Weaning Away the Oz

Hello Everyone!

So Abby is 11 months old (technically next Thursday marks 12 months actually!!) We are planning her first birthday party and I just can’t even believe it. It still feels like a dream most days, honestly. I try and root myself in the reality but some days my mother in law will send me a picture of her while I’m at work and I can’t even believe how lucky I am and that I actually am a MOM to this beautiful baby.

Developmentally, Abby is doing great. She’s high in her percentiles and she is very tall! She is wearing about 18 month clothes comfortably, which is in-SANE. She recently started “crawling” or more so I call it, “inch-worming”. She uses her arms to propel her forward and she pushes off with her feet, basically like an inch-worm. My theory is since she’s very high in her percentiles for weight and height, she’s so big that she can’t developmentally lift up her body to crawl in the sense we imagine how crawling should be. Same likely goes for walking, but we will see.  She will now stand up against surfaces but only for short periods. Just last week she started sitting up on her own after crawling. So exciting!

Abby is so smart and it blows me away every single day that simple things we teach her actually make a difference. She follows commands extremely well (when she’s in the mood) and will imitate a wide variety of sounds. Her favorite thing to imitate is “Ho-ho-Ho” (no kidding) so she’s in PRIME shape for meeting Santa! She will say “Dada” and “mama” now and seems to say it appropriately. She will also point to items, such as “where is the blue circle?” Or “where is the pink diamond?” Or “where is the red crab?”. I am so proud of her but not sure how we are going to afford Harvard! Haha just kidding. But who knows! Her cutest new trick is opening her mouth and saying “ahhh” when we say “What’s in your mouth??”. She also is appropriately signing “more please” which is super cool!

Anyway, my main struggle lately and motivation for writing is struggling with breastfeeding/weaning/eating. Quick backstory, when I first started our breastfeeding journey I had a HUGE oversupply. I would be able to completely feed her just from one breast and let the other breast empty to a collection container, often times up to 4-5 oz per session! I never thought that my overabundant glorious oversupply would someday become what feels like a barren wasteland. When I came back to work at first, I would need to use two bottles per pumping session, often times filling one at 5 oz and halfway filling another to about 3 oz, total of 8 per session. Now, at 11 months old, I am lucky if I pump about 3 oz COMBINED in one session, and this has been this way for approximately 2 months of trying lots of different supply tricks. I have felt like not being able to produce what my child needs has been one of the hardest parts along this journey and feels like natures attack on your ability to be a good mother. The voice in my head is constantly telling me “Do not measure yourself in ounces! Stop!” But it’s hard to not let it bother you. I feel heart pains when I send her off for the day with only a limited supply of milk and it literally kills me. I worry every day she’s not getting enough.

One of the hard lessons learned that I plan to fix for future baby #2, is that I let so much frozen milk go to waste. Here’s why. Like I said, in those early days I would get 4-5 oz just from the other breast draining. I froze that. I probably froze about 150 oz of doing just that. When I went back to work, I still had an oversupply and Abby couldn’t use enough of what I produced before it would need to go into the freezer. So about November more bags started trickling into freezer supply. From November to May, I never had to dip into freezer stash for her daily supply. Then I had to go on a trip for work and we had to prepare what freezer stash she would use. Although I knew the golden rule was safe for 6-12 months, part of me felt skeevy giving Abby the old August/September milk. Not only was it my oldest milk obviously, but I was worried on its collection process. Since it wasn’t pumped out, it likely had very little fat in it since it was just drained milk. Secondly, the device used to collect the milk was basically just rinsed in between sessions, not sterilized. Go ahead, Gasp. I didn’t even think about it at the time. My priority at the TIME was “how can I realistically collect 5 OUNCES of breast milk into a device so that it literally doesn’t SOAK my shirt every 3 hours??”, Instead of the thought I should have been having “am I collecting and storing this milk in the best manner in case I need to actually use it one day” (DUH).

So, for baby number two, I am going to do a system that right off the bat to use my frozen milk as soon as I go back to work, and freeze the fresh milk, creating a rotating recycling system. Somehow I had it in m head this whole time that fresh was exclusively better than frozen and I felt like taking frozen out of the freezer was a failure on my part, meaning I didn’t have enough supply. Now I know that’s preposterous and I wish I could use all that old milk!

