6 weeks!

Hello out there!

I'll probably stop the weekly pictures soon and replace them with monthly pics.  But I thought this one deserved a special post.  Today was our 6 week post-partum visit with the midwife.  Got a clean bill of health and I don't need to see her (unless something comes up) for another year... I'm gonna stay with the midwife practice for my girly needs moving forward and will only see my PCP (who used to do my girly stuff for me) on an as-needed basis for my other general medical needs.  I figure I wasn't ever really good at seeing the PCP annually anyway, so if the midwives see me annually, I might not see the PCP at all really... (though I'm sure the midwives would discourage that habit of not seeing a PCP regularly).

Anyway, little Ms. O is 6 weeks old as of yesterday and doing GREAT!  This week she's officially started the "social smile."  If Ben or I makes funny faces/noises and then starts talking to her, she smiles with her whole darn face.  It's adorable.  She's also occasionally looking toward items that are making noise-- they have to be pretty close and she has to be in the right mood, but it's happening.  And the other new development is that she's increasing her variety of sounds-- she has a little yell/scream that sounds like a "faker cry" to me.  She uses it when she wants attention but she isn't particularly upset about anything.  Oh!  And her head control is getting awesome!  When laying on my chest or sitting upright in my lap, she can hold her head up for up to 30 seconds sometimes.  My daughter is a genius!

Took this one yesterday:

Love from Boston!

Early thoughts on our Pediatrician

So I've taken Baby O to the pediatrician's office twice now.  We went just the two of us on day of life 5... it was quite the outting, getting us both ready, into the car, to the hospital, out of the car, into the office, managing during the appointment, nursing afterwards, and successfully getting back home.  But I liked the office over all.  The front desk staff was courteous.  The salt water fish tank was pretty in the waiting room.  The nursing assistant didn't mind when Baby O peed on the scale the second I took her diaper off. And the NP who saw us was sweet.  She even allowed me to stay in the exam room for 20 minutes after the appointment and nurse before we got back in the car to go home!

Second visit was for the two week appointment, also with the NP.  This time I brought my mom with me. I really like the NP, almost sad that I won't see her at the 5 week visit (which will be with the pediatrician herself).  But the front desk staff was a little more irritating this time around, asking me multiple times about which pharmacy I use (I don't understand why they need to have the exact name and location now if I don't need any prescriptions!) and being stunned that I couldn't even tell them what street it's on.  I don't know the name of the street!  I always walk there!  Clearly suburbanites. :-)

At our next visit, we'll hear more about the immunization schedule.  They took it in stride when we showed up at the 5 day appointment without our first Hep B shot.  But I agreed to getting it that day, so I didn't raise too much of a red flag.  I still need to learn more about immunizations - both from the pedi and from independent sources.  I believe strongly in immunizing my child, but I'm not sure I agree with the "typical" schedule.  I don't know enough yet to ask for anything different though.  And, to be really honest, I was surprised how good I felt after Baby O got her first Hep B shot.  I felt like I was protecting her.  It actually made me happy, not worried about whether it was safe or frustrated by the system.  So maybe I'll go with a more typical schedule than I'd imagined!

Dinner Delivery

One of the most amazing gifts that a post-partum mom can receive is support from her community in the weeks following the birth.  For some, that means coming over and loading the dishwasher or folding the laundry.  But for many, it's food delivery.  My church community has been amazing, circling around those of us who are having babies this spring (and there are many!) by putting together online sign up sheets for people to bring meals for several weeks after the birth.  These meal deliveries are a God-send, truly, as I just don't have to think about what to make for that meal.  I mean, I have ingredients at my house to cook, and I enjoy cooking... but it's nice to literally just have something mindless (and tasty) to eat.

