Moving Pictures

Hi Shira,

We finally got some video of you. The more interesting part will be the audio on this one. The picture quality is lousy, I'm afraid.
We were trying to recreate something that your big sister did when she was about your age. You had the balloon tied to your wrist and were generally having a good time. You are spending more time awake and checking out your surroundings now. And testing out some nuanced verbal communication. Something in between screaming for food and the euphoric coos of feeding.

You are defining the differences between you and Sidra. You aren't very fond of either the binky or the swing. Sidra enjoyed both of those methods of soothing. And on the changing table you are setting records for the number of double diaper changes. That's when the new diaper gets, um, soiled before it can be closed up. I believe you're also the winner of the 'furthest spewed projectile' measurement. A couple of times you've achieved a 'changing table trifecta' where we see some spit up, some pee and some poop. But this is what kids your age do, so no worries.

I included a picture of all three of my girls asleep. You can see how we can have a crowded bed at times. The scene was too good to pass up without recording.

love, aba

Turf War Brewing

Hi Shira,

We have a very comfortable memory foam bed. Since you came along finding space there has become a bit of a competitive sport. Your big sister is in the habit of coming in to sleep with us sometime in the middle of the night. Since you are being fed about every three hours during the night you sometimes end up sleeping with us, too.
You seem to really like the comfort there, too. It is a lot easier to get you back to sleep after feeding when you're in the bed.
I guess it's a good thing that it is a king size bed!

You are asleep right now, but not in the bed. I fed you from the bottle about an hour ago. You make some pretty interesting sounds. You sound very contented when you're eating whether it is from the bottle or the boob. When you aren't really sleeping and sort of fussing you make some weird sounds, some of them sound almost like spitting. But you're starting to make a lot of other talking noises and sometimes even curl your lips in what might be called a smile.

love,
Aba

Doin' your thing

Hi Shira,

As I write this you are in the 'baby bjorn' doing one of the things that you do a lot of these days. Sleeping. The other two as everyone knows for a baby your age are eating and pooping. You are pretty good at all three and that's good for now, it's what you should be doing. I guess it's no great shock that two of the four pictures here show you asleep.

You have been showing some more personality and activity in your short bouts of wakefulness. You can go through a wonderful variety of facial expressions even in your sleep. You have been nearly smiling even a few times when you are awake, though. You can hold your head up really well during 'tummy time' and you have more patience for that than you big sister did when she was your age.

You went to the doctor's for a PKU screening two days ago. It was not pleasant for you. You had to have some blood drawn from your heel and bled onto a special piece of paper. The purpose is to find out if you will have a hard time processing a certain amino acid. The technician who did it to you wasn't that good in my opinion. I thought he was clumsy using the device that pierced your skin and that caused the puncture to be at a bad angle on your heel which in turn caused him to need to twist your leg uncomfortably in order to catch the drops. I think the quality of the puncture was bad too, and that meant he really had to squeeze your foot hard.

You did your first drinking from a bottle earlier today. You were clearly confused about what was in your mouth at first but once you took a gulp the rest disappeared quickly. It wasn't much, and was mainly a test run to see if you would do it. Since you did your mom will start pumping some of her breast milk now when you're not eating so that those of us that are not your mom can feed you once in a while. That makes it possible for your mom to get out and do things.

On Monday last week when you were two weeks old (you will be three weeks tomorrow) you had a check up at the doctor and you weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces. On friday when you got the blood taken you were 9 pounds 1 ounce. But you were fully dressed, so I thought that was a high estimate. This morning my less precise scale got you at 9.5 pounds, so you are definitely getting bigger. We've noticed that you've been growing a bit of a double chin. I said you were good at eating!

Well, I finished this without waking you up!

Love, aba

home from the hospital

hi shira,

you are home. in fact, you are in my left hand as i peck this out with my right.
i'll update this with more about how stdra reacted to you a little later.

Ok, I'm back. Shira, your first night home was not too bad, it could have been much worse. Neither your mom or I slept too much and we shouldn't have expected to. You stayed on the three hour schedule pretty well until the 4 am to 6am period where you seemed to need to feed for a couple hours straight. Although some of that time you seemed uninterested in feeding but not interested in sleeping, either.

You had a pretty good first meeting with your big sister, too. She came with me from her pre school class to the hospital to pick you and your mom up. She ran across the atrium to see you for the first time. She's pretty interested in helping out with you, but doesn't quite understand your fragility quite yet.

