It's been awhile...

I realized that it's been awhile since I blogged on here.  I didn't really plan on giving it up or avoiding it, but as the days, then weeks, then months went by, it was just easier I guess.  There's so much on here, so much honesty in this blog and so many of my emotions, that sometimes it's hard to confront it.  I feel like I need time, solitude, and quiet in order to do this blog justice, and I don't often have any of those things. 

It's been over a year since my baby died.  I know there was no way to save them, but I still remember the feeling of walking into the operating room, walking in knowing that my tiny baby's heart was beating and they were alive and growing.  And I walked in and laid down on the table, and when I woke up there was just emptiness, emptiness around me and within me, and no baby anymore.  I know that, being an ectopic pregnancy, there was no way to help my baby.  They could never have made it long enough to have a chance at surviving, and if I hadn't have gone in for the surgery, I would have died too.  I know that.  Sometimes knowing and feeling aren't the closest friends, though.  It still hurts.  It still aches.

Even though I'll always notice that absence, I'm surrounded my so much life.  My oldest, Princess, is now in first grade.  She's learning to read and forming social circles and using slang and growing up so quickly.  Angel is a preschooler and is so vibrant.  She's so alive and excited about life that it changes the way the I view the world, just from being near her.  Little Boss is growing by the minute.  He's four months old and I already look at him and wonder what happened to my newborn.  He can roll himself over with ease now (and does constantly, even when strapped in a chair, in true Houdini type style).  He's not strong enough yet, but he desperately wants to crawl and has just learned to lift up his bottom and stomach.  He smiles and laughs and clings onto my finger with his little hands.  He opens his mouth when you ask for a kiss and slobbers all over your cheek.

I am amazed by life. 

Just checking

I haven't had a period for well over a year...coming up on a year and a half even.  I was pregnant, experienced tragedy through an ectopic pregnancy, got pregnant again before restarting my period, and then had a beautiful baby boy.  In the past my cycle has always been really regular and started back up really quickly (sometimes too quickly).  Now my baby's several months old.  I feel pretty much back to normal, even if some of my clothes are tighter than I'd like.  But (and this is a big but) I still haven't started my period again.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm not enjoying the break from it and everything.  As the weeks and then months went by, though, it started to make me wonder.  I didn't think I was, but just wanted to be sure.

My fantastic other half bought a pregnancy test on the way home from work one day.  He gave it to me and said something to the effect of, "If it's positive, I'll be surprised and a little scared, but really happy.  If it's negative, I'll be relieved to know and happy.  I bought this (holding up a bottle of non-alcoholic sparkly drink) so we can celebrate either way."

I did the pee on the stick routine, waited for an impossibly long three minutes, and got the results.

I'm not pregnant.

A Year Later

It's been a year now.  It's been a whole year since losing my baby in an ectopic pregnancy.

In some ways, it still seems so raw a wound.  I can think about him unexpectedly and get swaddled in grief for the baby that I didn't get to hold.  I can't help but wonder "what if" at times.  He'd be walking by now.  A year later and it's still hard.

At the same time, the past year has brought more joy than I ever could have anticipated.  I'm holding my beautiful healthy baby boy as I type, and now my family feels complete.  I've found peace and a certain level of acceptance if not understanding.

I have learned so much from each of my four children, including the one who's gone.  One of the things that he taught me is hope.

Breastfeeding

There seem to be debates all over the place about breast versus bottle feeding.  I've seen mothers who proclaim "breast if best" as if it is a battle cry rather than a way to care for your children.  The new thing seems to be the term "full term" breastfeeding, which--as far as I've been exposed to it--seems to imply that you're cheating your child if you don't breastfeed them for two whole years. 

Likewise there are those who don't want to be judged for not breastfeeding.  Some people medically can't (like an epileptic friend of mine who is not allowed to breastfeed her baby because of her medications), some people have other reasons for not breastfeeding.  The two groups seem to clash a lot on parenting forums, etc.

I don't want to make this all political or start a fight.  I just feel like a should post about feeding my baby.

Little Boss is still completely breastfed.  Both of his big sisters were exclusively breastfed until six months (Angel did start getting some bottles of expressed milk at around five months).  I plan on exclusively breastfeeding Little Boss until he's six months and can start a few solids.  After that, we'll see what happens. 

