Growing Graham: 2 weeks old

Graham is a lot of fun to have around. 

Here are some of my favorite quirks about him so far:

• He yawns and sneezes a LOT. And it's so adorable! 

• He loves his hands. He always has them by his face, is always sucking on them, grabbing his ears, opening and closing his fists, etc. He hates having them swaddled in with the rest of him, so we wrap him from the armpits down. He's still discovering those busy little hands, and the other day he grabbed his cheek with his right hand, and looked right at me with this expression that said, "Oh my gosh!! WHAT IS THAT?!! What is THAT grabbing MY FACE?!" I cracked up. Those little hands look a lot like my Grandpa Tweedie's.

• When he's feeling really relaxed and content, he'll have one eye closed and the other open. He does this a lot while I'm nursing him, and he'll sit there staring at me with one eye the entire time. It's mildly creepy and really funny. I call him "Popeye" when he does it.

• When Graham wants to sleep, he sleeps and there's nothing anyone can do about it. He gets it from his Daddy. If he wants to fall asleep while I'm feeding him, he will and I can't keep him awake for anything. No amount of cold hands, moving him around, burping him, talking to him, or anything will wake him up if he decides he's tired and wants to sleep. Of course, when this happens at night, as soon as we lay him down in his Moses basket to sleep, he wakes up and wants more attention. 

• While he's sleeping, he has an excellent startle reflex. It's also hilarious! If you touch him at all when he's sleeping, he throws his arms and hands wildly in the air and shakes them for a couple of seconds before suddenly dropping them to his sides. We call these Graham's "dramatic hands," and we laugh every time he demonstrates them. Some are more dramatic than others. This is a video of some of his not-so-dramatic Dramatic Hands.

• Another thing he does while he's sleeping is makes faces--lots and lots of expressions and sounds to accompany them! He smiles and laughs in his sleep. He gets angry in his sleep. He growls in his sleep. He gets confused in his sleep.The other day he heard another baby cry while he was sleeping and made an expression like he was also about to cry in his sleep. 

• He spreads his toes like I do, but his feet are shaped like Bob's.

• His face shape looks more and more like my own Dad's every day.

• He has a raspy, gentle cry that isn't too loud [yet]. He also only cries when he's hungry, has a dirty diaper, or is trying really hard to fill his diaper. 

• When we try to burp him, he hates it. I know this because he fights me every time I do it. I'll sit him upright on my lap, put my right fingers under his jaw and my palm against his chest, and then pat him firmly on the back with my left hand. Every time, he either goes to sleep and won't burp, or he'll arch his back, support his own head and look up so I can't hold him like that. Sometimes he'll turn his head to look at me, which again defeats the purpose. It's frustrating, but cracks me up at the same time.

• He doesn't like baths... yet. Probably because we're still waiting on his umbilical cord to fall off so we can do more than sponge him down with warm water that cools off really fast and makes his skin cold.

We sure love having baby Graham around! We love to watch him learn about himself and his surroundings! I'm so excited to see what else he learns to do as he grows.

Jams & Butters

My mom is a doer. She goes on vacation and works. But she makes it fun. That's a skill I need to better develop.

Now, I know she came out here to help me with having a baby, not to go on vacation. But even then, she cleaned and cooked and cleaned some more everyday that she was here. And I don't even live in my own house! My sweet mother cleaned and organized my mother-in-law's house for her as far as she was allowed to (and even when she wasn't allowed to). She's such an angel of a woman. No wonder my Dad chased after her and didn't take no for an answer years ago when he was first trying to date her! What an incredible lady.

So, along with all of the cooking and cleaning she did, I told her that I wanted to make strawberry freezer jam and apple butter while she was here. So we did!

I have these memories from my childhood of my mother once or twice a year making enough strawberry freezer jam to fill nearly half of our big freezer in the garage. Then for dinner most nights, she'd make southern biscuits from scratch to accompany the meal. All of us, especially us kids, would load that jam up on them and just binge eat dozens of biscuits that way. My brother Ben taught me to cut them in half, dig out the inside of the biscuit, and then fill it in with extra jam. We'd have to eat those in one bite or the jam would spill everywhere. Truth be told, we still eat them that way, even as adults with kids of our own. I'm pretty sure that will never change!

So my Mom and I made strawberry freezer jam the evening of April 5th, and later that night I went into labor and delivered Graham the following night. I've heard several women say that they did the same thing and then shortly thereafter they went into labor too. Funny how canning and making jam will do that. 

We found a bunch of miscellaneous jars  and spray painted the lids red. 

