You make me crazy

Jeff called me this morning to tell me about "my daughter". Funny, how when she is sweet and loving she is his daughter but when she is ornery as hell shes mine.

Anyway here is what he told me. He was trying to do Sophie's hair for school this morning when she looked at and in a very exasperated tone said "Da-ad, I no want my hair in a ponytail. It looks fine this way!" She then stomps around the house and declares "Dad, you're making me crazy!"

The teenage years are going to be fun!

Chips and Salsa are the best

Sophie is definitely my kid. This is the conversation we had in the car yesterday:

S: Mommy, where we going?

Me: We're going home

S: I don't want to go home

Me: Where do you want to go?

S: To a restaurant

Me: A restaurant? What restaurant do you want to go to?

S: (pondering for a while) CHIPS AND SALSA!!!!


That's right- when given a choice of where to eat my 3 year old doesn't pick some crappy fast food joint with kids meals and toys. She picks the local Mexican restaurant and I couldn't be prouder!

I didn't take this picture. I found it on Google

Drinking Alone

You know how they say drinking alone is bad? Well I decided "they" don't have kids. Cause drinking alone is my favorite way to drink. Drinking alone means it is QUIET and no one is crying and trying to get my attention or needing a diaper change or more milk or a tushy wipe or broke something. Alone means I can finally relax after a long day.

Yeah drinking alone is the best!

This is why I breastfeed

If you are a mother or mother to be, I am sure you have been overwhelmed with the current "Breast is Best" campaigns. Or at least I was. And while there ARE many, many benefits to breast feeding (immune system, supposed higher IQ, etc) those are not the reason I choose to breastfeed my babies. My reasons are much more self serving if I am being honest. The added bonus is the benefits Sadie (and Sophie) receive from being breastfed babies. And if I am being really really honest, I don't know if I buy into the whole higher IQ thing (which is a whole other post) so the only benefit I really care about is the immune boost.

So here is why I choose to breastfeed:

1- Lets start with the most superficial one: Weight Loss. It's been said that when you nurse your baby weight just melts right off. Well guess what? It does. Breastfeeding burns anywhere from 500-700 calories a day. Do you know how long it would take me to burn 500 calories at the gym? I would have to run for approximately 1 hour and 4 minutes! Instead, I burn it by sitting on my ass on the couch and watching TV. Guess which one is more appealing?

2- Sticking with the theme of Weight Loss, I also don't have to diet (aka watch my calorie intake). In the 2 months since having Sadie, I probably eat MORE than when pregnant since I am not longer restricted to the GD diet and I still lost all my baby weight and then some. In fact, I wore a skirt yesterday that I have not fit into since before I was pregnant with Sophie.

3- Bottles are my next reason. I hate them. Specifically, I hate washing them. Now, I don't get away from this completely because I do work but the number of bottles I have to have clean for each day is drastically reduced by nursing. I only need 3 a day. And believe me when I say that is all I ever hand wash at one time. If I wasn't nursing I would use 8 a day. No thanks!

4- Speaking of work, I pump when I am away at work. Which means 3 times a day I get a break from work. Normally, other than my lunch, I would probably not take any actual breaks during the day. But since I have to pump when Sadie would normally be eating, 3 times a day I get to retreat to my own little office and take a break from my computer screen. I just sit there and play on my phone and let the pump do the work

5- Leaving my house is easier while nursing as well. I don't have to worry about how long I will be gone and if I brought enough formula to sustain my chunk of a kid. I really only need myself and maybe a nursing cover if I remember to bring it. I always have an endless supply of food on hand with out any extra work from me.I like it when things are easier on me!

6- Instant cry stopper. Nursing isn't just good for food. It is also good for comfort. When Sadie cries, I nurse her. 9 time out of 10 she calms down and stops crying. It is definitely my go to because crying babies are no fun.

7- This is probably the #1 reason why I breastfeed. SLEEP! I am not a nice person when I don't get enough. I love my sleep. I would sleep in every morning if I could. I would go to bed early every night and I would take at least one nap every day if my schedule permitted it. Now, I have heard that breastfed babies don't sleep as long of stretches as formula babies do. I wouldn't know. This is because when Sadie gets up to eat in the middle of the night I simply bring her to bed with me, latch her on and promptly fall right back to sleep. Since she doesn't cry I assume she eats and falls back asleep too. I usually wake up about an hour later with her using my boob as a pillow. When I was dealing with PPD a few weeks back before I got medicated, I contemplated stopping nursing. I was going through all those emotional and didn't like feeling tethered to the baby and was having a hard time feeling like me. I thought to myself, if I quit nursing then others could feed her and I could get out of the house. The one thing that kept me holding on was that I didn't want to give up my nightly nursing. Mostly because I didn't want to get up and actually have to fix a bottle while Miss Sadie became even more awake because she was hungry. I'm glad I held on too because it's worth it.

