Flippin' baby!

This past Friday, Baby Bird learned how to flip over, at least one way.  He's been trying for a while but hadn't quite managed to work out the kinks until now.  And of course, once he learned, he couldn't stop himself.  Only trouble is, he gets stuck.  Flips easily from his back to his front, but once there, he's trapped.  They say (and I'm always trying to figure out exactly who They are) that it's easier for babies to flip from their front to their back.  Baby Bird seems to have gotten the memo backwards.  Whether it's his prematurity, or just his personality, he seems to have bypassed the easy for the hard.  Ha!  I bet he can't do the easy thing because he's overcomplicated it.  Must take after his mother.

I caught some of his earliest flips on video.  Here's a couple of examples (I didn't catch his first flip on video, so that's why they're named Take Two and Take Three, though Take Three is really probably Take Five or Take Six, he was constantly flipping once he got started).  So proud of him!

April 25, 2011: Our first days as (NICU) parents

[The following is a historical post, originally written on Monday, April 25, 2011]

Hard to believe it's been a week already; at the same time, it seems like forever since I could feel Baby Bird kicking me in the side like he was trying to dig a pipeline through to my kidney. It's been a good week, but a rough one, and I've lost it many times. I think what's hardest, and I summed it up for my husband a few days ago when I was feeling really out of sorts and exhausted, is that for so many months I was intimately linked to my baby, and felt his every movement, and all of a sudden he's not there on the inside anymore, but now that he's on the outside he's somewhere I can't even touch him.

Granted, since that particularly bleak moment I (and DH) have been able to hold Baby Bird for about a half hour or so each day (so three days so far), and that has made all the difference in the world (that and the fact that my milk supply continues to increase such that I'm up to being able to provide him at least four full breast milk feedings per day)! DH and I spend most of the time while he's in our arms just staring at him, or taking pictures, or we talk to him or each other so he can hear our voices, even while fast asleep. Yesterday I sang to him a little, a couple of French nursery rhymes I had sung to him while he was in the womb.

Preemie Land is a strange country. It's one thing to be a brand-spanking-new parent and have no clue how to do things, but to have the chance to wing it, knowing that after all, it's your baby and you can do what you want (within reason of course). It's entirely another to be a brand-spanking-new parent with no clue how to do things, and then be restricted from letting your instincts guide you on how to be with your baby. I know that Baby Bird needs to be in the NICU, and the nurses and doctors are doing everything in their power to get him ready to come home as soon as possible, but it's so hard sometimes to know where I fit into his NICU life. The nurses are really sweet and helpful and understanding, but sometimes I feel like I get in their way. Part of it really isn't anything to do with the nurses per se, it's just because Baby Bird's main issue is that he needs to stay calm and unstressed so that his lungs can mature. Whenever he gets upset, or cries, or fidgets a lot, it causes him to work harder to breathe and that gets in the way of his lungs doing the catch-up work they need to do. So there are times when the nurses don't want him to be bothered by anything, including me.

Of course, the irony of it is that, when they do put him in my arms, or DH's, he's perfectly content, and seems ready to stay there for hours. We can't, however, hold him for too long though because it means he's out of his isolette and he needs the warmth of the isolette to help his body stay stress-free.

Okay, pity party's over. He's been doing great, except for his breathing, which remains labored (Respiratory Distress Syndrome, or RDS), so it really depends on him getting his breathing under control before he will be able to take a bottle or breast. Once he can do either/both of those things (preferably the breast, but they won't let him go to breast until he can handle the bottle -- backwards if you ask me, but who am I, just his mom), and can go without the supplemental oxygen, he will be on the road to discharge. So we're looking at another week probably, at least. The tough thing, practically speaking, for me about his stay in the NICU is that, due to the fact that I am still recovering from his delivery, I am not allowed to drive for two weeks. So I am reliant on others to take me to see him. I'm such an independent person, this has proved especially frustrating to me. But, my cousin took me over on Saturday, DH and I went together every other day, and my mom is coming to stay with us for a week this coming Tuesday, so she will be able to drive me the days that DH has to work.

Ok, time to go get some other stuff done before I have to pump again. In the meantime, some more pics of Baby Bird (on his one-week birthday) for your viewing pleasure:

A little backstory

Baby Bird will be five months old on Saturday, September 17, and I feel like there is so much that I want to write about concerning day to day stuff right now.  But before I start blogging in real time, I'd like to take a step backward, and catch you up to the beginning.  So the first few posts in this blog will actually contain some historical items, including Baby Bird's birth story and some notes on his first few weeks of life.


My due date was May 28, 2011, but I was put on modified bed rest on March 8 at 28 weeks due to a shortened cervix and irritable uterus (which caused preterm contractions) and remained on bed rest as I began to dilate from Week 29 on.  I did everything I could to keep baby cookin', but managed only six more weeks out of the remaining twelve.  Arguably, those six weeks made a crucial difference, and by time delivery was inevitable all of our doctors felt confident that I'd gotten my baby to a healthy gestational age.  I gave birth at 34 weeks 1 day, the night after I was supposed to be at my baby shower (apparently this is a family legacy, as my mother missed her shower too when I arrived the same day).

It all began on Thursday, April 14, 2011, when I was sent to the maternity ward of the hospital straight from my 33-week appointment at the obstetrician's.  The following three posts contain what I wrote as events were happening...