I'm going to be honest here... while raising Matt and Bri I have totally been winging it this whole time! I mean seriously, 11 years ago the internet was nothing like it is today. Needless to say, I did my research this time around. I knew there were better ways to do things and wanted to find out what I could do to be a better parent from the beginning. After doing my research and deciding what was best for me, baby, and my family I now know that I fall into a particular group of people, this also happens to be a group that many people (I know personally, and also those that live in my region) don't exactly agree with. The good news? I'm the type of person that couldn't care less what people think of me and my decisions! So let's go over this group that I fall into... or maybe it's groups?
I don't exactly fall completely into the crunchy group as I don't follow the entire "natural" parenting plan. I think I'm more Semi-Crunchy! What do I mean you ask? Well, IF I could have had my epidural then I would have, though experiencing it natural for the first time without a choice leaves me feeling very differently and I can say 100% that if Jay and I have another in a few years, I will be doing it natural, this time it will be planned though! I don't grow my own garden for food (I kill plants, not intentionally though!), had I went to 39 weeks, I WOULD have agreed to be induced (once again, not sure if I would feel this way again though). However, I do breastfeed, cloth diaper,and plan on making my own baby food.
I also fit into the category of Attachment parenting. I fit into this group of people because I breastfeed, babywear, co-sleep, want to parent a more natural way when it comes to comforting instead of allowing my baby to cry or self soothe (it just breaks my heart to watch her cry). I had no idea this was a "type" of parenting that had a name and all. I just thought I was doing what I felt was best for us. Then with a little research I found myself reading about attachment parenting on Dr.Sears.com... I'm pretty sure I used to secretly make fun of people on babycenter when they would post threads about "following" the Dr. Sears parenting books but now look at me doing reading on his page! I guess now I'm eating my words! Oh well, we are happy and that's all that matters... right? Well, maybe I'll post some links a little later, right now though... time for dinner!
Just found the recipe for lactation cookies, they help increase your supply! Wanted to copy it here for all the other breast feeders out there and so I don't forget where to find it before I can get it printed out!
Makes 12 dozen! (holy crap that's a lot!)
1 C butter
1 C sugar
1 C brown sugar
4 T water
2 T flaxseed meal (no subs)
2 Lg eggs
1 t vanilla
2 C flour
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
3 C Thick cut oats
1 C Chocolate chips
2 T Brewers Yeast (no substitutions)
Preheat oven at 375.
Mix 2 T of flaxseed meal and water, set aside 3-5 minutes.
Cream butter and sugar.
Add eggs.
Stir flaxseed mix into butter mix and add vanilla.
Beat until well blended.
Sift: dry ingredients, except oats and choc chips.
Add butter mix to dry ing.
Stir in the oats and then the choc chips.
Drop on parchmant paper on baking sheet.
Bake 8-12 minutes.
I still can't believe that my baby girl will be a month old this week. It's crazy how fast they grow and fast the time flies by.
It's been hard to find the time to update you all about her progress, well, our progress I guess would make more sense right!? I guess it would be best if I started at the beginning of her life since my last update was her birth story.
Birth-2weeks old
Before leaving the hospital we had an interesting meeting with the pediatric doctor. Apparently Brooklyn had lost about 5% of her birth weight in the first 24 hours. No one told us she how much she had lost or what her weight was before the pedi came in and talked to us. She comes in and starts demanding that I supplement with formula. I refused to and attempted to explain my reasons but she interrupted me and literally started yelling at me. She told me that I didn't care if I caused my baby to go brain dead. I couldn't believe this woman was talking to me like this. It was just insane. Well anyway, she refused to see Brooklyn the rest of the time we were in the hospital so I had to find a different pedi to see her in order for her to be released the next day. The nurse found one for me because she believed in my reasons for not wanting to supplement and thought it was great that I wanted to only breast feed. The condition of releasing her was that I had to take her to her regular pedi 2 days after being released.Her weight the day we went home was down 10%, she went from 6lbs at birth to 5lbs 6oz coming home. Friday (2 days after release). First, when they measured her length, they screwed up some how and she measured 18in. I was like what the hell, she was born at 19in. She redid it and it came out right the second time. She weighed 5lbs 7oz. The pediatrition tried to convince me that I needed to supplement with formula. I feel very strongly against this and gave her my reasons on why I didn't want to do this and wanted to try anything else before resulting to formula. This one actually listened to me but still suggested to supplement. When we left, I told Jay there was no way I was going to supplement. She was obviously gaining something, my milk was just coming in, and I really wanted to get breast feeding down. I had to do something though to get her to gain more weight by our next appointment. which was the following Tuesday. The ultimate decision turned out that I would pump and give her milk in a bottle in order to see how much she was actually eating. This turned out to be a bad idea, but I will get into that later! Tuesday (1 week 1day old, 2nd weigh in appointment and 2 week check up) Everything was good, we were really more interested in her weight. She weighed in at 5lbs 10oz. So she was gaining weight thankfully. I decided no more bottle, back to nursing since she was clearly gaining. That didn't go as well as planned though. We were now dealing with nipple confusion. She didn't want to nurse at all. We fought with this for almost 2 weeks. I researched everything I could think of. Unfortunately my insurance doesn't cover a LC so that was out of the question. A LL group wasn't available at the time either do to having to drive over an hour to get to one. Finally I found a nipple shield. This was my last option. My milk was running low since she wasn't stimulating my supply anymore and was only nursing once a day. I had to fix it somehow!
