1 week left

I got back to work Wednesday the 17th. I have to make sure sometime this week that I'm on the schedule. Where I work it's a scheduling system, not a set shift. I'm kinda getting a somewhat set shift now. Here's what I told my manager.

Wednesdays: 6am-2pm
Thursdays: noon-6pm
Every other weekend: 6am-2pm

I might not get to work til 2pm or start at noon. But I'll know that a week beforehand so that helps.

I feel lucky (right now anyways) that I have a job that hopefully I won't be missing my little boy too much. So many people work all day and 5 days a week, get home, eat, put kid to bed and get things ready for the next day. I will just have one day that's on the later side getting home but I think I can deal with that.

My mom will be watching him Wednesdays and Thursdays, unless Roger doesn't work (he does construction). Wed. He'll drop Bruce off at my mom's. Figured since it's a longer day for her watching him, she could be at her own house. While he's napping, she could do her own thing. Then Roger will pick him up. If I work til noon, maybe I'll get him, not sure yet.
Thursdays, she'll come to my house. Then when Roger gets home, could be an hour, two or three later, then she can go home. Weekends, Roger will be home.

I'm not looking forward to going back to work, but part of me is. I think I might like a little break. I don't know if working at 6am is going to be hard! I love that I'm on Bruce's schedule. If he gets up in middle of the night, oh well. Or if he goes to bed later than normal, oh well. But with having to be up at 4:30am which I think is the time I'll have to get up, that's just poop.

Sleep Routine

When coming home from the hospital with a new baby, especially as a first time parent, you have to figure things out on your own. Of course that's obvious. Some things are just easy to know what to do (not that they're easy to do in fact), like when the baby cries, either feed him, change him, just wants to be held, burp him. When it comes to going down for the night, how do you establish this?

At first it seemed like Bruce had his days/nights backwards. I'm sure it was all the same in the womb and really he probably did sleep more during the day since I was more active, so he was being rocked in there. At night I wasn't moving, he probably was most active. After a few weeks, I'm thinking around 3, maybe 4, he started sleeping thru the night. Well he was being put down about 10:30-11 and sleeping til 5 or 6.

During the evening is when he's most fussy. I figured he's tired so I should try putting him down earlier. Plus, hubby goes to bed about 10-10:30, I kinda want to go to bed too! I started trying to put him down a half hour earlier, then earlier and earlier. Now I'm pretty much putting him down at 8:30pm! A downfall is that I don't know if I can say he sleeps thru the night really. I say he does, kinda. He gets a good amount of sleep, it's just that he goes down early, the wake time is earler. So last night for instance, put him down at 8:30 I think it was, then he woke up at 4. I change him, nurse him, lay him back in his crib. Then I pump the side he didn't do. By the time I was done pumping, he was asleep. I go back to bed too. I'm not sure when he got up today since hubby tended him, but I have to feed him. I think he got me at 9am.

Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays are bath nights. I do this around 8pm, unless I think he's getting tired sooner. The other nights, when I do a diaper change around 7 or so, I then change him into his jammies.

Also one thing that has been working, I'm hoping it continues. I will lay him down in his crib, start his mobile. I'll sit in the rocking chair. When the mobile is done, I wind it up again, turn the lamp off and leave the room. He might stir around for a half hour but he falls asleep.

I just don't know how we go anywhere, but it seems like its a good time of year, Thanksgiving isn't for another month and a half. There is a birthday get together next week in my family but it's on bowling night. Even if it there wasn't bowling I wouldn't want to go. Going to a restaurant isn't easy. Dinner at 6 or 6:30pm, I think would make it even harder to eat at the restaurant, it's hard enough to eat dinner at home!

Smiles

On Sept 6th, when I got Bruce out of the crib in the morning, changed and fed him. We were sitting in the living room, him in his boppy. He decided to be full of smiles!!! My boy is now smiling! It was so cute and I was able to capture a picture. I kept saying "you're so cute" and "you're so handsome" and he'd smile.

This boy has never cried once during bathtime. I've always said during my pregnancy that I'm going to have a waterbaby. I love being in the water. I really want my baby to love water too. This is once he was out of the tub and bundled in his froggy towel.

He enjoys the swing the our friends gave us at my shower. He likes to stare up at the stars and giraffe. It's been helpful during when Roger and I try to eat.

Annoying Cat

Man sometimes our cat Lola (we have 3 cats remember) gets needy. You can toss her and she's like a bomerrang. Like her feet are spring and is back where you tossed her from. The past few days she's been a pest to me in bed. Not bad but annoying. It's mostly when I got up and am trying to go back to sleep. Last night was just awful. First of all, we watched a movie (Remember the Titans). I decided to make a drink and decided to use reg. Diet Pepsi. I have been drinking caffeine free, this wasn't. I made myself 2 drinks. I wanted to not be too tired for you know what.

So guess what I had the hardest time falling asleep. It didn't help with Lola. She lays down then gets up and lays down, repeat repeat. She always has to be touching me. A lot of time she's too close, I move her and she comes back. I don't like feeling her whiskers on my face, or smelling her gawd awful breath. Then she was trying to lay on my pillow. And on top of it, my boobs were starting to feel extra full, so lay on my side that bothered me too. By the time I fell asleep, I'd say it was 4am. Which I'm thinking "crap", since I figured Bruce would be up at 6:15am.

He was up a little after 6. I said to Roger "I seriously hate this cat". I went and tended Bruce. He was up for about an hour. I layed him back down and decided to pump the side he didn't do. Then I crawled back to bed. Knowing how he is, he usually sleeps about an hour now. Roger got up with him. To my benefit of pumping, I didn't have to get up. Roger took Lola, which she was behaving, sleeping next to me down by my waist, and shut the doors so I could sleep. Roger was able to feed him the bottle when he was hungry. I slept til 10 I think.