My plan to wean has been interesting, as I still have no idea what I am doing. I started two weeks and it seems to be working well. Here is her current meal plan:

7 am-breastfeeds

9am- breakfast foods & water

12pm- lunch and water

1 pm- I pump at work

2 pm -6 oz bottle

5 pm- dinner foods and water

8pm- formula 6 oz

10 pm- I pump before bed

So the new addition is formula…The girl that naively thought she would have her oversupply forever suddenly found herself staring at all the formula options in a field of panic in target. I tried so hard to exclusively breastfeed but when it got to the point where it was stressing me out daily to make enough ounces, I bent. So now with giving her formula, I can make an extra 4 oz that’s not being used for her bed time, allowing me to essentially pump 7-8 oz a day now. I now see 2 fresh full bags in the fridge and I can take a breath. I no longer cringe if she doesn’t want to finish her bottle, thinking how the breast milk is wasted.

Update on pumping/ weaning: the above information was written about 2 weeks ago. Since then we have survived our first family vacation. Between stress, not pumping correctly, not drinking enough, my supply dropped even more. I decided to drop another pump session this week and I am officially on the slope to weaning down 100%. My new schedule for pumping is:

Breastfeed - 7 am

Pump - 6 pm (I no longer have to bring pumping bag to work YESSSSSSSSS)

Pump before bed.

I will phase out the bedtime one next week and basically breastfeed at 7 and  pump ~ 7 pm every day. I’ll only produce about 3 oz doing this but will supplement everything else she needs in formula.

I’m not sure what the rules are for nutrition after she turns 1 officially. I know they say you can start supplementing with cows milk instead of formula but I personally refuse to give abby cows milk just based on personal belief and research. So I’ve been researching other alternatives and haven’t come up with a decision yet. Based on preliminary research I have found that Pea milk (made by Ripple) seems to be a really good next in line milk with the necessary fats, protein, carbs and nutrients that kids need. I am hesitant about it because when I drink it it makes ME gassy, so I am afraid it will make Abby gassy. We’ve tried little bits so far and haven’t seen too many upsets so far.

As for solid foods, I feel like I am not feeding her enough. She seems content. But I find myself in a rut always going to serve what she likes and what’s easy to make. She loves grilled cheese like its her full time job, and she loves carbs/breads just as much as me. I’m trying to push the veggies but she seems to have lost interest in her solid veggies since introducing carbs (I wonder why lol). I try and counteract this by serving puréed veggies before offering solids. I follow some mommy toddler nutrition blogs and they are helping with some guidance !

I also started reading “Toddler 411” and I highly recommend! It really helps break down how to deal with what is about to come with entering toddlerhood.

Well, for those of you that stuck in here and read this whole post, thank you! I don’t write to satisfy anyone’s need for intense plot twists, I mostly just want to record my journey and hopefully, hopefully, help another momma out there that may find my journey helpful.

With love,

The new motherboard. 

Lessons to my Child: Between a Rock and a Judgment

 

This picture is floating around the internet and seems to be centered around relationship building and understanding, but I don’t see it that way. To me this is a lesson on basic human understanding, judgment, empathy and compassion.

 Similar to how others have interpreted what is happening, when you first look at the picture you see a man trying to save a woman (relationship unknown). But that’s only the first layer, the first circumstance. When you look at it further, there seems to be a rock crushing the man at the top, and a hidden snake biting the woman’s arm inside the cliff. Now you might think, okay, so what does this mean?

Well, what if the woman is thinking, as she barely struggles to hold on, finger by finger, “why isn’t the man trying harder to save me? He should be strong and be able to lift me up, why is he only putting half the effort in??” But what the woman can’t see from her angle is that the man is being crushed by a rock on his back. But alas, he’s still trying to save her despite his obvious pain and suffering. He is doing his absolute best, and meanwhile the woman thinks he isn’t doing enough.  And the man might be thinking, “I am trying so hard to lift her up but she’s barely even trying to help herself!! How can I be expected to do all the work!?” But what he doesn’t see is the woman is getting bitten by the snake that’s crawling out of the cliff, and she’s afraid to use the ledge to help herself climb up because of the snake.

 Now this may be a strange example. I can't think of any situation where this might actually happen, but you never know! But that’s not the point, it’s the basic lesson of human empathy behind it.

We are ALL going through something, most of us are struggling with our demons, grievances, memories, fears, worries, every day. Maybe a physiologic disease or a psychiatric disease, emotional struggles, family struggles, marital struggles, losses, anything, what it "is" is different for everyone. One persons “something” might feel a lot worse to one person vs another, but that doesn’t matter. That person is still going through a difficult time. That person is still being crushed by a rock while someone else judges them for why they aren’t doing more.

