In Honor of Thanksgiving next week here are 15 things I am thankful for this year!!
1) My Jesus, who came to earth, died for me, and washed away my horrible sins so I can live forever in his kingdom! Praise him!
2) My amazing Hubby who is a blessing to me. He works hard and almost never complains, so that I can stay home and raise our daughter. It warms my heart when he says things like "man if she was in daycare "this and this" would happen". Makes my heart happy that he gets it and knows how important it is to me to be home with her!
3) My amazing Hubby's job, that MORE then provides for our family. After looking for a job for 3 months, we KNOW we are blessed and Hubby is 10 times happier currently then he was at old company. Praise GOD!
4) So so so so soooooooo thankful for my amazing loving Toddler. She is a gift and I know to never take advantage of her or our time together. When I get annoyed by finding pancakes in my shoes, or her whining, it's better then silence or her not being here!
5) My wonderful amazing families. I love my parents and siblings more then they know, we ALWAYS laugh until we cry together, always have a funny story to share, or fun memories to reflect on. Steve's family has quickly become my own and I love spending time with them, and love how they love my daughter! Also I am blessed by my Hubby's extended family in Michigan. I have become so close with them and consider them MY family and some of my best friends!
6) My friends. They rock. Although I don't get to see them as often as I did BH (before Hailey), every time we get together it's like no time has passed and we always laugh and have such a fun time together. Girlfriends make the world go 'round!
7) My house. It keeps me warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and is so lovely and big and PERFECT for our family. I am blessed!
8) my brand spankin new-to-me car! So great that I know I can get where I need to go safely and it will start every time. I know not all people can say this and I feel spoiled rotten!
9) having a stocked fridge/pantry. It's so stupid and sooo so so selfish but sometimes I get mad that our pantry or fridge is TOO full and I can't get to stuff easily, or I can't fit something somewhere. Seriously who does that?? I know there are so many homeless, starving people and I do NOT deserve all that I have been given!
10) my MOPS group! I joined for the 1st time this year and I know this is something I will continue to do until Hailey (and maybe siblings) are in school. I want to give back and volunteer if there is a place for me, and I have already made some good friends! Really, if you have the time and $ to join DO IT. You will not be sorry I promise you!! If you can't join a mops then I highly suggest finding a sunday school or small group. The relationships and time off of children are WELL worth it!
11) My most favorite radio station EVER K-LOVE. They play all the greatest Christian music ever, and all the DJ's are my favorite. I love them! It keeps me focused on God, which in the world we live in it's very very easy to get distracted and not keep him in your daily life! I love that Hailey dances to the songs and gets excited when I turn the radio on! It's pretty much on in my house 24/7. I'm trying to get better about turning the TV off and the radio on!
12) Not everyone will understand but I LOVE Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo. It's one of the best Zoo's in the country and I LOVE to get outside and walk around and get some exercise! Stay tuned I am working on a picture filled post of our Zoo adventures from this summer! It's super fun and it's such a blessing to have grown up in a city where they treat animals with such love and respect and I hope it crosses over to Hailey!
13) Blogging! I love reading other blogs (um I have far to many in my reader), being inspired by other Momma's and their love for their Children, Hubby's, and Jesus! It really makes my day and I love being allowed in their lives on a daily basis. It inspires me to get out and do things with Hailey, fun crafty stuff we can do at home, and even decorating tips! I honestly don't know how my Mom did it, raising children without the internet!
14) Our Health! This should be way higher on the list! I pray every night before bed and thank God and am amazed by his blessings over us! Our families are extremely healthy, and when I hear about friends who have loved ones in the hospital and with illness it makes me so so so extremely happy to say that we are healthy! Hailey has never once been to the dr unless it's just a well check, we just have a few sniffles here and there, and slowly Hubby is getting better and growing his immune system!
15) a good sleeping Baby! This has blessed me in more ways then you could ever imagine! Ha. Hailey goes to bed every night around 9:30 (sometimes it's 9:15, sometimes 9:45). I have to WAKE her up at 8:50 in the morning! Then usually at 11:30 she will go down for a nap and sleep anywhere from 1-2 1/2 hours. So that means she can sleep from 11-1:30 some days! THEN at 3:30 she will sleep for ANOTHER hour and a half! I love it! I am going to keep her on her 2 naps a day schedule for as long as I can!!
Hope this inspires you to think about all that YOU have to be thankful for! Some days are hard and I know how easy it is to sit and think "woe is me" but if you sit down and list all the amazing blessings in your life it will brighten your day!
November 15, 2010
November 3, 2010
The Road To Get Here........
2 posts in one week, WHAT?!?! Ha. Don't expect it from me often, but lately I feel like I have a lot to say. This will be another heavy VERY EXTREMELY TMI, but sometime in the next couple days I will do a fun post to offset all of these serious/gross ones. Ha.
So I never fully explained or documented our challenge to get pregnant. It wasn't that I was embarrassed, or un-willing to talk about it, almost all of my close friends knew was what was going (and honestly probably knew much more then they wanted too! Ha) on, but we never told our families or anything. I just didn't want to take heat, or hear those dreaded words "Oh if you stop trying then you'll get pregnant" or "you worry to much" NOT what people trying to get pregnant and month after month of getting disappointed want to hear. Trust me.
It all started in May of 2007. Well, technically it started when I was 13 and got my first period. I will never ever forget my first period. In my family we weren't open about that kind of stuff. My Mom never talked to us about that stuff. I learned the birds and the bees from my best friend. So I never talked to my Mom about my totally heavy horrible periods. I'm sure she knew, as all Mother's do, but we never openly talked about it. It was horrible. Clotting for days. Then no period for 2 or 3 months. It was bad. Some months I would have 2 or 3 HEAVY clotting bleeding periods and then nothing for a month. It was bad. So I finally broke down and went to a dr and told her I was loosing so much blood I could barely walk up the 3 flights of stairs in our house. I was so anemic. I bruised extremely easily, it was bad. So she put me on pills. I H A T E D them. I had every single bad side effect that was on the warning label. Depression, weight gain, tired, everything. So I went back and told her I threw them away. So she moved me onto Depo-provera. I have a love/hate relationship with depo. It made my periods completely disappear. Who doesn't love that?? No more bleeding or anemia or anything! YAY! It can also completely ruin your chance at getting pregnant for many years. I was on Depo for 6 years people. I so wish a Dr had gotten a hold of me and told me the long term effects from it, but I don't think there have been many studies done and honestly I am one who has probably been on it the longest. So skip ahead to May of 2007 I switch OB's and meet with my new dr. I tell him I am getting married in Sept and would like to get pregnant asap after the wedding. He puts me on pills (YAZ. Best.pills.EVER), to regulate my cycle, and tells me to start prenatals after the wedding to help me be more fertile. I did not have high hopes. I have known since I was young I would have trouble getting pregnant. Call it a sick sense or what have you, but I have read SOOOO many blogs about people and their journey through IF and they all say it to. It's weird. So I take my yaz and get my period the first month! And it comes on time every single month after that! I was so happy my body was doing what it was supposed to be doing! But only with synthetic hormones. Not good. So we get married, go on honeymoon, everything is great. I stop taking my pills as of the first week in October 2007. The following months are as follows;
-October 2007-May 2008- Have a regular period every month. Cycles last about 28-30 days. Am totally and completely happy and think we will be prego right away. Yeah not so much. Charting and taking my BBT every month and see no change what-so-ever. Figure out I am not ovulating and start looking online and for blogs for help.
May 2008- go back to OB for yearly exam. Tell him about my issues or what have you, and show him my BBT charts. He agrees I am not Oing either but I should be. (now this is where we disagree. He told me that since I haven't been on the deop shot for a year my body has completely rid it self of those hormones and should be fine and ready for baby by now. After 6 years I really think it will take longer but what do I know) So he tells me we will do 3 months of fert. pills and if I'm not pregnant in 3 months he will move on to testing and possibly seeing an RE.
Now as I have said in many many of my blogs I LOVE LOVE LOVE my OB. I know I needed his help to get pregnant and he is the expert and I know nothing about any of this stuff. But he was never good at explaining anything to me. I had no idea about what I would be taking, what he expected, nothing. I was very very frustrated. I didn't even know what questions to ask. Oh how my world has changed. I know everything about IF now, but knew nothing then. All my knowledge has come from reading online. So it was extremely frustrating to go into all of this so blindly.
So at that appointment Dr Reed write me a prescription for Clomid and sends me on my way. I have never in my life heard of this drug or know anything about it. Before I filled it I checked my friend WebMD and read up about it. Well, I read those magic little worlds "multipules" and about had a heart attack. Me and Hubby defer on selective reduction in pregnancy so we fought for a couple days before I even filled the prescription. We decided to go ahead and try it and if I ended up prego with 7 babies God would show us what to do from there.
So in May I took 50 mg of Clomid for 5 days after my period started. Charted and saw no difference in BBT at all. Went in for blood work and got a call the next day that I did NOT O. :( Sad.
June 2008- took 100 mg of Clomid for 5 days after period started. Charted and saw no difference in BBT at all. Went in for blood work and got a call the next day that I did NOT O. :( Sad.
July 2008- Took 100 mg of Clomid for 5 days after period started. My Dr added a lovely little friend called Metformin to my clomid. OMG Met SUCKED. One of the side effects of it is that it empties your stomach. Glory. I did not throw up at all, so you figure out how everything emptied. It S U C K E D major. After taking it for 8 of the 12 days or something I decided to throw it away and stop taking it. It made me way to sick and the side effects were not worth it to us at that time. I went in for blood work and got a call the next day that yet again my blood work shows no change and I did not ovulate. :( Sad.
I should also add that July 24th 2008 we sold our house and moved in with the in-laws. I did not want to be pregnant while living with them, and then moving in January. And I wasn't comfortable actively trying to get pregnant in their house. Something about it just irked me the wrong way. Did I really want to tell my child "you were conceived in your Grandparents house" um nothankyou.
