My favorite baby and post-partum products

Hey, all, so I thought I'd share with you my favorite baby and post-partum products so far. I'm so glad we have these things and I highly recommend them!

1. Giant, square receiving blanket - we like the Ultimate Swaddle Blanket. Most receiving blankets we have are nice, but not big enough for a proper swaddle. Be sure you have swaddling down to use this blanket properly. We like the swaddle by Dr. Karp, in the Happiest Baby on the Block (video and book)
2. Baby swaddler. Even if you can swaddle like a pro (and especially if you can't), this makes it SOOOOO much easier and faster. Amelia broke out of our other swaddles fast, but this thing is like a baby straight jacket. We bought 3.
3. Boppy Noggin Nest Head Support. You put your baby on her back to sleep, but then you have to remember to position her head (if she'll even cooperate). This eliminates that need to do that and position her head because it prevents a flat head. Her head lies cushily in the hole and she's all good!
4. Ergo Baby Carrier. Okay, we don't have this one yet, but I have completely lost faith in baby slings after seeing this news report and trying to put my newborn in one. It practically cut off her ability to breath, was difficult to get her in it and seemed very unsafe in general. So, we got out the baby bjorn. This was cool, however, in doing research comparing the Baby Bjorn with the Ergo, the Ergo is far better for lots of reasons: it's more ergonomic, has pouches to carry things in, can work until your child is well past the age you should be carrying them (and replaces those giant frame backpack carrier things), and you can use it to nurse in. Plus the Baby Bjorn isn't as ergonomic for you or baby and I read that it can harm baby spinal development. For all these reasons I think Ergo is the best choice. Just ordered one. Can't wait to see how it performs.
5. Soothie Pacifiers. Apparently babies LOVE (and I mean LOVE LOVE LOVE) to suck. Amelia was no exception and we used our finger until it became impractical. We switched to a pacifier after 2 weeks (and breastfeeding was well-established) and she could barely figure out how to use it. The reason we like this over the other kinds, is the lactation consultant told us that normal pacifiers (and NUK baby bottle nipples) teach babies how to bite down on things, so we tried this. Amelia loves it and there has been no biting thus far. The nipple is just like a bottle nipple, so it's not different than what she's used to.
6. Baby hats - get someone to knit some for you, because the knit ones are the BEST and cutest! I can post some patterns if anyone is interested.
7. Our Bumbleride stroller - amazing and works for newborns!
8. Changing pad and portable changing pads - we use these CONSTANTLY
9. Diaper covers and wool soakers - great if you can knit them yourself or even if you use the store bought kind. Couldn't do cloth diapers without them.
10. Any baby outfit that snaps down the legs and front AND includes feet and hand covers. Sure, onesies are great, but our baby often seems cold in them unless it's dead hot, which is hardly ever and I'm constantly trying to find something to cover her legs. These outfits are amazing. She hardly keeps the mittens and socks on, also, so anything that covers her hands and feet are great.

Other things I'm glad I have/made:
1. Waterproof mattress cover. Um, yeah, my mattress doesn't have plastic on it (I'm using an arm's reach co-sleeper) and we would be so screwed without this. It was so easy to make. SO easy. Made it of PUL.
2. Reusable wipes - we wet them with water before wiping her butt--a much better alternative for the environment and better for sensitive skin on baby butts. I will say that it's kind of a pain to keep them where you can wash them easily and to wash them and we seem to run out fast, so I'd make at least 50 if you were going to do it. I made wipe-sized squares out of an old receiving blanket and zig-zagged the edges with my machine.
3. Medela Advanced pump in style breast pump - GREAT pump. So far, it's been a huge help. I'll be pumping when I go back to work, so I'll have to let you know how that goes. Before this I used a manual pump, the Medela Harmony and it was also REALLY great--I highly recommend that one too.
4. Baby monitor - invaluable because we always have her nap in her crib. We tried having her nap in the living room, but that was hard on both of us - it overstimulated her and kept us constantly looking over to make sure she was okay. In the bedroom we know she's safe and contained and she gets used to sleeping in her own crib.

Post partum products:
1. Reusable nursing pads. You can buy these anywhere or make them yourself out of flannel or old receiving blankets (I made about 6 pairs out of both). They are AMAZING. They feel MUCH nicer than the disposable kinds and are easy to wear and reuse. Trust me, you will need these, at the very least for night time. It can be a very leaky time of day...
2. Nursing tanks. Seriously a life saver for the first few weeks and maybe beyond. I bought some nice nursing bras, but right now, while I fit into almost nothing, I wear the tanks daily with my comfy sweatpants or yoga pants or whatever. They might work when I go back to work, but I don't know. Right now they are great for feeding her every 3 hours during the day and night and surprisingly offer good support. Target sells them for a VERY reasonable price here. I prefer the side sling over the full sling or the lift up kind here. The full sling just looks and feels weird. If you want to spend more $$, you can get ones by Bravado and they are around $45, which I feel is too much. Sure they are nice, but Target's are basically the same thing for 1/3 the price.

How am I feeling?

So, I've got a lot of people asking me how I'm feeling and, in general, I feel pretty darn good. However, I think for once I'll share the nitty gritty details on how I'm REALLY feeling in the not-so-good moments. Keep in mind that overall I'm great, but these are the downsides...

So, the realities of my life these days has been that I'm in bed for 12 hours a day. I go to bed early, usually exhausted beyond belief and wake up a few hours later to feed Amelia. Then, the rest of the night is an up and down struggle between trying to sleep and feeding and changing her. Aaron typically will give her a bottle for one of the night feedings and I can get some sleep and I *think* we have finally worked out an arrangement where I get a straight 6-7 hours sleep and then a few extra hours later, so hopefully that continues and reduces my exhaustion.

When my milk first came in the first week is when I started having migraines. I was shocked to find out that breastfeeding literally, at first, sucked the life out of me. Or, so I thought. After a week or so of suffering horrible on and off headaches that I attributed to everything from extreme thirst and hunger to fatigue to bad breastfeeding posture, I saw a doctor who told me they were migraines and now I can appropriately treat them before they get really bad. That is such a relief. Sometimes when I overdo it, I still get them, but a lot less frequently than I did.

Other not-so-nice things that have been happening are INSANE night sweats. If you couldn't tell by the emphasis on the word insane in the last sentance, they are by far the worst I have ever had. I wake up literally drenched--like I took a bath in my bed. I wake up with my clothes and sheets soaked and cold. I tried changing once in the middle of the night, but the sheets were still soaked, soaking my dry clothes. So, now I say screw it and just pull the warm comforter over my head to keep warm.

I also hate that I can't really work out yet. I tried walking 3 miles the other day and one of those awful migraines came back, so I can assume I'm not ready to do that yet. I feel so fat. I've barely lost anything and I am eating super healthy and breastfeeding! I thought that would do it!

I can't fit into anything but sweatpants and I still look at least 4 months pregnant plus all the weight I gained everywhere else. Other things that aren't so fun include painful and leaky boobs and the fact that I'm still not done with my after-birth Aunt Flow as it were... getting closer, but still not there.

Still, I can't complain. My baby sleeps great and hardly ever cries. I have enough energy in the mornings to get stuff done and every day I'm making progress--but much slower than I ever expected! Who knew that after baby would be harder than 9 months pregnant. I just figured I'd go back to how I was, but with weight to lose. Turns out that's not quite right. I hope I get back to normal soon. It's relieving to see the progress I've made in the last 4 weeks, so that's keeping me encouraged.

No longer in the pregnancy club :-(

It's so weird for me to not be pregnant anymore. Nine whole months of inspecting the bellies of pregnant women and noticing every pregnant woman in sight. Then, one day I was pregnant and the next day I wasn't any more and now I'm no longer in the club. It's not like when I was pregnant I spent a lot of time talking to other pregnant women, it's just that people noticed more and gave me seats or were more considerate of me and other pregnant women took notice and we had a common bond. I wasn't just some regular non-pregnant woman. I knew what they were going through. I could give them a sympathetic nod that said, "I feel your pain" and my belly would say all the rest. Now, I see hugely pregnant women that could easily have had the same due date as me and not yet given birth. And, I'm no longer one of them.

I met someone like that last week. She was actually due the day before me and hadn't yet had her baby and I was sitting on the couch with my baby who was already more than a week old. What a weird feeling!

I guess I just need to join the baby club. Now I notice mothers and their babies way more than I did before, so I guess that I now need to embrace that club.

