Puzzle Difficulty Increased

It appears week three has brought along two new variables that we didn't have to worry about before. First is burping and the second is problems falling asleep.

I've mentioned that the baby is extremely easy to deal with, among other things it's because she actually burps herself. Lately a little after feedings she has started to cry and ask for food. At least that's what me and Erkki thought. She puts hands in her mouth and it's immediately followed by a short cry. We always assumed it means "I am VERY hungry" but then why won't she eat. Yesterday evening I googled the problem and found out that many babies use the same sign to signal both hunger and trapped air. Apparently the baby was doing her best to tell us, "burp me NOW! ". Any efforts to burp her had far been only randomly successful. Well, it appears we can no longer get by without this skill. I watched YouTube videos how to burp a newborn and started experimenting. I think I got the trick because our baby is now much more happy.

You've probably noticed that each time I have some problem here I solve it with Google. Google is the greatest tool of all times! It beats a call to the doctor any day. I get one tip from a doctor and ten tips from Google. I have to pick which tip to use and usually I end up trying all the reasonable ones. Since doctors are often so narrow minded I actually trust widespread Internet advice over the advice of licenced physicians. Mhh... When I can't figure something out I ask Erkki and then consult the Internet, when Erkki can't figure something out he asks me and then consults the Internet. This means my baby is already half raised by the Internet. What a good start for ultimate geekdom!!!!!!

But sometimes a good post-soviet doctor advice beats all the western world safe advice. In the first week my baby fell asleep soon after starting to eat. Google advice (forums, parenting websites, etc) said that I should strip her to only diapers before feedings so she feels slightly cold and less sleepy. Then I read I should change the diaper before feedings to wake her up properly. I also read I should use damp cloth to wipe her face during feedings to keep her awake. I tried all those! The baby barely opened her eyes for the diaper change, she happily fell asleep in only her diaper and she didn't even consider waking up when someone was wiping her face with cold damp cloth. So I mentioned it to my family doctor who used to specialize in pediatrics. My doctor said, "when she falls asleep, carefully squeeze her nostrils shut. She will wake up and continue to eat." Nice advice from a doctor! Obstruct her breathing, that will help. Well... It did help! It was the only thing that really woke her up. I only used it a few times because the baby hated it, but it did the trick.

But this bring us to the second problem - my baby isn't that sleepy anymore! So far the baby always fell asleep without delay. All we had to do was to lay her in bed and cover her with a blanket. It appears that time has gone. At least twice a day she is unable to fall asleep when she wants to. She's too sleepy to play or communicate with us but when we put her in bed she gets frustrated and starts to cry. We have to keep her calm and rock her to sleep. Sometimes it takes a couple of minutes but sometimes it takes over an hour of trying to feed her, changing her diaper many times, calming her down for a moment and starting from the beginning.

So now we have even more things to consider when the kid needs help - hunger, diaper, boredom, blocked nostrils (only when not blocked by me!), burp, sleepy. The last is the most difficult because it can be detected only through a method of exclusion. On the bright side of things our baby is experimenting with sounds. I am sure she will soon learn to signal her needs better with sounds other than crying.

Fortunately the baby doesn't hate us. I found a nice thought on the Internet yesterday: an infant isn't a moody teenager. She doesn't judge parents when they make a mistake. A baby is just learning it all with the parents. So when our baby needs to be burped and we help her she is just happy to be helped, she doesn't hold a grudge for all the times we didn't realize that's what she needs.

Baby is still a puzzle - there's problems to be solved and hints to help parents solve them. Difficulty is increased gradually and new variables are added. There is also a fail-penalty involved. Once you ignore a problem, the alarm goes on and all hints stop; or in other words, if you fail to fix one problem, the baby will start to cry and she is unable to show any hints clearly. So any others problems that arise during this time will be very difficult to notice. That's why it's very important to react to a baby's crying without delay. This keeps the puzzle manageable and everyone is a little happier. Especially the neighbours at nighttime.

There would be no point in playing without pleasure. When you play the puzzle game well and get many points you get to see your kid do funny happy faces, you see her trying to figure out why the curtain looks different when it's nighttime, you see her trying to hold her head up high (and almost succeeding), you see her looking at you with huge friendly eyes and the meaningful look in her eyes just makes you forget all the times she was ever unhappy. You can't help but smile at her and if you're lucky she will smile right back at you.

Always a Solution

Whenever a baby cries and you can rule out hunger and diaper, she obviously has gas pain. Colic, as people call it. My baby has never had a problem with that so gas pain would be among the last things I would suspect when she cries. Until yesterday.

