Observations...

G had her 2 month old well baby visit today. What a misnomer. They should call it the 2 month vaccine visit. That's really what each visit is for, to give shots. E & I debated beforehand which shots, if any, to let G have. Well, more like I did research for the last few weeks, and we finally got around to discussing it last night. So, we decided last night that the only one we really felt like she would be more at risk for was the pertussis one, aka whooping cough. It's much more prevelant than polio, tetanus, diptheria, etc. We didn't want to continue her Hep B shots (after all, she's not going to be involved in IV drug use or promiscuous sex anytime soon). We also didn't think much for the pneumo-whatever Prevnar shot for ear infections. The dr was only mildly helpful, she was fine leaving the decision up to us, but only really said that she's seen all but polio in her experience and that they were all fatal b/c the kids didn't have the vaccine. I suppose in some way that is a scare tactic to say that, even if it's true. So then we decided to give her the combo shot that has the pertussis and the oral rotovirus (newer and I didn't even come across it in my research, but it has to do w/ diarrhea and supposedly it is extremely common in kids). Then I started to doubt myself, am I putting G at risk by not vaccinating her for the other things? Yes, they are rare, but WHAT IF?! What if we were that one in whatever? The bottom line was that I didn't want G to die from something that I could have prevented. So, in the end, I feel like I caved in, we let her have all of the vaccines. At least I feel better that it wasn't so traumatic for her, I let her suck on my finger after she finished her oral dose and she was fine, but once the first needle went in, she was one very unhappy camper. However, once everything was said and done, she stopped crying quickly and continued sucking on my finger. By the time we were getting her dressed again, she seemed no worse for the wear.

What else happened at her doctor's visit? Her current stats: 25% for pretty much everything, measuring a petite 9 lbs, 4 oz and 21.5 inches. I think E was a little disappointed she didn't make the double digits mark, but if she had held in her pee (there was a lot of it in the diaper we took off her before her weigh in) and hadn't spit up while we were getting her dressed this morning, she just might have hit the 10 lb mark. Oh well, next time for sure.

Observations from smaller eyes, the other day we were at a friend's house and their 3-year-old daughter (who loves all things baby) was fascinated by G, watching her sleep and then later watching her nurse. It was a little strange at first, having someone else so intently watching us, and from all angles walking to one side, then over to the other (on another occasion, this same girl carefully watched E rocking G to sleep and copied him with a balled up blanket in her arms, swaying her hips in exactly the same way). I told her to watch G's eyes, that they will be open while she is drinking, then when she starts to get full, they will close. She watched closely. Then she asked me, where's her cup? Her cup? Um, she doesn't have a cup. Where is she drinking from? Uh..., when babies are small they don't drink from a cup. Do you know where they drink from? No. Hmm..., go ask your mommy. Sigh, pretty soon, I won't be able to divert those questions so easily because I will be the mommy! I suppose I could always say go ask Daddy, but I might be more afraid of how E would answer! Later, the little girl brought out 2 of her baby dolls and proceeded to lay them to sleep and feed them (I almost caught her lifting her shirt up with one baby, I wonder if she was going to try to feed the baby the same way I was!).

Reflections on Mommyhood

It's been almost 2 months since G entered our lives. I'm often asked how things are going, how is being a new mom, etc. Besides the usual diapers, spit up, crying, parental sleep deprivation, there's so much more.

Sometimes, I look down at G in my arms and I'm still amazed. Who is this little person? How did she come to be OUR daughter? Is she really ours? It's sort of mind-blowing, but I think it's not in an easily explainable way how strange the feeling is.

I also know how strong of a love I feel for her, I remember feeling it the moment they placed her on me after she was born. (Boy, do I look tired in this pic!) I know not all women feel an instant bond to their babies, that sometimes it takes time, but that was not the case for me. I think G also felt an instant bond to me, I love this photo of her reaching out and touching my face. There have been a few moments where I've really felt the strong bond, the "Don't get in the way between me and MY baby" mode. This can be directed at anyone, even E. I realized very quickly, probably in the first 2 weeks, that I would do anything for G, anything to save her, yes, even risking my own life, no questions asked.

