Three months old!

Izzy turns three months old today!

Check out my bad hair day!

Height: Not sure but she is close to growing too tall for the 3-6 month onesies.

Weight: I checked last week and she was 14 pounds!

Nicknames: Pumpkin, Izzylicious, Kiddo, Izzykins

Milestones this month: Trying to blow bubbles, lots of smiling and giggling, letting out shrieks, reaching for objects, lots of fist sucking (she still hasn't figured out her thumb)

Favorite toy: My FIL and his wife came out to meet Izzy last weekend and after they heard that she loved her mobile in her crib, they bought her a new activity bar with a mobile.  She absolutely LOVES it.

Watching the animals fly by....

My new favorite toy!

Sleeping habits: Izzy's best night was almost 9 hours!  Lately she has been going to bed around 9-9:30 giving CP and I at least a few minutes together before we also head to bed.  Most mornings I have to wake her up at 6am to change her and nurse her before she either spends an hour awake or crashes again.  Her naps are still all over the place, but I'm guessing that she will get on a schedule once she starts daycare.

Eating: This past month we saw a lactation consultant and ditched the nipple shield.  My nipples were super sore for a while, but have toughened up and I am no longer whispering obscenities and curling my toes as Izzy latches on. When I headed back to work I had 95 oz of breastmilk in the freezer which has yet to be touched.  As of right now I'm pumping three times a day at work and my output is keeping up with her demand.  The amount that she eats tends to vary when she takes a bottle- sometimes it's 60ml, other times it's 160ml!!   I think next week when she starts daycare she will get on more of a schedule and most likely eat around 120ml (about 4oz) each feeding.

Diapers: still in the cloth diapers and she has moved up to the next size.  She goes through about 65-70 diapers a week.

Clothes: still in 3-6 month clothing but I think that she will be moving to the next size up soon!

This is one article of clothing that I want her to fit into the rest of her life.  Seriously the cutest thing ever.

Illness: This morning she seemed to be a bit congested so I hope that she is not getting my cold.  :-(  Other than that, she has thankfully stayed illness-free again this month.

Other highlights:  Izzy went to her first Superbowl party!  She dressed for the game.

Ready for a Seahawks win!

The week that I went back to work CP got to watch Izzy for the week.  I think that it made my transition into a working mom 10 million times easier because I knew that she was home with CP.  Next week on the other hand....  Because my FIL and his wife were also in town for part of the week, Izzy had her first trip to the Garfield Conservatory.

Can you tell her father dressed her?  Ha ha.

Did you know that you can send a baby announcement to the President and get a card back?  We did a similar thing with our wedding invitation.  This is definitely something to put in Izzy's baby book!

Money and status

Back when we lived in Connecticut, CP and I were part of a Newcomers club. It was a fantastic way to meet others in our town and we ended up finding some great friends who we were sad to leave when we moved.  After we settled on our house, I looked for the same sort of club in our town. There wasn't one in our town but one in a town next door that covers a few towns, all in the same school district. 

I ended up signing up in September while I was in the third trimester of my pregnancy. I thought it would be like the  club in Connecticut where we had events all the time. Bunco, girls night out, dinners, social events, guys nights out, etc. But this group seemed to only have sporadic events and a lot of the events were during the day. My first thought was that the club would be all stay-at-home mothers or ladies with rich husbands that don't feel the need to work. Hmm. Needless to say it was a bit ambitious to join in my third trimester and I never made it to any events. 

However, a few weeks ago they had a Bunco event and CP was not traveling so I decided to check it out. Bunco is a great way to talk to a bunch of people while playing a fun game. Everyone was very nice and shocked that I was out and about after only two months of motherhood. It was a good time and it was nice to get out of the house.

