Mallory's 'costume' wasn't exactly what I had originally thought in my head, but I didn't have a lot of free time to shop around. There was a cuter sleeper that I found at Babies 'R Us that was a black kitty cat, but by the time I got there to get it they were out of her size. So I settled for the batty somewhat jailbird looking one. Not my favorite but at least it was only $6. Next year Mallory will be much more fun to dress up anyway so I'll make sure to go all out then.
We went over to Bayside's Trunk or Treat with Steven, Jamie, and Kaylee. It was quite an event with carnival games, face painting, musical entertainment, food, bounce houses galore, and over 50 cars set up as candy stations to pass out to all of the trick or treaters. Definitely a spread that as a kid would be so much fun. Mallory slept the whole time until we were five minutes from home and then became hysterical in the car. We only had a handful of trick or treaters come by our house so now I have a huge bowl of delicious chocolate that I'd rather not have in the house. I was hoping to get some family photos tonight since we still don't have any with the three of us together, but Mallory wasn't in the mood. Even the photos that I was able to capture I had to be sneaky about. Oh well; we still had a great time.
Happy Halloween!
Though it has only been 18 days since Mallory's arrival, we've hit some milestones that put a huge smile on my face and I just had to share.
Milestone 1: Mallory is no longer constipated! When we realized that we were going to have to supplement with formula, we chose Enfamil ProSobee because it's more gentle on newborn tummy's. It was going fine until all of the sudden she wasn't having as many bowel movements. We could tell that she was fighting to push them out but nothing was happening. She went from having 3-5 a day to 0-1 and because of it she was super cranky. Though it was trying on us to have a constantly fussy baby, we couldn't blame her. Pooping is important. So after researching that soy-based formulas can actually cause constipation we switched to Gerber Good Start Gentle Plus a couple of days ago. Sure enough, she's back to pooping like normal and not nearly as fussy.
Milestone 2: Mallory no longer dislikes Jody! I'm still able to console her quicker than he can, but I think that's just because I'm mom. But the fact that he can hold and watch her without me in the room again without screaming her head off is awesome because now I can be relieved again. I don't think it was necessarily that she disliked him though; I think it was because she wasn't feeling good and so she just wanted her mommy. I know when I was a kid and wasn't feeling good all I wanted was my mom. Just the presence of mom makes you feel better.
Milestone 3: I could be jumping the gun on this one, but I'm still really excited about it - Mallory slept for more than three hours last night only waking up twice to be fed! Now I know that doesn't mean it's going to happen again tonight, but the fact that I was able to get more than two hours of sleep in a row was awesome. Both sleeping sessions were in her Travel Crib without me having to transfer her over to the swing so I'm also happy about that. Pretty soon we're going to need to shift her to her real crib so the less we have to use the swing at night, the easier that transition will be.
Milestone 4: We were successfully able to go grocery shopping yesterday! We were really hesitant to try a challenge so big so early in Mallory's life, but we sucked it up and decided it was at least worth a shot. I will say that I don't think we've ever grocery shopped so quickly before, and we did it without Mallory throwing a fit. We had two shopping carts; put Mallory in her car seat in one and the food in the other. There was a couple of times where if Jody stopped pushing Mallory's cart for too long she would wake up and start to get fussy so he just made sure to keep walking around with her while I focused on getting the items on our list. Talk about perfect timing though because as soon as we got home she was ready to be fed and she made sure to let out a big cry so we knew. It's nice to know that we're starting to get the hang of timing to be able to run important errands together as a family because having one person stay home all the time isn't convenient. Besides, I'll have to do it once Jody goes back to work so we might as well get the hang of it now.
Milestone 5: This next milestone is one for me - I've already lost 20 lbs! Today I decided to test out going to the gym to see what kind of workout my post-surgery body could handle. Of course I couldn't not be there without stepping onto the scale because I'm way too curious. I knew that I had lost weight but when I saw that it was 20 lbs I was stoked. The eight more pounds that I need to lose to get to my pre-pregnancy weight should be easy now that I'm back in the gym and getting stronger each day. And once I get clearance to run I might even lose more than eight pounds which would be even awesomer. So to celebrate my achievement I bought myself a new sweater at the Gap Outlet today.
