Week 2 and baby blues

Today marks my little one's two week anniversary here on Earth. 

X has already grown so much in just two week's time. I can tell he is heavier and growing longer. I got a tear in my eye when I saw today that his newborn shirts no longer fit him well, and the newborn diapers were fitting more snuggly. Pretty soon, he won't be my little baby boy anymore. 

I have also experienced quite the flood of emotions these past two weeks. Sometimes I forget what it was like not having X around, and then sometimes all I do is long for the time when he wasn't here and I wasn't pregnant. I miss being able to get up and go. I miss being able to go out and do things with A whenever I wanted. Well, I just miss alone TIME with A and not having to get up and tend to a crying little one. It's getting hard because A works all day, comes home and naps, and then gets up and works some more or does his fantasy football thing if he happens to have a break from work. I end up caring for X 24/7 with very little break. I'm tired when A gets home and I just want to pass X off, but I know A is just as tired as I am. 

Maybe once X sleeps longer through the night and can do more than just eat and poop I'll feel better about this. I've cried every night for the past two weeks. I hope it is just the exhaustion showing itself, but sometimes I feel so much regret and like I made the dumbest decision of my life. 

I can't take it back now. I have a son to raise and I have to be strong for him. I can't let him see and feel that I am sad deep down inside. They say babies can pick up on a mother's insecurities. 

Yes, looking at X's little face staring around the room just makes me smile ear-to-ear and glow with pride. I find myself wondering what kind of person he will grow to become. We have such a beautiful baby boy. 

I am going to try my hardest to beat this sadness and take a better approach to parenting. This should be the happiest time of my life so why isn't it?

Things I have learned about motherhood....

1) Lanolin is your best friend

2) A newborn can toot so hard and loud that he wakes not only himself, but his parents up

3) Baby poo, pee and spit up will end up in the weirdest places, leaving you scratching your head and wondering "How in the world did that get THERE??"

4) A shower and a few minutes of sleep every day are now on par with taking a luxury vacation

5) Normal eating habits do not return if your child has acid reflux. No caffiene, onions or spicy foods for me for a LONG LONG time

6) You will do a load of baby laundry at least once a day. Usually in the middle of the night when you realize you are out of clean burp cloths 

7) You will quickly become desensitized to a newborns screams and wails at 3 am 

8) A manual breast pump is a LIFESAVER

9) Seeing a newborn look up at you can simultaneously bring on extreme joy and extreme sadness

10) A trip to the pediatrician to find out how much the baby weighs would be highly anticipated

Walking Zombie

I haven't slept in a week. A and I thought that we would be tricky and he would take care of nighttime feedings on Fridays and Saturdays while I slept. Well, X had an idea of his own. He has started refusing bottles of breastmilk and wants it direct from the source only. So, I have the joy of being woken from my sleep at 3:40 in the morning to a screaming newborn who wants to be fed. Not only that, but X doesn't like sleeping. So, if he doesn't sleep, we don't sleep. We are both almost delirious with sleep deprivation. I hear it gets better as the weeks go on, but Good Lord, I see no light at the end of this tunnel. zzzzzz...........

Cha Ching

I always heard before and during the pregnancy that babies will cost you an arm and a leg by the time they are 18. Something to the tune of a quarter million?? 

I certainly believe it after today. 

I had to take X to the doctor because he is becoming frantic during his feedings. Apparently, he has acid reflux and you know what that means? Frequent doctor visits and prescriptions. Sweet.

The kid is not even a week old yet and we are already spending a bundle on his medication. 

Mom was gracious enough to buy us another months supply of diapers, wipes and a few baby clothes since our little guy likes to puke on everything and goes through about 7 shirts and half a container of wipes per day.

I'm starting to think about going back to work again. I know I have to, it is just dependent on when I can get time to interview and well, who will hire me knowing that I have a little one. Granted, interviewing while NOT pregnant is going to be a ton easier than it was interviewing 

while pregnant. Child care arrangements still bother me every day. 

Ugh. Well, for now, I need to rest and get the little guy healthy and strong so he can go to daycare and not reek havoc. 

This little bundle of joy is going to cost me a bundle.

Really??? I guess this is what motherhood is like....

Babies are so funny.

X is eating well, although very feedings are very close together at one to one and a half hours in between. I guess he is going through a growth spurt. Hopefully we can stretch the feedings back out to 3 hours. This whole constant feeding thing is getting to be a drag on me and the boobs. 

