asiln28: October 2011

Monday, October 31, 2011

ouch.

here's a picture from the hospital.
we're home now - came home saturday with baby s, and z came home yesterday (sunday). breast feeding seemed to be going well, but got gradually more & more painful. i finally gave in and set up an appointment with the "baby whisperer" doris at st. vincent hospital. evidently my nipples are so cracked & scabbed & damaged that i'm supposed to pump instead of letting s breast feed while they heal. this means i have to pump every 3 hours & then bottle feed her. thankfully, she takes the bottle with no problem. i have another appointment on friday to hopefully re-introduce the nipple to her, this time the "correct" way, a way that won't hurt me. i also need a new breast pump. supposedly j has a benefit that mostly covers one, so that's his project this morning while z is in school. the pumping is still painful, but not as painful as breast feeding. so far i'm making plenty to keep up with s, even getting a little ahead. i don't know about j, but i feel super overwhelmed. my whole body hurts everywhere, and the pain medicine doesn't help that much. i can't take as much of the narcotics as i want to take because they didn't give me enough anti-nausea medicine to go with it. my whole body is swollen from the extra fluid they gave me for the spinal, which adds to the pain. my mom has been helping out a ton, which i really appreciate. we wouldn't survive without it.
z went to church with grandma yesterday, and then she brought him home. he & daddy carved pumpkins. today he went dressed in his ghost costume to school, and he & daddy will go trick or treating with the neighbors tonight. i'll be pumping, feeding, & sleeping.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

baby s & mommy.
i made it through the c-section. i was a bit more calm this time around, but it was just as unpleasant as the first time. baby s is a little better at breast feeding than z, but my nipples are beginning to hurt a lot. actually EVERYTHING hurts a lot. the pain is getting close to excruciating. they took out my catheter this morning & disconnected the iv (although they left the needle/port in, just in case), so i have to get up to use the bathroom. this is really really really painful. my back is really sore, too, probably from the spinal epidural, and from enduring odd positions from breast feeding. i don't remember it hurting this much the first time. baby s has been sleeping a fair amount. i was hoping to send her to the nursery at night, but they don't have a "nursery" anymore because this is a "family nursing unit" or something, so we just have to tough it out & take shifts.
i hate the recovery part. it's absolutely miserable. i have no idea how i'm going to manage with z at home with all of this pain. i can't think about it - too overwhelming.

Monday, October 24, 2011

two nights...

two nights now, until the c-section. i'm really really nervous. it's not easy enduring an operation while conscious. i'm worried about whether everything will go smoothly, if both j & m will be allowed in the operating room, if i'll have the shakes for an hour afterward like last time, if nursing will hurt as much as before. i'm excited to meet this little girl, who has been my constant companion for 9 or so months, but this is major surgery, and i don't enter into it lightly. our lives are going to change so much. i'm not ready for it, but i don't have a choice.

and z is really sick. he woke up with a fever this morning and a croupy cough, which meant he had to stay home from school. i did not anticipate this, and was really counting on having these next two mornings to myself to prepare myself mentally. sigh. such is motherhood. i took him to see his pediatrician just to be sure it was just croup, because he's had a cold for 13 days, and the last time he had croup it became pneumonia.

i'm SO upset because he most likely won't be allowed to come and see me and meet his baby sister in the hospital if he has any kind of cough. i guess we can skype, but it's not the same as getting a hug from my little pumpkin. his fever got worse after he napped this afternoon, so i'll be keeping him home from school again tomorrow. i can't imagine he'd be absolutely recovered by wednesday. i am still dealing with the residual bits of my cold, and wonder if i'll have to wear a mask or something around the baby. this has been 3 weekends, now, where i've been feeling under the weather. i have the worst immune system ever - it's so frustrating!

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

field trip

i had my first experience driving & chaperoning a field trip! we went to baggenstos farms out in rural tigard with pasitos spanish school.

on the hay ride... z loved it!

do you know what he might have been doing behind the tree?

yay for pumpkins! g-man, z's neighbor & friend, doesn't look too happy. he just doesn't like getting his picture taken.

grandma & g-man. and the little guy next to grandma rode in our car with us!

tractor tip!

um, i don't think you're supposed to steer with your feet!

obligatory goats, but we didn't pet them. z did put his mouth on the fence several times - i had to keep telling him to stop - disgusting!
it was fun, and we just missed some misty rain, but boy - I AM SORE!!! a little too much standing around & walking for my pregnant self. i'm in a lot of pain...

cookie baking

z & i made cookies yesterday - oatmeal craisin. i had my weekly ob appointment, and the doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotics. i spent the whole weekend in bed, and still feel yucky. sleeping is still painful, and having all the congestion doesn't help. having more braxton hicks contractions, with the
some random things... z has commented several times now, if we hear vinny jumping down from somewhere high, "what was that sound? was that a ghost?" no idea where he got the idea of ghosts from.
we're trying to work on z dressing himself, but it just takes forever sometimes! potty training is going fairly well. sometime soon we'll try him without diapers at nap time.

play date

here's a picture of mama h, little r, and z at our old house, a little after z's first birthday.

here's z & r, with r's daddy. they moved back to germany (they were here working for daimler for a couple years), and came back to portland for a visit.

z wouldn't cooperate & look at the camera (unusual for him). at least we can see r's parents! it was fun to see them. hopefully we can host r for a visit by himself when he's older!

home birthday

z's actual birthday fell on a monday, when daddy had to work and i had to teach. we had a quick celebration between my lessons. z never changed out of his pajamas after his nap - grandma figured it was his birthday, so she'd let him do what he wanted to do. we had a dinner of ravioli with rumiano, and olive bread - he loves pasta and olive bread!

Monday, October 10, 2011

z's THIRD birthday!!!

happy birthday z!!! we have now been parents for three years! we love you so much!

these cupcakes were a week long process. baked the cupcakes during z's naps 2 days in a row - luckily they froze & defrosted really well! it took forever to sort out the correct color m&m's & to drill the chocolate chip eyes into the white chocolate, but i managed to get it finished. all i had to do this morning was ice & assemble. still exhausting, though, along with all the other food & house cleaning. and now i have a rip roaring cold, my second for this month. not fun while pregnant. i still haven't eaten one of the finished products. i made additional cupcakes for the 16 kids and 3 teachers at zane's preschool to bring later today for snack time.

can you tell there was a "cars" theme?

card from mommy & daddy. it makes noise - vrrooooom!

there were three neighbor kids who all happily helped z open his gifts.

i'm three!!!

i had never seen one of these pull string pinatas. it was the only kind of lightning mcqueen pinata i could find online, and it worked quite well for inside. z was the lucky one and pulled the correct string to get the candy to fall out (thankfully after everyone had had a few turns), but as you can see, he didn't quite understand what it meant. the older girls went right for the candy, but it took him awhile to figure it out. lucky for him, 4 kids & 1 pinata leaves plenty of candy for everyone!

pinata, or hat???

the party was a lot of fun. the two neighbor families on either side of us attended, along with g'ma & g'pa, abuelo & abuela (thank you SO MUCH for taking pictures!!!), aunt m & uncle j, & cousin s & d. thank you everyone for coming to z's party!

Sunday, October 09, 2011

baby sitters

j & i needed to go view photos from our photo session two weekends ago, and we weren't supposed to bring z, so aunt m & uncle j were so kind enough to agree to watch z while we went to sellwood. he got to play a bit before going down for his afternoon nap.