Pregnancy Update - 36 weeks - Little Man 2

I’m at 36 weeks now. I can’t believe that I haven’t written an update in 11 weeks (well, I can, I am a procrastinator and have been pretty busy, but still). I am getting huge. I thought I was huge 11 weeks ago but I was wrong. I forgot just how huge I can get. I went shopping with my sister the other day and she started giggling when I picked up a watermelon. She said my belly was bigger than the watermelon :).

What do you think? Which is bigger?

According to my weekly pregnancy email Little Man 2 is the size of honeydew now, around 18 inches long (that is a big honeydew :)). It also said that at this point if Little Man 2 was born he would almost definitely be fine. He may have some time in the NICU but long term there is no discernible difference between babies born full term and babies born between 34 and 37 weeks. This is not to say that I am ready to give birth now (although part of me is), I am not planning to be induced early, but it does calm some worries if Little Man 2 decides to make an early entrance.

The reason I was worried about that is because we had some excitement a few weeks ago. One night I started having contractions and I had 7-10 of them in an hour and they were getting more intense and painful. I was only 33 weeks along at that point and we worried that I was going into preterm labor. I called the afterhours dr and she said to come in and get checked out. We went into labor and delivery and got hooked up to the monitors and such. The contractions started slowing down which was good. The nurse did a pelvic exam and found that my cervix was still really high and I was not dilated. So we knew that the contractions were just Braxton hicks. They also did a couple of labs to see if they could find what was causing the contractions. One lab was a swab test that told if I was going to go into labor in the next couple weeks, it came back negative. The other was a urine sample to see if I had a UTI, that one came back positive. The nurse said that UTIs and even sometimes just a full bladder can cause contractions. She said that for their preterm labor moms if they start having contractions they tell them to empty their bladder (a good tip for any pregnant mommies out there having early contractions). It ended with them sending me home with a prescription for an antibiotic and a plan for me to come back for my regular appt 1.5 weeks later.

Last week was my regular appt. I had still been having contractions fairly regularly and some period like cramping so I mentioned it to my dr. She thought that I still have the UTI, the first round of antibiotics didn’t clear it up, so she gave me a prescription for another one. I also asked her if I can take probiotics when pregnant and she said yes, it is safe (I figured that I could, but the bottle says ask your dr so I did). I have heard that taking probiotics after you go through antibiotics helps restore good gut health so I thought this might help when I am done with the antibiotics (Antibiotics wipe out all bacteria in your system, probiotics put good bacteria in your system). Otherwise everything looked good at the appt, nice low blood pressure (thank you Yahweh!), baby growing well, good heartbeat, head down. All in all a good appt. I am to the point where I will have appts every week until I give birth so I had another appt this week and they will check to see if the infection has cleared up then.

I think that sleep at this stage of pregnancy is sorta a cruel joke. You only have a few more weeks to sleep before you will be up with a newborn every few hours, so you really need your sleep. But of course you can’t because you are huge, and uncomfortable, and in pain, and have to pee every few hours. And for some reason several nights this week I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep for 1 or more hours. Last night was better, but some nights are pretty miserable.

My back hurts a lot especially after a contraction. I hope that is not a sign that I will have back labor this time (I was thankfully able to avoid that last time).

I feel like this pregnancy has been a lot more “normal” (it is following what the books say more). With Little Man 1 I had all sorts of random side problems like high blood pressure, a lot of hip pain, and almost constant illness (I had a cold, flu, or infection going on almost every week of the pregnancy). And not all of the pain and illness went away after I gave birth. I was in physical therapy for several months for my hips after I gave birth, I actually only stopped physical therapy because I got pregnant again and I needed to save some physical therapy allotments in case I need it again this time. This time I have been having the heat flashes, and Braxton hicks, and discomfort that the books talk about. I am still trying to figure out which type of pregnancy is worse. I think I have figured out that I am not one of those people that enjoys pregnancy. I thought I might be before I got pregnant the first time, but I was wrong. But the end product is so worth it. I wouldn’t trade Little Man for the world, and I know I’ll feel that way about this little one too.

I was convicted on Sunday that I need to be more thankful for my children. I have been so uncomfortable lately with this pregnancy and I didn’t really feel like I had a choice about being pregnant this time (God sometimes has different ideas about when we should have children than we do :)) so I haven’t been thankful that God has given me these children. I know that I would be very sad and desperately wanting children if I didn’t have them (I have always been a kid person and had always wanted to have children) so I need to be thankful that God gave them to me.

