Calvin Mark Transtrum was born on March 16, 2015 at 12:01 pm. He was my smallest baby, weighing in at 8 lbs 11 oz. Life is certainly more of a juggling act with 3 kids, but I'll do my best to remember as much as I can about Calvin's birth and get it written out before some disaster strikes.
We knew this birth would be a c-section since the last two were, and I was actually really glad about that because it was a rough pregnancy. It was all around harder on me, and at the end I was dealing with bronchitis that landed me in the hospital a few weeks before my due date and left me with some very sore, bruised ribs. I was happy to know it would end 3 weeks earlier than Millie's had even though it meant going under the knife.
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| The day before delivery |
Things were a little crazy beforehand because we were trying to sort out all of our help while I would be in the hospital and when I came home. My parents had planned to be there when I came home to relieve Mark's mom (who would be with the big kids all week), and then my grandmother went into hospice care after a long struggle to recover from a bad fall. She ended up passing away the day before Calvin was born, which was really a good thing as her health had really gone down hill in recent years, and she was in her 90's and has been a widow for about 30 years. We like to think she was happy to reunite with her sweetheart and give Calvin a kiss before he joined the family.
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| Getting ready for surgery |
We got to the hospital on a Monday morning and I got all hooked up to monitors and IV's. I was not terribly nervous, but I remember having a panic attack when Luke was born and I was not dealing well with not being able to move my legs. Fortunately, this time I did not get nauseated nor anxious, so I was totally alert and calm through the process.
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| Mark all suited up |
There wasn't anything crazy to remember about this c-section, but there are a couple of funny things I can remember. First of all, the nurses were all really excited when I told them this baby was a surprise. They asked if Mark wanted to be the one who got to look and see what it was and announce it to everyone. I said sure, but then we got to talking about it and realized he'd have to look in the general direction of my disemboweled stomach to do so. We decided it was cool with us if the doctor just let us know.
Another thing that was kind of funny was that after they got my spinal done and were getting ready to operate, a nurse came in to tell them that another woman was ready to push her baby out. She had gone really fast from about 5 cm to fully dilated. I was a little nervous they would have to go deal with her first (I sure wouldn't want to wait around for an hour or so to push my baby out if I was completely dilated) but they decided I was the first priority because the spinal gives them a time limit to work with. I hope they found someone else to help out that other lady. . .
I remember feeling a bit nervous before the c-section as it hit me that this little person was about to enter our family and we knew absolutely nothing about it. I never once regretted not finding out what this one was, but it was a bit surreal at the very end to not even have a small bit of information about this baby. I do remember being very happy when they told us it was a boy, though I'm sure I would have been happy with a girl. It certainly would have been easier to choose a name. We made sure that Millie was the first person we called as soon as we could, and she was thrilled that it was a boy. She'd wanted one from the start.
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We were surprised and excited to find out that the kids could come visit us in the hospital. They had raised their visiting ban on small children due to a bad flu season like the day before Calvin was born. When Luke walked in the room, he immediately found a binky and we sort of cringed. We had just managed to wean him from his binky about 3 months ago, and it was quite the battle. But he picked it up and tried to give it right to the baby. Both of the kids seem to really like the baby, and have adjusted about as well as could be hoped for. Luke struggles sometimes because he doesn't get as much attention, but never takes it out on Calvin.
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| Millie and Calvin |
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| Luke & Calvin |
Choosing a name was hard again. We had narrowed it down to about 3 boy names, but didn't really actually love any of them. And I was so exhausted that I didn't even think about it for the first couple of days. Not to mention Mark was back at work the next day and I didn't see him much in the hospital. The nurses kept asking me if he had a name, and I offered to let them name him. They laughed, but I was a little bit serious. Calvin was one of the names we had discarded even though we both liked it. We knew it was one we might come back to if we couldn't decide, and for some reason I kept thinking he looked like a Calvin. I'm not usually that type of mom who needs to see a kid to decide what name fits them, but I sort of secretly started thinking of him as Calvin before Mark and I ever really got to discuss it. It's always hard for me to commit to a name and announce it to people for fear that somebody will give me a look like I'm totally nuts. But now that it has been a month, I think his name totally fits and I'm glad we chose it.
We had a couple of scares in the hospital where Calvin was turning blue and lost too much weight, but everything turned out fine. He put the weight back on super fast, and he has been a great nurser from the start. In fact, he has been a very easy baby from the start. This kid almost never cries, and if he does it's usually because he's having a hard time with gas or a bowel movement. When he wakes up to eat at night, he just sort of squirms and whimpers until I come get him. He rarely spits up unless we lay him flat on his back. We're just really happy to have this little stranger in our family now, he makes this parenting thing about as easy as it can be. I'm crossing my fingers that he stays this easy-going and perhaps he'll even be my first baby to sleep through the night before about 18 months. My recovery has been really good as well, and I'm hoping we can start feeling kind of normal again pretty soon.
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| Love this picture of Calvin & my dad (my parents finally got to come visit!) |
