What a great day, I got to see the new babies heart beat and I got to buy 3 bags of crap on www.woot.com. I don't know if this will count for my class assignment but I don't care. You have to be quick and lucky to purchase the elusive Bag of Crap. I was lucky enough to win one two years ago...since then I have been unsuccessful in purchasing the elusive item on over 10 different ocasions. I even swore off woot b/c of how bad I got screwed last time....but I feel like I'm on top of the world again.
It is going to be a couple weeks til I find out what the crap is, but I'll keep on posting. Its so exciting waiting to see what junk they send you.
~ Jacob
We had our first ultrasound for the new baby this afternoon. It has a great heart beat and he / she is 3 cm long. We were able to see hands and legs and even fingers. At some times the baby seemed to be dancing...it was pretty awesome. I'll scan the pictures sometime this weekend and post them.
~ Jacob
This morning Jackson started speaking in another tongue! I always thought he was smart, but WOW! No, but really he is babbling and telling me stories with very interesting noises that I have never heard come out of an American's mouth. I try to talk to him and tell him what I am doing throughout the day to help with his language development. At first I felt ridiculous telling him everything I was doing...especially in the grocery store, but now i kind of like narrating my day!
Do da ding da, hbbbaaaa, (spit, squeal) hcaa chhaaaaa. Ahhhh Daaaaa! ehhh dada (more spitting noises)
I wonder what he is thinking..maybe he is thinking who is this crazy lady who talks to me all day long with that silly high voice... does she think I really care about her folding laundry?
He is so silly. It is the best when he whispers. I love it :)
Yesterday he was pulling himself up onto his knees! I can't wait until he crawls!
He will be 6 months old on the 29th! We are going to start adding "real" food to his diet then. It will be so much fun.
Jackson says echh plaa. That means I love you...I think.
Jackson doesn't exactly love tummy time. So this is a picture of what our "altered tummy time" looks like, and he loves it!
So, I am sitting here writing this post while little Jackson is actually taking a long nap for once. He was 12 weeks old yesterday, and although he sounds very little and helpless, he is actually creeping his way out of "newborn"and into a full-blown "infant". We are definitely trying to make a sleeping schedule, and he is actually starting to follow it! So it goes something like this:
About 8:30am
Wake up & Cuddle Time (my fav!)
10:30am-11:30/12:30
Nap time!
3:30am-4:30...or whenever
Nap time!
9:30pm-8:30am
Bath time and go ni-night
He gets up a couple times in the middle of the night. Most of the time I feed him, change him, and then I put him back into the bassinet, and other times I wake up and I am already nursing him in our bed--woops!?
I don't really know if I am doing things "right", but this just seems to work. So by my calculations, Jackson is getting about...ummm... fourteen hours of sleep a day (give or take--hopefully give!).
He is really growing into his own little personality. For example, last night he was making hilarious facial expressions while gnawing on his fingers with his little gums. He just loves his hands.
He definitely is his own little person when he wakes up in the morning. He is so excited about everything from the sunshine, to getting his diaper changed, to looking at himself in the mirror. I have never seen anyone so excited to be alive.
He just woke up.
These are some reasons why I am smitten with him:
The way he looks at me when I am nursing him. His stinky feet. The way he coos when I change his diaper. Bath time. Kicking his legs in his swing. The way he smiles when I sing Frank Sinatra while doing the dishes. When he scrunches his nose. His many noises.Pushing him in the stroller. His belly button. Tummy time on Daddy's chest. Snuggling.
Makes me smile : ) Natalie
Last weekend was a busy one for us Feuerbachs'. Natalie was in a wedding on Saturday for our friends Seth and Jenny. That meant Mr. Mom was going to be making some major contributions to taking care of Jackson.
TANGENT ALERT
I know I make a point of this in some blogs. Natalie has poor navigational skills, and I kid b/c they are funny stories that are funny insights into our lives and not to demean Natalie. It is a theme that continues to pop up and sometimes it is pretty funny. With that disclaimer out of the way, on to the story. I get home from work and Natalie is in a hurry to get going. She says the rehearsal dinner is at 5:30. Already I'm thinking, "Sweet, we have to get Jackson in the car and drive to Solon in 15 minutes. It is going to take a minor miracle for that to happen since the very speedy Iowa City road crews have spent 3 years creating the most awesome traffic bottle neck directly in our path to Solon. It is 5:15 on a Friday, I'm sure no one will be on the road." With those thoughts in my mind we take off, and of course there is a huge line of cars trying to get to the interstate. We get through that and almost to Solon and Jenny (the Bride) calls and tells Natalie that the rehearsal isn't until 6:30. I turn around and head home. My friend Jeff was coming over to hang out and this setback would mean Natalie was going to the rehearsal alone. Jeff and I would watch Jackson while she does the wedding thing.
