Back to work

This was my second week back at work.  The "new normal" for our family is Bryan home with Quinn M/W, daycare at a small in-home place Tues/Thurs, and me at home with Quinn on Friday.

Going back to work was a fairly big adjustment.  I am NOT a morning person, but I try to get to work at 7:15 so I can either rescue Q from daycare or Bryan from Q (hehe) by 4ish each day.  Babies go to bed so early too, so it's nice to get in a couple of hours with Q before the evening meltdown.  We also spend the last hour or so of the day having to get ready for the next day ("processing" my pumped milk and putting it in bottles, getting the diaper bag ready for daycare, making lunches, setting out clothes for the morning, etc).

I love my job.  What I don't love is when I train someone for six months to fill in while I'm out, and then that person decides that she doesn't want to do any of my work while I'm out (she has now been kicked off of our team).  I thought I'd be able to slip right back in and keep moving forward, but instead I'm catching up on 3 months of work, plus keeping my old projects moving forward, plus adding in 3 new projects.  All of this is coupled with pumping 3 times per day and being generally sleep deprived.  It is getting better now that week 2 is in the books, but that first week I had stress headaches every day.  On the bright side, all of my project team members rejoiced when I returned.  It is really nice to be so loved.  I had a woman comment yesterday that it was "so obvious I was back because things were finally getting done - and done right." :)

I am feeling good in knowing that me going back to work was the absolute best thing for my family.  I'm enjoying the mental stimulation of my job.  I'm enjoying Quinn more because I get a break from him.  I have found myself being much more patient when he cries, and I look forward to getting home to him every night.  I cherish my Fridays at home as the one day I have during the week that I'm alone with him.  The biggest benefit has been for Bryan and his relationship with Q.  Evening hours aren't the best time for babies, but that was mostly the only time Bryan saw him.  It makes it hard to bond with your baby when you only see him scream.  Now they get 2 full days per week together, and he gets to see the fun times (kicking and punching and laughing together every morning on the changing pad is their favorite time) and he gets lots of smiles during the day.  I've seen an enormous change in the way they interact together.  It has been so beneficial for both of them, and I love listening to them chatter together in the mornings when I leave for work.  It definitely makes it hard to go!

Quinn is now just over 3 months old, and things are getting better every day.  He generally sleeps better, with only 2 short wake-ups during the night to eat.  I'll let him get away with that for a couple more months since he's so small, but then I'll try to get down to just one.  He has been getting up more from 4-6am for the last few days, but that's because he can't breathe.  Two days into daycare and he already had his first cold.  We still working on getting naps better, but as I write this he has been asleep for just shy of FOUR hours!  Unheard of.  It was much welcomed since I'm battling my second day of a migraine - the first one I've had in 12 years.

Quinn smiles readily, and he now has a soft giggle.  He does great at daycare and they love him.  The long crying spells are getting fewer and fewer as the days go by, and our ability to soothe him quickly is much better.  It requires great teamwork in the evenings (one person is dealing with baby, the other is cleaning bottles/lunches from the day and making dinner), but it goes pretty well for us.  I'm grateful that B and I were such a good team pre-baby, because EVERYTHING now requires teamwork to get it done.  We rarely have to even talk about it, we just divide and conquer.  We can see at light at the end of the tunnel and look forward to the days when we can take him to do fun things with us, like the new aquarium that is opening in Portland in December.

Now onto the required photos (and a video that makes me laugh every time I watch it).

Quinn loves to dance :)

Newborn photos

I'm having an internal battle about posting lately.  I won't lie, things have been hard.  Really hard.  We have a colicky baby, and some days feel endless.  I debate about writing about the hard parts - not because I think parents shouldn't be honest, but I'm not sure if I want my (sometimes negative) thoughts about my baby written down for all eternity. I don't share about the rough times much even with people I know because I don't want people to think I don't love and adore my little boy.  I do! I just adore him more when he's not screaming! I know these times are fleeting, and I know things are going to get better.  They already are, although today was a rough day (I think it's is 12 week growth spurt a few days early).

For now, I'll tide you all over with some photos from our newborn photo shoot, when he was 3 weeks old.  The first one is our absolute favorite.  My dad dubbed it his "shar pei" look :)  He has now grown into his skin and I already miss that tiny little guy.











