Blinked

When my sister had her first child, someone told her to "not blink" because time will past by so fast. Jenn shared this sentiment with me a couple days back as I commented how big Camille was getting and how I couldn't believe she would be turning 1 month old soon. Well, that day has come and gone (yesterday to be exact) and I feel like I didn't listen to that solid advice, I blinked and now she is a month old, no longer just mere weeks old. I know now that the rest of her life will just fly by and before I know it, I will be walking her through all the schooling milestones: first day of preschool, then kindergarten, junior high and finally graduation. Yes, these things I think about now as I gaze at my quickly growing daughter who now recognizes my voice, my face, my scent and coo's and giggles in response to all three. Motherhood to this point has not been easy, of course whoever said it would be. In the beginning, at least for the first two weeks of this new endeavors I began to believe that I wasn't going to be able to do this. That this task I had taken on was over my head and I might have bitten off more than I could choose. To be completely honest with you, I began to worry about myself and wonder if I was becoming a unfortunate victim of post-partum depression. The best advice I received was from an "internet friend" of my mine who shared with me her mantra which I would quickly adopt as my own: "It will get easier" and that it did.

There are still days that this one month old can bring me to tears out of sheer frustration due to lack of sleep for both parties involved. There are days where I exclaim "I'm selling the baby to the baby factory" after what seems to be hours of screaming because I merely put her down so I could brush my teeth (the hours of screaming add up to be only 15 minutes of screaming but when you live in a 2 bedroom apartment it feels like hours). Although I am not known to be punctual before the baby, I now don't even come close to even being just 10 minutes late for an event due to the loads of preparation it takes to get this tiny version of myself out the door. There are still days I wonder if I'd be happier if I went back to work and let a hired professional deal with such things.

But then, there are days like today when Camille is tired and cranky and screaming hysterically. She isn't hungry or needing to be burped and there is nothing her Aunt or Grandmama can do to calm her down. It is only when I cradle her in my arms, run to a quiet corner and begin to sing softly to her the same lullaby that I sang as I carried her inside of me that she quickly calms down and gazes in my eyes and drifts to sleep. It is moments like these when I feel so powerful and undefeated. When it is only me that has comforted this child. I need these moments to comfort me, to make up for the times when I feel like I am doing this all wrong. She is beginning to take over my heart, something that did not happened the instant she was born and that is okay because life is not like the movies. Sometimes new moms get depressed, sometimes new moms get double pneumonia and true love comes at it's own time.

Then


Now

Drained

Okay, I'm sick of trying to even write a post here.

I've deleted over 3 so far and I wish I had the vocabulary left to tell you why....but I've got nothing. I'm a dried up sponge right now. All creativity and verbal skills have been drained out of me by a almost 4 week old and the repetitive nature of my life now. Well, that and the extreme sleep deprivation that I'm experiencing. Saturday was the first day since the baby was born that I actually got uninterrupted sleep. I made D do the middle of the night feeding. Granted the trade off was that I had to wake up with her but it was worth it. 7 straight hours of sleep was just blissful but still not enough to stop my constant streams of yawns and eye rubbing.

While I wait for my creative streak to return, I leave you pictures because really, that's all you came for anyway (thank goodness because hearing about baby throw up, pumping and mommy guilt I am sure has to be getting boring by now).

Adjustments

I knew the day would come. Everyone would eventually leave. Jenn would return to her family and Mom and D would have to go back to work. But? They left the baby. With me. They forgot to bring the baby back to her Mom.

Ha! That's right, she's mine.

This week I've began flying solo in this journey of Motherhood. I thought I'd be all teary on Sunday, knowing that D would be returning to his regular schedule but surprisingly I think I've adjusted well. This time last week I was very worried and actually had many tearful breakdowns questioning how on earth I was going to handle all this on my own. I wasn't worried about being alone with Camille, I am very comfortable with newborns. I was worried because of the sheer exhaustion I was experiencing. I couldn't even get through a shower without a 1/2 hour nap afterwards but knew that I had no other choice but to force my body out of it. I didn't have weeks to recover, I had days. I have no family here to call and rely on to come give me a great, it's just D and me here in the Tundra. You know the old saying "Sick and tired of being sick and tired" so you just get to a point that you force yourself around it.

