Breast is Best...but it doesn't alwasy work

I had every intentions of feeding my sweet baby breastmilk. To the point I never EVER thought about formula. It had been made very clear by many people Breast is Best. Period. Well unfortunatly things don't always work that way. When Jude was born by C-section as soon as I was wheeled into the recovery room someone came in started trying to get him to latch. He was resistant and she managed to get a little colustrum into him by her finger and said he was just tired we would try later. unfortunatly after getting to the mother baby floors around 9:45 my family came up and had all headed home by 10:45 for the night. We continued to try to get my sweet baby to latch on which he failed to do. He was gaggin and kept turning blue. He was taken to NICU around 1am and we found out he would be admitted. He was in NICU for 9 days and through out the time I pumped every 2 hours religiously as I was told. I tried to feed him but he was not able to latch. We finally were given a shield but he still acted very hesitant to feed. Finally we started bottle feeding him what I had pumped. One day lacatation came in and pretty much told me I had no choice I had to get him to latch insinuating I was a bad mother if i gave him formula as he was not gaining weight like he should be. While "working" with us one day( aka forcing my son onto my breast as he screamed and cried) He quit breathing. She was shocked and jus kinda stared while I shook him trying to get him to breath in. She said oh well I'm not sure what to do about that. Finally one day while I was napping my mother was visiting helping with baby so we could get a little sleep and when latation came in she KINDLY informed them I would pump exclusivley and they needed to leave it be. Other then dirty looks I never heard anything about it agian.
         Fast forward a little bit and we came home. Jude still would not latch and I was pumping every 2 hours and feeding him out of a bottle. I had been sick for over a week from doing this. Feeling like I had the flu ect. I later found out is was sleep deprivation from all the time in the NICU and making myself wake every two hrs at night to pump, then feeding baby. Between all of it, and stressing myself because I wasn't a "good" mother I was only sleeping about 1-3 hours a day if i was lucky. We finally made the hard choice to supplement with formula. I have been informed how I should continue to try, if I was determined enough and loved my son I would make it work. I still have certain people to this day that everytime I see them they have something to say. To those people I know what is best for me and my baby. I feel sad that I could not breastfeed. I longed for that but it didn't work. I love my son and I'm doing what's best for him and our family. So please so kindly butt out. My body, my boobs, my baby, my business.

BREASTFEEDING MOTHERS:

Mothers who breastfeed should be celebrated.  They are fantastic mothers who want what is best for their children.  They are strong, intelligent women who love their children enough to feed them in the best way they can.  Their children will be healthy, happy and strong because of the love a breastfeeding mother puts  into every feed, the time she spends bonding with her child and because her child is being nurtured and feed well.  Many breastfeeding mothers have overcome huge obstacles, heartbreaking experiences and pain – physically and emotionally to feed their babies. Often they have also had to deal with criticism from uneducated, rude individuals for breastfeeding their baby.  Many find that there is not enough support which is not good enough as a breastfeeding mother should have all the support she needs to breastfeed from her whole community.   A breastfeeding mother should be proud of the way she feeds her baby, she should celebrate what a wonderful mother she is and should know that she is successfully doing the best for her family and herself by providing healthy, nutritious food and love.  

BOTTLEFEEDING MOTHERS:

Mothers who bottlefeed should be celebrated.  They are fantastic mothers who want what is best for their children.  They are strong, intelligent women who love their children enough to feed them in the best way they can.  Their children will be healthy, happy and strong because of the love a bottlefeeding mother puts  into every feed, the time she spends bonding with her child and because her child is being nurtured and feed well.  Many bottlefeeding mothers have overcome huge obstacles, heartbreaking experiences and pain – physically and emotionally to feed their babies. Often they have also had to deal with criticism from uneducated, rude individuals for bottlefeeding their baby.  Many find that there is not enough support which is not good enough as a bottlefeeding mother should have all the support she needs to bottlefeed from her whole community.   A bottlefeeding mother should be proud of the way she feeds her baby, she should celebrate what a wonderful mother she is and should know that she is successfully doing the best for her family and herself by providing healthy, nutritious food and love.