Only 2 weeks late in blogging, here is his 2 month photo.  He has definitely filled out.  He was gaining about 1/2 an ounce per day for the first 6ish weeks, but past that point he's been putting on more than an ounce a day, which is great for an exclusively breastfed baby.

(One month comparison)

Proof that the days are getting better, here is the first smile I was finally able to capture on camera.  He's been smiling for sure for a week or two, and he's just starting to laugh a little when tickled.  He kills us in those cute moments!  We just hope there are more of those to come and fewer of the screamy days.

I'm headed back to work on Monday, and I'm looking forward to some adult conversation, but I know I'll miss my little guy.  Thankfully he'll be with Bryan Mon/Wed and me on Fridays, so he only has to go to daycare Tues/Thurs.

Our first month as parents (part 2)

Sheesh, this boring stuff is taking me forever to write down!  Quinn is going to be 8 weeks on Sunday, and I'm still working on his one month notes!

C section recovery - Needless to say, having a C section was nowhere in our birth plan.  I had no idea what to expect, and I wasn't prepared at all.  In hindsight, I should have at least read a little bit about them while I was pregnant.  The pain the first couple of days was excruciating.  They had a hard time keeping the pain under control, and my nurses at hospital #2 kept forgetting to give me my meds (which I've since heard is a common problem there).  Not only had I had abdominal surgery, but I also had a tiny, fragile baby to take care of.  It was probably 2 weeks before I could sit up in bed without large amounts of pain.  Of course this was a huge hassle, since I needed to sit up all the time to feed the baby.  I'm grateful that Bryan helped out a TON during this time and really didn't ask me to do anything but feed the baby.  He definitely kept our house running.  Now, at 8 weeks post-partum, I don't hurt at all.  I'd say I was mostly better by 6 weeks.

Feeding - in general, feeding was probably the #1 thing I cried about the most.  Since Quinn was so early, he didn't have a suck or rooting reflex.  We were separated for the first 24 hours, so he had to get formula and I was trying to pump while I waited for my milk to come in.  It took about 48 hours, and when it came in, IT CAME IN.  Even the nurses were impressed.  Even after feeding Quinn, this is how much extra milk I pumped and brought home in just over 2 days.

In order to bring him home, the doctor told us we had to get him up to a certain amount per feeding.  He wasn't really breastfeeding well at all, so initially I pumped colostrum and Bryan fed it to him with a 1mL syringe. (I love the look on Bryan's face here...."am I doing this right???"  This feels so long ago now).

It seemed like the doctors and nurses were setting us up for failure.  They would tell us that the goal for that day was 15mL per feeding. First off, I wasn't allowed to count breastfeeding.  I'm still not sure why.  This lead to an exhausting pattern of attempting to breastfeed, then bottle feeding (usually Bryan), then pumping.  Secondly, we couldn't get him to eat 15mL without spitting half of it back up.  We'd work our butts off all day to get him up to 15mL, only to be asked "why are you doing only 15mL?  The goal is 25mL."  Um, what?  You never told us you had increased it.  We asked for help.  Even the nursery nurse couldn't get the amount in they wanted.  It was SO stressful, and they "threatened" that we couldn't take him home and they would put in an ng tube if we couldn't get him to eat the amount they had deemed as the goal.

Thankfully we just skated by on the last day (I begged for an extra day in the hospital so we could work with him together and all go home as a family).  They made us go back for weight checks two days later and one week later.  At that point we were able to satisfy them that he was doing well, and the intense monitoring stopped.  I'm happy to report now that he's breastfeeding like a champ (although still about every 2 hours, sometimes more often).  I haven't had any of the cracking/bleeding/pain issues that so many women complain about.  I still pump, but only 1-2 times a day in order to have bottles for Bryan when he gives me a break or for grandma when she babysits.  He's going to get bottles in daycare, so we want to be sure he continues to be able to go from breast to bottle as easily as he always has.

