Two and a half weeks ago, on a Saturday afternoon, Liam had his first fever.  However, giving him medicine brought it down, so we waited it out and things seemed to pass.  I went and saw the pediatrician that Monday as he still seemed a bit off — I mean, he was sleeping!  He took a four-and-a-half-hour nap in the middle of the day!  He of Little Sleep!  The doctor, however, seemed less convinced that this way a sign of continuing illness, and gave him a clean bill of health.  He did, however, write me up a prescription of a few tests to have done should the fever reappear (apparently such tests are automatic here for babies under three-months-old).

The fever did decide to come back… the following Saturday.  We took the same medicine route as the first go round, but this time no dice — Sunday morning, the fever was still there.  So after a call to David’s mother, following a call to the on-call emergency doctor for advice, we took him in to the children’s hospital emergency room, thinking they’d reassure us and send us on our merry way. 

Two hours later, they were putting in an IV and sending us upstairs to the infant ward.  The test results came back and confirmed what the ER doctor had suspected — a urinary tract infection.  Liam and I were the winners of a three-day, two-night, all-expenses-paid staycation at the children’s hospital.  Ultrasounds, daily shots, and blood work became our routine, as we ignored the cries of other children not lucky enough to have a parent around 24/7.  We returned the two days following our return home for more injections, and have since been doing antibiotics at home.  In two and a half weeks, we have a big, scary test to do (one which David has thankfully taken the day off for, because yours truly was dreading trying to play it cool for Liam’s sake all alone), and hopefully this will all be behind us.  Before Liam’s birth, my only hospital experience had been getting stitches in my leg in 4th grade.  In the past three months, we’ve spent ten days there.  I think that’s enough for the time being.

Last week marked the conclusion of Liam’s second month of life, and for the most part, I say good riddance!

 The fight against colic has continued, and while the battle has been long and hard, I think we are finally starting to win.  There have been a few key moments.  The baby sling-tying class was a godsend, as the scarf has proved successful during both colicky moments as well as just general baby fussiness.  Of course, the colicky moments require a bit more perseverance, but fifteen or twenty minutes of walking around tend to put the little guy to sleep.  And while the scarf doesn’t allow one to do everything they could possibly imagine (the pile of ironing is starting to look a lot like the Tower of Pisa), it has allowed me to get off the couch more often.  The doctor also prescribed some medicine to give him to settle his stomach during his colicky outbursts, which does seem to help.  However, the real solution was one of those grandmotherly pieces of advice — fennel tea.  Mine was mixed up for me by the pharmacist, and consists of fennel, anise seed, and cumin.  In the beginning, I didn’t really think it was having any sort of affect, so after a few days I stopped drinking it.  The two following days, Liam had two colicky incidents.  It could be a coincidence, but it was enough to get me to take up drinking the tea again.  The incident repeated itself about a week later when I forgot and went a day without the tea, so I think it’s safe to assume I’ll be keeping up my three glasses a day for at least another month.

Liam still continues to fight against sleep during nearly every waking moment.  That said, heading out with the stroller or the sling has worked very well thus far.  There have been a few lunches with friends and coworkers in Liam’s company, most of which Liam has slept through entirely, or at least been quiet and calm throughout.  However, while vacation brought impressive sleep improvements, our return home was another story.  Suddenly, Liam decided that he would not be going to bed, not tonight, not ever.  While we would eventually win the battle, it became a four-hour-long struggle — sometimes even longer — with David and I tag teaming the little guy, the first two hours with Mom, until she cried mercy and passed him off to Dad, far more of a night-owl.  After a week of these struggles, I was ready to try anything — and so, the Miracle Blanket was purchased.  If I am ever at a loss for a future baby shower present, I know where to turn now.  While Liam hasn’t miraculously started sleeping 9pm to 9am like some of the comments, it has allowed him to understand that when he’s wrapped up, that means its bedtime.  We can say goodnight, put him in his bassinet, turn on the ocean sounds, and in ten minutes, he is out.  We only use it at night, however, as I don’t want it to lose its bedtime mojo.  Nap time isn’t happening yet, but I’m hoping in the next month we can start to install some sort of daytime routine as well.

