Day #1: Daycare

Yesterday I went and toured Sawyer's new daycare, met his teacher, and had all my questions answered. I think the daycare's director could sense I was about to cry, I mean besides the fact that my eyes were filling up with tears, so she offered for him to come today for 2 hours free of charge. At first I wanted to say no, but after thinking about it I realized maybe it wasn't such a bad idea. So today I took him and he immediately sunk his claws into me the minute I went to sit him down. He screamed and arched his back. I knew if I didn't make it short and sweet that I would give in and take him back home with me. He's very persuasive. I quickly left and he had stopped screaming by the time I got to the elevator. I decided to do a spinning class while he was there to take my mind off of him. Only my second time doing spinning, and I felt like I was going to puke for an hour afterwards. The pain did take my mind off Sawyer though. When I got to the daycare to pick him up, I walked in and he saw me. He made a noise to acknowledge my presence, and then walked over to some toys and started playing. He didn't dramatically run into my arms, and he actually cried when it was time to leave! He apparently had a great time. He read 'The Cat in the Hat' and made a striped hat. I'm so very proud of him, but still so sad that he's growing up. They do potty time at the daycare, and drink out of big boy cups. I think perhaps my insecurity in the daycare lies in the fact that I just dont want him to grow up. He even learned to say "hat" today! Here is his striped hat displayed proudly on the fridge:

Breastfeeding:the horror

Breastfeeding for me was imperative for the survival of my child. I was sure he would get every disease out there without the antibodies form my breastmilk providing him with immunity. I read all the big breastfeeding manuals from front to back, and told all my friends and family about my opinions on breastfeeding and that anyone who didn't breastfeed thier kids was just plain lazy. I had a plan for once my baby was born, I wanted the opportunity to breastfeed immediately, and I didn't want any formula given. If you have read my earlier post than you know my labor and delivery did not go at all how I wanted. That being said, i'm pretty sure my bra size is an A-. One thing I was excited about during pregnancy is that my boobs would get bigger(vain I know). Come on though, faced with getting bigger in all the wrong places that is the silver lining right? Well............my boobs never got bigger. I don't think they grew one bit. I looked so disproportionate that I wore a V's Secret miraculous miracle bra my entire pregnancy. Even then they might have been a B, and that bra is supposed add two cup sizes! My ob-gyn seemd really pro breast feeding my entire pregnancy and so I never gave it a second thought. She only delivered at certain hospitals and so I just assumed they were all breastfeeding friendly. I couldn't have been more wrong. Sawyer was born by c-section on a Saturday morning. This meant two things. One, my dream of breastfeeding immediately after birth was thwarted, I didn't get to even hold him for 2 hours! The other was that it was a weekend, and apparently lactation consultants don't work on the weekends. The nurse also laughed at me when I asked if they had a breast pump and told me I could bring mine from home if I wanted. As soon as the nurse brought him to me I attempted to breastfeed. It appeared he was latching, but I was a newbie so I couldn't be sure. All the nurses told me it "looked" like I was doing it right. On Sunday, my milk had not come in. Our pediatrician said I would definitely know when my milk had come in. In fact, he gave me more information than anyone else! Sawyer had become jaundiced during this time and he told me I would have to give formula Tuesday morning if it hadn't come in yet. Monday morning-still nothing. On Monday EVENING a lactation consultant finally came by. Sawyer had to be under bili lights so he was in the nursery, but I had waited so long to see her I wanted her to watch me have him latch. She could've cared less. She threw a generic pamphlet at me and said, "well if you want I can watch him latch when he's here just page me." I asked her if the fact that I had a c-section could affect my milk coming in and she scoffed and said-of course not! She told me not to take any herbs and then left, clearly in a hurry. I was in tears by this point, nobody was giving me any help or information I could use. By Tuesday morning, you guessed it, still no milk. Well I take that back, I clearly had some. I was getting small amounts, but no tingling when I let down, no pain or full feeling, nothing substantial. When the nurse brought Sawyer in he was enraged. He didn't want anything to do with my boob, he was starving. I couldn't take it(hello! I was postpartum!) so I asked the nurse for formula which she readily brought in. He sucked down 6 ounces in 10 seconds.  I shouldn't have allowed that but it literally happened that quickly. We got sent home that day with instructions to have him latch and attempt to breastfeed, bottle feed, then pump. I was incredibly swollen and emotional. That night, on no sleep for 3 days I attempted to do that. Lucky for me I got a slow eater who took over an hour to finish 3 ounces and woke up like clockwork every 2 hours to eat. The latching was miserable. He was over it. Then by the time I did the bottle feeding and pumping and laid back down........you guessed it! He was up and ready to do it all over again. I wasn't getting much when I pumped, 10mL per breast, maybe? Not even an ounce. I spent most of that first night crying and then that next morning we had to go to the pediatrician for his jaundice. My eyes were so swollen from crying they were almost swollen shut. I looked horrible. The minute we walked in to the exam room he handed me kleenex and asked what was wrong. I told him about the breastfeeding and he said he was not a mom but couldn't imagine ehat I was going through. He told me to go see a lactation consultant. There was no way I was going back to the one I saw so I made an appointment with a highly recommended one an hour away. She was excellent. I brought Sawyer in and she fine tuned my latch. She gave me an SNS which is a tube you tape to your boob and then it feeds them formula but they still have to latch to get it. She also recommended an herbal supplement. For the first day or two things seemed on the up and up. My milk supply increased to 30-60mL per pumping, and although I tried the SNS, it's nearly impossible to do yourself. Unfortunately my husband had went back to work the day after we got home, so I was on my own. She told me to power pump which meant pumping for 10 minutes, then resting, then 10 minutes etc. for an hour. I did this religiously. After about a week and a half though my milk supply started to diminish again and I was spent. I gave up. I've never felt like such a failure. I cried for days. I felt like my body failed me. My lactation consultant called a couple days after I quit for an update. I told her I was done and she reassured me I did all I could. Then she recommended I stop pumping slowly to avoid pain. I told her I quit cold turket two days earlier and had no pain. She siad she didn't understand how that could be. She offered a CT scan to see if maybe my anatomy is off but I didn't have the money for that. Even up to 6 months after Sawyer's birth when I talked to a cousin who had her baby a week after him and she told me how she was still breastfeedingand it made me cry. People point out that my baby is healthy, and happy so why worry about it? For me it was just something I wanted to do for my baby. A girl at work the other day made the mistake of saying,"who wouldn't breastfeed when it's so much easier than bottle feeding?" She got an earful about how it's not easy for everyone. Looking back I don't think this will affect Sawyer's overall health or happiness in the long run, but for me it was really important and I still feel like I failed him in some way. I think this played a huge role in my PPD and anxiety.

