The many faces of Isaac

Gabrielle is 2!

Cake artfully created by Belinda and Gabrielle. Bizarre inscription atop cake? "Gabrielle you're cool". What can I say, I panicked.





She was a pro at opening gifts after all her recent practice at Christmas. Gifts included the cute summer hat she immediately plopped onto her head (hope it still fits this summer!), a magnetic dress up girl, mini electric piano, etc...



Horsing around with Amelia...



... and Ben.



"How's the cake, Gabrielle?"
"Yummy!"
"How's the wine Belinda?"
"Yummy!"



Amos and his doppelganger.

Christmas

This photo pretty much sums up our holiday as it went downhill after Christmas Day.



Our Christmas holiday began innocently enough with our arrival in Lennoxville on the afternoon of the 24th. To my surprise, the tree was not yet decorated, and it didn't look like anyone had any real ambition to do so. After some strong hints, Mark finally jumped up and ralleyed the troops. He strung up the lights with his dad and then collapsed onto the couch from his exertion, leaving Kitty, Gabrielle and Maggie to put up the decorations.

We returned on Christmas morning to open the stocking gifts, which were plentiful as always. Gabrielle had a great time ripping open the wrapping on each individual gift, although I have no photos of her doing so, as our camera was dying and I had left the charger at home. It was alot like last year - she'd open a gift, examine it, and then move on to the next. Among the awesome things she received were the season's must-have red Olympic mitts from the Bay, books, hats, jammies, and chocolates. Isaac also had a stocking full of stuff which I got to open for him. He thanks everyone for their generosity.



Christmas dinner was particularly delicious this year. No log, but ah well...



A lovely photo of Big Sis and Lil Bro on Christmas night. Isaac's new boots, courtesy of Santa and G's monkey jammies, courtesy of the Macdonald girls.



We ended up leaving Lennoxville a few days earlier than planned, so Gabrielle was presented with birthday gifts to open before departing. Here she is opening what is now one of her favourite toys: a stroller. This also doubles as a shopping cart in her imagination. Note cousin Trevor making a cameo appearance in this photo.

Gabrielle had been acting strangely throughout the holiday, most likely from the penecillin she was taking for an ear infection. Nonetheless, she spent a couple of nights screaming in pain - something we were not at all prepared for or used to. She kept complaining of stomach pains and would run fevers intermittently through the night. We decided that we should head back to Ottawa, in case a trip to a hospital would become necessary. The odd behaviour continued until G finished her antibiotics. Once we got back to Ottawa, Mark and I were both struck with horrible colds that basically ruined the rest of our holiday, and making childcare a nightmare: "can you get up and change Isaac's diaper?" "No, I can't move, can you do it?"

Christmas 2009: can we do it over?

More testing...

Here's Isaac, finally passing a hearing test, and putting to rest our concern that he could be deaf (or whatever the appropriate term is these days). Of course, this doesn't end all our worries. As the woman performing the test said "he can hear you but I can't guarantee he'll listen!" Nyuck nyuck - a real comedienne, that hearing technician.

Family shopping trip

We attempted something only the very brave or the very stupid would do: we went out as a family for some Christmas shopping about a week before Christmas.



Gabrielle actually loved it - the girl's got materialism in her bones. She loved looking at all the pretty sparkly things in the windows. Too bad those pretty cocktail dresses don't come in size 2T.



Isaac was in his usual sleeping position throughout the ordeal. I have those glazed "get me the hell out of here" eyes.



This was the closest G got to Santa. "Sorry sweetie, we're not waiting 2 hours in line to see the big guy. Plus you're at least half Jewish. So your relationship to Santa is going to be a little complicated...."

Sigh...

So much blogging to catch up on...

OK so to start with, here's Isaac wearing Gabrielle's snowsuit from 2 years ago. Still cute!

Our bruiser

She's such a gorgeous little girl and yet she's almost constantly covered by scratches, cuts and other abrasions. The one on the bridge of her nose was basically self-inflicted: she tried to give a kiss to a boy at school who wasn't prepared for it and so he retaliated the only way he knew how. They've since kissed and made up.

