Birthday Winery-palooza

The map of my trip I'm planning for my Birthday! We'll hit up 4 wineries, and then camp for the night and then hit up the last 4. The Monchichi will go camping with us, and it will be a grand adventure!
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Thanks for letting me play, now can I be a mommy again?

I'm back at work. The only thing keeping me sane is my bbcb ladies, the fact that I'm only part time right now, and liking my job. I'm always balancing on the verge of a breakdown. I hate coming home to hear about this awesome new thing she did. I hate missing it. I don't want to be working. I want to be at home, cuddling and playing with and taking care of my baby. I miss her...I'm glad that PapaD is the one to be taking care of her, though. I just keep hoping that he will get a job that can allow me to stay home.

I lost my train of thought...all I know is it takes every ounce of willpower in my body to kiss her on the forehead and walk out that door every day.

Ashamed

I stopped taking my prozac because I was afraid it was hurting my baby. Probably not the brightest decision to make without doctor input, but PapaD made me feel like a failmom because I was taking a medication that could be adversely affecting our child's growth.

Fast forward

I'm nearly in tears. Lil'G woke up at 4:30 this morning fussing. I put her pacifier in and fell back asleep for 10 minutes, only to hear her fussing again. I get up, start a bottle, change her, feed her. Then starts the wrestling match. She WILL NOT LIE STILL. Even if I'm holding her. Flailing...EVERYWHERE. My tiredness and irritability and frustration knows no bounds. I tense up my arms and squeeze her a bit. It won't hurt to just give her a little shake, right? She needs to stop doing this and maybe she'll be startled enough to do so.

Thank goodness my rational brain was awake at this point. I laid her down in front of me on the couch (I'm sitting sideways). She's staring at me. She poops. I sigh. But now I don't trust myself to pick her up. We stare at each other for a while. I post on BBC. She poops some more. I read some posts on BBC and update my facebook status. We stare at each other a while longer. I put her in a sposie because I didn't want to wrestle with her and try to get a PF on her. We stare at each other some more. The guilt I feel for almost shaking her is exceeded only by the fact that she's currently a vision of something I swore she would never be. A baby with a dirty sposie and a pacifier shoved in her mouth and held there with a little more force than necessary.

I'm going back on the meds. Even if the doctor suggests stopping, I'm not going to. I go back to work on Tuesday and I can barely deal with her when I can sleep off and on. I'm terrified of what I will become when I have to do something other than care for her. She has finally gone to sleep. Her 2 month appt is this morning. What am I going to do if she gets fussy today after her shots? What if I hurt her in my frustration? I'm afraid to nap right now because I feel so guilty...like I don't deserve sleep. How am I going to survive this week?

Sans prozac--still alive

Alright. Lil'G's stomach issues are starting to clear up...I think. she still has crazy poos, but they're the correct color, so I'm gonna go with a win on that one. She's still vomiting, though, and that worries me. I have learned a few things this week:

1. People are allergic to avocado and it appears that my child is one of them

2. My child (thank GAWD) is not sensitive to wheat gluten or eggs, so I can eat cookies again

3. She also is not sensitive to chocolate

4. I really really really really really really really really don't want to go back to work, but I must.

5. I can survive my depression without medication--I think

I learned that prozac may have a negative impact on nursing infants' growth. That's right. All this crap trying to get my baby to gain weight faster, and the meds that keep me sane are what is causing my crazy anxiety.

I stopped taking the prozac because I was a little sketchy with it anyway. I'm doing okay. Significantly more irritable than normal, but not super down. I hope it continues to be this way. I also hope that Lil'G starts to gain weight. It's started to worry me when people say "She's so tiny". I feel like she's not, but now I know where the perception lies.

She has an appt tomorrow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for breaking 10 pounds. That will put her at 2 pounds in 2 months. Average. She was so close last week, I don't know how she can be anything BUT over. But we'll see.

I would right more, but my eyes are crossing. I need to put dinner away and go to bed.

Chocolate Chai Sorbet

that's right...deliciousness

1/2 c sugar

1/4 c cocoa powder

3/4 c chocolate chai rice milk

1/2 tsp vanilla

Put ingredients in a sauce pan and whisk together. bring to a boil 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat and put in a container. Freeze.

