Leaving the house with an infant (Part II)

Random aside: does anyone else using blogger have issues with the font? I don't understand why my font's all over the place on some of my posts. It's not intentional, I promise. I didn't even touch the font the other day, so I have no idea why it fluctuated from old person's size to magnifying-glass-necessary size. Sorry, I'm not trying to make you question your vision. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, never mind. I caught it and reposted right away so you may or may not have seen the original post.

Second trip:

Two weeks ago. Had to go solo on this one but I figured with just the kid and one dog, it wouldn't be too bad. Bandit had a vet appointment in Santa Cruz, so I thought the DZ might enjoy a change of scenery. Afterwards, a friend and I made loose plans to possibly meet up for lunch. Right off the bad, I knew I was in trouble when after waking up by 5:30 - 6 every morning for weeks, the DZ decided to sleep in until 7. Usually, I'd love the extra sleep, but my plans had been centered around her waking up at her usual time. Because I figured she'd eat by 6 and then be ready for another meal by 9am or so. Giving me some time to get her fed and ready to go by 10. Which then gave me plenty of time to make the 11 am appointment. Sounds perfect right? Rookie Mistake # I have no idea: it never works that smoothly.

Some of you might be thinking, what's the big deal, so the kid decided to sleep in a little. And up until a few months ago, I probably would have agreed with you. Because honestly, who structures their plans around their kids' sleeping/eating schedule. If you gotta be somewhere, you gotta be there and the kid's going to have to deal. Well, I've been discovering these last few weeks what the big deal is. Because if she ate at 7, she's generally ready for her next meal right around 10, right when I'm supposed to be leaving for the vet's office. And I don't want a starving baby in the car.

I struggled with the decision of whether to wake her up. Because the other thing is that she loves car rides. If I could grab her still asleep and throw her into the car seat, there'd be a pretty good chance she'd stay asleep. If I chose to wake her up, I'd have to do it by about 9 or so to give me enough time to feed her and get her ready. But after waking up at 7, it was almost 8:30 by the time she went back to sleep. So, I went back and forth. There were probably a few emails to G in there wondering what I should do. Maybe some agonizing indecision expressed in a chat with a friend. You'd have thought I was debating a career path or a life or death situation the way I was agonizing.

Finally, I decided to let her sleep. Figured if I left right at 10, I'd be early for the vet anyway and could give her a quick bottle in the car just before the appointment. Except that she got up just as I was loading her in the carseat. And started wailing, but since I didn't have enough time to feed her before leaving, I figured I'd just throw her in the car and hoped for the best. The next big task was to get Bandit into the car. That was an even bigger chore, because these days, Bandit's pretty darn deaf and blind. She hides out under G's desk for much of the day, and convincing her to leave it even for fun stuff is a HUGE event. Because she has no idea what you're asking.

So I had the car seat in one hand and was trying to drag Bandit out from under the desk with another. The kid was bawling and Bandit was resisting so much that her collar almost came off in my hand. And I kept saying, "Come on, Bandit, let's go for a ride" because she likes rides. The problem with that though was that guess who else likes rides? Mia and Tucker who DID hear me just fine and were racing around the living room all ready to go. So then the trick became getting the DZ and Bandit out the door while keeping Mia and Tucker in. I can't express to you how much fun this all was. I finally went and got the kid's seat into the car and came back for Bandit. During which time I could hear the kid bawling in the garage all the way from the house.

Needless to say, I was NOT early for my vet appointment. The 45 minute drive over wasn't too bad except that every time I stopped for a light or gas or in any way slowed the car down, there'd be screaming from the backseat. I think the commotion made Bandit even more convinced that she was in for an ordeal. So then I was stuck instead trying to give the kid her bottle in the waiting room at the vet. By this point, the DZ had calmed down considerably and decided to sort of take her bottle but that she really preferred smiling and cooing at the vet's nurse instead. Which was great except that then she got hungry on our way back home and the car ride back was pretty much the same as the ride over. And I was so tired that I decided to just go home rather than meet my friend for lunch. Which was also great because I had left the house in such a rush that I hadn't eaten all morning. If there's one thing more fun than sitting in a car praying that the light would turn green so that the baby would stop crying, it's doing all of that starving. Just awesome.

