Five

Gareth's five now. It's still hard to believe I'll have a kid starting kindergarten in the fall. Gareth seemed so little until we brought Malcolm home and now he seems huge (I'd swear he's doubled his weight) and so accomplished. I was watching him get dressed the other day and realizing how impressive it was that he was putting his socks on by himself. This is something he's been able to do for quite some time now and that I'd come to take for granted, but I was suddenly struck by how far he'd come in the last five years and even in the past year.

In the past year he's learned all of the letter sounds and can read basic words. Preschool has been excellent for his social and emotional skills, not to mention all the random stuff he learns in small group from the various parents. He's trying to skip right over the whole addition/subtraction thing and go right for multiplication ("two 3's is 6 and three 3's is 9...!"). And his most recent development has been to start painting/drawing actual images. At the beginning of the year he'd just paint a line in every color that was available with no intention of creating anything in particular. But last week he brought this home from preschool:

This is an octopus. I've never seen Gareth create something so intentional. I'd just assumed he wasn't all that into art, which wouldn't be surprising considering his parents' lack of talent where the visual arts are concerned. And I was okay with that. But I've got to say, it's rather fun to have some art come home that he's excited to tell you about and that actually looks like something.

He had a very relaxing birthday - we'll have a low-key party on Saturday with a few friends. His Gram bought him a pink princess ball yesterday which he's totally in love with. We were hoping to make it outside with him, but missed out on the nicer morning weather. So we pretty much spent the day watching Avatar: The Last Airbender (he's very excited for Gram to see all the episodes), playing with his ball, and just generally hanging out. We had pasta salad for dinner (his current favorite) and then it was off to bed a little later. He seems happy to be five and already excited for what the next year will bring (especially elementary school).

Birth Story

For those who aren't interested in the nitty-gritty details of birth stories, feel free to skip to the very short version and pictures at the bottom. :)

The Long Version:

Turns out it was a good thing I got Gareth's school registration in when I did - Malcolm surprised us and came a couple weeks early. I was expecting the pregnancy to go on longer because things were shaping up much like they had for Gareth at this point. I had an appointment a couple of days before Malcolm came and was told again that I was not effaced. I hadn't been having many contractions either, though more than the zero contractions I'd had with Gareth. So, yeah, I figured that I'd at least make it close to my due date with this kid.

I very much wanted to avoid an induction this time around, so I was hopeful that something would start progressing soon. This meant I was pleasantly surprised to feel some pressure a couple of days after my OB appointment. I didn't think much of it, figuring it was just my body slowly starting to prepare for labor. I went about my day as usual, practicing, making granola, having a picnic lunch with Gareth, etc. After I dropped Gareth off at preschool I came back home and realized I was losing my mucus plug but, again, didn't think much of this as it sounded like the actual birth could still be a couple weeks away. I told Ryan what was happening, but assured him there was no need for him to come home.

I walked down to pick up Gareth and we went to the park with our friends. About 5 pm we headed back to their house and hung out there for about half an hour. The occasional contraction was still happening. We were invited to stay for dinner, but by this point I was feeling a bit tired and really just wanted to be home. Gareth and I arrived home just before 6 pm. Usually Ryan would be home by this point. I had forgotten that on Friday afternoons his team socializes and plays foosball. I messaged him asking if he was on his way home (he was) and telling him that we might want to order something for dinner as I was not feeling up to being on my feet cooking. I told him I thought I should maybe start timing the contractions, but that it probably wasn't a big deal, that we should just do it to have a better idea of what was going on.

Ryan got home and helped Gareth fix some problem he was having while trying to play Portal. I called our doula to let her know what was happening. She was in her car and we agreed she'd call back when she got home and check in. I scarfed down some granola and yogurt since I was extremely hungry. She called back just before 7 pm - I'd timed just a few contractions at this point, having started timing just after 6:30. They were about 30 seconds long and coming every 6 or so minutes. Ryan left just after 7 to go get some Greek food for our dinner. Shortly after he left, the contractions started becoming more intense. Poor Gareth, who's never really been very sick, never seems to understand when I'm not feeling well and kept wanting to play with me. When he asked me for the password to go up the stairs right in the middle of one of my contractions I totally yelled at him (and instantly felt horrible about it). He seems to have gotten over it okay though, so I don't think I did any permanent damage.

