Nearly 20 Months, Happy 2014!

Oh goodness... where to begin??  I'm still delivering mail, and in a couple of weeks is my 1-year anniversary of that.  Next week, I have a mandatory "vacation" at the end of my contract, which I'm looking forward to!  I'm anxious to go somewhere and do something fun but I'll probably end up talking myself out of it.  B's been through a few jobs, some were better than others, and is on the search again.  We need some happy thoughts for that, I'm sick of the layoffs and my job can't support us alone.

How to describe how much Amelia has grown since her birthday?  She hasn't had a doctor visit in a while, but she's at least 33lbs and 35in tall, so still off the charts.  I'm not worried about that because she's still proportional to herself, and not fat by any means, just proves that the charts don't take Amazonian girls into account.  ;)  In July we had a visit from one of my best friends and her son, who's a year older than her, and they had a blast!  Seeing him run around and play gave her the confidence to try walking, so she was up on her feet at 14 months.  She had some chubby baby legs, but she walked it all off!  She had a few words at the time, but stopped using them entirely for a while.  She was busy concentrating on movement or something, words were on the back burner.  But, she did get several signs down, so we don't have much trouble with communication.  In the last few months her vocabulary has snowballed.  Every day she has a new word/phrase/imitation, so it's a lot of fun to watch her figure it out.  Her latest favorite activity is to point at things around the room so I can name them.  Sometimes she tries out the word, but not always.  Sometimes I think she's just teasing. ;)  In September she started in Rural Head Start, so we get a weekly in-home visit, toys and books to borrow, activities, and socials/play dates.  It's fantastic and I'm so glad we looked into it!

For Halloween she was a bumblebee-llerina!  The bumblebee costume was a hand-me-down, but I couldn't resist the tutu!  We went to the city Halloween party at the Mueller Civic Center and she had quite a time running around.  She kinda got the hang of the bean bag toss (not throwing of course, but knew where the bean bags were supposed to go lol) but the other games were beyond her.  B and I carved pumpkins for the first time (how did neither of us ever carve a pumpkin before?) and sat Amy in the tub with some finger paints for hers. She had fun, and I only got a little bit of paint on me.  The holidays were uneventful, quiet dinners with my parents.  That's fine... we were all too exhausted to make a big deal of of it.  November-December as a mail carrier is insane!  November is tons upon tons of catalogs, every single day, and of course December is packages.  I had some vacations to cover, which was good because B was laid off then too, but it really wore me out.  It's been nice the last month or so to get a bit of a break and have some easier days finally.

She loves to play Grandma's piano, sing along with B and his guitar, play her own plastic guitar, play the little recorder we got her, of course mess with the computers, and dance.  Of course, dancing at this point just means stomping really fast and sometimes going in a circle, or bending side to side, but she's getting there. She hums Where Is Thumbkin all the time and is starting to get the hang of the hand game.  Last fall Mom and I took her to swim classes at the Y in Rapid City and it was a blast!  I should sign her up for another session, but we had to miss a lot of classes last time so it's hard to justify.  My work schedule just didn't cooperate very well so we got to less than half of them.  But, she loved it, and we still sing the songs and play the splash games in the bath so when we do go back she'll get right back into it.  I want to take her swimming, but it's expensive in town... hopefully B's job situation will improve and we can do some of that stuff again.

She loves to talk on the phone (even if it's not a phone... all things are a phone apparently) and gives lots of kisses, can call lots of things by their names if not pronounced quite right yet, loves to color and is starting to get the hang of more than just straight scribbles, can say a few names and generally ask for what she wants, and is pretty good at getting to sleep if we catch her in the right mood.  Naps are still hard sometimes.  She still needs one long one of about 3 hours per day, but some days she'll only sleep for half of that and the rest of the day is shot.  She rarely sleeps twice a day, but we lay her down in her room for some quiet time twice a day anyway.  When she wants to tell or ask you something, it's hilarious how focused and serious she is about it.  She comes up, looks you straight in the eye, and says what she wanted to say very carefully, and repeats it if you don't respond correctly... hopefully soon we'll have some real words in those sentences so I know what the heck she's talking about!  Still going strong with the cloth diapers, and I'm glad we are.  It's saved us a lot of money and we've needed every penny.  We're doing okay, just taking it all one day at a time.  At least everyone has been healthy and we haven't had any major problems for a while.  (knock on wood...)

Happy Birthday pretty girl!

Okay, so my bites healed up fine, I have some fun scars, whatever.  It's done.  I'm just sick of people saying "oh she's never bitten anyone before, you're fine"... yeah, no I'm not.  Neither had the one that bit me.  UGH.  Anyway.

The last couple of months I've worked a lot of full-time (and full-time plus a day) weeks, so things have been a little crazy, but we did manage to throw Amy a little birthday party at Storybook Island!  We got a little cake with matching cupcakes from Sam's so she had one to smash, and the rest of us packed a little picnic and ate at a picnic table just outside of Storybook Island.  She got some really fun stuff and we went into the park for a while.  She was tired and kinda grumpy all day, but we had fun anyway.  :)

Stats time!  She's a big girl!  Her 1yr appointment was just last week and she hasn't had the vaccines yet because the clinic was out of them, but I should be able to get her in for those this week.

Height: 31 inches (95% for her age)
Weight: 27lb 13.5oz (100%-ish for her age)
Head: 19.5 inches (75% or something, didn't really look at that)

She didn't really like the cake, but she liked
the whipped cream frosting.

She's the biggest of her birth group, which is saying something.  We have some big boys in there.  The doctor isn't concerned about her weight since she isn't walking yet, he's sure she'll slim down a little once she's running around everywhere and it's not like she's a Jabba-lump or anything.  She's kinda trying, but isn't very confident in herself about it yet.  She'll let go and take a step or 2 if she's concentrating on something else, but as soon as she realizes she's not holding on to something she plops down.  She'll get there soon enough, I'm not in a hurry for that.

She LOVES to swing.  She's working on fitting small things into bigger things, signing "all done" and "milk" (possibly more, but it's hard to tell what's a sign and what's just flailing lol), waving, getting in and out of her little car, identifying objects that I ask for, lots of sharing, and lots of destruction when she gets ahold of a magazine.  She jabbers a lot but no real words yet that I've heard.  Grandma says she can say "kitty" but she hasn't said it for me.  However, she does "mow-mow" back at the kitties when they're wandering around the house hollering, which is rather hilarious.  I need to get a video of it but whenever she sees the camera she stops what she's doing and grabs for it.

She loves to smile for the camera, but the flash
always messes it up somehow...

