Our first ER visit and sick visit to the doctor

Friday night Matt and I ended up having to take Eleanor to the emergency room.  I'm sure that's not the last time we'll be there with her, but I would be completely fine if it was.  Toward the end of last week we noticed Eleanor choking when she was eating.  She has a really hard time getting her breath back after this, and she was also breathing really heavily a lot of the time.  We called the on-call line at our pediatrician and were told to take her in to get things checked out.  We spent several hours there Friday night and into early Saturday morning.  Eleanor was great the whole time we were there, even through the x-rays they took.  The doctors in the ER didn't find anything and thought she might have reflux.  We were told to follow up with our pediatrician this week.

I called this morning and was able to get an appointment with Eleanor's doctor today.  Again, Eleanor is checking out healthy (they listened to her chest, looked in her throat and ears, etc).  Eleanor got hungry while the doctor was in the room so I started feeding her while the doctor watched.  She thinks Eleanor is taking her bottle too fast, which is causing her to choke.  So we are using a special slow-flow nipple (even slower than the infant nipples sold in stores) to see if that helps at all.  If it does, the doctor wants us to use that for a month and then try introducing regular nipples again to see how it goes.  If this nipple doesn't seem to help then the doctor will order a swallow study to see what's going on.  The doctor does think Eleanor has some reflux, but since she doesn't seem to be in pain when she's spitting up we are holding off on medicine for now since the medicine wouldn't help the spitting up but would only make it painless.  Neither the doctor nor Matt and I want her on medicine if she doesn't need to be.  Eleanor has her one-month (!!!) appointment next week so we'll follow up with the doctor then to see what our next steps are.

Some good news, though - Eleanor is up to over 8.5 pounds!  Woo hoo!  We started using the Mo.by wrap this weekend now that she's finally big enough and she LOVES it!  Plus, putting her in the Mo.by on Sunday allowed me to actually stay in the whole service at church because she slept the whole time :)

At 3 weeks old...

Here are some things I don't want to forget about Eleanor at this stage...

-Her "pirate eye."  When Eleanor is waking up or going to sleep she does this thing where she opens only one eye at a time.  It's cute.

-Her hands.  Eleanor LOVES her hands.  They are constantly on the move.  And when Eleanor sleeps she likes to have her hands straight up in the air.

-Her noises.  She makes the funniest noises, especially when she's sleeping and starting to wake up.  Eleanor has one noise that sounds like an elephant, which is made even funnier when she lifts an arm straight up into the air when she does it :)

-Her faces.  Oh, her faces.  They are hilarious.  She has this one that she does where her eyes get big and she makes an "O" shape with her mouth.  Adorable.  And when Eleanor is waking up she makes all sorts of funny faces.  Here's a series of pictures Matt took during one of her waking-up sessions.  Too funny!

-Her hiccups.  When I was pregnant with Eleanor she got the hiccups quite often, and a lot of the time you could see my stomach move with the hiccups.  She still gets pretty violent hiccups that shake her whole little body.  If she's asleep or anywhere near it when she gets the hiccups, you can count on her waking up.  And when she's awake with the hiccups her eyes get so big and sometimes her mouth makes this "O" shape, kind of like, "whoa, what are these?"

-Eleanor is starting to look toward us when we are talking while holding her.  She's also starting to sort of look at a rattle and book that we have that are mostly black and white - the contrast is easy for her to see.  It's fun to see her start responding and being interactive.

-Most of the time Eleanor likes her swing and bouncy seat.  If she's awake when we're eating dinner she'll hang out in her bouncer on the floor next to the table and she just looks around with her eyes wide open.

-Eleanor loves sucking on her hands and fingers.  LOVES it.  When she's really upset it's almost a frantic thing.  So as much as I hate it, we've started using the pacifier some to soothe her.  I'd rather her not use a pacifier or suck on her thumb/fingers, but if I have to choose I'd rather the pacifier because at least I can take that away at some point.  But we are still only using the pacifier as a last resort.

-Right now Eleanor is eating 2.5-3 ounces roughly every 3 hours.  She'll usually get in a 4-5 hour stretch at night, which is great!

The diaper sprayer to the rescue!