Work shower - My work baby shower was supposed to be the Tuesday after he was born.  Needless to say, it was cancelled.  My boss was kind enough to deliver the big gift, his carseat, to the hospital since we needed it to take him home!  My coworkers were so excited about him that they still wanted to have a shower.  They knew we have a Dr. Seuss themed nursery, so they threw a Dr. Seuss themed baby shower.
Green Eggs and Ham

Diaper cake:

The whole gang

It was lovely, and several of the decorations now hang in his nursery.  I am SO lucky to work with such great people!

Getting out of the house - After the initial "wow we have a baby" shock wore off, we quickly realized how important it was/is to get out of those house every day for both our sanity, and Quinn's.  Some days that can be a struggle, but I always try.  He LOVES being outside.  Even if it is just in the hammock with dad.
Because he was so little he didn't fit in a carrier.  The slings worked, but they hurt my back.  Bryan and I both agreed the Moby wrap was too complicated.  One day, when Q was about a month old, I finally decided to try the Beco, even if he was technically a little under the weight limit.  He LOVED it.  So did I.  You can see how he felt after his first walk in it.

We have since worn it all over, even in the house.  He loves being close and warm, and he often falls asleep within a couple of minutes.  We went to a beautiful park near our house a couple of weeks ago, and he slept the entire time in the Beco.


More to come....

Our first month as parents (part 1)

Note: This probably isn't very interesting to many people, but I wanted to record some of this "new to parenting" stuff before I forgot it. It's in no particular order.  It has taken me over a week to complete this part, so some of the days might not make sense now.  I'm too tired to go back and fix things!

Diapers - Our plan all along was to cloth diaper.  However, most of the ones we have are for "normal" sized newborns, not preemies.  We ran out and bought some preemie disposables (which are surprisingly hard to find).  We used them for about 2.5 weeks, but they were SO expensive (we spent more on disposable diapers in those 2.5 weeks than on our entire cloth diaper stash).  We also found that the Huggies leaked terribly, so that was our incentive to go up to the fancy cloth diaper store and buy a few covers for tiny babies.  We had a couple of days of figuring out how to use them, but we're now totally on board and love cloth diapering.  A friend also loaned me some great snapping prefolds, which have made things REALLY easy.  Seriously, they are no more work than disposables.  Also, our city recently added composting and switched to only every other week garbage pick-up, so the amount of trash associated with the disposables wouldn't even fit in our trash bin.



Solo parenting - The original plan was for Bryan to take off two weeks plus any fraction of a week after I delivered.  He figured out pretty quickly that 2 weeks wasn't going to be enough considering I'd had major surgery, plus he wasn't ready to leave Quinn that soon.  He ended up taking 4 weeks off and went back to work this Monday.  Monday everything went smoothly for me and I thought I was a pro at this parenting thing. HAHAHAHA.  Tuesday was awful.  The night before Quinn was a wreck, so I barely got any sleep, and our day went downhill from there.  Wednesday was slightly better, and Thursday so far has been fairly hard.  When the baby doesn't sleep during the night, it's really hard to function.  I know Bryan needs to sleep since he has to go to work, so I'm on my own if Quinn is screaming because of gas pains.  When he's gassy he doesn't nurse well (or spits a lot of it up) so I end up bottle feeding pumped milk, which just makes more work for me since I have to pump again.  All of this is a long way of saying I'M TIRED! Update: it has been a week since I wrote that.  Yesterday I read Happiest Baby on the Block and started implementing the techniques.  Although it hasn't even been a full day, it has made a huge difference so far!

Carriers - We planned on baby wearing, but Quinn was too small for a lot of our carriers.  He fit in a sling that had been given to us, but it hurt my back.  The moby wrap worked, but we both found the wrapping to be difficult and impossible to do without help.  I finally decided 2 days ago that he seemed big enough for our Beco Butterfly now (my guess is he's hovering close to 7lbs), so I decided to try it.  He and I both loved it!  He's snuggly in it and loves to be out walking around with me, and I love that it doesn't hurt my back.  Win all around.  Bryan tried it tonight for the first time at the store and liked it as well.