I started my period July 2nd and waited in August for it to start. Nothing. I had been like clock work the previous months so I was confused. I took a test a couple days after it was supposed to start and it was negative. So whatever I went on my merry way, then my Birthday comes (the 13th) and I think I tested again that week. I had been drinking and going out with friends for my Birthday and wanted to be safe. Again negative. So I called my Dr office to see if we could talk about what to do from here, and to basically tell them I wasn't charting anymore and we would talk next May at my next yearly exam. Lisa my BFF at the front desk told me he was booked SOLID for 3 weeks but I could see his partner Barb who was a N.P. I knew Barb and loved her so I was comfortable seeing her and not Dr. Reed. I made an appointment to see Barb on Thursday the 21st. So I forget about it and wait for my period to come. The night of the 20th I decide to take another pregnancy test (well, mainly because I had 3 sitting in the drawer) to make SURE I wasn't because I knew that would be her first question. Low and behold the awesome words PREGNANT came up!!
You can read my blog here you'll see I called and got in after 2 positives and 3 negatives. So my Dr decides to do a ultrasound and told me I was less then 2 weeks pregnant. WHAT? I was completely off all pills, and didn't have a period. Can you ovulate when not having a period?? Every time during my pregnancy the baby would be further along then the last scan, moving forward my due date. So who knows. We never went off a conception date, only according to what the U/S said. So who knows! I honestly do not know when or how I got pregnant. I am guessing it was during the time I was on the clomind/metformin combo but if that is true then Hailey's due date was off by over 2 weeks, and since she was only 6 pounds and showed a lot of signs of being born before 39 weeks I believe she was. But honestly it drives me nuts to not know. I know it doesn't matter, the ending was perfect, I got the ultimate prize, and she is perfect and happy and healthy now. It's just so weird.
Now for those of you who are judging me and telling me I should have gone a more "natural" route or found a midwife instead of going to my OB. I agree with you to an extent. But I was sooooooooo naive and didn't know anything about what was going on! Now I would do more research and try herbs and things. From what I could find online there are 2 midwife offices in Omaha. I called one and never got an answer or machine. The other I called and talked to the most horrible woman in the world. I told her I was having trouble getting pregnant and my dr was trying to put me on pills that I didn't know anything about and wanted some help and guidance and was wondering if I could meet with somebody. She RUDELY told me that they don't see people unless they are pregnant and to call back when I was pregnant and HUNG UP ON ME. I think I sat at my desk for 10 minutes crying. I was sooooooo upset. Now of course I know 3 people in Omaha who have midwives and I could ask them for references but then I didn't know that. So so so frustrating!
So there is my story. An amazing outcome. I don't feel any differently about my dr, I still love him but I wish I could have done somethings differently.
**Edited to add**
Please don't think I am ungrateful or anything of that nature. To be praying for a Baby my whole life, trying for 10 months, 3 months "assisted" and then end up Pregnant on "accident" I know how blessed I am/was. It was truly a gift from God and if you were brought to my blog looking for answers and are going through something similar, I am praying for you. I don't know your name or story, but God does and he will give you what you want in HIS timing just like He did me!
So I never fully explained or documented our challenge to get pregnant. It wasn't that I was embarrassed, or un-willing to talk about it, almost all of my close friends knew was what was going (and honestly probably knew much more then they wanted too! Ha) on, but we never told our families or anything. I just didn't want to take heat, or hear those dreaded words "Oh if you stop trying then you'll get pregnant" or "you worry to much" NOT what people trying to get pregnant and month after month of getting disappointed want to hear. Trust me.
It all started in May of 2007. Well, technically it started when I was 13 and got my first period. I will never ever forget my first period. In my family we weren't open about that kind of stuff. My Mom never talked to us about that stuff. I learned the birds and the bees from my best friend. So I never talked to my Mom about my totally heavy horrible periods. I'm sure she knew, as all Mother's do, but we never openly talked about it. It was horrible. Clotting for days. Then no period for 2 or 3 months. It was bad. Some months I would have 2 or 3 HEAVY clotting bleeding periods and then nothing for a month. It was bad. So I finally broke down and went to a dr and told her I was loosing so much blood I could barely walk up the 3 flights of stairs in our house. I was so anemic. I bruised extremely easily, it was bad. So she put me on pills. I H A T E D them. I had every single bad side effect that was on the warning label. Depression, weight gain, tired, everything. So I went back and told her I threw them away. So she moved me onto Depo-provera. I have a love/hate relationship with depo. It made my periods completely disappear. Who doesn't love that?? No more bleeding or anemia or anything! YAY! It can also completely ruin your chance at getting pregnant for many years. I was on Depo for 6 years people. I so wish a Dr had gotten a hold of me and told me the long term effects from it, but I don't think there have been many studies done and honestly I am one who has probably been on it the longest. So skip ahead to May of 2007 I switch OB's and meet with my new dr. I tell him I am getting married in Sept and would like to get pregnant asap after the wedding. He puts me on pills (YAZ. Best.pills.EVER), to regulate my cycle, and tells me to start prenatals after the wedding to help me be more fertile. I did not have high hopes. I have known since I was young I would have trouble getting pregnant. Call it a sick sense or what have you, but I have read SOOOO many blogs about people and their journey through IF and they all say it to. It's weird. So I take my yaz and get my period the first month! And it comes on time every single month after that! I was so happy my body was doing what it was supposed to be doing! But only with synthetic hormones. Not good. So we get married, go on honeymoon, everything is great. I stop taking my pills as of the first week in October 2007. The following months are as follows;
-October 2007-May 2008- Have a regular period every month. Cycles last about 28-30 days. Am totally and completely happy and think we will be prego right away. Yeah not so much. Charting and taking my BBT every month and see no change what-so-ever. Figure out I am not ovulating and start looking online and for blogs for help.
May 2008- go back to OB for yearly exam. Tell him about my issues or what have you, and show him my BBT charts. He agrees I am not Oing either but I should be. (now this is where we disagree. He told me that since I haven't been on the deop shot for a year my body has completely rid it self of those hormones and should be fine and ready for baby by now. After 6 years I really think it will take longer but what do I know) So he tells me we will do 3 months of fert. pills and if I'm not pregnant in 3 months he will move on to testing and possibly seeing an RE.
Now as I have said in many many of my blogs I LOVE LOVE LOVE my OB. I know I needed his help to get pregnant and he is the expert and I know nothing about any of this stuff. But he was never good at explaining anything to me. I had no idea about what I would be taking, what he expected, nothing. I was very very frustrated. I didn't even know what questions to ask. Oh how my world has changed. I know everything about IF now, but knew nothing then. All my knowledge has come from reading online. So it was extremely frustrating to go into all of this so blindly.
So at that appointment Dr Reed write me a prescription for Clomid and sends me on my way. I have never in my life heard of this drug or know anything about it. Before I filled it I checked my friend WebMD and read up about it. Well, I read those magic little worlds "multipules" and about had a heart attack. Me and Hubby defer on selective reduction in pregnancy so we fought for a couple days before I even filled the prescription. We decided to go ahead and try it and if I ended up prego with 7 babies God would show us what to do from there.
So in May I took 50 mg of Clomid for 5 days after my period started. Charted and saw no difference in BBT at all. Went in for blood work and got a call the next day that I did NOT O. :( Sad.
June 2008- took 100 mg of Clomid for 5 days after period started. Charted and saw no difference in BBT at all. Went in for blood work and got a call the next day that I did NOT O. :( Sad.
July 2008- Took 100 mg of Clomid for 5 days after period started. My Dr added a lovely little friend called Metformin to my clomid. OMG Met SUCKED. One of the side effects of it is that it empties your stomach. Glory. I did not throw up at all, so you figure out how everything emptied. It S U C K E D major. After taking it for 8 of the 12 days or something I decided to throw it away and stop taking it. It made me way to sick and the side effects were not worth it to us at that time. I went in for blood work and got a call the next day that yet again my blood work shows no change and I did not ovulate. :( Sad.
I should also add that July 24th 2008 we sold our house and moved in with the in-laws. I did not want to be pregnant while living with them, and then moving in January. And I wasn't comfortable actively trying to get pregnant in their house. Something about it just irked me the wrong way. Did I really want to tell my child "you were conceived in your Grandparents house" um nothankyou.
I started my period July 2nd and waited in August for it to start. Nothing. I had been like clock work the previous months so I was confused. I took a test a couple days after it was supposed to start and it was negative. So whatever I went on my merry way, then my Birthday comes (the 13th) and I think I tested again that week. I had been drinking and going out with friends for my Birthday and wanted to be safe. Again negative. So I called my Dr office to see if we could talk about what to do from here, and to basically tell them I wasn't charting anymore and we would talk next May at my next yearly exam. Lisa my BFF at the front desk told me he was booked SOLID for 3 weeks but I could see his partner Barb who was a N.P. I knew Barb and loved her so I was comfortable seeing her and not Dr. Reed. I made an appointment to see Barb on Thursday the 21st. So I forget about it and wait for my period to come. The night of the 20th I decide to take another pregnancy test (well, mainly because I had 3 sitting in the drawer) to make SURE I wasn't because I knew that would be her first question. Low and behold the awesome words PREGNANT came up!!
You can read my blog here you'll see I called and got in after 2 positives and 3 negatives. So my Dr decides to do a ultrasound and told me I was less then 2 weeks pregnant. WHAT? I was completely off all pills, and didn't have a period. Can you ovulate when not having a period?? Every time during my pregnancy the baby would be further along then the last scan, moving forward my due date. So who knows. We never went off a conception date, only according to what the U/S said. So who knows! I honestly do not know when or how I got pregnant. I am guessing it was during the time I was on the clomind/metformin combo but if that is true then Hailey's due date was off by over 2 weeks, and since she was only 6 pounds and showed a lot of signs of being born before 39 weeks I believe she was. But honestly it drives me nuts to not know. I know it doesn't matter, the ending was perfect, I got the ultimate prize, and she is perfect and happy and healthy now. It's just so weird.
Now for those of you who are judging me and telling me I should have gone a more "natural" route or found a midwife instead of going to my OB. I agree with you to an extent. But I was sooooooooo naive and didn't know anything about what was going on! Now I would do more research and try herbs and things. From what I could find online there are 2 midwife offices in Omaha. I called one and never got an answer or machine. The other I called and talked to the most horrible woman in the world. I told her I was having trouble getting pregnant and my dr was trying to put me on pills that I didn't know anything about and wanted some help and guidance and was wondering if I could meet with somebody. She RUDELY told me that they don't see people unless they are pregnant and to call back when I was pregnant and HUNG UP ON ME. I think I sat at my desk for 10 minutes crying. I was sooooooo upset. Now of course I know 3 people in Omaha who have midwives and I could ask them for references but then I didn't know that. So so so frustrating!
