It Finally Happened

The thing that inevitably happens when one has a new baby...

I...

am...

so...

unbelievably...

tired!

So far in our little journey together I have been really lucky in handling the newborn/lack of sleep thing.  The Girl has been really good at waking up once or twice a night, but eating rather quickly, and then going right back to sleep.

Yeah, that isn't so much happening anymore.

Today she is four weeks old (holy crap!!) and she has officially "woken up."  She has much longer awake periods of time and with that comes the infamous "fussy time."  I feel bad for her when it happens.  She clearly gets tummy aches and will be sound asleep and will just jump up with a start and begin screaming.  She grunts and groans and pushes and her little face gets all red and, when successful, she blows out a huge fart or poop.  But more times than not, she works and works at it, but you can tell that she just isn't getting any relief.

This happens for her now on a nightly basis between like 9:00pm and midnight.  During the day she seems to be fine.  And truthfully, that is a pretty convenient time for it to happen.  The Boy is in bed and I have the time to be able to devote to just rocking her and changing positions and trying to make her comfortable.  Any other time of day and I would be busy dealing with The Boy and/or dinner or something else.  So if she has to have a fussy time, I am happy this is the time of day that it hits.

The one thing that seems to work is Gripe Water.  But here's the catch...  Gripe Water by itself tastes like black licorice.  For a baby that has had nothing in her little mouth except for breast milk, it is a far cry from something she considers tasty.  So if I try and use the dropper and give it to her directly she gags and spits and chokes and almost all of it ends up coming back out.  So the best way to give it to her is mixed with breast milk.  I used Gripe Water with The Boy, but he was getting bottles.  So I just mixed it in and we were good to go.  Well it isn't that easy with The Girl.  She is exclusively breast fed, and although she does get an occasional bottle every couple of days (to ensure she will take one when/if I have to go back to work), she will absolutely NOT take one from me.

So IF my mother (or anyone else actually) is around, we are cool.  I just pump a little breast milk and mix it in with the Gripe Water and have someone give it to her in a bottle.  Then she is usually cool.  BUT!  When there is no one around but me?  If I try and give her a bottle she acts like I am shoving a flaming hot poker stick into her mouth.  How dare I try and torture her like that?  Don't I understand that I am boob lady and only boob lady?  So getting her to actually TAKE the Gripe Water is rough.

Saturday night I was home alone all night.  So getting her to take her Gripe Water was beyond hard.  She cried from 9:30 pm until almost midnight.  Finally around 11:30pm I used a dropper to give her the mixture of breast milk and Gripe Water.  It took a full half an hour to get it into her but I finally did.  And once I did, she finally went to sleep.  So she fell asleep at like 12:30am, and then was up to eat at 4:00am and was fussy and didn't fall back asleep until 5:15am.  Then The Boy got up at 6:30am.  I was up with him for around a half an hour until I put a movie on for him and tried to go back to sleep.  Then The Girl was up again around 8:00am.  Then we were up for the day.  And no nap for me yesterday.  When The Boy was napping, The Girl needed to eat and was fussy and just wouldn't let me sleep.  Sigh...

Then last night my cousin came into town (she is still doing work for me on Mondays and Tuesdays) so I thought I was in the clear.  She would be able to give her her bottle.  And she did!  The Girl got fussy early.  So she got a bottle around 8:00pm and had a relatively decent evening and night.  We all went to bed after the Survivor Finale at around 11:30pm.  Well of course at that time The Girl decided that she was going to have a tummy ache and started bitching and moaning.  Around 12:30am it was clear she needed another dose of Gripe Water.  But of course by this time my cousin is nicely tucked away in bed so she wasn't there to give her the bottle.  So I tried everything in the book to calm her down.  Finally around 1:00am I went out to mix up another concoction of Gripe and milk while holding her and bouncing her etc...  By the time I got it ready and headed back to my room with the dropper I realized she had passed out on my shoulder.  That was around 1:30am.  So I put her down and went to sleep.  Then she was up from 4:00am until around 4:45am.  Then she got up again at 6:30am and ate for about 5 minutes and passed back out.  At this point my boobs felt like they were going to explode so I came out and pumped for about 10 minutes (and got 4 ounces!!) and went back to bed.  The Boy got up at 7:00am and then The Girl woke up again at 7:30am (what?  That whole 5 minute feeding an hour ago didn't hold you?) and ate again.