So what happens when Eleanor poops?  That's a question I've gotten in regards to the whole cloth diapering.  There's this amazing contraption called a diaper sprayer that has already come in handy more than once in our house!

It looks like this:

This diaper sprayer attaches to the toilet.  When Eleanor has a diaper that has poop in it, we just hold the diaper over the toilet, turn the sprayer on (though not on high - that thing is powerful!) and spray the poo into the toilet.  Then the diaper just goes into the wet bag with all the other diapers. So far we haven't had any problems getting the poop off or with stains.

Washing the diapers is also not a big deal.  We just do a cold rinse, a warm/hot cycle with cloth diaper friendly detergent (we use Rock.in' Green), and a cold rinse.  Then most everything can go into the dryer, at least for now.  We will line dry the covers to help them last longer.  It's only a few extra minutes every other day to wash the diapers.

Goodbye disposable, hello cloth!

Matt and I knew we wanted to cloth diaper before we even started trying to get pregnant.  We know many families who cloth diaper so we've been able to watch them over the last few years to see how it went.  I'll be honest, when my best friend first told me she was going to cloth diaper her kids I thought it was gross and there was no way I would ever do that.  But after watching her with her two kiddos, along with the other families we know who use cloth, I realized that it's really not that different than disposables.  And in the long run, using cloth is cheaper than using disposables because you can reuse diapers for more than one child.  Then when you're finished with diapers, you can sell your cloth ones.  I won't buy used, as it kinda weirds me out, but a lot of people will.  And usually you can get fairly close to what you paid for a diaper when you sell it.  We're mainly cloth diapering for economical reasons, but the environmental impact of using cloth is pretty great, too.  Do you know how long it takes for one disposable diaper to decompose in a landfill?  500 years.  That's a LONG time. 

We started cloth diapering on Monday of this week.  We had planned on starting sooner, once we ran out of the few small packages of disposables we had and Eleanor's umbilical cord stump fell off, but with all the issues with feeding we bought one more giant pack of disposables to use until feeding got figured out so that was one less thing on my plate with Matt going back to work.  So we are on day 3 of cloth and doing great!  Right now we are using mostly prefolds, which is what most people think of when they think cloth diapers.  It's the cheapest way to cloth diaper a newborn.  We are just using the fabric with a plastic snap and a cover over it.  Like this:

(courtesy of Goo.gle Ima.ges)

We also have a few Lil Joe.y diapers, which are much more like a disposable.  These are more expensive, so I only have 4.  They look like this:

(courtesy of Goo.gle Ima.ges)

Eventually we will move to one-size diapers.  These diapers will grow with Eleanor and we will be able to use them until she is potty-trained.  However, it will be a while before she's ready to fit into these.  Even the prefolds and Lil Joe.ys look huge on her tiny body right now!  OS (one-size) diapers have snaps that allow you to make them shorter/taller.  Most of our diapers have velcro closures like disposables, though a few have snap closures (like the Lil Jo.eys above).  Here's a picture of our current "stash" of mostly one-size diapers.  Most of our diapers are Bum.Gen.ius, with a few other brands thrown in that I've found on sale (Swa.ddlbe.es, Bum.Cheeks, and Hap.pyHeinys).  The polka dotted fabric on the left is one of our wet bags, and the white things on the far left are extra inserts for added absorbancy.

Today I ordered a few different brands in size smalls, since miss Eleanor is so small and the OS diapers will swallow her.  I'm pretty sure even when she's big enough weight-wise (which she almost is) the diapers would come below her knees!  As it is, the prefolds and covers come almost to her knees and are making the newborn size clothes a little small because they make her little bottom fluffy :)  I'm excited to try out some different brands and figure out what really works for us.  I'd mostly bought Bum.Genius because I found the best deals on them and they're what most of our friends use.  The ones I ordered today are a few different brands that I'm excited to try out.  They should all be here by this weekend, so we'll see how those work.  They're supposed to be good up to 15 pounds, and by then hopefully Eleanor has filled out enough that the OS diapers start to fit her. 

Plus, as an added bonus, cloth diapers are so cute! I mean, look at that owl print!

What really matters...

