Still sick

Still sniffling, sneezing, hacking....
and not feeling so much like putting my thoughts out there at the moment.

Side note:

The best birthday present ever:

Here

I'm here, just sick today so not feeling like writing much. Even with cold meds. my nose is like a faucet and it feels like there is a rock in my throat. My cough sounds "barky". Dorothy is having a fussy day, so needless to say, we're both looking forward to bedtime tonight:) Hoping this bug stays away from baby girl.

Some Break....

I tried to take a break, but you know how it is. A girl's gotta write. I decided to take Catherine's
Just a word to the wise. Don't read or write on 2 hours of sleep within 48 hours; nothing makes sense in your mind and nothing comes out right.

errrmmmfpth.

I was too tired to drive Dorothy home yesterday evening (she stayed with a friend from church for the afternoon), so David took the night off and helped me out. He went to pick her up and also got me some benadryl. You see, that's what the pharmacist recommended. It didn't work so hot for the sleep, but it sure did help out the cold I am getting that no doubt Dorothy will get as well. I still didn't get to sleep until close to midnight, but at least I got to sleep.

I'm feeling happier today, and sending lots of love to the kind bloggers (and friends of bloggers) out there who have sent me (and continue to send me) gifts/clothes for Dorothy. The clothes are superbly lovely and there's even been some stuff to spoil me tossed in. There are so many people to thank that I don't have time to list them all right now. Don't worry, you'll be getting some cards in the mail. This is like Christmas every other day for a couple weeks :)

Going to go take some cold meds. and have a Tupperware party. Good times.

break

Officially, my birthday is the most depressing day of the year. Lovely.

Still can't sleep

12:30 am.

I usually go to bed between 9:00 and 10:00 pm and fall asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow.

Enter birth control pill Tri-Levelen.

Now I lay awake until sometimes 2:00 am dog tired and yet unable to sleep. A couple of nights I have had to take some leftover cough syrup with codeine just to fall asleep at all, leaving myself groggy for the next day.

I have no appetite at all and no energy.

I say the pill goes and we try something else.

The BIG Two-Six

Today I am 1 year closer to 30 than I am to 20. David and I handed Dorothy off to my mom and we went to IHOP, where we were the only diners not classified as senior citizens. I had to wonder why a man who took 10 minutes to walk to his car was still driving. But anyway...

I get a free movie rental from Hollywood Video today and Mama's making some crispy baked chicken for dinner. SIL and I went to Costco already so I could stock up on some baby formula. She got me some ground beef and chicken for my B-day present. Nothin' says "I love you" like a bunch of raw meat;) I think it will last us for quite a while.

Still trying to figure out why Dorothy has long screaming jags....

Insomnia

Anyone else ever have insomnia after starting the birth control pill? This is not working for me.... I can't sleep at all.

SLEEP

Forgive that last post written by the frazzled, overextended mom written on only 3 hours of sleep. I have gotten so adjusted to her sleeping on average 11 hours that my body is used to having no less than 7 hours of straight sleep now. I'm glad that nights like this she at least goes back to sleep after her bottles.

So, I have that walking zombie feeling, but I did eventually get a couple more hours of sleep. Dorothy GUZZLED her entire bottle when she got up at 5:30. I put her back down and she slept until 10:00 and then guzzled another bottle. It's now 2:25 and she is down for a nap in her crib. She has had a pretty hefty serving of cereal and another 4 oz bottle since her bottle at 10:00. The formula doesn't seem to be upsetting her tummy and neither does the cereal. I was mostly wondering if my milk was more fatty than the formula, but perhaps she is just working on growing some more and it has just so happened to correlate with our timing for switching to formula.

I was finally able to go back to sleep this morning, I think it was around 8:00. David got up at around 10:30 and helped me make a good breakfast of eggs, sausage, pancakes, and coffee. He also watched Dorothy for a while and gave her a bottle so I could work on getting some diapers in the wash, a couple more boxes from our bedroom put away, and the garbage taken down to the dumpster.

There is a key that I hit on the laptop that really bugs me because it will automatically erase half of the post... which just happened to me. And I don't feel much like writing it again.

I am wondering how I am going to do when David is gone for 3 weeks (home on weekends). I need a break now so I can be ready for it. He really needed to get that other job.

Changes

Why in the world would a 4 1/2 month old child who has been sleeping through the night since she was 6 weeks (12-13 hours a night) all of a sudden be able to sleep no longer than 5 hours at a stretch and be eating a full bottle when she wakes up crying? Since we switched to all formula 2 days ago Dorothy has not slept through the night. I find it hard to believe that it is the formula change, but I have no idea what else it could be. I was already doing 2/3 formula before the switch. She was up once night before last and 3 times last night (one of those times she was able to cry herself back to sleep). It is much harder to deal with her fussy days when I am running on empty.