 I post this on my motherhood blog because this is a lesson I not only want to share, but one I want my daughter to grow up knowing. It is basic human nature to wonder about other people, and often times our thought processes make us jump to conclusions and judgments that either aren’t true or we aren’t seeing the whole picture, thus we can never make an accurate assumption about what that person is going through. Even the people we love and know best, we can always jump to conclusions too fast.

 I want my daughter to grow up to always think, if she for a second has an impulse to judge someone for their actions, behaviors, looks, life-choices, clothing, etc, I want her to always stop and think, what could this person be going through? What else may be happening to explain this action I am witnessing? We can’t always help. Often times help isn’t wanted, we are unable, or its purely just not our business. But what we can do is try to understand. To think what rock might be crushing this person that is behaving this way? What snake is attacking this person behaving that way?

 

I try and practice this train of thought every day. Multiple times a day. And its hard! As someone speeds past me on the right hand lane when the rest of us hundred cars are in traffic trying to merge because a lane is closing, instead of letting my blood boil, I try to think of why that man might be in such a rush? Maybe his own daughter is very ill in the backseat, or his wife is in labor, or his mother is dying right now in the hospital, I don't know. I have to believe these things because I choose to believe good versus bad when I literally have no power to know what the correct reason was.

 

It’s easier for our brains to put us on the defense, to automatically make us think we are of course, right, and our opinion is always right that we make of someone. I’ve heard it said that we decide what we make lifelong impressions on people within the first 7 seconds of meeting them. Our instinct goes back to cave men fighting threats. The cave man sees a wolf in the wild and immediately analyzes the situation, decides this wolf is trouble and up to no good, and the man goes on the defense to fight the wolf or flee. But maybe the wolf just lost her baby wolf (cub?), or just got separated from its parents, or anything. When we come across behavior, actions or characteristics from other people that WE think are untrustworthy, bad, annoying, poor-parenting, poor life choices, horrible, devilish, etc, we immediately go on the defense. Our first thought on habit is to judge (this man is not strong and doesn’t care about helping me survive this cliff), and then we justify it with our own thoughts (He should be working harder to save me and that’s what I would do if I were him), and we decide that we are right and they are wrong. But we need to change that instinct habit, or at lease instead of letting the thought process continue- we halt it in its track and after we have that “judge mental” thought, we then think of what pressures that person is under? What rocks might be crushing this man? What snake is biting this woman?

 

 

PS I’d like to give credit to the original drawing, but can’t find the source, if anyone knows, let me know!

First Month of Baby Life

Welp! Its already been one month! Now first thing I'd like to mention is the fact that time, is confusing. I literally called BS on time this week as my husband and I argued over who was right. The argument was, does Abby turn one month old at 4 weeks (yesterday), or on September 22nd? (She was born August 22nd). Everyone except me votes August 22nd. Which is cool. All good. Except in my mind she technically IS a month old as of yesterday as she has lived four weeks. But we can all agree to disagree lol.

But anyway, one month down, and it's been great! SOOOO full of lessons learned which I can't wait to share with you all, and already so many wonderful memories.

Abby is very healthy and already interacts with us! We don't see the pediatrician again til the first week of October, but we weigh her on our scale at home and she is almost 10 pounds! And she's definitely longer but I'm not attempting to measure her. Changing her diaper and keeping her legs straight for longer than 2 seconds is already enough of a challenge! But I can tell as she is already outgrown some of her newborn sleep sacks as she is too tall now! Developmental wise she is trying really hard to turn on her side but isn't quite there yet. She gets her thighs going to turn but can't quite find the power to turn herself over yet. I give it to month 2 and she will get it. I want to say I think she's smiling at us and there has been one or two times so far that I really think she did smile socially. The rest are probably poop smiles but I will take them anyway! Abby also LOVES music. If she is crying, almost 9 times out of 10 we can get her to stop if we play some music. She especially loves 3 particular songs from the Broadway musical "Newsies". No joke. "Carrying the banner" almost makes her stop crying every single time. It started out as a joke because we saw the musical while I was pregnant and she was kicking SO MUCH during the songs that we joked that she must love it. And when she came out and was crying we tried playing it as a joke and....silence. So our kid loves music. And Newsies. I'll take it!

So first I will start out with the lessons we have so graciously learned since our first week. Again, some are in humor but some are totally serious and I hope they help other parents!