Overall, we're doing well.  I've gotten enough hours this summer that we're working on taking care of bills that we've needed help with in the past and B just got a new job that he likes a lot better than construction.  It's a lot easier on him and the predictable schedule is a lot easier on the rest of us.  On days when we both work, he gets Amy time in the morning, then drops her off with Grandma when he goes to work at 2, then I get home around 5 and we have a relaxed dinner with just us 2, then get her to bed and get my own time (to do stuff like blog!) before he gets home and we get some time together.  It's working out really well.  We do need to figure out health insurance, since our income just bumped us out of Medicaid for Amelia... so that will be interesting... and it's still a bit of a struggle to get the bills taken care of but at least we're doing that on our own now instead of depending on so much help from my parents and the state.  It feels like things are finally coming together a little bit, but I won't let down my guard just yet.

My garden is making a little slow progress, which is good considering how much I've been gone this summer, but there's a lot I want to get done still.  I don't think that list will ever get shorter. :P  Hopefully soon we'll get the front room built so I can get some bushes/ornamental grasses in the ground before fall so we have a head start on next year.  There are some planks of my cork flooring that need to be replaced and the baseboards need to be put in and the floors sealed so more flooring doesn't get ruined by moisture, and at some point the bedroom here and the 2 smaller ones at my parents' house are getting new carpet!  I'm so excited about that, the carpet in my bedroom still smells like unsupervised cats sometimes.  Not fresh, so I know it's not my cats, just leftover from before.  It used to be the least smelly room in the house, now it's the worst... but it won't be that way for much longer.  Long to-do list... and I'm trying to keep exercising on days I don't work, which is hard to do but I just need to keep at it.

Happy birthday pretty girl!  I hope this year is as amazing as the last one was.  I love watching you grow into your own little personality.

Mailman cliche comes to life...

This week and next I'm working every day to cover annual leave for both city mail carriers.  I was kinda excited about this, since that means overtime and a VERY nice couple of paychecks :)  Unfortunately, yesterday when I was delivering mail on a walking loop, I got bitten by a dog.  A German Shepherd, owned by parents of a high school friend.  :(  I couldn't see anything coming up to the mailbox because of their hedges, and as soon as I closed their mailbox I heard the dog barking and running up behind me.  The owner was there, and apparently the dog had come from inside the house to come after me, but he wasn't fast enough and the dog bit me twice before the owner could get there.  It was only about 4 seconds total, I didn't have a chance to get to my dog spray and my satchel was on the other hip.  Can't protect both.  The owner locked the dog up and took me inside, where we cleaned it up a little bit and bandaged it.  It took me 40 minutes to get ahold of my boss because she was on a conference call, so I finished that section of the route between call attempts and waited at the church for her to get there.

It was an ordeal.  The carrier that's on vacation had to come in and finish the route because we had to go to the ER and there was still half of the route to finish.  My boss called the police to the house and Animal Control went there and came to the ER to get a statement from me about what happened.  This picture was taken in the ER, before it got flushed out and before the bruises started really coming out.  It doesn't hurt too much, but the other bite on my butt does.  Mostly because of the placement I think; it hurts to sit and walk.  I had to get a tetanus shot (not rabies, thankfully) and the dog was put down this morning.  I feel bad for them, but what else was there to do?  If it happened to me, it could easily happen to anyone else just taking a walk and it could've been far more serious.  That wasn't the first run-in with that dog either, the regular carrier had to run from it twice before.  Sigh.  At least I don't have to worry about the bill because it's worker's comp.  I went back to work today, but had to get a lot of help to get done in time.  Tomorrow will be similar, until I quit hurting enough to get my speed back up. 

Amy had a really good day at Grandma's yesterday, but when I got home she started crying. :(  Only reason I can think of is that she knew I wasn't feeling good and that made her upset.  Her stomach was badly upset for the rest of the night too... not sure what was going on there.  Hopefully we're past it now and we can all get some sleep tonight without the projectile vomiting.  Poor girl :(

The bruises really started filling out last night.  We didn't get pictures of it, but I did take some tonight and they're starting to look better.  Yes, this is better than last night... The tetanus shot hurts worse, which is odd but true.  The bites themselves hurt when they happened, but since then the one on my side doesn't bother me much, despite how ugly it is.  I'm taking antibiotics for 5 days because dog bites get infected so easily and of course in combination with the tetanus shot they're making me a bit woozy.  I can't focus on things as well as I need to for work, but I started to feel better once I was out on the route and I hit a decent stride that was similar to when I was just learning the route.  I needed a lot of help to get back in time, which of course makes me feel bad, but I'd do the same if it was one of the other carriers that was hurt so it'll all work out.  I just hope tomorrow goes better so I don't have to depend so much on everyone else who already has their own job to do.

I don't really know what to do now.  I suppose I'll just let it heal and see how it goes, keep track of the progress and watch for changes, hope it doesn't get infected, and get back to work.  I'm getting a lot of pressure to sue their homeowner's insurance... not sure what I want to do.  On the one hand, it's pretty awful and we could definitely use the money to take care of some bills.  On the other, they're wonderful people and I don't want to hurt them, even if it's just a rate bump on their insurance.  I hate that this happened.  There's nothing good or funny about it, even though the dog-mailman bit has been a joke for years.  

B's job has been almost nonexistent basically since I started working so I really need to keep plugging away at my job.  Hopefully things will get better there, but if they don't soon... VERY soon, we're at a breaking point... he'll have to find a different job.  Guess I sound like I'm feeling pretty crappy tonight.  Well, I am.  However, it's time to wind down for the night and try to get some rest.  Updates tomorrow after my follow-up at my regular clinic.

10 months, adventures in sleep training

My big girl weighs 25lbs now!  She's now very good at crawling and pulling herself up on things.  She's not quite cruising yet but we'll be there shortly, probably this week.  She's wearing 18mo clothes mostly, some stuff 24mo so she won't grow out of it so fast.  She has 3 teeth now, one on the bottom and 2 on top, with 2 more lumps.  Getting those 2 teeth in was really rough and the other 2 have been going up and down, so none of us were getting any sleep because she was so miserable.  It seems to have calmed down a little bit, but she got very used to waking up almost hourly for cuddles and a drink so we were all up all night, every night.  I decided it was time to do some sleep training.  If we were all sleep deprived, including Amy, the days were getting worse and worse with everyone running on fumes.  I had read The Sleep Lady's Good Night Sleep Tight book, but wasn't sure where to start until I got to the chapter on cosleeping. It was nice to have her right there when we were still nursing at night, but my milk is pretty much dried up and she's old enough to not need to eat much (if anything) at night anymore.  It's hard to do most of the techniques since her crib is still by the bed.  It may be time to get her moved into her own room (aka the office).  Not sure why I'm hesitant... except that it kinda requires rearranging a lot of stuff to get it done.  Maybe I can work on that a piece at a time this week or something.  I think she'll sleep better if she can't see us at night.  She always wakes up shortly after I come to bed for whatever reason, even if I make hardly any noise, and sometimes it takes a good 30 minutes so I'm just falling asleep, so I wonder if she smells me or something... it's strange.

