You didn't come get me!

Last night, I went to bed at 9 and left Mike on duty with Lucy.

At 11:20, I woke up and was convinced that Mike had forgotten to come get me.

I went out to the living room and started yelling at him that he didn't come get me.

He was very confused. He started questioning me about what I wanted him to get me for. And that's when I really woke up.

He's been laughing at me about it all morning.

I haven't done that in years. When I get really, really tired that is my unique form of sleepwalking. I get up and walk around as though I am awake, but I'm only partially aware of what I am doing. Once someone talks to me, I wake up.

When I was in high school, I got up one night and went in to my mom's room and informed her that it was late. She said, "Yeah..." and then I woke up.

Oh, and last night, I also had a dream about Benji Schwimmer. I need to get more sleep. Too bad Lucy doesn't agree.

2 week checkup

Lucy had her 2-week check-up this week. I cannot believe that she is 2 weeks old already! I keep saying, it feels like she's been here forever and also like I barely know her.

When Lucy came home from the hospital, she was 7 pounds, 1 ounce. She was up to 7 pounds, 4 ounces on Monday, July 16. On July 25, a mere 9 days later, she was 8 pounds, 10 ounces. That's a gain of 22 ounces in 9 days. Lil porker. No wonder I'm not sleeping - girly has been getting me up exactly every 3 hours because she's packing on the pounds. (Jennifer, to answer your question, yes I am finally on an on-demand schedule, though I usually have to wake her during the day to eat, more to make sure she eats enough during the day so I'm not up for hours on end at night)

She also grew an inch between her birth and Wednesday.

The doctor was quite impressed with her neck strength and her weight gain.

She gave me the ok to start giving Lucy a bottle at night, which I started having Mike do last night. Currently, we are using formula because I only have about 6 ounces pumped, but we will probably switch back and forth between formula and pumped milk. I keep mooching formula samples from the pediatrician's office, so it's not like I am spending money on the formula.

Wow. This all seems kind of anti-climactic. I was so excited to tell you guys about the massive weight gain, but I feel like I built it up too much. Anyways, it was exciting to me...

Better

I'm feeling better today. Let me see if I can explain what happened.

Note: this post is going to talk about breasts and milk supply and nipples and things. If you're grossed out by that, now's your chance to leave. :)

My milk supply has been excellent for both Emily and Lucy. My milk came in this time on the Saturday after Lucy was born and I was engorged. Wow, was I ever engorged. Porn stars had nothing on me. :)

I started feeding Lucy from one breast per feeding, mostly because that was about all she could handle in one sitting. I was pretty much always in pain on one side or another, but didn't worry too much about it.

Yesterday, after nearly 2 weeks of being in pain, and having more pain on my right side (which had a bigger supply from a couple times where Lucy was really hungry and drained that side completely), I finally broke down and pumped.

I hadn't been pumping mostly because I didn't want to. It didn't seem like that big a deal. I figured my supply would eventually even out with the demand and all would be good.

Except, that after I got up from pumping, I realized I felt like crap. I was tired, achy, headachy, my breast still hurt, but only the bottom half. I had been absolutely freezing at lunch when everyone else (including my mother who is usually cold) said it wasn't cold in the restaurant. I hadn't felt very well all day, but suddenly I was feeling much, much worse.

I did a quick search on mastitis and found that all my symptoms matched. I took my temperature and it was 99.5 (I know, it's not technically a fever, but that's higher than I normally am). I called my OB and told them I thought I had mastitis. The nurse listened to my tale of woe and agreed. She set me up with an appointment for this afternoon and recommended I speak with a lactation consultant for pain relief measures in the interim.

The lactation consultant gave me a bunch of things to do and also recommended I try to get in to see my GP that afternoon. I called him and he agreed to hang out at his office until I was able to get there. He examined me and said he wasn't sure if it was mastitis or not. He said my breast wasn't hot and wasn't hard, but that it was possible the infection was deeper in my breast. He gave me a prescription for cephalexin and told me to keep the appointment with my OB for today.