I believe in baby-led weaning, meaning that he'll slowly stop breastfeeding as he loses interest in it.  Princess completely stopped breastfeeding around her first birthday.  She went down to just a feed before bed at night, and the nights she fed became more and more infrequent until she stopped.  Angel stopped when she was seven months.  Once she started having bottles and sippy cups and real food, she lost interest in breastfeeding.

For me, breastfeeding has always been a very natural thing.  I fed my babies as soon as possible after they were born.  With Little Boss, I fed him in the private recovery room as soon after the section as I could trust myself to hold him.  He rooted around for a few minutes, bobbing his head around looking for milk.  His little newborn head looked so tiny next to my huge milk-filled breast.  There's no denying that, health wise, breastfeeding really is best for both of us.  It's also best psychologically for me.  It gives me a quiet time to cuddle him, to be forced to sit still and just enjoy holding my baby.  I find breastfeeding easy, and definitely less hassle than sterilizing bottles, making formula, etc. 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know new parents are supposed to be sleep deprived zombies.  People with little babies are supposed to complain about how tired they are and be in a twilight zone of night-time feeds and diaper changes.

The thing is...I'm not.

I can remember being exhausted at times when Princess and Angel were babies.  I know that times will come when Little Boss will keep me up all night (we still have teething to look forward to, after all).  Right now, though, I'm pretty spoiled.  Little Boss is a star sleeper.

He's two months old now.  For awhile now we've had a pretty good routine where he'd go to sleep between 9 and 10.  At midnight (about the time I've been going to sleep) I give him a feed.  Then he sleeps until 5 am.  At that point he gets another drink of milk and then goes back to sleep for another couple of hours before waking up for the day.

Last night he dropped the 5:00 feed.  My two-month-old slept for seven straight hours through the night.  I fed him at 7:00, then he went back to sleep until about 9:00.

I'm the luckiest parent alive right now.

In addition to luck, I'm a firm believer in bedtime routines and cluster feeding before bed.

A Story About Poo

Sadly this is a story about Poo as in excrement and not Pooh as in the cute bear who likes honey.

Early the other morning the little boss woke up hungry.  He normally wakes up for a feed between 5:00 and 5:30, so it wasn't anything out of the ordinary.  I fed him, and then my husband volunteered to burp and change him.  It's turning into a lovely, early morning family moment.

Then he decides to just change him on the bed.  So he starts changing him.  Midway through changing, Little Boss starts to poo.  I mean serious poo.  It squirts everywhere.  You might think from little tiny baby nappies that this wouldn't make much of a mess.  You would be wrong.

Poo ended up on Little Boss and his clothes, all over our bedding (including pillows), all down my husband's arm and side, on my book, on the nursing cushion...  Every time we thought that we'd cleaned it all up, we'd find something else with baby poo on it.

Sometimes baby's are just the most adorable thing on the planet.  Sometimes they're the most disgusting things on the planet.  And sometimes they manage to be both at once.

Just in case you wanted a story about the other type of Pooh, I'll throw that in too.

Princess and Angel both have Winnie the Pooh teddy bears.  In fact, I think they have multiple Pooh bears and most of the rest of the Hundred Acre Wood as well.  As Little Boss was napping (having worn himself out pooing all over our bedroom), Angel tip-toed up to his bed carrying a small Winnie the Pooh teddy.  Very carefully she laid it in bed next to him and then tucked them both in with a baby blanket.  She noticed me as she was tip-toeing away again.  "I'm sharing my teddy," she said, "I love my brother."

As Winnie the Pooh put it, "Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."   

Little Hands

What is it about little baby hands? 

I love looking at my newborn's hands.  They are so small, but perfectly formed.  He has long fingers-just like his daddy's.  As he's still a newborn, he moves his hands around a lot without having real control over them.  Sometimes he'll punch himself in the eye and then glare at his hand as if to say "What did you do that for?".  To his sister Angel's delight, he wriggles sometimes so that it looks like he's waving at us.  The Little Boss also likes to grab onto my clothes when he's breastfeeding.

The one thing that he does have control over is holding hands.  He likes to hold hands...only he's so small that it's not really holding hands.  It takes his whole hand to hold on to one of my fingers.  In fact, when he was first born he gripped on to one of daddy's fingers and held on with surprising strength.  He likes to fall asleep in my lap or on my chest clinging on to one of my fingers.  I think it makes him feel secure being able to hold on to us.