What is bomit for?

“Mom, what’s this?” Hannah asked me as she held up a small yellow plastic mixing bowl.

“That is in case you vomit.” I told her. She was sick for a couple days, and I hate vomit. I had delusions of her actually getting the vomit in the bowl if she needed to chuck. But you know, they were just that. Delusions.

“Can we eat bomit?” She asked. I nearly died choking on my laughter, but I couldn’t let it out and make her feel stupid. That is a legitimate question when you’re 2.

“No sweetie, vomit is icky.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s full of half digested food.”

“What is bomit for?” She wondered.

“It’s for making your tummy feel better when you’re sick.”

“Why?”

“Because when you’re sick, your stomach doesn’t like having food in it.”

“Why?”

Sigh.

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Gold Coast – Part 3: Emergency Room

The morning went well enough.  I took Hannah for a walk to go get breakfast (mmm…McDonald’s breakfast is just so good! To all who are gasping in horror, please note, Hannah does not eat Macca’s breakfast.  She gets the healthier stuff).  Aaron, Hannah and I went to the beach and played in the sand.  We went out to lunch.  Hannah played at the park.

We packed the nappy bag and bundled Hannah into the car.  We timed the trip to Byron Bay (to visit Aaron’s Mum) to coincide with Hannah’s nap.  Otherwise, she’d be too bored for the ride.

Squeal, babble, bubble blowing, chattering.  She was full of beans.  Sleep was not yet coming.

Cough, cough.  I turned around in my seat.  The coughing sounded funny.

“You cheeky little monkey, you pulled your pigtails out!”  Hang on, where were the pony tail holders.  Oh, there was one, dripping in spit, hanging out of her mouth.  I quickly grabbed it.

But where was the other one?

Funny coughing continued.  Oh my goodness, was she choking on a pony tail holder????  I freaked out a little bit.  Ok, a lot.  Frantically, I searched her and her seat for the rogue hair tie.

Phew.  I found it.  Right at the bottom of her seat, between her fat little (adorable) baby thighs and the side of the seat.

“Maybe if you take your hand out of your mouth, you wouldn’t be coughing like that….”  She’s cheeky.  Maybe she wanted attention instead of going to sleep.  Well, it was working.

BLAAAA (how do you spell the noise for vomiting??)!!!  A bit of fluid came out of her mouth.  She reached her chubby little baby hand into her mouth and (with an awkward look on her face) and searched for something.  Her chubby little baby hand parted from her mouth, holding between her thumb and forefinger a chunk of pineapple.

She held her arm out to me, leaned forward as far as she could and gave me that “Here Mommy, I found something for you” look.  Gee thanks, just what I always wanted.  I took it from her.  What else could I do?  Ew.

She cried a bit and then went to sleep.

She wasn’t asleep for long when she woke suddenly, screaming.

The coughing started again.

Oh please don’t throw up….

BBBLLLLLAAAAATTTTT!!  Oh goodness, it was everywhere.  It kept coming and coming.  She kept retching and retching.  Where did she keep all of this vomit?  I don’t see how it could possibly fit into her stomach.  She was COVERED in vomit.  The baby seat was covered in vomit.  The floor was covered in vomit.

I freaked out a little.  Okay, a lot.  We all know how I feel about vomit.  Okay, maybe you don’t, so I’ll tell you:  Vomit freaks me out.  I have a phobia of vomit.  The only thing I was concerned about in regards to kids is the vomit.   I had been dreading this moment from the moment Hannah was born.  Even my own vomit freaks me out.  Lucky for me I don’t vomit very much (just saying vomit so much is making me shudder).  I hadn’t thrown up (maybe I’ll feel better if I use a different term) since 7th grade until a couple of years ago when I got food poisoning from day old Pad Thai.  I haven’t mustered up the courage to eat any Pad Thai since that fateful night.  I suppose throwing up so violently that noodles come out your nose has that affect.  Then I got food poisoning again from Chicken Man (I hate you Chicken Man) not so long ago and had to get a shot (did I mention I ALSO hate needles?) to stop the vomiting.  I HATE VOMIT.  I would rather lie completely still for a whole week, nothing to look at, nothing to do, then vomit just once.  Yuck.

Anyway, back to the story….

Freaking out, I told (probably yelled, I don’t know) Aaron to pull over.  Sure, we were on a Freeway going 110Km an hour, but Hannah had what seemed to be 3 days worth of food pouring out of her.

