Monthly Archives: November 2009

Updates and Replies

Posted on by
1

No post yesterday.  I didn’t feel up to it.

Today, however, is pretty great.  I had this huge outpouring of support from my “unattainable dreams” post, it that has made the biggest difference.  I can’t even begin to say.  I want to reply to every single comment, and that would be silly to do in comments (I don’t even know if people have noticed that I always reply – does it notify you?) so I’m going to do it here in my post.

Also, I installed a captcha plug-in to stop SPAM messages, but it stops people from being able to comment.  If you can’t comment, email me at mandy at tempestbeauty dot com and let me know.  I will try to get it fixed, perhaps try a new captcha thingy.

In other news, this is how yesterday went.

Nap from 10 am until 12pm – 2 hour naps… SO NICE for mum.

Nap from 2pm until 3pm – 50 minute nap is typical.

Nap from 5pm until 6pm – Kept him up longer than usual, and let him have a short LATE nap.

Bath, lotion, story at 8:30pm – Nearly an HOUR later than his usual bed time.

Sleep at 9pm.

He woke up at 10, and fell right back asleep.  Woke at 11 and nursed… but DIDN’T GET UP.

He woke every 2-3 hours to nurse, but he stayed in bed ALL NIGHT.  I consider that a success!!  A small one, but success none the less!

Now, on to the replies.  They will come in order.

Kristin:  First of all, I love you and I miss you.  You really should come visit me and meet my son.  Soon please.  Where are the crackers??  Anyways… we have tried skipping naps before… seems to make him more tired, and harder to put to sleep.  Brock thinks it works, I think it doesn’t.  We’ll have to try it again. :)

Lindsay W:  I can’t even tell you how right you are!  And how much your support means.  Thank you.

Stacey:  We went through a few weeks of trying to figure out if it was medical, and the doctor eventually told us he thinks it’s entirely behavioral, we’ve spoiled him, and that we just need to let him cry it out.  I don’t, however, take parenting advice from pediatricians, only medical advice.  I take parenting advice from parents that have the same parenting attitudes as I do… and well behaved kids. :)   I’m glad to hear it gets better… at least I still have that to look forward to.

Alena:  We tried the later bedtime!  We’re gonna try it again tonight, see if it continues to work.  Thank you!

Holly:  PLEASE keep reading and commenting!  It’s MORE than okay!  This is EXACTLY why I’m doing this… to help other moms realize that parenting problems are universal, and to get help with problems that I have.  Thank you SO much for what you’ve said.  You made my heart feel better.  I LOVE that Kai still comes to sleep with you… and I will be totally happy if Ronan does the same thing.  I imagine those early morning cuddles being one of the best parts of your day.  And, yes.  Last week was amazing.  I couldn’t remember how amazing it felt to have that much sleep every night.  Brock and I even stopped bickering over stupid things.  I miss it already.

Beth:  Of course you are right.  Sucking it up is a learning process… and I suck at it so far. :)

Gemma:  You are totally awesome.  I started doing that the other night.  It makes him scream, and get mad, but I just have to be more stubborn than he is.  Once we lie down, we’re down for good.  It’s been working :)

Wulf:  Thanks. :)

Cate:  We’re trying!  You’re right, I totally miss those few hours… but, again, you’re RIGHT!  We weren’t getting them anyways!  We were just battling.  Guest room… yeah.  Sometimes I don’t mind.  Sometimes… I could spit.

Michelle:  I just love you. :)   Thanks for understanding so well.  I really needed the judgement free support.  You are exactly right… sometimes you just need to vent, and it doesn’t help to get trashed on for doing it. Brock is such an amazing daddy… he just doesn’t seem as able to deal with the shitty stuff.  But he steps up to the plate when it’s his turn.  And I love him for it.

Dahnya:  We have an unusual situation… because Brock DOES work M-F 8-5.  So he has to get up early every morning.  And when I work, I work Saturday and Sunday overnight shifts.  Which means that 2 nights a week, Brock DOES have to deal with the baby.  Alone.  Because I’m at work.  And the shitty part of that deal is, the two nights that he’s dealing with the baby where I could POTENTIALLY get some sleep, I’m at work instead.  So I never get those two nights of great sleep, and he still feels like he’s working his crapper off with the baby.  I can’t be upset, because I know how hard it must be for him when I’m gone – at least when I’m home and dealing with the baby, if it gets to be too much, I have him there to help.  He doesn’t have that. :(   He also doesn’t agree with crying it out, and I’m thankful for that.  Most of our parenting choices are made together, and we stick to them together.   Thank you for your support.  So much. :)

And really, in the end, just THANK YOU to all of you.  You are so amazing, and so supportive, and I don’t know how I could make it through some days without knowing there are people out there who just care.  Thank you.

My Entirely Unattainable Dream.

Posted on by
11

I sit here and sit here staring at a blank screen.  I do not have writers block.  When I decide to write something down, I get it out no matter what.

