dangling critters. Horsey onsie is a winner, too.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Daily Ayla
dangling critters. Horsey onsie is a winner, too.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Another Rope Swing Sunrise
through clean air, instead of vog (volcanic smog from the Big Island).
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Daily Ayla
on this 15th day of her life. She's made it back to her birth weight
plus some, and is now a full 21 inches long. Pretty good considering
she was 19.5 inches at birth. She's at the 50th percentile for all her
measurements except height. She's at the 75th percentile for height,
so we may have a tall one on our hands; time will tell.
Here she is concentrating on growing her hair.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Daily Ayla 5/21/09
Here she is pointing the way to follow the toucan's nose. It always
knows!
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Another set of Ayla Photos
Just trying out the features of this blogging program for posting pics. Here’s a few from around the house over the last few days. She is doing great, slowly gaining her weight back and working on moving closer to a schedule. Enjoy.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Ayla's First Extreme Sport
I just figured out how to post videos here, so maybe soon we'll get some baby in motion posted soon. In the meantime, here is Ari ziplining on Maui last year over the Labor Day holiday. Ayla is with her too, just a bit of cells at that time. When we got home from the weekend, Ari took the pregnancy test and gave me the news that was the best birthday present ever.
If you scroll down a bit, I also added our wedding video to a previous post. Bring the kleenex!
Friday, May 15, 2009
Rebekah Painting Kaaawa Bridge
Our dog Pua went on a hunger strike this morning, refusing to eat (a serious statement on her part) until she got a walk on the beach. So I took her on a quick outing along our usual route.
On the way back, we ran into Rebekah, Ari’s step-mom, finishing up a painting that she had started some time ago. We got there just in time to see her sign it. The perspective is looking down Kam Highway back towards the bridge over Kaaawa stream from Kalaeoio Beach Park.
And here is the final product "in perspective."
Belly Button
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Thoughts on welcoming new life
Immediate skin-to-skin contact. Our Lamaze teacher stressed this time and time again as the best way to welcome a new baby into the world to give him or her the best chance for adjusting well and bonding with the mother. Her arguments led everyone in the room to wonder if society’s ills might be the result of past practices to slap a baby at birth to wake it out of its pain-med haze and then whisk it off to an incubator in the nursery, causing it to feel alone in a mechanical sea of chaos.
Then she showed us the comparison videos. Brand-newborns left to their own devices immediately after birth. At birth, babies that haven’t been subject to drugs go through a two hour phase of hyper alertness. We watched the drugged babies slug around while the non-drugged babies climbed and rooted and sniffed their way up the abdomen to nipple city for that all important first feed. You could see how this could be important in nature, if mother is alone and exhausted, baby can fend for itself at least this first time.
So we added this into our “birth plan.” Of course at the top, we stated that we desired “whatever is best for health and safety of mother and child.” Then we added the bit about immediate skin-to-skin contact being a priority. The Lamaze teacher encouraged us to make the birth our own, adding in whatever we wished, right up to chanters in the birth room. We opted for those things that would within reason make the birth seem as “natural” as possible; low lights, soft voices, quiet music, and delaying all necessary hospital procedures until after the first nursing.
At our prenatal check-ups, we showed the birth plan to both of the doctors who would possibly be attending the birth. We watched intently as they read silently. We asked if everything seemed reasonable, and they quietly agreed. A little too quietly for our tastes, but they’re professionals.
When we got to the birth center once labor had started, we showed the birth plan to a nurse or two while we still had our wits about us. One nurse noted that they will need to put some drops in the baby’s eyes when she comes, and we told her we were aware that needed to be done within the first hour of life, and we would like that done in the last minute of that hour if possible.
I’ll stop here and note that we don’t take any exception to how the birth was conducted at all, and all the staff were very professional and helpful. Birth of a first child is naturally a time when the parents are hypersensitive, and I’m offering our experience to help prep some of our friends that are on their way into this remarkable event. Even the Lamaze teacher cautioned us not to get too attached to our birth plans, because the only certainty is that the birth will not go 100% as planned.