It's nice to see milestones such as these occur. Especially on the harder days when things feel like impossibilities. I think it's important to celebrate the little and big milestones throughout this parenthood journey because they remind us to be thankful for the blessing that Mallory is in our life.
Hi, my name is Mallory, aka Sourpuss.
Mallory is two weeks old today. She had her check up with Dr. Randall on Thursday and is now up to 8.2 lbs. Doc says that she's healthy and very cute so he recommended that we keep her. I can agree to that except for when she's being a little pill; then I wouldn't mind maybe trading her in for a baby that is more calm (of course I'm kidding...sometimes). Sometimes I wish we had the ability to put her in the nursery like when we were at the hospital. But this is just a part of what comes with having kids and it's good for us to go through not just the easy times but the hard times too.
I love my little girl and she is such a joy in our lives, but the past two weeks have definitely been hard. She may be a cutie but she's super high maintenance. The very first night home from the hospital was one I'll never forget - pure hell. We were so baffled as to why she wouldn't stop crying that in our sleep deprived state we almost decided to go back to the hospital. We finally figured out that she was starving because my breast milk still hadn't come in all the way so Jody made a 3am trip to Winco to pick up some formula, which she gulped down. Unfortunately I'm not one of the lucky moms able to produce more breast milk than they know what to do with so we still have to supplement with formula. This has been a struggle that I haven't taken lightly because I am a huge proponent to breast feeding and was really looking forward to it. And though I'm still able to breast feed half of the time, I wanted it to be 100% of the time. I know there's nothing I can do about it, but I still get bitter every now and then.
In Mallory's first week, she was extremely needy and wanted to be held all the time. We even had trouble putting her down in her bassinet at night so most times she ended up sleeping on my chest just so I could get some sleep. When she does sleep she's pretty loud so with every little noise I would jump thinking she was going to start crying. Now that we're on week two, she's sleeping in the bassinet at night but only for a couple hours at the most. Then I'll transfer her to the swing where she's content until she's hungry for her next feeding. I'm also getting used to her noises so I can sleep through most of it. However, now we have a new problem: she prefers me over Jody, big time. It breaks my heart a little every time he goes to pick her up and she won't stop being fussy. I can barely go to the bathroom without her having a tantrum. It's weird and came out of nowhere and I hope it goes away soon because I need him to be able to relieve me.
She's become more impatient (I wonder where she got that from!) especially when she's hungry. She'll go from quiet and sleepy to crying and angry in no time. If her paci doesn't console her then I'll sit and mock her with a fake cry. I know she's too young right now to soothe herself so we give in to her cries, but as soon as she's old enough she'll have to learn the hard way. Crying doesn't bother me unless I have no sleep under my belt. Besides, newborn cries are somewhat cute.
We are starting to see some improvement which has been nice. As first time parents not knowing what to expect, it can be challenging when you feel like the easy times will never come. She sleeps for longer periods at a time so now I'm only getting up every 2-2.5 hours at night instead of every hour. During the day she'll even sleep for up to three hours. Except for when she's gassy, she's pretty chill when she's awake. It seems that she's starting to like her changing table more; she'll just lie there kicking her feet around. We've learned the best time to change her is after she's eaten. Unless you have cold hands she usually won't fuss anymore. She loves her car seat and going on walks and car rides. I'm sure we'll be using the car ride trick to console her in the future. I had to give her a mini bath the other day after she spit up all over herself and she didn't cry at all. Big improvement from her first bathing session.
Overall, we've been taking baby steps towards things getting easier and building somewhat of a routine. Our new routine isn't one I particularly care for seeing as I'm used to getting most things done before noon and momentarily our days don't really start until then, but it's definitely not about what I want right now. Jody goes back to work in a couple of weeks and the routine we currently have will change again; should be interesting. As far as my recovery goes, I'm doing well for only being two weeks out. I've been reducing my Norco pills over the past few days and as of today am only taking the Ibuprofen. I'm still pretty sore but I hate taking Norco because it makes me constipated, so I'd rather be in a little bit of pain from the soreness. Of course I have been pushing the limits of what I should be doing because I can't stand just sitting around. That and I figure if I continue to move around and exercise my muscles, I'll get stronger faster. I just make sure to listen to my body and when I feel pain I'll sit and relax for a bit. I already know that I'll be in the gym sooner than the doctor mentioned, but I won't run until I get clearance. It's all about the baby steps.
After talking about it for the past couple of days, we finally gave Mallory her first bath since the one she got while in the hospital. We meant to do it yesterday but as first-time parents, we're starting to realize that even though we may want to do things, sometimes it just doesn't happen that way. Our schedule is no longer what we want; Mallory now rules our schedule. And even though I'm used to being in control of schedules, I'm letting go and understanding that if I just go with it I'll be less stressed out in the end.
After skimming over the snippet on bath time in my What to Expect the First Year book I gathered all the items we would need, set up the Froggy Bath, and Jody and I worked together to get our little girl clean. We had prepared ourselves to endure her crying knowing that she most likely wouldn't be a happy camper. We tried to console her with her paci in the beginning, but she wasn't having any of it. Surprisingly she didn't belt out that high pitch cry when babies are super mad but she did cry through the majority of her bathing session. As soon as she was wrapped up in her towel though, her crying stopped.
Off to her changing pad where she got a fresh diaper and clean clothes. Once I was confident that she had completely calmed down, she was fed. I told her that it was her treat for enduring such a hardship. If she only knew that having someone pamper you was something that she would look forward to when she got older. I'm sure over time she'll get used to it and not hate it so much, but for now bath time is a little too dramatic to enjoy for Miss Mallory.
After my shower yesterday, I came downstairs to this...
Hey, we gotta get those naps in whenever we can now!
I broke out the Barbie Ferrari and took Mallory on her first walk around the neighborhood yesterday afternoon. It felt so good to get out of the house even if it was only to stroll my own minimal neighborhood streets. Being cooped up in the hospital for almost five days and then confined to remaining downstairs at home because I'm supposed to limit how often I climb stairs can drive any person nuts. I also didn't want to go too far just in case Mallory decided a walk wasn't her idea of fun. However, before we even got out the door, she was content as could be resting snugly in her stroller.
My community is one big circle with four parallel streets in between so there wasn't a whole lot of excitement for me, but I was so focused on how much Mallory was enjoying the walk that I didn't care about the lack of scenery. Seeing how happy she was made me want to go explore the neighborhood next to us, but the pain from my surgery kicked in and reminded me that I need to take it slow; I mean it has only been one week. But I definitely plan on making walks a regular part of our routine knowing that we can strive for greater distances each time.
After 41 weeks - a day before 42 weeks - Mallory Quinn was born. Her original due date was October 4, but instead she was born on October 10. Though I was frustrated that she was late and I had to be pregnant for longer, I think it's really cool that she was born on 10/10/10. I delivered at Mercy Folsom and couldn't be happier with the way that I was treated while there.
I had been dealing with inconsistent contractions a couple weeks prior to her arrival. They weren't painful enough to make me stop in my tracks, but they definitely didn't feel good. And each day they got more intense and more regular. My goal was to wait until I couldn't stand them any longer before we made the trip to the hospital because I really didn't want to have to get turned away a bunch of times. The night of Friday, October 8 I barely got any sleep because my contractions were so powerful. I didn't even need to time them because they were pretty much constant. When Jody woke up Saturday morning I told him that we would definitely be making a trip to the hospital sometime that day, but again I wanted to wait as long as I could stand the pain. I took a shower and got pretty because I knew it could be the last time I felt that way for a little while; and I wanted to make sure I looked good. We went for a walk, cleaned and organized some last minute things, dropped off our rental from Blockbuster, grabbed some lunch at Rubios, and then headed for the hospital. Jody and I both still laugh at how nonchalant we were about getting to the hospital; definitely not like the panicked scenes from the movies.
We checked in around 12:30pm and got set up in our room. When I was checked by the nurse I still was only 1.5cm but my blood pressure was high and my contractions were only two minutes apart so they wanted to keep me. Within two hours I had dilated to 3cm so they deemed me fit to stay until Mallory arrived. I called my mom and told her to hit the road to make sure she was at the hospital in time. An hour later I received my epidural and was relieved from the piercing pain. I don't know how people do it without one. When the doctor came in to check me a few hours later I was dilated to 6cm and cruising right along. Though she had initially told me that she expected I would be delivering Mallory no later than that night, it was now looking like she would be a 10/10/10 baby. Unfortunately this was when my labor started slowing down so they had to give me pitocin. Finally around 6:30am on Sunday morning I was ready to start pushing. By then I had been up for more than 30 hours and was so exhausted but I was determined to get her outta there. Almost five hours of pushing later the doctor concluded that we were going to have to explore other options of getting her out, especially since when they broke my water earlier there was meconium in it. My two options were vacuum and c-section. I really, really didn't want to have a c-section so we started with the vacuum option. Vacuum wasn't successful either so c-section it was. Of course I broke down and started crying. I had gone through 23 hours of labor and five hours of pushing for nothing. I felt so defeated. But I also realized that we needed to get her delivered safely and had run out of time.