Liam charmed the American family on their visit as well (and we’re hoping this means they won’t wait another five years to come back!).  He was on some of his best behavior, sleeping through most of our restaurant adventures and outings, and — thankfully — sleeping soundly enough not to wake everyone else up in the wee hours of the morning.

Liam likes to talk, both to others and himself, with “areu” being his favorite ‘word’ by far.  He has started to find his fist on his own to suck on to his heart’s content (although he still has difficulties if he doesn’t have someone/something to stick his arm up against), and hopefully we can get rid of those pacifiers which always seem to fall out of his mouth at the most inopportune moment.  He can break into a smile at the drop of a hat — however, he can also do the same when it comes to the waterworks.  He needs to be held nearly all the time, and forget stepping out of the room for a minute.  Seriously.  He comes along with Mom everywhere in his bouncer seat (including the toilet, much to his mother’s dismay).  A little independence would be lovely — hopefully the third month will bring that!

They say it only rains on assholes in Brittany, and I guess they were right — despite a dismal weather forecast for the week of our vacation, the sun shone brightly most of the time, and the temperatures even got up to the low 20s (celcius that is, low 70°fs).  Liam got to appreciate his American grandparents and aunt (although I’m sure he’ll appreciate her ability to make funny faces much more later on), he ate in a handful of restaurants without any fuss and visited some of the sites of the southern part of Finistère, as well as meeting one of David’s uncles, his aunt, and his younger (teenage) cousins.  Some of the highlights of the trip included:

- Heading back to Concarneau, where I ate some delicious ice cream and bought some more of the WORLDS. BEST. LEMON. COOKIES. EVER.  Which I still haven’t opened yet, because I’m currently eating the Girl Scout cookies I so craved during pregnancy that my mom brought over with her.  FYI - the Dulce de Leche cookies are better in theory than in reality.  The Thin Mints are still as good as I remember them being some twenty years ago when I sold them.

- Getting confident to the point that I can tie Liam up in the sling by myself, which has meant a whole lot less crying these past weeks.  They should seriously give these out in the maternity ward.

- Having my dad take Liam and coo “how’s my little princess?” [In all fairness, he had twice as many girls as boys and therefore probably cooed such phrases to the point of brainwashing himself, but it was still hilarious]

One thing we noticed on that trip though… Liam suddenly learned how to sleep.  Three nights he slept until 5:10am, and another until 5:50!  It seemed like a Christmas (in May) miracle!

 Then we got home and it all went to hell.  Not only did he start waking up multiple times again, and naps were once again taking off the schedule by His Highness, but he then also decided that he would not be going to bed in the evening.  No way.  Not until his mom had long given up and headed to bed, and not until his dad’s eyes were little more than narrow slits.  We wondered why?  Why?  Then it hit us.

 On vacation, we drove a lot.  We strolled a lot.  All this activity meant that Liam… slept a lot.  And while it seems contradictory, apparently Liam’s sleeping in the day is key to his sleeping successfully at night.  So now, the new strategy is to get out of the house on a regular basis with the little guy, and to use the sling to “force” naps when he is too stubborn to sleep in his bassinet or his bouncer seat.  We’ve also invested in the “Miracle Blanket”, aka “swaddling for dummies blanket”.  Sleep, glorious sleep, you will be ours!

One month and a few hours ago, I was lying in a hospital bed, stunned, accompanied by a very zonked out little boy who was tripping on frequent doses of tylenol.

 Since then, it has been far from easy.  Liam first decided to do nothing but sleep the first couple days at the hospital, resulting in him losing a fair amount of weight and freaking out many nurses.  Then he decided to attempt nursing, but very meekly, resulting in everyone eagerly awaiting the return of the lactation specialist.  Finally we got out of the hospital, and continued struggling (accompanied by frequent visits to the hospital for weight checks and nursing advice) for a couple weeks, but as of now, I can say we seem to have cracked the code.  Liam now weighs four kilos and has the pinchable cheeks to prove it.

