Monday, October 29, 2007

Maybe Earl is right about that Karma thing

Another good night last night-10:45 (my fault, I let her snooze in her rocker seat for about 45 minutes after wrestling Son to bed after Husband had to go into work...grrrr) to 6:00, and then back down by 7:00 until we had to leave for daycare at 8:30. She's still asleep in her carrier now that we're back from daycare and a relatively quick trip to the store. I should be doing laundry, but I just don't want to. As for the Karma, maybe I'm getting cut a break considering the tough time that we had with Son. Whatever the hook, I'm grateful for what I've got. Oh, and the other upside? I actually slept through myself adn didn't wake up all night either. Hooray!

I'm finding that this time around during my maternity leave I'm finding my self a bit bored-just the same routine day after day. I hate laundry, but there never seems to be an end. I worry a bit about how I'm going to be able to keep up with all of this when I go back (can you tell that I'm beginning to think about the return to real life a bit much?).

In order to try to combat this a bit, I've set a goal for my weight before I go back. If I hit it, I've set a budget for some serious clothes and shoe shopping. Maybe I've been watching a too much of "what not to wear", but I've also been digging through what I have, and I really haven't done much in the past couple of years. Not too surprising, since I've been pregnant, or recovering from being pregnant, with a different shape for the past almost three years. No more plastic shoes, and maybe find some stuff that fits. If I can hit my goal, I should be almost a size smaller (I'm right between sizes right now) and I'll be close to being able to actually wear some of the petite things, which I need on the top. My sleeves are always too long, and I look dorky as a result. It's not a huge goal, but it's something to keep my head occupied.

Enough stalling-time to go a sort some laundry and treat some lovely baby stains. Oh the joy...

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Could it be? (Part II)

Well, that night that I wrote my last post, she made it until almost 4:30..that's over six hours people!! Now, I've been so trained to be up anytime between 2:00 and 3:30 that I ended up waking up more than she did-but that too will pass (I hope, please dear God.)

While I know that she will still have ups and downs, last night was a complete shock for me. Down at 10:00 without nearly as much fussing, and she made it until...drumroll...6:00 am. And went back down at 7:00 for another couple of hours.

The down side to all of this nighttime bliss? Incredible screaming fits and general grumpiness starting at around 6:00, with a lot of feeding. She had me so drained last night after nursing four times in four hours that I had to resort to a couple of ounces of pumped breast milk that I had stashed in the refrigerator for just this purpose. Seemed to do the trick though.

I know that this may not be an ongoing trend, but she is doing so much better than Son was at this age. At this point with him, we were struggling to get him to sleep in his crib for more than an hour at a time (yes, at night), and not the big swing in his room. That one was a lot of fun. BabyA will tolerate the swing for only so long-usually around 15 minutes, max- and then pitches a fit until you retrieve her. She's fallen asleep in the big swing once, the portable one twice, and neither time for very long. Needless to say, not the surefire bet that it was for Son. But then again, nothing is really surefire with her, which has been really frustrating. She's proven to be really hard to figure out that way. Anyway, Husband has an employee who is due in April, and if she is still there by the time she has the baby, we may just donate both of the swings to her since I doubt if we will have any use for them by then. BabyA seems to like her crib in her room (thank God for black out curtain lining) or her bassinet in the pack-n-play in our bedroom (more blackout shades-it's like a cave during the day). I'm already worrying about how her going into daycare may screw up this good thing that we've got going, but if I can get her into good habits now, hopefully it won't be too much of an adjustment.

Well, for the time being, both of my children are taking naps (cue the happy dance...quietly!) and I'm going to try to enjoy a little down time before Husband gets home from working what we hope is his last weekend for a while. Next weekend we are trekking up to my parents so Husband can go deer hunting with my dad, so we'll see how the first time of traveling with two under the age of three will go. The past couple of months of weekends has been tough on all of us. Husband's sleep schedule is all screwed up, equally a cranky creature, Son has more meltdowns because he misses daddy, and I get the two of them on my own all day. I don't get that hour or so to sneak off to Target by myself, or to go outside and finish up the last of my garden work before it snows, since they have been rather adept at alternating who is up. Nice in that I usually can manage to only have to deal with one at a time, and I get some good time in with Son, but not so great in that I can't get anything really done or just get some down time to do something fun for me. I feel guilty about doing that, since there always seems to be something else that should be done-laundry, dishes, cleaning up after Son, trying to get things organized, etc. It just can be wearing, and on top of being short on the sleep side since I was about 28 weeks pregnant, it's been a while since I've been able to just recharge. It may just be a part of my reality now, but I'd like to be able to at least try.

Sorry so scattered-just a lot of things moving through my head. Husband just called and is on his way home, so looks like I won't get my magazine time after all. Oh well. Oh, and the dual naps? Yep, that's history too. See, I knew it would come back to bite me!

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Could it be?

Just to document-ignore unless you were unfortunate enough to have to read about my tormented nights with Son when he was this age.

BabyA turned six weeks today. She was beat around 10:00, after a bath and much squawking, and a good feed. I stood and rocked her for a good 15 minutes, and while she was falling asleep, it wasn't very settled. I put her down, and let her fuss and talk to herself. She never escalated to full-blown crying, which would have prompted me to start the whole soothing thing over again (Yes, I am a Dr. Weisbluth disciple-but not a CIO fan). She talked and fussed for about 10 minutes, and has uttered nary a peep for the past 20, so I think that I can safely go up to bed.

Makes me want to kick myself for not doing this with Son this early. I probably could have saved myself a lot of lost sleep. I know that I'm not out of the woods yet, but boy, what a difference one child and two years makes.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Coming up for air

So sorry to leave things hanging-the last post was from the hospital, and things got a bit interesting from there.

BabyA did end up flirting with full-blown jaundice. Her bilirubin levels were up in the 90th percentile, so we ended up having to run to the hospital for three days after we were discharged for blood work. She was so sleepy that she wasn't feeding well, so the formula routine was pushed on us pretty hard. Part of it was justified-she would get so tired from trying to nurse that she couldn't do it for very long, which in turn slowed down my milk coming in and getting my supply established, and so on. She really didn't seem to like the formula too much-she ended up spitting more of it up than actually keeping it down. I decided that I would just have to set an alarm and make sure that she was eating every three hours, at a minimum.


The first week was tough-she was hungry at night, but wouldn't/couldn't nurse, would sleep for an hour, max, and then be up again. Not a whole lot of fun. Her bilirubin levels finally leveled out, so no more trips to the hospital lab, which was a relief. At her two week check, she was down from her birthweight of 8lb 12 oz to 8lb 4oz, which was pretty crushing to me-I had been doing everything that I could to get food into her, and it just didn't seem to be working. Again, the pediatrician pushed formula (grrrr) but also asked a good question about how I was doing nutritionally and with fluids.

That caused me to have one of those moments where "doh!" is the only sufficient way to describe it. I hadn't been eating much-I simply wasn't that hungry, and was having a GD hangover of sorts-luxuriating in not having to worry about when and what I was eating. Fluids were another issue as well. I'm not a big drinker as it is, and at the time everything down there still hurt, so I think that I was subconsciously trying to limit what I had to do. Anyway, I addressed both of those issues post haste. Seriously, within 36 hours after I started pushing water, I could feel my supply increasing, and it didn't hurt that BabyA was finally waking up and taking an interest in food. She started sleeping a little better (still not stellar, but better than the 30-90 minute increments that we had been getting). A week later we went back for a weight check (no actual appointment unless things weren't going well), and she was back up to over her birth weight by two ounces. Hooray! She's still not the Hoover of a nurser that Son was, but she is still filling out and looks much more like an infant now than the pinched, old lady looking newborn that she was for the first couple of weeks. I got a bit of reinforcement of my perception when my parents, who hadn't seen her for a couple of weeks, noticed right away how much better she looked.

Overall, recovery has been a lot easier this time around than with Son. Part of it was that this delivery was a lot easier. No baby that didn't turn the way that he was supposed to, no vacuum, no monster episiotomy. I still had a cut, but it was much smaller-well, at least that is what Husband told me, and my bladder wasn't half as beat up as last time. I'll detail more later when I actually write a proper birth story, but put it this way-after having the wonderful, competent nurse that we had this time, I realize how poor my care was with Son. I had a catheter as soon as I got my epidural, and gee, no huge, full bladder to get in the way of actually delivering the child. With Son, the freaked out nurse didn't do that (although BabyA's nurse acted like that was the standard of care) and part of Son's problem was that his enormous noggin was getting stuck with my over-full bladder. But I digress.

I was back into my pre-pregnancy clothes at around two and a half weeks. I still am dealing with the saggy middle, but I honestly think that it will resolve itself with a sane regimen of crunches. Since I didn't gain any weight, I'm still below where I was before I got pregnant. At three weeks, I was a little over 20 lbs lighter than before I got pregnant. I just need to get back into the swing of eating like I did while I was pregnant-it really made a difference. I don't want to go back to where I was. I'm almost at the point of getting rid of all of my clothes that would allow me some comfort if I backslide. I don't know if I'm that brave yet, but I need to keep it in mind. My closet can't handle to sets of sizes anyway, so I can give myself a kick in the butt for the sake of space in my dinky closet.

I could just keep on adding things as I have been for the past couple of days, but I should cut it off here. One up side is that we had a stretch last night from 10:15 to 4:30...for the second night in a row. No happy dance yet...don't want to jinx it...please.....