Is that necessary

Is it really necessary to have something as nasty as Mastitis around to screw with breastfeeding? A woman's body has this powerful ability to provide all the nourishment a baby will need in it's first year + of life. What are we rewarded with? Clogged ducts and painful breast infections. About 2 weeks ago I found myself with a painful right nipple. I assumed that it was an infection (I know better now) and called my midwife. She asked me if I had a number of other symptoms, which I did not. She said it sounded like I was starting to get a plugged duct and told me a few things to do to prevent that from happening. A couple days later I found myself with a very hard boob and Googling phrases such as "breastfeeding white spot." That Google search led me to the bathroom where I proceeded to stick a small needle into the "white spot" on my nipple. Sounds kind of gross, but man did it do the trick. Milk came streaming out of that little sucker and I no longer had a clogged duct. A couple days later I had an even harder boob, but this time there was no "x marks the spot" place to relieve the pressure. I applied hot compress, forced Copper to nurse on it constantly, massaged, and pleaded with my boob to release the goods. Finally at the very last feeding of the day when my mood could get no moodier, I felt the steady stream of sweet milk running down my stomach. Ahh, relief. A few days later, the most sore, hard, 4 times larger than her twin, boob ever. Copper ate and I pumped and still it felt terrible. As the day progressed so did the pain. I longed for the day when I thought I had an infection because my nipple kind of hurt. Little did I know that this was just the beginning. I called my midwife again and explained that I was pretty sure that this time it was an infection. She asked if I was achy or running a fever. Nope. She gave me some things to do help ward off an infection and told me to call her if I developed a fever and felt like "you've been hit by a mack truck." I called her the next morning. I don't like antibiotics. They're harsh. But I couldn't wait to lay my hands on those little suckers. Luckily my mom was kind enough to pick them up from the pharmacy for me. I had a 100-101 fever and felt like I had a really bad flu. To top if off, I cried out in pain when Copper would nurse. I would compare the pain of breastfeeding with Mastitis to contractions pain. No joke. I was barely functioning for three days and fairly useless on the 4th 'cause I was still so tired. I just finished my 5th day of antibiotics (out of 10) and am feeling much better. Nursing causes only an initial twinge of pain and my boob is back to it's normal size. I'm now also taking a supplement called Lecithin that is supposed to help with lubricating the milk ducts. I will take them religiously the remainder of my breastfeeding time. I do not ever want to experience Mastitis again. It can kiss my ass.

Mommy or Daddy?

Who do I look like?

Mommy?

or

Daddy?

3 Months Old

Copper turned 3 months old on Saturday. Such a big girl!

Here's what she's up to:

• She can support her own weight standing (balancing is of course another story)
• She has started to reach for objects with her hands
• She can easily put her hands into her mouth and suck on all fingers at the same time
• For the past couple weeks she has been able to watch people and follow them as they move around a room
• She started laughing
• She now weighs about 13lbs 4oz (or so)

Quote of the Day

"Make time for yourself."

-Dove Chocolate Wrapper

(I ate 2 Dove Milk Chocolate candies today and both had the same message.

I think it's trying to tell me something.)