Leaving the house with an infant (Part I)

First trip:

The little prima donna was about 5 weeks old. I needed to get out of the house, so G and I decided to take the baby and our 3 dogs to the beach. I guess most people start off with a trip to the local grocery store with JUST the baby or something like that. But where's the fun in that? And anyway, we had already done the obligatory trips to the pediatrician's office in town, so we figured we were ready for the big leagues. And it wasn't terrible. We fed the little DZ, changed her, burped her, and then got the car loaded up. It only took us about 45 minutes to get everything ready and in the car. Not bad, I thought, considering that getting ready included grabbing a bunch of stuff for the baby, trying to figure out how to fit everyone in my little car, and grabbing various throws, towels, and toys for the dogs. It wasn't until later that I found out that we had already been guilty of Rookie Mistake #1: Get every thing loaded up BEFORE the baby is fed and changed. Seeing as how she was eating every 3 hours at that point (or sooner), 45 minutes is just too much time to waste.

We were a bit worried about the dogs bugging the DZ in such close quarters, so G at the last minute found a torn down cardboard box in our garage to shield her a bit from their attention. Totally classy, right?

It seemed to do the trick though. Tucker was a bit curious at first but then he, like the others, settled down pretty quickly. Actually, they didn't seem to care about the baby much at all, even though she was impinging on their usual space, so I'm sure it would have been ok even without the box. And honestly, if they had wanted to get all up in her face, the cardboard wouldn't have done much good.

Once we got to the beach (45 minute drive), we realized that it might be a bit colder for the kid than we had realized (Rookie Mistake #2). Plus we still had her in a cloth diaper. We decided to change both her outfit and the diaper in the car before setting off, and I got the fun task of holding the dogs in check while G had the even more fun task of getting the baby ready AGAIN in the back of the car. She loved getting naked in the cold as you can probably imagine. The dogs had to be evacuated from the car in order for G to have enough room, and they were going nuts with the beach just across the street and having a really hard time understanding why they couldn't just go already, despite me trying to explain it to them a bunch of times. So another 20 minutes or so lost there.

We finally hit the beach. By this point, it was pretty late in the afternoon and we had maybe about an hour of sunlight left. But it all ended up ok and it didn't even matter that it was too cold to take the baby out of the carrier. She fussed a bit at first (by the way, Rookie Mistake #3 ended up not hurting us too badly -- waiting until we got there to try the baby carrier for the first time). I think she initially wasn't too sure if she liked the carrier or not but decided very quickly that it was a great way to nap and slobber all over mom's chest at the same time. So that worked out well too.

As it got colder, I just zipped up, so you couldn't even see here . . . notice the little feet dangling from my sweatshirt? That's her! :)

One lady thought I was pregnant, but really, come on? What pregnant woman have you seen that's that big pretty much from the chest area down to the belly? It was an awkward "belly" too, all elongated and weird looking, with little toes sticking out.

We stayed at the beach for about an hour and a good time was had by all, especially Mia.

And even the kid finally got to check out her surroundings for a bit at the end. We didn't realize it until we got there, but the back-up outfit we had taken for her said "I'm just beachy." This particular picture doesn't show the words, but they're there, I promise. How much do we rock as parents that we were able to clothe our kid in a perfectly themed outfit for the occasion?

So far, so good, right? If you've been paying close attention though so far, you'll have counted up the minutes and realize we're almost a good 2 hours away from a feeding. Plus, we actually didn't quite leave right after the DZ was fed anyway, so we're pretty darn close to when she gets hungry.

Anyway, so we get in the car, and everything's still great. It takes us a little while to get the dogs dried off and everyone back in the car, but it wasn't too bad. As we head home, we decide to pick up some Thai food on the way home. I make the call as G starts driving and put in our order. And then, that's when it happened, about 5 minutes or so after we've left. The kid starts wailing. And wailing. And wailing. She cried the whole way to the Thai place (about 15 minutes). I'm in the front seat and can't really move to the back because the dogs are taking over the whole space. So all we could really do is try to talk to her from the front, and that proved to be totally ineffective.

