Could you spell that please? (About our daughter's name)

Our daughter's name is not common in the United States. We're getting used to pronouncing it several times for people (ASH-ling), and spelling it for the doctor's office. We knew when we chose the name that it would require a lifetime of pronunciation correction for Americans she meets (though when she visits the UK, which we hope she does often, there will be no issue at all as it's a relatively common name). We think it is a beautiful name, and thought we'd share a little bit about why we chose it.

We were first introduced to the name when, on our second date, we saw The Secret of Kells at an independent movie theatre in Nashville, the Bellcourt. Aisling is the name of a character in the movie. She's a bright fairy- or nymph-like girl with lots of sass and spunk, deep love for and connection with her forest, and a hidden strength and power that come through repeatedly for the hero in his times of need. Here's a clip from the movie, where she introduces herself:

We loved the movie and the character, but we'd never heard the name before so we looked it up. We found that the word "Aisling" is an Irish word meaning "dream" or "vision." It refers to a particular type of poetic genre that developed during the late 17th century in the Irish language.

All of this took place before we were even married, much less pregnant and looking for a girl's name. But for some reason, whenever we spoke of how we might raise a daughter, should we ever be blessed with one, we always called her "Aisling." And so when we did find out that we were pregnant, it was easy to decide which name to choose. I suppose it helps that we each have a significant amount of Irish ancestry.

Here is an example of an Aisling poem, Gile na Gile (Brightness most Bright), translated by Thomas Kinsella
Brightness most bright I beheld on the way, forlorn.
Crystal of crystal her eye, blue touched with green.
Sweetness most sweet her voice, not stern with age.
Colour and pallor appeared in her flushed cheeks.

Curling and curling, each strand of her yellow hair
as it took the dew from the grass in its ample sweep;
a jewel more glittering than glass on her high bosom
-created, when she was created, in a higher world.

True tidings she revealed, most forlorn,
tidings of one returning by royal right,
tidings of the crew ruined who drove him out,
and tidings I keep from my poem for sheer fear.

Foolish past folly, I came to her very presence
bound tightly, her prisoner (she likewise a prisoner...)
I invoked Mary's Son for succour: she sarted from me
and vanished like light to the fairy dwelling of Luachair.

Heart pounding, I ran, with a frantic haste in my race,
by the margins of marshes, through swamps, over bare moors.
To a powerful palace I came, by paths most strange,
to that place of all places, erected by druid magic.

All in derision they tittered - a gang of goblins
and a bevy of slender maidens with twining tresses.
They bound me in bonds, denying the slightest comfort,
and a lumbering brute took hold of my girl by the breasts.

I said to her then, in words that were full of truth,
low improper it was to join with that drawn gaunt creature
when a man most fine, thrice over, of Scottish blood
was willing to take her as her tender bride.

On hearing my voice she wept in high misery
and flowing tears fell down from her flushed cheeks.
She sent me a guard to guide me out of the palace
- that brightness most bright I beheld on the way, forlorn

The Knot

Pain, disaster, downfall, sorrow and loss!
Our mild, bright, delicate, loving, fresh-lipped girl
with one of that black, horned, foreign, hate-crested crew
and no remedy near till our lions come over the sea.

Three months old: Baptism, vacation, and a new home!

By the water and the Spirit.

September 11 – October 11

Aisling’s 4^th month was so busy!

Aisling met her Godparents Brandy and Jeremy and was baptized on September 22 at St. Ignatius Church in San Francisco. It was a wonderful weekend full of family and friends.

Lighting a baptism candle for Aisling

109-year-old Christening dress

Aisling wore her maternal great-grandfather Sullivan's 109-year-old christening dress, and a blanket from her great-grandmother Webster's family.

The following weekend we had a nice getaway in Carmel-by-the-Sea with some old friends of Sandi’s who live in Phoenix. Aisling was really waking up and becoming quite fun and interesting. Since we don’t have an infant seat or stroller, we hold her in our laps at meals, where she gets to watch us eat, interact, and practice her balance and coordination.

It was our first trip to the Monterey area, including a hike by the ocean at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve. We saw sea lions, otters, and harbor seals aplenty. Baby slept through most of it in her carrier, though. I’ve learned how to nurse her in her carrier, so when she woke up hungry I just made a few adjustments, latched her on, and kept walking while she ate lunch!

Packing!