VooDoo Doctor

Copper went in to a NAET specialists today to get tested and treated for any food allergies that she may have. I've been off of dairy, nuts, fish, soy, and whey for about 2.5 weeks now and we've seen some changes in her already. She is pooping way less often and there have even been a few yellow dooks in the mix. She doesn't seem quite as fussy and it's rare that she has her little fits of rage followed by an explosion in her diaper. I won't even try to explain how the NAET treatment works, but here's a link for the lady that we saw that "explains" it. If it weren't for Lucy's success with the treatment I wouldn't even believe that it would work. Here's a summary of what we did today...I laid down on a table with Copper laying on her back on top of me. I touched her leg with my right hand and held vials of different allergens found in foods (in some sort of liquid form) against her skin. With my left arm in the air and hand rotated outward, the specialist would try to push my arm forward while I tried pushing her back. If the body shows signs of allergies, the muscles will be weaker. It was pretty obvious when Copper/I reacted to something because I could feel that I couldn't push as hard. Copper has a minor allergy to some stuff in dairy (casein and a couple other things I can't remember) and a very minor allergy to wheat. We did the testing portion for quite a while and vent through a lot of vials. She also tested my breastmilk, both pre food elimination milk and current milk, but Copper didn't show a reaction to either. Her allergies are very mild, but enough to give her problems. Today Copper was treated for the dairy allergies. For the first part of the treatment I sat up with Copper in my lap. I held a glass jar against her leg and the specialist would place different vials in to it while I received acupressure treatment along my spine while doing different breathing techniques and then she would do acupressure along Copper's spine. (She didn't have to do the breathing techniques though.) After that the vials were placed in her socks for about 15 minutes. I have to stay off of dairy for about 25 hours and then can start eating it again. She advised against having pizza with milk followed by ice cream and suggested that I start out with a glass of milk with dinner. Then it's a waiting game to see if Copper continues to get better while I've brought dairy back into my diet or if she gets worse or stays the same. In that case we will go back and do a more in depth dairy treatment or treat her wheat allergy. I'm hoping that this treatment took care of everything since her allergies were so minor. With NAET the allergies are eliminated, not just discovered and lived with. Even though our insurance does not cover this kind of treatment, it only cost $85 for the first session. If we need to go back it will cost $60 a session. Works for me.

35 Pounds in 3 Months. Word.

About a week ago I decided to flatter myself and try on a pair on my pre-preggo jeans. And low and behold, they slid right on! No sucking it in, thinking thin, or unsightly muffin top. I am officially back in my old pants. While I am only about 5 pounds shy of losing my baby weight, my body is not quite the same. I think that breastfeeding is making the weight come off without my knowing it, but putting the muscle back on will take a bit more effort. I am still avoiding my form fitting shirts, but at least my wardrobe is getting a little more diverse. As far as working out, I now completely understand Kellie's post baby request for 30 minute workouts. Last week (during my one workout all week) I attempted to complete a whole session of P90X Kenpo. Copper happily watched me punch and kick the air for about 25 minutes and then lost interest and started yelling at me. I finished up the last 15 minutes of the workout about an hour later. A few weeks ago while attempting to ride my bike on the trainer for 30 minutes, I had to listen to Copper give her father hell for the last 25 minutes of my ride. That allowed me 5 minutes of "a little time for myself" riding and 25 minutes of "sorry honey, I'm almost finished" riding.

It's just temporary

This is one of the positions we used while eating out Saturday night. The other was me standing and holding her. Can't get upset though. She won't always be like this.

After I left to go to the car and feed her (I did feed her RIGHT before going out to eat) a woman came up to Aubrey and told him that she really enjoyed watching our little girl. They have become grandparents to 5 kids in the past 4 years. She also asked if I had a chance to eat my dinner. I did, I just don't remember tasting it. Aubrey pretty much held her the entire time he ate. Like I always say, "Good thing she's cute."

Adjusting

Aubrey has been back to work now for the past 4 weeks. We now know what it feels like to be parents in the real world. The first 2 months we had so much flexibility since Aubrey wasn't working and I only worked a bit. Now that Aubrey needs to be in bed by 9:00 and is tired in the evenings our roles as parents have changed. The first week he went back to work was brutal. I wanted to write angry blog posts every night, but never had the time. We were working at getting Copper to bed sooner (which wasn't always easy) and I no longer had the extra help at night. I still have the flexibility in the mornings with my wake up time, so Copper duty is all on me now. Also, we had been away from our house for 2 weeks and when we got back it was all about getting ready for Christmas with my family. My house was a disaster and I couldn't find the time anywhere to get anything done. I've always had the moto, "Organized house = organized mind." I had a very disorganized house (and quite dirty) and a high maintenance baby who refused to let me get anything done and I was also back to work. At the weekend of that first week I managed to get the house cleaned and my head screwed back on and things were looking up again. Fast forward 3 weeks and I am blogging at 12:15 in the morning on a work night because it's the only chance I've had to blog. My house is once again a complete disaster and disgustingly dirty. I took yesterday off and got a lot of much needed chores accomplished, but am far from having everything crossed off my list. I struggle with going night after night of accomplishing nothing. I don't want to be the mom that passes off the kid to daddy the moment he walks in the door because I've had her all day. Aubrey still needs his down time after working hard all day. Copper's not always the happiest baby in the evenings. With breastfeeding, I generally feel like my whole evening is spent with her stuck to my boobs. I pretty much get home from work, feed her, eat and then feed her again before I start the long process of getting her to fall asleep. Our goal is to eventually get her to bed by 7:30 or 8:00 so that Aubrey and I can enjoy some time together and after he goes to bed I can have my own alone time. While there were a few nights we were able to get Copper down by 9-9:30 and she would stay asleep, this whole week it's been 1.5 hours plus of feeding her just so she can wake up 30 minutes after I put her to bed. After a crazy Monday this week I decided to take a bath after putting Copper to bed at 9:30. About 10 minutes into my bath I could hear her crying and eventually Aubrey brought her upstairs. I got out of my hot bubble bath and went downstairs to feed her again. At 11:30 I put her back in her bed and came back upstairs to drain my tub and take a shower. Not the evening I had intended. Tonight for example, Copper clung to by boob for almost 2 hours and still woke up and fussed when I put her to bed. My alone time didn't start until after 10:30 and then it was spent working on our budget and getting tax stuff ready for our accountant. Since it's already later than shit, I figured I'd finally write that angry blog post that's been on my list of things to do for 4 weeks.

