I can't believe it

Miles is going to be two months old on Tuesday. I'm not sure if I'm excited or if I just want to sob. He's very interactive now. Lots of staring. Lots of head control. He's such a beautiful baby and I love him more and more each day but I'm starting to miss my newborn. He's been to four states not including our own and he's quite the little traveler. He prefers plane trips over car trips because he gets to be held all day. He brings more joy to our lives than we have ever known. Except when he won't nap. Then he brings frustration to our lives. I shouldn't complain. He actually sleeps fairly well. He sleeps 6-8 hours at night and can put himself to sleep during the day. He doesn't really stay asleep for very long but if that's all we have to complain about we've really got it very good.

So much better

I have no idea what Miles' weight is. And I don't care. He's eating like a champ. He's staying awake for feedings. He lets me know when he's done. It no longer hurts. His poops and pees are right on target and therefore I have stopped thinking about what his current weight, to the ounce I might add, would be. Blah. It doesn't matter. And I could drive myself crazy thinking about it. So I won't.

The problem with the name Miles is that it's tough to come up with a nickname. I've noticed myself calling him angel baby. He is. He is so perfect. It's amazing to sit and feed this perfect person. He is completely without sin. Straight from heaven. Isn't that remarkable? I find myself censoring what I am saying or listening to because after all why should this perfect little person have to listen to such an imperfect world.

We have a wonderful ritual, he and I. He eats and when he's done, he'll pull himself off and nuzzle into my breast. He smiles and looks so content. Sometimes he'll open his eyes and sometimes he'll leave them closed but he always looks so happy. I'm happy too. Happier than I've ever been. I love holding him. I have a wrap to wear him and I love that too. I love it when he lays on my chest and scoots up into my throat. I love that when I pick him up I can comfort him. And when he lays on me, he is soothed. He brings me the most immeasurable joy I've ever felt.

I thought we were doing so well

One of these days I'll get around to posting a birth story. For now, the pertinent details are I had several complications during delivery. They are the cord detaching from my placenta which meant that the doctor who delivered Miles had to reach in (up to her elbow, mind you) and dig the placenta out. Twice. It hurt. A lot. Also, my uterus wouldn't contract which led to her kneading my belly like she was making 12 loaves of bread. Can we say ouch? Then, I had a cervical laceration. This might have been the most serious of the complications but interestingly enough the one where I was the least uncomfortable. It led to a lot of blood loss. 1200 mL of blood loss. Apparently that's quite a bit. I wouldn't know. Then I had a 2nd degree tear. But at this point who cares? It's about as concerning as a zit. In any case, just as true to form as can be, I felt pretty dang great after delivery. The cervical laceration led to a little detour to the OR which was exciting where I was stitched right up. Once we made it to the mother baby unit I was really feeling quite well. I'm sure I was pretty drugged up but I was up and moving around in the late afternoon. They prescribe the use of the peri bottle religiously but when it came down to it I just couldn't. The urge to pee, when it hit, came strong and fast. The choice quickly became pee on the floor while preparing the bottle or just go. Surprisingly enough, there was no pain. I was ecstatic. And then I pooped, also with no pain before leaving the hospital. And then I was smug. I thought my recovery was going to be easy and quick. It's not going that way. Over the last several days, I've added more and more pain meds. And yesterday I had pain and burning and itching. It's getting worse and worse by the day. I called the nurse and kinda got the shaft. She suggested that I try some monistat. I did and had so much pain I was crying. Called the poor doc on call and he doesn't think it's a YI. Apparently there's so much blood during delivery, (Ha! and that's for a normal delivery) that it tends to wash stuff out. And unless I was on a lot of antibiotics he doubted it was a YI except that all the complications and surgery after delivery did lead to me being on some antibiotics. I don't remember how much. It's making it hard to treat. I'm uncomfortable. And teary. And worried that it's going to turn into a UTI. Every time I've had a UTI I've been so uncomfortable I've been in bed for a week with symptoms so bad I thought I was going to die. In fact, I would say the pain I experienced during birth was less than my UTI pain. That is significant because I just gave birth a week ago. The memory of birth has not quite faded away yet. I cannot have another UTI. I just can't. I have a baby to take care of. I can't. I'm sitting here with an ice pack in my panties hoping and praying that this starts to subside soon. The doc suggested I up my pain meds and keep an eye on it. Translation: he has no idea what is going on either. I feel like crap.

Miles lost a lot of weight in the first couple of days. Birth weight was 8 lbs 6 oz. Monday's doctors appt revealed a weight of 7 lbs 6 oz. Time to supplement. We did after every feeding and Tuesday's appt showed a weight gain of 6.5 oz and a new weight of 7 lbs 12.5 oz. Today's weight check showed a weight of 7 lbs 13 oz. Sigh. We stopped supplementing on Wednesday because things were going so well in the hopes of not interefering with the breastfeeding. I question myself at every turn. I have never given so much thought to someone else's feeding, peeing, and pooping patterns. And they're not where I'd like them. He didn't eat well today at all. He's back to sleeping a lot. Falling asleep during feedings. Eating off of only one breast. Sigh. I'm frustrated. And worried. And I hate questioning myself. Especially on such little sleep. Tomorrow will be a better day, right?

