BIOBaby: Crying Over Spilt Milk

I pumped about 8oz. of breast milk, some of which Donny immediately fed to Jack via a bottle. Jack had a few ounces and then Donny sat him up to burp him. When he did so he also managed to spill the remainder of the breast milk all over our bed. It seems the bottle he was using has a feature that allows you to control the flow of the milk by turning the bottom of the bottle. Donny must have had it too loose because the next thing you know the fruits of my labor became a puddle on the bed.

I lost my shit. I yelled and I cried. If cow’s milk were $10 a gallon I still wouldn’t have thrown such a fit had he spilled that all over the bed. But my milk. Well, that’s liquid gold. I don’t pump that shit for fun. I’m proud of every drop! I pump to keep up my supply, relieve pressure while Jack is sleeping, and store bottles so that once or twice a day my nipples can get a break and Donny can spend some quality feeding time with his son.

I know it was the hormones, but still… you can’t just go spilling a woman’s breast milk like that. That ain’t right.

Last night Jack went down for the final time a little after midnight and slept until… 6:30am! I was so shocked and relieved. Of course, the only problem was that I woke up around 4am so engorged I had to pump. I just knew that by the time I was done he’d wake up but he didn’t. I pumped, went back to sleep, and got another 2 hours. Woohoo!

I haven’t been doing the Baby Wise routine as strictly as it suggests. We started it in earnest on Saturday, but on Sunday we had family over all day so it was kind of hard to stay on track. I don’t know what to attribute last night’s 6 hour sleep to, but I’ll take it. It may just be a fluke. We’ll see how it goes tonight.

Finally, Jack has this funny/weird little thing he does and I’ve been meaning to write about it.  After having him home for a day or two I noticed that he would watch me, but only when I wasn’t looking at him. There’d be times when he’d be next to me either sleeping or falling asleep and I’d turn to look at him and catch him staring at me. But the moment I turned my head towards him, he’d snap his eyes shut. Donny and Kali thought I was crazy until Donny noticed him doing it. He was changing Jack’s diaper and noticed Jack staring at me (I was watching TV.) When I turned my head to Jack he quickly closed his eyes. Donny started laughing. It was like a little school boy with a crush on a girl. It’s okay. I’m crushing on him too.

BIOBaby: No Pee On Me

So far, Jack hasn’t pissed in my face. Or anywhere else on me for that matter. He’s gotten Kali’s foot, our bedspread, and his bath water. But not Mommy. But he’s done some other stuff.

When we first brought him home we didn’t have to worry about accidental squirting because his circumsion was still healing which meant his little business was constantly covered by a vaseline laden gauze. When it was diaper change time, whoever wasn’t changing the diaper helped the other out by preparing a fresh square of gauze with a generous amount of vaseline.  The dirty diaper was opened, butt was wiped, balls cleaned, creases seen to, and a fresh diaper was swapped out. Before closing the clean diaper the old gauze was quickly replaced with the new one. Easy, breezy.

On Monday we were told his circumsion had healed nicely and we could stop using the gauze. All of a sudden big bad Daddy was concerned with getting pee in his face. “Nina, can you pass me the Wee Block?” I just smirked and handed it off. Now the diaper changing routine remains pretty much the same except after we quickly remove the Wee Block, we quickly clean the penis area, and then quickly close the clean diaper.

The other night I was changing Jack’s diaper on my bed. It was probably around 2am. Since I’d been on the Lasix his poop was runny and he was prone to shitty farts, or sharts if you will. He didn’t have a rash, but his little bottom was getting quite red from the constant changes (he’d have a shitty fart just after you changed him and had moved on to nursing) so I decided to put a little Desitin there to ward off a rash.  As I was applying the cream to his booty with my index finger he sharted… on my finger. A warm spray of baby poop got ON not IN my hand, mainly the index finger.

“Jack!”

He responded by farting again.

It’s funny how the bodily fluids of your newborn don’t seem as bad as say… your own. And definitely anyone else’s. I remember when I was a preteen visiting my aunt in South Carolina and she was saying how one of her children had been so congested as a newborn she had to literally suck the snot out of her nose with her own mouth because the suction bulb was too large to fit into the baby’s nostrils. At the time my first thought was, “You nasty.”

Flash forward to 1999-2000 and Kali is sick. I find myself in the same predicament.  I tried sticking my pinky finger in her little nostrils to get the gook out and no luck. I took a deep breath and put my mouth to her nose and sucked out her snot. Don’t judge me!

Later on the same night that he sharted on me we were lying in my bed face to face. He was drifting off to sleep and I was talking to him kinda drifting off myself.  I leaned forward and kissed him on the lips just as he spit up. ON not IN my mouth.

“Jack!,” I said, but it came out more like, “Hmmhgh” because I was afraid to open my mouth.

So yeah, no pee on me. That’s something, right?

BIOBaby: Sleep When He Sleeps

Donny is an ass man.

His son is a breast man.

All this kid wants to do is nurse. He wakes up smacking his lips and trying to eat anything near his face. When I pick him up I kiss him and he tries to suck on my lips, chin, and cheeks. He tries to suck on his shirts and fists. When Donny is caring him he turns his face towards Donny’s chest and when he realizes there isn’t anything there to feed him he has a fit.

I have to mentally prep myself before he latches on because that shit hurts! It’s the first ten to twenty suckles and then I don’t even realize he’s there. I can read and watch TV while he eats with no problem. I started taking the advice of one of my baby books and I will occasionally night nurse him. If he wakes up in the middle of the night and wants a feeding I’ll nurse from my right breast first, and then because of my position on the bed I’ll lay down and nurse him from my left. We’ll usually end of falling asleep that way.

He only woke up twice last night so I woke up this morning really engorged. The first thing I did was pump. I got about 2 ounces from each breast. We’re storing it in the fridge, but because he is now not accepting bottle nipples I may just freeze it and use it in his baby food when I start making it at six months old.

Since Donny is getting up at 6:30 to get Kali ready for school I’ve gotten better at not waking him up at night to help with Jack. Because I still have a little pain when I walk we try to have everything I might need within reach before bed so he doesn’t have to get up and get anything for me. I knew these late nights were taking their toll on Donny after what happened the other night….

Sometimes our internet will drop and we’ll have to go reset the router which is in the guest bedroom. We’ll pull a plug from the back of the box, wait a few seconds, and then plug it back in. The other night Jack had just fallen asleep and I jumped in the laptop to find the internet was down. I asked Donny to go reset the router. He was down there for like an hour and a half. Because Jack was sleeping I didn’t want to call for him. Eventually Jack woke up, and I nursed him, and then we both fell asleep. When Donny finally came upstairs I was like, “What the hell happened to you?”

Turns out he fell asleep. He said he unplugged the router and the next thing you know he was waking up on the guest bed and it scared the shit out of him. He said it took him a moment to figure out where the hell he was and what he was doing.  I knew then the poor man needed a break.

The swelling has gone away and so far the only side effect from nursing while taking the medicine (I’m done taking it) is that Jack seemed to have really bad gas and a lot of runny poop. Fucking Lasix!  We were in the doctor’s office exam room waiting for the doctor when he got hungry. So, I’m sitting there nursing him and Donny is sitting next to me. Jack is naked except for his diaper because he was just weighed and the doctor has to check him. While he’s nursing he farts. It was this long rumbling, thundering, no way this came out an ass just a week old, fart.

“Jack!,” I cried out by way of admonishment.

At the same moment Donny goes, “Did someone knock?” He thought someone had knocked on the door.

“No, that was your son farting.”

“Damn, Jack. I thought someone knocked on the door.”

And then we just busted out laughing. We must have laughed for a full two minutes and I tried to stop because I was feeding Jack and he and my booby were just bouncing around. It’s silly moments like that that we’ll always remember.

They say you should sleep when the baby sleeps. Since Jack sleeps more during the day than night I thought that I would try changing his schedule. I’d try making him stay awake during the day so that he’d have no choice but to sleep at night. Uh, no. Do you know how hard it is to keep a newborn awake?  It’s not like he’s a toddler or a kid like Kali where you can put on some cartoons or take them out somewhere to entertain them and keep them awake. Since I can’t beat him, I might as well join him. After I type this and finish my lunch of tuna fish sandwich and cranberry juice, I’ll lay down next to him and try and nap. Of course, the moment my head hits the pillow he’ll wake up. That’s how he rolls.

