My Favorite Photo: 1st Month

Dear Conrad,

This photo was taken on October 29th. You must have had a doctor's appointment because I tagged the original with height and weight measurements. I was playing on my phone in bed while trying to get you to sleep, and suddenly, you just closed your eyes and went to sleep. My beautiful boy.

Your First Movies

Dear Conrad,

Your daddy and I love going to the movie theater, so when you were born we knew we were going to have to really think about what we were going to see and when we were going to see it. Not long after you were born, Wreck-It Ralph opened in the theaters. We had been looking forward to it for months, so we started reading about ways to take care of you so that you could come to the theater with us.

We saw a matinee of it on Saturday of its opening weekend. You were already asleep by the time we got to the theater, but we were still prepared with a bottle and sling in case we needed to take you out of the theater at any point. You slept soundly through the entire movie though! We breathed a sigh of relief.

Also, because your mom is a big dork, we dressed up like the main characters.

You were such a tiny Felix!

Not long after, we decided to take you with us to see Argo. You didn't sleep quite as well during that one, even though it was a bit quieter than Wreck-It Ralph. However, we fed you and your dad snuggled with you during the movie and you fell back to sleep. It was really sweet. To this day, your daddy still loves holding you close. He's a real dynamite guy.

Your First Halloween

Dear Conrad,

Well sweet boy, normally I adore Halloween. I spend months thinking about and putting together costumes. I drool over Halloween decorations, even though I usually don't end up buying any and therefore have never decorated my own house for the season.

I entertained the idea of your dad and I dressing up as a white mage (me) and a black mage (him) for Halloween, and putting together a baby red mage costume for you. But then I didn't get around to it before you were born. After you were born, I was too tired to do more than sleep, eat, and watch TV while I fed you (again.) So for your first Halloween, there were no costumes or decorations or Trick-or-Treating.

And that's totally okay.

At least you had some rocking orange socks that looked like high tops.

Sweet Heart

Dear Conrad,

We got a call from the hospital that we had been discharged before your hearing tests had been completed. Because you were born via cesarean, you had a lot of fluid in your ears, so you failed your first test. You were supposed to be given two more, but for whatever reason, you didn't get them. Fortunately, the hospital offered to schedule and pay for a hearing test at their facility, so it all worked out. They even sent us some apology gift cards to Applebee's, which was so kind of them.

At your next pediatrician's appointment, you were hardly jaundiced at all, so we were relieved that you were bouncing back so well. Dr. Weidt thought she heard your heart murmur too, so I told her about the nurse that had been sent out by our insurance and how she thought she heard one too. She immediately scheduled a visit with a heart specialist, and even got it to coincide with our hearing test.

The day of the tests came, and your daddy and I were both really nervous that we would get bad news. It took us forever to find the hearing specialist's office, but we ran into a doctor who showed us where to go. She walked us through some of the procedure, like how they can tell if a baby's hearing is working since babies can't verbally tell you that they can hear things. It was really fascinating. The first time she ran the test, you failed again, and your dad and I stiffened. Since we are both musicians, we were afraid that there was going to be a huge part of our lives that we couldn't share with you. The doctor then switched out the tips on her little machine, saying that they might have been too big and were giving her a false reading. After that, you passed with flying colors. Thank goodness.

We made our way down to wear another doctor was going to ultrasound your heart. My best friend Jeff sent me a reassuring message that he had a heart murmur as a baby and grew out of it, so we hoped that if you did have a murmur that it would be something minor. We watched as the doctor scanned all over your heart, and you flailed your little arms. You weren't uncomfortable or anything, you just couldn't control your limbs yet. In fact, you hardly made any noise at all during the ultrasound. The doctor who was scanning you said that he couldn't see any problems with the heart, but after a hospital in Saint Louis checked it all out we would have a definitive answer.

I just realized that, as of this writing, Saint Louis never did call to tell me whether you had a hole in your heart or not. Ha! I can only assume it was a fluke since Dr. Weidt has checked your heart at every appointment and it has been fine since that first one.

Surprise! Nana's Visit.

Dear Conrad,

After Poppy and Gigi left and your dad came back from rehearsal, there wasn't much time to ourselves before Nana and Papa came to visit you. Nana had a surprise for us: After Papa left the next day, she was going to stay with us for an entire week!

From your first outing (besides leaving the hospital), October 20th, 2012. We were eating at a pub called Flat Branch in Columbia, Missouri, with Nana and Papa. You still look pretty jaundiced here, but it was starting to get better. I knitted the pumpkin hat for you just before you were born.

It was ... awkward, to say the least. I appreciated having her there when, at 7 o'clock in the morning, you had woken for the umpteenth time and I could really, really use an hour of deep sleep before I had to take your dad to class. I was still taking my pain pills from the surgery, and moving was very difficult. However, Nana wasn't able to help me clean the apartment or drive your dad to class (both things I was not supposed to be doing while I was on medication) so I had to continue doing them on my own.

Having Nana there also made it difficult to nurse or pump milk for you, since she could just whip up a bottle of formula for you without bothering anyone. I started to think that everyone was trying to sabotage my nursing efforts, and it made me angry.

One week old here. Boone Hospital (where you were born) provided all the babies with a swaddling wrap. You didn't hate the swaddle like some babies, but you would wriggle in them until you could get an arm loose.
I had just changed you, and you were staring out the window in this picture. You loved seeing and being outdoors as a baby.