But I'm dirty!

Sometimes I really feel like I blink and Sophie has grown by leaps and bounds. Sometimes she will say or do something and I just shake my head and wonder how in the world she learned it.

One of her favorite things right now is playing in my make-up. If I let her she would spend the majority of the day, every day, slathering on whatever she could get her hands on. As it is, I like my make-up and would prefer she not waste it so we save playing in mommy's make-up for special occasions only. Like when we have no where to go, because in all honesty it is a pain in the ass to try to clean her face after she gets through.

Most mornings now, she will wander into the bathroom while I am getting ready and tell me she needs to put on my make-up. When I tell her no, not today she will look me in the eye and say "But I'm dirty!". I really have no idea why she thinks being dirty will be remedied by putting on make-up but it never fails to make me laugh!

Other things she has started to say? Well I got this one this morning "Leave me alone" or "No touch me"- especially when I am pinching her tush or trying to tickle or kiss all over her, so it is starting already. Nice.

Of course there are still the sweet moments, like last night when she crawled in my lap and told me she liked me and loved me with her whole heart and then we sang and danced together to Raffi. Or how we cuddled up under the covers in my bed waiting for Daddy to come in so we could scare him. These are the things that makes being a parent so worth it.

From 1 to 2.....

Sorry I have been neglecting my blog but, you know, I did just have a baby.

Sadie is now 6 weeks old and I am back to work. Honestly, it feels good to get back in the groove of things. Maternity leave is great but there comes a point when you are just ready to get on with it. For me, 6 weeks was enough. I know there are many women who wish they could stay at home longer or even forever but I guess I am just not cut out to be a stay at home mother. In all honestly, I think my kids would drive me to drink if I had to stay home all day. I just can't do it.

I am sure it didn't help I had to go and have a winter baby. A time of year where venturing outside is not all that fun. Between the flu and colds going around to the disgusting weather, you are just as well off to stay in the house. Only its boring at home. All. Freaking. Day. There is only so much day time television you can watch. Only so many re-runs of Supernatural I can stomach (yes, even the remarkably good-looking Winchester brothers get boring after so long). 6 long weeks of being cooped up in the house with endless hours of feedings, diaper changes and spit up is all I can do.

I breathed a small breath of relief upon returning to work this morning.

All in all, I can say things are going well. Which is huge for me as it was not the case 3 weeks ago. 3 weeks ago I was thinking "What the hell have I done". 3 weeks ago I was breaking down and crying at least once a day. 3 weeks ago I didn't think I was going to make it. Sadie was crying what seemed like all the time and I was having a hard time coping with it all. I really thought I was loosing my mind.

At 5 weeks, I decided to make an appointment with my midwife to talk about what I was feeling. I suspected I had postpartum depression- which actually took me by surprise because I didn't have it at all with Sophie. I just knew I wasn't myself and I just couldn't deal. She prescribed me Zoloft and Vitamin D supplements and after a week I am feeling better. Plus, Sadie is a little old and her crying has lessened and we are getting into a groove with her as well.

So things today are going well.

I will say I was under prepared for how hard it would be to have 2 kids. I am still trying to find a good bedtime routine for when I have both girls on my own but lucky for me Sophie is such a good kid she can easily go with the flow.

Welcome to the world, Sadie Belle

First- lets address the elephant in the room. Our daughter HAS a name! It is Sadie Belle Miles. Sadie is Hebrew for Princess so technically Sophie did name her baby sister since she has wanted to name her sister Princess Belle from the beginning.

Now for the details. This would be a good place to stop reading if you are squeamish or don't care to know the intimate details of my birth story. I am writing it so I don't forget it.

On Saturday, Dec 17th, is the date I am due with Sadie Girl. This post is written Wednesday- 4 days prior to that. As I have already mentioned, I have (or had now) gestational diabetes with this pregnancy. Because of this, my midwife wanted to induce me at 39 weeks. At my request and because Sadie and myself looked good, she let me go a little past that. On my Friday appt, the day before the start of my 39th week she did warning me that I would have to induce if she didn't come soon on her own.

On Tuesday, Dec 13th, I went in for my appointment. I knew since I hadn't given birth yet Nancy would be stripping my membranes to get things started and probably make me schedule an induction date. My guess is it would have been Thursday. While she was stripping my membranes (a rather uncomfortable and dare I say painful process) my water broke. Looks like I was having a baby on Tuesday. Since I was at my appt by my self, Nancy helped me wrap up, get dressed and load up. I then drove myself to the women's center to get checked in. I called Jeff and my parents on the way.