All of this is to illustrate that I am beyond tired.  I have to be up now and get The Boy off to school.  I also have to get work done during the day today.  And also feed Fussy McFussy pants at her every whim.  And if there is a God...there will be a nap in my near future...because I am so tired I might die...

Here's a shot of the princess getting her beauty sleep while sitting with my mom.  Note:  She will pretty much always sleep when sleeping ON another human being.  So helpful...

Random Tidbits...

The Girl and I spent quality time together every three hours while breast feeding.  I should take this time out to note that I love breast feeding.  I never thought you would hear me say that.  I didn't breast feed The Boy and I never felt like I was missing anything.  I would marvel at all of those women out there that beat themselves up because for some reason breast feeding didn't work for them or their child.  My theory going into having this baby was that I was going to give it a shot but if it didn't work, I wasn't going to sweat it.  I would pump like I did with The Boy.  But now that I am doing it, I have to say that I can't believe that I pumped exclusively for 5 months with The Boy.  I was tied to my house and that damn pump.  Now we just head on out and live life and if I need to feed the baby, I stop somewhere and feed her.  I am not packing the diaper bag with frozen bags of milk, or with 3 different bottles and all the stuff that goes along with it.  "Have boob, will travel."  I love it.  And I absolutely love looking down at that little face eating and see the contentment she has when she has a full belly.  It really has been a magical experience and for anyone out there pregnant, my advice would be to make a really strong effort to make it work.  It really can be as great as all those people say it is.

During the day while The Boy is at school I am trying to get some work done at home.  It makes me bitter to even have to write that.  My baby is only three weeks old.  I should NOT have to be thinking about work at this point.  But since my end of pregnancy required that I stop working two months before giving birth, my finances dictate that I have to work.  It makes me cry to feed my daughter and then put her right back down in her bassinet and go back to my computer.  It makes me feel horrible.  But I am trying to find a balance that works for both of us.  I am by no means working full time, in fact I am lucky if I am able to bill 3 hours during the day, but at least it is something.

The Girl still is sleeping exclusively in her bassinet.  I wheel it around the house with me wherever I am.  I love it.  In fact it was only yesterday that I even put her in her crib for the first time.  I bought her a mobile because she is starting to look at things and I had to install it in her crib.  So I put her in there while I was working on it.  I laughed when I realized that it was the first time she was in there and she is over three weeks old.  Of course I snapped a picture for you all...

Don't you just love the polka dots?  She had crapped through her first two outfits and it was kinda hot so I just threw her in a onesie.  I didn't realize she would match her crib, but she did.  Speaking of crapping, my dainty little flower of a daughter knows how to CRAP!  Man, does she ever.  She grunts like a sailor and then lets these BLASTS out of her delicate little self that would make a grown man proud.  She literally craps out of at least two outfits a day.  I assume it means her plumbing is all working well and I am very proud.  :)

Let me say a little bit about single parenting at this point.  My situation is different because when I did this last time, I had a partner.  But, that partner wasn't necessarily someone who made the situation a lot easier for me.  So if I am being totally honest, it really is easier this time around doing it by myself.  The only place where I feel the hit of being a single parent right now is financially.  That sucks.  Having a mortgage and all the bills and no one to help out makes it hard.  But other than that?  Not a problem.  Of course I still have my mother helping out and she does as much, if not more, than I spouse would.  So I don't really have a clear picture of how hard it will be.  Right now, we are doing well.

When I started this post I had several little things I wanted to talk about, but as usual, I feel like this post is coming out garbled and lame.  So I will cut it short.  One of these days I will feel like I can compose a post that is meaningful and readable again.  I look forward to those days.  Until then, I'll just throw a couple more pictures your way and call it a day.