My mom had to go to the waiting room with the rest of the family to wait, Jody was given his scrubs attire, and I was wheeled into the OR. Everything happened so quickly that I don't remember a whole lot, but I do remember feeling anxious. As soon as I heard her cry I too started crying. They didn't show her to me right away because the respiratory therapist had to get the meconium out of her lungs and make sure she was breathing okay. Before they took her back to our room to get cleaned up I got to see her and give her some kisses. She was beautiful and I couldn't wait to hold her. Once Jody left to go with Mallory I then was overcome with nausea. I got sick a couple of times while the doctors were putting me back together and was overcome with the shakes so badly that when I got back to my room where Jody and Mallory were I couldn't hold my little girl until it stopped an hour later. But once she was in my arms it felt like the world around me froze and all I could do was stare at her adoringly. All of the pain, exhaustion, and frustration was washed away. Finally the little girl that had been tumbling around in my tummy for all those weeks was real and it was awesome.
Mallory Quinn Jenkins was born October 10, 2010 at 11:51am, 7.7lbs, 19in. Welcome to the Jenkins family beautiful little girl. You will be loved and spoiled like crazy.
Well, I really was hoping that I wouldn't be sitting here blogging about the fact that today marks 40 weeks and I'm still pregnant. I was so wrong when I thought that I would go into labor early. It's crazy though because I honestly thought my intuition that I wouldn't make it to my due date was believable. Kind of makes me question my own intuition; hmmmm.
Today's doctor appointment did however go a little better in the progress report: I'm still only 1.5 cm dilated but I'm 70% effaced and once I'm completely effaced then dilation will most likely happen quickly. The doctor was optimistic that I'll go into labor sometime this week. It's not exactly the news I was anticipating but at least it's progress, so I'll give myself a 'C+' this time. The '+' is for the fact that I'm still continuing to lose weight so I'm happy about that. I have been doing a ton of walking ever since I stopped running; sometimes going three times a day. And even though walking still aggravates my sciatic every single time, I will continue to push forward with all these walking sessions because my contractions have been much stronger lately and walking really gets them going. More contractions, the quicker Mallory gets out; no pain, no gain!
On this evening's walk Jody asked me if I had to guess when I think she's going to be here based on what the doctor said, what day would I say. There was a part of me that didn't want to play that game because I was so wrong before and it left me feeling disappointed. On the other hand, I can't help but think about it anyway so I gave him an answer. I am now guessing that the lucky day will be Thursday, October 7. His prediction was the same, even going as far to say that it will be sometime in the morning. Let's hope that this time the hunch is more accurate and I'm not blogging about being 41 weeks pregnant next Monday.
Mallory's 'costume' wasn't exactly what I had originally thought in my head, but I didn't have a lot of free time to shop around. There was a cuter sleeper that I found at Babies 'R Us that was a black kitty cat, but by the time I got there to get it they were out of her size. So I settled for the batty somewhat jailbird looking one. Not my favorite but at least it was only $6. Next year Mallory will be much more fun to dress up anyway so I'll make sure to go all out then.
We went over to Bayside's Trunk or Treat with Steven, Jamie, and Kaylee. It was quite an event with carnival games, face painting, musical entertainment, food, bounce houses galore, and over 50 cars set up as candy stations to pass out to all of the trick or treaters. Definitely a spread that as a kid would be so much fun. Mallory slept the whole time until we were five minutes from home and then became hysterical in the car. We only had a handful of trick or treaters come by our house so now I have a huge bowl of delicious chocolate that I'd rather not have in the house. I was hoping to get some family photos tonight since we still don't have any with the three of us together, but Mallory wasn't in the mood. Even the photos that I was able to capture I had to be sneaky about. Oh well; we still had a great time.
