Her first trip

For Memorial Day weekend, we went to visit my family in Austin. It's only a 2 1/2 hour drive, so we thought we'd see how that went. It went well! Gramma & Grampa were so excited to see her, and they kept her a few times while we went out. Saturday we went to my sister's house and went shopping a little, and that night we went to dinner. Very nice. Nights were basically the same as they are at home, except she still wanted to sleep a lot in the morning. She doesn't do that at home. 2 of the 3 nights, it was really hard to get her to go to sleep and Friday she wouldn't go to sleep until 1:30, after crying for a while. But the good thing is she did fall asleep after crying. As hard as it was to let her lay there and cry, it was less than 10 minutes.

Mom has this thing about taking pictures of babies with toys & dolls, and she took a few pictures with a Raggedy Ann & Andy doll that my great aunt made when I was a baby. I had to share this one because it's so funny--she looks terrified of the dolls!

She was trying to capture the expression seconds before this, but the camera delay caught this instead. She's starting to have expressions that will make digital pics really fun...I can't wait to capture them!

When Jenna's awake and not crying, I can do a whole lot of stuff with one arm while I hold her in the other. J worked from home today and kept her while I slept till 8:30 and went to the gym, which I'm grateful for. He left at 3:30 and will be back around 10, so he felt like he should give me some time this morning. How sweet! Anyway, I came downstairs and found this (that's his laptop--hard to tell in the picture):

This is great, but what I wonder is how come this works for him, but when I try doing something productive after she calms down or goes to sleep, she suddenly gets restless and fussy? Oh, well, caring for her is productive so I should just go with it. :) She's been great today--I think the good days are starting to outnumber the bad ones, so I'm hoping this trend will continue. :) We went to Chipotle for lunch (hey--it's only the second time since she's been born!!!) and she slept the whole time. Then we went to Target and she slept there, too. Now she's sleeping again...hopefully she'll still be able to sleep tonight. We have no schedule or even anything close yet, so it's all a gamble!

Different subject: Our poor little Kaiser is losing his vision now. He's only 6, but everyone who knows us knows of the major health problems he's had. Last year he was diagnosed with diabetes, and ever since we've been giving him 2 insulin shots a day and he's been on a very strict diet. He was already on a very strict diet because of his bladderstones, but now it's more strict. We knew that this would eventually happen because of the diabetes, but we hoped it wouldn't happen so soon. His left eye is cloudly like he's getting a cataract, and chances are the right one isn't far behind. Poor little guy--he'll adapt, but it'll be sad!

Is this the same baby?

Yesterday was the WORST DAY EVER. OK, I'm being dramatic--it wasn't the worst day EVER, but it was a really unpleasant day. Jenna wouldn't sleep all day, and she was very fussy. Basically I held her and listened to her cry all day. At one point, we were both crying! If she calmed down and went to sleep in my arms, I would try to put her down for a nap so I could get something done. But every time, she'd wake up and start crying as soon as she went down. I tried to let her cry it out a few times, hoping she would calm down and go to sleep. I KNEW she was tired. But she would only cry harder, so I would cave and pick her up again. Cry, cry, scream, scream, grunt, nod off. A cycle that we repeated over & over. I think she was just overly tired because it didn't seem like there was anything wrong with her--she was just being tempermental.Then when J came home, he of course was able to put her to sleep. So she basically slept from 6 pm to 8 am, minus the 8:30 pm, 1 am, and 5 am feedings. So needless to say, last night was AWESOME!

The reason I question whether it's the same baby is because today was so different. We went to Wal Mart and we went to the mall without incident. She got fussy and I had to carry her instead of pushing her in her stroller at the mall, but I didn't mind. I had to give her a bottle there, so there was a lot of spit up and more fussiness to deal with, but it was no big deal. I was with friends who also had babies, so we fit right in with all the stay-at-home moms who cruise the mall on weekdays. When we got home, she still didn't want to take a nap (and still I have only gotten her down for 30 minutes this afternoon) but maybe tonight will be a repeat of last night and we'll be able to sleep AGAIN! I can't fathom getting on an actual schedule, but this works for me for now!

How lucky am I?

I keep complaining about baby spit-up (I only complain about excessive amounts), gas/fussiness, not getting enough sleep, and being fat. But truthfully, I have a healthy, beautiful baby, the best husband who is also the best dad, a great job with understanding employers, and my health. So I realize how blessed I am and that I have nothing to complain about. I still wonder if I need to keep her up more during the day so she'll sleep at night, what the best kind of formula is to give her, whether something I'm eating makes her spit up my breastmilk, how to determine if she's hungry before a full-on screaming session (more screaming before feeding means more spit-up afterwards), and how to entertain her before she has an interest in toys or books. It's hard to imagine that it will one day fall into place, but I'm sure it will. While I'm anxious for her to be old enough to tell me what she's feeling, I know she will never be this little again and it makes me sad to think how fast it's already going by. We'll have to take the sleepless nights and the fussy evenings as a sign that she's a normal baby, we're normal parents, and we'll get through it.

