The Big Brother Report

So many people have asked me how Will is doing with the addition of his sibling and I feel like Jasper came at a ripe age for Will to be able and willing to recieve him. Will is patient and understanding of this new little one. He is pretty helpful and already proving to be a great playmate. Will has been getting some of the first smiles and Jasper clearly shows an interest in Will. He will stop breastfeeding and listen when he hears his voice and he truly loves the evening routine of "playing" with dad and Will in his bedroom.

Will has also found renewed interest in his toys and will keep himself pretty well occupied building legos or playmobile or drawing at his table...

Memorial Day Weekend

As you can see Jasper is really enjoying his brother and his baths lately. This guy is also a pooping machine and has a BM after just about every single feeding. I'm fairly confident that it won't be too long before he poops in the bath--on his brother!

Camp Colman Overnight

Will and his dad went to Camp Colman this weekend for the "First Time Camper Overnight". They really enjoyed themselves and we both feel like this was an essential experience for Will to be able to head off to camp on his own this summer for the first time. He and his dad got to eat in the dining hall, sleep in the cabin, and participate in many of the activities that they have at camp. I feel so sad to have missed out on this but Jasper and I had a very restful and lovely weekend together. He was such a good boy, sleeping very well for his mama so that she wouldn't miss the rest of the family's help!

Big Brother T's

For some of you in blog land this is the first time you've seen Jasper with his eyes open! We have determined that he looks almost exactly like his brother Will did at this age with the exception of his coloring. His hair is darker and his eyes aren't the iridescent blue that Will's were. I'm thinking that Jasper may in fact have Jasper colored eyes!


I can already see the challenges in photographing multiple children! These photos are comical!


John and Jane sent the boys these great Big Brother and Little Brother T's.

Beach

We met up with the Platz family at the beach this weekend. It was fun to get out of the house and into the sunshine.

Milk Coma (aka. You Gain Some, You Lose Some)

Jasper looks fat and happy here but apparently his weight gain at his two week check has not been up to snuff. He lost weight after birth and got himself down to 9 pounds, 6 ounces which is pretty average. By his one week check he was back up to 9 pounds, 10 ounces and then he was only 9 pounds, 12 ounces by his two week check. The midwives would have liked to see him back up to birth weight by two weeks so we are working hard to get there on breastmilk! If you look at the baby and not the scale, he's doing great though and happily nursing away throughout the day so I haven't been concerned... but this has been a big baby to feed right away. I'm impressed that we've found a rhythm as quickly as we have. Jasper tends to eat every 2-4 hours with at least 1-2 four hour stretches of sleep in there. He loves to have his bowel movements when his dad is holding him too which is extra funny.

Big Cheeks

Who wouldn't love these cheeks?

Brothers

First Bath

Will was so proud to give Jasper his first bath. Sadly, even though Jasper was born in water he was not too impressed by the bath and it didn't last very long. Will was hoping for a bit more time together!

First Carseat Ride

Here is the midwife board with all the babies from each month. Jasper is the biggest baby!

Heading to the midwife...

The Three Boys

Paul took this last night while I was getting some shut eye downstairs before our midwife came over to check on us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-HeVCOz4cE

Meal Baby

This time around we have been SO infinitely grateful for our friends bringing us meals through a great online program called MealBaby https://mealbaby.com/. My friend Kim discovered this service after the birth of her sweet son and she set it up for me too. It is such a delight to have some variety in our lives since we are relying on Mr Mom here whose only real cooking skills were acquired in graduate school. He hasn't served this to us yet but last night I observed him making white rice, cheese cubes and soy sauce for himself as a snack!

Weight Check

Will says he looks like an old grandpa.

Big Yawn!

Heather stopped by to check on us today and we did a quick weight check. That sling is what we put him in for her to weigh him using a fish scale type device. Jasper remains hovering near ten pounds (9 lbs, 9oz) which is a fine bit of loss in these early days. Soon after she left my milk came in which has certainly helped matters.

Will's Story

Darn, these are out of order--- here is the placenta.

Baby Jasper

Mama

Birthing at the house

Home

Baby Mine

Announcing... Jasper Bennett Costigan

Born on his due date 5/5/10 at 5:48pm

10 pounds, 2 oz.

22 inches long

We'll get some photos up soon! His little face was pretty swollen after the birth but seems to be better now! He literally had a line of bruising around his big cheeks!

Placenta/Baby House

Will has been awaiting the arrival of the baby's house and created a placenta bowl for the occasion. After the birth, the midwife showed us the enormous placenta with the amazingly long umbilical cord. This baby had a truly grand house that was very strong too. The midwife commented that with both babies, the placenta did not break until the baby's head crowned which means that these placentas are not only big but they are strong.

I don't usually get any cervical checks during pregnancy and would prefer to just live in the moment with that but during this birth it was so intense as his head moved down that I was encouraged by the midwife to reach my finger in and see how things are progressing. I was able to feel the head with the bulging bag of waters as it descended.

Happy Birthday Baby Costigan

I know, I know.... we have a name pretty well decided but since the midwife will be back in 24 hours to check on us we figured we'd give ourselves some time to try out his name!

