Friday, March 26, 2010

Baby's Favourite Things (again)

Today, Baby likes:
  • Visiting with S & K
  • Sam giving her raspberries on her belly
  • Her new (hand me down) toys from Angelina
  • Her new (hand me down) jeans
  • Going to the Mother's Unfolding group
  • Smiling at Jacob (a baby at the MU group)
Today, Baby doesn't like:
  • The Ergo carrier

Laughing Baby

Sorry, I don't know how to flip the video - and I'm too lazy to figure it out. Feel free to email me with tips though ;)

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Baby's Favourite Things (the next day)

Today, Baby likes:
  • Sucking her thumb
  • Nelson the sock monkey
  • Going to parties in her honour
  • Not wearing pants
  • Allen singing to her
  • Having a bath
Today, Baby doesn't like:
  • Putting her coat on
  • (I can't think of anything else she doesn't like today)

Monday, March 22, 2010

Baby's Favourite Things (today)

Today, Baby likes:
  • Sucking her thumb
  • Reiki treatments
  • The Ergo carrier
  • Visiting Lela

Today, Baby doesn't like:
  • The carseat
  • Taking a nap longer than 15 minutes
  • Being too hot

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Baby's Favourite Things

Today, Baby likes:
  • Sucking her fingers
  • Looking at a small cloth book of animals
  • Pushing herself backwards with her feet when laying on her back
  • Sitting up tall and looking around
  • When Mama yawns
Today, Baby doesn't like:
  • The carseat
  • The Ergo carrier
  • Napping for longer than 1/2 hour
Who knows what tomorrow will bring!

Smiles

I love when Baby smiles. It melts my heart.









Friday, March 19, 2010

First cold

Ugh. Poor Baby has a bad cold. Apparently RSV. A common virus that most kids get while under the age of 2 and usually happens in the winter. I wish she had been a bit older before getting her first cold (if she had to get it at all) but what can you do. It has been awful watching her cough and gasp for air. No real treatment other than lots of sleep and time. Up to 2 weeks the doc says. Her breathing was quite laboured last Sunday so I decided to call the BC nurse hotline. They suggested she see a doctor because of her age and suggested a walk in clinic asap. So off we went to the clinic. I spoke to the receptionist when we got there who said it was a 1.5 hour wait and that the doctor would likely send us to Children's hospital anyway..because of her age. So off we went to Children's hospital....where apparently a few other kids were visiting. Holy crap. It was PACKED. We were there for hours. We were told to sit away from others because Baby hasn't been vaccinated. I suddenly had visions of all the unknown bugs sailing around the ER and regretted bringing her there. But, we were already there and I wanted to make sure her lungs were ok and that her breathing was ok. Turns out both were ok. A little bit raspy in her chest but overall doing well. Phew. Doc said it would likely get worse, showed us how to check her breathing by watching her chest and said it would last about 2 weeks. It definitely got worse! We've been turning our bathroom into a steam room every night which seems to provide some relief. I hope she feels better soon!

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Random Thoughts

  • I really need to lose weight - I'm finding it difficult to move around easily.
  • I bought more capsules today for the rest of my placenta.
  • Baby will be 10 weeks old tomorrow (double digits!)
  • We finally got a dresser for Baby - her clothes are all over the floor at the moment.
  • I'm obsessed with cloth diapers - I love them!
  • I have a requisition for a blood test to check for diabetes - I got it over a month ago and I still haven't gone for the test...oops.
  • I missed the rally for IWD yesterday, damn.
  • I'm really tired today for some reason - even though I got a fairly good night's sleep last night.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

March Forth

March 4th is significant for me for a couple of reasons.

The first reason is that it is the day that I received my gohonzon. As part of my buddhist practice I chant twice a day for anywhere from 10-30 minutes at a time. While not necessary, I chose to receive my gohonzon which is a scroll that is usually placed in an alter called a butsudan and it is what I look at when I chant. It is meant for focusing on and to represent our inherent buddhist nature so when we chant in front of it we remember that. I received gohonzon on March 4, 2007.

March 4th is also significant for me because it was the estimated due date of the baby I first became pregnant with in 2008. It's hard to believe that we were at the 'baby making business' for almost 2 years! That baby would have been turning 1 today. When I noticed the date on the calendar a few days ago I thought about that baby. Now that I know that the little wriggling potential human being that was in me for almost 10 weeks does indeed turn into a real live little person it made me sad all over again to think about the loss. I remember the day so vividly still. It was the day of the Dyke March festival. I was supposed to be working at the festival, having served on the board for the months leading up to the day. I was supposed to be having fun. Instead, I was at home, experiencing contraction like cramps and delivering far too early what should have been my baby. I cried so hard. I screamed during each cramp, more out of loss and anger than out of pain. Then it was over. As quickly as the pain started, it ended and I just felt empty. I didn't really know what to do. When I got pregnant again 2 months later and again lost that baby at 5 weeks this time, I truly became depressed for the first time in my life. I screamed and cried and slept for hours and hours without speaking to anyone for days at a time. I feel like I lost my innocence. I was naive to think that every pregnancy turns into a baby.

As I started to try and heal, I realized that no one talks about miscarriage but it is a very common, very "normal" event. It still bothers me that people don't talk about it (if they want to). My wish is that miscarriage becomes less of a taboo subject and that more women (and men) are allowed to grieve and heal more openly.