 After many frustrating moments of “why isn’t my baby the constantly sleeping, waking only to eat and look cute baby that all the books talk about”, I am finally managing to accept the little doofus just the way he is.  Sure, he only takes twenty-minute cat naps in the day, but at least he goes does three to four hour spurts during the night.  So he spits up straight down your cleavage, but at least that means he’s eating.  So he twists himself into horrible positions while crying inconsolably, but at least he will apparently grow out of that (if the osteopath can’t remedy it first).

 These last two days we’ve made some discoveries that I think will change the way we deal with our days, however.  First, we took a baby massage class yesterday, which Liam was at first skeptical about but then got quite into it, happily sucking his pacifier (the one I was sure he would not have before he was born, but this only goes to prove that having preconceived notions of how it is going to be with your baby is absolutely pointless), before coming home and sleeping ten hours with only a short break halfway through for a snack.  Then today, we learned how to knot our scarf so Liam can sleep happily against his mom while she does… well, anything other than leaving a visible buttprint on the couch.

Next week — first encounter with the American grandparents and aunt, and leaving for our first vacation, in bright and sunny Finistère! 

A lot of people, upon finding out they are pregnant, feel the need to read every single book, article, or document ever written on the subject of pregnancy, child rearing, breast feeding, etc.  They take their birthing classes with glee, enthusiastically ask questions during their hospital visit, and make practice runs getting to the hospital to be sure to take the shortest route on the big day.  I, on the other hand, read a total of two books related to pregnancy (one in English, one in French, both of which were gifts), hated spending class learning how to “rumba” on a birthing ball, and regretted going on the hospital visit, period.  And quite honestly, with regards to limiting my baby-related literature, I’m thankful, as so far the majority of such helpful information has proved to be entirely wrong.

 No, my baby does not sleep twenty hours a day.  He probably sleeps fifteen on a good day, which still seems pretty good, math-wise, until you consider that babies apparently come with a built-in radar which causes them to wake at the exact moment you step into the shower, or have just added the milk to your cereal, or have decided to take on the daunting task of laundry.  None of the books mentioned the radar.

The books don’t tell you that your yes, your baby may nurse eight times a day, yet that some of those times he may decide he feels like doing so for three hours straight.  They also don’t tell you that no matter how slowly you pry him away from you after he has fallen asleep, he will ultimately wake up five minutes later nine times out of ten.

 They don’t warn you about how spending the majority of your day talking to someone who has no capacity to answer or even comprehend what you’re muttering about may leave you questioning your sanity.

In fact, a lot of the things they do tell you will simply leave you feeling like you really got the short end of the stick. 

I’m considering writing the best pregnancy/child-rearing book ever.  Its title?  Don’t Have Any Expectations.  Like, At All.

Two weeks ago our son, Liam, decided it was time to make his way into the world.  Two weeks of sleep deprivation can lead to a fair amount of personal reflection (although the quality of said reflection is surely debatable).  Here are some of the highlights:

 First births are not like on tv.
Or so they say.  So when your water suddenly breaks at midnight with your first real contraction, you encourage your husband to take a shower while getting yourself dressed and gathering up the last couple things you think of before heading out the door.  At 12:45am, you ring the little bell so a nurse working the night shift in the birthing rooms comes and lets you in.  She inquires about your contractions, and you inform her that you have had three since the water-breaking incident.  She heads off to find your paperwork and the midwife to come and examine you.

Except that by the time the midwife shows up (approximately 1:20am), the contractions are two minutes apart and you are nine centimeters dialated.  Oops.    Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, but rather head straight into the delivery room.  Somehow, you feel slightly relieved, as at least this means you get to avoid the birthing ball.  This also means that no one will question your desire to not have an epidural, because it’s too late for one anyway. 

 An Apple a Day…
Over the course of my gestational diabetes-plagued pregnancy, I took a real liking to apples.  As in I ate one, sometimes two, nearly every day, a habit that has continued over the past two weeks as well.  However, they did not manage to fulfill their promise, as after nearly an hour of effort, the midwife and her colleagues felt the need to call in the doctor for some help.  I do not recommend this step.

 Nor do I recommend receiving an episiotomy without the above-mentioned epidural.  Nor the use of suction to remove your child from your womb.  Nor the stitching up of said episiotomy without an epidural. 

