The Most Stressful Job...Ever!

I used to think I worried too much. That was before I had a baby. Now that I have one I only wish I worried as much as I used to - now it's magnified...BIG time. With that said, I'll begin my tale.

About 3-3½ weeks ago (around the time Y turned 5 months) I decided that it was time for me to allow Y the opportunity to self-sooth her way to sleep. Well for the most part it worked, the only problem is that her way of soothing herself to sleep is to turn her head from side to side over and over again. I dunno if this friction caused it, but eventually a bump showed up on her little bald spot. It was just a teeny tiny little bump at the time and after a couple days it became a couple little red bumps but I didn't think it was anything to be too alarmed about but I did decide that maybe I should rock her to sleep somewhat (as in wait until she's so drowsy she won't notice me putting her down). Well by the time Saturday night came and we were giving her a bath, B and I both expressed how well the spot looked and it seemed to be healing really well. The next morning was a different story though. During her morning feed I was rubbing her hair as I normally do and when my fingers hit her bald spot I felt something really hard and rough. After finishing the feed I checked it out to find that it was scabbed over and very crusty. I asked a couple of residents (medical) about it and all thought that it was eczema which was no surprise to us because both of us have eczema. We took her to the doctor on Monday, he thought it was infected and gave us a prescription to use. It worked...kinda. On Saturday morning I noticed that small bumps were starting to appear on her neck and around the infected area and called the pediatrician, we scheduled an appointment for Monday. Needless to say it seemed to get better by the time Monday came but the small bumps from her neck were now on her perfect little face. During her appointment her doctor wasn't 100% sure what it was and referred us to a dermatologist (by the way, Y is now 16 lbs and 26¾" long). Now between Monday and today I was pretty positive that whatever reaction she was having was due to me and the proteins from the dairy I drink transferring to Y through my breast milk. Well today the dermatologist basically told me that I would have been lucky if that had been the problem - because then it would be easily solved. It is not, however, the problem. And actually they're not completely sure what the problem is. The rash that has now spread over her entire body is secondary, meaning that it is a result of her immune system trying (probably with little luck) to fight off this bacterial infection of some sort. I say "of some sort" because that is what they don't know yet. The spot in the back of her scalp is what the immune system is fighting because it is apparently infected a bacteria. Today they took some samples from the location and will be doing some cultures in order to figure out exactly what it is and how to get rid of it which will take 3-4 weeks. Meanwhile we got a prescription for a cream for her body and another for her scalp and they said we should notice a difference in a week.

Now it'd be great if the story stopped here, but it doesn't! Y has Mongolian Spots pretty much all over her backside: upper and lower back, butt, shoulders and even a few on her legs. When she was born I thought they were bruises from the birthing process but her pediatrician pointed them out to us and explained what they are. He also wanted to note it in her file so that no one could accuse us of child abuse if they saw those spots (and believe me people have asked about them)! Well apparently studies have been done that supposedly link children with a lot of Mongolian Spots to children that have weak immune systems (says the dermatologist). The dermatologist was somewhat concerned about this especially since on 2 occasions it seemed to be getting better only to find that it actually got worse. So now, not only am I worried that they're not sure what type of bacteria this is and thus also not sure how to treat it, but I'm also worried that my child may have a difficult time getting over future illnesses. Do I really think she has a weak immune system? No! But she's only had 2 colds so there hasn't been a whole lot to test it, but I do shudder at the thought nonetheless.

I must add though that through it all, Y has been amazing. She has a cold, bumps all over her body, a very nasty infection in her scalp, and we're pretty sure she's teething...and through it all she just laughs and plays all day. I think it affects me more than her. We're lucky parents! Anyway, sorry this was so long but I'm a sucker for the details. And if no one else appreciates the details, I know one person who does...Yep, that's you Aunt J! :-D

I'll try to keep you all posted!

Comparison

In response to a request from the post below, I Did All The Work...He Gets All The Glory, I have searched and found a couple of recent photos were Y looks a little like me. Our baby pictures are in the middle between Y. So what do you think?

I Did All The Work...He Gets All The Glory!