BIOBaby: There’s A Very Good Chance That…

… that Jack will be here on Monday!

Let me start from the beginning. When last we spoke I was going to have a late luncy/early dinner at a restaurant that claims their eggplant parmesan has sent hundreds (maybe thousands) of women into labor within 48 hours of consumption. So, we invited my Dad to meet us there and off we went.

I’m not crazy about eggplant parmesan, but the whole way to the restaurant (they thankfully have a location five minutes from my house) I was psyching myself up to eat the whole serving. I always get annoyed when the people on Fear Factor act like little bitches when trying to eat pig snout or horse testicles. Then again, I’d eat a monkey liver for $50,000 so I’m kind of a harsh critic. Anyway, I told myself that no matter what I’d eat the whole thing. It wasn’t bad. I suppose it was even good. I wouldn’t order it again, but desperate times and all that…

We spent the remainder of the evening playing Halo 3 with Mike, Bette, and Lew and farting and pooping. I think that’s the secret behind the eggplant parm. phenomenon. They probably cook it in castor oil to make your body expel everything in it including unborn babies.

Today was a rough day. Every day the pain gets worse. Walking is unbearable. I have to brace myself with deep breaths and by holding onto the sink just rise off the toilet. And I don’t like what it’s doing to my mood. Earlier today it got so bad I had to put my family out. That’s right. I kicked Kali and Donny out the house. I did it as nicely as possible though.  “Why don’t you and Daddy go do something fun?!”

There’s this new bowling alley arcade around the corner from us that we’ve been meaning to check out and I suggested they go there. I told them to take the camera so I’d feel like I was there. While they were gone I managed to make it up the stairs alone and take a shower. When they got back I went upstairs to try and nap in our bed for once. It was 4pm and I asked that Donny not let me sleep past 5. And if food could be ready at that time too, it would be great. I was feeling kinda hungry then, but I felt I needed sleep more and I knew after an hour I’d be downright ravenous.

I awoke at 4:54 with the worst pain on the right side of my back. This had happened once before a few weeks ago. All I could do was cry out in pain and try to move slowly into a sitting position. And to make matters worse, I had to pee. I literally crawled to the bathroom. I called out for Donny and Kali and got no answer. I figured they must be on their way back with dinner and would probably be coming upstairs any minute to wake me up. After about ten minutes I hobbled my way downstairs to find…

Kali and Donny playing Halo 3 with the TV loud as hell. I damn near lost my mind. Despite the pain I stomped back upstairs (nearly killing myself in the process.) When Donny came into the bedroom I told him it would be best for everyone if he just got the phone for me and then left me alone. I called the doctors’ answering service and got a call back from Dr. G2 (not the Dr. G I’ve spoken about before, but a female doc whose last name also starts with G.) I let loose with how bad the pain has gotten and how miserable I am. I told her that I didn’t think I could make it another week. My knees already feel like the knees of an 84 year old arthritic.

She said she was going to call the hospital and see if she could get me on the schedule for an induction on Monday or Tuesday morning and then call me back. She called back within three minutes and told me that I was on the schedule for Monday morning. We have to call labor and delivery at 6:30am and check to make sure there weren’t any emergencies or else they’d push my time back (there better not be!) and then be there by 7:30am if all is well. She said by 8am I’ll be all hooked up to an IV of pitocin.

THANK YOU SWEET JESUS, GOD, THE VIRGIN MARY, and (according to John McCain) BARACK OBAMA!

Tomorrow we’re going to go over all of our lists to make sure we’re ready, get the house in order, pack up the cameras, tripod, and my laptop… yup, they said I can bring my laptop to the hospital.  Kali will be with us until my Dad and Stepmom can pick her up around 5pm. We have no idea how long it will actually take, but hopefully not TOO long. I’m already dilated 2cms (at least as of last Tuesday… could be more by Monday) and my cervix is soft. Kali will sleep at my parents’ house at night and come hang with us in the hospital during the day. Hopefully, Jack will be here by Monday afternoon/night.

Of course, I could also go into labor naturally anytime between now and Monday morning. I mean, the eggplant still has about 24 hours to do it’s thing.