Baby projects

I've been on a knitting kick for a while so I haven't made any embroidered clothes for Elanor yet. I have enjoyed using up some odds and ends of yarn from other projects for baby socks, though.
This yarn was the leftovers from the Evenstar mitts:

I got a bunch of a friend's leftovers as well:

Matching mitts--which were for a much smaller baby than the socks were and are now too small:

This was a great free pattern called Fiddlehead that I found through PurlBee. I made a lightweight cotton version in a sport weight rather than the fingering weight that the pattern called for. It involved a couple of the dreaded gauge swatches and several calculations but it came out beautifully in the end. Another modification--knitting the body in the round rather than in two flat pieces. I don't care for seaming at all and there is something very soothingly rhythmical about knitting row after row to produce perfect stockinette. It was perfect for bus riding and other odd moments. I was also trying to get in as many continuing education lectures as possible so as to be able to comfortably renew my cytogenetics certification before taking my leave from the lab and working on the sweater during the lectures helped me stay awake and focused. It's working pretty well for sermons now too as I work on the one for Elanor's new cousin, Justice.

Of course, calculating the yarn needed was a little tricky and I ended up with some extra. Every cute baby sweater needs a matching hat doesn't it?

Elanor at Home

Bundled up on the bed:

Looking at daddy:

Hanging with the boys:

Playing on the changing pad:


Full and happy:

Swaddled and ready for bed:

Firsts

First bath:

Elanor loved the warm water and didn't seem to mind being washed at all. Being taken out of the warm water to be dried and dressed, though, not so much.

First time being worn by daddy in the moby:

All bundled up and being soothed down to sleep to the gentle strains of John Philip Sousa. I hope that this doesn't mean that we have a trombone player in our family future.

First time out in the yard:

By the time that Elanor was a week or so old, I had to get outside into the sun or go stir crazy inside. She joined me on her mat and blanket for a trip to the backyard for some weeding. We've been outside for at least a little bit most non-rainy days since.

After first trip to church (on Easter Sunday):

Elanor was five days old on Easter Sunday. I don't think that we would have attempted going if it hadn't been such a special day and we were prepared for all sorts of possible catastrophes. However, she ended up sleeping through the entire service and the admiration following. This was also my first attempt at a coordinated outfit.

First meeting with the cats:

This was as close as they got. There were a few tentative sniffs in her direction before deciding that this strange little being was initially puzzling and perhaps alarming but ultimately not of significant interest. She, of course, paid them no attention whatsoever.

Welcoming Elanor Elisabeth

Our Birth Story:

Early Monday morning (3am early), I woke up having contractions off and on and couldn't go back to sleep. I asked Jonathan to not go to work that day just in case this was the real thing and also to help time contractions. We called Cindie mid-morning to let her know what was happening and she recommended that we get some rest. It turns out to be a good that we did!

We puttered around the house during the afternoon until things picked up about 4:00. After a couple of hours of contractions between 3-5 minutes apart, we packed up to run over to the office to be checked for progress. Cindie confirmed that I was indeed in early labor and that my water had broken, probably sometime that morning. On the way out, we encountered another couple that we knew coming in for their regular checkup. We cheerfully announced that we were going to be having a baby that night. Little did we (and they) know!

Back home we went to call my mom and sisters and labor some more. Later that evening, when it looked like labor had increased in intensity again, we called the Scotts and the midwives to meet us at the birth center. It turns out that it isn't speed that matters so much as gentleness around curves.

After a couple of hours there and a rather disappointing progression, the guys went over to Elsa's house to get some sleep while the ladies practiced breathing and tried different positions. I spent the night alternately laboring in the tub and walking the halls. At one point, we encountered one of the other midwives and a doula who were there with another couple giving birth. It turns out that the couple that we had passed at Cindie's office had gone into labor later that night and barely made it to the birth center before she started pushing. Their son was born early that morning, not quite a full day before our baby made her appearance.

Jonathan arrived with our other midwife the next morning to take over. After a night of labor, I was only at 5 centimeters dilation with some suspicion of a baby with a slightly cocked head. We tried more positions, a couple of homeopathic remedies and the tub for a few more hours with the gain of a couple of centimeters more. Then there I stuck at 7 centimeters. At 5:00, we decided that, while I was still coping appropriately and the baby was doing fine, I was starting to get tired so we would give it three more hours to see if anything happened and then consider other interventions to move things along. I got back in the tub to see if I could relax some more and discovered that it is indeed possible to sleep between contractions. I was refreshed, but still showed no progress.

At 8:30, we decided that it was time to transfer to the hospital to try a bit of pitocin to even out and focus the contractions. If I thought that the car ride to the birth center was bad, it doesn't compare to the one to the hospital. Fortunately, my mom rode with us so that she could help keep me on track with breathing and Jonathan could concentrate on driving.

