Update

This was originally written on Wednesday, November 5, 2008:

(Another long one.)

For the second time since Logan was born 6.5 months ago, I'm feeling like I could use a break (the first time was in August when he was 4 months old). It's been a rough week. After I last blogged on Wednesday (Breastfeeding May Never Be Easy) I was in pain, so the thought of pumping or breastfeeding was so not appealing to me. I let my breasts get as engorged as I could tolerate before pumping for 5-10 minutes two times that night. I immediately stopped taking fenugreek because for once I did want my milk supply to go down, and being engorged is pretty darn uncomfortable. For my nipples I used ice packs that my cousin's wife gave me, as well as lanolin cream (that I had leftover from the hospital), but I was still sore all day Thursday as well. Washing out the pumps nearly made me pass out (I am not good with blood).

Friday night had been over 48 hrs since I'd nursed and I noticed that the red marks had lightened up a lot so I gave breastfeeding another try, as well as on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, when I pumped later that day I noticed blood again and was back to being in pain. I figured I hadn't let myself fully heal and so I took another 48 hr nursing rest, but continued to use the lanolin religiously. Miraculously, since Monday I've been able to breastfeed again and haven't noticed blood when I pump. I still have marks, but they are much lighter than a week ago. I still get sore after 5-10 minutes, though (I used to always pump for 20), so that's all the time I'm pumping and nursing from now on. So far that is working out! I just wait until I absolutely can't stand being engorged and then I pump only until I feel relief which gives me 5 ounces three times a day (around 11 am, 5 pm, and 11 pm-when I go to bed). Then I nurse Logan a couple of times a day (usually 7 am-when we get up and 8 pm-when he goes to bed). It's also helped me to be consistant with giving him 3 solids a day because this month, up until this past week, I'd been feeding him one every single day, and sometimes 2, but now I'm doing 3 every day.

After last week I thought there was no way I could possibly continue breastfeeding any longer. There's something about pain that just throws all motivation out the window (and don't get me wrong, I still have pain, it's just that when my breasts are engorged I can focus on that discomfort until five minutes after relieving them). My only reason for not stopping cold turkey last Wednesday night was because I didn't want my final time to feel like I was being forced into stopping. I wanted to prepare myself--whether it meant doing it just 24 more hours or 48. Turns out it's been a week! But over this past week I've obviously started the weaning process and so I've gotten to where I'm 99% ready to be done--I'm guessing I'll be 100% by 7 months, but if somehow I can keep going then I'll be continuing past seven months! That would be a shocker! We will see, it's a total day-by-day thing.

Fortunately, I found help from Kim, my dad's sister's son's wife (i.e. my cousin-in-law/cousin's wife). I am amazed that she has been able to help me every time I've about thrown in the towel. She has three kids, her first two nursed up to 17 months and her last to two years old. She stayed up late last Wednesday night after reading my blog, searching the internet for me and presented me with the theory that maybe my bleeding wasn't caused by bites--but rather cracked nipples! She suggested I meet with a lactation consultant to find out for sure (since, it seems like a coincidence that it happened the day after Logan got teeth and the marks are only located on the bottoms--where he has teeth), but cracked nipples are a common problem and would explain why I don't feel Logan bite. (Because I've been paying even more attention since resuming nursing and can't feel his teeth at all--which makes sense since he's latched properly.)

One reason that I may have noticed the bleeding while pumping is because (according to babycenter.com) when you have cracked nipples, using a breast pump "can injure the delicate tissue, breaking capillaries." You can read the rest of the article here: http://www.babycenter.com/0_cracked-or-bleeding-nipples_8493.bc They are most likely to occur during dry weather (it is getting to be winter) and could be because I nursed flawlessly for an entire month (which meant more nursing than pumping for once)--Logan may be tougher on me than my pump, which is why my all-day pain occured after I resumed nursing last Wednesday and Saturday.

