Parenting choices

When you get pregnant for the first time you suddenly become aware of a whole new set of conversation topics that are hot topics and points for debate among the members of society who have children. These topics all center around parenting and how people choose to parent. Should I circumcise my son? Should I give him a pacifier? Should I use breastmilk or formula? Should I let him sleep in my bed or in a bassinet or crib? Cloth diapers or disposable? How long should he keep his pacifier/bottle? The list of parenting choices goes on and on, and the debates on what is the right choice are usually quite heated. Truth of the matter is, do whatever you feel is best for your child. And for you for that matter.

We made different decisions on parenting after much discussion, or after a good deal of research on my side of things. But some things I attribute to dumb luck. Like co-sleeping, letting Davy sleep in our bed with us was never really an option. Why? Because the dogs sleep with us and they tend to get in our way and mess up our backs at night and I had no doubt that they might accidentally hurt the baby if we had the baby in bed with us. So no baby in bed with us. Which turned out perfect for us because now when I hear about other people who can't figure out how to get their toddler to sleep in their own bed I am happy that Davy never got into the habit of sleeping with Mommy and Daddy. And bedtimes are pretty much perfect now.

Another thing is bottles and pacifiers. We let Davy have bottles and pacifiers, but we never let him have a bottle at night, mostly because I had fear of SIDS from it. Well now when I hear about other parents who can't figure out how to get their toddler to give up the night time bottle I am glad we never started that tradition. And pacifiers, like I said we let Davy have pacifiers, he took them to bed with him too. But around 14 - 16 months we lost his pacifier, he did pretty well without it and once we found the paci again we just started to phase it out. We took the paci from an all the time thing to a night time thing, and then we just kind of got rid of it all together. Now when he sees a pacifier he doesn't think of it as something he needs. He even knows that pacifiers go to babies and when he finds one with a baby around he will give it to the baby.

Did we intend to make choices that would work best for us in those regards? Not really, we were first time parents with no knowledge of how everything would work out for us. But I am pretty glad that some of our choices worked out so good for us. Not that the choices of others aren't the best choices for them, but for us our choices have worked pretty good so far.

Tooth Brushing

So now that Davy is eating solids I feel like I really need to be getting down his bedtime routine. Complete with brushing teeth, reading a story and then going to bed. Currently I have a little finger brush for Davy, and some baby safe tooth paste. So I take him into the bathroom and put some tooth paste on the finger brush and start brushing the few teeth he has so far. And he loves it! He thinks it is great to have this weird little brush thing moving around on his teeth and gums. He likes to bite on it with his gums, where his molars will be growing in. He thinks it is funny when Mommy brushes his teeth with it. This is great for me, because it means that teeth brushing is fun and not another type of torture.

Story time is also getting better, before he was not so interested in the story, more in trying to eat the book. Now he actually looks at the pictures and likes it when Mommy reads to him. He wants to be the one to flip the pages, good thing we read books Mommy knows the words to so she can continue the story even if the words are a few pages back. Davy is such a fun little boy, it is so exciting to watch him grow up. I wish it didn't happen so fast so I could spend more time with my little boy.

Walking and Schedules

Lately Davy's favorite thing to do is walk around the living room with someone holding his hand. He can walk between us but he doesn't seem to feel comfortable with his new walking skills to go walking on his own. According to his doctor he should be able to walk now, he has great muscle tone and good balance but he is just chicken and will walk once he gets up his courage. In the meantime Mommy and Daddy have become his walking companions. He does not do so good when it comes to walking with Mommy or Daddy outside the living room area, because he wants to see all the things he doesn't usually get to play with. Davy has also started to climb, which is giving us all sorts of fits as he likes to climb up on the couches but has not realized that falling off the couch could seriously hurt him. There is a part of me that feels like I should let him fall once to let him learn that he needs to be careful on the couch. It is difficult letting my baby learn tough lessons.

