Mommy and Eden: December

Cousins

Eden met her cousin Matthew today!  Matthew is Eden's only cousin so far - almost three months older than her.

This picture was taken by several different cameras, each of which had someone else's camera in the picture.
And by "camera," I of course mean "cell phone".

Possible hip dysplasia

One of the possible complications of breech presentation in babies is developmental hip dysplasia (DDH).  Any breech baby gets signed up for an ultrasound at about 6 weeks of age to rule it out.

Eden got her ultrasound today, and though she has an impressive number of risk factors (breech throughout the pregnancy, firstborn, female) I was more or less expecting it to be fine.  The results were ambiguous.  It took me a lot of googling to make any sense of it, and I'm still not sure I completely understand - basically, one of her hip sockets (not even sure which one) is shallow, and although the hip is stable, they want to follow up with another ultrasound in 4-6 weeks and we were referred to a pediatric orthopedist.

The treatment is a Pavlik harness, which she'd have to wear 24/7 for six weeks and then 12/7 for another six weeks.  We are very nervous about this prospect - Eden doesn't like to be restrained!  Not to mention the laundry fiasco given how frequently she spits and poops.  But it is pretty common, and the harness is better than surgery.  She won't even remember it if we have to do it.

Daddy and Eden (and guitar)

Tongue tie release

Another backdated post about breastfeeding - I am writing this on 4/30/14.  This is the story of a major turning point in breastfeeding, when Eden was diagnosed and treated for posterior tongue tie.

Grammy and Eden

Trip to Virginia

We took Eden to Virginia when she was only five weeks old!  There was a very small window when we could make this trip, and we were on the fence about whether to drive or fly.  Ultimately we decided to drive because (a) we didn't want to expose her to germs in the airport; and probably more so, (b) we had a bunch of crap and we were not at all used to lugging it around yet.  So we ended up driving.

The original plan was to leave after my Octave gig and spend the night somewhere on the road, leaving again the next morning and arriving in Virginia Sunday morning.  But I had lots of energy and we felt like stopping at a hotel with all our stuff would only add 6 hours of scrambling around incompetently.  So we drove straight through and arrived in Virginia just after 2 AM Saturday night (making great time, if I do say so myself).  Eden slept pretty much the whole time.  It was glorious!!  We definitely made the right not call flying on that one!

I posted separately about meeting her maternal great-grandparents on this trip.  Here are some other pictures from the trip:

First, a couple of peaceful sleeping pictures - nowadays (age 5.5 months) when we try to bring her into bed with us she mostly head butts us and grabs our faces.  We have been able to grab a snuggly Shabbos nap with her every now and then.

Aunt Sarah showing her the piano

Uncle Andy

Her quilt from Great-Grandma Puckett

First Puckett family pic

Eden meets her great-grandparents

We took a trip to Virginia for Eden to see her great-grandparents (that word has a hyphen, right?  that just FEELS wrong somehow).  Below are some pictures of our visit to my mom's parents in their home in Westminster Canterbury.  Eden also met my dad's parents during a family dinner, which I don't have pictures of and someone else will have to post!

Newborn crying

Ah, memories (posted on 7/14/14).

If you can't view this in the blog, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3vThWtb5D0

Eden and her mom in November

Here are some pictures of the two of us during her first two weeks.  Try to ignore that my legs are the size of tree trunks.

Breastfeeding: early challenges

I'm logging my experience with breastfeeding so I don't forget it, and in case I can help others in the future.  Feel free to continue reading if you are interested in that topic, or skip if you're just here for the baby pictures!

Owwwwaaaah!!!  Breastfeeding is hard!!

Eden receives her name

Eden received her name on November 21, 2013, the 8th day after birth, which was her due date to be born!  I was so sure that she was going to be late (before we found out she was breech) that it was quite surreal to be naming her on November 21.

We didn't tell anyone her English or Hebrew name before the ceremony.  Our families were remarkably cool about this and didn't push us at all!  This may or may not have been because I was a pretty big pain in the butt about this kind of thing throughout the pregnancy.  Some nonfamily made fun of us though.