This is what the aftermath of a 3 hour nap looks like.

We ended up having to kinda make up our own sleep training plan, since she's not in her own room.  B was gone Thursday night so I started then so I wouldn't feel guilty about keeping him awake.  Earlier in the week I had replaced all but one of her typical bottles with just water instead of formula.  At first, it worked just as well to get her back to sleep, so I weaned her down to 1 feeding that way and maybe if she's still doing well in a copule days I'll wean her down from that too.  We don't need to be rotting out her brand new little teeth with bottles.  The night B was gone I didn't take her to my bed at all, just laid there and talked to her if she was fussing, picked her up to cuddle once when she got really upset, and mostly she did pretty well at getting herself back down.  I did figure out that the more I mess with her the more worked up she gets.  Laying her down always results in sobbing for whatever reason, even at diaper changes (even tho she's fine for the actual change, just not the laying down part), so I need to stop trying.  It's totally counterproductive.  I was tired at work the next day from talking to her all night, but it wasn't too bad.  Then Friday night was awful... truly terrible.  She cried all night with very little rest in between.  She hasn't been interested in pacifiers lately and the water bottles just pissed her off, but I held off on feeding her until 3:30am, which has been her typical time to get hungry.  We were all exhausted and frazzled by morning and I had to go to work, but B got to stay home that day so they took it easy.  Then last night was fantastic!  She went down at about 8, woke up a little when we got to bed around 11 but put herself right back down, then didn't make a peep until 4.  I gave her her bottle, then she got up at 5:45, which is about when the alarm usually starts going off for B so it's about right.  Sleeping in would've been kinda nice but I won't argue with that since it sticks with our regular schedule anyway.  I thought it would take longer to make that kind of progress, and I'm sure we'll backslide a little bit occasionally but hopefully tonight is like last night.

Naps have been better too, since she figured out how to put herself back to sleep.  I think it was more about her being able to get herself comfortable than her needing to be soothed.  She has zero interest in blankies, lovies, pacifiers, any of that.  She just gets stuck in this gator roll/pushup/chinup thing when she's trying to get comfortable and forcing her to figure it out on her own has done wonders for her ability to take big naps without needing someone else to lay down with her.  She's working on 3 hours right now, without a peep.  I keep checking on her, but she's just snoozing away with her butt up in the air.  It's really cute.

So, what else?  I'm doing much better at work.  Yesterday I got to take lunch, and still did the whole route on my own and got back to the office in time for the outgoing mail truck.  I was pretty proud of myself for that.  Today we moved my parents' old grill up to our deck and grilled burgers and tin foil veggies for us and Mom.  Next week we might do it again for Mother's Day, if Dad's home so we can all do it together.  Next Monday B and I have tickets to see Sevendust, In This Moment, Pop Evil, and Monster Truck!  We're so excited!  I'm nervous about leaving her at Mom's that late since it's right on top of bedtime and I will have already been gone at work all day, so I'm not sure how it will all work out.  Maybe B needs to stay home that day or something.

Well she's awake now, and that was plenty of quiet time, so I must away :)

9 months and new job!

It's been a while, hasn't it?  Lots has happened.  I mean LOTS.  So, let's see...

Tooth #2 is finally on its way through.  It's been a couple of months since the first one came in, so at this rate she might have all her teeth by the time she's 13. :P  She's finally rolling both ways and just in the last few days has started crawling forward instead of just scooting backward.  She doesn't have a whole lot of control over it yet but at least she's moving in the right direction.  She's good at going from sitting to all fours, and can get herself out of her bouncy chair by rolling to the side and sliding down on her belly.  Not ideal, but she really likes being able to sit in it still, so we're not getting rid of it yet since I can't find any chairs to replace it.  The exersaucer is still an important part of the day so I can get to the bathroom without worrying about where she's crawling.  She sits in the one down at Grandma's when they listen to music in the office in the afternoons.

We have baba, dada, mama, and nana, along with her typical noises and we're pretty sure she tries to sing along sometimes.  She's getting really good with her pincer grasp with teddy grahams and bunny grahams.  Smaller stuff like cheerios don't work very well yet, but we're getting there.  She's really good with food in general.  I've started giving her some of her meals in Squooshi pouches and she loves that.   Her hair started filling in around 4 months and she has lots of it now.  Luckily it's still the pretty strawberry blond, so hopefully it'll stay that way.  She can wear reds/oranges/yellows amazingly well, considering how badly my coloring works for that.  That makes things a little easier, since grandma always picks red things first when clothes shopping lol.  It drives me nuts, but it'll work for Amy.

We've had several accidents that landed various cars in body shops.  Everyone's okay, and none of it was me, but I'm getting nervous that it's my turn next.  Mom's dings weren't bad, but B hit another tree and Dad hit a deer.  When we finally got the Sentra back from the shop, I started working for the post office as a city carrier assistant!  That means I cover both city routes when the regular carriers have days off, vacations, sick days, whatever.  It was supposed to be part time, but as soon as I was trained on one route the regular carrier took a week off, so I just finished covering for him.  It's been pretty much full time so far, which is totally overwhelming and the transition has been really hard on everybody.  When I started being gone every day, Amy went gung-ho on meeting her milestones.  That's when she started rolling belly to back, babbling, scooting, all of it.  I only have today and Sunday off until next week.  I can't complain too much about the paychecks though, it's made me the breadwinner suddenly because B's hours have still been short.  I don't remember the last time he had a 40 hour week, much less an 80 hour paycheck.  At least this takes some of that pressure off and he gets to be at home with Amy more. He's better at getting the house cleaned up than I am, so it works out.  Even if I feel awful about not being able to do much in comparison.

Unfortunately, pumping at work isn't an option.  Even if I did, it wouldn't be enough to feed her while I'm gone since I can only get a couple of ounces at a time.  As a result, she's half-weaned to formula now.  She gets a good amount of solid foods too, but nursing is reserved for mornings and nights.  It makes me sad, but I'm glad I can still give her some and that we did so well for so long.  As I get better at my job, I might get some time to pump at lunch or something so I can bump my production back up. The stress level of trying to pump all day in the mail truck would be horrible anyway.  The adjustment has been really hard on everyone.  The sudden switch to working practically full time at a very demanding job means that I can't get as much done at home.  I'm feeling better now, but for a while I was feeling awful because I couldn't clean everything, keep up with the laundry, cook, and nurse.  B's been a huge help but I felt like I should be able to keep up.  I was totally overwhelmed with learning the job and trying to do as much as I could at home while still feeding us well.  We're slowly getting the balance better.

And, we have pincer grasp!  

7 months and Happy New Year!

