Life lately

The end of a (really short) era is fast approaching.  If  everything goes according to plan, Lucy will have been promoted to the rank of sister by next Friday, March 7. 
I've got one last infusion this Friday and then it's bye bye IVIG for the forseeable future.
Life has pretty much become one big waiting game.  Luckily nothing laborific is happening around here, and the doctor said he thinks we might just make it to my scheduled c-section without any hiccups.

I've been soaking up the last few weeks of it being just Lucy and I.  I haven't really been able to take her to the park for the last few weeks, but we've been finding fun activities to do inside and out on the patio.  Yesterday we tried out Color Wonder finger paints, and it was a hit.  She had a blast smearing the paint all over her desk and the paper, and I was grateful that the paint is clear so I didn't really have to use oodles of baby wipes and end up with paint on my walls or the dogs.

I'm still feeling pretty guilty about having our time as a duo cut short at 18-months, but everyone I talk to who have kids close in age say it's actually pretty awesome and they usually are best friends that love to play together.

I've had a blast being her mom for the past year and a half, and she's really turning into a smart and funny little kid.  It seems like she's been learning a word a week (this week it's "done") and has learned how to make a fish face.  She's really big on giving kisses and hugs, especially to Andy, myself and her dogs.

I'm nervous like last time about having a c-section, simply because it is major surgery and there are risks.  But it's the safest way for him to arrive, so I'm willing to take on those risks.  At least I know what to expect this time.

Hopefully we get a way different hospital experience this time around.  We went into Lucy being born expecting that we'd have a baby in my hospital room with us, giving us time to bond and her and I time to learn how to breastfeed successfully with help from awesome nurses and lactation consultants.

That didn't happen at all, instead it was a really traumatic situation where my baby was downstairs and I was upstairs.

If everything goes right this time, Andy and I will get that time with our new baby in my room, getting to know him and learning the ropes of nursing together.  I'm really looking forward to the three of us having that bonding time without the distraction of visitors for the first few hours. 

I feel really robbed of having that time with Lucy, it's time we'll never get back.  We're doing the same thing as last time, not having visitors until much later in the day after he's born so we get that time together.

Plus it's really glamorous having nurses coming in every 30 minutes, asking if you've farted/pooped yet, and if you've peed, because if you haven't the catheter is going back in.  Add feeling like a swamp creature since, you know, my abdomen was just cut open, and postpartum hormones making me weepy as hell, I'm definitely not going to be up to visitors way later in the day.

More power to those people who are up to visitors while they are pushing and right after birth.  I'm just not one of them, no matter how close I am to someone.  I'll be undergoing a major medical procedure, and that's a big deal.  My husband and daughter are the only ones I can handle during times like these.

I still can't believe we've only got a week and two days until he gets here!  That is just crazy to me.  This pregnancy has just flown by, and I'm really hoping that his baby days don't fly by, since this could potentially be our last one.

I leave you with a dog who wants more borscht.

What they don't tell you about having your second kid

I wrote this post when I was 34 weeks pregnant with Lucy, and I'm 36 weeks now so I figured it would be fun to write a version for this pregnancy.
Being pregnant the second time around is a whole new ballgame.  I keep being disappointed in the baby books for not including a section about being pregnant with your second baby and all that it entails, but then I thought if they did it might be hard to want to try for number two (or three or four...)
Maybe my experience is a little different because Lucy was only nine months old when I got pregnant and it would have been different when she was older.
The biggest thing has been how difficult it is to get enough rest, especially since Lucy has never been a great napper.  She knocked herself down from two naps to one around 11 months.  The first trimester with no naps sucked pretty hard, but I managed.  Luckily morning sickness was mild, but I only just felt nauseated.
The second trimester was pretty easy.  I only had to slow down a little bit, so we could still easily go to the park and play a couple times a week.
It's only really gotten bad the past few weeks, since Lucy has learned to climb and is really into climbing things in our home she's not supposed to, like our TV stand, chairs, her art table and the end table.
Last pregnancy, I only had the dogs to worry about, and they listen (for the most part).
I could get home from work and lounge on the couch as much as I wanted, and go to bed whenever I wanted, and sleep until whenever I wanted.
Now I'm at the mercy of an 18-month-old, whose listening skills are quite selective.
I go to sit down on the couch and that's when Lucy decides to climb the TV stand and I either have to get her down or put her in time out.
By the time Andy gets home at night, I'm physically done.  My back hurts and I'm having Braxton Hicks contractions.
I asked my doctor if it was normal to be having more discomforts this time around, since I'm not working, just staying home.
He said that what I'm doing now, as a stay at home mom, is a lot harder than what I was doing as a reporter and that staying home with a child 24/7 is physically taxing.
I'm definitely having to slow down A LOT.  I'm not getting as much done around the house these days, which bugs me but I'd rather be rested so I can keep up with Lucy.
I feel bad because we're not getting out to play as much, but that's only because I can't fit through most playground equipment so I can't chase her.
We still have the mall playground to go to, which is great for having her piss off some energy, and I don't have to climb anything.
I remember the physical limitations of pregnancy bothering me last time, but that really meant that I didn't leave my desk for interviews as much, I mainly did them by phone.  I also farmed out taking photos to freelancers a lot more so I didn't have to go out in the heat and or squat/climb to get good shots.
This time I'm farming out dishes and Lucy's baths to Andy. : )
I'm getting pretty tired of being physically limited from what I can do with Lucy and I feel bad because I can't wait for this pregnancy to be over in about two weeks.
That's kind of a double-edged sword, though, because while I'll be able to do more with Lucy after my c-section recovery is over, we'll have a brand new person tagging along.
I'm trying not to let the guilt of Lucy having to share me with her brother get the best of me.  Some nights when I'm putting Lucy to bed I get really sad about the fact that our days of just the two of us are numbered, and she doesn't even know what's happening.  I just got a little teary eyed while writing that.
I know it's normal to feel a little sad when going from one child to two, but it doesn't really make it any easier.
But we'll all adjust like we did last time and it'll all be fine.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day kicked off a busy weekend that this prego is still recovering from.  
On Wednesday and Thursday I had to sneakily shop for and put together Andy's Valentine's Day gift basket because he worked from home both of those days.

