Mr. W is feeling well enough to return to work today, having taken Monday and Tuesday off. Monday because he felt like total crap from his sickness, Tuesday because it’d become undeniable that the baby caught his bug and he wanted to take us to the pediatrician. We went to whatever pediatrician had an appointment available, which was not Allie’s regular pediatrician, but she was great. Allie was behaving well, performing well, in good spirits. We had a rough start before being called in with Allie pooping in the waiting room, we waited to be called in but they were late getting to us, so I went to go change her in the public restroom, but the room with the changing station was locked with someone inside. I turned my back briefly to walk a few paces from the door so that I could wait for that person to come out, but while I had my back turned, she came out and some old man, despite seeing me, slid right in as the girl came out and locked himself in there forever. When he finally came out and I could get in, I’d had to wait too long and Allie’s poopie had squished up her back, through her inner shirt, hit her outer outfit. Cleanup was a pain and Mr. W came by the restroom and said irrately that they’d called us already but I was taking too long. I said that he should’ve come to get me as I was contemplating changing her there or later since she had to strip in the medical room anyway. Then when we went back to the waiting room, they had called in other patients so we had to wait even longer. I was pissed.
So anyway, the pediatrician checked Allie for common secondary infections (ear, lungs, throat, etc) but Allie was all clear and smiley. She was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection that came from the cold virus. The pediatrician said the rattling I hear and feel from phlegm was coming from Allie’s upper chest only, like her throat, and her lungs were clear. It would run its course in a week or two, and as for the new phlegmy cough she developed, to just leave it alone and she’ll be fine. Keep feeding her to keep her hydrated, put a humidifier in her room to help her loosen phlegm or take her in a steamy bathroom if necessary, use the bulb nasal aspirator with maybe a drop or two of saline in each nostril whenever necessary, she has no temperature and she’ll hopefully be recovering soon. It was the advice everyone had been giving me anyway. I have smart friends.

Last nite, I stayed mostly in Allie’s room. She went down pretty smoothly altho she woke up 6-8 times with a cough that broke my heart. But she went right back to sleep each time. And she slept through her late-night feeding and early-morning feeding. Last time she ate was close to 8pm. I was considering waking her if she doesn’t by 7am, but she just did.

Perfecting timing. Off to feed my baby.

P.S. I have the beginning stages of what they each had. Last nite my throat got sore, and it remains sore. I hear that’s how this starts.

After that, she seemed to come around. She probably felt good she got the communication out. She said she and the bf (who came over w/o her telling me, at least, but I left it alone at that point) were walking to Subway, would we like anything? Mr. W and I both declined, and they left in good spirits, returned in good spirits, even watched a little of the Superbowl with Mr. W. Then the bf left for a bit, then came back later as I found out the next morning (that’s how quiet he is!).

I asked her later in the evening, after I put the baby down, when she was planning to go to her mom’s. She said maybe tomorrow (today). I said this is probably a great week to go because the baby’s sick. Allie definitely has the sniffles, and I’ve been using the bulb aspirator on her. (Thankfully, she doesn’t appear to mind being “deboogerized” much. She usually smiles after I suction.) I’d meant that the baby would probably be fussy from being uncomfortable, but the stepdaughter took it as it’s a great time to avoid catching something herself. I’m not sure if she still wants to move out, but I’m torn between hoping to have a room free for the possibility of a live-in, getting some quiet, and having a spare room again, vs. having a damaged or at least less close relationship with her. Mr. W said it wasn’t worth worrying about because it’s not my decision anyway. When a 21 yr old adult decides she can’t tolerate living in a house with a newborn, she gets to leave. It’s not her baby, after all.

The hubby had complained of a sore throat early last week, but thought it was due to his work building flooding (busted water pipe, seeped down 3 floors and apparently the building had to be evacuated for awhile) and whatever genius’ solution it was to put up giant fans all over the place to dry up the carpeting. Old building + mildew/mold spores + dust + fans = messed up throat and hacking. It didn’t get better, and he started coughing more and has been blowing his nose like crazy. So we thought, secondary infection due to earlier allergic reaction? And then I found out that lots of people from his building are sick and there’s something going around. So now we’re scared he’s actually sick and the baby is going to catch it. He said it’s horrible, it’s a head cold and feels like it’s settled into his chest. He can’t breathe and has a headache, so if that hits Allie, she wouldn’t be able to breastfeed or suck on a pacifier. Plus she’s so young and I don’t know how her immune system would combat something like this. I know Mr. W is pretty miserable.

