Post Baby Body

Recovering from bedrest sucks. This is now the second time that I have thrown out my back since D. was born. It it terribly painful. I can barely walk. The chiropractor helped. At least he stretched me out enough so i could walk on my own. I swore I would never eat another meal in bed...... arg.

As for the remaining commentary on my post-pregnancy bod...

I think the average woman would probably reach through the internet to strangle me for saying this, but... I think I need to loose some weight, er something. I have never been someone who thinks a whole lot about my figure. I suppose that is because I have been pretty fortunate. I am of a medium build. I have been blessed with a flat tummy and a slender waist. I have an average sized chest and a big round booty, both of which I have been quite satisfied with.

I had trouble gaining weight during my pregnancy. But in the last 2-3 weeks I really packed it on. Breast feeding was a god-send, helping to peel the pounds off pretty quick. I don't know if I am back to my pre-pregnancy weight. But I do know that compared to some I have been really lucky. My boobs are still pretty huge, despite having shrunk a bit since I gave birth.

But I am sick of wearing ill-fitting maternity shirts. I am also sick of wearing the tight shirts that I used to wear. I am comfortable in neither. Shirts are complicated because they have to work for nursing. It's also nice if they don't get stretched out throughout the day on account of being hiked up all of the time. The boobs and the clothing dilemmas they create are managable.

It is the jeans that are driving me nuts. I don't look bigger, but I feel bigger. I suspect my hips widened during pregnancy and that is the culprit. Buying jeans is never fun, but I feel like now when I try things on I am inside of a totally different body. Nothing fits right and nothing looks good. I feel frumpy, dumpy and gross. I wear the same jeans ever day cuz they are the only ones that even look ok. My favorite jeans from last year, while they fit, are really uncomfortable in the hips and waist.

I just feel like I am trapped in a strangers body. And when I look in the mirror I see a "mom" with a mom-body.... and I hate it. I always felt a little frisky and hot before. Not that I had the greatest body, but I was curvy and cute. Now I feel drippy, saggy, stretchy and loose. Yes, I know, exercise! But I hate exercising and have never had to before..... Arg. Poor me, right.

Go ahead.
Try to smack me from the other side of the interweb.
I deserve it.

Bligggggity blog

What to do on this very late night
but write on my blog for a bit despite
i am so tired and drained to the bone
cuz the boy has been hanging on my boob since i got home.

the rhythm of this poem has got me down
i decided not to edit even if it makes me frown
it seems best now to mention a few internet friends
some who are triggering and some on the mend

G's ovaries are doing a super job
I am so happy for them I think I might sob.
And Brynn has discovered she loves to nurse
and well, Sara her mom is a nurse!?! (not funny, or rhyming)

And I am happy to say
that I am being so brave
I have bought a ticket on a big ol' airplane
to see my bestest friend
who lives on the the other side of the country.
No drugs to sedate me
cuz i am feeding the boy
i have stopped rhyming all together
cuz i am loosing my mind.

blah blah blah

If you are still reading you are some kind of blogger champ. or just have too much time on your hands. This is where i distract you with pictures of my spawn. Who I love so much that I could just eat him....

Constant changes

I keep thinking I will write these things down somewhere. But here is still the best place since I have grand plans to bind a babybook but have yet to do it...

End of week 9:
Sucking his thumb
Holding and shaking the rattle
Trying to roll from back to side
Smiles are getting even bigger and more frequent
Better head control but still bobbles
Growing back the hair on the top of his head
Loosing the hair in the back
Stinky farts! (what did I eat?)

The thumbsucking, while I am unsure of how I feel about it, has been a life saver. He can now put himself back to sleep without us having to get up to put the nuk in. So he is only waking at 2am and 6 am for feedings. And sometimes he skips the 6 am. My b00bs feel like they might explode by morning. But we are all enjoying hours of uninterrupted sleep - which is lovely.

I got some patterns for some overalls. I just need to run out for fabric this week. We found that one pieces are much better with the cloth diapers. Pants look uncomfortable... So I am hoping to get more sewing done this weekend:)

More distractions....

Making stuff

I have finally been getting some sewing done. I have been working on some birthday presents, but mainly, I have been altering baby D's clothes. I am a picky mom. I hate little puppies, dinosaurs and the like, plastered all over his clothes. I hate most plaids and love anything striped. So I have been cutting off all the dippy little characters from his clothes and making patches for them. DH has been working on them too:) Here is a sample.