Here is The Girl passed out cold after breast feeding.  She falls asleep in the position that she falls off the boob.  I love how she is using her little hand to prop herself up in this one.
And just so that it doesn't seem like I have forgotten about my first born.  Here is a picture of him with a "pop" that his Mom brought him back from Disneyland.  I have a post brewing in my head about an update solely focused on him.  I want to update you all about the stuttering (still there) and how he is coping with all the changes that are going on around him.  But that post deserves to be well written and well thought out.  And clearly I can't seem to manage that right now.  So it will come sometime soon.  In the meantime all you need to know is that he is still here, he is still the most fantastic kid on the planet and he is still the major love of my life.  I adore this little dude, even though he isn't getting as much "air time" as his sister.

Our Version of Mother's Day

When you're a single Mother and your kids are under the age of 4, there isn't much pomp and circumstance around Mother's Day.  I mean it isn't like there is someone else here to "take over" so I can sleep in, or bring me breakfast in bed or anything.  So the day really focuses on the joy that I get out of simply being a mother to these two amazing kids.  And that is what my day was about yesterday.

Our first stop was to celebrate with the step mother, who lost her son a year ago this last December, so we spent the day with her to try and help her through the day.  The Boy usually LOVES to play with his cousins but was uncharacteristically glued to my legs the entire time.  I think he is reacting to the changes that have been going on.  Yes, he loves his little sister, but the last few months have made HUGE changes to his life.  The biggest has been that his Gigi (my mother) basically moved in to his house and spent all of her time focusing on him and making sure that he was taken care of.  Gigi went back home on Thursday of last week, so we have been on our own all weekend long.  For The Boy, the biggest change during this entire process was NOT the birth of his sister.  It was when my mom left and went home.  So I think he was feeling a little funky about that and therefore was overly clingy to me.  Poor sweet heart.  If I could wipe away all the confusion and changes that came along with this process I would.  But I can't.  So I spend some extra time with him and give him some extra love and we soldier on.  And still, it was a little bit sweet to have my first baby needing me so much on Mother's day.

After that stop I decided that The Boy needed a "Gigi fix" so we headed over to my mom's house to have lunch.  He immediately became his old self once he spent some time with her so that made me feel better.  He ended up staying with her at her house because he was "helping" Poppy plant the flowers and busy getting his outfit sopping wet in their water fountains.  I took The Girl home and tried to clean up the house that I had left in shambles in my attempts to get out of the house on time earlier in the day.

Once The Boy returned from my mom's it was time for nap time for everyone.  He went to sleep, and I put The Girl on a blanket on my bed and fell asleep with her little hand holding onto my finger.  I heard her squeaking and making her baby noises during our entire nap together.  So unbelievably sweet.  Once she woke up and needed to eat I decided to try and put together MY present for MY wonderful mother.  She wanted a picture of my two kids together.  So I put a white blanket over a chair and her bouncy seat and sat The Girl down and started snapping pictures.  She was actually awake and had her eyes open at the time so I had to take advantage of it.  Babies make hysterical faces.  I took over 60 pictures in all and they all pretty much make me laugh, although only about 20 of them would be at all interesting for anyone besides myself to look at.  In the middle of all of that, The Boy woke up from HIS nap and I tried to bribe him into taking some cute looking pictures with his sister.  He allowed it for a very short period of time and then needed (his words, not mine) to go and play with his helicopters.  And so he did.  Here is one of the many shots I took of The Girl yesterday, all fancy in her Mother's Day little dress...

She looks like she is spying on you, doesn't she?  Like nothing is going to get by this girl!  Don't try and sneak in anything!  She cracks me up.  I could put like 15 more pictures of funny faces up of her, but I will spare you all.  Needless to say, baby faces are the best!  

Here is one of the shots of the two of them.  Those pictures were the hardest to actually accomplish.  If The Boy was looking, then The Girl was about to fall over in the chair.  If The Boy was actually smiling, you could bet it was his "fake smile" and therefore looked like he was going to plot her murder.  Now I know why I spend so much money letting the professionals make the pictures pretty...  I am not so good at it.  Here is an example of my attempts:
After we finished "shooting" the pictures, I had to load them on the computer, and try and edit them into something that would pass as a decent picture.  Then I had to print a bunch out for my mom to put in her card.  Then I had to take a moment and write something meaningful and loving inside her card, and of course then I had to factor in time to cry.  Cause a girl doesn't get enough time to cry in a day.  After that I realized that it was late and perhaps The Boy might need to eat.  

