the neurosis is here

can you see sullivan's left eye is red? well, IT IS.

i kind of had a feeling this would happen, since we used to freak out when the dog got hives, got stung by a bee etc. LOTS of trips to the vet. but that said, ryan and i are generally pretty laid back people not prone to hysterics. and on top of that, i was (and still am) determined to be a reasonable person who does not take her child to the doctor every time he sneezes or whatever. it is easy to say that when all is well, but i was put to the test on friday when i noticed sullivan's left eye was a little teary.

a new thing i have learned about babies is that they don't cry with tears right out of the gate. and everything is in working order to produce them, but tears are a result of a psychological component that takes a while for babies to develop. isn't that interesting??

his eye was noticeably wetter than the other one, with a tiny little bit of goop in the corner. and i noticed that he had been rubbing at it. of course it was friday at about 4, so i wouldn't be able to take him to the doctor the next day if it got worse. we decided to hold off and if it was still there on monday we would call.

the weekend went by, and his eye was still a little goopy and wet. then, on sunday we went out to dinner and he fell asleep in his carrier. when we got him home to give him a bath, his eye was so goopy he was having a hard time opening it. we cleaned it with a warm washcloth and after that it seemed to be much better.

but today he started rubbing at it again, so i decided to make an appointment. they had one available at 4:15, so i thought that would be perfect. sullivan slept for much of the afternoon, and since he wasn't rubbing his eye anymore, it wasn't red. so essentially, i showed up at the doctor's office with a perfectly healthy looking baby, feeling like a complete idiot. the nurse asked why i was there, to which i said 'his eye is red and goopy.' she looked at him, and then looked at me, and i wanted to tell her, 'i'm not a crazy neurotic parent! it was red and goopy ALL DAY!'

the doctor came in and i explained the symptoms, and she said it was probably just a blocked tear duct, which i totally knew all along because i had scoured the internet for baby-related eye ailments, but i didn't want to say that and maker her think i am one of those web-md home diagnosers. but she did give me a prescription for some antibiotic ointment in case it does get worse. so i guess i feel better now that i took him to see her, but i do feel like kind of an over protective freak.

but at least one fun thing came of this appointment; he got weighed! and I am proud to say he is now tipping the scales at 11 pounds 13 ounces! woohoo!

a new personal low

i think most new moms would agree that while you don't expect your body to snap back to pre-baby condition immediately, it is still surprising to look in the mirror after you have given birth. my arms, butt and legs all looked proportional when compared to a giant belly, but now that the belly is gone (mostly gone, anyway), everything looks huge. Maternity clothes don't fit anymore, but I still can't fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes, so I have been shlubbing around the house for the past two months in sweats and tank tops.

lovely.

I have two 'out of the house' outfits that involve the aforementioned tank tops and a pair of khaki maternity capri pants, or a black stretchy skirt i bought at a yoga store when i was about 12 weeks pregnant (it was expensive for me, i think 70 bucks, but turned out to be such a great investment!). And a denim jacket or some sort of cardigan to cover the giant, flabby arms.

so anyway, it was time i bought some clothes that fit. nothing crazy, but i mostly needed a few nursing shirts so i don't have to lift up my entire shirt, maybe a few more nursing bras since i leak or get spit-up on and they are in the wash ALL THE TIME, and pants of some kind.


Ryan, the sweetest and most amazing husband who keeps telling me i am beautiful no matter what, said he would go with me shopping and we could bring the grandparents down to babysit. While this was so thoughtful, I decided to go by myself because i knew although ryan meant well, he hates shopping, and i would be a little cranky trying on bigger clothes. Those two things could not possibly combine well.

So I went to the maternity store in the mall, which i figured would have some nursing things for relatively cheap. and yes, they do have a TINY section for nursing on one wall in the back. Whatever, i wasn't buying a whole new wardrobe. the saleslady asked me my bra size so she could pick out different styles of nursing bras for me to try on, and then she asked me "When is your baby due?"