Olympic torch relay in front of the Wallis House

For those who didn't get a chance to see it. I debated about whether I would post this on the blog, as I'm still very bitter about not getting tickets for the Olympics, but I figured it's part of the historical record, so better to post it. But there will be no further mention of the Olympics on this blog.

Saint Cece

Carolyn came for a visit last week to help us out with Isaac and get to know Gabrielle a bit better, as she's never had any one-on-one time with her. It turns out that the timing couldn't have been better for us, as we still hadn't bought our new car and we didn't know how we'd be shuttling G back and forth to daycare with Mark back at work and me having to take a newborn and G on the bus in rush hour traffic. Our lives are so bloody complicated - how did this all happen?

Anyways... Carolyn was such a saint, holding Isaac as much as possible, playing with Gabrielle in the morning and afternoon, cooking food, and generally helping out around the house. She also cemented her new nickname with G, who is calling her Cece (pronounced See-See).



We went out for Japanese food the day before Carolyn left. She seemed really impressed by G's ability with chopsticks. Hell, I was impressed too - where did she learn to use them??



Carolyn was a bit over her head when it came to changing cloth diapers but she muddled through.



And there was alot of this, for which I was extremely grateful. She'd plop on the couch with him and I'd hit the showers. I'd be away from him for just long enough that I wanted to hold him again. Sometimes she'd let me, sometimes she wouldn't.

;-)

Week 4 update

For such a little guy, Isaac sure causes alot of trouble. Since he's been born, we seem to be constantly worried about his health, which is so unlike our experience when Gabrielle was his age.

First of all, he was basically born with a cold, so he's been congested and stuffed-up since I've known him. This caused him to wake up gasping for air at night - and there's nothing that can be done other than wait for his immature immune system to fight it off.

Second, the midwife thought she heard a very slight heart murmur at his last check-up, so she sent us to a pediatrician for a more thorough examination. Since Isaac was so stuffed-up and congested, the pediatrician couldn't hear a thing, although she got about 3 seconds of clear breathing and didn't think she could hear anything. We're going to be following up with her this week, but it seems like there's nothing to worry about, as he's not showing any signs that would cause concern.

Finally, Isaac failed one of his newborn screening tests, having us (OK, maybe just me) in a complete panic that he might have cystic fibrosis. Thankfully, medical testing proved 36 hours later that he doesn't have CF but is only a carrier, as is one of Mark or I. Who knew?...



Here's Isaac at his 4-week check-up, getting the once-over by Denise.



Weighing in at 10 lbs 5 ozs - not the corpulent baby that G was, but completely within normal range.

"Big jump"

One of Gabrielle's favourite games, she stands on the edge of our bed, announces "big jump" and then throws herself onto the mattress. This is a new variation - synchronized big jumping:

Curly visits

My dad came to visit to see his newest grandson, as well as to check in with Gabrielle, one of his top 2 favourite nieces. He also confirmed that indeed, Isaac's chin is Peres-ian.



He smartly arrived with the perfect gift for G: a baby of her own! This thing drinks out of its own bottle, cries, sleeps, burps, etc. All the good things about a baby without any of the bad (diapers). Gabrielle loves it, immediately christening it "Gabrielle's baby". Good name, sweetie. And thanks to Marie for choosing so well...



She and my dad made goo-goo eyes at each other...



As I was looking through the pictures of my dad with Isaac, this one looked kind of familiar...



Ah yes, I knew I'd seen that reaction before ... Gabrielle and Isaac may not be so different after all.

;-)

First photo shoot?

What is that on the table??



Why it's Isaac, all asleep and snuggly.



Wake up! Say Cheese!
(We answered an ad for a baby model needed by a student photographer in exchange for prints. These photos were taken by my point-and-shoot, they aren't the final photos of the photographer.)

First bath

Isaac got himself a fancy new baby pod bath (nothing but the best European-styling for this guy).





Guess what - he likes it! Keeps the baby warmer and more immersed in water than regular bathtubs, or so the tub's literature says.

