Baby/Life Balance ...

Is there such a thing?

I don't really recall it being this difficult with my first, though I'm not sure the reason for that. Maybe it's that I know I'll have to go back to work in less than 3 weeks now but with all the feedings and everything that needs doing I feel overwhelmed. Tim's still eating nearly every hour some days, most days it seems and it makes it very difficult to get things done. I feel like the second I put him in the wrap to go about doing something he'll wake up screaming and I'll have to stop mid-activity to feed him.

Then there's dealing with home-work for Darrion, more on that later likely either from Sean or myself, but that takes up at least an hour every evening. So after picking Darrion up from school about 4:00pm between walking his dog, dinner, homework, feeding the baby, and trying to get a bit of evening cleaning done my entire evening is GONE. This wouldn't be nearly such a big deal except for the fact that I'm looking at going back to work in 3 weeks, and that will be ALL the time I have at home, it's very overwhelming to consider.

I really wish there were a way I could stay home, or work from home, but between the fact that I make slightly more money and the fact that I carry the insurance there is no feasible way that I've discovered to be able to do so. It also doesn't help that with Tim's food sensitivities it's even MORE difficult to purchase foods for reasonable prices. You'd be very surprised how few things do not have either milk or soy in them. The only good thing financially is it's nearly impossible for me to just go out to eat anymore. When I sit down and consider how hard it will be to find something I can eat and not upset the baby it actually becomes EASIER to just cook. THAT is funny to me.

Anyway on to the good stuff. Tim's started smiling more than just in his sleep, he grins while playing with Daddy now. He can lift his head and turn it from side to side while on his tummy, he holds his head up fine otherwise so I've been able to wear him facing outwards in the wrap as long as he's awake. And he's really getting/got the hang of going potty in his little potty chair. He typically only has 'skid marks' in his diaper unless I've gone too long between giving him a potty break. I don't potty him at night so he usually has a soaking poopy diaper first thing in the morning unless I get him to the toilet quick enough to catch the poo. But during the day so long as he's pottied before every feeding he tends to put most of his poop in the toilet. It makes it really nice as far as washing diapers, I have yet to have a fully dry/clean diaper but that doesn't matter, it's nice to know he's not sitting in his own crap. I figure when he gets older and better able to sit on the potty himself we'll worry a bit more about catching the pees.

As for size last week at his 1 month appointment he was 10lbs and 21 inches. He's growing nicely and has the cutest little chub rolls. The Dr did prescribe Zantac for his reflux, which we are giving him but I'm not sure if it's really helping any more than cutting the milk/soy did on its own. I'll be watching it for a while longer and if it doesn't seem to be doing anything I'll probably stop giving it to him. Anyhow, it's time to head out to get 'big brother' from school.

Reflux/Gas Lactose Intolerence and ranting.

So Tim's had bad reflux and gas since the day we brought him home. That first night we realized I'd had a LOT of milk products the day before and remembering that Darrion had been Lactose Intolerant as a baby I cut milk products out of my diet (and replaced them with soy). His gas and reflux have continued but until the last two nights had not held a candle to that first night.

The last two nights have been horrendous, with Tim screaming basically from 9pm to midnight and me passing out with him on my chest. I've been giving him Chamomile Tea watered down when the gas/reflux get bad and it certainly helps. I can almost always hear him fart or burp within minutes of the Chamomile but the last 2 nights it hasn't touched the reflux. I'm working on identifying other factors in my diet that upset him. So far it seems that tomato products are a huge issue, Broccoli and Cauliflower (my favorite veggies) cause gas, citrus juices aggravate reflux, and I'm afraid the soy is an intolerance issue as well. I've experimented with the Soy a bit today to see if I can see a correlation, dry cereal isn't the best but whatever helps my munchkin. If it seems to be the soy we'll be moving to Rice milk and I'll be taking a separate calcium supplement since I'm losing my 2 main sources of calcium (I can't drink soy or rice milk plain). Another possibility may be chocolate, which would also drive me crazy to have to avoid, but so far today I haven't had any and the gas/reflux have been minimal. I'll have to pin it down between the chocolate and the soy.