Some more about you: You are kind of a dainty little thing, but still kind of wire like. You look tiny but seem pretty strong. The nurses at the hospital all commented on that. You can hold your head up really well for a girl your age. Once in the hospital, when you were under the lights, I thought you were going to turn yourself over. That's a feat usually not done until around 3 months of age. Your legs are skinny but again you have some power in them.

I think I commented on this before, but when you sleep, you never really look completely relaxed. Especially your face is always moving. Your limbs don't move as much particularly when you are bundled, but they aren't completely motionless, either. But your head and face are perpetual motion.

It's great to have you home with the family. You just have to keep eating and that will help you finally end the jaundice.

Love, Aba

Catching Rays

Hi Shira,

Well you're on vacation already, your sunglasses are on and you're basking in the sun. Actually it's pretty artificial sun. You're in photo therapy because your bilirubin count is a little too high. It turns out that your blood type is no the same as your mom's, so it makes it a little harder for you to start breaking down your discarded red blood cells in the early part of your life. So, you have to wear the fake shades and lay in the light bed except when you come out to feed with mom. You've been under the light for about 8 hours now and your bilirubin count is responding. It was 10.2 before you started the therapy and is now down to 8.4 at last check.

Like most babies you have lost a little of your birth weight. You were 6 pounds 12 ounces at your last weighing. So you've lost a half a pound. You got your first bath on Monday, too. You had some frizzy hair right after it got washed so I included a picture of that. You are a pretty good feeder, but sometimes have to be stimulated to get going. Your belly button is rapidly developing into it's normal condition with the unneeded part of the cord drying up and falling off. You are a figety sleeper almost always in some sort of motion besides your breathing. Your face is almost constantly changing expression. The night nurse commented several times about your strength for your age. You do seem to be able to tense your muscles pretty hard when you want to.

Your mom is doing pretty good, considering. She had a little bit rougher time in the surgery than she did with your big sis. But she's improving.

More soon, hopefully you won't have to be in the tanning bed for longer than 24 hours.

Love, aba

You Came Out! Welcome

Hi Shira,

You have arrived on the outside with the rest of us. You were born today at 11:54am and tipped the scale at 7 pounds 4 ounces. You were 19 inches long when you emerged. You came out in full scream. It was pretty impressive, especially considering how soft spoken you've been since then. You scored 9 and 9 both your apgar ratings so everything looks good. About a half hour after you came outside you had your first feeding session. You latched on and sucked like a fish. It was amazing. That was much different than your sister's first tries.

I should explain why I used the term 'came out' instead of being born or something more formal. In the last few weeks of your time inside we've been telling your big sister that you were in mom's tummy now but that you would be coming out soon. When I got home this evening and we talked about you your sis asked 'did she come out?' So I wanted to point that out to you and say that you are destined as all kids who aren't the firstborn of the family are to be compared continuously to your older siblings. I'm afraid you can't avoid that.

To continue on about your doings for the day... You had your first bath and had your first poopy diaper. That doesn't always happen on the first day and we took it as a good sign. You were not so strong in your next few tries at your mom's breast, however. The nurses tell us that you might conk out into sleep when we try to feed you in the first 24-36 hours. They said not to worry, that it is a process for you to learn to suck, swallow and breathe with good timing so you don't end up coughing all the time.

We are delighted to see you and are looking forward to your every new development.
more soon.......
love, aba

See you Tomorrow

Hi Shira,
Well your day of arrival is upon us. I want to apologize for not writing as much about our anticipation of you as I did for your big sister. Before she was born we didn't have anyone else to obsess over so it was easier to collect my thoughts about what was to come. This time we've had her to distract us from what you will bring us. That is all about to change in a big way. Tomorrow you will become a lot more difficult to care for.
The focus of the family is going to change a lot, too. Sidra will have to adjust to receiving less of the spotlight. We expect that it won't be that easy for her but that in time she will become a really good big sister for you.
In a recent ultrasound you were declared to be around six pounds. I'm guessing that you will tip the scales at about 7 and a half pounds, maybe a little more. I'm curious to know how much hair you have right away, among many other things.
Well your mom has gotten a little more tense about the whole thing the last few days. Her Aunt Debbie is here to help us out but the restrictions on visitors the hospital is enforcing is making the whole thing difficult. They aren't allowing many visitors at all and Sidra won't be able to see you until you come home. That will be a few days because your mom will need some time to recover from the surgery.
We're really excited about your arrival and how our family is going to change.

