Meet Baby Hines

Introducing Mr. Chappy Hines!  (Chappy Lang Hines – Lang is my maiden name). Chappy made his debut on December 20, at 1:29pm.  After a long, difficult, somewhat complicated labor, he is finally here.  It was not my ideal birth story, but now that it is over, we couldn’t be happier.  He has been extremely healthy and somewhat easy (as far as newborns go of course) so far.  He was much bigger than anyone estimated.  At 8.5 lbs. he was almost 2 lbs. more than most estimations (based on palpation, how I was carrying, my size, my birth size, etc).  He is very blonde with a nice little mullet going on.  His head is in the 97th percentile for size, while his length (21.5″ at birth) is in the 94th percentile. He is a big boy!  The comment we get the most is, “Oh wow, he doesn’t really look like a newborn”.  A friend of mine also commented, “Congrats! You birthed a toddler”.  Haha.  I definitely didn’t know such a big boy was growing in me, though I was packing on the pounds (all in the belly) the last 6 weeks of my pregnancy. Maybe related to all my strength training/crossfit and careful tracking of all my macros/protein during pregnancy?  Hard to say.  But since he was on the bigger side, he is a little easier to handle than a very small baby that may be more fussy or colicky.  We’re grateful.

Chiropractor

Today he is 10 days old and going for his first appt. with Dr. Chris, our chiropractor.  Birth is a traumatic experience on the baby’s spine, so it’s good to get him all aligned right away so he’s off to a good start.  Especially since Chappy was trying to come out with an asynclitic position.  Not ideal, especially with a huge head.  He was basically chin up, instead of chin tucked.  The top of his head was stuck behind my pubic bone for hours which prevented me from making progress with all my pushing.  This is even more reason for him to see his chiropractor early on. I wish I had been adjusted from a young age so I could just be doing maintenance instead of trying to correct all my life accumulated issues now.  I will post pics and videos of his chiropractor appointment in an upcoming blog post.

Home Life

Life at home has been pretty happy times.  Chappy doesn’t usually cry for no reason or for long periods of time.  He’s fairly easy to read.  The husby and I are getting better at figuring out a sleep schedule.  At first I was just taking him all night long since there’s no point in both of us being up and sleep deprived.  But that was rough on me.  I was getting about two 2 hour naps throughout the night, and not able to nap during the day.  Now i go to bed first, by myself, around 9-10pm, and the husby stays up with him (or naps) until about 1-2am.  This ensures that I get at least 3 hrs uninterrupted sleep before I take over for the rest of the night.  We use 2 different bedrooms. Whoever has Chappy is in our master bedroom, while the other bedroom is for quiet time and for that person to sleep peacefully.  This will work for the next 3 weeks that he has off of work, and then it’ll have to be tweaked again.  But, Chappy has also started sleeping for longer periods at a time, so he’s making it easier on us.  I also think that I’ll end up napping more when I’m home by myself with him.  Overall, I really feel like we are doing much better than a lot of people and what we expected.  Everyone says the first 2 weeks are the hardest.  I really hope that’s true because they have been fairly easy.  I think that when I’m by myself with him trying to figure out how to do things alone and running errands will actually be the hardest.  Luckily, he’s my new best bud, so we’ll figure it out together.

Bonding

My friends  know how I felt during my pregnancy, but for those that aren’t around me, I’ll recap.  I was concerned about bonding with Chappy, because all throughout my pregnancy I didn’t have that “I can’t wait to meet my lil bundle of joy!”  attitude that I saw all around me.  I was definitely worried about his health all the time and stressed out about the smallest things to make sure he was developing normally.  But, I really didn’t feel a strong connection to him.  I couldn’t imagine him being in my arms, and even after we decided on his name (which made him a little more real to me), I just didn’t have that motherly feeling.  I didn’t talk to him much and his kicks and movements didn’t give me joy, they gave me pain and uncomfortableness.  I’m just being honest.  I even said at one point that a concern of mine was that I wouldn’t love him as much as Giovanni (my dog).  As ridiculous as that sounds, that’s how I felt.  Everyone said it wasn’t a big deal and that it’ll change either right away or over time.  Well I can happily announce that it changed IMMEDIATELY.  As soon as I saw him and he was in my arms, I loved him completely.  This just reaffirms what a visual person I am.  Haha.  I’m a visual learner and apparently I just needed to meet him face to face.  He’s great and I never tire of staring at him for hours on end.  I am very protective of him and can’t imagine life without him.  He’s simply the best.  It feels like he was always meant to be a part of our family.  And though Giovanni is slightly more neglected, he is being a great big brother and gives Chappy lots of kisses and love.  He sits on the bed watching over him while I am up and about getting ready in the mornings.  Life is good!