Running on Fumes

Today is a tough day. The husband has been gone since Tuesday morning for work, and he returns tonight around 7ish. That isn't a terribly long time for him to be away but it feels like an eternity now that we are new parents and it's been just me in charge of Ellie for the last two days. Plus, it's weird being at home alone all day with her - newborns aren't the most interactive creatures in the world, so you find yourself talking to a little person who can only respond with a grunt or a cry - maybe a smile, if you're lucky. And since most of my friends work, I have no one to really hang out with during the daytime hours. So Ellie and I watch a lot of random TV, we eat every few hours (well, she does...I try to squeeze in a meal whenever she's quiet and/or napping), and I dink around on the interwebs. My house could use some vaccuming but I'm too tired to attempt it right now...maybe tomorrow after the husband has come home and taken part of Ellie's night shift for me.

As for the little lady, she's drinking approx 3oz of formula every three hours, sometimes more often, and doing well. She's becoming increasingly gassy, so we might have to look into getting some bottles that are angled to cut down on her air intake while she's eating. I'm open to suggestions and recommendations...I didn't do a lot of research on bottles while I was pregnant, because the plan was to breastfeed, but we know that didn't work out so yeah. Right now we just feed her from the 5oz Medela bottles that we got with my pump and as shower gifts...they aren't very fancy and I suspect they aren't designed for exclusively formula feeding.

We have a busy weekend ahead of us. Ellie is getting baptized so my brother in law and his wife, my sister, and my mother are all coming into town for the festivities. Add to that a weight check for the baby on Friday afternoon and it's going to be a doozy. But I'm excited to see everyone and for them to meet Ellie...she'll be a whole month old on Saturday! (She's officially 4 weeks old today)

The Lactation Diaries - FIN

There is no more lactation to be had here at this house. Part of me is sad to stop so soon but part of me is very relieved....the milk supply wasn't increasing and Ellie wasn't getting any more enthused about working so hard for so little of Mommy's milk. So we are now exclusively on formula, and it's been much easier already. We make up several bottles at a time, especially before heading to bed, and we have them ready to go for each feeding.

I know that 'breast is best' but in this case, it just didn't work out...we gave it a good try though. It's very hard to nurse and supplement, especially when you have a kidlet who isn't terribly interested in nursing and is so small and just needs FOOD. So food she shall have, even if it isn't from my body. We feed her super-fortified formula (Enfamil Premium Lipil) and it's about as close to breastmilk as there is on the market today. She likes it well enough and eats well from her bottles...so that makes me happy. Happy baby, happy mommy. And happy daddy too :)

So that's it for the Lactation Diaries...but I'm sure I'll find another topic to 'diary' about as we continue along our parenting adventures with Miss Ellie D.

The Lactation Diaries, Part III

Well, the little lady weighed in at a whopping 6lbs, 3oz at her two-week checkup yesterday! (Really, it was more like three weeks, because her doc was out for the holiday last week.) She's gained 10 oz in just a week - and we have a follow up visit scheduled for next Friday to see how much more she'll weigh then.

I think she's going through a growth spurt, because she is showing a lot more interest in eating - not at nighttime, which is hard, but we're still feeding even when she's sleepy - and her newborn clothes are finally starting to fit her wee body better.

I still don't feel like my milk supply is where it should be, which is also a little troubling, but I'm trying to stay positive and keep nursing and eating well and resting and drinking lots of water - I guess if it never gets to where she can exclusively be on the boobmilk, then we'll keep supplementing with formula. Whatever it takes to get my baby bigger and chubbed up, I'll do it.

The Lactation Diaries - Part II

We had a follow up visit with the lactation consultant this morning and I was stressing. What if all our hard work had been for nothing? What if Ellie just wasn't gaining enough weight? What if, what if, what if?

Turns out my worrying was for naught. Ellie gained five whole ounces in only four days! The LC was very impressed and even suggested I try nursing her during our appointment to see if she would show more interest in the breast now that she's bigger. And she did! She did such a good job nursing (30ml in 10 minutes) that we no longer need to pump as long as she continues to nurse well. We are still supplementing with formula after each feeding session to make sure she gets enough nourishment while my milk supply continues to build itself back up.

