Just the three of us...FINALLY!

So, we have had guests literally EVERY DAY since we have been home from the hospital. While I generally appreciate the extra pair of hands....or pairs of hands....I was really ready to be alone and figuring out this whole parenting thing on my own. This upcoming week it will just be my husband, Nathan, and me. Nathan is breastfeeding entirely. We are trying to figure out sleeping though. I have een co-sleeping with Nathan and breastfeeding him every 2-3 hours in the night. I try to go to bed around 8 or 9 pm and stay in bed until 8 or 9 am the next day. I also try to take a nap if we have a particularly bad night. I am still exhausted, though.

I don't know how people have more than one child. I still haven't been able to fit in all the workouts I would like...I would like to be doing cardio every day and fit in 2 weight sessions and 1 yoga session per week, but I am barely fitting in the cardio for 60 minutes. I think I am ready to start running, too, but am too afraid to start....I don't want to "mess anything up down there." The weather has been awful as well and I still haven't bought a BOB stroller yet (December is almost here!).

If anyone is reading this...how do you fit in workouts with a baby???

Our Breastfeeding Journey

I can't believe I haven't posted in a week! The past week has been a whirlwind. My sisters came in town for the weekend, then we had a series of friends visit, then my mother was here Monday and Tuesday, and I have been on my own for the past two days. Living on 4 hours of sleep has been difficult, but my husband is back at work and can't function without sufficient sleep.

Nathan is doing well. He's up to 6lbs 6 oz and the outfit that we brought him home in is starting to get too small. I can't wait until we can move up to newborn clothes because the 3 premie outfits we have for him are getting old. I refuse to buy any more clothes for him because for the majority of the day he and I are bare-chested getting skin on skin contact. The biggest benefit of having him be big enough to fit into newborn clothes is that I will actually have something to take him outside in that FITS! I went to four different stores (Babies R' Us, Gymboree, Carter's, and Old Navy) trying to find some sort of outerwear for Nathan with no luck. I did find a newborn bear suit...which is freaking adorable.

I am doing better. I was pretty emotional last week and so so tired. I am *finally* exercising...I started to do the elliptical two days ago. I am very anxious to start lifting and practicing yoga again...and run, of course. I haven't had the time. As for running, I want to start walking before I get into jogging, but with the hubby working and the early dark evening (and my hatred of treadmills) I haven't been able to. Plus, the stitches are still healing. It has only been 5 days since I stopped taken pain meds. Also, I still haven't been brave enough to take Nathan out on a walk. We are waiting to buy a Bob stroller next month, so I would have to put him in our Maya sling or Baby Bjorn to take him out. I am too afraid of him getting cold with this freezing weather or waking up hungry to go out. I might try again today after his next feeding. I know I just have to bite the bullet and do it...

Breastfeeding has been getting better and better. Here's what's been going on:
Day 1 & 2: Nathan wouldn't eat. I contacted the lactation consultants at the hospital and they said this was typical of small babies and not to worry about it. One lactation consultant gave me a nipple shield because she said it might be hard for him to latch on to my flat nipples. I tried the nipple guard and could get him to latch on, but knew that he wasn't swallowing. I relayed my concerns to the crappy lactation consultants and they said that he was fine.
Day 3: I booked a consultation with the "Breast Whisperer." She confirmed my concern that he wasn't swallowing and gave me a nipple guard that better fit my nipples. In addition, she put us on the following regimen for days 3-5, while I waited for my milk supply to come in.

• Per feeding: Get Nathan to latch on to nipple shield. Feed for 15 minutes through syringe into nipple shield to get Nathan to associate milk with my breasts and to stimulate my milk production. Then, hand Nathan off to someone else to get him to suck on their finger while siphoning milk into his mouth from a syringe. While this was happening, I was to pump for 20 minutes.

We fed Nathan a combination of formula and collustrum for the first few days while we waited for my milk to come in. Nathan was fed every 3 hours and we would wake him up if necessary. It was VERY difficult to get the little guy to stay awake.

Day 5: My milk finally came in. I would get 1.5 oz total from my two breasts. My lefty would give 1 oz, while my righty would give .5 oz.

Day 6-11: After another visit with the Breast Whisperer, she changed our feeding regimen to the following:

• Per feeding: Get Nathan to latch on to nipple shield. Feed for 15 minutes through syringe into nipple shield to get Nathan to associate milk with my breasts and to stimulate my milk production. Then, hand Nathan off to someone else and feed him a combination of my breast milk and formula until he was full. While this was happening, I was to pump for 20 minutes. Then, during the day, 1 hour after I pumped, I would pump again for 20 minutes to build my milk supply.

