2009

2009 meant the loss of two great women in our family and the addition of our Everett.

Elma Keahey, my mother-in-law, was a kindhearted and generous woman. She was continually concerned with the well-being of her family and those that surrounded her. Early this year she was diagnosed with a recurrence of breast cancer that had metastasized to her brain. Though the cancer badly affected her brain and ability to communicate, she was very clear in making sure everybody was alright. While in the hospital she continually told us she loved us, asked about how my parents were doing, and even offered to share her hospital food with us. She was one of the first people who we told we were pregnant, and her face lit up when we did. It was a blessing for us to be able to share that news with her. If she were here now, she would wrap her arms around Everett and give him all her love.

Mary Potter, my grandmother, was a caretaker of all. She prided herself in her cooking and her family among other things. She had a killer spaghetti sauce and always had to make sure everybody was well fed plus some. She taught me about being a lady and that ladies can curse every now and then. Whether she meant to or not, she was a funny woman. She suffered with Alzheimer's for many years and therefore her essence had been gone for a long time. Her passing brought sadness as well as relief as she suffered for too long. She too would have loved Everett very much.

And among these losses, we had happiness and hope. We were pregnant with our baby and soon to meet him. He brought a renewal of life and great joy in November. In honor of these two women and mothers, I hope to be an amazing mom to Everett. I hope I can, with Eric, teach him the qualities it takes to be a strong, compassionate, and loving man, husband, and father.

And from the next world, I know these two are assisting us and loving us. I pray for their happiness as well as ours.

Eric and his mom at our wedding

 

Lauren (my sister) and Grandma Mary

More Good Mornings

A few weeks ago, when the crying was a bit more frequent and I a bit less experienced, our monitor picked up a neighbor baby one morning. She awakened and was singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star before her mother came to get her (and turned off the monitor - bummer, I was enjoying that!). I thought surely these people have picked this baby up from Pleasantville. Where else would a baby wake up singing instead of crying!

This morning I woke to happy sounds on *my* monitor. I was intrigued and rushed over to his room. Sure enough, he was entertaining himself. He had some big smiles for me and lots of animated happy movement. Of course, as soon as I try to capture it on film for Eric, he gets shy and just stares at the camera.

As for another milestone, I found him at the opposite end of his crib for the first time. He scooted himself at least the length of his body. Pretty good! I don't think I could do that myself. As a matter of fact, I'm absolutely sure I could not do that. Babies have abs of steel. I, unfortunately, do not.

Now to enjoy more of this happy (morning dare I say?) person!

Good Morning!

I feel like the luckiest girl in the world waking up to this cutie pie everyday. :) I can't wait for the all-out giggles that will come soon!!!

Zilker Trail of Lights

We thought it would be fun to take Everett to the Trail of Lights this year since he has such a fascination with lights.  Upon walking to the park in the Baby Bjorne, ultimate inducer of sleep, he looked as if he would totally miss his first Trail of Lights experience.

After some mild jostling we successfully made him awake and not mad.  We put him face out in the Bjorne for the first time, and he did what we wanted.  Stared in awe and total cuteness at all the lights.

Eric and I didn't see much of the lights; we were too busy looking at him.  And it was fun, of course, to see all the ladies swoon after Everett as we left the park.  :)

Postnatal Yoga

Everett is just a few days shy of 6 weeks old, so we are out and about!  Yay!  This morning he and I attended postnatal yoga.  I have probably been looking forward to postnatal yoga since before I was pregnant.  Not only is it fun for me to share an activity that I love with him, but it seems to be great fun for him too.  It is so wonderful to be able to take him to a supportive environment of mothers and babies, where breastfeeding and diaper changes are acceptable, and screaming is expected.

On the way to class, I was a bit worried that I'd have a screamer the whole time as he cried at every stoplight.  I was so pleased that I was able to lay him down in front of me where he entertained himself for the first hour simply by looking and listening.  He barely fussed and even smiled a few times.  He definitely seems to be an extrovert as he is entertained and not overwhelmed by new people.  He prefers that I hold him facing all the people and babies and even fusses if I face him to me for too long. 

My favorite part of the class involved us standing in a circle with our babies, playing games with them (also known as lunges and squats for us), and singing while letting them look at each other.  When we lunge toward each other, with our babies in front of us, the babies just look so adorably entertained as they get closer and further away from the babies around them. 

I look forward to attending postnatal yoga regularly and hope that Everett continues to enjoy this activity with me.  Once he is too old for this class, it will hopefully be on to the toddlers and crawlers class.  :)

Namaste.

Parenting

In what other job would one get pooped on, peed on, spit on, and screamed at around the clock and gladly stick around?

It just goes to show how big the pay is for *this* job.  :)

Everett is 1 month old!

Wow - I can't believe a month has gone by.  Everett had his one month visit with the pediatrician today.  He is 9 lb 9 oz now and 22 1/4 inches.  Sometimes I feel like I'm watching him grow before my very eyes.  It amazes me to see clothes that were SO big before almost not fitting him now.  I don't know what I expected...a baby that doesn't grow?  But does it have to be this fast?  He'll be driving and dating and leaving for college before we know it!  Whew...slow down.  :)

Something struck me today while at the dr visit.  Just two weeks ago, when we were at the doctor and he was getting some blood drawn, he screamed it out as you would expect.  He did that this time too with receipt of his second Hep B shot.  The thing that was different though was that he took comfort in Eric and me while he was upset.  As much as I hated seeing him get that shot, I loved realizing that he takes comfort in us holding him.  Those little things which make this baby stuff a lot of fun are starting to happen  more and more.

