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.

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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!

35 Weeks

Down to one hand's worth of counting the weeks... eeeeeeeek!  Maybe less, if she decides she doesn't want to wait that long!  Of the 36 mamas in my due-in-July Facebook group, 9 have popped already so we have 10 babies!  It's been crazy and though I don't have any of the symptoms/issues that the others have had, it still freaks me out that it could realistically happen any time now!


I'm trying to bump up my productivity now that I'm feeling better.  It took all last week for the ear infection to clear up, and the whole time I was taking the antibiotics I felt pretty crappy even though I was avoiding dairy and taking them with food and all that.  I'm sure they also caused the raging yeast infection I'm dealing with now.  I was uncomfortable enough from that and leftover ear pain that I had a lot of trouble sleeping last week.  Now that I'm off the antibiotics and on yeast infection cream I'm feeling tons better.  It must have been causing more discomfort than I expected because I slept like a rock the first night for the first time in weeks!


On Monday I saw Sue and everything looked okay, except my blood pressure was creeping up, so with that and the incessant foot swelling she decided to test me for pre-eclampsia.  The prospect of that scared me to death, since that's the reason several of my July girls were induced this early, but luckily the labs looked okay and Amelia's non stress test was perfect.  Still waiting to hear back on the 24-hour urine test since they wanted me to start it Tuesday morning, so it got dropped off this morning.  I see Sue again tomorrow to follow up, probably to check blood pressure again and do another non stress test.  I'm suspecting my blood pressure was more from the lack of sleep and the general feeling of unwell-ness over the last couple of weeks than from anything else, so we'll see how it looks after a few good nights of sleep.  Then next Tuesday I go back and see Dr. B, and she'll check for dilation and stuff and we'll figure out a plan for appointments so I can still save some gas and see Sue a few more times before the main event.  I'm far more comfortable with Sue than I am with Dr. B.


My feet are ridiculous.  I'm afraid to take a picture but I probably should at some point.  I've been avoiding salt (which is hard enough, but to do that while also avoiding dairy made for some interesting half-meals the last couple of weeks), drinking a crap ton of water (evidenced in my 24-hour urine test, which I had to sacrifice a Tupperware for because I filled up the jug they gave me even though I attempted to drink less... TMI, I know, sorry!), keeping them up when I can (noticed that the computer chair is the worst possible chair for me to sit in for my feet, but my back loves it), and trying both ice baths and warm baths.  I think I've narrowed it down to a circulation issue since the ice baths did nothing, avoiding salt did nothing, and drowning myself in jugs upon jugs of water didn't seem to help much either.  Sue thinks that possibly Amelia is compressing some veins so that the extra fluid can't really get pumped back up my legs.  Possibly compounded by my heart murmur, which everyone keeps telling me not to worry about.  A warm bath before bed does help the swelling go down a bit more in the night, so I'll stick to doing that since that's the only thing that helps.  


I've gotten some decent cleaning done today plus swimming with Mom and didn't feel the overwhelming need to nap, but it's creeping up on me now so I should probably give in for a little while. ;)  I've been typing up a template contract for composing music for a web series, which is taking a lot longer than I anticipated but once it's done I won't have to do it all again.  Then, maybe I can start working on some episodes soon!  I should have something else coming up too, helping a friend's dad write his second book (typing, research, probably some editing), so we'll see how that goes once we get started.  At least he'll pay me a little bit for it and it's definitely something I can do from home on the couch :)


Work is still going well for B. His ankle is bothering him some, but mostly he's doing fine. :) He should get his first full paycheck tomorrow or Friday, which is good because bills are due and I'm all kinds of antsy about that!  We should be able to take care of the end-of-the-month bills and the beginning-of-the-month bills, then we'll be on a regular schedule for stuff, but this extra week waiting for a paycheck has about driven me insane.  I need to work in some other bills that have been taken care of by our parents, but I can't really do that until I see what a typical paycheck is like.  Then we'll work on a new mattress and getting him a little pickup.  Naptime, even though Amelia's going crazy at the moment!