Also, living with the stepdaughter has become very hard on me. She’s an easy-going wonderful person and just does her own thing, but her own thing isn’t very compatible with the life I now have because of a newborn. For example, she invited friends over without telling us. It was something I just sorta dealt with before because that’s how her parents have allowed it, but one time I was in the living room breastfeeding and a car pulled up and a guy walked up to our front door. If the door opens, I have nowhere to hide and my boob was hanging out. I freaked. Mr. W told her someone was at the door and asked if she knew about it; turned out she’d invited this guy over but didn’t tell us. She went and got him and let him in through the garage straight into her bedroom so that his path didn’t cross the living room, but I was really upset. Mr. W and I fought about it, his feeling was that her life shouldn’t have to change just for me because she lives here, too and has a “right” to have her friends over; I felt that she should’ve had the courtesy to get permission or give a heads up. He agreed I could talk to her, so I did. She was very understanding and we agreed she didn’t need permission per se, but should let us know. She’s held that up without exception since.
But other things she’s not aware of are harder for me to deal with, such as her noise level; she’s not aware of how much her voice on the phone or her doing things in the kitchen carries up the house. She comes home late, enters through the garage, and the garage door opening/closing underneath Allie’s room makes me jump and sometimes makes the baby jump. Mr. W said altho she parks in the driveway, it’s easier to come in through the garage because she doesn’t have to worry about finding her housekeys. I’ve never said anything to her about the garage thing, but because having a new baby makes new moms very light sleepers, I keep being woken up and would check the baby monitor to make sure Allie either didn’t wake up, or would go back to sleep on her own.
Last night, the baby went to sleep at around 9pm. The house was dark, Mr. W was asleep in bed and I was next to him, trying to fall asleep. As I was finally starting to doze off, the garage door opened and I jumped and woke up. It was about 10:15pm and the stepdaughter had come home. Then 10 minutes later, I heard her start doing laundry! I was livid. The washing machine was so noisy and I know that Allie, if napping, would always wake up and jump when the washing machine changed phases from spin to wash. I sat there a few minutes in disbelief and checked the baby monitor. I saw Allie kick around when the machine started to spin, and when it got REALLY loud, I stormed downstairs and turned off the washer. The stepdaughter opened her bedroom door and walked out to see what was going on. I said, my voice actually shaking with anger, “Can we not do laundry this late?”
She said, “It’s only 10:30!”
That made me see red. I told her “only 10:30″ may be early by the hours she keeps, and that’s fine, but when she’s in a household where everyone’s asleep, the house is dark, and there’s a baby that she knows is put to sleep early and is a light sleeper, 10:30 is too late to be making this much noise. It keeps me from sleeping and I already don’t get enough sleep as it is. I was going to have to get up for a 2am feeding soon, I’m trying to sleep in between, and I have to get up early. I’m unable to nap in the day. She said that she HAS to do the laundry now because she has an event early in the morning she has to attend while wearing a uniform she’s washing. I said she should’ve washed that uniform earlier. She said she wasn’t home earlier (well, duh). I said she could’ve done it before she went out. And really, she could’ve come home earlier, or done it yesterday. But I see that she’s right, because she procrastinated, she HAS to get the laundry done right now, so I turned the washing machine back on. But I was really, really pissed. I told her I understood what she’s saying about the uniform, fine, but this is causing me to not be able to sleep. She apologized, and then I apologized for my tone. I told her to ignore my tone, I’m just really angry right now. Implicit was the message to not ignore my words.
After I went back to bed, I still laid there unable to sleep, hearing the squeaking, rumbling, rushing, humming of the washing machine. Mr. W rolled over and said, “If you weren’t so neurotic you could get to sleep! The baby’s fine, and you already addressed it, so just go to sleep!” I nearly hit the roof. There’s noise downstairs that shouldn’t be occurring, and it was keeping me from the few valuable hours of sleep I could get, and I’m NEUROTIC for being unable to sleep through it? I turned on the TV in the bedroom for the first time since Allie’s been born. The TV used to put me to sleep but I haven’t watched it in my insomnia times out of consideration to Mr. W because the TV keeps him from sleeping well. Mr. W grabbed some pillows and went to sleep downstairs on the couch. Seeing Allie kick around on the baby monitor, I was afraid the TV was still getting to her room so I turned it off and eventually fell asleep. I had nightmares of Mr. W and I fighting, of him asking me something and my response being just to give him the bird. And then in the nightmare, I realize, if we were out there fighting, who’s watching the baby? I rushed back to the hotel room where the baby was sleeping and saw paramedics coming out, bringing people on stretchers covered with white sheets from head to toe. I was relieved to see there was no baby-sized shape on any stretcher. And then I woke up at 4am hearing the stepdaughter turn on the clothes dryer.

