17 weeks

I can't believe how fast he's gone from this....

Sept. 10, 2010

November 2010

 to this:



(Although not one part of my pregnancy felt like it went very fast, except for maybe his whirlwind birth.)

And then this:



I'm wearing a newborn-sized outfit!

And these days he's looking like this:

Visiting Olivia's brick and the Angel of Hope statue last week.

Drool? Check. Binkie? Check. Sophie the Giraffe? Check. Blankie? Check. Life is good.

This thing is called the Rock N Play and it's been Lucas's wonderful 'bed' for the last 2 months, best $40 spent ever.

17 weeks of heaven. It's looking like Lucas is not going to stay blond after all. Thank god.( Just kidding.) Whether he keeps his blue eyes or not still remains to be seen, but I'm thinking they are staying blue.  It's hard to believe that at this time last year I was just starting the meds for the cycle that would result in him, and here he is, happy and healthy and perfect. He has this smile that lights up his entire face, like you are the best thing in the world. He thinks me singing the ABC's is the greatest thing ever. He has NO desire to roll over anytime soon but acts like he's going to start crawling anyday now. (And then we will be screwed because our house is not babyproofed yet AT ALL.) He is starting to get pretty good at sitting up (assisted) and we are working on sitting unassisted. He's started playing in his jumperoo a lot, it's still on the shortest setting with a book underneath so he can actually touch the ground, but I bet in another week, he won't need the book anymore at all. He is so happy, almost always, (except when I try to wear him! He still is not impressed with the baby carrier at all.) We are just in awe of him.

There's always questions in the back of my mind, as we watch him grow and change so quickly, what Olivia would have been like as a baby. Would she have been a perfect baby like her brother and Aunt Brooke, or would she cry nonstop for the first 9 months like her mommy? Would she have had my blue eyes or Joe's brown eyes? What color would her hair have been? (I used to think it would obviously be brown, until Lucas came along with his blond hair.) She didn't stay long enough for us to learn very much about her at all. I wish she could have stayed.

As sucky as it is that she isn't here to meet her little brother in person, she gave us a new perspective on what is important, and what isn't. When we lost Olivia, I wanted to die, too. I really struggled with the fact that her death saved my life (not that it really came down to her OR me, the alternative was that we'd both die, but still, in my head, she died and it was my fault and yet I was still alive.) I was mad that she was gone and I was still here. And that first year, I wasn't all that especially grateful to still be alive, not that I was suicidal, but I wished I had just died with her, most of the time. But now? I still hate that she isn't here. However, I'm finally glad I didn't die almost two years ago; these past 17 weeks have been the best weeks of my life. Rainbow baby, indeed.

Boys' night

Tonight I am headed to The Hospital (where my babies were born + high risk doctor is + support group is), to work on father's day cards/presents for the baby loss dads.  I wonder how many of the dads will shrug it off or even be annoyed about the reminder. Oh well. I'm looking forward to a few hours out of the house and talking to people. But I'm going to miss the baby like crazy and I'm anxious that Joe won't make sure he's breathing often enough.

A few days ago, Lucas was asleep in his swing (a rare moment, he prefers sleeping arrangements of the human variety and often wakes up if he finds himself asleep on a non-human surface.) Joe and I were watching the Whale Wars marathon on animal planet (that show is surprisingly addicting, if you aren't familiar with it, it's people on boats trying to foil Japanese whale hunters, a million times more entertaining than Moby Dick.) Anyway, I kept glancing over at the baby every 2 minutes, I'd stare at him until I saw his chest visibly rise or a foot move or some sign of life, then return my attention to the tv. I decided to take a nap and catch the rest of the episodes on dvr, and I asked Joe to take over making sure the baby was breathing every few minutes. He looks at me, looks at the baby, and frowns, "How can you even tell?" hmph. Lucas ended up waking up anyway and it was a moot point.

 But Joe's not quite as paranoid as I'd like him to be. Though he did admit to me he likes when the baby cries (especially in the car) because then he knows he's okay. That's one thing I hate, being in the car alone with the baby (especially when it's hot and it's hard to tell the temperature where he is). We have a mirror but its crap. And a baby breathing alarm that attaches to his diaper and supposedly goes off if he stops breathing, but after 15 false alarms the first time we tried that (our first week home), i gave up on it. so instead, when i'm stopped in the car, i reach back and nudge him until he stirs or moves (he always sleeps in the car). When both of us are in the car, I still usually ride in the back with him. Yep, me=crazy.

 But on a brighter note, I bought the Angelcare monitor system when I was pregnant and figured out how to install it in the bassinet. (We thought it wouldn't work because there's no solid surface under the mattress except a net and poles, until I read some suggestions of people who had put a box between the netting and mattress.) So last night I finally tested it out, first not putting anything in it to make sure it would go off when it didn't sense movement, it did. Then I put the baby in it and there's a movement indicator green light on the monitor that flashes every few seconds when it senses movement.  It worked very well, and I relaxed and tried to sleep with the baby in his bassinet next to me, and he slept for about 20 minutes until he realized he wasn't asleep on a human and protested the gross mistreatment. I'll consider it a success and work on gradually getting the baby to sleep there. But I've got to say, that's the best baby product ever. If we can get the other monitor to work right it would be useful too (like when he's asleep in the swing, etc.), but I'm a bigger fan of the angelcare because now that its set up, we don't have to mess with it except to turn it on. (The other one you have to mess with for every diaper change, plus the false alarms are pretty unsettling.)

So anyway, I'm feeding the baby before I leave and there is about 10 bottles worth of milk in the fridge and 50+ in the freezer, the baby is good with bottles and his pacifier, so they should be fine for a few hours. But I'm really glad to be not working because I'm barely comfortable leaving him with Joe for a couple of hours.

Everything else is going well, except I have an oversupply of milk that comes out too fast and makes the baby swallow too much air and so he gets gassy and uncomfortable a lot lately, poor little guy. We've tried a few things and mainly what has worked has been making sure he burps well (which is tough to get him to do) and lots of gas drops. This morning I gave him a drop after he ate and before he got fussy/gassy and it was our best nonfussy morning in a week. I'm curious to see how he'll be tonight after getting bottles. But we're kind of limited on solutions and apparently babies usually end up adapting eventually to the milk flow, so I'm hoping it will get better on it's own and we'll do drops in the meantime and if the bottles make it better, maybe mix in a few more bottles of pumped milk too. (For some reason, it's always worst in the morning and not very bad in the evening, my guess is because I'm not that great at diligently burping him at 4 am when we're both half asleep, and so by 7-9 am he's uncomfortable.)

The dogs, well Koda our husky, is getting much more comfortable around the baby. Yesterday I helped him pet Koda and Koda licked his foot. And he usually lays pretty near wherever the baby is. (I never leave the baby near the dogs unsupervised, even though I don't *think* they'd do anything, they are dogs and it's not worth the risk.) Rogue is afraid of him (especially when he cries) and pretty much keeps her distance, which works too, she takes awhile to warm up to anyone, so hopefully she'll come around but we aren't going to force it.

Lucas is awake so much more and we've started doing real tummy time. He's good at lifting his head up from the ground and he's starting to notice a bit of the world around him. (He's still pretty oblivious to the dogs, even when koda licks him.) He smiles randomly and has laughed a few times and looks around all the time. He also followed Joe with his eyes the other day when he walked away after talking to him. It's pretty amazing (and sad but mostly amazing), how quickly he's already changing.

Time for me to start getting ready to go.