On the Fist Week of Motherhood

Before I can say anything else, I just have to say, in a tone of utmost wonder I am a mother.

This week has been one of the most amazing weeks of my life. And as a capstone, My baby girl, the most beautiful baby you have ever seen, finished her very first bath... by pooping in her hoodie towel. Okay, maybe not finished, because she had to get back into the bath.

Sleep is a luxury, one that I treasure and don't get anywhere near enough of, but at the same time, there are small joys in the lack of sleep, like a head totally picked up so that a very small face can peer at you in the dark, that are unmatched in my dreams.

Niko was born last Friday, at 10:44 pm. She weighed 8 lbs 2oz, was 20.5 inches long, and had a head circumference of 13.5. for tho9se who care about other details, her apgar scores were 8 and 9 – both knocked down for color. The cord wasn't wrapped around her neck, just over her shoulder and around the rest of her like a boa constrictor. He first mother was a champion. She was induced first thing in the morning, but things didn't move very quickly until they broke her bag of waters at about 6 pm – after her epidural. When it came to pushing, it was all over in one contraction. So – Our daughter was born with a beautiful round head, instead of the common cone-head.

We stayed in the Hospital until late Sunday morning, long enough to avoid worst of the Bloomsday madness downtown. Once we got home, we all got settled in. First Mom was staying with us until we got her milk supply established, because she's pumping and providing breast milk to make up for my very limited production, so we had a room for her, and for her youngest son, so that she could cuddle her baby while she was here. She stayed until Thursday afternoon. In most ways it was great, but I wasn't prepared for the bustle of a bored thr4ee-year-old in my house, and sleeping during the day was just not possible.

Other things we did this week:

• On Monday, we went to court with first Mom while she relinquished their rights to Niko. When she came out of the courtroom I could tell that it was hard for her, but all she did was give me a great big hug, and tell me “She's yours now.”
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  On Tuesday, we saw the pediatrician, and the lactation consultant for the first time. Both appointments went well, but We learned that I am not all that great at getting Niko to latch correctly, and it was affecting my minimal supply in a negative manner. (I was an excellent student at the brain based stuff – but sports and coordination we not really my forte, and correct latching should be an Olympic sport.) Also – My sister and brother in law came over to visit.
• Wednesday, We didn't do much. My Mom came to visit on her way home from work. Just a lot of practicing and trying to make breastfeeding work better. Plus we were on an every 2 Hour schedule. (from start to start. Wake, feed, supplement, pump, sleep in whatever time was left) The while first family came over for dinner.
• Thursday, First mom went home in the early afternoon. I lent her one of my hospital grade rental pumps to use, instead of a manual pump. Hopefully it works better for her, and helps her out when she goes back to work. Thursday Night the whole family came back – So the dads could talk about one of their hobbies. Honestly – I just wanted to sleep.
• Friday, back to the lactation consultant. I'm still only makking about ½ an ounce of milk per feeding, but – I no longer have to pump in the middle of the night, and I have learned how to use the lact-aid, so w can breastfeed and supplement at the same time, and it should help my supply more than the breast pump did. My best friend and her finacee came over for our normal friday get-together, and he made us dinner. I love them!
  (...pause to feed the baby, and maybe run errands)

Note – that pause lasted 4 days. So, I figured that I had better post this while I have a moment.

on Sleep

I know I should be working on making sure that I am as well rested as I can be,  after all - I have the luxury (if you want to call it that) if not having to fight my pregnant body to be able to sleep.  And I feel like in some ways, I'm doing pretty well.  I'm certainly waking up better in the morning, even before I drink one of my two now-ritual daily cups of coffee.  But sleep is an elusive beast, never fully tamed, escaping the bars of it's cage and running far away.  Which is to say that I feel like I am having pregnancy dreams.  Or at least dreams that are trying to work out all of those things that are stressing me out.  Our unfinished bedroom/nursery, the phone call I need to make again to the daycare, figuring out how our finances will really work, and realizing that I can really only take 6 weeks off of work, because I can only eat about 2 weeks of unpaid time, and even that is going to be very hard, and finally - our lack of baby stuff.

We have:

• A convertible Carseat
• A hand-me-down pack in play (I like hand-me-downs)
• Two Onesies
• One Bib
• One bag of swag from the midwife (3 bottles of liquid formula)
• a Secretary desk I think I can use as a dresser/changing table

We are:  63 days from her expected due date, and I'm starting to feel very unprepared.  