2-4 Weeks
My nipple shield finally came in and let me just say, it was the miracle that we needed! No more bottle. They suggest that after nursing with it for a few minutes, you take it off and trying nursing with out using it. That wasn't working so well though. However, I was okay with that, I was just happy that she was finally nursing and building my supply back up. After a couple of days we started to notice that she was getting really fussy and wasn't sleeping much during the day. She would go to sleep then wake up not 10 minutes later. She was also trying to nurse every 30 minutes instead of every 2-3 hours like normal. Back to the research! I came up with 2 explanations... 1. too much caffeine, and 2. she was cluster feeding. So instead of drinking soda all day (which I'm not supposed to anyway since I'm BF) I cut down to 1-2 caffeinated sodas a day and 1 cup of coffee in the mornings. The rest of the day is water or sprite. Now she's a much happier baby! She's very spoiled already though, always wants to be held. There's a lot of times that she wont sleep unless she's being held. I imagine that since she's breast feeding she's more comfortable being held all the time than laying in her bed or play pen bassinet. I'm okay with that for the most part though, except when I have things that really need to get done. At her 2 week appointment she weighed 6lbs 3 oz. Very happy she was past her birth weight, especially since they only expected her to at least reach her birth weight by that time. We have days that she's not a happy camper and I get a little overwhelmed at times with trying to calm her down and Matt and Bri constantly fighting but thankfully I have Jay here to step in and help calm me down by taking care of one of the two situations. Brooklyn is still cluster feeding some days and I'm not pumping anymore like I should be so that makes it a little difficult when she does the cluster feedings. She sucks me dry and then we have to give her a bottle. That's really the only time she gets one now, well then and when Jay helps out with night time feedings. I am really not looking forward to him going back to work next week!
Monday June 27th I woke up at 2am to go pee like normal. I had only been in bed since 12:30am. so waking that early for the bathroom was a little unusual for me. After wiping I noticed some light blood and the first thing out of my mouth was "Oh Crap!" Jay had just gone to bed right before I got up so he asked what was wrong. After telling him what happened he asked if we needed to go to the hospital. I honestly wasn't sure what to do as I had never had any bleeding with my other two. I called labor and deliver at the hospital but was told that I didn't need to come in unless my water broke, it was period like blood, or if I couldn't walk or talk through the contractions. I wasn't even sure I was having contractions so I opted to hang out at home for a while. The contractions started coming about 30 minutes after hanging up the phone but they still weren't that bad. I honestly thought they were the normal braxton hicks contractions that I had been having since the Tuesday before. Now that I think about it though, I realize that what I thought were braxton hicks were actual contractions. I tried laying back down around 3am but the contractions were keeping me up so I decided to just stay up, play some game lounge on the tv, and see what happens. Around 5am they had been coming bad enough that they were stopping me in my tracks every time I went to walk. Still not terrible but knew that we needed to start getting things ready. I woke Jay up after calling my mom. It took us about an hour to get everything ready for us to head to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 7am. Got hooked up to the contraction monitor and had my cervix checked. The nurse said I was only at 3cm. I don't think she wanted to officially admit me yet. After being monitored for half an hour she had another nurse come in and check me. This nurse said I felt more like between 4 & 5cm. Finally got to the deliver room at 7:30. IV's hooked up, monitored, and continuously being checked because the nurse couldn't tell if she was head down or not. Alice came in around 8:30, checked me and broke my water. At this point I had been given nubain for the pain though it wasn't doing anything at all for me. After my water was broke we realized that it was merconium stained (for those that don't know, this means that Brooklyn had a bowel movement in the uterus). Alice wasn't worried because her heart rate was normal and wasn't decreasing. We also found out that the reason the Dr. thought she was bigger is because I had an excess amount of fluid. After they broke my water the contractions started to become more and more painful. I was holding on to the side of the bed and asking for my epidural at this point. Couldn't get the epi yet cause they were doing a c-section though. Not much later I was climbing up the side of the bed and literally screaming in pain, started rubbing the side of my stomach then Jay realized we needed the nurse/dr. right then. Nurse comes in and says"We need to call Alice here now" So guess what... time to deliver and no time for an epidural! I had to do it all natural for the first time. Alice got there in no time at all thankfully cause I couldn't take it anymore. I only remember pushing about 3 times before she was out completely. It was the strangest feeling in the world too. But after she was born I was calm as could be, like nothing had happened. I even remember having a calm conversation with Alice and Stella about the placenta and how some people eat it and encapsulate it lol. Brooklyn was born at 10:10 am after a week of early labor, 8 hours of active labor, and about 5 minutes of pushing. She was 6lbs, 19in long, full head of hair, and scored 9/9 on her apgars! All in all, she's a perfect baby and we are all so happy she's finally here!
