...is what I thought on Tuesday morning as Mike headed to his new job and Ivy and I were faced with the realization of what the next 10 weeks would be like.
Staying home with a person who is pre-verbal is hard. Not to mention the lack of the extra pair of hands (Mike's). I realized how many things you CAN'T do while holding a baby...everything from eating a bowl of cereal to washing your hands. Showering and doing laundry are out of the question. But at least I can one-hand type on my laptop with Ivy cradled in the other arm. Because gd forbid I didn't get a chance to update my Facebook status.
We survived day 1 okay, but day 2 (yesterday) was a whole other story. I had a major meltdown in the afternoon, and it would have been the second of the day if Stephanie hadn't shown up earlier, impeccably timed to prevent what would have been the first one. I spent about six hours of my day, the last two of which I was also juggling a fussy baby, on the phone trying to fix our downed internet. It was a classic situation of Verizon tells me it's not the DSL so I need to call Belkin (the wireless router people), and they of course tell me they can't fix it blah blah blah giving me wrong information and to call back Verizon. We play this game for hours, and I'm on the verge of tears. Then at one point I actually hang up on the guy and just start bawling. It was not pretty. At least Ivy was asleep for most of this show.
In the end, the internet was fixed, I took Ivy on a walk to Starbucks and when Mike came home I left her in his arms and made a mad dash for Target. We did need a couple things, but I really just needed to get out by myself and where better than to find soothing retail therapy than Target? A two-story one no less!
So yup, that's my life these days. This week is my getting adjusted grace period. Next week, I plan to be more productive and active...we shall see!
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Two Weeks Notice
Ivy is two weeks old today...I can't decide if it feels like 2 hours or 2 lifetimes. Being super-preggers seems like years ago, but I feel like we just came home from the hospital. It's amazing how time loses all definition when the days and nights blend together, and the daily/nightly rhythm is punctuated by feedings and diaper changes, not to mention the cabin fever of laying low at home. It's been great, but we're definitely getting more aggressive at getting out. Our sanity depends on it.
So let's see...Mike's description of labor and the birth was more or less accurate. If you want to talk about a mind-f**k when it comes to time, let's talk about 28 hours of labor, which really meant being awake for nearly 72 hours. I woke up normally on Thursday morning and didn't really go to bed until Saturday night, with a couple brief catnaps interspersed (post epidural and then when I was moved to my recovery room). Oh yeah, and somewhere in there I pushed out a 9 pound kid. No sweat. So now here we sit 2 weeks later, reflecting on our accomplishment of keeping Ivy alive for 14 days strong.
First week at home was relaxing...once all the family left, we were left to our own devices and had to figure out this new lifestyle of ours. I have to say, it's really not at all what I expected but in a good way. Ivy is a great sleeper (although I hear this is common for the first couple weeks, and every parent thinks their kid is going to be sleeping through the night any day now), and I've actually had to wake her to feed her. Hopefully once she's back to her extraordinary birth weight and we know she's gaining steadily, we can be back to feeding on her demand, not that of my breasts. That's the other thing - modesty has become a virtually nonexistent concept, as I imagine is the case for most women who give birth and breastfeed. It was not uncommon to hear me talking about my cervix with friends before she was born, or about latching and nipple leakage recently. My friend's 10 year old daughter was a little creeped out by this, but strangely fascinated at the same time. I feel the same way, frankly.
Anyway, back to the sleeping - I'm sure Ivy has a long road ahead of her before I can ever dream of an 8-hour night's sleep again, but it really isn't that bad. I feed her before we go to bed around midnight (though it is hard to stay up that late most nights), she eats again around 3:00 or 4:00, and then again around 6:00 or 7:00...after which we usually go back to sleep again. And since I'm responsible for input, Mike takes care of the output so the division of middle of the night labor is quite reasonable.
And as far as the days are concerned, it's been so wonderful being at home with her and Mike. After a couple days we ventured out for a walk in the neighborhood, which we now try to do every day or so. We've been playing a lot with photos of her, and trying to stay in touch with everyone. And we take naps, which are awesome, especially when Ivy is passed out on our chests. She's been such a great baby, and we love staring into her eyes and talking to her and being goofy with her. We call her our little Chicken Wing because of the way she keeps her legs tucked up sometimes, reminiscent of her time in the womb. And last night we ventured out to IKAR for the first time...she screamed the whole way there, though if she's already hot and bothered by LA traffic now, we better start saving for therapy so she can deal with her road rage 16 years down the road.
