fate laughing at me Archives - Page 4 of 4

Jun 25, 2007

This Wasn’t Exactly What I Was Asking For

When Cordy was a newborn, she was a royal pain. She cried all the time from colic and reflux. She slept poorly. She didn’t seem to like being held unless in the sling. She refused to breastfeed, forcing us to give up and go to formula exclusively.

As we got to know her personality, we realized that Cordy was an independent soul. She liked being left alone, and loved her bouncy seat as long as we kept the entertainment going (music, lights, vibration). She hated co-sleeping – in fact, the first night we put her in her crib, she slept most of the night without waking. It was the longest she had ever slept. Apparently we were bothering her sleep by being in bed with her.

I firmly believe she was such an unhappy baby because she was pissed that she couldn’t do what she wanted. As a newborn, she couldn’t control her head or limbs, and that pissed her off. When she learned to hold her head up, she was little happier. Then when she could sit up on her own, she was again a little more pleasant to be around. Once she learned to crawl, her disposition improved greatly, second only to when she learned to walk. As a toddler, a new child emerged, and she went about doing things her own way. It’s like infancy was one big frustration to her: she knew she had to get through it, but she didn’t have to show any appreciation for our efforts.

When I became pregnant with Mira, I remember wishing that I wouldn’t have another child like Cordy. I love Cordy very much, independence and all, but I hoped for a child who would be a little less rushed to get away from us; a little more calm about her current developmental state, and hopefully a little more willing to try breastfeeding.

Clearly you need to be more specific when asking the universe for these things.

Mira is perhaps the neediest baby I’ve ever come across. While she doesn’t have reflux, she does have colic, combined with a frantic desire to be held at any given moment. I don’t think I can fully describe the frustration of rocking, bouncing, dancing and nursing a baby for over an hour to get her to finally drift off into a deep sleep, then slowly, gently, carefully setting her down in her bouncy seat (vibration already on), only to have her eyes pop open and the screaming start as soon as you turn your back.

She’s certainly not independent. We have to trick her into the bouncy seat by putting her there asleep, then dealing with the angry baby when she figures out what we did. The swing is a total no-go. Cordy hated co-sleeping, but Mira will settle for nothing less. If she isn’t spending her nights pressed up against me in bed with a nipple in her mouth, she won’t sleep. Now that I think of it, she isn’t happy while awake unless there is a nipple in her mouth, either.

And forget bottles, pacifiers, or any other substitute for a warm breast. She’s totally a pro-breast girl, and is offended if we offer her anything else. It’s made it impossible for me to pump and store milk because she always wants to be on the boob. I have no idea what we’ll do on the first day I have to be away from her for more than 2 hours. Which is coming up soon – I have a summer class with a four hour lab starting this week.

So I’ve gone from an independent fussy baby to a dependent fussy baby. Woo-hoo. And yet, even though I’m so weary from constantly holding her, sleeping in one position all night for her, and going deaf from her screaming, I can’t fault her for simply wanting to be close to someone. I’m sure it’s hard when you’ve gone from a warm, dark, safe environment, surrounded entirely by mama, to a bright, harsh, unpredictable world where your immature digestive system is constantly producing painful gas as it tries to adjust.

As the weeks go on, I hope Mira will want to explore more of her world, and perhaps enjoy a little time on her own. (Oh please, oh please, oh please…) Until then, I’ll keep doing what I can to keep her happy, while also seeking out ways to find a little down time for myself as well. For example, we learned last night that the sound of running water helps to relax her, often to the point of sleep. It’s because of this new trick that I was able to get the 30 min. needed to blog today:

Someone’s in the kitchen with mommy…

Filed Under: Cordy, fate laughing at me, Mira ·

Jun 18, 2007

Sleepless Nights (Not The Baby)

By Christina ·

While Mira does seem to have colic, at least she’s sleeping her long stretches at night. She generally gives us a three or four hour stretch starting at midnight, and then wake again a couple of hours later and nurse on and off in bed until 8am. (The good news – I seem to have enough milk for her now.)

This makes me very happy, because I’ve never been one to handle sleep deprivation well. If I’m ever interrogated by the government or terrorists, they will be able to break me after one night of no sleep. While Aaron often lives on only five hours of sleep a night, I prefer eight hours to function at peak performance. Of course, I have a newborn, so I’m lucky to get five or six hours, but that’s generally enough to keep me upright, if a little fuzzy headed.

So you can imagine how I feel when I tell you that last night I got about an hour of sleep all night. And that wasn’t a consecutive hour, either. Baby crying? Nope. Toddler with nightmares? Nope. Loud block party? Nope.

