On vacay

• Age: 6 weeks - 11 weeks
  
• Weight: 4.4 kg (7 lbs 2 oz)
• Average hours of continuous sleep: 6 and holding
  
• Latest trick: Smiling at last!

Liv's six week birthday saw us board a plane to New Zealand. Nearly 36 hours later, we actually arrived in New Zealand. The welcoming party consisted of one very excited Nana Jude and Poppa Terry. The former, it should be noted, was mostly focused on welcoming the newest member of the family, and once the bub was handed over, turned on her heel and happy headed out the door!

The following three weeks saw us enjoying family time in Hamilton and Waihi Beach (for pictures see here)
and following this, in Modesto, California (pics here). The photos will have to do the talking!

Liv'ing dangerously

• Age: 5 weeks
• Weight: 4.2 kg (9 lbs 4 oz)
• Average hours of continuous sleep: 6!
• Latest trick: Being burped on a Swiss ball

Chris takes the new responsibilities of being a Dad very seriously.

Liv with Dad

• Age: 4 weeks
• Weight: 3.8 kg (8 lbs 6 oz)
• Average hours of continuous sleep: 5
• Latest trick: Daddy time

From matching blue eyes (and bald spots) to sleeping with their mouths open, Livia is a chip off the old Chris. Incidentally, I hear this is pretty common - nature's way of assuring the men-folk that the little critter keeping them up all night is in fact their offspring.

Livia Visage

• Age: 3 weeks
• Weight: 3.6 kg (7 lbs 15 oz)
• Average hours of continuous sleep: 5
• Latest trick: Eyes open for more than a few minutes

A few of Livia's different 'faces'...

Playful

Thoughtful
Cute!
Hungry? Angry? Overtired?

Splish splash

• Age: 2 weeks
• Weight: 3.4 kg (7 lbs 8 oz)
• Average hours of continuous sleep: 5
• Latest trick: Bath time!

We couldn't have a baby blog without some nudey shots, although these are fairly tame.

A little kiwi

• Age: 1 week
• Weight: 3.3 kg (7 lbs 4 oz)
• Average hours of continuous sleep: 4
• Latest trick: Getting her passport photo taken!

After about 50 attempts, we were finally able to convince Livia to keep her eyes open, mouth shut, look in the general direction of the camera, hands out of the way and not cry AND capture the Kodak moment. She's now well on her way to becoming a little kiwi.


She also did her first test drive of the Baby Bjorn - a spin around Christchurch meadow (hopefully when she actually learns to drive, she'll open her eyes).

Liv at home

• Age: 2 days
  
• Weight: 3.16 kg (6 lbs 15 oz)
• Average hours of continuous sleep: 4
• Latest trick: Feeding

Due to a wonderfully fast recovery (despite almost zero sleep), Mum/Mom and baby escaped from hospital a few days early. Mostly just so Dad could do some night-time nappy changes!

Here's a video from when she first arrived home (couldn't figure out how to rotate the image, so you will have to look sideways):




And when Daddy was learning to burp her:

Delivery de Livia

• Age: 0 days
• Weight: 3.2 kg (7 lbs 2 oz)
• Average hours of continuous sleep: 1.5 (but never when mum is sleeping)
• Latest trick: Being on the outside!

At last my EDD (Expected Due Date) rolled around and Livia decided it was time to see the world for herself (either that or finally the right concoction of hormones triggered the onset of labour). As the clock struck midnight, my waters broke. The atmosphere of the moment was somewhat more subdued than you would think (given my previous posts where ALL I could talk about was giving birth) for a couple of reasons:

1) It was hard to ascertain whether the clear liquid was amniotic fluid or just plain old pee
2) Chris wasn't particularly interested in waking up - especially since I wanted his opinion on 1)

In any case, I eventually roused Chris, he rang the midwife unit, and they told us to wait until the contractions were 5 minutes apart and advised us to sleep. Given that this might mean at least several hours for the 'average' woman with a first baby, I don't think they expected to hear from us for quite some time.

However, never underestimate the efficiency of Healy women contractions. As we got back into bed, I felt an interesting sensation in my lower abdomen. This must be... a contraction! Yes! Finally! Things were underway for sure. Chris jotted down the time and we tried to snooze some more... but wait! There was another... and it was only 6 minutes after the first one! Sleeping was looking increasingly less likely, as we eagerly anticipated the next... which was 5 minutes later... the next one was 4 minutes... then 3 minutes...then 2 minutes... yikes. Things were happening so fast! The next hour or two passed very quickly - what with contractions every 2 minutes, the arrival of the midwife and the transferral to the hospital (due to meconium in the amniotic fluid).

By the time we arrived at the hospital, the whole labour thing was getting old. I'd had no chance for any form of pain relief, the contractions were stronger than I'd ever imagined, yet the midwife had indicated that my cervix was only thinning (i.e. not yet even dilating). I was totally demoralised, thinking I had the lowest pain tolerance ever. Then things got really crazy.

In the delivery room, the midwife checked my progress - turned out in a matter of minutes I'd gone from 0 to 10 cm dilation (no bloody wonder with those contractions!). Then I really got thrown a curve ball - the baby was breech. And very unusually so - with one leg straight up and foot by her ear, the other tucked under her bum (presumably this is what the midwife felt when she was expecting the head!).

At this point, there's suddenly about 10 people in the room, a consent form being waved in my face and a disembodied voice informing me of the complications that could arise from a c-section delivery. Yet apparently, despite the risks of injury to sensitive body parts like my bowel and bladder, the c-section is what they are recommending... IF there is time. I peak out from behind my tightly clenched eyes, sign the form and... we're off... to the operating theater.

