cindy's world

Spoke too soon. Just when I was convinced she was better and I was better, she had one of the most difficult nights. For the first time since I started putting Allie to bed in her room and crib weeks ago, she refused to go to sleep after her 9pm feeding. (Yeah, I’d planned on putting her to bed earlier but the stepkidlet invited her new guy over and he’s an amazing pianist so we made him give us a little private concert.) I had to resort to the pacifier thing, only for the first time, that didn’t work. It put her to sleep pretty efficiently, but within minutes (or less), it’d fall out as she fell asleep, and instead of staying asleep, she’d wake up and bawl. I would get up and reinsert the pacifier. This cycle continued from 9:20p until past midnight. I was losing it. Mr. W finally got out of bed and helped me try different things, so we changed her diaper, tried to burp her, I fed her off-schedule around 12:30a, we played music, picked her up, put her down, comforted her, nothing helped. She kept crying. I ended up praying through my tears. Mr. W finally tried turning on the vacuum cleaner to full blast and that put her to sleep in about 10 minutes. When I turned it down to just the air refreshening mode after that, she jumped, but stayed asleep. It was already past 2am. She didn’t wake up until after 7am, but it was a bad morning, too. She would only eat one side, so I pumped the other side as I held her in my other arm; the hand pump leaked milk on me (I was already leaking on my own anyhow), then as I was aghast at why the pump was leaking, I felt more liquid on my left and realized Allie spit up (a lot) on my right. I had to clean us up, clean the pump parts and store the milk, all that as she wailed. She wailed in the morning so loudly and consistently, for hours, that she was screaming long and hard at the top of her lungs. I must’ve cried 3-4 times this morning. My mom immediately took the rest of the day off and came over, and Allie is now sleeping on her as she and I chat and she fills me in on all the grownup stuff that was going on in my childhood that I wasn’t allowed to know back then. At least some bonding came out of this.

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

I think the routine is working — Allie still had a fussy period last nite (albeit shorter and less emphatic than it had been in the beginning, and the best part: both Mr. W and I are now emotionally unaffected! We just comforted her if needed, and we ourselves were comforted with the thought that the more energy she expends right now crying, the more tired she’ll be later.) between 8-9p-ish, but Mr. W was able to put her down for naptime on the couch on her back before she woke up into her fussy period. She didn’t sleep long, maybe half an hour or so, but she was able to fall asleep in a strange environment with lights/TV on, with just about a minute or less assistance from the pacifier. I nursed her for the last time at 9pm, she went to sleep in her crib shortly after with minimal fussing and no assistance from the pacifier (I would say most evenings now she doesn’t need the pacifier to go down for the night), and skipped her usual 4am feeding. She instead woke up crying for food at 6:10a-ish. That’s 9 hours between meals! My breasts were not comfortable, but I pumped behind her morning feeding to store and felt much better. She’s now back to sleep, but it’s anyone’s guess how long she’ll stay down since she’s used to getting up between 7a and 8a with a 4a and a 7a feeding. This later morning first feeding throws her schedule off.

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.

There’s a school of thought that says Allie’s too young to be “sleep-trained” just yet, but there’s been signs that she’s ready for SOME parental influence in the sleep-training direction. The fact that she sleeps more easily in her crib in her room at night instead of in our room with us, for example. How amenable she is to going right back to sleep after a feeding at nighttime. How easily she went into the eat-play-sleep pattern in the daytime, which is a pattern recommended by the book “Babywise” to get baby to sleep through the night (7 weeks on, it says, and she’s at 7 weeks already). Maybe the constant holding earlier helped, because she’s secure enough to be on her own already at night and during the short naps she takes in the day alone. So far, half an hour to an hour is it, and in her swing, but that’s more than I had before. She’s asleep in her swing right now. I’m hopeful that times like this will increase in duration.

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.”

There’s been definitely new challenges. Morning routines are stressful, because I have to fit my own routine (pumping/storing milk/washing out pump parts after feeding and she HATES the sound of the pump and it will rouse her from sleep; brushing teeth/washing face; changing; eating breakfast) into hers. When she wakes early, such as with Mr. W’s morning sounds, I try to feed her early, put her back to bed, and run around like a manic with my phone on baby room monitor trying to get as much done as possible, hoping for more than 30 minutes of sleep time from her. Evenings are stressful, because we have to fit our dinner, time together after he comes back from work, an evening pump/feed to replace breastfeeding (I’ve skipped several out of stress and just breastfed directly), going to bed by 9pm. Typically Mr. W will relieve me for a couple hours after he returns from work so I could shower and finish laundry or do whatever I couldn’t complete in the day. Make phone calls sometimes.

