Smile and Wave

Our little one is feeling much better today!

Good News

Just wanted to post a quick update to let people know that Nora had a good visit to the pediatrician today.  She continues to gain weight (she's up to 10 lbs, 4 oz now!), she hasn't had a fever since Saturday, and her lungs are evidently sounding better.  We were reassured by this information, which corroborated our sense that her mood is improving.  He also confirmed that though Billy now seems to have caught Nora's virus, she is not really in any danger of getting sick again as a result.  Last night Billy and I agreed that this past week has felt like the longest one of our lives, and then we realized that it probably is the longest week of our lives, given how little sleep we've gotten.  This is not how we had hoped to spend the last two weeks of Billy's paternity leave, but I guess the best we can do is take each day as it comes.  This has been a very trying time for us, but we want to thank each of you who has checked in to see how Nora is doing and how we are holding up as we care for her.  Your love and concern have helped us, especially in those moments where Nora's illness has felt completely overwhelming.

I also visited my OB today for my six week post-birth checkup.  He told me that I have made a full recovery and gave me permission to resume all my regular activities.  It was fun to see him again after having him deliver my baby, and he was sorry that Billy and Nora had to stay home.  As I was leaving, he told me he hopes he is on call for my next baby because I "made things so easy on him," so that made me smile.  All throughout my pregnancy, I had an internal monologue running about how terrible my body was at being pregnant.  Though my pregnancy was healthy and low risk, I felt like I still managed to dabble in an unusually large percentage of the difficulties associated with pregnancy.  Today's visit, though, made me stop and appreciate how just how well my body has recovered from pregnancy.  It is nice that almost all the pregnancy weight came off without any effort on my part, but even more than that, I am thankful that I've felt great basically since the moment Nora left my body.  Since I hope to go through this one more time, I think remembering how well my body bounced back this time will help me endure the pregnancy phase.  And if this body feels a little rusty when I go for that first run, I will try to remember to be a little more forgiving toward it than I otherwise might be.

I have always been a very healthy person, so for most of my life I took that health for granted.  This past year has taught me just how precious a healthy body is, and though that lesson has been a difficult one to learn, I am thankful to have gained this perspective.

Oy gevalt!

Nora's sick.  She has RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), which causes a pretty severe reaction in infants but is so mild for adults that they often don't know they have it.  She can only sleep and breathe well if she's being held, which means Billy and I have alternated shifts for the past several days.  Which also means we missed Thanksgiving.  When we visited the pediatrician today, he told us she was in the midst of the worst of it, so we are hoping things will go up from here.  As a new mother, I was surprised by how heartbreaking it is to hear the cries of the tiny little human that I grew inside my body.  But hearing her cry is nowhere near as gut wrenching as seeing her stuck in a fit of body shaking, hacking coughs which bring up mucus she can't clear.  Poor little lady, is all I keep thinking.  We have to give her medicine through a nebulizer.  The outside world must be hard enough for her to understand-- how in the world could she possibly make sense of the mask we have to hold up to her face four times a day?

Somewhere in the midst of all this, though, Nora is learning to smile.  She's uninterested in my attempts to entertain her, but Billy can often get her smiling off and on for several minutes at a time.  Last night when Patti, Chuck, and Brian stopped by to drop off leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner, Nora thanked them for looking after her parents by showing them her new talent.  Brian even snapped a photo of Nora smiling with his phone.

We may have traded stuffing for snot this year, but we are so thankful for our little girl.  When Nora smiles, she reminds me that creating her is the best thing Billy and I have ever done and that the only way to top that act is by learning how to be good parents to her.  We're working on that now in 2-3 hour increments.  "This is not forever," I keep telling myself, while inside I am laughing that I was so convinced that giving birth was going to be the hard part!

We're sorry we didn't get a chance to wish everyone Happy Thanksgiving in person, on the phone, or via videochat as we'd hoped-- but we are so thankful to have so many loving, supportive, and helpful friends and family members in our lives.  We hope you are all enjoying your holiday weekend!

