A Family of Four

Before Zuzu, I didn’t understand the way parents love their children, though I probably thought I did. I knew I’d love Zuzu, but my excitement for her arrival didn’t always outweigh my dread of sleepless nights and poopy diapers. Then I had her, and her baby smell and her soft skin and her smallness and her dependence on me made my heart swell until it burst, and torrents of mommy love gushed from a reservoir I didn’t know existed. Mommy love is joyous and awe-filled and unconditional and fun …
    So when I was pregnant with Bear I was more excited than when I was pregnant with Zuzu. The mommy love was already flowing before I met him.
    But Bear brought his own surprises. What I hadn’t expected was the sense of completeness he brings to our family. I didn’t know how much I would love saying “the kids.” I didn’t know how much I would love being a family of four.
    I love being a family of four. I’m looking forward to Zuzu and Bear being playmates, sharing memories and inside jokes, teasing and heckling and comforting and learning from each other. That’s why the words “sister” and “brother” are special—cuz they’re always full of stories. Before Bear was born, sister wasn’t part of who Zuzu was. And it’s more than that: it’s big sister. And because of Zuzu, Bear isn’t just baby—he’s baby brother. I love the family dynamic we have now.
    This time, I knew about the euphoria of holding my newborn baby in the hospital. I knew how satisfying it would be when he latched to nurse. How much I’d adore his little sucking noises, and the smell of his head (oh the smell of his head!). I knew the inordinate pride I’d feel about everything, his cheeks, his chubby thighs, his neck strength, his powers of observation.
    I just didn’t know how he’d round us out and fill a void I hadn’t been aware of. We aren’t sure if we’ll have more kids or not, but now that we have Bear, we feel whole. Mom, dad, big sister, little brother. The Helquist family.

Andersson's Birth Story

Introducing: Andersson Kiefer Helquist

Here is the birth story ...