Beautiful strawberries in beautiful Southern California.

strawberries, sugar, and sure-gel

My mom's wonderfully care-worn hands.

Made of pure deliciousness.

Ten days after having Graham, my Mom and I made apple butter. But we took a shortcut and made it the easy way. Instead of buying loads of apples and taking hours to peel them and make them into sauce, we just bought a bunch of cheap apple sauce, added the sugar and spices, then cooked it down for a few hours until it was done. And it is SO good! 

I don't look half bad 10 days after having a baby!

Smells like magic and Christmas!

Letting the lids seal.

Apple Butter perfection.

Thanks, Mom, for all of your help, for all of the meals you prepared and left in the freezer for us, and for your wonderful company that I can never seem to get enough of! I sure wish you lived closer or could come and visit more often, but I'll definitely take every phone call and email that you and Dad you have to offer. I miss you already!

I know, it's really not the best photo of my Mom, but give her a break--she was up late every night with us while she was here. 

Grandmas are the BEST to snuggle with!

Instagram, Candy Gram, Baby Graham!

*Please note, this is a very long and detailed post about the delivery of my first baby. Be ready for too much information on occasion and lots of details!*

Here I was at 39 weeks pregnant.

April 6th, 2012
3:30am
I woke up to the same excruciating pain that I'd had two days earlier from the baby putting pressure on my femoral nerve. It was in my right leg and groin area, and radiated pain everywhere in my abdomen. I was laying on my left side though, something my doctor told me to do to try and let gravity ease the baby off of that nerve. What was I supposed to do when the thing that is supposed to relieve that pain seems to be causing it?


4:30am
Still awake. And still in pain. It seems like it's getting worse... or... Is that a contraction? I can't even tell if it is or not because everything from my ribs to my right knee hurts so badly. I can't tell if it's starting or ending. My back hurts too. Is that back-labor? Or have I just been laying in this position for way too long? I'm not sure how much longer I can just stay like this. I want to wake up Bob, but I want to let the poor guy sleep. He needs sleep more than I do to function...


5:30am
"Bob.... Bob.. Bob, I need you to wake up."
He woke up surprisingly easily.
I told him my predicament. "I don't know what to do," I whimpered.
We decided to call the on-call doctor. He told us just to come on in since I was 2 days past 40 weeks. We loaded up the last minute things we needed, woke up my mom, and she came with us to the hospital.


7:00am
Both tiny evaluation rooms were occupied when we arrived, so the nurse went ahead and put us in a labor and delivery room, saying that she was being optimistic that we'd just be able to stay in there. My contractions were pretty regular. The baby's heartbeat was strong. I was dilated to 4 centimeters, and still only about 80% effaced, the same as the week before. I was worried they were going to have me go back home. I was getting myself all prepared to go back and lay around in pain all day, again, like last week when I tried going in.

Then a nurse came in and just started talking about all kinds of things. I was confused and stopped her for a moment, asking, "So wait, are you admitting me?"
"Oh, yes. Yes, you're staying!"
What a relief! That meant I'd be having this baby within the next day or so! That much was certain. We sent out a text message alerting friends and family that we'd been admitted, as well as my photographer friend who came to take pictures of my labor and delivery.

The pain from my femoral nerve slowly went away as I laid there watching the baby's heartbeat on the monitor. After a little while I was able to get up and move around. I wanted a natural birth, so I brought my exercise ball to sit on during labor. I used that, we walked around that whole floor of the hospital, sat in various chairs, and even went down to the cafeteria for lunch (although I, of course, didn't eat anything). Bob coached me along as we counted through contractions. I knew they weren't nearly as painful a they would end up, but breathing up until that point would be good practice.

40 weeks and 2 days. Full term!

12:00pm
My Ob/Gyn, Alisa, showed up. She checked me, making sure not to be too gentle about it since she knew I was ready to have this baby already and wanted to help get things going as soon as possible. I was still only dilated to a 4. Things were not progressing very quickly.
"I can break your water if you'd like," she offered.
I looked contemplative. "We don't really know how long this could take otherwise, do we?" I rhetorically thought out loud.
She went on. "My schedule for today is pretty good. I'm having lunch with my husband until about 1:30, and then from 2-4:00 I have another delivery... Only, this is a new bed being delivered to my house," she said with a grin.
I laughed. "Can I think about it and get back to you on it?"
"Sure, I'll be around."
"Oh, one other thing." I looked at Bob and grinned. "Bob is wondering if he can cut the umbilical cord with... his Leatherman."
Alisa blinked, and smiled. "Sure, why not," she shrugged. He was just required to disinfect the blade really well.

