Lex has started tracking (following
things) with his eyes now. He watches us when we walk around
the room and he’s started looking at the ocean thing on his
bouncy seat. Very cool :)

Yesterday was great and our first real
trip with Lex. He cried a lot ’cause it was over 90 degrees and
we couldn’t always feed him when he wanted. Then he fell asleep
whenever people were around :) He slept for awhile in Julie’s
arms at Kimball’s. He looked so comfy just lounging there.
Unfortunately we left the camera at home. We had packed it all
up, then unpacked it to take pictures of my Grandma and Grandpa
holding Lex yesterday morning (they had just returned from CA).
When we left for our trip south we forgot to repack it. After
Kimball’s we had a great dinner (no surprise there) with Alan’s
parents to celebrate Grandpa Johnson’s birthday. They also
invited their neighbors over for desert (blueberry cobbler and
ice cream – yum!) and we had fun with them.

I think the trip messed up our baby schedule though. He
was very fussy last night and most of today. We’re just now
starting to get back on a regular eating schedule. I guess
travelling with a baby is a learned skill :) We’re working on
it and hopefully we’ll get lots of practice!

Today Lauren came up to visit. It was great!
We went out to lunch and she had a good time holding Lex. He
even cried for her and she loved his angry face :) I miss
having all of the SU crowd around :/ Good friends are hard to
find.

We have a belly button! And what a cute little
belly button it is.

I also posted
hospital photos at photos.datdec.com. We have a bunch
more from the days after the hospital, but I’ll have to get to
them later. We have to go to bed now because we have a very
busy day tomorrow. Going to Kimball’s to meet Jim and Julie and
Fred, and then to Nashua for Grandpa Johnson’s birthday party.
Busy, busy!

I
love lazy summer afternoons. I also love being home with Alan
and Lex. I wish we were independently wealthy and could do this
forever. That would be cool :) Today we even took a walk to the
post office (exciting, huh??). We were going to get ice cream,
but we had no money. Oh well.

I’m still
working on getting the photos up. Maybe today might be the day.
Or maybe not. It’s so nice out. Actually, today we need to put
in the air conditioners :)

Lex is 10
days old today and about to get a belly button. Any minute now
that umbilicord thing is falling off. It’s kind of yucky under
there, but I guess that’s normal. I think he’ll be an innie.
I’ll keep you posted.

Ok, I decided to go ahead and create a new
blog for those of you interested in the daily happenings of
Lex. He’s quite the active boy. He squirms and stretches and
yawns and even keeps his eyes open for long stretches of time.
Such a good baby. Alan is ready for him to do more. I’m happy
with him so small and adorable.

So far
we’ve taken him on a few stroller outings (grocery store,
doctors, etc.) and he does very well. We even had our first
public breastfeeding session :) Today was beautiful so we
stopped on the green between errands and fed the baby. He was
very happy. It was like a picnic :)

I’m
going to put some time into getting his baby pictures online
now. We have *tons* of them, so I don’t think I’ll put them all
up, but we’ll see.

Due to overwhelming demand (2 people) I have decided to create a new blog for Lex. Check it out at http://littlelex.blogspot.com/ I wanted just lex.blogspot.com, but that was already taken… though not well used. I wonder how you go about acquiring a blog URL from someone… But anyway, I’m going to stop posting here and start posting there, so be sure to update your bookmarks or whatever. I’m not thrilled with the look of the new one yet, but I’ll work on it later.

Baby Lex is now officially one week old :) Good baby.

We went for a checkup today and he is almost back to his birth weight (was 7lbs, 9oz – now 7lbs 8oz). That made me feel very good because I’ve been having trouble breastfeeding him (it’s way more difficult than it seems!) and I was nervous that he wasn’t getting enough food. Guess I was wrong. He got a clean bill of health.

