The Tweedles

Dearest Hudson.

This month you’re six months old!  You’re half a year old!  Daddy reminded me and asked if I was planning a party.  Sadly I didn’t have the time.  I’m sorry Little Bud!  I feel bad because I think back to when your sister was this little and we had a party for her when she turned 6 months, and one when she was 100 days, and with you all I’ve managed was an acknowledgement and some kisses.  I know that you don’t care now, but perhaps when you’re older you will.  I can make lots of excuses like that I’m more busy now that I have 2 babies, but I still feel bad.  I do make sure I spend lots of time with you though.  I don’t think you’ll ever feel unloved or second best, because you’re not!

 I’ve reflected some on you since you’ve turned 6 months.  I can’t help but think what would have been.  If your twin would have lived and what our life would be like now if there were 2 six month old babies right now.   I feel sad to think about it.  I can’t bring myself to feel grateful that my life isn’t that busy.  I’ll never feel grateful that I lost your twin, I am grateful for you though, you are so sweet, so mellow, so loving.  I am a lucky mama.  When we were starting to realize that something wasn’t quite right with your twin you were about 8 weeks along as an embryo, and I was so sad.  I spent a lot of time thinking about “Leftie”, and I didn’t think as much about you, my healthy embryo, I knew you would be okay.  Then one day, right before an appointment to see how you and Leftie were doing I felt a little thump, and it was you!  At 8 weeks!  The ultrasound confirmed that it was you, it was like you were reminding me to pay attention to you, that you’re still here and doing fine.  I was happy to see you and your wiggly self, and sad to see that Leftie was not doing well.  If we fast forward to now, you’re a plump, busy 6 month old baby boy.  I still think of your angel, and what could have been.  But I am happy with how things are now. 

This month you’ve been busy!  You’re so close to crawling, you can get up on your hands and knees and you rock a little.  I can see that you’re figuring out what to do with this new vantage point.  I suspect that soon you’ll sort it all out and move forward, but for now you generally fall over and roll, piviot, roll to get to where you need to go. 

With your eating we’ve implemented the baby lead solids method of eating.  I let you explore food, play with it, rub it all over you and in general learn about it with all of your senses.  So far you really seem to like it.  I still have to give you rice cereal to help keep your reflux at bay, but I need less and less, which is nice because I hate the stuff and you appear to as well.  In the last little while you’ve had plums, nectarines, borscht, fro yo, bread, naan, lemons, melons and tortillas.  You make a lot of faces and often the food ends up on the floor, but first you handle it and poke it and explore it.  Sometimes you give it a lick, or you stuff it all in your mouth, I think you’re enjoying your food, and loving that it’s not on a spoon!  You still love your bottles, but you are slowing down on them.  For a while we moved you up to 6 ounces each time, and you downed them with gusto, but now you rarely finish a whole 6 ouncer, so we’re back to 4 or 5.  Also lately you’ve shown some interest in nursing again.  We stopped because you had no patience for my non supply, but now you want to comfort nurse, which is sweet.  And it’s shocking to learn that you still have a perfect latch.  You’re a pretty amazing little guy!

This past month you’ve really started to notice the pets, and they amuse you to no end.  You’ll just giggle at Chachi as he itches an itch or when he brings you a toy for you to have.  It’s pretty cute to see that you love them!  Bonsai will tolerate you and let you pull his tail that he twitches in your face.  Chachi doesn’t mind when you pull a little hard on his leg, tail, ear, or whatever you’ve managed to grab.  I hope you keep loving them.  I’m sure they’ll agree, they love getting lots of attention!

It’s been a busy month!  I’ve been working hard to make sure that your playgroup gets up and running so that you have lots of little friends like Trixie does.  I can’t wait until you start to remember your friends and ask to play with them like Trixie does.  It’s so sweet. 

I love you my little man.  Forever and ever!

Love,

Mama.