This morning I explained to Mr. W that biologically, a new mother becomes a light sleeper. It’s hard enough being sleep-deprived and caring for a newborn, but it’s harder when I have to deal with another person who keeps late hours and does things that are incompatible with the new life I have to lead. I realize she didn’t change, but I had to, and it’s not working well for me. It’s an additional stressor that none of my other friends with newborns have to worry about. On top of that, when he tells me it’s my problem and calls me neurotic, it makes it even more stressful for me. He looked angry, but didn’t say anything. I just wanted him to understand and to not insult me and call me names when I’m already down.

Weirdly, Allie skipped her middle-of-the-night feeding last night and after her 7:40p feeding, the next time she ate was 5:40a. I guess she really was tired or something. She went back to sleep and woke up for the morning at 8:30a. In the free moments I had, I had to do my own laundry and Allie’s, but opened the washing machine to see that once again, the stepdaughter left her laundry half-done in there and had left the house. I usually finish her laundry for her and put it in her room, and I know her dad does the same when he needs to wash clothes and sees her stuff in there. I asked Mr. W what I should do. He looked really peeved and put her wet clothes from the washer into the dryer. Now I’m waiting for her clothes to dry so that I could put my load into the dryer and start Allie’s load.

Mr. W is upstairs having quarantined himself in the bedroom, watching TV. I know he’s upset at me for being upset about his 21 yr old daughter, and I feel like I want to restore peace, but don’t know how except to apologize. And yet, I don’t see anything I have to apologize for. I want to go up and talk to him again, try to smooth things over, get him to understand, but I know he’ll just see it as my harping on the same thing over and over again when he just wants to not talk about it or think about it anymore. As a female, not talking about it is not a resolution to me and I want a resolution. Allie was fussy when I tried to put her down for her morning nap and was making odd noises from her nose, so I used the nasal aspirator bulb and pulled out a bunch of mucus. I hope she’s not sick, and I’m stressed about that, too. AND, my cell phone which is my lifeline to the outside world has stopped updating. I noticed yesterday I hadn’t gotten any new emails and since last nite I haven’t gotten any texts. I checked email on the PC and I do have new email, so my phone isn’t receiving and syncing. Everything feels like it’s blowing up around me. I haven’t eaten or drank anything yet today.

