We just realized today that Keira has the same signs for hungry and sleepy!  I think I've been feeding her more often than she actually needed!  Maybe she wasn't unlatching because there's no milk...maybe it's because she wasn't hungry.

For the most part, I've been able to get to Keira pretty quickly once she starts fussing and rooting, so I've fed her.  Because of her cranky brother, there were a couple of times when I wasn't able to get to her that fast.  By the time I did get to her, she was either already asleep, or would fall asleep within seconds of nursing.  (and would stay asleep for an hour or two, meaning she wasn't truly hungry).

This could be a little tricky since the signs are exactly the same...there's no way for me to tell if she hungry or if she's just tired.  I think because she usually falls asleep at the boob, she probably things nursing = feed AND nursing = sleep, so she just does the same thing for both situations.

I think I need a few more days to figure this one out.  I think even with the mama/baby misunderstanding, I still need a big boost in my supply, but a big A-HA moment today.  It's funny how every kid is so different...I feel like a first time mom, trying to figure things out!

I ordered a few boxes of Mother's Milk tea from Amazon.  I should get it on Saturday (I love Amazon Prime).  I hope it works because I read that it tastes like black licorice, which I HATE.  I started eating a bowl of cereal with regular milk plus a can of soy milk right before bed. (Or should I say "bed" since there's no real bed time for a while)!

When I feed Keira, a lot of times, she'll still act hungry afterwards, she'll root around, cry, etc.  I usually burp and hold her for about 20 minutes afterwards to see if she's truly hungry and usually she is...she'll still be rooting around, sucking on my shoulder, etc.  I know there's nothing left since I've pumped before and I got a few drops. 

What should I do in that case?  I know she's still hungry, but she just nursed and I have nothing left.  Usually that's when I've been giving her the extra oz of formula.  I've tried re-latching her, but after a few sucks, she'll unlatch since there's nothing coming out and she'll just cry.  We used to hold off Tyler with the paci, but Keira won't take one.

I have supply issues again. Ugh. It's so frustrating and annoying.  Unlike Tyler, Keira nursed like a champ from the beginning.  I was hopefully that I would have less issues with my supply with her eating so well.  I think I actually produced more when I was exclusively pumping with Tyler for his first 2 months.  She feeds every 2 hours during they day and still have to give her an extra oz or two of formula after each feed.  The only times I don't have to is the middle of the night/early morning feeds since she goes longer without eating.

I no longer feel engorged at all.  I don't remember when the engorgement is supposed to go away.  She's about 2.5 weeks...is that about right?  It's either that my supply has stabilized or that I have nothing.  She also nurses really fast...like 5 minutes each side.  So either she's VERY efficient or again, I have nothing.  I guess I could pump to find out, but after exclusively pumping with T, I forever hate the pump.

I am drinking the recommended 3 Liters of water a day, but I think I'm not getting enough calories in.  With the frequent feeds, chasing around Tyler and the normal daily stuff, I think I get in 3 quick meals and an occasional snack here and there.

The recovery is going slow.  I still can't sit down without feeling like a have a cactus shoved up my behind.  I think I actually felt better at this point with my c-section recovery.  It's not really so painful anymore ,but it just feels prickly and very uncomfortable.  So I spend most of my day standing since lying down isn't really an option when you have a toddler.

I think once I feel better and can sit down normally...and once I get my routine down, I can maybe squeeze in more meals and relax a little bit.  Maybe it'll help.  I'm so tempted just to go all formula since it's so time consuming to nurse AND bottle feed at each feeding.  Sigh.  Why can't the man nurse?  It's so unfair, they don't have to do anything.

We've officially completed our first week having 2 under 2.  I did have help around, so it's not really a fair assessment of how hard it can be. My parents stayed home with Tyler while I was at the hospital and my mom will be around for about 3 weeks.  PB also took these 2 weeks off, so he's around as well.  We procrastinated a little too long on a lot of things and we are just starting to get things done (diaper pail, changing mat, nipples, sleep sacks were all shipped out yesterday).    We were so certain that she was going to be late, so we thought we had at least another few days to get things done.

Keira is doing well.  She was discharged from the hospital with slightly high bili's.  It wasn't high enough for them to keep her for bili lights, so they let her go home.  They told us to give her extra formula on top of my BM to flush out the bili.  So as much as we wanted to avoid formula, we've had to give her an extra ounce or two after each feeding.  She already looks much less yellow than when we first brought her home.  It's okay...at least she'll get a few extra calories.  The main reason we wanted to avoid formula is because we HATE washing bottles!