I also just made a foot stool. I always use a foot stool while breastfeeding. I use the term "foot stool" lightly, since my foot stool since D was born has been an old, wooden clementine container. It is fine if I am wearing my slipers, but hurts with just socks. Today I spotted an old piece of foam in the basement and thought it would be good for padding. Then my mom gave me some cool fabric. So I covered the clementine box... Here it is...


Other baby D updates...
He has figured out how to get his hands in his mouth... Very exciting. Here he is sucking on his fist whilst looking at his own picture on Facebook!

And his most favorite thing in the world, right now at least, is to hang out in his crib and swat at his mobile. Hours of entertainment!

My baby ate my blog

I don't know where to start.
I miss blogland. I miss checking lost and found every day to see how everyone is doing.
I feel like I crossed over to the dark side. Like I am no longer welcome in the world of TTC, bedrest, IF, etc.
I just can't keep up.
I am sick of one handed typing, so all commenting has come to an end. I do read though.

All is well.
I am content. And busy. And thankful.
Despite my body's perpetual failures in the reproductive sense, my boobs work pretty good. So that is excellent. He is growing like a weed.
Cloth diapering is going well.
Sleep is sparse but managable. He is actually a good sleeper, but has been congested for 4 weeks now with the cold that just won't die. So that has been wrecking any chance for really good sleep.
He is smiling.
He is cooing.
He is opening his hands more.
He grabs my bra and tickles my side when he nurses.
He smiles in his sleep.
He loves to be on the change table.
He loves to play in his crib.
He sleeps good in the swing... at night.
He is not too fond of the daytime nap.
He is less interested in sleeping on us than he used to be.
He is warm and cuddly.
He is a good traveler.
He is a good nurser.
He has his moments, although pitching fits is not really his thing.
He was over 13 pounds at last check.
His cloth diapers give him a big, pudgy butt:)

I am still not so comfortable in my skin as a mother.
I love him a whole lot.
I miss him when I am away.
I am sure he was worth everything I went through to bring him into the world.
I am healthy and back to "normal" says my OB.
I am scared to have sex on account of the trauma my parts went through.
I will have to have a cerclage if I ever get pregnant again. And P17 shots.
I am still who I was before. Just distracted.

For those of you who use Face.book, you surely know about the "25 things" meme going around. Well, the latest meme is called "First Born." It is for moms to remember stuff about their first pregnancy, birth and child. No one has tagged me. Guess nobody really wants me to relive that. What really pisses me off about that damn "first born" meme is the question: WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION?
WTF?
"Natural"
That word pisses me off to no fucking end. Was it natural? No. It was really fucking unnatural. I mean, is there anything really "natural" about having your crotch ripped in two? Is that somehow more natural than having a doctor cut your skin? Be it an episiotomy or a cut across your abdomen? And then to see people answer all cheery, "Yes, all natural!!" I have yet to see someone answer, "No, it was unnatural."

In the end it reminds me of the dreaded question: How many pregancies have you had? Followed but the other dreaded: How many live children do you have? They should make a FB mame for IFer's and those with recurrent loss. Wouldn't that be fun.

Damn fertiles are all the same. They are just so into their ability to procreate with such ease. I am less salty about it than I used to be. But it is still irritating.

I have no idea where I am going with this post. Or whether I should even continue to write on this blog. Months of bedrest is fading into the distance, along with the rest of my pre-baby life. I have a bad memory anyhow. But "new mom dumb" takes the cake. I am way dumber than miscarrige me, pregnancy me or bedrest me. I am pretty dull. Happy. But dull.

So I will distract you with cute photos of the boy I tried so much to have and finally did. I'd be an ass to not admit that I love him more than life. Because I do.

Finding the time

I am posting directly into blogger. Usually I write elsewhere then cut and paste - but time is short, so you'll just have to read this typos and all.

Baby D. has been sick. I somehow thought that newborns got a free pass on sicknesses. Nope. They catch colds just like you and me. So at the ripe age of six weeks my poor little guy is all full of boogies. He seems to have had 2 peeks already. Once with a sight fever that sent us to the doctors. But really, all we can do is saline in the nose and use the boogie sucker. Works good enough. Except those panic moments in the middle of the night when I wake up to the sound of him choking on his own snot. It sucks.

Despite the illness, the boy is good. He is a pretty easy baby and a pretty good sleeper. He is starting to give us the hint of a smile here and there, which is awesome. Usually it is when he is on the change table:)

We started in with cloth diapers this week. Not full time, but as much as we can manage... Trying to save some money.

