One Month Old!

It's hard to believe it's been one month already! He just had his one month appointment and he's up to 9lbs 9.5oz. He gained an ounce a day for two weeks. Yay! No more weight checks at this point! Thank goodness, because he's been eating like a horse. If he hadn't gained, I would have been really frustrated. We no longer have to wake him to eat, just feed on demand. He's starting to discover the world around him which is really fun. Things that he could have cared less about last week are now the most fun ever. My in-laws are visiting for 3 weeks, which has been nice. I've been able to get things done (like fill out all those recall postcards) and even cook dinner. My MIL can get him to nap like a champ.
The Sore Boob Saga continues. Last night I seriously think I was going delirious from the pain. Basically, shooting pains on both sides (nothing localized, just all over), warm to the touch, a freakin' crevasse in one nipple. I called the lactation consultant who told me she thinks it's a yeast infection, even though he's not showing any symptoms in his mouth. She told me to call my OB to see if they could call in a prescription for an oral antibiotic. I did and the nurse called me back. She asked me a bit more information then relayed it to my OB. She called me again and said that she wasn't going to call in the prescription because he wasn't showing any signs. Cue me crying my eyes out. She thinks it's irritation from the breast pads (which I agree is probably part of the problem) and I should try to go without them whenever I can. Uh, I don't particularly want to walk around soaked with breast milk. The LC told me I should sleep topless. What? My boobs will not cooperate with that. Plus, it's cold. When I got to Adam's pediatrician appointment, she asked me how things were going and I told her the situation. She said that yeast infections can be only in the mother or only in the baby, they don't have to be in both (which is what I read), and she was able to prescribe me some ointment. Fingers crossed this helps! We also need to continue to work on his latch. Basically, I'm lazy and need to be more diligent. I'm so sick of thinking about my boobs all the time. They're taking up too much time in my life right now.

3 weeks!

It's amazing how much longer it feels than 3 weeks. Thanks everyone for their comments on the blog or via email regarding my last post. He gained 3oz at his appointment on Tuesday (now up to 8lb 11oz) and they said they like to see .5-1oz per day, so at .75oz per day we were right in there. We don't need to go back now until his one month appointment on the 9th. We definitely have our good days and bad days. It's funny because he was good at latching on the left for awhile, but that seems to have switched to the right and now that's his better side. Babies don't make much sense!

It's amazing to see his development and changes on a daily basis. He is still sleeping like a champ and is happiest in the morning. His worst time of the day is the evenings, but last night he was actually fairly settled, so that surprised us! Someone gave us a mirror that hangs in the crib. I took it out of the box to show it to him earlier this week and his reaction was less than impressed. Now he can't get enough of it. He also really likes the playmat I set up for him the other day. He's more awake now when he feeds and he tries to flip all around (all while holding my nipple in his mouth, ouch!). We need to go to the drugstore this afternoon and we're going to attempt the carrier and head over to a farmer's market that's going on nearby.

PS - I'll be glad when this blog isn't just about babies again. Unfortunately, I don't really have anything else going on in my life right now! I am ridiculously excited to go to the farmer's market this afternoon, that's how lame it is around here.

Breastfeeding woes

I'm sure you've seen other posts with the same title. Actually, maybe you haven't. It seems lots of mothers don't like to admit that breastfeeding is really. freaking. hard. until you yourself admit to THEM that it's hard. There certainly is a stigma attached to admitting this. Well, it's hard and painful. Oh my god is it painful. My friend pointed out that it makes no evolutionary sense for it to be so painful as that's the main reason most woman throw in the towel and shouldn't they WANT to keep feeding their child?? I can completely understand why people stop. I don't get excited when it's time to feed him again, I don't feel a nice bond while we do it. I do it because my body is producing the milk to give to him.

