Before having Dagney and well really before being pregnant I use to like cleaning and having a nice tidied, organized, clean living place and I did of course while I was pregnant too, but morning sickness in the first trimester put that on a hault and then as I got bigger and bigger it was harder for me to do things. It actually started to make me feel depressed and still does. Of course with having a child you lack certain things in certain departments and cleaning is one of them.
I don't have time to clean and I hate it!! Dagney is very needy and HATES when I leave his side. Yes, he is going through the usual seperation anxiety they go through around 5-6 months. I just hope he gets out of it in the next few months or else I am going to have a hard time doing anything at all. It's probably bad, but he goes pee with me, does pretty much everything with me just so he doesn't cry and whine. I know it's probably bad giving into him, but I can't stand him crying nor do I want to neglect him when he wants me. He is only little for once and he needs me even if he is with me all the time. Now maybe if I wasn't pumping all the time I would have some more time to clean to who really knows? Maybe it is just me but I find it does take away from my time with him too. We do sit on the ground together and interact while I have the pump going just so I am not totally not available to him. I do feel guilty though.
Anyways, I can not wait to be able to clean properly again. Even if it doesn't stay clean for long at least I was able to get my cleaning out of my system for that day. lol
One day I will be able to clean again.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
How I find motherhood so far.
For the past couple of days or even weeks for that matter I have been wanting to blog more but I either don't have enough time, am so exhausted I can barely keep my eyes open to watch a simple show with my husband, Dustin or I am just too lazy. Actually I think it's probably a combination of all three.
There is actually quite a lot of different topics I want to blog about, but I seem to feel so overwhelemed by all the topics that I don't even know where to begin or I just don't even want to bother. I think that is where the laziness comes into play. Well I guess the only way I can get anything out is starting from one topic to the next, right?
How about we start with motherhood and what I did and did not expect, which I think there is a lot more of what I did not expect then there was what I did. How sad is that?
Way before Dagney was even conceived I was holding back on jumping the gun and trying to conceive, because well lets face it I had major baby and pregnancy fever. I new the things I wanted from a home birth, cloth diapering, breastfeeding and being under the care of midwives, but the couple things that were holding us back were how big how living arragnments were, our income, my knee surgeries and saving money to be able to afford the baby items we needed to purchase. 2009 rolled around and we decided to get married and as we got married trying to conceive started. We were having problems in that department(Great! NOT!) with myself not being able to ovulate but with the help of some herbs(Vitex) it jump started my body into producing the neccesary hormones to make me ovulate and sustain a pregnancy. We conceive November 2009, with a estimated due date in August of 2010! How awesome was that? We hoped for a summer baby and even more better our or well my favourite month of the year.
So going through pregnancy was a new thing for me, obviously since I hadn't been pregnant before and was I ever in for a big surprise. Not only did I constantly have people giving me tons of advice I also had a few friends and a family member drop out of my life. I think mostly my doing. No I did not scare them away, well I kind of did with one friend, but I removed them I guess you could say. Oh and lets not forget the constant comments to me about getting an epidural! People made me feel so dumb that I obviously had no idea that there was pain involved with childbirth. Geez, if every woman walked around on this planet thinking they wouldn't go through that much pain while giving birth to a baby we probably would have two times the amount of people earth, but we don't. I new there was going to be pain, a lot of it for a matter of fact. I obviously didn't know how much because like I said before this was my first child so I had no idea what to expect, but I new I was going to be having loads of pain. Anyways, I wanted to have a home birth and I did, but I wanted to do it drug free and all natural. Thats how I like living life. Doing things natural and the way mother earth intended things to be. I wanted the best start for my child and I didn't want to put those things through him(Go figure he would then need antibiotics and formula while in the nicu). So I new there was going to be pain, but I had no idea how much. By the end of my pregnancy I was becoming more and more anxious and scared at the fact that I might not be able to handle birth and the pain, want to transfer to the hospital so I could get some sort of drug to help. Well I guess I not only proved everyone that was badgering me to get the epidural but myself too. I was able to manage just fine and birthed my 9lb 13 oz baby boy! Yes, he was a chunker! hahaha
So jumping right into motherhood. I new life would change, but (excuse my language) HOLY SHIT did they ever change and I was so not expecting it. I can honestly say I was selfish before having a child and I think most people are. We all take for granted how much time and energy we have on our hands. I now do eveyrthing for my son. Eating, going to the washroom, showering, watching tv, talking on the phone, chores, being social, etc ALL come last. I found I need to juggle and prioritize better which is a big learning thing for me. I use to be able to do it, but your skills are put to the test. Most of the time I barely get one chore done in a day which is sad, but I think that mostly has to do with having a very needy son and I pump breast milk anywhere from 5-8 times a day, which by the way I am looking forward to the day when I can no longer pump. Don't get me wrong I love the idea that he is getting breast milk and less formula and all the good stuff that comes a long with it, but it also is very time consuming.
