Sign or coincidence?

Unfortunately the blood pressure medicine has not been helping my breastfeeding issues. I stopped taking it yesterday. I am still hanging in there with the pumping, even though it is difficult. This afternoon, I went to get the mail and in my mailbox was a random, full-size container of Enfamil Premium sent to us as a free sample. I laughed when I saw it, but asked myself if God was really blatantly trying to give me a sign, or if it was just a funny coincidence. I haven't decided for sure yet.

A Great Big Smile. . .Caught on Camera!

Happy Falker Satherhood!

10 points if you get the reference in the title. This blog post is about Cy's first Father's Day. For the past few weeks, Cy has been making me promise that I wouldn't get him a present for Father's Day. He felt bad because he didn't get me anything for Mother's Day. I kept pointing out to him that Gemma was born the Friday right before Mother's Day and that we didn't even get to leave the hospital until about 2 pm on Mother's Day, and that since he stayed in the hospital with us the whole time, there wasn't really an opportunity, but he still felt bad. So I promised that I wouldn't give him anything for Father's Day. I never promised that Gemma wouldn't get him anything. :)So, all by herself (ha!), Gemma picked out a digital photo frame for her daddy to keep on his desk at work. Then she got him an SD card and loaded it up with the many hundreds of pictures we have taken of her.

She also drew him this cute little card with a daddy, mommy, and baby giraffe that match the giraffes in her room. (Notice the baby giraffe has a mohawk just like Gemma's.) She is one talented six-week old!

We went to church, and Gemma wore this cute little yellow dress with the cupcakes on it (I am so excited that she is finally fitting in some of her 0-3 month stuff, since she has so many cute things).
Church went really well until Gemma decided she was hungry. We took her out to feed her, and she ate really well. Then all of a sudden, after she finished eating, there was a surprising (and frightening) projectile vomiting incident. We cleaned up Gemma, Cy, and the floor of the room at the church, rounded up my sister (who was here visiting this past week), and took off. It was very weird, because she has been fine since then, so we're not really sure what caused the incident. It might be awhile before we try church again though. We have only been twice since she was born, and she just can't make it that long. We missed the entire sermon both times.

After church, we drove to Florence to meet my parents and drop my sister off with them. We got to share a Father's Day meal with them at Cracker Barrel. Gemma did really well on her first road trip - she slept most of the way and didn't start fussing at all until we had already gotten off on our exit back in Charleston.

Long story short, I think Cy enjoyed his first Father's Day. I know that Gemma already loves her daddy so much and that he is the best dad ever!

Our Nursing Adventure

This might be one of those posts that is TMI, but it's something that's been on my heart a lot and I would love some encouragement and prayers from some of the other new moms that read our blog. :)

I really wanted to try to breastfeed Gemma, but I knew from the beginning it was going to be very difficult. So I was really surprised when she latched well and ate well from the very beginning. Everything went really well for about the first month. Since I have heard that this is the most critical time, I was feeling pretty good about things. I was even getting lots of extra milk so I started stocking up the freezer just in case.

Then things started to go badly. Just before I went into the hospital with my kidney stone, I started having a lot of pain while nursing. It was getting to the point where I was dreading every feeding (I had previously really enjoyed my sweet feeding times with Gemma) and I was in so much pain that I didn't think I physically would be able to continue much longer. While I was in the hospital, I was feeling so bad that I was having to pump the whole time and have Cy feed Gemma by bottle for a couple of days. I started realizing that I was feeling much less sore. I decided to pump for a few days and see if that would give me time to recover in hopes that I would soon be able to start nursing again.

I was feeling much better until I tried to nurse again. Even the feeding session started out well, but by the end of it, I was in a lot of pain and I could tell that poor Gemma was responding to my pain and not getting the nutrition that she needed. I cut the session short and supplemented with a bottle that I had pumped earlier. Since then, I have not been able to nurse. I continued pumping and feeding her breastmilk by bottle, but the pain gradually started coming back again (which made me think it was not a problem with her latch). Then I started getting less and less milk. By last week, I had dipped into my store of milk in the freezer and was barely getting 1.5-2 ounces each time I pumped, whereas before I was getting 4+ ounces, depending on the time of day.

