Month-old.

Well S and I are the proud parents of a month old baby! People are always telling us how fast time flies and to enjoy each moment- but I can't believe how fast it goes. Now, granted, the time does not seem to fly with the same speed when it is 4 am and I don't want to get up to feed a screaming baby. Overall, I am really liking this parenting things. Teaching has definitely given me patience that has helped me to not loose my mind in the middle of a major cry/gas-fest.

A lot of my experience with parenting has involved me not wanting to admit I am clueless. Right after Anya left the hospital she was down to 8 pounds 1 ounce. About a week after, she was back up to her birth weight. A week after that she was back down to 8 pounds- which FREAKED me out- especially because I couldn't figure out why. There are two schools of thought about babies: the first is that babies should decided their own schedules, the second is that babies need to be given a schedule by a parent. We had been letting her pick when she ate, and apparently that was not working. Being a reasonable person, I figured I was failing at the most basic part of my job and killing my baby. The doctor that we usually saw was not available, and the woman I saw did not calm me down in any aspect. Thankfully, S was able to take my freakout down a notch when I got home and gave me some much needed perspective. It was a little frustrating working so hard to get Anyara to adhere to this new schedule. She would finally get to sleep and then I would have to try to wake her up enough so she could feed. Then it would be time to sleep and she would be wide awake. However, all of this hard work paid off and the next week she was back up to 9 pounds. But I shouldn't have worried about the amount of milk I was feeding her as she promptly went into a growth spurt and demanded feeding almost hourly for 2 days. This resulted in MILK for the baby and a little more calm for mom. There is still the worry that Anya does not nurse well without the nipple shield that she needed after she left Childrens. I have begun to try to wean her off more intently, but I am fine with where we are because I can feed her and know she is getting enough milk. It would be great to get her back to just the breast, but I am not going to kill myself over it. After much drama, I am finally to the point where I feel good about breastfeeding- and it is a great place to be.

I am finally getting a little stir-crazy in the house. For a good chunk, I was really fine to stay indoors. For a while, it seemed like a huge ordeal to leave the house, but it is getting much easier. I was ready to head out on more day trips before Anya went into her feeding frenzy last week. There has been a little too much couch/tit time for me. I am also a little worried about loosing this weight. I got a huge chunk of my belly out of the way within the first couple of weeks, but now there is a chunk around my middle that seems reluctant to go. I am hoping that if Anya can go back to having a couple of hours between feedings, we can get out and walk around more. The weather has been fantastic as of late with this week boasting temps in the 70's, so there is a huge incentive to be out and about.

I love our baby, and I love watching S with Anyara- it is beautiful. However, I am missing sex desperately. I am glad that I want to have sex, but I am a little apprehensive about how I have healed. I hope all is well- anyway we have 2 weeks to finish healing and then we will give it a whirl!

top 10.

I have so much to write about, but there is only so much you can do while holding an infant,

Top 10 things about having a baby:
1. her smell
2. watching my husband be a father
3. cuddling
4. having people say you are a good mother
5. seeing the pride in my father's eyes as he holds his grandchild
6. knowing you have forever changed your life- for the better
7. joining your friends in the parenting club
8. starting your own family/clan
9. creating you own legacy
10. being completely in love with a 9 pound bundle you made with the love of your life

Top 10 things that suck about having a baby:
1. the lack of sleep
2. hoping your child will be in a good mood for visitors
3. loosing your breasts and lactating on your self
4. wondering if your body will ever return
5. always feeling unsure if you are doing the right thing
6. feeling as if everyone is watching/judging you
7. not having sex
8. having to let crappy people near your child and in your house
9. being tied to a 3 hour window if you want to leave the house
10. never being alone

boob feeding.

