God, I had such high hopes for today. We set up the closet as a little bedroom for Orion last night, moving him to the PNP and moving his real dresser in there so that I didn't have to have his clothes in baskets on the changing table shelved. The first round of sleep he made it from 11:30 to 5:00. I was thrilled. Not only did he sleep longer than ever (without having pooped himself out screaming for 4 hours first) but it was better sleep for me since I wasn't listening to him grunt and groan all night. The 5:00 wake up was really easy. Quick feed, meds, and diaper change and back down. Then the fun started. He woke up fussing pretty badly at 7:30. Since I wasn't ready to be up for the day yet, I brough him to bed with me. He kept fussing and would only sleep if I pulled him in really close and tight.
Since then, all of his awake time has been spent fussing. He's not gassy. He's not sick. He's not tired or hungry. He's just being a tiny, adorable asshole and he wants to be held non-stop. The funny thing is that he's napped great in his new little bedroom. He's had one 3 hour nap and another 1.5 hour nap. Then he just dozed off again about 20 min ago at 7:30pm. It's been exhausting. Doombot offered to take him along to go pick up dinner, but I knew that would just be a disaster. I'm not sure what kind of night I have ahead of me but I just hope my cranky little man gets some sleep.
I'm wondering if this is due to some kind of growth spurt. He's eight weeks on Monday and I'm pretty sure I've heard there's one right about then. I hope so, at least that will mean this isn't about to be the new normal.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
I don't think he likes us
We're working hard to get Orion's medication worked out. We're dealing with a lot of pain from acid reflux and backed up gas. Yesterday morning he worked up grunting and straining, his little squirrel body twisting in pain as he tried to work out the gas I'd given him from trying to see if a little rice in his bottle would help the reflux (answer: HELL NO!) We figured it would be decent of us to warn the daycare people that we were handing over a very cranky baby. I spent the entire day waiting for Ms. Haylee to call and tell us to come get him because otherwise they were going to throw him in the sinkhole since he wouldn't shut up.
When Doombot picked him up last night he asked how the squirrel had behaved himself. The report? He was great. He'd been smiling and laughing all day. The fuck? Laughing? We'd never heard him laugh! Then as Dannon lifted his carseat the squeaky sun on the toybar swung and the squirrel? Giggled. Then he took a look at Dannon, realized what whas going on, and started fussing.
In all fairness, he was decent last night. Now that we've realized that he's coming home exhausted every afternoon and needs a decent nap almost immediately, I think we're going to be able to elimnate most of the crankiness. But still, this sucks! He's all smiles for the daycare girls but we can't drag one out of him? Why does he like them so much more than us? Is our house to quiet? Are we too boring? Maybe the only way to make him happy is to have a bunch of screaming four-year-olds running around.
I knew there would come a day when I would have to deal with the cold hard fact that there would be places my baby would rather be than in my arms. I just thought that day would wait until he was at least two months old.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
That's Mr. Floppy Epiglottis to you!
On Orion's very first day with us here in the outside world, we couldn't help but to notice that he couldn't eat without gasping for air like David Blaine coming out of that crazy plastic sphere after attempting to break a breath holding record. We were stopped by concerned strangers on more than one occasion. When we asked Dr. Locobeans about it he wasn't concerned and told us simply that "some babies are loud eaters." Doombot and I weren't satisfied with that.
The problem is that the horrible gasping noise causes the squirrel to be so very gassy. It caused him to have very painful reflux. It was simply unacceptable. So, on our last Locobeans appointment we brought a bottle and gave him a front row seat to the show. Funny how actually having to listen to a precious little baby grasp like he's dying tends to make a medical professional take you seriously. Dr. Locobeans declared the awful noise to be a "stridor" and promised to call a "lung doctor" (did we look like we couldn't understand what a pulmonologist is?) for a consultation.
A funny thing happened while we waited for the "lung doctor" to return Dr. Locobeans' call. The gas got much better! I'd like to take credit for switching the squirrel to eating exclusively from standard Dr. Browns bottles. However, what replaced it was a return of the reflux that had been somewhat controlled by zantac at that point. Luckily, when the lung doctor returned with a diagnosis of laryngomalacia (a real live condition!) it bought us a little bit of credibility with Locobeans. As it turns out, Laryngomalacia is a condition where the epiglottis (the flap of skin that decides if stuff goes down your food hole or your air hole) is too floppy. He kids with this condition, the epiglottis is too floppy and so they do a bad job of swapping between eating and breathing. We're lucky. In severe cases babies sometimes stop breathing or can't eat. I'll take a nasty noise, some reflux, and gas over that stuff any day.