By Day 7 we were only feeding Nathan breast milk. This week was EXHAUSTING as I did all of the night feedings by myself. The entire regimen would take 1.5 hours, leaving me 1.5 hour of sleep until I had to start the whole process over again. But, by Day 9, I was producing 2.5-4 oz of milk per pumping. I pretty much stopped doing the double pumping on Day 10 because I had so much milk left over and was so tired. Also, on Day 10 and 11, I got Nathan to latch on and suck from my breast for 30 minutes! Yeah!

Day 12-19: The Breast Whisperer was very impressed with our progress in the past week. Nathan was clearly drinking milk through the nipple guard. During the consultation, she weighed him before and after drinking and he gained .8 oz at each breast! Her new recommendation for our regimen:

• Per feeding: Feed Nathan through the nipple guard for 30 minutes, switching between the two breasts and allowing more time at Lefty, the milk machine. Then, feed Nathan pumped milk through a bottle until he was full. And, pump for 20 minutes. She wants me to have at least 3 oz leftover at the end of the day. I am typically pumping 3oz per feeding and he is only eating 1-2 oz, so we have had plenty of leftover milk.

I really can't wait until I don't have to pump any more and can just whip out the boob when he is hungry! It is so time consuming and makes it difficult to go anywhere.

For those of you not breastfeeding yet or curious, here's some info on inverted or flat nipples. My nipples have definitely drawn out more since breastfeeding and pumping, but it is still too difficult for Nathan to get his mouth around them.

And, re: weight loss...I am trying to lose the 5-8 lbs that I gained while trying to get pregnant/doing IVF as I was at my pre-pregnancy weight last week, but have been too afraid to get on the scale to see how I have been progressing. Hmmm, I should say that "trying" is not even an appropriate term for my eating habits in the past week. I have been eating lots of my moms yummy, but not super healthy foods (chicken pot pie!)...and have been ADDICTED to chocolate chip cookies. I fear that I might have even gained back some of the weight that I had originally lost. I will try to wean myself off the cookies...but there is something about cold weather that just makes me crazy for yummy gooey cookies.

Funny Faces

Nathan makes the BEST faces!

Frustrated

I am trying not to get frustrated by the breastfeeding process and my own healing...but I am. I really thought that I would be able to go on walks by now, but the netherlands still hurt when standing more than 30 minutes. I am wondering if things are not healing correctly and the only "official" guidance my doctor will give me is that they do not recommend exercising for 4-6 weeks after delivery. This is an interminably long time and I am going stir crazy. My breast-feeding/pumping schedule further compounds my frustration.

Because Nathan is so small and I have flat nipples, we have not been able to get him to latch on. I have been working with a lactation consultant dubbed the "Breast Whisperer" for her success in getting babies to breastfeed. Her Rx has been for me to feed Nathan with a syringe through a nipple shield. This takes about 40 minutes. Then, I pump for 20 minutes and, in an hour, I pump again for 15-20 minutes to build my milk supply. My milk came in on Sunday. I can now produce up to 3 oz of milk total when I have at least 3 hours between pumping, but I typically produce between 1.5 and 2 oz. Nathan is being fed breast milk only. In addition, I try to have skin to skin contact with him as much as possible. This has increased my supply tremendously, but leaves me limited in what I can do and where I can go. The Milk Whisperer said that this week is critical for building up my milk supply so I am trying to put forth my best effort.

My mom has been staying with me as my husband went back to work on Monday. I don't know how I could make it through this week without her. She is a cleaning, cooking dirvish. I have been eating so well since she was here. She's made all of her staples...split pea soup, vegetable soup, chicken noodle soup, banana bread, beef stroganoff, chicken marsala, etc. I dread the lack of variety my diet will have once she leaves.

Other than that, I have been trying to enjoy Nathan and establish some sort of routine. I feel myself becoming depressed and grouchy, though. Exercise has always been a mood regulator for me and the only way I made it through the last four weeks of my pregnancy and not running was the knowledge that as soon as I had him, I could start exercising and running again. To not be able to do so is extremely upsetting. I am trying not to get into the "woe is me" mode...but it does seem like this whole pregnancy process has been difficult. Difficulty getting pregnant, growing a healthy size baby, having the baby, breastfeed, etc. I am tired of the struggle. I try to remind myself that these struggles are minor issues...there could have been something really wrong with Nathan, but a cloud of negativity seems to hover over me.

