1 Month (long)

Cailin is one full month old as of yesterday! Some may say, "One month already?!" I feel more like, "It's ONLY been one month?!" It's been the longest month of my life, that's for sure. It's been rough, but I wouldn't change it for the world (okay, maybe I'd change a couple things, but I wouldn't change having my little princess here).

We had her one month checkup today at the pediatrician. She's now 9lbs 7oz (55% ile) and 21 1/2 inches long (60 something % ile). She's pretty average. :) I don't remember what they said for the head.

Pretty much sums up her first month of life...

It's been one thing after another for my poor little girl. First let's talk about breastfeeding (or lack there of). From day one this girl just flat out REFUSED to do it. I mean, I REALLY wanted to BF. I took two classes, went to a couple Le Leche League meetings, read up online, books, etc. Did everything to prepare myself for BFing. I knew it would be hard. Formula wasn't even an option for me. Although I never had anything against formula feeding, it just wasn't my first option. I barely had any bottles. I took them all back and kept just a few because like I said, I had planned on exclusively BFing. WELL, all those classes that I took, meetings that I went to and reading never said anything about what to do if your child refuses. She would literally scream at the sight of my boob. I tried making her. The nurses tried, we had a lactation consaltant helping us. We even stayed an extra day in the hospital to help with BFing. After 24 hrs of her just simply not eating anything I started supplementing with formula. She HAD to eat something. I wasn't going to make her starve, and plus she was jaundice so she had to eat, so she could poop and pee and wash the jaundice out of her system. And it just broke my heart to see her so upset about something that's SUPPOSED to be so natural. I also think I had a supply issue. My milk never really came in. My boobs got just a little engorged about a week after giving birth. We rented a breast pump, because I figured I'd exclusively pump instead or until she will latch. Well I pumped for like a week and 1/2 to 2 weeks, and I was pumping for like 30 minutes on a hospital grade double electric Medela pump, and I was only getting like a half an oz of breastmilk. So I gave up. Sucks big time, but I'm not going to dwell on it.

Second, we had a pretty nasty diaper rash. I mean super red and blistered. She was only a week old! So we stopped using wipes, using only warm wet washclothes. We tried Desatin, which was helping a little but not really doing the trick. So after a week I heard about using Auquaphor for diaper rashes. Who would've known? Luckily we have a jar of it because it's what we use to heal our tattoos. After using that it started clearing up right away.

Then she got a cold. :( Stuffy nose, wattery eyes, sneezy. Nothing too bad. No cough, thank goodness. She gave that cold to Daddy, and Daddy gave it to me, and I'm just now getting over it. Mine turned into a whole respitory thing, which I was dealthly afraid of giving to her.

Then another diaper rash, but not as bad as the first.


Then the gas and colic started. OMG. So awful. For her and me. It started with farts. She farted a lot. Then it was like she was straight up in pain. That broke my heart. She'd be so incredibly hungry, but every time she swallowed she was in so much pain. Her eyebrows would shoot up, she'd straighten her whole body and she'd just wail. She was fussy all damn day. Couldn't sleep. We would go a whole day without sleep. Maybe one three hour nap, instead of sleeping every three hours, up to eat and diaper change, then back to sleep for another three hours. Nope. Poor baby couldn't sleep. This went on and on. Some days would be okay, and it'd only be a few hours of it, and some days were a whole day deal. I started the gas drops, which helped a little, but not all that much. So this went on and on and on. I got to the point where I was telling Brian "I can't do this. I don't know if I can do this! I'm not supposed to have a fussy baby that cries non stop." Not only is it sooo frustrating, I feel so bad for her. There's nothing I can do to soothe her some days. I tried the three "S's". I tried the swing, I tried EVERYTHING. Some days there's just absolutely nothing I can do. Finally I called the doctor and she said go ahead and switch her formula to the sensitive formula. That was about a week ago. Things are getting better. She still needs to be held in order to sleep most of the time, but at least she's sleeping. It's getting better each day though. Past few days it's been a pattern of her waking up during dinner time and starting the fussiness until about midnight. Each day is better though. Night time is getting better.

She sleeps with me in bed. :/ Don't judge! She's never slept a whole night in her bassinet. She used to sleep just fine in the pack and play during the day, but wouldn't at night. Now she has this mommy attachment going on where she needs to be around me and will only sleep with me. And as of right now I really don't mind cause I'm not going to lie, it soothes me too. Well, it's okay at night (and I'll do ANYTHING to have her sleep at night), but it's getting to the point with the colic where she won't sleep by herself during the day (unless we're out running around cause she likes the car and will pass right out while i'm driving and stay in her car seat for hours).

Some fun facts about Cailin: She loves music. Not that annoying Canon in D (which is on every mobile by the way, weird), but my music. :) I love that. She loves car rides. But she has to have the music on the car rides. My iPod has to be playing, and she prefers Paramore. haha! She's starting to be more alert, making eye contact and loves when I talk to her. It's amazing how from day one they respond to  your voice. Amazing. She loves looking at ceiling fans. Just the past week I've noticed her noticing things like ceiling fans or things on the walls, and also her mobile on the swing. She'll watch that for a few minutes. I love seeing her grow. Just waiting for that first smile!

I just can't wait till she's 3 months old and the colic is gone and I have a happy baby again. :)

I'm doing great. Besides being sleep deprived(which I really don't mind most of  the time), I'm healing well. Actually I'd say I'm probably about 95% healed. I've only lost 15lbs, WTF? Those nurses were jsut being nice when they said it was water weight. Oh the joys of sucky metabolism. I can't wait to start working out. I started taking walks a few days a week. I am going to start karate back up in a couple weeks. I'm ready to be out of maternity clothes already!