I filled out a 4-page questionnaire and a guy named Ben came and got me, and we talked in his office. He basically validated all of my feelings, didn’t think they were out of line or crazy. He doesn’t think I have actual clinical OCD, altho he mentioned something called “mother’s OCD” or something like that, which is when new moms suddenly go on a compulsive need to tidy up and clean house constantly, or become hyper-vigilant about cleanliness in general, especially around or regarding their child. He didn’t even think an episode I had last nite, which Mr. W felt was very OCD, was anything other than “you were just pissed.” (Allie had another odd 2am feeding, and after I fed her, I realized the stepdaughter had left the light on downstairs when she went to bed so I had to go down and turn it off. Then I saw a wadded up blanket she’d left on the couch. That got me in a cyclical angry thought about all the stuff she’d left laying around in the past couple of weeks, how many things I’d had to put away for her after leaving them there for 3 days to give her a chance to clean them up herself, and because we’d talked to her about her need to pick up after herself and because she had agreed and understood and then talked about how she goes to her new bf’s place and cleans up after him and his roommates all the time, and because she’d offered before to “help out more” around our house and didn’t, I was FUMING. I kept thinking of how she sleeps in every morning and can’t even take 5 seconds to put her stuff away from the common areas and I wake up at 4a and have to do it one-handedly while holding an infant, and the conversation I WANT to have with her regarding this. Allie had rolled over after her feeding and miraculously went out like a light within a minute or two, but I laid in bed unable to take advantage of it for 3+ hours. Mr. W woke up and asked what the problem was, and I unloaded. He patted me and gently said this is stuff I need to tell the therapist in the morning, that I’m way too upset about stuff that’s way too insignificant, but I got worse and worse until I was sobbing. He got up and tidied up downstairs in the wee hours despite my protest and I was left in the dark alone with my guilt, tears, and an iPad showing the solidly sleeping form of Allie.) Ben said the stepkidlet acts in a way that could be considered disrespectful to the household and that she’s simply unaware of how to be more considerate in a home with a newborn. He said I can simply talk to her and let her in on how I feel about having to pick up after her, or have her dad talk to her. (When I returned home, turned out Mr. W had already talked to her in my absence, which is great cuz I don’t want to bring up a freakin blanket and some shoes and seasoning and fork like it’s the end of the world, despite how dramatically I reacted to it.) As for the crying, inability to make decisions or project forward into the future, inability to feel bonded to Allie or “enjoy” her, walking on eggshells around the baby, he said it’s normal hormonal stuff with “baby brain.” Re my guilt about ruining Mr. W’s life, he said it’s Mr. W’s baby, too, and that when Mr. W offers help, to let him help and take the baby and to allow the father the opportunity to bond with his child. (Yes, Flip Flop Girl had already said as much in a comment before.) Even if Mr. W doesn’t offer to help, it’s okay to ask for his help so that I could take a shower or use the restroom or something. He said there’s no guilt in that. The only time I should feel guilt is when I deliberately hurt or plan to hurt someone, myself or the baby, which is not the case here. He said I’m not giving myself credit for the things I’m doing well with the baby, and that nothing I do or feel this first year is my “fault.”

I didn’t expect someone to justify all of my feelings and reactions. It made me feel like I’d wasted my time there.

And in the end, he referred me to a female therapist he thought would be a good fit for me to talk to and made me an appointment on Valentine’s Day. I was hesitant because I didn’t have baby care and didn’t want Mr. W to take another day off for my appointment. Ben said if I can’t find baby care, to take her along. I was concerned it would be disruptive to her routine. He got quiet. I asked if he felt that it was important or beneficial to me and my baby’s care to go to therapy. He said he really did, so I finally agreed. My mom has offered to take a day off to care for Allie, and I’d accepted. (“There’s nothing a grandparent can do that would permanently affect an infant,” he said regarding my concern she may not do what I would do when caring for Allie.)

On my way out, I asked if there’s any way to document this for work. He said sure, the therapist he put me with for the next appointment can set all that up, refer me to a psychiatrist who could do an psychological evaluation on me, and then set me up for an extra month off on disability. So there are more hoops to jump through, and now I was more confused. I need to be referred by the next person to a psychiatrist? Then who is Ben? Who’s the next person? How many more therapy sessions would I need to sit through to get something to show work so that I could use paid sick days and take that additional stressor off my plate?

Just now I checked Kaiser’s website for my past-visit information. It says Ben is a MFT. What’s that? Mother-effing trainee? I didn’t mean that, he was very nice. And it says my diagnosis is “Adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and depressed.” Can I just print that out and fax that to work? Cuz I’m not ENJOYing feeling like this, as effective as it is in dropping 40 lbs in 2 months.

P.S. As I was finishing the post, the stepdaughter came back into the house through the garage, went straight to the restroom then her room, closed the door behind her, and in half an hour or so left again through the garage. Even tho she could see me at the computer, she didn’t come by or say a word. I’m feeling guilty like she’s upset at me for the talk she had with her dad this morning, but that’s ridiculous because I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m going to tell myself that if she’s offended that I’m unhappy picking up after her, then that’s not my problem. I still folded her towels from the laundry and placed them on her chair in her bedroom.

