Parenting from Scratch

Okay, so I’m just going to clump the April 3rd pictures together. Because this is taking forever (I mean, nothing compared to the birth itself, but you’re likely getting bored with this). Plus, you’ve likely already seen all of these. AND, I want today to be all about Sadie, and how awesome she is now. In this moment.

April 3, 4:29am. Her time of birth was 3:59. Her head is wonky looking, she's got a meconium stain, and she's 8 pounds, 14 ounces of butterball goodness.

4:30am. Trevor gets to hold Sadie, before they take her to the nursery. I'm still in surgery.

11:38am. Yes, this is the first time I got to hold Sadie. I didn't get to nurse her, because her respiratory rate was too high. They brought her to me when they moved her from the term nursery to the NICU.

3:40pm. Sadie's ready to be transported to the other hospital.

9:51am. I've finally slept, and I've been able to nurse and love on my Sadie.

Wow. We are in the opposite of a sweet spot with Sadie right now. I think we’re entering the “testing the limits” phase. Not so easy. Sadie is starting to pitch mini-fits when she doesn’t get something she wants or when I have to take something away from her. I’m standing my ground, though, because I really only take/keep something from her if she truly shouldn’t have it. Yesterday, though, she started kind of hitting me when I was picking her up from daycare. I think maybe I need to put her down as soon as she starts that sort of thing up.

The other thing I’m dealing with right now is her biting me. I’m worried that my supply really has taken a dip, and I wonder if it might have been my tummy issues and getting dehydrated at the end of last week. Most of her bites come when she’s finished nursing, and I wonder if she’s biting me in part because she’s not getting as much as she wants. It was bad enough when she was biting to soothe her gums before she had her four front teeth. But now that she’s got both top and bottom teeth, it’s horribly painful when she bites me. I know some people would say I should flick her when she does it, but I just can’t. I try not to react in a startled way, because that usually just makes her laugh. Instead I just end the session, at least for a little while. But it’s not really making a difference. It’s starting to make me question my hesitancy about introducing cow’s milk in a couple of weeks (I’m hesitant about hesitating).

She sometimes also bites me on the arm or shoulder. I don’t know if it’s teething or playing or what. But it hurts like a mofo. She’s not biting Trevor, and she’s not biting her daycare friends, so I guess we should be glad for that. I don’t really like being her teether, though.

Has anybody else dealt with this? Any suggestions?

I’ve mentioned before that feeding Sadie is a heavy responsibility. And I’ve done a lot of it by following my own instincts, as well as trusting Sadie to follow hers. I think, for the most part, Sadie eats a healthy, well-balanced solid diet. As she gets closer and closer to her first birthday (less than two weeks–what the?), my milk supply is getting lower and lower, at least in terms of what I can get when I pump. I suppose this isn’t totally unexpected, but until recently I had been mostly planning on continuing to send Sadie to daycare with expressed breastmilk to drink, even after she turns 1. I hadn’t given much thought about Sadie switching to cow’s milk at that age, other than it costs money, while breastmilk is free; I drink skim milk, and so we’d have to start keeping two kinds of milk around; and I’m still sort of clinging to the making-breastmilk-keeps-the-fat-off effects of lactating (though I’m seeing a pretty significant decrease there, too!).

But when I realized this weekend that I only had three bags of frozen milk to fill in the gaps when I don’t pump enough, I was hit in the gut with repulsion at the thought of Sadie drinking the milk of another animal. Now, don’t get me wrong. I LOVE milk. I drink it at least once a day, and I can frequently be heard saying, “I’m thirsty for milk,” while eating a variety of foods (pizza, spaghetti, ice cream, tacos). Although I’m not super crazy about commercial dairy operations, I do purchase organic milk that at least claims to be sourced from small farms, and I don’t have any inherent repulsion at the thought of people drinking cow (or goat or sheep) milk. Heck, I’ve even milked a goat, home-pasteurized the milk, and had a warm glass (don’t like it once it’s chilled). And it’s not like Sadie hasn’t been enjoying dairy products. She loves yogurt, and just this past Sunday we learned that she has quite the taste for expensive, strong cheese (thank you, Kroger Sunday samples). But I’m somehow really turned off when I think about Sadie actually drinking milk.