Her growth spurt ended and her eating pattern went pretty much back to normal. And then got even worse for no apparent reason. She was hungry, but she just wouldn't eat. Or when she ate, it was only for about 3 minutes of desperate engorging and then she let go only to desperately ask for food an hour later. She cried each time she woke up and it was impossible to soothe her. It wasn't just sad crying. It was total and utter distress. Her little world was falling apart and I couldn't help her in any way. Obviously her small meals are giving her indigestion and she must be suffering from horrible gas pain! So last night me and Erkki tried several ways of burping her but nothing helped.

We swaddled her in cloth, shhhhhed her, held her in a sideways position and jiggled her for comfort. She calmed down for a moment and then started crying again. She kept giving us false hints! She showed us she was hungry but she refused to eat! Actually it was quite weird that when I offered her food she started crying even more desperately than before. Eventually I found a feeding position she was okay with and I got her to eat and then she fell asleep.

Pfffff... So THAT's how kids are after the first 2 weeks of grace period... Oh THAT's why people say that it's difficult to take care of infants; so far it had been fun and simple. OKAY then I just have to make sure I stay strong and I don't let it stress me out. Poor colic baby. AWWWwwwww...

After such a strenuous evening it felt good to finally get under the blanket. Erkki gave me a good-night kiss and then asked, "what's that scent?". So I said, "You mean my new skin lotion?" and he told me, "It completely masks your natural scent.". And that was a total DUH!-moment. My kid was put off by the wrong scent.So basically I did the same mistake for the second time now, at least with different lotions. I didn't realize the kid was unable to smell me so she didn't recognize me. I took a quick late-night shower to wash off the lotion. After that my kid was HEALED from her "gas pain" like magic! When I had thought she was in distress because she was in pain, she had actually been in distress because mommy had gone missing and some strange lady was trying to offer her food. She really wanted to eat but not from this strange lady!

She ate properly at night. Unfortunately after all this stress with eating she now starts crying in the middle of her meals. She has been doing it a lot today. I think I have a solution for that as well.

There's a book that me and Erkki both have been reading a lot lately: "Kooskasvamine" ("Growing Together"; was never translated from Swedish to English) by Anna Wahlgren . My sister lent it to me when I got pregnant. It's about raising children so now I've been reading the parts about infants. The author's says that all children are born with a very strong anxiety that they are not going to survive; anxiety that they will not receive enough food. And as long as you don't get rid of this anxiety the child will not be able to enjoy anything else in life. That's why the first rule of infant care is this: Give her FOOD!!

The author is a mother of 9 children and she has a theory that colic baby syndrome is a psychosomatic illness. The child wakes up hungry and anxious, worried about survival. Parents go to her, then they check the diaper, then they give her a wash, then they find new clothes... Meanwhile the child cries louder and louder. Then parents finally feed her and by that time the poor little thing is in such distress already that she frantically tries to eat as fast and and much as possible. But she eats too fast and swallows a lot of air so she feels full long before she has consumed enough milk. Then she has a short nap and wakes up still hungry. Parents say, "but she just ate" so they cuddle her and console her but they don't give her food. The next meal is even worse because the kid is now even hungrier than before. The doctor prescribes medicine and parents still don't feed her enough to help her get rid of this anxiety for survival. Eventually the theoretical illness becomes a reality and the kid starts to have stomach pains from constantly swallowing too much air and eating too little. And this is how colic babies are created.

From what I've seen so far, I think she is absolutely right. Sure there are babies who really are colic from the start, and there are babies who cry even from the feeling of having a bubble that needs to come out. But for most babies - if you feed them when they want and as much as they want, you will have a happy baby. You can help them get rid of their survival anxiety and you can enjoy parenting.

From the beginning I have been feeding my child as often as she could ever dream of. She was happy and relaxed. But ever since the growth spurt began there have been so many times when she starts to cry already and I think, "but maybe it's the diaper. Or perhaps she needs to be burped. Or maybe she feels too warm.". And I check all these things first because SHE JUST ATE!!! She can't possibly be hungry! Therefore I now have a baby who cries when it's time to eat even when I do offer her food. But I'm glad I have a theory how I can fix this - I will offer her food immediately each time she wakes up and each time she gives the hungry-hint. And I'll be damned if she won't be the same old happy baby within a few days!!! And I won't be using any body lotions any time soon...

Growth Spurt

Everything was going well and I got plenty of sleep at night. The baby fed and felt content and then fell asleep for a full three hours and let me rest at night. At daytime she fed somewhat more frequently than the once-in-three-hours norm but it was already close to once in 2.5 hours.

And then it happened...

A GROWTH SPURT!!!!

The baby started to complain of hunger so I fed her. She took her sweet time to eat as much as she possibly could. 30 minutes later I just stopped her. Then she needed to be burped and her diaper changed and she fell asleep. A mere half an hour later she woke up in horrible distress - apparently she was hungry! AGAIN! Okay, if the baby is hungry, she needs to be fed. So I fed her for another good twenty minutes on the other side. Then I burped her, checked the diaper, put her in bed. Forty minutes later she suddenly woke up crying sadly and putting her hands in her mouth. This means she was HUNGRY!!!!

