What goes up must come down...or not

Go to your local book store and you'll find a plethora of books that tell you all about being pregnant. What they don't tell you much about is what to expect AFTER the alien leaves your body. All those hormones that do crazy things to your body as they spike also do crazy things as they come back down.

People tell you that your hair gets thicker or grows faster when you're pregnant, but it actually just falls out less so it seems thicker and longer. What they don't tell you is that after you give birth all of that hair falls out. All at once. I'm pretty sure that by the end of the month I'll be bald at the rate my hair is falling out. 9 months of extra hair is a lot of hair as it turns out.

The out of whack hormones keep those crazy mood swings coming for awhile and your skin will probably go bonkers too. Other weirdness for the c-section crowd is the lack of feeling around the incision. My nurse said her's stayed numb for a year. It's very strange to itch and then not be able to feel it when you scratch.

While the hormones come down, the weight doesn't. 3 weeks after the kiddo was born, I had dropped 25 pounds. The general consensus seems to be that it took about 9 months to put the weight on and that it takes about 9 months to take it off. The first bit came off so fast (and no, I didn't have a 25 pound baby) that I was SURE that everyone must be wrong and that I'd be back down to pre-pregnancy weight in no time. Now almost 12 weeks in and I'm pretty sure I'm not all that far off the 3 week number. Everyone was not wrong. Damn.

Bottle Time

I was talking to my husband last night and we realized that I've probably breastfed the kiddo more than 700 times at this point. A mere 10 weeks ago, I don't think I could imagine it not being a dreadful and painful process. Now, breastfeeding is a part of who I am. But, I'm going back to work soon and it's time to introduce the bottle...

I finally broke out the pump about a week ago, but I'd been putting off and putting off giving him a bottle. I was afraid that my temperamental little guy would like it more than he'd like me and that it would negatively impact our breastfeeding relationship. It was also sort of an admission that I really was going to have to go back to work eventually...and that eventually was quickly going to become a now. Then I started to worry about whether or not he'd take a bottle since I waited too long. "They" say you should ideally introduce one by about 4-6 weeks and somehow 10 weeks had flown by already. Sigh.

Yesterday, I finally relented. It was bottle day. My patient husband listened carefully as I rambled on and on about how to do it just so and things to remember and tips and tricks and a bunch of other probably unnecessary information and then I left the house. Feeding time came and just over 5 minutes later it went. That was it. All those weeks of agonizing if he'd take the bottle, if he wouldn't take the bottle and that was it. Then the next feeding came and went just like the approximately 700 before it.

Today, we skipped the bottle. It didn't really fit in to the day and I didn't really mind that. Not breastfeeding makes me feel like a little bit of me is missing. And today, I wanted to hold onto that piece. We'll try it again tomorrow.

Why Would Anyone Want a Mockingbird?

I'm not the biggest fan of singing in front of people, but I've found out that I have one big fan...actually he's a pretty little fan.... I sing and he stops crying. Most of the time.

The only problem is that since I'm not much of a singer, I don't know many songs. When we first got home from the hospital, I got the tune of "Hush, Little Baby" stuck in my head. I only knew the first couple of lines so I sang them over and over. I finally went online and looked up the rest of the words. I found out that they're weird. How is it encouraging to go from a diamond ring to a looking glass? It seems like you're heading down hill on that one. And if my looking glass broke, how would a billy goat be an adequate replacement?

The only other lullaby I knew was "Rock-A-Bye Baby" and frankly, the lyrics to that one are kind of disturbing. It seems a little cruel to try to get your kid to sleep by telling them they might fall out of a tree. I try to stay away from that one.

I guess I could look up other songs, but the kid really seems to respond well to "Hush, Little Baby" so we'll stick with that one, odd as it may be. For him, I'll put my pride aside and sing my heart out. Over and over and over....