So there is my story. An amazing outcome. I don't feel any differently about my dr, I still love him but I wish I could have done somethings differently.
**Edited to add**
Please don't think I am ungrateful or anything of that nature. To be praying for a Baby my whole life, trying for 10 months, 3 months "assisted" and then end up Pregnant on "accident" I know how blessed I am/was. It was truly a gift from God and if you were brought to my blog looking for answers and are going through something similar, I am praying for you. I don't know your name or story, but God does and he will give you what you want in HIS timing just like He did me!
November 1, 2010
Truth..........
FYI *** this will be graphic. If your shy, embarrass easily, don't have children you might not want to read. Lots of TMI's included***
So I opened Google to go to my blog and write this about 8 times before actually going through with it, for a couple of reasons. 1) This will be embarrassing for all parties (myself and readers) but I must write these things down for I am already forgetting them and I need and want to remember them. 2) There are people who I didn't want to read such intimate details of my being, still don't want them to but what can you do. Maybe this will help some poor girl who googles something and finds me for answers. Welcome!! ha 3) Being away from my blog for so long sucks. I wasn't one of those good Mommy's like the ones I read who write milestones down monthly and do a cute monthly post for their Babies (but in my defense Hailey's baby book is completely current as of last Thursday) , and I feel like I need to blog to catch up on the last 18 months of my life. But alas I can not so I'll just start somewhere. So this will be long and windy and crazy all over the place but here we go.
The TRUTH about having a child and surviving........
I wish before I had my child somebody checked out my boobs before hand and told me breast feeding would be IMPOSSIBLE. I have inverted nipples. Making it almost impossible to b/f. After working with one of the lactation cons. at the hospital for 2 days, one finally gave me one of these and I was FINALLY able to feed my child. But it was horrible. I couldn't feed her in discreet because I was fumbling with a piece of plastic and it would leak and come off and it was just a mess. I used it with every.single.feeding (every 1 1/2 hours remember?) for 6 months. I will NEVER forget one night in the first week of being home it took me from about 8 until 11:30 to get Hailey so sleep and to stop screaming at the top of her lungs and I laid her down and made sure I had my shield handy for our next night feeding and I couldn't find it. I was hysterical. I woke Steve up and made him come help me find it (with a flash light so we didn't wake up psycho Baby). I think it ended up being next to Hay in the pack-n-play but I was dying. I could NOT feed my Baby without this thing and if I lost it then what?? I went to Target the next day and bought 2 more. Ha. After 6 months I finally gave up and pumped exclusively, it was a hard decision but we were going to b/f class with the L/C from the hospital and she agreed it was probably best also so I felt better. People have told me that they know so many people who have so many feeding problems with the first Baby and never use the shield with the 2nd. Sure hope I would be one of those people..................
Internal Hemorrhoids S U C K. After pushing for over 2 1/2 hours I should have known I wouldn't get away with 0 hemorrhoids. I was in pain every single time I had to go #2 for like 11 months. Honestly I don't know or remember how long it was. My body was SOOOO messed up for so long. For all I know it could still be not "normal" and hurt but I am just so used to it and this is my "new normal". Ugh. Horrible. I used every kind of treatment out there and nothing worked. My Dr basically said since they are internal and not external there was nothing anybody could do and they would just heal on their own and go away. Blah. I am pretty much better and healed I think, but man going through that again scares the bejewels out of me.
So since my child's head was stuck on my tail bone for 2 hours of pushing and the traumatic way she finally came out I had a fairly large tear that required stitches. After the initial horrible part of actually getting the stitches everything was fine. For about 4 months. Then I remember going to the restroom and it burning sooooo horribly bad down there from the urine. I finally found a way to position myself when going that it wouldn't hit it and hurt. Yes I am stupid and didn't think anything was THAT wrong it would just go away on it's own right?? RIGHT?? My 2nd sign was using my scented suave body wash irritated the crap out of it to. OHMYGOSH did it burn in the shower to wash my "area". So finally one day I listened to my ever wise Husband and called my OB for a check up to see how everything was down there. SO NOT what I wanted to do. So he takes a look and told me that my scar tissue from my tear decided to RE-OPEN!! People!!!! Seriously?? I can't make this stuff up. How much can 1 person go through?? Holy jeesh! So my lovely Dr decides to cauterize it. So yeah he grabs like a 3 foot (OK maybe it was like 4-5 inches long) match looking thing and lights it on fire and puts it DOWN THERE on me. I almost died. Worst pain of my life. I was supposed to stop and pick up dinner for us right after my appointment, but I was in so much pain sitting to drive home I called Hubby in tears and to figure out plan B for dinner. I sat on the Boppy pillow for like 2 days after that. Ha. It healed up fine and I haven't had a problem with it since. But jeepers did that KILL. It was bad. Of course it probably wouldn't have been half that bad had I had it taken care of earlier. I don't know how long I let it go on for, maybe 2 months?? I am so stupid I never want to go to the DR or admit something is wrong with me, I just think if I ignore it it will go away. Smart huh?
Before child I was a social butterfly. At least 2 times a week (even after we were married) I would go out with a girlfriend(s) and do dinner, shopping, movies, pedicures, it was heaven. I mourned those dates after Hailey and still do sometimes. I had so many "bestfriends" (I use the term to loosely probably), we were always together. One friend in particular comes to mind. We were super close, hung out all the time. After Hailey was born I saw her when Hailey was 5 days old, then Hailey's 1st Birthday and haven't seen her since. 6 months it's been since I got to see her. :( I miss her! I understand she has a super busy career, a house, kitty, Husband, family, etc but it still sucks that I don't fit into that anymore. I don't blame her AT ALL I was probably the same way before Hailey, thinking people with kids are to busy and you don't want to bug them and take them away from their family to hang out and stuff, but no PLEASE call your friends, HANG out! Save them! Ha. I guess it's just hard. I have a hard time reaching out all the time and getting turned down or no answer. It sucks. I miss my friendships and those fun times...........
If this makes me a bad person/parent do NOT comment and let me know. I already have my thoughts and feelings of guilt, but it is what it is and I am being honest and putting myself out there so that means I'll dump everything out in this blog. Sometimes (a LOT especially right after Hailey was born) I would cry and sit and miss my old life before Hailey (BH). Me and Hubby had the best marriage and life BH. We had this cute little house, I had loads of time with girlfriends, we have 2 incomes so extra $ to go shopping with, see movies, and spend on stupid things (oh if I only knew then what I know now I would have been SO much better about saving!). We never traveled much but we would go to Kansas City for the weekends and just do fun things! I haven't been away from Hailey for 1 night of her entire 18 1/2 months. We can't just sit down and watch a movie/tv show with out being interrupted. We were only married for 11 months when I found out I was pregnant. We finally both admitted last weekend that we wish we had waited until now to have gotten pregnant. 3 years together alone sounds sooo amazing. Like I said I feel horrible and guilty saying this. All I EVER wanted in my life was a baby and to be pregnant and be a SAHM. Seriously, since I was like 4. And then I had that and I didn't want it! What?!?! I remember when we were living at Steve's parents (which is probably part of the problem and where it started) I would drive by our old house we had just sold and cry and sob. I mourned for those fun carefree times we had! I would never wish my daughter away. I love her more then life itself. I would die for her. I guess I just wish I had enjoyed those times more, cherished them more, taken more vacations and pictures, and done things later in life, but it is what it is and I deal with the hand I was dealt. It's just so hard. You want to just be lovey dovey with your spouse instead of being dirty from throw up and poop, and not wash dishes and just honestly be DEAD tired to the world and want to sleep. But such is life as a parent! We knew going in life would change. But I think I thought she would fit more into OUR life instead of us having to do a COMPLETE 180 and fitting into HER life. We are readjusting and just now are in an amazing place! We always joke and say that if babies were born at like 10 months we would have 6 kids!
Sooooooooo all of this to say...........life has been hard. Not at ALL what I expected. And I just now fully and totally happy and healthy so I have BABY FEVER. lol. Am I crazy? Stupid?? Naive?? This is why God blocks things from our memory. I thought I wouldn't survive those first couple sleepless nights with Hay nursing every 2 hours. Hours upon hours of nursing. Feeling so secluded and trapped in the house. But I did it! I survived! We go to MOPS now, we love to run errands and just drive around.We shop several times a week and have fun play dates. We went to the Zoo every week this summer and it was a awesome summer! Trick or treating last night was probably hands down the funnest thing I have done as a mother with my child. She LOVED it and had so much joy. It made my heart so happy! So I survived, and I can survive again with 2 kids, right?? I don't remember the pain of labor or pushing her out, I don't remember the frustration of breastfeeding, it was all a blur. We'll see what happens and what God has in store for our little family. But Hailey needs a sibling I know that for sure! :)
So I opened Google to go to my blog and write this about 8 times before actually going through with it, for a couple of reasons. 1) This will be embarrassing for all parties (myself and readers) but I must write these things down for I am already forgetting them and I need and want to remember them. 2) There are people who I didn't want to read such intimate details of my being, still don't want them to but what can you do. Maybe this will help some poor girl who googles something and finds me for answers. Welcome!! ha 3) Being away from my blog for so long sucks. I wasn't one of those good Mommy's like the ones I read who write milestones down monthly and do a cute monthly post for their Babies (but in my defense Hailey's baby book is completely current as of last Thursday) , and I feel like I need to blog to catch up on the last 18 months of my life. But alas I can not so I'll just start somewhere. So this will be long and windy and crazy all over the place but here we go.
The TRUTH about having a child and surviving........