 I put together a six pack of some of this favorite things: beer, hot sauce and chocolate.  Cost Plus World Market lets you put together your own six pack of beer, and each beer ranges in price from $1.99 to $5.  They also have hot sauces from around the world, but I already knew I'd be going with Sriracha since he's been asking me for weeks to get a bottle.  I found a bottle of Sriracha mayo, too, which he's been digging.

I didn't want to just give him the six-pack in the cardboard box from the store, so I wrapped it in a grocery bag and went a little nuts with some pom poms, glue and glitter glue.
On Friday, I had my usual infusion.  I had mentioned to Andy that he should come visit me in my chair that day, and he said he didn't think he could get away from work.
Halfway through, one of the ladies at check-in walked back to my chair and asked me if I had a husband.  I said yes, so she asked me if he was here, did I want to see him? o_0
Of course I said yes, but I was laughing when I did.  The nurses said it was because they didn't want to risk sending him back there if he was someone I didn't want to see.  If I knew he was coming I would have told them up front and they wouldn't have been so protective. : )
He brought me flowers, a card and some coffee and hung out for a little bit, which was a nice change.
Since we'd already left Lucy with a sitter that morning, we decided to stay in that night.  I might be a weirdo about this, but Lucy has a hard enough time being left as it is, and I didn't want to make her sad twice in one day.
Dinner was heart shaped pizzas and a cherry pie with hearts cut out of the top crust.  I was so tired and frazzled from chasing my spider monkey all afternoon that I forgot to take pictures.
Lucy "gave" Andy a large Hershey Kiss, and she got her first taste of chocolate that day.
Ladies and gents, I think we have a chocolate addict.  He now has to sneak bites of the Kiss in order to not tip her off that he's been in the chocolate.  They grow up so fast. ; )

Infusion update

I only have three left!
Three!
When I first started in November, it was daunting to think that I had 20 of them in front of me, and now I can't believe I'm almost done.
The infusions appear to be doing their job, since I've got neutrophils again, and a normal white blood cell count.  That means the IVIG is giving my autoantibody something else to attack instead of my neutrophils.  Hopefully it will do the same thing for the baby's platelets.  Only time will tell, but I'm thinking positive thoughts in that manner.  And Lucy turned out fine after all, so I'm just trying to keep that in mind.
Nothing has really changed since November except for I've learned a lot more about veins and what makes them easy and not so easy to access.
I'm the biggest wuss bag when it comes to anything needles, and I don't know if you guys recall but I had a major panic attack in the parking lot on my very first day.  
So I was super relieved to see that the IV's used in the infusion center are not much bigger than the butterfly needle they usually draw blood from me with.

 It was easy poking for the first six weeks or so.  My usual nurse would be able to find a vein on my arm with no problem, with minimal looking and one easy jab.
Around mid-December, though, even he was having trouble finding a good vein in my arm and was having to resort to using the hand.  Which sucks.
I was so confused, because I drink a ton of water and I haven't gained too much weight this pregnancy, so I didn't understand why all of a sudden it was taking so much effort just to start an IV.  
I started to feel bad for some of the other nurses, too.  My regular guy, Martin, seemed to be the only one that could start an IV on me, which made me nervous because he was transferring to another facility mid-January.
One nurse would attempt to start an IV on me, and after going through two needles during failed attempts, they would call Martin over and he would get my line started with minimal effort.
Finally, one day around Christmas I asked him if there was anything I could do to make it easier to access my veins, since I was getting sick of being stuck in the hand and I REALLY didn't want a picc line.