New Developments

I have some posts in the works, but I haven't had a chance lately to work on them.  On the positive side, our little lady is spending more and more time awake and alert each day.  We are getting a lot more smiles out of her even if she still doesn't really know she's smiling.  Just yesterday Billy was walking from side to side in front of her, and Nora was tracking him inquisitively with her eyes.  She holds her head up better than ever, and when I walk around with her head out of her carrier she trades off between staring right at me and looking around behind me.  This means that when Nora's awake, we want to spend every minute watching her take in the world with her eyes wide open.

On the less positive side, we're not sure what happened to our great little nighttime sleeper.  She used to sleep from about 10 or 11pm until 7am, though she woke up every couple of hours to nurse.  Now we are having trouble getting her to down to bed and she hasn't been dozing off on her own after nursing anymore.  This is taking a toll on her mama, but I figure that like everything else, this phase will shift into a new one soon enough.  (Hopefully before her dad returns to work in two weeks.)

Until I get a chance to write those other posts, here's a picture of her drying off after her bath the other day.  At least she does a good job of reminding us how adorable she is, which tides us over in the more difficult stretches.

One Month Doctor's Visit

Yesterday we took Nora to her pediatrician for her one month checkup.  I was very excited to see how much weight she had gained since her last visit, since weight gain is the key marker of whether or not breast feeding is going well.  I felt like she was eating plenty, and she certainly looks a bit chubby these days, but even I was surprised by how much she has actually gained.  In order to reach the one ounce per day standard, she should have weighed at least 8 pounds, 11 ounces, but she weighed in at 9 pounds, 10 ounces.  I must have been right about that growth spurt!  She also measured 20 1/4 inches, which is an inch and a quarter longer than she did at birth.  These numbers put her in the 50th percentile for weight and the 25th percentile for height.

Our pediatrician doesn't give immunizations until the two month visit, so the visit was pleasant in every way. He assured me and Billy that Nora is very healthy and that the behaviors we asked about, like her nighttime grunting, are normal.  He even joked that we are "too calm for first time parents," so we left the office feeling good about Nora's development and our own.  (We didn't tell him about the times we have found ourselves frantically consulting Dr. Internet when we needed answers immediately.)  We did get a little sad when we realized that Billy will return to work before Nora's next appointment in mid December.

In the meantime, though, we're doing our best to relax and soak up the last few weeks of his paternity leave.  He snapped this photo of Nora napping with me the other day.  After she fell asleep in her baby carrier I rested her on my chest, and she napped there for a bit before slowly squirming herself into this position.  The days seem a bit uneventful now that our visitors have all gone home, but we are so thankful to have this time at home with our healthy little girl.

And while everyone thinks Nora looks just like Billy, she definitely has my eating habits (I was a chubby baby, too), and I think she has my coloring.  How precious is this photo of her clasping my thumb?

And finally, today is Oscar's seventh birthday!  Happy Birthday, Little Bud!  We appreciate how kindly you have taken to your little sister, and we'll try to make sure you get your celebratory green pepper.

Aunt Vickie, RN

This post is quite belated, but I'm hoping it's better late than never.  These days, it takes a while to string a series of ideas together in a coherent way.

Vickie and Nora in the delivery room.

Before Nora was born, Vickie liked to joke about how many "jobs" I originally gave her when she said she would attend my delivery.  It did not strike me as odd to ask her to keep people updated via text, take video, snap pictures, keep track of visitors, and act as a liaison between the hospital staff and me.  Vickie is the ultimate multi-tasker.  The more responsibilities she has, the more she gets done.

As we approached 40 weeks, though, I told Vickie she didn't really have to do any of these things.  Sure, her medical expertise would come in handy.  But the real reason I wanted her to be there with me was because I was uncertain and unsure about labor, and Vickie is someone you want to have around if you are uncertain or unsure.  Vickie exudes calm.  Her presence alone is reassuring. I knew that Billy would be able to say all the right things and remind me of all the coping mechanisms we learned in childbirth class.  But I worried he and I might get overwhelmed with the stress and emotion of the moment, and I knew having Vickie there when labor got intense would help keep us on an even keel.

