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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Baby Excitement!

Right now, I am so excited about a baby, and it isn't mine!
One of my best friends in the whole wide world is having a baby, right now!  I'm thrilled for her and the family!  She and I have gone through a lot together with our last pregnancies.  Neither of us are good at being pregnant.  In fact, I would say we both suck at it.  So, having someone who is just as miserable, and sometimes more, than you are to go through it with you makes all the difference when you aren't a happy pregnant person.
It's kind of weird being this excited about a baby that isn't your own, but I am!!  Honestly, I feel like this baby is family, though, because I feel like this friend is more family than friend. It's like I am getting a brand new niece tonight.
In fact, we are so close, that we have already been teased by friends through the pregnancies, and I want to clear up a couple of little rumors now.
1) We both got pregnant again because we wanted to be pregnant together.   - Not true.  We didn't plan this, because no matter how close you are, calling each other up to plan what nights you would both have sex in order to conceive about that same time, is too creepy, borderline voyeuristic, for me.
2) We chose their names to be all matchy matchy on purpose.  - Not true.  While it is true that our daughters names will rhyme, I can assure you that wasn't on purpose.  She told me her name before we had one picked.  In fact, we didn't even pick a name until about an hour after The Littlest One was born (I'll have to share the name story some time.) and it was a name that my husband really wanted, not one that I pushed for.  He, like any real man, would never do a matchy name thing on purpose.
I do hope, though, that our daughters, who will be exactly two months apart, grow up to be good friends.  We can dress them in cute little coordinating out fits for now.  They can hang out together as they get bigger, and will hopefully be like long friends, just like their moms.

I will be thinking about you in that delivery room, wishing I could be with you.  I hope it goes quickly and smoothly!  I love you, friend, and can't wait to meet the newest little one!!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Total Failure

As a mom, we expect so much of our selves. Honestly at times I think we require perfection when it comes to what we expect ourselves to be able to do.   So, when you miss the mark on that idea of perfection, we feel like a total failure.  We feel like bad mothers, even if we are doing our best, if anything doesn't match up to that idea we had in our head.

We need to get over it.

The past couple of days have been pretty horrific around my way. Somehow,  I developed an infection in my surgery site. I wont go into too many details, but I have a small watermelon sized knot of infection hiding under my stomach and c-section scar. Its nice. After my Dr saw me, she ordered a CT scan, stat. That was all peachy keen until I found out I couldn't breast feed The Littlest One for 24 hours. I would have to pump and dump and I wasn't prepared in any way for that.  I'm sure people wondered what kind of test I was having as I sat there in the lobby of testing facility crying my eyes out.  While what I have could get pretty bad, it isn't life threatening, or anything like that.  It just means that from the moment they inject me with dye, I can't breastfeed my child.  That information, though, nearly sent me over the edge.
We had nothing in the line of bottle feeding.  We had no formula in the house.  We had no bottles of any kind.  I didn't even have a the little hand pump I used with both the older girls.  That all meant that in that moment, if my child got hungry, I had no means to feed her, at all, and that thought was unbearable.  It broke me.
I immediately sent my husband to the pharmacy there to see if they carried new born ready to feed formula in those little bottles.  They actually carried nothing as far as formula goes.
So, I sent him off to Target the moment he could go.  He bought those bottles so that we could have something just in case.
Still, even having the formula didn't make me feel much better.  My job is to feed her.  No matter what else I can, or can't do, as a mother, I feed my child.  My body is great at making milk.  I generally over produce.  I could feed her all day long, and sometimes I do.  So, the idea that my body could no longer provide for her just hurt my heart like nothing else could.  I felt like a failure.
That failure was compounded by the fact that The Littlest One hates bottles and formula.  She hates it.  AS soon as she was hungry, we whipped out one of those little bottles, and tried to feed her with it.  It didn't work.  First, she couldn't figure out how to get to the formula.  Second, she hated the formula.  Hated it.  She screamed for what seemed like an eternity because she was so hungry.  There was food there, but she just couldn't get it.  We tried everything we could to help her.  It didn't matter.  She must have screamed for 10 minutes, though it felt like hours, with us trying everything we could think of, before I finally ask for a medicine dropper.  I got the dropper, took the top off the bottle, and fed my baby a tiny bit at a time, until she had finally gotten just enough, about 2 ounces, to keep her from screaming, and she passed out from exhaustion.
I knew she hadn't eaten enough.  Her little body just couldn't keep up after all the energy she expended from being upset.  IF that doesn't make you feel like a failure as a parent, I'm not sure what would.

While she slept, I ran back to Target.  I got 4 different kinds of bottles, a hand pump, and some powdered formula on the advice of a friend, who says that the powered formula doesn't have as strong of a flavor as the ready to drink.  I would have bought anything I could if I thought in the moment that it would help.
I ran home and pumped, starting the process so that I could go back to feeding my baby the way I wanted to.
When she woke up, we were ready with a new bottle, and some fresh formula.  I had never made a bottle with powdered formula before in my life. Again, I called on a friend to make sure I knew what I was doing. The moment she woke up, she was crying, still hungry from before.  WE tried the new bottle, and she hated it.  She couldn't really make it work.  When she could get the formula, still hated the new formula, too.  Again, I was in tears, heartbroken.  I tried another bottle, and found one that we could at least make work a little together.  Even if she couldn't get the milk out, this particular bottle made it easy for me to squeeze the nipple and get the milk going to her.  She still screamed.  She still hated it.  WE managed to get another two-three ounces,  still below what she should eat, into her before she gave out again.  Thus was our heart breaking cycle.
It all made me feel like such a failure.  I don't think there is anything as heart breaking in the world, as the cry of a starving child.  It made me really feel for mothers in impoverished nations, where they do this every single day.  I couldn't deal with it for 24 hours, let alone live like that.  At least I know that once everything is all done, I will be able to take care of my baby the way she wants and needs again.  That should be a comforting thought, but honestly, in the moment it isn't.  We take everything to heart, and keep it there as mothers.  We should learn that doing our best, what ever it is, is ok, but we don't.  I really should take my own advice, and not beat myself up, but I can't.  Such is the life, and heart, of being a mom.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