My labor with Andersson was wonderful. It started in the morning and ended before bedtime. My water didn’t break until the very end, so the contractions were cushioned and the pain was manageable. For most of the day I was relaxed and having fun.
    With Ginny’s labor, I felt nary a contraction until labor began. This time, I had two false labors. Both lasted for hours and the contractions were regular and decently strong. Knowing that second babies can come fast, we were afraid to wait too long to call Anders’ mom, who lives 90 miles away and was slotted as the babysitter.
    As soon as we called, she came. She drove an hour and a half in the snow, in the middle of the night, twice. The second time she stayed. She was here for days, right before Christmas, giving up her time at the busiest season of the year so she could be with Ginny when we needed to go to the hospital.
    And then I kept not needing to go to the hospital. I hadn’t reached my due date yet, but I was going bonkers. Those two nights of false labor tricked me into thinking the real thing was going to happen any moment. I lay in bed each night, hoping and praying that labor would start again before morning. And day after day, I got up and went to work and came home and nothing happened, and if you’ve been there you know exactly what it’s like, the waiting, and how tough it is.
    Andersson was due on December 29. The day after Christmas, my sister Elisa flew into town from Arizona. She came alone for a week-long trip, leaving behind her three boys, the youngest of which was just over a year old. That’s a long time to be away from one’s family, but I’m so glad she made the sacrifice, because it was fabulous having her here, and her timing turned out to be perfect.
    My mother-in-law passed the baton to Elisa and went home, after being with us for nearly a week. The next day was Friday. I went to work. By this point I was bored at work. A few days earlier I was scrambling, worried about leaving a mess for my coworkers, but I’d finally done the best I could to wrap things up, and it was killing me to stick around. What is the point of leaving instructions if you’re going to be there to do it anyway?
    Friday night we went out. We ate dinner at the food court at the mall, and there was some odd confusion at checkout over whether it was possible for me to get a smaller plate of spaghetti or if it only came in large. In one shop, a friendly one-armed carpenter was selling a beautiful, child-sized, handmade wooden rocking chair, and Elisa bought it for Ginny. We went to Best Buy to exchange my brand-new touchscreen laptop because it was being finicky, and the customer service associate was grumpy and told me there was nothing wrong with it, so we returned it for money and walked out computer-less.
    And that’s the end, almost, of the story of my life before Andersson, because Saturday morning labor began for real. I noticed the first contraction around 7:00. I knew we were in business this time, because standing up and moving around made the contractions increase, rather than go away, like they did before.
    As I said, my labor was wonderful. We opened Christmas presents while I timed contractions using an app on my phone. I kept looking at sweet Ginny, happily playing like everything was normal. Anders went to the grocery store and came home with big yummy muffins. It was weirdly warm outside, so Elisa and I took a walk, pausing mid-stride every time a contraction hit.
    After the walk it was apparent to everyone that the time had come to head to the hospital. The pain was getting worse and the contractions were close enough together that we sensed the end was near. So we left in the mid-afternoon. I think we got to the hospital around 4:00. Elisa stayed home with Ginny.
    And then things happened fast. I was five centimeters dilated when I arrived, but the contractions from that point on were awful. Things became a blur while I focused on getting through the pain. A nurse was in the room when suddenly I started pushing with contractions. The pushing part for me is involuntary; my body just does it.
    The doctor who was on call had already been called elsewhere, so they had to call up another one. While we waited for the second doctor they brought in a midwife. Her name was Annie and she was just what I needed. She spoke firmly, gently, reassuringly. She told me what to do and what was happening. My water hadn’t broken yet. She said it would break soon and the baby was right behind it. Moments after I felt a pop and a warm gush. The baby, however, took some time to complete the journey. Annie told me how to breathe, how to push, how to hold my legs, and she reported on the baby’s progress after each push. Anders’ voice was in my ear the whole time—I am pretty sure he repeated the line “you’re doing great, you’re doing so great” about two thousand times.  The contractions were two or three minutes apart and I went limp between them, trying to rest, to save up my strength for the pushes, because I put everything into each push and for the longest time it felt like nothing was happening, and here’s the thing: I knew Andersson was gonna be a big baby. He was measuring big at my prenatal appointments and he felt big. I’d gone into the labor experience half expecting that he wouldn’t fit and I’d have to get another C-section. But if that happened, first there would be a long period of fruitless pushing.
    The period of pushing lasted about an hour and a half, but it wasn’t fruitless! Halfway through, the doctor came in and took over for Annie, but I think she stayed in the room. The doctor barely spoke until the end, but when I heard him say “that’s how you push out a baby” I knew it was going to work. And then I knew for sure, because the baby’s head began to emerge, but he wasn’t out yet, and merciful heavens those couple minutes were uncomfortable to say the least.
    Then out he slipped, so fast I don’t know how the doctor and nurses caught him. I was so happy he was out, so happy that I’d done it, and so happy to have my baby, that I could have sung the Hallelujah Chorus, exhausted though I was.
    They put him on my chest for what felt like all of ten seconds before whisking him away again to get cleaned up. He was purple and he was huge and he had bountiful dark hair, and I was fiercely, fiercely proud of him. He was born at 8:22 p.m. on December 28. He was nine pounds, six ounces.
    They gave him back to me, bundled in a blanket with that little nightcap on his head, and I told him how happy we were to have him. But our special bonding time was impeded by the tormenting process of getting stitched up, combined with my uterus being relentlessly pushed on by a nurse.  This part seriously hurts. Mothers out there, can I get an amen.
    The doctor said I bled a lot, and he had to carefully find and stitch all the tearing. At one point I caught a glimpse of an enormous metal instrument that I can only assume was then inserted inside me. There was also a flashlight involved. It felt like it took forever—45 minutes according to Anders. I wanted so badly to be left alone to gaze adoringly at Andersson.
    Finally, finally, we were in the recovery room, and our big baby boy was in my arms instead of in my belly! The VBAC was successful! I’d delivered a baby with no meds! And Andersson was so snugly!
    Anders and I had picked out our boy name before we were even married, but it wasn’t until I was pregnant that we began to discuss the spelling. Even when we wrote it down in the hospital that night, we were sort of shrugging at each other like, “two S’s? Are we going with two S’s?” and we did, because there are two S’s in “Anders’ son,” and because it looks cool and Swedish, but we still felt insecure about the decision, like maybe he would grow up disliking it.
    We pronounce it with a short A, like the last name Anderson. And that’s confusing for everyone who knows Anders, and assumes it ought to be pronounced like his name, beginning with an “Ah” sound. Nope, it’s a short A. But honestly it strikes me as a kind gesture when people pronounce it “Ah.” I feel a little bad, because first everyone had to learn how to say Anders’ name, and now we’re making them relearn it for Andersson. The short-A version just sounds better, and will give him less grief in the long run.
    I love being in the hospital. Our hospital, anyway. I love having sweet nurses at my beck and call, having food brought to me and dirty dishes taken away, doing nothing besides sleeping and holding a baby. For some reason I want to eat lemon meringue pie when I am in the hospital. I ordered lemon meringue pie with lunch and dinner the whole time we stayed. And I also get excited about the jello. I’m not kidding.
    Elisa came with Ginny the next day. Anders snapped photos as fast as he could while Ginny held baby Andersson and kissed him. The ease with which she accepted him made me think that she understood more than I realized when we were talking about her soon-to-come baby brother while I was pregnant.
    And the third day, we came home! It felt nothing like coming home with brand-new Ginny, when we sat there wondering what to do with the extra little person in the house, not sure at all how we would keep from breaking her, and what life was going to look like from then on. It felt normal to have Andersson. He just belongs here!
   