We still need to make sure she eats at least 8 times a day, so I don't know if I'll get caught up on sleep, but the husband should be able to do so, which will be nice since he's going back to work soon and needs to get more than 2 hours of sleep at a time. At least I can nap during the day with the baby :)

The Lactation Diaries

It has been quite a week, feeding-wise, with Ellie. First, we had to go to the pediatrician on Monday morning because the Little Miss was vomiting profusely all night before. They ran some tests, asked us a lot of questions and we ended up with a diagnosis of reflux (not terribly uncommon, especially in little babies) and a prescription for liquid Zantac, that we now give her twice daily.

And we found out that she was back down a full pound from her birthweight. NOT GOOD. So I made an appointment with a lactation consultant for Tuesday morning to see what the heck was going on. She told me to bring Ellie, my breast pump, and a log of her feedings/diaper changes so she could help me figure out a plan of attack to get weight back on our little girl. NOTE: Ellie weighed 6lb 10oz at birth. By Tuesday's lactation appointment, she was down to 5lb 9.6oz.

So we developed a plan where I was to feed Ellie from the breast every three hours while the husband prepared a bottle of 30ml formula and pumped breastmilk combined. This worked for a few feedings, but by Tuesday night, Ellie still wasn't nursing well enough off the breast to get any real nourishment and I was in tears. So I called the LC nurse back on Wednesday morning and we decided to stop the "Battle at the Breast" and just have me pump every three hours while the husband fed her a bottle of 50ml formula/pumped milk. And to increase the amount to 60ml if her tummy could handle it. (60ml is about 2oz of liquid, if you've forgotten your metric conversions.)

So far, it seems to be working. Ellie is filling out in the face and belly already and her diaper output has increased a lot too! (This is a good sign - the more that is coming out, the more she's digesting and getting nourishment from the food.) It's hard though - both the husband and I are chained to the schedule so that means we are feeding her often and neither of us get anymore than 2.5 hours of sleep, if we're lucky, at a stretch. I wonder if this is sustainable...I've still put Ellie to the breast every so often, if she's showing signs of hunger, and she'll nurse, but it's still rather ineffective - I can tell by the shallow sucking she does and the few swallows she gets.

Stay tuned for more updates to The Lactation Diaries, a special supplement to your otherwise regularly-scheduled blog.

Weekly Post - to keep the goal intact

This week has been absolutely nuts, so I didn't have a lot of time to post. Having a new baby takes up a lot of time, in case you didn't hear. A LOT OF TIME. But I'm so happy with Miss Ellie, who isn't terribly fussy (yet) but who is terribly cute and cuddly.

I intended to post earlier this week, maybe not some Musings, but at least something about what it's like to have a kiddo. But that's kinda hard to put into words...the main thing, which is pretty obvious, is that the days are no longer yours, they belong to the baby and her needs. I spend a lot of time nursing, burping, cooing, cuddling, soothing, you name it. Whatever she needs, I'm on top of it - unless the husband gets to her first. (He can do everything but the nursing part, and believe me, at 3am there have been times when I wished upon a star that he could lactate.)

Anyway, I love being a mom. It's not always easy and there are times when I do miss my freedom, but overall, I wouldn't trade my new life for anything.

New Normal

I used to hate that phrase: "new normal." It's so overused that it hardly means anything anymore. Unless, of course, you are a new parent. Then new normal means A LOT. Like not taking shower time for granted. Or learning to function on a solid 3 hours of sleep. Or obsessing about the contents of your kid's stomach based on the contents of her diaper. Or measuring a day not by hours or minutes, but by how many times the baby has eaten and for how long at a stretch.

But New Normal is good...at least mine is. The husband and I are adjusting pretty well to life with our new little Elliot Delaney (you can call her Ellie, we do). It helps that my stepmom is here to help us out - that extra pair of hands and mom experience definitely comes in handy - until Tuesday. So far, we have been very lucky with our little lady...she is a good eater, good sleeper, and pretty much the most beautiful baby that ever graced this Earth. (Not that I am biased at all, of course.)

My body is NOT yet normal, but it's getting there. I still look about 4-5 months pregnant and I'm healing from some um, tearing that is a little less than comfortable. But give it a few weeks, I'm told, and my new normal body won't freak me out nearly as much. I must say that after gaining 37 lbs (yes, I'm admitting my total weight gain for posterity's sake), I'm not TOO freaked out by my flabby midsection and not-so-rapidly shrinking ass. Nine months on, nine months off is my new motto.