So, now I have a question for all of you readers out there – let me know if you’d like me to continue this whole blogging thing. If I do, I’ll probably create a new blog because I like the idea that this one is specific to the pregnancy and birth. So… leave me a comment and let me know if you’d like me to continue rambling about my baby boy or not. Thanks! :)

It’s taken me awhile to get to this, but here goes. Just so no one is caught unawares, this is a detailed version of a real live birth :)

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

4am: Woke up, had to pee, felt like I had a very crampy belly, went back to sleep

9am: Woke up, had to pee, felt nauseaus and crampy, almost cried, went back to sleep

10am – 5pm: Awake now. My stomach still felt funny. I was expecting contractions to start at the top of my belly (like the Braxton Hicks ones do) and feel very strong. This feeling wasn’t anything like that. I called the midwives in the morning to schedule my next appt and when I had her on the phone I told her about my achy belly. She said that it sounds like contractions may be starting. She said that often early contractions feel like bad menstral cramps. Very good comparison!

So, we went about our day. We got some lunch and headed over to Grandpa’s house. Him and Grandma were flying out to CA that afternoon so we wanted to say goodbye. They left around 2pm and we came back to our house (my mom came with us). On the way back to the house I told mom that I may be having early contractions. They still weren’t slowing me down much, but definitely noticable.

Got back to the house and Alan headed out for a meeting. Mom did her homework and I did some puttering around the house (got the car seat put together, etc.) By this time the contractions were getting worse (I couldn’t really talk through them, I kept forgetting what I was doing, etc.) and they were coming more frequently. I never timed them very well, but they seemed to be every few minutes.

We were planning on going out to dinner and to see Star Wars. Mom kept using that as a gauge of my pain. “Do you think you can sit through a movie?” she’d say. “Sure,” I’d say. Twenty minutes later she says, “Do you think you can sit through a movie?” I say, “Sure, but I’d like to sit at the end of the aisle so I can move around if I need to.” Twenty minutes later, same question. This time I can’t even get a response out between belly pain and loss of brain power.

At this point I have to give my mom and Alan a lot of credit for getting me out the door. Alan was back from his meeting and he and mom had decided that we need to go to the hospital to at least get checked out. I called the midwives to let them know we were coming. The midwife on call said to come in at 5:15, but be prepared to head home again since I wasn’t dialited at all the day before. She also asked a ton of questions (many of which I think she knew the answers to). This drove me crazy at the time, but looking back I realize she was just trying to keep me talking so she could “hear” the contractions and how well I was handling them. At our childbirth class the instructor said this would happen – although it was the last thing on my mind at the time. Anyway, between my mom and Alan they got our stuff together (mom followed me around as I packed the final items into our bags. I kept forgetting what I was doing and she had to remind me every step of the way).

5pm – : We arrived at the hospital just after 5:15. I must have obviously been in labor because I got several comments as we made it inside and up the elevators. At the Birthing Pavillion (baby part of the hosptial) we met Ellen, the midwife, and she brought me into a triage room for an initial exam. I made it as far as the bathroom and threw up. (I’ll try to keep things not *too* detailed and gory here ;) ) Once that was done Ellen examined me and said “6-7 centimeters. She’s a keeper!” I was thrilled. I would have been so upset if they sent me home again. Typically if you’re less than 4cm they send you home. I went from 0cm to 7cm in under 24 hours :)

At this point they officially admitted me (gave me a room). I had a great nurse named Sue who worked with Ellen, Alan, and my mom to take care of me. Alan and I learned all sort of techniques for labor at our childbirth class, but I was so brain dead that I wasn’t even aware of what was going on. Sue suggested I use the jacuzzi tub for awhile. It wasn’t quite what I expected, but it worked well I guess. I stayed there for awhile (no concept of time at this point) until I had to throw up again. This time I got some in a garbage can, but unfortunately some in the tub as well. Yuck! Sue suggested that I get out and go back to the room while she ran a new tub. She said to stand in the shower for 15 minutes and then I could get back in the jacuzzi. On the way back to the room I told Alan that there is no way I can stand for 15 minutes. I didn’t make it one step further than the bed.