On the fertility side of things I have begun to give myself shots. I started on Monday January 30th. Here is my schedule: Monday January 30th to Thursday February 2nd (today!) inject 200 Units of Follistim subcutaneously, Friday February 3rd inject 200 Units of Follistim, 2 pills of Estrodiol and one syringe of Ganirelix, continue all three until Monday February 6th when I have a doctor appointment and will be given a new schedule by the nurse.

Speaking of doctor appointments I am full of them for the next few weeks. I have the appointment on the 6th, as well as an appointment with my General Practitioner on the 7th, and another with the fertility clinic on the 8th. On the 9th I will be driving in to work for a meeting and then on the 10th we will be driving to Chicago for harvest of the eggs. We will be returning to Chicago on the 15th for implantation. Just thinking about next week makes me feel tired. Davy will be spending the 9th and 10th with Nana and Grandpa while I am at work and in Chicago. I am sure they will have more fun than I will.

I exercised last night and the night before. Turned on a tv show and exercised for the duration of it. I need to do more of that.

Big stuff

There are big things going on in the Sampson family. Davy just started taking some unassisted steps on his own, last night he walked on his own across a 4 foot area! I was so happy and proud of him! I do know that this means that he will be walking all over the place soon, but I am still excited for him.

On the fertility front, Kevin transported his frozen semen from one location to another. Now we are all set for our next try. I started my cycle and will be starting my daily shots tomorrow. I will probably have to continue them for two months. I will give more info tomorrow when I get my instructions on what to take.

1 year

Friday January 20th was Davy's first birthday. We didn't really get into the whole celebration until after his afternoon nap. Nana and Grampa Springer came by to celebrate it with us. When we heard Davy talking to himself we all came in singing Happy Birthday, turns out we must have surprised Davy because he started crying. Once he calmed down we started on Birthday cake. I made a small football cake for Davy to eat and a larger one for everyone else. Davy first picked at the green coconut shred grass and wouldn't really get into the cake until we cut it open and fed him some on a fork. Then we gave him some ice cream, which he really enjoyed. Finally near the end I helped him get messy by clawing his hand through the cake a few times, he finally ended it all by eating the cake off his fingers and rubbing what was left on his hands all over his belly and legs. After bath time came the opening of the presents. Davy got a lot of new toys from Nana and Grandpa Springer (most of which came from the thrift store), he got a piano toy that sings, has a microphone and a little book, a standing toy microphone, a little ride and push toy, a sled, and a few other things. From Mommy and Daddy he got a handmade stuffed zipper ball, and a VTech Learning Helicopter. Overall I think his birthday was fun for him. Yesterday I took him over to Nana and Grampa Springer's house and we went sledding, which involved us pulling him around in the yard on his sled. He really seemed to enjoy it.

I can hardly believe that he is a year old already. He is growing up so fast!!

Love, true love

Davy seems to have always been a ladies man, I mean, when we would take him to church all the other babies girls would flock around his car seat. Then again I don't know if they were more interested in his toys or him, but the fact is, they flocked to him. He has had some good play sessions at church with little girls around his age. But none of them has he been absolutely entranced with like he is with his first great love. Oh yes, finally at ten months old he has found his first love. And she is beautiful. Four feet tall, shapely, with lots of bling. Now, now, before you get any wrong ideas she is a tree. A fake Christmas tree. One we got as a gift from my brother a few years ago. We opened the box for the first time this year, we hadn't really had any good reason to open it before. All our Christmases were spent with Mom and Dad and it was just us at home to enjoy any decorations. And last time we put up a tree, a little two footer, we left it up for about a year. But this year we have Davy, and I wanted him to have something pretty and Christmasy for his first Christmas. So we brought the unopened tree up from our basement, found the hand-me-down decorations that we have collected during our marriage, and spent a Davy nap time decorating.

Davy woke up to a lit and decorated tree. You could tell it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Better than the ceiling fan light, better than the lights at Nana's, oh yes, these lights were multi-colored, and small, and cool enough to touch. And the ornaments were dazzling, so fun to bat at and watch them spin. And then he found the ornament made from a bell, perfect for shaking. But not all of Davy's time can be spent held by Mommy next to the Christmas tree, and he hates it when he and his love must part. He fusses, and whips around to get a good view of the Christmas tree as we walk away, her beautiful lights reflected in his eyes.