I wish before I had my child somebody checked out my boobs before hand and told me breast feeding would be IMPOSSIBLE. I have inverted nipples. Making it almost impossible to b/f. After working with one of the lactation cons. at the hospital for 2 days, one finally gave me one of these and I was FINALLY able to feed my child. But it was horrible. I couldn't feed her in discreet because I was fumbling with a piece of plastic and it would leak and come off and it was just a mess. I used it with every.single.feeding (every 1 1/2 hours remember?) for 6 months. I will NEVER forget one night in the first week of being home it took me from about 8 until 11:30 to get Hailey so sleep and to stop screaming at the top of her lungs and I laid her down and made sure I had my shield handy for our next night feeding and I couldn't find it. I was hysterical. I woke Steve up and made him come help me find it (with a flash light so we didn't wake up psycho Baby). I think it ended up being next to Hay in the pack-n-play but I was dying. I could NOT feed my Baby without this thing and if I lost it then what?? I went to Target the next day and bought 2 more. Ha. After 6 months I finally gave up and pumped exclusively, it was a hard decision but we were going to b/f class with the L/C from the hospital and she agreed it was probably best also so I felt better. People have told me that they know so many people who have so many feeding problems with the first Baby and never use the shield with the 2nd. Sure hope I would be one of those people..................
Internal Hemorrhoids S U C K. After pushing for over 2 1/2 hours I should have known I wouldn't get away with 0 hemorrhoids. I was in pain every single time I had to go #2 for like 11 months. Honestly I don't know or remember how long it was. My body was SOOOO messed up for so long. For all I know it could still be not "normal" and hurt but I am just so used to it and this is my "new normal". Ugh. Horrible. I used every kind of treatment out there and nothing worked. My Dr basically said since they are internal and not external there was nothing anybody could do and they would just heal on their own and go away. Blah. I am pretty much better and healed I think, but man going through that again scares the bejewels out of me.
So since my child's head was stuck on my tail bone for 2 hours of pushing and the traumatic way she finally came out I had a fairly large tear that required stitches. After the initial horrible part of actually getting the stitches everything was fine. For about 4 months. Then I remember going to the restroom and it burning sooooo horribly bad down there from the urine. I finally found a way to position myself when going that it wouldn't hit it and hurt. Yes I am stupid and didn't think anything was THAT wrong it would just go away on it's own right?? RIGHT?? My 2nd sign was using my scented suave body wash irritated the crap out of it to. OHMYGOSH did it burn in the shower to wash my "area". So finally one day I listened to my ever wise Husband and called my OB for a check up to see how everything was down there. SO NOT what I wanted to do. So he takes a look and told me that my scar tissue from my tear decided to RE-OPEN!! People!!!! Seriously?? I can't make this stuff up. How much can 1 person go through?? Holy jeesh! So my lovely Dr decides to cauterize it. So yeah he grabs like a 3 foot (OK maybe it was like 4-5 inches long) match looking thing and lights it on fire and puts it DOWN THERE on me. I almost died. Worst pain of my life. I was supposed to stop and pick up dinner for us right after my appointment, but I was in so much pain sitting to drive home I called Hubby in tears and to figure out plan B for dinner. I sat on the Boppy pillow for like 2 days after that. Ha. It healed up fine and I haven't had a problem with it since. But jeepers did that KILL. It was bad. Of course it probably wouldn't have been half that bad had I had it taken care of earlier. I don't know how long I let it go on for, maybe 2 months?? I am so stupid I never want to go to the DR or admit something is wrong with me, I just think if I ignore it it will go away. Smart huh?
Before child I was a social butterfly. At least 2 times a week (even after we were married) I would go out with a girlfriend(s) and do dinner, shopping, movies, pedicures, it was heaven. I mourned those dates after Hailey and still do sometimes. I had so many "bestfriends" (I use the term to loosely probably), we were always together. One friend in particular comes to mind. We were super close, hung out all the time. After Hailey was born I saw her when Hailey was 5 days old, then Hailey's 1st Birthday and haven't seen her since. 6 months it's been since I got to see her. :( I miss her! I understand she has a super busy career, a house, kitty, Husband, family, etc but it still sucks that I don't fit into that anymore. I don't blame her AT ALL I was probably the same way before Hailey, thinking people with kids are to busy and you don't want to bug them and take them away from their family to hang out and stuff, but no PLEASE call your friends, HANG out! Save them! Ha. I guess it's just hard. I have a hard time reaching out all the time and getting turned down or no answer. It sucks. I miss my friendships and those fun times...........
If this makes me a bad person/parent do NOT comment and let me know. I already have my thoughts and feelings of guilt, but it is what it is and I am being honest and putting myself out there so that means I'll dump everything out in this blog. Sometimes (a LOT especially right after Hailey was born) I would cry and sit and miss my old life before Hailey (BH). Me and Hubby had the best marriage and life BH. We had this cute little house, I had loads of time with girlfriends, we have 2 incomes so extra $ to go shopping with, see movies, and spend on stupid things (oh if I only knew then what I know now I would have been SO much better about saving!). We never traveled much but we would go to Kansas City for the weekends and just do fun things! I haven't been away from Hailey for 1 night of her entire 18 1/2 months. We can't just sit down and watch a movie/tv show with out being interrupted. We were only married for 11 months when I found out I was pregnant. We finally both admitted last weekend that we wish we had waited until now to have gotten pregnant. 3 years together alone sounds sooo amazing. Like I said I feel horrible and guilty saying this. All I EVER wanted in my life was a baby and to be pregnant and be a SAHM. Seriously, since I was like 4. And then I had that and I didn't want it! What?!?! I remember when we were living at Steve's parents (which is probably part of the problem and where it started) I would drive by our old house we had just sold and cry and sob. I mourned for those fun carefree times we had! I would never wish my daughter away. I love her more then life itself. I would die for her. I guess I just wish I had enjoyed those times more, cherished them more, taken more vacations and pictures, and done things later in life, but it is what it is and I deal with the hand I was dealt. It's just so hard. You want to just be lovey dovey with your spouse instead of being dirty from throw up and poop, and not wash dishes and just honestly be DEAD tired to the world and want to sleep. But such is life as a parent! We knew going in life would change. But I think I thought she would fit more into OUR life instead of us having to do a COMPLETE 180 and fitting into HER life. We are readjusting and just now are in an amazing place! We always joke and say that if babies were born at like 10 months we would have 6 kids!
Sooooooooo all of this to say...........life has been hard. Not at ALL what I expected. And I just now fully and totally happy and healthy so I have BABY FEVER. lol. Am I crazy? Stupid?? Naive?? This is why God blocks things from our memory. I thought I wouldn't survive those first couple sleepless nights with Hay nursing every 2 hours. Hours upon hours of nursing. Feeling so secluded and trapped in the house. But I did it! I survived! We go to MOPS now, we love to run errands and just drive around.We shop several times a week and have fun play dates. We went to the Zoo every week this summer and it was a awesome summer! Trick or treating last night was probably hands down the funnest thing I have done as a mother with my child. She LOVED it and had so much joy. It made my heart so happy! So I survived, and I can survive again with 2 kids, right?? I don't remember the pain of labor or pushing her out, I don't remember the frustration of breastfeeding, it was all a blur. We'll see what happens and what God has in store for our little family. But Hailey needs a sibling I know that for sure! :)
September 1, 2010
Mommy Stuff.........
OK so I'm back. Albeit a couple days late but whateva. So this is going to be a (long) list of must have's, and things that worked for me as a first time Mom. There is so much Baby gear (aka JUNK) out there, it's hard not to get overwhelmed. Just hoping if somebody googles something and it brings them to me I can be a help :) I try not to push things onto friends who are pregnant but it's hard not to want to share all your wisdom! But I also need to remember that just because Hailey was a baby who could not go to sleep unless swaddled, with a bink on her tummy, not every baby is like that! OK here goes nothin.........
Swaddle Blankets. Now I'm totally gonna throw my Mom under the bus on this one, but when we were shopping a few weeks before Hailey got here I asked her what she thought of blankets made spaficially for swaddling and she looked at me like I had 3 foreheads. She was all oh just use a blanket it's a no brainer. Then the spawn of Hercules was born (aka my daughter). This girl could bust out of the tightest best swaddle in the world. The nurses were amazed by her strength. This kept us awake for many hours many nights. If only I had gone w/ my gut (honestly like the 1 thing my Mom was wrong on. But I digress, listen to your Mother's they know EVERYTHING!) it would have saved us much heartache. I got the kiddopotamus swaddle blankets when Hailey was like 4 months old and she slept in them for every nap and every single night until she was like 10 months. It was amazing and I was scared to transition her out of them!
Moby Wrap. GREATEST thing ever invented. I had a Target gift card from my shower and had been researching slings for months and decided to order this totally blind. BEST. THING. EVER. Having Nannied/babysat for years I HATED the Bjorn things and knew they would hurt my back and shoulders. While I won't lie and say I didn't start to ache after wearing the moby for long periods of time it was night and day with the Moby vs. any other sling. Hailey LOVED it. My grumpy high maintenance Baby who literally took hours to get to sleep would be asleep with in minutes of me putting her in here. I used the hold seen in the picture to the left, and she LOVED it. I would vacuum, load/unload the dishwasher, do laundry, sit on the computer, grocery shop, and she would snooze away! LOVED it! They are a little hard to find, like I said I bought mine at Target.com but they do sell them in target stores!! You can also get them online at Babiesrus.com and I was able to find them by the diaper bags a couple weeks ago at my store in Omaha so not sure if they are in all Babies R Us national or not!
Boppy. Basically if you plan on feeding your child you must have one of these. I don't care what brand, where you get it, what cover or how many you have you HAVE. TO. HAVE. ONE. PERIOD. I see these women trying to nurse on tv w/out them straining forward hurting their backs. This makes nursing SO easy! And for months I pumped and gave Hailey a bottle and I would just pop her in here and she would lay and drink. She snoozed in this thing for I don't even know how many hours when she was a wee Baby. So great. I got mine at Wal-mart for less then $20 and love it.
Carters clothes. I am OBSESSED w/ all carters clothes to say the least. I could spend HUNDREDS in that store I swear. Anytime I get some extra $ even MY birthday $ I am trying to figure out how to get there and buy Hailey some clothes! They clean up amazingly, never fade, never stretch, and I find they fit exactly true to their size. It's hard w/ Baby clothes trying to figure out what will fit your kid when, and I always go by weight and Carters is the only brand accurate. LOVE THEM! Their onesies, pants everything! You can sign up online to get coupons emailed and mailed to you and I highly recommend that. I have never once bought anything there w/out a coupon. I am also highly privileged to live in a town where we have 2 outlet stores and pretty much the whole entire store is always 40-70% off. So glorious!