The next week was moving week. Since Doug’s company was acquired he was making a long commute to and from Mountain View every day for work. He was basically spending 10 hours a week on the train, which was becoming very stressful for us since he’d leave each morning  before baby was properly awake and come home just before she went to bed for the night.

All packed.

Sandi decided not to go back to work until around/after the holidays so she could spend more time with the baby. Also, Doug’s company provided funds to help us move. So we found a nice new apartment in Mountain View and booked movers to pack and move everything for us. It was incredible to have people swoop in and wrap and box everything in 3 hours! They moved us into our new apartment on Friday afternoon. We spent Saturday unpacking and stocking the refrigerator with fresh things from Costco and Whole Foods. We got a Vitamix blender at Costco – we both need to eat more healthy green raw things, and the Vitamix is incredibly versatile and durable.

Fitting bikes in the city

On Sunday morning Sandi did her 10k race in the city followed by brunch with friends. We then spent the day in the city, where Doug was fitted for a new bicycle. He’s decided to bike the 4 miles to and from work every day; his old bike is quite rickety and inappropriate for consistent commuting, requiring lots of maintenance as various things come loose. Also Doug loves biking as exercise much more than running, and so he decided to get a bike that will serve both commuting and sporting purposes.

 The next week was our first full week in the apartment, and the last week of Aisling’s fourth month! She wakes each morning around 8 a.m. while Sandi is out running and Doug cuddles and cares for her while making coffee and smoothies. She goes down for a nap sometime between 10:30-11:30 and sleeps for 1-2 hours, then again in the afternoon for another hour or so, and down for the night between 7-8 p.m. She slept for a full 8 hours a few times in the first week; usually she’s woken at 3 and 6 for light sleepy feeds, which is normal and fine.

We are really enjoying our new apartment! It has 2 bedrooms, a dining area, and a wonderful patio that's essentially another room since the weather in Mountain View is so pleasant. Sandi spends lots of time sitting on the patio with Aisling, listening to the birds and the breezes rustling the leaves of the trees.

Patio Oasis Panorama

Aisling is spending more time on her tummy, reaching and grasping objects, laughing and squealing, standing in our laps with support, and generally becoming very interested in the world. At her 4-month Dr. Appointment she weighed in at 16 ½ lbs and 25 ¼ inches long; these are in the 87^th and 76^th percentiles for full term babies! She’s basically the size of an average 6-month-old. Very few 3 month clothes fit her, and some 9 month clothes are perfect. How they do grow!!

The doctor was also very impressed with her strength and coordination. At 4 months she seems to be just about caught up with babies in her chronological age group, which is very good for a preemie. She hasn’t rolled over yet, but the doctor wasn’t at all concerned with that, saying that many babies don’t roll over until close to when they’re sitting unsupported, which is closer to 6 months.

So there we have it! We love our silly sweet baby.

Bathtime baby!

Two months old! Living and Growing

Aisling’s third month was fairly uneventful for us as a family, but it flew by nonetheless!

I started training for a 6-mile race in October, to help motivate myself to get back in shape. Doug immersed himself in work and the intricacies of making artisan coffee. So I ran early every morning while he watched the baby and made me coffee to sustain me thru the rest of each morning. Win-win!


Aisling took some great developmental leaps this month! She began to have excellent head control when sitting and being carried, was tracking objects and people, began to whack things with her hands (on purpose!), started to squeal in delight, coo, and was smiling up a storm. I think that since we don't have a stroller or an infant seat, we held and carried her so much that her core strength and social skills caught up quickly. She became very social and responsive, in general. She was never a particularly fussy baby; my secret worries that maybe she wasn’t fussy because she was brain-damaged or something else horrible began to be reassured.

She was sleeping well, usually waking twice during the night to eat at about 1-2am and 5-6am, and then up for good by 7:30. It’s common for breastfed babies to wake this way, so I wasn’t worried about it.

This is the age when it used to be customary to add rice cereal to bottles, and sometimes even start solid foods in order to try to get babies to sleep through the night. But recent studies have shown a strong correlation with feeding rice cereal and increased rates of obesity, and diabetes. Rice cereal is just simple starch powder that turns immediately to glucose, and otherwise has no nutritional value outside of the iron fortification, which is also questionable. Also, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, American Academy of Pediatrics, and American Academy of Family Physicians all recommend waiting until 6 months at the earliest to introduce solids, including rice cereal. So we’re waiting, and enjoying our “exclusive breastfeeding” until then! I am riding the borderline of Type 2 diabetes, and Doug struggled with his weight as an adolescent, so there’s no need to start slipping down that path with our girl when we know better.

Daddy's fed up with picture-taking.
But he's so comfy!

Anyway, sleep wasn't a big deal. We swaddled her to sleep most nights, and usually she took a pacifier to fall asleep, but suddenly at the end of the month she started hating being swaddled and hating the pacifier and just putting herself to sleep.

One nice development was that since Aisling was getting such good head and body control, I could now nurse her lying down, which meant that I could bring her into bed and snooze while she nursed in the middle of the night. It’s amazing how our instincts and anatomy cause us to curl ourselves around the baby when nursing this way. I was never afraid of rolling on her or having Doug roll on her because she was nestled in the curve of my belly with my arms guarding her. I would wake up in about 30 minutes to a full sleeping baby, and put her back in bed. Many families bedshare with their babies and toddlers all the time, which we don’t want to do, but it’s nice to be able to compromise.

She basically doubled her birth weight by the end of August. She grew out of all of her newborn clothes, and very quickly the 3-month clothes got snug! She blazed thru size 2 diapers and was into size 3 by the end of the month.

The third month flew by, and so far the fourth month has, too! More about that in the next post. And then we'll be all caught up!

One month old: Meeting the family

Month 2 – July 11- August 11

The first week of Aisling's second month began with a Week of Adventure!

Meeting GeeGee

We left for Oregon on Friday July 12. It was about 3 hours from San Francisco to Doug’s grandmother Webster’s (“GeeGee”) home in Ukiah, CA. She loved meeting her great-grand daughter Aisling, and we had a good long visit with her and Aunt Myrna, and an overnight stay and breakfast. We drove about 5 hours to Medford the next day, Saturday. We’d decided to take it slow in case Aisling had a car seat meltdown (which she never did, praise the Heavens), and to allow time to stop and feed/change her. She did great, but we could tell that she’d reached her limit at 5 hours on the road. On Sunday we made it to Portland where we had a nice visit with Doug’s long-time friends, Ian and Cynda, and their sweet family. It was quite an experience watching the non-stop action of their three boys (ages 5, 2 ½, and 9 mos). I will always admire Cynda’s prowess as a mother.

Meeting Grandma, and Uncle Phil

The next day (Monday) we spent some time exploring Portland (food trucks! Powell’s books!) before meeting Aisling’s Grandma Elizabeth and Uncle Phil. We had a lovely dinner and then walked to a park for a nice family photo shoot. Tuesday we spent the day with Grandma and explored some of Oregon's great wine country! We just love Oregon Pinot Noir. 

Meeting Great-Grandpa Puett

On Wednesday we were back on the road to Bend, OR to meet Doug’s Puett grandparents, and Aunt and Uncle Smith and the cousins. It was a nice drive over the mountain and through the desert.

Meeting Great Grammie

The fourth generation at Paulina Lake, OR!

We enjoyed a nice dinner with the family, and on Thursday Doug and I had a little baby-free excursion all by ourselves to Deschutes Brewery for lunch while Great Grammie Puett cuddled with Aisling. Yumm. That afternoon we went to a music festival on the lawn of the park by the Deschutes river. It was nice to be out in the open at a relaxed event with family. Before we hit the road home, we drove to Paulina Lake, where Aisling's great-great-great grandfather lived for a while, and which has become a traditional Puett family destination.

On Aisling’s official due date (July 19) we were driving home from our week-long road trip to see family. Aisling slept in the carseat, cuddled with us, and continued to eat like a champ. Her head control was improving, and she was beginning to focus on peoples’ faces. She loved to look at contrasting colors and patterns.

Meeting Aunt Laurie

The next Monday Doug went back to work, and my sister Laurie came to visit us for the whole week! Laurie is my earth-mama sister: she's laid-back and philosophical. We had lots of fun exploring San Francisco, the beach, and Muir Woods. She loved meeting baby Aisling, took care of her while I had doctor and dentist appointments, cleaned the apartment, played board games with us, and helped us cook a yummy dinner! It was a great visit. Aisling was making eye contact, noticing faces and voices, and just starting to think about smiling. I was homesick when I left Laurie at the airport, but I knew it would just be another few days before I'd see my other sister!

