Our Family – Page 122 – Andelin Adventures

Struggles with Breastfeeding

Valerie was here on Friday to further check Lydia out, and to measure her length, and get her foot prints, and cut the cord clamp off, and to give me instructions to follow for the first few days. She also brought a big pot of chicken soup. 🙂 Then she said she would be back on Sunday to check up on us and pick up her pot. Sunday came and went and she came by on Monday saying that she ended up delivering another baby on Sunday. Monday I mentioned how I have tried various holds but I am really having difficulty getting Lydia to latch on to the left side, and that means that I’m favoring the right side which in turn is making that side really really sore. She encouraged me to just keep trying. But by Tuesday it had gotten so bad that every time she cried because she was hungry I end up just holding her, crying because I want so badly to feed her, but I dreaded actually putting my breast to her face and I felt like I just can’t do it. After getting the kids to bed I decided to call Valerie and ask for some help. She came over and brought me some ‘comfrey compresses’ to keep in my bra to help my breasts heal. And she watched me latch Lydia on and she said that we’re doing that right. So maybe the pain is because Lydia’s mouth is just so small and hopefully as her mouth gets bigger I won’t be in so much pain. Last night though was the worst! I latched her on and nearly had a screaming fit because it hurt so bad. Kyle had never seen me act like that before, so he asked if she was just biting me. Through tears, I told him that she wasn’t biting just latching on. When I was done nursing her I passed her off to him so I could go take care of myself and that’s when she started spitting up blood. So after checking out my nipple I could tell that I had been bleeding while she was nursing and that she was spitting up MY blood. Since I knew it was my blood I didn’t freak out too much. But when she started coughing up blood clots I decided to give Valerie another call. And we decided that I just needed to give my breast a bit of a break and express the milk for Lydia.

Lydia is one week old now, and it’s been a really hard week for me. Not just physically hard, but emotionally hard as well. I know that being sore in the beginning is very normal. But I don’t think that being so sore that there is a horrible pain shooting throughout my whole body when she latches on is normal at all. It just breaks my heart. I want to nurse her. I have nursed my last 5 babies (I did have struggles with Dinah and Chloe but the first 3 were breastfed exclusively) and I know how enjoyable it is to sit and nurse them. Not to mention the fact that breastfeeding is FREE and formula costs a fortune! And breastfeeding is ready all the time and there are no dishes involved, whereas bottle feeding you have to go prepare the formula before you can feed the baby and then you have to wash the bottles. Breastfeeding, means that I can’t be away from my baby for long periods of time, but I hardly ever go anywhere without my baby anyways, so breastfeeding has always just been easier for me.

Dinah was my first baby that I had serious breastfeeding struggles with, but they didn’t start until she was between 2 and 4 months old. I just felt like my breasts weren’t filling with milk like I remember them doing with my other 3. I tried not to worry about it, since I knew that stressing out could slow down milk production. But when I took her in for her 4 month well baby check up and she weighed less than she did at her 2 month check up I KNEW something was wrong with my milk supply. The pediatrician told me she was “starving to death” and that we needed to switch to formula, NOW.

Like how Dinah is sucking on her whole hand? Ya, that stopped after we started supplementing with formula. That’s basically what she did when she was hungry. 🙁

When I was pregnant with Chloe I experienced some trouble with my left breast and ended up seeing a breast specialist and having ultrasounds and all that fun stuff. We found that I have a cyst in my left breast right behind the nipple. Looking back I find that interesting because I’ve always had trouble getting my babies to take that side. I just thought it was because it was shaped differently than the right side. Now I know that it’s shaped differently because there’s a cyst there! So when Chloe was born I knew there would be difficulties on that side. Then she ended up being in the hospital for the first week and I was going to the hospital every 6 hours to nurse her for every other feeding. The hospital took care of the feedings when I was home, and I pumped whatever milk I could so they could use that before giving her any formula

So for now I will just express and wait for this scab to heal. I just hope that my milk doesn’t dry up in the meantime.

IT’S A GIRL!!!

Lydia Grace Andelin was born this morning at our home in Eagle Mountain. She’s just beautiful and weighed in at 7lbs 4 oz. We are both doing great, just chilling and resting in bed. Kyle is home and I think he’s struggling to hold down the fort. 😛

I’ll work on typing up her birth story and getting it posted soon!