In many ways, labor with Andersson and labor with Ginny were quite similar. The at-home part for both was fun, exciting, relaxing, and somewhat lengthy. It seems my body dilates from zero to five centimeters pretty slowly, and from five to ten centimeters pretty quickly. We went to the hospital for both at the exact right time … and that’s where the stories become quite different. With Ginny, multiple nurses checked me for dilation and couldn’t find my cervix. Finally one said I was only dilated a centimeter, and they recommended I go home since I might not have the baby for a few days. I’m certain now that I was around the five-centimeter mark or so, and the nurse was measuring the dilation of poor Ginny’s bum, not my cervix. The end of that story of course is that I got home right around the time transition started, which was completely awful, and two hours later we were in the car rushing back to the hospital because I was pushing with each contraction and they were coming hard and fast. When we got there, a nurse checked me for dilation and said “Hang on, I think I’m feeling a baby butt”—which meant a breeched baby (surprise!) and an emergency C-section.
    Now that I feel like I’ve got the labor process all figured out, we will probably have a third child and things will probably be radically different.
    Nope, we're not talking about more kids yet … two is absolutely great!

9 months, looking back

Ginny is 9 months old, which means she's been out of my womb as long as she was in it.

Funny as it seems, I can't remember what I used to do with Ginny before she could crawl and play and laugh and explore, and otherwise make life much more fun and much more demanding.  I remember that when I propped her up in couch corners, she just sat there.  And when I lay her on blankets on the floor, she just lay there.  What else did we do?

I also remember certain days while I was on maternity leave in which Ginny and I snuggled in the La-Z-Boy for almost the entire day.  When she fell asleep in my arms, I would fall asleep too.  And when she was awake, I read books to her.  In those days I could show her books with real pages instead of cardboard, and she would just stare at them, instead of grabbing them and gleefully wreaking destruction on them.

And every one of her diapers was poopy, and because it was wet poo, every third diaper was a blow-out.  That's the nice thing about firmer stools.  They mostly stay put.

Nursing was the other thing we did, and I know it used to take a terribly long time and happen amazingly frequently.  She would fall asleep during it, and I would tug her arms, and flick her feet, and poke her head, to make her wake up and keep nursing; and each tug and flick and poke would be good for one swallow, so that nursing went something like this: Swallow ... asleep. "Ginny!" [tug]. Startle, swallow ... asleep. "Ginny!" [flick]. Startle, swallow ... asleep. "Ginny!" [poke].  And so on.  And so on.  For an hour.  And then an hour later we did it again.

She got swaddled every night and slept on her back.  She sleeps on her tummy now, and often when we check on her she'll have her little butt up in the air.

She had no kind of nap schedule whatever. She napped for as long or short as she wanted, at whatever time she wanted, as often as she wanted.  Two days in a row was the longest streak we could manage with keeping naps at the same time.  It wasn't until she started eating solids, and getting a regular feeding routine, that nap times began to be established ... you know, approximately.

I think it was pretty early on that she began to show a predilection for the sound of her own voice.  And I don't mean crying.  I mean cooing, squealing, shrieking, shouting, repeating syllables, and singing.  She's always happy to add her thoughts to the sermons at church, for instance.  And to lift up her voice during prayers.  She shouts at us at the dinner table, and hollers into plastic cups at play time, and talks during diaper changes, and my favorite - she'll sometimes babble sweetly upon waking up.

She had a nice amount of dark hair when she was born, which was replaced first by baldness, and then by dirty blonde hair. Right now it's still short and straight, but the longer it gets, the more I think it may possibly show a propensity to curl. Fingers crossed.

Her eyes are still blue.

Baby-proofing step 1: put china behind closed doors

Complete 10-place-setting timeless white-and-silver china set from a garage sale: $50

China hutch from a garage sale: $50

Baby girl napping long enough for me to put the china away: priceless

5 months later ...

There are two reasons that blogging since Ginny's birth has proved to be nigh impossible.

1. There are no words to describe the emotions of new parenthood. Or rather, if the emotions of new parenthood were like a balloon floating high in the sky, I could, with great effort, find words to build a ladder tall enough to let me reach up and just touch the balloon - just brush it with my fingertips - not to grasp it or to pierce it or to linger with my hands on it, but just for a second to reach it, before the ladder would give way beneath me, the words would fail, and the balloon would be sailing again in the sky out of reach. And as even this inadequate and shaky ladder of words would take a dedicated and sustained effort, I feel tired before even making the attempt, and simply haven't bothered.  If you have children, you have a balloon for yourself and don't need it described to you anyway.  And if you don't have children, just wait til you do.