P.S. The only thing going well...I got on the scale and I am back to my pre-pregnancy weight give or take a pound.

Getting the Hang of Things

I had the realization this morning that I am starting "to get the hang of things." In the past two days, Nathan has started to be really vocal about when he wants to eat. Because of all the gear that we have to set up, it takes me five minutes from when he first starts giving me his visual cues (restlessness, rooting) that he needs to eat for me to be ready for him, which usually means he is good and angry when I finally get to feed him. But, I have learned a number of short-cuts and tricks to make the process easier. My biggest revelation today was that I can use a big bib to keep his hands from knocking the nipple shield off.

Other things I am learning:

• Stay calm when the baby is crying. While the noise itself is upsetting, the baby is communicating in the only way he knows. I will serve his needs as soon as I can and he will survive until I get to them. I have to say, though...I am happy to hear him crying. We had to practically dump him in water to get him to wake up the first three days!


• I NEVER thought that I would be a co-sleeper...it's just not safe...I always kind of viewed people that did co-sleeping as weak...but now I understand...it is the BEST feeling in the world! When I was in the hospital the first few days, they told me to give him as much skin contact as possible because he wasn't eating, which translated into me sleeping with him on my chest. I love having him snuggle up under my chin. I should put him in the basinette...but maybe I'll just wait until he has the breastfeeding down....


• My lefty produces TWICE as much milk as the righty?! I only make about 1.5 oz per 20 minute pumping. He needs about 2-3 oz to stay full, so I will have to work on increasing my production. Ironically, my righty has a better nipple for sucking.

I also can't stand for more than 30 minutes before my netherlands start throbbing. I thought that I would be going on walks by now and maybe start exercising, but that doesn't seem possible.

Also...I finally had a successful "bathroom" experience and it wasn't so bad.

Jugs

My milk came in! I look like I had a boob job! These suckers HURT though!

Announcing Nugget!!

Hello!

Nugget was born Wednesday, November 5, 2008 at 7:59 AM at 6 lbs 5oz and 19.5 inches after 30 hours of labor with an Apgar scores of 8 and 9.

This moment--12:21 am--is the FIRST moment that I have had to sit in front of a computer or to myself since I last posted.

The events over the past few days have made the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child" mean more than I could have ever possibly imagined. I would not have been able to make it through this experience without my husband, my family, and some great nurses.

I am torn as to how honest I should be about his birth, but as I am a person that cannot put up a positive front for "maintaining appearances," I won't lie. It was the single most awful, painful, terrible experience of my life. I don't know that I will ever have a baby again after this experience.

*Proceed only beyond this point if you really want the nitty gritty details of a birth that was less than ideal*

After going into labor around 2:30 am on November 4th, I labored at home for a couple of hours and then went in to my midwife's office around 9 to see how far I had progressed. She found me to be only 1 cm dilated and told me to come back to the office at 3pm to see how I had progressed. I labored at home with contractions coming every 3 minutes and lasting 1-2 minutes. On a scale of 1-2 the pain was a 6. We went in to the office at 2 because the contractions were coming so frequently. The midwife did an internal exam and found that I had only dilated to 2 cm. So, I went back home again, called our doula, and labored at home until 7 pm when the contractions were coming every 1-2 minute and VERY painful. I labored at home in the shower for a while. The doula thought that I should be at least 5 cm dilated. The midwife found me to be only 3 cm dilated at 7pm after 17.5 hours of laboring. So, I labored at the hospital until 12:30 am and got another internal exam and was only 4 cm dilated. At this point, I had been laboring for 20 hours and was exhausted. The contractions were so painful that the only position that I could stand was to be on my knees lying over a birthing ball or standing. My legs were so exhausted that they quaked. The midwife, concerned about my ability to continue, put me on Nubain, a drug that was supposed to allow me to sleep and would hopefully allow me to rest for two hours. Unfortunately, Nubain just made me feel disoriented, but I still had the painful cramps and did not rest at all. After the Nubain wore off at 2:30 am, I had been in labor for 24 hours and had only progressed 5 cm. At that point, I was exhausted and unable to conceive of going through 5 more cm PLUS labor and so we decided to get an epidural. I felt like a total failure and a wimp and really beat myself up for the first day after I had him for not being able to do it naturally, but I knew that there is no way I could have done it. From 2:30 am to 5:30 am on the epidural, I progressed the final 5 cm. At 5:30 am, I started pushing. Nathan Kian was born 2.5 hours later at 7:59 am. It was the longest 2.5 hours of my life. It was 100x worse than the pain of running a marathon and much worse than the pain of contractions. I ended up having to get an episiotomy and have level 3 rectal tears. After giving birth, they laid the baby on me, but I was in too much pain and shock to even notice him. I was screaming "no more pain" and telling the doctor not to "touch a damn thing" until they got me on more pain meds. They had to wait 20 minutes for an anesthesiologist to come administer more drugs before I let them stich me up. It was an awful way to greet my son into the world. I couldn't even stand having him lying on me. I told them to take him away. After they gave me more pain meds and stitched me up, I held him for a bit, but I really didn't get to hold or see him again until 5 hours later after the drugs had worn off.

