Introducing Gus

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Baby Boy will be 4 months old tomorrow, which is as good a time as any for his official blog debut! Below, I’ve posted a few of my favourite pictures of him from the last month. I’ve also decided that only calling him “Baby Boy” on the blog feels clumsy at times, so from now on I’ll also refer to him as “Gus”.

Gus is not actually his name, but I think I call him Gus way more often than his real name! It started when he was quite young and having a fussy moment, and I said to him “Who’s a fussy Gus?” Like many of the silly things I say to him, I have no idea where that came from (under any other circumstances I cannot imagine myself referring to someone as a fussy Gus). Since then both my husband and I regularly refer to Baby Boy as Gus, and not just when he’s fussy. There’s Grumpy Gus, Sleepy Gus, and my personal favourite, Happy Gus. Sometimes we even use Gus as a generic word for baby as in “Is there a Gus here?” and “Who’s the best Gus around?”.

So without further adieu, I introduce Gus to you:

This is one of my favourite pictures of Gus, taken a week before he turned 3 months old.

Gus at 3.5 months. I love how this picture captures his big smile, and how he is pointing at something off camera.

Gus at 3.75 months getting dressed up in his finest for (Canadian) Thanksgiving.

First Date and Blogging Thoughts

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Yesterday, we had a couple and baby  from our labour prep class over for dinner. The husband works at the same place as my husband (though not in the same department), so it was neat to run into them in the classes and find out that they were having a baby at the same time as us (their little girl ended up being born a month before Baby Boy).

We weren’t sure how the dinner was going to go, since we don’t really know this couple very well, and also didn’t know how the babies would hold up over the course of the evening, but things couldn’t have gone better! The babies were surprisingly well behaved, and spent most of the time sitting side by side in their bouncey chairs, ignoring each other, while the adults were able to have  a nice civilized dinner very much like what we would have had pre babies. So win-win! Hopefully we’ll have other opportunities to get together in the future.

On another topic, I’ve been thinking more about where I want to go with this blog. I feel like this blog has been quite bleh to date, so I am going to try to inject some life into it. After reading other (way more awesome!) new mom blogs over the last few weeks, I’ve decided to take some steps to spice things up.

The first step is a new blog design. When I set this blog up, I used the same theme as my old blog, and while I am very happy with how the old blog looked, it took some time to get it to that point. I really hadn’t spent much time customizing the design of this blog, and when I looked at it the other day it just looked too plain and boring, so I’m playing around with a new theme. I think it will still take some trial and error to get the right feel, but already the change feels invigorating.

The other decision I’ve made is to start posting pictures of Baby Boy, as I realized that one of the best things about new mom blogs are the cute pictures of the babies! So stay tuned for some more interesting content in the future.

Breastyelling and Other Adventures – Part 1

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Last week, my breasts went on strike. Or my breastpump broke. I’m still not sure what happened, and while it was happening, I couldn’t decide which was  worse. Things seem to be back to normal now, but even though  Baby Boy is almost 4 months old, I have yet to fully solve the mystery that is breastfeeding. In fact the purists would be appalled at what passes for breastfeeding in my house.

For me, the experience of breastfeeding has ranged from very challenging and frustrating to incredibly rewarding. I know that I am not alone in this, so I thought I would share some of what I have encountered along the way.

The Latch

Our troubles started just after Baby Boy was born. Initially, I thought we were doing okay, however a meeting with a lactation consultant at the hospital’s breastfeeding clinic indicated that Baby Boy was not latching properly and therefore not getting enough to eat, resulting in a worrisome weight loss.

We ended up visiting the breastfeeding clinic 4 times in the first week after being released from the hospital. Nipple shields, hand expressing techniques, and a breastpump, were all offered to facilitate getting the breastmilk out to compensate for Baby Boy’s “goofy suck”, and syringes and small cups were provided to deliver the milk to him when he was not able to get it directly from the breast.

In those early days, I would start by offering Baby Boy my breast, being careful to arrange myself into the proper position for him to get on. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, the  result was Baby Boy screaming as soon as he came anywhere near my naked breast, while punching it repeatedly with his little fists (aka “breastyelling”). This would go on for 5 to 10 minutes straight, at which point Baby Boy would be past the point of no return, and I’d move on to pumping, and then feeding Baby Boy using a small cup or syringe.

