I knew I wouldn't be able to keep this up as frequently as I wanted to, but I'm surprised that it's been an entire month since my last entry! We had the two month doctor's visit yesterday and it went very well. She's still putting weight on as expected and the doctor said that he doesn't need to see her until four months as long as everything is good. That would be amazing if we didn't have to go back for two whole months! I wasn't as nervous about her weight gain this month because I could definitely tell she had put weight on. My big anxiety for this appointment was the vaccines. I've always been an advocate for vaccines and have never really thought they were dangerous. Unfortunately, I ran across a discussion board where people have been trying to link vaccines to SIDS and it got me very paranoid. It made me extremely anxious so I spent most of two days on the internet trying to find an association. Then I started reading other vaccine horror stories. I simply asked my doctor yesterday what he thought of the link and he said he doesn't think it's true at all. I would never not vaccinate my child so the information wouldn't have changed my mind anyway. It's just scary. I think it's just like any other medicine you put in your body. Some people are going to have a reaction to it while other people won't. So far, she's been pretty good but I've had a much closer eye on her the last 24 hours than usual. I think this will continue for the next few days until we're in the clear.
The biggest reason I've not had time to update this blog is because I've started pumping milk to get a freezer stock for when I go back to work. I have to say it's such a major time kill. The worst part about it is that it takes time away from the baby. I do it in the morning because that's when they say you have the most milk. The actual pumping doesn't take longer than 20 minutes but everything has to be sterilized afterwards. My husband has been working diligently on getting the baby to take a bottle and I think he's finally succeeded. It took a lot of nights with her crying up a storm. Then we tried to feed her using some of my freezer stock and she didn't take it, so we thought that my freezer milk was bad. Luckily, we tried another freezer milk bag last night and she took it no problem. When we first introduced the freezer stock she wasn't used to the bottle yet so I think it might have been that more than the taste of the milk. Although, I've tasted the freezer stock and it's not very good.
It's hard to believe that in just two weeks I have to start work again. I'm really starting to get nervous about it because I don't want to leave the baby. The longest I've been away from her is 3 hours and I can't imagine being away from her for 8 hours. The logistics of keeping my milk supply up is gong to be annoying too. I'm going to have to pump twice an evening at work in order to keep my body making as much milk as it's used to making. That's going to be tricky because I work in a very busy environment. I guess I should just consider myself lucky that I don't have to go back full time and that very close relatives are going to be taking care of her. My Mother and my Mother-In-Law are both going to take a shift. It's actually only going to be about 4-5 hours that they're watching her because my husband will take over when he's done work.
I guess I should say something about breastfeeding since I usually do. It's still not 100% at this point which is so frustrating. I'm having problems with one side and I actually spoke with a lactation consultant yesterday to try to figure out what to do. She gave me some tips. I'm wondering if I'll ever get it down on that side! At least I know that the baby is getting what she needs and with that, I can deal with some minor discomfort. I'm just worried that the minor discomfort is going to lead to some sort of infection and then we're going to have major problems. Hopefully I can get this figured out! The baby is getting bigger so maybe she'll start to get better at latching on and it will solve the problem right there.
It's been so exciting watching her develop. She smiles all the time now and babbles as well. She is also starting to grab for things, like stuffed animals and I find it so incredibly cute! I've been looking at the pictures from her at birth and comparing them to now. It's fascinating seeing how much more aware and alert she is now! Alright, I've got to go, baby is definitely stirring!