Hudson was born at 8:14 am January 28, 2010, but my labour started at 5 am January 27 at 5am. If you do the math that’s 27 hours. It was a long day.
Wednesday morning I woke to a popping feeling in my uterus, which I wrote off as the baby kicking because often when he kicked I would hear and feel a pop, like when you crack your knuckles. I figured it was my pelvis or something clicking. My midwife assured me it was normal, not common but okay. So I just assumed the popping was him clicking. Then about 5 minutes later, (after I shifted positions a little) I felt some gurgling in my abdomin. I thought perhaps I had some indigestion, and waited to see how I felt. I waited, more gurgling. Then I noticed some dampness, again I didn’t think it was much. Then I noticed more… putting two and two together I jumped out of bed and bounded to the bathroom doing the tightest keigle I could manage. Once I hit the tile floor (3 steps from my bed) there was a giant splash and I took the final step to the toilet. Once sitting I screamed for Adam to wake up, telling him my water broke. He jumped out of bed and came running to me and we confirmed that I my water had indeed broken, all over the bathroom floor. Adam went and found some towels to sop up the mess, I wiped up some with white toilet paper to check the colour, which was a lovely clear colour.
After we cleaned up the mess Adam went back to bed and I tucked a hand towel between my legs and went back to bed too. Trixie woke up a briefly, but we gave her a bottle and she went back to sleep. At 5:30am I had my first contraction, then had another 3 minutes later, and another 3 minutes later, each lasting 45-55 seconds each. By now I was convinced I was going to have a baby on the 27th and was trying to not get too excited and get some sleep. At around 7am I called my doula and midwife* to let them know what had happened. My midwife was going to send her appretice over to see me, and she arrived around 10 am, she listened to the baby’s heart, told me to drink some water, eat something with protien and to rest. Around the same time a good friend came over and took Trixie to a near by indoor playground, she also brought me a protien shake. I continued to labour at home for a few more hours with regular contractions.
At around 3 or so my doula suggested that we go for a walk to help get things going since my contraction had started to slow down. I was exhausted and took a small nap first with Trixie. When we woke up less than an hour later we got ready to go for a walk, and I changed the cloth diaper I had stuffed in my pants to absorb the amniotic fluid. At this time I noticed it was tinged greenish brown. I figured it was just bloody show, perhaps reacting with the cotton of the diaper and we went for a good long walk, which triggered a lot of strong contractions. When we got back from the walk I changed the diaper again since I could feel it was rather sodden, and I noticed more green/ brown fluid. At this time I called my midwife who was already on her way. While we waited for her to arrive I sat on my fit ball bouncing a little between contractions to help them out. Trixie insisted she bounce too so Adam went and found her the small fit ball so she could sit on it and bounce like Mama. With each contraction I would stand up and rock myself to help with pain. Trixie also would stand and bend 45 degrees at the waist, hold her back and say “oh baby, oh baby”. She really helped with pain mangement. Adam would rub my back and Trixie would rub my leg. They were a great labour team. Around 7pm my midwife arrived and I showed her the diaper with the stain and shes said it was likely meconium and I should go to the hospital. So I called the hosptial and spoke with the head nurse on the maternity ward, who also urged me to come in. Then after my inital shock and disapointment at another failed homebirth we called up our friend again who came and took Trixie to her house for an extended playdate/ sleep over. After they left Adam bustled around gathering things for the hospital bag because we didn’t have one packed. Then we left for the hospital, close to 8 pm. The drive there was horrible, every bump was agonizing and I had what felt like 4,000 contractions, and since I was in a car I couldn’t move to help them, all I could do was angle myself in the seat so I was kind of standing and beg Adam to drive faster.
Once at the hospital I cured the bad layout for having the elevators to the 3rd floor so far away from the entrance. Finally on the 3rd floor we reach the very far away maternity ward and go to check in, but despite calling to let them know I was coming in I was asked to wait in the waiting room. I was livid. I was in active labour, with regular contractions and mec in the fluids, and I had to wait, in a full waiting room of other families waiting to hear of a birth. Finally I was allowed to talk to the receptionist who put me in observation, and had me pee in a cup. Still not impressed and in labour I peed in the cup and notice that there was vernix in the cup. At close to 8:30pm a doctor comes to see me, and tells me that she knows my regular doctor, which lets me know that she knows that I was planning a homebirth. She’s kind and doesn’t give me a hard time at all. As she’s checking my records for “one more thing” I tell her I’m GBS negative and she’s shocked that I would know to tell her that. I bite my tounge about being my own advocate and we wait for a nurse to tell us which room we’ll be moved to. At the same time my midwife is told she has to leave the maternity ward becasue she has her 2 month old baby with her and she’s too close to being a newborn to be allowed on the ward. My midwife is upset and waits in the waiting room for my doula to arrive.
At around 9pm we are taken to the delivery room and I’m given a hep lock and they do blood tests for something. I notice the nurse manages to get my blood everywhere and it will annoy me for the rest of my labour and hosptial stay. My doula arrives and we talk about how I’ve had another homebirth fail and she reassures me that it’s okay, and we’re doing the best thing for the baby. I agree, but I”m still sad. My contractions are regular and strong, I’m don’t need to vocalize through them, but I do need to lean on Adam and rock through them. After strapping the baby monitor on me the nurse can’t find and keep the heartbeat on the monitor, so she sits next to me holding it to where the baby is for a couple of hours. I”m glad that she’s so dedicated, but I hate being tethered to a person like that.
For the next couple of hours nurses and doctors come and go, I have lots of contractions and I wait. I start to lose track of time and I can only remember events, not time. (for the most part)