Such a silly girl.  She really is a riot.  Hopefully that video works so you can see how wound up she gets lol.  We call her Babysaurus when she growls like that, but last night was more like a banshee! :P I took her in a couple of weeks ago because she was tugging on her ears again and they weighed her at 20lbs 0.5oz!  With clothes on, so it's not quite accurate, but by now she's definitely bumped over the 20lb mark.  They didn't find anything wrong, she's just been teething like a beast.  Still.  It comes and goes, and still nothing has come through, but she has a couple good lumps on her gums so maybe it'll happen soon.  I swear she's been working on teeth for like 4 months now.  She's still only rolling from belly to back, but did the other way on her own accidentally the other day so she'll get it.  She's slowly figuring out how to scoot a little on her belly, usually just to turn but she'll get there eventually too.

who's that pretty baby in the mirror?

She's doing really well with solid foods.  For a long time all she would eat was applesauce, but we've expanded to green beans, cheerios and cereal puffs, carrots, a little turkey if mixed with beans, oatmeal, yogurt and popcorn (just the fluffy parts of course, no husk).  She goes crazy for popcorn and yogurt melts.  She doesn't get much at a time and not at every meal, but she likes it when we do it.  We're pretty sure she's saying "hi" sometimes, like if she's playing and i look over and say hi she'll go "haaaaaaa" back.  Does that count as a first word?  lol!  She's starting to get the meaning of the sign language but doesn't do it on her own yet.  Her hair's really filling in and sometimes it looks red, sometimes not.  We looked at my baby pictures and it's funny, as much as people say she looks like me she looks nothing like my baby pictures!  However, she looks almost exactly like my aunt's baby picture!  It was just plain scary when we found that!

B ordered me a wedding set with his Christmas money!  It was really cheap but it's perfect for where we are right now.  We can upgrade later if we want, but the diamonds are real and I love it!  No wedding date yet, since we're not sure how long it will take to save up enough.  We're now well over a year from the horrible day last January when B almost died (and did, in surgery, until they did a complete blood transfusion) and we finally feel like we almost have our feet under us.  A little bit.  Money is still really tight but that won't change until he's getting more hours and I start working too.  I have an interview tomorrow for a seasonal position and lots of applications out at the parks around here.  They pay well but only work during the summer, which is why I never really pursued it since finding work in the winter is hard, especially finding something that will work around concerts, and I'm just starting to feel like I could leave Amy at Mom's or daycare and go to work.  Not that I really like that option, but I need to do something.

We've decided that we'll be better off if we move to Rapid City.  There are much better opportunities up there for both of us and I'll be able to go to more Symphony functions without worrying about gas or driving late at night, and if we live up there then my parents will have a place to hang out between appointments or stay the night instead of driving in the dark.  It will work out really well for all of us.  The trick will be to get up there... we're still poor and depending on my parents to cover some of the bills.  The first option would be to move the trailer up there, which would be difficult considering the deck and the front room we're working on, and it's not big enough for the 3 of us now and Amy doesn't have her own room yet.  Renting would be a big waste of money and I'd have to leave the cats with Mom, which would be okay but not ideal since Cricket doesn't like Sadie.  We want to find a little starter home to buy up there, and there are a lot available, but the trick will be coming up with the down payment.  That's why I'm trying to work at the parks this summer, as much as I hate the thought of being away from my baby girl when she's still so little.  That also means more formula.  I'm still nursing her exclusively when I'm home, but when I have to go to rehearsal or something I can't pump enough to feed her while I'm gone so she gets formula if I'm not around.  I'll be pumping while I work, but it'll still only end up being about half of what she eats.  She probably overeats from bottles, but that doesn't change the fact that I can only usually pump 4-ish oz at a time and she eats 6-8.  If I wait longer and pump when I'm full, I can get 6oz, but it's thin and we need to add a scoop of formula to it anyway or it upsets her stomach.  I'm sure she'll be fine, but I'm not happy about it.  It's something I just need to deal with while we try to better our situation a little.

Mom's officially healed from her surgery according to the surgeon.  She cried when he said that, I think we've all been holding our breath for a year or so.  She has 4-8 weeks of physical therapy still to build some strength back up, but she's doing better all the time.  She can't watch Amy full time, so I'll need to find a daycare, which will eat a good chunk of my paychecks, thus why I didn't go to work sooner.

I bought myself some Turbo Jam videos for my birthday/Christmas and I've been exercising 4-5 days a week since mid December.  I feel better and I've lost a few inches, but I can't really see much of a difference yet.  I just need to stick with it, I want to look good this summer!

This year will be better.  We'll make it be better.  We'll beat 2013 into submission to make sure it doesn't turn out at all like 2012 did. :P  Right? Right.  Happy New Year!

Happy Half Birthday Amelia!

I can't believe it's been 6 months.  It's strange... it feels like a long time since I was in the hospital, a long time since she was itty bitty, but it also feels like she's growing up in no time at all.  She's hilarious.  She finally rolled over on her own yesterday, at first it was accidental but then she realized she could do it on purpose so now she won't stay on her belly for more than 2 seconds.  She's still not rolling back to belly yet, but we'll get there. She can sit up on her own for a little while but still tips over.  We're working on that too.  For Christmas I got her/us a Baby Signing Time DVD to start working on a few signs since she's getting so good with her hands.  I've started using a few of the signs with her and she's fascinated with it and moves her hands, but not into the correct signs just yet.  We'll get there with that too, just so she has more ways to communicate before her mouth can form the words.  That'll be helpful on days like today when she's not happy with anything for more than 20 minutes and just whines.  Must be her teeth again or something.  Still no teeth poking through but that's all I can figure is making her uncomfortable.

At her 5 month appointment for her shots, she weighed 17lbs 8.5oz! Big girl!  We didn't get a length but we will next week at her 6 month appointment.  She is a very smiley girl most of the time, but for some reason she's not feeling great today or something.  Generally needier, like she was in her 4th month.  We had a few weeks of respite from the drooling/chomping/whining, then in the last week or so I've gotten her to sleep better at night by letting her completely wear herself out before taking her to bed.  The last few nights she's only been up twice to eat, and yesterday she took 2 huge naps, which coincided with her finally rolling over, and now today she's generally a grumpy butt and won't nap very long again even though she really needs to.  Grunt, fuss, whine, squirm, then she'll grin and kick... silly girl.  She just needs to nap!

We're still holding steady with the same jobs.  I'm still trying to squeeze in some writing here and there, and the holiday concert season is almost over so that will help.  They stayed at home the last time I went to Gillette and pumping all weekend was really hard on me and had my supply screwed up for days afterward, and she was downright depressed, so we won't do that again.  The first time she was just too little.  Now that I'm gone regularly for rehearsals they can do bedtime without me no problem.  I'm toying with the idea of working part-time at a tourist trap next summer to help out more with the income, but I still need to keep writing.  Going back to a "real" job around here doesn't work well for me, considering the jobs I can get for the crappy pay.  We might need another vehicle to make that work though, which we need anyway but getting that done has been impossible.  This car needs servicing, the cats need a vet visit, we both need glasses and teeth cleanings, etc etc. The list goes on and on.  I try not to panic about it.  Mom can't babysit for a few more weeks so I just have to hang in there.