Black bean and salsa soup

Black Bean and Salsa Soup

1 lb dried black beans

1 ham hock

1 large box chicken stock

ground cumin

ground coriander

garlic powder

dehydrated onions

oregano

salt

pepper

soak the beans over night and drain

put in a crock pot on high with all of the chicken stock and the ham hock

let cook for 8 hours

remove ham hock

puree beans

add seasonings to taste

simmer on low for 1-2 hours

cut up the meat from the ham hock and return to the pot

serve topped with fresh salsa

Salsa:

roma tomatoes

onion

jalapeno

lime juice

salt

hot sauce

cilantro

garlic

chop finely and mix together

and another score for cream-free frozen treats

Sorbet:

2 c. frozen strawberries

2 frozen bananas, broken into pieces

1/4-1/2 c. rice milk (or alterna milk of your choice)

sweetner to taste

put strawberries and bananas in food processor for 10 minutes to thaw slightly

start food processor.

add milk

continue until smooth, scraping down the sides occasionally.

add sweetner of your choice to taste (liquids work better for blending)

Doctor visit numero dos

So...went to my BF'ing group. Lil'G has only gained 4.5 oz. Not terrifying, but worrisome...especially given her previous weight gain. Nurse watched her during group and had suggested at the beginning of the group that I go to the doctor if she wasn't better by Friday. By the end of the group, she said "I wouldn't even wait that long". So I called the doctor on the way home and got an evening appt. Saw a different doctor than before, and she seconded the virus, but could see that I was iffy about this diagnosis...so we're scheduled to go back Monday. Until then, we're back on newborn schedule with Lil'G getting woken up and fed every two hours.

worrying

so...ariaden tells me that my bf'ing group is giving me a complex. i kind of agree with her and wasn't going to go anymore...until i thought to get a weight on my scale. my scale measured her at 5oz less than the group's scale did...LAST WEEK. So now I have to go back one more time...to make sure she didn't lose weight.

Is there ANYTHING I can eat, now?

Okay...so Lil'G has been diagnosed by the ped as having a viral infection and/or an allergic reaction. I am starting a Big 8 elimination diet. This means no dairy, soy, wheat gluten, nuts, eggs, fish, shellfish, or peanuts. Luckily, most of this stuff isn't in my regular diet...unfortunately, I think I'll die. 2 weeks without milk/cheese (which I've already done 3, so it's not THAT bad), anything that contains wheat...WTF...that's like...everything...nuts or eggs. I was going to have french toast this week...not so much anymore...sandwhiches? nevermind...good bye walnuts and almonds and peanut butter...but hopefully things will start to get better and we can re-introduce most of these things.

6 weeks and in the ER

So...I feel like I pulled a FTM classic...the freakout.

To begin. Lil' G has exhibited signs of dairy intolerance. So I gave up my precious cheeses and milk. Things started looking better. I discovered, through my binge on edamame, that she also has a soy intolerance. *sigh*... Things start looking up again.

Insert projectile vomiting. And green foamy, runny poo. And a baby who has a temperature of 100.1. I know we're not quite to the 100.4 stage, but really...please...who wants to sit around and wait for that last 3/10 of a degree!?

So...call the on-call doctor. She says go to the ER. We go to the ER where she was born. They want to draw blood. If you have never had to have your infant's blood drawn, thank whatever higher power you ascribe to. Seriously. Poor Joe The Lab Guy (that's what his name tag said...not kidding) with his spiked hair and tattoos was sweating bullets as my 9lb, 6 week old baby screamed her lungs out for 20 minutes while he scooped drops of blood off her heel. After he was done, I scooped her up and cuddled her and apologized to her. He did, too and escaped as quickly as possible. We hang out, feed her pedialyte...keeps that down. Feed her half pedialyte/half milk. Lil' G spits up some, but nothing super major. All they keep telling me is her labs are coming back fine. They say it might be rotavirus, but as long as she stays hydrated, she's fine. 5 hours later, they let us go...the verdict: Infant Colic. That's right...the same baby that was flirting with the male nurse and babbling to the other nurses has infant colic. The discharge nurse basically suggested I get a second opinion on Monday.

