How My Garden Grows

It’s been a very busy week filled with all sorts of fun and shenanigans! Our 2 month Dr.’s visit went great, I had a Dr.’s appt right after that with the O.B., Grandma came over 3 times, we checked out 2 daycare facilities, had a playdate with the twins, lunch at my work, and 2 dinners with friends. WHEW! I’m exhausted!

By the third week of maternity leave, I was getting a bit bored. So bored that I worried about having enough things to do for 3 months post birth to keep me entertained. I guess I’m an overachiever? The weeks are starting to race by now before my return to work. I failed to visualize that the first month & a half would go by slowly and without many fun adventures (recovery, steep learning curves, sleep deprivation, etc.). Now we’re starting to get into a rhythm and life is once again filled with activity. I am going to miss a big portion of her daily life and I can already feel the tears welling up inside me. I know it’s going to hurt and I just hope that I can be a big girl and get through it. It is comforting to know she’ll be in good hands and will get to spend some of the week with Grandma R.

Hanging With Grandma

2 Months

Holy moly Abby, you’re 2 months old today! Time is flying by and now I understand why everyone was telling me to enjoy the time when you slept curled up as you don’t do that anymore. This past month I really felt like we were grooving and having fun together. I am enjoying motherhood a lot more and am very sad that I have to go back to work in a few weeks.

This past month you helped us celebrate Christmas and ring in the New Year (well, we were all asleep – but we did go to a great party earlier that evening!). Your first Christmas was spent with both sets of Grandparents which made it very special. You scored lots of fun toys and books that I know you’re just itching to play with. Speaking of which, here is what I’ve observed this past month:

You continue to work on holding your head up and you get stronger and stronger every week. I feel more secure carrying you around and doing something with one of my free hands as I trust you’ll keep your head up for a brief moment.

Your smile! Oh my goodness, you are smiling a bunch these days and I can’t get enough of it. Just recently you started smiling and cooing at the same time which is just the cutest. There have been a few giggles, but you’re still working on that. Keep it up kiddo, this makes us very happy!

Sleep pig – you LOVE to sleep and are such a good sleeper. You make all the other mommies jealous! (Yes, I know how incredibly lucky we are!) You generally go to bed at 8pm and for the past week have steadily been getting up anywhere between 6:30am and 7:30am. The days that you sleep in until 7:30 are fabulous kid, I love it.

You love your play mat and this week I’ve observed you deliberately reaching out and grabbing or hitting the monkey! When you are on your mat you kick your legs and move your arms around a lot. Besides kicking and reaching, you work on talking while you are on the mat. You are good at letting us know when you’ve had enough or would like us to join you in play.

You are getting too big for your britches little lady! We’ve had to move up to size 2 diapers as you’re growing so fast. You have outgrown anything 0-3 months and are a solid 3-6 month size. We went in for your 2 month checkup and you weighed 14 pounds, 4 ounces – you gained nearly 4 pounds in the past month! You are almost off the charts kid! You don’t miss a meal, so I’m not surprised. Length wise you grew 2 inches and you are 23.5 inches tall. Wow! You started at 19! Your head grew 2 cm – your noggin is 40 cm around now, not too bad. Overall you’re in great health and we couldn’t be happier.

I miss zippers. I miss belts, most of all – I miss my cute jeans! My drawers and laundry baskets are overflowing with the forgotten clothes I long to wear. Though I didn’t start packing on the pounds until 4 months in, it seems like so long ago!

So here it goes, my weight goal. I’ve plateaued my weight loss with moderate exercise and breastfeeding, so now it’s time to crank it up a notch and get going. I’m of course going for gold and am attempting to go beyond pre-baby weight. We’ll see! As they say, 9 months on, 9 months off. (But ya’ll know that’s really 10 months, right?)

It’s not so much the weight as it is the measurements and the lack of energy. I really want to fit back into my clothes and feel good. Working out gives me energy and I’m going to need lots of it and strength to keep up with this kiddo, she’s growing up so fast!

