Hippie Mom in a Preppy World

Posts Tagged ‘baby fox’

Things have been quieter than usual on this blog lately. It’s very hard to be inspired and write when dealing with morning sickness. Yes, that’s right I’m knocked up again and Baby Fox #2 is expected sometime around mid July.

So I’m going to avoid confusion by posting answers to frequently asked questions. Future blog posts will be a combination of bump updates and Shammy.

- are you still breastfeeding?
yes I am still breastfeeding

- are you going to wean now that you’re pregnant?
that is up to Shammy, besides, even if I wanted to, he takes no for an answer and he’s a very persuasive fellow

- are you planning a VBAC?
No. This was a very hard decision to make but after researching our options, there was no local viable option (no local OB’s do them, all local hospitals ban them, we don’t want to hire the local midwives that do them and I don’t feel comfortable going unassisted. There is a doctor just over an hour away that does them but even if he took me I didn’t feel like spending an hour plus on I-95 while in labor.

Additionally, I believe that scar tissue in my cervix interfered with my first labor and as already confirmed with this pregnancy, my cervix still has it so that would drop my chances of success and I don’t want to set myself up for failure.

-How are you feeling?
This is probably the only time that I’ll answer this question without being snappy. I feel like crap and it’s been pretty much constant for 2 months. I had morning sickness from hell happening almost 24 hours a day every day. I lost 9 pounds as a result and had to go on medication. I never experienced it so bad with Shammy, I would wake up from a deep sleep ready to hurl, that’s how I didn’t get a break.

Now that the morning sickness is getting better, I get to enjoy swollen nasal passages, environmental allergies (which I only get when pregnant), lower back pain and recurring headaches. I have barely taken prenatal vitamins this time around because I’ve been so sick, now when I feel better and I try to take them my stomach stamps them “return to sender” before my body can absorb any nutrients so I think that baby is taking calcium from my teeth since I’m not getting enough of it as I’m now having dental problems as well. So yes, this pregnancy has been kicking my @$$, I’m pretty close to useless and struggle just to keep up with the hyper toddler, my house is such a disaster zone that it’s overwhelming to think about it.

My morning sickness is no longer constant but I still get it daily from several triggers, I still can’t stand the sight or smell of cooking food. Sadly this means that Shammy’s diet while at home has suffered because I’m not able to work so much on his meals. Not that he seems to mind as he’s taken to rejecting most of the things I make him and instead prefers to snack all day.

- Who’s your prenatal care provider?
Sadly I’m stuck with a group OB practice as my local options were limited. They are…. ok. I didn’t appreciate being told that I lost weight for still breastfeeding (completely ignoring the fact that I could barely eat for weeks) and being told that if I have a boy, I HAVE TO pay $463 for the circumcision and then looking at me confused when I tell them that I don’t have to pay anything and I won’t. After my first appointment I was sent home with a “goody bag” sponsored by Similac full of crap from the formula companies doing their thing to undermine breastfeeding from the first trimester ::sigh::

- What would you do differently?
I don’t have any regrets from last time, it would have been nice if I have kept up with prenatal yoga but I’m not even trying it this time around. Something that I do want is to get a photo of me and hubby with baby at hospital, Shammy was over 2 weeks old before we had the first photo of the 3 of us taken.

- What are you craving?
In very early pregnancy I was craving ground beef, anything with ground beef. Later on I just crave salty things, sweet things make me nauseous. Like with Shammy I’m once again craving soda. My biggest craving is for a Mexican dish from a specific restaurant in Puerto Rico

Mini Rant
It’s amusing and annoying how some people get defensive at stuff that was in no way aimed at them and accuse me of not giving first time parents a “break”, it seems people forget that I was once a first timer and technically I still am. Whether this is your 1st kid or your 10th, all I say is “inform yourself!”

Proud big brother to be

We have been having some interesting weeks lately.  We recently took Shammy to his first Pagan festival, normally we would camp but we are glad we didn’t as it was too cold for comfort.  He seems to have enjoyed it overall but did seem homesick which affected his sleep.  I have never seen him so happy to be back home.   Hopefully he will sleep better at the next camping festival in April.  He also got to experience the Renaissance Faire and loved it.

He has given me several nights where he doesn’t wake up to nurse, that has signaled my body to bring about the return of Aunt Flo, boo!  It had been over a year and didn’t miss it one bit.  After that he has decided to go back to waking up once during the night to nurse, figures!

I’m now working on a semi regular basis.  I have been fortunate enough to have found a decent client, I doubt that any company could have been as flexible as I need.  I enjoy being self employed and although I don’t make much after setting aside taxes it is better than nothing.