For my birthday I found a bunch of Turbo Jam videos for cheap locally and I've been doing those for almost 2 weeks now and I'm feeling the difference, so hopefully it starts showing soon.  Exercise is free! ;)

Almost 5 months old!

Forgive the "drunk" eyes, but she's rockin a beanie I made!

Things were crazy for a while!  Not that life has calmed down all that much, but I feel like I have a little better handle on it now.  We've had job shifts, symphony started back up, and Mom had back surgery so she can't babysit alone for a couple more months and I need to help at her house a bunch.  We had a good Thanksgiving and now I'm working on getting both houses dressed up for Christmas a little bit at a time since Mom can't lift anything yet. 

Stats!

1 month old: 10lb 1.5oz, 20in long

2 months old: 11lb 15.5oz, 24in long (yeah, we skipped over most of the 0-3 month size here lol)

3 months old: 14lbs, 25in long

4 months old: 15lbs 14.5oz, 25 7/8in long

5 months old: we'll find that out in a little over a week when she goes in for her next booster, but I think she grew long again in the last month.

She still makes this kissy face when she's sleep-stretching

As we can see, around the time of my last posting Amelia was having a HUGE growth spurt and basically skipped over most of her 0-3month size clothes and went into 3-6.  We're just now getting into 6-9 for most of it, but a few 3-6 still fit and some needs to be a 9.  Again with the huge discrepancy between brands.  Part of that is the extra fluff on her bum, but I'm happy to put her in a size up if it means I don't have to run to the store for diapers EVER.  There have been a lot of times when I was very glad to not have to borrow Mom's car, go to town, worry about whether we can afford them, wonder what size to get and what brand, and deal with the garbage.  It's much easier for me to just run a load of laundry when I'm down to 3-ish changes.

Around the middle of September she started
staring intently at her right fist.

As for development, she is currently at a bit of a plateau but I think she'll probably roll over, cut a tooth, and sit up on her own all on the same day.  She's been working on all of that very hard for a good month now and she's aaaaaaaaaaalmost there.  Her first smile (on purpose) came in August but her first belly laughs were in early October.  She's really ticklish sometimes and B can get huge laughs out of her.  I have videos of a lot of that but can't seem to upload them here, unfortunately.  She's become very vocal and likes to join in conversations and "sing" along, but of course she has no volume or pitch control yet.  It's rather hilarious.  She discovered her hands in mid-September and is now getting better every day controlling them.  She's drooling like a faucet and some days she's downright miserable until she gets a good gum massage and some tylenol, but I can't see a tooth coming through yet.  I wish it would hurry up, I think it's waking her up at night.  She still spits up a lot.  It was steadily getting better for a while there but it's getting bad again.  She's wearing a hazelwood necklace to theoretically help with that, but those do wear out, plus the extra saliva from teething probably makes matters worse.  Maybe I'll try an amber necklace next time to help with the teething and maybe the spitup will diminish again.  I've figured out that I have a strong milk ejection reflex, which she has to gulp to keep up with sometimes, so she swallows a lot of air.  Frequent smaller feedings help with that but burping more often doesn't do much, since the extra jostling pretty much guarantees a large spew.  She does much better if I watch for signs that she has a bubble and unlatch her, then keep her reclined for a little while.  Lately she's been sitting herself up after eating, which is fine if that's what she wants to do.  The bad spitups are usually an hour or so after eating, but they still won't put her on reflux meds.  I hope she just grows out of it soon.

Go go motor skills!  She's getting much better at
getting things to her mouth on the first try.

She was sleeping really well for a while.  For a whole week she slept through the night, but after that she was up every 2 hours again, then settled into getting up once for a month or so.  Now she'll sleep 4-6 hours at the beginning of the night, then be up every 2 hours after that.  She doesn't nap very well during the day despite my efforts.  Usually she'll sleep for 20-30 minutes max, then be fighting sleep an hour or 2 later so it takes forever to calm her down again so she can take another short nap.  She'll sleep for 2 hours down at Mom's house sometimes, and I'm not exactly sure what's so different down there but it works out fine when she gets a good nap there.  Some days we go down just to get a change of scenery and hope that she'll take a big nap so I can get a break and maybe get some work done.  I have music to compose and instruments to practice, not to mention trying to run my household and help with Mom's, then holiday stuff.  When I think I should get a job I have to remind myself that I'm going crazy trying to keep up as it is and kick myself.  

We're still going strong with nursing.  I don't get why people said "good luck with that" when I told them I wanted to nurse and cloth diaper.  It's honestly easier and a TON cheaper.  I have some trouble pumping though, unfortunately.  She nurses so often during the day that I don't really have time to pump between feedings unless I want to constantly have either her or the pump attached to me all day, plus the fact that she doesn't nap that well.  I need to pump when I get home from work or rehearsal, but if it's been too long I only get the thin foremilk, which I can't feed her or it really upsets her stomach.  It's like a switch flips around 4 hours after the last feeding and I can't pump the cream out anymore.  It's bizarre and I've tried lots of stuff to fix that, but the only thing that really does is to pump more often.  I'm not sure how to get that done during rehearsal, since it would be smack in the middle of rehearsal that I'd need to do it and it's not exactly a good thing for me to leave rehearsal to attempt to use the manual pump, which I can't get much out with anyway.  Because of the pumping issue, she gets formula when I'm not home.  She tolerates it well and spits up less from bottles anyway, but I had to get over the guilt of that and just forgive myself.  I was stressing out too much over trying to pump as much as she needs while I'm gone and it was hurting my supply to have my stress level be that high, which made it even harder.  I have some milk frozen but that needs to be saved for the long concert weekends in Gillette so she's not strictly on formula all weekend.  She and B came with me last time but she became inconsolable at the hotel while I was in rehearsal and it ended up being an expensive weekend, so next time I'm going alone.  I hope it works out okay... I'm not looking forward to spending all weekend with the pump, but we'll get a lot more money out of my paycheck from that if it's just me going and Amy will probably be more comfortable at home than in a strange hotel, even if I'm not around.

Finally, at 4 months old, tummy time isn't torture!
A few minutes' worth, anyway.  I think she wants to
skip crawling entirely.