I hoped it was an anomaly. Maybe she hadn't really eaten properly or maybe she just had a hungry moment. But this went on for the entire day. And then it was nighttime. She woke up every 2 hours demanding food NOW! And then it was the next day and she was still non-stop hungry!

Of course my first serious thought was: maybe I don't have enough milk! But it made no sense whatsoever. She began feeding each time by sucking up so much milk so fast that she didn't manage to swallow it all! And then for a good many minutes she was going at a rapid pace, "GULP-GULP-GULP". That's definitely not a symptom of not having milk. And if lack of milk was the problem, I assume she'd just stay full for a shorter time after each meal but she never seems to be satisfied now. She'll have a good meal and she's still hungry.

The next theory just as unhelpful. I thought it's finally happened: she has a sucking need. Soon I'm gonna have no other choice than to give her a pacifier! But wait-a-minute... That makes no sense either! When a baby starts to breastfeed, there's a few seconds when the baby gets no milk yet. And now my baby has become so impatient that she'll actually let go and give me a sad cry as if she's saying, "there is no milk here! Why do you think you can fool me with an empty boob?! Give me FOOD!". Then she'll give it another try and as soon as she gets milk, she's busy trying to swallow it all at the same time. She won't accept anything as a substitute - e.g. she has no interest in sucking the knuckle of a finger because apparently it releases no milk! Who knew.

Then I remembered growth spurts. I googled it and found out more. Some call it a 2-week growth spurt, some call it a 3-week growth spurt. Nearly all babies have that but it's more obvious for some. All of a sudden the perfectly regular eating and sleeping patterns change. The baby wants to eat very often and will either sleep more or less depending on the baby. Web sites say, "Just feed the baby more often and expect it to pass in a few days". And another website so pleasantly advises not to be alarmed if baby becomes a ravenous locust at the growth spurts! That's one accurate description!

All is nice in theory. But the reality can be pretty darn exhausting. Last night was particularly bad. I fed her at 1 a.m. and swaddled her for a long nap. She woke up at 3 a.m. ready for a new feeding marathon. I fed her and swaddled her. She woke at 4 a.m., then at 5 a.m., and again at 6 a.m. Then I fell asleep with her still eating and briefly woke up at 7 realizing she's eating again. At 8 a.m. Erkki woke up and took the baby shift. He tried to console the baby without waking me but had no choice but to wake me up, "I'm sorry honey, she's hungry". And did that 4 times from 8 to 12. So I slept for only 20-minute to 2-hour stretches, which is too short a time to actually go into the deep sleep phase. I was pretty darn frustrated and sleepy. I was ready to tell Erkki, "Next time she wants food, give her formula milk.". Then I got up, had a shower, drank coffee and felt much better.

It's exhausting for me but it might actually be even worse for the baby. Since she wakes up so often she's constantly too tired to enjoy life. She's visibly putting on weight and sweating like a madman! Not to mention that she's really discovering the pros and cons of massive extended overeating. That's certainly the perfect recipe for a fussy baby.

It's the third day of this growth spurt and the last meal gave me hope that it might end soon. The baby finished eating, then let go and fell asleep absolutely stuffed. And now she's been sleeping for ALMOST two hours! It seems like it's good old days again. Please be good old days again...

Gotta Be Careful

I was changing the kid's diaper while she was impatiently crying demanding food. I stood there trying to make haste with the diaper and I was also trying to calm the kid a little by talking in a happy tone, "Don't worry, it's all OKAY. We'll get the diaper changed and then we'll go eat." Then something clicked - "No, I mean I will change your diaper and then YOU will eat.". If I don't pay a lot of attention I might end up like those idiotic mommies who say things like, "We'll be six months old next week" or "Last week we learned to WALK, isn't that amazing? ". Amazing indeed.

To be honest, baby's crying isn't very annoying when I know what's causing it and I know I can help the kid. For example, when me and Erkki give her a bath, she screams her lungs out! We are somewhat smirking and talking in a calm voice, "I know you don't like being wet, but bear with us. It'll be over soon.". This kind of crying isn't very upsetting because once she's in a dry towel she's already way more quiet, and once she starts to eat after bath she will be happy again. Or at least content after such indescribable wet torture.

A couple of days ago I was Googling alcohol and breastfeeding. I've always liked a glass or two every once in a while. Well, okay, I admit I probably drank too often before I got pregnant and temporary abstinence from alcohol was probably good for me. Still I'm truly against religious non drinking. Okay there are people who dislike the taste of alcohol and there are people who dislike feeling even a little under the influence of alcohol - those people I understand. What I REALLY HATE is when nondrinkers think that non drinking is the only moral choice. When I was researching alcohol and breastfeeding I ended up reading a forum where one woman asked how to have a couple of glasses so that it's safe for her baby. She was asking how fast the alcohol leaves her milk and whether she should pump & dump after a glass of wine. The majority of replies were written by people with no lives. "Why do you HAVE TO DRINK at all?", "When you got pregnant, you should have known you can't have ANY alcohol for a long time!", "Are you an alcoholic or something?", "I wouldn't risk drinking at all!", "Raising a child requires you to give up parties and alcohol!", "You shouldn't have had kids if you're not mature enough to be a parent."