I’ve got the BOB, a mom who will babysit and a great gym membership, (that also has affordable child care services!) so no excuses! I started the week off with a trip to the gym. I jogged 2 miles and did some strength training. I’m trying to find a balance between working out hard but not wearing myself out so much that I’m unable to care for the baby once I get home. Either way, I’m motivated… I’ve got cute jeans (with zippers!!!) waiting for me!

My Cute Little Monster

It’s hard to believe she’s grown so much in the past 6 weeks! She barely fits Gerber’s 0-3 month footed PJs now. In fact, this is a 3 month size by Circo. (I’m learning that sizing depends on the brand.) Abby is starting to become more expressive and her smiles are more frequent.

Here we are playing photo shoot with mommy. Below is a video of Abby playing on her mat talking it up. She is finding her voice and kicking her legs really well! I think any hits or grabs to the animals are happy accidents for now.

According to Wikipedia…

Sleep deprivation is the condition of having too little sleep; it can be either chronic or acute. Long-term total sleep deprivation has caused death in lab animals.^[1] A chronic sleep-restricted state can cause fatigue, daytime sleepiness, clumsiness and weight loss or weight gain.^[2] It adversely affects the brain and cognitive function.^[3] Few studies have compared the effects of acute total sleep deprivation and chronic partial sleep restriction.^[3] Complete absence of sleep over long periods is impossible for humans to achieve (unless they suffer from fatal familial insomnia); brief microsleeps cannot be avoided.^[4]

Except they forgot to list infants as one of the main causes for many people’s sleep deprivation. While my baby girl is a champ sleeper for her age, I have to get up every 3-4 hours to pump in the night. Abby wakes up on her own schedule and that wakes me up too. I’m amazed at how something so tiny that just eats, sleeps, and poops all day long can destroy two fully grown, active adults.

Abby slept last night from 9:30pm to 5am, then from 5:30am until about 9am. Granted, we were out at a party and didn’t get home and to bed until midnight, both hubby and I needed naps today to recover. I feel completely destroyed today and I have been sitting here wondering why. It shouldn’t be any surprise after you read how a typical night goes. All times are +/- 1 hour generally speaking.

9 pm - Abby’s last night time feeding before putting her in her crib for the night. I pump either right before or right after, make sure there are supplies of bottles and diapers, then hop into bed.

1 am – (4 hours sleep) I wake up and pump. Lately I’ve had to also change Abby’s diaper to help her get over bad diaper rash. This is a huge gamble as I never know if she’ll wake up or not during this and need food and inevitably another diaper change.

1:30 am – I go back to bed. It takes me about 20-30 minutes to fall back asleep.

4 am – Abby wakes up for a feeding & changing. Hubby takes this one, but I wake up and often have to wake him from sleep. I quickly return to sleep.

5 am – Hubby returns to bed. Sometimes I wake up and go pump, sometimes not.

5:30 am - ( 3 1/2 hours of sleep) I wake up to pump again if I didn’t get up earlier.

6 am – I go back to bed. Falling back asleep is even harder as I think about how tired I am and how quickly 7 is approaching.

7 am -  (1 hour of sleep) Abby wakes up for the morning. She’s awake for generally 2-3 hours for eating and play time, so there’s no crawling back into bed for another quick nap.

I’m tired just reading this! If I were to say that I get 8 1/2 hours of sleep, I would think that’s pretty awesome. But saying I get a 4, 3 1/2, and a 1 hour series of consecutive NAPS as my “beauty sleep”, I would say that sucks!

There have been a few nights lately in which I’ve tried to ignore the girls and stretch it out 5 hours and pump once during the night and then again after Abby gets up. I feel guilty as I don’t make as much milk as Abby requires and the more I skip, the less she’s going to get. But something has got to give and soon.. I can’t keep up this erratic sleep schedule. She is an AWESOME sleeper and while hubby is getting the benefit of it, I’m not.

I guess this is another one of those “If I were a rational thinking person”, it would be easy to solve. See what sleep deprivation is doing to me? Endless cycles of irrational mommy martyrdom.

