I think G has hit another growth spurt

All the years I thought I'd never be able to have children, and now I have to face the fact that even at 2 months old, my baby boy is starting to grow up. It's almost depressing! He's been sleeping so well, I just shrugged it off when he woke up after 3 hours last night and wanted to be fed again. I say again, because just 3 hours earlier, while at grandpa's, he ate a 5 oz bm bottle, and 8 oz of formula in just 2 hours, which is very unlike him. He usually only eats about 25 to 30 oz a day of bm. I felt bad for giving him formula, but I think everyone knows how things go when grandparents start playing with their grand-babies :D

G woke up last night at 10pm, 1am, 4am, and just a short while ago at almost 7am, each time finishing off a 5 ounce bm bottle! I don't know where it's going, but it's making me sad. Thankfully I'm still making enough milk for him.

I never thought I'd be one of those women who would actually feel guilty just because they couldn't breastfeed. I mean really, as long as your baby is healthy that should be all that matters, right? Well, when I stopped nursing and started exclusively pumping, J could swear it was the end of the world for me. Nursing had gone great right from day one in the hospital. I never thought that closeness I felt with G could get any closer, but with nursing it did. Then a few weeks after we brought G home we had to move and J started a OTR job, and between all of that, nursing was just becoming too stressful, I really think for the both of us. When I stopped nursing I honest to goodness thought that closeness (for some reason) would just disappear. I didn't realize how silly I was being. I had been pumping and freezing milk since we brought G home, and had a pretty decent stash built up already by the time I started exclusively pumping. I have noticed though, since only pumping, that I haven't gotten the opportunity to freeze milk. But I've got about 400 ounces stashed away, and I make plenty to feed him during the day with a bottle or two left over for the next day, so I feel pretty confident in my supply. I just hope now I'm able to keep up with him!

My first experience with Planet Wise

Back in December, I had won a gift card for and made a purchase at Abby's Lane of a Planet Wise pail liner. I was so excited, and once I started using it, my excitement evolved into happiness. Being my first time cloth diapering, I was happy to not notice any smells while the liner was full of diapers, or empty. I had heard rumors of other bags and liners holding smells even after washing, so this was great for me so far. I loved how this one bag held in all those dirty dipes and nothing leaked out!
Now, we recently moved, and even though G is ebf, I hooked up my diaper sprayer and started spraying his dirty dipes anyway, in the hopes of eliminating the first rinse cycle in our now coin operated laundry. My first load of wash after holding these soaking wet diapers, I was startled by a slow leak of yuck-water from the bottom of the liner as I lifted it from the pail. My liner was wicking! I started my wash, and immediately emailed Planet Wise. I knew my warranty had expired, but I was upset by the fact that I (at the time) felt dumb for ordering the liner early, and only getting to use it a month before it stopped working properly. Just a run down, so it's out there, I only use Rockin Green detergent. Not additives, no bleach, and I line dry anything and everything with PUL. So I know I hadn't compromised my liner myself. I received an email back, and after a few questions, I was offered the opportunity to fill out a replacement form, and was told I would receive a new liner, even though my warranty had expired. Now I of course have yet to receive my replacement liner, but I am ecstatic with Planet Wise customer service! I no longer regret purchasing my liner early, and am pleased to see a company stand so strongly behind their products.

Other than the minor issue I encountered, which is now being remedied, I have found nothing I dislike about my Planet Wise liner. I can't wait to try the new one and see how well it holds up to my sprayed-down diapers!

Introducing!

As if I thought my last days of pregnancy couldn’t have gone any faster, I was even more surprised how quickly almost 2 months have gone by afterwards! Yes, 8 weeks later, I want to finally announce
Gabriel Anthony
born on January 10, 2011 at 11:31pm
8 pounds, 8.2 ounces, and 21 inches long

That had been the longest day of my life. I had spent the whole weekend spotting and passing clots, and of course my Braxton Hicks were seeming to only get worse, but not regular enough for the hospital to want me to come in. I ended up making it through the weekend and making it to my doctor appointment on Monday. That was at 9 am, and my contractions were almost unbearable. The dr checked me, and I was 5 cm! She also decided I was in active labor, so I was admitted, given an epi, and my water was broken, since it hadn’t on it’s own yet. Things were moving along quickly, by 1 pm I was at 8 cm, but then everything seemed to stop. I spent the rest of the day moving around in bed trying to get my contractions to dilate me further, but nothing was working. I managed to make it to 9cm by 10pm, but there was talk of needing a c-section. From there, I don’t know how or why, but I managed to open up another half cm, and my dr decided I was stretchy enough to try and deliver. By god I was, and I pushed for all of 20 minutes before our beautiful baby boy was born.
I started breastfeeding, and while it was going well, it was getting frustrating, I think for both of us, and I am now exclusively pumping. I had a slight dip in my supply, but a day or so of Fenugreek fixed that right away! We’re also cloth diapering here. I never thought I could be so excited about diapers lol. I constantly find myself scanning blogs and Facebook for reviews and giveaways so I can try more diapers. But I’ll post more about that later. Someone’s up from his nap!

Reliving the roller-coaster

Things have been.... not exactly looking up, but we've been able to make ends meet and start to catch up with our bills. Then the week of Thanksgiving came...

Jer's truck had broken again, he worked 2 days, then had Thanksgiving and that Friday off. This week he worked Monday, and Tuesday, but used the money from both days on fuel. Then he took today off. Tomorrow he's got one load to South Dakota and that's more than likely all he'll have time to do.

We have November's rent paid now finally, but have nothing paid on December yet. Two months behind on phone/cable/Internet, electric and gas (heat). We've now got a loan payment for the semi, gas for every week dr appointments for me, finishing buying baby stuff, and of course rent. I don't think we'll be able to make it this month. After last month getting caught up I really felt better and thought things were just going to continue to move forward. But with Jer losing 2 or 3 days of work a week is just going to kill us. I don't think we'll be able to pick ourselves up after this month. I have a really bad feeling in my gut that this is going to be it. 

Dear Baby

I know you've been growing for almost 30 weeks now, but please try to remember that you've got 10 weeks left. You're making these remaining weeks and days very hard on mommy. You're little kicks, punches, and head-butts are painful. I'm very happy that you are so active, but lets be a little more respectful, hmm? Mommy loves you very much, and can't wait to meet you, lets keep this remaining time just between us as enjoyable as the past 7 months have been. Thanks! :)