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.

Now that the baby’s more active and awake/alert more often, we find that she has superhearing. She’s in her room next door to ours, door closed, and Mr. W showering, brushing his teeth, shaving in our restroom woke her up and kept her awake until the noise died down. It was a little early for her next feeding, but as she was up and crying for it, I fed her anyway. While in there, I realized I can hear downstairs breakfast dishes clinking, faucet, coffeemaker, etc. I wish she weren’t such a light sleeper. The cat’s routine yowling after he eats, which yowling he does right outside her door (I can’t stop him) already startles her awake, altho if he yowls less than 10 times she goes back to sleep. It seems that consistent morning noise (shower, when I pumped in our room for 15 mins) keeps her up long enough and she lays on her back thrashing around, kicking her legs, throwing her arms in the air through it, which wakes her up and keeps her up. *sigh* Mornings are hard, especially when she cuts her sleep short, cuz that cuts my sleep short. Right now, by appearance on the baby IP monitor, my typing downstairs is keeping her up; when I stop, she stops. And I’m typing as gently as I can.

There as so many people I’m thankful to, here are just a few:

My cousin Jennifer, girlfriend Christi (Flip Flop Girl) – thank you for being my rocks through this. I’m so grateful you had your babies first so you could share your experiences to help me (not that the timing was done for my sake), and I’m super grateful to you for responding to my 2am texts, for inviting me to continue contacting you at all hours so that you could counsel me back to sanity and support me with information, experience, advice, comfort, whatever I needed (which ARE things done for my sake). I’m so lucky to have you, and sheepishly also grateful you’re up having 2am feedings too so that you’re available to me via text at the wee hours. 🙂

My friend Diana – thank you for keeping me in the loop and for trusting me enough to come to ME for 2am vent sessions or questions. It keeps me feeling competent and it makes me feel strong that I have some answers and experience that could benefit you. Thank you for thinking of me and sending me the Stilltee, which I am drinking right now. 🙂

My parents – much gratitude to my parents for driving an SUV 40 miles each way at these current gas prices to bring food multiple times a week and to see their granddaughter, and for loving me enough to cook so often the foods that you’ve researched is meant to help a new breastfeeding mother (mom). We may not have the same opinions and ways of doing things especially given the new research between 35 years, but no one can deny how big and loving your hearts and intentions are.

My husband – you are the lifesaver in churning waters, the lighthouse beacon in the dark seas, the doorknob that opens the doorway to moving on and through to the “better.” It HAS gotten better, and so much was because of your sacrifices of sleep, peace, freedom, because you chose to love me and Allie before your own wants. Thank you for guiding and teaching me, for standing by me as I went nuts a little, for the patience lavished on me when you indulged me in my psychological ramblings and observations about myself and my feelings. You have done more and continue to do more than any father I have EVER heard of (unless it’s the single dad of a newborn). Also, thanks for weaning me off so that I could slowly be independent as a new mom when you returned to work. Thank you also for taking fussy baby duty right now so I could blog. 😀

“We like computers!”

“Lemme change the music myself…”

My readers – your advice and support and anecdotes in comments on this blog and private emails in response to things you have read have encouraged me, given me hope, made me laugh, given me things to try. Thank you for walking with me in this journey, and for bearing with my written psychological ramblings. 🙂 Dardy, thanks for doing independent research to help me get through some of the rough spots.

Rest your mouse pointer over the below photo to see Allie’s message to you.

I’ve come to a few realizations which may be psychological breakthroughs.

* I must emotionally detach from Allie’s moods and crying. Babies are gonna do what babies do, and babies cry. She does her baby thing, and I should just do my mama thing around her. There’s no reason to ride the roller coaster with her. She’s not hurt, sick, and nothing’s medically wrong, so once I make sure the basics are covered (diaper, food, comfort), I’ll just let it go. The crying is temporary anyway; she’s not gonna cry for 2 days straight. I’ve watched my cousin in amazement as Baby Alex would fuss and cry as Jennifer was chatting with me, and she’d just kinda go, “Aww, I know, I know,” rock the kid a bit, and then go right back into the conversation. Totally not emotionally vested in Alex’s fussing. I need to learn to do that. I asked Mr. W about his irritation with Allie’s crying. He said he’s like a floodgate which opens wide to let the irritant in and he gets instantly affected, but as soon as the stimulus is over, his irritation response is gone. He obeserves I am more of a small hole which collects response slowly but also releases it slowly so that it takes more to affect me in the beginning, but things collect in me and given the newborn situation, I’m stacked full of yet unreleased tension.