1. When going out, pack more than one pacifier! Ignorant me was all like, yeah this one pacifier should be fine. I even had a nice case for it like a rock star first time parent. That pacifier was on the floor in about 2 minutes. No more pacifier. Pack more pacifiers. Like, five.

2. Don't rely on pacifiers. I am exclusively breastfeeding, so they told us to wait 4 weeks to offer it to her. Well, 2.5 weeks in and I was pretty desperate. Especially at night when she was going through a phase where she just wanted the boob for comfort. I researched options for pacifiers that are okay for exclusively breast fed babies and found the Soothie Pacifier and one also made by our bottle company, Nanobebe. YES! So I got it and I kept it as my secret weapon. It gave me comfort for awhile thinking that oh yes, you wanna cry? Yeah keep crying because I have a secret weapon in my pocket, this almighty pacifier! I was so confident that when I had to use it, it would be this magical thing.  Nope. One night It got down to having to offer it (about 3 weeks), and low and behold....she kept it in for maybe 30 seconds. So I'm like oh here let me put it back in. Back out. Repeat 100 times. So turns out we don't have a pacifier kid. No secret weapon. When I put it in she literally looks at me like, Mom this is BS theres nothing coming out of here, who do you think you're kidding? Do I look dumb??  So lesson learned here? I don't know. I don't even know. I guess just don't rely on that as your back up secret weapon. She is up to maybe keeping it in for 5 minutes tops but often will spit it out and cry again, or fall asleep (yay!).

3. Baby WILL poop within 5-10 minutes after changing the diaper. It will happen. Multiple, multiple times. I just laugh at that point. One time I literally picked her up off the changing table and there was a very loud audible shart.  Please tell me other parents have had times where they go through 3 diapers in 10 minutes???

4. You will get every body fluid on you. Accept it. So many code browns, code yellows, code spit ups I have lost count. Each code brown we have I try and learn what went wrong and what I can do to avoid it next time (see #5). The worst code brown yet, I was changing her diaper and it was only pee! So I'm just humming along there like no big deal, and all the sudden the ground shook and this ginormous fart came out of her little bum, accompanied by liquid gold that literally just shot out. In just a second it was on my hand(s), the wipe container, the diaper bag, the wall, the FLOOR (I'm not joking!), and probably other things I haven't found yet. I literally stood there frozen like WTF just happened for about 5 seconds before I jumped into action. Its times like those you don't even know what to clean first! Do you clean the baby but then risk baby getting poop on again from the dirty changing table?? Or do you clean the walls and the FLOOR (still enamored by this) first? I haven't figured that answer out yet.

5. Preventing code browns/ Code brown clean up:
a. DID YOU KNOW that Onesies pull DOWN? Yes. It's true. Turns out those weird shoulder flaps aren't just meaningless decoration, they are meant to roll down the arm! Yes! So no more trying to roll a very poopy onesie all the way up the back and over the head! It rolls down right off the bum!
b. DID YOU KNOW that diapers are supposed to be turned inside out first to "exercise" the flaps that come in it to prevent leakage? The first 3 weeks of her life we just opened the diapers and put it on. Oh no. Thanks to youtube, I found that if you turn the diaper inside out and arch out all those flaps, then turn the diaper right side in again, place it under bum, you have a much higher success chance of it holding in all that liquid gold. It's amazing. The things they don't tell you in the $30 newborn care class we took.......geez.

6. We will never be on time again anywhere ever. Or at least it feels that way. Need to be somewhere at 6? Okay we should leave our house at 5:30 (time we used to leave). HAHA NOPE. More like Abby has a code yellow/code brown at 5:35 and needs to be fed and we end up leaving at 6. This has happened many, many times. So we are trying to adjust our "need to leave by" times to accommodate, but we still end up being late, a lot.

7. Gone are the days where you could just get out of the car and go into a store. It is now like expedition Everest. It is a journey. Now its park the car. Get out of car. Go to trunk and get stroller base, unfold stroller, go get baby in car seat, place car seat in stroller. Get diaper bag on shoulder. Walk into store with more equipment on you than if you were hiking up Mount Everest. Or skip the stroller and hold the car seat which is almost unrealistic. Turns out there is no way to easily hold a baby in a car seat. It's heavy as all h*ll and I feel like a walking zombie with trying to walk and not letting it hit any other objects, my legs or just holding it in my arms. I have a bruise on my arm from the first time I held it in my arm because I am a wimp.  Its just awkward no matter what. We now go to wegmans and have one cart for the car seat and one cart for the groceries. Like I said, its an expedition.