Since bringing Abby home, there has been a wide range of emotions and realities that I’ve had to deal with. I don’t think I had misconceptions that raising a baby would be easy, but I don’t think I prepared myself for some of the things I’ve gone through. In talking with many of my new mommy friends, I find that I’m not alone.

Breastfeeding

How can something that seems so natural and primal be so hard to figure out and painful? You would think that mother nature would kill any pain receptors in the part of your body that sustains life, but not so much!

I’ve consulted with many lactation consultants, many times and I have tried everything they suggested and it just hasn’t clicked for us. The one thing I can’t get out of my head is that each of these women became lactation consultants because they themselves had horrible breastfeeding experiences in their life. Doesn’t that say something? There hasn’t been one of my mom friends that have said “breastfeeding was easy and it didn’t hurt one bit”. Hell, they have support groups for breastfeeding. That speaks volumes right there!!

I know why this has become so hard – no one talks about it, no one does it in public, no one is comfortable whipping out their boob and demonstrating how it really works. For those that take a class beforehand,  you hold a cabbage patch doll up to your t-shirt and are expected to learn how to become a breastfeeding expert?

Abby and I have had a fit of stops and starts in the breastfeeding department. I’ve cried, yelled, cried some more, and experienced two different maladies that have made me want to curl up and die. It’s gotten so bad that it’s affecting our relationship and is not making for a happy family.

I recently made the decision to stop feeding Abby on my breasts. Cutting out the pain has provided me much needed relief. I’m now back to pumping exclusively and am trying my hardest to keep that up. I say this because the other problem we have is supply and demand. My supply hasn’t ever been able to keep up with the demand and I’ve tried just about everything to remedy this. I smell like maple syrup, have eaten more oats than a horse and if I see another “mama’s major milkin cookie” I might puke. We’ve gotten so far off track that I don’t see how it’s possible to double the current supply.

The rational person in me says that it would be okay to stop all together. Providing Abby with my breast milk isn’t what will make me a good mom. Especially if pumping gets in the way of sleep, sanity and time I get to spend with her. But the irrational person in me already feels like a failure, stopping all together would make me feel like an even bigger failure. I suppose making the decision to cut off the source of constant pain was an easy one, it’s making the next decision is what has me curled up on the couch depressed. It’s an irreversible decision and I’m not taking it lightly.

Abby, you’re 1 month old today (4 weeks, that is)! I can’t believe a month has gone by already, it seems like it was just yesterday that I was lying in bed wishing and hoping for you to make your entrance into this great big world.

• You are working on holding your head up, though you’ve been able to hold your head up fairly well since the day you were born. When you are awake, I put you on your play mat and help you with time on your tummy and baby push ups.
• For about an hour and a half to two hours each day you are awake and alert. This usually happens in the morning time. You play on your mat while mommy eats breakfast and talks to you. Sometimes daddy reads to you from the morning newspaper.
• You gave me a smile for the first time today that I could confirm was not a reaction to gas in your belly! Albeit very brief, it melted my heart and made me laugh, I can’t wait to see more of your beautiful smile.
• Eating is one of your strong suits. We’ve been keeping track and you gain an average of 2 ounces each day! That’s a lot kiddo!
• Sleeping at night is also another special skill you have (you likely inherited this from your mommy). From pretty early on, you’ve been sleeping in 4 hour stretches at night pretty regularly, but last night you went 5 1/2 hours between feedings! (Though mommy gets up every 3 hours regardless, you sure did let your dad sleep a lot.)

You also had your first Thanksgiving holiday where  our family came out to meet you! Your great-grandfather came all the way out here to celebrate his 90th birthday with you, along with both sets of grandparents, a great-uncle, and your auntie, uncle, and cousin. You were the star, even if you slept through most of it. I can’t wait to watch what you do this next month baby girl!

After our weekend of prodromal labor, our little acrobat began her departure early Monday morning on November 8th! I woke up at 6am to contractions, but I was skeptical after all the false labor I had the past few days. Though these were more intense, I decided the best way to tell would be to hop in the shower. Previously, showers slowed things down a bit, but this proved to have no effect. Okay! I was finally on the excited train.