Even now, one of the things I love about breastfeeding G is just having that close time, where I can just look down at her (ok, I'm not always just lookind down at her doing nothing else, sometimes, I'm on the computer reading emails or surfing the internet, or watching TV) and be amazed by her.

The thing I love most about being a mom is knowing that I'm her number one comfort. With so many of my other friends having kids, I'm around them a lot, and when they are upset or hurt, I will always try to console their crying, but it only goes so far, at some point they just want their mommy. And now, I'm that person. I'm the one that G will look to, that can make her crying stop (eventually) and soothe her. And that's an awesome feeling. (Down the road, I'm sure I'll want other people to be that for her too, or to share the load, but for now I'm more than ok with it.)

And yes, there are lots of times where it still seems so surreal. But then she give us a face like this and your heart just melts!

But I'm definitely no supermom!

What a great daddy & husband!

No, he didn't even pay or prompt me to write this!

As mentioned in the earlier post on G's changing sleep pattern, E offered to work from home Tuesday morning in order to help me out with G's crying during her naps (this was in addition to the scheduled work from home for Wednesday morning for me to get my hair cut fixed). So, what was I able to do while E was home? I made an egg scramble w/ cheese, sausage & tomatoes for breakfast (it was E's idea and he started cooking and helped, but I had to finish), washed dishes, started writing thank you cards, made lunch (chicken pesto wraps) for him to take to work and smaller portions for me to eat in my "spare time", washed and cut fruit (that I had been wanting to do for several days). I'm sure there were other things I got to do also, but can't remember now. It was really nice to have the extra help.

E stayed home again this morning so that I could get my hair recut (I got a cut on Saturday from the salon I've been going to, but from a different woman, needed more layers). Since I didn't get a phone call from E that she was waking up, I decided to stop next door to the salon to get cheesey fries (yum!). That afternoon after E went to work, I moved a dresser out from the closet to the corner of our bedroom, pushed the other dresser over, and reversed all of our clothes (so that now my stuff is on the right and his is on the left). I also opened up our travel bed for G to air out the outgasses, did more thank you cards, printed out labels, and organized some files in the office. It felt productive.

G's naps are getting better, she's still crying, but less and is often able to go back to sleep on her own quickly. We are able to rock her bed a little to help her go back to sleep without having to pick her up too (some of the time). First I wait a minute or two, then go in and rock her bed without her seeing me. If that still doesn't work, then I talk to her quietly and let her see me while still rocking her bed, and if all else fails, I finally pick her up.

Sleep & other things

I wanted to post something on my reflections of being a new mom, but since G didn't really sleep all day yesterday (night was fine), and seems to be on a similar trend for today, I thought I'd save that for another day when I have more energy.

G has always been a good sleeper, but she's also always been very alert and curious. These two traits seem to be in contradiction to one another, but this is how it works: When she is awake, she is constantly looking around, and her eyes are so big. When she gets sleepy, her eyes are the last thing to "go to sleep". Her body relaxes, same with her head, and her arms and legs. Even her face will be relaxed, but her eyes will fight closing to the very end. Sometimes they will even stay open a little, and you can see her eyes rolling back. Eventually they will close and she will look so peaceful.

However, yesterday, she discovered power naps, or cat naps. Despite being tired, she will fall asleep, but if we try to put her down, she will wake up. The interval can be anywhere from 5 to 40 minutes. Then she will cry, one of us will pick her up (ok, during the day it was all S, but the minute E came home, he was on duty) and she will fall back asleep, put her down, and repeat the whole thing. I hope this phase doesn't last too long. We are guessing (hoping) this is just a little growth spurt.) But on the bright side, since she slept so badly all day, she slept from 9pm to 4am straight! Woo hoo for G continuing the 7 hr nightshifts!

Here's an interesting article I found on a baby recently born in India.

8 weeks!

It's amazing how time seems to fly by. G is 8 weeks old today. She's starting to outgrow her newborn clothes, the ones that fit her just right before are now tight when she stretches her legs and a little short on the arms.