Here are a couple pictures to enjoy:
Poker loves the new chair...he keeps it warm when we're not using it.
First walk in Brentwood!
Hanging out with Grandpa Harvey
Chillin' with Dad
Ivy receives her name at her Simhat Bat
The Silversteins
The Rogoffs
Kim and Zuzana, with Ivy and Abby respectively...we're already gearing up for the first sleepover!
My personal fave...our little rock star!
Friday, June 13, 2008
First week - pictures!
Here she is, our precious daughter's first few days...there will be more when we have time to upload!
Hi Dad!
First bath!
Snuggle time!
Chillin' in the hospital...(notice Mommy got to take a shower)
So sleepy
Grandma Linda
Getting ready to leave!
I'm home!
Hanging out with Dad
Uncle Mark
More coming soon!
Fresh out of the oven! Come to Mommy...
Hi Dad!
First bath!
Snuggle time!
Chillin' in the hospital...(notice Mommy got to take a shower)
So sleepy
Grandma Linda
Getting ready to leave!
I'm home!
Hanging out with Dad
Uncle Mark
More coming soon!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
The run-down
For those of you who haven't heard these stories yet, this is the run-down of how our beautiful daughter came into the world.
Thurs 6/5 9 pm - Kim and I sit down to watch a movie (MY KID COULD PAINT THAT). Neither of us slept well the night before so we figured we'd watch the movie and go to sleep early.
10 pm - We give up on the movie, not because it was bad, but because we were tired. We settle in to go to sleep.
10:30 pm - Apparently the old saying "man plans and Gd laughs" carries some weight, as our planned night of catch-up sleep turned into a labor night. Great.
Fri 6/6 3:15 am - After laboring for a while, the contractions were coming close enough together that we decided to go to the hospital. Since Kim was 41 weeks anyway, there was little doubt they would tell us to go home.
3:45 am - We're checked into the hospital in a Labor and Delivery room. Nice, but not the Julia Roberts suite with the gourmet meals etc. (Ironically, both Jessica Alba and Tori Spelling gave birth at Cedars this weekend, but we never saw them. We did see lots of paparazzi though. Our nurse Dionne later told us that the paparazzi were heckling her and trying to get her to tell them where the celebs were, and she responded by saying "I don't know where they are and if I did, I wouldn't tell you cause I'd lose my job." However, she actually did know where the celebs were; they had already gone home, and the paparazzi were wasting their time at the hospital! Moral of the story: LA is a funny place to live in). Kim continues to labor (3.5ish cm dilated); I try not to fall asleep.
8:15 am - The doctors break Kim's water in order to help the labor along, as she has been hovering around 4 cm for 4 hours. No gush though, as I was hoping.
10:30 am - The pain is too great and so Kim decides to get a drug called Fentenol (might be spelled differently) to help. Plus she is still at 4 cm and the drug might help things along. I continue to try to be supportive and not fall asleep, which is actually not difficult to do when your wife is screaming and you're in an uncomfortable chair.
11:45 am - The Fentenol basically does nothing so Kim gets an epidural. The epidural was probably the worst part of the whole labor experience because the anesthesiologist was a complete asshole. Now as the son of an anesthesiologist, I know a great many of their ilk, and think of anesthesiologists as affable fellows who enjoy ski trips, pool parties, the Super Bowl, joking about being "gas passers," and following the sex lives of their pets (though sometimes that can lead to great tragedy, like in the "Rape of Peaches" episode). This guy though, he walks into the room and immediately starts yelling at everyone including the nurses. Phones are ringing off the hook, he's yelling, food services are coming in every five seconds, meanwhile Kim is in intense intense labor, and they won't let me do anything (even turning off phones) because they need the room to be completely sterile (and I apparently am unclean). It was a very difficult 15 minutes, but once it was over Kim's pain was almost entirely eliminated, and we never saw the jerk again.
3:30 pm - More labor. 6.5 cm. Kim gets a fever, which is not uncommon in labor; I take a nap.
7ish pm - The labor has been going on for a long time now, and if it continues without much progress, we might need a C section. Kim desperately does not want a C section so this is a tough time. They give Kim a drug called Pitocin which is supposed to move the labor along. We hope that it does the trick so that we can avoid surgery.
10 pm - The Pitocin works! Kim is now at 9 cm, which is close enough to the magic number of 10 for them to rule out a C section. We're going vag, baby!