Upon confirming with him that, yes, he did think eating dinner would be a good idea, I had to prepare such dinner for him (thank God for frozen spaghetti meals).  Of course when his dinner was ready and the table had been set for him, his sister started screaming because, of course, it was time for her to eat as well.  Crap.  How the hell am I supposed to manage this whole two kid thing?  So I put The Boy into his seat at the dinner table.  Then I used the fancy new pillow that my sister had loaned me earlier in the day and actually sat at the dinner table with The Boy and breast fed The Girl while he ate.  I am rock star, multi-tasking Mommy!  As I was sitting there smug with my accomplishments, I heard my own stomach growl and realized that I hadn't eaten since brunch at my sister's house earlier in the day.  Shit.  Who has time to eat?

While I was contemplating this concept there was a knock on the door and my mom, my step dad and my grandmother came in.  They had all been out to a nice "adult" evening out for Mother's day.  They were stopping by after dinner for their kid fix.  I gave my mom her card with the pictures, which she LOVED (pretty easy to please a grandmother), handed the baby off to my grandmother, and sat back and thought about being a mother.  

It is easily the most exhausting thing I have ever taken on in my entire life.  But it is also by FAR the most amazing and rewarding and magnificent thing I have ever done.  And in honor of all the glory that is being a mother, I am breaking my rule of not putting my own picture on my  blog.  Just to illustrate the awesomeness of motherhood and how in MY family, the love of being a mother has been passed on for generations and generations, I present to you a picture of my family.  Here is four generations of mothers (provided The Girl eventually grows up to be a Mommy herself).  My fabulous 86 year old grandmother, my (number left out at request) mother, my 34 year old self and my two kids.  The Boy and The Girl.  The reason that I get out of bed each and every day and the true loves of my life.  Happy Mother's Day!

Some Firsts

Today my mom and I took the kids (hee hee, I have kidS!  As in plural!) to the Nordstrom Cafe for lunch and for a little shopping.  As we were waiting in line for our food a nice couple came up to me and commented on the baby and asked how old she was etc.  They then looked over to The Boy and commented on his hair (that happens ALL the time) and asked who had the red hair in the family (I sometimes loathe this question because, YES damnit, I DID have red hair until I was about 6 years old before it turned brown.  But his donor Daddy had red hair until he was almost 30.  But people look at me and immediately assume the Daddy is where his hair comes from.  Anyway, I digressed...)

But the part that made me stop was their comment as they were walking away.  They smiled at me and said, "You have beautiful children.  Happy Mother's Day."

Children.

As in I have two of them.

And just in case you were worried that all of my hormones had passed...yes, I cried.

It was a small comment, but one that means so much.  I have always wanted "children."  Not just a child.  I was greedy enough to want the "children."  And when I was blessed enough to get The Boy I always knew I wanted him to have a sibling.  And then when things fell apart with The Ex...I just didn't know if I would ever get to see that dream become a reality.  And even after I decided I wanted to go ahead with trying to have another child, I had to find a donor, and make an agreement with him, then actually achieve pregnancy, and then actually live through a pregnancy (not as easy as it seems...), well sometimes it just seemed like it would never happen.  And it did.  I made it.  And my two beautiful children have made it.  They are here and I can't believe how lucky I am to have them both.  It was a great moment to have a stranger confirm my dreams.

The other first for today was that I breast fed out in public.  When The Boy was little, I pumped but only fed him bottles.  So when he was first born I was never "allowed" to be away from my house (and therefore my pump) for more than 3 hours.  This meant that I actually only ever got 2 hours to go anywhere.  I remember being frustrated that I could never do lunch and shop, or do anything that took too long because I needed to get home to pump.

