Life in the ‘Hood

Life in the ‘hood is hectic!  I am on survival mode all the time!  Can’t eat or sleep unless I take care of business. I gotta sleep with one eye open and always on alert for a siren! You would think I was talking about living deep in South Central L.A. surrounded by gang violence.  Ha Ha.  I’m talking about motherhood, of course.

Here is my siren at one month:

Someone taught her how to scream when she is uncomfortable whether it’s hunger, wet diaper, poopy diaper, gassy or needing sleep.  Thank goodness for pacifiers!  Once she’s comfortable, it’s back to being a snuggly angel. Love it! She likes to fall asleep om the left side of my chest, listening to my heartbeat. 

I’ve learned lots of lessons from the Motherhood that my mom purposefully didn’t tell me:.

1. Life happens in 3 hour intervals (time between feedings) so get all the crap I need to do in that timeframe, otherwise MeMe gets needs met 1st.

2. I will become more efficient in time management than I ever have before.  Lollygagging is not permitted.

3. TIRED and SLEEP are five letter words that I am not allowed to feel or experience.  It doesn’t matter how “tired” I am or how much “sleep” I’m lacking, MeMe’s gotta eat, be changed, played with and have her bottles sterilized, breastmilk pumped, clothes/bibs/blankets washed, and dinner needs to be made, rooms cleaned and announcements sent.  And on top of that…we are house-hunting in a hurry. 

4. Even though everyone helps, 10 pm until 8:30 am, is my shift and mine alone. I have the sole responsibility of baby-care. So now MeMe wants to get up at 1a and stay up until 4a, I gotta stay up with her. Husb helps, but not as much as I had fantasized about during the pregnancy.

5.  When someone offers to watch the baby, I take full of advantage and get hours of SLEEP in a row. 

6. Having my period restart really sucks.  I was sooo happy going without for 9 months, then after birth, there is all that lochia bleeding for like 3 weeks straight, I had a little break week 3 to 4 and at 28 days after delivery, my period started and now I’m on my second week of bleeding still.  Hopefully week 6 is it! 

 I am ready to get my groove back.

 

Remembrance day

October 15 is Pregnancy & infant loss remembrance day. I wanted to take a moment to honor all the lost angels and mommies to angels. The pain of grieving never leaves, only stings less with time. I would not have my daughter now if we hadn’t lost our twin boys and learned from the experience.

From 2/08 until 10/08, I attended Empty Cradle support group meetings. I received a pamphlet from a social worker at the hospital. Once a month we would gather and express our feelings, telling the stories of our losses. Boxes of tissue were in never-ending supply. Several of our group had second trimester losses either due to IC or preterm labor. Someone’s story was always a little worse than mine, but sharing helped to ease the sadness. Those lovely ladies were soo supportive. My family couldn’t relate to my pain and would tell me to keep moving on.

I stopped going because of work conflicts (night meetings on work nights) and out of fear. I was a little superastitious about going while pregnant. I wanted good vibes from beginning to end. I still mourn and remember my boys in my own way.

At the beginning of this month, I received an email reminder of this month’s meeting being a special service to remember all the angels. I cried when I read it. I didn’t go. I stayed home, caring for my little miracle and prayed. A part of me wishes I went. My boys know I love them dearly.

One of my favorite songs “until the end of time” by. Justin Timber.lake still brings me to tears when I hear it. We played that song when I delivered Angelus and Augustin. But the lyrics are so wonderful, I find myself singing it to Amethyst.

“if your love was all I had, in this life, that would be enough until the end, rest your weary heart and relax your mind, ’cause I’m gonna love you girl, until the end of time”

And my favorite line that I dedicate to Amethyst…
“baby girl there ain’t no question, just to be around you is a blessing!”

O

Last Thursday was…

Our 4th wedding anniversary! Yay.  Husb and I have been together for a grand total of 7 years, but made it official on October 8, 2005.  I married my best friend who dances with me, watches documentaries with me over and over again, listens to throwback jams from the 80’s and 90’s, laughs at the same goofy jokes, and loves to snuggle (especially after love-making). Happy anniversary honey bun!

We had a wonderful ceremony in Las Vegas (no Elvis impersonators) at Mandalay Bay where 60 close friends and family joined us for a fun weekend.  I remember we planned it around Columbus Day, assuming some people would be off work.  It worked out and everyone who came had a blast gambling and checking out the sights.

 It was a whirlwind day, cloudy and rainy in the morning and by the time of the ceremony, the sun came out and it was beautiful. 

