Between the time I stood to put her to bed after her readings and feeding and the two steps to her crib, she was asleep...So much for putting her down awake! She slept til 4:30 this morning, and I just grabbed her and took her to sleep with me. This is getting to be nice.

Her latest trick is to stand up in her crib and pace from end to end, holding on to the rail. She also has started "singing" along with the radio in the car..."singing" is a loose term, she just kind of goes "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah" "aaaaaaaaah!" So cute.

She's so excited to see her grampie this weekend, and Grandma the next!

I feel like a new woman. Someone slept from 8:45 (a little late, admittedly) til 5:45! Which means I slept from 10:30 til 5:46! The longest stretch since, oh, last October.

No whoop!

Where's my sofa? Where are Eva's test results? The suspense is killing me.

Well forget it. You were getting pictures of the new room but you all have to wait too. Blogger won't let me!

I am a famous author! Well no. But still...I was ASKED to write this, whereas usually I BEG the local press to give us coverage, so go me!

In other work related news...it's not even 10 am and I already have an ulcer.

Finally, E. has her own room! Pictures to come! She actually slept in it all night on Saturday, but this morning I woke up, diagonally across the bed with a baby upbed of me and a dog downbed....

Still no word on E's nose culture! But everytime I think of it I remember that Momo needs his Bordatella vaccine before my long weekend in the Berkshires.

Bill's off to Alaska! If, by off to Alaska, you mean stuck in the Salt Lake City airport. Poor thing. He doesn't travel well to begin with and so is always doomed to storms and missed connections and lost luggages. We waved good bye yesterday in Burlington and said "Bye bye Daddy! Look for Mama and her puppy here on halloween!" So I need to get moving on her costume, so he doesn't miss us.

I felt sad and jittery the whole drive home, but once we got home I threw myself into putting together Miss E's chifferobe. It's all together and looks GREAT! I need to move the rest of her stuff into her room tomorrow. But now I feel reluctant...two nights of great sleep have been followed by two nights of midnight wakings, and last night she slept with me from midnight til 6...It was actually restful though since I know I won't roll over on her but I am always nervous that Bill will.

There's another tooth coming in!

These pictures are from last Thursday's after work excursion to Black Pond, where we learned that coolers are good baby holders and tupper ware is a perfect toy.

Well, I feel like crap, but so far Miss E seems to be fine. She's actually selpt through the night two nights in a row...once each night she's fussed around one, but a quick back rub puts her RIGHT back to sleep, if she's even awake to begin with...this morning she woke around 5:30 and Bill got her from the crib...she snuggled right up to me and fell asleep, so I think she was a just little chilly (it was in the 40s last night...)

I feel so bad for Bill...I can't imagine how much he'll miss her! We printed out this picture for him to take, among others and I asked if he REALLY wanted to bring such a "daddy, come home!" picture.

And finally, we had dinner last night with our pals R. and S...R. was the receipient of E.'s first wave and so they have a VERY special friendship...it helps that R. is a redhead. S. is the same age Bill was when I met him and has a new girlfriend who is the age I was then. Since E. was born, S. has been stopping by more and more. He holds her whenever he can. And last night he got made at me because my beer glass was blocking his line of vision to Miss E. I told him he better get his own baby. Instead of laughing, he got very serious and said..."I'm definitely working on that plan." Too cute. He's always been Bill's most single guy friend...


en

Testing One, Two. Now we wait!

Dr. C said that if the culture is positive and she has symptoms he may hospitalize her since she is really on the edge of the most dangerous age (6 months and under) for pertussis!

Remember how we thought it wasn't the whoop?
It is.
Miss Eva gets tested later today, and probably will be treated like she does have it...

Eva's back at day care, and though the results aren't in on whooping cough it now seems unlikely to me that's what it is that little M. has...she just doesn't whoop!

We made $105.85 at the yard sale! Woohoo! Next year I will make lots of signs because people just didn't seem to believe we were in the sale, even as they browsed next door...my neighbor started sending people over whihc really helped.

And my stomach hurts.

Numbers and Days and Surprising Disappointment

It's amazing how your emotions can go through such extraordinary changes in a few short days...

Late last week I started to get strange cramps, strange because they felt like premenstrual cramps but I had just had some bleeding the week before, which was timed perfectly to be my period. Then my face started breaking out in a phenomenal way. Both things happened the last two times I was pregnant. So I finally sucked it up, and even though the timing of it made no sense, had a pregnancy test done. Very handy, working in family planning. But it took forever for my coworker to come in with results. Which I knew were positive. And they were...faintly. Very faintly. So faintly in fact that she showed it to another nurse who guessed it was leftover hcg from my post-Eva pregnancy, which ended over two months ago. So the timeline was a little longer than usual, but...Then how to explain my cramps, and the acne, oh and the incredible hair loss I am experiencing? So the options were wait two weeks and test again, or get a blood test. Since Bill leaves in less than two weeks, I went for the blood test. Those results? The best description would be faint. Not negative, but not awesomely positive. If I ovulated during that bleeding (bizarre) it could be a slow start. So she ordered a retest for today. And I went from "no way can I have another yet" on Monday afternoon to "I am so excited to have another BABY!" this morning. But alas, the results of the second beta indicate a no go (they are supposed to at least double and mine went from 22 to 18.) So here I am both disappointed and relieved that I can spend now through April wait til I am really ready to conceive again, instead of waiting to give birth. But let me tell you, as soon as April rolls around, I will be working like a dog to get pregnant. (bad choice of words, perhaps...)

The only question that remains is this: was that leftover hormone from my terminated pregnancy? Or was I pregnant in July and miscarried? Or am I miscarrying now? It's hard to know, and I don't really want to think too hard about it.

All I know is that I love my family and my thoughts of having just one are now gone.

Eek! A's daughter is being treated for whooping cough, even though they are still awaiting an actual diagnosis! Poor little M. And lucky little Eva, because she gets to spend three workdays in a row with her 'rents.

A. doesn't really think little M. has the whoops, but apparently its been going around and better safe than sorry.

A third tooth! This one is on top; it's the one immediately to the right of the two front teeth. And I can see the clear outline of every other tooth on top. Today she's home with her Dad because her sitter's youngest has a raging ear infection and fever and none of them slept last night. (HA! Welcome to my world!) It's good, because E's running a very slight fever herself and had a case of the grumpies last night. She also puked once and I think that solved the mystery of the illness before our vacation. She's a feverish teether who throws up. What a pleasure!

Bill leaves a week from tomorrow. This morning we were talking about how I won't miss him at first, but that heartache should set in around September 23rd at 10am. Or thereabouts.

One plus to not pumping is that I can go out to lunch with friends, and I can still get lots of productive work time in after....Maybe the secret to getting a lot done after lunch is creme brule...if so, I should eat it EVERYDAY!

We had a wonderful nights sleep last night, thank goodness! And soon Miss E will have her own room! Perhaps by this weekend! Could you just DIE!

What a treat! Beloved co-worker and my personal role model, C., just stopped by! C. has been battling breast cancer for as long as I have known her: she got her rediagnosis (she'd already fought it once) about a week before I met her. A couple of months ago she had a brain scan, and they discovered lesions there. And she just had another scan, and after radiation they have gotten significantly smaller. Wonderful news! We've missed her around her and it was great to see her. She brought some pictures of herself and Miss Eva which were taken at an event in June where she was honored as a breast cancer survivor. They posed as the baldy brigade. The whole time I was preggo I never took a day off and that was because of C.. Until the last few months when she's been out on disability, she was ALWAYS here, even though she gets chemo once a week. She never complains, like many in the working world are so prone to, even though I have a feeling she could legitimately bitch about not feeling well pretty much every day. So whenever I felt sort of pukey or tired, I'd think of C., and how she'd be working and haul my ass out of bed. But her good attitude around her illness is just a small part of her larger amazing awesomeness. Which anyone who has ever met her can probably testify to, right, C.Dom?

Preparations for the tag sale continue! I am sure I will be a hundredaire by this time next week.

Today, I left the horns at home. That's right, I'm done with pumping. I am proud I made it to seven months. I'll still let her nurse at night, but there doesn't need to be much milk for that (or any at all, really.) Hopefully I can leave my guilt behind as well.

The second tooth has arrived, but either it's still causing pain or there's an upper on the way, because she's still not sleeping well. Her night wakings are these extended hour and a half long affairs of torture for us, while we alternate cuddling and soothing duties. She'll be asleep and then suddenly cry out in pain. Then snooze again. Grr. She'll be just asleep and roll over once she's back in her crib and be wide awaka again. Curses.

Bill leaves for Alaska inn just under two weeks. Which means the Junior Miss will soon have her own room! Where she can practice the latest tricks: standing up with only one hand on a support, and bending over to pick things up while still holding on and standing again. Her sitter claims she'll be running by October. I have a feeling she's right. Gulp.

In non-baby related news: I am reading an interesting book for work: Thy Kingdom Come: an Evangelical's Lament by Randall Balmers. In spite of an endorsement from Rick Warren (blech), I think Balmers is spot on in his assessment of the hypocrisy of and distortion of church values by the Religious Right. For instance: on Abortion...while he thinks abortion is not a GOOD thing and has moral implications, he does not think there's any reason to involve the legal system in it. He talks about how the Religious Right identified abortion as a touchstone not as a reaction to Roe, but as an issue to fill a void left after the initial rallying fight, around the tax status of Bob Jones University, was won. He goes on about how the Bible has more negative to say about divorce than about abortion and homosexuality combined (and you have to search pretty hard to make a compelling argument that the Bible says ANYTHING about those two topics...) and yet conservative Christians aren't fighting about that!

He also happens to talk about the one thing that really sticks in my craw about conservatives and abortion (and other issues too...). He talks about the Baptist tradition and the historical connection between Baptists and the seperation of church and state. And then he makes the point that I always struggle with myself: a true conservative wants minimal government intrusion/interference in personal decisions. I hate it when people don't understand their own position!

Anyhoo...check it out. It's a fast and interesting read!

One of the local papers in these parts has refused to run our ads in the past, claiming we encourage sex too much. On Monday, this same paper ran a full color front page photo of a rugby player and his goods, which were escaping his shorts mid-game. The glee! I hope this generates the fire of 100 crazy letters to the editor!

The bitch is back. Tooth number two is on its way and I am so sleep deprived that I keep finding myself lost and confused in another room, wondering what the hell I was doing. Sigh. Poor baby.

And riddle me this...why when I hand her a sippy cup can she not figure it out, but when she grabs J's at day care, she's able to gulp down COW'S MILK no problem? Cow's milk. Another sigh. She also might have had an allergic reaction to the yogurt, resulting in a slight leg rash. But it could have been the heat.

See? Rambling. Sleep deprived.

Even though we totally can't afford it, and I feel like weird saying it, I think I need to hire someone to clean my house.

It's bad, people. And now that the Junior Miss is on the move, I don't even feel like she can be safe on the floor. Last night at 9:30, when E. was STILL AWAKE, I realized that I haven't cleaned the bathroom in weeks. So I did that while Bill cuddled her on the couch. But I only did the surfaces and the floor behind the toilet is covered with damp dust. My kitchen floor, which is NEVER clean (old, dirty linoleum) has visible splatters on it and crunches under foot (that is where you don't STICK.) Bill's been nagging me about my side of the bed, and I want to scream in the living room. But I never get a chance to clean! It's doesn't help that we have no storage, either.

(as an aside, I also think we need to get rid of the coffee table, which has like forty different edges to get hurt on. This morning she got a bruise and a bump when she was crawling under it. I was on a conference call...thank god for mute.)

My ten pm cleaning meant sacrificing any relaxation for the day, and giving up my usual half hour of me time. GRRRR. I could also write a rant about how nothing was done yesterday when B had the while day off.

Bill used to hire a friend's wife to clean, back when the Bunkhouse was really the Bunkhouse, and he had guests all summer, and I still lived downstate. But I honestly can't deal with her negativity and judgement. (Every time I see her, I end up saying, "YES, we are still using cloth diapers. NO, I actually love my husband, but I am sorry you hate yours." he's like the happiest guy in town, and I do not understand their relationship! Anyway, I would say more, but want to protect the innocent!) I think every two weeks, dusting, floors and bathroom would be enough to really make a difference...know anyone, Book Club Aunties???

Wow. Why don't women talk more about struggles with nursing their loves? After yesterday's post, I heard from a lot of friends, here and off line, about similar troubles with and feelings about breastfeeding...It really sucks that we all beat ourselves up about this. I wish I knew how not to do that, but at least I can acknowledge how fucked up it is.

Anyway. We have a new fave food, yogurt. She even likes it in her eyebrows. Feeding her while we eat has become a much more productive method of getting food into the mouth. Maybe she's just more ready now too.

Let's talk about breastfeeding. It's only appropriate as I sit here on a pump break, trying to squeeze out an ounce.

I never had any doubt that I would nurse Miss Eva. I looked forward to it and, when I was pregnant, I could imagine that even when I could not stretch my mind enough to picture anything else after her birth. And then she arrived. And my milk did not.

We waited eight days for my milk to come in. Sure, there was a trickle by day five, but not much more than a swallow or two. The second night in the hospital was agony. She would stay latched on for an hour, or she would not latch on at all. She would SCREAM in anger, or I would sweat in pain. When, in the middle of the night, a nurse asked to supplement her I said yes. And when she left I felt like an utter failure as a mom, and felt more alone and lonely than I ever have in my life. I cried for hours on end, abandoning the sleep that supplementing was supposedly getting me.

By the time my milk came in she had lost more than a pound and a half and refused to poop. then, finally, I heard swallowing. Success! But I never was engorged and I hardly ever leaked, which worried me. We did okay for a while after that, until I started to try pumping and my meager output made me doubt my supply all over again. When I went back to work and she was home with Bill I managed to get about half her consumption pumped (five ounces or so...) But as she grew, I fell behind. Then she started to get distracted. Then I got pregnant again. My supply basically disappeared and I went from being able to pump six ounces in two or three sessions to less than half that. I started giving her a bottle at bedtime, before I nursed, to get her to settle enough to nurse and then sleep. After I underwent a medical abortion, my milk returned a little, but not like it was. After a few weeks, I was doing better, then my power supply for my pump died and I was reduced to pumping once a day at work in the car, driving around. Then vacation last week, where she went on a nursing strike (too many distractions!)

I had imagined we would nurse til she's three. But now, we are down to once in the morning. Once when I get home. Once at bed time. And once in the night. I try and pump at least twice, but I get two ounces, maybe. (In the twenty minutes to write this...less than an ounce.)

I am frustrated and angry and disappointed. I am defensive about breastfeeding and jealous of women I see doing it with success. I want to quit and I want to keep going. I am afraid of getting pregnant again, and I am nervous about the mini-pill but am more afraid of losing the small amount of milk I have left if I go on a combo pill. I feel like the fact that Miss E is low on the weight chart is all my fault, because I don't pump enough, because I am too selfish to want to spend hours wrestling her to drink, because I got pregnant, because I supplement formula, because I don't devote enough time to drinking water and taking supplements, because I went back to work, because I let them supplement at the hospital, because I had nothing for her for that first week.

And I set myself up for this, I think. I have always been pro-breastfeeding, and never imagined anything but. And I was set up a little, too. Because my personal culture (not the mainstream one) is full of friends, and web forums, and magazines and heallthcare providers that are pro-breastfeeding and anti-formula. And so people I respect are telling me, indirectly, that because E gets formula, she's getting second best. And what mom let's her baby have second best? Me. I guess.

And that, my friends, is why I hate my boobs, and myself, a little. Sigh.

Can you feel the excitement? It's because we got ourselves on the town wide yard sale map this year!!! I've never had a yard sale (a tag sale where I am from...) but we are so excited to clean out the house and the camp! We'll have a computer desk and a crib and dishes and a tv table and a lot of objet d'arts and tchotchkes for sale. We may also have some clothes, books, and old sporting equipment! I have two weeks to get it all together and priced...the sale is the 19th and 20th, but I think I'm limiting myself to the first day.

I have several ideas for Bill in Alaska projects (other than childrearing and making sure I eat...) With the new couch there will be a living room redo. I am embraking on a baby bedroom creation. I am learning to use my grandma's loom (now in room 4!) I am making canvas floorcloths for the kitchen and front entryway. What more can I fit in? A long weekend with my mom. Who knows what else!

She slept through the night. Bill did not, though, since he woke up when I goosed him when the thunderboomers started.