I was still uncertain about whether I should call my doctor or not. I finally decided to call once I started feeling shaky and like I was going to vomit. And, still timing contractions using an app on Ryan's phone, I saw that they were anywhere from 1 minute to 1.5 minutes long and only 2 to 4 minutes apart. Since it was an evening, I knew I'd be stuck with whatever doctor was on-call, which thankfully turned out to be my doctor. She told me to come in to the hospital. Ryan was a block away with our food when I called him about 7:45. He ran in the door just as I was vomiting all over the bathroom floor and grabbed some things for Gareth and took him to our friend's house. That gave me a few minutes to get my shoes on and then we were on our way. I called our doula en route so that she could meet us at the hospital.

There was, thankfully, little traffic and the ride was mostly smooth (I've noticed that since our snowstorm in January the route to the hospital has been riddled with potholes - they started fixing them a couple of days ago). We got to the hospital a little after 8 pm, pausing a couple of times on our way to my room to wait for contractions to pass. The nurse, Linda, was wonderful, taking the time to make sure I was comfortable and showing Ryan a way to help me through contractions before putting in the IV I needed for the Group B strep antibiotics. She checked to see how far along I was. Expecting to maybe be a 4 or 5, I was surprised when she said 7-8 and that I was in transition. This was very encouraging.

Our doula made it a few contractions later and was able to help Ryan and I through contractions. Ryan's hands were getting tired from applying pressure to my lower back so he had to switch sides once in a while. I appreciated having two people around because I came to depend on holding someone's hand with my left hand and someone's shoulder on my right. When Ryan needed to switch sides, I didn't have to switch my routine.

As things got more intense I mostly kept my eyes closed so as not to be distracted by everything going on around us. My doctor knew we wouldn't have time for the four hours of antibiotic I was supposed to have, but they were trying to make at least one hour. I was starting to doubt my ability to make it through without an epidural. It was interesting to me that, while some part of my brain was totally focused on what my body was doing, another part was calmly weighing the pros and cons of the epidural. Thankfully, I only went through three really bad contractions before they finished the first hour of antibiotic. I think I would have made it through regardless, simply because I kept thinking that I wanted to know what it felt like to give birth, something I felt I didn't have the first time around since I couldn't feel anything. If I gave in I would never know. My doctor offered to break my water. We talked (well, Ryan talked) with the nurse to see if there were any possible disadvantages or concerns about doing so at this stage. When she said that there would be early on in labor, but not at this point, we agreed to do it. My doctor broke my water and then informed me that I'd been almost at a 10 before that and once she broke it I was there and could start pushing whenever I wanted. Malcolm was born just a few pushes later, about an hour and a half after we got to the hospital. The nurse told me it was good I hadn't asked for an epidural as it wouldn't have started working until after I gave birth anyway.

They placed Malcolm on my chest right away, which was pretty cool. With Gareth they whisked him away and did all sorts of stuff before giving him to me and never bothered to ask if we wanted that or not. This time around they wiped the baby up a bit while on my chest and while Ryan cut the cord. The doctor delivered the placenta - I remember having to push a little bit with Gareth for that, but this time it pretty much slid right out - and then started stitching up the small tear I had along the scarring from the episiotomy they'd given me with Gareth. Slowly the room emptied of people and I worked on getting the baby to nurse with the help of our doula and the nurse. After a few tries he managed to latch on. Our initial nurse, Linda, had to go attend a c-section (there were two or three deliveries shortly after ours that night) and was replaced by Carolyn. Things are a little fuzzy for me at this point, but at some point Ryan went home to pick up some clothes and toiletries since we hadn't got around to packing a hospital bag yet before the baby came. He got back and Carolyn weighed Malcolm (6 lbs, 15 oz and 19 inches long) and gave him a bath. Things were a bit disordered since they'd had so many babies come (when I called back to give the hospital his name for the birth certificate form the woman said there were seven births that day) and since Malcolm had come so quickly. They didn't manage to measure his head circumference until the next day. We finally got around to reheating some of our Greek food around midnight or 1 am - something really late. By 2 am we were all trying to get some sleep, though there wouldn't be much for me as I still had so much adrenaline in my system that my mind was racing all night long.

Overall, I'd say this second time around was the better birth experience. I feel like things were too baby factoryish in Provo. Looking back, I feel that I was induced because it was more convenient for the doctor rather than what was best for me or Gareth. That doctor was basically there to catch Gareth when he came out, whereas here my doctor was much more present and didn't leave after breaking my water. She was there guiding my pushes. With Gareth it felt like nurses were coming in every few minutes asking if I wanted an epidural yet whereas here the nurse asked once and then said she wouldn't ask again unless we brought it up - and she didn't. The nurses seemed more than happy to have a doula around and didn't seem like they'd fuss if we had decided not to have the Vitamin K or eye goop. And I know from the tour that they would have been supportive of me laboring in the bath, moving around, doing what I needed to to deliver without medication. I didn't have time to do any of that, but definitely got the feeling that it was supported. Basically, the culture here is more open to less medical intervention than I felt Provo's was, though it's possible that things have changed at Utah Valley in the last five years.