Today I fed The Girl a "topper" off of one boob at about 10:30am.  The Boy had an 11:00am haircut and we left for that at 10:45am.  After his haircut we went straight to Nordstrom and had lunch.  After lunch The Girl was hungry so I went into the fancy "mom room" in the ladies restroom and sat on a swanky chair and fed her.  It was about 12:45pm.  She ate for like 20 minutes (during which my mom took The Boy to the candy store and he got a piece of chocolate), and then we headed out.  We proceeded to continue shopping and buy The Boy some new shoes and me a cute new shirt and finally headed home after that.  We got home at around 2:30pm.  That means I was out of the house from 10:45am until 2:30pm.  That would NEVER have happened with The Boy when I was pumping.  And it was just SO nice to be able to go about my day and stop and give The Girl some boob when needed and keep going.  We came home and all three of us took a nap.  We got up at around 4:00pm when The Girl needed to eat again.  How fabulous is that?

And finally...will my baby's cord EVER fall off?  Dear God, this thing is HUGE and I swear it is going to stay on until she is 3.  Because of that she hasn't had a full on bath yet.  I wipe her down with a wash cloth and wash her hair every third day or so, but she hasn't yet had a real bath.  And it is a shame.  Her cute baby hair looks SO much different when it is clean.  And even after I wash it, it gets greasy SO fast.  Her hair is actually a blondish color, although it looks much darker when it isn't "just out of the bath" clean.  Behold some examples.  Here is her hair on a "normal" day, just chillin'.  Looks pretty dark:

And here it is right after a bath.  Behold the blond cuteness:
She actually has a great head of hair right now.  I am not sure if she will lose it or not, but right now she has quite a bit of it, and like I said, when it is clean, it sure is cute.  It is not the bright red color of her brother's hair (different donor Daddy's), but there is some strawberry blond in there.  It will be interesting to see how it ends up.
Hope all of you Mother's out there have a fabulous Mother's Day.  I will try and do a post on that soon.  But not sure if I should post about MY fabulous mother, or if I should post about being a new-ish mom to my new little girl and my fabulous boy.  We will see where the mood takes me.  :)

My Little Piggy

When The Girl was born she weighed 7 pounds 12 ounces.  Not too shabby for my little 5 foot 3 inch body.  Not to mention that we were worried she would come too early and be too small.  So I was thrilled when I heard how "chubby" she was.

Then while at the hospital, I didn't supplement her because I was breast feeding so for the first three days of her life she only got my colostrum.  Her pediatrician said he wouldn't be worried as long as she didn't lose more than 10% of her body weight.  Well on the day that we were scheduled to go home from the hospital he was worried.  She had lost a full pound.  I was told that I needed to supplement her after each feeding with at least an ounce of formula (or breast milk).  My milk had finally come in that day (I gave birth on a Monday, and my milk arrived on Thursday morning) so I decided when I got home from the hospital I would pump and have the "toppers" be breast milk as well.  He also wanted to see her back at his office for a weight check in a few days.

So we got home on Thursday the 23rd of April and took her back to the ped's office on Saturday the 25th of April.  When she had left the hospital she was down to 6 pounds, 12 ounces.  That first weigh in on Saturday she was back up to 7 pounds 5 ounces.  A decent gain, but obviously not back up to her birth weight.

Then we went in for her one week appointment on Monday April 27th and she had gained a little more and was back up to 7 pounds 8 ounces.  The doctor was not concerned at all anymore and said I could stop with the "toppers" and just let her eat.  I also didn't have to wake her up at night every 2 to 3 hours.  I could let her go up to 4 hours at night if she wanted.  He said that they wanted to see them back up to their birth weight by 2 weeks old and he was sure she would get there based on the last few checks.  But he told me if I wanted to make sure that I could bring her in anytime during the lunch hour for a weight check.  We were cleared until her one month appointment.

So today we took her in for that weight check.  Monday was her two week birthday so technically she should have been back up to her birth weight by then.  Since she is exclusively breast fed, I honestly have no clue how much she is eating and if she is getting enough.  Her cheeks seem quite chubby and her little thighs looked like they were getting a little hefty, so I wasn't too worried but I figured it wouldn't hurt to get her checked.  And honestly?  I needed a little outing.  So off to the doctor for a weight check we went.