Mornings are still hard and stressful. Naptimes are worse. I cry nearly every naptime as I can’t get her to stop crying and go to sleep for more than 3 minutes at a time. She’s taking longer and requiring more intervention to go to sleep at night and in her early morning feedings, too. Awareness, I suppose.

Right now Mr. W had put her to sleep on a cushion in the living room on her tummy and they’re napping together. I tried that tummy thing earlier this afternoon and failed and went nearly deaf in a ear as a consequence. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to do anything. Even something I took for granted, breastfeeding, nearly put me to tears in two afternoon feedings as she pulled away after a few sucks and cried “leh.” I have milk, so I don’t know what’s wrong. I’m scared to do the frantic research I did with baby sleep, because that had messed me up so badly, put me in a tailspin, gave me more things to worry about, feel inadequate at accomplishing, confused me with more conflicting theories and tactics.

I’m looking forward to my first psych appointment on Thursday.

If I cried uncle, will Allie hear me?

Allie seems to have some trouble settling into sleep. She kicks around and sucks on her fists for awhile first. It used to be a minute or two; now it seems like half an hour. Even after her middle-of-the-night feedings which thankfully is only one during early morning (between 4 and 6am), she doesn’t go right back to sleep anymore. It takes her 10 minutes or more during which I watch her anxiously as I pump behind the feeding. This morning, I had to go back in mid-pumping and feed her on the other side because she started fretting after being put down despite not being awake enough to take the other side the first go-round. But she did have her last feeding last night at 8:20p-ish, fell asleep finally around 9:30p, then didn’t wake for her next feeding until 5:45a-ish. Sounds like a good night of sleep, but I had insomnia. Mr. W was snoring next to me, the cat was asleep, the baby was asleep, and I laid there counting down the hours I had left to sleep before her next waking. I wondered about herbal teas and whether they stained teeth like regular tea. I wrote haikus in my head looking at her tummy going up and down on the baby monitor. Then at 10:45p, the stepdaughter came home. She has a habit now of coming in by opening the garage door which is right under the baby’s room even tho she doesn’t park in the garage, so it makes me jump and anxious to see if the garage opening and closing woke the baby up (it usually doesn’t unless the door between the garage and house slams). The garage door didn’t seem to wake Allie up, but the conversation the stepkidlet held on her cell phone in a normal [daytime] volume of voice as she walked in the house, followed by the bathroom and bedroom doors closing downstairs, did. The baby fell right back to sleep but I was laying there stuck listening to the conversation in the dark downstairs about some discussion held about drugs as the stepkidlet walked around the kitchen talking. As soon as she went back into her room and closed the door, her voice was muffled enough for me to finally fall asleep. I wish we had more carpeting downstairs for noise control. *sigh*

Mr. W suggested that maybe now that Allie’s sleeping better and longer through the night, I’m more rested so I’m less tired. Maybe. But I still took a long time to fall back asleep after Mr. W got up at 4am, since I still expected the baby to be up at that time. She wasn’t. So I laid there listening to his kitchen noises, occasionally checking the baby monitor. She slept through it all, it seemed. She usually sleeps through Dodo’s yowling now. (Not meowing, the loud echoing deep “owwwl” he does repeatedly right outside her door after he eats. I still don’t know why he does that.) I’ve been able to cut the yowling down by turning on my cell phone in the dark and flashing it in his direction. It distracts him and makes him aware there’s someone there so he stops the howls. I finally fell asleep after Mr. W left the house, but had nightmares of showering at my old bathroom at my parents’ house, knowing I was alone, and noticing suddenly that a darkness was creeping over the bathroom. The door to the bathroom was opening, and I thought quickly for a rational reason like the cat, but I knew Dodo wasn’t at that house. I freaked out and tried to scream. Then I woke up, saw it was past 5:15am, checked the baby on the monitor, saw she was well asleep still. And then I worried that she was sleeping TOO long and would throw off her schedule. I’m a headcase.

I think I may have regressed back into the postpartum depression thing, though. My mood matches the rainy gray weather outside.

