Journey to and Through Motherhood: Lily's 29th Week (9/14/09

Paul and I drove separately to work on Tuesday because he had a dentist appointment that evening. Thankfully he was cavity free and problem free. I don’t have any fillings and haven’t had any dental problems but Paul’s teeth have cost us a lot of money. Hopefully Lily takes after me. Lois came over around 7pm to get a Pulmonaria plant from us that Paul wanted to dig up and divide. (It is very appropriate for us to give it to her considering we all work at the Pulmonary Lab together.) We didn’t realize how short the days were getting. It was nearly dark when Paul got home from the dentist and was trying to dig up and divide the plant. Lois stayed for a while to visit. The cats were happy to see her as she was the one who took such wonderful care of them while we were on vacation at Higgins Lake in July. Lois was amazed at how Nolan interacts with Lily. Nolan just goes right up to her and lets her pull his fur, tail, and ears, all while purring happily. They love each other. Lily shakes and squeals with excitement every time he comes near. All you have to say is, “kitty,” and she looks all around for him. The other two cats are interested in Lily and come fairly close to her but always keep out of arm’s range. Nolan intentionally comes up to her whenever she is on the floor for her version of petting. She giggles hysterically if he licks her finger or toe. It is so cute.

On Thursday, we went to Macaroni Grill after work with a bunch of our coworkers which was arranged by Meghan. Paul got out of work early so that he could go pick up the girls and meet us at the restaurant. At dinner, Meghan made a big announcement that she is three months pregnant. I am really happy for her. I actually knew her secret because I have been helping her navigate all the red tape involved in pregnancy restrictions at work. It brought back a flood of memories of the hoops I had to jump through to set up for maternity leave, the confusion about the 80 hours of bridge time to extended sick pay, and all of the other problems I faced. I can’t believe what a difficult process it is. I am glad that I can at least pass on my knowledge and advice to someone else.

During the week, I emailed one of the lactation consultants that I met when we did the Breastfeeding, Work, and You forum together in August. Back then I talked about how easily and successfully I was pumping and how I was getting an excess as I was pumping about 24 ounces while I was at work. Now I am lucky if I get 12 ounces. This is not enough to keep up with demand as Lily drinks about 15 ounces of breastmilk while she is with Kirsten. We are supplementing with my frozen excess but I hate that we keep tapping into the emergency backup supply on a daily basis. It is so frustrating. I was a failure as a woman because I couldn’t get pregnant without medical intervention then I couldn’t give birth without medical intervention but the one thing I could do well on my own was make milk. Now I can’t even do that adequately. When my period came the first time, it knocked down my production substantially. When I finally got it back up to meet demand, it got knocked down even further by my next period. This roller coaster is exasperating. Mary, the lactation consultant, was very helpful and emailed me right back with some suggestions and attached a handout on different techniques and herbs to try. The first thing she recommended is called ‘power pumping’ which I couldn’t do until the weekend because it is very time consuming. To power pump, you pump for ten minutes, rest for ten minutes, pump for ten minutes, etc. for one hour in the morning then do it again for one hour in the evening. For the rest of the day, you just pump or breastfeed as usual. She said to do it for one day so I did it on Saturday but then did it in the morning on Sunday as well. It wasn’t too bad because I just watched TV while doing it and had Paul watch Lily. Mary warned that if it worked, it would take several days to see the results. If that doesn’t work, I will try the herbs which again, work for some people but don’t work for others. I hope that something works because I still would like to continue nursing Lily as we both find it to be a very rewarding and enjoyable experience. Besides power pumping, the weekend was pretty uneventful. We mostly hung around the house. Paul worked outside and Rachel played with the neighbor boys.

This week Lily is so close to crawling. She gets on her hands and knees but one leg always gets stuck underneath her and she can’t quite rotate it around. She can move herself across a room or spin herself in a circle by getting on her hands and knees then sitting back down in a slightly different spot than she got up from. It takes a while but is very interesting to watch. She is still pulling up on her swing. She can’t pull up on anything else yet but can stand unsupported holding onto the edge of the coffee table. I think it is easy for her to pull up on the swing because she can get a good grip wrapping her little hands around the leg bar. We think she is going to be left-handed because she almost always plays with toys in her left hand. If you give her something on her right side, she will frequently take it with her right hand then transfer it to her left. We play a game with her on the floor where she throws us her ball and we roll it back to her. In this game, she almost always throws with her left hand.

Lily is adding new foods to her diet. She had apples last week and had squash and peas this week. She seems to like all the baby foods we have given her and hasn’t had any adverse reactions to anything. She is a really good eater. She is mostly eating stage one foods still but I mix them with oatmeal to a fairly thick consistency as she has never done well with runny foods. That way she gets her grains as she still hates cereal mixed with breastmilk alone but loves it mixed with fruits or vegetables. She is a lot less messy at dinner now but it is hard to clean her up because she immediately grabs the wet washcloth from your hands and holds it in a death-grip and sucks on it. Apparently Rachel liked to suck on washcloths when she was little, too. I don’t understand the appeal. Frequently we need to use two washcloths to clean her up after dinner or in the bath, one for her to steal and suck on and one for you to actually clean her up with.

Here are some pictures from the week.

Lily looking cool in Keegan’s sunglasses on Tuesday:

Lily with Meghan on Thursday. Soon Meghan will have a baby of her own:

Lily playing with her toys on Saturday:

Lily always wants to eat when we eat so we gave her some fruit in her Munchkin Fresh Food Feeder to keep her entertained while we had dinner on Saturday. We always have to strip her down as fruit juice ends up running down all over her. It is so funny listening to her slurp on that thing: