First Month

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Meredith

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Labor and Delivery
We arrived at the hospital at 5 p.m. on August 2. The doctor started the Cervidil that night, and at 6 a.m. on the 3rd she started Pitocin. My water broke at 6:45 a.m. and more than 13 very long hours later Meredith was born. Wednesday was a long, hard day, but it was all worth it because we got this out of it!

The First Few Weeks
We've had more than a few sleepless nights, but after sneaking a peek at Meredith's "Official Baby Manual" we found out that in order to keep their Baby Licenses, all babies must keep their parents up all night a minimum of three times in the first two weeks. So it turns out that our child is just following orders. It also seems that she just likes to hang out in mom or dad's arms, which is fine except that it's hard for us to sleep if she's in our arms. I'm sure when she's 13, though, we'll be fondly recalling the days when she actually wanted to hang out with us, even if it meant we didn't get very much sleep!

Meredith is doing great, and after getting over her jaundice she seems to be as healthy as a horse. At her two-week pediatrician appointment she weighed 6 lbs 10 oz, so she was 6 oz over her birth weight. Her one-month appointment is next week when she'll get her first vaccination.

Other than her sleep issues, Meredith is a pretty easy-going baby (I'm furiously knocking on wood as I type that!). She eats, sleeps, poops and practices looking adorable.

Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Today is Meredith's four-week birthday - and as the dearth of updates on this page indicates we've been busy little parents. We're getting the hang of some things (it doesn't take two of us to change her diaper anymore!), but we're still working on others (sleep? what's that?). Despite the lack of sleep and the abundance of poop, we've decided that parenthood is all it's cracked up to be and we think we'll probably keep her!

Yesterday was Meredith's one-month pediatrician appointment, and she's a healthy little girl. Emphasis on "little": she weighed in at 7 lbs, 13 oz (up from her birth weight of 6 lbs 4 oz) and she was 19.5 inches long, and both of those measurements are in the 20th percentile or lower for babies her age. Her head circumference was barely in the 5th percentile (she obviously got that from Tom - Grossmans have big heads), although I can guarantee that it didn't feel that small during her delivery! The pediatrician said that there's really no correlation between a baby's size at this age and its adult size, and he guesses that based on Meredith's tall parents that she'll catch up pretty soon.

While the pediatrician was examining her, Meredith showed off all her kicking and punching moves and he was impressed by her activity level. He also  said she had good muscle tone, which surprised me because I didn't know infants could have muscle tone - I'm assuming she got that from the 10K she did in April!

Since she's so small, we're still waiting for her to fit into most of her 0-3 month clothes. For the past month she's been rotating through two sleepers that Jo and I wore as babies (I think they made clothes smaller back then), two preemie-sized sleepers, and several Gerber brand onesies that are cut smaller than most other onesies. Tom is eager for her to hit 8 lbs, because then he can start using her Baby Bjorn carrier - I got to carry her around for nine months, so now he'll get a chance to tote her around!

Meredith's parents are also doing well. We even went on our first post-Meredith date on Monday! Um, OK, so "date" is stretching things a little, but we went to the dentist and the Post Office while she stayed home with her grandmother - and, hey, who says there's no romance to be found in clean teeth!