Now, I know that I was in a maternity store and pretty much every woman who goes in there is pregnant. I also know that while I am a few pounds over my ideal weight, I do not look pregnant. Or, not pregnant enough to be shopping for nursing bras anyway. This lady was clearly an idiot who was not paying attention. But I was already feeling crappy about having to shop at all and that was pretty much the last thing i needed to hear. I tell her I already HAD my baby, thankyouverymuch, and she doesn't even bat an eyelash and puts me in a dressing room.

I found a few cute tops and some bras and got the hell out of there.

and may i say, i seriously hate that store. beyond the oblivious saleslady, the racks are overpacked with sub par clothing, like they know that pregnant women aren't expecting to look great while pregnant and they will settle for anything remotely cute. and they have a ridiculous return policy, which i am sure is due to the fact that pregnancy is a relatively short-lived state and people would want to return clothes when they are done with them, but it just screams low class to me. maybe that is snotty, but i don't care. my goal for the next pregnancy is to be able to shop at a decent maternity store.

ANYWAY, getting back to my story. right outside the maternity store is a kiosk. i generally hate these kiosks and the people that work in them. the product is usually crap that sounds/looks great but no one every actually uses, and the sales people are pushy and lame. I always walk by, eyes averted, hoping not to attract their attention. But after i left the maternity store, i paused in order to collect my thoughts and decide if i really wanted to shop for jeans after that ordeal. and just then, he caught me.

i don't even remember what he said that made me listen and walk over, because i never give the kiosk people the time of day. I am beyond feeling bad about it, or rude, but I always ignore them and walk by, with the occasional 'no thank you.' but before i realized what i was doing, this guy with the crazy accent (which i later found out was israeli) was buffing my thumbnail to a clear polish shine and oiling my seriously neglected cuticles. He asked me my name and told me i had lovely hands that just needed a little attention. voila! shiny nails! see how easy that is? three steps, and it is better than a salon! do you like cucumber melon or ocean? it is all yours for a great price! buy one, get one free!!!

He was definitely salesman-y, but sweet and young and not a wheeler-dealer. he could have tried to sell me all kinds of other crap, but he didn't. so now i have TWO sets of lotion, cuticle oil and nail buffer. and since that was the money i would have spent on jeans, i decided to call it a night.

Halloween

It has been a while since I have posted anything, mostly because I've had nothing to talk about. The days have been pretty non-eventful, which isn't a bad thing. Sullivan and I are getting to know each other better, and that is making this whole 'responsible for another human being' thing less stressful for me.

I thought Sullivan had too many outfits for halloween, but as the day went on, he either pooped or spit up on them so we ended up getting through all of them (except for the 'i love my mummy and mummy loves me' onesie because it was too small!). He was QUITE the attention getter from all the moms accompanying their kids and Ryan loved showing him off. I'm glad we didn't shell out the money for an actual costume, he looked just as cute in what we had. Maybe he will be a monkey next year.

happiness is...

my beautiful, sleeping family. this photo makes my heart at peace and swell with love at the same time.

curiousity got the better of us

I have more milk than I (or Sullivan) know what to do with, and as a result, he can't drink all the milk I have so some is left over and saturday i woke up with a plugged duct. I thought I had one before, and maybe I did, but this one was so painful it woke me up in the middle of the night and I could not go back to sleep. the only way to cure a plugged duct is to get the plug out. if the plug doesn't come out, the whole area could become infected, and i did not even want to deal with that so my plan on sunday was to do whatever i could to get that plug out. i would have sullivan nurse that side, and then i would use my pump to get any extra milk out. This worked out nicely because ryan has been feeding sullivan a bottle at night and it was nice to have a lot of extra milk in the fridge for exactly that purpose. And since we had all this extra milk, i thought it was time we taste our son's sole source of nutrition.

It was time to sample the breastmilk.

