Thursday, November 29, 2007

Poll and Sleep

It looks like Stephanie is taking the resemblance poll in a landslide. I can't say I disagree, I voted for Stephanie myself!

While the nights are still difficult, we're becoming a little more aware of his cues, so we better understand the causes of his discomfort. So far we've learned:
  1. he doesn't like to stay in the same diaper over night. No matter how convenient that would be for his parents and no matter how absorbent his little diapers are, its non-negotiable - frequent changes are mandatory. Now, if I wore diapers, I would think that not having to get out of bed to change would be a key advantage - Holden hasn't come around to this line of thinking... yet
  2. the cluster feeding thing late at night is quite common. My brother, who apparently moonlights as a lactation consultant, very convincingly explained the mechanism by which breast milk fluctuates creating the conditions for night time cluster feeding.
  3. Digestive problems after cluster feeding are quite common. Apparently most babies handle this discomfort better on their tummies, but that is a SIDS risk. Last night, I tried out a new method - laying him face down on my belly, where he could sleep on his tummy without risk of suffocation. It worked like a charm... hopefully it wasn't just a one shot lucky deal.
  4. Dads have it easy. While we can roll over and go to sleep once the feeding starts, Mommies have the truly difficult tasks

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

1 week and counting!


Its been a week and I barely remember what life was like before little Holden arrived. After 7 days of having our lives revolve around him and his whims, I still stare at him in awe and find it hard to believe he's real.

While he was initially an angel and still is during the day, he turns into a little (cover your eyes , Dad) fucker come 10PM. I don't know about the 10PM part, but I'm pretty sure the fucker comes from me. He has decided that 10PM-4AM is primetime for cluster feeding, cluster shitting and vocal calesthenics. Although, as difficult as it can be to suffer sleep deprivation, its pure joy when you wake up to an image like the one above.

Our lives have been consumed with talk of breasts, shit and piss... pretty much status quo for me, so I've adapted well.

We moved into the cloth diapers today for the first time and so far so good.

We want to sincerely thank all our amazing family and friends who have been unbelievably supportive with their time, cooking and care packages. We really are lucky to have such incredible family and friends.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Photos!

Isn't he adorable!? Props to Laura for the killer outfit.









New Photos coming soon

Barry was kind enough to lend us his really nice camera, so more photos are coming real soon, by popular demand. Stay tuned.

Friday, November 23, 2007

HELLO WORLD!!!























Holden Smith Davis Churchill
was born on November 19th @11:35 PM 7lbs 12 ounces and 52 cms long.

He is a beautiful and healthy baby boy. We've been staring at him in awe for 3 days straight now.. While he's been an absolute dream since coming out, he didn't make it easy on his Mommy during labour. He was a posterior baby and that made his Mommy's labour very difficult - 26 hours! After 26 hours of labour and 3 days of no sleep and Holden resisting every effort to turn him, our midwife had to transfer care to hospital staff for a c-section. The c-section went very smoothly and both Mom and Holden are very healthy and happy.

I want to say how incredibly proud I am of Stephanie. She really rose to the occasion and worked so very hard, going above and beyond everything the midwife, nurses and doctors asked of her. She was far tougher than I could have been in that situation and I really admire her. Holden is lucky to have such an amazing Mommy.

Because of the unexpected c-section, we were at the hospital a little longer than expected. We returned home Thursday night and introduced Holden to his home.... and convince ourselves that this all really happened. Wow, what a surreal experience!













































And here's a video!

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Little update #2

Well, it's now 9pm. My water broke at around 8pm!! No contractions, so we're hoping to get some sleep in tonight. Probably won't be posting again until the baby is here, unless it's slow going.

Wish me luck!

Little update

Just a little update to let you all know I'm not in labor and haven't had a baby yet.

John and I have been having a nice weekend so far. Saturday we slept in and lazed around in bed for a couple of hours. Figured we should do it now while we still can!! Then we went for a nice walk around our neighborhood, and John organized the basement quite a bit, which made me very happy.

Today will be a bit of cleaning, and we'll be putting up the Christmas tree!

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Nov. 14, due date #1

If you go by my midwife, today is my due date! Still no baby. Not even a hint. But if you go by MY due date, I'm still 8 days away.

Today I washed some cloth diapers! Sooooooo cute. And very weird that I now get excited by cloth diapers. I'm sure that will fade quickly once they're filled with poop.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Bonne fête, maman!

Today is my mom's birthday! I hope you have a great day, maman!! Here are 2 recent pics of me and my mom:

Friday, November 9, 2007

39 weeks!

So we're now at 39 weeks. No signs of labor yet, but I'm LOVING my time off before little baby shows up, so I'm not stressing about it.

Here's what he looks like now:
http://www.babycenter.ca/pregnancy/fetaldevelopment/39weeks/

That pretty much looks like a fully developed baby!!

Personally, I still think my original due date of Nov 22 is more accurate than my due date that my midwife is going by (which is Nov 14 and makes me 39 weeks pregnant). A Nov 22 due date makes me 38 weeks pregnant, so don't be surprised if I go another 3 weeks without a baby!!

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Les tantes de la fesse gauche?!

Last weekend was a really nice weekend. My mom came to visit with two of her oldest friends, Pierrette and Ghislaine. I’ve known both of them most of my life and don’t remember a time when they weren’t my mom’s friends. Those are some looong friendships! So, my mom calls them “mes tantes de la fesse gauche”, which literally translated means aunts of my left butt cheek. French people are so weird *haha*. Loosely translated, it means honorary aunts.

Everyone got a kick out of my huge belly, and Pierrette let me know I’m still carrying too high to be going into labor soon. That’s a relief, I want another week off before he comes! As an aside, at my midwife apt on Monday, she let me know that Holden is now fully engaged so I guess he has dropped now and is ready to go. I’ve had no early labor signs though, so I’m taking it easy!

Back to the weekend… John made a FABULOUS dinner and impressed everyone. He’s truly an amazing cook! We started with a nice cream of leek & zucchini soup (which I made) and then John made BBQ steak with a potatoes & sweet potatoes dish, sautéed mushrooms, green beans, and crispy fried onions. It was amazing and his presentation was great. My mom brought desert, homemade apple pie (YUMMM!), cupcakes, and a fruit crisp. We STILL have leftovers!!

It was really fun, and went by much too fast.

Friday, November 2, 2007

LOLcat of the day

This is funny because I say this OFTEN *hehe*

Thursday, November 1, 2007

WOOHOO!!!!!!!!

Guess who's on maternity leave RIGHT NOW! ME!!!! Yippeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!