Debbie Downer

Pardon the "Debbie Downer" attitude, but this is a list of things that have happened in the last month:

• Toliet broke.


• Broken toliet flooded master bathroom, closet, guest bathroom, laundry room, and stair landing.


• Soap dish falls off the wall of the shower, rendering shower unusable until it's put back on and grouted/resealed, etc.


• We lose 2 boards in our fence, leaving a big gaping hole that the dogs fit through.


• Upstairs AC dies.


• Downstairs AC dies.


• Toliet in half-bathroom starts leaking.


• Battery in my car dies.


• Hard drive on our main computer dies due to overheating (cause of the AC).


• Jeff's pickup loses part of the tailgate, and a cover on the inside that helps seal the doors.


• We recieve a hospital bill for $1,000 more than we were expecting.


• I break the towel bar in the bathroom.*

I realize that it could be a million times worse, that there are people everywhere whose problems are much more serious than ours. I realize that we are incredibly lucky to have each other and our health.

But seriously!?

*I also realize that a towel bar isn't that big a deal, but on top of everything else it's just silly.

The Husband

He posted a blog again (finally).

Go read it. It's a Bust a Myth post.

It's good.

I love him.

http://donttrythis-jeff.blogspot.com/

Bust a Myth: Infertility is a Private Matter

Infertility is a Private Matter, Right?



A couple weeks ago
my husband showed off
pictures of our daughter
at work.
One of his coworkers
(insensitive cow)
says:
"Wow. She doesn't look
a thing like you.
Are you sure she's yours?"

My husband is not
the type of person
to suffer idiots.
He said:
"No. She's not mine,
genetically speaking.
We used donor sperm."

The cow...
excuse me,
coworker
was appalled.
Not because she had made
such a serious social blunder,
in saying something so rude,
but because my husband
so openly talked about
such a private matter.

After all,
Infertility is a private matter.
Right?

Infertility shouldn't be a private matter. The more we talk about it, the more coverage, knowledge, and support we have. So talk about it.

And yes, it's a true story.

It's National Infertility Awareness Week. Infertility affects 1 out of every 8 couples... like me. Find out how you can participate and provide support to 7.3 million people living with this disease: www.resolve.org/takecharge. This post is part of the Bust a Myth Bloggers Unite project.

Not What I Expected

First off, I'd just like to say that my AC is out...and it was 95 here today. Suuucks.

I took Cate to the doctor today. She's had a rash/bumps on her face and head for about 2 weeks, and they just kept getting worse and worse. I finally made an appointment today to see if there was anything we could do for her. (I know what's causing them...she's allergic to laundry detergent, so every time someone holds her that doesn't use the same stuff we do, it gets worse.) Dr. M said not to put ANYTHING on it, and it should clear up. But that isn't the point of this post.


The point is, after the appointment I called my bestie to see if she wanted to get together, since I really didn't want to go back to the hot house. We decided to meet at a mall and do a bit of shopping.


The entire time, I wanted to be at home with Cate and Jeff.


Which led me to think about things being pregnant/giving birth/motherhood has changed in me. Some things I expected, some I didn't.


Expected:
Bigger boobs.
Exhaustion.
Stretch marks.



Unexpected:
Losing the ability to fall asleep. This one is big for me, since I've always been able to close my eyes and sleep, no matter where or when. Now, I lay in bed for an hour with my mind racing, which is not cool since I usually only get 2 1/2 hours of sleep at a time anyway.


Clenching my teeth. I don't know what's up with this one. I'm sitting here doing it right now. I go around like that all day. I realize I'm doing it and I try to stop, but as soon as I stop thinking about it, I start again. I NEVER used to do this.


My fuse has shortened. Even though my hair no longer grows in red, I still have the temper. Usually I have a long fuse, but lately I seem to be angry all the time. No. That's not accurate. I am not at all angry when I'm at home with Cate during the day. But my tolerance for the cat, dogs, and husband has declined massively. It's not fair to them, but I find myself so angry/frustrated with them all the time. I'm trying very hard to control it, but I'm not sure it's working.


I wanted to be home today instead of shopping. To me, this is the one change that concerns me the most. While I'm not an independent person, I am a person who likes my solitude, and likes to "get away" for a while. And today, all I could think about was how much I wanted to take Cate home to Jeff. In fact, if the thunderstorm/tornado warning hadn't kept me at the mall, I'd have left after 20 minutes. The whole drive home, I was so anxious to be home. I could barely stand it. And I realized it's not normal. At least, not for me.


What do you think? Maybe it's just my hormones still out of whack.

Perfect Moment Monday

My first Perfect Moment Monday, and I have 3 for the day!

1: Getting to sleep four hours straight twice today. (8 hours...I forgot what it felt like.)

2:Getting to eat an entire meal from start to finish without a crying or fussy baby.

3: Holding Cate for the better part of an hour today while she slept, and not being concerned about putting her down to get stuff done. (That was the best one!)

Onesie

My little brother is going to buy this onesie for Cate.

Can you see what it says? It says "Made with LOVE (and science)"

Is that not hilarious? I'm so excited about it.

Image courtesy of www.thinkgeek.com

A Laundry List of Chores

First off, why do they call long lists of things laundry lists?

I have a ton of chores to do. For instance: the floors of my house (mostly wood and tile downstairs) have not been swept in a month. Literally.

