Noah Revisited - Part 1: Birth through Bris

Noah Aron Folman was born on April 8th, 2011 in Santa Monica, CA, weighing 7 pounds, 11 ounces and measuring 22 inches long. This is his first picture, taken moments after his birth:

These next two were also taken moments after his birth as his lay under the warmer.

The new family.

This video was taken when Noah was only two hours old. He was alert and adorable right from the very start.

Noah and his Mommy.

Noah and his Daddy.

Noah and Giraffe.

With Grandma Barbara

With Grandpa Howie

On the way to his new home...

Just home from the hospital.

With Grandma Toby

and Grandpa Bob

and Uncle Dave

and Auntie Trish

Noah's first bath.

At the bris. Rabbi Brous, blessing Noah.

Noah, in the kippa Mommy made him.

Noah with his new cousins.

The familia, post-bris:

So we had this son...

Carin and I have neglected the MiniFolman blog for the last 4 months. Let's see, what have we been up to these last few months? I'm trying to remember...Ah yes, being parents. An occupation which has been thrilling and wonderful, if sometimes challenging. And it has left precious little time for blogging. We've been living life, as opposed to journaling about it, and this has left us several months behind the ball.

This wouldn't bother me so much if a certain spouse of mine (not naming any names here) hadn't posted one singular blog post that has remained at the top of the queue for all these months--and if that singular blog post hadn't had the unfortunately melodramatic title: "Languishing." Hardly the headline with which to hearken the birth of our precious child. She can be forgiven because weeks 2 through 4 were particularly challenging ones with Noah, but I feel the need, for the sake of our internet record, to try and recap Noah's first few months in a manner that more accurately expresses the joyfulness, wonderment, and nuclear powered cuteness that these months have comprised.

This leaves me in a bit of a pickle because I happen to still be a parent, in addition to being a writer--and husband, cooker-of-dinner, scooper-of-kitty-litter, etc.--and frankly, I don't have the time to work backwards and properly chronicle the last 4 months and 3 weeks of our lives--not with words anyway. What I'll offer instead, in these next few posts, is a brief recap of our recent history in pictures and videos. For most of you, these pics and videos will be old news, so please bear with me. Once we are caught up, then we can start posting the new bits of cuteness as they happen. In the meantime, please enjoy this trip down recent memory lane...

Languishing

I promise I haven't forgotten about this blog altogether. It's just... this s@&* is HARD. The hardest thing I have ever done. Harder than getting a PhD in Biomedical Engineering.

Thank goodness the payoff is worth it.

Noah - in a rare state of relaxation that WASN'T swing-induced

I promise I'll be back soon with some updates on how this little man entered the world.

41w1d

Right. So I am now 8 days overdue. Here are the things I have tried in the past week:

• walking
• "The" salad at Caioti Pizza Cafe in Studio City
• spicy food
• the "insert euphemism here" method

I'm scheduled for a non-stress test and an amniotic fluid check at the OB tomorrow morning (if I don't go into labor before then). So we'll see.

In the meantime, I'm getting lots of nice family time with my parents, who arrived on Wednesday, and my brother's family who live in AZ. They were conveniently on a cruise last week that left out of LA, and figured they'd be returning yesterday to a new nephew/cousin. Sorry folks!

Bill and my nephew "playing basketball":

Me and my nephews having a belly contest:

Finally, here are some fitting fortunes that we all got when we went out for Chinese food last night:

• Your lucky number for this week is the number three. (April 3rd????)
• You will be showered with good luck tomorrow!
• Your blessings will multiply this coming month. Good luck!
• An enjoyable vacation is awaiting you very soon. (Ummmm...)

Come out, baby! We want to meet you!!

"1 Day To Go!"

It's pretty wild to look at our baby ticker this morning and see "1 days to go!"

We are VERY excited here in Folmanville. Any day now could be the day. The picture above was taken last night. Note how far down OLG has dropped. He wants out, and we can't wait to see him.