I wish that I hadn't thrown away my nipple shields a couple of weeks ago because I had two from when Logan was born and the lactation consultants had given them to me as lifesavers because he wouldn't take my left side for his first two months without them. I hadn't needed the shields since, so although I'd washed them several times I noticed a couple of weeks ago that they didn't look good enough to save for my next child and figured it was okay to toss them. I've now learned never to throw anything baby-related away until I'm done having children! But Kim found that moist wound healing is what is best (http://www.leron-line.com/updates/Wound_healing.htm). . .so that's what I've been doing and things ARE better!!!

But I'm still tired because Logan has had a fussy week. For some reason Mondays always seem to be the hardest day of the week for us, but this week Tuesday (yesterday) and today (Wednesday) were a lot of work, too. He is finally taking a nap right now (whereas he didn't at all on Monday and Tuesday) so I am enjoying my few minutes of quiet to write this blog.

I hope he's not sick, he's been pulling on his ear off & on the past three days so I'm keeping an eye on that. He doesn't have a temperature or any other signs of an earache or cold, etc. but I've heard you don't hesitate with babies & ear infections because they are very prone to them and can be dangerous--often causing deafness. Um, "yikes" is an understatement. So I've been giving him vitamin C and if he has the same behavior tomorrow then I'm calling the pediatrician. (If that one lady answers again I'm going to ask for someone else!)

Also, every now & then this week Logan's been just screaming out of nowhere. He'll be happy and content with his toys and then in a split second act like someone is torturing him. Usually he just makes little sounds when he's ready to move on--he doesn't normally scream. His voice is actually hoarse today and my ears hurt. :/

I read that babies usually get one tooth a month. He got two this month so I doubt his third is coming in yet (usually the upper front are next--which are even harder for many women to breastfeed with because babies sometimes chomp down, using both the top and bottom together--OUCH!). But something's up this week because I feed him until he's happy. . .15 minutes later he cries again. I put him around his toys. . .they only please him for 10 minutes. I put him in his crib and the pack n play--that is the worst of all because he knows that's where he sleeps. We've had very few fussy days with Logan in his life so hopefully he'll return to normal tomorrow, otherwise this will tie with #4 for my least fav of his months!

We've had beautiful weather lately, so Monday I did take him out on our back deck and our front step for a while for some fresh air and that calmed him down, but he still didn't let me sit by myself for a minute that day. I was so wiped out when Joe got home that I finally just had to take a walk by myself even though it was dark out so that I wouldn't fall into a depression.

It doesn't help that my (second since Logan) period hasn't started, despite me showing signs since last Wednesday. Clearly, my old pattern has returned -- I used to always have signs 7-10 days before my period would start. I would moan around my house saying, "Come on already!" and here I am doing it again for the first time in 15 months. At least I haven't had bad cramps, although I had minor ones the other day--but I'm not complaining about minor! It appears my old irregular cycle has returned, though, since tomorrow will be day 37. So hopefully it will start then and I can get out of this funk.

I especially hate it when I have a million things to do because I have no energy to do them. Monday would have been a perfect day to take Logan out & about, but no, I didn't even take a shower until 2 pm.

Tuesday I forced myself to take Logan out of the house so that we could vote. I also took Logan to JCPenney for the first time! I've always just carried him around public in his carseat because he's usually asleep from the car ride, but yesterday he wasn't so he & I got to try a new adventure of putting him in the little seat at the front of the cart like a real kid. :) He was so cute--he was fascinated by everything around him and had a look on his face like "I'm a big boy!". . .he clearly knew the experience was different. He acted like he was riding in a rollercoaster as I pushed him around the store, he was having so much fun. At one point he quickly grabbed some clothes and started to put them in his mouth but I was able to stop him!

The ladies at the check-out loved him; I'm glad that despite his "off" week he was on his best behavior. Tomorrow I'm going to take him to the grocery store and sit him in the front of the cart there! I almost did that yesterday, too, but I didn't want to push my luck. Grocery shopping usually takes me an hour (so I've always done it once Joe is home, but now that it's getting dark early I'd prefer to do it during the day), whereas at JCPenney all I did was buy Joe a pair of navy jeans for our family picture this Friday.