2.  The things I would take the greatest pleasure in detailing are - shall we say - inappropriate for mixed company. Like the mishaps of nursing ("How do I shut these things off?") or the consistency of Ginny's poo. While these subjects might make for good reading, a certain amount of tact would still be required in the writing of them, and most nights I'm just too tired for tact.

The third reason - that of not having time with the demands of a new baby and working full-time - is true, but it is not a real reason. Unless blogging is your source of income, no one has time to blog, any more than anyone has time to read a novel or go out for a cup of coffee. You choose to make time, or you choose not to.

That's why facebook has taken the place of Blogger and photos have taken over for words.  See how cute she is?

She's almost more than I can stand.

Ginny's 2-month check-up & shots

Ginny did not enjoy her shots last week.  The pediatrician gave the usual line that it's tougher on the parents than the kids.  But that is not to say that it's a comfortable experience for the kids.  However, I suppose that for the most part, Ginny got her shots and got over it; whereas I can't stop reliving the way her eyes snapped open in shock when that first needle went in, or how red her poor little face got from crying afterward.  I mean, I'll never get over that.  Thankfully the nurse was swift.  I don't know how nurses steel themselves for that kind of thing.

The very best way to prepare yourself for your child getting shots is to read all about the illnesses they're immunizing against.  It will only take the briefest moment of imagining your child with those illnesses - in fact the thought won't even fully develop in your head - before you'll be thanking the Lord for the medical advances that have brought us vaccines.

So here are her measurements as of last Wednesday:

Weight: 11 lbs, 11 oz (there are those elevens again.  Her favorite number?) = 70th percentile
Height: 23.8" = 92%
Head circumference: 39.6 cm = 72%

Baby Ginny: 2 Months Old

Virginia Charlotte Helquist was named after our maternal grandmothers.  She'll meet my grandmother, her Great-Grammy Virginia, when we visit Arizona in March.  Anders' beloved grandmother Charlotte died two years ago and is greatly missed.  We think our daughter's name is beautiful.

She goes by Ginny mostly, but we revert to "Virginia" whenever we feel like she needs a reminder of her full name.  I love calling her Virginia because it's beautiful and I love calling her Ginny because it's adorable.

Most common nickname: Ginny-Mini.  Others: Ginny-Mini-Moo (usually in a sing-song followed by "Ginny I love you"), Gin-Gin, Ginny-Bug, and occasionally Ginny-Midget and Ginny-Bitty.  Also today I was calling her Gingerbread.  I also sing "Virginia" to the tune of "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof.

She is now two months old, and resembles her daddy in looks.  We were going through Anders' baby pictures, and a few of them could be Ginny.  Without a doubt she has his eyes.  She also has one mommy ear and one daddy ear.  My ears are pinched at the top so they're kinda pointy like elf ears.  Ginny's left ear is pinched, and her right ear is normal.  How awesome is that?

So far she's a well-behaved and emotionally secure baby.  We are pretty spoiled.  She sleeps great at night.  At first she slept in a bassinet in our bedroom, but that feels like a long time ago now.  Now she's in the crib in her nursery.  She has fussy days every once in a while that I'm beginning to associate with physical and/or cognitive growth spurts, but most of the time she's content, and only cries to get fed or changed or held.  She likes to cuddle.  I'm so relieved and thrilled that she likes to cuddle.  I like to cuddle too.

One of my favorite things in the world is Ginny's pouty face.  Which is mean of course, but perfectly justified since her pouty face is so stinkin' cute.  I laugh at it every time.  She also has a frowny face that we see quite a lot, when she looks at new people or studies interesting objects (such as light fixtures).  Newer than the frown: the smile.  A big, bright, fabulous smile that will just melt you right into a puddle.

When Ginny was born, the pediatrician on call diagnosed her with hip dysplasia and fitted her with a Pavlik harness.  Three conditions increase the likelihood for hip dysplasia: if the baby is 1.) first-born, 2.) female, 3.) breeched.  Ginny was, of course, all three.  The doctor told us she might have to wear the harness for two to four months.  The thing was made of cloth straps and velcro, and it worked simply by keeping her knees at right angles.   There was nothing painful or uncomfortable about it for Ginny.  We were very happy to get the harness because if left untreated, hip dysplasia can require surgery later in life.  But we were even happier when they checked her again and told us her hip was a-okay and the harness could come off after less than five weeks.  From that point on, two experiences became immensely more satisfying: 1.) holding her, and 2.) dressing her in cute outfits.

Her two-month appointment is Wednesday (shots! noooooo!), so I'll have updates on her measurements then.  But I can tell you she is packing on the pounds, and in the words of Stuart MacKenzie, has a huge noggin!  She was born at 7 lbs 10 oz, and at four weeks was up to 10 lbs, and her head circumference was in the 86th percentile.