Auntie KT comes to Town

K drove from Moscow, ID yesterday and could hang out today.  Fun stuff.  Went to Breakie at Sola with Kim, Kira, and Eddie. Hung out at our place (gave K the big tour), and then went walking in the Lindley Park Cemetary.  Cool place.  Earliest find: born 1830. Oddest discovery: a father-son duo that died on the same day in 1951 (presumably in an airplane). Saddest find: one that's too sad to say, but mainly that there were a half dozen babies that died at birthin the 20s and 30s, and many more that died shortly thereafter. Laura thinks that this is a sad entry to our blogging repertoire.  I disagree.  We saw a lot of history there, and it can give us a perspective on where we are.  We were lucky to have had a healthy pregnancy/birth, and also lucky to have had an excellent and informed midwife to help guide us towards that good health and guide us in labor.  Now we have a little bean, and I'm thankful for each day we've had with her.  Oh, now I've done it, Laura's crying. She clarifies that she too is thankful for each day we've had with her.  Sienna helps us to be better people, and it turns out she's very good at it.  Thanks Sienna! (now laura is laughing...we're in the clear).

Hey Squeeker.  you're quite the conundrum,
But I think thus far you most resemble KT.

Lindley Park-The greenest grass in Bozeman

Graveyards always have the best trees.

Dinner at Dad's. Pretty sunset in background,
cast against a fading thunderstorm.

Also, keep your eyes open in all major retail outlets
for... The Daddy Cap (patent pending)!!!

Infants supposedly mainly see high-contrast images.  So,
dad's no longer have to feel left out being sans-boob. 
With this wearable mobile, with high-contrast bulls-eyes and
spirals, dad can be the hit of the "Calm baby down, right now"
Party.

Laura says, " Hey, where'd my belly go?"

Oh Yeah... Should also mention that Sienna has made huge strides.  She is starting to hold eye contact longer, and it's starting to feel more like eye-contact versus the glazed-over look laura gives me when I start talking about high school football (laura wants me to clarify that she is very supportive of my high school football playing days).  Also, she definitely had some smiles. Actual smiles.  Hot-diggity.

A Night at the Movies

Last night, the three of us went to go see the movie Mi Chacra, which our friend Jason directed/produced/edited/etc and was put on at the Emerson.  His first feature length documentary.  It was brilliant, about a Peruvian father's internal struggles to give his son a better life-one away from the farm. It mixes the respect of a pastoral life with a recognition of its limitations, and serves as a historical still-life for this vanishing culture.  And, it's beautifully shot. Sienna loved it. Well, at least she loved sleeping through it.  spent most of it in the back in daddy's arms and then fed toward the end. Most importantly, she looked fantastic in yet another omie send-out.  blue dress with a duck on it, matching bloomers and bonnet.  We caused a huge traffic jam as a couple dozen retired women proposed to be our babysitter.

Too Cute

Secret Snack Time before the movie started.  Thanks Momma! The usher noticed that we were smuggling snacks into the theater and tried to take them... and got punched in the nose.

Dressed to Kill

For some reason, this outfit from omie (with the bonnet from mini Katie) reminded me of Oma.  Don't know why, but regardless, she attracted quite the oohs and ahhs from the Co-op goers this morning.  Slept through it all, including the carride in her fancy carseat (thanks auntie Christa and Unkie Bryan).

Laura wanted me to clarify that, yes, we did strap
her in for the drive.  They clashed with her flowers, so I
didn't want to, but Laura won out. It turns out that
Dadda really likes bonnets.  The advantages of having
a Girl vs a boy is that you get to dress the girls up in weird
outfits.

Also, here's the hammock that laura and I and gramma dee built before Sienna was born.  It's based off of a Hushamok design, except we had all the materials as scrap and we could build it for free. It hangs from the ceiling, and has a flat pegboard base (so it doesn't wrap and strangle) with a foam pad and quilted fleece "mattress" over that.  We did all this on a sewing machine, with Dee's help.  We tacoed the sides using various Lindsay plaid scraps because we noticed her rolling around in it and we didn't like that. Currently, we're trying to get her more comfortable in it because she really only wants to sleep on Laura.  That's problematic in the long-term, so we're easing her into this.  Very successful afternoon-she napped in it for a few hours with only three "please pick me up and dance with me" moments (she loves dancing to "world" music, and it usually puts her right back to sleep). Otherwise, since it moves and swings, she can sort of comfort herself by kicking around and making the hammock swing.  she seemed to be catching onto this today.

Here she is in "watch me sleep mode." if we actually wanted to
leave her alone, which we will soon here, we'd swaddle her up
and take out the blanket.

She's Famous!

Today is Laura and My three year anniversary... wedding anniversary that is.  good times
This picture is from sunday's paper.  It makes her legit.  The only home birth that week, though quite a few at the two birth centers in town. supposedly the hospital will have almost 90 births this month.

The Glamour Shots

What you've all been waiting for... The First 11 Days.

Placenta!!!