The midwife came to check me shortly after that (I think she was in and out the whole time, but I don’t really know.) I know I wasn’t on the bed long before I started pushing (Alan just said I started pushing on the first or second contraction on the bed). Everyone told me ahead of time that the pushing phase just happens and your body tells you when its time. Even though I mentally knew that, it was an odd feeling when I suddenly felt such strong urges to push. I remember my mom was so excited. Once I started pushing I finally broke the water bag and they saw some meconium in it (meconium is just baby poop and non uncommon when the baby is late). Because meconium can be dangerous if the baby ingests it, the midwife brought a team of pediatric people in the room, just in case. She also attached a weird wire thing to the baby’s head because they lost his heartbeat (through the whole labor they were having trouble monitoring his heartbeat externally – I’m not sure if he kept moving, or they just couldn’t find it, or what, but they spent a lot of time trying to get the belly band monitor thing just right so they could hear his heartbeat). The next day we asked about the wire and a nurse pulled out a new one to show us. It literally had a little wire cork screw thing on it that they attached to his head. Very weird, but I guess it did the job. Anyway, where was I…

Oh yes, lying in the hospital, pushing, with a room full of people waiting on this baby to be born. I wasn’t doing a very good job of breathing either, so they gave me an oxygen mask to put on between pushing. Something about both me and the baby needing oxgen to make this whole event a success :) Alan said later that I was *very* white and the oxygen made a big difference.

So after pushing for a bit (Alan says maybe 5 or 6 contractions with 3 or 4 pushes each) baby zig’s head popped out. I thought it would never happen! I kept saying “I can’t do this…,” but no one believed me. I guess they all knew better :) Once his head came out she said to stop pushing, but I couldn’t stop and his body popped out on the next contraction. The doctor wisked him over to the table to try to asparate (sp??) his mouth and lungs before he had any deep cries and inhaled much meconium. I’m not sure how well that plan worked though, because he started crying really quickly.

For the first minute or two we still had no idea if zig was a boy or girl. I guess in this day and age everyone knows ahead of time what they are having, so the process of holding it up and saying “We have a boy!” must be outdated. Alan was trying to see as he came out, but couldn’t. Then when they brought him over to the table, my mom says, “What it is? Can we get a verdict here??” and one of the pediactric people said, “Oh yeah, it’s a boy!”. Yay!!!

Once they were happy that he was ok they brought him back and put him on me. He was (and still is!) so tiny and cute. I couldn’t believe that I actually did it. I ended up needing a few stiches so we all admired the baby while Ellen took care of that. Oddly enough after all of that I barely noticed someone putting stiches down there. I was just so happy to have a baby. He took right to breastfeeding (he’s better at it than I am) and was very content to lay there and be admired :)

Alexander William Johnson was officially born on May 25th, 2005 at 7:41pm. He weighed 7lbs 9oz and was 19″ long. He did great on all of his baby tests (apgar, hearing, pku, etc.) and is a very happy, sleepy, content baby. We’re having a blast with him.

My family and Alan’s came up to see him. Alan’s family made it to the hospital the first day and mine the second. My mom spent the first night at the hosptial with us, holding on to Lex while we got some rest. It was great. The whole experience was incredible.

Ok, so this has taken me many days to write (in between sleeping, feeding, changing, etc.) I could probably keep going with updates from the past few days (my boy is working on his 6th day of life now!), but I’m sure most of you are bored already with this extra long story. Also, if I try to keep going this thing may never get posted. So… that’s all for now folks!

Didn’t think I’d be writing this one, but alas, I am. We went to the doctor today for another ultrasound (got a great picture I’ll try to post tomorrow), a non-stress test (very stressful!!) and a quick exam (no progress, no dialation). However, the good news is that baby is doing very well and seems quite content inside :) I have to schedule another appointment for Friday for another non-stress test. It will be easier this time since I know what to do :) I was worried that zig and I were gonna fail our first test. I don’t think the poor baby even knew it was being tested!!

Full moon *and* a low pressure system – still no baby. Bah!

I’m going to a board meeting this afternoon (why not, right?). Maybe that’s what I need to get this labor started :)

On the plus side, I do get an ultrasound tomorrow if baby doesn’t come by then, so at least we can peak in and see how things are going :) Make sure baby is still in there!