We get home. Both of us are exhausted. I had called my mom to let her know Lil' G is sick and we won't be visiting this weekend as planned. Then I vent about the verdict. My mom does not agree...neither do I. The discharge nurse had mentioned pyloric stenosis. I start fretting. Decide that if things don't change by morning, we'll go to the U. 3:00am, we get up to feed her...and she's not wet. 4am. still not wet. this is 6 hours without peeing. I decide to take her in to the ER then. We go to the U. Her vitals look fine and her temperature is down. They cath her for a urine sample. Only slightly less traumatic than the blood draw. After everything comes back, they're going to send me home with a big "I don't know" when Lil'G poops. It is the stank-nastiest poop she has ever had in her life and completely green liquid. The doctor looks at it and goes "oh. oh my." and leaves the room. 20 minutes later she comes back. They've ordered an abdominal ultrasound to rule out pyloric stenosis. We wait about 2 hours for the radiology team. We go up to the ultrasound room. Lil'G is totally non-cooperative, squirming all over the place. The tech does her best and goes to get the doctors. Lil'G and I lay down on the u/s table and she passes out. A doctor comes in with the tech. Lil'G stays passed out and they can finally get a good shot at her pylorus. No problems. It looks good. The doc then moves around to look at her esophagus, since she has food in her belly. No signs of reflux. More pictures of the pylorus, and we are sent back down to the ER to wait for the official verdict. Finally, the verdict comes in. "Not pyloric stenosis. We don't know. Not an infection, not dehydration. Not reflux." Well...we know a lot of what it isn't. I'm crying in frustration at this point...I've had 3 hours of sleep. I haven't eaten. I had to dump 5oz of breast milk down the drain because it had been 6 hours since I pumped it. My baby is still spitting up. Her poop is still grass-green and liquid with no fat. And nobody can tell me why.

The doctor who got to draw the short straw and tell me there's nothing the ER can do for her at this point and to go see my ped on Monday suggests she's overeating. "She's eating more than my 3 month old." Then your 3 month old is underfed...because she's barely taking in 24oz in 24 hours...less than the recommended amount at her age. I think I taught him about breast feeding, to be honest. He tells me she might just be spitty. That's right. But he knows nothing about baby poop except that babies change things like that frequently. NOT BREASTFED BABIES. *sigh*

His boss comes in to give me the discharge papers. She is a little more helpful and suggests a GI visit might be necessary. She also mentions allergies. This is not something they treat in the ER, but something to bring up with my doctor when we see her on Monday (I made an appt between idiot-man and her visits). This is something I can research and grab onto. There is hope that I can fix this. Lil'G and I go home. We have now spent a total of 13 hours in the ER in the past 24 hours. We have no answers, except that as long as she stays hydrated, she won't die and will make it to the doctor on Monday.

Lil'G is passed out when we get home. I don't even bother trying to wake her to eat or change...she goes to bed. I get food before I pass out and then I join her. I ask PapaD to wake me in 3 hours. He says "okay. I won't" And walks out. I just sigh and go to sleep. When I wake up, Lil'G is still sleeping. I go pump and come back. Still sleeping. I crawl into bed with her and go back to sleep. She fusses and wakes me up an hour later. Not wet. 5 hours without a wet. Here we go. She had pooped, though...so as I was disposing of the poopy diaper, I come back...there is a flood on the changing table (yes, I'm evil and leave her on the changing table since the only place she can go from there is in the pnp). That's right...my child has night-potty trained herself already.

She's still much more sleepy than usual. But her poops are more normal...though there is definite signs of bloody mucus. I'm just holding it together until tomorrow. Hopefully we will have some answers.

OKAY! So...cutting dairy out sucks balls. HOWEVER...deliciousness can be had without the cream. I introduce, Banana Ice Cream.

2.5 frozen bananas

2 T chocolate almond milk

Blend until the consistency of soft serve.

Your body will thank you...and so will your baby!