Cake for Breakfast

So far I’ve only left the house three times since the small one’s arrival… to vote, to get my nails done (not for vanity but so I don’t nick the small one), and to go to the local eco shop and order crib mattress pads – all of which were within 1 mile of my home.  All that is to say I am completely out of groceries.

Granted, we have a raw milk share and a winter vegetable farm share, so it’s not like we’ve got nothing in the house.  Not to mention the fact that the husband got in a half cow (yup, you read that correctly) for the restaurant last week so we’re up to our eyeballs in beef.  And I make my own bread.  So yeah, we aren’t starving.  But I haven’t managed to find a garbage bag share or a laundry detergent co-op or any Virginia-grown oranges for juicing, so a trip to Whole Foods is very necessary and may be my treat this afternoon after the husband gets home and the child can be handed off, as I am officially allowed to drive again as of today.

But in the meanwhile, it’s leftover cake for breakfast.  Cheesecake in fact, which a la Bill Cosby’s reasoning, totally counts as breakfast (cream cheese, eggs, milk).  Hey – it was that or sauerkraut, and I hear cabbage could give the small one gas (or more gas, I should say).

Meet the hormones

So I don’t know if what I’ve got going on would be classified as “baby blues” as I don’t feel the least bit blue.

I just cry.  A lot.  For no reason.

I know.  That sounds dramatic, and like someone who is totally on a one way trip to crazytown, but you’ll just have to trust me on this one.  For example, last week I cried while listening to an Iron and Wine song while breastfeeding.  Then I cried while explaining to my husband the non-reason I was crying.  Then I think I cried because he was so understanding.  You get the idea.

Last night I cried when my parents and brother headed home (somewhat reasonable, but not something I’ve ever done before).   It was such a pathetic sob my little brother gave me an enormous hug to comfort me, and I half think he was scared about my mental stability.  I was such a mess I went and napped with the small one instead of returning to the other family guests we had visiting.  Later that night I cried when talking about how it was time to go to bed (I still get a bit anxious about the bedtime “routine”) so my very dear husband stayed with me in the baby’s room for moral support.  I cried when I thanked him for doing so.

Have I mentioned that I’m not someone who really cries in normal life – as in funerals and weddings only?

And yet.  I still think this is just pure hormones and not even baby blues (let alone post partum depression).  How is that possible, you ask?  Because I don’t feel sad at all.  I’ve looked at the checklists in the books and besides the waterworks, I am a-okay fine.  And the small one has developed baby acne, which is supposed to be related to all my raging hormones which he gets via breastmilk (poor little guy went from having the most beautiful skin to looking a bit like a thirteen year old), so that would be my proof of infection so to speak.

That being said, I still can’t wait until this passes.  I don’t know what will set me off these days, and my poor child wants his complexion back.

the night shift

Because I had a C-section, my initial plan of staying in the small one’s room and handling all the nightly duties on my own (the theory being that my husband plays with knives and fire in a kitchen all day, so his being sleep deprived could be a bit more damaging than your average office worker)  was put on hold due to my inability to get out of bed and hold a child at the same time.  This turned out to be a boon for me, as I would simply lean over and grab the small one out of the bassinet during our first week+, nurse him, and then wake up my husband to handle burping and diaper changing.  It didn’t actually mean I got any more sleep, but besides trips to the bathroom, I never had to leave the bed (not to mention the wonder that is skipping middle of the night diaper duty).

Now that I’m mostly on the mend, I’ve taken over the night shift.  I’m in the nursery sleeping in a double bed (which I actually find much more comfortable than my bed, as the husband prefers to sleep on the mattress equivalent of concrete, and the double is a pillow top) a few feet away from the crib.  And it’s going okay.  I say okay because I’ve yet to fall asleep while holding the child, and I haven’t tripped on anything or knocked anything over in my tired wonkiness.  That being said, while I wish the small one could stay tiny forever, I’m not going to be too disappointed when he first learns to sleep 5 hours in a row (although I’d take 4 in a heartbeat).

Here’s a sample of how the whole thing goes down (the times are merely illustrative, we so aren’t on a tight schedule… yet):

10PM – feed the small one while downstairs, hand him to husband for a diaper change/burp while I head upstairs to get ready for bed.  Ideally we have him down within a half hour, but it can take as long as an hour and a half depending on god knows what goes on in the small one’s fickle little brain.

11 PM – 1 AM – I get to sleep, occasionally interrupted by a half-hearted cry or squeak from the small one, and usually a simple “it’s okay baby, I’m right here” called from beneath my covers is enough for him to quiet down again.

1 AM – Snack time.  It’s not as clear cut as baby cries, I wake up, I feed him and change him and he goes back down.  No no.  It’s more like he starts to gurgle anywhere from 12:30 to 1:15, and if I pick him up while he’s still in gurgle mode (vs. fully awake), he feeds like a convalescent and needs to nurse even sooner than our 3 hour cycle.  So I wait until he’s more robustly rooting (or starting to work up into a cry – but ideally before full wail), which means I wake up at every noise, think to myself “wait – didn’t I just feed him – oh no, I just thought about feeding him but haven’t done it yet,” fall back to sleep and repeat the process until the small one is loud enough that I realize that I have not actually fed him yet despite having thought about feeding him 6+ times, jump out of bed, lift up the child and settle into my chair.