And lets not forget the amount of sleep you don't get. I new in the very beginning when you have a newborn you are up a lot with them to feed, change and comfort them and then once they start to get older they start to sleep a little better. Now if you have a child like how Dagney is who fights sleep, is a huge cat napper and wakes up A LOT through out the night them sleep is non existant in your life. No joke! Dagney goes to be anywhere from 7-8pm and will wake anywhere from 2-6 time by the time his next feeding around 11pm-12am rolls around. You feed him, sometime he will go back to sleep right away OR he will fuss, have a hard time falling back to sleep and you are stuck with a cranky tired child trying to help him get back to sleep which can take up to an hour sometimes. then get up once before the next feeding which is 3 hours after the last and repeat until around 5am when the fussing and restlessness start until he wakes fully at 7am. Yes, I get LOTS of sleep, NOT! It is VERY exhausting to say the least. Seriously lack of sleep puts my ability to be a mom, a wife and a living human being to the test. If it's not bad enough I am struggling with my postpartum depression I have to deal with lack of sleep too. I get very snappy, bitchy, rude, emotional, cry a lot, no motivation, defeated, frustrated and no patience when I am not getting sleep. I cry every day think about running away or jumping off our balcony which by the way I know is not good, but what can you do. I honestly say sometimes I have no idea why I decided to have a child. I don't even want to think or say that, but when you only get 4-5 hours of broken sleep a night and are seriously exhausted every single day you start to think some crazy stuff.
Lets also not forget your relationship with your significant other too. Sleep comes into play with your relationship too. If you aren't getting enough sleep you turn into how I have and your relationship gets stressed or worn thin. It's not done purposely or anything but it for sure tests the limits on both partners. I know I sometimes wonder when will my husband, Dustin run away from me? I feel so horrible for him with how I am sometimes. He is such a great guy and I love him to death for being so patient with me.
What about no social life, you can't just get up and do whatever with who ever. You have to find a babysitter and plan to go out. And its even worse if there is no one really you can go out with either.
I just miss my sleep and lack of freedom the most. Or being able to sit on the couch in the afternoon and watch some shows or a movie. Have a nap if I wanted to. Join the gym and go, go out with Dustin and enjoy some time to ourselves. I for sure took the time to ourselves part for granted. I wished I had cherished and appreciated it a little more. Also I have found the more I go through the motherhood journey I think more and more about the lack of things I had growing up and wonder how come I never was able to have them and thats a struggle for me I guess. BUT I am now able to create some of those things I wasn't able to have for Dagney's life. There are so many things I want to do that I never got to do as a child. But I never in my wildest dream would have thought that would all pop up and give me some struggles. Nor did I think my sexual abuse would either. It didn't help with my breastfeeding experience nor has it helped with my own fears and worries with it and it possibly happening with Dagney. I am having a hard time trusting people with him alone other then Dustin. Lets just say motherhood is a whole life long worry and it never stops! haha
So all I have been talking about is pretty much some of the negatives I guess you could say of motherhood so far, lets get to a few positive. I probably could write and write about all the positive, but I am getting tired and I don't want to write a novel.
The love you have for such a small person is amazing! It;s breathtaking and words seriously can not express how much love you have for your child. I never in a million years would have thought this is how I was going to love my child, nor did I think it was at all possible either. I new I would love him and I loved him while he was inside me punching and having the hiccups, but once he was born and I have been nurturing him, loving, him etc. it is such a different love like no other. It;s not even the same love you would have for your significant other, pet or even a family member. I wish every woman or man could experience this kind of love.
Also another thing, being proud of your child. I also never thought I would be so proud and happy about the little things they do. Even something simple as Dagney being interested in one of the couch pillows and banging on it makes me proud andhappy for him. I smile just watching him do anything really. His expressions he makes, his new milestones he achieves just everything he does makes me smile and get that butterfly feeling inside of me. I love him to the moon and back. He is my everything. I thrive for him and every decision, choice I make in my life it revolves around him. I want to be the best mother he has ever had and only has. I can not wait to watch him grow up into a young boy, teenager and then a man. See him succeed at things, learn from his mistakes, fall in love, see him enjoy new experiences and so on. Motherhood is such a wonderful journey I can not wait to go through the rest of it with him and any other children Dustin and I might end up having. Even though there are all those losses or negatives about becoming a mother, I wouldn't want any of my "old" life back.
