Week One with Baby Nicholas – Part I

I have a little time to wait to take drugs (good friends right now) and then go feed the little guy so I figured I'd continue on with my "writing assignment."

Yesterday at 5:01 p.m. we celebrated Nicholas’ first week with us outside the womb. Or at least Grandma and I sort of did by singing him a fun little round of Happy Birthday.  So, now that we have the birth story out of the way, let’s talk about the past week and how it’s gone!

There’ve been good times and bad. Times with laughter and times with tears (speaking of which, I don’t’ think I mentioned that Mark said he cried when Nick came out…he just loves his little boy so much!). Times of elation and times of frustration. In a word, we had a pretty “normal” first week, I’d say! :)

Since we had a C-Section, the first four days with Nicholas were spent in the hospital. It was sooo nice having that team of professionals there to help us keep on top of things. We really do have to give a shout out to all the nurses and doctors who crossed our path and especially to Dr. Toig (who is responsible for Nicholas’ entry into the world!) because they were outstanding. Each one taught us something that has made our time caring for and enjoying Nicholas more precious and more productive.

So, the first night, I have to be honest, I don’t remember too much about. With all the morphine and other drugs I’d been given, I just wasn’t real “with it.” We actually had Nicholas in the nursery for most of this night with him coming in for “on demand” feedings so that I could get a good night’s sleep (or at least attempt it). That seemed to have gone pretty well. I spent a lot of time marveling that this little being was so precious, so tiny and created by Mark and I. It seemed too good to be true most times…especially since Mr. Nicholas is one sweetheart of a baby. Temperament-wise, he rarely cries unless he needs something and it’s usually pretty easy to figure out what it is he needs. This is saying a lot since most of the other babies on the maternity floor were crying A LOT during our stay. We actually had many nurses remark just how well-mannered our little guy was.

Despite his tendency, though, we did have a couple of “all-nighters.” Mark put an end to these frustrating crying fests one night after trying everything he could think of. I, believe it or not, actually slept through most of the episode because I was so exhausted. He had just remembered that in school they had learned that one way to calm a fussy baby was to put your finger pad on the top of his/her palate to allow them to suck, suck, suck to their heart’s content. Now being his mommy’s boy he was particular about Mark’s positioning during this exercise and wouldn’t let him set him down. He was okay, however, with laying in his bassinet with Mark standing there soothing him. After doing this for a while, Mark decided it would be amusing to have a look-see at our little guy’s spine (leave it to a chiropractor to be amused by such things, eh?).

Believe it or not, he found that C1, the first bone in our spine called the Atlas, was just a bit out of place on our dear little Nick. So, he gave it a little pressure for about 15 seconds with his pinky finger (there’s no racking and cracking when it comes to little ones) and, we kid you not, the moment he felt the bone go back into place, Nick was out like a light and we haven’t had a crying fest night since. You can bet your bottom dollar we’ve been using this little story to promote chiropractic right and left! Mark just wished he could go up and down the hall of the maternity floor and offer to check on and adjust all the other babies to give their parents a break from continuous crying, too!

As is always the case now, I need to run now so we’ll call this “Part I” and we’ll come back another time to relay more stories of our first week and all the neat things we learned and all the wonderful (and some of the not-so-wonderful) experiences we’ve had with baby over the past week!