MiPump by First Years. So I know there is a big debate about formula/breast. For me there was no choice, breast ONLY. We got some samples of formula and tried to give it to Hay twice and twice she gagged and puked on it. HA! That's my Girl! Due to her being MSPI (Milk,soy, protein intolerance) she would have had to have formula that costs over $20 for one of the little cans. Yeah not gonna happen when MY milk was free! So I bit the bullet and bought a somewhat expensive breast pump to help us. Not the Granddaddy of Pumps but still NOT cheap. It was an extremely good investment because my Pretty Girl put this Momma through Breast Feeding HELL. We honestly had just about every single feeding problem that can come arise. Our LC (Lactation Consultant) was in awe of how much trouble we had(which is a whole nother post in itself). I finally made the decision to stop feeding her myself and exclusively pump after she was 6 months old. So for the other 5 1/2 months I pumped every 3 hours day and night. Yes I had to set an alarm and wake up every 3 hours at night to pump. :( While it was no fun my girl grew into a hefty lil chunk due to only her Momma's milk and NO formula. I'm pretty proud of myself! All that to say I had a love/hate relationship w/ my pump. I was NOT sad to pack it up in April and be done. But it helped me nourish my girl in a way that I alone could not.
While I had problems and ended up going through 3 pumps, I only paid for the first one and the other 2 were sent completely free from the company. They were amazing to work with and I was totally happy. Looking back I probably should have bought the Granddaddy of pumps but I didn't know how much I was going to use it at the time. So I say if your going to breast feed at all no matter how long I think investing in a good pump is a wise decision, if you don't get your $'s worth out of it you can always sell it (craigslist, garage sale, friend/family member) or loan it out to a friend/family member and they can get your $'s worth out of it!
Bumbo Chair and Tray. Now while this is certainly not a necessity but a fun thing to have I LOVED our bumbo chair. I most certainly would not pay the $40 retail price tag to have one, you can find them ALL over on craigslist. I got ours for $5 cuz the ladies little girl colored w/ marker on the back and no amount of scrubbing (even w/ my bff magic eraser) will take it off. But I digress. Hailey LOVED it. One of our cousins bought me the tray and it is awesome. She could eat puffs in it when she was older, play with rattles and toys when she was little, and would even sit in it on the couch and watch tv w/ us. We even took it w/ us to Michigan last summer because it's so small it fit well in the trunk w/out taking up much space and it was awesome for meals instead of dragging along a huge high/booster chair. It has been an awesome thing to plop on the table and let her eat in it no matter where we go! It really is an awesome thing to have around and I don't know how our parents survived w/out neat things like this!
First Years Infant to Toddler Booster Seat. So we have a lovely brand new ranch house, don't get me wrong I L O V E my house, but the one thing I gave up to have it was a nice big dinning room. So we have an eat-in kitchen which I don'treallylove. Sue me. So we knew there was no way we could have one of those stupid big bulky highchairs in our small eating area. I started looking at booster seats and the one I really wanted was over $60. I ended up finding this one at Target for less then $40 and I LOVE it! It reclines and Hailey started sitting at the table with us at about 3 months old. I have so many pictures of her in it cuz we love it so much and she LOVED to sit up like a big Girl w/ Momma an Daddy. I love the fabric and think it's so cute and fun. We ended up getting an all plastic one booster for our house and gave this one to my parents to use at their house. The reason for this is the fabric. Now that my girl is eating all big girl food she is a hot mess at meal times. I was washing the fabric 3 sometimes 4 times a week because it would get so nasty. But it would wash and dry beautifully and was a snap to get on and off. I even washed (bleached) the straps that held her in because she trashed those too. They came out a little cleaner and in great shape! I also love how easy the staps are to adjust, as our new seat takes an iron man to make them bigger/smaller. Such a pain! But this chair was super easy to use. I really do love it and would recommend this over any high chair and I LOVE how it just sits on any chair and is very sturdy and I always felt Hay was safe in it.
Hyland's Homeopathic Teething Tables. Ah teething, all Mother's nightmares. While I won't lie and say that these tablets will magically turn your once precious sweet Baby that went into psycho screaming head BACK into sweet precious Baby, but they will help. I'll be honest and these don't touch molar pain for Hailey but they helped with the first couple teeth and would calm her down and ease her pain I believe. We do use Tylenol and Motrin but I always try these first to see if they bring relief. Not sure if people know this but using Baby Orajel can be very dangerous because if you use to much you can numb your Babies throat causing them to not be able to swallow and then they could choke, especially during nap time. Since the teething tablets are all natural and basically herbs they can not harm your Baby AT ALL and you could even give them 80 in a day w/out it hurting them. (obviously you don't want to do that and you should use common sense but still......)
Eucerin Aquaphor Baby Ointment. So my Girl was "blessed" to get her Momma's totally dry cracked skin and her Daddy's super duper ultra sensitive skin. Oh joy. I feel bad for the kid already. While normally it's fine and I can just use a regular old Johnson's lotion on her after bath this past winter was soooooooo biterally cold and dry her poor little cheeks, chin, and nose would get super red and crack. :( Broke my heart. So I asked my most favorite people in the world (the Pharmacist at Target) and they told me to get Aquaphor. This stuff is gross I won't lie. lol. It's basically like Vaseline just a little less greasy. But still GREASY. But my goodness I would put this on her little face and I would see a difference right away! It was especially great for right before bed when she couldn't rub it off w/ her hands. I now use it on her heat rash she has on her belly from her diaper and I noticed a HUGE difference. I would never use this as an all over lotion b/c it is so greasy and thick but it's great for problem areas and I even use it on my cracked heels a couple times and it was great!
Making your own Baby Food. OK so like breast feeding I know this isn't for everybody. But again w/ Hailey's food allergies I felt better about making her own food and knowing exactly what she was getting. I absolutely loved it. Call me psycho (wouldn't be the first time) but I had so much fun thinking of great new things to feed her. And my girl LOVES to eat. I would just bake (or not depending on what it was) and puree her food in the blender, poor it into the ice cube tray's, freeze it overnight and then dump it in a ziplock and store it in the freezer. Every morning while making breakfast I would pull out 8 cubes, 4 cubes of veggies and 4 fruits for 2 different meals during the day. It was kinda a pain to thaw them out but if I just left them out on the counter I would only have to nuke them. It was great! I honestly miss making it. It was SO much fun! If your having a Baby PLEASE let me make your Baby food! Ha. By the end of her Baby food eatin days I did have to buy new ice cube tray's cuz mine were cracked and broken but they are like a dollar for 3 at Walmart so no big deal to me. I also realize that for Mom's that work outside the home it might be an undertaking (breast feeding and making my own food would have NEVER happened had I not been a sahm sorry to say), so I understand but even if you make some of your own and buy jars of others it's better then nothing. I could make like 2 weeks worth of squash for Hailey for less then $3 where as jars are .50 for 1 feeding. So you do the math (cuz I SUCK at math), but it was a HUGE savings to our 1 income family! Consider it and if you have ANY questions or want help or want me to do it I would LOVE to! Just email me Tulip1513@Hotmail.com
OK I think that's it. It was lengthily sorry! But I wanted to keep track of these things somewhere!!! Oh also my 2 cents, don't bother buying a baby monitor. You will lose sleep b/c of the damn thing and trust me if your Baby wakes up you'll hear it. We used to joke before Hailey was born that if a tornado came through the house I wouldn't wake up. I could sleep through literally anything. But now? Hailey moves her hand and I'm across the house in her room checking her. Seriously. Although I must say there are days when Steve will tell me he hears her cry in her room, but I don't get woken up by her until 8:30. So see if I had the dumb monitor I would have lost an hour and a half of sleep, and so would she! She went right back to sleep just fine :) I have used it before when I go outside or we have guests and I don't want them woken up but otherwise I say trust your Momma instincts and you'll wake up when your Baby needs you no worries :)
Swaddle Blankets. Now I'm totally gonna throw my Mom under the bus on this one, but when we were shopping a few weeks before Hailey got here I asked her what she thought of blankets made spaficially for swaddling and she looked at me like I had 3 foreheads. She was all oh just use a blanket it's a no brainer. Then the spawn of Hercules was born (aka my daughter). This girl could bust out of the tightest best swaddle in the world. The nurses were amazed by her strength. This kept us awake for many hours many nights. If only I had gone w/ my gut (honestly like the 1 thing my Mom was wrong on. But I digress, listen to your Mother's they know EVERYTHING!) it would have saved us much heartache. I got the kiddopotamus swaddle blankets when Hailey was like 4 months old and she slept in them for every nap and every single night until she was like 10 months. It was amazing and I was scared to transition her out of them!
Moby Wrap. GREATEST thing ever invented. I had a Target gift card from my shower and had been researching slings for months and decided to order this totally blind. BEST. THING. EVER. Having Nannied/babysat for years I HATED the Bjorn things and knew they would hurt my back and shoulders. While I won't lie and say I didn't start to ache after wearing the moby for long periods of time it was night and day with the Moby vs. any other sling. Hailey LOVED it. My grumpy high maintenance Baby who literally took hours to get to sleep would be asleep with in minutes of me putting her in here. I used the hold seen in the picture to the left, and she LOVED it. I would vacuum, load/unload the dishwasher, do laundry, sit on the computer, grocery shop, and she would snooze away! LOVED it! They are a little hard to find, like I said I bought mine at Target.com but they do sell them in target stores!! You can also get them online at Babiesrus.com and I was able to find them by the diaper bags a couple weeks ago at my store in Omaha so not sure if they are in all Babies R Us national or not! 
Boppy. Basically if you plan on feeding your child you must have one of these. I don't care what brand, where you get it, what cover or how many you have you HAVE. TO. HAVE. ONE. PERIOD. I see these women trying to nurse on tv w/out them straining forward hurting their backs. This makes nursing SO easy! And for months I pumped and gave Hailey a bottle and I would just pop her in here and she would lay and drink. She snoozed in this thing for I don't even know how many hours when she was a wee Baby. So great. I got mine at Wal-mart for less then $20 and love it.