Soon the doctors start talking about wanting to put a monitor in my uterus to see how strong my contractins are since I’ve only dilated to 4 cms, adn I’ve been at the hospital with regular contractions for a ocuple of hours. I hesitate on the monitor because I feel it will start a string of interventions and I want to avoid that. Finally I agree to having one after it’s mentioned to me that if I stay at 4 cms too long that I’ll be at a greater risk for a c-section. The monitor lets the doctors know that I am having strong contractions, and they should be dilating me, but they are not. The nursing shift change happens and I get a new nurse who’s had 4 natural births herself and is an advocate of everything I want, which is nice. No one ever gave me a hard time for my birth plan, but it was nice to have someone on the staff who agreed with my choices.
Around now the doctors come back and suggest pitocin. I decline. I do not want pitocin, I had a hard time with it during Trixie’s birth and I don’t want to go through that again. I opt to let my body do the work. The baby is doing fine and everyone agrees that it’s okay for me to wait. We wait. I have many more contractions and I question if I can do this. My doula tells me that if I question it, that means I can do it. It’s when I can’t do it anymore and declare myself done is when I am done. This makes perfect sense to me and I buckle down and put a lot of energy into my contractions and getting through them. It’s about now that I get mad at them and really start to breathe hard into them, really leting lots of anger at them flow, and it makes them easier to handle. I still ask if I can do it. My doula tells me that I need to get out of my own head, I need to stop being so polite to everyone, including the doctors and let hte labour take me over. I ask her what I could think about, since I’ve always focused on pain to get though it. She guides me on a relaxing sequence and I have a whole bunch of contractions envisioning each one as a wave washing over me. I manage to sit through about 5 without saying anything. But they have started to slow down and get less intense.
Enter the doctors, again. There’s a lot more talk of pitocin or a c-section, it’s been about 2.5 hours since the last talk of pitocin. I agree to it only if I have an epidural. It’s about 3am, i’ve been in labour for 22 hours. The nurse whom I love suggests that an epidural will help me to relax and that my body might finish dilating (I’m still at 4cms). So I get one. I am the most devistated I’ve been in a long time. I feel like the ultimate failure. Everyone tells me that labouring naturally for 22 hours is a feat, but I still feel let down and upset that my body failed me. I get the epidural and a cathedar, and I’m now bed ridden. I seem to be lucky and got a good anethesiologist who gives a perfect dose and I am able to move my legs and adjust my position mostly myself. I can still feel my contractins some, but they are really mild and I rest. Adam naps and my doula goes for a walk. At around 5 am I’m checked for dilation and I’m at 6 cms. The nurse comes back a couple more times to check me and help me shift positions and there is much resting. At around 7 I’m checked agina and I am fully dilated, and the nurse shift changes and I get a new nurse. My doula comes back from her walk/ snack break and we set everything up for me to start pushing. Since I’m all numb I can’t stand and squat so I start pushing from my side. At about 7:40ish I’m told to push for a 10 count, which was a little annoying, but it gave me something to focus on. I do some pushes and then the nurse comes back and tells me to stop since she needs to get the doctor since the baby’s head is nearly out. A doctor comes in and I push again, then on the next one I’m told to just push a little, which I find to be amusing. I try to hold back, and then next thing I know I have a crying baby on my chest. He cries for a long time, but it’s a good cry. The doctor waits for the cords to stop pulsing and then she instructs Adam where to cut it. My doula tells me that the cord looks good, and I can tell that the baby is a good size, much bigger than his sister. Shortly after the cord is cut the placenta comes out and I ask the doctor if I can see it and she promises me that she’ll show it to me before she leaves.
After the placenta is born the doctor checks me out and I have 2 second degree tears, one into my peinium and one up to my urethra. It takes her over an hour to stitch me up and during ths time the baby is weighed and measures. He’s 7 pounds 5.3 ounces and 20 inches long. Adam and I haven’t settled on a name for him yet. It’s about now that the nurse tells me that I don’t have a record if I am HIV posituve or not. I tell her that I am negative, that I had a test when I was pregnant with Trixie. She tells me that since I declined the test this time (I did because I knew I was negative, I didn’t see the purpose in taking it again, it would just cause someone more work) I have to do it again. If I declined it then they would test the baby. I told her that there is no way I could have gotten HIV, since I am married in a monogomous relationship and I am not an IV drug user. She insists that she takes my blood or she’ll take the baby’s. I’m very upset by this, but Adam suggests that I let her and fight a differnt battle. I decline the eye goo for the baby and allow the vitimin K shot since he has a lot of head molding. (the 3 plates on his head are overlapped and he has a huge swollen spot. )
As the doctor is stitching me up my doula gives me a tour of my placenta, which looked healthy and a good size, which made me happy. There is a large white spot on the bag that is attached to the placenta and I wonder aloud if it’s a calcium deposit from all of the tums I ate from my killer heartburn during my whole pregnancy. The doctor looks at it as she’s checking out my placenta and says that it could be calcium. I would guess it was about 12 cms across and is rather square.
The baby gets checked out and scored 8 and 9 on his apgars and all is good, we’re left to bond and start breastfeeding. A little while later the doctor comes back and tells me that she was wondering about the white spot on my placenta and she went to check my medical record and confirmed what she though. The spot is Hudson’s twin, where she absorbed into him. I wasn’t sad to learn this, it made me happy to see this, and have his twin acknowledged. However in the days to come it made me sad, not to have seen it, but to realize what’s missing. My doula leaves around now, she’s had a long night and needs to get back to her family.
After the doctor leaves again we still don’t know what we’re going to name the baby and Adam and I talk about the choices, finally we settle on Hudson George and we let the people know who need to know.
After a long night in the birthing suite I’m taken to the postpartum ward which is overflowing so I am in the overflow ward which is in the children’s part of the hospital, and lucky me I get to share a room. The other lady’s baby was born 15 minutes after Hudson and we don’t talk. Her whole family and a bunch of friends are there for the whole day and I get little chance to rest, which was not plesant at all.