The following Saturday the club had a dinner out. When we did the dinners in Connecticut it was all women; in this club it was three couples and myself. It was a little odd being the only singleton but I wouldn't have left Izzy with a babysitter anyway so if I didn't go by myself, we wouldn't have gone at all.  Overall the couples were nice but what I'm finding after just two events with this club is that there is a certain passive way of trying to out-money the person you're talking to. This is sort of a weird subject because to most people my upbringing would lead them to believe that I would like to do the same thing.

The town that I grew up in is mainly made up of people that have a lot of money. We were not rich, however we did well even though we lived on the side of town that was not as well off. But just mentioning the town name to someone who knows the area would elicit a response. Growing up in this town was great. I always felt safe and it was a great community. However, around high school I started to recognize that there were a lot of snobs and a lot of people that were all about money and/or status. And that's what I hate about my town (and why I would not do well in LA). So when I left for college I was really excited to head out to the East Coast where not a lot of people would know my town, nor would they come into our relationship with any preconceived notions. Plus I was excited to get out of my town to run away from all of the snobs. 

While we don't live in the same town as where I grew up, our current town sometimes elicits similar responses. There are a few areas with huge houses, but again, I'm not living in that area. Plus, remember what the house we bought used to look like?  We clearly were only able to buy in this town because we bought a fixer-upper.  

Getting back to my story...the school district for the Newcomers Club is very, very rich. So when I signed up, the Membership Coordinator emailed back and said "oh did you know that this is this group is for X school district?" I told her yes, but their website said that people from neighboring towns were welcome to join as well. That was my first warning sign. Then seeing that all the events were during the day and that it would be a lot of stay-at-home mothers also was another warning sign. 

So at this dinner when I told people that I was from the neighboring town they seemed fine with it but a couple times tried to make sure that I knew how high their social status was. One of the women that I sat next to was telling me a story of how when she moving from downtown with her husband she absolutely loved a $1.8 million house but wasn't willing to pay that much. Of course I wanted to spit out my wine because that's insane but kept as much of a poker face as possible. Later on in the story she was complaining about having to do renovations on another house that they were looking at and her exact words were "it's not like it was a X dollar house." That X number was basically the exact amount that we paid for our house! I had to stifle in a laugh because if she saw our house she clearly would be very unimpressed. 

The problem that I see is that I don't want to go back to high school and try to one up or play the "money" game with these people. I certainly can still play the game if I want to, but that's not a game that I play with my real friends and it's not a game that I would want to play with any future friends. And it is certainly not a game that CP wants to play. So I'm a bit torn. Do I continue to go to events to see if there are some people that are not all about money? I know that I did find some people in my town growing up that were not all about money or status. But with Izzy, a traveling husband, and my limited headspace or patience for this kind of bullshit is it worth it? I do want to find some people to hang out with but I guess I have to figure out whether it's worth my time. My parents suggested that I start up my own newcomers club in my town but I really wouldn't know where to start.

Thoughts?

Invisible Moms

I saw this article on the Huffington Post today and thought of so many of you.  You guys are all amazing.


To an Invisible Mom
by Lea Grover

Mothers are good at finding each other. It doesn't matter how long ago it happened, the magical moment when something about us fundamentally changed. We all know it. The moment that we began thinking of ourselves as mothers. And for almost all of us, there is joy and pride in that title. We see other moms at the playground or in the grocery store, and if we can, we go a little out of our way to show ourselves. Look over here! I see you, and we're members of the same club! Look at my badge! Look at my scars! Let me see yours!

We speak the same language. It was an unassisted VBAC! Did you get EI for his SPD?

We watch the same television. Isn't Caillou the worst? I always dancey dance.

We sing the same songs. Twinkle twinkle little star...
But what about the women afraid to raise their hands? Afraid to pin the motherhood badge to their chests and wear it with pride?

There are reasons to be afraid. Not for me, with my children at my side. But for you, my friend, the mother who lost her child before birth.

Mothers seem to spend a lot of time knocking each other down these days. But no matter what choices I make, you always support me. No matter how much I complain about the mundane frustrations of parenthood, you let me me know what a great job you think I'm doing. No matter how many thousands of pictures of my kids I put on Facebook, you're always there, hitting "like" a thousand more times.