I got my prescription (side note: I totally recommend you go to one pharmacy and make friends with the people who work there. Then, when you or a kid is sick, they will usually expedite your prescription and get you out of there more quickly. I was in and out (at 5 pm - a busy time for a pharmacy) in less than 10 minutes.) and headed home, feeling more and more awful with every passing minute.

I had left Emily with my parents for the afternoon so I could take Lucy to her 2-week check-up. I was supposed to get her back around 5, but after talking with the lactation consultant, she recommended we have my parents keep Emily overnight so that I could get some extra rest.

I spent most of the evening parked in my chair. Lucy happily napped in her bouncy seat and I read blogs and then finished Harry Potter #7. I think the combination of several hours of inactivity, plus copious drugs (3 ibuprofen, 2 acetaminophen, 1000 mg of cephalexin) and some dinner put me well on the road to recovery. My breast is still quite tender and I have very little energy, but I don't feel like I have just been run over by a dump truck. Which is nice.

I'm going to go pump and then try to get in touch with my OB to find out whether they still want to see me. Will try to post an update on Lucy's check up later today.

Ow

This isn't the update I promised. Over the past couple of days, it would seem that I have developed a case of mastitis.

I hurt. I hurt a lot. And I have a horrible headache, my body aches all over and I am looking forward to going to bed after I eat dinner.

More later.

Can't write now... busy reading

My parents lent me their copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Monday.

Pretty much every spare moment I've had since then has been devoted to reading. I'm getting pretty good at reading while nursing, especially if I can balance the book on my Boppy. Otherwise, I worry about dropping the book on Lucy's little head.

I'll be back (maybe) this afternoon to post a quick update after Lucy's 2-week check-up.

TTFN!

Updates

I have a bunch of things I want to blog about, but I don't think any of them are really worth an entire post, so you're gonna get some bullets.

• Lucy has got her some serious muscles (pronounced "musk-les") already. When we put her on her tummy, she can lift her head, turn it from one side to the other and lay it gently down again. That action took her sister WEEKS to master.
  
• Emily is head over heels in love with her little sister. Woo-hoo! She is forever wanting to give kisses, hugs and nose rubs to "Bee-bee" (baby). When Lucy is in her room sleeping (which is frequently right now), Emily begs to be taken in there to see her.
  
• I got word a couple of days ago that the company that I work for may or may not be employing me when I am ready to work again. The two head people (one of whom was part owner) both resigned suddenly. There's something fishy going on there, but we're not being told the whole story (apparently there are some legal things that need to be worked out before all can be known (not legal like illegal, but legal like finalizing sales of companies and so on, I think)). Anyways, I have to wait to find out what the new owner's plans are and it's kind of freaking me out. It's not like I was making a ton of money, but I really enjoyed the work, the hours were fantastic and I could do it from home, which totally rocked. If anyone knows of a non-scam work-from-home position that they think my meager brain could handle, please shoot me an email.
  
• My parents, Mike and I went to see Harry Potter yesterday. We took Lucy with us and left Emily home with Mike's mom. HP was great. I am glad that I didn't try to do the midnight showing on the 10th. I had a last minute wrestle with my conscience at like 9 pm on 7/10. The theater had 5 screens showing it at midnight and 3 were still not sold out. Mike said he'd go with me if I wanted to go, but then I started doing the math (midnight start time plus 2 hour 20 minute movie equals return home at 3 am). We needed to be at the hospital at 7:30 am, which meant we had to get up at 6 am. I didn't think that only 3 hours of sleep was a very good idea for my last night of semi-uninterrupted sleep for a while. Lucy did very well during the movie. I brought my Boppy and nursed her when she started to wake up and then just cuddled with her after she'd had a snack. And covered her ears when the movie got too loud. The worst part about that was that I had my shirt hiked up and then couldn't pull it back down without dropping her, so by the time the movie was over I was very very cold.
• One last bullet. Happy, happy birthday to Katie.
  

I think I need to go buy a lottery ticket

I am at my parent's house, mooching internet access.