I get home and Jeff shows up. Natalie feeds Jackson and heads back to Solon. About 15 minutes go by and she calls, "I'm in the country somewhere and I'm lost." I laugh and try to get some landmarks out of her and head to google maps. I call her back and get her back on track. She gets there a little late, but not too late. The rest of the night with Jackson is fine with Jeff and I, and Natalie makes it home safe and sound without directions later that evening.
The next morning Natalie wakes up and heads out to a hair appointment. The appointment is in North Liberty. She's been there numerous times by herself and with me, so I suspect she'll have no problems finding it. I was wrong. I get a call and Natalie had headed south, she was almost to Kalona which is quite a ways in the opposite direction. I get her turned around and back on her way thankfully. Like I said before, funny stuff.
END TANGENT ALERT
Back to the story. We showed up a little early so Natalie could feed him and we were able to watch a little bit of the High School baseball game being played next to the church. Jackson's first sporting event, not important but a milestone in my mind. The wedding was nice, Natalie looked beautiful (as always).
After the wedding, I had a few townie cocktails (Busch Light and Bud Light) and we went home around 10. Jackson handled the crowd pretty well and my duties as Mr. Mom were handled quite well. Here is a pic of Jackson because he looked so cute.
The next day was packed to the brim with activities as well. We were invited to my Nana's (Grandma's) "Garden Walk" in Keystone Iowa. We headed to Keystone and visited her gardens. It was a beautiful day and we sat on her neighbor's (Rosemary) porch and had lemonade and cake. A fun little Sunday afternoon. Here are a couple of pictures:
The garden was nice, and Nana does a very nice job turning a yard into many different themed mini gardens. I'm sure it took a lot of time and skill. I lost my green thumb in a horticulture class in high school. It might have been because we cared more about water fights with the hoses instead of growing plants....ahh memories. Anyway in there house I see something on a shelf. It beckoned my like the song of the Sirens. It was a Rubik's Cube, and I had a very distinct urge that completing that would become my next goal in life. That might a sad thing considering the tasks insignificance in the overall scheme of life, but I considered it a worthwhile task that I must complete. Side note, my life is filled with nerdy little goals, although not considered important to some I find them rewarding. That said, I had always wanted to do it and now seemed like the appropriate time to take on the challenge of the cube. Don (step grandpa) handed me an old pamphlet explaining how to complete the cube and that is the beginnings of my cube and cube related adventures.
After the garden walk we went back to my Mom's to grill out. I spent most of the time playing with the cube and pestering my nephew Brennan.
After that we went home. The cube still had a hold of me and I spent a couple of hours trying different things. At an hour too late to tell you in this forum, I sat the cube down and went to bed a defeated man. I swore that night that solving the cube's riddle would be harder than I first believed and that I would try again tomorrow to unlock its secrets.
After work the next day Natalie, Jackson and I went on our run / jog and came home before the bugs carried Jackson away. I sat down and stared at the cube. For a simple object it is very complicated. I took what I had learned the night before and started again. After an hour I had solved the cube. I was expecting it unleash something like the monster from Hellraiser, or some other mythical creature, but it did not. There sat the finished cube, and I thought, "I bet people on the internet would like to read my story and see a picture." So that brings me to the here and now, finishing up a blog about our weekend and my completed goal of solving a Rubik's Cube. I know, I know...I'm nerdy. How many of you have done it? Seriously, not many I'm guessing. Anyway, have a wonderful day / night and I hope our weekend recap made you laugh a little, hopefully not cry...I did use the word hell. I'll leave you with a picture of an object that I will always remember...Toodles!
---A lot of pictures have been added to the flickr pages!
Monday May 14th
Natalie, Jackson and I went to his doctor's office for his two week checkup. We are almost late because Natalie is slow and perpetually makes me late for everything. Sorry for the the tangent, back to the story. The nurse weighs Jackson and he weighs 10 pounds 3 ounces. We were pretty excited about this.
His weight when he was born was 8 pounds 13 ounces and when we left he was 8 pounds 5 ounces. He lost a little bit of weight, but when we went to a check up at 5 days he had started putting back on the weight and he weighed 8 pounds 10 ounces. Not back to birth weight but we were happy he was gaining weight. This new measurement of 10 pounds 3 ounces was quite a gain and we were happy that he was feeding well.
After he was weighed he tried peeing on the nurse, not really important but a funny site. He sure likes to pee when his diaper is off.
