Ambergontrail – Trying to get through life without dying of dysentery

It’s over. My body is releasing the hormones from pregnancy and making my hair fall out.

BUMMER.

The hair around what used to be my hairline is sparse and because of how dark my hair is, looks totally bald. It is so not cute.

Preggos beware: Your hair will fall out after birth. Then, you’ll look bald around your hairline, only to have the wispy corona of new hair when it starts growing in.

I recommend brushing your hair thoroughly before a shower to get all the loose hair out so it doesn’t clog your drains. We have had to have the maintenance guy come into snake it. Gross!

My hair falls out when I’m just pulling it back, it’s SO easy to come out.

Please, look away, I’m hideous.

She clings to her Lovey!

My girl is four months old. With that comes a 15 lb 6 ounce weight, 24.5 inches of length, and an itchy case of eczema.

At her appointment she was her usual cheerful self, my little nudist enjoyed hanging out without her diaper, as well as glancing at herself in the mirror (I’d post a pic but my stupid phone is in my Dad’s car). Until the shots hit. Then my poor love was inconsolable, only stopping her shrieking to nurse. The tears running down her face, the bloody band-aids I removed a few days later. Ugh. It’s enough to make your stomach hurt. Luckily, she seems to have gotten over the pain, though, and with only a mild fever side effect, we’re none the worse.

Four months old, and Piper can sit in my lap holding her head up…

she can grab her feet…

Look what I can do!

roll onto her side …

Always with the Lovey

and she CAN, but rarely DOES sleep through the night. In fact, she didn’t wake up until 6am Saturday morning, after going down at 8:30pm. Since then, she’s woken up many times a night- I believe this is what the books call “4 Month Wakeful”. I can tell you- it SUCKS. Especially after getting used to getting up once a night.

Piper’s new favorite thing (which may get her kicked out of our room at night) is picking her legs up in the air and letting them drop to the ground with a slam. She does this ALL NIGHT. In her SLEEP. It’s like an earthquake every night over there. She does it awake AND asleep. When asked about it, the pediatrician said it was normal and, “She may have done it once and liked it, so she wants to do it again.” I’m sorry, but that is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard. A few friends of mine have said their babies did it too, I hope it’s a phase she grows out of quickly.

As I said, she is still in our room in her bassinet. After last night, when she wasn’t fussing, just picking her legs up and dropping them, I couldn’t sleep. The four times she woke up last night plus the sound of her slamming legs kept me awake all night. So, I’m considering moving her in her bassinet into her room, probably not tonight, but tomorrow night. Why?

We’re taking our first family trip! We’re taking two days off work and driving up to Santa Barbara and staying in Solvang, CA.

Ready, Mama!

We’ve got reservations at a place with a heated pool, swim diapers galore, and the dog with dad. Woohoo!

So, I won’t try moving her to her crib until after we take the bassinet to the hotel with us, since I think it’s foolish to try to swap her to the crib for one night, totally throw off her routine for a night and put her in her OLD bed, THEN come home and try the crib again. Still, if she does the foot slamming routine tonight, she’s getting rolled into the nursery. She can stay awake and play as long as she feels up to, but no way am I going to be kept awake to listen to it. So you don’t think I’m an animal, we do have a monitor and it WILL be on.

Busy week for Piper!

I’ve entered Piper in the Parents Magazine Cover Baby contest.

Find the entry here:

http://photos.parents.com/category/vote/photo/179968

Winner gets a trip to NY (to see/meet my BFF?), and baby on a cover! Thank you so much for even considering it, folks.

This one is titled:

All I Want for Christmas

I don’t think I’ve blogged much about TTC lately, and trust me, it’s a conscious effort to not drone on and on about it. I’m thinking I’m at the point where I’m focused on getting pregnant, but so tired with myself for not actually being pregnant. Is that even possible?

I’m staying away from my TTC forums, lurking on the bump.com, and failing at NOT reading anything baby related. Last night I wrapped most of the gifts for the kids in our families- folding those little baby shirts that I pored over for at least an hour to choose the right one (while at Culver City farmer’s market, no less), realizing how tiny those little things are- and oh, how tiny the people they will be adorning are! I couldn’t help but rub the soft material on my cheek, knowing and hoping that by this time next year I’ll be folding my very own onesies and baby shirts. Yes, then I walked over to my secret drawer in my dresser, where I keep the only two things I’ve allowed myself to buy for our future baby- soft Carters onesies festooned with ducks. Never before have I felt an attraction to ducks- no, I’m more your giraffe/monkey/hippo kind of gal, but oh, these ducks. Tear your heart out with cuteness. On one we have a white background, with ducks all over, with yellow neckline and arm and leg holes. The other is white, with the same yellow neck and arm holes, but instead of the smattering of duckies, this one has just one duck, directly in the center of the chest- soft and yellow, with a wing you can flap up and down, made of the softest material known to man, almost like down feathers.