34 weeks

I had all kinds of energy that first day B went to work!  I got a lot done that day.  My productivity dwindled quite a bit after that and my naps got longer and longer... once it hit me that I'm at home now, it really felt like the week after finals or something and I just needed tons of sleep.  I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing, I wish I had gotten more done last week but oh well.  My ear didn't get any better with the drops.  Actually, it got worse, so I ended up going in last Friday to get antibiotics.  It still bothers me a little but it doesn't hurt like it did.  Unfortunately, the side effects of being on antibiotics are worse with pregnancy than they are normally, which contributed greatly to my need for naps... ugh.  Good thing I'm seeing Sue again next week.  My feet are still swelling quite a bit daily and they don't go down much overnight unless I make a conscious effort to prop them way up for several hours, an angle which causes a weird...stretching? in my cervix, so that makes me a tad nervous.  I'm starting to feel that when I stand up too, so we'll see if Sue thinks that's anything to worry about.

Mom recently found out that the Motel 6 in town will let people swim in their pool for $2 per visit!  She's been going 2-3 times a week with a friend to do exercises and relieve the gravity pressure from her back and hips.  I went with her on Wednesday and it felt AMAZING.  Until it was time to get out that is, then gravity hit full-force and I could barely walk. :/  I borrowed an old suit of hers that doesn't fit very well since I didn't see the point in buying one this late in the game.  Then yesterday she found a maternity tankini on sale that fits perfectly!  Next time I go I'll wear it and since I intend to labor in Mom's hot tub (with the temp turned way down, of course) it will definitely come in handy.  Until then, I'll probably wear the top a lot anyway because it's comfy!

B's incision abscesses healed up perfectly and the little scabs are almost gone.  Yesterday he had his final appointment with Dr. G, who proudly pronounced him healed!  We pretty much knew it was done, but it helped to hear it from the surgeon.  We expected them to at least run some blood work or something to make sure, but it ended up being a couple questions and a couple pokes.  He didn't bat an eye at the sugar treatment we did for the incision so it must not be unheard of... okay whatever, it worked!  It's hard to believe that almost 5 months later we're finally done with all that.  He still has some aches and he has to build up more strength, but he's doing really well at work.  He was very sore for a few days last week but we worked through it.

Last Saturday was my birth class at the hospital.  Most of the information was the same as I've heard/read, but at least now I know what the hospital policies are and that they'll support me in my efforts to have a med-free birth and to get breastfeeding right away.  Mom and B went with me and there were probably 25 other couples there.  The chairs were horrible!  Sitting there from 9-4 made my feet puff up like sausages and I had to get down on the floor for a while in the afternoon.  I can't believe I was the only one in the room with that problem, but I was the only one that got out of the chair for a while except for the tour of maternity.  The breastfeeding class was scheduled for last night but after B's appointment, I decided not to go.  I've read plenty and watched videos so I'm perfectly comfortable with what to do until she gets here, and it'll be a whole new ball game then.  There will be a lactation consultant at the hospital and I'll get lots of help from the WIC office and Sue, so I couldn't justify going out to dinner and wasting all kinds of time in Rapid waiting for a class that would've gotten us home late.  I didn't sign up for that one anyway, I was going to wait until after she was born but because it came free with the birth class they just signed me up for it anyway.  It just seemed pointless, so home we came to relax.

I finally caught back up with Robin for exercising and we've done something almost every day this week.  She has some sort of nerve/muscle issue going on that they haven't diagnosed yet, so we're running at about the same speed, which works out well for both of us.  I'm meeting her for yoga this morning.  I'm hoping that stepping up my exercising I'll get more energy to get the house ready and curb my weight gain a little.  I'm still steadily gaining, but I'm sure some of it now is due to retaining water in my legs that I just can't seem to really clear up.  Next on my list of stuff to do at home is go through my old toys for stuff to sell so I can move some other stuff into the shed to make room for baby stuff.  It's not a gigantic project, but bigger than I've wanted to do since my ear has been bothering me.  Hopefully I'll get somewhere with that today after yoga.  Tomorrow my friend Krystal is coming to town to take maternity photos at Kidney Springs, so that should be fun!

I have less than 2 weeks left on my indiegogo fundraiser, so one more share would be appreciated! :)  B's paychecks are much better than mine were but we still have some catching up to do.  His bills are still in limbo so we'll be dealing with that for a while.  TGIF!