Lowering the bar

This morning while we were still asleep I heard Davy wake up over the baby monitor, he turned on his mobile and started making the little noises he makes when he is talking to himself. As this can go on for hours before he actually wants someone to come in and get him I rolled over and went back to sleep. Then both Kevin and I were woken up by the sound of Davy falling down and then crying heavily, the way he does when he gets hurt. I jumped up and started to get a bottle ready, thinking that he had just fallen back against the crib while he was playing with his mobile (the mobile does not have the hanging parts attached anymore but the base still makes music so we leave it for him to play with). While I was getting the bottle ready I heard this knocking noise coming from Davy's bedroom door. But I figured it was him banging on the wall or something. Imagine my surprise when I opened his door and found Davy sitting there with a toy waiting for me! Turns out the sounds we had heard had been Davy crawling out of his crib. I took him back to the master bedroom and told Kevin and then took Davy back to the living room and laid him down with his bottle.

While Davy drank, Kevin and I looked at the crib and figured we could drop the mattress further. So we lowered the mattress and Kevin went back to bed. I watched Davy for signs of a concussion, but after playing and crawling and seeming to be fine I finally put him down again for his morning nap. In a much lower bed. Scary the things that babies put us through.

Wow

The things that have happened since I posted last. I went to write a post tonight, about something completely not having to do with the last few months and got a message saying "Restore previous post?" So I thought, "Oh what the heck, let's see what I was posting." This is what I found:

"What a night I had. Woke up in the middle of the night in intense pain. My first thought was, "I shouldn't have eaten right before going to bed." I woke up and came into the living room and eventually threw up everything I ate.

Update: The doctor thinks I have food poisoning, I have thrown up three times since last night. I feel awful, but am feeling better since taking some pain killer and throwing up. I just hope I feel well enough tomorrow that I can pick up Kevin's parents from the airport."


This would have been in March or so I think. Anyway it was around the time we had Davy's baby blessing. After that I ended up having intense pain followed by throwing up and feeling better quite a few times after that. Finally around April I went to the emergency room for it. I remember dropping the baby off at my parents, saying in a weak voice "Baby" to my mom, who told me that they would take care of the baby, and then we went up to Rockford to the hospital. I threw up along the side of the road on the way there. By the time we got to Rockford I was feeling better so Kevin and I got some food. Not long after eating the food I started feeling pain in my abdomen again. So we continued our journey to the emergency room, it seemed to take quite awhile for them to get me in, but once they did they did an ultrasound and after looking it over told me that it looked like I had gallstones that I was passing and that they were going to keep me in the hospital, do a few more tests and probably remove my gall bladder. Within the next eight days they starved me, did a CT scan on me, removed my gall bladder, and put a tube down my throat and cut a larger hole in one of my valves and released what they called "sludge". Then they sent me home.

Looking back I realize that I was stupid not to have gone to the hospital sooner. But I tend to tough out painful things and put them off as nothing. During the whole hospital stay I managed to pump and nurse when my parents brought Davy in. I am still nursing now.

Davy is currently breastfed with formula supplements. It is cheaper that way but after this whole year of breastfeeding adventures I would not say easier.

For my birthday I got a sewing machine and I have turned into a sewing fool. I have sewn a loopy ball, a loopy block, a stuffed axe, a ball for grasping, and am currently working on a terry cloth cat, a fake fur vest and a pair of leather boots, all for Davy. And I have patterns I have found online for many other things. All for Davy. Kevin thinks it is funny that all my interest at the moment is for Davy. And he is right, I shop for Davy, I craft for Davy, and I spend a good part of my day with Davy.

He is currently crawling, he just started, and he just began to start standing (with the support of different objects). He is beginning to be dangerous to leave unobserved.

Though it is stressful life is still good, and I am happy I have my family. So much has happened this year, and yet it feels like it is flying by. I am making Davy a viking costume for Halloween (thus the axe, fur vest and boots) and am excited about it all, as well as by the idea that we have Christmas coming up as well as his birthday soon. It seems so crazy that I began this year by having a little baby.

