Month: July 2009

Clare at 2 Weeks

Posted on by heather.e.d.mcpherson@gmail.com
Happy Birthday Clare!
It’s Clare’s 2 week birthday today. She’s had a big couple of days lately – though she may not be aware of it. A few days ago she received her first piece of mail, her social security card came in the mail. So she is now an official, legal citizen. Today she went to the orthopedic pediatrician (more on that later) and we found out that she now weighs 6 lbs. 14 oz. This is a big deal since she has exceeded her birth weight by 4 ounces in 2 weeks (which is what our pediatrician wanted). I’m thrilled that she’s eating so well and is so healthy. We must be doing something right.
We went to the orthopedic pediatrician today because of a concern we had about Clare’s right foot when she was born. It is turned in slightly like a club foot, but unlike a club foot the bones aren’t fused inward and her foot can be moved back to a normal position. The pediatricians who examined her in the hospital after she was born recommended that we have an orthopedist look at it ‘just to be sure.’ The orthopedist proclaimed it a ‘perfectly healthy foot’ and said it should straighten out on its own over time. We weren’t really concerned about it, but I feel better now knowing we don’t have to watch it in the future.
Besides these things, the other bit of excitement in our house is that Clare has had five-hour stints of sleeping over the last two nights. This is mostly exciting for me, but I think Clare likes it too. We seem to be over last week’s fussiness and she’s been very sweet, alert and interested in the world around her these last few days. We think her eye sight is beginning to improve and she’s focusing on things that are farther away. She also let out a little coo the other day – which was absolutely adorable. In general she’s become more verbal. It’s most little grunts and sighs, but she makes quite a bit of noise for someone so small. It’s so fun watching these tiny little incremental development changes and she seems to change a little bit every day. I just keep my fingers crossed that the changes keep moving in the direction of sleeping more and crying less.
Below are some pictures of Clare ‘talking’ to Jeremy and I.


I especially love the picture of her and Jeremy because you can see her little hands in the air. She’s very expressive and her little hands and arms especially are always moving around, even in her sleep. I’ll try to get a picture in the next few days of her sleeping with her arms over her head.

1 Week + 2 Days

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We’ve now been home from the hospital for four days. I’ve heard a lot of people say that the first days home are the hardest, and on Sunday I was thinking “this isn’t so bad. We just have the perfect baby, so we won’t have hard days.” Ha! That’s what I get for being over-confident. Clare started alternating fussing and screaming on Sunday night and pretty much didn’t stop until Tuesday. The sleep deprivation, demands of nursing, recovery from the C-section (and maybe some postpartum hormones) caught up with me, in addition to Jeremy starting working and being home less, and created a bit of a perfect storm. Fortunately, Mom and Jeremy to the rescue and an afternoon spent with my mom (who came bearing grocery bags of good food) and a good night’s sleep (courtesy of J who took all of the night feedings last night) has made all the difference. I woke up this morning, looked at Clare’s tiny little face and said “I missed you last night.”
Besides our first challenging days, we’ve had fun visiting with people and introducing them to Clare.

Uncle Jon and Cousin Eric met her on Sunday. Eric wasn’t sure about holding her, but he did a good job.


Jeremy showed off his patented Baby Soothing Technique
Talking to Baby Clare
On Tuesday we went to visit our friends David and Jennilyn. They were due with their second baby on July 4 (the day before us) and we both went over a week late. Our babies were born on the same day, an hour and a half apart. Jenn and I were pregnancy buddies and would commiserate in late pregnancy. David is a wonderful photographer and took our maternity pictures. He also took some shots of us while we were there. Here is an impromptu pic of Jenn and I at our ‘nursing bar.’
Clare and Violet. We were joking that Violet looked like a Zen Buddha baby – while Clare (who was squawking and wiggling) was not very Zen.
Jenn and I with our babies.
Cross-eyed Baby. This picture cracks me up!
Proud Mama!
She has Jeremy’s eyebrows and expressions.
J lovin’ on Clare.