At least once a month I pull these onesies out, and lay them on my chest, pretending it’s a real baby. When I’m around babies or toddlers, I just want to pull them toward me and hold them, breathe in the soft baby smell. Unfortunately, the babies/kids I’m around are getting big enough to not want to be held, and want to run and stomp with their cousins. It’s so strange to me, I remember being at that age, having my cousins around to play with for holidays and celebrations, and now I’m watching a new generation do the same. Time really flies when you’re not paying attention.

I really must put a stop to this searching for baby gear- for I already have our stroller picked out, which crib we’ll buy is already ingrained in my brain, and just now, I have found an outfit Paul would adore:

Cute strikes again, with this Polar Bear ensemble by Bon Bebe, on sale for a mere SEVEN DOLLARS! I’d buy it myself, but Paul doesn’t want us to jinx ourselves, which I can understand. Still it’s SEVEN DOLLARS! See, I’ve seen cute things before (my cousin Lisa sent me a link ages ago to the dachshund themed outfits at one of those too cute for words baby stores, and although I wanted them all so badly- and they were also on sale, I resisted), but this- this polar bear set is a sign. The polar bear is Paul’s favorite animal in the whole world. And part of me, the silly makes-no-sense part of me, thinks that if I had it, if somehow we owned something this cute and this perfect for us, that perhaps we’d get lucky, and get pregnant. I know, it’s ridiculous.

So, as we pass into 2009 (!), I hope that new and better days are coming. I hope I’ll spend most of 2009 pregnant, and that at this time next year, I’ll have a polar bear wearing baby to bounce on my hip. You hear that, God? I’m putting in a request, please. If not God, can you hear me Santa? I’ve been especially good this year, minus the few random snarks I let come out here and there.

** Magically, I did get pregnant on February 15th. I DID spend most of 2009 pregnant.

I’m going to repost a few of my old favorites from my prior blog: A Fetal Attraction! You can find it here

Here is one, totally obvious how miserable I was in our TTC.

Another day at work, made even more intolerable after a three day weekend of Paul’s basketball games, cuddling, and lazing about. Now, it is Tuesday, last night’s dinner still needs to be cleaned up, the trash needs to be taken out (the reason dinner wasn’t cleaned up), more laundry needs to be sorted and washed (then folded and put away), and the house needs to be picked up. Such a tiny place makes it so easy to get cluttered. A bit of clothes on the comfy chair makes it look like a hurricane hit. I’ve been trying so hard to get motivated but all I seem to be lately is tired, hungry and headachey- all of which can be traced back to the fatigue! I’m too tired to make food or get food at work, which then gives me a headache. When I get home, I take out Woofie then he and I both retreat to our couch, and fall asleep together. I’m afraid I’m creating a sloth-like dog.

Wanted to add: This “rant” isn’t directed to my wonderful cousins, L and K. I love you guys, and am just frustrated at myself and my current inability to be patient. XOXO

Unfortunately, this miserable sleepiness isn’t related to a fetus (zygote, embryo, baby, hatchling, little one). No, I’ve been trying to put this TTC business on the back burner for now, if not because of our searching for a new apartment, but for sanity. Yesterday was the first day since March of 2008 that I slept in and didn’t take my temperature at all. Of course, I did use a couple ovulation predictor sticks (but failed to actually read them once I “baptized” them), which would have just reinforced my belief that I am actually ovulating today. So, as another chance goes by, willingly (mostly) this time, I am wistful.

There are some differences between my husband and I, not of the obvious kind (female/male, short/tall), but more the kind that no one other than us knows. Well, and now you. When I’m stressed out, unhappy, or just plain blah, I require a little bit of “Sexual Healing” as Marvin Gaye so lyrically put it. When Paul is any of the above, he just wants a back scratch and a snuggle. This difference is truly unfortunate at the moment because I’m feeling a bit of melancholy and stress, and Paul is just stressed beyond belief. So, I’ll take one (ha!) for the team and resist molesting my husband. If only our go-to methods for instant pick-me-ups were one and the same…

