16 Weeks Postpartum, Exactly One Year Since We Found Out

One year ago we found out we were pregnant, I thought I would share our story.

So I had warned B that I was late, and that it was probably nothing. I told him I was going to take a test to be sure but I was feeling the period coming on any day and not to worry. We weren't super active and our last venture involved taking Plan B, so I really wasn't worried. I figured I would pop into CVS, grab a test, pee on a stick and Bam! there would be my period. Because that's how that works.

Nope.

I held it all morning, after sleeping til almost noon, and we went for lunch at our nearby Mexican restaurant. ...I love Mexican restaurants, they are my happy place. They have Margaritas, things I can slather in sour cream, and I generally do my important social business there. Our particular Mexican place is next to a CVS, So I ran into the CVS to "grab that thing, you know... that I mentioned " B is oblivious and has no memory, so he smiles and nods and says that he will get us a table. So I come into the restaurant, order my margarita, and bee line it to the bathroom. I do my business expecting nothing to come of it, I finish up, I pick up the stick, glance at it and go to toss it into the trash. I really wasn't expecting to .. well, be expecting. After the double take to confirm that in fact there are two lines there I have this nervous grin plastered onto my face. I get to the table and I cover my mouth and say, "We have a problem." He looks at me all funny as I am grinning like a mad woman and sliding into the booth. "I just peed on a stick." "Oh! Well lets eat and then deal with this." Eating was not happening. We ended up weighing our options and discussing our situation and I reiterated that I had always had a very firm stance that I had no desire to carry someones child that I was not married to. I asked him what he thought about the situation, if he could make any choice he wanted, and he said "Let's get married and have a baby." And that was it boys and girls, I knew what was going to happen. I absolutely melted and I knew I was getting married and that I was having this baby. So I finished my margarita, I declined the post stressful conversation cigarette ( and haven't touched one since btw, go me! ) and we went home. I called my mother to ask her what to do, at this point it was a little cloudy again and I was sobbing uncontrollably and I needed some sort of affirmation. When I asked my mother what to do she said, "You suck it up, get fat, and have a baby!"

And I did. And I love him, and I was so lucky that he came into my life when he did and we were able to provide a wonderful start for him. I am thankful for the wonderful network we have (thanks Mom!! & brudder!) and I especially love my darling husband for helping me with everything and just being generally awesome.
<3

16 weeks. Thumbs and Weight.

Dearest Magpie is now 16 weeks and to my dismay discovering how delicious and soothing his thumbs are. I have been tirelessly pulling his clumsy little fists out of his mouth and popping in his sucka. Which we now own a million of specifically in the size and shape he prefers. As this battle rages on he has also now decided that he will stay up past bed time and be just mildly fussy, so I have to remove him from the bed room but I still can't get him to tire himself out. I have finally discovered the magic of the side hold to rectify that lovely habit. So needless to say with his new bad habits I may have cracked a little bit and allowed him to peer at the television for a few minutes tonight after my adimant stance against letting him get sucked into a screen. *sigh* You won't win 'em all.

Mommy's update is just as frustrating but there is no pacifier and side rock for me :( I bought a new scale a little while back when I realized "Oh crap! My wedding dress is how many sizes too small and I only lost how many pounds since he was born?!?!" And I've been stalking that scale worse than an ex on Facebook. Not only am I not losing weight but I gained a good 5 lbs and its going no where. I am exclusively breastfeeding, I am pumping like crazy and I'm avoiding the junk food. In the last few weeks we've started going on walks, I've been doing small reps of things in the house (crunches, squats, jug curls) not to mention baby press ups and the hours of 'bounce and shh'. What the heck man? Where is my "breast feeding melts off the fat!" ? However I have now been stuck in this weight long enough that I am starting to embrace it and become more comfortable which is most important right now because DH was getting sick of me ragging on how fat and gross his wife was. It doesn't help that I feel like I haven't worn real clothes in a year and that my torso is just perpetually naked. I'm not one to worry about shame, I do however just want to feel comfortable again. But as I said, I am getting there. I bought some new clothes (to go with my announcement next month!!) And being able to dress like and adult is wonderful and helping a lot. Now if I could get my shower schedule a little better and do something with my hair and make up I'd feel awesome but when I have to choose between dishes and laundry and hair and make up the house wins. Not that the little goof is letting me get much of that done either. :p

Three Months! (14 weeks)

So it has been a while since I have updated on the baby Magpie, but for good reason, Daddy and Mommy got married! :D
I managed to plan our wedding throughout the pregnancy and for 3 months after, I am pretty proud of that. However in the mean time I have been mommying and we do have updates! Magpie is just now discovering his hands, he spends quite a few minutes noticing them and what looks like signing the alphabet. It is fascinating. In the last month he has figured out how to roll from back to front. He will do it a couple times in a day then forget for a few days and relearn all over again. His chirping has become more frequent and much louder. It is getting hard to tell when he is just babbling and when he is crying out for attention. He has discovered that his fists are DELICIOUS! They are almost always in his mouth. Though he is almost regularly knitting his brow and giving us his scowl smiles are a lot easier to prompt from him and absolutely amazing at that. The giant full body toothless grin is my favorite thing in the world. In the last week or so I have been showing him his reflection and he has been responding with said grin and then hiding his face, who would have thought my son would be shy. I do however believe that his own reflection makes him smile like that, that he gets from me :P
As far as mommy goes, I have been finishing up with the wedding plans and various other life events. It feels really good to finally have everything finished. The only thing I have left to do is verify my child care, unfortunately I waited too long and I lost my slot where I wanted it. I am hoping they follow through with making a second class. *fingers crossed*
Come October big things are coming, I have been working on pumping. I learned after the festivities that beer helps my production. A lot. Which is wonderful because my production was scary low for a few weeks leading up to the wedding. I also came across the concept of power pumping and I believe I will be implementing this soon. I am a little bummed that I am not losing any weight even though I have been feeding like crazy and I am almost always hungry. I assume I am gaining some muscle because Mom says I look smaller. Now that the heat is about to break it should be easier for me to be more active, especially since I am no longer tethered to the couch folding my 1200 cranes :s

Happy 3 months to my baby, and I can't wait to meet up with the other couples and babies from our class in a couple weeks! :D

One Whole Month / 5 Week update

My SO and I have managed to keep our little squishy alive for a full month and I couldn't be more proud. He is getting big fast, at his one month check up he has gained 1lb 2oz since birth. Since my last update I have begun pumping breast milk to begin introducing Mags to the bottle. I have learned to not pump too much too fast, especially if you are going to be knocking your child out with copious amounts of fresh air between feedings. I felt like my chest was going to explode by the end of the fourth of July celebration the other night! Pumping is going well and I managed to sleep longer than 3 hours in a row for the first time in a month the other morning, it was glorious. I have decided to definitely maintain at least some actual breast feeding for the health and bonding benefits but letting Mister feed the baby and have his own bonding time makes me feel better about giving him the bottle. He took to it right away and I really enjoy seeing exactly how much he is taking in.
          After his one month appointment the doctor says he is doing just fine. While he was there he needed a shot, he did very well and didn't seem to notice til it was over and only took a second of cuddles and shhing to calm back down.

Baby Body Mini Rant.

I am 3 weeks postpartum and I have never been more OK with the fact that my belly is marred and squishy and all sorts of floppy. I have never been more OK with my body ever as a matter of fact and its because I fit a whole Magpie in there and I didn't split in two. And now this floppy marked up body feeds him and cuddles him and I have never felt more matter of fact in my skin. 
Before he came I felt fat and swollen and gross. I felt awful to look at, but I did not care about the belly I had. I loved that part. My face, my thighs everything else I was so over.
But now this is my body, its doing what it's supposed to be doing and I couldn't care less how you look at it, and I agree with this article that that is not bravery. It's my body, its doing its job and that job isn't to embody some firm tight sexpot. And it doesn't matter if someone thinks that it should be. At all.

http://www.mommyish.com/2015/03/25/rachel-hollis-mom-bikini-not-brave/

Day 24 Update

We have been hiding out at home for the most part so there is little to update on a daily basis. Yesterday I ventured out to a meeting and my brother watched the baby, until I walked out the door I was debating making him come with me and waiting with the baby in the car so I could keep and eye on everything. This whole being ok with being apart from baby is going to take a while.
In the past week I have stopped taking the pain medication entirely and thankfully the "bladder numbness" has gone away for the most part. The irritation is still there but I have never been so happy in my life to feel the need to pee. I have been trying to sleep when he sleeps, unfortunately when he is asleep you get a choice of three things to do, sleep, eat, or shower. You generally get to pick one. Because of this I keep forgetting to eat til I am starving (breast feeding doesn't help here) and I keep having to make myself go shower when B is home instead of sneaking another nap. Luckily I have a phenomenal partner in all of this and Mister has been helpful in keeping us fed and letting me get naps in.
        Breast feeding has begun to ease into a pattern and has become a lot easier, just in time for me to put pumping back into the mix. I have one side that stays a little more full than the other and I manage to spray almost every time I go to feed him and I giggle every time. Breast feeding is super serious business people. ;p
       After our 2 week appointment they told me I didn't need to bring in our feeding and changing logs, I decided that I would rather continue on my own because it made it easier to predict when I would be needing to feed him and how long. Fortunately I only needed to keep logging the feedings because at any given point he is wet and in some stage of pooping. I definitely birthed a little poop machine. I learned my phone has a stop watch feature which has helped so much. However it also let me know when he suddenly cut his eating in half for about a day. I became worried I wasn't feeding him enough and he wouldn't get enough nutrients to develop and I would have a poor malnourished child. ... Having a baby doesn't make you worry more or anything. Not a bit, nope nope nope. .... I think he had just developed a strong suck and no longer needed to latch as long to get as much, but he is eating a little longer again now. I don't know why he cut his eating time but his diapers were full and he wasn't screaming so I will just have to accept it. I also learned that as long as those two things are true, Baby is generally fine. Learning to just let go and let someone help is most definitely going to be the hardest parts for me. I even spent time researching why I need to keep him on my breast even if I will pump so he can be watched elsewhere and use a bottle. Turns out the benefits for keeping him suckling for at least part time is the antibodies and production but that bottle feeding breast milk is perfectly acceptable and I should be really excited about getting a couple hours more sleep by letting B take over at some points. Letting go is hard.
          As far as Baby goes, his eyes are focusing a lot more lately and he seems to be showing signs of smiles, even if they are just gas. He seems to really enjoy looking at the red things I have around his changing table, and he seems to see me when we cuddle. Today B handed him to me to feed and he cooed a little and smiled right at me. I melted. Completely. It is difficult to describe how it feels to be a Mom right away, I personally didn't feel this magical sudden "this is my child and the obsession of my life, I shall surely offer my life for him", I cried the second I heard his first cry, I bawl at the idea of someone taking him out of my sight, but honestly I kept waiting for some one to show up and say, "Well, thanks for watching him, we will be on our way now! " However when he looked at me and smiled that was it. He is my little critter. Much better than a kitten. And honestly I think this feeling will only intensify.

Mother hood is quite a ride. And I have only just begun.

Week 3

Some time last week it dawned on me that pacifiers come in different sizes and none of the ones I was gifted were small enough, or acceptable to the child. Last night we finally bought some newborn ones and its magical! They stay in his mouth and they don't gag him, such wonderful simple needs. I also discovered in the first two weeks that we go through wipes like crazy, thank goodness for Sam's Club. I always knew diapers would go fast but didn't even think wipes would go faster. We went shopping at Sam's yesterday and got to try out the Ergo baby and it went very well except it seemed to be very warm. We even ran into a friend while getting gas and she got to meet Magpie while he screamed his pretty little head off. :x
He sleeps pretty well now but he seems to sleep very long and it worries me. I have had to wake him up multiple times because he was coming up on 5 hours and he needed to be eating. He doesn't seem to be dehydrated and during our last check his weight gain was satisfactory. I hope I am worrying for nothing, he is my child after all, sleep reigns.
We went and visited the day care of my choice, which I had learned was also the day care of B's families choice. I was very pleased and put my name on the waiting list right away. Seeing the building and the children interacting with the teachers and the parents coming through all smiles put me at ease. This is the woman who wanted nothing more than to be a stay at home mom til Magpie is at least 18. I am pleased, it was clean, warm, familiar, and close.
Things are moving along nicely, but with the wedding in September coming things are already moving way too fast! I want him to hurry up and fatten up and get his head up and all of the wonderful things but I want him to stay pocket sized and squishy forever. Its tough.
As far as mom goes, I am feeling almost normal again, the itching comes and goes and the numbness won't leave for a while but I can move again and I am not afraid of splitting apart, so yay. Daddy also seems to be doing ok, working and having night feedings is definitely no fun, but we got a cutie pie out of the deal so I think he is ok with it. We also had his first Father's Day and I gave him some cute gifts a little early. Some cute onesies that loved on Daddy that even Mister anti baby clothes couldn't wait to put him in.