Happy Easter!

Easter Sunday we woke up to find that the Easter bunny had made a visit. And he hid a bunch of those eggs that we colored last night! The kids had a blast finding them and collecting them back to the crates though.

After all the eggs had been found the kids were allowed to check out what was left in their baskets.

After baskets we had breakfast then we got all the kiddos ready for church. We didn’t get a decent picture of the kids in their clothes, but honestly we didn’t buy them anything new for Easter this year and we can easily try taking a picture next time the girls are all wearing their pretty matching dresses.

Easter Weekend

We tried to keep Easter weekend somewhat simple this year, since I’m pretty much ready to have a baby any time now. But we still wanted to make sure we had a fun weekend. We decided to try going to the city’s Easter egg hunt this year. We tried to go a couple of years ago but we got there just a few minutes late and the whole thing was already over. So this year, I put down on the calendar that it started at 10 even though it started at 10:30 that way we would for sure be there early. 😉

There were tons of eggs all over the ground, and there weren’t many ‘hiding places’ but the trick was getting some eggs before all the other kids got in front of you and got them first. Once the firemen sounded the horn on their truck the kids were off. Ethan collected 17 eggs, Tyra got 10, Jeremy got a whopping 23, Dinah got 6 and Kyle picked up an open one that all the other kids passed to give to Chloe. Of course we made the older kids share with the little ones so they all ended up with a fair amount of eggs and treats. And I’m happy to report that she didn’t even lose Dinah! I was really worried about that, since parents and strollers weren’t allowed in the egg hunt area and our kids just disappeared into the mass of kids there. But as soon as it looked like they were done Kyle went into the mob and found her. The boys came back on their own and I had to go hunting for Tyra (she has been running away and not coming back lately).

After that hunt we stopped off at a couple of stores for a few last minute things and then we headed home to finish preparing our Easter dinner that we were hosting. The cousins and Granny came over for dinner and the Easter festivities. I made the desserts ahead of time, but I pretty much let Kyle take care of making the meat and the potatoes, and Karen and Laurel brought the side dishes. So while Kyle was working on the potatoes I supervised the kids coloring eggs.

Alex sat down next to Chloe so she disappeared under the table and ended up not coloring eggs:

Dinner was yummy. We had a pot roast and a leg of lamb, roast potatoes, and Karen brought a fruit salad and some rolls, and Laurel brought wheat pilaf and some yummy sweet creamy carrots. After dinner but before whipping out the dessert we had an egg hunt in the front yard for the kids. Laurel had brought some filled plastic eggs, and I had filled some and Laurel and Roine and I went out to hide them.

I let Chloe out first since she was the youngest, then I let out Dinah. Then I let Jeremy and Daniel go out together, then Tyra, but I think I should have waited a few more seconds before letting Ethan, and Lars out because they just went CRAZY. And of course the bigger kids got to go out after they did.

After the egg hunt we brought the kids back inside and they got to eat their spoils, and while they were distracted with that I got out the REAL dessert for the big people. 😉 I made banana cake balls and mini cheesecakes, and then this jello cheesecake creation (saw the recipe on a store brand box of gelatin and then Kyle and I elaborated on it to come up with this….)

It turned out REALLY cool. 🙂 I used vanilla wafers to make a crust (with some butter and sugar of course) and then did four layers of the jello cheesecake. The bottom is berry blue, then wild strawberry, then peach and I topped it off with raspberry. Now if you’re wanting cheesecake I wouldn’t recommend this recipe, but if you’re looking for a really cool jello dessert it’s awesome!

