So Very Tired

Day 2 of work is now done. So, what's the hardest part? The nagging guilt? The tearful goodbyes? For me it has been the lack of sleep. James continues to be an angel, sleeping from 9 pm to 6 am last night. I, however, am a ball of nerves, making sleep difficult to attain. It began Saturday night when I slept from 10 pm to 2 am and could not go back to sleep. It was agonizing to lay there in bed for 6 hours, thinking, "I should sleep. I need to go into the work week rested. Why am I not sleeping?"

Sunday to Monday, I got up at 4 am and couldn't go back to bed, so I just decided to go into work early, which meant I got there at 6:30 am. At least I could leave at 3 pm. Today was terrible because I got up at 2:45 am and couldn't go into work early because I had a doctor's appointment at 8 am. Needless to say, I'm exhausted. I know the poor sleep is 100% related to going back to work.

I find myself waking up in a sweat, then unable to go back to sleep. I've spent a lot of my sleepless hours worrying about my job and trying to find careful, crafty ways to carve out another hour or two to spend with James.

I like my job, but am a little stressed because I heard through the co-worker grapevine that our CEO wants to reallocate my time between my two job functions. Pretty much, I spend 1/2 of my time selecting grants to fund and ensuring that they are executed properly. I like this part of my job because it's straightforward and I feel like I'm good at it. For the past year, I've been spending 1/2 my time doing "advocacy" work. Our CEO is super nice, but he's constantly changing his mind about what "advocacy" work entails. I like the advocacy part of my job less because it's unclear what I'm even supposed to be doing. Anyhow, I heard from a coworker last week that the CEO wants me dedicated 100% to the advocacy work. Ugh.

I'm also worrying about child care. After all the research I've done, the two providers we were on wait lists for have told us that we won't be getting in. We are signed up to have James start at a day care center on Monday (my mom's here this week)|. I'm confident that he'd be safe there, but I'm not so sure they'll have the time to give him any individualized attention. In the meantime, Brett got a big raise, so hiring a nanny is almost an option for us. Also, a girl in my mommy and baby yoga class is looking to babysit one child a week at her home, which is just 7 minutes from my office. So many options and so many things to consider. That's probably a post for another day. I could write way more about this, but I'm too sleepy.

The good news is that pumping is going fine. I got 18 ounces yesterday between two pumping sessions and 22 ounces today. I thought that would be plenty, but James eats 7 ounces in a feeding, according to my mom. I think that's a crazy huge amount of milk for a 3-month old to drink in one setting. It almost makes me worry about my milk supply keeping up with him.

I find myself tearing up a bit when I'm pumping because it makes me think of James. I took a unisom tonight to help me sleep, but first I checked to see if it's okay to take while breastfeeding and it appears to be.

RIP to Grandma

My grandma passed away this past Saturday. Being the oldest granddaughter, her and I were extremely close. She was so good to me and so good to my son. I told her I was pregnant last year on mother's day. At the time, she was fairly sick and had been in and out of the hospital a number of times before finally being moved into a nursing home. I told her that she had to make it until December and she said she couldn't make any promises.

She obviously lived until December and even felt well enough to come visit us in the hospital. She ooed and awwed over James and said he was the prettiest baby she'd ever seen. A few days later once we were home, she came to see us again and took such joy in hold her great-grandson. She had 5 kids, 9 grandkids, and 2 great-grandkids already, so she was a pro with James.

A couple days before Christmas, my mom and I brought James to see her at the nursing home. We dressed him in a Santa suit. When she saw him, she was so proud that she asked us if she could sit in her wheelchair and hold James while we pushed her around the home. She stopped everyone in the hall, saying, "What do you think of my little Santa baby?" Even though she was never able to breastfeed any of her kids, she was so proud of me for it. She kept telling random people at the nursing home, "Doesn't he look big and healthy? It's because she breastfeeds him."