It’s been especially hard to avoid things baby at the moment. I happily went to the Manhattan Beach Mall for a birthday present for my twin cousins on their second birthdays. One had already been bought, and now I am done. Perhaps I’ll add a little book or something to each to give them something cute to play with, since I got them both clothes. I hope family doesn’t resent me giving clothes to the babies, it’s just so hard for me to NOT buy clothing, because every tiny blouse or sweater seriously hurts me to pick up and hold. In Janie and Jack, Paul and I were strolling the aisles to find something handsome for Luke, our little man. Although I had already picked up Bree’s gift, I couldn’t help but mosey over to the girl side of the store, with heart-breakingly adorable dresses and tights, tiny hats and silly t-shirts (Mommy’s Lovebug” was one), each one so delicate and soft. Poor Paul must have witnessed the pain in my eyes because he just let me wander the rows, touching each item I passed, telling him which one I’d get if I were buying for us. Finally, we had picked out Luke’s gift, and Paul had already walked out of the store, but I just couldn’t leave. The magic of baby-land is transfixing to a woman who is longing to be a mother, that it’s quite terrible to be around something you love so dearly. On the one hand you envy everyone who has gotten there before you, whether or not they’ve been trying as long as you have- and you just can’t tolerate being around people who are “luckier” than you (in your mind, at least) and have what you want. It literally hurts to be so close to something you want so incredibly bad, and still have it be unattainable. On the other hand, you love the babies and anything else related; the clothes and toys, even the mundane things like diapers and bottles (BPA free, of course), that despite how much it hurts to see the bellies of your friends growing, you just can’t pull yourself away. It’s hard to know which is best for you: ignoring your pained insides and punishing yourself and husband later with the talks of “Why not us?! Why??”, or possibly hurting friends and family by not being more forthcoming with why you can’t come, or why the congratulations are hard to eek out. You want to tell them that it’s not really you who is being this bitter and mean, no, it’s the evil person who had taken over last year when those daily acts of temping and charting just became too much to bear with an intact mind.

At this point, I’ve gotten terrible. If I see a person complaining about anything pregnancy related, I just ignite. When people are panicking about their ability to parent or whatever (perhaps with good cause, but I’m obviously far from logical lately), I just want to tell them to stop it. Just stop. I’d be more than willing to take your baby belly and cradle it gently with my hands, because I’ve been reading, I’ve nannied, I’ve been taking my pre-conception prenatal vitamins. I have done the research on cribs and strollers, miracle blanket vs. swaddle me, SIDS risks and why having a fan in the baby’s room reduces the risk by something like 75% (something about airflow keeping the CO2 down)… I KNOW this stuff. So, I’ll say it again, this time to someone other than my poor defeated husband: “Why not us?!”

It is incredibly odd to breastfeed at work. No, breastfeeding is old hat for us now, but whipping out a boob while sitting at my desk? Odd. Squeezing my nipple to stop leakage so I can answer the office phone? Nuts. Actually answering the phone while Piper is eating? Super crazy.

I have a four month old now. I had a baby four months ago, and we’re both not traumatized yet.

While Motherhood may equal no sleep and not eating warm food (and when you eat it, it’s at super speed), it also means being willing to DIE for someone else. It means getting to see someone you made grow into a person, hopefully a good person. Motherhood means having a heart too small to hold all the love you think you can take, so that it spills out of you whenever you see him/her.

Lemonade and chocolate are not a good combo.

Baby feet are the cutest freaking thing of all time.

Time passes all too quickly when you least expect it- one second you have a floppy headed newborn and the next your baby is holding her foot and laughing at the dog.

Genealogy is fascinating, even when your relatives aren’t Lisa Kudrow or Sarah Jessica Parker!

Baby spit up makes you smell like old cheese.

Ranch dressing smells like baby spit up, which is the reason I now dislike ranch dressing.

They do not make saddles for dachshunds. Not that I’d do that to Woofie. Just sayin’.

Sometimes you can be happier for a friend than you had ever been for yourself.

Sometimes there are no words to express just how you feel.

I’m already planning Piper’s first birthday party. Go ahead and pass any ideas to me for ladybug themes!

Today my little Piper Girl is 4 Months old. FOUR MONTHS! She’s already a third of the way through her first year! Oh, my big girl. Today she was visited by Casey, my boss’ daughter, who I used to baby-sit! Since she had last seen Piper at the beginning of January, her size was a huge shock to Casey. She IS so much bigger now, it’s crazy.

So, Piper is getting her 4 month old shots today, my poor little girl. I’ll take pictures of her tonight and post her “stats’ after her appointment. I hope she takes the shots well.