Phobias

Before Davy I had lots of things I was scared of. Spiders, the dark, heights, monsters that hide in the dark, etc. Yes my imagination fed into a lot of those fears, but these were honestly things that scared me. Now that Davy is a part of my life my fears have changed drastically. I am still scared of spiders, but much less so than I was previously, we now have two large spiders that live on our garage door that I feed every time I find a stray bug to throw into their webs. I caught and released a jumping spider I found in our house and now find myself thinking about catching one and bringing it into my house to take care of our earwig problem. I find myself climbing up on things to do home improvement, the most recent of which was climbing on a chair to put letters up above Davy's closet, something I would have been fearful to do before. And I find myself in the middle of the night staggering through a dark house to get the baby and nurse him in the dark and then stagger back to my bed after he is done.

So what do I now fear? Well many of my fears have now changed. I fear that I may wake up one morning and find Davy dead in his crib from SIDS, I fear that he may get sick and die, I fear that he may choke on something and die, I fear that he may hurt himself and die. Do you see a pattern here?

Shortly after having Davy I went onto the Birth Board that I was part of (a forum board of women who were due during the same month that I was) I stumbled upon the baby picture thread and found in that thread a woman who had posted pictures of her twins who were stillborn. The pictures broke my heart, these little dead babies dressed up in beautiful clothes by their mourning parents. It made me fear for my own little one, scared that I could lose him, scared that one day I would wake up to a little dead baby. After so long of waiting for him, I don't know how I could take something like that. So I check on him every day and every night and make sure he is still alive and well. And I pray for him every night. I will be glad once he is past the SIDS risk.

Snatch and Grab

I have really gotten behind on writing about Davy. It is sad really because he is probably the cutest baby I have ever seen. Lately he has gotten really good at this thing called grabbing and he has been using his little hands to grab anything that comes into his personal space. And I think he has figured that if he doesn't grab it quick then he probably will have whatever it is taken away. So his current tactic is snatch and shove into mouth as fast as possible.

Monday (August 22) was my mom's birthday, Dad made her two lemon merange pies, but while he was making them she kept telling him that all she wanted was cake. Which was strange since she had asked for pies earlier. Anyway Dad had brought home fixings for cake but had made the pies. So Tuesday morning I went over and while Mom was distracted I stole the cake fixings and took them home. I made a two layer chocolate cake with coconut frosting in the middle and chocolate butter creme on the outside, then Kevin, Davy and I took the cake over to my parents to surprise Mom. Both she and Dad were surprised and we decided to have pie and cake. So Dad dished everyone up some pie and then we started to get the cake ready to be dished up. In the meantime Mom was holding Davy and had first let him touch the cake, so he had chocolate frosting on his hand, then she decided to let him touch a piece of pie, namely my piece of pie. She thought he would just touch it, like he had done with the cake, but instead he grabbed the merange, and when I say he grabbed it I mean he grabbed the entire thing off the piece of pie. Then in typical baby fashion he shoves it into his mouth and gets this "what did I just eat????" look on his face.

I don't know who eventually ate that piece of pie, but Mom did not make me eat it. I think it is hilarious what he grabs and eats. Today while feeding him he got impatient with how long it was taking me to put the spoon in his mouth, so he grabbed my hands and shoved the spoon in his mouth. These were of course banana baby food and baby rice cereal covered baby hands. So when food time was over both of us smelled like bananas and the dogs thought that we were both tasty.

I have more things to write about, but I will cover those things later, hopefully tomorrow.

Time and the lack thereof

Having a baby I have found leaves a person with very little time. Things kind of go like this: Wake up to baby crying, change baby, feed baby, try to get baby to fall asleep again, while baby is asleep try to get things done, these things may include: cleaning, eating, sleeping or trying to de-stress. Baby usually wakes up during this time and everything starts again. This is why I boggle at the advice that you get as a new mom.