Citrus Lane.......one of my favorite finds!

Tonight is my usual night to work. Census is low so I am sitting at home on call and I feel compelled to write about my new favorite find. Must be my ADHD. I have tried both Bluum and Citrus Lane. These are monthly subscription boxes directed at moms. Bluum is only for mothers of babies up to 1 year old at this point, while Citrus Lane is directed at children up to 3 years of age. Bluum is considerably cheaper, $12/month at most, while Citrus Lane is $25/month at most. Bluum sends SAMPLES, not full sizes. I noticed a lot of people complaining on their facebook about the size of the samples, but once again, it is advertised as samples not full sizes. I cancelled my Bluum after 3 months because my son is simply too old for them now. Plus i'm just not sure how many samples of lotion and diaper cream I need. I've gotten 3 months of Citrus Lane so far and loved it. Every box far exceeds it's $25 value. The December box included a Stella & Dot bracelet that retails for $30, a gingerbread man cookie cutter, my absolute favorite, Episencials better body butter and an adorable Zutano hat with ears. There was more but it escapes me at the moment. The January box featured organic products including an awesome Pangea Organics lavender & cardamom chapstick, a Green Toys boat for the bathtub, two packages of Happy Baby yogurt melts,2 Plum District $5 cards, and a bottle of Dolphin Organics fragrance free lotion. I was not a big fan of the Dolphin Organics lotion based on the smell, and I let them know this in my review of the box. Two days ago I got an email saying the company was sorry and they would like to send me a new bottle of their lighter, and improved lotion. Thats some great customer service! This month's box included a Babybug magazine, Elizabeth Mitchell cd, P'kolino puzzle stacker, and a Petite Lemon print. This month's box was my least favorite but still impressive. I would highly recommend this box to anyone and everyone(if you can afford it). There's no guarantee you will like everything in it, I guess thats the risk you take when you order a box and someone else decides what goes in it. Still, I've found some great brands I wouldn't have heard of otherwise, and even if I cant afford them, at least I get a full sized bottle to try! Here are my favorite things I've recieved:

 

www.citruslane.com

www.pkolino.com

www.episencial.com

www.greentoys.com

    

Daycare: the best option?