I jinxed it

I bragged to my girlfriends on Saturday that Copper was sleeping through the entire night. I swore that it wasn't a fluke. The child went 5 nights in a row. Apparently I spoke too soon. She was up from 4 to 5:30 Sunday morning (pooped twice) and up this morning from 5 - 7 (again pooped twice). Please let her sleep till 8 tomorrow. Like in the good ol' days.

Green Poop

Don't worry, I don't have a picture to go with this post. Although I am given numerous opportunities to get one if you need a visual. A little over a week and a half ago Copper's poop turned green. I thought that maybe it was from the chili that I ate the night before, but it never went back to the weird, but normal, yellow. Pretty soon along with the change in color, also came some variations in texture and frequency. We're talking 8-10 poopy diapers a day! I got online and googled "green baby poop" and found many sites that talked about and showed pictures of baby poop. One cause of green poop can be not enough "hind" milk, but I dismissed that prognosis since I always feed her on one side only each feeding. The other cause is dairy in my diet. I wasn't thrilled to be reading that especially after my sister-in-law, Rian, brought up eliminating dairy while we were in Texas. Copper is a bit of a fussy baby and Rian had asked if she is always fussy and the answer to that is "yes." I wouldn't say that she's colicky since it's pretty easy to make her happy again and it's usually not a super serious cry, but she is pretty high maintenance. Dairy allergies are a pretty common cause of a fussy baby. Copper had a doctor's appointment last Friday and she seemingly on cue provided a stool sample. I had never seen blood in her poo, but the doctor ran a test on it and there is blood in her poo. The doctor then asked if she was a fussy baby (we were having this conversation over Copper's crying). When you combine fussy with green bloody pooh, you most likely have a baby with food allergies. Lucy had/has an allergy to the proteins in milk and it's possible that Copper does too. The doctor suggested that I elliminate dairy, nuts, fish, and soy from my diet for about 5 days to see if there is a change in Copper's mood and poo. There is a certain protein that is in all of these foods that baby's can be allergic to. If you weren't aware, I LOVE dairy. Milk, yogurt, ice cream, cheese...these are some of my favorite foods! I was bummed that I wouldn't be able to drink milk with pizza (my favorite combo) when I realized that it wouldn't matter since I wouldn't be able to eat pizza to begin with. Heavy sigh. It's been 2 days now without all of those wonderful foods and so far there hasn't been much of a change. I'm now aware that Copper's crazy little fits are most likely stomach aches since they are generally followed by an explosion in her pants. She may be a little less fussy, but it's hard to tell. While I'm not thrilled about eliminating so many wonderful foods from my diet, I do hope that this takes care of her discomfort and constant poops. If it is going to be a long term adjustment, we'll look in to alternative ways to eliminate the allergies. I plan on breastfeeding until she's at least one and that's about 10 months away. Asking me to not eat dairy is like asking me to forgo dessert after dinner. It will be a long, hard journey. But hopefully the rewards will far outweigh the sacrifice. Anything to make my little girl happy.