She started getting sicker after that, but we still squeezed in a few good visits with grandma. She bought James a $1,000 savings bond and was so excited to give it to him. She said, "You'll never really know who I am, but your mommy will tell you." It was so sad and true. Once she got really sick, we kept coming to visit, but she wasn't well enough to hold him anymore. Even as recently as a couple weeks ago, she told him that she was trying to get stronger so she could hold him again.

Last Wednesday, she was taken off all her meds and put on morphine to control the pain. The following morning, she was conscious and alert for the last time in her life. I happened to be there with James. She was having a hard time making sense of things and kept asking if she could take her hospital gown off. She was so terribly confused, but when I put James in front of her, that made sense. She remembered his name and mine and played peek-a-boo with him and I was lucky enough to capture it on film.

We buried her yesterday. I gave a eulogy, which was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I'll miss her terribly, especially as James continues to grow. She was an excellent mother and every time I think about taking a shortcut with my boy, I'll remember that grandma's watching, so I'd better do it right.

I go back to work on Monday, which is a dark cloud hanging over me. I'd really been hoping to spend some quality time with my boy, but the last two weeks have been a whirlwind of sitting in the hospital and preparing for the funeral. Even though I technically go back Monday, there's an event tomorrow that I planned, so I'll be gone from 9 am until 3 pm, so it's almost a full workday. Boo.

Here's the peek-a-boo video, as well as a picture of me, my mom, James, and my grandma on Valentine's Day

Keeping It Real

I was inspired by a fellow blogger's post today about how there's so much pressure on moms to act like they have their acts together. In an effort to show the dark underbelly of new motherhood (and no, I'm not referring to my stretchmark-riddled underbelly), I'd like to do a post about the things that have just plain sucked.

First off, my relationship with my husband is suffering under the strains of new parenthood. The reality is that being a mom is a crap-ton of work. I know that and almost any other mother out there knows it, but I'm not always sure that husbands can understand it. To compound matters, I'm chronically horrible about wanting things done and expecting my husband to read my mind. It's not really that I expect him to be able to do that, it's more that I refuse to be a nag. Sure, I could straight-up ask him to watch James every Saturday from 8 am to 10 am, thus granting me the supreme luxury of sleeping in, but that would involve nagging him and I'm so afraid to do that, so I suffer in silence until I reach my breaking point.

Said "breaking point" this week involved me getting up in the wee hours of Sunday morning, feeding James who apparently thought that 5:30 am was an appropriate time to become uber-alert, complete with smiles and cooing. Cute, right? Well, not with so few hours of sleep under your belt. I kept wishing that Brett would hear the baby and come spend some time with him so I could sleep. He never did and I ended up attempting, through tears, to read James a story.

I just got the book "Babyproofing Your Marriage," in hopes of dealing with some of these issues. I did tell Brett that I simply need more help. Oddly enough, I'm also looking forward to being back at work because it seems like an equalizer. If we are both working full-time, there's no reason we can't both help equally with house and baby care.

Some snippets of suckiness:

• I have internal hemorrhoids from the baby and have not been able to have a peaceful bowel movement in almost three months. I went to the doctor yesterday and began a four-step process of having them fixed.
• We've had sex just once since the baby was born. It didn't hurt, but my boobs stared spewing milk partway through. If you want to feel unsexy, try gaining twenty pounds, having stretchmarks everywhere, and leaking bodily fluids onto your partner. This explains why we've only done it once.
• My grandma is in the hospital dying right now. She's been in and out of the hospital for the past month with congestive heart failure and liquid-filled lungs. We finally decided to just keep her comfortable and let her go.
• I go back to work in just one week. I love my job, make decent money, and frankly live a lifestyle that requires my income. That doesn't really make it any easier to imagine being away from my little man for 10 hours straight.

I know this all sounds kinda crappy, but I do want to keep it real. As fantastic as motherhood is (James slept 8.5 hours straight the last two nights, by the way), there are some crappy times.