You Use Honey, Not Vinegar, Moron

Today is one of those days where no one needs to piss me off.  I'm tired.  Scratch that.  I'm exhausted.  The Littlest One wanted to nurse for over an hour just off and on.  She couldnt' sleep and was super cranky.  That means I couldnt' sleep and am super cranky.  Then, because out of desperation for some sleep, I nursed her laying down, she is all gassy today.  (I have found that I have to nurse her in an upright seated position or she gulps down too much air and has a bad belly.) So, on top of tired and cranky, I feel bad because she is all gassy now.  And of course, her being all gassy means she is having a bad, hold me, kind of day.  It's just not working.
So, as the day is, she is crying and I take her to my room and try to lay down with her.  Then I decide that maybe I should try to comfort nurse her to sleep.
As she is nursing, and I get a moment with no crying, the phone rings to break the peace.  The caller ID comes up as Anonymous.  Now, normally, I wouldn't answer that.  Actually, normally I have an anonymous call blocker on my phone.  However, we learned that now when my husband calls from the ship, where is presently is, the ID shows up that way.  So, I unlatch her, put her down, and grab the phone.  Of course, it is someone wanting money.  It was a cancer charity and he told me they were making gift baskets for children with leukemia.  I was waiting for him to take a breathe so I could tell him I needed to go, but apparently he knew better and just kept talking.  So, I interrupt him, and tell him I can't talk.  At that time, I have the phone on one ear, and I pull The Littlest One back up to my other should, with her now crying again.  I hadn't even put the phone down yet, because I was tyring to get her first.  Then in my ear, I hear "Oh yeah.  Go ahead and put the baby right up to the phone so that is all I an hear" all nasty.  AS I was about to respond, he hung up.
Now, let me assure you that I was not putting the baby up to the phone.  She was legitimately crying and I was picking her up.  It was no ploy to get out of talking.  I wouldn't have gievn them any money today even if she had been calm.  The only thing he managed to do, is ensure that I get all pissed off, and try to write a letter to his charity to tell them why I will never given them money.  You see, this is not the way to act when you are asking for something, even if I had done it on purpose.
So, to the guy who raised my ire on a day where it needn't be raised, my 5 week old daughter was crying, and I thought you were my deployed husband calling.  I'm sorry this all added up to pissing you off because you had to hear a moment of it.  I live it.  Get over yourself.  If you don't like your job because people do crappy stuff to you all the time, then quit.  I worked in a call center for years, and believe me, I do know what people do.  If you want to complain about them, at least have the courtesy to hang up first, and then turn to say your smart ass remarks to the person in the cubicle next to you.  You have succeeded in making my day a little worse.  I hope you happen to call again one day, because I do remember your name.  Oh, and I totally take back that, "have a nice day" I said after I told you I couldn't talk.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

I Get The Van Now

WE are currently facing a serious car dilemma.  Since just before The Littlest One arrived, we found out that our three necessary safety seats will not all fit in my car simultaneously.  Before you assume I drive a MiniCooper or some such, let me tell you that I drive a nice, normal, crossover vehicle, made for the modern family.  More specifically, I drive a Mazda CX-7.  Google it.
I love my car.  With two girls, it was beyond fantastic for our family.  The problem isn't really that we have too large a family, now, its that the modern family car is based on a two child per family ratio.  I swear all things are based on two kids.  When someone wins a family based prize, like a trip somewhere fantastic, its always two adults and two children, or maybe you win four tickets to something.  You see, life now is based on a four person household maximum.  My car fits that idea perfectly.  That, however, is not the idea of our perfect family.  We went bigger. So, now we don't fit the norm, not that I have ever aspired to do so.
Currently, I must drive my husband's truck because it is bigger than the car, and will fit all three children simultaneously.  He has a really, really nice new truck.  It is lovely to look at, and even pretty easy to drive, but I have to tell you, I am not a big car person.  That would be why I selected that nice little Mazda last year.  It was plenty big enough at that time, without my thinking there would be a third, but not way too big.
Now, I really need to go bigger again.  I have no idea what to get.  I don't want to jump to a beast of a vehicle and I have always sworn off mini vans.  I have always loathed them, and the fact that driving one is seriously giving up every bit of sexy a car can give off.  I have to admit, though. that for the first time, I really got the appeal of a mini van during school pick up yesterday.  Right now, I get all the kids on one side of the street, open the door, and let them climb in one at a time, very slowly, before we can move on.  The Littlest One sits in the middle of the other two.  So, one child goes, then there is a long wait while I put her into her little carrier base thing.  After that, the other child gets to slowly climb in.  It takes us forever.  It hit me that if I had a mini van, I could hit a button on my remote, have the door open as we got there, and tell the girls who can currently walk to just jump in and get in their own seats at the same time.  I imagine that would cut 5 minutes off our morning routine.  That is a ton of time for us when we need every minute sometimes.
So, now we have to decide what to do.  I don't want to keep driving the beast of a truck and parking on the street because it won't fit in our garage.  I want to drive my car, that sits in the garage at night, and always has a nice, cozy place to park.  We are going to have to really think about our next vehicle purchase. I want to give my husband his truck back as soon as possible, And I'm sure he would be glad to give my mom mobile back to me.