The Colic Zone

She looks so angelic doesn't she???? It's an illusion. In the last week it seems we have entered the Colic Zone. My once "good" baby that slept at regular intervals and only cried when hungry has now been possessed by some colic demon that seems to know exactly when the clock strikes 9:00pm every night.

The legs start to kick, the arms start to wiggle, her angelic face turns red and angry like a bitter old man, and then she takes a deep breath and starts to scream. Scott and I take turns handing her off. We try the vibrating bouncy chair, which seems to work for at least a few minutes. We change diapers, we play white noise, we walk around the house, we throw her over the shoulder and try to burp the gas out of her. None of these efforts seems to work for more than a few minutes. Yet magically, at 11:30pm, she passes out and goes limp. From there she wakes up every 2 to 3 hours to eat and go back to sleep.

I'm a big fan of the book "The Happiest Baby on the Block" which talks about how to trigger a baby's calming reflex. Usually at least one of the 5 "S"s in the book seems to work but no one seems to know for sure what really causes colic. Some cultures dont have colicy babies at all - how can that be?

Two Week Check-Up

Today is Montgomery's three week birthday! We were supposed to have her two week check-up last week but her doctor was out of town so we had it yesterday. She now weighs in at 8 pounds 13 oz.

Lesson #1 - Wasabi and Breastfeeding Don't Mix

Sandy (MeMe/grandmother) was able to give us a break so we ran up to Cypress for some sushi. I hadn't had a spicy tuna roll in 10+ months! I had some spicy salmon salad and a spicy tuna roll and we quickly got back home in time for Montgomery's next feeding (before she has a total screaming meltdown in her grandmother's arms).

As you can guess, we were up all night. Poor baby was screaming and crying and it took awhile until we figured out why. I couldnt even nurse her to make her happy since that would only make it worse.

New mother lession #1: don't eat spicy food when breastfeeding!

April 8th - Birth Day!

Scott and I welcomed Montgomery Frost Ferguson into the world on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 7:31pm at Memorial Hermann hospital in Houston, TX. She weighed in at 7 pounds 7 ounces, 20.5 inches long.

Labor wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I chose to be induced so I could make sure that both my doctor and Scott would both be there for the birth. Montgomery was due on April 12th - in the middle of the NCHA SuperStakes - so Scott was able to come home for the night but had to go back to Fort Worth the next day. He had to be there until April 19th so I was a single parent for awhile!

I checked into the hospital at 7:15am and just over 12 hours later our baby girl arrived. The only issues I had were that when i requested my epidural the anesthesia team had to rush off to an emergency and didnt get to me for a full hour! By then, I was definitely feeling the contractions! OUCH!!! Also, I had a "wet tap", which is apparently when they accidently puncture my spinal column during the epidural, which causes spinal fluid to leak. They warned me that I might get spinal headaches so they gave me some medicine for that but said I might have to come back in for a "blood patch" if the meds didn't work.

Well, by Friday my head was pounding so hard and my neck was so stiff that I had to call my doc on Saturday and she sent me back to the hospital for the blood patch, which entails doing ANOTHER epidural, but this time they inject 20ccs of my own blood into my spinal cord to patch the hole they made. It wasn't fun but worth it - the pain was gone within an hour - although my back was really sore after that!