A few links to share today:

First, for those who didn't get the word on Facebook, Carin has set up a baby pool. You guess OLG's birthday, weight, etc. Today is the last day to make your guesses and enter. You may just win a shipment of tangerines from the tree in our backyard. If you're interested in playing, you can enter here.

We've also had a bunch of people ask about where we are registered for baby stuff. The answer: a few places: Diapers.com, Babies R Us, Target, and Amazon.com.

Finally, here's a link to a video I find quite funny. Dave, I fully expect you to be rocking this tune when I see you next.

Today, we continue to get our house (literal and metaphorical) in order, and I'm looking forward to getting some more writing done. But we are also at the ready. At any moment, our little guy may decide to make a break for it. We'll keep you updated when he does.

Ready to Drop - Pictures from the last 7 weeks

Yes, it's been a long time since either Carin or I have blogged. We've just been a little crazy. Carin was busy finishing up work, and I've been trying to juggle writing, teaching, and husbandry. We've also been preparing for OLG's arrival. Prepping his nursery, prepping our own room, prepping our lives, etc. At some point, we'll try to post some before/after nursery pics. Carin is futzing around in there as I type. All this preparation has been tiring, wonderful, and all consuming...and he's not even here yet.

There's been much I've wanted to write about that I can't even get to today (my office and script beckon), but I did want--at the very least--to post some pictures from these last 7 weeks. Sorry they've been so long coming.

The shot above was from this Thursday: Carin's birthday. We went out to what may be our last fancy, romantic dinner for a little while at Rive Gauche in Sherman Oaks. (To my brother: we both ordered duck in Chambord sauce, I also enjoyed the crab stuffed mushrooms in Hollandaise sauce, apologies for no food pics).

Now, we'll go back a few weeks and work our way forward.

The shot below is Carin on Valentines Day, 34 weeks 2 days pregnant:

Now at 35 weeks, 5 days (with cat):

As for Scottie, we have successfully kicked her out of her favorite place in the world--our bedroom--in anticipation of OLG's arrival. OLG is going to sleep with us for the first few months, and we don't trust Scottie in the same room as him while he's sleeping (at least not until he has the power to lift his own head up).

So we've kicked her out. It was painful at first because she likes to sleep in our bed, and there was some late night meowing for a little while. But we figure it's better now than when we ALSO have a crying baby to contend with. Scottie has mostly gotten used to the arrangement, but we still occasionally hear her meowing to come in (like this morning).

Her new hangout is the couch:

We've tried to get her to use the comfy cat bed we got for her, and she does sleep in it sometimes. This took a while, however. At first, it seemed she didn't know quite how to use the darn thing (see below):

Carin at 36 weeks, 5 days:

It's raining as I type this, but the weather has been beautiful lately. We've been enjoying everything blooming at our house.

and speaking of citrus...

After 15 months in our new house, we finally bought a citrus juicer! It produced the best OJ we've ever tasted. Liquid gold! Come over, and we'll make you some.

This is Carin at 37 weeks, 3 days, looking very belly-tastic.

...and now we're back to this week. This is my wife again on her birthday, standing in front of our beautiful snapdragons, 38 weeks and 5 days pregnant.

We are now 39 weeks and 1 day in. Baby is definitely riding lower than a couple weeks ago, and Carin has had what she believes are Braxton Hicks contractions (prelude to the real thing, these can start weeks prior to delivery). She's pretty uncomfortable these days, but also very excited. We both are. We are in the "any day now" zone.

Stay tuned...

Conflict of Interests

Back when our tree became an art installation, we finally caved and decided that we should pay to get it cut back professionally. After asking around and looking on Angie's list, in the end we gave the job to our gardener. He's nice, he's competent, he was the lowest bidder. Done. It occurred to me a few days after our tree was denuded that maybe this presented a bit of a conflict of interest. The guy who we paid to blow away the fallen leaves was now put in charge of cutting off limbs and branches from said tree. So maaaaybe he took off more branches than someone else would have? Should he have recused himself from the job, like an Arizona federal judge?