Gifts - Everyone has been so generous with our little guy.  It became the joke between Bryan and I that we couldn't help but check the porch for packages several times a day because for the first month or so there was a package almost every day.  Okay, sometimes it was baby stuff that we ordered from Amazon, but it was still all stuff for Quinn.  It was a lot of fun to see all of the people all over the world that were sending

Preemie clothes - We had not one piece of clothing that actually fit Quinn when he was born.  We were expecting an 8lb baby, not a 5lb one.  All of his clothes swallowed him up.  Preemie clothes were a little hard to find, but Babies R Us and a co-worker came to our rescue.  He's now just starting to fit in newborn clothes, and we have a ton of those.

And some random pictures:

1 month

Today is Sir Quinn's 1 month birthday....although technically he has 3 more days to go until he's "born."  What a month is has been.  I've been too tired and busy (doing what I can't quite figure out, but newborns take a lot of energy, and I feel like a preemie ups the ante considerably) to blog, but I really hope to record more about this parenting gig for posterity.  Goodness knows I'm not going to be able to rely on my mushy brain to remember much of this time!

And baby makes 3!

I never expected that on July 15 I'd be writing a post with a 1 week old baby in my lap!  His arrival was very dramatic, but we're all home and doing great.

My due date was August 11.  On Sunday, July 8 we had our friends and family baby shower at our house.  My mom finished cleaning up about 4:30.  I wasn't feeling all that well, but I thought that was just from the excitement and activity of the day.  About 5pm I started feeling nauseous.  I vomited and had diarrhea several times over the next 2 hours.  I decided to call the advice nurse, and she and I were both convinced it was food poisoning.

We discussed my options - wait it out at home and see if things got better or come in and get fluids.  I decided to wait it to out at home, but come in if I kept vomiting.  30 minutes later I threw up the water I had been drinking, so we decided to head in.

The hospital was VERY busy (they were on divert that night), so check-in was slow.  They gave me a gown,  to change into, and left to go deal with another patient.  They came back for a urine sample, then left to deal with another patient.  That was fine with me, since I wasn't in awful shape.  About 9:45 they hooked me up to the monitors.  Almost immediately the nurse started calling everyone under the sun to come in our triage room stat.  She had me move on my side and gave me an oxygen mask.  At that point I had no idea what was going on, but I knew something was wrong and it got scary REALLY fast.  Before I knew it there were doctors/nurses/techs, etc all around me, and I started to cry because I was scared.

They said the baby was having heart decels.  The doctor checked me and I was 4cm dilated.  That shocked me, since on Tuesday I didn't have any progress at all and I was still only 35 weeks.  The oxygen helped, and the lovely staff held my hand and helped me calm down to help the baby.  I couldn't see Bryan at that point since he was behind me, but he was rubbing my back and trying to stay calm.  They debated for about 2 minutes about letting me try to labor, but in that time the baby started to have more decels and the decision was made that he needed to get out STAT.

I was rushed to the OR immediately and had to have general anesthesia since it was an emergency c section.  I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to Bryan since thing were happening so fast. Things get a bit fuzzy here, but I remember being mostly naked on the table in the cold ER.  The pediatrician for the baby came in and held my hand while they were prepping me.  The anesthesiologist told me what was going to happen.  The nurses kept comforting me and saying things were going to be okay.  The thing I remember most is how nice all of the doctors and nurses were.  They knew I was scared, and they did everything they could to comfort me.

At 10:08pm, our baby entered the world.  He weighed 5lb 14oz, which was pretty good for a 5 week preemie.  He didn't have a name, as we hadn't settled on one yet that we liked.  I don't remember when I was awake again, but I know it wasn't more than an hour before I woke up and saw Bryan.  He told me that the baby was doing great and he was able to see him being delivered and had been with him while the pediatrician worked on him.  Unfortunately, the hospital where we delivered wasn't equipped to deal with preemies.  Although he was doing well, they were too full to give him the attention he might need if something happened, so he needed to be transported to another hospital about 30 minutes away.  Bryan says we got about 45 minutes with the baby before the transport team arrived, but I only remember about 5 of it!

The baby headed off to the other hospital about 1am, but they didn't have room for me.  They had to wait for discharges the next day, and an ambulance transport for me, so I didn't get there until 5pm on Monday.  Many people have commented on how awful this much have been, but to be honest I'm grateful for that night alone.  I was in severe pain and they were having a hard time getting it under control.  I knew the baby was okay (his APGARS were 6,9,9), and Bryan was at the hospital spending time with him.  That time allowed me to get my pain managed, get up and moving (ouch!) for the first time, and to start pumping.  The first 24 hours post c-section are very painful, so I was able to be in a better place when we were finally reunited.