I’m pretty sure she was still going when pulled over.  I don’t know which one of us unbuckled the child seat.  I assume I did.  Maybe I blocked it out of my memory.  It was COVERED in vomit.  I quickly put her over my knees and patted her back.  I wanted to make sure she got it all out and wasn’t choking on anything.  She was screaming blue murder.  I don’t know what passing cars thought as they sailed by us, Me squatting by the side of the road, small child across my knees screaming while I patted her.  Maybe it didn’t look like patting.  Maybe they thought we were pulled over to spank a small child.  Oh goodness. I hope no one calls docs….

Great, now I was covered in vomit also.  I took the vomit drenched dress of the screaming child who held out her outstretched arms in my direction, wanting me to give her a comforting cuddle in spite of the fact the beneath the dress, she also was covered in vomit.  Oh dear, what do I do?  I wiped her off first.  Then I gave her a cuddle.  I’m terrible.

The car seat was soaked, but we were on the side of the freeway in the middle of…well, I’m not sure where we were.  Somewhere between Surfers Paradise and Byron Bay. We had to put her back in the seat.  We exhausted our supply of wipes, trying our darndest to excavate the mountain of vomit on the baby seat.  Shudder.  It was still soaking wet.  At least the chunks were gone.

Speaking of chunks, the incident produced some startling (and unwanted) observations:

1. Judging by the end result, Hannah doesn’t seem to chew.  At all.

2. Raisins/sultanas turn back into grapes after being in the stomach for a while.

3. There are whole corn kernels in the Heinz Lamb and Vegetable 10-15 month baby food.

5. Babies stomachs seem to hold more than most adults.  I wonder where they keep their other internal organs?

6. I handled the “my child is vomiting” situation much better than I ever expected.

We put Hannah back in the car seat and continued on our way, desperate to find a service (gas) station, that hopefully stocks baby wipes and some form of cloths.

Just down the road, we found one.  I went in, reeking of spew, a giant, chunky wet patch on the front of my dress.  Darn it, no baby wipes.  At least they had wet ones.  Humph, they were 6 bucks.  Ripped off….  I hope I was just being paranoid and no one could actually smell me, but I honestly think HOW COULD THEY NOT???!!  We cleaned up some more and continued on our way.

Cough, cough, cry.  Oh goodness, here we go again.  How could she possibly have ANYTHING else left in her tummy????  This time it was mostly water (I got her to drink some after losing that much fluid before), with more chunks.  Never in my life have I seen so much puke.  Ew.

Me in Trish's dress. Aaron thought it was hilarious

I don’t know how Hannah would possibly have any energy after all the puking, but she played rather happily (after we changed her into the only other thing we happened to have in the nappy bag, her swimmers) at YaYa’s.  Aaron and I, on the other hand, set about cleaning up the festy smelling rental car and baby seat.  Despite having a removable cover, then a foam layer, the actual plastic under all of that was full of vomit.  Luckily Trish had a hose.  And a washing machine.  And a dryer.  And a dress for me to borrow.

Hannah had one strawberry, and then the vomiting started.  Again.  All over YaYa’s (sorry, in case you’re wondering, Trish and YaYa are the same person.  Trish is Aaron’s Mum, but we get Hannah to call her YaYa as she already has a Grandma that she sees every day.  And Trish is half greek.) floor.  And her dress.  Booya for us putting her catch all bib on “just in case.”

Maybe I was being over protective, overly freaking out, overly worried, but after losing so much fluid, I was freaking out for her.  We decided to take her to the hospital.  A doctors office was not an option, it was 6 something PM on a Saturday night.

Zoe wasn't allowed in the hospital so she sooked outside

They took her weight, temperature, heart rate, listened to her chest, checked in her ears, etc.  They gave her an electrolyte iceblock.  At first she screwed up her cute little face at it’s random saltiness, but then she liked it.  She ate the whole half that they gave her, plus an actual whole one.  I quietly freaked out, expecting the spew to start again any second.  It didn’t.  Relief.  They told us to come back if she developed a fever, or starting vomiting again.  Fair enough, except that we were driving back to the Gold Coast straight away, then flying to Sydney the next day.

Hannah slept all the way back to the hotel in the nicely cleaned baby seat.  She woke up at 2am screaming her lungs out.  I gave her an entire tommy tippy straw cup of water, which she pretty much inhaled before going back to sleep.  We were quite worried that Hannah and I would not be able to fly back home the next day (Aaron would have to, he would have to go back to work).  What if she starts vomiting again?  We can’t go on the plane if she’s vomiting….