Back Home

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Clare made her first big trip yesterday – home from the hospital! We bundled her up in a little sleeper (to big of course), put her in the car seat, and drove the 5 minutes home. She liked being outside and promptly fell asleep in the car (yes!). My parents (the invaluable Grandma and Grampa Dion) came with us, helped us carry the gear, went out and got us lunch, and got us settled in. J and I took a nice nap while the grandparents watched Clare, and then we made dinner that they brought over. I told J when they left (to go home and let our dog out – since Sadie’s been staying with them this last week) that we are much better parents because my parents take such good care of us. Seriously, how do people do this without full time grandparents? I’m not sure we could do it without them.
Our first night at home went surprisingly well, though I feel like I’m tempting fate even saying that out loud. The nurses at the hospital told us to feed her every 2 – 3 hours, but she usually sleeps right through that so we’ve been setting the alarm every 2.5 hours to wake us up so we can wake her up. I’m hoping that after our pediatrician appointment on Monday they will tell us she’s gaining enough weight that we can switch to feeding on her schedule (e.i. she will wake us up when she’s hungry, not us having to wake her up). Every precious moment of sleep is worth it these days. I figure if she wants to go 4 to 5 hours between feedings then I’m OK with that – especially if it’s after midnight 🙂
Finally – some pictures of the last few days. She’s getting prettier by the minute and is still so, so sweet. We’re feeling like we’re getting a bit of a handle on this new family thing, so we’re open to having visitors. If you want to meet our little joy, give us a call or stop on by. I’ll warn you now though, be prepared to give up your heart. She’s a little heart stealer!
Proud Grandma!

In her going home outfit.

In the car seat ready to go!
Tummy time on the gliding foot stool.
Sweet picture of Clare’s biggest admirer.
Daddy’s thumb is bigger than Clare’s foot.

Clare – Days 2 and 3

Posted on by heather.e.d.mcpherson@gmail.com
Clare is 3 days old now and getting more wonderful each day. She’s quite the cuddle bug and just wants to be loved and held – which works out well since that’s all we want to do to her 🙂
We’re going home and back to real life tomorrow. We had the option of being discharged today, and probably would’ve been fine, but decided to stay one more night to take advantage of the breastfeeding support (not to mention the laundry, meal and cleaning services 🙂 The hospital isn’t exactly a resort property, but it’s been fairly comfortable and the staff has been very nice. The help we’ve received has been so valuable and we both are pretty sure we knew nothing about babies before this week since we’ve learned so much so quickly.
Here are some pictures from the last two days.

One tired, but happy Mama.
My little Miss Bright Eyes. She had about 45 minutes this afternoon where she was just awake, alert and staring at both Dad (Grandpa) and I. She is a little genius, we’re both pretty sure.
Chattin’ with Grandpa
Sleeping in the bassinet – she loves to be swaddled tightly.
She gets pretty cranky when we unwrap her, but this picture shows her long, skinny arms and legs.
Looking at me – not sure if she liked what she saw…
We can’t hardly keep our eyes off of her.
Calm and alert baby.
“Whatcha doin’ there?”
Looking at DaddyProud Grandpa!
Sweet, sleeping baby

Introducing Clare Elizabeth McPherson

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Our sweet baby girl, Clare Elizabeth McPherson, was born on July 14th at 5:30 p.m. at Oregon Health Science University in Portland, Oregon. She’s a perfect 6 pound 10 ounce, 20 inch long bundle of joy. Jeremy and I are completely smitten with her.