My belly button has started to come out. I have an extremely stubborn innie belly button. With Little Man 1 it never popped, it never even came close, it never got flat, it was still a deep innie belly button the whole 38 weeks. It did come out quite a ways, but it was still really deep. This time it is starting to pop out. So far it is mostly the top of the belly button, but the whole thing is getting squishier and shallower. We’ll see, maybe it will come out yet :).

The nausea still comes occasionally. And food aversions are still pretty strong. Most of the time I am hungry but don’t want anything that I can think of. I generally have to just make something that I know I will be able to stand and then just eat it. This kinda reminds me of the first trimester (although the first trimester was worse). In the first trimester I would make food and not think about eating it until I was eating it. I literally had to tell myself “I am not going to eat this food, I am just preparing it” and I would keep telling myself that until it was eaten :). This is not as bad, but I still don’t really want food. Although Little Man’s tuna sandwiches smell good so I often have those or peanut butter and jelly.

My hips and back hurt a lot especially after a contraction and it makes it very difficult to find a comfortable position for sitting or laying, and I don’t have the energy to stand for very long, so I am just uncomfortable most of the time.

I bought a pregnancy pillow for $15 off of a local garage sale site. I tried a pregnancy pillow with Little Man 1 and it was so horrible that I promised myself that I wouldn’t do that again. But when I found this one for only $15 (great price!) and it was a different shape than the last one I bought I decided to give it another try. I am very glad I did, it has taken some work to get it to work right, but it is better than it was. At first I tried sleeping with just the pillow but the neck part is uncomfortable on my neck and by the 3^rd night sleeping with it I was waking up frequently because of discomfort. So I started switching back and forth – 2 nights with pregnancy pillow, 2 nights with other pillows. That worked for a while but it is a pain to constantly switch pillows. So then I tried turning the pregnancy pillow over so the head part is under my legs, and using my regular head pillow under my head. This has been working for me so far. I have had to add 2 couch pillows under my legs to keep my hips from screaming, but it works. Hopefully it will keep working for a couple more weeks.

I have been craving roast beef with mashed potatoes and all the wonderful comfort food sides. I can totally cook that, but it takes a decent amount of work. So when Mr. Random asked me where I wanted to eat on our date last week I asked to go to cracker barrel. They have a roast beef dinner with 3 sides and biscuits. It was soo good. But their portion sizes are kinda small so I think that I will try to make it myself instead of going there again soon. $10 for only one meal is expensive, for that price we usually at least have leftovers so it is 2 meals.

I am extremely susceptible to food in movies and tv shows so now I am craving chocolate chip cookies and candy bars (I also have a big sweet tooth in pregnancy). I told Mr. Random last night that he is lucky that I am not one of the pregnant ladies who sends him out to buy everything that I crave. I am too frugal for that, but I don’t turn down an occasional treat when offered :)

I have been having hot flashes and just overall being warmer than usual. With Little Man 1 I never really had that problem, I am pretty sure it is because my thyroid was out of whack and we didn’t know it. My hands and feet have become little heaters. If I press my palms together I feel like I am burning up. When I am having a hot flash Mr. Random can’t stand to have my hands touching him because they are so hot. Is this normal? I have no idea.

I am calculating that I have 2-4 more weeks to go. Little Man 1 came 2 weeks and 1 day early and they say second babies come quicker than first babies so here’s praying that Little Man 2 doesn’t decide to go overdue.

Let's Talk - About Breastfeeding - It Hurts!

I have been wanting to start this series for a while. It has been on my heart to share some of my experiences with you so that maybe I can help some of you. Some of these experiences were easy and will be lighthearted posts simply sharing some tips and tricks with you. Some of these experiences were hard and will be more deep sharing. I will try to be open and honest because I know that that will help the most people. I will try to give you as many details as I can remember, some of these experiences happened over a year ago. I would also like to hear your experiences. I would love for this to be a safe place to open up and share our stories.

For some reason feeding Little Man has been one of the hardest things that I have had to deal with as a mother so far. (And for some reason I am just the type of person to chose my hardest experience to share with you first :) And yes I do have some tips for you and I will give you hope too.

When I was pregnant I did a decent amount of research on breastfeeding. I knew that was the route that I wanted to go. I was totally convinced that breastfeeding was the only way to go (and I admit shamefully I was judgmental about those who chose not to. Yes, I have changed that view, I still think that breastfeeding is best and it would be best if women would at least try it, but I do understand what would make a woman give up on it). So, with that research, I thought I knew what I was in for. It seemed that yes, some women simply are not capable of breastfeeding for various reasons, but for those who are it is fairly natural. Yes I read some articles and such that said that breastfeeding can be hard, and it is not easy for most moms and babies, that it takes some work and it is something you have to learn to do. But I don't think that those articles correctly expressed exactly how hard breastfeeding can be. They made it sound like if you just work at it you will get it and it will become easy (yes that is true in my case, but just work on it makes it sound quick and easy, it wasn't.).