New role, new responsibilities

Gabrielle has stepped into her role as Big Sis even better than expected. Not to say she doesn't feel threatened by his newness, and the resulting attention this attracts - it's clear that she sometimes feels pushed aside, and she's having to learn how to deal with her feelings about it. It's all a bit heartbreaking to watch, but I suppose this is something every firstborn child has to learn. I wouldn't know - I've always been the smaller, cuter one.

Anyways, Gabrielle is always interested in what Isaac's up to, and really wants to "help" take care of him, whether it's finding his hat, holding him, breastfeeding, etc...

Early visitors

We've had a steady stream of well-wishers come by to pay their respects to Little Lord Isaac:



Anna, who somehow knew that stripes would be appropriate.



My mom, who declared her grandson "perfect."



Meaghan came by to see her future charge...

A new photo:

And an old photo:

A "belated" birth story

Only for those who are interested: 

My due date was October 25th, and even though Gabrielle came six days late, and I promised myself to allow the birth of #2 to come when it comes, I was still extremely antsy every day that he didn't arrive once October 25 came and went. I had "stretch and sweeps" performed every couple of days (if you don't know what this is, don't ask or google it), and was trying a variety of natural options for bringing on labour. My midwife had sent me for two ultrasounds to check on the status of the baby and both times we saw that he was thriving in there, and didn't appear to be growing inordinately large. Every time I saw the midwife, she assured me that babies always come. A ridiculous thing to need to hear, in hindsight, but I had actually come to believe that the baby was "stuck" and couldn't find his way out. 

My last stretch and sweep was on the morning of Friday, November 6th. Claudia, my midwife, told me she thought baby would likely not arrive that day, but would almost certainly by the end of the weekend. Mark and I went out for a walk to lunch and then coffee (ow - uncomfortable). I headed to Loblaws to get some ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies while he picked up Gabrielle at daycare. I had heard about women making "birthday cakes" on the day they go into labour. In a clear act of desperation, I thought maybe birthday cookies would bring on baby's birthday. 

I started feeling a bit more uncomfortable than usual on the bus ride home and when I walked in the door, I was pretty sure I recognized that feeling I was having. When Mark got home with Gabrielle at around 4pm, I told him I thought I was in labour. I also decided to call Claudia, our primary midwife, who I knew was going to be "off call" as of 5pm, just to let her know that labour had started and tell her she was wrong about her earlier prediction that labour wouldn't start that day. I also used it as a chance to chastise her for missing yet another of my births - she was our primary midwife with Gabrielle as well but because G dared show up almost a week late, another midwife delivered Gabrielle. No complaints, of course, I just enjoyed rubbing Claudia's nose in it a bit...

Figuring out what to do with Gabrielle has been our biggest concern with the home birth from the start. We called up Angie and put her on amber alert, as we still didn't know for sure that this was a go. About an hour later, I was more than certain that I was in labour - contractions were increasing in intensity and were coming every 5-6 minutes. We decided to keep Gabrielle at home, hoping she would sleep through the whole thing. 

At 5:30pm, I decided to call the midwife to give her a heads up that labour had started. At that point, I had been told that the midwife on call was Miriam, a lovely woman whom I had met a couple of times already and who I looked forward to having at the birth. Miriam informed me that she likely wouldn't be able to make it to the birth, as she was at the hospital with a woman who had been in labour for 48 hours and who was heading to the operating room for a C-section. She told me to page her again once I believed I was in active labour and she would let me know who was coming. She told me she thought it would be a woman named Amanda, whom I had never met. I went to the computer to look up Amanda's bio on the Midwifery Collective website - I was somewhat horrified to realize that she had only gotten her midwife designation in July of 2009. She looked like a teenager in her photo. Oh god oh god oh god...

The labour progressed well, although I was having a hard time deciding when would be the best time to call the doula and midwife. I had always pictured the doula being in our house labouring with me for several hours before letting us know that she thought it was time to call the midwife. I was dealing with the contractions pretty well on my own and kept thinking that I wanted to "save her" for when I really needed her. In my mind, this was going to be a long, tiring process and I wanted to be sure that I could rally the troops when needed.

