
busy 3.) Daddy showed him how to draw cars, so that’s his current favorite – a
half circle with two wheels, sometimes mysteriously driving perpendicular to a road
he’s drawn. When it’s not cars, he likes to make spirals, letters, and wild
scribbles. And going to new playgrounds is always exciting, of course.
Nora likes it too.
While she definitely doesn’t get as much attention as Toby
did at her age, we do notice that Nora is changing too. Now that she’s almost a month old, she is slowly starting to be awake more. When she’s not busy fussing
or trying to escape firehose milk let-down, she likes to read her books, lift up
her head, track objects side to side, and say “aaaah!”
She’s also an expert at sneezing cutely, which often happens
in multiples and ends in an additional aaah. So far, she’s good in the car,
likes the Moby (when it’s not too hot out), and thinks her brother is cool (she
turns her head toward him when he talks). Once she figures out he’s the one
hitting her, this might change. When
she’s sleeping, she now often prefers to be swaddled and put down rather than
carried or snuggled up next to me (a big and convenient difference from Toby,
who would only sleep in arms for MONTHS – although I admit I enjoyed that.)
We’re keeping our eyes peeled for the first social smile, which will probably
be featured in the next post!