I got an email from a friend this morning about our breastfeeding struggles, and a paragraph in it really hit home for me.  It was definitely what I needed to hear/read this morning.

When we're still pregnant, it's engrained is us how important breastmilk is, so when we have to take that step toward formula, it almost seems sinful. But when your baby is happier, fuller, and sleeps better at night, you can't argue. In the end, we always do what's best for our baby girl. Chalk this up for another 'sacrifice' we, as mothers, will continue to make for the well-being of our child. There'll be many more tears to come about sleeping, pooping, rashes, vomit, fevers, ear infections and whining, but in the end, all you really pray for is that someday she'll learn to love Jesus. And the moments of pure JOY far outweigh those moments of tears. I promise.

So true.  In the end everything else is secondary.  We love Eleanor and will care for her the best way that we know how.  This isn't the last hard decision we'll have to make in raising her.  And while we'll pray for wisdom in making those decisions so that we're making the ones that are best for her, I know we'll make some mistakes.  But in the end, as long as Eleanor knows and loves Jesus, we've done our job as parents.

Thanks for the words of encouragement and truth, R. :)


 

An update to feeding...

Thanks for all the words of encouragement and support after our last post.  As of yesterday I have mastits - again.  So my quickly-dwindling milk supply has been almost completely wiped out.  I mean we're talking I'll pump for 15 minutes and get maybe a quarter of an ounce total, whereas a day or two ago I was getting between 0.75-1 ounce.  Still not much, but much more than what I'm getting now.  I have a feeling my pumping days won't last a whole lot longer.  Right now I'm pumping every 4 hours at the advice of the lactation consultant/nurse practitioner at the pediatrician's office, in hopes to not get a third round of mastitis.  I'll gradually stretch this to every 5 hours, then every 6, etc. until I'm completely weaned and not producing anything.  At the rate I'm going I don't feel like that will take long.  I'm on a different antibiotic for the mastitis and hopefully this will clear it up once and for all.  It's definitely not fun.

I'm still really grieving the loss of breastfeeding Eleanor.  It's something I so badly wanted to do, but I'm not sure we could have done anything differently to make it work.  When there's not much milk and it's not letting down and your child doesn't have enough to eat...well, there's not a whole lot you can do.  The LC at the pediatrician yesterday made me feel better about our decision to switch over.  I was slightly nervous to tell her we weren't breastfeeding anymore but she was completely reassuring that we had made the best decision.  She said that as parents we have to make hard decisions and sometimes what's best for our kids isn't the choice that we would prefer.  She reiterated several times that we had made the choice that was best for Eleanor, even though it's not the choice we wanted to make.  And I can already tell a difference in Eleanor in the few days she's been on mostly formula, with some bottles of breastmilk thrown in.  She's sleeping better, is more alert, acts full when she's finished eating, and just all around seems happier. And she's gaining weight!  As of yesterday Eleanor is weighing in at 7 pounds 9 ounces!  Woo hoo!  That's almost big enough for me to wear her in my Mo.by wrap and the Er.go carrier :)

And because it's not a post without a cute picture of little miss Eleanor, here she is enjoying some tummy time - she loves it :)

The hardest thing I've ever done...