The day you turned one week old, a nurse provided by Medicaid came out to see you. She weighed you and performed a basic check-up. I was ecstatic to hear that not only had you gained weight, but you were already two full ounces over your birth weight! What a huge relief to hear that you were going to be okay, and I started to feel less angry about the formula since that is probably what helped you gain that weight back the most. Then she casually mentioned that she thought she heard a heart murmur though, and that put me back on edge. She did try to reassure me that it was probably nothing, and she may have misheard altogether. I would have bought that, except when we went to visit with your normal pediatrician the next day she also thought she heard a heart murmur, so she scheduled an appointment for an ultrasound on your heart. So scary!

The Next Day

Dear Conrad,

The next morning, we had to wake up early for a visit with a pediatrician. Your daddy and I were pretty exhausted from the night before (I think I only slept for two solid hours.) This doctor that we would see wasn't your normal doctor - your doctor was out of town, but since you were losing so much weight and you were so yellow, she wanted someone to see you. So we went, in our exhausted and frazzled state.

Of course, even though your doctor promised that she'd make the appointment for us, something happened and the pediatric office wasn't expecting us. The young receptionist wasn't making things any easier, giving me dirty looks whenever I got confused by what she was asking. I did not look forward to dealing with her for subsequent visits.

The doctor was an older woman, and very plainly told me that I wasn't giving you enough nourishment since you were so much smaller now than you were. She insisted that we supplement our nursing sessions with formula, and I cried a little. She might as well have just told me I was already a failure as a mother. I reluctantly let your dad give you another bottle of formula from the hospital - I never gave you those myself, because that felt like I was betraying myself. They also made you get some blood drawn after the appointment, but you know what? You didn't cry at all when they stuck those needles in your tiny feet. My brave boy.

Poppy and Gigi came by one last time to see you after the appointment. Your dad hurried off to his brass quintet rehearsal, so I let them watch you while I rested for an hour. Then they had to go. Your daddy still wasn't back, and I was about to be alone with you. I couldn't help but start crying again. Not only was I going to be alone with you, who I was a little afraid of at this point, but my parents were leaving and I felt like it would be a long time before I saw them again.

Baby blues are a strange thing, my boy. They make you think ridiculous things sometimes. I want you to understand while reading this that I do love you, and I did love you then too, even though my emotions were trying their hardest to get the best of me. Becoming your mother was really tough initially, but so very worth it.

The First Night

Dear Conrad,

We brought you home on a blustery Friday evening. Poppy and Gigi took turns holding you while your dad and I got readjusted to being in the apartment again. We watched the Cardinals get stomped by the Giants (boo!) and your dad and Poppy went out to get dinner for us at Which 'Wich.

I remember being so nervous once they left. We had this old cradle that used to be your dad's and your aunt Amanda's before him. It was a little rickety, the bars were more than 2 3/8" apart, and I ended up making a "mattress" for it since it had weird dimensions and at the time we didn't have an extra $100 to put toward a custom mattress. You did not like sleeping in that cradle. I don't blame you. I hated putting you in it.

We put you down for the night and tried to get some sleep ourselves, but you were awake again in 15 minutes. I tried to nurse you back to sleep. You wouldn't have it. We changed your diaper and tried to nurse you again, but you wouldn't nurse. We swaddled you, but you continued to fight. We knew you were hungry, but you just wouldn't eat. Already we started having these thoughts of "why won't you stop crying?!" and they scared us. We didn't want to be frustrated with you, but we were.

Finally, your dad went and got one of the bottles of formula that the nurse sent home with us. I remember being so mad at her for making us take them home. I can do this myself, I thought. How dare she try to sabotage my plans to exclusively breastfeed my child? I don't know why you wouldn't nurse that night, but you happily gulped down that bottle. I cried. "He hates me," I said to your daddy. He tried to tell me that you didn't, but I wasn't listening.

Looking back, I know I was feeling some of the baby blues that new moms are always talking about. I do feel guilty for having those thoughts now. You weren't trying to be malicious or anything, but my hormones made me think you were. This might be making you uncomfortable, but I think you need to hear it in case you ever become a dad and your wife is just flipping out about something. Birth does crazy things to us ladies. Beautiful, crazy things.

The Remainder of Our Hospital Stay

Dear Conrad,

We spent a large part of your first week in the hospital, due to the fact that you were born via c-section. That first night with you was a mess of emotions for both your dad and me. With all the reading and preparing we tried to do, we still weren't ready for what being parents would be like! (For instance, when you had your first dirty diaper, your dad and I looked at each other and said, "Do you know how to do this?")

I made this pumpkin garland just for your hospital bassinet.

Even though we got help taking care of you, we just didn't sleep well in the hospital. We were so tired all the time. I started to worry that I wouldn't be able to handle those sleepless nights.

At first, nursing you was easy. I thought I was going to be one of those lucky moms who didn't have any problems breastfeeding - one of those moms everyone else was jealous of. But the longer we were in the hospital, the harder it got. To be honest, I'm not sure how much nourishment you were getting originally. I have since read that it takes longer for milk to come in after a cesarean than it does after a regular delivery. You got so jaundiced, and lost so much weight. By the time you left the hospital, you weighed 5 pounds 13 ounces - a 10-ounce loss from your birth weight.

The wreath that Gigi and I made for your baby shower hung on our hospital room door.

Because we were so tired of being the hospital, by Friday we were practically begging the nurse to discharge us. I'd gotten the okay from Dr. Franken. We'd packed everything up. Why can't we leave yet? Eventually they let us go at 4:00 pm, but then had to call us and ask us to come back to the hospital because they never retested your hearing. See, you didn't pass your hearing test the first time, which is pretty common for c-section babies. Lots of fluid stays in the ears after that surgery. The hospital's policy is to test three times, and for some reason, they never bothered to do the second or third test (even though we were there for days.) However, they were very kind to schedule a hearing appointment for you with their specialist, and paid for it as well.

I should have counted my blessings while we were in the hospital, though, because things got a lot tougher when we took you home....