Go Go Gadget Arms

Time since birth: 8 months

“Mum. Mum.” I looked down to see Hannah standing, holding on to the chair I was sitting in with a funny look on her face.
“Blleeett.” She threw up a little and gave me another funny look.
“BLLLEETT.” This time it went all over my pants and the floor.
“What’s wrong Sweat Pea.” Some times she does little spit ups, but this was not normal behaviour for Hannah. Her little eyes were pleading with me, but I had no idea what she was trying to tell me. She still looked like something wasn’t quite right. I patted her back.
Something caught my eye “What’s this?” I asked as I reached in her mouth. I grabbed a hold of it and pulled. To my surprise and amazement, and entire unscathed leaf emerged from her mouth. This was no tiny leaf, it was about as long as my forefinger, and as wide as 1.5 of my fingers. Pretty big for a tiny baby mouth.
“Where did you get this from?” We were inside, and as far as we could tell, there was not a leaf in sight. She hadn’t been playing outside either, and I hardly took my eyes off of her the whole morning. She hadn’t been choking on it, just looked rather uncomfortable as it was in her mouth and down her throat. Cheeky baby.

I think we are living in the apartment of continual disappointment. First there was the mold (that keeps punking us no matter what we do), then the windows that the painters stupidly painted shut (and didn’t put the screens back on when they were painting), and the bathroom taps that are so leaky you need super strength to turn them off, the crappy toilet seat that was growing mold under the clear top bit where it was sealed in there and I couldn’t ever clean it, the oven that will only work if you set the timer (and I sometimes forget and think it’s heating up only to find out it’s cold when I go to put dinner in), the fan in the laundry room that sometimes works a tiny bit, but mostly just makes “I’m dying kill me now” noises, the cockroaches that won’t go away and poop all over our dishes, the blinds that fell on my head because they weren’t put up properly, snails eating all of our mail, noisy old windows that make creepy loud banging noises at the slightest hint of wind, a lawn under our bedroom windows that is supposed to be for our apartment only but other people do loud things like hammering on, and now, to top it all off, we went away for one night, only one night, only to find some sort of maggots crawling all over the ceiling in the kitchen. Not one or two or three, but heaps of them, and moths flying around in the cupboard (so maybe that type of moth comes from maggoty looking things?). It’s not like I left food out or dirty dishes in the sink. I did every single dish before we left, and emptied the garbage. I really don’t want to know where they came from or why they all of a sudden decided to take over the kitchen. Let’s just say there were lots of scared girly noises with flailing arms made by me, and then Aaron walking on the kitchen benches in order to get and kill all of the disgusting little maggoty things. Can’t wait to move!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think that babies have go go gadget arms. Things that should be very much out of Hannah’s reach seem to always make their way into her inquisitive little hands. She somehow managed to reach all the way up to the tray of her highchair to pull off a magazine. It’s only a portable, goes on top of a normal chair high chair, so it’s not as high as a normal one, but still, the tray is way above her little head.

Hannah has turned into quite the little chatter box, mostly when we’re in the car. She usually says Mum repeatedly, but can also say: Dad, bum, bubba, and what sounds remarkably like hi, but isn’t quite.

5 year anniversary :)

If a baby vomits after trying a new food, it could have an intolerance. How do you know if your baby is vomiting vomiting, or just spitting up vomiting? It’s like going into labour, you just know.

I was so excited to go out for our anniversary without Bubba. I even fed her early so I could get a move on. At 6:45 I was done feeding her, she was all sleepy eyed, and just needed a burp before I put her down. I put her over my shoulder and started patting. Nothing. I kept patting. She made a funny coughing noise that I haven’t heard before, so I looked at her. And that is when it happened. Vomit was everywhere. It somehow made it’s way around my entire arm. Not just the top , not just the bottom, all the way around. It was all over my shirt, all over my pants (which were my nice make my butt look nice jeans that I was planning to wear on my anniversary date), all over the floor, all over the magazine I was reading while feeding her, all over her wondersuit, all over her sleeping bag, all over my still exposed boob. How do you know if your baby is vomiting vomiting. Oh my goodness, you will know! But then there is the question of why. Is it food intolerance, sickness, fluke, who really knows?? I had to change Hannah, clean the floor, re feed her (she threw up her entire dinner, boob, and the carrot and zucchini she had at 5:30), wash myself. So much for my early exit.

What was I going to wear now? I had a nice outfit planned out, I wasn’t wearing the shirt at the time (as I was sure I’d get milk on it if I fed her in it), but the pants were now inoperable. I tried the shirt with the only other pair of jeans I can fit in (I only have 3 pairs, and the last pair is the best, but was always tight before I got pregnant, so I can’t even do them up now). Ugh, it looked terrible. Ok, plan b. But what is plan B? I looked in the closet. I got out the red dress that The Jess gave me and I haven’t worn before. I tried it on. Oh dear, it showed every unwanted curve, underwear line, and belly pooch. Hmmm…. What to wear…. Then I remembered the “California Beauty Slim Lift Body shaping Undergarment” that my mother in law gave me while I was still pregnant. “You will love this after you have the baby.” She said. I laughed at such a notion. Surely by the time I was going to go somewhere where I wanted to look nice and non flabby, I would actually look nice and non flabby. Before having Hannah, I was a size 8 and 48-50 kgs, so such a thing was quite foreign to me. I happily found the fat flattener (which I will now refer to it as) and put it on. Nice, it really works. I can’t say that I’ve ever worn an undergarment that went from the middle of my thighs all the way to my boobs, but hey, I wasn’t complaining. The only shoes (apart from heels, and I despise wearing heels and feel whoever invented them needs a swift kick in the butt) I have that go with the dress are shoes I bought and wore whilst pregnant when my normal shoes got too small for my swollen fat feet. Oh well, they’d have to do.

I shut the car door when I got out at Artarmon station and nearly screamed. Right there, on the door, was a very large, ugly spider, staring right at me (at least I felt like it was). It wasn’t a huntsmen, so who knows what kind of poisonous freak spider it was. I quickly sauntered away. Going up the stairs at the station, I could feel my feet slipping around in my fat shoes. Darn those fat pregnant feet that stretched the life out of my shoes! I somehow tripped up the stairs and landed on my knees. Everyone looked at me. Yup, I felt really cool at that point. I’m sure my fat flattener was now showing as well. The night did not get off to a great start.

I met up with Aaron at Town Hall and we walked to the Japanese restaurant we planned to eat at. This particular place does yum cha but with Japanese food. And I love all the little dumplings and yum cha-ey stuff. Closed until mid December. Ok, well I guess we can’t eat there. Next door was Seoul Ria. I’d never had Korean food before, so we decided to give it a go. When we got in, Aaron realised that he had been there with his old work before, and it was really good. We ordered a big sizzle pot thing (can’t remember what they are actually called) where they bring all the food to your table and cook it right there. I really wanted a cocktail since I hadn’t had an alcoholic beverage in over a year, but, they didn’t do cocktails. Humph. They did have a Korean raspberry wine though. I don’t usually drink wine, but I like raspberries, so we ordered a bottle anyway. It was good as far as wine goes. I just sipped it throughout the meal, and drank the equivalent of about 1.5 standard drinks. I think the combination of me being a lightweight anyway, and not having a drink for so long really made a difference. I was tipsy off 1.5 standard drinks (much to Aaron’s amusement).

After dinner, we headed one street over to a cafe Aaron found on the net that also has boardgames. You order desert, and also a board game to play while you sit there. Who ever thought of that deserves a medal. Brilliant idea. I’m sure we probably already own every single board game they offer, but it’s the fun novelty factor that entices me. Unfortunately, they were also closed. I guess we will have to go some other time. Instead, we headed to baskin Robbins where I indulged in some chocolate peanut butter ice cream. It’s about time the peanut butter ice cream hit Australia!!!! Despite the hiccups, we had a really good night, and I can’t wait to go out again sometime.

Other things that happened this week: Hannah started trying to crawl. When she is on her tummy, she puts her knees under herself. Not long now I’m afraid. Better get a playpen. She also rolled from her tummy to her back a couple of times, but doesn’t do it regularly like she does back to front. We had a Christmas party with our antenatal class (the girls I meet up with every week). Hannah helped open her present and got some really cute outfits from her boyfriend. She sucked on his arm for a while too, cheeky monkey. I think Aaron and I will have to teach Hannah about sharing, she keeps stealing toys from all the other babies. The party was on a hot day, so we went for a swim for half an hour or so and Hannah absolutely loved it. I got the Christmas stuff out to put up but then couldn’t find the tree, so I had to buy a new one. Lucky I’m the queen of bargains and picked up a 6 foot tree for $20. Score!

I finally cracked

“I’m going to go look at her” Aaron said.
“What?” I asked.
“Don’t you ever just like to look at her?”
“Yeah, I do it all the time.”
Aaron came back down to the laundry room where I was washing nappies. “You have to see this, she’s so cute!”
Not quite knowing what to expect, we went in her room. I peered in the cot, and there she was, on the very edge, halfway up, one arm through the bar and touching the wall, sleeping on her belly.
“Is she breathing?” I half freaked out, it didn’t look like a normal Bubba sleeping position.
Aaron put his finger near her nostril “I’m pretty sure I can feel it.”
That wasn’t good enough for me. I gently put my hand on her back. “Yeah, I can feel her breathing.” Phew. And maybe this means she won’t wake up every time she rolls on her tummy. Houston, we may have success!