He is watching us more intently now.  He tracks things and us with his eyes, keeps his eyes open more, and has more quiet alert time.  He sleeps for 3-4 hrs at a time at night.  His head is strong, but there isn't a lot of control yet.  I told Eric I expect to call him telling him I'm on my way to the hospital because Everett head-butted me and broke my nose (hopefully not, but I wouldn't be surprised).  There are more smiles, but they still are not in response to anything yet (they are fun nonetheless).  There's a lot of grunting and squeaking and every now and then we get a sneak peak at his little voice.  And he definitely keeps us entertained with lots of silly faces.

We've been blessed with help from family and friends making this first month more manageable.  Big thank you to my mom for helping us - it would have been much more difficult (and I'd be much less sane) without you.  

Some good news -- today we were told in our dr visit that next month we can start training him to sleep through the night.  She spoke of 10-12 hr stretches!  What?!  I can't remember what that's like!  I'm not even sure if I could sleep that long, but I'd sure like to try!!!

Here are some recent photos of our cutie pie.  :) 

Everett is 1 week old!

Ok, 1 week and 3 days...

Major accomplishments of the week:
1.  Mom lost 20 lbs in one week.  How often can you say that?!
2.  We've gone 4 hours between feedings every now and then.
3.  Everett regained and surpasses his birth weight.  (I had a dream that he got really fat all of a sudden and I could barely carry him.)
4.  Circumcision - yowza.  I'm really sorry little buddy.  He seems ok with it though.
5.  Everyone in the house is happy and relatively rested.  :)

Welcome Everett Anderson Keahey! Our birth story...

Well, Eric and I had a beautiful baby boy, Everett Anderson, in the wee hours of his due date 11/3.  He's a punctual fellow.  Only made us wait 1.5 hours into the due date...but 25 hours into labor.

I started contracting at midnight or so on Sunday but was able to sleep until about 3 am.  The contractions became a part of my dreams waking me up a few times to go "hmm...what is this?"  At 3am, I told Eric that I thought I was having "real" contractions.  They were about 6-7 minutes apart and lasting 2 and a half minutes.  We did our best to sleep until 7, but I think mine was more like rest than sleep.  At 7, we went for a walk to see if things got going.  The contractions were about 4-5 minutes apart at this point.  We waited another few hours and then went into the doctor's office where they said I was 4 cm and 80% effaced.  Their initial response on the phone was as if it probably wasn't the real thing because I was walking and talking through them.  I had another reaction later in the day from a nurse in the same office when they were on rounds that they were surprised to see me laughing.   It strikes me as odd that people think you have to be miserable -- I wasn't in for emergency surgery or chemotherapy.  I'm not dying.  I was having our BABY! 

I got through the contractions by concentrating on my breath and trying to relax my body.  I tried to be changing position and letting gravity help, but as the contractions got harder and closer, it was very difficult to do anything except lay on my side.  I didn't know it at the time, but I was having back labor.  I found it extremely difficult to relax my hips, legs, and neck and knew I was creating more problem for myself by being so tense.  After 19 hours of this I caved in to the epidural.  It was a hard decision, but I could hear one of my yoga teachers' phrases - "it's ok whatever you decide, just decide powerfully."  The epidural helped tremendously with the pain, but came with dead legs, a catheter, and IV.  At that point, I was just happy to be able to relax a bit.  I was surprised to find that I couldn't feel any of the contractions.  We labored for 6 more hours and eventually got to 9 cm by midnight.  The monitors shows late decels that became more frequent meaning his heartrate was dropping significantly after each contraction.  This indicates likely cord compression.  The doctor became concerned about our baby and said a c-section was probably the safest option.  Augmenting labor would have caused more late decels and less recovery time for baby.  So with the goal being healthy baby and healthy mom, that's what we did. 

It turned out the cord was around his neck, being squeezed with each contraction.  He was OP or sunny-side up (facing the wrong way) causing the back labor.  I had started getting a fever just before the c-section.  We didn't know when my water broke as it was already broken when the doctor tried to break it.  The longer it's broken, the more risk of infection which makes you see the temperature.  There was meconium in the fluid from the stress Everett was under which wasn't an issue with a c-section but could have been with a vaginal birth.  So lots of things went crazy...BUT...Everett is healthy and perfect.  He had quite a conehead and was really tired from being squeezed for so long, but he is absolutely fine.  We are loving parenthood, and I am enamored with watching my husband be a father. 

 

A few pictures

The latest ultrasound (36 weeks) looks like a big kissy face...or Dr. Evil.  :)  I imagine the baby was just sucking his/her thumb. 

And here are a few old ones.  The 12 week ultrasound gave the best pictures.

 

 

Blogging: My maiden voyage

Wow - I just made a blog.  My mom says she hates blogs, but I think she'll like this one.  :) 

I figured I might as well start a blog now for keeping up with our little family now that it's about to become more interesting (and while there's spare time).  In about 7 weeks we will welcome our first little dude or dudette into our lives, and Eric and I will be initiated into parenthood.  So far all is well with the pregnancy and I have been feeling well.  So stay tuned as it's bound to get much more interesting.  I promise not to bore you Mom.  :)