But nothing compares to the dreams, the ones that highlight my every anxiety.  A couple of times now they've been about breastfeeding, and I wasn't making milk, and Jakobe kept feeding her fruit and not waking me up to feed her.  And - She was very irritated about the whole thing and told me all about it, whilst rearing up and trying to attach to my nipple like a cobra about to strike!  Yeah, fun.

Anyway, I assume that all of this is a good thing, and am happy to say that we have a wall put up in the soon to be Master & Nursery.  This weekend we need to texture, and try and move the guest furniture up to the "man cave" so that it can be stored there while the window goes in.  That and I want to have a date with my husband.  It'll all fit somehow.

Look at our new Wall:

6dp5dt - I can still find my marbles

If I look hard enough anyway.  I'm trying to stay positive, but you know how it goes, sometimes you just have those moments of doubt.  Those moments where you're sure that like everything else before now you're going to get dumped flat on my face.  In any case, I've been keeping busy, and trying not to get too worked up.  I've done a lot of reading, and playing of video games.  Last night I took my best friend out to dinner and shopping for chocolate and kitchen implements (I'm now the proud owner of an 11" tart pan with a removable bottom.

Symptoms (that may or may not be all in my head):

• Cramping - Not in my head, I've been cramping since Thursday.
• Sore boobs (over the weekend.)  Then they got better :(
• Jakobe said that my boobs were bigger, but I couldn't see/feel a difference.
• Tired - But that was just yesterday and might be meaningless, I was falling asleep at dinner at about 7:30 last night.
•  Increased Heart rate: 90bpm while lying in bed, 103 BPM while sitting at my desk (and I know that's really high even for my sedentary fat ass.)

I feel like I'm just picking up on little things that don't have any meaning, and I'm worried becasue my breasts stopped being sore, Like maybe embry started and then couldn't keep going. 

I could POAS today, or tomorrow or even Thursday, but I don't want to know.  Okay I do want to know, but If it's negative I would like to go on thinking I'm pregnant for as long as possible.  I did have my progesterone test done yesterday, and it came back just fine at 21.7.

In the meanwhile we have a plan for my not drinking on Thanksgiving.  I'm buying myself some sparkling cider, and Jakobe is going to drink.  I'm the Designated Driver this time.  Honestly - I don't think it's going to work.  But it's a plan anyway.  I just don't think I want to be talking about it with all the aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, Etc.  

I just have to make it until Friday.

Day 10 - Are we there yet?

Say hello to the Stay Puft Marshmallow man.  Or at least, that's how I feel.  Tonight is not trigger time, and I get to go back in in the morning.  Dr says that He wanted to let me go one more day.  I mind, and I don't - they counted 16 follies this morning. Some still to small, and some the right size.

Mostly I'm starting to feel like I might explode.  My Nurse coordinator still has to be prodded every day to give me numbers - she just want to tell me what my instructions are and leave it at that.  It irritates me a little bit - and I think that my asking irritates her a little bit too, but I'd rather be informed than just in the dark and guessing.

Stats:

• E2: 3189
• Progesterone: 1.8
• Follicles: 16, ranging from 13-20ish mm
• Right: 13, 17, 18, 19, 19, 20
• Left: 13,13, 5x<15, 19, 19, 19

We're almost there.  Jakobe's work is giving him a bit of trouble, not wanting to let him have time off for retrieval, or time off for transfer.  I know that I don't technically need him then, but dammit I want him to be there.  We're making it work.  If everything works out how we are currently;y expecting, then retrieval is going to be at about the same time that the furnace guy is coming to fix the heat in our house, so Jakobe will probably be home waiting for said furnace guy, and Heather will be with me giving me a ride, etc.  Then if the furnace still isn't fixed I'll be at home, and Jakobe is headed back to work - they're short staffed for closers on Friday.  I'll let you know what we do tomorrow.

Tonight I'm going to try to go to bed early again and hopefully I can fall asleep.  I find myself very tired, but last night I laid in bed for a long time just trying to fall asleep.  I must also remember to take my vitimins and drink some water before I zonk out.  Every day it seems to be getting harder to draw my blood for labs.  Thankfully even if it's been getting harder, the lady I've worked with most days has been awesome, and I've been getting away with only about 1 stick for day.  In My book, That's a miracle.

  I managed to make it to the clinic early enough that I was on time for work this morning, but each day is kind of it's own crapshoot, so I'll have to try and repeat myself tomorrow - before I really irritate my boss.