Ten months ago, I found myself overwhelmed by the stress and emotion of a very different situation.  Vickie, Billy, and I stayed at Dad's house during his final days.  Vickie took the lead in providing his hospice care, and all the friends and family who came to be with him helped us look after his needs.  Billy was there to provide the strong emotional support I can always count on him to give.  But helping Vickie care for Dad's medical needs took its toll on me.  She did most of it by herself, but there were tasks she couldn't manage on her own.  When I think back on the things she and I went through in those final days, the only way to explain how I endured them is to say that I couldn't have done it without her.  I have never met anyone more capable of putting on a brave, confident face and demonstrating a calm, reassuring demeanor no matter how bad things get.  She is calm, capable, and comforting.  There must have been times when she was breaking inside, too, but she never let that prevent her from caring for everyone else.  I will always remember the time I cracked Dad's door open to check on him and saw that she had fallen asleep on his bed while holding his hand through the guard rail of the hospital bed we'd moved him into.  It touched my heart, and it was the only sign she ever gave that she was exhausted, too.  But even in that moment, she still prioritized comforting him.

So having Vickie in the delivery room with me was a no-brainer.  Since she, Billy, and I had begun our 2011 keeping each other sane as we said goodbye to someone we love dearly, it felt natural for the three of us to be together again as we prepared to say hello to someone else we love dearly.  It felt like we had come full circle.  When Vickie moved in with us last year, it was harder on all of us than we anticipated.  It was taking me and Billy much longer to conceive than expected.  It was taking Vickie much longer to find a suitable job than expected.  A year later, it felt like a special gift that the three of us were able to share the experience of such a wonderful time after spending those difficult months together.

I don't know how long we will be fortunate enough to keep Vickie in Baltimore, so I don't know how long the adolescent patients at Hopkins will be fortunate enough to have her as their nurse.  But there are a few things I know for sure.  Vickie is exactly the type of person you would want to care for your child if your child was not well.  She is also exactly the type of aunt you would want your daughter to grow up knowing, learning from, and admiring.  So for as long as she is here, Nora and I will cherish her companionship, and I hope that in the end, Nora, Vickie, and I will all be better for it.

I love you, Boo.  It feels trite to say Thank you for everything, but I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

Happy Monthday, Nora!

Nora's friends Evie and Clara sent her these month-by-month stickers to keep track of her growth during the first year.  Nora already seems so much bigger than she was when we brought her home, but I'm sure that by the end of the year we'll look back and think, "I can remember when the sticker seemed too big for her belly!"

We love you, little girl!

Not So Sleepy Baby

Last weekend, while Nate and Billy were at the Navy football game, I thought I would try to get some sleeping baby photos of Nora.  After I coaxed her gently to sleep and rested her on her new Nora Jane blanket, she immediately woke up, put her fist in her mouth, and started kicking her legs out.  I snapped a few not-so-sleepy-baby photos of her before she peed on the blanket and started crying in hunger.  Then I wrapped her in a different blanket to feed her, thinking I might get a second try at the sleepy baby photos when she was finished nursing.  But when she pooped all over the blanket-- and me-- while nursing, I admitted defeat and put her back in her clothes.

I think the not-so-sleepy-baby photos still turned out pretty cute, though, so here they are.  : )

I like this last one especially.  Since it shows that her hair is not as dark as it appears in most photos, and her eyes keep getting lighter, it makes it look like she might be her mama's daughter after all!  : )

Video Courtesy of Uncle Nate

Yesterday, Uncle Nate departed Baltimore after a great 10 day visit to meet Nora.  I hope to write more about that soon, but in the meantime, I wanted to share the video he put together with the footage he shot around the house.  Enjoy!