Sleep while your child is sleeping is something I have often heard. Problem is sleep is not something you can always do when you have other things that need to be done. Things like feeding yourself, doing laundry, washing bottles, washing dishes, trying to get the house looking somewhat presentable, etc. The feeding yourself part seems to be my greatest hurdle. My baby seems to have a inborn sense of when Mommy is trying to feed herself, because almost every time I start putting anything together for consumption is when he begins to fuss or flat out bawl. This has led me to wonder if the baby has some strange desire to keep me from eating. Logically I know this is not the case, but there is a part of me that wonders.

This leads me to my next topic, hysteria. When I was in high school I took a class where we covered Latin roots, prefixes and suffixes. And hyster was one that we discussed. The word hyster has to do with women, which is why hysterectomy refers to the removal of the uterus. It is also part of the word hysteria. This is because hysteria was generally attributed to women, or rather only women were the crazy ones, which is why they were not allowed to vote in ancient Greece and Rome. When I was younger I really wondered about this, women were just fine, there was nothing insane about them. Then I had a child.

Truthfully I was lucky, I went through In Vetro Fertilization (IVF) to get pregnant and during the fertility treatments I did great! No crazed hormonally imbalanced woman going crazy all over everyone. Then I got pregnant and nothing really changed. I was good, even keel, absolutely fine. Then the baby came and suddenly the hormone change happened. I had mood swings, a stress level that was insane, I snapped at my husband, it was terrible. Then I got medicated and things began to calm down. But I began to see why women would be considered insane.

Thankfully in my medicated state I have two sides to me, an emotional side and a rational side. The rational side keeps me chugging along like a normal well adjusted person and the emotional side leaves me in a squirmy pile of goo over my cute baby. But thank goodness for that rational side, otherwise I would probably start to believe certain things that come to my mind. Things like: The baby doesn't want me to eat, or the baby doesn't want me to sleep, or the baby is out to get me, or the baby hates me because he cries half the times he looks at me, etc. My rational side grabs onto those thoughts and says, "Really? That makes no sense at all. The baby has no idea about you eating, the baby just needs something and is communicating the only way he knows how to at this point, by crying." But I can see how someone could easily go off the deep end if they started to believe the crazy thoughts that come into your head when you have just had a baby. And it makes me wonder about what comes next.

Breastfeeding revisited

Davy is doing so much better at breastfeeding. I have been able to get him to nurse at almost every feeding now. We usually finish him off with the bottle, but on average he has been feeding for 15 minutes on each side. That is 30 minutes nursing total per feeding session. Yay!! I still pump after each feeding, which means that the whole feeding thing (if Kevin is not around) takes a long time. But it was already taking a long time anyway.

One thing I have learned with having a baby is that formula stinks! And I mean it really smells, to the point that I have almost puked from the smell of it. Yuck! Breast milk on the other hand smells just fine, hardly any aroma to it at all, and if there is an aroma the best I can describe it as is sweet. I guess different women's milk looks different, meaning it comes in different colors. Some is white, some is yellow, some (depending on what they eat) can be slightly green and I have even read of some which after eating certain things came purple. Mine, according to my husband and my mom looks like sweetened condensed milk. All I know is it keeps the baby fed and happy. If only it didn't leave me feeling like a miniature cow. Seriously, if I am not feeding the baby I am hooked up to a machine that milks me, and when it is done I hand milk myself to make sure to get anything the machine missed.

Ah well, at least the baby gets fed and that is what matters to me. I do wish it didn't hurt quite so much though. OUCH!

Breastfeeding

Davy breastfed twice during the last two feedings. He fed for probably about 30 minutes last night during his 3/4 am feeding time and then he did the same thing this morning at his 8/9 am feeding. I let him feed until he unlatched and then finished him off with the bottle. Considering that he hasn't breastfed regularly yet this is a big success for us. Not that it really makes things any easier. I still need to pump after he feeds, and I still need to make plans for when I have to go back to work. Which is at the beginning of March. I know I still have three weeks left (mostly) but it seems like my maternity leave is going by so quickly.