Pumping is still a mental game; I “power-pumped” at the advice of my cousin with 10 mins on, 10 mins break, 10 mins back on, and the first pump behind her feeding only got me 1.5 oz total; the 2nd pump after the break (during which I brushed my teeth, washed my face, got dressed for the day, cuz you can’t afford to be unproductive with precious free minutes with an infant) yielded another 2.5 oz so I was able to store 4 oz in the freezer for future use. I power-pumped last nite for her evening bottle feeding, which I was to do in lieu of breastfeeding, and got out 4 oz total, also. I look forward to a day when I don’t have to power-pump and could supply enough milk first round. The 1st pump behind a feeding doesn’t give me a letdown anymore, but the 2nd one does. I got my Medela Harmony handpump in the mail yesterday; my cousin Jennifer feels it gets out more than the electric pump. I haven’t tried it, yet, but I did take it apart, disinfect all the parts and put them back together to familiarize myself.

I have no idea how pumping is going to work when I get back to the courthouse after maternity leave; finding a place to pump and store the parts may be difficult. I’m going to have to ask for longer and very regular breaks when we’re in trial, too. I guess as a last resort, I can borrow a reporter’s office and their mini-fridge. =P I know that law provides that in a workplace with 50+ employees, a clean private mother’s lounge is required to let mothers pump at work, but the building is only so big and they can’t just build a room.

Speaking of work, I received second-hand an email between downtown Payroll Dept and our in-house administrative secretary Patricia who does payroll for us. I had carefully planned for usage of my time so that I could maximize my maternity leave, but apparently a Payroll clerk downtown changed my time and instead of letting me use sick time for this CRFA (baby bonding time), and I have tons of sick hours, she switched it to use vacation time, which I have a very limited supply of. The reason I want to use sick during CRFA is because I will NOT be allowed to use sick after the 6 weeks of CRFA is over, so at that point I HAVE to use my limited vacation. This way of using my time has been approved by my supervisors and later by some other downtown department; I don’t know where she gets off changing it despite what I’d put on the maternity leave form. Patricia didn’t think it was right, either, and wanted to make sure I got a copy of the email. Yet another stressor. I’ll have to call and see if I could make this Payroll clerk change my time usage back to the way I’d intended it. Apparently she’d changed it as of January 9 without my permission. That means I’d run out of vacation time very quickly and the rest of my time off would be without pay. I had a hard time falling asleep being upset/stressed over this last nite/this morning.

One of the biggest fallacies I’ve found about infant care is “when the baby sleeps, you should sleep.” I’m sure all babies are different and some people can actually do this, but I can’t. I’ve spoken to many new moms and their experiences are the same as mine — when baby naps, baby demands to be held, so you hold baby and can’t sleep yourself, unless you’ve somehow mastered sleeping while sitting up with a baby over a shoulder. I can’t; I can’t settle my mind down and plus the position hurts my tailbone. When she sleeps, sometimes I can do things one-handed, and throughout the day there seems to be an ever-gathering list of things I must do, increasing in urgency in my head like unrelieved urine (which is sometimes really on the to-do list), so when I get a moment of peace, I’m more about “What can I do off this list? What’s the most urgent or important?” than about napping. I’ve made many phone calls while she was asleep cradled in one arm, and ate many breakfasts and taken many vitamins with her propped up on one shoulder, bouncing her and walking around the room so she doesn’t get tired of one view and start fussing. I haven’t figured out how to pee holding her, yet. Or pump and clean pump parts. *sigh*