By the way, I have to complain once--the mastitis is coming back in the other breast...uggggh.

I love her!

I have spent 3 days in a row now with Jenna and although it's infuriating at times, I love her! When I hold her for hours and then put her down, I feel like something's missing. Honestly it has taken a few weeks to get to this point, because at first it was more frustrating than not. Today was a good day, so it was less frustrating. Less screaming = happy me.

When Jay got home from work, I went to Target, but when I got back I found out that Jenna had been sleeping the whole time I was gone. OK, so she doesn't sleep all day (maybe close to 2 hours) but when I leave, she goes to sleep. The good thing is that she had a lot of awake time when she wasn't crying today. She stared at me and wanted to be held all day. She even let me put her down when she was awake, and didn't cry! Of course, that doesn't last long--5 minutes usually.

Going back to work is going to be tough. She'll just be getting to the "fun" stage at that time. Yesterday morning I took her to my office and she slept the whole time. That's what I was hoping would happen, because I wouldn't want her to be crying. It's distracting to people who are trying to work to have a crying baby around! I decided to be brave and go to Target afterwards, but that was a bad idea. I was trying to return something, but they have a stupid return policy and if it's an online order, you have to print out a receipt from target.com. I couldn't figure out what to do, and of course she had started screaming. She was pretty inconsolable, so I just left and of course she was really hungry when we got home. She's pretty much always really hungry! I'm afraid I'm overfeeding her, but if I don't, she cries and sucks her fists until I feed her. She gets a lot of formula now...mama's breastmilk just doesn't do it for her. I'm finally accepting that it's OK, though I'll probably never get over the guilt.

Mom is my hero

What better way to preface my first Mother's Day than to spend the week before it with my mom? I mentioned in my earlier blog how helpful she was, and that I would cry when she left. Well, I thought I was joking but sure enough, I actually did. I want to do things for her and show her how special she is, but in reality she spent the whole week helping me out. I know she loved spending so much time with her new granddaughter though, so maybe we're even. :)

As embarrassed as I am to share this pic (I look LOVELY), I love having a pic of the 3 of us.

Today has been such a good day. My dad & brother came over for the day, and Jenna was on her best behavior. She slept a lot, which I hope is not going to make tonight a repeat of last night, but she didn't spit up much, didn't cry much, and even had a lot of alert time without fussiness.

We even found out that she can tolerate the baby bjorn if we get her used to it. Yesterday I took her for a walk around the neighborhood in it (because she was crying in her stroller) but she was zonked out the whole time. My back was a little unhappy with me too. :)

Wow, I hope we get more days like this. :) She has been screaming for the past hour or so, but I don't hear anything now--she's sleeping on her daddy's chest. We need to put her down and go to bed!

Yay for mom

My mom has been here this week and I will cry when she leaves tomorrow! She has kept me sane while Jay's at work. She taught me that I need to put Jenna down sometimes and take time for myself, or I will go crazy. It's hard to put her down because she screams so much. She's happiest being held, but I'm hoping and thinking she'll get more used to it as she gets older. She has cleaned our house and cooked, and held Jenna while I exercise/shower/get online, and it has been soooooo nice. Next week will be a rude awakening.

Here is what I have learned about motherhood in the past couple of weeks:
1. 90% of what I read is not true. Everything is contradictory, so I just have to learn by trial & error.
2. For every good day, there is a bad day to make up for it.
3. Babies have a "good" time and a "bad" time. Jenna is sweet in the morning and a terror in the evening.
4. Sleep deprivation is evil. I become extremely irritable and depressed with less than 5 hours of sleep a night.
5. Gripe water doesn't seem to make a difference with Jenna. Neither does Mylicon or Axid. I think when she decides she's going to be miserable, we just have to let her scream and squirm it out.
6. My daughter has the loudest shriek I have ever heard, and it is embarrassing in public.
7. Massive amounts of spit-up are OK if it's not hurting her when she does it. It's just frustrating when I nurse her for 45 minutes and then it all ends up distributed among several burp clothes over the next 30 minutes and then I have to give her formula because she's screaming and sucking on her fist.
8. It's OK to go 2-3 days with no dirty diapers. She will make up for it with her next dirty diaper.
9. When people say "mother knows best," they are not talking about new mothers--they are talking about mothers who know what they're doing.
10. As frustrated as I get, when she has her quiet awake time and stares at me and smiles (even if it is just gas), it does give me hope that everything will get better.

A good day

Jenna has slept for most of the day, but she has been awake for a couple of hours now and hasn't been too fussy. Yay! I had her for an hour or so while she looked around and explored the movement of her arms & legs and made faces at me. :) She is doing that with her daddy now and the shrieks are minimal. Her spit-up hasn't been too excessive either, which gives me hope. I guess her medicine is working. We also started giving her soy formula when she has formula, so we'll give it a few days to see if that helps.