Every Mother's Day, your heart breaks. Every Christmas, every anticipated birthday. You count the days and years. You believe in your heart that some day, in heaven, a child with your features will greet you with love, with the weight of the missed hugs and kisses of a lifetime.

You became a mother before your child was born. You knew that as you stepped on the scale, compared nausea stories, decorated a nursery. You had plans. You were ready to open your life for the child you hadn't met. Your heart was as open as the sky.

You are still a mother. You still speak that language you studied so carefully, even if you're afraid to join in conversation.

And I know why you can't. Sometimes you feel like a shadow, or a phantom, and you're afraid of the looks on other mother's faces if you spoke your story. Afraid of their fear. It's easier to be invisible.

And all of this, this is more proof that you are a mother. A woman who cares so deeply for the feelings and well-being of another person that it pains you. You look at children with love, as parents do. You take pride in your experiences of motherhood. You deserve your joy, you deserve your happiness.

Whether or not you hold your own baby in your arms, squirming with life and constant need, you are still a mother. With the weight of your loss, you are not diminished. You are not other. You are one of us -- one of the club.

My heart breaks for you, the mother who has experienced the worst of all motherhood has to offer. And it breaks for you for having missed the most joyful. You have lost your child, as fully and truly as the parent of any lost child. And so many people neglect you, ignore your experience. Tell you that you aren't a "real" mom.

But you are. I know it. And more importantly, you do. You know you became a mother once, and there is no going back. No un-becoming. No erasing the changes in your heart and soul.

You're doing a good job, mama. Every day, you do more than the rest of us can comprehend -- you keep going. You keep loving. You keep giving.

You are a good mom.

Even when you're the only one who knows it.

First day at work

So far, today hasn't been horrendous.

Last night I started bawling because Izzy had some hysterical crying over some gas (CP was eventually able to burp it out of her).  I just became so worried that without me (or CP) there, no one could help her when she was hysterically crying (which rarely happens).  I slept like crap last night, having weird dreams and constantly waking up because I was sure that I was either going to miss my alarm, or that Izzy was going to wake up before my alarm (neither happened and she slept for 8 hours).

This morning felt like a normal morning, other than my alarm going off.  I woke up, changed Izzy, nursed her and then was able to hand her off to CP while I pumped the other boob.  I jumped in the shower and tried to figure out what the heck I was going to wear.  I actually put on a bra with underwire (!) and wearing work clothes made me feel all grown up.  Thanks to my weight loss, my pants are not too tight, even with my pooch.  The walk from the train to work was nice, albeit cold, and now that I am not pregnant I opted to take the stairs everywhere I went.

As soon as I got into work coworkers stopped by and immediately noticed my weight loss (not just from the pregnancy).  It's true the last time that I saw them I was 9 months pregnant, but I'm at least 10 pounds lighter than my pre-pregnancy weight.  It felt really nice to hear that as I really haven't been working on losing weight (thank goodness for breastfeeding).  I showed off the picture I brought in of Izzy and everyone oohed and aahed.

I had 1529 emails to attend to and my day has basically consisted of trying to figure out which ones I can delete and which ones I need to read.  I assume I will get updated on all of my projects throughout the week and coworkers are giving me some time to ease back into my job. I also met my new boss who seems nice.  So far he has let me do my own thing, but of course, it is my first day back AND his first full week in the office so I think that he is busy doing other things right now.  My boss' boss has already been in to ask questions on a program this morning and it took me a few seconds to get my brain ready to fire on "work cylinders" instead of "high-pitched voice lets-try-to-get-you-to-smile cylinders."  :-) He apparently didn't get the memo that people were supposed to take it easy on me today!