Now, although I have no family here, I do have some pretty awesome friends who have come by my side and have made sure I was okay this week. Camille and I spent Monday at a friends house. Christy was my first friend here in Antarctica. I met her at a time where I was about to give up on this place and was all depressed, seriously. I had just gotten diagnosed with depression and was told I needed meds to get over it. Nothing against the meds, but I wanted to tackle it on my own and before I knew it I had a friend! And not any friend, Christy proved to be a priceless, cherished friend who on Monday let Camille and I spend the entire day with her. And she loves my daughter which just makes it ever more special.

I think I'm finally feeling like a Mom now and slowly beginning to like it. Of course, how could you not when you get to wake up each morning to this adorable face:

**Please note she doesn't seem that adorable at 3 a.m. when she refuses to fall back to sleep after her feeding.

Cruel Days

You want to know what's cruel?

When your newborn baby actually falls back to sleep in the early morning after her feeding and every attempt you make to sleep fails miserably. Very cruel and unusual punishment my friends. Imagine the frustration if you will when even the cat is asleep and you are the only one in the whole freakin' place wide awake. Needless to say it's been a very sleepy day.

And a sad day too.

Here I am being all "I only have 3 days left with Derek home all day" feeling sorry for myself and during my pity party my father lost his cousin and close friend who passed unexpectedly today of cancer. My heart breaks for him. So, to cheer Dad up, I leave him this picture. I know it won't make it better, but at least he can smile as he gazes at the chubby cuteness while we shake our fists at the cancer that keeps creeping into our family.

Tainted

Today we brought Camille for a follow up appointment since I started to feed her breast milk.

The good news is that all this pumping has paid off. She now weighs in at a whopping 10lbs. 8oz.

The bad new is that she now has thrush.

Yeah. And let's just say that pumping hurts. It's hurts enough that each time I start pumping I try to remind myself that the excruciating pain I feel is not worse than the 17 hours of back labor I was able to deal with just two weeks earlier. Darnit, if I could do that I can deal with a half hour of searing pain. I could go into detail of how my daughter acquired such a awful condition, but, I'll let you search google for that one. And of course stupid first time parents, we thought the white tongue was cute, sorta like when you eat a piece of candy that is blue and now your tongue is blue? Yeah, we're not that up on things obviously. My doctor took one look at her and asked how I wash her bottles, as if I don't wash them and only rinse them with water. I'm sure she wasn't trying to come across as accusing but I did feel the need to explain very clearly that I use a very good antibacterial dish soap and I painstankingly wash each and every bottle by hand each day.

We've started her on medicine. I'm sure she'll feel better soon but for now my poor baby girl is tainted and her tongue looks like she just licked white out.

Hypocrite

You know, I really hated it when, my favorite sites writers had babies and then they would only update a couple of days. I would check them daily just hoping that they had posted an update about life with their little one. When Amalah had her baby, Noah, I couldn't wait for a new pic because when you follow these people in their pregnancies, you feel like you know them. The same goes with Zoot, love her too, and would wait patiently to see how they were. I thought when I had Camille, I would be good at updating. I figured since I was going to be home, I'd have all this time (insert laugh here all you mom's). Turns out, a 2 week old zaps all life and time out of you. My day consist of feedings, spit up, changing explosive diapers, and pumping, then repeat the whole process again and again until it's finally time to sleep...for just a couple hours before the baby wakes up and realizes that she's hungry. And I pray to God that she'll burp and fall right back to sleep. Which for the most part she does. But when she doesn't I sit and beg and plead. Ahhhh...so, yes, I'm a hypocrite. But I'm exhausted and frustrated because my stupid body is not catching up. Apparently it will take weeks for the anemia and double pneumonia to clear up. I don't have weeks, I only have a week. Derek goes back to work next Monday so I have less than 7 days to get better and that terrifies me and makes me cry when I think about how the hell I'm going to do this on my own from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. each day when just taking a shower makes me feel like I've just run a marathon. I have to rest for at least a half hour just to recuperate from it. So, here's hoping and here's pictures:

Confessions

Today was the first day I flew solo with Camille. My mom left and D went to work for the day leaving me alone with only maybe 3 hours cumulative of sleep. I know I did okay, but in my heart I feel I failed her miserably. I never actually realized the guilt a mom could feel over the most stupid little things. I realize that letting her cry for 5 minutes while I pumped today won't damage her. And the fact that I got a little frustrated because, when at 11:30 a.m. she fell asleep in my arms and then woke up immediately when I placed her in her crib when all I really wanted to do, other than sleep, was to take a quick 5 minute shower most likely went unnoticed by her. But I knew. And then, this evening, around the time she has been usually going to sleep, I washed her up real quick during which she screamed like there was no tomorrow. She screamed so much between that and getting dressed that during her feeding she whimpered. Whimpered! My baby was so upset that she actually whimpered while drinking her bottle. It took her over a half hour to really calm herself down and fall asleep. I felt horrible. So horrible that, although D begged to let him calm her down, I felt like I owed her my comfort since it was me who upset her so much.