During the visit with the doctor she checked his belly button and cleaned off some of the remnants of his umbilical cord. She said that it looked good. That was a relief because we were worried that it might be a little infected. Next she took a look at his right collar bone. There was a bump on it that Beth, Natalie's Mom, and she had noticed in the recent days leading up to the visit. The doctor was a little concerned because this was the shoulder that had gotten stuck during delivery. She brought another doctor in and decided that we should see an orthopedic doctor. We left that visit a little worried but the doctors had explained that because he had full range of motion and didn't seem to be in pain which was comforting.
His shoulder had gotten caught during the last moments of the pushing stage. It called shoulder dystocia when a newborns shoulder gets caught when it tries to escape the womb. The doctors had thought that everything was OK with it while we were in the hospital and it didn't seem to be bothering him. Although in hindsight I remember when we were putting him in the car seat to take him home, the nurse really tightened the straps down on his shoulders. He was crying pretty hysterically and then she was shoving her fingers under the strap right above his collar bone to see if it was tight enough, and he really didn't like it.
Wednesday May 16th
Our doctor got us an appointment with a orthopedic doctor at 7:30 AM and we successfully made it there on time...but I did have to convince Natalie that she didn't have time to put all of her makeup on. She would have made us late again! Any way, the doctors decide that they needed an x-ray to see what was going on with the collar bone. Mommy held him in position while they took their shot. When the doctor met with us he showed us the x-ray image and you could see a definite fracture in his right collar bone. They said there isn't really anything they could do, but it would heal fine. They said the bump would probably disappear within a year. That is a little scary but again they thought it would heal fine and that he wouldn't have any long term effects.
I am glad that we got it checked out and Natalie and I hope that everything will heal fine. I asked the nurse if she would send me a copy of the x-ray so we would have a copy. I haven't received it yet, but I will post it when we, if, we get it.
Toodles
Jacob
Here is a photo of me that made it through our house fire and a picture of Jackson. This was done to quell any claims of fatherhood by my fellow rugby players, whom had claimed that they were the fathers.
I don't have a lot of time to compose an exciting tale of mystery and romance, so I will just give a time line of events and a quick thought or two. Those of you who are tired of reading can go directly to photos on flickr, www.flickr.com/photos/jacobfeuerbach/ to view some pictures.
Beginning:
Friday April 27th:
12:45 PM: We are at the doctors office for Natalie's prenatal
checkup and the doctor discovers that she is 1 cm dilated and
more than 50% effaced. She stripped the membrane, and said that it may
help to induce labor.
Saturday April 28th:
11:00 PM: Natalie begins having contractions. They are about ten minutes apart. We both are excited that it was about game time.
Sunday April 29th:
2:00 AM: We call labor and delivery and inform them that the contractions are fairly regular and that we might be in later that day. We call it a night and Natalie tries to get some sleep while having contractions.
7:00 AM: Natalie wakes up and thinks that her water is broken. She wakes me up and we start getting everything ready to go to the hospital. We don't get too anxious and take our time. We had been reading that it is more relaxing to do part of early labor at home, because the hospital can interfere with concentration, relaxation and can wear the laboring mother down.
10:00 AM: We get into the triage room at the hospital and Natalie gets hooked up to the monitoring equipment and answers some questions. Doctor Thoma was at the hospital and she came up once she heard that we had arrived and possibly were in labor. She has been Natalie's doctor throughout the pregnancy and will be our family doctor. She examines Natalie and finds that she is 4 cm dilated and 75% effaced. Natalie was definitely in labor!
10:30 AM: We get moved to the actual labor and delivery rooms and begin working on getting this baby out so we could finally meet him.
We go up to the floor above Labor and Delivery and walk the long corridors. We have to be back every 30 minutes to get the babies heart rate checked. That gives us enough time to do a quick down and back. We continue doing this until Natalie's next pelvic exam. During this time her contractions are getting steadily more intense and I can see her beginning to work harder. I try and help her relax during the contractions and try rubbing her back to ease some of the tension.
12:15 PM: Dr. Thoma gives Natalie the exam and find her 6 cm dilated and 90% effaced. The doctors and nurse are very sure that the baby will be out that night and even suggest that Natalie will be eating supper later. It was very exciting news to hear. Natalie decides to give the whirl pool a try. She jumps into her swim suit and slides in. It seemed to help with the contractions, but the were still coming about every 3-4 minutes and usually lasted a minute. The nurse was able to monitor the baby's heart rate with a portable doppler monitor so she didn't have to get in and out every thirty minutes. My job is pretty easy at this point, say nice things, mark down the times and duration of the contractions and get her anything she needs. The two hours go by and towards I could really see the effort it was taking her to get through the contractions.