And since this has been a wordy post, I'll wrap it up for now (also, my new mom brain is mush at best) and leave you with a photo of the World's Most Perfect And Amazing and Beautiful Newborn Baby Girl:

I CAN haz babeh! (on Wednesday)

Yep, I cleared the nefarious induction on-call list and will be arriving at the hospital, husband in tow, bright and early Wednesday morning. This assumes the little lady doesn't decide to show up tomorrow, but I highly doubt she will.

Again, there will be no real-time or even close to it updates here of the birth process or the immediate aftermath, but I do intend to post when we get home with our brand-new little person, which will hopefully be sometime on Friday.

Yay fo babeh!

I can haz babeh? Plz?

Today I am 39 weeks and 5 days pregnant (as you can tell from the ticker in my title bar above). Yes, I am aware - painfully so these days - that pregnancy is supposed to last 40 weeks. My due date, which is December 9th aka Wednesday, is exactly 40 weeks from the official start of my pregnancy, which was March 4th. Therefore, I shouldn't expect that the baby will arrive before Wednesday, right?

Well, technically, that's correct. I shouldn't expect to see the baby before Wednesday. But I would really like to see her before then. Mostly because I've spent the better part of the last week and a half either a) dealing with pre-labor symptoms and pains that never last more than a few hours at a stretch or b) trying every trick in the book to get labor to start and keep going. Nothing has happened. The closer we get to Christmas, the more desperate I get to have this kiddo appear sooner rather than later.

I am "on call" for an induction on Wednesday. The hospital where I will deliver only does inductions for first-time moms on that day of the week, so it's either I clear the on-call list this Wednesday or I have to wait until next Wednesday. Sure, I guess I could go into real labor on my own prior to the 16th, but I'm rapidly losing faith in my body here. I don't think it knows what to do. Maybe I shouldn't be so pessimistic, but the more start-and-stop labor I experience, the less confidence I have that I can avoid an induction - whether it be this week or next.

Anyway, this "poor me" post is the replacement for a Musings post this week. I can't really focus on much beyond my frustration right now. Blech.

Monday Musings, No. 1 Vol. 29

I am on my first full week of maternity/medical/pregnancy/whatever leave. I have been very productive today, despite the fact that I really should be just sitting on my tuchus and eating everything in the house. Okay, that last part isn't true...eating isn't very much fun when you're almost 39 weeks pregnant and your stomach has been squished to the size of a cherry tomato. I got 99 problems but a muse ain't one...

The last two days have been less than enjoyable because of pre- (or maybe just false) labor. What it feels like is having your belly all tight and hurty but nothing really happens. It just feels bad.
I can't stop reading the TMZ updates about the Tiger Woods 'accident'...and I'd like to say - and the husband can back me up here - that I KNEW the initial story was crap. Any gossip whore would have b/c the news about his alleged mistress came out the day before this 'accident'. If in fact he was skanking around, good on Elin for her tantrum. That girl does NOT play.
The Niners won this week against the semi-lowly Jaguars, which makes me happy. What doesn't make me happy is that MJD laid a fantasy stinkbomb in the game.
I still haven't put up any Christmas decorations. I think the husband would at least like to get the (fake) tree up, but I don't want to help. I hate putting that thing together.
We should know soon if the Vandals are bowl-bound...but after their last two games, I don't know if they really deserve to go. I know our regular QB has been hurt but good lord...the defense is still really, really horrible.
My copy of Le Petit Prince has gone missing, which distresses me. I've had that book since high school and now it's nowhere to be found. I wanted to read it to the baby, so she can be all fancy and hear French words early on. Maybe I should just buy a replacement and stop whining about the fact that mine is lost.
I'm still working on my birthday/Christmas wish lists. I have some items in mind, but nothing that special.
Today, I was looking through the leave paperwork that my doctor's office filled out and sent to the company that handles MY company's medical leaves of absence and inadvertently saw my most recent weight - taken last Wednesday at my 38wk appt. Ugh. I hope this kid weighs a lot or I have my work cut out for me to lose the gestation flab.

Finally, I wouldn't count on this blog for up to the minute updates of and labor and/or delivery progress. I'll be sure to post after the kidlet arrives, but I'm not committing to any timetable. It may happen while I'm still in the hospital and it may have to wait until we get home with her. But rest assured, readers, there WILL be baby news here at some point.