Other than being a conflict of interest, that little story really has nothing to do with what I wanted to write about when I started this post, which is, um, birth... philosophy? I don't know what to call it. Drugs or no drugs.

Given my career and my academic training, I am generally all in favor of modern medicine. When this all started, I was like, "Epidural? Who wants pain? Bring it on." Fetal monitors make sure things are okay, pitocin make things move faster, sure why not? The one thing I have always been leery of is having a c-section, mostly because the recovery period would make taking care of a newborn more challenging.

Then a co-worker recommended a book called Your Best Birth, by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein. These authors also produced a documentary a few years ago called The Business of Being Born, which I have not seen, but I have heard was pretty controversial. I also remembered a post that my friend Kim wrote on the subject, and so I went in to the reading of the book cautiously, sort of expecting to be confronted with brainwashing, yet arming myself against it. Kind of like when Bill turns on FoxNews.

Only... it sort of worked on me. The book is very pro-natural-birth, pro-home-birth, pro-midwife, pro-doula, and it posits that if you have your baby in a hospital you are going to be dealing with nurses who won't listen and you'll end up on your back and having a c-section whether you need one or not. Seriously, it uses very emotional writing to make you feel pretty s***ty about wanting to have your baby in a hospital.

So I didn't drink ALL of the Kool-Aid. I am still firmly planning on giving birth in a hospital. I don't think I would ever want to give birth at home (mostly because of the yuck factor), but it definitely made a convincing case for using a midwife then delivering at a birth center. (Maybe next time.) But this book. It really has me freaked about any sort of hospital intervention, like any little thing (e.g. artificially breaking the bag of waters to "move things along") is going to lead to a cascade of other things that will ultimately lead to a c-section. Which I really don't want, but now I don't want it for a host of OTHER reasons BESIDES the recovery time.

I want this little guy to have the best entry into the world that I can give him. I keep reading (other places besides this book) about two things specifically, and both would be unavailable to me/us if I had a c-section. The first is the skin-on-skin thing, plus attempting to breastfeed immediately following delivery. My hospital is very pro-skin-on-skin, but not if you have a c-section. If you have a c-section, they're stitching you up during that time, and you need to lie still, so no baby bonding for at least an hour. The second is the thing about how a vaginal birth is less traumatic for the baby because it's like one big massage. I'm simplifying, but it has something to do with hormones and blah blah, and the baby doesn't get that benefit if he's delivered via c-section. I'm sure there are other reasons; I just keep coming back to these two.

So, in the interest of best birth for my baby, I'm having anxiety about being pushed into interventions I don't want. I'd like to say I don't have much problem being confrontational, but I also like strangers to like me, and there have been occasions where I've been polite rather than pushing for what I want. Especially in situations like this. Because who knows more - the know-it-all who read ONE book about the subject? Or the L&D nurse who has been doing this for 30 years? Who am I to say what's going to help my natural labor along vs. land me in the OR?

So right now, my plan (in my head) is for a drug-free birth in a hospital.

On the flip side, after reading this book, I then TIVO'd an episode of A Baby Story on TLC (yeah they still have that show). In this episode, the mom is also going for a natural birth in a hospital, in one of those birthing tubs. (They don't have those at my hospital.) And she COMPLETELY LOSES HER SH*T. I mean, evennnntually she does it, but wow. I do not know if I have the mental constitution to hold up against that. And I don't want to be so out of it that I can't help things along.

And then there was the comment from my doctor a few weeks ago about how I'm going to have a big baby. That sort of floats above my head. Is it going to cause the doctor to want to induce early (which, according to Your Best Birth, will pretty much guarantee I get a c-section since "the baby's not naturally ready yet")? Or if I do go in to labor naturally, am I going to feel pressured to cave to a c-section if the labor doesn't go smoothly ("He's too big to fit through" is another "lie" that hospitals tell mothers that land them with c-sections... according to the book)?

In short, I'm interested in not having a c-section. But I'm also interested in not having so much pain that I'm not mentally present. And I'm also interested in giving this baby his best possible entrance to the world. And I'm also interested in trusting medical professionals who know more than me. And I'm also interested in not having to fight the VBAC fight for future births.