I don't want to forget

I'm beyond exhausted. I can barely think straight. And my memory is bound to be the first thing to go. Today we had our first blow out diaper. I seriously doubt that this will excite me going forward as much as it did today but it feels like everything that happens is a "mommy moment". We went on our first walk tonight. We spent 45 minutes exploring our new neighborhood with a baby in a stroller and a dog on a leash. It was serious work not breaking down into tears right then and there. He's one week old today. And the memory of that wretched birthing business is already fading away. I am more in love than I ever thought possible. I love to hold and cuddle and smell him. I don't want to ever forget this. It's positively magical.

When I bother to post, the news is bound to be big

We have a son. He was born after June 5th, 2008, on his due date, at 9:30am. He weighed in at 8 lbs 6 oz and was 20.5 inches long. I miss being pregnant already. His name is Miles Ernest and we could not be more in love. He loves sleeping more than I do, which has proved problematic for feeding. We're both learning to breastfeed which is harder than we both planned on. We can all agree that we prefer the umbilical cord for feeding. However, he's awake and rooting so we're going to take advantage of this fine opportunity.

I blinked and missed my second trimester

This pregnancy is just cruising along. Every time I head to the doctor I get measured, and weighed and told that I'm just a normal old boring pregnant lady. Who would have guessed? I did have a minor blip a few months ago. I showed up, cheery as could be, and hopped on the scale only to discover that I had gained 10 pounds in only four weeks. It was disheartening. I was packing on the pounds. In my defense, I had been out of town and eating out three meals a day for two solid weeks. No better way to turn into a chunky monkey than eating fast food for lunch every day for two weeks. The good news is that my next appointment revealed that I had actually lost weight. No dieting necessary. It was just because I started eating at home again. I've put on thirty pounds so far and I've still got eight weeks to go. The original goal was to stay under 200 pounds. It's not going to happen. I'm hovering at 200 pounds right now. Oh well. I'm not that big. I'm not very uncomfortable. And I really shouldn't be complaining.

Movement is the most delightful thing in the world. I've been feeling regular movement since 15 weeks. I cannot believe that I felt him moving around so early. In the beginning it felt like tickling but now we've moved to actual pokes and jabs. Paul felt movement around 22 weeks but it was hard to catch him so he would go days without feeling much. Now though, I can induce action out of Roswell. It usually involves large consumption of juice and laying on my side. I love that Paul can feel him so regularly.

The one thing that is not advisable during pregnancy is moving. I cannot believe we thought this was a good idea. No one informed me that moving could lead us to the brink of divorce. It feels like we've been moving for months. To recap, we signed the contract on the new house in September. And then we had to make some serious headway to get the old house on the market. The realtor told us we had too much stuff. So we started moving it into storage. September, October, and the better part of November were spent getting the house ready. We replaced flooring in the master bedroom, living room and hallway. It was pretty major renovations and when I think about everything Paul did to get the house on the market I love him just that much more. I'm completely in awe of him, especially because he was in and out of town during the whole process. Three measly weeks of being on the market and we got our first offer. It was the cleanest, most beautiful offer we've ever seen. Not that we've seen a lot of offers but our realtor had and she was highly impressed. The worst Christmas in the world came and went and upon our return to Albuquerque we were back into packing mode. We had to be out at the end of January but we were going to be homeless for four weeks. All of our worldly possessions had to be moved into a 10' by 25' storage shed. Except for the absolute necessities. The few days prior to moving in to the new house Paul brought back the worst cold I have ever had from South Carolina. Trying to move in, in the winter, with the worst colds we've ever had has got to be the most miserable experience ever. I've been in disarray and confusion with half of my belongings since October. The reuniting of our belongings with owners was indeed a joyous occasion. However getting the owners to agree on what would be kept and what would go away was the cause for major disharmony. We're still setting through that and as a result we're moving more slowly than I'd like. We've been in for six weeks and we're functioning. Pictures however, have a nice place stacked relatively neatly, and propped up against a wall. We are functional but we are not yet pretty.

See? Don't you now feel sorry for me? Enough to at least forgive me for not blogging for three months? To sum up, pregnancy is a delight, moving is horrific and I never want to do that again. Life is good. No complaints here.

Poor neglected blog

I've not blogged. About Christmas. About pregnancy. About moving. About anything. It's not from lack of material. But when things like Christmas and moving make me cranky it takes me a bit to calm down and not turn the entire thing into a giant 5000 word rant.

Christmas was less than delightful. To sum up we crammed 11 people into my grandparents 3 bedroom house. My grandfather is dying. My grandmother is stressed to the max. And I would be lying if I said that my family isn't a little hard to take. Oh yeah, and we were there for ten days. A recipe for disaster.


Moving. Moving sucks. We are moving from a 1300 square foot house with a one car garage. There just shouldn't be that much stuff. But there is. And it's everywhere. The garage is possibly the worst. We are going to be homeless for four weeks. So our stuff is being moved to a storage shed. We're going to stay with my parents in the meantime. Fortunately we get to make a two week trip to Pittsburgh in the middle of the four weeks so hopefully everyone will still be on speaking terms by the time this is all over. I have two cats and I don't know what I'm going to do with them. My parents aren't pet people. Correction. My mother isn't a pet person. Boarding them? $400+ I just can't justify that kind of money for them to be miserable.

Soon. Soon we will be stable. In our new house. With a baby on the way. Life really could not be better overall. The next month is just going to be a bit unpleasant.