G is no longer spitting up all the time (she still spits up but so much less than before) so we have not been putting bibs on her as much. She can sleep bib-free now too. The other advantage to sleeping bib-free is that she has graduated to a "bigger baby swaddle" which looks like this: We have been doing this so that she can suck on her hand or finger if she half wakes up, just like in this pic. Except that right after I took this photo, she woke up and it took me 40 minutes to get her back to sleep, she was so overtired.

What was she tired from since this was taken just this morning? She had a long tummy-time session this morning on her play mat after reading her new book. Here's a recreation of her 120 (that's an almost roll over):
Her starting position:


Where she ended up:


Other milestones for this week: She's starting to smile more, and bigger smiles too. I'll try to find a good photo of one later. She's also grabbing and reaching for stuff. Things she's reached for, Mommy's face, Daddy's face. She's also talking more and sticking her tongue out more, seemlingly to taste stuff (like her bib, her sleeve, her finger, Daddy or Mommy's shirt or arm , etc.

Mommy & Baby Problems

S is dealing with recurrent plugged ducts. It's no fun. Especially when it tends to get bad at 4-5am. We think it's related to G sleeping longer at night (common according to the lactation consultants and other mothers). S is now taking Lecithin which is supposed to help prevent them from recurring, it's apparently an emulsifier, which means it helps keep the fat from separating from the rest of the milk. That, in addition to the heat pads, massage (not the comfortable spa kind, but the hard pressure on an already sore and tender area kind), pumping, and repositioning G's latch to the affected area. We hope it works.

We also discovered this week that G has cradle cap. Apprently this is common in babies, but from talking to friends, it is even more common in babies blessed with lots of hair. Probably because you can't see the scalp from under all of it. We're giving her more frequent shampoos and combing her scalp. This picture was taken after a major combing session, the flakes were everywhere! It seems to be going away tho, it was never really severe, so we'll see over the next few days if it clears up. And just like her Mom, G's hair gets curly when wet (and also looks better after the first day), and less curly when dry.

Anatomy of a Blowout

G's bad hair day...


So G's latest thing is to have these tiny poops that are just like single little dots all day in order to give her parents one of these surprises. While S was giving G her morning breakfast, G was grunting and clenched her body and let out a big squishy noise. This is the middle layer:

This is the bottom layer:

In case you needed more details:


So after E cleaned her up and carefully peeled off her layers, we gave her a bath, S finished giving her breakfast, and E went to start her laundry. Now she is sleeping peacefully.

7 weeks!

G is 7 weeks old today, wow, how time really flies! This past weekend we took her on her first trip. We figured she should be pretty flexible considering how she's lived in four places since she's been born. So, this past weekend was our church's annual All-Church Retreat. She was the youngest baby there by about 4 weeks. She did really well, considering that her accomplishment for this past week was hitting the seven hour mark, which she continued over the weekend, 7 hours the first nite, and 6 hours the second.

Other firsts: using her cool green stroller and baby tote to sleep & wheel around in, leaving her in the nursery at the retreat, using a baby monitor (at a friend's house for a post-retreat BBQ), and pooping on Mommy's shirt & pants (while Mommy & Daddy were trying to swing dance at the BBQ with G in Mommy's arm).

After the retreat, S got to meet up with one of her BabyCenter cyberfriends. Ever since her miscarriage, S has kept in touch with a group of about 15 women who miscarried around the same time. One lives in Santa Cruz, so it was really exciting for S to be able to meet up with one of her friends who she's shared so much with over the past year. As a side note, most of the women are currently pregnant or have already delivered! God really is amazing how he works, His ways are truly a mystery beyond our comprehension.

Mixed Blessings

So having your baby go for longer stretches between feedings is a great thing, especially when it happens at night.

Having hard breasts and plugged ducts because you baby is nursing less often is a horrible thing, especially when it happens at night.

This time around, I'm not even sure they are plugged because it doesn't have the same INTENSE PAIN that it had before, it's just lumpy. Maybe it's in the early stages? Who knows. I've put in a call to our lactation consultant as well as to the La Leche League. Hopefully someone will call back.

