The joy of motherhood

I am so blessed with a sweet natured baby, yet he is so time consuming I can't believe how quickly the time is passing by. The last month has seen a few changes for both of us.

The first one is a sad one for me. Aiden has stopped nursing and is now bottle fed with formula milk. From about six weeks old Rob and I had several conversations about the possibility of Aiden being Lactose Intolerant. He had most of the symptoms, except weight loss. Instead his weight gain was very slow, especially considering his healthy 8lb 7oz birth weight. It all came to a head on Thursday evening when Rob came home to Aiden screaming in pain yet again. It had been building up for several days, but he had reached a point where he would not sleep for more than 15 minutes at a time during the day, and would wake up screaming, obviously uncomfortable. I started to do some online research and found that Aiden's symptoms matched all the criteria for Lactose Overload. We decided to try formula for a few days to give his body an opportunity to get some relief, meanwhile I expressed to keep up my milk supply. It was during the week that I was expressing and storing my milk that we realised the problem was my milk. It had no fat in it. No matter how much milk I expressed there was only ever a weak, watery milk coming out. After speaking to Rob's aunt I discovered this was not normal, that expressed milk should have some rich fat, that if left standing with separate to the top. In the weeks leading up to this Aiden and I had already instinctively tried feeding from only one side per feeding and then block feeding for several hours on one side only. It never worked. Aiden was always hungry, and with no fat to slow down the digestive process, he was also always in pain from the lactose fermenting in his intestines. Now that we have switched permanently to formula milk Aiden is no longer screaming, and is finally gaining weight that is more in line with his size. I miss nursing him, but I'm also aware that to continue would have continued to keep my son in pain and with a constant hunger.

A happier change is the amount of interaction we are now having with Aiden. He loves to sit on my lap and sing nursery rhymes with me. It is so sweet to here him try to sing just like his Mamma. He is spending more time sitting up and lifting up his head when we put him down on his tummy. I know it won't be too much longer until he starts trying to crawl. He changes so much each day, that I try to just soak in these baby days. I know they will pass too quickly. I waited so long to become a mother that I want to make the most of each and every day.

We continue to work on Aiden's daytime sleep patterns. He is such a good sleeper at night, still sleeping 9-10 hours every night. Most of his daytime naps don't last much past half an hour. I usually will only get one longer nap out of him (which is what he is doing right now) and so have to try and squeeze in as many chores as I can during that time which can last from only an hour all the way up to two and a half hours. The longer naps are a true rarity, in which I might even get to enjoy a few sips of coffee before he wakens up.

My favourite part of the day is always when Rob comes home. As I here the door I always tell Aiden that "Daddy's home" which is always replied to with a huge smile. I love that our son enjoys his daddy's return home as much as I do. It is a joy to watch the two of them together reconnecting at the end of the day while I finish getting dinner on the table. Rob interacts with Aiden in a very different way than I do and it really blesses my heart to see Aiden have the balance of both parents investing in his life and development.

I can hear Aiden begin to stir from his nap, so I will finish and get this posted before I go and see to him.

Single Income Living, a new category of post.

I have decided to start a new category of post here on my blog. As a family living on a single income in South Florida, where the cost of living is expensive, every penny counts. While neither Rob nor I thought we had an extravagant lifestyle, we are still finding ways to cut our expenses. I thought I would share some of them here on the blog.

Today I want to share my latest experiment. I made my own liquid laundry detergent. I was very surprised at just how easy it was. I got the recipe from the Duggars website (since I don't know how to directly link here is the web address - http://www.duggarfamily.com/recipes.html )and used Ivory soap, which was very easy to grate on a manual cheese grater. I made 10 gallons for about 60 cents. The one thing I did notice is that this laundry detergent does NOT froth the same way commercial detergents do, but it actually cleans BETTER. Both Rob and I are very impressed at how well it has worked, and how much money it will save us. $12 used to buy 1 gallon of detergent, but $12 in supplies will yield 20 batches of 10 gallons each.

I don't think we will ever purchase commercial laundry detergent ever again.

Schedule! What schedule?