His story... through the eyes of his mama:

Our little guy arrived just in time for dinner tonight after some steadily progressing contractions all day. Things picked up to what could be called "active labor" by around 2:20 PM and I got in the labor tub. Will and I had "contractions" on opposite sides of the tub together while Paul worked on water temperature and tub filling. Midwives (Heather, Tanya and Christine) arrived with all their gear around 3pm and the next couple hours felt like eons as this baby moved his head over that last lip of cervix. This was a hard birth... I'll be honest here. I felt like I was being ripped apart as that huge 14 inch head made its way down through and out. Sixteen minutes of pushing felt like sixteen hours to me and to top it off his chest was a wide 14 inches too so it was hard to get him out from tip to tail.

While I've been told I have a roomy pelvis and seem to grow big placentas with extra long cords, I remain thankful that the baby did the work that needed to happen for a straightforward birth. He got himself into a great position for birthing and this is probably what allowed all this to happen in only sixteen minutes. I also have thought back to myself how lucky women are to have the uterus to do the work of pushing that baby down and out. Once I felt the head coming through I realized what was ahead of me and if the uterus hadn't pushed me into it literally... that baby might still be in there!

After a pretty dramatic and loud pushing phase, Baby came out quietly underwater and was lifted serenely up to my chest where we admired the impressive rolls and dimples. This is a big boy! But so far he has been incredibly easy going as a big ten pounder should be: vigorously nursing right away and sleeping peacefully on his Topponcino (Montessori mattress) through his birthday celebration, meeting the cat, and having many kisses from his big brother.

Strangely I feel like I'm physically bouncing back much more quickly even with a difficult labor. I feel good enough already to walk around, sit up, use the toilet, etc. all the things that felt impossible to do for a couple days after Will was born. Not to say that I've done much though. I walked about five steps from the tub to the bed and a few more to the bathroom off and on but otherwise I plan to be in bed for awhile!

Will was present for the entire birth. He and I counted my early contractions in the morning together, he helped fill the tub and swam with me for awhile in the early part of things. He was pretty well occupied putting on CD's for me (Bob Marley, "Don't Worry Be Happy" was put on just as I started pushing!), spritzing the air with peppermint spray, bringing food or drinks and discovering all the little packages I left around for him to play with during the labor. He was very interested in the long curly slippery umbilical cord and helped us examine the placenta carefully. When it was all over I asked Will what he thought of the birth and he said, "It was very unusual."

Due Date

Today is the due date for this little one and sure enough like clockwork these cramptractions started making their shift into contractions. It is all running very similar to when Will was born with some contraction action in the wee hours of the morning and then progressing pretty steadily throughout the day. I lost my mucous plug this morning in the bath which I was expecting at some point here as a signal for things to start moving.

We'll see if things get more intense and measurable by dinnertime. For now, Will and I are just hanging out together taking time off and on for a contraction here and there. I MUCH prefer contractions to cramps. I love the rise and fall, knowing that within a minute or so they will be gone. Cramps are irritating and unpredictably long.

It would be pretty funny if this baby came on his due date too. These two boys don't like to keep their mama waiting for very long. They come right on time!

Birthing House

The basket of baby items ready for his arrival. His first outfit adorned with peapods, a couple of organic receiving blankets, and several tiny FuzziBunz diapers.

The extra time this week to prepare has allowed us to finish up with all kinds of little details for the birth of Will's brother. Yesterday Will and I worked on making little jars of Lavender Clary Sage Salt Bath for the midwives. We also have Theo truffles and the little seed grenades that I gave out at the Blessingway.

This is the Blessingway Branch with everyone's beads on there. I was so surprised by how many were handmade. Nauko made the blue and pink one from clay, Jen M made the black and white bird bead, Laura made the yellow and green glass bead, Will added the silver peapod (not handmade), Kim R added the silver nest at the end (from the same artist who made the peapod), and there is a Morris dancing bell from Kimberly. Clare, Susanne and Silje all gave beautiful beads made from natural stone or mineral.
Here we have Will's re purposed art table complete with candles, peppermint essential oil spray, Cd's, the placenta bowl, a birthday present for Will from the baby and below a birthday book for the baby from Will.

Our birth kit arrived with all the supplies needed for the birth like chux pads and the ever important peri-irrigation bottle. I picked up a bag of wonderful sitz bath herbs from Dandelion Apothecary and there are cloths in the crock pot for perineum support, rice bags for warming, hydrogen peroxide (removes blood stains but we never had a problem with this at Will's birth), some funny underwear to accommodate the huge pads for lochia. I also have some pads frozen with witchhazel for those early tender days.


We have the labor tub set up and ready to be filled. This one is different from the rental we had last time. I'm pretty excited to try it. This one is more soft on the edges for leaning over and it has handles on the inside. I remember wanting both of those features the first time around with Will but the caveat with this one is that the bottom is soft so I can't sit on a stool in there and there isn't an external heater so this birth can't be too long or I'll get cold!

Cramptractions

Remember these? Well of course you do. I had these with Will for a couple weeks before he was born. I've been having them again since the 22nd/Earth Day and they are pretty intense. A one minute contraction is really no problem but 10-20 minutes of back cramps that radiate and throb continuously is a long and uncomfortable distraction from all the things I'm trying to do here to get ready for the baby.

We'll see what tomorrow, the due date holds, for this little one's arrival.