Sleeping

The past two nights Copper has slept through the ENTIRE night! No boobie break or anything! She's been a pretty decent sleeper for quite a while now, but it's just gotten better. I hope that I'm not jinxing the situation, but is it possible that we may never have to deal with breaking her of a early morning feeding? Before she slept about 4-6 hours and then she would start stirring and I would eventually just get her up and change and feed her, but the last two nights she slept soundly for over 9 hours straight. There is one downside to this though...I start waking up around 6am because my boobs feel like they're going to explode. I then wake up about every 20-30 minutes to see if she's awake yet to eat. Wait, there's two downsides. The other is that when she does wake up and eat, I still have to pump. I spend close to an hour sitting in bed dealing with boobie milk in the morning now. Thank God I don't have to be to work early.

Up until about 1 1/2 weeks ago, Copper had never gone to bed before midnight. We tried every night to get her down early, but she would always wake up within 10-15 minutes and start fussing. Since we're new parents and hate hearing our precious little girl cry, we would always pick her up and try again 2 hours later at her next feeding. When I told her pediatrician about this, she bluntly told us to let her cry. This advice came from a few other sources over the net week also. The pediatrician wanted us to put her down at 7:30 and while that hasn't worked so far, we are now getting her down before 10 every night (with the exception of last night which was closer to midnight due to a late and long afternoon nap). I still don't like to hear her cry, but I managed to listen to a full hour of half assed fussing last night before I finally pulled her out of bed and changed and fed her again. I knew that after an hour of fussing she had most likely spit up (twice actually) and had a foot stuck up in the leg part of her PJs (both actually). Also by this time it had been about 1 1/2 hours since her last feeding. I was proud of myself for letting her fuss for so long, but the serious crying I can't handle. It's too intense for us to ignore. The nights we've tried putting her down at 7:30 or 8 has always ended in "serious crying" and we always pick her up. There is no way that I could let her wail like that with her little quivering chin for longer than it takes me to get to her bed and pick her up. Tonight we got her down at 9:15 with minimal fussing.

This is what I most look forward to at the start of my day. She is all smiles the moment I pop my head over her crib and say "good morning."

Quote of the Day

"Hi Copper. It's me, Lucy."

-Lucy

A few days ago Copper was sitting in her bouncer in the office. Lucy came in and squatted down in front of her and started talking to her. After introducing herself a few times, she then pulled down a wooden necklace that always hangs in the office and showed it to Copper telling her what it is. It was crazy cute. I can't wait for the girls to get older and be able to play together.

Soon, I Swear

I swear that I'll get LOTS of pictures posted soon. The subject of this blog keeps me very busy and my computer time is often very limited. Not to mention that we were just in Texas for 2 weeks. Busy, busy!

Quotes of the Day

"You fed her with that one."

-Aubrey said this while pointing to my left boob after feeding Copper

"Have a glass of wine and go into it with a good sense of humor."

- Our Midwife, Laura

I'll let you guess what she's talking about.

Battle of the Bottle

I thought that babies immediately took to bottles and pacifiers. I've seen those baby shows on TLC. Pacifier in the mouth on the way home...Struggling mom gives baby a bottle on day 4. I have a friend who's daughter took neither and Aubrey and I always wrote that off as parent error. Paybacks are a bitch. We tried the first bottle feeding at about 3 weeks and then read you should wait until after 4 weeks to avoid nipple confusion. Now we think we should have tried sooner. Copper loves boobie and I doubt that she would abandon me. After two very unsuccessful tries at the bottle, we researched a bit and found out that we were doing it all wrong. It made sense to us to try to bottle feed when she was hungry and that I would do it since I always fed her. Wrong. Mommy = boobie, not bottle. So apparently baby expects boobie from mommy and is less likely to take a bottle from her. Waiting till they are hungry is also bad because then they will be fussy. So on the third try, Aubrey gave her the bottle about an hour before boobie time. After about 45 minutes of Copper pleasantly declining she finally latched on. Mission accomplished, right? Wrong again. Aubrey was able to successfully bottle feed her small amounts on 2 other occasions, but she is once again protesting. Grandma Strong was trying to feed her yesterday and Copper was looking at her and talking and smiling. With the bottle in her mouth. No sucking. We've tried 4 different nipples. The only one that she has taken to is the Dr. Brown's bottle, but as mentioned, has since turned it down. I have a haircut and color this Friday and a Ladies Lunch in two weekends. I would like to be able to have more of these outings. Copper Jo Jo just loves her mommy too much. Or is it that she hates me?