[Begin Rant] I'm really somewhat annoyed that I keep being told "It's just normal" or "His digestive tract isn't developed yet" or crap like that ... I KNOW his digestive tract isn't developed yet. That's why he's drinking milk stupid. And NO it's NOT normal to have a baby screaming in pain and exhibiting obvious signs of fear when a reflux episode is oncoming. It's not normal at all, no matter how much women try to tell me "it'll go away in a month or 3" forget that, I'm NOT putting my baby through months of this, or even weeks. But even worse, in my mind, are the women that just go "Get your Dr to put him on Zantac" or Prilosec, or give him Mylanta or any of that crap. He's a freaking BABY!!! I won't take that crap myself let alone drug up my 2 week old child. URGH!!! Why can't people understand that there's a natural solution to things if we just take the time and effort to find it. Yes it'd be EASIER for me to go to a Dr, get him a prescription, and drug him up every day, but it's HEALTHIER for me to identify the issues in my own diet, avoid them, and not cause the problem to begin with. Do I want to go a year or more avoiding these foods? Heck no ... I love most of the foods I'm cutting out. But my son is more than worth it. [End Rant]

Post Birth Blog Update/Progression

So, since it's obviously post birth I wanted to announce the winners of the polls. Despite the fact that only myself and one other person voted we do have winners. ;)

Emily voted correctly on Tim having thin dark hair, who knew. :) I personally guessed best on his arrival as he came exactly 6 days before his due date, so within the week but not on his due date.

I'd pull together a chat room but it seems not many people have been following the blog so I really don't know how much use a chat room would be.

At this point I think I'm going to keep the blog open and convert it to a general family blog. For anyone who decides they don't like my family ideals/progression feel free to stop following. For anyone who decides to follow the blog, great. :)

Pictures!

Please click on any of the photos below for a full view. For whatever reason Blogger is cutting off my pics and I cannot get it to post a full pic. :( I've tried posting via numerous methods.

Birth Story (Late Post)

So to start at the very beginning ...

I first had 'false' labor on August 1st, my contractions were regular and about medium intensity. They got to where they were 3 minutes apart regularly and lasted for hours. I went into the birth center and stayed for a few hours with no progress before eventually being sent home. The entire time due to my back labor they were trying to make me get into positions to 'turn the baby' despite my telling them I'd had no issues with my first back labor and it didn't really bother me. After being sent home and dealing with contractions half the night they eventually stalled out and I went back to work and life the next morning. The following Saturday August 8th I started into contractions again, roughly 30 minutes apart. They came this way for at least a few hours a day every day after that, often times closer together but I was getting them daily at the least.

Finally on Thursday August 20th around 8pm I started into contractions 30 minutes apart, I made sure to focus on getting enough food due to my hypoglycemia and they got closer together as time progressed. I was able to sleep between contractions that night as they were still 30 to 60 minutes apart. I monitored them the next day and they just kept getting closer together and stronger, finally at around 5pm on Friday August 21st I called my Dr and headed into the birth center with strong contractions 8 minutes apart. I'd made some progress since my OB appointment on Thursday morning so they had me stay.

I labored at the birth center all night, once again with the nurses trying to get me to do everything in my power to 'turn the baby' even though every time I followed their advice my cervix got more difficult to find and things just seemed to be harder. My contractions rapidly got closer together and hovered around 3 minutes apart, I wasn't really able to sleep through them or even between them and was still making no progress. Finally Saturday morning we asked my OB to come in and break my water to get things moving. She did so and while the contractions picked up in intensity they were still doing very little for me. Eventually my OB manually dilated me to a 6, which hurt like MAD. After that I was in serious transition contractions and after 40+ hours in noticeable labor was just having trouble dealing with it.

Eventually I broke down and asked for some Pain Meds to take the edge off because I just couldn't deal with the contractions. I'd made some progress but I'm not sure how much by that time as they didn't really tell me. They inserted an IV and gave me Stadol which took the edge off of the pain but didn't take it away. My OB came back in, I think she knew I was losing my energy/drive by that point because she manually dilated me to a 10 so that I could start pushing, even though I objected and cried/fought her. The next period of time (what I'm told was 2 hours or so) is just a blur in my mind. I kept passing out due to exhaustion and the Stadol and had no clue what was happening half the time. I'd come to with the OB and my nurse trying to coach me through pushing, I was holding my legs up and pushing but had no clue. Finally I forced myself through the haze enough to push and managed to push my little guy out, apparently he came out at an angle, he wasn't facing front or back by that time but was crooked. I have to wonder if that wasn't due to all the nurses trying to make me make him turn when he didn't want to. And I think that my difficulty progressing was due to that.

After Tim was out they had me delivering the placenta. The OB was pulling gently on the cord while I pushed it out, apparently most of it came out but a lobe stayed inside. My OB ended up actually having to reach fully inside of me and pull out the remaining parts of the placenta. I was crying, screaming, and physically fighting her despite my aware mind trying not to fight her. It just hurt so bad that I wasn't thinking straight, I swear I probably gave the poor woman bruises. Due to the trauma of them having to manually remove the separated placental lobe my uterus didn't contract down properly and they ended up having to give me an emergency IV of Pitocin so it ended up being a good thing I had the IV in from the Stadol.

So after it all despite the issues it turned out fairly well considering. And I've decided if I have back labor again I tell the nurses and even Drs to shove it and let me have back labor. I like it that way thank you very much! ;)