I wondered about thrush, but the symptoms didn't really seem to fit. When I went for my six-week postpartum checkup this past Wednesday, I told my doctor what was going on and had her check for thrush. She said there were no signs of any type of infection. I described my symptoms for her, and finally she determined that she thinks I'm suffering from vasospasm, a kind of weird circulation issue. She was super excited about it because she had never had a patient with it before, so she was eager to see if the treatment would work for me (I was less excited about the whole thing).

The treatment is for me to take a low dosage of a blood pressure medication daily, to help with my circulation. I was really concerned about this at first, as I don't want to take any medications that could end up in my breastmilk. But I have been reassured by my doctor and pharmacist that this is a normal treatment for vasospasm and will be just fine for Gemma. I have been taking the medicine for a few days now. I am still not sure how everything will turn out, as I have been having headaches and my chronic vertigo has been worse the past couple of days. I am thinking these might be side effects from the medicine, or they could just be sinus problems from the weather here lately. The pain has improved only slightly, but the good news is that my milk supply finally seems to be back to normal as of yesterday, which was a huge blessing. I felt like such a failure when I was not able to provide the nourishment Gemma needed.

I am going to try the medication for at least a week and see how it goes. If it does aggravate my vertigo, I am going to have to stop taking it, because I won't be able to take care of Gemma at all if the room is spinning all the time. I would like to be able to continue giving Gemma breastmilk as long as I possibly can. I have already reconciled myself to the fact that I won't be able to nurse her again and will have to feed her breastmilk by bottle. This was a huge disappointment for me and very hard to accept. My hope now is that I will at least be able to continue pumping and feeding her that way. If not, then hopefully I can accept at that point that I have done everything I can and that it is okay for me to give her formula if necessary. That will be a disappointment for me as well, but I will just have to accept it if it needs to happen.

So please keep Gemma and me in your prayers as we continue this battle. Right now, I am trying to take it a day at a time and I am thankful for each drop of milk I am able to provide for my little girl, and I am thankful that I have been able to hang in there this long.

And hopefully this wasn't too much information. Like I said, it's been on my heart and it's been a huge emotional struggle for me as well.

Smiley Girl

Over the past week or so, Gemma has started smiling a lot and making a cute little giggling sound. I got to hear the cute little giggle for the first time today (up until this point, she has saved her giggles for her daddy). I tried to take a picture of her great big smile, but of course she stopped every time I got near her with the camera. So this was the best I could do. I think she looks like her daddy when she smiles. :)

Gemma. . .What Else?

Just wanted to post a few more cute pictures of Gemma. She is doing great - eating well, sleeping well, and growing! She is finally starting to fit into some of her 0-3 month clothes (for example, this totally cute outfit with the panda on the butt)!

We also recently got a swing for Gemma. She LOVES it. We are not sure what we did before we got the swing, because Gemma loves to be moving and we used to have to do the motion of the swing using our arms to calm her down, which got pretty tiring after a while. But now, when she is fussy, usually a trip to the swing will do the trick. (As I explained to her the other day: Cranky girls go in the swing).Another thing Gemma enjoys is what we call "lap naps." Sometimes even when she is really tired, she won't go down for nap in her cradle or her crib, but she will doze on and off cuddled up on the Boppy pillow on someone's lap. Here is a cute picture of Gemma and Cy both snoozing during one of Gemma's "lap naps."

Overall, Gemma is doing great. She will be six weeks old tomorrow. I had my six week check-up yesterday and was doing great. Hopefully I will be feeling completely normal again soon. I cannot believe it has been six weeks already. It has gone by so fast, and Gemma is growing so fast. She has already changed so much in such a short amount of time.

Watching Gemma Grow

I've noticed that various friends of ours have been taking monthly pictures of their little ones with the same stuffed animals to use as comparison for how much the little one has grown. This is a really cute idea, and a great way to see how much the little one is growing. I have chosen the pink giraffe for Gemma to pose with every month. It is my favorite (she is completely indifferent), and it was one of the first things I bought for her when I found out we were having a little girl. Because I am unable to plan ahead and can't remember anything right now, I didn't take the picture yesterday, but from now on, I'm going to try to take a picture of Gemma and her pink giraffe on the 7th of every month to watch how she is growing. So here is Gemma at one month old.

One Month Old!

Everyone has been telling us how times goes by so fast with a little one, and while we believed them, I don't think we realized quite how fast! It certainly doesn't seem like it's been a whole month since our little Gem arrived, but it has! We have of course been exhausted, just from getting used to having a new little person to take care of 24/7. But we have been really blessed because she is such a laid back, good baby. She is rarely fussy, she eats well, and even though we feel really sleep-deprived, she actually sleeps well. We have her on a schedule where she eats at 9:30 pm (after which we go to bed for the night), 1:30 am, and then 5:30 am, at which point Cy gets up to get ready for work and I go work out. So even though we are getting less sleep and we feel exhausted, we are actually getting more sleep than a lot of people with new babies! And Gemma sticks to the schedule - I don't think we've had a single night where she has kept us up other than her scheduled feedings. Once or twice, she has gotten up at 4:30 or 5 hungry instead of making it until 5:30, but that is about it.

And she is such a happy, cute baby! Even though she is a lot of work (as all babies are), we love her so much and wouldn't trade her for anything. It's weird thinking that just a month ago it was just the two of us. I can't imagine life without precious little Gemma now!

Why I'm Boycotting My Birthday From Now On

Last year, I had horrible landsickness after returning from our cruise to the Bahamas and spent my birthday throwing up all day.

This year, I had a kidney stone and spent my birthday. . .throwing up all day. . .and eventually going to the hospital.

I was feeling great when I woke up. Gemma woke up around 5 and I fed her but then couldn't go back to sleep so I decided to go for a run. I did really well on the run - it was a short run, but for the first time, I was able to finish the whole loop without stopping to walk. Then I came back, sat on the porch for awhile and read. Then my mom came out and we talked for a while, and then my sister came out and pretty soon the whole family was just hanging out on the porch enjoying the nice morning.

Then all of a sudden I felt this stabbing pain in my lower left back. At first I assumed it was just a muscle spasm - I was tired, I had gone for a run, and I have been taking care of a baby for three weeks. But it just kept getting worse and wouldn't go away. I wondered if I had a kidney stone but I wasn't sure since I had never had one before. Pretty soon the pain was so excruciating that I started vomiting uncontrollably. Cy called my OB doctor just to make sure it wasn't some weird postpartum thing. She thought it was a kidney stone but called in some medicine for me. When that wouldn't stay down and I still kept vomiting, Cy decided it was time for me to go to the hospital.

Since it was Memorial Day, things were happening extra slowly at the hospital. I eventually got an IV and some pain medicine, and much later, a CT scan which showed a small stone trapped between my kidney and my bladder, so that my bladder was actually backing up into my kidney (hence the extreme pain). Long story short, I had to stay overnight so they could get me hydrated again and keep pumping me with pain meds. By this morning, I was feeling much better and they were able to send me home.

Now everyone keeps asking me if it's true that having a kidney stone is similar to or worse than giving birth, since--lucky me--I've done both in the past three weeks. They were both intense experiences and were different kinds of pain. Comparing the two, the conclusion I've come to is that I think standard treatment for kidney stones should include an epidural. :)

So this is why I'm boycotting my birthday from now on. Maybe if I ignore my birthday, I can trick my body and avoid the inevitable raging illness that seems to accompany my special day every year. . .

Gemma's First Trip to Church

This past Sunday, we took Gemma to church for the first time. My mom and sister were here so we thought we could definitely try church, especially with the extra help. My mom even bought Gemma a cute little dress to wear for her first trip to church (she has tons of dresses but no newborn ones and is still not big enough to fit into anything else yet). Gemma did great on her first trip to church. She was awake most of the time, but didn't fuss much. Cy did take her partway through to feed her a bottle. After that, she stayed for the rest of the time. She did have some little baby hiccups toward the end, but we were way in the back so she didn't disturb anyone. She looked so cute in her new little dress, and got to meet lots of people!

A Couple of Random Cute Pictures of Gemma