8. You suddenly reach a new level of tired where telepathy becomes a real thing with you and your spouse. Well, sort of. There has been so many times where we are both up in the middle of the night or in the early morning, and I am sitting in my chair breastfeeding and I'm staring at my husband thinking of all the things I want to say, I'm literally imagining myself saying them but I am too tired to open my mouth. So then later I think I said them and turns out I never did. I think also at times we are both so tired that we just stare at each other and have a conversation without saying anything... You will also reach a new level of tired and find yourself with severe mommy brain and messing simple things up and making mistakes (like trying to breast pump the air, I did that this morning), leaving random things in random places that they don't belong, forgetting to lock doors, close car doors, etc.

9. There will be days where you feel like a total rock star mom/parent and there will be days where every second you are like WTF IS GOING ON. The other day Abby and I had a great day, she took her naps like a champ, ate like a champ, we had a great day, I made dinner like a rock star while Abby slept in her swing and hubby came home and it was like a perfect family all happy and I was like YEAH THIS IS GREAT, PARENTING IS FUN!  And then, there are days like the other day where every move you attempt goes against you, baby is crying for no reason at all, you have every body fluid on you, its one of those days where they poop right after you change them, you are dropping everything (literally why do we drop everything when we are already having a bad day??), and it feels like Ashton Kutcher is going to pop out of your pantry and be like PUNK'd!, and you'd all have a great laugh. That same night we decided to go to the mall in a moment of weakness because we were determined to have cookie dough (craving).  Oh the road is closed we take to get to the mall? No worries, because, well, cookie dough. Lets find another way that takes us 20 extra minutes. Get to the mall and Abby is crying bloody murder because she's hungry. Feed baby in backseat of our car because, cookie dough. Get the stroller out and expedition ready in the rain because, cookie dough. Get inside the mall and bend down to put diaper bag under stroller and literally ALL THE MILK that I collected from my leaky breast and forgot about was now all over my shirt, my jeans and my FLIP FLOP. WHO KNEW you could get breast milk in your FLIP FLOP. Guys, it was literally SQUISHY. It was that moment I no longer felt like a rock star parent and I wanted to sit on the floor, in the mall and cry. But, I walked around the mall with a wet shirt, wet jeans and wet flip flops because well, cookie dough. Cravings, they don't stop when you are no longer pregnant!

10. Stranger negativity (remember how annoyed I got about it in my first post about how strangers feel the need to tell you how hard newborn hood will be when you are pregnant?) Oh yeah, it doesn't stop! I'm telling you, random people we see are like "Aw, cute baby! Just wait til they start walking". Or "ohh wait til the 6 week mark, they no longer sleep", or "wait til they start talking", or "these are the easy days", etc. Why do people feel the need to resort to negativity as a conversation starter? Compliment how cute the baby is and keep walking. Do you think new parents really need to hear that? I'm literally just taking it one day at a time I don't need to hear about what negative experiences may be in store for us.


Anyway, those are the 10 lessons of the month. Overall I can honestly say we have a good baby. There has been lots of learning experiences and challenging moments but overall little Abby is good to us. She is in a pattern now where she is sleeping approximately 12 am -6 am and we are very thankful. She is eating well and breastfeeding is going excellent. I am trying so hard to savor each and every moment with her this small and soak it all in. I love spending all day with her and the thought of going back to work kills me (in 6 weeks). My favorite moments with her are usually right after breastfeeding we snuggle. Or she likes to play what I call froggie time and we hold her and sit her up and bounce her and she loves that, usually we get a few smiles. The other night she made me laugh out loud, I was breastfeeding and in the quiet of the night she farted very loudly and we just made eye contact and both raised our eyebrows. I know it was likely just a reflex on her part but it was hilarious to me at 3 am.

As for my health, I mostly feel back to normal! We try and get out and walk with Abby in the carrier or the stroller and I am up to almost a 3 mile tolerance. So physically doing great. Mentally doing pretty good, too. Anxiety is still high at times as I fear that I am still going to miss something wrong with her or I will do something wrong, but I am trying to manage that. The hospital I delivered with offers a great support group for new moms that I went to and that helped a lot. It was myself and two other moms and we all had 3 week olds and could all relate and were having the same experiences. It helped validate a lot of my feelings and anxiety and showed me its okay to feel this way. For the first 3 weeks or so I was also concerned with myself that I no longer had any interest in doing any of my art. I am very artistic and love to paint, draw, cross stitch, whatever but since her birth I either was too tired, felt like I should be with Abby instead of doing art stuff, or I simply didn't want to do it, which was making me sad. Then one day I picked up my cross stitch piece which is almost done and even though I didn't want to, I forced myself to keep going and that sparked my light again thank goodness. Now I do it almost every day again during Abby's naps, and even got back to painting. Abby sits right next to me as I paint and we listen to music together. It's the best and for me, its a mental health lifesaver. Without my art now I would literally go crazy alone in this house just watching TV all day. No way!