She sleeps extraordinarily well.  Starting around day 2, she has been sleeping 5 hours at night, usually followed by another 3-5 hour stretch.  My mom gets Tyler in the mornings, so I've been able to sleep 8-10 hours with getting up just once in between.  I think one night she woke up twice in between and I was like, " OH NO, what is going on" since she had spoiled me so much.  This is actually the most sleep I've gotten since Tyler was born!  Let's just say that PB is a deep sleeper, so lots of night wakings and early mornings for Mama with Tyler.  She also sleeps most of the day, crying only when hungry or pooping.  She does have a little evening fussiness, but that's usually cured by holding her upright.

Tyler has been amazing with her.  We are all extremely surprised.  We thought for sure he would have problems adapting to a younger sister.  Maybe his age plays a role since he isn't entirely in that terrible 2 phase where everything is mine mine mine.  He doesn't have a problem with her being in his rocker chair and will tell everyone to Shhhhhh if she's sleeping in it.  He will also bring her a doll and blanket and place them on top of her (ok fine, he sort of throws it on her, but with good intentions).  Then he'll turn on the music and the vibration on the rocker for her.

I had Keira on 7/10/10 at 5:24 PM.  She is 7 pounds, 4 oz and 21 inches long.  Here's our story...

As of Thursday, 7/8, my OB visit revealed no progress...no dilation, no effacement.  My c-section was scheduled for 7/16 (my hospital does not allow induced VBAC's due to an increased risk of uterine rupture).  On Friday, 7/9 DH and I decide to finally get our act together and start to get our rooms ready for the baby and to pack our bags (yes, we waited until 3 days before the due date hahaha).  I started getting some contractions at 10 PM that night.  But I wasn't really sure if they were real or not since I had done a lot of heavy lifting and walking around that day. 

Surprisingly, the contraction were regular right from the get go starting around 6 minutes apart.  But they were really short contractions, so I didn't really pay attention to them.  They continued until around midnight when they started to get more painful and I began to feel them in my back.  That's when I realized this might be the real deal.  Unfortunately, my parents were the ones who would watch Tyler while we were in the hospital and they live 3+ hrs away in Queens.  I didn't want them driving in the middle of the night if it wasn't the real thing.  I waited another hour and the contractions were still painful and about 6-7 minutes apart.  I considered waiting until early morning to call them, but I wasn't sure if I would make it.  I told my parents the situation and asked them what they wanted to do.  Our backup was to call PB's parents who live closer by.  My parents still wanted to come.  They had their bags packed for weeks, so they were ready to go.

I decided to try to sleep, which was impossible.  The contractions were never farther than 9 minutes apart, so I felt like I had to keep track.  So I labored all night, taking down the times (which by the way SUCKED)...and by 7AM the next morning, they were 5 minutes apart, 1 minute each for 1 hour.  I called my OB and this just happened to be his weekend off!!!  (I chose this OB because he's still one of those old school OB's who meets you at the hospital and delivers you personally so you never have a random person). But the OB covering him was my other top choice....the one that is known in the area to be the most supportive of VBAC's.

I was told to head to the hospital.  Tyler woke up right as we were ready to leave, so we got to see him before taking off for the hospital.  I was put in a room and labored until the doctor arrived to see if they would keep me or send me home.  At that point, my contractions were 1-2 minutes apart.  I was like, I am NOT going home even if I'm not dilated.  Luckily, my exam came back with me being 3 cm dilated and 50% effaced (which was amazing since I was closed 2 days ago).  I was a keeper.

The OB came to talk to me about the risks of a VBAC.  He highly recommended that I get an epidural since that would allow me quick access to the OR in case anything happened and they needed to rush me in.  That was totally fine with me.  He did say that he did not like using pitocin at all during a VBAC delivery (some practitioners will allow the use of pitocin to aid in the labor as long as you go into labor naturally).  So that meant I had to make it to 10 cm all on my own, or no VBAC.  Considering it took 40 hours to reach 10 cm WITH pitocin with Tyler's birth, I was a little worried.  He recommended that I wait until I reached the active labor phase at around 5-6 cm before getting the epidural so that it wouldn't impede labor progress.  After all of that, he asked me if I was still on board.  I sure was!

