tummy upsets

This post is about gross tummy stuff, so you don't have to read it if you don't want to.

So, I'm pretty sure Chloe doesn't like pasta. I tried to give her a few cooked pieces. I put it in her mouth and her face turned sour, she started gagging, and proceeded to vomit and wretch all over the high chair.

The last few days have been rough around our house. Chloe caught some sort of stomach virus on Tuesday and has been throwing up and had diarrhea (not too severe, but definitely not herself). Then I caught it yesterday (mild form) and was not feeling great Thursday. Luckily I had a lot of help because I was sooo weak.

Did I ever tell you I have a fear of throwing up? Because I do. But I'm handling my daughter's puking surprisingly well (so far). It's amazing how you just spring into action. Maybe we've started to be trained because of all the spit up?

(unrelated picture)

8 MONTHS!!!

I have no pictures tonight, but wanted to just quickly put out there chloe's stats.

She has been sick with a cold/sinus/thing and it's been very hard. But when she is awake and not miserable, she's been soooo happy and mobile, developing leaps and bounds! We took her to the doctor last week and she was 21 lbs and 4 oz.

Some new talents:

- eating gerber puffs, some finger foods, and starting to be able to feed herself a little bit

- usually can hold her own bottle and sippy cup pretty well!

- starting to cruise along the furniture when standing with support, she is pulling herself up on everything, which is making for lots more tumbles these days.

- crawling, fast, and like a pro!

- she has FINALLY started babbling like all "the books" say she should, especially in the last 3 days. She used to only say "aaaaaaah... pbttttt" (that's ahhh, with a raspberry blown at the end) but now we're hearing:

"aaaaahbabab baa mamaga, wau wuh wuh duhduh"

(etc., you get it, consanent sounds).

- we bought a bigger car seat (halfway thanks to my Aunt Mary, she is the best) because she is quickly growing out of her infant carrier!

- Oh and also - she is getting 3 more teeth up top!! They are looking pretty in charge up there. haha.

It is SOOOO cute! I have a feeling that pretty soon we aren't going to be able to shut her up!

upset tummy

This is a pic of Chloe from a few weeks ago sporting her leg warmers from Danielle & her mac onesie from Christa. Thanks everyone :)

This post will be talking about baby poop. I totally understand if you don't want to read about that, and feel free to "mark as read" or "X out" or disregard, however you choose. But if you do, just say a little prayer for my chloe if you don't mind.

For the last 4-5 days, Chloe has been pooping ... a lot. like 6 times a day. This is very abnormal for her, she usually goes max 2 times, sometimes not at all, but most consistently about 2 times every day. The poop is all different colors & consistencies, I'll spare you the details, but you can tell that something weird is going on in her tummy. I am trying to isolate what could be causing her digestive upset. She doesn't seem to be too uncomfortable or in pain tummy wise except for her poor little raw bum, with her worst diaper rash to date. I took her to the docter because she was crying when we were wiping her... and I felt terrible for her and wanted to figure out the cause. They gave me a perscription, Nizoral cream, for her bum but you have to be careful how much you use it and honestly I'm nervous about using it on her based on the side effects and how delicate her skin is already :( But I'm gonna try for a few more days and see if it helps. So that is 2x a day and the rest of the time I'm trying to be very gentle, wipe with warm wipes, give her a little air and use desitin.

I feel so bad for her..... she just keeps going and going (poo). I cut a lot of her solid food intake back. I wondered if maybe it could be the little baby jar meats (I tried a one of chicken/sweet potatoes & just chicken last week for the first time). Brian is convinced it is. Me after hearing Similac is convinced that there is beetle larvae in the Target Up&Up formula that is her main source of nutrition. I still am breastfeeding in the morning, and this makes me wish I was breastfeeding even more, so I'm trying to maybe build my supply back up a bit so I can get one more nursing in a day and take out one of her formula bottles because usually breastmilk is easier on their systems.

anyway, not a huge thing, I don't think, but still I'm trying to figure it out.

