Ugh so the past few days baby has been really fussy and it's making me feel like she isn't getting enough food when she is eating. I can no longer tell if she is hungry or just fussy. It has been exhausting! At least the last few days Chris has been here but now that it's Monday I am by myself. I really wish she would sleep a bit so I don't feel like I have to hold her the whole time. I guess I will just feed her between 2-3 hours and not in between unless I can't get her to stop crying. The last poop she had to was a big one and that might be the reason at that time that she was fussy but it was almost a brown colour and had like little bits of what looked like white blobs in it. Not sure what to think but will definitely have to see what her poop colours are the next few times. I don't know if it was bits of milk or what, and if it is, is it normal? Bah!!

It took us a while last night to get her to fall asleep after she woke up at 4am in the morning for food. It was almost two hours before I finally offered her my breast again in hopes that would put her to sleep. She finally did fall asleep and stayed asleep. Giving her her soother didn't help before that either. She would fall asleep but every time Chris went to put her in the cradle she would wake up! So no sleep for either of us!

doc appointment...

So yesterdays doc appointment went well. She weighed in just shy of 9lbs. So she weighs 8lbs and 15oz, gaining 5oz last week. That made me feel even better then it did the week before. This last week has been better though, only had a few days or times that I felt completely overwhelmed but thankfully that never happened when I was home by myself. It's such a relief to know that she is doing well and gaining. Our next appointment is in two weeks, so hopefully she will have gained by that time as well. Breastfeeding still is a challenge but my left nipple doesn't hurt as much as it did. Still does but at least it's not as bad.

Today Tam and Mom came up to visit with us and the baby. Missy (my sister's eldest) who was up the day before at Steph's (my sister's middle child) came by before she went back home. I think it was the first time she saw monkey since she was born :) It was a good visit. Nice to see them since we don't get to go to far right now, to hard when I have to feed her every 2-3 hours. I like the option of feeding her expressed milk in a bottle though. That's what I did when they were here since she was getting cranky during there visit. She didn't eat to much just before they got here so it's nice to be able to do that. That way I don't disappear with her for 30-60 mins! Mom said that JP (older brother) and Jen (his gf) will probably drop by either today or tomorrow to see the baby. JP was going to come up last week with the two boys but since I had such a bad day on Saturday he thought he would just wait until this weekend.

I can't believe how fast the first few months of the year have gone by, especially the month of March. It's April's Fools day today already! Today we have a doc appointment to see if monkey is still gaining weight. Hopefully she has despite the problems I am still having with breast feeding (mostly just the pain and latching). She seems to be bigger I think so she must be getting enough, not to mention she has enough pees and poops so that is a good sign. We shall see in a few hours. I am glad it's the weekend though. It will be nice to have Chris here the whole day for a few days. Breastfeeding and taking care of baby right now is exhausting!

I have been trying to journal but it never seems to work out. I am so behind as it is! So much to write about and I feel like I have no time! Monkey is actually sleeping at the moment so I thought I would at least journal about today and maybe do a bit of catch up on the last few weeks before I forget to much of what happened. I really wish I was able to journal my thoughts while I was in the hospital. I almost attempted it once but decided I would rather have rested and slept then writing anything. Plus it was sort of hard to sit up and be comfortable.

Last night Chris's mom and sister Lindsay came up to visit the baby. Linds is leaving next week to go work for the summer season at a resort so this is one of the last chances she will see the baby for awhile. She was like 'she is going to be so big the next time I see her!' I got really tired near the end of the night. They left around 9pm and I fed monkey then put her in the playpen and tried to sleep but it wasn't really working. I was pretty grumpy to say the least. I fed her around midnight, then Chris topped her up with 1.5 oz of expressed milk, then we went to sleep after she fell asleep. I woke around 5am and she was getting antzy to eat. So Chris went and prepared the two or so oz of expressed milk I had from that day and fed her that in a bottle. I decided that I needed a break that night from breast feeding. One because I was so tired before we went to bed and plus I though having 8 hours of her not hurting my nipple with the medicine on it would be good thing and hopefully give it a chance to heal. Breast feeding would be so much better if my nipple wasn't instant pain as soon as she latches on! I did go wipe it off and then express milk from both sides. The last time I went 6 or more hours without feeding or pumping my boobs were so full and hard it was uncomfortable. So I think pumping really helped last night. I think I got a little more then two oz fairly quickly. When I got up this morning they felt normal so that was good. I think the stuff might have helped my nipple a bit. It's not as bad as it was before so that is a plus. I can't wait until it's healed so I can stop using that stuff! I hate thinking that maybe I didn't get it all off. The pharmacist said to make sure it's off since it's bad for baby
 :(

After I got up this morning and fed her since she was wide awake for the longest time. She was fine when I held her but would get fussy when I put her down. She also had a really water yellowy smelly poop. Thankfully she did it before I had taken off her diaper and holy this diaper was full. She probably had a few pees in there as well since it was so heavy! I was planning on feeding her around 12:30 - 1pm but she got really fussy around 11:30 so I just fed her from my left side. She did pretty good probably eating 15-20 mins then fell asleep. I didn't bother with the right side since she was out cold, so she must have gotten enough from the right side? Now she is asleep. So I have a few hours before I have to wake her again to feed. It's exhausting having to feed her so often but at least I can watch the TV while I am doing it. She is so cute! LOVE her to death. :)

So that is our day so far. Just hanging out watching TV while she is sleeping. Maybe I will attempt to read or something or watch a movie soon. I already ate lunch so no need for that. I do need to drink more water since I am thirsty and that reminds me that I need to take my vitamins as well.!! I should go do that!

ooo yesterday I had a good idea for a story. Just a short children's book but it explains why babies smile when they are new born. Mom says that my Nanny used to say that when newborns smile they are talking to the Angels. So it's sort of a spin off of that :) I am excited to try and write the full story out! Hopefully I can do that soon. I wish I had a laptop or something so I can do that and sit on the couch to write. I really want one of those small computers just for writing. Some day maybe!

