Momma McTrauma

Traumatic. Yes. I think that word best describes yesterday morning for me.

The Frog had his first doctor appointment. Everything was going swimmingly! He was even awake and completely non-fussy. Turns out he has exactly gained back his birth weight (yay!) and measured .25 inches longer (that could just be a difference in people/techniques though...) and he seems to be pooping the appropriate amounts. Life was great. Until...

The nurse comes in to give him his first hep B shot. Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next. I told myself not to look at the shot, but for some reason I just couldn't help myself and I had to. Not only did it provoke the saddest, most painful sounding cry I have EVER witnessed from ANYONE, but it came out of MY little boy and WE were allowing, nay causing it. It's all I can do to keep from welling up right now, just thinking about it. Poor little guy. So innocent. Being ruthlessly attacked with a proportionally giant needle.

I mean really, think about it. Remember the needle they stick in your arm? Well, it looked about the same as the needle they stuck in his leg, except his leg has a cross-section about the size of a Sacagawea dollar. I thought maybe she just wouldn't stick it in all the way, but NO. She did. I was half expecting to see it emerge from the other side of his poor little wrinkled thigh.

Later at home when I had to change his diaper, I think it was hurting his shot because he started crying in that new, painful sounding cry that I had never heard before. That was it for me, I totally started bawling. Me. Crying? Yeah. We're talking about the girl who didn't cry in Titanic here... Perhaps it was just the complete sleep deprivation that kicked in (I had only gotten about 2 hours of sleep the previous night) but I have a feeling this parenting thing is going to be much more emotionally taxing than I expected. I can only hope he never breaks a bone or needs stitches... Basically, I'm convinced that he is never allowed to do anything fun ever. I just don't think I could handle it if anything went awry. Now to find the right size bubble...

Needless to say, I am NOT looking forward to his 2 month doctor visit. He has to get not one, but SIX shots! I really don't think I'll be able to handle it unmedicated. It just makes me feel like I am so cruel for willingly subjecting him to such torture.

On a lighter note, we took our first stroll in the stroller today. The Frog wasn't too keen on getting in the thing, but once we started riding around, I think he enjoyed himself. (at least he stopped crying)

Also, The Frog has started having a little awake time a couple times of day! It's so fun! He doesn't really do anything except stare off into space, but he's just so cute to observe. Here's him doing a little Zoolander impersonation.


The laundry was in grave need of getting done this morning, but he was awake and I didn't want to leave him alone, so I decided the best way around this was to carry him in the laundry basket, which seemed to work out ok.

10 Days Old!

It's funny how when you become pregnant, you start keeping track of your life in terms of increasing weeks- how long you have endured so far (and if you're talking to someone who has never been closely involved in a pregnancy, they get the month approximation...). Then one day, you realize that your due date is less than two months away, and you start keeping track of your life in decreasing weeks- how many you have left. Then one day, you realize that the due date is less than 2 weeks away and you start keeping track of your life in decreasing days. Hopefully, you never have to start keeping track in increasing days again.

Since The Frog came 12 days early, I got to go through my google calendar and remove the markers that reminded me of the last couple of weeks of pregnancy, which immediately sparked a strong desire to start marking how many weeks old he would be!  Must  ...  keep  ...  track  ...  of  ...  life  ...  weekly    ...

I'll try to refrain (imagine what my calendar would eventually look like if I marked the number of weeks all my children had been alive...) but that doesn't mean I can't commemorate some of those milestones here. :D

Happy 10th day, Frog!

This week has been pretty exciting.  Mom and The Frog went on our first outings together. Yesterday, we visited dad at work for lunch.  (You can see by the picture how riveting The Frog found that experience to be.)  After that we braved the grocery store. Luckily I didn't have much to get, because The Frog pretty much filled the cart in his car seat.  I've seen people balance it on the front part, but that was NOT going to happen with that particular cart.  Can anyone please inform me of how that works?  Then at night, Mom, Dad and The Frog all went out to a pizza party for the computer science department at the Y.  Several people commended me in shock for venturing out of the house only 9 days post-delivery, but I say- where there's free food, there's motivation, especially 9 days post-delivery.

I also made an amazing discovery! After multiple days of thinking I had put The Frog down for a nap and that I might be able to steal away for a shower, he would of course wake up and start crying mid-shampoo/sudsing, and I'd have to frantically rinse whatever I was doing and leap out to the rescue. (Probably I shouldn't be afraid to let him cry, but I'm still unwilling to do so.) However, on Wednesday, he wasn't even pretending to want to nap, yet he was being so pleasant and quiet... as long as I was holding him.  I thought we were going to visit dad that day (which didn't end up happening) so I had great incentive to take a shower before leaving the house. What to do? I decided to try putting him in his bouncer and see if he would be placated by my blurry figure in the room.  To my utter delight, he was happy as a clam just sitting there, watching mom apply her mascara and blow-dry her hair. Yay!  We have such a good boy!!  I retested this amazing event today, and got a picture of the evidence that it works!  I guess second time around wasn't worth staying awake for...

Finally, I wanted to get a picture of his little frog legs, so you all could understand part of the reason for his funny secret identity. (Although his nearly continuous bouts of hiccups probably win out for the most prevalent cause for the pseudonym.)

