5 months and a day

Once again time is acting in that peculiar fashion where it moves fast and slow simultaneously. It feels like Jessica's 4 month vaccinations were ages ago whilst I also feel like she was just born. Perhaps it's the gallbladder. When I'm in pain time always seems to act funny.

I had my consultation with the surgeon today. It was a case of being put on a waiting list to wait for a waiting list. I waited over a month for this appointment only to be told it will be roughly 2 more months before anything is done. He didn't really ask me any questions other than:

"Do you want it out?"
I said yes.
"Okay. Government guidelines say we have to promise you a surgery date within 9 weeks of telling you that you'll have surgery. I'm busy this week and on holiday the next, so it will probably be more than 3 but less than 9."
I quickly attempted to count in my head, "middle of September...noooo! just when I was planning on going home to Florida for a bit... argh!"

It's strange how much doctors vary. I've met a few that discount everything I say and often diagnose without listening to me, but then there are those that seem to let me self-diagnose, nod and ask what I would like to do. This one fell into the latter category. I mentioned how my symptoms seemed to suggest a stone getting lodged in the bile duct- so he's arranging an MRI to scan the area and make sure there's nothing there that would need to be removed. Apparently, they are two different procedures entirely. I like that he listened to me, it just comes as kind of a shock after you deal with so many who don't care what you say. At first he mentioned doing the scan after the surgery but when he realized how far off it would be he decided just to order one now. It was done in a very much "What the heck, there's nothing else to do while you're waiting to get cut open." kind of attitude. Slightly odd, but at least it's getting done.

On the lighter side of life: Tonight Jessabear pooped in the bath. Not before the bath, not right after the bath, but IN the bath. It was oddly akin to yellow play-dough coming out of a play-dough press. Mark wasn't impressed, well maybe he was,but in that strange way where you can't believe something is really happening. I've got to give him credit, he did not run screaming from the room. He held it together and we managed to get her from her bath into the proper tub with no further incident.

Letting us know what she thought about the doctor's office.

Exhausted after choosing a new toy at Tesco

Where have I been?

It was brought to my attention this morning that is officially been more than a month since my last post. I keep meaning to write something but I'm sure as all of you with offspring know... things never go according to plan!

The first big blip was my gallbladder. I told you I'd had my first gallstone attack on the 14th but what you don't know is that over the next few weeks I had at least 12 more attacks, saw the out of hours doctor twice, regular doctor once, had three phone appointments and eventually wound up in the ER. I can't take the strong painkillers because I'm still breastfeeding and they think the ones they did give me made me itch all over. (It was either the codine OR the high bilirubin count in my blood making me want to tear my skin off. They can't really tell me which because I stopped taking the painkillers as the bilirubin count went down because there was no longer a stone lodged in my bile duct!)

I can honestly say I'm being conditioned to HATE the month of June. I spent most of June 2009 throwing up, June 2010 I spent throwing up, doubled over in pain and itching. I preferred 2009 because at least I knew it was for my baby... I feel no such love for my gallbladder.

It's been a week since my last attack and I managed to go a whole week pain free before that one as well so it feels like I'm getting my life back. I have a surgical consult Monday afternoon and they'll tell me what the plan for taking my gallbladder out is. I'm of two minds; I can't wait to have it out ant live in fear of another attack, but it's surgery, I'll be in the hospital away from my baby girl for the first time. I won't be able to feed her because of the drugs in my system, I'll have to pump and dump to keep up my supply, Mark will have to convince her that the bottle can be her friend and figure out someway to get her to sleep. I see it being a very stressful few days. The doctor in the ER said they might be able to make some considerations and arrange for a private room so I can have the baby in more often.

Speaking of the precious little one. She's awake. She's decided that instead of an hour she only wanted a 20 minute nap. *laughs* Hence the reason I haven't updated this blog in a month!

I have lots more stories for you, adventures in real diapers, her first 4th of July, attempts to crawl and more. I'm hoping I'll get a chance to write them up soon. For now, enjoy the new pictures on Picasa.

Finding her feet and other ramblings

She had her 4 month injections today. I was dreading it for days. Instead of just one in each thigh she got 2 in the left thigh and 1 in the right. It was horrible and I hated it. She cried and it took everything I had not to. It's only been about six hours but other than taking a much longer nap than usual she seems to be fine. I'm not looking forward to tonight though. It's already 23°C (73°F) in the bedroom and likely to get warmer as the day goes on. (I know it doesn't sound that warm, but she's used to a room that's normally 19°C (66°F.)