Ryan and I both took sips from a bottle i had just pumped. The verdict? I was pretty underwhelmed, thinking it would have some very distinctive flavor, but it really just tasted like watery milk (Ryan made a big production of it, but he said it hardly tasted like anything at all). maybe we should try it cold? or a gulp instead of a sip? meh. i think i'm over it, but i can at least say a tried it. and sullivan seems to like it, so that is all that matters. except he doesn't seem to love it when i eat a lot of onions or garlic, so i guess i'm cutting those out until i am done breastfeeding. i thought my diet would open up now that i am not pregnant anymore but it is turning out to be more restricted. who knew all this stuff about breastfeeding.

my baby smells like belly button

the reason i woke up at 7 on saturday morning is because my breasts were killing me. they were literally overflowing with milk. so although sullivan seemed content to sleep the morning away, he had to eat, otherwise i was going to explode.

most of the time, getting him to go down for the night is a very delicate dance where one little noise or slight jostle will wake him up and the process must be started all over again. waking him UP, however, is a whole other story. i wiggled his arms, rocked him around, talked to him...nothing. as a last resort i decided to take of his pajamas, hoping the change in temperature would rouse him. no luck there either; he seemed perfectly content in his diaper.

so i am playing with his arms when i notice a whitish substance in the crease of his armpit. I thought it must be lint from his clothes, so i went to pick it out. but instead of feeling like cloth, it was more...organic, like the consistency of thick lotion. so what do you do when you have a substance on your finger and you aren't sure what it is?

you smell it, of course!

and may i say....pew. PEW. it smelled like it came straight out of a belly button. i cleaned the rest out of that armpit and moved on to the other one, where i found another stash of the smelly substance. i think it was vernix, that cheesy stuff that covers babies in utero that protects their skin before they are born, it just hadn't come off. i mean, it was WAY up in his armpits so i can see how it was missed during his baths. but now we are making sure we get all the folds and creases when we bathe him. easier said than done. as he gets fatter, he is starting to get rollier than a shar-pei.

So long to the days of deep sleep...

Saturday morning, I wake up to see it is about 7:00 a.m. This is what went through my head:

Wow, Sullivan slept a long time! Awesome, maybe this is the start of him sleeping through the night. Wait, how long exactly did he sleep? I fed him around 1:15, so...almost six hours, that is pretty good. Umm...maybe too good. how long are they allowed to sleep? Is that too long? Is he okay? IS HE BREATHING???? Okay, yes he is breathing. Why is he sleeping so much? He didn't eat that much during the night, does that matter?

This all went through my head in the span of about a second. Of course Sullivan is fine, he was just sleeping. So even though he is able to sleep longer, the quality of my sleep has not been any better because i have thoughts of SIDS and aspirating spit-up floating through my head. Which I am sure will eventually be replaced by worry about how he is doing in school, and if he is making friends, which will then be replaced by worrying about if he is doing drugs and that is why he is late coming home. So I am pretty sure that I will not sleep again until he is at least 18 and away at college, although that presents a whole different set of things i can worry about.

what day of the week is it?

the alarm went off this morning and instead of hitting the snooze button, we listened while drifting in and out of sleep. i heard the dj mention something about friday, and i asked ryan 'isn't it thursday?' 'no, it is definitely friday,' he said. being home has thrown me into this twilight zone where i don't even know what day it is. further, i am not even excited about the fact that it is friday! i am looking forward to ryan being home for the weekend so we can hang out, but the thrill of knowing i have two days off before i have to go to work is gone. saturday and sunday are just days like any other. weird!

they grow so fast

last night, as ryan was holding sullivan, i noticed how nicely he was fitting into his 'puppy pals' sleeper. this is one of my favorite outfits--it has little paws on the bottom of the feet! too cute. but my realization of the nice fit led me to the next thought....soon he was going to be too big for it! then he won't be able to wear puppy pals ever again.

ever again!

he is almost a month old, i can hardly believe it. we have come so far! had so many firsts, learned so many things. and while there are many more to come, many moments have passed, never to return again. you could say this about everyday life, like 'oh, this is the only october 3, 2008 that there will ever be' but it is so much more poignant when you are talking about a baby who is growing and changing before your very eyes.

i was writing a thank-you note to someone who bought a 6-9 month outfit for him, and i said 'i can't wait to see him in it!' but the truth is, i can wait. he will be six months before i know it. he will be in COLLEGE before i know it.

before sullivan was born, ryan wanted to put a little note on the door of his room saying 'cherish these moments' so that when we have to get up in the middle of the night with him, we would read that and remember to hold on to this time. but i don't need the note. everytime i look at him i am reminded that his time as a baby is short. don't grow too fast sullivan!

