Finally Hitting My Stride

***WARNING: Some of the following content may be considered TMI by some...***

The past month have been a real challenge. My husband and I have welcomed our second child, a
beautiful daughter, into the world and that was the easy part. While our dear Ellie did have to spend an extra day with mommy in the hospital due to elevated bilirubin (jaundice) she is doing well now. The photo therapy bed she had to spend 18 hours on did make her look like a glow worm though.

I've had more trouble with the post-delivery stuff than the actual delivery. Shortly after the 2-week mark I started having breast pain. I went to the OB's office and found out I had mastitis. The short version of it is that I had pain, redness, and mild swelling in my left breast. I couldn't breastfeed off of my left side due to an inverted nipple to begin with (same thing happened with my son) and was waiting until Ellie's mouth had gotten a bit bigger to do that. In the mean time I had been pumping my left and giving it to her in a bottle while continuing to breastfeed her off of my right. The pain from the mastitis was so bad that I wasn't even able to pump. I began a course of antibiotics and after 48 hours saw no improvement and even experienced a fever and chills. On top of that the redness had begun on my right side. I called the doctor again and I was sent to see a general surgeon. Let me tell you, having to go see anything with a "surgeon" in the title makes me a little scared. Especially when you don't know what's going on. The general surgeon was very kind though and explained that I needed to go for an ultrasound to see if any pus had collected and if so that I would need to have it drained. (ICK...needle in boob doesn't sound pleasant to begin with. Needle in an infected boob much less so!) Fortunately nothing like that was found and I was put on a stronger course of antibiotics. Unfortunately I can't breastfeed while on these antibiotics. So for ten days (ending in 4 days thankfully) Ellie is on formula.

There are a few upsides to this: 1. my dear hubby can feed her while I pump to keep up milk production 2. I was able to have my father-in-law's famous Irish Coffee which he only makes on thanksgiving with out having to worry since I'm dumping the milk I pump right now anyways. The distinct downside to all this is that my milk production has gone down while Ellie's appetite has only grown. She now almost always eats 5 fl. oz. each feeding. I'm not pumping more than 3.5 oz so...I'll have a bit of catching up to do. I'm hoping that I'll be able to breastfeed her normally after the meds are through though the doctor did say that a case like mine usually leads to moms switching to formula permanently. BOO. I'm hoping that my stubbornness will serve me well in that way. Though time will tell.

On the up side of things, I feel like I'm finally hitting my stride when it comes to finding balance between my two children. I've found that finding crafts to do with my son are a great way to spend quality time with him while his little sister is asleep. He loves painting, glue, and making things and so do I so that works out great! One of the favorite things he's done recently is paint a piggy bank after dropping his dinosaur-shaped bank and breaking it. It involved a trip to the local Michael's Craft store and the purchase of one very large piggy bank and some oil based Sharpie markers. Daddy and Mommy got to help too. He would tell us what he wanted drawn, in what color, and we were to draw it. It was a fun family project and he was totally thrilled with the result. The fact that this one is a bigger bank than the last is exciting too. Fair warning to anyone that comes to the house: if you leave change on a table or in the sofa our little man will find it and finder's keepers! My little man also likes to bake. It doesn't usually matter what but he loves to help in the kitchen. His current favorites are baking bread and, of course, cookies. He helped me mix up the cookie batter for all twelve and a half dozen cookies that were needed for Thanksgiving. I have a feeling that Christmas baking this year will be a big hit! Check out his favorites in the Home Recipes section: Peanut Butter Buttons.