As for the - mostly - in the first paragraph. I've been diagnosed with gallstones. Brilliant. I'd been having a cramping/queasiness in my stomach for the past month or so and when I finally saw the GP she sent me for an ultrasound. Lo and behold.. gallstones. Less than three days later I have my very first gallstone attack. It was unbearable. As they say, worse than childbirth. I had to see an emergency out of hours doctor to get something for the pain. I was completely incoherent with pain but I do remember the doctor asking me if it was worse than childbirth. At the time I was offended. When we left, between gasps of pain, I asked my mother in law what he meant by that. (It felt like he was saying, "If you could handle that, you should be able to handle this.") She assured me that that wasn't what he meant. It turns out that people often say that a gallstone attack is worse than childbirth. It's just the common way of referring to the severity of pain involved. I didn't know that. I do now. And yes. Worse than childbirth because while it feels A LOT like a contraction, contractions fade for a minute or two so you can breathe. This was a constant pain. A constant pain without the knowledge that it's for something wonderful. A trapped stone doesn't invoke the same sense of "I can do this!" that a beautiful baby does. So today we're taking it easy. Lots of naps and no heavy lifting. :) Hopefully we'll both make it through the day without any incidents. I even bought a nifty new Forehead Thermometer so I could keep an eye on her temperature and make sure she gets any meds as soon as she needs them.

Jessica's monthly weigh-in: 6.4kg (14.11 lbs) That's more than a pound since last month. I'll try to get her measured later and see how much longer she is. :)

Roll Over Beethoven

It's official!! The rolling has begun! She's been hovering at "almost" for at least 2 weeks now and yesterday she accomplished it all on her own.

Monday Night
Roll one: I put her in her travel cot downstairs when Mark got home and almost immediately she started the attempt. (Her leopard bear was just out of reach and she was determined to reach him.)

Roll two: she'd gone down for the night and I thought she was asleep, I hear some rustling so I go back to see if she needs settled only to watch her flip over. I reverse her flip explain that for now she needs to sleep on her back. Does it take? No. A new trick is the funnest trick of all and she immediately rolls again.(Roll 3)

Roll four: I decide this is too cute for Mark to miss and tell him to hit the light so he can see (he's already asleep at this point and his eyes fall shut just in time to miss the 4th roll of the night.) He's disappointed and tries to keep his eyes open but apparently she's done rolling for the evening.

I lost count on the rest of the rolls, she continued rolling at random points throughout the night. She would roll and wind up halfway out of her crib and into our bed. Looks like we bought the crib just in time! If she tried rolling in our bed she'd push us both out!

The adorable baby has also found her thumb. She's been sucking on her fingers since around 2 and a half months old but yesterday it clicked and she realized the thumb would be easier and she couldn't gag herself with it. I'll see if we can manage to capture it in action with a photo. :)

plus a day

Just wanted to update you on the little one. She's doing much better today. Sleepier than normal combined with a bit more neediness means I have a baby sleeping on me while I attempt to type but I'm okay with that. We soaked her band-aids off in the tub before bed last night and with that ceremonial end to the day she seemed to put it all behind her.

I've got a question. Teething and drooling. I hear they go hand in hand, but I've also heard that babies can show symptoms of teething months before teeth start to show. How is that fair? Jessica has really stepped up her drooling in the past 2 weeks. I was wondering was I was going to do with all those bibs I'd been given until she started solids. Now I know!! It's all good, she likes playing with them and it keeps her dry. Does this mean she's started teething already? What else should I be looking out for?

I'm not sure what the development milestones are.. I guess I should try looking them up. We think she's a baby genius whenever she does anything. :) She can push up on her arms while laying on her belly now. It's adorable. Imagine if you'd just climbed Mt.Everest... that's the expression she has on her face! She rolled over the other day too - have I said that already? We're not counting it as the official 'first roll' because she was on our bed and if you're laying next to her it gives her a slant to help with the momentum but she's so close to doing it on her own.

Of course she's smiling, cooing, grabbing her toys, my hair, my shirt, Daddy's glasses- anything she can get her hands on really. She even came away with a palm full of Leeloo hair the other day. Leeloo has been amazing with her though. Not a single hiss or aggressive move at all. Impressive considering the fistful hair the baby "borrowed." It's like she knows that the baby belongs here and that she's delicate and needs protecting.

I hope they stay such good friends as Jess grows into a toddler!

Yes... that's Leeloo thinking the baby blanket is hers. Silly kitty.

3 Months Old!

Immunizations round two. Definitely more stressful than the first set.

The waiting room seemed packed with babies and strollers today but it also had a nice sprinkling of the disease ridden just to make things fun. Surely a doctor's office of all places should see the value in "sick" and "healthy" waiting rooms. I've been to that same practice more than a dozen times in the past year and not once have I actually been sick, however I have found myself hovering as far to the edges as possible and visibly wincing every time someone hacks in my direction. Additionally, it was hot. Not Florida hot but definitely Scotland hot. Jessie made her displeasure know almost immediately. Normally she's very content to sit in her car seat and make happy faces at us until it's time to go in and see the doctor, but today she started crying. Actual tears crying! Picking her up and walking around made her much happier but I can't imagine it made her any cooler.