Sat 6/7 12 am - Kim starts to push. Now before this all started, I was planning on holding Kim's hand when she pushed out the baby but not look down there at all, as it's kinda nasty. But that all changed when I met Sameer, the UCLA med student who was helping out with the delivery. This dude (who was our age, if not younger) got me all fired up for the pushing. I grabbed one of Kim's legs, he grabbed the other, and we coached her through the contractions and pushes. It was kinda awesome; I felt like I was coaching an Olympic weightlifter, or at least a champion eater. After every good push I had the strong desire to chest-bump Sameer like we had just combined on a sack. It got to the point where I couldn't wait for the contraction to come because I wanted to get into it. To put it midly, I was fired up, and ready to go. (YES I CAN!).
1:30 am - Dr. Tsui shows up for the home stretch. The baby's little head starts peeking out and, seeing its curly black hair, I immediately deduce that a) it's my kid and b) it's a boy.
2:34 am - Kim has the baby, which of course is a girl (so much for my deductive reasoning). It was kinda gross as I expected, but also pretty cool; I mean, Kim had a human head sticking out of her hey-hole, and there was all this rad-colored fluid coming out as well. They clean the baby up and we get to hold her and see how perfect she is. And thus, the beginning of the rest of my life...
- Proud Papa
Thurs 6/5 9 pm - Kim and I sit down to watch a movie (MY KID COULD PAINT THAT). Neither of us slept well the night before so we figured we'd watch the movie and go to sleep early.
10 pm - We give up on the movie, not because it was bad, but because we were tired. We settle in to go to sleep.
10:30 pm - Apparently the old saying "man plans and Gd laughs" carries some weight, as our planned night of catch-up sleep turned into a labor night. Great.
Fri 6/6 3:15 am - After laboring for a while, the contractions were coming close enough together that we decided to go to the hospital. Since Kim was 41 weeks anyway, there was little doubt they would tell us to go home.
3:45 am - We're checked into the hospital in a Labor and Delivery room. Nice, but not the Julia Roberts suite with the gourmet meals etc. (Ironically, both Jessica Alba and Tori Spelling gave birth at Cedars this weekend, but we never saw them. We did see lots of paparazzi though. Our nurse Dionne later told us that the paparazzi were heckling her and trying to get her to tell them where the celebs were, and she responded by saying "I don't know where they are and if I did, I wouldn't tell you cause I'd lose my job." However, she actually did know where the celebs were; they had already gone home, and the paparazzi were wasting their time at the hospital! Moral of the story: LA is a funny place to live in). Kim continues to labor (3.5ish cm dilated); I try not to fall asleep.
8:15 am - The doctors break Kim's water in order to help the labor along, as she has been hovering around 4 cm for 4 hours. No gush though, as I was hoping.
10:30 am - The pain is too great and so Kim decides to get a drug called Fentenol (might be spelled differently) to help. Plus she is still at 4 cm and the drug might help things along. I continue to try to be supportive and not fall asleep, which is actually not difficult to do when your wife is screaming and you're in an uncomfortable chair.
11:45 am - The Fentenol basically does nothing so Kim gets an epidural. The epidural was probably the worst part of the whole labor experience because the anesthesiologist was a complete asshole. Now as the son of an anesthesiologist, I know a great many of their ilk, and think of anesthesiologists as affable fellows who enjoy ski trips, pool parties, the Super Bowl, joking about being "gas passers," and following the sex lives of their pets (though sometimes that can lead to great tragedy, like in the "Rape of Peaches" episode). This guy though, he walks into the room and immediately starts yelling at everyone including the nurses. Phones are ringing off the hook, he's yelling, food services are coming in every five seconds, meanwhile Kim is in intense intense labor, and they won't let me do anything (even turning off phones) because they need the room to be completely sterile (and I apparently am unclean). It was a very difficult 15 minutes, but once it was over Kim's pain was almost entirely eliminated, and we never saw the jerk again.
3:30 pm - More labor. 6.5 cm. Kim gets a fever, which is not uncommon in labor; I take a nap.
7ish pm - The labor has been going on for a long time now, and if it continues without much progress, we might need a C section. Kim desperately does not want a C section so this is a tough time. They give Kim a drug called Pitocin which is supposed to move the labor along. We hope that it does the trick so that we can avoid surgery.
10 pm - The Pitocin works! Kim is now at 9 cm, which is close enough to the magic number of 10 for them to rule out a C section. We're going vag, baby!
Sat 6/7 12 am - Kim starts to push. Now before this all started, I was planning on holding Kim's hand when she pushed out the baby but not look down there at all, as it's kinda nasty. But that all changed when I met Sameer, the UCLA med student who was helping out with the delivery. This dude (who was our age, if not younger) got me all fired up for the pushing. I grabbed one of Kim's legs, he grabbed the other, and we coached her through the contractions and pushes. It was kinda awesome; I felt like I was coaching an Olympic weightlifter, or at least a champion eater. After every good push I had the strong desire to chest-bump Sameer like we had just combined on a sack. It got to the point where I couldn't wait for the contraction to come because I wanted to get into it. To put it midly, I was fired up, and ready to go. (YES I CAN!).
1:30 am - Dr. Tsui shows up for the home stretch. The baby's little head starts peeking out and, seeing its curly black hair, I immediately deduce that a) it's my kid and b) it's a boy.
2:34 am - Kim has the baby, which of course is a girl (so much for my deductive reasoning). It was kinda gross as I expected, but also pretty cool; I mean, Kim had a human head sticking out of her hey-hole, and there was all this rad-colored fluid coming out as well. They clean the baby up and we get to hold her and see how perfect she is. And thus, the beginning of the rest of my life...
- Proud Papa
Saturday, June 7, 2008
She's here!
Super Baby blessed us with her presence this morning - June 7, 2008 - at 2:34am. More details to come!
Monday, June 2, 2008
The call
Have you gotten "the call" yet? No? That means we didn't have the baby. I'll be emailing or on the phone with good friends and relatives, and they'll say to me mid-conversation "So, no baby yet?" This flabbergasts me. Did they think that we would have the baby and not tell anyone? The baby isn't a secret; we are not having it in an underground bunker. Trust me, when the baby comes, you will get a call. If you know us well enough to know about this blog and be reading it, chances are you will either get a personal call or email, or someone else will call or email you the news before we can get a chance to personally call you. So don't call us to ask if the baby's come yet; we'll let you know when it comes.
I think personally it's an ego thing. Do you not think you're important enough to find out first or second-hand about the arrival of Baby Silv? Do you think we don't value your friendship highly enough to warrant a call or email with such important news? Maybe you should spend some time thinking not about what other people think of you, but about what you think of you. Do you believe you're not a good enough person to deserve to hear the news of our Superbaby, which no doubt will be awesome? What makes you think that? Were you not hugged enough as a child? Maybe you should have a little "you time," and try to figure out what makes you you, and why that's so special, before you start bothering us with your inane phone calls. Fucker.
The other thing I'm mad about this week (these blog posts are very cathartic) is people telling us to have sex. Yes, we all know that sex is a good way to induce labor. And trust me, we're trying all the different ways we know of to induce the labor. But having people tell us to have sex is a little... icky. Especially people I'm acquaintances with and don't really know that well. When a 50 year old yenta type says to me, "The two of you should really have some sex if you want to get the baby out. When I was 9 months pregnant with Jenna, Ron and I had sex all night every night in every position imaginable and some I didn't know about until I found this Taiwanese love manual in the local library, and the next day our little angel was born," and then winks at me, I throw up a little bit in my mouth. That's just gross, lady. So can it.
Other than that, everything's fantastic. We'll let you know when the baby comes, so no need to make a special call... - Big Papi
I think personally it's an ego thing. Do you not think you're important enough to find out first or second-hand about the arrival of Baby Silv? Do you think we don't value your friendship highly enough to warrant a call or email with such important news? Maybe you should spend some time thinking not about what other people think of you, but about what you think of you. Do you believe you're not a good enough person to deserve to hear the news of our Superbaby, which no doubt will be awesome? What makes you think that? Were you not hugged enough as a child? Maybe you should have a little "you time," and try to figure out what makes you you, and why that's so special, before you start bothering us with your inane phone calls. Fucker.
The other thing I'm mad about this week (these blog posts are very cathartic) is people telling us to have sex. Yes, we all know that sex is a good way to induce labor. And trust me, we're trying all the different ways we know of to induce the labor. But having people tell us to have sex is a little... icky. Especially people I'm acquaintances with and don't really know that well. When a 50 year old yenta type says to me, "The two of you should really have some sex if you want to get the baby out. When I was 9 months pregnant with Jenna, Ron and I had sex all night every night in every position imaginable and some I didn't know about until I found this Taiwanese love manual in the local library, and the next day our little angel was born," and then winks at me, I throw up a little bit in my mouth. That's just gross, lady. So can it.
Other than that, everything's fantastic. We'll let you know when the baby comes, so no need to make a special call... - Big Papi
Sunday, June 1, 2008
"There are 364 days until your child's birthday!"