If we leave the doors (hallway into our room and bathroom into our room) to our room shut, the cats will paw at the carpet at the door.

First 6 weeks

I suppose I haven't posted since I've had the baby on July 21st and he's already 6 weeks old! His name is Bruce.

The past 6 weeks have been wonderful. Life is definately different. There are ups and there are downs. For the most part, so far everything has been easier than I thought. It's not easy.

There has been a couple times that we've dealt with crying that we didn't know how to stop, that was mostly around dinner time. Last weekend was the first time at the cabin, there was one evening he cried for a couple hours. I know he was overwhelmed/overstimulated by new place, lots of people. It is nice, my parents have a 5th wheel parked at the cabin, so we're staying in there. This past weekend was lots better. Sunday night we tried laying him down on the bed in the cabin but there was just too much noise. After a little while we moved to the 5th wheel and he was asleep instantly and stayed. We had forgotten the monitor at home so we decided we should go to bed anyways.

We have had a few family get togethers, our first overnight away from home was at the casino (we pretty much went cause it was a free room and eat the buffet), We've been to the cabin the last two weekends. Last Friday I went to the State Fair and had Roger's mom babysit, Roger picked him up after work.

It's so nice to see how he looks at me. I've seen a couple smiles now, those are priceless. 

Well gotta go, tend the baby! We need to figure out our swing. It's supposed to keep swinging but it stops after awhile. That's what that cry was about.
                                           This picture is moments after being cleaned up

                                                         1 month already!

Birth Story

Friday 7/20: Woke up at 2:30am to a contraction. Went to the bathroom, came back to bed, was able to fall back asleep. Woke up at 3:30am, same thing. Woke up at 4:10am, couldn't fall back asleep. I was having a few until Roger got up at 4:40am to call work (to see where he's working). I told him I was having contractions. He asked if he should stay home. I told him to go to work. I didn't know if this was the real deal or false labor. (now looking back, I was silly, but how do you know what's going on?)
I went back to sleep but woke up shortly. At 7am I started timing them. I was able to fall asleep in between the contractions. Finally I text Roger saying that they really hurt. Later on I seen that he responded saying to time them. It's now 7:45am, I responded with "seems to be 4 minutes apart for 45 minutes". He rushed home from work, an hour away.

He called the hospital and they said to come in. He grabbed my already packed bag and off we went to the hospital. We checked in at 10:15am. I was put in the Labor and Delivery room immediately, instead of the Triage. Within the hour they asked if I wanted an epidural and I said "yes". We had to wait for me to dilate to a 10. I was at a 3. Eventually they gave me Pitocin (I think), to induce me to dilate. I had to keep rotating how I layed. On my right side for awhile, then left side, back and forth. At one point they said they guess around 11pm I'd start pushing, then they said 3am. I'm not really sure why. I was dilating but the baby's head wasn't dropping closer.

Finally at 7:15am Saturday 7/21, I was a 10 and they told me it's time to start pushing. After a little while I asked for a boost on the epidural. They asked to rate the pain out of 10, I rated it a 12.5. I had to keep pushing until the guy came in to boost me. That was really hard. I wanted to give up. Finally about a half hour later the guy came in and boosted me. Man, what a miracle! The pain was gone, yet I could still barely feel the contraction. The nurse would tell me when to push, but I was able to ask "is one starting". My Dr came in at 8:15 (before my boost) and said he'd give me 2 more hours of pushing. He said the baby is face up (facing my belly button), he should be face down. This makes it harder to deliver, but if he drops enough, the dr can help him out by turning him. But he wasn't coming any closer. Two more hours seemed impossible but after the boost, the time flew by. Then it was 10:15am and still no baby. I tried so hard. The Dr came in and still the head wasn't any closer and that I will need to go downstairs, which means c-section.

They informed me that they give me some sort of drug to go with the epidural, I will be awake. Roger will be in the room with me. If something happens and I need to be put under, Roger will have to leave the room. I just hoped and hoped that I didn't have to be put under so Roger could stay. I needed him. So I layed there, they put a sheet straight up from my chest so I couldn't see what's going on, it sure felt like it was just inches from my face. I asked Roger to put his hand on my shoulder. During the procedure I started feeling pain or so I think. I know I felt the movement. I was not enjoying this at all. Roger pointed out "can you hear him crying?" I could and I had tears of joy!

The Dr held Bruce over the sheet so I could see him. I had to ask Roger to wipe my tears since I couldn't move my arms to do so.

Then Roger got to hold him after he was cleaned and brought him to me to see.

Then boosted me more. Actually to the point where I fell asleep, which is crazy to think that could happen. I know that it was almost over cause I was told they were removing the placenta.

They weighed him at 8lb 3.7oz

Roger went to our room with the baby while I was still in the OR. When they were done, my bed got wheeled up to my room where Roger and Bruce were. I couldn't believe that we have this baby! It's truly a miracle. Although L&D wasn't all that fun, I have this precious new guy!

Ready to be done

I understand what people mean when they say they're ready to be done being pregnant.
The constant pressure in between the legs is sometimes super duper annoying. Sometimes sitting is fine, then when you have to get up, it's dreadful. The Braxton Hicks, oh joyful.

Here's  the first belly picture I took, which is at 15 weeks

Here's the picture I took today at 38 weeks

Part of me doesn't feel like I look that huge until I see myself in the mirror (I've taken a picture every week since 15 and stand on the exact same spot).
Not only am I anxious to see my little guy, I'm ready to get him out of my body.
I can't believe it, 38 weeks!!!!!!