She is two weeks and two days old today.  Her weight?  8 pounds 8 ounces.  Yeah, I would say she is doing just fine.  My little porker.  I am so proud...  Just to show my pride, here is a shot of her little thighs that are beefing up appropriately...

And here is a shot of the look she gives me when she deems it is time for a little boob-age.  The tongue is a helpful hint to Mommy that she would really like a little snack right about now.  But either way, I am thrilled to know that my little peanut is gaining weight and eating like a little champ.  If you read my blog regularly at all, you know that The Boy isn't so good at the eating and gaining weight thing, so I am pretty happy that we are off to such a good start with number 2.  Hope everyone is having a great week!

Oh the Hormones...

Good lord, the post pregnancy hormones are KILLING me!  I am such a freak.  My moods swing around like a pendulum on a clock and go from one feeling all the way over to the opposite feeling within minutes.  It is exhausting trying to keep up with myself.

Sunday night my Mommy went home.  (Cue sad music...)  My mom had been staying here at my house with me since I got home from the hospital.  She would stay up with me and keep me company until the last feeding of the night and then go to sleep in my room.  I stayed out in the living room and slept on the couch (post c-section it would have been too hard to sleep flat in my bed anyway) since all the baby gear was out there anyway.  I have always been the only one to get up with The Girl in the middle of the night, but my mom would get up with The Boy in the morning and get him ready for school.  This helped me immensely when The Girl would be up for feeding at 2:00am and then again at 5:00am and then The Boy wakes up at 6:00am.  That allowed me to go back to sleep and sleep through when The Boy got up.  So while I was still dealing with the baby exclusively, she was there to help me out with the older one and also to just emotionally be there for me.

I remember over 2 months ago when I got put on bed rest I was SO irritated at the fact that all of a sudden there were all these people in my space.  My mom was here all the time, and all of "my time" seemed to vanish.  Now, thanks to these wonderful hormones, the thought of being alone again totally petrifies me.  I don't want everyone to leave.  Whereas before bed rest, I was perfectly content to put The Boy to bed at night and then have a couple hours to myself before I went to sleep, now the thought of putting him to bed at night and then sitting ALONE in my living room until "bed time" and then dealing with the baby all night long alone makes me burst into tears.  I have always been honest about the fact that I don't do change well.  I suppose this is just my version of that.  

Plus, as I have spoken about before, I am a planner.  I would plan my entire life right down to the very last detail if allowed.  And so the last few months have really thrown me for a loop.  My plan when I got pregnant was to work almost until the baby was born, then take 3 months off after having the baby (using money that I had carefully planned for and set aside for just this purpose) and then put the baby into daycare a couple days a week and work from home a couple days a week and get into the perfect groove.

Well that all went to shit when they put me on bed rest at 29 weeks.  By the time I had the baby I had already taken 2 months "off" of work.  And the money that was so carefully set aside for my maternity leave?  Yeah, didn't so much work out that way.  My one client who promised me a decent bonus totally screwed me and paid me half of what I expected, my tax refund ended up mostly having to go back to the tax man, and pretty much everything bad that could have happened ended up happening (financially at least).  So all told, the three months that I was supposed to have "off" widdled down to around one month.  And then I had to take two months off PRIOR to even having the damn kid.  All of my planned be damned.

So now here I am, 2 weeks after having my baby and the truth has hit me hard.  I pretty much have no money.  There is no way that I am going to be able to take off 3 months.  Most likely I will be able to stay home for THIS MONTH ONLY and then have to get back to work.  That makes me cry.  I feel so gypped.  I feel so cheated out of time with my daughter.  Plus, my biggest client is no longer my client, so not only do I have to go back to work, but I have to FIND new work in order to do so.  So everything is up in the air.  

Again.  

Still.  

My "planning" self is rifled with uncertainty.  And it makes me anxious.  And then the hormones kick in and I cry.  Because why not?  Apparently it's what I do right now.  And then I will look over at my beautiful little girl and my heart will swell with immense love and pride and joy and I will think, "Screw the money, screw the stress, LOOK!  LOOK! at what you did.  LOOK! at what you carried and brought here safely..." and I will end up patting myself on the back and the tears become tears of joy because of all of the love and wonderfulness that is in my world and...and...oh God.  What exactly was it I was crying about?