It has been seriously weird to whip out my boobs and pump at work, but the first two sessions have gone well (7.5 oz this morning, 5 at lunch).  On your suggestions, I did go out and buy a hands free bra so I was able to eat lunch while pumping (oddest.thing.ever.).  The work day has gone by fairly quickly so far, but I'm still counting down the hours until I see my little girl!  

More work talk

I can't stop thinking about going into work on Monday. Things are going to be crazy different and not just because I'm now a working mom. My awesome boss retired on January 3 and I'm truly bummed. She was a great boss because she basically just left me to work on my projects, giving support when needed, but allowed me to manage everything by myself. She completely trusted that I could handle everything by myself. Now that she's retired I have a new boss, but I really don't know much about him. I spoke to him a couple times prior to leaving for maternity leave, but that was mainly to give him some of my work. I hope that he is as hands-off as she was after he gets to know me and my work. 

In addition to my boss retiring one of my coworkers also retired. I'm going to miss talking with her as she was a really nice woman who always asked how the dogs were doing. I am sure she would be sad to hear about Koda's passing. I know that I won't have to take over any of her work, but I'm curious to see if my workload changes at all with my new boss. 

The other odd thing is going to be pumping at work. We have a room in which we can pump but when I called last week, the woman in charge said that there are six other women using it right now.  I was planning on using that room because everything set up already and all I would need to do is buy the parts. However with six other women I have no idea how I would be able to get in for two or three times a day with the other women vying for pretty much the same times. So after speaking to CP I decided to order a second pump to leave it work. We have a three other rooms available to women that bring their own pump so I am pretty much guaranteed to be able to pump whenever I want. If I really wanted to I could've lugged my current pump back and forth to work every day along with my milk. However my goal is to make it a year of breastfeeding Izzy. I cannot imagine nine months of lugging a breast pump back and forth to work every day along with the milk. That is simply too much. So I decided to suck it up and pay the money to get another Hygeia Enjoye breast pump as I'm familiar with it and it works great. It'll be interesting to see how I work this around my work schedule. I have a lot of conference calls and meetings (especially in the morning) so it may be that as soon as I get into work I'm pumping. It also means leaving my office for 20-30 minutes at a time and while I know it is permitted under law I don't know how it works out with getting my work done. Am I supposed to stay late these days because I missed an hour of work while pumping? I can't do that. My daycare hours are long enough and I won't be able to take an extra hour and still make it back to pick up Izzy at daycare on time. Maybe I'll bring my BlackBerry and type on it with one hand or figure out some sort of method while I hold the pumps on my breast? Ugh. All of this logistical stuff makes me totally get why some people stop breastfeeding/pumping once they get to work. Any tips or tricks? 

I have no idea what I am going to wear to work this coming week, but I did try on some of my pre-pregnancy clothes and some of the fits are...interesting. I was able to find three pairs of pants that fit (thank goodness for my pre-retrieval pants!) and some shirts, but with my current huge chest, a lot of my fitted shirts are too tight in the chest. I don't know whether to buy a few shirts to finish out the winter season, but hope that they are too big come next winter (or maybe not if we are trying to get pregnant again), or just to wear a lot of cardigans and hope that they are warm enough until spring. Stupid weird body.

The last thing I can't stop thinking about is how many emails I'm going to have when I get back to work. Last I checked I had 1500 emails waiting for me. Now to be fair, there are going to be a lot of meeting announcements or just various emails on events that I missed. But 1500 emails when most people knew that I was out on maternity leave for three months? That should be interesting. So do I go from the oldest to newest email (thinking that I will see in chronological order what transpired while I was gone)? Because I'm pretty sure that the people that took over my work cc'ed me on everything that they did. I guess that's the best way to do this? Any guesses on how long it will take me to get through all of my emails?