In the hospital when I first tried breastfeeding I had the had the hardest time getting Little Man to latch. No, that doesn't describe it correctly. I could not get him to latch. I would get him up there and he would suck for like 1 second and then fall off again. The few times he would stay on he would fall asleep almost immediately. So like I was told in the articles I asked for the lactation Consultant, knowing that that should just solve everything (or so I was told). The Consultant eventually showed up about the third or fourth attempt at feeding. She showed me a few techniques and basically forced Little Man to latch and it worked! (well he ate for a few more seconds at a time and she helped put him back on when he fell off). I thought my problems were solved. I tried again later without her and found that in order to implement her tips I would have needed at least 3 hands. So I kept trying on my own for a while but most of the time I just ended up asking one of the nurses to help me. So I finally got fed up and asked for her to come back again the next day.

When she came back I asked more pointed questions and asked her to tell me what to do instead of just doing it herself, so I could learn to do it with just the 2 hands I had. I knew that I needed to learn to do it on my own because I wouldn't always have helpful nurses around to provide the 3rd and 4th hand. The lactation consultant (LC) gave me some more tips and tricks which didn't really work, so I was starting to get discouraged. One of the things I asked was for them to watch to see if he was latching correctly the few times he did latch. Because when he was eating it hurt a lot. Everyone (the articles and the LC) kept saying that if I was doing it correctly it shouldn't hurt, just a tugging sensation, and maybe a little soreness as I was getting used to it. So I figured I must be doing it wrong since I was experiencing A LOT of pain. After watching for a while they said that the latch was correct. So what I learned from that is no matter what they say breastfeeding can hurt even if he is latched correctly. I kept trying at the hospital, and never did get it exactly right, but I thought I had it figured out enough that with practice I would get it. I was wrong.

I am not sure I can accurately describe how hard those first months were. I knew that breastfeeding was best for little man, and I really wanted to give him the best. But it was hard. I hated breastfeeding. Not just didn't like it, or didn't care for it, I hated it. It hurt a lot every single time. I was so sore and bruised. I was feeding him every three hours even over night so the bruises never had a chance to heal. It would hurt from the moment he latched on. And the hurt never really went away, it just dulled when he wasn't eating. I was daydreaming daily about stopping and just giving him a bottle. And I mean every day, every feeding, every time I thought about feeding. I honestly was not sure the breastfeeding would make it through the first month, or the second. I only made it by sheer willpower and God. I took it one feeding at a time. I told myself that I would make it through that feeding, that was it. I did that every single feeding.

Another thing that was hard those first months was the sheer amount of time consumed by feedings. Little Man would take a minimum of 1 hour every feeding (minimum, meaning sometimes he would eat for 1.5 to 2 hours). And like I said I was getting him up to feed him every 3 hours, so literally 1/3 of my life was spent feeding him. I simply could not keep him awake while I was feeding him. The "experts" (articles) advice for this was to just force him to stay awake. They gave all sorts of tips and tricks to keep a baby awake, and trust me I tried all of them. I did the wet washcloth, running my finger up his spine (that worked the best for me), talking to him, etc. It all worked, for less than a second, then he would go to sleep again. I would have to sit there running my finger up and down his spine (or whatever trick I was doing) to get him to eat very much in a row, and eventually he would become desensitized and sleep through even that. I was doing everything I could and it was not working, so I gave up and just read or watched tv while I fed him so that I could at least bear it and tried not to fall asleep (it didn't always work).

I tried everything I could think of those first months to try to make things better. I really wanted to succeed at breastfeeding. I tried smothering on lanolin and using breast pads for the pain. I tried everything I could to keep him awake. Nothing was working and I was losing willpower, it was just too painful. I even thought about just pumping and feeding that to him (because at that point pumping was less painful) but that took even more time because the pumping took an hour and then he would take forever eating it, and I wasn't producing enough when pumping so i would have had to supplement anyways. At some point I broke down and bought a nipple shield. I had read about them and had asked the LC at the hospital about them but she said that it was only for people who had a specific problem (I don't remember what, it was over a year ago) and that if I started he might get addicted and not be able to feed without it and I would have to wean him off it. So I tried going without it. But I finally decided to try it. I figured if it saved breastfeeding it was worth it.

