From here to there...

It's hard for me to figure out what to write these days. LM is growing and changing like crazy. I'm filled with millions of updates I want to share with you---like how he started bringing us books to read him. He's always loved books and loves being read to but this is the first time he's started crawling to us (angrily usually, as he hasn't quite got the crawling with big objects thing down yet) to have them read to him. But--my mind is consumed with this pregnancy. The paranoia of not having a beta, the paranoia that comes with the faint faint spotting that happened for a bit today (old, brown spotting, not the scary red, fresh kind) and all of the other things running through my mind a million times a day.

I struggle to have the energy these days to make it through the day...let alone even get on my computer if this last week was any indication. Between work, playing with LM non-stop after coming home, dinner, life and then 1st tri exhaustion, I know it's going to be hard to update the blog as much as I want to. And I do want to--not only is it cathartic, but I love the chronology of it. With this in mind, it makes it even more difficult to decide what to post about. This place started as a parenting after IF space...a nook in the world for me to share my thoughts, fears and experiences---both to have a place to say the things that I have no one else to say them too AND on the off chance that someone stumbles upon it and happened to read the one thing they needed to hear when their baby WILL not sleep like everyone elses and they're losing their mind (have I mentioned that we're not going to sleep well and waking up crying at night again??).

I need to find a way to strike a balance between chronicling this pregnancy (which I wish I had done with LM) and still giving LM his share in the spotlight. I'm not sure how this is done....and maybe I'll get better about posting more.

But, let's try.

I'm 7w pregnant today....exhausted, vaguely nauseous when I don't get enough protein/get hungry, cold ALL the time and still trying to wrap my brain around this scary/crazy/exciting journey we've detoured down.

LM turns 1 (ONE, did you read that!!????) a week from tomorrow. We're planning his party (next Sunday) and existing in a state of shock that we're here already. I'm crushed that I'll be at work on his actual birthday. It makes me cry to think about it. But, since I'm taking a 1/2 day later in the week for his pedi appt and then another 1/2 day the next week for my u/s and dr appt, I really can't.  I even thought about seeing if someone could cover my room for 45 min or so and then I'd stay at daycare with him until his birth time. But--I don't see it happening. I can't believe this year has flown by---how did it happen??

I read a statistic in a magazine today about how many Saturdays you get with your child between birth and then leaving for college---it was somewhere in the 900's but I hate the idea that so many of them are gone.  Bleh.  Too many hormones to think about this.

That's my update for today....I hope I will be better this week about sharing all of the thoughts bouncing around in my head.

*thwack*

That sound, my dear bloggy friends, was the other shoe dropping.

I've been waiting all week for it to happen and last night it did.

For some reason, LM seemed to be all big kid grown-up baby last week and from Monday THRU Friday night, he slept through the night. Oh yes....let's pause and read that closely----he slept all night long for five nights in a row. Monday thru Thursday was 8/830-6am and Friday night he went down around 830 and got up at 9am (super sleeping-in baby!). It is more sleep than I've had at night (consistently) since probably January. I feel a little bit more human!

Every night I went to bed telling myself that he was going to wake up and not to expect a full night's sleep. I'd think about some variable in his day that was "off" and I wouldn't let myself get my hopes up. But--every night, I woke to my alarm instead of LM. I was starting to get freaked out :-)

But, last night, the other shoe dropped. Right on schedule (around 4), LM was up and unhappy. A quick snuggle and 4oz of formula later, he was down again (only to wake up at 630 wide awake with soaking wet pjs--but that's another story).

I, being crazy, immediately began analyzing what differences occurred yesterday that probably came into play. My guess---it was sleeping in 3 extra hours, taking naps in the car (granted they were 2 and 1 hour respectively) and not getting in all of his normal solids amount.

I'm superstitious and I totally attribute him STTN all week to the fact that all week at daycare he napped really really well, had all of his bottles and his jar of solids a day. That let me get his dinner and bedtime bottle fed to him in good time and not too close together. And it worked.

Well, that doesn't work on the weekend. Even though he did get most of his formula in (he left about 3oz in his bedtime bottle--which he did one night last week too so it shouldn't be that big of a deal) and did take naps, he only had maybe 1/2 of a jar of food. I don't know if that really has to do anything with it--it could totally be in my head. OR, if it's just the fact that he's at home and with us. I wish I knew. I don't though.

What I do know now is that he is capable of STTN for multiple nights in a row. When he slept for 13hours Friday night, it taught me that assuming I feel like he got enough food in during the day, he really probably doesn't even need the full 4oz when he wakes up. I *think* that over our fall vacation coming up this week, we may drop down to 2 or just snuggles.

I know now that he can do it and what I need to figure out is what really makes the biggest difference. Are we at the point where we need to focus our efforts on sleep training (and by that, I mean teaching him to go back to sleep when he wakes instead of thinking he HAS to eat)? Or do I need to figure out if I should focus on making sure he definitely gets enough solids during the weekend? Maybe I should have given him some baby food at dinnertime instead of going straight for the bottle. I suppose I could've offered if after the baby food and let him take what he wanted.