Reminds of me of the last 4 years dealing with my difficulties in getting and staying pregnant, the loss of our twin boys, the stress from dealing with Dom’s mom’s crap, and in the end, our ultimate blessing of sunshine…Amethyst.

Extreme close up!

 

Thanks for sticking through all of it. It was not easy, we’ve fought countless times and have made up just as many.  When the social workers told us the sadness of our loss could break us apart, we stuck together.  And this last pregnancy was not easy at all, but he held my hand through every appointment.  And when I was hospitalized with pulmonary edema/toxemia, he spent the night with me playing dominoes and offering moral support,worried about living without me.  I couldn’t live without him either. 

Now every year we do something big and bold, but this year, with MeMe still too little to be dragged out in the in night and mom too sick with a cold to watch the baby, we stayed home eating a 3 course meal as take out from Applebee’s.  Yummy and just as awesome. 

Next year he promises a cruise.  We definitely deserve one!

Postpartumness Pt. 2

MeMe is almost 2 weeks old. Amazing!  She has longer periods of wakefulness and she gets all smiley when you pick her up.  She still only cries when really hungry or uncomfortable, but once that’s solved, she’s right as rain.  She is having fun exploring her hands and can now turn herself onto her side from being on her back when awake.

Cutie @ 10 days old!

Overall feeling fine. Still kinda sore all over like I got beat up, but am able to walk up and down the stairs with no problem. I really hate the question “how are you doing” even more than I did when I was pregnant.  If I was having a problem, I would say so.  My husb is obsessed with my blood pressures and asks daily what it is.  It’s been in the 130’s/70-80’s so it’s okay.  Better than what it was.  My feet are still a little puffy.  Everyday is less and less.  The scale shows I’ve lost 8 lbs over the course of 5 days.  Sweet!

My ob-gyn visit was fine, but since my mom was working that night, we had to take MeMe with us.  Of course we had to wait awhile so I made sure to pack lots of stuff and two bottles of formula/boob juice to keep her tummy full.  I saw Dr G who is still baffled by my severe preeclampsia/toxemia.  Nothing about my case was textbook and it came on all of a sudden.  Nothing in my prenatal visits showed that it was gonna get THAT bad.  Too much fluid + high bp + low heart rate+ 1 glass of wine = trip to the hospital.  Go figure. And as quick as it came, it resolved quickly.  I am to see my primary doc in a month, but any problems go through the ob-gyns for right now.

So after the visit, we took MeMe to Babies-r-us, courtesy of my play-auntie who is awesome.  She is the mom of my closest friend who came to visit me while pregnant a couple of times.  Her husband died last November and her eldest son took me to Prom.  She was one of the many visitors that dropped by that first week home.  She and my friend wanted to throw me a baby shower, but I said no thanks.  So instead, she bought MeMe some cute little outfits and a gift card worth $500.  Yay! My mom’s sister really hooked us up with a check for $200, a digital picture frame that plays music, an electric breast pump, extra car-seat base, and another playard (we returned it because she didn’t know we already had it). Thanks auntie! We’ve received cards and well wishes and some more clothes/toys from some of my coworkers.  The only thing that is kinda bothering me is that my in-laws haven’t sent anything! No card, no nothing!  They call and say congrats, but a card is always cool too. The always send stuff for Dom, so I thought it was kinda weird that it’s been 2 weeks now.  Even my brother in Atlanta sent a card and he’s further away!

When we first came home from the hospital, there were a few things we needed to buy right away because we hadn’t thought of it before: a drying rack for the bottles, b0ppy pillow for my comfort, room monitor, and an ottoman to put my feet on when feeding. It would’ve been great to use the gift card!

So we went on a super shopping spree at Babies-r-us and it was wonderful!  Almost used the whole card because husb kept throwing things into the cart. I learned now being a mom that you can’t always be cheap about stuff you need.  I’ll admit, I penny pinch pretty badly, to the point that it pisses husb off sometimes.  But it’s enabled us to save $.  Now with MeMe, I buy whatever I think she/I/we need, I just read the box more carefully to make sure it’s a good buy.

The things I thought I didn’t need, but absolutely love!

• Electric bottle warmer
• B0ppy pillow – regular pillows warp to easily
• Electric breast pump early on – baby gets too fussy at the breast & won’t latch most of the time(lactation folks tried to help with a nipple shield) and the pump allows me a little more freedom with feeding times. 
• More cans of ready-made formula

Modern Convenience! I’m sure there is more, but I can’t think of it right now.

We finally ordered some baby announcements from Shutterfly dot com and they should arrive sometime this up coming week.  They are soooo cute, can’t wait to mail them out!

Overall, this last week was a good one.