Goodbye, Gramma

My Gramma Kingston passed away on Tuesday.  Nate, Vickie, and I last saw her in late May, a few months before her 97th Birthday.  She was excited to see the three of us together with Mom and happy to talk to me about my pregnancy.

I am at peace about Gramma's passing because she felt her time had come.  The past few years have been difficult for her, but she passed away peacefully in her sleep with my mom by her side.  Only a few weeks prior, she left me a congratulatory message about Nora's birth, and when I called her back she was overjoyed that my uncle had printed out a pictures so she could see my baby.  Nora is her fourth great grandchild, and though I'm sorry they'll never meet, I look forward to telling Nora someday how thrilled her Great Grandmother was about her arrival.

Even though I know it was her time to go, I will miss my Gramma.  I believe that after we die, we live on through those whose lives we've touched, so I wanted to identify a few things I got from my grandmother and have enjoyed sharing with her.

My name: My parents named me Elizabeth Ann after my two grandmothers, Elizabeth Kingston and Carol Ann Chambers.  My grandfather's name was William, so as soon as I told Gramma Kingston that I was dating Billy, she told me I was going to end up marrying him.  I'm so glad she was right!

My vocation and my bibliophilia: Gramma Kingston was a high school English (and Latin) teacher.  My mom also started out as a classroom teacher, and teaching is an occupation that has always been highly valued in our family.  I also seem to have inherited Gramma's love of books-- she always had them around her and frequently gave them as gifts.  In my mind's eye, I can perfectly imagine her oft-performed gesture of putting on the glasses that hung around her neck in order to read.  She also used to say she was "interested in what makes people tick," which resulted in her special interest in biography and autobiography.  This also meant she loved reading my blog, and she has long been one of its most ardent fans.

My love of tennis: Gramma Kingston played tennis her whole life, and she took me to my first lessons when I stayed with her as a child.  As I became more and more interested in professional tennis, I enjoyed talking to her about the latest news on the ATP tour.  She was a fellow Andy Roddick fan, especially when he was coached by Jimmy Connors, and she remembers watching the Bryan Brothers playing at her Montecito Country Club when they were kids.  It delighted her that I developed a genuine love of the game in recent years, and every time we talked she wanted to know what I thought about the most recent tournaments.

My sense that I am special because I am a girl: Until I was born, my grandmother had six grandsons but no granddaughters.  From the time I was very young, she made me feel extra special for being the only girl.  All told, Vickie and I are the only two granddaughters out of her eleven grandchildren.  And though she was born several years before women earned the right to vote, Gramma was ahead of her time in regards to women's roles.  She worked in Manhattan before she was married, enjoyed having a profession that allowed her to work outside the home, and started a Young Mothers program that served young women who had babies in high school.

I have enjoyed spending the past few days reminiscing about my best Gramma Kingston memories, and I'll leave you with some photos of one of my very favorite ones.  I was so pleased that Gramma was able to make the cross-country trip to attend my wedding in 2007.  Before she left the reception, Mom, Vickie, and I joined her in stepping along to her signature dance, "Tea for Two."

Rest easy, Gramma.  We'll miss you.

Learning Curves

I didn't notice too many changes in Nora in her first two weeks of life, but over the past week and a half she keeps acquiring new skills!  Now that her umbilical cord has fallen off and is healing up well, we are able to submerge her in water to give her a bath.  Here's a photo of her first bath in the bathtub:

Other developments include:
- We are all convinced that Nora is developing a healthy layer of baby fat as a result of last week's marathon nursing growth spurt.  Her cheeks, belly, arms, and legs all look a bit chubbier.  We think she might even have a dimple on the right side, but we'll have to wait until she gets full command of her smile to know for sure!
- It also seems like she is getting longer, but I think that is mainly because she is stretching her legs out so much more.  For the first two weeks of life she kept them tucked up against her belly, but now she seems to realize she has plenty of room to kick them out.
- For the past few days, she has been hungry a lot during the day but has been letting us sleep in pretty solid 2-3 hour chunks overnight, so that is a very welcome change!
- Nora doesn't cry very much, but now when she does, she gets tears in her eyes that sometimes even run down her face.  She used to cry the most when we changed her diaper, but she seems to be getting used to that now, and sometimes she doesn't fuss at all.
- Each day, she seems to spend a little bit more time awake and happy in what they call the "quiet alert state," which are some of the most fun times to hold her.  She opens her eyes really wide and looks like she is taking it all in.  Billy read that babies focus on contrasts in color, so they like to look at the edges of your face, bright doorways, etc... and this seems to explain why she loves looking at the tree wall decal when we are changing her diaper.