The Night Before

I always have trouble sleeping the night before I take on a project, or do something brand new, or when I'm anticipating something.  Tonight is going to be one of those nights - tomorrow is my first appointment in our IVF cycle, so tonight - I'm going to sleep poorly.

I had a lot of comments about our meds and supplements.  Very little of what we're taking was doctor recommended, the prescription drugs, and the niacin (to help with poor cholesterol ratios...)  Other than that - it's all me - trying to control the uncontrollable.

I've been trying for an earlier bedtime, so now I'm going to go take my pile of pills, listen to my Circle+Bloom, and try to sleep.  Wish me luck, and I'll let you know what I know when I know it.
.

Ripple Effect

This post may be a little disturbing, and will certainly not be a happy one, because it’s about rape.  If you want to skip it, please do.  I won’t be bothered.

I mentioned last month, that someone close to us had been violently raped.  I still don’t intend to tell her story; it’s hers, and not mine to tell.  At the same time, I feel like I have to tell our part of the story because her assault has had a ripple effect on my (and our) life.  In order to help you understand this effect, I’m going to share a few details.  Her attacker was not a stranger, to her, or to us.  He was someone that we had shared meals with – sometimes on holidays, someone who was friends with several other people we know.  Someone that none of us would have ever expected to do something like that.  He was someone who had apparently been watching this woman with inappropriate thoughts for years, since her early teens, and he is in his mid-forties.  While he wasn't a friend of ours, I have been in his home, and have dropped children off there so that his sister could watch them.  How could I have been so blind?

After it happened, she came to stay with us for a few days, and one of the things that she needed to do was to talk about what happened, in detail.  It hurt to hear it.  It hurt to know that it was something that I couldn't undo, or fix.

Since then, I have been having nightmares.  Dreams where people I know and trust do terrible things, and I have to smile and put on a nice face and just go about my day.  I have dreamed that he invaded my home, and that no one would let me force him out, that I just had to put up with it.  In one dream, I wanted nothing more than to kill him, but I knew that I had already sent all of my guns away.  He was in my home, and eventually I broke my way through all of the people who were in my way, knocked him down and tried to strangle him… only to discover that I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Part of me feels like I shouldn’t be feeling this way.  This wasn’t something that happened to me.  But it did happen to someone I care about, and feel some level of protectiveness toward.  And, right now, it’s got me a little screwed up.

Then there’s another ripple effect.  It comes in two parts.  Jakobe and I have always struggled with a difference in our libidos.   And this has had an effect on both of us.  For weeks, the idea of having sex was something I couldn’t wrap my head around.  In addition, Jakobe has always been a little bit paranoid about rape.  Even after we were married, he wouldn’t have sex with me if I had been drinking, because I might change my mind.  We were slowly working through that (because a little bit of alcohol makes me frisky!) but this situation has brought a lot of that back to the forefront.  So, once I was ready again, he really wasn’t.  As a result – we have had very little sex, and that’s not good for us either.

I find myself wondering if this man has any idea the amount of damage that he has caused.  Not only to the woman that he raped, but also to her friends and family; the damage that he caused to the couple that were his first friends in our social circle, who introduced him to the rest of us.  Every one of these people trusted him to some extent, even if it was just the trust that someone you know could never do anything like that.  Every one of us has been betrayed.

There are things about this that aren’t quite as bad.  The criminal justice system seems to be working.  He was arrested less than two weeks after it happened, and has been in jail ever since.  He can’t make bond, and the courts won’t reduce it.  He has confessed to two of the three ways that he can be found guilty of rape, he just claims that he didn’t use violence, so I expect that there will be either a plea deal that will have him serving prison time, or that it could go to trial – at which point he would most likely be convicted.  She seems to be holding up well – she’s strong, and she’s dealing.

Abdominal pain of unknown etiology

They didn't keep me in the hospital overnight, They let me go about halfway through, not because they figured out what was wrong, but because they weren't going to figure it out, and it wasn't life threatening.  (and really - that's the only reason that I went...it presented like it might have been appendicitis, and maybe someday, when this happens it will be my appendix, just not last night.)

Anyway - I was sent home with a bunch of pain pills and an anti-spasmodic (just in case it was a GI thing) and the advice to not try and take the lowest dose of pain medicine possible.  So who knows - I thought that maybe I had developed an ovarian cyst that popped - and maybe I did, but I didn't get a pelvic or an ultrasound, so no confirmation.