Once I got to hospital #2 the baby was brought in to room with us and never left (except for a few hours at night so we could get a tiny bit of sleep between feedings).  He was really healthy.  No problems breathing, no jaundice, no glucose issues, nothing.  His only issue was that he didn't have a rooting reflex and his sucking wasn't very good, so he was a poor eater the first couple of days.  With the help of some awesome lactation consultants (and a body that produces milk like a dairy cow), the feeding specialist from the newborn nursery, and the pediatrician, we got him eating pretty well.  That was our only hurdle in getting him home, and we were so happy to all be released together on Thursday.  We also had to settle on a name before being released, which wasn't an easy task.  We narrowed in down to Bennett and Quinton, but couldn't decide between them.

We are so grateful for amazing hospital staff every step of the way.  It turns out that he had a knot in his cord and a nuchal cord.  Although they aren't sure what started my labor (the placenta is being sent to pathology to look for clues), the theory is that as he started to drop the knot tightened and put him into distress.  It was sobering to be told that had we not come in when we did, we might have lost him.  Such a scary thought.  We owe the quick actions of the hospital staff, and the symptoms my body decided to create, for saving his life.

We are so in love with our little guy.  Although the sleep deprivation is no joke, we're getting the hang of this parenting thing.  We were not prepared to have a baby 5 weeks early, but our friends and family have been nothing short of amazing in helping us and giving us support.  We feel so lucky that he's doing so well, and we think he's one of the cutest babies on the planet - not that we're biased or anything :)

Introducing Quinton Thomas Kauffman.

Finished....?

I find it funny that B told me I need to blog because it had been over a month. He's the one person that knows pretty much everything that goes on in my life every day, but B, this one is for you :)

Maybe he asked me to blog because he knew it would be mostly about the hard work we (but mostly he) have been doing to get house projects done before baby. We like to say we're pretty much finished, but is anything ever finished with a house? Maybe "finished for now" is a better term. Our guest room went from this:
 
 To this:
 
Thanks in large part go to my MIL. Since she moved back to Florida, we inherited her comforter set, sheets, dresser, and art. The guest bed actually gets used almost every night either by Bryan or myself at some point. It's much more firm than our mattress, so it's often nice for my pregnant back. It's also helpful when one of us can't sleep or Bryan's allergies are acting up.

Our half done yard has gone from this:

 To this:
 
 While it's hard to see all of the differences, we finished the mulching, trimmed everything again (although it is rapidly growing back), and painted the porch. It used to be a grey/blue shade that was chipped and looked awful, and now it is a mint green. We thought the green would be a bit darker, but it still looks way better than the gray.

Our nursery has gone from this:


To this:

Admittedly it's not a huge change, but everything is neat and tidy now, we've added some books that we got as gifts, and the room is now ready for a baby!  The blanket on the back of the chair was made for our little guy by a co-worker of my MIL's that we've never even met!  It is amazing, and it was so sweet of her to make a blanket for us.

I think most impressive is our garden!  It has gone from this:





To this:



Those after pictures don't include the spinach (which has all been harvested after it started to flower, which I learned is called bolting), broccoli that we harvested, strawberries that are done for the season, and 4 lettuce heads that were harvested.

Some photos of a small portion of what have enjoyed so far:



For our first try at this, we're doing really well!  Even my avid gardener friends are jealous.  I think we are lucky in that we bought really good soil, our yard gets just the right amount of sun, and this year the weather has been ideal for growing with a few sunny days, then a few days of rain.  Besides the first week after planting, I've never watered once, nor have I fertilized.  We've had some issues with pests (aphids, slugs, and cabbage moths mostly), but it hasn't ruined too much of our crop.  Thankfully aphids are harmless, so unless something is infested (ahem, some of the broccoli) I just rinse it off.

