Colic sucks

Lincoln has colic.  Lincoln makes Tony and I wish we were deaf from around 7pm to at least 11pm.  He screams, and I mean screams, full tilt the whole time.  He forgets how to eat and all of the usual tricks to soothe like rocking and bouncing, fail.  And it makes me feel like a parenting failure.

Logically I know that it is a medical thing, that nothing I do can fix it.  But emotionally it tears my heart out to see him in such a state, to hear his voice breaking from hours of screaming.  The only momentary break in the screaming comes when we set him down, alone, in his crib.  And that only lasts for a few minutes.

I know that colic is thought to be related to a baby being overstimulated and gassy.  I know that colic is defined at a period of intense crying that escalates in intensity lasting for a least three hours, three nights a week, for two weeks or more.  Well we haven't had a night off in over a week from the scream-fest that is our evening.

And it seems like the kid has a "mommy is eating dinner" sensor that turns on the early edition of crying/screaming whenever I sit down to eat.  I end up inhaling my food most nights and sick to my stomach an hour later when the screaming kicks it up a notch.

And today he got his second Hep B shot so he hasn't slept for more than fifteen minutes since 1:30pm.   And its not 10:11pm. Mommy is exhausted.  Lincoln is exhausted too, but he is fighting sleep.  Its like his mind wants to sleep but his body won't let him.  Every time he goes down for a nap his body starts jerking and he's up again.  Even with a swaddle.  Grrr.  Exhausted...

Lincoln and breastfeeding

I haven't written in a long time.  I guess I got caught up in my pregnancy and preparing for my little human to arrive.  He came ten days late, the day before I was scheduled to be induced!  I won't go into labor and delivery details other than to say I lost a lot of blood during delivery thanks to the cord breaking off the placenta when they tried to remove it, and having a bit of red in my hair.  Apparently red heads bleed more.

 Because of the blood loss my milk didn't come in on time.  And the Thursday after he was born (he was born on a Sunday) we ended up at the pediatricians office because he'd only had three wet diaper in two days and was so frantic that he actually damaged both of my nipples trying to get food.  Poor baby.

So we ended up having to supplement.  I would breastfeed him, Tony would give him a bottle, and I would pump to help get my supply going.  (Thank God for my Mother-in-law giving us a great pump, otherwise we wouldn't have made it past this point!)  Friday the very next day, my milk came in and things looked like they were going well with the exception of extremely heavy breast that were making me short of breath.  (That did go away after two days thank goodness!)

But things were not fixed.  I ended up with a yeast type infection from childbirth. The OB tried to give me a vaginal suppository gel and I said no way.  No way was I going to put anything there that soon after birth, it terrified me.  So she gave me an oral medication that isn't supposed to cause problems for breastfeeding babies.

Well Sunday morning at 3am we ended up in the ER because Lincoln was inconsolable and had diarrhea.  I guessed it was the antifungal/antibiotic but with a newborn we went to the ER just to be sure.  The ER doctor agreed and I was told to pump and dump and give Lincoln a bottle of formula until the antibiotic was out of my system.

So Monday morning I sucked it up and got the vaginal medication and we went to see the pediatrician again and she told me I could start feeding Tuesday morning.  Tuesday morning I tried going back to breastfeeding but Lincoln, poor little guy, wouldn't feed.  He had gotten used to the ease of the bottle and became frustrated when milk didn't arrive the instant he latched.

I called the hospital lactation consultants in tears.  They suggested a nipple shield to help him latch and that I use a medicine dropped to feed a little expressed milk or formula over my nipple while he was latched to encourage him to keep sucking.  And it worked!  Hallelujah.

But of course that didn't mean our problems were over.  No of course not.  He was eating for an hour and a half with only thirty minutes to an hour between feeds!  This means I had no time to do anything and was spending all day every day feeding him.  Most breastfeed babies will give you two to three hours between feeds and those feeds typically last 30-45 minutes.  Big difference!

Wednesday night/Thursday morning I spent sobbing in bed because my baby wouldn't feed.  He would suck and scream.  Suck and scream.  Suck and scream and push away from my breast.  We ended up giving him a bottle because I was OUT OF PATIENTS! I love my precious little boy, but when he is screaming for hours on end it breaks my heart and I just can't take it!  Especially on no sleep!

