No Internet!!!

I know I haven't posted anything in a long time and that's because our internet went out at our house!  So I stopped by the daycare to check on everything we have online and I just wanted to put something on here so everyone knows I haven't stopped posting...but it will be a few days before I'm able to get back on here again.  So bear with me because I have so much to post!  :)

Bye Bye Boobies

Last Monday was the last time I nursed Korbyn.  She's still getting breast milk because I'm pumping but no more boob time.  From day one I never felt like I got the hang of breastfeeding, and I know it takes some time for any mom to get comfortable with it, but I never felt any improvement.  I would get frustrated because I never knew how much she was getting so I never knew if she stopped nursing because she was just tired and fell asleep or was she really full?  And it was still so painful for me.  I know it's not supposed to be painful at all which means she just may have never learned to latch on properly, but how in the world am I supposed to know what to look for and how to correct it if she was?!  Yes, I could have gone to a lactation consultant and tried to have it all figured out but who has the time or money for it...not me! 

Last Monday I got a clogged milk duct, ouch.  I was reading on the internet on some ways to help clear it and I had been toying with the idea of giving up breastfeeding for a while and just pump and give formula.  And I came across a lactation consultant's website and I was reading her page and she was so adamant about breastfeeding (of course she should be), but it was like she was yelling at moms who didn't strictly breastfeed and they were depriving their children of bonding and nourishment...of course I started crying because I just felt so lost.  I immediately felt extremely guilty for even having thought about stopping nursing and giving her formula.  So I kept researching on ways to get rid of a clogged milk duct, then it hit me.  This is my baby.  If I want to stop nursing her I can, and I shouldn't feel guilty about it.  Why should I dread having to feed my baby?  I'm in pain, she never seems satisfied, I don't know how much she is getting, I'm never sure if she's really full or not and the list goes on!  So right then and there I decided that I was going to continue to pump and feed her breastmilk along with formula and our lives have been so much easier since.  It is amazing how little I'm stressed out now.  I've decided that I'm just going to alternate every feeding between formula and breastmilk.  Now I know that if she doesn't finish her bottle and she dozes off, that she's probably going to wake up and be hungry.  I feel like a light switch has been turned on for the both of us.

So of course I then started thinking about the added expense of formula, but I think I have a plan :)  I'm starting work back in January and the daycare is on the State Food Program.  We are required to offer parents of infants our brand of formula (Parent's Choice), and they can choose to use ours or provide their own.  So I figured if she is on formula during the day at daycare then I'll still give her the breastmilk in the evening at home leaving us with minimal costs towards formula!  We went out and bought a container of the same kind of formula that the daycare uses and thankfully she likes it and even spits up significantly less than the Similac and Enfamil, how that happened I have no idea!  So our new feeding ritual is working wonderfully right now, and I hope it continues to!

Crib

Look where she's sleeping!!!  And yes, I'm still too nervous for her to sleep without that thing that prevents her from rolling because she can and WILL roll to her side when she starts kicking and can't get back.  From day one she has slept in her swing about 3 feet away from our bed, this wasn't our original plan.  We wanted her to start off in her crib from the beginning but that first night we put her in it we just couldn't leave her.  She was completely fine, we weren't.  She was swaddled in a blanket and sound asleep but I was so nervous that I wouldn't be able to hear her if something were to happen.  Well, it started getting to the point where she wouldn't stay asleep in her swing without the swinging motion on, the "wave" noises on and she had better be completely asleep or she would wake up the minute you put her in it and Colton and I were having to tip toe around and whisper in our room whenever she was in there, remember we didn't get the infant who can sleep through anything :)  I knew we were digging ourselves into a huge hole if we kept this up.  So Monday I decided it was time to start putting her in her crib every time she went to sleep.  I knew it wasn't going to be easy but I told myself that I better get her used to it before I go back to work and in the long run it will benefit her and us.  So needless to say, Monday was a struggle.  I started her off on her first nap and she hasn't been in her swing since!  She was very persistent but so was mommy, and mommy will ALWAYS win...HA!  I almost wanted to give up a couple of times because she just was not having it, and I think she's too young to let her cry it out still.  I tried turning on a cd that I bought before she was even born to help calm her, I did that a couple of times and it seemed to help but then I started thinking every time she goes to sleep she's going to want that cd playing and she'll never learn to calm herself down!  So that plan was out the window.  So I just made sure that she was calm and almost asleep and then I would lay her down and that was it.  She has put herself to sleep in it a couple times already but she's not quite there yet, but we're working on it!