There's nothing wrong with ours, other than that I'm not home to use it.

We left the house this morning, intending to go to the Target near my parent's house, the grocery store and the post office and then swing by my parent's house to say hi.

"Stopping by to say 'Hi'" turned into letting Emily watch some Elmo, which turned into Mike being drafted to help my parents help a friend move her furniture out of her house, which turned into lunch and then going to help the friend while I stayed home so the girls and I could nap.

Mike and Mom and Dad took off to go help the friend, Emily went down for her nap, and I laid down with Lucy to sleep at 1:30. I woke up at 2:30 to Lucy's more frequent squirmings and my milk letting down (OUCH!) every 30 seconds or so. Hmm, maybe I should nurse the child?

She ate for about 5 minutes and then went back to sleep.

I decided to get up and came into the office to mooch internet access. Lucy went back to sleep. Emily woke up and started fussing, but stopped after a few minutes.

It is now nearly an hour later and both girls are still sleeping. I'm pretty sure this isn't supposed to happen.

Home sweet home

Today was our first full day at home with 2 kids.

Mike took Emily to church this morning so that I could get some sleep.

Unfortunately, Miss Lucy had other plans. She was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and wanted nothing to do with this sleeping baloney.

I finally got her to nurse (because part of the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed mentioned above included rooting and sucking on her hands but wanting NOTHING to do with the boobs) and then we both laid down for a snooze at 11.

Mike and Emily got home about 12.

The day was pretty uneventful. Emily took her nap, Mike slept with Lucy on the couch, and I worked on the baby announcements. Mike's mom came over later, laden with presents for Lucy and Emily.

We also took that opportunity to give Emily her other present "from Lucy". We gave her a Mr.Potato Head while we were still at the hospital (it has 3 heads - a carrot, a potato and an ear of corn). We also got her the Mr Potato Head Jumbo Pack. She played with it for several minutes and then came back later for more. That's the mark of a successful toy in my book.

And last night, wonder of wonders, not only did I get to sleep in my bed, but I got to do so on my back. I haven't been able to sleep on my back for a couple of months now and I have missed it terribly. Now, of course, between the incision and the engorged boobies, I can't lay on either side, so I am again limited in my sleeping choices, but I am so excited about the back sleeping thing I don't really care.

And, some time in the middle of the night last night, I finally figured out the whole swaddling thing. With Emily, I could never get her swaddled tightly enough and she always kicked out of it. With Lucy, the key seems to be to pin her arms and wrap that kid as tight as you can get it and then pin the end of the blanket under her butt. She's sleeping contendedly in her crib now. Woo-hoo!! I have to go get her in 11 minutes to nurse again. It blows my mind how fast two hours goes by, especially when 30 minutes of it is used up with nursing.

We have an appointment tomorrow morning for Lucy's first check-up. I'm hoping that the doctor will tell me that I can let Lucy wake me up instead of me setting an alarm for every 3 hours and waking her up to eat. We'll see.

She's got...

her mother's patience.

(typing one handed on the hospital's wireless - pls excuse no caps and typos...)

this morning i woke up at 3:51 and could hear a baby screaming in the hall. the crying got louder and louder and then it was right outsaide my door.

it was lucy.

the nurse said that she checked on her in the nursery at 3:25 and lucy was sound asleep, so the nurse thought she'd give her (and me) a little more time. she came back 15 minutes later and that was how she found her - SCREAMING.

i am not an especially patient person. mike can attest to this. if i ask him to do something, he usually gets about 5 seconds to do it before i'm yelling at him to DO IT NOW!!!!!!

i'm afraid that lucy might have inherited that trait from me. if i am not right there, ready to nurse when she's hungry WATCH OUT!

[I wrote this while in the hospital and then the wireless there crapped out and I never was able to get back online again. Oh, and I had a further point after the "WATCH OUT" part, but now I've forgotten what it was...]

Lucy has arrived!

Since Erin is still in the hospital after her c-section, this is her husband guest blogging for her.

Lucy arrived at 10:14 this morning. She weighed 7 lbs 8 oz and is 20 inches long. We can't decide who she's more like because she's beautiful like Erin and perfect like me! :) Emily doesn't seem to care who she is more like - she gave us her seal of approval by hugging and kissing her new sister. I guess this means we'll have to keep her now.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the day. Whether my baby likes it or not, she will be delivered tomorrow.

WOO-HOO!!

The heat here has been extreme in the past several days. It was 96 this afternoon. I don't do heat well when even I'm not pregnant. Add in the uncomfortable-ness of the last few weeks of pregnancy and I have not been a happy camper.

Fortunately, my parents have air conditioning. I have been camping out at their house for the past 2 days.

And tomorrow, the forecasted high is in the 80s.

Nice. When I deliver, the heat breaks.

Figures.

Anyways, tomorrow is the big day. Mike has instructions on how to do the "she's here" post. Pictures probably won't happen until I get home (not because Mike isn't capable of doing them, but because he'll probably be staying at the hospital until late evening and then coming home only to sleep and shower before heading back).

Talk with you soon!!

This post is supposed to be titled "Underprivileged Child", but for some reason, Blogger isn't letting me type in the title field.

In our backyard, we have the following toys for Emily to play with:

Car

Dora Trike

Climber thing and Shrek Ball

Big red wagon

Little Tikes Castle

Little red wagon

Tuggy wading pool

Ball

Swing

And of all these toys (of which, it should be noted, none were purchased for more than $10) what does Emily want to play with? What is the object of her most fervent desire? A desire so strong that, when I told her she couldn't play with this object today she cried?

That's right. A hose.

That old story about buying kids expensive toys, only for them to play with the box is so true.

Full Feeds

I mentioned a while ago that I started using Google's Feed Reader to read my daily blogs. Lots of the blogs that I read don't publish their entire post in a "full feed", which means that to read the entire post, I have to click out of Google Reader and go to their site.

This is sort of annoying, especially when my internet connection is slow. If I were to subscribe to a larger group of blogs, it could really become a problem.

Plain Jane Mom has been a big supporter of full feeds, because she subscribes to over 400 blogs (and I thought 50 was a lot!!). She created a button for those of us who publish our posts as a full feed. Since I meet the criteria, I decided to put the button up and bling my blog a little.

If you don't publish your posts as full feeds, I recommend you do so. There are lots of arguments for and against full feeds, but like Erika (Plain Jane Mom) said in this post there will always be jerks out there. Go read her post and follow the links and then change over to full feeds. You can get a cool button for your blog!!

Still nothing

Despite my mom's conviction that I labor and delivery were imminent, I have still not had this baby.

I had an OB appointment this afternoon and got to report to them that I had been spotting since leaving the hospital yesterday.

He was unimpressed.

Damn.

I was hoping he would get all ... something and send me straight to the hospital to have the kiddo.

No such luck.

My confession about the spotting did earn me another internal exam. YAY! Not.

My cervix is still maaaaaybe 1cm dilated and very high and very posterior and not easy for the docs to get at.

The doctor said I could go into labor at any point, so don't discount contractions that are regular, water breaking, etc, but otherwise, I'm on my own until Wednesday morning.

This afternoon, hoping to move things along (at the very least so that I could deliver tomorrow on 7/7/07 (which, I agree, would be very cool, Lainey)) I went to the mall to meet my parents and Mike and between the 3 of them I did two laps around the mall (one short one with my parents before Mike arrived and then a full lap (including going into all the little vestibules instead of staying in the main halls - you probably have no idea what I'm talking about...)) with Mike, which amounts to about 2 miles.

And after all that, still nothing. I had several good contractions while walking, but they stopped when I stopped, so ... phooey.

Mike is still pulling for a Wednesday arrival and that would be very nice, but so would no longer being pregnant.

Whatever. Until Wednesday comes, I have absolutely no say in when this show gets on the road, so I am going to stop writing now and ... I dunno. Read, I guess.

Catch ya later!

False Alarm

So I spent the majority of my afternoon today at the hospital.

I thought my water broke this morning (or was leaking). Turns out I peed my pants. Pregnancy is so dignified, isn't it?

Anyways, as the morning went on and the contractions got more and more intense, I decided to call the doctor and they told me to go to the hospital to get checked out.

Mike met me there and they checked my cervix and said I was maaaaaybe 1cm dilated. She recommended I walk around for an hour and get checked again. After an hour of wandering the halls of the hospital, stopping occasionally for contractions, she said that I hadn't changed.

I was offered the option of another hour of hall wandering or I could go home.

I chose home.

Well, to be more exact, I chose my parent's house, since that is where Emily is. We're gonna hang out here until she wakes up from her nap (which I think she's working on now) and then we'll probably go have dinner and head home.

And when I get home, one of the first things I am doing is packing my hospital bag.

As we were heading to the hospital, I was trying to tell Mom the things that I needed or wanted to have at the hospital and the list was getting very long and complex ("In my bedroom, on my nightstand is a piece of paper with a bunch of phone numbers. I need that." "Oh, and the baby name book that's on my nightstand.") It's just going to be easier for everyone if I have the stupid bag packed. It was on my list of things to do, but I hadn't gotten to it just yet.

So, I'm either in early labor or I was dehydrated. Mike is hoping that I was just dehydrated so that we can keep the 7/11 c-section date. He says it makes it easier on him to remember all our birthdays are on the same day. At this point, I really could care less about the same birthdate thing. Though that would be very cool, getting this kid's feet out of my ribs would almost be cooler.

I'll try to keep you guys posted. Mike has instructions for putting up a post when Lucy does arrive.

Shifting Priorities

Last night I made a chocolate cake to take to a picnic this afternoon.

All morning I have been fretting about whether I should take the cake out of its pan and put it on a platter or if I should just leave it in its pan and frost only the top.

I think I have a platter big enough to hold the cake, but I'm not sure how to transport it without getting chocolate frosting all over the car or the cake getting smushed.

If I leave it in the pan, I don't have to worry about transporting it because the pan I used has a lid, but then only the top of the cake will be frosted and I'll have a partial can of chocolate frosting in the fridge.

I mentioned this dilemma to Mike for the second or third time this morning and he started laughing.

He pointed out that two years ago, when I was working in Payroll, I would frequently come home worried that some high-level employee might not get their relocation or executive compensation check on time, or that something had gone wrong with a payroll run, resulting in thousands of employees receiving incorrect pay.

And now, now I'm worrying about the best way to frost a chocolate cake.

How my priorities have changed.

And I'm ok with that.

Improvement

We have been seeing improvements on two fronts here over the past week or so.

First, Domino's bark collar arrived and has been on him for about two weeks now. I am really noticing a significant improvement in his barking. The mail person came by last week and Domino only let out one loud bark, instead of his usual freak-out bark fest. Another day when the mail person came, he was inside and he didn't react other than to lift his head and listen. Yay! And, today, they are putting down oil and stone on our road, which involves lots of large trucks and noise and back-up alarms and Domino seems completely unfazed by it all. Pre-collar, I would have had to put him in his crate for his and my sanity.

Second, Emily has busted out with several two-word phrases. So far we have had "more juice", "neigh, please" (a request (polite, too!) for a ride on the carousel at the mall) and "no nap" (yeah, right kid. not gonna happen)(there were others, but the pregnant brain has erased them in favor of the number of hours remaining until I am no longer pregnant - 210). I am still slightly concerned that her verbal development isn't quite what it should be, but I think that she's just getting her words late. Whether that is because of some wiring thing with her or because I haven't done something with her that I should have been doing (reading to her from the minute she exited the womb, letting her watch Sesame Street from her first day home, counting and making every activity into a learning session (as my aunt so helpfully suggested this weekend. grrr. thanks for that.) or putting her in daycare (as my sister-in-law and mother-in-law have both suggested. again, thanks!)) I don't really know, but as she seems to be improving, I am ok with that.