Atticus Arthur

Now that I've figured out how to re-incorporate a daily shower, I've decided I can finally tackle the first post-baby blog post (with Russell's help).

First, the most exciting event of our recent lives: the birth of little Atticus Arthur.  As some of you already know, I decided to attempt an unmedicated birth in hopes of avoiding an assisted delivery (e.g. forceps, c-section, etc.).  To that end, we hired a doula named Jun-Nicole to help me get ready and to be with us during labor.  Doulas are not midwives.  They don't do any medical procedures, check dilation, or anything like that.  Their purpose is to provide labor support, and Jun-Nicole did a wonderful job.  It's hard to say which was more significant, her help in getting us ready for the birth, or her help during labor itself.  To help us get ready, she lent me several books as well as some hypnobirthing CDs that basically helped me learn to relax myself during contractions.  She also went through a lot of the decisions we would or might need to make while in the hospital and gave us information on them so we could decide in advance what we wanted (e.g. timing of circumcision, whether or not nurses should give the baby a soother, etc.).

The night of Atticus's birth, I had my very first contraction ever around 11:00 pm.  I was sort of expecting a little off and on, maybe for a few days or at least hours leading up to more regular labor, but they were five or six minutes apart right from the get go.  By the time we got to the hospital around 2:00am, I was dilated to 6 cm.  Jun-Nicole met us there, and between her, the labor/delivery nurse, the on-call midwife (the hospital here has a group of certified nurse midwives who work out of the same clinic as the obstetricians, so if there are any complications, the doctors are available), and of course Russell, I had quite the support team.  My memories of the labor are sort of hazy and out of order, but Russell assures me that I "played it like a champ."  He was pretty great himself--very calm, and unflinching in the face of my knuckle-crushing grip on his hand.  Something about the baby's position was making his heart rate go down whenever I was lying down, so I spent most of the time sitting on a birth ball.  Things with Atticus's heart rate got intense right at the end, but fortunately we got him out when the midwife said we had to, and all was well.  That was about 6:30 am on April 28, just as the sun was coming up.

We stayed in the hospital with our nameless baby for about two days, during which time we had several conversations about, but made very little progress toward, naming him.  Finally, within an hour of discharge, Russell convinced me that we did not have to name the baby Russell.  Inspired by Gregory Peck's masterful performance in "To Kill a Mockingbird" and my great-grandfather Andersen, we came up with Atticus Arthur Leslie.

Atticus is now almost two months old, and is our favorite child so far.  He is growing so quickly, as new babies are supposed to.  He's really not a newborn anymore.  What can I say about him?  He's quite good-natured.  Of course he's fussy sometimes, but not usually.  He gets the hiccups all the time.  He usually sleeps with his arms up by his face, sort of like a ref signaling a touchdown (this was true within days of birth--forget about swaddling his arms).  He prefers sleeping on people to sleeping in his crib.  He's still learning to smile on  purpose, and we're all working very hard at teasing smiles out of him.  Sometimes he does produce them at exactly the right time, like the other day when Russell set him down next to me on the bed when he left for his internship and I got a big toothless grin from him to start off the day.  He's long and skinny, but baby fat seems to be appearing slowly.  He belches like an adolescent boy.  When he gets tired and fussy, sometimes vigorous bouncing is the only thing I can find to calm him and help him go to sleep (I have a bouncing rap--"bow wow wow, woobity woobity woob, and a wom wom wom" repeated as desired--but I'm not sure that's essential to the soothing).  He's getting more dexterous--less hitting himself in the face, gagging himself, and nearly poking out his eyes, more holding onto things (like my shirt) and better head control.  Before his dexterity progress, we were have a lot of talks about SDB's, that is, self-defeating behaviors.  The worst of these, which he is pretty well over now, surfaced at feeding time.  For some reason, as soon as his mouth opened wide, his little hand would fly up in front of it, ready to clench.  If his hand wasn't in front of his mouth, he was throwing his opened-mouth head back as far as it would go, and of course, away from me.  Sometimes I felt like I was navigating a previously unexplored level of Super Mario.  Fortunately, I think our many SDB discussions have finally sunk in, and now nursing is much more pleasant for both of us.  Russell and I are crazy about him, and so are both sets of grandparents (as they are about all their grandchildren).

Speaking of grandparents, my parents seem delighted to have a little grandbaby so close, and we really enjoy having them nearby.  Russell's parents came to visit us a few weeks ago, and it was wonderful to have them here.  I think I enjoyed the long naps as much as I enjoyed hanging out with them, but only because the naps were particularly awesome (I got diagnosed with mono the day after they left, which may have had something to do with my fatigue; fortunately, I seem to have recovered much more quickly than expected and am feeling much better now).  I wish we could live near both sets of parents simultaneously.