So I set up a private one-on-one consultation with a lactation consultant on Friday.  Chris, the consultant, determined that Lincoln wasn't getting milk with the shield on because he has a weak suck! Lazy little man wants the bottle because its instant gratification.  The breast lets down milk in phases and isn't instantaneous.  In fact, baby has to find milk, normally in three phases.  And little Linc didn't have the patients.  Chris couldn't believe how quickly he got upset and inconsolable!  But we got him to eat 110 mL from me that day.  It just took over an hour.

And now here we are, two weeks later, and we are still working out the kinks.  Lately at night, Linc has been drinking, coughing, and crying.  He comes away from the breast with milk on his face, screaming like he got nothing.  I talked to the lactation consultant today at my Tuesday Breastfeeding Support Group and she thinks my let down (when the milk starts to flow) is too fast and Lincoln is choking on it!  So now we have to try to manually express a little milk to help slow the flow and try again whenever that happens.

But....  It truly feels like there is always something!  I really don't want to give up on breastfeeding.  Its best for my baby and its best for my budget.  But I am so frustrated!  My son is high intensity.  He's very loud and doesn't have a middle ground.  Its zero to sixty like that!  It breaks my heart.  And fries my nerves.  I love this little boy more than I can say, but sometimes I just break down and cry with frustration.

He eats for thirty minutes.  Falls asleep and won't wake up to eat from the other breast no matter what I do so I set him down.  He sleeps for twenty minutes and wakes up screaming.  So I pick him up and feed him again on the other side.  This time he sleeps for an hour, maybe two if I'm extremely lucky.  Then he wakes up and it starts all over again.

At night, especially, its all I can do to stay awake while he eating (apparently breastfeeding releases a hormone that makes you sleepy.)  And his eating takes over an hour every time because he WON'T STAY AWAKE!  And before bedtime, he wants to eat practically non-stop for three or four hours.  And most nights, he won't sleep before 11:30pm.

That won't work when I need to go back to work.  And the non-stop eating doesn't work at the end of the evening because I end up dry!  So I'm trying to to give him some pumped milk in a bottle while I pump to build up my supply.  Hopefully in a few days this will fix the problem.  But so far, no go...

No one every said breastfeeding was easy, but I had no idea how much work, how many tears it would entail.  Just like I had no idea how OVERWHELMING being a mom would be.  I knew it would be hard, but I had no idea how hard.

There are moments when I am so overflowing with love and a sense of completion.  Like when we gave him a bath for the first time and he didn't cry at all.  Or when he rolled over from tummy to back.  Or how he can hold his head up when he's being burped almost completely steady.  Or when I hear how big he's getting, he's up to 9lbs 6oz! And I know things will be okay, that my beautiful little boy is perfect! But then the next minute I'm in tears with frustration!  Being a breastfeeding mom is H A R D!

Surgery March 30

Good news.  My Mom only has to have one mastectomy, on the right side.  The left side is benign.  She will meet with the plastic surgeon on March 8th and go for surgery March 30th.  She will spend the night in the hospital (possibly two nights,) and come home with a drainage tube and a "place holder" breast.  What that means is that they will not be doing the reconstruction after the mastectomy until she is healed, instead they will put in a temporary "place holder" to keep the skin where they want it.

After two to three weeks the drainage tube will come out but she's still not allowed to do anything.  Not for a total of four weeks.  Then she will have a few smaller surgeries to finish the reconstruction.  In the long run, those reconstruction surgeries should seem like cake after the mastectomy.

On a side note, my morning sickness is almost completely gone!  My appetite has returned and now I'm finding myself hungry all the time.  I have my next OB appointment the first week of March.  I've declined doing the genetic testing.  Tony and I don't have any known history of genetic diseases and it really just seemed like one more thing to worry about.  At this point everything looks really good so why find something to worry about?

Worrying about breasts. Mine and others....

So I'm pregnant with a singleton!  At this moment I am nine weeks and five days, my due date should be somewhere from August 30 to September 1.  Apparently there is a difference of opinion based on the method you use when calculating an IVF pregnancy and all three resources that my OB uses give a different date.  Oh well, how many people actually give birth on their due date?