I can hardly believe Aiden is two months old already. The time seems to be flying by. After the first few weeks, we started to get more sleep. Aiden quickly worked out a night schedule where he woke up only twice to feed and have his diaper changed. He would fall asleep for the night as soon as it got dark (between 8-9pm) and would wake between 12-1am and again 4-5am. His only issue was going back to sleep after a feed. He would often be awake for over an hour and a half. During the day was a completely different story. He would only cat nap for about 20-30 minutes at a time, and only while he was being held. The very second I put him down in his cradle he would wake up and start to cry. So it was back in my arms again. Aiden would also like to feed for about an hour at a time, any less than that and he would start rooting again in about half an hour. In the first month we had three growth spurts where Aiden would eat almost all day long, but continue with his night schedule as normal.


Then almost two weeks ago it changed. Aiden started sleeping for 8-9 hours at night, still falling asleep for the night just after sunset. Finally both Rob and I were getting a full night of sleep every night. The last few nights it has been 10 hours of sleep. So last week I decided it was time to start working on a day time schedule. Holding Aiden all day just is not practical. I still have a home to take care of, and meals to prepare, not to mention basic necessities like showering, eating and drinking. My darling son has a radar for when I try to eat. It seems the second I put food towards my mouth Aiden will start to cry with some urgent need, usually a dirty or wet diaper. So back to the schedule, my goal is to get two daytime naps of between 1-2 hours at a time for a total of at least 3 hours of day time sleep. I have so far got one nap set into Aiden's day, but then he is still cat napping later in the day. So this week we are going to work on that second, afternoon, nap.


Hopefully once we get Aiden's day time schedule worked out I should be able to get back to blogging more regularly, maybe even about more than just motherhood, which is about the whole of my existence right now.

Introducing Aiden Thomas

We are finally parents. Aiden arrived on Tuesday 1st June 2010 after a very long labor and emergency c-section. It wasn't the homebirth we had planned, but we definitely gave it our best try.

Below is the detailed birth story.

Labor started just before 1am Monday 31st May (Memorial Day) when I woke up to my waters breaking. We called the midwife to let her know and then tried to go back to sleep. About twenty minutes later the contractions started, immediately coming only 5-8 minutes apart. Both DH and I figured it would be a reasonably short labor at this point. By 2am we were both wide awake, so DH made us some steak for a middle of the night "breakfast." At 3am with the contractions consistently no more than 5 min apart we called our midwife again. She came to the house about twenty minutes later. I continued to labor for the rest of the night.

At 10am our midwife decided to check my progress. We were all surprised to find I was only 2cm dilated and 90% effaced, with the baby at -2 station. This was our first indication that our labor was going to be a lot longer and slower than we had expected. By 3pm dilation had increased to 3-4cm, and the midwife then manually stretched dilation to 5cm. We tried everything we could think of to help progress the labor. I used the tub twice, walked up and down the stairs, walked around the block. Eventually we even tried some homeopathy. By 10pm I eventually reached 8cm dilation, still 90% effaced, and baby at 0 station. Our midwife did notice a change in the baby's position, as the head had turned to a more difficult angle.

At 11pm our midwife let us know that we were close to timing out at home. Legal restrictions meant we could only continue at home after 24 hours from the water breaking if I was already pushing and making progress with pushing. At 1am I was checked again, and there had been no progress since the last check at 10pm. We now had to transfer to the hospital. Our midwife called ahead to get us admitted, and then grabbing just my tooth brush and tooth paste we drove to the hospital.

I have to say at this point that our midwife and her assistant could not have done more for us. They exhausted every resource they had trying to give us the homebirth we had planned. Our midwife also stayed with us at the hospital.

Once we got to the Labor & Delivery department I was admitted straight into a room, and after taking my details I was put on an IV. It took several attempts to get the IV in, but after that i was put on fluids, pitocin, and a mild pain killer was given through the IV too. My second night of labor continued in this way. Then the external contraction monitor was swapped for an internal monitor that would not only measure the contractions, but also there effectiveness. DH, being an engineer watched the output of this, and could see that the contractions were not doing anything. Exhausted, and now in more pain than I could handle because of the pitocin I finally conceded to an epidural. Our midwife finally had to go home at 7am. Once I had the epidural I could finally get some rest. I was put on a catheter too as I now couldn't feel anything below my waist. The nurse would increase the level of pitocin on a regular basis, until they had it at the legal limit.