In the end, Nathan is a happy, healthy baby. No chromosomal problems, just very small. He is in the 5th percentile for his size. He is TOTALLY adorable...in my unbiased opinion. As I have time in the next few days, I will post pictures. They say that holding the baby in your arms takes away all the pain...and it does. The world melts away when I hold him. I could stare at him for hours.

We are having problems breastfeeding because he is so small that his mouth can't latch. So, I am tricking him into think that he is feeding by feeding him through a tube through a nipple guard and while sucking on a finger. I am also pumping my collustrum. Hopefully my milk will come in the next day or two. I have been trying not to feel guilty about "failing" at a natural childbirth and breastfeeding. I went to a great lactation consultant today that told me that I was doing everything perfectly, my breasts were fine, etc., but that Nathan's mouth was just too small and that he is a lazy feeder. She hopes that once I get more food in him he will get better at latching.

The other problem that I am having is that I am severely constipated and have no control of my rectal muscles and can't figure out how to go to the bathroom. My doctor never mentioned that this would be a problem and I just spent the past hour crying on the toilet because I don't know how to get the poop out other than trying to scoop it out with my finger, which is disgusting and I refuse to do. I have been taking stool softeners for the past several days, but apparently it isn't enough. I will call my doctor tomorrow, but if any of you know anyone that might have some suggestions, please let me know.

Future Voter...and could this be it??

So, yesterday and Sunday I have been feeling exhausted. I tried to go to bed at 7 pm last night and my husband teased me....I ended up barely staying awake until 9. Then, I woke up this morning at 2:30 a.m. with some pretty strong contractions that seemed to be different from the Braxton Hicks contractions. They hurt more in my pubic area and my back and crescendo up and down in intensity. I haven't been having them at a very consistent rate...about one every five minutes now. And, when I went to the bathroom around 4, there was just a bit of bloody mucous. I had a lot more bloody mucous around 7 when I took a shower. I called my midwife and I am going to go in around 8 to get checked out. My hubby and I had sex last night so I wonder if that might have brought on the contractions. We'll see if it lasts!

Oh--the best part....my husband and I went to vote this morning and they let me cut to the front of the line because I was having contractions. After I voted they gave me a "I voted" sticker and a "Future voter" sticker! Ha!

Update: went to the dr. and am 1 cm dilated...will come back this afternoon to see how things are progressing. Woohoo! I just took a benedryl and am going to get some sleep!

Baby Nursery Pictures

So, I don't really have a "theme" for the baby's nursery, but I love books and hope that he does too....so I got prints from "Where the Wild Things Are" and "Babar." I particularly love the "Where the Wild Things Are" print...I spent about as much on getting it framed as I spent on the crib! The phrase "Let the Wild Rumpus Start" really captured my heart in terms of how I feel about this pregnancy and having a little baby boy...it will be a wild ride and I am so excited for it to begin.

Waiting waiting waiting

So, I am trying to not be anxious about evicting the little one...but hellooo....I AM READY FOR YOU TO COME OUT!!!

Went to the midwife yesterday and she said the specialist is STILL recommending that I be induced before 40 weeks. While I am ready to meet the little guy, I also want to try to do this naturally and don't want to induce. I don't understand why they would still want to induce if he is out of the IUGR range. I asked my midwife to find out why he would still want to induce and, if so, whether we could wait until week 41. It doesn't seem necessary at this point. We're going to measure him again next Thursday and see if his growth has continued. I guess at that point we'll have a *real* conversation about inducing.