* Maggie’s husband Tom had given me some departing words the other day: “Maybe lower the bar a little.” It hit me yesterday how TRUELY that advice hits. I’d set the bar so high because I’d expected, little naive me with no baby experience, that I will be able to follow the classes, books, anecdotes from other parents, and anticipate my baby’s every need and have an early mommyhood as smooth and uneventful as my pregnancy and delivery. However, the baby is a little person with her own will and needs separate from me, so there is no way I can control her reactions and needs, or anticipate her growth spurts, how SHE in particular feels or what SHE in particular needs at every given moment. This is not a motherhood failure on my part. I just need to go with her flow and know it’s okay.

* Being cooped up at home may have helped keep me from feeling overwhelmed the first couple of weeks, but after that, it shrunk my perspective and MESSED WITH MY HEAD. I was no longer able to see beyond the moment at hand which, if it were a moment of baby crying, was like hell. Totally out of proportion to reality. I was pretty good as a homebody, so when people gave me the advice to get out as often as I can, take walks, enjoy some sunshine, I waved it off in my head as “not applicable to my needs.” I was so wrong.

Yesterday Mr. W and I took Allie out to Target so I could buy some milk storage freezer bags. Then we went to run another errand at Bed, Bath & Beyond, and then we had lunch out on a sunny patio overlooking a man-made lake where people were walking their dogs, operating remote-controlled boats on the water, having a good time. I gabbed about my recent experiences and realizations to Mr. W, he listened and it was nice to have someone support me and tell me I’m doing fine and it’s okay, and to keep advising me gently that Allie crying is okay, it’s a baby thing, and that it won’t damage her. In the early evening, my parents came over and took Allie duty for the first time so that Mr. W and I could have an adult-only dinner. We spent about an hour and a half at a favorite sushi spot on the lake, I got more stuff off my chest, asked him how he psychologically processes the crying and stuff, learned that he knows from experience it’ll all be fine because his other two are fine. We shared some laughs, and I returned home in a MUCH better mood. I even had so much energy last nite that putting Allie down, I wasn’t in a heap of exhaustion mentally begging, “Please please please please go to sleep, please please please don’t cry, I can’t take it if you do, I’m so tired, I need to sleep, please please please don’t fuss and go right to sleep.” She actually did pretty well anyway after her nighttime nursing, altho it took her awhile (meaning 5-7 mins) to actually fall asleep in her crib. But I wasn’t emotionally attached thinking my life hangs in the balance of whether she falls asleep sooner rather than later. I slept in our master bedroom with the monitor on the baby and just got up and went to her when she had her 3-hour nighttime cries for “leh,” then put her back to sleep, came out of her room, went back to bed.

Big picture, Cindy, big picture. She’s only 6.5 weeks old; she’ll finish this stage and move on soon.

I’ve gotta learn to blog more concisely with such limited time these days.

Today is Mr. W’s first day back at work, so I took night duty last nite. We switched sides of the bed so that I was by Allie’s rocker sleeper. Putting her down was challenging; she was fussing for awhile and I couldn’t get her to stop crying even though I was holding her. I finally had to use all five “S”s: I swaddled her, turned her on her side in my arms, kept a pacifier in her mouth (sucking), shook her to and fro gently, and shhhh’ed her in her ear. It worked! Thank goodness, because I had run out of “S”s. Keeping her down was another challenge. She basically woke up twice an hour and I had to shhh or rock (often both) her back to sleep. Mr. W didn’t sleep as well as he wanted but better than when he had night duty.

This morning, Mr. W got up at 4:10 am, got ready and left. I noticed that Allie was putting herself back to sleep even tho she was up often with all the morning noise, and I suspected it was because she had worked her right arm out of the swaddle (I could hear her struggling with the swaddle every time she’s swaddled) and had it by her face or head. It seemed to comfort her.

I didn’t know what to do with her while I got ready, so I put her in her cosleeper, turned on the vibration and music, and begged her to just hang on for 10 minutes and not cry too much while I brushed my teeth, washed my face and went to the restroom. I could hear her moving around a bit, but when I peeked in pensively, I saw this:

Wha-? Why can’t this happen at night? She stayed there probably a good half hour while I ran around getting dressed, ready, and cleaned up a bit downstairs, got all the baby stuff in the car. I emailed the photo to Mr. W at work and he responded, “She is so cute when she sleeps unexpectedly.”