Back to work on Monday

I head back to work on Monday and I'm trying to soak up the rest of my time with Izzy before I start my new job as a working mom. Before I was pregnant and even while I was pregnant I could never have fathomed that after three months I would be dreading going back to work. I still don't picture myself as a stay-at-home mom, but I wish I had a few more months with Izzy. She is growing and changing every day and it's really fun to be around to see everything. Once I put her in day care I'm not gonna see those things. I've already steeled myself to the fact that some of her biggest milestones may happen at daycare. And what I'm trying to tell myself is that they don't happen unless I see them.

I'm sure that we picked a great daycare a couple months ago. But right now she just seems so small and tiny and so dependent on me that I don't know how a daycare worker is going to take my place. The daycare workers don't know what makes her smile. They don't know what makes her laugh. They don't know the fun games that we play.I also worry that because she is such a good and mellow baby that she's going to get lost at daycare. All the other babies will get more attention because they are constantly crying while Izzy is left to herself. Maybe she will pick up bad habits just to get attention? She is used to constant attention from me with lots of snuggling and I'm sure she is simply not going to get that at daycare.

I wish that I had the option of staying home for a few more months. But our mortgage and our bills simply won't allow for any time off without pay. I've already exhausted all of my vacation and all of my sick time so it's time to head back to work. 

On the other hand it will be nice to have a lunch without rushing through it because of Izzy's crying. It will be nice to have two days a week working from home where I can spend some quality time with Buster during my lunch. We could go for a walk or a run or just have a nice long petting session. He's been feeling a bit neglected these days even though I'm doing my best to make sure that he gets attention....but it's certainly not as much as he used to get. My teleworking days might also be great days to get a few errands done like grocery shopping. Running errands without a kid is 10 million times faster. However, I would trade all of that on the list for a few more months with Izzy. Once she gets on more of a sleeping schedule I fear that I will briefly see her in the morning to nurse her and then at night to nurse her....and then not see her again until the next morning. So really any awake time with her will be on the weekends- we all know how those fly by. 

So next Monday as I head back to work Izzy has a transition week where she is home for the week with CP. My FIL and his wife are coming in on Saturday to meet Izzy and will be staying until Wednesday so he'll at least have some help- not that I'm worried about him because he is a fantastic dad. And then on March 3rd after her lip tie lasering appointment, as long as she is not crying and/or really upset from the procedure, I will have to drop her off at daycare. And look forward to the weekend.

Random tidbits on motherhood

I get a sick sense of satisfaction when the milk sprays out of my nipple like a sprinkler when I am pumping.

The front rail of Izzy's crib hits right on my incision when I lift Izzy in and out of her crib. That doesn't feel fantastic.

Despite being (I think) lighter or at least the same weight as my pre-pregnancy self, I am not fitting into my old clothes. This probably deserves an entire post but the confidence I had in my body while pregnant and early on after giving birth because I lost the pregnancy weight so quickly? Gone. I want to hide the pouch that I have above my incision scar and I am frustrated about my current body shape. I beat myself up because now it's been over two months since giving birth- shouldn't my body look better? Part if this is I'm sure due to stupid celebrities that have their body back two minutes after giving birth....part of it is feeling dumpy because my boobs are huge (size G) and I don't want to wear underwire bras just yet (so my boobs are much closer to my waist than I would prefer)....and part may have something to do with the fact that CP and I haven't started back up the marital relations portion of our marriage just yet. I'm sure there are other things that come into play as well. I know that I shouldn't beat myself up....but I still do.

I love it when strangers tell me my kid is adorable. Of course, I also love it when people comment on Buster's good looks too.

I have muscles in my upper back that I never knew existed that scream every night from holding and walking around with Izzy all day. Now that the lactation consultant told us that she has some reflux issues, we need to hold her in front of our bodies, upright, to burp her instead of throwing her over our shoulder and patting her. She is much happier, but for the 10 minutes after every feed my back is screaming!

Early on after we had Iz I found myself swaying in the shower (like I was rocking her). Turns out CP has been doing it at work as well!

Recently when I come into the nursery to pick Iz up to change her and feed her she looks up at me and gives me the biggest smile. It totally makes my day.