Eventually we're called in. (I say eventually like it took forever. It didn't. I readily admit that it could have been a much longer wait. But in a hot waiting room with an unhappy baby even 15 minutes can seem like a lifetime.) Ethel, Iris [the Health Visitors] and a young blonde woman I don't know are waiting and getting things ready. I look over at the baby scales and Iris asks if I'd like to weigh her before we get started. I do. Jessica now weighs... (hold on yeah like you're going to notice the lapse in time here I need to go weigh the clothes she had on today and see what she actually weighs)12lbs 15oz. [5.88kg]. Iris briefly runs through the same spiel as last time "I know it's unpleasant but there's no reason for her not to get the vaccinations" however, this time it sounded a lot more like a question so I fill in the silence with "She's getting over a stuffy nose." They look at me kinda funny and say, "yeah that's not a problem." Mark is hovering by the door with the stroller I can tell he's not looking forward to this any more than I am. They'd asked who was going to hold her and I could tell he would have stepped up if I needed him to but I decided it would be quicker to nurse her afterwards if I was holding her. Jags simultaneously in both thighs, howling baby, tears. I feed her. It takes a minute or so to calm her down and get her to nurse, at which point Iris says something along the lines of "you can go and get a good feed with Mummy now" obviously trying to get us out the door. I don't move. (My baby is still crying and I know in a minute she'll be calm again.) Then I get a polite nudge of "we'd love to let you stay and feed her but.." I'm going I'm going. Shessh. She thinks she's won because I get up to go - but she hasn't. Not really. Jessica has stopped bawling so I'm happy to move her. Yes I'm being a bit cantankerous, but my baby is upset and there's nothing else I could do, so I'm going to do what I can. I hand her to Daddy while I ask some questions and via the power of Daddy-magic manages to calm her completely.

We leave and Jessie seems happy enough. She falls asleep in her car seat while we stop by the post office to mail off her American citizenship documentation, grab some baby essentials from Boots and pick up a quick lunch at Subway. One of the staff in Subway tells us how tiny she is. We kind of look at each other confused since the medical staff just gushed at how big and long she is. Mark concluded that people who don't see babies all day everyday must forget how small they really are, so must think they're super tiny when they see them. I tend to agree.

Home again and Mark heads off to work to earn the bacon. Jessica is not impressed. She goes from grumpy to angry to inconsolable. I try to give her some Calpol but she refuses and most of it winds up down the bib. (Yes. I was smart enough to realize that this endeavour would probably require a bib.) I finally get her to fall asleep for about 40 minutes.

This is her sleeping it off:


The rest of the day has continued pretty much the same. Content - grumpy - angry - WAHHHHHH! We got a brief play in the garden during one of the short content periods. Leeloo wanted to come out with us but the neighbour's cat wouldn't leave and she was too scared to force the issue. Jessica is taking another nap at the moment, hopefully she'll feel better when she wakes up. Although I hear the day after is sometimes just as bad if not worse than the first....

Happy Mother's Day!

Officially I had my first Mother's Day a couple weeks after Jessica was born, but I'm going to celebrate this one too. Plus this is the one that applies to my mother. Happy Mother's Day Mom, I LOVE YOU! You've taught me so many things about being a great mother and I can only hope that I'll be as good a mother for Jessica as you've been to me. Mark authorized the purchase of a moby wrap for my present. I bought it in an auction on Ebay. Actually the very first auction that I've ever won on ebay when someone was bidding against me. (I was very excited.) I'll take some pictures of me and Mark 'babywearing' when it arrives later this week.

Jess is still growing by leaps and bounds! However, this past week she's had a bit of a cold. At first it was just the snuffles but the other night we decided she had a sore throat so she had her very first bit of Calpol. (That's kinda like baby Tylenol for my Americans out there.) I think it helped; both times we gave her some, she went to sleep and had a really good nap. That's bound to be good for her recovery. She seems to be feeling better today, still a bit sniffly but definitely getting better. She's napping on her Daddy at the moment.

Crib finally purchased!! I didn't get the dark walnut I originally wanted - we went for natural instead because it was 50% cheaper than the walnut or the white. Strange that the colour would affect the price by more than £150? It almost matches the wardrobe and dresser we bought for the nursery. Mark's been busy building furniture recently, but I think we're finally finished. The last big ticket item we need to buy is a baby monitor but we're still trying to figure out which one we want and if there's a way to not spend a fortune to get it!

I hope all the other Mommies out there have a wonderful and blessed day.