A Different Person

I had no idea how different of a person I had become due to the extreme sleep deprivation I suffered over the last couple of days until this morning. Last night was no restful night by any means, but I did manage to get in about 3 or 4 hours of sleep total. I'm pretty groggy this morning, but not as cranky anymore. It didn't help that Maggie was (unintentionally) playing psychological games with me during breastfeeding. She has always been hard to keep latched on, but lately, she would start screaming in the middle of feeding and actually PUSH me away with enough force that I couldn't pull her back on. Then she'd flop her head around frantically with her mouth wide open, clearly still hungry but seemingly refusing me (again, I know she didn't make a conscious decision like that, but it's hard to accept when it happens over and over again with every breastfeeding). Her screaming fits in general were still pretty abundant, too. Yesterday was another day that she spent 5+/- hours awake, much of it upset in spite of the Mylicon drops and my attempts at calming her, a la Happiest Baby on The Block. She even woke up at 2AM today screaming. So out into the living room we went (where I've been going when she gets to be too much so Brian can still get some sleep). I had enough of her breastfeeding games...I wasn't in a state to not be upset by them...so I gave her a bottle of formula. (I should add that, while we've been doing a combination of breast- and formula-feeding, night feedings had been exclusively breastfeedings up until last night.) She was calm. She fell asleep easily and stayed asleep in her crib. Lately, it had been taking up to an hour after her nighttime feedings to get her back to sleep...last night, there was no effort at all. At best, she goes 3 hours between nighttime breastfeedings (consistently, anyway...she has gone as much as 5 but that was a fluke), but last night, she went down a little before 3AM and slept until almost 7:30AM. And she was a HAPPY baby when she woke up this morning!! No screaming!! Even during her diaper change! (Which almost always elicits some kind of cry!) She contentedly drank her morning bottle of formula, and fell back asleep for another nap. A nap!! Where had those gone? The moral? A happy Maggie is a happy Mommy. I was back to myself after those bottles, blissfully staring at her while she was eating instead of feeling what I can only describe as reluctance and (dare I say it?) even occasional resentment during many of the more recent breastfeedings.

I told Brian this morning... It's time to switch her over entirely to formula. The psychological issues of breastfeeding have obviously become too much for me. It's obvious that I need to discontinue it to ensure that we have a happy relationship with each other. I promised that I would tell the pediatrician at her appointment tomorrow. I feel better already...

We're going to the hospital this afternoon to see my father. I need to wait for Brian to get home from work and then we'll probably spend most of the evening there. In the meantime, I'm keeping in touch with my family. I also plan on visiting my grandmother at some point today (provided Maggie cooperates) as she is, understandably, upset right now. They're waiting until he's conscious to bring her to the hospital, so she hasn't even seen him yet. Which is probably good... I saw him and I have to say that that image will be burned into my brain for the rest of my life. Nobody should have to see his/her child in such a state, especially after losing his/her spouse to the same thing at close to the same age.

Did I mention that before? My grandfather (my father's father) died at 59 of a heart attack. It was October 14, 1981...almost 1 month after my sister was born. The fact that we're so close to being 1 month after Maggie's birth hasn't escaped me. It's pretty eerie, in fact. It's also one of the reasons why I insist on bringing Maggie to the hospital with me, and that I want him to see her so badly when he's conscious again. He's getting a second chance, the chance his father didn't get. I hope that will help motivate him to make the changes that will need to be made.

Status

I spoke with my sister and it sounds like they're planning on waking my dad up tomorrow sometime. He remained stable overnight and isn't as restless anymore, which is good. They also did a CT scan, which apparently didn't show any problems...also good. Hopefully they really do wake him tomorrow since his birthday is Thursday. I'd hate for him to spend it unconscious in the hospital. Otherwise, there's no further news. We have to wait until he's awake to find out what's functioning, what isn't, and if there's any permanent damage. I'll probably try to get to the hospital again tomorrow, even if I don't manage to get any sleep again tonight. In the meantime, my brother will be spending the night with him so our mother can get some rest at home tonight.

I'm quite on edge right now. I'm now operating on 2 hrs of sleep, thanks to Margaret's recent bout of LONG daytime periods of alertness and very short and infrequent cat naps. My phone has been ringing off the hook due to concerned family members calling and asking what's going on. I even had to entertain a visitor this morning (one of my father's sisters), which I barely managed to shower in between Margaret's screaming fits before my aunt arrived.