And now for the baby slide show:

At the hospital, fresh out of the womb.

Sleeping on daddy.

Touchdown!

Sleeping on mama.

The Moby.

Beginnings of a smile.

Is it just my maternal attachment, or is this baby super cute?

Christmas, etc.

It has been an eventful month and a bit since last I posted. As with journaling, it seems that the things that would make good blog fodder also keep me occupied so that I don't actually write when I have things to write about. I think about most things in lists:

1. We had our second ultrasound appointment where the technician and my doctor were both thoroughly convinced that we are having a boy. Most ultrasound images are about as clear to me as a Jackson Pollock painting, but they seemed very confident, so I am also very confident. Having a boy will be wonderful, provided we can pick a name for him before he forms a confused identity as a nameless child. Our list of girl names was really progressing pretty well, but I guess that had nothing to do with parental intuition. My father suggested that we set up a sort of name raffle where people can pay some amount to enter a name, and then we use whatever name we draw from the entries. This would definitely simplify things, and perhaps give an early start to our son's college fund. However, I fear that my dear, but sometimes mischievous, brothers would not be able to resist some unfortunately creative entries, and so we'll probably go about things the usual way. The ultrasound also revealed that our unborn child is becoming cuter and less alien.

2. Russell and I finished our first reading of the Book of Mormon together. We have read several other books together (by together, I mean aloud to each other), including Till We Have Faces, The Magician's Nephew, and The Social Animal. However, the Book of Mormon is definitely the most important of our list, and is probably the one of the few books that we will continue reading to each other as long as eyesight permits (and then there's always the audio recordings, right?). Today I rediscovered a delightful quote from Marion G. Romney, who was an apostle in the LDS church in the mid-late 1900s. He said: "I feel certain that if, in our homes, parents will read from the Book of Mormon prayerfully and regularly, . . . [t]he spirit of reverence will increase; mutual respect and consideration for each other will grow. The spirit of contention will depart. Parents will counsel their children in greater love and wisdom. . . Faith, hope, and charity. . . will abound in our homes and lives, bringing in their wake peace joy, and happiness" (General Conference, April 1980). Who doesn't want that? I can use all the love and wisdom I can get, so I'm definitely on board.

3. We got to spend almost two full weeks over Christmas in St. George, UT with my delightful in-laws. There are always more places that we would like to be than we can be, especially at holidays, but as much as I missed my own parents and brothers (and grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, . . . ), I think we picked the right place for this year's Christmas. All three of Russell's sisters were there, plus the husband and children of his one married sister. It was really wonderful to have everyone together and to get mostly away from work and school. The pictures we took give the impression that we spent most of our time eating at Cafe Rio; I'll need to get better about photo-documenting things, because we did a lot more than that. Other happy memories include, but are not limited to: celebrating Russell's birthday (we actually did this twice: once in Iowa, once in Utah), watching my sister-in-law Miquelle play Mary in a brief nativity at Tuacahn (complete with real camels!), having the traditional Leslie family Christmas Eve sherbet/soda drink, Christmas morning gift extravaganza, four-wheeling (not so much me as Russell and his sisters and dad), making baby blankets with my mother-in-law, after-Christmas sale shopping, and a multi-day "Bones" marathon. Probably best of all was going to the St. George temple so that my husband, Russell LeVan Leslie, and his dad, Russell Allen Leslie, Jr., could do temple work for my Russell's grandfather, Russell Allen Leslie, Sr., and great-grandfather, Russell Uralee Leslie (and if you're wondering if we might name our son Russell, the answer is yes, very possibly).

People often ask me how I'm feeling. I'm not sure if this is out of concern for my physical comfort or in expectation that I'm filled with excited anticipation and/or anxiety. I am feeling well. It is getting more difficult to put my shoes and socks on. Sometimes I can feel the baby move. Other times, I'm not sure if the baby is moving or my stomach is growling (I know, rookie mistake, right? I'll probably get better at telling the difference). So far, he has not lodged himself under my rib cage or kicked my bladder. As for my emotional state, I am feeling very pleased about having a baby. Lately I have not been very worried about the difficult decisions that will probably come with his arrival, but as my friend Sara aptly put it to me a few weeks ago, everything feels bigger when you're pregnant. I don't know if this is a universal experience, but I certainly feel that my emotional pendulum is swinging wider than usual.

Well that was more than I expected to write and probably more than anyone really wanted to read (thank you for your patience if you've made it this far down the post). We're planning on caucusing this week (yes, I have registered as a Republican for this voting cycle), so next time I'll have the inside scoop on the Republican caucusing experience.