Do I have to go back to work?

The answer is no, but reasonably, it would be stupid not to. If I chose to not finish the year (take a "Child care leave" I'd not only forfeit the rest of my years pay, which is indeed reasonable, but I'd also be responsible for paying back my insurance premiums. I'm told that is in the neighborhood of 15K. That's a new car. It would just be stupid to do that.

So instead, I'm returning for the 16 weeks left to finish out the year. I cry every time I think about it. It isn't just that I don't want to work (hey, who really does?), the issue is being away from Charlotte. I just want to be with her and take care of her. Not slave away for ungrateful urchins all day and see my daughter for like three hours at night.

She is being slightly crabbier than usual and I suspect the three month growth spurt is the culprit. However, I need to keep an eye on her getting up in the middle of the night, which has happened for the past 7 days. She had gone to sleeping through the night most nights, but now I get a 1 or 2 am wakeup. I feed her, but it is possible she is just waking up and needs to go back to sleep. So we need to have Dave comfort her (because mom=food) and try just getting her back down. Even with the crabbiness she is really just a doll and I adore her.

Monday we went to visit my sister and her kids. We looked at baby books for Sophia and Sam and they pretty much look the same now. So even though I wonder what Charlotte will look like, she'll just look like herself, as she is now. Speaking of which, we took some pics that are super-duper cute. They show how well she holds herself up, the other one is just funny because she was hungry but I wanted to take a picture. Not a good idea- the baby is ALWAYS the boss!

Baby Update

We took a family picture last weekend. Charlotte is wearing the dress I made :-)

Yeast update: we have an appointment with the pediatrician on Friday to ascertain whether the thrush is receding rapidly enough. Also, my ob won't give me more cream unless the ped. says I still need to be treated. I'm out of cream and it is a great relief not to be applying and removing that crud 7 times a day. I also don't need to go through 16 breast pad a day.

Bottle Battle: yesterday, i took Charlotte to day care (Linda) for a trial run and hoping for bottle success. I took her there around 8:30 and just worried alot. I called at 11 am and she had tried the bottle a couple of times and said Charlotte didn't seem hungry (though I know she was, she ate 4 hours previously and before that it had been 9 hours). Then I called again at noon and she had some success. I guess Charlotte was sort of sleepy and finally latched on and took about 5 ounces. I picked her up and when we got home she napped and when she woke up was just frantic to eat. When I tried to burp her she went nuts and just couldn't get enough!

So, although it was a bit of a battle, she did actually take the damn thing and I don't think I have to worry that she'll hold out all day when I go back to work. I'll be taking her back sometime next week for another day.


Sleep: After a week of a super cranky baby at night, I finally realized she was just tired and needed to be put down earlier. Now she eats around 8:30 and is typically in bed by 9 pm. She now has slept until 7 am (with no feeds in between) a few days. I hope it continues and I am getting used to sleeping all night as long as the stupid cats don't wake me up!

Also, I joined a mom group, Mothers and More and look forward to being part of that. There are monthly meetings, playgroups to join, email listserves, activities such as wine tasting and sledding and probably lots more. I'm very excited about this and hope to be active even though I go back to work in 2.5 weeks.

Charlotte movie

This baby is just so darn cute! She is cooing and making cute noises. This started January 1 and it's so fun to hear her because she sounds so happy. No laughs, yet.

more pictures

We cuddle on the floor.









Charlotte under her play gym- she really likes this thing, the mirror and the jinglies.




























Charlotte in her pretty dress from jen flanigan.









The stupid cats on the changing table.

The Yeastie Beasties

Nearly every week at a breastfeeding group I go to, the consultants bring up the topic of thrush, or an oral yeast infection in the baby. Also, if you're breastfeeding you get it on your nipples, too. Several weeks ago, I noticed that Charlotte has some white on her tongue but I thought it was milk.

At her 2 month dr. appt. they noticed she might have thrush. I asked the consultants to look at it and yep, she definitely had it. So we got some oral Nystatin medication to be swabbed in her mouth and swallowed four times a day. We did this for a few days, but I was told by the lactation consultants that I should be treated too so it doesn't just get passed back and forth between us. So I called my ob and he gave me a Nystatin cream to be applied all the times I'm not nursing.

This was two weeks ago. My symptoms got worse (shooting pains in my breasts) and Charlotte started to clear up, but it looks like it is coming back. So I called ob again asking for a systemic antifungal pill and I got two. The literature I have says that I should have that pill for 14-21 days! Stupid, stupid. I'm so sick of giving the baby medicine and putting that damn cream on and then wiping it off 8 times a day!

In better news, Charlotte went from 9:30 pm til 6:30 am last night between feeds! Bad news is that now she has the evening fussies. but we're dealing with that.

The Bottle Battle

Anyone I've talked to recently has probably heard an earful about Charlotte and the bottle. This issue is driving me insane! We tried a bottle with Charlotte when she was three weeks old. It went okay. She took a bottle a few more times, though she took less milk, then only took it with a fight, then not at all. So when she was about six weeks she just wouldn't take it at all.

It wouldn't be a big deal if I weren't going back to work, but seriously, what will the child eat? So we've tried every bottle and nipple on the market. We used gerber, nuk, mam, soothie, dr. brown...I even tried the "breast bottle"...yep, it actually looks like a boob. Then last Saturday we had success! Dave used the brown playtex type and she took it in the morning and then another in the afternoon. yea!

Then Sunday we went to Muskegon and were on the road and didn't give her a bottle. So we tried again Monday- No way. Tuesday- No way. Wednesday- No way.

I've had it! So much anxiety from this!!I am so worried about when I go back to work in three weeks what she'll do...I guess we'll just try every day. I have some hope since she took it out of the blue on Saturday, but I don't know what the trick is to get her to take one from day to day. Boo hoo.

Merry Christmas

Christmas was good, Here are some pictures (I forgot to rotate the one of mom and Charlotte, just turn your head):






Okay, only a few weeks late, but Daddy prompted me to update and I feel obligated to go back to where we left off.

Christmas was good. Little Charlotte is just a champ at parties, she mostly sleeps and when she's awake she only cries when she's hungry. We did Christmas eve at mom's for whole Corridin side of the family then drove back home (since there was no snow it was nice) and then we drove back to Ski-town on Christmas day to celebrate with just mom. Then in the afternoon we went to Dad's. Highlights include:
Grandma gave us a water buffalo, well a donation of one to a needy family through "Heifer International"
Chip loved his "Aaaarghhhh ya free Saturday night?" tee-shirt.
We made Daddy cry with the offer of tickets to fly to Germany when he wants.
Alot of yummy food.
Charlotte slept 7 hours on the night of Christmas as a little gift to me :-)
I got some sweet magnets that are tiny but super strong and fun to play with.
I got some nice sweaters from Dave.