Another challenge I’ve had is that due to my baby inexperience, I didn’t know what to do with her as her waking and alert hours increased. I know I’m supposed to interact, but how? So I’ve been attempting some minimal tummy time (it lasts probably 10 seconds before she tells me in no uncertain terms she’s getting pissed at me), I’ve shown her colors around the house, I’ve propped her up in a Boppy when she’s tolerant enough to and read a couple of children’s books to her while she looked at the colorful pages and tuned me out. I’ve danced with her to my Labor Music playlist as I sang the lyrics I remembered to her (“Oh girl I think I love you, I’m always thinking of you, I want you to know I do it all for love; I love it when we’re together baby, I need you forever, and I want you to know I do it all for love…” That’s often made me cry, I’ll blame hormones cuz the Color Me Badd song’s SO upbeat), narrated what I’m doing as I did small amounts of housework I could do one-handed, massaged her and sang children’s songs with her propped up in front of me so I could “help” her do the hand motions and as she smiled her big open-mouthed smiles I’d laugh with her. She doesn’t track rattles and things all that well, but based on her solid tracking of people she’s interested in, I think it’s just a lack of desire in tracking toys. What she seems to enjoy quite a bit is when I sit her up over my shoulder and take her for a little walk around the back yard so we can say hello to the squash vines, Mr. Avocado Tree, all the pretty white roses contrasted against their deep green leaves, and then we walk through the gate to the front yard, and we greet The Magnolia Tree and ask for it to produce some big white flowers so that Allie could sniff them. We wave to The Bonzai Tree at our front yard, walk a few houses down (being careful her face isn’t in the sunlight much, or she flinches in the sudden brightness), meeting palm trees and other front yard gardens. Then we come back through the gate, avoid the mean hummingbirds guarding their precious feeders, she looks around and looks up at the blue sky, and we come inside.

Stroller walks with her are touch-and-go, as with car rides. She doesn’t like the confinement, especially when the straps are fastened, and she pushes against them and cries. A car moving does usually lull her to sleep, but the moment we hit traffic or red lights, she starts crying. SoCal traffic really ticks me off these days. Last week I ambitiously took her way out on a stroller walk around the neighborhood, planning to get to a local park with a playground, but halfway there in the neighborhood, she’d had enough and started wailing. I realized then that I’d forgotten to bring her pacifier, so I had to turn around and hustle back through residential streets of people coming home from work looking at the lady pushing the screaming baby through their neighborhood. I could see them wondering why I wasn’t able to do anything about the crying, or, at least, that’s what I saw in my head.

Last Friday I had a cousin outing and cousin Jennifer, her 3.5-month-old girl Alexandra, her mom, my mom, my cousin Olivia, her two elementary-school-age daughters, myself, and Allie gathered at my cousin Diana’s house with her 2.5 yr old daughter Elle (where sisters Diana/Jennifer’s mom was babysitting), with plans to have sandwich lunch at the house and a walk to a nearby park. Allie was fine until Olivia and her 2 daughters got there; then the noise level of shrieking excited girls/women got to her as she was passed to Olivia and she started crying in the unfamiliar environment with the unfamiliar people and unfamiliar sounds and smells. I took her upstairs into a quiet room and Jennifer came up to keep me company, force me to eat (I was stress-nauseated and had no appetite at this point), comfort me. She brought me Allie’s pacifier and soon Allie fell asleep in my arms. I stayed up there until it was time to walk to the park. Half the people went on ahead and some of us stayed behind while I breastfed Allie, then we went. The rest of the day was decent, and I was happy to let my mom hold Allie and comfort her, doing her grandmother thing as Jennifer and I played like children on the playground at the advice of my mom. Even with random bouts (brain fart: that word looks weird) of crying, my mom and aunt thought Allie wasn’t acting abnormal or badly. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m still traumatized with her first weeks of colicky behavior.

She took awhile to be put down last nite, cried, but I was feeling better and happy that it didn’t emotionally tear me up. Ultimately, after her 9pm feeding, she was asleep solidly by about 10:30pm.

These are some photos from the Cousins’ Park Day on Friday. My mom told me in the car on the way back that I should wear some makeup so I don’t look like a “yellow-faced mama,” whatever that means in Chinese. I told her I don’t have time to spend on luxuries like that, and she said letting Allie cry for 2 mins while I made myself look decent wouldn’t kill her. Looking at the photos, I guess she’s right. Jennifer had time to look cute.

Olivia & Allie

The scene:

Being kids:

Alex: “hello, a camera!” Allie: “zzzzz”

(rest mouse pointers over photos for captions)

One of the most memorable things from this park day: Cousin Olivia came up to check on me and Jennifer after the Allie Overstimulation Meltdown, and stayed and counseled me about my postpartum crap. She said, “Of course when they’re older, you have to take some of their preferences and personalities into consideration, but right now, you’re boss. Don’t revolve your life and day and [tiptoe on eggshells] around her. Still do what you need to do; if she cries, that’s okay. Babies have starved to death, frozen to death, been overheated to death; no baby has yet cried to death.”