Since I was a no pitocin patient, my nurse had a pretty easy job in the beginning since she didn't really have to do much.  I was allowed to labor for a few hours and was rechecked.  I had reached 4 cm and 100% effaced.  My water was still intact, so the OB broke my water to see if my labor would progress faster.  It sure did.  All of a sudden, the contractions were coming one on top of another.  I decided to get the epidural at the point since I wasn't sure if I could sit perfectly still if it got worse.  The anesthesiologist finally got there like half hour later...put the epidural in and I waited for it to kick in.  My legs got tingly and my butt went numb, but I felt none of the pain relief in my stomach or back.  I still felt every single contraction.  My RN told me to give it some time to kick in.  I gave it some time...still felt the same.  She had me push the bolus button on the PCA pump and waited.  Still felt the same.  It was pretty uncomfortable at that point and I wasn't sure how much longer I could just breathe through them.  Finally, the RN paged the anesthesiologist to come up.  Another 45 minutes later, he arrived.  He gave me the biggest bolus I've ever seen, jacked up the rate of the epidural and pushed the bolus button on the PCA (so that's an increased basal rate, plus 2 big boluses).

The pain was finally starting to subside.  The OB came in to check me and I was at 8 cm already..the epidural didn't fully kick in until 10 cm....which made it pretty much pointless since I wanted some sensation during pushing, but now I felt nothing at all.  At 9 cm he told me I would be pushing within an hour and I was like uh oh...since I was starting to feel myself go numb.  When it came time to push, I couldn't feel when the contractions started, I couldn't feel the pressure in my butt (which was helpful for me the first time around to know where I was supposed to push).  And I couldn't change positions without the RN and PB hoisting me around.

We started to push.  I couldn't even tell if I was pushing or not.  Apparently, I was pushing okay, but i couldn't tell.  The OB said the baby was face up, which would make things harder for me.  Great.  He said he would give me 1.5 hours before taking me to the OR.  I kept on pushing and at 1.5 hours, no baby.  The OB said the baby was now in the transverse position (the head turned sideways)...also a difficult position to push out.  He said my coccyx bone protrude forward into my pelvic space, which is why Tyler got stuck.  The pelvic shape basically become oval and forces the baby's head sideways as she tries to descend.  In order to get out, the baby has to get over and past the coccyx bone.  At that point, I pretty much thought the VBAC was out of the question. 

He decided to give me an extra half an hour of pushing just to see what would happen since the baby was holding up well and my uterus was also holding up well.  After half an hour, nothing.  He kept tacking on half and hour until i had pushed for 2 hrs, 45 minutes.  She was still stuck behind that coccyx bone.  He said 15 more minutes and he would have to operate since her heart rate was starting to drop a little.  I was exhausted by that point.  I hadn't slept at all the night before and had been up for almost 36 hours.  I kept dozing off in between contractions. 

Finally with 5 minutes to go, I knew I only had 2 or 3 contraction left before my time was up.  The OB was hesitant at first to use the vacuum because she wasn't far down enough in the canal and he didn't want to injure her head by pulling too hard.  But since the vacuums pop off if too much pressure is applied, he decided to just try it and give one test pull to see how much pressure would need to be applied.  He said if it popped off, then he would not proceed with the vacuum and we would have to c-section.  It didn't pop off.   So with 2 contractions to go, he applied just a little pressure with the vacuum to hold her head in place between my pushes (before, she kept sliding back behind the coccyx bone) and with 3 pushes, her head had slid past the coccyx bone and cleared my pelvis!  With the next set of contractions, out she came!!!  I could not believe that it had worked!  She tore me pretty good coming out and he had to perform an episiostomy on top of that, but I had my VBAC!!!  It was the most amazing feeling especially since I had been told multiple times that I was not an ideal candidate for a VBAC (although I didn't  have any of the absolute contraindications, which is why I was allowed to try for one).

The recovery has been a little tough with all the tearing.  I had to have a foley catheter put in because I was too swollen and too cut up to pee on my own.  That came out today and I was able to pee (and therefore go home tomorrow).  It is really really hard to sit down.  But my c-section recovery was much tougher.  I wasn't able to do anything the next day or even for the next few days.  You don't realize how important your ab muscles are until  they're sliced open.  My main reason for wanting a VBAC is so that I could still take care of and play with Tyler.  He came to visit and the first thing he did was climb on the bed and throw his head on my stomach while laying down on the bed.  I don't even want to think about how much pain that would have caused me had I been recovering from a c-section.