Newborns are funny!

My poor baby. She can't yet control her arms and they literally flail around and upset her. It's so sad and funny to watch at the same time. She'll be all peaceful and ready to sleep and all of a sudden her hand will fly up and hit her in the face. Then her other hand. Then they'll start flailing about wildly and she will start crying. It's like she's saying, "What are these horrible things that keep bothering me? Why won't they go away?" She will be so happy when she gains muscle control over them!

A funny story from this week about her hands: We were dressing her up after her doctor's appointment and she reached behind her head and grabbed a fistful of hair. She immediately started screaming in pain, yet couldn't and wouldn't let go. She didn't know it was her own hand and it took two of us to pry her hand away from her hair. She was so upset by it! Poor thing! Yet so funny. Thank goodness for swaddling. It's giving us and her better sleep since it keeps her hands from escaping.

A few fairly boring videos of Amelia

Aaron's parents requested videos so I'm posting video of Amelia doing pretty much nothing. But you may enjoy them anyway!

Taking Care of a Baby is Easy! And a Word on Sleep Deprivation

Okay, so before I had a baby I thought, "How hard can it be?" All you do is change them, feed them, burp them, and let them sleep. If they are crying it can only be one of these 4 things unless it is something serious. Of course, if your baby is crying and you don't know why and they won't settle down, yes that's hard. But fortunately the Happiest Baby on the Block book has made huge strides in my opinion of helping me calm her down when this happens.

But okay, I'm sure it will get harder, but so far, so good. However, I do have a word on sleep deprivation.

Before baby, again I was like, "Every 3 hours. That's not too bad. I can handle that. I was up every hour to pee when pregnant anyway." Except, it's not every three hours. Actual sleeping time is more like 1.5, because every time she gets up you're up for about an hour and then you are awake and have to try to fall asleep again, which can take a little while.

To get an idea of what it is like if you do not have children, here's how I would describe it. Take an alarm clock and turn the ringer up to as loud as it can possibly go. Then, have a friend hide it REALLY good--so good it would take you 15-30 minutes to find it. Have the friend set the alarm for 3 hours from now. Then try to sleep. When the alarm goes off, try to find it. If it takes you about 15 minutes to find it, good for you. You now know where it is. Now you have to take care of it again. Call your friend back up and have them set the alarm clock for 3 hours from now and hide the alarm clock again. Be sure you stay awake until after the alarm clock is hidden, which preferably took your friend 30 minutes to do. Maybe try taking a walk. Then, try to sleep again and do it all over again. This is what it is like having the baby cry every 3 hours. You have to figure out why, take care of it, then somehow get to sleep again. You'd be tired and taking naps too!

Birth Story!

So here is the abridged version of Amelia's birth. If you want to know more of the gory details, you'll have to talk to me directly. I wrote down a long version for anyone interested who lives too far away for me to tell you in person!

On Sunday, February 28 for most of the day I started feeling what I thought were gas pains. The gas pains were coming fairly regularly (like once an hour or half hour) and I just figured it was normal gas pains that I usually have and they were coming fairly frequently because I was just that constipated.

So I ate dinner and went to bed, feeling pretty uncomfortable, but chiding myself for not eating enough fiber (haha… funny to think back on this now). I tried to go to bed early because I had not gotten much sleep the last 2 nights.

Around 1 or 2 in the morning I woke up feeling really bad and kept getting up to pee (because the “constipation pain” was worse when I had to pee) and to try to go to the bathroom to relieve the constipation. After I was able to go to the bathroom and STILL felt the pain, I thought for sure something was wrong, but I still thought it was constipation. I went back to bed and started crying. This was around 4:30 am. Aaron asked what was wrong. I told him. Then I started to realize that I was having the pain regularly and in waves. It was coming every 2 minutes or so. I thought maybe we should call the midwives or our doula, Sahana, but I thought it would be too embarrassing to call if it was just constipation pain.

