What I've Been Up To

So it's been a while since my last post, but I have a very good reason. On June 24th I came down with a nasty bout of food poisoning and with major contractions went off to the hospital. Unfortunately the contractions did jack squat, and I was sent home early the next morning still pregnant, and still feeling crappy. Later that morning I spoke with my doctor and it was arranged that Friday I would trek back to the hospital to have labor induced.

I don't have any spectacular labor stories to tell. It was pretty uneventful. Although I was pretty entertained by the way the pulse ox made my finger look like E.T.'s.I tried to get Jeff to Twitter something for me about it, but this was before the epidural and apparently another contraction came and the tweet just went by the wayside. We were only in the hospital for about 8 hours before our son was born, so pretty much all the fun stuff happened later.

Blog meet Maxwell Everett Kievlan, born June 26th 2009 at 2:59 pm. He was 8 lbs 8 oz and 22 inches long.There were all sorts of bumps along the road to where we are now. Jeff got a worse stomach bug than me on Saturday night, the day after Max was born. I'll spare you any details, but it was super bad times. Then Max and I had problems with breastfeeding, and lucky for you I did not take pictures of my scabby nipples so I can't show you the horror that was. It was bad though, bad enough to warrant a $60 prescription cream to heal them. The lactation consultant couldn't find anything wrong with Max's latch, and felt that the problem was with his tongue not sticking out properly. We tried to work through it, but after a week and a half I couldn't handle the pain anymore. Even trying to alternate breastfeeding and pumping for a bottle wasn't letting the nipples heal up. They looked better than they did on day 5, but every time he tried to feed they would get injured all over again.

Max was also losing weight over the course of the first week. If everyone's scales were accurate he dropped from 8 lbs 8 oz, down to 7 lbs 9 oz. To make sure that he was getting enough to eat we started supplementing formula feedings into his schedule. He immediately started sleeping better, and gaining some weight back. We go back tomorrow for another weight check, but at his 2 week check-up he'd made it back to 8 lbs.

Check out the Kung Fu Grip (2 wk appt)

Once I decided to exclusively pump and give him breast milk that way it was obvious that I needed help getting my milk to come in better. The lactation consultant recommended herbal supplements, but I balked at the volume of capsules that she wanted me to consume. I decided to call my OB and talk about the prescription drug option, which is Reglan. The nurse said no problem, and that people rarely have side effects and had an order phoned in for me. Well, I got me some side effects. I ended up with drowsiness, sleeplessness, anxiety, and I couldn't eat more than 4 bites of food every 5 or 6 hours so I was always starving. It took me 3 days to figure out the medication was to blame, and that it wasn't just "new mom crazies". Luckily the anxiety that had built up to the point of low grade panic attacks went away within a day of stopping the medication. Looking back on that first week now I can barely remember it. We were so tired at first, I guess - I don't really remember, and then I started that medication and everything went away. I have no idea how I made it through the weekend, and I can see why everyone kept asking if I was okay and looking at me a little funny.

The morning I stopped taking Reglan I spoke with the lactation consultant again and she said that she considered Reglan a last resort, because many of the women she has worked with have had side effects. So once again she recommended the Fenugreek and Blessed Thistle, only 2 pills of each 3 times a day... *sigh* So that's what I'm taking now. It may or may not be helping. I am producing more milk, but I've also been pumping 6-7 times a day for a couple weeks now and that could be part of the increase as well. Still, other than having strange smelling sweat and urine I'm not having any side effects, so I'm thrilled with the results. We're still having to give him formula, but I'm able to pump about 2/3 a days worth of milk for him now, instead of less than half.

Everything is going a little smoother now. I'm still working out the kinks in trying to keep Max happy by myself during the day, now that Jeff's back at work, but for the most part things are good. Since Max spends most of his day with a furrowed brow looking very serious, I'll leave you with the least serious shot I've taken of him so far. From just this morning.

Thbbbpt !