I never realized just how much a tiny baby can produce in the way of pee and poo. I laughed so hard today. I was changing X and talking to him, and then all of a sudden, a geyser shoots up and X ended up peeing all over me, the table and his poor little face. That startled the crap out of him. He's finally changed and cleaned up now. I think I need to invest in a PeePee TeePee. 

This parenting thing is a trip. I absolutely love looking in the crib and seeing X's little face and eyes looking up at me. He makes the cutest little noises and is so gentle.  However, the 3 feedings in the middle of the night followed by frantic crying and rampant spitting up, is not that sweet. We've had our first explosive poop, explosive spit up, and all of my pants and the bed sheets are covered in some sort of baby excrement. It's funny, but I always thought that having a baby spit up or poo on me would gross me out. Nursing also causes you to leak from your boobs sometimes. It hardly even phases me when these things happen. 

I just go through the motions of solving the problem and move on.

I haven't slept since I left to go to the hospital. When I do sleep, it is in spurts of 30 minutes to 2 hours if I'm lucky. Several times over the past few days I have found myself dozing off while feeding the baby. Tired tired. Not to mention my whole body is still killing me. Vicodin isn't giving me any relief right now. Darn stitches!!

X is 6 days old now.   Almost one week old. All throughout the pregnancy, I was convinced I would be a terrible, incompetent mother. I would see all of the other mothers out there that made it look so easy, and think that I could never match up. Surprisingly, A and I have tuned in to parenting pretty quickly. It's like as soon as you leave the hospital, an imaginary switch clicks on. While we still have SO much to learn and we've already made some mistakes, I think so far we are doing a pretty darn good job. 

 

Today's Baby Happenings....Mini Milestone

Well, after having to supplement formula at every feeding, we finally reached a turning point.

In the hospital and up until early afternoon today, I had to give X a supplement because my milk had not yet come in. I was very upset and nervous at the thought that I would have to formula feed my baby. I wanted to get breast feeding down and feed X that way for at least the next 6 months until he started taking solids. I was convinced that something was wrong with me and that I was a terrible mother.

At every feeding since Friday, X would be absolutely frantic. I asked every nurse and doctor I came in contact with at the hospital to examine X's "latch." They all said that he was a natural at it and we were doing an excellent job with the technique. So that being said, why on Earth was X not getting enough to eat and crying frantically??

I was up all last night crying and worrying about this. His 2 am feed was particularly bad. 

I talked to my SIL about how she dealt with her feeding issues and she told me to feed, supplement and then pump. 

Not more than an hour after that conversation, X took breast milk, and NO FORMULA. He was satisfied! I couldn't believe it. 

Now, we have had a few rough feedings today, but overall, everything has improved so much. He is feeding correctly and more often. 

A and I feel more confident, thus less stressed and less of a negative effect on X. 

I am slowly starting to find patterns and solutions to problems. I like this boost in confidence and knowledge that I am doing all that I can do for right now. 

He's Here!!

Xavier Kael Yllana was born on August 14, 2008 at 10:02 am! He weighed 7 pounds, 9.4 ounces and was 19.5 inches long!

My Wednesday was rather odd. I felt fantastic in the morning. I ran some errands and didn't think twice about the coming events of the day. 

In the afternoon, I went to my doctor's appointment to make sure everything was in place for the impending delivering the following Monday. I felt a little crampy when I left her office, but it wasn't out of the ordinary for me after an exam.

About 6 pm on Wednesday, I got a horrible contraction that brought me to my knees. I brushed it off as a fluke because it was so strong. Boy was I wrong.

Everything started moving faster at that point, but surprisingly, Arfeo and I were extremely calm during the whole process. We carefully packed and loaded our bags, leisurely drove to the hospital and went in expecting to be told that it was a false alarm and be sent home.

As soon as they hooked me up on the monitors, my nurse said, "Yup, you aren't leaving without a baby." 

My heart sank a little. He is coming EARLY??

Well, I didn't have much time to think, because contractions started coming hard and strong.

Thursday morning, after 16 hours of labor, I had Xavier!

He is my little monkey. He has a head full of black hair and little fuzz patches on his back. He also likes to make little monkey noises. He is the sweetest little thing...well...unless he doesn't get fed right this instant, then he gets REAAAALLY cranky.

So, long story short, I came home yesterday from the hospital and now we are all adjusting to life at home. 