Pregnancy and labor were nothing compared to breastfeeding.  While the past two weeks have been wonderful meeting and getting to know our daughter, they've also been the hardest two weeks of my life.  When Eleanor was born, no one at the hospital showed me how to get her to latch on properly.  The lactation consultant who stopped in my room the first two days never got closer than a foot away from my bed, and aside from bringing my a different size nipple shield, didn't offer anything.  And since I'd never breastfed before, I had no idea if I was doing it right so when she asked how it was going I said I thought okay.  Once we got home, things went even more downhill.  Every time I fed Eleanor I was crying and biting my shirt in pain.  I was bleeding and sore.  Finally the Saturday after Eleanor was born Matt called a private lactation consultant to come out to the house.  She showed me how to get Eleanor latched on correctly, which made a world of difference.  But by that point, I was already pretty damaged physically from 5 days of incorrect latching.  When Eleanor was a week old we visited the lactation department at the hospital where she was born.  At this appointment we found out that I already had mastitis. The lactation consultant there wouldn't even let me nurse because I was so hurt and scabbed.  She had me pump and feed Eleanor through a special bottle.  However, after a day of that I wasn't able to keep up with how much Eleanor was eating so I took her off the bottle and started her back on the breast.  This led to two days of Eleanor feeding for 40 minutes at a time, only to wake up 20 minutes later hungry and wanting to eat again.  So we made another trip to a lactation consultant, where we learned two things.  One, Eleanor is a biter.  When she latches on, she likes to chomp down several times before beginning to eat.  Two, she's a lazy nurser.  She likes to fall asleep a few minutes into nursing and is very hard to wake up.  So for the past four days feeding sessions have lasted an hour or more with me feeding Eleanor from both sides twice.  The whole time I'm feeding her I've been doing all sorts of shenanigans to keep her awake - undressing her, changing her diaper, playing with her feet, rubbing her with a cold washcloth - you name it, we've done it.  This is much harder to do by myself now that Matt is back at work.  Today I went to a breastfeeding support group and had a bit of a breakdown.  Eleanor has not really gained any weight in almost a week and she is still only taking an ounce or so at each feeding, which is not nearly enough.  And I can't get her to stay awake, at all.  My milk supply has dropped dramatically because Eleanor isn't eating much, and I'm not eating enough to sustain my milk production because I am feeding Eleanor all the time. The lactation consultant at the support group told me to feed Eleanor every two hours and pump after 4 feedings a day.  This means that I would get an hour or less of sleep/break between feedings all day long.  And I was told that if Eleanor didn't start gaining weight soon, we'd be in trouble.  So after much crying on my part (and I mean the ugly-crying, sobbing kind of crying) and realizing that I'm not able to provide the nourishment that our daughter needs, Matt and I decided tonight that we're done.  We've exhausted our options and in the end, Eleanor needs to grow.  And she needs a mom who enjoys her rather than a mom who dreads when the two hour mark gets close on the clock because it means another feeding, another unsatisfied baby, and more tears.  So tonight Eleanor will get her first bottle of formula.  I breastfed her before dinner tonight and cried knowing that it was likely the last time I would feed her that way.  I'm feeling a lot of guilt.  Breastfeeding was one thing I was determined to make work.  I had even told Matt that he wasn't allowed to let me quit for the first six weeks.  But I never thought I'd want/need to quit because my child wasn't getting what they needed; I always thought I would struggle because of the pain.  Now I can get her latched on decently and once we get through the biting things are usually okay.  But she's not eating, and I don't know how to get her to eat.  I gave Eleanor a bottle of pumped breast milk after feeding her this evening and she gulped it down and is now out cold.  Clearly she was still hungry and I can't bear the thought of starving my child, even unintentionally.  So the plan is for me to pump until my supply is gone, and we will give Eleanor any milk that I pump.  But eventually Eleanor will be on formula only.  Emotionally I'm having a hard time with that, but it's what we feel is best for our family as a whole.  And hopefully someday when we give Eleanor a brother or sister this whole journey is a smoother one.

Birth Story

I want to get this down before the details blur.  And because I was totally one of those women who had no idea they're in labor. 

The Friday and Saturday before Eleanor was born I was having a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions.  My stomach would tighten, and occasionally I could feel the tightness in my back.  I timed them, and sometimes they were consistent (between 5-20 minutes apart) and sometimes they weren't.  And they would slow down or stop at times.  So while I was having more Braxton Hicks than normal, I didn't think much of them since they didn't keep up.  Matt and I walked the mall a bit and I sat on my exercise ball a ton, but we couldn't get the contractions to stick around.  By Sunday and Monday, when I wasn't having as many contractions we had resigned ourselves to waiting until Baby B decided to make an appearance and were convinced that we still had a while.