Last nite, Mr. W tried to push Allie’s bedtime back an hour to 10p. A couple of nites ago, we were exhausted and tried to move it up an hour and were immediately punished by her fussing until 2 hours past her normal bedtime. Last nite, Mr. W read aloud the first couple chapters of “Babywise” as Allie slept in his arms. It was an enjoyable family evening, altho we gave up on the reading before we got to anything substantial (like instructions on HOW to get her to sleep thru the nite) cuz it was getting late. Instead of feeding her at 8:45p aiming for a 9ish bedtime, I fed at 9:45p. As she had come out from a solid nap in his arms at this point, this feeding didn’t make her drowsy enough to go to sleep. She fussed and cried in her crib within minutes of being put down, and I had no idea how to comfort her because I’d done everything already — changed diaper, fed, put her to sleep. After some time, when I was losing it at past 11p in bed, Mr. W got up and tried the pacifier thing twice. She spit it out and kept crying. It wasn’t ignorable so I got up and decided to sleep in her room. I picked her up and comforted her to calm her down, then put her back in her crib (awake) and kept popping the pacifier back in her mouth after it’s fallen out when she got drowsy. That was cousin Jennifer’s sleeping training advice. A bit past midnight, the duration between fussings elongated, I removed the fallen pacifier and she stayed asleep. I woke up with a start at 3:30a, realizing she hadn’t fed all night. Paranoid, I stayed half-awake for the next hour, hearing sounds from her that I was sure meant she was up to feed, but by the time I got up from the recliner and walked the 2 steps to her crib, she’d fallen asleep again. This continued until 4:40a when I finally fed her and put her back down. Now I just finished the pumping sequences of events, computer’s cams on her, paranoid some small sound’s gonna wake her (like someone flushing the toilet a street down). I’m probably going to try for some sleep instead of risking waking her by brushing my teeth and stuff so early, altho I’ll probably be too nervous to sleep.

Had some dark discharge the last 2 days with light pink-looking spotting. This morning, I realize with more discharge that I’d gotten my period for the first time since before pregnancy. As I’m breastfeeding exclusively and have been consistently for Allie’s past 7 weeks of life, I’m freaked out and emailed my OB. I’d just read yesterday that the return of the period means hormones have been triggered by decreasing milk supply/breastfeeding. I’m happy she slept “thru the nite” after so long, but every happiness seems blockaded at some point by a potential fear.

I’ve got plans to meet up with my mom, cousin Jen and her mom, and cousin Olivia and her 2 girls, plus cousin Diana’s 2 yr old little girl Elle (whom Diana/Jen’s mom’s babysitting today) for a lunch and a park day. I’m hopeful it’ll be a good day.

BTW, 2 nites this week (the nite we advanced Allie’s bedtime and last nite when we pushed it back), Allie was up late having fits. I found out that at the same time, same nites, Jen’s baby Alexandria and college roommie Diana’s baby Alexis were doing the same thing. Full moon? Well, it was on Monday nite the first time they lined up (that we’re aware of).

Oh yeah…yesterday afternoon I tried to get Allie to take her nap away from me (she sleeps 2-3 hours on me but 3-5 mins usually if I put her down) so that I could get some stuff done. I placed her in her cosleeper in the living room, turned on the vibration, tried music, tried singing, tried pacifier, she would NOT stop her fit of hysteria and go to sleep. When I finally gave up and picked her up, I noticed a little tear streak down one temple. She started making tears?! My heart broke. I cried. I’ve been a mess again since. Hormones or not, I think I have postpartum depression. I keep reminding myself that it’s okay if I don’t feel productive cuz I couldn’t finish the laundry or unload the dishwasher; things ARE better because she’s thriving and she’s beautiful and she smiles a lot and is generally in a good mood. She’s sitting with us tolerantly longer, and the past 2 nites Mr. W got out her highchair booster and she’s sat with us doing great as we had dinner at the table together (instead of gulping in shifts). But when one thing perceived as a difficulty or negativity happens, I immediately break.