Or should I say poop?
And puke?
Yes, the Lala children have the stomach flu. I am now OFFICIALLY a parent.
Actually, Hubby is doing fantastically well mopping up puke and poo while I breastfeed Nolan mostly. Poor guy! (Hey, I told ya he was a great dad!)
I gave them some probiotics this evening. Hopefully it will help. Poor miserable things.
This is my last week of maternity leave. I go back to work on the 8th.
On Friday I have an appointment to speak with my supervisor and the branch director. I want to speak with my supervisor about my caseload when I return so that I don’t have to spin my wheels my first day or so back – I would much rather jump right in. And I want to talk to the branch supervisor about why I was demoted. I was so shocked when she called to tell me (and the girl’s therapist was in the room working with them) that I didn’t ask many questions, I mostly just agreed and tried to sound cheerful.
As the weeks past I have become more and more upset about it, to the point where it is now keeping me up at night. I have to say SOMETHING. I don’t want to be rude or confrontational, but I feel that if I let it go completely that that not only makes me a doormat, but it also conveys the message that I don’t care and that I have no ambition.
I think I am just going to ask them if they are trying to send me a message (in other words, did they feel that my performance was not up to par?). ::sigh::
Good times. I have a week to get myself overly anxious about this now.
When I was pumping breastmilk for the girls the most adventurous place that I ever pumped/fed was in my car with a hand pump (I had a hospital-grade pump which was provided by the girl’s insurance because they were preemies. It was HUGE and hedious.) And, as we all know, I was unable to continue pumping and caring for my very sick little girls once they came home – so that only lasted for about three months.
Anyhow – totally different story this time around. I now routinely pack up my awesome Medela pump (a VERY generous gift from a lady on my twins message board) and hit the road. Usually I just pump in my car (I just use a nursing shawl, it works great), but I did pump at Disneyland last week. They have AWESOME baby facilities and a great pumping area – I was SO impressed!
Where am I going with all of this you might be wondering?
A friend of mine had booked a huge group of us (myself included) tickets to be in the audience (and, therefore, potential contestants) on The Price Is Right next Wednesday.
My sweet friend even called ahead to ask if I could bring the pump past security and if there would be any facility I could pump in (they have graciously offered me a bathroom, lol).
This should be interesting.
We have to leave by 6:30am to get to the studio by 8:45am. The show tapes at 1pm.
Wish me luck!
I finally did it. As promised.
I’m not sure I like the look of things yet. We’ll see.
And I decided to keep Empty Uterus. It’s empty now. It probably will be from now on. It says a lot about who I am, why I am the way I am, etc.
The header is just something I came up with goofy around in paint (as if you couldn’t tell!). But it’ll do for now.
I deleted the blogs on my blogroll that hadn’t posted in a very long time, and I started going through and adding some new ones but I’ve run out of time. If you would like to be added to my blogroll please just leave me a comment letting me know and it will be done.
And I hear all three little ones starting to stir so before I am called away to feed and feed and feed some more tiny humans:
The Boob:
- survey says? Clogged duct.
Soon after posting that the pain started to get worse. It felt like I had been beaten in the boob with a brick. Mmm, not so pleasant. I went to bed that night w/ a heating pad and fed Nolan on that side first all evening. By morning it was a bit better and by today I am almost back to normal. Wow. That felt NOTHING like I would have expected, sure glad it’s gone! Strange that I never felt the “hard spot” that everyone describes with a clogged duct…but it was so tender (and my girls are pretty freakin HUGE right now, so that’s a lot of ground to cover) and honestly I didn’t go prodding around all that much.
Today:
- Nolan scared the SH*T out of us. First of all, he went to sleep at about 11pm after eating and didn’t wake up at 8 like he usually does, he slept until a little after 9. I was THRILLED. Until I went to change his diaper. There was a red spot right in the middle of his peed on diaper. Blood! I screamed for hubby to bring me a baggy and the car keys cause we needed to get Nolan to the hospital ASAP.
Ha.
After running my screaming (in hunger) 2 month old to the pediatrician’s office at top speed…it turns out it was something called Urate Crystals. Um. Yeah.
Apparently when anyone goes a long time without eating (like, overnight) their urine can become more concentrated. To the point of turning dark reddish-orange. (NOTE: He was NOT dehydrated. They checked. )
Scared. The. CRAP. Out. Of. Me.
Oh, and Nolan?
14 lbs 1 oz
10 weeks old.