1am- She’s on her belly again and screams for a feed
2am – “waaaa!!” The belly sleeping success is clearly not going very well. She’s not happy, she’s on her belly again. I go and turn her over and calm her down. Slightly losing my marbles.
3am – Oh my goodness, she wants me to turn her over again. Bag of marbles getting smaller.
5am – She is sick of sleeping on her belly again and cries for me to turn her over. More marbles leaking out of my bag….
6am – Dear Lord, I think I’m going to lose it. You know you are about to lose it when you dreamt about someone asking someone else how to do a moustache comb-over (um…what is wrong with my brain?) and then are awakened for the 5th time by a screaming baby that doesn’t know how to polley rolley (but can rolley polley).
I feel like Taz, the Tasmanian Devil. I wish I could just spin around in a cloud of destruction whilst shouting expletives, because at this point, that is what I really feel like doing. Instead, I gather my marbles back up, take a deep breath, and go turn over and calm said screaming baby. I’m so tired and frustrated and know that somehow, I’m going to crack. Rather then indulging in my Taz fantasy, I sat there, patting Hannah, trying to get her back to sleep, and I cry. I don’t usually cry, but when you’ve been up 5 times in one night (and she was never even up that much when she was a newborn), and are having crazy dreams about moustache comb-overs, something’s gotta give. I’ve finally cracked it. I decide right now that later today, I’m going to march down to the shops (ok, drive) and buy a rolley polley preventer (not actual name). The baby nurse said those can help (or the baby can figure out how to roll over it, but even if it gets me once peaceful nights sleep, it will be so worth it), or there are special sheets you can get that velcro baby in. Now in my head, that means baby wears a velcro suit, and then is plastered to the bed much like one of those game shows on tv where they don helmets, and velcro suits, jump on a trampoline, then get stuck to a velcro wall. Instead they are sheets with flaps etc. so you sort of harness baby in. I think my version would work better. I go to bed feeling only slightly better, but still like my bag of marbles is only half full. Luckily Hannah gives me another hour of sleep and when I wake up, I have regained most of my marbles. I can’t wait to get my rolley polley preventer. Fingers crossed it actually works.

As soon as I got home with the rolley polley preventer, I fed Hannah and put her to sleep. Oh my goodness, she put herself to sleep, no patting needed, and slept for an hour and a half. I think I like the rolley polley preventer. She woke up twice that night (would have been once, but I was too lazy to dreamfeed her and she didn’t appreciate it). The next night she only woke up once. Unfortunately it was down hill after that. She keeps waking 3 times a night, trying and trying to roll over in her rolley polley preventer (actually called a sleep positioner), and getting upset that she can’t. So basically, she gets upset if she doesn’t sleep in it because she wakes up on her belly and wants to be rolled over (and calmed down after waking up with such a shock at being on her tummy), or, she can sleep in the rolley polley preventer and then wake up cranky because she can’t roll over. I can’t win. I just hope this stage doesn’t last long, I really enjoy sleep!

“Boo!” Aaron yelled from the bedroom.
“Yes Boo” I said (yes we are weird and we both claim the other one is Boo).
“Can you get me a cloth?”
“Ok.” I brought it in. Hannah was over Aaron’s legs playing Airplane Bubba. She looked at me and gave me the cheekiest grin I’ve ever seen. I looked at Aaron. His lips were pursed shut and he had an “I can’t believe you just did that” look on his face. Something white was all over his face. I laughed my head off and Hannah laughed too. She thought it was hilarious that she threw up right on Daddy’s face.

Since starting solids, Hannah has had really sticky, messy, smelly poos (instead of quite runny, mustardy ones). This morning she had a nugget. I don’t know if babies are supposed to do nuggets, but there it was, all nuggety in her nappy. Maybe she is a little constipated? She didn’t have a lot of poo yesterday either. Hmmm…How do you know if they are constipated? Do I just get some prune juice anyway, and mix it with her rice cereal, or do I assume all is fine since there was a bit of poo (just not her usual volume or consistency)? Maybe I worry too much.