I don't really want to go back to work, even though it will be working from home still. I still don't feel like I have enough time in the day with everything the baby throws at me. Something that would seem like a quick little process turns into a big production. Take last night. My mom comes over so I can take Kevin's laptop to him at work since he forgot it at home. Baby wakes up while I am gone, so my mom feeds him and then he falls asleep. She leaves and like always after my parents leave, Davy wakes up. I change him, and then feed him again because he is acting hungry. He seems to finish eating so I go to put the bottle away, as I am in the kitchen he gets the "I am going to throw up" look on his face and then proceeds to throw up what looks like everything he ate while I fed him and while my mom fed him. (a huge waste of milk, ugh!) I go to clean him off and end up changing his diaper while I am at it, while doing that he proceeds to pee all over himself, so I end up having to give him a bath. By the time he is cleaned, changed, in new clothes and calmed down a huge amount of time has passed. All my plans for the night (cleaning the rest of the kitchen, making bread, making a dinner for myself other than a frozen meal) has gone out the window.

And currently the little guy is crying, but I am still hooked up to the pump. So finish pumping and then see if I can get him to go back to sleep.

Emergency Room

As those of you who follow my facebook know I ended up in the emergency room Thursday night. It was due to chest pain. It started late Thursday night as I was feeding Davy, it felt like pressure in my chest. Almost like someone was sitting on it from the inside. Needless to say I kind of freaked out. I laid Davy down to see if lying down myself would help things. It did not. Davy had not been laid down properly, aka waiting till he fell asleep and such so he was screaming and I was lying there hoping the pain went away and wishing I could hold Davy and calm him down. I finally got back up and picked him up and after more chest pain I finally freaked out enough that I called my mom and asked her to come over. Usually I would just tough things out and not really worry too much about stuff but the idea of Davy without a mom freaked me out enough to seek out help.

When my mom came over she told me to call up my doctor and see what they told me. Of course my doctor wasn't there at that time of night but I did get an answering service that had a doctor on call give me a call. The doctor talked to me, and talked to my mom, and then said that I should go to the emergency room just in case. So I called Kevin up and told him to come home and take me to the emergency room. It was about 5 minutes till he got off of work anyway, so it worked out ok.

We had to go to Rockford for the emergency room so it was a 30 minute ride, Kevin was pretty worried the entire trip there. When we got there they took me in and hooked me up to an EKG machine. Then they moved me into room, gave me an IV, took some blood, did a chest X-ray on me, and eventually gave me a CAT scan. The CAT scan required them to inject iodine contrast into my blood, and because of that I had to pump and dump for the next 24 hours. It seemed like such a waste of milk. Thankfully I had some frozen milk so Davy has had less formula than he would have had otherwise. As it is though I am still behind. I need to get my milk supply going again. While I was in the hospital I wasn't able to pump until the very end, such a painful time, I ended up leaking all over my hospital gown and down my chest as well. Not fun at all.

After all the tests it turns out that I have bronchitis, they gave me a prescription for antibiotics, as well as an inhaler. Davy is doing well, he was watched by my mom Thursday night/Friday morning. Both Kevin and my mom worked together to help me get a lot of sleep once I got home. I am feeling a lot better today, I just wish I wasn't so behind on milk production.

The best husband for the job

I keep finding myself wanting to write about this, mostly because I have heard about husbands in the labor and delivery room who make the experience awful. Specifically I keep seeing commercials for the TV show "One born every minute" which follows women through the labor and delivery process. For the teaser clip they show a few scenes of the women in the labor and delivery room waiting for the baby to come and it shows the husbands and what they are doing and saying, and they are awful! One man plays around on his phone while his wife has contractions, one man tells his wife that he is bored and that the baby needs to come now. And it causes me to reflect on my experience.