Breastfeeding Part 2

 Just when I thought I had everything figured out breastfeeding-wise, this past week turned everything upside down. I had a feeling that there was something wrong but it took putting a few things together to realize that I needed help. 

1. Time spent feeding. When I put together my two month update on Izzy I was looking over the app that I use to track her sleep, nursing, diapers, etc. and realized that I literally have her on my boob for four hours a day. ONE SIXTH OF MY DAY. I figured that was a lot partially because I seem to be feeding her an hour or an hour and a half after I first started the last feed. So if I started feeding her at 1pm and finished around 1:30pm, she was hungry again by 2:30 or 3pm!! This seemed extreme. I also happened to go over to my neighbor's house and mentioned that I was feeding four hours a day- she looked at me like I was crazy! 

At the two month doctor appointment I asked if it was normal and her ped suggested trying to give her an expressed bottle after a feeding to see if she is still hungry, but her weight was on track so he didn't seem too worried. Plus she's been sleeping seven or eight hours at night which tells me and the doctor that she is getting enough food after her cluster feeding.

2. My milk supply.  Then I was worried about my milk supply because every time I pump I get varied amounts of milk, more from my right boob.....but the numbers were starting to dwindle and I haven't been able to stockpile as much milk as I would like considering I am heading back to work in less than three weeks.

Thursday night I was looking up on Google how to increase your milk supply and came across an article on what kills your milk supply. One of the things listed was a nipple shield. F*CK. It has something to do with the decreased stimulation to the nipple, but it can decrease your milk supply. I wish the lactation consultant that originally told me to put the shield on told me this! So then I started freaking out. Maybe I wasn't giving her enough milk because my supply decreased because of the nipple shield? I immediately went into panic mode and was on the verge of crying because how could I have been so stupid and lazy to continue using the nipple shield?? I started googling things which as we all know can be good or bad. 

First off I purchased Motherlove pills which come highly recommended on Amazon. They should help with my milk supply. Starting with the next feed on early Friday morning I stopped using the nipple shield. I also went to see a lactation consultant on Saturday. She was very helpful. I am so so so glad that I went. 

First off she said I didn't ruin Izzy which is good. At two months I can still increase my milk supply as well. She helped me with my latch which I hadn't really worked on since being in the hospital two months ago. She kept saying that Izzy was a smart girl because she seemed to remember pretty quickly how to correctly latch. I got some tips on how to increase my milk supply which basically means pumping six times a day after feeds for about a week.

I also learned that Izzy has a lip tie- basically the small piece of skin from her upper lip to her gums is a little bit long and is affecting her suck reflex. This is why she doesn't like pacifiers because she doesn't have a strong enough sucking motion to to keep the pacifier in her mouth. On top of that she's also not getting as much milk every time she feeds because of the poor suck reflex. The reason she was feeding so often was because she was getting more foremilk but not the hindmilk. That requires a better suck reflex and requires her for to be on the boob for longer. This also explains the fact that she had 11 wet diapers a day- the foremilk is more watery and will go right through her. Amazing. 

This information would have been helpful for the last two months but I was idiot I didn't go see a lactation consultant. It could also be the reason that Izzy had such a hard time getting back up to her birth weight. *sigh* Cue mother's guilt.

So next up for Izzy? She has a doctors appointment tomorrow with an ear, nose, and throat doctor. I haven't looked into the surgery yet but I think it's just a quick clip for the cartilage and hopefully she has a better suck reflex afterwards to hold pacifiers and be better at getting the hindmilk. 

Moral of the story? I am very glad I listen to my intuition and went to a professional. This breastfeeding story is definitely not over but it's kind of crazy how something that supposed be so natural has so many issues and problems. What do people do in the olden days when their kids had lip or tongue ties?  I'm just glad that I didn't ruin this breastfeeding relationship with my laziness in not taking off the nipple shield.

To be continued....