It was the damn smoke detectors.

I swear these things are possessed. I’ve written about them before and the torture they’ve caused. The detectors never have any problems during the day. They sit and wait until nighttime, when everyone is sleeping, to sound off and drive us insane.

But earlier episodes were nothing like last night. Because it wasn’t the low-battery chirping sound keeping us awake. It was the alarm going off full-blast for 5-10 seconds, at random intervals ranging from 5 minutes to one hour. All. Night. Long.

The first alarm had me jumping out of bed, startled and confused and worried. I wondered if something was overheating in the house, so I conducted a top to bottom search, checking each room and sniffing for any hint of smoke or anything burning. Satisfied that there was no fire, I went back to bed, only to be jolted awake by another alarm a few minutes after I fell asleep.

Cordy slept through the first few alarms. But it couldn’t last forever, and soon we heard the soft cries coming over the monitor. Aaron went into her room to comfort her and get her back to sleep, while I got dressed and left the house at 3am to find batteries, hoping that it was a battery problem.

Finding batteries at 3am is not easy. I first went to a gas station, only to be told they were “temporarily closed”. So I drove a little more to the grocery store, but found they closed at 1am. Bastards. I drove a little further to my last chance: Wal-Mart. Folks, you think Wal-Mart is scary during the day? You should see it at 3am. I’ve never seen so many people with missing teeth in one place.

Batteries in hand, I returned home to find a crying Mira. I fed her while Aaron changed batteries. We thought that would be the end of things, but close to 4am the alarm sounded again. Taking the batteries out completely wouldn’t silence them – the smoke detectors are interconnected in the electrical system, and the batteries are just a backup. So we went to the source of the problem, and shut off the circuit. This left the batteries still in, so the alarms continued off and on through the morning.

Today, drunk on a lack of sleep, I stumbled around the house slowly removing batteries from each detector, waiting to see if that particular round plastic demon was the faulty one. Each time the alarm shrieked, Cordy dove onto the couch and pulled pillows and blankets over her head to hide from it. To make the day worse, Mira was awake and crying much of the afternoon as well, so there was no rest to be had.

The alarms are now silenced, only because we have turned off the circuit and pulled all the batteries out. Tomorrow I’ll be looking for a fire alarm repair company to come out and fix the problem. I may ask them to completely replace the damn detectors just to end having their beady little green LED lights staring at me, waiting to attack again.

In the meantime, I hope Mira sleeps well tonight, because mommy needs sleep.

Filed Under: fate laughing at me, rant ·

Jun 15, 2007

There’s No Such Thing As Cosmic Balance

By Christina ·

A good friend just had her baby on June 1. We were amazed when we found out we were both pregnant and due close to the same time. She called the other day to catch up and we compared notes on our new little girls.

Her first born was what we called “the floor model”, meaning he was the child that would make other people say, “Oh, having a baby wouldn’t be bad at all – let’s do it!” (We also called him the “bait and switch” child.) He was, and still is for the most part, the easiest baby in the world. He slept a lot, sat quietly awake, rarely cried, slept through the night, etc. My friend and her husband were actually scared to have another baby, thinking that if they already had an angel of a baby, the next would be a devil.

Cordy, on the other hand, was an unhappy baby that could have scared others away from having children. With reflux, colic, and a general pissed off attitude at the world, she didn’t become pleasant to be with until she was close to four months old. I’m not trying to be mean when I say that – she really was an angry baby. The more independent she became, as she learned to sit up, crawl, and walk, the happier she was.

So of course when my friend and I talked before our second babies were born, we joked that now I would be getting my reward in an easier baby, and she would be getting a demon child this time. Cosmic balance, right?

Talking to her this week, though, it seems our kids missed the memo on how they should act.

“Oh, she’s wonderful!” she told me. “She’s only waking once a night, and she’s usually happy to just sit in her bouncy seat and look around quietly. Sounds like Mira isn’t quite as content.”

She said this as I was trying to shush a screaming baby while talking on the phone. Yes, Mira is not quite the easy baby I was hoping for. Based on the past few nights, I think she may have colic. We’ve had three days in a row now where she has cried non-stop for over three hours. Nothing makes her happy during those times – walking, rocking, the boob, laying on the floor, making promises to buy her pony, etc.

Thankfully she doesn’t have reflux like Cordy did. Her GI problems seem to be focused more on the lower tract, as she may be the gassiest baby ever. I may try cutting out all dairy to see if that’s what is bothering her. The thought of no dairy is depressing, but I know others have cut out even more foods for their kids.