As you can guess, I was furious. What the hell does partying and alcohol have to do with being a good parent?! Well I wouldn't get wasted when I'm supposed to take care of an infant and I wouldn't breastfeed after drinking alcohol but why on earth should I give up partying? And should I stop breastfeeding altogether to have an occasional gin and tonic? It seems that the general view indeed states that once you become a parent your life is over. This is unacceptable for me. Very few of my friends have children. And since me and Erkki are surrounded by non-parents, we would actually have to turn our backs to almost all our friends if we followed such forum advice. I have been hovering as a sober outsider for such a long time as it is. I really feel that being unable to really join my friends during parties makes it gradually less and less meaningful to even show up.

I've haven't had a glass of cider in months. I haven't had a Galliano Hot Shot. I haven't even had a good refreshing glass of mulled wine during Christmas. I once had one guilt-ridden 150 ml glass of apple-cinnamon hot drink with 1-2% alcohol content. Do you even realize how long 9 months lasts? It was AUGUST when I got pregnant and it's almost summer again! Imagine a doctor prescribing antibiotics for a month! No alcohol for four weekends. Now imagine the no-alcohol obligation lasting for NINE months. And now imagine it's followed by 6-8 months of breastfeeding. That is certainly enough time to alienate me from all my friends and to turn me into a boring no-life mommy.

I know I've ranted about alcohol in my blog before as well. Then I was just bitching about how tedious it is to see everyone else having fun and to be limited to a choice of water, juice or non-alcoholic beer. Well this time I have an even better reason to bitch! There is medically no reason why I wouldn't be allowed to pump milk in the morning and leave it to a babysitter, then go enjoy a party with a couple of drinks soon after I arrive there and then go back home sober to be able to breastfeed again. And I am furious at any opinion which states that I'm automatically a bad parent for wanting to continue to take part in social events with my friends.

There is definitely strong social pressure for all mothers to become a no-life homely hen with no friends. And if I was a weaker person it would happen to me too. I'd call blogging my weekly "conversation" with people and I would write about how WE grew our first tooth and how WE formulated our first intelligent sentence.

On another note... Me and Erkki took the kid to our family doctor's office to have her weighed on Wednesday. She weighed 3470g, which means she has exceeded her birth weight (3382g) even earlier than textbook norm. It shows! She's gone from slender big-eyes to round-cheeked sleepy.

Erkki's 10-day fatherhood-vacation ended today so it was my first day alone with the kid. Seems I managed just fine. The kid was awake longer than usual and not in the best of moods. I tried playing her the song Over the Rainbow but the sad slow tune was upsetting for her. Then I played her Queen of the Damned movie soundtrack and rocked her to sleep. Cool baby with a nice choice for lullabies!

Milk milk milk

My life pretty much revolves around milk right now. When I read all sorts of pregnancy and baby-care websites, I ended up reading numerous encouraging sites telling young mothers to breastfeed their children. Seems a bit odd for an Estonian - what other way is there?! I just didn't understand why people would voluntarily offer their kid a bottle. And as some statistics stated, over 90% of young mothers in Estonia breastfeed their child when they leave the hospital after giving birth. Still, even Estonian websites were full of articles, "Do not stress about producing enough milk!". I thought it was just odd and definitely did not apply to me. Why would I stress about milk? Women have been breastfeeding their children since the Dawn of Man. I'm a healthy young woman with a healthy diet so I have nothing to worry about.

I was quite looking forward to a successful breastfeeding experience and I was very much encouraged by my baby's healthy appetite. On the second day, she latched on and kept eating for 40 minutes to an hour. Two to three hours later she demanded for food again and had another long meal. She always looked satisfied after a meal and I was happy to turn a hungry impatient baby into a chill and sleepy little angel.

What I didn't expect was that a midwife would walk in on the third day, look at the baby and tell me, "your baby looks hungry! Are you producing enough milk? This is one starved baby!" I had just finished another 1-hour feeding session and then the baby was weighed. Then I fed her for 20 minutes and she was weighed again to see how much milk she got. During those 20 minutes, she LOST 2 grams. Another midwife explained that sucking requires a lot of energy - if the baby doesn't get enough milk then the breastfeeding session actually becomes counterproductive. The first midwife said, "I told you all along - your baby is STARVED!". Then I was taken to a mechanical pump to see how much milk I have left. After an hour and twenty minutes of feeding time and a pretty high-stress atmosphere thinking my baby is starved, I was only able to express a few miserable drops of yellow milk.