Then I started to think, “Maybe these are Braxton-Hicks contractions?” I hadn’t had any before so I had no idea what they were. I got online to see what contractions were supposed to feel like, how frequently they were supposed to occur—all that stuff. I read something about contractions feeling like gas pains at first and that being pretty normal. So Aaron started timing them and the time between them and they were about 45 seconds long and every 2 minutes. They weren’t extremely strong at first so I tried to get some food down and do some housework, but by the time I got to the food I couldn’t stomach anything. I drank a little orange juice and tried to drink some coffee for strength (since I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before), but I just could not get it down. I tried to do some housework, which lasted about 30 minutes to an hour and then I couldn’t do much more. I still wasn’t sure if they were contractions because I never felt my uterus hardening like I was told I would during a contraction. Turns out it was, I just couldn't tell.

Around 7 am I went to the bathroom and saw a bit of blood. That was when I knew I was definitely in labor. We promptly called our parents and let them know and I focused on deep breathing and relaxing during contractions. We updated our doula, Sahana, and said she should come over. Aaron tried to help me relax and did some techniques to help me stay calm during contractions.

I threw up multiple times and couldn’t keep anything down that I tried to eat anyway. By the time Sahana arrived at 9am I was pretty much in the throes of labor. I was starting to be unable to tell Aaron what I needed. I couldn’t really walk or change positions without difficulty and pain. Sahana helped me get into positions where my labor could progress, despite the discomfort. She told Aaron when she thought my water would break and it did about 5 minutes later around 10:15. After that we decided to go to the hospital. We got there around 10:30 or 11.

They checked my dialation and I was only 4 cm dilated. I was not happy about that. Over the course of the next hour or so they got me into the tub. I couldn’t get comfortable in the tub at all.I tried a few positions and then decided I could NOT do it any more. I couldn't relax between contractions, I was terribly nauseous and just felt like I could not handle it on my own any more. I no longer wanted to go through it or even try. I asked for drugs. They asked me to wait an hour. I said I would. Then, 15 minutes later I asked again for a narcotic again to take the edge off. The midwife agreed it might help me relax between contractions. They gave me an IV and the drug and I felt better for a little bit. Contractions still hurt, but I could relax. Turns out it was a good thing because I went from 5cm dilated to 9 in only 30 minutes!

The last cm went by quickly and it was time to push. This was my least favorite part. I expected to feel like pushing—that with every contraction pushing would bring relief. Instead it was kind of the opposite. With every contraction I did not feel like pushing at all and I didn’t want to push, but the pain of not pushing was almost equally as bad as the pain of pushing. It took awhile to get the hang of it. I tried and tried many positions--on the toilet, on my back in the bed. Finally, another midwife came in and said the fastest way to get the baby out was squatting. Sounded terrible, but I gave it a try and it helped get the baby down far. I could see the head between my legs and after that I just kept pushing and pushing and I don't remember much, except I apparently got on all fours to deliver the baby. I don't remember her coming out--only that when the head was out it hurt like heck and I didn't want to push and make it worse, but I wanted the baby OUT! haha...

When she was out, they handed her too me and I was very confused. I had no idea what to do, how to hold her anything. I was still halfway on the ground. So they helped me into bed and I held the screaming baby and I was so, SO relieved it was over! I never want to do that again! But chances are I will... I didn't feel as emotional at that moment as I thought I would. I was just so dazed and tired. But it was wonderful to see and hold my baby. It was a beautiful moment. I'm glad my emotions didn't overwhelm me, because I couldn't have taken much more at that second!

Aaron cut the cord and they checked her and we tried breast feeding and she did pretty well! As for the gory details, I did have 2nd degree tears, but only barely, and frankly, the recovery really is NOT bad at all. No complaints, praise Jesus!

Now, I have a gorgeous little daughter and I don't have to go through labor again for a long time or maybe never again! haha... I will say that I think an epidural would have been overkill. Only if I took it in the beginning would it have been worth it, but in my case the narcotic was good to help me out and get me to the point of getting done.

So I'm glad I did it. However, I will never begrudge anyone for their birth of choosing--I will strongly consider drugs or a C-section in the future. Although, by then I will probably have forgotten the trauma of giving birth and try it naturally again. haha...

Welcome to the world, Amelia Jeane Judith Kirk!

Yes, I had her 3 days early, much to my surprise! She was born on March 1, 2010 at 1:40 pm after about 5 hours of labor and an hour of pushing. She was 7 lbs 13 oz and 20 3/4 inches long.

Here are some pictures. I will be posting the birth story shortly.