Before my son was born, I bought him a baby book. I didn’t think much of it other than I liked it because it was Woodland themed like his nursery. I knew that my mom had baby books for my brother and me, and I liked the idea of keeping track of my baby’s milestones. It is something I can look back on for years to come and even he will read it one day.
The baby book I bought for my son.
While my son was in the NICU, I started filling out the pages. Everything from my baby shower, news from the day he was born, all about his family and his first days. The book even had a page to record memories of a ceremony, such as his bris.
Every month my husband and I would sit down and fill out the page of what baby could do, what baby likes, etc. Well some months, we had to do two pages at a time because we had waited too long. It got to be somewhat of a chore to record the page each month, especially because it was always the same questions. A lot of times nothing had changed in a certain area and I’d just write, “Same as last month.”
A sample of one of the memory book pages.
Also, his monthly pictures got to be a chore as well. From picking out the outfit to the stress of trying to take the perfect picture, but I’m glad I have them. I took them on the exact monthly birthday each time. When he got older, a new challenge arose of trying to get him to sit still for a photo. Now, I’m lucky if the picture isn’t blurry because my son never stops moving and is always on the go.
After each doctor’s appointment, I would record his weight, his height, and his immunizations in his baby book. There is also a page to record his teeth coming in and pages with various other milestones. The book goes up to age five, with the focus on the baby’s first year. I like the idea of recording memories of my child because we so easily forget the little things. There are plenty of spaces to add photos to the baby book and I was very diligent on putting photos in for his first seven months. After that, life got busy and I stopping getting photos printed and adding them to his baby book. I’ll have to update the book with recent photos soon.
Somewhere along the way, after my son was born I wanted to his record milestones as they happened. When he was about five months old, I began to record them in my Passion Planner. There is a space called “good things that happened” in each weekly spread. I shifted the focus of that from myself to my son. It was a good way to remember things to record in the baby book and to have another record of it. Later on, I started recording them on a list app on my phone and then would transfer the milestone later to my planner and then to the baby book. It can seem like an inefficient system, but it worked for me in my daily life. If I thought of something, I could just type it on my phone instead of finding the planner or the baby book. I used to delete the list on my phone once I recorded it elsewhere, but now I like to keep an ongoing list because it tells you the exact day I recorded it. That’s how I know my son started walking on September 25, 2019! I record the simplest things to the biggest, such as when he found his feet to new words he learned. Some of his achievements that I recorded are not what you would call a traditional milestone, but it is something I want to remember. My son was born premature, so he hit his milestones a little later than most children, but every child is different and does things at different times.
Having lists in different places can be confusing. Because I want to have everything in one place, I decided to make a list of each month and each year and everything he did that month that I felt the need to record. I started this list using all three sources, and so far have only recorded the month of January 2019. But, I’ll finish it eventually and one day I will be so glad I did. Probably when he gets curious about the baby book or when he has children someday and wants to know what he did and when to compare.
When I have another child one day, I probably won’t be this disciplined with keeping track of milestones. With the challenges of taking care of two children, I probably will barely use the next child’s baby book. That is how it turned out for my mom. She spent so much time making my brother’s baby book, cutting out shapes out of wrapping paper and gluing them in because stickers and scrapbooking weren’t as common. Now there are so many memory-making options out there and even online photo books and digital scrapbooking.
When it got time for my baby book, my mom filled out the beginning but didn’t finish it. I don’t blame her; she was keeping up with two children. There is a list in the back of the baby book of my milestones that were never transferred. My mom kept my baby bracelet from the hospital and my first lock of hair. I’m so glad the memories are recorded and that’s probably where I got the idea to keep up with my son’s baby book. I have always loved scrapbooking and plan to make a scrapbook of my son one day. I do the traditional scrapbooking with paper and stickers. I’m still working on scrapbooking my honeymoon from six years ago, but you know I’ve made some progress.
I hope one day, my son and even my grandchildren will appreciate the effort I took to preserve these milestone memories. Are you recording memories of your children? It’s never too late to start!
For my whole life, I have wanted to be a mom. It was just always something I knew I wanted. I married my husband, Ryan, in September of 2013. We enjoy spending time with each other, and this year will celebrate 14 years together as a couple. Being married is wonderful, and we wanted to add to that happiness by having a child. After we celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary, we decided the time was right to start our family. The very next month, in October of 2017 we started trying.
I was very lucky to get pregnant on the first try and it was hard to imagine that there was life growing inside me. I found out I was pregnant right before Halloween of 2017.