We started feeding Amy applesauce a couple of weeks ago.  :)  Mom and I sometimes get produce from Bountiful Baskets and one of those times we got a big box of apples.  We ate about half of them and the rest became applesauce.  Amelia, being the way she is, insists on being a part of dinnertime, so she's much happier getting a little applesauce than just watching everybody else eat.  It's not for nutrition, and as much as she loves it I don't let her have much at a time, and of course I'm getting "the talk" from the nurse/practitioner that we've been seeing for her shots about her not needing food yet.  I know she doesn't need solids, but she's showing all kinds of signs that tell me she's ready to eat at the dinner table with the family, so I'm letting her do it.  I'm going to try and get her appointments moved back to Dr. S after her next booster... the nurse is nice enough but she's said a lot of things that completely undermine my instincts and sense of what's right to do for my daughter.  For example, she can't possibly be teething until the tooth is ready to erupt.  How, then, do we explain the drooling, gnawing, and misery that comes and goes?  I realize I'm not a medical professional but I know when my baby's mouth hurts.

B's new job is working out much better.  Nuff said.  :)  I picked up a side job placing banner and floor ads in local grocery stores, which ends up being 15-20 hours a month or so but I can do it mostly on weekends when B's home so I don't have to get a babysitter or wait for Dad to be home.  I'm playing all 4 concerts in the Powder River Symphony this year and didn't play in the October concert in the Black Hills Symphony but I'm on horn for the one coming up next weekend, and possibly for the rest of the season since one of my fellow hornists is VERY pregnant and due shortly after the concert. :) I'm very happy for her and equally happy that I might get to stay in the horn section for a while instead of working on both horn and cello all the time.  I don't get a whole lot of practice time so it helps a lot to only need to practice one instrument.

Mom's back surgery went very well and has already removed several years' worth of pinched nerve pain, and I suspect that pain has been going on for 15 years or something so by the time she fully recovers from the surgery she'll be in less pain than she was 15 years ago.  Hooray for that!  At least we got the surgery done before Amelia becomes mobile, so we're not chasing her around the house just yet.

Hopefully the next update will be soon, since theoretically things should start to calm down in a little while.  By then, I'll probably have a scooter... yikes!

Growing up so fast...

Tomorrow Amelia will be 7 weeks old already.  It's gone too fast, but at the same time it's been a long couple of months trying to get us into a rhythm and get myself healed up.  She's really chunked up a lot!  She's looking more like a baby and less like a newborn and the last time she was weighed, at 5 1/2 weeks for my postpartum checkup, she weighed 10lbs 1.5oz!  She must easily be up to 11lbs by now but she doesn't have another checkup for a couple more weeks so I won't know for sure until then.  I do know that she's outgrown some of her newborn size clothes and a couple outfits that fit now are 3mo size.  What's with that?  Why do the sizes vary so widely from brand to brand?  It's ridiculous!  Mostly she's into 0-3 now but a few of her newborn onesies still fit really well.  Strange and annoying!

We're having a hard day today, but overall we're doing really well.  She has days when she can't eat enough, and sometimes I'm bottle feeding her on those days to give myself a break so I know she's eating a lot, so she must be growing a lot.  She still spits up a lot though, and even though her doctor says not to worry about it, it's ridiculous sometimes.  Like, we're talking Exorcist-style, can't keep anything down then screams because she's still hungry.  Today isn't one of those, just eating tons.  I'm burping her more often and that's helping some, but I really think she's got some reflux issues.  I know all babies spit up and because their systems are immature they all have a bit of reflux, but it seems to be pretty painful for her sometimes.  Those bad days happen 1-2 times a week, and don't seem to be connected to anything I've eaten.  I think she gulps too fast sometimes.  She seems to spit up less from a bottle, but it's not really practical for me to just pump all the time to bottle feed her.  I got a loaner hospital-grade pump from WIC and that has helped a lot!  I just keep finding reasons to use my bottles rather than putting the milk in the freezer... I need to get better about that.

--------------------------

Finishing this post 2 days later... yeah, that's how things go around here lol.  She slept like a rock that night and yesterday was much easier on everyone.  Today has been up and down but we were down at Mom's house for the afternoon so Amy refused to just nap, as she's becoming more aware and wanting to be involved in whatever is going on.  This morning I got my post-natal yoga out finally even though I'm still a little sore down there, and it felt amazing.  However, Amy wouldn't settle down and let me do it until I put her on the floor in her floor gym, then she contentedly kicked around and batted at her toys for a good half hour while I finished up the yoga.  It was pretty funny that she just wanted to be exercising with me instead of in her swing.

She must weigh over 11lbs by now and I'm practically back at my starting weight (not sure what it was exactly to begin with so I can never say for sure).  My arms are getting stronger thanks to her but the rest of me is weak and my now-flabby belly looks like a road map.  I can fit into my old jeans as well as I could before, but they were tight then so I have some work to do.  I'd like to get another 20 pounds off with the help of nursing, mostly so clothes shopping is easier. I'm almost too big for the Misses department but too small for Plus, varying by brand of course.  I'm sick of it.  I'm also sick of hurting... I've had a very stubborn yeast infection that hurts a lot and the popped stitch spot still gets sore.  Exercising today didn't make it worse, but it's still persisting.

B's job has been iffy lately.  They have lots of work contracted but the materials for all of them are back-ordered, so there's nothing to do.  Meanwhile the other guys have been quitting because of the lack of work so B's almost the last one there.  It's a tough spot to be in and I'm debating taking a postal carrier job to help out.  Not full-time, but to fill in when the regular carriers are on vacation or whatever.  It could probably work if I have enough of a freezer milk supply, except for the vehicle situation.  B's been promised a work truck, but it's in the process of getting the engine replaced and there's no ETA on it so I'm not holding my breath.  He needs a truck and we need another vehicle, but he's not making enough at work for us to save up for anything yet, we're just barely getting the bills done, still with the help of my parents.  Let me tell you how ready I am to be done with that too.

We're doing alright, a day at a time.  :)

One month old!

Wide awake with very busy hands, in
a dress from B's mom which is still too big

Here is Amelia today, and tomorrow she'll be one month old! On Wednesday she went in for her checkup, not because she really needed to but I had scheduled it because I was sure I'd have questions.  First, about her weight.  At birth, she weighed 7lb 0.2oz and the next Monday she was down to 6lb 6oz so I wanted to see how much she had gained.  I knew she was gaining because of the leg and chin pudge, but I wasn't prepared for how much... 8lb 8oz!  Holy crap!  I have no reason at all to worry about her eating or my milk supply apparently, even though I can't pump much at a time.  She's just far more efficient at getting it out of me than the pump is. She's been spitting up a bit so we're working on that.  She has some baby acne going on, which drives me nuts but there isn't much to do for it and it'll apparently go away on its own. Hormone thing.  Yay.  Overall, she's great!  She's spot on for development and she's working very hard on holding her head up.  Her vocabulary is mostly grunts and squeals and we're slowly getting her hands out of the way for feedings.  She gets overstimulated after some time on her play mat so we need to cuddle for a while to calm down.