That having been said... and without disrespecting my local friends and loved ones in my church community, I was both stunned and THRILLED when I answered the doorbell on Tuesday evening to find this box:

That's right, one of my BFFs from college (in Chicago, IL) sent me a Giordano's spinach pizza.  They cook it most of the way, put it on dry ice, and then ship it all over the US.  AMAZING!  It was one of the sweetest, most thoughtful things I could think of.  First of all, I love Giordano's pizza.  Secondly, free, pre-prepared food is so wonderful right now.  But third, the gift was something that my friend had put a lot of thought into-- buying something that brought back great memories of the two of us hanging out over the years.

I guess I tell the story mostly to document the memory for myself.  But I also tell it to advise you all that you don't have to be near your loved one to show them love during the post-partum phase.  It's possible to think of something truly wonderful from afar that is just as useful as those gifts we receive from people who are geographically close to us.

Love and Pizza from Boston...

Engorgement

Holy Cow!  Engorgement is a nightmare!  Stop reading now if you know me personally and don't want to know intimate details of my breasts... seriously....

So when I was about mid-way through my pregnancy, a friend with a 3-4 month old child at the time gave me some great advice.  She told me that she'd focused so much on reading up about pregnancy, labor, and delivery that she sorta forgot to read about what happens afterwards -- child rearing and all of the pieces that entails like breastfeeding, sleeping, etc.  She recommended I not follow her footsteps and do a little reading about what was to come.

Did I follow that advice?  NAH.  Why?  I was so engrossed in my pre-motherhood life and my green principles and my goals for a natural pregnancy, labor, and delivery, I really just didn't recognize how important her advice was.

And while in the hospital on days 0, 1, and 2, the early parenting thing was so straight forward, I thought I had time before things would get hard.  I mean, nursing went well from the first moment (the lactation consultant called us "the best pair for nursing in the unit right now!"), Ben was a rock star diaper changer, we were getting a fair amount of sleep, eating well ourselves, fought off the crazy pediatrician... what could possibly go wrong in the first 24 hours home?

Oh... you mean day 3 and 4?  THOSE first 24 hours at home? The days where engorgement is likely to bite every mother in the *ss???  And who had done no reading about it and didn't know what to do?  ME!

So.  For those of you who aren't yet mothers or maybe didn't have to deal with engorgement during your first child's life or something, engorgement is when you're finished producing colostrum and your milk comes in.  For me, it happened on Friday night, 12 hours after getting home from the hospital (aka, the land where nursing was easy), and coincidentally, while Ben was at work.  His mom had come to stay with me for the first 24 hours so that he could work and I'd be taken care of.

So we were nursing right along and everything was fine... and then all of a sudden, my breasts were literally the size of watermelons.  I thought they might explode.  And I knew that there was something I was supposed to be able to do about it, but I couldn't figure out what.  So my post-partum emotions just made me cry... not necessarily helpful.  My right side (while huge) was not as bad as the left, so Olivia still latched on fine and could feed.  But she and I could not make the left side happen for the world.  It was too engorged, to firm, and she couldn't get latched.  And my crying didn't help because it just made her cry.

I'd read and listened to a lot of sources that said one should not pump early on, because you don't want to teach your body to make more milk than your child needs, or it can make things worse.  But I couldn't figure out what else to do.  And Ben's mom was really interested in me pumping.  Unfortunately, the pump wasn't cleaned/sanitized, so I couldn't do it until Ben got home... hours later... after much crying... and yelling at my poor mother-in-law (who took it in stride, I might say!).

I did end up pumping on the left and feeding on the right through the next 12-18 hours while I figured things out.  I knew it wasn't the "ideal" situation, but it was how I could survive through the night and I didn't know what else to do.

The next day, once calm enough to actually do a functional google search, I learned about Reverse Pressure Softening, which was really my saving grace through the rest of the weekend.  I made a call on Saturday to the lactation consultants at Mt Auburn who also supported my choice to use RPS and to stop pumping.  And by Monday, we didn't even need the RPS!  We'd made it through!  Later, my midwife asked me if I'd tried cabbage, which I hadn't.  But I guess it would be the next solution on my 'to-try' list if this ever happens again...