And I was right, it was worth it! I think that one little device saved breastfeeding for me. And Little Man didn't get addicted to it, I did. It didn't take the pain away completely, but it masked it a lot. I stopped getting bruises, and as Little Man slept a little longer at night they started healing. I found that I could make it through. I still daydreamed about switching to formula, but it was less often. And as little man was getting older he started staying awake longer which meant eventually feeding took less time (that took several months, but it did happen eventually, by the time he was a year old he only took about 15 minutes to eat).

After things got better with the nipple shield I had some hope, but I was still worried about Little Man. I was worried because after doing some research I found that the nipple shield caused a decrease in lactation and my milk supply could go down. I was worried because I wasn't sure if Little Man was getting enough food. And I was really worried because Little Man was slow in gaining weight. I did go to the dr. but they were just monitoring it, they wanted to wait a little while to see if I needed to supplement. So after a while I went back to the LC. One of my friends had told me that the LC could weigh Little Man before and after the feeding to find out exactly how much he ate. And I wanted her to show me again how to feed Little Man without the nipple shield since everything seemed to be saying that I would have to learn that eventually.

Going to the LC was a great decision! It was a different one than the one who helped me in the hospital and this one was way more helpful. She did weigh him before and after the feeding and that gave me the reassurance that he was getting enough food. She also gave me the wonderful news that I could continue using the nipple shield the entire time he was breastfeeding as long as I pumped 3 times a day too. She also gave me several tips and helped me feed him without the shield and without pain for the first (and only) time. I tried what she showed me later at home and found out that what I was doing there didn't work at home with any of the furniture I had. So most of that didn't help, but like I said it was worth it for the reassurance and finding out I could keep using the shield.

She did help me realize a few things about Little Man's eating style. He was a lazy nurser, he was trying to suck like he would with a spaghetti noodle instead of the chewing sucks he was supposed to be doing. He also had a tendency to pull his lips in, they were supposed to be spread wide like a fish. She helped me work with him on both of those. That helped sometimes, but I sometimes got lazy and let him nurse how he wanted. If it hurt a lot I would change it but most of the time it was just easier to let him eat. That part was my fault, I was lazy. If you want you can do better on that than I did. It is possible that if I worked harder it might not have hurt after that, I don't know for sure, but it is possible.

So learning that I could continue using the nipple shield the entire time I was nursing, and that Little Man getting enough food made it a lot easier because I didn't have those things to worry about. It still hurt, but the pain was bearable. It was generally just a dull ache with an occasional sharper pain. And as Little Man was staying awake longer and getting the hang of nursing better, the time factor also got better. Little Man was a champion sleeper and was sleeping through the night by 7 weeks old (he probably would have earlier but I was getting him up on a schedule for the first several weeks in order to establish nursing well) so I was finally getting sleep and didn't have to sleep as much during the day. And he reduced the time he took to eat also. By 6 months it took an average of 1/2 hour (It may have been earlier, I don't remember exactly). I think he went down to 15 minutes of eating somewhere around 9 months. Let me tell you having time in my day again was amazing!

As nursing got easier I stopped hating it. I stopped having daydreams about formula after those first couple months. By 6 months I couldn't imagine stopping, I didn't really see the point. I had worked so hard to get to that point, there was no way I was giving up just when it got easy. And I managed to make it to 1 year! We had kinda a mutual weaning that started about soon after his birthday. So I did it, I succeeded! I made it to 1 year (that had been my original goal, before all the difficulty)! It was a hard long journey, but I did it!

So I made it, but at what cost? I don't mean at the end. It was easy by then. The hardest thing then was just the inconvenience of trying to nurse a squirming 1 year old (which is extremely difficult in public, trust me). What was the cost at the beginning? I couldn't enjoy my first few months with my son. Instead of enjoying the cuddle time I was wincing in pain and wishing I could give him a bottle. Would I do it again, knowing what I know now? Probably, because I know about the nipple shield now. I know I can use it from the beginning if I need to. I don't have to just sit there in pain. I will probably start off without it to see how it goes, but have it with me just in case. If it is as bad as it was last time even with the shield I don't know what I will do. Maybe I will keep going, maybe I will switch to formula, maybe I will pump and supplement, we'll see. But whatever I end up doing will be a win because I tried, and because the baby would still be getting good food.


So what's your story? What was your goal? Did you make it? Was it hard for you? Did it hurt? Would  you do it again?