It feels so unfair to have another fussy baby. However, it doesn’t last forever, so we will just have to get through it. Although right now it seems that Mira has some kind of sixth-sense, knowing the exact point I open my laptop computer, and waiting until that point to start crying. That could be hard to work around.

Filed Under: fate laughing at me, Mira ·

Apr 11, 2007

An Award and An Answer From The Heavens

By Christina ·

Woo-hoo! I got an award! The fabulous Kate from Eucalyptus Pillow (geez, I still have to look up the spelling for Eucalyptus when writing it) awarded me with a Perfect Post March ’07 award for my post about all the hatin’ on mommy bloggers that I’ve noticed lately. Thank you so much, Kate! It’s good to know others enjoyed that post.

(Although I think it was also that same post that led some troll to submit my blog’s URL to a gazillion porn and prescription drug spam blogs for linking. Classy. Ah well, as long as people can hide their identity on the internet, there will be trolls.)

***************

So here in town, they’re building yet another strip mall up against the giant Wal-Mart. About a month ago, we drove past and I noticed the first mall occupant was in place.

I said to Aaron, “Figures. Look at that – the first store is a check cashing place.”

“Yuck.”

“Yeah, like there aren’t four other check cashing/payroll advance scam places in a one mile radius. It must be the new way to christen a new strip mall – it’s not a real strip mall unless there’s a trashy check cashing store.”

“True.”

“Makes me wonder what other crap they will put in this new mall?”

“Dunno.” (Yeah, he clearly wasn’t as bothered by this as I was. Or he was just thinking about something else.)

“See, if they wanted to put something useful in there, we’d see a Starbucks with a drive-thru. Now that would be useful! We don’t have a Starbucks anywhere close by.”

“Yes, dear.” (clearly ignoring me now)

Well, I drove past that same Wal-Mart and strip mall today, and what did I see? The second business is now open, and it’s a Starbucks with a drive-thru.

Ask and ye shall receive.

Of course, knowing that someone up there is actually listening makes me happy, but I have to wonder about His or Her selective hearing. I mean, of all the things I ask for, I get the Starbucks?

Apparently the supreme being just loves coffee.

Filed Under: fate laughing at me · Tagged: awards

Apr 6, 2007

Breech

By Christina ·

This morning I had it confirmed that my second daughter is following in her big sister’s footsteps by being turned the wrong way. I think I can say for certain that we won’t be having a third child, simply because I see a tradition starting, and it’s one that I don’t want to continue.

The ultrasound tech found her head right away, well above my belly button, and like her earlier ultrasound months ago, she still has her feet up by her face most of the time. She flexed one leg a few times during the ultrasound, just to give me a kick, but then brought it right back to her head, demonstrating her Cirque du Soleil worthy flexibility.

We also know from this ultrasound that she’s likely to be a big kid. She’s estimated to be 5.5 pounds and 19.8″ long already, and I still have 7 weeks left. The tech asked if there was any way my due date could be off – no, I remember that cycle pretty clearly, and it was a perfect 28 day cycle. Of course, these kinds of estimates can be off by a lot, so I’m not putting a lot of faith in those numbers.

It was noted, however, that there is still plenty of space in there to give this baby a chance to turn. And the tech recommended a chiropractor she had heard of that has amazing success in convincing breech babies to turn head down using something known as the Webster technique. She said she has sent several of her clients to this doctor, and most have had success. That’s a good enough recommendation for me at this point.

I was relieved to get a glimpse at this baby and see that she is healthy and growing well. And that was what I tried to focus on when leaving the ultrasound office, because knowing she’s breech was really disappointing. I had wanted and planned for a natural birth with my first, but for her safety had to choose the c-section route. And now baby #2 is also breech and putting a damper on my hopes for a VBAC. Seriously, a 3% or less chance each time – with my ability to beat the odds, I can’t decide if that means I should try my luck in Vegas or not.

I feel like my body is faulty and I’m unable to carry a baby in the proper position. Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution perfected how our babies are carried in our bodies and born, and somehow my body is the throwback. Sure, I probably shouldn’t blame my body, but it’s no less crazy than blaming the baby for not following the plan, or blaming my husband for bad genetics, since he was breech also.

There’s still time, and I’m planning on trying any safe measure to get her turned. At this point I think I’ll start offering her a car when she’s 16, or maybe a pony, if she’d just turn around.

Here are two pictures from the ultrasound today. The uneven area near her mouth on the left is the umbilical cord floating in front of her face.