Birth Story: On a Wednesday afternoon a little before 2:00, I was teaching my 6th grade math class about factors. All of the sudden I felt a small gush. Not certain that my water had just broken, I sat down for a second and thought about what to do. I sent one of my students (not a good choice of student..I sent one of my wanderers) next door to get my teaching partner to watch my class so I could investigate the gushing. At this point the kids had no idea what was going on, as I wasn't standing in any sort of puddle or anything dramatic like that. Finally the student I sent out returned, without my teaching partner. Turns out he didn't really convey the urgency of the situation to her and she didn't think it necessary to come right at that moment. Finally I decided to run across the hall to bathroom since my students were all diligently working. On my way there, there were several more small gushes (still no puddle or anything obvious to anyone else). I realized at that point that my water really had broken. I let my teaching partner know, so that my class could be taken care of and went to call Michael. He came to get me, and we headed to the hospital. Since my water had broken they admitted me, although I wasn't having any sort of regular contractions. Around 7:00pm the doctor started me on Pitocin to jump start my labor since I still wasn't having any sort of regular contractions. Jump start it did and about midnight I was enjoying my epidural and dialated 5cm. They told me once I hit 5, I would dilate approximately 1cm every hour, so they figured around 5:00am I would be ready to push. At 1:30am when the nurse checked me, I was 10cm and ready to start pushing. The doctor came to check me out and informed us that I had a curved tailbone due to having broken it at some point in my life (I have no idea when this happened) and would have to push extra hard in order to get the baby over the tailbone. He also said that most likely I would not be able to push him over by myself, and he would need to use forceps, which of course has some added risks. After a lot of hard pushing and the help of forceps, Graham Taylor Pretekin entered the world on Thursday November 4th at 4:08am.
Week 1: We came home Friday. Graham and I had had issues in the hospital with nursing, despite manny consultations with the lactation specialists and continued to have these issues once we came home, so it made for a rough couple of days. I also was not feeling very well - a touch of the flu, not to mention being incredibly sore (sadly the epidural could only block out a certain amount of the pain once the forceps became involved), which added to the stress. Finally, after a lot of tears and meltdowns, I realized that nursing was just not for us. I HATED it and Graham wasn't doing well either. He had lost a lot of weight and was struggling to latch on and get the nutrition he needed. We just couldn't get the hang of it, so with everyone's support I made the decision to quit nursing him and start him on formula. At first Graham took to the formula like a champ and started gaining his weight back. However after a few days it became clear that he was having some serious tummy issues. After some phone calls to the pediatrician, it was determined that he most likely had a milk protein allergy and needed to be moved to a soy formula. He would need to be given reduced calories (more water, less formula) for a day or so in order to help his stomach clear out. There was also a chance that he could be allergic to the soy as well, but we would just have to wait and see. Graham did great with the soy and there was no sign of an allergy. Despite being a super spitter, he continues to do well with the soy formula. Graham has been an excellent sleeper. He typically will go 3-4 hours between feedings, but has days where he will do 5-6 hour stretches (these tend to be at night!!) Despite our rough first week home, Graham is a wonderful baby, who fusses very little and loves to be cuddled and held by anyone and everyone.
Week 2: Graham went to his two week checkup and due to all of the tummy troubles and the the reduced calorie feedings, he was only an ounce over his birth weight. That meant that he was gaining the very minimum amount of weight he should be (babies are supposed to gain between .5oz and 1.5oz per day). He will need to go back in a week and half for a weight check to make sure he hasn't fallen below the .5oz he's been gaining per day. I'm hoping that since the tummy issues seem to be figured out, he'll be gaining a little more. Other than his weight, Graham looked great at his two week check and is definitely thriving. Week 2 has been much more relaxed for both myself and Graham. We are getting into more of a routine and have made it past some of the yucky health stuff we both encountered last week. We're looking forward to week 3, where we will celebrate Thanksgiving, Grandma Linny's birthday, and Michael's family from California will get to meet our little guy!
How is the rest of the Pretekin Pride? Any fears we had about how our four cats would do around the baby are now completely gone. All of the cats are very gentle around him and will lie down by him, but do not try to climb on him in any way. Linus is very much in love with baby Graham and will bring out his sad meow when the baby cries or when he is distressed about how Graham is doing. I was worried that a high pitched and loud baby cry would send all the cats over the edge, but they don't seem to mind and continue about their business when Graham does cry. Way to go fur babies!!