Ok... So, the boy is crying, and this post is boring. More later about the biggest soupiest asspolsion I have ever witnessed!

In addition to the post below about web identity

I should be more generous.
My MIL uses an image of my son in her profile because she is excited to be a grandmother - and that is a good thing.
Some days I want to hide away with my little guy, and keep all the world from him - even those who love him.
But it is not good for him... or for us as a family.
Today I will think about being more generous.

Your web identity (and mine)

I am on Fa.ce.bo.ok.
I was before and then "erased" myself because I thought the whole thing was creepy. But then about a week before D. was born I started going on it again. It proved a great way to announce D.'s arrival to the world. Many of my friends use it, as does DH's extended family. Horray for social networking.

But I wonder about the images we post as we expose our lives to the world. What is the picture we paint? And this goes for our blogs too. Here, I am the girl with the miscarriages, the septum, the incompetent cervix and finally... One of the ones lucky enough to give birth to a real live baby. But, of course, we are all more than this little window we open to the world.

But back to Fa.ce.bo.ok - cuz it is such a weird beast. There we have a "profile" to expose both our physical selves, but also to list all those things we deem significant enough to represent us to the world. What gets left out here?

But it is not the "profile" or the idea of "friends" that has my panties all in a bunch. It is the images that we choose to represent ourselves that I can not figure out. I vowed never to make D. part of my profile picture. It started out when I realized some of my very conservative family members were very formulaic in their choices of profile pics. It was that the women always posted a picture of themselves with their husbands. Not once, always. It was never just them... Like, here I am - just me - the independent lady. It was always: Here I am wife to this dude to my left. Blech.

Then after having D. I realized that 90% of the folks my age were posting pics of their kids instead of themselves, and I thought that was really weird too. Then finally I was friended by a woman who ONLY has pictures of her kids. Not one of herself. Dag. She's done gone disappeared herself all together. She is nothing but her kids?

I know. It is just Fa.ce.bo.ok. Who cares, right? It is not like this is a true picture of ones identity. But as women, as mothers, as wives, as partners, as former and current infertiles (however we define that) how do we choose to represent ourselves online?

I just know that I am me. Yes, D. is more than me. I put him first and will always. And he will be part of my identity and also part of my "profile." But where is the line that women draw between themselves and their family members? When does our family consume us? And have we thought about what it means to freely pass the image of our children around? What about their identity? They have no say in the distribution of their image.

Dunno.
And I am friends with some of you who read this and who do have pictures of your babies or family as your profile... Please don't think I am judging you. I am not. I am just considering this, curious really. Hell, right now I have a picture of me with my cat. In my sick head I was using this image to make up for how I have neglected him (the cat) over the last weeks:) As if he knows I posted it.

But I think what I have the hardest time with was seeing that my MIL has now swapped out the profile picture of her and FIL to a picture of just my baby D.
My
Baby
D.

Mine. Belonging to me. My son.

She has overstepped me. She has consumed and distributed the image of my son as a representation of herself. Somehow, my son is who she is? And that really bothers me. It makes me sad that I did not consider better how his image would be in the virtual world. Who might take it, use it and pass it around. It also makes me feel terribly possessive. It does not help that she is also posting a daily status about him like his birthday, his weight, etc. But she is also openly discussing how productive my breasts are with her sisters on her wall? WTF? I am a person. Not a cow. I am a mother to D. But I am still me.

Some thoughts on this?

Reflecting on Milkiness

Not a milk lover.
Never have been.
But I have become a cereal junkie.
And because of it, now consume at least 3 times the milk I used to.
I drink a lot of milk, I make a lot of milk...

And then there is the b00bs. After having been through miscarriage, the removal of my septum and a very difficult pregnancy, I feel as though I have earned the right to brag about the fact that my b00bs work. They make milk. And baby D. is generally a good nurser. He has his moments, where he gets pissed off and slams his baby fists on my chest. He also has moments where hunger becomes secondary to play - and in his antics, chokes on a gulpful of the milky stuff - sending me into panic mode.