Carters clothes. I am OBSESSED w/ all carters clothes to say the least. I could spend HUNDREDS in that store I swear. Anytime I get some extra $ even MY birthday $ I am trying to figure out how to get there and buy Hailey some clothes! They clean up amazingly, never fade, never stretch, and I find they fit exactly true to their size. It's hard w/ Baby clothes trying to figure out what will fit your kid when, and I always go by weight and Carters is the only brand accurate. LOVE THEM! Their onesies, pants everything! You can sign up online to get coupons emailed and mailed to you and I highly recommend that. I have never once bought anything there w/out a coupon. I am also highly privileged to live in a town where we have 2 outlet stores and pretty much the whole entire store is always 40-70% off. So glorious!
MiPump by First Years. So I know there is a big debate about formula/breast. For me there was no choice, breast ONLY. We got some samples of formula and tried to give it to Hay twice and twice she gagged and puked on it. HA! That's my Girl! Due to her being MSPI (Milk,soy, protein intolerance) she would have had to have formula that costs over $20 for one of the little cans. Yeah not gonna happen when MY milk was free! So I bit the bullet and bought a somewhat expensive breast pump to help us. Not the Granddaddy of Pumps but still NOT cheap. It was an extremely good investment because my Pretty Girl put this Momma through Breast Feeding HELL. We honestly had just about every single feeding problem that can come arise. Our LC (Lactation Consultant) was in awe of how much trouble we had(which is a whole nother post in itself). I finally made the decision to stop feeding her myself and exclusively pump after she was 6 months old. So for the other 5 1/2 months I pumped every 3 hours day and night. Yes I had to set an alarm and wake up every 3 hours at night to pump. :( While it was no fun my girl grew into a hefty lil chunk due to only her Momma's milk and NO formula. I'm pretty proud of myself! All that to say I had a love/hate relationship w/ my pump. I was NOT sad to pack it up in April and be done. But it helped me nourish my girl in a way that I alone could not.
While I had problems and ended up going through 3 pumps, I only paid for the first one and the other 2 were sent completely free from the company. They were amazing to work with and I was totally happy. Looking back I probably should have bought the Granddaddy of pumps but I didn't know how much I was going to use it at the time. So I say if your going to breast feed at all no matter how long I think investing in a good pump is a wise decision, if you don't get your $'s worth out of it you can always sell it (craigslist, garage sale, friend/family member) or loan it out to a friend/family member and they can get your $'s worth out of it!
Bumbo Chair and Tray. Now while this is certainly not a necessity but a fun thing to have I LOVED our bumbo chair. I most certainly would not pay the $40 retail price tag to have one, you can find them ALL over on craigslist. I got ours for $5 cuz the ladies little girl colored w/ marker on the back and no amount of scrubbing (even w/ my bff magic eraser) will take it off. But I digress. Hailey LOVED it. One of our cousins bought me the tray and it is awesome. She could eat puffs in it when she was older, play with rattles and toys when she was little, and would even sit in it on the couch and watch tv w/ us. We even took it w/ us to Michigan last summer because it's so small it fit well in the trunk w/out taking up much space and it was awesome for meals instead of dragging along a huge high/booster chair. It has been an awesome thing to plop on the table and let her eat in it no matter where we go! It really is an awesome thing to have around and I don't know how our parents survived w/out neat things like this!
First Years Infant to Toddler Booster Seat. So we have a lovely brand new ranch house, don't get me wrong I L O V E my house, but the one thing I gave up to have it was a nice big dinning room. So we have an eat-in kitchen which I don'treallylove. Sue me. So we knew there was no way we could have one of those stupid big bulky highchairs in our small eating area. I started looking at booster seats and the one I really wanted was over $60. I ended up finding this one at Target for less then $40 and I LOVE it! It reclines and Hailey started sitting at the table with us at about 3 months old. I have so many pictures of her in it cuz we love it so much and she LOVED to sit up like a big Girl w/ Momma an Daddy. I love the fabric and think it's so cute and fun. We ended up getting an all plastic one booster for our house and gave this one to my parents to use at their house. The reason for this is the fabric. Now that my girl is eating all big girl food she is a hot mess at meal times. I was washing the fabric 3 sometimes 4 times a week because it would get so nasty. But it would wash and dry beautifully and was a snap to get on and off. I even washed (bleached) the straps that held her in because she trashed those too. They came out a little cleaner and in great shape! I also love how easy the staps are to adjust, as our new seat takes an iron man to make them bigger/smaller. Such a pain! But this chair was super easy to use. I really do love it and would recommend this over any high chair and I LOVE how it just sits on any chair and is very sturdy and I always felt Hay was safe in it.
Hyland's Homeopathic Teething Tables. Ah teething, all Mother's nightmares. While I won't lie and say that these tablets will magically turn your once precious sweet Baby that went into psycho screaming head BACK into sweet precious Baby, but they will help. I'll be honest and these don't touch molar pain for Hailey but they helped with the first couple teeth and would calm her down and ease her pain I believe. We do use Tylenol and Motrin but I always try these first to see if they bring relief. Not sure if people know this but using Baby Orajel can be very dangerous because if you use to much you can numb your Babies throat causing them to not be able to swallow and then they could choke, especially during nap time. Since the teething tablets are all natural and basically herbs they can not harm your Baby AT ALL and you could even give them 80 in a day w/out it hurting them. (obviously you don't want to do that and you should use common sense but still......)
Eucerin Aquaphor Baby Ointment. So my Girl was "blessed" to get her Momma's totally dry cracked skin and her Daddy's super duper ultra sensitive skin. Oh joy. I feel bad for the kid already. While normally it's fine and I can just use a regular old Johnson's lotion on her after bath this past winter was soooooooo biterally cold and dry her poor little cheeks, chin, and nose would get super red and crack. :( Broke my heart. So I asked my most favorite people in the world (the Pharmacist at Target) and they told me to get Aquaphor. This stuff is gross I won't lie. lol. It's basically like Vaseline just a little less greasy. But still GREASY. But my goodness I would put this on her little face and I would see a difference right away! It was especially great for right before bed when she couldn't rub it off w/ her hands. I now use it on her heat rash she has on her belly from her diaper and I noticed a HUGE difference. I would never use this as an all over lotion b/c it is so greasy and thick but it's great for problem areas and I even use it on my cracked heels a couple times and it was great!
Making your own Baby Food. OK so like breast feeding I know this isn't for everybody. But again w/ Hailey's food allergies I felt better about making her own food and knowing exactly what she was getting. I absolutely loved it. Call me psycho (wouldn't be the first time) but I had so much fun thinking of great new things to feed her. And my girl LOVES to eat. I would just bake (or not depending on what it was) and puree her food in the blender, poor it into the ice cube tray's, freeze it overnight and then dump it in a ziplock and store it in the freezer. Every morning while making breakfast I would pull out 8 cubes, 4 cubes of veggies and 4 fruits for 2 different meals during the day. It was kinda a pain to thaw them out but if I just left them out on the counter I would only have to nuke them. It was great! I honestly miss making it. It was SO much fun! If your having a Baby PLEASE let me make your Baby food! Ha. By the end of her Baby food eatin days I did have to buy new ice cube tray's cuz mine were cracked and broken but they are like a dollar for 3 at Walmart so no big deal to me. I also realize that for Mom's that work outside the home it might be an undertaking (breast feeding and making my own food would have NEVER happened had I not been a sahm sorry to say), so I understand but even if you make some of your own and buy jars of others it's better then nothing. I could make like 2 weeks worth of squash for Hailey for less then $3 where as jars are .50 for 1 feeding. So you do the math (cuz I SUCK at math), but it was a HUGE savings to our 1 income family! Consider it and if you have ANY questions or want help or want me to do it I would LOVE to! Just email me Tulip1513@Hotmail.comOK I think that's it. It was lengthily sorry! But I wanted to keep track of these things somewhere!!! Oh also my 2 cents, don't bother buying a baby monitor. You will lose sleep b/c of the damn thing and trust me if your Baby wakes up you'll hear it. We used to joke before Hailey was born that if a tornado came through the house I wouldn't wake up. I could sleep through literally anything. But now? Hailey moves her hand and I'm across the house in her room checking her. Seriously. Although I must say there are days when Steve will tell me he hears her cry in her room, but I don't get woken up by her until 8:30. So see if I had the dumb monitor I would have lost an hour and a half of sleep, and so would she! She went right back to sleep just fine :) I have used it before when I go outside or we have guests and I don't want them woken up but otherwise I say trust your Momma instincts and you'll wake up when your Baby needs you no worries :)
August 26, 2010
Life and Whatnot
We'll see if I remember how to do this blog thing. Ha. Everybody who USED to read this is on facebook so I feel no need to re-post pictures everybody has already seen, and honestly when I have downtime I don't feel like writing anymore. Gone are the days of being super duper bored at a 9-5 desk job. This Mom job doesn't allow anytime to be bored. Ha. So anywho I have a couple idea's for blogs over the next couple days, we'll see if they all pan out or not ;)
I can't believe my Girl is 16 months. It's insane. Wasn't she just teeny tiny?? How can she be walking/talking/attitude all over?? Sooo crazy. She is a tiny petite little thing, just barely over 2' and 22 lbs. I get so sick of going out in public and ppl ask how old she is and then get "oh she is TINY she looks 9 months". I never know what to say, do I want an obese fat kid?? No. She is plenty heavy to carry around and I think the littler they are the cuter they are. But what do I know. She eats just fine thankyouverymuch, pretty much 24/7 like her parents, so I know she is healthy and fine. I've not even gotten a lecture about her size from her dr, but I think he knows that neither Hubby or I are 7' tall so there is no point in saying anything, it's her genes.