Just after noon the baby finally started showing some signs of distress. I was still only 8cm dilated, 90% effaced and the baby was stuck at +1 station. Finally there was talk of a c-section to complete the delivery. DH and I already knew by this point that surgery was on the cards. I had not progressed in over 14 hours, even with all the medication. I had now been laboring for over 35 hours. We had to wait a little before we could have the surgery as there was another mother currently having a c-section, so we had to wait until her procedure was over.

Just before 2pm I was taken to the OR. At 2:23pm on Tuesday 1st June Aiden entered our world. We could hear him cry as he was pulled out of my womb. He sounded cross. It seemed like a few minutes before we finally heard the words "Its a boy." It was at this point the reality really hit me. We had a son.

DH went with Aiden to the nursery to be cleaned up and checked over, while I was stitched back up and eventually transferred to recovery. About ten minutes after I got to recovery DH came in with Aiden, and I got my first proper look at him. I tried nursing him, but we were both so tired and drugged that it didn't happen. After an hour in recovery we were transferred to the mother & baby department for our postpartum stay. DH got to room in with Aiden and I for the whole of our stay. This was crucial, especially for the first night as I couldn't get out of bed or pick up Aiden, he had to be placed in my arms. We continued trying to nurse Aiden without any success.

The following day I was finally able to get out of bed, albeit very slowly. Then once I was able to go to the bathroom three times my IV was removed. From that point it got increasingly easier to move around, although I was still on pain meds every four hours.

We were discharged on the Friday. Aiden was being formula fed after failing to latch the entire time we were at the hospital. We rented a breast pump from the hospital for 10 days, so we could work at transitioning Aiden to breastfeeding. I am glad to say that by Saturday morning Aiden was off the formula and feeding from his mummy. He has improved his latch and is thriving now as a breast fed baby.

We've been home just over a week and life is finally beginning to settle into a routine of sorts. We have a wonderfully contented baby. We have survived DH's first week back at work, and the departure of my parents last Monday.

Now the real adventure of parenthood begins.

38 Weeks, Now its all about waiting!

Today sees us 38 weeks pregnant. We turned full term and had our home visit from our midwife last Thursday. After months of being concerned about preterm labor forcing us into a hospital birth I've had a week of knowing that whenever this baby decides to arrive I will be able to stay at home.

As part of our preparation process we had a childbirth class with our midwife, and had a couple of DVD's to watch. This was a wonderful learning process for my darling husband. We then decided as a result of this learning that we are going to try for a water birth at home. The advice of our midwife was to have some trial runs ahead of time. This will then give me positive relaxing memories than I can focus on when it comes to the actual labor. It has also allowed us to figure out how to use our tub in a way that maximises my relaxation ahead of time too. I'm so thankful Rob had the insight to have such a deep tub in the master en-suite.

So far I've had several false starts with contractions. Yesterday they even got to less than five minutes apart for almost an hour before stopping yet again. Then nothing for several hours. It has been this way for almost two weeks, with each time getting just a little more intense than the time before. I know it is just my body gearing up for the real thing, which will happen when the baby is perfectly ready for it to happen. Meanwhile we wait. Wait for labor to start. Wait for our baby to arrive. Wait for our lives to change forever. In waiting we draw closer together and closer to the Lord too.

In Loving Memory of Papa Reid

Earlier today at 9:30am ET (2:30pm local time in Scotland) my last grandparent, Papa Reid, passed away. My Papa had been ill for many years with acute emphysema caused by a lifetime of smoking and working in the foundry of an iron works. He was taken into hospital last Tuesday with multiple organ failure (lungs, kidneys & heart), and the doctors finally stopped treatment on Friday. So today's news was not unexpected. Rob and I were already at Church, setting up for our Sunday School class when my mum called me to let me know. I was fine all through Sunday School, but had a bit of a cry in Church during the worship time.

My Papa has always had a special place in my heart, and I in his. I have so many wonderful memories from childhood of times spent with my Papa. He always brought me and my brother a treat home with him on a Friday evening on his way home from work. There were always loose coins in his pocket for his grandchildren. Later on as I grew into adulthood there were days spent together where he would tell me stories of his younger years, and the wonderful love story between him and my Gran. In the last months before I left Scotland to live in Florida with my wonderful husband, my Papa started to tell me about some of his experiences during World War II. My Papa volunteered at the very beginning of the war in 1939, as an 18 year old, and he saw action on several fronts throughout the entire length of the war until 1945. He never talked about the war, until those last few months we spent together.

He was a colourful man by any description. Born during a difficult time in British history, just a few years after the Great War. He grew up in what would now be considered poverty, leaving school at 14 years old to go out to work. He was a very intelligent man who never had the opportunity to further his education, but those were the times in which he was raised. As already mentioned he saw action for the entire length of WWII. He came back home after the war to work in the iron works, where he worked until he turned 65, when he then retired. He was a heavy drinker in his younger years, but by the time I came along he had calmed down and in later years would drink much less. My Gran was the love of his life, that he said goodbye to when he became a widower nearly 11 years ago. He was a very loving grandfather, and great-grandfather. He loved children, and I know he would have loved to meet this child I carry within me. However that was not to be. If this child is a boy, we will use my Papa's name in his honour.

I know I'm mostly rambling. The reality that my Papa is really gone is still sinking in. It has been difficult to be so far away from the rest of my family this past week, and it will be difficult to miss the funeral, but I can't fly transatlantic this far along in my pregnancy. Instead I have to take comfort in knowing that my Papa knew how much I loved him, and I would have been there at his bedside if I could possibly have been.

I love you Papa, and will miss you always.

Thomas Reid, 15th December 1921 - 11th April 2010

Update at last

I know I'm a bad blogger. I DO mean to keep this blog up to date and make regular posts, but somehow life seems to get in my way.

I can hardly believe it is April already and weeks since I last wrote anything. I guess the best place to start in catching up is to let you all know how the baby shower was. I really had not been looking forward to it. I had very mixed emotions, partly because in the back of my mind there is still that little voice reminding me that there is still time for something to go wrong with this pregnancy. A couple of hours before the shower I had an emotional meltdown, which my darling husband handled very well and reassured me that everything would be alright in the end.

It was nice to have three other ladies to share the shower with, all of them seemingly as reluctant as me to be fussed over, so everything was kept low key and none of us were put on the spot.


There was a lovely devotion, a few games and of course food.



We were each given a gift basket related to the devotion, which included some handmade items (my favourite)for our babies. I am glad to say I enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting to. The biggest surprise however was in how generous the ladies in our Church were to each of us.



In this economy, and with four ladies to split the money between I really didn't expect much, but we each got nearly $300 to use for things we need for our babies.



The following day our Sunday School class surprised us with another smaller baby shower, this time with gifts from the registry I had put together at Walmart to remind myself of what we needed. It was a truly unexpected blessing that has greatly helped us with bedding and clothing along with some other items.




The last month has been a busy time with much of my energy focused on nesting and preparing for the arrival of our baby. I am glad to say we are now almost ready. We got the nursery set up a few weeks ago, and the only thing missing from there now is a chair for nursing. The chair will be the last major item we have left to get.




We were also blessed this past week with the gift of a cradle for our family room. It is a beautiful wooden cradle given to us by a friend who used it for her teenage sons when they were born. She though we might have to replace the bedding as it was very discoloured from many years in the attic. However after stain treating it and washing it with a cup of bleach it all came out as good as new and is now set up in the corner next to me as I type. (Sorry I haven't got around to taking a photo of this yet.)

Rob and I have also had some illness. I started off with an ear infection in my left ear that was so painful Rob took me to the doctor's office to have it looked at. I was given antibiotic ear drops to clear it up, but just as it was getting better it spread to my right ear. At the same time both Rob and I came down with a head cold, which we both think we probably picked up at the doctor's office. Being infected and congested at the same time I have developed hearing loss in my right ear, which still has not completely healed. Usually congestion related hearing loss corrects itself in a few days for me, but I am now in my second week like this and it is still showing no sign of leaving. I am praying both the ear and the congestion will clear up soon, as I wouldn't like to be approaching labour still feeling like this.

Now that most of our preparations are done for the baby's arrival I am finally looking forward to that day, whenever it may be. I will be full-term on May 6 and could deliver any time between then and June 10. That's five weeks of potential labour starting at any time. I know statistically first babies are generally 5-7 days past the estimated due date. This particular baby has already tried to engage three times, eventually coming back up a little, much to my physical relief, as it isn't very comfortable for the baby to be that low down. I have thought for a few weeks now that this little one might come a little early, especially when they seem so eager to get out already, but I know that this baby will be born when they are good and ready and not a day sooner or later.

Anyway I need to end for now as I've still too much to do in preparation for Easter tomorrow.