Gareth came to meet his brother the next afternoon and we all came home around 7 pm. Hospital beds just aren't that comfortable and we were rather eager to get home and start adjusting to our new life. I was feeling great, though I did take some ibuprofen the second night we were home just to take the edge off a bit and help me through the night. Gareth spent a second night at his friend's house, for which I was grateful. We eventually got around to mopping up the bathroom floor and Ryan spent a couple of days making sure bills were paid, laundry got done, etc.

We spent the rest of our free time in those first couple of days trying to come up with a name. We'd been told we had six days to submit a name to the hospital for the birth certificate, so we had a definite deadline there. I'd liked Graeme for quite a while, but we knew that the spelling would cause pronunciation difficulties (no one would say it "gray-um" like you're supposed to, opting instead for "gram" and many would just be confused by it like I was as a kid) and it would cause confusion for Gareth and my nephew, who already call my mom Gram. We also figured he'd also get called "Graham cracker" (a co-worker of Ryan's who has the name Graeme confirmed to us that he did get called that as a kid). Plus, the Graham spelling of the name was something like #128 on the social security list of the top 1000 boys names - far, far too popular. We were really hoping to find another Gareth - something that is easily pronounced when you see it but no where to be found on that top 1000 list. Ryan tossed around the names Merrick and Darwin for a bit, but both of those struck us as primarily last names (which they are), and I'm not a fan of the last name as a first name thing. We also considered Damon or Damien (both too common in the end, plus they fall into the trap of taking anything and adding the -on, -en, -an ending that has become so ridiculously popular for boys these days) and even Nigel for a bit. But in the end we kept coming back to Graeme and Malcolm. In the end, Malcolm won out due to it's lack of popularity (in the 500s), but general familiarity that people have with the name and it's spelling. I'd long been considering Rhys for a middle name and though we tossed around other possibilities, we stuck with that in the end. So Malcolm Rhys it is.

The Short Version:

Malcolm surprised us by coming early. I had a very rapid active labor, giving birth about three hours after I started timing contractions. I enjoyed experiencing birth without pain medications. Our doula took most of the pictures in the hospital and, unfortunately, our computer doesn't seem to like the disc she put them on. Hopefully we'll be able to get those off of there soon. Until then, here are a couple of ours from the hospital as well as a few after coming home. And apparently we need to take more pictures of Ryan, Gareth and myself with Malcolm.

Kindergarten

I did it. I finally got Gareth's Kindergarten admission/registration papers in the mail. Apparently we could have turned those in back in October, which seems a bit ridiculous to me. The deadline for people to apply for a non-attendance area school was in the first week of March. Gareth will be going to our neighborhood school, so that didn't apply to us, but the principal at his school still encouraged getting the papers in earlier rather than later (probably so they could have a good idea how many out of area kids they could accept). So I was feeling rather horrible about not having the papers in. But you have to take or send them in to the central office, which is downtown, rather than just taking them to your area school. To mail them in meant I needed to photocopy his birth certificate and two bills as proof of address and my driver's license and that's what really took me forever. But I finally did it and hopefully I didn't forget anything and will get some confirmation that he's good to go in the next couple of weeks. It feels very strange to realize that the next 18 years of our life we'll be tied to the school calendar and become extremely familiar with the layout and feel of those buildings. 18 years. I think I've gained a better understanding for why parents celebrate their last child finishing elementary and then middle and then high school or any given milestones within those schools. 18 years sounds like forever.

Doula Decision

I first heard of doulas before I was married, if I recall correctly. Some roommates were watching one of those getting ready for baby kind of shows and I caught a few minutes of it and the particular couple they were following had a doula. I didn't think much of it at the time.