Birth was, well, not at all what we expected and completely the opposite of what we planned for. On Monday, July 13 we went in for the 41 week fetal stress test, which is typical in post-due babies. I expected everything to be fine, since the baby felt strong and active. Unfortunately, the very first thing the technician noticed was the small amount of fluid in the amniotic sac. It was described as “a 2” when it should be “a 15.” It was so dramatic that we were scheduled for an induction and checked in immediately. I was pretty scared at this point, especially since inducing labor typically means using pitocin which makes laboring naturally almost impossible. After quite a few tears on my part, we started the induction. First we used some minor pharmaceutical induction measures and a mechanical induction measure that succeeded in accidentally breaking my water. We waited for a few hours to see if labor would progress on its own after the broken water. For a while it looked promising with regular contractions, but then they tapered off. At this point my midwife told J and I that she was concerned that if we didn’t go into active labor immediately then we could be putting major stress on the baby. Already the baby was in low fluid levels, and then with the broken water we were facing the potential of cord issues. The whole thing bothered us quite a bit, since the further and further down the path of interventions one goes the harder and harder it is to go back. It’s pretty much a one-way street and we had planned to avoid driving down that street altogether.
However, our #1 plan was to have a healthy baby, so we went on Pitocin at 10 am Tuesday morning. I labored (with the AMAZING support of J and my Momma) for about 2.5 hours before I threw in the natural childbirth towel and begged for an epidural. Fortunately the nice anesthesiologist gave it to me. By this point I had progressed from 1 centimeter to 6 centimeters, so it was really encouraging that the Pitocin was working. A few hours later I was at 8, and shortly after that 9 centimeters (at 10 centimeters I could start to push). Not so encouraging during this time was a) the epidural didn’t entirely take so I had pain in a section of my right hip during contractions and b) the babies heart rate started to dip during the contractions. This concerned the midwife that we might have signs of cord collapse. Since I was dilating so quickly I wanted to wait and try to push the baby out, however it became more and more apparent that the babies heart rate was not getting better and was in fact, getting worse. Long story short, after some agonizing minutes, hard conversations with our midwife and a team of doctors, and some soul searching between J, Mom and myself, we went in for an emergency C-section. The kicker for me was I asked the team of doctors how long before I met the baby once we decided and they looked at me and said “the room is prepped, and we will get you in there and the baby out in 20 minutes.” Wow – they really meant it.
The C-section was very, very scary and I won’t go into details about it, but suffice it to say that neither J nor I were emotionally prepared for it. Fortunately we had a wonderful, caring team of nurses, midwives and doctors around us who held our hands, answered our questions, and handled everything with the utmost professionalism and concern. We have a number of very, very complicated emotions about the whole experience but I do have faith that we were in good hands.
Once we saw our beautiful baby every bit of fear, anxiety and anger went out the window. Our baby girl is perfect and worth all of the stress! Right after she came out J went over to the table with her and called back to me “she’s perfect!” I’ve never fallen in love that quickly before in my life, but from the moment I saw her our little Clare Elizabeth had my heart in her tiny little hands. J is head over heels himself, and the most wonderful father imaginable. I’m recovering from my surgery, so he’s been primary caregiver and our little bundle of joy wants for nothing. He’s already the swaddling, calming and diapering pro. He’s already a wonderful husband, but now he’s a wonderful father as well. We’re also supported by my parents, who have been nothing short of amazing taking care of both of us physically and emotionally.
Beyond all of it, our little Angel is wide-eyed, alert and very calm. Oh she fusses and cries, but for the most part a good swaddle and a little bit of cuddling takes care of it. I might be biased, but I think she’s the perfect baby.
Big thanks to all of the family support! I’m not sure when we’ll start having visitors (we’re still reeling a little bit from our birth experience, not to mention being new parents) but when the time is right for us we’ll welcome as many visitors as want to come and meet little Clare.