I was able to get ready, get her ready, and be out the door at 9am for her 10am lactation appointment. As soon as I got her in the car, I felt great. The sun was shining, and I am successfully mobile. After parking, I couldn’t figure out how to unfold the stroller, tho…none of the buttons and latches worked. So that was my only frustrating point in the day. I finally hand-carried the carseat carrier with her in it to the appointment and got quite the workout.

At the appointment, she was THE PERFECT BABY. I was happy to see the same lactation nurse I’d been with the other 2 times. I pensively showed her 2 photos of Allie’s second poopy blowout from yesterday. The first was yesterday morning when I was at my doctor’s appointment. As relayed to me upon my return, Allie had her very first shower with Mr. W because that poopy squished out the diaper; he said she enjoyed the shower and was happy and smiling. The second blowout was yesterday evening; Mr. W thought it was diahrrea because it was mucousy and very very liquid. The nurse said I can email the photos to the pediatrician to make sure, but in her heart of hearts, she thinks the poopy is fine, not diarrhea, and wet/mucousy is within the very wide range of acceptable breastfed normal poopies. She said Allie looks so robust and healthy that she really doesn’t think something’s medically wrong. Allie drank 4 oz of breastmilk while there and was a happy camper, smiling and not fussing the entire time. It was like a totally different baby today. She fell asleep on the walk from the clinic to the car and stayed asleep for hours in her carrier. Before we left, the nurse took her measurements:
* weight: 11 lbs, 2.3 oz (85th percentile)
* length: 23.9 inches (off the charts; past the 95th percentile, the nurse was impressed and said this was really rare for her to see)
* head circumference: 38.2cm/15 inches (65th percentile)
So she’s tall and lean, according to the nurse. She said if Allie were her family member, she’d be very proud at how healthy and robust she is. She told me I rock, and look at how “in love” Allie is already with me, the way she looks at me! I said Allie looks at everyone like that; the nurse said, “She didn’t look at ME that way!”

I asked when I should stop swaddling; she said, “Oh, she’d HATE to be swaddled now.” She explained that older babies like Allie want their hands free to put at their faces; some babies even hide their eyes with their arm. She said it makes them feel very vulnerable to have their hands locked down by their sides in swaddle. That would explain this morning. I have yet to tell Mr. W this. His theory is that having her hands free makes her feel insecure and wakes her up as they move in her nocturnal jerks and swings.

I asked when I should start pumping to prepare for my return to work. The nurse seemed alarmed and told me I should’ve started already. “You don’t know how many phone calls we get in here from mothers saying they have to get back to work but their baby won’t take the bottle!” So apparently by this point, I’m supposed to be pumping and storing after one morning feeding, and replacing one afternoon/evening feeding with freshly pumped milk bottlefed to her by someone other than me. Getting one bottle a day lets her know others can feed her in other ways. “Especially with how much she’s in love with you already, she will definitely prefer your skin to a bottle if you don’t get her on the bottle once a day now.” So I did the evening pump today and Mr. W fed it to her. Unfortunately, babies are more efficient than pumps so I only got 60 ml (2oz) out for her. She’ll be hungry again soon.

After the appointment, I went to part 2 of my day: visiting at my cousin Jennifer’s. The two babies were both asleep when we first got together; Allie slept in her carrier for HOURS. It was great chatting with Jen and my aunt. (Jen and I were deeply in a conversation about how to store pumped milk in bags when my aunt, her mom, turned to us and said, “You two are so BORING!”) We hung out all day, my aunt cooked a healthy homemade lunch for us, and they were GREAT at relaying their experiences and counseling me about my neuroticism. I was in such a good mood all day, Allie woke up, ate, went back to sleep for HOURS on my shoulder. The whole day everyone commented at how beautiful and easy/quiet Allie is. Wow. Jennifer also observed Allie looks at me with an enamored expression on her face.

Mr. W seemed to have a pretty decent day at work. I am so grateful to him; what a trooper daddy he is for the past 6 weeks of baby duty and mommy training me. He does/did more than any father I have ever heard of. But we both came out of his leave okay, I think. I’ll be taking night duty daily now that he’s back at work; I hope Allie’s behavioral changes continue in the positive direction.

i’m blogging with my right hand only because a brand new little person is sleeping in my left, against my left shoulder after my failed attempt in burping her. *rubbing my left temple on the back of her fuzzy li’l head*

had my 6-wk postnatal apptmt with my ob earlier. hubby took an extra day off today to watch allie, so i made him an overdue optometry apptmt today, where he is now. after my 30 lb preg weight gain (i think i maxed out at 156 lbs), i’m now close to back at my pre-preg weight (128 lbs now). i tried wearing my wedding/engagement rings yesterday and they fit. pelvic exam shows i’ve healed from labor. the stitches just have to dissolve on their own, my skin healed over them well.

as for mentally, my ob said i’m “normal for [my] personality.” he doesn’t think i have an actual psyche disorder, & wanting to hyperclean or hypercontrol housework because i can’t control the baby is common. because i’m meticulous, in-control, organized, systematic by nature, & because i’m an older new parent accustomed to doing things my way for a long time, & i’m educated & have expectations.

baby up & crying now. gotta go!