In terms of things that aren't finished, I'm still getting bigger (and puffier) by the day.  This was last Saturday at 34 weeks:

Although I'm not looking particularly horrible there, I'm not so lucky most days.  I've been fighting a losing battle with swelling in my feet/calves, hands, and face.  It can be very painful some days.  My BP is fine, as are all other pre-e signs, so I just have to elevate my feet as much as possible and I have some sexy compression stockings.

I'm just having to come to terms with not being one of those glowing, beautiful pregnant women.  I've gained more weight than I wanted, mostly due to fluids so my midwife says to stop worrying, my hair isn't thick and shiny, my skin is dull, and I constantly look tired because I can't sleep.  I am fighting heartburn every day, I now have pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel from the swelling, and I'm just generally kind of a miserable person to be around.  I try hard not to complain too much because I KNOW it can be way worse, but some days are a struggle.  I'm very much looking forward to having the little guy in my arms.  I truly think that the sleep deprivation of being a new mom will be easier than the heartburn/peeing/sore body/painful swollen feet sleep deprivation of pregnancy.  He will definitely be the "reward" for dealing with pregnancy!  I'm grateful that the first 25 weeks or so were pretty easy, and I don't know how women do it when they are sick every day from the very start.  I'm also very grateful for a husband that steps in to do a large portion of my share of the chores, and a mom that is ready to help whenever we need her to.  Last weekend she spent her free time helping us paint the stairway, which was not easy work.  I am very lucky.

More to come on the kitchen remodel that is now done and the work and family baby showers coming up in the next week.

In process

Owning a house is fun, and it's nice to have ownership of something.  It is a series of never-ending projects, but they are fulfilling.  However, no project seems to be quickly accomplished.  Over Memorial Day weekend, we took off Friday for a much needed day together.  Having 4 days off was glorious, and it was a nice balance of fun.........
- Brunch at a french bistro
- 3 hours at the spa (massages, hot oil scalp massages, foot baths, foot/leg scrub)
- happy hour at a tiki bar
- dinner with my parents
- afternoon/evening at a casino 1.5 hours north of us
- down time watching TV
- registered for the baby at Target
.......and house projects.  Every house project always seems to be "in process," even when we think it is going to be easy.
We bought a bed and mattress from Big Lots for the guest bedroom.  It ended up taking 3 days to put the bed together because our hands could only take so much pressure from getting in the screws before we had to take a break.  This is where it stands now.  A far cry from the empty room, but it needs work for sure.


We finally got the shelves hung in the nursery.  That was an "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie" ordeal.  Bryan found screws, but then he needed a drill.  We found the drill, but the cord wasn't long enough, so we needed an extension cord.  We found the cord, but then the screws weren't strong enough, so we had to find anchors.  On and on.  We did get them hung though, and they are now adorned with Dr. Seuss artwork and books.  Clearly we still need to finish cleaning and organizing.  The bassinet will go in our room, but it is the junk holder (and unintentional cat bed) right now.


We spent one of the days doing some significant trimming in our front yard (I wish I had taken a before photo).  While it is zero-scaped, it still needs weekly weeding and regular trimming.  We decided to mulch as well, in an attempt to keep the weeds down.  Bryan sent me to by 8 bags, and I bought 12.  He laughed at me, thinking I went crazy with mulch.  Um, you can see from this photo that 12 bags only covered HALF of our yard.  I also power-washed the porch and walkway, but I still need to paint the porch.


While our veggie garden is going CRAZY (better before/after photos to come in a future post).....

....we still have the ivy to tackle, back fence to re-stain, and this ugly compost pile to deal with.  We have yard debris each week, but at this rate it will be winter before we get rid of all of it and clean up this corner.


Speaking of our garden though, I did harvest our first crop of butter lettuce and spinach last week.

It's ready to be harvested again, and our first batch of kale and swiss chard is ready too.  It's very exciting!

Another "in process" project for this week is the bench that Bryan built while I was away for work a couple of weeks ago.  It looks great in the space, but I still need to finish it up by putting some sort of pretty paper over the glass so I can fill up the shelves without them looking ugly.  I really thought I had a before picture, but I can't find it. EDIT: found it!  Originally this space was for our dining table, but we moved that to half of the living room and put in this window seat.


For the final "in process" project of this week, I hit 29 weeks.