I wish it was easier to know what affects things. I wish it were as simple as knowing it was teething or a cold that wakes him up. Or whether he was really hungry when he wakes up. There are so many variables....it certainly gives my OCD a workout.

But for now, I'm just going to savor my LM being a big boy and giving me some sleep this week--when I really really needed it to survive a bad work week.

That and try to figure out how to get him to do it again!

Some people are just better people than me.

I'm not a mean or selfish person but man...sometimes the selflessness of others blows me away. There is a mom in my due date/birth month group that is doing something so amazing for another mom in the group that I had to share.

There is a little monkey in our group that has a lot of dietary sensitivities--including but not limited to:
Soy
Milk
Wheat
Corn
Bananas
Pineapple.

He has had trouble gaining weight and his mom has been struggling. Since breastfeeding wasn't an option for them, she's been struggling to find a formula he wasn't allergic to--especially since so many have soy. She's tried everything...and I mean everything...including a homemade formula with a coconut milk base. His allergies were making life miserable for all.

Then---lo and behold, another mom from our group offered to help out. Not only is she pumping extra milk and shipping it across country....but to make her milk free of any allergens, she has totally removed anything with dairy, corn, wheat, soy etc. At the bottom is a list of some of things she has to avoid or look for on labels to avoid.

Anyway--she's avoided these things for three weeks and has pumped milk to send him. The first shipment just went into the mail yesterday! What an amazing selfless act to change your entire diet/lifestyle for someone else's baby.....a baby she's never met and a mom she's never met.

I've been stalking the tracking number all day!

Amazing!

Some people are just better people than me.


Things that this amazing woman has eliminated:

Milk-free diet:

Avoid foods that contain milk or any of these ingredients

Artificial butter flavor
Butter, butter fat, butter oil
Buttermilk
Casein (Casein hydrolysate)
Caseinates (in all forms)
Cheese
Cream
Cottage Cheese
Curds
Custard
Ghee
Half & Half
Lactalbumin, Lactalbumin phosphate
Lactoferrin
Lactulose
Milk (in all forms including condensed, derivaitive, dry, evaporated, goat's milk and milk from other animals, low-fat, malted, milkfat, non-fat, powder, protein, skimmed, solids, whole)
Nisin
Nougat
Pudding
Recaldent
Rennet Casein
Sour Cream, Sour cream solids
Sour milk solids
Whey (in all forms)
Yogurt

May indicate the presence of milk protein:

Caramel Candies
Chocolate
Flavorings (natural & artificial)
High protein flour
Lactic acid starter culture
Lactose
Luncheon meat, hot dogs, sausages
Margarine
Non-dairy products

Wheat-free diet:

Avoid foods that contain wheat or any of these ingredients

Bran
Bread Crumbs
Bulgur
Club Wheat
Couscous
Cracker Meal
Durum
Einkorn
Emmer
Farina
Flour (all purpose, bread, cake, durum, enriched, graham, high gluten, high protein, instant, pastry, self-rising, soft wheat, steel ground, stone ground, whole wheat)
Gluten
Kamut
Matzoh, matzoh meal (also spelled as matzo)
Pasta
Seitan
Semolina
Spelt
Triticale
Vital Gluten
Wheat (bran, germ, gluten, malt, sprouts)
Wheat Grass
Whole Wheat Berries

May indicate the presence of wheat protein:

Flavoring (natural & artificial)
Hydrolyzed Protein
Soy Sauce
Starch (gelatinized starch, modified starch, modified food starch, vegetable starch, wheat starch)
Surimi

Soy-free diet

Avoid all foods that contain soy or any of these ingredients:

Edamame
Hydrolyzed Soy Protein
Miso
Natto
Shoyu Sauce
Soy (Soy albumin, Soy fiber, Soy flour, Soy grits, Soy Lecithin, Soy Milk, Soy Nuts, Soy Oils, Soy Sprouts)
Soya
Soybean (curd, granules)
Soy Protein (concentrate, isolate)
Soy sauce
Tamari
Tempeh
Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP)
Tofu

May indicate the presence of soy protein:

Asian Cuisine
Flavoring (natural & artificial)
Vegetable Broth
Vegetable Gum
Vegetable Oil
Vegetable Starch

Corn-Free Diet:

Avoid all foods that contain corn or any of these ingredients:

Baking powder (barb said this was ok to use in baking the amount that would make it to ur breastmilk shouldn't affect him)
Corn
Corn alcohol
Corn flour
Cornstarch
Corn sweetener
Corn syrup solids
Cornmeal
Grits
Hominy
Maize

May indicate the presence of corn protein:

Food starch
Modified food starch
Vegetable gum
Vegetable starch

Umm....yeah....that's a heck-load of things.