So Long, Umbilical
When Magdalena was born, the doctor beat me to the announcement that she was a girl, but I did manage to stop them from clamping her cord until it stopped pulsating. I then got to cut the cord. It was weird. In all the baby videos you see this thick, ropy thing and that's what I expected. Actually, by the time they hold it to you for cutting, the clamped cord section is empty of blood (I assume they do that to minimize the mess and parental freak-outs) and looks like some sort of semi-transparent, off-white latex hose. Cutting it felt that way, too and it took me a couple of tries to cut through (and brought back memories of a jelly-fish salad I once prepared for a Korean dinner).
The (empty) umbilical is totally alien. It's most striking where it attaches to the baby's belly button. It's like at the beginning in the Matrix (the first movie -- the one that didn't suck), where people are hooked up to all those hoses. The transition from the inanimate, plastic looking cord to the baby's soft, live skin looks very artificial.
Once they trim the cord, they apply some sort of purple drying agent to help it fall off more quickly and without getting infected. Over the next week or so the umbilical stump has to be cleaned regularly and kept dry while it shrivels down, and eventually falls off.
We did a good job of regularly swabbing it with alcohol and thus didn't get any bad smells -- at least not from that area. It's been hanging by a thread for the last couple of days and we successfully resisted any temptation to pick it.
Well, last night, Magdalena dropped her umbilical stump. I'm glad Jennifer warned me about it, otherwise I might have mistaken it for a roach or something while changing her in the middle of the night. This will make diapers changing easier and she'll get to have a proper bath in a couple of days when everything is nicely healed.
I don't think we'll be saving it (it's pretty grody) and Jennifer won't let me give it Homer to play with. So I guess it's going in the trash...
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Geez, Stepan--I just ate! I guess I should be careful about what I eat before visiting your blog site--you'll probably start describing the delivery of the placenta next or give excessive details about spit-up or baby poop.
Little Magda is growing up! Bye-bye, umbilical!
I kept Jonathan's umbilical cord for a while in a Ziploc bag in his closet. Finally I threw it away after 2 or 3 years. I thought it was kind of gross that I kept it at all--but it did take me a long time to let go of it. Have fun with the baths! You might want to put a towel down if you use that infant bath thing that I gave you; we didn't do that with Jonathan, which is probably part of the reason he didn't care for it much. Kayleigh is currently getting bathed in my bathroom sink (with a towel lining it), but she's so big now that there's not much room in the sink for water once she's in it, so I'll be getting in the big bathtub with her soon. She's starting to play with the water now and splashed water all over the mirror Monday night. We should get her and Magda together for a bath in a few months' time!