Then begins the discomfort wiggle.  You see, after lifting up the little guy and hoisting him over my shoulder, burp-style, I (still working without ab muscles here due to major surgery) lower myself into my chair, try to arrange the boppy nursing pillow just so with my one free arm, use my feet to drag the foot stoll into place, and lower the small one into nursing position.  Once he’s latched on, I scutch around as I am inevitably seated in a way that makes some part of my back or shoulders ache, all while trying not to disturb the feast.  Next it’s my neck that starts to bug me, in that way that has more to do with the fact that I’m being asked to support my own head at what is now 1:30 AM than the way I’m sitting, but I attempt to rearrange pillows with one hand such that I can sorta lean my head against something.

The actually nursing lasts anywhere from 15 minutes to 25, depending on how hungry or lazy the small one is at the time.

Now that he’s either stopped sucking or unlatched himself, it’s back over the shoulder for an attempted burp (often fails), while I get up out of the chair.  I then lay him down on the bed to unswaddle him, keeping the blanket set so he can be reswaddled momentarily.  The cold on his bare legs wakes him up a bit so now it’s over the the changing table for a new diaper.  This is not the fun part.  I mean, imagine if you woke up in the middle of the night with hunger pangs and in response someone fed you so much warm milk you were basically drunk… and then they suddenly strip you naked, pick you up by your feet such that only your shoulder blades are touching the surface and rub your raw ass with cold wipes.  You would probably cry, too.  And he does.  So I fumble to wipe him down, fan him off so he’s dry, salve up that raw little butt and rediaper him, hopefully without getting peed on or the change pad getting pooped on in the process (but this inevitably happens at least once a night, resulting in the addition of an outfit change to the repertoire).

Now that he’s dressed again, it’s back over the shoulder for attempt No. 2 at a good burp (and it also seems that this position calms him).  We head over to the bed to reswaddle and if at this point he seems sleepy, it’s into the crib.  On the other hand, if he’s awake he’s probably still hungry, so it’s back to the chair for the second boob.  Ideally, after the second boob it’s just another burp attempt and then he goes down, but at least once a night (if not more often), you can hear him let one loose during the second feeding, in which case we go back to the changing table for yet another diaper.

Are you seeing how this could get tedious?

By now he’s down.  And most of the time he’s not fussy (although sometimes there is much wandering around the room to get him to settle – and my attempts at singing a lullaby at this hour are nothing short of hilarious).  So I clean up the changing table area of dirty wipes/diapers, head to the bathroom to wash my hands, have a glass of water and jump back in bed for what will hopefully be two hours of sleep.

By now it’s around 2 AM.

Repeat the 1 AM scenario at 4 AM and 7 AM.  But at seven , he won’t go right back down so it’s down the hall to wake up daddy so I can take a shower.

And yet, somehow I am not dead to the world exhausted.  But this is why maternity leave is an absolute necessity.

I don’t know what’s gotten bigger…

… my boy or my boobs.

We had our first pediatrician appointment today and the small one has already gained 1lb 5 oz in a mere 11 days.  That is insane.  We went in hoping he’d be back up to his birth weight, and the doc started talking about how she likes to see a gain of about an ounce a day at this stage before looking at the numbers the nurse recorded on the chart and commenting that we had nothing to worry about in the nourishment department.

As for the boobs, well, when they say to go up a cup size from your pregnancy boobs when shopping for nursing bras and you think “no way – these things CANNOT possibly get any bigger,” you should really size up.  I am convinced the girls think I’ve just had triplets – which is great for the small one, but man oh man engorgement is just as unpleasant as it sounds, but maybe even a little bit worse.  I’m talking feels like your breasts are soda cans you just shook vigorously and your nipples are the pop top trying desperately to hold back the geyser.

This becomes comical when you factor in leakage… the poor child will go to nurse and his face will be covered with milk before he’s even managed to find his target – the expression he gets is what I imagine one would look like if enrolled in a pie eating contest where at the point when the ref said “read – set…” someone sprayed whipped cream in your mouth.  As in “wait, what? already?.”

Luckily the supply clerks that are my milk ducts are beginning to get a better handle on the job and today I only look (and feel) enormous instead of cartoon-like.

My thirteen year old self would be stupefied to hear me complaining about having huge boobs.

The Small One has Arrived

… which you probably guessed from my prolonged absence.  And I’m going to keep this short, as I’m still working on writing up the whole birth story/first week experience in between feedings and diapers and trying to remember to feed and bath myself, but I will leave you with this:

In all my planning and fretting (and bitching and moaning), I completely failed to anticipate one really big thing – just how completely smitten I’d be by the little guy.  And that very pleasant surprise has made all the difference.

-one deliriously happy but still overwhelmed mammabear

And now the pregnancy blog becomes a mommyblog… stay tuned.