Using a doula didn't even cross my mind when I was expecting Gareth. I didn't know anyone else who had used one, still didn't even know what they were, really, and certainly couldn't have afforded one even if I had wanted one. But it was far more on my mind this time around. I knew even before I was pregnant that I would want this labor and delivery to be drastically different from my previous one. And this time I actually knew some people who used doulas and one who is training to be a doula. I'm not much better-read this pregnancy than last time around, but did take the time to read one book (one more than I bothered with last time) that was recommended by a friend. The book is actually for the birth partner or doula, but I found it very informative for myself as well. Ryan is dutifully trying to work his way through the couple of chapters I told him were most important to read. At the beginning of this pregnancy I went so far as to do a quick Google search for Seattle doulas, primarily curious to know how ridiculously expensive they were here. And just about died when I saw some of the charges. Doulas often charge $1000 to attend your birth, some charge well over that (I've been told that some charge as much as $2000), and some a little less ($750 or so). I quickly put any budding idea of using a doula out of my head, seeing as they aren't covered by insurance and are not considered a qualified FSA expense. Besides, Ryan would be there as my support person, so why pay someone to do that job?


As Ryan has been working his way through the book, and as I've been re-reading the same chapters in the book, we both started to realize that this could be rather difficult to do on our own. While I'm not the type of person to feel a failure and hate myself if I end up with an epidural, I'd definitely prefer to forego that option this time around. Sometimes I'm very doubtful I can withstand the pain, but I'm also incredibly stubborn, so it'll basically be a battle between my stubbornness and the pain. Though second births are supposed to be faster, I feel we have nothing to judge by since I was induced last time around. This birth could actually take longer than Gareth's without the pitocin to force things faster. I started to be concerned about Ryan getting tired being the only support person, especially if things take a while. If he's alone then it would be difficult for him to take a break to eat or rest or just emotionally/mentally recharge himself, and then he wouldn't be able to help me as well. Then I was talking with another co-op parent and she told me that they used a doula who wasn't certified yet, but who was working toward certification with DONA. Their doula charged them much less than a certified doula would, and in return they wrote a review for her after the birth. She urged me to consider something similar as they had found having a doula very helpful and sent me contact information for the doula they'd used who might know others working on certification. I still put the idea off for quite a while as I just wasn't sure how necessary a doula would be, plus the idea of paying someone to come support your birth seemed a little strange to me. I wasn't sure I wanted a stranger in my hospital room.


A couple of weeks ago I finally decided that it couldn't hurt to contact the doula my friend had used. May as well see what I could find (if anything at this late time) and talk with some people and then we'd be able to make a more informed decision about the whole thing. Within a week we were meeting with a woman working toward doula certification. Ideally, we would have met with a couple more, but as I'm nearing my due date we really don't have lots of time. The first woman we met with I felt very comfortable with and, while she's only attended four births so far, she seems very knowledgeable and amenable to supporting us in whatever we decide to do - one of the births the woman decided to get an epidural, others they made it without medication, and this doula seemed pleased with both decisions. The other woman who contacted us couldn't meet until this next week and the first woman was meeting with someone else due around the same time as me this past weekend (a doula can't be on-call for two births around the same time, for obvious reasons). If we wanted to use a doula and wanted to use her, we could miss out by waiting to meet with our second contact. So we opted to make the decision whether we'd use her as a doula or not use a doula at all. In the end, I felt more comfortable knowing that we'd have someone there with us to remind us of various labor options rather than having Ryan frantically searching through the book we're reading, trying to remember all the stuff we'd read but forgotten. We looked at our budget and figured out where the money would come from and decided to go ahead with it. I'm rather excited about our decision, partly just to see how we end up feeling about the birth this time around (hopefully better than last time) and how we end up feeling about the whole doula thing afterwards. Without knowing what will happen, I feel it could definitely be worth the cost. 

Thumb-Sucking

Gareth is a thumb-sucker. Thankfully, he usually only sucks his thumb at night to get himself to sleep. Though on occasion he will grab his orange blanket during the day and suck his thumb then. I've been telling him for a while now that he will need to stop sucking his thumb at some point. Little procrastinator that he is, he's always replied, "I'll stop sucking my thumb when I'm five" or something else to that effect. The other day I asked him not to suck his thumb at night since he had some cracked skin on his thumb that had been bleeding and I wanted it to actually get better. Now he's changed his response to, "But I like my orange blanket so much!". And I point out that liking his orange blanket does not require him to suck his thumb.

