Manifestations of Faith

Faith actually slept through the night.  And not on the swing, but in her own bed.  For about 7 hours.  Incredible.  No feeding every two hours, not sleeping with us.  Now, if mommy could just relax enough not to check on Faith every 30 minutes, mommy might sleep most of the night, too!  I’m not getting my expectations too high at this point.  This could be a fluke.  I’ll let you know if Faith repeats this amazing feat.

The time has come for us to constantly be aware of everything Faith is doing. Why, you ask? Because, she is starting to reach for things. Sitting on my lap at the desk, she stuffed my notes in her drooling mouth. Remember how they tell you not to drink hot beverages while holding a baby? It’s not just because they could be burned by a spill, but because they can reach up and touch the hot cup, too. Time to start pushing everything farther out of reach when she’s on my lap. Think it’s fun every time she throws a toy on the floor? I can’t wait till Faith starts to eat solid food (said facetiously), and neither can our two dogs. They are going to have a new best friend!

Faith got fussy, so I picked her up.  She sat on my lap for a few minutes while I finished reading email.  Faith usually doesn’t like being up on my shoulder, but today she was not only OK with it, she started to fall asleep.  I was trying to work, so I tried to put her down, but as I started to lean forward to lower into the swing, Faith actually clutched at my arm and shirt, as if she didn’t want me to put her down.  Mommy says she’s done that before, but it’s a first for me.

Mommy says she was told babies don’t have knee caps, and she believes it because she can’t feel any.  So, I looked it up.  Babies do not have knee caps as we think of them, but they are there.  The knee caps are made of cartilage that eventually turn  (ossify) to solid bone.  This normally happens by age 3 for girls and age 5 for boys.  I guess this is just like their skull or other bones.  At birth, they are soft and take time to harden.   You can read more about it here.

Faith has started to roll onto her side to sleep.  That’s partly because she slides off the pillow, but according to what I’ve read babies start to do that, although they aren’t yet ready to turn themselves over.

OK, do I feel stupid.  Mommy just told me about the “soft spot” on top of Faith’s head.  She had to explain it to the other 3 children, too.  I remember reading about this before, but it got buried somewhere in the back of my brain.

So, of course, I had to look it up.  I found two good sites to read.  The Wikipedia page is a little more technical, but the MadSci Network site has a more interesting discussion.

The real name for the soft spot is fontanelle, a flexible tissue between the plates of the skull.  Babies are born with two larger fontanelles on the top of the head, and two more smaller ones on each side of the head.  The plates of the baby’s skull need to be able to flex when the baby is born, but the membranes between them generally hardens by age two.

Mommy cautioned that we have to be careful about injuring Faith, but it turns out the fontanelles are actually pretty tough and hard to puncture.  They eventually turn to bone and connect everything in the skull.  That’s part of the reason babies have more bones than adults.  On the top of the head, the fontanelle in the back closes in a few months, while the one in the front takes about two years from birth.

Mommy may have just given birth to her fourth child, and made it look easy to boot, but even she was shocked at the size of our baby.  Being only 5 feet tall, and barely 100 lbs before becoming pregnant, we never would have thought that our daughter would be born 20 1/2 inches long and weighing 8 lbs 3 oz!  Even the last ultrasound estimate was only 7 1/2 lbs.  WNBA or volleyball player, at least.

Mommy was really surprised that I stayed by her side and held her hand through the whole birth.  Daughter 1 had to leave, but daughter 2 stayed to take pictures.  Except for the smell, watching the birth of our daughter was worth every minute.  The midwife was so calm and reassuring.  Three contractions and there was a new baby in the world.  The whole thing took about 15 minutes.  I got to cut the umbilical cord.

The doctor says everything looks fine.  The baby is now about 9 weeks old.  The doctor suggested we see a specialist because of Mommy’s age – to check for Down’s Syndrome and other potential problems.  Better safe than sorry, but not exactly a pleasant thought.

Nausea, no energy, no appetite.  Mommy doesn’t remember the other 3 being like this.  Figures, my child has to be different!