My healing hasn't been going too well.  Last week I realized that I had been at the same level of pain for quite a while, no noticeable change for probably 2 weeks.  I went to see Sue to have it checked out and lo and behold, one of my stitches had come out and I had exposed nerves.  No wonder! She got me some topical lidocaine and a sitz bath so now it's finally healing up from the inside.  She didn't stitch it up because it looked like it was trying to brew an infection.  Now the last couple of days I've been a lot more sore again but farther inside so I called Dr. B wondering if she wanted to take a look since she's the one who stitched me up in the first place.  She blew me off again, saying it was probably the stitches dissolving and working their way out and to wait it out over the weekend.  Meanwhile, my limited mobility was halved because my entire pelvic floor is constantly sore, worse when I try to do something like get groceries.  How dare I, right?  I went back to my clinic and the nurse there took a look for me, and she's pretty sure it's another yeast infection.  Thanks again for nothing, Dr. B.  Lord.

We're doing pretty well.  I'm just sick of being in pain after such minimal labor trauma.  We'll see if the Monistat takes care of it so I can function a little.  Dare I ask for such a thing?

Diaper switch time!

Our first attempt at tummy time on the floor,
wearing her Softbums Echo in Lilac

I know many people will think I'm crazy for using cloth diapers.  Honestly, I hadn't even considered it as an option until my BFF/sister Sara tried them a couple years ago for her son, who was horribly allergic to EVERYTHING.  After that, I started looking around at the different styles and found out that a few of my other friends use cloth also.  By the time I found out I was pregnant, there was no question in my mind that I'd go with cloth, and especially after buying a couple weeks' worth of diapers to use while Amelia's belly button healed up (less than a week's worth for $30? excusemeverymuch???!!! how do people afford that?) I was still happy with my decision.  She's never been a fan of diaper changes but once we get it on she's fine, so the only real difference is that when the diaper pail is full (or I'm almost out of inserts, which needs to be remedied soon!), they go in the washer instead of the garbage.  I have some more shells and inserts ordered so we'll be in better shape in a few days and I won't have to wash quite so often.  I had no idea what would fit her so I got just a little bit of everything to get started with.  The disposables I did have didn't fit very well anyway, the newborn ones were getting too small and the size 1s were too big (and resulted in blowouts), so it works out well that I can adjust these to fit perfectly every time.

In other news, she's now 18 days old and we're all doing very well!  We attempted some tummy time on the floor today, but she didn't know what to do with that so her legs were going but her top half was confused lol.  She lifts her head a lot when I'm holding her on my chest, so I thought it was worth a try to get some of those muscles built up a little bit.  We'll try again tomorrow to see if she gets the idea.  I think I got some real smiles out of her today too!  She's napping at the moment and I'm attempting to figure out what we should do for dinner.  She's been doing pretty well with sleeping at night, even if it's not solid sleep yet.  She gets up about every 2-3 hours, but it doesn't take long to change and feed her and get back to bed.  It's about on par with how often I had to get up to pee while pregnant so I'm already kinda used to it.  Once I figure out dinner I'll grab a little nap.  I've been running laundry all day (mostly clothes and sheets, plus a load of diapers) so I at least feel somewhat productive.  Yesterday B and I worked outside, him with the weedeater and me in my garden pulling weeds and harvesting potatoes.

Could that paragraph have wandered any more?  Maybe I'm more sleep-deprived than I thought. :P

36 weeks... and BIRTH STORY!

 A lot of it is a bit fuzzy, but I do remember feeling a lot more tired, achy, immobile, and just generally blah in the week or so leading up to my 36-week checkup.   My belly was hanging pretty low (swing loooowwww, sweet jelly bean!), there was a lot of pressure on the front of my pelvis that made it very difficult to walk some days, and I swear I could feel a "pinching" in my cervix when I laid down.  I got checked by Dr. B on Tuesday the 26th and she checked for dilation, and I was 1cm and 50% effaced.  Getting checked was a highly uncomfortable experience so between that, the 107 degree day, running Mom to her appointments, and mattress shopping (I bought one! It's heavenly!), I was pretty miserable the rest of the day with the pelvis pressure and contractions.  The contractions went away overnight, but I still had to sleep all morning the next day for whatever reason.  


That evening B and I made some stuffed-crust pizza, which was amazing, and while I was cleaning up the kitchen later I started to feel something that felt like a period gush, which I thought was strange, but I thought I should wait it out.  It kept happening, and a couple of times it felt like I had peed myself, but to rule that out it happened while I was on the toilet also so it obviously wasn't that.  I started to think that maybe my water had broken, but I was torn because it started at 9:30pm and I didn't want to drag everyone up to RC Regional an hour away in the middle of the night for nothing.  I called Sue to get her opinion on it, but it took her a while to call back so I woke B up, called Mom, and started packing a bag.


I resigned myself to not panic.  At all.  I'm no expert on any of this, but everything I had heard and read pointed to the fact that staying calm made everything much easier, so if it was time, it was time and freaking out would do absolutely nothing.  Sue called back and said that it did sound like my water had broken.  I could wait until morning if I wanted to, but instructions from Dr. B were that if I thought my water had broken that I needed to go to the ER because if it had, they want delivery to happen shortly afterward.  As the little gushes kept happening and filling pads and I started to get semi-regular contractions, I decided we should go.  Mom stayed behind to get some rest and clean out her car and B and I packed up my car and got on the road at about 11:30pm.  While we were on the road my contractions became more regular and were about 3 minutes apart but not painful yet.  When I finally got checked in and everything, I was dilated to 2cm and 70% effaced, but my contractions had stopped.  Once they were sure my water had broken, I got moved to a delivery room at about 2am so they could start the pitocin and get my contractions going again.  Once the water breaks, they want delivery within 24 hours to avoid infection.  Unfortunately, this put the kebash on my birth plan because I had to be on monitors and an IV the whole time, mostly stuck in bed, couldn't get into the tub or anything, and didn't get to do any of the laboring at home.  I wanted to stick to med-free, but because of the pitocin I left my mind open to IV pain meds if it got too rough.


I had two nurses because one was training for her RN, so I was lucky there to have all that help.  My blood pressure was a little high when I checked into triage, so the automatic blood pressure cuff thought it had to squeeze my arm to death every time it checked me.  Honestly, the pain from that was worse than the contractions until the back labor started.  The IV in my hand was At first, they had me on external monitors, one for my contractions and one for Amelia to make sure she was tolerating everything okay, but the contraction monitor wasn't picking everything up like it should have so they put in an internal monitor instead that went between her head and my uterine wall.  That was horribly uncomfortable and made it difficult to get to the bathroom without making me worry about pulling it out accidentally.  They kept upping the pitocin so that my contractions were at the intensity level they wanted and the nurses helped me to breathe through it all.


Mom got to the hospital that morning and she and B were the best support tag team ever!  They took turns rubbing my back and helping me get to the bathroom and relieved each other for lunch and such.  B had helped me smuggle in some craisins since I knew they wouldn't let me eat, so he'd help me sneak a handful here and there.  I get that they don't want you to throw up during labor and for an emergency c-section they need an empty stomach for anesthesia dosage, but I'm far more likely to get nauseous and sick on a completely empty stomach than if I have a little something in there.  That did kick in later though, when I was fully dilated and involuntarily pushing, but at that point the only thing in my system was water and it just wouldn't stay down.