Jewish tradition requires a bris to take place on the 8th day after a baby boy's birth, but does not have the same requirement for girls.  We did not know whether we were having a boy or a girl (we thought boy, actually), so we just told everyone to plan on the 8th day.  When she turned out to be a girl we could have chickened out and scheduled it for later, but we decided to go ahead and do it, because 1) we wanted to be egalitarian about the whole entering the covenant of the Jewish people thing and 2) the whole no one knowing her name thing - we could only keep that going for so long.

But we had already started on the e-invitation before she was born, so it had all boy colors and a graphic called "boy quilt" on it. And we didn't have time to change it.  Result:

For some reason, this completely cracked me up in the hospital.

Eden is named for her paternal great-grandmother Edna (z"l), with whom she shares a birthday!  And although her birthday was semi-scheduled, we did not know about that coincidence until after Eden was born.  (Note: Eden also shares a birthday with her Uncle Matt, which we did know about.)

Not sure whether we would do 8th day for a girl again - it felt pretty rushed trying to put it all together!  But it was a very lovely ceremony, with members/alum of my a cappella group Octave singing "On Children," her grandfather speaking about her namesake great-grandmother Edna, and being wrapped in her grandfather's and great-grandfather's tallitot for the ceremony as special family and friends recited blessings.  Her dad even wrote a song for her, though he hasn't quite managed to memorize the words yet!

If you missed the naming, Eden's ... first cousin once removed (?  my cousin) managed to watch it remotely and video it!  Here is the link:

Part 1:
http://youtu.be/EDVbFbKdxI0

Part 2:
http://youtu.be/_DlpByI3zzU

Eden leaves the hospital

Eden left the hospital on November 18.  We maximized our hospital stay, which I'm not sure I would necessarily recommend to c-section patients who are recovering well.  The weather was really nice for her first day home!  I still looked pretty frigging pregnant.  

First Shabbat

As the only exception to my desire to keep hospital visitors to a minimum, we invited some of our Jewish community friends over to do a Shabbat service in the hospital room for Eden's first Shabbat at about 30 hours old.  We had fake tea lights for Shabbat candles, and did a full Kabbalat Shabbat service with kiddush and motzi.  Her dad held her, and she mostly slept.

As you can see, she was about the size of a challah at the time.

Pictures from Eden's birthday

Obligatory newborn looking like frog shots

Believe it or not, these are the most flattering pictures of me from among the first of the two of us together.  We were separated for hours because of her "grunt breathing."

Grammy made her a hat!

Eden is born

Welcome to Eden's blog, created in a bit of a rush as her mom prepares to go back to work in less than a week!  We are backdating posts so that we create a relatively accurate timeline of Eden's existence, rather than the belated timestamp of when we're actually posting it.

Eden was born November 14, 2013, at 7:14 AM weighing 7 pounds and no ounces.

Eden was allegedly 20 inches long, but having only grown 1/2 inch at her 1 month appointment, the pediatrician concluded that the hospital had probably screwed up her length.  So we will never really know how long Eden was when she was born.

Eden arrived via reluctantly-sort-of-scheduled cesarean section due to her complete breech presentation. Eden was healthy but had a couple of complications in the hospital - 1) she was "grunting" while breathing immediately after birth, which kept her away from me for 6 hours  2) she allegedly spit up something green on her first night of life, which can indicate a bowel obstruction (but did not in this case).  Eden's birth story may or may not be drafted in a separate post.

The closest thing to pregnancy photos I allowed

This is me on the beach at about 35 weeks, for a friend's wedding to take place the next day.  I dressed in gray and white so it would be even easier for you to imagine me as a whale.  Check out the horror that is my feet.  I'm pointing it out because you might be too entranced by my enormousness to look down that far.

Eden at 12 weeks gestation

Eden as an embryo

I'm posting backdated from 4/30/2014 - it's hard to believe it's been over a year since these were taken.  At the same time, it's hard to believe that just a year ago she looked like this:

And slightly less horrifying:

There's a method of gender guessing called the "Ramzi" theory that says with apparently 97% accuracy which gender the baby is based on where it implanted in the uterus relative to the placenta.  Since the above was such a good cord shot, it seems like it would be a good test case for this theory - but I can't seem to get a straight answer as to whether this is a mirror image ultrasound and whether embryo on the right means girl.