We went to my Obstetrician’s office and got to hear our
baby’s heartbeat and see him on the ultrasound. It was so cool to hear his tiny
little heartbeat for the first time. The OB told me that my due date was early
July 2018.
From our pregnancy announcement photo shoot in December 2017
I didn’t do any genetic testing before I became pregnant. My husband and I decided it was better not to
know. It would just cause unnecessary worry and it wouldn’t change anything
about our decision to have a baby. We did do one prenatal screening called the
Harmony test. It tests for Down Syndrome and a few other genetic anomalies,
through a blood test when a woman is 10-weeks pregnant. It can also tell the
gender of the baby, which is pretty accurate. Over the winter holidays, we got
the results back from the Harmony test I took.
Everything was normal and we were having a BOY! I will
always remember the moment we found out our baby was a boy. We were standing in
the kitchen, listening to a voicemail from the nurse from my OB’s office with
the test results. As soon as we found out, we were jumping up and down hugging
and crying. They were happy tears.
Many people refer to baby boys as “little man.” I don’t
particularly care for this expression, so when talking to my son in my belly I
decided to call him “Little Boy.” This would go on to be his nickname because
his name was a surprise to everyone. At my baby shower, my mom made a banner
that said “Little Boy” and it is now hanging in his nursery. My husband and I
thought of his name months before he was even conceived on the way back from a
road trip. We decided to keep his name to ourselves. The only hint we gave
anyone was that he was named after a family member who had passed.
Me at about 30-weeks pregnant. Early May, 2018
I experienced some complications with my pregnancy including
nausea the entire time, bad swelling, prenatal hypertension and later
preeclampsia. According to the Mayo
Clinic, “Preeclampsia is a pregnancy complication characterized by high blood
pressure and signs of damage to another organ system, most often the liver and
kidneys. Preeclampsia usually begins after 20 weeks of pregnancy in women whose
blood pressure had been normal.”
During one of my OB appointments, my doctor sent me to the
hospital because of my high blood pressure at 34-weeks pregnant. That was the
first time I had seen this doctor, since my OB practice has many doctors and
whoever is on call that day is the doctor that delivers your baby. I stayed
overnight at Northside Hospital-Atlanta. At that time, it was estimated I would
deliver at 36 or 37-weeks pregnant due to all the complications I was
experiencing.
At 35-weeks pregnant, during my OB appointment, the doctor
sent me back to the hospital due to a very high blood pressure and a headache
that wouldn’t go away. This is a common sign of preeclampsia and was very
worrisome to my doctor. While I was resting before going to the appointment, my
husband had a feeling we were having the baby. He gathered up and packed our
bags for the hospital.
We arrived at Northside and were taken to a room in C-section
waiting since the baby was still breech. I asked my husband what the date was.
He said, “June Fourth.” I decided that was a good day to have a baby.
We still didn’t know what was going on and when I would deliver our son. We
filled out paperwork and I saw the on-call doctor, who happened to the same one
who sent me to the hospital earlier. He said that it would be best to do the C-section
that night. By that time it was about 5 o’clock in the evening. The operating
room was booked for 8:30 p.m. based on my last meal. We literally found out three
hours before our son was born that we were for sure having him that day. It was
suspected that I had preeclampsia and the doctor wanted to deliver him then
because that condition has a tendency to escalate very quickly. It can be very
harmful to the mother and the baby.
I was prepped for surgery and taken to the OR, where I had
my C-section. Only one support person is
allowed in the OR, so my husband went with me.
The procedure went well, with no complications. Since I was
only 35-weeks, there was a team from the NICU in the operating room just in
case. They turned out not to be needed. The nurses wiped down our son and he
was placed on my chest. I will always remember this special moment. In fact, it
is making me teary-eyed as I write this. I said to my son, “Hi Nathan, I’m your
Mommy.” It felt so good to see my son. The first thing I noticed was how little
and cute he was. He was staring right at me and was very calm, all bundled up
in his swaddle blanket. All this time, my husband was snapping pictures with
his phone of our son and the anesthesiologist took the classic C-Section family
photo with the sheet in the background and us in our surgical gear.
