Q's Blessing Day

This past Sunday, August 28th, we had Baby Q blessed.  We were fortunate to have family come over from Canada to attend the blessing as well as meet Q for the first time.  It meant so much to us to have family drive so far to be with us on the special day and meet the newest princess.  It was a gorgeous day and we were able to go out and take some beautiful pictures.  Here are just a few of the ones we took, enjoy!

The four of us with B's parents

Us with B's brother, parents, grandma and aunt

Me and the girls with Aunt J and Uncle R

B&U+2

Model Yanna! ;)

She was hungry after sleeping through the entire blessing and Sacrament Service as well as the drive home and half the pictures!

The Elvis lip

30

Ever since I can remember I have dreaded the thought of my 30th birthday - even as a little girl. I was 9 years old when my mom turned 30 and I remember then thinking that was an ancient age that I didn't want to see. It wasn't really a coherent desire because I also didn't want to die before I turned 30! But sometime in the last year, probably after B turned 30, I stopped dreading it - I even accepted it!


I've realized that I'm a heck of a lot happier at 30 than I was at 20, and why shouldn't I be?!? I have an amazing and adoring husband. I have two healthy and beautiful little girls. My bills are paid, I know the direction my life is heading, I have a stronger relationship with my family, a better relationship with God, etc. I am looking forward to 30 and all that it holds for us and I honestly hope that when I'm turning 40 and looking back over this decade that I can say I'm even happier then!

Here's to 30 and Happy Birthday to me!!

Baby Blues or Postpartum Depression

So if you've been reading this blog or reading my Facebook posts then you know that I've been struggling through these past several weeks.  It has honestly seemed as if everything I did, or attempted to do, was an uphill and never ending battle.  I have spent a lot of the past few weeks crying and trying to reassure B, my mom and others that I'm not depressed.

I think it was harder to convince my mom of that, because let's face it, even though I don't personally feel I've ever been depressed there is a family history of depression.  Couple that with the fact that she has been pretty sad that she can't be here to help me with Y and Q and to say she has been worried about me would be a bit of an understatement.  I won't lie, I've probably given her reason to worry as I've spent quite a bit of my time on the phone with her in tears.  In tears because I felt inadequate as a mother, because I had little to no sleep, because I yelled at Y when I overreacted about something that wasn't that big of a deal in the first place.  I can go on and on but mostly I just felt alone once B returned to work.

For a while I did wonder if I were suffering from Postpartum Depression.  I Googled it to check out the symptoms.  I emailed and messaged friends who had experienced it.  I wondered if I should take a drug that would help my milk supply if it was also known to cause/worsen depression. 

In the end I prayed about it and decided to go with taking the drug.  Now things seem to be on the way up and my head is coming out of the clouds and I realize that this time, as well as with Y, it was just a case of the baby blues.  I also realize that breastfeeding was/is the main cause of those baby blues and when I looked back over this period with Y I can remember feeling many of the same feelings, only I wasn't nearly as sleep deprived.  There's no doubt about it though, the baby blues suck!  But I'm relieved that it was only the baby blues and nothing more serious like postpartum depression!

And if you're curious, no, the drug didn't cause me to have any depressive thoughts.  I used the same drug when I needed to increase my milk supply with Y and fortunately for me it works wonders without the negative side effects.  Q is nursing well, she's latching perfectly, she's gaining weight and she's sleeping better.  All pluses for me!  Hopefully those baby blues are a thing of the past!  We're having Q blessed this Sunday, she will be a day shy of 4 weeks old.  We also blessed Y when she was about the same age and that's about the point when my blues disappeared as well.  So maybe it's just those first 3-4 weeks until the breastfeeding thing is all figured out and the stress of it has fizzled.  Either way, I'm relieved to be past it!