I debated about continuing this blog, as it was to be about getting pregnant not being pregnant, but its therapeutic and I definitely need a little therapy right now (more on that later.)  Lately its hard to find the energy to do anything other than work and sleep.  Fatigue is definitely a side effect that I am feeling right now!  I haven't really had an easy time of weeks five through now.  Nausea has been a constant companion, and vomiting an occasional enemy.  I tend to fight the urge to vomit though and most of the time I win. 

Despite not vomiting much, I've lost weight.  At least five pounds.  Nothing sounds or smells good.  I made dinner a couple of weeks ago and I swear it smelled like mildew.  Tony said it didn't, that it was just in my nose, but that's what it smelled like to me.  I found that I could eat cold foods much easier than hot so that was a trick for a week or so.  The last four days I've been feeling better though.  More and more foods sound good and taste good.  And my stomach is a little steadier.  I'm hoping this means that morning, noon, and night sickness is almost out the door.

In addition to fatigue and nausea, I've also had a permanently runny nose and sneezing.  This is apparently a pregnancy side effect too.  Let me tell you, I am sick of sneezing and constantly blowing.  My nose is so dry I keep getting little bloody noses throughout the day.   Hopefully this one gets better as time goes on.

Another weird thing is constant, incessant, diarrhea. Sure most women end up complaining about constipation through their whole pregnancy.  Well apparently I'm special and have the opposite problem.  And up until today I didn't know what if anything I could take for it which equaled a fun time for me.  Thank GOD Imodium is on my approved drug list! 

I had a consult with a nurse at my OB's office today.  It was basically, here have some free crap and let's get your medical history.  Friday I have my actual first OB's appointment with a completely different Dr. C.  I'm going to mention the diarrhea to her and see what she says.  I honestly wonder if its not partially due to the metformin they have me on.

Friday is also the last day of my medicinal supplementation of progesterone.  First I was on the shot, lately I've been on Prometrium 200 mg, one capsule vaginally twice daily.  While I definitely like it more than the shots, the stuff is messy and I won't be sad to see it go.  Just a little nervous, truthfully.

Alright so that's the whats what in my pregnancy so far.  I'm not too far in so there isn't much to report other than seeing the heartbeat on the ultrasound was the most amazing feeling in the world.  Friday I might be able to hear the heartbeat!  I have ultrasound pictures, but honestly right now it doesn't look like much.  The last ultrasound I had was two weeks ago and I swear the baby looked like the side view of a gummy bear!  Large head, tiny arm and leg buds, and so sweet!

So on to the title of this post.  Worrying about breasts.  Mine.  I'm a 38 DD.  So far I haven't noticed any breast changes and had very minor tenderness.  I worry that this will not stay the case.  Everything I've read says that they will get bigger by an average of two cup sizes.  What does that make me then?  A quadruple D.  Is there such a thing?  And where am I going to find a bra that freaking huge?  A tent store?  Circus People R Us?  Not to mention, what is my back going to feel like after lugging those mammoths around for a couple months?

But really, my breasts aren't the ones that worry me.  The breasts that are foremost in my mind right now are my Mom's.  She was just diagnosed with invasive ductile carcinoma.  Breast cancer.  Its small.  She's had yearly mammograms so she caught it early.  The "lump" is so small you can't even feel it yet.  Last week we met with the breast surgeon and while it is serious, it looked like it would involve an out patient surgery called a lumpectomy and six weeks of radiation.  Probably no chemotherapy required.

 We still don't know about chemotherapy.  It doesn't look likely as a CT scan did not show lymph node involvement, but only surgically removing a few for testing will tell for sure.  But the out patient surgery is out of the picture now.  Her CT scan showed more spots in her right breast and possibly one in her left.  So right now she will have to have a mastectomy on her right breast and biopsy's to determine if the left one will need to be taken as well.

The mastectomy involves an overnight hospital stay and two and a half weeks of at home care of a drainage tube.   If she opts for reconstructive surgery she will have to have two separate surgeries.  I hope she opts for it.  Especially if she only loses one breast.  If that happens and she doesn't opt for reconstruction she will have to wear a prosthetic.  A bra won't stay up with one breast.

We will know more next week.

I am in a state of shock.

We have no history of cancer, let alone breast cancer.  Sure my Mom's Dad died of cancer, but he was a painter back in the days of lead based paints.  That surely doesn't count.  But hello, one in eight women get breast cancer regardless of family history.  But why in the hell does that have to include my Mom?  I'm seriously pissed off with fate right now.