Things got kind of festive around the holidays ; )

He said to drink a lot of water the day before, to not drink coffee the morning of and to make sure I'm warm when I get there.
Well, I was one for three.  I always have my one cup of coffee of the day in the morning, and since I'm pregnant, I'm hot all. the. time. so I'd been blasting my AC on the way to Kaiser.
He also said not to drink ice water on the way in, which I was also guilty of.
I kind of went a little overboard with trying to make myself warm on the way to the clinic after dropping Lucy off.  
I was wearing Lucy's leg warmers on my arms, a long sleeve t-shirt over that and my maternity sweatshirt over that.  I also started turning my car's heater on full blast.  It was a serious sweat lodge in my car.
I'd say bundling up like an eskimo helped a little bit.  Even with making sure I was warm and hydrated, it still takes a seasoned nurse to get a good arm vein. 
This is how it's gone for the past month or so.  I'll show up, the nurse who is assigned to me will barely look at my arms, look at my hands, apply the tourniquet, completely miss a hand vein and end up calling another nurse over, usually one of the guys who has been at the infusion clinic since it opened in 2008.
At first I felt really bad about this.  I'd even clench my fists and show him/her where Martin would usually find a vein, while feeling crappy about being THAT patient who had a preferred nurse.
I just remembered how it felt to have customers ask for a certain barista to make their coffee, and not me, and didn't want to make anyone feel like that.
But after having someone stick in the needle, dig around for a bit IN MY ARM/HAND and unsuccessfully find the vein they thought they had found, I have no problem if they give up and get someone else.
I'm stepping on my soapbox for a moment.
I'm not a nurse, nor am I in the medical profession, but it was actually starting to drive me crazy when the lady who has been assigned to me a lot doesn't even try to find something in a place other than my hand, like the others.  And a lot of the time she would miss the vein and call someone else over.  A few weeks ago, she tried the hand, and couldn't hit the vein.  I looked at my hand after I'd gone home, and based on where the needle stick was, she completely missed the vein that even I could see, because the hole was to the left of my vein.
My thing is, if you are working in an infusion clinic, you should be pro at starting IV's and at least make an effort to try and find a good vein before giving up.  Because you work in an infusion clinic.  Your job is to start IV's all day.  But I digress.
After it being hit or miss that the nurses could find a vein in my arm, and resorting to my hand, I stopped wearing leg warmers on my arms and only half-blast my heater.
I was talking to one of the older nurses a few weeks ago about how frustrating it was to have crappy veins, and he explained that that's not necessarily it.  He said it has to do with the swelling that my body is undergoing due to being pregnant, which pushes my veins down deeper.

Two weeks ago.  Apparently the swelling isn't just in mah belly.

Luckily if he or one of the other seasoned nurses is the one sticking me that day, they are pretty good about feeling around my arms, finding a vein, and stabbing straight into my arm to find that vein.  The past three weeks have actually been a lot better for starting IV's.  Hopefully it continues to be that way.
Even one of the guys in the blood draw lab noticed how deep my veins have gone.  It's always fun to have them point out to you that the two inch needle is all of the way in your arm and sticking straight out of said arm.
I think the weekly infusions have been really good for Lucy and I, too.
I've been getting four hours of down time in the chair to do what I please, while being forced to sit down and take it easy.  I'll usually pack my laptop with some DVD's, my Nintendo DS and some magazines.  I'll try to take a nap because Lucy usually naps while she's being babysat.
I say it's good for her, too, because she's getting time with someone other than me, and most of the time she's with friends who have kids her age, so she gets to have a playdate.
There are still tears when I leave her, but usually she stops crying about a minute after I leave.  And she's always happy to see me when I get back.

My nursing journey (and hopes for the new guy)

This post is about breastfeeding, so if you're squeamish about that sort of thing, this post isn't for you.

After reading a few posts by some of my favorite mom bloggers about nursing their babes, I feel compelled to share ours and also what I'm aiming for with our son when he's born next month.
When the baby books and baby websites say that breastfeeding is not easy in the beginning, they really are not kidding, although we had some setbacks that aren't really considered normal.