I know that there is no such thing as a perfect mom. I also know that it is okay to feel frustrated from time to time. That these days are hard, these newborn times. Logically I know all of this. Logically I know that even though I was frustrated this morning I still held my daughter gently, and that that was a good thing. But in this new mother's heart, where I only want to be the best for this little girl, I beat myself up and wonder if my best will be enough. Logically I know the answer to that question and I know that going on just 3 hours of sleep forces one to be overly emotional. With that, I am off to bed, at 10:20 p.m. on a Friday night so I can wake up tomorrow and start again knowing that it can only get better.

Open Season

We started nursing the other day. Well, we attempted to nurse. She latches on (good thing, yes) but then, after sucking for a few she gets really really mad. Her face turns bright red and she screams like I'm performing acupuncture on her chubby legs. Apparently she has the appetite of her Dad and when she's hungry she needs food NOW and it must come quickly.

This is how she feels about the whole nursing thing:

So, anyone out there, anywhere who might have gone through this? Anyone who might possibly be a non-obnoxious lactation specialist who cares to give me solicited advice? I open the comments to you!

Reflections at 4 a.m.

A week ago, at this same time, I was laying in a hospital bed miserable. It had been a very long night so far. I had awoken at midnight to my body shaking so bad it terrified me, not ending until 2 a.m. Before I knew it, the nurses had wheeled Camille to me to be nursed, which also did not go so good. And, if I recall correctly, around this exact time a week ago, I broke down and gave my daughter a bottle after she laid in my arms hysterical from hunger.

How things can change just over one week. Now, my daughter lays here, sleeping peacefully next to me on the couch. I dare not move her right now, I'll wait another 10 minutes. I've learned in our short time together that she does not burp well and if I call it success to early and lay her in her crib, it is guaranteed she'll wake up squirming to be burped. She can't fool me!

My attachment to my daughter has changed drastically too in just a week. Last week I was so confused and helpless. I felt like I was already, in the 24 hours since her birth, failing somehow as a mother. I couldn't hold my child and rely solely on my in-laws, Sister and husband to care for her while I slept all day sick from the blood loss and pneumonia. Not being one who cries easily, I would tear up every moment a doctor would ask how I was. How expectations can bring such pain when not met appropriately. And who's to say that the expectations I had were even realistic for me at the time? I feared that my daughter would not bond with me in these earliest days of her little life and scarier that I would not bond well with her. Bond....a word I threw around with much uncertainty for those days. But now, as I sit here at 4 a.m. watching her sleep, I feel differently about her than I did a week ago. I feel an attachment with her that I know will only grow even stronger as the days go by.

In my short time as a mother, I have already broken two of my rules that I had made for myself while pregnant with Camille. The feeding and sleeping issue. I still struggle with this means of feeding my daughter and feel so torn. In a perfect world, I would wake up in a few hours (I can't say in the morning) bring Camille to my breast and she'd nurse perfectly and I'd love it perfectly. That is my wish. But the love has to go both ways I know and that is the thing that is holding us back right now. The pumping is going good but I am well aware that soon the river will dry up and I'll reach a plateau where it won't work anymore. I fed Camille expressed milk today for the first time and that felt good. Every suck she took made me feel like a "good mom". I am hit with guilt over this and that is something I'm going to have to work through. I only want what is right for Camille regardless of what others may think. As I work through this issue, sleep deprived, last night I gave in to the call of sleep and let Camille sleep on me. I know from others that this little habit can stay for months and months but last night, I didn't care. She slept and I slept and that is something that hadn't happened here at 4 am for some days now. But that is okay.

So here we are. A week later and how life has changed itself into a world that I don't even recognize anymore but am thankful for more than ever. I don't know where my old life went, but am learning how to live this new life each day.

