Vince Day 2: Vinny the Pincher

I have finally gathered enough energy to contribute a few thoughts on our new little son. Without making labor and delivery sound completely horrifying to every woman, I 'll just say that it was the most difficult and physically taxing experience of my life. At certain points I doubted my emotional/physical ability to make it through; and if it wasn't for my husband and our doula telling me that I indeed could do it and I have the strength- I don't know if I could have. And I know this will sound so cliche, but when I saw little Vince on my belly, it indeed was all worth the effort, he's really the most beautiful thing I have ever imagined.

Now I have the task of trying to figure out this breast feeding phenomenon. We found out that boys tend to be lazier than newborn girls with the breast feeding. Vince is proving this! We have coined him "Vinny The Pincher" because he does not want to latch on properly, he's not using his tongue the we way he should and just ends up grinding and pinching down on my nipple... this does NOT feel good! Luckily Mt. Auburn's staff is sooo great, their lactation consultant is working overtime to help us figure this out... as well as how we can "train" Vince to latch properly. I just hope it works when we go home tomorrow. We also just found out our insurance will pay for the breast pump if the consultant thinks there is a need... which clearly she did. The staff here have REALLY been so supportive.

Here's a deceiving picture of Vince.... he appears to be almost smiling after one of the pinching/breastfeeding episodes!

Mike loves the baby on the chest shots

The Baby Blanket Story

When I served in the Peace Corps in Malawi from 1999-2002, I went over with a group of individuals that I quickly learned were amazing and brilliant people in so many different ways. Over the course of the years of sharing the crazy experiences living in Africa, we bonded like no other friends I've had since that time.

As a gift for our baby, a bunch of people from my peace corps group decided to make a blanket together, each one responsible for a different color square.... some never having done any crochet stitch or knitting ever before! Here's a picture of the blanket in our baby's room, which is pretty much done. I made Mike put up those padded baby animal pictures that he talked about with such admiration in one of his previous posts. He put them strategically in places to be able to bang his head against the wall.
Here's some pictures of everyone in action, I love these people!

27 weeks and counting

Counting down weeks and days has become a favorite past time for me for a variety of reasons. First off, as each week passes I get closer and closer to meeting the little being that has been growing inside me for over 6 months now (and kicking me a little harder each week!). Second, each day that passes puts me closer and closer to being FINISHED with school forever! I have exactly 3 classes left and I tell you it cannot be over fast enough. It's been a heck of a year juggling school, work, clinicals, and pregnancy.... and I am looking forward to being done.

I'll graduate Friday May 2nd at 3:30pm, and it'll be a glorious day! Here's some belly pictures from today for your viewing pleasure

attractive isn't it.....

Our First Wrapped Baby Gift

Yesterday Mike came home from work with a wrapped baby gift from his coworker! It's the first wrapped present we've gotten and it looked so cute I had to take a picture of this momentous occasion...

We opened it up to find the bobblin bouncer that everyone tells me is a must have! So exciting...
Our little friend Quan came over last weekend as well to lend us clothes and toys that he can't fit in or use anymore. Thanks Quan! And thanks to his mom Lisa... our little Vince (that name is sticking for now) has a new friend waiting for him to play with. Quan also showed us about more things we need to make sure and baby proof, and we found out how much little boys are like motors.... running all over the house with no rest!

Baby Naming 101

So Mike and I are tossing around boy names (we are gambling that the first ultrasound technician really did see a third leg). The latest one we are trying out is Vince. We are sort of liking it right now... but has anyone noticed the more you say a name in your head the weirder it sounds? We have gone through many names because we've said it so many times it just messes it up.

This may end up not being a great idea, but I thought I'd ask anyone who is interested if they want to vote on these names... or feel free to comment any names you think of!

Crib bedding madness

I've found it easy to avoid my homework with this blog; while another fun distraction is looking at all the baby bedding patterns that are out there! So I'm trying out this polling program that can be put on the blog. I've found some cool crib bedding (including one called Malawi!!!) and wondered if anyone is interested in giving their opinion about any of them. I love things that match so these crib bedding sets have given me hours of pleasure, with such matching items as night-lights and light switches. I think so far I love the turtle one the best, but tell me what you think! And if you happen to know of any other patterns, send them along! (This is taking for granted that my dear readers have got to be as thrilled about crib bedding as I am.)

Here are the options:

• Jungle Safari
• Turtle Bay
• Kidsline Malawi
• Moon and Stars
• Snoopy
• Winnie the Pooh
  

It's a boy!.... we're pretty sure at least

Here's a picture of our little one somewhere between 6-7 weeks, it's the little blueberry looking blob in the middle of the black space that's my uterus:


Here he is now at 18 weeks:


This morning was my very much anticipated ultrasound appointment. I've been waiting so impatiently for this day (as I'm sure you can imagine if you know me)! I just can't stand not knowing things, and I've been bouncing off the walls waiting to see if we could tell the gender from today's ultrasound. So Mike and I get there around 9:20, I gulp down some apple juice per advice from others saying that it makes the baby move around more...(and possibly move into a favorable position to check out the baby's goods).

I lie down on the table with an extremely full bladder, because that's what the referral paper said to do. When I told the ultrasound woman I had to pee so bad, she looked at me strangely and marched me to the bathroom! The ultrasound referral paper is apparently wrong about needing to have a full bladder; needless to say I was pretty happy to relieve my bladder before she started pressing down on it with that cold jellied up ball.

So she starts taking pictures, telling us everything looks great, describing what we are seeing, measuring the humorous of an arm (that I didn't recognize)... and the femur of a leg... then she showed us what she was sure is our baby's little wee wee; Mike verified that he thought it looked like that as well.... having seen the baby's legs on either side. But then the second ultrasound reader came in and she was all business, kind of curt and wanting to get done with her job. After she was done, she casually mentioned she didn't see any appendages that would suggest a boy so she says it may be a girl. Then we told her the first tech said she thought it was a boy and she just nonchalantly said "well I couldn't really see".

So.. we're going with the first ultrasound woman... she seemed pretty sure.. and so did Mike.

Our first Baby Furniture

We went to New York to visit Mike's family this weekend, and his brother Charlie gave us our first piece of baby furniture! We were so excited we (my husband I should say) put it together as soon as we got home.... Mike made sure to get out of the crib before attaching the other rail.



we also got to play with their cute puppy Maxie. She was so little when we saw her at Thanksgiving, now she's getting big.... but is still so very cute and lovable. Here's her picture at Thanksgiving:





Here she is from this weekend, almost grown up: