We are back to breastfeeding! I hated giving her a bottle but I needed to pump and dump for a couple of days to make sure I got all of the drugs out of my system. So we’re back to snuggling and BFing and it’s rad. I missed my little girl!

Since I am only three days post-op I am still very sore. Needless to say the housework is not getting done.

The kitchen is disgusting. Those bottles? Yeah, dirty. There are a total of THREE pizza boxes sitting on my counter. Walking in there makes me want to throw up. I fought through my abdominal pain and picked up the trash and washed the bottles (sour milk smells nasty, just FYI). JuJu just needs to do the dishes and then I’ll start to feel better. We need to vacuum, too, but whatever. I’m still trying to figure out how to get things done while taking care of Avery and now that I’m recovering from surgery that makes things much harder. If we weren’t about to lose my income I’d just hire a goddamn maid to come by once a week. Man, that’d be sweet. Although, maybe we could still afford it…..

That’s terrible. I’m now a SAHM and I’m thinking about hiring a maid. I’m so fucking lazy. I really want to soak in the bathtub right now but I can’t thanks to my incisions. I also have blisters from my surgery and I want to pop them but I’m scared! I wish they’d pop on their own. That’s gross. Sorry I shared that with you.

Peanut is one month old today! Where has the time gone?!

Two days old.

One month old.

She looks HUGE! She has grown so fast and she’s so beautiful. I can’t believe that JuJu and I made such a pretty baby. Yesterday she started smiling and it’s so cute. I also saw her looking at one of her hands like she was realizing that it was attached to her. My kiddo is so smart.

She has changed my life and has got me thinking about the future. I need to figure out what I want to do when I grow up and I am now considering becoming a nurse. I can achieve that through a program at the community college and it will be easy to find a job since there is such a high demand for nurses. I will get to help people and contribute to the greater good. I need to talk to JuJu about it.

I have changed my mind several times when it comes to choosing a career path but maybe I just need to take a few classes and actually finish them to show that I’m serious. I also need to find a goddamn part-time job. If I can find one at a hospital or the school that would be helpful. Anyway, it’s just a thought but I am really considering it. The nurses that helped me when I gave birth and when I had my gallbladder removed were amazing and made all the difference.

So if you have any advice I’d appreciate it. I don’t personally know any nurses so I need my lovely bloggers out there to give me the dish on what it’s like being a nurse.

My mom is going to watch Avery for a few hours tonight so that JuJu and I can have some alone time. I am having gallbladder surgery tomorrow and will probably have to go another few weeks without sex so it’s kind of now or never and I just can’t do it with her in the house. Not yet. It’s weird. So tonight we will go to dinner and then, well, you know.
I would really like to feed Avery before we take her to my mom’s but she’s sleeping. She went about six hours in between feedings earlier and even though I tried to feed her she wasn’t interested. And now it’s been four hours and she’s (probably) happily sleeping. I just don’t know why she is going so long in between feedings. I did breastfeed for about an hour and she still wanted more so I gave her the 2 ounces that I pumped earlier. So maybe she is genuinely full. It’s just a huge difference from yesterday when I had to feed her every two hours. I’m sure that she’s fine. She is still breathing normally and she doesn’t have a fever. I guess my milk is just THAT GOOD. I swear I didn’t drink booze or take any narcotics. As long as she continues to grow then we’re doing the right thing. It’s just a shame she wouldn’t sleep earlier when I was trying to clean up the apartment. I suppose I could vacuum now….. Hahaha, no.
It’s time to take Peanut to my mom’s! I will miss her but it’s okay because I know she’s in capable and loving hands. Besides, I get to have sex! YAY!

Today was our most successful day in regards to breastfeeding. She ate from me every time except for when I was making dinner and then I gave her a bottle of expressed breast milk that I pumped earlier in the day. My milk is definitely coming back and that makes me happy because I feel like I am either feeding her or pumping 24 hours a day. Tonight we will give it a try while lying down so that when she’s done we can both go back to sleep. Hopefully once she starts getting hungry I’ll wake up before she’s too upset to take my breast. If I can get her to successfully breastfeed at night then we can eat and go back to sleep and hopefully get MORE sleep. We shall see!
I have my surgical consultation tomorrow morning for my impending gallbladder removal. Apparently 10% of pregnant women get gallstones and 1 in 1,000 actually develop any symptoms. Yay, I’m in the minority! Isn’t that special. If I get another sharp pain like I did last week I will just die.

I have decided to round up some information for myself about various child-rearing techniques and/or philosophies. Hopefully by doing some research on the things that I come across as a new mom I will better understand what Avery needs in order to thrive as well as what JuJu and I need to help her do so (and maybe we’ll be better for it, too).

Yes, Lolly and Avery co-sleep (JuJu too, but he’s on the other side of me so he doesn’t snuggle with the baby unless I get up to pee). When she was around two weeks old she got a cold and would struggle with her breathing because she was congested. She would make ‘weird’ noises from her crib and since her crib is in our bedroom I heard everything. I couldn’t sleep. She would get upset because she couldn’t breathe properly and would cry. All I wanted was to get some sleep! I would get frustrated with her because as a new mom I was still developing those sixth-sense abilities for reading my baby’s cries. She would fuss and then stop fussing which OF COURSE meant that she has stopped breathing. After doing some research it is quite possible that she actually did stop breathing (that made me feel better knowing that I wasn’t being totally irrational about it). I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to be able to keep a closer eye on her to make sure she was breathing properly and to comfort her since she had a cold and didn’t feel well (when you are sick don’t you just want to be held and comforted? I’m 26 and I still do). So, in our bed she went. Since she was ‘brand new’ and didn’t move around much I placed her in the Boppy next to me so that she was within arm’s reach but didn’t compromise any sleep position I chose to be in throughout the night. Sometimes this was good enough but other nights she needed more (and hey, so did I) so I would sleep on my side with her in the crook of my arm. I admit that after doing that for a night my arm would be in pain when I woke up but it’s worth it because she not only slept more peacefully next to me (no noises, just good ol’ fashioned normal breathing) but she slept longer. Avery would give me the gift of five consecutive hours of sleep. As a new mom I am running on very few hours of sleep but I can take five hours and feel totally rested. It was amazing. Also, while sleeping with me if she woke up before I was ready to wake up I could somehow coax her back to sleep for a little while as long as she wasn’t going to go hungry.