I wish every woman and man could experience being a parent. Which will bring me to another topic of myself wanting to become a surrogate after we finish having children.
There is actually quite a lot of different topics I want to blog about, but I seem to feel so overwhelemed by all the topics that I don't even know where to begin or I just don't even want to bother. I think that is where the laziness comes into play. Well I guess the only way I can get anything out is starting from one topic to the next, right?
How about we start with motherhood and what I did and did not expect, which I think there is a lot more of what I did not expect then there was what I did. How sad is that?
Way before Dagney was even conceived I was holding back on jumping the gun and trying to conceive, because well lets face it I had major baby and pregnancy fever. I new the things I wanted from a home birth, cloth diapering, breastfeeding and being under the care of midwives, but the couple things that were holding us back were how big how living arragnments were, our income, my knee surgeries and saving money to be able to afford the baby items we needed to purchase. 2009 rolled around and we decided to get married and as we got married trying to conceive started. We were having problems in that department(Great! NOT!) with myself not being able to ovulate but with the help of some herbs(Vitex) it jump started my body into producing the neccesary hormones to make me ovulate and sustain a pregnancy. We conceive November 2009, with a estimated due date in August of 2010! How awesome was that? We hoped for a summer baby and even more better our or well my favourite month of the year.
So going through pregnancy was a new thing for me, obviously since I hadn't been pregnant before and was I ever in for a big surprise. Not only did I constantly have people giving me tons of advice I also had a few friends and a family member drop out of my life. I think mostly my doing. No I did not scare them away, well I kind of did with one friend, but I removed them I guess you could say. Oh and lets not forget the constant comments to me about getting an epidural! People made me feel so dumb that I obviously had no idea that there was pain involved with childbirth. Geez, if every woman walked around on this planet thinking they wouldn't go through that much pain while giving birth to a baby we probably would have two times the amount of people earth, but we don't. I new there was going to be pain, a lot of it for a matter of fact. I obviously didn't know how much because like I said before this was my first child so I had no idea what to expect, but I new I was going to be having loads of pain. Anyways, I wanted to have a home birth and I did, but I wanted to do it drug free and all natural. Thats how I like living life. Doing things natural and the way mother earth intended things to be. I wanted the best start for my child and I didn't want to put those things through him(Go figure he would then need antibiotics and formula while in the nicu). So I new there was going to be pain, but I had no idea how much. By the end of my pregnancy I was becoming more and more anxious and scared at the fact that I might not be able to handle birth and the pain, want to transfer to the hospital so I could get some sort of drug to help. Well I guess I not only proved everyone that was badgering me to get the epidural but myself too. I was able to manage just fine and birthed my 9lb 13 oz baby boy! Yes, he was a chunker! hahaha
So jumping right into motherhood. I new life would change, but (excuse my language) HOLY SHIT did they ever change and I was so not expecting it. I can honestly say I was selfish before having a child and I think most people are. We all take for granted how much time and energy we have on our hands. I now do eveyrthing for my son. Eating, going to the washroom, showering, watching tv, talking on the phone, chores, being social, etc ALL come last. I found I need to juggle and prioritize better which is a big learning thing for me. I use to be able to do it, but your skills are put to the test. Most of the time I barely get one chore done in a day which is sad, but I think that mostly has to do with having a very needy son and I pump breast milk anywhere from 5-8 times a day, which by the way I am looking forward to the day when I can no longer pump. Don't get me wrong I love the idea that he is getting breast milk and less formula and all the good stuff that comes a long with it, but it also is very time consuming.
And lets not forget the amount of sleep you don't get. I new in the very beginning when you have a newborn you are up a lot with them to feed, change and comfort them and then once they start to get older they start to sleep a little better. Now if you have a child like how Dagney is who fights sleep, is a huge cat napper and wakes up A LOT through out the night them sleep is non existant in your life. No joke! Dagney goes to be anywhere from 7-8pm and will wake anywhere from 2-6 time by the time his next feeding around 11pm-12am rolls around. You feed him, sometime he will go back to sleep right away OR he will fuss, have a hard time falling back to sleep and you are stuck with a cranky tired child trying to help him get back to sleep which can take up to an hour sometimes. then get up once before the next feeding which is 3 hours after the last and repeat until around 5am when the fussing and restlessness start until he wakes fully at 7am. Yes, I get LOTS of sleep, NOT! It is VERY exhausting to say the least. Seriously lack of sleep puts my ability to be a mom, a wife and a living human being to the test. If it's not bad enough I am struggling with my postpartum depression I have to deal with lack of sleep too. I get very snappy, bitchy, rude, emotional, cry a lot, no motivation, defeated, frustrated and no patience when I am not getting sleep. I cry every day think about running away or jumping off our balcony which by the way I know is not good, but what can you do. I honestly say sometimes I have no idea why I decided to have a child. I don't even want to think or say that, but when you only get 4-5 hours of broken sleep a night and are seriously exhausted every single day you start to think some crazy stuff.