41 Weeks

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Yep, still pregnant. We are now officially a week late – not that long in the scheme of parenting, but I assure you it feels plenty long is the scheme if being large, uncomfortable and counting down the days. My relaxed attitude is disappearing quickly and a whiny, cranky, teary attitude is replacing it. For the most part I’m able to stay fairly positive and upbeat, but I have my moments. Yesterday I felt bad before I went to bed, didn’t sleep well and when I woke up and realized I was still pregnant I started to cry. No one has ever said pregnancy hormones make a woman rational – I’m not quite sure why I was surprised I was still pregnant, but I certainly was not happy about it. The upside to pregnancy mood swings is that they pass quickly and within half an hour I was up, eating muffins and talking about how cute it will be to see J with the baby. That’s one of the things that gets me through my frustrating times – picturing J with the baby. He’s sooooooo excited and can’t hardly wait to finally have the baby here and, in his words, “get to DO something.” He’s been a champ in the ‘supporting actor’ role (e.i. supporting me) but he’s very excited to finally graduate to ‘lead actor’ and get some of his own part. When I think about how much he is going to love this kid, and how sweet it is going to be watching him hold it and fall in love with it, I get teary (in a good way) and it gives me a light at the end of the tunnel. In the mean time he’s been taking very good care of me and hasn’t been to freaked out by his emotional wife. I think he knows it’s the hormones not me (at least that’s what we all hope 🙂

I’ve been trying to keep busy lately. Yesterday Aunt Pat, Uncle Dave and Cousin Rylee were in town and we went berry picking on Sauvie Island near Portland. I’ve recently discovered Sauvie Island and I love it. It’s a little agricultural island out in the Columbia River NW of Portland and they are famed for their berries in the summer and their corn mazes in the fall. I admit that after a summer spent picking blueberries when I was 15, berry picking for fun has limited appeal for me. But we all went out to Kruger’s Farm, ate lunch and loaded up 2 large flats of boysenberries (or maybe they were blackberries), raspberries and blueberries. We had 7 pickers total, so I only had to contribute 2 pints and could stop once I got tired. It was just a lovely day to walk around a farm, enjoy the sun and so something fun. I’m not sure we’ll always pick our own berries (since, y’know, we can buy them in the stores without the effort) but it was a fun family outing. Besides, it kept my mind off the fact that I’m still pregnant.
To use our beautiful berries, we turned out a freezer jam assembly line in my parents kitchen. We got 43 jars made of boysenberry and raspberry freezer jam – plenty for the 3 families to have enough for the year. I’ve always been a little bit afraid of jam-making – I have memories of watching my parents make jam and jelly and there being lots of towels, spilled fruit, hot jars, and general commotion and swearing. It all seemed to be to much work for a few jars of something you could buy at the store. However, freezer jam is my kind of jam and we had all of it made and in jars in under 2 hours. Of course by the end of the night I was pretty tired, so we came home and I crashed. I’m not sure what I have on the agenda today – I have some blueberries in the fridge that I’m considering putting into muffins. I think we’ll take it easier today, since it occurred to me yesterday while I was walking across the fields in the sun that I should probably be fairly rested before I go into labor.
Oh yes, as far as predictions into the labor front, my midwife appt. last Thursday went well. Without going into the specific details (there are some things about my cervix that I don’t want to post online) I’ll just say that my body is getting ready and the midwife thought that it was possible I’d have the baby this weekend and very likely I’d have it early next week. I have a fetal stress test scheduled tomorrow (Monday) and an appointment scheduled on Thursday. The midwife’s exact words were “we’ll probably see you on Monday, but we won’t see you on Thursday.” The baby has also dropped very low, so I’m hopeful that between the kid seeming to know the way out and my body having some idea about how to let the kid out we will finally meet the little bugger.

40 weeks + 4 Days

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Still on the wait… No sign that Baby Mac is interested in the outside world. I don’t think it’s to bad out here, but apparently the kid has other ideas. So far the baby is still fairly active (though squished) so I’m not so concerned. I have an appointment with my midwife this afternoon though and if my online research is accurate they will probably start doing stress tests on the baby in the next few days to make sure that everything is fine. Or they might wait until next week – the midwife practice is fairly hands off. One thing is certain, they won’t let the baby go past 42 weeks. I have an appointment scheduled next week (just in case) and if we get to that point we’ll probably start talking about what my friend Jennilyn calls “the I word” (induction).