These hormones are insane.  My little princess is two weeks old yesterday.  And she is perfect and she is beautiful and when I wrap myself up in her smell and her essence and the connection between her and The Boy (yes, it is there already) I weep with joy and happiness that I fought for this little family that I have created.  And I am so damn proud of myself and so thankful to all the people around me that helped me achieve this goal that I think nothing could ever deter that feeling of love and accomplishment.

And then literally like 2 minutes later my mother will tell me goodbye as she heads home back to her life and her husband (which, you should probably know is only 10 minutes from my house and her leaving only means she will be gone a number of hours because she is still coming over every night for dinner right now...) and I will fall down in my hallway and cry from the loneliness and scariness of it all.  How could I possibly have thought I could do this alone?  How am I supposed to get back to any sense of a normal life?  How in the world am I going to afford to stay home long enough to heal from surgery and bond with my daughter?  What in the world am I going to do for a job?  When I find said job, what in the world am I going to do with my brand new daughter?...  It goes on and on...  I seriously exhaust myself.

I think it may be time to make an appointment with my lovely therapist to discuss this myriad of emotions with her.  How long does it take for one's emotions to return to "normal" after having a baby anyway?  Because seriously...I need to at least stay away from work until that happens.  I can just see myself sitting at a clients office trying to balance their books and weeping uncontrollably when I am $0.05 off on a reconciliation.  Good lord...

On a happier note, here is my little peanut on her 2 week birthday.  She spent the day yesterday with more awake time than she has ever before.  I know I am a bit biased but I think she's pretty damn cute.  I guess she is worth all these hormones...

A Whole Lot of Nothin'

That's what has been going on over here.  Well to clarify, it has been a whole lot of feeding and some napping.  But that's pretty much it.  And you know what?  It's blissful.

I don't know why this is so different the second time around, but I am completely content to sit on my ass in my house and just hang with my new baby.  Now that doesn't mean that I didn't do that with The Boy, but I was just so nervous the first time.  I was worried about every hiccup, every sneeze, every facial expression, pretty much everything The Boy did, I was concerned about what it meant.  And that just isn't the case this time around.  I really haven't worried about anything.  I am just soaking in all of the moments of being at home with my newborn baby.

I know that one big difference this time around is that I am single.  My particular relationship was flawed to begin with at the point when The Boy was born, but looking back, it is amazing how much it affected my newborn relationship with my baby.  The dynamics of a two-mom household is tough with a newborn.  I think that when there is a man and a woman at home with a new baby, the roles are more defined.  But when you have two actual women, both of whom are supposed to be the mothers, it is tough to figure out who does what.  I remember last time with The Ex that I was SO consumed with making sure that she got as much out of the "mothering experience" as I did, that I really cut myself out of a lot of the fun part of being a new mom.  And more specifically about being a new bio mom.  There are certain things that really "belong" (for lack of a better word) to the bio mom.  Breast feeding is one of them.  I blatantly didn't even try last time because I didn't want to limit the feeding experience to just me.  But I was still very adamant about The Boy having mostly breast milk.  So I pumped.  And I pumped.  And I pumped some more.  And I could never leave the house for more than 2 hours at a time.  And really, I rarely got to actually feed my baby because as soon as I was done pumping, I would hand the goods off to The Ex who would feed him while I washed all the parts and got prepared for the next go-round.  

And the actual hours of just sitting, cuddling with my baby and looking into her eyes and watching those facial expressions, and snuggling her up on my chest to smell her baby-ness and falling asleep in that position...well I didn't revel in those last time either.  I would make sure to not "hog" the baby and give him off to make sure The Ex was having those moments as well.  And now?  Looking back?  She wasn't even having the moments.  She would sit with him, and there is no doubt that she loved him, but she didn't have that bonding like I did.  Probably because he didn't come from her body.  Probably because she never wanted to be a mom like I did.  I tried to force her to feel what I was feeling and I don't think she ever did.  And in the process, I was just taking away from my own experience.