Lets also not forget your relationship with your significant other too. Sleep comes into play with your relationship too. If you aren't getting enough sleep you turn into how I have and your relationship gets stressed or worn thin. It's not done purposely or anything but it for sure tests the limits on both partners. I know I sometimes wonder when will my husband, Dustin run away from me? I feel so horrible for him with how I am sometimes. He is such a great guy and I love him to death for being so patient with me.
What about no social life, you can't just get up and do whatever with who ever. You have to find a babysitter and plan to go out. And its even worse if there is no one really you can go out with either.
I just miss my sleep and lack of freedom the most. Or being able to sit on the couch in the afternoon and watch some shows or a movie. Have a nap if I wanted to. Join the gym and go, go out with Dustin and enjoy some time to ourselves. I for sure took the time to ourselves part for granted. I wished I had cherished and appreciated it a little more. Also I have found the more I go through the motherhood journey I think more and more about the lack of things I had growing up and wonder how come I never was able to have them and thats a struggle for me I guess. BUT I am now able to create some of those things I wasn't able to have for Dagney's life. There are so many things I want to do that I never got to do as a child. But I never in my wildest dream would have thought that would all pop up and give me some struggles. Nor did I think my sexual abuse would either. It didn't help with my breastfeeding experience nor has it helped with my own fears and worries with it and it possibly happening with Dagney. I am having a hard time trusting people with him alone other then Dustin. Lets just say motherhood is a whole life long worry and it never stops! haha
So all I have been talking about is pretty much some of the negatives I guess you could say of motherhood so far, lets get to a few positive. I probably could write and write about all the positive, but I am getting tired and I don't want to write a novel.
The love you have for such a small person is amazing! It;s breathtaking and words seriously can not express how much love you have for your child. I never in a million years would have thought this is how I was going to love my child, nor did I think it was at all possible either. I new I would love him and I loved him while he was inside me punching and having the hiccups, but once he was born and I have been nurturing him, loving, him etc. it is such a different love like no other. It;s not even the same love you would have for your significant other, pet or even a family member. I wish every woman or man could experience this kind of love.
Also another thing, being proud of your child. I also never thought I would be so proud and happy about the little things they do. Even something simple as Dagney being interested in one of the couch pillows and banging on it makes me proud andhappy for him. I smile just watching him do anything really. His expressions he makes, his new milestones he achieves just everything he does makes me smile and get that butterfly feeling inside of me. I love him to the moon and back. He is my everything. I thrive for him and every decision, choice I make in my life it revolves around him. I want to be the best mother he has ever had and only has. I can not wait to watch him grow up into a young boy, teenager and then a man. See him succeed at things, learn from his mistakes, fall in love, see him enjoy new experiences and so on. Motherhood is such a wonderful journey I can not wait to go through the rest of it with him and any other children Dustin and I might end up having. Even though there are all those losses or negatives about becoming a mother, I wouldn't want any of my "old" life back.
I wish every woman and man could experience being a parent. Which will bring me to another topic of myself wanting to become a surrogate after we finish having children.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Sleep, what is that?!
I thought getting such little sleep when Dagney was a newborn was bad, well him being 6 months and barely sleeping ever is even worse! I feel like a zombie most days and I am surprised I am actually still alive. Ever since 3 months old when he started on his new Neocate formula his sleeping schedule changed, he added in another feeding which is apparently normal when babies who have had GI tract problems and pain before are now able to eat without being in pain do. So I thought okay, in about a months time he will be out of it, yeah well I was wrong, very very very wrong. 4 months rolled around and he started the waking inbetween sleep cycles and then 5 months rolled around and he was waking even more, then now 6 months and he is waking himself even more with his added lets roll over in my sleep, get stuck and call for help from Mom to come rescue me. I just want to get the record straight I am not complaining about getting up to feed him 3 times a night, those are easy, its all the wake ups from when we put him down till 7am in the morning that are bugging the heck out of me and I barely get 2 hours of sleep in a row together.