Speaking of calling back soon, we finally had to call the pediatrician/on-call advice nurse. I feel good that we lasted 6+ weeks without having to call. But this week has been stressful... worring first about G having a cold or fever and trying to use the nose sucker and ear thermometer (yes, I know that in infants the ear one is less accurate, but I was NOT going to put the butt one in without E around to help), then noticing yellowish gums around where her molars would be, and in the process of examining the yellow gums, finding a white bump along the front of her gums... sigh. 

For reference, it was the yellow gums that worried us enough to call the doctor.

Oh, and I did mention the longer periods between feedings, right? That's interspersed with periods where she does not sleep at all between feedings even though she's tired. How do I know she's tired? I don't have that great alert calm baby period, instead I have the yawning, almost dozing, then crying, turning to wimpering, then sleep, then waking up and crying, repeatedly until her next feeding. This occurs both when we try to put her down (we can get 20-30 minutes of peace) and when we continuously hold her, either walking around with her or just sitting with her.

We're chalking it up to her 6 week growth spurt.

6 weeks

When we scheduled my post-partum appointment for 6 weeks after G was born, it seemed so far off. But here it is. The appointment went well, I got the all clear that everything is ok (won't go into details) and most importantly, I've lost all of my pregnancy weight from G plus some. However, I always add 10 lbs to my pregnancy weight because of my first pregnancy, the 5 lbs I gained from it, and the 5 lbs from after our angel went to heaven. So all told, I still feel like I have 5 more pounds to lose. We'll see if it actually happens, since I hate dieting (I like to eat too much). If I want to get back into my wedding weight, I'll probably have to lose a bit more.

On another note, we had a parenting high last nite, where G went SEVEN hours between feedings! We were kind of shocked when we woke up at 4:30am both of us wondering if we had missed a feeding (her last one being at 9:30pm). The downside of it was that she had only nursed on one side before, so I was majorly full and G unfortunately could not completely drain that side (and I was feeling some hard spots and became deathly afraid of getting those AWEFUL plugged ducts again). So we spent the next hour and a half sterilizing all the breastpump parts E had literally just purchased before coming home that night and trying to read the online directions on how to put all the pieces together to make it work. I managed to pump out another 7 ounces total! After we finally went to bed at 6:30, I commented to E, if G had just nursed for 5 more minutes, we could have gone to bed an hour and a half earlier. It's amazing to me how even a hospital-grade pump is still nothing at all like the real thing. However, unlike a pump, you can't control when the baby wants to nurse and for how long.

G's second major accomplishment for this week is that she is getting much better at burping after her meals. For the first 5 weeks, it was as if she just refused to burp. You could pat and rub her for hours and she still wouldn't burp, though often you could easily get a spit up. The rare burp that she graced us with almost always was accompanied by the hiccups, which of course helped wake her up more and thus making it take longer to put her down to sleep. Somehow, in this past week, she has been so much better at burping. I think it's a combination of her getting older and "learning" how, and also her parents learning the tricks for how to best burp her. For G, it seems that most of the time you just have to sit her upright holding her torso straight (as opposed to hunched over because she likes to curl up in a ball lying upright against us), I usually do this with her facing me, and within a minute or so, she will give you a great burp. Sometimes accompanied with spit up, but still, a burp nonetheless, and without the patting, though usually I will pat her for a little bit before sitting her up in front of me. Very handy trick...

Taking G out solo

First of all, I have to give myself props for venturing outside w/ G by myself, yay to me! Also have to be proud that I can blog 3 days in a row! Yeah, see how long that lasts!

So, about this solo trip. A friend has repeatedly invited me to join a mom's ministry from her church. I had been neutral about it every time, but as I was looking at the most recent email from her and the ministry's website, E happened to sit next to me and saw the site too, commenting, hey, that's really close to us, and there's a meeting tomorrow! He encouraged me to go check it out, with the added bonus that he would even make me breakfast that morning! Whoa, can't pass that up! So I packed G up into the car (yes, it was close, but we still drove, maybe later I'll consider walking), and we met my friend there. We went to different classes, as her child is older than G. The class I went to was more like a "Mommy & Me" class, teaching songs and baby signs, different themes each week. I think G is a little young for it right now, we won a little prize for G being the youngest child there (she's 5.5 weeks, and I still haven't even had my post-partum check-up). Anyways, most of the other babies in my class (for new moms) were like 4-11 months. We'll see if I keep going.