Since I wanted the whole delivery done naturally, I felt bad about the idea of having her break my water. I would essentially be induced. I didn't like that. I wanted this baby to show up on his own when he was ready, not on my timing. But then I realized that he was ready to go. He was in position, perfect and waiting for my cervix to efface and dilate. It was actually me that he was waiting on. So we called Alisa.


1:15pm
She made it back to the hospital and didn't waste any time. Out came that crochet-hook looking tool, down went a few towels, and then there was no turning back. My first child would be born within 24 hours of having my water broken. That was the weirdest feeling, by the way. Gushing of what seemed like gallons of warm fluid from my lady-parts was a really awkward new sensation.

The contractions quickly got more intense and painful. Bob coached me along the way, counting and giving me support as I needed it. My mom was there too, offering help and distractions too.


4:30pm
I'd been breathing through contractions really well, but my confidence in my energy started waning. I'd only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before, being in pain is extremely draining, and not being able to eat on top on top of that certainly wasn't helping. I started feeling exhausted. I had a nurse check me again. I was only dilated to a 5. I didn't know how long this would take. It could last until the following day, and sleeping while having contractions is impossible, even though I was trying. I wondered if I'd have the energy to push this baby out if it wasn't going to happen for another 10+ hours. And then who knows how long I'd be pushing for? I needed sleep desperately.

I can tolerate pain okay, even that mind searing and excruciating pain, because I knew it would come to an end at some point and it was serving a valuable purpose. But the exhaustion I began feeling was what concerned me. That worry is why I decided to get an epidural. I felt bad about it. I still kind of do. But I really thought about and carefully considered it because sleep and rest were so important for me at that point. So in my back it went. And I got a little loopy at first.

I just started talking. And talking. And saying nonsense to my mom and Bob. But I was concentrating so hard to try and sound normal! I remember Bob saying something about how I should speak Spanish with the new nurse who came on during the shift change. Her name was Anna and she was Latina. I was really concerned that my R's would sound very American, because while I was so relaxed with the epidural it was impossible to roll them with a nice Spanish accent like I usually could. For some reason both Bob and my Mom laughed at me about it and I couldn't figure out why. I was legitimately worried about it!


8:45pm
I'd been in and out of consciousness, sleeping and just resting for a few hours. I started noticing that my toes  seemed to have more feeling than they did earlier. I even thought that I could move my legs more. Then I noticed that I could feel my contractions. First it was just pressure down on my cervix, but within 20 minutes it really started to hurt. The pain got pretty severe, and then Bob came around to the other side of my bed where all my monitors were. He put his hand down next to my shoulder and realized that the sheets were wet up there. We called the nurse in, and discovered that my epidural had been leaking. No wonder I was hurting more and could move around better! The anesthesiologist for the night shift came in and took a look. His name was Dr. Glaze (and he was hilarious!). Bob and I made jokes back and forth with him while he investigated the problem. It turns out that he couldn't just replace the part or some tubes or anything. He had to replace the entire thing. In other words, they had to give me another epidural all together. I have the best luck ever.

At least I was still pretty numbed up. It didn't hurt too much for them to put a second needle in my back.


9:45pm
I woke up from dozing again. I felt hot and flushed. I pulled the blankets off of myself, sweating underneath them. I also just felt weird in general, like I wasn't quite myself. I told Bob and my Mom. Bob called the nurse, Anna, in.

She checked my temperature. 101.5 degrees.

She checked how far dilated I was. "It's about time to start pushing," she said.

"I'm dilated to 10?!" I was both excited and terrified.

She went to call Alisa. While she was out of the room, I had Bob call Lyssa, our photographer, to come immediately to our room.

Anna came back in. She turned to my mom. "I have a job for you to do," Anna told her. "You need to sponge her down with cold water constantly." And she went on to show my mom what to do. For nearly the next hour and a half, my sweet mother placed washcloth after washcloth drenched in cold water over my chest, arms, neck, and forehead, and had to switch them out nonstop because of how quickly my feverish skin heated them up.

As Anna was bustling about the room and making the last few preparations, she instructed me on how to breathe and push. "I need you to breathe in deep, hold it for 10 seconds and push hard down in your butt, and then breathe out, back in, and push down again. Practice." She had me try it just so I'd know how it works. (TMI: Thank goodness I hadn't eaten all day! My bowels were empty, and I'm pretty sure we were all thankful for that!)