This month is hard enough as it is. Next Tuesday is the one year anniversary of when we learned that we had lost Arabella (and I had the D&C). They estimated at that time that I had lost her on the preceding Saturday (July 17th), which was when we celebrated my father's 50th birthday. I had some bright red bleeding earlier in that day and called the doctor's office about it. They assured me that, since I wasn't soaking through a pad an hour, it was probably not that serious and that I should just rest with my legs up (which I dutifully did, even though I was supposed to co-host my dad's birthday party). This just further taints the month of July for me. Can we just skip it next year?

Long Night

I just got back from the hospital. My father suffered a heart attack late Monday evening. He was helicoptered in from the local hospital to the same hospital where I had Maggie just a few weeks ago. He's stable, but critical. They will be keeping him unconscious until he's been stable for 24-48 hours. In the meantime, he's hooked up to a breathing machine and has multiple fluids being pumped into him through IVs. I've never seen my father look so vulnerable before.

They expect that he will recover, and most likely without any serious damage to his brain or heart (they had to resuscitate him, but it was soon after his heart stopped beating). But it's a long road ahead for him. No more fast food. No more smoking. And having to take better care of himself in general. I fear that he won't be able to stick to these radical changes, and we'll be right back at that hospital 5 years from now going through this all over again.

What a way to celebrate your birthday. He will be 51 years old on Thursday...

Where Did My Happy Baby Go?

This week, Margaret has discovered her voice. And boy can she use it. She used to be quiet, only fussing a little bit and then easily calmed. But ever since Tuesday, she's become more and more inconsolable. She'll scream in the middle of eating for no apparent reason. She's spending more and more of her waking time crying. Last night, she was awake from 5:30PM to 10:30PM and when she wasn't eating (which wasn't often), she mostly was screaming. It doesn't seem like colic, though. Doesn't fit the formula for it. Nonetheless, it's so hard watching her like that and not being able to do anything to make it better. It breaks my heart. Where DID my happy baby go? Hopefully, she'll be back soon.

I'm So Spoiled

We've been taking Maggie and Becky for walks at the local nature preserve. However, the stroller we have isn't really meant for use on dirt roads, gravel, and grass. So I struck a deal with Brian... give up the glider he was planning on buying me so I could get the all-terrain stroller I had been lusting after. He agreed!! So yesterday, I drove one hour to go look at it at one of only 2 stores in Connecticut that carry that line. Luckily, they had ONE in stock, which I prompty grabbed! Here's the loot:





Of course, it's raining today and will continue to rain through Saturday... Figures!!

Lost In Your Eyes

I can't help but stare at her when she looks at me like this:


I wonder if her eyes will stay blue? Her daddy's eyes are blue, as were both of my grandfathers'...

Amnesia

I realized today that, for the life of me, I could not recall the pain of true labor that I had near the end. I can recreate the contraction pains that lasted the majority of the Pitocin induction. Considering I have always had really painful cramps when Aunt Flo comes a-visiting every month, those contractions weren't much different for me. But after they broke my water, it got progressively worse fast. It got harder to focus on breathing slowly through each contraction--this I remember. Right before I begged for the epidural, Brian even had to coach me to remember to breathe slowly, and I fought him the whole way. I just wanted to curl up into a ball and forget all about it at that point. But I have absolutely no memory of what that pain actually felt like. And, of course, I had no pain after the epidural so there's nothing to recall there, even from delivery. I had heard of the phenomena before, but I didn't realize that it happened so soon afterwards. Amazing! What a way to ensure a species will continue to replenish itself!!

Brian speaks all the time of how he wants at least one more child, but probably two. Most people could be content to think about it whenever the time is right, but with my Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, I have to think about it now. My biological clock ticks faster than most, and my time will run out earlier than most. The longer I wait, the more difficult it will be, so we will have to decide soon. If it weren't for our money situation, I would be all over this ASAP. But daycare for one child already will cost me half of my paycheck; there'd be no point in working if we had two children. And we're just not finacially sound enough yet for me to not work. I'm not sure how or when that will happen, either. But if we want another, we'll have to find a way.

In the meantime, I'm totally in love with Margaret. She spent about 4 hours straight awake today, an amazing increase considering she usually is only awake and alert for an hour, at most, and then sleeps through most of the day. Brian found this a bit challenging. What do you do to entertain a 2 week old for that long? We talked to her and read, but there really isn't much more that can be done at this age. I think he was a bit grateful when she fell asleep on our drive to the nature preserve for a walk. He's looking forward to the stage when she will respond and be mobile, which is some time off still. But she's changed so much already in the short time she's been here! I'm savoring every moment!