Q's Appointment

Today we went back to the pediatrician to have Q weighed just to make sure all was really going well with nursing.  She now weighs 8lbs 4oz which not only puts her 3oz above her birth weight but it also means that she has gained 7oz in the last 8 days!!!!  So it looks like fixing the latch and breast compressions to keep her interested when she falls asleep/stops sucking has worked!  I cannot tell you how overjoyed I am.  Not to mention that she has started staying awake a bit more as well nursing a bit faster.  All meaning I am getting a little more sleep at night!!

Pride in Accomplishment

So it's no big surprise, everyone takes some pride in their accomplishments.  Some accomplishments are bigger than others.  But for me, as a stay at home mom, I have found that most of my greatest accomplishments now surround my children.  Potty training Y was a big one, delivering Q without drugs (even if it was unintentional), nursing Y for 15 months, I could add to this list but I'm sure you get my point.

Well today I added another to that list.  I am fortunate to have a pediatrician who not only encourages me to trusts my instincts as a mother but supports me in almost all of those instincts.  So when his associate instructed me to supplement with formula after breastfeeding I decided to trust my instincts and not supplement at all.  I was pretty confident that after I explained my reasoning he would go along with it but I was slightly shocked when he didn't expect/need any explanation at all.  When seeing her weight he simply shrugged and said, "supplementing isn't necessary just yet."  He's not overly concerned about Y not being back up to birth weight, he said the norm is for a newborn to lose 10% of their birth weight, Q has only lost 7% max.  She is now at 7lbs 13oz which means she has gained 2oz since we met with the lactation consultant on Monday, that's an ounce per day and the recommended weight gain is 4-8oz per week - she's doing just fine!  We'll go back next week just to check her weight.  Normally her next visit would be at 2 months old but he didn't feel comfortable going that long without at least checking her weight, and honestly I wouldn't have been comfortable with that either!

So today I take pride in my accomplishment - sticking with my guns and foregoing the formula AND (most importantly) being able to provide the food she needs to put on more weight without help from any man made product!

Problems...Solutions

Nothing worthwhile is easy. Know that when you succeed in accomplishing your most challenging goals, you will experience the greatest self-satisfaction.
-Beyond The Quote

We were able to meet with my lactation consultant, Denise, today and it was such a relief!!!  Q was indeed latching on incorrectly and we were not only able to fix it but able to find ways to get her to drink more even when she was asleep.  With the help of a lactation consultant in Virginia I was able to start getting her to latch on over the weekend without all the pain but she still hadn't been drinking as much as she needed and she definitely wasn't efficient at it.  We were able to get it all corrected today and it was really a burden lifted.  So many times over the past few nights I have just wanted to quit and switch to formula but today really rejuvenated me!

Not all was great though, the first thing the Denise did was to have me strip her down to the diaper and put her on the scale - she weighed 7lbs 11oz.  Only up 3oz. since her doctor's appointment on August 5th.  Three ounces in 10 days is never good!  We took her off the scale and I nursed her, she latched on and promptly fell asleep.  We did some breast compressions to make sure that I continued to let-down (for everyone who isn't breastfeeding savvy, the "let-down" refers to when the milk begins to rapidly flow from the milk glands to the milk ducts and then into baby's mouth) in order to keep her interested.  We detached her and did used some skin-to-skin techniques to wake her up and make her want to nurse more.  After she finished the right side we weighed her again, she was up almost 1½oz!  We then put her on the left breast and continued the breast compressions once she started to slow down her sucking or pause.  After she seemed to be done we weighed her again, she was up another ½oz bringing her up to 7lbs 13oz!  We put her to the right breast again and after weighing her she was just shy of 7lbs 14oz.  I was elated that she had drank that much and apparently so was she because she slept in excess of 3 hours and I even had to attempt to wake her in order to feed her before putting her to bed. 

After weighing her the final time we used the pump and were able to pump out another ounce or so which we were able to use as she showed me how to use a syringe and feeding catheter in order to supplement formula without using a bottle.  It was giving her a bottle that initially caused her to begin latching on incorrectly so I want to avoid that if at all possible, for at least a few more weeks.

