Puddle Jumping in DC

Meet Maya Rose

More Maya Rose, originally uploaded by Studiojmm.

Maya Rose Shute was born at home at 3:28 pm on Monday October 29, 2007. That makes her just shy of three weeks early.

We're all doing fine. The whole household is mostly working on eating, sleeping, and going to the bathroom.

On the day after she was born, we bundled up little Maya and took her to the pediatrician, who also pronounced her healthy, tiny, and beautiful.

But, we seem to have overbundled her.  A romper, a blanket, and a sling was just too much for our warm blooded baby and she was covered in tiny heat rash spots when we got her to the doctors.  The photo was taken when we returned home again. (Erin was pleased that she only lost 3 oz in the first 24 hours.)

A birth story

  Last hike as a couple  also on Flickr 

The day before Maya was born, Mac and I went on a lovely walk around the Patuxent Wildlife Reserve in Laurel, MD. We had spent much of the weekend finishing getting ready for baby.  I had cleaned the house from top to bottom for what I figured was the last time before the baby. Mac finished the co-sleeper attachment for our bed (henceforth referred to as "the sidecar"). On Sunday the 28th, we picked up the birthing tub from our birth assistant and stopped at the second-hand store for some spare sheets. Finally, we made our way to the nature reserve for some outdoor togetherness time.

We have a history of making major life decisions on long walks outdoors and have cherished hiking as an opportunity to really focus on each other -- no cell phones, no email, no other people -- and take stock of where we are and what makes us happy. On this particular walk, we inevitably found ourselves talking about how our life would change in the coming weeks and what excited or frightened us about the impending birth. We also decided that if the baby hadn't come yet, we'd find a way to fit in a walk during the following weekend as well.

Back home that evening, I found that I didn't have the energy to tackle the pie I'd been planning to make (we had a whole cooked pumpkin to deal with) and that brownies were more my speed. Mac joined me halfway through brownie making to read aloud in the kitchen and just after putting the brownies into the oven, I felt pressure, a pop, and a gush . . . my water had broken.

No More Indian Food for Jen

Sadness.

Twice now, after eating lovely, lovely Indian food, I've gotten heartburn so bad that it's gotten me up several times at night to eat Tums and drink water and add pillows to the pile so I can sleep propped up on an angle.  The angle thing does work (Tums and water are just for something to do) but it's not my favorite sleeping position.

Sadness. 

Since it's probably temporary, I think I can hold out.

Stuff

Figuring out what stuff to get for this kid is turning out to be incredibly complicated and time consuming, more so because we are trying to acquire most stuff pre-used.

The good news is that folks have been so generous that we've been given a crazy amount of stuff.  This kid can go through 3 to 4 sleepers a day and we still wouldn't have to do laundry more than once a week.  We're covered in onsies, sleepers, and other baby garments for at least 6 months.
This morning, I picked up one of these   from a woman in the neighborhood.

Tomorrow night, we are driving to Laurel to fetch a used one of these:

I just ordered a bunch of these: and these: .  And those were, by far, the most complicated.  How many? What style? What sizes?

We probably wouldn't get much use out of anything designed for 6-10 pound babies but what do we do with a 7 pound newborn until he/she fits into a 8-25 pound diaper?  I actually found a bunch of these: in newborn and small at a second hand store for $1.50 each - bought every one. In addition, the simple cloth diapers should work for newborns and I ordered a couple of newborn size covers. We''ll fill in the early gaps and overnight needs with disposables until the kid hits 8 pounds (Given that Mac was 10 pounds at birth, that could be quick.  Of course, I was only 6 pounds so I might find myself ordering a couple of newborn sizes of these: in that first week).

So, if you are still planning to buy something for the baby, what do we need?

You can't go wrong by buying us something that you really like, so if something strikes you . . .

Otherwise, we could definitely use these: or these:
(size 1) with these: or these: in small or medium (1 wrap for every 6 diapers) -- all for the 3 month to nearly 1 year old baby diapering needs.

We're also looking for one of these with a carseat adapter, but we're watching craigslist for it.

I missed feet week

You probably did too.  It's not a national holiday or even one of those official-sounding observance months that I wonder who decides about.  One of the bloggers that I read alerted me to feet week. "Cool," I thought. I've been know to take photos of feet.

But at the moment, that poses a special challenge.

Feet?, originally uploaded by Studiojmm.