We don't really know what to do at this point. We're 45 minutes from home, with a planned stop for a food pick up. We have a bottle that we've brought but we put it in a little cooler and don't know how to warm it up for her. And even if we could, it's not like I could just go back there and try to feed her while we're moving. I guess Rookie Mistake # 4 would be the whole cold milk thing but since we still haven't figured out a way around that really, I'm not sure it qualifies as a mistake. On another trip, I tried to take it as is, and it was ok for a while, but then I forgot about it when I got home and it spoiled before I finally remembered to put the unused portion back in the fridge. So that wasn't really an option either for a long trip.

We finally got the Thai place and decided that I would try to nurse her in the car while G ran into get the food. He also figured he'd get some hot water from them while he was in there to warm the milk. I got started and it became quickly apparent that I had no idea how to nurse her in the car. That's not so much of a Rookie mistake either so much as HUGE rookie issue. I'm used to nursing at home with a big pillow (actually, it used to be a whole pillow set up and I slowly worked my way down to just a nursing pillow). So I struggled to get the DZ in the right position and hold her there. Fortunately, I guess she was starving so she didn't seem to care that she was uncomfortable and just went to town.

G came back with the warm water but we were kind of making a go of it already with nursing by that point so we just decided to stick with that. The other thing though is that often at home, the DZ can nurse for up to an hour! I didn't really want to be hanging out in some parking lot for that long, so we decided to let her go for about 15 minutes and then just get going. We figured that would just satisfy her long enough for us to get home. And it should have except that as soon as we got back in the car and started driving, the little prima donna started wailing again.

This time, we just decided to let it go. She cried it out for a good 15 minutes or so and finally wore herself out and fell asleep. Ugh, I swear those 15 minutes seemed to last forever too! G just turned up the radio to drown her out (!), but it was much harder for me to bear. When we got home, we realized she had taken a huge dump, probably right after I fed her, and that's probably what had her bawling. And when I say huge, I'm not kidding. It was all up her butt and in her folds and crevices along her legs, AND had even leaked onto her outfit. Poor thing, of course she was crying. She had been sitting in her own poop for more than half hour. I'm sure there's some rookie mistake in there somewhere, but I'm not sure what it is exactly . . . check your kid's diaper right after feeding her in the car??

Anyway, we all survived the trip unscathed and in one piece but feeling like we had a lot more to learn about taking the kid out of the house.

Routine

So I'm a big fan of routines, and it's exciting to realize that our kid has the same love for order and schedules. Her recent (well, the last 3 weeks or so) night time ritual has been particularly endearing and goes something like this:

7:30 pm -- nurse and start prepping for bed

8:30 pm -- finish nursing

8:30 - 9:30 pm -- several diapers and several attempts to go to bed. Sometimes fussing and crying the whole time, sometimes wide awake and cheerful (whether Mom and Dad get to eat/guzzle dinner depends on which)

9:30 pm -- sudden wailing, followed by yet another diaper change, followed by another hour of nursing

10:30 pm -- more attempts to go to bed, usually consisting of Mom and Dad taking turns carrying her around the room (or bouncing on the bed or swinging or anything else that works to stop the crying)

11:00 pm -- get a bottle of pumped milk since Mom is physically and emotionally unable to nurse anymore

12:00 am -- more attempts to go to bed

12:30 am -- finally, success! down for the night and Mom and Dad get to crawl into bed

12:40 am -- wailing, followed by Mom or Dad getting to pace the living room some more

12:50 am -- repeat

1:00 am -- BEDTIME!!

In fact, our little diva is so in love with this routine that she manages to stick to it whatever curve balls we throw her way. We decide to start getting her into bed sooner? No problem, she can manage to stay awake and fuss even longer. Get a bottle in there sooner so we don't waste all that time nursing? Awesome, more time to screw around and not go to bed. Up all day and exhausted? She can at least hang on til 11pm or midnight. Uncle J and Auntie M babysitting? Perfect, let's throw at least 2 good poops their way in a half hour period or so.