First little scare

This past Friday was a rough day.  She was wanting to eat every hour and then she would only eat for like 10 minutes at a time and she was really fussy.  My aunt had told me at her baptism that when they do that that usually means they're going through a growth spurt and that's their way of telling your body to produce more milk, makes complete sense.  So of course she's eating more, which means she's pooping more...A LOT more.  I'm not kidding, every time I would put a clean diaper on her 5 minutes later she would need a new one.  Then because she was eating so often I never even put my nursing pads back in my bra the entire day and made for some really sore ninnies :)  All of that was rough, but since I knew what was going on with her it made it easier to handle.  About 4 p.m. she had yet another dirty diaper and when I looked at it I noticed it had blood in it.  It was mixed in with her stool so I know it wasn't discharge and it looked like mucous.  So needless to say that freaked me out a little.  I didn't want to worry too much so I waited to see if she had another one like it.  Sure enough at 5 p.m. she had another poop and it looked just like the previous one.  That's when I got that nasty gut feeling that something might really be wrong.  So I started pulling ALL of her diapers out of the trash from the entire day to double check that other ones didn't have blood in them and I just missed it, thankfully those were the only two.  When Colton got home I showed him her diaper and asked him if it looked like blood (because again, I didn't want to start freaking out so I wanted to make sure it actually WAS blood).  He said that ya that it's definitely blood.  At this point I just wanted someone to tell me if I can finally start freaking out!  I just needed someone to tell me either "yes, this is something you need to get checked out NOW" or "keep an eye on it and if it gets any worse go get it checked."  I immediately checked her temperature (normal) and called the ped. office.  Of course they're closed for Thanksgiving and the answering service said to call the after hours number on the card.  I called the number and it said to call your ped. office because it wasn't officially "after hours" yet (it was like 4:30)...are you kidding me!?  So I call the nurse advice line and finally talk to someone.  I made sure to let her know that my concern is the blood in her diaper, not her strange eating and pooping habits today.  So she asks me all sorts of questions and the lady doesn't even sound concerned nor is she telling me whether or not I need to go to the ER (our only option at this point) to get it checked, she just keeps explaining reasons for why she may be wanting to eat and why she may be pooping so much.  I wanted to yell at her "I don't care why you think she's eating so much today, just tell me if I can wait until tomorrow or should we come in tonight!!!!"  She finally lets me talk to the on-call dr.  Thankfully he didn't sound concerned at all and just said that if she starts running a fever or has other symptoms (he read off a long list) to bring her into the ER but right now we could wait until tomorrow to have her checked out.  After talking to him I felt better but still had this nasty feeling because nobody had told me any possibilities of why there was blood in her diaper.  Earlier I had called my mom while waiting for the nurse to call me back and just basically asked her if we should go ahead get it checked tonight.  She said to wait and see what the nurse had to say.  My sister-in-law had picked up her kids at my mom's house and my mom told her about it so she called me as soon as she could.  She told me don't take her into the ER and not to worry.  She said that her kids would do that and that it would pass and it's nothing to worry about.  She explained to me a couple of things that it could be and that was the biggest relief I've felt in a long time.  Even though I was still worried, it helped so much to know that someone else had gone through this and knew what to expect.  Sure enough she never had another bloody diaper, I'm so glad she called me!

Baby blues

 This is how Korbyn likes to sleep!  I'm sure tons of newborns sleep like this, but it's funny because this is how Colton and I both like to sleep.  We both like to sprawl out.  Needless to say a queen size bed for the two of us is WAY too small.  She is also a really light sleeper, which I think she gets from me (she has to get something from me!).  Colton can ONLY fall asleep in a bed or on a couch, for some reason he can't go to sleep like in a car or something but once he's asleep, he's out.  An earthquake could be taking place outside and he wouldn't even know it if he was asleep.  Whenever she wakes up at night to eat, he never hears either one of us get up.  I'm just the opposite.  I can pretty much fall asleep anywhere I need to, but wake at the tiniest noise, which makes it easy to hear her first little hunger noises at night :)

We just came back from the Beisert thanksgiving.  Her head is finally getting big enough to support the crochet headbands.  This is actually the first one that she has worn, but of course it didn't last long because it kept falling off.  Colton said she looked like a turkey with that big bow on her head...I think it's ADORABLE!