6 Weeks

Wow I have not had time to update the blog nearly as much since Jude got here...Were to start.
We got to come home on Oct 19th after 9 days in NICU.  Coming home was so fun/exciting and so scary as well. I think I spent the first week constantly checking him to make sure he was breathing lol. Because when Jude was in the NICU I was only able to actually breast feed him once a day if I was lucky we had some latching issues( well he would only latch on for minutes without the shield and was not getting enough to eat). I had been pumping in the hospital and feeding it to him via bottle. He was taking it good but was not gaining weight fast enough. We has 6 lb 9 oz when born, and when we left the hospital 9 days later he was still on 6lb 3 oz. I decided to supplement with formula to help his weight gain. We got home on Friday and when we went to the Dr on Monday and he had gained up to 6lbs 7 oz. Between supplementing and trying to pump as much as I should my milk just wasn't enough and slowly started to dry up. So We switched Jude over to all formula. I wish it wouldn't have ended that way but I'd rather hae had it happen that way and him be healthy then vice versa. I've received some flack on it from certain people (aka people who need to mind their own business). Comments made, but its all in one ear and out the other. Every baby is different. every situation is different, and we did what we thought was best for our son.
                So now in two days my little guy will be 6 weeks old. I can't believe how fast time flies. He is sleeping 5-6 hours at night. Tries to hold his head up when hes on his tummy and anytime we will let him lol( hes still a little wobbly). He's starting to make more cooing noises, and smiling a little. We haven't had but maybe one or two reactive smiles but he should be here in the nest few weeks. Also he can no fit into some of hos 0-3 months clothes but still tends to fit better in his newborn clothes. when we went for his month check up he was up to 8lbs 7 oz so hes doing great on the weight gain now. During the day he goes anywhere from 2-4 hours between feedings just depending. And he he spends at least 2-3 hours in real alert time where hes looking everywhere and taking it all in. So he is doing great.
               We have been doing good to adjusting to parenthood. It's very different then you plan on it to be but so worth it. The first month was so tiring.. I felt like we never could rest. I didn't get the rest I needed in the hospital because when the nurses were trying to get me to rest i insisted on spending all my time in the NICU.  It was basically I didn't sleep any on the 9th or 10th. Then Jude was born that night and taken to NICU around 1am. I had not slept at that point since the 8th. I stayed up all night waiting for them to take me to NICU. I was still partially numb, has leg pumps on, and a cath so I had to be taken in a wheelchair. She finally took me at 5 am and I didn't come back to my room until 1 am the next morning. I then finally fell asleep around 4am, and was back up at 5:30am heading to NICU. This was how it was for days. I think the whole 9 days I was in the hospital I slept maybe 8 hours. Most of that was once we got in the transition room and my mom would come up during the day and watch Jude and I would fall asleep for an hr in the recliner. Defiantly not the most fun. I actually started to freak out because I was so tired I sometimes literally could not remember what day it was or how long I had been there. Then once we got home I went for my two week follow up and my incision looked great. About 2 days later I noticed it had opened back up and was bleeding. I called the Dr and they had me come in. The informed me it wasn't a concern it happens alot but they put me on an antibiotic just in case to prevent infection. Two days later it had opened a little more. I ended up going back and she said it was just releasing extra fluid( I know gross). I had to go in a week later to f.u with my Dr and let her check it and make sure it was healing ok. I went in and she said it looked great.She said it looked great.I went home and I swear if over the weekend another place didn't open and the old one started bleeding again! She had me come back in and it all was fine as far as infection. They just kept having me come in to check it to make sure it wasn't getting worse. So i go back tomorrow and thankfully its been a week and it seems to have healed up mostly. It's still tender and the scar ofcourse still looks fresh which it will for months. But overall it looks good. So hopefully as of tomorrow I will be good to go.
        So overall things have been great. We love little JUJU bean to death and feel so blessed to have this little guy in our lives. I've been asked a few times if we will have anymore kids. Obviously God is the only one who knows that for sure. I said after he was born I wouldn't have anymore because all the drama we went through. But as time goes on I'm going back to my old state of mind in that I would love to have another one. Only time will tell.

Newborn pic

Working on holding my head up

My first night home...Mommy looks a little tired/dead lol

Jude is Here!!