Adam will be 3 weeks old on Thursday and it feels like we've been battling this for months. He latched on beautifully as soon as he was born, but his interest in latching waned while we were in the hospital. He was losing weight, which is normal, but since he wasn't really interested in nursing the colostrum-which meant a very frustrated baby and mother-we ended up finger feeding him formula. Starting on the Wednesday after he was born, he has only received breastmilk, either by nursing or by expressing it and finger feeding him. Getting him to latch on was still extremely painful and I was in tears most of the time. I had a huge crack slicing across one of my nip.ples and the other side wasn't much better. I went to see a lactation consultant and she was great. Of course he latched on like a pro and probably had the best feed of his life. When she was instructing me on how to fix things she said, 'Use one hand to do this, one hand to do that, and one hand to do this.' See...you need to have three hands to nurse your child! Even with my lacking a third hand I was able to get to a point where it actually doesn't hurt when he latches on. However, they hurt pretty much all the rest of the time. The let-down hurts, they're heavy, engorged, and everything is sensitive. It feels like little needles are poking all around. I'm afraid I've been lazy with his latch and now we're backtracking a bit. I got a nice electric pump, so I'm hoping that will help to give me a break periodically and allow things to settle down. I'm also looking forward to my husband being able to give him bottles and bond with him a bit more. He's really wonderful and helpful to me when I'm nursing, but I know he wishes he could do more and seeing me in tears leaves him feeling a bit helpless.

By Adam's first pediatrician appointment he was back up to 8.4lbs from a low of 7.7lbs in the hospital. By two weeks he was back to his birthweight of 8.8lbs and he's been primarily nursing. We only used formula once and that was because everything hurt so bad I couldn't even express. Apparently, this still isn't good enough and the doctor would have like to see more of a gain from him (although she did admit a gain is better than a loss!). After days of him eating every hour and lots of pain, this is really frustrating. We're back for another weight check tomorrow. He's been eating like crazy, but I'm not going to get my hopes up.

I've been told it gets better and at this point I'm setting mini-goals for myself with the thought that it WILL get better. I'm taking it all on a week by week basis!

Adam!

Sorry for the silence, but I imagine everyone can figure out why I haven't been able to update! Adam was born on Thursday, September 6th at 4am via c section. He was 8lbs 8oz and 22in long! The weight didn't surprise us (well, it surprised us that it wasn't more), but his length sure did! He definitely gets that from his dad!

My water broke at home at 8am on Wednesday morning. Since it wasn't a big gush and I wasn't sure if that's what really happened or not, I sent my husband off to work and told him I would evaluate the situation. I called my doctor and she told me to head up to L&D to have them check it out. There was no doubt that's what happened, so we were admitted around 11:30am. I was 4-5 cm and 50% effaced. I wasn't having any contractions (at least that I could feel), so they put me on pitocin, which didn't thrill me, but I didn't really have much choice since my body didn't seem to be interested in doing it on its own. They had to keep ramping it up as the contractions still weren't that strong, so by 4:30pm I was ready for an epidural. Eventually they put in a monitor to see how strong the contractions were. I guess they should have been around 180 (180 what? I don't know), but mine, even with high doses of pitocin were only between 140 and 160. Around 11pm I was checked and I was 8cm, 100% effaced, and the baby was only at 0 station (it needed to be at -2). My doctor came back to check me again at 3am and there was no progress. At that point, since my water had been broken for so long, they opted for a c section. I was totally okay with this and I was just glad that I didn't have to try pushing for 2 hours before that decision was made. The baby wasn't in distress, but seemed to be a little too cozy in there! He was born at 4am on the dot and he was perfect!

 

He has the longest toes of all time. Again, just like his dad! 

Using the shushing technique to calm him down. It actually works, even if he's not so sure about it!

 

One week old! Hanging out with his buddies in the pack and play. 

He likes to stare at the imagines around the edge.

Due Date!

Okay, baby, here it is...your due date. TIME TO COME OUT!!!!! Mommy wants to walk/sit/sleep without pain, wear non-maternity clothes, eat an italian sub, drink more than a sip of daddy's beer, and most of all...meet you!!!

At my last appointment I was almost 2cm dilated and still 50% effaced. If I don't go before my next appointment on Tuesday she'll do a sweep and if that doesn't get things going, we'll induce on Wednesday. When she told me that last Monday I was kind of hesitant to induce, but now I just want to get this show on the road!

Still here, so time to catch up!

Sorry for the silence, I'm still here! In all my 39 week glory! I was going to do the little survey thing, but over the past few weeks nothing has really changed, except the size of my belly!