I will always remember my two short pregnancies and always have a place in my heart for the lives that weren't meant to be. And when I look at my 9 week old daughter laying in my arms today, I know she is a precious, precious gift.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Sleep Part 1

Baby had a 45 minute nap this morning around 10...as she normally does. She usually wakes up anywhere between 7:30 and 9. She is absolutely adorable in the mornings. She is super smiley and giggly and loves to play and interact for a couple of hours. Even if I've only had 4 or 5 hours of sleep the night before I can't help but be wide awake to enjoy the time with her. She actually sleeps quite well now. At least, well enough for S and I at this point. More sleep would be nice of course but I've accepted that I won't have interrupted sleep for quite some time. Now that I've accepted it, it's easier to deal with! For the first month or so, Baby would wake up pretty much every hour all night. And, she would only fall back asleep if one of us held her. At times, she would wake up as soon as we laid her down - there was a lot of sitting up and semi-sleeping those nights. Some days I would be so exhausted I couldn't even think. Often we are out every day, all day so when she would have her "power naps" of 3-4 hours I couldn't take advantage of that and "sleep when the baby sleeps" as everyone kept advising me to do. Also, I tend to get caught up in trying to get a ton of stuff done while she naps...dishes, laundry, cleaning up, etc. etc. I've gotten a bit better at relaxing at least when she naps sometimes. Even if I don't sleep, I'll sometimes veg out in front of the TV (olympics!) or catch up online.

One day when she was around 6 weeks old she suddenly slept for 3.5 hours one night in a stretch. I woke up abruptly, stared at the clock and wondered what the heck was wrong! I looked over at Baby and she was sleeping peacefully beside me and woke up a few minutes later happy and well rested. That has pretty much been the norm since that night. She sleeps for 3 to 3.5 hours, wakes up to nurse, sleeps another 2-3 hours, wakes up to nurse and then sleeps another hour or two. While this might not seem like a lot of sleep...it is when compared to the first first weeks after she was born. This seems like an ENORMOUS amount of sleep after those early days. However, even those early nights were manageable. It helped me a lot that S would sit up awake for an hour and hold Baby after I had nursed her so I could get some sleep. It also helps that Baby sleeps with us.

When we first started trying to have a baby I imagined that the baby would sleep in his or her crib in our room for the first few weeks and then move into their own room. That's the way it was supposed to be right? We do not have much space in our room though (we have a king sized bed in a fairly compact room) so we then moved to imagining a bassinet beside the bed on my side. To be honest though, they were all kinda ugly and the only "cool" ones were so crazy expensive for something that would only be used for a few months that we got turned off that idea too. I started reading about co-sleeping online. I talked to other moms who co-slept - some planned, some not planned. Everyone agreed that they slept so much better when baby was in bed with them...the whole family seemed to sleep better. I immediately took to the idea but was worried about the safety of it. S was open to the idea but not entirely so...because of safety concerns and comments from her co-workers that "you'll never get the baby out of your bed" if you start out co-sleeping. I worried about smothering the baby or the baby rolling out of bed. I did some more research online and found about the arm's reach co-sleeper and the snuggle nest. The arm's reach product sounded interesting but we didn't think it would work on our bed (a platform bed) and it was pricey. The snuggle nest seemed really simple and something that we wanted to check out. Unfortunately, we couldn't find it in Canada. We drove to Bellingham to try and find it and couldn't find it there either. After a bit more research, I found the safe and secure co-sleeper at babies r us. We picked it up and decided we would give it a try. We put it on our mattress inbetween us. Although it's fairly short (Baby will likely be too long for it any day now....she's quite tall and has been since birth) it has been perfect. It has hard sides and there is no way either of us would roll over it. It gave us the co-sleeping benefits of having her close to us all night and the piece of mind of being safe. Fast forward to when Baby is about 6 weeks. She is still not sleeping longer that 2 hours at a time. Remember the night I mentioned above where she slept 3.5 hours? Well, that night, I scooped her up out of the co-sleeper and laid her down beside me to cuddle....we woke up 3.5 hours later :) I'm no longer afraid of rolling over on her but I do sleep in a particular position and modify how I sleep when she's beside me. She usually still sleeps the first part of the night in the co-sleeper (where she now sleeps 3.5 hours there too...) and then after the first wake up she cuddles with me. Everyone says the baby shouldn't be between 2 people to sleep because only the birth mother is aware enough for it to be safe. However, so far, it's worked fine for us. With our king sized bed Baby and I are far enough away from S that it's not really an issue anyway. When she starts rolling around we'll reassess and see how to work things out.

Another benefit of co-sleeping is not having to get up to breast feed. I only recently mastered nursing her while I'm laying down which is even easier...but even with having to sit up and pick her up, it's still easier and less disruptive than having to get out of bed to do it.

The main benefit of co-sleeping for me is that Baby is close to us during the night. I absolutely love cuddling with her during the night and waking up to see her beautiful face grinning away beside me. Am I afraid that she'll "never leave our bed"? Not at all. I'm very confident that she'll leave when she's ready to sleep on her own. And until then, our family can get as much sleep and as many cuddles as possible!

Note: I do think that having a king sized bed makes using the co-sleeper easier. Personally, I think it would take up too much room in even a queen sized bed.

Oh, and we never did buy a bassinet...or a crib.