The funny thing about the outing was how everyone kept commenting on how good I looked for G being so young and also how alert G was, making her seem older than she was. I get the G being alert and therefore seemingly older, I guess most babies sleep, which G does a lot of at home, but she definitely is interested in looking around when she's awake, especially when in a new place or w/ new people. The finny comments were about how I looked (remember, these were people who didn't know me and had never seen me before). I asked my friend about it later, what was I supposed to look like? Tired & haggard, like I haven't slept or showered in days? If I was that tired, I just wouldn't go out and would stay at home. However, the hygeine part may be semi-accurate, but I won't give out any details. All I'll say is that I did in fact brush my teeth today, thank you very much.

Now for a tiny nap for me before G wakes up...

Finally Alone!

Today marks the first day we finally have the house all to ourselves... Grandparents left Tuesday, Uncle (mostly) finished the remodel construction yesterday. It is so nice to have the whole house to ourselves, I could watch TV and use the computer in the living room while nursing G (it's so nice to be able to nurse G somewhere OTHER than my bed!), leave the bedroom shade open, and finally vacuum & swiffer the floor to get it somewhat clean. Every day or so, my mom or I (ok, mostly my mom) would clean the floor, only to have it continuously get dirty.

This weekend is big garbage pick up in our area, so we are very committed to unpacking the rest of our stuff so we can dump all the extra stuff. Yay to almost having a usable garage! We were considering going up to Tahoe for some spring snowboarding this weekend but after finding out about the big garbage wkend, we decided that was probably more important. Sigh. Guess S will have to wait until next season to get her snow fix.

Delayed 1 Month Update & New Discoveries

So, I had intended to post something on G's first month, but that was last week and this is the first chance I've had to get online to post. That's what parenthood is about, everything takes WAYYYY longer. Had a family get-together for her one month "Man Yue" thing. According to my grandmother, because G was born at 11:30 at night, it counts as the next day, and in addition to the Chinese tradition of starting out life at one year old at birth, that means technically we celebrated her "thirteenth month plus one day"...

Oh, also in her first month, I got to discover the wonderful world of plugged ducts, we took G on her first trip to SF (for her friend's Red Egg party), met all her grandparents.

G also graduated to the next diaper size, maybe a week or more ago. We are using 7th Gen diapers and when E was sent on his first trip to buy diapers a few weeks ago, he called from the store wanting to buy Size 1 diapers instead of the newborn ones because you get like 12 or 16 more diapers for the same price. Uhh, she's not that big yet so stick w/ the newborn size. However, she is now on the Size 1 diapers, yay! We've got "new parents" written all over our foreheads, I took pictures of her in her Size 1 diaper... like I'm going to have time to scrapbook all of this! We'll see, I still have high hopes.

On a more recent note, today G discovered her fingers/thumb. This morning as E was changing her diaper, she was unusually quiet, and E noticed that she was sucking a finger. Of course we had to stop everything to take a picture because it was oh so cute! Then, later when she woke up from only sleeping an hour, I was doing everything I could to get her back to sleep. I put her in the sling, trying it left-handed for the first time which totally threw her off because she kept turning her head into the sling instead of outwards (way to freak out new mom smothering her baby in the sling). Anyways, we finally figured it out, and she was still crying and seemed to want to nurse, but I had started heating up some chicken & rice soup my mom had made because I was hungry so I wanted to eat first before feeding G (yeah, that didn't happen...) So, I was walking around with G in the sling, and she would quiet down and nod off in between crying and one of the times she nodded off, I noticed her thumb in her mouth, fingers up along her nose towards her eyes... so cute! Of course, tried to get a picture of it, but have you ever tried to take a picture of a baby while wearing her in a sling? Very difficult. I'll have to get E to upload the pics from my camera...