For your viewing pleasure:

37  weeks

38 weeks

39 weeks

Jaysus...I look tired in that last shot! I promise that I'm actually not as exhausted as I look, even if I am up 4-5 times at night to pee and switch sides. And you may notice that I finally cleaned the mirror! It's a miracle! Today I even decided to take a picture of my bare belly. That will NOT be on the blog, even though I don't think it looks too bad. The last time a picture was taken of my bare abdomen was when I was three years old and rocking the halter tops.
As of Monday I hadn't progressed any more from 35 weeks. Well, instead of being 'a fingertip' I was 'a tight one'. This baby seems to be in it to win it! I told it last night it if it came out it would have a lot more room to flail around, but no luck. My Braxton Hicks had seemed to peter off, but now they're back, so even if my body isn't going to do the real thing for awhile I appreciate that it's practicing!We've finished our classes and somehow I still feel totally unprepared. Today was my last official day of work. Hour long afternoon naps seem to be on the agenda every day. I'm not complaining about that! I've done some cleaning that was way over due. I don't really consider it nesting, more like procrastinating.
I've been very, very blessed with an easy pregnancy. I truly don't mind being pregnant, there are actually a lot of things I enjoy about it, but I'm starting to get to the point where I'll be happy to have my own body back - in whatever postpartum form that may be. And of course we're anxious to meet the baby!

36 weeks! Oops!

Ack! I didn't realize it's been 3 weeks since I last blogged! I have two excuses, even if they're not very good. 1.) I was tired. Seriously. The last thing I would want to do when I got home from work was get off the couch. and 2.) I was sick of trying to get a good picture with the camera. It was very frustrating. Good news - we got our new camera this weekend! Yahoo! It's basically the upgraded version of the one I bought before I moved to the UK in 2006 (and then dropped at the 2010 Dublin marathon). So, I'm familiar with the settings and it's pretty much just awesome. I took the picture this week on the auto setting. With the old camera, this would have been impossible to achieve.

• How far along? 36 weeks and feeling every bit of it.
• Total weight gain: About 23 lbs. I'm going to the doctor every week now. Last week I had no gain, so things are slowing down in that department. 
• Maternity clothes? Yes, although I can still wear some non-maternity tops, yoga pants, pajamas, and dresses. 
• Stretch marks? Just below my belly button and a couple on my each hip. Nothing too major though. 
• Sleep: Not great. I'm sick of waking up so I can flip over. 
• Best moment this week: I hung some pictures up in the nursery and pretty much everything is washed and put away. The only major thing left to do is install the car seat and pack the bag. 
• Miss Anything? Wearing non-maternity clothes.
• Movement: All the time. I've noticed a difference though, just from the end of last week. The movements are there, but not as roly poly. It's definitely running out of room. 
• Food cravings: Still craving cold, orange things. Oh, and not sure if it's considered a craving, but I'm thirsty all the time.
• Food aversions: Nothing really and in fact, some of the earlier things I wasn't interested in eating (like sausage), I'm starting to become interested in again!
• Gender: No idea. 
• Labor Signs: Nothing obvious. I told Wes that today I felt the way I would feel about a week before my period would start. Kind of crampy, but nothing too painful (i.e. if it were my period I could go without taking ibuprofen) or localized. Regardless, it's a sensation I haven't felt in 9 months! He asked what that meant. I said I have no idea, but probably nothing at this point.
• Symptoms: My stupid swollen feet and legs. The other night my legs were crossed down by my ankles and when I uncrossed them there was a huge divot. Wes said it looked like I had a shark bite. Awesome.
• Belly Button in or out? Well, you'll see in the picture that the top of the belly button will occasionally pop out. It's weird. 
• Wedding rings on or off? Off. :-( 
• Looking forward to: Being full term on Friday!

I'm going to the doctor every week now. At my 35 week appointment she said I was a fingertip dilated and 50% effaced. That pretty much equals 0. I think she was trying to make me feel better, but at 35 weeks (and with Wes away for business until that evening), I wasn't interested in delivering the baby anytime soon. If I get the same results at 39 weeks, well, that will be a different story! Last week she didn't check me internally, but all was well.I had a breastfeeding class the other week. It was interesting, but it's not really something you can learn until you're actually doing it. We started our childbirth classes last week. I'm pretty sure I'm the oldest person in there and we're definitely the first ones due in the class. The next closest couple is 10 September. One couple isn't due until the end of October! This week we'll take the tour of the unit, which we're both looking forward to. 
Right-o...it's 9:45, so I'm off to bed. Maybe overnight my nesting instinct will kick in?? The vacuum has been brought down and now I need the motivation to use it. Oh! I just remembered. My shower was a couple of weeks ago! It was a really nice day, hosted by my sister and mom. We got lots of excellent stuff. I didn't have a camera, but my sister took some pictures and once she sends them to me, I'll post them!