I was reading a blog from start to finish last week and the girl had a pregnancy almost identical to mine. It brought back all those horrid horrid memories. Could I do that again?? Hubby won't even agree to it at this point. These last 2 years and everything we've been through, I honestly don't know if we could handle that again. I remember those nights when Hay was 4 and 5 days old. Oh. My. Gord. Actually it started in the Hospital (I might repeat myself I don't remember what I have previously posted but this stuff has been stuck in my head lately so I am just getting it out all. Sorry). On our 2nd night in the hospital, I had sent Hubby home w/ an aching back to our bed to sleep. Neither of us can sleep in strange environments so I knew before we were even married if we had kids he wouldn't sleep overnight in the hospital. He wouldn't expect me to either, it's all good. Anyways, little miss thing had some MAJOR sensory issues from being 2 weeks early. Her pedi explained it to me while we were still in the hospital that sometimes babies that are born before 40 weeks gestation don't have their nerves systems fully devolped yet. So she would get WAY over stimulated and scream for hours on end and NOTHING we could do at all would calm her. So back to the 2nd night, we had loads of visitors that day in the hospital and once night and dark rolled around she freaked. I nursed her (both sides, like 20 min each, with 0 milk in yet. Yeah my kid likes to eat), and put her in the plastic thing that was her bed and got comfty and the screaming started. She scremed STRAIGHT from like 1am to 4:30 am. Mind you our room was like 2 steps from the nurses station and I know that all of West Omaha could hear this girl's scream. But God bless the nureses left us alone for this new Mom to figure it out on her own. I nursed and tried to get her to latch for literally hours. I bet I tried over 20 times to nurse to get her to calm down. I cried. I walked, I swayed, I swaddled, changed her, EVERYTHING humanly possible. (we didn't try or give her a binkie until she was over 2 weeks, she had a poor suck and I didn't want to mess up anything. But out of pure desperation I finally gave in and she loved the thing) Finally I buzzed the nurses and while 99 times out of 100 instead of just coming in when I buzzed they would ask what I needed/wanted, this time within 3 seconds she was in the room. She told me to take my ugly gown off, get Hailey naked to her diaper and put her head on my heart and push so hard on her you would think she can't breathe. (of course she could) Wala she stopped almost immediately. It was weird. But it made her warm and reminded her of the womb. We slept like that, for 2 hours. It was the worst.night.of.my.life. But not the last I'm sad to say. Then in the morning I get the phone call from my husband he laid on the floor to watch tv that night and was unable to get up. At ALL. Even to pee. Seriously folks. He somehow got himself to the chiro twice that day, but it almost killed him. He couldn't come and spend the day at the hospital w/ his newborn Baby and exhausted wife who got like 1 hour of sleep. Yeah not good. Thank GOD for my Mom would basically came and sat in the hospital all day w/ me. So instead of my wonderful Hubby coming to pick us up and take us home, my MIL did. Yeah NOT good. I felt (and a part of me still does) robbed. It's such a great expierance that the Hubby carries the Baby in and we all bond and have a great day feeding and changing the Baby and I didn't get any of that. Instead I came home to a hurricane of a house, a Hubby who couldn't move or do anything for himself and a child who screamed 24/7. I was a mess. I wasn't able to articulate at the time and it took me many many months to figure out what was going on in my head but I got super duper depressed and freaked out. I go to the hospital (almost 3 weeks early mind you, totally unprepared) and have a Baby. Life alterting to say the least. Come home to a Hubby who can't move or walk w/out holding on to the computer chair, kinda scooting around the house like a 97 year old man. Life alterting. And they basically both happened on the same day. It was FAR to overwhelming for my brian, emotions, self to handle. I thought this was how life was going to be. I was gonna be on the couch in sweats with a screaming kid and a hubby who needs me to wait on him hand an foot 24/7. It was just to much. I still can't explain it totally but my mind was just not in the right mind set. It was B A D. I was so afraid of everything. I remember thinking that if I swaddled Hailey in a blanket with a tag (which brings me to ask why can clothes be tagless but blankets have them?? Stupid) and if the tag ended up by her face she would surely suck the tag in her mouth and die. Or she would spit up a lot after a feeding and choke on it and I would have to pick her up to help her get it up/down/out. It was sooooo scary. Instead of sleeping in while Hailey slept I would have to wake up at 7:30 to make Steve his breakfast. It was just a bad dark time. And sleeping. Oh precious sleep. That girl would scream and cry like no other. I remember looking at the alarm clock all night. She would wake at 1:30, feed for 40 minutes. "OK if she goes to sleep right now we still get 1 hour and 20 minutes of sleep" (she was feeding every 90 minutes. Yes that sucks folks) But instead she would scream and I would say "OK 1 hour 10 minutes of sleep...........55 minutes of sleep.................40 minutes of sleep........" and finally I would just nurse her again and start all over. I was at a loss. We asked the Dr what to do b/c she had her days and nights somewhat confused, she never screamed like that during the day. She would sleep and nurse fine during the day but come 10pm it was full screaming until 2 or 3 am sometimes. I mean straight ppl. So he told us to wake her up every hour and a half during the day to eat and hopefully she would sleep 3-4 hour stretches at night. Yeah notsomuch. She liked that pattern so much she did it at night to! oh joy. I say all this but honestly I was so blessed, it got better by about 3 weeks, and by 7 weeks she was sleeping 6-7 hour stretches. I know some people with 12 month olds who don't sleep that long. We finally asked the nurse at the pedi office and she said to use a white noise machine and see if that helps. She still has it in her room if that tells you anything. And we found she loved the bathtub running, so I did that a lot to. And honestly what worked was letting her sleep on her tubby and swaddling her. I don't want to hear about not letting her sleep on her tummy cuz I did it, and my Mom did it, and Hailey did it and we're all still here so there. Ha. Honestly I would do it with my next Baby if it's what he/she liked.
All of that to say it gave me a complex. I thought I had a demon child. Everywhere I went and everybody that asked heard about how horrible and high maintenance she was. I feel bad, and she was NOT what I was expecting at all but I think I kinda went over board. Again w/ the depression I guess. But I moved on and finally got out of it. I finally got to be normal again in August (last year) when we went to Michigan to visit family. It was so great. I loved meeting some of my bff's in real life and having girl chat everyday for a week was SO great! Also my Baby was sleeping through the night for 9+ hours and taking a 4 hour nap in the morning. Yeah my girl LOVES to eat and sleep just like both her parents. lol. Then in the fall my best friend came over once a week to watch a show together and it was sooooooo amazing. I missed my girlfriends. Probably 9 out of 13 of them do not have kids. They don't relate to me anymore I think. It's like I dropped off the face of the planet. But it was hard to get out of the house being stuck on the 90 minute feeding schedule. It sucked. I am so glad we are past that stage and I can just throw my girl in the car and run errands or drive around or go to the zoo/mall/target whatever! She is so fun now and LOVES to be w/ her Momma an be social.
Another thing I MUST note that nobody tells you about postpartum is the things your body does. We got home from the hospital on Saturday and Sunday night I was living off about 8 hours of sleep over 4 days, my body started to shake uncontrollably. I was wearing sweat pants, tank top, sweat shirt, socks, slippers, and had a blanket on and I just shook and shook. It was soooooooo scary. Steve took Hailey for 2 hours (in between feedings) and made me lay in bed and try to sleep. I remember I had the phone in my hand and had punched in the number for the nurses station at the hopsital, but didn't turn on the phone yet to dial it. I just laid there thinking I was going to die. It was SO scary, like I was in some kind of shock. I'm guessing I was. Blood loss, screaming baby, exhaustion, broken Husband, no real meal, everything just over took me. It finally stopped after a couple hours but I was so scared I was going to have to be re-admitted to the hospital. Phew!
Oh and did I mention my Baby had jaundice?? Yeah she was surely going to die. I was so freaked out. That is another reason I started on the 90 minute feeding schedule. All I did was sit in the sun by the sliding glass doors with her naked and feed. All. Day. Long. I was so worried she would have to go in the hospital for it and then who would take care of my broken Hubby?? I couldn't leave my Baby there alone! Once the Pedi told me the lights and a care nurse would come to our house I totally relaxed about that. And her jaundice was gone after like 3 days.
So yeah that is my horrible new born days. I was scared to talk about them and pushed them to the back of my mind. But now that I want to have another Baby I need to remember these things. Could I do it again? I'm sure. You never have the same exact experience twice. But still. It was bad. And throw a toddler into the mix?? Um yea not sure.
Anyways, now my girl is sweet (for the most part. unless cutting teeth), and fun and loves to be going going going 24/7. She can say, Momma, Dada, doggie, kitty, shoes, up, hello, hi, byebye, and bath (ahbah). We really pushed the sign language when she was younger though so her speech hasn't taken off. She can sign, eat, more, drink, please, and all done in addition to waving hi and bye. Don't get me wrong the girl talks 24/7 but I swear it's a mixture of french, german, italian, and some made up language of hers. It's hilarious and honestly she never stops. I told Steve I kinda hope she never learns to really talk b/c it's so flippin cute I love it! And I'm not ready for her attitude and talking back ;) At her 15 month appointment the Dr freaked out when I told him she wasn't speaking words and had even stopped saying Momma, Dada, Bybye. He told me we HAVE to do speech therapy asap and figure out what is wrong w/ her :*( NOT what a Momma wants to hear. So I stress, pray, google, read, and finally got a hold of the speech therapist from our school district. She said they don't even do any testing until 18 mo and not to worry and she hoped she never talked to me again! I sighed a big sigh of relief and wouldn't you know it 2 days later she said Momma clear as day! She has since added all those other words in, sometimes they aren't noticeable and I might be pushing it, but I think she is just stubborn and does things slowly and on her own time. She didn't get a tooth until 10 months, crawl until 8 1/2 months, or walk until almost 14 months. She is just a little behind and I'm in no rush to make her talk. She can hear perfectly well so I know that isn't the issue either.
OK I've gone on and on and on so I'll stop here. But I will seriously try to be back either tomorrow or Monday w/ my other 2 posts! Maybe I will get into a better rhythm of posting, I really want to keep this up as journal-type for Hailey and all her milestones. So far I've failed miserably but her baby book is all up to date! YAY! lol. OK until next time peeps...............
Beck
I can't believe my Girl is 16 months. It's insane. Wasn't she just teeny tiny?? How can she be walking/talking/attitude all over?? Sooo crazy. She is a tiny petite little thing, just barely over 2' and 22 lbs. I get so sick of going out in public and ppl ask how old she is and then get "oh she is TINY she looks 9 months". I never know what to say, do I want an obese fat kid?? No. She is plenty heavy to carry around and I think the littler they are the cuter they are. But what do I know. She eats just fine thankyouverymuch, pretty much 24/7 like her parents, so I know she is healthy and fine. I've not even gotten a lecture about her size from her dr, but I think he knows that neither Hubby or I are 7' tall so there is no point in saying anything, it's her genes.