I have heard/read a lot of good stuff about that gripe water, so maybe tomorrow I'll get some. It's definitely worth trying. I don't think the mylicon does anything, so we pretty much stopped using it and haven't noticed a change.

I actually got to go shopping for a little bit today. Jenna stayed with her dad while I went to Kohl's to look for some pants & shirts that fit. :) Only my maternity clothes fit, so now it's nice to at least have one pair of pants I can wear that actually has a button & zipper. 2 sizes bigger that my pre-pregnancy clothes, but it's still early!

Uh-oh

I am convinced something is wrong with this baby. At times, she'll be awake and content...

But more often than not, she looks like this.

Lately she is either sleeping or screaming. Not too much in between. We try to take advantage of the few times she is awake and not crying, because it doesn't last long. She's still young for the play mat, but we gave it a shot. We're excited for her to be old enough/alert enough to have play time.

All babies cry and have gas, but this baby has A LOT of gas. It's the reason for most of the crying, but she'll cry for hours on end and we can't do anything to calm her. Always at night. During the day, she can be at peace one minute, and busts into a scream fest because of gas pains. Poor baby girl. The reason I think there's something wrong with her is because she spits up/throws up so much. A couple of days ago, we got a prescription for it but it doesn't seem to be helping much. She spits up every time she eats. And I don't mean a little teaspoon of normal spit-up, I'm talking about vomiting just about everything she ate. Sometimes over the course of an hour or longer. That's just not normal (surely?) and it worries me. We'll have to take her back to the doctor Monday for the third time in her short existence. We're hoping she'll grow out of it, but it is extremely frustrating because she's so unhappy and we can't do anything to help her. As it is, we keep her upright for 15-30 minutes after she eats, and we are always rocking/swaying/bouncing/swaddling/feeding her to try to get her to calm down. It seems to get progressively worse throughout the day. Is that weird? I know a lot of babies have biological clocks that make them more fussy at night and she's definitely one of them, so that part doesn't concern me too much.

She has been sleeping fairly well at night. She has gone as long as 4 hours at a time, which is great for us, and her doctor says it's fine since she's gaining weight. The problem is that she absolutely WILL NOT sleep on her back. She is so peaceful on her tummy once she falls asleep, so we go with it. Tonight we'll be using the breathing (or is it heartbeat?) monitor for peace of mind.

Our little piggy

Today we had the 2-week checkup (2 days early) and our little piggy weighs over 8 pounds! She's up 4 ozs from her birth weight. She is hungry all the time, it seems. We give her formula every night b/c she's hungry for more than I can give her. She usually takes 2 ozs at a time after I feed her, so I guess that's why she's been sleeping better at night lately too. Today she has been spitting up a LOT, which worries me, but I won't be too concerned unless it continues.

We have been doing a bad thing at night...she sleeps on one of us almost all the time. Jay has been staying downstairs with her most nights while I go to bed around 10 (bless him!!!) He'll get her to sleep usually within a couple of hours, and she sleeps for most of the rest of the night. She'll wake up (or we'll wake her up) to eat, but other than that, she's out. That's great, but the bad part is that we've created a habit that may be hard to break. Tonight we'll try to make her sleep in her bassinet, but we'll have to let her cry for a while. So far, we've learned that she won't quit crying on her own, unless one of us picks her up. So this should be a challenge. Ugggh

A nursing update--I seem to be producing less milk, not more. I feed her sometimes every hour and she's still hungry. Fortunately the mastitis situation is almost gone, but the feeding isn't going much better. But, since her doctor was so happy with her weight, we'll keep doing what we're doing. Her doctor also said again that if I want to quit breastfeeding and go to formula, that's fine too b/c formula is so good now, and that I shouldn't feel guilty about it. I'm going to stick out out for a while, but it's good to hear that from her doctor.

I'll have more pics to post, but I'll have to download them from the camera first. She's asleep on my chest while I'm slouched down typing, so I don't want to move. :) One more sad update--I'm nowhere NEAR being able to fit into pre-pregnancy clothes, so I'm still wearing either maternity clothes or big t-shirts. My stomach is not even the main problem--it's my thighs & my ass that are the problem. I still can't even wear my rings!

Out with the 3-dimensional people

Today I made my first trek out into the real world since Jenna's birth. I left her home with her daddy while I went to Wal-Mart. I'm lucky he's working from home this week! It actually felt great to drive, walk around, and do something productive. Not that taking care of Jenna isn't productive, but I needed a reminder that there's a world outside of our house. :)

I made another new discovery--mastitis sucks. I already blogged about how frustrating breastfeeding was, and it only got more painful. Friday & Saturday nights, I got a fever and it lasted off & on Sunday. I googled it and found that I had all the symptoms of mastitis. I fed her as much as I could and did what it said to do, and did not get a fever last night or today. It's a little less painful today so I think it's improving.

Speaking of--I thought I had a few minutes to get online, but someone's fussing--time to eat AGAIN!!! I just want to share this pic b/c her expression cracks me up. It's like "mom, quit it!"