A Newborn Series: Sound

No matter where I am or what I am doing, the sound of a newborn's cry stirs up an instinctual awareness inside of me that is unique and unlike any other stimulus. As the surgeons in the past operated on me in the OR I felt no pain but discomfort as clamps were used to pull layers apart. I felt no pain as the weight of my babies was tugged and pulled from me, just a strong pressure and then a release. And that is when it came: the sound of my newborn babies crying.

I look forward to the initial cry of my third daughter. I know I will start crying at the sound of her voice.

Sound is strong. It unites a common thread among us humans, no matter the language.

During my short time as a blogger I have come across two bloggers who speak a language that truly  touches the depth of my heart. Abby of Abby Off the Record and Angie of Angie Mizzell have a way with words that makes it seem as if I am hearing them speak when I read their blogs.

So it is an honor today to have both of them here, together, as guests on my blog!

A Newborn Sound

Hi, Zook Book Nook readers! We’re Abby from AbbyOfftheRecord.com and Angie from AngieMizzell.com. We’re both writers and bloggers living 600 miles apart, and we bonded when we realized we were both living what seemed like parallel lives, raising two little boys. While Kim is off welcoming her new daughter into the world, we’re here to share our thoughts on…

The first sound my baby made…

Abby: You know how in almost every birth scene in almost every movie or TV show, the pregnant woman suddenly goes into labor, grunts and pushes a couple times, and out comes the baby before the next commercial break? And after that, the doctor always announces, “It’s a girl!” or “It’s a boy!” and on cue, the baby lets out a wail. Well, that didn’t happen to me.

What happened was, after way too many hours of labor and way too many medical personnel in my (very) personal space, my baby was born and I heard…nothing. The doctor whisked the baby away to get cleaned up, leaving us calling after him, “Um, hello? What did we have?”

“Oh,” said the doctor, startled. “It’s a boy. See?” And he held out the evidence to prove it. I don’t even remember the baby crying. I felt robbed of my Hollywood baby moment! Oh, well, he more than made up for it later. 

 

Angie:

With both my boys, I was sufficiently numb (I’m pro epidural). I pushed for two hours with my first; the second popped out in five minutes. In both cases, I didn’t hear anything at first, either! I can only remember hearing everyone else making noise as the babies came out: the doctor, my husband, the nurse. With my first, I remember making eye contact and crying. With my second, I laughed and kept saying “Hi there! Hi, little guy!” But he wasn’t little at all. He was huge! 

The funniest sound my baby made…

Abby: Everyone knows babies are supposed to coo. Everyone, apparently, except my baby. When my firstborn was very young, we took him to a museum with his grandparents. All throughout the exhibits, the baby kept letting out these growls and shouts that literally made people jump. I think he liked the way his voice echoed throughout the marble galleries. Everyone laughed when they saw the tiny source of all that racket. Even so, we were mortified.

Angie: It’s very alarming the first time you hear a newborn, um, take care of business. That’s all I’m going to say about that. 

The scariest sound my baby made…

Abby: I wish someone had warned me about all those choking, gurgling noises newborns make. Those first few nights home from the hospital, I kept bolting upright in bed, flipping on the light and lunging for that bulb-suction thingy, convinced the baby was choking. I’m sure this gave my husband more than a few heart attacks. 

Angie: Amen to that! But it wasn’t as scary with my second. I believe it was because he was a bigger baby and didn’t have reflux like my first. At night, when he slept, so did I. Which makes for a much saner Mommy.

The thing I didn’t realize was…

Abby: Babies are pretty noisy, even when they’re not crying. From the diaper explosions, as Angie pointed out, to all the gurgling and slurping and lip-smacking, they make lots of sounds! At some point, I decided that having the baby sleep in another room and turning the monitor to “voice-activated” only made for a much more restful night’s sleep for both of us.

Angie: Just because the baby is calm and easygoing (and very quiet) during the first two weeks doesn’t mean he or she will stay that way. This does not mean “he’s a good baby,” as all my relatives kept saying. It means the baby is still exhausted from birth! Just wait until they transition from “just emerged from the womb” to “Hello, world! Do you hear me?”

I also didn’t realize how the sound of my baby breathing on me when he was asleep on my shoulder would melt me into a puddle of goo. It’s the sweetest sound in the world.