(In other words, he’s a CHUNK! He’s already in size 6 month!)
Gotta run. Time to produce some boob milk and some chicken nuggets for the screaming masses.
Oh, Bloggy Friends, I need your help!
As I have mentioned, breastfeeding thus far has gone *amazingly* well. Yes, there were a few hic ups in the first week or two…but that’s pretty normal I think.
Weeeeell, a little less than a week ago my right nipple started hurting. I thought it was poor latch (we’ve gotten pretty lax, but it’s been working alright). It hurt MOSTLY in one particular place. So I started working on better positioning, but things only got worse.
A few days ago I started having shooting pains in my breast (mostly the right, but a little on the left too). Then my right nipple started burning while I fed and Nolan was fussy and gassy. I decided it was thrush (I do not have a rash on my nipples, they are not cracked, redder than usual or flakey, and Nolan doesn’t have any rashes anywhere in his mouth or on his butt). BUT Evelynn DID get a yeasty diaper rash and I have had a yeast infection (we all share a bath tub…I don’t know if it could spread that way?).
So, I decided it was thrush. I started Nolan and myself on probiotics and have been using two different antifungal creams on my nipples and Evelynn (and I’ve been treating the YI). The probiotics seem to make Nolan’s gassiness and fussiness even worse, and the creams are helping Evy but I’m just getting worse (they burned a little at first, which I thought meant that I was right and that they were working, but that stopped).
But then today my whole rght breast is swollen and bruised feeling. It really hurts and it’s getting worse no matter how much I feed on that side. I don’t have a fever or flu symptoms and there is no redness.
So now I’m thinking… plugged duct? Mastitis? Thrush? All of the above?!
I’m stumped.
I am going to try and get in to see a doctor tomorrow, but it might not happen until later in the week because the girls have appointments all week this week.
I’ve been a very bad, erratic blogger lately.
Ok, fine, for a long while now.
First I had preemie twins, then I was pregnant again and exhausted, then I had a newborn…
But enough with the excuses. I need to get back on the ball.
Really, I need to fix up this site. A lot of my blogroll has stopped blogging or has moved – but its going to be such a project to go through all those links I’ve been putting it off forever. No more excuses.
People also suggest from time to time that I change my blog name.
::sigh::
While I see their point – I’ve been “Empty Uterus” for a long time time. I was briefly ”Crowded Uterus” when I found out I was having triplets…but I’m sort of superstitious about changing it now! And really, my uterus IS empty. It probably will be empty from now on. AND, the fact that I have previously suffered from Empty Uterus Syndrome explains a whole lot about who I am, why I’m blogging and how I think and act the way I do about many things.
So, what do you think bloggyworld? Should I change my blog title? If so, do you have any suggestions?
Since I have been such a bad blogger I want to get back into the “swing of things” with some updates.
The Kidney:
Effing hell. It never ends. Still waiting. Still haven’t started the IVIG. Beyond frustrated. It’s all just red tape – one thing after another. ::sigh:: Hopefully soon.
The Girls:
Are 15 months old!!!!! They are SUCH toddlers now, it seemed like they were babies for SO long and then one day their development just started to snowball and they grew up overnight!
Evelynn is a feisty little monster. She is VERY strong. When she is in her walker if she comes upon something she can’t push the walker over (like the edge of the carpet, etc) she simply picks it up around her like a hoola hoop and walks with it. But she also uses her powers for evil: trying to change her diaper, bathe her, put her into a car seat, keep her in a high chair or pretty much anything else is like trying to dunk a cat in water. She. Is. Exhausting. AND she has an opinion about everything (and it’s almost always “no”). But man oh man is she charming. She has about 8 teeth now and her goony grin just gets me every time. She is walking (though only around her play area, not around the house or anything yet).
Lennon is my little snuggly sweetie pie. She JUST started working her her first tooth yesterday (freaking FINALLY, Hubby and I were starting to panic)….right now it’s nothing more than a sharp spot on her lower gum. Evy beats the crap out of her most of the time, lol, but she’s starting to learn to defend herself – which is good. I’m still a teeny bit worried about her development since she’s not really trying to walk at all. She’s taken a few steps here and there. We also just noticed that she has a lazy eye. I don’t know how we missed it, I guess with everything else going on with her…and it’s not that obvious…in fact, we only figured it out when other people started commenting on it in pictures of her. I need to make an appointment to see what needs to be done about that.