There are piles of papers and coupons to sort through.

There are still thank-you cards to write and mail.

There are always bottles in the sink to be washed.

There is an entire bathroom that needs cleaned, since toliet water doesn't count.

There is a giant hole in our fence that allows our dogs to get into the neighbor's yard.

The floorboard of my car is covered with trash.

I am in the process of re-washing all the clothes in my closet that I can wear again, because something about the detergent or softener they were washed in 9 months ago causes dozens of tiny red bumps to break out all over Cate's body.

The laundry is the only thing that gets done. I spend the rest of the day playing with Cate, feeding her, or holding her while she sleeps. Or sleeping myself.

I need a maid. And a butler. And a cook. Any volunteers?

By the Numbers

One baby with colic. Poor thing. Thankfully, it's not that bad. I hope it stays that way.

Four nights in a row I haven't wanted to kill one or all of the dogs. I think they're finally adjusting!

Ten point 4 pounds: How much Cate weighed at her 1 month appointment. Holy cow!

Two hours a day (roughly) I spend hooked up to the breast pump. Thank goodness it's not all in one sitting!

Twelve is the size of jeans I bought yesterday, and they're a little big! I was one pound away from my pre-pregnancy weight last week. I have no idea what I'm at now, since the Great Toliet Flood of '11 took out my scale.

Three hours of sleep at a time is what I average every night. Cate sleeps about 4 between feedings, which leaves me with about 3. I no longer remember what it feels like to be well-rested.

Ninety'th percentile: Cate's length. 22 1/2 inches, and I think she was wiggling.

Seventeen is the number of gallons of diet dr pepper I would like to consume every day. I'm still on one serving.



I have to say, I think we have an uncommonly good newborn. People keep asking us if we're exhausted getting up every couple hours, if we're sooo tired of the crying and the pooping and the crying. Really, Cate is awesome. She's so laid-back. She sleeps through the dogs barking and Jeff snoring, she hardly ever cries, and even when she does, they're rarely full-blown cries. Except with the colic, but that's recent, and usually only in the evenings. She sleeps about 4 hours at a time at night, and last night she slept 5. She will lay in her bassinet and talk to herself if she's alone, and she even started smiling at us this week. She is absolutely amazing. I could write pages about all the amazing things she does, and how absolutely precious she is, but I won't. At least not today... :) We are so in love.



I'll get you some pictures soon!

A Dilemma

I would like to talk to you about breastfeeding.

Of course, you don't have to listen...(or read, as the case may be.) I don't mind.

Before Cate was born, I was almost postive I would hate BFing (ha ha...that looks weird) and would not be able to do it. I was prepared for that. I was fully prepared, mentally at least, to feed her formula and go right on with my life.

I was not prepared for how much I would love feeding her.

Nor was I prepared for how much it hurt, in the beginning. By day 2 of Cate's life, my nip.ples were cracked and bleeding. I finally managed to ask the nurse about it, and got some lanolin and some awesome gel pads, which helped a lot. But it still hurt so much that by the time we were home on Monday, I had decided to stop altogether. She had one full day of nothing but formula.

Tuesday, my milk came in. So I completely reversed Monday's decision and decided to try pumping and BFing. Jeff and I went and spent an obscene amount of money on a breat pump (well worth it, BTW). I pumped for a few days, until I felt healed enough to try and nurse Cate again, and gave her formula when it wasn't enough.

Now, here's my issue, and I'm hoping someone can help me with it. I started to BF Cate and then pump when she was done after about a week of just pumping. And I got a clogged and infected milk duct. I let off the BFing b/c of the pain and just pumped until it felt better. Once it did, I started BFing again and pumping after, and again, I got a clogged and infected milk duct.

I don't know why this happens. Much to my surprise, I want to breastfeed my daughter. But I do not want to go through that kind of pain every 3 or 4 days. Right now, I pump and she gets bottles. It works well for me and Jeff, since he can feed her at night while I pump. And it will help when I go back to work. But I want to be able to breastfeed her too. Unfortunately, I'm just too scared.

Does anyone have any suggestions??

My toliet is possessed...

I never thought I'd be thankful for poopy diapers...but I sure am today. Our toliet in the master bathroom has been on the fritz for ages. Sometimes when you flush it, it just keeps running. When that happened, one of us would hear it and go jiggle the handle. Worked every time. Well, today, it decided it didn't like that. I'm not entirely sure what happened. All I know is that Jeff took Cate into our bedroom to change her diaper, then yelled "Julie, get in here!" (Which, BTW, scared the living crap out of me, because of course I thought something was wrong with Cate.) So I go running in there, and there is, no joke, at leat 2 inches of water covering our bathroom floor. The water managed to soak our closet, which is right off the bathroom, and the laundry room and half-bathroom, which are behind our closet, and a bit into the garage, where we have a ton of boxes stored. It also managed to somehow soak the landing at the bottom of the stairs. Still not sure how that happened, since the closet was not wet all the way over there. Who knows. What I do know is that:

• We currently do not have a toliet that works downstairs.


• The closet carpet still squishes underfoot.


• The sound of the wet/dry vac puts Cate to sleep immediately.


• I am super-grateful for poopy diapers. It would have been much, much worse if we hadn't caught it when we did.