The last week in July was my first week home alone with Aisling. I quickly developed a whole new respect for stay-at-home mommies! Aisling wasn’t a particularly difficult baby, but she was very time- and energy-consuming to me, especially by myself. I found myself looking forward every day to Doug’s return so that I could have some relief and alone-time. I just don't think I'll be a mom who can stay at home and administer my daughter's entire childhood. I'm absolutely certain that there are women (and men!) who are specially gifted with a talent for doing just that, and I can't wait to enlist their help! But I have committed to being home for her first few months, at least, because it's best for her, and because I can! I am completely grateful for the ability to witness her changes and growth, and the ability to continue breastfeeding. Also it's wonderful to be able to respond to her needs instead of setting a "schedule" that's artificially dictated by my need to work or a daycare's need to have everything on a timeline.

Our first anniversary was August 3 (yay!). It was a fairly uneventful day – we went to the toystore to get Aisling an activity gym for her to practice tummy time and start to interact with toys. It was an overwhelming experience for Mommy and Daddy! She loved the gym we ended up choosing, which is made by Skip Hop.

Her 2-month pediatrician appointment was on August 6^th. It was a big day, because this was the day she got her first set of vaccinations. It was also a big deal because her weight was higher than the 60^th percentile for full-term babies in height, weight, and head circumference! She also impressed the doctor by pushing her chest up off the table with her arms and holding her head up high. That was a big developmental milestone! As a preemie we've been told to expect her to lag developmentally behind other babies of her same chronological age, but she seems to be catching up fast.

Meeting Aunt Tracie

My other sister Tracie came to visit August 7-11. She got to see more of Aisling’s smiles and cuddles. Aisling was getting much stronger, smiling pretty consistently, and starting to have good head control, but she still hated tummy time. Tracie is incredibly positive and cheerful and energetic, and a natural homemaker; she helped so much to make our apartment feel more homey, and impressed upon me the desire to hire a personal organizer for our next apartment. Although she was only there for a few days, she was so much help to us.

Overall, Aisling's second month was great! Her third month was a blur, and I'll post about that next.

Wearing Grandma Elizabeth's baby bonnet

Aisling's first month! NICU and coming home

It's been so long since I blogged! We've just moved to a new apartment and I decided to sit down and get it all out. I'll go month-by-month. Enjoy!

Month 1 – June 11-July 11

Week 1: NICU Stay
Aisling was in the UCSF NICU for about 6 days. She was only 34 ½ weeks along when I delivered, and many babies that young have trouble breathing, maintaining their body temperature, and eating. Aisling was a big strong preemie, though: they took her off of support step-by-step just to make sure her body's systems could handle independence, and each step took at least 12 hours because that was the timing of shift changes when the doctors came around and did evaluations.

They had her on a CPAP unit (not oxygen, just gentle air pressure through a face mask) for her first 12 hours(Weds morning) just to make sure her lungs got fully expanded, since many babies haven’t yet produced the surfactant that keeps the walls of our lungs' alveoli from sticking together when we exhale. I started latching her onto the breast just after they took her off of CPAP (early Weds afternoon). She liked to suck but she wasn’t very hungry because they had her on IV nutrients and hydration. They did not give her any fluids, sugar-water, or formula by mouth, so her “virgin gut” remained intact, which was very important to me. If you wonder what the heck a virgin gut is, click here.

UCSF has a great NICU which includes the parents in all aspects of the baby’s care. They allow parents to be in the NICU 24 hours a day, except for 30 min blocks at 7 am and pm for shift changes. We stayed in the hospital and visited Aisling to feed her every 3 hours, with one of us usually staying with her for most of the time between daytime feedings.

Doug spent lots of “skin-to-skin” time with her lying on his chest, and she got to cuddle with me during and after nursing sessions. Doug got to sleep all night, but I got up religiously and shuffled sleepily to the NICU at 11, 2, and 5 to feed and hold her. She didn’t particularly care about eating because of her IV, but she needed the “first milk” (colostrum) to get her gut moving, so I was pumping like crazy and feeding her with a syringe and my finger to suck on at first. Colostrum is transparent yellowish sticky fluid. In the first day I was lucky to get a total of 3 ml every 3 hours. By the second day I was getting up to 10 ml, which seemed like a lot at the time! By 72 hours I was starting to get real milk at about 2 oz (40 ml) every 3 hours. This is normal, because babies’ stomachs are just the size of a marble when they’re born, and expand very slowly over the first week.