Monday 1/2 Matt and I hung around the house all day.  We decided to go out to dinner at our favorite Japanese steakhouse as kind of a final nice date night for a while.  Just as we were getting ready to head upstairs and change clothes I felt a pop and a gush of fluid.  I told Matt, "Um, I think my water just broke."  This was at 5:23pm.  I called the doctor (my doctor was on call) and she said to come on in and get checked and that if my water had broken or I was having contractions that were causing me to dilate I would be staying.  Keep in mind at this point that I am in no pain whatsoever.  I'd been having some mild cramping off and on during the day on Monday, but nothing even as bad as when I'm starting my cycle.  And again, cramping had been normal for me the last several weeks.  Matt and I went upstairs, changed clothes, and took our time getting the last-minute things we needed for the hospital bag together.  During this time was when I realized those mild cramps I had been having must be contractions, as they started to get a little more intense and were regular.  But nothing that was really bothering me or that I couldn't talk through.

Matt and I got everything in the car and headed out.  We stopped at Panera to get something to eat because 1. I was hungry and 2. I don't function well without food.  We figured if I really was going to push a baby out, I needed to eat something.  It was while Matt was inside ordering that the contractions (still just cramping, not the wrapping around your stomach and back that all the books and all of our childbirth classes said contractions felt like) started getting to the point that I needed to concentrate on breathing through them.  They were painful, but I wasn't writhing in pain.  Matt and I ate on the drive to the hospital, with me pausing in conversation about every 4 minutes to grip the door handle and breathe through a contraction.

We arrived at the hospital at 6:30, so only an hour after my water broke.  The nurse took us to a triage room and checked me.  She immediately told me that yes, my water and definitely broken AND I was already dilated to 8 cm and was 100% effaced.  I looked at her in shock and, I'm not going to lie, swore.  Not in a bad way at her, but in an "Oh, shit!" kind of way.  I had thought that maybe I'd be dilated to 4 or 5 cm, but 8!?!?!  That's like almost ready to push out a baby! 

The nurses immediately got us moved down to a labor and delivery room and things were kind of a whirlwind for the next 45 minutes or so.  I had nurses on both sides of me firing questions right and left.  The anesthesiologist was in there getting ready to put in my epidural.  By 7:15 my epidural was in and I wasn't feeling anything.  Getting the epidural wasn't bad at all, I just felt some pressure.  Honestly, the most painful part thus far (aside from those contractions that had definitely picked up pace and intensity but still felt like cramping) was getting the line placed for my IV in my left wrist/forearm.

The epidural was amazing.  I couldn't feel any of the contractions that were showing up on the monitor.  It was kind of weird to be able to move my legs around but not really feel them.  I told Matt they felt like huge tree trunks when I felt them with my hands because I could just feel the pressure of my hands.  But that epidural allowed me to get some rest, which was really helpful since we were heading into evening/night time.  Matt and I hung out and watched a couple movies (A League of Their Own and When Harry Met Sally).  I had purposely brought movies I knew well so I didn't really have to focus on them...because I thought I'd be dealing with contractions and would be at the hospital for a while waiting to dilate.  I alternated between watching the movies and going in and out of sleep.

At 9:35 the nurse checked me again and I was dilated to 10 cm.  The contractions had slowed down a bit due to the epidural and were now at about 5 minutes apart, which is why it took a little bit to get to 10.  The nurse told me that the baby was still a little bit high to start pushing so they were going to let me labor down for about an hour.  Basically this meant I continued to hang out in bed watching movies, sleeping, and letting the contractions do their job of pushing the baby down.

My mom got to the hospital around 10:30 and Matt brought her back to say hi to me.  Not 10 minutes after my mom came in my nurse walked in and said, "Okay mama, ready to start pushing?"  I was like, "Oh!  Um, okay!"  At this point it hadn't really sunk in that we were having a baby tonight.  My mom went back out to the waiting room and the nurse talked to me about how to push.  I started pushing at 10:40.  For each contraction I would push for 3 counts of 10.  The nurse watched the monitor and told me when to push.  Each time I pushed she held one leg back while Matt held the other.  In between I had Matt re-wet a washcloth with cold water.  I had this on my forehead while I was hanging out in bed, but when I pushed it kept falling on my face because I was leaning my body forward to push.  So I eventually moved it behind my neck.  Oh and at 11:05 the nurse looked at me and Matt and said, "Your baby has hair.  A lot of hair!  Dad do you want to see?"  Matt was amazed that he could see Baby B's hair and said it was a lot of dark hair.