Technically I'm now 38 weeks and 1 day. I wanted to do things a little different now that I'm getting closer and closer to the end. A lot can change in one week's time and I really don't want to have to make a new post every time there's something new going on. So from now to the end I will be updating at the start of the next week instead of after my appointments.
Last Monday I had my Dr.'s appointment. I was still only 2cm and 60% effaced. She actually thought I would have gone into labor that weekend. Alice said this Monday we would schedule my induction date. Tuesday I started having more severe Braxton Hicks contractions. Not only do I have the tightening in my stomach but now they are causing some crazy cramps in my back and lower abdomen. I'm seriously going to be pissed if they aren't causing any progress. I've been trying to work up the nerve to ask Alice to do a membrane sweep when I go in Monday. Other than the cramping, there's really no sign of labor coming any time soon. But then again, doesn't it usually just come out of nowhere!?
So close yet still so far away! I didn't update last week because nothing really happened at my appointment. We did the Group B Strep last week and that's about it. So let's get to this week's appointment. GBS was negative which is good, no antibiotics when I go to deliver. Here's how mine and Alice's conversation went today.
Alice: This is about the time I tell you when to call me or when to go to L&D. If contractions are regular at around 5-6 minutes apart and last a minute each, and blah blah blah, or if you live more than hour away.
Me: I actually do live about an hour away from the hospital.
Alice: In that case, we can discuss doing an induction at 39 weeks to make sure you make it time. I'm going to check the baby's position from the outside and if I can't tell if she's head down then we'll do an internal exam, but if I can feel from the outside then we wont unless you want me to.
Me: Yeah, I actually do. I just want to see if these contractions are doing anything.
*Alice checks heartbeat, position, then does the internal exam.*
While she's checking me she says,"I don't think you'll make it to 39 weeks. You are already 1-2 cm dilated and 60% effaced. Of course I have one patient that's 4cm and still coming for her weekly appointments."
So YAY! The contractions aren't for nothing and I'm progressing. Pretty exciting for me since I was really afraid she was going to tell me that nothing was happening down there lol. Hopefully I'll make some more progress before next Monday! So the good news is that either way it goes, I only have 3 weeks left. Maybe living an hour from the hospital isn't such a bad thing. I don't mind the pitocin to induce since I've had that before with Matt. We went to Wal-Mart after my appointment and I started having more contractions while we walking around. Miss Brooklyn must want out as much as I want her out! Thank god too cause I really don't want to go 4 or more weeks. Only bad thing... I'll be 39 weeks the Friday before the 4th of July, and Jay doesn't start vacay until the 3rd of July so I wouldn't be able to do it until then. Which means possibly a 4th of July baby and I would hate to take my cousin's birthday from her or make her share it!
I'm going to be honest here... while raising Matt and Bri I have totally been winging it this whole time! I mean seriously, 11 years ago the internet was nothing like it is today. Needless to say, I did my research this time around. I knew there were better ways to do things and wanted to find out what I could do to be a better parent from the beginning. After doing my research and deciding what was best for me, baby, and my family I now know that I fall into a particular group of people, this also happens to be a group that many people (I know personally, and also those that live in my region) don't exactly agree with. The good news? I'm the type of person that couldn't care less what people think of me and my decisions! So let's go over this group that I fall into... or maybe it's groups? 
I also fit into the category of Attachment parenting. I fit into this group of people because I breastfeed, babywear, co-sleep, want to parent a more natural way when it comes to comforting instead of allowing my baby to cry or self soothe (it just breaks my heart to watch her cry). I had no idea this was a "type" of parenting that had a name and all. I just thought I was doing what I felt was best for us. Then with a little research I found myself reading about attachment parenting on Dr.Sears.com... I'm pretty sure I used to secretly make fun of people on babycenter when they would post threads about "following" the Dr. Sears parenting books but now look at me doing reading on his page! I guess now I'm eating my words! Oh well, we are happy and that's all that matters... right? Well, maybe I'll post some links a little later, right now though... time for dinner!