So B's mom, Q, sent me an email tonight with an assortment of pictures. One where B was 4 months old and two of Y from my last post. Well, she looks like he spit her out! I don't want anyone to have the impression, based on the title of the post, that I am bitter - I am not, it was simply the catchiest title I could think of. Anyway, here's the pictures for a side-by-side comparison. What do you think?

This Week in Pictures

So there's not a whole lot to update this week, but we did take some pictures (which I realize is probably the only reason some of you come anyway). *wink*

Our Valentine's weekend was pretty nice, it was our first with a baby so it was slightly different. On Friday night our ward had an adult game night at church but since Y is still nursing we took her with us. On Saturday, Bran had to work but once he got home I drove to Olive Garden to pick up our meal (which I called in earlier in the day). We decided that we didn't think we wanted Y to be out and about crowded around so many people. When I went to pick up the food I was certain we made the right choice! Maybe next year when she's eating people food we'll go out again. Dinner was great, typically on V-Day we go to Carrabba's but we switched it up this year since we hadn't been to Olive Garden for a number of years. It's great living in such a large metropolitan area because there are so many options of places to eat that you can literally go a super long time without having to eat at the same one twice. As for gifts, I typically can't wait to get or give my gifts so very rarely do we end up waiting until V-day to exchange. I ended up getting a little money to put towards the Wii (and a game) and B got the first season of King of Queens.

Y received her gift from my mom and dad this week. It is actually her Christmas gift but they just went online to walmart.com to have it shipped to us, so she just received it this week. I'm honestly glad that it took so long because we've been gradually letting her play with her gifts so that she thinks she's getting something new all the time (maybe that's a bad thing). She loves her exersaucer and has recently learned how to turn herself around in it to play with one of the millions of toys on it (a slight exaggeration). However, with her new toy...our living room is maxed out! She has the new Rainforest Jumperoo, the Rainforest Gym, the Rainforest bouncer, and the Triple Fun Exersaucer all in the living room...and that's only the big toys! She has about 10 other smaller toys laying around and as I think about it I'm thinking that we should buy stock in a battery factory because all of her toys, big and small, all use batteries. I can't wait until we reach the baby doll stage! Anyway, here are some pictures and a video of her in her new toy. We finally figured out how to convert the video files from our camcorder to a format accepted by blogger, then after we converted it we greatly had to shrink the filesize in order to upload it to blogger so the quality may be shotty at best. BE SURE TO TURN THE MUSIC OFF IF YOU WANT TO HEAR THE VIDEO!

I think these are probably the most ADORABLE pictures ever.

These were taken in the morning after she woke up...all I can say is "Fear the 'Fro!"

The Jumperoo!

She looks like she's saying, "are you kidding me, mom?"

Looks like she's practicing some sort of cheer in bottom picture!

Last, but not least...Y meets the jumperoo!

This Little Piggy Cried Wii, Wii, Wii...All the Way Home!

I have wanted a Nintendo Wii for the longest time now and I finally got one. I've wanted one for the past two years at least but could only justify spending that much on something if it were a joint Christmas present. However, we've known that we wanted Y for that amount of time so we'd end up buying something that we felt we needed when she was born. So one Christmas we purchased a digital camera so that we can take really good pictures of her (my old one really sucked...it was only 3 mega pixels). And this past Christmas we purchased a new camcorder so we could take really good videos of Y (if you haven't noticed yet, our world revolves around Y)! So I've been wanting this Wii for a long time and didn't really want to wait until Christmas so in January I informed Brandon that he was not to buy me a Valentine's Day gift, instead he was to put the money he would have spent on my gift aside because I was saving for a Wii. In fact I told him that any gift he would give me throughout the year (Mother's Day, Graduation, Birthday, etc.) he had to give me cash. I went a step further and told all our family members that if they were to get me a gift...give me cash. Well now, they no longer have to give me cash...my sister (and mother) bought me my Wii. They said it is an early graduation gift...I think I'll drop out now! haha...just kidding. 143

It's All In How You Say It!