First Family Photo
My husband left the room and followed the nurses with Nathan
to weigh him in the nursery. I was then sent to recovery. My husband remembers
one of the nurses saying, “I don’t think he’s going to make weight, he’s really
light.” The NICU nurses said, “What are you talking about? He looks big.” She
then said, “You’re used to all the really little babies.” Turns out he didn’t
make weight and had to go to the transition nursery to be evaluated. Nathan
John Basler was born at 9:22 p.m. on June 4,2018, weighing 4 lbs. 6
oz. and 17 inches long. He was five weeks early and considered premature. Aside
from some temperature issues and a little jaundice, Nathan was perfectly
healthy and was then brought into our hospital room shortly after I came back
from recovery.
During our five-day stay in the hospital for Nathan’s birth,
he was not eating as much as he should. The doctors at Kennesaw Pediatrics, our
pediatrician practice, saw Nathan every single day he was in the nursery. Our pediatrician
recommended that Nathan see a feeding therapist and hoped that he wouldn’t have
to go to the NICU for poor feeding.
We saw the feeding therapist in our hospital room and she
gave us some good pointers on helping him eat better. Premature babies aren’t
always the best at feeding since that is one of the last skills babies develop
in the womb. I had Nathan on a Monday, and Friday evening he was admitted to
the NICU for poor feeding. We were thankful we had those full four days with
our son in our hospital room and that he was a healthy baby boy, just needed to
learn how to eat properly.
Nathan, One day old
Having a child in the NICU is very hard, especially when you
have to go home but your baby does not. It was a very trying time for our
family. I cried at some point every single day. I just wanted our baby home. We
visited him every day. My husband would
wake up at 4 a.m. to go before work and I would go in the afternoon and stay
until long after my husband got off work and came back to the NICU to be with
Nathan. Everyone at the Northside Hospital NICU was wonderful. The doctors,
nurses and staff were all great to work with and very caring towards our son.
Northside is a tier three NICU, so it is one of the best there is. If our son
couldn’t come home with us, we were glad he was being taken care of at
Northside versus another hospital.
Nathan in the NICU
We were released from the NICU after 13 long days. We found
out that we were going home about three hours before we did. We knew it was a
possibility but didn’t think it would happen right then. Sound familiar?
We finally got to take our little boy home! The first night
was exhausting. The next day, we called my parents to come over and help a
little because we were so sleep deprived. Feeding him every three hours will
wear you out! My husband stayed home from work for a week after he came home to
be there and help care for our son.
Leaving the hospital with our boy!
Time went on and we got used to having him home. We took
newborn photos the first week he was home, at three weeks old. On Thursday,
June 28 our son had his brit milah or bris.
A bris is a Jewish tradition dating back thousands of years where a baby
boy is circumcised and receives his Hebrew name. Before I talk about Nathan’s
Hebrew name, I’ll talk about his English name. He is named after Nathan
Zlotnik, my dad’s father, who is a Holocaust survivor, and passed away at the
age of 90 when I was 10 years old. His middle name, John, is named after my
husband’s Great Uncle Johnny. He was like a second grandfather to my husband,
especially after his own grandfather passed. They would spend his childhood
summers at Uncle Johnny’s lake house in Tennessee on the water. I got to know
Uncle Johnny over the years and had the pleasure of visiting the lake house
too. About three years ago, Uncle Johnny passed away at the age of 90. We
decided to name our son after these family members who meant so much to us, but
also had other family members we wanted to honor that also were dear to our
hearts.
From Nathan’s newborn photo session.
This is where Nathan’s Hebrew name comes from. He was named
Nissim Allon. Nissim is after my grandfather Nelson Zavack, who is my mom’s
father. He passed away when I was about two years old, and I don’t really
remember him. He meant a lot to our family. Nissim means miracle and our boy is
such a little miracle.
He is also named Allon, after my husband’s grandfather on his
mother’s side, Allen Morrell. He passed away before my husband was born. My
in-laws named my husband after Allen Morrell and we decided to carry on that
tradition. Allon means oak tree and they are strong with deep roots. We really
think that describes our son perfectly. He is so strong for just a tiny little
guy and has so many family members who love him.
The bris was a wonderful ceremony. It was very hard to watch
my son be circumcised, but I got through it. The bris was very meaningful. I
like to think that I am bringing Jewish tradition back to my family because I
wanted to have the ceremony and plan to raise my son with Jewish teachings.
Nathan’s Bris
At his 2-month appointment, Nathan measured 9 pounds 11 ounces and his weight more than doubled since birth. He is eating well and thriving. I’m so grateful my son and I are healthy after the journey we had. I sure love being his mom.
Author’s Note: I wrote this story about my son back in August, 2018. Nathan is now 9-months-old and weighs 18 pounds! We’re planning his first birthday party for June and I can’t believe my baby is getting so big!
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