Oh I hated that one midwife. In an instance she had turned me into a worrying young mother. It's not nice to think I'm starving my baby. It took me about an hour of serious contemplation to realize that I am not doing anything bad to my baby. My body is pushed to its final limit recovering from labour. I'm pale and weak, barely able to stand. No wonder if my body needs a little extra time before milk comes in. Now I just have to get my body in shape for breastfeeding as quickly as possible.

Where there's a problem, there's also a solution. They told me I should start each meal with a 20-minute breastfeeding session and then feed her the "real" food - special milk for babies. The amount depends on her age and builds up very fast: 30 grams per meal on the third day, 40 grams on the fourth day, and so on. And her meals must be once every three hours because her digestive system needs time to rest and this is the book-knowledge proper time between a newborn's meals. So I sent Erkki to the pharmacy to buy bottles and milk powder. I also decided to manually pump out any extra milk to improve milk production. I was told that the problem MIGHT be solved in a couple of weeks if all goes well.

I never knew baby milk bottles were such a hassle. It's not enough to wash them before use. They actually have to be boiled for 5 minutes. And making the milk from powder involves boiling the water and letting it cool to 40 degrees. The first night at home was therefore pretty scary - when my baby started to cry from hunger and woke me up, I breastfed her, then hushed her and then went to the kitchen to warm her milk. After two feedings I stayed up to boil the bottles so I could feed her again at the next meal. Pretty frustrating. On the second night I was so exhausted I fell asleep after the 20-minute breastfeeding session and woke up just in time for her next meal three hours later. And then fell asleep again while she was eating. So no extra bottle for her! So much for the hospital recommendations.

So anyway, here's a weird fact - breastfeeding makes the mother SUPER SLEEPY!!!! It's not just because it consumes energy. The act of breastfeeding leads to the synthesis of prolactin which creates more milk and makes the mother sleepy. When I breastfed at night, it was never a problem to fall asleep right after. But when I was holding a bottle, it took over half an hour to fall asleep afterwards. Unfortunately breastfeeding makes me sleepy even during daytime, so my life has become pretty much a daze.

Ah, and back to my serious breast-feeding problem... A couple of days after leaving the hospital I was making so much milk that I no longer needed to use the powder milk. I just fed her the milk I had pumped out earlier. And then it seemed like my baby got really lazy and wouldn't eat for more than 10 minutes at a time because she knew she'll be getting extra milk anyway. And then she just WOULD NOT EAT the extra milk. She seemed perfectly satisfied with what she got within 10 minutes in the natural way. So I just decided to go with my gut feeling. I stopped forcing her the bottle. If she wants milk, she has to suck it out herself. I just never let her eat for more than 20-30 minutes (depending on how actively she's eating). She is wetting one diaper after another and looks absolutely stuffed after her meals. On day 6 she had almost reached her birth weight, while it's normal to be back in birth weight on day 10-14. I would say the problem was NEVER REALLY THERE to begin with. Or at least didn't require so much hassle and panic.

Now I'm still paranoid about my baby getting enough food so I just follow the advice I got from the Internet - I feed her whenever she asks! That's usually once every 1.5-3 hours. She also likes to snack. She acts super hungry, then eats for 6 minutes and an hour later she's hungry again. And if she wants food again, she gets it! I have completely ignored the 3-hour rule and it works perfectly well for me and my baby. I'm living from one feeding to another because in between meals the baby is happily asleep. Milk is no longer a problem - milk is a lifestyle!

Best Baby Ever

I have to admit - the first time I saw my baby I did not have a strong mother's instinct. I did not have any thoughts that I would kill for this baby or die for this baby. My thoughts were more like, "Oh, that's what you look like. Interesting. Mhhh... My lips, that's for sure. Such interesting cute eyes - almost Mongolian. Very pretty." Instead I had a strong feeling that me And Erkki are responsible for the comfort and well-being of this child. It is up to us that she is happy and healthy.

After labour I slept almost nonstop all through Sunday and half of Monday. I was so pale and worn out I wasn't able to stand for more than a minute. And even then I was really dizzy. I managed to walk to the bathroom and back but not to the corridor. We had a family room with a double bed and an infant bed. I sometimes woke up with the baby doing distressed noise, Erkki then lifted her beside me and I breast-fed her. Eating seemed to come very naturally to her. Even from the first feeding she latched on very fast and wouldn't let go until she was finished about half an hour later.

Now we've had the baby for 6 days and you know what - THIS BABY RULES!!!