It wouldn't really be accurate to say that I don't see a lot of my feet these days. 

Yoga keeps you in touch with your feet . . . even if you have to spread your legs pretty wide to reach down there. But, I do have to lean forward a bit to photograph them. 

Feet, originally uploaded by Studiojmm.

Hi, baby.  Where did you hide my feet?

P.S. Welcome to 3rd trimester insomnia.  I've got apple cranberry bread in the oven (Sorry about the smoke detector guys. I really can't figure out why it's going off since there's nothing burning that I can find.) and am writing a blog entry when I should be sleeping.

It's just a huge confidence boost

to be able to do ardha chandrasana at 7 + months pregnant.

Just so ya know.

Does This Mean We Start Shopping for Pink Stuff?

So it seems that when you are knocked off your bike by a guy opening a car door and you are four months pregnant, the ER considers an ultrasound appropriate. 

In between checking that the placenta looked good (it did) and that there was no sign of fetal distress (there wasn't), the physician did a quick gender check. She stressed that she's a physician, not an ultrasound technician, but she seemed pretty sure she had a clear shot and was looking at a girl.

The womb is a pretty darn protective place to hang out if you are a fetus and the kid's obviously happy in there. The biggest obstacle to determining gender was that she kept moving around, something she's been noticeably doing for more than a week now.

We're going to do a follow up ultrasound in a couple of weeks but we don't expect any lasting effects of yesterday's little incident. I've got some scrapes and a doozy of a bruise on my arm where the car door hit me.  And, we've got a bunch of new paperwork to fill out. While the handle bar lost some paint, even the bike seems fine. 

Mac's most pressing question: Do we have to do the pink thing?

Getting Ready for Baby: The First Floor Disaster Edition

Mac and I aren't the type to spend a lot of time decorating a nursery.  I don't anticipate developing a decor theme and matching all the bedding to it or stenciling bunnies or alphabet letters on the walls - good or bad, it's just not us. We painted the kid's room green back before we got pregnant and that's just the color it will be until he* is old enough to have an opinion on the subject.

What we are working on is the first floor.  The floor boards have been needing refinishing for a while.  Finally, realizing we may be facing a child who never learns to crawl (let alone walk) because of the splinters in her knees, we decided that now is the time. 

While we we're at it, wouldn't this be a good time to remove the radiator and tackle the holes that must be back there since that's where the mice always seem to come from?  And . . .  since we were going to have to move all the furniture out of the rooms to do the floors . . . we may as well do the patch job to the old plaster that we didn't have time (or skills) for when we first moved in, right?  (I've commented before about how these projects escalate.)

Consequently, Mac spent the last week pulling up the floor under the radiator and patching gaps in the brickwork between ours and the neighbor's house.  Then we spent the weekend alternating between me working on the walls and him working on the floor (right - all with very low to zero VOC paints and finishes).  By the end of the week, we may get to move furniture back in here and it will look almost exactly like it did before only smoother and shinier (ah, homeownership).

As for the rest of the baby update: everything appears to be as it should be. I probably won't get around to posting the second sonogram image taken at 11 weeks.  Not much more is revealed to anyone who is not a sonogram technician but it did confirm that the kid was the proper size for his age (5.3 cm), had the right number of limbs, and generally looked fine. Of course, by now (16 weeks), the kid is more than twice that size.

*We don't actually know the gender and may not before the birth so disregard any pronouns unless additional news is posted.

Week 14

I'm not doing so well on the right-it-all-down directive.

In the past week, my waist seems to have disappeared.  And, Bug has decided that my belly now sticks out just enough to make it worth sitting on.  I almost got a picture of that.

Someone Else's Portrait

  ? Shute - 8 Weeks 
  Originally uploaded by Studiojmm.

Had a runny nose for the last six or seven weeks?  Monstrously gassy and bloated? Queasy at unpredictable moments? Growing out of all your pants?  You too could be ten weeks pregnant. 

Actually, both the gassy and queasy are better than they were two weeks ago, but the runny nose I can't explain - except that it is an official pregnancy symptom (though I suppose not if it stands alone).

Everyone keeps saying "Write it all down so you'll remember."  Well, here we go.

? Shute was conceived (some undetermined time) after a conversation in mid-February that went kind of like this:

"You know, we planned to stop using birth control about now."

"Oh."

"Wanna skip it."

"Whoa . . . Ok."