…and learning to let go.  I have a box of bottles at home from a very dear friend. Inside are amedas, playtex drop ins (two sizes), born frees, evenflos, Dr. Browns, and many more brands I can’t even remember. Each one is either sterilized or brand new, still in the packaging. When I received them from her, she told me she just never used them. I admit, in my head I thought, “Wow, you’re crazy! How are you attached to your baby 24 hours a day?”

That was then, pre baby. This is now, with a 4 month old. I have never used a bottle. Never used the breast pump my cousin gave me. Never used the Ameda Isis from the aforementioned dear friend for anything other than relieving a bit of pressure. I have one ounce of breastmilk in the freezer, only because the little container was a novelty and I wanted to see what it would look like.

I had plans, yes, I did. I was going to pump and get out of the house. I was going to have Paul feed her a bottle in the middle of the night. I was going to do so much. Instead, I haven’t left the house without her. EVER. I haven’t pumped a drop from my copious supply, and I haven’t tried her on a bottle yet. I know this is foolish. I know she needs to know that Mommy won’t ALWAYS be with her.

I still can’t make myself leave her. On the one hand, I work with her daily. She’s always with me, always on hand to feed, which is awesome! I can’t NOT take her to work, no one is available to watch her. While here, I might as well nurse her, since it’s easier than bottles. So it’s not the weekday part of it that’s hard to stop. It’s leaving her for a bit of time over the weekend. I have so many fears, and none of which are missing her.

It’s regarding breastfeeding/bottle feeding. I don’t want her to get used to the ease of bottle feeding (bottle needs less work to get the milk out, so she could enjoy just laying back and letting it flow). Then there’s the worry that she won’t take a bottle at all, thus rendering my chances of EVER getting out moot. I fear my supply dwindling, or Piper hating the boob. Sigh.

So many issues I need to work out. I have the pumps, I have the storage bags, I have more than enough bottles, I just can’t work up the courage to get started. Trust me, I know it’s smart to have a supply of milk available for her should something happen to me (sick, thrush, mastitis). It’s just a big step I need to get my head wrapped ’round- this whole feeding the baby by a means other than my personal boob.

I’m going to the Renaissance Faire (with Piper) next month, and while it’s not a problem to add one more boob to the plethora of boobs out there, I would feel more comfortable if I could give her a bottle, instead of whipping out a jug while watching a jousting match. Sigh.

As a soon to be mother, I had so many things I wasn’t going to do. I wasn’t going to co-sleep, I was going to get her on a bottle so we can have time to ourselves, I was going to talk about things other than my baby.

I was going to lie to myself.

This is about Piper’s sleep.

When it is the first few weeks and you are a zombie, you will do anything to have that baby sleep.  Piper wanted to be held constantly. Like, you could not put her down. She didn’t sleep in her bassinet until she was 6 weeks, and that was like, three hours at a time, and ONLY at night. When it would get to be nighttime I’d panic about what that night would bring. Would she wake up 5 times (again?), would she sleep for four hours again? Would she have another of those manic projectile spit ups that left me soaking and the mattress damp? I spent the first six weeks of her life watching television with my shirt off. I only put a top on when people were coming over, and that was rare- I was a hermit. During the two weeks Paul had to go back to work between the two weeks after we had her and his Christmas break, I would get up, pry my hot and sweaty baby off my chest and shuffle into the living room to tearfully watch him get ready to go as she nursed. I don’t know if it was the hormones or not, but every time he left and I stayed home I cried. It wasn’t because Piper was difficult, it wasn’t because I was unhappy with her- I just missed him so much. I’d beg him to let me come with him, and I’d text him five times a day, sometimes with pictures of what Piper was up to, sometimes just to say I loved him.  Every day I’d count off another day until he could stay home with us.