But like her mother, our girl seems to realize that routines aren't everything. It's important to be flexible. And she seems to have a knack for knowing when. So this morning, for example, when I needed her to wake up early so that we could fit 2 feedings in before going to the vet in Santa Cruz, she decided to sleep in. At the vet's office, when she had time to take down a full bottle, she opted to just drink just a little bit. That way, she had plenty of time to be pretty with the vet's nurse and then save her bawling for the ride home when she got hungry again. I mean, really, who wants to stick with the regular plan when you have the chance to give Mom a hard time? What's a routine if not meant to be broken, right?

Clearly, I'm loving this.

More gory details

All through my pregnancy, I worried about a long needle being inserted into my spine. Seemed scarier than actually even going into labor, right? And everyone told me that when you get to that point, the last thing you're worried about is a needle. Turns out they were right. They could have inserted the Space Needle up my back by that point and I wouldn't have cared. Anyway, the epidural came and I went through more contractions. I still felt like pooping but the pain was gone.

And around this time, just when I thought I was going to be a medical anomaly and remain at 4 and a half cm for 3 years, they checked me again, and I was at 8!! So finally, things were happening. Contractions had become more intense, and I was getting more and more dilated. I was almost ready to push and by this point, I was ready. An hour went by and I was 9 cm! Another hour went by and I was at 9.5.

Everything was moving nicely, except that they checked me again an hour later and I was still at 9.5. They waited a couple more hours, came back, and I still hadn't reached 10. The nurse said I was really really close but the last bit of my cervix did not want to open up. I don't know what time it was at this point, but it was probably about 1 or 2 in the morning. And if they came in and said I was still close but not there yet one more time, I was ready to get down there and rip the baby out myself. Well, no, but dude, there's nothing more discouraging than seeing the finish line but not being able to reach it.

Not to worry, the nurse said. A lot of times, you can just push your way past that last bit of closed cervix. So she had me start to push. And push. And push. A contraction would come and she'd tell me when/how to push. Basically they tell you to push like you're trying to get a turd out (a total AHA moment right there for me -- this is why so many women poop during labor I guess). I pushed for what seemed like forever. She kept checking my cervix and it still hadn't opened yet! I'm glad I got the epidural if for nothing more than the cervical checks, god they were excruciating before. And I got a whole lot of them.

And during this whole time, the nurse has been saying several things. One, that it seems to be a night for emergency issues and c-sections and she was not going to have me add to the trend. And two, although I would need to have a c-section if I couldn't dilate to 10 cm, she didn't anticipate it getting to that point. But then as I kept pushing and nothing kept happening, she stopped saying that. Finally, my doctor came and made the call, said that if I'd already been pushing for that long, there was really nothing else to do. If my cervix still wasn't opening up, that was a sign that the baby was probably too big.

The rest of the night was a blur. I was exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open. Once we made the decision to go for the c-section, everything happened quickly. I think they had us all prepped and the baby out in less than half an hour. They had G get scrubbed up and wheeled us into the operating room (him in a wheel chair, I think, just in case he fainted, though I'm not sure). And I guess they put a curtain up between my top half and bottom half and cut me up. Oh they gave me drugs, but later, the anesthesiologist told me that I had been snoring away even before he gave me anything. G hung out by my head so I'm not sure how much he could see. And then before I knew it, it was 3 am and they were telling me I had a girl! A girl! I'm still in shock by that, by the way. I had been so mentally prepared for a boy. But honestly, they showed her to me, and all I remember thinking is "cool" and drifting back to sleep.

I do remember though being with it enough to tell G to follow the baby. Cuz they took the baby away to wash her up while the doctors stayed to close me up. And G was too busy hanging out with me to pay attention to where the baby went. There was a flurry of activity too because there were all kinds of people in the operating room. Earlier in the evening, when my doctor had to break my water, they had found some meconium in my water (it's basically baby poop -- I guess sometimes it's common when babies are late for the poop to seep into the amniotic sac). And they were worried that the baby might swallow some on her way out. So there were doctors and nurses from the neonatal intensive care unit on stand by to clear out the baby's lungs in case that happened. Not a huge deal if they're prepared for it, but potentially scary if they're not. Plus there was my doctor and nurse, the c-section doctor, the anesthesiologist, and I don't know who else. There was a lot going on, and all I really remember is how sleepy I was and how quickly it all seemed to happen.