Here are some of my favorite moments in pictures:

Post feeding smile/snuggles:

 Tummy time! Our dog LOVES her sister human and always wants to be a part of everything Abby does. I had Abby alone and then Daisy insisted on doing the same thing. They love each other and it was such a cute moment!

Painting with Abby! 

Thank you every one for reading!!! 

Love, the NewMotherboard <3 

The Anxiety Ache

Hello readers!

We are 37 weeks! That is insane. Truly.

Things are overall going....well? Considering other people's stories, I have it pretty good. My main ailments revolve around getting bigger, like hip pains, lower back pain, etc. My carpal tunnel in my wrist is flaring up but that could also be the week's worth of rain the northeast just got dumped. My fatigue has been horrible as each day I feel like I could sleep while walking... I guess that is natures way of prepping me for the next 20 years! I have made some adjustments lately so hopefully that improves. Overall I am lucky, I don't have the insomnia, overly frequent urination, heartburn, etc.

My other big symptom lately has been anxiety. As if it hasn't been "real" this whole time, it especially feels real now. IF she waits until full term, then we only have 3 weeks left, (actually by now its 2 weeks and 5 days!!) and thats if she doesn't come early, which she has shown signs of maybe wanting to. I'm thinking (at least hoping) that this is normal for moms this close to delivery to feel. Basically I can't decide what is scarier at this point, her being inside me or her being on the outside living with us.

Last Monday (again with the Monday's) she gave us another scare. I was having contractions on and off Sunday and then came down with this constant abdominal pain that wasn't going away. We figured it was likely the early stages of labor and we went to bed to get a good night's rest, thinking we'd be having a baby Monday. I tried working from home Monday but the pain continued although the contractions faded. I took a nap and the pain continued. I let the doctor know and she told me to rest and try a few stretches to get baby to move. I tried as best I could and went to a cardiology appt that I had, and when I left the cardiologist I just felt dizzy, out of it and still had the pain. I called the doctor again and was told to go to L&D triage. Well, long story short, 6 hours were spent in triage and we didn't leave until 11:30 pm. Our end diagnosis was "heartburn" and I was still in a LOT of pain. I knew it wasn't heartburn, I've had heartburn before throughout my life and know exactly what it feels like. This felt like I was wearing jeans just above my belly button that were way too tight and digging into me, even though there was nothing there. But we were exhausted, I was sore from laying on a stretcher, and were both starving. So we took the diagnosis and left. Tuesday I stayed home from work and rested, the pain continued. I tried yoga, hot shower, resting, lots of water...The pain slightly subsided. I went to get groceries and was practically gripping the shopping cart with white knuckles in pain. I went home and rested some more. Eventually the pain subsided on its own, but it really got me thinking, at what point do you really start raising the alarm? It's not just me and my body anymore, I am a mom now and need to advocate for my daughter. At what point is it just to keep calling the doctors because you are in pain even though they diagnosed you with "heartburn"? I hate being "that" person that doctors roll their eyes at, but they're also not living in my body and feeling my pain. I know its not OK to listen to horror stories online, but how can you avoid them? I hear these stories of mom with weird symptoms that ended up being a matter of life or death for their baby, and they caught it just in time thanks to the mom continuously fighting for their unborn child. It really is hard knowing at what point to trust yourself or to just the doctors. I work in and receive healthcare from a state of the art hospital and healthcare system which I know is a blessing in comparison to other healthcare institutions in my area that I could not say the same for. But it is still terrifying.