At around 9:30 pm, I told Mark that I thought we should call Pia, our doula. By my occasional glances at the clock, I could see that my contractions were coming closer together and seemed to be lasting around 45 seconds or so. At around 9:45, I told Mark that we should call the midwife as well, because things were so intense. He tried to talk me out of it, saying we should wait for the doula to arrive, but in my mind I kept thinking about the scenarios you hear about with the husband being in denial that birth is imminent and insisting on stopping to buy donuts or whatnot on the way to the hospital. I insisted he call the midwife, which he did (thanks honey). 

Pia showed up at 9:50pm and Amanda showed up around 5 minutes later. Amanda checked me and said I was at 5-6 cms and completely thinned out (again, don't ask). In my mind, I thought this meant she was going to go home and come back in a few hours. To my surprise, she told me I was in active labour and she would be staying. Pia went right to work, getting me to try different positions and relaxation techniques, including a hot shower/bath (didn't work). The midwife set up her equipment in our bedroom. I was surprised to come back from the bathroom and find every surface covered in a piece of equipment: oxygen tanks for me and the baby, tools, sterilizing stuff, things I never found out what they were for. Before long, the contractions seemed to be coming one on top of the other - they sat me on a birthing stool which seemed to move things along. 

At around 1am, the midwife said something about how she could see the bag of waters and the top of baby's head during the contractions. This completely shocked me - what was she talking about?? Was I really that far along? She told me baby was about to come out and that I was fully dilated. I asked her: am I supposed to push? She said: you don't have to - baby will just come out. I was pretty confused - this was completely unlike my previous delivery, where I spent hours and hours slowly dilating, being given my "number" every couple of hours until I reached the magic 10cm mark, at which point I was instructed to push with every contraction. In this case, all those steps were blending into one, and baby was coming, whether or not I was ready for him. 

Amazingly, baby did seem to just come. My water broke and then baby made what felt like an interminable trip out, but was only just a few minutes. I was in a world of pain, but was assured he was on his way out and just to "breathe." I made a few big choiceless pushes, and indeed he was out at 1:52am, about 10 hours after labour began. I felt like I had woken up the neighbourhood, but Mark assured me I wasn't that loud. Hard to believe - I'm guessing he's just being the extremely supportive husband. 

Speaking of which, Mark was literally and figuratively supportive throughout the labour. Most notably, he held me up for the last hour or so of the labour, while I pushed all my strength back against him. He even had to step out and get some air at some point, because he was feeling faint from the effort. He really was amazing throughout, which should surprise no one at all. 

Amanda ended up being a godsend - a young woman with the maturity of a woman much more experienced than she. She was so calm and reassuring - I really feel indebted to her. Same with Pia - we chose her because of her views of the "normalcy" of birth and that's what she brought to the experience. Both of those ladies allowed me to just let baby come and didn't make a big deal of it, which allowed me to relax. 

After Amanda and Pia cleaned up (yes, the house looked no worse for wear after they left), Mark and I and the little guy curled up in bed and tried to sleep while waiting to introduce him to his new sister. All in all, an unbelievable experience...

The room set up once the midwife got there - the wooden birthing stool on the floor was where the baby was ultimately delivered (minus the carpet)

Pia helped me breathe through the contractions.

I lay on the bed and watched the midwife do her assessment on the baby. I was completely stunned and exhausted.

Mark and Pia with the bundle. 

Mark and Amanda, checking out the sleepy guy.

Finally!!...

You'd think we would have used the 12 days he was overdue to do something useful like settle on a name. 

Anyways, Baby Boy Draper arrived at Unit 103 of the Wallis House on November 7 at 1:52 a.m., after an uneventful and mercifully short ten-hour labour. His birthweight was recorded as 9 lbs 8 ozs - he's BIG (everywhere but the chin - the Peres Curse strikes again). All are doing fine. G slept through the whole thing and was thrilled to meet her little brother the next morning, even though Saturday morning cartoons were calling. Her first words upon seeing the baby: "oh yessss."