We would have a successful feed or two, and then the following day he would not latch at all. There were a few days where I actually gave up on even trying him on the breast, since it was so frustrating for both of us, not to mention demoralizing for me.

On days when I did try to get him on, I never knew if an attempt would work, and if so, for how long. Sometimes, I would get him on for a few minutes, but then he’d break the latch and it would be impossible to get him back on again.

By the end of the second week, things were finally starting to click. Baby Boy was latching more consistently, and staying on for longer. When he did slip off, I was able to get him latched on again fairly easily. The lactation consultant let us introduce the bottle for pumped milk, which was much easier to use than syringe feeding.

I had been feeding Baby Boy almost exclusively from my left breast, since I found it easier to get good positioning on that side, and didn’t want to add to our frustrations by fumbling around on the right side. Once we got over that initial hump though, I started to work on getting the same success on the right side.

The Time Commitment

Unfortunately, once we got the latching figured out, new frustrations cropped up. Ironically, once we figured out how to get Baby Boy on the breast, it was impossible to get him off. The lactation consultants at the breastfeeding clinic who saw me breastfeed had commented that he did not seem very efficient at feeding. Instead of feeding for 20 or 30 minutes, Baby Boy would typically stay on for over an hour. I had several feeds that approached an hour and half. Any time I sat down to breastfeed, I could expect to be at it for at least 45 minutes, though typically longer. After a while, I started to break the latch once we got past an hour, in the hopes that Baby Boy would get the hint to speed things up.

Meanwhile, I continued to pump and supplement with bottle feeding. Pumping for 15 to 20 minutes, and bottle feeding at a later time for 15 to 20 minutes was a lot more manageable than being out of commission for an hour at a time with breastfeeding (especially where night or early morning feedings were concerned).

The Pain

Around this time, breastfeeding started to be very painful. At the start of each session, I would suck in my breath and mentally prepare myself for the searing pain as Baby Boy chomped right down on my nipples as he got comfortable. Because of this, my nipples ended up mangled and sore. My left nipple was in especially rough shape (not the least because I kept picking loosened skin off, thinking it was dried milk – yuck!), so at this time I stopped feeding on the left breast in order to give it a chance to heal. As always, I continued to pump both breasts.

I knew that Baby Boy was probably latching on too shallowly, but I couldn’t seem to get him to take in more of my breast than he was doing.

And that was just my first month of breastfeeding! Stay tuned for Part 2.

 

They Grow Up So Fast….

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Baby Boy is just over 3 months old, and I have already seen him change and grow so much in the short time that he has been with us. In the last few days, I have packed away the last of the 0 to 3 month clothing, moved his crib down a setting, and pulled out the size 2 diapers for the first time.

I felt inexplicably sad packing away the tiny onesies and sleepers that he wore for the first few months of this life. There was something so final about putting them away and the realization that he will never wear those things again. At times like this, I find myself wishing time could stand still, or at the very least slow down a bit so I can savour and fully enjoy every fleeting moment.

At the same time, it seems like every day I am amazed by new things that Baby Boy is doing. For example, over the last month Baby Boy has managed to increase his cuteness quotient by adding a giddy little laugh to his repertoire. He laughs to express joy, but also to share in little jokes (like when my husband plays a version of peekaboo with him). In the last week alone, he’s also started playing with his feet, and become fascinated with the many little mirrors on his toys.

I can’t believe that we have simply scratched the surface and that the real milestones are still ahead. In the next year and a half alone, Baby Boy will roll over, sit up, take his first step and say his first word. In no time at all, he will be starting school, and from there my brain just hurts thinking about all of the things that life has in store for him.

With every new day, Baby Boy is growing and changing and slowly becoming his own person, and I feel like the luckiest person in the world to be able to share these moments with him.

Adventures of Baby Boy at Three Months

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Baby Boy has dozed off, so I’m trying to sneak in a quick post while I have the chance. Over the last week, I’ve had several ideas for posts in my head, but of course now that I actually have a few minutes to sit down and write, all of it is forgotten!