One of my sisters is The Queen of Pumping (and I do mean this in the most loving, impressed way), and she does not have the “and when she got there, the cupboards were bare” problem where frozen milk is concerned. In discussing my supply change and hesitancy to send Sadie off to daycare with a sippy cup of cow’s milk, she kindly offered to pass along some of her frozen supply. I’m not sure about the rest of our family, but I think I’m correct in saying that she and I, at least, view breastmilk as liquid gold. So this is a testament of love, in my eyes. And I will likely take her up on it, at least for a while. Because, although her breastmilk is not the same as mine, the thought of Sadie drinking her milk doesn’t wig me out like Sadie drinking cow’s (or goat’s or sheep’s) milk.

The thing is, though, this isn’t a sustainable solution. There are certainly limits to how much she can give me. Yes, she has much to give (I’d love to tell you how much, but I want to respect her privacy here, or at least what’s left now that I’ve named her The Queen of Pumping). But she has her own baby who will one day nurse less and less, like Sadie has. And although she may not have the same hesitations about cow’s milk that I seem to be having, I know she’d like her baby to be able to drink breastmilk as long as is reasonable.

So where does that leave me? Of course, I’ve “googled it,” but there is SO MUCH conflicting information. Soy milk? Rice milk? Oat milk? Almond milk? Concerns: providing Sadie with enough calcium, vitamins, protein and fat. Curiosities: If Sadie continues to nurse past one year (which I believe she’ll still do, primarily at night), and her solid food diet is diverse and healthy, would she be alright without any of these “substitutes”? Could I send her to daycare with sippy cups of water? Are there special baby nutritionists?

I suspect I’ll get over myself and this milk issue before too long. I mean, I LOVE milk. So who am I to deny Sadie one of my all-time favorite beverages? But this is what’s rattling around in my head these past few days. Envious, aren’t you?

Obviously. So, why am I sitting in the Mother’s Room, way more exposed than usual (not that there’s anybody to see me)? Because today was The Very Important Day. Today was Interview Day! In the space of a few hours I interviewed for, was offered, and accepted a full time position as a writer for Heifer International. I’ve been the temp in this position since last October. But now I’ll get a salary! And health insurance! And paid vacation!

I wasn’t nervous about the interview at all, but I am relieved that it’s over. My start date is next Thursday, so I’m going to take M-W to get some random, personal stuff sorted out–like the fact that Sadie has two Social Security Numbers. And also maybe to sleep.

A good day all around!

Ready for the Tour, guys!

It’s so hard to believe she’ll be a year old soon. I was with a gaggle of women last night–mostly family, mostly mothers of varying ages. One of  my sister’s friends has a son just shy of a month younger than Sadie, and she was asking our older sister about how she weaned her first son. Turns out, at 20 months during a bout of one illness or another, he just decided “yuck,” and that was that. Now, I’ve been planning on letting Sadie nurse as long as she wants, but I’ve kind of figured that she’d nurse a good long time. As she gets older and more mobile and active, I’m starting to think (okay, worry) that she’s going to wean herself before too much longer. She definitely still wants to nurse, but it’s much less frequent. And it has to be on her terms. Don’t get me wrong–I’ve never MADE her nurse or anything (not sure that would even be possible), but she’s almost always gone along with any nursing session if I’ve initiated it. But more and more we’re having times when I think it would be a good time to nurse (say, before we get in the car to leave a social gathering), and she has other plans.

I don’t think all hope is lost. She still makes it pretty darn clear when she wants to nurse. But it’ll be sad when those times are fewer and farther between. And then gone.