Baby Jude has made his apperence. We went into the hospital Tuesday 10.09.12 to start induction. They started me on cervedil to jump start labor. That first night I had a bunch of contractions but nothing that was so painful. The next morning my Dr came in around 8am and broke my water and started the pitocin. THAT'S when the REAL contractions started. I've heard it said that Pitocin contractions are 3-4 times worse then natural labor and I would have to say WOW!!! I have no pain tolerence  and I made it to 5 cm until I could not stand the pain. Mainly because they were starting o trigger panic attacks. So I got my epidural around 2:30 pm. As for the epidural. I was so scared to get it but it was easy as pie. The hardest part was sitting still during the contractions. I will say I did not like the feeling it gave me. It does make you feel very out of control. But luckily I did have some control over my movement. So I wasn'tprogressing and around 7pm the  Dr came in and I had develped a fever. Baby was also anterior and was stuck and not dropping. We decided a C-setion was needed to prevent infection and Dr was afraid if we waited baby wasn't going to com out on his own and we would end up in an emergency C-section later.  Going into the C-setion I was freaking out. Mainly just the unknown of such a major surgery. Once I was in I did have a few moments of panic but once she showed me Jude over the curtain it all left my mind. I also love that Mission has a huge flat screen set up next to your head so that while they are sewing you up you can lay and watch everything they are doing to the baby( apgar score, daddy cutting cord ect). Once we went into the recovery room I got to sit up and hold my little man. We got to do skin on skin and feed and I've never been more in love. After about 2 hours of private time we went up to the Mother baby floor, and Jude started getting choked bad. They rushed him to the nursery and daddy followed. They brought him back in about 30 minutes and said he was fine just getting a little choked from fluid. Family came up to visit and it wouldn't stop. At one point he stoped breathing for a second and started spitting up green junk. They took him again and his PCP decided he needed to get checked out in NICU. I was in the room all night alone while Alan and him were getting settled in NICU. I wasn't able to go see him again until 5am the next morning. It was such a long night. When I finally seen my little man all hooked up it ripped my heart out. They said he had an infection( passed from me from my water being broken and why I had a fever during labor). They had started him on antibiotics, and IV and said we were looking at probably 1-2 days in NICU.They also did a GI scan to make sure no bloackage which came back good but showed he had EXTREME acid reflux. He finally stopped spitting so bad around Fri and I was able to start feeding him. He was doing so much better the Dr said we were going home Monday the 10.15.12. We got into a transition room and we were thrilled. That Sunday night though he started having bradycardia. Basiccally theyir little heartbeats drop below 70 beats a minute and sometimes they have spells of apnea( no breathing). He had 35 in the first night! Needless to say we didn't get to go home the next day. They decided that the Acid reflux was causing the bradycardia since all his other numbers( oxygen, resp ect) stayed the same. He started the Prilosec that night. He slowley started improving. Eating every 3 hours and having less and less bradys. We finally got to come home Friday. He still has Bradys every once in a while but the Dr is not concerned with a few. He said alot of babys have them and parents never know because they arent on monitors. We are still getting him an alarm that alerts us if he were to quit breathing for our own peace of mind.
              Needless to say it was a long hard week but having my little guy home makes it all worth it. I couldn't be more happy with my life!

Judes Coming!

So we went to the Dr this morning for Judes regular appt. He passed his NST. It actually took us a little longer because he was SO active he kept kicking really hard and we would lose him on the monitor lol. They don't count it as good unless he stays on the monitor for the entire heart-rate rise, and then till it comes back down to his resting rate. We also got the official word that we are being induced next week! I'm only 1cm dilated, but I'm 50% efface and( tmi I know) but my cervix is VERY soft. She said we will check in at the hospital on Tuesday night at 8pm, and they will start me on the Cervidil to get the induction started. Basically it is used to help "ripen" the cervix, and make you dilate. Depending on how successful that is that will also try the bulb. They said they typically try to save the pitocin for last and the goal would be to not have to use it all( thats what I'm hoping for!) I still have to go in for my regular appt on Tuesday for the NST. Plus she said though its a VERY small chance but if the hospital was just OVERBOOKED, and they had a bunch of emergency deliveries they would have to push me back a day, so she said they will double check that to. Apparently it happens alot at park ridge, and pardee, but is VERY rare as Mission since its so much larger. So basically as long as all goes as planned Jude will be here in 5 days! I honestly can't believe it. Alan and I were talking when we left the Dr office that is litterally feels like a dream. So know I've got to kick it into gear and get this house cleaned up this weekend. Because I had this killer cold this week I've fallen behind on ALL my household chores lol. We want the house nice and clean for when Jude bug comes home. Can't WAIT!!

37 weeks growth scan with a little ranting on the side =]