While they were closing me up, G went with the baby to watch them clean her up and give her initial shots and tests. They apparently told him that the baby's head had been rammed up against my cervix trying to push her way out but that her head had been too big for my cervix. So that's why I couldn't finish dilating. She might have been slightly out of position also, but they said it wouldn't have mattered anyway because I was just too small for her. Damn big husbands! G had told me what a huge baby he was, and I had been freaked out about this the entire pregnancy.

Knowing this kid like I do now, I also kind of wonder if she had been too lazy to push that hard. She doesn't seem like the type to go that extra mile if she doesn't have to. :) But who knows, I guess all that matters is that at the end of the day, we have this super adorable little girl. I may be biased but she didn't even look like a little alien when she was born. You know how a lot of newborns are kind of goopy and ET-looking? Not this one! I swear, she looked like a baby right from the start.

Anyway, I guess that's it for the gory labor details. All the nurses kept telling me that at least next time, I wouldn't have to go through labor at all. I could just schedule a c-section and be done with it. And I guess now that I've had to come to terms with having one at all, might as well. But good god, really, another one????

the gory details (Part I)

Aside from the cloth diapers and my brief foray into the idea of natural child birth, I wouldn't really call myself earth friendly (i.e. hippie). I mean, sure, I try to be environmentally conscious, eat healthy foods, get my pets at animal shelters, and try not to medicate too often. But for the most part I like modern conveniences. It used to be that I didn't even have a cell phone, but I live with Mr. Gadgets now and I've gotten used to the easy life. And one day soon, now that we have 3 dogs and a kid, I know that I'll have to break down and probably buy a car that gives less than 30 miles a gallon. I do what I can but have no problems giving up an ideal for convenience. Plus I'm a huge believer in science and modern medicine.

Despite all this, I had a vision of how my labor would go. When we were in our birthing classes, a lot of women said they're biggest fear was having a c-section. I had no such fear. Honestly, I felt that at the end of the day, I would do whatever needed to be done to get the baby out. And if my doctor felt that a c-section was necessary, then that's what would happen. I didn't WANT it per se. I didn't even want the doctor to make a slit to help the baby come out if it came down to it, let alone a c-section scar. Ideally, I decided I'd rather tear (I know it sounds terrible, and there are really no advantages to either, but see my previous post about the Kool-Aid) and heal naturally than with a cut and stitches. I didn't even want to be induced. So definitely a c-section is even more invasive and definitely not on my "must have" list, but I barely thought much about it.

But it was easy not to think about it because in my head, I always felt that it would never go there. I mean, how on earth could I possibly have issues delivering a kid? Child bearing runs in my family, and I always just figured I was built for it. I never really thought much about it but I think it was a source of pride. And when the moment came that the c-section became necessary, that was probably what stuck in my craw the most.

And the moment was a LONG time coming that day. Because I went into the hospital Monday morning at 7 am to be induced after being almost a week late. The baby apparently did not want to come out. Actually, we were supposed to go in Sunday night, but as we were walking out the door, the hospital called and said that they had no more beds, that it was a crazy night, did I want to come Monday morning instead. Sun, they were supposed to give me this drug to help my cervix dilate. By the end of labor, my cervix is to have dilated 10 cm, a lot of women start the process during the last weeks of their pregnancy. As of my last doc appointment, I was completely closed.

So all night, I was supposed to hang out while the meds did their thing, then, when it was time, they'd give me drugs to induce contractions. That was the plan. I could probably sleep while I was dilating and wake up ready to start feeling the pain. But everything got pushed out and we came in Mon morning armed with videos for entertainment. To my surprise, it turned out that I had started having contractions and was dilated already without knowing it. 3 cm, one third of the way there! So they decided to skip the drugs altogether to get my cervix dilating and went straight to the pitocin to induce contractions. A few hours went by, nothing happened. We watched videos, updated facebook every few minutes, caught up on emails. If you're planning on going to labor, a hospital with WI-FI is key.

A few more hours went by. The nurses would occasionally come and examine my cervix (OUCH, that was probably more painful than contractions). They kept upping my pitocin and I still felt nothing. They kept asking if I wanted an epidural. I said, very proudly, no.