Once we understood the underlying cause, we settled in to treating the symptoms. The gas was much better but the reflux had reached an unacceptable level. Some research turned up the fact that it's fairly common for zantac to work for a couple of weeks and then stop. Dr. Google told me that what we really needed was prevacid. We talked the nurse into getting us upgraded to prevacid, filled the prescription, argued with the insurance company to get it covered, stopped the zantac and switched over. The squirrel was miserable. It was like he wasn't taking any medicine at all. I spent last night alternating between soothing Orion and frantically searching the internet for answers that might help us.
I finally found the awesome infantreflux.org forums. I quickly discovered that it does take up to two weeks for the prevacid to start working and that in the mean time babies should keep getting their zantac too. One zantac dose later and the squirrel was zonked out and happy. Of course, it can't be that easy, can it? I had decided to try a little bit of rice ceral in Orion's nighttime bottle to help him sleep a little longer. The rice? It brought the gas back.
Are we ever going to have a happy baby that isn't screaming because something's wrong with his tummy?
The problem is that the horrible gasping noise causes the squirrel to be so very gassy. It caused him to have very painful reflux. It was simply unacceptable. So, on our last Locobeans appointment we brought a bottle and gave him a front row seat to the show. Funny how actually having to listen to a precious little baby grasp like he's dying tends to make a medical professional take you seriously. Dr. Locobeans declared the awful noise to be a "stridor" and promised to call a "lung doctor" (did we look like we couldn't understand what a pulmonologist is?) for a consultation.
A funny thing happened while we waited for the "lung doctor" to return Dr. Locobeans' call. The gas got much better! I'd like to take credit for switching the squirrel to eating exclusively from standard Dr. Browns bottles. However, what replaced it was a return of the reflux that had been somewhat controlled by zantac at that point. Luckily, when the lung doctor returned with a diagnosis of laryngomalacia (a real live condition!) it bought us a little bit of credibility with Locobeans. As it turns out, Laryngomalacia is a condition where the epiglottis (the flap of skin that decides if stuff goes down your food hole or your air hole) is too floppy. He kids with this condition, the epiglottis is too floppy and so they do a bad job of swapping between eating and breathing. We're lucky. In severe cases babies sometimes stop breathing or can't eat. I'll take a nasty noise, some reflux, and gas over that stuff any day.
Once we understood the underlying cause, we settled in to treating the symptoms. The gas was much better but the reflux had reached an unacceptable level. Some research turned up the fact that it's fairly common for zantac to work for a couple of weeks and then stop. Dr. Google told me that what we really needed was prevacid. We talked the nurse into getting us upgraded to prevacid, filled the prescription, argued with the insurance company to get it covered, stopped the zantac and switched over. The squirrel was miserable. It was like he wasn't taking any medicine at all. I spent last night alternating between soothing Orion and frantically searching the internet for answers that might help us.
I finally found the awesome infantreflux.org forums. I quickly discovered that it does take up to two weeks for the prevacid to start working and that in the mean time babies should keep getting their zantac too. One zantac dose later and the squirrel was zonked out and happy. Of course, it can't be that easy, can it? I had decided to try a little bit of rice ceral in Orion's nighttime bottle to help him sleep a little longer. The rice? It brought the gas back.
Are we ever going to have a happy baby that isn't screaming because something's wrong with his tummy?
Monday, June 2, 2008
Squirrel Storage
We dropped the squirrel off at daycare this morning for the first time, and it was a nightmare. The first challenge was simply getting out the front door without killing each other. Doombot decided that he should be able to go about his morning routine as usual while I attended to all baby and baby-adjacent duties. He blew off my request to watch the baby so I could pump, telling me that instead I should pump as soon as I got to work. Yeah, that’s professional. He finally agreed to pack up the pump while I was in the shower. When I went to grab it on the way out the door I realized that to him “packing up the pump” means “unplugging the pump” because all of the hoses and cords were still coming out of the main compartment of the bag like some kind of post apocalyptic octopus and were hooked to the pump, which means that the front flap was still open and unzipped too. I wouldn’t realize exactly how useless his “packing up” job had been until we were already in the car backing out of the driveway and I thought to say, “I bet you didn’t give me any storage bottles to pump into either, did you?” Of course not, so I had to run inside and get them. If any of ya’ll are married to guys with ADHD, please let me know if you figure out a way to get their Vyvanse in their pill holes about an hour before they wake up.