On the way to church today B and I were having a conversation and I really have no idea how it started but I think I said something to the effect of, "we'd better have all girls because we can't agree on any boy names." Then I believe he said that I like weird names (which may be partially true). Anyhow I went on to say his famous quote that he always told me before we found out we were having a girl which is, "that's not a name, it's a word!" Now I believe this started because I liked the name Gage for a boy but spelled Gaje and then he said, "that's not a name it's a word!" Well I believe I told him that neither Gage nor Gaje were words, that he was thinking of gauge with a "U" and even though they sound the same are totally different. Anyways...so he goes on to say how people name their kids weird names like Apple so I jokingly said "we can have a little boy name Naranja" (which means orange in Spanish) he just rolled his eyes and said his other famous quote, "that's a HORRIBLE name." I laughed and ran with it so I went through all the colors that I know in Spanish until I reached Amarillo (yellow). When I got to this one I kind of paused for a second because I really liked it. And then I repeated it with this sexy Spanish accent and then it sounded really, really good so I told him that it would sound awesome to anyone that didn't speak Spanish (and it really would)! At that point B shouts out, "but what about those people that do speak Spanish" to which I had no reply. Going on from there I went to Verde (green) and though I didn't really like that one I then said Verdad (which means truth) and I paused again because I really like it! Actually would like to name my kid Verdad or Truth. I dunno what it is but I love the way Truth sounds as a name. Just my luck I'd name a kid Truth and he'd be a pathological liar. Anyway, we're not having any babies any time soon so I still have time to work on him...although I suspect that all the time in the world won't get him to agree to any of the names (or words) listed above. But then again...it's the mother that they give the birth certificate to ;-)

We're quite the couple, really, our conversations would probably keep people laughing constantly. We both tend to take things to the extreme...the in-betweens are boring!

Totally Random...

I love breastfeeding Y and I am so glad that I decided to do it and stick with it. I know that it's best for her and it was very trying at first but definitely worth it. I'm going to try to stick it out until she is at least one year old. But tonight, for the first time, I realize how much I miss my BRAs!!! Nursing bras suck!!! They recommend that you don't use underwire bras, but I bought some of both (wire and no wire) and I hate them ALL!!! I have not been able to find a nursing bra that gives me the support AND comfort that I used to enjoy. So for that reason, and only that reason, I cannot wait until breastfeeding is over! I had totally forgotten what a good bra feels like, and now that I've worn it again I realize how much I miss it. Ah well...only 7 more months.

5 Months!

Five months ago tonight I was laying in a hospital bed - sore, drugged up and unable to sleep.

Sore because every time I moved I could feel the stitches and staples from the c-section, not to mention I had a horrible cough that made me want to scream each time I coughed (while you're healing from a c-section anything that causes your abdomen to contract kills).

Drugged up not because of any pain but because of the unexplained temperature that I had while in labor - the doctor's exact words were, "I don't know what caused it but I've prescribed enough meds to get rid of it." Little did I know that statement was no exaggeration, I had nurses coming into my room every hour to replace an empty bag that was attached to my IV. They were literally pumping 3 or 4 prescriptions into my vein in addition to the IV fluid. And this doesn't even count the number of Vicodin and Motrin they kept bringing for the pain related to the C-section. I was on those "fever fighting" drugs for 48 hours and by the time it was over it felt like my vein was burning.

Unable to sleep for a couple reasons. The first was that it was my baby's first night in this world and I couldn't even see her. I wasn't allowed to move around for the first 24 hours after the c-section and since I had gestational diabetes it caused her to have low blood sugar (because her body was producing a lot of insulin that was needed while she was inside of me and living off of the food I ate but once she was delivered and no longer had that food supply but her body still produced quite a bit of insulin - it usually takes a day or so for their body to regulate it). She also had a low body temperature so they kept her in the nursery giving her an IV of sugar water under a heat lamp. The second reason I was unable to sleep was because I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. I knew that for at least the next 18 years I would be responsible for another life. If that's not something that can keep you awake at night then I don't know what can. I was scared out of my mind and it still hadn't really sunk in that I was now a mom.

Five months (and one day) later as I look back it really seems like it was so long ago but at the same time it seems like it was yesterday. Y has brought so much joy to our lives and a day (possibly even an hour) never goes by that I don't tell her how much Mommy loves her. My life has been completely turned upside down but I did have 40 weeks to prepare for it. But then again, nothing in the world can prepare you for motherhood. But there's also nothing in the world that can compare to motherhood. Anyway, my baby is 5 months (and one day) old and I'm both happy and sad. Happy about what life has in store, sad that it's going by so fast.