--this mommy wishes she knew the answers--

sleeping

This whole sleeping thing is so weird. Getting on baby's schedule, while trying to slowly mold her a bit more to ours. We've had a pretty good week so far - 3 out of teh four nights she's slept 6-7 hours at a time from around 9:30 to 3:30 ish, its been truly amazing. I didn't believe she could do it, but Brian was convinced so we started putting her down in the co-sleeper a little earlier... usually she falls asleep on her own but 2 nights I had to rock her to sleep (which only takes about 10 minutes) after her last feeding. Chloe is so funny when she's trying to wake herself up out of that deep sleep, she makes so many grunting noises... she stretches and squeals and sucks her fingers as she realizes how long its been since she ate!

I seriously think one of the secrets is the Halo SleepSack, Swaddle - We use it almost every night as her "blanket" and it keep her warm and cozy. I know eventually we won't be able to swaddle her arms in... but for now its working really well. Its a bit of a pain to get her out of it but worth it for the sound sleep she seems to get in it. I have a few other "sleep bags" that don't have the swaddle aspect so soon we will try those at night.

So we are hoping this pattern continues. I am really enjoying sleeping in the same room with her in the co-sleeper, it gives me so much peace and security to just lean over and know she is safe and warm with us. But at the same time I don't sleep as soundly, especially around the 5 hour mark I usually wake up and just wait and watch for her to wake up for 45 minutes. And when she makes noises they wake me up. The SIDs guidelines say baby should stay in the room with you for at least the first 6 months. I don't think that we will be able to do it that long though... I was thinking at the end of this month to start putting her in her crib. It certainlymakes it easier to nurse her when she is right there. Well... we will come to a decision.

Anyway... things are pretty good. I really hurt my back yesterday... doing nothing, I think I irritated it trying out different baby carriers the 2 days previous. So this is not good and is making it hard... I've had to ask for help from friends and family to come and help me with Chloe because sometimes my back hurts SO much I feel like I'm going to drop the baby.

I've started doing some work again for my old employer which is great but is making things quite hairy!

Oh also... we finally bit the bullet and got a new (used) car. We've been driving beaters for so long, it was time... things fell into place. Although I hate having a car payment again (its been a few years for us), it is worth it. This car rocks! It's a 2006 Hyundai Santa Fe.

intercostal neuritis

That is my diagnosis of all the upper abdominal/chest pain that I have been having for over 2 months. The burning, stretching, tingling, screaming pain that is now preventing me from doing things, sitting for long, standing for long, stretching to high, basically anything and everything. The midwife/chiropractor believes it is a compressed or pinched nerve in the area between the ribs, caused by out of place ribs and causing all the radiating pain. Truthfully, there's not that much information about it on the internet, so I'm not sure it's very common problem

I'm getting chiropractic care now - but I'm not convinced it's the whole problem because the pain seems more central and close to my skin. And after 3 treatments I'm seeing no improvement. In fact Sunday was the worst day I've ever had and I almost couldn't sing the second set of songs at 11:00. I don't know. It's too late for any sort of nerve block injections or anything like that because baby is too high up. Sometimes her little feet hit me in the area of the pain - which doesn't make it any better or worse. I try ice occasionally and it feels good while on it but doesn't last long. I can't take any anti-inflammatory meds like ibuprofen during pregnancy.

Anyway ... there's an update for anyone who might be interested. If you could lift up some prayer for me, I would really appreciate it. It's very frustrating and overwhelming to feel so helpless and in pain so often. I know my baby is worth it and I will of course persevere but I would love some relief from this! And at least knowing that it will go away once the baby is born, that would be some good knowledge too - but you never know... with these things there is no guarantee!

definitely bronchitis

On a 5 day steriod and a 5 day antibiotic treatment. not fun. coughing so hard i cry.

and...worst timing ever, brian has to go away for 2.5 days and leave me alone when i really need him. arghghghg;lkajsdf;lk.

ok i'm done complaining now. as long as the baby is ok though and not affected by this, i will go through whatever i have to.

23 weeks

How your baby's growing at 23 weeks:

Turn on the radio and sway to the music. With her sense of movement well developed by now, your baby can feel you dance. And now that she's more than 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound (about as much as a large mango), you may be able to see her squirm underneath your clothes. Blood vessels in her lungs are developing to prepare for breathing, and the sounds that your baby's increasingly keen ears pick up are preparing her for entry into the outside world. Loud noises that become familiar now — such as your dog barking or the roar of the vacuum cleaner — probably won't faze her when she hears them outside the womb.

See what your baby looks like this week.

The baby's movements are just part of my daily life now. I love it. She often kicks or pushes on my bladder and makes me have to go the bathroom... and I'm daily seeing my stomach actually move when she kicks... usually at night. I'm shocked it's happened so soon.

I've also put on a lot of weight over the last 3 weeks. It's a bit scary. I knew I was going to gain a lot, but seeing the numbers certainly freaks me out!

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Also, I'm self-diagnoising that I have bronchitis as a result of my asthma attack Sunday. The coughing is insane and I'm choking on it. Sorry, TMI. But it hurts and I'm miserable. I also have a bit of a fever today, 100.1 degrees. I am going to the doc at 1:15 so we'll see if I'm right or not. I don't know if there is any treatment for this or if I just have to wait for my body to fight it off.

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In other news, we are working on our worship CD... and it is out at production, which means hopefully it will be out in a few weeks! This project is about 2 years in coming so it's exciting its finally happening!

a rough night

Last night while friends while friends were over, starting around 9:00pm ish, I started having some trouble breathing. This happens to me sometimes and usually is relieved by my Albuterol inhaler. I tried using it and felt a bit of relief but not a lot. Before bed I could tell it was going to be a rough night. All I can describe it is as -- feels like a weigh on my lungs -- slight wheeze at times -- feels like I can't get a complete breath. If you've never had trouble breathing, its hard to describe how scary it can be and how we take it for granted, but all of a sudden you are thinking of every breath you're taking and it is so exhausting.

Anyway the night progressed like this and I kept puffing my inhaler (3x?) but felt like it wasn't giving me the medicine I needed because my symptoms were not decreasing. After a restless night I woke up around 6:30 and thought maybe a hot shower could help clear things up. They didn't and the morning was so bad, I was wheezing, hacking and my chest was under so much pressure - it hurt to take every breath. My mom brought over her inhaler and that helped me a bit more then mine was - confirming mine is out of medicine. I got a refill on mine though so hopefully I'm ok. Once the inhaler started to work I felt better when I wasn't active, but as soon as I got up and moved around, even to climb the stairs I am SO out of breath - I feel like I'm 80 years old and 700 lbs.

I called the doctor on call and she said to keep using the inhaler as I needed to to feel better, and that if the symptoms continued to call my doctor and they would probably prescribe some steroid inhalers to get things under control. I will try tomorrow but I refuse to see their nurse practitioner, because they do NOTHING for me. It is frustrating to say the least, I've already been in one time about my asthma and she just said "suck it, deal with it" basically. (the NP, not my PCP)

In other awesome news though, the baby has been ridiculously active the last few days. I have been enjoying stronger sensations and new feelings - and the baby has moved my hand on my stomach at least 3x with kicks, and Brian, my mom, my sister and my friend Christie were all able to feel her kicking yesterday. She was kicking so hard. (or punching, or flipping, not sure exactly what the movements are). It was awesome. Brian and I also bought a pre-natal listening device around 16-17 weeks and for the first time were able to pick up the baby's heartbeat last night. It was so awesome. We could hear some movement too, I think - well I was feeling at least! Then the baby must have shifted positions becuase we lost hte heartbeat but picked it up again. It was so cool! We just laid in bed listening to it (it comes with 2 headphones) haha.

I'd definitely recommend that thing for a $20 price tag. It's a bit of work to find the heartbeat and hear stuff, but it is totally worth it when you do. I'm surprised we could hear it so early.

Anyway if you wouldn't mind, say a prayer that this asthma gets under control. I'm afraid its only going to get worse as I get bigger!