*I uploaded the pictures for this post on Dec 22 before heading to Texas. I never got around to doing the post in Texas. I finally got it posted on January 13th. The Dec 22 post would have been about successfully bottle feeding Copper. Good thing I waited.

She stole my pillow!

This morning Copper woke up about 6:30. I changed and fed her and then I spent 2 hours willing her back to sleep. Luckily we went to bed around 11:00 and not the 2am bullshit that she pulled on us a couple nights ago. I wasn't quite as ridiculously tired as usual. One thing that was working to make her fall asleep was setting her up. I did this a few times against my legs, but I can't sleep with my knees in the air. Around 7:45 I finally propped her up against my pillow and she immediately passed out. So I just scooted over and spooned with Aubrey until the alarm went off 20 minutes later.

Aubrey is fake sleeping here. He was awake admiring our little girl moments before I took the picture.

Failed!

Copper had her newborn hearing screen done today and she failed. Don't worry, the kid can hear, it's just that her responses were delayed due to a possible ear infection or fluid behind her ear drums. Being a new mom, I immediately called the pediatrician to see if we should bring her in to have her ears checked out and they said we should. So we brought her in and it turns out that she has a bit of a cold. It wasn't her aptitude that caused her to fail, it was out of her control. She has had some big boogers lately so it made sense that she had a cold. Unfortunately, we have to go back to have a follow-up test done the beginning of January that is 3 hours long. Today's test took about 45 minutes.

The test was done at Children's Hospital and the moment I parked my car and saw parents walking their kids across the parking lot, I knew that the hospital is not a place I wanted to be. Kids and illness are a combination that I do not like to see. While there were probably a few kids in there just getting routine tests done like Copper, most of those kids are in for much more serious conditions. I saw a dad walk out with some kind of padded backboard that looked big enough for about a 2 year old. I've never liked thinking about sick kids, but now that I have my own kid, I like thinking about it even less. While Aubrey and I have high expectations for our little girl, we've both stated on numerous occasions that what we really want is for Copper to be healthy. I can't even imagine what parents go through when their child is ill. I try not to even let my mind go there.

On a brighter side, the crazy cute picture of Copper was taken at the pediatricians office today. I'm sure Copper was thinking, "Holy crap! That baby is CUTE!"

On a side note: Copper now weighs 9 lbs 11 oz! She is now in size 1 diapers. Such a big girl.

Meeting the Great Grandparents

Grandma and Grandpa Strong made a special trip out to Colorado last weekend to see their great granddaughters. They're lucky kids to have such wonderful great grandparents. Copper will get to meet Aubrey's grandparents next week and great grandma and grandpa Meeves early next year.

Per Josie's Request

Big Girl Bed

While this picture was taken this morning and Copper is obviously sleeping in our bed, she actually spent her first night in her own bed last night. We made the choice to have Copper sleep in our bed and it has worked out really well. For the most part her and I both sleep really well. I have to have her sleep on my side of the bed since Aubrey complains that he doesn't sleep well when she sleeps in between us. Two nights ago I decided that it was time for Copper to sleep in the pack-n-play. (I was getting a little tired of only being able to sleep on one side. It's just a queen sized bed and I don't have that much room to move around when she's next to me.) She'll stay in our room for a while, but now she'll be in her own bed. It's definitely easier having her sleep in our bed though. Last night we went to bed at our usual 12:00 (Copper's a crabby night owl), she slept 'til about 3:30, changed and fed her, back to sleep 'til about 6:00, changed and fed her, back to sleep "til about 7:00. That was when I put her in bed with me. She'll generally go 3-4 hours in between sleepy time feedings, but it seemed she was a little more agitated this morning. What sucks about her being in the crib is that it's harder to do the little things that make her happy. It's easier to sooth her when she's right next to me and I don't have to get out of bed. Plus I love having her snuggled up next to me. She's just so darned cute!