I’m sorry if it seems like this blog has taken a turn for the dismal. I promise, there’ll be more cheery posts and pictures of Sadie in the near future. It’s just that I’m in a bit of a funk lately. Sadie’s sleep had gotten pretty nice–she was giving us a solid 4 (sometimes 5 or even 6) hour stretch and only waking up to nurse twice before morning (usually waking up a third time in between those two, but being easily settled without nursing). Then, we had a couple of really rough nights. I think it’s a gas issue, but I don’t really know how to tell for sure. The past few nights we’ve given her gripe water at her “bedtime” nursing, and it’s helped some. But she’s back to waking up three times a night–effectively every two hours–wanting to nurse. Part of me wonders if she’s waking up more because she’s in the bassinet, but it actually seems like she falls back to sleep more easily in the bassinet than she does in our bed, which is why I’ve been putting her in there after nursing her. Well, that, and I also sleep a bit better without her in bed (there, I said it).

Her naps during the day are getting out of whack, too. It seems like she has a hard time sleeping longer than 45 minutes at a time (we’re going on 58 minutes now, and I’m probably pushing my luck). Just last week, though, she could almost always be counted on to go down for two two-hour naps a day. I think this might have to do with change, too. She’s getting close to being too big for the bassinet, so I’ve been putting her down for naps in the crib during the day. That way, when she really can’t sleep in the bassinet at night, it won’t freak her out to be put down in the crib at night. Not sure if it’ll work, but it makes sense to me.

I really wanted co-sleeping to work out for us. I never would have thought that I’d be the problem. I figured it would be Trevor, because of being nervous with her there or something. I’m a much pickier sleeper than I knew, and I can’t seem to find a comfortable position to sleep in with Sadie in the bed. I think it might be different if we had a bigger bed, but our bedroom simply isn’t big enough for a bigger bed. When we do co-sleep, I seem to get such poor sleep that I get absurdly frustrated when she wakes up to nurse.

The other thing I’m struggling with is the nursing itself. I sooo wanted to looove breastfeeding. It’s not that I hate it, and I’m DEFINITELY sticking with it, it’s just that it’s STILL not the blissfully pleasant experience I expected it to be. Of course, I was mentally prepared for their to be rough times, but I figured things would get nicer as we got better at it. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Maybe we don’t have the latching thing down as well as I think we do. Maybe it’s because of her tongue-tie (though I took her to a doctor about it yesterday and was told it’s not bad enough to clip it presently). Maybe it’s the forceful let-down. All I know is that there is generally frustration on both ends of the deal, and that makes me so sad. As in lump in throat, tearing up right now. And it doesn’t help that she’s lately been nursing what seems like all the freaking time. Maybe my supply is decreasing (though I can’t imagine why it would), so she’s not getting enough at each feeding, so she has to feed more frequently. I don’t really know how to tell…

These are just the two things I’d really counted on being some of my favorite parts of mothering her. It’s so disappointing to have it be otherwise. To keep this post from being utterly dismal, some of my favorite parts are: how alert Sadie is, how engaged she is, how much she’s “talking” to us, how delighted she is at things, bath time, and carrying her in the sling.

In other news, I received my official letter stating that I am now a Licensed Master Social Worker. Pretty exciting stuff. And I’m doing my best to find a job. Do you know of any? In case I haven’t already told you this, I’m looking for a part-time job that will pay enough for me to stay home some with Sadie. I’d take a social work job, I’d take a writing gig, I’d really do just about anything. There are some jobs I’m applying for, but I’ve never ever gotten a job without having some sort of inside connection (even a summer job at American Eagle).

And here are some random pictures of our furry companions, to brighten my mood:

It actually looked like a kitty crime scene when I walked into Sadie's room.

Willow with her hilarious summer cut. She looks like a bat-lamb.

Nari after being Furminated. And she's STILL shedding a ton!