I sit here and sTBRonanSleepingtare at this blank screen because there are problems in my household, and I aim to write about them.  However, I know what kind of comments my writing will inspire, and I’m not entirely sure I’m ready to put up with them.  In my dreams, there is a place where people are supportive, and caring without judging, disapproving, or saying “I told you so.”  And even if the choices I’ve made as a parent seem entirely foreign and quite frankly stupid to you, I’d love you to just be able to comfort, commiserate, and care.

For one blessed week, we had sleep in our house.  A whole week went by where Ronan went to bed at night, and only woke once in the night to eat.  He didn’t scream upon waking, and he didn’t wake to play.  He slept, and I slept, and Daddy slept.  After a whole week, I thought we’d beat the battle, the demon had been slayed, and our son had finally become a good sleeper.  Better days were ahead, bad nights behind us.  That’s what I thought… what I’d hoped.

Instead, we’ve had a massive regression.  I’m not entirely sure what happened, and even though there are other people in this household that would like to lay the blame on me, I don’t think I’m the cause of the problem.  Perhaps that’s just my way of trying not to feel like I’ve messed everything up royally.  Whatever.  It’s my blog.

Ronan goes to bed around 7pm.  I say ‘around’ because we try to be very flexible and guided by his cues.  If he’s acting very tired around 6:30, we’ll put him down early.  We want to get him in bed during his sleepy time in order to get him to sleep easily.  We don’t like to let him get over-tired, which causes a battle.  This is a lesson learned the hard way.  During the day, Ronan has at least three 50 minutes naps.  Every now and then, he’ll get a 2 hours nap, which is great, but difficult to repeat.  At night, Ronan has a bath, then baby lotion, then pajamas, then a book.  His routine has been the same every night for nearly 5 months now, so he KNOWS when it’s bed time.  Usually right around the time we get the lotion on, he starts to cry.  He’s not hurting, or hungry – he’s upset.  He knows that we’re about to try to put him to sleep, and he’s mad about it.

Typically, putting him to sleep for the first time at night is easy.  I no longer nurse him to sleep, so he doesn’t have that sleep association.  We’ve worked very hard at being able to get him drowsy but still awake, and to put him down.  We can put him down in his crib, or in our bed, and he will usually fall asleep.  Sometimes it takes 3 or 4 tries, sometimes it takes 15, but we persevere.  I don’t want him to have to be rocked to sleep every single time he wakes up.

So.  The child is asleep around 7pm.  And… he wakes up around 8pm.  We go up and give him his paci, pat him on the butt a few times, and he’ll go back to sleep on his own.  Why does he wake up in the first place?  Why can’t we make it beyond that 50 minute sleep mark?  I don’t know.  However, the 8pm mark is the easy one.  It’s the 9pm mark that is the cause for distress in my home.  At 9pm, Ronan wakes up for the night.  He’s had a great 2 hour nap, THANKS MOM, and he thinks it’s time to play.  It doesn’t matter WHAT I have done to try to discourage this behavior… I can spend hours in his room rocking him, bouncing him, nursing him, laying him down in his crib, walking with him, singing to him, cursing at him, crying to him, begging him and any other number of activites trying to encourage him to stay in bed – inevitably he wears me down to the point that I can’t take him any more, and quit.  Because I’m about to lose it.

Have you ever lost it at your child?  It’s not a proud moment.  I set him down in his crib, and he starts screaming, and I walk out of the room.  I close the door behind me, and I go downstairs to try to compose myself.  Usually, I tag Brock in, because I can’t deal with him any more.  Usually, Brock gets him up because he’s not willing to get that upset over sleeping.

It’s at this point, from 9pm on,  that Ronan will not go back to sleep until after midnight.  MIDNIGHT.  From midnight on?  He wakes every 2 hours and screams to eat.

No one in my house gets sleep.  Brock has started sleeping in the guest room, which fosters feelings of unfairness – I don’t get nights in the guest room.  And then I get bitter.  Mad at dad, mad at baby, mad at me.  And I don’t know what to do to fix this.  I don’t know where we went wrong.  I hate this feeling, and I just want one good night.  JUST ONE.  Put him to bed, and he stays there.  I don’t even care about the stupid night feedings.  Wake up and eat, just QUIT SCREAMING AT ME.

I take a deep breath.

I close my eyes.

I remember that a few years from now, I will miss every moment of his babyhood.

I tell myself ‘this too shall pass.’

What more can I do?

Happy Blogiversary!

Posted on by
3

I just realized that on the 15th, my little blog has been live for one whole month.

I’ve had a lot of fun with it so far.  I hope that I can keep it up.  I find myself thinking about my daily adventures and how they can translate into a good post.  So far, today, I’ve got nothing.  I’m being entirely domestic.  Grocery shopping is already done, fridge is cleaned out, baby is down for a nap, diapers are in the wash, and baby clothes are almost done in the dryer.  Maybe need to wash some mommy-daddy clothes today too.  I think I’m out of underwear.