Yeah, not so much. That's what the Nest Baby said to me when I signed on this morning. Apparently they didn't get the memo that my child was not in fact born yesterday.
So May 31, the big day emblazoned in our minds for the last nine months, came and went. We went to services, as usual. Came home for a little nap, as usual. Took a big walk, as usual. (Stopped at Starbucks to get some water where I completely dumbfounded the baristas when they asked me when I was due and I said "Today.") Bid farewell to Mike's parents. Went to dinner, then a friend's birthday party. Home and in bed at midnight. Just another Saturday. No baby.
What the heck??!! I had envisioned myself at Cedars, with the TV tuned to CNN watching the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the DNC battle it out over Michigan and Florida...but the way it stands now, I'll actually get go to cast my June 3 ballot in person as opposed to the mail. (No on 98, Yes on 99 - save rent control!) I haven't had contractions in almost 2 weeks, so I'm no further progressed...we go back to the doctor on Thursday for another check and an ultrasound, and the dreaded discussion of induction. I'm really hoping we don't have to go to that appointment! (Also in the interest of an AJU rabbinic student, who shall remain unnamed, who needs to observe a life cycle event before June 11.)
We did our first load of baby laundry this morning so we have a few onesies and blankets ready. And Mike's mom crocheted us a BEAUTIFUL blanket that we can't wait to use, so slowly but surely baby things are creeping into the apartment. Shawn and Zuzana are coming over to check out our baby gear - make sure the Pack and Play is properly assembled (Abby seems to be holding up fine in hers, so we trust them!), and help us with the stupid car seat base considering we can't find a single public service department in the county willing to inspect it and ensure the safety of our new infant. Nothing like LA's finest police officers and firefighters passing the buck - "Oh yeah, you should go the fire department"...(go to the fire department)..."No, you need to go to the POLICE department"...(go to the police)..."No, you need to call the CHP"...(call CHP)..."Yeah, we're booked until July. Why don't you make an appointment then?"
Well, I guess that's it - no news is, well, no news. Here are some pictures to enjoy in the meantime:
The official "9 months picture" - could I get any bigger?! 4 year olds are asking me why the baby is still in there...that's a damn good question.
Poker has taken to guarding the Pack and Play - he likes to sleep next to it every night now.
Grandma Boston Linda with the quilt...10+ years in the making!
So May 31, the big day emblazoned in our minds for the last nine months, came and went. We went to services, as usual. Came home for a little nap, as usual. Took a big walk, as usual. (Stopped at Starbucks to get some water where I completely dumbfounded the baristas when they asked me when I was due and I said "Today.") Bid farewell to Mike's parents. Went to dinner, then a friend's birthday party. Home and in bed at midnight. Just another Saturday. No baby.
What the heck??!! I had envisioned myself at Cedars, with the TV tuned to CNN watching the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the DNC battle it out over Michigan and Florida...but the way it stands now, I'll actually get go to cast my June 3 ballot in person as opposed to the mail. (No on 98, Yes on 99 - save rent control!) I haven't had contractions in almost 2 weeks, so I'm no further progressed...we go back to the doctor on Thursday for another check and an ultrasound, and the dreaded discussion of induction. I'm really hoping we don't have to go to that appointment! (Also in the interest of an AJU rabbinic student, who shall remain unnamed, who needs to observe a life cycle event before June 11.)
We did our first load of baby laundry this morning so we have a few onesies and blankets ready. And Mike's mom crocheted us a BEAUTIFUL blanket that we can't wait to use, so slowly but surely baby things are creeping into the apartment. Shawn and Zuzana are coming over to check out our baby gear - make sure the Pack and Play is properly assembled (Abby seems to be holding up fine in hers, so we trust them!), and help us with the stupid car seat base considering we can't find a single public service department in the county willing to inspect it and ensure the safety of our new infant. Nothing like LA's finest police officers and firefighters passing the buck - "Oh yeah, you should go the fire department"...(go to the fire department)..."No, you need to go to the POLICE department"...(go to the police)..."No, you need to call the CHP"...(call CHP)..."Yeah, we're booked until July. Why don't you make an appointment then?"
Well, I guess that's it - no news is, well, no news. Here are some pictures to enjoy in the meantime:
The official "9 months picture" - could I get any bigger?! 4 year olds are asking me why the baby is still in there...that's a damn good question.
Poker has taken to guarding the Pack and Play - he likes to sleep next to it every night now.
Grandma Boston Linda with the quilt...10+ years in the making!(Testing testing - Google alert!!! "Rabbi Sharon Brous" Just seeing if you're paying attention...)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