My son is starting full blown public daycare on March 8th and I am so nervous. Up until now he has stayed at home, and goes to a babysitter who is a stay at home mom of 2 girls. He has no idea how to interact with 50 other kids. He is also not used to not being the center of attention. I expect a hard transition with this. He will only be going three days a week at most, but I know i'm not prepared for all the illness, and temper tantrums. Initially after he was born I tried to keep him all the time, even after I had worked the night before. It was torture and not fair to him to have a mom he kept falling asleep on the couch. I work 36-40 hours like any other full time mom, it just so happens that my work hours happen when everyone else is asleep. So begrudgingly I admitted that we had to find some form of childcare. Our babysitter decided to go back to school(darn her for bettering herself!) so we had to find childcare elsewhere. The hospital I work for provides a pretty decent(from what i've heard) daycare, and they also have a pretty lengthy waiting list. Amazingly we got in though. So now I just wait until March 8th when he starts and see how it goes..................it's tough being an overbearing mom who has to work full time. If it was up to me I would quit my job and devote my entire life to him. It's probably the universe that keeps me working full time so I don't completely annoy and traumatize him.

My Long and Harrowing Journey

When I first found out I was going to be a mom I was devastated. Not because I didn't want to have kids, I just didn't want to have kids yet. I was in the midst of planning my wedding when I found out I was pregnant. After we had put $1,000 in deposits down. I had also already ordered my wedding dress and it was non returnable. I wanted to postpone the wedding but my husband refused. Obviously he didn't understand how important my wedding was to me. Needless to say, there I was in Vegas, 8 months pregnant with a very altered and ill-fitting dress. It was 115 degrees people. Not fun. Clearly I got used to the idea of having a kid eventually and felt ok with the surprise pregnancy. I read all the books about breastfeeding, and attended the classes. I was sure that I would breastfeed until my son was a year old.......at least. I didn't want to be induced, and I most definitely did not want a c-section. Apparently God and my son had different plans though. At 9 days post due my ob-gyn was no longer comfortable continuing on. We went in at 6am to get induced. I guess I should say I went in to get induced, my husband didn't do any of the hard stuff. They started Pitocin and it took about an hour or two to start having contractions. My doctor came in about 3.5 hours into it and put a blown up catheter balloon in my cervix to dilate it. Very uncomfortable. She encouraged me to get my epidural and I resisted at first. Everytime I had a contraction I felt like I had to pee and I would get up dragging a catheter and IV pole with me. By the time I got to the bathroom it would subside and I would drag myself back to bed. I finally agreed to get an epidural. It took about an hour for the anesthesiologist to come, but I got my epidural. Then my blood pressure dropped. My original nurse was at lunch so when the alarms started going off nobody came. A nurse has got to eat right? I made my husband call and instead of someone coming into our room, a secretary asked what we needed over a speaker. He said we needed a nurse and I was going to puke. She said she would call her but no one came. We called a second time and still no response. Then the fetal monitor started alarming. About 3 minutes after that a nurse ran in and threw oxygen on me which wasn't scary at all. Then our nurse finally came in. No big deal, my low blood pressure was causing his heart rate to drop. Then a resident came in and broke my water...........and it was green. "Ugh, does it look ok?" I asked, even though I knew the answer. "Sure it looks great!" she replied as I stared at her in disbelief. "Well, okay there's some meconium(baby poop) in it," she finally explained. Don't these people realize i'm a nurse? Due to the meconium in the water I was told NICU nurses would be present at the delivery to suction my son out. Just suction, that is all. Everything after this point continued on as before. I didn't dilate much, but I also didn't feel anything. At about 5pm I felt some pain so I let the nurse know and got a bolus of medication and presto! No more pain. About 7pm I started having more severe pain(also known as contractions). I let the new night nurse know and I don't really think she cared. After about 2 hours she reluctantly had them give me more medication. It really didn't do anything. At this point I was really leaning towards a c-section. I was told that if I didn't dilate to 10cm by 11pm then we would go to surgery. At that point I hoped I wouldn't dilate. Of course I did though. Even though my son hadn't dropped they insisted I should push. Exhausted, and with no energy I tried to push.......for 3 HOURS!!!! Apparently he was sunny side up, and the resident kept sticking her arm up to her elbow inside of me to turn him. After the third time I politely(haha) told her that was enough. He just kept flipping around. Finally I convinced the resident to call my doctor. This was after they turned my epidural off and I was having contractions about 20 seconds apart. My doctor came in and decided it was time for surgery. The c-section went fine even though it wasn't my dream delivery. I didn't even get to hold him for 2 hours after he was born. When we got to the postpartum floor I was told my son had a rough morning, he was intubated and had a rough delivery. "What was he intubated for, is that standard for meconium in the water?!?" I asked. "I don't know, maybe he had trouble breathing or something," is the answer I got. Same answer from the following three nurses as well. My pediatrician finally told me it was standard for meconium in the water. This was the beginning of my journey into postpartum hell. I've suffered with anxiety and depression since then, although things do seem to be on the up and up. I'm going to end here since I've been up all night at work. There's many more layers to this story however, breastfeeding was the next nightmare. Regardless of all of this, my son is my world and even though this was a horrible experience, I would do it all over again if that's what I had to do to get to him.