6 week check up

Time since birth: 7 weeks
Weight loss this week: 1kg (2.2lbs)
Total weight loss: 11.4kgs (25.13lbs)

Monday I went for our 6 week check up. We had just gone out the door when Hannah did the biggest chuck ever. It was all over my clothes, her clothes, the baby carrier, and herself. By the time I changed both of our clothes, gave Hannah a bit of a sponge bath, and got lost on the way there, we were quite late.

At the check up, they checked my stitches (first time since I got them), which were “healed quite nicely.” They checked my blood pressure and felt my tummy to make sure my uterus has gone back down. Everything was fine. They also gave Hannah a check up, and weighed and measured her. Finally, she is over 4kg. Only just, she is 4.1kg. She has also grown 7cm since birth.

After our appointment, Hannah was hungry, so i decided to try out the parents room at the shopping centre. There was a nice couch, TV, microwave, change tables, etc. It was quite nice and i didn’t even have to worry about Hannah crying as no shoppers would be able to hear it.

I don’t know if any of you have watched wipeout before, but it seems every time i watch it, i laugh so hard that tears come out. Aaron and i watched the other day and there was this large woman who was a bit scared to jump onto the big balls. Lucky for us, the “motivator” was employed. A big squishy block hit her in the bum, knocking her off the platform and onto the big balls. She was already covered in mud. As she hit the big ball, watery mud flew out of her top and hit her in the face (pretty sure her boobs hit her in the face too), she bounced off the big ball and tumbled into the muddy water below. Aaron and i both had tears from laughing so hard.

Hannah held a rattle for the first time this week. Sure, i may have put it in her hand, but she still kept a hold on it, and shook it a bit before dropping it. We’ve been practising every day since then, it’s good for developing her coordination and such.

I walked to my first mothers group on Tuesday. Even though it’s in a different town, it only took me 20 minutes. Apart from one other girl, I’m pretty sure I’m about 10 years younger then every one else. i guess people are having them late these days. It was good though, there was a baby nurse there and we got to ask any questions we wanted. Everyone seemed to want to know all the same things, which is reassuring. I just thought that maybe Hannah was a bit strange, but when i asked about her rubbing her face on our shoulders and chest, i found out that is normal (although i still don’t know why they do it).

One morning, i had Hannah on her change mat, with a diaper under her, but not on. She likes to lay there and kick her legs and coo. She did a giant vomit and i had to sit her up as she was doing it so she wouldn’t choke on it. It was like 3 big vomits in quick succession and got everywhere. Immediately after that, she did a big poo all over, and as soon as i took the nappy away, she peed everywhere. Interesting morning alright.

Grandma went wit me to the boob specialist to mind Hannah while I was in there. I don’t think Hannah likes doctors offices, she always screams when she is there. Poor Grandma. If i wasn’t breast feeding, they would take my lump out, but since I am, I have to have another biopsy (not fun, but i will get into that next week) on it just to be safe. He said he’s quite sure it’s harmless, but because of it’s size, wants to be sure. If the lump is still there when Hannah is a year old, then they will remove it. Hopefully my boob won’t resemble a deflated balloon after that. Since the lump is now filled with liquid, doesn’t that men that when they take the biopsy, it could all leak out?? Turns out, that is possible. Ewww. Guess I’ll find out on Thursday.

We have private health insurance, but does it cover Hannah’s heart appointment, my ultrasound, biopsy, boob specialist, or the gap in doctors fees when they don’t bulk bill? Not at all. So what exactly is the point of paying $200 a month for private health insurance?

Hannah has been a fantastic night sleeper recently. She slept for 8 hours straight 2 nights in a row. Unfortunately, i haven’t been so lucky. It seems a neighbor has taken to clarinet playing at 10pm. I mean really, who plays the clarinet at 10pm? Everything seems amplified when you are laying in bed trying to sleep, so to me, it sounded like there was a dying moose right outside my window.

Friday I had my first post natal pilates class, where i found out that due to pregnancy, i have 2cms of separation in my ab muscles. Basically that means that there is 2cms in between my abs down the centre of my belly. I’ll have to work out to fix it. The class was really good though, i used muscles i forgot i had.

Stubborn linea nigra

Time since birth: 6 weeks
Weight loss this week: Forgot to weigh myself this morning, can’t be bothered to right now
Total weight loss: see above….

I would have thought that by 6 weeks my linea nigera (or whatever it is called, that line that goes down the middle of my stomach) would have disappeared, or at least started fading. It is still there, loud and proud. My lochia has pretty much stopped now (about time!!!), which I’m extremely happy about.