So today was Jude's 37 week growth scan at Mahec. They basically do these expecially if you have gestational diabties to mak sure baby isn't to big first off, and then to check the heart. Unfrotunatly if your sugars are not controlled it can cause and enlarged heart muscle which doesn't allow the blood to pump correctly to the heart. So his estimated weight was 6 lbs 7 oz. The Dr did tell us this can be 1/2 lb off by more or less. So technally he could be as big as 6 lbs 15 oz. Either way he fell in the 56th percentile which was perfect. They also did a detailed check on his little heart, all the ateries et and said it looked great as well. Size was great. So he's right on track for growth all around. He was still head down(thank goodness).
          So tomorrow I go to my regular OBGYN Dr McArthur for my regular appt but also to find out what day we will set my induction. And this is where i insert my mini rant...Please skip if you don't want to hear...
              #1:  I'm SO sick of hearing people tell me there is NO medical reason for induction. First off PLEASE educate yourself before you open your big mouth! I think its great that you have NO problems what so ever with your pregnancy but I DO have gestational diabetes. So let me educate you just a little bit. When you have Diabetes it puts extra strain on the placenta. Its is VERY common for women who have it's placenta to poop out around 38-39 weeks. NO it does not happen in every case. But I'm sorry I WILL NOT take the chance that it could happen and something happen to my baby so I can fit into your idea of the "perfect" labor and delivery.
            #2: I don't care if your having your baby "natural" and how its the best way yada yada yada. SHUT UP PLEASE! I don't care how well written your birth plan is, I don't care how much you hate hospitals, I don't care how much your "midwife" says Drs are bad. Even if I was not high risk I would NEVER go through anyone other then a trained Dr, and the hospital. While you were busy being brain washed by their ignorance I was busy doing actual research. I would never take a risk that an emergency could happen and my child and myself could be left without Emergency medical care. It's buisness, and what you do if your business. But DO NOT sit and act like I'm less of a women, or a mother because I'm not doing it the way you think it right.
           #3: If one more person tells me I will HAVE to have an epidural, or on the opposite side that I can't its wrong to do it I swear I will scream!. I know my body. I know what I can handle and what I cannot handle. To the people who say they know me and I will have to have one( other then Alan, mom, candace ect) Yes you are probably right. I have a HORRIBLY low pain tolerance, and severe panic attacks so it would probably be in my best bet to get one. But don't write me off yet. I plan on trying to last as long as I can without it. If its only half way thru great, it I were to make it all the way thru even more awesome. Only time can tell what will happen. Everyone handles labor different. For the ones telling me no no just trust your body, you don't need one, " I didn't get one and I did fine". Please Shove it. I don't care what you did. And please also consider before you judge me that I will be induced. AKA the contractions are known to be 3-5x's stronger then natural contractions like you had during your labor.

                Ok I feel a little better. I have let people worry me sick about this stuff like their opinions even matter. What matters is whats right for me, and my baby. I trust God to take care of me and he will make sure it all works out in his way.

Ok I've fallen behind

Go figure I go out of work on Maternity leave and THEN my blog falls behind lol. So lets do a little catch up.  Not much has changed. We are officially in our 37th week. I can't wait until Monday Oct 1st we go in for our growth scan and then the Dr will start making decisions on our induction date. I can't wait tom meet this little wiggle worm. I've been slacking in maternity pics to because to be honest when your home all day it takes alot to make yourself change out of sweatpants and tshirts. I mean really people lets just be honest. I'm almost 9.5 months pregnant, my legs hurt, my back hurts, and I just want to be comfortable lol. This is all I got...

Other then that Jude has been doing good at his twice weekly appts. He has passed all his NST's. also we did a cervix check and I was 1 CM( nothing really I know but I was excited). The Dr also did a quick ultrasound and he is head down still( yay). Other then that no real changes. I can't believe in literally in anywhere from a week-2.5 weeks we could meet our little guy.

Maternity Leave

Let me start by saying if you are reading this you probably already know that I made the Blog Private to approved viewers only. I decided to do that mainly because of some weird views we were getting , and there are some people who don't need to know what is going on in our lives. Its nothing mean I just prefer certain people not have every detail as they don't have any need.

So as of Monday Sept 10th I started my Maternity leave. I had not planned on starting it until Sept 28th but due to an increase in my sugar meds again and the very high chance Jude will be joining us sooner( my ultrasound to determine this is Oct 1st) I decided to go ahead and leave 2 weeks early. Luckily I work for a great company, and the owner/my manager was very supportive of me through out our entire fertility struggle and all. I will be returning to work Jan 2nd 2013. So far I've cleaned my house, caught up all the chores ect lol. Now I'm spending lots of time relaxing and making crafts on pintrest lol. I go to the Dr now twice a week for NST's( Non stress tests) to monitor Jude and do far he is doing great. He is really starting to run out of room in there( I can tell lol). He now does this thing where he balls up on one side of my stomach and its like I have a huge rock sticking out lol. I love it though. I will rub his little back/butt/head whatever body part it is and he will just wiggle around but not move. Other then that things have been pretty good. I'm having to watch my sugar really close again. She upped my meds because I was having alot of highs again. Which she said was completely normal the further along you get. So for now we will just relax and see what happens!

35th WEEK