Damn you apples with your false advertising.

Hospital Food Really Does Suck.
Not that this would really surprise anyone, but in France, where you can easily spend a week in the hospital, it plays a larger role than in the US, where you practically get asked “would you like fries with that?” as you pull up to the window.  The hospital will give you a choice of a few options, but they tend to remain the same every day, and are often things you would never even consider eating under normal circumstances, like beets with salad dressing.  Ugh.

Thankfully, if you had gestational diabetes, people will bring you insane amounts of chocolate to tide you over not only for your hospital stay but also for, say, the next three months.  Especially if you give birth the week before Easter.  Blood sugar, prepare for a new record!

Two teenagers on their way to high school are discussing an upcoming concert.  The girl has a patch on her bag for the band in question.

Girl: My ticket for Indochine sucks, but oh well.
Boy: Oh yeah?  Where is it at?
Girl: On the floor, but back further.  But I’m pretty small so when morons go to get drinks at the start of the concert I can weave my way up towards the front.
Boy: Ah.
Girl: Every time I’ve seen Indochine I’ve been right up front.  Nicolas is crazy!
Boy: Oh?
Girl: Yeah, he talks to the crowd, he dances, he jumps.  He’s really crazy!  A party animal!
Boy: (sounding unimpressed) Oh… I think the biggest presence on stage of all the shows I’ve seen is Iggy Pop.
Girl:  Uh, who?!

I’ve come to the conclusion that pregnancy is just a long period of denial.  While the object of that denial varies slightly from one period to the next, it never completely goes away.  This is my take on how it works:

 Stage 1 - OMG, I’m pregnant.
Generally speaking, this stage tends to begin with peeing on the magic stick, and no matter what the expected result may be, the brain seems incapable of processing such news.  This stage tends to continue until someone with some sort of medical degree confirms the stick’s diagnosis.

Stage 2 - OMG, that smells horrible.
From the moment one wakes up until the moment she hits the mattress that evening, the nasal passages are bombarded by odors of all sorts.  Food desires are easily thwarted by the smells of said foods actually being prepared.  There seem to be a lot more people in the streets wearing patchouli oil that previously noticed.  And let’s not even get started about public transport…

Stage 3 - OMG, will I ever feel normal again?
This stage tends to hit when you hit the end of that evil first trimester, the moment when all those lame books state that the demons will liberate one’s body and allow the pregnant woman to live a somewhat-normal (yet still void of sushi and runny French cheeses) life.  Guess what?  Those books lie.  With a bit of luck, human qualities will take the place of those zombiesque ones a few weeks later, but clearly the body isn’t counting the days until week fourteen like the brain is.

Stage 4 - OMG, I do not look like that!
At some point, the body starts actually deciding to look pregnant.  However, the brain does not necessarily get the memo, and then when confronted with recent photographs, it slips into a state of shock.  How can someone who has gained so much volume still not find maternity clothes that fit?!

This stage can go on for quite awhile, and can coexist with Stage 4bis - OMG, when will I start looking pregnant instead of just like I’m eating too many cookies?

Stage 5 - OMG, will this pregnancy ever end?
Strangers have become comfortable with asking the “so, when are you due?” question, yet every time the answer comes out, the date never seems any closer.  You start to wonder how the hell elephants manage to gestate for so long.

Stage 6 - OMG, this pregnancy is almost over and nothing is ready!
As if by magic, stage 5 is replaced by stage 6 overnight, causing panic to set in once again.  The baby’s room isn’t finished!  The furniture isn’t assembled!  The hospital suitcase is still missing vital elements!  The baby is going to have to sleep in a box on the floor!  What if someone calls Child Protective Services?!

Since the last post some umpteen years ago…

 We found out we’re having a boy.
While I pretty much knew this was going to be the case, because every baby-related dream involved a boy.  However, I am not ashamed to admit that I had a preference, and well, it was not for a boy.  To all those people who say “as long as its healthy…”, to you I say just admit it, you have a preference.  It’s nothing to be ashamed about.  I have had nightmares about waking up at three in the morning to find both David and child playing horrible, obnoxious computer games. 