After the Night of Hell came a Night of Angelic Peace, where she went straight down without even a whimper at 9:30p after I fed her upstairs, and didn’t wake up until a feeding was needed about 6 hours later, then she went right back to sleep and we put her down easily again. The night after was a mediocre night. She fussed a little when we tried to put her down, but not for too long; maybe 20 minutes or so. She got up every 4 hours to eat, but we were okay with that. Then last nite was another night of hell; Mr. W told me he’d take her after I fed her at 7:30p, so I could go to bed early. I heard her fussing and crying until 9p when he tried to bring her up to bed. She basically refused to go to sleep (altho she’d doze a minute or two with Mr. W’s efforts, but she fought it and would wake right back up and go right into her crying fit). I fed her again in the middle of this, and it took until well past midnight for her to finally go down for the night. Then she woke up every 3-4 hours for feeding or diaper changes, which was all right. So I’m beginning to think it all just averages out anyway.

My nerves are still frayed. I think I’m getting psychosomatic symptoms to the anxiety. I was thinking the other day I seemed to have general anxiety disorder (GAD), but in a looong hour+ of holding her asleep in my arms in bed when I was afraid to move, so that Mr. W can catch up on his sleep, I figured out that the problem is that my world has shrunk so much since I’ve been off on maternity leave. In this microcosmic world, there’s just the baby, me, and Mr. W with the stepdaughter, my parents, and my friends on the periphery. So given that this world is so small, what’s the worst thing that could happen in it? The baby could cry and fuss and carry on. So my body has assigned that an 8 (out of 10) in anxiety response. I’m nauseated, scared, unable to fall asleep, have pressure on my chest, loss of appetite, and was emotional. Mr. W had said, “So what if she cries? Babies cry.” True, and my level of response is totally disproportionate to the stimulus. My blood pressure is probably through the roof; I can always feel my heart palpitating, it seems. Multiple times today, when I got up, I’d get lightheaded and would have to brace myself against the bed or wall until my vision returned to normal. And the fact that Mr. W is going back to work in 2 days? Half of my team is going to be gone. My body is reacting to that as if he’s going to be gone for 3 months instead of just 12 hours a day (he plans on getting to the gym by 5am, showering for work at 6:15a, napping during lunchtime, and he’ll probably get home between 4:30-5:30p, depending on the workload). I have my post-natal checkup tomorrow morning, anyway.

To cut down on her daytime crying (altho there have been some improvements), we tried the Seven Sling. I think their sizes run small, because once I finally figured out the stupid instructions and got set up, I couldn’t open the fabric up wide enough to shove her in there. Mr. W could do it by wearing the sling deliberately wrong, across his neck rather than across his shoulder, but that gives me back pain.

Every time I tried for 2 days, the 2nd day after watching tons of how-to videos online, we ended up with her screaming from being squished in my attempts to shove her in with her head stuck out, or a limb would get caught, and we always struggled to free her with her screaming again, being crushed. I finally gave it up. There are other ways to carry her in the Seven Sling, such as just having her butt in there and sitting her upright instead of having her cradled in there, but since she’s only 5 weeks old, they don’t recommend a carry that doesn’t have her head supported. I think she’s just too large of a baby for the infant cradle carry, altho I guess she’s able to keep her head up for lengthy amounts of time on her own, which she started being able to do super-early, like week 2-3 or something.

So yesterday I practiced with the Infantino Flip Carrier. All the straps looked intimidating, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought once I was able to put the carrier on by myself and set the straps to the right settings. This morning, while she was fussing, I put her in it and wore her around as I put the dishes from the dishwasher away, and ate some cereal. She went quiet and sleepy almost immediately after getting in. Right now I’m blogging with her sleeping in it.

I think we might have a winner. Mr. W feels it’s too bulky for home use and he might be right, but I’m desperate. I think we’re gonna go carrier-hunting today to find something fabric, easy, and effective. I looked up the Mobi carrier, but that was even more fussy with even more “pockets” to take into consideration than the sling. =P