My not-going-to-worry-about-frugality-post-partum bills have started to arrive and they’re giving me a good idea of how much we had been saving. Our water bill went from 13 to 32 dollars, and our electricity bill rose from 137 to 212 dollars.
I hate having to make the decision whether to go to the ER. [Or to the doctor at all, for that matter.] It’s expensive, it’s almost always unpleasant, a long wait sitting around people who may very well make you [or, worse, your child] even sicker.
Sometimes I’ll sit and dither for a day or two, and by the time I call and wait for the day the appointment comes, by the time I get there, the thing has passed on its own. And then I feel like they’re making a little “Hypochondriac!” note in my chart.
But last night, it didn’t take a lot of wondering before we brought Audrey in. She started with a bit of an itchy rash for awhile, and by the time I took her in, she was one big head to toe red rashy welt. Poor girl. A lot of benadryl, a shot of adrenalin, and some oral steroids and she’s doing better now.
But why do these things never happen M-F during office hours? I can’t wait to see the bill. [And why do the bills always seem to come several months later?]
There are many reasons to breastfeed your baby, and of course the one most relevant to this blog is that it’s substantially less expensive than formula. And, hey, it’s the natural thing to do, blah blah blah.
It can also be terribly difficult.
Unfortunately, that is the boat that we are in. Both of my children have been born with large overbites, with very short and physically traumatic labors. I have heard fairy tales of people who are able to put their newborns to the breast and they magically latch on, but that’s nothing like my experiences have been.
Audrey didn’t eat at all for almost the first 72 hours after her birth because she could not latch. Thankfully, I already had a really great pump and my milk was already starting to come in. At first we fed her with drops of milk on our fingers, then we used a plastic syringe, and then finally we graduated to the small bottles that come with the aforementioned Medela pump. We then worked with Barbara Wilson Clay, a nationally renowned lacation consultant/expert who thankfully happens to be local, and she was able to get Audrey to occasionally latch with the help of a nipple shield. But it was still a matter of pumping every two hours around the clock for those first three months until one day, magically, she was able to latch on her own.
After the proverbial “10 fingers, 10 toes” wishes I had for Owen, the next was “Please oh please, let him latch.” But it wasn’t to be. On the other hand, it hasn’t seemed as bad this time around. Perhaps because we’ve been through it before and I know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, or perhaps because the situation is not quite as bleak this time around — after the first few days, I’ve been able to get him to latch about once a day, when the circumstances are exactly perfect. Audrey was so frustrated by latching that she would cry whenever I held her. Those were dark days. Owen doesn’t do that. With his rare latch, plus Audrey’s continued nursing, I only have to pump every 4 hours or so, which makes a huge difference. Plus, with Audrey’s help, I’ve so far been able to avoid engorgement and mastitis, both of which plagued me when she was the little one.
I am a terribly, terribly stubborn person and it’s funny how the same trait that made me a pain in the rear as a child and in the majority of relationships in my life has been such a great boon to me as a mother. Not only can I unflappably outlast any tantrum/meltdown, but I see the prospect of another three months of pumping as a challenge I know I can beat.
We’ve moved over to DreamHost, and got our flickr photos and the rest of our sidebar running again. That was much easier than I thought it would be - knock on wood!
Let us know if you run into any problems.
If you visited over the past couple of days, you may have noticed our site was down. Apparently our hosting service, Razorlogix, lost a hard drive. This caused them to go down multiple days, and also lose some data, or something, as this blog still is back 100%, and my very neglected tech blog is still dead. (I’m beginning to suspect overall system or permissions errors, but who knows). Yeah, pretty unforgivable that a bad hard drive has caused so many problems
Razorlogix apparently agreed. For better or for worse, they’ve decided to throw in the towel: they’re ceasing commercial hosting in a week or so.
So I hooked up w/ Dreamhost, and have already moved my technical blog over. The big job, however, is this blog, which actually has a substantial number of readers…
It will hopefully be a smooth transition, and totally transparent to everyone out there. Regardless, I’ll post when I’m done w/ the move.
It’s utterly amazing, from a statistical point of view, just how many folks on Ebay we do transactions with that apologize for slow response times due to a Death In The Family.
I can’t believe it’s been almost a week since Owen was born, it’s gone by in such a blur. I sure appreciate all the goodwill everyone has been sending this way. We had some complications with the birth, but thankfully everyone is fine, and we didn’t even have to transport to the hospital during or after the birth. [We just barely dodged that bullet, though.] Owen had his first appt with our pediatrician this morning, and was declared to be strong, healthy and recovering quite nicely.
For those who are curious and appreciate a good birth war story [heh], it turns out that we had “velamentous insertion of the umbilical cord.” This is apparently a fancy pants term meaning that the cord was loosely attached to the placenta. We were very, very blessed that it did not detach from the placenta at any moment in time before the one that it did — he came out with the cord around his neck, and as the CNM was removing the cord from his neck, it detached from the placenta. Had it happened before then, it would have been an almost certain death situation. As it was, he was a bit blue when he came out, but she gave him mouth to mouth and he bounced right back. Unfortunately, we could no longer get the placenta out by tugging on the cord, so it had to be removed manually. That wasn’t a lot of fun, but thankfully it worked and I didn’t have to run to the ER to get it out.
We are also having the same breastfeeding latch issues with Owen that we did with Audrey, but I’m going to make that a whole post of its own later.
And, for the cherry on top, our blog hosting provider totally went casters up last week, and almost all of Andrew’s really nifty blog formatting and whatnot got totally hosed. Hopefully we’ll get that straightened out soon, but it’s a little lower on the priority list than it would usually be right now. Heh.
All of our photos are up at our Flickr page, but these are some of my favorites:
Owen, waking up from his nappy this afternoon
Audrey, what do you think of your new baby brother?
Dada and nakedbaby Owen, out getting his sunlight for his jaundice.
Gratuitous cute Audrey photo
Okay, one more gratuitous cute Audrey photo
Mama and Owen
Audrey looks dubious
Owen Patrick Wheeler was born at 1:40 this morning. He weighs a wopping 8lbs, 15oz, and is in high spirits. Mom is in good spirits, too, and is recovering reasonably quickly.
This birth was definitely rougher than our previous one, and has left us a bit shaken.
Photos, details, etc., to soon follow!