At around 3 or 4 pm, I was still just at 4 cm. My doctor came and broke my bag of water around 4:30 or so, and they assured me that things would much more quickly after that. At the next cervix check a few hours later, the nurse said I was at 4 cm. Then she saw my disappointed face and said, "Well, maybe 4 and a half." Awesome, a whole half cm. And still I felt nothing. My doctor said that 4 cm was a good time to get the epidural, but I said no. Well, I still hadn't felt anything, so it seemed silly to get pain killers.

The timing starts to get a little fuzzy, but at some point, they inserted this wire up me to try to better monitor the strength of my contractions. That made it a bit harder to pee. Then suddenly, maybe around 9?, without any warning, I felt my first contraction and it was a doozy. I don't even know how to describe it except that it was pretty much hell AND I felt like pooping. Plus my lower back hurt which I don't think is normal or a good thing. There was no gradual easing into them either, one second I barely knew I was having a contraction and the next minute I couldn't miss 'em. All day, they had been occurring every 4-5 minutes (which is what you want), but all day, they'd been trying to increase the intensity and suddenly they succeeded.

So as I mentioned yesterday, I pretty much broke down right away and asked for the epidural. But it turned out that some one else was having an emergency and the anesthesiologist was busy with her and couldn't get to me for a while. So I ended up gritting my teeth through contractions every 5 minutes for over an hour before God came and inserted a long ass needle up my back.

To be continued . . .

evolution of an idea

So up until about the 37th week of my pregnancy (i.e. 3 weeks before my due date), I thought my birth plan was completely set in stone. And basically, it involved me asking for the epidural in the parking lot, or maybe even a couple of days before. Ideally, I would have preferred to be completely knocked out and maybe drunk the whole time, but I figured that probably wasn't an option. So I was ready the moment we got to the hospital to say the magic words: "Gimme drugs NOW." I don't deal with pain well. I start wincing and whining before it starts.

And I hate to say this, but my opinion of people who decided to give birth "naturally" was that they were utterly insane. You know, like the tree-hugger, don't want to shave my underarms, kind of insane. Or my mother. But she's from a one-road village in a developing country, of course she'd be for all natural childbirth. Women have been giving birth for thousands of years, she said. What did I need drugs for? Sure they have. And yeah, some women dropped their babies in the fields and kept right on working, but a lot of them also dropped dead. This is why we have modern conveniences now, like doctors and hospitals, and medicine. And I plan on using every single one of them.

Except . . . well, I made the mistake of going to a child birth class. You know, to be better informed about these things. And apparently, all these classes are taught by midwives and doulas (i.e. who needs drugs school?). And a lot of what they said made sense. You know, the part about women recovering from natural labor more quickly, and our bodies only producing a baby that we could deliver naturally, and the occasional side effects of various drugs. I can't remember exactly what all they said to convince me, but suddenly, I was drinking the Kool-Aid. Mostly, it just seemed empowering, like of course I could do this. Why not, after all, women have been doing this for thousands of years. . . .

So for about a month, I walked around thinking that I'd go for it, that'd I have an all natural child birth. And I did it without really telling anyone. Cuz I didn't want to sound like a nut. And I didn't want to go on about it and then not. And anyway, I wasn't a 100% sure what I wanted. Because there was just one problem with the whole plan, the whole pain thing. If only I could have a natural child birth without feeling any pain! But I thought that I'd give it a shot and just see what happened.

Anyway, the idea lasted well into my labor. All day, the nurses kept asking me if I wanted drugs, and I said no. Honestly, apparently I was having contractions but they didn't seem that bad. My doctor came late in the afternoon and said that it was a good time to get an epidural if I wanted one. I said no, I was doing great. Well, early that evening, the pain started. I felt my first real contraction, and I started to cave. The next one came around and my mind was pretty much made up. But just for kicks, I endured a few more and then rang the call button.

And that was that. I've decided now that natural child birth is WAY overrated. It turned out that I had to wait over an hour before they could actually give me my epidural, so I got a fairly good taste of what child birth was all about. And I gotta say, if you can do it, kudos to you, but I'm going back to my epidural in the parking lot next time around. Though actually, as it turns out, I'll have it easier than that even next time around, but I'll have to save that for my next post.