  What we hoped for and what happened after she was born are two totally different things.  I was hoping for skin-to-skin time with Lucy while I was still on the operating table being sewn up, and then to nurse her while I was in recovery.  We also wanted no visitors until the following day so Andy and I could get to know her and so that I could nurse on demand and have lots of skin-to-skin time.  
I got to do two out of three of those things.  We got skin-to-skin time in the OR and I was able to briefly nurse her in recovery, but while I was nursing her (with a perfect latch I might add) her platelet condition was discovered and she was whisked off to the NICU.  
Instead of spending that first night in the hospital cuddling my baby girl, I formed a relationship with a hospital-grade pump.  Instead of waking up by alarm every two to three hours to nurse my baby that first night, I woke to an alarm to pump (and essentially feel like a dairy cow).
I also didn't sleep very well that first night, because I kept having mini panic attacks whenever I would fall asleep because I was worried about how Lucy was doing downstairs.  Andy got two or three hours of sleep before he went downstairs to check on our baby.
I think it was around 6 a.m. that a nurse came in and helped me stand up and walk to the bathroom, just to get me moving.  My mid-morning I was able to go downstairs and see how Lucy was doing.  The NICU nurses encouraged me try and breastfeed and to pump in the NICU when I came down every time Lucy was hungry, about every three or four hours.
The first day after she was born was a very overwhelming day for both Andy and I, and I really think it contributed to my inability to exclusively breastfeed Lucy in the end.
Instead of resting, pumping and visiting Lucy every few hours, it was nonstop visitors in my room and Andy taking them downstairs to see Lucy, one at a time since she could only have Andy and one other adult visit at a time.  
(I'm going to step on my soap box for a second, so bear with me.  I understand the excitement about wanting to meet a new baby and everything, but what I don't get is how it seems easy for people [especially women who have had children] to want to, or feel like they have the right, to come to the hospital or be waiting outside of the delivery room and rush into the room minutes or an hour after a baby has been born.  That poor mom has just gone through the biggest physical challenge of her life, naturally or by c-section, and deserves, no, has the right, to bond with her her new baby, get cleaned up, eat something, maybe take a nap and relax for a bit before handing her precious new squish over to other people to be held and to have to be somewhat social with visitors.  Maybe I'm different, I know there are people who don't mind having a bunch of visitors right away, but I'm certainly not one of them.)
Anywho.
The first six days of her life were pump every two to three hours and go down to the NICU every three to four hours with the exception of between midnight and when Andy would get back to the hospital, usually around 7 or 8 a.m.  I could have gone down there in the middle of the night on my own, but I decided to rest up in the night hours.  I'd either have a nurse take my milk down to the NICU or keep it on ice until morning.
Because of medication she was on those first few days, she had to eat enough to keep her blood sugar level.  A baby's tummy starts out the size of a marble, and over the course of the first few days expands to the size of a ping pong ball as mom's milk comes in. 
The amount I was pumping wasn't enough to keep her blood sugar where it needed to be, so in addition my milk she was also getting formula.  
Instead of her stomach expanding naturally as we nursed, it got bigger faster than I could produce, which meant we needed to supplement in the hospital and when we got home.  This created a vicious cycle.
It's much easier to get milk out of a bottle than mom, which made it very hard for me to get her to nurse.
In the NICU the lactation consultant had us try a shield, which is pretty much like a little plastic sombrero you put on your boob to make you seem like a bottle nipple.  That seemed to work pretty well, but that's also another double edged sword because it's hard to produce as much milk with the shield.

The first month or so home were really hard, and very frustrating.  I nursed her during the day and then topped her off with formula, and tried to pump after every feeding.  But let's face it.  When you end up with a "won't be put down for a second" baby, and have the added challenge of not being able have anyone come in the house to hold the baby because of their compromised immune system, it's really hard to keep that up.  I was still waking up every two to three hours at night to pump, and eventually just started nursing her then instead.
Eventually I was able to nurse her around the clock, and without a shield, but I never quite produced enough so we always had to supplement after each feeding with formula.
And that went on for nine months, until my supply took a nose dive and I threw in the towel.  By then she was eating solid food and so we just did formula until she turned one and switched to whole milk.

Would I have done anything differently?
Yup.
Once we got home from the hospital, and she had a clean bill of health, I would have worked harder to not use formula.
I really feel like if I had not been so overwhelmed and had tried a lot harder to just nurse her, because looking back at it, I think we could have done it.  I think if I hadn't supplemented so much, my supply would have grown with her and we could have made it to a year.
Although if I hadn't stopped when I did, in May, I don't think I would have gotten pregnant in June like I did, and I wouldn't take that back for a second.
With this next baby, I'm really hoping that the infusions are doing everything they are supposed to and he doesn't end up in the NICU.  I really think we'll have a fighting chance of using no formula if we are able to nurse exclusively from the beginning.  That means I'm going to kind of be a hard ass about the length of time we have visitors in the first few weeks.  If baby needs to eat, everyone with the exception of Andy, Lucy and nurses are leaving the hospital room until he's done with his meal.  At home, I really need to be able to be comfortable nursing, and that usually meant the couch with Lucy, so I'll probably ask people to leave the room when he starts to eat until I get covered up.  This is something I'm very passionate about, nursing, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure we're successful this time around because it's so beneficial for the baby.
But if he does end up in the NICU, at least this time I feel better equipped to make it successful.  I know what to do and what not to do, and what my pitfalls were last time.