I still have milk (only pumped 4 oz after a day and a half) so it may not be too late to get the supply up again, but I want to throw this pill from the highest window. I hate it. Now I feel like if I did need to switch back to breast milk and try an elimination diet for her likely food sensitivities, I can't because you can't nurse on the pill. Plus the fact that I can't sleep AT ALL. I lay there for 2 hours trying to fall asleep. And now with the baby waking up it is the same thing every time I have to get up and lay back down. I have gotten way less sleep than David in the past few days. He's in there sleeping soundly right now when I am running on 3 hours of sleep. He's even sleeping a quite a bit later than me on days that he doesn't have to work while I do pretty much everything with the baby and around the house. Thanks to the swing shift. He was helping out with the baby a lot before he switched to swing.

I'm sitting here awake, but so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open. The minute I try to sleep, I can't.... even though Dorothy is actually sleeping right now.

Snow Day!

Dorothy has seen her first snow. We have snow very rarely around here, so it was exciting to wake up and see the world around us all white!

We bundled her up in her new snowsuit that we got in the mail (along with a few other outfits and a cute little figurine for Dorothy's nursery) from a very generous soul that we don't even know. Thank you, Kathleen!



We took her outside in the snow.



She was the cutest snow angel.



~~~~~

Unlike our day yesterday....

What do you do on days when you have several 30-60 minute episodes where you have tried everything under the sun and your child is still doing this?



I even called the dr. because at the point I took this video she had been crying for nearly an hour. She wore herself out so much that she fell asleep 3 oz. into her bottle (once she finally took it from me) and slept from 6:30 pm (she normally goes to bed around 8:30 or 9:00) until 7:30 am with a very brief fuss at close to 6:00. He said just try some Tylenol. That it could be something and it could be nothing (oh really??). Can we say high maintenance child?

~~~~~

On more thing about yesterday. I got a box in the mail from another kind and generous soul that I don't know personally. On Friday I got a package from her with a really cute diaper bag and some clothes and hats and socks for Dorothy. But yesterday the box I got felt heavy. I brought it inside and set it down to read the box. It said Brother on it and there was a picture of a sewing machine. I thought it couldn't possibly be. Well, it could possibly be... because it WAS. It was a brand new sewing machine!! I am still in shock. So, Lisa, if you read this blog....thank you so much. There aren't even words for how thoughtful and kind it was for you to bless us with those gifts. I seriously sat there crying in my living room. Thank you.

Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings

So, I am perplexed as to why I feel this way.

I have made the decision to quit pumping. I am now down to two pumpings a day. This morning I pumped my smallest amount after going all night. I only pumped 3 oz. My normal amount for the morning was 10 oz. I think overall, for us, there are many more positives to switching to formula than there are negatives. Nevertheless I am plagued by thoughts of sadness about it. For one, it's the "breast milk is so much better your baby will waste away and be sick more often and not be smart in school and how could you use formula?" camp. They are loud. They make me feel guilty. They claim that if you just stick with it your baby will catch on, it will be better in the end. Sometimes it is just not the case. Believe me when I say we tried. Numerous times. We had 1/2 hour scream-fests in the middle of the might. She knew how to latch and I knew she was hungry. She just wouldn't eat. Even though I know my milk was abundant, she would eat every hour around the clock. After 3 weeks I caved and started pumping. She was like a different baby (in some ways). She started eating every 2-3 hours (still does!) and sleeping for longer stretches. As soon as the bottle hit her lips, it was like I could see the relief on her face; like she was just waiting for it. Occasionally she wanted to breast feed for comfort, but she won't even do that now. Several times I tried going back to exclusive BFing, but she wouldn't have it. I know the benefits of breast milk; that's why I chose to pump for the first few months. I have a bit of a supply frozen, so she'll still be getting 2 oz. of milk in each bottle for close to another month, which I feel good about. I wanted to freeze more than that, but my supply was not keeping up with her hearty appetite, so she was already getting half formula anyway.

I do not love my baby any less because we are switching to formula. In fact, quite the opposite. I am doing this because I feel it is best. Not only is it less stress for me, but she is dealing with it much better, too. Dorothy is a fussy child most of the time. She frequently arches her back and screams. Sometimes she is so mad she refuses to eat her bottle. In the few days we have been doing 2/3 formula and 1/3 breast milk, she has not had one episode where she was screaming/refusing her bottle. She still fusses a lot of the time and gets mad (a lot of it must be personality). She also has had less (only one episode in a week) excema flare-ups on her cheeks. When it flares up, it is all of a sudden. Her cheeks will get bright red, as well as dry and scaly. This will last for several hours to a day or so. My thought is that she has food sensitivities. These two things paired with constant spitting up told me that she was not comfortable. Since the switch to mostly formula she also spits up less. She still spits, but generally not the large volume that she was doing after almost every feeding, and not one projectile. I have a feeling it will improve even more once we have made the switch entirely.