Sigh. I'm conflicted. I need to go back to reading books with pictures of shoes on their pink covers.

In the meantime, here's a picture of the belly at 32 weeks and 1 day. I hate my new haircut - that's why it's under the hat. It looks like Carol Brady, the mullet years.

Some January Pictures

Haven't posted in a while. I've been very absorbed by my writing lately, and I've preferred to spend my few spare moments hanging out with the wife and fetus (as opposed to blogging about the wife and fetus).

But here are some pictures of the goings on these last couple weeks. Here are Carin and I two weeks ago (She is 30 weeks pregnant in this picture).

It is citrus season, and we are loving our oranges and tangerines these days.

Coming right on the heels of our previous series of cat and pregnant wife photos, here are a couple shots of a 31-week pregnant Carin doing yoga with her pal Scottie.

More Information Than You Require

Warning: You may end up finding out more than you want to know if you continue reading.

So, there is a special kind of pain reserved for when you get a hemorrhoid cut off of your bum, and then the local wears off. Especially when the strongest thing you feel comfortable taking for said pain is Extra-Strength Tylenol.

(Yeah, that happened today.)

I'm not going to go any further into the details, but in the interest of self-mockery and humor, I wanted to share two things that the very distinguished surgeon -- who has been practicing many many years -- said during the very short time I was in his office today:

1. [Upon first examination of said 'roid:] "Well that is bigger and badder than most I've seen."
2. [While removing it:] "I've taken out appendices smaller than this!"

People, let this be a lesson for all of us. More prunes. Stat.

Pillows: Real and Imagined

I've been having some positional challenges while I sleep. For reasons I won't go into, my doctor advised me that whenever I am lying down, I should lie on my left side. When I do this, I need my back supported so that I don't roll onto my back in the middle of the night. This has led to a king-size-pillow barrier between me and Bill. Love you honey! I'll wave to you from way over here.

I also having been using a regular-size pillow to sort of do a combination support-the-belly plus between-the-knees thing. Not surprisingly, when I wake up, the pillows are nowhere near where I put them when I fell asleep. And it's hard, when you wake up in the middle of the night, to readjust all those pillows. In the dark. Half-asleep.

So I finally got a Snoogle yesterday. It's a pillow that's sewn into a pre-formed shape somewhere between a "C" and a "J" and you can hypothetically shape it many different ways. Behold (click to see the details):

Very promising when I went to sleep last night, because having that c-shape between your knees basically should prevents the long back support from shifting away from you. Theoretically.

Some time during the early morning, I woke up in a bit of discomfort from the neck portion. Did I also mention I have a pre-existing neck issue (herniated cervical disc - maybe C5 or C6? I forget which) that can be aggravated by side sleeping? Awesome. (In terms of pain management, I just wrapped up a month of PT, so at the moment I can once again turn my head. So I'm sticking with the side sleeping for now.) The snoogle is... not so great for my neck. The nice firm support for the back ends up being a bit firm for my head, and was sort of craning my head up a little too much. So I pushed the neck portion aside and pulled up the normal soft pillow I had tossed on the floor before falling asleep the night before.

But then the back portion was pushed away too. And somewhere in there, it came out from in between my knees? Anyway, I was having issues.

So in between snoozes on my alarm clock this morning, I have a dream. I dream that I have given birth to the baby, and isn't she (in the dream it's a she) adorable and just the sweetest thing, especially all bundled up and swaddled. She's soooo cozy and snuggle-able. So I'm snuggling with her, and maybe I start to snooze a little (in the dream), and I wake up a little bit later, quite well rested, and I can't find her. I'm searching through the sheets and comforter since it's all very fluffy, and a small bundle could be easily covered up and we wouldn't see her, but for all the fluff of the comforter (much the way our cat totally hides under the comforter and we don't even realize). So I finally find her... and I have used her as my pillow. And yes she has died because I have accidentally smooshed her to death from SLEEPING ON HER, but she sure was a comfortable pillow.

Horrifying.