This morning I went over to my neighbor Jenn's for scrapbooking, only I didn't scrapbook, I just talked to her and the other moms. There were 6 other kids there and Logan was in awe of them. A couple of them played with him and he seemed so excited and happy by it--he really loves other kids and seems social so I want to try and do more of that. He even noticed a toy box nearby and knew how to move his body in order to get the toys!!! He's not crawling yet, but if he wants something nearby where he's sitting or laying down, he knows how to get to it. It was so cute to see him study a new toy and shake it proudly. After a while he reached for me to pick him up and so I sat him on my lap and was talking to the other moms and at the same time they were like, "I think he just fell asleep!" I looked down and Logan's head had fallen forward! He has never fallen asleep sitting up like that on my lap--it was so cute!!!!! I put him in the carseat and he took a nap for about 20 minutes while I ate lunch. Now we're home and he is taking a longer one, so maybe getting back on his nap schedule will make him less fussy. (I also know he's not constipated--he goes the same hour every day now and his poop is like an adult's--it's crazy how it just changed one day from the old goo!)

On the bright side, he had four days of sleeping straight thru the night again this week (11 hrs) so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that maybe we won't have to try any "plans" again since I didn't do very good with the one week that we attempted The Ferber Method. I haven't found him with his legs between the crib bars for a while--the two nights this past week that he got me up three times a night were for reasons like a bad dream, and on daylight savings he went to bed too early and wanted up for good at 5 am! (Thankfully, we were able to get him to go back to sleep, and as of yesterday he seems to be on the new time-whew. Normally I like this time of year's daylight savings but Monday seemed like the longest day of my life!)

I've accepted that we'll probably always go back and forth--as in some weeks he'll sleep straight thru the night and other weeks he'll probably still wake up and cry. I've heard from several people that it really doesn't matter how well you "train" a child to sleep--they're still going to have weeks where they wake up, no matter what the age. We'll just hope this kind of week continues for a while. :/

At least he is still falling back to sleep easily, which he always has. One positive thing that came from my nursing rest is that going into his room in the middle of the night in pain made it impossible for me to even consider nursing him (as you know I was doing it during his middle cry, so that I could go back to sleep easier). Instead, I rubbed his back, turned on his sound machine, mobile, and/or music box--and was thrilled that it didn't take him long to substitute those for the milk (he just needed comfort), so maybe he will realize now he doesn't need milk during that cry and therefore won't wake up! :/

One of the women at Jenn's this morning has 4 children and THREE of them were face up. She said that her doctor said the same thing that mine did--her pelvis is such that it won't turn a baby face down. The only reason why one of her babies was correct is because it had a big head--her other babies had small heads. I didn't get a chance to ask her why in the world that made a difference, but obviously Logan was born with a 10th percentile head--so I'm going to look more into what that has to do with being face up! ??????

UPDATE: I still have not found any info about this. . .the only thing I can think of is that maybe when a baby has a big head they are not able to move as easily and so once they get into the anterior position they are likely to stay. Whereas, a small-headed baby may still twist and turn. Because I do know that when I had my ultrasound 2.5 days before I went into labor, Logan was on his side. Whether it was right or left, I am not sure (left is best); if it was right then it's not surprising that he was posterior during my pushing phase.

UPDATE #2: While pregnant with my second child in 2011, my doctor informed me that she had a small head as well which DOES mean more of a chance of bad positioning and problems during delivery. She was anterior until the last minute when she came out posterior just like Logan. Fortunately, there were no problems with her delivery -- it was fast (I felt contractions for a half an hour and pushed 3 times/3 minutes) -- but she could have had shoulder dystocia like Logan had, which is when the head comes out but not the body. So, I wonder if coming out posterior is nature's way of getting the body out when the head is small. In other words, I think my theory in the previous paragraph makes sense, considering I had a second baby with a 10th percentile head who came out posterior.