Things improve at this point, for several reasons, the main one being I finally get some pain relief. Gas and air, it should be noted, is lovely for taking the edge of things. Of course, the spinal block, well, did just that: completely blocked all sensations below my ribs. What bliss. Chris reappears and suddenly it's all go down below. Within a few minutes, the baby is pulled out and whisked away, and then things really calm down. The bits of me that had just been surgically separated were returned to their original locations, more or less, and then the whole lot sutured in place.

Then I finally get to see Livia... and here is what I saw, abour 15 minutes after birth:

Oh yes... that is a foot. Turns out, she'd been breech so long, her right leg wouldn't go down - although this has thankfully corrected itself over time. During the whole sew-Sarah-back-up process, Chris snapped a few more pics, our favourite is here:

Kinder surprise

When is this baby coming? For some reason both Chris and I were convinced she'd come bang on 37 weeks. Why we thought this I'm not entirely sure, but clearly we were mistaken!

So far, noone out of the nearly-bursting November-due-date moms-to-be crowd has popped their sprog... although watch this space!

Meanwhile, it looks like we'll be playing the waiting game a little longer!

Updated bump

The latest and greatest pics of the bump (Week 37)...

Question of the week...

Q) What do you get when you divide my belly circumference by the diameter?

A) Pi

Funny nerdy baby joke

Got this from my godmother...

A little boy goes to his father and asks "Daddy, how was I born?"

The father answers: "Well son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway! Your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on Yahoo. Then I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber-cafe. We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a little Pop-Up appeared that said:

"You got male!"

Womb service

Anotha' day, anotha' inch or two around my girth. Yet, despite my fears as I passed over the sample to the midwife on Friday, there was no detectable glucose to implicate gestational diabetes as the cause of Baby Flaim's apparently gargantuan proportions. In fact, she may not be all that big in the end - it's just that her Mum feels like a complete blimp. Judging by her kicks and wriggles, she appears to be aware that her accommodation is getting cosier by the day - fingers crossed that will encourage her to get a move on before her EDD!

Meanwhile, in preparation for the B-day, Chris and I recently took a lesson in Massage for Labour (trans: Daddy got a lesson in Massage for Labour and Mummy got to be massaged for an hour). Guess who booked and organised that one! Also tried out a Hypnobirthing CD this afternoon, which had me snoozing after a mere 5 minutes. Whether all this helps on the actual day remains to be seen...

Class action

The last two Monday nights have seen us heading up to the JR hospital for our two instalments of antenatal classes, care of the NHS. Week 1 kicked off with tour of the delivery suite. Since last years Christmas babies are being born right now, there was only one room free! Which just so happened to be the "birthing pool" room. I think Chris could imagine himself reclining in a what is essentially a jacuzzi for a few hours while I squeeze the baby out. However, this didn’t hold his attention for too long; after a cursory check over of the facilities, Chris spent most of the time with his ear to the wall, listening for the howls of women in labour. He was quite disappointed to not hear much at all!

Following this, we had a 2 hour class on the birthing process, which included 5 free puffs on the gas/air mixture before we talked about mucus plugs, the colour of babys' poos, and other fun stuff. We were also told to study the birthing position poster, which looked like a page out of a fat camp Kama Sutra manual.

Week 2 started out well with all sorts of ‘alternatives’ to inducing labour: pineapple, curry, raspberry leaf tea, clary sage oil etc, but rapidly deteriorated into a show-and-tell of assisted delivery tools are used today to ‘help’ the baby out (trans: various medieval torture instruments inserted into mom to pull/suction out the little tyke inside). Then we segued into breastfeeding techniques (involving a woolen booby) and nappy contents – more show-and-tell but with peanut butter and marmite. I leave the details to your imagination.

To heir is human

Since I last posted, there’s been an addition to the Flaim family – the arrival of Miles Flaim Kenyon! He was born at 2.55 pm, Thursday 13 September at Cedar Sinai Hospital in LA. The little lad weighed in at 7lbs 13 ozs and measured 21.5 inches. We heard the little tyke give a bit of a gurgle down the phone last night.

Meanwhile, we had a fantastic time on our whirlwind trip to Scotland – apart from the time spent in the car! I must be a lot more fidgety now - sitting still for several hours is no fun at all! I can practically feel the skin in my legs stretching from venous pooling. Also, the be-she-moth is still growing in utero at an exponential rate. Previously I speculated about being confined to Oxford from now on; now it's a commitment.

Anyway, I digress. Kate and Steve's wedding was incredible; Kate was the storybook radiant bride, Steve the handsome groom.

Photos from the weekend can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/sarah.healy/KateSWedding

From here to maternity

I can’t quite believe it. Neither can Chris. I’m STILL getting bigger. And there are a fair few weeks to go. Not that I want the baby just yet. I just think I might be reaching the limit of my skin’s elasticity.

Other than the fear of giving birth to the hugest baby ever, everything is going fine. Acupuncture and the occasional massage is working wonders on my back, and I can still sleep fairly well, despite the feeling of a basketball being strapped to my tummy.

One more pre-baby mini vacation: a trip to Edinburgh for a friend's wedding. After that, my destination of choice may become the couch for several a weekend.

Every pregnant woman's nightmare

Updated bump

Same t-shirt as in Italy... just stretched a little more tightly!

What's growing on?

So now we’ve reached the ¾ mark. It's still quite a long way to go until B-Day, but I guess you could say we’re in the home stretch (no pun intended). Every day now, I get frequent reminders that there is a wee creature in there, alive and kicking (with the emphasis being very much on the kicking). Right now, for instance, it appears that she is reaching back to her Celtic roots and doing the river-dance… on my bladder! Maybe it is because I’m hungry (and therefore she is hungry) and this is her way of making sure I go and get food. Typical woman – she knows how to get what she wants!