Lately

Life is rather crazy these days. Ethan and Tyra have school during the days, Jeremy has preschool twice a week. Ethan has cub scouts, and Tyra has girl scouts and an after school reading program to go to (since she has been struggling with reading). Dinah and Chloe just stay home with me all the time, but while I am cleaning one thing they are often making some kind of mess somewhere else in the house. 😛

Lately I’ve been spending my days wondering when I’m going to wake up fully. I’ve just been SOOO TIRED! Some days I don’t even get dressed or make my bed, which is really unusual for me. Usually those are the first things I do in a day (right after having my bowl of frosted mini-wheats). I’ve been really lacking in energy, and I spend my time thinking “I have so much to do” then I can’t decide what I need to do, and I’m too tired to get up and do it anyways. The past couple of days have been a little better. Sunday I pulled the whole dining room apart and swept and mopped and I wiped both sides of the plastic table cloth clean. Then I noticed that the kids had got gunk on the underside of the table so I cleaned that and I wiped the table legs clean. Then I refused to put any of the chairs back in the kitchen until I had cleaned all the crusty yuck off. Then I couldn’t just stop there, I vacuumed the fish tank and wiped the algae off the glass, and vacuumed again. I changed the filter and pulled the cave out to scrub the algae off of it, and I cleaned the outsides of the glass and the stand that the tank sits on. Since it’s right there in the dining room it was just covered with food splatters, which is just yucky but now it’s all clean. I don’t know why I was being obsessive over the little details in the dining room, aside from it’s been bugging me and I had the energy and Kyle was home to help keep the kids out of trouble while I got something done.

Yesterday I attacked the laundry pile that has been accumulating through all those days of me having no energy, and I went to clean out any old yucky food from the fridge and I got sucked into pulling everything out and wiping the whole inside clean.

Today, I haven’t been as productive. I continued with washing and putting away more laundry, including washing my bedding. But that’s really all I’ve done today aside from keeping my kids alive. 😛

This week is spring break. So the kids are all home and there’s no scouts or anything. I had a dentist appointment scheduled for yesterday, but the dentist office called to say that something came up and the dentist wouldn’t be in the office during the afternoon, so that has been rescheduled for next week. The kids have learned that they better not even ask me if they can watch a movie or play a video game until their chores are done. So they have been pretty good at getting them done first thing in the morning so that they have the rest of the day to do whatever.

I’m feeling so big and lopsided lately. Of course, people will look at me and tell me I don’t even look big enough to be so close to the end. The baby is sitting down in my pelvis which causes me some lower back/hip issues on my left side. My left leg can’t really support my weight, which means I have to sit down to put my pants on in the morning (or to put pjs on at night), and when it’s really bad I tend to limp. Occasionally the baby will be in a position that causes my right leg to feel like a nerve is being pinched. And it really stinks when these two problems happen at the same time. But baby is head down, all ready for delivery. It’s back is on my left side, and I can occasionally feel it’s rump in the upper left area of my belly. It’s feet are very often kicking me in the upper right area of my belly, and in my ribs/lungs on the right side. Space is very limited in there now. I often have that yucky heartburn feeling, and the ‘do I really need to pee again?’ feeling. In the evenings as I sit here at the computer waiting for the kids to fall asleep, the baby seems to be at it’s peak activity level for the day. I sit here and can watch my tummy rumbling all over the place, and sometimes the baby is really aggressive with it’s kicking which will actually take my breath away and cause me to gasp. So it’s a very active and strong baby, which is rather uncomfortable sometimes but it’s a good thing. 🙂

Every day we are one day closer to this baby’s birthday. I have no idea when it will be, but I know I’m one day closer. As of last Thursday I was one day shy of 36 weeks, and dilated to 2cm already, with the baby’s head low down in my pelvis. My midwife made the comment that she could probably add 4cm to the height of the uterus based on how low down the baby is already. Dinah is SO excited for the baby to be born. She keeps asking when it will come out of my belly. When I help myself to some food, she asks me if I’m eating so the “baby can grow”. She likes to come to me after I’ve put her to bed, so she can put her hand on my tummy to see if the baby is moving. When we ask her if the baby is going to be a boy or a girl she says “I don’t know”, but if we ask if she wants the baby to be a boy or a girl she says she wants it to be a girl and she wants us to name her Ella. We’ll see how that goes, Ella isn’t one of the names that Kyle and I have considered or talked about.

I still have so much to do. I look around and certain areas of my house are looking better (like the dining room 😉 ) but other areas are still so cluttered! It would be so much easier to clean if there was no clutter in the way. Really I’m just going to have to take it one day at a time and declutter and clean up what I can, then just not worry about the rest. Now I think I’m going to go make myself a chocolate hazelnut shake, and when that’s gone I’m going to bed!