2:15 PM: Her next exam finds that she is only 6.5-7 cm dilated. Which was a little disheartening because of the speedy progress she had been making. Natalie decides to give the ball a try for her next contractions. The ball we used is more like two balls right next to each other and in the shape of a peanut. This allows her to sit on it and not worry about falling off. She continues to work hard through the contractions and I try my best to support and comfort her. The contractions are getting closer together and lasting longer than before. The ball seems to be helping but she moves around and tries some different positions. I am finding my role to be more important because the contractions are intense enough that she tenses her body up to deal with the pain. It was my job to notice this and help her to relax so the contraction wouldn't be inhibited by her tense body. She is doing a great job, and I was beginning to wonder if we had practiced enough, if it was a bad idea to not actually go to a Bradley Birth class and just "do-it ourselves", and if we were strong enough to take the teachings we had read and actually implement them.
The exact time of events start getting a little fuzzy here, but I'll try my best to recall the events as accurately as I can remember.
4:00 PM: Natalie contractions are getting very strong and she gets another exam. She is a full 8 cm and coming along nicely. The doctors assure her that she will be fine without medicine and to keep on doing what she is doing. We go contraction to contraction, I assure her that we are almost there and it will be only a few more. She concentrates and gets through each one, some are very hard but she sticks with the plan. We try a lot of different positions and just try to make through each contraction as it comes. They are starting to feel like they are coming one right after another. It is amazing to watch her work through them, it looked terrifying but she was doing great. I can see her getting tired and she starts to verbalize her doubts. I just try and reassure her that she is doing perfect and it will be over soon, just a few more contractions was a line that I used quite frequently.
4:30 PM: The contractions are close and intense lasting more than 80 seconds and coming very frequently. Each one looks painful and it takes an extreme amount of effort on her part to get through each one. Each contraction I have to reassure her that everything is OK. She has a couple that she screams out and says she has the urge to push, I tell her to not push and it will be over soon. I see this as a sign to get the doctor. I go into the hallway and say "Kate (the doctor) I think Natalie needs to talk to you. Natalie gets examined and she is fully dilated on the left side and almost fully dilated on the right. The doctor asks Natalie to lay on her right side for the next contraction, this was described by Natalie as "horrible", but it did the trick.
The nurse and doctors get the bed set up for the pushing phase.
4:45 PM: The pushing begins! Each contraction I pull Natalie's left leg up to her chest, grab her left hand and help hold her head down to her chest while she pushes. My days of wrestling were finally paying off, the position closely resembled a cross-face cradle. She seems to be getting a little bit more time between the contractions and she is doing beautifully. Every once in awhile she belts out a scream and the doctor yells, "Natalie compose yourself" it seems to help her refocus on pushing. After a few contractions the doctors have me go down to the business end of this operation and take a look, I can see the babies head trying to make it down into the vaginal passage...I could see hair. I go back to my post and help Natalie any way I can, dab her with we wash clothes, feed her ice chips and give her positive assurances that she is doing great. I feel a little shy at first telling her things but that quickly fades and I am full blown yelling my support. Natalie later described it as rugby yelling and says that I've never yelled at her like that before. I would describe it as supportive, and stern but necessary. She continues working hard and the baby keeps on moving down. I will let her write her own account of the different feelings she was going through, but at one point the pushing contractions were quite painful and the doctor says, "Ok you are going to feel some burning feeling down there while everything begins stretching." Natalie replies, "Anything will be better than this." From what she has said to me, she was wrong, the burning was worse than the previous pains. Soon each push you can see the head come out a little further. I was beginning to worry in my head because the head only looked like it was really small. She kept pushing and all of a sudden that small head I was looking at turned into a grapefruit sized baby head. I was amazed. Natalie kept pushing, and then the doctor started to pull. The babies shoulders had gotten caught on her pelvic bone, which is called shoulder distortia. Then all of a sudden the baby was on Natalie's chest, it was amazing. There was a little more work pushing out the placenta and a little bit of cleaning up for the doctors but our baby was born at 5:36.
More later on the rest of the hospital stay.
That is my summarization of the whole process from beginning to birth. I have a new found respect for women, not just from the laboring but the whole pregnancy process. It has been amazing.
I mentioned the method we were using somewhere up above, it is called the Bradley Birthing Method and it teaches techniques to successfully have a non-medicated pregnancy. I am so happy that we were able to accomplish our goal that Natalie had proposed to me several months before. We wouldn't have made it through the delivery like we did without a lot of practice and trust on both our parts.
Go take a look at the baby pictures on flikr and here is one of Natalie and Jackson that I took 5 minutes ago:
~Jacob
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
Recent Comments
-
-
Ann said:
Oooh, I can't wait for the bag of crap results AND pictures of Baby #2!Man, it's been a long time... read more
on Joyous day! -
-
Mom On The Run said:
Awww - so adorable! PS - I've sent a friend request to you on Facebook - I'm Janice Luke-Smith read more
on Tummy Time
on Joyous day!