And although breastfeeding is going well, it is far from perfect. Together we have our moments of frustration. I am too engorged and he can't latch. Or he is to wound up, or playful to stay latched properly - dripping liquid gold slowly down his cheek and onto his shoulder. I also feel like sometimes I just can not get us in the right position. It is kind of like stepping on your partners toes whilst dancing:)

Like for instance... I just returned to this here post after attempting to nurse a fussy Mr. D. I have been trying to nurse him more, for longer periods, since he is a nurse-napper. Today has been great. He ate well and slept well till this evening. He started doing this thing where no matter what position I put him in he can not latch properly or constantly breaks the latch. That is when he inhales milk and gages and coughs wildly. So I took him upstairs to bed so I could nurse him laying down. Oddly, this position is the one in which he is least likely to choke. He latched on good, started eating, then 2 minutes later went back to his "crazy" routine: loosing the latch, choking, swinging his head back and forth, acting as if the nipple is not right in front of him. I don't understand this behavior. So I decided he was not looking to nurse out of hunger, swaddled that bugger up and called DH. DH came up and rocked him till he dosed. Now he is laying in the sidecar, half-asleep, with a pacifier in his mouth. I am guessing he is just fighting sleep, but who knows??

So do these occassional feeding fits require the use of a professional (lactation consultant?) Is this just normal behavior? Most days he is such a champ with the nursing, that when he has a rough go at it, I am just baffled at what to do?

Anyhow... Here is a pic of us multi-tasking.
I nurse D.
DH gives D. a manicure:)

Goodbye Christmas...

It's over. We made it. I wish it was a great christmas, a christmas that you come home exhausted but overjoyed. I will always remember it as D.'s first, but that is about it. Instead, I was just glad we were all in one piece and there was no major confrontations with family. You see, despite adoring my family, I come from one of "those" families where the holidays brings out the very best. And by best I mean worst. My one sister, who only comes around once a year at best, loves to stir the familial pot. She skips from room to room all day long gossiping to anyone she can about the last sibling and or family member she was just talking to last. My other sister (miserably divorced, three kids she hates, and a boyfriend who has made it clear he wants only her, not her family) is a trainwreck - for the obvious aforementioned reasons. My brother and his family are great, but they keep their distance because it is sad to have to watch my sister with her frightening parenting skills.

All hell broke loose the weekend prior to christmas, precipitating in a particularly awkward xmas day. I love my sisters kids, but they have a lot of behavioral issues. Both of their parents have problems. Their father wants little to do with them. My sister, the same. My parents, their grandparents, do the majority of the parenting. My sister is an angry, angry person. She is hot tempered and her erratic behavior is difficult for her children to gage. Add all this up, with the shuffling of the kids from parent to parent, and you get some pretty mixed up children. Children who are impulsive. Children who do not have a lot of self control or understand the consequences of their actions.

Actions like this for instance... my 3 year old nephew climbs up on the couch next to me and D. and jumps, literally jumps, on my newborn baby as I nurse him. This actually happened. I have never, ever been so frightened in my entire life. I flung my nephew off of us, jumped up, D. whaled and I turned as white as a freshly washed sheet. My nephew was equally alarmed. But nothing compared to the tantrum my sister followed with. A slew of profanities came flying out of her mouth, directed at my nephew - but also self-depricating - about how she "can never to anything right." I know she was upset and embarrassed at her son's behavior. But he is three. He doesn't understand that D. can't wrestle with him, ride on the tractor or just play. Part of the problem is that no one has ever sat my nephew down and told him these things - told him that D. is just a tiny baby, that he is delicate, that you must be calm around him. My sister prefers screaming to discussion - so that is what you get when she is around.

My beautiful baby boy came out unscathed - despite the terrible sound of flesh hitting flesh and bones knocking together. D. stopped crying shortly after and continued to nurse happily. DH and I were another story - totally traumatzed. We called the pediatrician just to be safe, wondering if we ought to go to the emergency room. Our doc said not to worry. To instead just watch for any number of symptoms. In the end, he was fine. He is fine. He is great. And we learned a valuable lesson. Little kids keep a safe distance.

Christmas was a few days later. My sister never called to check on D. She never apologized to me. On Christmas day, she did not speak to me once. She did not look me in the eye once. She avoided me completely. Our relationship was already strained, but it has been destroyed. Not by just this one incident, but by a slow erosion of trust. It made for a very sad Christmas, but also a stressful day where DH and I felt like we had to be particularly vigilant - knowing just where D. was at all times, who was holding him and did they know not to let the kids near him? It just sucked really.

We are glad to be home.
Glad to have a day to hang with D. and do nothing.
Hoping that perhaps next year will be different. Better. Calmer. A holiday where we establish our own traditions, our own holiday.