Every inch of my body hurts and I keep having crying fits out of frustration and hormonal changes. I look like I have a beer gut (which pushing on my stomach now freaks me out, it's SO smushy). I haven't slept a full night since, well, before Wednesday, and now I have a sweet, but cranky little one to take care of. Once I get one crisis solved, another one rears its ugly head.

Right now we are working on breast feeding and it's been a bit of a challenge. 

My biggest adventure ever has just begun. 

Excuse Me????

So, I'm over this now, but I went shopping with my mom today at the mall. This is one of the few times that I have actually felt like I could do a shopping day in a long time. 

We were in the shoe section at Dillard's, and I was sitting down for a rest while my mom tried on some heels. 

An older woman came up to me and said, "Smile honey it's not that bad!" I smiled at her. She then asked, "When are you due?" I replied, "Oh, next week." to which she said, "Well! You sure do look like it!" She then proceed to laugh and say, "You look soooo miserable." 

I was about to punch her. Then, she adds to my irritation by saying that I looked so sad and that she was just trying to cheer me up! 

Cheer me up?  You think cheering up a 9 months pregnant person by commenting on how miserable and pregnant they look is going to get the job done? 

Mom and I then went to the Coach store to look around. All of the ladies that greeted us could not take their eyes off my belly. One girl even had a slightly confused look on her face. 

Have you never seen a pregnant woman before? Maybe it was because I wasn't wearing my wedding ring. They probably thought I was some irresponsible teen that got knocked up and was having to be taken care of by mommy. Well newsflash folks, one day when you are pregnant in the middle of August and are swollen and puffy, you won't feel like wearing much jewelry either. And even if you felt like it, sometimes you just can't because, well, it doesn't fit. 

Not only that, but a woman in the Coach store thought that upon my answering her question of when I was due would be a perfect invitation to launch into a tangent about her daughter and how OH SO BIG she got when she was pregnant, and now just one month after having the baby this woman told her daughter to get a personal trainer because she has no "motivation" to get skinny again. Like no motivation to do anything after pushing a watermelon through a mouse hole is a bad thing. 

If I were to see a slightly uncomfortable pregnant woman in a store, I would not go up to her and make such comments or gestures. I would ask when is she due and wish her luck, but that's it. Plain and simple, keep my mouth shut. 

I really don't understand what goes through people's head's sometimes.  Pregnancy is a naturally occurring thing, and I don't think it is anyone's business to pass judgement or make comments that, although the giver may think are innocuous, can be very hurtful to a pregnant woman. I am tired, in pain, hormonal, and I just saw my backend in a dressing room for the first time in 8 months and wanted to bawl my eyes out. I don't want to be reminded of all of this by your inane comments, random stranger. 

We all need to be a little more sensitive to the condition of others.  

whew....ok....rant over...

How fast can 14 days go?

In two weeks, my baby will be here. My doctor seems to think less than that. These next two weeks are going to be the toughest two weeks of my pre-mommy existence. 

I'll have to let go of the selfish me. The immediate gratification me. Everything in life as I know it will change. 

I have to now morph into a mommy role and show someone else how to become his own person, to guide him through life and hope that he makes good decisions for himself.

This seems very daunting for me considering that I am just now becoming comfortable with myself. It has taken me a long time, but I have finally accepted who I am. How can I ensure that I will be successful with my son? 

While I am soooo extremely excited to meet my little one, there are still so many insecurities of if I am capable and competent enough. I know new moms struggle with this all of the time and succeed, but when you have to face that fear for yourself, it is overwhelming and you feel like you will never climb the mountain and get to the other side. 

I compare parenthood to going back to school after summer vacation. You would have a carefree summer that seemed to never end. No responsibilities. All you had to do every morning was just get up and play. Then as the school year drew near, you became apprehensive and scared. As the days crept closer, the impending task at hand frightened you more to where you couldn't sleep. 

I would often stay up late during the last few nights before school, mulling over so many things in my head. Will I know where to go? Will my teacher be nice? Will people like me? These questions drove me crazy. 

Finally, the first day of school. I would awake usually teary-eyed with a lump in my throat. Here it is. The big day. No turning back. I feared the worst, expecting to be picked on, lost and alone. 

Eventually, my worries were eased and I fell into a routine. I found a few friends and my biggest fears were never realized. The school year drug on and I learned new things and grew as a person. 

I can only hope the fears I have now will in retrospect be unfounded, and I will find my way as a mom.

14 days.....