As I mentioned before my epidural failed during my delivery, and it failed right as the transitional contractions were underway. Which means that I was dropped from a relatively pain-free experience right into the worst of it all. Kevin was the first one to realize that I was experiencing pain. And he realized it from the expression on my face. The moment he realized I was in pain he was immediately at my side holding my hand and saying comforting things to me. The next few hours were filled with pain, pushing, crying and a severe wanting on my part for the baby to be out of me so that the pain would stop. And all through it Kevin was at my side, holding my hand, saying comforting things to me. One of my favorite things he said, and kept saying was, "You are so beautiful." And he meant it, I could tell from the expression on his face when he said it. I have heard about women cursing at, screaming at, yelling at, punching, calling names, and many other things to their husbands, but when you have someone sitting there holding your hand, stroking your hair, and telling you that you are beautiful how can you get mad at that person?

As we got into the pushing I had to lean forward with each contraction, grab my legs and push for all I was worth for a count of ten. I was exhausted though, and could barely keep my eyes open let alone lean forward, and grab my legs. Thankfully both Kevin and my mom were there to help me. Kevin stood on one side and my mom on the other and together they would lift me up so that I could grab my legs, then they would help me lower back down and hold my hands after the contraction was over. They both kept telling me to squeeze their hands, but I hardly had the energy for that, I guess I did squeeze their hands hard at some point because I broke open the skin on my mom's hand with my nails at some point, and I almost did the same to Kevin. I probably could have made it through labor without my mom and Kevin, but I don't feel like it. They were a big necessity for me during the whole process. The doctor and the nurse kept telling me to get mad so that I would have more energy for the pushing, but I just couldn't get myself angry, yes I was in pain, but I had such a great support group there helping me that I just couldn't find anger in myself. Either way I got the job done and little David is here. It seems strange to think he has been here a week already. And even stranger to realize that yesterday was his official due date. It is good to have him here, I am so grateful for that little guy.

The I gave birth, before everything really got started Kevin went out to get some things. He came back with two dozen roses and a vase for them. He took of all the thorns when he got to the hospital and then set the flowers up for me. Everyone who came into the room stopped to smell them. The next day my parents came with flowers as well. It is one thing I remember clearly about my mom giving birth to my brother and sister, she got flowers. I am so thankful to both Kevin and my parents for remembering that and making sure I had flowers. They are so wonderful!

A latch! Nursing strike over?

I just went to feed Davy, I started with a bottle of 2 oz of breast milk that I had pumped today. After he had drank one ounce I burped him a bit and then offered him my left breast in a cradle position (different from the football hold that seemed to traumatize him so much), and he latched on and nursed for about 5 to 10 minutes! I was so happy because this may be the start to the end of the nursing strike. I waited till he unlatched himself and seemed to be done with that breast, then I offered him the other. He latched and sucked for maybe a minute, but then he got fussy and so I took him off to keep him from having more bad experiences with nursing. I gave him a little more of the bottle and then burped him again, he seemed to be done so I held him for a little while, but after not too long he was looking to suck on something again (he likes to eat his hands) I was going to put him down to sleep so I could pump but he started getting so upset that I figured, why not try it? So I put him in the football hold and put him on my right breast, and he latched and ate for about 5 minutes or more on that breast too! Yay! We will see if we can continue this trend, if so it will help out a lot, not only with my milk production but also with all the stress involved in the nursing strike. Who knew I would be so happy over my baby nursing?

Nursing strike, baby blues, and peace at last

Since the second day we had him Davy has been fussier than he was on the first day. At first we thought that it had to do with his circumcision, but when we took him in to his first doctor's appointment on Monday we discovered it was because he was hungry. My milk hadn't come in yet, and he wasn't getting as much nourishment as he needed. The doctor advised us to supplement with formula until my milk supply came in. So we went home and gave him his first bottle. And then my milk came in so I pumped and we gave him some of the pumped breast milk in a bottle, and then later Kevin gave him another bottle of formula, in total he had four bottles of formula/breast milk. Fast forward to 3 am on Tuesday morning, I am sitting in the living room with Davy, trying to get him to take my breast. And he wants nothing of it. One day, one day with bottles ruined it all. I ended up feeding him breast milk in a bottle and then taking all my stress out on Kevin. Poor Kevin. We didn't get back to sleep until about 7 am or so.