My biggest problem with hydrocodone is that I can't sleep while I'm taking it.  I can kind of doze, but no actual sleep, so today might be a long day.  I won't feel too bad though - because I plan to keep up on the painkillers, and maybe see tomorrow if I don't need them.

Things will be quiet around here for the next few days - We're going camping in the Colville National Forest northeast of Kettle Falls, WA to celebrate my mom's birthday this weekend.  Aught to be fun.

Dreams

Last night, I dreamed a positive pregnancy test.  I’ve never done that before.  I just kept looking at it, disbelieving. It was kind of dark when I was looking at it, but there was very definitely a second line. 

I've been struggling all day with what else I can say about this, but I can’t even really determine how I feel about it.  I want to have hope.  I want to believe in miracles.part of me thinks that it would be the height of irony to get a completely random, unexpected BFP in the week before we see the RE.  

It's not gonna happen.  But I still want to hope.

Enforced Mini-Vacation

Near the end of last week, Jakobe told me that I needed a break.  I wasn't sleeping, I felt tired all the time, and I was too stressed out.  But, saying that he told me I needed a break is an understatement.  He told me I was going to take two days off of work, and if I didn't he was going to steal my car keys, and call in sick for me.

It was exactly what I needed.  I took Friday and Monday off, and spent the weekend, not working, not reading message boards, or email, and not blogging.  It was very good for me.

Not to say that there weren't dark moments, Like having lunch with Jakobe at his office on Friday, and the woman in the next cubicle trying to pick out baby names loud enough for us to hear. Oops.  Or Friday afternoon when I went off on a cleaning binge, and realized that my entire refrigerator  was covered with pictures of other people's babies.

But, the dark times were Friday, and by the time the actual weekend came I was able to let go.  We went for a 8 mile bike ride on Saturday, the shakedown ride for Jakobe's new bike.  It was great, and I'm glad that we didn't put it off, because the weather was no good for it on Sunday.  I actually got to read a novel this weekend as well.  I goofed off, watched TV, read, played video games, and generally just let myself relax.  I can't say that I have a whole new outlook on the world, but I feel a lot better.

Writing on the chalkboard

One of the most unfortunate things that go along with stress and depression is sleep disturbances.  I don’t want to get out of bed, and I can’t fall asleep or stay asleep.  I toss and turn from about 4 am on, and when I make it to bed at midnight, and take an hour or more to fall asleep, it doesn’t make for a restful experience.

This week has been full of both positives and negatives.  We did get a referral from Jakobe’s endocrinologist to see a urologist, and they called us to make an appointment.  But – the appointment isn’t until April 30^th.  His endocrinologist also said that given the fact that his SA was so terrible, and that his hormone levels are normal, he thinks we’ll need to go the IVF route.

I emailed my primary care doctor to let her know where things are right now, and she’ll be happy to help me find a specialist when it’s time to treat my endometriosis again.  Part of me is not happy about putting off my treatment, because it means that I get to live with the effects of endo in the meanwhile. 

Anyway, the thoughts and feelings that have been swirling through my head haven’t been helping my sleep problem.  Neither has the fact that it’s finals week, and I procrastinated writing a paper that is due today.  I crawled into bed last night after taking 2 Advil PM, and 2 melatonin.  Laying in bed and waiting to fall asleep, I started to use one of my usual make-me-fall-asleep techniques: count backwards from 1000.   Instead of just counting I pictured myself writing each number on a chalkboard followed by the phrase:  Everything will turn out as it should.  You know  - just like “I will not kick boys at recess.”  Following the same line of thought, that we can change thoughts and behavior by repeating a phrase to remind us, I’m using my mental chalkboard.  Maybe, just maybe it will cause me to feel more optimistic.  Now all I have to do is remember to do the same thing tonight.

Sleepless Night

So, last night was almost entirely sleepless...  Sasha, our dog, had gotten into and eaten an entire 2 pound bag of Hip and Joint Dog Treats.  It upset her tummy greatly, and ended in her whining nonstop all night.  After and hour or an hour and a half, I snuck out to the living room to try and sleep, because Jakobe was sleeping right through it.  Well, as soon as I left, he stopped sleeping, and was very very grumpy by 4 am.  So, I was sleeping poorly on the couch, and he was sleeping not at all in the bedroom.  At 4, I want back and cuddled Sasha so Jakobe could sleep at least until 6:30 or 7 when we had to get up.  It was better than nothing.