I was reading a blog from start to finish last week and the girl had a pregnancy almost identical to mine. It brought back all those horrid horrid memories. Could I do that again?? Hubby won't even agree to it at this point. These last 2 years and everything we've been through, I honestly don't know if we could handle that again. I remember those nights when Hay was 4 and 5 days old. Oh. My. Gord. Actually it started in the Hospital (I might repeat myself I don't remember what I have previously posted but this stuff has been stuck in my head lately so I am just getting it out all. Sorry). On our 2nd night in the hospital, I had sent Hubby home w/ an aching back to our bed to sleep. Neither of us can sleep in strange environments so I knew before we were even married if we had kids he wouldn't sleep overnight in the hospital. He wouldn't expect me to either, it's all good. Anyways, little miss thing had some MAJOR sensory issues from being 2 weeks early. Her pedi explained it to me while we were still in the hospital that sometimes babies that are born before 40 weeks gestation don't have their nerves systems fully devolped yet. So she would get WAY over stimulated and scream for hours on end and NOTHING we could do at all would calm her. So back to the 2nd night, we had loads of visitors that day in the hospital and once night and dark rolled around she freaked. I nursed her (both sides, like 20 min each, with 0 milk in yet. Yeah my kid likes to eat), and put her in the plastic thing that was her bed and got comfty and the screaming started. She scremed STRAIGHT from like 1am to 4:30 am. Mind you our room was like 2 steps from the nurses station and I know that all of West Omaha could hear this girl's scream. But God bless the nureses left us alone for this new Mom to figure it out on her own. I nursed and tried to get her to latch for literally hours. I bet I tried over 20 times to nurse to get her to calm down. I cried. I walked, I swayed, I swaddled, changed her, EVERYTHING humanly possible. (we didn't try or give her a binkie until she was over 2 weeks, she had a poor suck and I didn't want to mess up anything. But out of pure desperation I finally gave in and she loved the thing) Finally I buzzed the nurses and while 99 times out of 100 instead of just coming in when I buzzed they would ask what I needed/wanted, this time within 3 seconds she was in the room. She told me to take my ugly gown off, get Hailey naked to her diaper and put her head on my heart and push so hard on her you would think she can't breathe. (of course she could) Wala she stopped almost immediately. It was weird. But it made her warm and reminded her of the womb. We slept like that, for 2 hours. It was the worst.night.of.my.life. But not the last I'm sad to say. Then in the morning I get the phone call from my husband he laid on the floor to watch tv that night and was unable to get up. At ALL. Even to pee. Seriously folks. He somehow got himself to the chiro twice that day, but it almost killed him. He couldn't come and spend the day at the hospital w/ his newborn Baby and exhausted wife who got like 1 hour of sleep. Yeah not good. Thank GOD for my Mom would basically came and sat in the hospital all day w/ me. So instead of my wonderful Hubby coming to pick us up and take us home, my MIL did. Yeah NOT good. I felt (and a part of me still does) robbed. It's such a great expierance that the Hubby carries the Baby in and we all bond and have a great day feeding and changing the Baby and I didn't get any of that. Instead I came home to a hurricane of a house, a Hubby who couldn't move or do anything for himself and a child who screamed 24/7. I was a mess. I wasn't able to articulate at the time and it took me many many months to figure out what was going on in my head but I got super duper depressed and freaked out. I go to the hospital (almost 3 weeks early mind you, totally unprepared) and have a Baby. Life alterting to say the least. Come home to a Hubby who can't move or walk w/out holding on to the computer chair, kinda scooting around the house like a 97 year old man. Life alterting. And they basically both happened on the same day. It was FAR to overwhelming for my brian, emotions, self to handle. I thought this was how life was going to be. I was gonna be on the couch in sweats with a screaming kid and a hubby who needs me to wait on him hand an foot 24/7. It was just to much. I still can't explain it totally but my mind was just not in the right mind set. It was B A D. I was so afraid of everything. I remember thinking that if I swaddled Hailey in a blanket with a tag (which brings me to ask why can clothes be tagless but blankets have them?? Stupid) and if the tag ended up by her face she would surely suck the tag in her mouth and die. Or she would spit up a lot after a feeding and choke on it and I would have to pick her up to help her get it up/down/out. It was sooooo scary. Instead of sleeping in while Hailey slept I would have to wake up at 7:30 to make Steve his breakfast. It was just a bad dark time. And sleeping. Oh precious sleep. That girl would scream and cry like no other. I remember looking at the alarm clock all night. She would wake at 1:30, feed for 40 minutes. "OK if she goes to sleep right now we still get 1 hour and 20 minutes of sleep" (she was feeding every 90 minutes. Yes that sucks folks) But instead she would scream and I would say "OK 1 hour 10 minutes of sleep...........55 minutes of sleep.................40 minutes of sleep........" and finally I would just nurse her again and start all over. I was at a loss. We asked the Dr what to do b/c she had her days and nights somewhat confused, she never screamed like that during the day. She would sleep and nurse fine during the day but come 10pm it was full screaming until 2 or 3 am sometimes. I mean straight ppl. So he told us to wake her up every hour and a half during the day to eat and hopefully she would sleep 3-4 hour stretches at night. Yeah notsomuch. She liked that pattern so much she did it at night to! oh joy. I say all this but honestly I was so blessed, it got better by about 3 weeks, and by 7 weeks she was sleeping 6-7 hour stretches. I know some people with 12 month olds who don't sleep that long. We finally asked the nurse at the pedi office and she said to use a white noise machine and see if that helps. She still has it in her room if that tells you anything. And we found she loved the bathtub running, so I did that a lot to. And honestly what worked was letting her sleep on her tubby and swaddling her. I don't want to hear about not letting her sleep on her tummy cuz I did it, and my Mom did it, and Hailey did it and we're all still here so there. Ha. Honestly I would do it with my next Baby if it's what he/she liked.
All of that to say it gave me a complex. I thought I had a demon child. Everywhere I went and everybody that asked heard about how horrible and high maintenance she was. I feel bad, and she was NOT what I was expecting at all but I think I kinda went over board. Again w/ the depression I guess. But I moved on and finally got out of it. I finally got to be normal again in August (last year) when we went to Michigan to visit family. It was so great. I loved meeting some of my bff's in real life and having girl chat everyday for a week was SO great! Also my Baby was sleeping through the night for 9+ hours and taking a 4 hour nap in the morning. Yeah my girl LOVES to eat and sleep just like both her parents. lol. Then in the fall my best friend came over once a week to watch a show together and it was sooooooo amazing. I missed my girlfriends. Probably 9 out of 13 of them do not have kids. They don't relate to me anymore I think. It's like I dropped off the face of the planet. But it was hard to get out of the house being stuck on the 90 minute feeding schedule. It sucked. I am so glad we are past that stage and I can just throw my girl in the car and run errands or drive around or go to the zoo/mall/target whatever! She is so fun now and LOVES to be w/ her Momma an be social.
Another thing I MUST note that nobody tells you about postpartum is the things your body does. We got home from the hospital on Saturday and Sunday night I was living off about 8 hours of sleep over 4 days, my body started to shake uncontrollably. I was wearing sweat pants, tank top, sweat shirt, socks, slippers, and had a blanket on and I just shook and shook. It was soooooooo scary. Steve took Hailey for 2 hours (in between feedings) and made me lay in bed and try to sleep. I remember I had the phone in my hand and had punched in the number for the nurses station at the hopsital, but didn't turn on the phone yet to dial it. I just laid there thinking I was going to die. It was SO scary, like I was in some kind of shock. I'm guessing I was. Blood loss, screaming baby, exhaustion, broken Husband, no real meal, everything just over took me. It finally stopped after a couple hours but I was so scared I was going to have to be re-admitted to the hospital. Phew!
Oh and did I mention my Baby had jaundice?? Yeah she was surely going to die. I was so freaked out. That is another reason I started on the 90 minute feeding schedule. All I did was sit in the sun by the sliding glass doors with her naked and feed. All. Day. Long. I was so worried she would have to go in the hospital for it and then who would take care of my broken Hubby?? I couldn't leave my Baby there alone! Once the Pedi told me the lights and a care nurse would come to our house I totally relaxed about that. And her jaundice was gone after like 3 days.
So yeah that is my horrible new born days. I was scared to talk about them and pushed them to the back of my mind. But now that I want to have another Baby I need to remember these things. Could I do it again? I'm sure. You never have the same exact experience twice. But still. It was bad. And throw a toddler into the mix?? Um yea not sure.
Anyways, now my girl is sweet (for the most part. unless cutting teeth), and fun and loves to be going going going 24/7. She can say, Momma, Dada, doggie, kitty, shoes, up, hello, hi, byebye, and bath (ahbah). We really pushed the sign language when she was younger though so her speech hasn't taken off. She can sign, eat, more, drink, please, and all done in addition to waving hi and bye. Don't get me wrong the girl talks 24/7 but I swear it's a mixture of french, german, italian, and some made up language of hers. It's hilarious and honestly she never stops. I told Steve I kinda hope she never learns to really talk b/c it's so flippin cute I love it! And I'm not ready for her attitude and talking back ;) At her 15 month appointment the Dr freaked out when I told him she wasn't speaking words and had even stopped saying Momma, Dada, Bybye. He told me we HAVE to do speech therapy asap and figure out what is wrong w/ her :*( NOT what a Momma wants to hear. So I stress, pray, google, read, and finally got a hold of the speech therapist from our school district. She said they don't even do any testing until 18 mo and not to worry and she hoped she never talked to me again! I sighed a big sigh of relief and wouldn't you know it 2 days later she said Momma clear as day! She has since added all those other words in, sometimes they aren't noticeable and I might be pushing it, but I think she is just stubborn and does things slowly and on her own time. She didn't get a tooth until 10 months, crawl until 8 1/2 months, or walk until almost 14 months. She is just a little behind and I'm in no rush to make her talk. She can hear perfectly well so I know that isn't the issue either.
OK I've gone on and on and on so I'll stop here. But I will seriously try to be back either tomorrow or Monday w/ my other 2 posts! Maybe I will get into a better rhythm of posting, I really want to keep this up as journal-type for Hailey and all her milestones. So far I've failed miserably but her baby book is all up to date! YAY! lol. OK until next time peeps...............
Beck
January 18, 2010
9 months.....
I'm sure I'll do this again in 3 months at her 1st Birthday but I wanted to do a lil picture college showing how big my "lil" girl is!!! Oh how I love her so deeply........ 
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