Here are some pictures from her 5 Month-day (I can't say birthday so i say month-day):

A Decision...I Think!

So for all those who have been following our blog, you know all about my great debate - to be a stay at home mom or a working mom. It's sort of weird, I always wanted to be a career woman and never really wanted to be a mom. And then it all changed. For me it didn't happen instantaneously the moment I first looked into my baby's eyes like it seems to happen for some people. For me it came slowly, during her morning feedings I'd imagine not being able to share that time with her. Or as I dress her in the morning I would imagine having to hurry through the process because I needed to get her to daycare as soon as possible so I wouldn't be late for work. Or rushing home to fix dinner and having very little time for her. And every time I thought of these things my heart broke and after a while I realized that the career wasn't what I wanted at all. Not if it meant sacrificing those special moments with my daughter. I'd think to myself, "maybe it'll get easier as she grows older" and I'm sure it would but then thoughts of baby #2 and #3 and #4 pop into my head and I know that there is no way that I would be able to leave them after only 6 weeks of maternity leave. Last week I was visiting a site for work at home moms and a question was posed, it asked: "What have you/do you sacrifice to stay at home with your kids?" The question really struck me and I asked myself what am I willing to sacrifice and I must say that at this point I'd sacrifice pretty much anything. And so, I think the decision has been made...I'm staying home and that decision has brought me a lot of peace. I still have student loans to pay back so if need be I'll find a retail job that allows me to work a few hours a week. Maybe one day I'll have that career of my dreams, but for now...I'm a mom!

A good friend of mine shared with me a poem months ago after one of my baby showers and I didn't really appreciate it then, but I can truly appreciate it now. The poem didn't influence my decision but it really hits home with me and brings tears to my time each time I read it. I thought I'd post it here and share it with you all. It doesn't have a title and the author is listed as unknown but it's beautiful all the same! Here goes:

She came tonight as I sat alone

The girl I used to be...

And she gazed at me with her earnest eye

And questioned reproachfully

Have you forgotten the many plans

And hopes that I had for you?

The great career, the splendid fame

All wonderful things to do?

Where is the mansion of stately height

With all of its gardens rare?

The silken robes that I dreamed for you

And the jewels for your hair?

And as she spoke I was very sad,

For I wanted her pleased with me...

This slender girl from the shadowy past

The girl that I used to be

So gently arising, I took her hand,

And guided her up the stair

Where peacefully sleeping, my babies lay

Innocent, sweet and fair

And I told her that these are my only gems,

and precious they are to me;

That silken robe is my motherhood

Of costly simplicity.

And my mansion of stately height is love,

And the only career I know,

Is serving each day in these sheltering walls

For the dear ones who come and go.

And as I spoke to my shadowy guest,

She smiled through her tears at me;

And I saw that the woman that I am now

Pleased the girl that I used to be...

--Author Unknown

It's amazing that I went from being a girl who never wanted to be a mom to a woman who only wants to be a mom. Life definitely changes us and, if we allow it, turns us into the people that Heavenly Father would have us be. I love my life! 143

Pictures...

If you can't tell by now...we love taking pictures of Y! We are well over 500 pictures of her, in fact we're probably closer to 600 by now. But these pictures are really more for my mom because she wanted to see Y with her first little pigtail. It can be hard to see it but it's sitting right on top of her head! Kinda hard to tell in some of them though because the pigtail really just curled up like the rest of her hair. Anyways, here ya go mom (the rest of you can enjoy too)!

These are Y's first bath pictures - but this is not her first bath I assure you! She was so cute while in the tub that we had to take a picture. We didn't get the camera in time for you to see the really funny image but picture someone in a hot tub leaning back and relaxing like they're having the time of their life. If you can imagine that then you can imagine Y in the pose. I guess now we're just gonna have to take the camera in with us for every bath time. Anyway, in one of the pictures she kinda still has that pose, but not the whole effect. Anyway...here goes: