Sophie has never really been a good sleeper whether it was because of circumstance or bad decisions on my part, our little girl never really slept more than 2-3 hours at a time.

Over the last 9 months I have played with different scenarios in my head as to why she doesn’t seem to want to sleep at night.  Was it because we had to wake her up every 2 hours to feed her for the first 2 months of life and so that is what she was use to?  Could it be that she became the classic eat to sleep baby?  Or might it be that she spent so much time sleeping in my arms that when she was anywhere else she just didn’t want to sleep?  All of these things had me convinced that she was going to be 2 before she was sleeping through the night.

I thought I was okay with this.  Sure I was tired, but I was use to having less sleep.  Yes it meant that I was sleeping in the living room, but one day I would sleep in the same room as Sean again.  But was I really being  a good wife and mother when I was getting irritated easily, quick to react and defend and not patient with Sophie.  I realized I wasn’t doing as well as I thought with the lack of sleep.

In moments in the past I had, in desperation, declared that we needed to do sleep training.  These were selfish moments, it didn’t have to do with Sophie it had to do with me being tired, sore from her constantly eating and frustrated that she never seemed to go to bed until 10 at night.  Sean and I would talk about it but I usually caved saying that I was convinced that Sophie needed to eat that often through out the night.  So maybe we should wait a little longer.

After a few months I totally forgot about my desire to do sleep training.  I had accepted the fact that if she didn’t want to nap I would just go for a walk so she could sleep in the stroller.  If she didn’t want to go to sleep early she would at least be asleep by 10.  Again I had accepted this as the way it was going to be because eventually she would sleep through the night.

Two weeks ago I had another one of those selfish moments where I am crying to Sean because it has taken me so long to get Sophie down.  I was ready for sleep training and I knew Sophie would benefit from the extra sleep too.

Looking back I feel even worse about the last 3 months because it was never about Sophie getting more sleep.  I figured she was doing fine with naps when she got them and sleeping when she did at night.  Now that we are a week into sleep training I can see that Sophie was getting no where near enough sleep every night and even less sleep during the day.  She needed this more than I did, and she probably needed it much sooner than now.

I can only beat myself up so much because we have started it and Sophie is thriving with her new schedule.  Yes I have become the mom that I never wanted to be, homebound most of the day to navigate nap time and meal time so that Sophie stays on schedule.  Even though it makes having a life outside of the house harder it is the best decision we could have made.

I will leave you with an adorable picture of our little girl because you can’t have a post about Sophie without a picture.

So that means I squeeze as much time as I can during the day to do it.  I usually try to work on it while Sophie is napping, but sometimes I just set her up on the floor next to the table surrounded by her toys and she is occupied for quite awhile.  It works out great for both of us.

Previously she would look at lights but not really focus on them. Now we can start to see her following the mobile characters as they go around. It’s exciting for us to see her learn new things.

So the fridge on the fritz, but so was Kim…

While we were talking about fridges and relationships, Kim kept squirming in her chair.  She was participating in the conversation but really was being distracted by some back pains.

Kim’s back pain was getting worse fast.  The fridge got worse over days, Kim’s back pain got worse in like 2 hours.  It was around 9pm when we started timing them and then decided to page the midwife to see what the pains were.  We were a full month away from birth so we didn’t expect we were going into labour but I thought that with back pains like this we’d probably be going to the hospital to at least check them out.

The midwife told us to get some sleep and call her if the pains got to 5 min apart for two hours.

We went to sleep, and Kim woke me up around 4:30 am saying she was worried that they were getting close fast.   Kim was in pain so I had her lay next to me in the bed and I timed them.  They really seemed uneven.  Like 14 min,  3 min, 8 min – Kind of all over the place.   But they were all averaging about 5 min and the fact we were hitting some 3 min contractions got me worried.  Like the rule was ’5 for 2 hours’ and here, in some cases we were hitting some 3s!

I called the midwife and she said to time for 30 min and see if the time between contractions would stay in that 3min range – sure enough 30min later Kim had had 10 contractions!

Now during this 30 min I observed a few things:  One, I didn’t have the midwife’s phone number in my cell phone – it was in Kims.  Also, contractions are pretty easy to guess when they are going on: Kim breathes really hard and looks like she is in pain and can’t be moved – her body freezes up and her head is focussing on them.  I was starting to worry because when the contractions are going on, she was getting less and less time between them in which she could move.   For example, I could ask her what dress she wanted to wear.  Then she would have a contraction.  Then I’d try and put it on her. Then she’d have a contraction.  Then she’d put it on herself.