(and just to be confusing I wrote this entry on this exact day before I had caught up with entries before this)

4:25pm

So this last few weeks have been a emotional roller coaster! I badly need to update my blog on what has been happening! I thought though I would as least record my thoughts and feelings on today so that way I don't forget everything that I am going through.

Yesterday I was a total basket case. I have been having a hard time getting baby to latch properly, especially on my left nipple, which hurts like hell every time she does latch on. Like instant 10 on the pain scale. It does ease off but it hurts so much at the moment that it's like I expect it to hurt soo much that it's hard not to get really tense when she goes to latch. It's so hard not to scream out loud that is how bad the pain is. Well I actually did scream a few times. :(

Today I feel so much better though and feel like I can do this, although going back and forth between feeling confident and wanting to give up is starting to suck. Well it's mostly the feeding part that I don't like since it's time consuming. Takes about 40 mins to feed her, I try 20 min on each side to make sure she is getting enough. Also she falls asleep soon after she gets latched on so that is another reason it takes awhile. Then it's changing the diaper in between to wake her up again to feed on the other side. Then once that is done it's ten minutes on the breast pump to extract some more breast milk and then a few more minutes to clean and sanitize the parts.

okies baby is crying must go see why...

(written April 26 2011)

Today Heather from Healthy Babies came over to see how I was doing. It was nice that she did so. She said that they normally don't come out right away but since I was so upset the day before she made the appointment with me to come out. She brought a whole crap load of information for me including some information on bottle feeding baby since I was still not sure what I wanted to do. Today I felt a lot better then I did the day before. I felt like I could actually do this as apposed to the emotional roller coaster I was the day before. Poor mom since she couldn't really help me with breastfeeding problems since she didn't breast feed us at all, but it was till nice to have here there to listen to me or to take the baby if I needed her to. She spent a lot of time tickling monkey and pulling on her feet to help me keep her awake while I was trying to feed her since she is a sleepy baby who falls asleep almost right away no matter how hungry she is. So frustrating.

Today though I felt a renewed sense of determination and felt that I can actually carrying on trying to breast feed. All my thoughts were conflicted though because at times I just wanted to give up and go with formula feeding her since in my view making bottles is so much easier emotionally and time wise then trying to feed her and getting really frustrated because she doesn't want to!

I was trying to pump after each feeding during the day to help build up my milk supply in case it lacked a bit since trying to feed her after leaving the hospital. Pumping is also time consuming even though I only really spend five mins on each side. But having to wash and clean all items after each use and setting them out to dry so they are ready in 2-3ish hours. Time consuming!

It was also awkward trying to feed her the expressed milk in a little cup thing since she likes to swing her head back and forth and a few times almost knocked the pill cup out of my hand. Also trying not to pour milk into her mouth to fast or tip it to far that it spilled down her face instead of landing on her tongue so she can swallow it, also was not a fun experience. Another reason I loathed breast feeding since I felt that this was not normal and I should not have to do this! But what can you do!

another shitty night...

(written April 17th 2011)

So like I said in my previous entry the night was total shit again. I was so upset this day I just kept saying over and over I don't think I can do this. It's to stressful, it's to crappy, I'm constantly worrying she isn't getting enough. It was horrible. I was annoyed that this paper with all these phone numbers on it for help like no one was available! I called to see if I could talk to Heidi but they said if I hadn't left a message for her earlier in the day she probably wouldn't get back to me today since it was almost home time and that if I just had a question I should call healthy babies ppl and ask to talk to their lactitionist. So that is what I did. I left a message with them. I was just sitting there so upset and poor Mom really didn't know what to say to help me. She said she couldn't even really help or offer advice since she herself never breastfeed and no one in the family really did. The only one she could recall at the time was Aunt Rose. She said everyone went back to work shortly after so they just bottle fed. Regardless it was really nice having Mom there since it was really hard for me to get up and down or walk to far and it was nice to have someone to hand the baby to me when I got all ready to feed her. Mom was even helping me keep monkey awake since she would start to eat then fall asleep. I knew she wasn't full since if you took her off and put her down she would instantly wake up and start freaking out that she was hungry! It was exhausting.

Anyways, The lactationist at healthy babies called me back and it was actually Heather that was at the appointment with Heidi the day before. So that was really nice that she knew what was going on. We talked for awhile and I felt a bit better after getting off the phone with her. I was realllly upset before talking to her. I'm sure most of it was my emotions being out of whack since I couldn't stop freaking crying my eyes out. I just felt so hopeless. So after talking to her I had a game plan in my mind. Chris would go rent a pump, I would pump after each feeding and give her the extra after each feeding. I would be more aggressive when bringing her to my breast and if by the end of the week it wasn't any better then I would switch to bottle feeding. Heather made an appointment with me for Wednesday to come out to the house and talk to me. So that was good as well. I didn't want to buy a breast pump right away since I didn't know if I was going to continue this way and they can be anywhere from $200 to $1500 (at least for the electric ones).

It was only 25 bucks a week to rent it so it wasn't that bad. We had bought a kit from Heidi at the hospital the day before to use with the machine since you have to get your own breast shield , bottles etc. Well I wouldn't have wanted to use any that they would give if they did do that anyways since it would be gross to use one that someone else had used how many times before. The pump worked pretty good. It was pretty huge and the carrying case was big as well. Nice to be able to rent a pump though at first instead of committing to purchasing one out right since you can't return them once they are open. So definitely a huge investment and one you hope you will use.