Welcome to Motherhood, Phase I

It's 7:00 a.m. and do you realize that this is the earliest I've ever posted? I've actually been up still 6:00 a.m. and that might sound early to you considering I do have a newborn (who looks like a 3mth old) but I was on the 2nd shift last night. My loving sister looked at the desperation on my double pneumonia face and took the 1st shift which we can do because currently my daughter is being fed chemicals. Oh yes, you read that right I am feeding my daughter formula and thanking God each and every bottle that I can right now. I've become the lactation specialists new target that they are furiously trying to convert. They even called the house yesterday with there "Your a bad mommy" talk begging me to come back. I remember reading about Amalah's experience with these Lactation Specialist and found it humorous (not because of what she was going through but rather how she explained it) but never thought I would be having to deal with the Lactation Specialist from Hell who tagged teamed me in the hospital. It's amazing how quickly people can make first time mom's feel extremely guilty for not performing a task they feel you must regardless of your physical health at the time.

I nursed Camille about two hours after she was born. I had intentions of doing it immediately following her birth, but after having my blood pressure plumet down to 60/30, I was left extremely weak and unable to even hold her for her first two hours of life (which was so excoriating but we will save that for another time). When I did nurse her, we did great. She latched on and ate for 15 minutes. I had become the Lactation Specialist dream. However all of that would change an hour later when the effects of the blood loss hit and even later on when the effects of the double pneumonia hit. I felt terrible physically and even more so emotionally. That first day did not go as I imagined. After they moved me to the Mother and Baby side, all I could do was sleep while my baby was down the hall in the Family Room visiting with all my friends and relatives. When she would be brought to me, I was so out of it that I couldn't really hold her for long periods of time. I was running fevers all day and every inch of my body was in pain from that and the birth alone. And then, trying to nurse the whole time with a baby who suddenly forget how to latch on. My first night in the hospital I ended up waking up at 12:15 a.m. with the shakes so bad I thought something was seriously wrong. The shaking finally got under control 2 1/2 hours later which was also now time for Camille's next feeding. Let's just say it didn't go so well and I ended up begging to give her a bottle. It's the least I could for this precious child who laid in my arms just hysterical for food. There was one thing I did learn about her in our short time together...she is very laid back and doesn't scream. I now had brought this child to the verge of hysterics all over how she was to be fed. I refused to sit there and tell this precious child that the only form of substances was through my breast come hell or high water. So I did what was best for her and gave her the bottle which she quickly slurped down and there I promised to never do that to her again. The next day the lactation jerks stopped by and I told them about the night. I told them about how my doctors now suspected pneumonia and had asked me to consider supplementing just until I was better. Her response was not full of understanding for this first time mom but rather chastised me for giving her the bottle. She sat with me three times that day and helped force my daughter to eat from me, which she sort of did but the means to make her do it made me cry each time. As they forced my breast inside her mouth Camille would just sit there screaming so strongly and so loudly tears would just run down my face. It ached so bad to see this happen. But, it is what they say was best so I allowed it. I remember later on that day, before the final prognosis on my health was handed down, I sat with my sister in my room. It was just the two of us and it was there I broke down, crying hysterically. I just couldn't do it anymore. I hated breastfeeding. I hated the feeling of it and every second she was nursing I was counting down the minutes it would end. I hated the way she screamed when she came to my breast and how red with frustration her face went. I also hated the guilt that was tearing me up inside for not loving it. For actually considering feeding my child formula. I felt like a selfish mess. You can only imagine my relief when my OB came in, told me the prognosis, and told me to stop nursing immediately. I was very ill, didn't have the immune system to even fight off the pneumonia and needed to save every last bit of energy.

I could go on. And on. But it would make this post more of a novel and all my readers would dose off. So I will leave you with this. I am not breast feeding right now. I can't possibly imagine doing that when I can barely pick up my child at times still. But I am able to feed her and that makes me feel like a good mommy. I am also pumping. I do want her to have my milk and am becoming quite successful at doing so. I do plan on trying to nurse her again, once I'm off all the medications to see if, under different circumstances it goes better. But in the end, I'll do what is best for my baby and nourish her however she feels comfortable.

Now, your prize for reading such a long tangent is the neverending cuteness of Miss Priss:



Coming home after a way to long hospital stay



She wasn't the biggest fan of the bath.



Big New Year's Eve Partyer

***Yes, it really has taken me over 12 hours to post this, welcome to motherhood, huh?!