September means back to school for many people, and for us it meant Baby Boy’s 3 month birthday. Both of these milestones have resulted in me trying a  few new things with Baby Boy, which I thought I’d share.

Baby Boy Becomes a Dumbbell

The first new thing, which I’d been anticipating since before Baby Boy’s birth is that we have entered the world of mommy and baby activities with twice weekly baby and me fitness classes. I had no idea what to expect, but so far I am happy to say that the experience has been great!

The classes themselves are very similar to normal aerobics/boot camp type classes, if you can get past the occasional woman sitting on the floor breastfeeding or changing her baby. The babies spend most of the class lying on pilates mats around the perimeter of the room, though there are many opportunities to incorporate them into the workouts if we so choose (instead of using hand weights). Baby Boy was a bit fussy during the chaos of our first class, so I ended up doing quite a bit of the lunges and squats with him in my arms.

What surprised me the most is that the classes are a real workout. I am wiped when class is over, and am sore for several days afterwards. I had gone to prenatal pilates and yoga right up to my due date (actually, even past my due date), so thought I’d kept myself in pretty good shape. However, once I realized that it had been 3 months since my last prenatal fitness class, it was no surprise that I am feeling sore and out of shape.

Each class ends with a short discussion about a baby or parenting  related topic. I’m hoping as time goes by that in addition to the fitness benefits for me, and the change of scenery for Baby Boy, that we can both make some new friends.

Baby Boy Becomes A Guinea Pig

The other big new thing that Baby Boy participated in this month was being a subject in a study conducted at one of the local universities. Shortly after Baby Boy was born, in addition to getting mailed coupons for diapers and several containers of formula, we received a letter from a psychology professor soliciting babies for his various research studies.

I filled out the enclosed card with Baby Boy’s pertinent information and mailed it off, and a few weeks ago I got an email asking whether we were able to take part in a study on memory in babies. Baby Boy and I went in on two days this week and he got to look at pictures of different shapes and colours. After the second visit, I felt strangely sad that we were done, so when the researcher asked me if I’d be interested in future studies, I said we definitely were, and now we’re heading back in next week.

The cool thing is we’ll get copies of all the study results, and it’s neat to think that we are contributing in our own small way to what science knows about babies.

Baby Boy Becomes a Mallrat

On the way back from our testing at the university, I realized that our route took us right past the mall, which I’d last visited just before my due date to stock up on nursing tops and baby books. So, I thought it would be fun to pop in, do some window shopping and grab lunch.

Overall, the mall trip was a success, though I did have a moment when it briefly felt like a total disaster. I decided it would be best for both of us to go to the bathroom before lunch, which led us to one of the mall’s finely appointed nursing rooms. The nursing room was a large space where only women and children were permitted. It contained a pretty deluxe change table, lots of bench seating, and several comfy armchairs where mothers could nurse. There were also several family size washrooms, and a tv playing a children’s show. Pretty cool!

After doing my business and changing Baby Boy, I sat down on one of the benches to give him his bottle. Near the end of his bottle, I heard the tell tale gurgling sounds of a bowel movement. It sounded pretty big, and sure enough when I lifted Baby Boy off my lap, there was a nice yellowish wet stain down the front of my jeans. Lovely!

I took him right over to the change table where I found that he had poop all up his back (and strangely very little actually in his diaper). I had to change him out of his fancy “going out” outfit and into the sleeper which I frantically managed to dig out of our diaper bag, while dabbing baby wipes at anything and everything. As this was going on, Baby Boy took the opportunity to pee all over the front of his soiled onesie, on his thigh, and on the counter next to the change table. Then he started wailing like there was no tomorrow.

At one point during this chaos there was a woman waiting for the change table, but mercifully she decided to go elsewhere. I finally managed to get Baby Boy somewhat cleaned up and calmed down, and at this point I was ready to surrender and just go home, but by now I was starving so decided it was best to stick with the original plan and eat lunch at the mall before going home.

Thankfully, Baby Boy stayed calm and quickly fell asleep in his stroller, and the rest of our mall experience went very smoothly.

And there it is, a glimpse into some recent moments in this mom and baby’s lives!