I was brushing my hair the other night, and couldn’t get the brush through a bit in the front. On closer examination, I found there was something white that had dried in my hair. Baby vomit…. I have no idea how long it had been there (well, I mean it was that day sometime). I guess you know you’re a mom when you find baby vomit in random places.

Speaking of baby vomit, sometimes Hannah vomits (well, spits up) quite a bit. Then I think “is she sick, does she have reflux, is this normal???” Some of the girls (from my antenatal class, we get together every week) were wondering the same thing, so they asked about it at their mothers group. They were told that if the baby isn’t upset after spitting up, then it’s not a problem, they either drank too much, or it came up with a burp or something. Phew, she doesn’t get upset when she does it, so everything is a-ok.

For some reason, Hannah likes to take her morning naps on me (or Aaron on the weekend). I try to put her in her cot a few times but each time she cries, then it gets to the point where if I don’t let her sleep on me, she is not going to get enough sleep, and considering she doesn’t get a lot of sleep anyway (she sleeps 11-15 hours in a 24 hour period, they say babies should get 16-18), I relent and let her sleep on me just so she gets some sleep. I’ll have to ask about that in my mothers group which starts on Tuesday. Hannah likes to keep us on our toes when she sleeps on us. Her favourite position seems to be face first on your shoulder. I have to keep my hand on her back just to make sure she is still breathing and not suffocating herself. I don’t know how she breathes when she is face first on me, but somehow she does.

Finally, I don’t have roots down to my ears! The Jess came over on the weekend and dyed my hair for me. I am now a brunette (with a reddish tinge), and it only cost me $9.99 (but since there are no pennies in Australia, it was really $10).

I will have a very busy week this week. I have my 6 week check up tomorrow to make sure I’m all healed, etc. after giving birth. Tuesday I have my first mothers group, Wednesday, my boob specialist appointment, and then on Friday, I should be starting a postnatal pilates class. I left the registration a bit late (I’m faxing it tomorrow), so hopefully I will get in. I’m also going to take Hannah to the shopping centre to get some groceries. If she gets hungry, I can just take her to the mothers room which, I’m told, has TVs so you can feed your baby and not be bored.

baby poo, vomiting, and sleepless nights

Time since birth: 3 weeks 1 day
Total weight loss: don’t know, keep forgetting to weigh myself before eating
Weight loss this week: see above

I’m starting to get used to middle of the night feeds, posseting (spit up/baby vomit), crying, etc. You’re in the hospital for 2 nights (some people are there for only one, or none!), then you go home, and really have no idea what you’re doing. I have to admit, I called the midwives at the hospital at night more then once when I was still “under their care” (which was until Hannah was a week old) to ask questions. The charts all say baby poo is yellow, what if it’s green? I call and ask. I think I’m just a paranoid mom. Is it ok that she only sleeps for 12 hours in a 24 hour period (it is for now, call back if it doesn’t improve)? Is that going to affect her development (no, the average 16-18 hours sleep per day is an average, some babies sleep for 10 hours, others 20, depends on the baby)? Is it ok that she poops about 10 times a day, a lot of the really small little poops (yes, some babies poop after every feed, some do just a couple of big poops, everybody poops!)? She gets the hiccups a lot, is that normal (yes, and it doesn’t bother infants apparently, although Hannah doesn’t seem to like them much)? She gets a lot of wind, is it ok to use infacol (wind drops for babies that bind all their wind together so they can easily get it up in one big burp/fart. And yes, it’s fine to use it does not harm them one little bit)? How do I know when one boob is empty (still not really 100% sure on that one…)? The lump in my boob has exploded to about 5 times the size that was, is that due to hormones (probably, but I will have an ultrasound on it again just to be sure. Then if it looks dodgy, I will have another biopsy. I had one a year ago, and it was just a fibroadenoma, which is benign. I think my body just likes to make lumps and tumours to scare me)? They probably think I’m a pest calling so often. But you know what? We just want the best for our baby, and want to make sure we are doing everything right.

Grandma gave me a book a number of months ago called “What to Expect When The First Year.” I just started reading it, and found that I’m normal. I’m not the only one that goes into baby’s bedroom to look at baby while she is sleeping just to make sure she is breathing. I’m not the only one who worries that I’m not making enough milk, or that she is not getting enough milk. Apparently pretty much every mother on the face of the earth does these things, which probably means that a lot of mothers call the midwives at the hospital to annoy them with questions like I did. The book answers a lot of questions, and has a month by month what to expect. I highly recommend it.