Lately Trixie’s vocabulary has really been expanding and she’s been adding names to her list of “words”. She’s known the names of her friends for a while, but it’s nice to hear that she can actually talk to them using something sounding like their names. However even cuter are the names for her grandparents.
Adam has Trixie talk to his parents frequently on the computer via a video chat, so she’s become familiar with them and who they are. I’m pretty sure she realizes that they are two people, but she calls them both “Bubba”, which is so cute, and kinda funny. I’ll point to Adam’s mom as ask who it is and she’ll answer “Bubba” and the same with Adam’s dad, “Bubba”. With her toddler talk, she might have a slightly different name that sounds awfully the same for each, but for now it’s Bubba and Bubba.
Then yesterday we talked to my Dad and my Step mom online and she recognized them from a year ago and labelled them correctly as Nana and Papa. That was impressive and she addressed them as such. Even drawing a picture of Nana and showing it to her.
For my mom she calls her “Graingma”, I’m sure it’ll evolve into Gramma at some time.
I’m kinda interested in what Bubba and Bubba will turn into.

So I normally leave my techie commentary for my techie sub-blog but since Dea needs me to pinch post for her again, you lucky tweedle-readers get a peak at some techie future…

I was reading over at jeff jonas’ blog, and he had a really interesting take on what’s coming next in technology. Go have a
read. Done?

Yeah, I know most of you skipped it, so here’s the summary. Now that everyone is carrying a cell phone/mini-computer on them at all times, the very psersonalized internet is coming. The cell companies know where your phone is (within a few meters at least) and with nothing more than a few days data of where your cell phone has been it’s possible to know a huge amount about you.

Looking at the data, where you live is obvious since that’s where your cellphone goes every night. Is it a rich neighborhood? A young neighborhood? Renter’s neighborhood? See how much we already know!

Where you work is also easy to summize, since you spend a huge amount of time there. Is it in an industrial park? An office building? A starbucks? Do you have two jobs? Oh how much we learn…

We can see how you get to work. Do you take the bus, bike trails, or the freeway.

We know where you hang out. Got a favorite gym, movie theater or coffee shop? Or maybe a bar? (Or maybe a gay bar…)

We know where you like to shop. Is it at the boutiques downtown, or Walmart?

When was your last vacation, and where did you go…

And we can easily find your secrets… Identifying affairs is obviously easy, but secret hobbies are outed by your frequent trips to the model train store…

It’s amazing how much information a little location data reveals. Now a cell company would never give all this information to third party because it’s too personal. Your home & work addresses alone are probably enough to identify you. But if they anatomize it just a little bit (say make your home and work locations accurate to the nearest block) then it becomes much harder to identify you, but keeps the data very useful for learning about you.

So what keeps the companies from selling this anonymity data? Nothing, they do it already! Didn’t you read page 18 of the phone contract? Oh well…

So where does this mean the internet is going? Imagine ads that are targeted at you based on this location history. Do you usually go shopping Saturday morning? Maybe the boutique you visited a couple weeks ago sends you a coupon Friday night. On your way home from work at the factory? Those comfy new boots look good in that ad. Have you been visiting car dealerships lately? Get used to car ads!