So with that kind of timing and periods of immobility, I was starting to worry if she’d be able to get into the car and out of the car in time.  I paged the midwife again to get the ok, but I was already packed up and getting prepared to leave because of this fact that Kim was becoming less mobile – fast.

The midwife seemed surprised that we had had 10 contractions in 30min.  We briefly discussed staying home vs going to the hospital.

We got the ok for the hospital:  We went out of the apartment: Down the stairs.  We went down the stairs because it’s faster and Kim agreed to go down the stairs.   It wasn’t just my idea.  Anyhow, for some reason, some people from a certain side of the family think that the elevator is faster and they drove up from Seattle to, among other things, time the elevator vs stair times.  This timing and false ideas is not unusual for them, they have also been know to time their way through the different paths through Ikea’s.

Anyway, somehow, we were able to quickly get into the car and drive to the hospital.   On the way in, Kim looked into my eyes.  She looked into my eyes and said: ‘I think I want the drugs’.  I said something like ‘that’s ok, this is all different than we planned so we’ll make the best decisions we can as we go.’  I said something like that, maybe more mumbly, fast and missing some words – but that was the idea anyway.

We went into the hospital emergency lobby and I told the ‘Triage’ Desk that Kim was pregnant.  They told me to go to the other desk.  I told them ‘Kim is pregnant’.   I wasn’t making sense, really I should have said: ‘Kim is in >labour<.’ or ‘Kim is in >labour< and her contractions are 3 min apart.’  I mean I expected that there would be doctors and a gurney and she’d be whisked away.  But no.  We had to fill in some forms.  Then we were told to go up the elevator and up to the 4th floor.

The 4th floor was dark and quiet.  There were two nurses on duty and they set Kim up in a delivery room.

Now if you are reading all this, it sure sounds like Kim is in labour and is about to deliver a baby.  Maybe it sounds like we both knew we were in labour.  But you know…Kim and I weren’t even really sure that it was all happening.  Really!  Sure all that stuff above sounds like we are having a baby but we really weren’t sure – we still had a month left.  We were waiting for a Dr or a midwife to come to tell us for sure we were about to have a baby.  I asked Kim if we should call her mom and my mom, and – at least early on – we didn’t call them.    I forget actually when we did make the decision to call Kim’s mom and my mom, but the point is that you have to picture Kim and me, at 6 in the morning, in a birthing room, Kim hooked up to some sensors and we >still weren’t sure< a baby was coming.

A baby was coming.  The midwife came and after a review the midwife did an inspection and said that Kim’s ready.  Meaning that her cervix was gone.  Kim was ready to deliver the baby at any time.  I took up the position on Kim’s right.  The midwife was in the middle and the nurses and a pediatrician were floating around.   My job was to encourage Kim and when the midwife said something, basically all I did was repeat it and try and encourage Kim.  Like, the midwife would say “you can push” and I’d say “you can push”.  The midwife would say “stop pushing” and I’d say “stop pushing”.   Technically my role was redundant but I did provide her with encouragement.

At some point the midwife said she could see the head.  I didn’t see the head till later because of my angle, but anyway at some point I started to see the head of the baby starting to come out.  Not only that Kim was, in time crying ‘it hurts’ in sync with the baby’s head.  The head would inch forward, Kim would observe the pain and the head would inch back.

Here I was actually helping Kim I think by telling her it was alright and explaining why ‘it hurts’ made sense now.  I hope she found comfort in that.  Either way at this point I was sure trying my best to comfort her.

The next thing I can remember is the baby being out.   It was 7:05 – about an hour in the hospital.  I think the baby got wiped off and put on Kim’s chest.  The pediatrician also had a look at the baby and checked her over for some things.

I was happy because that baby looked healthy with 10 fingers and toes (seriously I checked!).  Kim and I were thinking of calling her Ellie before the birth but she looked more like another name we had picked so we agreed on Sophie.

So Sophie arrived at 7:05 on Thursday September 16 and weighed 5pound and 12 ounces!!

Now that’s the main story about Sophie’s birth from my perspective.

There are also some stories about Sophie’s time in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Kim’s family coming up from Seattle and making our apartment ready for the baby (including fixing the fridge).