A couple days after asking him not to suck his thumb at night he had his first ever dentist appointment. (He did awesome, by the way. He was very excited to go and opened his mouth wide and was told that he has very clean teeth.) One thing the dentist asked us to work on was to get him to stop sucking his thumb. I told her that he only sucks it at night to get himself to sleep. Unfortunately, everything she said about how to help him stop was really more applicable to daytime thumb-suckers. Peer pressure from fellow Kindergarteners? Yeah, that'd only work if they actually knew he was sucking his thumb, which they won't because he only does it at bedtime. Sticker chart? That means I'd have to know whether he was sucking his thumb or not, which I don't because I don't stay in the room with him while he falls asleep. I'd have to rely completely on him telling me whether or not he did. And there's a chance that he wouldn't know for sure himself if he used it during the middle of the night to fall back asleep or something. About the only helpful advice she had was to just be encouraging. My guess is we'll have to retire the orange blanket to the closet at some point, but I'm definitely going to wait on that until the baby comes and Gareth's had a chance to adjust. The best part of the whole dentist visit was when she asked him if he thought he could stop sucking his thumb. He looked at her and said, "I don't know". At least the kid is honest! If any of you have advice for stopping thumb-sucking that only occurs at night, please do let me know. As I said, I'm not worrying much about it until after the baby comes, but it'd be great to have some ideas lined up!

Movie Night

We had our first family movie night last weekend, unless you count the times when Gareth was an infant and we watched "24" with him that is. I told Gareth we'd be watching a movie all together after we ate dinner. This might have been a mistake as he inhaled his dinner rather than chewing and swallowing in proper fashion. But it did mean that he was able to get pjs on while Ryan and I finished our dinner and did some quick cleanup. Not having a television yet, we didn't get to sit on our cushy couch. But that worked out okay since I'd decided to buy some special treats to go with our movie, which we wouldn't have let him eat on the couch. Gareth loves the fig bars from the bulk section at PCC, so I got a few of those along with some licorice (which he also likes, but it was more for me and my pregnancy-enhanced sweet tooth that I'm not doing so well at ignoring anymore). Gareth was a little iffy about the movie choice at first - "Despicable Me" - because it was something he hadn't seen before and he really wanted to watch a Cars movie. But I think it's safe to say he loved our selection as he made sure to get in two more viewings of it the next day before we sent the movie back. It was fun to watch him react to the movie and it's probably the slowest he's ever eaten a fig bar because he was so engrossed in the story. And it worked out nicely for us. Gareth went to bed a little late, but it was still only 8:30 by the time he was in bed, so there was plenty of time for us to get in some "Angel" (we finished Buffy a couple weeks ago) and "Mad Men" (like watching a train wreck in slow motion, but you can't look away) while enjoying some "dry" sodas (they're less sweet than typical soda) before we headed to bed. Unfortunately for Gareth, we also have movies on our queue that are just for us. I felt a little bad when he got the mail a couple days ago and was so excited to pull out a movie. He wasn't too upset about it being one he couldn't watch as he'd come up with the perfect solution: we just need to "keep this movie until he's a grown-up and then he can watch it too". Yeah, not going to happen. I think he'll get over it though.

What's In a Name?

So my due date is nearing, which is exciting but also a little scary. We've got plenty of clothes and anything left to do really won't take all that long. And we've both agreed we're definitely more mentally prepared for what to expect this time around, though it's been long enough since Gareth's infant days that how much I hate some of the early stuff will likely be a shock to remember, despite what I feel are very clear memories of how awful the newborn stage is. Probably the biggest thing left on my mental "to-do" list is to get our taxes done. (I will be thrilled next year to only have federal taxes to do; hooray for not state income taxes in WA!) Of course, I'm also probably forgetting a million things that we could be doing to prepare, but I'm pretty certain we've got most of the big things covered. Except for a name.

Now, we struggled with Gareth's name. It's a lot of pressure to come up with what your kid will be called for the rest of their life (unless they really hate it and opt to change it when they turn 18). Gareth is his name because in the end it's really the only thing we came up with that we both liked just fine, and we just sort of settled into it. We had absolutely no other names on the list. Okay, that's not entirely true, but none of them were serious considerations last time around. And they all got erased off of the list this time around for various reasons, usually because they're far too popular. We looked at the top 500 boys names the other day and it was discouraging to realize that there are really only 50 or so boys names and people just change the spelling (Jonathon, Johnathan, Johnathan, etc.) or use just the nickname (Tony rather than Anthony) or a version in a different language (Matteo rather than Matthew). The other problem we've run into is that Ryan works in a currently male-dominated field. Half the names I'd pulled out are names of managers at old jobs, or names of people on his team at his current job, or even names of tools they use at his current job. I told him he needs to switch to a female-dominated profession. And don't even mention a middle name. Last time around we just unthinkingly followed some family tradition and didn't have to come up with a middle name on our own that way. I'm still hoping that a middle name will come somewhat easily once we decide on a first name. But I'm starting to think this baby will be lucky if it has a name at all.