When all these wake ups happen and I am overly tired, like zombie tired I start to become a major bitch and I snap so easily at Dustin. Dustin isn't doing anything wrong, but I some how manage to find something to bitch at him about and I am seriously afraid one of these days he is going to through his hands up in the air and leave me, because I will be too much to handle, which I wouldn't blame him to say the least, I barely can stand myself when I am like this.
So I am currently reading the No Cry Sleep Solution and I am hoping that it will give us some tips on how to get him to sleep a little better. I am not asking for a full 8 hours of sleep, but I really like at least 3-4 hours of sleep in a row so I can get at least some REM cycles in there. We will see. I was reading that napping or lack there of can contribute to the amount of wakening he has through out the night, which I highly agree. Dagney will nap anywhere from 20-40 minutes twice a day. He has totally taken out his third nap now and only has two. I don't mind, because its less work for me to get him to sleep. But she talks about sitting with them while they sleep and when they switch sleep cycles to get them back to sleep however they like to be soothed. So today for his morning nap I let him sleep for 20 minutes while I pumped then I went in there and sat beside him and sure enough when he switched cycles he woke up and I shoved his soother back in his mouth. It worked the 3 times he woke up and sure enough instead of a 40 minute nap he had about an hours length of one. I haven't read ALL the way through the chapter yet, but I know you are suppose to do this for a week and they will start to be able to switch through their sleep cycles on their own and fall back to sleep on there own. So once he starts to get more sleep during the day hopefully it will help at night time.
A friend of mine, Francesca had mentioned to me that her eldest daughter didn't start sleeping through the night(baby sleeping through the night which is 5-6 hours) until 10 months so there is still hope to get some sleep, but I have to some how survive until he is 10 months. Oh goodness! 4 more months to go I guess.
Anyways, it is a start to something hopefully good. We both need and deserve sleep.
When all these wake ups happen and I am overly tired, like zombie tired I start to become a major bitch and I snap so easily at Dustin. Dustin isn't doing anything wrong, but I some how manage to find something to bitch at him about and I am seriously afraid one of these days he is going to through his hands up in the air and leave me, because I will be too much to handle, which I wouldn't blame him to say the least, I barely can stand myself when I am like this.
So I am currently reading the No Cry Sleep Solution and I am hoping that it will give us some tips on how to get him to sleep a little better. I am not asking for a full 8 hours of sleep, but I really like at least 3-4 hours of sleep in a row so I can get at least some REM cycles in there. We will see. I was reading that napping or lack there of can contribute to the amount of wakening he has through out the night, which I highly agree. Dagney will nap anywhere from 20-40 minutes twice a day. He has totally taken out his third nap now and only has two. I don't mind, because its less work for me to get him to sleep. But she talks about sitting with them while they sleep and when they switch sleep cycles to get them back to sleep however they like to be soothed. So today for his morning nap I let him sleep for 20 minutes while I pumped then I went in there and sat beside him and sure enough when he switched cycles he woke up and I shoved his soother back in his mouth. It worked the 3 times he woke up and sure enough instead of a 40 minute nap he had about an hours length of one. I haven't read ALL the way through the chapter yet, but I know you are suppose to do this for a week and they will start to be able to switch through their sleep cycles on their own and fall back to sleep on there own. So once he starts to get more sleep during the day hopefully it will help at night time.
A friend of mine, Francesca had mentioned to me that her eldest daughter didn't start sleeping through the night(baby sleeping through the night which is 5-6 hours) until 10 months so there is still hope to get some sleep, but I have to some how survive until he is 10 months. Oh goodness! 4 more months to go I guess.
Anyways, it is a start to something hopefully good. We both need and deserve sleep.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Dagney's heart.
Dustin and I took Dagney to his pediatric cardiologist appointment yesterday, which wasn't that nerve wrecking as much as I thought it might be. She did an ultrasound on his heart which went pretty smooth considering towards the end of it Dagney was getting really fussy and squirmed around a lot, but I fed him and it kept him still to get some more pictures. She said his heart looks PERFECT! That hole that they discovered at 3 days old has closed nicely so we don't need to be concerned anymore. What a relief! We did mention to her the heart defect that Dustin's Father had and died from in his early 50's and she said IF anything shows up in Dustin(the heart defect shows up when you are older and is hereditary) to bring Dagney back in to see her and she will refer us to the cardiologist team at Sick Kid's Hospital down in Toronto. He will be monitored if that is the case. But other than that nothing needs to be done and just hope all is well from here on out with his heart. This is such great news and I am soo beyond happy that his hole has closed and his heart is perfect. With all the health problems he has had since day one of being born everything is starting to go the right way and fall into place. As a mother this makes any bad day into a whole bunch of happy ones.
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