Tuesday I spent the day from 9 am to about 5 pm trying to get Davy to take the breast again. But he was having none of it. He screamed, and cried and screamed some more. Scrunched, angry baby face was the Davy face I was coming to know. Finally at 5 pm I had enough, I had done everything. I had called his doctor for help (advice, keep trying), I had looked online (advice, keep trying), I had tried every hold that La Leche League shows, I tried different latch techniques, I tried nursing skin to skin, I tried pumping first to get my milk flowing and then tried to get Davy to nurse, I tried putting milk on my nipple to entice him, I tried every single thing that I could find for advice to get my baby to nurse. And Davy just screamed harder and harder. I knew he was getting really hungry and nothing was working and he was starving.

So I finally broke down and did what Kevin told me all day not to do. I gave him a bottle of pumped milk. I let him drink until he wasn't screaming anymore then took the bottle away and offered my breast, and he latched on and sucked for about 1 minute tops, but he still latched on for the first time since we gave him his first bottle. Yay!! This achievement made me feel happier than it really should have, but it relieved so much stress for me. So now I have been pumping and feeding him off my pumped milk, and at each feeding pulling out the breast and having him sniff it and play with the nipple and sometimes even latch on for a bit. I figure it will take time before he actually nurses from me again, but hopefully it will happen eventually.

In the meantime I had to buy new pumps. The lactation consultant that I called on Tuesday called me back and we talked this morning about Davy's nursing strike and what I can do about it. And she told me I did exactly what I should have done. And that I am doing what I need to do to get him back on the breast. Then we talked about pumps, and I mentioned that my pump was getting about 2 oz from each breast in about an hour's time sometimes two hours. She told me I needed to get a hospital grade pump and that there were a few places I could call to rent one. The pumps she was speaking of were Medela pumps. Which I had thought about buying but hadn't because I couldn't conscience buying a breast pump for that much money. But the rental costs would have added up to that amount in just a few month's time. So today we went to the store and bought an electric Medela pump and a hand held manual Medela pump. On the way home I pumped each breast for 15 min with the hand held manual pump, and I got about 3 1/2 oz total breast milk. So tonight I have put together the electric pump and in a 15 min pump session I got another 4 oz total (2 oz from each breast). What a relief, and how nice that it went so quickly instead of the 2 hours I am used to with my other pump.

So hopefully Davy will eventually get off the nursing strike and get back on my breast, but in the meantime it is nice to finally have a quality pump that does what I need it to and will give Davy the food he needs until he does begin nursing again.

With everything that has been happening, what with Davy crying all the time (which he does much less now that he is getting enough food), and the nursing strike and just the stress of being a new parent, oh and the hormones too, I have been having the baby blues. For the past few days I have been so sleep deprived, so emotionally compromised, and so frustrated that I have basically been on the verge of tears 24/7. It is kind of funny what I find myself crying over. The dance numbers on the show "Live to Dance", commercials, the other night my parents and I watched the movie "Secretariat" and every time the horse ran I cried. Much of my crying has happened while I held Davy and wished that I could do something for him, this resulted in he and I sitting there crying together. It has made Kevin a good bit jumpy as he doesn't know when I am going to have a meltdown next.

Speaking of Kevin, he has been awesome with everything. Yes he has had his tough spots as well, times where he got just as frustrated as I was, but overall he has been very supportive. He has happily helped by holding the baby, changing diapers, taking care of the baby, feeding the baby (with bottles), comforting me when I have a meltdown, listening to me when I get frustrated, called for help when I really needed it (aka. got my parents to come by), and in general staying mostly calm and mostly reasonable through all this. Not all new fathers are like him, I know this. There are some fathers who refuse to change diapers, period. He changed all the diapers for Davy when we were in the hospital. I helped with one, but he was really the one that did them all. He has changed many diapers since we got Davy home as well. It really makes me appreciative for how awesome Kevin is. He really is one of my heroes.

All of this crazy baby stuff seems to finally be calming down a little, enough that I don't feel like I am going crazy anymore. And the little bit of calm makes me feel really good. Much better than I have felt for a while now. I don't think I will be completely ok for awhile still, but for now I will take what I can get.