Tuesday, January 29, 2008

got some sleep!

WOW! a 4.5 hour stretch! I zonked out completely and when I woke to his cry I was rested and shocked. It was wonderful! Yeah, my bbs were all engorged, but it was worth it! I am a whole new woman today. The next stretch was 1.5 hours, but there were only 2 feedings during the night so it was a good night. I am sure there will be more bad nights, but if I can get just 1 or 2 of these a week, I will be a lot nicer.

Friday, January 25, 2008

5 week update

He finally lost his cord stump! 5 weeks old and it is gone! yay! he got his first REAL bath last night.

The feedings are spacing out nicely to every 2-3 hours. I feel so much more human getting sleep in some longer stretches. Thanks to my mom, we are being successful with a paci! She somehow got him to like it! And he has been getting expressed milk in a bottle too.

I've gotten out of the house a little. Just a couple hours at a time. With breastfeeding, I need to stay on his schedule, so if he doesnt come with me I need to pump when he eats. Supply and Demand is how breastfeeding works.

We found a daycare! We are comfortable with the one we chosen, it isnt far from home and we have friends who's kids go there too. They come highly refered. It is an inhome day care. I am more comfortable with that over a daycare center. He will be the only one under 1, and there are 2 adults and up to 12 kids. Many of the kids are 3-4, so at least they can be reasoned with. I wasnt so comfortable with the daycare centers having 1 adult and 4 infants. They also charge hourly, which is great for our part time needs! I start working from home shortly. Begining of march I go back to work FT. Yicks, seems so soon. I am not ready to leave my baby.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

4 weeks tomorrow!

It has been hard to get online during the day. Lately my baby boy has been wide awake, just hanging out all day long. At night he has been sleeping 2-3 hours between feedings and there have been no problems getting him to go back to sleep between feedings. He has been pretty crankiy in late afternoon. Today I got him to nap, lets hope that solves that crankiness!

Not much new to update, he will be 4 weeks tommorrow. He seems to be adjusting to life in this world well. The next step for us is to introduce the bottle and help he become comfortable with bottle feeding breastmilk. We have to decide if we are going to give any formula right now too. We are still working on him becoming comforted by a pacifier too, that isnt going so well.

I quickly shed all but 15 lbs of the 40 plus lbs I gained. I dont know how to go about losing this last 15 as I need extra calories to produce milk, and I still cant workout for 2 more weeks because of the c-section. I'm not going to worry about it quite yet, and maybe I will shed a few more without trying.

Monday, January 14, 2008

reply to Amanda!

Interesting that my friend Amanda had this to say in a comment: I hope you don't think bad of me or get mad at me for saying this but thank goodness to know you are human. While you were pregnant you were like superwoman, getting everything organized and cleaned. Babies are a wonderful great joy to have, but life is not always perfect with them and as a mother (parent) you learn to be a little more flexible and let some things go because no matter how well you plan or prepare, kids have a mind of their own. I'm glad you have gotten the help you need. I've come to the conclusion that at some time in their lives all women have trouble or struggle with depression of some sort. If it wasn't enough that we are already the stronger sex . . . Amanda

No, I am not offended at all! Actually, right now I consider the biggest thing working against me is my need to have a plan for everything I do! I have always been a person with a plan, and have gotten upset when my plan doesnt work out. Through out this pregnancy I told myself that life wont be like that anymore! Each day with a new baby helps it sink in even further! Baby first, me second, everything else if I have time.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

OK, I can talk about it now.

For those of you wondering why I have been MIA or distant, this may explain lots of things. It feels good to talk about my feelings and thoughts too.

Right after Brady was born, I got a good case of Baby Blues, at least that is what I thought they were. I cried for no reason at all. That is how it was at first, but gradually each day I felt worse and worse. Two weeks after his birth Chris and I decided I should see a Dr. because we wondering if it wasnt PPD (post partum depression). Now, please dont judge me or say cruel things- I want to say what I was feeling when things were the worst. Honestly, I didnt want Brady (no, I wasnt going to hurt him- I knew this was a temporary feeling). I felt like life was just fine without out him, why did we try so hard to bring this sort of stress and tourmoil into our lives? I had not bonded with Brady much either. I thought that your baby is born, they dr hands him./her to you and you are in complete love with your baby. It was nt like that for me. For the first couple weeks, I nursed Brady and passed him off to dad. I could not handle being alone with Brady and felt like I was a bad mom and I could not decide what to do next with brady (change him, feed him....). I also felt very ripped off because I had a c-section and Brady's birth day was nothing like I had expected it to be. I never really got the chance to become OK with having the c-section, I just got thrown into the operating room 30 minutes after we decided to do it. Of course, after baby is here you really dont get much of a chance to think about yourself either and regroup your own thoughts.

I talked to a therepist, and that helped tremendously to hear that it is ok to feel like I do and some things take time. I see her again shortly. The dr. also prescribed me an anti-depressant (it is completely safe for Brady breastfeeding, we talked to the psych dr, my ob, and brady's pedi about that and feel confident that meds are what WE need- they all said if I dont get better and bond and love brady he will be far worse off in the future then taking a drug that has no known effect in the breastmilk). The therepist also talked to Chris and explained so much to him and told him just to listen to me and dont try to fix things. Chris has been so helpful thru all of this.

So, I take things day by day. Hour by hour. I survived 2 days with Chris at work! And I am starting to bond and fall in love with Brady. It's all gonna take some time, but I am already happy we sought help for me.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Appointment update

We must be doing something right. Brayden weighs 8lbs 12 oz! The Dr. said that is nice growth for a breastfed baby. Everything is perfect with him too.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

updates...

We are out of the clusters I think! Between days 3 and 10 Brady cluster fed all, and today is day 16 and he has been eating every 1-4 hours. Tomorrow is his first dr. appointment, cant wait to see how big he has gotten!

The nights are long for me. I dont bother waking Chris unless I really have to since he cant feed the baby. I love when we get 3-4 hour stretches of sleep though! 2 hours is the norm though.