Happy Easter! (yesterday)

Romelie’s last feeding was at about 11:00 last night. I woke up (well, she woke me up) at 6:30 this morning, and I was totally ENGORGED. So much milk was my body producing, it was literally painful. And I’m not complaining – I’m gloating. This Metoclopram has worked so much better than I ever hoped. It’s awesome not to have to worry about my milk supply, whether or not I’m underfeeding Romelie (especially since, apparently, I was), or feeling like I need to ration-feed her so we have some milk left for later. I now have an ABUNDANCE of milk. Take that, same time last week! In your face, 75% weight to 97% length! Look out, 3-6 month clothes, cause I’m about to fatten up my baby! (Insert inspirational Rocky-theme-like music here)

Enough of that craziness. With any luck, you won’t have to read about my breasts for a while, so hey – added bonus.

We had a fabulous Easter. Romelie got to do a little search for her Easter presents (see picture of her finding one of her presents), then we went to church, had lunch at my dad’s (and got to take home leftovers…yummy ham sandwiches for lunch…), and Chason and I went on two – count ‘em, TWO – dates this weekend! Saturday night we went out to dinner at a Middle Eastern place by our house called Shiraz, and Sunday night we saw “Jane Eyre” at the Guthrie (thank you, babysitting Gramma Carol). Don’t worry, we spent plenty of time playing with the baby, too.

4-month check-up, and more on breasfeeding

Romelie had her 4-month check-up yesterday. She did not like having her ears looked at – she refused to turn her head, so Dr. Mitchell had to pretty much force it to the side, causing her to scream and cry so loudly that nurses came it to see if we needed help! She chilled out a bit, even started smiling, and was rewarded with her 4-month immunizations. Needless to say, we had a cranky baby on our hands for the rest of the night. She has not slept well the last two nights, either, which means Chason and I haven’t slept well, either. We’ll see if she does better tonight.

The only news of concern is that she’s a bit underweight. Not underweight exactly – she’s still in the 75% for babies her age – but she’s in the 97% for length, and she was in the 90% for weight two months ago (by the way, she's 27" long, and 14 lbs 12 oz). So she’s not gaining weight as well as she should. Which means she’s not eating enough. Which I was afraid of. So now I feel a bit guilty that I’m starving my baby (yes, I know I’m being melodramatic, she’s not starving…but when she cries at the end of a feeding because she’s still hungry, I know that she is, genuinely, still hungry, so I feel even worse that I have nothing left to give her). The fenugreek supplement I was taking didn’t work, so now I’m taking Metoclopram which is usually prescribed for things like reflux and ulcers, but apparently sometimes boosts milk supply in breastfeeding mothers. I can’t tell if it’s doing anything yet, but I’ve only been on it for 2 days, so we’ll see. But if this doesn’t work, as Dr. Mitchell said, we haven’t come to the absolute bottom of our bag of tricks, but we’re getting pretty close.

I feel annoyed, though. Not at anyone in particular, just annoyed. Breastfeeding is supposed to be this amazing mind-body connection where the body makes milk, and then the baby eats it, so the breast tells the brain that it’s empty and the brain tells the breast to make more. And if it’s constantly making too much, it tells the brain to make less, and if it’s making too little, it tells the brain to make more. But for some reason, my brain to tell my body that it only needs to make 24 ounces of breastmilk a day. Period. And even through the baby crying and the mom stressing and the conscious mind telling the body that it needs to make more, the brain is simply not getting the message. Or maybe it is getting the message, but it’s not bothering to pass the message on to the body. Or maybe it’s the body that’s just ignoring the message. Or something else stupid. So cross your fingers or say a little prayer for me, because I would hate to go 4 months with breastfeeding and then have to start supplementing with formula this late in the game.

For fun, though, I finally have those pictures from her ProEx photo session. They’re pretty cute, though I’d probably go with a different photographer in the future (we didn’t get to set up any of these shots or have any say in them, so they’re super generic…but dang, she’s just so photogenic!).

March madness

I was watching "Lost" yesterday (we recorded it), and there was a scene where Sun, one of the characters, was in labor. They gave her some morphine, but basically, it was a natural childbirth. The doctor said she needed a c-section, but then he went, "The baby's crowning. You need to push NOW." She was screaming and grunting and pushing and it was awful to watch...and then, LITERALLY 30 seconds later - POP! Out came the baby.

Whatever, TV. That's all I have to say. Whatever.

Anyway...Romelie has her 4-month well baby visit today, so I figured I would write now, and then I would have brand new information to urge me to write another blog tomorrow rather than waiting three more weeks. So here's what's new.

Beginning of March, Romelie and I drove up to visit my mom and John (with my mom...we didn't have to make the drive on our own). She's a bit older than the last visit, so we brought her into the duck house to say hi to the ducks. The rooster crowing startled her a bit, but she seemed interested. No touching ducks yet - someday. And she went for a little ride on her fake horsey. Good times were had.

Romelie has also been back to The Bakken. On Saturday, she and I went to our school partnership Celebration Day (big free party for the schools we work with). She got to watch an Aztec dance group perform and was fascinated by all the noise and colors, so I asked one of the dancers if she would take a picture with us. She even let Romelie wear a piece of her costume that normally goes around her leg as a headdress. Can anyone say cute?

And we put together another piece of baby equipment. This is her rainforest exersaucer - seriously, I'M overstimulated by this crazy contraption. Romelie loves it (in small doses so far - she's not quite big enough to go nuts in it, so I don't want to overexpose her to it yet).

And work has finally slowed down for Chason and me, so we'll be a little less stressed in general. Couple that with the weather finally starting to improve (though it did snow a bunch last night, it's already starting to melt), and Spring is looking positive and hopeful.

That's the latest. I'll write more after Romelie's check-up.