The baby got stuck for a bit and when I'd been pushing for a little over an hour the nurse stepped out for a minute to call the doctor on call (no longer my doctor, but another one in the practice who, thankfully, was one I really like) to see if they needed to start pitocin to up the intensity of my contractions to see if that would help.  The doctor decided to come on in and see how things were going.  They ended up not doing pitocin because my contractions started getting closer together and were working.  Also, having the doctor there and counting was added motivation for me to push even harder than I already was.

I feel like I should mention here that the whole giving birth process was much calmer than I imagined it would be.  The lights were all off in the room except for the two spotlights on me.  We kept movies going (Sweet Home Alabama at this point) and had conversations going.  We'd pause the conversation when I had a contraction and then would pick it right back up again when the contraction was over.  At some point the movie was over and Matt pulled up a Weepies album on Spoti.fy for me to listen to.  Apparently the doctor also really liked the album and said she listened to it a lot.  Eventually the nurse moved the mirror over and I could see Baby B's head and all that hair.  That was also added motivation for pushing.

At 12:45am the nurse and doctor helped me move to the edge of the table and put my feet up in stirrups.  It wasn't until the nurse laid a towel on my chest and called for nurses to come in to take care of the baby that I realized we were having a baby SOON.  That, and the doctor putting on shoe covers, a gown, etc, which happened at 1:05am.  After a few more pushes Baby B came out all at once at 1:31am on 1/3/2012.  Matt took a look and told me, "It's a girl!"  He cut the cord and when she was laid on the towel on my chest I started crying.  It still seemed really surreal that we had a daughter, that she was here.  Eleanor was 7 pounds 3 ounces and 19.5 inches long.

I held Eleanor for a minute and then the nurses took her over to get her cleaned off and checked out.  The doctor stitched me back up (I only had a second degree tear) and I definitely had to ask her to move the mirror over.  I didn't want or need to see that part because I knew if I could feel what she was doing it would really hurt.  After Eleanor got cleaned up and swaddled they brought her over for Matt to hold.  This was within 10 minutes or so of her being born.  He had texted my mom to let her know Baby B was here, but didn't tell her if it was a boy or a girl :)  After I got moved back up on the bed I attempted feeding Eleanor before my mom came back. 

When Matt went out to get my mom and brought her in the room I definitely made her guess whether it was a boy or a girl.  For the record, she guessed boy :)  My mom got some time to hold Eleanor.  The nurse brought in some boxed lunches for Matt and I since the cafeteria downstairs closed at 2am and it was just after 2:00 at this point.  A cold cut turkey sandwich has never tasted so good!

Around 3:30ish (I think) I was wheeled upstairs to a postpartum room.  My mom headed to our house to get some sleep and Matt and I sort of got some sleep in our room. 

All in all it was a great experience.  All the nurses and the doctor were amazing, and the hospital was awesome.  I did joke with Matt that it was funny we had gone to all those classes about how to deal with contractions and had brought the exercise ball and some massagers to use during labor...and we had no use for them since I was so far dilated when we got to the hospital :) 

And because she's so cute, here's a picture of Eleanor from a newborn photo shoot we did today with a local photographer, Elisabeth Smith.  There are 4 posted on Fac.ebook and I can't wait to see the rest!  Our daughter is so beautiful!



A few quick photos

We are loving our time with Eleanor.  We are still in the hospital and will head home sometime tomorrow.  We've had lots of visitors last night and today and Eleanor has enjoyed meeting our "family" here.  Matt is an amazing dad and it's been such a joy to watch him with our daughter.  Our daughter - that's still sinking in.  I'm healing pretty well and am feeling much better today than I was yesterday.  Eleanor and I are figuring out feeding and it's getting better every time.  Here are a few quick pictures from yesterday and today.  Enjoy - she's beautiful!

(My mom bought the bow at the gift shop downstairs)

 The first of monthly pictures, courtesy of Matt's photography skills :)

Daddy's girl

It's a girl!

Eleanor Ruth arrived at 1:31 this morning!  She weighed 7 pounds 3 ounces and is 19.5 inches long.  I'll post a more detailed birth story sometime soon, but she and I are both doing well and Matt is already a fantastic dad.  We are so blessed!