Nolan:
Is an AWESOME baby. Awe-some. He is in a fantastic mood 90% of the time (he smiles and coos and jabbers at me and I want to snuggle the CRAP out of him). Breastfeeding is the best thing EVER and I am terrified of my milk drying up. I know it will eventually – but I am loving this SO much. Oh, and he occasionally sleeps through the night. He also sometimes stays up all night grumping and demanding the boob every 20 minutes. But, such is life.
Life In General:
::sigh::
Honestly? I am a very unhappy person right now.
Well, I can’t say that exactly. I love, love, LOVE my kids. This is exactly what I wanted and I am elated. They are worth EVERYTHING I am about to complain about and more.
But, I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t striving for perfection and my life right now is far, far, FAAAAR from where I need it to be.
We are still stuck at my parents house. Still grateful for them saving our butts like this – but this is NOT how I want to raise my children. My mom and I have very different parenting styles and being stuck here I am forced to follow hers more than my own. Bitter, BITTER pills to swallow.
I feel like a loser living here to say the least.
And I am very, very frustrated with my job.
But, I’m working on things and my goal is to be out of here by the end of this year. I’m looking for a career since it’s now obvious that my current place of employment is not going to lead in that direction. Let’s just say I’m working on that, but the job I really want is a government job and that’s going to take a long time. In the mean time I’ll try to be grateful that I have a job at all.
I’ve also applied to grad school. Again. Well, working on applying, lol. I need to get my packet finished and mailed off.
Yeah, I think that’s enough blithering for one post. But now that we’re up to speed I can post more regularly without feeling like I’m leaving something out.
This is probably going to be a short post because I”m exhausted. We took the kiddos to see the Rose Parade floats today (they park them along the street can you can pay to go and look at them up close). Gah.
Big mistake.
It was HOT (freaking HELL I need to move some place cooler!), it was crowded. The kids had not napped. AND, Nolan decided that today was the day to poop. He had not pooped in two days. There was a LOT of poop. Everywhere.
Let’s just say I am embarrassed to admit that I had to get ghetto and strip him down naked to bathe him with baby wipes in the middle of thousands of people. Ew.
It was awesome to see the floats up close (they are WAY more detailed than they seem on TV) – but it is something we won’t be doing again until the little ones are older (and walking).
I did want to say a few things about this past year, though, so I needed to toss something together before it gets too far into 2010:
2009 was a big, big year in the life of La. My sweet, sweet princesses who I tired for four years to conceive and was 100% convinced were never going to come grew from teeny little preemies into intelligent, sweet, funny little toddlers. We celebrated their first birthday this year.
This year we found out that my precious Lennon had a birth defect called metopic craniosynostosis and we had to make the most agonizing decision I have ever had to make in my entire life: to have our tiny 10 month old daughter undergo a fairly risky surgery that would involve removing and reshaping her skull and a portion of her face. We knew the recovery was going to be rough, but nothing can prepare you for hearing your little one moaning in pain…for seeing them pale, bruised, swollen…It was without a doubt the worst thing I have ever been through in my life. Worse than losing my grandmother even, and that’s not to say that that wasn’t horrible. This was unimaginable.
BUT, Lennon is amazing and she bounced back SO quickly! It hasn’t even been four months post-op and most of the time I forget it even happened. That child never ceases to amaze me. (Well, all three of them do, really).
Evelynn got eight teeth and learned how to walk this year (no teeth or walking for Len yet…that’ll be a post for another day).
And then there is Nolan.
Ah, Nolan.
The night he was conceived I looked at my husband right before doing “the deed” (*blush*) and said something along the lines of “I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, but I have a really weird feeling about this – I think we should use a condom”. Hubby refused, of course and told me I was nuts and that we were 100% infertile. I laughed, and agreed.
Two months later I found out I was having a Nolan. =)
Nolie-poo…you are the most amazing, fantastic thing I never even knew I wanted. Now that you’re here I cannot imagine life without you. You are a perfect baby – beautiful and peaceful, sweet and charming. Thank you for gracing us with your presence this year.
This year was painful and beautiful, frustrating and exhilarating. What a year it was!
So here’s to 2010 – may it be the year of successful kidney transplants, of a new career for LaLa, of happy and healthy children, of no surprise pregnancies for this family (*wink*), and of finally, FINALLY getting the frick out of my parent’s spare bedroom and into our OWN home! Oh, and the year of the mini van.