Now don't get me wrong.  I LOVED being with The Boy and up until this experience, I would have never said that I missed out on anything.  I have loved motherhood from the moment he was put into my arms.  And I really enjoyed all of the beginning parts of being with The Boy.  But it is just now...with a contrast in front of me, that I am realizing how much I actually DID miss.  And all of the moments that I "gave away" in an attempt to share this experience with someone else.  And the bitterness creeps in...  The Ex told me when The Boy was 4 months old that she wasn't sure that she loved me anymore.  She told me that I hadn't lived up to my end of the bargain ("the bargain" being that we wouldn't lose ourselves and our relationship in the process of having a child).  She basically made me take those first moments of my son's life and make it all about trying to save my marriage.  And on THE DAY that he turned 6 months old?  She moved out.  And she walked away from our relationship, but mostly she walked away from being a mother to our son.  And all of those moments in the beginning when I tried in vain to make her feel and share this amazing journey of motherhood?  Wasted.

Whew...sorry...caught up in some old emotions there for a minute (gotta love those post partum hormones...).  My point in this post wasn't to take a trip down memory lane.  It was to show how very different this experience is.  And how very much I am enjoying it.  I am doing what I want this time around.  I am following my gut feelings.  And I am taking all of these moments for myself.  I am breast feeding my little peanut and LOVING how that makes me feel.  I never would have thought that it could and would be this powerful.  I still pump once a day to give the boobs some relief and create a "back log" of frozen milk for emergencies and for when I go back to work (don't even discuss it...I can't even think about it right now).  But other than that?  It is all she and I.  Just time for the two of us.  And when she's done eating and falls off my boob with the milk dribbling down her chin and snuggles in to my chest?  Well I just curl her in towards me and suck in her little baby smell and close my eyes.  And sometimes we nap.  And sometimes we look at each other.  And sometimes I just look at her.  But all I know is that I am not concerned about ANYONE else in the world and how this experience is effecting them.  This is a newborn experience between my daughter and myself (and The Boy to some extent, but he is still at school all day long during the week so we are having some quality time just between the baby and myself).  

So if we are doing a "whole lot of nothin" and just waking up, feeding, napping together, and doing it all over again an hour later?  No problem.  And if we're up four times during the night and I don't get more than 2 hours of straight sleep?  No biggie, we can nap during the day.  There isn't anything better in the entire world.  I will never get this time back.  And this is my last child so I will never get to experience this again.  I don't want to miss a thing.  And selfishly?  I don't want to share it with anyone.  So I am not.  I am living it up and taking it all in and just enjoying this precious time between the two of us.

And since it goes against all blogger rules to have a new baby and not post pictures, here are some pictures from this last week.  First of all, lest we forget who is the biggest boy and best big brother in the world, here is a shot of The Boy enjoying some chocolate cake after dinner...  He refuses to use a fork because he says that cake time is "finger time!"

And here is a shot of my little peanut after eating, when I sat her down on the ottoman in front of me to wipe up my boobs and secure them back in their bra...  She curled herself up in a little ball and just looked so sweet.  Plus, check out the outfit.  The little "feet" on the sleepers kill  me!
And finally...here is a shot of her wrapped up in a blanket that my sister in law made for her.  My sister in law LOVES babies and is known around the family as "the baby whisperer."  This is because as soon as she gets her hands on a baby, they become putty in her hands and immediately fall into a deep sleep.  She has a gift...truly.  Anyway, it appears that the blanket she made for The Girl contains this same quality.  All you have to do is put this blanket around her and she falls into a deep sleep and is as content as they come.
PS--I am working on the birth story.  Problem is that every time I sit down to write some of it I totally cry.  Not sure why given that I wasn't all that emotional when it was happening, but something about going back and trying to write about it brings all the emotions out.  So I sit here in front of my computer sobbing like an idiot trying to get it out and it all just becomes too much and there is a sweet baby nearby that I could hold and snuggle instead of crying and well...  Anyway, it is coming.  I'm working on it...