THE diaper change

i fed sullivan, and went to change his diaper. these seems like a non-event not even worth mentioning, but...

oh dear.

the diaper was wet and dirty. no biggie. i get out a wipe, a new diaper, and put on a pee pee tee pee. first, he poos as i am wiping his bum, but luckily i catch all of it in the wipe. nice! however, at some point the pee pee tee pee came off, so of course he peed all over himself. and since i had his legs up from the wiping, it was a straight shot to the face. i abandon the diaper to wipe his face clean of urine. He sneezes, and more poo comes out, all over the outside of the new diaper and the changing pad. i finish wiping his face and go back to the diaper, getting ANOTHER clean one out. Sullivan has been squirmy all this time but now is quiet. just as i look at his face, he spews milk down the front of him and onto the changing table. So now he and the changing table are covered in poo, pee and puke. bath time!

i give him a bath and he sits very nicely, i think enjoying being back in a watery environment. after he is all clean, i pull him out and into one of his cute little hooded towels. wait, what is that on my leg? PEE! he peed. again.

here is a picture of him in his second hooded towel, finally clean after the hour long diaper change.

a new food provider

ryan has done a great job of staying involved with sullivan even though his interaction with him at this point is fairly limited. he brings him to me for feedings, changes him, burps him, etc.

there is all this debate about when to introduce bottles to newborns. you don't want to do it too soon, otherwise they will get used to how easily milk flows from a bottle and will not want to work a little harder to get it from a breast. but you don't want to do it too late either because then they will be so used to dealing with a real nipple they won't want to deal with fake nipple. seriously, i had NO idea all the issues that arise when feeding babies.

ANYWAY, we thought last night would be as good as any to give it a go. since i have been using the nipple shield, we figured that is practically like a bottle nipple anyway, so he should have no problem. AND i recently started throwing in a few 'naked boob' feedings and he seemed to be doing okay with those, so why not?

there was a little drama at first because when i first started pumping sullivan was sleeping, but a few minutes in he was awake and hungry and crying. ryan was frantically trying to clean new bottles and read the instructins on how to put it together (another mind blower, who knew bottles could have so many parts? a venting system? what?), and then sullivan pooped and it got all over his back and in his hair, so before any feeding could be done, he had to be changed and scrubbed with several baby wipes.

by the time ryan settled into the chair with the bottle sullivan was in full blown, red-faced scream, but as soon as the bottle hit his lips he calmed and started eating. Ryan looked up at me with the biggest grin that made my heart explode. He was so happy to be able to feed his baby and to calm him, since the only reason his seems to cry is when he is hungry. It was the sweetest thing. We had to take a picture. :)

Oh, and in case you were wondering, we did give sullivan a bath after the poo incident.

rescued from pee!

i love getting the mail these days because our friends and family have been sending gifts for sullivan and it is so fun to see what arrives.

imagine my excitement when i open a gift from kate busby and find....pee pee tee pees! finally, i will no longer have to worry about getting pee in my eye, a concern that would never have crossed my mind prior to having a son. and yes, meredith, they are the tee pees with the little airplanes on them. too cute. definitely would have come in handy the night of the 'tasty urine' incident. :)

from person manufacturer to milk production plant

my son is only...10 days old, but it feels like it has been MONTHS. mostly in a good way, although sometimes not. we have jumped big hurdles, summited a few mount everests.



for example, breast feeding. in my mind, breast feeding should be the most natural thing on earth, since prior to the advent of formula, this was the only way to feed babies. further, it is the only real purpose for boobs. i mean, given these facts, how hard could it possibly be? HA!