I wrote before how our major deviation from the plan was that labor progressed so quickly for Ari that there was no time for any epidural, let alone the low-dose “walking” epidural that we requested so that hopefully its effects would be trailing off right as baby arrived.
Some of the deviations from the birth plan were only really noticed once the event was over. I never had a chance to get the little stereo that we had brought along to play soothing music set up in the room. Good thing we didn’t spend too much time creating a special playlist, because she most certainly wouldn’t have heard it through all of the breathing coaching that was happening. Likewise for the calming focal points and photos we left in the truck.
We had asked in the plan that personnel in the room be kept to a minimum. This became a moot point when I realized somehow from one of her comments that one of the five attendants that was standing next to me bedside in full scrubs was relatively green to this sort of situation. She had most likely been called in as extra hands in case the baby came before the doctor arrived. Ari probably had a 24 inch range of focus at that point and was just glad to see so many folks there to help her out.
When the doctor did arrive, soft lighting was not a concern. Two flood lights shone down from the ceiling to illuminate the arrival. Ari’s eyes were shielded somewhat by the curtain her gown was making around her abdomen.
Immediate skin-to-skin contact. When the baby emerged, of course she came right up to Ari’s chest. The nurses wiped away as much gook from the baby’s face as possible, but I think it was helpful that the gown was still covering most of Ari’s chest so she wouldn’t be completely slimed. There was some bonding happening with Ayla between the nurses sucking amniotic fluid out of her mouth. It was amazing of course to see her take her first breath of air, and to watch her appearance become more human as her skin turned from gray to blue to purple and slowly to pink.
The cuddling at the chest provided the perfect diversion for the doctor to finish her duties down below. As soon as she had gotten the most critical items taken care of, it was time for me to snip the cord. And soon after the cord was cut, the baby had to be taken away for “just a few minutes” to do some routine medical checks. This happened before there was any chance to nurse. Of course I followed along with baby to the warming lamp.
They say your heart melts the second you see your little one, but for me, it happened at the warming lamp table. While she was in the womb, I read a story or two to Ayla, sang her a couple songs (over mom’s silent belly laughter) and spoke to her now and again. We didn’t go overboard broadcasting my voice into the womb. But as soon as she was laid on the table, I told her “Ayla, Daddy’s here, everything will be okay.” Her eyes bolted open and her arms shot out towards me in full hug mode. I could have cried, I maybe did. I just held her hand and spoke her through it, while the nurse did every single little thing that had to be done to a newborn.
Suction tubes down the throat, a shot of vitamin K (which surprisingly didn’t make her cry), then a little gentle roughing up to make sure she did cry, and even the eye drops. I was getting a little agitated with how long this was taking, and engaged in a little circumvent diplomacy with the nurse via the baby, saying “It’s okay Ayla, we’re going to get to back to mommy in just a few seconds.” To which the nurse replied, “Oh sweetie, this mean old nurse just needs to finish your APGAR test, weigh and measure you, and give you a bath, and then you can go back to mommy.”
I estimated the time away from Ari for the baby at about 40 minutes; it seemed like it took forever. But looking back at her feeding log, her first nursing occurred at 1:45am. Considering she was born at 1:14am, this seems really reasonable. And the nurses were really good about helping Ari get started with the nursing.
Although some of the nurses had read and understood our desire to have the baby feed as soon as possible, it became apparent that their charge was to get their duties out of the way first. If you step back, this makes sense, because there is no need to take the baby away from mother once the nursing bond starts.
The main thing is that one of us got to be with her at all times. It was so nice to have her respond to my voice, and for the rest of the night I was able to calm her right way. We did get the stereo in the room and quietly listened to slack key guitar until dawn.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Third Anniversary
Hard to believe that it's been three full years since this was the
scene in Kaaawa Valley.