She's like a little hint-box of happy baby. Her normal state is chill and happy, usually asleep. When she's not happy, she does quiet disgruntled noises. Usually it's accompanied with putting her hands in her mouth and inhaling with sound. Those are hints that say, "I am hungry." If we don't notice, she does "Wuaaaaaaaa" and repeats the hungry-hint. She does this for a few minutes and if we don't feed her, she starts crying. However, the hint is so obvious to spot that by now she reaches the crying phase only at night.

If she does the hungry hint but will not latch on after several tries, she's saying, "I'm hungry, but I will not eat until you change my diaper!". We change the diaper and she's happy for a few seconds and then repeats the hungry-hint saying she's ready to eat now. Sometimes she will instead swirl around uncomfortably and huff and puff until we change her diaper. Then she will be chill and happy again.

If she is fed and has a fresh diaper but she won't fall asleep and behaves uneasily, she needs to be burped. Most of the time she actually burps herself! We do try to help her stay upright when she gives us the burp-face but I don't think we have mastered the trick yet. Hiccups are a great help: hick-burp hick-burp hick-burp.

It seems that's as easy as that. Baby sleeps most of the time, then needs our help with something - food or diaper - and we help her and she's happy again. There are exceptions of course. The most extreme was the first night at the hospital. As soon as we were convinced that everything is okay and turned off the light to go to sleep the baby started crying. We tried feeding her again, checked her diaper a few times, tried ten different ways to burp her and still as soon as we were quiet she started sobbing and sadly crying again. It lasted about three hours. She calmed down for a moment just to start crying again. Finally we figured out what made her cry - the darkness! As soon as we switched on the light, our baby calmly fell asleep.

Fortunately her fear of darkness was just a first night thing. I have been keeping a low-intensity light at night just for convenience. It's easier to get to the baby at night and easier for her to start eating. By now it seems to bother her if the light is too bright at night-time.

Another time she cried for half an hour telling me she wants to eat. But when I started feeding her, she just let go and started crying. She wouldn't even let me calm her down. She pretty much ignored the shhhh-ing and hugging. It almost felt as if she didn't know it was me! And then I realized what was bothering her! I was wearing my robe which had been in contact with a body lotion that has a VERY strong cocoa butter smell. As soon as the baby latched on to eat she sniffed and let go because I smelled wrong! I threw off the robe and the problem was solved without any delay. Actually I thought of the solution because one morning before my shower she started to feed and stopped for a moment and gave me a REALLY paranoid look. I told her, "start eating, good baby" and she started to eat. Moral - you know you need a shower when your baby smells you and isn't sure it's you.

I'm trying to stay open to drastic changes. People say that the first two weeks are grace-period. Baby sleeps most of the time and calms down as soon as her basic needs are covered. Real parenting starts from the third week. But as long as that hasn't happened I'm saying that Siiri is the best baby ever!

In The Hospital

This post is my recollection of labour - from when I went to the hospital to when I held the baby in my hand. I'm afraid it's quite a long post but so far many people have asked me about labour and I just can not give them a short reply about how it went. I usually prefer not to write too long posts (who's gonna read them, right?) but this time I won't make much effort to make it brief and casual. This topic deserves a longer post. Some parts are Too Much Information depending how much you really want to know.

I last wrote when I was going to the hospital with broken waters on Friday evening. When I went there with Erkki, I thought they would give me my own room and that my labour would start in no time. It was quite disappointing to find out I'll be sharing my room with another woman. She was very friendly and nice but it made me a bit paranoid to be in the same room with a woman who was receiving treatment for an infection after her water had broken way too early.

It soon became obvious that I will not give birth on Friday night. I was only 1 cm dilated. Erkki went home and I had a fairly bad night's sleep with some abdominal cramping. They didn't give me any dinner whatsoever but fortunately I had suspected as much and brought a big lunchbox full of home-made pasta bolognese. Still I woke up at 5 a.m. thinking I could use a nice breakfast right about now. Three hours later a lady walked in with food and said I would be given different breakfast because I arrived to late (6 p.m. is late?) and she gave me a sad small bowl of milk-manna soup and one dry slice of bread. She offered my room-mate a glass of milk or tea so I said, "I also want milk." to which she snapped, "You don't get any!". The breakfast was so ridiculous I actually laughed - and then waited for Erkki to wake up so he can bring me FOOD.

Erkki arrived near lunch-time on Saturday and kept me company until the doctor came to see me. I was still only 1 cm dilated. Not much progress for an entire night of cramping, right? Actually those "pains" didn't really count as contractions so no wonder. Actually breaking of waters is one way to induce labour because amniotic fluid ripens the cervix and brings on contractions. Now it was 28 hours since my water had broken and my body JUST DID NOT GET THE HINT! The doctor gave me two choices - wait another 24 hours and then induce or induce labour immediately. Induction itself might take some time and the baby gets quite uncomfortable when the amount of amniotic fluid drops too low. Plus there's the risk of infection. I really felt my body wasn't going to start labour any time soon so I decided we should induce as soon as possible.