"You," she said to Bob, "need to hold her leg like this." She showed him how to hold up my right foot and calf up for me. "I'll hold the other leg for her."

My epidural was wearing down so I could feel the contractions. Watching the monitor as one started, Anna and Bob held both of my legs up. "Grab your thighs and squeeze them towards you as you push," she finished instructing. "Go!"

And so it started. As I breathed and pushed, she and Bob both would count for me, and at various times Anna would say, "Push more! You need to push harder!" Other times she would say, "Good! That was perfect! Again!" I hadn't been really impressed with Anna before that, because she was so quiet and sort of introverted, although pleasant. But she was amazing when it came time for the delivery! She knew when and how to encourage me, what to tell me, and she did her job flawlessly. I wish she could be my nurse for every one of my kids' births!

I pushed three times during each contraction, 10 seconds each push. It was so exhausting. Anna noticed. "Do you want to try pushing for 8 seconds instead of 10?" I nodded, out of breath.

So we counted and I pushed for 8 seconds at a time. It was far more tolerable for me.

"Do you need to take a break on the next one?" Anna asked after she could tell my strength was getting spent. Bob counted me through the next one so I could rest instead of push.

Bob was wonderful too. He kept his eye-contact with me when I needed it, held my hand and encouraged me the entire time. He didn't even get skiddish or light headed as he looked down at where our son was slowly making his way out. After contractions Bob would slow my breathing by counting to four over and over and I'd match my breathing to his counting. As he did so he'd get a cup of ice chips with a straw in it, and as soon as my breathing was normal he'd ask if I wanted water or ice. I got particular about the ice chips. I only wanted him to spoon out three at a time for me. I felt like I could never get enough water or ice though, probably due to the fever.

At one point between contractions I asked Anna, "How long does this usually take?"
She smiled. "For your first child? Usually two-to-three hours of pushing."
I did not want to be doing this for three hours! I was determined to get this baby out sooner. So I began pushing harder. When I didn't think I could push any harder, I did anyway.

A couple of pushes later, Anna looked up at me and said, "He has red hair!"
"He what?!" Red hair? Seriously? Red? I thought most babies had black or dark brown hair. I couldn't wait to see this kid!

Pushing became more difficult, more of a strain, and more painful. By this point Alisa had appeared in the room, ready to catch this kid as he came out of me. Between pushing until I thought my eardrums would explode, and hoarsely yelling with every breath, I didn't even notice when she actually showed up. She did ask, "Do you care if some med-students observe the delivery?"
"No, as long as they don't piss me off," I curtly replied right before another contraction started up.
"Oh, well I told them no, but if you don't mind then I'll go let them know they can."
I honestly couldn't tell you what any of them looked like or how many there were. They did a good job of being quiet and staying in the background.

Alisa was incredible too. She hates to do an episiotomy and avoids it in every way possible. So there she sat, all up in my business, working and stretching that final part of the birth canal to give me a chance at not tearing or needing an episiotomy.


11:08pm
Anna and Bob kept up their energy while my own was waning, but I was determined to finish as strong as I could. They kept cheering me on and telling me what was happening. Bob could see the baby's head. It was crowning. And then I felt the head finally slide through. It was time for the shoulders.
"One more time!" Anna exclaimed. "One more big, big push!"

I pushed with everything I had, my hoarse voice loud in my ears (even though my mom told me later that I really wasn't screaming very loudly). And somehow, miraculously, our son slid out the rest of the way. With my eyes closed, I heard him cry. I opened them and blearily looked for Bob. I vaguely saw clamps, the massive umbilical cord (it was way thicker than I thought it would be), and Bob, as Anna and Alisa instructed him on what to do to cut it. Seconds later someone placed that squirming and crying baby on my chest. He still had vernix covering a lot of him. And boy did he feel heavy! How big was he? Tears ran down my own face as I realized that this was him! This was the child for whom I'd gone through 4 months of morning sickness, for whom I'd endured all of that pain on my femoral nerve, and all of that discomfort for the past two months with that massive belly I'd constantly bump into things with and open doors into. I started talking to him through my tears, and he immediately stopped crying and turned his face toward my voice. He knew me! He recognized some tiny piece of familiarity in this foreign and cold environment and grasped onto it. And then Bob was by my side, tears on his cheeks too. He was one proud father. And this baby was perfect in every way.

Alisa came and stood next to me. She told me that I didn't have any tearing, at least, not in the usual place. Rather than tearing toward my rectum, I had a little tiny tear inside that wasn't even visible and only required two stitches. Weird, I thought, but thank goodness! I thanked her over and over. She was incredible and I want her to delivery every one of my children in the future!

There's a lullaby that plays for the whole floor to hear when a baby is born. I don't remember if they played it for us or not because it was so late, but a nurse did play a happy birthday song in our room for him.

After only a few minutes of holding him, some nurses took him for measurements and tests. He required more than normal because of my high fever during delivery. But the second he was out of me, that fever had broken and I felt fine (well, as fine as anyone can after just having a baby). It seemed like hours that he was over in the corner of the room with those other nurses, under that heater and those lights. I cried because I wanted to hold him more. Those short moments right after birth were not long enough. Bob went to stand by him, to keep an eye on him and comfort him as well as calm my worries about him not being with one of us.

Eventually they finished, cleaned him up, and wrapped him up in a blanket. Mom and Bob and Lyssa packed up all of our things. The nurse carefully  helped me stand up then sit down in the wheel chair that she had brought in. My son was placed in my arms and we went to our recovery room. There were two beds in each room, one for each parent to sleep in, and if they're healthy, babies are to room in with their parents. Our son was only in our room with us for a matter of minutes before our nurse, named Tuesday, told us some of his tests had come back with slightly abnormal results. He had a high immature white blood cell count. In other words, they were worried that with my fever he had gotten some kind of infection. Away he went to the Special Care Nursery. Bob went with them to make sure he knew how to get there. I wanted to go, but the nurses in the nursery don't like for the parents to be there when they have to put an IV in the baby or poke his heels for blood tests, etc. So I stayed and dozed, exhausted and full of both joy and sadness--happy that I had a beautiful son, but upset that I couldn't have him sleeping next to me like all of  the other mothers in the rooms around me.


April 7th, 2012
"What do you think of the name 'Russell?'" I asked Bob, as I was breastfeeding our son. "I mean, I know I have a brother named that, but forget about that for a minute. Rusty is a nickname for Russell, so he could be kind of named after your grandpa." Bob's Grandpa Rusty had red hair. My brother Russ also has reddish brown hair.

Bob sat in the chair next to me, contemplating for a few minutes. We were once again in the Special Care Nursery, feeding this baby for what seemed like the thousandth time. The nursery was all the way in one corner of the hospital, and my post-partum room was all the way in the opposite corner. For someone who just pushed a baby out of me and whose lady-parts were swollen up beyond recognition, it was a long and painful journey every time he needed to be fed. Each time we were in there, and when we were back in our recovery room, we'd talk about what to name this kid over and over, unable to decide on anything.

"I think Russell is his middle name," Bob finally responded. And it just felt right.

Later on that day as I was feeding him again, we determined that his first name probably needed to be one syllable. So we started naming off every single syllable name we could think of. I had been scouring a pedigree chart for my mom's side of the family. Bob looked through his baby name app on his phone at every free chance he had when we weren't sleeping.

As I looked down at my beautiful son, I tried to clear my mind so that maybe a name would come to mind. I was taking in every feature of his face, hair, and complexion. 'What does he look like?' I kept asking myself.

And then I thought of a name that I hadn't really considered before. "Bob, what about Graham?"

"Didn't we go over that one a long time ago?" he asked. I couldn't remember. But I did like how it sounded when I said it out loud. And I like how it sounded when paired with his face.

Bob wrote down several first names that either or both of us liked and paired them with his middle and last name:

Rowan Russell Pettit

Ronan Russell Pettit

Graham Russell Pettit

Blake Russell Pettit

And one or two others. 

They weren't all one syllable first names, but they were all names we liked at the time. We read off each of them. Only one sounded right. 

Graham Russell Pettit

Never in my life did I ever think I'd name any of my sons, much less my first one, Graham. I've never known anyone named Graham--no one I can remember anyway, and I do like that. It feels original. And it fits him so well! I can't see him being named anything else. I can't wait to see how he grows and develops. I'm also excited to see what people call him. He can go by Graham, Rusty, or whatever other nicknames relatives and friends feel might fit him.

He was finally released to come home with us in the evening on Monday, April 8th, with just a little jaundice left and a few skin rashes here and there.

He looked so small in his car seat!

If you look on his right temple, you can see where there was a little velcro circle stuck to his face that held a little mask to cover his eyes while he was under the bright lights for his jaundice.

We sure love having him around! He's such a joy and so fun to watch and hold. I'm excited to see all the new things he'll learn as each week and every month passes by.

Graham Russell Pettit

Born April 6th, 2012 at 11:08pm

8 lbs 12 oz

20 1/4 inches long