Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Just the facts, ma'am.

Elliot was 11lbs, 8 oz and 24 inches long at his pediatrician appointment yesterday. This puts him in the 50th percentile for weight and the 90th percentile for height. Who'da ever thought I could give birth to a tall, skinny baby? Not me, that's for sure.

Some things are going really well:
- We LOVE cloth diapering. Love. It.
- Sleep: He's up to one seven to eight hour stretch between feedings most nights, which translates into a five to six hour chunk of sleep, which makes Mom a happy lady.
- Dimples have come to town... and to think I thought laughing alone was as cute as it got. Ha!
- His reflux seems to be getting better. We're starting to wean him off the medication and the 30 minutes of upright time with some preliminary success. He is still a spit up machine, but it doesn't seem painful like it used to.

Some things aren't going so well:
- Breastfeeding: What a freaking nightmare this has been. I have a whole post brewing about this. More if and when I find time to sit down and type that up.
- Returning to work: It's happening, and it's happening soon. As hard a job as it is being home with him all day, I am seriously dreading going back to work this Monday. I went to the daycare yesterday to drop some things off and left feeling totally depressed. It's a great daycare and I know they'll take good care of him. I'm just not ready to be away from him so much.
- Post-baby body baggage: I'm really struggling with my body right now. I'm within five pounds of my pre-IVF weight but my body is a completely different shape and I don't have anything that fits. As a result, I'm still in maternity clothes for the most part and this really bums me out. My stomach is big and baggy and stretch-marky and I hate it. There's all this extra skin and it just hangs there looking weird and keeping me out of my pre-baby denim. I thought I'd be more patient about this part but I'm just ready to be in normal clothes again, especially with going back to work.
- Processing the birth experience: I'm working on the birth story, I promise. The problem with that (and my own ability to move on, i suspect) is that I simply don't know a lot of the details about how it all went down during the last 24 hours or so, and it's hard to find people to fill in the blanks for me. Everyone else that was in the room either can't remember or doesn't want to talk about it. It was pretty traumatic for all involved, or parts of it were, at least. I'm considering requesting my labor and delivery medical records. I just have this tremendous need to know how it all happened and it's not going away with time as I hoped it would.

That's the latest from our neck of the woods. I'll have more online time starting next Monday (don't tell my boss!) so I'll post more then if not sooner!

5 comments:

thiswillbe said...

A big "YAY!" for the things that are going well, and ((hugs)) for the things that aren't going so well. (Be gentle with yourself whenever you can-- you've been through a lot!) Sorry to hear you have to go back to work. That sounds so tough.

Anonymous said...

A lot of this rings true for us, too. Breastfeeding has also been so challenging, and our birth story was traumatic. Glad you are getting back to "normal" though.

Anonymous said...

yay for the things that are going well! i'd love to hear more about cloth diapering, we are thinking of using bumgenius but are a little overwhelmed by all the options out there...

sorry to hear you are heading back to work already. that was a hellava quick leave!

Heather said...

for the things that are going good, yayy! and for the things that are not goign so good, booo! Be good to yourself, you'll get back to your post IVF weight eventually, you've been though a lot and being too hard on yourself is just going to make it harder. I hope that all goes well on Monday!

Lynn said...

I was very pleased to read all the things that were going well. The things that weren't going so well then seem a lot better now, so I'm also glad to read that! I just found your blog through Blogger Bingo and posted a comment on a later post, but wanted to comment here as well!