So yeah, these last few weeks are anxiety driven as I worry for her health. I go weekly to the doctor and so much technology exists to monitor unborn children, but I know how fast things can take a turn for the worse.  I just am terrified I will miss a symptom and not know she's in danger. I've always been fascinated by healthcare technology and I want all the tests done because I want to know as much about her as possible! Her size, her weight, etc. She always passes her kick counts, but then there are those days where she just isn't moving as much and you can see the anxiety all over my face and my tensed body on those days. I just have had horrible nightmares of her not making it or something horribly wrong with her health and I cannot imagine coming all this way and not getting to meet her and bring her home. I just cannot.  I addressed these horrible fears with the doctor and she offered anti-anxiety medicine. As if. You would need to put me in a coma to get rid of my anxiety, and frankly I would think any new mom would say that! Its natural to be concerned, and I wouldn't want to be a happy go lucky zombie walking around thats not concerned about her child's health.

But that brings me to her being born! Let's skip over the whole labor and delivery part, I know thats full of many anxious thoughts I won't bring up now. Let's skip right to the day when we bring her home. I know my anxiety will continue. That's natural for a mom with a new baby. But being so close to this point, I am trying to visualize our life with a newborn and the next year ahead. I know our life will change drastically and its hard imagining those scenarios and how we will cope until we're in the middle of it living it. We both want to do everything right, but like any new parent, we also have no idea what we are doing. I'm not sure yet how I am going to sleep, especially that first week, and trust that she's okay, alive and breathing. I remember babysitting infants and sometimes would just watch them breathe as they slept to ensure they were okay. But I hope that anxiety fades in time. But even the years to come, It's going to be hard controlling my anxiety with any ailment the child has. She will cough and I will be worried its tuberculosis. Okay thats extreme, but you get my point. With my huge imagination mixed with my anxiety, you can probably guess I've always been a little bit of a hypochondriac myself. And this extends to those I love also. When my husband has a health issue or a close family member, I always feel like I need to err on the side of caution and I think of all the horrible things it could be. I think this stems from a fear of guilt, from imagining if I were wrong or downplayed their concerns or symptoms and then it ended up being something deadly or serious. I think the same thing applies with my future child. As a nurse myself, I fear that if I downplay their symptom, what If it does turn out to be very serious and I ignored it?

We have picked out our pediatrician and he has helped to ease my anxiety. He has been in practice for almost 30 years and seems to really know his stuff and has good instinct. I trust that and hope we will be a good match.

Overall, we cannot wait to meet her. To see what she looks like. To bring her home and start living our lives as a family of three (6 with the pets!) and to start seeing and experiences those miracles and her milestones.  We can't wait to start living life through her eyes and experiencing all life has to offer with a child, showing her all the things we love. But I know the next couple months are going to be the most challenging of them all also. We are very blessed to have a lot of support with friends and family very close by and just a text or call away, so I am thankful for that.


Thank you for sticking with it with a long post with me. It helps to just get all of this out, even just for my sanity! Now we are going to go on a walk :-)

Happy Saturday!

Love, the New Motherboard. <3

A New Beginning

Hello Everyone!

So I am starting a new blog! I've blogged other blogs in the past, and I miss it so much! It's such a great, healthy channel to document a journey or just daily thoughts. My main mission here is to document the final and third trimester of my first pregnancy and then continue on to document the joys and hardships of raising our first child! The blog is for me, I'm not working to market to a global audience by any means. The world has enough 'new mom' blogs, thats for sure! But I want something that I can publish as a book for myself after her first year to document the years journey, to look back on all we've done together. What will make my blog a little unique, is technology. I've named my blog "the New Motherboard", partly in that because I am obviously a new mom, and the other half is because I love all things technology. I work as a nurse in IT and get to see and hear about the brand new technology available, particularly how it is used and affects healthcare. As we have been shopping and browsing for things we need for our baby, its been overwhelming on how many options there are out there in terms of technological products. So part of what I want to focus on is not just new parenting, but also using existing and new technology in ours and our child's life.

A little about myself, I am a first time mom at 29 years old, soon to be 30 in one week! I work as a nurse in informatics, but prior to that was a nurse at the bedside for 10 years. I am happily married to my husband, who I met six years ago and have been married to for almost three years. We have been trying for this child ever since the wedding, so we are very excited. We both feel like we were blessed enough to spend our 20's vacationing, enjoying life, exploring, building our careers, upgraded our house, and now are ready to enter parenthood in our 30s! We have three "Furchildren", one girl Dog Daisy, a 10 lb cockapoo, and 2 cats, Belle & Maui, 5 years and a kitten. They already keep us busy!

So far the pregnancy has been relatively good and healthy. My first trimester I was downtrodden with awful nausea. I only vomited once, but the nausea alone was so bad there were days I could barely function or stand up. The second trimester got rid of the nausea (thank god) but brought in severe headaches. I've still been working to battle the headaches, but they've improved a little as I have learned safe techniques to help. The third trimester so far has been mostly back pain, hip pain and heartburn! Yay!