We got to the hospital and they hooked me up to the IV and monitors. The nurse asked if I wanted an epidural along with the pitocin. After all of the horror stories that I have heard about pitocin-aided contractions, I was pretty nervous about how much worse they might be. After some encouragement, I decided to wait and see how things went. I'm so glad! It turned out that if they were worse, it happened so gradually that I didn't even notice.

I must have given the nurse quietly controlled fits since I wanted to labor leaning on Jonathan which caused the monitors to keep slipping.

Jonathan was amazing through the entire day. Poor guy! As we got further into the process, it got so that I didn't want anyone else but him and he hardly even got a bathroom break all day.
Looking up and smiling at each other between contractions:

Finally, Cindie pronounced me at a mildly uneven 10 centimeters and I got permission to push if I felt like it. Almost immediately, I did. After an hour to hour and a half (the stories that I heard later differed) of pushing (my sisters' pectoral muscles will never be the same), we got to see our little girl's head crowning and with one final effort, she was out and crying!

We had kept her name a secret between the two of us and agreed that Jonathan would introduce her by name to everyone who was there when she was born. I kept saying "Little girl, little girl" as she was handed up to me so that I wouldn't say her name. I will also admit that I looked at a strategic area to be sure that the girl that we were expecting was what we got!

Very tired but enjoying the high of giving birth and seeing our daughter for the first time:

Beautiful Elanor Elisabeth was born in the hospital after approximately 36 hours of labor and an hour and a half of pushing. She was 7lbs, 4 oz and 19 inches long with brown hair and blue eyes. She was also born with her hand in this position:

Little stinker--which was probably why it took so long.

After getting cleaned up and trying to nurse, everyone was ready to rest. Jonathan took a turn holding her as we all fell asleep.

We didn't expect that the birth would take that long and were a bit disappointed that we ended up needing to transfer to the hospital. But we did it (mostly) naturally and came out of the experience with our precious daughter in good shape.

The Scotts at the birth center:

Gary was a big encouragement to Jonathan and Barbara got me through that first night of labor with her doula expertise.

Cindie and Camille at the hospital:

The ladies after the birth:

Note the clock on the wall--that would be 3:50 AM! Great job, team!

And I never want to eat GU again--at least until the next time!

Preparing for the New Housemate

They say not to move just before you have a baby. The thing is, how do you get away without moving? That is to say, significant rearranging.

We painted the office and moved our bedroom furniture into it. Dad helped us figure out how to screw in the headboard.


Mom painted both the new bedroom and the new baby's room. We used the lighter blue color from three of the walls in the baby's room and ended up liking it so much that both rooms are the same color. The dark blue shown here functioned as a visual headboard for our bed when this was our room. It was a little overpowering as an accent in the baby's room.
In order to match the color, which had been discontinued in the four years since I had painted the room, Jonathan cut off a piece of the paint from one corner to take in for matching. We learned an important lesson (and hopefully someone else did too) in checking both the paint color and name when picking up custom-mixed paint from the home improvement store paint counter. We turned in our piece of paint to be matched and mixed and returned an appropriate amount of time later to find no paint can, no paint chip and no sign of the employee who had helped us. We were able to determine that our can had likely been picked up by someone else, the chip had either been taped to the can or tossed and the employee in question had left for the day. Fortunately, we were able to look back through the computer records and make a reasonable guess on the order based on the time and approximate color.

I was most emphatically not in favor of having the computer station remain in our bedroom. We found a desk that would just fit into the cubby under the attic stairs in the dining area.

It was not specifically designed as a computer station so Jonathan drilled holes in the back for the various cords.

We tripped around this hodge-podge of office stuff (there is really no other word for it than that) and baby furniture for several weeks as we reorganized or chucked things up into the attic space.

Until, on March 28th, we considered ourselves ready to bring the baby home.


Which was good, because....

*We were unsure of the ultimate purpose of the misquito netting but it doubled nicely as cat hair protection.

Full Term

Last minute baking with the bun in the oven!

Palm Sunday:
Thump me, I'm ready!

Final Couple Adventures

Our plans for a weekend away for a babymoon were foiled by six weeks of illness during the critical time. We did manage a few special outings, however, including a trip to the symphony on my last day of work, March 26th and a visit to my brother's church in Olympia.

In a grand gesture before our Sunday drives went on hiatus, we drove up to Bellingham to both see mountains and walk by the beach. The day could not have been nicer.



As a bonus, we ran into Christine's husband, son and in-laws on the boardwalk. I had a few moments of double takes before deciding that I was sure enough of their identity to greet them. Who wants to be that person who approaches perfect strangers convinced of their acquaintance?


I recognized this local ice cream shop from trips to visit friends at Western and convinced Jonathan that the baby really wanted dessert. Lots of exotic flavors to taste, culminating in two fabulous scoops of mocha and mint oreo. This may be a required stop from now on.
Any suggestions for more local ice cream stops?