So one of the most stressful things about having an infant is breastfeeding. I was pretty vocal before I gave birth that I was more worried about breastfeeding than labor. Unfortunately, it has been pretty much as I feared. Initially, it was stressful because it was so painful, and having to show your latch to every nurse you meet in the hospital, for me, was a little daunting. Then it was stressful because we couldn't wake/keep up Anya enough to eat. I would just get her to latch and she would be out like a light. Later on we found out that that was a result of her jaundice, but at the time it was so frustrating. We found out it was contributing to her jaundice as she wasn't pushing enough through her system. (Which did not decrease my stress level about her feedings.) During her day-long hospitalization at Children's it was stressful because she was so over stimulated that she wouldn't latch at all. I ended up having to pump to relieve the pressure in my giant boobs and get some food for her. She ate exclusively from a bottle the whole time she was there, which left me with giant worries when we left to go home. Nipple confusion can happen to infants all the time- due to pacifier or bottle use too early. Since she was only a week or so, it was way to soon for her to be using a bottle. So I got some advice from the lactation consultant and prepared myself for death when when we got home. Death meaning crying, syringes, and other cumbersome methods of tricking/forcing the child back into liking boobs more than bottles. However, when we got home Anyara seemed fine with the boob and latched on just fine. It was only after 10-15 minutes of feeding when she would unlatch for a break that she would have trouble relatching. Enter the breast shield. The breast shield is a silicon layer that overlaps the nipple and makes it feel more like a bottle so not only does she latch on, but she relatches like a champ! Now the shield is supposed to be used as a weaning tool back to the breast, but I am so happy that she is eating well, that I am going to take my sweet time letting it go. Being able to feed my child well is a HUGE stress reliever. Now if I could only figure out why my left boob gives much less milk than my right the world would be as it should!

don't know shit.

Tuesday morning we went into the doctor's to see how Anya's jaundice levels were. She had been borderline in the hospital, so they wanted to follow up. The results showed that she was really high, which meant that we needed to do light therapy. Our doctor put in an order to have a light therapy machine delivered to our house. For some odd reason, I had a burst of energy and decided to check with our insurance company. For some odd reason we found out (through much energy and irritation) that not only would insurance not cover the treatment, but the only treatment that they would cover is hospitalization. So Tuesday night we packed up our bags, our baby and headed over to Children's hospital. I cried three times- when I found out we had to go in, on the drive on the way over, and when the nurses put an IV in my 4 day-old daughter.

Overall, it was good that we were in the hospital. Overall, it worked out so we could stay with Anyara, and she had awesome care while she was there. She responded really well to the treatment and instead of the 3 days we were quoted initially, we were able to leave the next morning. Words cannot describe my relief to be home with a healthy baby again. Words cannot describe the strength it must take as a parent to be in the hospital long term. We are very blessed, very. Money is tight for us, S's job is circling the toilet and uncertainty reigns supreme. However in the midst of it all we have to stay focused on our overwhelming blessings: our family- S, me, and Anya. What more could we ask for?

out and about.

So she is finally here! Thursday morning I woke up just crampy and really uncomfortable. I kept having to get out of bed and work through these contractions. In all honesty, I wasn't sure if they were contractions, but they were pretty close to how people describe contractions. I desperately did not want to be one of those women who showed up at the hospital sure she was in labor to find out that nothing is going on. I decided to stay home, I was able to sleep between episodes, and I just felt too crappy to try to make it through the day. I weathered the contractions all morning, but they were about 20 minutes apart and never came to more. Finally around 11ish they went away. S called to see the progress and I told him they were ended. I still felt so tired and crappy, so after I got off the phone with S, I went upstairs and took a nap.

I woke up maybe 2 and 1/2 hours later feeling really, really awake- which was an odd way for me to come out of nap. I got up and instantly felt like I had peed my pants. I looked down and found myself covered in slime and blood. I stared at this mess for a brief second trying to process before I scooted over to the bathtub- did not make a mess at all! I called S and told him I thought my water broke. I was really happy, because my water breaking meant 2 things- 1. we would not have to be induced, and 2. that we would definitely have a baby in 24 hours. There was no turning back now. S, on the other hand was frantic. I could just feel him getting more and more riled as he tried to process and figure out what we were going to do. It was super funny. I was so calm and he was so not. I told him to head home and I was going to take a shower- he really didn't think that was a good idea, but I knew we had time.