I’m sitting in the floor, eating a cup of oatmeal because it’s the first thing I’ve had to eat today.  I got up and rushed to Game Stop to pick up a ‘new release’ game for Brock, and didn’t have time to eat.  Then, when I stopped at Starbucks to get a Vivanno Strawberry Banana smoothie, they didn’t have any bananas.  I asked the lady if she could just make me a strawberry smoothie, and I was duly informed that it wouldn’t be any good, because the consistency wouldn’t be right; it would just be all foamy.  So I said ‘thanks, have a nice day’ and left.  But what I was really thinking is Damn Starbucks always lets me down when I need it the most.

The baby dishes are sitting in the sink waiting to be washed.  My kitchen floor needs to be mopped, and the living room needs to be vacuumed.  Ooops, there goes the dryer.  Better get back to work.

Speaking of work… I have to work a 12 tomorrow.  Such is the life of a stay-at-home-full-time-working mom.

Video-Mini: Chief Ronan

Posted on by
Reply

Actual Conversation:

Me:  Hey mom… what is the name of the type of Indian we have in our family?  I tried to tell Brock what it was and I couldn’t remember.

Mom: Let me think… um… Oh!  The Micmac Indians!

Me: (begins laughing) Are you serious?  When I couldn’t remember the name, I told Brock they were called something like, “The Paddiwhack Indians.”

Mom: (begins laughing too)  Paddiwhack, Mandy?

Me:  Yeah, mom.  You know… The Micmac… Paddiwhack…

Mom: … give a dog a bone!  (laughs uncontrollably until she has to go pee.)

For real, I’m that smart.

My son is 1/32 Micmac indian, and 1/32 Cherokee indian.

Ultrasound Resonates – Sweet Innocence.

Posted on by
7

BABY_3It’s no surprise that during the course of my work, I meet young girls that are having babies.  Babies having babies.  Little things that are too young to know how to get the oil changed in their car, and yet they’re about to bring life into this world.  It scares the living crap out of me.

Last night was no different.  Now, this was not the worst case I’d ever seen.  My patient was 18 years old, which is ripe and mature by the standards of my hospital.  And, to be completely honest, I fully expected this to be her second or third pregnancy, which is also common as cake.

I rolled my little patient into the room, and had her get up on the bed for me.  I had to move her IV pump from the wheelchair to the bed post, and those things weigh almost as much as I do.  I said, under my breath, “This isn’t going to be fun.  Ugh.” as I started to un-attach the pump.  She looked at me with terror in her eyes and asked, “What’s not??”

I chuckled and said, “Don’t worry, hun.  I just have a really hard time moving these pumps.  They’re heavy.  Your ultrasound isn’t going to be bad at all.”

Her relief was immediate and not just a little comical.  I had already figured out that this little girl was terribly innocent, and not terribly bright.

As she laid down on the bed, she said, “Look how swollen my feet are!”

They were.  They were sausages.  Her toes were like little Vienna snacks attached to her pork feet and ham-hock ankles.  It was disturbing to see on such a small girl.  She couldn’t have been more than 5 foot 2, perhaps 120 pounds at 35 weeks pregnant.  I asked her, “Have you had a high blood pressure?”

“Yeah.”

At this point, I had started scanning, and had seen that her baby looks great.  There was plenty of fluid, measurements were on time, and the kid was active – kicking and turning all over.  As I’m showing her where the baby is laying, and what parts are sticking out of her belly, she quietly asks me, “Do babies that are born at 35 weeks survive?”  I could hear the fear in her voice.

“They do, sweetie!  Almost every single one of them do!”  My heart was aching for her, and the absolute terror she had of her baby dying.  “They have to go to the NICU for a little while, but then they are okay… Are they worried the baby is coming?  What’s going on?”

“They’re maybe going to induce my labor tomorrow,” she told me.

Hmm.  Swelling.  High blood pressure.  “How high has your blood pressure been?”

“It’s been about 190 over something.  I don’t really know.  It’s come down to 160 though.”

My eyes flew wide open.  “Have you been having headaches?”

“Really bad ones.”  I could tell she had no idea.  Her blood pressure, the headaches and swelling all pointed to pre-eclampsia.  They weren’t taking the baby because they were worried about the baby… they were worried about momma.  And the sooner they got that baby out, the better.  I told her that it was a good thing that they were thinking about inducing her labor.  She shouldn’t be afraid.

She was quiet for a moment, and then asked, “Do they let mommas see the babies when they are in the NICU?”

I was speechless.  My eyes even started to tear up.  This poor, sweet, clueless girl was about to birth a child – HER child – and all she could imagine was someone coming and taking it away to an unknown corner of the hospital, and keeping it.  I can’t imagine the fear that was in her heart, or how badly she wanted to hold on to being pregnant, despite what it could mean for her.

I set her straight, told her that it was still her baby, and she could spend every waking moment in the NICU if she wanted to.  I gave a little mini-PSA about how important it is to breastfeed premature babies, and told her how much every nurse in the hospital would help her if she tried.  And then I sent her back to her room, hoping for the best for her and her baby.  Hoping that everything would turn out okay.  Hoping, really, that she was more ready for what was about to come than she seemed.

Ultrasound Resonates is a way for me to share stories of my experiences in ultrasound.  Privacy and HIPAA will always be protected in these stories, but they are really a way for me to share an accounting of the people that touch my life through my work.