Hello Mommy!

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I can’t believe how quickly the ten weeks since Baby Boy’s birth have flown! I’ve had a few posts in mind, but have found it very difficult to squeeze out the time to post. While we are blessed to have a  good (night) sleeper, Baby Boy is not a consistent napper, so most days I don’t have a reasonable stretch of time during the day to post anything, given everything else I want to get done. I have now given myself the seemingly realistic goal of posting something once a week, so  we’ll see how well I do with that.

Ten weeks in, I am still amazed at my new role as “mom” or “mommy” and all the responsibility, wonder, and street cred that come with it. As I wrote on my old blog (www.unfertilized.wordpress.com), I loved being pregnant. Even though I normally do not like being the centre of attention, while I was pregnant I loved the attention that sporting a belly would bring me. After years of being on the outside looking in, I loved finally being able to take part in the primal, animal act of gestating a new human.

However, even while I was pregnant, the idea that I was going to be a mom did not fully sink in. Yes, I knew that my life was about to change (as parents everywhere were quick to remind me), and I knew that a baby was going to be coming into my life very soon, but I was not yet able to think of myself as a parent.

I was first jolted into thinking of myself as a mom during our pre-natal classes when the instructor discussed what mom and dad would be doing during the various stages of labour. The first time I heard this, it did not register that the word mom referred to me – I automatically thought of my mom and tried to reconcile what the instructor was saying with what I saw as my mom’s role in the process. Even when I realized that mom referred to me, it didn’t feel quite right. How could I possibly be a mom?

Once Baby Boy was born, to the outside world, I became a mom. Throughout my stay at the hospital, the  medical staff repeatedly referred to me as “Mom”, whether in discussions among themselves, written documentation, or in speaking to me directly about my baby. As I slowly got used to the idea that I had a son, I knew that by definition, it meant that I was a mom, but it still didn’t feel real to me.

I still remember the moment when I first started to own the word mom(my). It was a few weeks after Baby Boy was born and he was lying awake in his crib in the afternoon. I was standing next to the crib, bending down to peek through the bars and trying to catch his attention. Without thinking, I said “Hi Sweetie, Mommy’s here. Look at Mommy.” to get his attention. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I stopped short, overcome by the most amazing mix of emotions. Mom(my) was no longer a word that referred to someone else – to this one, tiny human being who was not aware of anything that came before him, I am mommy. And that is all that matters.

Finally!

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Here it is – the first post on my new blog! I am so excited to finally be able to write this.

Some of you will be familiar with my other blog: www.unfertilized.wordpress.com where I wrote primarily about infertility, and then pregnancy, and finally about the birth of my little boy less than a month ago.

After I got pregnant, I was not sure whether I would continue blogging after the baby came, and if so, in what format. After seeing how other infertility bloggers handled the transition to motherhood, and also remembering my feelings and preferences while still in the trenches, I decided that once the baby was born, I would retire the old blog, and start up a new one for any motherhood related blogging. I secured this web address when I was in the 2nd trimester, and have been waiting for the opportunity to start using it.

At this point, I am not sure how often I will need/want to blog, and how active this blog will be. I don’t know whether I will feel that same urge to get my feelings out into cyberspace now that I’m a mother as I did when I was trying to become one.

That said, I can already tell that in addition to all the wonderful moments, motherhood will bring self doubt, confusion, and occasional frustration. I know that there will be times when I will question my judgement, and also times where I will have strong opinions about the many polarizing views about parenting and children, all of which will provide fodder for potential blog posts. So I’m going to give it a shot!

Lastly, I am still playing around with how open I want to be on this blog. On my old blog, being anonymous was very important to me, as I wanted to have complete freedom to write about situations and people in my life without feeling like I had to constantly look over my shoulder, or hide any identifying details lest someone I know happened to accidentally stumble on my blog.

While this will still be an anonymous blog in the sense that my real name won’t be attached to it, I may decide to post pictures of my baby, and even of myself. I may also provide other potentially identifying details such as neighbourhood hot spots that I visit, or baby and me programs that I participate in, or my son’s first name.

For now though, I’m going to stay anonymous and unidentifiable until I figure out what I’m comfortable with.