The other night, I woke up to the sound of crying on the baby monitor. I wasn’t feeling particularly hot, but I thought I must have been, as I was sweating between my boobs. It took me a bit to realise that it wasn’t sweat at all, my let down (when the milk starts flowing) has decided to not wait until Hannah starts sucking, but instead starts when she cries. I had milk all over my chest. Lucky I bought a few boxes of breast pads before Hannah was born.

I have a special chair in Hannah’s room that I feed her in (except sometimes during the day I feed her on the couch now that I’m skilled enough to do so). It’s a gliding rocking chair, with a boomerang pillow that I put on my lap to lay Hannah on so I don’t have to actually hold all of her weight. I lay her on her side on the pillow, across me, with her mouth on the chosen boob. One day, after feeding her, I noticed she had a wet patch on the front of her onesie, off to one side. How in the world did she wet herself there?? I could understand it a bit if she were a boy, maybe it was pointing there when laying on his side or something, but a girl? At the next night feed, it happened again. How in the world are you doing this, little one? That is when I realised that when feeding on one side, the other side leaks. She didn’t wet herself at all, I wet her! I don’t particularly like wearing a bra to bed, so now I just put a breast pad between me and Hannah during the night feeds. Problem solved, no more wet Hannah Banana.

Friday I met with some of the girls from my antenatal class (and a couple of the husbands were there too as they had not yet gone back to work). We (girls) decided that we want to meet up regularly and go for pram walks (a walk while pushing babies in prams) and lunch. I decided (ok, Hannah’s tummy decided) that would be the perfect time to try feeding in public. I don’t really want to be one of those “hi, here’s my boob” people, so how do you do it discreetly? We all went to the local cafe, but they seemed none to happy to accommodate us and didn’t even try to help us move tables so we could all sit together and have room for our prams (even though they didn’t have any customers at the time, and would have gotten a nice chunk of change since there were quite a few of us), so instead we went to the pub. Hannah decided before we arrived that it was meal time, so I had to do it. It was quite awkward at first. I got one of the girls to hold up a cloth while I attached Hannah, but when you have to do it a few times (she likes to be burped a few times during each feed), that is just not practical. On the other hand, I didn’t really want everyone to see my boob and nipple, so what do you do? I tried to do the cloth thing myself (throw it over your shoulder, try to attach baby), but how do you see what you are doing? That didn’t work. I finally decided the best way is to bring baby to boob, then when baby’s head is blocking view of boob, that is when you pull up your shirt. Before you bring baby’s head to boob, unhook feeding bra so all you need to do when baby is blocking view of boob is pull up shirt, and bam, baby is on nipple, and unless someone was really trying to see and at the right angle (like sitting right next to you), no one will see your goodies. At least I don’t think they will. I feel a lot more comfortable with the whole thing now. The build up was nerve wracking, you just have to do it.

We still haven’t taken Hannah to very populated places (like shopping centres) (she has only been for walkies around where we live, to the pub for lunch, bible study, and church). Maybe we are being over protective, but we are afraid of taking her where lots of people are because we don’t want her to get their germs. Swine flu is on the prowl, we don’t want our little Hannah Banana to get swine flu! We decided that when she is 6 weeks old, then we will start taking her out. Her little immune system is just not ready for the world yet (or our silly brains, one or the other).

The linea nigra (line going down the centre of my belly) is supposed to go away after birth, but I wonder how long it takes. Mine is still there, loud and proud. It does look rather odd, with no big pregnant belly to accompany it. It hasn’t even remotely faded. I still can’t fit my butt into my pre pregnancy jeans (which fit me with the belly belt until the last couple of months of pregnancy when my butt seemed to expand), yet I am quite small, so I must have been really small before. And I always thought I had a big bum. I suppose I’ve just gotten bigger all over, so you don’t really notice that I’m bigger then before I was pregnant (it’s in proportion is what I’m trying to get at. I don’t make a lot of sense, must be lack of continuous sleep).

One night, I awoke to something touching me. As I woke up more, I realised I was being patted. Aaron was patting me like you pat a baby. Rhythmically, gently, patting my hip (I was on my side). He must have been dreaming about holding Hannah because he was fast asleep. I grabbed his hand and held it against my hip. I got some nonsense, not actual words asleep garbledy goop in response.

Everyone tells us how cute little Hannah is. People even say she looks like a doll. I may be biased, but she certainly is cute! I may be weird, but I often just look at her while she is feeding, or sleeping on my shoulder, and marvel at how absolutely cute she is. Her little face is just perfect. When she gets an upset tummy (wind), I wish I could just take away her pain so she never has to feel it. I want to protect her from everything. I guess that’s just being a Mom.