Jenn's friend is so used to posterior babies that with her last baby her doctor figured he didn't need to schedule a c-section because she'd always pushed them out before. I told her that was great to hear because I'm shooting to push out my next baby again--even if after I try the recommended things I still end up with another poterior baby. She said that her one baby that was anterior made labor seem like a breeze, so I'm going to think having a face down baby is a cinch (if my next one is). All of her babies were 36 weeks + one day--that was exactly Logan, another coincidence. I should have asked her if her water broke first.

Also, we were all talking about when we want to have our next child and when they asked me, I said, "I had a rough pregnancy so if it wasn't for that I'd want one sooner, but it will probably be three years." Well ten minutes later we were on a completely different subject and two of the women started talking about how they threw up all 9 months and had to be on the nausea medication as well as a constant IV drip! Suddenly I felt embarrassed for saying I had a rough pregnancy. One of the women said for a couple of weeks she made a bed next to her toilet because it was easier to just wake up and throw up right there rather than get up and walk to the bathroom! I can't imagine it being worse than what I went through--but they win! The woman with 4 kids said that with each pregnancy it's gotten worse. I did not want to hear that. I've been telling myself that my next experience won't be as bad because I'll be prepared and my body has already been through it. But, I came home and researched this and statistics are on her side! :(

Okay no more thinking about that. (UPDATE: I had a much easier pregnancy with baby #2 - not much nausea at all compared to with my first pregnancy!)

Since my last real update a week-and-a-half ago (Joe's friend was supposed to stay with us that weekend but didn't end up coming over), the next day (Sunday) Joe and I took Heather & Nick out to eat to thank them for watching Logan the only time we've had someone babysit him (which you might remember was back in August when we went to the movie theater).

Speaking of which, I should probably look into finding a babysitter. The daughter of one of Joe's co-workers is 16 and is certified because she's going to major in child development in college, so she knows CPR, the heimlich, and has been babysitting regularly for 4 years. But I haven't met her yet and even if I do & I like her, this is my one area that might be hard for me to relax about. I know that every mom has an area; this is mine. What I mean is, the only people I trust to watch Logan are people I know really well. Unfortunately, nobody I know well is a babysitter for their job, so that makes it hard to have someone who I can call at a moment's notice to watch Logan.

Like, several people have suggested I find someone who I can drop Logan off with a couple of hours a week so I can have time away, but while I know there are women in my neighborhood who do this (stay at home moms who are trying to earn some money). . .I've just seen so many horror stories on TV. It seems easier to relax when a kid is older rather than a baby because they can communicate--but at the same time I don't want it to be a shock to Logan the first time I leave him with a sitter (seems easier to start him at this age before he has stranger anxiety).

I know some moms have a hard time just being away from their baby, but if I know Logan's in good hands then that is not an issue for me. I've been able to have a great time whenever my mom or Joe's mom have watched Logan, haha! But, I have a feeling Logan's going to be over a year old before I'm able to leave him with a sitter.

Unlike when I first had Logan, I know why "they say" being a stay-at-home mom is equivalent to two full-time jobs. Joe used to always recite Dr. Phil as a joke because he said that so much, but even though I get it, I'm not sure Joe completely does yet. Don't misunderstand, he's an awesome husband and father and is soooo supportive and helpful--I have always felt very blessed and lucky that he is the guy I married, but he refuses to admit that my hard days here could be harder than his hard days at work. Possibly they're equal, but if he has a hard day at work then he thinks he deserves a break (meaning he doesn't want to help with Logan when he gets home). When he does help, he says that my break is when he gets home and I am not in the same room. But even when Joe is helping me, I'm still present & involved. I've tried to explain that when he's at his job it's not a vacation by any means, but it's a shift of his energy, his mind, etc. I've heard that most women who have been both stay-at-home moms and work-outside-the home moms say that the exhaustion factor is much less working outside the home. Because, generally they have more help with their child, and focusing on something other than their children gives them a "different" kind of energy. As a stay-at-home mom I am with Logan 24/7. That means even right now while he's napping and I'm blogging, my head is still "on him." My ears are listening for him to cry, my fingers are typing as fast as I can so that I can finish this before he wakes up, my breasts are starting to hurt because I need to pump but I'm trying to decide if there's anything else I need to do first while Logan is still asleep. . .