When we got to the daycare, we had to stand around and wait for someone to talk to us. I guess it was more important to make sure that the four-year-olds had stopped singing long enough to stop coloring. Don’t get me wrong, I know that I don’t have the patience to manage six four-year-olds. But if it’s what you do for a living shouldn’t you have the patience to make it past 9:30am before the sound of a happy kid singing “Jesus Loves Me” irritates you to the point that you feel the need to shut him up?
We finally got back to the infant room, where we handed our squirrel over to the vacant eyed teenager who will be spending more time with him than we will from here on out. I didn’t really feel like I got the level of enthusiasm out of her that I was looking for, but Doombot reminded me that she is alone in a room full of infants all day long and is probably a little bit brain dead as a result. When we set Orion’s carrier down on the floor the chubby eight-month-old on the play mat started screaming. We were told that she doesn’t like new kids or anything that takes attention away from her. I don’t think I like that little girl very much. I left the room feeling a little bit worried and very sad. I wanted to pick up the squirrel and cover him in kisses before I left, but he’d fallen asleep in his carrier and I though it best to leave him be.
I hope he’s happy enough there to be ok, but that he’d still rather be with me. I hope they take good care of him and that the bland little girl who’s caring for him doesn’t forget to get under his penis with the wipe when she changes his diaper so he doesn’t get that cheese under there. I hope she burps him enough and tickles his tummy sometimes. I hope she doesn’t leave him in the crib all day. His head isn’t flat now and I expect it to still be round when I come get him this afternoon.
I’ve walked around for the last couple of weeks telling everyone that I wouldn’t want to be a stay at home mom. That’s what I thought at least. It’s taking everything I’ve got not to get in the car and drive to that daycare, snatch my baby back, and never darken the door of that place (or my office) ever again.
When we got to the daycare, we had to stand around and wait for someone to talk to us. I guess it was more important to make sure that the four-year-olds had stopped singing long enough to stop coloring. Don’t get me wrong, I know that I don’t have the patience to manage six four-year-olds. But if it’s what you do for a living shouldn’t you have the patience to make it past 9:30am before the sound of a happy kid singing “Jesus Loves Me” irritates you to the point that you feel the need to shut him up?
We finally got back to the infant room, where we handed our squirrel over to the vacant eyed teenager who will be spending more time with him than we will from here on out. I didn’t really feel like I got the level of enthusiasm out of her that I was looking for, but Doombot reminded me that she is alone in a room full of infants all day long and is probably a little bit brain dead as a result. When we set Orion’s carrier down on the floor the chubby eight-month-old on the play mat started screaming. We were told that she doesn’t like new kids or anything that takes attention away from her. I don’t think I like that little girl very much. I left the room feeling a little bit worried and very sad. I wanted to pick up the squirrel and cover him in kisses before I left, but he’d fallen asleep in his carrier and I though it best to leave him be.
I hope he’s happy enough there to be ok, but that he’d still rather be with me. I hope they take good care of him and that the bland little girl who’s caring for him doesn’t forget to get under his penis with the wipe when she changes his diaper so he doesn’t get that cheese under there. I hope she burps him enough and tickles his tummy sometimes. I hope she doesn’t leave him in the crib all day. His head isn’t flat now and I expect it to still be round when I come get him this afternoon.
I’ve walked around for the last couple of weeks telling everyone that I wouldn’t want to be a stay at home mom. That’s what I thought at least. It’s taking everything I’ve got not to get in the car and drive to that daycare, snatch my baby back, and never darken the door of that place (or my office) ever again.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Daddy is High Contrast
We've been waiting for it for two weeks. Today, while Doombot was tickling Orion's tummy to buy me time to pump a couple of extra ounces for our still hungry squirrel, Orion smiled. Boy, when people tell you that other shit is gas and that you'll know a real smile when you see it they're right. His eyes lit up and his little gummy grin just brought both of us to tears. He did it again a few minutes later. Both times he was looking straight into his Daddy's eyes.