The labor wasn't too bad, except for the blood pressure cuff and the internal monitor, until about 2pm when I was dilated to about a 7 and the back labor was starting to kick in.  At that point I was exhausted to the point of tears and asked for IV pain meds so I could get back on top of it.  That helped immensely, since I was able to get a few cat-naps between contractions for the next hour or so.  I got another dose a little later on, but that ended up being all.  I thought about getting an epidural, but at that point it was probably too late and the back labor was so intense that I didn't think putting something else in my back would really make my back feel better anyway.  Amelia wasn't completely face-up, but she was turned enough that the contractions wrapped around my back.  Mom and B helped by pushing on my lower back during the contractions and we found a couple of positions that helped.  My favorite was sitting on the edge of the bed leaning slightly forward, but the problem with that was that it made my feet swell worse than they already were so I couldn't do that for long, unfortunately.    That whole stage felt like an eternity.  I kept asking if it would ever end.  But, I never yelled at anyone during the whole thing.  I'm pretty proud of myself for that. :)


When it came time to push, I had one nurse on each leg and Mom and B helping lift up my shoulders.  In my original plan, I didn't want to do all the pushing while laying on my back, but at that point my legs were too shaky to do anything else so I didn't fight it. Laying on my side meant that what little water I'd managed to drink would come right back up, so that didn't work very well either.  I pushed for an hour, which I'd compare to the worst constipation you've ever had in your life.  I know I pooped on the table a little about 6 times, but I had tried to pass that earlier and it wouldn't happen with the contractions.  I know it happens, and I didn't care much at the time, but it was annoying and I felt bad for the nurses.  Apparently Amelia had hiccups while in the birth canal, which I didn't notice but Mom told me about it later.  Dr. B was called too early so she was just kinda hanging around until the last 20 minutes or so of pushing.  Proof again that the nurses really do all the work.  B snuck a peek while I was pushing her out and his jaw dropped!

When it was finally over at 5:39pm 6/28/12, Amelia let out a little squeal and arched her back the way she had done a thousand times in utero.  I was amazed by how strong she was already, but thinking about it I wasn't very surprised.  B cut the cord and followed the nurses over to the warming table while they checked her out and she gripped his finger right away.  She was 19 inches, 7lbs 0.2oz, and her 5-minute Apgar test was a 9 out of 10!  Meanwhile I delivered the placenta, which was nothing compared to delivering her, but it was a strange sensation anyway.  I ended up with a few little grade 2 tears so Dr. B had to stitch me up.  She said I did great, made one last comment about my weight, and they put Amelia on my chest so she could nurse.

She latched on pretty well right away while Dr. B and the nurses pushed on my belly (painfully, I might add) to help shrink my uterus back down.  They did that every half hour for a while in the hospital too, but it got less painful each time.  After nursing, the nurses took her up to the nursery (lol that sounds strange) to get her cleaned up or do some blood work or something, so I got to take a shower.  It was heaven.  It hadn't been that long since I had showered, but after 15 hours of pitocin it felt amazing.  I got wheeled over to my recovery room, B went home to get some rest (he had tried to nap on the couch-thing in the delivery room but it was hard as a rock and he worked hard with me through the whole labor) and Mom got some food then met me in my room before going home.  She would've stayed if I asked her to, but I felt comfortable enough there that I let her go home and get some rest herself.

I let the nurses keep her in the nursery overnight so I could get some good rest and take advantage of the help while I had it.  They brought her in to feed and worked with us on her latch and I slept as much as I could.  Mostly, I just slept as much as I could, which was hard to do since they kept coming in and checking my vitals and pushing on my uterus.


Amelia's blood work turned out great, except her bilirubin levels were a little bit high so she had a touch of jaundice.  It wasn't enough for them to recommend treatment aside from feeding her as much as I could and sitting in a sunny window with her occasionally.  She bruised pretty badly on her head during delivery so that was a lot of it.

Isn't she beautiful?  We had joked about her having red hair because we both have redheads in our family, and here she is with dark strawberry blond curls!  She has my lips for sure, but aside from that I can't really tell what she got from who.  I can't wait to see her eye color when it comes out.


I opted to stay at the hospital one extra night to get more help from the nurses and lactation consultant on her latch since it was still hurting.  The lactation consultant didn't help a whole lot, and each nurse had a different technique, but I'm glad I stayed because my overnight nurse on Friday night got us to make some real progress so I felt a lot more comfortable going home.  Amelia stayed in the nursery for a little while that night too.  B came up to take us home around noon on Saturday, but he brought the convertible carseat that came in the mail from my cousin Jon a few days earlier instead of the infant carrier and he forgot the infant insert... oops!  I sat in the back seat with her holding her head up and praying that nothing happened.

Mom is beside herself finally being a grandma.  She's been bugging me about grandbabies for years, but partly because when I was little I promised her my firstborn in exchange for something I wanted... probably a popsicle or something similarly banal.  She never let me forget about that... so now when I leave Amelia with mom to run to town, I remind her that I held up my end of the bargain!


Yesterday Amy turned 2 weeks old already.  Her first doctor visit the Monday after she was born went very well, but her weight was down to 6lb 6oz and she was still a little yellow.  I took her with me to my WIC appointment the other day and now she's back up to 7lb 2oz!  Once she really figured out how to latch on nursing has been pretty smooth sailing.  She will have some chunks of time where she can't seem to eat enough, but then she'll sleep for a good while so maybe those are mini growth spurts, but I can still pump enough for an occasional bottle feeding with daddy or grandma.  

Here she is at 2 weeks old, my lovely daughter.  It took me almost this long to make sense of the fact that a short time ago she was inside me, and that she's a whole brand new person that I grew from nothing.  It's pretty incredible and sometimes I choke up just from looking at her.  Does that ever go away?  Or is that just the name of the mommy game from now on?


My feet are back to their normal size, but the skin is still a bit tender from being stretched so tight for so long.  I'm only 6lbs from my starting weight, which considering all the flak I caught from Dr. B about that makes me feel good.  I want to rub it in her face... if I had gained way too much like she kept saying I had, would it all come off so quickly?  I'm sure a good 10lbs of it was just from extra water weight in my legs.  From the knee down my calves, ankles, and feet were tight like sausages.

I'll try to keep updating, it's just hard to do when she's this little and nursing as much as she does, but I'll do what I can do.  I'm officially a mom... and really, it does just come to you.  It's not as hard (at this stage) as I thought it would be.  Newborns have very low expectations. ;)  Hopefully in a few more days her belly button will be all healed up and we can switch over to the cloth diapers!