It's officially been two weeks since Olivia was born. I almost started to feel like I was good at this parenting thing until the other night when she was awake for most of the night and just wanted to suck the life out of my finger (as pacifiers are verboten for the first month). Then, I realized that I wasn't just a fabulous parent, that this is the "honeymoon" phase where babies sleep all of the time and then eat and poop. It's easy to figure out what they need.
Well, the other shoe hasn't fallen off quite yet. She is still sleeping a lot. And, I mean a lot. She even gets 4-5 hour periods of sleep at night, which is a blessing and a curse for me, because I rely on her hand sucking to let me know she needs to be fed at night. On the one hand, I get to sleep that much at night and I feel like a new person, on the other hand, I miss a 2-3 hour feeding period and I feel guilty that I haven't fed her and/or pumped to keep the juices flowing. We'll see how terrible this is when I go to the pediatrician on Monday. Hopefully I have been giving her enough to where she is at least back to her birth weight.
Another bonus (sarcastically speaking) of her sleeping all of the time is that we apparently don't change her diaper enough. She already has a diaper rash and I feel like a failure. Good thing we have a good supply of Butt Paste and Desitin.
I do feel so blessed to have a relatively great baby. But, I inherited the pessimism gene and I have a feeling once John returns to work, she'll bring out the big guns and let me know she was just putting on a show for daddy. I could be wrong. I HOPE I am wrong, but I am not going to delude myself into being so confident that I am DEFINITELY wrong.
Another issue that has taken the air out of my tires, so to speak, is my boobs stopped producing the mass quantities of milk they were in the first week. I pumped 5 ounces earlier and now I am consistently a little over 3. Which, is what she needs, but I want to go above and beyond that...I want to be an over-achiever in the moo department. To top it all off, I am producing half as much milk in my left boob as in my right. I hope that changes soon. I Googled the issue and it seems pretty common, but it doesn't quite make sense to me how to rectify the situation. If I feed off the better boob, then the slacker will produce less as it makes what it needs to (no?) and if I feed off the slacker boob, it will not have the time to "fill up". (Hey, I don't claim to be an expert on these things.)
I just realized, this is pretty entertaining as far as my big concerns in life go... it's amazing how your priorities change when you are at home with your baby and not out in the real world. Which, happens to be falling apart right now with a crappy economy....so I am actually glad I get to hide my head in the sand for a while in that regard. In fact, the crappy economy could not have come at a better time for me because my bosses now WANT me to take the full three months off so they don't have to pay me during this time. Not getting fired and getting full maternity leave....YES, PLEASE!
Yesterday, John and I cashed in on our auction prize of a photo session and portrait with a professional photographer (our first family portrait...AWWWWWWWWW). http://www.cpbysharon.com/portfolio/ there is this picture of a mom with her baby that captured my pregnant heart at the auction and John and I bid on it and WON! Well, we won a $50 savings on the "value" of the portrait and photo session, but it is perfect, no!? The down side was this woman's studio is in her home in Naperville...a good 45 minutes away. I was concerned about the long drive as it was not QUITE two weeks yet, but O slept the whole time. As I got out of the car, I realized why long drives are not recommended...uh, it was a little painful down there. Not permanent pain, but a nice stabbing pain as soon as you get out of the car. But, I digress, the photo shoot went well. Olivia would not wake up for some "open eye" shots, but sleeping babies are just as cute. I can't wait to see the photos!
As far as recovering from the delivery, they tell you two weeks. I have to say, I feel about 95% better. I no longer need a suitcase of stuff to go to the restroom. The happy hemmies are sticking around, but everything else seems to be ahhh-ight. I may soon convince myself that having another baby is do-able. That is, if I don't read my own blog from the delivery day ;-)
And now, for something completely different:
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