As for where we stand now:  Denise called our pediatrician's office and spoke to another doctor in the practice (Dr. B is out on vacation until Wednesday).  He recommended that I continue to nurse but after she finishes nursing to supplement with a little formula and keep track of how many ounces of formula she drinks.  I'm not sure if I'll actually do this or not.  I feel that if I do supplement and she puts on a few more ounces by then, then we'll have no way of knowing whether it was the formula or the breast milk that caused her to add the ounces.  Dr. B is pretty good when it comes to trusting a mother's instinct so I think he'll be more than understanding towards whichever I decide to do.  We have an appointment on Wednesday afternoon with Dr. B so hopefully we'll know more and have a little better direction by then. 

As for me and my milk supply, I am going to call my OB, Dr. L, tomorrow and ask for a prescription for Reglan.  It's typically used to treat heartburn but there is something in it which causes nursing mothers to produce an abundance of milk!  I took one cycle of it while nursing Y when I experienced a drastic decrease in milk when Y was around 3 months old and I never had another issue after that.  The cause of concern is that Reglan has a side effect of causing depression and suicidal thoughts which is made worse for those who have a history of depression.  Whereas I don't have either currently, nor do I have a history or either I'm not so sure Dr. L would be willing to write a prescription for it before having my postpartum appointment which isn't until September 7th.  In the event that he doesn't want to give me a prescription yet then I'll use other herbal supplements which are known to aid in increasing milk supply until after my postpartum appointment.

So that's where things stand as of right now but I'll keep you posted after Q's appointment on Wednesday.

Breastfeeding: A Love/Hate Relationship

I hate breastfeeding!  There, I said it!!  Now before you all begin to bite my head off, I also love breastfeeding.  I think anyone who has ever done it can at least sympathize, if not empathize, with my feelings.  Or maybe not.

I'll begin by clarifying what I mean when I say that I hate breastfeeding.  I hate the added lack of sleep that comes along with breastfeeding.  I hate my constant paranoia that I'm not giving my child enough nourishment, that she may be starving.  I know she really is getting enough but since I can't measure exactly how much she's getting, I become a bit paranoid.  I hate the fact that I know that every 2½-3 hours I'm going to be stuck sitting in a chair nursing for at least 40 minutes to an hour and that the clock starts at the beginning of a feeding, not at the end.  I hate the sore nipples, I hate the milk that leaks all over the place, I hate having to pump when I'm engorged, I hate the feeling I get when I know that something is off but not being completely sure of how to fix it (i.e. the issues we've been having recently with latching on).  So to sum it all up...I hate the first 6-8 weeks of breastfeeding.

I nursed Y for 15 months, ending in December 2009, so it's been close to 2 years since I had last breastfed.  I was nervous about breastfeeding again because of this but many people assured me it was like riding a bike - I couldn't disagree more.  I mean, the fundamentals are the same but as a lactation consultant I spoke with yesterday told me, "Breastfeeding  is the same old dance, just with a different partner."  She was right, but the partner can make all the difference!

Now, obviously, since I nursed Y for 15 months there surely must be something I like about it.  And so I'll tell you that no, I don't just like breastfeeding, I LOVE breastfeeding.  And there is not an ounce of sarcasm in that statement.  I love that when it's time for her to eat, I don't have to mix any formula or warm a bottle, it's pretty much always ready.  I love that all I have to do is drink plenty of water, eat properly and then sit back and let my body do all the work.  I love the middle of the night feedings when all is quiet and it's just me and her together.  I love knowing that I am giving my child the best possible food that she will ever eat in her entire life.  I love the bond that is formed over that 40 minute to 1 hour time span.  I love knowing that as she gets older the amount of time it takes her to nurse will decrease because her suck will become stronger.  I love knowing that as long as she's drinking it, my body is going to keep making it.  I love knowing that I can single-handedly provide for her nutritional needs and it doesn't cost me a dime to do it.  I love knowing that I'm saving hundreds of dollars each month.  I love knowing that there are tons of people out there that are willing to help me conquer the issues that come with breastfeeding and that they are all cheering me on.  I love the fact that nursing is going to help me continue to not have a period for several more months (After Y was born I didn't have one for 8 whole months...heaven, I tell you!).  I love that after Q was born and the nurse asked me if I was going to breastfeed, my doctor answered for me before I even had the chance to open my mouth.  I love the way she looks up at me while she is nursing.  I love the way she turns her head toward the boob of whomever happens to be holding her in expectation of being fed.  I love the calming effect of the skin-to-skin contact.  So basically I love everything about breastfeeding except the struggles of the first several weeks.