Of COURSE, Jeff was out on a run and his cell went to voicemail. I ended up calling station 1 and getting another firefighter. When I told him who I was and who I needed to speak to he said "Are you having a baby?" and I said YEP! Luckily, Jeff was just coming back from a run so the firefighter ran out to get Jeff. He told him "Hey your wifes on the phone, your having a baby." Jeff replied "Shut up man, thats not funny". It wasn't til he looked at his phone and saw my missed call that he figured out the guy wasn't just pulling his leg.

He meets me at the hospital and we get started. Hooked up to a bunch of monitors, lots of vital checks, etc. Eventually, they unhook me and let me walk the halls. I am sure I was a sight. After a few laps, my parents got there and we met them back in the room. The nurse re-strapped me to check baby's vitals and mine and let me know Nancy was coming to check on me. When my water broke, there was some meconium  (baby poop) in my water. Means the baby was in stress at some point and they didn't want me up walking around so the baby didn't experience any more stress and didn't poop in the water again.

TV time out: for those who might not know- baby pooping in the water is bad because they can potentially then inhale said poopy water when they take their first breathes, it can go into their lungs and infection can set up.

Back to the story. Being hooked up to these machines and being strapped to the bed wasn't part of my plan. I planned on laboring naturally, walking around and most importantly no pitocion, most because I didn't want an epidural either. Not because I wanted to feel it all natural or anything like that but because I didn't like my experience with Sophie and the epidural. Long story short- I got too much and couldn't feel how hard I was pushing. This resulted in me pushing for 3.5 hours and Sophie still needed to be vacuumed out. I didn't not want a repeat of this.

Luckily I have an excellent midwife, who not only listened to all my concerns, did not make me feel stupid for any of them but because she put the control in my hands. Since my water broke but I wasn't having contractions, the next step would have been to start pit right away. She gave the instructions that it was up to me if I wanted and if I wanted to labor on my own- drug free- I could.

Of course, this change in plan couldn't have been predicted and even the best laid plans need to be changed. Again can I sing the praises of my midwife. She was excellent in explaining to me my options and let ME make the decision. She assured me if I went the pit route with no epi and the pain got too bad she would stop it and see if I continued on my own or stop it until I got my epi. She promised me if I did get an epi she would make sure it was too high and that I would be able to feel what was going on and that I could even turn the epi off once I got the pushing stage if I wanted.

In the end, I decided to got with a light epidural first then the start of pit. I do not have ANY regrets. Overall I labored for about 8 hours. My water broke at around 2pm and I had Sadie Belle at 9:42pm. As promised, the epi only took the edge off. I could feel all the big contraction and my legs (woot woot). At around 9:20, I would guess, I mentioned to Jeff that a lot of my contractions left me with the sensation like I was about to poop. I then got scolded by him because apparently Nancy had left me with directions that if I should get contractions that made me feel like I needed to poop I should tell her. I didn't hear that part. So Jeff calls the nurses station to tell them and Nancy comes in to check me. She quickly (and I mean QUICKLY) ushers everyone out of the room and starts to suit up. I guess its time to push.

I told her I wasn't ready. That if I wasn't having a contraction I didn't feel any need to push. She said that during the next contraction she was going to have me do a practice push and she would see if it was really time. During that practice push, I moved baby Sadie down enough that Nancy could see her head. Crazy. So I guess it really was time. I was still really nervous about pushing prematurely and having to push for a long long time again.

This time, I also requested a mirror to see what was going on. I didn't do this with Sophie and now wish I would have. It was by far the coolest thing I have ever seen and it gave me added motivation to push. To be able to see the entire birth is something I hope to never forget.

I started pushing and no joke, 3 contractions in about 15 minutes total and Sadie was born. I really couldn't believe how, dare I say it, easy it was! It was over. I didn't tear. I didn't need any stitches and what few hemorrhoids that did pop out have already gone away. It still amazes me.

Sadie came into this world at 9:42pm on Dec 13th 2011 weighing 8 lbs 7 oz and measuring 21 inches. A full pound more than her big sister and 3/4 of a inch longer! She is absolutely perfect. I was also perfect. I felt so good, even immediately after birth. I was able to sit all the way up, stand up on my own, go to the bathroom on my own. I swear, if it weren't for the swelling down there I wouldn't even know I had a baby last night.

This morning Sophie got to meet her baby sister and it brought tears to my eyes how amazing she is with her. She already loves her so much. All she wanted to do as be next to who ever has her, she wants to hold her, kiss her, hug her. It is the sweetest thing I have ever seen.

So in the end, my "birth plan" didn't go as planned but I wouldn't change a thing. My family feel so right, right now. I love it.

I am sure I will add more to this post as I remember it but for now I sign off.