As for baby, we are having a baby girl! She is usually very active and it amazes me the movements she makes sometimes. I was trying to explain how it felt to my husband and couldn't come up with words that made sense. It is just truly surreal. She moves the most when I eat or drink, but in general anytime I am sitting down. Or driving! Lately I have noticed when I am in the car she likes to move, not sure if that means she will be a "car sleeper" or if she will hate the car. Who knows!

I am trying to soak in every moment of the pregnancy. Some days I feel like I'm already so done with this, but other days I don't want this time to end. Our due date is August 16th, and part of me feels like it is right around the corner (it is), and part of me feels like that is forever from now. I strive to take in each moment but life keeps me distracted easily too. I have always been a type of person to adapt quickly to situations and surroundings, whether it be a new challenge at work or in life. So part of my subconscious has just taken this whole pregnancy and just adapted to it as yeah, just a part of my life. I work full time and have plenty at work to keep my mind distracted and plugging through the weeks. But then there are those moments where it all sinks in and I am like, "Holy Sh**, I am creating an actual human being in here. This isn't something that will just be over, we are bringing home a baby!!" Its very scary. But in a good way. It's definitely harder to forget I'm creating a human now that I feel huge and she moves a lot.

Something I have really struggled with this pregnancy is watching myself get bigger and bigger. I know it's the baby, but I know its also me. I've always struggled with my weight and haven't felt comfortable in my body since I was about 20. In March 2017 I had reached the heaviest I have ever been at 212 pounds and it was the wake up call I needed. I hated how I looked and was depressed with it all. I started a journey with the help of a chiropractor and a nutritionist to start losing weight. It came off slowly that whole summer, til I started what is called the "HCG diet" in the fall 2017. This was a 500 calorie/day specific foods only diet used in combination with the HCG hormone. Through this diet in combination with the summer weight loss, I had lost a total of 40 pounds and it felt so good. I had no intentions of returning to any bad habits, I had adjusted to my new way of eating and was in a good place and wanted to lose more. Well we found out we were pregnant in December 2017. With the severe first trimester nausea, I found myself disgusted by leafy greens or excess vegetables, and all I could muster up the strength to eat was simple carbohydrates like bread or pasta. Therefore began my spiral back into my bad habits again. I had intentions to walk it off as I ate more, but we had a very very cold northeast winter and I couldn't really consistently get out walking until late April/May. By then however I was in my late second trimester coming into the third, and walking now is a lot harder. I have been working on other ways to keep my weight in check by doing small exercises and trying to find the willpower to not indulge on everything I want, but it is hard! There's gotta be a scientific fact to prove that pregnancy overall makes it harder to turn down our indulgences!

The last subject I wanted to talk about in my first post is something that has truly surprised me in this pregnancy. I want to call it "Stranger negativity". Almost every person that I have talked to about the pregnancy, whether it be a stranger, an acquaintance, a coworker, or even a good friend, they all have so many negative things to say about "what I'm in for". They all need to throw in their two cents on how hard its going to be in the next couple months raising a newborn, and how our lives will never be the same, and we can say goodbye to our freedom, and say goodbye to sleep, yada yada yada. And I get it! I know all of this is true. We've been waiting for this for over 2 years. That doesn't mean by any means that we are 100% ready, of course not. No parent can truly say they are ready, ever. But we know it's not going to be unicorns, puppies, rainbows and a perfect baby either. We know what the next few months to a year has in store. But what bothers me is how much negativity and "warnings" come from other parents out there. It's exhausting to hear. I appreciate and know they mean well and are recounting their own experiences with their children, but we will live through that soon too and see for ourselves. Why do we have to dread it? I want to strive to take in those hard days and nights as challenges but get through them. Will I likely read this post 2-3 months post birth and laugh at myself? Yeah, probably. I know its going to be hard. But literally only one mom-friend that I have said how good the experience has been for her, despite her many bad days and nights too. Everyone else has been all warnings, dread, and negative comments. It's disappointing and sad to hear and I look forward to hearing other good experiences parents are having. And I want to be that good voice for any of you too, and talk about our good and bad experiences as we raise our daughter. Like any challenge we have to strive to see the good moments in a challenging journey.


Thank you for reading everyone! I hope to post frequently on many topics that I encounter or think about in the pregnancy. Come back soon!

Love,

The New Motherboard