Reflections.

How quickly they change :(

 A few hours old

Four weeks later.



Here we are four weeks later. If you haven't noticed, I'm a bit sentimental, and every Sunday when I look at the clock I think "oh it's noon! This time four weeks ago I was waist deep in labor and had just had my epidural!"

As the weeks go by, I am amazed at how quickly Noah is changing. He will sit for a minute or so on his own when propped up, he can hold his own head up for several minutes, and he is awake for a good chunk of the day now... where did me tiny baby go? What a bittersweet feeling. There is nothing more satisfying than watching him grow, change, and progress. At the same time, I am not ready for my 7 pound newborn to be growing up yet.

Here in week four of our new lives, I am finally feeling normal. The traumas of his birth are now a distant memory and I find I know longer linger on the scary aspects of the weeks past.

While we were so fortunate that labor and delivery truly went amazingly smooth, just like anything else in life, it was not without trials.

The scariest moment of Noah's birth came when I started pushing. It was such a short period. I only pushed through one contraction before his head was emerging, so it took literally minutes for him to arrive, in fact I had to stop pushing for quite some time while the nurses prepared everything, and the doctor got ready because no one expected him to come so quickly. However, as soon as I started pushing the nurses noticed distress. After the first push I was immediately put on oxygen in hopes that it would keep his heart rate up.

With the oxygen being a success, our little miracle was born. In those first few minutes I shook with adrenaline as I heard the doctors and nurses speak. My heart dropped when he was born and the nurses were shocked to see the cord wrapped twice around his neck. To this day the thought makes me a little nauseous. I have heard babies be still born with the cord wrapped once, but for me.. twice was unheard of. Angels had been watching out for my son.

The nurses whisked him away to be cleaned off. I finally heard his sweet little cry for the first time, then I heard the nurse mention something about a cleft lip, then the doctor replied "He has a cleft lip?" and again the nausea... On further inspection his lip and palate where whole, but he does have a microform cleft. In other words, when he was just a small embryo he was developing a cleft lip. Amazingly as he continued to grow the cleft closed and healed itself, free surgery! He now has a simply charming birthmark on his lip where his amazing little body healed a potential birth defect, you go baby Noah!

So much potential for danger and we managed to skate through every flaming hoop unaffected. How truly blessed are we? Now four weeks later he is growing, changing, and bringing joy to his family everyday. Even his little head is in perfect condition now.

Speaking of his head, here is a nice little tidbit for moms to be...

Noah was born with nice big bump on his head. When he came home it was black and blue and HUGE, it was about the size of half a naval orange on top of his tiny head. It was soft and swollen, and did I mention it was quite large? I understand that squeezing through a tiny hole is pretty challenging, so I wasn't much concerned about it, until it was almost time for his two week check up and it was still there as huge as ever.

Me being the morbid worrier I am, worried myself sick thinking it was like his brain poking through the little bony plates in his head (I get it from my mother, I swear!) So at his two week check I brought it to the doctors attention. Him being the good guy he is didn't laugh in my overly worried face like he should have, but very gently told me the medical term for what it was, and exactly what that meant and when it would go away... so for anyone wondering, this is exactly what he explained to me.

This squishy swollen orange sized bump is called a Hematoma (I believe there are a couple different types depending on where they are on the head) A Hematoma is when there is trauma to the head during birth. Generally it happens when the baby comes through the birth canal too quickly. There are membranes that cover the little bony plates in a newborns head. A Hematoma happens when those membranes are ruptured causing blood to pool over the plate lines. It could take several weeks for the blood to reabsorb and the hematoma to go away. In some cases the blood will calcify meaning the hematoma doesn't really go away, but in those cases, as the child grows the bump usually becomes less noticeable. Even though the hematoma is a nasty little injury that is pretty uncommon, it is pretty much harmless. The biggest worry for a child with a hematoma is jaundice. For some reason this injury raises the chance of a baby having problems with jaundice.

So if you or anyone you know experience this, you can confidently reassure them that the baby's brain is in proper position in his head, and not poking out where it shouldn't be. I'm still shaking my head at myself.

And now you know!!