The DZ

AKA the PrimaDonna AKA the turd AKA the most gorgeous thing ever . . .

So I have a kid. An adorable, won't-stop-fussing-during-the-day, little girl. When they told me that it was a girl, I almost had a heart attack. Well, I was heavily doped up and exhausted after being unsuccessfully in labor for almost 20 hours, so actually I think I said "OH" and then promptly fell asleep. But now, I'm about ready to have a heart attack. Me, with a girl??? What the h-- am I going to do?? Everyone thought I was having a boy. And I mean everyone, including the random girl in the Social Security line that called out to me one day just to guess that I was having a boy. Well, actually first, she said I was having a girl. Then she asked me to turn around and said, no, no, I'm definitely having a boy. And come on, random people hanging out in line accosting pregnant women are ALWAYS right, no? I guess a few people guessed I was having a girl, but for the most part, everyone seemed to think I carried like a boy. The Chinese gender predictor also expected me to have a boy. As did a number of internet tests. Which goes to show you that the internet is apparently not always right. I know, you could have blown me over with a feather!!

Anyway, I'm shocked, but utterly in love. Maybe I'm biased but I'm pretty convinced that I have the cutest girl ever. Even when she's being a total turd, like she has been this week, she's pretty darn adorable. Her eyes tear up when she's crying (and she's been doing a lot of that this week) and sometimes all I want to do is laugh cuz it's so cute.

I guess that's a bit of an exaggeration. This week, she's been super fussy. They say newborns feed anywhere from 1.5 to 3 hours. Which sucks cuz it means I never really sleep for more than 2 hours at a stretch (cuz it takes a good hour to do a feeding a put her back down). She sleeps pretty well at night, and I've been taking advantage more and more and stretching the feedings farther out than I probably should. But during the day, she feeds for however long she decides to feed for, then fusses until the 1.5 mark comes up and then is hungry again. I can handle sleeping in short increments if I absolutely have to but no one told me that I'd be stuck with a crying kid all day who constantly pooped and peed between feedings (seriously, sometimes I went through 3-4 diaper changes in a half hr period this week). And honestly, no matter how cute she is when she cries, this part has NOT been fun. I suddenly get why new moms get so frustrated. There have been moments this week when I've wanted to cry myself, and I don't look nearly as cute doing it (actually far from it -- I'm totally gross now, I'm lucky if I can sneak in a shower every day and usually right after I come out, I usually get spit up on or something so that all my shirts now seem permanently stained with baby barf).

So anyway, all this is my roundabout way of saying that I have a new baby girl. And I'm trying to get back to blogging. But it's hard. When I do get a couple of hours during the day when the kid seems to be passed out, I want to nap myself. Or eat, or hop in the shower. I don't know that I've done any of those things this week without getting woken up. I was in the shower for 5 minutes yesterday when my brother yelled out that the DZ had taken a huge dump and was fussing (you can hear her pooping -- I'm honestly surprised I didn't hear it in the shower, she's so loud). G went back to work this week, so I'm struggling to manage on my own. My little brother is here hanging out this week, and has been helpful in some ways, but it's not the same. As evidenced by the fact that when she took a dump yesterday, he was nice enough to yell that out to me and had her waiting to be changed on the changing table but didn't actually change the diaper himself.

I don't plan on this becoming a mommy blog or anything, but I have lots of baby-related stuff to write about. Hopefully, as the weeks go by, I'll get into a groove, and get back into blogging regularly. I know you're all dying to hear about my gruesome labor details and breastfeeding issues. But for now, you'll have to bear with me a bit, and just keep checking in for new posts every so often.

Oh, I'm still debating putting up baby pictures on this blog. I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about that yet -- I don't know, I watch too many grisly crime shows and there was this one I remember where this guy got hit with pornography charges because some wacko stumbled onto his family blog or something. I know it's a long shot, especially with the small readership that I have, but I'm still debating. Of course, all of you that are on Facebook will get lots of photo updates, as I find more time to start sorting through more pictures.