At 24 hours old they turned off the heat in her isolette, and she maintained her own body temp just fine. At about 36 hours, her nurse noticed that she was starting to look orange, and predicted that Aisling would need the “bilibed” treatment soon, for jaundice. Sure enough, her bilirubin levels shot up between 36-48 hours and they put her under lights. Jaundice is the accumulation of a substance called bilirubin in an infant’s blood, which makes their skin look yellow or orange-ish. The worst part of this time was that we couldn’t hold her constantly, because she needed to be under the lights so the UV could break down the bilirubin. I still came religiously to feed her every 3 hours but I had to put her right back in bed after about 30 mins. The best part of this time was that Doug and I got to have some alone time, and had time to walk to a restaurant where I had my first postpartum beer! It was delicious.

After 24 hours under lights, she came out and we could hold her all we wanted again. Yay! Going home seemed imminent. But then after a day her bilirubin level rose again, and back came the lights. Boo. This meant at least another 2 days in the NICU – one for lights, and one to make sure her bilirubin stayed down once she was out of the lights. We were exhausted. Since I was breastfeeding and the delivery rooms weren’t full they let us stay in my postpartum care room for an extra day after I was discharged. But then the rooms filled up and they kicked us out to a tiny little room that had been re-purposed from an infant isolation room by sticking a mattress on the floor. They gave Doug a vinyl mattress-y thing so he could stay, too – I was so thankful for that! By day 5, running on very little sleep and still recovering from delivery, my feet had swollen into shoe-sausages. I would lay on the bed with my feet propped up on the wall while I made phone calls to relatives with status updates. We wanted our own bed so badly.

On Monday morning, June 18, while Aisling was under lights, we were banking on the likelihood of her coming home the next day, so we came back to the apartment to get everything set up and ready. Since I delivered 5 weeks early we weren’t entirely prepared, but at least we actually owned all of the necessities. We took a nap in our bed and I remember it being the sweetest possible experience I could imagine at that moment.

Sure enough, Aisling was cleared to come home the next morning. We tucked her tiny body into her car seat at around noon, and headed home. We stopped at REI on the way home to get her a smartwool hat and fuzzy socks because it was very chilly and windy, and our apartment would be colder than the NICU.

Once we got home, we snuggled into bed. Doug put baby onto his chest and read her some of Beowulf, which he’d been dreaming of doing for my entire pregnancy. The recovery napping began. Aisling was home.

Weeks 2-4
The rest of the first month was fairly easy and uneventful. Aisling’s first pediatrician appointment was the day after we brought her home, and she was doing great and back up to her birth weight. Even though she was a preemie, she was already on the full-term charts (albeit in low percentiles) for weight, height, and head circumference. Compared to other preemies her age, she was huge and healthy.

During this month, she spent most of her time sleeping and eating. She was latching on great, nursing for a long time, and I was changing lots of wet and dirty diapers and pumping extra milk, so I wasn’t worried at all about her getting enough to eat. She woke herself to eat at night, which is a big deal for preemies. I never put her on any kind of schedule, but let her lead with her own rhythms. She slept in the play-yard bassinet right next to me, where I could hear her wake up and feed her right away. We didn’t really have any issues with colic or reflux... she rarely cried and never spit up (which was weird!). I know how blessed we were, and am so thankful!!

We were also truly blessed that Doug got 6 weeks of paid paternity leave. This was a wonderful time for us to bond as a family and establish our own rhythms without the stress of work and commute for either of us. We’d decided to get in the habit of being active with Aisling right away. We carried her in a soft sling when we’d go out walking, and we took her all over the neighborhood with us. Since we don’t own (or particularly want) a stroller or an infant seat with a handle, we got used to holding her all the time. We generally took it easy in those first few weeks.

At her 1-month pediatrician appointment, Aisling had gained an impressive 22 oz in 2 weeks and was now close to 9 lbs. Her head circumference and length were on similar growth trajectories, putting her squarely in the middle of full-term baby growth charts and completely off the chart for a preemie. She was still not due for another 8 days, and I was very thankful that I’d been spared that last month of bladder-torture.
We’d been waiting for this appointment to make the final decision about taking a week-long road trip to Oregon for Aisling to meet Doug’s family. Since the results were so good and she was a trooper in the car seat, we decided to make the trip.