I do have lots of flexibility and a private space to pump while at the client’s office but since pumping time is not billable time I limit it to 1 pumping session per day. The challenge with that is that I’m not pumping enough to make up for what Shammy drinks while at grandma’s house, not because I don’t produce enough but because I need to pump a second time.  This has led to a rapid reduction of the small freezer stash that I had so we may enter a breastmilk crisis soon.  I’m proud that he has never tasted formula but admit that the idea has crossed my mind if I can’t settle into a pumping schedule that will meet the demand.  I would much rather use donor milk but I always think about preemies and adopted babies and feel that they should have priority for donated milk.

I miss him so much while I’m working though.  Thankfully I have plenty of distractions but after a few hours I can’t stop thinking of him and have to hold back tears.  Now that he has consolidated his poops to one major one during the day I even miss wiping his poopy butt.  You read right, the woman that was terrified of changing a diaper pre-baby actually misses dealing with poop.  The day that I shared this with my husband through misty eyes Shammy took pity on me and delivered a nice load of poop for me to clean, so sweet of him!

Speaking of poop, I never imagined that my hippie son would be capable of tie dye poop but that is exactly what he delivers on days when he eats different colored foods the day before, lol.

Another interesting turn of events was the death of the washing machine interrupting our cloth diaper use.  I was able to wash the already dirty diapers at Grandma’s house and had considered doing future washes at the laundromat but it was not logistically possible and would have been very expensive.  So for the time being we used disposables and you know what?  I hate them… with a passion…  can’t stand the plastic paper feel, I hate the fact that they get thrown away and couldn’t wait for a new washer so that I can go back to my beloved cloth.

It took us to weeks to find a washer that we could barely afford and I cried out of joy when I was able to use Bumgenius once again.  This passion for cloth makes me want to participate in the Great Cloth Diaper Change, an event created to host awareness for cloth diapering while setting a Guinness World Record for the largest number of cloth diapers changed at one time.

The response to this blog has got me thinking about a related book, this idea is in its infancy and it may never grow beyond a rough draft but I’m curious if this is something that anybody would find interesting.

Some women are afraid to breastfeed in public for fear of harassment. I used to be waiting for someone to dare say something but not anymore.  Maybe they can sense the “dare to say something and you’ll regret messing with mama bear” vibe that I emanate or more likely they just don’t care.

We mostly hear about bad experiences nursing in public so I want to share a sample list of places that I have been able to breastfeed in public, without a cover and nobody bothered us:

Disney’s Magic Kingdom
Downtown Disney
Renaissance Faire (with a Broward County Sheriff on duty sitting next to me)
at the entrance to the exhibition hall at the county fair
many different restaurants  (even while the server was taking our order)
various department stores
various parts of the mall
the supermarket (various aisles)
the library
various outdoor parks
while shopping at garage sales
the circus
Turnpike Service Plaza
I-95 Rest Stop
bookstore
various parking lots and more

I wonder if it’s because I don’t use an eye catching nursing cover that screams “look at me! I’m breastfeeding!”  (nothing wrong with covers if you feel you need one).

Shammy enjoys fresh air with his meal

Coming soon, adventures in chasing a mobile baby, but first!  I must babyproof.

This episode’s rants:

“The Doctors”, a TV program viewed by millions of people across the globe, has gotten out of hand, especially recently with their breach of professional conduct.  These doctors humiliate, demean, and belittle members of the public for their circumcision status.  It does not make any sense for doctors to improperly promote unnecessary surgery and the abusive treatment of minors, to satisfy their preferences.  A letter of complaint was sent to the Medical Board of California – Central Complaint Unit.

“Doctors are supposed to  treat  valid medical problems, not alter functioning healthy parts of a penis just to satisfy the customs and culture of a certain population”

I “could” get on board with justifying a Jewish doctor in a Jewish community but here we are talking about mainstream media directed to the not always very educated masses that look up to these “experts” to tell them what their opinions should be.

My other rant was inspired from the following read in one of the online parenting groups that I belong to:

“I’m glad that I didn’t pass my GD test because I got 8 ultraounds instead of 2 and got induced a week early so I got to pick the date and time and doctor.” ::SLAP!!!::  that is what I want to do when reading this.  Could this be any more selfish and ignorant?

Let’s ignore for a moment the inherent risks and dangers from many ultrasounds and from being induced, if you really wanted that you don’t have to have gestational diabetes to get it.  There is no shortage of OB’s that will happily give you as many ultrasounds as you like and prefer that you make an appoint me to “deliver” than risk being late for dinner.

I understand that a lot of people don’t see diabetes as a big deal, and for the most part it isn’t.  But do you really want to put yourself and baby’s health at risk for complications and other not so fun stuff just for convenience?

And a carryover from previous weeks is my annoyance with people’s obsessions with baby’s weight.  I’m shocked to see how many people don’t think a baby is healthy unless they’re 90+ percentile for weight.  I recently read a study that indicates that a baby in the 85 to 90 percentile is “at risk” for obesity while a baby at 95 or above is obese.  Is that the healthy start that we want to give our children?  No wonder a recent study found that 1/3 of babies are obese by 9 months.