One week breathing

Watching our yet unnamed baby boy breath and eat this week has made me think about the placenta's leap of faith. The placenta is the two pound root system that allows the baby to exchange oxygen, nutrients, and waste with its mother. The placenta develops from the egg and sperm (not from the mother's uterus) and as such is a part of the baby. While the baby does swallow and breath some amniotic fluid while in the uterus, this is only to exercise its diaphragm and GI tract, and the baby derives all of its oxygen and food from the placenta via the umbilical cord (huge bummer for any of you who remember the reasoning behind the liquid breathing in James Cameron's film The Abyss).

Then comes birth.

Ingrid's operatic entrance to the world

Air on the face makes the baby gasp, inflating the lungs with atmosphere for the first time. That's when the placenta does its trust fall. It unclenches its grip on the uterine wall, abruptly severing the lifeline that up to this point has been the baby's sole support. That is the ultimate moment of truth, like the freefall you feel when the computer freezes on your term project and you have to hit ctrl alt delete. Or that moment at night when you turn off the engine of a Volkswagen van halfway through Canada. Not sure how much you're gonna lose. Not sure if it's gonna start up again.

When all goes well, the baby metabolic motor jerks into autonomous mode and from that instant on relies on its own lungs and stomach to sustain life. Interestingly, the placenta often hangs on until the baby is latched on to its mother's breast. That first nursing stimulates the mother and signals the baby and uterus that the Hail Mary pass from womb to boob has been completed. (UNICEF's "newborn crawl" video on Youtube gives a lot more detail of all the things that go on to get the baby where it needs to be including the fact that the mother's nipples smell like amniotic fluid to draw the baby to them and the baby's crawling across the stomach causes the uterus to contract ... it's a miracle any of us are alive).

I wonder if the detachment is caused by the placenta letting go or the uterine wall shaking it loose. Is it the baby's or the mother's side of the handshake that lets go?

All babies lose weight during the first week while their system warms up (a big part of that is waiting for the right bacteria to populate their sterile bowels so they can digest effectively) and mom's milk supply comes in. This is why, even under the best of circumstances the baby fattens back to its birth weight by two weeks. Pretty cool.

All this going on behind those shiny black eyes. All this hereditary wisdom maximizing the likelihood of us loving and taking care of him. We're all just trying to survive.

 (here are some pictures from Punjab's first week)

Name lottery results (The Birth of our Second Child)

Thanks to all of you for your participation in the name lottery. With some huffing and puffing and a lot of joyful sobbing, little boy Abbott arrived at 6:42 yesterday morning.

With a predicted time of 6:30 am May 21st, Hillary is the winner of the name lottery. Hillary's girl name was Hildegunda Alt and her boy name was Stephen Colbert. In second place with a prediction of 7:18 was Kimbo with the name choices Mavis Anjalyn and Charles Bartholomew. I fell in third place with a prediction of 9:39 and the names Lily Ellen and Henry Attigan.

Special mention to Julie and Darwin with the excellent name suggestions Caranesa Sparkle-paw and Nutella Brie.

Click here for some more pictures of little Stephen.

On Sunday night Rachel labored from 8 pm to 1 am at our house then we swooped over the the birth center in the midnight dusk of summer in Fairbanks. With Ingrid we were really frightened at this point, but this time Rachel was calm and determined. I was excited and jittery, like you feel before a race that's longer than you've ever trained for. She was already dilated to 7 centimeters when we got there and the contractions quickly got stronger and closer together. All of Rachel's reading (Ina May's and the Hypnobirthing books) really paid off, and even during the most intense moments we were able to work together. I've never felt so close and dependent on each other as I did through that night. 

I was really surprised at how hyper aware and present Rachel was. She was definitely in an altered state of mind as her uterus moved the baby down but she was conversant and totally lucid the whole time. At one point, in the thick of it, Rachel turned to me and said in tears, "I'm sorry my face is grimacy and I'm grumpy." I looked over at the midwife Cory and our doula Katie and we all started laughing, hugging Rachel around the shoulders. "It's OK honey, just this one time."

By 5 am Rachel was completely dilated but the baby still wasn't descending. After a bit the midwife suggested that we break her waters, which we did, and the baby moved down and was out in less than a half hour. It was pretty incredible to see this aquatic creature breath in air for the first time. He was calm from the beginning and looked around like an owl surprised in the afternoon.