Meanwhile, Piper was sleeping. Eating. Sleeping while eating. Eating while pooping. Pooping while smiling (that was funny). Now that she’s more active, I kind of miss her “blobby” days, when she’d just lay there propped in the crook of my arm watching Judge Mathis with me. Then I get a laugh and I don’t miss it as much as I think I do. In the last two of my six weeks of maternity leave I’d beg her to start sleeping on her own. The nightly co-sleep was messing with what little sleep I got, since sleeping with a newborn tucked into your chest makes you more paranoid than any drug could. I’d constantly listen for her to breathe deeply, a sign she was out for a time, then I’d get on my blackberry (after I had finally turned off the tv- we had no cable in the bedroom and after 1:30am, only infomercials were on) and check out blogs and facebook to see what the real world was up to. Sometimes I’d post a gripe about her not sleeping, or a small cheer for her sleeping more than an hour and a half at a time. That, Paul, and a few friends who checked in on me were my escapes (thank you, everyone). Like I said, in the beginning, survival is key. You eat when food is brought to you, you drink constantly (gotta keep that supply up, good thing I had/have never been as thirsty as I am now and was then), you are on a rotating schedule of the same things: feed, change, sleep. Sometimes it turned into: feed them change yourself, change them feed yourself, sleep? She’s SLEEPING? Oh my god. Sometimes I’d just nod off with her in my arms while wedged into the couch, buffered by cushions. I would take any and all chances to let her sleep, so I began to take long walks at four weeks postpartum. As it was, she would only nap when it was bumpy terrain. A nice smooth sidewalk? Ha. And cushion her tush? Never. Eventually I just let her sleep any and all times on my chest. Even now, when she has a hard time staying asleep that hour before the alarm goes off, I’ll bring her into bed with us, and place her on my chest. When she began sliding off and assuming a “saying my prayers” position on my side (knees pressed up against my side, face and hands on my tummy, like she was saying “I’m not worthy!” while sleeping, I knew it was time to really dig my heels in and get her to sleep in other places. See, I had no recollection of her moving from atop my chest to somehow down next to my hip. That scared me.

Little by little we tried her bassinet, and wouldn’t you know it- the Friday before work started she slept in her bassinet all night (well, if you count waking up and going back down in it all night). I had been so afraid of letting her sleep with us, because I didn’t want to create “bad habits”. Then I realized- she’s a freaking newborn who couldn’t even tell night from day- there is no way I’m creating a habit. Now I’m a little less welcoming of her in our bed for a few reasons-1.)  at this age (four months next week) you CAN create a bad habit 2.) She’s a kicker 3.) she gets hot and sweaty 4.) she’s more mobile and liable to somehow scoot her way down to the edge of the bed.

I had been so sure that I wasn’t going to co-sleep, that my kids would be in their cribs. HA! Last night was the third time I tried her in her crib, and let me tell you- she hated it. Instead of her kicking up a fuss and angering herself even more awake than she was, I just picked her up and rocked her back and forth, hoping to soothe her enough to tuck into her bassinet.

Speaking of the bassinet… I’m pretty sure we’re going to be saving money because she’s going to be sleeping in that sucker when she goes to college. Yep. The very idea of her sleeping in her crib, in ANOTHER ROOM (GASP!) gives me palpitations. What if the monitor doesn’t work right? What if I can’t get to her before the earthquake hits (we had an earthquake last night during Piper’s 4am wakeup)?

I think sleeping is just so hard to even try to make rules about in the beginning. We all have expectations that our babies are going to do something by a certain date, but who ultimately gets let down? Not the baby! Although I must say it is hard to go from getting up once a night to getting up four times from 11 to 6.

Now, to show you I no longer care where Piper is sleeping- as long as she is sleeping I give you exhibit A: Piper asleep on the office floor (despite appearances, the floor is quite neat and clean).

I'm such a great mom

This is going to sound like the dumbest thing ever, but I needed to chat for a sec. Last night, while watching a previously taped episode of “!6 and Pregnant” (as you know I was obsessed with this show when it first aired, here and here), I realized something:

I’m kind of bummed at my vagina.

Yes, I’m kind of angry at her for not working correctly when push came to shove (ba dum pum) and I had to give birth to Piper. Previously I mentioned that I had no regrets during my pregnancy/labor/birth. This still holds true, but I still think about how hard I worked to get Piper out, and how she just would.not.budge. Actually, if I’m honest, she budged, but it was back UP into the birth canal. What the french toast???

I wasn’t really bothered by this until I watched that episode last night and it hit me- everyone on “16 and Pregnant” had vaginal births. These kids are 15 and up! Why were they able to do something a 30 year old vagina couldn’t do? So I guess I’m a little sad- my vag failed me. That’s what I thought to myself, “My vagina failed me.”

My poor body was so tired from a full day of intermittent naps, incredible pain, and just the exhaustion of labor. I’m not regretting my birth at all- NOT ONE BIT. Still, I do wonder why I didn’t have the ability to push her out. I wanted those endorphins! I wanted to be able to sit up afterwards!

Oh well, no use crying over spilled amniotic fluid, eh? Piper is here, she’s perfect, and she came out HER way. Listen here, Vagula, you are going to WORK next time, and you are going to DO WHAT I TELL YOU.