The boy still has no name.
At thirty-four weeks, this should probably be remedied very shortly.  In France, hospitals don’t seem to take very kindly to the idea of having “Baby Boy” on the ID bracelet, not to mention that if I’ve understood correctly, you have to make an official declaration of the birth at the city hall within the three days following it.  We’ve more or less been stuck with two ideas for a couple months of names we both are fine with, plus a couple others that have been tossed around without either of us wanting to kill the other for even suggesting something that stupid.  However, we still seem to spend more time tossing around horrible names, because there is something very amusing about suggesting naming your child JarJar for the eighteenth time.

 I am about *this* close to making a “name our child” group on Facebook.  We’ll see if I go through with it.

We’ve had childbirthing classes and a hospital tour.
Being informed about all the nitty-gritty details of the birthing process is supposed to reassure you.  In my case, it has made me a nervous wreck.  Did they really need to give us the tour of the cesarean operating room?  Or show us the needle-type thing they use to manually break your water if necessary?  Or talk about opting for enemas?  Whatever happened to staying in your blissfully ignorant bubble, where giving birth is like bubbles and butterflies flying out your nether-regions to the songs of animals à la Snow White?

My mother recently informed me that my grandmother was knocked out cold when my mom was born.  I am feeling a bit jealous.

I don’t want an epidural.
Make this statement aloud, and just about everyone will either a) laugh at you, or b) make some statement about how you will change your mind.  Maybe I will, but quite frankly pain seems less scary than a guy shoving a needle into your back between your vertebrae and rendering you (hopefully temporarily) paralyzed.  My biggest fear involves opting for the epidural only to be hit with an uncontrollable urge to sneeze at exactly the wrong moment.

The fact that there are now epidurals in existence where the woman can control the amount of product necessary to obtain pain relief without ending up completely frozen from the waist down is a great invention, and might allow me to reconsider my fears, except for the fact that my hospital doesn’t offer this because their anaesthesiologist isn’t attached to the maternity but rather works throughout the entire hospital, and such technology requires supervision.  So fuck you, epidural.

I have gestational diabetes.
Nothing has made me doubt my ability to be a good mother more than this diagnosis.  Ever since the tests informed us of such a diagnosis, I have been paying very close attention to what I eat.  For the last four weeks, I have been following a strict diet which involves weighing certain food items and avoiding many, while attempting to substitute non-carb vegetables for all those avoided items.  For the last three I have been testing my blood sugar six times a day and noting it diligently in a small notebook.

Nothing has ever made me feel so frustrated.

I know there are far more serious things that can throw a wrench in a pregnancy, things that would have far more lasting effects on the health of my unborn child, or my own.  I follow that diet, despite the lack of energy I am left with at at the end of the afternoon, too early for dinner but feeling completely empty of all ability to focus or, sometimes, to even move from the couch.  I find food invading my thoughts, as I look up recipes for things I can’t eat, or eyeing restaurant menus for mouth-watering items I can’t partake in.  However, the worst is when you test yourself post-meal to find that despite all your efforts, you have passed the maximum recommended blood sugar level.

 Nothing makes you feel more incompetent as a not-yet mother.  Frustration has turned to tears on more than one occasion. 

I’m just trying to pull through without losing my marbles.

Excerpt from a conversation between my husband and I last week:

 K: “I think maybe we should take a picture of me to send to my mom.”

(Note: In the week prior, I had been called out as being pregnant by three people who had not been specifically informed, so I finally was forced to admit that I was surely starting to look pregnant.)

D: “Okay.” [gets all the camera stuff out and instructs me to stand up facing the side]

[shows K the results]

K: “What?!  Oh!  You’re using the wide-angle lens!”

D: “Yeah but you’re in the center, that doesn’t change anything.”

K: “Pssha, this is like when you take pictures of our friends with Jay Leno chins or massive foreheads.  You need to change lenses.”

D: “Okay, but…” [humors his wife, who is shaking her head and rolling her eyes]

[takes more pictures and shows K the results]

K: “Oh my god, I do NOT look like that!”

D: “Um…”

[K is forced to face the reality]