Are we going to put up with this? (Well, so far we are.) The truth is people actually like ads that are highly relevant (and they click on them). Because these ads get results they’re worth more to advertisers who pay more to show them. This makes your favorite ad-supported websites more profitable and lets them improve. So happier customers, advertisers and publishers! Everyone wins…

The privacy issues of course remain tricky and are what’s keeping this in check. If history is a guide though, people will grow more comfortable with sharing this information.

Enjoy the very personalized future…

Hi All, Adam here. I’m talking care of Dea’s Nablopomo duties for today…

I suppose since this has transformed into a “mommie” blog, I’ll recount how Trixie treats me every morning. It starts at about 4am when she kicks me out of bed saying “baable, baable…” Pushing the dog and the cat aside, I make her a little bottle and then we all get back into bed. Around 8am it repeats…

Usually after this point she’s awake, so I ask her to climb out of bed and close the door. The bedroom is reasonably baby proof and has lots of toys, so she amuses herself for an hour while I scrape together the will to get out of bed. Sometimes we resort to “The Bernstein Bears” for amusement, but by 9am they’re showing “The Wiggles” which is good motivation to get moving.

Next we brush Trixie’s teeth, and then shower. Then I get out and Trixie showers with Dea. She’s a water fiend. Then Trixie gets out and I dry her off. She giggles as I dry “All That Crazy Hair!!” After getting Trixie dressed, we head downstairs, and then it’s time to go. Trixie gives me a big hug, and a kiss or two, and then says “Bye Bye Daddie” a few times while I head to the garage. It’s adorable

Stay tuned for the next time Dea needs a pinch-poster…

A few posts ago I mentioned that I want to move to Vancouver, and that sentiment hasn’t changed. The more time I spend here the more I realize that I am just too Canadian to live here.
I find it’s the little things that demonstrate this.
*I say sorry, not sari, and I know I’ve pointed this out before, but I get called out on it a lot. It’s old.
*I feel that parenting styles differ in America and Canada. (to be fair Adam assures me that it’s the same everywhere…) What I mean is that there is honest to goodness preschool for infants here. In my very large mother’s group I am in the very small minority for not enrolling Trixie, and of some of the people who haven’t enrolled their child, it’s because they can’t afford it. I just feel that Trixie is better off with me, and even though these preschools are parent participation (meaning the parents are there, it’s not a day care) I don’t feel that Trixie needs to start learning pre math and pre reading now. If she were enrolled this fall she would be in level 4*, where they start pre reading and pre math. At level 7 you have to have previous preschool experience. I feel that this is totally unreasonable for children, and especially children of stay at home moms! I feel that this is a very American experience. (I could be wrong!)
*I’m a socialist. Apparently that’s a bad word down here right now. So much fear mongering. It’s driving me crazy. I especially love when people equate socialism with communism. My head doesn’t explode at all! (I won’t even start on how I think that pure communism** is the best option….)
*I am so sick of the heat, and it’s showing no signs of ending. Granted this is a Bay Area issue, not found everywhere.
*I’m scared of the school system down here. I was raised in a Canadian school system, so was Adam, it worked well for us. I would like to raise my children in the Canadian system. Right now where we live is in one of the worst districts in the area. The school where Trixie would go to if we were still living in this house, routinely sends kids into jr. high 3 years behind academically. Private school for kindergarden is about 20K a year.
*I like the metric system.
*I miss seeing the Queen on my money. I am a staunch Commonweather. (totally not a word, I know)
*it’s pop not soda.
*Tim Horton’s is too far away.
*I hate having a co-pay when I go to the doctor. (although we do have amazing insurance.)
*I like the Canadian vaccination schedule better than the one down here. (which I’ve totally disregarded.)

Oh and I am sure I could come up with a plethora of other reasons, but Adam has a great job with a great salary. I have dreams that Google will open an office in Vancouver, but alas, my last reason for being very Canadian is our much more pacifist nature and much better regulation in our financial industry. No crazy war to suck up all of the money and send the country and much of the world into a tailspin, not to mention the crazy lending practices down here, wrecking the financial industry. Oh recession, you have inadvertently hurt me.***

*this was at one particular preschool, although many are about the same.
**the kind of communism that Marx envisioned, the kind that can’t work because most humans are greedy greedy bastards by nature.
***It hasn’t hurt us too badly, pretty much just not letting us move home ’cause there won’t be an office opening anytime soon in Vancouver. Well that and now Adam has to walk across the quad to get fresh ice cream in another building.