Like I said,
See you tomorrow....
love, aba

What's my name?

Hi little sister,

That's the big question right now. That and when will your birthday be. We've been talking about it, but haven't quite made a formal decision. We know that you will be born by November 10th unless something happens to cause you to be born early. We know this because of what happened to your big brother, and that the doctor will want to deliever you at about 38½ weeks.

I began writing this about six weeks ago when I thought we had decided on your name. Since then, we've changed our minds. Now we seem decided on Shira Naomi. Shira means song or tune and Naomi has meaning in the remembrance of family that has passed ahead of you.

It seems that you will have a birthday of either November 9 or November 10. Either one will be ok with me. I wrote that six weeks ago. Now we know you will be born on the 9th.

This picture of you was taken one week ago(seven weeks now). Everything seems to be on track with your development. I know that I wrote more about our anticipation of your big sister when she wasn't yet born but then we didn't have anyone 'on the outside' with us. Right now your big sister is getting a lot of attention but when you burst on the scene that will change drastically. You've been moving and I can see your movements on your mom's tummy. You were at the time of this picture in a 'yoga baby' position. That's when your bum is down, your head is up, and your feet are up, too.

There's been some other developments since I wrote most of this. There is this illness covering the globe called 'swine flu' which is the common name for an illness caused by the H1N1 virus. A week ago your mom was pretty sick and concerned that she might have the virus. It's a significant concern because the illness is pretty hard on pregnant women. We decided to go to the hospital and get her checked out, and you. When your mom was pregnant with Sidra she often went in to have the baby monitored just to be reassured. We found that you were just fine, and mom got tested for the virus and also for Strep throat bacteria. She had neither and has slowly gotten better since. She's still not feeling great, and niether are Sidra or I, but we're better.

That's not the whole story. Because of the virus, the hospital has also banned children under 12 from coming to visit. That means that your sister won't be able to see you until you come home from the hospital. It also means that your mom and Sidra won't be able to see each other until your mom is able to come home from the hospital. It wouldn't have been a big deal when Sidra was born, because she didn't have older siblings that would have to stay home. This will be tough for all of us. We will get through it and will be a happy family when we are all home together.

More soon........

love, Aba

Hello Little Sister

Hi Little Sis,
you are at this moment at 23 weeks gestation in your mom's uterus. We have known about your gender for a few weeks. We expect to see you in the outside world in early November of 2009.

You and I already have a lot in common. You will be a younger sibling of the same gender as your older sibling. My older brother is Terry, your older sister is Sidra. I have some characteristics that are common to the second child and I will be watching carefully to see if you will have the same traits. And we've already seen your toes in a sonogram and your second toe is longer than your 'big' toe. It's called Morton's foot when your second toe is like that and I have the same quirk in my feet. It makes shoe fitting a bit interesting but really isn't a problem.

In our anticipation of your arrival I will say the same thing to you that I said to your big sister at this point. Right now you're really easy to take care of. But since we have lived through the early years with your sister we're a little less anxious about how things will be when you are on the outside with us.

I think that the most fascinating thing about anticipating you is that you will not be your sister. I think early on when thinking about you I would think about your sister when she was a newborn, but I realize that you will be your own person from the very beginning. You will be a newborn, and you are a girl, but beyond that you're a clean slate.

I wrote everything above here yesterday. I didn't feel like it was finished so I didn't post it yet. I wanted to tell also that right now this is named littlesister1119 because we haven't decided on a name for you yet. We have talked about some names and have some strong contenders but we aren't settled yet. So, for now you're little sister, and your official due date is 11/19. You will probably be born by C section about 10 days before that but that's your official date. I also wanted to tell you that your mom, Sidra and I listened to your heart beat last night. We have borrowed a doppler amplifier so we can check up on you from time to time. Your heart rate was about 150 beats per minute, as near as I could tell. You must have been moving around a bit because I couldn't hold the microphone still enough to get a consistent sound for a lengthy count.

I'm glad I had some quiet time to finish this. Your sister is napping and you and your mom are laying in the swimming pool reading.

That's all for now, we'll be watching you........
love, aba