Honestly, I’m doing OK with it all. In our Bradley Class they were pretty clear that most first babies average a week and a day past their due date, so by that measure Baby mac is still early! We kind of wanted our ‘fireworks baby’ over the holiday, but this is fine too. I’m getting a little bit antsy but I’m trying to relax about it all and remember that in the whole scheme of parenthood a few days is nothing. I’m enjoying sleeping in, watching movies, going to watch J play softball last night, etc. On the other hand, my back is really starting to hurt and I’m ready to have my body back (though I know that once I give birth and have a newborn I’ll have a whole new list of physical complaints so I can’t just expect not being pregnant to make me feel great). I’m keeping myself busy with little projects (cooking, baking muffins, cleaning things around the house, starting on the prenatal pages in my baby book, etc.) and it should keep me occupied for the rest of the week. Next week is another story, however, and I suspect I might go crazy with boredom if I don’t have this kid!

40 Weeks + 1 Day

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Nope, no baby. Please don’t call Jeremy and ask him about it – he’s fielding phone calls while working and it’s adding to his stress. Feel free to call/e-mail me if you want to, since I have more time on my hands. However, in the words of Jeremy, “we promise to let you know when the baby is born. Really.” We probably won’t call people when I go into labor but we practically have that “We have a new baby” email written (or at least we have the draft saved with all of the addresses) and we have a list of people we’re going to call. We have some time on our hands, so this is something we can do in advance.

Yesterday we had a nice afternoon of yard work. Those of you who have seen our ‘yard’ are probably smirking about this, but I assure you that after months of neglect even our little postage stamp-sized backyard can get pretty gnarly. J did a bunch of weeding, pulled out a dead palm plant, and replaced it with a new plant (Thanks Leah!). He also cleaned out our little planter and , ahem, ‘gave the iris a haircut.’ It was taking over and now thanks to J and his use of our kitchen shears it is most definitely not. I really should be more specific when I give him permission to cut back plants. I got a bunch of flowers in the pots on our deck and it looks very pretty back there now.
Here are some pictures of our nursery/office. Our big plan was to just put the crib and changing table in the existing office/guest room, but then we acquired a swing and a bouncy chair. Besides that, the room just looked cramped and not very cute with all of the furniture stuffed in there. So J and I both decided that while we didn’t want to go nuts with the nursery (at least not in this house) we did want something that would be at least a little bit cute.
So here is our attempt at a cute, but not very theme-y or decorated nursery. I don’t think it’s to bad considering we did it mostly on the cheap with hand-me-down or craigslist stuff (except for the wonderful gifts that we’ve been given – thank you family and friends for making sure that our baby has at least some nice things!).
The crib, courtesy of my parents. On the left you see the camera bag and our hospital bag – all packed and ready to go. The pictures behind the crib were needlepointed by Aunt Terri. I wasn’t planning on putting them in the nursery, but the blue and yellow matched so well and they look great there.
Another view of the crib. The blanket on the truck was made by my cousin Tracy and the lamp is one that JP and I had as kids. A note about the color: yes, the room is blue. No, it isn’t a subliminal message that we’re expecting a boy. We could be, or we could not, regardless of the color of the room. When we bought the house the room was Mountain Dew yellow (not even kidding), so Mom and I painted this room about 3 years. I happened to choose blue because, well, I like blue. That’s also why the bouncy chair is blue. I heard good things about this particular bouncy chair and it only came in blue and pink (don’t even get me started on how I feel about baby stuff only coming in blue and pink…grrrr…). I like blue better than pink so I registered for the blue one. (Yes, I know that some people actually re-paint their baby’s rooms. J and I still have it in our heads that we’re going to be moving before this kid is very old so I’d rather just wait until we have a new room and paint it the pretty yellow with white trim that I want).
The swing and the changing station. I might replace those curtains this week with something bright and yellow or red. To the left is the messy desk/office part of the room. The picture over the changing table is JP’s old Curious George picture.
My favorite part of the room – Gramma’s quilt on the crib.
The changing table and closet. We got the bins at Target and are using them to hold diapers, burp rags, and various other baby supplies.
It’s not quite the nursery of my dreams, but there’s some very cute things in it and I hope to not use it to long. For the first few weeks/months the baby will be in the bassinet in our room anyway. The most important part, to me, is the new carpet. The old carpet was yucky and this new carpet is thick and plush and I feel comfortable playing with the baby on it in the future.