I thought I had read about all the modern ways doctors use to induce labour. But they used a pill I hadn't even heard of. A tiny pill every 4 hours, three pills in total. Many women only need one or two pills and then they get contractions. Two hours after my first pill I started to feel some minor contractions. I was walking back and fourth in the corridor because I knew staying upright makes labour faster. Erkki was reading out-loud cool paragraphs from family-oriented magazines in the TV room so we'd have something to talk about.

I was feeling tired, somewhat uncomfortable and otherwise very well until I was started on penicillin to avoid infection. I think I would have been okay with a few syringe marks in my arm, but I definitely didn't expect a cannula (Est. kanüül) smack on the back of my right hand! I tried to explain it will get in the way, I tried to make a case for pills, I tried to tell them I wouldn't be able to even wash my hands - how can I give birth with rubber tube inside my hand?! I tried but they just laughed it off and said I was being silly. I returned in my room and couldn't open the door with my right hand. I sat on the bed using my left hand as support. I tried to push a hair off my face with my right hand index finger but just trying to move any finger gave me a really awful chilling sensation of a rubber tube scraping the UNDERNEATH of my skin. I was really unhappy. Just a detail for some, and usually I'm very tolerant with cannulas (it's not my first one), but right there and then it was the end of the world and I couldn't stop bitching about it. I no longer looked nurses in the eye when they talked with me. The cannula against my will made me feel so broken and mistreated. "So that's why home birth is so popular", I thought.

A lot of time passed. The contractions grew stronger with the second pill and eventually they even made me cringe because they felt quite uncomfortable. The sensation is very similar to menstrual pain. I thought it's like 9 months of menstrual cramping all in one day. It's nothing to scream or cry about, just strong enough to make you consider taking ibuprofen to feel more comfortable. But for me, all those early contractions combined felt less bothersome than the sensation of the cannula. I was determined it has to go!

Contractions were irregular which is a bad sign because they have to become regular for it to be true labour. My body was just preparing and it was simply reacting to the induction pills. However, so many hours had passed that visiting time was ending. I knew I had to be moved to birth room, otherwise Erkki would be kicked out and I would spend another lonely night there. In the worst case scenario he would be kicked out and they wouldn't remove the cannula before labour starts.

At 8 p.m. the doctor made sure what the situation is. I had been hours of uncomfortable contractions so I must be 3 or 4 cm dilated. But I wasn't! After the entire day of contractions I had gone from 1 cm to 2 cm. The doctor said I can't be moved to the labour room and my husband will have to go home. I was going to have a night of contractions all alone in a room where another person is watching boring low-quality TV-shows. All I have for relief during contractions is a really uncomfortable uneven bed and a bathroom. OK, that's really bad. But at least I need to get rid of the cannula! The doctor said there was no way that's going to happen. Digestion stops during labour so pills are out of the question and getting shots so often is also out of the question. "But I can't... No, I don't want it here..." And she snapped at me, "Stop whining, you're a grown person!" and sent me back to my room.

I don't know if it was the stress of labour not being fast enough or that I hadn't had my regular 3 good meals per day. Or maybe it was because I hadn't slept enough. But the moment I entered my room I started to cry hysterically. I just couldn't calm down. Everything was wrong. No good news in sight. Erkki overstayed visiting hours, but was eventually forced to leave me there distressed and sad as never before. My eyes were really red so my mood wasn't really a secret to anyone who even glanced at me.

Later the same doctor saw me again and asked me what was wrong. She was calm and fairly pleasant and told me it's actually very good for a first labour to happen at this pace. The first phase of labour is often very slow and my progress is close to what she'd expect from people who have given birth before. It's definitely nothing to worry about. And I told her I do realize it's mostly psychological that the cannula bothers me so much. Makes me feel like a patient and limits the use of my hand, therefore making me feel less able to help myself with anything. And labour should be the time when I feel in control of my body - at least on some level. She wasn't strict about it anymore and assured me I'd forget about it during labour. The short conversation made me much more positive.

At midnight another doctor came to see me and said I was a little over 2 cm dilated. Their protocol states that I must be 3 cm dilated to be moved to labour room, but she decided to move me there anyway because otherwise I would just keep my room-mate awake and she needs sleep to be well.

Labour room was nice - it was about 20 square meters in size and had a huge bath, a bed, two large gymnastic balls, a beanbag chair, an armchair, gymnastic mat, sink, bathroom with shower, and lots of cupboards with medical stuff. I was immediately happy to be there because it offered so many options to relieve contractions. My contractions were then monitored and they had grown quite intense but still quite erratic. The longer the pause, the stronger I felt the contraction. Only now did I feel that it started to look like labours on TV.