Over the past couple days as I found myself awake most of the night struggling with an infant that was latched on incorrectly and thus she was getting milk but not nearly as efficiently as she should have been, I contemplated throwing in the towel and just using formula.  Just the thought of it made me cry, which I'm sure was escalated by the lack of sleep I've been dealing with.  I am not anti-formula.  I will supplement as I feel is necessary but the thought of failing or quitting breastfeeding just breaks my heart.  Not only was I saddened by the thought of not giving her the best but even more so I was saddened at the moments of bonding I'd be missing out on.  I've given both breast and bottle to both my daughters and there is an obvious emotional difference between the two, and I have no desire to miss out on that.

And so, I'll somehow make it through the coming weeks.  I've done it once, I'll do it this time, and I'll do it again in the future.  I think it's obvious that my love of breastfeeding wins over my hate for breastfeeding.  And while I don't look down upon or judge anyone who has to formula feed out of necessity or even just out of choice, I know what the best choice is for me.

The First Week

Where has the week gone?!?!  It's been a whirlwind sort of week.  We were discharged from the hospital on Wednesday and it seems we've been rolling ever since.  It's been nice having B at home with me but that all ends tomorrow when he returns to work.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't dreading it.  In fact, in all honesty I get emotional every time I think about it.  I generally don't deal well with approaching and dramatic change, it always overwhelms me, but once thrown into the "fire" I always end up working my way through it and it's never quite as bad as I anticipate it to be.  But it still makes me extremely nervous and on edge.

Y has seemed to adapt fairly well to having a little sister around - well except for when it comes to B holding said little sister. She isn't too keen on sharing daddy yet, hopefully that will become a bit easier for her though.  As for Q, she has been pretty easy going.  She sleeps a lot and we've had a few "disagreements" already when it comes to nursing, but she seems to have relented and is going along with mommy.  She has the most beautiful eyes and I really hope they remain that way though I haven't been able to take a picture yet that captures them.  Anyway, here are a couple pictures which I snapped today since she is now a full week old.  Enjoy!

First Moments Together

Here is part of a video that B took when Y got to meet and hold her little sister for the first time.  Enjoy!

The Gift

One of the first things my doctor said to me when he entered the delivery room was that he was disappointed. Disappointed because he had ordered something for me but it wasn't scheduled to arrive until Friday (today, the day I would have had my C-Section). I immediately wondered what it was but he wouldn't tell me what it was. I was pretty sure I knew though. I knew it would likely be something for the baby and it would probably have some University of Virginia emblem on it (he always jokes with me that he's delivering future Wahoos/Cavaliers when he sees me).

So today we receive a call from Dr. L and he asks if someone in my family could drive to his office (not me because i can't drive for another week and a half) and pick something up. I told him I'd send Brandon to get it. When Brandon came back I was totally surprised when I opened the box. In one aspect it had indeed been what I was expecting, it was definitely a gift for the baby. But I opened the box to find this:

I never would have thought that he would order Virginia Tech gear, he being such an avid hater of all things Virginia Tech.

I was not only impressed that he got us Virginia Tech gear but also that he got us anything at all - I don't imagine it's something he does for all his patients. Maybe he thinks as much of us as we think of him! One thing's for certain, I couldn't imagine having a better doctor!