40 Weeks

Posted on by heather.e.d.mcpherson@gmail.com

Jeremy greeted me this morning with “Happy Fifth of July.” Why is today such a big day – because it’s the baby’s due date. This means about nothing, but this is the day that we’ve been counting down to with the baby. We kind of hoped that the baby would come on the Fourth of July (fireworks for birthdays…) but that was not to be. Frankly, I’d be surprised if the baby came today… I just don’t feel like today’s the day. But, I’ve never done this before so it’s entirely possible I could be wrong. I still think it’ll be sometime next week.

Since up until mid-last week the baby hadn’t even ‘dropped’ yet and I wasn’t having very strong Braxton-Hicks contractions, my midwife recommended that I get acupuncture to ‘get my body ready.’ So I’ve had two sessions so far and I think it’s working. At the first session I could feel my body start having stronger contractions and cramping and at the second session I literally felt the baby move down more. After the second session J and I went to the coast and while we were there the baby got into perfect position – back out, head very low, perfect ‘birth’ position. I kind of hoped I was going to go into labor that night, but the kid wasn’t ready and by Saturday morning it moved back over to my left side (it’s favorite place to hang out). Sigh… So I’m going back on Monday to get punctured and I guess I’ll keep it up until the kid comes.
Besides waiting J and I have been trying to enjoy our last few days as a family of 2 (2 people at least). We went to the coast on Friday, just to Manzanita for some walking on the beach, snacks at a wine bar (sparkling water for me), and watching the sunset over chowder. Yesterday I met up with friends for brunch (J slept in) and then we tried to escape the heat by going up to Mt. Hood Wilderness area to go hiking. It was cooler up there (85 as compared to 95 in Portland) and we found a nice park with shaded, flat, paved trails. Perfect for a waddling pregnant woman. We stopped at about every other bench to rest, went through 3 water bottles and probably hiked less than 2 miles total but it was a very nice way to spend the afternoon. The idea of sitting at home, waiting and constantly asking myself ‘was that a contraction? Is labor starting?’ is enough to drive me nuts so I’m trying to come up with things that a) will be fun for the two of us, b) we won’t be able to do as easily once we’re caring for a small person who needs to eat every 2 or 3 hours, and c) distracts me. All of these things are fairly active as well, so bonus if the hiking brings on labor. Besides, Sadie has enjoyed our little outings and she’s going to be very neglected soon. It gives our little family a chance to connect before the dynamic changes.
Here are some pictures from our hike.
40 weeks…
Salmon River at Wildwood State Park. It’s a really nice park with lots of picnic areas, very easy trails and a cool ‘salmon viewing window’ where you look into a creek and see baby salmon. It’s about the easiest ‘hike’ I’ve ever taken but if you’re looking for a place close to town for older or younger hikers it’s a cool place to experience the wilderness very easily.
As for today – I’m not sure what we’re going to do. I’m going to try to pry J away from the Wimbledon finals and go to brunch, and then I may abandon him back to the TV so I can go to the farmers market and the library. The Waterfront Blues Festival is going on downtown but, while I love to go to it, the idea of sitting out on an unshaded lawn in 90 degree weather (not to mention getting up and down from the ground….) doesn’t really appeal to me. Today might be a hang out around the house and put my feet up day – which isn’t bad considering I won’t have many of those once the aforementioned small person arrives. We’ll see.