Sleep, Glorious Sleep

So far, James hasn't been a great sleeper. He'll usually give me one 4-hour stretch at the beginning of the night, then 2 and 3 hour stretches after that. He really surprised me this past weekend by sleeping for 6.5 hours! We had dinner with friends Sunday night and stayed kind of late. I assumed he would sleep in his car seat or in my arms once 8 or 9 rolled around. He nodded off occasionally, but was awake most of the time. We finally got home and got him into bed around 11:30 pm (way too late, I know). The great thing was that he slept from 11:30 pm to 6:00 am!! I was so shocked that he was suddenly able to sleep so long.

I thought it was probably just a fluke, but then last night he slept from 9:30 pm to 4:30 am, 6 whole hours!! I'm so excited that he's getting to be a better sleeper.

In other news, I've started pumping after the first feeding of the day in order to get a stockpile going for when I return to work. I am apparently closely related to dairy cows, because I have some serious milk production going on. I can usually feed James, then still get 6 to 7 ounces pumping. I feel blessed to have such great supply, especially since going back to work is supposed to reduce your supply.

I have noticed that James tends to cough/choke a lot when he first latches on. I called my LC and she said that I may have a forceful milk ejection reflux, which means that once my milk lets down it comes out too fast for James. We've also been getting lots of green stools lately, which she said is a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance and may be related to having too much milk. When James nurses, he never can drink enough to get to the good, fatty hindmilk. She suggested block feeding. This means that I'll divide the day into four-hour chunks and only nurse from one breast for an entire 4-hour block. I'm hoping this makes it easier for him to feed and maybe relieves some of the crazy leaking I have going on. I leak all over the place. I woke up Saturday night and my whole shirt front was soaked, as well as the sheets where I'd been laying. Gross.

I was thinking of trying Lilypadz, silicone nursing pads that completely prevent leaking by applying light pressure to the breast. The LC said they increase the risk of plugged ducts and mastisis, so I'm not sure I want to try them. Anyone out there on the interwebs have any ideas to manage leaky boobs?

Things I've Bought

Going into this whole "baby" thing we had received or purchased everything off our registry. i thought I was as prepared as any woman could possibly be, but I've still found a few odds and ends that I didn't know I'd need. I thought it might interest some future mommys out there to know the things you may want/need but not realize you do.

Here

they are:

1. Medela soothies. These feel so great on sore nips.

2. An extra changing pad cover. Make that two extra changing pad covers. Especially at the beginning, James was peeing and pooing a lot on the changing table and three changing pad covers was what it took to keep me from having to do laundry all the time.

3. Another swaddler. We have the miracle blanket and really like it, but sometimes he'd spit up on it or pee on it in the night. We bought a SwaddleMe Summer weight swaddler as our backup.

4. A Wubbanub. I like using the Soothies pacif

ier because the LC told me they are the closest thing to a breast and are unlikely to interfere with BFing. James has a hard time keeping the paci in his mouth and the Wubbanubb helps. Plus, it's cute to see him wrap his little hands around it.

5. Burp cloths. We had a few of these, but they weren't absorbent enough. I bought some cloth diapers with a little pattern on them and those do the trick.

6. Diaper genie refills. Have lots of these on hand. You'll use them all eventually and it's one less thing to make a pharmacy run for in those early days.

7. Sleepers. I actually didn't have to buy any more sleepers, but I was only saved by the fact that my coworker gave me a bunch of hand-me-downs at the end of my pregnancy. There have been nights when James will go throug

h two or three sleepers, so I like having enough that I don't have to do laundry every day.

8. Diapers, size 0. We had to make a few trips to the store for more of these. i only had one box on hand since I was expecting a big baby. James was indeed 8 pounds, but he continued wearing the size 0 diapers until he was about 11 pounds.

9. Trumpette Johnny's. This was a splurge purchase that I could not resist. These little socks that look like sneakers are the cutest stinking thing I've ever seen.

10. Pouch sling. I have an infantino carrier, which I like to use on long walks and a Moby Wrap that's great when I'm getting stuff done around the house, but I felt like I needed something compact and easy to get him into. When I run errands, I prefer to wear him rather than lug around the back-breaking car seat.

11. Nursing bras and tanks. I had one nursing bra and one tank before he was born. I thought this would be plenty because I used to alternate between two bras and then wash them both on the weekend. Well, that was before I continually leaked breastmilk, which inevitably ends up all over my bras. i now have three nursing tanks and two nursing bras that I wear. When I wear one of the bras, I usually put a Bella Band on too so that I can nurse in public without people catching a glimpse of the stretchies on my flabby tummy. I am thinking about getting a sleeping bra too. I've been wearing regular nursing bras to bed but they aren't comfortable. I'm a really bad leaker, so going braless at night just wouldn't turn out well.

And last, but certainly not least, here's a recent pic of my little man.

10 Days Without Writing

It's been awhile since I've posted. Not for any particular reason except that there's not a lot to update on. Although he did a 4.5 hour stretch of sleep a couple weeks ago, I'm thinking that may have been a fluke because it has not been repeated since then. He is consistently sleeping between three and four hours at a time during the nights, but we still get up twice. At least when he gets up we are pretty quick at getting him back to sleep. I can nurse him, change his diaper, and get him to sleep again within about 30 minutes.

We are still breastfeeding and it's going well. He has started to be satiated on just one breast, which is more convenient, but it made me a little nervous at first because I worried he wasn't getting enough to eat. He's turning into quit a chunk. He weighed about 12 pounds this past Wednesday when he was just over 6 weeks old.

He also started to smile over the past week. He has the most precious smile I've ever seen. Some of the time it's crooked and only on half his mouth. Other times he opens his mouth in a big, wide grin. I have some great video of it that I'll post soon.

The biggest challenge I am dealing with is that I return to work in about 5 weeks. I know that I will miss James and it will be a big transition to be away from him for 8 hours each day, but I think that I will get used to it after a week or two. What I am most nervous about is how I can maximize my time with him on the evenings and weekends. I don't want to spend the few hours a day I'll have with him working on laundry, dinner, or cleaning the house. Luckily, we already have a cleaning lady, so that cuts back on some of the "extras" we have to manage.

A few nights ago I got up to feed James and couldn't fall back asleep for three hours. I was worrying so much about squeezing in work, time with James, exercising, cooking, etc. The next evening, Brett and I sat down and made a list of all the different areas of our lives that create work for us. We divided up all the tasks so that he has responsibility for some (picking up the house each night, cooking once a week, dropping off James at day care, making sure Champ is clean and healthy, our laundry, etc.) and I have responsibility for others (planning our menus, cooking once a week, picking James up at day care, baby laundry, groceries, etc.) Just talking through things made me feel much better.

I feel so lucky to have a husband who is supportive of my desire to continue working. Not only will he "let" me keep working, he's also committed to being an equal partner in all the work that remains to be done at home.

I'm Walking on Sunshine

We had a great night last night. I mentioned in my previous post that James was feeding a lot in the early evenings and then waking up more frequently during the night. I was one tired momma, but I think it was indeed just a growth spurt. Last night was his best night yet. He fed for quite awhile between 10 and 11, then fell asleep at 11 pm. He didn't wake up until 3:30 am, making it a 4.5 hour stretch! I nursed him and got him back in his crib within about 45 minutes, then he slept another 3.5 hours. I feel so great to have gotten a decent rest and I really hope this is the start of a new sleeping pattern. Previously, the longest he could sleep was 3 hours, but usually he only made it about 2.5 hours.

Yesterday we went to mommy and baby yoga again. He was so well-behaved this time. Right as we got there, he became super alert and spent most of the class time just looking around at the room and the other kids. I nursed him once part way through, then he just laid on my chest during the relaxation poses. It was so much fun.