I'm thrilled, obviously. But it stings a little too. Who is the one who has lived the last year in exclusive service of this baby? Who is the one who had a giant hole hacked in my thorax to make sure he made it into the world safely? Who has fed him with milk from my own body? Who has gotten up in the night a zillion times, forgoing the pain medication I could have been taking to deal with the pain of that surgery so I could be clear headed for him?
I've realized that its only been since I've been a mohter myself that I've realy even started to appreciate the sacrifices that my own mother made along the way to take care of me. But, man, was I a shithead to her for years...way longer than I had any right to. Now this smile thing is making me wonder. Is this how it always is? Are mothers always underappreciated, sometimes even resented, while dads are the fun ones? Don't get me wrong, I want Orion and Doombot to have a really special relationship. But damn ya'll. Where's my gummy grin?
The line we're telling each other is that Doombot is getting the smiles because he's got black facial hair that mimics that high contrast black and white infant development crap. Hopefully I'll be able to buy that story long enough to get a smile of my own.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Coming Out of the Dark
The last six weeks have been a blur. It turned out that Orion is a gas factory, due mostly to the fact that he takes great big gulps of air when he eats. It doesn't matter if we use the cheap bottles with the old school vinyl nipples or the swanky BPA Free ones with a zillion parts. (Side note...why would anyone with a new baby accept a feeding system that requires each bottle to come with its own teeny bottle brush). I've come to understand that pretty much every bottle on the market right now is great for keeping air bubbles out of the milk, but with only two shapes of nipples out there nothing can keep my kid from swallowing great gluggling gulps of air every time he comes up to breathe.
It turns out that a bunch of air in a baby's tummy tends to create reflux. We learned all of this last Saturday night when we ended up at the ER at 1am begging for someone to fix our screaming baby. We'd gotten very little sleep for a week and his problem was getting progressively worse. An ultrasound and an x-ray showed huge pockets of air in Orion's intestines, which was a relief in some ways. First, we were vindicated in that, duh, you'd scream too with a belly ache that bad. Second, we got to make everyone in the ER to look at the screen so they would believe us that no, he's not screaming because we abuse him thankyouverymuch.
We dragged ass home with a prescription for Zantac and instructions to double the amount of Mylicon Orion gets. After a week of the new routine (and a switch to stage 2 nipples) things finally seem to be getting better. I did screw up the routine a few days ago by trying to introduce some formula. Within 24 hours we figured out that was a bad idea and went back to our regular "all breast milk, all the time" programming.
Orion still wakes up every three hours at night, which sucks. However now he's waking up mostly happy. He's passing his gas (even though there is still straining involved) and pooping regularly again. I hope this new, happier baby is the one we get to keep because Beelzebabe wasn't making a lot of friends at 3am.
It turns out that a bunch of air in a baby's tummy tends to create reflux. We learned all of this last Saturday night when we ended up at the ER at 1am begging for someone to fix our screaming baby. We'd gotten very little sleep for a week and his problem was getting progressively worse. An ultrasound and an x-ray showed huge pockets of air in Orion's intestines, which was a relief in some ways. First, we were vindicated in that, duh, you'd scream too with a belly ache that bad. Second, we got to make everyone in the ER to look at the screen so they would believe us that no, he's not screaming because we abuse him thankyouverymuch.
We dragged ass home with a prescription for Zantac and instructions to double the amount of Mylicon Orion gets. After a week of the new routine (and a switch to stage 2 nipples) things finally seem to be getting better. I did screw up the routine a few days ago by trying to introduce some formula. Within 24 hours we figured out that was a bad idea and went back to our regular "all breast milk, all the time" programming.
Orion still wakes up every three hours at night, which sucks. However now he's waking up mostly happy. He's passing his gas (even though there is still straining involved) and pooping regularly again. I hope this new, happier baby is the one we get to keep because Beelzebabe wasn't making a lot of friends at 3am.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Whooo Are You?