I adjusted pretty quickly after he was born to knowing my "time to myself" is not usually 100% time to myself unless I actually leave the house alone (which doesn't happen very often). But Joe is still learning to adjust from the days before he had Logan when he could do anything he wanted after work. . .to not being able to, as that is what goes along with being a parent. I have never told him he couldn't do something and I encourage him to let me know when he wants to, rather than hold it inside. So I think he's trying to figure out what exactly gives him a sense that he's had a break to himself. Because, when he takes a nap, he doesn't feel that counts because he's not conscious. If he plays the WII, that doesn't count if Logan's in the same room with him, etc.

So, we've decided to make a weekly schedule so we can each feel like we have our "own" time during the week. I don't want us to start resenting the other because right now our marriage is still happy and strong. Sarah S. recommended a book called Babyproofing Your Marriage. I haven't read it, but she said it covers a lot of common problems couples face once they have a baby. My parents paid for us to stay in a honeymoon suite on Nov. 22nd while they watch Logan, so that should at least give us time "just the two of us," which also doesn't happen very often, nowadays!

Okay--back to October 26th--after Joe & I arrived home from eating with Nick & Heather, our electricity was off! We had noticed that the stoplights a couple of miles from our house weren't working and I suddenly feared the experience we had in August when it was off for 4.5 hrs. Sure enough, I couldn't see one house after the stoplights to our street that had a light on! When we pulled into our driveway, our garage door wouldn't open. Jenn saw us and came outside and said the electricity had gone off 10 min. prior and she'd called the power company who said they were aware of the problem. It was really windy that day and as soon as we walked in the door we could tell the difference in our house (colder) with no heat. Thankfully, it was only off a half-an-hour so there wasn't time to freak out.

Not much happened that week, except for Logan's teeth, and he had pears and bananas (his favorite!) for the first time. Last night he had prunes for the first time (he loved those as well), so next is applesauce and then he can move on to mixtures.

On Thursday, Oct. 30th I had another massage which was just what I needed! I scheduled another one for next week. That night Joe carved a jack-o-lantern (as he does every year) and Logan helped, too :)

Last year & this year I didn't bake the seeds (nor did I have the time to try those recipes from my Baby's First Teeth post--some day I plan to!) but it was still a fun Halloween!

On Friday we had about 50 trick-or-treaters and we dressed up Logan in his clown costume. The girl who lives behind me introduced herself, she seemed nice; she has a 4 year old.We couldn't keep Logan away from the candy--it was funny. Our neighbor Brenda came over to take pictures of him. I'm not sure he knew what to think of the holiday, I'm sure next year he'll enjoy it more.On Saturday, Nov. 1st Joe & I met one of his co-workers, Chris, at Perkins for lunch. I had a Hawaiian wrap which I've been craving since. I really liked Chris! She is due with her first baby in February and is interested in several things I've written about here, so we've been corresponding thru email the past couple of months. I felt like I could have talked to her for hours, and I loved her accent (she's from Romania). :) She's having a boy so maybe I've found another friend for Logan!

Afterwards, Joe & I went to a consignment store--I am ashamed to admit I've never bought anything from one before, but now having a child you can bet I will. We bought Logan his winter coat for $10--that sure beats Younkers' price of $130--and the difference isn't even that noticeable.

Afterwards, my mom & stepdad came over on their way to Branson where they've been this week with my grandma. For supper we went out to eat at a terrible diner. Still, we had a good time and my parents were happy to see Logan's two teeth.

On Sunday, Joe & I took Logan to the park so I got to enjoy the leaves for the first time this fall. Sadly, the the leaves are already starting to turn brown for winter. I thought last fall went fast because I was cooped up inside with all-day sickness--but this one with a six month old has, too.

Wow, I can't believe Logan is still sleeping--this has been his best nap in a week!!!! I better get some housework done. . .