Ari's mom gave a us a great present in a homemade steak dinner (complete with wine) at her house while she babysat at ours for an hour or so. A welcome break!
For those that missed it, here is a clip from our wedding:
Sunday, May 10, 2009
A (relatively) quick delivery
We were going through our evening like most other recent evenings, except that we were a little late in considering what to have for dinner. We were watching some detective drama show at about 7:30 when Ari made the observation that she was “leaking” a little bit. We dove into the “What to expect when you’re expecting…” books and somewhat confirmed that her water bag had maybe sprung a little leak. Shortly thereafter she started to get some mild occasional contractions. I started to track them with an iPhone app, and they pointed towards early labor. By 8:30 we thought it a good idea to call the birth center. The attendant urged her to come in right away. Ari told the her that her contractions weren’t really uncomfortable. “Yet…,” replied the attendant.
We gathered everything up, took our dog Pua to Ari’s Mom’s house, said our goodbyes and got on the road to the birth center about 9:00. We laughed about beating the Polynesian Cultural Center return traffic and made it from Kaaawa to Kailua by 9:30.
The good folks at the birth center got us a room right away and started going through the obligatory prep. We gave them our birth plan that generally said that except for a low-dose epidural, we generally wanted a pretty natural childbirth. I was entering intensities for the contractions in the app as she progressed, and we were getting into the consistent 2’s and 3’s with an occasional 5.
She was hooked up to a monitor for the baby’s heartbeat and the onset of her contractions. I tried to distract her from watching the readout so she wouldn’t freak as the contraction peaks got more consistent, steeper, and higher. She didn’t need to see the screen to know that the contractions were strengthening. We started in with the breathing exercises, and she requested the epidural. The nurses said that we needed to wait for some laboratory bloodwork to come back before the epidural could be administered. They checked her and she was still at the same levels as what we had seen at the doctor’s office earlier in the day: 2-3 centimeters dilated, and 80% effaced.
At about 11:00, we had her hooked up to wireless telemetry so that she could soak in the jacuzzi tub while we waited for the lab work to come back. Messing with the contraction timing app had lost all purpose. The contractions strengthened and after a little while, she started to get the urge to push as well. We were well into business mode, varying breathing techniques and she requested the epidural again. I told her that we had progressed into Thursday, and she was dazed enough hearing that news that I could tell that her time perception was dwindling. They let us know that they had paged the anesthesiologist and he was on his way. So we got her out of the tub and back to the bed some time after midnight.
They checked her again when we got back to the bed. In the hour or so that she was in the tub, she had gone from 2.5 centimeters to 9.5 cm. The nurses discreetly cancelled the anesthesiologist and called the doctor. Ari was a little disconcerted that Dr. Feelgood was not going to make it. But we reassured her that the baby would be her within the hour, arriving shortly after the doctor. I heard the nurses wagering on how many red lights the doctor would be running this time…
The worst part was waiting for the doctor. They had her lay on her side, a position that would hopefully hold off the baby’s arrival just a bit longer.
The doctor made her rock star entry just before 1:00 am, and the nurses helped her quickly into all her gear while we rolled Ari onto her back and adjusted the bed to birthing configuration. Assistance switched immediately from coaching breathing to coaching pushing. She did about 30 seconds of pushing with every contraction. She would later say that the pushing felt REALLY good at that stage.
About seven contractions later at 1:14am on Thursday May 7, 2009 little Ayla Irene ‘Awapuhi Kaluhea Hylton made her way out into the world and up to Ari’s chest.
Vital Stats: 7 pounds, 15.2 ounces; 19 1/2 inches
Ari and Ayla
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Misty Morning
On the way into work yesterday, the mists at the tops of the Koolau were illuminated bright pink. I had the camera in the truck, but of course the batteries were out. So I lost some of the intensity of the color.
Here’s a broader view that give maybe a better idea of what I saw:
The camera can be deceptive, as it almost enhances the color I saw when I turned around to the sea.
No baby yet, but I think we’re getting closer…
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