I can't wait to see what life with 2 under 2 will be like.  I anticipate very little sleep and lots of running around!
 

I had to stop and think about exactly how many months he is.  I guess that's when you start saying, "almost 2."

The little booger remembers everything now.  We can't play the out of sight, out of mind game at all anymore.  There are things that he remembers that we don't even remember.  We must have hidden something train related on our fireplace mantle at some point in time.  That is our hiding spot for everything since we are 100% sure that he can't reach up there.  Every day, he points at the mantle and asks for Choo Choo.  Thinking back, I think we used to hide his Thomas the Train book up there, but we gave him full access now.  He must thing there are other things up there.  Or if he's playing with something (non-toy like your keys) and you need it back, he will continue asking for it.

He understands the concept of possession.  He knows which shoes are mama's and which are papa's.  Every time we go to put on our shoes, he points to my shoes and says, "mama" and points to PB's shoes and says "papa".  The only pair he gets confused with is my black flip flops since PB has a pair also that he wears much more than I wear mine.  We can hand him our bowl of keys and he knows which set are mine.

He can put on his own shoes.  YAY!  That has helped this pregnant mama out so much.  It was getting hard to bend down to put his shoes on for him. Granted, he can only put on his faux-Crocs by himself, but I'll take that.  He'll grab his pair and put them side by side and slip his feet in.  Sometimes he gets them on the wrong foot, but for the most part, he gets it right.

We let him play with all his trains now since he figured out how to correctly line up the polarity of the magnets so that they all stick.  So if he tries to add on another train and it repels, he'll turn it around.  He is also starting to be able to put the track together by himself.  The train set is a lesser source of frustration now.  He spends quite a lot of time with it now.  Although I kind of dread it when he drags me over to play trains with him because I don't get the appeal and I think it's so boring. hahaha.

He is starting to get a teeny bit better at following directions.  He's still a runner when we go out though.  We can't take him out of the shopping cart ever, even if he's fighting it like crazy. 

He knows the direction to and from the school playground (just a few blocks away) and to the house around the corner with the amazing garden.  There's a big statue in the middle of the garden that he loves to talk to.  He loves to sit on other people's lawns and it's quite a challenge to get him off.  It's even better for him if there's a hill involved.

He is still picking up more and more words every day.  He put two words together the other day. He had a few phrases (all done, read a book), but I don't really count that as putting words together since we say it that way all the time.  At Target the other day, I gave him a cookie to munch on while we shopped.  I turned away for a second to look at something and he said, "mama, um um" (his word for eat) and held out his cookie for me to eat.

It seems as if his favorite color is blue.  That's the only color he will identify correctly 100% of the time.

He knows most of his numbers, but not in order.  10 is his favorite and he will scream it whenever we get to it.

He doesn't seem as tired anymore at night at his normal bedtime.  He used to bury his face in his pillow and yawn around 6:30 or 7 and would be out by 8.  Now I don't see any yawns by 8.  But we refuse to push back his bedtime routine too late since we need that time in the evenings to do stuff like cook, eat, and clean up.  So we put him in bed by 8:30 and leave the projector part of his white noise machine on (it projects a rotating theme depending on the disk you put in).  Sometimes he's up as late as an hour later, but he doesn't cry.  He just lays there looking at the ceiling and talking to whatever's up there and then when he's tired he'll just go to sleep.  The nice part is that he'll also sleep in a little bit in the mornings now...between 7 and 8. yay.

He still eats like crap. Ugh, it's so frustrating.  I know the pedi says it's normal for his age for them to be picky, but it seems like he barely eats anything.  He will LOVE a certain food for a few days and then all of a sudden totally refuse it.  We were on an egg kick for a few weeks.  That was fantastic.  Now he won't touch it.  Same with cheese.  The only thing he eats consistently is fruit, pasta and edamame.

Baby should be coming in a few days.  I think he will either be insanely jealous or insanely overprotective of her or both.  Either way, I think it's going to be a rough transition for us since he's so sensitive and emotional.  I feel like he knows something is going to happen because he has become extremely clingy to me the past few weeks, especially when I'm alone with him.  When PB is around, he does it less.  I guess I should cherish the last snuggle moments alone with him.