I'm sure anyone who has lived through the first three weeks of life with their brand new baby will forgive me for not updating. I've been simply undone by some elements of newborn parenthood that I just did not anticipate. First, I never have any idea what day it is. Well, I sort of know. It's just a different week than it used to be. The Orion calendar looks something like this:
Monday- Houseday
Tuesday- Americanidolperformanceday
Wednesday- Americanidolresultsday
Thursday- Hockeyconferencefinalsstartday
Friday- Nodailyshowday
What I really don't know is how one day relates to another. Twice in the last two weeks I've had converastions with people where we arranged for them to come over "the day after tomorrow" and by the time the day came around I had completely forgotten when we had made the arrangements, and therefore, which day the plans were for. I end up having to make lots of calls like, "Hi mom! Which day were you going to come over?" only to have the answer be, "Uh...today. I'm on my way now." Which would be fine, if I still bathed every day.
It's been a mixed bag on the baby front. I'm happy to announce that Orion is no longer yellow. The process dragged out way longer than it should, but eventually resolved. His eyeballs were the last pockets of yellow to give up the fight. He has clogged tear ducts that cause goopy eyes all the time, a full face of baby zits, and epic hiccups that leave him miserable as his little body spasms with each one. He had a week of colic that turned us into zombies, but with the help of The Happiest Baby on the Block we've learned how to deal with that.
Getting him fed has been a complete enigma to me. Initially my inconveniently placed nipples and oversupply of milk made traditional breastfeeding more trouble than it was worth and led me to pump exclusively. A couple of experiments with formula convinced us that the constipattion wasn't worth it, so I pumped and pumped and pumped. Eventually I began to view the pump as my own personal anchor and decided to switch to formula anyway. I changed my mind 24 hours later (that was a week ago) but I'm still struggling to get my milk supply back to where it needs to be to get Orion fed sufficiently. No matter what he's eating, I still can't figure out how much is enough and how much is too much or too often.
Looking at it from a purely academic perspective, it would be tempting to think I have regrets. The easy conclusion would be that I resent the baby for not being physically perfect, for not eating the way I want him to, for tying me to the house, to the pump, and keeping me from sleeping. But somehow, one look at his little face transcends all of that.
He still doesn't do much, after all he's only three weeks old today. But the other day he started making eye contact. Yesterday he got a really serene look on his face, made a perfect little circle with his lips and let out a soft, sweet, "whoooooooo" that melted my heart.
I love this little boy. I still don't know what I'm doing with him, but I love him.
Monday- Houseday
Tuesday- Americanidolperformanceday
Wednesday- Americanidolresultsday
Thursday- Hockeyconferencefinalsstartday
Friday- Nodailyshowday
What I really don't know is how one day relates to another. Twice in the last two weeks I've had converastions with people where we arranged for them to come over "the day after tomorrow" and by the time the day came around I had completely forgotten when we had made the arrangements, and therefore, which day the plans were for. I end up having to make lots of calls like, "Hi mom! Which day were you going to come over?" only to have the answer be, "Uh...today. I'm on my way now." Which would be fine, if I still bathed every day.
It's been a mixed bag on the baby front. I'm happy to announce that Orion is no longer yellow. The process dragged out way longer than it should, but eventually resolved. His eyeballs were the last pockets of yellow to give up the fight. He has clogged tear ducts that cause goopy eyes all the time, a full face of baby zits, and epic hiccups that leave him miserable as his little body spasms with each one. He had a week of colic that turned us into zombies, but with the help of The Happiest Baby on the Block we've learned how to deal with that.
Getting him fed has been a complete enigma to me. Initially my inconveniently placed nipples and oversupply of milk made traditional breastfeeding more trouble than it was worth and led me to pump exclusively. A couple of experiments with formula convinced us that the constipattion wasn't worth it, so I pumped and pumped and pumped. Eventually I began to view the pump as my own personal anchor and decided to switch to formula anyway. I changed my mind 24 hours later (that was a week ago) but I'm still struggling to get my milk supply back to where it needs to be to get Orion fed sufficiently. No matter what he's eating, I still can't figure out how much is enough and how much is too much or too often.
Looking at it from a purely academic perspective, it would be tempting to think I have regrets. The easy conclusion would be that I resent the baby for not being physically perfect, for not eating the way I want him to, for tying me to the house, to the pump, and keeping me from sleeping. But somehow, one look at his little face transcends all of that.
He still doesn't do much, after all he's only three weeks old today. But the other day he started making eye contact. Yesterday he got a really serene look on his face, made a perfect little circle with his lips and let out a soft, sweet, "whoooooooo" that melted my heart.
I love this little boy. I still don't know what I'm doing with him, but I love him.
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