Her mama is developing some new skills, too.  After feeling completely overwhelmed for the first few weeks at home, I feel like I have finally begun to adjust to figuring out how to meet Nora's needs.  When we first brought her home, everyone told me to "enjoy every minute," but I was convinced that I was just not well suited for mothering a newborn because I certainly did not enjoy hearing her cry.  After reading and watching "The Happiest Baby on the Block" book and DVD (thanks, Erin!!), I feel like I have a better understanding of what Nora needs and how I can help meet those needs during these first three months.  As a result, I've begun to appreciate that my favorite thing about parenting during this window is that I can give Nora all the love, affection, and attention I want.  In the future, I'll have to worry about whether I'm spoiling her, or whether I'm letting her develop bad habits.  For now, though, Billy and I get to make sure we are letting her know that we'll do everything we can to make sure she is happy, healthy, and comfortable in the outside world as her brain and body continue to develop.

And though it doesn't have anything to do with this post, I wanted to close by sharing a family photo we took last night.

Growth Spurt

Nora's in the midst of her three week old growth spurt-- at least, we hope this is the explanation for why she has spent the past few days demanding to eat nearly every hour.  My brain feels like mush, so I'll keep the post short and just say: Here are some photos from last week that I thought others might enjoy as much as I do.

This is the face that sends my brain spinning: What does she want? When did she eat last?  On which side? When did we change her diaper? Can I figure it out before she starts wailing?

This is the face that reminds me it's all worthwhile:

And this is the face that says "You're doing okay, Mama."

Family Time

In the midst of all the great visits from family members and friends, Billy, Nora, and I have been trying to make sure we get to spend quality time together as a new little family.  Even though Nora has been here less than three weeks, being a family of three already feels just right.  I am not sure anything can really prepare you for the constant demands of a newborn, so I feel especially fortunate to be sharing the parenting responsibilities with such a great partner.  I don't know how I would manage without having Billy home to take care of me and the baby.  Anytime I start to get discouraged or feel too exhausted to function, Billy reassures me and lets me rest.  Even Oscar is doing a pretty good job of embracing the role of big brother.  Though he normally leaves Nora alone, he does look out for her and try to sniff her once in a while.

Before she left town, my mom snapped a few pictures of us together as a family, so I thought I'd share those while Billy and Nora sneak in an afternoon nap.

Happy Halloween!

We knew Nora would arrive before Halloween, but she was going to be so tiny that I didn't think putting her in a Halloween costume would be a great idea.  I did find her a Halloween outfit, though, so she spent most of the day in this festive ensemble:

Since we started swaddling her to sleep, though, we can't help but notice that she looks like a little Glo Worm when we're putting her to bed.  So even though we didn't plan to put her in costume, she still celebrated the holiday. : )  Evidently she was so excited to be dressed up that she even opened her eyes for the photo!

Halloween is one of my favorite days to have a facebook account because I love checking to see what costumes my friends have thought up for their little ones.  I've been anxiously waiting to see what my favorite pairs of sisters would be wearing for Halloween, and I had to suppress the urge to ask their moms about the costumes beforehand so I could be surprised by the pictures.  So through the magic of facebook photo stealing, I am happy to share:

Ms. Clara and Ms. Evie as chickens:

And Ms. Eleanor and Ms. Josephine as Abe Lincoln and George Washington:

So now the countdown is on, and I only have one year to prepare an adorable little one-year-old costume for Nora! : )