         

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This one's for Blair

    

The Birth Continued

By the time midnight hit, the contractions had picked up a notch.  We were watching "What Dreams May Come," and pausing it for the contractions.  Sort of an odd, and not very good, movie to be giving birth to... around one we went upstairs and laura slept between her contractions while peter played zombie duck hunt on the ipod touch.  He was really using an app, "labor mate," to time all the contractions.  they were increasing in duration, averaging three minutes long by four in the morning (!!!!!! Hello, that's really long. No wonder she was exhausted), and six minutes apart.  That was our first lesson in parenting: nothing goes by the book.  We kept waiting for them to be five minutes apart so we could call the midwife because that's what all the books say to do. Regardless, we called at seven, assuming that we were still in pre-labor. Rebecca said "no, you're in labor.  Get some food and fill up the tub because we may be in for a long one."  Once in the tub, Laura's  pain went down a bit and she could relax a little. Rebecca called back in an hour to check in, and over that hour Laura's uterus started to say "Puuuuuuush."  Laura knew that it wasn't time yet, and was aware that her cervix would swell and delay labor/cause other complications if she pushed too early, so she entered a new phase of trying to relax and not let her uterus push (apparently, boys, that's really hard.  Like trying to hold down a vomit...try it. you can't).  So the midwife rushed over and called her assistant to come over.  Likewise, I called laura's mom to get down here.  When Rebecca showed up she told us that laura was at 8 cm, and the baby was gunna come soon.  Yikes-we had assumed that we still weren't in active labor! But we were relieved because, frankly, we were exhausted and if she had told us that we were at only 2 cm, well, we probably would have folded.  So, laura got back in the tub, the water broke, had some more contractions as the birth team arrived, and then we got the go ahead to push for real.  Laura gave it four good pushes to get Sienna crowning, but on the fourth the fetal monitor picked up some decelerations in Sienna's heart rate. Rebecca told us to get into a more active position in order to get this baby out stat, and laura got out and into a squat and in one push, squirted sienna across the room! Gramma Dee said that Rebecca's face was priceless because she wasn't expecting such a huge push.  Sienna's cord was on the short side, which explains why she was in such a weird and confusing position all of pregnancy, but she immediately got plopped up on laura's belly and within a few minutes was sucking at the teet. A little on the purple side, but cried immediately and pinked right up.  Rebecca gave Laura some Pitocin as she massaged her belly because Laura bled a little more than we'd have liked.  But, she stopped within a few minutes.  Laura and Peter didn't really know what was going on because we were too busy falling in love again. After twenty minutes, Laura finally heeded Rebecca's advice and sat down (she was in a squat that whole time! Burly! I dare her to do that again). Peter cut the cord, the placenta came out, and Gramma Dee cooked up some delicious eggs, spinach salad, and made smoothies. How fun!

Sienna at one minute. A cutey even then.
Forgot to mention, Laura had time to pick
out a sweet black boxy outfit...Also, Peter's

embarassing cascade of tears has been

photoshopped out.

Sienna loves Gramma Dee! 25 minutes postpartum            

First Poop!!! Go dad go.

Back together again after meals and clean-up.

The Birth Story

Peter's med school applications are in, which means we now have some time on our hands.  This means that we'll sit down and write up our birth story before we forget.  Already, the pain and the worry is starting to fade out of sight, and all the warm fuzzies are creeping in. Funny how that works.  Reminds me of alpinism. Here a couple pics that we got of the birth. There's kind of a gap in the timeline. Apparently, we were busy or something.

Laura's Birth Art, done back in April.  As it turns out,
this depiction is almost exactly what happened.

Peter's Birth Art. 

Our Amaryllis Plant. Very inspirational...
Oooppeeeennnnnnnnn.

23 hrs. before birth.  At this point, contractions
had been going for over two days, and were7-10
minutes apart and over a minute long. 

Off to have another contraction in the shade.

You look great honey.  Keep it up.

Views of the Womb

Hi, Sienna here. So, I figured I'd start out by showing some pictures of momma and dadda when I was still comfy in the belly.  I was in there for a long time, and man was it hot, so I'm happy to be out.  I could still use that umbilical cord though.  That thing's rad.

I remember this. 14 weeks, and momma is skiing!

Momma felt sooooo big, here at 20 weeks on a hike.  Watch out, momma, lots more to come.

NYC at 32 weeks. That place is loud.
Everyone on the subways was so nice to us,
but they're predictions were wrong- I'm a girl!

24 weeks old.  I don't know about that harness thing.
It squeezes my head, but momma sure likes it.

Who's that out there?

Look at me, I'm swimming

Let's Do This

So, Sienna will likely be dragging her parents out of the stone-age her whole life.  In fact, she's already started.  Thus, the blog.  I can't envision Laura and I really getting into writing much, but we hope to update the page with photos with some regularity.  That way, you can check out the goods at your leisure, and we don't have to keep sending emails and then wondering who we sent them to and who we didn't.  So, let's see if we can figure out how to post a picture...

Sienna's first big hike, at 10 days old.  Grotto Falls in Hyalite Canyon. She was a little fussy on the walk out, but seemed to enjoy the falls very much. Peter's brother commented, "Holy Crap P, some hippies stole your baby." ps, the umbrella is for the sun, and for when daddy got too close to the waterfall.