* I am not saying that it will work this way for everyone, or that everyone should even try. I would love to have you comment and leave your story, but I hope that you will be nice and respectful, and take this as it was meant to be - an open sharing of my story, not a judgement or even a comment about you. Negative comments against me or any of the previous commenters will not be published so please don't take the time to write them.

Linked Up To:
The Frugal Girls, Monday Funday, Cornerstone Confessions, Blissful and Domestic, The Thriftiness Miss, While He Was Napping,

My Response to God in the Storm (#response)

Sometimes you think you have things planned. You think that you know what you are going to do and when. You think that you know what will happen the next day. Then life comes along and tells you otherwise. This week was exactly like that. Sunday night at midnight we went to the emergency room. Don't worry we are fine, it just turned out to be a new facet of the same issues that we have been dealing with but we didn't find that out until we had been there for over 3 hours. We didn't get home until around 4 so we didn't get a ton of sleep that night. We spent Monday recovering from the log night and we didn't get a lot done. The rest of the week went by in a busy fashion in which I didn't get done very much of the stuff I wanted to get done. Oh and Thursday I had to run errands because we were out of things and it was the hottest day that we have had this year (over 100 degrees). Then Friday was a whopper. Mr. Random got off work early so we would have some time to spend together before my sleep study that night. Well not to long after he got home a huge storm came up. I think this was one of the worst storms that I have ever seen. I heard that the winds got up to 80-90 mph. These horrible winds knocked down many things including tree limbs (and some whole trees) and power lines/poles. So about half of our surrounding area lost power. We were one of the unfortunates who lost power, and we have well water (which unlike city water you need electricity for because it has to be pumped out of the ground) so we also didn't have water. And our stove is electric so nothing to cook with, and we didn't want to open the fridge or freezers because we didn't want to let the cold air out so nothing to cook anyways. And of course no power means no air conditioning and not even fans and like I said it was 100 on Thursday, and Friday was somewhere in the 90s ad the rest of this weekend was somewhere up there too. The storm cooled it down a little bit but it shot back up pretty fast. Yeah, it was pretty crazy, but we all lived through it so God is Good!

Well like I said Friday night I was supposed to have a sleep study so after calling and finding out that the center still had power and was still doing the studies that night we decided that I should go ahead and go (it was going to be inconvenient any night). So I slept in relative comfort in a nice air conditioned room (and had some of the best sleep of my life because of a wonderful cpap machine, but more about that in another post) but poor Mr. Random and Little Man slept in our not air conditioned house. Little Man's room stays the coolest in the house, so he was comfortable ad slept well, but Mr. Random said he was miserably hot all night and didn't sleep well. So we set up to sleep at our church on Saturday night because it had electricity. We were worried about sleeping in the same room as Little Man because we might keep each other up, but it turned out fine, except he didn't nap well during the day. We were invited to lunch by some wonderful friends from church and when we got home around 2:30 our power was back on! We are not entirely certain when it came back on but we were so glad it was on and we could stay home! And as far as we can tell our food isn't even spoiled (most of it). So yay, God is Good! In all of this craziness God showed up ad took care of us and we are fine. Thank you God for protecting us and taking care of us in the big and small things!

Today our pastor's sermon was about our response to God and he encouraged us to write, or draw, or do something in response to God today (and he wanted us to put in #response). So this is my response.

Thank you God! Thank you for being there for us, for taking care of us! I love you for your power and goodness. I love seeing how you work in our lives! Thank you for my life, and my husband and precious baby. I have so much to thank you for I should never complain. I am sorry for complaining. Please help me remember all of the good and not dwell on the bad. Thank you so much!

How have you seen God working this week? What is your response to him this week?


Linked Up To:
Clean and Scentsible, Uncommon, Cornerstone Confessions, A Pinch of Joy, My Favorite Finds, Shaken Together, Serendipity and Spice, Nap Time Crafters, Frugal Girls, While He Was Napping,

The posts are coming, the posts are coming!

It has been a little while since I posted. There is a reason for this. My last two weeks have been a crazy busy mish-mash of doctor appointments, shower planning, great book reading, and family/friend events. I have so many great post ideas from all of this, I just need to find time to write up the posts. I am hoping to get most of them written/posted in the next several weeks.
Some great posts to keep your eyes out for:
How to Survive and MRI
What to expect at a sleep study
Nutella Brownies with Cream Cheese Frosting
Coffee Punch
Coffeeshop themed bridal Shower
Coffee themed present
DIY Towel Cake
DIY Flavored Water
What to do with party leftovers
Awesome DVD organizer
Great Fairy Tale Retellings to Read
and much more!

Like I said, tons of ideas! Just have to find time to write!