After we got home yesterday afternoon the baby fell asleep on the couch (I'd forgotten how much newborns sleep). His gravely purrs and guinea pig sounds create an aura of childish serenity. It's like a gentle sonic display of peaceful fireworks. It's like a lava lamp and a handfull of fresh blueberries.

Cuddling together as a family in this tiny home is one of the greatest tender mercies I have ever experienced. Thanks to all of you for your love and prayers. We feel so blessed to have this new spirit in our family and are grateful for your support (physical or virtual).

Our friend Gabe wrote this song for a baby named Edge Runner a few months ago. It describes how Rachel and I feel about our children.

Nombrilist and name lottery

Like a cloudberry

her belly hangs

Rachel's tiny spine

our swelling fruit's vine

and the world rolls below her,

the common first belly

while I try not to worship

our roots back to Eve 

I now know that the second worst thing after asking a woman "are you pregnant," is asking her husband, "did the baby come yet."

We are actually doing great and are happily perched in a waiting spot between joyful anticipation and nervous excitement. Rachel is content like a fertility goddess, Ingrid loves to hug the belly, and the rhubarb is racing out of the ground.

It's now time for the second ever Abbott name lottery. Help us pick a name and exercise your powers of prophecy at the same time. Our child will forever be known as the submission closest to the actual delivery time. My sister Maren won the lottery last time which is why Ingrid's legal name is Ace Buffalo Abbott. (The estimated due date is the 23rd of May).

Click here to see other people's submissions.

Spanking

What a harrowing thing to discipline a child. So far we've been able to get by with time outs. If Ingrid pours her milk in the philodendron or bites her cousin on the face then she goes to the bathroom for a time out until she is ready to say sorry and commit to not doing it again. Until last week we had never considered what we would do if she didn't stay in time out. Last week the unthinkable happened. During a time out, Ingrid opened the bathroom door and helped herself to a carrot from the fridge crisper.

What are we supposed to do? I know what you're thinking, "Why don't you just do time out in the shed." Well, we've tried that and it worked one time. But then Ingrid realized that time out in the shed was just like time out in the bathroom except with more toys. So here we are, convinced that it's important for our child to listen to us but without the tools to make that happen.

Could you spank this child?

 A few nights ago, in desperation I spanked Ingrid. She had come out of time out three times and finally I laid her across my knee and swatted her diapered rump. She craned her neck around and with wide, wet eyes burst into tears. She darted back to the bathroom, holding her face with both hands.

The next day when Ingrid wouldn't clean up her blocks Rachel started the time out count. "One, two ... I don't want to say the next number Ingrid."
"I'll clean up my blocks Mommy. I don't need spanking. Daddy gave me one yesterday and it is still working really great." But, last night after serial requests for cereal, Ingrid again wouldn't stay in time out. I told her that if she came out one more time I would have to give her a spanking, and sure enough she opened the door and came out.

This morning as we shared a bowl of cheerios Ingrid cheerfully said, "I don't like spankings, next time I'll do what you say." Oh how my heart stung when she said that.

What about this one?

But back to the question at hand (so to speak), what is the most effecting (or least damaging) way to teach a child about responsibility and consequences when they don't respect the rules? I often think about my brother Nate's comment, "We couldn't ever justify spanking because it seemed so hypocritical to teach your kid not to hit by, well, hitting them." On the other hand, how is being forced to stay in a room alone any less traumatic than getting spanked? Isn't the whole point of a negative consequence that the child doesn't like it?

Both Rachel and I were spanked growing up and we don't feel it traumatized us. I can remember my dad stepping into a room where mischief was being and slipping his belt off, making it into a loop, and pulling the ends to make an impossibly terrifying crack. If that wasn't enough he would lay us across his knees and spank us (with his hand, the belt was just theater). I bawled when I got spanked, not because of the pain, but because I knew how displeased my mom or dad was with me.

Is this just new-agey angst, or is there really a better way to help our children grow into responsible and loving people? Any insight would be appreciated.

"Number two is here"

I just got a call from Rachel.

"Number two is here."
"What should we do?" I asked, breathless and immediately in a cold sweat.
"Well do you still have the traps out?"
"What are you talking about?"
"I said, vole number two is here."
"Oh." I bowed my head and sunk back into my chair. "You've got to be more careful about that phrase 'number two'!"
"Well I was going number two and saw him run by the laundry basket. He looked like a little turd too, same dimensions, shape and everything." She obviously didn't grasp the intensity of the huge adrenaline rush she'd just caused me.
I chuckled and thought to myself, It can all change in a second when you're waiting for a baby.