We made our way first to our Doctor’s office to get checked out. I wanted to find out our progress and to know how long I would have until I could check into the hospital. I was 3cm dilated and confirmed that I was indeed in active labor. Our O.B. gave us three options: continue on to hospital, go home, go home with drugs. I chose option A, home was the opposite direction and it being Monday morning, I had enough of sitting in traffic already. Our doctor called ahead and when we rolled into the L&D unit, they were expecting us. A flurry of activity ensued to get us checked in and settled. I met with the Anesthesiologist to discuss pain control options and came up with a game plan.

A word to all you mother’s who went drug free: You are simply amazing and I don’t possibly know how you did it.

I am strong and have a fairly high tolerance for pain – but my god, that was something special. Needless to say, I was in agony to get to 4 cm, and it took 6 hours to get there. I got an epidural and went from 4 cm to 10 cm in 5 hours. It felt so good to be able to relax through the contractions, and it went faster than anyone predicted, so I was ready to push when the doctor came back to check up on me. 45 minutes later (or so) at approximately 4:58pm we welcomed Abigail Fay into our world. She had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck which was causing us problems, but our doctor helped us out of that predicament. She weighed in at 8 pounds, 4 ounces and 19 inches in length. She was solid and had the cutest rolls on her thighs! It was the most amazing and indescribable feeling I have ever experienced in my whole life.

Since that moment, it’s been like a roller coaster! Highs and lows, twists and turns. Each day gets better and better and is different from the one before. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Happy Birthday Abigail!

It’s been a whirlwind of activity around here the past few days. On Friday, after getting 2 hours of sleep I woke up around 1am to contractions. They were regular enough and strong enough that I couldn’t go back to sleep. I was anxious and wondered if it was finally time. I woke hubby up around 3:30am to tell him what was going on, so we both got up for awhile to keep track and to wait. The only thing I kept thinking was “Are you kidding? Are we really going to do this without getting any sleep?”.

I finally slept between 4 and 5am, then decided to get up and have breakfast and a shower. We had an appointment scheduled at 9:15 and we ended up making it in. The verdict was that I was only another half centimeter dilated and it was likely prodromal labor that I was experiencing. After deciding to get my membrane swept, I was hooked up to the fetal monitors to see how she was handling the contractions. She of course is great and did very well. The rest of the day I waited to see if it would progress to active labor, but it never did.

The doctor mentioned prodromal labor lasts generally up to 48 hours, and yes.. yes it did. Yesterday’s activities weren’t as bad as Friday’s but nonetheless, I didn’t do much. Friday night hubby and I crashed around 9:30pm and slept until 9am the next morning. It was some of the best sleep both of us had in a long time! Our little acrobat slept like a champ too which was very nice for me.

So now we’re back to staring at each other wondering how we’re going to spend this rainy Sunday. I think a trip to the gym and grocery store are in order!

T-Minus 10 Days!

We’re in the final countdown now! I’m ecstatic, a bit nervous, and mostly ready. The freezer is full, the house is clean, we’ve got a new water heater, heck we’ve even got a new kitchen faucet!

The last thing to arrive is the new roller shades, then I’ll snap a few photos of the “baby’s room”. The shades should be arriving later this week and I’m pretty excited to see them! Our neighbors will be so thrilled that we’ll finally get rid of the paper in the front window (after 3+ years living in this house!).

The past 10 days have been fun! Growth wise, my belly has grown another inch bringing me to 45″ around and I’ve gained another 2 pounds, making it +28 overall. (I’m +30 at times, but we’ll forget that reality for a second.) I’m still 1.5 cm dilated and 75% effaced, no change there.

Now that the multi-day cook-fest is over and the to-do list done, I’ve been trying to fill my time with either cooking things (I really enjoy playing with my kitchen toys and eating good food!), or going to the gym. I have to expel some amount of energy each day or else I can’t sleep at night. My little acrobat is still fairly active – no more flipping around, but man she’s really into that yoga. I can feel her feet, many times a day pressing on my belly. I think she has yet to figure out that’s not the exit.

Now, I’m just waiting in anticipation!