PS his actual due date was tomorrow!  Thanks for coming early Frog.  I can't imagine life without you now :D

Historical Week, Extension

It seems I spoke too soon when summarizing our historical week because we have officially extended the dates of significant events for the Utah-McCarthy's. As some of you may have heard (and hence the posting hiatus) we had an unexpected, but pleasant surprise of the early arrival of our little man!

Sunday, the 7th, I started having contractions and got very little sleep all night. The next day, upon realizing that this was probably actually labor, and not just frequent, painful, Braxton Hicks contractions, I spent the day frantically washing sheets and clothes and reading the car-seat manual, so that we would be ready for our little bundle of joy when he got here.

Jay got home from work and we tried to wait it out at home as long as possible, before going to the hospital.  We finally arrived there at about 6:45pm and I was a bit annoyed to find myself at a mere 4 (out of 10) cm dilated, but very glad that I got to have Jay with me for the rest of my labor.  Almost 8 hours later, without medication, our boy came at 2:32am- 7 pounds 11 ounces and 20 inches long and he wasn't going to wait for anyone.  Our doctor was performing a C-section right as I became fully dilated and the peanut just about came out before the doc arrived!

Needless to say, we are completely thrilled!

It's funny, you can't really know how much you're going to love them until they get here, and you also can't really explain why.  In the words of Jay, "he looks like a mixture between a monkey and a peanut.  and a raisin." and we just love every little wrinkle and uncontrolled facial expression.  I even think his pee smells good.

Everything is going really well.  I feel pretty good, just a bit sleep-deprived (which was expected) and Jack seems to be really great at doing what babies do best- eat, sleep, poop and cry.  And his cry is so cute too.  Yeah, we're pretty much completely enamored by him.

Jay and I have been taking pictures of my belly for the past 9 months-ish and Jay has put all the shots into a fun slide-show.  It looks like we've not only had a very historical week, but a pretty significant past year.  Enjoy!

One final word- we've decided not to call him by his proper name online.  If he wants to be identified on the inter-web, we'll let him expose his true identity himself.  Due to his little frog-legs, mouth and frequent froggy hiccups, we've decided to refer to him as "the frog".  :)

Historical Week

I should have posted several times already this week, as it is a very important week in the lives of Jay and Libby.  Why? 

Monday- Labor Day

  I always maintain a corner in my heart for Labor Day.  Not only because I've never had to "work" (i.e. go to school) on this day, and the weather is usually just how I want it, but also because I appropriately decided to put my mother in labor on Labor Day, 25 years ago.  However, my birthday only falls on Labor Day once every 11 years.  Since my birthday anniversary now coincides with my marital one, I may just adopt Labor Day as my new birthday...

September 2 (Tuesday)

  This year, this day is the two year "re-birthday" for Jay- his baptism.  He looks so young no?  (and we won't say what I look like...)

September 3rd-

  You might have guessed, but this is the day of Jay's confirmation, and I happen to have a picture of him right after church, lookin' all cute and suited up.

September 4th-

   Last year, today, was the day that we both got to go through the temple (Salt Lake) for the first time.  I'm sad to say that I have no pictures of the occasion- probably because we were feeling a bit rushed to get home and make the final preparations for...

September 5th-

  The day we got married!!  Tomorrow will be our 1-year anniversary and I can honestly say it's been the best year yet! 

I love you Jay!!  Happy Anniversary!

A Bit of Everything, Mostly Nothing

Though lots has been happening lately, I haven't felt very inspired about documenting it.  I think I've had too many journal-ish entries as of late, and was hoping for something more interesting.  However, I've just been spending most of my time keeping up with the cleaning, reading other peoples' blogs, and noticing my belly increasing in size.

One bit of excitement- we've started getting tomatoes on our plants!!  So far, only our mini, yellow, pear-tomatoes have ripened, and I haven't yet had a big enough harvest to populate an entire salad, but they're yummy enough to pop in plain.  Even though I didn't spend one cent on plants for our garden, between gifts from my mother and a neighbor, we somehow ended up with 12 tomato plants of various species- all planted within two 3x4 foot boxes.  Here's a glimpse of the massiveness of our tomato tangle- I hope I'll be able to reach them all! Needless to say, I've already started researching tomato recipes... if you have any great ones, I'm alllll ears.

Everything else seems to be going just great!  Jay has started having "official business" to attend to, and I've been lucky enough be be invited to a couple of faculty breakfasts the past couple of days.  It's funny to all of a sudden be on the other end of the spectrum in academia.  I'm not old enough to be married to a professor.

We had another uneventful baby check-up on Monday, and I've so far gained 19 pounds during this pregnancy, which means I'm allowed 6 more pounds in the next 3.5 weeks.  Wahoo! Bring on the ice cream :)  I must admit, for as comfortable as I've been the last 8 months, I really can't complain about anything.  However, in the past couple of days, I've noticed that it takes a great amount of effort to get out of my chair, so I have to be sure I don't need to get up for awhile, every time I sit somewhere comfy.  (Which is usually to read yet another birthing/nursing/baby book.)  I have three more preggy-books to finish and 2 more to peruse before I'm willing to lose the belly, and then I can get back to reading "normal" things...  I have a real hankering to read a really great novel.  Any recommendations?