So, being that we have found it best to switch, after months of thinking about the timing of it, why do I now feel sadness? Is it the bond I want to keep with her? Is it the fact that I am pretty sure I won't have many opportunities to do the breast feeding thing again? This is all compounded by the fact that I went on the regular pill yesterday. I was on the nursing pill until then. I don't know what it is about the pill that I hate so much. I even had this issue when I was on it when we first got married. I much prefer charting. It's something about preventing children that bothers me. Even though I know charting is essentially doing the same thing, it is not physically altering my body to do so. Something that is hard for me to explain is the fact that the cutting back on pumping and going on the pill has brought me similar feelings as when we lost the baby. I know it sounds strange, but I think a lot of it has to do with the process I have to go through mentally/emotionally now that things are different. Of course I knew from the moment I was diagnosed with IC that things were going to be much different than I had dreamed....

I think most women who want children spend their young lives dreaming and hoping about what their life will be like. It's funny to say it, but I just saw my life barefoot and pregnant. Call me crazy, I don't care. I saw myself having several babies close together; happily cooking and cleaning; wiping noses and wiping tears. You know, generally doing all that domestic crap that a lot of women don't want these days. And with each pill it feels to me like that dream dies. Maybe it doesn't make sense, but that's what I feel.

Some light at the end of the financial tunnel

Well, starting at the end of June I will be doing childcare for a friend from church that is having a baby in March. She gets 3 months for maternity leave and then needs a full-time sitter M-F. I'll be getting $20-$25 a day. It's not a lot, and I'll have to make sure to set enough aside for taxes, but it's something. I think we can make it stretch until then. Hopefully David will get another raise sometime in the late winter/early spring. It won't be a huge one, but it will make somewhat of a difference. I'm wondering how a bit of extra income would effect taxes. I know for sure it would put us in the next tax bracket. Hopefully it wouldn't be taking too much out of David's check once I start working. As it stands now, pretty much nothing gets taken out. We have a deduction for making under 50,000 (the EIC, which we still would even with my income, I think) and a deduction for David being the only one working. At any rate, I still think it would help us out, especially if I do part-time care for one more child at the same time. I would only want 3 so I could give adequate attention to all of the kiddos. I may do some minimal evening or weekend babysitting when David is out of town and I'm here alone anyway or when he can watch Dorothy for the evening. I want to get as much debt paid off as we can before we consider having another baby, at which time I would obviously have to stop working. Then we would most likely sell my car and perhaps trade the other one for one that is a bit bigger for going camping with the family. Something like a Forrester or a smaller SUV. Just dreaming....

An idea that has been in my mind a lot is adopting a baby before we try to have another one. Either way I would like to adopt at some point. My physical limit for pregnancies (at least in my mind for now) is two. I would like to have 3 or 4 kids altogether. I wonder if there is any financial aid to adopt, such as adoption grants or loans. We're not rich, but in my mind you don't have to be to give a child a loving, stable home. Anyone out there with adoption experience or stories that would be willing to share?

Four Months (a little late)

Dear, sweet baby girl,

Last Friday you turned 4 months old. You have gotten so big! When you went to the doctor, they told us you were over 14 lbs. You are in the 75th percentile for your weight. Wow! You're a whole 2 feet long now, too. I'd better not close my eyes because you'll change before I open them again. You are such a gift! You just keep getting cuter by the day.



We had a really busy month. We moved from your first home to a new place, so I have been trying to balance spending time with you and actually getting things done around here. It's hard because all I want to do is be with you and Daddy!




You're always learning something new. You love to "talk". As soon as I put you down on the changing table, it's social time. But then, every time is social time, isn't it?




You're still sleeping through the night like a champ. Mommy and Daddy really appreciate that. The day is another story. You fuss for most of the time that you're awake. Sometimes you refuse to take your bottle... or nurse. Sometimes you scream no matter what we do. You also spit up a LOT! I wish you could tell us what was wrong, but mommy really does her best to keep you happy and healthy.




You had your first Christmas!



And so did your cousins:





You have tried your first rice cereal, too. I don't think you know that it's food, yet. You think I am playing with you. You coo, smile, spit... pretty much anything but eat. It's the cutest thing. One of these days you'll get it! You also learned how to hold a rattle the other day. You try to hold your bottle sometimes, but you usually get your fingers in your mouth and make yourself mad because you can't get any milk out. You discover a new noise every few days and become very interested in making that noise over and over again. The other day it was this noise:


Needless to say our ears hurt by the end of the day:)

Mommy loves you more and more each day!