The drive over to the hospital was kind of bizarre. In movies there is always crazy traffic, screaming, and chaos. Our experience was the exact opposite. We had time to feed the cat, lock up the house, make sure we had everything and head out. The weather was mild, it was mid-day so there was no traffic and we got there easily. We checked in, verified that my water had broken and headed up to the birthing suite.

My labor had started up again, but it was pretty mild. The pain was bearable and we just kind of watched movies and chatted about. I made my wishes- to not have meds- known and we settled in for the ride. The only drama on the horizon was that we were only at about 3 cm at this point, and our doctor had made the decision that we needed to be at 7 cm by 6 otherwise we would need to begin a pitocin drip. I really wanted to avoid that, but I could only follow my body's lead. Thankfully everything picked up. The pain was really quite bad at this point and I have to say I couldn't believe how bad it was. The most pain of the whole experience was trying to get from 7 to 10 cm dilated. There were at least two hours of excruciating pain that resulted in very little change. I could not believe I was in that much agony for next to no progress, but was resolute to not have any pain meds. Poor S was really in a bad spot, and I would not want to ever witness what he did. I can't imagine how awful it would be to just watch the person you love get tortured and be unable to do anything about it. As it was, I was in so much pain that it was all I could do to focus on what I needed to do. It was this roller coaster of pain where I would wait out the period of insane pain and then wait for the small window of relief that came after. I totally understood how the body's ability to give you a little bit of release after the pain made it possible to keep going in the face of such misery. It was those little windows that kept me going- and if I had had to be on pitocin drip- and not recieve those- I doubt I would have been able to make it without drugs.

Finally we reached the worst part. I was 9 1/2 cm dilated, and my body was really wanting me to push. The problem was that since there was still a little bit of my cervix left to retract, the pressure of my pushing on it was making it harder to get to 10. So my body both wanted me to push, but needed me to not. It was insane and possibly the worst pain I have ever known. It was early morning at this point and I was begining to loose energy. (I was so glad I had rested in the morning) Finally we got to a place where I could begin pushing. One of the nurses helped to manually push my cervix back and we got to work. I don't know what is wrong with me. I guess I had been so focused on getting to 10 that I had not spent a lot of time thinking about what happened after that. In the movies, pushing was always a short little ordeal, and I guess I figured that mine would be similar. However, it was not. I pushed for an 1 and 1/2. Now for me, pushing was less pain than the earlier contractions, but it was far more exhausting as they wanted you to hold your breathe and push for a series of 3 ten second pushes. At this point I was sooooo tired that I was in the bed, and in the worst position possible for delivering a baby, but I was just to exhausted to try any other way. I pushed and pushed and pushed. The people in the room went from 2, to 3 to 5 helpful faces all staring at my blood-red face and watching me try to push this baby out.

I honestly didn't think I was going to make it at that point. The head was taking forever getting out from under my pelvic bone and I had this horrible thought that I would do all this work and then at the last minute have to get a c-section. However, the baby finally came out at 4:24 am and this mound of baby was plunked on my stomach. I could not believe how big she was. I did not actually get to see or hear the baby for a while. She had been breathing since she came out, but I did not know that. The baby was taken to the side and examined while I finished passing the placenta. It took maybe a minute or two before I heard her yelling and was able to see her.

All at once things were coming to me. S saying how awesome she looked, the nurse reading the scale at 8 pounds 9 ounces, the doctor showing me the placenta. It was all so sureal. I could not believe that I was done, that I was a mother, that there was another life on the planet that we had created. I was exhausted, happy, and in a daze. Finally things started to slow down, people left us alone, and I could stare at my baby.

Anya is simply lovely, but even now, I find myself just looking at her. She is such a mix of the two of us, that we find it hard to say who she looks like. She has a mass of black hair, dark blue/brown eyes, and a fairly dark skin color. It seems like every day her face and head change a little and I am always eager to see what she will look like today. There is so much more to process about the hospital stay, breast feeding and family, but for now we are so happy and content with the new member of our family.

On a different note, I must say that I am extremely proud of the work that I did to get Anya into the world, but I am also extremely grateful that we were able to have the birth that we wanted. Many people don't, and we were prepared to do what we needed to to have a healthy baby, but we got do exactly what we planned, and that was such a blessing.