So I definitely had, still kind of have, a case of the baby blues.  Whoever said that having a newborn is the happiest time in your life must be the most annoying person in the world!  This has been the most stressful and hardest time of my entire life.  I definitely find myself not wanting to deal with it all on some days, I'm not talking scary suicidal thoughts or anything like that, just wanting someone to come over and take care of her while I leave for an entire day.  Trust me, I love her more than words can describe, and I know a lot of feeling like this has to do with my hormones and it will get easier with time.  In fact, I can already tell a difference.  It was SO hard that first full week being home, and honestly I think it had to do with people coming to visit.  I enjoyed every second of every visitor that we had, and I know Colton did because he would ask for people to come over, it was so nice to have adult conversations with all of our guests.  But looking back it was really hard for Colton and I to get adjusted and I'm sure it was hard for her too with people coming and going those first few days.  Now that we seem to be back in our normal routine, we all seem to be doing a lot better.  We're still trying to figure each other out, but with each day it gets much easier :)

Baptism

This past Sunday we had Korbyn baptized!  It turns out she was able to wear my dress, which was really special.  When my mom came over about a week before to try it on her it SWALLOWED her, but the rascal is filling out fast and wouldn't you know after my mom spent who knows how long on making a whole new dress for her it turned out to fit her perfectly the day before!  I told my mom I felt awful that she made her a dress and she wasn't going to wear it, but she said that she would rather her be able to wear mine...thanks mom :)  Amazingly she was awake from the time we put her in the car to go to church up until the sermon!  The only time she made a peep was when pastor poured the water on her head, she did NOT like that at all.

Pediatrician

Check out those juicy lips!  She looks like a little boy to me in this picture.

Korbyn had her two week check up today and she weighed 7 lbs. 1 oz. or 6 oz., I can't remember and I can't find the sticker that they gave her with it written on it right now.  And apparently she shrunk!  They first measured her at 19.5" and I said "whoa...what?" so she measured her again and she was 20" I said "that's weird because in the hospital she was 20.5" she said they see babies shrink all the time for their first official appointment!  She said the way they measure them in the hospital isn't always accurate because they just make a mark where there head is and then measure the length.  In the ped. office I actually had to hold her head straight against a "wall" and then the nurse stretched her out straight and took the measurement, so really I think they're much more accurate.  But oh well, she's still 20.5" in my book :) 

I LOVE her pediatrician!!!  I was really nervous because this is the first time that we saw her.  She is really down to earth and talks to you like she has known you forever.  Thankfully my mom was able to come with me to help me out :)  I asked her dr. of course how long we should wait before really taking her out and about.  She answered with the standard 6-8 weeks.  She said of course if you have to go to the store for something by all means you can go, just go on a Tuesday at 9 a.m. not on a Saturday afternoon and keep people away from her face, which I kinda figured that already.  Then I asked her about her baptism this Sunday.  She made a face and was kind of hesitant to answer (I knew what she wanted to tell us).  So I said, "do we need to tell people not to hold her?" and she said "I really would."  AGHHHH!  How are we supposed to tell people not to get close to her and they can't hold her at her baptism?!  She said there's just so much that she can catch right now and that if she does happen to catch even the tiniest fever there's NOTHING they can do about it.  Yes, they can take really extreme measures if it comes down to it, but why on earth would I want to risk it?  Then she made a really good point.  Sometimes people are carrying a sickness and they don't even know it yet because they have no symptoms but it can still be passed to another person.  Trust me, I am not the paranoid, germaphobe type...but the thought of something happening to my baby just because we careless would absolutely kill me.  Do we risk hurting everybody's feelings by not letting them hold her or do we risk Korbyn catching something that she may not be able to get over...well of course I'm willing to hurt someone's feelings over the health of my baby.  It's not like someone coming over for a visit where I know only one person will hold her and I can make sure they wash their hands and stay out of her face.  But at something like a baptism if I let one person hold her, then before we know it she'll be handled by 50 different people and exposed to who knows what!  So I don't know what we're going to do yet, I wish she could wear a t-shirt that said "If you love me you won't touch me"  :)  The next baby will definitely NOT be a winter baby...it's too stressful!!!!