in the months leading up to sullivan's birth, we took several classes: childbirth, infant parenting, and breast feeding. i thought for sure that breast feeding class would be the most ridiculous one of them all. i have boobs, and i planned on using them. i knew babies sucked on the nipple, and milk came out, and that you should try and alternate boobs. silly, silly me.



first of all, you don't even begin to make milk until 3-5 days after the baby is born. until then, the baby gets colostrum, a yellow-ish clear fluid that is called 'liquid gold' because if its nutritional value. and even though that is all they get, that is all they really need anyway, because their little stomachs are about the size of a grape. so, breast feeding in the hospital was great because i knew he was getting colostrum, the nurses were there to show me how get sullivan to latch on correctly (who knew there was a right and wrong way to begin with?), and he could easily latch because my milk had not come in yet and my breasts were a manageable size.



let us fast forward to thursday.



i was taking a nap and i woke up because my boobs were sore. really sore. and tight and hard like a drum. and then i stood up, and they did not sway ever so slightly like they normally would. they didn't even move at all. they had grown. they were creeping into my armpits and up to my collarbone. they looked like footballs strapped to my chest. and my nipples were stretched flat. there was nothing for sullivan to latch on to. my nipple was barely a little button on my boob. they say the nipple needs to reach the back of the baby's mouth for breast feeding to work properly, and sullivan could not even get mine beyond his lips, poor little guy.

i tried to feed him when he wanted, but i could tell he wasn't getting enough. during one of the night feedings, i finally broke down in tears. i couldn't feed my child, i was a horrible mother. Sullivan was crying, i was crying, it was a mess. Ryan was amazing, he comforted me and assured me that everything would be okay, he massaged my boobs to help the milk flow, and he held and changed sullivan when i was too much of a weepy wreck to do anything. While he already proved himself as an amazing husband, Ryan is turning out to be an incredible dad as well. sullivan and i are lucky to have him.

Uh oh...I must run and feed the little guy. there is a good end to this story, I promise! I will finish it when I can. it involves the pediatrician and a british lactation consultant...
*update* After reading that post myself, i realized that i never did finish the story. As briefly as possible, here it is: We took sullivan to the pediatrician and he had lost almost a POUND of his birth weight. as soon as the doctor said this i turned into a weeping, sobbing mess. she said it was nothing to be too concerned about, as soon as the feeding problem was figured out, everything would be fine. she said breastfeeding issues happen with 50% of her new patients. she gave us some formula and a syringe and tubing so we could supplement his feedings through the tube without disrupting breastfeeding. then she gave me that little fake nipple thing and suggested i see a lactation consultant. i still had the number for the woman that taught my breastfeeding class, and she told us to come down to her work and she would help us there. she works at a maternity/baby store in another hospital in san diego. meredith came with us for this outing and took notes. the lactation lady was lovely and british and looked truly pained when she saw how ridiculously engorged i was. the store had a very sensitive scale that measured to the tenth of the ounce so we weighed sully, fed him, and then weighed him again. the fake nipple worked, he took in 5 ounces! thank god. since he had to get his weight back up, we had to feed him every two hours, even if that meant waking him up. it was exhausting, and my nipples were so sore it brought tears to my eyes. but at least he was eating. We took him back to the doctor after the weekend and he had gained half a pound. crisis averted.

sullivan james woodward has arrived

so many things i was going to do this week before my due date....work on the blog, go to the movies, the beach, etc. etc. INSTEAD, sullivan decided he was ready to be born and started being all pushy about it around 11:15 sunday night. labor was hard, but relatively fast, and at 11:42 on monday morning, he was born. a perfect boy, 7 pounds 5 ounces. I am still in disbelief about it myself, but it is all too real as he is here and i have the war wounds to prove it. we are getting used to our new life. I apologize for another short post, but i have a person to take care of!

a blog is born

i've set up a blog! how exciting. now (hopefully) everyone can check in and see how peanut, ryan, blue and i are doing. we are embarking on a crazy adventure. more to come, i must do some more organizing.