At 1 a.m. a midwife came to see me and told me to try to sleep to gather my strength and said I'll be inspected later. I called Erkki and told him I'll call him when I'm 5-6 cm dilated. He should get some sleep so at least one of us has energy. Well, that midwife sure had an odd sense of the word "later" because NO ONE CAME! I was there trying to fall asleep, but the contractions got too strong and woke me up every 2-4 minutes. And they were the strongest when I was lying in bed, so after an hour I stopped torturing myself. I starting pacing back and fourth in the room - this made contractions easier. Then I sat on a gymnastic ball and swung myself back and fourth with each breath during contractions - this was a HUGE relief. It was so effective that it seemed only this is enough to reduce a very strong contraction into uncomfortable menstrual pain feeling.

Then it was 2 a.m. and then 3 a.m. and then 4 a.m. ... I kept looking at the clock wondering when I will be inspected! I need to know I'm more dilated than before! I looked for ways to get someone to see me - there was no phone in the room. I went to the corridor but saw no one there. By the time I was close enough to see the nurse's desk, I got another contraction and somehow had to stumble back into my room. And then I repeated the process twice.

By 5 a.m. the contractions were so strong that I called Erkki to come to the hospital so I wouldn't have to be alone. Every sound I heard made me hopeful that Erkki has arrived, but then it was 6 o'clock and he still wasn't there. I saw a nurse! She said she'd send someone in my room. I called Erkki again - as it turned out, he had accidentally fallen asleep and then woken up and was very quickly putting on pants. And then it took him only 10 minutes to arrive! Yay! And doctors still hadn't come to see me! Ridiculous!

Erkki's presence was SO MUCH HELP. Contractions felt like low back pain so he applied warm pressure to my back (with palms, later with a warm pillow and even later with a warming bag) and I felt much better. He also kept me company and was so sweet. I felt better the moment he walked in and because he had had some sleep he had the energy to help me in any way I needed. When a contraction started, he practically ran to my aid.

FINALLY a midwife arrived! About bloody time! He checked my contractions - STILL NOT REGULAR. OH MY GOD!!!! When contractions were happening every 3 minutes, then at least every fourth was either 2 or 4 minutes apart. And then at 7 a.m. another midwife finally inspected me. Ah, whatever! It's not gonna show anything anyway... "Very good. You are 8 cm dilated." to which I replied, "what?! Are you sure?".

Now that the midwife was here and I knew I was in labour I finally got to ask - "what are my options for pain medication? ". But by now it was the end of labour so any pain medication would just slow down labour and might make the baby dizzy so it could make it harder for her to start breathing immediately. No pain medication then. I knew I didn't want epidural but I never thought I'd go all natural with this!

Contractions kept getting stronger but somehow I was living them one contraction at a time. I didn't get the feeling like I had been getting them for hours and hours already. I just knew I had a little time before the next contraction, then I knew I would have 6 long exhale breaths until the end of the contraction, then again a little time before the next contraction. But I was so unbelievably tired that my head kept involuntarily tipping to the side in between contractions. Even standing required too much energy so I sat on the gymnastic ball and pressed myself against the warming bag and pillow during contractions.

Was it painful? Well yes. But the right techniques helped a lot. And it really is only one contraction at a time so the pain is manageable. And would I do it again? Yes, but next time I'll take some pain medication.

Eventually I started getting to urge to press during contractions. They brought a birth stool because it's the easiest way to give birth and I was so tired already. Midwife told me how to press and what to do exactly, Erkki was behind me and I was leaning on him. That's it - a little more and I can GO TO SLEEP! Well, holding the baby will be nice - and sleeping will be soooooooooo goooooooood. I felt the baby move down and I knew it was so close to being born.

Now this was the most unexpected part of labour - I always thought labour would feel natural and automatic. But feeling something huge crushing its way though somewhere inside me and then me pressing it out despite the pain and the knowledge that pressing causes the pain to increase... There was nothing natural about that! But I got energy from knowing it's the final stretch and the more I ignore the pain the faster it will go away. My pressing phase was very effective for a first time birth.

And when I thought I still had some pressing to do and the excitement only grew, the midwife suddenly cheered, "I've got the baby!" and a small sobbing creature was put in a towel and on my chest. It was so surreal. Big wide eyes looking into distance, a creature lying there motionless and confused. I was happy and exhausted and afraid to move her because I was afraid she would get hurt... She didn't cry. She made a few sounds but became extremely calm on my chest. Midwife actually walked over to check she was alive and the creature with big eyes blinked.

Then there was the placenta (didn't hurt a bit and no pressing required) and a little stitching. I fed the surreal little creature, ate a little and then fell asleep. And I felt really satisfied with everything. All's well that ends well!

The baby was born on 10:11 on Sunday morning, weighed 3382 grams and measured 50 cm. Her Apgar test score was 9 out of 10 which I'm very proud of. One point was lost because her skin looked a bit blue at the moment of birth. We named her Siiri Kadi.